The Taming: Book 3 in the Tribe Warrior Series by Imogen Keeper (romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

“I would love you,” he said, so confident and sure she almost believed it.

“You’d know that it wasn’t real.”

“It would feel real. Does it matter if it isn’t?” he rasped.

“It would matter. Have you ever known someone who made your whole body come alive? Like it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, just sitting around, fighting, anything, it doesn’t matter. It’s like the world’s just bright.”

The hard muscles of his forearm tightened under her fingers, and the shadows in the corners of his lips deepened. “No.”

“Neither had I. Until I met him.” She squeezed his arm, and they passed into a room where men shouted at tiny green holographic ball players who raced along the wall.

He nodded at a fellow officer, slapped another on the back, and she got the impression he was weighing her words. “You love the Vestige that way? TaKarian?”

The hollowness in her chest grew. “I do.”

“Why did you leave?”

“To save his life.”

Those bold blue eyes settled on her, and she had the discomfiting feeling that he was seeing more than she’d have liked. “Your friend Malina asked me to make sure you see something.”

He went to the wall beside the control for the sports holo. He pressed a button, and the little green men disappeared. Childers, Argentus’s most famous reporter, appeared, smiling impishly, his shiny white hair flashing.

The on-planet feeds were so realistic, the only sign he wasn’t real was the light that came off of him.

He smiled and spoke, and it took Klym a minute to realize he was talking about her.

“And she claims that she wasn’t abducted at all. Rather, that she went willingly to Vesta, and even that she fell in love with the man who took her there.” He winked at the screen. “But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.”

He disappeared, and in his place stood a holo of Klym herself, dressed in the white and gold pants and belled shoes, overlooking the cliffs. She barely recognized herself, though she’d edited this image herself. Staria had held the holo-cam. The holo-Klym smiled, and her belly clenched.

The holo version of herself spoke, and Klym closed her eyes with shame. A hand slid into hers, a soft, slender hand. Staria.

“Did you do this?” she whispered, unable to open her eyes and see Staria’s face.

“No,” Staria said.

Klym squeezed her hand back.

She opened her eyes and stared as the reel they’d created on Vesta played out on Argentus. The pink galaxy, Tor sleeping in the escape pod, the shaking, rattling landing on Araa-Ara, the waterfalls and dust, the furry trees.

When Tor appeared on the holo, his broad shoulders, the dimple, his dark eyes with their pearly orbs, and the look on his face, she bit down on her tongue so hard she tasted blood. It was them in the bathing chamber after they’d fought. In the holo, he dragged his thumb along her ankle. She couldn’t look away. It was like watching herself fall in love, and staring at Tor’s beautiful, mesmerizing face, it was hard to even blame herself.

“I’m not used to women like you,” he said, gruff and quiet and so uncharacteristically soft.

It snapped to Frigorria, to the one Tor had taken himself, his arm around her, while he laughed, white teeth and dimples and his hair, and the way his throat moved.

She knew exactly how it felt to stand with him and have his arm around her, the hot and heavy weight of it. That was before he’d taken her to Vesta, but he’d already known he was going to.

Then they’d landed on Vesta, and the reel sped up. Laughter, and dancing and food, the gardens, the city, an endless whirl of the beauty of a planet now denied her. And Tor. In almost every one of the films, there he was, larger than life, glowing and smiling and laughing—how had she not noticed how much he laughed?

In almost every image, he wasn’t looking at the holo-cam, his gaze was just beyond it. He was looking at her.

“I can’t watch this,” she whispered, and tried to pull away.

Staria held her still with a hard hand on her upper arm.

The holo changed. Tor was there—but he wasn’t laughing. His face was murderous, his body rigid, his hand wrapped tight around Miannya.

Pijuan was there too, his holo smaller, set back, his shoulders narrowed. “Ten thousand yenna to anyone with proof that the selissa was a fraud.”

Her hands were shaking, so she clasped them together. No wonder Tor looked so angry. He had to have been humiliated. Was this after she’d left?

At the back of the feed, the faces in the crowd parted, someone stepped forward. Kiava. “I knew her. I spoke with her.”

Klym put her hand over her mouth.

On the holo, people stepped forward. Their words were silenced, but whatever they’d said, it had been in her defense. Her heart soared. The felanas hadn’t hated her in the end. They’d stood up for her.

Spiro glanced down at her, face unreadable.

The holo came back to Tor, staring hard at the holo-cam feed.

Klym’s breath hitched. It was like he was staring right at her now, and it hit her like a punch in the gut.

Janna spoke from offscreen. Klym knew her voice well. “She loves him. She does. She told me.”

Tor’s nostrils flared. The wind blew loose strands of his hair around an angry jaw, and still he stared hard at the holo-cam.

“I was there when he found out she was missing in the riots,” said a man’s brittle voice offscreen. “He loves her too.”

Holo-Tor closed his eyes tight in the whipping wind, and Klym’s throat clenched.

He opened his eyes, staring at the holo-cam. “I love her.”

The feed ended, and Tor disappeared.

Childers came back on, chattering about Klym and Spiro and Spiro’s brother and his connection to Triannon.

Everyone in the hall stared at her.

Klym’s heart thundered. Her grip on Staria’s hand was so tight it must have hurt, but Staria didn’t say a thing. “How did you get that?”

Spiro’s boots shifted on the