Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1)

by Melonie Purcell

  She set the glass on the counter near the converter as they passed, and pushed ahead to swipe open the door at the far end. The room was small, but well equipped. It had a sink with a mirror and a small door that opened to reveal the waste area. On the other side was a glass box that held the steam jets.

  As soon as Nevvis left, Taymar peeled away her clothes and stared in amazement at the lines of grime that were suddenly visible. She sniffed herself. Maybe she did stink, after all. The shower box was tiny, barely big enough to raise her arms up over her head without elbowing the sides as she pulled the cap down over her hair. Engaging the cap activated the jets, and hot, moist mist came shooting out of the walls in every direction. The swirl of blood and dirt collecting on the floor was quickly lost as steam filled the small space like a warm blanket. Her muscles loosened one by one, and she leaned against the wall in ecstasy while the hair cap apparatus pushed and pulled, massaging her scalp.

  Too soon, the jets stopped. She could have stayed in there all day, but the program had a time limit, and hers was up. After allowing the air jets to dry her, Taymar reluctantly left the box much cleaner, but twice as exhausted. Sitting on the counter where her clothes had been was a long-sleeve shirt that certainly didn’t belong to her. She picked it up and sniffed it. Nevvis. Although she hadn’t been looking forward to putting on her dirty clothes, not having the choice wasn’t acceptable.

  The material kept sticking to her still-damp skin as she wrestled with the tunic, and Taymar was ready to murder him by the time she finally swiped open the door. “Where are my clothes?” she demanded to the empty room. Cold air hit her legs and she paused. Nevvis was taller than she was by far, but the shirt was still only a shirt. It barely came down to her mid-thigh. Not. Acceptable. she sent with as much force as she dared use with him.

  “I already disposed of them,” he said as he rounded the corner with a change of clothes in his hand. “I’ll get you some new things tomorrow. There wasn’t much left of the others, anyhow. Besides,” he added, stopping in front of her, “my shirt looks rather flattering on you, and your clothes smelled particularly bad. Do they not wash on Daryus?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, which was good, because she didn’t have one. He just scooted around her and swiped open the door, releasing the last bits of lingering steam. “Now listen,” he said from the doorway. “I’ve already had my fill of Taymar pandemonium. Just order some dinner from the converter and eat it. I’m way too tired to be even a little bit tolerant. Do you need anything from in here? Because, unlike you, I plan on locking the door.”

  “Unless you are putting up a dinisolate field, a locked door won’t help you. Is there anything in there to comb my hair with? It’s still wet. And a towel.”

  Nevvis stared down at her, his aggravation as clear in his expression as it was in his presence in her mind. He was right at the edge, just where she liked to keep him. She grabbed her sopping hair in her fist and gave it a shake, spraying water across the room. “Dripping here. In need of a towel.”

  His chest rose and fell as he sucked in a long, slow, calming breath before retreating into the room. A small black towel flew out. Taymar caught it and was wrapping it around her soaked hair when a hairbrush shot out of the opened door with way too much speed to have been tossed. Taymar teked it to a stop an arm’s length from her face and held it there as the door slid closed and clicked. she sent before heading to the converter, the hairbrush in tow.

  The converter was a much simpler version of the one in Nevvis’s house. Like the Drani version, it offered a series of menu options on the viewer that helped narrow down the food choices. However, unlike Nevvis’s, it seemed to have only nine or ten variations on the same food theme. Since food was food, Taymar punched a few buttons at random and set about yanking the brush through her tangled hair as the converter worked its magic. She was mid-braid when it announced its success with three beeps. She ignored it. Braid in one hand, she started digging through drawers instead.

  “What are you doing?” Nevvis asked.

  “Looking for something to tie my hair with.” She swiped the opening on the drawer beside the bed, but it ignored her. She tried again. The converter sounded off behind her, but the drawer only blinked orange. He had locked it, which meant his laser key was in there. She glanced over at the main entry. A tiny box blinked above the door. He had set a dinisolate field. The skall had set the field. The converter beeped twice, but stopped shy of the third beep. Nevvis had shut it off. She stood and faced him.

  His tawny yellow hair was finger-combed and fell haphazardly just to his ears. Long, for a Dran. Among Arleles, long hair was a sign of confidence. If you could hold your own in a fight, long hair wasn’t a liability. Dran didn’t bother with such things. Not usually. He looked good. He always looked good. His loose brown pants and tan tunic did nothing to hide his rock-hard body. Amber eyes followed her movement with wary alertness, but his expression remained casual. Bored, even. Nobody that knew him was fooled by it, though, and she was not the exception.

  He reached up and pulled away the towel that had been draped over the back of his neck. She would be hard-pressed to twist it tight enough to do damage before he tagged her, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Good-looking and smart. An unfortunate combination.

  She watched him watching her for another few heartbeats before he finally spoke. “Did you really think I was going to give you run of the ship?”

  Taymar couldn’t answer. The air she sucked in didn’t seem to fill her lungs. Her teeth clamped together as if they alone were keeping her from blowing apart, and if she opened her mouth the tattered thread of control she now had would snap. The room blurred until the only thing still in focus was the Dran with the golden eyes.

  Nevvis widened his stance a tiny bit. Finding his center. Preparing for her attack. “We both know how this ends, Tay. Don’t do it. Get yourself under control, or I will do it for you.”

  Not for the first time, she cursed the barren room. She needed to bombard him with projectiles, but everything was fastened down. By the time she could yank them free, he would be on her. He was already in her head. His presence weighed on her mind like a massive hand ready to crush her. But he didn’t. Without question, he knew what she was thinking. He knew she was formulating her attack, yet he did nothing. She swallowed what felt like a wad of lint in her throat and forced in a full breath. He could have tagged her, but he didn’t. That had to be worth something.

  Without thinking about it so as not to warn him, she teked the towel out of his hand hard enough to leave a burn, and stopped it in the air over the couch. Shock flashed across his face. It was brief, but profoundly satisfying. Without taking her eyes from his, she slowly ripped a strip off the side of the towel before letting it fall onto the cushion. Then, snatching the still hovering strip from the air as she passed it, she slipped around Nevvis, took her food from the converter, and dropped it on the table. After rebraiding her hair and tying it off with the strip of black towel, she sat down to eat. Only then did Nevvis return to the converter, presumably to order his own dinner.

  The food was questionable. It looked like some sort of left-over dish, different foods all mushed together—an abomination of greens and yellows and browns. She poked her finger into the middle and took a taste. It was tepid but not horrible, so she teked it back to hot and realized she had no utensils.

  “Here,” Nevvis said from near the partition.

  Taymar looked up and caught the spoon he tossed. “Aren’t you worried I will shape this into a knife and slit your throat with it?”

  “A little bit,” he said, from the other side of the wall.

  She smiled and scooped up a bite. “We are tunneling to Drani?”

  “No.”

  “Because we are going to get station diagrams instead?”

  Nevvis’s head popped out around the partition, his expression grim. t out loud. What do you know about the space station?>

 

  The converter sounded off and he disappeared again. He stepped out from behind the wall and held out two glasses of water.

  Taymar teked them slowly over to the table as Nevvis went back to the converter. “I’m just going to keep asking until you either tell me or I figure it out. Save yourself the frustration.”

  The converter tried to beep, but it only managed a sad squeak before Nevvis canceled it. A second later he rounded the partition, plate in hand, and sat across from her.

 

  He stared at her, fork paused in the air. His dinner looked far more appealing than hers did. Typical.

  “Food’s getting cold,” she said, shoveling up another bite.

 

 

  Nevvis took a bite before continuing, which made her inexplicably happy. he sent as he chewed his food. He took a long drink and looked across the table at her.

  Taymar shrugged. Nevvis’s fork banged into the bottom of his plate, but she continued.

  After a pause, he took another bite. He swallowed and added, “Did they have any other telepaths on the ship?”

  “You mean other than the hundreds of Dran? How could I possibly know the answer to that? There was so much mindfill in that room I couldn’t hear myself most of the time, let alone tell if there were any skinhair telepaths.”

  Nevvis nodded. The room grew silent but for the clicking of the forks against bowls for a while as each of them retreated into their own thoughts. Nevvis finally broke the silence. “Your friend Jalkean is missing.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “He hasn’t been found. Do you think he could have been on that ship you turned around?”

  “Like I said, it was total chaos in there. I don’t know another way to describe it. He could have been standing next to me, and I might not have known it.” Taymar took a drink and continued. “I will tell you this. The Arleles would have helped the skinhairs if they had just shown us a little bit of respect. Imagine that. Arleles working with the Shreet.”

  Nevvis almost spit out his food, choking back a laugh. “What a fantastic idea. We will put Arleles on the space station. You guys would be better than time-detonating bombs. Just when the Shreet start thinking they have something great, all their shiny new Arleles will start fighting each other and blowing up their ship. Excellent plan. And the best part is that they won’t have any way to turn you guys off.”

  Taymar went back to her food. It was bad enough that he was right. He didn’t have to be so smug about it. “Well, someone helped the Shreet with the raid on Drani,” Taymar countered. “And it wasn’t an Arlele.”

  “You’re right. It was a Dran; that much is certain.”

  Taymar sent, suddenly realizing she cared far too much for the kar. But Dran or not, he had been her only friend.

  “No,” Nevvis said, but he waited just a bit too long. In an obvious effort to change the subject, Nevvis scooted his plate back and sat up. “What do you know about Ranealla?”

  “As much as you do. She is a full telepath, but she sends…weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “She sends in chunks. Whole thoughts. It’s really hard to understand her. I think that’s why she got stuck. I don’t know why you like her.”

  “She was just doing her job. She’s probably very likeable.”

  “Likeable to look at, maybe. She strikes me as meek and mealy.”

  “New vocabulary words?” Nevvis said, gathering his dishes. “There is such a thing as grace and elegance, you know.”

  Taymar picked up her bowl and scooped the last bit of food into her mouth.

  “Then again, maybe you don’t.”

  Not even trying to hide her grin, Taymar sent her dishes to the top of Nevvis’s pile and wandered over to the tiny window. They were still tunneling. At least they weren’t tunneling their way to Drani. Not yet, at least. She stifled a shudder at the thought. Going back to Drani would be the end of her. If they didn’t term her outright, which they likely would, they would send her to sakuritu. She would never survive that; it would kill her for sure. And even if she somehow avoided that horror, without Jalkean there to help soften the blow of the tests, she would never survive them. Any way around it, she was lost if she didn’t escape before they turned their heading toward Drani.

  The gentle brush of Nevvis’s hand over the back of her head interrupted her thoughts. Without thinking, Taymar pulled away, but Nevvis didn’t appear to notice. “I’m sorry about Jalkean,” he said, still running his fingers through her hair. “He isn’t necessarily dead. Just missing. Things are a mess in Newete right now. He may still show up.”

  Taymar shrugged. She didn’t mean it and she knew he could read the truth in her thoughts, but it was what she still had: indifference. That, and a passionate need to get off the Regal or die trying.

  Nevvis stepped away. She continued staring, mesmerized at the waves of color streaking by the portal. Behind her, a drawer slid open. Something tinged as metal hit metal, and then he was beside her again. “Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “I should be, but I’m not.”

  “You will be, when you slow down. Come on.”

  Taymar turned. He stood, laser key in hand, ushering her toward the bed with his body language.

  “No,” she said. “No to both of them.” With that, she turned away and circled around to the couch. “I’ll sleep right here. That, or put me back in a cell. Those are your choices.”

  Nevvis put on his serious face. She hated that face. It was the one he used when he was going to win, no matter what. “I wish I could, but no. You are sleeping on the bed.”

  “What does that even mean, you wish you could? Of course you can. You are not binding my arms together, and I am not sleeping next to you on that bed.”

  “Why does everything have to be so much work with you? Just do it. Just follow directions. This once. Maybe the shock will kill me. You never know.”

  “Nevvis, no. Dicci! Don’t you understand what I’ve lost already?” She hid her banded arm behind her back. “Don’t take this, too. I’ll sleep on the bed. That’s fine. You sleep on the couch, but you are not binding my arms. You’re not. I mean that, Nevvis. You’re not.”

  “And spend all night waiting for a manipulated chunk of metal to make a dive for my skull? No thanks.” He pointed to the bed. “You’re staying right next to me so I know what you’re up to. Please, Tay. Don’t force this. Let’s just go to bed and hope tomorrow doesn’t come for a very long time.”

  “I’d be dead, if it weren’t for you.”

  Nevvis jerked his head, surprise rippling into confusion.

  “If it weren’t for you coming to find me, I’d be lost. Just like Kar Jalkean, I would be a missing casualty of the raid.” She ran her hand over her damp hair
. “Right now I would be living in my own house, where I could come and go as I pleased. I would have a sarokk for a roommate, and maybe even a friend. Because if it weren’t for you, Nevvis, I would be dead. And right now, more than anything in the world, I wish you were dead.”

  She dropped her arms to her side and sucked in a long, slow breath. “I have never hated you, and I guess I really don’t even now, but like nothing I have ever wanted in my life except my freedom, I want you gone.”

  Nevvis stood in silence. At first he just stared at the floor, his creased brow speaking volumes to how deep her words had cut. When he did finally look up, he wouldn’t look her in the eye. He started to say something, but apparently thought better of it. Instead, he walked over to the bed.

  Without comment, he pulled off his shirt and pants, folded them, and slid them in the unlocked drawer. His laser key dangled from his fingers. He watched it swing for a few moments before closing it up in his fist. “I will offer you this and only this,” he said, still not turning to face her. “If you promise me you will behave tonight, I will not activate your band, but you are sleeping right here next to me, so I can get some sleep too.”

  It was the best offer she was going to get. To be honest, it was more than she expected. She didn’t like it, but it was better than the alternative. she sent.

  Turning to face her, Nevvis met her eyes, his amber gaze staring into her soul. “Don’t break a promise with me, Tay. Give me your word and keep it.”

  She nodded and crossed over in front of him to climb up on the bed. Suddenly, every bone in her body seemed to double in weight, and the soft bed began pulling her in before her head hit the pillow.

  Metal dinged again, his laser key hitting the drawer. Taymar scooted as close to the wall as she could and rolled onto her back.

  “Lights,” Nevvis called as he slid under the covers. He shifted around, finding a comfortable spot, and finally dropped his hand on her shoulder. It was his link to her thoughts. As telepaths went, Nevvis was in a category by himself. He would be able to channel her thoughts all night without even trying as long as he was touching her. If it did take effort, it didn’t take much of it.