by Liz Craven
“Thank you. As your husband, I promise your future will be much happier than your past.”
Pain filled her chest, stilling the somersaulting organ. “Please don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I never make a promise I can’t keep,” he assured her.
Nervous, she licked her lips. His eyes darkened and he rose. Without releasing her hand, he circled the table and tugged her from her chair.
Startled, she fell into his chest and felt his arms come around her, keeping her pinned to him. He threaded one hand through her hair and tugged it backwards, tilting her face up to his.
His eyes burned like molten ore, and the lock of hair that fell over his forehead did nothing to soften his features. Her breath caught a moment before he lowered his head.
The kiss started as a gentle press of lips, and she realized he was giving her the opportunity to pull back, to reject him. The thrill she felt at the touch of his lips made her throw caution to the wind. She parted her lips, invitingly, and suddenly there was nothing gentle or soft about the touch of his mouth to hers. His tongue swept inside her mouth, startling her with the dominant need he displayed. He teased and tasted, exploring the recesses of her mouth and coaxing her.
Before she realized it, she was responding to his kiss. Time stood still as her tongue dueled with his, and she sought to get closer to him, pressing her body flush against his.
The heat emanating from his body soaked into her bones. Her nipples hardened against the solid wall of his chest, even though their skin remained separated by several layers of clothing. She felt the hard ridge of his arousal against her lower stomach and a giddy sense of pleasure that she evoked such a response in him swirled through her. Unable to resist, she rubbed her body against his and was rewarded with his deep-throated groan into her mouth.
Talon pulled his head back, tightening his grip on her hair when she tried to follow his mouth with hers. His lips were damp and swollen. She had no doubt hers looked the same. She licked them and gave a seductive smile when he growled in response.
Talon released his grip on her and stepped back. “You’re my wife, and you deserve a courtship not a seduction.”
“I like the seduction,” she assured him, reaching out to caress his chest.
He stepped back again, this time out of her reach. “I’m going to share your bed, Lia. Make no mistake. But when I do, it will be because you want me there. A decision you have to make when alcohol and passion aren’t clouding your mind.”
She didn’t like that he was being a bloody gentleman. Drawing herself up, she intended to give him a piece of her mind. Unfortunately, the movement caused her to lose her balance and she tumbled backwards over her chair before Talon could catch her.
Stunned, she stared up at the domed ceiling which seemed to be revolving. Talon’s concerned face suddenly eclipsed her view.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have warned you divai wine is quite potent. I’m afraid you are going to have one hell of a hangover.”
Before she could struggle to a sitting position, Talon lifted her into his arms and carried her back to her quarters. He settled her carefully on the bed. Then left her there. Alone.
—
Unaccustomed to alcohol, Lia was surprised to find herself suddenly wide awake in the middle of the ship’s sleep cycle. She kicked the covers off and rose from the bed, smugly pleased Talon’s prediction of a violent hangover proved false.
She prowled her quarters for a few minutes, pointedly ignoring the stacks of N’yotan data Talon had delivered to her quarters for review. She finally realized the need for physical activity plaguing her would not be subdued. Lia threw on a pair of loose-fitting trousers and a soft shirt before heading to the recreation deck.
Muted lighting lit the halls rather than the usual bright glare, likely to remind the skeleton crew everyone else on board slept. The dim light made the corridors less distinctive, and Lia accidentally passed the door to the gym and had to double back.
She entered the room and was surprised to see Vardin standing in an open area. She stopped to watch him. The gargantuan man moved gracefully, his body flowing smoothly from one position to another. The beauty of the unusual dance mesmerized her. Transfixed, she watched until he stopped, placing his hands on his upper thighs and bowing slightly forward.
“That was amazing,” Lia announced when the spell finally broke. “What was it?”
“Ngäkau. It is used to center the mind within the body and is a critical component that balances peace along the path of the warrior.”
She couldn’t stop her eyebrows from shooting up in surprise. “Peace isn’t a term I’d use describing Inderians.”
Lia squelched a wince at her blunt words. Insulting an Inderian with no witnesses about. Brilliant move. Her IQ seemed to have plummeted drastically since setting foot aboard ship.
Vardin bared his multitude of razor-sharp teeth, and Lia experienced a momentary rush of terror before she realized he was smiling at her. Prophetess. Inderian smiles should be preceded by a loud, flashing, warning sign.
“The path of a warrior requires a disciplined mind. A disciplined mind is rooted in peaceful harmony with the body,” he informed her.
“I see.” She didn’t. “Do you do this every day?”
Vardin gave her a speculative look. “Would you like to learn?”
Lia considered his offer. “Yes, I think I would.”
“Ngäkau requires daily practice and commitment.”
“I can do that,” she assured him. The idea of doing something she chose appealed to her.
He gave her a curt nod. “Keep your spine straight and stand with your feet braced shoulder-width apart. Clear your mind of everything but the position of your body.”
She obeyed his instructions and followed his movements carefully as he led her through the basic stances of Ngäkau.
“That is enough for today,” he announced abruptly, before motioning her to copy the slight bow she’d seen him perform earlier.
A glance at the chronometer mounted on the far wall told her she’d been performing Ngäkau for over an hour. She wiped the sweat from her face, surprised at how much exertion the slow-moving exercise required. “Thanks, Vardin.”
“You did well. We will meet here tomorrow before breakfast.”
“I’ll be here.”
“You should wear white. It indicates your status as a novice.”
Lia nodded, said farewell and returned to her quarters. Standing beneath the spray of the shower Lia felt more relaxed than she had in years. The Inderians were onto something with Ngäkau, though she still didn’t understand how it contributed to their abilities as rabid, slaughtering machines.
Once clean, Lia fell into bed. Her relaxed muscles let her melt into the mattress. Without a thought or worry about her situation, she tumbled back into a dreamless sleep.
—
Talon worried when Lia failed to join them for breakfast. He hadn’t considered she would be completely unaccustomed to alcohol. After all, miners were reputed to be a hard-drinking lot who downed grain alcohol like water. Of course, the number of credits Lia had accumulated on her meager wages should have tipped him that she hadn’t squandered her money on that swill. She’d also told the doctor that she’d never been drunk, but he forgave himself for forgetting that fact given his stress at seeing his wife lying on a gurney.
Ilexa gave him a questioning look when he sat down and waived her hand in the direction of the door. “Aren’t we going to wait for Lia?”
“I believe Lia will be sleeping in this morning,” he replied.
His sister frowned at him with obvious worry. “Is she ill?”
Talon hesitated. He didn’t want to tell his nosy sister he’d gotten his wife drunk. She’d likely accuse him of doing it on purpose for his own nefarious gain—which he supposed he had.
Vardin spoke before Talon manufactured a suitable reply. “I saw her a few hours ago. She is well.”
<
br /> Appearing satisfied with Vardin’s assurance, Ilexa took her seat.
Talon turned his attention to the Inderian, feeling vaguely put out Vardin knew Lia’s condition when he did not. “Where did you see her?” Talon asked in a much sharper tone than he intended.
Vardin gave him a look that could either have been amusement or offense. Even after all these years, reading Vardin’s expressions proved hit or miss.
“She came to the ship’s gym while I practiced Ngäkau.”
“I hope she didn’t interrupt your ritual,” Talon said, striving to smooth over his earlier shortness with a polite follow-up.
“She did not. In fact, she expressed interest in the ancient way. I have agreed to teach her.”
Talon stared in surprise, knowing Ilexa and Thane wore similar expressions. Never once had Vardin shared the sacred ritual experience with a non-Inderian.
Ilexa recovered first. “That’s very generous of you.”
“Though she follows a different course, she walks the way of the warrior.”
“A catered-to princess and religious icon on par with an Inderian warrior. How could anyone not see the connection?” Thane asked dryly.
Ilexa leapt to her sister-in-law’s defense. “Lia has faced far more hardship in her life than you give her credit for.”
“Perhaps,” Thane allowed, dismissively. “But she’s out of the mines now.”
Ilexa’s delicate nostrils flared in indignation. “I think the mines might have been the easiest part of Lia’s life.”
“Some of the greatest battles ever waged occur off the battlefield,” Vardin stated, unperturbed by Thane and Ilexa’s sniping.
A corner of Talon’s mouth kicked up in a half-smile. It seemed Vardin had fallen under Lia’s unusual spell. “And Ngäkau will help Lia with the battles she faces in the future?”
Vardin inclined his head politely.
Had Vardin been human rather than Inderian, Talon would have felt the need to prevent Lia from forming an attachment to him. Not out of a sense of jealousy or possessiveness, he assured himself, but for Lia’s own good. After all, as her husband, it was his duty to help her avoid the unnecessary hurt should she become emotionally attached to someone other than him.
Once Lia accepted her fate, Talon reasoned, she’d have little to complain about. N’yota was fast becoming a paradise, and after the mines, surely Lia would find modern N’yota a haven.
Talon ignored the little voice in the back of his head that laughed at his conclusions.
Chapter Ten
In an effort to avoid the confusing reaction she had to the man she called husband—the reaction that stripped her of all semblance of self-preservation—Lia buried herself in the stacks of N’yotan data. She even had lunch delivered rather than join the others in their private mess. After several hours of mind-numbing statistics on gross domestic products, inter-League exports, extra-League exports, census data, population growth prediction and economic inflation indices, she decided to call it quits.
By the Powers! Send her back to the mercy of the Guild rep before making her endure another minute of such torture.
She tossed the pad she held across the room, startling Asha, who immediately went to investigate. Interlacing her fingers, Lia raised her hands over her head and stretched the length of her body until her back bowed backwards.
One thing she was learning to despise aboard ship was the lack of anything productive to do. Accustomed to manual labor and glass working, Lia enjoyed having produced something tangible at the end of the day. She missed the small thrill of satisfaction she got at seeing what she’d accomplished.
Asha quickly lost interest in the pad Lia had thrown, and padded over to nudge Lia’s hand with her large head. Reflexively, she began stroking the gimfrey behind the ears. Asha rewarded her with a rumbling purr.
“If you are going to grow into those gargantuan paws of yours, we might have a problem,” Lia said fondly.
Asha yawned heartily in response. Not for the first time, Lia found her thoughts returning to Talon. She wondered what he was doing and if he had missed her at the meal she’d avoided. She shook her head, trying to knock the maudlin thoughts loose.
“He probably hasn’t given me a second thought,” she told her pet with a laugh. “That sounded whiny even to me.”
The cat leaned her heavy body fully against Lia’s leg.
“I’ll take that to mean you agree with me.” Lia looked around her quarters. “I’ve got to get out of here and do something before I go stir crazy.
The gimfrey’s tail flickered and Lia decided to take the action as Asha’s participation in the conversation. Otherwise, she was just talking to herself like Crazy Milla in the mines.
“Why don’t you come with me? They have a jogging circuit on the rec deck. The exercise would probably do you good, too.”
Pleased to have a course of action, Lia decided against leashing the gimfrey, but tucked a long lead in her pocket just in case, and headed into the hallway. As though she’d understood the conversation, Asha padded happily alongside Lia.
The lift stopped on the way to the rec deck and a couple of young officers stepped in holding hands. Engrossed with each other, neither of them noticed Lia or the gimfrey—until the young man stepped on Asha’s tail.
A powerful roar that sounded too big to have come from the juvenile cat bounced off the walls and echoed in the confined space. In a stellar display of military prowess, the couple leapt backwards shrieking like prepubescent girls.
Lia snorted in derision. League citizens should rest comfortably with their defense in the hands such able combatants.
Offended—Lia doubted the cat was actually hurt—Asha tightened her skin, causing her fur to bristle. She pulled back her lips, bared her teeth and hissed her outrage at the perpetrators.
Lia dropped a hand to Asha’s neck, ready to restrain her if need be.
The young man with sandy hair and saucer-sized blue eyes edged behind his much smaller female companion. “What is that thing?” he squeaked.
Thing? Hiding behind a girl was bad enough, but calling Asha a thing…
Lia hid her fury behind a sweet smile and pair of doe eyes. “I’m sorry she startled you. She’s been grumpy since coming on board. The Inderian warned me she wouldn’t take kindly to being trapped with humans and not being allowed to eat them.”
“Eat them?” he half-squeaked, half-whispered.
“Vardin, the Inderian I’m traveling with, recognized the predator in my new pet. He expressed concern she wouldn’t be content with synthesized meat.”
The male soldier retreated until his back pressed against the lift wall, keeping his girlfriend positioned in front of him. “Not content?”
“You know how ruthless predators can be. They love the fear of the prey as much as the meat they provide.”
The lift door opened to reveal the rec deck, but the couple didn’t notice. Their attention remained fixed on Asha. Lia took a small step forward and the gimfrey rose, stepping towards the door.
The couple misinterpreted Asha’s action as one of aggression and let out a mutual shriek that Asha drowned out in a loud roar, before flashing a mouthful of sharp teeth. The male attempted to hunch down behind the female, who struggled to free herself from his grip.
Lia and Asha exited the lift as the odor of urine permeated the confined space. Barely able to contain her laughter until the door closed behind them, Lia dropped a hand to caress the silky fur of her pet.
“Want to bet Talon has a fit when he hears about this?”
Asha remained silent as she padded alongside Lia.
“I don’t blame you. It’s a sucker’s bet,” she continued, heading towards the elevated jogging track. “But, I bet he’d greatly be amused. He just wouldn’t show it.”
The track on the rec deck actually ran alongside the ship’s inner hull, which meant it followed an oblong path, twisting and turning around jutting sections of bulkhead. While the scene
ry didn’t improve, Lia preferred the slight variations in view—generally from a wall with grey paint to a wall with greyer paint, to the stationary machines that had the user face one monochromatic grey wall for the duration of the exercise cycle.
Not that she actually had a choice with the four-legged people-eater walking beside her.
Grinning, Lia began the circuit at a brisk walk. “I suppose I should feel bad about what I told them,” she said without a trace of guilt.
Lia decided the cat was trying not to laugh.
About halfway through the first lap, Lia started to jog and soon found herself in a dead run chasing after her blasted pet and cursing her decision not to use a leash. Pushing herself harder, she caught sight of Asha’s long tail disappearing around a curve ahead.
Lia made the curve just in time to see Thane and Talon round a blind curve coming from the opposite direction. Asha plowed into Thane’s legs, sending the man flying forward. He landed on his face, and slid along the track, before managing to twist onto his side while still sliding. Lia heard Ilexa’s melodic peal of laughter, but only had eyes for the debacle in front of her.
Unfortunately, the events so stunned Lia she forgot to stop running—at least until her shoe connected with the uninjured side of Thane’s face and sent her sprawling at the feet of her husband.
After everyone came to a full and complete stop, three long seconds of stunned immobility and silence passed, punctuated only by a strange, rhythmic, gasping sound Lia assumed meant Ilexa had laughed until she couldn’t breathe.
Lia struggled to right herself. Or at least determine where each of her limbs had landed. She found her left leg when her weight shifted, driving her knee into what she fervently hoped was Thane’s lower abdomen. Afraid of permanently crippling the soldier, or ensuring he never fathered children, she froze, only to find herself dragged to her feet by Talon.
He did not look amused. Thane looked green, and Asha looked as innocent as a babe sitting regally beside Talon. Ilexa joined them on the track, gasping for air with her lovely face flushed bright pink. Her solid unitard and the resin on her hands indicated she’d been using the gymnastic equipment.