by Honor James
She knew when she was beat and nodded. She didn’t want to stay with her mother, however, she had learned one very important rule. Women were not allowed on Alliance vessels that were going into any kind of melee unless they were an officer’s wife, and even then it was rare. “All right, Father, I look forward to it.”
She watched as the large man that she knew was gruff and withdrawn pulled back and away. He was cold to her mother, but who wouldn’t be? The woman was a shrew and believed that because she was of a Lord’s House everyone should bow and scrape to her. She used her husband’s rank and position to make herself more than she was. Her father, however, was a good man, especially when it was just her and her father. He was warm and friendly, but not around anyone else.
* * * *
Jami was seventy-five when she went through puberty, so to speak, and when she came out she was not only physically changed, but mentally and spiritually. The Seer from another land had not only told Jami that she would go through puberty early, but also had imparted to her in hushed tones just what she would come out the other side with.
Women of the Vampire nation all matured normally at their hundredth birthday. They underwent a physical and psychic change at that time. The time was marked with days of fever, delirium, and danger. The few women that survived came out the other side with amazing abilities. The men had dark gifts, and they were truly astounding. But the women were different. Some of the very, very rare ones came out of their puberty with a lighter ability, but no one outside of the highest ranks of the Alliance Council knew this.
When Jami came out on the opposite side of her puberty, she had a gift that was unique. Jami came out able to find anyone or anything at any time.
When Jami woke from her seven days of hell, what the women who survived the marking of their puberty termed it, she didn’t speak to anyone. She simply dressed, packed a bag, and walked out the door of her mother’s home, never to look back again.
* * * *
One hundred years passed, she lived and worked, breathed and learned with each mission and each step she took. She never went back to her father’s ship. Instead she bought her own small ship and began to work her gifts. Hardened by time and necessity, she was contacted only privately, and through an Alliance council member. Her abilities were a tightly held secret that no one in the Alliance wanted anyone to know, not even others of their kind. No, Jami was more than special. She was their ace in the hole. Too bad for her.
* * * *
It was a space fight, one that meant life or death for her. Sometimes doing what she did, finding the lost, was enough to have people ready to kill her. This was sadly one of those times. She made the first evasive move in the small and agile runner she’d bought two years earlier from proceeds she had received from finding a lost heiress five years earlier. She punched through a small break in the warbird’s defense, laughing as she took the runner into a spin. She raced around asteroids before using the gravity of the nearest moon to jumpstart her velocity and evade the full force of the Alliance Warship.
Leaning back in her chair, she puffed out her cheeks in a sigh that said exactly what she felt. Thank whatever Gods she believed in she was alive. Wiping a hand over her eyes, she bent at the middle and breathed in and out, in and out. For several long moments of time she simply lived.
“Damn, that was too damn close,” she grumbled and pulled out the long rectangular box. “I hope like hell you’re worth it.” She tossed the parchment paper inside of the box onto the center of the flight console and put in the coordinates to the drop off point. “Well, to me you will be at least,” she said with a grin and patted the little box.
Her mother would turn over in her grave if she knew what Jami did. She would come back from the grave just to beat her over the head, but her mother was long dead and buried, so that was all well good and fine. Her mother was a woman that Jamison could barely stand, but she still had been there to teach Jami how to be a lady. So to speak.
Standing from the captain’s chair, she brushed her hand down the skintight, silver, leatherlike material that showed every single one of her curves and seemed to accentuate them extensively. With efficient and precise movements, she left the flight cabin and padded right into her sleeping cabin.
The craft was small, lightweight, and heavily armored. It had engines that would make a warship proud, but very little weaponry. Her ship was the way that it was because she had always been a firm believer in if you can run you should, hide if you can, and if all else fails, get the hell out of the fire if it came down to it.
Being small meant that she could travel light and alone. She didn’t have to have someone there who would be able to pick up on just “how” she found the treasures, lost people, and more. No, that would be very, very bad if it got out. She had just enough room on the small vessel to be able to house two other beings in a sleeping cabin, but she made it a rule not to have someone there for any longer than necessary.
Dropping onto her too large bed that took up most of the room, she lay back knowing she was safe, for now. She was inside of Alliance borders, and being a child of a Lord and Lady, not to mention the only daughter of a highly decorated military Lord Officer, she had a clear path before her.
Grinning up at the ceiling, she wondered just what her father’s friends, what the men who stopped her occasionally, would think if they knew that her little “pleasure” craft was actually one she used in her line of work, a line that none save the High Council knew of.
Shrugging, she turned with a frown as she realized there was a blinking light to signal a message. Not moving from her seat she said, “Play message.”
“Hello, Jamison. I am Lady Kato, and I need to meet with you. I have lost something, and I need help in finding it. Contact me immediately. I will be on Rios V at the Healing Spas. You will find that I have lost my Lord husband now, and I am in mourning, so please come to me as quickly as possible.”
With that cool, crisp message, Jami rolled her eyes, and as much as she wanted to tell the old bitch to find her own lost whatever, she knew that she couldn’t. She couldn’t because the woman and the Lord were part of the Alliance High Lords. Very high, since the Lady knew that Jami was a seeker.
Pulling her long dark-brown hair back into a tight bun, she moved back to the flight cabin and changed her course to stop in at Rios V on her way back to her home world of Axion Prime.
* * * *
Summer Home of Lady Kato, planet Rios V
“Thank you for meeting with me, Lady Montague. Lord Reymer is the one who came to me. He is the one who said that if anyone would be able to help me find my son, it would be you.”
Jami didn’t let on, simply bowed her head and again felt constricted in the formal dress that she wore. “I would be happy to make inquiries for you, Lady Kato, and if I am unable to find what you are looking for, I can set you into the line of someone who can.”
“No, I need you to find him. Only you will be able to find him, Lady Montague.”
Jami hated that term. She hated to be referred to by the same name that her mother had been called, but it was her title now, sadly. Her mother had been a good woman, just a very overbearing woman where Jami had been concerned. The title reminded Jamison of her mother, of the failures that she felt she had given her mother in being the woman she was instead of the Lady that her mother wanted her to be.
“Again, Lady Kato, if I can find him I will. If I can’t, I know many who are trackers, who have a far better success rate than I do.” Mostly because she sent them to where their items sought were. She always ensured there was someone better, many people better, and only the High Council knew the truth.
“Very well. What do you need?” the Lady asked with frustration evident.
“I need something which he has had in his possession. Something which is close to his heart if possible? An image of him, name, I need a full background for him.” She really only needed the possession, everything else would come to her.<
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“It is all ready for you. The items you seek are there in the silver box on the entry table.”
Bowing her head respectfully, even when she felt no respect for the Lady in question. “Thank you, Lady Kato. I will see what I can find, and if I am unable to find someone, I will send your request to another.” Just speaking to the Lady Kato made Jamison feel dirty. The woman was a viperous being, a woman who used her beauty in order to obtain position and titles as well as wealth. It was clear to anyone that the Lady only wanted her son found because he held the purse strings for the Kato Estate.
“No,” the woman said and then did the taboo, reached out and grabbed Jami’s arm. The flashes that seared through Jami’s brain hurt her deeply, but she pulled back slowly.
“Thank you, but do not ever touch me again.” It was a cold and cool tone, one that spoke of her heritage and the lineage she came from.
“I’m sorry,” the distressed woman said smoothly and pulled back. “I don’t want it to go out that I am in search of my son. Our house is on dangerous terms right now. There is another Lord who wants to take over our house, and unless my son is found, I’m afraid that it will happen.”
“My apologies. I will do what I can or we will find someone who can.” With that, Jami turned, grabbed the box, and headed off toward her ship.
Once she was onboard her little flyer, she plugged in coordinates for a hidden shade of the moon. Once she was there she set an orbit to remain positioned just where she was. This was when Jami opened herself to the box and the contents therein.
When she touched the signet ring, she felt a searing burn sizzle up her spine and back down the backs of her legs. She felt the burning welts rise and then go back down again as all the pain the man felt flowed in and through her. Reaching out across all space, she felt for him, reached for him. When she touched him, she gasped and felt her very heart clench as she looked into his eyes.
Closing herself off, she pulled back from where he was and punched in the location on the computer console next to her seat. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and shuddered. Somehow she had a feeling the man was not going to like being found. Too bad for him.
Chapter 3
She was moving with the shadows and light. Something big was going down on the ship, she just didn’t know what. She looked around and mused, no, not a ship so much as a planetary vessel. The ship was massive. The outside of the ship was as large as her father’s estate on her homeworld, but it was also heavily armored and looked ready to start a war. She had slipped into the vessel on a ruse, her ship cloaked and attached to the outer hull where she was able to gain access via a little used junction tube. She wondered only briefly why someone would steal the man from his home and then realized that it was because of knowledge. Somehow that came quickly to her even as she rounded another corner on silent feet with weapon drawn. It had to be because the Lord Kato was a Vampire Lord of high ranking within the Vampire Alliance. He was also a Warlord, one who went into battle and therefore knew Alliance secrets.
She paused as she walked and opened all her senses. Frowning, she felt him more than heard him. She felt his anger, and beyond that, his pain. She was about to pull back and fall back to her ship when a large hand, his large hand, snaked out and wrapped around her. She fought all urges to scream, kick, and bite, and merely melted against him.
He was a wounded animal, feral, and she could feel that from him. When he asked her the question of who she was, she spoke quietly and honestly. “I am Jamison Montague. I was sent by your Lady Mother to find you.” She touched the ring which lay between her breasts on a golden chain and added, “You know my father, but this is not the time or place. Would you mind terribly removing your hand from my neck so that we can get out of this hellhole before the alarms I bypassed are found and tripped?”
He looked down at the ring she touched for the briefest of moments before snarling softly. Despite, or perhaps because of the pounding of hunger she could feel rushing through him, he loosened his grip. “One mistake, one wrong move, and I swear on all that I believe in, you won’t know what hit you. And,” he spoke, his voice low and harsh as if from long disuse, “you ever mention my mother again—and I don’t care if you are the ruler of the universe—I will kill you,” he said, sneering.
She didn’t have to be empathic to be able to see the anger in his words so she wisely and simply nodded. The anger that all but poured off of him touched that emotional part of her that housed the fight or flight desire. “All right, we move with the shadows toward my ship. It is hidden right now from the radar and view thanks to a very nice experimental cloak that will be placed on the Warships soon.” How she got such technology was her secret of course. “No mistakes, no wrong moves. I was sent by her, but as soon as I touched your ring I knew I needed to come for you.” It was the truth. She felt it in the very core of her body when she touched that ring that she had to save him not for his house, but for his sanity.
“Come on.” Again in a whispered sound, she went to move from him and looked down at the hand he still held to her arm. “You need to let me go, my lord.”
Staring at her a moment longer, he let his hand drop. “I’m not a lord,” he muttered. He moved away from her, as he did so he began pulling the shadows in deeper around him as he headed for her ship. He wasn’t very happy about her news that his mother had sent her to find him. Of all people, he couldn’t believe the gall of that woman. She couldn’t just be happy fucking with his formative years, now she had the need to stick her bloody nose where it was definitely not wanted.
A soft sound had him stopping and waiting until the guard came by, and in one motion, Raven slit his throat. Catching the body he hefted him up onto a crate, folding him in such a manner to avoid detection for a time. Glancing back, he glared at the female, a female that shouldn’t be there. No one should be there for him, as it was against the laws of conduct of the Alliance if they found out. Well, thankfully, it wouldn’t be his head on the block.
She understood his anger, the need to kill. Hell, she was in a killing rage after touching his signet ring and feeling only the smallest measure of the torture he was put through. It was only two more turns before they were on her small vessel. Moving quickly, she pointed to the guest room. “You can bunk in there.” She wasn’t going to tell him he had to leave her because she damn well knew better, so instead she pulled the pillow from the copilot’s chair. “Or have a seat. This might be a bumpy ride.” Because she had to drop the cloak in order to activate the faster-than-light engines and in that few minutes, they would be blazingly visible and vulnerable.
He eased into the copilot’s seat and settled down gingerly. “Do what needs to be done,” he snapped at her softly, barely keeping a leash on his temper. They would be stuck in the small craft for a time together, and she was glad to see him reining it in. While he could undoubtedly fly it easily, she knew that he was exhausted, beyond exhausted given the glimpse she’d had into the hell he’d lived.
She didn’t even think about what she was doing but tugged out the small cooler drawer and pointed. “I stocked up. Feed before you pass out,” she said without even looking at him. All her attention was on getting them ready and out of there. Using the maneuvering thrusters only, she pulled them away from the massive ship and toward open space. When she saw he hadn’t touched the blood, she simply held out her arm. “I didn’t poison the blood, but if you would feel better, drink from the vein.” While she waited on the countdown before disengaging the cloak, she grabbed a bag of blood herself and snapped it on her teeth while she waited for him to make his choice.
“Thank you, no,” he murmured, seeming to keep one eye on her and the other where they were going. Sitting back farther in the chair, he shifted slightly but stiffly. “Just concentrate on where you are going. I’d really prefer not to die in a horrifyingly fiery accident.” His words told her more than he likely would have preferred. It actually sounded like he hated to fly, odd for one of his position.
Shrugging, she pulled her hand back to the console, and with only a cursory glance at him, she said, “Hold onto something, this is the tricky part.” Dropping the cloak, she knew the moment those on the ship saw her, for they began to fire. Using the thrusters alone, she tried to evade and also let her shields take the brunt of the hits.
From the corner of her eye she saw him clenching the arms of the seat. He let out a slow breath, each breath after measured even as his fingers tightened harder and dug deeper into the material.
It was a very, very rough forty-seven seconds until she was able to engage the engines, and then with a smile, she punched it. She watched him as he clutched the arms of his chair and wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him that it would be all right, but she didn’t. She simply appreciated him being stoic about it and not dissolving into a quivering mess in the copilot’s seat.
Finally feeling as though they had moved far enough from the ship of death, she set the auto-controls and swiveled her chair to look at him. “We have a long trip ahead of us, my lord. I suggest a very nice and long sonic shower to help make you feel better?”
Cracking an eye open, he looked at her. “That may be an idea,” he said and stood. She could hear him swallow hard as he moved past her. “Try not to get us blown to bits. I will not be pleased if I’m not at least clean before I die horribly,” he commented and, with measured steps, left her to business.
As soon as he was gone, she had the most childish urge to stick her tongue out at his retreating back. Shaking her head, she grumbled about men and how she was glad they weren’t in her life before standing herself and moving toward her room. She had complete faith in her ship and the autopilot. Pausing at his door she raised her hand and knocked. She needed to tell him where the blood was in his room so that he could feed and hopefully have less of the bloodlust look in his eyes.
