“Watch yourself. Do not ever speak badly of her. I will be happy to challenge you right now.” Kodran’s expression was murderous.
“I am not speaking badly of her. I am simply stating facts.” Prenzal’s eyes blazed with anger as he met Kodran’s furious glare.
“Nobody is challenging anybody on my behalf!” Rosamund called out, hurrying up to them. “What’s going on?”
“Somebody has sabotaged the faster-than-light drive on our starcruiser,” Kodran said. “It will take several days to fix it, at least.” He saw the look on Rosamund’s face. “I want you to stay here more than I want to breathe, but I promise you, I did not do it.”
Rosamund felt a lump in her throat when he said that – because she knew he meant it. She swallowed hard and blinked away the hot tears that sprang to her eyes.
“I see,” she said as Prenzal turned and hurried off. “Why does Prenzal think my being here is making everyone unsafe? Or is that something else you can’t tell me?”
“He thinks you are drawing unwanted attention to…us. He is wrong. The attention was already there,” Kodran said, brows drawing together in a frown as he watched Prenzal stalk out the front door.
“Did you find Darfan’s ship yet?”
“No. They may be using some kind of cloaking device. That means they didn’t come here in a warship, which I suppose is good news. Cloaking devices only work on the smallest of ships. At this point, we do not know if they are still on this planet or if they’ve left. However, the clan has been alerted. They will not come near you again.”
She nodded, and they stood there for a moment in awkward silence. Then he reached out and tried to grab her hand. She stepped back. She wanted it too much; if he touched her, she might not be able to pull away from him. Ever.
“Rosamund. I want you here. You belong here.”
“I want to be with you too,” she said miserably. “But you know I can’t unless you tell me what you’re really up to, and you can’t – or won’t. Can you…can you send me and Dot-R back by transporter?”
He shook his head, his expression weary. “I cannot. We have not yet built a transporting station here. And without the FTL drive, the journey back to Agora would take centuries.”
“Well…I’d suggest having Starcrossed send an FTL cruiser for me, but after what happened with Darfan, I’m a little hesitant,” Rosamund said. “I know Lukan and Talia would never harm me, but they’re busy and distracted right now, and they can’t come here themselves, and… I guess I can wait a few days.” She felt her heart clench painfully in her chest. Being near to Kodran like this was torture. Leaving would be torture.
“Wait a few days for what?” Nelka swept into the room, her ankle-length gown flowing. Dot-R, and Dot-R’s serv-bot chaperone, and Ferenc, and Lina followed her. “You mean the ball? That’s tomorrow night. We didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”
“After the attack on Rosamund, I think she needs some time to recover. We will cancel the ball,” Kodran said, avoiding Rosamund’s gaze.
His mother’s lip quivered and her eyes grew huge. “But…it’s traditional.”
Ferenc frowned. “It is the next step in the Lamori,” he pointed out. “Cancelling it might be bad luck.”
Dot-R surveyed Rosamund with a critical eye. “She appears to be fine,” she said. She waved her hand in front of Rosamund, then nodded. “Her vital signs are within the normal range. I detect no damage. Also, I want to go to the ball.”
“Does not compute,” the serv-bot chaperone intoned.
“That’s all she ever says! I’m sick of her!” Dot-R glared at the serv-bot, who stared back at her unblinkingly.
“Does not compute,” the chaperone repeated.
“Notify everyone that the ball is cancelled,” Kodran insisted.
“But I’ve never been to a ball before! Why does nobody ever think of my needs?” Dot-R’s voice rose to a high pitch.
Rosamund gave her a skeptical look.
“A whine module? Your parental units included a whine module? In addition to a sass module?”
“Yes.” Dot-R nodded. “They wanted the full teenage experience, just like humans have. I believe Talia attempted to instruct them against it, but all senti-bots have a stubbornness drive innate to our programming.”
The chaperone looked at her. “Does not—”
“Shut up!” Dot-R yelled at it. It fell silent.
“Go away,” Dot-R said hopefully. It didn’t move.
Nelka blinked hard and sniffled, continuing as if nobody else had spoken. “And I have the bands there, and I sent out all the invitations, and every chef in our clan has spent the last couple of days preparing the feast…” She heaved a huge sigh. “Oh well. I guess I will just call everybody up and cancel.” Tears welled in her eyes.
She looked so miserable that Rosamund couldn’t bear it. “Oh, no!” she said quickly. “A ball sounds lovely.”
“That’s brilliant!” Nelka beamed a huge smile at her, perking up immediately. Rosamund could practically see tears being sucked back into their ducts. “Can you be ready in half an hour to meet with the tailors for the dress-making machine? I need to go speak to the decorators about the table arrangements.”
“Dress making… Okay. I guess.”
Nelka gestured imperiously at her daughter. “You go with Rosamund. The dressmaker can measure you too, so that we’ll be ready when it’s your time. Which I am sure will be soon.”
Lina glanced at Rosamund. “On the bright side, this is the first time today she has nagged me about my own mating prospects, which is the longest time she’s restrained herself since…ever.”
Rosamund managed a weak smile. This wonderful, adoring family who wanted to claim her as one of their own… how would she tell them that she had to leave?
Nelka hurried off, smiling smugly, her woebegone demeanor completely vanished now.
“She’s good,” Rosamund acknowledged with admiration. “World-class.”
“She sure is.” Ferenc glanced at Kodran. “You didn’t stand a chance. Neither did I, when she first laid eyes on me all those decades ago. Another girl was dancing with me at the time, and my darling Nelka told her to leave, and when she hesitated, Nelka set her hair on fire. I am a happy prisoner.”
He strolled off, whistling, hands thrust in the pocket of his flowing tunic.
Lina smiled brightly at Rosamund and linked her arm through hers. “I’ll take you to the dress fitting,” she said. She glanced at Dot-R. “You come too. I work in the clan’s engineering corps – I’ll build a new hairstyle and outfit for you.”
* * * * *
That night, Rosamund slept badly, and she didn’t dream-visit Kodran. Instead she found herself dream-walking in the gardens outside the castle. They were shrouded in a damp, icy mist, and were utterly silent.
She’d felt sad and alone out there, and she spent the day sulking in her room and ignoring the steady stream of gifts that arrived at her room, sent by Kodran. Flower arrangements. Jewels. Boxes of candy.
She didn’t want jewels or candy – she wanted the truth. She wanted to know that Kodran wasn’t collaborating with a fleet of mechanized serial killers. She wanted to know why the scarred woman was hiding on Kodran’s ship with her child, and she wanted to know that they were safe.
She tried to put on a happy face for the ball that evening, however; there would be hundreds of people in attendance and she didn’t want to let them down.
She entered the ball with Lina and Nelka – apparently that was traditional.
Kodran was across the room, standing on the stage, waiting to dance the first dance with her. Also traditional.
Dot-R, adorned with a new metallic hairdo that looked like a 1960s Earth-style beehive set with metallic jewels, hurried up to her, still accompanied by her serv-bot chaperone.
“You look very bad right now,” Dot-R said. “Is it love sickness? I have heard of it. Apparently love sickness is bad for you. You look extremely unwe
ll.”
“Dot-R!” Lina chided her. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“Does not compute,” the chaperone said.
“But it is the truth,” Dot-R said. “My parental units told me that I should always tell the truth. Look at her. There are circles under her eyes, her face is pale, and she—”
“Look at that cute male serv-bot over there! I think he is giving you the eye!” Lina said quickly, pointing at a serv-bot waiter who was delivering drinks.
“Why would he give me his eye?” Dot-R sounded concerned. “I have two already; that is all I need. Is this some strange kind of custom on your world? Will he be able to make himself a new eye?”
“Does not compute,” the chaperone said.
“Say something else.” Dot-R looked at the chaperone with annoyance.
“Does not compute.”
Dot-R headed off to investigate the serv-bot, and Lina guided Rosamund towards Kodran.
“Do you know anything about the medical equipment that Kodran brought back to this planet?” Rosamund asked Lina.
Lina avoided her gaze. “Not a lot,” she said. “But I know my brother is an honorable man who has not betrayed the Federation’s principles in any way.”
That sounded like splitting hairs. He hadn’t betrayed their principles…had he broken the law? But Lina obviously wasn’t ready to talk about whatever was going on here.
The dance with Kodran was achingly uncomfortable. Rosamund kept avoiding his gaze, and after the dance, she hurried off the stage and melted into the crowd, ignoring the worried look that Nelka shot at her.
“May I have this dance?” an oddly familiar voice asked as she pushed her way through the crowd towards the buffet table.
She turned to look at the man who’d asked. He was tall, clearly Draell, with red scales at his temples. His face was handsome in a lean, hawk-like way. He wore a black silk shirt tucked into black silk trousers, with a red Draell insignia on his chest and a black silk cape flowing behind him. A group of tall, muscular Draell men, bristling with weapons and attitude, stood to attention behind him.
With a haughty look, he reached out to take her arm without waiting for her to answer.
Rosamund took a step back. She was angry with Kodran, but she would not show him disrespect by dancing with another man at the mating ball thrown in her honor.
“Sorry, I’m not dancing with anyone other than Kodran,” she said.
“I am Sekari, Lord High Commander of the Draell,” he said smoothly, then looked at her expectantly. Apparently that should make a difference. Like, she should swoon at his feet and agree to dance with him immediately.
That did explain why his voice sounded familiar – he’d called her on her wrist-comm a few solar circles ago. But it didn’t make her any more likely to dance with him.
“Darfan was worried about you,” he added. “I came to check on you personally.”
“There was no need,” Rosamund said with annoyance. “And why, specifically, is Darfan so worried?”
“I think you know.” There was a hint of accusation in his tone.
“I know that Darfan is wrong. I am in no danger, except from him attempting to kidnap me,” she snapped. “I don’t know what you two are up to, or why the Lord High Commander is even speaking to the manager of a dating agency, but—”
“I am concerned with everything that affects the Draell. If Kodran is a client of the dating agency, I have a right to be informed of what is happening there.”
Before she could reply, Ferenc and Nelka shouldered their way through the crowd.
“Excuse me, you are speaking to our son’s betrothed,” Nelka snapped, moving between him and Rosamund. “And we did not issue you an invitation.”
“You are not greeting me using the proper protocol.” Sekari’s eyes blazed with fury and his clan-mates quickly crowded around him, glowering. Kodran’s clanmates stopped dancing, and headed over to them. The air heated by several degrees.
“You have a problem, Lord High Commander?” Kodran’s voice cracked like a whip as he shouldered his way up to Rosamund.
Sekari’s eyes glowed red. “Yes, I have several. Your parents are not greeting me with the proper protocol, and you did not issue me an invitation to this ball. It is traditional for the Lord High Commander to be invited to the third-night Lamori of every clan leader.”
“That only applies to Draell who still live on Duscoria. We are no longer under your command,” Kodran replied.
“Is that so? But you still answer to the Galactic Federation,” Sekari replied coldly. “You are aware of that, I imagine?”
“Of course,” Kodran said, meeting his gaze steadily.
“Anyway, I also wanted to come here to ensure that this human was willingly engaged in the mating process. Her employers were concerned about her, and they asked me to check on her. And when I spoke to her on your ship, she sounded very frightened.”
Kodran’s face flushed with anger, and he glanced at Rosamund. The air around him shimmered with heat, and sweat beaded on Rosamund’s forehead.
The crowd around them began murmuring amongst themselves.
Rosamund glared at Sekari. He had deliberately tried to publicly humiliate Kodran. “I am here completely of my own free will, and when you called me on my wrist communicator, I told you that I was fine. I was not the least bit anxious. I’m not sure why you are here lying and trying to stir up trouble with Kodran, but leave me out of your schemes.”
She grabbed Kodran’s arm. “And now, if you will excuse me, my heart’s fire and I need to dance.”
They danced several times, but Kodran was stiff with fury the entire time. He refused to meet her eyes.
When they stopped dancing, he led her aside to a small alcove to the side of the ballroom.
“Why did you not tell me he called you?” he snapped the moment they were alone.
Rosamund met his gaze defiantly. “Because he asked me not to, and I had known you a few hours at that point, and the conversation wasn’t even worth repeating. He told me I needed to come back because you were dangerous. I told him I was fine. That was it.”
“You still should have told me,” Kodran insisted.
Rosamund felt a wave of misery and frustration wash over her. “You’re complaining to me about keeping secrets? Good night, Kodran. I am returning to my room. Please tell everyone I don’t feel well.”
And before Kodran could say anything else, she turned and ran from the alcove, wiping hot tears from her cheeks.
Chapter Thirteen
Kodran’s beast was snarling to be freed, and it took considerable effort to keep from shifting. He couldn’t shift; not here, underground in the caverns. There was no room.
He stood in the doorway, trying to compose himself before he went to check on the cavern’s occupants. He was itchy and on edge from spending yet another night apart from his heart’s fire. She was infuriatingly stubborn.
Why would she not just accept that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, and let him please her all night long and into the morning? He had plenty of tricks that he had not tried on her yet. Would she really leave him and return to Agora, taking his very heart with her?
After she’d returned to her room, he’d sent Lina to try to talk to her, but Rosamund had politely turned his sister away. Then he’d sent gift after gift, but his servant had returned with them, saying she’d declined them all and said she did not wish to be disturbed again.
This seemed like a dilemma without cure, and it stabbed him to the very core of his being. There were many difficult decisions that came with being the clan leader, but he had never anticipated this.
The whole mess had unfolded before he’d even met Rosamund…but either way, he had done what he had to do. He could never have acted differently.
“Is everything all right?” asked Florian, Leader of the Guard for Kodran’s clan, as he stalked by.
“Of course everything is all right!” he snapped, and his tunic burst into flame
s. Impatiently, he tore it off and threw it on the floor. “Why do you keep asking me stupid questions? What makes you think that everything is not all right?”
Florian glanced at the flaming tunic. “Oh, nothing,” he said.
From down one of the tunnels, he heard Prenzal’s voice.
“What is he doing here?” he asked irritably. Prenzal was so insubordinate these days that he was one step away from being either exiled from the clan or fried to a crisp. He was the last person Kodran wanted to deal with right now.
“He has come down here every day since you moved the Draell-nar in here,” Florian said. He walked with Kodran around the bend so that Kodran could see Prenzal, who was kneeling next to a Draell-nar female. . She was thin and pale and, like the other Draell-nar, had scars on her face and arms from radiation burns. A little girl clung to her side. Prenzal was handing the little girl something – a small stuffed animal, it appeared – and the girl gave him a shy smile.
“He always spends his time with those two,” Florian said.
Prenzal said something to the woman, who shook her head, looking unhappy. Prenzal nodded, bowed to the woman, and walked away.
He looked startled when he saw Kodran. “I did not expect to see you down here,” he said.
“Nor I you.” Kodran looked at the woman. A widow, as he recalled. “She is your heart’s fire?”
“Does it matter?” Prenzal’s tone was bitter.
It all made sense now – Prenzal’s paranoia about bringing Rosamund here and his fear that her presence was attracting attention. Prenzal’s irritability and snappishness.
“She does not wish to mate with you?” Kodran was puzzled.
Prenzal avoided his gaze, staring at the floor. “She does. But she says she cannot, because they must live in hiding for the rest of their lives, and she will not shackle me to such a fate. I told her that I did not mind, and I would hide with her forever, but she refuses me.”
Kodran knew that feeling quite well.
He put his hand on Prenzal’s shoulder. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“It is like death,” Prenzal said miserably.
“We may yet find a solution to our problem…one that does not cause the Federation to declare war on us.”
The Dragon Claims His Treasure (Starcrossed Dating Agency) Page 9