Page 17 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

“You have no one else.”

Amada’s laughter was nothing short of condescending. “That’s whatyouthink.”

“Tell me what you’re up to.”

“You’re just using me. You don’t really care.” Her voice was mournful now.

“That’s not true.”

It was, but apparently I needed to find a way to hide it better. I should have known better that Amada would see right through me.

I felt like I was so close at grasping at her emotions, but every time I metaphorically reached out to snatch them, Amada took two steps back.

“You ruined our relationship,” Amada accused.

“That’s not true either,” I argued. “It tooktwopeople to break up our relationship.”

I didn’t want to castallof the blame on her. Carmela had told me recently that you catch more flies with honey. It was another metaphor, which I was trying to learn, but in essence if I appealed to Amada, she might be more willing to ‘return to the light’, so to speak.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We can fix this.” I grasped at whatever straws I had left.

“No, we can’t. You’redonefor, Cyburn. You chose thewrongside to mess with.”

“You’ve always been on my side,” I told her. "The Belic destroyed our home world. Why would you ever want to be in cahoots with them?”

“I was on your side until you stomped on my heart.” Amada’s voice cracked. “You will get what’s coming to you, Cyburn,” she warned, her voice reaching an ominous plateau.

“And what exactly is that?” I asked.

Amada’s abrupt laughter made me jump.

“The Belic are going to take care of me now.”

I clenched my jaw. “Whatever they have promised you are lies.”

“No,” Amada said. “You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. They don’t care about you.”

“Neither do you.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

I didn’t know how much longer I could take this back and forth with her.

“What’s life without a little adventure?” Amada chortled with more patronization fired at my soul. “Aren’tyouthe one who told me that? What? You don’t want to take your own advice now or something?”

She refused to listen to reason.

“Amada, the Belic will kill you if you go near them. You aren’t one of them.”

“Too late, asshole. I will be one of them now,” she said without emotion.

“You can do what you want to do,” I said, sighing and feeling resigned to the fact that Amada was just going to do the opposite of whatever I told her to do.

“I will, thanks — but I wasn’t looking for your blessing anyway.”

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