Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

62 Alastair

Where the Society keeps our traditions, Amoria uses them as a screen to hide their taste for depravity.

Gwen is my twin. Anyone who shares that much DNA with me is too attractive for their own good. He'll lure my sister down a path of corruption as he makes her fall in love with him only to leave her heartbroken—and possibly pregnant—when he grows tired of Earth.

Gwen is giving me a look that says she knows exactly what is going through my head and that I've never been more ridiculous. "We'll arrive in France tomorrow."

"We?"

"Alastair and I will be escorting the army. Most of the soldiers do not speak English, and none speak French." French was one of the languages she chose to study. Her other languages were Mandarin and of course Amorian. She's recently dived into learning Russian. As much as I miss her, I don't want her coming to France, not if our time here ends with Jonas being killed.

More importantly, if she were she to find out our brother is Expired, would she do her duty and kill him herself?

"I'm looking forward to meeting you, Beta, and your brother. If you're both anywhere nearly as capable and accomplished as your Tresais, I'm sure it will be a pleasure."

How much trouble would I get Elleany in if I were to threaten him?

"Likewise. I look forward to having a long conversation with you, and I'm sure the Preeminence will too."

Gwen's eyes narrow, but Alastair doesn't seem to pick up on my meaning.

He grins. "I already know I'll love it here."

Gwen's hand tightens in the folds of her black toga dress. "We will let you go," she says to me. "We both have much to prepare before our flight."

I nod. "Alastair. Tresais."

The heir has such a damnably pleasant smile on his face that it makes it hard for me to want to drag him into a corner and scare the living hell out of him. "Beta."

Gwen ends the call, and I scrub at my face. I've never been so grateful that we don't have stables at our current Estate. I heard the bachelor was once discovered in the head Zeta's stables, naked on a pile of hay with three women.

There's a knock on the door, and I open it to find Vienna.

"What did Gwen say?" she asks as I close the door behind her.

"She's coming to Paris with the army."

"She hates me now, doesn't she?" Once upon a time they were good friends.

Turning away from her and to the black screen, I press my thumb into my palm, massaging it. "She's probably too busy being Tresais to even think of you." It's been days since Sebastian brought up Tobias and Vienna to me, but I finally steel my nerves to say it now. "Sebastian told me that Tobias used to have an interest in you." I know I'm betraying both my cousins by saying it.

She remains quiet, and it's that silence that prompts me to face her. She looks stricken. "An interest? Like an interest in banishing me to the deepest part of hell and being the one to torture me for eternity?"

"No. I mean, romantically."

She breaks out in laughter, and when I quirk an eyebrow, she laughs harder.

"Tobias? Have you seen the way he's treated me?"

"I . . ."

"If he ever did feel that way, I didn't know about it, and he certainly doesn't hold those feelings now. Where are you going with this?"