by Susan Grant
“You are the Key. You are the only one who can open that chest. Those responsible for sending you here saw to that.”
Garwin and some of the others clustered at the entrance now, recording images of the moment. It seemed invasive and somehow disrespectful, and yet it might delay her execution if not stay it if there was proof she’d helped to unlock the treasure.
Wren paused, her hands on the lid. To be unlocked only by the one with the blood of the goddesses in her good and pure heart. Wren didn’t feel good and pure. Her blood was too cursed. It was vile and wicked, and…
But the Earthling, Ellen, saw her as Wren, the doer of good things, not the warlord’s daughter, the carrier of evil. And in Aral’s eyes, she was the love of his life. His wife. It was enough to give her the strength—the heart—to make this moment worthy of all who’d placed their hopes in her, a small girl with a big reputation.
She grabbed the lid and hoisted it high. Her heart pounding hard, her mouth long since gone dry, she gaped at the open chest, trying to come to terms with the fact it had actually opened.
For a heart-stopping moment she thought it was empty. The two items inside took up little room: a sealed urn and a thick old book. Runes decorated the cover. As she ran her fingertip over the embossed, old-fashioned surface she trembled with realization. “This isn’t just any book, Aral.” She cracked it open. It was very likely the lost scripture the Coalition believed was hidden there. And she, a Drakken, was chosen to rescue it.
Carefully she replaced the book and turned her attention to the urn. Someone’s ashes. Whose?
“Freepin’ hells.” Aral stopped her hand. “The chest’s been compromised.”
“How?” Garwin blurted. “What?” He scurried inside and crouched next to them.
A modern-day datapad, covered with dust, had been hidden under where the urn had sat.
“May I?” Garwin started to reach for the datapad.
Wren shook her head. “The data is meant for me.”
She opened it, releasing a voice that echoed in the hollow chamber. “Ah, sweetling, your presence means you survived to do as you were destined. You will ask, how did you come to be here?”
Sabra! Oh, my fates. Wren’s hands opened. The datapad clattered to the stone floor.
Dismayed, Garwin cried out and snatched it up, and Wren stole it back, her hands shaking almost violently, causing the voice coming out of the unit to wobble. “It’s my guardian’s voice. How?”
“Your mother was a priestess of the highest order, child,” the recording of Sabra continued.
Lady Seela, a priestess?
“She was a Key—one of only a few blessed with guarding the knowledge of the origins of the goddesses. The goddesses left this and more behind when they fled their birthworld. It has been the responsibility of the Keys to guard its existence since the days of yore. As it has been the responsibility of the Keepers to protect the Keys. I, sweetling, was your Keeper.”
Wren almost dropped the datapad again. Aral helped her catch it. His fingers found the nape of her neck, gently massaging the knotted muscles there to calm her.
“The warlord didn’t know your mother was a Key, only that she was a powerful priestess. He married her by force in hopes of empowering his line with her holy blood. He felt she defied him by bearing a daughter. A man’s seed determines gender, yes, but the warlord believed she had special powers and chose to deny him a son.”
Sucking in a harsh breath, almost a sob, Wren clutched the datapad to her chest.
“She fled with you to a world called Issenda. There she reunited with her people, the sect of the Hand of Sakkara. She would have left you there to be raised, but wraiths found you both and returned mother and child to the warlord. She sickened and died. Indirectly, the warlord was responsible for her death, yes, but I don’t think he intended it. Your father was a very superstitious man. He feared her powers too much. He feared being cursed.”
“In the end he was cursed,” she whispered to the datapad as if talking to Sabra herself.
“I hope that we are listening to this together,” Sabra said. Wren squeezed her eyes closed to blunt the ache of tears. “But if not, and you are here, I was able to do as I vowed as a Keeper.”
Wren dropped her gaze to her hands clutching the datapad. Around the base of her index finger was a thin black band imprinted with dye in her skin. Interlinking eagles: the pattern was extremely common for a Drakken to wear. Yet the eagle for her was symbolic of so much more. It was her family crest, and had been for eons, even before the galaxy split into two warring sides. Now Sabra was telling her that her own mother had dedicated her life to serving those goddesses. It shifted Wren’s vision of Lady Seela radically. In her imagination she’d always been a rather helpless, fragile, ornamental beauty. Now she was a gorgeous and powerful priestess imprisoned by an ambitious warlord in a sham marriage.
Wren wasn’t bad. She was good.
Her power wasn’t evil. It was strength.
The revelation of everything. To be unlocked only by the one with the blood of the goddesses in her good and pure heart.
I am good.
“I am recording this message in your second year of life at your mother’s dying request. I only wish she were here to see you. She wanted nothing more than to see you grow up. She loved you, sweetling.”
Wren touched the urn. Her mother’s ashes were contained within.
“Now you will complete the final leg of your journey that Lady Seela could not. Her destiny is now yours, child. Deliver the lost scripture to the Goddess Keep. In the name of the goddesses I so say, Awrenkka. Make the galaxy whole.”
Wren rose on quivering legs, holding the heavy old book close to her chest. The lost scripture. Now found, she thought, feeling the responsibility weighing on her shoulders and in her heart. It was her duty to return it to the people. Her destiny. “The Goddess Keep. That’s the palace on Sakka.”
“The heart of the Coalition, the capitol,” Aral said angrily. “You’re wanted for treason. They’ll put you to death.”
“If that makes the galaxy whole, so be it.”
“Wren…” He lifted a not-too-steady hand to her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Her face almost crumpled, seeing the unshed tears in his eyes. She whispered, “I hope you don’t have to.”
“They won’t hurt her,” Garwin insisted with all the certainty of a scientist at the culmination of his life’s work. “Not knowing what we do now.”
“They were ready to do just that outside,” Aral argued, adjusting his rifle. “Knowing she was the Key.”
Garwin held up the image recorder. He aimed it at the sky, swiping his thumb over a tiny red light. It changed from red to green and back again. “The record has been sent ahead of us—to the ship, and, at the captain’s discretion, beyond. No one will be able to argue what happened here today.”
But others would welcome the news in a whole different way. To the loyalists, her blood had just doubled in value.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THEY WERE FINALLY ALONE. Aral sealed the door to their shipboard quarters while Wren sat on the edge of the bed they’d not yet had time to share in the way she wanted. Instead of taking the opportunity to kiss her and hold her, he paced like a caged jungle predator. All because she was forcing him to Sakka and the heart of the Coalition, and he was certain they’d never get out alive.
“If it’s meant to be, Aral, we’ll have our life, our future. If not…”
“How can you leave it up to fate? That’s like the believers, handing everything over to the will of the gods.” He made a fist. “I believe in taking a proactive approach to life. I won’t sit back and place my whole existence in someone else’s hands.”
“Not even mine?”
Her quiet question stopped him. He seemed to want to use a harsh tone, puffing out his chest, then his tenderness for her took over and he calmed. “You’ve completed your promise to your guardian. Now it’s time
to complete my promise to you—see you to safety. I won’t leave it up to fate.”
She patted the bed. “Come lie with me for a while. Remember the nights on the mat?”
His mouth softened. “How could I forget?”
“We won’t have long to rest before we have to join the others. I…I want to know what it’s like to be married to you. In every way.”
She huffed out an annoyed groan when he continued to frown, pushing off the bed to walk to his side. She brushed her knuckles over his warm cheek. “If it’s battle you miss, then make me your next campaign. I want a coordinated frontal attack, a well-planned invasion. Maybe even a surprise ambush.”
She was the virgin, yet he turned red. Then he laughed, shaking his head. “I can be an idiot sometimes.”
“Yes, you can.”
“For as long as I planned for you to be with me, now that you are, I don’t know what to do with you, how to be a husband. I wasn’t bred to be one. I had no examples.”
“I have even less of an idea how to be a wife. Although I thought we were off to a good start on that sleeping mat.”
Her hands curved behind his neck, massaging his knotted muscles and making him utter a sigh, his eyes almost fluttering closed. Then he jerked back.
“It’s not wise, taking this time. Not now. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. Her body reacted instantly with a flurry of tingles. She swallowed her sigh as he bent his head to brush his lips over hers. A slow and tender exploration. Her tingles became a roaring blaze. “I’ll fall more in love with you than I am already.”
She leaned closer, her lips a breath away from his. “And is that so terrible?”
“It is for a man terrified of losing you.”
“We can’t live in fear. That’s no way to live. I don’t know how much time I have left but I don’t want to do it running scared. Is that what you learned in battlelord school? To run?”
His face turned hard. “As long as he’s alive, we’ll never be free. He’ll never let us go free.”
“Karbon?”
“Yes. Those were Bolivarr’s words to me. He’s right. If I had killed him when I had the chance, then perhaps we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“Karbon is not in this bedroom. I will not stand for it.” She grabbed his collar, pulling him down to her. “It’s me and you, Aral. No one else.” She gentled her voice. “Show me you feel the same. Show me.” She pulled him down to her mouth, kissing him hard.
His resolve crumbled in the face of her onslaught. Smiling, she left him no escape. Marrying a battlelord had been her greatest nightmare. Sabra had warned her away from the Mawndarrs, telling her that even Aral would mean the death of her. Sabra never knew about their shared glance the day Aral visited Barokk. Wren had otherwise told her guardian everything. Why not that?
Because she’d had so little she could call her own. Aral Mawndarr was hers.
She thought he’d reach for her blouse to undress her, or perhaps lead her to the bed. Instead he caught her around the waist and pressed her close enough to feel the hard contours of his body. The sheer potency of his masculinity was dizzying, and her physical reaction? Immediate. Her skin warmed, and she tingled low in her belly. Holding her gaze, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing them to the heel of her palm, and then the inside of her wrist. Goosebumps prickled her arms. “Slowly. Gently. It’s your first time.”
“I won’t break. And you’ve already seen my enthusiasm.” She cupped her hands behind his rear and gave him a firm little push just to prove the point.
His pupils dilated, turning his black-gray eyes even darker. The dimple in the center of his jaw deepened as he let out a quiet male laugh that sent delicious shivers all the way to her toes. “In spades.” Another shudder coursed through his body as he pressed her close, one big hand cupping the back of her head. Her sense of smell hadn’t lessened with the return of her vision. His unique scent filled her nostrils, spicy and exotic. On a primal level, she smelled his arousal. And felt it. His kiss was hot, hard with passion as he guided her backward to the bed. A heartbeat later she was lying on top of his powerful body, her knee wedged between his muscular thighs, his hand resting possessively on her back, as if ensuring she didn’t escape.
Hells, she wasn’t going anywhere—not in the midst of this. Madness, she thought, as they threw off their pants and shoes, and everything else not buttoned or tied down.
She soaked in the sensations of his eager exploration of her body, and hers of his. She slid her arms over his shoulders, her head tipping back, trembling for that first feel of him entering her. His hard body trembled, muscles shifting as he fitted himself inside her, ever so slowly joining their bodies. She was so ready that already she could feel her inner muscles contracting, squeezing him. Fates. A pulsing pressure began to build, deep inside her as he moved, so carefully at first then with more passion.
She moved with him, her blood running hot, losing herself in the sensations. “Wren.” He seemed to be clinging to the barest shreds of control. “Slow,” he warned. But by the fates, she couldn’t. It was too late to hold back.
Afraid she might cry out and alarm someone outside in the corridor, she pressed her teeth against Aral’s heaving bare shoulder. He hissed a breath between clenched teeth. Hearing him at the limits of his control both frightened and fascinated her. Skating along the edge with him, urging him on, she felt lightheaded and aroused and a little bit out of control.
Her belly contracted and her hips writhed. He caught her moans with his mouth as she arched her hips, her entire body rocking with pleasure. Then, with his own release still quaking through him, Aral wrapped her in his arms in a way that said she was now finally, inarguably his.
The vengeful battlelord tormented by nightmares and the warlord’s forgotten, freedom-loving daughter—it sounded like a disaster in the making. But it was the best thing that had ever happened to them both.
KAZ FOLLOWED KEIR DOWN to the bay to see Borrowed Time. “You’ve seen better days,” he said, running his good hand over the dented, charred hull.
“You’re one to talk. You’re looking about as banged up as your ship.”
“That’s what I was talking about—not you.” He held up his injured hand. “It was only a graze.”
“A graze?” One of those perfect inky brows of hers rose. “You have a hole right through the center of your hand.”
“Bah. Cosmetic.”
“It’s going to put you out of flying for a while until they knit up those tendons. That’s not cosmetic.”
“Now you struck me in the heart, fair maiden, reminding me I can’t fly.”
“Fair maiden? What happened to doll face?”
“Fair maiden suits you better. Kind of like sexy beast suits me.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Yeah. You’re a fair maiden, all right. The beautiful princess who never wants to be rescued.”
“I don’t need to be. I can take care of myself.”
“It’s not so bad letting someone else do it sometimes.”
Her brows drew together, her mouth pursing as she studied him curiously. He suddenly envisioned kissing away that skepticism, and everything else, including all that high-collared, perfectly tailored clothing she liked to wear—that she looked blasted fine in, but he still had to wonder if she wore anything lacy under those militaryesque outfits. And if she’d mind if he unfastened those lacy underthings with his teeth—right before he proceeded to devour the rest of her as if she was the best flargin thing he’d ever tasted.
He stopped himself before his brain ran any further down that path, or she’d be wondering just why his trousers seemed to be becoming uncomfortably tight. He gave the patched-up fuel tank a once-over. “They got themselves one hells of a mechanic. It’s almost as good as new.” He stopped under the wing, pretending to inspect the leading edge next. “So, I’m thinking out some new ways of doing business. Th
is was but one treasure left behind when the flargin galaxy split up. The same happened all over these worlds. Sister Chara even said so. That stuff’s ended up in private collections, illegal museums, and even on some blasted arrogant loyalist’s yacht. And what about the treasure still where they left it? Riches for the taking.” He rubbed his hands together, then winced and swore.
“Vantos, you should be resting that paw.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will. But let me finish. I say we head out and see what we can find. Sure, the Triad will want it, but we’ll get a percentage of what we recover for our trouble.
“You’re serious.”
“As a shot-up hand. It wouldn’t take long to build up the business, especially if we’re the first ones out there. And it definitely won’t take long to build up our profit.”
“‘We’? ‘Our’?”
He gave her his best grin. Well, it used to work for charming other women. He could tell by the tiny flicker of interest that it did Kaz, too. She just didn’t want to admit weakness. A weakness for him. “I’m proposing to you, Kazara Kaan, for blasted sakes. Do I have to spell it out?”
“Proposing? Proposing what?” All the blood had drained from her face.
“A business arrangement. We hunt treasure and get paid a share of what we find. It’s better money than hauling toilets. And what have you got tying up your schedule now, with Mawndarr all married?” And Bolivarr cozy with his captain, he almost said, but shut his trap seeing Kaz’s hand started to lift to where her earrings used to be. Started to. And didn’t. “Don’t you want to try something new?” Try me? “What do you say? See how we—I mean, the arrangement works out.”
When she looked up at him, it was with interest. “You drive a hard bargain, Vantos.”
“Keir.”
“Keir,” she conceded in her husky voice. Then she shrugged. “Peacetime doesn’t have much use for battlelord seconds. I’ve been looking to start a new chapter in my life. And I liked flying your ship.”
