Page 48 of Revenge (Warriors of the Drexian Academy #6)
Chapter
Forty-Eight
Deklyn
I stood at the front of the ceremonial area with Tivek beside me, both of us wearing the formal Drexian attire Serge had insisted upon.
The cameras were positioned, a holographic orchestra waited for their cue to begin the processional music, and Earth dignitaries and friends from the Academy filled rows of chairs.
“Is the bride ready?” Serge asked Reina when she hurried in from the hallway.
Reina’s smile was a bit too bright. “You could say that.”
I glanced toward the back of the ceremony space where Ariana waited to begin her walk down the aisle. Even from this distance, I could see the downcast set of her shoulders and the pinch of her brow. She and Sasha clearly hadn’t made up yet, and this wrapped my chest in another knot.
I tried to look appropriately excited for the cameras trained on me, but I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up the lies as they ate away at me.
Then, voices blared around us through hidden speakers, and my blood chilled.
It was Sasha’s voice, clear and determined: “I know you don’t like Deklyn.”
Her father’s gruff response: “It isn’t him I dislike.”
Tivek’s sharp intake of breath beside me confirmed what I was hearing wasn’t my imagination. Somehow, their private conversation outside the room was being broadcast into the ceremony space, carried by speakers meant to amplify wedding vows.
“It’s all Drexians, right? All aliens?”
Serge gasped and looked desperately toward the double doors, but Reina grabbed him by the back of his turquoise suit jacket, holding him in place as his feet pinwheeled in midair.
“You’re ruining the wedding of the century!” he cried.
But Reina pressed her lips together defiantly, and I knew that she and Sasha had orchestrated this. They’d set up the microphone, arranged for the broadcast, and turned what was supposed to be a private moment into a very public revelation.
The surrounding guests shifted uncomfortably as General Bowman’s xenophobic rant filled the space.
When he admitted Earth was “fine” before the Drexians revealed themselves, shocked murmurs rippled through the assembled crowd.
The Earth military officials looked mortified, while the Drexian delegation’s expressions hardened.
But it was what came next that sent true chaos through the ceremony space.
“So you’re the reason Earth didn’t allow a rescue? You’re the one who told the chancellor to veto it?”
The question hung in the air like an accusation, and I watched Chancellor Morrison’s face go pale as every eye in the room turned toward him.
General Bowman’s response was even worse than I’d feared: “You’re damn right I did. That simpleton will do anything I tell him. It was for the greater good.”
The ceremony space erupted. Chancellor Morrison shot to his feet, his face flushed with rage and humiliation. “How dare he?—?”
Earth officials turned to stare at each other in horror, while Drexian voices rose in angry mutters of “treason” and “despicable.” Admiral Zoran’s expression was thunderous as he stared daggers at the humans.
But all I could think about was Sasha. She was out there in that corridor, facing her father’s betrayal alone, and every instinct I possessed screamed at me to get to her.
Serge took in the disaster unfolding, shrieked, and then fainted dead away, his small form crumpling in a dramatic heap. Reina laid him across some empty chairs and followed me toward the back doors.
As fast as I was, Ariana was both closer and faster. She rammed through the doors, and I arrived behind her just in time to see her rear back and punch her father square in the face with enough force to knock the general backward.
“That’s for being a shit father and a traitor,” she snarled as she shook out her punching hand.
But I barely registered the man bleeding on the polished white floors because my entire focus was on Sasha. She was bent over, hands on her knees, her face pale. A bunch of flowers lay scattered at her feet, the colorful blooms trampled.
I rushed to her side just as her legs gave out, catching her before she could collapse completely. She fell against my chest with a broken sob, her entire body trembling.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered against her hair, wrapping my arms around her as she wept. “I’ve got you.”
The fury I felt toward the callous monster who could condemn his own daughter to months of torture for political gain was overwhelming. But my desperate need to protect Sasha from any more pain completely overshadowed it.
She’d gotten her truth and her proof, but the cost had been higher than either of us had imagined, and I wasn’t sure how we were going to survive the fallout.