by S. E. Smith
She flinched. "Please don't make fun of me."
A frown pinched his brows, and he took hold of her upper arms, drawing her closer to his body. "My pri—precious flower, of course you're sexy. You're beautiful. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Oh, how it made her heart soar to hear him say that, but then she gave a shallow laugh. "Ah yes, my...new look does wonders for me."
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Actually, I'm grateful for your blonde hair and those large earrings. If you looked like your usual self...wearing that red dress...I know I wouldn't be able to focus. And I certainly wouldn't be able to keep from kissing you."
"What?"
He smiled, dimples flashing in his cheeks as his gaze roamed all over the glamour covering her real face. "If you were really you, your real hair, that beautiful delicate face of yours staring up at me now I'd be kissing you. Right this moment. I'm not sure I could stop myself. Because you are beautiful, and in that red dress you're the sexiest woman I've ever seen." Heat blazed in his eyes, making her tingle from her scalp to her toes.
He meant it. He really, really meant it. She sucked a deep breath in, her chest straining against the tightness of her dress. "But—but you didn't kiss me back." At the ball she'd thrown her arms around him, smashed her face against his like she'd seen actors do in all the trideo recordings. There had been a moment, one small held breath where she'd believed he meant to kiss her back, to wrap his arms around her and show her he wanted her. Instead, after that moment, Jacen had gently turned his face away, pulled her arms off his shoulders and stepped back. And then her father had barged in and thrown his temper tantrum and banished Jacen. Liana had been kidnapped the next day.
A rumble of a laugh escaped from Jacen, and his nostrils flared with what looked like anger. "I didn't kiss you back at the ball because I knew what would happen. And did happen."
She flinched.
"Pri—precious girl, no good can come from us touching, kissing. We can't ever really be together." His voice was soft but rough with emotion. "Your father won't allow that. So why open the door to all that hurt? Why start when we know it can only end in sorrow?"
"You're right." And he was. But, oh, how it hurt to know he felt something for her too. That she hadn’t been a silly girl getting carried away in a fantasy. Jacen cared about her—Jacen wanted her. And they would never, never really be together.
Tears stung her eyes, and she pulled away from the warmth of his hands on her arms, the tickle of his breath over her face. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. We're here for…my friend." She swiped at her eyes quickly, whisking any betraying wetness away.
He gave a short nod, his jaw tensed. "Let's try over this way."
Rose Gold didn't speak to Pym again after curling up in the shadows. She pretended to sleep and he politely pretended to believe she was sleeping. But he couldn't help darting looks at her, sorrow sitting heavy in his stomach as a swallowed stone. Liana was coming, they would be rescued somehow, but Rose Gold couldn't seem to let herself believe that, couldn't give herself permission to hope. It worried him. If they were given a chance to escape would Rose Gold even be willing to take it? Or had her time here been too wearing on the soul? Was captivity the only reality his beautiful new friend could accept?
A prickle started at the edge of Pym's skull, and he rolled to his feet and sidled as close to the stinging cage bars as he dared.
Rose Gold perked her head up at his sudden movement, the muscles in her neck tense with fear. "What is it?"
Pym fluttered his wings and clicked his claws against the cage. He was too excited to keep his composure. "Liana. I feel her. She's here."
Liana froze in her tracks, the hair on her arms rising. "Pym is here. I can feel him. That way." She lurched in the direction she'd sensed Pym. Jacen caught her by the upper arm, stopping her so hard one of her heavy, swinging earrings tapped her cheek.
"Wait." Jacen wrapped his arms around her.
"What are you doing?" Her heart raced.
He leaned close, his breath tickling over her ear. "Your earring knocked loose. Stay still a moment."
Her cheeks burned. "Oh." Of course. He'd hardly make a move on her in the middle of their reconnaissance mission.
His fingers traced the shell of her ear, and she felt her earring slip then settle back into place. Jacen's hand lingered against the bare skin of her neck and she told herself it was just to keep up their disguise. But, when she met his gaze, his eyes were burning dark and he swallowed hard.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "We can't get too close to Pym. They're probably watching his cage."
She froze as she looked over at Pym's cage in the center of the casino. It was a gaudy, gold thing with ornate curlicues on top and a fake tree spiraling through the center of the cage itself. Just the sight of it made her shoulders cramp in sympathy. Her Pym needed open air and freedom and room to stretch his wings. She thought she could see him now, flapping his wings wildly and beating against the cage bars trying to get to her.
I'm here. I'm here. She beamed back love and reassurance, trying to soothe the flurry of anxiety and fear Pym was sending back to her. I'm coming. I am coming for you. Somehow. She wished she could actually say the words to him, but their connection didn't work like that. He could read her heart, not her mind. And just then her heart felt sore, yanked in two directions. She so wanted to go to Pym, but she might jeopardize everyone's chances at escape if she did.
Her neck prickled, and she turned slowly over her shoulder. Ice cascaded down her spine as she locked gazes with Tatinas for one heartbeat, two. Then his gaze moved from hers to travel down her body in a frankly assessing way, and he licked his lips.
She reminded herself that she was in disguise. What he was seeing was a sex worker, a goodtime girl. Someone used to being ogled, someone who might even encourage it if it meant a new client. Especially someone like a casino owner. So, even as her skin crawled, she waited. His gaze traveled up again to her face and she forced herself to smile seductively and to wink. He raised one eyebrow at her then grinned and winked back.
Jacen's fingers tightened on her arm just enough to get her attention. He leaned close and brushed his lips over her ear again, making her shiver. "That was good, but here's the part where I play a jealous lover and drag you to one of those shadowed corners.”
Her pulse sped, half-thrill, half-terror. "Why?"
Jacen found an unoccupied spot in the shadows and set his hands on her waist. He pulled her body against his so her back was to the room. "One, because I don't want him to look too closely at you." He delicately moved a cascade of blond hair away from her neck and bent his head. "And two," he said against her skin. "I can watch the room from here and hopefully figure out what kind of security they keep on that cage."
"Hmm." That was about the only noise she could make then. He was only tickling her neck, not even kissing it yet, but her body felt like a string on some instrument, wound tight and desperately aching to be plucked. She tightened her fingers against his shoulders, chanting relax, relax, relax to herself. Which definitely worked. Not.
"OK?" he murmured.
"I'm ticklish there," she managed to get out, her voice sounding thick. What a fool she was making of herself.
"Sorry." He eased back from her neck to face her, his eyes half-hooded as if with desire. His hands were making shivery little circles on the skin of her upper arm. "I have to make this look real, but anywhere else I might touch would be…too real."
She swallowed, her skin tingling. "I understand." Right now his touch on just her arms made her feel she might vibrate out of her skin. She'd probably shatter into a thousand pieces if he tried to touch her anywhere else. She opened her mouth to say something, but in a split second, Jacen's eyes went wide and he bent and kissed her full on the mouth.
She made a small umf noise of surprise, but then she kissed him back, smashing her lips against his with a passion she'd been fighting for years. He hesitated, pulling away,
but she tangled her fingers in his hair and opened to him. Please, oh please.
With a groan, his arms came around her waist, and he caught her close to his body. The feel of her curves crushed against the hard muscles of his chest sent a zip through her blood. The fabric of his suit brushed against the strips of bare skin she had from her revealing dress, and Liana had a momentarily scandalous vision of wearing nothing at all while he wore everything. How the fabric would feel against her bare skin, how exposed and vulnerable she would be. The idea sent a delicious shiver through her body, but she filed it away for later. She wanted to be in this moment, now, savoring every moment of Jacen's lips locked with her own. Their last kiss had been a chaste brush of her lips against his, stolen, brief. Hardly anything. This kiss, though…this was lips and tongues and teeth, and bodies grinding together and she wanted more. More of all of it. Everything. Him. Everywhere.
She was panting when he broke the kiss, and he stared down at her with wide eyes. He licked his kiss-reddened lips and frowned. "Did you mean that?"
"Of course I did." She froze, her blood going cold. "Did…did you?"
He ran a shaking hand through his hair. "Tatinas was coming. I had to do something quick. I—"
Liana broke away from him, her cheeks aflame, and wandered toward the nearest gambling table.
"Wait." He caught her tight against his body and banded his arms around her when she tried to push away. "I started to kiss you because of him. But, Li—lovely, I kept kissing you because I wanted to. I…" He traced his fingertips over her collarbone. "But this isn't the right time. And I'd rather kiss the real you." He nodded his chin, and Liana suddenly remembered the false face she was wearing.
"Oh my goodness, yes." She didn’t want him kissing the strange face she was wearing either.
"I think I'm ready to return to the shuttle. If you are?"
But what about Pym? She might be losing her mind from lust at the moment, but it felt so wrong to walk away and leave Pym behind in this gambling hell.
Jacen gave a small headshake, discouraging her from further questions. Her heart revolted, wanting to run back to that cage and fling the door open, take her Pym away to safety. But that was hardly a practical plan.
So, because she trusted him, she let Jacen lead her out of the casino and back to their ship. But it felt like she left a small, broken part of her heart behind as she did. I will return, she thought as fiercely as she could, and she threw all the power of her love behind the thought, hoping it would reassure poor Pym.
Pym felt the wash of emotions from Liana, and he finally managed to settle his own heart well enough to sit and scan the floor of the casino, looking for his human. A flash of red caught his eye, but the face wasn't Liana's. "Where is she? Where?" Just as it felt like his heart might hammer free of his chest, Liana beamed back one strong, vibrant wash of love for him, and it was like being in her arms, pillowing his head against her chest and hearing her heart beat. I love you. I'm coming. He knew the flavors of her feelings well enough, he thought, to parse some of the words behind them.
But he waited and waited and she didn't come. And, after that last wellspring of love had flowed over him, he hadn't felt anything at all.
"She's left, hasn't she?"
He clicked his beak angrily at Rose Gold behind him. She sounded entirely too smug for his taste. "She will come. Perhaps it wasn't safe. I don't want her to rescue me and be recaptured herself."
"Oh, Pym." Rose Gold sighed gustily behind him, and the branches creaked as she worked her way up into their twists using her claws and feet.
He turned, watching her progress. "Why does it matter to you if I have hope or not? If I wait for her or not?"
Rose Gold's feathers fluttered, and she tucked her head shyly under her own wing before she looked at him again. "I…" She chirped, her wings madly fidgeting now. "I have hopes of my own. For you. And if you're waiting for Liana to return for the rest of your life I don't think my own dreams will come to pass."
Pym blinked then let out a small squawk of delight. He pulled himself up the branches of their fake tree after her. She let out a trill as the branches shook around her while he used his feet and claws to reach the same branch where she sat.
"What sort of hopes?" he asked.
In answer, she rubbed her cheek tenderly against his, getting her scent on his face, fanning her silk-soft feathers against his own.
"Tell me more about your hopes, my beautiful Rose," he murmured. Pym stepped closer, heart hammering, and twined his neck with hers. She cooed against him and settled her body alongside his, trusting and open. A sharing came to him from her. A warm nest. Protection and love. Eggs and adorable fledglings peeping for their dinner. They were probably memories from Rose Gold's past, but they were also an eloquent wish for the future that started an answering ache in his own chest.
"Did I do it right?" she asked, voice shy. "That sharing?"
"Yes." He twined his neck tighter around hers, offering reassurance.
"What do you think?"
"I think…your hopes are my hopes."
Rose Gold sighed happily, fluttering the feathers of his neck, and Pym knew in that moment that when Liana came for him he would get Rose Gold free as well. Liana would always be his dearest friend and companion, but Rose Gold was his heart. And he would never let himself be parted from her after this moment.
The princess was quiet as they made their way back to the ship. Jacen didn't blame her. The last hour had been intense, especially for someone who wasn't used to undercover operations.
Jacen waited until the ship was sealed securely behind them then he gently plucked the earrings off her ears. "I should get these on their charger."
Her real face appeared again, flushed and anxious, but so beautiful he wanted to kiss every line and curve, her dimples, the freckles along her chin, her eyelashes. Her mouth. That lush, delicious mouth. He was still half-hard from their last kiss, and she was still wearing that knockout red dress. But. She was his princess, and her caliba was still in danger. Jacen had to focus on the task at hand.
"I'm going to try to pull up the feed," he said. "I thought I noticed cameras around the cage. I'll review the footage and see if I can get an idea what the guard situation is like. How many, how much attention they’re paying. Stuff like that."
"All right." She wet her lips. "Can I help?"
She probably couldn't help with hacking the feed, but once he had it up..."Sure. You can help review the historical footage to check for patterns. Did you want to change?"
She shrugged, her cheeks going an adorable shade of pink. "It's a little tight, but the fabric is actually comfortable. I will take my hair down, though. Then why don't I print some snacks for us while you get started?"
He grinned. "Eat while you can, first rule of surviving. Great idea."
She laughed and shook her head. "I'm just excited at the idea of something besides gruel and ration bars. They might have a luxury restaurant on board, but they weren't bringing me any meals from there."
Jacen thought things might be awkward between them after that kiss on the casino floor, but it was actually rather companionable. Although, when Princess Liana came back from her rooms with her hair down in dark, soft waves all he could think about for ten minutes was how much he wanted to touch her.
The only thing that gave him back his concentration was when she left the room to make some snacks. She made a plate of cheese and wafers and vegetables (manufactured, of course, but from the highest-end food printer so they tasted almost as good as the real thing). They munched their food, and he ported some of the security feed over to a spare datapad. He told her what to look for and how to take notes for him on the guards and their movements.
An hour passed that way—the most peaceful and relaxed Jacen had been in days. He actually started to nod off when Liana's gasp startled him awake with a burst of adrenaline flooding his system.
"There are two of them." Liana rocked forward to plant
her feet on the floor and dropped the carrot she'd been crunching back to the plate.
Jacen scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wake up all the way. "What?"
She passed her datapad over to him, and Jacen studied the video she'd paused.
He shook his head watching the two shadowy forms dart about their cage in the vid. "You're right. Where the hell did Tatinas get a second caliba? They hardly ever leave the mountains, let alone the planet." Jacen threaded his fingers through his hair, not liking this latest complication.
"Poor thing." Liana chewed on the corner of one nail, a habit her governess had broken her of years ago. Yet another sign that Jacen wasn't the only one feeling squeezed by stress at the moment. "Does this make it harder to get Pym?"
He clucked his tongue and ran the feed again. "It's hard to say. We might be able to get them both if this other one is a trusting sort of creature. Maybe Pym can even help with that if they've made friends. Or this caliba might hate humans and not want to let anyone get close to the cage." Jacen set the datapad down and pinched his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, his gut heavy with this new worry. "Blast. I'll have to be ready for anything."
"Anything?" her voice trembled. "You mean…to get Pym you might have to kill this other caliba?"
He looked over at her, guilt pounding through his veins. To kill a caliba was a great sacrilege, a stain on your soul. "I truly hope not, my princess, but I'll do anything to get you back Pym." I'll do anything for you.
Liana sat down in front of him and circled his wrist with her own delicate fingers, squeezing gently. "I know that, Jacen. And I trust you. I know your heart." Her nostrils flared with sudden anger as she looked away. "Damn Tatinas for his greed and callousness. You should never have to even think about something like that." Her eyes shone, and she looked away from him.
Her concern for him, her empathy, unknotted something in his chest, and suddenly he couldn't bear another moment of mission recon. He'd been on high alert for days now, worried, planning, reconnoitering. And danger still pressed on them from all sides. They might never escape this space station.
