He grinned, and it wasn’t a happy one. “Oh no. I’m not going to spill any of my secrets until I know one of yours. Why are you mad? Tell me. Make your skin glow with it. Show me.”

“I don’t want to glow.” I spat out the words at him, not caring if it hurt his feelings. For so long, glowing meant death. It was something I’d avoided at all costs, and I couldn’t be okay with glowing. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to go back to hiding.

Except I couldn’t.

Not anymore.

But letting go of the habits I’d developed to survive years in hiding wasn’t going to happen overnight. I had to take baby steps. He’d said that I should take time, but he was so pushy.

Lorne knelt in front of me. Seeing him, a powerful man, on his knees in front of me, did something to me. It made me want to give in to him.

“I’m Aunare,” he said. “I love seeing your skin glow. I want to see the patterns on your skin. I want to read your glyphs.”

He closed his eyes, and a second later I was blinking. The light was so bright, I could even see the outlines of the tattoos on his chest through his shirt.

“I want to know why you’re mad.”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know.”

“Please.” The word hummed and rolled through me.

I closed my eyes, but I could still see the glow. It felt safe and warm and like home, and that made me weak. So I gave him what he wanted.

“I’m mad for a lot of reasons.” I kept my eyes tightly shut. “I hate SpaceTech. Everything they’ve done makes me burn with anger. I hate how they’ve made me live. Scared. Hiding. Alone. We barely survived, and there were so many close calls. So many times when…”

I opened my eyes, and Lorne was still there. Glowing brightly as he listened to me. “That makes me angry. We did our best to make a life on Earth, but it was hard. Every second was tainted with fear that SpaceTech was seconds away from finding me. And then Jason did.” I needed to get up. I pushed Lorne away from me, and he moved so that I could get by.

I walked to the vidscreen and then spun back to him. He’d stood slowly, watching me from behind the desk.