He looked at her. She studied him, eyes narrowed, assessing, as if he were a blade whose balance and sharpness she tested.
Stop it, instinct whispered, or she’ll deduce too much too soon. She’d freeze and he’d never stand a chance at gaining her cooperation, her trust. Ease back, Seaghdh, he instructed himself. Focus on the mission.
He forced himself to relax his features and to release her. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t have the authority to make that offer.”
Feeling her gaze trying to break into his head, he shifted, trying to encourage her to stand down.
“Even if you had the authority, you’d have me fighting my own people. I can’t imagine the Claugh are interested in that sort of moral conundrum in a ship’s captain. Are you in the habit of recruiting from within TFC ranks?”
Shaking his head, he grinned at her light, teasing tone. She’d felt something. Even if she couldn’t identify it, she’d felt his tension and had offered him a way out. Another point to her. “If you want to exact revenge on me for capturing you and yours, tell my CO about this conversation.”
Ari lifted an eyebrow. “Presumably that would mean facing the legendary Auhrnok Riorchjan.”
“Her Imperial Majesty’s inestimable cousin?” he said. “Yes.”
“Dangerous and deadly cousin,” she corrected, lowering herself into the piloting chair. “You know the Armada has its own name for him?”
Seaghdh shifted but did not meet her gaze. “The Queen’s Blade. Judge, jury, and executioner.” He stopped speaking, hearing the bitter edge in his own voice.
She shrugged, eyeing him as if trying to fathom why the name bothered him. “I understand IntCom can’t get an operative within sight of him. With no hard data, rumor is taken as fact. Suppositions are made and stories invented.”
“I’ve heard a few of those stories,” he said. “Most are true.”
“The man owns a planet?”
Seaghdh laughed, unable to exorcise the grim note from the sound. “He says it owns him.”
“You’re his, aren’t you?”
Seaghdh went dead still, startled into meeting her gaze as lethal, glittering awareness moved within him. Perception sharpened and he studied her to see how much she’d already guessed. He felt as much as saw her quiver.
From the apprehension in her face, she knew she’d hit a nerve. Though her expression remained studiously blank, he could see her considering. Hit the nerve again to see if he’d crack? Or offer enough slack to see where he’d go?
“His?” he echoed.
She smiled and relaxed, ratcheting the tension forcibly down.
Still on guard, he mirrored her, letting her lead. Even after everything she’d been through, she was good. She projected such an Isarrite-clad air of harmless curiosity that he wanted to cheer. Why had TFC wasted such obvious talent on the bridge of a Prowler?
“You’re from his planet,” she clarified. “Do you owe him allegiance? Or are you family?”
He had to stifle a laugh. Family. Twelve Gods, if he hadn’t already known everything to be known about Captain Ari Idylle, her so-close-to-the-truth guess would have made him think she was part of Intelligence Command. It would have scared and thrilled the life out of him.
“Damn it, Ari.” He sighed, and running a hand down his face, folded easygoing, good humor around his tone. “Stop doing that. I’m too tired to have you picking secrets out of my head.”
She laughed and he had to cut off the urge to yank her into his arms. Fear drove into her face and cut off the infectious sound. She stared at him, eyes wide, clearly asking herself how they’d become so comfortable with their verbal parry and riposte.
Pain for her burned through him. He hoped he’d helped her remember what fun felt like, a few uncertain moments notwithstanding. Shaking off the feeling, he reminded himself that he had no business hoping anything. She was proving all too skilled at getting under his defenses. If she’d had any training as spy, he’d assume it was calculated. But his files on her were exhaustive and there was no indication that she’d ever been recruited or trained.
She spun back to her station and stared at the readouts.
Seaghdh clenched his fists to keep from reaching out to her in comfort. What was it about her that kept throwing him off target?
“You can’t offer me a command, and I can’t have you abducting my family,” she said. “Stick to plan, Seaghdh. You’ve got me.”
A console beeped. Communications. She rose and crossed in front of him. He stopped her again.
“Give us what we need, Ari, and I’ll get you back to Tagreth, if that’s what you want,” he said.
He felt impatience sweep through her. She slipped out of his grasp and went to communications.
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” she snapped, punching commands. “Audio logging online in ten seconds. We both know the only way I’ll ‘get back’ anywhere is in a body bag.”
“That’s your government,” he shot. “Not mine.”
“It’s every government,” Ari countered, “that’s in the business of protecting its citizens. At least in TFC space, I’m one of those citizens. In Claugh nib Dovvyth space, I’m the enemy. My life won’t be worth a damn.”
Two beeps from the com panel. She turned to glare at him. He met her challenging stare.
“I disagree with your assessment, Captain,” he said. “I have time and the weight of evidence on my side. Now, brief your family.”
“Bad plan.”
“Not at all,” he countered. “We want their minds occupied, yes? You brief them. I remain silent.”
She sucked in an audible breath and nodded. “They won’t be able to evaluate your veracity directly. They will have to filter everything through whether or not they believe I can be lied to.”
He offered her a handheld. Ari reached for it and then met his gaze when he did not release it.
“Do not tell them who we are.”
She cocked her head. “Giving them something to work out for themselves?”
“If you like.”
“They will, you know.”
“Maybe.”
He let go. She glanced at the little screen, scanning the shift schedules, every last one of which he’d made certain she worked with him. A hint of resignation in her eye, she nodded.
“Discourage any notions they may have of heroics and work out a meal schedule if you think it’s safe,” he said.
“Give them access to their experiments,” she suggested. “Dad’s priority is saving the galaxy from covert Chekydran plagues.”
Seaghdh pressed his lips tight, tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, and shook his head.
“Brief them,” he said. “If we can secure the cargo bay, I’ll consider limited work on the experiments.”
“During active experimental work, the cargo bay is an isolated environment with containment fail-safes,” she assured him. “Worst case, the entire contents of the bay is jettisoned via vacuum.”
Seaghdh uttered a breathless laugh. “Thank the Twelve Gods I wasn’t any good at science.”
“It is a unique calling.” Ari leaned in to punch up commands on his console.
So close, Seaghdh inhaled her scent. Citrus and a trace of the forests where he’d grown up. Awareness flared through him. The heat of her body warmed him, driving blood low into his body. He glanced into her face and saw the flush staining her cheeks.
She jerked upright. “You can monitor the galley from here,” she explained, her words hurried and her voice uncharacteristically rough. “Video and audio. I’ll make supper and stow some for everyone. Best if I brief them over food. SOP on this ship.”
“Thank you,” he said, easing a thread of power into his voice. Turn to me. His tone warmed and he saw the cajoling, caressing note shimmer through her.
Her flush deepened. Confused emotion toppled the brittle look of peace that had finally settled on her face. She fled.
Seaghdh swore.
&
nbsp; What the hell was wrong with him? He had no business being disappointed because his subject had broken and run when the sexy little games they’d been playing had intensified. Certainly, he’d known what a beautiful woman she’d been before her capture, had thought he’d known something about who she was. But damn it. Nothing had prepared him for the wry humor in her. Or the depth of pain or the sheer force of will shining from her. She’d been pretty before, but now, her once-lush beauty, shattered by the Chekydran and pieced back together by medical technology, promised magnificence tempered by nightmare. It was the sheer magnetic force of intellect and personality that hadn’t crumbled beneath Chekydran brutality that made her so engaging, so stunning.
She took his breath away. He hadn’t been prepared for that or for her response to him. She obviously hadn’t, either. That he impacted her, he could plainly see. It was damned flattering, but the fear her feelings caused her felt like a knife in his gut.
CHAPTER 7
ARI fled to the galley, propped her hands on the counter, let her head hang, and grappled for control of her body. Three months of brutal captivity. Three months of attempting to recover. How in the Three Hells could she respond to any man, let alone the one who’d made her a prisoner again and who’d endangered the most important people in her life? Was this sudden awaking of her most primal self part of the recovery process? Was it even normal?
She sagged. No way to know. It wasn’t like anyone had the data to define normal parameters for surviving Chekydran victims. They were a rare breed.
And the man sitting in her father’s command chair was watching her every move on the galley transmitters. She straightened, scrubbed her face with her hands, unable to escape what she’d seen in his eyes.
He liked what he saw when he looked at her.
Some deeply hidden feminine core stirred to life within her. She’d seen so many feigned reactions to her appearance that she knew his appraisal had been honest and that it had taken him by surprise. Maybe that’s what had reached her. Extracting a response from someone who did not want to respond made Ari feel richer somehow. Armed, maybe, with a weapon she’d never realized she’d had.
A thrill of erotic promise fired through her. She turned away from the camera, folded her arms around her body, closed her eyes, and allowed herself a moment to enjoy the sensation. It would be all she could afford.
How long had it been? Four years? Five? No. Six. At least. That was the trouble with chasing a command. Everything Ari had done, everyone she’d associated with figured into her command suitability in the eyes of the admirals. Plenty of command candidates chose celibacy to safeguard their careers. The single greatest attrition factor in the leadership program was love. The admirals said it was “the urge to merge” overpowering the drive to captain a piece of hardware.
Maybe it made her cold. Or hard. Or maybe she had always been Pietre’s Ice Princess, but she’d never wanted anything as much as she’d wanted her own sleek, lethal Prowler and crew.
Until Cullin Seaghdh made her think and feel things that could rip away the last hope that she’d ever sit in the command chair on the bridge of a warship ever again. Her only option was to do what the Chekydran had forced her to learn so swiftly and so well: block out every trace of emotion. If she could do that and concentrate on her job, she might still convince Armada Command to put her back in the number one spot on a Prowler roster.
Resolute, Ari made supper. As she dished out the thick, aromatic stew, she had Seaghdh unlock cabin doors. She punched the com buttons for her father’s, Raj’s, and Pietre’s rooms.
“Supper’s ready,” she said.
“Alex?” her father began.
“Come to the galley, Dad. I’ll explain what I can.” She straightened, folded her hands behind her back, and waited the few minutes it took them to traverse the corridors.
The door opened. Linnaeus Idylle and his crew filed into the room. She drew a deep breath. Her dad sat in the chair at the head of the table, pushed his bowl of stew away, and clasped his hands, anger in the set of his shoulders. Pietre stood at his right, arms crossed, contempt in his expression. Raj and Jayleia sat side by side at the table, turning their chairs to face her. Ari nearly smiled. None of them would put their backs to anyone else. And they called her distrustful.
“I cannot give you much more than a tactical briefing,” she said, sitting opposite her father.
“I don’t want a briefing from a colluder.” Pietre dropped his hands to his sides, his fists clenched. “It’s time we took back this ship.”
Raj lifted an eyebrow. “Are we secure?”
“No,” she said, dipping her spoon in her stew.
Her father scowled.
Pietre’s face darkened.
“At no time, while these men are on board, should you consider any conversation secure,” she said, turning to be certain the galley sensor couldn’t see her face. She pinned Raj with a stare and slowly closed one eye.
He took a deep breath and sat back. “I understand.”
Ari hoped he did understand that medical might still be secure, but it was the only place, and she didn’t know how long that would last.
“We are on course for Tagreth Federated Command,” she said.
Her father narrowed his blue eyes, as if trying to adjust his focus. “We’re being shadowed by the Chekydran.”
“Yes.”
“After they’ve veered off?” he asked.
“Silver City.”
Her father scowled. “Nothing more than pirates.”
Ari shrugged, neither confirming nor denying the supposition. “Once we reach Silver City the Sen Ekir and its crew will be free to go.”
“Says who?” Pietre demanded.
She met Pietre’s angry brown eyes and took a deliberate bite of stew.
“That pirate out there?” he asked. “A man without a conscience? Or honor? How can you believe anything he says? Are you even thinking?”
Her throat closed on her protest and she struggled to swallow the morsel she’d so unwisely chosen. Dropping her spoon in her bowl, she rose. That did the trick. She could breathe and talk again.
“You’re still alive,” Ari countered. “That pirate out there, the one without any honor, wasted time letting us pack up and stow your experiments and your gear. Not the actions of a man bent on murder.”
“You are so stupid!” Pietre growled, his face red.
“Am I?” she challenged. “So stupid that I tuned the atmospherics when the problem was a fuel line clog? A clog so bad the valve is now shot? I have to risk blowing all of us, including your precious ass, out of the space ways by setting down on Kebgra for a spare. You’ve endangered everyone, again, because you couldn’t be bothered to do your damned job.”
“Stop it!” her father ordered. “Pietre, sit down and be quiet. Alexandria, Kebgra? You said we were on course for Silver City.”
She drew herself upright and huffed out a short breath as Pietre dropped into a chair. Damn it. Barely sixty seconds in their company and she’d reverted to the Armada Captain her father treated like a two-year-old. She had to overcome these old habits, fighting with Pietre and letting her father order her around.
“We’re in the lane for TFC, Dad,” she answered, rising and shoving her bowl of stew into cold storage.
“So as not to alert the Chekydran,” Jayleia said.
“I have noticed that I can’t get our passengers killed without taking us along,” Ari replied. “I am doing what the Chekydran expect. Kebgra and the engine repair are first.”
“We’re riding tolerance on the valve?” her dad inquired.
“Beyond tolerance,” she countered. “That jaunt through the outer solar atmosphere didn’t do it any favors. We’re twenty hours out.”
“What are the odds of a bleed?” her father demanded.
She shrugged. “I can go in on one engine if I have to.”
“Risky,” Raj said when neither her father nor Pietre commented.
> “No more so than a bleed,” she said. “Kebgra’s nice, but I’m not interested in permanent residency. Either because we burned off all our fuel or because we exploded on entry.”
“Very well,” her father said, nodding. “Pietre will . . .”
“Not likely be allowed to do the repair,” Ari finished for him. If she had control of someone else’s ship, she sure as hell wouldn’t give the crew any chance to sabotage the drives.
Pietre leaped to his feet. “I’m engineer on this ship, not . . .”
The door opened. Ari glanced up.
“Captain Seaghdh,” she said, ignoring the gun in his hand in favor of wiping down the counters.
Jayleia gasped. Ari’s father and Raj sat back in their chairs. Pietre froze.
“V’kyrri will handle repairs,” Seaghdh said.
Ari raised her eyebrows when Seaghdh’s second followed him through the door. “Turrel. Who has the con?”
“Captain Idylle,” Seaghdh acknowledged with a nod, his tone mild. “We’re in the lane. Turrel has the con on handheld. You’re off duty.”
Without waiting for her reply, he swept the people at the table with a glance that would have made her shiver had it been turned on her. The gun focused on Pietre. “I asked Captain Idylle to brief you as a courtesy,” he grated. “You do not control this ship. I do. Captain Idylle is making the best of a bad situation. I suggest you do the same.”
Her father rose slowly, his hands flat on the table. “None of this is necessary, Mr. Seaghdh. If you and your men require transport, return control of my ship to me. Diverting to Silver City is a minor issue. I will forego charges if you surrender control.”
“That’s touching, Dr. Idylle,” Seaghdh replied, “given you preferred murder a few hours ago. You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t bring myself to trust you any more than I trust the Chekydran.”
Her dad stood rigid. “You’d have done the same thing in my place.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” The dead flat tone of his voice drew Ari’s attention to Seaghdh. His features might have been carved from a solid piece of Dirthanian Isarrite, the hardest substance yet found in the galaxy. The light had gone out of his eyes.
Enemy Within Page 8
