The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (read novel full TXT) 📗

I thanked Jeff for taking care of a difficult job with efficiency and care. He left as silently as he had approached, and I turned back to Viggo, who by now was positively seething.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, his eyes blazing with anger. “Why would you accept their offer to join our cause?”

I blinked at him. “You and I both know we need people to help us fight. They came to us, remember?”

Viggo hissed out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter—she has a child, Violet! A child! What are we supposed to tell that child when he gets older?”

I stared at him, knowing this was also part of his way of dealing with the death we had witnessed today, but that it didn’t help. “We’ll tell him that when their country was in danger, his parents stood up to help take it back.”

When he didn’t respond, but clenched his teeth and looked away, I continued. “Look, I don’t have all the answers, Viggo, except this one: mothers are the ones who lose the worst in war. Especially when they aren’t allowed to fight!”

Viggo stared at me, his eyes whirling. Then he took a step back and turned to the window, resting his hands against it and taking several deep breaths, in and out. I left him alone for a few moments before wrapping my arms around his waist and resting my chest against his back, just like I had last night.

He didn’t pull away, which was a good sign. After a moment, he sighed and drew me around to face him, pulling me tight against him. “I’m sorry,” he breathed into my hair. “I-I’m losing it, huh?”

“No,” I whispered softly, reaching up to push a lock of his hair out of his eyes. “You’re not losing it. This… We never could have anticipated this. It’s awful. Beyond awful. But we have to take those twenty deaths and use the victory they gave us, Viggo. Or else we’re never going to come out on the other side of this in one piece.”

He nodded, pressing his cheek against the palm of my hand and staring at me. “I love you,” he said, and I smiled as a trill of unexpected pleasure coursed through me, making my breath catch in my throat.

“I love you too,” I replied.

His head dropped lower, and I tilted my chin up to him, my lips already parted in anticipation of his kiss. This one was different than the ones that had come before. It was so sweet and tender. Viggo kissed me as if he were afraid I would evaporate in his arms, with a gentle teasing that made me feel like he was savoring me—savoring us. I kissed him back, clinging tight against him, and savored him in return. We clung to each other, desperately needing an affirmation that we were still alive.

When the kiss ended, I remained holding him as he pressed us into the window. I knew he was gazing out of it, so I turned my head, curious as to what he was looking at.

“What?” I asked, snuggling in tighter to him.

His hands stroked my hair as he sighed. “It’s messed up, but at least we got something out of this horrible disaster.”

I looked up at him, my brows drawing together in confusion. Then I followed his gaze out onto the lawn, realization dawning as I took in the heloship that was still parked there. He was right—it was messed up—and I knew that both he and I would have returned the damn thing immediately if it meant we would get back the people who’d died. But that would never be an option.

We were growing desperate, and the heloship might represent a major advantage for us.

If we could find someone who knew how to pilot it.

28

Violet

Cans. They felt like my entire life now, and I had only been in the kitchen a little over three hours. Ashabee definitely had overly stocked pantries for one man living with a group of servants, but I was okay with it, seeing as we now had plenty of mouths to feed. My task for the day after the Matrian raid was half inventorying, half pre-packing, in preparation for our inevitable evacuation.

It was the one thing we could all agree on: we needed to leave sooner rather than later. How much sooner was anyone’s guess. We had killed over twenty women when all was said and done, and Tabitha, or whoever was in command, was going to notice an entire group going missing. I figured we had twenty-four to forty-eight hours before they showed up again, and I felt that was being optimistic.

But with the added concerns of our group of refugees/new rebels, the logistics of moving everyone were getting complicated—and we didn’t even know yet where we were going to move. I stowed several cans in one of the small wooden crates I had labeled ‘protein’ and slid it to the end of the counter. I had already piled several other such crates there, each marked clearly, and turned back to the pantry, eyeing the selection.

“I suppose it’s time for canned fruit,” I said aloud, and started pulling stacked cans off the shelf and placing them on the wide counter behind me.

“Seriously, why did you want this job?” came Owen’s voice from behind me. I jumped, slightly startled by his sudden appearance, and whirled, my hands balling up into fists. He winced and took a placating step back. “Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you.”

I took a deep breath. “Not your fault,” I said wearily. “My nerves are shot.”

“Mine, too,” Owen admitted, meeting my gaze. I could see in his eyes how much the collateral damage had affected him, too, and I wondered how he was coping with it.

All of us, not just Viggo, Ms. Dale, and… Henrik… had been deeply affected