Lord of the Storm

by Justine Davis

  She wished he would speak, would say something, anything. Anything except just sit there and look at her with that expressionless mask hiding whatever he was thinking. She couldn’t bear to look at it and turned away.

  She fastened her gaze on the computer and the navigational readout. At any moment she would know if her calculations had been correct, if this rash gamble she’d committed them both to would pay off or send them hurtling down to the surface, killing them both.

  The figures flashed on the screen, nearing the instant of truth. Then the numbers stopped. The shuttle’s coordinates matched the coordinates she had programmed into the big ship’s computer. It was now or never. Suppressing a ripple of misgiving, Shaylah did what she had to do.

  She turned the shuttle’s power off.

  Chapter 7

  SHAYLAH HAD WOLF’S complete attention now. As the low hum of the power unit abruptly stopped, he stared at her. She didn’t dare spare him more than a glance; she was watching the one all-important register too intently. It flickered, the glowing readout jumping, then settling, indicating a strong magnetic pull. She bit her lip as she shifted her eyes to the speed indicator. They were still moving forward. Slowly, but steadily. She let out a long, relieved sigh. It had worked.

  She felt Wolf looking at her. She turned to him. She had time now; they were locked in, and there was nothing for her to do but hope her hastily devised ruse had worked. She could explain, convince him she was here to help him, wipe away the look that had come into his eyes when she had kept his chains.

  But before she could speak a word, he shifted his gaze. His eyes flickered over the instruments, as if checking each readout. As if he knew exactly what to look for, she thought. As if—

  “A tractor beam,” he breathed, the first words he’d spoken since they’d left his prison. Surprised, she nodded as he turned his steady green gaze on her again. And said simply, “Why?”

  Shaylah blinked. “It was the only thing I could think of. They don’t routinely scan for tractor beams, but they do check any unauthorized departures from anywhere but the spaceport. So we don’t dare fly all the way to the ship under the shuttle’s power. The ion drive would register on their scopes.”

  “That’s not what I—” He paused, as if reconsidering his words. When he began again, Shaylah was certain the words weren’t what he’d started to say. “Your ship?”

  “I took her out past the inspection point yesterday. She’s at the max tractor range that’s still in local airspace.”

  “Your crew . . . knows about this?”

  She flushed and looked away. “They’re . . . not aboard. Some are on another assignment, the rest are back on Alpha 2, finishing their leave. I told the checkpoint I was going to do some solo flying before I went to pick them up.” She shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”

  He lifted a golden brow. “You left your ship in unattended orbit?”

  “The computer will hold her until we get aboard.”

  “Assuming no one monitored your flight down to the surface.”

  “They couldn’t have. I came in the same way, on the tractor beam, reversed. With the power shut down. I programmed the Sunbird’s computer to revert the beam to normal operation after I landed.”

  “So all they’ll get is a short, low-altitude flight reading.”

  Shaylah nodded, pleased, but on some other level not surprised that he’d understood so quickly. “From the end of the tractor’s range to the surface and back. I hope they’ll think it was just somebody local out for a ramble.”

  It came to her again, suddenly, the memory of that look in his eyes when she had picked up his chains and put them in the pack. And that moment of hesitation before he had surrendered the controller.

  “I would never use those chains, Wolf.” Her voice was fervent. “I just didn’t want to leave any clues behind. If the guards assume you are still fettered, they will probably look in the immediate area, thinking you couldn’t get far. And I wanted to leave as little sign as possible. If it takes a while for them to realize you had outside help, it will slow them down.”

  “I’m . . . impressed, Captain.” The cool formality of his voice made her stomach knot. “I would not like to go up against you in battle. The sheer force of the Coalition is a formidable thing—that force used with cleverness and ingenuity is unbeatable.”

  “This wasn’t for the Coalition, damn it!”

  “No, it wasn’t, was it? I doubt that using one of their ships—and their tactical training—to steal one of their own slaves is in their rule book. Which brings me back to my original question. Why?”

  Her forehead creased in puzzlement. “I told you—”

  “I didn’t mean the tractor beam. You’ve risked your life, your ship, your career to do this. Why?”

  “Did you think I could leave you there, once I found out they’d sold you into that—that pit?” she asked incredulously.

  For a moment something flickered in his chilly gaze, something hot and bitter. “At least in Ossuary they are honest about what they’re doing. They don’t put any pretty names on it. They don’t try to hide the fact that I am a slave and their job is to break me.”

  “Oh, Wolf . . .”

  He ignored the plaintive note in her voice. “Why?” he repeated harshly.

  Stung, Shaylah pulled herself up straight, pride reasserting itself. Obviously he wanted no emotion from her. She couldn’t blame him, she thought, not after what he’d been through. She would tell him, and she would tell him the truth, whether he wanted to hear it or not. But not until she was certain she could match his cool, level tone. It took her a moment for that. At last the words came.

  “Do you think I don’t know that I’m responsible for this? That because I selfishly took what I wanted I hurt you unbearably, made you angry, too angry to quietly bear your situation any longer?”

  She shivered slightly in the face of his implacable, unchanging expression. Her courage nearly failed her, but the cold, merciless knowledge that she owed him this made her go on.

  “I was selfish. I pretended I was doing it for a good reason, for you as well as me. But if that had been really true, I never would have forgotten to speak the words that would have erased the memory for you. I wanted you to remember that it was me you mated with. I wanted it to be . . . as extraordinary for you as it was for me.”

  A muscle twitched along his jaw then, but he said nothing, merely kept that steady, compelling gaze fastened on her. She had to fight to keep from looking away.

  “I had no right,” she said, her voice husky now despite her efforts. “I hate the system of enslavement and everything it stands for. I even hate my friends for supporting it, for believing in it. Yet I used it just as they do.”

  She swallowed tightly. “I had always prided myself on not being a hypocrite like so many are, on not trumpeting the glory of the Coalition when there was so much of it I didn’t like. But I proved myself worse than any of them that night.”

  She couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t stop the quaver that crept into her voice. And suddenly she didn’t care.

  “I know that I ruined what we had built in those days together,” she whispered, staring out the viewport, vaguely aware that the Sunbird was now looming up ahead, “all because I wanted a precious taste of something I had come to fear no longer existed, something everyone told me was a myth I was foolish to believe in. I know that you don’t trust me, that you hate me, and you have every right. I don’t care much for myself right now. I’m doing this so I can . . . live with myself.”

  She shuddered, steadied herself, and made herself look at him, even knowing he couldn’t fail to see the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. He looked at her steadily, and despite his bruises, despite his swollen, battered face, despite the grime that disguised his golden looks, he was still the mos
t beautiful male she had ever seen. Even enslaved, there was something regal about him, like that last lion. Pacing his cage, it was true, but with his head held high. She drew in a shaky breath.

  “But know this, Wolf,” she said softly. “No matter what you believe, I never, ever meant to hurt you.”

  After a long, silent moment during which his steady gaze never wavered, Wolf seemed to go slack, his breath rushing out of him in a long, weary sigh. His shoulders slumped, and the rigid expression gave way to one of near-exhaustion. He closed his eyes.

  “I know,” he said, so quietly she wasn’t certain she’d heard it.

  “You . . . do?”

  The golden lashes lifted. His eyes were vivid with pain in his too-gaunt face. “I knew it that night,” he said. Shaylah smothered a little gasp, and his lips twisted in a swollen grimace of ruefulness. “If it wasn’t true,” he said wryly, “you would have killed me right there, for speaking to you as I did. A slave does not curse a Coalition officer and live to tell about it.”

  A shudder rippled through him. He shook his head as if in that way he could shake off the exhaustion that was rising in him. Shaylah glanced up at the Sunbird; she could see now the welcoming glow of the open landing bay. She prayed to Eos that they would reach the ship before the stimulant wore off completely and he collapsed.

  “I was angry,” he said softly, musingly, almost as if he weren’t aware of speaking out loud. “At first it was because you’d used what I’d told you, that you’d used Brielle’s memory to defeat me.”

  He shuddered again. It was wearing off too soon, Shaylah thought desperately, but then she was caught by his next words, and there was no room for any feeling except a wave of stunning astonishment.

  “It wasn’t until the first time I was . . . sent to someone else that I realized there was more to it than that. She treated me no differently than anyone else had before you. Yet I was furious. So furious I was able to resist the collar systems.” He smiled, a twisted, humorless smile. “Marcole did his work well that night. But in the last moments before I lost consciousness, I remember realizing that Brielle wasn’t the only reason I’d been so angry at you.”

  He seemed to sag in the chair, and his voice became more distant. Shaylah wanted to tell him not to talk, to rest, but she had to hear it, had to know, and she held her breath, silently begging him to go on.

  “She wasn’t?” she prodded gently at last when he seemed to be slipping too far away.

  “No,” he muttered. “I was angry because . . . I wasn’t enough for you. You wanted . . . a dream.” He shook his head again, but it was a halfhearted effort. He was starting to sound very groggy. “Not me. A dream.”

  Shaylah’s heart was hammering in her chest. She couldn’t believe . . . But surely he was too exhausted to lie? Don’t be an idiot, she ordered herself. He’s so drained he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. Reading anything into his words was a fool’s act, and she’d been the fool more than enough lately.

  The cabin of the shuttle brightened suddenly, and Shaylah knew they had reached the ship. The tractor beam drew them inside the bright shuttle bay and set them down with a gentle thump. Any other time she would have grinned in self-satisfaction at the accuracy of her calculations, but there was no place in her now for pride. All she wanted to do was get out of this sector and get Wolf well. She had no idea what would come after that.

  SHAYLAH WATCHED the man who still lay deeply asleep in the bunk in her quarters. She’d spent hours doing just this, watching him, only occasionally leaving to check the ship. The computers were working flawlessly; she’d set a course for one of the most deserted sectors she knew of and locked the ship on to it.

  Wolf had barely made it out of the shuttle after the docking bay door had slid shut behind them. She’d known he was on the verge of collapse, and he had leaned on her heavily until he had toppled onto her bunk.

  She had cleaned him up as best she could, gritting her teeth at the reminder of the conditions he’d been living in. She lost her control when she began to search out and treat his many wounds: cuts, bruises, burns, and the marks of a primitive lash marring the golden perfection of his body. She had finished the grim job with tears streaming unchecked from her eyes.

  He had stirred once, suddenly, as if a final spurt of the drug had hit him. The green eyes snapped open, and his body went rigid as he looked at the unfamiliar surroundings.

  “It’s all right,” she said swiftly. “You’re safe.”

  “Shaylah? Where . . .”

  “You’re in my quarters on the Sunbird.”

  “Your . . . ?”

  “It’s the most comfortable bed.” The tightness of her throat marred her attempt at lightness. “Besides, it’s closest to the con, and somebody has to fly this thing.”

  “Fly . . . where?”

  She smiled ruefully. “The middle of nowhere, I hope.”

  He opened his mouth, but the effort appeared to be too much, and he drifted away from her once more.

  When she’d done all she could for his injuries, she had done what she’d been craving to do; she washed the golden mane of his hair. It was an awkward task, but she hadn’t been able to look at it dimmed by the residue of that awful place. She looked at it now, thick and gleaming in even the low light of her cabin, and was glad.

  When her chronometer warned her that the Sunbird had reached the barren sector she’d designated, she reluctantly returned to the con. She activated the scanners in all directions and studied the scopes carefully. It took her a long time to find what she wanted, a desolate asteroid large enough for the ship to safely maintain an orbit around.

  The scanners showed nothing else moving in the vicinity, but she fixed the alarms just in case, setting them at maximum range. She wanted plenty of warning if anyone showed up in this deserted place; she didn’t believe in that much coincidence.

  She thought there was a decent chance no one at the Ossuary port would connect the disappearance of a prime slave with her departure the previous day, but Califa was another matter. When she heard, as no doubt she eventually would, after Shaylah’s reaction to the news of Wolf’s sale, it wouldn’t take much for her to figure it out, and Califa was more than clever enough. However, after she had calmed down, Shaylah had told Califa about her plans for a long, solo flight, hoping the smokescreen might cast just enough doubt for Califa to hold her tongue.

  Califa had merely smiled; she’d never understood Shaylah’s need to be alone in space, free to fly where she would, free to put the Sunbird through its paces and push the quick, agile ship to the limit. But once Califa heard of Wolf’s escape, Shaylah knew she would wonder. Whether she would wonder enough or feel it her duty to inform the Coalition or the Sector Patrol, Shaylah couldn’t guess. Once she would have staked her life on Califa’s loyalty and friendship, but their relationship had been strained lately. But, she thought grimly as she left the con, you staked your life on it anyway. Your life and Wolf’s.

  In the unrelieved darkness of space, held in orbit through no effort of her own, Shaylah lost track of how long they’d been there. Time was marked only by the changing color of the ugly bruises that marked Wolf’s face and body, and she lost track as well of how long she’d done little more than sit at the end of her bunk near Wolf’s feet, her legs curled up under her, watching him quietly sleeping.

  She didn’t mind; it was much better than helplessly listening to the groans of pain he had tried, even in sleep, to bite back. It was better than watching him thrash in the grips of a fierce fever that defeated even the strongest medication she’d dared to give him, when all she could do was sponge him down with cool water and hope it would break.

  It was better than hearing him cry out for the dead Brielle, for his dead family, for his dead world.

  Shaylah wasn’t aware she’d dozed off until she came awake with a li
ttle start, startled to feel the hard wall of the bulkhead at her back and to feel Wolf’s steady, expressionless gaze on her face.

  He was propped up on the cushions behind his back, his arms crossed casually across his torso. This was not the pain-weakened, exhausted Wolf she’d pulled from the grim darkness of his prison cell. This was the Wolf she’d first seen at Califa’s, proud despite his chains, his green gaze cool, assessing, and utterly insolent for a slave. Especially in the way his eyes lingered over the thrust of her breasts, nipples too prominent beneath the shimmering blue silk of her mother’s robe.

  The cool, steady look made her uneasy, yet at the same time, knowing the strength he must have regained to present it to her, she rejoiced. The second feeling soon overpowered the first, and she couldn’t stop the smile that curved her mouth.

  His head drew back a little, as if she’d startled him. “You are . . . amused?”

  She shook her head, the smile widening. Yes, her self-possessed, aloof Wolf was back. “No,” she said softly. “Just glad to see you back to normal.”

  His forehead creased. “I am . . . feeling better.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” Shaylah said, her smile breaking free into a grin. “But I meant I’m glad to see you back to your prickly self.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes. He shifted one leg beneath the thermoactive cover she’d put over him. The silvery fabric slipped downward, drawing her glance as it slanted across his naked hip. Shaylah looked away, too aware of the heat that flooded her at the memory of what that silver cloth was so precariously covering.

  “Embarrassed, Captain?” The title grated on her, a feeling she’d never thought to experience. “Odd, since you’ve already seen . . . all I have to offer.” Her flush deepened. “Don’t worry about it, Captain,” he said bitterly. “I’ve been poked and examined and paraded around naked so much and in front of so many, it barely registers anymore.”