Page 13 of Taken By the Alien Killer
“I’ll find you,” I tell him, and then hate the way the sentence feels like an oath. He bows and steps back into the swirl of nobility and lanternlight. Sneed turns with me, steering in that infuriatingly gentle way, never touching, always ushering. When we pass within ten paces of the pillar, my eyes tilt, traitor that they are.
Rayek is a monolith with a heartbeat. He looks past me deliberately, gaze sweeping the perimeter as if I’m just another shrub to account for in a threat assessment. I should be grateful. I asked for this when I said anything aloud today. I pushed him into his mask. But the smallness that blossoms in my chest is vicious. It feels like being overlooked by your own shadow.
“Seneschal,” I say, stopping dead. “Why does the dais need me closer when the camera drones can adjust?”
“Because,” Sneed says, not missing a beat, “the person you’re dancing with is the guest of honor. And the person you are looking at is not.”
“Have I been looking?” My smile shows teeth; it isn’t friendly.
“You’re very good at it,” he says mildly, as if complimenting a dessert. “One scarcely notices. But some of us do.”
I hold his gaze long enough to register the message underneath the manners. I hate how deft he is. How impossible to argue with without making a scene I am not allowed to make. Over Sneed’s shoulder, Rayek shifts—the smallest change. Arms uncross, recross. The movement ripples along every nerve I possess.
“Fine,” I say, the word clipped. “Let’s talk about photo angles.”
We move through the lanes of white chairs and crystal flutes set on hovering trays. The quartet swells into a piece that sounds like a leviathan surfacing. I play my part, answering Sneed’s questions about when I will approach the dais, how long the toast should run, where to stand so the Feldspar crest and the Chambers crest share equal prominence. I nod and nod until my neck feels like a hinge.
When he’s satisfied, he evaporates back into logistics and servers and the delicate tyranny of protocol. I could force it—I could pivot suddenly, step out of position, cross to that pillar and say something wild and ruinous like I see you. But the unsmiling discipline on Rayek’s face stops me. He is here as a guard. I am here as a bride-to-be. We are two statues carved for different niches in the same cathedral.
I retreat instead, my breath pushing shallow against the bodice, my chest a birdcage. A server offers a flute; I take it. The bubbles sting my tongue. It tastes like coins. The party rolls on without me, as parties do. Somewhere, Kaspian laughs at something my dad says; it’s a good laugh, a decent man’s sound, and I hate it because it makes me ache in a brand-new direction—toward a life that would be fine and tender and not mine.
By the time the toast is done and the sky has deepened to a violet that looks bruised, I’ve smiled so long my face is numb. I slip away down the side passage that leads to the east balcony, past a pair of guards who pretend not to see me because they are well-trained and also fond of continuing to live. The corridor cools, stone releasing the day’s heat in slow breaths. My shoes click-soft. The music thins behind me, a thread pulled through fabric.
The balcony door is heavy; I shoulder it open and step into a pocket of quiet. The night air wraps around me cool andfragrant, the spiceflowers less cloying out here, the sweetness cut by mineral wind from the cliffs. Below, the grounds glimmer with spilled silver, the party reduced to a distant constellation of lanterns and moving shadows. I sink onto the cold bench built into the balustrade and let my spine curve, the posture police blissfully absent.
I pull the pins from my hair one by one until the tight ache along my scalp eases. The metal clinks on stone like rain. My hands smell like citrus and champagne; my mouth tastes like laughter I didn’t mean. I tip my head back and look at the slice of stars between the cypress crowns, trying to remember what it felt like to be a girl who could still run without someone counting her steps.
Out there, everything seems to be moving forward—guests descending, toasts rising, crests aligned, smiles practiced, a fiancé who is kind and funny and a good man in every measurable way—and I am sitting here, feeling like someone pulled me in two directions and forgot to stitch me back together. It’s all clicking into place around me while something quiet and crucial fractures.
I listen to the music drift up, to the thrum of generator hum far under the stones, to the night insects singing like tiny engines. The wind lifts the edge of my skirt and cools the sweat at the back of my knees. I press my palms to the marble and breathe until the sharpness in my chest dulls to something I can wear back into the light.
Everything’s moving forward.
And I’m coming apart.
CHAPTER 4
RAYEK
The assignment comes down at dawn, delivered in Sneed’s neutral tone like he’s reading the weather: “By order of the Baron and with assent from the Feldspar delegation, you are to extend your purview to Lord Kaspian’s person while he remains under our roof and within Chamberland’s bounds.” He hands me the slate, all neat columns and timestamps and choke points. The irony tastes like metal in my mouth. Guard the man who will marry the woman I’m not allowed to want. If this is a joke, it’s the kind told with a stiletto.
“I acknowledge,” I say, because that’s what a good soldier says. The word scrapes my throat on the way out.
Sneed inclines his head. “Discretion and punctuality, as ever.” His pupils slit a fraction. I can’t tell if he’s gloating or just pleased his charts align. “Your proximity will be noted in the record. Do try to look less like a thunderhead in ceremonial photographs.”
“I’ll endeavor to appear atmospheric,” I deadpan.
A twitch at the corner of his mouth. “How poetic.”
By midmorning we’re in the west courtyard where the grav-car waits, polished obsidian gleaming under a pale sun. Kaspian arrives on time, uniformed in another midnight suit withunderstated sigils at the cuffs, the picture of restrained nobility. He smells faintly of cedar again, and a salt note like open water. When he spots me at rear-guard position, he straightens—not a challenge, just acknowledgment.
“Commander Rayek,” he says. He offers his hand, not the aristocrat’s casual wrist but a full, deliberate grip. “I appreciate your service.”
I take it, because etiquette demands it. His palm is cool, the shake firm. “My duty is to Chamberland,” I say.
“And to Lady Star,” he adds, not as a claim but as a fact. It shouldn’t sting as much as it does. He tips his head toward the grav-car. “Shall we?”
Star arrives last, flanked by two junior guards and Sneed, who glides as if the ground is tailored for him. She’s in a traveling dress the color of rain on slate, her hair caught back in a simple twist that bares the vulnerable line of her neck. I feel the heat crawl up the collar of my uniform before I force it down. She doesn’t look at me directly when she climbs in; the glance is peripheral, a brush at the edge of vision, but it lands like shrapnel anyway.
