by C. F. Harris
“…but I wouldn’t dream of dishonoring you by suggesting you assassinate someone or something. You’re good at killing, but I feel like your talents would be better used elsewhere.”
I raised an eyebrow. Now we were getting to the real reason why this old noble was here.
“Could we dispense with the false pleasantries, Dovar? Why are you here? What do you want?”
Dovar looked up at me and blinked. He almost looked surprised. If I didn’t know just how good his acting ability was I might have believed it. Unfortunately for him I’d been around long enough to know all his tricks. To know that he thought I was an upstart who made my fortune through a convenient marriage and being good in a fight.
Which was true, and also paradoxically the reason I was convinced I was better than him. I’d earned my spot in this world. I didn’t luck into it because of who my parents were.
Still, I had to give some credit to his acting ability. For once he seemed sincere. Almost.
“Want? What I want is simple enough Jorav,” he said. “There are all sorts of interesting things happening in our world right now.”
“Our world? Your world is the capital,” I said.
“Exactly, and there are very interesting things happening here. Besides, is there anything outside our glorious capital that really matters?”
“There’s a whole galaxy out there, Dovar,” I said. “You might have realized that if you hadn’t gotten your mandatory service waived when you were a young man.”
Dovar’s eyes flashed and the false friendliness was gone. For a moment. Then it was back just as quickly as it had disappeared. Oh yes, there were hidden currents here. Then again there always were with the nobles.
“There might be a whole galaxy out there, Jorav, but it turns on an axis centered on this city here,” he replied.
“Tell that to the humans,” I replied. “They seem to be moving that axis with each day this war drags on.”
I’d hoped the old man would rise to the bait, but no such luck. He waved a dismissive hand and put even more of his weight on my desk. The thing was built of solid metal and I’d always thought it was sturdy, but now it was making noises that I’d only ever heard on ships in battle when armored bulkheads were buckling around me under the strain of combat.
Dovar was really accomplishing something by destroying it with nothing more than a lean. It had stood up to some very rigorous stress testing I’d put it through with Talia’s help.
“None of that matters. The real center of the galaxy is here in this city, though that center might be shifting,” he said.
“Why Dovar,” I said. “You sound almost treasonous. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t report you to the emperor right now and be done with you for good?”
His eyes flashed again, though this time it was with amusement rather than anger.
“That’s simple, my boy,” he said. “You’re not going to turn me in because you have even more reason to hate him than I do.”
I thought about that for a moment, then nodded. That was fair.
“Besides, you know if you turn me in he’ll find some convenient way to take you and your scandalous choice of a mate right along with me,” Dovar continued.
“If you’re trying to get me to react it isn’t going to work,” I said. “Your kind might think my choice of mate is scandalous, but I don’t care about you or your opinions or your politics.”
“You might say that you don’t care about my politics,” Dovar said. “But you can’t ignore them forever. One way or another it’s going to find you. The only question is whether you hide from it until it kills you.”
Dovar moved across the room. It surprised me that someone of his size could move around that easily. I wondered if he had antigravity units strategically placed around his person to make it easier for him to move around.
Probably not considering the strain he put on my chair and desk. The bastard.
Dovar paused at the entrance to my office. The doors dutifully swished open but he didn’t leave. Instead he fixed me with a sharp stare.
“You’ve been ignoring our invitations,” he said. “Great things are happening. It would be a pity if a warrior as great as you was left out of them. Though perhaps matters of succession are beyond a simple soldier.”
And with that parting shot he turned and left. I didn’t even stop to wonder how he’d managed to gain entrance to my office. No doubt one of the subsidiaries he owned was involved in the manufacture of some security system in the building and he’d used some back door that had lingered in the code for who knows how long to gain entrance.
Messing with the nobles could be dangerous for that reason. The only comfort I could take was that once he’d used that trick he couldn’t do it again. I had every intention of having Tekal run a full audit of our systems after that.
I walked over and sat in my chair. From the way it creaked under my weight it was obvious that I was going to need a new on. Amazing. It could handle the most strenuous activity Talia and I threw at it but one overweight noble was enough to finally send it on to its final reward.
I sighed. The moment I’d worried about since I returned to this world with a human in tow had finally come to pass. Next to the nobility I’d almost rather deal with the emperor and his assassins, but we couldn’t choose our opponents in life.
We could only deal with them as they came.
3: New Challenge
Talia:
I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. Not even the annoyed emotion from Jorav was enough to sour my mood, though I did wonder what had happened to have him go from his usual dour and annoyed self to dour, annoyed, and pissed off.
Not that he needed much of an excuse these days. Not with everything swirling around us. My grin grew even wider as I thought of several ways that I could make his day better, but for a surprise I didn’t feel the combination of excitement, anticipation, and arousal that usually accompanied those sorts of thoughts.
Then again considering how well he was sticking to the idea of not doing that sort of thing while we were waiting for this stupid ceremony it was no wonder that he would only feel more frustrated.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel upbeat on my end of our mental link. Even some of his frustration filtering through the link wasn’t enough to bring me down. I hated to admit it considering how I’d always thrown myself into life in the Fleet and my work, but organizing a wedding was actually pretty fun.
Even if it wasn’t technically a wedding. And it was happening at the center of the enemy homeworld.
Whatever. A wedding was a wedding whether they called it that or a bonding ceremony.
I stepped into the main chamber of Jorav’s penthouse. That’s how I’d started thinking of the place even though he’d rolled his eyes at the comparison. It was a lavish mansion on top of a giant tower. What else was I supposed to call the damn thing?
A smile played across my lips as I looked over the damage from the day’s negotiations. Chairs strewn this way and that. The occasional splash of Livisk blood from a wedding planner who thought she could take me to the cleaners because I was technically a slave. I’d shown all of them.
Maybe that was another part of the reason why I was in such a good mood. It felt good to order people around again and have them actually listen to those orders. Especially when the people listening to those orders were Livisk. They might not like it, but if they wanted Jorav’s money then they damn well knew they’d better listen to me since I was the one holding the purse strings for the moment.
Besides, their obvious discomfort at taking orders from a human slave only made the experience that much more enjoyable for me.
I stepped into Jorav’s study and my good mood disappeared. Feeling his bad mood was one thing, but it was nothing compared to feeling that annoyance and then seeing the look of pure horror on his face. That didn’t match the annoyance at all. It almost made me wonder if he was blocking out some of his thoughts again.<
br />
Obviously something terrible had happened.
“What is it?” I asked as I scanned the room. I pulled out several weapons I had hidden on my person. Little insurance policies in case the negotiations didn’t go well or it looked like I might lose an honorable fight.
Hey, I might be a fighter, but that meant I was always willing to have a contingency plan if it looked like the fight wasn’t going my way. As they said back in the academy, the only good fight is one you walk away from.
Jorav chuckled and amusement surged through the bond. I looked over to him and for a surprise that dour look of horror was replaced with amusement. Well then.
“Care to tell me what’s so damn funy?” I asked.
“You don’t need to worry, Talia,” he said. “The danger isn’t immediate, though it is very real.”
I shrugged and did another sweep of the room. This time Jorav didn’t duck when the barrel of my energy weapon moved past him. He used to flinch as though he thought I was actually going to try and shoot him.
The big sexy idiot.
“I’ll make my mind up as to whether or not there’s a real threat out there. Now out with it. What’s going on? Tell me what’s wrong, and no masking your feelings. You know we’re past that bullshit.”
Jorav sighed. He tapped something on a tablet in front of him. His eyes ran across the text. I arched an eyebrow and wondered what the hell sort of message he could’ve possibly gotten that would have him looking that upset.
“We’ve been invited to a party,” he said.
I blinked. “A party?”
“Yes, a party. Isn’t that your human word? People get together and drink too much and do ill-advised things they wouldn’t normally?”
“Well yeah, that’s the right idea,” I said. “I’m just wondering what sort of party we’re being invited to that you look that worried. Did the emperor decide to execute you and you’re invited to the pre-game or something?”
“The what?”
“Earth term. I’ll explain later. Right now you need to tell me why the hell you’re walking around as though someone just passed a death sentence on you.”
Jorav heaved another sigh. The way his shoulders moved as he did that was distracting. All those muscles and tattoos moving around. It reminded me of what he looked like when he was on top of me and…
And I needed to chase those thoughts from my head. Now. It was my turn for some frustration to filter through the bond as I thought of all the fun we weren’t having right when I was ready to let loose and have some of that fun. Stupid Livisk and their stupid ceremonies. Jorav’s whining about this party we were invited to probably had something to do with some stupid tradition of theirs as well.
“It’s not a stupid tradition,” Jorav said, doing that annoying thing where he answered the question running through my head. “We’ve been invited to a gathering at a fairly powerful noble house in the city.”
I finally put my weapon down. It was pretty obvious that if there was going to be an attack it wasn’t forthcoming. I slipped it back into its hiding place right next to an impressive dagger I always carried but never used because what kind of idiot uses a dagger in a fight with muscled aliens strong enough to snap me in two if they ever managed to get a hold on me?
I walked around Jorav’s desk and plopped down in his lap to look at the message he was reading. Not that it did much good. I was still a little fuzzy on their written language despite lots of practice. No, my reasoning for sitting in Jorav’s lap had very little to do with reading what he was reading and a lot to do with the delightful rise I got out of him as soon as I wiggled my ass against his cock.
The bastard might not want to have any real fun while we were waiting to be officially bonded in the eyes of whatever heathen gods they worshiped on this rock, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun teasing him and making him regret that choice in the meantime.
“You are evil,” Jorav said. “And we do not have heathen gods. We revere the spirits of our warrior ancestors.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, my eyes roaming over a message that I could only assume was a party invitation. I could only read maybe every fifth word. “Less about religion and more about this party invitation. What are you talking about with nobles? I thought you had an emperor and that was it.”
“The nobility is very much a thing on this world. Ancient families of great warriors who did great deeds in the distant past, though these days they’re mostly filled with overweight preening assholes who think a great deal of themselves because of what their ancestors did while doing nothing themselves.”
“Sounds pretty much like old money everywhere in the galaxy,” I said. I grinned and leaned down to kiss him, though I kept it chaste. Wouldn’t want to risk pissing off the spirits of ancestors past by being too affectionate before the official bonding. From the way desire flared through the link it seemed that he enjoyed that kiss almost as much as he’d enjoyed some far less chaste things we’d done in this room.
“Well these families are still quite dangerous,” Jorav said. “Don’t for a moment think that they aren’t.”
I rolled my eyes. “Where have I heard this speech before?”
“As I recall the last time I gave you that speech you ignored it and ended up being captured by the emperor’s assassin risking both of our lives and the life of one of your former crewmates.”
“And I also killed that assassin,” I said. “That has to count for something.”
Jorav squeezed his eyes shut and I felt irritation mixed with amusement through the bond. That thing really was quite useful. I’d never been in what you’d call a serious committed relationship before, but it amazed me that people managed to have those without a bond constantly updating them on what their other half was thinking.
“As always you are missing the point, and I’m not sure if you’re doing that deliberately or if you really are that naive to our culture.”
“Not naive, baby,” I said, wrapping an arm around his neck and running a finger along his neck in a little tease that I knew he loved. “I just don’t give a fuck about your culture or its rules. Big difference there.”
Jorav sighed, though I wasn’t sure if that was because of my casual dismissal of everything he held dear or because I was getting some very intense feedback through the mental link about what he thought of that little tickle along the back of his neck.
“The nobility is still very upset that they aren’t the ones running this planet,” Jorav said.
“The way the emperor is fucking things up maybe we should let them have a try,” I replied.
“Yes, well, as bad as the emperor is, at least we only have one person leading the planet to ruin by chasing his whims. Imagine how bad it would be if you had multiple people thinking they were the ones in charge and fighting with one another every time they didn’t get their way? There was a reason the imperium was ultimately restored.”
“Yeah yeah,” I said with a dismissive wave. “Livisk politics and all that. You know how I feel about that.”
“That there’s nothing wrong with Livisk politics that couldn’t be solved with a strategic nuclear weapon dropped over this city?” Jorav asked.
“Why Jorav! You almost made a joke there,” I said. “I’m proud of you. You’re also very right. And I still don’t understand what the big deal is about going to a party.”
“We’ve been invited to a lot of parties,” Jorav said.
He hit something on his screen and it pulled out to multiple messages detailing little soirees taking place all over the capital city. My eyes narrowed as I looked over them, but the only word I could reliably make out was the Livisk word for party, which didn’t do the word or concept justice at all. It actually translated more to “an occasion where we will meet and exchange food and combat to test the strength of our bonds.”
Yeah, a bit of the concept was lost in translation calling it a “party,” but it was convenient shorthand.
; “So why aren’t we going to any of these shindigs?” I asked.
“Shindig?”
“Human word. Rednecks us it,” I replied without thinking.
“What does the color of one’s neck have to do with…”
I held up a hand to stop him. “Really don’t have the time or inclination to go into that right now. The important thing is these noble parties. Why don’t you want to go to any of them?”
“The nobility is a viper’s nest. They have no real power while at the same time having just enough power to be dangerous to someone who treats them as though they have no real power.”
“Let me guess, you’ve been one of those people who treats them as though they don’t matter?”
Jorav shrugged again. “I’m a general. I have soldiers at my call at all times. Men who would die for me and give me their undying loyalty. Next to that what is the power of the nobility?”
“And yet now here you are worried about them for some reason,” I said.
“Worried about what they might do to you, would be more accurate.”
I rolled my eyes and growled. “Jorav. How many times do I have to kill people who are threatening me before you realize I can take care of myself on this dirtball?”
“I’ll believe that on the day you manage to take out everyone who wants to kill us at once. Until then I’m going to keep worrying about you,” he said.
I felt at the bond and was surprised to find that there was genuine worry there. Worry about me being killed. Worry about some Livisk assassin coming up behind me and doing what assassins did best. To be honest I worried about that sort of thing too from time to time, though not to the point of losing sleep over it or anything.
After all, I did have a hell of a track record dealing with Livisk doing their best to kill me. They’d done their best and they were all dead now. Maybe I was getting a little cocky, but it was cockiness that was more than deserved.
