by Loren Rhoads
Gripping the boot at the heel and toe, he eased it off.
Raena wriggled her toes, flexing her foot past the angle of the boot, then pressing her sole flat against the floor. She sighed. “I may never wear shoes again.”
Sloane reached for her other leg. He wanted to make her so many promises that they stopped his throat. He wanted to kiss her feet, to take away every discomfort she might feel.
Raena’s low laughter raised goosebumps across his skin. “Wash me first,” she said.
Had she read his mind? Sloane had never known the limits of Raena’s abilities. Whatever they were, they hadn’t been enough to keep her from being captured by the Empire time and again. And even though she’d engineered escape after escape, nothing but the Templar tomb had kept her safe from Thallian.
She slipped past Sloane to sink into the makeshift tub.
“Let me wash your back,” he said.
Raena dutifully rolled over in the water. Sloane’s breath hissed sharply. Long stripes ridged her skin, where burn marks had been forbidden to heal smoothly. Sloane touched her very tenderly, rubbing foam across her scar tissue with the flat of his palms. As gentle as his hands were, his emotions seethed white-hot. The possessiveness of his anger startled him. “For fleeing the Empire?” he asked in a low, tight voice.
“In service to Thallian.”
“We’ll get them removed once we get back to civilization. I’ll get you the best plastic surgeon in the galaxy . . .”
“I don’t want them removed,” she said. “They’re badges. They remind me what I’ve survived.”
“All I see is him hurting you . . .” Sloane couldn’t bear to speak the name again, to have Thallian come between them.
Raena twisted to face Sloane. Bubbles sloshed out of the tub onto the deck. “See me instead, standing up to him. Exhausting him. The only way he could express his love was after he hurt me. The pain bound him to me. It kept me alive.”
“Why would you want to remember?”
She smiled bitterly. “Because I thought I loved him.”
She traced her fingertips lightly over the faded scars webbing Sloane’s knuckles. “We don’t escape the past,” she reminded. “If I sanded away my scars, I’d lose the talisman that prevents the past from happening again.”
“No one will ever hurt you like that again,” Sloane swore.
“Really?” She smiled again, grinned wider when she saw him flinch. Then she promised, “Some tortures leave no marks.”
She pulled herself up against him, pressing her wet breasts against his dry tunic. She caught his lips in her kiss and twined her limbs around his, crushing Sloane against her.
When she finally allowed him to breathe again, she whispered, “Join me?”
He peeled off his wet clothing as she settled back beneath the bubbles. She watched him undress. Sloane was self-conscious in a way that he’d never been with other partners. He felt old enough to be Raena’s father.
She noticed his sudden loss of ardor, but only smiled.
He shivered where the ventilation blew across his damp skin. The water in that tub wouldn’t stay warm forever. “Where are you in there?” he asked.
She bent one knee so it broke the surface of the bubbles. Sloane placed his hand on it and used it as a landmark as he slipped into the water beside her.
She snuggled over against him, curling her head down under his chin where he couldn’t study her face. Sloane held her close, caressing her arms with his hands. He tried to analyze the feelings battling in his chest. Raena was naked beside him. She’d kissed him, clearly wanted to kiss him, and then stripped for his examination and invited him into her bath. But she wasn’t pursuing him or even making particularly suggestive gestures. She was just clinging to him like a grateful slave might hug her master: willingly, without being aroused or otherwise invested in the consummation. Sloane found the realization repellant.
Once again Raena seemed to read his mind. “Don’t you want me?” she whispered.
“With all my soul.”
“Then take me. You deserve it. You rescued me.”
Sloane pushed her back far enough that he could meet her eyes. “Don’t you love me?”
Raena allowed him to look at her, gazing back with black eyes that revealed nothing. “Of course,” she agreed.
“Tell me.”
“I love you, Gavin.”
“How much?”
“More than air.” She thought a moment, then added, “More than light. More than freedom. More than life.”
He watched her perform the litany. The gap between her promises and his doubts was excruciating.
Raena smiled at him, mocking and heartless. Then she pushed herself out of the water and bent over the tub’s edge. Sloane stared at the view she presented. She rummaged around on the deck, then slithered back under the bubbles. She held his boot knife above the water. With a grin, she caught hold of a handful of her black hair and hacked it savagely from her head.
“Careful!” Sloane warned. “That’s sharp.”
“I can handle a blade,” Raena teased. “When I’ve taken some of the edge off on this mess—” she raised another handful of hair “—I intend to give you the closest shave of your life.”
Sloane raised a hand to his beard. “I’m not sure I want you that close to my throat with a knife.”
Raena laughed as she sawed off more of her hair.
* * *
After she’d shaved him and let him escape from the tub, Sloane led Raena to his bunk, watched as she slid over to make room for him. He turned his back to pull on some slacks before he lay down. She only watched him, saying nothing.
He touched her face, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. The scar that had missed her eye was familiar from years of studying her wanted posters and images he’d stolen from Ariel, but so much time had passed, he couldn’t accept she had not aged.
Sloane knew the stone of the Templar tombs kept their contents from decay, just as moist and fresh as the day things were sealed inside. That was great for the antiques: the armor remained untarnished, the nectars and fruits juicy, the fabrics bright and crisp. He didn’t understand how it had kept Raena’s body alive for twenty years.
“Did you eat the grave offerings?” he asked.
“There weren’t any. The tomb was ready for the Templar Master, but he was never buried in it.”
“Weren’t you hungry?”
“For a while. Then I had the memory of hunger to torment me. Eventually, though, I had to let it go.”
“How did you survive?”
“I don’t know,” Raena answered. “I didn’t want to. I expected—hoped—to starve to death. If the Empire had left me anything I could’ve used as a weapon, I would’ve killed myself in the first hour. But when I shredded my cape, it never knit itself back together. The damage was irreversible. After that, I was terrified to injure myself. What if I broke my neck by accident or lost an eye or even just gave myself a concussion—and I had to live like that forever? I didn’t know if I would ever heal.”
He saw the horror of living permanently damaged reflected in Raena’s eyes and flinched away.
“I don’t know how I survived, Gavin. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if the Emperor knew that was what would happen to me when he had me imprisoned there.”
“Fucking Templar tech,” Sloane said. He pulled her into his arms so he no longer had to look at her face. “I’m just glad you did survive.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. In the space of a handful of breaths, she dropped off to sleep, unaware of—or unconcerned by—his scrutiny.
* * *
Rather than fidget beside her and keep her awake, Sloane retreated to his office where he could watch her on the monitor.
She curled up around his pillow, a faint smile on her lips. The feelings he had for her were tangled, beyond the reach of words. Never one for much self-analysis, Gavin watched her sleep and tried to figure out what he should do next
. So much of his life had been consumed by searching for her. What did he need to do now?
He felt at a loss. He couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t made love to her in the bathtub, when she was so obviously willing. Of course she would want to celebrate her return to the land of the living with sex. Who wouldn’t? But as much as he wanted her—or believed he did—he realized that she didn’t know him. He’d had twenty years to obsess and study and research her. He’d learned everything he could about her: poring over medical records and her Imperial service and watching her trial, interviewing everyone he could find who had met her or served with her or had survived trying to hunt her down. He’d analyzed Ariel’s memories and even quizzed her mother, although Ariel didn’t know about that. Sloane knew as much about Raena as she did herself.
But to Raena he was little better than a stranger. They’d met twice, briefly; both times ended with Raena taken into Imperial custody. She knew nothing about Gavin’s life before or after she vanished from it. He was forced to wonder if her declarations of love—however desperately he wanted to hear them—were only an act.
He would have to woo her, to make certain he could win and keep her.
The way to do so would be clearer with some help. He reached down to pry loose the box hidden on the underside of his desktop. Once he opened the lid, his hands knew the drill, setting out the vial and needle and kit. He had the shot set to go when Raena turned over in his bed. One of her hands stretched out as if reaching for him.
His body made a decision and contradicted his brain. He stood, crossed two steps to the disposal unit, and dropped the needle inside. The rest of the paraphernalia followed. Then, with the vial in his hand, he halted. The blue oil was valuable: expensive and hard to find. He should sell it. Send it to Ariel as a peace offering. Find some other kind of use for it . . .
That was the danger. If he kept it, he’d use it. And he didn’t want anything to come between him and Raena. Funny, how the thing that had kept him focused on finding her for so many years was persuading him to part with it. Dumping the Dart was the logical thing to do.
He opened the disposal and pitched the vial in, but turned away before he had to watch the drug incinerated. It was exactly like money going up in smoke.
* * *
When Kavanaugh stepped into the office, Sloane sat behind his desk studying his monitor. Kavanaugh debated whether he was meant to stand until noticed. In the old days, Sloane would never have kept him waiting.
Sloane looked terrible. It shocked Kavanaugh every time he saw him—the eyes sunken into pits in his skull, his nose shaved away to a beak. Sloane was just a handful of years older than Kavanaugh, but his face had set into a mask of determination, all traces of humor sloughed away. Only the muddy green eyes remained the same, although nothing ever warmed them any more. Kavanaugh wondered if the older man was dying. It made him cut Sloane slack when anyone with any sense would have refused to take his abuse.
Kavanaugh scuffed across the thick fur carpet and flung himself down into one of the chairs.
At the sound of Kavanaugh’s worn trousers hitting the expensive leather, Sloane looked up. “Thank you for coming.”
“Sure, boss.”
Sloane nudged the monitor around to face Kavanaugh across the polished steel surface of his desk. The screen displayed Kavanaugh’s numbered account and a startlingly high balance.
“I’ve appreciated your service, Kavanaugh. I could always rely on you to get the job done.”
“You’re firing me?” Kavanaugh asked.
“Now that I have what I was looking for, I’m closing down the archaeological team. Your men have all received generous severance packages, too. Once you’ve broken down the encampment, packed up everything salvageable, and loaded it onto the shuttle, give them the numbers. I’ll have Zilla drop you all off somewhere civilized.”
Kavanaugh looked up from the bribe in his account. There was so much that he wished he could say, for the sake of old times. Instead, he said the first thing that came to mind: “Raena asked you to shave the beard, huh?”
Without the beard, Sloane looked older, vulnerable and uncertain for the first time in a decade. Sloane made an aborted gesture toward his chin. “Thank you for helping me find her, Kavanaugh. I—”
“I knew her first,” Kavanaugh said quietly. “When I was a kid, I saw firsthand how dangerous she was. I still count myself her friend, Gavin, but I’m no rival to you. You don’t have to buy me like this.”
“You got a problem with the money?” Sloane growled.
“It’s insulting. You don’t need to bribe me to keep silent about her. You, of all people, should know you don’t need to buy my loyalty.”
“I’m trying to cut you a break,” Sloane snapped. “Raena thinks that she still has enemies living, that he’ll come after her . . .”
“Thallian is alive?” Kavanaugh interrupted. “So . . . what? You’re sending me away as a decoy?”
“I’m giving you enough money to get good and lost so that anyone looking for her doesn’t find you instead.”
“I’m good in a fight,” Kavanaugh protested.
Sloane’s laugh was mean. “She doesn’t need you to protect her, Kavanaugh. You know you’d only be in her way.”
* * *
Three days later, Sloane landed the yacht without a bump on the planet Brunzell, pleased that he could still fly so well after hiring Zilla to pilot for him. She’d taken her firing with more grace than Kavanaugh had. Sloane wondered if the girl was simply relieved to be free of his temper. Or maybe she had a good use for her hush money.
The yacht could’ve made the trip more quickly if he’d used the gate system, but Raena was freaked out about being traced leaving the Templar cemetery world. The yacht’s tachyon drive wasn’t as fast as the new tesseract drives on this year’s ships, but it was nice to have some time alone in transit. They’d put the days to good use, getting to know each other better. Sloane smiled to himself, wondering if he had any secrets left from her.
Sloane looked across the cockpit. Raena slept in the co-pilot’s chair, curled up in the crash web. Even in sleep, her face didn’t relax. Some worry drew her arched brows together. The frown emphasized the old white scar that just missed one of her eyes. In the yacht’s panel lights, Raena’s pallor had a shifting gray tone, like mercury. Shadows pooled in the hollows of her cheekbones and in the circles under her eyes.
Then again, he hadn’t actually seen her eat anything since Kavanaugh brought her out of the tomb. Water, sure. She’d drunk bottle after bottle of that, but as far as Sloane knew, nothing solid had passed her lips. He didn’t think she was frightened of food, but after twenty years in the grave, she seemed to have lost the habit of eating. He’d see what he could do about that. After all the years on the Dart, he had no place to criticize her eating habits. He could stand to put some weight back on himself.
He powered the yacht down, then went to collect the gear he’d need to settle in on Brunzell. When he returned, Raena was still asleep. He reached out cautiously. He hated to shock her awake, but the everyday sounds he’d made had no effect. Sloane touched her shoulder with his fingertips, ready to jump back as soon as she flinched. Raena didn’t react at all.
Gathering courage, Sloane shook her just a little. Again, he received no response. She was dead to the world, in Zilla’s oversized clothing.
This complicated things. If he had to, he could carry Raena home, but he had hoped to be inconspicuous enough that even the door system at his apartment complex wouldn’t notice his arrival. Raena jeopardized that if she refused to play along.
Sloane stomped out of the yacht to deal with the port authorities. He wanted to arrange to have the ship restocked and to schedule all the routine maintenance he’d deferred. If Raena was right about Thallian still being out there, it would be worthwhile to have the yacht ready to go in case they needed to run.
* * *
Raena kept her eyes closed a moment longer, listening to
the hum of the yacht around her. From the sound of the engines, they had landed somewhere, probably on the planet Gavin had been trying to get her excited about. He didn’t appear to be moving around the ship: off bribing the port authorities to ignore them, mostly likely.
She disentangled herself from the crash web and lay her hand on the computer terminal. It chirped, recognizing her. She silently thanked Zilla for her rushed tutorials.
Bit by bit, in every spare moment, Raena had been catching up on the galaxy. There was a lot she needed to adjust to. The human empire had been smashed. What was left of humanity had scattered across the stars. Gavin’s strictly human organization seemed to be an anomaly.
The thing that interested Raena the most was the extermination of the Templars. It didn’t surprise her that the Empire had conceived of something as horrific as a genetically targeted plague. What did surprise her was that her former boss was generally accepted to have been the key disseminator of it. Raena couldn’t believe she’d had no clue about that before she fled Thallian.
The more expert testimony she listened to, the more certain Raena became that her betrayal of Thallian somehow led to his part in the genocide. Either the Emperor had blackmailed him into participating—or Thallian had volunteered, figuring he had little else to lose. He’d hated everything that wasn’t human anyway.
Raena didn’t want to be responsible for genocide, however tangentially. The further she dug, the more the evidence accrued. It made her feel sick, but why should she feel guilty for something that happened after she was erased from the galaxy? She was sure Thallian had no such qualms.
* * *
Jain Thallian bounded from the Raptor, exhilarated to be allowed away from home on this rare adventure.
Revan Thallian followed more slowly, surrounded by a cluster of the family guard. It had been five years since he’d last been sent off on one of his younger brother’s errands. On that excursion, three of the guards had been shot. Another defected. Of course, Merin had hunted that one down before the family could be sold out. Revan had never been so relieved to be home as after that journey.
