28 Intoxication
Intoxication
T emmi was no stranger to anger. It was an emotion that frequently simmered in her body, was what had gotten her through her father’s abandonment and Scot’s betrayal (though alcohol did deserve a minor acknowledgment as well).
But right now, what she was feeling went a few degrees beyond anger.
Rage engulfed her. “Scot fucking Meridan is a lying, fucking, manipulative asshole!” she screamed to no one and everyone, but mostly to herself.
He was protecting himself. Discrediting Temmi was his best way of ensuring that no one would believe her if she was able to prove he’d earned his scholarship through theft. He was going on the offensive while Temmi was trapped in a manor with an unknown murderer and more cameras than human beings.
Fucking fucking fuck.
She needed to win the show now more than ever. It was the only conceivable way of salvaging her reputation.
With a long exhale, she wilted against the trunk of the tree. Her rage usually burned hot but quick. Already, it was washing into the desire to cry.
The tree’s bark bit harshly into her spine. She leaned in to the discomfort, letting the pain outside distract her from the hurt inside.
Spie approached slowly, crunching fallen leaves.
Temmi was honestly surprised her rage hadn’t scared the princess off.
If anything, Spie seemed entirely understanding.
Had been understanding all afternoon. Which was.
..well, it was nice. And foreign. And, fuck, but Spie’s kindness was the worst kind of gift.
The kind Temmi shouldn’t accept but couldn’t refuse.
“You really dated that asshole?”
Temmi snorted, leaning the back of her head against the tree trunk. “Biggest mistake of my life, but yep. For two embarrassingly long years.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
Spie cocked her head. A leaf had nestled in her silken hair. Temmi resisted the urge to pluck it out. Gods and nebulas, how was it legal to look that fucking good?
“So, I went searching through some of your files the other night. I know, stalker-ish, whatever. Anyway, your academic records showed testing scores beyond the 91st percentile—at least in mathematics. Which is admittedly impressive. Your disciplinary file seemed mainly to consist of schoolteachers remarking on your brilliance but decrying your arrogance. There was even a record of a school project you’d done in year nine, right before you dropped out, and before your stint in jail.
Something about an energy-harvesting prototype. ”
Temmi stopped breathing and cut her gaze immediately to Spie’s.
Spie continued. “Now, I don’t know the first thing about energy harvesting, or what that even really is, but I do enjoy a good investigation.
Fast-forwarding, I found the name Scot Meridan pop up attached to yours in an online article that said something like, and I’m paraphrasing, of course, ‘Winner of Nicky’s nerdy scholarship, asshole Scot Meridan, says goodbye to his family and girlfriend, Artemis Ialan.
’ Apparently, he won the scholarship for some kind of energy-harvesting prototype.
When I looked it up, it sounded an awful lot like what you were working on as a kid. And since you two dated...”
Temmi blinked. She’d spent two years mired in Scot’s betrayal, in the sure knowledge that no one had, or ever would, believe her side of the story.
And here was the most privileged woman in the entire whopping empire, the sister of the man whose name had been on the scholarship stolen from Temmi, fitting together the pieces of her second-greatest heartbreak like it was as easy as breathing.
“I...” Words failed her. “I fucking hate Scot Meridan.”
Spie pursed her perfectly plump lips and stepped even closer to Temmi. “He seems like an absolute dick.”
“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.
” Temmi meant the words as a joke, a knee-jerk deflection from the sudden vulnerability of being seen, but the second they left her mouth, the words didn’t feel like a joke.
They felt like an acknowledgment of feelings she knew she shouldn’t acknowledge. Fuck . “I didn’t mean—”
Spie’s tone gentled in a way that felt too intimate. “Then my hunch is correct? You worked on the initial prototype together?”
The words cut Temmi to her core. This was it, her moment of vindication. She refused to shy from it.
“The idea was mine. The initial prototype was mine. So much mine that I used the theory to make a fully ambulatory synthetic lung. I called it Have a Lung, Bitch, and it was fucking brilliant, better than anything Scot could’ve come up with, but I had to sell it for rent money to Scot’s asshole academic advisor.
..I’m losing the plot. Point is, Scot used me, fed my ideas to his university sponsor.
I never knew. Not until he’d been awarded the scholarship.
When I saw the proposal he’d submitted, the proposal that won.
..I tried to discredit him, pled my case to his university professors, to his father, his mother, but who was going to believe a year-nine dropout who served a stint in jail for theft?
Scot played me beautifully. I came off like the crazy, jealous girlfriend. ”
Spie appeared to study Temmi for a long moment. All around them, the glade seemed to quieten, as though every tree and bird and insect was straining to hear what came next.
And then Spie said three words that made tears mist to life in Temmi’s eyes:
“I believe you.”
I believe you .
The words struck Temmi full in the chest, three little explosions that freed her from the snare of Scot Meridan. She nearly doubled over from the force of her ensuing relief. “Well, fuck. You’re an absolute bitch, you know that?”
Spie made a choked sound. “I mean, yes, but?”
Temmi pointed at her watering eyes.
Spie grinned and stepped even closer. When had the space between them vanished?
Temmi, with her back to the tree, could do nothing but look up into that sharp, violet gaze. A gaze that had stripped her bare in minutes.
“Nicky took you to Expan Central for your first date, right? That must’ve sucked for you.”
Temmi gaped. How could Spie so fully see Temmi’s pain in a way no one else ever had? A way that made Temmi feel vulnerable, fragile, empowered? “Who the fuck are you, Spie Expani?”
The princess’s eyes dilated, her expression shifting to something new.
Something that burned as hot as the orrist basalt against Temmi’s breastbone.
Temmi’s awareness of the woods beyond her vanished.
All that remained was the jagged press of the bark at her back and Spie’s countenance closing in: her eyes, her mouth, her lips.
An urgent sensation flickered to life in Temmi’s gut. Something that wasn’t rage or anger.
Spie feathered her fingers over Temmi’s cheek, wiped away the remnants of her tears. Then her hands dropped to the small of Temmi’s waist, and she pushed Temmi back against the tree. Her mouth hovered close, so close, her breath hot and ragged against Temmi’s lips.
Intoxication, Temmi thought, utterly powerless in the thrall of Spie Expani.
“I—” Spie whispered, and then, as suddenly as her hands had found Temmi, they left her. Spie jumped backward. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— We should go.”
· · ·
The manor’s library was an adorable nook-like room tucked inside the western turret. It smelled lightly of vanilla and the sea. The bruised rays of dawn listed gently through a series of octagonal windows. Nix lounged against a window seat, knees up, a book spread across his legs.
“Hey,” Temmi said, settling across from him.
“You came.” He closed the book around his gloved index finger.
Temmi glimpsed the cover—for once, he was reading something in Expanese. The Erasure of the Nonhuman Sapient, A History .
“A little light reading in the morning?” She nodded at the book.
He chuckled. He was wearing his glasses; Temmi hadn’t seen them on him since that first night. Since their first kiss. And though, in the weeks since, she still hadn’t developed a burning desire to rip his clothes off, she had grown increasingly more comfortable in his presence.
“Did you know that when Expan Proper was first colonized, there was a whole other alien species living here? A species that’s gone extinct? Humanity wasn’t a unified collective back then, just a bunch of space-warring clans.”
Temmi hadn’t known that. “I have to admit an educational gap when it comes to Expanese history.”
“But it’s not Expanese history—it’s human history. This was before Expan. Before the Artificial Collapse. Before the galactic empire.”
“Perhaps, but Expan has given itself a monopoly on human history.”
Nicky smiled. “Fair. I’d love to initiate wide-reaching historical research.
Excavate records from far-flung territories.
Have there been other alien species forgotten by history?
We have so much fear around the nonhuman, it’s practically taboo to even ask the question.
I could change that when I become emperor. Or start to, at least.”
“This your way of working through guilt for the empire’s history of colonization and subjugation?”
Nicky set the book on the ledge beneath his bent legs and leaned over his knees.
“It’s my way of looking toward the future—toward the empire’s longevity.
At some point, we’ll face a threat we can’t subdue—or eradicate.
How much stronger would we be if we allied with alien nations instead of destroying them?
We act like humanity is the end-all-be-all of sapient evolution, but that’s ridiculous.
Take the Uiyoni, for example, our most recent first-contact situation.
“Do you know the only reason my grandfather permitted the Uiyoni delegation to enter Expan space was because he believed them to be of human descent? A piece of far-flung humanity separated by centuries-old space travel brought back into the fold. The Uiyoni actually claim Terran descent, same as any of us, but from nearly two millennia ago. We’re not sure what happened in those years.
How their basic biology evolved so drastically—probably some kind of genetic engineering.
Regardless, the result is a species hardly resembling humanity anymore.
It wasn’t until after my grandfather met with the Uiyoni ambassador that he realized that, though they may appear humanoid, they are far from human.
My grandfather was the one who initiated the Uiyoni Conflict.
Drew first blood. What might’ve happened if he’d maintained the diplomatic course rather than the fearmongering one? ”
“No idea,” Temmi said. This history was new to her.
Just her knowing it was probably some kind of treason.
But she trusted Nicky was only telling her because he needed to talk it out.
She could do that for him. “You’d rather we be living side by side with aliens capable of murdering us with a touch?
Not just that; aren’t they cannibalistic somehow?
No, that’s not right. They don’t eat each other, but they would eat us.
Unless everything I’ve heard is a lie. I’m not saying your grandfather was right, by any means, but if we’re a den of mice and the Uiyoni are lions, would it not be suicidal to invite them inside?
It’s an interesting dilemma, and my knowledge of the subject is woefully lacking to make a substantive argument. ”
Nix was quiet a moment. He sat back slightly, turning to gaze out the window. The library overlooked the sea. The water was calm this morning. Little white birds dove in and out of the shallows. The birds made Temmi think of Spie, of soft, forbidden touches and the words I believe you .
“It’s a dilemma I need to prepare for—a dilemma I may have to face as emperor.
The Uiyoni are—” Nix paused abruptly; swung his gaze back to Temmi.
Seemed to debate internally before speaking again.
“They’re coming back. That’s not something you should repeat, though.
My mother wants to keep it all quiet. That’s why Spie and I are headlining Love Galaxy this season.
To keep people distracted while she eradicates the threat. ”
“Oh,” Temmi said. It was— Huh . She didn’t know what to think about that. The Uiyoni seemed so distant, the kind of threat that couldn’t actually affect someone’s life. But for the emperor to be worried...“And you don’t want her to eradicate the threat?”
Nicky shook his head. “I’m afraid she won’t be able to. It’s not the same thing.” He leaned over his knees again. “Thank you for letting me talk to you about things like this. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find someone who I can simply talk with—or be with.”
“You know,” Temmi said, because what the fuck, might as well go for it, “if you choose me, I can always be there for you like this. Whatever shit you have to face as emperor, I’ll face with you.”
The look he gave her was so hopeful it made her hurt. “You want that? Truly? With me? Not just the imperial station but me ?”
Temmi opened her mouth to say yes, of course she wanted him. But how could she when her skin still burned from where his sister had grazed it? When he wasn’t the person she thought of when she woke each morning and went to sleep each night? Nicky deserved so much better than her.
“I—I’ve always had a hard time trusting people,” she said instead. Because she didn’t have it in her to lie to him. And anyway, she was a bad liar. “But I find myself wanting to trust you. And not because of your imperial station—despite it.”
But he must’ve read between the lines, must’ve guessed that Temmi had used trust as a smokescreen to hide her inability to say love . Because, over the ensuing silent seconds, his eyes grew immeasurably sad. He withdrew—or retreated.
“We could be great together,” he whispered, less to her than to himself. As though he was speaking of the impossible.