Yes. She was right. I’d been in that building, sneaked right past her. I couldn’t hold her gaze. I wasn’t a great liar anyway. About this, I wasn’t even going to try.
“Who helped you?” she asked. “Who gave you the NPU? Who got you on board that ship?”
Kiel spoke to her, but he was looking at me, his hand wrapped around the back of my neck in a blatant display of ownership I didn’t have the heart to reject at the moment. He was the only pseudo-friendly person in the room. The feel of his hand was reassuring, and very possessive. “She also arrived with full battle armor with life support capabilities.”
The warden whistled. “You’ve got rich friends.”
I shook my head. “They’re not my friends. They just really want this story.”
“What story?” Warden Egara asked.
Well, this was one part of the truth I could tell them. “They think this place is a prison and that our troops are being sent up here to be some kind of alien slaves. They sent me here to sneak around, take video and write an exposé on this prison planet and the horrible war crimes our troops are suffering.”
The governor cleared his throat. “That’s ridiculous. It’s Earth who refuses to accept her own warriors once they’ve been contaminated. They are here because they are denied permission to return home.”
“What?” I spun around to look at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Rachel rubbed her temples with both hands. “Good God. What a joke.” She looked up at the warden. “We’ll find out who sent her here and get the information back to you.”
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting.” The warden nodded once more, scowled at me like I’d just killed her puppy, and the screen want blank.
But Rachel wasn’t done with me. She spun on her heel, her eyes flashing. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Who betrayed us on Earth? Who sent you here?” Maxim demanded.
“I’m a reporter. I’m sorry. I can’t reveal my sources.” It was weak. Lame. If they wanted to torture me, beat the truth out of me, they could try. All I cared about now was getting back to Wyatt. I had enough of a story from what they were saying to know that the Colony had a public relations problem on Earth more than anything sinister going on here. At least, if I believed what was being said around me. Which I did.
“All right. If you want to share the truth about the Colony, then we will give you the truth. Not the blatant lies being spread on Earth.” Maxim looked down on me with a new expression on his face. I didn’t know these aliens, and I couldn’t read his expression well enough to know what he was thinking, but he didn’t seem angry, so that was a bonus. “Kiel, give her recording equipment and take her on a tour of the base. Find the warriors from Earth and allow her to speak to them, learn their stories. Take your video footage. Look around, female. See the truth. Then we will send you home.”
“What?” Rachel screeched as Kiel protested.
“No. She will stay.”
I was already shaking my head slowly, over and over. No. No. No. I couldn’t stay. I held Maxim’s dark gaze, as he seemed to be the only sane person in the room at the moment. “I can’t stay.”
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t let her go home, Maxim. God only knows what kind of lies she’ll feed the press. We’ll never get any mates to come here if she has her way.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
My protest was lost on deaf ears as Kiel’s angry voice filled the room. “She must remain on the Colony.”
Maxim’s eyes narrowed as he considered Kiel’s words, but I was still moving my head from side to side, unrelenting. “I have to go back to Earth. I’m not staying.” I glanced back and saw raw fury and open pain in Kiel’s eyes. The sight nearly broke me, but I had Wyatt. No matter how amazing, wonderful and sexy Kiel was, no matter how smoking hot his kiss, no matter the mind-shattering orgasms he gave me…I had to get back to my son. “I can’t stay here.”
Maxim spoke. “She is not part of the Interstellar Brides Program. She does not belong to the Coalition. She is not contaminated. If she does not wish to remain, we must send her home. Coalition protocol demands her safe return to her home planet.” Maxim’s words were like a death knell in the room and he cleared his throat, clearly unhappy. “Via transport this time. Am I understood?”
Rachel lifted her hand to her neck as if something pained her and her skin paled, as if she were about to faint.
But Maxim was talking to me, so I nodded, relieved that I wasn’t going to be kept a prisoner on this strange planet. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“We will give you the access you traveled so far for. So you may see the truth. Hear it. You will return to the Miami transport station, where I am quite sure Warden Egara will want to have a word with you.”
“Okay.” Whatever. I wasn’t a prisoner here. I wouldn’t be a prisoner once I got home, either. The warden wouldn’t be able to stop me from getting to my son.
It was my turn to clear my throat, fighting back tears at the idea of leaving Kiel behind. “When can I go home?”
Maxim studied me another moment as I ignored everyone and everything else in the room. “How much time do you need to gather information for your report?”
I had no idea, but not long. “A day. Maybe two.”