She shrugged off my words. “All of my favorite patients are difficult,” she confided. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t bust your ass back to medical if I see you lifting anything even a gram over the limit. I have a scale and I’m not afraid to use it.”
I laughed at the mental picture of her trailing me with a scale. She would do it, too. “I’ll be on my best behavior,” I told her honestly.
She muttered something under her breath that sounded very much like, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Ari returned, and Stella started up the transport for the quick trip to Arx. I reconnected to the net on the way and checked the news feed. The Kos Empire was celebrating the return of their Emperor, but there was no news of advisors’ deaths. Had Valentin decided not to act after all? If so, I’d politely remind him of his advisors’ treachery when I requested my second payment.
I checked my messages. I had four from the private account Valentin had used earlier. The most recent one was from this morning.
My heart kicked, but before I had a chance to open the message, we arrived at the market. The overhead panels twinkled with stars, and the gathered crowd cheered as I stepped out of the transport.
“You didn’t really think I’d let those bastards kill me, did you?” I shouted. The crowd roared in approval.
Zita came forward, as happy as I’d ever seen her. “Come with me,” she said. She pulled me along slowly. People kept stopping me to offer thanks or congratulations. Ari was right; despite the attack, everyone was in very good spirits.
I spotted Lily Dovers and a handsome young man standing snuggled together next to Lily’s stern-faced father. Lily glowed with happiness. Apparently, Imogen had persuaded her to tell her father about the baby.
Zita sat me at the large metal table outside her bakery, then disappeared inside. Ari and Stella just grinned when I raised a questioning eyebrow at them.
The bakery door opened and Zita reappeared carrying an enormous tray of tiny, bite-sized desserts. She set the tray on the table. I could see the intricate flowers, swirls, and other decorations she’d created for each piece. My mouth watered.
“To the Queen’s health!” Zita shouted.
“To the Queen’s health!” the crowd shouted back. At this point I think they would’ve said anything to get one of her famous desserts, and I didn’t blame them one bit.
Zita waved her hand at the tray, and I selected a golden-frosted square with a tiny crown of orange flowers. At Zita’s nod, I took a bite. Spicy cake and sugary frosting exploded on my tongue, and I moaned in delight.
The crowd laughed, Zita beamed, and Ari nodded in approval.
Assistants brought out more trays, and the crowd joined me in the simple delight of food that did more than meet basic nutrition needs. A woman strummed a guitar while she and her husband sang a duet. Soon they were joined by more instruments.
The crowd’s energy shifted, a dance floor was cleared, and the party began in earnest. Tonight would be a late night as people celebrated for the first time in months.
I mingled in the crowd for a few minutes, but curiosity was killing me. I wanted to read Valentin’s messages in private. When everyone turned their attention to the dance floor, I slipped into the shadows and retreated to my quarters.
15
I settled behind the desk in my office, aware that I had a huge list of tasks that needed to be handled, not the least of which was putting our newfound wealth to work. But Valentin’s messages beckoned, and I couldn’t resist their pull.
I opened the first one, but before I’d even had a chance to read the first line, a video neural link from an unknown contact tickled the back of my mind. I hesitated, unsure if it was a weird coincidence.
Samara, please accept, Valentin’s voice whispered through my head, so faint I almost thought I’d made it up. It should’ve been impossible, but I’d seen him do other impossible things.
I routed the link through my desktop terminal and accepted.
Valentin’s face appeared on the vid screen in front of me. He’d shaved, showing off the smooth planes of his face. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt open at the collar. The casual elegance just added to his appeal.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m well enough that Stella let me out of the med chamber, but Ari is watching me like a hawk,” I said. I could mentally link him, but the terminal’s microphones would pick up my speech just as easily. “How about you? Your advisors giving you trouble?”
His lips quirked into a secret smile. “A half dozen of them have taken me aside to assure me that they are loyal, but they’re not so sure about everyone else.”
“Nikolas didn’t take over while you were gone?” I asked.
“He wasn’t in residence when I returned,” Valentin said. The non-answer was telling. “There haven’t been any outright attacks since I’ve been back.”
It occurred to me that this video chat was the clearest I’d ever seen from our com system. The system usually wasn’t good enough to handle a long-distance link, especially not a vid link. “How are you linking me? Are you nearby?”
Valentin grimaced, an expression I was beginning to learn meant he was about to tell me something I wasn’t going to like.
“I am in Koan,” he said. He gestured and the camera panned to show me his tastefully decorated office. “But I might’ve positioned a Kos communication satellite near you.”
“You’re spying on our communications?” I asked with a raised brow. “That’s certainly presumptuous of you.”
“No! The satellite is running dark. None of your traffic will go through it by default. I’ve used your com system,” he said. “It’s terrible. I wanted to be able to talk to you in real time. You owe me a peace treaty.”
“I owe you a good-faith effort,” I corrected. “Speaking of good faith, why are you sending us food and supplies? You are still planning to pay me, right?”
Valentin’s expression shifted, turning serious. “I will transfer the second payment to your account today. Should I use the same account as before?”
I nodded.
“As for the food, I promised my plan wouldn’t put your people at risk, but if I had gone directly home, Quint wouldn’t have had a reason to attack you. That mistake is mine, and I owe you a debt. You need food and supplies; I have extra.”
“Thank you,” I said. The fact that he had a reason, that it wasn’t just charity, soothed my ruffled pride.
“And it’s to butter you up so I can get a better deal than a ten percent discount on those leadership classes I’ve heard you offer,” he said with a smile.
That surprised a laugh out of me. “I’d be willing to go to a fifteen percent discount. That brings the price down from exorbitant to merely outrageous, but I’m sure you can afford it. I might even be willing to go all the way to twenty percent if I get to watch your advisors have an apoplexy when you tell them.”
Valentin’s grin had a vicious edge and I again caught a glimpse of the calculating Emperor under his pretty exterior. He might not have been groomed for the job from birth, but he seemed to be doing just fine at misleading everyone around him. If everyone underestimated him, that made his job so much easier.
Perhaps I should be taking lessons from him after all.
“I am planning to do a little house cleaning in the coming months,” he said. “Having a few advisors spontaneously die off when they find out that the Rogue Queen is teaching me leadership might help speed things along.”
“Tired of being stabbed in the back?”
“Yes. And thanks to Commander Adams’s loose lips, I finally have enough information to transition some of the worst offenders out without destabilizing the Empire.”
“Speaking of Commander Adams,” I said, “I heard he escaped. Do you have any information on his location?” He and I were overdue for a little chat.
Valentin scowled. “The coward ran instead of surrendering and saving his troops. We haven’t
picked up any trace of him yet, but in an escape shuttle it’ll take him a while to reach Quint Confederacy space. Maybe the bastard will starve to death on the way.”
“One can hope, but roaches tend to be harder to kill than that,” I said. I shook off the pleasant thought of Commander Adams’s demise and asked, “Where do we go from here?”
“I was serious about us becoming allies,” Valentin said. “I would like for us to sign a formal treaty.”
“And I was serious when I said my people will never agree,” I said. “They want nothing to do with Kos or Quint politically. They came here to escape the war.”
“What if the treaty favors the Rogue Coalition?” Valentin asked.
“Maybe,” I said doubtfully, “but why would you do that? What do you gain?”
“The treaty is another step toward payment of my debt.” He paused, then continued ruefully, “And I’m hoping rumors of the treaty will goad one or more of my advisors into making a mistake.”
Before I could respond, someone knocked on Valentin’s door. He glanced off screen and his face smoothed into a polite mask. When he looked back at me, he was all Emperor. “We will have to continue this discussion later. Please think about what I said.”
I nodded and he cut the link.
For the next two weeks, Valentin and I linked nearly every day, sometimes with vid and sometimes without. We started out with conversations about treaty details, but soon we were discussing a multitude of topics, most of which weren’t at all related to treaties or ruling.
Our tentative alliance morphed into true friendship. Beneath the cool Emperor and the charming mask, Valentin was funny and warm and bitingly sarcastic.
We eventually hashed out a treaty agreement that my advisors could get behind. As Queen, I could have unilaterally signed a treaty, but that was a good way to no longer be Queen.
Valentin chose the unilateral route. He seemed to hope someone would come after him. Nikolas had apparently gone underground and Valentin wanted to flush him out.
I had negotiated with gusto. I wasn’t the Rogue Queen for nothing, newborn friendship notwithstanding, but Valentin had held his own, pushing back against my more outrageous requests and working in a few favorable terms for himself. My respect for him had risen, driving my attraction higher.
Ari and I met in my office to look over the final agreement. I’d already gotten the sign-off from the advisory council, but I wanted one last check to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
As part of the treaty, the Kos Empire agreed not to block trade or hinder Rogue Coalition ships from taking shipping or mercenary jobs. And we could buy their excess food at a discounted price for the next five years.
We had free passage through their territory, but they could not draft us into their war, no matter what happened. If one of their enemies attacked us, Kos had to assist in our defense.
If Quint decided to come after us again, I wanted the assurance of backup with big guns, and I didn’t want the Rogue Coalition to get dragged into the war by proxy.
In return, I would give Valentin Kos four weeks of my time for unspecified “intelligence gathering”—his idea of leadership training—and the Rogue Coalition agreed not to go to war with the Kos Empire without provocation. I also agreed to keep my ears open for rumors about kill contracts on Valentin and to share any information pertaining to his advisors’ loyalty.
Considering the Kos Empire could squash us like a bug if they put their mind to it, Valentin could’ve demanded more concessions, but he seemed to be content with the treaty as it was.
Ari finished rereading the agreement. “He’s going to sign this, here, in Arx?”
“So he says.” He was scheduled to arrive in ten days, and I was trying my very hardest not to let the fluttery feeling in my chest morph into anything more.
Ari’s grin took on a sly edge that meant trouble. “Are you excited to see him again?”
There was no point in lying to my best friend—she’d see right through it. “Yes,” I said.
“You should give him a chance.”
“I don’t think he sees me like that,” I said. “He wants to be allies.”
Ari shot me a highly skeptical look, then sighed.
A week before Valentin was scheduled to arrive, Ari asked me to meet her in my private hangar to go over security details. When I arrived, she was waiting for me at the hangar door.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Just wanted to double check a few things,” she said. She ushered me through the door into the hangar.
Invictia was over in the main hangar. The shipwrights were working to put her back together again after my firefight with Deroga. In her place sat a sleek black ship, a little bigger than Invictia. I’d never seen it before.
I turned to Ari, but she had beat a hasty retreat while I wasn’t looking. She leaned against the wall next to the door, holding a plasma pistol in a casual grip that I knew could turn deadly in an instant. “Ari?” I asked. She grinned but didn’t move.
“What the hell?” I demanded.
“I believe she is standing out of reach of your wrath,” Valentin said as he stepped out of the maintenance room beside me.
My hand clutched for a nonexistent weapon as I spun to face him.
Valentin had on black pants and a long-sleeved white shirt that stretched nicely across his sculpted chest. He grinned. “Ari warned me not to startle you if you had a pistol. Since you didn’t, I figured it was safe.”
Ari snorted and I agreed. Just because I didn’t have a pistol didn’t mean I was safe.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I told my pulse to settle down and ordered the butterflies out of my stomach. Friends, we were friends.
He shrugged. “Vid links are fine, but I wanted to see you. I found myself nowhere near this sector, so I decided to stop by,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Ari helped me get in. Surprise!”
I smiled at him. I had to admit, I was glad to see him in person, too. “Is this your ship parked in my hangar?”
“Yes. Korax is my personal ship.”
I looked away from him and back to the ship. “She’s a beauty,” I said.
“Yes, she is,” he agreed softly.
His words swept over me, and I wondered if he meant them the way they sounded. I darted a glance at him, but his expression didn’t give anything away.
“How long are you staying?” I asked.
“I have to head back early tomorrow morning,” he said. “Something came up and I can’t make the trip next week, but I wanted to see you and sign the treaty, so I snuck away for the day.”
“How many guards did you bring? Do I have to worry about them skulking around invisible?”
“Luka, you heard the lady. Stop skulking,” Valentin said.
Nothing happened.
“Now, Luka,” Valentin commanded. An armed soldier in combat armor blinked into view next to the ship’s cargo ramp. “Samara, meet Luka Fox, my bodyguard. Luka, meet Queen Samara Rani and her head of security, Arietta Mueller.”
“You didn’t think combat armor was a little much?” I asked Valentin drily.
Valentin heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Luka has heard about you and he’s paranoid about my safety.”
“He loses the armor, or he stays with the ship,” I said.
“Agreed,” Valentin said. He glanced at his bodyguard. Luka scowled and stripped out of his armor with brisk efficiency.
Valentin turned me around to face him, then brushed gentle fingers over what I knew were dark circles under my eyes. My thoughts derailed.
“How are you?” he asked quietly.
“I’m completely healed,” I said. “Just busy.”
Now that we had food again, people had seemingly lost their damn minds. I knew they were just blowing off steam after months of focused good behavior, but cracking skulls and dishing out punishments had kept me busy enough that exhaustion plagued my steps.
“Let’s get this tr
eaty signed so you have one less thing to deal with.”
I nodded. It would be nice not to have to think about it anymore, but I’d gotten used to our daily conversations. I would miss them.
Luka stalked toward us wearing black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt. As he approached, I noticed he was big, taller than Valentin, and all muscle.
He had a shock of wavy, ice blond hair that looked like it’d spent too much time in his helmet, then he’d run his hands through it and called it good. His fierce scowl might be classified a weapon, but I also counted at least three other concealed guns on him.
“Expecting a war?” I asked.
His scowl deepened.
Okay, then. “You’re here as a guest. You will respect our laws. Understand?”
Luka nodded once.
“Welcome to Arx,” I said.
We passed Ari on the way out. I smiled at her and flicked my eyes back toward the ship. Her expression turned angelic. Luka demanded Ari exit first, but she just grinned at him and planted herself more firmly against the wall. When Valentin and I continued out of the hangar, Luka was forced to leave Ari and follow.
I had no doubt that by the time Ari left the hangar, the Rogue Coalition would be the proud new owner of an undamaged set of Kos special-ops combat armor.
Because we depended on jobs from the Kos Empire, people were cool but civil to Valentin. We signed the treaty in front of my advisory council, then escaped to spend time catching up in person. We had dinner that included real food and stayed up late talking. Even so, the minutes slipped away all too quickly.
At some point I must’ve nodded off because the next thing I knew, Valentin was shaking me awake.
“Sorry to wake you so early,” he said softly, “but I have to leave.”
I blinked and sat up. We were on the couch in the living room of the guest suite. Someone had put a blanket over me and I’d been using his shoulder as a pillow. Heat rushed into my cheeks.
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