spoken to Sabrina, perhaps we could have…”
“Could have what? Helped her?” Ellis said. “Yeah, right. Like you helped Tasha when her grandmother was dying?”
“That is different. It was too dangerous with the war,” I said. “We could not risk it. But with the peace treaty, perhaps Quill would have been convinced to allow Inara to go home.”
“That’s horseshit and you know it. I heard you and the king talking, Galan. He wouldn’t send any of his men to Earth, even with the peace treaty.”
I gritted my teeth. She was right, but still, it was incredibly dangerous of her to drag Inara into this mess and I told her exactly that.
“It was incredibly dangerous of you to drag Inara into this mess. Flying a simulator is different from flying an actual ship. You could have crashed it, killing you both. The Emirans could have simply sold you to the highest bidder instead of contacting us. Do you have any idea how much danger you put yourself and Inara in?”
“I do now,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I had to try. I can’t go to prison.”
“You should have talked to me,” I said. “You should have asked me to help you to convince the king that you should stay and -”
“Now who’s talking crazy.” She stood up, her tiny hands clenched into fists. “If the king even knew we were fucking, hell, if he even thought for a second that you wanted him to forget that I committed a crime, I’d be in your stupid Iron Gate before either of us could even blink, and you would lose your position as head of the King’s Guard. Is that what you want? Your whole life destroyed over a meaningless fling with a human?”
“Is that what this is? A meaningless fling?” I said. “I mean nothing to you.”
“I didn’t say that,” she snapped. “But even if it was something more, we’re both fucked in the head to think it could have worked. We can’t work, Galan.”
“You were not even willing to try,” I said. I was talking foolishly but knowing that she didn’t care enough about me to even consider a different solution, hurt me to the core. She’d abandoned me without a second thought, without even asking what it would do to me with her gone.
You know she had no choice. Quill will not break the treaty to save her and she will die in prison. You know that.
I ignored my inner voice. I wanted to stay angry, wanted to punish her for leaving me and frightening me and hurting me.
“You do not care about anyone but yourself,” I said.
“That isn’t true.” I could almost see the hurt radiating from her.
“It is. All you thought about was escaping your own fate, a fate you brought on yourself. You dragged Inara into this and did not even care that she might die. You thought only of yourself. You have no family or friends who love you because you are a selfish human who is incapable of loving anyone but yourself!”
I’d gone too far. I knew that immediately. I didn’t need to see the agony in Ellis’s face, hear the horrified gasp from Inara, watch the blood drain from both their faces, to know that.
Sick to my stomach, ashamed beyond belief for what I said, I reached for my sweet female. “Sadora, I should not have -”
There was a shout of warning from Krey, and the shrill whoop of the ship’s warning beacon drowned out my apology.
“Hang on!” Krey shouted.
The ship veered sharply to the right, making my stomach roll and knocking me off my feet. My tail shot out and wrapped around Ellis’s waist as she was flung sideways, catching her before she slammed into the side of the ship.
“Inara!” Ellis shouted as I used my tail to pull her against my body. I climbed to my feet as the ship veered to the right again.
I picked up Ellis and she pounded on my chest with her fists. “Inara! She’s hurt!”
Moving quickly, I strapped Ellis into one of the chairs and gripped her chin. “Stay here. I will get Inara.”
The ship was shaking and rattling, and I grabbed at the wall for support when Krey shouted out another warning. This time the ship veered to the left and Ellis cried out when Inara’s prone body rolled across the floor.
Holding onto the wall, I moved to the back of the room and crouched beside Inara. A large bruise had flowered across her temple and when