The Journey's End (15 page)

“I’m going to rip his throat out and jump up and down on his
cooling corpse.”  She snapped it, her Shakien cat eyes never leaving the
mercenary.

“Maybe you should hold her tighter,” Tolan Lark muttered,
backing up.

“Nori,” Menelaus said warningly.  “He’s our best chance at
getting us all delivered where we need to go in one piece.  Those pirates might
still track us.”

She turned quick as a snake and hissed.  “If he had
succeeded in capturing you, it would have wasted time we don’t have, your
people would have been decimated by the Wosite.  You would have lost
everything.”

“I expressed that to him, myself, as well as his fate had
you been taken from me.”  He paused before going on carefully.  “Perhaps you should
go to the lady Lara and trust me to handle the mercenary.”

“Fine,” she snapped.  “You deal with the deceiver, and he
might get out of this alive, but Tolan Lark,” She turned to pierce him with her
fierce gaze again.  “Do anything further, try anything else, and we will have
words you do not like.”

He cleared his throat.  “Your mate has already expressed
that sentiment too.”

She ground her teeth and pulled out of Menelaus’ arms. 
“Keep him away from me or I will not be responsible for what happens.”

“Understood.”

“So you want to tell me why the man who kidnapped you is
standing over there?”  Lara looked from her to Menelaus, who was hovering
threateningly over the mercenary while he pulled up the com.

“He’s my mate.”

Lara blinked her big brown eyes.  “Really?”  Her voice was
full of excited awe, as she turned back to look at Menelaus again.  “That’s
wonderful.  He is very handsome, and he’s a king of his province isn’t he?  Is
he a benevolent one?  He must be if he’s your mate.”

“Lara…”  Nori tried to halt the plethora of good things that
Lara was spewing now that she knew who Menelaus was to her.  Never mind that he
had been the enemy about a minute ago.

“He has a sword.  Does he have a horse too?  Like in the old
romance vids?  Ooh, is he a good kisser?”

Nori laughed, she couldn’t help it.  “Yes, he has a horse
and he is deadly with a sword and his lips are miraculous.  Anything else you
want to know I leave to your vivid imagination and naïve belief in all things
good and true.”

“Very funny,” Nori smiled at Menelaus when he looked her way
and then waved with overt enthusiasm.  He blinked and then lifted an unsure
hand and waved back.  “Wait until father hears you found your mate.  He always
said whoever you finally found would have to be worthy of you and that would be
a hard challenge to meet.”

Nori turned back to her adopted sister.  “He said that?”

“Yes.  Do you think he will like the King?”

Nori turned back to examining Menelaus from across the
room.  “I think he will eventually like him.  When he gets over the way we met,
and the whole force marriage on me thing.”

Lara’s face scrunched up.  “Right.  He won’t care for
that…at all.”

“But maybe the fact that he is trying to save his people and
helped rescue you despite that, will win him some points.”

Lara brightened, her face lighting up enthusiastically. 
“Yes, you should lead with that.  He’ll love that part.”  Nori laughed again,
and then lost her humor when Tolan Lark stood up from the communication chair
and Lara saw him for the first time.  “Who is that?”

Not liking the breathless tone, Nori narrowed her eyes,
studying Lara’s enraptured face.  “That’s the mercenary that hired out to sell
Menelaus to the Wosite and then agreed to help us only to double cross us and
pull a gun on Menelaus.”

Lara shook her head and looked at Nori in confusion.  “He
did all that?”

“And wanted to sell me to the Death games and ransom you
back to the ambassador.”

Lara snapped her mouth closed and visibly backed up from the
approaching men.  Menelaus was right beside the mercenary, as he had been
constantly since the attempted double cross, but Tolan Lark got to them a step
ahead.  His attention on Lara.  He looked from her closed face to Nori’s.  “Was
that really necessary?”

“It was.  She deserves to know the truth.”

“But not my reasons?”

Nori motioned to Lara.  “Tell her if you want.  I thought it
was a secret.  You want the universe to know, by all means tell Lara.”  She
smiled with a lot of teeth and little humor.  “She’s a talker, my Lara is,
that’s why her father kept her out of the diplomatic corps.  She has an ability
with language you would not believe, and her memory is phenomenal, but if she
knows a secret, everyone knows that secret, and the girl is incapable of
fabrication.”

Lara looked between them, her eyes squinting.  “I don’t get
it, if he did all that you said, why is he still breathing?”

“See?” Nori said, shrugging.  “She thinks it, she blurts it
out.  So, you want the pretty girl to Romanticize what you have tried to do
here, by all means, tell her why you did it.  I don’t like you anyway.”

“I’m Tolan Lark.”  He was game to try, Nori would give him
that.  He put his hand out with a sexy smile.  “You must be the beautiful Lady
Lara I’ve heard so much about.”

Lara looked from his hand to his face and back again.  “Do
you really expect me to like you when Nori told me what you did?”

“She exaggerates, I assure you.”  Lara tipped her head and
frowned him down, despite being half a foot shorter than him.

“No, Nori doesn’t exaggerate, nor does she lie to me, so if she
said you did that then you did.  I just can’t understand why you are still
walking around.”  She looked him over closely, clearly confused.  “You seem to
be unharmed.”

He shrugged losing his smile.  “Pretty sure it’s mostly that
they need me to fly the ship.”

“No,” she looked at Nori.  “That’s not it.  We don’t need
you for that.”

“I have my reasons and it’s classified,” Nori said.  Shrugging
her own shoulders as Menelaus came around behind her.  She stepped back into
him without really thinking about it and his hands came to her hips. 
He
must have finally put the sword away.

Seeing them stand together had Lara smiling all over again. 
She knew better than to expect an answer when it was classified, and she was
more interested in Nori and her mate anyway.  “You look right together.  Scary,
but right.”

“They are scary.”  Tolan Lark said, looking them over.  “I
was just thinking the same thing.”

“You’re lucky,” Lara said.  “The last person who figured out
what Nori was and tried to sell her to the Death games ended up in three pieces
and tossed out an air lock.”

Tolan Lark lost his smile and looked at Lara to see if she
was kidding.  When he saw she was perfectly serious he turned back to Nori, who
smiled that scary smile his way again.  “Good times.”

“Right.  Guess I should be happy your life mate was the one
left behind to deal with me after all.  Though I have to say, he was scary
enough.”

Menelaus nodded his head in acknowledgement to the perceived
compliment, then turned Nori to face him.  “The flight plan has been set.  It
only leaves you to contact the high Ambassador and start the ball rolling.”

She nodded, her face going serious.  She ran her hand down
his face when she saw the subtle signs of tension most everyone else would
miss.  “Tryne is a good man, and an incredible diplomat.  He will help us bring
the Wosite in line without causing the deaths of your people.”

“War with the Wosite on the ground would be a landslide for
us, but they will not fight that way and they have the tech to wipe us out from
a distance where we cannot fight back.”

“I know that, and Tryne will see that it doesn’t come to
that.”  She looked at Lara and Tolan Lark who was still staring at first her
and then Lara, like he wasn’t sure about something.  “Try to keep him out of trouble.” 
She told Menelaus grimly, motioning to the mercenary.  “Lara, you want to help
me save yet another civilization from tyranny and abuse?”

“Absolutely.”  Lara actually clapped her hands in glee.

“I take it you have done so before?”  Menelaus spoke drily,
letting her go.

“Well,” Lara said.  “We travel a lot.  You wouldn’t believe
some of the messes we have straightened out.”

Nori sighed, heading for the communications system.  “Yeah,
messes you manage to stumble into with great regularity.”

“I help where I can.”

The scary part was that she was completely serious. 
Like
a babe in the woods.

***

“Let me see if I have this correct.  You want me to help the
man who forced you into marriage and tried to hold you against your will?” 
Ambassador Tryne had rendezvoused with them near the Wosite planet border after
she and Lara had explained the situation.  They were meeting on the
ambassador’s frigate, surrounded by a platoon of space marines whose sole job
was to guard the ambassador and his family, and they had been doing it for
years.  Unfortunately, Lara had explained too well as usual.  None of them
looked particularly happy about the situation or Menelaus in particular.

“No.  I want you to help a people who are being subjugated
by tyrants who want to use technology to enslave them, without care of their
rights or traditions.”  Nori paused.  “The rest is superfluous at this point
don’t you think?”

“Not really,” he said, glaring at Menelaus.  “It goes to character
and suitability to rule.”

Menelaus, who had been keeping close to Nori, got glinty
eyed at that.  “Your pardon ambassador, but you have no more right to pick the
rulers of my people than the Wosite do.”

“Really?”  Tryne was not what you would expect from an
ambassador, short but barrel-chested he was as solid physically as he was
mentally.  His coloring he gave to his daughter but her softness she must have
inherited only from her mother.  “Who chooses then, you?  I do not want to step
into a fight and depose one tyrant for another.”

The silence was deafening and Nori could feel the warmth
leaking out of the atmosphere as Menelaus’ rage went glacial.  “While my rule
is for life, I was chosen to be King by the people of Kenosha, as was my father
before me and his father before him.  It is not automatic.  When a King dies every
Lord of the 12 lands can put forth a candidate from among his people.  One he
thinks will have the strength and wisdom to rule.  A vote is cast where every
man and woman above the age of 16 decides the King for that generation. 
Whatever you think of me and my dealings with my wife…”  He stressed the word
wife like it had a cutting edge to it.  “You do not have the right to change
the way we have chosen to live for thousands of years.  If you think to do so
then we will fight to our last breath.  You, and the Wosite before you.”

The ambassador turned to look at Nori.  “You have spent time
among these people?”

“I have, and they are industrious and seem to flourish
without the squalor that so many of the isolationist planets have in
abundance.”  Nori shrugged.  “Can’t say I was enamored with the nobles I met,
but his people seemed to much love their King without the fear or
standoffishness you might expect.”

“The Wosite are claiming ownership of the entire planet?”

“They are claiming that they own the Kenosha Provence as
well as the Wosite, yes.  But, I saw no basis for that claim.  The opposite
actually.  The Wosite leaders were ready to give Menelaus anything he wanted to
continue trade between their people, even me.”

“Not the action of a people who commanded.”

“No, it was clear they considered the Kenoshan people
beneath them, but the way they bartered with King Menelaus suggested that they
had no power over him at all.  From what I gathered that was the problem.  They
banded together with a man known as an enemy of the King and sought to replace
his rule.  Why bother if they were supposed to be in charge anyway?”

“Very well.  I will meet with the Wosite and judge their
validity.  Meanwhile I will have my staff research the old archives and see
what the original Wosite and Kenosha rulers had to say when one was inducted
into the League and the other chose isolation.”  He reached out and touched her
chin with one finger.  “We will deal with the rest as soon as we assure the law
is upheld here.”

“I expected nothing less.” 

He shook his head at her words.  “It should not surprise me that
you chose the hard road.  You were always one for a challenge.”

“I am not the one forever getting us into one scrape or
another,” Nori said rolling her eyes.

“That I am well aware of.”  He turned to Lara.  “Would you
accompany me daughter, and on the way to the bridge we will discuss yet again
the worlds it is safe to visit and the ones forbidden to you.”

Watching them leave Menelaus’ thoughts were grim.  Lara had
a carefree bounce to her step, despite the circumstance.  Beside her the
ambassador seemed to stomp.  “I am unclear whether bringing that man here is at
all helpful to the cause.”

“Trust me, if he wasn’t going to help, you would already be
in cuffs and headed for the rehabilitation hold.”

“I have the feeling I still might end in such a way.”  Menelaus
said drily.

“Your jackass dealings with me aside, you are a good King. 
The ambassador will see that for himself soon enough.”

He turned to look down at her upturned face and felt some of
the tension leave his shoulders.  “My jackass dealing with you aside, you think
I am a good king?”

“You have many fine qualities.”  She stepped closer until
she was pressed against him chest and spoke lower.  “But if I listed them all
your head would grow even bigger, and as vast as this ship is, it’s not that big.”

He chuckled, then leaned down until he could press his lips
to her softly.  “The men at my back with the blasters, do you suppose they are
always that angry?”

“They are a bunch of sweethearts, usually,” she said
standing up on her tiptoe to catch his lips again.  “But I expect they think
you are attempting to defile me…again.”

“Well then,” Menelaus picked her up with an arm around her
waist and hauled her high in his arms.  “Let’s give them something to worry
about, shall we?”

Nori laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck.  “Fine,
but don’t blame me if they gang up on you later and give you a beat down.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he growled.  Then he took her lips
like the marauding barbarian king he was.

Nori moaned beneath his lips and tongue, completely
forgetting they had an audience.

It was a bit later that a dazed Nori was stood on her own
two feet.  She looked up at Menelaus who was looking at the five armed men
squared off across from them.  It was clear from his expression he had claimed
her publicly before all these warriors and he was daring them to challenge that
claim.

“Maybe calling you Barbarian was not such a stretch,” she
said drily.  “Should I be happy you didn’t piss on me to mark your territory?”

He looked down at her and began to look a little sheepish. 
He took her hand and kissed the knuckles.  “Forgive me.  I find I am indeed
feeling barbaric where you are concerned.”