The Star King (21 page)

The woman turned Jas's hands this way and that. Then she brushed her cool fingertip over Jas's wrist. "So beautiful," she said in a soft, almost reverent tone. "So pale."

Jas gave a nervous chuckle. "And here I am envying your year-around suntan."

Beela continued to clasp Jas's wrists. An awkward moment ticked by. Then she lifted a worshipful gaze to Jas's hair. "Perfect. Black as the Maker's heart."

Jas snatched her hands away. "I beg your pardon?" .

Beela blinked rapidly. She took several clumsy steps backward. "I'll get the salve."

Jas watched the tall woman hurry out of the chamber.
Great.
This was going to be one long evening, and she had no one to blame but herself. Since none of the others in the room appeared anxious to talk, she might as well view the artwork. If she was lucky, she'd find something other than the black hole, riveting as it was. Hands clasped behind her back, she wandered across the vast room. Beela's "apprentices" parted for her like the Red Sea. They probably found her hair and skin color strange, too.

On impulse, Jas stepped into a corridor. The rock walls were bare of artwork. The passageway narrowed

and led to another, which ended in a wide balcony overlooking the dark, unpopulated side of the mountains. The thick glass doors were sealed shut. "Open," she commanded, just for fun. They remained tightly closed. Apprehension trickled along her spine, and she hastened back the way she'd come. She'd recalled passing at least two comm boxes earlier. If she could remember where one was, she'd call the Romjha. They owned a fleet of transports; surely they'd dispatch one to rescue a stranded guest. That way she wouldn't inconvenience Beela. Although the woman meant well, she was growing spookier by the minute.

Mounted on the wall just to the right of the entrance to the main chamber was a comm box. Jas rummaged through her waist pouch for the comm card she'd purchased for routine calls. Instead her fingers closed around the wafer-thin metal card Rom had given her. She cradled it in her scraped palm, and her heart constricted.
Call him.
Yes, just to hear his voice, to say how much she looked forward to seeing him in a few hours. And to hear him laugh his head off when she told him how she'd gotten herself trapped for the evening in a compound full of loony artists. Grinning, she dropped the card into the slot.

As the machine flicked on, a breeze swept around her ankles, bringing with it a whiff of the incense she'd smelled just before the thieves grabbed her. She whirled around. A body slammed into her, knocking her off balance.

Jas tumbled across the polished stone floor, skidding on her rear end. Sprawled on her back, she gaped at Beela, who was shrieking, "Get the card out! Get the comm call!"

Chaos erupted in the chamber. Apprentices ran toward her from all directions. One dug Rom's card out of the comm box. Jas tried to get up, but someone grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her painfully backward. Her numbness and disbelief transmuted to panic. She flailed wildly, trying to break free, but whoever had grabbed her hair now pinned her arms behind her back. "I wish you had not tried to do that," Beela said. Wide-eyed in horror, Jas watched the woman walk toward her, a cloth clutched in her outstretched hand.

Chapter Fourteen

Seconds after the
Quillie
broke free of the atmosphere, the comm call in Rom's front pocket chimed. Relief hit his tense nerves like rain splattering on still-hot thrusters. "Thank the heavens," he said, yanking the device out of his pocket. He lifted the card to his ear. "Jas, your timing is exquisite."

Static hissed on the other end.

"Jasmine?" He tapped the gadget in annoyance. "Hello, Jas?" Silence on the other end resonated with the fear clanging inside him. He met Gann's baffled gaze, then scanned the status page.

CALL TERMINATED AT SOURCE.

Underneath was a twelve-digit alphanumeric code. Rom punched it into the flight computer. Gripping the console, arms braced, he stared at the display. Then he slowly raised his head. "To the Depot—maximum speed."

* * * "What's going on?" Jas cried hoarsely, pumping her legs.

Beela's lips thinned. "Keep her still!"

The apprentice who held her arms tightened his grip until Jas thought her bones might snap. Gasping in agony, Jas stopped struggling. "Why are you doing this?" she pleaded in an urgent whisper.

Beela crouched in front of her. The fanatical determination in her eyes was chilling. "He accepts so few of the treasures I offer him. But he wants you. And has ever since I first spoke of you."

"Who does? What are you talking about?"

"But you made it difficult for me, because you did not wear your medallion. What, did you leave it in your lodgings? Foolish woman! It is for the faithful to wear, not to be left behind." Beela settled the cool, damp fabric over Jas's mouth and nose.

It smelled sweet. A
drug. Don't inhale.
Jas wanted to scream, but somehow she had the presence of mind to hold her breath and press her lips together. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and her lungs burned. Tears stung her eyes. Then grayness tickled at the edge of her vision.

Light-headed, she locked gazes with Beela. The woman's pale gold eyes, so similar to Rom's, held none of his compassion, his humanity.

Jas's lungs felt ready to explode.
Don't breathe.
She knotted her hands into fists and scuffed her boots on the floor. But the elemental instinct to survive was too strong, and she couldn't keep from sucking in a breath. The cloying odor of incense flooded her nostrils and

made her dizzy. She saw her mother's face ... her children's. And then Rom's.

A silent scream of outrage tore from her soul. She wasn't ready to die. Not now, not on the threshold of happiness, of figuring out her life.

A rushing noise filled her ears, crushing her senses and obliterating all coherent thought. And then there was nothing left but darkness....

* * *

Consciousness drifted back. Her bruised body ached, and her mouth was dry. She was strapped upright into a seat. Voices filtered through her drugged haze, and in the background, engines rumbled. They were taking her off-planet. She tried to get up, but her wrists were bound. So were her ankles. Pear-laced panic dampened her relief at discovering she was still alive, and a sob escaped her—more to protest her utter helplessness than to broadcast her fear. The voices became louder, closer, more agitated. Someone wedged a tablet under her tongue and it snuffed out the light.

* * *

When she woke again, her head had cleared. Although her insides felt strangely empty, considering how brutally Beela's assistants had handled her, nothing hurt. Regardless, she'd best play dead—or whatever state she was supposed to be in—until she understood into what kind of danger she'd stumbled. After being kidnapped, drugged, and transported somewhere, she cringed, thinking of what might happen next.

She kept her eyes closed and attempted to use her senses to investigate her surroundings, as Rom had shown her in the Bajha game. The air circulating around her was cool and dry. She was inside somewhere, sitting upright and untied in a comfortable chair. Whatever she was wearing barely covered her buttocks, because she felt the silken cushion between her bare thighs, which meant—
oh, God—
that someone had removed her bra and panties.

She fought her rising panic. She heard a rustle of fabric, a breath. Apprehension trilled through her. Her stomach tightened with a surge of adrenaline, and her eyelids twitched.

"Ah, she awakens," said a man's raspy voice. Cool, dry fingertips brushed over her cheek. Jas recoiled at the unnerving sensation, then opened her eyes.

An older man crouched in front of her. A shimmering bronze tunic stretched across his broad shoulders, matching the flecks in his yellow-gold eyes. He was amber-skinned and blond, and handsome to the point of being artificial. Coupled with his soft, magnetic smile and hypnotizing eyes, it made him the most charismatic man she'd ever seen. It was just the two of them in a room that was, at most, twenty by twenty feet. Besides the cushion she sat on and the silken rug beneath her bare feet, there were no furnishings, no windows.

And no door.

Terror gripped her. "Where am I?"

"Brevdah Three." An odd rumble marred his rich voice. "Don't be alarmed. You're safe here, my treasure," he said, contemplating her with an insolent air of possession. "My lovely black-haired
gift."

For the thousandth time since leaving Earth, she wished she'd bleached her hair blond. "Listen, I don't know what kind of arrangement you made with Beela, but it's not going to work." Just her luck the woman was a slave broker, and now this creep thought he owned her. "I'm from Earth."

"So I'm told."

"Keeping me here is in violation of the Treatise of Trade."

His smile dimmed. "The Treatise of Trade: ramblings of power-hungry soldier-merchants. Worth little more than the paper it is written on."

She lowered her voice. "Just let me go, and I'll keep things quiet. We'll call it a misunderstanding, all right?" Tugging her embarrassingly short tunic lower on her thighs, she stood. "I'd like my things, please. And my comm call, too. I'll make my own shuttle arrangements back to the Depot, thank you."

"Sit!" He grabbed her wrists, forcing her down.

Terror exploded in white light behind her eyes.

"I do not mean to frighten you," he said.

She nodded, her heart slamming against her ribs.

"It is dangerous for you to be traveling on your own. For your own safety you must obey me."

She took a shuddering breath. His tone, his expression, implored her to trust him. She wanted to—Lord, how she wanted to. But something was missing in his gaze, a quality she was used to seeing in others but could not define. Its absence left her cold. Eyes like this man's would make the devil whimper. "Who are you?"

He appeared genuinely taken aback. "You honestly don't know, do you?"

She regarded him sullenly.

He sighed. "It does not surprise me. You hail from a remote, barbaric frontier world. You would not have been introduced to my teachings. Trillions look to me for guidance." He began to rock slowly back and forth. He was an odd sight, kneeling before her, his beautiful tunic casting bronze sparks on the marble-smooth white walls. "I am the savior," he intoned. "The savior. I am Sharron."

Startled, she blinked. "Sharron's dead."

The man lifted his chin, revealing a crooked, puckered scar on his throat. His raspy chuckle was low and rich, and it went on a few uncomfortable seconds longer than what seemed normal. "I am very much alive, wouldn't you agree? It is my would-be assassin who is as good as dead."

He meant Rom. How dared he assume he was a broken man?

"I know who you are," she said in a sneer, her voice quavering with repressed rage. "I know about the war you started. And the people you killed."
How
she knew, she kept to herself. If she revealed her relationship with Rom, it might place him in danger, and she'd be damned if she'd allow this monster to attack him again. "The
Vash
put women on pedestals. But you see them as breeding machines. You choose which women bear children, and with whom."

"Analytical procreation," he replied. "To give society strength and purpose. It is not all that different from any other culture."

Her voice was flat, cold. "I'll never submit to you."

Shan-on snatched the heavy medallion she hadn't realized was draped around her neck. It was identical to Beela's gift. Holding the necklace in one hand, he settled back on his haunches and stroked the disk with his fingertips. Inexplicably, desire flooded her. Unable to block the baffling sensations, she went rigid.

"You feel it," he said in a rich, husky whisper.

Jas made a small sound of dismay.

"You feel
me,"
he murmured. "Do not deny it. We

are intertwined, you and I. Our souls have known each other—have desired each other, have
sought
each other— since the birth of time."

She shook her head. He raised one pale brow. "Tell me, then, why did you leave your frontier world, Earth?"

She gritted her teeth against the heat pooling low in her belly. "I don't know."

"Ah, but I think you do." He smiled his enigmatic smile. "You came here in search of something, didn't you? A quest to find, and define, what was missing in your life."

She froze.

"You were empty, all used up, dissatisfied, but not understanding why. All you knew was that you were missing something, your other half... me."

Jas tried to rail against his suggestions, but her words drained away before they streamed from her mind to her mouth.

"And so you journeyed to the stars because
I
called to you," he continued softly. "Because I needed you."

Nausea and disbelief clogged her throat. She swallowed hard to fight the tears stinging her eyes. He
couldn't
be why she'd left home.

Or was he?

No.
It was a trick even the most amateur palm reader knew: making guesses about her past and then using her reactions to fine-tune them. But somehow the medallion was aiding him, and that frightened her. Frantically she tried to conjure Rom's face, but all she saw was her handsome captor.

Sharron.

Doubt swamped her.

"With me, my treasure, you are complete." He leaned toward her. Her lips parted of their own accord. She moaned softly, stiffening when he brushed his mouth over hers. "You resist me," he rasped, his breath warm against her. "Your will is strong." Abruptly he let the necklace fall between her breasts. The fuzziness lifted from her mind, along with her disturbing, contradictory feelings.

"I must dissolve that will so that it does not keep us apart," he muttered as if to himself. "Yes, the purification shall commence. By the second moon's rise, you will be ready. Then you will welcome my seed and we shall bring the galaxy to a new day. A new beginning."

Her face heated with anger. "Is that what you call murdering women in your cult after they give birth?"

In the space of a heartbeat, he grabbed the medallion she wore and yanked her face close to his. His feline eyes narrowed into ocher slits. "I don't murder them. I give them
life.
Eternal life."

To her horror, his indignation flowed into her. Her muscles refused to heed her urgency to push him away, while his thoughts mingled with hers, like tendrils of toxic smoke. She wanted to gag. His mind was fragile, diseased, yet keenly intelligent, humming with a predator's single-minded purpose. She recoiled from its coldness, its utter absence of compassion.

"It is what I shall give you, my treasure," he whispered against her lips, caressing the medallion, his knuckles grazing her breast. "Eternal life. You will be delivered to the galaxy's beating heart, secured to an extraordinary and unjustly maligned little innovation called an antimatter bomb, and once there you will bring us
all
to the new day."

Almost reverently, he brushed the back of his hand

over her cheek. "Let the purification begin!" he called to the far wall. The marblelike surface wavered like a sheet drying in the wind; then it split, revealing a darkened hallway outside.

Sharron's cloak swirled around him as he strode to the rippling opening and stepped through. The wall snapped shut behind him, as featureless as it was before.