by Loren Rhoads
One of the security officers’ armored boots entered her field of vision. He bent down to pluck the handgun from the dead man’s grip.
He reported, “Your aide has been wounded, Lord Thallian.”
“Are we secure here, Commander?” Thallian asked.
Another security officer, one Raena couldn’t see, said, “Yes, my lord.”
“Escort the Chief Minister’s party to a holding cell until we can sort out responsibility for what’s happened here.”
“Ambassador Thallian, I—”
“Your protest is noted, Chief Minister,” Thallian said. “Commander, you have your orders.”
As the security guards herded the prisoners together, Raena tried to pull her limbs in around her body. The floor was cold. She suspected that she would be warmer if only she could stand.
Thallian’s shiny black boots stepped into the spreading pool of her blood. Raena winced. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d cleaned her own blood from his leathers, but now there was so much blood . . .
Thallian squatted down beside her. He traced her face with one velvet-gloved hand. “You sacrificed yourself for me.”
“My duty, my lord.” She tried again to get up, but her limbs might as well have belonged to someone else.
“It’s a clean wound,” Thallian noted. “Looks as if the projectile passed straight through.” He pulled his glove off.
Raena closed her eyes, expecting to feel his feverishly warm hand on her face. Instead, a pain yet more excruciating chased away the rapidly expanding numbness.
She opened her eyes to watch Thallian withdraw his finger from the entry wound. Blood slicked his finger and ran down the back of his hand. He held her gaze as he lifted his forefinger to his lips. His tongue darted out. Then, like a child, he inserted his finger between his lips and sucked the blood away.
Anger flooded Raena’s system, a heat to replace the chill. “Will you let me die, my lord?”
“Never,” Thallian promised. “Never.”
CHAPTER 13
The stolen ship was silent as Raena prowled its corridors. Mykah and Coni had retreated to the boy’s cabin to share its narrow bunk. Vezali tinkered in the cockpit, familiarizing herself with the old-fashioned human-designed controls. Haoun sprawled on cushions on the floor of the lounge, the only space large enough for him until they dismantled the bunks in the soldiers’ quarters. His breath made an eerie whistle as he slept.
Raena peeked in on Jain, snoring on his bench. She clicked the remote in her pocket and unlocked the restraints, but he didn’t wake. Poor kid.
At last she returned to her own cabin. She crossed the darkened room to switch on the computer screen. Her fingers found the control to dial down the brightness as she perched on the corner of the bunk.
She had a message from Jimi asking last-minute questions about water and rations. He thanked her for her directions on aiming himself toward the shipping lanes. She wondered if Jain could guess which of his brothers had betrayed the family’s hiding place. She wondered if Jimi had done it intentionally.
She wished the boys would be more forthcoming about their childhood, if it could be called that. She was curious if they had been beaten in the name of training. Had their innocence been enough to sate their father’s appetite, or had he needed to break their bodies as well? How much had he used them, created them in her image?
Knowing wouldn’t change the outcome, she told herself. Weapons needed to be disabled, no matter how they’d been forged.
On the Shaad family channel, she found a message from Ariel. Raena sat back, considering if there was anything her “sister” could tell her that hadn’t already been said. She reached out to delete it unread, but then hesitated. Maybe later she’d want to read it. Maybe she’d want some assurance that someone in the galaxy still loved her, still understood her, no matter what she did. For now, Raena backed out of the channel, covering the traces that she’d been there at all.
Powering down the computer, she stretched out on Revan’s bunk, head at the foot, and wondered if she could sleep. It would be easier if she had some company. She’d spent too many years sleeping alone.
* * *
Mykah snuggled close to Coni, breathing in the spicy scent of her fur. She always made him think of the bright scent of cinnamon.
He was tired in a way he hadn’t been in a long time, wrung out by the excitement of finally doing something grand. He’d searched the stolen ship from fore to aft, collecting up a surprising array of weaponry and inventorying everything else the Thallians had stocked on board. Then Raena had given him a lesson in what the various weapons did, how they had been modified, and what they could be used for now. His head felt very full.
“I don’t like it,” Coni muttered low in her throat. The frequency raised the hair on the back of Mykah’s neck. He shivered sleepily.
“Don’t like what?” he whispered.
“Don’t like locking that boy in a cell.”
“We’re taking him home unharmed,” Mykah said.
“That’s what she told you.”
Mykah nodded. “That’s what Raena said. You don’t believe her?”
“If we’re just taking him home, why does he have to be locked down all the time? Even humans have rights.”
Mykah laughed at that. It was a joke older than he was, dating back to the War. Did humans have rights after they wiped out the Templars? Well, he couldn’t remember all the permutations of the joke now, but eventually when you got to the punch line, it was supposed to be funny when you said, “Even humans have rights.”
“Maybe he’s dangerous,” Mykah suggested.
“Dangerous to us, maybe. Dangerous to her?”
“I see what you mean.” Mykah propped his head up on his fist so he could see Coni in the half-light coming from the computer screen. Her eyes took on a sheen in the darkness when the pupils opened up and amethyst reflected back. The first time he’d seen her eyes glow, Mykah found it eerie. Now they’d spent enough nights together that he found it enchanting.
Coni wouldn’t give up yet. “She may not be torturing him, but she’s tormenting him. And I don’t like it.”
“Let’s talk to her in the morning.”
“You talk to her in the morning,” Coni insisted.
“Promise.” He leaned down to kiss her cold lips, breathing her in once more.
* * *
It had been too quiet. The last word they’d had from Revan had been his assurance that they’d located Raena. He’d said it was only a matter of time until they had her safely stowed in their hold. Revan showed embarrassing enthusiasm for returning home.
Then nothing.
It wasn’t like Revan to keep a secret or withhold a surprise. After too many hours had passed, Thallian knew that his brother’s plan had failed. Raena had escaped. And Revan, damn him, was too ashamed to admit it.
Jonan had been in a fine rage since that realization. No one but Eilif had dared speak to him. In fact, Jaden had cringed out of his father’s path, for which Jonan repaid him with a pair of broken ribs. Jonan found himself surrounded by fools, idiots, and incompetent children. He wished he had been able to go after Raena himself.
The sense of failure crushed him and made it hard to keep drawing breath. Jonan knew that he had to have Raena back or everything he had left was worthless. He stood in the darkness in front of the wall screen, watching her fly again and again, a sparrow with the agility of an eagle, looping and diving amongst the skyscrapers. Playing! That she could feel such joy speared him. He hated her for it. He swore that he would make her suffer in proportion to the pleasure she’d taken in her freedom.
And he would make her like it.
* * *
When Raena gave up on the pretense of sleep, she found Mykah bustling in the galley. “Breakfast?” he asked.
“Just some fruit,” she said, picking an apple out of the crisper.
“There are eggs. I’m not sure what kind of eggs, but they taste go
od. I think Haoun brought them onboard.”
Raena surprised herself by saying, “None for me, thanks. But if you wouldn’t mind, fix my share for the kid? I’m going to see if he’s hungry enough to behave himself this morning.”
Mykah nodded and leaned over the stovetop. She was glad he approved.
She took Gavin’s knife from the top of her boot and proceeded to section the fruit. She’d thought it was an apple, but the flesh inside the thin crimson skin was bright yellow. It tasted like fresh air and sunshine. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it.
Mykah glanced over his shoulder at her. His attention caught on the knife.
“Got a question?” she asked.
“I noticed you’re not strapping the boy down any more.”
“No need to.” She ate another slice of the fruit, puzzling over it. It was kind of appealing, but so different from what she had expected that she wasn’t sure she could finish it. “His name is Jain.”
“I wondered. He gonna be coming out to join us later?”
“I doubt it.” She weighed whether to tell Mykah the whole story. As much as she enjoyed his naiveté, she didn’t want any ill-considered rescue attempts on the boy. Not that she was worried for herself, but someone else might get hurt. She needed the whole crew to make this run successfully. “Did you see the news about that man who was tortured to death, like the old days?”
Mykah nodded.
“Lim—the dead man—was one of the crew that busted me out of prison. And our guest Jain was the one who killed him, while the Thallians were in the process of hunting me.”
Mykah turned the heat off, scraped the eggs together onto a plate, and fussed a little with the garnish. Raena smiled, amused. She’d forgotten he’d been a waiter before becoming a pirate. He handed her the plate. She added the rest of her fruit to it, adjusting the slices to make them more aesthetic.
Mykah smiled back at her before growing serious. “Is that true about the boy?”
“Coni will confirm it when she decrypts the logs.”
Raena started to take the plate to Jain when Mykah added one more thing. “We’ve been watching the news from Kai. The Business Council is trying to hush the story up—violence on a weapon-free world is bad for tourism—but they still haven’t identified the men you killed. There’s been a lot of commentary about how weapon bans don’t protect people, how everyone has a right to protect themselves, and yet more discussion of humans as inherently violent and dangerous. Do you think the Thallians will have seen the news and figure out we’re coming?”
“It’s possible,” she conceded. “We’ll just have to send them a message that contradicts the news. I need Coni to break those logs as soon as she can.”
* * *
Jain didn’t ask her any questions about the food. He set the tray on his lap and hunkered over it, shoveling in bites as though she might snatch it away from him. Raena straddled the chair, facing him. She was pleased with herself for thinking to let him sate one hunger while she told him about another.
Even though she had been a slave, she wasn’t used to beatings outside the training arena. She was, however, used to paying attention to the arousal of her masters. Thallian’s arousal would have been obvious even if she hadn’t been watching for it.
Once she discovered that, it had been easy enough to redirect him from beating her. There were other ways that he preferred to hurt her. She used that to keep herself alive.
“My father would never fuck a slave,” Jain snarled at her.
“I wasn’t his slave,” Raena corrected. “He didn’t own me, although I’m sure that later he regretted stealing me away from my mistress. If your father had purchased me legally, the Empire wouldn’t have allowed me as much freedom as it did. Instead, Jonan had me enlisted as his aide, a free woman in service to the Empire. So when I escaped, Jonan couldn’t simply drag me back and have me collared. The Empire had a greater claim on me than your father, and they weren’t certain of his loyalty. So I was the pawn they used to control the prince.”
Jain protested, “How do I know that anything you say is true?”
“You can ask your father when you get home. If you dare. Ask him about this.”
* * *
Looking back on it, Raena realized she’d called Thallian to her quarters to give him something to remember her by. She didn’t expect to survive the escape she’d arranged for Ariel from the Arbiter.
Raena knew only too well how “interrogating” prisoners excited Thallian. He had been promoted to his diplomatic position after he’d plucked her off of Nyx, so she’d had the dubious honor of watching him grow to love his work. At first Thallian had been content to use robots against prisoners. Then he discovered how much more satisfying it was to have a hand in the physical torture. The latest refinement included sexual abuse. As he was going to kill his prisoners anyway, he saw no reason not to make full use of them.
Raena wanted to spare Ariel as much as she could. It wouldn’t matter to Thallian if the blond girl was unconscious. He would make certain that state was no haven for Ariel either. She would remember for the rest of her life, with the clarity of a nightmare, whatever he did to her in that cell. Raena stepped between them as soon as she could.
She lay under the bedclothes in her quarters, hands folded loosely over her bare midriff, waiting for him to answer her message. What could she use to distract him? Perhaps if Thallian thought she was jealous of the attention he paid to her former mistress. If Raena could make him believe that she’d called him away out of envy . . . but her jealousy had to be powerful and convincing. Thallian would sense dishonesty. That was what he did.
She thought over all the advantages Ariel had: wealth, privilege, parents who adored her, state-of-the-art toys. Ariel owned everything Raena had always coveted. Effortlessly. Raena could not allow her to have Thallian as well.
Raena heard him outside the door. Envy was exactly the correct ploy to distract Thallian. Eclipsed in the Emperor’s favor, Thallian understood the emotion very well.
He stepped into the darkened room and locked the door behind him. “Come here,” he commanded.
She moved through the darkness to stand before him, hands clasped behind her, gaze downcast.
He took her throat in his gloved hand and nudged her chin upward. “You never told me you were a slave.”
She waited a breath, uncertain whether he expected an answer. When the pause continued, she said, “My lord, I told you I’d been a bodyguard.”
“A slave,” he repeated, fingers twitching tighter around her throat. When she didn’t answer, he thrust her away. Raena staggered. She wanted to rub her throat, but didn’t dare move her hands from behind her back. This had to be played very carefully. She had to survive to get Ariel out of that cell.
“I am a prince,” he reminded. “You are a runaway slave.”
“That’s true, my lord.”
Thallian turned on the lights. The brightness made her wince.
“Your mistress is beautiful,” Thallian purred. “Unfortunately, she has no value to the Empire now that the Sune hive has been destroyed.”
He wanted her to plead for Ariel’s life. Raena looked up at him, to see Thallian’s sharkish grin. He stripped off his gloves, one finger at a time. Blood dripped from his shirt cuff.
“Her fate is in your hands, my lord.” That held a satisfactory amount of bitterness. She added, “I am in your hands now.”
“Stand against the door,” he said.
Without hesitation, she laid a hand flat against each side of the doorframe. She heard Thallian undressing behind her but did not turn her head. She tried to keep her imagination focused on her bed, on what she would do to atone for interrupting his ‘interrogation.’ She imagined her blood staining the sheets and streaking Thallian’s body.
With an unhurried motion, he coiled her long straight hair into a rope and wound it around her throat. Then he stepped back, leaving her time to wonder what he had in mind tonight. So
mething wet fell across her back, striping her diagonally from shoulder to hip. She reset her stance and forced the tension from her muscles.
He touched an igniter to her hip. Flames raced up along the accelerant. In a moment, her skin would burn.
Raena breathed out softly. Thallian would torture her until he was satisfied. Crying about it would not help her. She preferred that the rest of the ship not hear her scream.
She thought about his weight atop her, pinning her to the mattress. She thought about his breath panting into her ear. The nape of her neck was still tender where he had bitten her yesterday, grinding her flesh between his sharp teeth. She knew that in his way, he loved her like nothing else in the galaxy. She knew he’d never met a woman like her before and never would again.
* * *
Eilif huddled into an uneasy sleep. Only in sleep could her body forget the insults Jonan had done her. Only in sleep could Dr. Poe’s medicine heal her to face another day.
She saw herself standing on a windowsill among unfamiliar skyscrapers. She held a metal strut in each hand. Spotless white fabric snapped in the wind that tore the moisture from her eyes and whipped her white hair into her face.
Raena Zacari leaned against Eilif’s shoulder, grinning, black eyes alight. “Jump,” Raena encouraged, her hand firm on Eilif’s spine. “I’m right behind you.”
Eilif let herself be pushed off the windowsill. As she plummeted toward the crowded street below, she debated whether she wanted to fly or if it would be better to let gravity call her home.
Raena dove past her laughing, then flung her wings open and soared upward again. “Come on, Eilif,” she shouted. “Join me!”
Eilif opened her wings and felt the air bear her upward. The joy that surged through her jolted her out of the dream.
* * *
Raena stopped by the bay where Vezali was running diagnostics on the escape pod. The pod itself was less than a meter square inside, not room enough for the boy to stand up. One of Vezali’s tentacles waved hello when Raena poked her head in.
Raena asked, “There’d be a lot more room in the pod if you got rid of some of the padding, right?”