by Kali Argent
“Danvers.”
Phaedra snapped to attention. “Yes, Commander?”
“Find Chronicler Cato Darrod. Tell him I want everything he has on the Tablet of Destinies as soon as possible. Rumors, myths, legends. I don’t care.”
“Yes, sir.” With a sharp salute, Phaedra pressed a finger to her right ear and began speaking into her commlink as she hurried out of the office.
“I doubt you’ll find much.” Cypher rubbed his chin as he regarded the commander. “The Tablet was stolen several thousand years ago. Some think it ended up on Earth, but no one has ever been able to locate it.”
If anyone could find it, or at least give them an idea of where to begin their search, Xavian had no doubt Cato Darrod would be the one. Having recently celebrated his seven-hundredth birthday, Cato was young for a Nekros, barely more than a kid, but he was one of the most knowledgeable Chroniclers their race had ever seen.
“So, your brother stole the Jewel and kidnapped my mate, because…” Vane trailed off, holding his hands out to the sides, palms toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory. The Jewel isn’t magical, but it is important. The necklace is just a setting, but the stone itself is the key to unlocking the Tablet.”
Vane snorted. “A tablet he doesn’t have.”
“Yet.” Cypher unfolded his arms and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop. “I think he—and by extension the High Council—are searching for it. They may even be close to finding it.”
“Wait.” Waving his hand in front of him, Lex tilted his head to the side, a deep scowl pulling at his mouth. “I want to know what the hell this all has to do with your princess. You implied there was another reason Atrea went to war with Promena.”
Commander Schiva unfolded one arm where he’d crossed them over his chest, and threaded his fingers through his short, dark hair. “You’ve brought up a lot of questions,” he told the Atrean. “You’re not giving us many answers, though.”
Cypher lowered his head, his expression thoughtful. “I guess I’m not.” He turned back to regard the rest of the group. “The joining of Princess Nivin and Prince Tahl was a political alliance between the Atreans and the Crimnians. When the princess died, the Crimnians naturally placed the blame on Atrea. We were no match for the Crimnians’ magic.”
Xavian’s stomach rolled, but he bobbed is head in understanding. “You turned the blame on Promena and enslaved the Morphs to fight your war for you.”
“Yes and no. It’s true that Atrea turned suspicions on the Morphlings, but we fought with the Crimnians, not against them. It was Crimnia that provided the enchanted stone to control the Morphlings, which ultimately won the war.”
“So, the Atreans enslaved the Morphs to deflect blame and keep the alliance with Crimnia.”
“Initially, yes.” Cypher lifted his shoulders. “Now, it’s all about power.”
Everyone fell silent, and Xavian knew what each of his fellow soldiers were thinking, because the same thoughts were swimming through his own mind. For millions of years, the Nekros had deemed themselves the protectors of the universe, policing other races and procuring dangerous artifacts.
And yet, they clearly didn’t know half as much as they thought they did.
CHAPTER TWO
“I don’t trust him.”
It was the third time Vane had said as much in the past ten minutes, and Xavian no longer felt the need to respond. He didn’t trust Cypher Brax, either, but that didn’t mean he discounted everything the Atrean had told them.
If the Nekros acted as protectors of the universe, dedicated to policing other races and making sure they didn’t annihilate themselves, the Atreans played the role of diplomats. Charming, sophisticated, and eloquent, they could sway even the most cynical to their point of view.
Staring through the tiny, circular window in the two-seat capsule of the zipline, Xavian watched the mountains blur past and give way to the snow-covered fields dotted with rows and rows of blinking green lights. The shuttle slowed before coming to a gentle stop on the tracks next to a raised platform. With a quiet hiss, the door lifted and a robotic feminine voice announced their stop at the landing fields and wished them a good evening.
The icy winds assaulted Xavian the moment he stepped out of the zipline, whipping his hair into his face and biting at his exposed skin. Turning the collar of his jacket up, he waited until Vane exited the shuttle, then followed the cleared walkway to the security checkpoint at the entrance of the landing fields.
“I don’t know why I need to be here,” he grumbled. “It doesn’t take two of us to pick up a bottle of fucking wine.”
“We’ll borrow one of the gliders to get to my parents’ place,” Vane explained, his cadence exaggeratedly slow as if explaining to a toddler why the sky was blue.
“I’m going to your parents’ with you?”
“You were invited to dinner, weren’t you?”
“No.”
Vane opened his mouth, closed it, then tilted his head to the side with a curious expression on his face. “Yeah, you are. I told you yesterday.”
“I think I might have remembered that.”
“No, I’m sure I told you. Maybe you’re just getting forgetful in your old age.”
Xavian shoved his hands into his pockets and rolled his eyes. “We’re the same age, asshole.”
“That’s never been proven.” Removing his security badge from the front pocket on his jacket, Vane passed it to the guard on duty. “Either way, I’m telling you now.” He nodded when the guard passed his ID back. “You’re coming to dinner.”
The guard inspected Xavian’s ID next, passed it back, and asked which ship they were there to meet.
“The Nightshade,” Vane answered.
The guard chuckled, and without checking the information on his tablet, pointed to the northeast. “Pad A5. Don’t expect a warm welcome. Chase isn’t happy about the new security protocols.”
Everything Xavian needed, he could find on Nekron, so he didn’t often engage with the traders unless it pertained to his duties. With that being said, he knew only a few of the merchant vessel captains, most of those only by name. This Chase character, he’d never heard of before, but the guy kept cropping up in conversations lately, piquing Xavian’s interest. He pictured some haggard-looking pirate the size of a shuttle with a surly disposition and complete disregard for rules. In other words, he pictured an Earthling version of Lex.
“Who is this trader anyway?”
Vane glanced sideways at him as they trekked the open pathway to the purple lights of Sector A. “You’ll see.”
Xavian heard the yelling before he could “see” anything. An angry, female voice rose up over the wind, her threats and insults growing more imaginative with her increasing volume. Rounding a private vessel plated in chrome, he finally got his first glimpse of the owner of the voice, and what he saw had him hurrying his footsteps.
One of the new recruits was on the ground, his face forced down on the tarmac, while a lovely human female wearing a hideous green sweater pressed her booted foot against the side of his neck. In her right hand, she held a coil gun—an Earth projectile weapon that fired energy pulses at varying strengths—on another recruit, but she didn’t look at him as she berated the male under her boot.
“If you ever touch another member of my crew, I promise it will be the last thing you ever do. I’m assuming you have a mother, yes?” When the guard didn’t answer her, she pressed her heel more firmly against his throat. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”
“Yes,” the male bit out through gritted teeth.
“And I’m also going to assume she taught you some kind of manners.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Perhaps you should stop embarrassing her, then. Yeah?”
Cursing under his breath, Xavian jogged toward the small group gathered on the tarmac outside of a large, black cargo ship, Vane right behind him. “What the hel
l is going on?” he demanded. “Let him go.”
Now in the thick of the situation, Xavian noticed not only the guard on the ground and his companion, but the two other soldiers near the back of the craft—both glassy-eyed and unmoving as a Crimnian male with long, bright-red hair circled them. Dressed in brown leather pants and a dark knit sweater that hugged his lean frame, he looked up, meeting Xavian’s gaze, his shining silver eyes flecked with swirls of the darkest black.
Next to the Crimnian, two females had their heads bent together in conversation. A human with dark blonde hair and a delicate jaw glanced at him, but diverted her attention quickly. The other female, however, glared at him and Vane with open hostility through blood-red irises, her slender, black tail flicking behind her with agitation. The two creases across the bridge of her nose raised as she bared her teeth, and golden, spiral markings writhed over her dusky skin, pulsing like a heartbeat.
It had been a while since he’d seen a Jurdanian on Nekron, and even longer since he’d met one this angry. “Let him go,” he repeated to the female in the ugly sweater. “And someone tell me what the hell is going on here.”
With a crinkled nose, the female slowly lifted her foot at the same time she lowered the coil gun. Staring Xavian in the eye, she took a measured step back. She didn’t raise her hands or show any other signs of surrender, but she did—eventually—holster her weapon.
The guard on the ground bounded to his feet, while the other took an aggressive step toward the female.
“Stand down!” Xavian barked. “That’s a fucking order.”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the two newbies answered in stereo. They still looked tense, and they didn’t sound happy about the command.
Xavian didn’t really give a shit. “Miss—”
“Captain,” she corrected. “Captain Aeryn Chase. You can call me Chase.”
Xavian blinked several times, trying to reconcile the picture he’d constructed in his head with the beauty standing before him. He gauged the female to be nearly a foot shorter than his own six-foot-four, and though difficult to tell beneath the baggy, shapeless sweater, her face and hands appeared slender, almost delicate. Far from some lined and wary pirate, she had a soft, circular face with high cheekbones and big, round eyes.
His gaze kept traveling back to her mouth, to her full, pink lips. Her upper lip stretched a little wider than her bottom, looked just a little plumper, giving her mouth a heart-shaped appearance. As he watched her, his own lips began to tingle in response, and a strange current rippled up his spine, effectively cutting off anything else he might have said.
“Chase, what happened?” Vane asked, shoving past the two soldiers to stand directly beside her.
Xavian growled, the sound low…dangerous.
When he realized it, he pressed his lips together and jerked back. No one else had seemed to hear or notice him, a fact for which he was immeasurably grateful, because he didn’t have any logical explanation for his behavior.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Aeryn answered, her tone sharp with an undercurrent of bitterness. “I was informed the Nightshade would be searched upon landing. Not the norm, but I accepted it.” Her upper lip curled, and her nose wrinkled across the bridge. “Then these two assholes get here, along with Fuckhead One and Two over there.” She jerked her head to the side to indicate the two officers still staring dazedly into the night. “They insist I take off my jacket so they can search me.”
Xavian’s gaze raked down over the swell of her hips to her long, slender legs, and finally fell to the crumple of fabric just to the side of her booted feet.
“I complied,” she continued, “until they wanted me to take off my sweater as well.” She glared at the guards again. “Those two idiots over there start throwing crates off the back of the ship like it’s a halftime show during a game of fieldball. My tech engineer tells them to knock it off, since we don’t exactly get paid for damaged goods. Fuckhead One there grabs her by the arm and shoves her to the ground. You arrived about twenty-seconds later.”
A shadow descended over Vane’s face as he turned to the two closest guards. “Is that what happened?”
While the males tripped over each other trying to justify their actions, Xavian marched over to the female and stooped to retrieve her coat from the ground. It was covered in dust and cold to the touch, but he shook it out and held it up for her. She studied him with a furrowed brow for a long time before she nodded and turned to slip her arms into the sleeves one at a time.
“Thank you,” she muttered as she zipped the jacket and flipped the hood up to cover the top of her head. “Aeryn Chase.”
“So you said.” Xavian offered his hand. “Lieutenant Xavian Tira.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, the hunter green irises shining with amusement. “Under the circumstances, I can’t say it’s a pleasure, but still…”
Trailing off, she took his hand, her soft palm pressed against his, her grip firm. Electricity sparked between them, a pulse that zinged up Xavian’s arm and ricocheted around in his chest. Despite the temperatures, her touch spread warmth over his skin like rays of sunlight.
Pulling his hand back, he curled it into a tight fist and shoved it into his jacket pocket to hide the trembling. “Understandable, and I’m sorry for this. Trust me, this won’t go unpunished.”
“Lieutenant,” one of the recruits said, having the nerve to argue with Xavian after the shit he and his fellow officers had pulled. “We were just doing our jobs. She’s the one who assault—”
Xavian grabbed the kid by the throat and swung him around, pinning him against the side of the ship. “Your job does not include harassing the crew, assaulting a female, or disrespecting the ship’s captain. Nor does it entail asking said captain to remove her clothing.”
Blood roared in his ears, his heart thundered, and the angrier he became, the more his grip tightened. When a hand landed on his shoulder, he whipped his head around and snarled.
“Xee, man, take a breath.” With his head cocked to one side, Vane watched him carefully, his eyes narrowed, and worry lines marring his brow. “They’re punks, but we’re going to have much bigger problems if you don’t let him go.”
“He’s turning purple,” Aeryn commented, though she sounded less worried and more observational.
It took three deep breaths and a lot of willpower for Xavian to release the soldier and move away from him. “Who is your commanding officer?”
“Lieutenant Danvers,” the male rasped.
A vindictive grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. Phaedra would eat them alive when she found out what had happened. “Leave. I don’t give a fuck where you go, but get out of my sight.”
“If you pray,” Vane added to the second guard, “I’d start now, but don’t expect mercy.”
“Are you okay?” Xavian inquired of the captain, realizing that should have been the first question he’d asked.
Aeryn bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a smile. She’d met Vane Schiva once or twice, and his mother had become a regular customer of hers in recent months. Xavian was new. Well, new to her. He was intense, more so than the situation really called for, but something about him intrigued her.
“You’re sweet.” Reaching up, she patted his cheek lightly, then tugged at the ends of his ebony hair before pulling her hand away. “I can take care of myself, sugar. Mila’s the one I’m worried about right now.”
Honestly, she felt the encounter had shaken Mila up more than it had physically hurt her, but that didn’t matter. No one put their hands on Aeryn’s crew, not without warrant.
“Mila? The human female?” Xavian pointed toward the back of the ship. “I can have medics come check her over.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think she’s hurt.” She stepped closer to Xavian’s side, trying to ignore the bursts of energy that flowed between them, and lowered her voice so Mila wouldn’t overhear. “She’s not some delicate flower or anything, but confronta
tion upsets her. She doesn’t like to be touched, especially not by strangers.”
Xavian nodded as if she’d just given him instructions on meeting her friend rather than an explanation for her concern. “Understood.”
She was kind of starting to like him.
“Deuc,” she called as they approached the rest of her crew. “You can let them go.”
Deucalion stopped pacing and nodded. With a couple of mumbled words and a wave of his hands, the remaining two guards blinked, their eyes losing the glazed look as they began to refocus.
The one nearest the Crimnian shook off the disorientation first, and he didn’t appear very happy about the intrusion into his mind if the mask of rage on his face was any indication. Before he could make a move, Aeryn pulled her coil gun from its holster and aimed it at the Nekros.
“Don’t even think about it.”
She thought Xavian would try to stop her, but he just grunted, his gaze narrowed on the younger officers.
“The wine is completely destroyed.” With her hands on her hips, Katana kicked the side of a wooden crate. “Every fucking bottle.”
“What did she say?”
Aeryn looked up at Xavian with a frown. “She said the wine bottles were destroyed when your asshole recruits tossed the crate onto the tarmac.”
While many of the people she’d met out in space spoke several languages, that didn’t hold true for the masses. In answer to the language barrier between races, it had been the humans who had designed and distributed the Translation and Lexicon Communication Apparatus, more commonly shortened to “lexcom.”
The device fit into the ear canal, and contained a receiver and transmitter. Sound entered through the receiver on one side, and was translated directly into the ear from the other side of the apparatus, all in real time.
As an augmented human—meaning she’d undergone the procedure to integrate nanocyte technology into her body—Aeryn didn’t need a lexcom. The nanocytes translated nine-two languages, repaired broken and dying cells as the damage happened, and even regulated her respiratory system, allowing her to breathe in various atmospheres.