by Jayne Faith
Court cheating on me with Farrah.
Belinda’s sudden death, forcing me into the Tournament.
The terrible ripping in my heart when I’d left Mother and Lana and walked through the portal to Calisto.
Akantha’s cruelty.
Losing Iris.
Clarisse’s spitefulness.
Orion sacrificing himself and disappearing into the void in the game of survival.
And Lord Toric was angry at me for unknowingly making a mistake?
I fantasized about allowing myself to spin into a fury, to upend furniture, to shatter dishes against the wall. Part of me truly wished to never lay eyes on the alien Lord again.
He couldn’t save Iris. He’d been powerless to prevent the poisoning of Orion’s food that led to his death. He couldn’t do anything to help me win the Tournament.
I’d lost everything because of the Calistans and their blasted sacred texts. How had I forgotten that fact?
I was not one of them, and I never would be.
I prayed for the Tournament to resume so at least I would have some outlet for my anger. I hoped for a physical challenge, something like the first one. I would unleash every shred of pent-up frustration against my opponents.
When Clarisse arrived at my door the next day, I actually felt some relief. Finally, I would have something to do.
She walked into my library, taking in every detail in a way that was almost unbearably ill-mannered.
She snorted a mirthless little laugh when she finally made eye contact with me. “You think you’re some kind of little Earthen princess, all holed up here in the Lord’s quarters.”
I folded my arms and gave her a flinty look. “Is the Tournament back on?” I asked flatly, ignoring her stab.
“Yes it is.” She made herself comfortable on one of the divans, taking her time smoothing the skirt of her dress.
What did it mean for the investigation into the events that led to Orion’s death? Was Lord Toric just giving up on it and allowing the Tournament to continue as if it didn’t matter?
“This challenge must be a new one,” Clarisse said. “None of the other girls have ever heard of such a thing in a Tournament.”
A chilly pinpoint of trepidation pinged through me. “Is that so?”
She smirked and lowered her lids partway. “Boys and girls will have different challenges this time. Akantha must have cooked up the girls’ challenge as a special treat. Maybe she even had you in mind.” She paused dramatically. “The girls’ challenge is to seduce Lord Toric.”
I shifted my weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “What do you mean, exactly?”
She rolled her eyes. “Wait, don’t tell me—you’re a virgin.” She snorted a laugh. “I should have guessed.”
I fought to stay composed but felt my cheeks begin to warm. “Just explain the challenge to me.”
“You’ll each spend one night in Lord Toric’s bedchamber. Your challenge is to seduce him to the best of your ability.”
“We’re required to—to . . .?” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say the words.
“The challenge is seduction,” Clarisse said as if I were the biggest idiot on Calisto. Her lips stretched again into a smirk. “But we all know what seduction of a man generally leads to.”
“And how will the Obligates’ performances be judged?”
She actually giggled. “Oh, this is the best part! Lord Toric’s physiological responses will be monitored. And your overall performance will be rated by him, Akantha, and the Priestess when they review the challenge.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “You mean the whole thing will be—”
“On live feed?” Clarisse cut in. “I wish! Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Some of it will be broadcast, yes, but after the fact. And there won’t be any nudity shown. Or anything else of an explicit nature.”
That piqued my interest. “No nudity? So the video recording stops as soon as there is nudity?”
She examined her pink painted fingernails. “I doubt it will stop. Those parts just won’t be shown in the public broadcasts.”
I desperately wanted to sit down, but I couldn’t allow Clarisse to see how rattled I was. “I can’t imagine Lord Toric agreeing to this, especially the part about the monitoring of his physical responses, or whatever it was you called it.”
“That’s the power of the position of Mistress of Tournament. Akantha has a lot of latitude in what she can do with the Tournament. A lot. She can do just about anything. As long as it doesn’t put any Calistans in danger or create a situation that violates the sacred texts, Lord Toric doesn’t have veto power.”
Akantha could manipulate and even humiliate him? I wondered if Lord Toric knew about the challenge yet. If he did, perhaps he would reinstate the investigation into who had drugged Orion.
“At least I don’t have to worry about the other Obligates trying to kill me during this challenge,” I said.
She gave me what almost appeared to be a genuine grin. “True. If I actually cared about the Tournament, I might root for you.”
My brows rose.
She shrugged one shoulder. “You’re plucky. You shouldn’t even be alive at this point. You’ve added a lot of entertainment value to the Tournament so far. And that’s much of the intent of all this, you know. The Calistans might act as if this is some kind of holy affair but come on. I seriously doubt these elaborate setups for the challenges are spelled out in any sacred books. The Tournament is just one big excuse for them to gather around their screens and drink and cheer while they watch Earthens fight like dogs, stab each other in the backs, and try not to die.”
I couldn’t argue with her. In fact, her irreverent evaluation of the Tournament matched my current attitude about Calistans in general.
“So, as my guide, what advice can you give me for this challenge?” I didn’t try to hide my sarcasm. She’d never cared a whit about actually helping me.
She pursed her lips, and for a moment I expected her to brush me off or maybe even laugh at me. But then her façade seemed to recede ever so slightly.
She gestured around the room with one hand. “He obviously likes you. And if he likes you, that means he’s been imagining taking you to his bed.”
Clarisse obviously didn’t know that I’d already spent time in Lord Toric’s bed, though not in the way she meant.
“Use that to your advantage,” she said. “He wants you, which means you’re actually in control. You can tease him, tantalize him with what he wants by putting it in front of him but keeping it just out of reach.” She seemed about to say something more but pressed her lips together instead.
I figured I should be grateful that she was willing to offer anything at all. In fact, what she’d said was giving me an idea, the seed of a plan. “Thank you,” I said with sincerity. “That’s actually very helpful.”
She rose, her former cold mask back in place. When she got to the doorway of the library, she hesitated, placing her hand on the door frame and half turning to me. “One more thing to bear in mind. You don’t have to give yourself to him to win this challenge. Especially not if he cares about you as much as he appears to.”
I nodded, and she left.
I took her spot on the divan and stared out the window. The thought of trying to seduce a man while an audience was watching made me want to hide in a cupboard and never come out.
After the way Lord Toric and I had left things when we’d last seen each other, I doubted that my attempts at seduction would have as dramatic an effect on him as Clarisse seemed to think. She didn’t know that he and I had fought. He was very angry at me, and our falling out was very unfortunate. But even so, he had a much more intimate connection with me than he did with any of the other Obligate women. Lord Toric and I had spent time together. He’d told me he was in love with me, though I wasn’t sure that was true anymore. But I knew personal things about him. I would have to use it to every advantage.
I suspected that Clarisse was
right—Akantha had designed this challenge in part to punish me, to take away the private nature of my relationship with Lord Toric. Not only by forcing our intimacy into a public forum, but also by giving the other Obligate women the opportunity to sleep with him. She’d probably also intended to humiliate him in retaliation for bringing me to her engagement party.
Perhaps it was actually good that there was a rift between me and Lord Toric. It would make this challenge easier to bear in a way. I could be more strategic without my feelings clouding my actions.
Regardless, I would find a way to beat Akantha.
Next in the series:
Sapient Salvation 3: The Divining
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Keep reading for a preview of The Laws of Attraction, a futuristic romance adventure. If you like Star Wars, Firefly, or Farscape, this one is for you!
Preview of
The Laws of Attraction
by Christine Castle & Jayne Faith
Prologue
2789 (The Interstellar Expansion Era)
Cetus Star System
Nearly 250 years after the achievement of faster-than-light-speed travel, twenty-seven planets and moons beyond Earth’s solar system had become home to the descendants of the original galactic pioneers as well as others who chose to make a life away from Old Earth.
Despite advanced technology, the inhabitants of these far-reaching new worlds faced challenges similar to those faced by Old Earth settlers. The age-old threats of equipment breakdowns, food shortages, and infectious disease were just as ubiquitous in the Interstellar Expansion Era as during any other time in human history.
Light-speed travel alleviated some of the difficulties—regardless of distances between worlds, a load of food, supplies, and even medical specialists were never more than a few standard hours away—but without the funds for the transport vehicles, costly hyperspace jumps, and the supplies or medical personnel, the distances could be devastatingly vast.
Some of the new colonies perished or were abandoned, but several flourished. And, as in any human endeavor, big business followed right on the heels of the expansion to new worlds, seeking valuable resources to extract—and unfortunately for many, to exploit.
The Interstellar Expansion Era ushered in some of the worst environmental atrocities in human history, as wealthy corporations stayed ahead of regulations—or simply paid off galactic lawmakers. The corporations profited, but there was a grave and too often unpublicized human cost as new planets and moons were stripped of resources and polluted with toxic waste.
Humanitarian and environmental organizations lacked the funds to challenge the corporations, and too many in government and law enforcement were intimidated into looking the other way.
As on Old Earth, the poor seemed to bear the brunt of the atrocities. Land rendered unfarmable. Babies born with severe and lethal birth defects. Fast-spreading cancerous diseases caused by industrial toxins.
While corporations profited, poor communities suffered, and they were lucky if a small mention of the disasters ever made it to the public through mainstream media. Any time opposition began to rise up, big business crushed it before the real story could spread.
In a cruelly ironic turn, corporations often set up clinics, financial aid, or schools to help the poor communities they’d decimated, posing as benefactors and widely circulating stories of their generosity.
One particular industry-caused disaster provided medical research company NovoBiota with the unique opportunity to experiment on the disaster victims. On the new world of Galileo, years of strip mining eroded the hills surrounding the poor town of Star Valley. With no vegetation to hold them in place, one spring the soaked hillsides broke away and swept into the valley below. Some of the people living in Star Valley outran the mud avalanche. Others weren’t so lucky.
NovoBiota happened to have a research team on Galileo. The team rushed in and pulled out twenty-one bodies from the freshly deceased. Using rapid bio-generation techniques, the scientists made repairs to the bodies. Body parts too damaged to be quickly repaired were replaced with ready-made parts built of advanced industrial materials that combined ceramics, metals, and plastics. As soon as the organs, bones, and physiological systems of the deceased were mended, NovoBiota used top-secret experimental technology to force the spark of life back into the victims’ brains.
The first of the Generation 1 cyborgs—G1A-Borgs—were born. They were different than other humans and not just because of their artificial parts. NovoBiota’s life-regeneration technology also bestowed them with enormously enhanced intellectual capabilities. The G1A-Borgs were soon feared and ostracized, unfortunate double victims of corporate greed and irresponsibility.
But that was just one small instance. Corporate atrocities continued unchecked across the galaxy for decades.
Until one young woman decided to fight back. And for the first time in the Interstellar Expansion Era, the new world began to take notice. . .
Chapter 1
April 2594
New Deimos air space
Jake Lorenzo peered out the view shield of the Hound Dog as the cruiser auto-piloted in a circling pattern low over New Deimos. Looking down, he had a visual on the bustling marketplace that was the rocky moon’s main attraction.
He’d had to pull some strings to get an open landing permit on short notice, which would allow him to put his cruiser down in any of the moon’s free landing zones for forty-eight hours.
He checked a monitor. Actually, thirty-seven hours were left on the permit.
They’d already burned up a fair amount of time and fuel. But if Ty’s predictions were correct—and once he had enough data they nearly always were—Agent Z would strike here very soon.
Jake turned to his copilot, who sat perfectly still at his console, his eyes closed and his face serene. Jake hesitated. He was always a bit reluctant to interrupt Ty when he was working.
“What is it, Jake?” Ty asked, his eyes still closed.
There was no irritation in his voice. But then, Ty’s tone rarely fluctuated. Jake often wondered if it was Ty’s brief period of death or the cyborg modifications that had rendered him nearly emotionless. Or perhaps cyborg emotions were simply different than non-cyborg emotions. For all Jake knew, the G1A-Borgs—the first generation of cyborgs and a group recently granted independent nation status—had rich emotional lives in their interactions with each other over their private network. Regardless, it was a touchy subject for both personal and social reasons, and not one Jake cared to pry into.
“Any updates to your predictions?” Jake glanced again at the monitor that was counting down the permit time, and then at another monitor that showed a view of the passenger cabin of the cruiser, where his old friend Spider and Spider’s young cousin, Andre, were dozing in reclined seats.
“Nothing of significance, just slight modifications due to relatively minor factors such as weather patterns, currency exchange fluctuations, and policy ratifications,” Ty said.
Jake blinked a couple of times and folded his hands behind his head, pushing his elbows forward to frame the sides of his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Ty—if the borg said things like currency exchange rates affected Agent Z’s actions, then they surely did—Jake just couldn’t fathom how so many factors could be reduced to a formula, a calculation that predicted Z’s next act of sabotage to a very high degree of certainty.
Not that it had been a minor thing to arrive at this prediction. Ty had been crunching at the problem for nearly three weeks, almost around the clock.
At first, the predicted location included half the Tau Ceti system and a yawning four-month window of time. But as Ty had dug deep
er into Z’s previous strikes against large corporations and included more and more variables in new iterations of the calculation, his prediction for Z’s next act had grown steadily more refined until it brought them here to New Deimos.
And Ty’s prediction still left plenty of guesswork. He expected Agent Z would attack a New Deimos facility owned by the corporate giant NewGreen within the next three days, but they had no idea what the infamous saboteur looked like or precisely where to find him. Not to mention the challenge of actually taking him into their custody before he made it off New Deimos.
Every time Jake thought of all the uncertainties, hard fingers seemed to wrap around his insides and give them a squeeze.
“Maybe it would’ve been better to just go straight to NewGreen and demand a payout in exchange for the info,” Jake mused.
“I ran that scenario,” Ty said. “By my calculations, the odds of NewGreen providing a payout equal to or greater than what you necessitate, were approximately zero-point-eight percent.”
Jake grunted in response.
And there was the problem, and the whole reason he was chasing the bounty for Agent Z: what Jake “necessitated,” as Ty put it, was a chunk of money large enough to move his frail mother and her nurse out of the temporary shelter they’d been living in for the past two months, since his mother’s home was destroyed in a storm.
Bounty-chasing was certainly not his usual gig, and the whole idea made him uneasy. But even five years of steady P.I. work wouldn’t give him the kind of money he needed to help his mother—the kind of money the Agent Z bounty would provide several times over. He barely made enough to keep the Hound Dog operating and fueled, feed himself and Ty, and pay his mother’s nurse. And his mother couldn’t wait years. In her last communication to Jake, Nurse Stacia had reported that a pneumonia infection, which his mother had caught as a result of living in the shelter, had all but incapacitated her.
