Lady of the Star Wind

by Veronica Scott

  Copyright 2016 by Jean D. Walker

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, places, characters and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Art by Fiona Jayde

  DEDICATION

  To my daughters Valerie and Elizabeth, my best friend Daniel and my brother David for all their encouragement and support through the years

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Julie C and the E-book Formatting Fairies!

  Joyce L

  Lady of the Star Wind

  By

  Veronica Scott

  CHAPTER ONE

  Anything could happen on the wide-open world of Freemarket. Mark Denaltieri could fulfill his employer’s expectations and rescue Princess Alessandra from her kidnapper. Not that it would be a long-term rescue, since he was also being paid to deliver her into the hands of people she hated. A real “out of the supernova into the black hole” situation. He’d walk away with more credits in his account than most people accumulated in a lifetime.

  And Alessandra would be lost to him.

  Again.

  Was that the outcome he truly desired? Despite his cool head’s best arguments, his sentimental heart pushed him to accomplish a genuine rescue of his former lover, setting her free.

  The great house across the street from his hiding place blazed with lights, as it did every night. Alessandra’s kidnapper kept late hours. Surveying the mansion and its occupants from all angles, in many guises, had chewed up the better part of two weeks. One of his bribes got him a temp job as a deliveryman’s helper, and he’d gone inside the house. He’d also been on the grounds at night, testing the defenses indicated on plans obtained through another bribe. Grand Duke Portuc apparently had untested faith in standard household safeguards, bolstered by expensive bodyguards. Accustomed to defeating the defense perimeters of alien races, Mark anticipated no trouble disarming a low-end commercial system.

  In the whole time he’d spent setting up for tonight’s extraction, he’d seen the Imperial Princess Alessandra Alishia Zhivanov once.

  The brief glance had seared like a blaster burn to the heart. Seeing her had shaken his self-control more than he’d expected. What had happened to locking emotion and memory safely away? She’d matured into a beautiful woman, but he’d seen traces of the girl to whom he’d once sworn eternal devotion. That was the crack in his mental armor.

  Frequenting low-end bars, he'd eavesdropped on servants’ gossip, confirming she stayed a virtual prisoner in her room, under heavy guard.

  As Mark reviewed his plans a final time, his attention was drawn to a flurry of unusual activity on the quiet, dead-end street. Cruising lights off, five hulking black groundcars glided to the Portuc house. The convoy parked, the last vehicle in line swinging to block off the street.

  Tzerde. Mark swore under his breath. Why tonight, of all nights, did the household’s routine have to change? He debated whether to stand down, maybe reschedule to tomorrow. Freemarket’s moons would still be thin crescents shedding scant light.

  Guardsmen, wearing a crowned-lion-and-snake household crest he recognized, even after all these years in exile, disembarked from the groundcars.

  Barent Kliin. Even as Mark thought the name, the man himself stepped from the third car in the cavalcade. Memories rushed into his mind’s eye. Gritting his teeth, he shoved the images into the recesses of his mind. That life ended a long time ago. He didn’t need the distraction.

  Attitude disdainful, Kliin eyed the house for a moment. Making no effort to keep his voice down, the Outlier noble said, “Trust Portuc to rent something grandiose like this.” As his companion nodded sycophantic agreement, Barent tugged at the black glove on one hand. “Let’s get this errand done.”

  The squad of guards deployed along the street with military precision. The Kliin contingent had been supplemented by an assortment of the local for-hire talent, easily distinguished by their motley garb and sloppy movements. Five Kliin ascended the stairs behind Barent and his lieutenant.

  Seeing Kliin convinced Mark he’d run out of time. The extraction had to be done tonight. Kliin wasn’t here on a social call, and his presence at the house where Alessandra was held was unlikely to be coincidence. Slipping from his perch, Mark slunk through the underbrush to a spot halfway down the street, behind the last man on the perimeter. It was a moment’s work to choke the guard into unconsciousness and drag him out of sight. Mark donned his victim’s coat and night-vision helmet. He took a moment to hide his service blaster at his back, where the coat hid it nicely. Buckling on the man’s weapons belt with its less than impressive civilian blaster took another few seconds before he stepped onto the street, marching toward the house as if under some urgent order.

  He passed two Kliin guardsmen with no problem, striding past the car blocking the street, happy to hear the motor idling. The driver, a local, was taking it easy, leaning back in his seat, listening to music, and watching a miniature hologram do a striptease.

  Visor lowered, Mark climbed the stairs to the house unchallenged. Saluting crisply, he passed the two men posted outside the door and entered the ornately decorated foyer. Voices filtered from the dining room, located across the entry.

  Crossing to the dining room doors, he stood at parade rest, facing the entry, eavesdropping.

  Over the years, countless dialects and alien languages had been hypno implanted in his brain for clandestine missions, but he’d never forgotten Outlier, his mother tongue. Listening to the ebb and flow of the argument, he had no trouble following the nuances, nor identifying the speakers, despite not having heard their voices for two decades.

  Staring at his distorted reflection in the gleaming parquet flooring, he assessed and discarded contingency plans.

  “I told you, Alessandra’s impossible to deal with.” Portuc’s voice hadn’t lost the grating whine capable of setting Mark’s teeth on edge. “She’s a piece of work, astonishingly like her grandmother. The girl always seemed docile, but she’s worse than a gorbeed shrew.”

  Barent’s voice was smooth. “I appreciated your skill in luring Alessandra away from the safety of Throne Planet. Bringing her to Freemarket was inspired planning on your part. My compliments. But I don’t need you any longer.”

  “What are you talking about?” Confusion and the first faint stirrings of fear quavered in Portuc’s voice.

  Mark grinned behind the visor. Everyone knew you couldn’t trust the Kliin. It was practically an axiom in the Outlier Empire, had been for centuries. What outcome had Portuc expected when he got tangled in a Kliin plot?

  “I’m not here to pay you off for bringing me the princess,” Barent said, his voice a lazy drawl. “I’m here to rescue her and take revenge on her kidnappers.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m going to kill the bastards, dear boy, execute them summarily for the crime of kidnapping an imperial granddaughter. I slaughter you and a few of your household guards to give the story a tinge of veracity, take Alessandra home to Throne Planet, the empress rewards me with her granddaughter’s hand and substantial dowry, then I ascend the throne with my reluctant bride—” Barent’s voice broke off. Mark had a mental picture of the man shrugging.

  He’d heard enough. Barent might toy with poor Portuc a few moments longer, but the duke’s fate was sealed. Alessandra’s was to
be equally grim if Mark didn’t take immediate action. Hand to his earpiece, as if listening to new orders, he crossed to the sweeping staircase, ignoring the men he passed. The empress would accept whatever outcome transpired. If Mark brought the errant princess back to her, Ekatereen would pay him and continue to use her granddaughter as a pawn to control the various factions. If Barent succeeded, the empress would acknowledge his guile and accept him as a worthy heir to her throne.

  No one cared what happened to Alessandra.

  Especially not Mark.

  Of course not.

  Even as he had the thought, he knew he was lying to himself.

  Her quarters were on the third floor. Two Kliin soldiers had disposed of Portuc’s hapless men, as evidenced by the bodies piled farther down the hall, and now guarded her door. The men watched him climb the last steps without any visible sense of misgiving. In his stolen uniform and helmet, Mark blended into their company. Not pausing for a second in his easygoing approach, he reached casually under the folds of his coat, thumbed the setting on his concealed weapon to stun, and shot the pair between one step and another. The men crumpled to the carpet without a sound.

  Mark stepped over the bodies. He burned through the lock with a low setting on the blaster, then tried the door. It wouldn’t budge.

  She’d barricaded herself in. Clever, but ultimately futile.

  Holstering the weapon first, Mark put his shoulder to the stubborn panel and shoved.

  A moment later he entered the room, moving around the heavy piece of furniture positioned as a pitiful last defense.

  Alessandra stood, straight and imperious, across the chamber from him, her face set in grim lines but showing no fear. Her luminous blue eyes were wide, and she was breathing rapidly, but she faced him with open defiance. A maid cowered behind her.

  “You.” Pointing at the servant with his free hand, Mark gestured toward the door. “Out. This house is about to become a death trap, and the men downstairs won’t leave any witnesses. I advise you to run.”

  Hunching over to make herself less of a target, the woman edged along the wall until she passed Mark and bolted into the corridor.

  Mark stared at the princess, Seeing her again after all these years was like a hallucination. The changes in her face—older, a few lines, but still beautiful by any standard—fascinated him. Annoyed, he realized just being in the same room with her dangerously distracted him from the job.

  “You can tell your master I won’t agree to anything,” Alessandra said in Outlier, voice cold but tremulous.

  “I’m not one of Kliin’s boys.” Mark removed the helmet, setting it on the bureau amidst a clutter of jewelry and trinkets. Catching a whiff of her delicious perfume, the same she’d always worn for him, Mark felt a moment of vertigo. “I’m here to get you out.”

  Eyebrows raised, apparently puzzled by his words, she studied his face.

  Mark moved forward. As if engaged in some macabre dance, she stepped back, one step and then another as he advanced, until her shoulders hit the wall with a thump.

  “Sandy, damn it, it’s me, Mark Denaltieri.” Unaccustomed emotions battering at him, he regretted ever agreeing to this venture. Some things were best left permanently in the past.

  Eyes narrowed, lips thin, she glared at him. “What kind of a fool does Barent Kliin think I am? Or is this some new plot of my grandmother’s?” She grabbed a vase from the table beside her and threw it at him. “Mark is dead.”

  Dodging the missile, he retreated to the door, cracking it open a sliver. “Your aim is as bad as ever, I see.” He heard the rumble of voices from the floor below. Barent evidently wasn’t done toying with poor, deluded Portuc. Over his shoulder, Mark said, “Who the seven hells ever called you Sandy besides me?”

  When he eased the door shut and turned, she’d sunk onto the sofa under the windows, slumped on the cream and blue floral cushions. She wiped away tears.

  Crossing to the couch, he stood in front of her. Taking fierce control of his own emotions, he pitched his voice lower and injected more calm into his tones. “Your Highness, this isn’t a plot or a trick. I’m Mark.”

  She shook her head in pained denial, closing her eyes as if to avoid the sight of him. Tears coursed over her cheeks. “My grandmother had him tortured and killed. I saw the records. You’re not him, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Tortured, yes. Killed, no.” He blew a gusty breath. “It’s a long story. We haven’t got time for explanations. Barent Kliin is downstairs, about to murder Portuc. His plans for you aren’t much better. Will you trust me to get you out of here in one piece? Once I have you somewhere safe, you can make your own decision about what to do next. Word of a bogatyr. Sworn on my family’s honor.”

  Cheeks red, dark blue eyes flooded with tears, she stared at him, seeming lost in grief. “I knew, even when Portuc claimed to have found him, it had to be a lie. Grandmother never would have let Mark Denaltieri live. I wanted it to be true so badly.”

  Mark knelt, placing one hand over hers. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

  “Prove who you are, or I go nowhere.” Hand fisted, she shoved his shoulder. “I’ll scream and bring them running. I’d rather trust Barent than an impostor.”

  Had he changed that much in twenty years? He’d never been able to forget her face, why didn’t she know his? Maybe she was blocking the memories. Or maybe he hadn’t mattered as much to her as he’d believed. Either way, he was committed to this action, no time for doubt. “If I convince you I’m Mark, will you let me get you out of here?”

  She nodded. “But you can’t prove such a thing.”

  Impatient, he threw off the heavy Kliin overcoat and yanked the left side of his blue tunic free of the pants, revealing his abdomen. “We met when I took a force knife meant for you, in the Spring of a year long ago.”

  Fingers trembling, she touched the long, white scar running parallel to his ribs, near his heart. Even when he’d been severely injured in the Special Forces, requiring time in the rejuve resonator, he’d demanded the medtechs leave the scar. It represented the last pitiful link to his past. Proof he had indeed been someone else, with a far different destiny than the one forced upon him. Now he shivered, flinching from even the lightest touch of her hand. Too many memories. He endured the contact for a moment before pulling away and jerking the tunic into place as he stood. “You have a birthmark shaped like a heart in a very intimate place, Your Highness. If you require further proof.”

  “I’d wandered off from a family picnic in the gardens at Nemalpaue.” Alessandra stared at him, eyes wide. “You’d recently been assigned to the house guards as a cadet, and you were lost, confused by your first time in the imperial gardens—”

  “We were in the gardens at Tsiolovad, and you were reading a book by yourself,” he said, temper growing short as she continued to test his claim. “I was in the wrong place at the right time. In time to see the assassins entering the garden. I’d no chance of getting help, so, being young and stupid, I tried to take them on all by myself.”

  “No, you were so brave, displayed amazing courage through the entire fight.” Staring at him, she massaged her temples as if to soothe a massive headache. Unexpectedly, she grabbed his chin, tilting his head until the lamp on the wall bathed his entire face in merciless light. Leaning forward, she peered into his eyes, then released him and fell against the cushions a moment later with a gasp. “It is you—that tiny fleck of gold in your left eye always fascinated me. I’ve never seen anything like it in anyone else’s eyes.”

  He walked to the bureau and donned the helmet, visor retracted. “We have to go. Trust me, don’t trust me, believe me or not, but if we don’t leave this room right now, you’re going to be Barent Kliin’s prize. I’m not waiting around to go over old times in the cadets with him. Are you coming?”

  “All right.” Her measured tone gave nothing away of her inner thoughts. “We can put aside the need for explanations temporarily. I always
trusted you. You were the only one I could rely on.”

  “Still am, at least to get you out of here. Trust me tonight.”

  Moving like a coiled spring, she stood, kicking her tangled skirt out of the way. “There’s something I can’t leave behind.”

  “You don’t have time to pack.”

  Sandy ignored him, going to the closet and rummaging in the deep drawers under the hanging dresses, while Mark’s meager store of patience evaporated. She backed out of the storage space holding a medium-sized, caramel leather bag. The satchel appeared to be quite heavy, but she slid the strap onto her left shoulder with a practiced move and walked across the room to join him. “I’m ready now. What do you have in mind—a stroll out the front door?”

  He stood aside. “No, we’d run right into Kliin and his hired thugs. We’re going over the roof.”

  She stopped, eyebrows raised, hand to her mouth. “The roof? Are you mad?”

  “Let me see your shoes.”

  She slid one high-heeled foot out from under the hem of the clinging turquoise skirt.

  “Anything more practical in the overstocked warehouse you called a closet?”

  She shook her head but kicked off the offending shoes.

  “Barefoot?” Mark sighed but wasn’t about to argue. After he reconnoitered, he motioned for her to precede him into the hall. No sign of the maid, no sign of any alarm having been given. He told her to wait while he dragged the two unconscious men into the room, then closed the door behind him. Visualizing one of the alternate escape routes he’d identified when studying the plans, he led her deeper into the recesses of the house until they reached a staircase.

  Every other riser creaked. Concerned the noise might draw unwanted attention, he urged Sandy to climb faster. When she reached the top floor of the house, he moved into the lead, going to a hidden door at the far end of the corridor. Burning through the lock with his blaster, Mark yanked the door open and pulled down a ladder. “Up here, quickly.”