Chapter Nine
Axion
T o say I was shocked when my own door was slammed in my face would be a massive understatement. I could see the hurt on Saphyra’s face and the only thing I wanted to do was comfort her. Unfortunately, there was one problem with that, well, okay, two major problems with that. There were two buck-ass-naked women in my bed!
Who they were, I didn’t even care, but their bland beta smell coated the inside of my nose in a very unpleasant way. Like talc powder or something. My nostrils flared as I turned on them.
“GET OUT!” My shout didn’t come close to scratching the surface of how angry I was. I was bordering on murderous. I’d never killed an unarmed woman before, but I was sorely tempted.
Their mismatched eyes flew wide and something familiar broke through my rage-filled haze, but not enough to stop my tirade. I spotted their plain dresses strewn on the floor. Reluctant as I was to touch them or anything belonging to them, I plucked them off the ground and threw them at the girls who were scrambling away from my half-naked display.
“Get dressed and get out!” Their dresses hit them in their wide-eyed faces, and they struggled to dress while keeping themselves covered by MY bedding, further contaminating it with their scent. “Never mind getting dressed, just get the fuck out before I kill you both.”
They stopped their scrambling, in apparent shock, and both started screeching, “We’re sorry!”
“So, so sorry.”
“We didn’t know that she would be here!”
“Please, forgive us. Let us make it up to you somehow. We can bring you dinner or help you with your work or something. Just please, let us make it up to you.” Their words overlapped one another in a chorus even a banshee would be impressed by, but only served to piss me off more.
“Get the fuck out. I’m not going to say it again.”
This time, they got moving, flinging black dresses over their pasty skin. That’s when I recognized them. Lex’s stepsisters, recently assigned by their mother Edeth, to help Saphyra get settled. That wouldn’t be continuing. Spoiled little assholes. Maybe some time in the kitchens would teach them to respect other people’s privacy.
They scurried like the rodents they were, straight out the door. I locked it behind them, but that hadn’t stopped them the first time. They obviously got around the locks somehow, and so had Saphyra, for that matter. Fuck. What was going on? This shit was madness.
The sharp talc smell permeating the air aggravated my throat as I flung myself into my chair and pulled up the mainframe. I’d have to burn my whole room down to get rid of that smell, or at the very least, all my bedding would have to go. If not for myself, then for Saphyra, if I had any hope of convincing her to see me again.
My fingers flew over the keypad, pulling up the access logs to my room’s security panel. I could see my own access and then shortly after, Aster used her new position as a maid to access the door. She and her sister must have hidden in my bed while I was in the shower. Maid codes had clearance to open all residential cabins to help with cleaning. Well, that needed to be fixed. Shortly after Aster, Violet’s code was used to open my cabin door as well. That explained that. Saphyra must have got her hands on Violet’s code somehow.
After revoking Aster and Hazel’s access keys, I followed the path of Violet’s access all over the top level and watched the security footage when available. Saphyra and Violet had a busy day getting into no end of trouble. I was hesitant to take away Violet’s privileges. She worked hard and earned her position rather than having been given it due only to her mother’s social standing. I wasn’t comfortable giving Saphyra unfettered access to the warren of residences and store rooms she would have with that code, though. I disabled it. Violet could reach out to her supervisor for a replacement later.
The moment that was done, an alert went off. “What the fuck is happening now?” I grumbled to the empty room.
An external sensor had tripped an alarm, indicating that an outer bulkhead had been accessed. My pulse sped up. What the fuck else could go wrong tonight?
I pulled up the security feed from hangar C on my main display, but nothing happened, it stayed black. Okay, no need to panic. Maybe it was Fenix running a test.
I tapped the code to Fenix’s communicator, but he was slow to answer. That could mean a lot of things, or nothing at all. Still, no need to panic, yet. My patience was hanging by a thread by the time his voice finally crackled through the speaker.
“Yo, boss.” His voice sounded gruff and thick with sleep.
“Are you sleeping? It’s not even… you know what, nevermind. You’re not running any kind of security test on hangar C, are you?” I asked, even though based on his voice I found that incredibly unlikely.
“Nope. Are you? Hey, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I heard his fingers tapping on a similar but less extensive system he had in his quarters.
“If I were seeing shit, would I be calling you?” I shouldn’t be taking out my annoyance on him, but I had other more important things to deal with. A mate to soothe and blankets to burn. I didn’t want to deal with a majorly massive security breach right now. “I’m heading down there. The feeds are blacked out. I can’t see shit. The credentials used to open the exterior doors never should have been accepted by the system. They aren’t active codes, and way out of date. Something’s wrong.”
As I barked out frustrated orders to my groggy second in command, I threw on the black tactical uniform we all wore and strapped on a standard array of weapons. “Fenix, get up and get your ass down there. Bring your team. We don’t know what is going to be waiting for us.”
I hoped it was nothing. I hoped I was dragging people out of bed for a glitch. Because if not, that meant we had a very big problem.