The mansion was packed with people, which was why Alex took Kray through the servants' entrance to get him back in the house. He followed her through a less furnished corridor and up a personal elevator to the third floor, feeling more alert than he had ten minutes ago in the garden. Still nowhere near his old self though, which might be for the best. He still felt loose and limber, his body tingling in a pleasant way that made the world a little more bearable.
It also made Alex a little more bearable. So when she nearly tripped in her high heels and twisted her ankle, he thought her unexpected growl of goddammit, I hate these stupid things! was the most hilarious thing he'd heard in ages.
He chuckled as she pushed a door open and walked inside. Pulling off the high heels, she shot back a look at him before crossing over to a brown leather sofa against a wall. "First time I've heard you laugh in years, and it's at my expense."
"Anyone ever tell you you're way more interesting when you break character?"
Her eyebrows furrowed, and he could tell she was thinking his question over, trying to figure out exactly how he was insulting her this time. She decided to let it go. "Please have a seat. I'm going to get you something to help with the alcohol in your system."
Kray looked around the guest room as he walked in. Queen size bed with a checkered blue-and-gray bedspread. A pristinely white carpet that made him kick off his dress shoes before walking inside. Silky drapes drawn over the window facing the backyard of the mansion. And a giant video screen occupying the wall opposite the bed, as well as a shelf filled with entertainment gadgets.
Not bad. Even a guest in the Drasse home was treated to a better life than most people could afford.
Alex waited while he surveyed the room and then sank onto the sofa. "You're still in good shape, so the vitalizer should take effect in less than ten minutes."
He knew what that was, even though he'd never used it. Vitalizer tablets, intended to regulate and stabilize the brain's neural activity, worked well to counteract alcohol's effects on the brain. In exactly ten minutes, he would feel as sober as he had when he walked into the mansion, which was a real shame. He kind of liked being this way.
He didn't even care that much about Leah using him. She'd always been the center of melodrama. It was just like her to pull a high school stunt like that. What she'd done wasn't betrayal so much as it was an annoyance he should have expected.
The only part that really bothered him was that Alex had seen it. How gullible did she think he was for letting two human girls get the best of him?
"Wait here," she said as she headed to the bathroom, her dress billowing gently with every step. The material cascaded like silk down her legs, but it hugged her chest and hips and emphasized a body that, despite being honed for years by relentless training, was still curvy enough to make any guy envy Robert Nourse.
The downward spiral of his thoughts made Kray flush with heat. He shook his head vigorously and then groaned when everything spun out of control. "So how about that vitalizer?"
A crash in the bathroom answered his question. He leaped off the sofa and bounded for the bathroom in three long strides. Small white pills were scattered across the linoleum floor next to Alex, who sat with her arms around one knee, rocking back and forth.
Tears streamed down her face, which was twisted with pain. Kray stared disbelievingly at her before searching the bathroom for whatever had hurt her. Except for an oil painting that had been knocked askew, everything was fine. Everything except her.
"What happened?" he demanded, his head in a haze for reasons other than the alcohol. He'd never seen Alex cry before. Not when she broke her ribs after her driffer malfunctioned and tossed her against a tree or when her dog died after they'd been together ever since she was an infant, or even whenever her dad cut her down with his cold, unfeeling words. But here she was, her golden eyes shimmering with the wetness that dripped from her chin, betraying pain unlike anything she'd been able to endure before.
"My leg," she choked out, stretching it out as far as she could bear.
Her hands went to her thigh, and Kray had a vivid flash of something similar he'd seen in the jet that picked them up in Calsin, the way she kept touching that thigh then. He crouched down next to her, staring at the ripples of tremors passing through it. His heart thumped harder when she threw her head back and closed her eyes, teeth gritted.
"What happened to your leg?" he asked, trying to sound calm. No point in stressing her out more by yelling and demanding answers.
Alex didn't answer, so Kray jumped to his feet. "I'll go get help."
"No!" she shouted, startling him. "I—I'll be okay. It'll pass. I just need to give it a moment."
"What will pass?"
She answered by groaning loudly and hunching over her leg as though a new wave of pain had hit her. Kray bunched up his fists. He didn't like to watch people suffer, even someone like Alex. It made him feel weak and helpless, reminded him of the way he'd felt for the last two years when he could never do anything about it without getting brutalized by Metas.
He was about to race out of the room to find someone anyway when the pain began to drain out of her tense features. She blinked rapidly and eased out a breath, leaning against the wall behind her. "I'm okay." She sounded dazed, like she didn't actually believe the pain would ever stop.
He gave her a moment to pull herself together, but only a moment. "What happened?"
Instead of answering him, she tried to pull herself up to her feet, but her leg gave out. There was panic in the depths of her eyes as she settled back down. "It's not your problem. You shouldn't be here anyway. Why don't you—?"
"Hey," he said angrily. "You owe me something."
She sighed and began in a hesitant voice. "Have you heard of Tosk Melkan?"
"The Sanser guy you helped catch in the Skads? Yeah, I've heard of him. What does he have to do with this?"
"When I jumped out of the hawk to tackle him, I might've hit the ground too hard. I think that's what's causing this."
"You're telling me some injury that happened weeks ago is starting to show symptoms now? Have you felt anything else at all? Anything that might tell you what this is?"
"No."
Kray didn't buy it, no matter how firm and resolute her voice sounded. "You need to see a doctor."
"I will."
He shook his head. "No, you won't. I might not have seen your betrayal coming, but there are some things I know about you, Drasse. Like the fact that you pretend to be strong even when you're not. Remember what you did when you broke your ribs that day? If Leah hadn't told on you, you would've gone home and pretended you were okay. I knew you'd rather do that than admit you were human enough to get hurt. Just like now."
She searched his face and then looked away. "I don't get to be human."
"You and me both."
He surprised her by bending down and scooping her up in his arms, ignoring her protests even as his chest began to swell with pressure, as though all of the blood gathered in his blood vessels were trying to burst through the barely-mended wound.
He paused at the doorway, taking slow, painful breaths. "Put me down, Kray," Alex insisted, shoving at his upper arms. "You're hurting yourself."
"Nah, you're just a lot heavier than you look."
Actually, she would've weighed next to nothing if he were in a better condition. Pretty fragile for such a tough girl. He deposited her on the couch, which seemed like a lot less of an awkward destination than the bed. She straightened out her dress and smoothed her hair, and then she ran her hands over her face. "This is so humiliating."
"Now you know how it feels when the general of the freaking Meta army walks in on you getting played by some chick," Kray answered with a crooked smile as he sat next to her. He deepened his voice and made it flat in an imitation of her father. "'Hopefully he will hold himself together for the rest of the evening.' Scary guy, isn't he?"
"You missed the part before that where he said to me"—it was her turn to adopt a mock deep voice—"'How difficult is it to keep an eye on one boy and mingle with the guests at the same time? Heavens forbid some reporter take advantage of your neglect by coaxing dangerous secrets out of him.'" She laughed softly. "I think he was relieved when Aries came up to us and announced he'd caught you sneaking out with a girl."
"He shouldn't have been. Leah can be as much of a shark as any reporter."
Alex's smile faded. "I'm sorry about that. It must have hurt to find out she was just using you."
"Nah. The only thing it hurt was my ego." He leaned back on the couch and stretched his arms over his head, then smirked at her. "And nothing cures a bruised ego better than moving on to the next girl, right?"
Her eyebrows lifted. Kray realized how that must've sounded. "Relax, Drasse. I wasn't talking about you."
"I didn't think you were," Alex said stiffly. She glanced at him and her gaze caught on his throat. "Speaking of Leah. . . ."
She reached for a box of tissues sitting on a small table next to the couch and pulled free one delicate white tissue. Kray stiffened when she leaned in close and pressed the tissue to the underside of his jaw, swiping in small circles. "You have lipstick on you," she explained.
This close, her flower scent teased his nostrils and filled his lungs. He told himself if he pulled away, she'd know that this bothered him, so he sat there with tense shoulders and let her wipe away the last vestiges of Leah's deception.
"There," she said when she was done.
"Thanks." He cleared his throat. "So what now?"
Alex straightened her leg gingerly, testing it. "I think I can walk. What about you? Do you feel drunk?"
"Not even close." He'd snapped out of it the instance he'd heard the crash in the bathroom.
"So now we return to the party. I'm sure more guests have arrived by now. The other generals will want to meet you and get to know you better. I'll stay by your side and help you through it. And after that, my father will give a speech and everyone will have dinner. I'd suggest sticking around for that part. They always hire the best kinds of chefs for these things."
"That's one thing to look forward to," he agreed. "I'm starved."
Her gold-flecked eyes were intent on his, bottomless lights that flashed glimpses of the emotions behind them. Kray was caught by them. By their beauty, by the intelligence and life behind them, by the mystery of uncharted territories she'd never allowed anyone to explore, not even him.
"Kray?"
"What?" he said a little too roughly.
"Can we call a truce? Just for tonight."
He blinked as though coming out of a trance and repeated, "What?"
"I know that things haven't been easy between us," she added, the words tumbling faster out of her mouth. "And I know that I haven't been easy on you. But tonight is only going to get more stressful for both of us. Can we put aside our differences and focus on getting through it in one piece?"
Kray stared at her like she'd grown an extra head—which wouldn't have been as unbelievable as what she was asking of him. He had only one answer for her.
"No."
"No?" She looked taken aback, her eyes a fraction wider. "But . . . ."
"But what?" He laughed harshly. "You think we've bonded tonight in this room? Made progress in rebuilding our fake friendship? Or maybe you were going for a different angle this time, with the way you were practically in my lap while wiping off that lipstick."
Her face flushed. "I wasn't—"
"Do you honestly think that you can win me over so easily with a bit of awkward charm and vulnerability?" he interrupted. "Nice touch with the injured leg bit. I thought you were too arrogant to pretend to be hurt to get someone to feel sorry for you, but I guess you haven't sunk to the bottom of the barrel just yet."
Anger sparks across her features. "I'd never do something like that."
"You've done plenty worse," he growled, towering over her as his own anger rose over him. "Nothing is beyond you as far as I'm concerned. I want you to get this through your head. I don't feel like playing nice. Not with you. I'll do what it takes to save my own skin, but you can fall off a cliff for all I care."
He stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him, his chest expanding with the discomforting heat of rage and something else. Satisfaction.
(A/N: Thanks for the support, guys! I know that Birthright is quieter than my other works, so I'm grateful to those people who've stuck with me for this long.
Also, isn't that awesome? You can put gifs/videos/images in your story now!)