Prince of Passion (4 page)

“You think these mercenaries are here, now?”

He grimaced. “Not the same raiders, no. My elder sister hired a sheership captain to take care of that problem. Half the raiders died in the cavern collapse that destroyed the qva’avaq. The rest went down with their ship in a firefight.”

The Saya tilted her head, studying him. “You didn’t agree with such a drastic measure?”

“The raiders had to die.” His clasped hands tightened into fists without his intent, but he could not find his center of calm to will them open. “And the qva’avaq could have become a mind-control weapon in the wrong hands. But the universe lost something with the last of the l’auraly crystal.”

“The universe lost something?” Her voice softened. “Or you did?”

He shrugged. “What’s done is done. Now I mean to make sure whoever hired the mercenaries doesn’t find a replacement substance for the qva’avaq.”

The Saya ticked her finger against her lip thoughtfully as she stared unfocused, thinking. Icere found himself mesmerized by the unconscious stroke, and his fists tightened another degree even as he cursed the failure of his discipline.

She refocused abruptly and frowned. “Sit already. You’re giving me a crick in my neck.”

He started to lower himself to the second couch opposite her, but she waved him to the seat next to her. “Show me what you have so far. I assume that is what you were working on before I knocked.”

He sat, close enough that they could review the data together, but not so close as to touch her. “Before you broke in?”

She tilted her head. “L’auraly like word games. And power games. I remember that from watching the sheerways negotiation. The commissioner sat at the table but Yecho stood right behind him. It’s part of your training, isn’t it?”

“We are taught to deal with people, and people like those games, so yes, we are taught to like them too.”

“People. Meaning those wealthy, influential few who can afford you. At one time, I considered bidding for a l’auralyo.”

He paused in the midst of activating his programs. “Why?”

She grinned, white teeth flashing in her bronze skin. “Did they not teach you that?”

To his disgrace, his cheeks heated. “I completed nearly all my l’auraly training,” he said stiffly.

“Nearly all?” She took a breath, eyes sparkling with amusement, then let it out with a shake of her head. “Ah, not relevant. Show me what you’ve found, what brought you here.”

He nearly growled with frustration—whether at her teasing or his own instinctive response, he wasn’t sure—but he called up the relevant searches. “I traced everything I could on the mercenaries who attacked my homeworld. I followed credit transfers, sheerways logs, passenger and cargo manifests.” He scrolled through the data, pointing out where each avenue of inquiry came to a dead end. “For hired thugs and killers, they were surprisingly circumspect. Their patron had the money and connections to get what they wanted, quickly and quietly.” He eyed her. “Much as you do. But you didn’t make a bid to the l’auraly?”

She shook her head. “I was told it would be years before a l’auralyo was ready. I must have forgotten to write myself a note.” She flipped back through the screens he’d pulled up, muttering to herself.

He stared at his silver-threaded hands, not really seeing anything. Of course there had been no l’auralyo for her. Declining potency in the qva’avaq had led to a decline in the number of l’auraly. He had been the only male of his class to survive the crystal induction.

He transferred his attention from his hands to hers, where she was making notes on his files.

She could have been his a’lurilya.

The thought stunned him. It had been a sol-year since Benedetta and her Captain Corso had saved the sheerways…and doomed him. Oh, he understood the mathematical irrelevance of his fate balanced against the free will of every living being in the universe. But accepting his loss was not the same as forgetting.

Before the raiders attacked, he and his two little sisters—not sisters by blood, but by crystal—had sometimes whispered late into the night about their someday a’lurily, their future bonded lovers. He had always imagined a princess (she would have to be a princess of most of a galaxy to afford the bid price on the only unkeyed l’auralyo in existence) about his own age, tall and slender and fair.

All this time he had spent trying not to think about what might have been, who he would have been, knowing it would never come to pass. And now he was sitting within arm’s reach of a woman who might have become his mistress.

He took a slow, shallow breath. And then he took a deeper breath, curious.

The sharp tang of salt and negative ions was ever-present, he’d already noted. So he focused on the other, more elusive perfume. Past the slightly musky aroma of the tea she’d served him, he breathed the scent of warm flesh. Beneath that, the telltale pheromones of woman. Under that he would find, finally, the unique fragrance of Saya-Rynn.

He half closed his eyes to focus. A l’auralyo was taught to identify the stages of his lover’s arousal by scent alone. The qva’avaq shivered in his skin as he inhaled.

Like the violet-glowing storm spray. Wild, adrift, caught between two worlds, at once of the sea and yet tumbling skyward. Pulsing with the power of water and wind, bright from within.

For a heartbeat, he thought his training had failed him and brought him full circle—
Ahawe-aulu
—to the haunting scent of the night. But no. The Saya was just perfectly matched to her world so that even his exquisitely honed senses confused her with the storm itself.

“L’auralyo,” she said sharply.

He realized she had repeated herself at least once already. How many times had she spoken while he’d been lost in the first stages of a sensual haze?

He shifted, glad he was seated so that the folds of the robe disguised the stirrings of his flesh. “My apologies, Saya. I was…meditating.”

She frowned, as if she did not quite believe him. She had pulled one of his tablets into her lap and now she tapped the screen. “I’d like to forward these logs to my system. There’s something pecking like a gull in the back of my mind.” When he gestured his assent, she transferred the data. “I’d like to see if any of these references cross.”

“I was working on the list of sheerships with shuttles in port for the festival.”

With a few taps of her finger, she called up the information from her own system and added it to his research. “Here. I was going through that myself earlier. But that’s not what caught my attention. It was something from a few months ago. Calmed and cursed, I can’t think what seems familiar.” She scowled. “Getting old.”

He snorted, but softly.

She turned her annoyed stare on him. “What makes you think this unknown person or group is after the malac liqueur?”

“They wanted the qva’avaq because the resonating crystals could—in theory, with engineering far beyond traditional uses—have been used to influence thoughts and behavior at a distance. Essentially a form of mind control. I think the malac liqueur has similar potential chemically. More to the point, I think those I’m seeking think the liqueur could replace the crystal.”

Her gaze was shuttered. “Why didn’t you take your suspicions to your system’s governing council?”

“We believe our system rep was complicit in the attack on my homeworld. We aren’t sure whom we can safely approach.”

“And yet you’ve told me.”

He shrugged. “You have as much to lose as we did.”

“So you seek revenge.”

“Revenge sounds petty.” He stared at his silver-lined hands. “I hope to make it worse than that for them.”

“I’m surprised your master allowed you to pursue this course.”

“My key crystal was never bid out. After the remaining qva’avaq was destroyed, leaving only myself and my two younger sisters with unkeyed crystals, it was decided we would be in too much danger for a publicized offering. Hence the report that we had all committed suicide.” He grimaced. “Since we can’t be sure who is working against us, we couldn’t risk selling our open crystal sets right into their hands.”

Her gaze dropped to his clenched fists. “There were already so few of your kind. I suppose you will become just another legend in a universe full of stories. You’ll be safe, but I think our fantasies will be poorer for it.”

She sounded wistful, as if he was already fading away before her eyes.

Had he stepped into his destined role as l’auralyo, he would have been a treasured possession, valued for his skills in the bedroom and the boardroom. But even unkeyed, he was still a force to be reckoned with, and her dismissal irked him.

He leaned toward her. The motion made the neckline of his robe gape wider, but he didn’t care. Let her see the qva’avaq defining his chest. She’d already guessed what he was. And he wanted the heat and scent of his skin to make it clear to her that this l’auralyo at least was not gone yet.

Her gaze snapped up from his hands to his face, and her eyes widened at whatever she saw there. She lifted the tablet toward her chest, an impromptu shield, but he plucked it from her grip.

“You’ve set your system to scan my data,” he said. “There’s nothing more we can do until it finds a match. Unless I can help you remember.”

She leaned back. “Remember how?” Was that the faintest stutter in her voice?

“The l’auraly have many relaxation techniques to process and access thoughts, feelings and memories.”

“You make it sound so clinical.”

“It’s actually very pleasurable.” He let his voice drop on the last word. A cheap seduction trick, to let his deeper male voice vibrate in her bones, as if he was already inside her. His sisters would roll their eyes. And as he had told the cruiseliner attendant, he had no intention of finding pleasure. In this tropical paradise. With this island queen…

And yes, he heard how preposterous that sounded in his head.

Slowly, so she might have eased away if she had been so inclined, he reached up to unravel one dark braid from the coils balanced intricately atop her head. With a gentle tug, he brought the whole knot down in a chiming of shells. She gave a soft sound, more surprise than protest, he decided. Anyway, she didn’t slap him away.

Instead, she stared up, her pale blue gaze fixed on his.

“The first step to remembering is to let the blood flow freely,” he murmured. “No restrictions.”

He combed his fingers through her braids, spreading the rough silk and tiny shells over her shoulders.

“The second step, close your eyes.” He demonstrated.

She would not follow his suggestion right away, he knew. She would be looking at him, studying him while he was blinded and vulnerable. He held himself quiescent under her regard, letting his chest rise and fall as he recited certain l’auraly patience mantras, all the while listening. Ah, there. The faint exhalation as she gave in to him and closed her eyes too.

“Step three…”

He canted forward just another degree and kissed her.

He did not need to open his eyes. Her close presence was seared on his qva’avaq. The silvery lines were all but molten with her nearness, giving him a perception keener than his first five senses. He kept the kiss light, just enough teasing pressure to engage surface tension and raise the first hint of slick moisture shared across their lips. He kept his hands to himself and his tongue sedately imprisoned behind his teeth. He kept his mind on the need to win her cooperation.

At least, that was his intent.

Her mouth was firm under his, perhaps even slightly resistant. Then her head tilted. The friction must have sparked. He couldn’t be sure, since his eyes were still closed, but he felt the spark shoot along his nerves, setting fire to his blood. For a heartbeat, he allowed himself to revel in the sensation of…sensation. It had been so long.

Then she made a soft sound, not quite a moan but certainly an invitation to surrender. His training went out the window and was ripped to shreds on the storm winds blowing over the ocean.

He plunged his hands into her hair and angled her head for maximum contact. She wrapped her fingers at his nape and pulled him down.

He managed to brace one arm on the couch to stop himself from crushing her, but her other hand slipped inside the open V of his neckline and slid the robe half down his shoulder. His muscles turned to water, his strength swept away on the hot gust of her breath. His locked arm trembled. It was all he could do not to cover her with the length of his body.

The belted loop that kept his robe decent was loosening. He knew because of the cooler air of the room trickling across his chest and lower. And yet it did nothing to cool his excitement.

Worse—better?—her fingers drifted from his bared shoulder down his chest, then down his naked flank. He shuddered against her hand, the spark igniting every molecule of his being.

It had been so long. And it had never been like this.

He thought he’d understood from his studies how it would be. He had read the texts, listened to various analyses, participated in numerous holographic interfaces, and practiced on himself. Oh, how he had practiced! Until he was perfect, almost. But now each touch and each breath set off a new cascade of chaos in his blood.

Now he understood why she smelled of storm. She was tearing him apart.

With what little self-discipline was left in him, he tumbled back on the couch. He pressed the back of his knuckles to his lips to stop the throbbing, though he knew the pose was ridiculously virginal.

Which wasn’t his fault.

They held the tableau for a long moment. Then, from her reclined position, she blinked slowly. “You’re right. I do feel more relaxed.”

He stared back, his blood raging, his body hard, his control as brittle as the tea cup she’d handed him earlier. “Saya…”

“I think, for the moment, considering, you may leave off the honorific. Later, I will remember that I am not relaxed, but for now, call me Rynn.”

He swallowed. “Rynn.”

“Icere.” She put a hint of mockery into his name, and he knew she was not going to forgive his boldness so easily.

The dull warmth in his cheeks leached some of the heat raging elsewhere in his body. “My apologies, Saya. Rynn. I did not intend…” He trailed off since he had indeed intended…something. He wasn’t sure what, but he had not gotten it. The ache of frustration told him that.