The Star King (24 page)

Lost in thought, she snuggled against him.

"Lights," Rom said after a while. "Setting dim." Only an overhead light in the bunkroom glowed faintly as they lay twined together, no barriers between them.

Rom wondered what his father would say if word reached the palace reporting that his erstwhile heir was consorting with a once-married, midnight-haired frontier woman with no knowledge of the Treatise of Trade—a mate who would have been absolutely the wrong choice in his former life. No doubt Lord B'kah would denounce him as he had before, iterating to all that his son lacked discipline, that he was impulsive, and that he cared nothing for the foundation of their society. What better way to prove the old man right than by openly taking Jas Hamilton as his lover?

But the very thought of using her induced a shudder of self-loathing. Jas did not belong in a pointless game of spite. She belonged in his arms, warm and sated, while his ship traversed the eternal night of endless space.

Your life is your own now, he reminded himself. Yes, he could be with whomever he pleased. Wrapping his beloved in the protection of his strong body, he let her quiet breathing lull him to sleep.

* * *

"Zarra's dead."

Dead.
Too shocked to speak, Rom shifted his gaze from Gann's face on the viewscreen to the meal he'd been sharing with Jas before being hailed by the
Quillie
in what he presumed was a routine call to set up their rendezvous.

"Oh, God"
Jas murmured in her language, dropping into a crouch next to Rom's chair, her hand resting on his thigh.

"He got to his feet as soon as he went down," Gann explained, his words, Rom suspected, as cautiously chosen as footsteps in a nuclear minefield. "The boy even boarded the speeder on his own. But the blood loss was too severe, too swift—there was nothing Muffin could do. He ... died a warrior, Rom."

Rom stared fixedly at his half-eaten stew.
Another futile death in this undeclared war.
The realization echoed inside him, until the desire to avenge Zarra boiled over. His knuckles turned white, and he expelled a hiss of air. The spoon clutched in his fist cracked in two, as surely as he wished to snap Shan-on's neck.

"Rom?" Jas whispered. Her hand slid over his, warm and reassuring, but he did not,
could not,
release his grip on the broken utensil. The urge to weep was as powerful as his murderous desire to return to Balkanor immediately and kill Sharron. But when he lifted his eyes to Jas's face, and then Gann's, and saw in their expectant gazes the willingness to follow him back to Brevdah

Three against all odds, he shuddered. He would not risk them. Not for a fight that was no longer his.

Rom fought to keep his voice steady. Stiffly, he addressed Gann. "I want you to take the Quillie to Skull's Doom." He knew from long experience that the best way to keep guilt and grief at bay was an exhausting schedule. "Finish our transactions there," he said. "After that, head to Karma Prime and sell our salt as originally planned."

As if Gann worried Rom planned to seek retribution against Sharron on his own, the man's head swerved to Jas. "And you? Where will you go?"

Jas waited for Rom's answer with a steady, unwavering gaze. Her eyes softened with understanding and relief when he replied quietly, "To regroup."

And to somehow find a way to atone for yet another death.

Rom's anguish throbbed into impotent wrath. Each time he confronted Sharron, the monster took someone he cared about. Only this time, he wasn't alone in the aftermath. Jas shared in his mourning, sustaining him with her tenderness and unconditional love, and he was almost relieved when his grief finally dulled into the soul-deep regret to which he'd grown accustomed.

Over the next few days he would busy himself getting Drandon Keer's starspeeder fixed enough to fly. Once off the asteroid, they would fly to the Gorgenon system, where he knew of a mechanic. When the starspeeder was up and running, he and Jas would take a day or two for themselves, to mourn. Nearby, was a planet famous for what was one of the strangest diversions in the known galaxy.

* * *

"Oh, my God, Rom, giant snails!" Jas blurted, clinging to a thick branch for all she was worth.

He pried her left hand off the tree they were perched in and pressed it to his lips. "I thought you couldn't wait to ride them. In fact, I recall you asking me questions for a good hour about the first time I came here."

"Anticipation and reality are two different things," she teased back. In truth, though, she was enjoying herself. The respite was welcome after the intensity of their ordeal.

Ceres was enchanting. The climate was temperate and humid, like Hawaii in January, making it ideal for camping. The boulder-strewn glade Rom had chosen in which to pitch their tent was safe from the snails' nightly path—or so he insisted. High above, the trees leaned into each other, their fronds lacing together to form a canopy that muted the daytime sunshine and tinted it green. If only the real universe and its demands—the threat of Sharron, her family waiting for her on Earth—didn't claw at the edges of this brief idyll. She could easily go on like this with Rom forever, living like nomads, moving on when they felt like it. Or simply staying put for a while, as they had during those days on the starspeeder, when time had blurred in a sensual haze. They'd found escape and solace in each other.

Another snail hissed past. Jas gripped the tree. "They're as big as houses."

"And harmless, gentle creatures. Ceresian mollusks are found nowhere else but here. If you pass up this chance you'll regret it the rest of your life." Rom's golden eyes glinted in the dark, starlit night. "But if you'd rather, we can return to the tent. A game of cards, perhaps—"

"Quiet. I'm mentally preparing myself, that's all." Jas set her jaw and peered down at one of the monsters gliding by. Its scarred brown shell glowed in the light of a rising moon, which made the slime on its bumpy skin shimmer. It scraped over the forest floor with a snapping of twigs, its two antennae waving from side to side. Her heart thudded in her chest, and adrenaline made her hands sweaty.

In the distance she heard another couple's laughter as they dropped out of their tree to land on one of the mollusks. People did this all the time, she reminded herself. The goal was to ride the creatures to their feeding area near the-sea, and enjoy the view their height afforded.

"I say we take this one here," Rom said. With his chin, he motioned to an approaching brown hulk.

The snail thumped into the tree behind them, jarring it as if it were a fragile twig. She took a steadying breath. "Okay. Let's do it."

"On my call we drop onto its back."

"And then it's 'ride 'em, cowboy.' " The creature's antennae veered her way. Jas shrank back. The thing was probably plotting a round of snail rodeo. Or were snails too dense to tell if you were intimidated, unlike horses and big dogs? She hoped so.

Rom shifted position. "Ready?"

She gulped. "As I'll ever be."

"Three, two, one—
go."

Her stomach soared up to her ears as she plunged from the tree. She hit the snail hard and scrabbled for a handhold. The cool, moist shell smelled like wet leaves, and the texture was similar to that of a coconut husk, making it easy to grip. Rom helped her crawl to the hump near the snail's undulating neck. The surface was wider and flatter than she'd thought, giving them room to spread out. They held on to the shell's rim, sprawled on their stomachs, side by side. As it crested the hill, the snail swayed slightly, like a gigantic elephant. Silent, they watched the landscape move slowly past. Two moons rose and another set. Ahead the sea gleamed like a treasure chest of pearls.

"What do you think?" Rom asked, the white teeth of his grin visible in the dark.

She laughed in delight and relief. "It's beautiful!"

Rom wound his arm around her shoulders and drew her close.
"You're
beautiful." He nuzzled her ear, then settled his mouth over hers in a warm and sensual kiss.

She risked letting go of the snail shell with one hand to sift her fingers through Rom's clean, silky hair. He deepened the kiss. The excitement of the ride and her seemingly nonstop desire for him spiraled into an explosive mix. Almost giddy, she followed the line of his jaw with breathless, nipping kisses. He responded with the familiar sound he made in the back of his throat whenever she aroused him.

"If you continue doing that," he said, caressing her breast, "you're going to find yourself being made love to on the back of a snail."

"Hmm. Have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Made love on a snail?" She worked her thumbs into the waistband of his pants. "Or will I be the first?"

He forced her onto her back. "You know the answer," he said, seizing her mouth.

Joy shot through her. She was first with him, always first. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and kissed

Susan Grant

him passionately. His rich masculine scent blended with the fragrance of damp earth.

Rom's movements became more earnest. His boots scraped over the shell's uneven surface, and she felt him unfastening his trousers, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. She was wearing stretchy pants under a tunic, and he easily tugged them to her ankles. Her legs fell open to the cool evening air. And then he filled her with his thick heat.
"Omiajh anah,"
he murmured.
"Inajh d'anah
..." Gripping the shell's rim above her head, he anchored her with his body, rocking slowly.

Her eyes found the starry sky above, and she spiraled higher, soaring-in the magic of his touch. The ocean breeze cooled her perspiring skin; the swaying of their bodies mirrored the snail's unhurried gait. Timeless. Eternal. She teetered on the line separating conscious thought from pure sensation. Her pleasure tightened, became exquisitely focused. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and she arched into Rom with a soundless plea for release.

He caught her moan with his mouth, kissing her until they found heaven together, limbs entwined, souls meshed, joy resonating between them until only the sound of their labored breathing filled the night.

In the tent the next morning, dawn seeped through the canopy of trees and past the thin membrane of their shelter. Unable to sleep, Jas watched the filmy blue light caress Rom's sleeping face, softening his patrician features. By all appearances, he was a happy man. But she knew he privately tormented himself over Zarra's death, and questioning whether Sharron would eventually attack the
Vash
homeworlds. The eight ancestral planets

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The Star King

were critical, and surely his first targets. If the worlds were decimated, it would break the back of the
Vash Nadah
federation. Without a central government, there would be carnage, turmoil, a battle for control.

What would happen to Earth in such a collapse? The thought chilled her. Without a space fleet, her planet would be helpless in an interstellar war. Not to mention all the other planets that might be destroyed.

No political system was perfect, certainly not the
Vash Nadah,
but the alliance of ancient families was all that seemed to separate the galaxy from the terrifying, lawless place it had been eleven thousand years ago. The realization unnerved her, pricking her soldier's instinct to defend. It was time to do something about Shan-on.

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