No Words Alone (15 page)

Love? Scary, but true. When had that happened?

The way his eyes sharpened on her, he must have seen
it. He linked arms and escorted her out of the hangar and to the
lift. They didn’t say anything all the way to their room, didn’t
communicate until she shoved him up against the closed door and
kissed him hard. That lasted all of three seconds before he
reversed positions and flattened her against the door, her mouth
under his, his thigh nudging her higher. They didn’t say a word,
just kissed until they were both dizzy. He finally broke away and
rested his head against her neck. “Woman...” It was rebuke and
hungry regret. He finally backed up and set her away from the door.
He had to steady her a moment before letting go. “Stay here,” he
said, pointing a warning finger. “Decide what you will say to your
sister when you speak. It may be short, and this may be your only
chance for quite a while.” He turned on his heel and quickly left.
Maybe he didn’t trust himself, either.

Xera was ready to speak, all right. She might trip
over her tongue in her haste to tell her sister everything. She was
starting to think her promise didn’t matter under the
circumstances. Ryven wasn’t going to wait much longer, and she
couldn’t. What she felt was becoming a need, and went much deeper
than touch. There was something he could give her that she
desperately needed, something she could only experience in his
arms. She wanted that joining, that closeness. They were past the
point where merely snuggling would work; they couldn’t touch
without catching fire.

She groaned and flopped down in a chair. She needed
this to be over.

Xera sighed and took up her electronic tablet. She
had to review what she’d say to her sister. After that she might
study the shuttle flight manuals. If she wanted to master the
fighter, first she’d have to start at the bottom.

Anything that kept her busy was good.

It was late when Ryven entered their shared room.
He’d been tense for hours and hadn’t looked forward to another
night on the floor. Much as he wanted to see his wife, she was hard
on him. He wasn’t sleeping well, and he’d had nightmares of his
wife going back to her people, leaving him.

She wasn’t there.

He checked his automatic concern. Although it was
late, she was on the ship somewhere. A simple question on the
security net told him where.

He glanced at the simulator technicians as he entered
the control room. He nodded in response to their salutes and
checked the screen. Xera had made progress since that morning. The
log showed that she’d done nothing but practice takeoffs and
landing for hours, with the result that she’d become quite smooth.
An unusual approach to learning, for most students became bored
with that kind of repetition and wanted to run the entire program
through. She had more patience than he’d realized. He told the
techs to signal her, and went to stand by her pod.

She blinked at him as her eyes adjusted to the light
spilling through the open door. “Hello. Am I in trouble?”

He extended a hand. “It’s late. You need your
sleep.”

She stifled a yawn and accepted his help. “I guess.”
Perhaps his face showed his annoyance, for she glanced at him and
said, “I’m sorry if I hogged the machine. They didn’t tell me that
anyone else needed it.”

He looked at her sideways. “I gave you permission to
use them.”

“But you’re unhappy about it now.”

He looked straight ahead. After a moment he admitted,
“I’m unhappy with your preoccupation.” He privately wondered at her
motivation as well. After all, they would soon meet up with GE
ships. If she thought she might find a way to leave him…but he
would never say as much aloud, and she was monitored at every
moment during this trip. His concern was unreasonable, but it made
him touchy. The entire idea of giving her access to a ship was
difficult for him, but he chose not to discourage her…at least, not
until he’d found some way to distract her.

Part of the fault lay with him. He’d been so
determined to use his duties as a distraction from his frustrated
desire that he’d often left her alone. By now his crew probably
wondered why their captain didn’t spend more time with his new
wife. The thought of such speculation made him frown.

She looked irritated. “There’s precious little to do
on this boat. It keeps me out of trouble.”

“Hm.”

She sighed, but waited until they reached their room
to comment. Once inside, she braced her legs and told him flatly,
“I couldn’t fly off if I wanted to. You know that. If that’s what’s
worrying you.”

“But the notion has occurred to you.” He stared her
down, his heart suddenly racing.

Her jaw worked. “I’d be a liar if I told you no.”

Suddenly he was tired. It had all seemed to be going
so well. Whatever he’d thought they were making of their
relationship, she hadn’t given in yet. Perhaps she was still
holding out hope against their union. Was it possible?

But such hope was irrelevant. There was no point
arguing the inevitable. Even if he felt unusually dispirited.

Quietly, he said, “Go to bed, Xera.”

His lack of argument seemed to deflate her. She
actually looked sorry, but he wasn’t going to feed her need to
resist him. He had better tactics in mind. Yet, not tonight. He
spread his pallet on the floor and shed his clothes, heedless where
they fell. He slid under the blankets, his ears attuned to her own
as they rustled. Tired as he was, his arousal grew.

They couldn’t cement this marriage fast enough for
him.

Xera stood at the Lord Governor Atarus’s left
hand, her face carefully neutral. Heavy kohl extended in a line
from the corner of her eye to halfway down her nose, bracketing it
like the painted eyes of cheetah. Her lips were carefully lined in
darkest red, and a golden diadem topped her brow, holding her thick
and glossy tresses off her face like a cresting black wave. Her
robes were black and gold, held snugly to her ribs with a golden
obi.

She kept silent as the Lord Governor
addressed the commanders of the Galactic Explorers’ and
Interplanetary Council’s ships.

A line of cold sweat trickled down her back,
distracting her from her presentation of professionalism. It was
the first time she had seen her own people since being captured. It
was a dizzying experience. So close, with all they represented of
home, of the familiar, yet they were also impossibly far.

Ryven stood at his father’s right hand. She
couldn’t see his face, but she knew it would be impassive, perhaps
even arrogant like the time she’d first seen him. A flashback
rocked her equilibrium. For a moment she felt a little sick,
surrounded by aliens for all she’d come to know them.

Her
people
were out there, and she
couldn’t go to them. She closed her eyes and ruthlessly tamped down
the emotion. This was here and now. She’d deal with it.

She was not the Lord Governor’s mouthpiece. He used
his computer to translate for him as he stated his case to the
Interplanetary Council and the GE. Her former crewmembers were to
be a gift, a statement of intent, as well as proof to the
Interplanetary Council of the GE’s trespassing. Lord Atarus had a
long discussion with her over that prior to this meeting, over how
their government worked, which authorities to cultivate. He was
very firm over what would happen to any more GE ships that
trespassed in Scorpio territory. Then he introduced her.

“The men from the trespassing GE ship are
being returned to you. We have kept for ourselves our new
ambassador, Lieutenant Xera Harrisdaughter, formerly of the world
Polaris. As a concession to her betrothal to my son, Ryven Atarus,
she will be allowed to contact her family to inform them of her
impending nuptials.”

All eyes turned to her. The screen was split to show
the captains of two ships looking at her, but there were many more
on both sides who were listening in. The commander of the GE’s ship
looked at her intently. “Lieutenant. I remember your file. You
graduated with honors from our translator program. You seem to be
well.” It was a question.

“I have been well treated, sir,” she
answered, strained.

“You agreed to marry the Lord Governor’s son,
then?”

“I was chosen for the honor,” she said
carefully. It was a fine line to tell the facts and yet tell the
truth without offending anyone.

The commander’s eyes glittered. “And were you
chosen for the role of ambassador, too?”

“I was,” she answered.

There was a beat of silence. “How were you
chosen, Lieutenant? The rest of your crew seems to have fared very
differently.” It was clear what he was insinuating.

Ryven stepped forward, and his expression was
not kind. “The officers of Xera’s ship were uncommonly stupid.
Initially I was inclined to kill all of the crew we captured. Be
grateful I found anything worth redeeming.” He sent an arrogant
look Xera’s way. “The woman is a war prize, as are all of that
crew. It is our custom to choose our own ambassadors from our
captives. They are not given a choice once they belong to us.”

“Ah.” The commander’s expression wasn’t
friendly, but it was difficult to argue with the kind of arrogance
Ryven projected.

Xera understood his feelings; she wanted to
hit Ryven herself. While she understood his defending her, she
hated being referred to as a war prize, a thing.

The commander went on, “In the spirit of your
generosity, we will establish a link to the lieutenant’s sister. I
can’t guarantee it will last long; it will be a vast distance, even
for a wormhole. We don’t have many signal boosters this far
out.”

“A few minutes will be adequate,” the Lord
Governor assured him. “We will prepare our...guests...for
transport.”

Xera was given a brief respite as both sides
adjourned to access the situation. She knew it could be less than
an hour before she was speaking with Gem if the commander was
prompt. In this situation, she assumed he would be, for it was
unlikely the LG would complete the prisoner transfer until he got
what he wanted. If the commander didn’t understand that now, he
soon would.

Ryven conferred with the LG, then came to her
side. “Come. I will escort you to our room. You will want to speak
with your sister in private. You prepared a message burst?” It
would be easier to send off a pre-recorded message in a quick burst
than to count on the conversation lasting in real time.

“Yes.” She’d included a picture of Ryven and
a recent image of herself, sans ambassadorial makeup. Her sister
would want the pictures. She’d asked the LG for permission to
describe her new home with the lavender snow and the crystal
palace. She’d thrown in a brief description of the culture at the
LG’s suggestion. Perhaps he didn’t want his daughter-in-law’s
family to think she was exiled to a barbarian wasteland.

She’d given an abbreviated version of how she
came to be where she was and assured her sisters Ryven wouldn’t
beat her. It wouldn’t stop them from worrying, but at least they’d
know that Xera would have a comfortable future. She’d said she
loved them.

It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was all she
could do.

After a little thought, she washed her face.
It would help if her sister could recognize her. She left the hair,
though. It was too much trouble to let Namae dress it again.

Namae was handling being on the warship as
well as could be expected. She kept her eyes downcast when she had
to travel the corridors, intimidated by so many men. If she kept it
up, Xera was going to start poking her soon. The girl had
experienced hardship, yes, but there was no call to slouch around
like a beaten dog. The girl was the equivalent of a royal princess;
she should start acting like one. If she walked like a princess and
looked like a princess, she would be treated as such. As far as
Xera knew, the only one who had ever tormented the girl about her
attacker was the accuser in her own mind.

Unbeknownst to her, Namae had become Xera’s
private project. Xera understood fear and worry. It started with a
small thought and grew, circled around and came back stronger, like
the first wisp of smoke in a still, quiet house. It had to be
stamped out while it was still a whisper, before it gained strength
and flashed over. It was so much easier to smother the spark than
the full grown, ravenous fire.

Fear was the one thing that could break the
laws of physics; it could feed on itself and still keep
growing.

How did she know? Fear had been haunting Xera
since the moment her ship had picked up the Scorpio on sensors and
decided to engage. On the planet it had been fear of death, then of
the men around her, of the uncertain future. Now she had a good
idea of what the future held and it was grief she battled. She
missed her sisters, hated the circumstances that would separate
them. It had been one thing to ship out with the GE, knowing she
had the chance to go back one day. But this...it hurt. She wanted
to be the one in control.

The wall screen flicked on without warning.
“Stand by,” a computerized voice informed her. “Prepare for
transmission.” There was a long lag, long enough to make her shift
uncomfortably. Would it go through?

Chapter 12

“Xera!” Her sister Gem’s face appeared. She
looked older, eager to speak but worried. The GE must have briefed
her on the situation. Xera wondered what they’d said. She also knew
this conversation was probably being monitored by both sides. The
wouldn’t take the chance of missing out on any information that
might give them an advantage.

No pressure, Xera thought wryly.

“Sis,” Xera said, fighting the constriction
in her throat. “Hi.”

“We thought you were dead,” Gem said softly,
as if she also had trouble speaking. “The GE said your ship was
shot down. What happened? Are you all right?”