by Sara King
“War crimes,” Victory finished, in a whisper. She remembered it, now. Rebels, no matter how many of them or how long they’ve been fighting, had to be identified, their remains eventually returned to their families. She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I just didn’t know that’s how they’re identified.”
Dragomir shrugged. “Twice a year, the two sides get together to exchange remains. Too many bodies, really, to realistically pass corpses around, so they pass fingers.”
Victory felt her gorge rising again. “I’m going to end this.”
Dragomir gave her a long, searching look. “I hope you do, Princess.” He reached out and stroked a thumb across her forehead, moving a clump of hair from her eyes. “Mercy’s been waiting a long time for someone to make some changes.”
Victory met his gaze, held it. She felt her stomach settle under his touch, found her core once again pulsing with warm, insistent energy. His powerful body was only a foot away, and every inch of her wanted to slip back in his arms to finish what they had started in the cockpit.
Swallowing, she said, “What did you mean, an Emp’s mate?”
His smile was sly. “I could demonstrate, if you want.”
“No thank you!” she cried, though she didn’t get up off of her rock. She felt herself leaning into his caress, instead.
“Rather convincing argument,” Dragomir chuckled. He pulled her close, his warm breath against her ear. “I’m thinking we’ll take our time getting back, while I show you a few things.”
“Yes,” Victory whimpered, feeling an odd duality at his touch, the sense that she was both the toucher and the touchee. She found her skin start to tingle as he traced his fingers down her face, along her neck, bent to kiss her shoulder. Like a wildfire, heat was rushing upwards from her core, melting her into his body.
Dragomir leaned backwards onto the forest floor, pulling her with him. As soon as her body slid across his, Victory felt a building between her thighs, the hot pressure making her moan, despite herself. His hands swept down her body, slipped under the shift, found the curve of her lower back…
Victory, for her part, was pulling his shirt over his head, exposing the definition of his chest, the hard ribs of his stomach. She moaned again as his big hand swept over her rear, settling into the curve at the back of her thigh, drawing with it a flood of sensations that she knew could not be normal. The skin under his fingers felt electrified, like his touch itself emanated warm sunshine. She shuddered as his hands moved again, slipping under her shift, tracing her ribs as they reached upward, seeking…
A swordpoint came to rest at the Emp’s throat.
“Tell him,” Lion said calmly, “That he will be trying to figure out how to heal himself a couple of testicles, if he doesn’t take his hands off of you immediately.”
“Who hired you to be my nanny!” Victory cried, horrified.
“Your mother,” Lion said. “Right before she died. Tell him.” She pressed the swordpoint deeper into his esophagus.
Without being told, Dragomir slowly pulled his hands free and held them up, eyes riveted to the Praetorian’s blade.
“Now get off of him and try to regain some of your dignity.” Lion gestured at the way Victory’s shift was pushed halfway up her back.
Reddening, humiliated, Victory yanked her shift down and glared at her Praetorian. “Leave. Now.”
“Lady,” Lion said, “I am your sworn servant, but I am allowed to use my discretion in obeying your commands.” She frowned down at Dragomir over her blade. “And, this being an Emp and a native, I am unconvinced that he has your best interests at heart.”
“I didn’t ask you for your opinion,” Victory growled.
Lion shrugged. “I’m giving it.” She removed her sword from Dragomir’s neck and, stepping back, sheathed it. “We’re done with the bodies. We’ll be leaving in about thirty minutes.”
Cursing, Victory got to her feet. “I can have relations with whomever I please,” she growled.
“While this is true,” Lion said, examining her fingernails, “I am dedicated to protecting the royal blood from all threats. I would have to say that that—” she gestured at the Emp on his back, “—is a threat.”
“How?!” Victory cried. “He healed Whip! And the Cooper child.”
“I know he healed Whip, and that is the reason I haven’t killed him yet,” Lion growled. The Praetorian looked disturbed. Torn. She turned to give Dragomir another glare. “Your father hunts them for a reason, Princess. Emps have the ability to sway the way a person thinks, one way or the other. I find it extremely odd that you were planning his demise not three days ago, yet after your apparent heart-attack this morning—which we still haven’t figured out the cause, I might add—you’ve been doing nothing but rubbing yourself against him like a horny puppy.”
Victory gasped.
Dragomir still remained solidly on the ground, watching the Praetorian warily. “Am I okay to stand?” he asked, softly.
“He opened my ramas,” Victory growled.
Lion’s face tightened. “And just what does that mean, milady?” When Victory did not respond, she added, “Because it sounds like he did exactly what I’ve been afraid of.”
“He healed me,” Victory snapped.
“Did he?” Lion watched her carefully.
“I feel better,” Victory retorted.
“I understand that,” Lion said. “And that, too, has kept him alive when all my instincts have been telling me to gut him. But did he heal you, or do something else?”
Blushing, Victory glanced down at the Emp on the ground. She did feel better. But even before her capture, she had never felt so free to let a man explore her… Had he simply removed her inhibitions? And what of that odd tugging sensation in her chest? “He said he bound himself to me,” Victory muttered.
“Bound himself to you…” Lion said, raising a brow, “Or bound you to him?”
Victory hesitated. She honestly didn’t know.
“Until you figure that out,” Lion said, her blue eyes flat, “You will not be bedding him, milady.”
It took Victory a couple of moments to realize that the Praetorian was utterly serious.
Victory gave Lion a disgusted look, then turned and stormed back to the ship.
She paused when she saw Whip pressed up against a cottonwood, Thor’s big body pinning her in place as they kissed. Whip was giggling, her borrowed rebel outfit rumpled and bunched under Thor’s hungry hands, her body writhing against his.
As Victory stood there in shock, Lion came up behind her.
“You have twenty-five minutes,” Lion barked at the two of them, before continuing to the ship.
Thor watched Lion walk off, then renewed his efforts to pull off Whip’s shirt.
Against the tree, Whip giggled again.
…giggled? It took Victory’s brain through a convolution. Whip prided herself on being steely-faced and completely analytical—the perfect soldier. To see her squeal in delight under Thor’s advances left Victory in total shock.
Lion stopped on the path ahead, looking back at her. “Will you be coming, milady?” Her voice told her that if Victory didn’t follow of her own accord, she would be dragged.
Frustrated, she went with Lion back to the ship, trying not to notice the patches of fresh, overturned earth under the willows. Dragomir appeared from the trail a few minutes later and gave the Praetorian a dark scowl before he settled on the ramp beside Victory.
“What was that all about?” Dragomir muttered, still glaring at Lion.
“She thinks you’re using your Emp powers to control me,” Victory muttered.
Dragomir turned to look at her sharply. “Do you?”
Victory hesitated. She still wasn’t sure. She’d never felt so comfortable around a man, even before the rebels attacked her ship. Even as a child, she had maintained a distance, for decorum’s sake.
Time passed. From the forest, they heard the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking.
“Are you seriously going to make us wait here while they finish?” Victory demanded, glad for the distraction.
“Whip has had a stressful day,” Lion said. “I’m allowing her time to release some tension.”
“Release some…” Victory stammered. “And yet you interrupt the Emp and I?!”
Lion cocked her graying head at the sounds. Without turning her attention from the clump of willows, she said, “Unlike you, milady, Whip is sterilized. A little play can’t hurt anything. Just relaxing a bit. She’ll be done soon.”
And, sure enough, Thor and the Praetorian emerged from the willows with flushed faces and disheveled hair. Whip’s shirt and pants were rumpled and grass-covered. Thor’s pants were inside-out. Seeing the three of them sitting on the gangplank, waiting for them, at least Whip had the decency to blush. Thor just grinned like a fool.
“I’ve had enough,” Victory growled, lunging to her feet. “I’ll see the four of you back at the cottage.” Lion immediately fell in step behind her, with Dragomir taking a wary distance behind the Praetorian. Behind him, Whip and Thor giggled to themselves, and Victory felt herself experiencing a wave of jealousy as she pushed through the willows. Her body still tingled where Dragomir had touched her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what she had missed.
Someday, she thought, irritated beyond reason, I’m going to be able to tell Lion to mind her own business.
Victory crouched beside Dragomir and Lion, peering down at the Imperial ship squatting in Dragomir’s front yard. It was small, a modified courier of some sort, but bristling with guns. If Victory had to have guessed, she would have said a personal escort.
As Lion and Whip tried to decide what to do, Victory watched a man in gleaming black House Praetorian armor step off the ship and go walk through the center of the goat herd, speaking into a handheld communications device of some sort. Another cluster of House Praetorian were searching the barn and Dragomir’s hovel. When the one on the com turned, still speaking into his handset, she caught a brief glimpse of his face as he scanned the woods. There was a frown on his face.
An instant later, Victory stood up, grinning from ear-to-ear.
“Milady!” Lion hissed. “Get down.”
“That’s my brother,” Victory said. She started down the slope, toward the Shipborn hovel.
Lion gathered her guns and jogged up beside her, glancing around them nervously. “That didn’t look like your brother to me, milady.”
“He was wearing Praetorian garb and has a haircut, but it’s him. Trust me.”
Lion frowned. “How can you tell at this distance? I could barely even see his style of dress, that far off. It could be your father’s man. I’m pretty sure it was a House uniform.”
“It was,” Victory agreed. “Dragon and phoenix.”
Lion balked. “Then why…?”
Victory never slowed down. “My brother probably got some sort of distress beacon. Probably has a spy in the village or something that called him when the rebels flew over.”
“We should be more careful,” Lion insisted. “It could be a trap. At least let either Whip or myself—”
A man stepped out of the bushes beside them, a gun in his hand, dressed in Imperial soldiers’ camouflage. Lion froze as three more stepped out of the brush beside her, their bodies so well blended with their surroundings that, even standing there, they appeared to be part of the scenery. Only the guns in their hands—and the smiles on their faces—stood out against the woodland shrubbery.
“Evening, Princess,” the man said, grinning. His face was dark with camouflage, and he had bits of leaves and twigs sticking from an odd, fuzzy suit he wore to hide his body.
“Lady,” Lion said very carefully, “Those are Imperial snipers.”
“Yep,” the man said. “Six more of us on the hills there and there.” He pointed, still grinning. “We watched you guys come in. We were headed up to get a better look when we heard you talking.” He pulled a greenish device off of his belt and held it to his mouth. “We’ve got them,” the man said into the radio. “Princess and escort.”
“Bring them down,” the radio voice ordered. Victory felt a flash of relief when she recognized her brother’s soft, cultured words.
The man immediately tucked his gun back into its holster. “So come on, then. Your brother is waiting.” He raised his voice to the three who had stopped, stock-still, on the trail behind them. “Come on down, y’all. The prince sends his regards.” Then he turned his back to them and started down the path, looking for all the world like a fluffy green-brown teddy-bear who had gotten his fur tangled in bits of brush and leaves.
Victory gave the startled Lion an I-Told-You-So look and followed the man down the slope. He whistled, and four more men appeared out of the brush, grass, and trees overlooking the Shipborn farm, from behind rocks or in bushes that Victory never would have thought could hold a man, much less a man with all of his gear and a five-foot rifle. She saw more shapes coming down out of the hills, their bush-like suits jiggling as they trotted.
“What the hell happened?” her brother’s voice demanded, as soon as they came within earshot. He was obviously upset. “There’s blood all over the place, and landing-gear divots and exhaust burns over there.” He gestured at the place where the rebel ship had squatted the day before.
“We were attacked by rebels,” Victory replied. “Lion saved everyone. And the Emp…” She hesitated and glanced back at Dragomir, who was watching the entire exchange warily, “He… Erm… Did some healing.”
But her brother was sharp. His gaze flickered toward Dragomir and the Emp stiffened immediately, no doubt remembering the last time her brother had arrived with a group of Praetorian. “He cured you, then?”
‘Cured’ was a strong word, considering how Victory was still uncomfortable around her brother’s men, the memories of her captivity still burning like coals in her mind, but at least the insane, gut-wrenching terror had completely dissolved, washed away by that soft golden glow. Victory lifted her chin and cleared her throat. “I’m standing here, aren’t I?” She gestured at the black-clad soldiers clustered around them.
Matthias gave her a considering look, then lifted his gaze to Dragomir again. “You healed her?”
The Emp nodded once, warily.
Hearing that, Matthais strode purposefully toward Dragomir, making the Emp stiffen nervously, then swiftly dropped to one knee in front of him, head down, fists to his thighs. “Give him a blade,” Matthias ordered of his Praetorian captain.
The Praetorian stiffened. “But sire…”
“Now, Stone,” Matthias growled, head still tilted to the ground, neck bare.
The Praetorian guardsman gave his commander an anxious look, then reluctantly handed his weapon to Dragomir, hilt-first. The Emp took the sword like a man would handle a writhing serpent.
“What is he doing…?” Dragomir asked Victory nervously, glancing between her and her kneeling brother, carefully avoiding looking at the sword in his hands.
In ritualistic High Imperial, Matthias intoned, “You have suffered a grievous injustice at my hands, Dragomir Shipborn. I tortured an innocent man, for no fault of your own. For the wrongs I have done you—”
“Matt!” Victory cried, her heart beginning to pound as she realized what her brother planned. “That is entirely unnecessary.”
“For the wrongs I have done you,” Matthias went on forcefully, “unprovoked and undeserved, I offer you my life in payment. Do with it as you will.” Beside him, his Praetorian captain’s breath came in a hiss.
“Ummm,” Dragomir said, glancing down at the Praetorian sword, then at the General Commander, “no offense, but you Imperials confuse the hell outta me.”
Stiffly, furious with her brother, but knowing that propriety now bade him finish it, Victory said, “He’s offering you a choice, Dragomir. Kill him or absolve him. He feels his pride is damaged, and is asking you to cleanse it.”
Dragomir blinked up at her over t
he gleaming blade. “Absolve him of what?”
Refusing to look at her idiot brother, Victory said, “The wrongs he committed you, in taking you from your village. It’s an Imperial ritual that was outlawed years ago, because too many Royals were killing each other over slights.” She glared at Matthias before returning her attention to the Emp. “Basically, he’s asking you to either forgive him or put your sword through his neck.”
“Uh. I forgive him.” Dragomir, looking extremely uncomfortable under all the stares, dropped the sword and backed away.
Matthias stiffened, and every Imperial in the yard gasped at the insult.
Rolling her eyes, Victory stepped forward and lifted the sword from the ground and shoved it back into Dragomir’s hands. As the Emp started to complain, she said, “Don’t insult him. Mark him. On the neck. Sword tip to the last vertebrae of the spine. Just a little cut, but make it bleed.”
“Um,” Dragomir said, “Why?”
“It’s his honor,” Victory growled, shoving him toward her brother. “You need to mark him deeply enough to satisfy his honor. Make it a good cut. He will wear his blood-stained clothes as a sign of his penance for seven days.”
Looking thoroughly out of his league, Dragomir chuckled nervously. “And you call us barbarians.” But he scanned the group of Imperials with wary consideration. Then, straightening under the Praetorian stares, he stepped forward, put the tip of the sword to the base of the prince’s skull, and hesitated as every Imperial in the yard stiffened. “That gorilla over there isn’t gonna rip my arms off if I make him bleed, is he?” Dragomir asked tentatively.
“It’s a question of honor,” Victory said, catching the Praetorians’ eyes. “They will stay out of it.”
Dragomir took a deep breath, then sank the point of the blade into the back of Matthias’s neck. As Matthias and every Imperial in the yard hissed, Dragomir pulled the sword from the wound and said, “You did what you had to do to help your sister. No shame in it.”
Though she abhorred the bloodshed, Victory found herself satisfied with the Emp’s cut. It was obviously not the mark of a swordsman, more the ragged, ham-fisted cut of a peasant, but it would suffice. Nodding her approval, she began, “You did well, for a—”