Atone By Treaty

by Kayla Stonor

  The alien female frowned, head tilted as if listening and Gabrielle noticed the Qui psi-translator attached to her ear. She seemed to pick her words carefully. “My lord Oltu sent me serve you.” A questioning look to her animated expression demanded a reply.

  My lord?

  Damn. Gabrielle didn’t need one of Oltu’s servants, slaves, spies, or whatever. She wanted peace to think, a bath.

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Her visitor looked concerned. She sniffed the air and indicated Gabrielle’s over shirt. “I can bring fresh clothes. Remove this.”

  Gabrielle blushed. She’d wiped Oltu’s muck off with the bedsheet, the first convenient cloth to hand, but she still reeked of sex. The need to wash overcame her. “Well, I could use help finding the bath.”

  Her visitor beamed. “I am, Saiorse of Dralexi, the First Lord’s tribute,” she said as the door closed behind them.

  Gabrielle cringed. “Tribute?”

  “Yes, my lady. I am honored to serve you.”

  “God, no, you don’t serve me, but I’d be grateful for your help. I can’t find even a shower.”

  “There is shower and bath, my lady.” She smiled and led the way to the bathroom, glancing back at Gabrielle. “Ship environmental functions are voice-automated.” She stopped at the door. “Shower on.”

  “I figured out the lights, but I couldn’t see—” The sound of water pounding the seamless bathroom floor stopped her mid-explanation.

  “Open bath,” Saiorse commanded.

  Gabrielle stopped in the doorway. “Wow.” A circular section of the floor was sinking to form a shower well that doubled as a bath. A steaming waterfall poured from holes in the ceiling.

  Saiorse ran through commands to adjust the temperature and flow. “Ship not need precise command. Your language is in ship database. Thrak ‘Yla understands you.”

  “Are there any toiletries? Soap?”

  Oltu’s tribute pressed a wall panel and ran her fingers across an array of sparkling colored glass. “This oil foams with lovely scent. I can offer greater choice?”

  “This is fine, thank you–” She jolted back as Saiorse moved to unfasten Gabrielle’s shift. She couldn’t bear uninvited hands touching her skin so close to...

  Gabrielle’s cheeks flamed as horror crossed Saiorse’s face.

  The alien’s hands fluttered. “Please forgive.”

  “It’s okay,” Gabrielle mumbled, recognizing Saiorse only wished to assist her but embarrassed now, needing the alien to leave. “I can take it from here.”

  Concern flooded Saiorse’s features. “Are you hurt? I can help.”

  “Why would you think–? Oh...” Gabrielle flushed; a mix of rising anger and temperature. Steam misted the mirrored walls. The water reached the brim without overflowing. There had to be an overflow. “Water stop.” The forceful shower cut off and Gabrielle sighed with relief, both for the quiet and that the ship responded to her command. She returned her attention to Saiorse. “Oltu hurts you?”

  Saiorse bit her lip and looked away. “I am pleased to accept my lord’s punishment. I serve him.”

  “Because you’re his tribute? Because you like it?”

  Saiorse looked to the door. “I should go.”

  “You don’t like it. He forces you!”

  Saiorse paled and backed away. “Is more complex.”

  Gabrielle watched her go, sick to her stomach. Suddenly she needed to scrub off the stink of sex from mind and body. Slipping off her shirt, she slipped into the warm water. The foaming oil smelled heavenly, a soothing scent intended to relax the spirit.

  Hard to relax when you’d made love to a creature so heartless and cruel.

  Dammit! Why was she surprised? Jaden warned her of Oltu’s sadistic streak.

  The Qui treated their tributes worse than sex slaves. Sonestra had punished Jaden cruelly, brutally, broken him to her will. He claimed he loved the Qui Empress, and that she loved him, so much she freed him, but the charade fell apart when Jaden returned to her. Jaden could never be free now, his mind irredeemably twisted, his devotion to the Qui Empress classic Stockholm. Even after he fled Earth to kneel at her feet, Sonestra sentenced him to public punishment. Bea Solomon witnessed the electric torture, had struggled to explain Jaden’s unswerving loyalty, or her own devotion to Lord Ardant, another Qui noble of the Royal Court.

  The night after the reception on the Qui’s imperial flagship, Bea and Gabrielle downed a pilfered bottle of moonshine trying to break it down. They both cried that night. What Bea went through brought back everything Gabrielle worked hard to forget—the helplessness, the violation, the indignity, the pure terror.

  Ardant saved Bea.

  Not just rescued her, saved Bea, mind, body and spirit. And then Bea beat Ardant black and blue in a post-traumatic breakdown. She said Ardant never lifted a finger in retaliation and now Gabrielle kinda loved Ardant too. He made Bea whole, and Gabrielle could no longer hate all Qui, for it wasn’t just Ardant.

  Meseri saved Zeus. Dol’ce saved Colonel Marcel.

  Zeus, Bea, and Marcel, all smitten with their chosen Qui, none of them harmed, or punished, at least not against their will.

  So, no, Gabrielle couldn’t hate all Qui.

  But she could hate the ruling Qui Empress and her family.

  “Every now and again, I get it,” Bea had said, swinging the half-empty bottle of moonshine by the neck for emphasis. “Just for a second, I get it. Punishing General Jaden hurt the Empress more. Her culture demanded she reprimand her tribute and her duty required she grant no leniency. Anything less would bring her judgment into question, her decision to grant Earth independence, to effectively surrender the war, everything!”

  “She had him electrocuted until he couldn’t stand!”

  Bea nodded agreement. “I threw up, later when they couldn’t see, held it together until I was on my own.”

  Gabrielle had grieved to see the fierce man she remembered so subservient to the will of the Qui who stole him. Jaden did not submit easily. He submitted for others, never for himself. It wasn’t in his nature. Jaden rebelled against authority and few earned his respect. Her father never managed it, not fully.

  Jaden submitting was equivalent to giving his life for the cause.

  Years back, when she’d dated Jaden—before the Empress sunk her hooks into him—Gabrielle had been slow to recognize Jaden’s sacrificial nature. She forced their break up the day she did, remembered how hard she worked to hide her anxiety. Jaden had arrived late and she asked him to fetch a crop. The look in his eyes! Shock first, and then anger, refusal. Gabrielle had retrieved the crop herself, a riding crop she’d purchased that afternoon for this sole purpose, and looked him in the eye.

  “Maybe I’m not for you.”

  He grimaced, ran a hand through his hair. “You really want to use that on me?”

  She lied. “I really do.”

  “Gaby, this isn’t doing it for me. I don’t get it. Who are you trying to punish?”

  That one question confirmed her suspicion. She was Jaden’s pity fuck.

  The memory stung. Gabrielle splashed water on her face to cool her heated cheeks, groaned as she sank deeper into the water. Breaking with Jaden had been easy. Cale had been her rebound, except he was more than that. She loved Cale. He enjoyed her games, offered more than she needed—a perfect blend of submissive lover and tough protective man. A lump settled in her throat. She’d thought Cale was the one, even told her father to expect wedding bells. Cale moved in.

  She mentioned marriage first.

  Someone had to. What they had wasn’t a fling. They had the real thing—sexy, hot, loving and fun. She’d never been happier. Cale was her best friend and her absolute favorite lover.

  Gabrielle moaned, tears welling in her eyes. She scrubbed at the scarring up her side.

  “Is it because I’m damaged goods?” she’d yelled as Cale struggled to explain his reluctance.

  “No, Gaby, I don’t think of
you that way!”

  She hadn’t believed him.

  “We’re happy,” he argued. “Why do we have to change things?”

  “Because we’re happy! It’s the next step.”

  His lips had thinned; his signal for mutiny. “I can’t.”

  He refused to say why, refused to discuss it, whenever she tried to bring it up, he said there was stuff going on at work. There had been—Jaden—and if he’d told her she wouldn’t have pushed so hard.

  The breakup had been painful, stretched out by Cale constantly checking up on her.

  Gabrielle buried her face in her hands, thought about Cale strapped to a seat on Oltu’s transport. God, she prayed he was okay.

  Chapter Six

  Sexually frustrated, restless, Oltu rose early and sought distraction in the command center of the Thrak ‘Yla, snapping at any officer who dared approach him with less than an enemy assault, one aggravation shy of ordering a ship-wide drill and spreading the misery. His heady release at Gabrielle’s hands had not appeased the powerful urge to mate.

  If anything, he wanted her more.

  Agitation gnawed at him for much of the night, a vague unease born from something more than Saiorse’s report of her brief interaction with Gabrielle, his tribute’s fear that Gabrielle believed Oltu brutal with his tributes. Shifting to another form did not help—he hovered between his Qui, Dralexin and human form.

  Curse these humans and their addictive pheromones.

  Oltu placed palms flat on the data console, refocused on finding information on Ben Rooster’s fate. When Commander Jsut reported Rooster’s name absent from the transport’s manifest, Oltu had ordered ship records covering the same time period, sensitive information keyed for his access only.

  Cargo manifests gradually blurred into one, ship names scrolling past almost unseen.

  The more time he spent in Gabrielle’s company, the more he wanted to know the woman within, to explore her mind, and fathom her thinking, smash the insurmountable barrier between them. Colonel Tennant’s revelation about Gabrielle’s past limited his options to circumvent the condition she had imposed on their deal. He could push her, test her limits, but he’d promised he would not breach her endurance. If Gabrielle cried “red”, he’d lose her.

  He halted the flow of data with a stab of a finger.

  Data structures varied according to the planetary system standard and there was too much here for an eyeball scan. He merged and reorganized the data to Qui specifications, directing the ship’s processing power to an algorithmic task so mundane his attention wandered back to the woman who mesmerized him.

  Sending Saiorse had been a mistake.

  Gabrielle could not grasp the intricacies of a tribute’s devotion, a relationship coveted by many worlds within the Qui Empire. Gabrielle’s culture had no frame of reference to understand how a tribute sacrificed freedom for a greater cause. Culmination with Saiorse had proven the Dralexin’s devotion and Oltu valued Saiorse’s sense of duty. She served loyally, could never betray him, and he compensated her well for indulging his tastes.

  Saiorse lived in luxury, wanted for nothing.

  He didn’t have to treat her so kindly. Qui owed their tributes nothing, only the protection of their house. Instead Gabrielle believed he forced his tribute. Abused her like a common slave!

  Anger flooded him. Skal!

  Why had Saiorse allowed Gabrielle to believe that? When she stepped outside her station, he rebuked her, but never beyond her endurance. When he punished her for pleasure not a mark stained her body.

  He ran the search and turned to the nearest officer, “Send for my tribute.”

  A chime called his attention to a flashing name on the console.

  Rooster. Ben. 8-7458758, X’har Solla, a supply ship to Dralexi.

  Oltu started. Impossible.

  He double checked the date, the authorization, and cursed.

  How? The human had to be dead! Oltu had witnessed the K’lahn prison transport go down, ordered the return strike that had obliterated the rebel attack. He delved deeper. Medical records provided an answer. The resistance soldier Ben Rooster had been critically injured and pulled off a prison transport at the last moment. Oltu rechecked the log. Yes, the same prison transport destroyed over the Fringes, leading to the assumption regarding Ben Rooster’s fate.

  Oltu’s brow furrowed. The Thrak ‘Yla could not enter hyperdrive until tests proved his upgrade met safety protocols. “Report on the time dilation correction.”

  Jsut answered him. “Complete, First Lord. Simulations support your analysis. We re-test at your command.”

  His hyperdrive enhancement could halve the voyage time to Dralexi.

  “Launch a test buoy. Assuming intended star system is confirmed, plot a jump sequence for Dralexi and repeat the test with a manned jet.”

  “My lord.”

  Oltu prepared an information request to Dralexi, signed with the seal of the Royal Court, authorization the Dralexin would not dare ignore, then thought again, and redirected the package to a trusted agent.

  “Commander, arrange a private contact with the Honored Qui.” He used the symbolic title for the Empress of the Qui, Lady of Katar and trusted Regent to the Empire, a sweeping acknowledgment that Sonestra represented Qui throughout the galaxy.

  Jsut nodded, already making the arrangements.

  Saiorse appeared and knelt at his feet. “How may I serve my lord?”

  Oltu remembered her treachery and shifted to full Qui, snapping his wings out wide so she comprehended his ire. Signaling Saiorse to follow, he marched to his private command suite. When he turned just inside the closing door, he glimpsed the fear pooled in Saiorse’s eyes before she dropped to her knees once more, her head bowed low.

  “I did not know how to explain, my lord!”

  “So you let her believe I force you? And yesterday you struck me. You have always been so devoted, Saiorse.”

  “My lord, I beg mercy.” Her shaking shoulders signified the depth of her remorse.

  Oltu frowned. Saiorse was bolder than this, but then he was not normally so incensed, an anger beyond simple rage. His wise little tribute sensed the difference. “I grant you much latitude.”

  “Yes...” Her voice hitched.

  “You do not usually fear your punishment.”

  “My lord fears I have injured his cause with the human.”

  Oltu flexed his fingers, curling them into a fist, his cock hardened by her fear, his tribute igniting his mating urge, but, skal! He didn’t want his cock inside Saiorse. He craved Gabrielle. The frustration that had tormented him throughout the night reasserted its insistent throbbing demand for relief. He shifted to Dralexin before he lost control.

  Why? Saiorse of all people! Why had she not denied Gabrielle’s charge against him, the suggestion that he forced punishment upon his tribute?

  Yes, Saiorse didn’t enjoy pain. She accepted it! Offered her body for his pleasure! Look at her now, his devoted tribute. She bowed so low her forehead touched the floor.

  “Because,” Oltu mused, a nasty taste invading his mouth, “I have commanded you never to lie, and the relationship between Qui and tribute is complex.”

  Her body jerked.

  “Saiorse, look at me.”

  Her head lifted, her anguished gaze meeting his.

  “Yesterday, you invited my punishment to protect Yulla? Why?”

  “You were so angry and she fears you, my lord. Culmination will be impossible if you...” Her voice collapsed to a whisper. “If you force her.”

  Force. There it was again. The same word Gabrielle had used.

  “I agree, and I do not force her, but Yulla’s failure endangers her world.”

  “So, what will you do?”

  Oltu raised his eyebrows, and not because Saiorse dared to question him as he stood poised to punish her. Saiorse’s question implied a choice. Tradition allowed him to reject Yulla for her failure, and he’d considered exercising the right, bu
t Yulla’s existence as his tribute ensured her people prosperity, and while Alegia continued to make reparations on its debt, Oltu saw no need to destroy the only daughter of Alegia’s ruling noble. He had detected no other candidate with the psi potential for culmination.

  Saiorse fulfilled his physical needs.

  Destroying Yulla served no purpose.

  Oltu stepped back and waved Saiorse to rise. “Nothing. Not to Yulla, nor will I punish you, but I want the truth.” He gave her time to scramble to her feet, frowning when she scrubbed the threatened tears from her eyes because Saiorse hated to show weakness and the thought gave him pause. Why had Saiorse not answered Gabrielle’s charge? “Saiorse, do I force you?”

  She shook her head. “No, my lord, no! I serve you and you have always been just.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “You are very obedient, hard to fault.”

  Saiorse dropped her eyes. Modesty? Or did his cunning tribute evade his gaze?

  Before he could test her, a chime drew him to his desk.

  Two messages awaited him.

  His new translator was ready for implantation, and Gabrielle wanted to see Tennant.

  Oltu winced. Last night rage had bettered his judgment. He’d visit the medical facility first—he would need full command of his words.

  *****

  Oltu released Colonel Tennant from the metal cuffs attaching him to the pillar, the human’s steaming fury improving Oltu’s mood. Dark shadows under red-shot eyes confirmed a sleepless night. Raw marks on Tennant’s wrists suggested he had fallen asleep several times, only to be jolted awake by his chains. Some slept hanging from their wrists, but Oltu suspected Tennant had remained mostly on his feet.

  “Bastard,” Tennant snarled. “I want to see Gabrielle.”

  “She is asking to see you. I suggest you freshen up first.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “You mean, did I harm her?” Oltu growled. “No.”

  He led Tennant to an anteroom holding wash facilities, waited outside.

  “Does she know I told you? About her past?” Tennant asked on re-emerging, his stale odor reduced. Oltu resolved to order the man fresh garments for under his uniform.