He turned and led her back to their chamber, where he helped her undress. They were entwined beneath the furs with a fire burning hotly in the brazier when Preece heaved a sigh and spoke at last.
"The task you've set yourself is not an easy one."
Could he know what Bourke had written? How? Moreya had pushed his hands away from her bodice, begged him to stoke the chamber fire so he'd not see her pull out the parchment. She was certain he hadn't noticed her toss it into the flames as he took off his long robe.
"What do you mean?" she asked carefully.
"I am not a patient man. I am thoroughly unlikable at times. Unreasonable, unmoved by jocularity, and I do not enjoy listening to both sides of a petty quarrel. Yet I am chancellor. As you saw this eve, it is ever my duty to rule upon matters small and sometimes large, or make recommendations to Taroch. I will rant and scowl and need you."
"Ah," she sighed, snuggling closer.
"I will want you pliant and crazed with lust as I am, as you were on that bench today. There may be times I'll abide no refusal, no excuses that you're tired or in the midst of your woman's cycle. I can only endure interminable days in that hall knowing I have you awaiting me here each night." His hands moved to lightly cup and caress her breasts.
"You've always been churlish," she said with a yawn. "It's part of what I love about you."
"That makes no sense, Moreya. You should want me - "
"Oh, I do, my lord. Clothed or naked, as now. Smiling or grim. Listening or ranting. Hidden beneath a cowl or standing tall and proud for all the world to see."
"You have always seen more to me than is warranted, little jewel. You are Yune and could have wed a noble of any race. Instead you are bound to me, a soldier falsely proclaimed 'lord' only by virtue of his cousin sitting on the throne. You might have ruled an entire royal household instead of residing within these private chambers."
"You won the throne for that cousin. I cannot believe he'd deny you a manor house and servants, did you request such. We shall need them when we begin raising a family."
There was a long moment of silence. Then Preece gently laid a warm palm over her navel. "We have already begun, Moreya. Do you not feel it? The difference?"
In truth, she had noticed a vague shift, but attributed it to the whirlwind events of the remarkable day and evening.
They'd explored one another's bodies in an entirely fresh, intensely private manner. She'd been introduced publicly as his bride. She'd been given a parchment proclaiming her the torchbearer for an entire clan. "It is not because of that...couch?"
Preece smiled. With a warmth and indulgence she'd never glimpsed before in his eyes. "A triad grows within you, lifemate. I am virile still. Three seeds have taken root within your womb."
"Triad? But - You cannot possibly know so soon, Preece."
"Triads were born to every generation in my mother's line until my own. If she had lived beyond my early years, mayhap I would have had other siblings born three at once. Those Waniand elders were also the eldest of triads. They are common amongst my people."
"Triads?" Moreya bolted upright, her heart pounding. Why did all this strange talk make perfect sense?
"Bears usually whelp a single cub, upon occasion, two. But the great northern icebears Waniands descend from rutted less often, hibernated longer, and produced get in spates of three. A number of great portent."
"Lord Above."
"Ssh," he whispered, his hands moving on her body with renewed urgency. "Wait until we delve into the breeding rituals. You will like them every bit as much as you enjoyed today's adventures."
She settled back against the pillows. She wanted to hear of these other delights. It might be worth swelling up like an overfed goose to be pampered by more of his sacred rites. "What happens if I am breeding?"
"Your belly will swell and the babes will press against your spine. It is a warrior's duty to bathe his female mate, rub warm oil into her stomach to anoint her, and ease her burden with caresses."
"Ah. Can you demonstrate?"
He began rubbing in slow, delicious circles.
"I do like your arcane ways, Warmonger."
"There is more. A nightly ritual which must begin soon."
"You are truly certain - "
He growled. "I am, and if you do not stop arguing the point, I'll merely take you again to assure my potency."
"You could, anyway."
"Mayhap I shall. After the breeding ritual."
He was so very incredibly stubborn. Moreya pushed the furs down, baring her flesh in the firelight. "What is this one? Do you rub your staff over strategic places or grasp my left knee while I count backwards from a hundred five?"
His teeth flashed white and then he captured her right nipple and drew it fully into his mouth and began suckling. Firmly.
Moreya felt the hearth flames leap out and sear her from the center of her breast down to the core of her womanhood. She writhed and moaned, realizing she'd soon be begging him to possess her fully again. She had never become aroused so intensely quite so fast. Could she truly be carrying his get so soon?
"This will incite you," he murmured, moving to her other breast, "but you must learn to lay still. We practice so that your tender flesh may be ready for my sons. Waniands are ofttimes very healthy babes who suckle at length. You are not of our blood. Your nipples are most sweet and pretty to gaze upon, but much too soft. I will make them tougher."
Oh, he did. They became hard little nubs of burning desire. And she sobbed his name in all its variations three times before he granted her satiety. He took her once more then, saying he could not assure how long he might remain in rut - if, indeed, he was still capable of such a physical state.
Then he drew her close, whispering his immense happiness at the realization he'd not been left sterile. Happiness in the sacred knowledge he would soon have fine sons, and was asked now to use his wits, not his sword arm. Moreya kissed him and shared in his quiet joy. She rested in his arms, mind churning, long after Preece had fallen into what appeared to be a most restful sleep. He did not toss or turn. His chest rose and fell evenly, slowly.
He was so very dear to her.
She thought back to the lonely nights without him. Considered how he'd suffered for years, yet still and all had persevered. She thought about how by rights he now should wear a kingly crown, not merely a chancellor's white robe. Ah, but Preece's children might yet one day be kings . . .
She touched tentative fingers to her belly.
When he'd asked her to sail to Ataraxia with him, he'd promised to get babes in her belly. He'd promised her a life in the sun. Someday she wanted that second promise fulfilled, but she accepted that he'd already achieved the first.
Preece had pointed out Moreya's small storage chest, brought back from the Fatted Goose during the feasting that night. He'd made certain the servants placed it in his bedchamber before he'd sought Moreya out on the battlements. She'd checked her things as they were undressing for bed.
She still possessed her large pink stone. The last terrestar. They might use it for a vessel and crew, take the voyage they'd been denied together, and see Lockram in Ataraxia. Preece did not speak of his rough-hewn comrade, but Moreya sensed he missed the clownish friend from his past. Lockram would taunt Preece, get him to drink and cross swords and scowl in that secretly good-natured way he often did when he didn't realize anyone was spying.
Lockram would be good for Preece, Moreya decided. These Waniands were entirely too serious a great deal of the time.
Waniands. Even lying abed with one, she had to admit they were a race of fey people, surrounded by mysteries and arcane knowledge others did not fathom. Preece accepted laws of nature above those of men. He adhered to his race's rigid cabalistic lore. Truebloods like Preece honored superstitions and ancient beliefs.
Why should it surprise her that he claimed to detect life from tender unborn babes planted only hours ago in her womb?
She was torchbearer
. The next generation mayhap had already been spawned. The thought did not daunt Moreya. She stroked Preece's smooth torso and was rewarded with a deep answering murmur. He did not move, though. He slept on, her beautiful warrior king.
Moreya smiled and closed her eyes. She embraced the Waniand once hated and feared as the dark knight, the Warmonger. She had befriended a young king and flown aloft with dragons. She had met her first challenge and was preparing for her second. Whatever might come, she would face it. She did not fear the future.
There was no reason to fear it.
Somewhere the Ancient Ones looked down upon her, watching and waiting. They had chosen her to safeguard an entire race. A fierce race that would overcome its dark, turbulent past and make a future brighter than the fifth moon.
Somewhere the Ancients knew all that could be known, saw what would be, and waited for the new children of the last great king...
Somewhere the Ancients smiled down upon them from the backs of great winged dragons, or from thrones in the Creator's Great Heavenly Hall. Out yond afar, there amongst the glittering stars.
* * *
Into the Fire
by
Norma McPhee
Published by LTDBooks
ISBN 1-55316-030-4
Copyright © 2001
www.ltdbooks.com
Copyright © 2001 Norma McPhee
PROLOGUE
You are about to delete the files, the computer said. Kerra had muted the calm, cultured, maddening voice. Still, the words echoed hauntingly in her mind. Delete the files. Such a cold, unfeeling phrase. Destroying her work was like ripping out her own still-beating heart. Still, what choice had they left her?
Had they really believed she would not find out? Or thought she wouldn't care?
Please reenter password and personal identification code for confirmation.
Kerra's fingers flickered over the keypad. The warning winked out only to be replaced by an equally soulless message. Access approved. Files deleted.
Kerra closed her eyes, leaning her head wearily back against the chair's headrest. So far, so good. But this was just the beginning.
She needed to find every backup, every note she'd made, every last trace of her research into neural biosynthesis. But the longer she lingered, the deeper she delved into the system's protected levels, the greater the chance her tampering would be detected.
It took hours. Kerra used to get lost in her work, time passing unnoticed. Tonight she felt the passing of every second.
Kerra bit her lip, tasting blood, as the warning flashed one last time. Her hand trembled so hard she missed the delete key twice before making the final, fatal stab.
Now her work was finished.
CHAPTER 1
Aden couldn't remember the last time he'd been this drunk. Then again, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such a driving need to kill as many brain cells as possible. Sure, spending what few credits he had left on putrid-smelling booze in the seediest, slimiest excuse for a tavern to be found on this sorry ball of rock was a pretty stupid thing to do, but what was one more act of idiocy on top of everything else?
Vaia'd warned him not to take this job. Said anyone who accepted a contract to run contraband into the Divras system was looking for an early, forced retirement without pension, if not an early grave. He'd laughed. Told her she was getting old and soft.
Ha! The only thing getting soft was Aden's head. By a miraculous combination of skill, daring, and blind luck, he'd managed to land his ship in one piece after a shot from a Divran security ship took out his main drive. That had been the last bit of luck he'd had. Thank the stars the nature of the illegal shipment had been relatively benign, and they'd considered seizing his ship, weapons and documents enough.
It could just as easily have been his life or his freedom as his ship, he realized darkly. You're pushing the odds, said a voice in the back of his head. Pushed 'em too damned hard, this time. Half the smugglers working back when Aden started out were either imprisoned or dead now, the ones who weren't mostly retired.
Aden shook off the thought. Damned if he was going to hang it up when he hadn't even hit forty.
He might not have a choice, now, he knew. Stuck on a planet where the government controlled everything from commerce to the sciences to where people were allowed to pee, a guy like him was as good as in prison. He still didn't know how they'd found him out. His false papers had been prepared by the very best in the trade, his cargo hold rigged to give false readings if scanned. Still, those damned security boats had been sitting there when he came in just as if they'd been waiting for him.
"Right, Locke. First stupidity, now raging paranoia. Face facts. You got caught because you've lost the edge." He glared balefully down into the murky green depths of his drink. "I'm almost tempted to let you go on believing that."
At the sound of that soft, familiar voice Aden's blood froze. Gandes. Here. It wasn't possible...
"Surprised to see me, Locke? Did you really think you could get rid of me so easily?" He slipped out of the shadows - a tall, gaunt skeleton of a man, his thinning reddish hair slicked close to his scalp, making his angular features seem even more skull-like. He carried two blasters openly, one on his hip and another in a forearm holster, and a dagger thrust brazenly through his belt. Stars only knew what he had concealed.
He eased into the seat across from Aden like they were old friends, appropriating Aden's half-finished drink. "Seven years I rotted in that putrescent dungeon, planning what I'd do when our paths crossed again." His light, conversational tone was at odds with the chill malice in his eyes. "It's not quite as bad as what you did to me - but then, I'm not finished with you yet."
"Get out of my sight, you miserable baby-raper." Aden's fingers itched with the need to wrap them around Gandes' scrawny throat.
Gandes laughed, a sound out of a child's nightmare. "Come now, Locke. Jannia was hardly a baby. She was old enough to be in the business, after all."
"She was fifteen," Aden spat back. "Just a green, innocent kid. What happened to you when Vaia left wasn't her fault. If there were any humanity left in you...."
"If there is, it's no thanks to your precious Vaialora." The twist of Gandes' lip made the name an obscenity. "She knew what she'd done to me. What do you call that, if not rape?"
"An accident," said Aden softly, not really expecting Gandes to listen. "She wasn't raised as a Kethrian. She didn't know."
"She might have tried to help me," Gandes said. "Instead she discarded me like a burned-out power cell."
"That doesn't excuse what you did." Aden wondered why he bothered. It wasn't like Gandes was capable of anything as human as remorse. "You brutalized an innocent kid and left her for dead. It took months to heal her." To heal the physical wounds, Aden added silently. There had been other wounds he didn't think would ever heal.
Gandes smiled coldly. The same smile Aden knew still haunted Jannia Wise's nightmares. "You're right, of course. It was Vaia herself I should have punished for deserting me, but she wasn't there that night. In your bed, wasn't she?"
Aden stared at the small wet ring where his drink had been and said nothing. There was nothing Gandes could say that would make him feel worse about that business than he already did. He'd known sleeping with his ex-partner that night was a mistake. He hadn't known until too late how big a mistake.
"This time I'll do it properly," Gandes continued. "Get the right bitch. Make her suffer as I've suffered all these long years." He paused a moment, considering. "Of course, I'll also have to deal with sweet Miss Wise, since she did take part in that little sting of yours."
He rose, leaning across the table, his cold, mad eyes boring into Aden's own. "That will be my parting gift to you. The knowledge of what awaits your precious friends, while you languish here, unable to help even yourself. I'll send you a little souvenir. A lock of Jannia's lovely raven hair. Or maybe even the entire scalp."
Gandes left then, but his gloating lau
ghter seemed to linger in the air, a mocking echo in the back of Aden's mind.
Aden's stomach twisted, and it wasn't from the alcohol. He wanted to go after Gandes, to stop him, but knew it was futile. Gandes, as he always had, wore a whole arsenal on his scarecrow-lean form. Aden's weapons had been seized along with his ship. As tempting as it might be to take on Tral Gandes with his bare hands, suicide wouldn't help his friends.
Kerra was returning from a quick, furtive trip to buy certain feminine necessities she couldn't get delivered, when she'd spotted them, standing in the doorway of the dilapidated transient hostel she'd called home for the last few weeks. A tall, thin male and a heavyset, colorless female, both cold-eyed and stone-faced - she'd known at a distance what they were, even before they flashed their credentials in the hostel proprietor's face. Internal Security.
Now she huddled behind a pile of refuse in a narrow, foul-smelling alley, wondering where she could possibly go from here.
She was quickly using up the store of tricks she'd learned from the holovids and romantic adventure novels, which had been her main distraction from her rather solitary life at the Science Ministry installation. She was running out of ideas. If she didn't find a way offworld soon, they were going to find her. Find her, bring her back, and make triply sure that she never slipped through their fingers again.
What she needed was a - what were they called again? A fencejumper. That was what they called them in the holovids. Men and women who flew fast, heavily armed cargo ships in and out of places no one else would go, carrying goods someone wanted or needed badly and someone else would prefer they not receive. People who risked their lives and their freedom - for money.
Well, Kerra had money enough. She'd downloaded her entire credit file. Nearly every credit she'd made in all the years since the Science Ministry had taken her from her family. To protect her, they'd said. From the sort of accident that had destroyed her mother's potential.
What use had she had for money when she was never allowed to go anywhere? Surely she had enough by now to satisfy even the most mercenary of fencejumpers, and it was all stored electronically on one little datachip small enough to be worn on a slender chain beneath her clothing.
Biondine, Shannah Page 28