Amid Stars and Darkness

by Chani Lynn Feener

  He told her about one of the worst attacks, something that happened ten years ago, not long before the shaky peace talks had begun. They’d bombed an entire Vakar city, killing thousands in a matter of minutes. There’d been nothing that the Basileus could do to stop it.

  And that’d just been the beginning.

  “We’ve gotten word that they’re working on something,” he was telling her now. “Something big. Worse than the tech they used on the city. It could destroy huge chucks of Vakar. Kill millions. We might not survive it if the intel is true.”

  “Is that why this peace treaty is so important?” she asked, walking around to the other side of a table. There were guns hanging on the wall behind it, some of which looked very similar to rifles back on Earth. How strange, that all this existed and she’d gone her whole life without knowing it.

  “Partly,” he said as he slowly trailed her, “yes. The Rex denies these claims, of course. He says there are no mass weapons being built.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “The Basileus—”

  “No,” she interrupted, turning in time to see him step up to her. “Do you believe him?”

  “I believe if there are weapons being created of that caliber, the Rex doesn’t know about it.”

  “How’s that possible? He’s the king.”

  “Who runs an entire population,” he pointed out. “A lot can happen in a day, let alone a few years.”

  “All right.” She began moving down the line, taking in more of the weapons on the wall. “But this peace treaty? It’ll stop whoever’s building from actually using them?”

  “That’s the hope,” he admitted. “They’d be committing mass treason, and you’ve met Trystan. He’s not exactly the type you want to anger. After he and Olena are bound, our people will be his people. If the Kints kill the Vakar, or even if the Vakar kill the Kints, they’ll have to deal with him.”

  “Unless he’s the one building.” She shrugged when he paused. “What? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Who better than Trystan to slink behind his dad’s back? Who, by the way, he has to hate just as much as Olena right now. You’re right: He’s not someone you want to piss off, and I guarantee the Rex has seriously pissed him off by taking his freedom away.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Yes,” she insisted. “that’s exactly what he’s doing. Take it from me. I know a prisoner when I see one.”

  “You’re not a prisoner, Delaney,” he said softly, though there was little conviction in his tone.

  “Tell me that again after you get me home.”

  He reached for her, linking their fingers together and tugging her closer. “The second your feet touch Earth ground,” he promised.

  There was a single table in front of the sectioned-off area, and he led her toward it. A couple dozen bracelet-shaped devices like the ones he and Pettus wore were arranged in neat rows on top of it. She recalled how it’d turned into a gun when Trystan had come upon them heading to the bunker.

  “I want to teach you how to use a fritz,” he told her, lifting a silver band off the table. Then he brought her around the sectioned area and swung open a clear door, waving her into the room.

  “Bulletproof glass”—he rapped his knuckles against the wall to the left—“just in case. This area was made for target practice.”

  The far wall was blank, a white slate; facing it was an odd black rectangular thing set in the center of the room. It came up to her chin.

  Ruckus moved toward the rectangle, flicking a switch at the side. A keyboard slid out of the bottom, and a screen flickered to life on one of the shiny black surfaces. It was clearly a computer, and he began typing away at it, glancing over at the blank wall when he was done.

  Five holograms suddenly appeared before the wall, all forming the outlines of people. They were various sizes, some distinctly male, others female. The holograms glowed dark blue around the edges.

  “No one’s gotten around to changing the color setting since the peace treaty,” Ruckus explained, noticing her thoughtful stare.

  Clearly, the holograms were meant as murky representations of Kint soldiers.

  “Here.” He handed over the bracelet, waiting for her to daintily slip it from his fingers. The corner of his mouth curved up, but that was the only sign he gave that he knew she was nervous. “Put it on.”

  She slid it onto her left wrist, watching as it shrunk down to fit snugly. It wasn’t tight, but it wasn’t loose enough to even spin a centimeter on its own. She allowed him to take her hand and turn it over so she could see the bottom of it over her pulse point. There was an almost imperceptible circular hole there, like a pinprick.

  “This is a sensor,” he explained, taking her middle finger and easing it down toward the hole. “They’re programmed to react only to a specific user’s fingerprint. I reset this one this morning and adjusted it to fit you.”

  “How’d you do that?” She frowned up at him, narrowing her eyes when he smirked.

  “Stealthily, that’s how,” was all he said, then returned to showing her how to activate it.

  She wasn’t capable of touching her wrist, but found it wasn’t necessary. The second her finger hovered a few inches away, the device activated. A soft hum came from it, and then the metal began to change, extending outward the same way she’d seen his do.

  He readjusted her arm so that she was no longer facing him, aiming it toward the middle hologram target. The fritz had fully formed now, still attached at the metal band that had narrowed some but otherwise remained unchanged.

  He tapped it. “This is so you can’t lose your weapon. It becomes an extension of you, so the only way to lose it is if someone cuts off your arm.”

  “Brilliant,” she drawled, ignoring the rush of heat skittering down her spine when he chuckled.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t actually intend for you to ever need this. It’s just a precaution. I don’t want what happened the other day to ever happen to you again. At least with this, you’ll be better prepared to defend yourself.”

  “Speaking of, why didn’t they just shoot me?” she asked. If they had, there wouldn’t have been anything she could have done to stop them.

  “We would have been able to trace which weapon fired the shot,” Ruckus divulged. “They all have monitoring devices inside, so we know the exact time they were fired, how far, how strong the setting was, et cetera. I’ve set yours to light, for example. It’ll stun people, not blast through them.”

  “It’s not like I’m made of china,” she stated dryly.

  “So seeing Pettus blast a hole clean through that Teller didn’t bother you at all?” he said, his sarcasm apparent.

  “Okay,” she admitted, “but the guy was trying to kill me, and I’d probably have to see it eventually.”

  “If I have my way,” he said, and readjusted her arm a second time, “you’ll never have to see anything like that again. But just in case … Now curve your finger inward. Yes, just like that.”

  A trigger formed within the space between her hand and pointer finger. She didn’t touch it, afraid the thing would go off before either of them was ready. Even knowing it’d been set to the lowest setting and she couldn’t accidentally kill someone, holding a weapon like this made her uncomfortable.

  “You’re going to aim at the big blue guy’s head.” He lifted her arm up an inch, until her line of sight was straight from the tip of her gun to the tall hologram in the middle. “And then inhale slowly and gently press down on the trigger.”

  She sucked in a shaky breath and did as he said.

  A thin green beam shot forward, heading straight for the hologram. When it reached it, the outline slammed back as if it’d actually been hit, bursting into a thousand tiny sparks of blue light when it came against the wall. They rained down and petered out of existence, leaving behind four remaining unaffected holograms.

  “Whoa,” she said breathlessly. Then she brought her arm t
o the left, aiming at a shorter female target. “Let’s do that again.”

  He laughed. “All right.”

  * * *

  SHE WAS PLEASED to find she was a natural, and by the time they’d reset the holograms for the twentieth round, she could hit all the targets on the head one after the other without a pause. It was very Wild West feeling, and she found herself more and more comfortable with the fritz in her hand with every calculated shot.

  He let her keep the fritz, and she ran the fingers of her right hand over it as she and Ruckus walked down the hall toward her room hours later. It could only be activated by her left hand, so there was no risk of her smoothing over the thin metal now. The band was smaller than his, only about a third-of-an-inch wide, more chic than the one on his wrist.

  She’d been so excited and high off the rush the fritz had brought, she’d actually forgotten about the Uprising.

  The moment she started thinking about it again, her excitement ebbed, and by the time they came to her door, she was sick to her stomach. When she stepped into the room, he was close at her heels, and she moved over to the window, taking a deep breath.

  “Delaney.” He moved up behind her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot about the ceremony for a while there,” she admitted. “And now I’m back to freaking out about it, that’s all.” She tried to laugh it off, but the sound was forced even to her own ears.

  “So, you’re saying I made you forget?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice, and when she turned, it was to find him standing less than an inch away. “Mission accomplished then.”

  She frowned, trying not to stare, even though it was impossible with his yellow-green eyes so close. “I thought the point was to teach me how to use a fritz?”

  “That, too.” He intensely held her gaze. “I also wanted to get close to you. Take your mind off the responsibilities you’ve been forced to have.”

  “And you thought getting close to me would do it? Distract me for a few hours?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he drawled. “I know you feel it, too. Every time I do this”—he eased into her personal space even more so that she was forced to press herself flush against the window—“get close to you, your body reacts.”

  “Uh, duh.” She swallowed, forcing her breathing to remain even despite the heavy thumping of her heart. “There’s a massive alien crowding my space. You wouldn’t react any differently.”

  “Not to you,” he replied smoothly, “no. No, I wouldn’t. My body does the same thing when I”—he smirked—“crowd your space, as you so delicately put it.”

  “I’m pretty sure this”—she waved a finger between them—“is a big Ander no-no.”

  “You aren’t actually my Lissa, Delaney,” he reminded her, “and we aren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Not yet,” she mumbled, realizing her mistake when his grin turned wolfish. Had she thought Trystan the more dangerous of the two? How had she overlooked that Ruckus was just as feral as the Zane? And possibly even more of a threat to her, because what he was saying wasn’t wrong.

  She did feel something when she was around him. She just didn’t quite know what that was yet.

  “So you admit it.” He reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “You do want something to happen between the two of us.”

  “We hardly know one another,” she pointed out. “Remember? This is insane.”

  “Doesn’t make it any less real. I like you, Delaney.”

  And then he kissed her.

  It shouldn’t have, but it caught her off guard. For a moment all she could do was stand there, frozen in his arms while his firm lips pressed against her own. When his tongue darted out, demanding entrance, she came out of it, responding with a fervor she hadn’t known she was capable of. Maybe it was the need for contact; maybe it was simply the need for him. Either way, she welcomed it, linking her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

  His tongue grazed the roof of her mouth, and she sucked on it when he went to retreat, holding him in for another few precious seconds.

  He was an inferno around her, setting her skin ablaze everywhere their bodies touched. Her front was squished to his, her breasts rubbing against his solid chest in a way that made her moan.

  The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, not recalling how she’d gotten there. He’d settled himself between her spread legs, pinning her to him as his hands roamed up her back frantically and his mouth devoured hers feverishly. He was breathing hard, and she was panting, thighs squeezing around his hips to keep him close.

  He ran a hand through her hair then, and she remembered Olena.

  Even so, pulling away was a struggle. She pressed her hands against his chest and turned her head sharply to the side, separating them.

  “You don’t even know what I look like,” she said, annoyed when her voice came out husky. His brow furrowed, and she shoved him away. “This”—she waved a hand down her body—“isn’t me.”

  “I’ve never been attracted to the Lissa before,” he told her.

  “That doesn’t make it better. And besides,” she rushed on, “the second the real Lissa is found, I’m going home.”

  He reached for her, taking her hands in his larger ones. “Hey, I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend.” She made a face and he paused. “That is what it’s called on Earth, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, well good. I’m not asking you to be mine; I’m only asking that you let this play out between us. Let us see where it goes.”

  “Ruckus—”

  “I don’t care,” he said, stopping her, his voice firming some. “I don’t care that I don’t know what you really look like, don’t you get that? It’s not the package that I’m interested in here. It’s you. The girl who fought off three Tellers with nothing but her smarts. And who stood up to the Basileus.”

  “Yeah?” She lifted a brow. “Pretty sure you hate whenever I do that.”

  “That is also the case,” he agreed, struggling, and failing, to hold back a smile. “But the fact that you’re constantly willing to fight past your fear? That I like. A lot.”

  Delaney closed her eyes, and his grip tightened. When she reopened her eyes to look at him again, it was obvious that he was worried. About her rejecting him? Or about her ability to continue this ruse, to convincingly be Olena?

  “I’m not doing the best job being the Lissa,” she pointed out. “I’m too brash.”

  “Everyone attributes that to your time spent on Earth,” he said, shrugging it off. “Just”—he lowered his head closer to hers—“tell me you’ll give it a try. You’ll give us a try. If you’re lucky, you’ll only have a few more days here anyway, and then it’s back home for you. What do you have to lose?”

  He was right, wasn’t he? If everything worked out, she’d get to leave soon and then nothing that happened here would matter. At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.

  Before she could let her doubts get in the way again, she gave a single nod and then sucked in a breath when his mouth dropped to hers once more.

  CHAPTER 18

  Delaney’s hands gripped the railing of the balcony. She’d come out needing fresh air, and stared over the expanse of green. If she didn’t look up at the sky, she could almost pretend she was at a manor somewhere back at home, and not on an alien planet.

  There really wasn’t all that much involved in the Uprising ceremony. Ruckus had explained it to her, and apparently the Lissa only had two lines to say in the whole thing. Total, the ceremony would last less than five minutes, which seemed like a huge waste to her, considering every important person in Vakar had been invited. The entire main hall—which he’d shown to her last night—was going to be decked out for the celebration.

  Five minutes and two lines. Olena seriously sucked for blowing that off and sending her here to pick up the pieces.

  As well as everyone claimed she was playing the part, Delaney knew the truth.
Everything she did or said was based purely on survival instincts. She just wanted to make it through this. To make it back home.

  The thought of Mariana and her parents, who were without a doubt completely going crazy with worry now, made tears burn at the corners of her eyes. She quickly brushed them away, refusing to give in to the hopelessness that threatened to creep up on her. Believing that the Basileus would follow up on his promise, that Ruckus would in fact bring her back to Earth, was the only thing keeping her going.

  Well, that and her confusing new feelings for the Vakar soldier.

  Tonight was it, the big ceremony, and they’d spent every day since that second kiss in her room getting to know each other. The whole time he’d walked her through the ceremony, he’d touched her.

  It was in little ways when they were around others, a brush of his fingertips against her arm, the press of his thigh against hers under a table. He always seemed to be touching her, and with each touch, her feelings grew. She didn’t know what she was doing when it came to him. It couldn’t work out, and they both knew it. She’d tried explaining that once more, but he’d swiftly shut her down with another searing kiss.

  And that was the other thing. She’d never been kissed like that. It had her wondering if there was something special about his kind in general, if maybe the human boys she’d kissed before couldn’t measure up because of something simple like biology, and not something complicated.

  The two of them having crazy chemistry would be complicated.

  “Here’s your teekee.” Lura had appeared in the doorway leading to the balcony.

  “Thank you.” Delaney turned from the railing and forced a smile to her lips. She didn’t walk over when the atteta moved to place the steaming green—shocker—mug on the glass table. She’d tried it for the first time last night after Ruckus had ordered it, and had found it very similar to tea, only with a fruitier aftertaste.

  Wisps of white twirled up into the air, and the almost-berry scent drifted to her, cutting across the chilly breeze. Deciding it was too hot to drink right away, she remained where she was, against the railing. She debated whether or not to go back inside to get a sweatshirt—or at least the Vakar equivalent to one if she could find it—but chose not to. A little chill was good, helped keep her in the now, keep her focused.