Rogue

by Cheryl Brooks

  “Oh, that was so beautiful!” she said reverently. “Will I ever be able to play like that?”

  “Someday,” I said, turning to face her. “Provided you practice enough.”

  “Oh, I will!” she assured me. “I’ll start today!”

  “Sounds good,” I said, “but let’s wait until after breakfast, shall we?”

  “Breakfast?” she echoed. “What’s that?”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “You know, the morning meal? What you eat after you first get up in the morning?”

  “Here on Darconia we only eat once a day,” she said. “In the evening.”

  My stomach let out a loud snarl. “Humans eat more often than that,” I said, my eyes undoubtedly growing round with horror. “Is there anything I can get at this hour? I’m starving!”

  Having said that, I heard a sound coming from the other room. Frowning slightly, I got up from the piano and peered through the doorway. My tiger was in there—still wearing nothing but his two jeweled collars, by the way—setting out platters of food on the table from a heavily laden tray.

  I cast a withering look at Zealon. “Very funny,” I said dryly. “You had me going there for a minute.”

  Zealon doubled over, cackling with laughter. “I’m sorry!” she gasped. “But I love the way your face changes.”

  “Those are facial expressions,” I said loftily. “And this one,” I added, narrowing my eyes and thinning my lips, “signifies marked disapproval.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “See that you do.”

  Following me to the door, Zealon let out a squeal of delight. “She’s given you Tycharian?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Him,” she replied, pointing at Tiger.

  “You know him?” I asked, a good deal astonished.

  “Of course I do! Mother doesn’t think I know he exists, but we’re good friends, actually.”

  Tiger gave her such a look! “You are not supposed to reveal that,” he said sternly. “To anyone.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter if Kyra knows, does it? She won’t tell.”

  “Well, the Queen did say when she assigned him to me that it was ‘worth the risk’ that you might meet him,” I mused. “So it probably doesn’t matter, but do you mean to say you’ve been sneaking off to make friends with the slaves?”

  “They aren’t really slaves, you know,” Zealon said ingenuously. “Just special servants. Pretty lucky, actually, because they aren’t allowed to touch the chamber pots.”

  “And what else aren’t they allowed to do?” I remarked sarcastically. “Leave of their own free will?”

  “Oh, they could if they really wanted to,” she said, sounding as if she truly believed this. “Mother would never stop them, though she says it would be dangerous for any of her slaves to leave, because they are all either hunted or endangered species. She keeps them locked up at night for their own protection, but I think they like working here. I mean, it is a palace.”

  She was so naïve, it was downright comical. “Zealon, would you like being locked up at night? Even for your own protection?”

  She looked up at me soberly. “But I am,” she replied. “A princess is as much a slave as they are. We just get locked up in different rooms.”

  Perhaps she wasn’t quite so naïve after all. “Touché,” I said softly. “Okay, then, now that we know we’re all stuck here living in a palace whether we like it or not, why don’t you two ‘slaves’ join me for breakfast? Unless you’ve already eaten, that is. I think I’d like some company.”

  Tiger looked surprised. Zealon’s jaw dropped. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is that going too far?”

  “I… don’t know,” Zealon said. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Which part? Having breakfast with me, or with him?”

  “With him, I think,” she replied uncertainly. “Anyway, I’ve already eaten.”

  I nodded, thinking she’d ducked past that one pretty effectively. So, he wasn’t really a slave, was he? It certainly seemed that way to me. “Well, then, do I have to eat all of this by myself?”

  Tiger shook his head almost imperceptibly. Zealon shrugged, a gesture that looked odd on a lizard—a bit like watching a live cartoon character.

  “I have other lessons this morning,” she said. “So I couldn’t stay, anyway. I just came in when I heard you playing.”

  “When are you free for your first piano lesson?”

  “Not until after midday,” Zealon replied. “I’ll come back then.”

  “That’ll be fine,” I said with a nod.

  The Princess waved her good-bye and left us. I went over and sat down at the table, taking a good, long drink before I did anything else. Tiger was still arranging the dishes and seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time and care to do so.

  “So,” I ventured. “What was that name again? Tycharian?”

  “Yes,” he replied, his voice sounding wooden and neutral.

  “I seem to be able to pronounce it without too much trouble. Why were you being so mysterious last night?”

  He’d been keeping his eyes on his work but turned to face me then. “I wanted to hear what you would call me if you didn’t know my name.”

  “Any special reason for that?”

  “You did not call me ‘slave.’”

  “I think I see your point,” I said. “And, no, I didn’t call you ‘slave,’ but I did call you Tiger, which is a type of animal,” I added ruefully. “That’s not much better than calling you ‘slave,’ is it?”

  “But tigers are not slaves, are they?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted, “but you do see them locked up and on display in zoos from time to time. That doesn’t sound very good, either.”

  He seemed to think differently. Perhaps he liked the idea of being a tiger. “You may call me whatever you wish,” he said finally. “Tiger, Tycharian, Tychar, or even Ty, which is what my brother, Trag, calls me.” A mischievous little smile touched his lips. “So, tell me Kyra: would you prefer to have breakfast with a slave, or with a tiger?”

  Returning his smile, I said warmly, “I’d much rather have breakfast with you, Tycharian.” Gesturing toward a chair, I added, “Have a seat, and if the Queen doesn’t like it, she can fire me.”

  “I don’t believe she will.”

  “Like it, or fire me?”

  Tiger looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Fire you,” he said. “She has told me to see to your needs as much as I am able. You are my exclusive… assignment. She wouldn’t object to us sharing a meal together.”

  “Really?” It seemed surprising to me that she would give him up entirely, though she did have two of them. Perhaps I wouldn’t be executed for sleeping with him, after all. “Well, what if I need something during the night? Since you slaves are locked up—for your own protection, of course,” I added, “who do I call if I get sick or something? Or do I get locked up, too?” I hadn’t gotten up to try the door last night, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been locked.

  “Scalia didn’t say specifically, but if you’re locked in, perhaps it is because she feels that you need protection, as well.”

  I pondered this for a moment, remembering the armed escort from the spaceport, and consoled myself with the fact that at least Scalia hadn’t asked Wazak to make me his “exclusive assignment.” “Do I really need protecting?”

  “Even slaves hear tales of unrest within a country,” he said carefully, taking a seat across from me.

  This sounded interesting. In an attempt to make the question seem casual, I bit into an odd-looking piece of fuzzy green fruit that reminded me of a kiwi. Tasted rather like one, too. Spitting out the fuzzy peel, I savored the sweet flesh. “What sort of unrest?”

  Following my lead and helping himself to
some fruit, Tychar said, “Whenever there is change, there is also unrest.”

  “True, but do I have anything to do with the changes?”

  “You are an offworlder, teaching music to the Princess,” he replied. “That could be seen as a radical change.”

  “Music?” I echoed in disbelief. “Radical?” I was about to deny having any radical tendencies whatsoever, but then I remembered my music history: musicians had been on the cutting edge of radicalism for a very long time. Funny how I’d never considered classical pianists as being radical, but, given where I was at the time, perhaps we were. “Well, yes, I see your point.” Sighing regretfully, I added, “Guess we won’t get to go on that vacation to the mountains, then. Honestly, if I’d known I’d have to stay cooped up all the time—even in a palace—I’m not sure I would have come.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” he assured me. “I have, though I do get restless sometimes—and my brother, Trag, is even less contented.”

  “I didn’t think he seemed very happy last night,” I remarked. “In fact, I don’t think I ever even saw him smile. You were the much more likable of the two.”

  Tychar shrugged noncommittally. “Trag is a good man, but he doesn’t like it here.”

  “And you do?”

  His lips curled into a delightfully devilish grin. “There was a time when I rebelled against being a slave, but no longer. I have a new job as your personal attendant,” he said. “And I think I will… enjoy my job.”

  The way he was smiling at me, I almost believed him. “You’re very sweet.”

  “Ah, but you haven’t tasted me yet,” he countered, still smiling. “How can you know?”

  The thought of tasting any part of him made my heart skip several beats. “That’s just a figure of speech, Tychar,” I said briskly, choosing to ignore the innuendo. “It only means that you’re very nice and thoughtful, not that you actually taste good.”

  Regarding me with heavy-lidded eyes, he said, “You may find that I’m even sweeter when you’ve tasted me.”

  I happened to be chewing on an exceptionally juicy bit of fruit at the time, but my mouth went dry anyway. “You taste sweet?” I asked hoarsely. “That’s funny, I would have thought you’d be salty.”

  He blinked slowly, seductively. “That depends on which part of me you taste.”

  I choked slightly as I tried to decide which part of him would be sweet. Perhaps there was more than one…“Tychar?” I said when I could talk again.

  “Yes?” There was an eager lilt coloring his voice as he looked at me expectantly. He was getting to me, and he knew it. I couldn’t see his groin from where I sat, but I’d have bet his cock was already rock hard. “It’s much too early in the day for that sort of thing.”

  His full lips stretched into another smile. “But I am locked up at night.”

  “Which is a damn good thing, if you ask me!” I declared. “It’s bad enough having to sit across the breakfast table from a naked tiger, trying not to—”

  He leveled a knowing look at me. “If you feel desire for me, Kyra,” he said reasonably, “then why do you resist? Is it because I’m a slave?”

  “I’m—I’m not resisting anything,” I protested weakly. “I just don’t think Scalia would like it if I went around tasting her slave boys.”

  “So it is because I am a slave.” I thought he seemed disappointed in me—as though he’d thought I’d be more liberal in my thinking, perhaps.

  “Someone else’s slave,” I amended. “I wish Scalia had been a little more specific about what she wanted you to do here. I mean, attending to all of my needs could be a pretty broad range of duties, and I’m sure there are a few ‘personal services’ that she’d much rather you didn’t provide.”

  I’d done my best to couch the idea in obscure terms, but he still knew exactly what I meant. Looking at me directly with his brilliant blue eyes boring into mine, he said evenly, “Perhaps she wishes for us to mate.”

  “Mate?” I squeaked. “Oh, surely not! We’re not even of the same species, Tychar! How could we mate?” It was a stupid question, and I knew it, because there was absolutely no physical reason why we couldn’t, though whether we were genetically compatible remained to be seen.

  “She wanted a human woman to teach the Princess to play the piano,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “Perhaps she was told that a human would be able to mate with one of us.”

  I thought that was a bit of a stretch, but I’d heard stranger notions. “Well, she did say she wanted to breed more of you,” I conceded. “But are you saying that this is the reason she hired me?”

  “I’m sure it’s not the only reason,” he admitted. “She is very anxious for the Princess to learn your music.”

  “Now, wait just a doggone minute! Did she actually tell you any of this? It seems sort of… well, I don’t know what you’d call it.” I was stunned into silence. Part of a breeding program? That was worse than being a slave—downright dehumanizing, in fact.

  “Kyra,” he said gently. “She has not said this, and you do not have to do anything you do not wish to do. You are not her slave, as I am.”

  I nodded, but my suspicions had been aroused, and Scalia would have had a difficult time convincing me she’d never had any intention of using me to breed more of her precious tigers. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to mate with him, as he put it, because in actual fact, I couldn’t think of anything I’d like more, but I sure as hell didn’t want to do it as part of some lizard queen’s bizarre hobby! It made me mad just thinking about it. Then an even more chilling thought occurred to me.

  “What would she do if I had a child? Take it from me? Sell it into slavery?”

  “She has said nothing of the kind,” Tychar said soothingly, “but I don’t believe she would take your child. She may only want to see if it’s possible. She was very distressed when she learned that our race was nearly destroyed. She seems interested in preserving it.”

  “So I’d be rescuing an endangered species, huh?” I said, unable to keep the irony out of my voice. “Well, then I guess I should just quietly submit so you don’t all become extinct.”

  An already upswept eyebrow climbed even higher. “If we were to mate, Kyra,” he said confidently, “I would hope you would do more than merely ‘submit.’”

  “You mean you’d want me to enjoy it?” I would have been lying if I’d said I’d particularly enjoyed it in the past. In fact, quite frequently sex had left me feeling cold and ever so slightly used. However, something told me that it would be different with him—a lot different.

  He nodded. “And I would like it very much if you could love me,” he said quietly. “I have been Scalia’s slave for nearly twenty years, and in all that time—”

  “Twenty years!” I exclaimed. “How old are you?”

  “Forty years, perhaps,” he replied. “The length of a solar cycle is different on each planet.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t look it. Of course, if you don’t ever go out in the sun, you wouldn’t age as quickly.”

  Tychar looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “My species is very long-lived, and I have not yet reached my prime. My age is insignificant.”

  “Maybe,” I said uncertainly. “But twenty years? Do you mean to say that it took Scalia that long to come up with this crossbreeding scheme of hers?”

  “There is no scheme,” he insisted. “At least, none that I am aware of, but in all that time, her slave traders have never brought her any Zetithian females.”

  “Zetithian?”

  “Trag and I are natives of the planet Zetith,” he explained.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It was very distant,” he said, “and it no longer exists.”

  I sat staring at him for a long time. If any of my suspicions were true, they were already quite enough to make me feel used,
manipulated, conned, coerced, and tricked; now he was playing on my sympathy and sense of duty. He was making it seem as though if I didn’t mate with him, I’d be responsible for the extinction of an entire species—which was a hanging offense if I’d ever heard one. It seemed unlikely that Scalia would be so underhanded as to get me here under false pretenses and then spring something like this on me, but you never know with queens. The promotion of the greater good doesn’t always go over so well with the individuals directly involved.

  “Tell me something,” I said finally. “Just how long have the two of you been hanging around here wearing nothing but fancy cat collars?”

  “We have always worn them.”

  I thought he phrased that a bit oddly because it didn’t truly answer my question, though his accent led me to believe that Stantongue wasn’t the first and only language he’d ever spoken. Perhaps he’d misunderstood me. “And what else did you wear?” I believe I was tapping my foot at that point, much the way Wazak had been tapping his tail the day before.

  He hesitated, but when it came, his answer seemed truthful enough. “We sometimes—though not always—wear clothes, though we wear them less now than we did in the past because the Darconians don’t. We have… acclimated,” he said, adding, “It’s hot here.”

  “No kidding?” I said dryly. “I hadn’t noticed. So, what you’re saying is that your style of dress—or lack thereof—wasn’t just for my benefit.”

  “No, it was not.”

  I hoped he was telling me the truth, because if he wasn’t, I would have been a bit miffed with my new employer. “Well, I certainly hope not, but you’ve got to admit, it seems a little fishy. I mean, Scalia flies me clear across the galaxy, scares me half to death with Wazak, gets me drunk, and shows me her two incredibly sexy naked tigers—and then tells one of you to take care of all my needs! The surprising thing is, if I understand you correctly and you haven’t smelled anyone’s ‘desire’ in nearly twenty years, that you didn’t take advantage of the chance to break that dry spell last night. I mean, you missed a golden opportunity there.”

  “It would have been glorious,” he said—and I had no doubt that he was being perfectly honest. “But it wouldn’t have been right. You were too… vulnerable.”