Page 9 of Retrograde

Fair enough. I was about to say goodnight and leave, but he pulled out his phone and tossed it to me, telling me the passcode.

He snickered when I simply raised an eyebrow again. “I’ve had too much to drink to navigate much right now. I recorded part of the meeting after you left and it will heal you a bit. I tried to get it to you, but—the people around you are loyal. Fuck, take that to heart. Most would sell me out and—you’re loved, Sagan. You are.”

That did help but was also confusing. “They blocked you from me?” I nodded when he did. “What am I looking for?” I found what he wanted me to listen to and pressed play, feeling a bit better after I listened but not sure it healed me.

He sighed, not the annoyed kind, but more frustrated with himself like he couldn’t get his point across so I wasn’t upset. “Look, Lori wore a good mask, but I knew he was a dipshit. Butdrugging you?Even I about fainted and I grew up with him. He’s our generation’s fucking golden boy to the media and—the one we’re all compared to for not doing more.

“And he’s a passive shit. Fine, he was put up to it by an elder or whatever, but he had to do it. I would—there are like five other people I would have guessed first before him. At least. If you told me to give you a list ranking who would be most likely to drug you, he wouldn’t have made the top eightat least. So the shock from justusin that room was unreal.”

I reached for his drink and had some as I mulled that over. He snickered and topped me off and drank from the bottle. “That actually does help, thank you. I forget sometimes how you all grew up with each other and like…” I sighed and leaned against the wall next to where he was sitting. “Even if I don’t—didn’t like Velle, I wouldn’t have thought it of her.”

“Exactly,” he confirmed but then cleared his throat. “And I can’t speak for everyone, but I knowpersonallyI didn’t worry about you because that type of drug is used at parties. Knowingly.”

“I know,” I admitted, already being read in on that. “Heat parties and—I know. I’m not as naïve as people think me.”

“No, not naïve, but you weren’t really raised as a dragon in a lot of ways.” He hurried on when I bristled at that. “I’m not saying that to hurt you, Sagan. Fuck, I’m not an asshole like that. I’m just—isn’t it better to acknowledge it when it’s just us and like…”

I took another sip. “You’re not wrong, but I don’t know you. Maybe wait until we know each other a bit better and I can trust you?” I finished the drink and handed back the glass and his phone.

He was on his feet faster than I would have thought someone as drunk as him could be, the bottle and glass off to the side as he boxed me in against the wall. “If things were different and I was just a man and you were just a woman, I wouldn’t have been so offensive with what I offered. If it helps, that’s the truth.”

“Why bother telling me that?”

He searched my eyes a moment. “Because you’re my queen and you’ve suffered too much. You don’t need to suffer anymore when you shouldn’t.” He let out a slow breath but then seemed to scent me, frowning. “You smell like victory.”

I snorted and moved my hand to his chest. “I always win, Ayao. Remember that. My normal scent is victory.”

He chuckled and a drunken smirk looked good on him, but then he got serious. “I don’t like to fight and avoid them, Sagan. Nobody wins really because even the winner has scars.”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore,” I confessed.

“Whatever was going on with Thorn and Onyx looking like they were going to rip each other’s heads off after you went off with Joris—I won’t get involved in that. I can’t. It’s not in me.” He pushed off the wall and took a step back. “But I am sorry for how I said things that hurt you.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to give you another chance and at least work together while you’re here.”

“Not going to cut me?” he asked, more curious than anything. “I won’t change my mind.”

I sighed. “You always have to keep talking and ruin things.” I reached up and flicked him on the forehead, swallowing a chuckle when he rubbed it and looked like a little boy getting yelled at. It was too cute on such a huge man. “I’m not trying to seduce any of you idiots. I’m trying to survive this too, and I’m not dealing with the bullshit of cutting you so fast.”

He grabbed my arm when I went to leave, swallowing loudly as he clearly struggled with something. But then he dropped my arm and turned away.

“Stop him,”Iris said firmly in my mind, clearly getting something from him.

I slid in front of him. “What? Tell me. Trust me.”

He looked so conflicted and worried that I felt bad for pushing. “I want to dance on my birthday. Dance with me first?”

I could do that. If it got me the answer to whatever he wanted to tell me… I could dance. I loved to dance even.

I pulled out my phone and loaded a song I adored, slipping it in his breast pocket so we could hear it while we danced. He chuckled and pulled me close, resting his head on mine.

“This is nice,” he said after a few moments. “The song and the dance, but I’ve never heard this song before. Is it—it doesn’t sound old.”

“It’s a group in Milvid,” I told him. “They’re not popular and they get a lot of flak for being political.”

“Oh?”

“This song is a commentary that our ancestors making one common language for all species to speak globally didn’t bring us closer together but made the connection shallow,” I explained. “That we didn’t find common ground, but just agreed to be neighbors basically. Never understanding each other because we don’t care enough and language was never the barrier.”