The Inquisitors (The Space Merchants Book 6)

by Wendie Nordgren

  “Oh, Drex! These are beautiful. Thank you.”

  “I am very proud of your accomplishment, Teagan. You did well in your first command.” The sincere compliment from a high-ranking Inquisitor made me cry. Drex panicked. “Dearest one, what have I done?” He dropped to his knees at my feet.

  I hugged his neck and kissed his lips. “It really means a lot to me to hear you say that. I know you mean it, because you’re terrible with flattery and pretty words.”

  “I’m honored that my regard can move your emotions to such an extent.”

  Jazon and Tracy, Sparrow and Xavier, and Terre joined us next. Introductions were made. Then, the married couples disappeared into their rooms. Peter had Terre wrapped around his tiniest claw in a matter of heartbeats. She fell in love hard and fast. “You are the sweetest perfection. Oh, look at you.”

  Niklos and Neema took an immediate interest in Terre, decided they liked her, and gave her kisses.

  “Where is Thunderdrop?” I asked as I looked around.

  “He is on Parvac. He decided to go home with Violet, Kaoti, and Poppy. Look,” Yukihyo said. He showed me a video of Thunderdrop playing fetch with Puff, the Aegisthus family dog.

  “He did not wish to go to the cold planet,” Zared informed me.

  Dr. Savelli came for Terre to make sure all of her medical files and inoculations were up to date. The journey home to Parvac was uneventful, but happy and enjoyable.

  Unfortunately, the look on Momma’s face when we entered the Palace had me considering a quick retreat back to the ship. Papa saved me. “Teagan, who is this ethereal creature?” he asked.

  Throwing my arms around his chest, I lifted up on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Papa, this is Lady Terre Dacia. She has agreed to serve as one of my Imperial attendants.”

  Papa gave me a warm hug before releasing me to kiss Terre’s hand. “It is a pleasure, my dear. Welcome.”

  I thought Terre might faint, but she executed a perfect curtsey to my parents. It was the lowest one I had ever seen and made her blue skirts puddle about her on the white stone flooring.

  “Rise, Lady Dacia. I can see you will make a fine addition to our daughter’s entourage with your gentile upbringing,” Momma said. “Otto, see the Lady Dacia to a room near Teagan’s wing and that her belongings are arranged to her satisfaction. Teagan, I will speak with you in my sitting room.” Momma turned in a graceful swirl of fabric and floated away.

  I cast a pleading look at Papa. He kissed my forehead and said, “Go see what it is your mother wants.”

  With dread forming a rock in the bottom of my stomach, I followed her. Kaoti was a shadow behind me. Once I had stepped inside of Momma and Papa’s wing, their butlers closed the doors. I sighed. Momma pointed to a chair. I sat. Momma paced. I watched her as she moved. Her long reddish-brown hair fell in delicate waves down her back. I could sense her annoyance through our empathic bond.

  As a small child growing up alone with Nathan Green, the man claiming to be my father, but who in fact had been our jailer and torturer, I had longed for my mother. I had yearned for love. Continually, he had fed me lies that she had left because she hadn’t loved me, that she couldn’t stand to be around me. His words came back to me with stunning force. His cruelty had been deliberate. He had believed that he had killed her, stabbing her repeatedly in a fit of rage. He had used those lies to cripple me emotionally and to control me.

  Now, as I watched her, I could only believe his words to have been prophetic. Maybe, they had been true. I wasn’t who Empress Neema Probus wanted me to be. The part of my heart that had begun to heal in the Palace infirmary when I had first felt her love began to crumble and die. Frantically, I began constructing a hasty wall between us to protect my heart from the rejection I knew was coming. I wanted to run from the room, but my pain and despair kept me frozen while I waited for the condemnation to fall from her lips to my ears. The hard lump in my stomach replicated and sent its progeny up to lodge in my throat. Momma stopped pacing and stared down at me with a pale face and eyes that had grown large in her face.

  The doors to my parents’ wing banged open startling us both and drawing our eyes. Yukihyo stormed in, sat beside me, and surrounded me in his big strong arms. I buried my face against his neck.

  “Can we go?” I whispered.

  I wanted to take the children, Thunderdrop, and go somewhere far away, somewhere where I wouldn’t have to hear the vocalization that would destroy me. We could go home to Arachne where the Alarics and Montgomerys loved me. Yukihyo washed away the hard lumps of pain that had formed within me in a flood of love as he soothed my emotions. He moved his hands in circles on my back. I didn’t want to cry in front of Empress Probus. What if she were to laugh at my pain? What if her words mimicked those of Nathan Green, making every word he had ever said, words I had begun to accept as lies, once more into truths? I began to shake in Yukihyo’s arms.

  “Please, let’s go,” I begged. Even with my husband’s help, I didn’t think I could survive her rejection.

  I felt soft hands on my wrists. A voice even softer said, “Teagan, look at me.” She had knelt beside us, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t obey her request. It would hurt too much. “Teagan, look at your momma,” she said.

  Something in her tone pulled at me like a compulsion. Whatever it was she had to say, I decided to listen and get it over with. Then, we could leave. I used strength I pulled from Yukihyo and Zared to fortify my inner protective wall and tried to deaden my heart enough to the woman before me so that what she had to say wouldn’t hurt as much. I felt her fingers in my hair brushing through it.

  “What just happened?” she whispered. “From where did your pain come, and what spurred it into being?” she asked so softly that I could barely hear her.

  I couldn’t speak. I was too confused by the often-repeated words ingrained within my heart and mind by Nathan Green, by the disappointment I had sensed from her moments ago, and by the compassion she now showed me. I heard someone walk closer. The couch cushion shifted, and I felt myself pulled from Yukihyo’s safe embrace and onto Papa’s lap. I hid my face against him. I sensed Zared in my mind where he carefully hid Nathan Green and his words from me. I drew in a deep shuddering breath trying to grasp at what I had learned in therapy with Fitz, but it seemed so elusive now when I needed it.

  “Tavere?” she asked.

  “It’s alright. She will be fine. Isn’t that right, my darling?” Papa asked. I nodded against the safety his warmth provided. “Will you tell Papa what has hurt you so?”

  I held onto the front flap of his jacket. “She doesn’t like me. I’m a disappointment. She’ll leave again,” I answered in an achy whisper that seemed to lurch forth.

  “That’s not true, my darling. She likes you very much. However, she may need to consider that your life is your own to enjoy as you wish. You have done more than enough to fulfill your duties to the Empire. Should she ever doubt it, she can look at her grandchildren. Furthermore, I won’t allow her to leave. Should she try, we will pursue her with fleets of warships with your Uncle Kagan and cousin Kane commanding them, and if you wish it, you shall command your own ship. However, you would have to follow the chain of command just like everyone else. Understood?” I nodded. When my trembling finally stopped, he stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. “She’s alright. Let’s go. Yukihyo, you will personally repair my walls.” Papa slid me from his lap to the couch. They left, leaving us alone.

  I stared at my knees until a delicate hand entered the space in front of me. “Take my hand and come with me.”

  Hesitantly, I obeyed. Kaoti was the only one who had stayed, but he was a statue. The soft hand on mine guided me along into a solarium off of the royal bathroom that I had never before entered. A table and chair had been brought into the space. On the table was a glob of clay and assorted tools.

  “Kaoti, bring a small chair, please,” Momma said.

  Moments later, my bodyguard placed another chair at the table
and briefly caught my eyes with his before returning to his previous location. His eyes told me everything. He was my friend and was here for me should I need him.

  Momma said, “Please, sit down.”

  I sat but wasn’t inclined to look at her. I felt as raw as the lump of clay looked. She shoved her fingers into the glob and dropped a hunk of it down on the table in front of me. Then, she passed me a tool. She sat in her chair and continued an earlier project.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked quietly.

  “Take the clay away until you can see something,” she said absently. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she mumbled, her attention elsewhere.

  “I’m afraid of making a mistake.”

  “The only mistake is to give up.”

  Silence passed between us before I spoke. “I didn’t mean to make you angry. I’m sorry for whatever it was I did wrong. I assume it was my participation in the training exercise.” I stared at my lap and the small chisel I held.

  “You did nothing wrong. I did. You aren’t the little malleable doll I keep pretending you to be. In fact, I should take lessons from my daughter about how to be a good mother.”

  I dropped the chisel to the stone floor in shock and bent to pick it up.

  “Teagan, you flew off in a stealth ship with your ladies and only one officer to prove a point. That was brave. You did it for Neema and Galina. Mother told me as much. Not once have I offered you such support. Instead, I have been trying to shape your life like a piece of clay, attempting to make it into a thing of beauty to compensate for the years I left you alone.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Nor was it yours.”

  I lifted the chisel to the blob. Letting my mind wander, I scraped at the clay. Slowly, the emotional wall I had erected between us began to fade away while the clay began to take shape. It was crude, but it actually looked like something.

  “That’s pretty.”

  “Thank you. Drex gave me flowers on Naxa. He said he was proud of me. It kind of looks like the prettiest ones in the bouquet.”

  Momma got up and came back with some paints and brushes. I painted the petals, which were too thick to look real, a light-purple, the stamen an orange-yellow, and the leaves a bright-green. Once I had finished, Momma showed me how to put it in a small kiln that hardened it in seconds.

  “The heat and the molecular cohesion compound in the paint should prevent it from breaking if dropped, but it won’t survive blaster fire or anything like that. You did a good job for your first time.”

  “Thank you. May I go give it to Drex?”

  “Yes, I’ll see you at dinner.”

  I carried my sculpted flower out and found Kaoti. Then, I winced when I saw the walls to either side of the entrance to my parents’ wing. There were holes in them where the door handles had gotten stuck. Yukihyo had been fast to rush to my aid. I was ashamed of my weakness. I was a grown woman with three children and six husbands, but a stray memory from my childhood could cripple me. When would I outgrow my past? My cheeks turned red in the hall. All of my Omnes Videntes stood at attention and lined it. With them were Yukihyo, Nico, Zared, and Drex.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. We are yours. Should weakness overcome you, use our strength. We will never leave you,” Zared said.

  I nodded, unable to speak, but they knew what was in my heart and mind. Hesitantly, I approached Drex and held out to him the flower I had made. Unsure if he could tell what it was, I explained it to him. He took my small offering, but from his expression, I couldn’t tell if he thought it was stupid or not.

  “Oh!” I squeaked as I found myself thrown over Nico’s shoulder.

  “You’ll be yelling out more than that in a minute, woman.” Nico carried me all of the way to the bedroom, tore out of his clothes, threw up my skirts, and made it clear how much he had missed me.

  We spent the remainder of the day on the lawn playing with the children and Thunderdrop, who Violet had brought home. In shorts and a T-shirt, I sat on a blanket with Peter and watched while Neema and Niklos chased butterflies. Yukihyo sighed when a servant arrived and stood nearby with a bucket of plaster and a trowel. He kissed me and left. Papa was overseeing the work.

  “Are you alright?” Kaoti asked.

  The sound of his voice surprised me. I shrugged. “I feel stupid.”

  “You are not.” He bowed to me and slipped away into the shadows.

  “Ma Ma,” Peter said as he held himself up on his arms and crawled to me. I laid on my side and watched him inch closer.

  “My Queen,” Farowyn said as he approached.

  “Hello, please join us. Peter, can you smile for your Uncle Farowyn?”

  Farowyn sat beside us and ran his hand over Peter’s back and then patted his little diapered butt. I was letting my children air out. Neema ran around topless in a pair of pink bloomers while Niklos sported the same look as his brother.

  “May I have permission to speak freely?”

  I laid on my back so Peter could practice climbing and smirked at Farowyn. “This from the male who cupped my breast and sampled my milk?”

  Farowyn made the odd sound that passed as his laughter, and Peter joined him. “I have been studying your people’s mating rituals. Your customs are much different from our own. If I had you with me on Talpa, among my own people, I would not allow other males to look at you without challenging them to blade battle. Here, fine breeding females take many husbands. I have decided to accept that. I want you. I will become wealthy like Yukihyo so you will accept me.”

  Peter grabbed handfuls of my hair and sucked on my chin. I moved him back to the blanket and sat up. “I didn’t become Yukihyo’s wife because of his wealth. We married because we love each other and want to share our lives together, to be together always.”

  Careful of his claws, Farowyn took my hand. “If wealth does not matter, accept me. You are my queen, but one day might be the queen of all of the Eloneave at my side.” Peter crawled to Farowyn. “I want you in my arms once more, to feel your soft skin and long hair. I will win you, my queen.”

  Niklos and Neema barreled into me making the breath whoosh out of me. We were a pile of shrieks and laughter. Someone cleared his throat. I glanced over and saw Rolf. “Princess, visitors await you in the sitting room.”

  I watched as Sparrow and Xavier began running from near the lake across the lawn. Only one man would get that reaction from her.

  “Come inside with Mommy! Farowyn, will you carry Peter inside?” I asked as I stood with Niklos on one hip with his wispy blonde hair and Neema on the other with hers of dove-grey. Farowyn held Peter to his shoulder and followed us as I hurried after Sparrow and Xavier. My bare feet slapped against the stone tiles in the halls, and my children laughed in my arms.

  “Daddy!” Sparrow yelled as she ran and threw herself into Gary’s arms.

  My eyes filled with tears as I ran to Quaid. Neema screamed and kicked her legs wanting Eric.

  “Come here! How’s my best girl?” Eric asked her. She smiled coyly at him.

  I wrapped my free hand behind Quaid’s neck letting my fingers trace the line of his military haircut. I lifted up on my toes to kiss his lips. “Oh, Quaid. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Lady Bosh, to be near you once more is like feeling the warmth of the suns after months of enduring only cold and darkness.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  Papa said, “Because I wanted it to be a surprise. Now, our vacation will be perfect for my Princess and my Empress.”

  I wasn’t really interested in what Papa had to say or in pretending to be a polite hostess. “Niklos, go to Gapa,” I said as I handed him over. I grabbed Quaid’s hand and let the melting need and desire I felt for him wash over him unabatedly. Eric made a strangled sound. “Oh, hey Eric!” I called out breathlessly over my shoulder as I stared into Quaid’s black eyes.

  I didn’t need to tug my sexy Laconian husband along. Commander
Quaid Bosh was wearing the full-dress uniform of the Galaxic Militia which made me desperate to rip it off of him. Knowing my thoughts, he had me almost at a jog to keep up with him. We turned a corner into the main hall, and he pushed my back against the wall and claimed my mouth with his own. Quaid spiraled pleasure through me making my knees melt along with my center. Past thinking or caring about decorum, I began unfastening his jacket wanting desperately to feel his hairy chest against my breasts. He broke our kiss.

  “Please, Quaid,” I moaned.

  He grinned and glanced up and down the hall at guards, military advisors, servants, and everyone else who stared at us before sweeping me up into his arms and striding to my wing of the Palace. I occupied myself with kissing his handsome jaw and running my fingers through his hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my bed that to me resembled an elaborate cage. I wanted to trap Quaid in it and never let him go. He dropped me onto the mattress, letting me bounce. I tore out of my top and shorts, pushing the blankets down with my feet.

  Quaid had freed himself of his uniform and closed his big strong hands over my knees. He pressed them down into the mattress. I moaned as he pushed himself into me, loving the way he felt as he stretched me to accommodate his girth.

  “Oh, Quaid.”

  Every concern, worry, fear, and disappointment fell from me as Quaid and I made love. The parts of my soul and intellect that had lain dormant in his absence blossomed forth making me giggle with happiness as I kissed his neck.

  “I love you, Lord Bosh.”

  Quaid groaned. His movements became faster until he rammed forward emptying himself within me while sharing through our touch the pleasure he felt. He sent waves of it throughout me. My back lifted from the mattress, causing my sensitive nipples to press against the thick crinkly hair of Quaid’s chest. One orgasm after another burst through me like bubbles. Quaid rolled to his back taking me with him and held me to his chest. Too content with pleasure to do anything else, I slept.