Prophesied: Interplanetary League series

by Liz Craven

  She tried digging in her heels and wound up sliding along the carpet. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Your new quarters,” he replied without a twinge of sympathy. He stopped abruptly at his door and slapped a palm against the ID device.

  “These are your quarters.”

  His temper spiked at her obvious outrage at sharing his space and more specifically his bed. “And yours, too.”

  “Talon,” she protested as he hauled her over the threshold.

  The weak alarm in her voice reminded him she’d barely survived an attempt on her life a few hours earlier. Beneath his fury, a pang of sympathy pricked his conscious, but he easily squashed it.

  Talon nearly shoved her into a chair in the main living area before towering above her and demanding, “What the hell was that spectacular act of stupidity on the bridge?”

  His anger crackled in the air, and she shrank from him. He wanted to howl in rage. Did she actually think he’d hurt her? His own wife?

  He tried for a more moderate tone. “I’m waiting, Lia.”

  He could practically see her mind racing. Talon dropped into the chair across from his wife. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  “You’d help me?”

  The surprise in her voice grated his already raw nerves. “You’re my wife,” he gritted out.

  Her eyes cast downward, and she began chaffing her hands up and down the length of her arms. “I owe them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The trip I was on to the Central Alliance, when I disappeared…” Her voice trailed off.

  Talon leaned forward. He’d waited over a decade for this explanation. “Brisby is responsible for your disappearance—for what happened on the Cordoba?”

  “No!” His wife looked horrified.

  He remembered the carnage they’d found aboard the ship when they’d finally pulled it from the vortex. More than one hardened soldier had gotten sick at the sight of blood and body parts floating in zero-g. He couldn’t imagine what it had done to a twelve-year-old witness. “What happened aboard the Cordoba?”

  She shifted in her seat and gave him a fathomless stare.

  He decided he’d been too abrupt. Conversationally, he prompted her. “You were scheduled to attend an energy meeting with the Central Alliance. N’yota and League military lost the ship’s signal near a dynoscalar field. Emergency response ships were scrambled. They picked up the ion trail of the ship, and discovered it had somehow entered the dynoscalar field. It took two years to pull the ship out of the field.”

  “Dynoscalar fields are impenetrable. How did you manage to get the Cordoba out of it?” she asked.

  It wasn’t an answer to his question, but at least she was participating in the conversation. “Necessity is the mother of invention. A young N’yotan scientist figured out how to modulate tractor beams to compensate for dynoscalar field fluctuations. Using that technology, we towed the ship free of the field.”

  She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture. “Dynoscalar fields are fatal. It seems like a lot of trouble to recover dead bodies.”

  “You are too important to N’yota for us to simply assume your death. Moreover, given the Prophecy, your death aboard that ship was impossible.”

  Her spine stiffened. “Blind belief in that Prophecy has brought me nothing but trouble,” she muttered angrily.

  He chose to ignore her outburst. “While we were delighted you weren’t aboard, we were stunned to find everyone traveling with you had been killed before entering the field. Had it not taken two years to recover the ship, we would have expected a ransom demand.”

  “You didn’t consider I’d been assassinated?”

  “We did, but if that had occurred the killers would have either left your body aboard ship or used your death for political gain, which would have necessitated publication of your demise.”

  “Good point.”

  He leaned over and covered her hand with his. “Lia, what happened?” he asked gently.

  She tilted her head forward, letting her hair fall forward to hide her face from him. He sat in silence, waiting for her to marshal her thoughts.

  Finally, she lifted her head. Those fiery starburst eyes appeared more gold than blue, and he saw pain swirling in them. “One of my guards tried to assassinate me, but he hadn’t counted on my doyen. She carried her own weapon and fired at the guard as she put herself in front of me and took the shot meant for me.”

  “An assassin got a job as one of your bodyguards?” Fury beat a tattoo in his blood.

  “More than one,” Lia said wryly. “The weapons discharge alerted security and suddenly it was an all out firefight.” She swallowed hard and fought tears. “I hid under a table behind my doyen’s body. I couldn’t see anything. After what might have been hours or days, I crawled out to find everyone dead.”

  The pain radiating from the young woman huddled in the chair across from him made Talon desperate to offer comfort. He rose and moved to sit on the low table before her. Taking her cold hands into his own, he silently willed her to continue.

  “I don’t know how long the Cordoba drifted, but eventually, Brisby found the ship. He got quite a surprise when the ship he boarded—the derelict that was drifting into a vortex—had a twelve-year-old girl on board.”

  “He refused to return you to N’yota?” Talon demanded, outraged.

  “Of course not,” Lia snapped. “I convinced him I was the maid’s daughter and had no family left. He and the crew adopted me.”

  That was a far cry from what Talon had expected. The idea the strange pirate and his nefarious crew had undertaken the care of a preteen girl almost brought a smile to Talon’s face. Almost. “You never told them who you were?”

  “Sometimes I think they are the only ones who ever knew who I was.”

  Frustrated, Talon shoved a hand through his hair. He didn’t like these cryptic statements she threw out—especially when he almost understood them.

  Talon drew on his military training to stay focused on the issue. “You were stranded alone aboard ship. Why didn’t you send a distress call?”

  She pulled her hand from his grip. “I wasn’t sure it was safe. Two people who had been extensively screened by security had just tried to assassinate me. Who was I supposed to call? Who was I supposed to trust?”

  “Me,” he snapped before he could help himself.

  “I was scared.”

  His hackles rose. “I’m your husband. You should have known you could trust me.”

  “I was twelve,” she pointed out. “And I knew my guards better than I knew you, and they tried to kill me.”

  It was a valid point, but he still didn’t like it. Gritting his teeth, he asked, “What happened next?”

  “I was rescued by Brisby.”

  “How long were you aboard the Dawn Rider?”

  “Two years.”

  “What did you do while you were with Brisby?” Talon couldn’t keep the suspicion from creeping into his voice.

  Lia rolled her eyes. “I conducted daring raids against heavily fortified armadas.”

  “Lia,” he growled.

  “I was child being raised aboard ship. They hacked me into the Galactic School’s remote classroom. I attended classes. After class, I would do some work, learning my way around the ship. They never let me be involved in any of their operations.”

  Talon ignored the implication she wanted to pirate. “How did you go from Brisby’s care to working the mines?”

  “I crashed.”

  “I got that. With someone named Maia. How about filling in the details?”

  “Whenever one of Brisby’s enterprises needed the Dawn Rider, Maia would take me off ship in a shuttle pod. We’d explore nearby systems, then rendezvous with the Dawn Rider at preplanned coordinates. On one trip, we experienced a systems failure and crashed on Tmesis. Maia died, and I went to work in the mines.”

  “A fourtee
n-year-old crashes on their moon, and the Guild just puts her to work in the mines?” His voice was equal parts disbelief and horror.

  “That’s life on Tmesis.”

  “They didn’t notify anyone they had found a minor?”

  “Who would they notify? They are outside League space. The Guild’s its own government on Tmesis.”

  Talon studied his pale wife. Instinct told him she spoke the truth. “Lia, I appreciate you answering my questions—finally. I think you should probably get some rest now. If you’re hungry, I can have something brought here or can prepare a snack from the refrigeration unit.”

  Lia raised a shaky hand to push a shank of hair from her face. “You said these are my new quarters. Am I supposed to share them with you?”

  She hadn’t met his eyes when she’d asked the question, and the flush in her cheeks indicated embarrassment. He found her shyness adorable. “Yes, you are supposed to share them with me.”

  “Is there a reason I can’t go back to my own quarters?”

  “Someone flooded the rec deck with tachyon particles.”

  “I know, the doctor told me.”

  “Whoever did it sent a message to Vardin from your quarters canceling your session. The person also managed to record a number of your conversations to create the message. From now on, your security is heightened, and you go nowhere alone.”

  “Whoever hired the assassins on DeKalb Station is on board the Aegir,” she stated calmly with a nod.

  She still hadn’t looked at him, and that bothered Talon. He caught her chin in a gentle grip and lifted her head. “Lia, I’m not trying to embarrass you or force you into an uncomfortable position. We’re married, and we’ll share the bed, but I’ve never forced my attentions on a woman, and I won’t start with my wife. Understand?”

  She nodded and looked relieved. He tried not to be offended.

  “Would you like something to eat?”

  “No, I’m still a little queasy. I’d like to lie down.”

  Talon helped her to her feet and escorted her to the bedroom. “Your clothes should be in the top two drawers of the bureau and hanging on the left side of the closet.”

  “You’ve moved my clothes?”

  He grinned. “Makes more sense than having you dash from the shower down the hall for a change of clothes.”

  She gave him an I’m-not-amused look. “I can’t believe you went through my things.”

  Talon considered telling her he’d ordered a crewman to move her things, but decided that wouldn’t go over well. “Do you need anything?”

  Lia shook her head and climbed the low steps to the bed. “No, I just want to rest for a while.”

  “I’ll be in the living area if you need me. There will be two guards stationed outside the door. From now on, you go nowhere without them.”

  She scowled, but to his relief didn’t protest. He watched her stretch out on the bedspread and nestle against his pillow. Satisfaction poured through him. He finally had her in his bed.

  His body tightened, and he forced himself to leave, before she noticed his reaction.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lia awoke to find Talon lifting her to the other side of the bed. Confused, she forced her eyes open as he drew the covers up over her. She’d fallen asleep atop the bedspread and now Talon was tucking her in.

  “Go back to sleep,” he encouraged softly, before moving away from the bed.

  Sounded good to her. She started to drift back to sleep when the rustling sound of Talon stripping penetrated her sleep-fogged brain. Realizing her husband planned to join her in bed brought Lia completely awake.

  She kept her eyes closed, but couldn’t help shifting a little on the bed. That’s when she realized Talon had taken her shoes off while she slept. She couldn’t focus on the domestic action with Talon undressing a few meters from the bed. Was he actually changing clothes or was he stripping to come to bed? Did the man sleep in the raw?

  Working up her courage, Lia slitted her eyes for a peek, just as Talon slipped under the covers. Disappointed, she closed her eyes again and contemplated whether the man lying mere centimeters away was completely naked.

  The bed dipped and jostled as Talon settled himself for the night.

  She thought he’d finally found a comfortable position for sleeping, when he reached across the bed and hauled her into his arms.

  Lia yelped in surprise as she came up against his bare chest.

  Talon chuckled. “Go back to sleep,” he repeated, tucking her head beneath his chin and wrapping his arms around her.

  Cuddled against him with his chest hair tickling her cheek, Lia splayed her hands against the wall of his chest, reveling in the feel of hot skin and tight muscles. Breathing in his rich, male scent, she closed her eyes and drifted off, feeling treasured for the first time in her life—and wondering if Talon was also naked below the waist.

  Several hours later, Lia wasn’t feeling treasured as much as pummeled. The infuriating man had somehow expanded, slowly creeping across the mattress, pushing her along until she clung to the edge of the bed. Shoving her husband gained her no additional space and usually resulted in an increase in his snoring volume. The inhuman sound emitting from her husband’s nose caused the bed to tremble.

  Talon had evicted Asha from his bedroom, locking the gimfrey in the main living area. She found it ironic a wild animal had better bed manners than her husband. Finally, the timepiece beside the bed indicated she should rise for her Ngäkau session. She rose quietly, but only made it a few steps before Talon sat up in bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Meeting Vardin.”

  “I cancelled your session for the day.”

  “Why?”

  “Lia, someone tried to kill you. Your body needs to recover. You should get more rest. Come back to bed.”

  More rest? How about any rest? She had slept just fine in her own quarters. Lia stomped back to the bed, grabbed a pillow and started walloping him with it.

  “Hey!” Talon protested, before wrestling the pillow from her grip. “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem is you hog the bed and snore like a xyreon furnace.”

  Talon stiffened. “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  He snorted. “You’re the first woman who’s ever voiced a complaint after spending the night with me.”

  Lia sucked in an offended breath and Talon froze. Silence hung heavily in the air, thickening between them like a wall.

  She spoke first. “Apparently, I have higher standards than the other women in your life.”

  An unreasonable sense of betrayal burned in her core, and she stormed out, pausing to grab her shoes at the door. Talon demanded she come back. Ignoring his order, she glanced back to see him leap from the bed in all his naked male splendor. At least she got her question answered.

  She strode into the hallway, and two guards fell in step behind her. She pretended not to notice as she headed to the gym to work off her anger.

  Lia chose a stationary machine, because running with two guards behind her would make her feel like someone was chasing her. Intent on ignoring them, she faced the gray wall and began to run.

  She wasn’t naïve enough to believe there hadn’t been other women in Talon’s bed. The man was thirty-four years old. Hell, he’d been twenty when she disappeared at twelve. The vague feeling of nausea had nothing to do with jealousy. She was outraged he would slap her in the face with his extramarital activities. Purely outraged.

  Were the women Talon had slept with beautiful? Had he loved any of them? Did he have a mistress right now? Did he love her? Was he planning to build a life with her on the side?

  “Stop.” A commanding female voice penetrated her thoughts. Ilexa appeared beside her and switched off the machine.

  “Lex?”

  “Are you trying to make yourself ill?”

  “Huh?”

  “Look at yourself,” Ilexa snapped.

  “Kind
of hard to do without a mirror,” Lia replied. Bending at the waist, she braced her palms against her thighs and gasped for air. Now that she had stopped running, Lia realized sweat drenched her body, her clothes completely soaked.

  While she wheezed, Ilexa addressed the guards. “How long has she been at this?”

  “Two hours,” one of the guards replied.

  If her lungs had been able to fully inflate, Lia would have laughed at the men trying not to salivate at her beautiful sister-in-law.

  “I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but Talon snarled at everyone in his path before dragging the men into a meeting. Now, I’ve found you running yourself into a collapse. I won’t have it,” Ilexa informed her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.” Ilexa grabbed her by the arm and propelled her towards the lift. “You are going to cool off, take a shower and eat something.”

  “I’m fine,” Lia repeated, but she didn’t sound convincing, even to herself. Hard to pull off confident when having to pause in the middle of a single syllable word to gasp for air.

  “You might have been prophesied, but that doesn’t mean you are immortal. You have to take care of yourself.”

  Ilexa continued to lecture Lia all the way back to Talon’s quarters. By the time they reached the door, Lia would have vowed to eat a live viper to shut Ilexa up. The woman’s devotion to her profession bordered on obsession.

  Lia slapped her palm against the lock, but paused before crossing the threshold.

  “Talon’s in a conference. He’s not in there,” Ilexa told her quietly.

  Embarrassed by Ilexa’s knowing look, Lia entered the main living area. Aware of her soaking clothes, she eschewed the upholstery and sat on the hard surface of the coffee table. The guards followed Ilexa into the room.

  Craving what little privacy she could get, Lia said, “I’d like you to remain outside.”

  “I’m sorry, Lady Lia. The first minister gave orders that we are to be inside your quarters unless he is with you.”

  At least the man had the grace to look embarrassed by the admission.

  Ilexa shoved a bottle of water at her. “Drink this and shower. I’ll order breakfast while you get cleaned up.”