The Queen's Gambit

by Jessie Mihalik

  I’m on it, she said and closed the link.

  I waved and thanked the people who had helped us as they passed through the living room on their way to the door. Ari and Valentin were the last to appear.

  “Did you get a response?” Valentin asked.

  “Yes, link me your address and I’ll send you a copy. We’re waiting on one more person before we discuss it.”

  Ari flopped down on the sofa across from me. “Stella is on her way,” she said. “She was in medical, so it’ll be a few minutes.”

  Valentin sent me his address. He wasn’t using his official Kos Empire account. I sent him a copy of the message and also forwarded it to Stella and Ari. I glanced at him. “Is one of the bedrooms clean enough that you won’t mind using it for a few days?”

  He frowned, his eyes distant as he read the response. “Either bedroom is fine,” he said absently. “They are both far nicer than where I’ve been for the last few weeks.” His expression flickered to something dark and angry before he smoothed it out into a polite mask. “In fact, if it’s going to be a few minutes, do you mind if I take a shower? I found some spare clothes that should work.”

  It was clear that he wanted some time alone to deal with the impact of his advisors’ treachery. It was one thing to think you were being betrayed; it was another thing altogether to have it confirmed.

  “Of course you can shower. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you earlier.”

  I scanned his body. I remembered the muscles in his back—how would the rest of him look? I belatedly realized what I was doing and yanked my gaze back up to his face. He grinned at me, his expression warm.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my apology or my wandering eyes, but I chose not to ask for clarification. He turned toward the bedroom and tossed over his shoulder, “I’ll be quick.”

  As soon as the bedroom door clicked shut, Ari raised an eyebrow. I gave her my most innocent smile. “What?” I asked.

  “You looked like you would happily scrub his back if only he would ask. What’s going on?”

  “I have eyes, and he’s gorgeous. He’s also smart and clever. If he were anyone else, I would be trying to get just such an invite.” I sighed. “I like him. I didn’t expect to and it’s messing with my brain.”

  “How sure are you that he isn’t just stalling until his troops get here?”

  “How close is Stella?” I asked.

  “I’ll link her in.”

  I nodded and briefly explained my original plan to ransom Valentin, how he’d escaped from his cell, and our agreement.

  “You think he’s trustworthy?” Ari asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. “I think he will keep his word,” I said slowly, “but I think he’s far smarter than he tries to appear.”

  12

  Stella let herself in after a brief knock. She joined us in the living room. She was several centimeters taller than me, with rich brown skin, dark eyes, and long dark hair. People mistook us for sisters, which I took as an extreme compliment because Stella was beautiful. She and Ari made a strikingly gorgeous couple.

  I waved to her but didn’t get up. Stella took one look at me and pulled a med scanner seemingly from thin air. “Where are you hurt?” she demanded, her voice sharp with concern. “Let’s see it.” She slanted an irritated glance at Ari. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ari raised her hands in surrender. “Samara promised to visit medical as soon as she had time.”

  Stella gestured impatiently at me. I stood with a wince and dropped my pants. I knew better than to argue with Stella when she was on a mission. She inspected the bandage on my thigh, ran the scanner over my leg, and made various noncommittal noises before she finally conceded, “It’s decent. For now.”

  She pulled an injector and fitted it with a vial—Stella was like a walking medicine chest. I stopped her before she pressed it against my skin. “I need to be able to think clearly,” I said. “I’ll deal with the pain.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “I do know what I’m doing.”

  I gestured her on. Stella pressed the injector below my injury and pulled the trigger. After she helped me back into my chair, she sat down next to Ari and mock glared at her. “This is just the most convenient seat. I’m still mad at you for hiding Samara’s injury.”

  Ari grinned and tugged Stella close. Stella made a pretense of fighting the pull, then melted into Ari’s side. “You know how she is,” Ari said, “as stubborn as a goat.”

  They both nodded knowingly at me while I pretended ignorance.

  The pain in my thigh faded, but I didn’t notice any of the drowsy, disconnected feeling I’d had before. “It seems you have the good drugs,” I said to Stella.

  “Of course,” she agreed with a wink. Her expression turned serious. “Where is the Emperor?”

  “He’s getting cleaned up,” Ari said. She snickered and continued, “You should’ve seen Samara’s face when he mentioned the shower.”

  I kept my expression bland. It fooled neither of them, but I was saved from further teasing by the sound of the bedroom door opening.

  “Samara, would you mind helping me for a second, please?” Valentin asked.

  “Sure,” I said. When I stood, my thigh ached but no longer felt like it might fall off. I made a mental note to stock Invictia with whatever Stella had given me.

  I stepped into the short hallway leading to the bedrooms and nearly fell on my face. Valentin stood in the doorway of the far bedroom, wearing drawstring pants slung low around his lean hips and no shirt.

  I somehow continued moving toward him without tripping. His dark, damp hair fell over his forehead. He hadn’t shaved, so dark stubble shadowed his jaw. My gaze kept drifting lower. A vast swath of golden skin and hard muscles was on display. Flat chest, defined abs, and those sexy v-shaped muscles that directed my eyes downward, only to be thwarted at the last minute by his pants.

  There was no way that he hadn’t caught me checking him out, so I just shrugged and rolled with it. “What kind of help do you need that doesn’t require a shirt?”

  I heard Ari snort from the living room.

  “I need you to remove the bandage from my back,” he said, his voice a little deeper than usual. “I can’t reach it, and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Would you like Stella to look at it? She’s a doctor.”

  Valentin was already shaking his head before I finished speaking. “No, I don’t need a doctor. I would prefer you to do it. Please,” he said softly.

  “Okay, turn around,” I said.

  He obeyed. There were red spots above and below the elastomer bandage where he’d irritated his skin trying to reach it. I used my fingernail to peel up one edge. “Fast or slow?” I asked.

  He grinned at me over his shoulder. “Fast.”

  “This is going to hurt,” I warned. I gripped the edge of the bandage with my right hand and pressed my left hand against his shoulder for leverage. “On three. One—” I ripped the bandage off.

  Once he finished cursing, he glared at me. “You need to learn how to count,” he growled.

  “The bandage is off, isn’t it? Come on, I’ll clean up the adhesive for you.”

  As I wiped the alcohol pad carefully around his wound, I was impressed by the amount of healing that had happened in just a day. The wound looked at least a week old, maybe more. It was healed enough that it didn’t even need a gauze cover.

  I pressed my fingers to his skin, checking for any remaining tackiness. “You’re good to go,” I said.

  Valentin turned to face me, putting me entirely too close to the expanse of his chest. I pulled my gaze up. The bruising around his eye was already starting to fade. Thanks to a glance in the mirror, I knew mine was still turning a deeper shade of purple. Faster healing must be nice.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Meet us in the living room when you’re ready.”

  He nod
ded. I stepped away from temptation before I could do something I might not regret—at least for a while.

  In the living room, Stella and Ari shot me identical sly glances from the couch. “I don’t want to hear it,” I said when Ari opened her mouth. I settled into the same chair I’d been in before.

  Stella ignored me. “Was it a hard problem to solve?” she asked with a politely inquiring expression. “Is that why it took so long?”

  Ari cracked up. Stella tried to keep it together but when I rolled my eyes at her, she lost it and started snickering.

  “You two are the worst,” I said without heat.

  “You know you love us,” Stella replied with a smile.

  Valentin padded into the room on bare feet. He’d put on a shirt that stretched nicely across his chest, hinting at the muscles underneath.

  Stella and Ari turned serious, their earlier playfulness gone. Valentin continued to the chair next to mine as if he didn’t notice the sudden tension in the air.

  “Valentin, meet Stella Mueller, my head of medical,” I said. “Stella, meet Emperor Valentin Kos.”

  “A pleasure, I’m sure,” Stella murmured coolly.

  Valentin nodded. “Likewise.”

  I decided to dive right in. “Everyone saw the response from the Kos Empire I forwarded you?” At their nods, I continued, “Valentin, is this what you were expecting?”

  He glanced at Stella and Ari.

  “They are my closest advisors,” I said. “They’ll hear everything you tell me whether or not they’re here, so let’s not waste my time by making me repeat it.”

  “I want you all to swear what I am going to tell you will not leave this room,” he said at last.

  “Is it going to affect my people?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then I swear I will not share what you tell us with anyone outside this room.” Stella agreed easily enough, but Ari’s mouth set. I glared at her until she finally repeated the oath.

  “In the Kos Empire, the Emperor has the final say in all matters, but the Emperor’s advisors wield a great deal of power on their own. Needless to say, very few of them were pleased when they read Father’s will and found out I was the named heir instead of my older brother Nikolas.”

  “Why were you named heir?” Ari asked.

  “Father died before he could explain his choice,” Valentin said with a shrug.

  “You must have some idea,” Ari persisted.

  “Of course,” Valentin said easily, “but it isn’t relevant to this conversation. My advisors want me dead because I threaten their power. Your involvement was too convenient for them to pass up.”

  “But the response came from a generic account. Anyone could have sent it. How is that helpful?”

  “I can track it,” he said. “It won’t get me specifics, but it’s a place to start.” He caught my gaze. “If this were real, if you sent the ransom request and they came back with a demand for my death, what would you have done?”

  I stared at him while I weighed my words. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “It’s easy to take the moral high ground when it’s just a theoretical, but ten million credits would buy a lot of food.”

  “Would you truly kill me to save your people?” Valentin asked.

  I couldn’t read his expression, so I answered him honestly. “In cold blood? No. My soul doesn’t need any more stains. But I would absolutely play you and your advisors against each other, trying to get as much money as possible.”

  Valentin grinned at me. “Let’s do that, then. If you can get a payment, it’ll help narrow down who’s involved.”

  “I get to keep anything I get from your advisors, in addition to the money you still owe me,” I said.

  “You can keep half,” Valentin replied immediately.

  Stella scoffed. “Do you value your allies so little? Without Samara’s help, your plan goes nowhere.”

  “You can keep whatever they give you, but half of the value will be deducted from the amount I owe you.”

  “I do understand math, and while I would love for them to give me more than seven million up front to make that deal worth my while, I doubt they are going to. Whatever they are stupid enough to hand over, I keep. Our existing deal remains as is.”

  “You can keep the money, as long as you agree to make a good faith effort to negotiate a peace treaty with me after this is over.”

  Ari made a furious sound of protest but I sliced her a silencing glare. “I agree I will make a good faith effort, but as you can see, my council is highly unlikely to accept a treaty without extremely favorable conditions. I suggested the idea months ago and they shot me down.”

  “Fair enough,” Valentin said.

  He held out his hand and we shook on it. I could feel Ari glaring daggers into the side of my head, but money was money and we needed more of it. I expected the peace treaty to fall through, but I’d been honest when I made the agreement. Valentin couldn’t say that he wasn’t warned.

  We argued over the exact wording of the response for long enough that I started struggling to keep my eyes open. I was going on three days of too little sleep and no longer had the patience for diplomacy.

  It was supposed to be my response, so I finally just responded how I actually would’ve. I asked for half of the money to be deposited in a secure drop account, with the rest payable on proof of Valentin’s death.

  Ari and Stella offered to stay, but I waved them off. If Valentin tried to murder me in my sleep, he’d find I was harder to kill than I looked, even bone-weary. I showed them to the door, then trudged to the second bedroom to strip a blanket and pillow from the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Valentin asked from the door.

  “Sleeping on the couch,” I said without turning around.

  “Why?”

  “Because if I get into this bed, I’m going to pass out. I won’t insult you by curling up in front of the door, but I want to know if you’re up and moving.”

  “You could always sleep with me,” Valentin said. My head snapped around so quickly that he held his hands up defensively. “Sleep only,” he clarified. “The bed is big enough and you would know if I moved.”

  If temptation had a mortal form, it would look just like Valentin Kos. I wavered for a second, before reason reasserted itself. “I appreciate the offer, but the couch is fine,” I said. I grabbed a pillow and moved toward the door.

  He stood his ground. “I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he said.

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” I said under my breath.

  Unfortunately, he caught it and grinned at me before his expression turned serious. “You’re injured and exhausted. You need a good night’s rest.”

  “I can sleep anywhere,” I said. “Stop arguing so I can get to it.”

  Valentin stepped back. I brushed past him and turned toward the living room. I wrapped myself in the blanket and tried to get comfy on the couch. It was a few centimeters too small, even for my short height.

  I gave up and moved to the floor. The rug helped a little, but it would still be an uncomfortable night. However, I’d slept in far worse conditions.

  I had just gotten settled on my left side when Valentin stepped into the living room carrying a blanket and pillow.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to sleep in a bed while you’re on the floor.”

  “You could always sleep on the floor in your room,” I said.

  Valentin flashed me a grin, then wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down less than a meter away. Nervous energy flooded my system as I realized that I could reach out an arm and touch him.

  Valentin turned onto his side and caught me staring at him. I hadn’t taken out my contacts, so his face was visible in the greenish gray of my night vision.

  “I thought you were exhausted,” he said softly.

  “I was,” I agreed. “I’m not used to sleeping with someone so close.”

&nb
sp; “No brothers or sisters when you were growing up?”

  “No,” I said. “I always wanted a little brother, but it’s probably for the best that I didn’t get my wish.” My early life had been bleak. I preferred not to think about it.

  Valentin caught my closed expression and didn’t press. “My brother and I never got along, even though he’s only a year older. Now I wonder if he suspected even then.”

  “Suspected what?”

  He searched my face for a long moment before he spoke. “Nikolas is my half-brother,” Valentin said quietly. “We share the same mother, but not the same father.”

  The ramifications of that statement took a few seconds to sink in, but when they did, my eyes widened. “He’s illegitimate? How do you know?”

  “After Father changed the line of succession, I had suspicions. I searched Father’s old files and found enough vague references to confront Mother. She confessed. A DNA test would prove it.”

  “Did your father know the whole time?” I asked carefully, aware that I might be probing too deep into a wound that still bled.

  Valentin sighed and rolled over onto his back. “Father knew,” he told the ceiling. “He claimed Nikolas because he loved Mother and didn’t want to see her shamed, but on his deathbed, he must’ve decided he wouldn’t put an illegitimate son on the throne. I haven’t announced it because I love my mother and stars know Father was no saint.”

  “Does anyone else know? Does Nikolas?”

  Valentin turned his head toward me, his expression stark. “Mother told Nikolas after Father’s death. She thought it would help him understand Father’s decision. Nikolas did not take it well,” he said drily.

  If you spent your whole life thinking you were the Emperor’s son, destined to be the next Emperor, and then it turned out you were secretly illegitimate, I could see how that would be a tough blow. No wonder Nikolas wanted Valentin dead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I reached across the distance separating us and squeezed his upper arm. Words were nice, but sometimes you just needed physical comfort to know that another person was there and cared.