Birthright

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

(Thank you for all the support! Please remember to show your support! I'm too tired to edit, so please ignore any typos)

The rest of the night commenced as more influential people—senators and CEO's and military commanders—approached the podium and gave their endorsement of the Concordance Policy. Reporters snapped photographs and held long-range recorders in their hands. Guests clapped every time one of the speakers finished his or her speech. Everything was going exactly as Alex's father had planned. With so many reputable people supporting this bill, he might actually make it a reality someday soon.

Alex hoped so. She'd sacrificed too much to let this bill fail now.

Her father wrapped up the gala with a moving speech about a better future that promised peace and security for everyone within the Mainland. He was careful to minimize any favorable words about the Sansers and their Skads. That wasn't why the humans would support the bill. The only reason they were here tonight was because they wanted a better life for their children and grandchildren, a life that wasn't threatened by building Sanser resentments.

Thirty minutes of more mingling ensued as guests slowly began to depart. Robert stayed by Alex's side, rubbing elbows with prestigious people one last time. Her cheeks ached from the constant smiling she had done tonight. Her feet ached in her pinching heels. And her thigh still pulsed with remnants of the pain that had gripped her in the guest room.

Alex's eyes sought him out in the crowd. Kray was still with Violet and a Sanser instructor named Hal Masso, who was shaking hands with a few guests crowded around him. She caught him adjust his tie quickly and wondered if he felt out of place. Making him wear the Calsin Foundation uniform had been General Hanson's idea. A way to reinforce that he wasn't one of them, to distinguish him from the real guests. To remind him that he was an ex-convict who'd traded his ratty Wasteland clothes for something slightly better.

In spite of his discomfort, he cut a dashing figure in that uniform. His shoulders had filled out considerably in the past two years, and his jawline was strong, his dark eyes moody. He was as handsome as he was dangerous—at least, according to the tittering young female guests at the gala. As much as they called him a savage, they still wanted him.

The Sanser girl nudged him in the ribs and leaned in to say what must have been a joke because he cracked a smile. That smile, as small as it was, transformed his whole face. At least it did until he met her eye across the ballroom and it disappeared completely.

She looked away first, inhaling a deep breath. Too bad. He looked better with a humored expression on his face. He always had. The only expressions he'd given her since they'd come back into each other's lives had ranged from guarded and suspicious, to snide and hateful.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. When she'd taken a spill in the bathroom and he'd run in to save her, she'd seen something else. Something so tender it had made her forget who they were and why they could never be anything to each other ever again.

"Alexandra."

Alex turned as her father and General Lucinda Vargas strode toward her in her creamy-white evening gown. Diamonds glittered on Vargas's ears, accentuating her dark beauty, but she wore no other jewelry. She wasn't an ostentatious woman. Based on reputation and the number of times she and Alex had interacted, she preferred to sit back and take in everything, carefully assessing every situation before choosing to act.

She had no family, as far as Alex knew. Her mother, father, and sister had been killed in rampant guerilla wars back when she was a young girl, and she'd barely escaped to the Mainland of Macot. She'd come from very humble beginnings, and everything she had was a testament to the life she'd built with her bare hands and her sharp wit.