CHAPTER 14
Xaviara chewed her lip as she stared at the blank screen. Nicholen had barely hesitated when Gloria asked him to shut down the feed. What was she saying to him that she didn’t want a junior member of her staff to hear? Was it a confession? Was it something about Xaviara herself? No, that would be ridiculous.
Xaviara’s tablet beeped.
Worries churning through her mind, Xaviara swiped it open, glad for the distraction. Gloria couldn’t possibly be telling Nicholen something that would turn him against her—what would that even be?—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
As she scrolled through the information displayed from her search algorithm of the rest of the human staff, she inwardly groaned. Another suspect, one that was looking even more promising than Gloria: Piotr, her rival.
As much as she didn’t like him, she didn’t want him to be behind betraying their entire species. The sinking feeling in her stomach amplified as she read through the information. She keyed in a few phrases, delving deeper into the details provided. Oh, yes. This makes sense.
Whatever Gloria was telling Nicholen was moot now. It seemed that they had a new prime suspect.
Her link beeped. “Meet me in the library,” said Nicholen. The library—not her quarters. What could it mean?
Nicholen was waiting for her when she arrived and shut the door.
“Um…” she started, hating herself for being so hesitant. This strong man needed a match that was just as confident as he was. She tried again. “My search uncovered a new suspect.”
He seemed far away. She couldn’t read the expression on his face—one part determination, one part frustration, and one part something else.
“What happened in there?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
Although she suspected that response, the words were like a slap in the face. “Oh.”
His expression softened. Was he reading her emotions? That was so annoying.
“It’s fine, I understand,” she said.
“For Camlan’s safety, I’m obligated not to reveal what Gloria told me.”
“We’ve both shared things we shouldn’t.” The words came out of Xaviara’s mouth more shrill than she would have liked.
“Yes, but…” And now the expression was one of a man digging himself into a deeper hole. Men. The same whether they’re human or kadyyza. He seemed to be floundering and then he pulled himself tall. Despite herself, lust raged inside Xaviara for this sexy man. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. I’m here to serve the delegation, after all.” The words rang hollow, even if they were true. “Do you want to know what I’ve found?”
“Tell me.”
This was a Nicholen she didn’t know. His face was neutral, closed off, his lips pinched. All signs of the playfulness of earlier were gone. Whatever had happened in there was serious. “I have a new suspect. A better suspect. A much better suspect.”
“Out with it.”
His abruptness stung again. “It’s Piotr, one of my fellow aides.” She was both dismayed and delighted to have discovered it, given the ridiculous rivalry that had gotten her in trouble on the space station. Was that only a couple days ago? So much had happened. “But that’s not his real name. His real name is Viktor Lukin. I found evidence of motive. And I checked some facts about his background that I’d nearly forgotten. He definitely knows how to hack into the main computer system and hide the commdump information.”
Nicholen’s face didn’t change. He stared at the wall behind her.
“His older brother was killed during the Day of Darkness. And that tattoo you might have seen on his wrist, the circle with the infinity inside? That’s a symbol of an elite fraternity of computer hackers he joined in university, the Incongruous.”
* * *
Damn it. Things seemed to be going sideways now. Just twelve hours ago, Nicholen was confident that he’d found the saboteur, and now, not only was he wrong, but a new lead had cropped up. Still, it wasn’t any more promising than the others they still had on the list—Lianndra and Breniel were still in the running with Gloria no longer looking guilty. He absolutely believed her story. Emotions didn’t lie.
And clearly Xaviara was upset with him over hiding what Gloria had to say. He didn’t blame her, but he’d made a promise to keep the woman’s secret.
“Why did Piotr change his name?”
Xaviara’s emotions were all over the place—the same floral scent of arousal wafted from her, but it was now masked now by a metallic tang of hurt. “It’s human custom to change our given names if we become famous, to blend in and live a normal life. He’s not famous, but his brother was for leading the counterattack against the kadyyza.”
She was looking at the tablet, flicking through information. Inside his link, Nicholen pulled open the snap of the mail she’d sent him. ^[email protected]@L^ Preparations ^[email protected]@L^ complete. ^[email protected]@L^ read the first line. Things were starting to fall into place.
She finished, “I don’t know for sure, but that has to be it. Every human knows the name of Damien Lukin.”
Nicholen nodded once. He’d slipped into military mode again. Too much was coming at him to relax into the calm, swaggering, princely figure that Camlan wanted him to be. He took a long breath in through his nose and released it through his mouth.
Not working.
He looked down at Xaviara.
Her long hair shone under the lights of the library. Her lips were puckered, likely in annoyance at him. He wanted to kiss her… and so he did. Stepping forward, he placed a hand on her chin and lifted her face toward his. The touch of her soft lips was electric. He slid her mouth open with his tongue and found hers. She battled with him, pressing herself into his mouth—and now he was hard again. Forebears, but this woman is fantastic.
Then she pushed him away and drew back. “We don’t have time for this.” The metallic scent of hurt was stronger now. What had he done wrong? The kiss was supposed to be an apology for his abruptness earlier, but obviously it had made things worse. She needed to understand that he had to keep some secrets. Didn’t she?
“I—”
“Let’s go see what’s happening on the bridge.” Her tone was clipped. “And then go question Piotr. See if he had the opportunity.”
His erection was settling down again. Good thing, since she was right.
Before he could answer, she pressed the door open button and gracefully glided into the corridor. He could do nothing but follow, trying not to watch the sway of her hips, which had taken on a decidedly more antagonistic rhythm.
He let her go into the bridge first, counted to fifty, and opened the door. Xaviara was making smalltalk with Anthony. One eye on her, he said, “Report,” to Samantha.
“Sir,” she said, “the saboteur struck again.”
Nicholen’s lower lip twitched, his only tell for high-stress situations. After all this time, it was the one thing he couldn’t control about himself. “Why wasn’t I notified?”
“I dealt with it,” she said. Impressive, since as Gloria had confirmed, all the humans were junior staff. “My outgoing message was routed from the standard emergency frequency to a lesser used channel—not canceled, because I would have detected that right away.”
“A clever way of keeping you from knowing what had been done.”
“Yes, but I was prepared for something like that, sir, so I was watching for it.”
Nicholen decided that he liked this woman. “And your message made it to the planet?”
“Yes, the party below is on their way to the rendezvous location as we speak.”
Finally, something was going well. “Good. Anything else?”
“Yes. Some of their emergency supplies were destroyed in the crash. They only have enough food for two days. Fortunately, they should arrive by then, if they don’t run into any unforeseen circumstances.”
He held in a grunt of frustration. So much for things going well. Unforeseen circumstances seemed to be the theme of this trip.
“I’m monitoring their communications on all frequencies. I picked up some static a while back, but the magnetic field is strong and still interfering.”
“It’s not going to abate,” said Xaviara. “We just have to trust they’ll be there in good time.”
“Agreed,” said Samantha.
“Thank you,” said Nicholen. “Continue the monitoring and call me if anything changes. How long until they arrive?”
“If all goes well, it’ll be twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The terrain is prairie first, and then jungle and beach-like conditions. It would be faster to go through the jungle, but if it turns out to be unnavigable, it’ll be better for them to go along the shoreline.”
“Then tomorrow, we’ll be in a position to rescue them.”
“Yes, sir.”
The newest interference meant Gloria couldn’t be behind the sabotage. Even if she was, she had an accomplice on the outside, a dangerous, well-equipped accomplice who would be poised to strike once more when they mounted the rescue.
Fuck. He was tempted to throw the entire crew into the brig and rescue his prince without the aid of anyone.
Nicholen lifted an eyebrow at Xaviara and tilted his head toward the door.