“Goodbye Shiemir,” she murmured, her lips brushing his ear. “It’s been a pleasure.”
He reached up and grasped her wrist. “Say my name.”
The blade pierced his skin. Warmth dribbled down his neck.
“What?” she asked, her voice quavering.
“If I must die, I want to hear my name from your lips one last time.” He took a deep breath, drinking in her perfume and the softer, more pleasing flavor of her skin. Enrue closed his eyes and ran his thumb along her wrist, wishing he’d kept her in the meeting room yesterday and fulfilled his fantasy. “Say it.”
Her words caught in her throat. The blade gouged deeper, cutting into him. He welcomed death, welcomed an end to his life and as he waited, hoping she’d say the one word he desired, he realized there was nothing of consequence he’d be leaving behind. Just an empty palace, ghosts of the dead, and the promise of rebellion…lost.
“Say my name,” he choked out.
Her lips parted against his earlobe, hot, inviting.
“Enrue.”
He gripped her wrist and hauled it away, impeding her attempt to kill him. Spinning around, he faced his would-be assassin and stared into her golden eyes. He wanted her before and even now, he desired her, needed to possess her and hear her say his name a thousand times more.
The blade slipped from her fingers, clattering on the steps.
“Say it again,” he ordered, his free hand rising. He ran his fingertips across her lips at last, marveling at how supple they felt.
Behind her, Jorin’s guards hurried forth, one holding an injector high over his head, like a mountain scorpion ready to strike.
They want her alive. Jorin will keep her in the confines and squeeze her mind for information,
Enrue reminded himself. He didn’t like the idea any longer. The desire to gather her in his arms and carry her into the tight, dark dressing room sent heat racing to his loins. It made no sense.
The injector came down, piercing her shoulder. She winced, her eyes holding his. “Enrue,” she repeated, her pain evidenced by her softer tone. “I should have killed you…”
Her eyes glossed over in seconds. She slumped forward, her knees buckling. He caught her in his arms and held her to his chest. He didn’t want to hand her to the guards, to have them carry her away to Jorin’s torture, but what would they say if he didn’t let go? What would his allies think of him?
The guards pried her from his grip.
“She is not to be harmed.” Enrue reached up and placed his hand over the cut on his neck, staunching the blood. She should have killed him and had her chance only moments before. Her hesitation proved she felt something too. “Robert!” he barked. “Fetch me a fresh shirt and a bandage. I have a speech to deliver.”
* * * *
That evening, the Shiemir stood behind a plasma window witnessing Melia’s torture. Jorin upped the medication, trying all he knew to loosen her tongue. She was strong though, far more stubborn than Enrue expected. Her limbs trembled and shook. Her eyes rolled this way and that. As the hours wore on, drool seeped from her lower lip, spattering on the floor.
Still nothing.
She wouldn’t even admit to killing Wyther.
Jorin lifted her face and shook his head. “There’s always tomorrow, assassin. I have an endless supply of Curak.
All for you, my dear.
You will tell me what I want to know.” He glared at her for a while before storming out.
Enrue sighed. “Is this really necessary?”
Jorin narrowed his eyes. “You are not wary enough.” Shaking a finger at the Shiemir, he went on. “The Empire will eradicate us before we become a threat…if we let them.”
“How long will these drugs last?” He stared at Melia through the window and tried not to shudder. Shackles held her arms high. Her head hung lax, black hair loosened from a mussed braid and clinging to her cheeks.
“She will be coherent by midnight, but then she will be too tired to care.” He patted his pocket, indicating the store of injections he kept on his person. “I’ll return in the morning to begin again.”
“Very well.”
Enrue didn’t feel like prolonging the conversation. He wanted to rush into the holding cell and release her hands, at least set her along the cot to rest properly. He was not one for excessive cruelty—either his prisoners supplied the information they had, or they were put to death. Holding anyone for very long was a waste of resources. Torturing people was inhumane.
Jorin’s steps clacked into oblivion. Enrue raised a hand over the security keypad, hesitated and dropped it to his side once more. He spied on her in silence. Guards patrolled every so often. He missed dinner and though his stomach grumbled, he finally reached up and entered the code.
The door droned as it opened. He stepped inside, past the interrogation chair, and seated himself beside Melia. Her breathing came and went in long, raspy pulls. He gathered her hair and hooked it behind her ear. Bending to see her face, he whispered, “Can you hear me?”
He untied his sash and wiped her mouth.
“Melia?”
“Doer Seven,” she mumbled.
“Six now.
Doer Seven.
Only six…”
Bracing her body with his arm, he reached over her to release the shackles’ tension. He lowered her to his lap and guided her up onto the cot. She blinked, her pupils dilating in random patterns.
“Who sent you?” he asked, combing her hair away from her face. “Just tell me, and I’ll make him stop.”
“Doer Seven.
Six left.” She shook her head. “I, I,
I
sh—shhhh—should have killed you.”
“I know.” He held her cheek in his palm and frowned. “I know you should have.”
Jerking against the shackles, she strained to sit up. He supported her by slipping an arm beneath her shoulders. “What is it? Tell me.”
Melia inched closer to his face, her eyes twitching from side to side, her lower lip quivering. He balked at first when she pushed her lips against his, a disturbing moan sounding in the back of her throat. “Enrue,” she whispered and kissed him a second time, clumsy and sloppy.
He cradled her in his arms and fought back tears. “Close your eyes,” he told her. “Just close your eyes. I don’t want to know anything else, not now.”
She blinked and eased back, the chains above clicking. He waited long into the night before she finally did fall asleep. The Shiemir held her and tried to rest, but sleep did not visit him for some time.
Chapter Seventeen
Flight
“I’m only saying we could make a difference. Lensi is right about that.” Sima stroked Razi’s chest, the warmth of the bed comfortable and easy. She knew this would change their lives if he gave in, and it worried her.
He placed a hand over hers and turned his face. The dim light caught on his striking features. “I feel like we’re back in the ward that morning you ran from me. Like I’m trying to convince you to settle with what you’ve been given, to lay low and keep quiet.” He squeezed her fingers gently. “I was wrong then. Maybe I’m wrong now, but okay.”
She opened her mouth, slightly aghast with the ease of his change of heart. He moved in and kissed her before she could get any words out. When he broke away, he said, “Let’s get packed. I’ll go see Lensi. Only thing that really bothers me about all of this is Leuj. I don’t trust him. No matter what Lensi thinks, he’s a tyrant and always will be. People like that don’t change.”
“Maybe not.”
She had her doubts, though. The Leuj who warned her at Folar’s was most definitely not the same man who held her captive in his palace.
Razi planted a firm kiss on her cheek and rolled off the bed, a grim look on his face. “If we hurry, we can be packed before the suns come up. Go sit on the patio and watch. We might never get to come back.”
She nodded, realizing the seriousness of their decision. Pushing the covers away, she sat up and dangled her feet over the side of the bed, crinkling her toes in the worn rug. She watched him pull out a small
suitcase,
the same one Lensi had gifted them when they left the rebel camp in the Unangi mountains. He loaded in his clean clothes and then hers.
“I’ll need to talk to Folar too. Let him know we’ll be gone for a while.” She stood and made the bed.
“A long while.”
Razi opened the curtains and stared out the window. “I’ll miss it here. But it’s not me. Not really who I am. I hate the mill. My hands are all chafed now.” He shot her a mischievous grin. “Perhaps it’s time you reclaim your right as the daughter of a Shiemir. I would like to be a kept man again.”
She laughed at him. “You miss your king-sized bed, your massive TV, the meals, the hot showers that last for hours?”
He shook a finger at her. “It’s you who misses those long showers.”
“True.” She pulled on her clothes and joined him at the window. “I hope this isn’t all a huge mistake. The shaman probably won’t even listen to me.”
He tweaked her nose. “Of course he will. You’re married to a Unangi.” Razi puffed out his chest with false pride. “We are a great people.”
“Do you even remember how to speak Unangi?”
He shrugged.
“Enough to ask how to get to the hole behind a tree if I have to go to the bathroom.
That’s about all I remember.”
“Well, that will have to do.” She traced his arm, her fingers running over the disabled tracker beneath his skin. “Maybe you can get this taken out.”
“Maybe I can find my mother, my sisters. I’ve been thinking about them.” He slipped his fingers in hers and they both walked out to sit on the porch to watch the double suns peek over the horizon. The air was crisp and fresh, the scents of farming and manure wafting to them on the breeze. Sima thought it was the sweet smell of freedom. She breathed it in, trying to memorize every nuance, and hoped one day she’d be able to experience it again.
* * * *
Later that day, Sima and Razi followed sister Lensi and three other Habiri dressed refuges along the shuttle’s hall. They found their seats and prepared for the flight, fastening their belts and staring at every person who passed by.
“Thank you,” Lensi said, patting Razi on the leg. “It will make a difference, you’ll see.”
His mouth twisted in a frown.
“It better.”
“Since when did you become so negative?” She prodded his leg with a pudgy finger. “I remember a different man who always grinned and saw the lighter side of the worst situations.” She leaned forward and winked at Sima. “Really, has marriage turned him so sour all of a sudden?”
“Love tends to change people,” Sima offered, the meaning in her words clear. She studied the three refugees across the aisle, staring at the one by the window with the cane on his lap. Oemir Leuj probably didn’t like hiding either. She imagined he, of all of them, missed his former life of opulence. “At least we hope it’s for the best.”
Lensi snorted and sat back in her chair. “He is changed if that’s what you’re worried about.” She pulled her hands into her lap. “We need an alliance with your father. I want you to be the one to make it, not personally, of course, but I think you’d know what would draw his interest.”
“The fuel first.
It’s what drew Leuj. After that, I’m at a loss. His takeover of Irnia wasn’t something I saw coming. This whole rumor about an alliance, the Doer Seven, it’s all new to me.”
“He never shared his intentions with you?” Lensi shook her head. “I’m a little surprised.”
“My father and I were never close. He’s a hard man to know, to really understand. He distances himself from people on purpose.” Sima chewed at her bottom lip for a moment, thinking on why such a man would do so. “I think…” She remembered standing by him at her mother’s funeral, the way his eyes showed no emotion, almost as if he’d turned off his sorrow.” “…Maybe he does it to protect himself. He pushes people away, never allowing anyone close.”