Chapter 142: Her First Lightning Nectar

Nova wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Then hiccuped. The hiccup was involuntary and loud and broke the silence in a way that was almost funny and not funny at all.

Maverick hadn’t moved. His hands were flat on the table. His jaw was working in a rhythm that said every word Maria had just spoken was being filed, catalogued, and cross-referenced against a response that was building inside him like pressure behind a dam.

His eyes were on Nova. On her hands still trembling against her face. On the shoulder wrap that was visible where her cloak had shifted. On the burst vessel in her eye that was still fading pink.

Maria’s head snapped towards the bar where a server was passing with a tray of glowing blue drinks.

The privacy seal clicked off.

"Excuse me." She flagged the server with the authority of a woman whose evening had included a prison slab, sixteen criminal charges, and a brother whose jaw was doing things. "We will take two of those."

Two Lightning Nectars arrived on a hover tray, glowing blue and cold enough that condensation was already sliding down the glass. One for each.

Nova lifted hers. Took a sip.

Every taste bud she owned filed a resignation from reality. The liquid was cold and sweet and electric, a faint buzz that traveled from her tongue down her throat and settled in her chest like a small, happy detonation. It was the best thing she had ever put in her mouth and the competition included water bottles opened by Derek Thunderfang.

She looked at Maria and almost grinned. Almost. The grin was fighting past the red eyes and the hiccup residue and the fact that she had been crying thirty seconds ago, but it was there, pushing through like a weed through a crack.

Maria clapped. Both hands. Full commitment.

"Nova hasn’t had one of these yet and this is her first one and she has wanted one since she saw us drinking them on the hover yacht but kept being told no by everyone." She looked at Maverick. "The Master Healer took hers. Physically removed it from her hands. Then drank it in front of her. And she likes it, Mav. Look at her face."

"Are you Nova’s speaker?"

"Yes," Maria answered flatly. Zero hesitation. The tone of someone whose job title had been established weeks ago and the position was permanent.

Maverick tipped his chin at the bar. "I’ll take one."

His arrived. He lifted the glass. Took a sip. Set it down.

Nova leaned forward. Maria leaned forward. Two women on the edge of a booth waiting for a verdict from an Alpha who had just tasted a glowing blue drink for what appeared to be the first time.

"And?" Nova asked.

Maverick’s lips twitched. "It is adequate."

Maria looked at Nova. "That means he likes it."

Maverick set his glass down.

"The High Luna contacted me about selling Nova. Off market. Private transaction. She failed to mention she was also pressing charges against the same person she was trying to sell."

Nova and Maria both coughed on their Lightning Nectars at the same time, the synchronized splutter of two women whose drinks had just gone down the wrong pipe for identical reasons.

"Selling her?" Maria wiped her mouth. "To you?"

"Yes."

Nova’s face went red. Her fingers tightened around the glass. "Before D-Derek went into..."

"Yesterday morning. I don’t know the exact timeline on when Derek lost consciousness, but the first mention of his condition came in that same transmission. The High Luna made it seem like Derek didn’t care about the arrangement. Like he had lost interest." He paused. "I saw that as a red flag. Based on your reactions, neither of you were aware of any of this."

"You would be correct," Maria answered. She looked at her brother. Then at Nova. Then back at her brother. "Are you going to buy her? Derek’s in a coma. You could."

Nova’s eyes were going red again. The sting was immediate and familiar and she hated how fast it arrived because the quota for crying had been exceeded so many times the quota itself had quit. But the thought of that broke her heart.

Maverick’s jaw was working. He looked at Nova for a long moment, the kind of moment that had weight and temperature and lived in the space between what he wanted to say and what he was going to say.

"I am not going to let you be charged for something you didn’t do, Nova." His voice was steady. "Sorry, but no. Derek isn’t here to defend you to his own keep and family." He exhaled once. "That shouldn’t be a sentence. But it is."

Maria dragged a hand down her face, identical to how Maverick did it, the genetic gesture passing between siblings with the unconscious accuracy of two people raised in the same house by the same father.

"The High Luna wouldn’t have made an offer without the Alpha’s knowledge, right?" Maria asked, dropping her voice. "But I have a hard time believing he would sell his brother’s mate. Celeste is getting on his nerves. She fake fainted in the courtyard and he put her in an ambulance and told them to drive."

"He put her in an ambulance?" Maverick repeated.

"Yes. Physically. Picked her up, placed her inside, tapped the roof twice, and said ’take her to the emergency room, now.’ While she was screaming. It was incredible."

Nova’s glass was sweating against her fingers. She looked down at it, then up at Maverick.

"I don’t think Alpha Thunderfang would sell me." Her voice cracked on the sentence because saying it out loud required believing it and believing it required ignoring every cold shoulder, every time he refused to look at her, every time he called her ’the slave’ or ’7709’ in front of his own keep. "The attack on the courtyard. They demanded me and he didn’t hand me over."

The words left her mouth and sat on the table between three people who all understood that the sentence was true and also that it was the lowest possible bar for decency and the fact that it qualified as evidence of goodwill said everything about how the last few days had gone.

"He also had ice packs for me and wrapped my shoulder last night. He started using my name."

Nova left off the part where he told her to go back to his chambers. That detail would make it sound like something it wasn’t.

"He’s probably stepping in for Derek, Nova. Or to make sure you are sellable," Maria said. "I hope I’m wrong on that second part."