He lifted a dark brow. “Won’t that torque Rajin?”
Alina grinned, feeling suddenly reckless. “I’ll argue I need a bodyguard. After the business with the Tevan, she won’t kick too hard.”
Baird studied her face, his golden gaze perceptive. “Why do I get the impression you’re not terribly happy with the old…Femmat?”
“I haven’t been happy with Kasi’s esteemed president in twenty years.”
“Then sue. You know damn well you’d win.”
Alina looked away. “I can’t afford an attorney.”
Baird frowned, visibly puzzled. “Aren’t you a member of the Guild?”
“Of course.” She’d joined the Vardonese Guild of Warriors decades ago.
“Then they’d provide you with an attorney, given the circumstances. That’s what they’re for—to intercede between warriors and the Femmatocracy.”
He was right, of course, but there was a great deal he didn’t know. “As I said before, it’s complicated.” She gave him a hot grin. “And I’d much rather make love than explain.”
Baird looked at her for a long moment, his gaze wary. Then he smiled, though it looked a little tight. “You’ve got a very good point.”
The night passed in a delicious blur of passion that ended in sated, exhausted sleep.
Baird woke the next morning as he’d woken so many times twenty years before—with Alina cuddled against his side, warm and trusting.
He lifted his head and looked down into her sleeping face. One of her blond braids lay across a high cheekbone, adorned in the campaign beads she’d won risking her life beside him. In the bright morning sunlight, he suddenly noticed faint shadows under her eyes, as if worry and guilt were constant companions.
And well they should be, if his suspicions were true.
Seeing her lids lift, he forced a smile. “Good morning, sweet. Hungry?”
Alina yawned hugely and gave him a grin that made his heart catch. “After all that riaat—and all that sex? I could eat a Soji Dragon. Raw.”
His smile was more genuine this time. “I trust the hotel restaurant can produce something a little more tender than that.”
“God, I hope so. Does this place have a real water shower?”
“I think so.”
She rolled out of bed, long and lithe and breathtakingly naked. Her breasts were high and full, and she had a tight waist, a sweetly curving backside that felt perfect in his hands, and long, muscular legs. “Good. The sackracks Kasi likes to stick me in have nothing but sonics. I know they get you clean, but I never really feel like it.”
His eyes followed her delectable backside as she made for the bathroom. He rose and strode after her. “Then by all means, let’s get wet.”
By the time they emerged from the shower, they were both prune-skinned and pleasantly sore from yet another dizzying sexual encounter. “Why don’t you go down and order for us,” he told her as they dressed, him in his captain’s uniform, her in the violet tunic and black pants that made the most of her dramatic coloring. “I need to make a few calls.”
She gave him another of those flashing, wicked grins. “Make it quick, or I’ll eat your breakfast, too.”
He forced a grin. “I’ll risk it. Get me something with plenty of meat.”
“Okay.” She frowned, scratching her eyebrow. “We’re going to need to catch a cab and swing by my hostel before we head to the shuttleport. We have to be aboard The Antares Empress by 1400 hours.”
“I know. We’ve got plenty of time.”
Alina nodded and sauntered out. Baird’s gaze lingered on her swaying hips until the door closed behind her. He locked his sensors on her as she walked down the hall, scanning her progress through the walls.
It was only after he knew she was gone that he walked to the wall panel that hid his secure com unit. He could have used his internal communication system, of course, but there was a chance Alina would somehow manage to intercept it.
And considering the call he was about to make, that would be very bad.
Five
The panel sensed him and slid open. Baird pulled out the oblong bag that held his gear, opened the seal, and spilled the hand-sized unit into his palm. Popping open the small screen, he sat down on the bed and murmured the voice command. There was a long, annoying wait while the unit set up communications with his contact.
Then the Tevan’s familiar face appeared on the screen. They’d been partners for five years, ever since Baird left ship service for the intelligence branch of the Vardonese military.
“I’m in,” Baird told him. “We don’t have to keep trying to convince her she needs my protection.”
Four yellow eyes rolled. “Gods and goddesses, that’s the best news I’ve had all day. You broke my ribs, you bastard.”
“You deserved it. I told you not to hurt her, Ualtar. She had to go into regen.”
“So did I.” His partner’s amber gaze searched his. “And may I remind you, if she’s involved, a few bruises are the least she deserves.”
Baird frowned. “I still can’t believe she knows what’s going on.”
“You don’t sound as convinced as you were last night.”
He raked a hand through his long hair. “She seemed…unusually evasive.”
“You mean guilty.” Ualtar shook his spiked head. “I told you, Baird. She’s in this up to her horns—if she had any.”
“Ualtar, there’s no way she’s working for them. Not Alina.”
“It’s been twenty years, brother. You don’t know what she’s capable of.” The Tevan leaned closer to the pickup, his expression grim. “And I don’t want you finding out the hard way.”
“I can handle her.”
“Not if you keep thinking with your dick. You have to maintain your objectivity on this, or you’re going to end up dead. These people do not play around.”
“Believe me, Ualtar, I know exactly what they’re capable of.”
“Yeah, but they’re not the real problem, are they? She is.”
Baird killed the com link and clicked the unit closed. Brooding, he tossed the little device aside and leaned an elbow on his thigh.
He’d become an adept and skillful liar after joining Vardonese Intelligence, but lying to Alina had been surprisingly difficult. He ached to confront her with their suspicions and beg her to prove herself innocent, but he couldn’t. There was too much at risk. If she was involved in treason and discovered he was on her trail, the enemy would slip through their fingers like smoke.
Still, he couldn’t believe the laughing lover he’d known during the occupation could have become a traitor. She’d been too forthright, too loyal, too courageous.
Restlessly, he rose from the bed and began to pace in long strides. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, two decades had changed Alina. She’d become closed and wary. Too often last night, he’d seen fear in her eyes. But fear of what? Him? The thought made something clench tight in his chest.
Because she had reason to fear him. If she was a traitor, he’d destroy her. Considering the rage that boiled through him at the very idea, he didn’t think he was even capable of showing her mercy.
He hated traitors. Over the past five years, he’d watched them work to destroy their own people for personal advancement. He’d do anything to stop them. Anything at all. Lie, kill, whore, or steal, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except stopping them.
He’d loved Alina with everything in his soul, and she’d turned her back on him. But had she also turned her back on everything they’d once believed in? Everything he still believed in? Sweet Goddess, he hoped not.
Because when he’d lain with Alina in his arms last night, looking down into those brilliant eyes, he’d realized he loved her still. Despite everything she’d done to him, despite the decades of separation. None of it mattered. He loved her.
If she was a traitor, her destruction would be his own.
The Antares Empress catered to professional spacers
and soldiers from a dozen different worlds. Its accommodations were not lush by any means, but they were relatively comfortable.
The ship itself was shaped roughly like a star, with a globular central body that housed passenger and command functions. Several long, spine-like pylons thrust out from the core, housing the generators that created the jumpspace bubble around the ship, permitting it to travel at supralight velocities.
Baird and Alina got settled into their respective quarters, then arranged to meet in the ship’s workout deck. Building and maintaining muscle was almost a religion for Vardonese warriors. The trip time was an opportunity to get in a little training.
Among other things.
They could have ended up with worse facilities, Baird decided when he walked onto the exercise deck. It was completely open, wrapped around with a heavily shielded viewport that gave a stunning view of jumpspace. Stars streamed past, bleeding a kaleidoscope of hot colors—the radiation of this alien dimension, where the laws of physics no longer quite applied. If it hadn’t been for the bubble of normal space that protected the ship, the bizarre forces around them would have torn the Empress apart.
The deck itself was equipped with benches and assorted equipment designed to work specific muscle groups. Baird preferred the simplicity of gravity bars. He picked up one of the featherweight rods from the rack that held them and chose a spot where he could keep an eye on the lift.
He was doing arm curls with the gravity bar when Alina walked in. The sight of her was incendiary, clad in that narrow breastband and hipsnugs that displayed every lush curve of her long body. Baird almost dropped the bar as his cock hardened with a rush of approval.
Evidently his body didn’t share his doubts.
Alina grinned and returned his hungry gaze, violet eyes mischievous. Since he wore nothing more than a pair of snugs, there was a lot of him on display. He barely suppressed the urge to flex.
She strolled over to one of the racks that held the bars, chose one of medium length, and lifted it down. Steadying it with both hands, she murmured, “One hundred kilos.” The wiry muscles in her arms leaped into relief as the bar immediately increased its weight to the setting she dictated.
Lazily, she began to rotate the rod like a quarterstaff as she strolled toward him, arms flexing as she worked to control the weight. “There’s something about a man concentrating on working up a sweat that makes me want to…distract him.” Looking at the rod he held, she lifted a blond brow. “But considering how much weight you’ve got on that bar, I’ll refrain. Hate for you to put a hole in the deck.”
Baird breathed deeply and did another slow, deliberate curl. His arms felt as if they were on fire, but his ego wouldn’t even let him grunt. “I’ll try not to drop it.”
“You never used to lift that much.” She grinned. “But then—you’ve grown.”
“Like I said, so have you.” His gaze lingered on the full mounds of her breasts, barely contained in that band. “I remember when you were a skinny little fifteen-year-old, all legs and bravado.” The thought of her innocence then stabbed him in the heart. He had to look away.
Alina laughed and moved away until she had room to swing the rod without hitting him. Falling into a combat stance, she took a deep breath and leaped into the air, whirling her weapon in a mock attack on imaginary opponents. Unable to resist, he found himself watching her again, admiring the flex and play of her slender muscles.
“I was so damn green, I pissed chartreuse,” she told him. “Which I did frequently, since I was terrified all the time.” She stopped, one knee lifted high, the bar held in perfect balance. It was a breathtaking display of strength and athleticism even by Warlord standards.
Baird lowered his own bar to watch. “I thought you were very brave.” And honest, and loyal. Had he been wrong?
“Had you fooled.” She whipped around, slicing the bar in a hissing arc. “But the lieutenant saw through both of us.”
He smiled slightly, remembering. “Lieutenant Grev and Sergeant Avo. I wouldn’t be alive today if the sergeant hadn’t saved my ass. Five or six times.” Baird had been a half-grown kid fresh out of House Arvid Creche, pressed into duty only because the invading Xer would have shot him on sight simply for being a Warlord. Grev and Avo had taught him and Alina tactics, discipline, and the art of staying alive.
Pumping a kick at one imaginary opponent, Alina thrust the bar in a move Avo had taught them both. “God, those two loved one another. First time I’d seen married warriors.”
Baird nodded. There had been six warriors in their guerilla unit to start out with, but two of them fell to the Xer early on. Over the next four years, Alina, the Warfem Grev, and her Warlord husband, Avo, had become the closest thing Bard had ever known to family.
The two adults had loved each other with such utter commitment, they’d inspired Baird and Alina to start playing at passion. In time, what had begun as imitation love grew into the real thing.
“There’s a reason you don’t see bonded warriors that much, though,” he said, brooding. “His wife’s death at the Xer’s hands gutted Avo. He got reckless and sloppy. And it got him killed.” Good thing Baird and Alina had been nineteen by then, seasoned by four years in combat, or they’d never have survived without him.
“Love always carries a cost.” The long muscles in her arms were beginning to tremble slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze had turned inward, brooding. Then she smiled, sudden and blinding. “But it’s worth it.”
No. No, it wasn’t. There’d been a time after Alina had left Baird that he, too, had courted death. But he’d been in the stellar service by then, and too many other lives depended on him. He’d steadied down, done his job, earned his medals.
But he’d never fallen in love again.
“You remember the Ortaris?” Alina asked suddenly.
Brows lifting, he looked up at her. “Yeah.” They’d encountered the little family right after Sergeant Avo was killed. Baird himself had been badly hurt in the failed attempt to rescue the sergeant. Since there had been no regenator available, he’d had to heal the hard way. For the month it had taken him to recover, Mr. and Mrs. Ortari had hidden Baird and Alina in their basement. “The Xer would have killed us if it hadn’t been for them.”
Alina nodded. “Big risk, particularly considering the three kids.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Baird said, remembering. “There was the little baby, the ten-year-old son, and that teenage daughter.”
“The one with the crush on you.”
He grinned. “Suyo.” The girl’s attention had been almost as flattering as Alina’s incandescent jealousy.
Apparently catching sight of his smug expression, Alina turned and stuck out her tongue at him, a gesture she’d learned from Suyo herself. Baird roared with laughter, then had to throw up an arm to ward her off as she waved the gravity bar at him. “I should have known you’d remember her, rodent,” Alina growled, thoroughly irritated.
“Rodent” had been her favorite insult before Avo taught her how to swear. Baird laughed even harder.
With a huff, she turned away and pretended to ignore him while he tried to get control of himself.
When his gasping laughter died, they settled into a companionable silence. Suddenly Alina asked, “Did you ever wonder what it would be like to have a mother?”
Baird frowned. Technically, neither had any mother beyond the genetic engineers who’d constructed their DNA. Both had been raised in their respective House Creches among several hundred other genetically engineered children. Their caretakers had been civilians and a few warrior instructors.
“I suppose,” he admitted. “But I’ve always been a little skeptical about the whole mother concept. It seems a bit like one of those stories they tell little children, like the ones about fairies and talking wolves. It can’t possibly be as good as they say.”
Alina gave him a wicked little smile. “Actually, I’ve met a talking wolf or two.”
B
aird shot her an impatient look. “Cyborgs. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” She took up the combat pose again. “You were unconscious most of the time, but I got to watch Mrs. Ortari with her children. It was like Avo and Grev with us, except more so. Very warm and…nice.” She swung the staff in a circle. “I envied those kids. She let me hold the baby sometimes.”
“Oh?” Interested, he looked at her. Somehow he had the feeling this detail was more important than it sounded. “What was that like?”
“Frightening. And yet it was…there was this tiny person with these big eyes and miniature hands, and she looked at me the way nobody has ever looked at me before. Like I was…everything. At first it was uncomfortable, because I was so afraid I’d hurt her. But then”—she shrugged—“I liked it. I missed her when we left.”
Baird frowned, realizing this had obviously been a major experience for her. “You never mentioned it.”
“No. Thought about it a lot, though.” Alina turned her attention to the bar. “Off,” she told it, and went to put it away. “There’s a zee-gee tank next door. Want to…practice?”
Something about the way she said the last word told him she had something more than martial arts in mind. “Sure. Why not?”
Already hardening in anticipation, he followed her across the corridor to the soaring, three-story, zero-gravity tank. Like most jump-ships, The Antares Empress maintained simulated gravity, but the fields had been known to fail, especially during combat. Thus, anybody who ever served in space made it a point to practice zee-gee hand-to-hand techniques.
Besides, it was a hell of a lot of fun.
In zee-gee, Baird’s size and weight advantage became mass he had to maneuver, which meant he and Alina could compete as physical equals. More or less.
Not that either of them had much competition in mind.
Six
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