Jerred's Price (5 page)

Jerred’s Price

Imperial princess. It was the only thing that could explain the cash he could throw around. Hopefully the criminal wouldn’t get caught while she was still on board, she thought sourly. She came to the end of the corridor, and started making her way back up toward her room. The ship had several crew cabins, and she suspected she’d been given the smallest, least comfortable one.

At least it was better than sharing with him, she reminded herself wryly. She ambled back up the other direction, discovering a small galley, an eating area, a living area and, to her surprise, a library. A real library, with what appeared to be thousands of datatabs and vids. She scanned them quickly, noting he had far more than the porn she’d found in his room.

The man appeared to be educated. In fact, far more educated than she was. Half the tabs were in languages she didn’t even recognize. What the hell kind of smuggler was he, anyway?

“You’re free to borrow any of the titles,” he said, and she squawked. She whirled on him, speaking without thinking.

“Why the hell did you do that?’ she demanded. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”

He gave her a chilly smile. “You shouldn’t poke around in places on a ship that you haven’t been invited into.”

“Why, afraid I’ll discover some of your goods are smuggled?” she asked acidly.

“Perhaps prohibited?”

“No, afraid you’ll accidentally stumble into an airlock while I’m running compression checks,” he replied smoothly. “It’s a terrible way to die.”

Her anger suddenly faded and reality washed over her in a rush. She was utterly dependent upon this man for survival. It didn’t matter that he was smuggling—staying alive was what counted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to sound genuinely contrite. “I wasn’t trying to pry, I was just exploring.”

“I know,” he said. “I watched you from the cockpit.”

She stilled. It hadn’t occurred to her that he had video access to the ship, but of course he did. It only made sense.

“I suppose you have my room bugged, too?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he replied, turning to walk out of the small library. She followed, unsure of herself. She didn’t really want to be near him, but she didn’t like the idea of him watching her from afar, either.

“I’m going to fix us some dinner,” he said. “Do you have any preferences?”

She gave a nervous laugh, and then nodded her head. When in doubt, make a joke.

It always worked on her bar customers. She wracked her brain, coming up with the most exotic dish she could imagine.

“I don’t suppose you have roasted
kvana
with Beloni herbs?”

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Joanna Wylde

He smiled, and the tension between them broke.

“Naturally,” he said. “I’ve just gotten back from the Emperor’s summer palace on Beloni, where we hunted
kvana
.”

She smiled back at him, feeling more comfortable now that the tension was broken.

“I don’t suppose you have some of his Imperial Majesty’s private reserve wine to go with it, then?”

“Well, naturally,” he said. “What well-equipped smuggler doesn’t?”

For the first time since she’d met him, he seemed almost playful. The hard façade had dropped, at least for the moment, leaving behind a surprising nice looking man.

Even his scar seemed less menacing.

“So, are you going to prepare this wonderful meal for me?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You may be surprised to discover this, but I’m actually quite a cook.”

“Forgive me if I’m doubtful,” she replied pertly. “You just don’t seem like the cooking type to me.”

“Well, you don’t really know me very well, do you?” he replied. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I’ll get started on dinner.”

* * * * *

He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she saw dinner. He didn’t allow himself to consider why he cared so much. Moving efficiently, he placed a last few sprinkles of fresh herbs over the glazed
kvana
, then placed both warm plates in the stasis box. The first course was already prepared—thin slices of toasted bread topped with grilled Gnoscan mushrooms in a light vinaigrette sauce, and still-crisp steamed vegetables. A meal fit for an emperor, he thought wryly.

He poured wine into two gracefully sculpted crystal goblets, carrying them over to the small table. Things were almost perfect. He brought over the plates with the grilled mushrooms and arranged them, and then spoke quietly to the ship’s computer.

“Jenna, please turn on the dining program.”

Instantly the utilitarian colors of the walls shifted. Light, lovely patterns reminiscent of natural wood appeared on the walls, and a window seemed to open along the table.

The view was of a tropical garden, swirling with colors. A soft chirping filled the room.

This garden always seemed to soothe him. He hoped it would work for Giselle. He didn’t like the tension between them. However badly they’d started out, it was time to make peace. There was no need for their time together to be unpleasant.

“Dinner is served,” he said as he walked out into the main room. She looked up from the vid she was watching, and smiled at him. She must have taken a shower, because she seemed to glow at him with health and cleanliness. Her face was bare of the 30

Jerred’s Price

dreadful cosmetics, and the freckles dotting her nose made her appear charmingly youthful, although he knew she was a woman grown. She wore one of the simple jumpsuits he’d purchased for her on the station. Plain as it was, it still showed her figure to advantage.

“Dinner is ready,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and asked, “Do I have a choice?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “You do. But I really hope you choose to eat with me, because I put considerable work into preparing dinner.”

She laughed, and then shook her head. Her wild riot of reddish curls bounced, then she stood up.

“Then I would be honored to join you,” she said.

He let her walk before him into the room, savoring the small sigh of appreciation she gave when she saw what he’d done.

“Jerred, this is amazing,” she said slowly, turning to face him. “It’s just like some kind of fancy restaurant!”

“Well, I figured that if we were going to eat the Emperor’s
kvana
, we should do it right. Of course, I don’t have servants to wash our hands for us, and I’ll have to bring out each course…”

She burst out laughing again, and sat down. He sat across from her, watching her face as she took a sip of the wine. Her eyes closed and she moaned in appreciation.

“What is this?” she muttered. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. It’s amazing.”

“It’s the Emperor’s private reserve,” he said. Her eyes opened, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

“It’s good, but it isn’t
that
good,” she said.

“Really?” he asked, lifting his glass and taking a sip for himself. His taste buds were overwhelmed with a symphony of tastes. It stole across him like a ray of moonlight, and he almost felt the coolness of an evening breeze along an ocean. The taste was rich and full, and as it matured in his mouth he could feel sparkles of sensation washing down along his spine. His loins tightened in response, and he felt himself harden slightly. He opened his eyes.

“I think you should take another sip,” he said, meeting her gaze. “It really is good.”

She took another sip, and her eyes closed again.

She didn’t moan this time, but a becomingly pink flush stole across her face, and her breath quickened.

“Okay, it is pretty good,” she sad, opening her eyes and giving him a sheepish look.

“What is this stuff, anyway? It’s not like any wine I’ve ever tasted.”

“I told you,” he said softly. “It’s the Emperor’s private reserve. It’s made by a group of monks sworn to the Goddess, and the last five hundred years they’ve only produced 31

Joanna Wylde

a thousand bottles a year. The emperor has first bid on it, of course. Some say it’s an aphrodisiac.”

“So how did you get it?” she demanded.

“That’s my little secret,” he replied with a smile. “Why don’t you try your food?”

She looked at him a moment longer, suspicion in her eyes. He could tell she didn’t believe him about the wine, which made it all the more fun to see the surprise in her face when she took another sip.

She reached down, and hesitantly cut into the mushroom. He followed suit, careful to watch her face as she took a bite.

“Oh, Goddess,” she said. “This is almost melting in my mouth. Where did you get these? They don’t taste like they’ve been in storage at all, but I know you didn’t buy them at on Transit Three. And we’re a long way from Gnoscanny.”

Now she had surprised him.

“You’ve had Gnoscan mushrooms before?” he asked. “Not many people have.”

She nodded and turned away for a second. Then she turned back to him and took a generous gulp of her wine. It didn’t hit her as hard this time, but she flushed and stayed silent for a moment.

“I can see how a person could get addicted to this stuff,” she said slowly. “It really has a way of making you feel better about things. I used to have Gnoscan mushrooms all the time. I grew them myself.”

“Really?” he asked, startled. “It takes a pretty sophisticated biosphere set up to grow them. No offense, but I have trouble seeing how you could afford something like that on a waitress’ income.”

She shook her head and laughed, but this time the sound came out bitter.

“They grow wild on Hector Prime,” she said, her face growing wistful. “I used to live there. I had my own bar, actually. Of course, it’s gone now.”

He nodded his head slowly, remembering. Hector Prime’s surface had been destroyed by Imperials several months after the cease-fire. They’d claimed it had been an intelligence error, a mistake of planet-wide magnitude. Millions had died, including the cream of the Imperial academic community specializing in biology.

“You’re Saurellian, aren’t you?” she asked. “I haven’t met many of your kind, but I think I recognized the facial features. Or kind of recognize them. It’s hard to tell with your scar, but the coloring is right.”

“Yes,” he replied, not quire sure where she was going with this. “I’m Saurellian. I remember when your planet was destroyed. I’m so sorry—did you lose family?”

“No,” she said slowly. “But I lost friends. And employees. I just happened to be off planet, meeting with a supplier on one of the moons. It was a fluke. Two hours earlier or two hours later and I would have been dead. Tell me something?”

He nodded, wishing he hadn’t asked. There was pain written all over her lovely face, and it hurt in him a way he never would have thought possible.

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Jerred’s Price

“Why didn’t your government do anything?” she asked, her voice anguished. “We were in the neutral zone. We were supposed to be protected. Why didn’t you do anything when they broke the truce and killed us?”

“We couldn’t,” he said slowly. “We had to pretend to believe their excuses, otherwise the war would have started again. We couldn’t afford to let that happen. Too many people had died already.”

“They killed our planet because they heard you had a secret base there, or at least that’s what I heard,” she said softly. “Well, one of the things I heard. Can you tell me if it was true?”

He closed his eyes, and shook his head. Damn Nicolai. It had been wrong to hide their resources among a neutral civilian population—it broke all the rules of war. But Nicolai had insisted that following those rules was no way to win, and he’d been right.

The war with the Imperials had almost destroyed them. He sighed, and then opened his eyes.

“There was no base—” he started to say, but the pain in her face was so open, so raw, that he couldn’t finish. He took another drink of the wine, but now it tasted more like water to him. Foul water, the kind that couldn’t quench a man’s thirst.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that we had a base there,” he said slowly. “But I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“You prick,” she whispered. She stood up slowly from the table. “You killed all of them, you and your fucking war. We were neutral—the entire planet was a damn
ecological
preserve. The people who died were students and teachers! What gave you the right to do that to us?”

He shook his head slowly, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t the time for an argument on the importance of checking Imperial power, or the fact that the Imperial rebels had asked his people for help long before the war started.

“I know we have a deal,” she hissed. “I know I have to fuck you. I’ll do it here and now if you want. But I’ll be damned if I’ll eat with you. Enjoy your wine alone.”

She turned and stalked out of galley with a dignity so frail it pained him to watch her.

33

Joanna Wylde

Chapter Five

Giselle sat on her bunk, legs curled up to her chest, hugging herself. Damn him, why did he have to make her think of Hector Prime? She’d put it out of her head for months, almost a year. Why did he have to bring it all back?

She knew in her heart that whatever his flaws, he probably wasn’t personally responsible for the Saurellians’ decision to breach Hector Prime’s neutrality. But that didn’t make it any easier to deal with the memory of her lost friends and dreams.

Men and their wars. They were to blame for all of this, and he was one of them. His scar hadn’t come from natural causes; that was no birthmark. He’d gotten it fighting, and even if he’d never set foot on Hector Prime, he’d caused destruction somewhere else.

It was always the women and the children who paid for men’s wars.

She sat and sniffled for a while, allowing herself to wallow and feel sorry for herself. It wasn’t like she did it that often. When she’d lost her home and her business, she’d immediately gone out and gotten a job. And when a better opportunity came along to go to Transit Three, she’d taken that. She knew how to work, how to take care of herself. She’d done it before and she’d do it again. But just once, it would be nice to lay back and mourn all she’d lost.

Even now he was probably watching her. Even though the light was off, it was a good bet that there were infrared lenses on the spy cameras he had everywhere.

Defiantly, she raised one finger in a universally hostile gesture and waved it up at him, letting him know just what she thought of him and his fellow Saurellians.

All too soon, her pragmatic nature took over. She was trapped on this ship with him, and if she wanted to get away she would need to establish some kind of bond with the bastard. She’d already agreed to have sex with him. Hell, it wasn’t as if he didn’t attract her, at least on a physical level. Slowly, she stood and turned on the light. There was a small mirror on the back of the door; it reflected a face red and puffy with tears.

She scowled at her reflection, disgusted with her coloring. Why did she always have to look blotchy when she cried? It wasn’t fair.

Of course, better blotchy than dead, she reminded herself. It was more than her friends on Hector Prime had going for them, and more than she would have had if she hadn’t escaped Transit Three. No matter how mean Jerred might be, she didn’t doubt for one moment that the station guards would have been meaner.

She opened the door, intent on going to the fresher to wash her face. He was there, sitting on the floor in the corridor looking up at her. His face was cool and hard, no trace of emotion in sight, but he stood quickly and reached for her. She shot him a look of pure ice, and he pulled his hands back, and tucking them behind his back.

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Jerred’s Price

“Are you all right?” he asked stiffly. “I regret the harm my people did to you and your friends. I wanted to give you a nice dinner, to try and make some sort of peace with you. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“It’s all right,” she said, feeling tired. “You didn’t know. Can you please answer one question for me, though? Were you on Hector Prime? Were you one of them?”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it, although that hardly makes a difference at this point. They’re still dead.”

“A lot of people are dead,” she replied, sighing heavily. “I guess we need to blame the Emperor and the Saurellian Council for that. You aren’t on the Council, are you?”

she asked suspiciously.

“No, I have nothing to do with them,” he replied, startled. That emotionless mask slipped for a moment, and she had a burst of insight. He used that combination of emotional blankness and his scarring to hide himself from everyone around him. How interesting… And effective. She never would have guessed there was a man capable of compassion within him, but there was no faking his concern. He cared that he had hurt her.

“Would you like to finish dinner?” she asked softly. “If the Saurellians and the Imperials can manage to hold a truce, shouldn’t we be able to?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “May I escort you to the galley?”

He held out one arm gallantly, as if they were in a vid about the Imperial Court. She reached out and took it. When he seated her this time, the mushroom dish was gone.

The wine was still there, however, and within moments he placed a plate of something covered in a thin, speckled glaze.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s
kvana
, in a Beloni pepper glaze,” he said slowly. “It’s kind of my specialty. At least, when I can get the
kvana.
”

She shook her head, wondering how he’d gotten
kvana
. Then she took a bite. The meat was tender, flavorful without being too strong—perfectly balanced by the sweet glaze. After a moment her tongue began to burn, and she took a sip of the wine to cool it off. The strange shiver of sensation it caused wasn’t unexpected this time, but it was still startling. The stuff seemed to go straight down between her legs. She looked at him speculatively, wondering if it was doing the same thing to him.

He really was quite an attractive man.

They ate dinner slowly, keeping their conversation light. When they were done with the
kvana,
he brought her a small cup of flavored ice, to “cleanse her palate.” She was on her third glass of wine by that time, and feeling more than a little silly when he followed the ices with a platter of greens, cheeses and fruits, many of which she had never seen before.

He also opened a new bottle of wine, this one much lighter and fruitier.

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Joanna Wylde

“So, where did you learn to cook like this?’ she asked as they moved slowly out of the galley into the living area. At some point he had turned the garden program on in there, too, because they were still surrounded by the soothingly natural sights and sounds. Now, though, the lights had dimmed, as if to simulate evening.

“I learned to cook from my parents’ cook,” he said as they sat down on the low couch. “She was an amazing woman, a refugee from the Imperial Court. She loved exotic foods.”

“Where did you grow up that you could get stuff like this?” she asked. “I thought Saurellia was pretty out of the way, kinda primitive.”

He burst out laughing. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around her. She snuggled into his warmth. It was amazing how nice he could be when he wasn’t actually going out of his way to be an ass, she thought drowsily.

“We are a bit isolated,” he said finally. “But I hardly think that we’re backward.

Saurellian customs and lifestyles tend to be simpler than Imperial customs, but that’s not a bad thing. For example, we don’t have to keep billions of slaves to support us. I may be crazy, but I find that to be rather civilized of us.”

“Well, you’ve got a point there,” she said softly. “Although I’ve never lived anywhere that had many slaves.”

“Really?” he asked. “What about Transit Three? Did you know that nearly 30

percent of the population there is slave?”

“What?” she asked, startled. “Where are they all?”

“Most of them live on the lower levels,” he said softly. “They’re the ones who provide the ‘transit’ of cargoes. Just out of curiosity, do you know what you friend Vetch does for a living?”

She sat up and looked at him.

“He runs cargo,” she said.

“What kind of cargo?”

“All kinds,” she replied, confused. “It just depends on where the money is.”

“Often, the money is in slaves,” he said. “They generally ship them with an assumed mortality rate of twenty-five percent. On his last run, Vetch lost thirty percent because one of his heat exchangers blew out. He still made a profit, though. In fact, he left some of it behind for you as a tip.”

She sat back, feeling sick. “I didn’t know that,” she said finally.

“Most Imperial citizens don’t,” he replied. “Of course, the Empire hardly goes out of their way to publicize it, but slavery is the backbone of their economy.”

“What about Saurellia?” she asked. “What’s the backbone of your economy?”

“Some would say fighting,” he said slowly. “At least for men like me. Almost all of us leave home to work as mercenaries sooner or later. But very few Saurellians hold slaves.”

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Jerred’s Price

“It is illegal?”

“On Saurellia it is,” he said. “But it’s just one planet within the federation. There are hundreds of others where slavery is legal. We do have economic sanctions in place to discourage it, though.”

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the slaves.”

“This isn’t going well, is it?” he asked finally. “I really don’t want to fight with you anymore, Giselle.”

“Why not?” she asked softly. “Honestly, why should you care? You have complete power over me—I’ve agreed to do whatever you want. Wasn’t that the plan?”

He fell silent for a moment, and then spoke again.

“Yes, that was the plan.”

“So why all the worry?” she asked softly.

“Because I don’t want to fight with you,” he said simply. “I don’t want to force you, either. When I thought you were a whore, I thought I could just pay you and everything would be all right. But I know now that you aren’t a whore, and to be honest, I’m not sure it would make a difference if you were. It just doesn’t feel right like this.”

“Does this mean you don’t want to have sex with me?’ she asked.

He gave a low, humorless laugh. “No, that’s not what it means.”

He reached over and took her hand in his. For a moment she wondered if he would lay it across his lap, repeating the crude gesture he’d made at Manya’s. But instead it carried it slowly to his mouth, turning it so her palm brushed his lips.

“I find that I just want to be near you,” he said after a moment. He kissed her palm softly, and she could feel the sensation singing down along her nerves. Between her legs there was an answering twinge, as if her body had just been waiting for him to make a move. He kissed her palm again, and then slipped his tongue out just enough to trace one line across her hand.

“It’s amazing to me,” he said. “We came from worlds that are thousands of light years apart, yet we’re made exactly the same. Same hands, same little wrinkles, same desires.”

“It’s why so many people have faith in the Goddess,” she said lightly. “Because no matter the distance between the human worlds, we all stay human. We’re tied together by our genes and our heritage.”

“Are we?” he asked. “I’m not so sure about that sometimes. Saurellians are different than most humans, you know. We can’t mate outside our species.”

She froze, and then carefully pulled her hand back from him.

“What the hell is going on here?” she asked, confused. “Call me crazy, but licking each other’s hands seems sort of like a prelude to mating. I’ve seen you down there, and you looked human enough to me before.”

He laughed, and then pulled her close again.

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Joanna Wylde

“I meant mating to have children,” he said. “I’m sorry, that did sound kind of strange. Saurellians can only mate with other Saurellians, and then only with a life mate. Unfortunately the Goddess hasn’t seen fit to grace us with enough women to match our men. Makes things a bit awkward for people like me.”

“People like you?”

“Men without a life mate,” he said. His mood seemed to change, and he turned to her, looking deeply into her eyes.

“This has been a very serious evening,” he said. “That’s not really what I was looking for. How about you?”

She shook her head, and then laughed a little out of nervousness. He constantly surprised her.

“No, not really,” she said. “But to be honest, I rather suspected we’d just have sex.

We’ve already done more talking than I was anticipating, that’s for sure.”

He stood suddenly and pulled her to her feet.

“Talking isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said. “Let’s dance.”

She looked at him, eyes wide.

“You do realize that you’re an enormous man who looks like a killer and who wears black leather, right?” she asked.

He nodded his head slowly, and then grinned at her. “It’s an image I cultivate,” he said. “Helps me get women. But I can still dance.”

“All right then,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Are we going to have music for this dancing, or are we expected to sing?”

“I think music would be in order,” he replied, eyes sparkling. “Jenna, play us something good. Try the harvest festival recording.”

A swell of lively music burst into the room, and he grabbed her around the waist.

She didn’t know the steps, but after a moment it didn’t seem to matter. He danced her across the room in giant, leaping strides, and she burst out laughing.

“You lied,” she gasped when the song ended. She could hardly catch her breath, and she clung to him, giggling. He looked down at her, smirking.

“How’s that?”

“You said you could dance,” she gasped, and he swung her around.

“Well, I didn’t say I could dance
well
. Jenna, let’s have something slower next.”

A new song welled out from Jenna’s hidden speakers. He pulled her close and they swayed together. Finally, she looked up at him and spoke.

“I think this is the weirdest date I’ve ever had,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied, dropping his head to kiss the tip of her nose. “It’s just my way to trying to make myself memorable.”

“Are you telling me that this is all deliberate, all part of your great plan? Because I don’t believe that for one minute.”

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Jerred’s Price

He winked at her, and then pulled her head back down against his chest. She sighed, and snuggled into his warmth. He was so big, so strong. She could feel the strength in his arms around her. His chest was hard with muscles, but still warm. He smelled good, too. Like leather, and
man
.

“Why do you wear leather?’ she asked quietly. “It’s nice, but it’s not what most spacers wear.”