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Tyelu spent a long hour standing at her window, watching the comings and goings of the diplomats below behind privacy glass. She was torn between amusement and outrage. The Q’Mhel wanted a temporary liaison, did he? Had he truly thought she would give herself so cheaply? How dare he!

Clearly, the poor delusional man needed a lesson on her true value, not to mention one on manners.

But the outrage was short lived, subsumed by the discontent she’d sunk into well before Ryn stole his beloved bride and entered her into the Choosing. At Tyelu’s age, most women were married and tending their own families, not running around the galaxy guarding planetary rulers.

It’s not that she didn’t want a family. Tyelu shifted her shoulders restlessly against the window. Of course, she wanted a mate and children. But she also wanted more. Adventure and meaning and knowing at the end of her days that she’d been a part of something monumental.

Would succeeding her father as kafh fulfill that need within her?

Tyelu’s comm unit beeped. She touched it and said, “Tyelu af Alna.”

“Tyrl Sigun has called a meeting,” an impersonal voice said. “All planet-side personnel are to meet him outside the main meeting room immediately.”

“On my way,” Tyelu said and tapped the unit off.

With another sigh, she pushed away from the window and exited her lodgings. A few moments later, she came to a halt outside the conference room. Not long after, Kodh appeared. Tyelu studiously ignored him. They might have been paired together as bodyguards to the tyrl, but that didn’t mean they had to chitchat.

Before Tyelu could sink into her thoughts again, Sigun exited the conference room, engaged in deep, quietly voiced conversation with Luden Moko, the representative from Tersi and the father of Tyelu’s next sister, Ziri. Sigun stood nearly a head taller than the leanly built Tersii, who wasn’t exactly a short man, and his face bore the scars of run ins with Sweepers and brigands, accumulated over his long life. The Tyrl could still swing a battle axe when needed, and had been known to wade into disagreements and physically separate the combatants.

For all that, his gentle heart was reflected in the kindness gleaming from his pale blue eyes when he gazed upon his family and trusted friends. His fierceness was reserved for his enemies.

The two men concluded their conversation. Luden nodded and smiled at Tyelu as he passed, trailing a stout Q-merc bodyguard in that ubiquitous matte gray armor they wore.

Sigun glanced at Tyelu and Kodh, his expression grim. “This way,” he said.

Tyelu nodded and fell in behind the current guards, ignoring Kodh at her back. Sigun led them to a small chamber not far from the larger one he’d just left. This room was arranged more like a classroom, with a lectern placed on one side facing rows of chairs. Other shifts of his guards were standing around the room, talking quietly or gazing out the windows, as were the two advisors who’d traveled with the tyrl from Abyw.

Sigun waved the door shut, strode to the front of the room, and bade everyone to take a seat, his advisors bracketing him at a discrete distance. The polite geniality Sigun had worn in front of the other diplomats had fallen away, to be replaced by a grimness Tyelu had rarely witnessed from him.

“We’ve received news,” Sigun began wearily. “A group of Sweeper ships has been spotted at the edge of the system.”

Tyelu’s skin tightened along her spine as murmurs broke out among the room’s occupants. Her one encounter with the Sweepers had been less than pleasant and not something she wished to repeat. If they came looking for trouble, however, she was more than willing to meet like with like.

“Word has been spread,” Sigun continued, “among the delegates here as well as to surrounding systems. A Q-merc unit has been dispatched to trail the Sweepers and gather intelligence about their reasons for being nearby. Our own ships have finetuned their sensors and are monitoring the Sweepers’ progress out-system.”

Had that been why Jos had left her quarters so abruptly? Was his dal the one tailing the Sweepers even now?

And was that, she thought with disgust, a measure of concern for him growing in her gut?

Sigun waved off the questions being lobbed at him. “When we know more, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, we’re safe enough where we are. Those now on duty should remain alert. Those not actively guarding my esteemed personage—” Sigun’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “—should add weapons training to their normal off-duty activities.”

Tyelu’s own lips twisted into a disdainful sneer. As if she ever stopped training. Her mother, the former Queen’s Guard, had seen to that, and her father had never resisted.

Better to be prepared, he’d told her more than once.

Gared’s own scars had not shown as boldly as Sigun’s. They were buried deeper, in his heart, caused by the loss of his oldest sons in a Sweeper raid before Tyelu was born. Her adopted brother Ryn had been stolen from his family in a Sweeper raid, after he witnessed them being brutally murdered by the ruthless aliens.

Yes, Tyelu thought grimly, her family had lost much to the Sweepers. If the vicious aliens dared attack again, she’d make certain they didn’t live long enough to regret it.

Before they dispersed, Sigun drew Tyelu aside. “The Domorians have planned a formal dinner tomorrow evening.”

Tyelu nodded. “I saw the duty roster.”

“Do you have something appropriate to wear?”

Tyelu tilted her head and narrowed her eyes in a look that would’ve sent less hardy men running for cover. “Have you asked the other guards that question?”

Sigun chuckled softly. “The other guards didn’t appear at their father’s official pact-swearing looking like they’d mucked out the entire province’s barns.”

“I was fourteen,” she said, hiding her own amusement behind mock indignation. “I’ve learned a thing or two about formalwear since then.”

“And about rebellion,” he pointed out, his humor unchanged.

“True.”

“Ah, if only I had a grandson your age.” Sigun sighed and patted her shoulder. “Your father and I regret not sealing our friendship with such an alliance.”

“As do I,” Tyelu murmured, quite truthfully. A grandson of Sigun’s would’ve been a healthy match for her, if his children had lived to provide them. Strong, kind, intelligent. Yes, a man with such a lineage would’ve suited her well. Perhaps with such a match, she would not now be roaming Abyw, and the galaxy, aimlessly searching for something her homeworld appeared to lack: the one man who could earn her heart and tend it well.

One of Sigun’s advisors doubled back with a question for the tyrl. Tyelu left them with a respectful nod. Her mother had had the foresight to talk Tyelu into packing formalwear, but Tyelu was of a mind for something new, something no one had seen her wear before.

Jos had never seen her in any of her formalwear, a traitorous voice whispered in her mind.

Though the thought rankled—When had she ever dressed for anyone’s pleasure save her own?—she wasn’t so quick to dismiss it. The Q’Mhel needed a lesson. Perhaps this was the way to deliver it.

She checked local time, then accessed a directory of local services and found a dress shop catering to off-worlders. A thin, devilish smile curved Tyelu’s mouth. Perfect. And she had just enough time to visit it before her next shift began.

Still smiling, she retrieved directions and followed them through the building into the heart of Forro’s business district.

The next evening, Jos traded his armor for dress blacks as he readied for that evening’s dinner. Q’s lead diplomat, Layne Bilal, had insisted on his presence at the formal event, in part as her escort, in part because his family was so well-connected on Q.

He would’ve been there anyway as part of her protection detail. That he couldn’t seek refuge behind his armor during the event irritated him. He’d eschewed politics for precisely this reason, though as a Q’Mhel, a position he’d earned despite his family’s connections, he was occasionally required to attend such events.

Jos checked the black matte insignia designating his rank, pinned on either side of his tunic’s collar, and admitted to himself that he wasn’t irritated because of the dinner. He was irritated because he hadn’t spotted his beautiful Pruxn? since sneaking into her quarters the day before.

She wasn’t avoiding him. He’d simply been too busy since learning of the Sweepers’ proximity to seek her out. His dal’s sister unit had been sent chasing after that nest, leaving their contract as security to the Tersii diplomat to Jos’s dal. Jos had split his unit in two, with Magda, his First, over the second half as guard to the Tersii contingent. Not a difficult duty, though it did strain his dal’s resources a mite until another dal could be summoned from Q for the Tersii.

Then both sets of delegates had had to be reassured, more than once. Preparing for this party—and Jos could think of no better word for it—had strained his patience.

“Who better to accompany me than the Q’Mhel on duty?” Jos murmured, echoing Bilal’s words to him.

He’d bitten his tongue and done his job without complaint, as was expected of a highly trained Q-merc.

Now, he wished he’d had at least one chance to see Tyelu since then.

Jos triggered his comm and checked in with Seni, who was in charge of the remainder of the dal while Jos was distracted with diplomatic duties, and then Magda.

“All’s well, Q’Mhel,” Magda said. “No need to worry about us while you eat dainty sandwiches and hobnob with your betters.”

“Careful there, Mags, or I’ll switch duties with you.”

“Now, there’s a threat if ever I heard one.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Oh, aye, Jos. I’ll let you know every time someone sneezes. That’s about the most action we’ll see unless those Sweepers decide to turn around and meet us in the open. Griyet lubbers ain’t got a clue how to step over the line, do they?”

Nor would they dare. Appearances must be maintained, after all.

The sentiment rang through his mind in his grandmother’s sternly strict voice. Thank the stars he’d had another alternative to a swift climb from babe to taq.

“Need an excuse to get outta there?” Magda continued. “Happy to create a distraction, ‘specially if it shakes those lubbers up a mite.”

“No distractions,” Jos said firmly. The only distraction he wanted right now was one Magda had no control over. And he’d be the one to deal with Bilal’s coldly voiced disapproval, if his d’gas misbehaved. “Go do your duty. We’ll touch base when this is over.”

Magda signed off, and Jos reluctantly turned toward the door to his planet-side quarters.

The dinner was being held in a large banquet hall on the same floor as the main conference room, next to the inner courtyard that Tyelu’s room had such an excellent view of. When he arrived and showed his credentials, he noticed that the courtyard, too, had been decorated and roped into service. Diplomats and attachés from various species mingled among the meticulously planned garden. Servants wove in between, skirting the inner fountain as they offered drinks and hors d’oeuvres to anyone standing still.

Jos toggled on a schematic of the grounds and building, layered over his view, then checked the positions of his dal and other security teams, noting the placement of each against the other. Wonderful technology, implants, he thought wryly. Installation hurt like taking three plasma slugs to the chest, but it was worth every credit spent on the procedure, and then some.

He spotted Bilal talking to one of the other human diplomats and joined them, holding back discretely as he surreptitiously scanned the grounds over a glass of wine imported from Zinod. He tuned out their conversation, a careful probing of resources Jos took to be a precursor to a trade agreement.

Not his area of expertise.

Now, if they wanted to discuss the Sweeper threat or the appalling lack of coordination between the diplomats’ security units and Domor’s own security, he’d be happy to contribute.

The diplomat slipped away, and Bilal turned to Jos, her gaze sharp in the haughty rectangle of her face. Bilal was a cousin of some sort on his grandmother’s side, and had been shunted, like his grandmother, into the political sphere from a very young age. “Duty,” she’d told Jos once, when he’d asked why she’d endured the family pressure. As if that single word explained her entire life.

For some, it did. Had he not opted for an alternative path of service in lieu of the political duty so many in his family chose?

Bilal took the glass of wine from him and sipped delicately. “Parched already, and it’s just begun. Chin up, Q’Mhel. Your boredom is showing.”

He grunted and flagged down a servant, retrieved fresh wine for them both. “I’d rather be chasing Sweepers through an asteroid field.”

“I’d rather be reading a good book.” She sipped again, her eyes shrewd above the rim of the wineglass. “I’ve managed to secure a promise for a later meeting on a new trade route and several delegates have inquired about contracting for additional security provided by our mercenary-soldiers. If nothing else, we should walk away from these meetings with solid connections.”

Before Jos could reply, she lowered her glass, and her mouth curved into its polite, official smile. “Ah, look. The Pruxn? tyrl wants a word, most likely about potential matches between our women soldiers and Pruxn? men.”

Jos’s heart skipped a beat, triggering a griyet med alert. He shut it off as he turned, deftly making room for Sigun and his retinue. Behind the giant tyrl, Jos spotted a familiar head of golden hair, and when Sigun stopped and Tyelu stepped to the side, fully revealed, she filled Jos’s vision.

The Tyelu he’d seen when his dal ‘ported onto her brother’s ship had been every bit the soldier. Cool, calm, deadly. That was the Tyelu that had shown up here as part of the tyrl’s security.

This Tyelu was…enchanting.

Her hair was piled on top of her head in some intricate arrangement that must have taken three people and a few days to accomplish. Slender blue crystals dangled from her ears, matching the simple necklace at her throat. The folds of a diaphanous, silver dress clung to her body from shoulder to knee and draped onto the floor, one side slit to mid-thigh. She lifted her eyes to his and thread-thin streaks of green shot through the dress’s fabric.

Jos abandoned Bilal with a courteous nod and stepped around Sigun as the two began a polite dance of diplomacy. He settled beside Tyelu, as close to her as propriety allowed. “Did you choose that dress with me in mind?”

Tyelu glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, her earrings swaying against her neck. “Why would I do anything with you in mind?”

“Because you’re trying to seduce me.”

“I think you’re forgetting who propositioned whom.”

He hadn’t forgotten and didn’t want her to forget either. Dipping his head toward hers, he murmured, “Dance with me later.”

Her eyes flashed and blood-red streaks trickled through the dress, joining the green. “I’m on duty.”

“One dance. We can discuss our alliance and our mutual love of that dress, then I can sneak into your quarters and help you out of it.”

“Careful,” she said lightly. “The elders will hear, and then we’ll both be in trouble.”

Sigun and Bilal parted, and the tyrl moved away. Tyelu followed, sauntering behind the Pruxn? king-leader as if she didn’t have a blaster holstered on her thigh, hidden beneath the fabric of her dress.

He sighed as he watched her walk away, ridiculously happy to have stolen a moment with her.

Bilal positioned herself beside him, facing the retreating Pruxn?. “I could make her a part of the trade agreement, if you like.”

Jos shook his head. “I can get my own women, Layne.”

“Never doubted you for a minute,” she murmured. “By the by, they’re seated at our table during the meal. At least we’ll have that to look forward to, yes?”

Jos narrowed his gaze on Tyelu as Bilal walked away and was joined by her assistant. Yes, that was something to look forward to.