by Reagan Woods
“Your female is here to see you,” Darvan interrupted with an impatient grunt.
He heaved a sigh of relief. It was about time Lara quit hiding in their cramped cabin. “My mate,” he corrected firmly. “What are you waiting for? Let her in.”
Darvan blacked out his screens, further proof that he didn’t trust Lara. Vank refused to let it bother him. He’d sworn allegiance to his brother, the General, years ago. There was no way he would abandon his post now.
It wasn’t lost on him that Lara took fire from all sides here. She was tough, he knew that, but something had to give. To think returning to Earth had been her biggest dream made him shake his head at the irony. The universe had a sick sense of humor.
Lara, golden hair scraped neatly back from her stunning face in a long braid, stepped into Darvan’s stark office. Every time Vank saw her his body tightened with need. Everything about her was sheer perfection from her fighting spirit to her generous heart.
It didn’t matter what Darvan or Arianna or Liania Rion and their ilk thought of his chosen. She had been designed by some genius as his ideal, and every night he worshiped her accordingly.
Rising, he offered her cheek a chaste peck. If he held her close longer than was appropriate, Darvan had the good manners not to comment. Her face flushed, and her eyes sparkled with life.
“Your timing is perfect. We were about to break for a meal.” It wasn’t, and they weren’t. However, he was delighted to see her looking so vibrant and would do whatever it took to keep her that way. “What brings you here?”
Her breathtaking smile, the first real smile he’d seen from her in weeks, was replaced by the image of a glowing tangle of psychic threads as she opened her mind to him. Three separate strands in the unruly knot pulsed with a blinding white light in his mind’s eye.
“What is that?” He asked aloud, focusing through the vision to her green eyes.
Vank knew Darvan was aware of Lara’s gifts. The General wasn’t receptive to her and what she could do, but Vank made sure Darvan understood Lara’s psychic talents were real and valuable. Just as he made sure Darvan understood that the bonding contract between Lara and himself was as valid as the one Darvan signed with Arianna.
Belatedly, Vank realized Lara’s sister had followed her into the office. He didn’t bother to hide his scowl when he saw her, but wisely refrained from comment.
Though Arianna was a new mother and blessed enough to bring not just one female child to a dwindling race but two, Vank didn’t admire her the way he’d always believed he would revere Darvan’s eventual mate. She was a shadow of the canny, tough pirate he’d mated. Frankly, he found her selfish and weak, and he hoped she hadn’t stalked Lara with the intention of upsetting her. General’s mate or not, he was at the end of his patience with that female.
“It’s a Seeker’s Web,” Lara answered, drawing his attention back to her. “Well, that’s what I’m calling it. Rather than sending out one beacon of energy to sweep for a single aura, I’ve figured out a way to weave a web and put it into the universe to sniff out multiple individuals at once.”
Unable to resist touching her, he rubbed a hand over the small of her back. “That’s brilliant.” Her psychic abilities had already surpassed his wildest hopes. Watching his amazing female evolve and bloom was a source of great pride and joy. “Er – what does it mean, though?”
Darvan pulled Arianna into his lap, whispering something in her ear that had her trilling a light giggle. The two were obviously in love. Seeing his cold, calculating brother so attentive and besotted was jarring. General Darvan D’Corian, terror of the known universe, was changing into someone Vank didn’t know. He could only hope that was a good thing.
“The three strands that are alerting have located their targets,” she explained, ignoring the byplay between Darvan and Arianna. If she sensed the direction of his wandering thoughts, she let it go.
Proving he paid attention, Darvan cut in, “Who have you found?”
“Your parents, for one.” She slipped a hand in Vank’s and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Vank felt her intention to share the vision with Darvan and wondered how he’d react. Darvan had been visibly shaken the last and only time Lara had shared her visions with him.
“Are they well?” Darvan wanted to know, his entire body bristling with intensity. His face was inscrutable as he absorbed what Lara showed him, but he emanated leashed power. Vank knew the General well enough to recognize the relief in his posture. Yet, something in his brother’s eyes made him believe there was more to the lack of reaction. Vank couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something but now wasn’t the time to confront Darvan.
“Their auras aren’t transmitting major distress, I know that much. I was out of energy when the web alerted, but, as soon as I’ve recharged, I’ll trace the strands back to the sources.”
His brother’s expression didn’t register comfort. In fact, Darvan smoothed Arianna’s silky blonde hair back with something akin to dread in his eyes. The pair shared a long look.
“I tethered the web to my aura, so I can monitor any changes,” Lara continued.
Arianna’s soft voice jumped in before he could voice his concern, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“I deemed it an acceptable risk,” Lara replied brusquely, back rigid.
Vank curled an arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Don’t get cocky, Little Pirate,” he whispered.
Her lips curled with easy confidence, and she leaned in to him. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise. My work here is done, so I won’t keep you from your plotting and planning. I knew you’d want to know what I saw.”
When she would have pulled away, Vank tightened his grip. “Stay awhile.”
“I was going to grab a workout,” she demurred, covertly straining to break his grip. He suspected she’d had enough of her broody sister and Darvan’s barely veiled distrust.
Darvan broke in, “Actually, Lara, we’re looking at plans to secure the camps on the Earth’s surface. Your – er - experience could come in handy. Arianna might be able to contribute as well. I’ll have food brought in and we can knock some of these things off our list of concerns. That is – if you don’t mind?” It wasn’t a resounding welcome, but Darvan was clearly trying to pull their little core group together.
“I’m happy to help, General,” Lara answered politely, clearly knowing one didn’t deny a direct request from the General.
Vank felt the tension in her body and silently vowed to massage her into a puddle tonight. Catching his thought, she arched a brow and murmured, “Damned right you will.”
Arianna
Darvan’s attempt to lessen the rift between her and Lara was obvious. More than once, he’d tried to get her to verbalize her issues, but Arianna resisted. The fact that Darvan didn’t approve her mistrust of Lara made her feel guilty. He had enough worries without adding unnecessary drama. Reports came in daily of VENTIX scout ships close to Earth. She was out of the day-to-day loop, but the rumblings of upcoming conflict were hard to miss.
“I really should check in with Pri,” she hesitated, torn between wanting to please him and the need to get back. “Two babies are a lot of work.”
“Com her,” Darvan insisted, his grip around her middle tightening to prevent her wiggling off his lap. Before she could protest, he snagged a nearby hover screen and opened a communication link to their cabin. “I feel like you haven’t been out of our suite in weeks.”
Priya Venkatesan, Ari’s friend, was watching the twins. “Stay as long as you like,” Pri encouraged, her dark eyes reflected deep contentment as she cuddled Rian close. “We’re having a lovely time. Aren’t we, girls?” She cooed, her attention moving off-camera where Ari knew she checked on Sari. “We’re all set.”
“That’s settled, then,” Darvan declared, tapping in an order to the galley.
While she and Darvan spoke with Pri, Vank and Lara sat, heads bent close, as they whispered and laughed. Their e
ase with one another, the way they seemed to click, allayed some of her fears. Perhaps if she’d taken the time to see it before, she wouldn’t have suspected the other female of using Vank to get close to the General.
That wasn’t entirely true. Arianna would forever be suspicious of strangers, but she did feel foolish. Maybe after they were done here they could find a moment to hash things out. The longer this awkwardness existed between them, the worse she felt.
With a start, she realized she hadn’t introduced Lara to the girls. Vank had been in to see them twice over the last few weeks, but he hadn’t stayed long, claiming a mother needed her rest. He wasn’t fooling anyone, though; he hated her.
Still, she wanted Lara to know her nieces. They needed fierce protectors. Lara was nothing if not fierce.
The food arrived. Vank passed out narra wraps while Darvan arranged data on-screen. “Let’s start here,” he began, gesturing to the diagram of a work camp. “We keep having shield failures. Dates and times are listed over there. I can’t help wondering if we haven’t ferreted out all the manufacturing defects or if there’s more to it.”
“Is this in any way related to the listening devices we keep finding?” Lara asked between bites of her wrap as her eyes busily scanned the information.
That gave Arianna pause. “Someone is spying on us? Why?” She turned a questioning gaze on her mate. What she really wanted to know was why this was the first she heard of it.
“Whoever it is wants to know what we know,” Darvan shrugged nonchalantly. Arianna recognized the gesture as an attempt to downplay the question. “Do you think it’s related?” He asked Lara in a neutral voice.
Frown lines formed between her eyes as she chewed her food. She glanced over at Vank as if asking permission to voice her thoughts.
He bobbed his head, eyebrow raised with interest. Clearly, he believed this was a valid line of thinking – not the rabbit hole it seemed to Arianna.
“The bugs I saw were short-range.” Lara gestured around the room. “They wouldn’t carry off this ship. Of course, they could have a relay somewhere…” She trailed off, considering. “But, if I were working a long con, something that required deep background, I’d have listening devices like those everywhere.”
“I’m confused as to how we got from the camp to spies,” Arianna admitted, deciding to hold her questions for Darvan until they were alone. “How are these things related?”
Lara’s smile was self-deprecating. “Perhaps they aren’t, but something about the situation triggered. New devices regularly pop up in place of old ones. Vank mentioned security hasn’t been able to catch anyone planting them.” Gesturing at the screen again, she continued, “It seems you’re having routine shield outages with no explanation, too.”
“What’s your point?” Darvan asked impatiently, barely beating Arianna to it.
“I’m working it out,” Lara tapped her temple with one finger as she continued to eat and read. “I see you fixed a manufacturing flaw in the crystals that generate the shields, but, a few months later, the shields began failing again.”
“This time, there were no major battles occurring,” Vank put in.
Lara nodded, turning to him. “Someone is probably entering and leaving the camp or camps at regular intervals. Could be smugglers.”
“Again,” Arianna broke in, frustrated. She wasn’t used to feeling like she had nothing to contribute. That, combined with her guilty conscience, made her crabby. “What does this have to do with listening devices on the Victory?”
Dusting her hands as she finished her food, Lara looked over and met her eyes. “Much like when Jorkan re-programmed your brain, this appears to be prearranged. That technology was available to him, so he used it, right? It caused all sorts of distraction and distressed your mate. In the end, it didn’t go as planned because he couldn’t retrieve you nor did you die – both options would have further obfuscated things.
“Let me finish.” Both hands came up to forestall comment, but Arianna was too busy choking on her narra to interrupt. It sounded as though her sister had somehow accessed the incident report or her medical records. That was both touching and disturbing.
“Whenever my crew pulled a job, we always had multiple options for mayhem, if you will. Distractions, misdirection, feints. If I had to guess, I would say no one is planting new bugs because the bugs are already there. The culprit or culprits probably activate dormant bugs remotely. It’s the same for the shields. If it were me, I’d have several ways into your system. I’d take the protective bubble down a different way each time. The flaw in the crystals points to a conspiracy that originated before you set out to conquer Earth. These people dug in for the duration and have multiple fail-safes to keep their operation running no matter what you do to counter.”
Darvan calmly wiped his mouth with a serviette. “That aligns with my theory. What can we do about it, though?”
“One option is to scrap your tech – I mean anything you brought with you – and work on using the infrastructure the Earthers left in place. Make sure your researchers improve it wherever they can with what is already available. Meanwhile, have tech people you trust go through everything you have with a fine-tooth comb. Whoever did all this can’t be perfect. There’s a mistake somewhere that will tell us who is behind this.”
Lara
Stalking down the blindingly white halls toward the gym, Lara tried to ignore her shadow. It was far easier said than done with Arianna’s emotional vortex trying to suck her in. A quick glimpse at her sister’s aura revealed an emotional storm twisting violently through her bodily energy the likes of which Lara had never seen. Why Arianna had chosen to tag along was beyond her.
“You know,” Lara began, stopping in the middle of the deserted corridor outside the physical training facility. “You don’t have to do this today.”
Arianna’s eyes narrowed to glittering green slits as she rested fisted hands on her hips. “Do what?”
Gesturing back and forth between them, Lara answered, “Patch this up. We’ve been incommunicado since Vank and I arrived nearly six weeks ago. You’ve had a lot on your plate and you don’t trust easily. Ditto for me. We can call a truce and arrange peace talks at some future date.”
The smaller female growled. Laughing at Arianna’s aggressive behavior wasn’t wise, but she couldn’t help herself. It was just too cute, like a fluffy little chihuahua trying to intimidate an alpha wolf.
Face red with temper, Arianna tapped a foot, clearly waiting for Lara to get her act together. “I’m sorry.” She swiped her eyes. “That was completely unexpected though. You used to do that when we were kids and I dribbled the soccer ball in circles around you while you tried to explain long division or some equally incomprehensible subject.”
“Wha-, I mean, how -.” Arianna’s mouth formed incoherent syllables. She sucked in an audible breath before trying again. “I guess I knew you were Belle, but it-it doesn’t seem real.”
Mouth firming into a hard line, Lara engaged in a brief internal debate, unintentionally mirroring her twin’s aggressive stance. She came to a difficult decision, but she knew it was right. “Belle is dead, Arianna. She, her hopes and dreams, all her naive innocence and wonder, died the day I was taken. If it helps you to think of me as Vank’s alien mate, do that. When you’re ready, we can address the rest. It’s not as though I have pleasant memories to relay.”
“I’ve heard stories here and there,” Arianna relaxed, moving to lean against the gleaming wall. “You’re an adventurer, a pirate, and you’re brave in the face of danger. Vank tells anyone who will listen how you fought for him and next to him.”
Lara grabbed the end of her braid, uncomfortable with the longing in Arianna’s voice. “I am who I had to become.”
“You’re tough,” Ari agreed with a nod, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. “You always were. I tried to be tough. It worked out in some ways and damaged me beyond repair in others.” She touched the side of her head
self-consciously before knotting her hands together in her lap. “And I’m a little jealous that we were exactly the same, genetically, I mean, but you were the special one, the psychic.”
Apparently, they were having this conversation now.
“That is puzzling,” Lara agreed, easing to the floor across the hall.
She chose not to comment further on Arianna’s head injury even though she was dying to know why her sister refused further treatment from the CORANOS medicals. She’d have to explain that she skimmed the information from Darvan at their initial meeting and that wouldn’t go over well. It hadn’t been her intention to hurt her sister when she brought it up in the General’s office, but clearly it had.
“I scanned your aura the moment I saw you. You aren’t even remotely gifted in that way. Not that you needed psychic abilities,” she hurried to add when she heard her own words. “You always figured things out quickly without a crutch.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch.” Arianna lifted tear-filled eyes. “It wasn’t right to take my fears out on you.”
Sensing that things could devolve, Lara pushed to her feet and offered Ari a hand. “Let’s table this, huh? You look wrung out.”
An electric hum buzzed in her ears as Ari’s hand locked with hers. “What was that?” She asked, eyes wide.
Lara pulled Ari to her feet, ignoring the jolt of guilty emotion that swirled into her from the contact. “It happens sometimes, but that isn’t important right now.”
Impulsively, she leaned down and hugged her long-lost sister. “God, I missed you.” It was a risk. Ari might reject her, but she would take this moment and hold on to it. The rest of their family was dead and they’d both been through unspeakable horrors. That they were together was a miracle.
Arianna didn’t reply, just hugged her tightly for a few moments before easing back. “Why don’t you and Vank come over to see the babies this evening?”