Page 4

Tyelu spent a mind-numbingly boring hour listening to Sigun make small talk with other dignitaries while deftly avoiding being drawn into the conversations herself. How did the tyrl stand such inconsequential inanities?

And why had she ever thought she wanted such a position herself?

Kodh, on the other hand, seemed to revel in the discussions, blending into them with none of his usual arrogance. Tyelu was impressed despite herself. The sentiment irritated her no end.

Bah! Let her cousin angle for the kafh, then. What was it to her?

The only distraction she had, the only pleasure, came by way of the covert looks Jos shot her. A light flirt, she decided, and what could that hurt? He was handsome, for a spacer, and the feel of his admiring gaze sent a thrill of awareness through her, reflected in the emotionally sensitive fabric of her Domorian-made dress.

The thrill of the chase. She vowed to enjoy it until he caught her.

If she let him catch her.

She was saved from complete boredom by the representative from Banam, the largest and most powerful nation on Zinod, her mother’s home world. Creti Flenig had retired from the Queen’s Guard into the diplomatic corps and worked her way up from there. She and Tyelu’s mother had trained together, would’ve served together if Tyelu’s father hadn’t stolen Alna away from her duty. Still, the dishonor had not permanently stained Alna’s family. Tyelu had taken her mother’s place when she came of age and had been welcomed as a true daughter of Banam, though she’d been born on Abyw.

Creti swooped down on Tyelu now and took her firmly by the arms. Laugh lines radiated from her dark eyes and her mouth twitched into ready humor.

“My daughter!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get you alone this entire wretched time.”

Tyelu laughed and kissed the other woman’s cheek. “We could always slip away and make merry.”

“That was always my line to your mother,” Creti said ruefully. “I’ll never forgive Gared for stealing her from me.”

“I’m not sure she’s forgiven him yet either.”

Creti laughed and tucked Tyelu’s arm through hers, leading her through the crowd in a rambling walk. “I see you’ve made your own conquest.”

Tyelu’s gaze flicked automatically to Jos. He was standing behind the Q representative, looking squarely at Tyelu. Her heart fluttered once, and she told it firmly to behave.

Tyelu turned away, not before she caught his saucy wink. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Creti harrumphed. “If you’re going to take your father’s place, you’ll need to learn to lie better, my child.”

“I’m not sure I want it.”

Surprise flashed across Creti’s expression, then melted away. “Truth. Yet your parents have been grooming you for the position since birth.”

Tyelu snagged a flute of champagne from a passing server and sipped it, giving the emotions roiling in her gut time to subside. “My parents,” she said at last, “have always encouraged me to follow my own path.”

“One can do both, as your mother did.”

“Some can do both. She found a way to make it work.”

“And you fear you may not.” Creti nodded at another diplomat as she deftly steered Tyelu away. “Time has a way of bringing us what we need, Tyelu.”

“Does it?” Tyelu shook her head, sipped the champagne. “I don’t know what I need.”

“You do,” Creti said, then when Tyelu shook her head again, added, “If not that, then what you want. What do you want, my child?”

Tyelu’s gaze flew to Jos once more and met his. As soon as she realized what she’d done, what she’d given away, she slipped her arm out of Creti’s and turned her back on him. “I don’t know.”

Creti gave her a knowing look. “Don’t deny that part of yourself. Promise me.”

Humor rose within Tyelu, chasing away the doubts, that incessant need for him growing seditiously in her veins. “The last time I made you a promise, I ended up riding the backside of a welun through Zinod’s jungles. My bottom still bears the bruises.”

Creti laughed. “Nonsense, child. That was years ago. Now, introduce me to that handsome cousin of yours. I’m not above a light flirt with a man half my age.”

Tyelu snorted out a laugh, but dutifully led her mother’s oldest friend through the crowd toward Sigun and Kodh. Creti could handle herself, and it served Kodh right to have the incorrigible flirt absorbing his attention for the evening.

Over the meal, Tyelu took a seat to Jos’s left, at the opposite end of the table, forcing him to turn his head and look past the Q ambassador to see her. They’d been seated at a rectangular table with two other diplomatic units, Luden Moko and his assistant, and the lone attaché from Opal, a planet on the far side of the sector.

The distance did not keep Jos from flirting with her, albeit using hot, teasing looks rather than words. Tyelu felt safe with the Q ambassador and her assistant between them. At least that kept her from having to speak with him directly.

The conversation inevitably turned to the Sweeper ships spotted so recently at the edge of the system. Over a light dessert, a tart made of exotic fruits, Luden said, “Any word from your sister dal about the Sweepers, Q’Mhel?”

Conversations faltered at the table and everyone turned toward Jos, waiting expectantly for his response.

He set his fork down and dabbed a linen napkin to his mouth before speaking. “The nest fled when the dal’s ship approached.”

The diplomat from Opal leaned forward, his round eyes dark against iridescent skin close in color to Tyelu’s dress. “They gave chase, surely.”

Jos nodded once. “Of course. We couldn’t leave a nest that size free to attack innocent civilians.”

“Yet the nest has not been caught.”

Jos’s expression was so neutral, Tyelu wondered if he’d taken offense at the Opalite’s matter of fact statement.

“The ships are evenly matched in speed, Honorable Sir. Even Q technology occasionally meets its match.”

Layne Bilal raised her glass in a toast. “Not for long, I swear it. We shall eradicate the Sweeper threat if it takes every last ship in the Q-merc fleet!”

Sigun and Luden raised their glasses, and the Opalite diplomat subsided, apparently satisfied.

The music floating through the room changed tenor. Jos laid his napkin beside his plate and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I saved this dance for the most beautiful woman in the room.”

Tyelu’s heart fluttered, and her hand tightened on her fork. He’d dared make an assignation with another woman?

Then Jos stopped beside her and offered his hand, his eyes twinkling hotly. “Shall we?”

Her pique fled as quickly as it had arisen, and she easily ignored the speculative looks directed their way by their dining companions. Mutely, Tyelu set her fork and napkin aside, and placed her hand in Jos’s. A moment later, they were on the temporary dance floor laid out in front of the string quartet, joined by a few brave couples.

Jos twirled her into his arms, holding her at a proper distance as they waltzed around the edge of the floor. “Alone at last.”

She laughed. “Hardly. We’re surrounded by people.”

“Are we? I see only you.”

She scoffed even as her heart melted. When had she gotten so soft?

Sternly, Tyelu hardened her gaze, if not her heart. “Do you think I’m so easy, then?”

He stopped abruptly and pulled her into a half dip, his mouth so close to hers, she could feel each of his breaths on her lips. “I think you’re as ready for a kiss as I am.”

Her hand, she realized, had gone automatically to his neck, holding him there as a counterbalance to the dip. His skin was warm above his dress uniform’s stiff collar. It tempted her to explore him, to brush her palm upward and test the softness of his hair. To undo the buttons holding his uniform coat together and test the hardness of the body it concealed. The thought stole her breath.

“We’re making a scene,” she murmured.

A slow smile spread across his mouth. “Tyelu, princess, we’ve only just begun.”

He eased her upright and twirled them into an intricate series of steps. When they settled into the basic waltz again, Tyelu tweaked his ear lobe with her fingertips as a reprimand, and because she could.

“What makes you think I want you?” she said.

“You’re dancing with me, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps I wanted to avoid the potential fuss of rejecting you.”

He arched one eyebrow, his green eyes merry. “You want me to believe you were being diplomatic?”

“Isn’t that our entire purpose here, to indulge in carefully phrased chitchat in the hope of solving our mutual problems?”

“You don’t strike me as a woman who does anything she doesn’t want to do.”

He had her there. Tyelu tossed her head. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Hardly.”

“And what I don’t know, I’m willing to learn.” He lowered his head toward hers, his gaze on her mouth. “I wanted you the moment I saw you.”

As she had wanted him, even knowing he was a spacer through and through, and bound to break her heart. She opened her mouth to rebuff him, to push him away, to save her heart from another doomed tumble into oblivion.

“Just a moment,” he said as his mouth hardened and his gaze drifted to a spot over her shoulder.

Soft beeps sounded around the room, one from her comm, she realized. Deftly, she disentangled herself from Jos and activated it, her gaze scanning the room in search of Sigun. Just as her eyes met his, their communications officer said, into her comm, the words every planet-bound being dreaded to hear.

“Sweepers on approach to Domor.”

Tyelu stepped toward Sigun, ever mindful of her duty.

Jos snagged her arm. “Wait. We need to talk.”

She glanced down at his hand on her arm, then shot him a haughty look. “This is not the times to allow your hormones free rein, Q’Mhel.”

“Hormones,” he said, his voice deceptively mild. “Come here.”

He guided her firmly off the dance floor into an alcove surrounded by gauzy fabric and fern-like greenery, and pressed her back against the wall, pinning her there with his body touching hers from chest to knees. “You have a low opinion of me, princess.”

Her hands had gone automatically to his chest, not to push him away, but to feel him, to learn him. The gesture should’ve alarmed her. “I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion.”

“Yes, you do.” He sighed as he brushed his cheek against hers. “My dal has been recalled. We’re joining our sister dal in the fight against the Sweepers.”

Her fingers curled against his coat. “When?”

“Now.”

She bit her lip, holding in an automatic protest. Concern slipped out instead. “Be safe.”

She felt his smile against her skin, then he shifted against her and his mouth was on hers, stealing a gentle kiss. This , her heart shouted, and she cursed Creti for being right, for knowing what Tyelu needed before she knew it herself, even as she gave into the need and melted into him.

Jos drew back on a muttered curse and touched his forehead to hers. “When I get back, we’ll do that again.”

He pressed his mouth to the pulse pounding under her jaw, then stepped into the chaos of the room beyond them.

Tyelu touched her fingers to her mouth and exhaled a shaky breath. She could still feel his hands on her waist, his mouth on her throat, the length of his body pressed against hers. One kiss, she thought, breathless. One kiss and everything had changed.

She sucked air into her lungs and pushed herself away from the wall. Duty first. Later, she could ponder what to do about Jos Q’Mhel and his bone-melting kisses.