The meeting had been a complete disaster. A failure of epic proportions. After Councilman ni Gonean left, it became clear that the majority of the council agreed with him. There had been screaming—by Lorne, my father, and sometimes by me—and it was ugly. It was really ugly, and I felt like I’d failed on day one.
I was trying to remember what Lorne said about how I wasn’t going to be good at this at first. That I would fail. So, maybe he wasn’t surprised by my performance, but I’d hoped to do better.
I’d hoped to be better.
The meeting finally died when we realized that someone in the room had been recording us. The whole thing was being live-streamed to a small group of his staff, starting with me blocking Councilman ni Gonean from lunging at Lorne. It was only then that we all finally agreed on something. Everyone was angry. The council member recording it was forced to resign his position, his devices were confiscated, and he was escorted out of the estate.
A week ago, the recording would’ve been spliced and cut together to make me sound awful, but now, it was just being pushed out in full, letting the people decide whose side to be on. I wanted to see that as a good thing, but from what they were showing in the polls on the bottom of the screen, most of the viewers were on Councilman ni Gonean’s side, even though what he’d said that started the argument wasn’t aired.
I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t understand it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I’d come to the gym to work off some of the anger and frustration, but I made Roan turn on the news on one of the walls. That was probably a mistake, but I couldn’t turn it off.
I half-watched it as I climbed up the wall, and then Councilman ni Gonean’s face came on the screen as he sat next to the reporter.
“What the hell? He’s there in person now?”
“Want me to turn it off yet?” Roan yelled up at me. “You don’t need to watch this junk. It’s not good for you.”
“No. Leave it. I want to see what he’s going to say.” I stopped climbing halfway up the wall so that I could read the subtitles.
I didn’t need to stop for long. Apparently, I was an alien coming in to their world, starting a war, costing everyone money and possibly their lives, and all because I’d fucked their king. At least that’s what the councilman believed.
I started moving again.
“Don’t listen to him,” Eshrin said from where he climbed beside me.
It was probably bad that I hadn’t noticed Eshrin coming up the wall.
“He’s an old, angry man who’s afraid of losing money and power. That’s not about you. That’s about him.”
Maybe Eshrin had a point, but the station was running a poll at the bottom of the screen. I glanced over. “Seventy-two percent agree with him.”
“And according to their extremely inaccurate polling, twenty-eight agree with you. Only a small percentage of their viewers call in, and it’s always more negative than positive.”
I shook my head and started moving again. “I don’t know if you know this, but seventy-two is a lot more than twenty-eight, even with crappy polling.”
“And twenty-eight is more than two which is where you started in their polling when you first got here.”
I paused when I reached the top to soak that in. “It was really that low?”
“It was. You just need time.”
That was the problem. “I’m not sure how much time we have.”
“When time runs out, it’ll be because it’s apparent that we are at war, and then you’ll be at the overwhelming majority approval that you want.”
“Maybe.” I let that soak in as I let go from the wall, flipping to the floor.
Eshrin landed beside me.
“It’s still insulting.”
“Of course. Your anger is well placed, but we’ll use it up today.”
I glanced at the screen and then back at him. “You sure you’re up for that? I’m pretty angry right now.”
Eshrin’s answering grin was a little evil, a little goofy, and told me he was more than ready for a fight.
I laughed and turned to the wall. “One more time.”
“I’ll grab the faksano.”
Yes. I loved that particular Aunare weapon the best. The faksano were two, short bo staffs that could be charged with my power and act as a focus when I used my ability. Practicing with them had become one of my favorite things. “Thanks.” I was going to need the work out because if I stopped moving, I’d want to hunt down that idiot councilman and kill him.
But I couldn’t kill him. I had to be diplomatic.
I wasn’t sure why the Aunare were buying his line of crap.
I’d told them again and again and again what had happened on Earth. Why weren’t they ready for a fight? Why weren’t they aching to destroy SpaceTech?
I didn’t understand. It didn’t compute. It went against all logic.
“Am,” Roan called up to me.
I hung from a hand grip fiftyish feet up in the air and glanced down at him. He was sitting on the bench behind the half-wall of the gym. The rest of the viewing area was thankfully empty because we’d asked everyone to leave.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you almost done? Because we’ve got shit to do.” He waved his tablet at me. “Your schedule is packed.”
It might be packed, but I was doing the most important thing right now. “Cancel everything.” I didn’t know what “shit” he had for me to do, but I wasn’t doing anything but this. I was riding a very fine edge. The power inside me was growing, and I hadn’t fully figured out how to control it yet. If someone pissed me off, there wasn’t a guarantee I wouldn’t turn them into ground bits of flesh and blood.
Didn’t he see how on edge I was? My skin was seconds away from flickering with need for a release of my powers.
“You need to breathe,” Eshrin said from the floor below me. His darker skin was lit, but not as bright as mine. Not because it couldn’t match mine, but because he was in control of his powers. Something I lacked, big time.
Eshrin had passed every test to become one of the most elite class of warriors among the Aunare—a royal guard. He was strong, observant, trained in every weapon and every type of warfare imaginable, and yet today, he wasn’t using any of those elite guard skills. Right now, he was trying to help me figure out how to calm down.
“Focus.” Eshrin whacked the faksano together. “Breathe.”
“I’m trying.” But the harder I tried, the less control I had. I needed Lorne, but he was busy and he was quickly becoming a crutch. I needed to figure this out for myself.
I made my way to the next grip. Two more to the top. I reached those with my next breath, and then I used my legs to push away from the wall. I leaped away and flipped down to the ground.
Eshrin walked over to me. “You can’t see the meeting as a failure. Don’t let those people rip control from your hands. This will work out. You’re meant to lead us. We know it. We can see it.” He motioned to my arms, and then to my back.
“They don’t seem to agree.” I mimicked his motion, except toward the vid screen. The sound was off now, but the Earther English subtitles ran in shining gold text with a black shadow to make it feel as if it was popping out from the screen.
I read two words of it before turning away. “Tell me something else. Give me something else to focus on.”
Eshrin handed me one of the faksano. “I have three more guards for you to interview. They were on the schedule that you just had Roan cancel.”
Now that was something. I took the faksano from him, and glanced around the room, counting my guards. There were three others with us in the gym, which meant that I was five on-duty guards short.
There were two guards sleeping right now, which made for a total of six guards. I was supposed to have nine on duty at all times with a minimum of nine more off duty. Lorne wanted me to have twenty-seven, but he was insane with that number. I got why he needed so many, but I wasn’t that important. At least not yet.
My guards were supposed to be on a half-day schedule, six days a week. But right now they were taking only a quarter of a day to sleep before jumping back on duty and having no days off. They all rotated throughout the day, but Eshrin was on duty all day except for five hours when he knew I was sleeping. That’s all the time he would take off, and I was pretty sure he only did that because he knew he’d get weaker if he didn’t sleep.
My guards were going to burn out if we didn’t accept more, but Eshrin was being extremely picky.
Komae—the guard that tried to assassinate me—had been not just his second in command, but his best friend. After that betrayal, we’d put all my guards on probation. Except for Eshrin. He’d proven himself and I’d clicked with him. I trusted him as much as I could trust anyone.
The rest of my guards were given a few days to prove their ability and dedication to me as a guard. Now only six had passed onto full duty.
But now that the media was fully against me again, I was sure the faction of extremist Aunare would pick back up on their attempts to kill me, which meant I needed more guards.
“When did you want to interview them?” If the interviews could wait until I wasn’t so angry, I’d make it work.
Eshrin stared at me for a moment. “Whenever you think you’re calm enough to handle it? I can have them wait.”
“Calm?” I laughed. “So, never? Does never work?”
“Come on now.” He twirled the faksano slowly, almost as if the move were rote. Which made sense. “The meeting wasn’t that bad.”
I raised a brow at him. “Were we in the same meeting?”
“It was a disaster,” Roan yelled from where he was sitting on the stands. “And now you’re pissing off more people because you’re not showing up to another meeting. You’re lucky I love you.”
“Better that they’re pissed off than dead.”
Eshrin chuckled, his gray eyes glittering. “You’re not that bad off. I keep telling you that you won’t lose control.”
He sounded so sure, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t at all. “You don’t know that.”
“I do because if you were going to lose control, you would’ve killed Councilman ni Gonean the second he said—” Eshrin didn’t say the rest, which was smart, especially with the way my skin started flashing.
“He’s an idiot,” Roan yelled over to me. “And scared.”
“Scared,” I muttered. “That feels like a way to excuse whatever he said.”
“What did you say?” Roan asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s fine.”
“Oh shit.” Roan let out a whistle.
“What?” Eshrin asked.
“Am only says something’s fine when she wants someone dead.”
I turned to face Roan in the stands. He was grinning like an idiot, but when I glanced back at Eshrin, he looked curious.
“Don’t listen to him.” I turned back to Roan. “You’re making it sound like I killed people left and right on Earth, and I didn’t. I didn’t even kill Jason Murtagh when he—”
“You should’ve,” Eshrin said next to me. His voice was cold, maybe even colder than when he talked about Komae. “You really should have.”
I glanced at him, and I knew he was right. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up on Abaddon, but if I started down that road, killing people I didn’t like, I wasn’t sure where I’d end-up. “I agree. Hindsight. But I didn’t know who he was and—”
“Not because he’s leading SpaceTech against us. Because of what he did to you. What he did in that diner—”
Suddenly I was back there.
His fat fingers on me.
In me.
I dropped the faksano and ran full speed at the wall before I could hear the end of Eshrin’s sentence.
I didn’t want to think about what happened in the diner.
Or what happened after.
I was here. I was safe. I had Lorne.
I was safe.
I had Lorne.
But now that he’d said it, I was back there. In that diner. The anger. The violation. The hate. It was all there burning inside of me as if it had just happened.
I hit the top of the wall, and then flipped to the floor.
Went up the wall. Down to the floor.
Up the wall. Floor.
Wall. Floor.
I didn’t know how many times I’d done it before I noticed someone beside me. Someone not Eshrin. Someone that was trying to balance my control.
Lorne.
I looked over and my hand slipped.
His hand snatched my wrist before I could fall uncontrolled to the ground. “You with me yet?”
I panted for a second before I could find enough air to answer him. “When did you get here?”
“Twenty minutes ago. I tried talking to you, but you didn’t hear me. Your mind wasn’t here.”
I swallowed. “I’m here now.”
Lorne glanced beyond me. “You’ll catch her.”
“Yes, your majesty. I have her.”
Lorne let me go, and I fell. Half a breath and then I was in Eshrin’s arms. I looked into his stormy gray eyes. I wasn’t sure what I saw in them. I trusted Eshrin, but I was still getting to know him. Something about the look in his eyes worried me.
Eshrin studied me for a second before he put me on my feet, stepping back and bowing. “My deepest apology. I spoke out of turn, and—”
“It’s not your fault, Eshrin.” It really wasn’t. My flashbacks and anger were so much less than they had been, but were still there. Brewing. Simmering. Any little thing could make the anger boil over until I was ready to explode. “It feels... fresh sometimes, but that’s not your fault.”
“It is.” He pressed his fist to his heart and bowed his head a little lower, still not meeting my eyes. “I will step down from my position—”
What? No. “Don’t be stupid. We clicked. You’re stuck with me now. Just like Roan is.” I pointed at Roan where he was sitting.
“Yep.” Roan backed me up just like he was supposed to as he walked over to us. “It’s a forever kind of thing for her. I keep trying to shake her loose, but look at me now. Managing her schedule like a chump.”
I glanced over at Roan, but he was grinning. He gave me a cocky wink, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I loved the idiot, and he loved me. He was happy with his job, and actually, he was pretty good at it, too. He’d been taking care of me for years on Earth.
Lorne landed next to us, and I looked up into his eyes. The aquamarine color had depths that I was only just learning. Right now, it was dark with worry. “Scared me,” he said.
I put my hand on his cheek.
He lowered his lips to mine—a simple tiny touch that was there and gone. The feel of it eased the hold anger had on my soul for a second, and I needed more.
This. This was what I needed to feel.
I ran my fingers through his hair and pulled him down for another kiss. A deeper one. One that made my breath stall, my heart race, and my soul beg for more.
The gym faded away along with everything else in my mind, until there was no room for anything else. It was just the feel of his lips on mine. His tongue against mine. His hands—one holding me tight while the other ran up and down my spine, spreading heat through my body until I was sure I was burning.
I needed to be closer to him.
I started tugging at his shirt, but it wasn’t coming off fast enough.
And damn him. Why was he wearing a shirt? He always took it off to train.
“Are you guys seriously doing this right now?”
Roan’s voice had me freezing, with my hands still gripped in Lorne’s shirt, a half of a second away from ripping it from his body.
Instead of ripping it, I tugged a little so that my forehead rested against Lorne’s bare chest.
“You do realize that you’re still in a room. With people. Multiple people. Including me.” Roan was making this so much worse, and he was right.
Damn it. I was in a room full of guards, and I’d forgotten about them. How was that even possible?
I looked up at Lorne, but he didn’t seem embarrassed. If anything he looked amused and maybe a bit smug.
“You were going to let me rip your clothes off here. In front of everyone?” I whispered to him while wishing death from embarrassment was a thing. It was just my guards, a few of his, and Roan in the room, but was he for real?
“The guards have their backs turned.” He motioned for me to look.
He was right. They were all against the wall now, facing it, backs to whatever happened in the center of the room—even Eshrin.
“They would’ve politely ignored it and never mentioned it to us, each other, or anyone else. That’s what they’re trained to do. My father was always afraid of assassination, so he never was alone. Never. His guards were with him everywhere.”
“Gross. Seriously? Why would he want that?”
“I think he actually preferred it.”
Every time I learned something new about that man, I liked him less.
“Roan was the only unknown factor in this room, and I would’ve put money that he’d run away in disgust.” Lorne said the last bit louder.
“I almost did,” Roan yelled back. “So, if you could keep your business in your rooms that would make everything better.”
“Shut it,” I yelled back at my best friend, but I couldn’t look away from Lorne. His hair was a little messy and his cheeks were flushed. Not from the workout, but from what I’d done to him. “I missed you this morning.”
“I’m sorry. I had an early meeting.” He gave me his small smile, the one that held a promise for something more when we were alone.
I wanted that. I wanted more time with him without guards and meetings and talks of war and strategy. I wanted so much of him, and I knew that there wasn’t time now. This great pulsing need in my heart and soul for him would never be fully quenched, not ever. So, for now, I would have to wait.
Tonight. Tonight would be different. Tonight I would be alone with him and that would have to be enough.
I dropped his shirt, smoothing it out. “How did the rest of the meeting go?”
His grin faded away, and what remained was annoyance that showed in the crease between his brows. “I left shortly after you did, and then I had some other meetings. They were frustrating. So, I needed to train just as much as you did.”
I hated that for him. I hated that I was making his life harder. I hated that the Aunare weren’t accepting me like he wanted, but I wasn’t sure how to change their minds.
I wasn’t sure what I could do to make them see that the war wasn’t my fault or how to make them understand if they didn’t already see the truth. I told Lorne I’d find a way to win them over, but I hadn’t had time to think about how to make that happen.
I needed a quiet moment to figure that out. Maybe with Roan or even my father. There would be a way to make it happen. I just had to find it.
I needed to find a way to gain the Aunare’s support if we were going to win this war. And we had to win. SpaceTech had to be destroyed. Not just because they were a danger to the Aunare, but the Earthers—those on Earth and those on the colonies—needed freedom from their tyranny. And if the Aunare went down, there was literally no other force that would stand in their way. Within this next decade—maybe two—SpaceTech would own the universe.
I was sure the allies would think I was nuts if I told them that. There was no way they’d believe it. The universe was such a vast space, but they were greatly underestimating the greed and evil that was SpaceTech.
So, how could I make them see?
I had to find a way or everything would be lost.
“Want a quick spar?” I asked him.
He looked over his shoulder at Ashino, his head guard, and gave a nod. “Actually, that sounds really good,” he said to me.
Eshrin picked up our abandoned faksano sticks and tossed them to us.
I spun one in my hand a few times before looking up at Lorne. “Things might be crazy and they might get worse, but I’m thankful that we can have some fun mixed in.”
Lorne’s quick flash of a smile was the kind that made my heart jolt. It was happy and free and full of love. He stalked over to me, gripped my faksano and gave it a quick jerk until I tumbled into him. “I love you, Amihanna.”
Four words and I was gone. But that last one—my name—in that tone of his…
My skin was bright. Brighter than when I’d been angry and my mind had been full of the past and ready to explode, because this time it wasn’t something bad that brought my power to light. This time it was good. The best kind of good.
It was love.
Lorne was my partner, my love, my life. And apparently my shalshasa. I was still figuring out what the last one meant, but whatever it meant, I liked it.
When we started sparring, it was with that love in our hearts and passion in our moves.
And it was fun.
I might not have had the easiest life on Earth, but surviving had been worth it.
For moments like this, every bit of pain and hunger and anger had been worth it. I’d do it all again. For him, I would do anything.
Even rule.