Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3)

by Justine Davis

  If she was right, and Mordred was after a bigger treasure than a mere pile of gold, she had a duty to fulfill. She would have done it anyway, because it was Lyon, and he was the prince.

  Now he was her life, her future, her very heart, and she would die to protect him and do it without hesitation. Of course there was a problem. As sure as she was of that, she was also sure he would do the same for her. And that could not be allowed to happen. If it came down to it, he was more important than her. He, of course, would argue that, but it didn’t change the fact.

  Lyon touched her arm. She saw in his posture he was ready to move at last, and wondered if the orb had somehow told him Mordred was on his way back. Her own sensing told her only he was here, not how close. She saw Lyon make a gesture toward the tunnel the man was in, then another with both hands, moving apart. She nodded.

  They moved. Split up, taking positions, one on each side of the tunnel entrance. Shaina leaned forward slightly, straining to hear any trace of footsteps from the tunnel. She heard nothing but the muted rush of the falls outside.

  “Close,” Lyon whispered.

  “Yes.” The smug voice came from behind them. “I am.”

  They whirled, staring at the man approaching from the tunnel they had just vacated, the man who had somehow turned their own tactic against them and gotten behind them. A full-sized disrupter was trained on them, and a frighteningly well-used laser pistol was tucked into the man’s belt.

  He laughed, no doubt at their expressions. They’d been taken like fools. They’d gotten self-sure with their earlier success. Of course, they hadn’t realized then they were dealing with Mordred himself.

  “Did you really think I didn’t know you were in here?”

  A sick sort of anger bubbled in Shaina, most of it aimed at herself. It was her job to protect the prince, no matter that she hadn’t known it until a few days ago, or that it wasn’t official or known. She clearly had much left to learn.

  And now it appeared she never would.

  But Lyon would, she promised silently. Whatever else, he would survive. He must return to Trios, go home to their people. She would see to that, whatever the cost.

  “Point of curiosity,” Lyon said, as casually as if asking after the weather, “just how did you get from here”—he gestured at the tunnel entrance they had so uselessly surrounded—“to there?”

  “If you had taken the time to do a proper reconnaissance, you would have realized the tunnels intersect.”

  Shaina groaned inwardly. He was right, and that only fired her self-anger further. It had never occurred to her, or to Lyon; they had assumed the tunnels led somewhere or nowhere, to a goal or to distract from the treasure. It had never occurred to them that Mordred would be able to double back from some spot where the tunnels joined. This man had been famous for his efficiency. That much of it had been in the extermination of resistance did not escape her now.

  “Contention valid,” Lyon said, still in that same easy tone.

  Either the words or that tone seemed to irk Mordred. “If you were Coalition trained, you would know better.”

  Shaina thought swiftly. If he merely wanted them dead, he would have killed them on the spot. So he had something else in mind. She could think of only one thing, and that was something that she could not allow to happen.

  Keep his attention on you. Away from Lyon.

  “Coalition,” she said, as if the term was unfamiliar. “Isn’t that that old band of miscreants who were driven out of the entire sector eons ago?”

  Color flared in the pale skin.

  “No,” Lyon said warningly. She glanced at him, saw in his eyes the knowledge of what she was doing, trying to provoke Mordred into coming after her to save him.

  She shrugged. “Nothing to me if he wants to long for the old days, like all old men do.”

  “You will be speaking differently soon, whore,” Mordred hissed, “when you have a collar around your neck and learn your manners.”

  Shaina didn’t have to look at Lyon to see his reaction—she could feel it, coming off him in waves. He knew too well the depth of that threat. Most people grew up thinking the phrase “worse than death” to be nonsensical, for what could be worse than dying? But Lyon knew what it meant, and so did she. Her mother and his father had taught them well.

  She steadied herself. “In order for there to be Coalition slaves, there has to be a functioning Coalition, does there not?”

  “You will soon learn how well we function.” He looked at Lyon. “You most of all will learn. Triotian scum. You will pay for your father’s crimes.”

  She hadn’t really had any doubts, but this confirmation that Mordred indeed knew exactly who Lyon was still made Shaina’s throat tighten.

  “And I shall watch with enjoyment when the Sovereign separates your head from your body himself.”

  So he meant to take Lyon alive, Shaina thought. She could not let this happen. It would not happen. If she couldn’t provoke him to an attack, perhaps she could convince him she wasn’t worth killing. If he intended to hand Lyon over, he’d have to get him there first, and if she was free, she could see that that never happened. As long as he thought her merely a strumpet from Akasen Court, and no danger to him, she had a chance.

  She just had to hope Lyon would understand.

  “You don’t need me at all, then,” she said, as casually as if she hadn’t just been poking a slimehog with a stick. She shoved her disrupter in her belt, but left it armed.

  “Another step and I’ll fry you where you stand.”

  “She’s no danger to you,” Lyon said. “She’s merely a paid companion.”

  She let out a breath as he played along. “See? You have your main prize and all that gold, you don’t need to bother yourself with a whore.”

  “So quickly you desert him,” Mordred said scornfully. “No matter. You show me where he hid it, and I may spare you.”

  Her brows lowered. Hid it? When just minutes ago he’d been standing before it?

  “Hid it?” Lyon echoed her thought. But then he went on, making no sense at all. “We never even found it, how could we hide it?”

  “If you had not found the main treasure, you would not have left those coins as they were,” Mordred said. “You would have gathered them up unless they were superseded by something of even more value. Something you found, and moved. You will tell me where.”

  Shaina was beyond puzzled. None of this conversation made sense. The treasure was practically within sight from where they now stood, yet Lyon was pretending it wasn’t there. Pretending Mordred couldn’t see it, as clear as if it were under the Trios sun.

  Couldn’t see it.

  Was it possible? Could Mordred truly not see what was in fact right before him? Could the treasure be screened as the meadow had been? But if that were true, why had she been able to see it? She was with Lyon, but they hadn’t been touching, as they’d had to be for her to get through the screen.

  “I cannot tell you what I don’t know. We found those coins, nothing more. Someone apparently got here before all of us.”

  Mordred was too focused on Lyon, Shaina thought. “Perhaps ages ago,” she said. “Perhaps even your precious Coalition, before we chased them off like scalded blowpigs.”

  “Enough! I have wasted precious time chasing you around this bedamned mountain. I must be back by tonight, so you will tell me now.”

  Tonight? What was happening tonight? she wondered. This was all starting to feel very ominous, in a much bigger sense than simply their own dangerous situation.

  Whatever made a man like Mordred feel urgency did not bode well. For anyone.

  Chapter 37

  THE MAN WAS still a machine, Rina thought. She wasn’t hard pressed to keep up with him, but she was feeling the effort. Living so far awa
y from everything had a side effect she hadn’t considered: extra exercise. But then, this was also the man who had walked miles out of the mountains, horribly wounded, carrying one of his men every step of the way.

  Not that she didn’t appreciate his fast pace. She was feeling a sense of urgency herself, coupled with a bit of guilt that she hadn’t pursued her original task of finding Shaina. The fact that both Dax and Califa had agreed the new turn of events took precedence didn’t ease her mind at the moment. Not when Mordred, the right hand of the Butcher of Trios, walked this mountain with Shaina and Lyon.

  Not when he walked this or any other world.

  The innkeeper had described Mordred as a pale-skinned skalworm of a man, and shown them the direction he had gone. He had not seen anyone answering the description of Shaina or Lyon, although a man from the bar said he had seen two people yesterday, from a distance, heading up the mountain. He had told them where, and since it fit with what they knew from the trail they had thus far traversed, they had continued that direction.

  “We will find them.”

  Had it not been for that urgency, Tark’s quiet words, uttered without a trace of breathlessness, might have been annoying. She was going to have to add some mountain work to her regimen when she got home. They had been pushing hard, no casual ramble this. Shaina and Lyon had been on the mountain three days, and while they were likely moving much slower, they still had a lot of distance to make up. Even at triple time, they would be lucky to catch up with them before well into darkness.

  And Mordred could be anywhere.

  “Yes,” she answered. “We will.”

  “You have said they are smart, and clever. The campsite they chose at the base of the cliff indicates they are also careful.”

  “Or aware someone else is here. Shaina has a . . . sense of such things. And they have been well trained, by the best.”

  “Including you.”

  She smiled. “I taught them of navigation, orientation and such. But mostly I’m afraid I taught them mischief.”

  He laughed. And it warmed her yet again, more so now that it was coming more often. “And what a joy that must have been for them, taught by one of Dax’s own crew. For who would know better all kinds of mischief?”

  She gave him a sideways look. “And what kind did you learn?”

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “According to my parents, my mischief was not being like them, and wanting to learn those same weapons and tactics.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, regretting having asked. But she had wanted some glimpse into his past, some sense of who he’d been before he’d become who he was. “Some people cannot deal with reality, and turn a blind eye—”

  She broke off, realizing that hadn’t been the best choice of words. He gave her a sideways glance as they negotiated a narrow turning on the path.

  “Don’t alter your language for my sake, Rina. I do not take offense at the truth.”

  “Would that more would listen to it,” she said.

  His laugh this time held a tinge of bitterness. “I have an inkling of how Kateri must feel, shouting into the wind, having the people you are trying to warn deny there is any danger.”

  “They will learn soon enough,” she said, her voice nearly as grim as his.

  They had reached a stretch of path strewn with boulders of an annoying size, too small to block them, too large to simply step over. Times such as this she rued her relatively short stature. While it had helped her often, allowing her to be dismissed as no threat, at times like this it was a nuisance.

  At the largest he reached back and offered her help. Normally she would have declined, but time was of the essence here, so she took his hand. He pulled her up with an ease that spoke of his strength. She wondered how many never looked past his obvious injury to see that he was still the same powerful warrior he had always been. In a way, she supposed, it was a similar sort of camouflage as her size, allowing people to dismiss at their own peril. Although anyone who looked at the man was a fool if they didn’t see the danger there.

  She had seen it. And had rushed in anyway.

  She let go of his hand, afraid he would somehow sense the stream of memories that had flooded her. Memories of that that powerful body moving over her, beneath her, within her. Memories of the pleasure they had found, and his stunned surprise at the force of it.

  She saw him flex the hand she had released, as if it were tingling just as hers was from the brief contact. With an effort she forced herself to concentrate on their progress. She wished either Shaina or Lyon had a communicator, but when they were off on these rambles, being out of touch was one of the things they treasured. For all their love of her, and the many times she had joined them on their treks at home, she knew that they were complete, with only each other. That they considered her welcome in their private world had never failed to touch her.

  She wondered when they would realize they were meant for each other in all ways. Soon, she thought.

  I wish you both the kind of bliss I have found.

  She sent the thought out on the breeze, and then laughed at her own whimsy. Something about this place seemed to give rise to such silliness. And she set her mind to thinking of all the tales she’d heard since she’d arrived.

  It was better than thinking of other things. Such as the fact that while Lyon and Shaina might be destined to be together forever, she had no promise she and Tark would last beyond this day.

  THEY WERE TRAPPED here. They could do nothing, not while they were hemmed in by the cave walls. It was foolish enough, Lyon thought, that they had not explored, that they had not scouted the territory before getting distracted by the fact that they had found what they hadn’t really believed existed. They couldn’t trust that a dash for one of the tunnels would save them when they did not know where they led. They knew from Mordred that they intersected; perhaps that’s as far as they went, perhaps it was only a useless half circle that began and ended in the same place.

  They had to get out of here to have even the slightest chance, and he had no idea how to manage that.

  “You will tell me, you know.”

  Mordred said it easily, with full confidence. A confidence he backed up by using his free hand to pull the laser pistol from his belt. He flicked the power switch, and a small yellow light atop the weapon came on. When it turned blue, Lyon knew, it would be ready. A fiendish weapon, it easily carved away pieces of flesh, cauterizing the wounds as it went to prevent bleeding and prolong the agony. Compared to it, a disrupter on full was a blessing, a quick death.

  Lyon had never been afraid of physical risk, had grown up tackling the elements and geography. But in fighting, his early training had been in controlled conditions. Even if told to press him hard, his instructors were always aware of who he was and loath to injure him, so he’d been glad of the chance to later test his mettle in a couple of Coalition skirmishes and come away unscathed.

  Only his father, or Dax, ever pushed him beyond the limit, and it was from their teaching that he bore what scars he had. Well, except for the one on his shoulder. That was courtesy of Shay, who as a child had jumped him from a tree as he passed under, laughingly explaining after the bleeding had been staunched, Neuskin applied, and he’d been pronounced fine, that not all enemies were polite enough to give warning.

  She had always kept him on his toes, he thought now. And he knew what she was doing. She was trying to keep the man’s attention on her. And while the man thought her merely a paid companion, it would work, at least until he became annoyed with her jabs enough to eliminate her because of that same assumption.

  And once he threatened her, Lyon knew he would inevitably betray how much—how very much—she meant to him. And Mordred would realize he had the perfect weapon at hand. Either way, Shay seemed the most likely first victim. And no matter how much she
would want it that way—and he had realized that despite the late discovery she was indeed flashbow warrior material to the bone—he would never let that happen. It was a conundrum, and he wasn’t having much luck figuring a way out of it.

  “But,” Mordred said, with enough apparent pleasure at the prospect of torture that Lyon’s stomach turned, “where to start?”

  Shay continued her reckless taunting. “I’d say your shriveled manhood, but I’d guess it’s already been removed.”

  He wanted to yell at her to stop it, but knew it would hand Mordred the one weapon he could not fight. He could use one of those magic screens just now, or whatever it was that prevented Mordred from seeing the gold. He wondered why the man hadn’t considered the possibility, after he’d had to walk through the screen outside the meadow. Or perhaps it had failed? Or shut down somehow, once they’d made it past? But then wouldn’t the one in here have failed as well, once they’d found the treasure? Perhaps—

  It hit him then. A possibility. Not much of one, but all they had.

  With an effort he quashed the anger that had flared in him the moment he’d realized who they were facing. Lyon had wanted nothing more in that moment than to smash this disgusting being like the skalworm he was.

  But now, he had to convince the man otherwise. Convince him that he was cowed, afraid. With his likely opinion of anyone outside the Coalition, it shouldn’t be hard. And he had his fear for Shay to draw upon.

  “Just put that thing away, will you?” he said, letting a bit of that fear into his voice.

  Mordred’s attention switched back to him.

  “I see you’re familiar with this weapon.”

  Lyon tried to put fear into his expression, tried to eye the pistol as if it were a giant jumpspider, fangs glistening with venom.

  “Then you know what it can do,” Mordred said, his voice disturbingly gentle. “And I’m quite expert in its use, I can assure you.”