by Zara Zenia
“What is it, Akrawn?” I asked. “Is Cat—”
Akrawn’s smile grew. “She is! And in addition to that, Hugh and I managed to figure out the scanners. He’s uploading the new programming to the scanners as we speak.”
“Hugh?” I asked, confused.
“My AI. He’s chosen the name Hugh,” Akrawn replied.
“I still cannot get my head around all of that tech and the AIs becoming sentient, Akrawn.”
“Well, it is a good thing they did, or we might not still be here on Earth. Father would have pulled us all back to Trilyn before you three had your chance to find your match.”
I nodded. “I am glad the scanner will be serviceable soon. There is someone…” I stopped, not sure I wished to share quite yet.
“You have someone you think may be a match?” Akrawn grinned. “Congratulations, brother!”
“We shall see if my Kelly is compatible. Even if she isn’t, I love her.”
“I wish you luck, brother, in this endeavor and with your mate.”
“Thank you, Akrawn, be safe.”
“And you, brother.” Akrawn signed off.
Less than three hours after we arrived, Kelly, David, my security team, Jake Corbin, and I left for a mysterious location designated by the mercenary. With a short search on her phone, Kelly discovered the address was a little used business park in an economically depressed area of the city.
"The perfect place to be if you don't want to be found," she said.
David and Corbin traveled in a separate transport which left Kelly and me alone in mine. In the air, the trip would across the city would take only a few minutes. It wasn't enough time.
Neither of us spoke for the first leg of the journey, laying against one another as we waited for the next few minutes to decide our fate. It was Kelly who broke the silence.
"You know it's a trap, right?" she asked. "He wouldn't have agreed so quickly otherwise."
I brought her hand to my mouth, brushing her knuckles with my lips. It was undoubtedly a trap, which was why I had spent the entire ride trying to think of a way to talk her into staying outside.
"You will be safer if you stay in the transport," I blurted when all finesse failed me.
The smile came back to her face. The brilliant, mischievous smile that made me feel as if we could conquer the entire galaxy by ourselves. She leaned up and pressed her lips against mine, just as the transport began to descend.
"We talked about you trying to leave me behind, Lortnam," she said. "Whatever is happening in the next few minutes, I'm with you."
Corbin's warehouse sat at the end of a one-way road. The buildings around it had 'For Rent' signs tacked to the front in contrasting colors and white print. Bits of random trash were strewn around both sides of the street.
"Don't let the ambiance fool you," Corbin said, kicking a can that lay near his feet. "What it doesn't have in appearance, it makes up for in lack of nosey neighbors."
"Nobody wants jokes from you, asshole," David snapped. "Let's get your friends and get going."
Corbin turned to me. "Are you gonna let him talk to me like that?"
I shrugged. "I'm your employer, not your guardian. How your own people speak to you is no business of mine."
Corbin glared, then stomped toward the glass entrance, muttering about 'shit bosses' and 'crappy clients'. David followed after. I gestured for Kelly to stay by my side.
The interior of the building was subdivided into offices and hallways, making it look more like standard offices than the exterior suggested. The main hall stretched so far back that without lights, a deep pool of black gathered at the end though it was daylight outside. A thin yellow sliver glow from the bottom of the blackness shown, revealing a door.
"Can't wait to tell Blue the deal we worked out," Corbin said, leading the way. "He was pretty fond of our old boss."
As Corbin reached the door, he turned the handle and pushed it open. There was only one Human in the room, and it wasn't the one called Blue. It was a woman in casual clothes, sitting on a floor cushion with her legs folded in front of her.
She was a slight, thin woman with frail bones that always gave me the impression she might snap under the weight of her pale green spandex clothing, the world, or a stiff breeze. Her stark blond hair stopped at a severe edge near her jawline, as if she'd grabbed a sword and shorn it all off in one clean swipe.
Nora Morse. Sworn enemy of my brothers and I for reasons she had yet to reveal.
"Shit!" Kelly whispered.
Nora's eyes snapped open. She looked first at David, then at me, and finally at Jake Corbin. Yadav put his hand on his service weapon.
"I've been waiting a long time to say this," Yadav said, pulling his weapon from the holster at his hip. "Nora Morse, you're under arrest."
"Oh, I wouldn't bet on that," she said calmly. "It's not on my to-do list for the day."
A rage swept through me so powerful, for a moment I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was, except a fool of a man who had just brought the woman he loved to the door of his only enemy.
"Lortnam, something isn't right," Kelly whispered.
I turned to reassure her, but the look in her eyes stopped me short. It saw not fear in her eyes, but desperation. As if she were begging me to protect her from whatever came next.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Get DOWN!" David screamed.
Without a second thought, I grabbed Kelly around the shoulders, using my body to shield her as he fell to the carpeted floor.
The first gunshots rang out a second after.
Chapter 16
Kelly
Something isn’t right. The words looped over and over again in my head as Lortnam pushed my body to the ground. I clamped my hands over my ears against the roar of gunfire. I curled my body up as tightly as I could. It wouldn’t save me from a bullet, but it might improve my odds. Lortnam hovered over me. He used his body to shield me from harm.
In the middle of the chaos, I felt a sharp stab of regret. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Nora and Jake Corbin knew one another. But she sure as hell wasn’t part of his mercenary team. The Nora Morse I’d met wouldn’t dirty her hands that much.
A firing squad ambush, on the other hand, seemed right up her alley.
Poor Lortnam. As far as I could tell, his only crime was getting mixed up with a woman who would accidentally lead him to his death.
Finally, the firing stopped, leaving only the pounding of my heart in my ears to fill the silence. I took a chance and lifted my head.
Jake Corbin had ducked behind a filing cabinet for cover. Special Agent Yadav lay on the floor with his service weapon still drawn and his head down. Lortnam hovered over me, his eyes full of concern.
"I’m all right," I whispered. A plain expression of relief washed over his face. Thank whatever fates existed he believed the lie so easily, because it wouldn’t have held up to even the slightest bit of pressure.
I was trapped in a room with my former boss, an alien who thought I was someone else, and a representative of the UEG who would, no doubt, be willing to arrest me on the alien's orders. If he survived my former boss' homicidal plans for us all.
Lortnam rolled away from me and turned to Yadav. The Agent, ever dedicated, had used the few seconds of quiet to crawl over to Nora and clamp his wrist around her bare ankle. "You're not going anywhere," he said through gritted teeth.
A serene smile came to her pale face, revealing her perfect white teeth. "Why should I go anywhere?" Without taking her eyes off of Agent Yadav, Nora tilted her head toward the door, raising her voice loud enough to be heard through it.
"Hold fire," she shouted. "Until I give the command."
"What about my brother?" a voice shouted back. "Is he all right?"
Corbin laughed from his hiding spot behind the filing cabinet. "Doin' just fine, Blue!"
"Your brother had his doubts that I'd make good on our deal," Nora said in the same condescending tone
she had used the last time I saw her. "But I told him, I always take care of the help. In fact, it's one of my redeeming qualities."
"Like you took care of Tia Teller?" Yadav snapped. "We wouldn't even have been able to identify her body if people hadn't seen what happened to her."
Nora dismissed the accusation with a disinterested shrug of her boney shoulders. "I don't know anyone by that name. Why don't you tell me what happened to her?"
I didn't know anyone named Tia Teller either and I sure as hell didn't know what had happened to her. But one look at Lortnam's darkening expression told me it couldn't have been good.
"It matters not," Lortnam said, turning his eyes toward Nora. "You will answer for that crime and all others you've committed against my people."
Nora held up her bony, perfectly manicured index finger. "A monarch hardly embodies their people, a Prince even less so. For all we know, there are no more of your species in existence than were in those ships, and now there aren't even seven of them."
The blonde smashed her heel against Special Agent Yadav's fingers until he let go of her ankle. Once she was free, Nora slid to her feet. She reached her arms into the air. With a gentle tug, she pulled the hem of her pale green t-shirt straight.
"And do get up," she said. "The four of you look perfectly ridiculous."
"Better ridiculous and alive than fancy covered in blood," I said, climbing to my feet.
Finally, for the first time that evening, Nora's cold eyes fell on me. "I did warn you that my side was the better choice, Kelly. It's really a shame you didn't listen."
I swallowed hard. There was no stopping the truth now. Assuming I left the room alive— and that was more than I was willing to assume —the secret I had been keeping from Lortnam was going to die. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
Sure, I could lie. After all, everybody in the room seemed to hate Nora Morse at least as much as I did. From the wild look in Lortnam's eyes, he was ready to tear her limb for limb for insulting me. Maybe he figured there was a reasonable explanation. Maybe he thought Nora had to be lying. Or maybe... my poor Prince had just put too much faith in me.
I couldn't keep the truth from coming out. I had no control over how badly Lortnam would take my betrayal. The one thing I could control, the only thing, was how I dealt with being exposed. I could lie and hope my word carried more weight or be as honest as he had been with me for the first time in our relationship.
"I was never on your side, Nora. The biggest mistake I ever made was getting mixed up with you," I said, keeping my focus on her. "The second was not coming clean sooner."
"You wanna run that by me again?" Agent Yadav snapped, turning toward me.
I didn't answer him. It wasn't his reaction that I needed.
David Yadav was only a UEG Agent. The worst he could do was arrest me. The massive, tan alien standing beside me could do so much worse. He could toss me in the cells of his palace and leave me there to rot. He could pull up stakes from Earth entirely and simply leave me behind.
But the Prince wouldn't look at me. His burning gaze was fixed on Nora Morse, his chest heaving with rage. Whether it was meant for me or for her, I couldn't be sure.
"Don't waste one second worrying over what you've done, Kelly dearest," Nora said, her voice shifting to a sing-song pitch. "You'll all be dead before the night is out."
"For fuck's sake, Nora, that's enough. Are you really crazy enough to kill three people and start an intergalactic war on the off chance you benefit from the ashes?"
"Of course not you idiot," Nora sighed in disgust. "Honestly, I thought you were smarter than that. Look very closely at your lover, Kelly. Has he ever for one moment been fully with you or has his mind always been half on his duties? A good ruler is a prisoner of them, you know."
Her tone made it obvious Nora already knew the answer. It was true. Most of Lortnam's conversation had been about his life, either how I might fit into it when he went home or the fiery mess it had become thanks to Nora. We hadn’t gotten to mine at all, but that was as much my fault as his. On our first date, I had been gathering information about him. On the second, I had struggled to cope with realizing I had feelings for him. It hadn’t left much room for him to get to know me.
I was beginning to understand what I felt for Lortnam, but how could he feel anything for a woman he didn’t really know?
When I didn't respond, Nora tilted her head up in triumph.
"Tell me, Kelly, if he's so interested in you, why hasn't he scanned you?" She walked toward me slowly, lingering over every step. "It's the only way to confirm and cement your match. Why delay it?"
Lortnam stepped between us, blocking Nora from my sight with his massive back and strong shoulders.
"The scanners you managed to tamper with?" he demanded. "How many more false matches will you try? How many times will you toy with our emotions?"
"Just this once more, sweet Prince." Nora's voice dripped with venom. "I promise."
Nora stepped around me. I grabbed her arm, slipping my hand into my pocket and pulling the palm-sized stunner from it. Before she could counter, I put the weapon over her neck, barely an inch from the surface.
"I wouldn't move, Nora," I said, nodding toward the silver cylinder in my hand. "Dunno how much kick this little guy has, but I don't suppose it matters much if it goes right to your brain."
Nora's eyes flew open. Her chest heaved, but she didn't move. "I would advise you to let go of me, Kelly. Very quickly."
"If she leaves this room, none of us are getting out alive, Lortnam," I said, never taking my eyes off of Nora. "You know that."
"Damn it, Blue, it's going south. Shoot!" Jake Corbin shouted from his hiding spot.
This is it. I braced myself for the inevitable volley of gunfire that would rip my body to shreds. Instead, there were sounds of struggle in the hallway beyond the door, then a single gunshot, a cry of pain, and silence.
Behind Nora's shoulder, Jake Corbin's mouth fell open. He leaned his head out from behind the filing cabinet, staring at the door with a look of growing dread. "Blue?"
Silence.
"They only respond to my orders, Jacob," Nora said through gritted teeth. "Well, all of them except poor Blue. My condolences."
Special Agent Yadav moved behind Nora and secured the handcuffs around her delicate wrists. "Nora Morse, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to—"
Jake's body shook as he climbed to his feet. "Bullshit. Blue? Blue!"
"He's dead, Jake Corbin," Lortnam said. "May the good he did in life outweigh the evil that led to his death."
Jake roared. He rushed at Nora, head down, ready to tackle her. Lortnam halted the attack by ramming his forearm into Jake's nose, using his own momentum against him. The mercenary howled in pain and crumpled to the floor.
"You know I'm right," I insisted, looking at Lortnam. "If she walks out, the three of us are dead. Where are your guards?"
"I haven't called them," he said simply. "Nor will I."
"Bad idea, sir," Yadav said. "If I call in reinforcements, they won't get here before that team busts through that door."
Lortnam stared at Nora, his eyes moving over her as if trying to read her intentions. Then he turned to me. "Will she send them through?"
"Not while she's in here with us," I said, shaking my head. "She doesn't believe in getting her hands dirty."
"You seem to be well informed of Ms. Morse's habits, Kelly Fillmore," Lortnam said.
The sound of my fake name from Lortnam's lips hit me like a punch in the gut. I heard the question behind the words. He wanted to know how much of what Nora said was true and how far my deception had gone. Lortnam was giving me my only chance to come clean.
"My name is Kelly Grant, your Highness," I said. "If we survive the night, I'll tell you everything I know."
"You won't live long enough," Nora spat. "The ugly side of a
noble ruler is already rearing its ugly head. You heard the Prince, Kelly. He's not going to call in his guards. Mine can wait all night for the three of you to make a mistake. How long do you think it will take?"
Considering there were three of us and only one Nora, I thought we could go at least a few hours without making a mistake that gave Nora her opportunity. Plenty of time for David Yadav to call in the UEG.
"Can you call in the cavalry?" I asked him.
"Could've if we hadn't transferred the case back to the Trilyn Police Force," he said. "Even if she hasn't blocked Human communication signals, sorting that out will take longer than we have. Especially once Jake there wakes up. Sir, I highly advise you have your security team breach the perimeter and attempt a rescue."
"I cannot," Lortnam insisted. "Nora Morse is a member of the Human Union of Citizens. Her security team, armed though they may be, are as well. I cannot order my security team to take an action that will lead to a war between our people."
As each word left his tanned lips, my heart sank. How many times had Lortnam told me he would leave everyone and everything on Earth behind, including me, to prevent a war?
Why hadn't I expected that to extend to his own life?
Why hadn't I thought it could extend to mine?
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "If you won't call them in, what do we do? This standoff won't hold forever. What's the plan?"
"I will go into the hallway with Nora as my prisoner," he said calmly. "Her behavior has more than warranted an arrest. I wager she will not have her security team shoot while she's in the line of fire."
"She'll just have them shoot you in the back, Lortnam," I said.
"Indeed, but you and David will have time to escape through another exit. All you need to do is get to my security team."
"How will you command them if you're dead?" I insisted. This time I didn't bother to keep the emotion from my voice. The cool tone he used to explain his sacrificial plan only made it terrify me more.
