Enemy Games (46 page)

“I heard what you said to your father about choice,” he murmured against her ear.

A shiver of awareness went through her.

“You’re my mate. I can’t change that. But I won’t have you coerced,” he said, “or manipulated.”

Jayleia shook her head, fear spiking through her.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve complained about choice because all my life, I’ve never earned anything. I’m a xenobiologist whose only claim to a coveted spot on the best science ship in the known systems is that I survived a plague. That was an accident of genetics. I didn’t earn my place. My mother was the high priestess of the Temple; they
had
to train me. You had my blood forced on you. I can’t even earn your love.”

He pulled away.

Missing the warmth and security of his arms around her, she forced herself to meet his gaze regardless of what she might see there.

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally admitted, his voice mute and hurt. “I love your curiosity and your ability to ask questions about the most mundane things.

“I love your ability to rush headlong into danger to protect the young of any species. You deserve my admiration, my respect, and my love, and not because you gave me your blood.”

In the nest they rested against, the young occupant trilled.

The sound resolved in her head. “Parent.”

Jay sucked in a sharp breath. One of her genetic daughters.

“Had you intended to declare your daughter queen?” Damen asked, his voice lazy.

“What?” she breathed. It hit her. She’d been so distraught over the injuries Damen and the old queen had sustained, she hadn’t paid attention. The new queen, the one she’d chosen, was her genetic daughter.

The young queen hummed in greeting, and acknowledgment, then her hum dwindled as she sank back into sleep.

“It’ll take a year or more for her to mature in there. Do you feel anything for her?” he asked. “She’s got a piece of you in her makeup.”

She stirred the confused tangle of emotions running through her. “As for feeling, I don’t know, parental? Is it telling that I think she’s going to be beautiful?”

“So do I,” he confided, his gray eyes lighting. When he smiled, both sides of his face moved.

She’d lifted a hand to trace the scar before she’d realized. She paused.

He wrapped her hand in his and brought her fingers to his lips. “Raj did surgery. He finished just before the mercenaries arrived.”

“You were under sedation when they took the ship,” she surmised.

He nodded, suppressed laughter rippling in his voice when he said, “Dr. Idylle, Raj, and Pietre managed to arm themselves with tranquilizer injections. They took out more than half of the mercenaries before Eudal put two and two together.”

“Where are my inestimable crewmates?”

“With the Chekydran,” he said. “Doing research. Monitoring the progression of the Chekydran-hiin while they’re cocooned.”

She shuddered.

Damen tugged her back into his arms.

She settled her back against his chest and closed her eyes as he smoothed her hair.

“There are three UMOPG ships . . .” she began.

“Two,” he corrected.

She stiffened. “There were three. I’d intended to hand one to Admiral Seaghdh and one to my father and the Citizen’s Rights Uprising. The third one I’d intended to use in defense of this planet. Damn it. Someone escaped. I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

She shrugged. “I wanted revenge.”

“For V’kyrri.”

“And for you.”

He sighed. “How can you believe you haven’t earned my love? But damn it, I don’t want love to be conditional or to have to be earned. Am I not allowed to simply love you? I think there comes a time in every life when you have to look inside yourself and become more than you’ve been up to that point.

“You pull together bits and pieces of information from wildly disparate sources and combine them in ways that boggle my mind.”

She frowned, listening to the words rumbling through his chest. “I have to pull all the bits and pieces of me together now?”

“Would it be so bad to claim all of you? To be whole?”

“You make it sound so easy,” she said, “and you haven’t even let me up to face my family and debriefing.”

He chuckled. “The queens threw Ari and your father off planet so you could heal.”

Jay sucked in a sharp breath and choked on a laugh.

“They wanted you in the
Dagger
’s medi-bay,” he said. “As much to have you in a healing system they trusted as to have immediate debriefing access. You’ll be called on to fill in a few holes in the narrative, but between my debriefing and input from the queen’s consort, we managed a chillingly clear picture. Your parents are offering to take you and the entire crew of the
Sen Ekir
into the CRU network.”

“I’m not leaving,” she blurted, “I have an opportunity here, to make a difference. To . . .”

“You committed to help the Chekydran?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “I’m glad I could live down everyone’s worst expectations of me.”

Damen’s chuckle vibrated through her bones. “Not mine.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “When you have a career and duty? To the family we got out of Silver City? To your Claugh family?”

“You left two out,” he noted, resting his cheek against her hair. “I’m a part of the Chekydran, now, like you are. I also have a standing invitation to join the crew of the
Sen Ekir
.”

“I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to families,” he said, his voice breaking. “Yet none of them will be home to me unless you’re beside me.”

Loss ripped her breath from her chest. “One year,” she choked, “maybe two. I’ll find you wherever . . .”

“Her Majesty, by which I mean Eilod, has requested that I establish and command a Claugh outpost on this world.”

Hope slammed her heart into rhythm again. Her eyes burned.

“Our primary aim is establishing diplomatic ties between the Chekydran-ki and the Claugh nib Dovvyth, but the scientific mission runs a close second. Offers have been extended to the entire crew of the
Sen Ekir
, you included, I believe. If you decide to stay, I’ll be right here beside you,” he promised.

“Threatening to lock me in neural cuffs?” she finished for him, smiling.

He growled deep in his throat and tightened his arms around her. “That hasn’t stopped you so far. And there are advantages to being properly motivated.”

Jayleia laughed as heat flooded her body. “Tahem said, ‘Don’t let the past define what you could become.’ I don’t want to become anything that doesn’t include you.”

“Is that your choice?” Hope, mingled with elation rang in his question.

She detected the erratic beat of his heart, and smiled. “You’re my mate. I can’t be whole without you. You’re already a part of me. Even if you manipulated me into a trap of your making.”

He stilled.

Her smile widened and her heart took wing. “I promised to protect you until the day I died, so you turned around and extorted a promise from me to live for you. A very neat snare, Damen Sindrivik.”

Damen laughed, hope and exultation in the sound.

ENEMY WITHIN
ENEMY GAMES