Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
He stopped smoothing, straightened, caught me at my hips and grinned.
“Promise, it’s still going to torture me.”
I believed him, considering the mock turtleneck, short-sleeved, to-the-knee dress molded to every curve of my body in a way it highlighted them at the same time they were a tease.
“And now it appears I need to change for dinner,” he said.
Using both hands, he caught me by the base of my head for a quick kiss, but he let me go only to claim me again by capturing my hand and pulling me to the bench in the closet.
There, he released me and went to his clothes.
It seemed he wanted me to hang out while he changed.
Considering I was all the way down with that, I sat, crossed my legs and watched him select a pair of navy trousers, a matching cashmere sweater and a pair of oxblood shoes.
I then watched as he disrobed.
I was so entertained by this, I didn’t speak until he’d pulled his trousers up over his very fine ass, which made his ass no less fine, it was just as fine but now covered in material.
“So?” I asked. “Are you going to tell me what happened? Because I, too, have news, and we’ve company, so we can’t dally in our closet for hours.”
He halted in the process of pulling his sweater down his stomach to lift his brows at me.
“We’ve company?” he asked.
And yes.
That did come out of my mouth.
“Our closet?” he kept at me.
Dear gods.
“Focus, King Tanyn,” I demanded.
His lips twitched, he sorted his sweater then came to sit beside me to put on his shoes.
Fortunately, he did this talking.
Unfortunately, what he had to say was not to my liking.
“We’ve a problem.”
“You mean, another one?” I asked.
Both shoes were on, neither tied, when he turned to fully face me.
“Regardless of the fact we identified the males we captured within an hour of capturing them along with identifying their dead compatriots, and they have known ties to traditionalist groups, which in turn have ties to Arnaud, and that translates to Tatra, even under truth serum, they denied all of this.”
By heaven and hellfire.
“Yes,” I said softly. “That’s a problem.”
And it was.
You couldn’t beat truth serum. It was infallible.
So what in the hells was happening?
“They say they’re members of the Space Junkies,” Tanyn told me.
“That…doesn’t make sense,” I replied.
The Space Junkies were an activist group who wanted beings to stop building in and populating space.
On the one hand, I could see this claim from the perpetrators.
I could, since, if we did what the Space Junkies wanted, not only would all space stations, but also all satellites be dismantled and recycled, which would knock out a lot of tech capabilities, not to mention research and military resources. And this, in turn, would send us back a couple hundred years and we’d be living like it was the 1900s.
And one could say the traditionalists wished to send us spiraling back in time.
On the other hand…
“They’re non-violent,” I told Tanyn something he knew. “And Sigil would not be a target. Yes, there’s modern tech there. But for the most part, it’s a bastion of another age. Not to mention, it’s not in space.”
“They said they’re escalating so they can get more attention for their cause.”
“They’re roundly considered nutjobs, highly averse to tech, so they not only wouldn’t have access to attack craft, but they wouldn’t use it. But no one wants to give up their Palms and holos so we won’t have satellites no one can see, unless they’re in space.”
“No, this does not track.” Tanyn bent to tie his shoes.
But I sensed he was avoiding me.
“Tanyn,” I called.
“Fuck,” he muttered to his shoes.
Yes. He was avoiding me.
“Tanyn,” I snapped.
He finished with his shoes, straightened and turned to me, taking my hand.
Not a good sign.
“We had to draft another request to present to a magistrate because we need to take bloods from these males and determine if they’re under the influence of the control drug Tatra used.”
Oh shit.
“Or if there’s something else at play. And”—he squeezed my hand—“Aleksei has instigated the same in Night’s Fall in order to take Arnaud’s blood.”
“Can this drug circumvent even truth serum?”
“No, we don’t believe so. But we’re checking. And there might have been some other drug developed that can.”
My blood turned to ice at what this might mean regarding our current situation, but also in broader terms.
If you could beat truth serum, you could literally get away with murder.
“This Space Junkies bullshit is not a good lie,” Tanyn said. “However, truth serum is irrefutable. That said, the knowledge that we know my father was drugged has been kept in the strictest of secret. Even his and Mom’s exhumations have. We made the decision not to go public about any of this until we had a good deal more information on all of it. In fact, there isn’t a single member of the Assembly who knows any of it has happened.”