Sam opened her eyelids, at first her vision blurring. She blinked. She was lying against John on the bed, his arms around her, Taren leaning over them both.
“I am sorry, Samantha. I overloaded and took you with me. I am sorry. I did not realize how in need I was. “
“You have to go home and get feegled.”
“At very least,” Taren agreed, smiling. “Samantha…” His voice was a whisper and in that one word she heard everything he wanted to say.
“It was my pleasure.”
Taren snorted. “Hardly that for you.”
“I was flying, Taren.”
“You’ve never flown before?”
“Not like that.” She turned to look at John. “I felt your starlight in me. Is that the mutatis thing? It’s still there. I’ll never be alone again.”
His arms tightened around her. “Never alone, kitten-mine. And yes, I have given you a taste of mutatis. My name is Kuno and I exist for you, only for you.”
Taren smiled and bent and kissed them both. “We leave for Chizan in the hour.”
“So soon?” Sam asked, watching as Taren scooped his knives and clothes off the floor.
“Did you have plans?” Taren demanded, a black brow raised. “Take pity on your poor husband. You’ll wear him out.”
John snorted. “In your dreams, bird brain.”
Laughing, Taren strode from the bedroom.
“Now, where were we?” Sam demanded, stroking John’s stomach.
Three hours later, en route to Chizan.
“I’m not drinking your bloody potion, Taren, so take it away,” John snapped.
“It’s not open for debate, Kuno. You want to have a comfortable trip to Chizan, then you need sedation. If not for your sake, then for Samantha and for me, for the draconis. Your sex is barely controlled. Stars curse Ronsevaal blood! I don’t want to risk you igniting half way to Chizan. If that happens, then where will we be? I’m not adverse to an orgy, but not here, not now.” He held out the glass containing a mixture resembling the color and consistency of porridge.
Glancing at it, Sam thought it would probably taste worse than it looked—and that was saying something. At the face John pulled as he raised the glass to his lips, the concoction was definitely gross.
“Feegle it!” John hissed after he downed the contents in one gulp. “Why do all your drinks taste like dung?”
“Do they? Not having had the experience of tasting dung myself, I’m not going to comment.” He retreated, laughing.
Sam rested her hand on John’s thigh. Beneath her fingers she felt his heat, the shuddering and the locked muscles. Deeper, she sensed his fear, and his sorrow. The emptiness she had tried desperately to fill—the place within John that existed only for Hari.
Ah, Harimal. Sam sighed. John’s brother was still missing, even after extensive searches of the quadrant where his transport had foundered. A few pieces of blasted metal were the only clues that Harimal’s ship had ever existed in that section of space. Memories resurfaced. Now John was safely asleep she could relive the past and not try to hide her fears. Her anguish.
In the days after the news, they had waited, hope fading with every passing hour. Shifters of all species had joined the search, while John and Sam had remained behind in the apartment, coordinating the hunt and getting clearance and passage for the next flight to Chizan.
Eventually, most searchers were recalled home by their respective leaders. During the process of the galaxy-wide sweep, other shifters had disappeared without trace. Someone was taking the shifters down—regardless of species, and their human allies also disappeared.
“Face it, Mister Lucas,” the Terran ambassador had said, when visiting the apartment to offer condolences. “Your brother won’t have survived that accident. I mean, you saw the report. The ship was atomized.”
Sam held her breath. The ambassador should know better. John might have a human persona, but right now in the apartment, he was felinus and no one called a male felinus ‘mister’. The least he could do would be to address John as Maer. The human had forgotten he was dealing with Chizan royalty, too. The man’s brain must be glitched.
The silence in the apartment was terrifying. Sam stepped forward, certain that John would tear the idiot to pieces. Only Taren reached the ambassador first.
“The thing about humans is they don’t have stamina. When times are tough, they just go belly up.” Taren invaded the man’s personal space, to go eye to eye with him. “If you will recall, the Battle of Deneb. Felinus and Avenor held the line when humans wanted to surrender to the starlords. We fought with odds of fifty to one and we won. Where kin are concerned, where friends are concerned, trust me, ambassador, we do not give up. Ever.”
“Yes, well, yes…”
“Maer Kuno thanks you for your sympathy. I will see that the San Duran’s father is advised of it.” Taren marched the human to the door and sealed it shut. “Pity this door doesn’t have hinges, I’d have liked to have slammed it in the gevrin-iik’s face.”
Gevrin-iik? Sam didn’t want to ask for a translation because the shocked looks round the room said enough. Taren had probably committed some shifter faux pas, but who would dare reprimand an assassin? Especially an enraged assassin? Taren left the apartment.
“He is not dead,” John had insisted as he studied the star charts tiled over the screen. “I would know. There is part of me in Hari. As there is part of me in you, honey-cat.” He raised her hand and kissed it, his tongue tip sweeping over her wrist.
“I feel you,” Sam whispered. “Like a shadow in the back of my mind. Lurking.”
He raised a brow. “Do you like my lurking?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I’ll show you lurking, kitten, when we’re on Chizan.”
And a few minutes later, Taren, with two draconis guards, arrived to escort them to the starliner. Except the plan changed in the shuttle.
Taren, at the controls, had re-directed the shuttle to a long, sleek, needle-shaped craft at the far end of the space dock. His own personal hunter ship, the craft was built for speed, not comfort. The draconis grumbled, squeezing their eight feet tall shapes into the ship.
It had been no secret that John and Sam were going to Chizan and on what liner. Their luggage, emblazoned with the Ronsevaal device, a spiral of green and silver, had been dispatched ahead of them to the starship.
All for show, a complicated diversion, as it turned out, in case of spies. The last minute swap of ships would have thrown any pursuit into turmoil—and Taren’s ship was fast. The journey to Chizan would take two days at hyper-light, which was probably just as well, given the cramped conditions and John’s barely restrained sexual hunger. Sam’s thoughts returned to the present.
She glanced at John and sensed John’s frustration. His hand covered hers.
“I’m sorry, kitten-mine,” John said, smiling ruefully.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Not quite.”
“What are you sorry about?”
“For everything.”
“We’ve already had this discussion and don’t turn maudlin on me again, or I’ll slap you. I told you before. I’m not staying behind, no matter the danger. Besides,” she paused. “You and I are going to join for the mutatis. You can’t do that on your own.”
“I can divert the energy.”
Taren’s derisive snort reached them from the backseat.
“I can,” John hissed.
“In your dreams, cat-boy,” Taren said. “You want a repeat performance of that channeling we did in the apartment?”
“Stop being so damn stubborn and arrogant, Kuno!” Sam whispered.
“Arrogant? Stubborn? Me?”
“Yes.”
“I have to find Harimal.”
“Hari will be found. He’d kick you in the ass if he thought you were risking yourself for him. Mutatis comes first,” Taren snapped.
“And I thought your mood would have been improved thro
ugh your sharing with me and Sammi. If anything it’s bloody worse and that’s feegling saying something.” John growled and leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes.
* * *
Sam glanced out of the shuttle window. The craft sliced through the turquoise clouds, skimming over dark forests and rolling emerald hills. On the horizon she saw snow-capped purple mountains. Two moons, one silver, the other green, hung low in the dawn sky.
Purple, green and silver—the official colors of Chizan. John had showed her the planet’s heraldic symbol on the Galactic Council website. Chizan was one of the original signatories to the Council Charter and so wielded great influence.
Sam leaned against the window, her breath misting the glass.
Chizan was breathtakingly beautiful, heart achingly beautiful. No wonder the cats guarded it fiercely.
She remembered the glances at her as she walked beside John along the spacedock terrace, his hand at the small of her back—the felinus equivalent of holding hands in public. An outward display that the woman was his chosen.
He had dressed in felinus silk, the black caftan plain, except for the swirl of silver and green at the high collar.
Taren had insisted John wear the Chizan robe. John equally determined to wear jeans and t-shirt. “And be damned to the lot of them,” John had said to his clan-brother.
“Yes, damn them. But damn them later, Kuno. You need every advantage.” He flashed a hand signal at John and Sam frowned. The secret assassin message was lost on her. She knew some basic signings, but this one was unknown. But she didn’t have to be Einstein to figure it out.
“It’s because of me.” The looks on their faces was enough to tell her she’d interpreted accurately. “Even if I am your mate and you’re in mutatis, some aren’t going to accept me, are they, because I’m not felinus?”
John’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll make them.”
“How? By refusing to follow tradition?”
“Your kitten has more sense than you, Kuno. Sometimes it’s better to retreat and submit and save your strength for the war.”
So, John acquiesced and grumbled all the way to the shuttle dock.
“I like the caftan, John-Kuno,” Sam said. “Because I know you’re not wearing a damn thing under it. Very sexy.”
“You’re trying to manipulate me. Placate me.”
She grinned. “Is it working?”
“Might be.” He paused. “When I get you alone, I’ll show you manipulation. I’ll ease off your clothes and see what’s underneath.”
Sam wore her little black dress, with a new multi-chained belt slung low around her hips, her pearls and a flat pair of pumps. Balance and poise was everything and a gal couldn’t do either wearing eight inch heels in space stations, she’d learned that the hard way.
Taren strode behind them, his right hand on his dagger, his left hand hidden in the leather jerkin, another dagger at the ready if there was the slightest provocation. This was his message to all around him. At the rear, the two draconis walked, their spiked tails swishing behind them. People scattered, pressing back against the plasti-shield of the tunnel walkway, to avoid the draconis.
Not that she could blame anyone for their alarm. She had been terrified of them on first meeting. Teeth and claws razor sharp and dark fathomless eyes, and eight feet tall. Formidable, terrifying, but marshmallow inside, she had found out en-route to Chizan. While John had slept, she and the draconis had played Martian poker. Sam suspected they let her win the first two hands, for beginner’s luck. After that all bets were off and they played hard. Over cards and brandy, they had traded insults and jokes. When the time was right, she’d have to remember to tell John that draconis joke about felinus and scent. The two draconis had roared with laughter while Taren blushed.
But the easy shipboard camaraderie was forgotten, now they were in Chizan space.
Sam saw several black cats, resembling lions, with huge ruffs shadowing them on either side. Their obsidian eyes were unwavering and she felt they watched only her.
“Don’t let them upset you, Sam,” John said. “They’re Korcan. Felinus guards, loyal to the Ronsevaal.”
“They look like they want to eat me.”
“I can’t damn them for their good taste. Eating you is my job. Theirs is to escort us.”
Taren intercepted the customs officials at the end of the terrace and they were waved through formalities, quickly passing to the planet-bound private shuttle. The Korcan saw them on board and departed. Save one. The largest. The cat padded into the flight deck. There was a flare of purple light and when Sam’s eyes re-adjusted to the muted light of the interior, she saw a tall, middle-aged felinus dressed in a black spacer’s suit. His long grey hair was tightly braided and tied with a metal queue adorned with the heraldic colors of Chizan.
“He was one of the Korcan?” Sam asked, turning to John.
“Mm, Karev. “ John nodded to the felinus. “Good to see you again, Captain.”
The older man inclined his head. “And you, San Duran. Welcome to your lady. It is my honor to fly the shuttle to the palace. You are ready?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He retreated to the shuttle cockpit.
Sam settled against the cushions, grasping the arms of her chair. Her stomach did flips as the shuttle dipped sharply into the atmosphere.
So, here she was about to step foot on a world off limits to most humans.
The shuttle skimmed low over a purple-green continent, heading to its center.
Sam saw a huge lake; the water tinged mauve. A large island rose in the middle of the lake and built atop it was a palace, a cross between the Taj Mahal and the Alhambra.
Her artist eyes registered the shifting colors of the marble edifice, the play of light and shadow of the tracery towers and arches, and the contrast of every shade of green from the plants growing in profusion around the palace.
Four causeways led from the palace over the water to the surrounding land, roads disappearing into the lush forests and valleys. In clearings she glimpsed crystal obelisks and carved wooden buildings, reminiscent of Viking longhouses. The shuttle dipped lower, skimming the water, bearing straight to the palace. The closer they got, the bigger it became.
She glanced at John and saw his smile.
“Impressed?” he asked.
“Overwhelmed. Is this your home?”
“I was born here. It’s not my home.”
Perhaps for her benefit, the shuttle pilot did a complete circuit of the palace. She saw terraces and gardens and pools, fountains, rose-shaded courtyards and plazas.
The shuttle landed smoothly on a tiled courtyard and the door hissed open.
John drew in a deep breath and pushed himself to his feet.
Sam followed him to the door. Again, he breathed in deeply. She did the same. Unidentifiable scents as well as familiar perfumes—cat musk, rose, lavender.
“I forgot what Chizan smells like.”
“You’ve missed it, huh?”
He glanced at her and smiled. “Yes.”
“No place like home, Kuno,” Taren said.
“If you say so.”
“Don’t go cat on me.”
“You’re lucky to have a home, John,” Sam said. “I was never in one place long enough to call it home.”
He glanced at her. “Never?”
“That time with him didn’t count.”
“Let the time henceforth, Samantha, be a beginning,” Taren said.
She stared at the assassin, shocked. His philosophy was unexpected. He was always surprising her. As every shifter. Just when she thought she knew them, they were doing or saying something to reveal their layers and textures.
“Yes,” she said.
They stepped down the shuttle ramp onto the plaza. From beneath an archway, an older man, dressed in flowing black robes with the silver and green spiral across his collar, strode forward. Reaching John, he bowed formally, his right hand over his heart, then
palm opened, face up. He straightened.
“San Duran,” he said, inkling his head.
“Minister Devril.” John inclined his head. “Permit me. This is Sharille-Samantha fe’ha tu.”
The Minister glanced at her. He inclined his head, the merest gesture, and in that Samantha fancied she had her answer as to how she was regarded by the felinus.
“The King has demanded your presence the moment you arrived, so please if you will, follow me.”
John placed his hand at Sam’s back.
“If you please, San Duran. Not the woman. Only you.”
John sucked in his breath. The silence about them was ominous, charged with tension and anger—on both sides.
“It’s okay John. I can wait here.”
“My fe’ha tu waits for no one.” His eyes challenged the Minister.
Sam touched John’s wrist, lightly pressing, sending a private message, assassin-style: Don’t fret. Sort it later.
John’s finger pressure on her cheek: Sort it, yes! I’ll bite someone.
But not on the bum.
Won’t give that pleasure to anyone.
Just me.
You want for me to bite you? His gaze locked with hers. He smiled. “Very well, Minister. But my fe’ha tu is to be taken to my residence and accorded every respect.” He held the servant’s gaze, throwing down the challenge.
“It will be done to the best of my ability, San Duran.”
“I expect nothing less.”
The Minister snapped his fingers and two young male servants emerged from the shadows of the archway. “You, Zeren, take the fe’ha tu to the residence, and you, Aarn, see to the luggage.”
“It’s all right,” Sam said. “I’ve only one bag. I can take it.”
The Minister looked affronted.
“I travel light,” Sam said.
“I understand the necessity. These are difficult times. Nevertheless…” His gaze traveled her length.
Sam knew that look, had experienced it too many times to fail to understand. She did not measure up. And it hurt, more than ever because she wanted John to be proud...
“Kitten-mine!” John whispered. “You do me honor. Always. It is they who do not measure up.” He glared at the Minister. “Lead the way.” He touched Sam’s cheek. “I won’t be long.”
Starlight Passion Page 3
