by Audrey Faye
Tameka unfolded herself from her seat on the ground and stood, holding out a hand in welcome. “If you’re trying to get somewhere, I can promise you this path isn’t going to work.”
“I was just taking a walk.”
She looked me up and down. “I see.”
I hoped my outer layers were distracting enough to keep her from looking any deeper. Before I fled the Lovatt compound, I’d ditched the KarmaCorp skinsuit and pulled on my mangiest pair of puff pants. They were billowy, flowy, and cool, and the wind that seemed to constantly tease the Bromelain III grasslands was having a field day with them. I stuffed my hands in their oversized pockets and focused on the feeling of being really aware of my skin. It had soothed a blonde demon child once—maybe it would work today, too.
Tameka was watching my pants with interest. “Those don’t look like digger-rock gear.”
“They aren’t.” No miner would be caught dead in anything with loose, flowing fabric unless they had an almighty death wish. The pants were a habit I’d picked up from Tee’s family, which was full of voracious gardeners and martial artists.
My host hefted a medium-sized rock and tossed it at a small pile of them on the side of the path. “So, what has you wandering aimlessly along my fence line?”
I looked around, surprised—I hadn’t seen any fences.
She smiled. “Figure of speech, mostly. The boundaries between properties are electronic in these parts. You’ve crossed into my lands.”
“Glad I’m not on a planet that shoots first and asks questions later.”
“These days, that’s a reasonably safe assumption.”
I was growing the sneaking suspicion that BroThree had a far less placid history than the official docs suggested. “I didn’t mean to trespass—I was just looking for a little air to clear my head.”
“We have lots of that available.” Tameka rocked back on her heels, hands in her pockets. “What’s got you on the run?”
It was entirely embarrassing to be caught at it. “I was looking for somewhere I could hear myself think.” I winced at the whiny complaint in my voice. “There are a lot of people stuffed into that compound.”
“You’re welcome at my place any time you like.”
It was a generous invitation, and a tempting one. “I have a job to do.”
“Indeed.” Approval tinged her words—and a hint of exasperation. “But one can’t always do a job every hour of the day. If you have need of a bit of sheltering before you’re done here, consider my home yours to use as you wish.”
Her home was a tiny piece of galactic magic, and I had no intention of sliming it with the shit I was suddenly neck deep in. Tameka herself was a different matter, however. She was old and tough and totally capable of taking care of herself. “Do you have any idea why Emelio Lovatt has pull with Yesenia?” It wasn’t the most important thing I needed to figure out, but it was a start.
My host’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “No. But the Inheritor is a smart man. You’d do well not to underestimate him.”
I’d already figured that much out. “That seems to be true of a lot of people around here.”
She smiled. “You’ve met our lovebirds then, have you?”
I hadn’t actually managed to meet the Inheritor Elect. But Janelle had been entirely impressive, and whatever else Devan Lovatt might be, he clearly wasn’t the browbeaten son I’d imagined—even fleeting first impressions had incinerated that idea. “So how is it that two smart, interesting, attractive people who grew up together haven’t managed to at least try the bed-buddies deal?”
Tameka raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure of that, are you?”
“Yes.” Talent rarely misread something that basic, and my read on Janelle had been good and solid. “Trainees hop into bed with each other all the time.” It was a fairly natural occurrence when you had randy teenagers sharing the same oxygen supply. “Why not these two?”
The wind whipped my pants, picking up on my frustration—multiple flavors of it.
Tameka shrugged. “Chemistry’s easy when it happens, and hell when it doesn’t.”
I was living proof of that at the moment. And suddenly curious—Dancers were good at sparking things. A Singer wasn’t actually the obvious Talent to have sent to intervene here. “Has anyone ever given them a nudge?”
“You mean, did I come out of retirement long enough to try to steer the love lives of a couple of healthy adults?” She chuckled and tipped her head up to the sky. “No. And as far as I know, I’m the only person on Bromelain III with enough Talent to do so.”
I squinted, suddenly suspicious. “Did Yesenia ask you to try?”
My host looked at me, eyes steady, but opaque. “Yes.”
I felt my insides, already rattled from Janelle and Devan, dump into a blender. Fixers didn’t say no—trainee tadpoles were regularly scared with stories of the few who had tried. That kind of rebellion happened very rarely, and when it did, no one got to retire happily to fields of grass. “You said no?”
Tameka was watching me carefully. “It’s not the first time I’ve done that.”
My brain stuttered to a halt. The woman in front of me was a Fixer legend. Of the good kind, not the tadpole-scaring variety.
She raised a wry eyebrow. “They’re still whitewashing my story in the hallowed halls of KarmaCorp, are they?”
I shuffled my feet just enough to make sure the laws of gravity were still working. I could buy that they controlled what the trainees heard, but there was no way Yesenia didn’t know.
I was looking at a real-live Fixer who had said no.
More than once.
And drank apple cider on her porch.
My vaunted ability to improvise crash-landed and skittered off into the grass. And somewhere inside me, fascination rose. The blonde, fiery demon child, curious as all hell. I tried to squish her back into the cave she’d come out of.
Tameka watched me steadily. “Ask, girl—no one’s here to listen.”
“Why didn’t you lean on them?” It wasn’t the most important question I wanted to ask, but it was the least dangerous—and the most relevant to getting my mission done.
Tameka took her hands out of her pockets and raised her arms like she was about to carry a watermelon. “I held Janelle when she was just a tiny thing. I was brand new here and heard that her mama was sick. I came by to drop off some soup, and they put this wrapped, squalling bundle in my arms to see if I could do anything to quiet her.” She laughed softly. “I’d barely put my feet down on the planet, and I hadn’t so much as seen a baby in sixty years. It was scarier than being handed a neutron bomb.”
I had some idea—Tee had a lot of little, squalling cousins. “What did you do?”
“I Danced.” Her eyes hazed over, a woman remembering. “For hours, I held her, and together we touched the first air she breathed, the first sunlight, the first winds over the grass. They were some of my first winds here too. We shared that.”
Realization dawned, bright and shiny and horrifying. “You love her.”
“I do.” Tameka’s hands were back in her pockets. “I didn’t mean for you to know that just yet.”
Some things you couldn’t walk backwards. “You didn’t mean for me to know it at all.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t expect to like you.”
That was going to be an issue for both of us. “Are you going to try to keep me from doing my job?”
She sighed. “If I thought Janelle and Devan could be happy together, I’d be the first in line to help you push.”
“You don’t think they’d be happy?”
“Some people live easily with mediocrity, with settling for something that isn’t exactly right.” She tossed a small rock hand to hand. “But you and I, we aren’t those people. Neither are Janelle and Devan.”
If this hadn’t already turned into a pisser of a mission, it would have gone down that drain now. “I don’t want to be in a sparring match with a wily old Dancer.”
; “Oh, I won’t get in your way.” She smiled and dropped the rock in her pocket. “I won’t need to.”
That was about as comforting as an oxygen tank on zero. Exactly like what had chased me out here in the first place.
12
I yawned hard enough to crack my jaw as I padded my way into the enormous room where I’d been told that the Lovatts served breakfast. It was a huge, echoing space, stopped just shy of ostentatious by the wall of windows that showed the shimmering morning light on the grasslands.
Proof that there were riches and beauty in abundance beyond the walls of this compound.
I made my way over to the buffet table set out against one wall, my bare feet sinking deep into the carpet. Not all that different from the mud I’d run around in as a kid. My stomach hadn’t ever been this well courted back then, though—whatever else I might think about my hosts, a quick glance said they knew how to feed people. Platters were laid out as far as the eye could see, loaded with solid, stomach-sticking food, and all of it real. I hadn’t spied soy anything since I’d stepped off the transpo ferry. Backwater planets had some upsides.
I picked up a plate and surveyed my choices. I’d missed dinner last night out of sheer cowardice, and my appetite was fierce.
“The eggs are good.”
My plate nearly embedded itself in Devan Lovatt’s skull. “Dammit, do you always sneak up on people that way?”
He grinned and took a plate of his own. “Nope. Mom says I make more noise than a herd of space elephants.”
Space elephants walking on four-centimeter-thick carpet, maybe. Belatedly, I realized that he might not have the foggiest clue who I was. I held up a hand in the universal galactic sign of greeting—given the jangles he’d set off all over my body, it seemed safer than touching. “Lakisha Drinkwater.”
“I know who you are.” Devan was already reaching out and forking things onto his plate. He dropped a slice of long, skinny meat that smelled like nirvana onto mine. “Ever tried bacon? Food of the gods, right there.”
I was still feeling prickly from his sneaky arrival and the all-too-obvious effect he was having on my hormones. Parts of me were waking up way too fast. “No. Mining rocks don’t tend to run to meat.”
He raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
He hadn’t, and I was being a first-class bitch. “No, the apology’s mine. I woke up cranky and apparently I haven’t fixed it yet.”
He smiled. “Try the bacon. It fixes pretty much everything.”
Like Janelle, he wasn’t putting out any hostile vibes at all, which was entirely weird. Neither of them were acting very damn concerned about my presence. However, that was a problem I would worry about after I had consumed copious amounts of bacon. I reached for a spoon of something red and spicy and put a small pile of it in the middle of my plate. It smelled like something Raven would love.
“That’s salsa—it’s supposed to go on top of your eggs. Here.” Devan neatly switched my plate for his very full one. “I’ll give you a tour of the food after we eat some. I’m starving.”
I wanted to kick him in the shins for treating me like a two-year-old, but that would just prove his point. I also knew that sitting at a table with him was going to push hard on my dubious self-control, and that was a really dumb thing to try hungry. “I just came to load up a plate. I have to get back to my room.” To do what, I had no bloody idea—but the next time I encountered Devan Lovatt, I intended to have my game face on, shoes on my feet, and food in my belly.
“Sure.” He tossed a soft bun that landed on top of the rest of my food. “There will be a full table here all day if you get hungry again. Travel lag can be hell on meal schedules.”
Apparently, he’d been off planet—that was really unusual for colonists. The Federation tended to keep them solidly on local terra firma, especially those who would one day rule. Avoiding contamination.
I stopped in the doorway, suddenly loath to leave. “You did a really nice thing with that kid yesterday—the one who ran into the girl and broke his toy.”
“I did what anyone would do.” He kept efficiently loading the plate in his hand.
“You didn’t. You saw his heart, not the damage he caused. It matters.”
He looked at me a moment. “Run into a few people in your time, have you?”
A lot more than a few. “You showed him kindness—he won’t forget.”
Devan set his plate down on the table and walked slowly over to join me. Every step he took increased the turbulence in the pit of my belly and the rat’s nest in my Song. He slid to a halt in front of me and leaned casually against the wall. “You’re not what I expected.”
There was a lot of that going around. I took a jagged breath. “What were you expecting?”
He flashed a wry grin. “To be a lot more annoyed at the person who’s come to convince me that Janelle is the love of my life.”
His words were casual—friendly, even—but his notes sang potently of the man underneath. A combination of his father’s charisma and his mother’s fire, and the ability to hide both very well.
My Song saw him just fine—and it wanted. I wanted. Which was the fastest path to insanity and unemployment that I could possibly imagine. “You object to my mission?” I could hardly blame him.
“I know you’re here at the Inheritor’s request.” He shrugged, face affable. “I don’t expect you to succeed.”
That was blunt. “Janelle shares your opinion.”
“She’s not easily swayed.” His eyes were deep brown and opaque, no longer the friendly puppy dog. “Neither am I.”
“I believe the first. I’ll reserve judgment on the second.” I had no idea why I needed to poke at him, but I did.
He laughed, and something just south of my belly button tied itself into a hot Cerulian knot. “You’ve met my parents. Twenty-six years of that, and I’m pretty good at not letting myself get pushed around.”
That was becoming rapidly apparent. “I’m not here to force anyone into anything.”
“Maybe not.” He shrugged, a man comfortable with diplomatic wordsmithing. “But you’re here to throw your weight on the scales.”
I was. In service of the greater good, but that wasn’t always much fun for the people who got leaned on. I hummed a quiet subsonic note, recognizing it as my own confusion. The two targets of this particular assignment were throwing me into a hell of a tangle. “You’re the Inheritor Elect. You’re already standing on a pretty weighted scale.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like Inheritors?”
I was way scattered if he’d been able to read that—I’d learned a long time ago to leave my free-wheeling digger roots well hidden. “My personal feelings don’t matter here.”
He snorted. “Like hell they don’t.”
They weren’t supposed to, and when you worked for KarmaCorp, that was basically the same thing. I gritted my teeth and tried not to scream at the flame-dancing harmonics of lust and desire having a wild party under my ribs. “I like to think that people can make themselves into who they want to be.”
Which was a supremely stupid thing to have just said to a man I’d come here to lean on. I was one very messed-up Fixer.
He studied me for a long, quiet moment and then took a bite out of his bun. “Tell me about yourself, Singer.”
Not a chance. “This isn’t about me.”
“You’re here to try to weld my ass to the chair my parents want me to sit in.” The imperial blood in his veins was suddenly very obvious. “So I’m damn well making it about you. I like to know a little bit about people I might have to punch in the nose.”
I had to laugh, and that settled my harmonics some. “You might have to get in line behind Janelle.”
He snorted. “If she’s throwing punches, I won’t need to.”
The affection was mutual, then. My Song spiked more notes of confusion—affection was generally only a very small step away from love
. What the heck was keeping these two apart? “It sounds like you like her.”
“I do.” His grin was quick, self-deprecating, and utterly lethal. “Don’t get your hopes up, it won’t make your job any easier.”
I knew the answer already—even my jangling Talent could read the obvious—but I asked anyhow. “You don’t want to marry her?”
“No.” The same simple, clear answer she’d given. “We kissed once when we were eight. There’s nothing there. I like her very much, but there’s no fire.”
Plenty married with less than mutual affection. I tried desperately to yank my thoughts away from visions of kissing the Inheritor Elect of a planet I’d never visit again. “You think fire’s necessary?”
His smile was a little wistful. “Yeah, I do. My parents have it. So do hers.”
On the digger rock I’d grown up on, life had been hard for everyone, but it had been far harder for some. Those who thrived generally did it on the strength of either big hate or big love. Heat and passion, either way.
Which were the last things I should be thinking about right now. I punched the subsonic notes of my Talent again, this time hitting my guts with quick, tight orders. Behave.
Devan smiled and moved back to the table and his half-filled plate. He stuck his fork into the plate of bacon and then looked back up to where I still stood, a statue in the doorway. “I won’t wish you luck, Lakisha Drinkwater. But it’s good to have met you.”
I turned and slowly walked away, trying not to drop my bacon or the few shreds of composure I had left.
I’d survived. I’d held my own, been as professional as I knew how to be in my bare feet, and managed not to jump into Devan Lovatt’s lap. Given the current state of my insides, I was going to call that a success.
Now I just needed several hours in a dark, cold, isolated cave. I looked both ways as two hallways intersected and scooted in the direction of my rooms.
“Singer.”
The single word stopped me before I’d made it three steps down the last leg of my retreat. I turned slowly, taking deep breaths as I went.
Evgenia looked me up and down and sniffed, particularly at my bare toes. My new host, doing her lady-of-the-manor thing.
