“Aja, how could you not see it before? That I am born of the Blood?”
“I don’t know.” Her gentle fingers stroked his arm. “Some things are hidden from me. Perhaps the Gods have a perverted sense of humor. I only know I would feel the same whether or not you were of the Blood.”
“How do you feel about me?”
“That you are the One. You are the man fated for me. I sensed it the instant you entered the laboratory compound. I sensed you, and only you. I would share my blood with you if you were nothing more than a beggar on Isley. I love you, Kyr.”
Kyr lifted himself on his elbows to study his woman’s face. She was precious to him. “I love you, Aja. I don’t want to leave you alone on Eir-Edan.”
Aja’s smile was vague. “You may be coming with me. I’m not quite certain yet. As I said, my plans, my view of the path, is in flux. I’ve seen someone.”
Kyr traced the contours of her cheek with his fingers. “Who have you seen?”
“Your brother.”
“Karna?”
“Yes. He has something for us, something of significance. I’m not yet sure what it is, but I do know we need to head directly to his depot. We’ll drop Davi there, possibly this ship. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more precise, but your brother has veiled himself somehow and my way is shrouded.”
“Is it a trap? Is there a possibility my brother is being coerced?”
“No. There is no man alive who can hide behind this sort of screen. This is a veil is of the Blood. I just don’t know whose.”
Kyr slid over Aja, loving the feel of her taut body and her silky skin beneath him.
“Spread your legs, love, and let me in.”
Aja did as he demanded, arching up to meet him as he entered her.
Kyr closed his eyes. “How much time do we have, love?”
“A few days,” she whispered. “No more.”
“Then let’s make the most of them.”
“Yes, my love, oh yes.”
Book II: Return
“She’s seen me. She’s coming.”
“Is my brother with her? Is Kyr alive?”
Ennat kept her eyes closed. “A man who resembles you is with Aja. Yes. I can see him. I can see him because he’s had her blood.” She opened her eyes, surprised. “He’s had her blood,” she repeated, not quite believing her own words.
“What the hells do you mean he’s had her blood? He’s drunk her blood? Do you Royals do that?”
“Of course not,” replied Ennat. “I simply mean he’s, he and my sister… My sister has shared her blood with him. He is Blood of her Blood now. They’re bonded for life.”
“He’s taken a Princess of the Blood?” The Commander was shouting. “Is that what you mean to say? My brother has taken a Princess of the Blood? He’s mad. Kyr must be mad. Or you are imagining things.”
Ennat held her tongue. She was tempted to kick the darrok in the shins.
“Commander Aram, my sister would not let a man simply take her, as you say. If your brother attempted to force himself upon her she would be perfectly capable of killing him. I have no doubt Aja was a willing participant.”
“My brother is an honorable man. I didn’t say he forced himself upon a Princess of the Blood, I’m saying he committed a reckless act, perhaps a treasonous act.”
Ennat shrugged. “My sister obviously didn’t think so. Believe me, Commander, she chose him. Once a Princess of the Blood makes such a choice, it is not treason.”
“Do you think your mother, the Empress, will share your liberal views?”
“My mother is not here, is she, Commander? She has abdicated in favor of Aja, and she has taken the other members of my family and gone into hiding. Therefore, my mother no longer has any say in the matter. Besides…” Ennat shrugged. “I imagine she knows.”
Ennat folded her hands in her lap and watched the tall man pace the room. His braided hair hung to his waist. She watched the braids with interest. They swayed back and forth over his muscular back as he stomped about.
“This complicates matters,” he said. “I need Kyr. I need him by my side, as my second in command. No man alive knows the slipways like my brother, no one. He ferries men and supplies and weapons. And he’s the man I want at my back, no one else.” Commander Aram stopped and stared at her. “Can you see these things, any of these things? Can you tell me what he’ll do?”
“No. I’m sorry.” Ennat pushed a few stray curls from her face. “My sister has shielded herself and those with her exactly as I have done with us.”
“But you can see into the future, correct? You can foretell what will happen, so you can tell me if we’ll win this war.”
“Commander Aram, as I’ve already explained, I am not a gypsy.” Ennat attempted to control her irritation. “I cannot foretell your future, or the future of the Resistance forces, at least, not in the way you wish. The future is not set in stone. It changes as present events change.”
“Riddles,” the Commander said, and he resumed his pacing. “You speak in riddles. Is your sister as bad as you?”
Ennat had tired of the man’s insults. She rose from her seat. “I do not need to ask your permission, but out of courtesy, I’m asking to be excused. I’d like to return to my quarters.”
The man stood still and stared at her for a moment, as if assessing her, taking her measure. Ennat stared right back, unafraid.
She watched his violet pupils dilate, his nostrils flare. She knew he liked what he saw, but of course he did. The Commander was just a man, and a stubborn one at that. Didn’t men always like what they saw when they looked at a woman?
Ennat reminded herself that it didn’t matter whether he found her attractive or whether he detested the sight of her. What mattered was the secure haven he’d provided for her and would provide for her sister, until her sister could get safely away to Eir-Edan.
That was one thing Ennat had seen. Her sister would go to Eir-Edan, while she would stay with the Resistance fighters, a deadly decoy, a Blood decoy. If their father came for Aja again, he would have to get past her. Unlike Aja, who would kill only if necessary, Ennat was a weapon, born and bred.
If someone deserved death she was prepared to provide it. Their father of the Blood, General Ika Bom, deserved death, and Ennat hoped the honor would fall to her. If she could spare her beloved sister the stigma of patricide, she would.
Let Karna Aram challenge her, Ennat would not be the first to look away.
Finally Commander Aram waved her off as if she were a common ishat. Ennat turned on her heel without a word and left his sitting room.
Men.
Ennat was devoted to the man she knew as a father, Dua N’ib, and to her two brothers. She’d been friendly with her personal guards; at least they’d been respectful to a Princess of the Blood. But this man, this Karna Aram, made her boil inside.
Whenever she was in his presence, it required every ounce of control she possessed not to hit him over the head with the closest blunt object.
She’d taken a quick read on him when they’d first met. He was honest and open, something she would normally appreciate, but he was also a man of little patience. Perhaps it was her task to help him see this war would not be won by brute force but with patience and stealth. Her mother had indicated something along those lines when they’d parted.
Irritated, Ennat dismissed the two men standing guard at the door of her small apartment. She desired privacy. After having spent a week in close proximity to Commander Aram, she understood the man quite well. She’d learned they were very much alike. Patience was not her strength either.
Aja, on the other hand, controlled her emotions. Ennat had tried to emulate her older sister her entire life, and to some extent she’d succeeded, at least to all outward appearances, but where Aja counseled patience, Ennat preferred action.
When her brothers practiced their sword fighting she had always been in the middle, begging to be allowed to fight with a real blade. As her
skills had improved, she’d eventually bested them both.
Her brothers had indulged her and never taken offense. They understood the Blood. Ennat knew other men wouldn’t be quite so forgiving.
As her mother always said, men are prideful, especially where women are concerned.
Thus the coup.
Ennat closed the door behind her. She stripped off her gown and pulled on loose trousers and a short tunic. She removed her polished double-bladed sword from its soft bramah-skin sheath. Her brothers had always teased her about her temper, saying she needed to work off some steam.
At this precise moment, that’s exactly what she needed.
Karna Aram poured himself a drink. In the week since the woman had arrived on his station, he’d taken to pouring himself a drink several times a day.
Ennat might be a Princess of the Blood, but she was the most exasperating woman he’d ever encountered. He couldn’t get a straight answer out of her to save his own life. She was so secretive, so circumspect, except when she looked at him with those gray eyes of hers and then he swore she could see clear though to the depths of his soul.
He hoped not. If she did she’d see that he wanted to bed her so badly it took every bit of self-control he possessed to keep his hands to himself.
One did not presume to touch a Princess of the Blood.
And now, to hear her claim that his brother had taken her sister, the woman who would be Empress? Had shared her Blood?
By a gack’s shit, I’d like to know how that came about. And what, exactly, those words mean.
Karna tossed back the shot of Tisa, relishing the burn. He poured himself another. He needed his brother by his side. The Resistance needed Kyr’s cunning and his craft.
Kyr could find his way through the shadows almost as well as those legendary women pilots. Almost as well as their own grandmother, or so he’d heard his father tell it.
But if Kyr was bonded to this Aja, that might change things. What had the woman said? The future changes as the present changes, or some such nonsense?
He sipped his drink, considering. There was no option. Kyr would stay with him as they’d planned, regardless of what this Aja wanted, and the Resistance would make damn certain no harm came to their new Empress and her sister or by the Gods, heads would roll.
Karna locked the door to his quarters and walked to his desk. He set his drink down and knelt on the floor, feeling beneath the bottom drawer, reaching his fingertips into a nearly invisible compartment. He removed the small sealed package, the package the former Empress had entrusted to him.
Now that she’d abdicated, he was certain he knew what lay within the box. Her ruby ring, upon which was engraved the Royal Seal, a bleeding heart. The ring had been handed down from generation to generation since the time of the Empress Ya, three thousand years before.
Where the Empress wearing the Royal Seal led, men and women followed, even to their deaths.
To a new solar system.
Across the galaxy.
Into battle and a glorious death.
Through the long centuries, men and women had lived and died for the bearer of the ring. Karna prayed the Gods this Aja would be worthy and honorable and do her duty. Her people needed her.
Damn. He’d forgotten to ask the woman when his brother would arrive.
This Seeing business of hers made him edgy, especially when he was near her. There was something about Ennat that disordered his thinking. Perhaps it was her scent. She smelled rare and precious, like the entire cargo hold of sacred spices he’d once helped Kyr unload after a smuggling run.
Or perhaps it was merely his imagination, or the fact that he hadn’t had a woman in months. Maybe he’d simply grown superstitious, believing too many of the old tales, tales that claimed women of the Blood held a strange power over certain men.
Karna returned the package to its hiding place and rose to his feet. He straightened the weave around his chest, proud of the particular design worn only by a Calen man, just like the long braids—an age old tradition.
Their planet was first settled two thousand eight hundred years ago, the original settlers coming directly from Persephone, the very first planet to be inhabited by humans in this new corner of the galaxy. His own history was almost as rich as Ennat’s. He had no reason to bow and scrape before her, Royal Blood be damned.
He decided to seek her out, ask her when Kyr would arrive. That, at least, he expected she could tell him.
Karna slid the bolt from his door and stepped into the corridor. As he passed the galley he caught sight of Ennat’s guards, the guards he’d assigned to stand by her door. Karna stopped short and changed his course. As he strode into the room both men rose and bowed.
“Sorry, Commander, the Lady dismissed us,” the elder of the two spoke up.
“And you did as she ordered?” Karna was incredulous.
“Yes sir. The Lady Ennat is of the Blood. She…” The man cleared his throat. “Sorry sir, but she outranks you.”
Karna stopped himself from grinding his teeth. “I’m aware of that. However, it is our duty to protect her. You’ve left her unprotected.”
“No sir, we’ve kept an eye on the corridor. There is only one apartment at this end of the corridor and it’s hers. We’ve not gone far, sir. If she’ll give us permission we’ll gladly return to our post.”
Karna waved them back into their seats. “I’ll see to her,” he said, irritated as hells.
This woman would be the death of him. She needed a good turn over a man’s knee.
Karna was accustomed to ordering men about. A woman on his station who wasn’t a whore or a healer, was unusual to say the least. As he strode down the hall, he reminded himself that his mother and grandmother were respectable women. They remembered the days when women and men had equal standing in the eyes of the Empire even if he did not.
He’d been born a year after the coup.
The Lady Ennat was living proof that the stories were true. Karna forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to calm his wayward temper and his impatience.
Karna strode down the corridor, the sound of his worn leather boots muffled against the metal grating. As he neared Ennat’s quarters, he heard the soft hiss of metal. There was no doubt in his mind; he heard the sound of a sword cutting through the air.
He looked back down the corridor, hoping to catch the guards, but he realized the men must be sitting just out of his line of sight. He approached the apartment with caution, his long knife held steady in his hand. If any harm was to come to the Princess while she was under his protection his soul would be forfeit and he might as well draw the knife across his own neck.
Karna placed a hand on the latch. He turned it, quick as a flash, and threw open the door. He entered the room sideways, eyes sweeping all corners, knife raised and ready for death.
Ennat stood before him, a heavy double-bladed sword held high, her lithe Khalia dancer’s body drenched in sweat, her gray eyes blazing with inner fire.
Karna found himself staring, transfixed by the rise and fall of her chest. The woman had removed her formal garb and donned a pair of loose practice trousers and a short tunic. She was barefoot. He could see her nipples through the thin material. They were pink and beaded like moon pearls. Mouth dry, he studied her taut abdomen exposed below the short tunic. His eyes watched a drop of sweat slide from under the tunic and travel down along her perfect skin only to disappear beneath her trousers.
He found himself harder than he’d ever been in his life.
Tearing his gaze away from Ennat’s body, he looked into her face. A corner of her mouth turned up and her stormy eyes issued a challenge.
“Fight me,” she said.
“What?”
“I challenge you, Commander Karna Aram. Fight me.”
“I can’t fight a Princess of the Blood. You’re a woman.”
Ennat laughed in his face, goading him. “What of it? You’re a coward. You don’t wish to be bested by a
woman.”
Karna laughed right back. “No, I don’t wish to hurt you.”
“You couldn’t if you tried. I challenge you,” she repeated. “Pick up a sword. Or would you prefer…?” Her eyes traveled to his prominent erection. “To use that sword?”
Karna felt himself grow even larger beneath her gaze; although he didn’t know how in the seven hells that was possible.
“Give me a sword,” Karna barked at her. “I know you have another sword, I checked your belongings myself when you arrived.” He decided he would teach the woman a lesson, Princess of the Blood or no.
“Gladly.” Ennat turned her back to him, showing him the flare of her hips and her rounded bottom as she bent down to set her sword on the bunk and retrieve her bag.
Karna growled, wishing he could pull that bottom of hers against his rock hard shaft, but instead, he shoved the door closed behind him, sticking his knife in the soft wood of the frame.
He kicked off his boots and ripped off his stockings. Barefoot was the best way to spar.
He pulled off his weave, baring his strong chest, shaking out his long braids.
Let her look. Let her get her first good look at a Calen man.
Ennat turned, sword in hand, and she studied his sculpted torso. She smiled now, a wicked smile, an appraising smile. She walked toward him in the small room and presented the sword with both hands, exactly as a man would present a sword to his sparring partner. Karna accepted and bowed. Ennat bowed in return and fetched her own weapon.
She stood before him and lifted her sword in salute. “Come.” Karna heard the teasing lilt in her voice. “Let’s play.”
For the first time since he’d met this Princess of the Blood, the commander grinned. “Let’s,” he replied.
The clang of metal rang out as sword hit sword. Karna knew he was a damned good swordsman, but the woman was better. He’d begun by making it easy for her, merely countering her blows, but she gave him no quarter and he quickly realized Ennat took her swordplay seriously. After suffering a few painful nicks to his arms and chest, Karna fought back. It didn’t take long before his breath came in pants and sweat dripped down his body.
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