Chapter 21 #2
This was different from the talk he’d had with Shiloh, and Sky nibbled on his bottom lip, glancing around the room quickly.
The other students didn’t seem to notice or care that they were chatting, but this didn’t seem like the type of meeting to be held over a pottery wheel while covered in drying clay.
“Do you have to rush back?” Sky asked.
She seemed pleasantly surprised. “That’s the fun part about being a mafia princess. I don’t need to be anywhere.”
“Would you like to grab a coffee? The campus café has a nice Samhain-themed selection. My treat to congratulate you on your enrollment.”
“Oh.” She beamed. “You are way too good for my brother.”
He laughed and started to clean. “Don’t I know it.”
Didn’t stop him from craving the alpha’s knot any.
* * *
“Tell me about the club.” Sky waited until the two of them had settled at a corner round table, their drinks and a plate with a generous slice of pumpkin cheesecake between them.
Sloane sucked on the orange plastic straw, draining a third of her iced pumpkin white chocolate latte with gingerbread crumble, and then leaned back in her chair.
Kian wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a sugar bomb like that.
“The host club is a front,” she surprised him by launching into an explanation with no hesitation.
“They’re rescuing alphas and omegas from the ring.
Even though they’ve shut it down, there are still a lot of lost people out there thanks to that atrocity.
They’re also working closely with a chemist who is creating a drug that will force presentation one way or the other. ”
“Wait,” he stopped her, “what?”
“It sounds worse than it is.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
“It won’t be distributed to the public.” She shrugged at his look. “Much. Of course, my brother will control a percentage of the flow, but the rest will be turned over and used for official business. Synastry is dying. This may be our only chance at saving our species.”
“You said it would force it either way,” he pointed out. “That means it won’t just make omegas?”
“Alphas too,” she nodded. “Our problem isn’t gender specific. We’re all affected.”
“You’re talking about yourself.” Was that too sensitive a thing to say?
“Shiloh’s pregnancy is a miracle.” She didn’t seem offended.
“We were both told we couldn’t conceive.
That was part of the reason our mother searched for Kian so desperately.
When his test results came back that he was fertile, she threw an actual party.
For his sperm. Can you imagine?” She rolled her eyes.
“Definitely rubbed salt in the wound, but Shiloh and I understand we aren’t the only ones suffering from this.
Birth rates have been declining for years for this very reason. ”
“If it’s a problem like that, I fail to see how creating more alphas or omegas will make a difference,” Sky told her.
She seemed like she didn’t want to tell him this next part but eventually opted for full disclosure. “The drug wouldn’t just force presentation on current Syns. It could be used on a number of other species proven capable of procreating with our kind.”
Sky stared at her, wondering if he’d misheard at first. “That’s…illegal.” Not just illegal, it was against the Intergalactic laws, a set of agreed-upon rules any planet that signed the treaty promised to uphold.
“Which is why Imperial Prince Altair plans on pulling Synastry from the Intergalactic Conference.”
They’d leave themselves open to attack from other planets if they did that.
“To ensure Glyph doesn’t become a threat, a deal was struck with your next in line.
Arbor and Avi are working with Altair to achieve this goal.
My planet will continue to be protected through our alliance with yours.
In return, the Imperial family and the Eumia have promised to clean Glyphs streets and rid it of the Clutch. ”
“Who is that?”
She gave him a funny look, like she found it odd he didn’t know. “That’s the name of the trafficking ring. It’s been in our news for years. You haven’t heard about them?”
Maybe he had once or twice, but he didn’t really pay attention to the negative. Sky glanced away, unable to hold her gaze all of a sudden.
“This is going to be a bigger world change for you than I thought.” She sighed. “Don’t worry. You’ll adapt. My brother speaks very highly of you and, say what you will about him, he is never wrong.”
Sky had nothing to say about that.
“This planet will benefit as well,” she continued when he settled into silence. “Beta presentations are currently on the rise. Within the next twenty years, it’s predicted that Glyph will suffer from the same problem.”
“Is that true?” Had that also been in the news and he’d missed it?
“They collected data on everyone currently between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, the ages of presentation, and it’s not looking good. There’s a high percentage that are beta, and a lower, yet still unsettling number of people who’ve missed their window altogether.”
Sky gasped. That was horrible. While it was still possible to present after the age of twenty-four, it wasn’t likely.
There’d only been a handful of known cases or so.
But then again, there weren’t many who didn’t present before then either.
If what she was telling him was true, they really were heading toward the same fate the Syns were currently facing.
“I can see how this drug could help,” Sky said, “but that doesn’t mean I can overlook how much harm it could potentially cause as well.
Cleaning up our streets from kidnappers is one thing.
Flooding it with a drug that can force someone into a life of servitude in a different sense is another.
In my opinion, that’s merely repackaging the same vile crime and pretending that it’s anything but. ”
“I hear you,” she agreed, “and trust me, you aren’t the only one with those concerns. As the head of the Eumia, Kian will control the flow of the drug.”
“That isn’t good enough. The second a drug like that exists on the market, all bets are off. It’s impossible to control something like that. It will get out. It will be used on innocent victims. And—”
“We’ll have saved our species in the process,” she interrupted. “The road to hell was paved with good intentions. Sometimes we have to do the wrong thing in order to guarantee the right results.”
Sky took a drag of his hot coffee to prevent himself from growling at her, and then said with a calm he wasn’t feeling, “It’s hypocritical of me to not want to be involved, but do you think he’ll make me?”
“Take part in anything that has to do with the mafia?” She snorted.
“I think he’d leave us all to rot if you begged him to.
” She tilted her head. “Please don’t. He pisses me off, but I need my big brother.
We all do. It was his connection to Arbor and Avi that made this all possible in the first place.
This entire project is dependent on his involvement. ”
She thought Sky could tell him to stop and Kian would? He didn’t have that type of power.
“Here.” He pushed the plate with the cheesecake closer to her. “Try it. I know you want to. You were practically drooling over it through the glass case.”
“Perceptive.” She picked up her fork and speared a hefty bite. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“Ouch.”
“I mean it more like…Okay, look at those guys.” She aimed her fork at the opposite side of the room, where their guards were all crowded comically around the biggest table in the café.
“Now, look at yourself. You look like a posh prince who just stepped off a magazine cover. And you’re an artist?
I expected you to be frivolous and a bit scatterbrained.
So far, your only flaw is your uncanny ability to turn a blind eye to the evils of the world around you, but that’s not a trait exclusive to you.
Most people do the same thing every day.
At least you’re sitting here flinching and feeling guilty about it. ”
Sky took in her rant and then hooked a finger onto the edge of the plate and pulled it back toward him. He was slow lifting his fork, sliding the golden tines into the end of the cake and lifting it to his lips. Once he was done chewing, he said, “You think I’m that pretty?”
She snorted, like he’d hoped she would, and the mouthful of iced coffee she’d just sipped burst from her mouth and splashed over the table.
“Look what you’ve done!” She grabbed a napkin and started desperately sopping it up, unable to contain her grin. “If this got on the cake, it’s your fault!”
“I’ll buy you another one,” he offered, standing before the sentence was finished.
“You don’t have to.”
“I promised I’d get you it as a congratulatory gift.” He paused, meeting her gaze. “I never go back on my word.”
“Then say you’ll attend the corn maze with Shiloh and me tomorrow,” she countered, momentarily catching him off guard.
His brows winged up, and then he recalled Kian mentioning that his siblings were excited for the event. “You’re making it sound like you’ve never gone to one before.”
“Probably because we haven’t,” she confirmed. “And we want to go with you. Kian already approved it, so long as you accept the invitation. So? Will you?”
Hanging out with them would probably help keep Kian off his back—and Sky off his dick—which would massively work toward his plans to avoid sleeping with the alpha until Kian’s next rut.
Plus, he’d really like to get to know them better. They were going to be family, after all.
“Sure,” he smiled. “Let’s exchange numbers. You can text me the details.”