The Breaking

by Imogen Keeper

  Ajax took a deep breath, face still pale, dark shadows beneath his eyes. Maybe he’d felt her reaction through the Bond. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. He knew her well enough now. He’d know either way.

  “Whatever happens, Feola, just tell them the truth. There’s nothing to hide. You didn’t break any of our laws. You did nothing wrong. Tell them everything you know about what Rennie and Utto were doing.”

  “What if they work for Utto’s uncle?”

  Ajax’s eyebrows rose, but she could tell the thought wasn’t a new one to him. He wasn’t that naïve.

  She’d learned the hard way that not everyone could be trusted. He’d had to learn that same lesson fast lately.

  “This would be a strange place for him to have spies,” he said. “This base is far away from his usual operations. But I’m sure he knows by now. They’ll have started reporting up the chains of command by now.”

  “Are you willing to trust our lives in this base’s lack of corruption?”

  “I’m not willing to trust your life to anything, Feola. But I don’t see any alternative.”

  She nodded.

  Tam and Nissa would help them. Spiro had better live and make all this worthwhile. She’d have to trust in his healers. And she’d have to trust in fate, because for the most part, it was out of her hands now.

  Trust. A hard thing to do after learning not to trust.

  Feola chewed her lip.

  “Do you know how they’ll proceed?”

  Ajax tugged on his ear. “I think they’ll separate us, almost immediately, for questioning. Look for any differences in our stories. They’ll ask for specifics. We certainly made an impact on Pilan, so we’ll have the same, verifiable story there. And they’ll contact Tam for corroboration. They’ll look into the details of Rennie’s death. And they’ll look at the details I found in the healing bay on Romeo-Two. They’ll see the fracture and the contraceptives. They’ll see the truth there. You did nothing wrong.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure she agreed. There was a dead man on a dusty, lavender-and-white planet several light years behind them who might disagree. She’d shot him for nothing, as it turned out, since the result was the same.

  Guilt. A hard thing to live with.

  Ajax was underestimating Utto. And his uncle. Ajax was tough, capable, strong—he’d proven it—but he’d never seen the ugliness of life. Not like she had. No one had ever hurt him on purpose, just for fun, for no other reason than that they could. That changed a person.

  44

  They took you away.

  While docking with the massive base, the ship thudded sullenly. So did Feola’s heart. Foxtrot-Thirteen looked enough like Romeo-Two to bring back memories of the first and only time she’d docked there as Utto’s new bride. She must have been so dewy and bright, gazing with vapid wonder at the exotic base, hulking in clear black space, the windows glittering like neon squares, the glowing dome in the distance. Full of promise and hope and love.

  Usually, she preferred to leave her shame dormant, but for once, she prodded at it like a sore tooth. Heaping blame on top of guilt. She’d hurt Ajax because of her choices.

  She should have seen it even then, Utto’s darkness. There had been clues. He’d looked at her with a simmering possession that hadn’t been entirely healthy. Ajax looked at her with desire and hunger, but there was gentleness there too. A sense of restraint that Utto had never had.

  Hindsight is so much clearer, though. And the clock couldn’t go backward.

  She unclipped her seat buckles and surged to her feet. Ajax brushed her back as he passed her to check on Spiro. When last she’d seen her mate’s brother, his skin had turned almost gray, his lips flaking and dry. Ajax’s face stayed grim as he conversed with the healers surrounding the gurney.

  Disquiet poured through their Bond.

  He rejoined her at the main hatch and took her hand. He shook. She glanced at his wan face, the dark shadows below his eyes, the fatigue written in the lines around his mouth.

  Whatever they found on the other side of the hatch, they’d face it together.

  She turned into his body. The warm weight of his arm settled along her shoulders, like it belonged there. His perfect Ajax smell surrounded her, the calm he always wore settling her nerves. Her heart slowed at the contact. This was what a Bond should be. What it should always be.

  The thought brought tears to her eyes. “I love you. Whatever happens. I love you.”

  His warm, turquoise eyes crinkled at the corners, and a half smile stretched one side of his mouth.

  “Crappy timing,” he whispered, and dropped a kiss to her temple.

  She disagreed. It was perfect timing. They had no idea what was about to happen.

  The hatch hissed open.

  A dozen stern-faced men, rezals held firmly across their chests, stared back at them. An older man, with the tired, world-weary eyes of an official, stepped forward, his face a tangle of hard lines.

  “Ajax Willo and Feola Upranimus?”

  She shook her head. So did Ajax.

  “Ajax Willo and Feola Willo. We’ve Bonded.” Ajax’s voice was firm.

  She got a little thrill hearing his formal name attached to hers, though they’d never discussed it. On Triannon, everyone had a name attached to the village in which they were born. She was technically Feola tami Benitarianni, but that was a mouthful, hard for the Argenti to pronounce, and complicated to explain. If Ajax’s name bought her protection and gave him some measure of satisfaction, all the better.

  Ajax’s arm stayed around her, but it drifted down her shoulders to rest in the small of her back. “My brother is on the ship. He needs a healer.”

  As a pair of Guarda moved past them to board the ship, a familiar blue head shined under the harsh overhead lights of the docking chamber. Utto. She stiffened and moved a step closer to Ajax. She’d hoped there’d be more time before she had to face him. But so be it.

  He burst out of the crowd, elbowing his way past people. “Feola,” he shouted. “Thank the gods! You’re alive. I couldn’t feel you anymore. I thought you were dead. What does he mean, ‘Willo’?”

  She eyed his snub nose and dark eyes; the bright, shiny white teeth; and his hard, brutal jaw. He looked genuinely concerned. Like a lover elated by the return of his inamorata.

  Ajax slipped his arm from around her and stepped in front of her, but she kept her gaze leveled on Utto. His hands fisted at his sides. There it was, a tell she recognized so well. The slight pull of his upper lip. Rage, barely controlled, simmering beneath the surface.

  “Hands up, Willo,” the older Argenti official said.

  “Get him back. He nearly killed my mate. Get him away from her, and you can do what you want. My brother needs medical attention, but we aren’t moving until Upranimus is gone.”

  The official paused, face conflicted.

  Feola shifted so she was close to Ajax, her hand resting on his waist. “Ajax is my mate now. We Bonded for three days, under a bright blue dome on a planet covered in purple flowers. It was beautiful.”

  Utto’s nostrils flared. The muscles in his neck bulged. Angry, but she felt nothing in her chest but Ajax. His eyes blazed. “Get the fuck off her, Willo.” Utto stormed forward, shoulders tight.

  Ajax shifted again, blocking her view of a blotchy red face and shimmering blue hair.

  Finally, the official moved. He jerked his neck at one of the Guarda, who stepped in Utto’s path. Utto was escorted away, thrashing and cursing, as more people boarded their ship, a few wearing the white coats of healers.

  Ajax raised his brows at her, mouth turning down in a wry expression of approval. “Well done.”

  She shrugged. “You did the same thing at Romeo-Two,” she whispered back.

  “Arms up.” The official’s voice echoed, and they no longer had a choice. They both relaxed as Spiro was wheeled off the ship in the company of healers.

  Ajax lifted his hands up in surrender, and she did the same. />
  They were immediately removed and separated. A knot of panic rose in her throat as a man took her by a firm hand on her upper arm and guided her down a hall. She turned over her shoulder, locking eyes with Ajax until she was tugged down a bend in the hall and he was gone from sight.

  She would not cry.

  A man with soft, pale-brown eyes and hair of the same color introduced himself as Inspector Miles. He took her to a small, dark room with a big, uncomfortable chair. “Are you thirsty?”

  She shook her head. He brought her water anyway.

  It happened pretty much exactly as Ajax had said. They asked her questions. Over and over again. And she answered until her mouth ran dry and she drank the water.

  They drew blood. Ostensibly to confirm the existence of her Bond with Ajax.

  They made her talk until she couldn’t talk anymore. Until her stomach knotted and sweat dripped down her cheeks. When she couldn’t answer questions anymore because her stomach convulsed, vision darkening, hands shaking, and the heat that flooded between her thighs made them all too uncomfortable to be in the same room with her, they left her alone.

  Finally, they brought Ajax back so he could give her his serum and make the pain go away. He came in furious, veins bulging on his forehead, shouting about rights and illnesses and maltreatment. He was angrier than she’d ever seen him, shoulders bucking against the shackles they’d put him in.

  The Guarda had shoved him in, and he’d stumbled, still shouting.

  This was not cool, calm Ajax. This was a madman with an unhealthy look in his eyes.

  When he looked at her, though, he calmed, breathing sharply through pinched nostrils. She picked her head up off the cold metal surface of the table and pushed to her feet, staggering over to him like a woman possessed, dropping to her knees, almost inhuman. Jerky and sharp and fast, she pulled his cock from his flight suit.

  Every muscle of her body relaxed when the first drops of his serum hit the back of her throat, as she sucked him deep, the shakes and the fever and the nausea receding. She stared up at him. His gaze was hooded, dark with possession.

  His eyes cleared, lost some of the manic frenzy. “I thought you were dying,” he said, voice gritty and dark.

  She pulled her mouth free. “Me too.” She lurched to her feet, shifting closer.

  “I need to be inside you.” He said it like he might die again if it didn’t happen fast.

  She backed up to the table, pulling her dress up around her hips so he could step between her thighs.

  Since his hands were stuck behind his back again, she had to guide him inside.

  He went more slowly. Taking his time.

  She didn’t hesitate to trail her fingers down her belly, to find the most sensitive place, and keeping her gaze locked on his, she ran her fingers in tight circles, gasping at the hungry look in his eyes as he thrust within her.

  They came together, fast and sharp, the serum bursting hot and wet, her moans echoing off the room’s walls.

  How many Guarda listened in outside the room? Or even watched them? A flush broke across her skin. She looked around the room’s four corners for a camera but didn’t see one. Which didn’t necessarily mean one wasn’t there.

  Ajax’s head dropped back. “Someday, we’re going to spend a month in bed. We won’t move. No one will bother us. We won’t have any handcuffs. No one will be able to hear us.” His voice rose to a bellow. “Or fucking see us.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. His cock flexed inside her as he shouted. She wiggled around it.

  He looked back down at her, eyes glinting. “I’m going to pull out because I’m pretty sure they won’t give us much more time.”

  She nodded.

  “Cover up, okay?”

  She nodded again, feeling sad when the warm thickness of his body left hers.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Will you do me a favor and put my cock away?”

  45

  They mean to keep us apart.

  A week passed.

  A week on a hard cot in an interrogation room.

  A week of soggy food and stale water.

  A week of visits with Feola scheduled like clockwork for every three hours. At least they stopped cuffing him for those.

  He wasn’t allowed to see anyone. No one would tell him how Spiro was, and he couldn’t get a straight answer as to whether or not anyone had tried to find the woman Torum had taken. Klymeni. Her father had to be terrified that his daughter was stuck in the hands of a Vestige bounty hunter. With Spiro unconscious, Ajax felt responsible for her.

  He railed and screamed, but the authorities turned a blind eye.

  It was wildly illegal to deny him access to a solicitor, but they hadn’t technically charged him with anything yet. Nor Feola.

  They claimed to be holding them. For their own protection.

  The Bond was the only blessing in a load of crap. He felt Feola, sweet and light on the other side. He never felt fear or hurt. At any second of the day, he knew that she was okay. It made the incarceration more bearable.

  A tiny part of him, infinitesimal enough to ignore, felt a vague sense of pity for Utto. It hadn’t all been an act in the docking bay. Utto was a prick and an asshole, and he deserved a long, lingering, painful death, but he’d lost a rare woman.

  Finally, on the eighth day, a Guarda opened the door. Ajax slitted open an eyelid.

  Tam sauntered in, looking smug in a tunic the color of blood, with great big silly epaulets. He also had on tights, or something that looked a hell of a lot like tights, and great big shiny boots.

  “What are you wearing?”

  Tam cocked a shoulder. “It’s the royal dress. I’m here on official business.”

  “You look stupid.”

  The Guarda shut the door.

  Tam’s grin spread. “Nissa likes it.”

  “She here too?” Ajax sat up on his cot.

  “Yes.” Tam leaned against the wall, crossing his booted feet at his ankles.

  “Good news?”

  Tam clucked his tongue a few times. “Yes and no.”

  Ajax waited, studying the restrained look in Tam’s gray eyes.

  “Spiro will be fine. He’s being kept sedated and probably won’t wake up for a while, but he’ll recover. No word on the woman yet, but they are looking into it.”

  Ajax dropped his head back for a second, letting his eyes drift shut. A small piece of him relaxed. He’d never have forgiven himself if Spiro had died because of him. He could only imagine how panicked his brother would be when he woke to find that a woman who’d been in his care had been kidnapped.

  Tam gave him a minute before he started talking again. “Utto is no problem. He’s a sure thing to go down. Everyone hates him and he keeps losing control. The senator basically dropped him. Utto’s got no case. The evidence is clear, corroborated by you and the healer from R-2. But the charges against Feola, and against you for abetting her, are more serious.”

  Ajax leaned forward.

  “He’s throwing a lot of money at this. His reelection is up in a year and a half, and he doesn’t want this besmirching his name.”

  “That makes sense. So he’s trying to get her declared a murderer and get us both shipped off and out of sight.”

  “Basically. But the people are on your side. I mean, you look at a picture of Feola and a picture of Rennie, and it’s just almost impossible to believe she could actually kill him.” Tam pushed off the wall and walked across the room, his boots clipping on the floors. “Nissa’s got Childers, the reporter for the big news network, plastering her photo up day and night, with commentary about how she weighs a third of what he does, and how she’s head and shoulders smaller, untrained. So the people on Argentus are furious, and they hate the senator by default. Nissa goes on the holo-vids every day, crying about how the people of Triannon miss Feola and want her returned, threatening to sever ties with Argentus if they don’t free you immediately.”

  Tam
dropped to a seat at the foot of the cot. “They think you’re a big golden hero. Rescuing the maiden and all that.”

  “That all sounds like good news.”

  “It is, and it isn’t. Because public opinion only counts for so much. But the reporter has basically made sure that there’s no way in hell you stand an unbiased trial.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “The DNA on the knife, the angle of attack, the fibers on his clothes. There’s no chance Feola didn’t do it.”

  “She did. It was self-defense.”

  Tam took a deep breath and stretched back to rest his head against the concrete wall behind him. “She stabbed him in the back.”

  “So?”

  “The senator’s lawyers will fight light hell to make yours prove innocence on that one. And that’s harder.”

  Ajax tugged on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in a long time, and his beard itched. Argenti culture was deeply rooted in the Tribe’s military procedures. Stabbing someone in the back was considered pretty low and dishonorable. Convincing the court that she’d had no choice would be a matter of personal opinion, and subverting subconscious values. But the weaker person was almost always given the benefit of the doubt.

  “But she’s a woman.”

  Tam tugged on his ear. “Which helps. The problem is, though, that no woman has been tried in a court for so long, no one really knows how to handle it. The lawyers say the judges are looking at old trials… but this is new territory.”

  “She’s so little. All they have to do is look at her. She wouldn’t have had a chance if she attacked him face to face. He’s trained. Three times her weight.”

  “That’s what your solicitors will argue. But the senator is throwing the full force of his money and power against it, and honestly, man, the solicitors are saying he’s been greasing wheels left and right. I’m not sure I trust the High Convene.”

  “You think he’d bribe the High Adjudicators? That’s a criminal offense.”

  “Only if he loses. And he doesn’t need them all. Just enough to hold the majority. He walks free, and you and Feola are found guilty.”