Page 1 of Needed in the Night (The Fortusian Mates, #2)
ISLA
“I cannot do this,” my companion said, her voice so wispy I had to strain to hear her. “I can not .”
“Yes, you can,” I countered, also in an undertone.
Our footsteps echoed off the marble floors and walls as we made our way along the palace hallway toward the back stairs.
The air reeked of wealth and privilege: the heavy fabric of fine tapestries, bouquets of flowers replaced daily to fill the halls with cloying perfume, purified air so no offending plebeian odors from outside the palace walls reached our noses.
My skin crawled with the vulgarity of it all.
“Keep your head high and smile,” I reminded the woman at my side.
“We’re going to get some food from the kitchen and then we’re going to your theater to rehearse, the same as we’ve done every morning for the past two weeks.
Nothing’s different about today, at least as far as anyone besides us is concerned. ”
In reality, today would be life-changing. Today—in the next ten minutes or so, in fact—we would either walk out of this palace and board a cargo transport bound for a distant planet, or face execution. Given the Erotovo’s brutality, there really was no third option.
“Ninety-nine percent of success is looking confident,” I added. “Even when you’re not.”
Or especially when you’re not , I thought, but didn’t say. Because the woman at my side was hanging on by a thread already.
Beautiful Novee, a long-limbed Tivoran zero-G dancer whose lithe body could take shapes and transform in midair in ways my humble human body could only dream of, took a deep breath.
She plastered a performer’s smile on her face, but her cerulean skin had a sheen of perspiration that sparkled in the mid-morning sunlight streaming through the tall windows lining the hall.
Novee wasn’t the only one of us projecting calm she didn’t have. My stomach had been roiling from the moment I woke up this morning. Adrenaline? The Ngaran moth soup from last night’s banquet? Or were my instincts trying to tell me something?
Whatever the reason for my fluttery insides, it didn’t matter. Wheels were in motion, the ship delivering supplies to the palace was on the landing pad, its crew were ready for us, and there was no turning back.
Novee deserved freedom. I’d looked myself in the eye in the mirror yesterday and sworn last night was her final one in this gilded hellhole.
As long as palace guards didn’t suddenly block our path, or my shadowbat didn’t tell me to run for it, or Novee didn’t lose her courage, we were all right.
We just had to make it to the end of this hallway, down the stairs, through the kitchens, and out to the cargo carrier.
That was four things. We could do four things, one step at a time.
I took deep breaths to slow my heart rate, checked my datapad, frowned as if concerned about the day’s schedule, and resisted the urge to put a comforting hand on Novee's arm or back.
Forcing myself to appear uncaring was tough but necessary.
The Web had inserted me into the palace household as Novee's chaperone and personal assistant after my handler had arranged for her previous one to suddenly find more lucrative employment elsewhere. I wasn’t Novee’s confidant or friend, at least as far as the Erotovo or his staff were concerned.
Novee was the Erotovo’s possession, and possessions didn’t get to have friends.
They didn’t get comforting touches. I knew that better than most.
I flexed my fingers and kept walking toward the beautifully etched floor-to-ceiling mirror near the stairway.
My own tastes were simple, so I hardly recognized myself in a floor-length green gown with the enormous and very impractical puffed sleeves popular in the Erotovo’s court.
I’d also styled my shoulder-length dark brown hair according to his preferences, in a halo of curls pinned back from my face with clips.
I hated this version of myself for how well I blended in with the Erotovo’s entourage.
As necessary as it was to wear these clothes and style myself to suit a cruel despot, I drew the line at jeweled dermal piercings in my face and upper chest. Those were popular in the court and among Ngaran aristocracy and their servants, but to me it was a sign of ownership and I couldn’t bear it, even as part of a disguise.
While my skirts rustled and my shoes made sharp staccato sounds as I walked, Novee moved silently.
The very tall and willowy Tivoran woman with long, almost translucent hair wore a skintight, silver-blue bodysuit and slippers designed for practicing her artistry in the zero-gravity theater the Erotovo had built for her.
As much as he clearly enjoyed filling his palace with elegant people wearing the latest and most ostentatious fashions, the Erotovo required Novee to wear dancer’s clothing at all times.
It permitted him to always see her not as a person, not as Novee, but as his dancer —and as a bonus, she could hide nothing in the suit, especially weapons.
Today she’d be leaving the palace with nothing but the clothes on her back. I wondered if she’d destroy this suit the moment she had something else to wear. I would, if I were in her slippers.
In fact, I had done so, once upon a time, when it was me being secretly escorted out of my pretty prison by a mysterious operative who’d appeared in my life suddenly, and vanished just as quickly once I’d made it to safety.
I’d never known her real name, just as Novee would never know mine.
To her and the palace staff, I was Halena Onsulus, a hardworking recent arrival from Havel Prime with a long set of references and haughty demeanor that had led the Erotovo’s chief of staff to hire me almost instantly in the wake of my predecessor’s abrupt departure.
Two palace guards emerged from the east stairwell just before we reached it. Novee's breath hitched.
“Madame,” the taller one said to me, inclining his head. “It is a good morning.”
They didn’t acknowledge my companion at all. That was the safest choice. The Erotovo was a jealous owner.
“Masters,” I said coolly, dipping in a tiny curtsy without missing a step.
From my first hour in the palace, I had established myself as not one for chatting with other staff. Feigning extreme aloofness meant my days were lonely, but the fewer interactions I had with others, the easier it was to play my role without arousing suspicion.
Today we definitely didn’t have time for delays. Timing was crucial. Our extraction had to go like clockwork, or it wouldn’t go at all .
As the guards continued down the hall, the shorter one muttered, “Frigid bitch.”
My fingernails dug into my palms, but I kept walking.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard some variation on that particular insult.
Apparently my predecessor had been very friendly with the guards.
I didn’t judge her for it, but I wasn’t interested in clandestine threesomes with the Erotovo’s armored palace defenders.
I was here on a mission and I didn’t mix business with pleasure, even to relieve stress.
Too many ways that could go wrong. Too many lives at stake.
Not to mention, men who signed up to serve a despot didn’t exactly moisten my panties.
Our walk down the winding staircase from the palace’s third floor to its first underground level took less than two minutes. Every step, every breath, seemed to simultaneously take an eternity and not long enough, as if I both desperately wanted to reach the kitchen but dreaded it.
No signs of trouble. No indications that our journey to the kitchen had attracted unusual notice.
No frantic warning from my shadowbat. Everything remained quiet, except the chatter of voices drifting up from the kitchens, where the staff was hard at work unpacking the provisions brought by the cargo carrier, clearing up from breakfast, and preparing the midday meal.
Still, the little hairs on the back of my neck prickled more intensely with each step and my uneasiness grew. Desperation led me to reach out for some kind of reassurance.
Brae , I thought. My mental voice sounded strained even to me. Give me news .
Tell me my instincts are wrong, I willed him, while giving Novee the tiniest of reassuring looks so maybe she’d stop shaking.
His reply came just as we reached the bottom of the stairs and the wide hall that led to the main kitchen.
All seems well . Brae’s voice in my head was quiet. My shadowbat companion probably sensed my tension and was doing his best to ease my fears from a distance. The Erotovo hasn’t emerged from his council chamber. All guards appear to be on routine patrols. No unusual activity.
I let out a breath. Thank you .
I wished Brae was with us, but his job right now was to slip through the palace, keeping watch and reporting any concerns or potential dangers. I feared for his safety as much as ours, though he was all but invisible.
Novee and I had made it down the third floor hall and the stairs. That was two of the four tasks before us. Only two more to go.
No guards in the hall that led to the main kitchen.
There seldom were, but I breathed just a little easier seeing an empty, echoing corridor before us.
No Vorcian marble or Fylorian tapestries or fine sculpture down here, either.
The Erotovo didn’t care about impressing anyone who lived or worked in the bowels of the palace.
The kitchens contained the finest foods and the most high-quality prep equipment built by monk-gastronomists on Bacora to ensure his banquets were second to none, but this hall and the staff quarters on this level were mean at best.