Page 67 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

Grace

Smack!

The hard slap, damped by feathers, rang loudly in the room. Grace’s hand throbbed, aching from the force. Probably more than Vweet’s face. But she ignored it, clenching her fingers into a fist as she considered landing that across his cheek instead.

The male couldn’t look her in the eyes. His head remained turned from the force of the slap. He was looking down, his crest flattened to his head. He was the very picture of shame.

And it only served to make her angrier.

How dare he stand there and look pitiful after what he did? What he was still doing!

The room remained silent and tense as she glared at him, heart pounding, mouth dry. Hating her own helplessness. Hating this city. Hating Vweet and every judgmental, self-righteous farasie that populated this place.

Sway was gone. Run off into the wild jungles of a terraformed planet that was home to who knew what kind of creatures. Exiled by his own people.

And she had been kidnapped.

Admittedly, Grace didn’t feel particularly kidnapped. Shouldn’t she be tied up and locked down and terrified? That was how kidnappings always worked on TV, right?

But while she had been locked in a room at the headquarters, she hadn’t been tied up or mistreated.

The people were cold to her, and refused to touch her or meet her eye.

They were treating her like a pariah or a lepper.

But they gave her good food and clean water.

The bed was soft and warm. She had access to a clean bathroom.

She even had a window – though it was locked.

As far as prisons went, this really wasn’t a bad one.

But it was still a prison, and she had been locked in here while they waited to see if she had conceived with Sway.

That wasn’t possible. She had turned off her ovulation. The egg factory was offline, there was nothing to conceive.

But she wasn’t telling them that. It wasn’t any of their business, for one, but she also had a feeling it was the only thing keeping her safe right now.

The farasie were pacifists, however. They weren’t going to mistreat or abuse her – at least, not directly.

And especially if they thought she was carrying a farasie youngling.

For whatever faults that could be laid against them as a people, they at least didn’t believe in laying the sins of the father at the feet of the son.

But she didn’t think that courtesy would extend to her. Especially not now. She supposed a baby couldn’t be blamed for something they had no choice in, but a harlot could be blamed for laying with a criminal.

Honestly, she didn’t even mind that. She had chosen Sway. She wanted to be his mate. To follow him on his adventures throughout the universe. She was hitching her horse to his and if that meant she had to help pay for the crimes he’d committed, that was fine. She’d deal with it.

What angered her was the fact that they had separated them.

That, if she was pregnant, they were planning on ripping her baby straight from her arms – if they ever let her hold them at all.

Since she’d be laying an egg, she doubted it.

They’d probably steal the egg from her, have someone else incubate it, and she’d never know her own child.

And after she gave birth – or laid her egg – before her body even had a chance to heal, they were going to throw her out into the wild to be killed and devoured by the wildlife.

And then, they would have the absolute gall as to think themselves innocent because they hadn’t killed her themselves or ordered someone else to do it.

They were condemning her and her mate to death, kidnapping her child, and believing themselves righteous and free of blood for doing so.

She wished she was stronger so she could slap Vweet harder.

He brought her breakfast. A tray that was now sitting in a mess on the floor, half the food dripping down the walls from where it had struck after she knocked it out of his hands.

“You bastard ,” Grace hissed through her teeth, shaking with rage.

Vweet turned his head forward again, but he said nothing.

“Don’t you dare just stand there after what you did!” She snapped. “And what you’re planning to do! You dare to think you’re innocent after this?!”

“He’s a murderer,” Vweet said, but his voice was soft and strained. Like he was merely repeating a justification that had been told to him.

“And are you the police?” She slammed her fist against his chest. Hurting her hand again, but she needed it the dull pain. “Are you the peacekeepers?! What right do you have to punish him for anything, eh!?”

“This is our Song-”

“Oh, and did he murder someone here?! Did he?!” She whipped around, pacing up and down the room so she wouldn’t hit him again – and hurt herself further.

“That was not your right nor your responsibility. I’ll have you know, he’s already being watched by the peacekeepers.

He is out of Rik-Vane and living his life free with their blessing! ”

Vweet finally looked at her, surprised and confused. “They… But no. That’s not… They wouldn’t… He is a murderer!”

“But you are not his judge!” She whipped around to face him again, her face getting hot as her temper built higher. “And you certainly aren’t my judge. What great crime did I commit? Huh?! Who did I kill that you’re going to kill me ?!”

“We do not execute people,” he said quickly.

“Throwing a female, defenseless, unarmed, into the wild, probably still bleeding after just laying an egg, isn’t execution to you? You don’t consider that murder?! ”

“It’s-”

“Don’t answer that! I don’t care. To my people, to my way of thinking, it absolutely is murder!

And kidnapping. And cruel and unusual punishment to an innocent woman!

Because the only thing you have to condemn me is that my mate has been accused – not even tried or charged! Just accused! – of murder!”

He didn’t respond. Which she hated just as much – maybe even more – than if he had tried to argue his absolute bull crap case!

“Grace, you-”

She turned and grabbed the first thing at hand – a pillow from the bed – and threw it directly at his head.

It hit with a soft poof before tumbling to the floor with a plop.

It couldn’t have hurt, but he hunched his shoulders, hanging his head.

He dared to look like a beaten puppy, trying to pull at her heartstrings, and the fact that it was working only made her madder.

She turned to grab something else, but when she turned with the much heavier table lamp in hand, it was to see Veesway calmly stepping in the room. She hesitated then. Not because she didn’t also want to chunk something at his head, but only because of the hard look on his face.

Vweet felt guilty for the part he had played in separating her from Sway.

And, judging by how he reacted when their deception as first revealed – with surprise and confusion – Grace believed that he didn’t know.

And maybe that’s why it was easier to be angry with him.

She could attack that sense of guilt and maybe make something happen.

But there was no hesitation, no sense of guilt or shame, on Veesway’s face.

Grace hated that he shared part of Sway’s name.

She hated that resembled each other. She hated that this male, this father , would welcome his son home after thinking him dead only to immediately turn against him.

And sure, Grace had run from him once, but that was in the beginning.

Back before she knew him. Before she accepted him.

And she hadn’t been his literal father.

Her hand tightened around the slim body of the tower like lamp, but she didn’t throw it. However, he looked at the object, at the pillow, at the tray and the food dripping down the walls, and he made a disgusted face.

“I’m not surprised,” he said, his tone resigned and hard. “You are just like the rest of the barbaric, violent, backwards universe.”

“Says the man who just condemned his own son to death.”

“Exile.”

“Death in all but name,” she scoffed, looking down her nose at him. Quite a feat, since he was taller than her, but her mother’s training was finally coming in good for something.

Veesway was very obviously angered by her sense of self-righteousness. “Do you even understand what he did?”

“Do you? ” She countered, dropping the lamp and crossing her arms, hip popping out.

“I’ve read his file,” he said, with the strained horror of a male staring stoically into the abyss and very nearly being overwhelmed by it. “The things he was accused of… A delicate female like you-”

“Murder. Torture. Maiming. Yeah. I got it. They’re getting progressively less horrifying the more you throw them in my face.”

Veesway made a face. “Of course. You wouldn’t understand.

None of you outworlders would. Just how horrific what he did was.

To your people, it’s normal. Expected even.

But he is a farasie . He has a biological aversion to violence.

We pride ourselves on our peaceful ways.

On the fact that our history has no major wars in it. ”

“How did your people join the Coalition?”

Veesway hesitated, clearly unprepared for that particular question.

But he still answered it, probably because it caught him unprepared.

“The proper way, of course. Our people achieved space travel. We had detected signs of the Coalition long before we breached our solar system. And once we did, they extended an invitation that we gladly accepted.”

“Immediately?”

“Naturally.”

“Why?”

He was glaring at her now. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because you and your people have the very fortunate circumstances of never having to make the choices that he did.” Grace dropped her arms, staring him down.

“The farasie people come from the planet Hov Awee. A planet where you have no predators, where you are the natural top of the food chain, and where there is an abundance of food and space for all your people.”

“That has-”