Demon's Revenge (High Demon Series #5) (18 page)

"Gavril?" Lissa appeared at her son's side.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" Gavril would always be young to his mother, although he was nearing a hundred years of age.

"Reah came up with a plan that worked for Kifirin, but if it works elsewhere, the less who know, the better. We pretty much have proof that somebody somewhere, either on the ground or on the ships, is passing information to the pirates." Lissa was walking swiftly at her youngest son's side.

"What?" Gavril was certainly interested in his mother's information.

"Kifirin just shipped a load of gishi fruit in sealed containers that were labeled as nannas. The nannas were labeled as gishi fruit. Both were picked up at the same time and hauled on separate ships. The nannas labeled as gishi fruit were taken while the gishi fruit labeled as nannas went right through."

Gavril cursed. Stopped in the middle of the tunnel and cursed again. "Mom, this might work for a while, until the pirates figure out what's going on. And then we'll have to deal with it again."

"But at least some shipments might get through," Lissa pointed out. "I assume something is jamming all the locating beacons you slip into those shipments."

"Yeah. We can't get a handle on any of it. It's like the things go dead the moment the pirates hit."

"I'll come with you to your meeting, honey. Maybe we can work something out."

"If they stop yelling long enough," Gavril agreed. He already had a headache, and it was only going to get worse.

< S win just sfont size="+0">* * *

"Jerves, would you like to come to dinner tomorrow evening? I'm off and Ry wants ox-roast for the evening meal." I was inviting Zendeval's assistant to dinner. I hoped he'd talk freely with us, especially after we served him a few glasses of wine with the meal.

"Yes. I'd love to come," Jerves usually vibrated in a restless sort of way, but he seemed happy, now.

"Good. Be there at eighteen bells and we'll start with drinks," I said.

"I will." Jerves trotted away happily to do Zendeval Rjjn's bidding.

* * *

"Baby, if we hadn't invited Jerves for dinner, I'd lift you onto this table and love you senseless," Ry wiggled against me suggestively. He was my secret, now. And he could almost make me come just by smiling and placing his hands in certain spots. I don't know what kept us apart all those years, but he was certainly attempting to make up for lost time.

"Ry, I really do love you," I said against his mouth.

"I love you more," he said and kissed me.

I was pulling the ox-roast out of the oven when Jerves rang the guest bell. He then walked into the apartment, followed by Zendeval Rjjn and Perdil the Dwarf.

"I hope you prepared enough for two extras," Ry gave me a brief frown while his back was turned to all three of our dinner guests.

"I did," I sighed. So much for having leftovers on Second-Day. Ry got them seated in our tiny sitting area and offered all of them the rum and fruit drink I'd prepared earlier.

"You'll love this," Ry said as I laid plates of ox-roast covered in mushroom sauce and baked inside a pastry in front of our guests a short time later. "I think it's my favorite thing that Reah makes."

Perdil was in raptures after the first bite. Zendeval Rjjn was staring at me as he chewed. Jervis was busy eating as quickly as he could. I refilled drinks before sitting down to my own portion of food.

"Reah, I wish to be invited to dinner every time you serve this," Perdil demanded as he held his plate out for a second portion. I also laid salads by each plate, with a special dressing drizzled over the long leaves and tiny greens.

"I've never seen anyone cook as you do," Zendeval finally stopped stuffing himself long enough to say a few words.

"And you may never see it again," Ry said, holding up his glass to me.

"Thanks, hon," I smiled at him.

* * *

"This is a live feed?" Norian watched the dinner party with interest. Ry had hoped to get information from the assistant they'd invited to dinner. Instead, two others had shown up. Lendill had received mindspeech that those two were Zendeval Rjjn, the one who managed the five best resorts on Stellar Winds, and one of the other master cooks from Galedaro's kitchens.

"I've sent both images through the databases, and nothing comes up," Lendill said as he watched Zendeval Rjjn stare at Reah. He wanted to growl and fold there, just to kill the man. Zendeval had designs on Reah—Lendill recognized that predatory look.

"So, we've got Stellar Winds full of unknowns, likely from outside the Alliance," Norian S&quato paced as he watched the large vid-screen inside his office. "Are all of them involved in human trafficking?"

"It's possible, but we still need more evidence," Lendill concluded. "And you won't believe what Rylend told me through mindspeech."

"What was that?" Norian didn't take his eyes away from the image. Lendill proceeded to tell his oldest friend what Reah had seen from inside a voyeur booth.

* * *

"Norian, are you kidding me?" Lissa blinked at her lion snake shapeshifting mate.

"No. Ry says that Reah was almost ill over it."

"Has anyone ever looked into what happened to Darletta's mother?" Lissa thought to ask.

"No. But I will now," Norian hauled out his comp-vid.

* * *

"Six successful deliveries of gishi fruit," Dee whispered gleefully to Gavril as they walked through the pool area behind Gavril's palace.

"It's what Mom calls the old shell game. We used three separate shipments, all going out at the same time," Gavril smiled slightly. "Cotton, wheat and nannas. Only all those cartons held gishi fruit in special, cool boxes. The prices are already up, so the boxes weren't such a stretch to afford."

"It worked," Dee grinned. And for an old vampire, that grin was something to see.

"We'll have to be just as subtle about other things, Dee. And we'll have to send some normal shipments, or their suspicions will be raised."

"Already thought of that. I asked Drix to send the culls on a ship and label it as gishi fruit. It will be; it'll just be what he normally wouldn't sell off-world."

"Good idea. Perhaps we can do that with rejections from electronic plants and such as well."

"Potentially making their black-market customers angry, if they get substandard equipment and supplies," Dee's grin was wider.

"The shell game just became more complicated," Gavril slapped his surrogate father on the back—quite hard. As a vampire, Dee barely felt it.

* * *

"Thank goodness." I breathed a sigh after our guests, expected and unexpected, left for the evening. They'd stayed quite late, drinking, laughing and not saying one damned thing that we wanted to hear.

"Reah, it was a good effort. I just think that Zendeval Rjjn isn't going to let you out of his sight. He's got it bad, baby."

"Ry, he only knows lust," I said, lifting plates off the table and carrying them to the kitchen.

"I know lust, too," Ry took the plates from my hand and set them on the counter, and then lifted me up to sit there. "Big lust," he sighed against my mouth.

* * *

Daddy Schuul left today, but his baby girl is still here and screwing Faldin and any other man she can pull inside one of those voyeur rooms
, Ry sent as soon as I walked inside the apartment on Second-Day.

She's mortal; she has to do what she can while she can
, I quipped silently, causing Ry to laugh.

" Sze=She's mo;Feel like going outside for a while?" Ry asked.
Outside
on Stellar Winds meant outside the vast complex of resorts and glassed-in tunnels and tubes that formed the city of Stellar Winds. There was plenty of planetoid left, but much of it was barren, not getting much rainfall. A small ocean bordered the city, and desalinated water from it supplied the needs of Stellar Winds. Hikers often went outside to climb nearby cliffs or explore canyons carved by eons of winds.

"If you go, I go," I smiled at Ry. The day hadn't been too bad, so I still had some energy left.

"After we walk, we can eat somewhere," Ry said.

"That sounds great. Just give me a minute to change," I said. Ry had already stepped into a more comfortable outfit, I saw.

"We'll go out the north gate," Ry said. The north gate led to the caverns and canyons. Ry had pulled a jacket from somewhere for me, too, saying it might be cool out. I nodded and slipped into it when we approached the gate roughly half a click later. It was quite the walk and we could have taken ground transportation but chose not to. Ry also held my hand as we walked. I couldn't recall the last time any of my mates had done that. I watched him covertly as we walked. Ry strode with purpose, his handsome face set. I wondered what worried him.

"I'm setting up a false signal for any sensors to pick up," he told me once we were half a click from the gate and well into one of the sandstone canyons. Blinking at him, I watched as he moved his hands gracefully, light forming around them. "It'll look like we're wandering around the canyon," he said, "in case anybody checks our employee chips. And I'll get a hit if anybody comes close." Ry took my hand again and folded me away from Stellar Winds.

* * *

"Hello, Erland," I said, as Ry led me to a table inside the Star Gazer restaurant on Tulgalan. Ry's father was there waiting on us, which surprised me.

"Hello, Reah. I understand that this may be more than just a show," he tapped the ring on my finger. Lendill had passed rings to Ry and me before we left for Stellar Winds, since we were supposed to be married.

"I didn't realize he made an announcement," I worried my lower lip as I looked up at Ry.

"I told Dad a few hours ago that I wasn't coming to this meeting without you," Ry leaned down and kissed me. "We're together, Reah. What affects you affects me, and vice-versa."

"I got quite an extensive message from my child, here, over how he's loved you for a very long time," Erland gave me a small smile. "I'll inform his mother as soon as we're done here. But I'd like to get dinner for both of you tonight. I should have seen this long ago. I couldn't imagine why my son wouldn't spend more than a single night with any woman. Now I know."

"I can't believe you didn't feel the envy radiating off me when I watched her with my brothers or any one of the others," Ry said, accepting a glass of water from the waiter.

"We'll have a bottle of your best sparkling wine," Erland said. The waiter, a discreet man who looked to be sixty and in his prime for Tulgalan, nodded and went to fetch it for us.

"While you're here, Erland," I said, "I need to ask some questions."

"About?"

"About Radolf. I don't want any cha S waontrges brought or anything, I just want them to walk away," I said. "He and Ilvan have been embezzling from Dees for years, and I've recently figured that out. I think it's time they managed on their own. I never officially married Radolf, but I don't know what the procedure might be for separating from him."

"You saw that, did you? Wylend finally admitted that he manipulated your relationship with Radolf, in order to keep Garek away from you." Erland's beautiful face looked troubled. Garek was Radolf's father, who'd stepped back in order to allow his son to become my mate.

"Why would he do that?" I asked, feeling hurt, even after all these years.

"He saw how much Corolan loved you, and worried that Garek would feel the same. Call it petty jealousy, if you will. Understand that he was in the first quarter of a female phase and that can happen. He knows now what that has cost him. And you."

"I won't ever go back to him."

"He knows that. His son, the Oracle, verified it."

"Oh, yes. I forgot about that one. The meddler." I thought of him that way—Lissa's father, that is. And Wyatt's. If he hadn't interfered at key junctures, Wyatt might still be alive.

"We all know what those things cost us." Erland couldn't read my thoughts any longer; none except the Larentii could. That shield was a gift from Nefrigar and I was more than thankful for it. Erland could read the expression on my face, however. He was adept at it, just as his son was. "As far as Radolf goes, why don't you let Lissa and me handle this one? Ilvan is still her cook, you know. I'll get into the records, determine the amount of damage they've done and then give them some choices."

"Only if it isn't too much trouble," I sighed. Suddenly, I'd gotten tired of being walked on or taken advantage of. There never seemed to be any profits from Dee's, although it was always busy. The books I'd been shown always accounted for each credit deposited. I didn't know how they'd managed to siphon away some of the income, but they had. And they were living in my house on Tulgalan while they did it. My uncle and my former lover, together, had done this to me.

Had they ever cared for me? I shook my head sadly at the thought. Our sparkling wine was served, with the rest of the bottle in an ice bucket next to the table. We ordered, I wanted fish. Nobody seemed to know how to make fish properly at Galedaro's, and I wasn't about to prepare it, in case Zendeval and Perdil showed up unexpectedly for dinner. I had the idea that Jerves had let it slip that he'd been invited, so Zendeval and Perdil came along, too. Erland answered some of Ry's questions about Tory's progress while we ate dinner.