The Bastard Prince (Blue Moon Rising Book 3)

by Blair Bancroft

  “A woman scorned, demoted, forgotten?” Kass challenged. “She’s drawn to power, Vaden an obvious second choice.”

  It shouldn’t have shocked him, but it did. “He’s old enough to be her father,” Tal sputtered. Grandfather!”

  Kass shrugged. “As I said, it’s the power, not the man.”

  “That’s sick,” Tal grumbled. An all-too-vivid picture of Liona’s naked body entangled with Torvik Vaden’s wrinkled limbs momentarily blotted out the enticing vision of his wife tucked up in bed, waiting for him to return from the meeting he hadn’t told her about ahead of time.

  “No. It’s timeless. That’s how the game of cozy-up-to-power works. You’re just too personally involved to see it.”

  “I’m not personally involved, dimmit!” Instantly regretting his shout, Tal mumbled, “K’kadi said she wasn’t lying.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t,” Kass returned coolly. “Not at that moment. You likely frightened her half to death. But once Vaden gets hold of her . . . Watch your back, Tal. And remember the krall.”

  Kass was wrong. She had to be wrong.

  And how often does that happen? his inner voice taunted. Doubt crept in. In spite of his anger and disgust over what Liona had done in the past, he’d wanted to be merciful. But Kass had slammed him back to reality. To the rules that had kept him alive, kept the rebellion alive, a pinpoint of light in the vast depths of space controlled by the Regulon Empire. And right up near the top of those rules—plan for worst case. Be grateful for anything less dire.

  But not tonight. Tonight he needed respite, comfort, relief from the dark thoughts swirling through his head. Tal dropped his clothes where he stood, hopped on one foot then the other as he popped off his boots. Did he dare look at Kass? What would he see? She had every right to be angry with him. Deeply angry.

  But it wasn’t as if he’d been alone with Liona. He’d made it clear he’d taken K’kadi with him. He hadn’t been that stupid. And, dimmit, he’d needed to find out what Liona knew!

  So here he was standing by his wife’s bed, head down, his semi-aroused state reduced to limp dick. The great S’sorrokan unable to get up the courage to find out if he’d been forgiven. Well, hell . . .

  Tal could swear his heart did a complete flip when he finally looked up and found amusement instead of anger playing across his wife’s face. Omni be praised. As always, no matter the provocation, in the end she understood. Outside this room, his wife ruled Blue Moon, she was a weapon of war. But here she was his strength, his love, his life. His renewal.

  Even after he’d spent the evening with his former mistress.

  No doubt about it, Fortune smiled!

  Alala had trouble believing the words she was hearing from Kass. She was to stop attempting to fit in. She was being ordered to put off the mix of rebel jumpsuits and Psyclid gowns Kass had coaxed her into shortly after her arrival on Blue Moon. She was to wear her Herculon armor, carry her sword, her bow and arrows? If they were about to leave for Hercula, she could understand the new orders, but the trip had been postponed, allegedly while they waited for Pegasus to return. But now Alala had to wonder. Clearly, something significant was happening, and for some reason a crack in the rebellion’s defense structure had been opened just wide enough to let her in.

  Her next order was even more astonishing. She was to accompany Tal Rigel at every public function. Which would have been exciting, except K’kadi seemed to have the same orders, and someone more useless in a moment requiring physical violence she could not even imagine. And besides, S’sorrokan already enjoyed the constant attendance of a contingent of bodyguards, so why . . . ?

  Stupid! Speculation was useless. She was finally doing something useful. Playing a role in dealing with the undercurrents threatening Blue Moon. Her days had gone from dull and depressing to bright and full of promise. She sensed the possibility of a fight. She would not let the captain down.

  K’kadi felt the tension vibrating around them, so thick he could almost taste it. Torvik Vaden had set a date and time for a meeting with his closet followers, and Tal planned to take them all. Except . . . something didn’t feel right. Fizzet! Frustration ate at him, yet he couldn’t pin down the problem. Someone—multiple someones—were shielding their thoughts far too well for a bunch of Regs. Had they acquired Psyclid allies? He’d better to talk to Kass about that.

  The meeting was tomorrow night, so why did he feel a sudden surge of unease today, like the buildup of electricity before a thunderstorm? Today was nothing special. Tal and Kass were dedicating one of the buildings being constructed to house new recruits to the rebellion. Just routine. Smiles, handshakes, words of thanks and praise that kept life running smoothly on Blue Moon. And yet . . .

  Prickles ran up his spine. Foolish, he was being foolish. Too many thoughts of tomorrow night playing through his mind, not enough concentration on today. From his position on a side bench in the rear of the royal limm, K’kadi made a quick survey of the occupants: Alala seated across from him, Tal and Kass on the rear seat; his former nemesis, J’rett Zelaya, up front next to the driver. Actually . . . he’d missed Zelaya, the policeman sent to chase him every time he escaped the confines of the luxurious prison he shared with his mother. Once the enemy, or so it had seemed at the time, they were now friends and K’kadi was pleased to see him again. Even if his presence meant that all was not well on Blue Moon.

  Did the others feel the tingling of warning? K’kadi wondered, or was it only he? Did they see only another routine day, another routine ceremony?

  Except it wasn’t. Focusing his thoughts, K’kadi spoke only to Alala. Something wrong.

  Her shoulders jerked, stiffened into immobility. Crazy.

  K’kadi stifled a grin. Alala had used silent speak. She’d actually done it! But no time for that now. He still couldn’t pin down his unease, couldn’t be sure . . . Fizzet! He was certain about one thing. Something dark and murky hovered just out of reach, as if behind a veil . . .

  Stoo-pid. It was likely no more than nagging worry about tomorrow night’s raid on the traitors.

  But as the limm halted, K’kadi’s skin prickled, his pulse pounded. The waiting crowd seemed to surge forward, swelling to massive—

  Illusion. Fantasy!

  No, the threat was there, he could feel it. Yet before them was nothing more than a well-behaved, modest-sized crowd, hovering in front of the raised platform where the ceremony would take place. The driver stepped out, opening the door for Kass and Tal with the proper flourish expected for a formal occasion. Alala, K’kadi, and J’rett Zelaya moved into position a few steps behind, as Tal’s regular contingent of bodyguards closed in from cars to the front and back. K’kadi probed for danger, encountered a blank wall. All was as it should be, the day brilliantly sunny, the band playing a snappy tune. Everyone was smiling, standing tall, eyes fixed on the rebel leader and the ruler of Blue Moon, his wife.

  The new residences were being built around a central square at the edge of town. The park in the middle of the square was large, offering broad expanses of green grass, flower beds, a play area for children, and a veriball court, all grouped around a central three-tiered fountain. To add to the charm and artistic look so prized by Psyclids, each apartment building featured a slightly different architecture and color. A wise move, K’kadi thought. With housing like this, it was a wonder Vaden managed to get any recruits at all.

  Concentrate, fizzet! Shut out the warmth of the sun, the buzz of the crowd, the burble of water in the fountain. Feel the wrong. Feel!

  He was following Tal and Kass up the four steps to the flag-draped platform where the ceremony would take place when a scream of warning stabbed through him.

  Better to make a fool of himself than—

  The crack of a rifle—a second shot resounding in quick succession—was lost in the band’s final flourish, the drums rattling out a loud tattoo. But not before K’kadi had tackled Tal and Kass, sending them flying into a row of folding chairs. A moment of st
unned silence before chaos engulfed them. For a few seconds K’kadi didn’t hear the screams and shouts. He was fully occupied staring at the hole in his shirt sleeve. In all the adventures he’d had since joining the rebellion, he’d never been shot at before. At least not up close and personal.

  Reality crashed back. Kass? Tal? No answer.

  Great goddess, the blood! Despair gripped him. He’d failed. Tal was hurt, he’d let him down. Kass? She was pushing him away, struggling to sit up.

  “Tal? Tal?” And then she saw him. Crumpled on the floor, blood pouring from his head onto the platform.

  No-o! K’kadi moaned. His fault, all his fault.

  As Kass drew Tal’s bloody head into her lap, anguish, compounded by Kass’s raging emotions, overwhelmed him. Tal was dead. He’d killed him, his good intentions once again gone wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not Tal. Friend. Brother.

  Hands were pulling him away, telling him he was a hero.

  They were wrong.

  “It’s just a crease,” he heard a med tech say. “Looks worse than it is. Believe me, Highness, the captain has a hard head. He should come out of this all right.”

  “How long . . . ?”

  “Hard to tell, Highness. He could wake in an hour. Tonight. Tomorrow. Depends on the swelling, but S’sorrokan die from this? No way.”

  Kass’s eyes closed; she drew a deep breath, murmured a prayer of thanks. And then she looked for her brother, who was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up, head down, the ultimate picture of defeat. “K’kadi, you saved our lives.”

  Failed!

  “Without you we’d likely both be dead.”

  Too late. Evil not clear. Wall . . . maybe Psyclid.

  What? Kass, stunned, stared at him. “We’ll talk later,” she said, as the med techs lifted Tal onto an anti-grav stretcher and started toward an ambulance. Before following them, Kass did a quick survey of the anxious crowd hovering around them. “Where’s Alala?”

  “Leading the charge to the rooftop to get the sniper, one of Tal’s bodyguards said. “Fast as a bullet, that one. She was out in front of us by forty meters. Seemed to know just where to go.”

  Fury gave Alala’s feet wings. They’d killed him! All their precautions, and the traitors had killed him. Shot the head right off the rebellion. But she’d get the sniper, that she vowed. She’d felt him earlier, but only as a vague sense of unease. The day was so calm, so peaceful, the dedication ceremony so routine, she’d made the fatal error of attributing her heightened nerves to her awareness of the waves of anxiety rolling off K’kadi. But from the moment the two shots exploded, she’d known where the assassin was. Sensed the rush of the kill, his urgent need to get away. And she would stop him. This she could do. This was what it meant to be a warrior. The siren call to the hunt, the chase . . . the take-down.

  With each step, Alala’s fury escalated toward berserker frenzy. She’d failed, Tal Rigel was dead. But right here, right now the shooter would join him. He wasn’t getting away.

  The shots had come from the roof of a building a hundred meters away. The shooter had to break down his rifle and tripod, descend four stories . . . She had time. If she ran fast enough, she had time.

  Alala flung open the building’s front door, drew her sword. All quiet in the lobby. She was nearly certain he couldn’t have gotten to the lobby first, exited the back door ahead of her. There hadn’t been enough time. A glance at the building’s single lift showed no lights lit. Stairs then. Which were where . . . ?

  Alala was only two meters from the stairwell door when it burst open and a man ran out, so intent on getting out the back door he didn’t see her.

  She launched herself at him in a rolling dive which neatly evaded the rounds from a Steg-9 he was scattering behind him as he continued to run for the door. The force of her rolling tackle knocked him off his feet. She pinned the hand with the gun to the floor, but he outweighed her by thirty kilos and soon flipped them both over, his left hand pinning her sword hand to the floor, the right still gripping the gun. Agile as a snake, Alala twisted her body out from under him, delivering a neck chop with her free hand. The gun went off, sending a wild shot that shattered a rear window. With a growl he threw his full weight on top of her, his large hand squeezing her sword hand so painfully her fingers went numb, the short sword clattering to the floor.

  While the sniper concentrated on disarming her, Alala twisted herself into position for an age-old maneuver. Putting every last bit of her fury behind her action, she jerked her knee up. Hard. The assassin howled. Alala rolled out from under him, taking the gun from his nerveless fingers on the way. Calmly she stood, picked up her sword, and placed the tip just above the assassin’s throat. “I want very much to kill you,” she announced, well aware the other bodyguards had caught up and were avid observers of the scene. “But unfortunately you are much more valuable alive.” She sheathed her sword, stepped back, and offered her still writhing, fetal-positioned prize to Tige Bellan, chief of Tal’s security guard.

  “Well done, Colonel Thanos,” he said. You live up to your reputation.”

  “A nothing, I assure you. The captain?”

  “Will live.”

  “Ares be praised.” Alala did not attempt to hide her relief. There were exceptions to the ancient rules of Stoicism.

  It was only much later, close to midnight, when the nebulous something haunting her since the incident finally coalesced into a shocking truth. For all that her people scorned, even feared, any hint of the paranormal, what else was the ability to feel the enemy, know where he was, even if it was behind, above, or a hundred meters away? How else to explain she’d known exactly where the shots came from? How else had she felt the shooter’s hot emotions, known where to lie in wait?

  Was it possible Psyclids were not the only race with skills of the mind? She had sensed what appeared to be silent exchanges between Tal Rigel and Kass, and he was a Reg.

  She had to be wrong. There was nothing odd about sensing the enemy. The skill was common among Hercs. That’s all it was. Skill.

  Did it matter? Skill, talent, or gift, none of them had come off well today. A millimeter or two closer, and they’d have lost Tal Rigel, maybe Kass as well. To take down an empire, they would need to be far more clever than they’d been today.

  Chapter 17

  Kass had been in hospitals and med bays too many times before. Suffered the long agonizing waits. For Tal on Rim Station X-33. Aboard Astarte, for M’lani, Jagan, T’kal, Anton, and Joss. The horror of it never got easier. But none of those times, including now, could compare to the agony of hearing the news announcer on Regula Prime intone: During an action on the outer rim, the huntership Orion was attacked by an overwhelming number of Nyx forces. Fleet Admiral Rigel has announced that Orion was totally destroyed. There were no survivors. The time and place of a memorial service for our gallant fighting men will be announced shortly. Admiral Vander Rigel’s son, Captain Talryn Rigel, was among the three hundred lost on Orion.

  She’d sunk to the floor of the Regulon Interplanetary Archives, thinking she’d never rise again. Without memories—no, fantasies—of Tal Rigel to keep her company in solitary confinement, there was nothing left for her. Knowing she had fallen in love with what was mostly a figment of her imagination had not cushioned her against the tragedy of the moment. Nor the reality of what would happen next. The small hope she’d clung to through the years was gone, gone, gone. What was the point in pretending there was anything but degradation and death in what would likely be a very short future?

  She had sat there for hours. Until she’d finally remembered she was an Orlondami. She would survive. But for well over a year the pain continued to tear at her, even when a new hero had begun to make his way into Titan’s news vids. Kass followed the exploits of S’sorrokan, the alleged leader of a rebellion against the Empire, with considerable interest. She even granted him a small niche in her broken heart. The faceless S’sorrokan was, after all, chasing a
dream of freedom for her people, however incredible that dream might be.

  Which is why, when she was rescued from the Archives and the voice of Tal Rigel shouted to her from the shuttle’s cockpit, Kiolani, get up here. We need malfunctioning trajectories, she’d splashed the two Tau-15s without a qualm because necessity demanded it. But later she’d held the tip of a knife to his throat. Arrogant, thoughtless Reg, how could he allow her to suffer like that? How dare he play with the feelings of a Princess Royal?

  She and Tal were still working on separating fact from fantasy when King Ryal had ordered her to choose: Tal Rigel and the rebellion or her fiancé, Jagan Mondragon, and a future as Psyclid’s queen. She’d chosen Tal. And never regretted it. Even when she envied M’lani her settled life, the baby who would one day rule Psyclid. The peace, the serenity . . . a future unmarked by pain, violence, and heartbreak.

  Kass clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling a whimper. How many times must she do this? Sit by Tal’s bedside, wondering if he would wake up? Dear goddess, how many?

  Hands came down on her shoulders, pulling her up, cupping her head into a surprisingly muscular chest. K’kadi had truly become a man. And, as always, he’d felt her pain and come to her when she was so lost inside her head that she hadn’t even heard him enter the room.

  Tal come back.

  “I know. It’s just that sometimes it’s so hard . . .” No time for that now. Kass’s lips thinned, her amber eyes gleaming with renewed determination. Bless K’kadi for giving her the extra strength she needed. She glanced at her chrono. “K’kadi, is Jor Sagan outside?”

  Yes.

  Of course he was. Tal’s aide was never more than a few steps from his side. “Please have him come in.”

  Jor Sagan had been one of Tal’s junior officers on Orion. He was young, eager, and formidably competent. “At your service, Highness.” He bowed.

  “Please send for Jagan Mondragon. I want him here by nine o’clock tonight. I trust that is possible?”