Enemy Within (28 page)

She faced him.

He took her hands in his. “You have a choice to make, Eilod. The same one Captain Idylle faces.”

She scowled.

“Only you can decide whether or not you can still trust me. Nothing I say will make that easier for you.”

She smiled.

The sadness in the expression took his breath.

“We’ve been through so much,” she said.

“Yes, we have. Undoubtedly, there’ll be more. I’m not going anywhere, Eilod. Family is forever.”

“It just doesn’t always stay the same,” she finished for him. “Isn’t that what Mother used to tell you?”

Seaghdh nodded, a knot in his throat at the memory of the first time his Aunt Kystran had said those words to him at his parents’ funeral.

Eilod’s smile turned sympathetic. She drew her hands out of his. “Finish this, Cullin. One way or another. Here. A token of my esteem. And my trust.”

She offered him a handheld.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“The codes for Captain Idylle’s transponder,” she said. “All of them. The people of TFC border on xenophobia when it comes to races with extraordinary abilities. When her admiral discovers that Captain Idylle is a telepath, and I do not doubt he will, he will use the fact to turn public opinion against her. It distresses me that you now become as much of a target as she is.”

Seaghdh’s heart lifted. He took the handheld. “Story of my life and far preferable to you being the target. You know it’s my job to draw fire away from you.”

“Not for the next eight hours. I’m ordering you off duty, Cullin.”

“I’ll return the favor,” he replied.

“You seem confused about the chain of command,” she said, grinning at him.

“Off duty,” Seaghdh ordered, pinning her with a glare as he rose. “Or I’ll tell Aunt Kys about that third-year cadet you seduced just after graduation.”

“You wouldn’t! How did you know . . . ?”

Grinning at her, he waved and stepped into the lift. “Sleep tight.”

ARI
finally closed Seaghdh’s computer console. She’d gone fishing in his files, looking for information to add to her growing intel files on the Chekydran, Kebgra, and the Armada. She’d been parsing data for the past hour and still couldn’t wring any sense from it. Guilt prodded her into saving a copy of her reports and calculations to Seaghdh’s files. He’d need it and she owed it to him since she hadn’t exactly asked permission to muck around in his computer system. Leaning back in her chair, she tabbed on her handheld, bringing up another language lesson. She’d shed the uniform jacket and draped it behind her. The Claugh insignia dug into her back as she stretched and yawned.

Ordered off duty, Seaghdh had said when he’d fetched her from medical. He’d leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, that cocky grin lighting his face.

“You’re learning Claughwyth,” he’d said. “Quick study, aren’t you?”

“What? Not really,” she’d replied. She hadn’t wanted anyone knowing about the language lessons. Or how swiftly she absorbed languages. Especially since the Chekydran had done something to enhance her ability. She’d been so busy hiding her handheld that it had taken several seconds for his chuckle to make her realize he’d spoken in his language and that she’d answered him in kind.

He’d been elated.

Sighing, Ari closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. His scent, his presence, surrounded her in his cabin.

She heard him stir in his bed. The rustle of bedclothes from the other room and the shush of his bare feet on carpet told her he’d come to look in on her.

“Ari?”

“Quarter light,” she said in Claughwyth and opened her eyes. He stood in the doorway between his office and his bedroom. She had to smile. He wore a ragged pair of workout shorts. Add a threadbare T-shirt from his last energy blade competition and he’d match what she’d worn for bed aboard the
Sen Ekir
.

“Nice outfit,” she said in her own language. She was too tired to rake her memory for vocabulary.

He rubbed a hand over one bare shoulder and frowned as if that would keep her from seeing him flush.

“Sorry I woke you,” she said.

“I’d sleep better if you’d get some rest,” he replied.

She looked away.

“What is it, hwe vaugh?”

“Hwe vaugh.” She waited for the words to resolve to something she could understand. They didn’t. So much for being a quick language study.

She shrugged. “I’ll never have my command back, will I?”

She’d spent the past hour forcing herself to think, to face what she’d blinded herself to until now. She’d been compromised by three months in Chekydran captivity. Armada Command couldn’t promise her a ship. They couldn’t know what kind of security breach she represented. She’d be lucky to ride a desk. Damn it, she didn’t want to be a scientist working in her father’s labs for the rest of her life. A PhD was no substitute for a command.

“Not that one,” Seaghdh murmured. He rounded the desk, caught the chair, and spun her to face him. He knelt before her, his hands warm on her arms.

She nodded and felt something dark and poisonous crack open inside her chest. Yet another wound she couldn’t grieve. She’d gotten used to that. But it was another tick on the side of “nothing left to live for.”

“Ari,” he growled, warning in his tone.

She cursed. Of course he’d seen every desolate thought playing across her face. The unhappiness in his expression as he stared at her made her breath catch.

“I’m still a prisoner,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not on that damned ship anymore, but they destroyed so much, I might as well have stayed and died.”

“No,” he ground out.

“What does it mean to have survived if the life I knew, the life that kept me resisting, kept me from giving up, is ripped out of my grasp?”

“You build a new one!” he insisted. “You find something worth fighting for and you go after it every day.”

Her laugh sounded cynical, bereft. “When I’m being shoved around like a pawn on a chessboard? I am all out of fight.”

Seaghdh rose and extended a hand. “No. You’re not. I’ll prove it to you.”

She blinked and put a hand in his.

He lifted her to her feet and led her through his bedroom to another door, one she had taken for a second closet. It wasn’t.

“You have a dedicated practice floor? On board a ship?” Ari marveled, padding in bare feet to the center of the dueling grid.

“Privilege of rank,” he said. “Now. About that rematch.”

A glimmer of life woke in her body. She tried to smile and found she could. Nodding, she stripped down to uniform trousers and undershirt.

Seaghdh put a dueling jacket on her, smoothing the seam closed with exaggerated care over her chest.

She laughed at the flood of desire turning her knees to jelly. “I’m on to you and you will not distract me this time. It isn’t just your language I’m learning.”

He flashed a devastatingly sexy smile at her and shrugged into a jacket of his own. When she sidled close to seal his jacket, he planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. He backed hastily away, however, when her fingers slid between the edges of fabric to caress his bare chest.

He returned with practice blades.

“We’ll start at the beginning,” he rumbled. He circled her, stepped in, pressing his chest to her back. Tucking a hilt into her right hand, he put his mouth next to her ear. “Hold it like you would a lover. Firm. Confident but not too tight, otherwise, you’ll choke off . . .”

She darted out from under him, gasping with laughter, her body clenching with want. “You had better guard, Seaghdh. I am very clear that lesson one reads, ‘All’s fair in love and war.’ ”

Golden eyes dancing with mirth, he met her in the center of the grid, his look avid. They crossed blades.

Excitement sped her heartbeat.

“Nice and easy?” he suggested. “Warm up?”

She snorted. “Oh, hell no.”

Ari attacked.

It was an utterly different contest than their first match. More dance than duel, they tested defenses, probed for weaknesses in technique, in finesse. They both knew they had no reason to hold back, to pretend they were any less skilled than they were.

Since she’d taken and held the TFC blade title, Ari had known she’d have trouble finding willing dueling partners. For the first time in years, she had an honest challenge. The rapid-fire clash and fizzle of energy blade contacting energy blade was exhilarating.

She felt the pressure of his blade tip on her ribs before he said it.

“Point.”

They broke apart, breathing hard, wiping sweat from their faces.

“Nice,” she said, meaning the compliment. “Never saw it.”

Pleasure glowed behind the thoughtful expression on his face. He jerked his chin at her sword arm. “Old injury?”

She nodded. “Shoulder blade shattered four and a half months ago. Good as new after surgery and bone regen, but I still have three more months of physical therapy.”

He counted back four and a half months. Chekydran. His expression darkened, but he left it. “You drop your blade tip defending outside right once the muscles get tired.”

“Damn.” She shook her head. “You’ll have to become part of my physical therapy routine.”

“I intend to, I assure you,” he said, leering at her.

“Ah, ah,” she warned, wagging a finger, savoring the sudden thunder of her heart. “He who is easily distracted is easily skewered.”

His grin widened.

She groaned at her choice of words and choked on a ripple of panic. Damn it. Not now. Not while she was actively having fun, actively enjoying Cullin Seaghdh’s company.

Maybe that was the trigger. He was the Auhrnok Riorchjan. She was still a prisoner and his assignment. Why shouldn’t his charm, his warmth all be an act?

He either saw or sensed the change in her. Frowning, he closed his free hand around her left arm. “Breathe, Ari,” he urged.

Fear for her in his voice. One part of her felt it coursing through his body. Maybe he wasn’t acting. Unless he enjoyed using his position to take advantage of women, to humiliate them in the process of pumping them for information. She stumbled over the mental turn of phrase, then shook it off. Couldn’t be true. The look in his eyes when they’d dueled aboard the
Sen Ekir
had plainly said he hadn’t enjoyed belittling her—unless
that
had been the act. Ari’s head spun.

Thrice-damned Chekydran. She couldn’t go on second-guessing herself into paralysis her entire life. She didn’t want to go on living in the wasteland of never knowing, of never having tried to recover some small bit of herself. So what if Cullin Seaghdh was pretending?

One thing she knew for certain. After the Chekydran, she could survive damn near anything. She wanted the man. So what if her heart was entangled? She’d live even if Seaghdh all but dumped her out an air lock the minute he was done toying with her.

Only she could decide if what she felt in his company was worth the risk of heartache. She drew in a deep breath and focused on Seaghdh’s concerned face.

“Guard, Blade Master,” Ari whispered. “Or the next time a woman falters in the middle of a duel, you may end up dead.”

He scowled. “You weren’t acting.”

“No. I wasn’t.”

His gaze searched her face and he relaxed. “Which is why you didn’t take a point from me.”

“You have two seconds before I do,” she countered. “I haven’t forgotten your advice in the medi-bay.”

His grin back in place, he nodded and danced away. “A blade master takes every advantage?”

That was the one. She intended to take every last advantage he’d afford her. Anticipation shot a heated, heady mix of craving into her blood.

They met in the middle, touched blades. She looked him in the eye. She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but his humor died. Desire smoldered in its place. Fire stabbed through her, speeding her pulse and robbing her of breath.

“Fight,” he whispered. A ripple of power in his voice wrapped around her, suggesting a very different contest than this one.

Ari sucked in a slow breath and delighted in the rush of need lighting up every nerve ending. “Cheater.”

He laughed and attacked.

She couldn’t take much more. She ended it quickly, charging him, locking body to body, blade to blade. Once more, she felt leashed strength coil in him. She trusted she hadn’t made a mistake, one that would shred the tiny sliver of hope blossoming in her heart. A thrill rippled through her. He stared, his expression unreadable.

“Lesson two,” he said.

“Never offer what I can’t afford to lose,” she finished for him. “I am lost already, Cullin Seaghdh. Help me find me.”

Growling, he took the blade from her hand and threw both weapons against the wall, then pulled her tight against him. His mouth covered hers and he kissed her as if he’d been dying of hunger for her. She returned the favor. The feel of his skin under her hands and the taste of his lips drove startling urgency through her. She wanted more. Much more.