My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (15 page)

He smiled.  “That's alright.  I won't mind
that.”

He probably wouldn’t, I thought.  Having
lived like an orphan practically his entire life, he might like someone nagging
at him constantly.  Someone was better than no one.

“That it is,” he agreed, even though I
never said it.  “Listen Berk, you're going to be fine.  I wouldn't put you in
charge of my company unless I had faith in you.  It will be a bit overwhelming
at first but you'll rise to the occasion.  Trust me in this.”

“Okay,” I nodded.  “I always trust you,
Senya.  Is it blind faith or faith in the blind?”

“Either one works.  Just ring Thad or me
whenever you need to, yes?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Alright, Thad time to wake up,” Senya
announced and pointed his finger at him.

“Yow!” Thad screeched, clutching his butt
and falling off the couch.  I burst out laughing.  Senya smiled wickedly.

“I'd like to go now,” Senya said.  “We've
got work to do back on Rozari and a board meeting in the new facility on
Cascadia III on Saturday.  Thad, send a spaceplane for Berk.  He should come to
that meeting too.”

“Right, right,” Thad mumbled, clutching
his butt cheek.  “Shit, Ron!  You could have just shaken my shoulder or
something.”

“This works better.”  Senya rose to his
feet and grabbed his bag and attaché.  “Berk, ring over and tell our pilots we
are enroute.”

“Yes, Sir.”  I stumbled up as well and a
moment later we were all heading out across the Palace. 

We were walking along the outside hallways
on the third floor and Thad was busy reciting to me the list of medical devices
patented by our company.  It had started to rain again.  As we rounded a
corner, crossing over to the adjacent building through a sky bridge, we bumped
into none other than Prince Akan and Lord Phylyp with a retinue of bodyguards. 
We all stopped short.

“Well, well, well,” Akan said.  “It's
Senya and Berkie back from the dead.  And look who else they have, a new
friend.”

“Come on, Ak.”  Lord Phylyp put his hand
on Akan's arm.  “Let's not start something today.”

“And why not?  Every day is a good day to
start something with our dear nephew.  Look how big you have grown!  Shall we
strip him naked like we did the first time and see how big he is everywhere?”

Thad and I glanced at Senya.  He stood
patiently with a bored expression on his face.

“Do you know why he came to visit us after
all this time, Phylyp?” Akan continued.  “He found a little girl willing to
marry him, a little Human girl of all things.  Seems no good Mishnese girl
would do it and of course all Karut's look like dogs so he had find something
else.”

“What's a Human, Ak?” Phylyp asked.

“Something like that fellow.”  Akan
pointed at Thad.  “Shall we strip him naked and see if he's got balls?”  Phylyp
appraised Thad as Akan laughed.

“Get out of our way, Akan,” Senya said
humorlessly.  “Go play your games elsewhere.”

“Oh really, Senya?  And if I don't move
out of your way what will you do?  I have four guards with me and you just have
Berkie and that thing.”

Senya turned his face to the sky as if he was
considering this.

“Come now, Nephew, tell Uncle about your
little Human bitch.  Does she know who you are?  Does she know what you are? 
Does she know how much you like it up your ass?”

I gulped.  Thad cautiously moved behind
me.  “Would this be a good time to run the other direction?” he whispered in my
ear.

“You haven't, have you,” Akan sneered. 
“Of course not.  You may be big and tall now but you're still a dirty, whoring,
horkin addicted, street rat.  Not even a lesser life form like a Human would
want that.”

“We should probably go now, Sir,” I said
quietly and pulled at Senya’s arm.  “Your spaceplane is waiting.”

“Ak, that's enough,” Phylyp hissed at the
same time.

“I'm not done having a reunion,” Akan
replied, brushing off Phylyp.  “Why last time I saw my dear nephew, it was
right after he killed my Lord Governor of the Child Moon.  A good friend he
was.  Perhaps I should pay him back by killing one of his friends.  Choose,
Senya.  Which one, Berkie or the Human?”

“Why don't I kill your friend instead?”
Senya growled and picking up Akan by the neck, he slammed him against the side
of the building.  “I haven't paid you back for killing all of my Karupta
friends, you bloody motherfucker.”

“Karuts are lower than dogs,” Akan coughed
and his lips started to turn blue.  He clutched at Senya’s hand trying to
remove it from his throat.  Phylyp turned and called to his guards but they all
stood as if paralyzed.

“Senya,” I cautioned.  “Senya put him
down.”  Akan began to struggle wildly, pounding Senya’s hand and kicking about.

 “You massacred every last one of them,”
Senya hissed, ignoring me, oblivious to Akan's struggles.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Phylyp screamed and
threw himself on Senya's arm, trying to break the hold he had on Akan.  Senya
knocked Phylyp aside which sent him crashing into the wall.  Phylyp crumpled
and lay there stunned.

“Senya!” I said louder.  “Let him go!”

“Look, Uncle.  Watch your friend die.”
Senya whispered to Akan whose face was white as sheet.  Akan’s eyes had bugged
out yet they swiveled toward Phylyp as his friend tried to rise unsteadily to
his feet.  Senya held out his hand and pointed at Phylyp.  Phylyp gasped,
clutched his chest and then collapsed face forward on the marble floor.

“Holy shit!” Thad shrieked behind me.

“Senya!”  I yelled at the top of my lungs
as my father came barreling around the corner. 

Loman tackled Senya, knocking him against
the wall and causing all three of them to tumble to the floor.  Senya lost his
grip on Akan, who choked and coughed but caught his breath.  He crawled over to
Phylyp and begged for his guards to do something.  Two of his men went running
for a medic while Akan pounded on Phylyp's chest.

“You're a bloody doctor,” my father raged,
picking himself off of Senya and yanking Senya’s arm with him.  “Help the man!”

“No!” Senya shook his head and pulled his
arm back from my father’s grasp.

“He's dead!” Akan wailed.

“Help him!” my father yelled again and
slapped Senya across the face.  Senya's eyes blazed as he fell back on his ass
and for a moment I was certain my father would be the next dead man.  “Help
him,” my father hissed between his teeth.

Senya held out his hand and pointed at
Phylyp though he glared at my father with his brilliant eyes.  Phylyp's body
arched upward as if he had been shocked with electricity and then he collapsed
again but with a cough, he started to breath.

“Thank the Saint,” my father grumbled,
dusting himself off and straightening his trousers.  “It's always something
with you, isn't it?  Get off with you now before you break something or kill
someone else.”

“Fuck you, Loman,” Senya growled and
started to climb to his feet but before he was fully upright, his eyes blazed
again and he collapsed on the floor, hitting it with a painful thud.

“Blessed Saint!” my father cried.  “Help
me, Berk!”  He threw himself on Senya but even under my father's heavy weight
Senya was rocking about in convulsions.  I hurled myself down on him, too, trying
to pin down his legs while my father held his arms and tried to keep his head
steady.  A great clap of thunder roared overhead and in an instant, we were
soaked as giant hail pelted down on us from every direction.  Lightning
scorched the courtyard hitting the walkways, bouncing off the golden railings
and blasting the walls behind us.  Thad was kneeling on the ground next to me,
pinning down one of Senya's legs and shrieking as a bolt of lightning blasted
right over our heads nearly frying us. 

A moment later, it was over.  Senya had
stopped his seizure and the hail around us was melting.  Hesitantly, I released
Senya and Thad followed suit.  My father dragged himself to his feet.

“You need to get out of here,” he said and
nodded to Thad.

“I’m ready,” Thad squeaked.  “Any time now
is good for me.”

Senya lay on the ground, disoriented and
mumbling something in Karupta, a trickle of blood dripping down from his lip. 
Akan and Phylyp were crying into each other's arms while the guards stood
around looking frightened and useless.

“Go on,” my father waved at the guards. 
“Take your master to his suite.”  Then he turned back to Senya and practically
lifted him.  Come on, son.” 

I took Senya’s other arm and the two of us
half dragged, half carried him to his spaceplane where we set him in a seat by
the window.  His head lolled to the side.

“What the fuck happened?” he said, finally
waking up.  He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth while I told him
about the storm and the lightning and the convulsions.

“I hate lightning,” he sighed and leaned
his head against the window.  "Get out of here.  I've got a fucking
migraine now."

“Ring me when you get back,” I told Thad
as he walked us to the door.

“Will he be okay?” Thad asked.  “Will I be
okay?”

“He should be fine,” my father replied. 
“Hopefully he will sleep the whole way back to Rozari.”

"Yeah, hopefully," Thad agreed,
nervously.  The clouds had cleared and the sun was poking through, warming up
the courtyard.  Thad looked at the clear blue sky.  “How the heck did that happen?”
he asked.  “That freak storm?”

My dad and I glanced at Senya who was
snoring quietly.  Thad turned and looked too.

“Thad,” I said seriously.  “Just try not
to make him mad.”

Chapter 7

Katie

I should have expected it.  Five days of
frolicking, declarations of undying love and then I never heard from him
again.  Now, get back to work, back to focusing on protecting the citizens of
the Alliance and advancing my rank.  Don't even think about him.  All men are
dickheads and that one was the king of dickheads.  I should have known.

“So tell me all about it,” Caroline said,
parking her butt on the couch in my cabin.

“Nothing to tell,” I replied, flipping
through the Vid Guide.  “What kind of movie do you want?”

“Love story,” she sang.  “You were with him
for five days.  How can there be nothing to tell?”

“I don't want a love story,” I snapped. 
“I'd rather have action/adventure especially if it's about a woman who goes
around blasting men into tiny bits.”

“Oh come on, Goldie,” she teased.  “It
couldn't have been that bad.”

“It wasn't bad,” I nearly screamed.  “It
was wonderful.  It was totally awesome!  It was the most fantastic five days
I've ever had in my entire life.  He told me he loved me and we were going to
get married and live happily ever after except for a few periods of absolute
hell and then I find out he's been screwing everything in a skirt on that
entire planet and I'm just one of thousands although he assured me that this
time it was different.  Yeah right.  I'm sure he assured every one before and
after me that this time it was different.”

“How long has it been?”

“Three weeks.”  Damn my nose tingled.  I
hated this.  I swore, I would never ever fall for another man again.  This was
so not me!  I really needed to break something.

“What about the flowers?”

“So what about them?” I shrugged.  “Just
because he ordered a rose delivered to me every day doesn't mean a thing.  It's
an automatic order that he forgot to cancel.”

“A fresh rose in space everyday has got to
be expensive,” Caroline remarked, chipping off the polish on her fingernails.

“Do you realize how much money he has? 
He's got this huge company with all these buildings and their own hospital and
this fabulous Porsche that's probably cost more than my annual salary.  A rose
is nothing to him.”  I put down the Vid Guide and went over to my desk where
twenty-one bud vases each with a single white rose were lined up like
soldiers.  I tossed out the older flowers and stacked the vases in my recycle
box.

“Well it must mean something,” Caroline
protested.  “White roses are the symbol of everlasting love.”  She sighed
dreamily.

“I don't care about roses.  A text would
be nice.  An email would be better.  A call would be like, I don't know,
totally amazing.”

“Okay, he's a dickhead,” Caroline agreed. 
“But lordy, he was hot.  If he touched me, I would just turn into butter and
melt.”

I rolled my eyes even though I could feel
my face get hot too.

She laughed.

There was a knock on the door.  Both of us
groaned at the same time.

“Katie?  Are you home?”

“No!” Caroline called.

“Come in, Jerry,” I said.

The doors swished open and Jerry entered
with a bouquet of daisies.  He glanced at Caroline.  “Aren't you on duty?”

“No, VJ said he doesn't need me so Katie
and I are going to watch a movie.”

“Let's go dancing instead,” Jerry replied
and started to dance around the room with the daisies.  When he came close to
me, he bowed and handed me the bouquet.  Then he noticed the vases on my desk. 
“Hey, where'd all those roses come from?”

“Dr. de Kudisha sends a new one to Katie
every day,” Caroline said, haughtily.

Jerry looked at his daisies.  “What a
sport.  I'm sure that's why she's been in such good moods lately.”

“What good moods?” I growled and fetched a
vase from the recycle box.

“My point exactly,” Jerry replied.  “That
is why I'm going to take you dancing.  Come on ladies, the disco is open and
the music is on.”

“No thanks.”  I gave the daisies some
water and freshened eight of the rosebuds as well.

“Come on,” Jerry whined.  “We're all off
duty and we've got nothing better to do.  I'll buy you both drinks.”

“I want a strawberry margarita,” Caroline
said.  “With a little umbrella in it.”

“You guys go.”  Suddenly, I was feeling
very depressed.  “I really don't feel like dancing.”

“Listen Goldie,” Jerry said, grabbing my
hand.  “You need to get out and party a little.  I know you had a good time
with Dr. Hotshot Rozarian Brain Surgeon but it's time now to get back to
reality and quit waiting by the vid for his call.  If he hasn't called by now,
he ain't calling.”

“I'm not waiting by the vid,” I insisted.

“Then you have no excuse not to come
dancing with me.  You know, I can be fun too even if I'm not 6'2 and don't have
lots of long black hair.”  He fluffed up his hair and strutted around the
room.  Despite myself, I laughed.

“Come on, let's go,” Caroline said,
heading to the door.  “I'm wanting that Margarita real bad now and you are
buying Jerry.  I'm holding you to that.”

“Goldie?” Jerry held out his hand. 
“First, last and middle dance?”

“No slow dances, Jerry,” I cautioned.

“Okay, we'll argue about what constitutes
slow later,” he replied, taking my hand.  “And a Pineapple Daiquiri with only a
little bit of rum and lots of pineapple juice and a nice chunk of pineapple
with a cherry and an umbrella too.”

“Right,” I nodded.

“I know you kid.”  He put his arm around
my neck and pretended to choke me.

“I guess you do,” I sighed and locked my
cabin door.