Demon's Revenge (High Demon Series #5) (17 page)

"There. We'll get rid of that ache," he crooned.

* * *

He no longer remembered his name. At times, that bothered him. Now, he lifted and loaded, lifted and loaded. That was what they'd told him to do. When he slept—the few hours he was allowed—he dreamt of strange things. Wondrous, at times. Imagined that he was capable of things most people couldn't envision. But those were only dreams that evaporated upon waking, when someone kicked him and he rose again, to stand in the long lines to receive a small meal that wasn't fit for animals to consume. Then he'd be led to another waiting ship. There, he'd do his duty, unloading and carrying, sometimes for clicks without a break.

Some of his companions dropped while they worked, mostly from lack of water. Some of them were revived. Others were killed where they lay, begging for something to drink with their last breath. He paid them no mind; he was instructed to do so. Nothing mattered any longer, not even the absence of his name.

* * *

"I thought I would heave afterward, I tasted so many desserts. I do not wish to repeat that," I told Perdil the following day as I worked in the kitchen. No food looked good to me at the moment, and I'd barely been able to stomach a cup of weak tea at breakfast. Ry suggested that I call and say I was ill, but I dragged myself to work anyway. The gishi fruit ice cream had to be made and I was the only one who knew how to make it. That recipe wasn't leaving my head and I was careful that nobody saw the entire making of it.

"Tomorrow is Eight-Day and I will be off," Perdil reminded me. "You'll have the pastry kitchen to yourself."

"Of course, Master Cook Perdil," I nodded and continued with my work. I hadn't had a chance to speak with Ry for the past two days about Stellar Winds and ask whether he'd found anything or not. Hesitating to bother him with mindspeech at the moment, I concentrated on my work and hoped that Zendeval Rjjn would stay away from the kitchens and leave me in peace.

* * *

"What do you make of this?" Lendill and Norian sat in N Sriasizorian's spacious office in Ildevar Wyyld's palace, reviewing images from the many microscopic cameras that Lendill had given to Ry. They saw three men inside the voyeur booth, all holding comp-vids in their hands while graphic sexual activity went on in the room below.

"I think we should get identification on the girl and then watch what happens to her," Norian muttered, using the controls at his desk to zoom in on her image.

"Already done—Ry has the information in this. He shipped it to me using a bit of that power he has. I may have to try my hand at the same thing." Lendill held up the comp-vid that Pripps Electronics had given to Ry. "The girl went home to Hraede yesterday and I've already got an agent keeping tabs on her there."

"I wonder if Lissa's busy," Norian sighed as he watched the sex.

"Norian, we don't have these men in any of our databases," Lendill attempted to bring Norian back to the business at hand.

"What? None of them?" Now Norian was staring at Lendill instead of the vid-screen.

"None of them. I've run their images through everything we have and unless they've all altered their appearances, they're ghosts or from outside either Alliance. I checked Teeg's databases, too."

"We're on the same page, then," Norian agreed. "I think they're bidding on that girl, and the one with the winning bid wins the prize."

"Yeah. But Ry thinks there's a lot more going on than that, he just hasn't put his finger on it, yet."

"What does Reah say?"

"I haven't heard from Reah. Just as the rest of her mates haven't. I think she's angry with all of us at the moment, and Ry tells me through mindspeech that he thinks the one who runs the five best resorts is sniffing after her, now. Ry says that Zendeval Rjjn is rude and contemptible and Reah may punch him through a wall before the investigation is over."

"Good for her. She can work off some of that suppressed anger and aggression," Norian nodded.

* * *

I had Darletta Schuul in my sights. She and her father were still on Stellar Winds, apparently; I'd caught sight of them at the bar when I'd gone out to get a bottle of wine to carry upstairs. I wanted to wind down with Ry for a little while and talk a few things over regarding the evidence (or lack thereof) in the case so far. But Darletta and her father, sitting at the bar with Faldin Bierla, forced a change of plans.

Dantel had a lovely young girl at his side, likely drunk or drugged, I imagined. Her eyes were glassy and she giggled at everything Dantel said to her. I watched as they left the bar and walked toward the exit leading to the voyeur booths next door. Sending hasty mindspeech to Ry, he acknowledged it and said he'd find something for dinner while I tracked my quarry. I fended off hands that reached for me as I passed a knot of young ones cavorting on the dance floor.

Dantel and Darletta were aiming for the voyeur booths, all right, but I wasn't expecting them to all go into the same suite. Not to watch the ones below—others were going to watch
them
. I slipped inside the voyeur booth overhead. One other came inside with me. He looked very much like Zendeval Rjjn in my estimation, with black eyes and dark hair. The light wasn't the best inside the booth, but I took a seat at the window and watched what I thought to be one of the most perverted things I'd ever Sing="34">< seen.

Darletta and the girl were having sex with Faldin and Dantel Schuul. I wanted to gag. I'd been beaten by my father when I was small, and he'd broken many bones. He'd never done this, though. The man sitting across the booth from me hauled out a comp-vid and pressed several keys before putting it back in his pocket. The privacy screen was on, but I was too far away to have seen anything anyway. When Darletta went to her father and put her mouth on him, I stood and walked out.

* * *

Ry, that was the sickest thing I've ever seen
. I sent mindspeech while sitting in a warm tub of water with a damp cloth draped over my eyes. Ry was kneeling by the tub, running a gentle knuckle over my cheek and swirling the water now and then with his hand, keeping the water at the right temperature with power. I wish I could do that. Ry's father, Erland Morphis, finally told me one day that a warlock's power worked around me as long as it wasn't meant to harm.

"I don't know how High Demon physiology knows how to sort out the helpful from the harmful," he'd given me the smile that Ry had inherited from him. "Yet it does," he'd added. Ry had inherited more from Erland Morphis than merely his handsome face.

"I have a shield up, so we won't be heard," Ry whispered. "Reah, do you know how beautiful you are?" he added softly, a thumb caressing my mouth. His mouth replaced the thumb. "Do you remember the first time we met?" he asked.

I did. I'd sneaked into his mother's palace kitchen to fix something to eat. I was recuperating from injuries and wasn't supposed to be out of bed. Ry and Tory had both appeared, having just completed a special assignment for the ASD. I'd cooked for them and for Lissa's Falchani twins who'd also shown up. "I remember," I said. I'd thought those times were difficult. I hadn't known difficult, back then.

"Reah, I used to lust after Jhase and Jehri, Jayd and Glinda's twins," he said. "But that was just lust. I think somewhere in my mind, I knew that I'd find the right one for me someday. The right woman. I found her one night in my mother's kitchen. But I took a step back, because Tory's eyes were filled with stars when he saw you. I didn't want to stand in my brother's way. And then I took another step back when Great-Grandfather declared that you were his. When Gavril disappeared, then showed up later as Teeg San Gerxon with his ring on your finger, I took another step away. My heart hurts, Reah. For you. Aches. For you. There hasn't been another who held me or my heart. Not that I've been celibate. I tried to push your image away, anytime I went to bed with someone else. But it was always there. I'm tired of stepping back, Reah."

The cloth had slipped from my eyes and I was staring, openmouthed and perhaps for the first time, truly, at Rylend Morphis. "You were the one who said I'd be the King Karathia deserved. Do you know what that did to me, Reah? That you had faith in me, when everybody else saw me as the child conceived by artificial means? Do you know that many on Karathia saw me as an unnatural aberration?"

"Ry, honey, don't ever think that." I pulled his head toward mine and bumped my forehead to his. "Those people are backward and don't know any better."

"Reah, you said you loved me. Do you really love me? In the way a woman might love a man?" Ry kissed me, the kiss becoming more than just a peck. He wanted something from me. Wanted a response of a certain kind. I gave it to him. His kisses were demanding after that. I was lifted out of the tub and my skin drie S myse d with power. Ry's fingers might as well have been charged with electricity, they were sending tingles everywhere. And when he laid me on the bathroom floor and buried his head between my thighs, I shrieked with pleasure.

* * *

"Reah was right." Garde stared across Jaydevik Rath's desk at his brother, the King of Kifirin.

"About?"

"About the shipments. The nanna shipment was taken by pirates, when we labeled it as gishi fruit. The gishi fruit we labeled as nannas was left alone."

"Unbelievable. Have you informed Lendill Schaff?"

"First thing," Garde nodded. "Lissa told Norian, since he was spending the night."

"Then there are people providing information on the ground or on the ships," Jayd blew a smoky breath. "How much did that lost shipment cost us?"

"That was only half the harvest from the southern grove. The second half got through and we're labeling half the western grove shipment as wheat," Garde grinned. "The wheat harvest is going on, as you know. We'll just have to be creative to label the other shipments. We only lost about an eighth of our profits to the pirates. If we get the rest of the shipments through, we won't get hurt that much. I hear that some of the gishi fruit growers on Avendor have been devastated by the losses of this year's crop."

"Reah was right to work our harvests around theirs so we supply when they can't. It means a steady flow of fruit, instead of waiting for the proper seasons on Avendor."

"Reah was right about all of it, brother. With the cost of gishi fruit going up due to the pirate attacks, we'll be able to pay off the debt by the end of the year if our remaining shipments go through," Garde said.

"You know all those trees—the seedlings that created the groves? Do you know who paid for those?" Jayd watched his oldest brother carefully.

"What about them? That was twenty-five years ago."

"Who paid for them?"

"I don't know. Didn't the Crown pay that expense?"

"No. There isn't a single record that the Crown paid for anything regarding those seeds or seedlings. In fact, I don't even know which it was. When Reah mentioned it, I almost laughed in her face and told her that if she wanted to grow gishi fruit on Kifirin, she was welcome to waste her time."

"Reah paid for it."

"Yes. Whether she bought fruit and planted seeds or managed to get seedlings from Avendor, I have no idea. But she did. We don't officially own those trees, brother. Reah does."

"She'll never push it. She won't call us out on it. She hasn't yet. We're her family." Garde looked out the window that covered an entire side of Jayd's private study. The city of Veshtul spread out below the palace. The city was beautiful, laid out originally by the same vampire who'd designed the palace.

"No. She won't push it. She won't demand what is hers by right. Hasn't ever from us, has she? And yet we have the balls to insist that we're her family."

"Perhaps a terrible family, but still family," Garde insisted softly, rising to stand before the window. "Tory thinks his eldest are fourteen, now. Li Steetillssa and the Larentii are about to tell him that he has a second set of twins."

"How is he dealing with all this?"

"He's angry at first, because so many things have slipped away from his memory. I wish I knew what truly caused this," Garde's sigh was heavy and weighted with worry.

"As do I. The healers and the Larentii say they find nothing physically amiss."

"I think those Larentii know something and they're not saying. It's that damned rule they have of noninterference." Garde blew a cloud of smoke. "And I think Reah could help with Tory's memory loss, if she wasn't traipsing across the Alliance, somewhere, looking for that missing wizard."

"Do you look to Reah to solve all your problems, Gardevik?" Jayd said softly. "What will you do if she doesn't come back to us? If she doesn't return to Tory? We may have burned those bridges, brother. Think about that."

* * *

"I hate these things," Gavril muttered angrily as he walked through the tunnel connecting the San Gerxon Casino with his palace. Dee walked beside him. They were meeting with a section of Princes, Kings and Governors who were hardest hit by pirate attacks upon major exports.

Dee merely nodded in agreement. These meetings were extremely difficult. The potentates only wanted to shout about their losses, with none willing to sit down and talk reasonably about what measures might be taken to prevent the next wave of attacks. President Drix was among those gathering inside a meeting room at the San Gerxon. More than a third of the gishi fruit shipments from Avendor had been seized by pirates, in addition to crews and the ships hauling the fruit.