Jessica’s was stunned at Zandar’s revelation, though she wasn’t sure why it came as such a shock. Mahoney had tried to warn her about such a thing several times, and even Korian himself had threatened to challenge any warrior that dared to touch her. “That sneaky little bitch,” she fumed. “She’s still trying to plot against him, but now she’s trying to use me and one of his own warriors to further her agenda. Still, this plot seems farfetched for her, and I don’t doubt that she has other, more nefarious plans in mind to get rid of her obstacle to the throne.”
“I agree with your assessment, Jessica. I do not see all her hopes pinned on this scheme alone.” An idea sparked in his eyes and his grin turned feral as he added, “However, there is no reason not to use her own plans against her. What do you say that we disappear from the party and do a little bit of recon while we have the opportunity? Perhaps we will be able to uncover what else she has hidden behind her eyes.”
Jessica ignored her need to correct him with the English version of that saying, and instead answered, “That’s not a bad idea, Zandar, but it could still lead to rumors reaching Korian. What’s to stop him from issuing a challenge if he doesn’t believe our absence was innocent?”
The huge warrior tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and began to stroll inconspicuously toward the door panel that led further into their hostess’ home. “Do not fear, my friend. He is a reasonable and wise young man, and he will understand the need for our illusion once we explain the reasoning behind our ruse. I hold my king in high regard and would never do anything to dishonor him or myself. No matter how badly I may want to.”
Jessica snorted in an unladylike fashion and shot back, “Let’s hope you’re right, big guy. I would hate to see the results if you are wrong.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The hallway was empty of other guests, and Jessica breathed a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t have to offer any explanations so soon into their mission. “Where do you think we should start looking?” she asked her escort, her whispers echoing softly.
Zandar furrowed his eyebrows in thought. “I’m not exactly sure, but I would hazard a guess that Rox’Ana would want to keep her personal transmissions and correspondence as secret as possible, especially after her last failed scheme. She is free under T’Kalan law to say anything she pleases about the king without fear of consequence, but tangible evidence of treason is punishable by exile.”
“Exile?” she parroted back to him incredulously. “Don’t you guys have jails on this planet?”
Zandar nodded. “Of course we have prisons on T’Kala, but they are for non-violent offenders only. They are more like rehabilitation centers where we work with the prisoners on trying to correct their mistakes and allow them to make restitution for their crimes. Violent offenders and those that commit acts of treason are sent to prison camps located on the planet Calfaxis. Most of them are never heard from again, but some have returned to T’Kala after their sentence was fulfilled. Either they never commit their crimes again out of fear of returning, or they become clever enough not to get caught.”
“Huh. Well, I guess that works for you guys. Too bad Earth doesn’t have that option,” she mumbled. She came to a stop in the hallway and looked around with confusion. “How are we supposed to know what’s in these rooms if most of the door panels are shut?”
Zandar grabbed her hand and dragged her over to a sensor. “That has given me an idea. In most T’Kalan homes, the sensors are programmed to open or not by the owner. Rooms like bathing chambers and kitchens are programmed to allow anyone to enter.” He placed his palm on the sensor and the doors slid open to reveal a bathroom. “What we need to find is a room that will not allow anyone else to enter with the exception of Rox’Ana, and I believe that is where we will find our proof.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” she agreed, “But if the sensor is only programmed to allow our hostess to enter, then how are we supposed to get inside?”
Zandar was already moving to the next sensor and he turned his head to flash his teeth in a roguish grin. “Leave that to me. Come help me before someone misses us and decides to come looking.”
Jessica leapt into action and raced from sensor to sensor to see if the doors would open. She found closets, storage chambers, sitting rooms, and what appeared to Par’Nisis’ room. By the time she and Zandar had tried all the sensors, they had narrowed their search down to two rooms that wouldn’t open to them. The duo stood in the hall and tried to decide which one held their goal.
“We only have the time to try one of them, Jessica. If I should hazard a guess, I would say this one is a study or library of some sort and the one at the end of the hallway would likely be her bedroom,” Zandar explained.
Jessica gave it a thought and then announced, “We should try her bedroom. In my experience, a woman’s bedroom is her sanctuary. I know that if there is something I don’t want found by someone else, I will hide it in my bedroom.”
Zandar ate up the distance to the closed panel in no time. “Keep your eyes on the doors and let me know if you see or hear anyone coming.” Jessica peered around the corner and watched the panel that lead back into the rec room where the guests were still partying. She heard Zandar cursing, the sound of something popping loose, and then a grunt of victory as he hissed, “I’ll show her what a barbarian warrior is capable of doing.” Then louder, “Jessica, we are in.”
With one final sweep of the hallway, she raced back over to join Zandar and darted into the room ahead of him. As the door panels slid closed with a swish, the lights in the room glowed to life to illuminate the interior. They were right in assuming this to be her bedroom, but it was massive. Works of art, both 3D and moving pictures, adorned her walls, the furniture was sleek and likely more decorative than for comfort, and her bed was big enough to hold four T’Kalan warriors shoulder-to-shoulder. Thankfully, there were no companion animals in her room that would have created an impediment, but then again, the noblewoman didn’t strike Jessica as the maternal and loving sort.
While Jessica had been ogling her surroundings with a combination of awe and disgust, Zandar had been busy. She found him sitting at a desk located on the far wall and his fingers were flying over the vidscreen surface. Jessica decided to do her snooping the old fashioned way and began to open drawers and cabinets, peeking into every box and under every cushion. She even paused to try and peer under the bed, but it was completely empty.
“Jessica! I think I have found something,” Zandar whispered, waving her over to join him. Jessica craned her neck over his shoulder to see strange characters and an unfamiliar language flashing across the screen. “Most nobles do not bother to learn the programming structures of their transmissions systems. They pay a technician to come in and install them and then call them back to perform maintenance and updates,” he explained.
“How did you learn how to do all this?” she asked, awe and surprise coloring her voice.
His shoulders moved under her hands with his laugh. “Despite what the noble class would have you believe, warriors are not solely trained in combat. We are often sent to other worlds on missions, and we would not make it very far with just our blades. Every warrior receives some degree of transmissions and communications training in the event of a crash or other emergency. We cannot always afford the luxury of taking a warship like The Ax’Sandre and her crew with us. We have to be prepared for every contingency.”
She felt a bit foolish for not realizing that sooner and could kick herself for unknowingly allowing the nobles’ prejudices to color her own beliefs. Both Mikael and Korian had proved to be extremely intelligent and capable, so she shouldn’t have assumed that all they knew how to do was fight. “What are you looking for?” she asked, her head growing dizzy from watching his fingers.
“Most citizens don’t realize that when they erase messages, they are still stored on the mainframe for up to 30 sun cycles for retrieval in case of an accidental deletion. Of course, we do not spre
ad that fact around, either, for cases such as this.” He pressed a few more buttons, and exclaimed, “Ah ha! This is where her secrets will be found, mark my words.”
Jessica groaned at the sheer number of messages and video transmissions that dated back for the last month. “There’s no way that we’ll have time to go through all of these. Is there any way to email them or copy them to a jump drive?”
Zandar chuckled. “You say the strangest things sometimes, Jessica. I do not know what this email or jumping drive is, but I can copy them and send them via a transmission to my account. That should give us time to review them without fear of being discovered.”
Before Jessica could reply, her ears picked up the murmured sound of voices heading their way. “Zandar, quick! Someone is coming!”
The warrior’s fingers flew like the wind over the vidscreen as he copied and sent the file and then erased all signs of his presence while Jessica pressed her ear to the door to see if she could hear who was approaching. Her heart pounded in her throat when she heard Rox’Ana’s angry tones mixed with an unfamiliar male voice as they stopped at each room to peer inside.
She knew they would be discovered any moment and there was no time to lose. As she raced back over to her co-conspirator, she pulled strands from her elegant up do until several tendrils were hanging down around her face. She loosened one latch from her red dress and allowed the material to dangle precariously from the tip of her breast and slid out of her shoes.
Zandar stood from his seat at the desk and faced her. “I have completed the transfer-“ he began, but cut himself off at the sight of her. “Jessica, what are you doing?” he asked, his voice a mix of confusion and suspicion.
“I don’t have time to explain,” she hissed, as she reached for his shirt and began to tug it loose from his pants. She opened the latch at his throat until it hung open across his muscled torso and ran her hands through his jet black hair until it stood on end. “Quick! Take off your shoes!”
Without another question, he followed her command until he stood in his bare feet. She could hear the voices outside the door now, getting louder and more insistent, so she turned Zandar toward the bed and gave him a shove. He landed with a bounce and his ice brown eyes widened when she crawled across his body and latched her lips to his just as the door panel slid open.
“I told you, there is no one screaming for help, you imbecile,” the noblewoman’s voice carried through the room with scorn. “You can believe that your employer will hear about this-“ her voice cut off as the bed came into view.
Jessica released Zandar’s lips and clumsily scrambled to her feet while clutching her dress to her chest. “Oh! You startled me, Rox’Ana,” she exclaimed, her voice breathy and embarrassed.
Their hostess took a long moment to take in the picture of them half-clothed and in obvious dishevelment. Her lips curled in a Cheshire smile as she replied, “My apologies, Jessica. I had not realized that we were interrupting. This idiot,” she waved dismissively at her liveried companion, “insisted that he heard someone screaming for help in one of the rooms.”
Jessica glanced at the man standing open-mouthed next to her hostess, and she clenched her jaw at the sight of the nosy waiter that had hovered around her all evening. “He did, did he? Well, I can assure you that any screams coming from this room were not for help.”
Zandar eased his way to his feet and turned his back to set his clothes to rights while Jessica calmly latched her dress and sat on the bed to slip her shoes back on. Rox’Ana watched them carefully, her gaze sharp with calculation. “How did you manage to gain entrance to my bedchamber? I was sure I had locked it before the start of the party.”
Zandar’s tone was mischievous when replied, “That was my doing, Rox’Ana. I apologize for taking liberties with your property, but Jessica assured me that you gave her perm-“
“That is quite alright, Zandar Nic’Omar,” she cut him off swiftly. “There appears to be no harm done. Why don’t we give you both some privacy to make yourselves presentable before you return to the party?”
Before the witnesses could escape, Jessica called out, “Wait!” When the waiter and her hostess turned to face her once more, she said, “As I’m sure you both know, this situation could turn into a big misunderstanding with the king. I hate to be rude, but I’m going to have to insist that you both keep what you saw here to yourselves. Please.”
Rox’Ana was clearly enjoying the spectacle, but she gamely agreed. “Of course, Jessica. I would not dare dream of placing either of you in the pathway of the king’s wrath.”
Jessica turned an icy glare on the waiter and was surprised to see anger on his face. He didn’t speak a word, but he nodded his head sharply and spun on his heel to exit the room ahead of the noblewoman who paused at the door to give them a little wave of her fingers.
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief when they were finally alone again. “Shew, that was a close one,” she acknowledged as she slipped the loose tendrils of hair back in the clip. “Sorry about that, Zandar. It was the only thing I could think of to keep her from being suspicious about why we were in her room.”
The warrior finished tucking his shirt back in his pants and ran his big hand through his unruly hair. “I would be lying if I said I was sorry it happened. My only regret is that you were forced into this situation by my actions.”
“Hey, I agreed to this crazy plan, so I’m just as much at fault as you are, big guy. Let’s just hope that the information you found makes this all worth it,” she replied as she stood to her feet and shook out the wrinkles in her dress.
She felt the heat of his body as he sidled into her personal space. He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up until their eyes met. “Was kissing me and pressing your body to mine such a hardship, Jessica? I had hoped that your lack of passion was only because of the circumstances, but I have a feeling that it means something quite different.”
Jessica’s heart thudded in her ears and she swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry, Zandar. I didn’t mean to lead you on, I swear I didn’t. You are so kind and generous, and I have come to care for you a great deal, but…” she trailed off, the words sticking in her throat.
“But you are in love with Korian, am I right?” he demanded, his jaw clenched. When she only nodded miserably, he released her chin and stepped back until there was at least a foot of space between them. “I had guessed as much, especially after you both had disappeared together from the gala at his compound, but I had hoped I was wrong. I have never seen you look at me the way you do when he arrives in the room. Your whole face lights up and your pale skin turns pink with excitement without him even touching you.” His voice was tinged with sadness as he added, “Even when your breasts were crushed against my chest and your hips were cradling mine just now, your skin remained as pale and cold as the snows of Mount Vic’Nar.”
Jessica felt wretched as his sorrow washed over her. She tried to hold back her tears, but they rolled down her cheeks unhindered. “It would be so much easier if I could love you like you deserve, Zandar. I’m afraid I have made a mess of everything. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to see me again. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ll be returning to my home in a few weeks anyway. I don’t think that your king will want me to stick around after my month is up.”
One corner of his lips pulled up in a parody of a smile. “I think it would be best for both of us if we weren’t seen together again after this night. It will be difficult enough to convince Korian that nothing untoward happened here, and I do not wish to face my king on the challenge field. However, I would not be too sure about him wanting you to leave. I have seen the look in his eyes when he looks upon you, too, and I have heard the unspoken threat should I cross the line with you. Do not give up hope, Jessica. Any warrior worth his blade would fight even the stars to keep you close.” He reached out to brush away the tear trailing down her cheek. “I will leave from here so that you may return to the party alone. If anyone
asks, tell them that you were resting your eyes after the onset of a headache. Farewell, Jessica MacGregor. May the stars shine down upon you with their blessing all your days.”
Jessica watched the warrior leave without a backward glance and collapsed on the bed to grieve the death of her friendship with bitter tears. Zandar was just the kind of man she had always dreamed of falling for, but instead, her heart chose to fall for a king with sinful lips and commitment issues. Maybe she would let them erase her memory when she went home after all. At least it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jessica thought the party would never end. It had taken all of her prodigious acting skills to walk back in there as if nothing had happened and laugh, flirt, and talk with the nobles for several more hours until the party broke up. By the time she made it back to the king’s compound, it was well past midnight and her head was pounding behind her eyes, her stomach was a quivering mess, and she felt waves of dizziness wash over her with each step. She really wanted to head straight to her room, put on fuzzy pajamas, and cuddle in the bed with her bimbop, but she knew she had to see Korian. It would be best for him to hear about the night’s events directly from her first, because she had no faith that Rox’Ana would keep her word.
As she entered the compound and began to walk down the corridor toward Korian’s rooms, Jessica sighed and reached up to undo the clasp in her hair causing her thick, red waves to cascade over her shoulders. She felt some relief from the pressure in her head, but the stress of the past few weeks was beginning to take its toll. She was exhausted, anxious, and her stomach was queasy from the rich, expensive foods at all the parties she had attended. She would kill right now for a mug of hot tea and a few crackers.
Acting Out Page 10