Queen's Ransom: The Golden Bulls of Minos

by Isabel Wroth

  She was a queen, a wife, soon she would be a mother, and wanted none of her father's opinions on how well she was or wasn't succeeding.

  "The queen and I remain on board for five more days to oversee the next round of pilot simulations," Dhega said, his hand settling on her nape, his thumb sweeping up and down her throat, gently pulling her out of the past.

  "Her parents may stay until our departure in their quarters or escorted to the main dining hall by no less than six warriors.

  “If the queen wishes to visit with them, she will say so, and see them in the smaller antechamber off our quarters."

  Zavir gave a sharp nod, "I will see it done. Your sister is also requesting a private audience, my lady."

  Jalia curled her lip, about to firmly refuse, but wanted to get some answers for Nivir.

  It wouldn't soothe the hurt Jade had caused, and if her sister's answers were crap, maybe Jalia wouldn't tell him at all. Sometimes though, not knowing hurt worse.

  "I'll see her after breakfast,"

  "As you wish," Zavir left, holding the door open for Dysis on his way as she came in with breakfast.

  Dhega came around to sit beside her on the lounge, his one arm settling on the curved back behind her, his palm settling on her stomach, his touch so at odds with the harshness of his expression.

  "Take one more day to rest,"

  Jalia cupped his cheek, "I slept for nearly twelve hours straight. I'm rested. I just want this all over with so we can go home and keep moving forward."

  Dhega's eyes narrowed as though testing her resolve, but didn't immediately shoot her down or tell her no.

  "If Dysis doesn't mind staying within earshot, I swear I'll holler if Jade so much as irritates me."

  "Dysis will do as she is commanded," he told her, raising his voice loud enough for the young Minoan to hear.

  Jalia loosely clasped her hands behind his neck, carding her fingers through the coarse strands of his pelt,

  "I don't have a lot of friends, and she's been very good to me, so please don't piss her off and send her running back to Islingrane."

  Dhega blew out a short, sharp breath, grumbling under his breath before he leaned in and made her very glad she was half lying down.

  He wrapped his arms around her, brushing a dozen sweet kisses across her cheeks, her eyelids, finally her mouth.

  Warmth rolled across her limbs, pooled in her belly, her worries and conflicted feelings floating away as though they'd never been.

  It took him five tries to pull back, neither of them wanting to stop, but when he did Jalia could see hints of amber swirling in the gold of his eyes.

  She traced the kiss stung curves of his lips with a fingertip, his scent covering her, every spot he'd touched a kiss to had left a gentle tingle.

  Dhega still claimed he didn't fully understand the concept of love, but with her, every touch, every glance, every action he made was born of love.

  "I will check in on you regularly. If you need me, I don't care what I'm doing, call for me, and I'll be here."

  See? So loved. "Okay,"

  He levered himself up off the lounge and pointed down at her with absolute seriousness,

  "Take care of my son. Stay on that couch," Jalia laughed hard enough a few tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she promised and got one more brief, hard kiss.

  "Dysis, you even think of abandoning my woman to go back to Islingrane, I'll blast you out the nearest airlock!"

  Jalia groaned, her head falling back on the pillow behind her, but when Dysis came back into the room, she was struggling not to laugh.

  "Yes, your majesty. Would you like tea while you visit with your sister, my lady?"

  She took a deep breath, inhaling the lingering notes of Dhega's scent and prepared herself.

  "Tea would be great, thank you, Dysis,"

  "Right away," Dysis made to leave, but she paused in the doorway and turned to look back at her with a bright smile,

  "I have no plans to abandon you. I am very happy with my position."

  *****

  Jade fidgeted in her chair, cradling the polished silver cup in the palm of her hand, her fingertips curled just so around the handle.

  Her hair was twisted up in a prim bun; she had on a slick blush pink pantsuit with a cream silk blouse beneath and a string of genuine pearls around her slender throat.

  She sat up so straight she might as well have been against a wall, her ankles crossed and tucked beneath her, the perfect lady while Jalia lay on her side, propped up against the curve of the lounge with her chin in her hand, waiting for her sister to say something.

  Jalia had been waiting for almost five minutes now,

  "Are you waiting for permission to speak or something? Because I'm not that kind of queen, and I have better things to do than sit here drinking tea."

  Jade jolted hard enough to slosh a little tea out into her hand,

  "Yes, of course. I apologize, I just..." she struggled to spit it out, but after a huge burst of an exhale, Jade rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and shook her head.

  "Do you have any idea what its like not to trust anyone? To wonder if you won't live through the day?"

  In answer, Jalia simply gave a slow lift of her brow and a mildly sarcastic...okay, a totally sarcastic smile.

  Jade tittered, setting her tea down so she could wipe her hand,

  "Of course you do, what a ridiculous question. I suppose I should start from the beginning, hmm?"

  "Usually a good place to start,"

  Jade looked around the room furtively, glancing from her teacup to the table in front of her,

  "Do you have something stronger than tea?"

  "No," Jalia drew out the word slowly, seriously shocked to hear her straight-laced sister ask for alcohol. "You don't drink. It's bad for your liver function and disrespectful to the temple that is your body,"

  "My liver and temple are just fine, thank you," Jade informed her primly, but then her shoulders slumped, and she slouched back into the chair, stretching her legs out in front of her with a sigh.

  "Do you remember hearing anything about an epidemic on Reupra, the reels were calling it the Blue River Plague?"

  Jalia shrugged, remembering it perfectly. The population of the entire planet was nearly decimated by a fever that mutated just as fast as a cure could be created, making it impossible to stop.

  "Some. It was a hemorrhagic fever, right? The Reupri have blue blood, so when the vessels in their eyes ruptured it looked like they were crying blue rivers. I'm guessing you created the cure?"

  Jade shook her head, and Jalia noticed the carefully concealed circles beneath Jade's eyes, the vacant expression she hid behind her artfully applied make-up.

  "I created the plague."

  Jalia struggled not to spit out the mouthful of tea she'd just taken, "I beg your pardon?"

  Jade rubbed at her forehead as though she had a headache, her delicately painted fingernails flicking through the air dismissively,

  "I was working on a cure for another sickness on another planet, which meant altering the biological nature of the virus causing the sickness.

  “I finished my work for the day, went to my quarters, and after four point three hours of sleep, I went back to the lab, and all of my samples were gone.

  "At first, I thought I'd merely misplaced them, but that's never happened before. The things I work with, accidents don't happen, or people die. But I was exhausted, so I went back to review the security footage to make sure, only to find it had all been erased.

  “The company I work for brought in specialists who interrogated me for six days, trying to find out what I knew, who was responsible, had I helped them steal the samples.

  “Standard procedure I suppose, but while I was being held and questioned, the Reupri were getting sick. Dying.

  "Bio-weapons are still a problem in spite of all the protocols and fail-safes put into the modified viruses. All of mine have a self-destruct strain, so if someo
ne were to be accidentally infected, the virus would die without the protein I use to stabilize it after four days.

  “But whoever took my samples and set the plague lose on Reupra, made sure there was no self-destruct. There are only a handful of other scientists capable of modifying my work, and the UC collected all of them for questioning, except one. Trig Martin."

  "That arsecake a few years ahead of you in school who took credit for the work you did on the necrotic algae dysfunction that nearly ate through the clan of Etanianin traders?"

  "It boggles the mind the things you can remember," Jade said with a fond shake of her head, "and yes. That arsecake. He works for a company named Onyx. They're private contractors with fingers in so many pies it's impossible to eat and not find one of their toenail clippings."

  Jalia made a gagging sound, and immediately Dhega's voice filled her ear.

  "Jalia! Are you alright?"

  She smiled and held a finger up for her sister to take a pause, touching her ear to answer.

  "I'm fine. My sister was talking about pies and toenails."

  "You're not ill?" he pressed urgently,

  "No, I'm fine. Nothing's wrong with me."

  "Very well. You're still lying down?"

  "I am."

  "Good. Apologies for disturbing you." She heard the soft click to indicate Dhega had signed off and looked up to find Jade looking at her with such naked longing it hurt.

  Her sister blinked, and her expression smoothed to a very obviously manufactured smile,

  "Sorry, Dhega worries. You were saying?"

  Jade tilted her head to give her a thoughtful, penetrating look, "I thought it was your Luna Patch,"

  "What was?"

  "That glow you've got going on. Are you pregnant?"

  Jalia felt herself blush as her hand moved to her barely-there bump, "Yes."

  "Is it your husband's?"

  Jalia's blush evaporated in an instant, whatever concerns had been growing for her sister slamming hard up against a solid rock wall.

  "Excuse me?"

  Jade pulled a face, putting her hands up in apology, "I'm sorry, that sounded terrible. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just humans sometimes have trouble conceiving without assistance when the species line is crossed. My filter hasn't improved much over the years. Do mom and dad know?"

  Jalia bit down on the inside of her cheek to stem her immediate reaction to snap at her sister.

  Jade had indeed always had a faulty brain to mouth filter, blunt often to the point of rudeness sometimes, and yet Jalia couldn't recall one single time when their father had reprimanded Jade for her lack of decorum.

  Maybe because Jade often chose not to speak much during dinner or around guests, but still, Jade reminded her of the resentment Jalia apparently hadn't let go of.

  "Not unless someone else said something. I haven't talked to them since the other day. Why?"

  Jade gave a soft hum, glancing down at her lap with an odd little curve to her lips, a smile, but not.

  "Every time I came home for dinner, mom wanted to know why she didn't have grand-babies yet and very loudly commiserated she was the only mom among her friends who wasn't drowning in the next generation."

  "You were telling me about Onyx and that arsecake?" Jalia prompted firmly, not interested in hearing about how Jade had come home for dinners and talked babies with their parents.

  It hurt more than she expected, and she remembered she still didn't have a good reason for why she should be forgiving Jade for hurting Nivir.

  "Yes, right. The arsecake modified my virus, I went to Reupra to do what I do, and it took me almost three months, but the team I was with got it under control, and I had what I needed to prove Trig's involvement. Onyx's involvement.

  “It's too big now for Onyx to deny, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to get to me. Someone of a professional nature broke into my condo and destroyed my mattress, thinking I was the lump in the bed.

  “But it was my research assistant, Jody. She was staying at my place because I was with dad going over everything and needed someone to water my plants.

  "I was put in a UC safe house, but they found me and tried again, and again. It seemed like no matter where I went they found me. Turned out my company—OmegaTech—was hacked, and a list of all the personnel ID implants that are supposed to keep track of us while in the building and give us secure access to our respective areas, was stolen.

  "Whoever Onyx sent after me literally had me on the grid, so I called the twins. They sent a shuttle for me, pulled my implant and stuck it in some drone they made and whisked me back to J-Alpha to put me on lockdown.

  “I'd been there for six months, hiding while the UC ran an investigation, not stepping so much as a toe past the blast doors of my room, and the day I did, I ran into Nivir."

  Jade's expression up until this point and been blank and pale, but as soon as she said Nivir's name, her cheeks washed a gentler pink and instead of gripping her hands together tight enough to make her knuckles turn white, she rubbed her palms together and massaged her thumbs deep into the center,

  "I've seen a lot of humanoid alien species, but I hadn't seen anything like him. I hadn't talked to a man who wasn't one of dad's officers or a bio-chem scientist in...ever, and we didn't talk about my work at all. It was nice.

  “It was more than nice. We walked around the orchard, I introduced him to strawberries and oranges, and suddenly I was wondering how quickly I might be able to get him to take me home with him to his impenetrable planet where no one goes unless invited.

  "About ten minutes after that I was ashamed of myself and decided I was safer behind the fortified blast doors of my room, alone where no one else could get hurt or die because of me, but I still found myself inviting him to dinner.

  “By the time we sat down to eat, I just wanted to feel normal for a while. To soak up how it felt to relax and not worry about whether or not the person I was passing in the hallway was going to whip out a knife or use their bare hands to snap my neck.

  "I slept in a bed with a strange man and wasn't afraid to close my eyes. It was selfish, beyond selfish, and yes, I thought about using him to help me, but not how Jared and the twins meant.

  “I watched while they tried to jerk Nivir around, talking at him like he was some stupid rube who didn't understand the difference between a satellite and a star-chart, it was infuriating! But damn, did he talk circles around our brothers.

  "I'd say I hadn't seen anything so sexy in my life—but that would be a lie considering what I saw the night before—Jeremy made it sound he'd sent me to Nivir on purpose, and I saw how much it hurt him.

  “Jared wouldn't let me go, and Nivir didn't stop. I wanted to explain, but he didn't stop. He didn't even look back."

  Jade took a shuddering breath, rolling her eyes up as she wiped at the tears tracking down her cheeks, doing that thing which ensured her eye make-up didn't smear by wiping just up underneath her bottom lashes. Jade was flustered and raw, but her make-up was still perfect.

  Struggling to stay mad at her damn sister, Jalia was looking for any excuse to hold out, and managing to look pretty while she was crying? That was just irritating as hell.

  "What is it you want from me, Jade?"

  "I'm heading back to J-Alpha with Jeremy and Joseph tomorrow and I just...I wanted...I hoped you might tell Nivir I'm sorry. I just wanted a few days of normal in case dad can't help me handle this thing with Onyx, and to tell you how sorry I am I never got your messages. I'm so sorry you thought we abandoned you, Jalia, but I'm happy you found somewhere to belong."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  General James Justus stood with his hands clasped behind his back, at ease despite the turmoil which made his eyes burn and his chest ache with the pressure of the emotion he kept ruthlessly bottled up inside.

  The guest quarters of the Kallisto were opulent in comparison to anything the UC would have provided, even to someone of his position.

  Hi
s new son-in-law had spared no expense, stating only the very best was acceptable to protect his family and his people. James had heard the reports on Dhega of Minos straight from the mouths of several witnesses who had come with their mistresses to compete in the contest to win the queen's crown.

  Each one of the servants, ladies in waiting, slaves, and beloved body attendants had all said the same thing: the king of Minos was a monster.

  A brutal, cruel, calculating monster who had forcefully thrust change upon his people they were ill-equipped -for, and had no love in his heart for anyone. So, what did that mean for Jalia?

  It was on his mind as he stood there, staring at his reflection on the enormous window that looked out on the beauty of the nebula surrounding Minos and its surrounding planets.

  A deadly, shimmering rainbow hiding debris and dangerous electrical currents so strong, they were capable of ripping a ship in half.

  His daughter, who he had believed to be dead the past ten years, had traveled through the dangerous, beautiful cloud to the planet beyond, to become its queen.

  Of course, he knew there was more to the story, and hoped someday his youngest child would tell it to him. But she had gone down there and run not one, not two or three, but nine deadly labyrinths to prove to everyone, perhaps even herself, that she was capable, strong enough, worthy enough to take her place as a queen.

  Ten years ago, if someone had asked him if he believed Jalia capable of winning such a competition, he would have answered without hesitation.

  Absolutely.

  All his children were exceptional, but Jalia had been unique from day one. Unique, and unexpected.

  His first four children had been precisely planned, down to the time frame in which they had been born. Their births had even been scheduled ahead of time.

  When Jaclyn had come to him with the astonishing news they would be having a fifth, very much unplanned child, James had been shocked. But he was a military man. He'd overcome his initial surprise, adapted, and planned accordingly.

  Jalia had made her appearance seven days ahead of schedule and continued to surprise them at every turn.