“Justice is fine, you know,” he spoke up, assuming that Ender was guilting himself about her injuries. “Jet tidied her up. She’s already in the training hall yelling at Kith.”
“That’s good,” he said quietly.
Now Bronse was doubly intrigued. If it wasn’t Justice, what was eating at the big Tarian? More important, how would the Special Active team leader get him to open up about it? Should he bother or should he leave Rush to his own devices?
The thing was, when you worked on a team as specialized and as high-intensity dangerous as theirs was, one member’s problems became the entire team’s problem. Bronse had never been the type of leader who stuck his head in the sand and left his team members to their own devices, or the whole of their well-being to the professional circuit of psyche services and doctors they had at their fingertips. There was always a need for those doctors in a posttraumatic venue, and they were good at what they did, but Ender wasn’t suffering from trauma or a mental breakdown. He was just moody. And he had been ever since they’d landed in the bay of the IM station.
“Mind if I ask you something?” Bronse said, moving into the room more fully and grabbing the chair across the table from Ender. He turned it backward and straddled it, crossing his arms over the back as he trained a steady gaze on his man.
Ender’s response was rote. The rise and fall of one big shoulder.
“How the hell did you manage to avoid getting seared by that two-forty shot? I could swear you took it right in the gut.”
Ender’s fingers went still, the VidPad balancing for a moment. The hesitation lasted a fraction of an instant, but it grabbed all of Bronse’s attention. Curious.
“Guess I’m faster than I look,” the arms master said with another shrug. “It was close, though. I felt the heat.”
“I’m sure you did. Rush, I read your report. I know you’ve been debriefed, but I can’t help feeling there’s something you aren’t disclosing.”
Ender sat up straighter, turning so his body directly faced Bronse’s. It was as much of a defensive stance as Bronse had ever seen from a man who was still sitting down.
“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve told you everything there is to know.” The VidPad began to tap rapidly against the tabletop. “I’m just a little … I’m going over things in my head, trying to figure out what I should have done, could have done differently.”
Rush did not disclose to his boss that he was talking about that damned kiss. He was utterly baffled by his own behavior. He’d shut himself off from those kinds of needs, from anything resembling desire. He knew well enough the danger it would pose to anyone who might be the object of that desire. There was so much about this power of his that could easily slip out of his control if he wasn’t careful. What had happened with Ambrea was full proof of that. Sure, she was fine. But he knew she had avoided the physician when she’d come on board so he wouldn’t see the burn on her back that very clearly looked like two handprints. She didn’t want to be put in the position of having to explain it, so she was letting herself heal the old-fashioned way. The harder way. The more uncomfortable way. Just to protect him.
That kind of chapped his ass. The whole stupid thing chapped his ass. If only he could figure out what the hell had gotten into him, then maybe he could figure out how to avoid it in the future.
“Rush, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Bronse said. “And I don’t know why, to be honest. Regardless of what happened or didn’t, what could have been avoided or not, you did what you usually do. You won the day. Tomorrow the princess will regain the throne of Allay and we will move on to the next mission. And on that mission you will do what you usually do. You will win the day.”
And therein lay the next thing on his mind. Tomorrow they were going to put Ambrea on top of her country, like an ornament meant to swing and sparkle for all to see, as if that would mean anything. But the cold, hard fact remained that she had no idea what she was doing, that she was being let loose in a box full of Hutha lions. One day in that court and she’d be easily torn to shreds. And no matter how much he told himself it wasn’t his problem, he couldn’t ignore the overwhelming sick feeling that had taken hold of his gut. It was as though every instinct in his body was screaming at him to protect her. But why?
“It’s not my job to protect her,” he muttered aloud.
He realized he’d spoken into the room only when Commander Chapel suddenly sat up straight.
“Justice can take care of herself,” Bronse fished carefully.
Rush flicked a wry gaze at his commanding officer.
“I think we both know I’m not worried about Justice. Jus could kick my ass coming and going if she was pressed to it.”
The commander lifted a brow in agreement, his periwinkle eyes shining with amusement and no small amount of pride. Bronse took great satisfaction in the capability of his crew, be they straight soldiers or Chosen Ones. He was well versed in their strengths and their shortcomings.
“So we’re talking about the princess.”
“But it’s not my problem, right? She’ll have some kind of personal guard or something. And she’s managed to survive this long.”
“I think the empress of Allay chooses her personal guard for herself. Usually from the Imperial Guard.”
“Those corrupt little fuckers?” Rush ejected, his entire body going tight and tense. “And they were all probably handpicked by her uncle, or officers raised up by her uncle. She can’t trust any of them!”
Bronse watched as Rush pushed away from the table and out of his seat. He began to pace in his agitation, rubbing his fingertips over the shimmering blond spikes of his hair.
“Get under your skin, did she?” Bronse asked his arms master archly.
“No! I just—” He looked over at Bronse and threw away his denial with a nod. “A little bit. She has … strong convictions. I guess it’d be nice to see one of the good people win for a change. Your Great Being knows these worlds could use it.”
“Very true. But like you said, we have our own roles in seeing to that. We can’t be responsible for what happens outside of the job of the moment. Not if we are going to be effective soldiers. We just have to have faith that we’re helping to design the bigger picture. We threw our lot in with the IM because we know they are a worthy organization with a worthy agenda. But in the end we soldiers are only workers in a larger hive of activity. We have to move on. There are perhaps other princes of other countries in need of our talents.”
“I know that.” Rush nodded firmly, as if making up his mind on the matter. “You’re right. We’re both right.”
Rush reached to sweep up the VidPad and gave Bronse a resolute smile.
But Bronse had a feeling that Ender was not quite as convinced of his own directives as he would like to be.
Ravenna sighed softly, turning around in the arms of her lover. She opened her eyes, smiling before she even saw Bronse’s face. But instead of the warmth of periwinkle and his sweet devotion, she found herself staring into the cold, dark eyes of a stranger. His hands shot out and wrapped around her long throat, and he flung himself over her body, throwing all of his significant weight onto her chest, pinning her beneath his powerful frame.
The head priestess of the Chosen Ones tried to gasp for breath, tried to scream. But he was throttling her with a vehemence bordering on mania. The fury in his eyes and the shuddering throughout his body were punctuated by the savage growl of rage he emitted.
“You stupid, stupid bitch! I’m going to choke you until your eyes explode in your head! Once and for all, I’m going to teach you not to cross me!”
Ravenna reached up for him, clawing at him in panic, desperately trying to figure out who he was, where he had come from. Where was Bronse? What had this maniac done with him? But all that faded away as tendons in her neck popped under the strain of his attack. The small delicate bones in her throat cracked even as she tried to gouge at his eyes.
Suddenly he yanked her
up closer to his face, showing her the details of his otherwise handsome features, the marks of his age, the clean and kempt cut of his beard and hair. Reflected in his eyes, she could see herself.
Ravenna woke with a ragged, choking gasp, the violence of it nearly toppling her out of her bed. Her distress woke Bronse in an instant and he grabbed for her, pulling her around to look at him, his warm, loving hands coming to cradle her face.
“What? What is it?”
They had been together for two cycles now. More than long enough for him to know the difference between her waking from a bad dream and waking from a vision. For one, her face was tracked with the tears of her struggle with the attacker. Also, she was inadvertently clawing at her throat, trying to remove hands that were no longer there … That had never actually been there. Still, her visions were as real to her as the beautiful man holding her was.
“It’s all right, baby. Just breathe. You’re here and you’re safe,” he reminded her over and over again until it actually began to sink in. Eventually her hands left her throat and went to clutch at his bare skin. The warmth of him was even more grounding. Slowly the familiar smell of him surrounded her.
She began to realize she was breathing. Easily.
“Bronse,” she rasped.
“Right here. Waiting for you,” he assured her.
“I need to see your last mission file,” she said, trying not to sound panicked. She knew her mate very well. If he thought she was acting or reacting too emotionally, he would make her pause, make her wait until she had calmed down. But the desperation racing through her blood told her that she didn’t have time to waste. Or at least she didn’t think she did. Regardless of how imminent the danger might be, there was danger and she had to figure out what it was.
The gods knew she didn’t want to keep reliving that particular vision over and over again while she stumbled around in mystery. They were persistent like that. If the forces that guided her abilities thought she was being dense, they’d beat her over the head until she was near dead with it.
His brows lifted at the request. She hadn’t been part of the mission and so had not been briefed on it. Usually an IM soldier not assigned to a mission wouldn’t be briefed, and shouldn’t be. And even though the Chosen Ones had particularly high clearance, it was an odd demand, one that was potentially rife with questions of ethics and protocol.
But that brief moment was all the time Bronse Chapel gave to those potential questions. Ravenna would never ask him about his missions without cause. He reached above the bed, fumbling with one hand for the secured VidPad he kept on the shelf there. His other hand never left her face, his fingers keeping a solid hold on her to reassure her that he was what was real, that he was there for her. No matter what. There was only one thing that could supersede Bronse’s love for the IM and his squad, and she would never doubt that she was that one thing. Moments like this, small details like that hand on her face, reminded her of that far more than the words he whispered to her so fervently when they made love.
He pulled down the VidPad.
“Lights up,” he commanded. The low, heavily muted lighting they slept to raised up by half. Not quite full strength, but still bright enough to make her flinch. “Great Being, Ravenna,” he swore, his hand sliding to her throat where she had unwittingly raked at her own skin in the throes of the vision. All the while he was thumbing over the VidPad screen, leafing through files as rapidly as he could. “What do you need, baby?”
“Pictures. All the principals surrounding the princess of Allay.” She had known that much about the mission. That he had been sent to retrieve Allay’s rightful heir. She knew this because almost the entire Special Active team had gone with him, and things were talked about easily among the Chosen Ones. In fact, she had been the only one to remain behind.
Ravenna lowered her hand to her belly, anxiously rubbing at the unnoticeable reason why she had come up with an excuse not to be part of that mission. She couldn’t be but six weeks into her gestation, but it was enough to raise a flag on medical equipment if she were scanned or in need of some kind of repair after an injury. That, and ever since she’d realized she was carrying Bronse’s baby she’d been inexplicably terrified of letting it come to some kind of harm. The general rule of thumb in the IM was that they allowed pregnant soldiers to decide for themselves when they wanted to call it quits for active status. With differing species and differing races, and with gestations that followed all kinds of rules and no norms, they couldn’t set a specific guideline.
But the Special Active team was nothing average when it came to the IM and its rules. They took on the highest-risk jobs, used abilities that no others had, and, for the most part, had no idea what kind of physical strain their job might put on their bodies. No two Chosen Ones were ever the same, it seemed, and even if they had been, Ravenna and her Chosen Ones had been routed out of their temple in the dead of night, making a hasty escape without any opportunity to bring any historical scrolls of written histories with them. All they had to go on, in fact, was whatever she as High Priestess could remember from her studies and readings.
“Are you all right?” Bronse asked, sliding his hand down her arm to cover hers.
“I’m fine. Just … it was a very violent vision, Bronse. Your princess …” Bronse turned the VidPad toward her and she grabbed for it, thumbing rapidly through the mission file’s photos. “Here.” She turned it back to him, her hands shaking visibly as she showed him the face of her attacker. “But it wasn’t me he was attacking. When he brought me close enough, I saw my reflection in his eyes. It was your Princess of Allay.”
“This is her uncle,” Bronse told her grimly. “The would-be emperor of Allay. Far be it from me to doubt one of your visions, Ravenna, but you know very well that what you see is not always what you get.”
“Well, I hope not, or otherwise he is going to wrap his hands around her neck and throttle her to death,” she snapped irritably. He lifted a brow at her tone and she sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have never felt such virulent hatred before, Bronse. Such all-consuming rage. That man is dangerous. Deadly.”
“And proven to be both,” he agreed with her. “It’s not that he isn’t capable of doing harm to Ambrea, Rave. It’s that it would be political suicide if he did. If he wants this throne, he has to be more than a bully to get it. And Balkin has proven himself very wise when it comes to walking the line between what is legal and what is not.”
“Sometimes it’s not a matter of what is right or what is wrong, what is logical and what is illogical. Sometimes it boils down to an evil temperament finally snapping, finally losing all control. Doesn’t it follow that these circumstances might produce just that sort of environment for someone so violent?”
Bronse frowned. “True, love. But the fact remains, we’re the IM. Whether Balkin Tsu Allay follows the rules or not, we have to. And we cannot interfere in the ruling of a government on any of the Three Worlds, unless—”
“Unless the ruler of that government asks you or the government has fallen into chaos. Yes, I know.” She gave him a wry little smile, reaching out to rub warm fingers over the well-shaped curve of his pectoral muscle. “Lucky for us, tomorrow the empress of Allay is going to ask you for that help.”
“She is?” He tossed the VidPad down to the foot of the bed and moved closer to her. “Did I ever tell you I think you’re sexy when you make my job easier?”
She snorted out a laugh. “I must have missed it between you yelling at me for letting Kith get away with murder or for not letting Devan come on mission with you.” She pulled back a little when he went to kiss her. “Or perhaps it was a few days ago when you were ordering me not to accompany you on this last mission because I’m pregnant.”
Bronse had the grace to wince.
“I panicked,” he said with a shrug. “And anyway, you weren’t exactly chasing me down demanding otherwise. You were just as stunned as I was, just as afraid of something happening to yo
u.”
“Regardless, you shouldn’t have been so bossy.”
“I’m your commanding officer,” he reminded her dryly. “It’s kind of in my job description. And by the way”—he leaned in to kiss her gently, and she didn’t move back from him this time—“you do let Kith get away with murder.”
She wrinkled up her nose, but they both knew that her empathic brother was a pain in the ass, only marginally improved over the years as the structure and discipline of the IM shaped him into a pretty decent soldier.
“I am, perhaps, a bit too tender with him. But he is my brother, after all. I don’t think I am any more or less so with my sister.”
“Hmph. Your sister, Ophelia, is a damn angel. Far too sweet for this kind of work, but stronger than Kith is in many ways. And I don’t just mean in the sheer power of her healing ability.”
“I know you don’t. But why is it that every time we argue, it has something to do with Kith or one of the other Chosen Ones?”
“Because that’s work and we each have a vested interest in goals that are naturally counter to each other. Your job is to protect the Chosen Ones; mine is to put them in harm’s way. Outside of work, we’re perfect. You’re perfect.”
Bronse quit playing her game of doling out sparse little affections. He wrapped an arm around her and hauled her up against his body, rolling her beneath him while he seared her with a demanding kiss. Once she was suitably breathless and quieted, he took a moment to inspect the damage she had done to her throat.
“It’s nothing,” she breathed softly, not wanting him to be deterred from the promise of that fiery kiss of a second ago.
“Damn woman, must you contradict me before I even say anything?”
“I thought I was perfect,” she said with a laugh.