“Hosan overdose or a bad batch,” the city coroner said, shaking his head as he swept a glance over the two bodies laid out on gurneys. “No way to tell until we get the toxicology screens back. We’re a little less well-funded than you boys in black, no fancy holo-scanners here.”

Devil ground his teeth in irritation as he looked at the bodies. He recognized both as the two goons that had jumped him and Keliana the night he’d spirited her off world. It had taken months, but finally he’d managed to shake some information loose about these two. Dirk and Henis, two small-time thugs for hire, they’d slit anyone’s throat to score enough money for their next hit.

What he needed to know was who, and why someone had set them on him and the colonel’s petite betrothed. He frowned. Could he still call her that when the guy in question had cut her off and had her thrown out? Whatever, he had a feeling that whoever had ordered that hit also knew something about the attack Keliana claimed had taken place.

At first he’d been skeptical, but after seeing her reaction and how cut up she was, Devil had to believe she was telling the truth. But why, why would someone set her up and then try and have her killed in a dark alley? Why not just do it there and then in Jareth’s rooms. Question after question chased themselves through his brain as he tried to figure it out or enough of it so that he knew there was no further threat to any of the princes or the royal household.

Unfortunately the trail was as cold as the stiffs in front of him. Devil sighed. “OK, Doc. Put ’em away. Thanks for your time on this. Let me know if you get anything odd on the tox report, would you?”

“Of course, Major. Always.”

Devil turned and left the older man to put the bodies back on ice and headed out of the city mortuary. Situated by the main hospital, it was on the opposite side of the city to the palace but he opted for the walk rather than take a flitter-cab. It was a nice afternoon, and he could do with the exercise to clear his head after being around so many dead people. As a soldier he was more than used to dead, but death on a battlefield was different. His lips twisted. He could cope with blood, guts, and gore, but the neat rows of perfectly clean, chilled bodies freaked him out.

He walked along the streets at a fast pace, nodding politely as people moved out of the way for him. In uniform, with a heavy pulse pistol in a shoulder holster clearly visible over his black tee, he was easily recognizable as a Sector Seven commando and therefore as a person people just did not want to fuck with.

Negotiating one of the busier interchanges in the city where traffic came from all directions including up and down, Devil ducked across one of the moving walkways and onto the opposite side of the main road. As soon as he set foot on the path, a movement to his left caught his eye.

“Major Bane? It is Bane, isn’t it?”

“It is. You are?”

Devil pulled to a stop as a tall man stepped out of the shadows clinging to the side of the building. Something about the tall, well-muscled guy tugged at his memory and he didn’t think it was from the gym, even though the guy obviously had a healthy love of weights. Then the guy turned his head and the movement boosted Devil’s memory.

“You!” His eyes widened. The guy from the vid-feed that had been sent to Jareth was standing in front of him, large as life and bold as brass. Devil’s palm itched, and he fought the impulse to go for his gun, right there in the middle of the street. “Give me one fucking good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you here and now?”

The guy, blond and classically handsome, winced and held his hands out. He was unarmed, but Devil didn’t care. After months of being led on a wild goose chase and thinking this morning that the trail had gone dead, he was more than happy to shoot the guy a couple of times in the kneecaps to stop him running away so Devil could question him.

“Hey, hey, no need. I just wanted to give you this.”

He held out a small chip. Devil recognized the type. Data and media storage. Taking it, he looked at the blond man curiously. The guy colored, his cheeks going scarlet.

“Couple of months ago I was in a bad place, with some bad people and I did some stuff I’m not proud of.” He shoved his hands back in his pockets, shuffling his feet like a kid who’d been told off. “That there was the worst, against a woman I got no beef with. Some guys paid me and a mate to set her up.”

“Set her up…you fucking attacked and raped her, you piece of shit.” Devil growled, advancing with bloody murder written across his features. He was fast, he knew he was. It wouldn’t take more than a minute to drag this SOB down a dark alley and finish him off.

“No, no, I didn’t, I swear. She’s not my type, like seriously not my type!” he protested, backing up until his back was too the wall and his throat worked feverishly as he watched Devil like a rabbit caught in the open by a predator.

“And I should believe that why?” Devil wanted to shoot him. Seriously.

“Honestly?” The man tilted his head to the side and swept Devil with an assessing look. A way too assessing look. The kind of look that said he was wondering what Devil looked like naked. “You’re more my type.”

Devil narrowed his eyes. “Huh. OK, didn’t see that one coming. So why come to me and why now? You find the Goddess or something?”

Blondie smiled, relaxing a little now that Devil wasn’t giving off waves of violence and anger. He nodded a little further down the road where another man waited, his gaze locked on the pair of them as they talked. Concern and worry were written all over his face.

“Love, actually. Met someone who means the world to me. He cleaned me up, and said I should do this…should put it all behind me and move on.”

Devil nodded, turning the chip over and around in his fingers, before shooting a direct look back at the bigger man. “I’ve seen both of you now. If this turns out to be crap, don’t sleep. Because I will find you.”

“That’s it baby… You’re good. Milk daddy’s cock…ugh… Fuck!”

Jareth watched the clip on the screen in front of him reach the end of the recording and loop to the start again. He sat in his office, the room darkened and the mood running through him darker as he watched the clip time and time again. He’d lost count of how many times he’d played it over the last couple of months. Hundreds, thousands? But whatever he did, however much he told himself it wasn’t healthy…he just couldn’t stop.

“You should delete that.”

The voice from the door made him look up. Seth stood there, one broad shoulder propped against the frame. Obviously just from training, his black top and combats were grimy and sweaty, his long hair scooped back and clipped at the nape of his neck. Solidly built, he’d packed more muscle mass on recently, joining Jareth in his endless sessions in the gym as he tried to avoid coming back here to his silent and empty rooms.

Abruptly, gratitude filled him for Sethan’s friendship. Without him and his wife, Jaida, grounding him Jareth knew he would have succumbed to the rage and bitterness that had filled him long ago.

“I know.”

Seth pushed off and walked into the room, wiping at his face with the small towel looped around his neck as he came to a stop next to the desk. His silver eyes flicked over the action on screen as it started again.

“You know Bane thinks it’s a fake.”

Jareth nodded, leaning back in his chair with his hands linked behind his head. Devil had been banging on about that one for months.

“Yeah, he keeps telling me. It’s just a feeling though, he’s got no proof to back it up.”

Goddess, Jareth wished Bane did have some evidence. At first he’d been pissed, letting fury dictate to him. Fury that had wanted her gone before he returned so he didn’t have to listen to her lies or see her tears. Bitter amusement filled him. He’d wanted her gone so he wouldn’t be tempted to forgive her. He wasn’t an idiot. Where Keliana was concerned he was a complete pushover. But now? He’d give anything for some clue, some hint that she wouldn’t betray him, to hold onto. Hell, even if he had, he’d find some way to forgive her. He’d give anything to have her in his arms again.

“He may have a point. Digital evidence can be tampered with. Did you ask her what happened? Why she did what she appears to have done?” Seth asked, dropping the towel and turning to sit on the edge of the desk.

His pale eyes were way too perceptive for comfort as he studied Jareth. A similar age, they’d met on the first day of training years ago, had beaten the crap out of each other and been friends since. They’d trained and survived their first real battle together, and then thrown up together afterward. Seth had saved his life when he’d nearly bought the farm out in the Lingarian sector chasing pirates, and he’d saved Seth’s when a Wolorian ambassador turned assassin had gone loco with a butter knife and spear-flower from the table arrangement at a state ball. The guy knew things about him no one else did, or wanted to, but still Jareth struggled as he met Seth’s eyes.

“I didn’t ask. I sent her away,” Jareth admitted, his voice low. “Now I can’t find her. No one’s seen her for months, and she’s not turned up in any of the hospitals, or Lady forbid, the mortuaries. I fucked up.”

Unable to stay still he surged to his feet, shoving a hand through his over-long hair as he paced the room. He’d tried everything, but the security feed from the palace cameras were corrupt for that time period and there were none out in the back alley. Questioning Bane had likewise yielded no information, the usually garrulous soldier unable to offer anything other than “she turned right at the end of the alley.” Disapproval for Jareth’s actions rolled off the guy in waves whenever the subject was brought up.

If he didn’t know Bane had a thing for the Vengeance Chief Medical Officer, Major Idirianna, he’d have suspected him of hiding her somewhere in a little love nest just for the two of them. But all tails he’d had put on the guy had come back clean. He wasn’t seeing Keliana on the sly. She really had disappeared. Vanished. Totally gone.

“Arrgggh!” He stopped in front of the window, slamming his fist into the wall at the side. The plaster cracked from the force of the blow but he ignored it, looking out over the city below the palace. “I should have just asked her.”

“Yeah, you should.”

Seth’s voice was no-nonsense as he lowered himself into Jareth’s vacant chair. He groaned with relief as he stretched long legs out in front of him, obviously feeling the effects of his workout.

“If I’d know you were going to be so fucking dumb as soon as a woman got involved, I’d have picked someone else for the Seventh.”

“Fucking bite me, Prince-boy.” Jareth’s snarl was automatic, then frowned as what Seth had said sunk in. He looked over the arm he had planted on the wall. “What do you mean ‘picked’? You said you’d found evidence. DNA evidence…”

Seth shrugged, a one-shouldered, nonchalant gesture. “And if I said Sedj had gotten a little…inventive, what would you say?”

Jareth turned around, leaning against the wall as he watched his prince with keen interest. Sure, he’d been named Prince of the seventh house, but Sethan was the Imperial Prince…the top dog, the one they all looked up to and swore fealty to. “I’d have to ask why. I’m a gutter rat, dragged up in the slums. Why fabricate evidence to make me a prince?”

Seth’s look was direct. “Tell me why you accepted the title first.”

Finally, a question he could answer. He met Seth’s gaze head on. “I don’t give a fuck about titles. But it meant Keliana would be a princess and people wouldn’t be able to look down on her anymore.”

Despair and pain washed over him again.

“Makes no difference now. She’s gone. If you want the title back, take it. Without her, there’s no point. I’m a fucking idiot.” He groaned as he dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Well, they do say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem,” a new voice broke into the conversation. Jareth lifted his head as Bane walked into the room.

“What particular douche-baggery is pretty-boy admitting to?” He stage-whispered to Seth, who was making himself comfortable with his feet on Jareth’s desk.

“What the fuck is this?” Jareth growled as Bane took a perch on the corner of the same desk. “Did my office become the officer’s mess or something?”

“Oh, he’s lovesick and wishing he hadn’t chucked his woman out on her ear without asking for her side of the story. Now he’s lost her and he’s basically screwed.” Seth completely ignored the outburst and filled the new arrival in, his eyes alight with amusement.

“Oh, cheers, mate. I’m glad you find it fucking funny. How would you feel if it was Jaida?”

Seth’s expression sobered for a minute, then he shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. One, that woman has always made sure she gets her say in, and two, I had a tracking chip implanted just after the wedding.”

Bane lifted an eyebrow. “She know that?”

“Goddess, no! Do I look suicidal to you?” Seth asked. “She’d skin me alive. Besides, I’d be less concerned with Jaida out on the loose. She’s a survivor. Keliana?” He shook his head. “Not so much. Don’t worry, man, we’ll take the city apart to find her if we have to.”

Relief flooded through Jareth, making him a little light-headed. With the force and authority of Sethan’s name behind the search, it shouldn’t be long before something about where she’d gone would surface. He would find her. Finally.

“Actually…” Bane drawled, flipping something small and coin-like between his fingers. “That won’t be necessary. You might want to watch this.”

He held the object out to Seth, the light catching it and revealing it as a data-chip. Interested, Jareth pushed off the wall as Seth slotted it into the reader of the console on his desk. He rounded the desk just as the screen flickered to life.

This was a very different scene to the first one. Silently the three men watched as Keliana entered the darkened room. The camera was somewhere inside, and from the slight shake, it was a head or shoulder mounted version similar to the ones used in combat. His heart sank as he watched Keliana caught, a rag held over her mouth until she stopped struggling.

“Ravastine…has to be,” Seth said softly as the slender woman was carried though into the bedroom. Jareth winced as her dress was torn, fists tight at his side as he fought his anger down and concentrated on the recording. It all happened quickly from then on…a staged love scene worthy of the holo-screen as a big, blond-haired guy held Keliana down and moved over her.

Jareth swore. This was even worse than thinking she’d betrayed him. His eyes narrowed as he memorized every new detail this different recording revealed about the big, blond-haired man. If it took him the rest of his life he’d track the guy down, and then take him apart. Slowly.

“No…wait.” Bane held out his hand, pointed as Keliana’s attacker rolled off her. “Look, there, the guy’s soft. Totally no cock action going on at all. He didn’t rape her.”

He turned to look at them both, Seth’s stunned expression mirroring the one Jareth knew he was wearing. “But why? And how did you get this?”

Bane folded his arms, a frown on his face. “The blond hooked up with someone with a level of decency, insisted that he come clean. There are files and financial records on the disc as well. Seems someone else wanted to purchase your little courtesan at the Purple Kiare and was willing to play dirty to get her.”

“Fuck! Who…where…does he still have her? I’ll fucking kill him!”

Pain roared through Jareth as all the pieces fell into place. There had been another bidder that night, one who had been complaining bitterly as Jareth had walked out with his “prize.” He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time…had underestimated the threat.

“Who is it?” he demanded, crowding Bane as he snarled into his face. Frustration and anger powered through his body, every cell singing with adrenalin and energy. All he needed was a name and he’d be out of here, not stopping until he found the prick who’d stolen his woman and rescued her.

“Whoa, whoa, easy tiger.” To his credit Bane didn’t flinch in the face of Jareth’s fury even though many a man, even those in the Sector, would have. “We’ll deal with him.”

“Like fuck you will!” Jareth roared, wheeling away so he didn’t follow up his first instinct and spread Bane’s nose over his face with a hard punch. “He has her…”

“He doesn’t have Keliana.”

Jareth whipped around, pushing his loose hair back as he glared at Bane. “What did you say?”

Devil’s gaze was level as he met him look for look. “No one ever had her. I put her on a systems-transport that night. She’s with my family on Roulla.”