The Ophelia Prophecy (3 page)

Iris picked up a box from the nightstand, examining rows of amber jars before plucking one out. She motioned for Asha to sit down on the bed.

Asha hung back. Iris had given Asha little reason to fear her. But there was a disturbing lack of emotion in those alien eyes, and she looked like she could be lethal if she chose.

“I don’t need to trick you to hurt you,” said the bug woman.

That was true enough. Asha moved to the bed and sat down, sucking in a breath as Iris took hold of her left hand.

“Ah, Pax,” Iris murmured, running a fingertip over the bruise.

Iris dabbed ointment from the jar and gently smeared it over Asha’s wrist.

“There are microorganisms in this salve. They’ll penetrate your skin and heal the bone faster. There’s a numbing agent as well.”

Asha stared at her, thinking about humanity’s most recent brush with Manti microorganisms.

“It—” Asha swallowed, giving her wrist an involuntary tug. “Will it work on me?”

Iris smiled dryly. “We’re not as different as you like to believe.”

Next Iris drew a roll of gauze from the box and wrapped her wrist and hand. The wrapping felt cold and damp, and soothed the ache. Moments later it had dried and hardened to a flesh-colored, protective cast.

“Thank you,” said Asha, flexing her fingers. She heard the scrape of the lid closing back over the jar, and glanced at Iris. “And thank you for trying to—to help me, earlier.”

Iris replaced the box on the nightstand. “I did that for Pax.” Her tone flung cold water over Asha’s gratitude. “My brother was not himself.”

Asha closed her mouth in time to stop the retort on her lips: Then what exactly
was
he? She recalled her earlier thought:
Maybe the damage is all inside.
The exchange between the siblings on the beach had indicated the brother was at least to some degree in conflict with his impulses.

“Come with me.” Iris crossed to the door. “Pax wants you to wait in my quarters until he’s ready to question you.”

Unfortunately he’d not been conflicted about his decision to take her from Sanctuary. There appeared to be no likelihood of escape through Iris. And no sign of her missing memories. All of which left her feeling close to hopeless about the final outcome of this encounter with her enemy.

*   *   *

“Banshee,” said Pax, sinking against the back of his chair with a hard sigh, “search your image database for the woman on board. Report any matches.”

“Yes, Captain,” trilled the ship.

While Banshee scanned image banks, Pax squeezed his eyes closed against the images in his own brain. The lithe, athletic body exposed by the gauzy wet dress. The full lips and warm, round eyes. The way she carried herself—like she was both frightened of him and not.

He shook his head. Iris had been right; what he was doing was dangerous. His body was effective at countering most kinds of attack, but like his father he was vulnerable to this one. Unlike his father, he’d root that part out of himself if he could.

“Banshee.”

“Yes, Captain.”

How to make all this understandable to a machine? A partly
alive
machine, granted, but hardly sophisticated enough to accurately process the command he was about to give.

“Banshee, I want you to protect the human woman from attack while she is on board.”

Seconds ticked by as the ship conducted its version of thinking.

“Does this order include yourself, Captain?”

Pax understood the AI’s confusion. If he didn’t want Asha attacked, why not refrain from attacking her?

“Yes, especially me, Banshee. The chemicals in my body, and the ones in hers … they may cause me to…”

He groaned, rubbing his temples. Would he really do it? If his senses were flooded with her, would he be blind to her resistance? Deaf to pleas for mercy? He thought of his mother. How frightened she must have been, attacked by her enemy. Bearing his child in a strange city.

“You don’t wish to mate with the human woman,” replied Banshee, understanding the situation more accurately than Pax had expected.

“That’s right, I don’t.”
If only that were true
. “But I may try. I want you to prevent it. Do you understand? If that happens, Iris is in charge. Until I’m … myself again.”

“Yes, Captain.”

It was the best he could do for now. And it would get easier. He’d caught the woman at an unfortunate time of her cycle. Her body was firing all sorts of signals she most likely wasn’t even aware of—it was a difference between human and Manti women. In a day or so she’d be safe from him.

But would he be safe from
her
? He tried not to think about what else had happened on the beach. Something more than his mating drive, which he’d felt before. The new sensation had taken him over completely, increasing his desire to mate with her, yet also arousing his empathy. Triggering a protective instinct. Other Manti had experienced this type of connection—it had come to be referred to as tuning. Pax had always viewed it as a romanticizing of complicated hybrid mating drives. Now he understood that it was very real.

But he was pragmatic, and she was his enemy.

“No matches, Captain,” said Banshee.

“What?”

“No matches for the woman in the image database.”

If the ship couldn’t give him answers, he’d have to get them from
her
.

He leaned against the console, pressing his hands to his forehead.

“Try to think about something else.” Iris joined him in the cockpit.

He wasn’t sure whether she referred to his headache or Asha. But he wasn’t likely to forget either anytime soon.

“Get us out of here,” he grumbled. “I can’t even see straight.”

Iris pressed her hands against the console, fingers sinking into the pliable, living resin, and the ship hummed to wakefulness. “Home?” she asked.

Good question
. He hadn’t thought at all beyond his decision to bring Asha on board.

“Not yet,” he said. “I don’t want to see Father until I have some answers. I need to know whether we’ve been exposed.” He rose to his feet. “Let’s get closer to home and find a place to park for a while. Check in with the fleet and find a spot where we’re not likely to encounter other ships.”

Iris studied him. “Where are you going?”

“To do something about my headache.”

Iris’s eyes followed him as he left the cockpit. He headed for the Scarab’s small galley, where they stored medical supplies. He knew he should have the ship’s AI check him out and make a treatment recommendation. Instead he fished out a bottle of painkillers and swallowed one of the green tabs dry. Then he swiped an antiseptic pad over the bite wound.

He left the galley and found himself turning toward the crew quarters rather than back to the bridge.

The mystery of the situation gnawed at him. A hole in his memory—caused by an unexplained knot on his head—after a visit to Sanctuary was dangerous. And he didn’t like not knowing how the human woman was involved. No theory he had formed came even close to answering his questions.

He stopped outside his sister’s quarters, pausing only a moment before sliding his hand over the door panel to open it. But the panel didn’t respond.

“Open the door, Banshee,” he ordered.

“Iris ordered me to secure the door, Captain,” replied the ship. “Shall I request her authorization to override?”

His heart pounded, and he wiped his palms on his pants. Even from the other side of the door he felt the pull of her biology—the ripeness of her body, compounded by an inexplicable need to keep her close—as it twined around him like a vine.

Which is exactly why I ordered Iris to lock her away.

“Emergency override, Banshee.”

The long pause that followed—along with his second-guessing of his own judgment—triggered impatience. “Banshee, I gave you an order.”

“My systems detect no threats to ship or occupants, Captain.”

“Bloody hell,” muttered Pax. He turned and called down the corridor, “Iris! Meet me outside your quarters.”

“On my way,” she replied over the com.

He heard the cockpit door slide open, and she greeted him with a deep frown. “What are you doing?”

“Open the door, Iris. I’m going to question her.”

She shook her head in frustration. “Haven’t we been through this? Why do this to yourself right now?”

“I told you I can handle it,” he said, the continued contradiction hardening his resolve. “I’m not
asking
, Iris. Open the door.”

The dark tips of her brows knitted together, but she said, “Open the door, Banshee.”

Before he could step inside she added, “I won’t be a part of this. When you regret it, don’t come to me for comforting.” She turned sharply and headed back to the galley.

*   *   *

Asha hadn’t been in Iris’s quarters more than five minutes when she heard Paxton shout in the corridor. She cast about her, looking for something she could use as a weapon. The chamber was much the same as Paxton’s—sparse furnishings, ornately carved, with rich, bright fabrics adorning the bed.

She fled through a doorway into a bathroom, eyes moving over the horizontal surfaces. Snatching up a comb with a pointed handle, she jumped into the shower stall.

“Lights out, Banshee,” she murmured, crouching in a corner. To her surprise the ship complied.

“Asha?” Paxton’s voice rang in the chamber. Heavy footsteps crossed the floor, pausing near the bathroom.

She squeezed the comb and raised it.

“Put that down,” he said firmly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She gave a silent groan. The low light had only disadvantaged
her
.

“Stay away from me,” she warned.

“I need to ask you some questions, and it’s best for both of us that it doesn’t happen in this tiny dark room. I’ll ask you once more to drop that and come out.”

She rose unsteadily. She believed he didn’t want to hurt her, but she didn’t trust him not to. When she heard him moving closer, she launched out of the shower stall, stabbing with her makeshift weapon.

Paxton caught her wrist, easily twisting the comb free as his arm snaked around her waist.

“Stop it!” she cried, shoving at him with her free hand. She yelped as pain shot up her injured wrist.

Suddenly the lights came up, and steam plumed out of the wall right next to her head. Pax jumped back with a shout, and a jet of hot water struck him square in the chest, knocking him to the floor.

Asha shrank back, even as she willed her legs to move the other direction. Before they could respond, she felt a crawling sensation at her middle.

A thin membrane spread over her hips and abdomen. She gave a cry of horror and jerked forward. But in the space of three heartbeats the same material that covered every surface of the ship had sheathed her body from shoulders to knees, confining her against the wall of the ship.

“Iris!” cried Asha, for whatever good it might do. From the exchange she’d overheard at the door, it was clear enough the sister had washed her hands of the situation.

“Release her, Banshee,” barked Pax, rising to his feet.

“Negative, Captain.”

Asha loosed a strangled sob as the reply pulsed through the wall, waterlogged and echoing. Panic surged through her as she fought the living sheath.

“You’re frightening her, Banshee,” said Pax.

“I have been ordered to protect her from attack, Captain.”

Paxton’s eyes widened, and he muttered an oath. “She attacked
me
, you mutinous lump of—”

“I’ve inferred that it is your wish not to hurt her, Captain.”

“You
inferred
?”

Silence from Banshee.

The captain’s fists clenched at his sides. He spoke through tight lips. “Release her as soon as I’m gone, and seal the door to Iris’s quarters. Then wait for my orders. Understood, Banshee?”

“Yes, Captain.”

INTERROGATION

“You can’t really fault Banshee.”

Pax stared at Iris in disbelief. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No, it’s not.”

“It doesn’t concern you at all that Banshee’s
inferring
?”

Iris frowned. “I didn’t say that. But you gave her permission to think for herself in protecting that girl. What did you expect?”

Pax closed his eyes, sighing in frustration. Iris was right. His decision-making skills had deteriorated markedly over the last couple of hours.

“Look,” continued Iris, “I’m sure we can sort her out when we get home.”

“Banshee or Asha?”

“Both. But I mean the ship.”

“And until then?”

“Until then I guess you better play nice with your pet.”

He scowled at the mischief in his sister’s eyes.

“Pax,” said Iris, sobering, “you know what I think about you bringing her on board. The order you gave Banshee was justified. I don’t get why you’re upset that she followed it. You should be relieved.”

The creeping awareness that all three females were getting the better of him deepened his scowl. “Excuse me if I’m not relieved by the fact this casing stuffed with tissue and circuitry has sided with our enemy against me.”

Iris gave a smug smile. “You at least have to appreciate the irony.”

He eyed her, baffled.

“It’s just what they did to
us
, right? Played god because they could, then cried foul when their creations turned on them.”

She had a point. The Manti, not their creators, had been responsible for merging insect and plant DNA with artificial intelligence. The Scarab fleet had made the Manti masters of the skies. And now this particular serial number had gone sentient over a barely there, sylph of a human woman who’d all but forgotten her own name.

“Your philosophical strain is diverting enough in the palace, Sister, but at the moment I think we’d benefit from a little pragmatism.”

His reply had the desired effect—dampening the fun Iris was having at his expense. She rose to her feet and glared down at him.

“All right. Question her. If she’s a spy, she goes out the hatch. If she’s not, she goes out the hatch. Pragmatic enough?”