Ask For It (6 page)

Chapter Six

Tor would rather have remained in his apartments and in his female. Whatever it was that had Burke at his door and willing to pound on it for an hour had better be worth the risk of injury.

“Stop!” Tor roared in frustration. “I’m coming to remove your arms.”

There was no break in the pounding. “This continues ‘til you walk out here.”

Tor snarled as he pulled on boots. Burke’s methods were effective. Tor had ignored every electronic device that had been ringing, blinking or buzzing for three days, blithely turning them off and returning to Sahara. The fact they’d not been out of his apartments for three weeks prior to that had not bothered Tor one bit. Both Burke and Nearrid were on planet and could handle his responsibilities. What good was it to have brothers if they could not be useful?

Jerking open the outer door, he glared at Burke. “Is the Alliance under attack?”

“Leonor is under attack,” Burke informed him.

That snapped Tor to attention. “It had better be every other planet in the galaxy.”

“It’s our own planet,” Burke stated.

“What?” Tor pulled his door shut behind him as he frowned darkly at his brother. “A tribal uprising?”

“No. The planet itself. Come to the assembly and let them explain it.”

“Them? Who them?” Tor demanded as he strode toward the assembly room with Burke by his side.

“The scientists.”

Tor’s scowl darkened but he continued across the palace. Two hours later Tor was still scowling as he gazed at the serious faces surrounding him. The explanation had taken a full forty-five minutes as global scans, satellite photos, long histories of global conditions and lists of norms and forecasts were presented. Then came the theories and possible outcomes, all of them bad.

The best possible projection was that there were less than twelve months left in which to evacuate the general public before this tropical planet became a huge globe of ice.

The short version was, exactly three weeks and three days ago, satellite images showed a tower had erupted thirty miles off the coast in the Starling Ocean. A spike of unknown material that rose one hundred and sixty-nine meters above the water with no visible openings. Before anyone could get to it to investigate, a storm had broken over it. Since then, the storm had been steadily increasing in size and strength. The strange obelisk occupied the eye of the spiraling storm as temperatures dropped rapidly. Currently the center was a blizzard with winds over two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

There were no known solutions for disrupting the weather event. Growth rate and power were increasing in a mathematical formula that the scientists seemed to think was fascinating and somehow perfect. A week ago the event became big enough to gather energy from the environment it was invading, much like a conqueror.

With all the talking he’d been listening to, no one had mentioned the timing after stating the facts about when the problem had arisen. Three weeks and three days ago. It was the one thing that had not been repeated. Nor had anyone brought up the legends about what had once existed somewhere off the northern coast in what was now the Starling Ocean.

Legend had it that the Mist Lion homeland had been a continent that disappeared sometime in the eighth century. There was only one account of a continent sinking into the ocean. It had been thought the fanciful imaginings of an unreliable source.

Tor slowly stood and turned away from the table. There had been no requests to speak to Sahara. No mention of her whatsoever. Wise scientists. Yet unspoken suspicion thundered around the room.

Turning to face them and speaking calmly, Tor addressed the unsaid questions. “Princess Sahara has been on this planet for nearly five years. There has been no hint of unusual consequences to her presence here in all that time.”

“Yes,” the director of the Leonor Institute for Historical Studies responded. He’d been silent during the entire discussion. “She has masked her heritage completely. No one even scented Mist Lion on her—”

“Like you’d know what Mist Lion scent is,” Tor interrupted. “Until she revealed herself, you believed Mist Lions were mythical creatures. You’ve written a book on the subject and called it
The Definitive Study of Leonor Legend
.”

The director, a historian by trade, was still a Leonor male and not easily intimidated. “It is clear my base theory was wrong, my lord. Shifting what I know as truth does not change the fact I have studied everything we have on Mist Lions. It simply allows me to look at the body of knowledge in a different light.

“There is no disrespect directed at the Princess Sahara. I do not believe she knows a thing about the obelisk. I do believe she initiated its appearance, however unknowingly. Leonor’s violent past is what created this situation. Mist Lions’ fear of our ancestors is being manifest.”

“Explain,” Tor directed.

The director nodded and glanced at his notes. “I’ll try to be brief. The only accounts we have of Mist Lions and their culture were written by our race, the Leonor Lions. Most of it from the ninth century, which by their own admission, was well after Mist Lions no longer inhabited this planet. We know Leonor warriors believed they had driven Mist Lions off the planet. History written by the victors is suspect, but we can be sure of the early Leonor Lions’ deadly intentions where Mist Lions are concerned.

“The violence of early Leonor Lion societies is well documented. The few references we have of Mist Lions during the time the two species of lion coexisted here are harshly intolerant. An example of Leonor Lion attitudes is demonstrated in the fourth century’s Chieftain Maggor’s orders for his warriors to hunt immature Mist Lions. Obviously, they were stalking the children of a species they did not understand.

“In the light of our own technological advances, magical abilities attributed to Mist Lions can now be explained. It appears they were an advanced society. I’m guessing, but I suspect they had the weapons to remove our ancestors from the face of Leonor. The fact no physical evidence of their species remains means they had full control of all aspects of their encounters with us, except our violent response to them.

“The conclusion is that they did conceal their homeland, preventing us from digging up artifacts. I believe they chose to leave as opposed to exposing a developing, indigenous species to powerful weapons and technologies we were not yet capable of using responsibly. Much like we now impose the First Directive when making contact with a new life form.

“What we see in the Starling Ocean is probably an automatic defense mechanism to discourage exploration. It might be malfunctioning. A society that leaves a planet as opposed to eradicating the primitives intent on hunting their children would not create a world-destroying weapon set to do the job twenty-seven centuries later.”

There was silence for several minutes after the director finished. It was evident to Tor that all of them had discussed and agreed with the historian’s conclusions. There was no arguing about it now.

“What do you suggest?” Tor asked.

“We would like to speak with Princess Sahara. She might have knowledge of Mist Lion technology. If the obelisk was constructed by Mist Lions it’s logical that there must be a kill switch.” He was answered by the Tryon Demigoss, the director of science and research.

It was a reasonable request. Tor glanced at Burke and Nearrid, both of them simply shrugged, indicating nothing further to add. Sahara was a member of their family and he was confident of his brothers’ protective instincts. Being unaware of her heritage would not change a Leonor warrior’s natural drive to protect any female in his family. If neither of them saw a danger to Sahara, Tor had only one concern.

How would Leonor males react to close proximity with a Mist Lioness? She’d been among them for years, but everything was different now. The only way to know was to try.

Tor met each male’s gaze at the conference table. “We meet here in an hour. If you don’t think you can handle being in the presence of a mature Mist Lioness, do not return to this room. I will kill any male who disrespects her. My brothers will finish the job in the unlikely event I can not. Understand that well.”

Burke and Nearrid left the conference room with Tor. The three of them walked in silence as they crossed the palace to Tor’s private lair. At the door Tor stopped and glanced at his brothers.

“Something you need to say?” Tor asked them pointedly.

“Yeah,” Burke said calmly. “We’re here because this is family business. You might be high king but you’re still our brother and she is doubly our sister.”

Tor raised a brow. “There will be no Corbeth.”

Nearrid mirrored him, raising a brow. “Of course not. She nearly died. We’re not idiots.”

“You knew?” Tor demanded.

“Didn’t you?” Burke questioned.

Tor’s muzzle lifted in a snarl. “No. How is it you knew?”

Burke and Nearrid glanced at each other. “Signet,” they said in unison.

“Did you know she was a Mist Lioness too?” Tor demanded.

“No. Are you going to invite us in or not?” Nearrid inquired calmly.

“He is,” Sahara answered smoothly as she swung the door open. “What’s going on?”

Looking at her face drew up the usual reaction for Tor, but this time he could gather her into his arms and kiss her edible mouth. His brothers filed in behind him, each giving Sahara a loud greeting. Tor ignored them. The pleasure of walking into his lair to her was intense and he would enjoy it.

A few minuets later Sahara was curled under Tor’s arm with her back to his chest as they lounged on one of the large couches. Nearrid had just finished giving a much shorter and less technological narration of the events in the Starling Ocean.

“Everyone agrees that you did not intentionally trigger the storm device. The theory is, it was supposed to discourage exploration had Leonor scientists tried to investigate the area before we were advanced enough to understand Mist Lion technology. At the time Mist Lions left, we considered your species magical beings who could disappear at will, turn into any creature and a lot of other superstitious garbage. The point is, the defensive weapon was built so long ago it’s probably malfunctioning.”

Sahara was frowning at she stared at Nearrid, her attention totally captivated. Tor knew it was irrational to need to regain her attention. It was also childish. He’d get over it sometime, but not today.

“The scientists want to speak with you,” Tor continued the explanation. “See if there is anything you know about Mist Lion technology. All our information about your species is from historical accounts mostly written after Mist Lions left the planet. Makes it obvious they are recounting verbal stories, not firsthand experience. I told them we’d meet with them in an hour.”

Sahara was still in his arms a moment. Then she shifted slightly to lie facing him. Her eyes searched his for a moment. Tor was immediately uncomfortable as he looked into her face. There he saw caution, even a trace of fear. His hand, lazily caressing her midriff, stilled.

“I’ve read those accounts,” Sahara confessed slowly. “They are descriptions of demons.”

“The imaginings of frightened people who did not understand that being a shapeshifter is as natural for your people as breathing,” he assured her.

“Would your people fear us if some of those recounted abilities were true? Besides shapeshifting?” she wanted to know.

“Like what?” Tor asked as cautiously as she’d asked the question. Lounging on couches facing them, Burke and Nearrid were silent.

Sahara glanced at them, her eyes coming back to Tor, she seemed to make up her mind. “You are my mate. I can choose no other. That doesn’t mean much to your species. I will always be drawn to you, but if you found a biological match among your people, you can still have a family. You are not bound to me in any real way,” she stated calmly.

The snarl lifting Tor’s muzzle was involuntary as he swiftly shifted, his body covering her in instinctive denial. “No, little desert flower, you could not be more wrong. You are bound to me in every way and I will not let you go again. I have explained this once. Any attempt to leave me will result in more trouble than you want to face. I promise you, it would be a mistake.”

Her response to his threats was puzzling at first. The smile on her face was sad as she freed a hand to cup his face.