Close Liaisons (The Krinar Chronicles 1)

“How could I not know, Mia?” he said softly. “Did you honestly think that I wouldn’t realize what was taking place under my own roof? That I wouldn’t know that the woman I slept with every night was working with my enemies?”

“Wh-what are you saying?” she whispered, her brain working agonizingly slowly. “Y-you knew all along?”

He smiled bitterly. “Of course. From the moment they approached you and you agreed to spy for them, I knew.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t understand. You knew and you let me do it anyway?”

“It was your choice, Mia. You could’ve said no. You could’ve refused them. And even after you agreed – at any point, you could’ve told me the truth, warned me. Even last night – you could’ve still told me. But you chose to lie to me, to the very end.” His voice was oddly calm and remote, and that bitter expression still twisted his lips.

“But . . . but you knew –” Mia couldn’t process that part, couldn’t understand what he was telling her.

“I did,” he said, reaching out to pick up a lock of her hair. “I knew, and I let things unfold as they will. It wasn’t part of my original plan; it wasn’t why I was in New York. I wanted to find and capture one of their leaders, to extract the identities of the traitors you saw today. But when you chose to betray me, I knew that a rare opportunity had presented itself – that we could strike a blow to the Resistance from which they would never recover . . . and I could catch the traitors in the process.”

He paused, playing with her hair, twisting and untwisting the strand around his fingers. Mia stared at him, hypnotized, feeling like a rabbit caught by a snake.

“And so I played along. I gave you every chance to succeed in your treacherous mission – and you did. You turned out to be resourceful and clever, quite inventive really.” His eyes took on a familiar golden gleam. “That night when you stole my designs was . . . memorable, to say the least. I very much enjoyed it.”

Mia swallowed, beginning to realize where he was leading. “Y-you planted fake designs,” she whispered, a searing agony spreading through her chest.

He nodded, a small triumphant smile curving his lips. “I did. I gave them just enough rope so they could hang themselves with it. They learned how to disable the shields, but not how to keep them disabled. The weapon they were relying on wouldn’t have functioned properly; I had designed it to work under testing conditions but not when it was really deployed. And I let them have a few minor weapons, so they could do some damage and get caught red-handed trying to escape . . . like the cowards that they really are. I knew that they would trust you when you brought them the designs – because you had already given them enough real information by that point.”

“So you used me,” said Mia quietly, feeling like she was suffocating. The pain was indescribable, even though logically she knew she had no right to feel this way.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he said astutely, a savage smile on his face. “It hurts to be the one used, the one betrayed . . . doesn’t it?”

“Was any of it real?” asked Mia bitterly. “Or was the whole thing a lie? Did you set it all up, right down to our meeting in the park?”

“Oh, it was real, all right,” he said softly, now stroking the edge of her ear. “From the moment I saw you, I knew that I wanted you – more than anyone I’ve wanted in a very long time. And I grew to care about you, even though I knew it was foolish. With time, I hoped that you would feel the same way about me, that if I showed you how good it could be between us, you would realize what you were doing, the mistake that you were making. And you were close, I know . . . Yet you still betrayed me in the end, not caring what happened, whether I would live or die –”

“No!” interrupted Mia, her eyes burning with a fresh set of tears. “That’s not true! They promised me . . . they promised you’d be all right, that they would give you safe passage back home –”

“Back to Krina?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. “Where I would be out of your life forever? And how would they have ensured that I stayed there?”

Mia could only stare at him. Somehow that thought had never crossed her mind. In the background, virtual Korum left the room, and so did the soldiers with their prisoners in tow.

He gave a short, harsh laugh. “I see. That never occurred to you, did it? That deportation was a temporary solution at best? No, the traitors would’ve never deported me . . . I am

too dangerous in their eyes because I have both the desire and the means to return to Earth with reinforcements – and that’s the last thing they would want.”

Mia felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She hadn’t known . . . They’d lied to her. She couldn’t have gone through with it, couldn’t have done it knowing that he would be killed in the process. She had to convince him of that. “Korum,” she said desperately, “I didn’t know, I swear –”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Even if you didn’t mean for me to get killed, you still had every intention of exiling me from your life forever, you still betrayed me . . . and that’s not something I can forgive easily.”

“So what now?” asked Mia wearily. She was beginning to feel numb, and she welcomed the sensation, as it took the edge off her terror and pain. “Are you going to kill me?”

He stared at her, his gaze turning a colder yellow. “Kill you? Did you listen to anything I said in the last ten minutes?”

He wasn’t going to kill her? The numbness spread, and she could only look at him, unable to feel anything more than a vague sense of relief.

At her lack of reply, he said slowly, “No, Mia. I’m not going to kill you. I’ve already told you that before. I’m not the unfeeling monster you persist in thinking me to be.”

Getting up in one lithe motion, Korum waved his hand, and Mia shut her eyes, seeing the virtual world dissolving around her. When she opened them again, she was sitting on the floor of Korum’s office, against the wall, still hugging her knees to her chest.

Bending down, he offered her his hand. Her fingers trembling, Mia placed her hand in his, allowing him to help her up. To her embarrassment, her legs were shaking, and she swayed slightly. Letting out a sigh, he caught her, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her out of the office.

“Where are you taking me?” asked Mia in confusion, disoriented after the recent reality shift. Oh God, surely he wasn’t thinking of having sex right now; she didn’t think she could bear that kind of intimacy after everything that happened.

“To the kitchen,” Korum replied, walking swiftly. Before she could ask him why, they were there, and he was setting her down on one of the chairs. Mia blinked up at him, too drained to attempt to understand his inexplicable behavior.