by Mel Teshco
“I’m no art critic.” She held his gaze, refusing to give an inch. “Where I come from, there wasn’t much use for art—other than throwing the pieces onto a fire to keep warm.”
“Yes, I didn’t need to fuck you to learn about your past.” His smile widened, becoming shark-like. “An interesting file. An only child to once-wealthy, realtor parents.”
Yeah, shame their career of choice had hit the skids the moment Earth failed to be sustainable. Land and houses meant little to nothing in the end. Not when anyone with a weapon could take over any household they chose.
“I’m guessing you became quite the slum rat, stealing food for your family however you could.” He gazed pointedly in the direction of her stomach. “You didn’t get that scratch living the high life.”
She glared, hating that he knew about the wound. Not that she’d told him how she’d got it. Her scar was personal, a memory she’d never wanted to share. Not with him. “Not everyone was lucky enough to be born in an ivory tower.”
She’d done things she wanted to forget. The wound had come from a knife fight for rations. She’d used that same knife to fend off two men who’d wanted more than her food, despite her bloodied wound. She’d escaped—without her precious provisions.
Still, she’d been lucky. Somehow her body had resisted infection from the deep wound, which her mom had stitched as best she could.
She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing her mom’s face to fill her head, along with her dad’s. Her parents had been alive when she’d boarded this ship. She had no clue how they had fared since.
As much as the thought sickened her, they’d probably both be better off dead. At least they’d no longer have to eke out an existence in a polluted world where murder and savagery had overtaken decent humanity. Where droughts and famine were broken only by the occasional freak storm, which lashed the parched lands with flash flooding and cyclonic winds, both of which tore away the precious topsoil needed for farming.
Zane’s stare narrowed, a little muscle ticking in his jaw. “Life wasn’t perfect in those towers, believe me. I had a lot of expectations to live up to.”
Did he expect her to feel sorry for him? Was he blind? Hadn’t he seen how bad things were outside those tinted windows?
She shook her head, fighting the urge to scream at him, to tell him to wake up and think about someone other than himself. But it would be a waste of time. He was self-centered enough to believe the world owed him a favor.
“It must have been fucking terrible,” she commiserated scornfully.
His eyes flashed. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about my past.”
“And I’m betting you didn’t bring me here for a glass of wine, either?”
She knew she was pushing it, but something within her needed to egg him on, to push him over the edge.
If it was working, he didn’t show it. Instead, he grasped the nearest painting and lifted it high. “You bet right. This is what I wanted to discuss.”
Chapter Seven
She blinked, unable to formulate any words. She was too busy staring at the painting. It was the one she’d seen in Tristan’s cell, except he’d repainted her hair, the length tumbling straight down, framing her sexy, “just fucked” expression.
Zane’s nostrils flared. “Under any other circumstance, I might have found this a turn-on.”
She swallowed back the fear ratcheting up inside her. The last thing she needed was for this monster to feed on her terror and then turn his anger on Tristan. She looked up at Zane, holding his stare. “I don’t know why he painted me.”
The lieutenant’s laugh turned scornful. “Oh, come on now, what do you take me for?” His stare traveled over her slowly, making her want to cover up her womanly curves, even though she was fully clothed. He shook his head. “You were unobtainable and 1588 wanted to fuck you.”
She managed a shrug. “He’s a man.”
Zane put the canvas behind him, leaning it carefully beneath the flex window, as though he valued the painting, despite the subject matter—or possibly because of it.
He returned to the stack of canvases and selected another, lifting it up. Her breath hissed. It was a portrait of her in her cabin, recently fucked—by Tristan. Her red dress lay glittering and abandoned on the floor. She was sprawled unselfconsciously on the bed, naked and beckoning, her eyes glowing with arousal and her breasts heavy, her nipples hard.
“In this one, on the other hand, you’re no longer unobtainable. In this one, 1588 has fucked you.”
Her mouth dried. It was obvious the artist knew her cabin intimately, knew the layout of her bedroom—hell, even the colors of her blanket, the one possession she’d brought with her from Earth. Still, she had nothing to lose by trying to bluff her way out. “He’s a prisoner … a whites prisoner.”
Zane’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but then you’ve always been attracted to bad men, haven’t you?”
She arched a brow. God, even when he spoke about her fucking another man, he was thinking of himself. He gave arrogance new meaning. “Actually, I discovered I’m attracted to honest, decent, hard-working men.”
It was the worst thing she could have said, but it was too late to retract. Damn, she was an idiot. Instead of defusing the situation, she’d aggravated it.
Zane’s eyes flashed, then settled into hardness. “A little guttersnipe slut like you wouldn’t recognize decency if you fell over it. I can’t imagine leaving my parents to die while living the high life aboard the Siren.”
The words were meant to wound, and they did. Her parents had been proud when she was chosen for the army and a better life, and had given their blessing. But the guilt never left her. Zane’s words were poison arrows aimed directly at her heart. Her voice cracked. “It’s what they wanted.”
“I’m sure it is,” he murmured scornfully, then picked up another canvas, dismissing the fate of her parents. Her vision swam, but she refused to break down in front of him.
“Ah, then there’s this one,” he murmured.
She and Zane were seated at the fight ring and she was dressed in her glittering red gown. The color exactly matched the spill of blood on the fight-ring floor. Blood that was directly in front of Zane. His exultant stare seemed drawn toward the crimson stain. Rita was depicted as a stunning beauty she hardly recognized, but her expression conveyed just the right amount of disgust.
“He really has you on a pedestal,” the lieutenant mused aloud as he placed the canvas behind him and lifted the next.
It was the same scene, but in this one her stare was full of heat and promise, and was centered on the artist, rather than the man beside her. That’s if Zane could even be called a man. The image of him was distorted and ugly, almost monstrous, the crowd behind them a colored landscape of barely-distinguishable shapes. She was the foreground. The entire focus of the painting.
Zane’s coldness reached sub-zero. “Now we’ve got Beauty and the Beast.”
This time, she chose silence as the safer option.
His expression was carefully blank, but she sensed the calculation behind the mask. He was furious. He didn’t show it in the usual, hot-headed way of many men. No, he turned it all inwards. And that was far scarier.
The next canvas showed the guards and medics placing the injured from the fight-ring crowd onto stretchers. But once again, their shapes were vague, and Rita was the main focus, this time in her soldier’s uniform, her face calm, almost angelic, under her cap.
Zane stared at the painting for several long minutes, as though trying to work out the mind behind the artist. “I’m almost inclined to believe he’s in love with you.”
He was wrong. Tristan didn’t love her—at least not enough to stay with her. Perhaps admitting that would keep him safe?
But then the lieutenant was revealing the next canvas. It was the painting—the real painting obviously, not the original that Zane had ordered—showing her sexmeth-induced state. Her face was flushed, her lips moist and fu
ll, her breasts bared. But once again, her whole attention was on Tristan, her stark desire for him impossible to miss.
Behind her loomed the shadowed, twisted form of Zane, his outside revealing the monster he truly was.
It was the painting they’d almost knocked off the easel while making love. The memory was almost enough to make her giggle. Almost.
Zane riffled through half a dozen more. One showed her jogging down a darkened corridor. Another showed her in the bar in her black dress. She frowned. The next one showed her on the dance floor, with the roughest outline of Zane holding onto her and a whole lot of smudgy paint. It appeared to be not only unfinished, but ruined, too.
She closed her eyes. God, Tristan had painted her every chance he’d got and then some. Was it possible he truly was in love with her? Hope bloomed in her chest even as dread superseded it. The lieutenant had something up his sleeve, and she had no doubt it involved hurting Tristan.
Zane looked up, his hard eyes gleaming and his lips curled back into a sneer. “And these are just the ones I’ve found. Imagine how many others he’s painted over to conceal his fascination with you?”
She tried to think of something to say, something to take away his rage; shift the heat off Tristan. But in that moment the lieutenant’s face cleared, and he seemed to lose all interest in the canvases.
“That’s all for now, Chief Songworth. You may go.”
She swallowed hard. God, couldn’t they just get on with whatever sick punishment he had planned? No, he’d want her to stew over it for a few more days yet, watch her sweat and grow more and more anxious by the minute.
She cleared her throat. “And Tristan?”
“1588 will pay for his indiscretion. Just the same as anyone else who breaks the rules.”
What a hypocrite.
She stood, mouth compressed, keeping her eyes neutral. If he was hoping she’d plead for leniency for Tristan, or show any sort of emotion, he’d be disappointed. Saluting stiffly, she marched toward the door and escaped into the corridor, then leaned against the wall.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She had to see Tristan. She had to warn him.
Forcing her limbs into action, she left C zone and made her way down steps to the prison that was D zone.
When his empty cell greeted her, she knew he’d been taken elsewhere.
“Thank god, Songworth, you’re here.”
Rita spun around at MacVoy’s voice behind her. Her pulse eased its frantic pace.
The other woman’s smile was apologetic. ”Your half hour came and went. When you weren’t with Zane I had a fair idea of where to look next.”
Rita nodded, managing a smile in response, though her gut was in knots. “Thank you for coming to find me.” She swept a hand toward the empty cell. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where I can find Tristan?”
Beth’s smile faded. “1588?”
Rita nodded. “Yes, Tristan.” She refused to think of him as a number.
“Apparently last night he went off the rails. He had to be restrained … locked down.” Beth reached out, the hand on her shoulder meant to be reassuring. “I only just heard.”
Rita forced a calm she didn’t feel. “Where is he now?”
Beth’s hand dropped back to her side. “He’s in the Box.”
Rita stared blankly for a moment, unable to take it in. Her voice cracked. “You’re sure?”
Beth nodded. “I’m afraid so. It’s the talk of the ship.”
She could well imagine the rumors. The whites prisoners were held in awe at the best of times, Tristan even more so, given that he had been on the cusp of emerging as the next great artist before things on Earth had gone to shit. Now that he’d been thrown in the Box, breaking his hitherto unblemished record, who knew what would happen to him next?
A normal prisoner would face forty-eight hours and be released. Would Tristan?
The whole time she’d been in Zane’s office, the lieutenant had known Tristan was in the Box. The bastard. But Zane was the last person on her mind just then.
She should have known better than to think even for one moment that Tristan didn’t care. He had been set off by Zane kissing her. He’d stuck his neck out for her, saved her the moment the lieutenant had laid his filthy paws on her.
And now Tristan was paying the price. “Jesus,” she whispered. The Box was a prisoner’s worst nightmare. Solitary confinement in outer space, with the constant noise of thrusters and unbearable heat from the back-end of industrial refrigerators. She blew out a breath. “I can’t just let him sit there and rot.”
Beth shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do. The order has been given. He’ll be there for forty-eight hours.”
It was Rita’s turn to shake her head. “I can’t let Zane keep walking over people … not anymore.”
Beth reached out and clasped her hands. “The lieutenant wasn’t the one who sentenced him to the Box. The Major did.”
Rita blinked. How had things gone this far? “The Major might have given the order, but we both know Zane was behind it.”
The other woman’s brown eyes gentled. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Go to the top.”
Not ten minutes later, Rita rapped on the Major’s office door.
“Who is it?” he barked.
“It’s Chief Songworth, Sir.”
She thought she could hear a heavy, drawn out sigh. “Come in.”
Snapping her wrist under the scanner, she pushed open the door. The Major sat behind his desk, his face drawn as though weighed down by all the problems aboard the ship. She saluted. “Sir, I realize I didn’t make an appoint—”
“What is it you want, Chief, that couldn’t have been sorted out with the lieutenant?”
“That is the problem, Sir. Lieutenant Zane is manipulating people into thinking 1588 is the bad guy.”
She hated saying Tristan’s number instead of his name, but at least the Major would be able to identify the prisoner.
One of his dark eyebrows shot up, stark against his pale skin. “Oh? Are you saying this ‘whites’ prisoner is a model citizen?”
Although the Major had been brought up in the towers, his scars suggested a much rougher life. He just might understand Tristan better than most. She cleared her throat. “Sir, the lieutenant and I …”
“… were an item. I’m well aware of the facts, Songworth.” He steepled his fingers. “What exactly has that got to do with 1588?”
She swallowed. The Major mightn’t think highly of her consorting with a prisoner, but she had no choice. “I’m in love with him.”
There. She’d said it. Out loud and proud, even if Tristan wasn’t there to hear it.
The Major stared at her, as though she was the one who was mentally deficient. “You chose a whites prisoner over a highly venerated officer?”
Her heart sank. She was halfway to screwing things up completely. She nodded. “Yes.” She held his incredulous stare. “I’m not sure what you might hear about your own officers, but Lieutenant Zane isn’t the principled man he pretends to be.”
Her mouth dried as a flush of red blanketed the Major’s pasty face. “Break-ups are rarely pretty, but I’d hoped you’d show more respect, Chief Songworth.”
“I meant no insult, Sir. But the lieutenant …” There was no easy way of saying it. “… he was drugging my wine with sexmeth.”
The Major’s eyebrow jerked higher. “That’s quite an accusation, Songworth.”
“It’s the truth, Sir.”
He exhaled slowly. “Where’s your proof?”
Her chin lifted. “I believe if you tested his wine, maybe searched his room and his office, you’d find all the proof you’d need.”
The Major ran a hand over his face, before lifting a pen and scrawling a note. “Your record has been faultless so far, your performance exemplary … which is the only reason I’m doing you this one favor.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“While I have this investigated, his store of red wine will be taken from him, until such time that he’s proven innocent … or not.” He looked up, the nib of his pen pushing deep. “And I have little doubt of his innocence.”
If the Major truly believed that, he wouldn’t be going to this much effort. But Rita was also aware that old money liked to stick together.
She bit into her bottom lip. “The lieutenant will be furious that I came to you about him.”
The older man stared at her for a moment with unblinking eyes. “I highly doubt you have anything to fear from Zane. Nevertheless, I’ll request he keeps his distance from you too.”
“And if he’s found guilty?” she asked.
“Then he’ll be dealt with accordingly.” His eyes narrowed. “No one disobeys the stringent laws we have onboard the Siren.”
If the Major was being honest, and Zane was found guilty, the lieutenant faced a demotion and a hefty fine at the very least.
Her heart lightened at that piece of news, then dropped a little at the next.
“As for 1588 … he’s not only dangerous, he’s mad … sick. The best place for him is the Box. Forty-eight hours, just like anyone else who has exceeded the parameters on this ship.”
“Anyone else would have been given three strikes first.”
The Major’s nostrils flared. “He’s a killer—of his own family, no less.”
Rita took a step back, reeling, her skin going clammy. “What? I think you’re mistaken … Sir.”
The Major ran a hand over his face, looking much older than his fifty-odd years. “There is no shortage of men on the Siren, Songworth. If the lieutenant isn’t up to your standards, I’d suggest you find a more suitable candidate.”
Though she wasn’t in the headspace to argue, her mind cycling faster and faster with abject horror, she couldn’t agree to that. Not in a million years. “Major, with respect, I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
She’d seen the worst and most depraved examples of humanity. Tristan wasn’t a killer—not by a long shot. Whatever had happened to his family hadn’t been his fault, she was certain of it.
The Major leaned forward, resting his chin on his interlaced hands. “Then what do you propose we do about 1588?”