Page 34 of Revenge (Warriors of the Drexian Academy #6)

Chapter

Thirty-Four

Deklyn

T he air inside the bakery was so sweet that my teeth ached just from breathing. Elaborately decorated tiered cakes lined the display cases, and the Gatazoid baker bustled around his domain with obvious pride, his purple hair faintly pink at the roots.

I tried to ignore the TV crew and the cameras tracking our every move, but they were a reminder that our reactions were being captured for the viewing audience back on Earth. I slid Sasha a small smile, hoping she didn’t feel as much like a caged animal as I did.

“You’re so lucky to have Fillian as your baker,” Serge chattered, gesturing toward the beaming Gatazoid. “The one on the Boat has a fondness for flavor combinations that most humans find challenging.”

“What kind of flavors?” Sasha asked, and I recognized the tone of her voice as artificially bright.

Serge leaned closer and stage-whispered conspiratorially, “Olive and vermouth. Apricot butterscotch.”

Sasha’s face scrunched up in disgust, though I had no idea what butterscotch or vermouth were supposed to taste like. The terms were meaningless to me, but her reaction suggested they weren’t pleasant combinations.

I took a bite of the white chocolate raspberry cake Fillian had enthusiastically recommended, trying not to react as the sweetness hit my palate like a sugar bomb.

It was easily the sweetest thing I’d ever eaten, so intensely flavored that it made my cheeks pucker.

But with the cameras rolling, I nodded appreciatively and tried to look like a man enjoying his wedding planning rather than someone struggling not to wince.

“Sweetie,” Sasha said, the endearment rolling off her tongue with practiced ease, “which flavor do you like best?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Serge’s voice came from the corner of his mouth in a stage whisper that somehow was both audible and discreet. “Whichever one she likes. You like whichever one she likes.”

I appreciated the assist from Serge, but I already understood that much about weddings and human females. I deftly turned the question back to her. “Which is your favorite?”

Sasha shot a sly grin at Serge, who was suddenly feigning intense fascination with the sugar roses adorning a nearby display cake. “I think I like the coconut with lemon curd filling.”

“Perfect choice!” Serge exclaimed, clapping his hands together with theatrical enthusiasm. “Absolutely perfect!”

Fillian beamed and bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Excellent selection! Now, would the bride prefer round corners or square?”

Sasha blinked briskly, her confident expression faltering for just a moment. She shot me a pleading look that the cameras probably read as touching deference to her fiancé’s preferences.

“Square, of course,” I said quickly, though I did not know why cake corners mattered.

“Square it is!” Fillian nodded again, making notes on a tablet with one hand. “And does the wedding have a particular motif I should incorporate into the design?”

Serge spread his short arms wide with dramatic flair. “Rescue among the stars!”

Fillian cocked his head thoughtfully, clearly trying to translate that concept into cake decoration. “Stars?” he said finally. “I can make sugar stars. Very sparkly, very ethereal.”

Serge sighed as if this was exactly what he’d wanted to hear. “We love ethereal.”

While Serge waved the camera crew over to zoom in on some of the sample cakes for their footage, I pulled Sasha aside toward a quieter corner of the shop.

“How long are you planning to keep this up?” I asked in a low voice. “Are we really going to have the cake baked, the flower arrangements designed, and the food prepared?”

She kept a fake smile plastered on her face as she spoke. “As long as it takes. But hopefully not past the ‘I do’ part.”

The words should have alarmed me. I should have been thinking about the logistics of calling off a wedding at the last possible moment, about the scandal and the consequences and the fallout that would destroy both our reputations.

Instead, the idea of saying “I do” to Sasha made my heart leap in a way that caught me completely off guard.

I’d spent my entire adult life convinced that I never wanted to settle down, never wanted to take a mate or commit to the domestic stability that seemed to trap so many warriors I knew.

But the thought of being with Sasha wouldn’t be settling for a different life.

It would be a life of adventure and challenge and passionate arguments that ended in even more passionate reconciliations.

The idea of actually going through with all this wedding planning for real didn’t scare me. What scared me was how much I wanted it to be genuine.

Sasha must have interpreted my silence as anxiety about our deception, because she reached out to touch my arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll unravel the entire plot in time for you to escape. You won’t actually be stuck with me.”

I opened my mouth to explain that being stuck with her was sounding like the opposite of a problem, but before I could find the words, a familiar figure appeared in the bakery doorway.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Tivek said, his expression carefully neutral, “but could I steal Deklyn for a moment? There’s something that requires his immediate attention.”

“Sasha, darling!” Serge called from across the shop, apparently oblivious to the undercurrents of tension. “We need you to select the cake topper! I have several options that would be perfect for an ethereal star-themed wedding.”

I gave Sasha an apologetic look as Tivek beckoned me from the doorway. She nodded her understanding, but I caught a flash of frustration in her eyes at being left to handle Serge and the cameras alone.

Once we were outside on the cobblestone walkway, away from the TV crew’s microphones, Tivek’s casual expression shifted to something more urgent.

“The Earth delegation has arrived,” he said. “The admiral is greeting them now, and he suggested you join. Get a sense of who we’re dealing with.”

Through the bakery’s front window, I could see Sasha gamely examining various miniature bride and Drexian figurines while Serge gestured enthusiastically, and the cameras captured every moment.

She would not be happy that I’d left her to handle this alone.

But this might be my best chance to get a read on the people who had betrayed her and to understand what we were really up against.

“Lead the way,” I said, forcing myself to look away from Sasha and prepare myself to meet the humans, one of whom was the reason for Sasha’s abandonment and why I was sent to save her.