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ANDIE’S FIRST SIGHT of the planet of Mebion came when the door to the truck being used to transport them slid open, blinding her with sudden yellow light. Sweet air rushed in and she breathed greedily. The flight from Praltez hadn’t been long, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a planet that smelled so good, so green. She couldn’t remember if even Earth smelled this good.
A dozen guards marched the crew into a small house, leading them in with blasters pointed, glaring at them all the while. It wasn’t a prison, and given the number of windows it was normally meant for much more willing occupants. One of the guards, the one with a white braid over one of his shoulders, had the crew gather in the entry way. “By order of his grace, the Duke of Mebion, you are to be held here until extradition papers go through, at which point you will be transferred to the Imperial Court of Justice on Oscavia to answer for your crimes. You are restricted to the house unless granted specific authorization to leave. Lethal force will be used on any caught escaping, and punishment will be meted out to all. Provisions have been seen to, and you may use the entertainment stations and baths as you please.”
Andie’s mind ping-ponged between fear and confusion at the guard’s bored tone. He was threatening them with death at the same moment he was telling them what games they could play? She snuck a glance at the rest of the crew, but everyone looked some mixture of bored and tired. After another minute of detailing the rules and meal schedule, the guards retreated, leaving them alone in the house.
“This is weird, right?” Andie finally broke the silence after several minutes of standing still.
“Very weird,” Taryn agreed.
Their impromptu prison was nice. The open floor plan let them get a good look from the entrance all the way to the back of the house, where a wall of windows looked out onto a rolling field. In the distance, Andie could make out a tower that belonged to another property. A discreet staircase along the side wall led upstairs, where Andie assumed they’d find sleeping quarters and hopefully some clothes. They hadn’t been on Mebion’s ship for long, but their clothing was dirty and stained from their time on Praltez and none of them had been given time to pack a bag.
“Kiran,” Taryn said, stepping into the command role with both their captain and first mate absent, “sweep the place as best you can. I doubt we’ve been given privacy.”
The Detyen nodded and broke away from the group. Andie could feel a crust of dirt forming on her skin and wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a soft bed. And her man. She really wanted Xandr back. At the moment she didn’t care about the fact that he was Mebion’s brother. She just wanted his strong arms around her, wanted him to tell her that everything was going to be okay.
“I’m taking a shower,” she announced. Someone had to do something or they were all going to be standing around until Kiran gave them the all clear.
“No guarantee you won’t have an audience,” Taryn warned. She and Andie had never hit it off, but they were both too tired to snipe at each other at the moment.
“Then I’ll give them a show.” Andie wasn’t an exhibitionist by nature, but she couldn’t bring herself to care at the moment. She slogged up the stairs, her feet thumping heavily on the soft carpet. Upstairs there were two huge rooms, each with multiple beds. She chose one at random and let out a satisfied sigh as she walked through the sleeping quarters to find a shower room nearly as big as the damn ship. She could swim laps in the bathtub that was already filled with water, but the stone enclosed shower was her target. It looked like something carved into a waterfall, a piece of nature snatched from outside and dragged in. Figuring out how to get the water flowing took a minute, and it was another before she got the heat right, but when she shucked off her clothes and stepped into the spray she felt herself go boneless.
Xandr had given up this to live on a dinky space ship and steal trinkets from shitty people? Why? Even if she hadn’t known that piece of his past, she was sure she knew him. Or, at least, she knew him as well as anyone sharing his bed for weeks could know him. He could be a hard man at times, but there was a vulnerability that she’d spied in the dark of the night, a secret face he only showed her when he was bone tired and ready to drop. Her man had left behind his family, his planet, a freaking title, and he wouldn’t do something like that on a whim.
She’d only snatched glimpses of the planet Mebion, and it looked like a paradise, but if Xandr had fled, there had to be a hidden darkness. A blight he couldn’t fix. Was it something rotten to the core? Or did it have to do with his brother? The only way to find that out was to talk to Xandr, and getting out of the house risked death for her and torture for her crew. She couldn’t just steal away. If she was the only one at risk, she might have taken the chance, but she wasn’t going to let the others get hurt if she could help it.
She must have stood under the water for close to half an hour. Her body was battered from the heavy stream of water, but it felt so good that she didn’t care, and unlike on the ship, the water didn’t turn cold and lose pressure if she stayed in too long. She could stay there all night, but her stomach growled and she hoped she could scrounge up some food.
She found a set of clothes in a closet and though they were a little big, they’d do. Andie felt a pang of regret for the loss of the jumpsuit she’d been wearing the first time she and Xandr went to bed. It had been the first thing she’d bought with credits earned from a job with the crew and she could still remember the heat in Xandr’s eyes when he finally decided to act on the desire between them.
Things could be replaced, even sentimental things, and she needed to get a grip on that concept. What mattered was getting Xandr back.
When Andie got back downstairs she found the crew sitting on plush couches and chaise lounges, a pile of cheap gear heaped on a small table.
“Cheap retrofit made the gear easy to spot,” Kiran answered her silent question. “We’re all alone now.”
Andie nodded. “Good. Now how do we get our people back?”
***
HIS ROOM WAS DISTURBINGLY similar to what he remembered. Same blue blankets, same iridescent silver painting of a sunset on Oscavia, same cracked panel hidden by the table at his bedside. If the place weren’t scrupulously clean, Xandr would have thought the room had been abandoned for ten years, but there wasn’t even a speck of dust.
“Father never bothered to have it redecorated.” The duke entered the room without an invitation and took a seat in the chair by Xandr’s old desk. “I thought he should have had it all burned, but he was busy. Always so busy.”
“So we’re talking now?” Xandr wondered if he could have the duke ejected from his private quarters. It would have been his right when he still lived there, but those days were long past and now he was a prisoner in his childhood home.
“We have a lot to catch up on.” The duke grinned.
“Ceetr...”
“Oh, so you so remember my name?” He leaned forward in challenge. “Because evidence suggests you’ve forgotten everything about who you used to be. What game have you been playing, Karday?”
Xandr wanted to curse. He’d tried so hard to strike the familiarity from his memory. Ceetr Xandran was his brother, the man he’d played with as a boy, who’d been his closest confidant and most ardent supporter. Until it all went to shit. Now he was nothing but the Duke of Mebion and Xandr had to remember that.
“I’m surprised you haven’t thrown me in the dungeon,” he said, leaning against one of the posters of the bed and crossing his arms as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Mebion was playing a game and Xandr couldn’t afford to lose, not if he wanted to get his crew out of here safely.
The duke scowled. “Dungeons are barbaric. We’ve gotten rid of most of our prisons and engaged in rehabilitation programs for the criminal element.”
“And the slaves?”
“Money has to come from somewhere, brother. Don’t try to tell me that your hands are clean.” He pushed up from his chair. “You’ll be formally called to answer for your crimes when the prince arrives at the end of the week. Until then I’ve been reminded that you still retain your title and your rights. But the leash is short and I will be watching. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts. You’ll know imperial justice soon enough.” He swept out of the room as quickly as he’d entered, leaving Xandr to wonder what had happened in the ten years since he’d left.
I’ve been reminded.
That had to be Zeesa. The duchess had always known how to handle the duke, even when she’d been Xandr’s betrothed. The place stirred up all his old memories and he wanted out. If the room hadn’t been on the sixth story of the tower he might have tried the window, but he’d learned how futile it was to try that when he was a boy, and his bones weren’t nearly as limber as they’d been back then. Then again, Ceetr had told him he wasn’t quite a prisoner, and surely he wouldn’t stop him from walking the grounds. He knew just the place to go to clear his mind.
His aunt had made the estate gardens her sanctuary and as a child Xandr had often run to them when he needed to get away from everything. It was a relief to find them still standing, the flowers spicing the air with their tender fragrance. A guard had followed at a discreet distance while Xandr moved, but he didn’t care that he was being watched. If it made Ceetr feel more secure, the guards could record his every shit. He’d lose them easily enough when it came time to make his move.
He put his feet on the rough stone path that led to the heart of the garden, where high hedges blocked the view from all sides. If the guard wanted to watch him he’d have to follow, but after several minutes Xandr knew that his shadow was waiting outside, confident that Xandr couldn’t leave without being spotted. If Xandr remembered the secrets of the garden correctly, that guard was wrong, but he’d save that trick for later.
“I was wondering how to get you here.” The Duchess of Mebion stood beside the fountain at the center of the garden, her pale green dress rippling in the wind around her, the silk so delicate it looked like it might dissolve from a stiff breeze. Zeesa. The dark purple of her skin gleamed in the sunlight and her golden hair was piled in complicated knots on her head. She was the picture of refined Oscavian nobility, everything a man could want in a duchess, in a wife.
And Xandr would give his ship away for five minutes with Andie.
He’d always wondered what he would feel if he ever saw his former betrothed again, but there was nothing there. It had never been a love match, though they’d been friends since childhood. If things had gone differently, it might have been Zeesa who flew away with him when he fled rather than Keana. Or perhaps all three of them could have escaped together. But Zeesa had made a choice just as he and Keana had, and now she was the Duchess of Mebion.
And there was regret in her pale blue eyes.
“Clearly you knew it was the first place I’d come.” He was the one who’d shown Zeesa the tricks of getting into and out of the garden unseen. “You look well.” It came out stilted. They’d been as close as could be at one time, but now they were little more than strangers. All traces of the wild girl who’d run through the forests with him were erased by the paragon before him.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she replied. “I am your brother’s wife, after all.”
Xandr looked again, but there wasn’t a hint of distress. Ceetr could be a cold and cruel man when it was called for, and his wife could fall victim to it the same as anyone else. “You have my condolences.”
She shrugged and sat on a stone bench, the movement as graceful as a dancer. “Join me.”
Xandr sat. “Can you tell me where my crew is?” There was no use making small talk. Eventually Zeesa’s absence would be noted and they couldn’t be spotted together. If she was here, she might be willing to help, and she certainly had her own reasons.
“Keana is in the estate, a guest of her father, your brother’s steward. I’m attempting to have her moved to my quarters, but my influence is limited. Ceetr wants her extradited with the rest of your crew while her father wants her to fulfill the betrothal contract that she fled.” Zeesa rattled off the details without emotion. “Your crew is being held at the guest cottage on the edge of the property. Ceetr got rid of the dungeon last year. He’s trying to convince the people that he’s a modern man, much more so than your father ever was. He’s campaigned strongly against prisons and has come out in favor of several reforms that are earning him a reputation as quite the firebrand.”
“And yet he’s letting slavers...”
“Who would believe it?” Zeesa cut him off. “What kind of man would agitate for people’s rights while profiting from their suffering?”
“You’d be surprised.” Ten years as an outlaw had stripped Xandr of most of his naivete, if not his principles.
“No, I wouldn’t.” Those same ten years had hardened Zeesa. “He needs to be stopped. I thought I could turn him from this path, could make him see reason, but every year he gets worse. And he’s no longer just letting the pirates use our space freely and supply their ships. Some of his lordlings are importing labor, exploiting it, and letting it perish. Slavery. On Mebion. I won’t stand for it, and Ceetr won’t stop it.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Xandr had fled when he couldn’t stand what his brother was doing once before. It might have been the coward’s way out, but he couldn’t profit from the sale of people.
“I want you to kill him. And then I want you to support my daughter as heir to the title.”
