"Lord Miklos—"
The door burst open, and Miklos's guards jumped into the room, vicious little guns fixed on Ronan. He turned to face them without a trace of fear.
"Stand down," Miklos ordered. "I'm in no danger." He smiled at Cynara. "My security insisted that I be fitted with a monitor that alerts my guards when it detects an elevated heartbeat."
"Ronan," Cynara said firmly, "back away slowly, and sit down."
He obeyed, watching Miklos's people with their lowered weapons. Miklos let out a slow breath. "Dismissed," he told the guards.
"My lord—"
"Out."
They went. Miklos laughed, but Cynara recognized it as genuine relief. In spite of his assurances to his people, he'd been very well aware of the real threat to his life.
"Well," he said. "I don't believe I've had that much excitement since I was younger than you are, Captain." He looked at Ronan. "I was once a boy of considerable recklessness myself, but I was compelled to recognize that some situations require patience. I advise patience now, Ser Ronan VelKalevi."
"You won't have him arrested?" Cynara demanded.
"I admire his devotion to you, however overzealous. It will be necessary to question Ronan at length, as you expected, but I reiterate my personal assurance that he will not be harmed mentally or physically, and your report will be given full consideration."
"I would like to remain during the questioning, Lord… Miklos."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible. You do have a personal interest in this, Captain, as well as the complication of telepathic sensitivity. And your ship requires your presence."
She sat very still. "You won't advise that I be relieved of my command?"
'To the contrary. You may have acted with some lack of restraint, particularly where Ser Janek is concerned, but I believe you are a valuable asset to the Alliance." He smiled. "I'm sure Jesper will agree with me. I will send a communique with your return voyage recommending that any discipline be light, and that you retain command of the Pegasus."
Cynara was profoundly grateful that she was not prone to tears. 'Thank you, Lord Miklos."
"I'll also supervise the questioning myself. I trust you will find this satisfactory, Ser Ronan?"
Ronan inclined his head. "I hold you in great respect, Aino'Kei Miklos Challinor," he said. "I will cooperate."
"I don't think I've ever been given such a sincere compliment." Miklos rose and extended his hand to Cynara. "Rest assured that I will have a detailed report for you on your next return to Persephone, which I presume will be soon. No matter what we discover, your friend will be given fair and humane treatment, and all the circumstances of his life will be considered."
If Ronan was a shaauri agent—God forbid—he meant that judgment would be tempered by compassion for what he had suffered as a child among them. He would be confined but wouldn't face the severe punishment he could be dealt on Dharma, or if Ser Janek had the deciding of his fate.
She met Miklos's gaze. "If I believed for an instant that he was truly betraying my crew and the Alliance, I would never have brought him here."
"I know." He clasped her hand. "I look forward to a more thorough and leisurely discussion when you return to Persephone, Captain. Perhaps next time you can bring Jesper with you."
"Perhaps." She squeezed his fingers and released his hand. "I hope that one day I can repay the debt we owe you."
"Perhaps you have already done so. Continue in your mission with the same level of courage and commitment, and you will more than requite any obligation." He turned to Ronan. "Ronan, I'll escort you to your quarters. Any questions you may have will be answered before debriefing begins."
"I understand."
"Then I will wait outside." He nodded to Cynara and strode to the door his men guarded, leaving her and Ronan alone.
"You are satisfied?" Ronan asked softly.
"Satisfied?" She banged the back of the chair with her fist. "I won't be satisfied until you're cleared and… life returns to normal."
"What is normal, Cynara?" He moved closer, bathing her in his warmth. "To risk your life evading shaauri whose only purpose is to kill you? To hold yourself apart from others who would give you what your heart desires?"
She smiled. Her chest ached, and she didn't care what vulnerability she revealed to him now. "Even I don't know what that is anymore."
"You will find it." He touched her hand, so small a gesture and yet so charged with emotion. She wanted him, and he wanted her, and it was impossible.
"How do they say good-bye in Voishaaur, Ronan?"
"There are many ways. 'Sil akai' means 'With the Ancestors.' It indicates a final parting. 'Kei'lai' is said to be'laik'i when they leave on Walkabout. It means 'Fortunate Path.' Once a youth has selected, she seldom leaves her House or Line permanently. Among kin, shaauri say 'Tan uri-kah.' 'Until we are whole again.'"
"And which kind of parting is this?"
"I do not know, Aho'Va. Because we are human, our Paths can never be certain."
"I think I prefer—" He caught her words with his mouth, kissing her with heartbreaking tenderness. It was as if he truly believed they would never meet again.
With the Ancestors.
She returned his kiss almost angrily, wanting to punish him, make it impossible for him to forget what they had shared. Yet she had been the one to raise the corrosive doubts and build bitter walls.
He had forgiven her.
"No good-byes, then," she said, stepping back. "On Dharma we say 'safetide.' It comes from the days when all Dharmans, great or small, made their livings from the sea. It still holds true in space."
"Care well for yourself, Cynara," he said, stroking her cheek.
"And you." She turned abruptly and strode for the door, clenching her jaw to dam her tears. Miklos politely averted his gaze until she had overcome her weakness. His men had retreated to the far end of the antechamber.
"I knew a woman once," Miklos said, "who would gladly have sacrificed everything she possessed for the man she loved. And he would have done the same. In fact, one might say they both sacrificed everything for love—of each other, of their people, and of peace."
She couldn't bear to examine his implication too closely, yet her trust in Miklos was stronger than ever. 'This woman was someone you also cared for," she said.
"She was my sister, Lady Kori Galatea Challinor."
"I'm sorry. I know what it is to lose family."
"I still hope that Kori's work, and her husband's, was not in vain. What has happened today encourages that hope." He set his hand on her shoulder. "If anything in the universe can bridge the gulf between opposing forces, it is love." He smiled as if at his own romantic folly. "My people will escort you back to the ship. Good-bye, Captain."
"Safetide, Lord Miklos." She bowed with deep respect and joined Gajda and Mains. Their dispassionate presence kept her emotions well in check until she boarded the shuttle for the Pegasus.
Crew took one look at her face and wisely declined to question her. She gave a sketchy report to Adumbe, asked him to brief her officers, and considered his suggestions about possible cargo to carry back to the Nine Worlds. Then she retired to her quarters and stretched out on the bunk with Archie, her thoughts in such turmoil that she couldn't hold on to any one of them long enough to examine it.
Her door buzzed sometime later, and Kord entered at her invitation. "Adumbe asked me to deliver this to you, Captain," he said formally, though his eyes gave away his concern. "It just arrived from Lord Miklos Challinor."
She jumped from the bunk, snatching the message cube from his hand. She opened it impatiently and read the dispatch.
A second reading and then a third were required before she was certain that she understood correctly. Lord Miklos had almost gone too far, and yet she wasn't offended. How had he come to understand so well? Or was there some other purpose behind his generosity?
"Good news, Little Mother?"
She had almost
forgotten that Kord was still in her cabin. "I've been… called back to the palace," she said. "I'll probably be gone overnight."
"Should I accompany you?"
"No. It will be perfectly safe. Adumbe can prepare to move out sometime tomorrow with whatever cargo we can acquire and load by then."
"Is everything well with Ronan, and with you?"
She met his gaze. "Lord Miklos has taken personal interest in Ronan's case, and I trust him." She smiled. "I know that look, my friend. I can't let you remain here with him—I need you on the Pegasus."
Kord inclined his head, though he wasn't happy. He would consider leaving his brother on Persephone to be nearly as bad as abandoning Ronan to the Dharmans. Cynara knew the difference, but she was no happier than he was.
That made this last night all the more precious.
Lord Miklos's message didn't require a reply. She checked in with Adumbe and the woman he had assigned as temporary cargomaster before taking the shuttle back down to the surface. The sun was setting in glorious gold over the city, catching the pearlescent gleam of its towers.
They said that the streets of Persephone proper were safe enough for a child to walk at midnight. Cynara caught a public cab to the foot of the Acropolis and walked up the steep stairway, ignoring the escalators installed for the less vigorous. At the perimeter walls she presented the pass Miklos had sent with his message and was ushered through without hindrance.
Six more times she passed through security checkpoints until she was within the palace proper. There a guard offered escort to the guest wing that contained the address Miklos had provided. They walked through night-scented grottos, crossed an elegant artificial stream, and entered an annex of guest apartments with patios overlooking the garden. As open as it seemed, Cynara didn't doubt that escape from this place would be near impossible.
The guard left her at a door identical to all the others in the wing, decorated much like the more public portions of the palace she had seen before.
She hesitated, suddenly afraid. Surely Ronan knew to expect her. Miklos would have warned him.
Warned him, indeed. Did Ronan want this? Would he have preferred the simple farewell they had shared in Miklos's office?
The door opened. Ronan stood looking at her as if he had known she was outside—a simple matter for a telepath of his strength. But perhaps it was a subtler sense that brought them together, awkward in the silence, each weighing the emotional cost of this gift they had been given.
Ronan moved out of the doorway, leaving her a clear path into the apartment. Cynara stepped over the threshold. The quarters were clean, comfortable, and entirely colorless. They suited Ronan well. They suited the circumstances perfectly.
The bed stood in a separate room off the living area. Ronan offered his hand. She took it. There was no touching of minds; she couldn't risk it, and he would not press. But the understanding was there.
Tonight was not for words, or prolonged farewells. Tonight was for the ardent language of flesh and desire.
During their night on Dharma, Ronan had taken control. She had let him. But this time she needed more than ever to feel strong, brazen, anything but passive. She pushed Ronan until the back of his knees hit the bed, and then she kissed him.
It was difficult to keep from feeling his thoughts when he responded. Perhaps some of them slipped through her guard, because she was gripped by a sexual hunger surpassing any that had gone before. Ronan pulled her onto his lap, and she straddled him without interrupting the kiss. His erection strained against his shipsuit.
She put her hand on him, squeezing lightly. He groaned into her mouth. She opened the fly and touched his hot, silky flesh.
Ronan had no qualms about showing his pleasure. He bent back his head, breathing fast, as she stroked him up and down with her fingertips. He seized her about the waist, but she wriggled free and slid to her knees before him.
When she took him into her mouth, she knew immediately that none of his Kinswoman lovers had gone beyond the basic necessities in their servicing. His whole body went rigid, and then he released a shuddering breath. The feel of him in her mouth, the anticipation of taking him into her body, inspired her to try things she'd hardly imagined.
But she wanted to touch more of him than this. She paused, ignoring Ronan's wordless protest, to unfasten his shipsuit from neck to belly. She peeled the suit back from his shoulders, half trapping his arms, and rubbed her cheek against the hard swell of his pectorals and the ridged muscle beneath his ribs. She kissed his nipples one by one. He tried to lift his hands, but she forced them back and pressed him flat onto the bed.
Their eyes met. His were slightly glazed, but in them she saw the depth of appreciation and affection he couldn't express in words or even in thoughts. He had no masculine pride to surrender by letting her take the lead.
With his willing cooperation, she finished undressing him and tossed his 'suit to the floor. Even though she had seen him naked more than once, his body still seemed a magnificent work of art, scars and all. She stretched out atop him, kissing his face from brow to chin, letting her hair fall across his face in a sensual caress.
When she began to work her way down, kissing every scar in her path, he resisted for the first time.
If she opened her mind to him, she knew she would feel his shame. This bed wasn't large enough to carry such extra weight. Deliberately she lingered on each healed slash or cut, licking the scars as if she could make them disappear. She forced Ronan to endure until she was satisfied that every point and plane of his body had been thoroughly touched, indulged, and cherished.
Only then did she permit him to pull her up and hold her against him. He nuzzled her temple, crushing her so tightly to his chest that she hoped he remembered his own strength. But then he released her, just enough so that he could peel her dress tunic beneath her breasts, trapping her as she had trapped him.
She straddled his waist, and he eased her down so that her breasts were within reach of his mouth, steadying her above him with one hand. His tongue flicked, teasing, tasting with implacable hunger and unfailing gentleness.
Cynara closed her eyes and tried to remember to breathe. But she didn't want this to be a repeat of the previous time. Her desire had reached the point of pain, and she was in no doubt that Ronan's was equally pressing. Arching up, she shrugged the tunic from her shoulders. Ronan tugged her trousers down around her hips, and she finished the job. Her undergarments were discarded even more swiftly.
Then she resumed her position, her thighs to either side of his, hands braced on his chest. She eased down, taking him into herself, making the exquisite moment last to the very brink of torment. Ronan remained still. Only when she released her breath and began to move did he take up her rhythm.
Cynara hadn't expected this joining to be as profound as the one on Dharma, or as complicated. But the knowledge that her mind was safe, that Ronan would never breach her trust, set her free to take and give pleasure without fear. She rode him hard. He was tireless. No mental communication was required to tell them both when the time had come to let go.
She allowed her bones to melt and folded her body over Ronan's. He licked the perspiration from her neck and rolled to his side, keeping her within the crook of his arm. They lay thus long into the night, unspeaking, wanning each other with heated flesh and intertwined limbs.
Cynara fell asleep with her head on Ronan's shoulder. Even in dreams she felt his arms enfolding her, protecting, claiming as if this were only the first of a thousand nights to come.
She woke at dawn, disturbed by the unfamiliar chatter of birds in the trees outside the window.
The apartment seemed bleak and alien in the morning light, and not even the gentle shadows could soften the harsh reality of the clock on the bed table. She rolled over carefully, trying not to disturb the sheets tangled around her legs.
Ronan lay with one hand sprawled across his chest and the other on the pillow above his head. Some said that the
true human soul was revealed only in sleep. If that were so, she didn't know how she could bear to leave him.
He seemed asleep; his breathing was slow and steady, the muscles of his face relaxed. But he was not. She knew it, and he must know she was aware of his deception. Yet he kept up the pretense, making it easier on both of them.
No words.
She crawled out of bed and pulled on her suit. It smelted of Ronan. She held her tunic to her face and breathed him in, imprinting the scent in memory.
Ronan hadn't moved when she left the apartment. Gardeners were already at work among the shrubs and walkways, raking and pruning. Once she entered the more public corridors, she passed palace staff who nodded to her with formal and impersonal recognition. At the innermost security post, the guard called ahead to assure that she could pass through the remainder without stopping.
It seemed strange that she could walk so quickly when her heart felt twice its normal weight. But she had work to do; today the Pegasus would return to the Nine Worlds with a cargo of essential goods in its hold. A few days to Dharma, the inevitable confrontation with the Council—eased by Jesper's and Miklos's influence—and another cargo of fissibles back to the Concordat.
Then she would know the truth.
If anything in the universe can bridge the gulf between opposing forces, it is love. She prayed that Miklos was right. If not, then the universe had played a very cruel joke. And it would be a very long time before she laughed again.
* * *
Chapter 18
« ^ »
Ronan spent the hours after Cynara's departure settling his mind and sealing his heart from all emotion, chanting the Eightfold Way and preparing for the worst the Concordat might cast at him.
Concentration was more difficult than he had ever found it, even in the early days of his training. Cynara's scent clung to his body and everything he touched in the soft and over-large rooms assigned to him. Though not a word had passed between them during the night, though he hadn't so much as skimmed her thoughts, she had left an indelible mark that no discipline could eliminate.
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