And Tal Rigel was an arrogant son of a Mizarian maw-worm.
Tal found a small bathing chamber near the entry door and washed up as best he could, but the smell of ripka, xaax, and exotic drinks he couldn’t name had permeated his clothes, along with the odor of unwashed bodies, alien flesh, and whatever made the strange haze, even more dense than Blue Moon’s constant aura, that floated around the patrons at Jingar’s.
Too restless to sit, he stood at the windows, looking out, and calling himself a number of colorful names. When he realized he and Liona were only going through the motions, that no matter how possessive she was, she had no real love in her heart, he’d broken it off. And had lived like a monk for well over a year now, devoting himself to the rebellion . . . until a certain small Psyclid was foolish enough to kill one of her guards. Arrogant, ungrateful brat that she was.
Not that he wanted her if gratitude was all she had to give.
Well, fyd! Perhaps he did. Too long since he’d held a woman in his arms, felt the softness of her, lost himself in that special place where he could simply feel, his responsibilities suspended for a few finite moments in time.
The problem was . . .
The problem was, the rebellion absorbed his life. He schemed, planned, charged ahead with single-minded determination, leaving Kass to think . . . what?
He hadn’t exactly sat her down and asked if she was interested, had he? He’d assumed he could treat her like a toy he kept in the closet, a nice amenable plaything he could take out and use when the mood struck him, returning her to the obscurity of officers’ quarters and bridge duty until the next time.
That disagreeable thought hit him like a blow to his privates. When he heard the bedroom door open, he swung around fully prepared for stubborn recalcitrance and already forming his apologies.
But he hadn’t expected to see her delicate fey features unadorned, like a child’s. Mallik! She looked younger than K’kadi. And yet the arrogance was still there, though layered beneath an aura of . . . resignation? Clearly, his little Psyclid wasn’t happy.
Once again, Kass sat on the gold sofa, but this time she simply stared at him until he crossed the room and sat in an armchair across from her. Tal lifted a hand, palm out. “You don’t have to say it,” he told her. “Captains tend to be single-minded, and I’m worse than most. We’re good at giving orders, not asking questions. And because everyone jumps to our orders, we become arrogant, overbearing, and thoughtless. Does that about cover it?
“No.” When her stern expression didn’t change, Tal answered his own question. “It’s more personal, isn’t it? I had no right to assume you wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with you. I didn’t ask if you wanted to be here with me tonight. Is that it?”
Kass waved his flow of words to a halt. “Captain—”
“Tal.” An almost imperceptible nod of agreement.
“I need you to listen to me, Tal. It’s not easy to find the right words, but please hear me out.”
And each word would add to the death knell of his plans for the evening, of that Tal had no doubt. His little Psyclid was going to talk romance right out the door. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“When we were aboard Orion,” Kass began, “you must know that I hero-worshipped you, as did most of the females on board. We were dazzled—by your being captain, by your being Admiral Rigel’s son, by your family having enough credits to buy its own planet if it wanted. You were the stuff of dreams. And became much more so during all those years I spent in the Archives. When they said you were dead, it was the worst moment of my life. But I resurrected you, kept you alive, always my hero—though you had to move over and share my dream space when S’sorrokan came along. But he was a faceless, bodyless hero. I assure you, it was more satisfying to lavish love on my fantasy Tal Rigel.
Omni! How she loved him. Had loved him . . . the fantasy “him.” “Basically, you were what kept me going all those years. My phantom hero, my rock. And then . . .”
A shudder wracked her body. Tal half rose, wanting to hold her, protect her, but he subsided into his chair, recognizing the moment wasn’t right. Kass had more to say.
“When I found out you were alive,” she continued, “I was angry. How dare you make me suffer so? Despite your fine intellectual explanation, I hurt. And what hurt the most was realizing that my Tal Rigel was a dream, a fantasy man who had never, ever existed. Our relationship, if we had one, was back to the very beginning, starting over. We were two strangers who knew each other in another lifetime. A captain and a not-quite ensign, the military gap as wide as the cultural.”
“But in the tower—”
“I’d just come home. I was vulnerable, and hadn’t yet come to terms with reality.”
Tal groaned. Talk about star-crossed . . .
“In your mind,” Kass said, “you may have decided I was Liona Dann’s replacement, “but you didn’t bother telling me, did you? And you most surely never asked. You assumed.”
“Guilty. But, Kass,” he added quickly, grasping for the obvious, “it’s not easy to conduct a romance under hundreds of watchful eyes.”
She snorted. There wasn’t any nicer word for the sound she made. “One lustful glance in four years is scarcely an indication of intent.” Tal, captain’s face firmly in place, stared at a spot over her head. “S’sorrokan, defeated so easily?” she taunted. “Mallik, but Regulons are strange. A Psyclid would not be so bashful.” With an abrupt wave of both hands, Kass cut off that line of discussion. “There’s another matter I must bring up.” She drew a deep breath. Head bent, she steepled her hands in front of her face, long strands of blue-black hair tumbling down to her waist. Finally, she looked up, but carefully avoided looking into his eyes.
“Arranged alliances have been practiced on Psyclid for a thousand years or more. It’s one of the ways we have enhanced our skills so effectively. It is even customary to arrange alliances outside of marriage. That,” she continued in a rush, “is how K’kadi was born. His father was already married, but a man of such high talent that the Council of Elders wished to see the result of a mating between him and a woman of high illusion talent. Not his wife.
“You’ve seen the result. K’kadi is a darling, but the pairing was flawed, the Council seriously disturbed by the results of their meddling. Such flaws have occurred before, our historians admitted, though not quite like K’kadi. Some were . . . less benign. But there are no others in this generation. He is unique. I love him dearly, but his situation has given me pause.”
“You cannot think a pairing between us would result—” Tal broke off, began again. “We are both protected, are we not? There would be no child, if—”
“Be quiet and listen! I’m sorry,” she added so softly he almost didn’t her. “That is not the problem I’m talking about.”
“Continue.” Tal could feel it coming. Really bad news.
“K’kadi and I share a father—”
Tal almost missed the rest of Kass’s confession. Kass and K’kadi, brother and sister. A relief, though he hated to admit his vulnerability. The amount of time Kass spent with the fey young Psyclid had not gone unnoticed.
“I was born in marriage,” Kass was saying. “K’kadi, by arrangement. So I have ample reason to be cautious about arranged unions.” Kass leaned back into the gold-tasseled sofa cushions and ran a hand through her hair. “From the time I was a child I wanted to go to the Space Academy. The fight to do so was tremendous, most particularly because my marriage had been arranged by the time I was fourteen.”
And there it was. He hadn’t realized how firm a picture he had of a future with Kass at his side until that moment. “But you left, you went to the Academy. Presumably, if there hadn’t been a war, you intended to become part of Fleet.”
“I did.” Kass sat silent. Choosing her words? How much worse was it going to get?
“Like most girls that age,” she said, “I had rosy tunnel-vision. I would go to the Academy, and after th
at, everything would straighten itself out.” She shook her head. “A classic young fool, that’s what I was. Starry-eyed about the Academy, about space, eventually about a captain named Tal Rigel.”
“Who cared enough to risk everything to save you.”
“I didn’t say I had no reason to idolize you.”
Tal’s sigh matched hers. “So that leaves us where?”
“My talents were strong, strong enough to attract the Council’s attention at an early age. Strong enough to be chosen as bride to the next Sorcerer Prime.”
“And what in the nine hells does that mean?”
“To outsiders,” Kass said, “sorcery is bad. On Psyclid, we revere those with magical powers, which usually means they are gifted with multiple talents, as I am. And at that time there was a young man who had already demonstrated he was a true heir to the current Sorcerer Prime, his uncle. So we were matched.”
“But you had reservations.”
“Frightening ones. We both had talents far above the Psyclid norm. Would we produce genius, or would we produce a monster?”
“So you ran away.”
“Not quite. We came to a compromise. I might apply to the Academy. If accepted, I could attend. I could serve in Fleet for a year or two, but marriage always loomed. No matter how much I protested, no matter how many risks I pointed out, no one budged. Ours was a match ordained by the goddess, and there was no avoiding it. Either I went through a formal betrothal ceremony or I would never set foot in the Academy. And if I didn’t come home when the king called, he would make a formal complaint to Regula, and I would be sent home.”
“I take it the sorcerer was willing?”
“Oh, yes. There was a kingdom at stake. But, privately, I made it clear to him before I left. No marriage, no crown. He would have to settle for becoming Sorcerer Prime. We were not destined for each other. And then . . .” Kass heaved a sigh. “It seemed Destiny agreed with me. The invasion of swept us all into new worlds, which I carefully tracked from my cubicle in the Archives. Our elderly and much-revered Sorcerer Prime was considered dangerous, among the first to be killed when Psyclid was invaded. I assumed Jagan, his heir, had died as well. But tonight . . .” Kass’s voice faltered. She hitched a breath and went on. “Tonight I learned my affianced husband is alive. Living on Hell Nine.”
Silence enveloped them. Tal could swear he felt it echoing through the suddenly empty reaches of his mind, a great hollow booming ending his fleeting dreams of intimate companionship and love.
He was Tal Rigel, S’sorrokan, and he could never forget it. “Is that it?” he asked at last. “All the disastrous news you have at the moment?”
“Yes.” Half-turned away from him, Kass was fingering a gold tassel on one of sofa cushions.
“So let’s start from the top,” Tal declared, chagrined to hear the command voice of Captain Tal Rigel, not the lover he longed to be. “We have been attracted to each other from the moment we met. We each spent four years fantasizing, remodeling each other into dream lovers who never existed. Have I got it right so far?”
“An admirable analysis, Captain.”
Pok, but his little Psyclid had a sharp tongue. “So, leaving out your secondary problem for the moment, what we need to do is forget the fantasies and discover the two real people who met on Orion so long ago.”
“It is unwise to leave out the Sorcerer Prime. It could be dangerous.”
“Your betrothal—was sleeping with him part of the ceremony?”
“No!” Kass’s head snappedup. She glared.
Light finally dawned. He was S’sorrokan. It was his job to see things clearly, to penetrate confusion, tear aside obfuscation, and get to the heart of the matter. But when it came to his own heart, he’d been blind. Incredible as it seemed . . .
“Kass, are you a virgin?”
Head bent, hands folded in her lap as prim as an Acolyte, she nodded.
Great Omnovah! Theirs was a relationship with a long way to go.
Chapter 16
“Hey, roommate.” Zee-Zee’s bright grin lit the room as Kass came through the door. “Tell me all, every single moment. And I do mean all.”
Her mind a sudden blank, Kass dropped her carry-all onto her bed, turned her back on her roommate, and began to unpack. She’d been so absorbed in her relationship with Tal and with the looming problem of Jagan Mondragon that she’d never considered the problem of facing a roommate full of questions.
“Kass?” Evidently sensing the truth from Kass’s silence, Zee-Zee’s tone verged on the incredulous.
Kass continued to return the contents of her carry-all to her drawers, until her fingers paused over a filmy scarlet bedgown that had never made it out of the bag until now. Soft, slinky, nearly transparent, inviting a man’s touch . . . and never worn. Without raising her gaze from the shimmering fabric, Kass asked, “Did you choose this?”
“No. The captain gave it to me, told me to sneak it into your case.”
Kass crunched the offending garment into a ball and tucked it to the very back of her bottom drawer.
“Kass, tell me you didn’t turn him down.” Zee-Zee whispered, shock and disbelief in every word.
“You sound like my nurse scolding me for a naughty prank.” Kass tried for breezy, and failed.
Zee-Zee’s voice rose. “Kiolani, the whole ship knows he’s been panting after you for years—”
Kass’s chin came up, amber eyes gone cold and hard. “Too bad he didn’t give me a hint.”
“Kaa-sss.” Zee-Zee slumped onto her bunk, staring at her roommate as if she’d suddenly turned into a Nyx. “He’s S’sorrokan. He chose you. He saved your life.” She shook her head, disapproval pouring off her in waves. “You’ve really gone Psyclid this time, girl. I mean, besides the fact the captain’s the biggest catch in the quadrant, that man needs you.”
“Biggest catch? Kass echoed. “Don’t you mean the man with the biggest price on his head?”
Zee-Zee groaned. “Even a Psyclid can’t be that dense.”
“If you think I want to conduct an affair under the avid scrutiny of the entire rebellion—”
“That matters? That actually matters? Someone peeks at you and you fold up, shy as a gilly flower? Come on, girl. Warriors don’t give pok what anybody thinks.”
Kass sank onto her own bed, facing her roommate. “It’s not just that,” she murmured, hearing defensiveness in every syllable. “It’s far more complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it,” Zee-Zee snapped. “Man. Woman. Man wants woman. Woman wants man—and don’t tell me you don’t! Man and woman become one.” Kass’s roommate snapped her fingers. “That’s what keeps the universe going. Sex, plain and simple.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” How wonderful to be Zee-Zee Foxx, whose actions didn’t affect planets, empires, possibly the whole Nebulon Sector. “But sometimes the moment simply isn’t right.” Kass offered a wan smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll work things out. Eventually.”
Zee-Zee gave her a long searching look, followed by an abrupt nod. “Evasion and obfuscation will float you only so long, Kiolani, but for now you’ve got a pass. And what was that about a nurse? You always did have the look of someone’s pampered darling.”
Oh, pok! Why was it her firmly fitted façade seemed to fall apart every time she indulged in girl talk with Zee-Zee? “Um—my parents both held positions of responsibility”—an absolute truth—“so a nurse was a necessity.”
“Why is it,” her roommate mused, “that you look so fragile, like you’ve never faced adversity for so much as a single day, when you’ve got the quickest come-backs, and have to be the toughest, most resilient female I’ve ever met?”
Kass allowed her lips to curl into an impish grin. “Maybe because you Regs are all so hulking huge?”
“Am not!” Zee-Zee tossed a pillow, catching Kass in the face.
Kass shot the pillow straight back. Without using her hands. “Well,” she drawled, “I guess it doesn’t matter
since Commander Jorkan likes you just the way you are.”
Zee-Zee actually blushed. “Um . . . do you have any idea where we’re going next?”
Kass sent a silent thanks to the goddess for the change of subject. She really didn’t want to quarrel with the only female friend she had. “Commander Turco heard a rumor that there’s a well-armed trader ship on X-33, captain and crew ready to join the rebellion.”
“It could be a trap.”
“It could always be a trap, he knows that.”
“Sorry. Not the place of a lowly lieutenant to tell S’sorrokan what to do.”
“I’m an ensign, and I do it all the time.” Kass offered a wry smile, which Zee-Zee returned.
“Ah, but you have special privileges.” Her roommate winked, and Kass began to feel better. “Any idea how many recruits we found on Tat?”
“Fourteen altogether,” Kass said, “two of them engineers and one a comp tech. Captain’s pleased. If we take on the trader—”
A great pounding on the door interrupted her words. K’kadi’s head appeared, floating in the air above their heads. Kass ran to the door, threw it open, and tugged her brother into a tight embrace. “Poor K’kadi,” she crooned, “you’ve been stuck on the ship all this time alone. We’ll eat together tonight, all right? And I’ll tell you about all the strange people I met. Aliens, K’kadi, true aliens. And some of them were pink!”
When the door closed behind K’kadi, Zee-Zee asked, frowning, “Kass, does the captain know how close you are to that kid?”
Kass took one look at Captain Jordana Tegge and knew coming to Rim Station X-33 was a mistake. Maybe not for S’sorrokan and the rebellion, but for Kass Kiolani, a lurking disaster. Captain Tegge was a reincarnation of a Valkyrie. Distinguished by flowing blonde hair only a shade darker than Tal’s, she was tall enough that her sharp blue eyes came only a few millimeters short of level with S’sorrokan’s own sky-blue gaze. Hers was a face sculpted for strength and marked by sorrow, making Captain Tegge the most striking female Kass had ever seen. With the possible exception of Jalaine, the Psyclid ParaPrime. Kass’s mother.
Rebel Princess Page 13
