DarkRevenge (20 page)

“Really?” Tory’s glare included them all. “Do you think I
haven’t? Don’t you think I’d know when I’m being played by a politician?”

Dink shot him an angry stare. “What do you think? Teran One
doesn’t even admit they have dungeons.”

“So if I told you that those weren’t Teran One dungeons,
that it was a pleasure room in the palace, you wouldn’t be able to say I was
lying, would you?”

Silence.

“How about if I told you there is no way that woman on the
screen could be Celeste Zeerah?”

“Alex thought it was,” Bud said sullenly.

“Alex saw a woman with red hair over her face, naked and
bruised. She didn’t wait to see if it was her sister.” He gritted his teeth. “I
can understand her part in this. But you?” He glanced at each of them in turn.
“You know me. You know how I operate.”

“She’s underground,” Pulzer breathed out.

“Yes, she is, you fucking idiot. And now, if she is
captured, I’ll know one of you is in the pay of the new Teran One regime.”

Dink jumped to his feet, his wiry body trembling, his fists
clenched. “How could you believe that?”

“You didn’t trust me. I see no reason to trust you.” He laid
his hand on his laser pistol. “Like I said, if you want to take over, now is
the time.”

“Dink,” Pulzer said quietly.

Dink’s eyes opened and closed a few times. Then, he seemed
to wake up and he ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, Tory. I’m sorry.”

Pulzer stepped in front of him. “We were wrong, Commander.”

Tory kept his hand resting on his pistol. “And you, Bud?”

The big man unfolded from his chair and stood. His blue eyes
were hooded and his features flat. “I lost my father, my mother and my sister
to Teran Four torture chambers,” he said.

Tory was careful to keep any expression from his face. It
was the most personal comment the man had ever made. “So, you justify letting
Alex go to her death because of the torture of your family.”

His chin shot out. “It’s what I would have done. I would
have gone after them, whatever the sacrifice. I would have—” Bud snapped his
mouth shut and his gaze swerved to the console, his shoulders rigid. Whatever
had happened in the man’s past, it still haunted him.

Tory relaxed. He believed it. None of these men wanted Alex
dead. They all wanted her to save Celeste. “Bridge recording resume.”

He gazed at these men. Jezar knew which of them wasn’t
loyal. But Tory couldn’t spend his life asking an Ardasian to read his men.
That was his job. Of course, he wasn’t willing to bet the fate of planets on
his gut. After all, he’d been wrong before. He had to trust Jezar to step in
before it got dangerous. “Unless you bring it up, I won’t discuss this again.”

“Yes, Commander,” they all said in unison. Dink opened his
mouth to say more, but shut it.

“Pulzer, I’m taking the night shift. Go get some R&R.”

The other men went back to work and Tory sprawled in his
command chair. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Fifteen

“So, now I’m his prisoner.” Alex paced Tory’s quarters.

Jezar’s green eyes followed her and he rested his fingers on
the table. He’d brought out a deck of Fist cards and began to deal them out for
a two-handed game. Was he insane? Play Fist? Now? Her sister was about to be
killed, her mate was pissed at her and this Ardasian wanted her to play Fist?

“He thinks you don’t trust him.” Jezar picked up his cards
and began to arrange them.

She threw her hands up. “Celeste is going to
die!”
As
her sister, Alex should be there. It was her fault Celeste was being tortured
and beaten. How could Alex sit here, safe and sound with her mate, while her
sister was being hung on a rack?

“Are you sure of that?” Jezar kept his gaze on his cards.

She froze and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you should consider what your mind has been trying
to tell you but you’ve been ignoring.” The color of his eyes deepened to a
forest green, a rare signal of the Ardansian’s strange power. “Why do you want
to get away from Tory?”

Her heart clenched. Was that why she’d run to save her
sister? It wasn’t like she hadn’t realized it was a pointless exercise in
futility. She did. “I don’t know.”

“Shall I tell you?” Jezar kept his gaze locked with hers.

“I’m afraid you will.” And an icy finger of fear shot
through her. Did she want to know?

“Sit down, Alex.”

She took a deep breath and sat down. Her nervous fingers
picked through the cards and automatically arranged them highest to lowest.

“Ardasians have a difficult time sifting through human lies.
You see, all of you lie to yourselves as much as you lie to others.” He laid
down a card to begin play. She tried to focus on the game and his words. She
drew a card and laid down her play. He went on. “For example, Tory tells
himself that if you loved him, you would trust him. Deep down, he knows this
isn’t true. He realizes that you are mired in guilt and fear. Your love for him
is almost drowning in those feelings.”

She thought about Tory’s description of the solid rock
surrounded by a turbulent sea of water. Not unlike the tangles surrounding the
straight strand she found. She nodded.

Jezar played another card and waited until Alex played to
continue. “Deep down, you don’t believe you should be happy.”

Her hand froze, hovering over the deck of cards. “What?”

“Your family is dead. Your planet is on the verge of war.
Yet you have a profound sense of joy in your mating with Tory. That adds to your
guilt. This is why I think you chose a suicidal rescue instead of trusting your
mate.”

She drew a card and played, but her mind spun. Should she
have trusted Tory rather than running away? She’d always handled everything
alone. Tory offered her a chance to work with someone else, someone as good at
handling shit as she was.

“He hates me,” she said and her chest hurt to say it out
loud. She’d known when Tory hadn’t been there to rip her a new asshole as she
reboarded the ship. She’d known he despised her when he wasn’t here in his
quarters but sent Jezar to play Fist with her. Tears clogged her throat.

“He cannot hate you.” Jezar spoke softly and laid his cards
down. “Fist.”

“You win,” she said and tossed in her hand. It occurred to
her that she meant more than just the game. “What am I going to do, Jezar?” Her
sister was still in the hands of Pontoon Gregor.

“Think, Alex,” Jezar leaned forward and touched her hand.
“Do you really believe Tory would allow Celeste to go unprotected? Especially
when he believed someone tried to kill you?”

She blinked. She replayed the vid. What had she seen? A
woman, naked, beaten with long reddish hair hanging over her face. Had it been
Celeste? She’d been so sure it was. “I don’t understand.”

“Tory has hidden Celeste in his underground network on Teran
One.” Jezar glanced at her and back to his cards. “He knew if you were
threatened, so was she. There was no intention to allow the Zeerah line to
continue.”

A cold hand gripped Alex’s heart. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Tory was barely in time. His contact barely got
Celeste out alive. Pontoon Gregor believes your sister is dead.” He shuffled
the cards. “The purpose of the vid was to do just what it did. You were
supposed to come after her and die. That’s Gregor’s goal.” He dealt the cards
and arranged his hand.

“And if you hadn’t stopped me—”

“Tory would have gone after you and died as well. Two
bloodlines with the plague-resistant gene eliminated.” Jezar laid down his
first card. “You and Tory are too important to the future.”

“We are?” She stared at him. The memory of the Judge of
Light’s words came back to her. She had to trust her mate.

He nodded. “Your sister is as well. She is safe. Though I
suspect Tory has informed three of the crew she is underground on Teran One.
Now it will be a race to see who gets to her first.”

“I don’t understand.”

Jezar gazed at her for a moment as if he was deciding
whether to tell her something. Then he said, “Because you tried to go after
your sister and the crew allowed it, Tory was forced to tell them the truth
about Celeste. One of them is a traitor.” His voice was calm and he played
another card, as if they were discussing the weather.

“Tory knows this? Which one?”

“Tory has not asked me and I will not tell him.”

“Why?”

“Because the traitor still has a part to play.”

Alex glared at him. Fucking Ardasians. “I hope you know what
you’re doing.”

A bleak look spread over Jezar’s face. “I do too.”

“Is all this why you signed on with Tory?” She played a card
and rearranged her hand again.

“Tory’s reputation for having a strict moral code isn’t a
good enough reason?” He smiled faintly and laid another card down.

Strict moral code? That’s not what she’d heard. “No. You
don’t strike me as a criminal or a rebel.” Most of the men on
The Pinnacle
were men outside the law in some way. At least, that’s what the vid streamers
said. Though Alex didn’t believe everything she’d heard, she knew those stories
had to have some truth to them. Tory’s crew was known throughout the system as
space Robin Hoods, stealing from the powerful and giving to the downtrodden.
But they were still criminals.

“Oh? How do I strike you?”

She stared at him. How many Ardasians did she know? Well,
there was Kyler. She’d grown up with him and hadn’t thought of him as a true
Ardasian. He had never seemed like one. In her capacity as a Star Commander of
Teran One forces she’d met three. One was a Teran Five general with a very
sarcastic tongue but a knack for inspiring loyalty in men, human or Ardasian.
The second, a Judge of Light who had arbitrated a dispute between Teran One
military and Teran Two space merchants. The third had mated her to Tory. What
did she really know about Ardasians? “Well, actually, I don’t know that much
about Ardasians. I suppose my experience is limited.”

“Our culture is confusing to the uninitiated,” he said
casually. “We have a personal code that demands a high price.” He sighed. “It’s
better that way. With our power, too many could turn to crime or power plays.
Being privy to the thoughts of others is a huge responsibility. Our punishments
for small infractions are severe. For example, a child who bridges with another
without permission is cut off from contact with other minds for six months.”

“You’ve never had any rebel?” she asked and immediately
regretted it when his eyes jerked away from his cards and color dropped from
his face. She stammered, “I mean, if your punishments are so strict…” She
trailed off. The idea of a human culture that controlled its people who had so
much power seemed impossible. A human being would rebel eventually from such a
strict code. From the expression on Jezar’s face, she guessed even Ardasians
had their rebels.

His answer came slowly. “The cost of rebellion
is…substantial.”

“Your history has examples?”

Jezar kept his eyes on his cards. “Yes.”

“What happened?” she said bluntly.

He hesitated. “To know that, you have to understand our
whole history. The best example of rebellion was many of us were left behind on
Earth and did not follow the wanderers that colonized Ardasia.”

“What do you mean?” She laid another card down. Almost. She
was close to a winning hand.

“We were gifted, mentally enhanced, though not as powerful
as we are now. Some of our fellow gifted humans stayed behind when we colonized
Ardasia.”

Her eyes widened, her cards forgotten. “Earth. You’re
talking about Earth.”

“Yes.” Jezar’s lips tightened. “Those left behind did not
follow the code. They…used their power to control the ungifted.”

“Us.”

He nodded. “Yes.” He seemed about to say more but clamped
his mouth shut.

“They were the alien force that released the plague.”

Jezar frowned at his cards. “The plague is not what you
think it is.”

“I don’t understand,” she said and put her cards face down.
She wanted answers to this.

“It is a virus, an infection. But it affects the mind,
weakening it. Essentially, the victim becomes a mindless zombie.”

“And from the vision, they’re flesh-eating zombies.” She
shuddered as the picture Kera showed them replayed in her mind.

“Not flesh-eating, flesh-killing,” he clarified, though Alex
wondered if the distinction meant that much.

“And Ardasians are immune.”

“Yes. Those who are genetically descended from those
Ardasians who stayed behind, those ‘rebels’, are immune from the virus. The
original few who stayed behind on Earth could not control the humans who had
their blood. In the end, however, it didn’t matter. Those who survived the
virus were killed by those infected.” He glanced at her face. “It’s your turn.”

He meant those who were genetically descended from the alien
race that made the virus in the first place. So, that commander she’d seen in
the Ardasian museum, Darina Stanton, was descended from those who caused the
whole mess in the first place. Alex wondered if Darina had seen the irony.

She played her next card and Jezar played his. In the
silence, Alex reviewed what they’d discussed. Jezar wouldn’t talk about all
this without a reason. He was preparing her for something. She had no doubt the
Ardasian knew something about the future.

Still, the silence was comfortable, relaxing. Soon, the card
game took over both her thoughts and their conversation. Gathering together a
complete suit, in order, took focus. She lost the game they’d been playing. And
the next.

Alex sighed and tossed her cards his way. “If I didn’t know
the Ardasian code demanded no cheating, I’d say you were using your mental
skills to beat me.”

Jezar’s smile softened his features. She hadn’t really
noticed before that he was a very good-looking man, his features strong, his
smile reaching his eyes to brighten them. “I’m afraid the imprint of your
thoughts does make the game easier to play.”