Page 5

Either he was full of shit, or he was completely earnest and wasn’t entirely who she’d thought he was. Luckily, there was a fairly easy way to find out.

As she made her way through the station, Julia ran through what he’d said. What had been real, what hadn’t, who he really was. Parts of it rang true. But she wasn’t sure, at the moment, if that was because she wanted to believe him or not.

She wasn’t doing that again. Believing the best from someone just because it was what she wanted to believe.

A few minutes after leaving Andethor’s ship, she stood outside of Maggie and Xarek’s quarters in the area where a lot of the diplomats seemed to have congregated. When she hit the buzzer, it only took a few seconds for the doors to swing open, and Maggie greeted her with a smile.

“ Julia! We were just about to sit down to dinner. Join us! I wasn’t sure I’d see you today.”

Julia chuckled. “I actually just ate, and this won’t take long. Can I talk to you and Xarek for a minute?”

Maggie nodded, squeezing her in one of her typical quick, warm hugs as she guided her into their quarters. Xarek was sitting on one of the plush, comfortable sofas, and he stood when they walked in.

“ Hey, Xarek,” she said in greeting, and the taciturn Altarian nodded in return. They all sat as Maggie explained that Julia said she had something to talk to them about.

Xarek put down the tablet he’d been reading, giving her his total attention.

Julia could see why Maggie had fallen for him.

So serious, so quiet, but you never got the feeling that Xarek was giving you anything other than his total attention, even when you were just asking him what kind of drink he wanted.

“ Okay. Thank you. This won’t take long, and then I’ll let you two get to your dinner,” she said with a laugh, and Maggie waved it off. “So… I just left Andethor’s ship.”

That statement alone earned her a raised eyebrow from Xarek.

“ He said some things…. Uh. I honestly don’t know if he’s full of shit or not.

” She took a breath and then relayed the conversation she’d just had with Andethor.

Once she was done, she shrugged. “So, since he says you two know the truth, I wanted to verify it with you and get a sense of what you think of him.”

She looked between the two of them, and Maggie was looking at Xarek. They exchanged a look, and Xarek picked his communicator up off of the side table, quickly typing something into it. He waited a moment, watching the screen, then set it down and looked at Julia.

“ I hope you understand. I had to verify that he’d actually told you that,” Xarek said, gesturing at the comm.

“ So you’re saying it’s true.”

“ It is. He is what he says he is. And he downplays his significance to the Bellarians, which is very like him. Not only was he integral in forming the Alliance, but he works tirelessly for the safety of not just his own people, but the Alliance as a whole. Just last cycle, he infiltrated a group that was planning assassinations of some of our members and apprehended those masterminding it.”

Julia stared.

“ He did?”

“ He did. He is too… loud and excitable, a lot of the time, when he is not working. But he is a person I would trust with my life. Entrust the lives of the Altarian people to, and I have never had cause to second-guess that.”

Julia nodded. “So you know what he is, but you don’t wonder if he’s lying to you about your friendship, just to stay close to you?” she asked, and Xarek tilted his head.

“ A fair question. It is always a chance, I suppose. That he is just that good at subterfuge that he has me believing he’s truly a friend.

But, I have seen him in moments of stress, anger, tension…

and quiet moments, times spent here in our home.

I don’t believe anyone can be playing a role all the time, not even a master spy like Andethor. ”

Maggie nodded in agreement. “He never actually told me he’s a spy, but apparently he knows Xarek enough to know that he would tell me. I know I’m a good judge of people and he’s one of the good ones.”

Julia let that sink in. Maggie was definitely that.

“ What do you think he’s going to ask you to help with? Nothing dangerous, or I will destroy him personally,” Maggie said, and Julia couldn’t help but laugh.

“ Andethor would never put anyone in danger. Especially a civilian and a friend,” Xarek said, and Maggie nodded after a moment.

“ True enough.” She swung her gaze back to Julia. “Do you think you’ll help him?”

Julia sighed, then shrugged. “I'm not sure. It depends on what he’s going to ask me. But I guess I’ll find out.

Thanks for settling that!” she said to both of them, rising to leave.

After a nod from Xarek and a hug from Maggie, she was back out in the corridors, making her way through the station again.

As she walked, she went over what she knew now about Andethor.

And damn it all if it didn’t make her like him more than when he was just a cocky, arrogant, flirting musician.

She approached the Hendrix to see Andethor outside the ship, one of the panels open as he worked on something inside. He turned, studying her as he closed the panel.

“ I hope you’re not offended that I went to Xarek to ask about you,” she said as she stepped closer.

“ I would expect nothing less. I hope you weren’t offended when he messaged me to make sure it was actually me that told you what I am.”

She laughed and shook her head. “No. That alone convinced me you weren’t messing with me.”

He grinned, and it seemed like some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “So. I am what I say I am, and you aren’t secretly a spy working to ruin my cover,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “Want to go inside and talk about it?”

He shot her one of those devastating smiles and gestured toward the door, and she walked back into the ship and settled into the same seat she’d taken before.

Andethor followed her inside, sealing the door behind them, then moving to the small galley and pouring two cups of coffee, which he brought to the table.

“ Perfect. Thank you,” she said.

He nodded. “This might be a long talk, and that may very well still end up in my face. Hopefully you’ll let it cool a little first.”

She laughed, taking a sip of the coffee. Black as night, bitter as sin. Perfect.

“ So. Probably the least painful way to do this, since you seem so uncomfortable with it, is for you to just say what you’re going to say, ask what you’re going to ask, and explain or whatever you need to do, and then I’ll ask questions once you’ve exhausted yourself.”

He smirked. “You assume I can’t keep going?”

She grinned. There was the Andethor she knew. “I don’t know. You’ve talked a good game, but let’s see how it goes.”

He groaned, then took a gulp of his coffee. “Going to be the death of me, Jules.”

“ Likely not. Now start talking.”

He shook his head. “Okay. I need you to go to a pleasure planet with me and pretend to be my submissive little pet.”

Her cup was halfway to her mouth, and she set it down. “Come again?”

“ There is the perfect joke I could be making right now, but I won’t.”

“ Smart male.”

He smirked, then took a breath and continued. “Maybe I should start at the beginning, now that the big weird thing is out in the open.”

“ We are not talking about your penis right now.”

He stared, then laughed, his entire body shaking, and it was one of those laughs where, each time it was about to wind down, he started laughing all over again.

Julia chuckled, watching him, and eventually he just rested his arms on the table, buried his face in them, and tried to get himself under control.

“ You’ve been a little stressed about asking me about this, huh?” she asked.

He held up a hand, his index finger and thumb with a tiny space between them. “Just a little,” he said, his voice muffled by his arms.

“ Get yourself together, master spy. Did you know Xarek actually called you that?”

Andethor looked up at her, sitting up straight. “He did?”

“ He did.”

Andethor thought about that for a moment, then nodded and took a breath, straightening his shoulders.

“ That means a lot. Thanks for telling me.”

“ Of course.”

“ I need you to understand a couple of things about this. This literally just fell into my lap today and my superior told me I need to be gone tomorrow morning.”

“ To the pleasure planet,” she added, and he nodded.

“ And you were both the first person I thought of and the last person I wanted to ask to do this.”

“ Explain that,” she said, sipping her coffee, and he gave her a look of what almost looked like respect before continuing.

“ The first person, because I’m a male with all of my senses intact and I don’t think it’s any secret to you that I’m attracted to you. The thought of bringing you to a pleasure planet is pretty alluring.”

Damn it all, she could feel her face heating when he said that. She nodded, trying to keep her expression blank.

“ And the last person I wanted to ask, because… Jules if I’m ever taking you to a pleasure planet, I want it to be as me. Not as Savis Eletath,” he said, and the way he said that name, with pure venom, made her lean in.

“ Who is that?”

“ One of my aliases… no one knows that other than me and my superior by the way. And now you. Not even Xarek.”

“ No one will ever hear it from me. What’s Savis’s story?”

He sighed. “The guy’s an absolute scumbag. Sees women as playthings, throws money around like he’s looking for some kind of reward for person you’d most like to punch in the face. Gambler, drinker, flashy dresser…” he shook his head, and Julia scrunched up her face.

“ Yeah he sounds like I’d want to kill him within about five seconds. I deal with guys like that at Mars Lounge all the time.”

“ I know. I hate him. I hate having to pretend to be him. But he’s effective. No one expects a Bellarian to act like that, so it throws people off. And he’s so flashy and over the top, you immediately write him off as a moron.”