The Star Prince

The Star Prince

Susan Grant

Book #2 of “The Star King” series

FOR HIRE

"How do I know you're really a starship captain— that you're hiring me to fly, and not"— Tee blushed furiously— "for sex?" She waved her gun at him, and he resisted the potent urge to cover his privates. Never in his life had he seen anything like this pistol-toting pixie, her chin jutting out, her eyes accusing him of unspeakable perversions.

Think fast, he told himself. Act like a seasoned space veteran, not a guy four years out of Arizona State. "Now that you bring it up, how do I know you're really a pilot? For all I know, you're just another good-for-nothing drifter, lying your way aboard my ship for the chance at a hot meal and a clean bunk. However, I need a pilot and you need a job. We have no choice but to trust each other. But if that isn't going to be a possibility, Tee, let me know now— because that's the only way it's going to work."

She peered at the row of shops and sleazy bars, doubt saturating her features, then she shifted her attention back to him. In her eyes sparked a glimmer of wonder— the look she'd given him when they first met. He tamped down on the unexpected rush of pleasure he found in that gaze. "So," he prompted, "what will it be?"

She stowed her pistol. "It appears I will trust you, Earth-dweller."

"Good. And just so there's no misunderstanding about my personal life"— he caught her by the arm, bringing his mouth close to one perfectly formed little ear— "when I want sex, I don't have to buy it."

Other Love Spell books by Susan Grant:

THE STAR KING

ONCE A PIRATE

THE

STAR

PRINCE

Susan

Grant

LOVE SPELL

NEW YORK CITY

A LOVE SPELL BOOK®

November, 2001

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

276 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 1001

Copyright © 2001 by Susan Grant Gunning

Cover art by John Ennis www.ennisart.com

ISBN 0-505-52457-0

The name "Love Spell" and its logo are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.

For my critique partner Theresa Ragan, who squeezed my hand throughout the entire, mostly excruciating, birth of this book. Thank you for being there every step of the way. You are a talented writer with a giving, generous soul and you deserve all the success that comes your way.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, I owe much to many wonderful people: Chris Keeslar and everyone at Dorchester Publishing, cover artist John Ennis, Romance Writers of America, Laurie Gold, Carolyn Stahl, Laura Novak, Pamela Fryer, the Lollies, Catherine Asaro, the paranormal romance listserve, the staff at Harley Davidson motorcycles in Rocklin, California, Joey Febres, West Coast Taekwondo, Jesse Crowder, Susan Wiggs, Chris and Carolyn Gilson, every one of my treasured readers, and last but never least, my children Connor and Courtney, who make it all worthwhile. Thank you all.

THE

STAR

PRINCE

Chapter One

"He's not drunk, Captain; he's dead."

"Yeah, yeah. We found him like this last week— and the week before. He's no more dead now than he was then." Ian Hamilton pushed past his mechanic and the stragglers milling around the bar. His pilot— his only pilot, and the third he'd hired since taking command of the Sun Devil— was slumped forward. Not surprisingly, Carn still occupied the perch he'd chosen the night before, when Ian had joined him and the rest of the crew for what was— for Ian— a rare drink. Now blotches of early-morning sunlight spread over the pilot's uniform and the gritty floor, heating the already muggy air.

Ian dragged his arm across his forehead as he pushed toward the bar. The unrelenting tropical weather was another reason in a long list of why Donavan's Blunder, although a bustling crossroads, was arguably the sorriest stopover in the frontier. No worthless lump of space scum was going to keep him here an extra day.

"Move back," he growled irritably at the onlookers pressing in on him from all sides. His eyes must have indicated how close he was to the edge of wringing someone's neck, because no one could stumble backward fast enough.

Ian grabbed Carn's thick shoulders and gave the man a hard shake. "You've overstayed your shore leave, Mr. Carn. Get up." But the pilot's forehead remained on the greasy table, his motionless fingers clamped around an empty shot glass. "Move your sorry butt— now— or you're relieved of duty."

Judging by the grumbling of the crowd, firing the drunk was a worthy threat, one expected of a star-ship captain. "Any of you happen to know how to fly?" he asked. A chorus of apologetic murmurs gave him the answer he expected. Starpilots were scarce in the frontier.

Ian exchanged glances with Quin, the stocky young mechanic who had dragged him off the Sun Devil. Quin gave him an I-knew-this-would-happen frown. Their original pilot had drunk himself into oblivion as soon as they arrived in the frontier, the farthest and barely civilized reaches of the galaxy. Ian had sent him home. Unfortunately, the next pilot he hired turned out to be an alcoholic, too. Now pilot number three was following in the others' wobbly footsteps.

But, unreliable or not, he needed Carn. There wasn't time to hunt for another pilot. When the king of the galaxy sent you, an Earth guy, on a mission, the outcome of which was possibly critical to the future of the galaxy, you kept on schedule and finished the job. Especially when that king was your stepfather— a concept Ian doubted he would ever take for granted.

Rom B'kah was a king of kings, the hero ruler of the conservative, staunchly pacifistic Vash Nadah, and not even his tradition defying seven-year-old marriage to Ian's mother, Jas, had diminished him in his people's eyes.

Ian suspected that the driving reason behind the Vash's acceptance of the marriage was the fact that their beloved king was sterile. The most advanced medical intervention hadn't been able to reverse the effects of radiation poisoning that Rom had suffered during space combat many years ago, and so there was no need to worry about potentially unsuitable heirs produced with a non-Vash wife. Or so the Vash had thought.

Rom had broken tradition again, however. He'd chosen Ian as heir— over several eager, genetically qualified young princes in line for the throne— and the decision had left more than a few galactic royals unhappy. "By blood and ability, no Earth dweller has the right being crown prince," some whispered in the halls of the Great Council. All they'd need for proof was word that Ian had gotten himself stuck on Donavan's blunder, marooned by a sloshed, judgment-challenged boozer.

"Sober him up," he ordered Quin. "Nothing short of a gallon of tock poured down his throat is going to get him back to the ship."

"It'll take more than that, sir." Quin grabbed a fistful of Carn's blond hair and tipped his head back.

Ian winced. The pilot's face was puffy and tinged a decidedly unheathy blue. His brownish gold eyes were glazed and unseeing, and spittle leaked from the corner of his mouth, which was still curled into the idiotic grin he'd been wearing when Ian left him and the rest of the crew last night.

Ian drove the fingers of both hands through his hair. "Beautiful, just beautiful." His starpilot had drunk himself to death.

He tossed two credits to the bartender. "Call someone about the body. And you might as well put the word out; the Sun Devil needs a pilot, a qualified one."

It dismayed him how quickly frustration blunted his pity for Carn, but now wasn't the time for soul searching. After an Earth month in the frontier, he'd met with a year's worth of setbacks— ship malfunctions and pilot problems. They weren't accidents. His neck tingled. His years spent submerged in the Vash culture had taught him to trust his senses, and that instinct now warned him that someone wanted to thwart his mission.

"Tie up the loose ends and return to the ship." he told Quin before shoving outside, past the canvas flap that served as a door.

Steamy heat throbbed up from the pavement in the still-deserted marketplace. A poor excuse for a breeze stirred up the odors of stale liquor and urine. Action started late on this disreputable planet and went on all night. Now, most of the inhabitants were either sleeping in their bunks aboard hundreds of trader vessels docked near the outskirts of the city. Or they were in the bed of a pleasure servant: a woman specially trained and authorized to sell her body for sex.

Ian hoped everyone was enjoying themselves, because his life lately made the average monk look like a party animal. He had become the consummate prince; his behavior was impeccable, his adherence to Vash ways beyond reproach. It was the only way to earn the honor his stepfather had bestowed upon him.

He'd studied galactic history and Vash religion until he could quote passages from the Treatise of Trade as confidently as most members of the Great Council. Slowly, he was gaining the respect and trust of the tradition-loving Vash; although the recent troubles at home could very well drag him back to square one.

Since first contact, public opinion polls on Earth had consistently showed high approval ratings for the Vash. Earth liked being part of an intergalactic Trade Federation. But not anymore, apparently, thanks to U.S. Senator Charlie Randall's "Earth First" crusade. The campaign's central theme that Earth was better off as a sovereign planet was attracting followers like a magnet dragged through iron shavings.

"The Vash Federation is woven like an ancient quilt," Rom had once told Ian, "a tight center and tattered edges. If the fringe unravels, we will fall apart.'

Ian truly believed in his stepfather's conviction that peace depended on a strong, benevolent galaxy-wide government. If Earth pulled out of the Federation, the move might entice other frontier worlds to do the same, setting off a dangerous chain reaction and undermining the stability of the entire galaxy. Yet, that view was, and would always be, tempered by loyalty to his home planet. He wanted what was best for Earth. He wanted to continue his stepfather's legacy and keep the galaxy at peace. Somehow, he had to bridge his two worlds without sacrificing the needs of either.

Which is why, when Rom asked him to go to the frontier and see if the unrest had spread, he'd grabbed hold of the chance. In exchange for the answers he promised to bring back, Rom had given him the Sun Devil, a crew of loyal, experienced, merchant-class spacefarers, and his own valued bodyguard. But the mission was more to Ian than a covert scouting foray, more than a way to prove himself to the skeptical Vash; this was his chance to demonstrate his worth to Rom, a man he'd come to admire— and love, in many ways— more than his own father.

Only, so for, things were not going well.

Ian put on his Ray Bans, brushed his hand over the laser pistol in his holster, and started back to the Sun Devil to mull over his latest fiasco.

"Captain!" Halfway across the plaza Rom's bodyguard intercepted him, an incongruously named, six-foot-eight hulk of rippling muscle. "Muffin is an old-fashioned name," the big man always explained patiently, if a little defensively, to English speakers like Ian, insisting that "Muffin" personified the essence of rugged masculinity on his homeworld, not a sugary breakfast treat.

"I guess you heard about Carn," Ian said.

"If you can't die a warrior, you might as well die happy."

Ian managed a smile. "True." He appreciated Muffin's tactful attempt to lift his spirits. Although Carn had been a pain in the rear, he had been a member of their small crew, and they'd all feel his passing. "Did he have a family?"

"None that he mentioned. I don't think anyone will miss the guy."

Except me, Ian thought wryly. A rookie space captain marooned on a remote frontier outpost with a cantankerous crew, one of the finest ships in the galaxy— and no one to fly her.

A backdrop of stars whirled slowly behind a wheel of ruby, emerald, and platinum. Distance made the bejeweled disk appear as tiny as a child's toy, but the structure was as large and populous as a city.

"Rotation synchronized," Tee'ah Dar stated when the spin of the cargo freighter she piloted matched that of the space station ahead.

As expected, Mistraal Control issued final approach instructions via the comm. "Cleared to dock, Prosper. Bay Alpha-eight."

"Copy. Alpha-eight." Tee'ah's hands tightened around the control yoke. You were born for this, her thoughts sang out.

If she were truly the pious princess she was raised to be, the dutiful daughter her parents thought she was, she'd be in bed, sleeping. But with her hands wrapped around the controls of a cargo freighter, she wasn't the king's sweet and sheltered daughter; she was six hundred million standard tons of lightspeed-strong, molecular-hardened alloy, screaming toward a docking bay that looked too small to hold her. In her imagination, her breaths hissed with hydraulics, her heartbeat with mechanical whirs and clicks. She was the gargantuan starship she piloted, her nearly impenetrable trillidium skin shielding a crew of thirty, ten of whom looked on with experience-forged scrutiny as she decelerated the Prosper, gliding it into its assigned bay.

There was a gentle rumbling of metal sliding over cushioned guards, and a muffled, soul-satisfying thunk as the great ship settled into place. Soundlessly the bay's external hatches closed, sealing and pressurizing the compartment where the ship now rested from the vacuum of space. Yes.

The crew applauded, and for once she allowed the warmth of pride to flood her. Docking the ship on her own was an achievement symbolizing the culmination of a year's worth of clandestine visits to the Prosper, a ship used to haul goods between the moon-based mining stations and her home planet, Mistraal, one of the eight Vash Nadah homeworlds. Sure, Captain Riss had greeted her request for flying lessons with polite incredulity, particularly after she'd beseeched him to keep her identity a secret— she was a royal woman, after all, and the Dars' only daughter. But once she proved she had the talent to be an intersystem cargo pilot, hard work earned her a coveted pair of pilot wings and a crew's respect, a regard infinitely more satisfying than that given to a cloistered Vash Nadah princess.