by S. E. Smith
Sheri laughed, kissing Rayan briefly. “He’ll come around. Everyone does.” The crew weren’t all on her side yet, but they trusted their captain. Sheri would win them over too, eventually. But even if she didn’t, she already had everything she wanted here in the bed next to her.
And that was as close to perfect as she could ask for.
About JC Hay
SFR Galaxy Award Winner JC Hay writes romantic science fiction, space opera, and cyberpunk where the relationships matter just as much as the tech. After all, the coolest gadgets in the world are useless without someone to share them.
In addition to Romance Writers of America, he is also a proud member of the SFR Brigade (for Science Fiction Romance), GSRWA, and RWA’s Published Author Network.
Website
Also by JC Hay
If you enjoyed Rafe and Nafisi’s story you should see what the rest of the JTF Rangers, and their loyal Umbra Wolves, risking their hides and hearts in the TriSystems: Rangers books -
Inouye
Grenville
If gritty, cyberpunk romance on the edge of the Arabian Sea is more your thing, check out The Corporate Services books:
Dubai Double-Cross
Mumbai Manhunt
South Seas Salvation
E.D. Walker - The Princess and Her Bodyguard
Alien Animal Rescues Series
Princess Liana blames herself when she and her wondrous bird companion, Pym, are kidnapped. If she hadn't kissed her bodyguard, Jacen, he never would've been fired, and she and Pym would never have been abducted from the palace.
Jacen has loved Liana for as long as he can remember. Even disgraced and exiled, he will still do anything to protect her—and Pym. Unfortunately, saving her life means losing her forever, but that’s a price he’s willing to pay. After all, he could never ask her to run away to the stars with him—could he?
The Princess and Her Bodyguard
Princess Liana stared out the port window of her cabin and watched the stars spin past. The air of the space station had a strange, stale quality to it—so different from the fresh, rain-washed hills of her home planet. Her breath fogged the heavy glass of the window, and she traced 'HELP' with her finger. A futile gesture, childish, and she streaked her fingers through the word, lest her jailors see it. She didn't think her kidnappers would appreciate the joke.
Liana's caliba, Pym, hopped onto the bed where she sat and butted her side with his softly feathered head. He was a bird-like creature native to her home, about the size of her torso, with a long muscular neck and a tail to match. He rested his head on the back of her hand, gazing up at her with his glittering, jewel-like eyes. All right?
"I'm all right, Pym." She scratched his head, and he ruffled his wide, silver-blue wings happily.
Liana gave a huff of dismay as she noticed her fingers were scratched and burned in places. She'd been trying to hotwire her door panel in the middle of the night, with limited success.
Pym cocked his head and studied her hand, then he closed his eyes and trilled a sweet, bell-like song. Warmth spread over her hands, and the scrapes and burns disappeared. "Thank you, my friend. I don't know what I'd do without you," she whispered.
Pym chirruped, very pleased with himself.
A knock at the door startled her, and Pym immediately moved in front of her. He splayed himself across her lap in a gesture that would've read as insolence in anyone who didn't know her caliba. As the door swung open, his eyelids fluttered closed, but the feathers on his neck stood high. Pym was watching, waiting, protecting her.
Liana straightened her shoulders as her captor, Tatinas, slipped through the door. "Good morning, Your Highness." He bowed.
She snorted. "Perhaps it is a good morning for someone who isn't being held prisoner."
Tatinas's lips pinched with irritation, and he shook his head. He was a tall man, slimly built with gray hair and electric blue eyes. Old-fashioned glasses perched on his nose, and he wore a sleek wrap suit in grey over a white tunic. "If your father would just cooperate with me, princess, this whole mess would be over by now." Tatinas held his open hands out in a shrugging gesture, as if this entire ordeal—her kidnapping—were her father's fault, she and Tatinas merely hapless victims.
"You want the impossible." She pressed her hand flat against Pym's side for emphasis. "The caliba are sacred to my people. Trusted guardians and friends."
Tatinas flicked a dismissive hand. "Short-sighted. All of you. These damned creatures can heal the sick, and you want to keep them for yourself?"
She scoffed. "You know it doesn't work that way. A caliba can only heal their bonded human, and that only up to a point." Otherwise Liana's mother would never have succumbed to illness. "They can't save everyone."
"Not yet." Tatinas narrowed his eyes. "But with the proper research and experimentation, perhaps they could. Perhaps their magic could be synthesized."
"And perhaps you could make a killing selling an artificial cure-all to the universe?"
He smirked. "That's the idea."
Liana could only shake her head, angry and frustrated. "You don't understand the bond. You don't understand caliba. And my father will never let you onto the planet to...to steal them. To study them and kill them so you can profit."
"Then he'll never see his beloved daughter again, will he?" His nostrils flared. "Perhaps it is time I show your father how much worse I can make things for you."
Fear spiked in her blood, her heart racing. Pym shifted, apparently still asleep although she knew better. She fanned her fingers over Pym's silky feathers and, immediately, calm filled her chest. "It doesn't matter what you do to me. My father won't relent." She might be signing her own death warrant, but if Tatinas planned to torture her so her father would comply then wasn't it better if she die now?
Tatinas chortled, the sound making her shiver. "Who knows what might change a man's mind? If you push him hard enough." He pivoted toward the door, ready to leave.
"Am I to have my walk today?" The stale air of her room had started an itch under her skin, a worm of anxiety that was beginning to wind through her blood.
He hesitated, his head half turned toward her, then he scoffed and tossed a careless hand. "Why not? There's nowhere to escape anyway. Is there?" He turned and held her gaze until she was squirming under his cold, reptilian stare. "Is there, princess."
"No." She swallowed. "There isn't."
Liana's escort for her walk arrived promptly, two grim-faced guards. A man and a woman. Just the sight of them made her heart ache for her old bodyguard, Jacen. He had always kept her safe, always been there for her. And she'd never have been kidnapped at all if her father hadn't dismissed Jacen. If only I hadn’t kissed him—
She shook her thoughts away. Dreaming of a grand rescue, falling into Jacen's arms, was pure fantasy. Her father had banished Jacen for her foolishness, and she would never see him again. The only one who could rescue her was herself. And Pym, of course.
She tried to scoop Pym into her arms to take on her walk, as she'd done before, but the guards stopped her.
Liana's blood thundered in her ears. "But I need him."
The male guard snorted. "Your pampered pet can do without you for twenty minutes."
"He's not a pe—"
The female guard grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her toward the door. "Yeah, yeah. Do you want your walk or not?"
Tears pricked Liana's eyes as they dragged her out the door. The male guard grabbed Pym and tossed him back into the cell. Pym shrieked and lunged, deadly talons unfurled, but the door swung shut in his face. Liana winced at the sound of Pym scrabbling and banging on the door trying to get to her.
It'll be all right, Pym. He couldn't read her thoughts, but they shared an empathic link. She tried to radiate calm reassurance. The sounds on the other side of the door paused, then she felt a blowback from Pym—anger and fear.
Liana hesitated. She didn't want Pym to spend the whole time they were apart agitated and a
fraid. "Maybe I should just keep to my chambers, after all—"
"We'll make it a quick walk. Princess." The male guard's fingertips dug painfully into her skin as he hauled her down the hallway. Instead of taking the main thoroughfare of the space station, they turned down a small access tunnel mostly used by maintenance.
Liana beamed calm reassurance back to Pym before she dropped out of his range. I'm all right. I'm all right.
Finally, a wash of calm rolled back to her. Pym was no longer frantic, although he was still anxious.
Maybe he could keep working on the access panel in their room. Her kidnappers probably wouldn't be watching her room if she wasn't in it. She blew her breath out and shrugged off the hand of the guard holding her.
The walk through the space station was the same dreary tedium as the previous few days' walks had been, but at least it was a change from her room. The space station was four circular levels stacked on top of each other. Her current level was the top with guard quarters and offices. Below that a casino and a restaurant. The hangar bay with all the ships was under that, and another level for the station's engines and storage lay on the bottom ring. And all of it was owned by Tatinas, his own private kingdom orbiting the stars. Still, the guards never took her near the public parts of the station. They probably didn't want to answer questions from the casino's customers. Liana had only seen the dreary upper levels where the workers bustled about behind the scenes. And where the drunks occasionally found their way to pass out in their own sick.
Liana wrinkled her nose and let the guards lead her wide around one such man. Gray-haired and slumped on the floor, he was giggling to himself, overdosed on some feelgood or another.
"Here we are." One guard said, sliding his hands over her shoulders to hold her still.
She stuttered to a stop and looked around, but they weren't anywhere near her room. "What's going on?"
"Boss thought it might be time to get more persuasive with your father." The male guard grinned at her as his partner opened the door. "Skinner here has some ideas about that."
As a strange man lurched out at her from inside the room, Liana swallowed a scream. The new man, Skinner, grinned, showing teeth rotted brown. His nose was very red and running. He reached a claw-like hand out to finger a strand of her hair. "Hello, dear. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. All of you. Eyeballs to entrails." And then he giggled.
The sound was like a nail scratching along her nerves, and Liana did scream now, digging her heels in as they tried to drag her forward. "No!"
The man Skinner just laughed and turned toward his room. "We can do this in the hallway too, easy as you please." Metal clattered from inside the room, and when he returned he held a long skinny knife with a serrated edge. "No one here cares what happens to you, princess. Don't worry, I'll start slow, love. Just an ear to begin, I think."
No Jacen and no Pym. I have to rescue myself. The thought brought a little clarity to her panic-fogged mind. She sucked in a deep breath then stomped hard on the male guard's foot, aiming for the pinky toes. Something crunched satisfyingly beneath her heel, and he yowled and released her. She broke free, running, wanting to just get away, but the female guard tackled her to the ground, pinning her.
No. Liana gritted her teeth and clawed at the woman's face.
The female guard slapped her hard enough that Liana's thoughts went fuzzy, and, as she lay stunned, the woman straddled her and held her wrists. "Dumb heifer." The guard grunted and rolled Liana onto her stomach. Pressing an elbow to Liana's neck, the guard pinned her face down to the metal grating on the floor. "Come on, Skinner. Let's get this over with so we can get that ear shipped to her daddy."
Liana sobbed and thrashed, her heart hammering hard enough to make her sick. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to buck the woman off.
"Is it a party?" The gray-haired drunk had apparently scraped himself off the floor and was lurching toward them, his walk stuttering with a limp.
Liana froze, something about his voice making her heart vibrate with recognition.
"Move along, druggie," the female guard barked. "This doesn't concern you."
The man gave a broken gargle of a laugh. "Fair enough." And then he moved, fast, swinging a knife up and deep into Skinner's side, stabbing the man twice in the gut before he dropped him and slashed open the throat of the male guard.
The female guard released her hold on Liana to grab for her weapon, and Liana rolled underneath her and clipped the guard's jaw with the meat of her palm. It made her hand throb, but the woman flopped over backwards. The guard fumbled to get her own service weapon out just as the gray-haired man stepped forward and shot her point blank in the head with the other guard's blaster.
The smell of seared meat filled the hallway, and Liana swallowed bile.
The gray-haired man stepped close and towered over Liana, his face shadowed, his form obscured by layers of ill-fitting clothes. He offered one dirt-covered palm to help her up.
Heart hammering, she slid her hand into his, and he hauled her up to stand.
"Good job on the guard, Your Highness," he murmured.
She didn't need to hear his voice to know—as soon as his palm touched hers she'd known—but her face still melted in a smile. "Jacen."
The relieved smile on Princess Liana's face was enough to make Jacen's heart hurt, but he pushed aside those considerations and grabbed her by the elbow to keep her close as they started down the hallway. He looked for signs of other guards, other transients as carefully as he could without being too obvious.
"This way." He tugged her gently into a shadowed alleyway where he'd stowed some things. "Forgive me, princess, but I'm going to need to change you out of those clothes. And we need to do it fast."
She blinked at him, her large brown eyes warm and trusting. "Oh. A disguise?"
"Exactly." He shuffled through the pile of rags he'd scrounged. They were all filthy and stinking, not fit to be in the same room with the princess, let alone to touch her body, but needs must drive. He chose the least offensive items and handed the pile to her. "I'll stand at the entrance and keep watch. Please be quick."
"I will."
He forced himself to walk away from her even as every instinct he had—protective and otherwise—was demanding that he keep her close, that he never let her out of his sight. But it was only a few feet, and she needed privacy.
The sound of fabric rustling suddenly conjured up images of her pale limbs flashing, her plump curves naked and bared to the air. Jacen could all too easily imagine what she must look like. Feel like. He fisted his hands against his sides as he continued to scan the hallway. Focus. Mistakes like that, distractions, were what had cost the princess her freedom in the first place. He couldn't let it happen again. Couldn't allow himself to be distracted.
"Jacen," she whispered, her voice too loud in the quiet of the empty hallway. "What about my hair?"
He turned to see she had dressed herself in a ragged outfit of loose pants and a broad-shouldered coat. Her shape was hidden, even her gender was hidden in the filthy, overlarge rags. The problem was her dark sheathe of hair was still down, tumbling to brush just past her bottom like a cascade of black silk.
Jacen hesitated then yanked a twist of leather dangling off his ragged tunic. "If I braid it we can tuck it under this wig."
She scrunched her nose up, making an adorable "ew" face, but she didn't veto the suggestion. Instead, she whirled around and offered him her hair. "You still remember how to braid?"
"I remember." She'd taught him one summer when they were children, patiently sitting in front of him and letting him practice again and again. She'd believed he wanted to learn the skill—in case he ever decided to grow out his own dark hair. Really, Jacen had just loved to touch her hair, to be close to her.
Chest tight, Jacen combed his fingers into her hair, letting the strands caress his fingers. After a moment, he forced himself to begin the twists and tugs that would pull her hair into
an orderly coil. He finished faster than he'd hoped for and tied it off. Then he piled the coil atop her head as best he could and yanked his own wig off to position over her head. A few errant wisps of black hair tried to escape, but he tucked them under the wig. Her face was too young looking for the disguise, round cheeked and beautiful. But, even as he watched her, she hunched her shoulders and lowered her head so the scraggly gray hair covered most of her face.
He laughed. "You're a natural."
She straightened under his praise, like a flower reaching for the sun. "I can't believe you came for me."
"Of course I came." He cupped her cheek, almost without deciding to do it, and fanned his thumb over the delicate line of her cheekbone.
Her eyes fluttered. "Jacen—"
His dirty thumb had left a smear of grime on her cheek, and the sight of that snapped him out of his foolishness. He motioned her to silence then stepped away to check if the hallway was clear. After a minute of no activity, Jacen beckoned the princess forward.
Princess Liana slid her palm into his as she joined him. "What now?"
"Now we head for the shuttle bay." He started forward, but the princess dug her heels in and wouldn't go.
"But what about Pym?"
Pym flew circles around the ceiling of their room, over and over, making short chirrup noises. He'd sensed Liana's distress, sensed her fear and anger, but he couldn't get to her. The door now bore deep silver slashes where he'd tried to tear it apart with his claws. How dare they take her? How dare they hurt her? Rage burned all through him, ruffled his feathers until they were standing on end.
The door clicked, and one of the foolish guards started to come inside with a large net. To capture him, no doubt. Fools.