Enemy Within (32 page)

So that’s how it was. She’d been foolish enough to believe Seaghdh’s act—that he trusted her, cared for her—and now the people she’d thought of as her allies treated her like she meant them harm. Worse. She’d thought, if only briefly, that they’d understood her. She wished she could cry. Instead, she glanced at the other person in the room and started.

Sindrivik, logging into the computer systems.

“It is time you told me everything,” Seaghdh said, the power in his voice a lash.

She reeled and bit her tongue to keep from babbling in response. He could have asked, but he preferred to duel. If it was a fight he wanted, she’d accommodate him.

Pinning her gaze on the serious young man sitting beside V’kyrri, Ari forced herself to ignore the compulsion rumbling around in her brain. Instead of spilling a confession no one would believe, she said, “Good to see you, Lieutenant Sindrivik. I gather my father is in range. Did he take his temper out on you since I wasn’t there to castigate?”

Sindrivik blinked, a wry smile on his face, until he caught a glimpse of Seaghdh’s expression. Humor died. He returned to task at a panel. Teasing apart her data? Analyzing the extent of her invasion into their computers? Scanning all systems for whatever damage she might have done? Their systems were extensive and since she hadn’t done anything, looking for malicious code would take a while.

Ari took a deep breath. She hadn’t heard a shield go up, which meant Eilod was listening, likely watching, and probably recording. It finally occurred to her that she was little more than a tool. They could use her as a means to declare war upon her government if the Claugh managed to wring a confession from her.

Her heart hurt and her throat felt tight. “Auhrnok Riorchjan,” Ari said, refusing to look at him, “I formally request that you ask Mr. V’kyrri to stand down. Your little drama won’t play well if I suffer a flashback.”

“Answer me, Captain.”

Again, the whip in his tone, demanding compliance. Heat rushed low into her abdomen and she flushed. Her body obviously remembered that he’d used his power to very pleasurable effect last night. She clasped her hands behind her back.

He pounded his fists against the table. “By the Gods, don’t you dare stand there blushing like an innocent! Your admiral calls with a story of dread and fear designed to make us trust you. You admit you’re an IntCom operative, but you neglect to disclose how much of one! What did I interrupt when I rose to check on you last night? Theft of state secrets? An attack? Just whose brilliant and amazing seduction scene was that?” he yelled, fury and hurt raw in his face.

She gasped as if he’d struck her. The bastard was accusing Ari of what he’d done to her? Rage uncurled behind her solar plexus.

“Answer the damned question,” he snarled.

“No,” she snapped.

Silence. Deadly, sly silence that waited, circling, to close in for the kill. “No, you will not answer?” Seaghdh asked, his tone silky and dangerous. “Do you believe you understand my notion of interrogation?”

She struggled to contain the pain ripping her open from the inside out. What further proof did she need? He’d used her. She’d been right. He did get a charge out of humiliating his victims by seducing them. She’d just been wrong about the venue. He needed to make his conquest public. Damn it to the Three Hells, she couldn’t deal with this, but she could stick to business. She could understand that, at least, before they threw her in prison. Or out an air lock.

“No,” Ari repeated. “I am answering the question you don’t have the courage to ask. The one at the heart of this set of faulty assumptions you and your precious cousin have made. No. I am not some super spy sent here to deceive you. Believe me. Don’t believe me. I don’t care.”

The pressure against her increased. Movement beside her. She looked. V’kyrri. He’d alerted Seaghdh to her lie. “I don’t care.” The man was reading her, like the Chekydran had tried to do. Only he’d succeeded. That, along with the sharp-edged pain that had been her heart, infuriated her.

“Get off,” she growled at him. Mentally, Ari flung him from her as hard and as violently as she’d always wanted to fling the Chekydran.

V’kyrri jolted back in his seat. The chair went over.

Shock and icy fear obliterated anger. Ari rushed to his side, righted the chair, and offered him a hand but pulled it back before he could refuse it.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “V’kyrri, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .”

He levered himself back into his chair, his nose streaming purple blood.

She blanched. “I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t do that, did I? Please, tell me I didn’t do that.”

She got a wan smile from underneath his hand as V’k pinched his nose closed and tipped his head back.

“We need to get you some training,” he said.

Awful awareness washed over her. She’d hurt him. V’kyrri had trespassed. Yes. The worst he’d done was to tell Seaghdh she cared when she swore she didn’t. He hadn’t harmed her, didn’t want to harm her. And she’d injured him. With a thought. Horror pressed hard against the inside of her ribs. Ari bolted for the bathroom and lost not just her breakfast but what felt like every breakfast since time began.

AFTER
an eternity, a cool, sure hand applied a transdermal medication patch to the back of Ari’s neck. Several seconds later, the dry heaves subsided and she curled, shaking and miserable, into a ball on the floor.

“You’ll feel better in a minute,” Dr. Annantra said.

“No,” Ari rasped through a raw, swollen throat. “I’ll have just stopped throwing up.”

The doctor looked up at someone. Seaghdh. Ari could feel him there in the doorway, watching. Listening. Impatient.

“Hey,” V’kyrri said. He brushed past Seaghdh, knelt, and put a hand on her ankle. “It’s okay. I’m all right. Nice throw, by the way.”

Is that what she’d done? She glanced at him. No blood. They’d cleaned him up before treating her. Good.

“What am I?” she pleaded.

He withdrew his hand as his troubled gaze met hers. “Besides frightened and feeling more alone than you did even in Chekydran captivity?”

Ari closed her eyes and pressed her lips tight against the surge of grief his words touched off.

“I don’t know,” he finished.

“V’k, don’t,” she croaked.

“I’m not reading, Ari,” he said. “I don’t have to. I can see it in your face.”

Damn. She opened her eyes.

“Have her drink this,” Dr. Annantra said. She handed V’kyrri a cup.

Gingerly, Ari slid around and propped her back against the wall. Hell of a start to the day. She was getting tired of ending up on the floor. Marshalling the fortitude to rise, she shook her head when V’kyrri offered her the cup.

She paused in the doorway beside Seaghdh. “You want an interrogation? Do it. See how it works for you. But I have to say. Aside from hurting V’kyrri, which was a masterful stroke if you planned that, your mind baxt’k doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve already been through.”

A barren, bereft-sounding laugh escaped her. Ari desperately wanted to stop talking. She couldn’t. “Problem is you had me believing you gave a damn. Worse, I fell for you. Hard. Or hadn’t you noticed I would have answered you anything if you’d only asked?”

He looked staggered. “Ari.” His voice cracked.

Heat rushed behind her eyes. She had to walk away before she fell weeping into his arms. It would have felt good if she’d been capable of it. Easing into a chair, she noticed that Turrel had left his post at the door, favoring a seat at the end of the table.

“Assassins don’t barf at the sight of blood. You ain’t here to hurt anybody,” he grumbled when she raised an eyebrow at him. “Except maybe yourself. And him.” He frowned at Seaghdh. “I’m wondering if he doesn’t deserve it.”

“I’m not entirely innocent,” Ari admitted. “And it wasn’t the sight of blood.”

“Captain,” Sindrivik interrupted. “I’d like to take your excellent advice and simply ask. What did you do to the computer systems?”

“Nothing. I accessed data regarding the alleged alliance between Armada and Chekydran,” she replied, “merged it with my observations and data taken from the
Sen Ekir
and from Kebgra. I loaded the aggregated data to my handheld and backed up a copy in the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s file share, being, as I was, under the impression that the Empire might value the data.”

“Nothing else?” Sindrivik pressed.

“Not that I’m aware of.” She glanced at V’kyrri. “Read. If you put a hand on my arm, it’ll help keep me from flashing back on you again. I want to know if the Chekydran are controlling me without my knowledge.”

“No,” Seaghdh commanded.

Her hands knotted into fists. “I am not here to murder your personnel, you orhait’s ass.”

“I am attempting to recreate the sequence of events that led to the security breach, Captain Idylle,” Sindrivik went on as if he hadn’t heard a word. The flush in his face told Ari he’d heard just fine.

“You know how I accessed the file systems. Your boss all but handed me the control panel. If the Claugh nib Dovvyth intends to file charges so you can use me to declare war on TFC, do so. I am bound by an oath to protect the citizens of Tagreth Federated. I have served that oath and will continue to do so to the best of my ability per the verbal truce your queen and I agreed upon not twenty-four hours ago. For the record, I was left alone, unbound and unguarded in the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s office for over an hour. He knew I was studying the language. Yet he did nothing to secure his workstation even after I’d watched him sign in.”

Sindrivik started and Seaghdh took a step closer to the table.

“You recorded his sign in?” Sindrivik clarified.

“No,” Seaghdh replied, eyeing her with an assessing light in his face. “I had the handheld.”

He’d been uploading new language files for her.

“That’s a sixteen-character code set,” Sindrivik said.

Seaghdh spun on his heel and strode away from the table, obviously deep in thought. When his pacing took him past V’kyrri’s seat, he returned with the cup of tea she hadn’t drunk. He plunked it on the table in front of her.

She ignored it.

Sindrivik cleared his throat. In a rush and with an apologetic sideways glance at her, he switched to Claughwyth. “Your pardon, Auhrnok. Her father says that since her imprisonment, she will accept nothing, not even water, from another person’s hand.”

Seaghdh stopped short.

So did she.

He stared at her.

Ari could see him thinking it. She’d taken food and tea from him. What in the Three Hells did that mean? That she’d trusted him with her life long before she’d trusted him with her heart or her body? Twelve Gods.

Something warm and human thawed the icy mask he wore. He removed the tea, leaning closer to her shoulder than was necessary. “I do need you to tell me everything,” he said, his tone carefully nonchalant and notably powered down.

The nonthreatening tone didn’t fool her. She still had the spymaster on her hands, but a spymaster who knew he held every advantage since she’d admitted she’d fallen for him.

“Everything,” Ari echoed. Her voice sounded dead. “What everything would that be?”

“You began learning Claughwyth twenty-four hours ago.”

“I had a few lessons in the Academy,” she said. When she’d dreamed of someday meeting the first-ranked blade master and taking his title. She’d wanted to thank him for the match in his own language. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I began brushing up seventy-two hours ago. Give or take.”

“We’re speaking it now,” he said. “Did you know?”

Cravuul dung. She was so busy guarding against the ache in her chest, she’d forgotten. She opened her eyes. Might as well. She’d already lost this round.

“You understand every word,” he said.

“Not every word.”

“That’s quite a memory.” Seaghdh placed a cup of soup before her. “Especially if you memorized a sixteen-character series having seen it only once and in a language you didn’t know.”

Ari blinked. He’d hit on something no one else had worked out. The Chekydran had amplified her memory. She’d only noticed once she’d been released and discovered by accident that she remembered every code and every name associated with each medi who’d walked through her secured door in the hospital. Seaghdh couldn’t have worked out how her memory had gotten so good. Could he?

“What is my code?” He touched a button on the table. A panel lit in front of her. “Enter it. Please.”

Wrapping suddenly chilled fingers around the mug, Ari wracked her brain for a way out. She sensed a trap, could almost feel the bite of the jaws, but she couldn’t see it. She did not want him asking how she could remember so much. She didn’t want to face the fact that the Chekydran had succeeded in modifying her.

He sat in the chair next to her. Too close. She smelled his spice and musk scent with every breath, felt his heat, desperately craved his touch. As if he’d heard the plea, he put his hand on her wrist. The contact shattered the ire she’d so carefully nursed as a defense.