The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

flashed to images of me moving up to her and kissing her so well that she dropped the sheet, and then taking her immediately back to bed so that I could have my way with her again. “Who knows? Probably threatened somebody or said something that made someone angry.”

I watched her move, a possessive smile on my face. “Maybe we got lucky and somebody hit him. I’m more than happy to pass that job on to somebody else.”

The look Violet shot me was half annoyance, half bemusement, and I grinned at her as she pulled some clothes out of her bag. I was surprised to see our things here—I had noticed pretty much nothing but Violet earlier in the night. Amber or Margot must have deposited the bags here before the ceremony so we wouldn’t have to worry about it later. It was a nice thought, and I made a mental note to thank them as I grudgingly got out of bed.

Violet cast me another look, her cheeks flushing, and I smiled to myself, caught up in the memory of last night. It had been… so incredibly worth the wait, but it was adorable how shy she was being. I wanted to tease her. I also wanted to ignore whatever drama Maxen was bringing us and drag her back to bed.

I wisely chose neither, and quickly got dressed. Violet was ready by the time I put my boots on, and I looked over and frowned at the pair of running sneakers she was wearing.

“Where are your boots?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I traded them for my wedding dress.”

“As much as I loved your wedding dress and how amazing you looked in it, you really need boots. You know you could’ve married me in anything and I would’ve loved it, right?”

Violet put her hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow. “I know that, but the dress felt important. Besides, the woman I was trading with really needed them. I’ll find another pair. I’m sure there’s a Matrian warden prisoner who is the same size as I am.”

I nodded, assuaged by her forethought, and finished tying mine. “I’m sorry,” I said, standing up and pulling her into my arms. “I just know that sneakers don’t stand up to the kind of stuff we do. Now let’s go tend to the errant, soon-to-be ex-king.”

She nodded and slipped her hand into mine, pulling us toward the door. We moved in comfortable silence to the conference room—the halls were pretty empty and everything was quiet—and a quick check of my watch told me it was nearly five-thirty in the morning. As if looking at my watch triggered it, a yawn caught me by surprise.

Violet looked over her shoulder at me, a knowing smile playing on her lips, and I resisted the urge to pull her off into one of the side closets and get us both thoroughly distracted. The effect she had on me was palpable—and it hadn’t gotten better since I’d actually gotten a taste of what loving her felt like. If anything, the urge was stronger than before.

The conference room was empty, but the remnants of the party remained. Violet made for what had once been the food table, letting go of my hand in the process, and Henrik looked up from whatever soft conversation he was having with Ms. Dale to wave at us.

“Get over here, you two. You’re who we’ve been waiting for.”

“What’d Maxen do?” I asked as I moved up to the table, ignoring the grins on Amber and Owen’s faces as I yawned again. Thomas sat at the table a few seats down from them, his eyes focused on his modified handheld, his posture tense and threatened, not having even looked up at our entrance.

“Well, for lack of a better word, he escaped,” Ms. Dale announced, her mouth tightening.

Thomas didn’t look up from his handheld. “With a heloship, several cases of guns and ammo, and—”

“Wait,” I said, interrupting him as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. Amber and Owen seemed to be having a joke at our expense, but now that I noticed it, Ms. Dale and Henrik’s faces were grim, tight. They could have gotten even less sleep than Violet and I had. “He took all of that?”

“He also stole several of my data chips with a few programs I was working on,” Thomas said, and I felt myself sliding into a chair at the table, too surprised to stand anymore.

“How?” asked Violet around a mouthful of stale bread she’d picked up from the table, rage simmering in her voice. “That man is a complete twit! How did he pull this off?”

There was a pause in which I could feel all the built-up resentment toward the man rising to a boiling point.

“He had help,” Ms. Dale said.

Ice flashed through my veins, quickly replaced by the rushing of a dangerous rage.

“Was it one of our—”

“No, not that,” Henrik said. “It was the Patrian wardens. One or more of them must have been gathering intelligence for him—studying our programs, the guard patterns, making a plan. From what I’ve seen, Maxen certainly couldn’t have thought this through on his own.”

“Do we know which ones—” I began to ask, but Ms. Dale cut me off.

“They all left with him,” she said, “so it hardly matters.”

I thought of Mark Travers—who had been so glad to see me—and anger churned in my belly.

“I was careless,” Thomas said, his voice low and dark, and I realized that the small man was also upset—he rarely showed so much emotion. “I carried on conversations about what I was developing with group members while some of the wardens were listening, instead of insisting they leave. I took a gamble. I thought it might increase their chances of trusting our command if it was clear we had superior technology.”

My head was beginning to ache at how much thought Thomas put into almost every action. Henrik waved the man off, and I was glad when he said,