An empress who must marry for duty. A race pilot who breaks all the rules. Their forbidden passion could cost everything.
Emprezia is betrothed to one of the most powerful men in the Antiata conglomerate. Marrying him will bring her one step closer to the coveted Star Chamber seat—and power over the deadly rivals threatening her family. Despite how close she is to securing their future, she can't deny the tug of her heart for the ones she had to leave behind.
Then she meets Kaolin.
As a no-name shuttle pilot and close friend of her fiancé, he should be off limits. But the passion he evokes with his steady dark gaze and skillful hands cannot be denied. When her rivals strike, Kaolin is the one who protects her. Now she has to make a choice.
Choosing Kaolin will destroy her family. But not choosing him will destroy her very soul.
* * *
Chapter One
“Brace for impact!” the captain shouted over the intercom.
Shots blasted their ship. The small, luxurious space-yacht shuddered.
Emprezia gripped her golden teacup. She sat on a low bench in the most shielded inner room. Decorated in marble and framed by wall screens displaying a beautiful starscape, it felt like traveling in a space-faring gazebo.
Her first mate stood at the doorway holding a gun.
The ship shuddered again. Cool hibiscus tea sloshed over the edge of the porcelain and wet her fingers.
When the ship stilled, she depressed the comm button. “How soon do we reach my fiancé’s planet?”
“We passed the outer marker,” her captain replied, grim-faced. “He isn’t responding.”
“Please keep trying.”
Her pursuers were two bright dots on the wall screen above the antique vase of orchids. The Corleon family. They would kill to stop her marriage, and also to steal the contents of her gold tea box.
Her only fear was that they had gotten to her fiancé first.
“We are receiving a message,” her captain said. “The owner of the planet is not at home.”
“Shit!” her first mate cried.
Emprezia glanced at him. He gripped his weapon and straightened.
The captain focused on his navigation screens. “However, if we can make it to the high orbit, his houseguest Kaolin Sarit will see us landed safely.”
Kaolin Sarit. Emprezia tasted the name like an unfamiliar wine. She knew the man as a close personal friend of her fiancé. He had the authority to promise her safety? How lucky for her and how generous of him.
The ship shifted. Her second teacup rolled off her marble table, hit the ground, and shattered.
“How long until high orbit?” she asked the captain.
“One hour.”
The yacht groaned. The captain turned a greener shade of gray, and his copilot hugged the emergency distress beacon.
“Contact me in one hour,” Emprezia replied, and closed the comm again.
The first mate whimpered.
She glanced at him. Even if the worst happened, their ship was blown to pieces, and her bargaining mineral stolen, it shouldn’t affect him so personally. Her family would pay the exorbitant fees to resurrect him.
“Doubting your health insurance?” she asked.
“We only get memory snapshots once a year,” he said. “Since my last one, I met a girl.”
Ah. If he died today, he’d lose the memories of his new girlfriend. First meetings, first dates, first kisses. First loves.
All gone.
“We’ll make it,” she assured the young man.
At only six decades old, her first mate was one of the least experienced crew members, and she had selected him because he also had one of the cleanest service records. No gambling debts, no addictions, decent judgment. He would be hardest for her enemies to get to and bribe. Emprezia added “new girlfriend” to his risk factors silently in her head.
“The Corleons will stop savaging our ship once they realize we have received clearance to land,” she said.
“How did they find us?” he asked.
Yes, how had her family’s arch rivals learned that her marriage negotiations to rich, powerful Domingo Chen had stalled? How had they learned she was embarking upon this secret, desperate mission to woo him back by offering him a prize he could not refuse?
There was only one explanation.
“A leak,” she said.
The first mate grimaced.
Emprezia specialized at springing leaks in other people and organizations, so it was unfortunate to discover one in her own private crew. She made it her business to know everything about everyone. Under the guise of negotiating contracts for her family’s shipping business, Emprezia penetrated deep into enemy territory and sold her knowledge to the highest bidder.
The Corleons used brute force. They had been breaking up her family’s convoys and decimating their cargo. They killed anyone who got in their way.
But the Corleons still had to use ports to resupply, and the closest ports belonged to single bachelor Domingo Chen.
Hence Emprezia’s marriage proposal. Domingo had entertained it, and the Corleon attacks had immediately slowed.
Then, as the date for accepting or rejecting the proposal approached, the attacks had begun again. They knew something. Something Emprezia didn’t.
She put on her clear oculars and searched Domingo’s recent transactions and company stock prices. Anything to glean the details she needed to face him.
A golden planet grew in her forward-facing wall-screens. Domingo Chen’s private stronghold glimmered with heavily armed satellites forming an impenetrable defense network.
The comm turned on suddenly. “A third Corleon ship is in front of us. They are opening fire!”
“Evade it,” Emprezia ordered.
“No time!”
The ship jumped and shrieked. Emprezia’s stomach bolted for her mouth. The marble benches abruptly rose and rotated in mid-air as the ship’s gravity failed.
A catastrophic breach.
She grabbed the gold tea box.
A second later, the floor rushed at her face and the furniture slammed into the ground. Benches chipped and the vases exploded.
The lights flickered and emergency lighting came on.
Silence filled the ship. The first mate coughed in the doorway.
She crawled to the comm. “Captain?”
“Yes, Emprezia.”
“We made it to the high orbit marker?”
“Yes. The Corleon ships are not following. We have received landing coordinates.”
“Excellent.” Another thanks to the mysterious Kaolin Sarit. She rose and clenched the undamaged tea box to her chest. “I’ll be in my room, correcting my wardrobe.”
“Prepare for a rough landing.”
She did so. The heavily damaged yacht threatened to shake into pieces. When she honestly thought they might break apart, she gave up on studying Domingo and changed to studying holos of her son. It calmed her and helped block out the excruciating terror.
There he was at one week, staring silently at the new world.
There he was at eight months, wiggling on his belly and crying that he couldn’t push up.
There was her favorite photo of him, at five months.
His bright, chubby cheeks spotted with a hint of blush. His dark eyes had been unsure if they would remain her oceanic blue or turn his father’s steady indigo. She loved the dusting of blond hair, the fat little fingers, the adorable way he sacked out over her shoulder when she carried him to bed.
The holos were nearly four years old now. He no longer looked like her memory, and she could no longer hold him in her arms.
But whenever she reached rock bottom and feared that her last waking moments were about to end, she always got out the holos. Her final thoughts returned to the precious year she spent raising her son, and where he was now, and how she hoped he was doing fine.
Her son belonged to his father; their genetic heir contract had finished and s
he had released all interest. Now he was more like a godson to her than a flesh-and-blood child.
In the blackest time, she forgot what was true and right, and focused only on her love.
The ship dropped out of the sky. A great and final shudder echoed through the halls. Then, silence.
“Emprezia.” The captain’s voice from a fractured, broken comm screen recalled her to her task. “We have arrived.”
She had survived another day.
Emprezia put away the holos, cinched the gold box inside her massive headdress, and stood.
Now, Domingo controlled her fortunes.
Emprezia moved through the ornate halls of the Lion class cruiser. The gigantic imperial gown slowed her gait appreciably, so she reached the airlock as they lowered the ramp. Luckily, the headdress had its own gravitational field, or else the thousands of precious gems dangling like fruit from ebony branches would have crushed her.
“Wait while we secure the landing pad,” the first mate said.
“No need.” She flicked her wrist to indicate for them to open the doors.
They rushed to obey her order.
The captain cleared his throat.
“This is a private planet.” As the ramp lowered, more evidence of Domingo’s security showed in the form of drones flying overhead, tracking her every move. “I won’t embarrass my fiancé by questioning his security.’”
The captain bowed. His words were for her ears. “Your enemies will not remain at the borders for long. The centennial celebration in a few weeks is the perfect opportunity for strangers to slip through the crowds.”
Yes, the celebration was another reason she was here now. “Thank you for your concern.”
He straightened and stepped back.
The landing pad emerged beneath her smoking, creaking ship.
Orange hills reflected dusty horizons against the ochre sea. Other landing pads were better equipped and closer to the main terminal. She had been directed to a rustic landing pad.
A single man stood at the far edge of the pad, respectful, his light brown hair blown by the rush of wind. He shielded his eyes from the reflection of her family’s yacht, a creamy lozenge against the rougher, grittier cliffs.
A stir of interest fixed her attention on him. She was curious to meet this Kaolin.
She stepped onto the planet’s surface and crossed the long walkway from her ship to his form.
He matched his holos well. Tall, broad, tanned, and well-muscled. A well-fitting flight suit and black leather pilot jacket would make any woman look twice.
She met his gaze and held it.
The holos didn’t capture the way his dark eyes seemed to smolder, drinking in her sight, or the easy way he carried himself. A confident man, his half-smile and knowing gaze told her he knew she’d already been through hell today, and he promised an easy evening in his arms – if she dared to accept his offer to relax into him.
A pulse of awareness heated her center.
Interesting.
In front of him, she collected her breath and formally greeted him. “I am Emprezia—”
“Her royal highness Emprezia Chen Antiata of the Chen Antiata direct line!” her first mate shouted, addressing the whole planet instead of an isolated landing pad.
“—Chen Antiata,” she finished, as one equal to another.
A smile tugged at his sexy lips, and she was glad to see that her grandiose entrance hadn’t offended. “Kaolin. Welcome, Emprezia Chen Antiata.”
The way he said her name, low and teasing, made her shiver like a finger running up her spine.
She lifted her posture, tightening her control. “I owe you my gratitude. Will you convey me to my fiancé?”
He gestured for her to proceed.
She crossed the long landing pad with her personal luggage brought in tow.
They reached a topless, open-air cruiser. Stylish, and large enough for two, the antique was not designed to tow luggage.
Kaolin studied her ornate crates with pursed lips.
“Perhaps it would be better to have my luggage sent for once we arrive,” she said.
He nodded, relieved.
While he started the excellently conditioned old cruiser—Domingo was a collector of high quality antiques, including cruisers—her crew fidgeted nearby.
The first mate assisted her into the cruiser passenger seat and made a pretense of tucking her gown’s train. “Your own land cruiser would fit everything.”
“I am relying on our host, thank you.” She smoothed her dress and poised for the trip.
Kaolin closed the engine covers and joined her in the captain’s seat. Her crew stepped back to the appropriate distance. He gripped the steering wheel, let out a long breath, and looked at her. “Ready?”
“I am ready.”
His eyes traveled down her profile with sizzling warmth. She sucked in a breath.
His gentle brows folded into a frown. “Your safety harness is disconnected.”
She faced forward, leaning into the afternoon. He rested one hand on her seat back and fiddled with the harness box behind her seat. His hand was wide and capable, and smudged with dirt. A mechanic’s hand.
What would it feel like on her body?
In the dwindling sunlight, his cheeks darkened in defined spots. Just like her son’s.
Why had she noticed that? She shouldn’t study him so carefully. No, wait, of course she should. She studied everything carefully. Everything and everyone.
It was natural, then, to breathe in his masculine scent. Dark, rough, and forbidden. Undertones of leather and engine oil told of hot nights in the back of a fast cruiser, letting her hair down to feel the wind.
It unsettled her deeply.
His scent evoked desires she never knew existed, for feats only dreamed.
But she did not have dreams. Especially of letting her hair down to feel the wind. She had a duty to her family.
She crushed the fantasies into a piece of dark matter that did not exist and folded her hands tightly in her lap. “Did you find it?”
“Almost.” He tightened the harness box.
The invisible force field cupped her against the seat for her own safety. “Ah. Thank you.”
“Sure.” He faced front again. The blush stood out darker on his cheeks. He gripped the controls. “Here we go.”
“And when will we arrive at my future husband’s home?”
“Less than an hour.” He lifted off expertly and navigated away from the port, leaving her worried crew far behind. “Sorry Dom couldn’t be here to meet you himself.”
“Not at all,” she murmured. Another waft of Kaolin’s scent curled around her center and whispered forbidden distractions. “I am pleased to wait.”
* * *
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Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries Page 20