Exposed [Book 4 in the Expiring Series]

50 Interplanetary

Jonas~~

         It's in that small ray of light that shrinks as the intruder closes the door that Iris makes the first move. She flings her dagger through the air, striking him in the shoulder, and he lets out a cry. Stumbling back, he hits the door, and, against the force of his body, the door slams shut, cloaking the room in a sheet of darkness.

As I step out from behind the bed, gun stretched out before me, I hear Iris flick the lamp behind me on a mere second before light halos the room.

The man pants as he yanks the dagger out and tosses it to the floor, blood streaking both the tile and his clothes. Gritting his teeth, he covers the wound with his hand.

Though I don't see any weapons on him, it doesn't mean he doesn't have them hidden somewhere in his clothes. They're the same he wore earlier. How did he get past Percy?

Iris steps beside me, a gun now in her hands and raised before her. "Are you going to introduce yourself?"

The man looks at us, and Iris sucks in a sharp breath as unease spreads up my neck and down my arms.

His eyes are a dark brown.

"You're human." I lower the gun an inch. "I know you."

Iris snaps her head toward me, gaze piercing. "What?"

I take one single step toward him. We haven't met but that doesn't mean I haven't heard about him. Blood seeps around the pale white fingers of the hand he presses to his shirt. "Ean Moretti." The Beta of Borilia's son."

"How is he human?"

Ean rolls those brown eyes. "I was adopted of course."

Iris raises her brows. "From Elleany?"

He lets out a harsh laugh before looking at me. "That would have been easier, wouldn't it?" He braces a hand against the wall and inches along it in the direction of the bathroom.

"Jonas?"

"Beta Moretti got it in his head that he wanted a child from Earth and came to my father. He took him to orphanages across Elleany." I hesitate. "Yours was one of the ones he visited."

"Was I there at . . ."

"From what I've learned yes."

She looks as if she's going to be sick. At the time my father had no idea what her orphanage really was. Otherwise, he would have destroyed it much sooner.

I keep my gun trained on Ean as he pushes open the door to bathroom and flicks the light on.

"My father was convinced he would know who was "destined" to be his child when he saw them." Ean opens a drawer, I imagine, looking for something to patch his wound. "When he saw me, he said I looked like his father as a child."

"Where are you from if not Elleany?"

"A country called Japan. Have you heard of it?"

"Yes." She keeps her gun raised as she draws closer to the bathroom. "And let me guess, Jonas, your father helped his forge the needed documents and everything else?"

I shift my weight between my feet, not looking at her. "Correct."

Ean finds a roll of gauze and yanks down the side of his shirt, revealing his shoulder and the knife wound Iris inflicted.

"How do you think my cousin will react when he learns you've been trying to kill us?"

Thick gauze in hand, Ean wavers before applying it to the wound. "I haven't been trying to kill you."