Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
FERCER
The cinnamon rolls smell incredible.
Laura outdid herself. The pastries are still warm in their container. I may have stolen one on the way back—for quality control purposes.
It was delicious.
I'm already imagining Sandra's face when she sees them.
The way her eyes will light up. The little sounds she made yesterday when she tasted one.
Sounds that did things to me. Inappropriate things.
Things I'm absolutely not thinking about while walking through a hotel lobby like some lovesick fool in a romance novel.
I've become the hero of my own story, complete with the dramatic “bringing breakfast to the woman I love” scene. Next I'll be brooding on a cliff somewhere while wind artfully tousles my hair.
The thought makes me smile. A real smile, not the staged one. I don't think I've smiled this much in years.
All because of Sandra.
I round the corner into the main lobby and nearly walk into a cluster of guests blocking the corridor.
“Excuse me.” I try to push forward, but no one moves. They're all staring at something ahead, necks craned, murmuring in a dozen different languages.
A crowd in the lobby at this early hour.
Something cold prickles down my spine.
I shoulder past a blob creature and duck under the arm of a towering insectoid. The murmurs grow louder. Someone says laser pistol. Someone else says human.
No.
No, no, no.
I shove through the last row of onlookers and freeze.
Sandra stands near the lobby's patio doors. Barefoot. Wearing my shirt from last night. Her face is pale, her hands raised slightly, palms out.
And Vyla is pointing a laser pistol at her chest.
The cinnamon rolls hit the floor.
I don't remember deciding to move, but suddenly I’m stepping between the two females.
I've known Vyla for years. I've seen her angry, frustrated, even furious. But this glassy, fevered look in her eyes? This is something else entirely.
“Fercer.” She says my name like a prayer—like a curse. “Finally. I was wondering when you'd show up.”
“Vyla.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “What is going on here?”
“It's her.” Vyla's lip curls. “This nobody. This stowaway. She's ruined everything, Fercer. Everything I built for you. Your image, your career, your life.”
“Vyla.”
“We can fix it.” Her voice shifts, goes pleading. Almost tender. “We leave now, go back on tour, and everything will be all right again. Just like before. Just the two of us, like it was always supposed to be.”
The words land like ice water.
Just the two of us.
All these years working side by side. The way she managed my schedule so I never had time for anyone else. The way she inserted herself into every aspect of my life, slowly, so slowly I never noticed.
She was the one who sent the notes. The gifts.
She was in my room.
I was so stupid.
“Put the gun down, Vyla.”
“I can't do that.” She shakes her head, and the pistol wavers before steadying again on Sandra. “She's ruining everything! She's destroying us.”
“There is no us, Vyla. What we had isn't a real relationship.”
“You think this is real?” Her voice hardens.
“This little performance you've been putting on? I had microphones in your room, Fercer. I heard your conversations. Your deal.” She gestures at Sandra with the pistol.
“This is just another role you're playing.
The devoted lover. And she's playing too.
She needed passage; you needed a shield. That's all this ever was.”
She's not entirely wrong. That's what this was, wasn't it? Sandra wanted something from me, just like everyone else. It was a mutual arrangement.
How do I know the difference anymore?
Sandra’s looking at me. Not with adoration. Not the glazed adoration I've seen on a thousand faces.
She's terrified. Uncertain. As scared as I am.
Like my answer actually matters. Like her heart is on the line right alongside mine.
This terrified, hopeful, messy feeling churning in my chest?
This is the realest thing I've ever felt.
I've read enough romance novels to know how this works. This is the part where the hero says something that changes everything.
So here goes.
“You're wrong,” I say.
Vyla blinks. “What?”
“You're wrong. About all of it.” My hearts are hammering, both of them pounding in tandem like a drumline before a show. “Yes, this started as a ruse. But that doesn't mean it isn't real. I've been performing my whole life, and I know the difference.”
“Sandra didn't know who I was when we met, and she didn't care when she found out.” I take a step forward. “She doesn't want the fame or the image. She just wants me.”
“Because she needed you! She was using you!”
“Maybe at first.” I shrug. “Maybe we were using each other. But along the way, it became real.”
My voice drops.
“I love her.”
The words hang in the air. I've never said them before. Not to anyone.
They feel right.
Movement catches my eye. Near the edge of the crowd, a massive Volscian male is moving with the silent grace of someone who's done violence before and wouldn't mind doing it again. His horns have been cut to stumps, half-hidden beneath ink-black hair.
Beside him, a human woman with dark hair and sharp eyes. She moves in sync with the big male like they've done this a hundred times before.
Security. They're circling to get an angle on Vyla.
They need time.
“I choose her,” I say, louder now. “And if that destroys my career, then I'm done. I'm done with the tour. I'm done with the image. I'm a person, not a product.”
Something breaks behind Vyla's eyes.
“No,” she whispers. “No, you don't get to do this!”
“You can't choose her!” The pistol swings back toward Sandra. Her voice cracks, rising to a shriek. “I won't let you!”
Her finger tightens on the trigger.
I lunge.
The world becomes noise and light and chaos. I slam into Vyla just as the pistol discharges, a searing flash of red streaking past us. Guests scream and dive for cover. We're grappling for the weapon, her nails raking across my arm, and I'm trying to wrench the pistol away.
It fires again.
A cry of pain.
I spin around just in time to see Sandra stumble backward, her foot catching on the lip of the patio stairs.
She falls.
Down the steps, tumbling, rolling, and then she's lying there at the bottom in a crumpled heap.
No.
I'm already running. Down the patio stairs, two at a time, my hearts pounding so hard I can feel them in my throat. Sandra is crumpled at the bottom amid the wreckage of what used to be a table. Metal legs bent at ugly angles, shattered glass glinting in the morning light.
And beneath her, a dark stain spreading across the tiles.
I drop to my knees beside her, hands shaking.
“Sandra. Sandra, look at me. Please.”
She groans.
Groaning is good. Groaning means alive.
“Ow,” she mutters, and her eyes flutter open. “Ow, ow, ow. Why is there a table here? Who puts a table at the bottom of stairs? That's got to be a health and safety violation.”
Relief hits me so hard my vision blurs.
“You're okay.” My voice comes out strangled. “You're—the blood...”
“Blood?” She blinks, then follows my gaze to the puddle spreading beneath her. Her brow furrows. “That's not... that's orange.”
I look closer.
“Humans don't bleed that color?”
“No. We bleed red.”
It's not blood. It's bright orange liquid, pooling out from a shattered glass that must have been sitting on the table. One of those frozen smoking drinks from the pool bar. The stain is spreading across my shirt—now her shirt—like a lurid sunset.
A laugh tears out of me. Hysterical. Probably concerning.
Sandra stares at the orange stain for a moment longer. Then she starts laughing too.
“It's juice,” she gasps. “I fell on someone's drink.”
“You fell on someone's drink,” I repeat, because my brain is still catching up.
“I'm not dead.” She's grinning the kind of smile that comes from narrowly escaping disaster. “I just destroyed someone's breakfast and ruined your shirt.”
“I don't care about the shirt.”
She's alive. She's whole. She's laughing like a lunatic, and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
“It was a nice shirt.” She looks down at the spreading orange stain, then back up at me, and her grin wobbles into something softer. More vulnerable.
A blur of motion streaks at the edge of my vision.
The human woman from security launches herself at Vyla with a flying tackle that would make a professional athlete weep.
They go down hard, the pistol skittering across the tile floor, and the woman is vicious—pinning Vyla's arms, driving a knee into her back, wrenching her wrists together with an efficiency that speaks of practice.
“Stay down,” she snarls, and there's something almost feral in her voice.
The big Volscian is already there, scooping up the fallen pistol and producing restraints from somewhere. His dark eyes sweep the crowd with the flat assessment of a protector making sure the threat is contained.
I cup Sandra's face in my hands.
“I meant everything I said up there,” I tell her. “Every word. I'll give it all up.” I press my forehead to hers. “The fame, the fortune, all of it.”
Her eyes go wet. “Even the seventeen ridiculous jackets?”
“You keep counting them like you're afraid they'll breed or something.” My thumb traces her cheekbone, wiping away tears.
“None of it matters without you. I love you, and I'm not going anywhere. I will never leave you. Not for my career, not for my fans, not for anything in this galaxy or any other.”
I love her so much it hurts.
“I love you too, Fercer.”
I kiss her.
It's not smooth. It's not suave. Neither of us is at our best right now.
It's perfect.
When we finally break apart, I become aware of noise above us.
The entire lobby is watching from the top of the patio stairs. Guests, staff, the massive Volscian security guard and his human partner, with Vyla restrained between them. Every face is turned toward us.
Then someone starts clapping.
It spreads through the crowd. Applause, cheers, and whistles until the whole lobby is celebrating like we've just performed the final act of some grand romantic drama.
Which, I suppose, we have.
“This is embarrassing,” Sandra mutters against my shoulder.
“This is perfect,” I correct her.
She laughs, and I hold her tighter, and for the first time in my life, I don't care who's watching.
The performance is over.
This is just us.