Seaghdh had accused Armada Command of a treasonous Chekydran alliance. Question now was whether Seaghdh differentiated between Armada Command and IntCom as two distinct entities the way Ari did. If he didn’t, she could have just made a fatal-for-her-father assumption. What if it wasn’t Armada Command colluding with the Chekydran? What if, in fact, it was IntCom? It made twisted sense. Intelligence Command, operating in the vein of anything for information, resorted to all sorts of nonstandard methodologies. She could see rationalizing a marginal alliance as an infiltration bid. Except that every single previous attempt to breach Chekydran defenses had an extreme body count.
Ari shook her head and turned on the water in the little shower room. Funny. Miniscule though the alcove was, it didn’t trigger a flashback. She smelled the water and the faint scent of antimicrobial cleaners, not the musty, dry odor that permeated the Chekydran ship. Regardless, she did not linger. She shut off the water, dried, and peeked around the door.
Doctor Annantra was still repairing the wound in Seaghdh’s side. Ari had to smile. He didn’t look like he appreciated the doctor’s medical technique quite the way he had hers.
As if he’d heard the thought in her head, Seaghdh opened his eyes and met her gaze. Something searing reached across the exam room. Her pulse pounded in her ears and heat flooded her. She spotted a stack of neatly folded khakis. Snatching them, she retreated to dress.
One good thing came from the revelation that Seaghdh was the Queen’s Blade. With rank came responsibility. He wouldn’t have time to go on tormenting her. She’d be able to stay far away from him. At least until she’d managed to armor herself against feeling anything.
Ari put on the pale khaki uniform and choked back a humorless laugh. No one had stripped the knots and wings that marked rank among the Claugh. They’d given her a captain’s uniform.
She slipped back into the exam room. Seaghdh was alone and up, buttoning his shirt. He eyed her, his look unreadable. Abruptly self-conscious, she fingered the too-loose waistband of her trousers and studied the instrument panel beside his right elbow. “You’re all patched up?” she asked in a rush.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Ari.”
“Be straight with me for a second,” she commanded. “Why am I here? You didn’t get shot down by Chekydran and lose eight crew just to hear me tell you what you’ve already read in my debriefing file. And a captain’s uniform, S—Auhrnok? You do nothing you don’t mean to do. Is this your way of telling me I’m never going home again?”
“Ari, stop and listen to me for a moment!”
The ripple of power in his voice silenced her. Anger rocketed through her. “Damn it, Seaghdh! If you want me to listen, stop manipulating me!”
He flushed. Rage or shame?
Somewhere in the last six months, she’d lost her ability to read faces. Was it simply because she had so little access to her own emotions?
He rounded the scan bed. A shiver of anticipation went up her spine.
“Ari.” His voice rasped the raw edges of her suddenly sensually aware nerves. “Let me explain.” The plea in his voice did not ask for the same thing the words did.
She stood transfixed, her skin flushing, and he hadn’t even touched her. How she wanted him to. How she wanted to be able to let him draw her into his arms. Screwing her eyes shut, she cursed. How could she want something like that? He’d lied to her, manipulated her. Hell, with that voice talent of his, how could she be sure he wasn’t pulling her strings even more subtly and adeptly than the Chekydran ever had? Wasn’t he using desire against her even now?
Ari opened her eyes and stared straight into his pained expression.
“I want . . .” Power again. Battering her, wearing her down, urging her to step into his embrace, to take refuge in his lips on hers. He reached for her.
Heart pounding, she dodged and slapped her hands flat on the scan bed. Something beeped in protest. She shook with the effort it took to keep from crawling across the bed into his grasp.
“Stop it!” she shouted. The breath she drew sounded like a sob. “You asked for my trust. I gave it, when all this time there was so much you weren’t telling me! With everything going on, a massacre on Kebgra, a secret army, some treasonous alliance, and me in the hands of the two most powerful people of an enemy state, all I want to know is whether you were playing a part.”
“No,” he said, his tone even, rational as if he could bring her back from the edge of reason where she teetered at the slightest breeze. “If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
“You’re the Auhrnok Riorchjan. The Queen’s Blade,” she accused. “Playing games with people is like breathing to you. Do you even know anymore how many games you’re playing?”
“Ari. What do you want from me?”
“The truth!” she screeched. “What is it about me that made a queen send twelve operatives to ask me oh so nicely if I wouldn’t come answer questions?”
In a blinding move, Seaghdh rounded the bed, grabbed, and pinned her against the bulkhead with his body. “You listen to me, and to that magnificent body of yours,” he breathed into her ear. “I am not your enemy.”
He was right. She seemed to be all the enemy she needed. She’d meant to hold herself rigid, straining away from him. Instead, she was leaning into him, her craving for his touch melting her bones. Desperation uncurled within her. She could not afford this kind of need.
“You are,” she gasped. “I am TFC. You’re not just Claugh, you’re the Auhrnok Riorchjan. Of course you’re my enemy. I had no idea when you let me win our blade duel just how outmatched I was or that we’d still be dueling after so long.
“I can’t know anymore what your original mission parameter required,” she said, ignoring the tremor in her voice. “But if you meant to destroy me, a crew of twelve was overkill. It took only you, after all.”
He released her as if he’d been burned. “Those men and women sacrificed their lives to find you.”
“They did not,” she countered, clenching her hands and struggling for control of the impulse that would have her take him into her arms to soothe the creases from his forehead. “They did it to protect their loved ones, their way of life. They died because they believed in a cause. Put down the blade, Seaghdh. You win. I lose. You can’t break me more than the Chekydran already have.”
“I am not playing you!” he insisted.
She shrugged. “You use your voice-control talent on me and then go on pretending you give an orhait’s ass. Wouldn’t you believe you were being subtly and skillfully interrogated were our positions reversed, Auhrnok?”
Seaghdh swore in his own language, a long, musical string of words.
The desolation in his voice made her ache. She closed her eyes and rubbed her fingertips against her forehead. She heard the door open.
“Move out, Captain Idylle,” he growled.
She opened her eyes.
He stood to one side of the door, his expression hard.
Nodding, her heart pounding, she picked up her handheld and followed him. Lovely. Accuse the man of devious interrogation in time to be led to the real thing.
Without a word or a look, he ushered her through a labyrinth of corridors to a set of double doors emblazoned with an emerald, black, and silver standard. Guards saluted and opened the doors at his approach. Voices within the room stilled. When she hesitated, Seaghdh grasped her elbow and steered her to an empty chair two removed from the head of the table where Eilod sat. He plunked her down, one hand on her shoulder warning her not to rise.
Faced with more than a half dozen interested pairs of eyes watching her every move, Ari swallowed a snarl. She folded her hands on the rich, golden bleached wood of the conference table and focused on her ragged nails. She absolutely did not want to see the expressions on the faces of the people around her as the queen introduced her personnel.
“I am Captain Alexandria Rose Idylle, formerly of the TFC ship Balykkal,”
she said when Eilod paused. “As the situation has been explained to me thus far, I understand you have questions regarding my imprisonment by the Chekydran. Where shall we start?”
Silence.
Ari glanced at Eilod.
Her Majesty studied her, then flicked an assessing look at Seaghdh. Her lips thinned. “May we offer you refreshment, Captain?”
Seaghdh rose.
“Thank you, no,” Ari said. She watched Seaghdh from her peripheral vision until she could no longer see him without turning.
“Very well,” Eilod said. “Given the unusual nature of our situation, I am instituting sonic shielding of this room. Please log any protests now.”
Sonic shielding? Interesting. Who did they not want listening in?
“Begin, if you would,” Her Majesty instructed after Ari felt the subtle vibration shimmer through the room, “with a summary of your captivity.”
A hand landed on her shoulder, lighter this time, but she started all the same. Seaghdh had come up behind her, silent on the thick silver carpeting. Her blood warmed at the simple touch of his hand. Before she could jerk out from beneath the contact, he set a steaming mug of thick soup before her.
She stared at it like an idiot.
He returned to his seat.
Disconcerted, Ari outlined her imprisonment, tentative at first, concerned about triggering a flashback. To protect his queen, Seaghdh would have reason to forget about being careful with her this time. Somewhere in the midst of her recitation, Ari folded her hands around the warm mug.
“Captain Idylle,” the queen said, leaning into the table to mimic her posture. Ari had raised her gaze to Eilod’s shoulder before stopping herself and looking at the mug again. It was half empty and she felt—better. When had that happened?
“When the Chekydran questioned you so repeatedly, what did they want?”
“I don’t know,” Ari said. Several people shifted around the table. “At first the questions revolved around the expected. My ship, my mission, and my crew, but they abandoned that line within a week. From that point forward, they asked anything at all. Questions about my childhood, memories, favorite family recipes, stuff that made no sense. I never understood . . .”
“We have some evidence, Captain, that the Chekydran have telepathic talent,” V’kyrri said.
Ari blinked and closed her gaping mouth. She sat up straight and met V’kyrri’s serious gaze. He believed what he said. Bits and pieces clicked into place in her head.
“They were distracting me?”
He nodded. “It’s possible they were attempting to guide you into a state that would allow them access to your thoughts, yes.”
“I always had the impression—” She stopped short and pushed the cooling soup away. It sounded ridiculous.
“Go on,” Eilod encouraged.
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I got the impression, over and over again, that they wanted me to be something, to do something I couldn’t be or do. Once they started drugging the food, they tried even harder, and all I remember is a sensation like someone trying to take a dull knife to poke a hole in my skull.”
“They drugged your food?” Seaghdh echoed, a ripple of some unknown feeling in his voice.
Ari shrugged. If it was power, it wasn’t turned on her and she was grateful. “They were putting something in there. So I stopped eating. Nearly got them that time.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Idylle?” Eilod said.
Ari glanced at her and had to wipe a grim smile from her face when it appeared to startle and frighten the queen. “Sorry?”
Eilod drew composure around her like a cloak. “You said ‘you nearly got them that time.’ What does that mean?”
“Oh.” She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “The Chekydran don’t know much about what keeps humanoids alive. I’d lapsed into a coma before they realized I was starving to death and began force-feeding me.”
CHAPTER 16
ARI glanced around the table. Shock, horror, one or two studiously blank expressions peered back. She was suddenly glad she’d looked up. She wanted to see these people realizing just how intrusive and painful their curiosity could be. They’d taken her from her family and from her life so they could ask questions they had no right to ask. Let them regret getting the answers. Let them realize they’d sent Cullin Seaghdh to do exactly what the Chekydran had done to her, despite the veneer of civility.
“The Chekydran kept trying to strip me bare, like a kid peeling the bark from a stick,” Ari said. “Of course I resisted. At first. We all did.”
“All? You were not the only prisoner?”
“No,” she said.
“You said, ‘you resisted at first,’ ” Eilod prodded.
“They wear you down,” she answered. “All it takes is time. Sleep deprivation, physical pain, drugs. Until all you want is to make it stop. Even after I stopped actively resisting, they could not get what they wanted. To this day, I don’t know what they had hoped to achieve. That they meant to modify me is plain, but their nanopaks never seemed to take.”
“Nanopaks?” Eilod echoed, her tone mystified.
“The Chekydran favor nanotechnology that alters protein processing at the genetic level. A nanopak is a delivery mechanism based on viral infection models,” a sharp-faced woman on Turrel’s right said. “If the subj . . . If Captain Idylle has been exposed, we can be certain her body has been altered in some fashion to suit their purposes.”
Every head in the room swiveled in Ari’s direction as if looking for a sign that she’d turn into a slavering, mindless puppet for the sadistic aliens that had held her. Icy adrenaline dumped into her chest. She sat very still waiting for Seaghdh, Eilod, Turrel, or V’kyrri to pick up the sharp-faced woman’s assurance that Ari had indeed been modified.
Seaghdh shifted, his face impassive. He’d looked at V’kyrri. “Is there any evidence to suggest Captain Idylle is a latent telepath? Or that the Chekydran were attempting to break her mind open to make her telepathic?”
V’kyrri shot a glance at Ari.
She met the engineer’s gaze and raised an eyebrow at him.
He smiled. “All kinds of evidence of something, sir, from what I’m hearing. To find out, I need but a moment and your permission, Captain,” he said to her.
“You want me to let you read me?” Ari asked.
“I would like to attempt to make contact,” V’kyrri hedged. “It’s not an invasion or a reading of your thoughts. Think of it as connection testing an uplink.”
She smiled at the mental image of satellites and ground stations. Since there was absolutely no chance she was a telepath, V’k’s connection test couldn’t hurt. “What should I do?”
V’kyrri rose and took the seat next to hers. “Turn and face me. I will try this without touch, first, but if I cannot get through, may I put my hand on your arm?”
“I promise not to bite,” she said.
“Aw, go on, Ari,” Turrel urged. “He’d like it.”
Laughter resounded through the room. V’kyrri grinned at her.
She nodded.
“Relax,” he said. “Close your eyes if you like. If it gets too uncomfortable, raise your right hand and I will stop immediately.”
“Thanks,” she said, trepidation marching up and down her spine.
Ari couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes even though V’kyrri shut his. He drew a deep breath and sighed it out. She shifted her shoulders, remembering she was supposed to relax. Abruptly, pressure built in the center of her forehead. This knife trying to gain access to the inside of her skull had been sharpened. She gasped and pushed back in her chair. She could take this. She would not raise her right hand.
She started to shake. This wasn’t the enemy . . . Ari wanted to laugh aloud, but couldn’t control her trembling body. This wasn’t the Chekydran, she corrected, but ultimately, as much as she wanted to think of V’kyrri, Turrel, and Seaghdh—especially Seaghdh—as frie
nds, they were indeed the enemy. They were an enemy who thought her people were building a secret army to use against them and who would do or say anything in the name of preserving their people.
“Stop it, V’kyrri,” she heard Seaghdh say.
Cold sweat trickled down her face. “No,” she snapped. “I can do this.” She was not broken beyond repair, damn it. She refused to be. “I will do this.”
V’k set his fingers on her forearm. The pressure increased. Nausea surged within her. Ari swallowed weakly and leaned her throbbing head against the back of her chair.
And she retreated. The part of her that Ari reserved for herself fled down into darkness, into a watery, subterranean landscape where nothing else could reach. Her physical body still registered the pain of friendly fire trying to pry open her skull, could still feel V’k’s fingers against her icy skin, but it was distant, as if she wasn’t in residence any longer. She was safe.
Except she wasn’t. Fear reached her in her hideaway, fear and anger, contained in Cullin Seaghdh’s voice. It drew her back up the well, back into the body with the throbbing head and the—nothing on her arm. The ache behind her eyes eased. She blinked up at Seaghdh’s face, no longer impassive. Fear for her stood out in the lines around his mouth and eyes. The pressure of his warm hands on her upper arms registered then.
“Are you all right?” he rasped.
She licked dry lips. “Sure could use a swig of painkiller.”
“Ari, I’m sorry,” V’kyrri said, his voice so contrite she tried to sit up to reassure him.
“Stay still,” Seaghdh growled at her.
“It isn’t supposed to hurt!” V’k protested.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
Turrel barked a laugh before a glare from Seaghdh made him muffle it.
“Here, drink this.” Dr. Annantra—when had they called her?—put a cup in Ari’s hand. “A little something for nausea in there, too.”
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