The Star Prince (19 page)

"Quin's going to wonder where we went," he murmured finally, touching his lips to the tip of her nose.

Softly she laughed. "Let him."

He tightened his arms around her. His kisses turned deep, wet, and hot, the way he longed to make love to her. Her impassioned response nearly spun him into oblivion, almost made him forget all the reasons he shouldn't be with her: they had no hope for a future; she lacked the holy bloodlines required of the proper wife he must marry in order to placate the Vash Nadah council; the rest.

From inside his jeans pocket, the comm crackled.

"Sun Devil to Captain Stone." Muffin's muffled deep voice emanated from somewhere near Ian's crotch, which happened to be nestled deliciously between Tee's thighs.

He pushed up on his arms, and his pants "spoke" again. "Captain, what is your status?"

Their faces inches apart, he and Tee burst into breathless laughter. Then they sat up, brushing torn grass from their clothing.

"Shall we tell him?" Tee asked impishly.

Ian pulled the comm from his pocket and offered it to her. "Go ahead."

"Is that a dare?"

"Interpret it any way you want, pixie."

She grabbed the comm. "This is Tee. Go ahead."

There was a moment of silence, then: "It's been two hours since you two left. Everything under control?"

"Well, it is now." She winked at Ian. "For a while there I wasn't quite sure. But I tweaked the captain and I think he'll be fine now."

Ian gave a bark of laughter.

"Hmm. Sounds like a maintenance problem to me," Muffin said. "I'll give you to Quin."

Without seeing Muffin's face, Ian found it hard to tell if the man was pulling his leg.

Quin came on the comm next. His voice was an octave higher than usual. "What's the problem? Do you need me or Push to come out there?"

"No!"

Ian snatched the comm from her. "Everything's fine. We took the hog out for a spin and went farther than I'd planned." To his amusement, Tee blushed. "We're headed to the market now. Give us a standard hour. Captain Stone out."

They stood, brushing themselves off as they walked back to the Harley. There Ian pocketed the comm. "I can't believe you said that." Her face fell. "Ah! What was I thinking?'' "Tee, I was only teasing. I thought it was funny." "Oh." She lowered her hands and managed an embarras&ed smile. "All my life I've been told I'm too brash, and too forward. So, I assumed— " She shrugged. "Well, I do ramble on sometimes." "Hey. I happen to like your 'rambling.' " Her eyes glittered. With happiness? With tears? Before he could decipher her strangely emotional re-action to his simple comment, she folded her arms atop her head and turned in a slow circle, her face tilted into the sunshine. "Oh, Ian. The ride… this… it's wonderful." She lowered her arms, sighing in pure pleasure. "I never really felt part of the events and people around me. I thought I must be defective in some way, because I felt as if I were living my life inside a bubble. But not anymore." Her mouth twisted in a slow, shy smile. "Did you ever just dare yourself to leave behind what was safe and familiar, so you could finally experience what it was like to be alive— crazily, utterly alive?" Her voice faltered and became husky. "Then did you ever get so frightened by what you'd done that you could hardly breathe?"

The back of his neck tingled. The moment our lips met, I felt all those things.

"Yes," he said carefully. "I have." He kept his expression neutral as he helped her climb onto his Harley. Not for the first time, he contemplated the enormous responsibilities that went along with his new role as heir to the galaxy. Obligation, sacrifice— they were what gave his life meaning, and he couldn't picture living without a defined sense of purpose. Only now, in an instant, he couldn't picture living without Tee. With no apparent effort, she'd taken his just-fine-the-way-it-was, black-and-white existence and blasted it into sense-wrenching color. He fought a sharp sense of loss, envisioning the day they would have no choice but to go their separate ways.

He zipped his jacket to his chin, turned up his collar, and lowered his helmet visor. The last thing he wanted was for Tee to witness his inner battle; it would only complicate what was to come.

At the market, Tee'ah recognized admittedly exotic versions of many ingredients she'd seen presented at meals on Mistraal. Although she had never visited the kitchens, she'd often strolled through the shady, peaceful orchards and humidity-laden vegetable gardens in the vast greenhouses on her homeworld. Fresh produce made the best meals, in her opinion, and she decided to prepare dinner from as many fresh ingredients as she could gather, mentally recalling the myriad dishes she'd admired and consumed over the years.

After the purchases were made, she and Ian walked back to his Harley, which was secured beyond several trees. "I suppose we do have to go back now," Tee'ah said. "The crew will be wanting their dinner."

"We can always go on another ride some other time." He regarded her for a moment, an affectionate smile playing around his lips. "I've been thinking about what you said earlier… how you feel alive now, but you didn't before. I can't imagine you any different from how you are now."

As they stood in front of the motorcycle, Tee'ah shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He was making an obvious attempt to get to know her better. She relented and took the first step; someday, if things progressed as part of her hoped, there would be no more secrets between them. "I had a very comfortable life, actually. I should have been content, happy, satisfied, all those things. But I wasn't. I loved my family. I still do. But if I'd done what they wanted, if I'd married, I would have died a little more every day, until my spirit, the part in here"— she tapped her chest with her right hand— "that's me drained away."

She dropped her hand. "But I don't expect people to understand why I was so miserable in what others would consider extremely pleasant surroundings."

"Not everyone has the strength to fight what is expected of them, Tee. If you ask me, it takes more guts to leave a nice life because you're supposed to be happy. If you're not, it's easy to blame it on yourself. What you did took courage," he said admiringly. "So many people never go after what they truly want out of life. You did. Be proud."

His comprehension took her breath away. They stood there, a few feet apart, more passing between them with a simple gaze than what a thousand words could convey.

"You speak as if from experience," she managed finally.

"It was my mother's experience, not mine. Her story is a lot like yours. It took her years to work up the courage to change her life, but she did, and now she's married again and happier than I've ever seen her." His mouth tightened and he jerked on his gloves, one finger at a time. "My father had other women. It hurt her. But she held the marriage together for the sake of my twin sister and me. When we were teenagers, my parents separated and my father remarried a much younger woman, and he had a kid with her. They're divorced, too, now." His mouth twisted bitterly. "But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that after the marriage ended, my mother had friends, a career she was passionate about… a perfectly nice life. But not contentment, not happiness. She felt that with all she had, she had no right to complain or to crave more."

Tee'ah felt a shudder ripple through her. Ian's description of his mother's quandary was so close to her own experience. It was reassuring to learn that others felt as she did. Which didn't take away her guilt over leaving home, but it made it easier to bear.

Ian pulled on his helmet. "You'd have thought a woman who flew jets wouldn't have been afraid to break out of a rut," he said, lowering his visor. "But she was."

Tee'ah felt the blood drain from her head. "She— she flew jets?" Her world tilted, and she clutched the Harley's seat to keep her balance. Jas Hamilton B'kah was a pilot. She was also Rom B'kah's queen and—

The crown prince's mother. Had she been right before? Had she simply been avoiding what she didn't want to be?

Numb, she prayed Ian would again offer her something, anything, to indicate he was not Ian Hamilton, the prince admired for his faultless adherence to Vash Nadah tradition. She couldn't fathom what he'd be doing in the frontier, without luxuries, without the trappings of power. Was this a way to prove himself to those who doubted his ability to rule?

Perhaps. But what good did it do to show he could live without riches, without protection, when he'd never be asked to?

Ian spoke as he tightened her helmet's chinstrap.

The dark visor hid the panic in her eyes. "Yes," he said. "She's a pilot. A good one, too. Like you."

Her dry lips formed a hoarse. "Thank you."

He patted the seat. "Let's head home before Quin has a heart attack."

Or before she did. Shakily, she mounted the two-wheeled transport and balanced herself on the seat. Despite the crisp air, a droplet of perspiration trickled down her temple. She pondered the physical resemblance between Ian and Jas. They shared the same lovely shade of greenish gray eyes, accentuated by dark lashes and brows, but that was all. Yet when she added in Ian's knowledge and grasp of galactic politics, his scandalized reaction to the conditions on Baresh, and his quickness to defend the Vash, her throat tightened until she could barely swallow. Sweet heaven, what was she going to do?

"Hey." Ian pressed a gloved hand onto her shoulder. His expression was unreadable behind his tinted visor. "Why so quiet all of a sudden?"

She drew on all her strength to stay calm. There was no use fretting until she was certain of Ian's identity. And she had yet to figure out how she might become so. "I'm thinking of dreams," she said softly. "And how badly I want to hold on to mine."

"Go for them, Tee. Don't let anyone stop you."

You wouldn't say that if you knew who I was. Woodenly, she replied, "I won't."

For no reason at all she felt like weeping, and she didn't understand the reaction. She ought to be ter-rifled at the possibility that she sat inches away from a paragon of Vash virtue. Instead, she regretted that she might never again experience the heart-pounding joy of a Harley ride. Or Ian's kisses.

If he was the crown prince…

Ian threw his leg over the seat and let the engine warm up before rolling the motorcycle forward over the bumpy dirt to the road. As they raced back to the Sun Devil, Tee'ah couldn't help but wonder if the handsome Earth dweller would prove to be her liberation or her doom.

She waited until she was alone in the galley before she fell apart. With the hatch shut against curious visitors and potential crown princes, she leaned over the counter, head bowed, unable to catch her breath. Ian could end her newfound freedom with one call to the palace on Mistraal. Dar security would be dispatched immediately. She wouldn't elude them this time; they'd know exactly who and where she was.

Where is your courage, Tee'ah?

Powerful, impossible ancient, the voice echoed in the silent, inner passages of her mind. The voice of her ancestors: the founders of the Vash Nadah. Generations ago, those eight warriors saved the galaxy from annihilation. But there were many demoralizing defeats before they finally achieved that victory. Her own setbacks were minuscule in comparison.

What would her heroic ancestors think if they saw her cowering this way?

Hadn't she escaped her home and come so far already? The quivering in her arms stilled. The roiling of her stomach eased. Eyes closed, she worked on her breathing until it slowed. Then, deliberately, she raised her head. In her moment of crisis she'd instinctively drawn strength and guidance from her noble legacy. With sudden insight she understood that no matter how far she traveled from her roots, no matter how rebelliously she shunned the beliefs she was brought up with, she would always carry the essence of those ancient heroes in her soul. It was an inborn sense of pride no one could erase. It was an odd feeling to take strength from all she'd abandoned, but it brought her calm; she would survive, no matter what.

She went to work cleaning the fruits and vegetables she'd purchased at the market. Then she attempted to carve them into the ornate designs created by her father's palace chefs. Dish after dish was assembled and put aside. As she worked, her thoughts circled back to Ian.

His mother flew Earth jets.

Viciously, she shoved her knife into a crispy, bulbous vegetable, twisted until it split in two. Then she hacked it into quarters. Throwing down the blade, she grimaced and pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. She'd lost her starspeeder, staggered out of bars, gotten drunk, purchased birth control, admonished her almost-brother-in-law in a virtual reality arcade, and, if all that wasn't enough, she'd just now practically raped her employer, a man who could very well represent everything she'd tried to escape!

Tee'ah picked up the knife again and stabbed it deep into another fibrous root— one that rather reminded her of Klark Vedla. She remained uncertain why he hadn't upheld tradition and attempted to bring her home. Certainly the B'kah heir would have. How often had her father remarked that Ian Hamilton had to be more than perfect if he hoped to gain the trust of the Great Council?

And now she was on his ship. Or might be.

Her anxious chopping had turned the root to pulp. Unwilling to waste the vegetable, she slapped it into a pasty pancake. Who would eat that? she wondered. Quin, maybe.

"From firing range to kitchen, eh?" Gredda sauntered into the galley. She picked up one of the berries Tee'ah had glazed with a sticky sweetener before piling them into a miniature conical mountains. "Fresh lalla-berries," she murmured as she popped it into her mouth. With a smile of amused approval, she inspected the fruit and vegetables Tee'ah had arranged on whatever trays and platters she had found.

Seeing Gredda reminded Tee'ah how fast she'd come to view the crew as a substitute family. But tonight she felt more like an outsider than ever.

Likely everyone knew who the captain was except for her. Obviously, despite what had happened between them, Ian didn't trust her yet.