AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Leon’s jaw clenched. “Traitor.”
“No evidence.”
“But you have a bad feeling.”
Joan nodded. “I do. I want to send Sebastian.”
Leon’s heart jumped, and a sensation skittered over his skin as though his entire body had been jolted by electricity just by the sound of that name. He shoved the excitement out of the way and internally scowled at his reaction. “Alright. When he gets back. What else do you have for me?”
“That’s it for now. I need to go see how my agents are settling in. We found the security room, so we’ll set up base there.”
“Good. I’ll be in the barracks.”
Joan left, and Leon took another few moments to stare down at the map and the red mark he had just made over Ralscoln. He shouldn’t have been the one to make that mark or to order their black flag hoisted over this building. He shouldn’t have been the one to claim the capital of Southern Tava for the Resistance.
It should have been the former owner of this map. It should have been Farlon.
And it should be Farlon that would stand on that balcony two doors down that looked out over the courtyard and announce their victory over the invaders…once it finally came.
Leon swallowed around the lump in his throat. But it hadn’t been, and it wouldn’t be, and it all fell on Leon now. And he was doing it.
He pulled his shoulders back and strode out of their new war room and into the grand hallway. The capitol building of Ralscoln, and indeed the entire city, was grand for what had once been a largely forgotten frontier city of the Human species state. It spoke to the pride of its inhabitants. Their pride in their sovereignty, and their ability, and their independence.
It had survived the Klah’Eel invasion and occupation, largely intact, and remained a symbol of the people who had been here before and were still here.
And it would survive the Resistance taking it back.
Leon surveyed it as he walked to the office wing they had converted into a barracks. The damage was cosmetic, not structural. As soon as they repelled the Klah’Eel’s attempts to retake the continent and established their independence on the intergalactic stage, Leon would make sure they poured resources into reestablishing this symbol.
Leon was ruminating on that day and what it would take to get there as he crossed the courtyard of the U-shaped building when he caught sight of a figure by the barricade entrance. He stopped short, as though a string attached to his chest had pulled taut at the sight of that figure and prevented him from going anywhere but toward it.
The physical body didn’t draw him in—Leon found the sight of the klah’eel former governor of Southern Tava repellent—but the way it moved. Leon would recognize that grace, that cocked hip, those rapidly moving hands, and that toss of the chin anywhere. They dragged him in like a moth to a flame.
* * *
“I’m afraid I don’t recognize you at all, klah’eel. You’ll have to leave if you don’t want a bullet in the face.”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Tucker, even you’re smart enough to recognize me.” Sebastian threw his hands in the air. “I am wearing the body of the former governor of this continent!”
Tucker sneered and shook his head. He raised his gun and pointed it directly at Sebastian’s chest. “Nope.”
Indignation easily topped any fear Sebastian might have had of the likes of Tucker, the racist foot soldier, and he stepped forward against the gun barrel and pointed it at his own face. “You’ve seriously never seen this face on any screen ever? Look closely.”
Jason, the second guard at the barricade, and a reasonable man, knocked Tucker’s barrel to point back at the ground. “Come off it, Tucker. You know it’s Sebastian.”
Tucker rounded on Jason. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. It still means I should put him on the business end of my gun.”
Sebastian slammed his hand into Tucker’s shoulder to force him to face him and realized with a cruel delight that there were benefits to inhabiting a giant klah’eel when you had problems with a human. That delight increased when he smelled Tucker’s sudden spike of fear through the governor’s nose. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing for the Resistance?”
“Do you have any idea what we’ve been doing?” Tucker recovered fast and jabbed his finger at the still-smoldering capitol building behind him. “We’ve been laying down our lives while you’ve been hiding and skulking.”
“Is that what you think I do?” Sebastian threw his hands wide.
Jason shoved Tucker. “No, of course not!”
“As far as I can tell, you’re a dangerous and useless worm waiting to turn on us!” Tucker shrugged off Jason without looking at him. “I have no idea what you do.”
Fury mounted in Sebastian’s chest, and he inhaled the smell of Tucker’s ever-present underlying fear of him and stalked toward him. “I’d be happy to show you if you—”
