Page 36 of Bonds of Starfall

The phone call with Talor had gone as well as he had expected. Lucien didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the lies. He was playing both sides, and sooner or later, it would be his demise.

He was trying to keep Vesperin safe, trying to get as much information as he could from Talor.

It was no accident that Vesperin had been adopted by the founders of Blackfall Industries as soon as her parents had died—just as it was no accident she didn’t remember him.

She was his Soulbond, and from the moment they had been kids, she never felt anything for him.

He still remembered the day everything had changed.

Watching her from his window as she would play in the yard, she had seemed nothing more than some frivolous little girl. The day it had all changed was when he had actually touched her; when she had knocked on his door to give fresh-baked cookies to his parents one Christmas, and their hands had brushed. He had been twenty-three, home for the holidays from med school;she had still been wide-eyed and too sweet for her own good at fifteen.

All those years of knowing her, living beside her, and they had never touched.

But the moment their hands brushed, memories struck—fragments of a life long gone, buried in ash and washed away by waves.

A vicious end to a life barely begun—one he would never forget. He’d been bewitched by her from the moment his eyes had fallen upon her on Tarz, his home in another life. A planet that still existed to this day, but much more advanced, of course. And he was to blame for that…

The white halls of the research compound did not echo as Lucien Quenlan walked down them in his soft slippers. The ends of his robe trailed on the ground. His black hair was long, falling to his waist. The open courtyard was awash in the purple of the two moons, always shining. The distant hum of ships as they brought in new specimens for research only made him walk quicker, desperate to begin his research.

Tarz had just expanded its acquisition of galactic assets, and as lead researcher, Lucien was tasked with experimenting on other planet species. Easy, when the assets he received were barely the size of his palm—globes of shifting organisms, plates with unique bacteria, and even a few smaller animals. Lucien studied them all.

He loved his work, loved furthering his home.

But when he opened the thick door of his research facility, with a quiet hiss as grey smoke filled the room as it destabilized, he was not prepared for what was being unloaded from the back door.

A large crate made of white, faintly glowing bars was being brought in. The workers waved their hands as they used their Stella to direct the floating crate to the far side of his lab.

He braced a hand on the cool wall. The room was made of Daria rock, mined from another planet—a type that regulated temperature naturally, incredibly cool, and perfect for keeping his specimens in a controlled environment, compared to the heat waves raging outside.

"What is the meaning of this?" Lucien said coolly.

The workers finished placing the crate, stepping back and giving short bows. Their robes were a dark tan shade, denoting them as servants.

"A species from Luxia," said the man on the left. "The royal house requested it to be examined for its tears."

"They cry diamonds," the man’s companion revealed, hands folded before her as she cast a glance at the crate—and what lay within. "The environment on the subject’s home planet offered a unique evolutionary process, supposedly."

A small girl huddled near the back of the crate. She appeared human. Her light brown hair hung over her shoulders in tousled waves, and her brown eyes were filled with sorrow, but dry. No tears fell from her eyes, but strain lined her soft face, as if it hurt to hold them back. She wore a plain shift, made of white silk. Dirt streaked her bare feet and arms.

A girl. Barely an adult, by the looks of her.

He was going to be sick.

"Get out," Lucien demanded.

The man’s brows crinkled. "An order from the royal house cannot be denied, Quenlan. The reward far outweighs the risks?—"

"The risks? You mean keeping an innocent captive?"

"The reward"—the robed woman stepped forward—"would be a natural supply of diamonds."

The implications made the girl flinch back against the crate, her back hitting the bars and rattling them.

"Get out!" Lucien roared.

The servants scurried out, the back door slamming behind them in a soft cloud of air as the room readjusted the temperature.

Leaving him alone with this girl.