Chapter 1, part 2
LorAnna awoke in a dim chamber an unknown number of intervals later, and with the bitter taste of inhaled drug in the back of her throat. So he’d drugged her. Animal. No, wait. That wasn’t really fair to the Great Mother’s creations. They lived their lives as they were born to do, bound by the law of the natural world. The strongest survived, those that had some small difference that gave them the advantage over others. Natural law was brutal, but it was predictable and it was balanced.
There was nothing balanced about the Outworlders and how they treated the people of Llanu. The Outworlder soldiers who gave their allegiance to the High Rule did so in exchange for crass material rewards. No higher ideals for them. It was money, power, and the chance to exercise any of a number of perversions against the Llanu, while the so-called law of the High Rule invaders overlooked the brutalized victims.
However, the plight of the Llanu people was not because the Outworlders were stronger than the Llanu. The Outworlders had been able to invade and capture the Llanu homeworld because they possessed highly advanced tech–tech they had stolen from other worlds. The High Rule and its Guard used the tech to control the people of Llanu while they stripped the mineral riches from the planet and shipped it to far worlds for a monstrous profit. As a people, the Outworlders were callous, avaricious, and unbelievably cruel.
Because she was well aware of what her captors were capable of, LorAnna knew extreme caution was needed until she figured out what kind of mess she was in. Silently, and moving as little as possible, she checked the condition of her body. Her ribs felt like they were bruised, possibly cracked. No big surprise since her captor had tried to squeeze the life out of her when she tried to run. Her wrists burned as well, but it seemed her hands were free and undamaged. At least for now they were. And to her great surprise, she was still clothed. Her small weapons were gone, though, including the three-inch, curved blade she carried in the special seam of her conformex pants. Someone had to have put his hands on her pretty thoroughly to find it, but as nearly as she could tell, she had not been raped or beaten.
That mystified her—unless she was already in the Center of Hell and they were saving her up as a reward for some High Rule officer who’d been a particularly good boy. LorAnna was frightened then. Female prisoners who were given as rewards usually suffered badly before they died. None ever made it home again, except as a corpse. She shook badly for several minutes until slowly and with increasing confidence, she realized that wherever she was, it was quiet and the dim place where she lay smelled like nothing more than damp stone and green, growing things. There were no screams of pain and terror, no cries for mercy, no smell of blood and excreta—so, she could not be at the High Rule Interrogation Center. Where in all hells was she, then?
Read on...LorAnna wasn’t willing to move her limbs until she was sure she was alone. She listened with everything she had. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard the sound of water flowing from somewhere nearby. From within this room, though, she heard nothing but the sound of her own breaths going in and out of her lungs.
Taking the risk, LorAnna flexed her fingers, then her hands. Nothing moved in the dimness around her. One muscle at a time, then, she contracted and released. She tested herself for injury and checked her strength. She noted she was very thirsty and a little hungry in spite of her ordeal, and she had to urinate quite badly, which told her she had been unconscious for a considerable number of intervals, but probably not a whole rotation. She prepared herself to move position, to roll over and see if she could get to her hands and knees, and then with any luck, to her feet. LorAnna knew her duty and that was to escape. If she really wasn’t in the Center of Hell, she would escape. She had no doubt of it.
She rolled onto her belly and immediately pushed herself to her hands and knees. Before she could make it to her feet lights flickered on, and then burned steadily at a low level. To her dark-adapted eyes it felt as bright as sunlight. She blinked rapidly and swore, her voice rusty from being quiet for so long. The sound of a bolt being drawn back made her stagger to her feet where she swayed unsteadily. She could see the door now, and watched while it swung open.
Her captor walked in without looking at her, as if she was of no threat. Or a threat of no consequence, more like. He crossed to a built-in shelf and cupboard and poured a cup of water. As he handed it to her, she looked into his face for the first time.
“You!”
“Me,” he agreed. “I heard you swear, LorAnna. I thought such words were against your religious beliefs.”
“You are the last person to speak of religious beliefs. Traitor. You bloody, Gods-cursed traitor.” She looked into the face of Joss Lerios, the man who had betrayed her, who had betrayed them all, by going over to the enemy. The man who had nearly taken her heart with him when he left. And even now, in spite of the five years that had passed since then, in spite of knowing what he was, she still felt her heart beat faster, felt the heat gather low in her belly. She felt her face color. She ripped her gaze away from his before her traitorous feelings could show.
“And you are the last person to have anything at all to say about my choices when I just caught you about to assassinate your own Justice Minister.”
What kind of game was he trying with her? She couldn’t imagine the purpose. She simply looked at him, frowning and puzzled. He had almost distracted her from her need to relieve herself, but now the need became urgent.
“What? Nothing to say in defense of yourself?”
“Yes. I need the facilities.”
He watched her for a moment, then his mouth quirked and he stepped back and indicated a curtained alcove.
“Great.” She would have given him a bigger ration of snide remarks but she was too busy hobbling her way to the chemical receptacle inside the curtain. Well used to conditions in the field, LorAnna unzipped and squatted with relief. Then she was able to return to his last words.
“What are you talking about? You are making no sense. This has nothing to do with my “own Justice Minister!” She zipped and came back to stand next to her cot, surveying him with a puzzled expression.
“Don’t play me for a fool, LorAnna. You had a bead on Coy Yunlo, the Rebels’ prince of justice, and if I hadn’t been there to stop you, you would have sheared off the top of his head with that pricey weapon of yours. Where did you get the rifle, LorAnna?”
She stared at Joss, still back on his first statement about having Coy Yunlo in her sights.
“Well, LorAnna? Not going to even try to explain your actions? Perhaps you can’t. Does the Rebellion know you’re an assassin for hire now?”
“You lie, Lerios!” she exploded, terrified that his plan for her was being unfolded for her right there. He was going to expose her as a traitor to her own people. She couldn’t let him do that. Her life would be worth nothing more than the cost of a bolt to put her out of their misery.
“I’m getting a little tired of being called a liar with everything I say, yet you say nothing,” he said. His expression was like nothing she had ever seen, and it was directed at her. For some reason beyond her understanding, it hurt like a shiv in her heart.
LorAnna watched him closely, like a vole trying to decide whether the fox was hungry enough to leap if she ran. Joss’ voice was cold but as she watched, his eyes began to smolder, and his expression, instead of being filled with contempt, was filled with hunger. Hunger and something else—something that brought back the memory of the long-ago days, a time she thought she’d managed to forget.
She gritted her teeth, and decided to try to defend herself, although Goddess knew why. The reputed ruthlessness of her captor told her it would do no good, but she couldn’t let him think or say that she was a traitor to the Rebellion.
“It wasn’t Coy Yunlo on that balcony. It was a High Rule official. Do you really think I’d target one of my own people?”
He was shaking his head slowly.
“Who was your target supposed to be?”
“My target was—not something I’m going to talk to you about.” Gods, she had to remember he wasn’t the Joss she had known and trusted. And loved, said a small inner voice.
“Alright,” he said, accepting that. “Then how did you know who was on the balcony? It was pitch black in the shadow of the building.”
“The moonlight, of course.” She had no intention of bringing Renla into it. Renla, whose job it was to bring Vius Dar onto the balcony for a moonlight kiss.
“You saw nothing by moonlight from that distance. Good Gods, you didn’t even see me and I was practically on top of you. How can you be sure it wasn’t Coy Yunlo out on that balcony? How could you take a shot at someone you couldn’t identify? That doesn’t sound like you, LorAnna.”
“It isn’t like me. Of course I knew who was on the balcony. I knew ahead of time he would be there and when.”
“Because…?”
“Because it was a set up. What did you think? I just happened to be sauntering by with my scoped weapon and decided to take advantage of the opportunity?”
Joss watched her face, brooding, as if he was trying to decide something. Suddenly he straightened, as if a conclusion to his thoughts had been reached.
“Renla Moto brought Coy Yunlo out onto that balcony.”
“No. Renla didn’t. Besides, if you know it was Renla on the balcony, then you also know it was Vius Dar out there with her. And if you hadn’t stopped me, the world would have been minus one hughly sadistic psychopath. I can’t believe, even after all that has happened, that you would protect the worst excuse of a man the Rule has ever spawned.” Her thoughts were jumbled, both from the drugging and from seeing Joss Lerios here, like this.
Her stomach twisted with remembered pain as she looked at him. At his crystalline blue eyes, eyes that always seemed to see inside her, at his sensuous mouth that had taken her close to surrender too many times. At his remarkable face that had stolen her attention the moment she saw him for the first time, and had imprinted upon her memory, it seemed, for forever.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t bother saving the ass of that bastard Vius Dar for any reason. But I happen to know that Vius Dar is two thousand kilometers away, in the Western Lands, and has been there for the last eleven rotations. The High Ruler’s birthday, you know,” he said, dark amusement in his voice.
“We were told he wouldn’t be attending. That he would stay here to watch over things during the festivities.”
“Vius Dar? Do something so selfless? And miss the biggest opportunity in three revolutions to kiss the High Ruler’s ass? Who told you he would be here? Renla?”
The look Joss gave her was sardonic, almost mocking.
LorAnna was silent, holding his gaze while her thoughts spun in circles. Renla had been the source of the information about Vius Dar. Renla was the one who was to bring Vius Dar to the balcony so that LorAnna could make her shot. Good Gods and Goddesses, had Renla betrayed them all? She had a moment of shuddering fear at the damage that could be caused by High Rule agent placed in the Rebel organization, especially one as highly trusted as Renla. Then she remembered who the source of this shattering information was—the traitor, Joss Lerios. Her gaze hardened as she looked at him, but before she could speak, he did.
“I know, I know. I lie.” He looked at her scornfully for a moment, then his gaze softened and heated. “You knew me well, LorAnna. Did you know me as a liar?”
LorAnna’s heart beat faster at what she saw in his gaze. And damn her rebellious body, she did remember him, only too well. They had never been lovers, but nearly everything but. The reason they hadn’t been lovers was only because there hadn’t been the time or opportunity during the early days of the invasion by the High Rule. They had been fighting for their lives, every one of them. But she remembered her feelings. She remembered them well. In fact, in the five years since Joss defected to the High Rule, she had given her heart to no other. But he had left her, left them all in the worst possible way. He’d gone to work for the violent oppressors, the High Rule. And the reputation he had gained as one of the Rule’s most skilled intelligence officers, and one of the coldest, told her this was not the Joss she had known. And loved, again whispered a small thought, which she shoved away quickly.
“No, I would not have thought you a liar, then,” she said quietly. “But that was before I knew what perfidy you were capable of.” She held his gaze and tried to steel herself against old feelings that insisted on reawakening. Her memory was being triggered by his overt masculinity, and his smell—so familiar, so enticing, like a big male animal and the cold night air. Fresh and compelling.
LorAnna mentally shook herself. She really couldn’t let herself go there. He would have to turn her over to the interrogators, or else kill her, for Goddess’ sake. He couldn’t possibly let her go. The High Rule would kill him. Suddenly, she realized that in spite of everything, she didn’t want that to happen. She wanted to kill him herself, true, for his betrayal of their cause and his abandonment of her. But to have him die screaming in pain, as the Rule would certainly do to him? No. But neither did she want to die screaming in pain, either. LorAnna watched him carefully. He seemed to be struggling with his own thoughts, as well. Goddess, he was beautiful. Remembering the heat in his eyes, she thought perhaps there was a way she could save her own life. If she could convince him to take her, convince him that she would join him because she wanted him, then perhaps he would not kill her or give her to the torturers. But then she thought about what her own people would think of that, what they would believe of her—oh, hell, they’d think she’d done what Joss had done. Betrayed their cause and their people for no supportable reason. LorAnna was pulled away from her tumbling thoughts by Joss’ next words.
“You don’t want to believe Renla could betray you because it would be a little too terrifying to think of someone so high in your organization being a Rule double agent. That, and you don’t want to believe me. But let me ask you this—if you knew for sure that Vius Dar was in the Western Lands, and had been there for sure last night, would you give my words more credibility?”
She sniffed with impatience. “If you could prove it—which you can’t because he wasn’t—but if, then yes, I’d have to consider what that meant.”
Joss stared at her for a long moment, then reached out and grabbed her wrist in an iron grip that was surprisingly gentle for all that it was unbreakable.
“Then come with me, LorAnna. There is something you need to see.”
Joss stopped, and without releasing her wrist, he turned to her . She was startled by the intensity she saw in his crystal blue eyes. Burning, almost, in the intensity with which he looked into hers. He squeezed her wrist, just enough to edge into pain.
“Don’t give me any reason to kill you, LorAnna. I would have a hard time living with it. But I will do it if you become any kind of a threat. You will be completely silent until I say you can speak. Am I understood?”
LorAnna nodded wordlessly, her mouth dry, overcome by his feral posture. Overcome, and damned turned on, too, by his fierce beauty, and his strength. Before she could process her feelings any further, he released the locks on the door and yanked her through.
Part 3, coming soon…