Romy looked down the weapon to its owner: Officer Lucas Cayne.

The safety was clicked back on and Romy exhaled in relief.

“What are you doing here?” the soldier asked suspiciously.

This was it. Romy was about to put on the performance of her life. “My knot,” she started. At least she didn’t have to fake the trembling in her voice. “I’m ready to tell you.”

The soldier grabbed her upper arm and dragged her into his room. Romy scrunched her nose at the smell and disarray of his quarters.

“Tell me.” His eyes gleamed.

Romy frowned. “Don’t you already know?”

She caught the hasty rearrangement of his features.

She’d forgotten how tall he was. What was she thinking?!

“I want to hear it from your own lips,” he hedged.

Romy squeezed her eyes together, both to perform and to collect her wits. “We didn’t come here for research.”

He circled her, his eyes glinting.

Keep him talking. Where should she aim? The jaw? She saw a solid-looking object weighing down some papers on his desk next to a knife.

“You’re wasting my time, darlin’.” The soldier advanced on her, hand raised to strike her.

She used the opportunity to step closer to the desk. “We crashed here,” she blurted. “Weeks ago, after a battle with the Critamal.”

She relaxed a second later when the blow didn’t connect.

Oil dripped from the expression on Lucas’s face. Romy tried to contain her shiver, but couldn’t. If anything, his eyes lit at the sight of her shuddering.

He was close.

“You’ll tell me everything you know,” he said. “And I want something else, too . . . since you kept me waiting.”

Romy widened her eyes. It wasn’t hard—fear gripped her tightly in its claws. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Lucas turned away and she blindly searched behind her for the weight, brushing over papers. Her breath halted in her throat as her fingers closed on the cool surface. Romy brought it behind her back, wrist brushing against the hilt of the knife there.

The Mandate’s spy faced her.

She met his gaze. “I’ll do anything to save my knot.”

He circled towards her slowly. Nearly close enough. “Yes. You will.” Lucas wet his lips without breaking his stare for a second. “A virgin, I bet.”

He spoke from behind her. “I want payment now. The first payment. I can assure you there will have to be many to keep a secret of this size.”

Phobos and Deimos should have returned by now. She hoped they guessed she was in here. Though if Romy screamed for help, they were all dead anyway.

Just one more step.

She turned her face away, adopting a scared voice. “Okay. B-but you won’t tell anyone? You won’t tell the Mandate?”