Elite Starfighter, Game 3 by Grace Goodwin

11

Lily

“Liar. Liar. Bloody Liar!”I took my favorite romance novel off the shelf, the book with my all-time favorite, sexy, honorable, respectful alien warrior hero, my Atlan beast, and threw the damn thing across the room.

Reached for another. I’d brought two with me on this mission, thinking that maybe I would share them with Darius and try out some of the more interesting sexual antics. Hadn’t needed them. Still.

I glanced down at the graphic, the title, the dream.

This cover was so sexy. It would be a shame…

No. Nope. Goddamn it. When I got back to the moon base on Arturri, I was going to toss the rest of them.

“Grace Goodwin, you bitch. I am going to have words with you when I get home.” This author was a liar. There was no sexy alien hunk out here in space waiting to make all my dreams come true.

They weren’t big dreams, either. At least I didn’t think so. I wanted someone to love me, respect me, and believe in me. Believe in my capabilities. My courage. My brain. All I wanted was someone to have faith that I was capable of winning. Creating. Being more than what I appeared to be on my average, mousy, introverted exterior.

But noooo. In fact, Darius was so dead set against me going on this mission, he’d defied General Romulus and humiliated me in front of every Starfighter on the battleship, three generals, and my best friends.

Oh no! Delicate little flower Lily can’t go on that super dangerous mission. She’ll die! We’ll all die! Oh me, oh my, General Romulus, you need to send me instead. I’m a big, tough warrior. I can do it for her. Poor little Lily. She needs protection. She just doesn’t know how fragile she is.

Asshole.

And he’d been lying to me since I met him. I’d been so trusting, so blinded by orgasms and the promise of someone who actually cared about me, believed in me, chose me, that I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.

Well, a few quick questions after the mission briefing and a computer search later and I'd learned the truth on my own.

I wasn’t Darius’s first choice. Tycho, his brother, had been his fighting partner for three years. Three. Years. He’d died on a mission not long before I started playing Starfighter Training Academy. Perhaps a few weeks before I’d selected Darius, from all the game’s options, to be my partner on missions in game.

I’d been playing a game. Darius had been looking for a way to redeem himself and get back into a Starfighter uniform.

He and his brother had disobeyed a direct order. Jeopardized multiple team members. Most of the mission details were redacted, but I knew enough. Tycho had been killed, and Darius had been kicked out of the Titan program.

Until me. Until I beat the game—training simulation, whatever the fuck these aliens wanted to call it—and earned each of us a place inside a Titan.

I wasn’t important to him. I was a means to an end with a dose of on-demand sex on the side.

No wonder he hadn’t told me the truth about his past, his brother. Any of it.

I fought back tears and stared at the book in my hand. “I should have gone to Atlan, yeah?”

After this mission, I was going home. I had no reason to stay. Once Velerion was safe and the evil super villain, Queen Raya, was dead or captured or whatever was going to happen to her, I was leaving this shithole life behind. I didn’t care about this war. As long as children weren’t dying and some evil bitch wasn’t ruining the lives of innocent people on this planet, I was out. Conscience clear.

Done.

Finished.

The sex with Darius was great, no doubt. Better than I’d ever imagined it could be. But I’d been treated like a failure my entire life. Made to feel like I didn’t quite measure up. If I lost ten pounds, my mother encouraged me to lose five more. A master’s degree? Wonderful, but Connie Winthrop had a PhD. Ooh-la-la. And her sister? Penelope? Well, darling, she married into a barony and already had her third child on the way. Wasn’t that wonderful?

Totally, completely fucking wonderful, mum.

Too bad I couldn’t change my name to Penelope and manage, for once in my life, to please my mother. In preparing to come here, to leave Earth behind, I’d written them a cryptic letter and left my bills on autopay. Guess deep down I’d known this wasn’t going to work out.

I wasn’t going to fight this battle with Darius. I deserved better. More.

He didn’t have to love me. I could deal with that. But I would not tolerate being mollycoddled and disrespected. Treated like a child who didn’t know better.

I was not going to cry.

The door to our temporary quarters slid open, and Darius appeared seconds later at the entrance to the small bedroom. Soon to be his bedroom. Solo. I’d already made arrangements to sleep elsewhere tonight. My own room. This ship had hundreds.

“I need to speak to you.”

“Really? Now you want to talk?” I looked down at the fantasy man on the cover of the novel I held and shook my head. “No. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You aren’t going on that mission, Lily. I forbid it.”

What. The. Fuck?

“You forbid it?” I heard the high, lilting quality of my voice and made no attempt to adjust. I was pretty sure Darius had no idea what that tone meant. He was about to find out.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Is it?” I pulled the sleeve that had been partially covering the comm unit on my wrist and looked at the message I’d received from General Romulus not five minutes ago, verifying that the meeting details for tomorrow’s mission launch were still there. That I hadn’t imagined it.

“Tell General Romulus you changed your mind. I will take your place.”

I stood slowly, holding the Grace Goodwin book, the total goddamn lie, and walked to a disposal unit that would send the paper to recycling. Dropped the story inside. Closed it. “I’m going. My flight simulation scores were higher than yours. I have a better chance of reaching that cruiser alive, and you know it. Besides, Queen Raya tried to kill me with a rockslide. Not you.”

“I can’t let you do this, Lily.”

“No?” I picked up the book I’d thrown on the floor and walked to the disposal unit. Threw the second book inside. Bye-bye, beast. “Can’t? Really? Like you can’t tell me the truth. Like you didn’t tell me you had a brother die? Your second-tier bonded fighting partner? Tycho?”

“There was never a good time.” He had the good sense to look ashamed of himself.

“Uh-huh.” I walked to the small seating area outside the bedroom and marveled that even here, on a battleship, in outer space, the Starfighter quarters were much nicer than anything I’d ever seen in a movie, at least on a naval ship of any kind.

“Lily, are you listening to me?”

“Totally. Please, keep talking.” I took a seat on the small sofa-style bench, lifted the water I’d been drinking earlier from a small table, and finished it off.

“Lily…” He paused, ran his fingers through his hair, that gorgeous, soft hair I’d been tugging on just hours ago, as if he suddenly didn’t know what to say.

“No, Darius. Go ahead. Tell me why you humiliated me in front of three generals, every Starfighter on this ship, and my friends. Tell me how dangerous this mission is. How worried you are about me. How weak and unskilled and incapable I am. Go ahead. I’ve heard it all before.”

“Stop. I didn’t say any of those things.”

“Didn’t you?” I set the now-empty water jug down slowly. Deliberately. My tone was detached. Calm. My mother had trained me well. “I’m going on this mission, and then I’m going home. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a new partner in no time, now that you’re back in an Elite Starfighter uniform.”

My eyes were burning. Tears. No. No. No. I blinked them away and took a deep breath to clear my head. “I’ve already made arrangements to stay elsewhere tonight. We’re finished. Done. You don’t owe me anything.”

I stood and walked the three steps to the door.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

I did, to see Darius’s pale face. Round eyes. He looked shocked. Unsure. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

Darius still hadn’t moved when I exited the small room, the door sliding closed on a past that was too painful to dwell on. I had a mission to complete, a planet to save.

I was a goddamn Elite Starfighter Titan, not a sappy schoolgirl.

To hell with external validation. With needing approval from other people. I had completed the training program. I’d been chosen. Mia and Jamie were friends I’d chosen, friends who respected me and treated me well. Supported me and my decisions.

I was done giving others so much power over me, my emotions, my confidence.

“I’m a badass bitch.”

I rounded the corner to find Bantia there, smiling. “Indeed you are.” She held a hand to her chest and gave me a little bow. “So, you are taking on one of the cruisers with Dea tomorrow.”

“I am.”

“Last one to blow up their cruiser has to buy the victory drinks.”

“Deal.”

I held out my hand, and she took it, grinned when I squeezed her hand and moved our clasped palms up and down to seal the agreement.

“I have to warn you, I’m not cheap. I like the good stuff from the Andromeda system.”

“I’m not worried. You’ll be buying.”

We both smiled and released our hold. I walked past her and continued on so I could explore the rest of the ship. If this was my last night in outer space, I wanted to see more of it than a bedroom.

Darius

General Romulus was waitingfor me when I knocked on the door to his private quarters.

“I wondered when you’d show up.”

“You have to send me on that mission. I’ll take Dea’s place. I can’t do this again. If you won’t stop Lily, I have to go with her.”

The general looked me over, head to toe, but did not invite me in. “And why would I allow that? Dea is an exceptionally skilled Titan.”

“So am I.”

“And Lily?”

“You know she’s incredible.”

“And is that why you implied otherwise at the mission briefing?”

“I didn’t—”

He raised a brow. “Perhaps that is why your pair-bonded female has formally requested your bond be severed and erased from the Hall of Records? Has, in fact, told me of her intention to resign and return to Earth? Because you spoke so highly of her to your peers?”

“What?” Lily gone? That was not acceptable. She was mine. Mine to love. Protect. Cherish.

“Indeed. I thought, perhaps, she had decided to keep that information to herself. That would appear to be a trend in your relationship.”

“Fuck.” His words were daggers to my gut. Lily had said the same thing. That I’d embarrassed her, humiliated her, lied to her. Kept secrets. I needed to keep her safe. That was all. But I’d fucked things up. Badly. I’d just have to talk sense to her, then not let her out of bed until she promised to listen. “Where is she staying tonight? I need to see her.”

“I don’t believe that particular activity will be on your schedule tonight.”

“Where is she?”

He shrugged and I wanted to punch him. Again. As I had the day my brother died. Like that day, striking at the general would not help me protect Lily.

Tycho had been a grown man. He’d made his choices. Lily made hers. I had to respect that. I couldn’t make the same mistake again, or I’d lose her, too. My pair bond. She was everything now. Everything that mattered.

“Please, General. Where is she? I totally fucked this up.”

He studied me long and hard. Although he was only a few years older, the burden of his command made him feel more like a father figure than his age probably deserved. Still, the weight of his judgment made my fists clench at my sides.

“Ask Dea. If she will agree to allow you to take her place, I will approve it. On one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You bring Lily back alive.”