Queen of dust, p.22
Queen of Dust, page 22
“I’m not upset,” Mara said, though she had to release the inside of her cheek from the teeth that had clamped into it to do so. “He’s telling you the truth. He fucked me. When I wanted. When I said. Just like we agreed.”
It had been a job. Liam was back. And that’s all it could be. That’s all it was.
She’d imagined what it would be like, to be in the same room with both of them. She’d imagined it flat and awkward—the tension hers and hers alone. They were proving her wrong. She could feel Liam’s anger, Calvy’s judgment. And what did he do to earn you?
Fuck being earned. A Balti—a woman—should give herself freely, as it pleased her.
“We agreed to limits. And there was a distinct...failure...to comply.” Liam flipped through more photos as he emphasized each word, landing on a shot of Iola’s face hidden between Calvy’s legs. Her red hair was crushed in his hands and even Mara had to do a double take to remember it was not her mouth that had wrapped around Calvy’s cock last night.
Mara laughed and Liam finally looked at her.
“That’s not me, Liam.” She’d wanted it to be her. That was the joke. But he didn’t have evidence of that. She pushed it down inside of herself where no one could find it. She’d hold it there, until it sank of its own accord. “Look,” she said, walking to meet Liam in the middle of the room, “that tattoo at the back of her neck.” She lifted her hair to show him her own and he thumbed the blank skin. She was close enough to smell the zyng-root on his breath and she pulled the familiar scent into her lungs as gooseflesh rose under his touch. He settled the weight of his hand against her throat.
Mara willed her body to remember him. He thought he’d caught her, a little boat adrift on the ocean. He didn’t know that she wasn’t the boat. You’re the sea, Calvy had told her. And they were two moons, dragging her one way and then the other.
“He wanted it to be you.”
“Of course he did,” she said, her lashes low, her mouth conspiring. She let herself slip into the Mara Liam expected. It felt good, safe. Like she knew who she was trying to be, if not who she was. “Wasn’t that your game? Get the Dern where we want them. Show them what we can do?”
“Let’s show him now. I’ve been his audience. He’ll be mine.”
That old persona slipped. Mara lost her footing, like stepping on wet rocks. “No, Liam.”
“You don’t want him to see us together? Why is that, Mara? What would it matter?”
“If you force her,” Calvy warned, his arms pulled straight behind him, like a wave on a collision course with a rock wall, but without enough power to reach it. The muscles in his neck and shoulder strained and she worried he’d rip his arms off at the wrists. The numbers tattooed on his chest peeked out of the loose neck of his collar. Mara knew them by heart, how they felt under her fingers, under her tongue. Barely there yet unmistakably part of him, etched beneath his skin. She felt the pull back to Calvy. A tug at her gut telling her that her place was at his side.
It would be a mistake. For them both.
“No one is forcing me to do anything.”
She was the one about to rip in half. And Calvy was the reason. He was just like Iola, filling her head with impossible things. Their termination date had been stamped in bloodred ink since the start. It was time to let go. If he would just shut his mouth she could focus, she could manage Liam. Instead the room was narrowing as Liam inched closer to where Calvy was restrained, with her only her keeping them apart.
“I did force her—to be with you, D’Aldiern. You should be thanking me.”
Calvy’s quiet fury pulsed into the room and Liam laughed, pulling Mara against him with one arm.
“What is it, D’Aldiern—did you think it was more? Do you think it’s love when her cunt wraps around you? Certainly feels like it. But it isn’t. That’s as close as Mara gets, to be sure. But she’s too afraid of love to even let herself remember what it felt like to have a family. She doesn’t love me, and she doesn’t love you. She only longs to feel wanted.”
“Mara—” Calvy started.
“Tell him.” Liam’s arm tightened around her waist and Mara brought her hand to his chest to push him back. The sweet coco smell of Calvy’s hair wax clung to her fingers, poisoning the air between her and Liam. “Tell him it was nothing. Tell him you’re just that good.”
Maybe it was the pressure of Liam’s arm on her abdomen, or the enclosed space, but Mara could barely gather enough breath to speak. She turned slowly to Calvy, still banded by Liam’s tight hold.
“She already told me,” Calvy said. His eyes were wide and marble round, black and glossy in the glare of sunlight that streaked across the floor. Mara remembered the way they’d looked up close at the cliffs—brown and rich and able to see through her.
She’d told him it was nothing.
But that wasn’t what he meant. His confidence gave him away. He meant the kiss she’d used to claim him. The kiss he waited for, the kiss that told him she wanted everything he did.
Liam pushed at her back, curling around her, the way the sky curved around the planet, protecting it from the cold and the dark and the unknown.
She was caught. Twisted in a net of wills. As she had been since the first moment they’d come together. Liam and Calvy, they both wanted her—they didn’t care if it left her in pieces.
Her heartbeat quivered in her ears, the loudest force in the room. The strongest force in the room. She didn’t want to be the sea, tugged this way and that, weighed down by unknowable depth.
Better to be the wind.
“Let me go.” She pulled away from Liam. “Let him go, too, and sign his fucking papers. I’m done with this. All of this.”
She took Liam’s place in the door, blocking the sun again, and those eyes that always found a light went dark.
She was no one’s girl. They were little boys—fighting over what? Her allegiance, her body? She could push the storm, she could push the waves. She could flatten the grass in whichever way she pleased.
And she had somewhere to be. She had her own truth to fight for. It didn’t involve either of them.
“Mara,” Liam tried.
“Now. I’ve had enough.”
His chest heaved, but Liam swiped his thumb across the stone that had been forgotten in his balled fist. Mara heard Calvy stumble forward as the cuffs demagnetized, releasing him. But she didn’t look back. Her shadow covered them both.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was Runa who gave her a ride back to the hotel. The soldier recognized Mara trying to make her way out of the maze of shipping containers at the edge of the Dern barracks.
“You lost? Looking for your—”
“No,” Mara said. “I’m not lost.” She had swayed then and Runa had popped open the passenger-side door of her supply truck.
“I’ll take you home anyway.”
Home. That’s what this place was supposed to be, she thought, as the smooth paved road turned to uneven mosaic, setting the truck rattling with her inside.
Harper was standing outside her door, like it was any other morning. Her eyes went round as Mara approached. Mara seethed at the sight of the woman who had spent months violating her privacy, spying on her every move. She blew forward, Dannos catching her before impact. She hadn’t even noticed him in the hall, focused solely on Harper, and she fought his hold as she spoke.
“Surprised to see me, you snake? Thought you had me? Thought you could twist that rope of yours right around my neck. Is that why you spied on me?”
The slightest flinch showed on Harper’s face as Mara unleashed her anger. “I did what I was told. Doesn’t seem to have had much effect. If he’s giving you another chance.”
“I don’t need another chance. I did what I was told too.”
Harper scoffed. “Mr. Pent told you to mess around with the cap—with D’Aldiern?”
“Yes! He did!” Mara’s voice rose to a shout, shocking all three of them into silence, surprised by the raw emotion she displayed.
Harper’s chin drew slow arcs in the air. And Mara stopped fighting. She pushed out of Dannos’s grasp and hauled in a few ragged breaths, trying to compose herself.
Dannos whistled. “The boss may know business but he has no head for love.”
“Liam and I aren’t in love.”
“He didn’t say you were.”
Mara rounded on Harper again. “You should stop worrying about me and start working out why Liam didn’t take you with him to Theos. Why he had you here, reporting what he already knew?” She advanced on the door and Harper stepped aside, chewing her bottom lip. “He wanted you occupied. And you called that trust.”
Inside her room, Mara couldn’t calm down. She’d last seen this place projected on Liam’s stone. How many private moments had been exposed? She drew the window shades down and retreated to the bathroom. Her face and clothes were stained with dirt and blood.
Calvy’s blood.
She couldn’t think about him.
Without waiting for the shower to warm, she stripped the soiled clothes and stepped under the stream of water, relishing its chill. She needed to cool off, to collect herself. Thinking about Calvy had been her mistake. It had made her vulnerable. If she wanted anything from Liam, for herself or what she’d promised Iola, she had to put Calvy out of her mind.
But of course he was knocking—like he had last night. Impatiently, urgently. She should never have opened the door for him. But he’d knocked and knocked and pushed everything over. With his persistence, he’d demolished every wall she’d built between them.
She was still in her towel when she flung open the door, prepared to tell Calvy just how frustrating and stubborn and—
Liam stood in the hall.
She smoothed over the flash of disappointment she felt, glad she could still conceal something from someone. “What do you want?”
Liam walked past her into the room and sat unbothered on the couch. He patted the seat next to him. After some deliberation, Mara sat opposite, in the chair. He rested his ankle on his knee, considering her.
“I see I’ve done some damage.”
“You kidnapped me.”
Liam moved to sit on the coffee table in front of her, leaning forward.
“Unintentionally. I was upset. I wanted D’Aldiern to know what happens to people who cross me. I shouldn’t have forgotten to stipulate that I didn’t want you to suffer the same treatment.” He reached for her knee, brushing his thumb up her thigh.
“You shouldn’t be treating anyone that way.” She crossed her legs, tucking them to the side. “I went to your factory. The conditions are—”
He straightened, bringing his hands together between his legs. “Yes. You went to my factory. And then a riot broke out. D’Aldiern left it out of his reports. They’ve been decidedly short of late. Which does make me wonder what else he kept to himself. Very sweet, isn’t it? His trying to protect you from me. As if that were necessary. But Harper was quite detailed about the event. What were you trying to do, Mara?”
It was a conversation they had to have, she knew, if they were to move forward. And it was easier than talking about Calvy.
“Nothing. I didn’t know what would happen.”
“Someone put you up to it?”
Mara nodded.
“Tell me who.”
“No.”
He sat back further on the table. Mara flashed to all the memories she had of him from the last six months—exactly like that. Projected into the room because he’d left her here. Made her do this alone. Made her do this with Calvy. Created the distance between them. She touched his leg—just to make sure he was really here.
Liam covered her hand with his. “I should have stayed with you.”
“Yes,” Mara agreed.
“I have to ask: Are you part of the Resurrection?”
“No, but I’ve talked with them. And I don’t disagree that Balti needs change.”
Liam sighed. “That isn’t something you can accomplish, my dove.”
Mara bristled at the comment, pulling her hand from under his. “They told me you forced the moonclan to come down to the planet. Forced them from their homes. Forced them to work.”
“Did they? And did your revolutionaries mention that they were living under rock. Rationing power. That the Pent Corporation offered them passage to the planet, to a better life?”
She knew Liam, that he offered nothing for free. “In exchange for what?”
“There were some contracts involved, as we fronted them passage, lodging upon arrival.”
“Lodging? The city is empty.”
“And yet the Dern require rent.”
Mara stood. “But they don’t own any of this!”
“No, the Balticourts did.” Liam rose to his feet with her, their faces close in the narrow gap between chair and table. “And the Balticourts are gone. I did what I could for the people who were left. Gave them opportunities to work off their debt.”
“And how long will that take?”
“What’s your point, Mara?”
“You indentured them.” She spat the word.
Liam held out a finger to correct her. “I offered them a deal. They took it.”
“And what option did they have?”
“I run a business.” His shoulder rose and he turned away from her. “And it hasn’t been—it’s not a charity.”
Following Liam to the drink cooler, Mara continued to press him. “But they didn’t need to move at all—they had food—” She cut herself off. Liam had grown silent, and she felt his anticipation of her discovery. “What else is under the rock?”
He handed her a blue-lidded tin. “Raw ore. Mountains of it.”
The cold metal sent a shiver up her arm. “You and Dern. You moved the people, so you could mine?”
Liam leaned against the sideboard, his ankles crossed. “Yes. But we didn’t mine, Mara. The risk was too great. If the moon fractured, it would cause catastrophic damage to the oceans. The planet would be lost. Balti is essentially an island. A tidal wave would wash everything away. So I stopped it, Mara. Just like I fixed the vents in the factory, as soon as I heard. At some cost, I’ll tell you. It was damn expensive and everything is—it would have made things easier if we could mine that damn moon. We still haven’t. So don’t make me out to be some monster, Mara. I’m not. A prolonged circulation issue at a factory? That’s nothing. Nothing compared to—” He stopped himself.
“Compared to what.”
“Nothing. I’m tired. I misspoke.” He did look tired. His eyes rimmed with red, his shoulders curled forward by whatever weight he carried, the long hours of work and travel. He hooked an arm around her waist and she let him pull her against him. “Am I going to be able to convince you to go to bed with me?”
“Unlikely,” Mara said automatically, sounding just like Calvy. Her heart tumbled through the next beat, but Liam couldn’t tell. He didn’t know how her gut twisted, following her thoughts back to the Dern soldier.
Calvy had been bloodied, chained, and baited by Liam. And she’d walked out. She’d walked away.
Liam laughed and Mara looked up at him. There was a glint of arrogance in his eyes that she recognized, that she’d missed. The way he looked at her with a sense of pure collaboration, like he knew her, knew himself, knew how they fit. It was so different from Calvy, who had spent his six months on Balti studying her like he was trying to figure her out. She got enough of that from the mirror.
“Let’s go to Lita. Spend a few weeks completely relaxed. Just us.”
“There’s one more thing I need to do.” She leaned her head on Liam’s shoulder and felt him stiffen.
“Mara. We’re done with D’Aldiern. Both of us. I don’t want him near you again.”
Mara flashed back to the moment she had opened the door, expecting Calvy, readying herself for another argument, another bout of conflicting emotions. What if he’d shown up and stared at her with those bright-star-in-the-Black eyes and asked her for more?
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t give him more of herself—not when she had so little to begin with.
“It’s not about him. It’s about me.”
“Good,” Liam said, smoothing a hand over her hair and kissing the side of her head.
Mara closed her eyes—they were in agreement about Calvy once again. They were done with him.
Chapter Thirty
The Pearl.
The Pearl of Balti.
Mara stood staring up at it. Her eyes swept over the rolls and plateaus of the hill and back to the spherical building. Its opal shimmer had faded with time, but it still stood proud and high on the edge of the continent. On the other side, Mara had read, the Balticourt home was built into the cliff, with open balconies and stairs leading down to the water below. She couldn’t see the ocean from the bottom of the hill. But she could feel it. Hear it. The wind had picked up and the tide was alive with motion.
The electric fence sparked and she jumped back.
“Sorry,” Liam said, a rock dropping from his hand to the ground. They’d been waiting an hour and he’d grown impatient, making a game of tossing rocks between the fence’s slits. “You’re sure you can get in?”
Mara turned back to the Pearl. She’d been waiting six months; let him throw rocks a while longer. “I arranged it yesterday.”
Still, a sigh of relief left her when Dr. Protaris emerged from the curved wall. He loped down the wide-stepped walkway of soft green moss.
Mara rose to her toes as he approached them.
“Glad to see you again, Ms. Leanor.”
“Dr. Protaris.”
“Arin, please.” He pulled a stone from his pocket and deactivated the fence with the swipe of his thumb. The red lines disappeared. The buzzing stopped. “All clear.”
