“Oh, this?” She posed like a fashion model, lifting her collar and shifting her weight to one hip. “Guess I’m an official L’eihr now. I’ll blend right in.”
“Aside from your skin, eyes, and hair, yes, you’ll blend right in.” He opened his arms and she rushed inside, locking their bodies together. “How’re your ribs?” he asked.
Resting her chin on his chest, she blinked up at him, smiling. “Hug me as hard as you can and we’ll find out.”
He cupped her cheek and kissed her softly before encasing her in his arms again and crushing her closer. Just when he thought there was no space between them, she found a spare molecule and eliminated it by returning the embrace with all her strength. His blood warmed, spreading the tingling heat through his veins until his whole core hummed with loving her.
Syrine made a mock retching noise, but he ignored it.
When Cara pulled back, she reached up and ruffled his hair. “With a little gel, you’d look like half the guys in school. You’re more human than me right now.”
“Which explains his asinine behavior,” Syrine retorted. “But don’t stop now. I’m sure you can mold him into the perfect companion.”
Cara’s fist tightened around his shirt, but she concealed her frustration, maintaining a blank expression as she turned to Syrine. “I don’t want to change Aelyx—I love him just the way he is.”
Syrine scoffed, her laugh so dry it tainted the air with the stink of loathing. “He doesn’t feel the same about you. Your kind disgusts him.” She raised her chin in contempt. “Did he tell you what we’ve done?”
“That’s enough!” He locked eyes with Syrine and delivered a stern warning. No more! She’s mine, and I won’t let you ruin her with your hate!
Ruin her? Syrine asked. Or ruin you? Afraid your sweet Elire won’t forgive you for what you’ve done?
Syrine had always been able to pinpoint Aelyx’s greatest fear, but this was the first time she’d ever tried to use it against him. Please don’t. He couldn’t hide his desperation. For the briefest of moments, Syrine’s resolve faltered, but in the end, her rage took control.
“You mean the water?” Cara said. “I already know about the contamination.”
Syrine turned and gave him a look of reproach. “Is there anything you haven’t told her? Thank the Mother I had the forethought to delete her site.”
“You shut down my blog?” Cara demanded.
Syrine ignored the question as a wicked grin curved her lips. “I’ll bet there are some things you didn’t share with our sweet Elire.” Then she practically sang, “Like the sh’alear.”
“What’s that?” Cara asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Syrine’s out of her mind with grief. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” He grabbed Cara’s hand and tried to lead her away. “Come on. I’ll take you to your room so you can rest.”
“Don’t do that.” She jerked free. “Don’t lie to me again. I can tell something’s going on.”
“Lie to you again?” Syrine gave a teasing tsk-tsk-tsk. He pleaded with her, but she blocked his thoughts. “What’s he told you?”
Instead of answering, Cara faced him and waited for several agonizing beats, offering him a chance to confess. He remembered what she’d said that morning, though it seemed a lifetime ago: We have to trust each other, or we’re no better than strangers. He shook his head, silently begging her to let it go.
Cara finally turned back to Syrine. “He said the exchange was a trial,” she told her. “That your leaders want us to intermarry because you’re missing emotional depth or something. They want humans to colonize L’eihr.”
“Wanted,” Syrine corrected. “Past tense, but yes, that’s right. What he didn’t mention is that our generation detests the idea.” She paused to curl her lip and scan Cara from head to toe in obvious disdain. “As if we need your inferior genetic material. So we sabotaged the experiment. Aelyx planned everything. The whole time he’s been living with you, he’s been killing your crops to incite panic so he could keep you and your foul race away from L’eihr.”
Cara released a humorless laugh as if the words were too ludicrous to believe, but when she glanced at him he could only gape at her in shame.
Slowly, her brows rose. “Is that true?”
“It started that way,” he admitted, taking her hand again, “but then I began to care for you, and I realized we couldn’t be together if the alliance failed, so I uprooted my sh’alear.”
“Wait.” Cara held one hand forward. “What’s that?”
“The sh’alear is a parasitic tree,” Syrine told her. “It robs the soil of nutrients and destroys most fruit-bearing vegetation until it’s uprooted. Aelyx showed us how to smuggle the seedlings to Earth and how to plant them. He said it would fuel human paranoia.”
“That’s why you kept going into the woods,” Cara said to him. “When did you pull it up?”
This was the worst part—the most damning. “A few days ago,” he said.
Cara shook her head and stared at him in silence. When she spoke again, the pain in her voice prickled his flesh. “So, up until three days ago, you were trying to make sure you’d never see me again?”
He didn’t have a response for that. How could he make her understand how conflicted he’d felt? How afraid he’d been that mankind would destroy his planet and his people?
Just look at the way humans had transformed Syrine from a compassionate healer into a black hole of malice.
“But I killed my seedling,” he objected. “And Eron tried to do the same.”
“Getting him murdered in the process!” Syrine shouted.
“He knew it was the right choice, long before we found out—” The alliance would save mankind.
“Oh, gods,” Syrine said, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “I forgot the best part! Without the alliance—and our technology—your planet’s as good as dead.”
Cara continued to shake her head absently. “They won’t help us unless the alliance goes through?” She glanced at him once again for a refusal he couldn’t provide.
“I didn’t know until a few days ago—I swear it on the Mother.” He couldn’t let her think for one second he’d plotted to destroy her people. As he explained how the growth particles had infected all of Earth’s major water sources, Cara’s chest rose and fell in shallow gasps.
“We’ve got ten years?” she whispered. “And L’eihr won’t help us?”
“But I fought to save the alliance as soon as I found out.”
“Oh, well, that makes it all right.” Cara freed her hands and backed away from him.
All his nightmares had ended in some variation of this—losing her once she learned the truth of what he’d done. But unlike the dreams, he wouldn’t stand frozen and watch her disappear from his life.
Giving her space, he held up his palms like a man in surrender. “Please listen. I was wrong, but as soon as I realized—”
“Stop.” She shut her eyes, sealing them tightly as if to block out reality. When she opened them again, tears spilled down her cheeks. “I sacrificed everything for you, and you were screwing over my whole planet the entire time.”
“Not the entire time.”
“Till three days ago!”
“But I love you. I showed you my feelings—you know they’re real.”
“And that’s why I can’t trust you.” She paused to drag her shirtsleeve beneath her nose. “Loving me didn’t stop you from lying or playing God. And now you expect me to fly away with you and leave everyone behind to die?”