of them and pop out a baby.”
Inara stared at me. “Shit.”
“I know it’s not ideal but -”
“I don’t care. If it’s the only way to save Wendy, I’ll do it.”
“Okay.” I squeezed her hand again. “So, we have a plan, right? I’ll take the blame, you play dumb. Once you’re back on the Draax planet, you find the Draax you’re most attracted to and offer to have his baby in exchange for helping your sister. Easy peasy.”
“Easy peasy,” Inara said. “Except for the part where you go to prison for life.”
Her eyes watered and I tried to smile at her. “Hey, it’s all right. Maybe prison isn’t as bad as everyone says it is.”
Inara started to cry and I wiped roughly at her cheeks. “Don’t cry, honey.”
“I’m so sorry, Ellis.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m the one who stole the juice. And the ship… remember that. This is all my fault, Inara. I was escaping and suggested you come with me to save your sister. You were upset and worried about Wendy and not thinking straight. Play that helpless girl card like your life depends on it, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Inara whispered.
“You can’t tell anyone about me and Galan. They’ll send me to Draax prison until the war ends so I won’t be sleeping with him anymore, but you have to stay quiet about Galan. Promise me. If the king finds out he was sleeping with me…”
“I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise,” Inara said.
We sat in silence for a few minutes before Inara said, “What if the Draax tell the Emirans they don’t want us back?”
“They won’t. We’re valuable to them, remember? Any moment now, probably Krey and Adrix will come walking through that door and -”
The door slid open and Inara and I scrambled to our feet. We stared at the two Draax who walked into the room. Well, I was half-right about who they’d send.
The fear I’d been hiding from Inara about what could happen to us faded away the moment I saw Galan. I wanted to rush to him, wanted to fling my arms around him and tell him I loved him and that I was sorry I ran, but I stayed where I was. The usual warmth that was on Galan’s face when he looked at me was gone, replaced by the dark scowl of a stranger. There was a coldness in his copper eyes that I’d never seen before and my hope that he might care for me, that I hadn’t been just a female for him to fuck, disappeared.
Galan wasn’t just pissed at me. He hated me.
Chapter Nineteen
Galan
“Calm yourself, Galan,” Krey murmured as we followed the Emirans down the corridor of their ship.
“I am perfectly calm,” I said.
“Are you?”
“She lied to me. I trusted her and she lied to me and betrayed me and made me look like a froden,” I said.
My body was vibrating with anger. I had automatically defended her to the others in the council room, but in the time it took to get to the Emiran’s ship, my worry and belief that there had to be another reason she left had faded. Anger took its place. Ellis had lied to me and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t think of a single reason for why she had left other than to escape her fate.
Can you blame her? You know what will happen if she stays. If she is taken to Earth –
I shoved my inner voice out of my head. I did not want to feel sympathy for her. I wanted her to have trusted me enough to ask for my help.
Krey sighed. “I wish she was the person you believed her to be, Galan.”
“So do I,” I said. “But she is not.”
The Emirans stopped at a door, and the one named Gwandole pushed a code into the panel next to the door. It slid open and Krey and I stepped into the room. Despite my anger with her, relief swept through me when I saw Ellis standing next to Inara. Blood matted her blonde hair to her head, but she was alive.
I schooled my features and stared silently at her. My relief at her safety was disappearing, allowing the anger and betrayal and confusion to return. My rapidly shifting emotions were playing more havoc with my stomach than space sickness did.
I loved the little human and had hoped she felt something for me as well. To realize that she didn’t, tore at my insides.
I waited for her