Ari uttered a sharp laugh.
“Is it true?” Xiao asked.
“Yes.”
Seaghdh glanced at her. Captain Alexandria Idylle stood at his side on full alert, her expression unreadable. He couldn’t tell if he’d just heard more truth than she’d wanted him to hear or if she didn’t want to burden Captain Xiao with the details of her undercover babysitting job.
“Twelve Gods,” Xiao breathed. “What in the Three Hells is going on, Captain? The rumors—”
“Unknown, attempting to compensate, Captain,” Lieutenant Whyt interrupted.
Movement caught Seaghdh’s eye. Ari. Touching thumb to forefinger. First time mark? He could guess that Lieutenant Whyt was disabling com logging. How much longer?
“Evidence suggests an Admiralty alliance with the Chekydran. Purpose: development of a biomech, wholly mind-controlled soldier. Prototypes were humanoids mutated by Chekydran nanotech processes combined with biotech implants.”
Xiao shook his head. “The Citizen’s Uprising broke that story to the media. Armada accuses you.”
“What a surprise. Citizen’s . . . You knew there were survivors,” Ari said.
“So did you,” Xiao replied.
“Sorry. I couldn’t risk tipping off anyone in Armada who might be listening. I don’t yet know the scope of the situation.”
Xiao looked shaken. “Understood.”
“Captains,” Seaghdh interjected, determined to make Xiao pick a side. “The Dagger is due to meet the Sen Ekir within the next three hours for Captain Idylle’s transfer.”
“I have the coordinates,” Xiao answered. “And orders to be certain Captain Idylle ceases to be the grave breach of security she currently represents.”
Ari snorted.
“You do not have the coordinates,” Seaghdh countered. “You have the false data I fed your commanding officer.”
Xiao sucked in an audible breath and sat back in the command chair. “The admiral?”
Ari slanted a wary glance at Seaghdh. “You talked to Angelou? That can’t have gone well.”
“I did give him false coordinates, Captain,” he replied.
She grinned, her pale eyes sparkling. “You are a scholar and a gentleman, Auhrnok.”
Desire sizzled through him. “I hope not,” he muttered under his breath as she turned back to the screen.
“Whoever is pulling the strings ordered the murder of every man, woman, and child on Kebgra,” she said to Xiao. “I’m after proof I can take to Council. I mean to get it.”
“Your IntCom mission,” Xiao murmured.
Seaghdh glanced at Ari when she let his assumption go and had to fight back the sense that he stood beside a stranger. A stranger whose sharp mind and strong, lithe body made his blood run hot.
As each moment passed, he could almost see the mantle of responsibility, the weight of command decisions, settling around her shoulders. How could her undernourished, abused frame take strength from the burden? Not alone, he swore, something unfamiliar swelling in his chest. Never again.
“Do you intend to obey Armada’s orders or IntCom’s, Captain Xiao?” Seaghdh demanded.
“I almost have it, Captain,” Lieutenant Whyt said, still busy at her panel.
Ari’s thumb jumped to her pinky. Seaghdh gathered they had only a few seconds more. He didn’t envy Xiao the pressure for a snap decision that might alter the course of his career, but Seaghdh had to know, and Ari deserved to know, just how much Xiao would risk for her.
“Old habits,” Xiao said and sighed. “I trust Captain Idylle despite the smear campaign. Do you know they accuse you of paranoia as if three months in a Chekydran prison didn’t justify it? Besides. Every soldiering instinct I have says something is going on. We follow the IntCom model.”
“How many officers have implants?” Ari asked as if she’d known all along what decision Xiao would make.
“Three.”
“Get them out, or change the codes, but do it now,” she ordered. “Respond to no more Armada hails. Communicate only with IntCom.” She turned to Seaghdh. “Would Her Majesty permit your CMO to transmit data to the Balykkal’s medi-officer?”
Seaghdh glanced at his instrument panel. A light flashed twice. “I believe that can be arranged.” He suppressed a smile at the sour look Ari tossed him. She hadn’t expected Eilod to listen in? The captain had a great deal to learn about Claugh politics. He looked forward to teaching her. Another, more urgent rush of want startled him. He cleared his throat and directed his attention away from her.
“Here’s the problem, Captain,” Lieutenant Whyt said. “The hull plate protecting our broadcasting array came loose again. The equipment took a charge. I bled it off and we’re neutral again, but it means another EV walk to lock that thrice-damned plate.”
Ari’s fist clenched and she frowned.
Seaghdh got the message. They were out of time to speak freely.
“Acknowledged,” Xiao and Ari said in unison. Both grinned. A spurt of jealousy fired through Seaghdh at the camaraderie they shared. Was Xiao the real reason Ari wanted her ship back?
“Prepare to receive medical data,” Seaghdh said, working the panel on his desk, aware that Armada would be listening in again. Back to playing a part. “The Claugh nib Dovvyth appreciates your diligence, Captain Xiao. Given this medical report, I am sure you understand why we cannot in good conscience permit the teleport of your captain at this time.”
Xiao put on a pissed-but-trying-hard-to-be-professional face. “Understand? Auhrnok Riorchjan, you’re holding an officer of the Armada and refuse to release her to her own people. You understand me. I will take this incident straight to the TFC Council. We may meet under far different circumstances. The ones you say you are so eager to avoid.”
Seaghdh nodded slowly, marshalling his expression into something appropriately deadly. “Do so, Captain,” he purred. “By the time your politicians finish blustering over your report, I will have your precious captain returned to the agreed-upon location and personnel.”
Xiao severed the connection.
Ari remained standing, her hands clasped in the small of her back, as if the screen might flicker back to life. The link indicator winked out. Only then did Ari relax, without his having to tell her she could, Seaghdh noted. Just how much of his language had she absorbed and learned to read overnight?
She rounded his desk and stomped back and forth, biting out a string of filthy words. He raised his eyebrows and lost count of the number of languages she could swear in.
Anger burned in Ari’s blood. She was mad as Port Poison’s horned sharks swarming for a kill. She actually felt it and could identify it. Score one for the prisoner.
“Twelve Gods damn it to all Three Hells,” she growled.
Seaghdh sat behind his desk. His chin propped in one hand and amusement in his eyes. “Ari.”
She stopped short, threw her arms wide, and said, “I am baxt’kal useless!”
“What an interesting evaluation,” Eilod said, her tone droll.
Ari started. The queen had entered the office via a door camouflaged by the royal seal adorning the wall behind Seaghdh. Damned open com. She’d forgotten. Again. She glared between Seaghdh and his cousin.
“Were you listening last night, too?” she demanded of Eilod.
“Should I have been?”
Alarm shot into Seaghdh’s face.
“I learned a lot,” Ari said.
Eilod smirked. “Congratulations.”
“Stow it, Your Majesty,” she countered.
Seaghdh dropped his head into his hands.
“I’m clear that I’m simply another mission.”
That got his attention. “Ari,” he grumbled.
“You, too,” she ordered. “Any action is justified if it furthers the betterment of the people.”
“You’re quoting TFC regs,” he said. “That’s not us.”
Ari stopped and stared at him. Damn it. She’d grown up living the philosophy,
training, and studying in order to offer herself on the altar of TFC’s collective best interests. She could rationalize being used in the name of furthering the interests of her people. Seaghdh acted as if the notion repulsed him.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “The point is Armada just neutralized me. I can no longer go back into TFC space. My access to military records is being vaporized as we speak. Even if I could slip Armada personnel and report to IntCom, I prematurely exposed my cover when I locked down Dad’s ship. They’ll debrief me and show me the air lock. Gods, how could I be so stupid?”
“Save for that last bit,” Seaghdh replied, “I agree.”
“As do I,” Eilod said.
“Oh, good. Give me the key to your blade locker and I’ll go cut my own throat.”
“Not until we’ve finished that duel,” Seaghdh said, his tone silky. “You know Federated Worlds Regs don’t recognize draws.”
Heat flashed through Ari and pooled heavy in her belly.
“You dueled?” Eilod squeaked. “By the Gods, you two are hopeless.”
“She’s the second-ranked blade master in the known systems, Eilod,” Seaghdh said.
“How well I know,” his cousin replied, rolling her eyes. “You plagued me for years to negotiate a goodwill match.”
Surprise unfolded within Ari. She peered at him. “You’ve been trying to meet me on the dueling floor? For years?”
Eilod snorted. “My cousin is your greatest fan, Captain. He’s followed your blade rank from the moment you won your first sanctioned duel. He’s always said you had the talent to be his match.”
“That is enough,” Seaghdh said.
“You don’t want me to tell her about the media file you keep of every match she’s ever fought?”
“Eilod.”
“Or that you’ve spent hours analyzing technique? Telling me what kind of person she was likely to be based on her dueling style? Or how beau . . .”
“Your secret is safe,” he growled, rising, palms flat on his desk. “Stop.”
Grinning, Eilod subsided.
Beautiful. He’d told Eilod she was beautiful? Ari’s head spun. That was so long ago. He knew everything about her. Everything. She’d won her first match before she’d graduated from the Armada Academy. Had he thought, when he’d accepted the mission to find her, that he’d be collecting that naïve, ambitious twentysomething? How disappointing had it been for him to find the scarred remains of the woman he’d watched climb the blade ranks?
“You really fought to a draw?” Eilod pushed, looking between them.
“Until we collapsed in exhaustion,” Seaghdh replied, smiling in a predatory way that sent desire glittering through Ari’s veins despite her mounting confusion.
“Oh, dear,” Eilod said, her tone laden with false sympathy. “Is your title in danger, Queen’s Blade?”
Seaghdh eyed Ari, looking like the hiztap who caught the tezwoul. “I expect it will take years of rematches to find out.”
Her knees went weak.
“Splendid,” Eilod said.
The bright delight in her voice told Ari she’d seen through Seaghdh’s thinly veiled innuendo. Great.
“The empire requires your continued assistance, Captain Idylle,” Her Majesty said. “Perhaps not in the form . . .”
They were conspiring to keep her. How would they justify it? Would she be a prisoner? A recruit? Or some kind of pet, a glorified mascot?
Ari dropped into a chair, closed her eyes, and felt doors slamming shut all around her, cutting away her options, severing her from the last mortally wounded remnants of her old life. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t have a command. She didn’t want a PhD and the prison of a lab. Ari gasped in pain. Not torture. Not Chekydran. Her. She was causing her own pain.
Seaghdh and Eilod wanted to put her in a box. Their box. Her father wanted her in his. Someone at Armada Command, possibly several someones, wanted her in a coffin. What did she want?
The rustle of fabric and the heat of his body told her Seaghdh knelt at her side. “Ari . . .”
A trill cut him off. Eilod answered in her own language.
“Your Majesty. System failure, engineering. I’ve traced the unauthorized access to your present location.”
Seaghdh straightened.
The young queen swore and acknowledged. “Cullin. This is the third system failure in seven hours. Your station was accessed thirty minutes after you logged off duty last night.”
The brittle tone warned Ari that Eilod blamed her for the system failures. Her stomach clenched and she opened her eyes. Had she been dumb enough to waltz right into the baited trap?
Seaghdh apparently heard the same thing in his cousin’s voice. He strode to her side.
Had Ari found out what form Seaghdh and Eilod’s box would take? An accusation of spying, a swift trial, and a prison sentence would assure that Seaghdh had his very own practice dummy for a long time to come.
“Baxt’k,” Seaghdh said. His tone rang like Isarrite shattering at absolute zero. He stood, hands braced on his desk, his head hanging. He looked like a man defeated.
Ari’s heart wrung hard, and she couldn’t get her breath.
Eilod punched up a set of commands. Orders for a firing squad? She put a hand on his arm, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.
Seaghdh straightened. A hard, bitter stranger looked at her from out of his eyes.
She shuddered. This didn’t feel like a repeat of the manipulative games Eilod and Seaghdh had played to get her aboard the Dagger. They weren’t trumping up charges as a way of keeping her. Why?
Ari sucked in a sharp breath, hearing Xiao say it, “IntCom claiming you as an undercover operative.” She hadn’t burdened her former first officer with the details of her covert babysitting job. Eilod and Seaghdh obviously believed she’d lied to them rather than to her own personnel. She’d given them evidence of it by accessing Seaghdh’s computer without permission. She’d even left data packets for them. What had she done?
He crossed the room, took her arm, and hauled her to her feet. Wordless, he dragged her out of the cabin and into the corridors.
She refused to ask where they were going. The Chekydran had never answered. Why should Seaghdh?
They followed Eilod to the conference room. The door closed behind them. Seaghdh released her like he couldn’t stand to touch her. Her heart rose to her throat.
She glanced wildly around the room. Eilod vanished through a door hidden behind the royal seal on the far wall. Turrel, grim-faced, arms crossed, stood in front of the door they’d come through. He wore a sidearm. V’kyrri sat at the conference table, watching her. Ari met his gaze and felt him pressing against her awareness.
So that’s how it was. She’d been foolish enough to believe Seaghdh’s act—that he trusted her, cared for her—and now the people she’d thought of as her allies treated her like she meant them harm. Worse. She’d thought, if only briefly, that they’d understood her. She wished she could cry. Instead, she glanced at the other person in the room and started.
Sindrivik, logging into the computer systems.
“It is time you told me everything,” Seaghdh said, the power in his voice a lash.
She reeled and bit her tongue to keep from babbling in response. He could have asked, but he preferred to duel. If it was a fight he wanted, she’d accommodate him.
Pinning her gaze on the serious young man sitting beside V’kyrri, Ari forced herself to ignore the compulsion rumbling around in her brain. Instead of spilling a confession no one would believe, she said, “Good to see you, Lieutenant Sindrivik. I gather my father is in range. Did he take his temper out on you since I wasn’t there to castigate?”
Sindrivik blinked, a wry smile on his face, until he caught a glimpse of Seaghdh’s expression. Humor died. He returned to task at a panel. Teasing apart her data? Analyzing the extent of her invasion into their computers? Scanning all systems for whatever damage she might have done? Their systems were extensive and
since she hadn’t done anything, looking for malicious code would take a while.
Ari took a deep breath. She hadn’t heard a shield go up, which meant Eilod was listening, likely watching, and probably recording. It finally occurred to her that she was little more than a tool. They could use her as a means to declare war upon her government if the Claugh managed to wring a confession from her.
Her heart hurt and her throat felt tight. “Auhrnok Riorchjan,” Ari said, refusing to look at him, “I formally request that you ask Mr. V’kyrri to stand down. Your little drama won’t play well if I suffer a flashback.”
“Answer me, Captain.”
Again, the whip in his tone, demanding compliance. Heat rushed low into her abdomen and she flushed. Her body obviously remembered that he’d used his power to very pleasurable effect last night. She clasped her hands behind her back.
He pounded his fists against the table. “By the Gods, don’t you dare stand there blushing like an innocent! Your admiral calls with a story of dread and fear designed to make us trust you. You admit you’re an IntCom operative, but you neglect to disclose how much of one! What did I interrupt when I rose to check on you last night? Theft of state secrets? An attack? Just whose brilliant and amazing seduction scene was that?” he yelled, fury and hurt raw in his face.
She gasped as if he’d struck her. The bastard was accusing Ari of what he’d done to her? Rage uncurled behind her solar plexus.
“Answer the damned question,” he snarled.
“No,” she snapped.
Silence. Deadly, sly silence that waited, circling, to close in for the kill. “No, you will not answer?” Seaghdh asked, his tone silky and dangerous. “Do you believe you understand my notion of interrogation?”
She struggled to contain the pain ripping her open from the inside out. What further proof did she need? He’d used her. She’d been right. He did get a charge out of humiliating his victims by seducing them. She’d just been wrong about the venue. He needed to make his conquest public. Damn it to the Three Hells, she couldn’t deal with this, but she could stick to business. She could understand that, at least, before they threw her in prison. Or out an air lock.
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