Caillen pointed out the window to the ship that was quickly becoming a silver dot in the darkness. "In case you haven't noticed, they're moving a lot faster. I don't know about the laws of physics on your planet, but where I come from an object moving at subclass speed can't catch up to one running at starclass. But if you know something about turbines, thrusters and engines, quantum or classical physics that I've somehow missed, then please enlighten me." Yeah, okay, so he'd never been the best at corralling his sarcasm.
At least he'd tried. That counted for something, right?
She curled her lip. "You don't have to be an asshole."
Now the gloves were off. "Oh, baby, this ain't asshole. Trust me. There's a hole keg of asshole I haven't even begun to tap yet."
The expression on her face was so scalding he felt the burn of her anger even from his seat. Another time and place, they'd be getting naked.
But this wasn't the place and it definitely wasn't the time. All he wanted right now was to finish what her fake attacker had started. Choke her until her eyes bulged out. "Don't even give me that look. Not after what you were planning."
She scowled at him as if she were baffled by his words. It'd be a nice expression if it were real. "What? Protecting my mother?"
What the hell was she talking about? She hadn't appeared to be protecting anyone while she'd lain on the floor being strangled. "Yeah, no. That whole act of setting me up for your queen so that she could get her vengeance on me for calling her crap crap. Nice move. But I'm not that stupid." At least not today. And definitely not for her.
"Are you on something?"
She was good. He could almost believe that innocence she was trying to sell. But he'd been around actresses and grifters before who were much more convincing.
"Like you don't know what I'm talking about."
She shook her head. "I have no clue and you're wasting my time." She pointed toward the sector where the Arimanda had vanished. "We have to get back to the ship before the assassins go after my mother. It's imperative."
He paused in confusion. Was her mother one of the Guards or someone else? "What are you talking about?"
Desideria had never been more frustrated in her life. The man was insane. Did he have some kind of mental problem that he couldn't recall what had happened right before they fell into the pod? How hard had the imbecile struck his head?
"Hello? Remember the fight you broke in on? Me on the floor being choked? The bad guys who attacked you..."
"I didn't break into a fight. You were setting me up by allowing them to choke you."
He really was mentally defective. Did he honestly think she'd allow herself to be choked like that? On purpose? What kind of people did he run with that such an idea would even enter his mind? She pointed to the nasty burn on her throat she was sure was bruised if not bleeding. "Does this really look like I was pretending?"
Caillen paused as he focused on the purple welts that belied his accusation. Actually it did look painful and authentic. Not to mention the fact that it would probably scar and most women he knew resisted permanent disfiguration.
Still, there were people who'd maimed themselves before for a lot less reason and Qills weren't normal in any sense of that word. For her queen's pleasure, she just might be insane enough to ruin her neck, scar her face or even eat small babies for breakfast. "You were serving your country well. I'm sure they'll decorate you for it." That was, after all, what her people lived for.
She screwed her face up in disgust. "What do you think was happening when you barged in?"
Barged in? Yeah, she was a piece of work. In his neighborhood it was called helping someone. Which just proved what he knew, she wasn't really in any danger.
"I don't think. I know. I heard your boss lady call security and say that I was trying to kill your princess. That is a cold, hard fact."
"And which of the women in that hallway do you think the princess was?"
Caillen went over the people who'd been there. Two robed figures whose gender was unknown and the three Guards. A princess wouldn't have Guard duty so it left the other two he'd been fighting. "ssume one of the people in the robes or no one at all. The bitch just lied."
She rolled her eyes. "You understand quantum physics and you can't rationalize this? I am the princess, nescient."
Yeah, right. Sure she was. That didn't even make the least bit of sense. He'd seen the way the others had looked at her and treated her--like dirt. If she was the daughter of their sadistic queen, they wouldn't have dared such. Not to mention one small other thing... "I wasn't trying to kill you." Though he might if she didn't bring that attitude down a notch.
She gave him a duh stare.
And that made him feel like a total fool as he got what she was trying to tell him. "You're the princess."
She nodded.
"They were trying to kill you and frame me for it... you fice." He wasn't about to let her insult slide without adding one of his own.
By the light in her eyes, he could tell she'd like to beat him into little bloody nuggets. "All right, stop with the high-end insults."
"You started it."
She raked him with a repugnant sneer. "What are we? Four? Please cease before you call me a doodie head. I really don't think in my current mood that I could survive such a juvenile attack. That might actually undo me." Curling her lip, she flicked her nails at him--an obscene Qill gesture. "You need to respect the fact that at the moment it's taking every ounce of willpower I have to not hurt you."
He laughed at her threat. While she was muscular, she was tiny in comparison to his size. So long as he kept his cock guarded, there wasn't much she could do to hurt him. "Baby, I'd like to see you try. Believe me, I've had men and women who eat your lunch try to kill me and here I am. Still standing. Still kicking ass."
She scoffed. "Explain to me how is it possible that the three of us actually fit into this pod?"
Now he was the one who was baffled. Did they do math differently on her planet too? "Three of us?"
"You, me and your extremely overdeveloped ego."
He opened his mouth to speak, but she put her hand over his lips.
"Enough," she said in an imperious tone that verified her breeding. "My mother is on that ship and they're going to kill her. Can you understand the written console language enough to help me find some way to let her know what happened? Or at the very least to alert security to guard her?"
Ignoring the fact that her hand was incredibly soft and felt good on his skin, he snatched it away from his lips and returned it to the arm of her chair. "We're in an escape pod, babe. It's not designed for communication of any kind."
"Well that's stupid. How are we to alert them that we're--s
"An emergency pulse is emitted every six seconds. It goes out on the EBF to let the authorities know there are living occupants in the pod who need rescue."
She let out a relieved breath. "Then they'll come back for us."
"No. They won't."
"Why?"
He gestured toward the darkness where the Arimanda had vanished. "It's a ship filled with politicians and royalty. They'll notify a League patrol to check on us. But there's no way in hell they'd come near us for fear we're setting a trap for them. For all they know, someone packed this bad boy with enough explosives to disintegrate a subclass planet with a life form just big enough to register, and the minute they near it..." He ended with the sound of a nasty explosion. "Trust me. They won't chance it."
She raked her hands through her hair as if frustration filled her too. "I can't believe this is happening."
"You? I was planning to leave our little soiree, but not like this." And definitely not with her. This was what he got for changing his mind about leaving and heading back to his rooms to apologize to his father.
Caillen growled as he sat back on the chair and started running over their settings to see where the pod was taking them.
"What are we going to do?"
Like he would tell her that? It wasn't any of her business. Not to mention the small fact that he still wasn't one hundred percent convinced this wasn't a setup on her part. For all he knew, she was still playing him. They might very well be accusing him of kidnapping her right now. Something that also carried a death sentence.
Even for a prince.
Her people were ruthless and he'd insulted their queen. Publicly. There was no telling what they'd do to retaliate. His father had said as much.
"Don't worry about it." He moved his hand over the monitor and brought up the star chart on their main display. He would use his link to call for backup, but without a booster signal it was useless. They wouldn't be able to call anyone until they landed. Damn.
She scowled at the brightly colored chart that showed him every corner of their current sector. "What's that?"
He pointed to a planet on the right and touched it, then dragged his finger diagonally to enlarge it for her to see. "We're heading there and should reach the surface in a little over an hour."
"An hour?"
He gave her an arch look over her despondent tone. "We're in the middle of space, far away from the gravitational pull of large masses of rock and self-luminous spheres of gas. It makes landing a bitch, but it keeps us from crashing into something uncomfortable. Sorry if that offends you."
"You're what offends me."
He had to stop himself from responding to that imperious tone with something even more juvenile. There was just something about her that got right up under his hack and made him want hurt her. Gods, if he had to be trapped with a woman couldn't it have been one who would make passing time with her enjoyable?
"Oh well... next time I see someone choking you, I'll leave them to it." Or help them. "Especially now that I understand what it was that motivated them. Too bad I didn't bring the garrote with me."
"You're not funny."
"Really not trying to be." He fell silent as he pulled up information on the planet they were headed toward.
Desideria didn't want to be impressed, but the ease with which he navigated the intricate computer and read the foreign language was something to be envied. It made her wish she'd paid more attention to the classroom portion of her education. "What language is that?"
"Universal. Same as we're speaking. Can't you read it?"
She felt her face heat at a truth that embarrassed her. "If I could, I wouldn't have hit the wrong button."
His eyes widened in surprise. "No one ever taught you to read Universal?"
She glanced away, grateful that it wasn't entirely her fault that she was ignorant of it. "I was to start learning the written part of the language next year. It's not considered a priority to my people. But I am literate in Qillaq."
Caillen backed off criticizing her over that. Since her people were so reclusive that made sense and he could tell by her sudden reservation that she was bothered by the lack of education. Hell, he wouldn't have known it either but for the fact that the more languages a smuggler knew the less likely he was to be caught. "Well be glad you can't read it."
"Why?"
"Because it says we're heading toward an Andarion planet."
She cocked her head. "Is that a bad thing?"
He laughed low in his throat. Is that a bad thing? Yeah... "Do you know anything about them?"
"No. Not really. My people don't interact with them. Why?"
Lucky them. Then again, the best course of action with Andarions was to keep your head low and put as much distance as possible between you and them. "Simply put, they make your people look like frilly-dressed pansies."
The fire returned to her eyes. "You are shardridden if you think that."
He didn't know why, but he loved the way she looked when she was riled. It made her eyes sparkle and added a becoming blush to her cheeks. "I am so not full of excrement, dearest. It's the truth. They stand around seven feet tall on average,ave fangs, night vision and train from birth to kill any and everything that gets in their way. Oh and lest I forget, their favorite delicacy happens to be human meat. Lucky us."
She scoffed at him. "You're just trying to scare me."
He pulled up an encyclopedia in her language and showed it on the monitor. "See for yourself."
Desideria had to force her eyes not to widen as she read words that confirmed his dire prediction. He was right. A warring race in the purest sense of the word, the Andarions did make her people look like pansies. Normally she'd be more than ready to take them on and prove her worth. But the two of them had no weapons that she knew of and suicide didn't appeal to her in the least. "Can we not divert?"
He leaned back in his chair and narrowed that cocky stare at her that she was beginning to loathe. It didn't help that the lights of the console highlighted his arrogant smirk. "See the problem with escape pods... they're designed to run even if you're completely incapacitated. Once you're in it and you hit the magic orange button that you so nicely discovered, it takes care of everything for you. It summons help and steers you to the nearest habitable planet that matches whatever breathing mixture is in the pod."
"But it's stupid to not have an override of some sort."
He scratched the side of his mouth while his eyes silently laughed at her. "I suggest you take that up with the designer when next you see him. That is if we survive long enough to be rescued."
"We will be rescued."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I won't allow my mother to die. The traitor happens to be part of the Head Guard. My mother trusts her implicitly. If I don't get to her and warn her about Pleba, she's as good as dead."
Caillen started to point out that he really didn't care about her mother who had intended to subjugate an entire race when his attention was drawn to the display. His stomach hit the floor as he recognized their next obstacle. "Yeah and we have another problem."
"That is?"
He enlarged a portion of the star chart that showed the area where the Arimanda had vanished. He pointed to the glowing orb that was quickly getting larger. "I'm really hoping I'm wrong, but judging from the size and speed, that looks like a fighter to me."
Her entire face lit up with hope. "Is it coming to rescue us?"
Wow, he'd sell his soul to be that naive. Without responding to her question, he slid out of his chair and ducked underneath the controls to open a panel so that he could access the wires. "It's a fighter," he repeated.
Desideria was baffled by his single obsession with that one statement. To her, this was a good thing. "Meaning?"
"It can't hold more than two people and it's flying so." His deep voice was muffled by the metal he was underneath. "They're designed to kill, not rescue. And unless I miss my guess, which I never have yet, I'm pretty sure that one's headed this way to finish what was started in that hallway."
Pah-lease...
There was no reason to think that. It could merely be a scout. Especially if, as he'd said earlier, they thought this might be a trap. It made sense to send a single fighter to see if they were hurt or needing rescue. It might be nothing more than an escort for them. Could the man never be optimistic? Must he always see the worst in every situation even when it didn't warrant it? "You're being paranoid."
Those words had barely left her lips before a blast of color shot across space, straight at them.
They were under attack.
And they were completely defenseless.
11
The blast slammed into the rear of their pod and knocked them spinning. Desideria cursed as she was thrown against the arm of her seat, bruising her ribs. She watched Caillen continue to dig around, underneath the console. He lay on his back with his legs bent and wide apart to keep himself balanced and stable while the pod rocked from its assault. Unused to the motion, she fought down her nausea, then frowned at the sight of his old, scuffed work boots that were tied with laces that had been broken and then knotted back together. Those boots looked like they'd been put through hell--like t
hey were the only pair of boots he owned. She'd never known any prince to deign to touch something so ragged never mind actually wear them. And now that she thought about it, his clothes were the same way. Clean, but worn. His brown jacket even had what appeared to be blaster burn marks on it.
His head and shoulders were completely obscured by the steel panel while he worked in silence. And in his hurry to get under the console, his jacket and shirt had ridden up, exposing his tanned abdomen. With every breath and move he made, his toned muscles contracted, making them all the more pronounced. Yeah, okay, that part of him was totally lickable. And if she didn't miss her guess, his left side seemed to have a tattoo on it that covered a nasty looking scar.
On an aristos? They considered those things vulgar and common...
Why would he have such marks? It didn't make sense. Prince Caillen was definitely a man of complete contradictions.
Another blast hit them hard.
Grimacing in pain, she righted herself in her chair. "Let me guess. No guns on this thing either?"
There was no missing the disgust in that deep baritone. "Which I think is particularly stupid. If you're using an escape pod to... you know, escape, nine times out of ten, you're escaping because your ship's under attack and you had to evacuate. What kind of krikkin idiot thought it smart to make an escape device that leaves its occupants defenseless moving targets while they're being attacked? Oh wait, don't answer. I've met too many design engineers whose IQs are smaller than my shoe size"--he tilted his head out from under the console to give her a pointed glance, then added--"which for the record is actually larger than most men's except for Syn who's a mutant sonofabitch"--he returned to working--"but as far as IQs go, it puts them on the same level as protozoa. My number one peeve in life. Think it through, people. Think it through." He paused to curse as one of the wires shocked him. "Just so you know my ship has a gunner pod with enough juice to take down a starcruiser. This one... really sucks."
She couldn't agree more. "You have a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder, don't you?"
Born of Shadows Page 10