CHAPTER 11
Xaviara laid on the bed, arms wrapped around Nicholen. A familiar ache between her legs tantalized her. He’d tried to repay her, but she wanted to wait, preferring instead to snuggle up next to him as he laid in a blissful half-stupor from what she had done.
Whatever happened with the investigation, she’d make sure he paid her back. Besides, he was still sighing periodically and saying, “That was amazing. You didn’t have to do that.” She’d long since stopped trying to dissuade him from making that assertion. It was true. She didn’t have to. And that knowledge made her feel sexy, strong, and close to him as they cuddled together.
Despite how perfect she felt, her thoughts returned to the problem at hand. Gloria had all but ordered Nicholen from the bridge to allow the human team to deal with the stranded lead ship, and she wouldn’t take too kindly to being questioned by the trincaar she saw as superfluous. But he needed to talk to her—needed to deploy his interrogation skills to pull out any additional information she might have.
Xaviara couldn’t think of a pleasant way to break through Nicholen’s blissful reverie. She glanced up at his face. His eyes were hooded, a lazy smile making him even more handsome than she remembered. Shivering, she opened her mouth.
Her tablet beeped three long beeps.
Xaviara pushed herself from Nicholen’s chest. The lazy look was gone, although the smile still flitted at the corners of his mouth. “What’s that?” he asked.
She swung herself over the edge of the bed. “The scan is done. And it found something of interest on Gloria.”
He sat bolt upright, chest muscles contracting underneath the thin fabric, his shirt pushed halfway up his belly. Despite what had just gone on, Xaviara couldn’t help but trace the light line of hair down his chest and past his naval. He caught her look and grinned almost shyly. It’s a little late for that. She loved how adorable he was, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck and looking sheepish.
She tore her eyes away reluctantly. “Let me see what it says.”
Opening the tablet, she pulled up the program. She’d already queued up the next search string, so she started it right away. It was an algorithm that would detect any similar clues amongst the other humans. The search was broader and would take more time, which is why she had started the Gloria search first. The hourglass came up, signaling the search was running, so she switched over to the results.
Nicholen was looking at her anxiously, though he lounged backward onto his pillow. Xaviara bit her lip and focused on the tablet, willing herself not to let her mind go wandering off into delectable memories. “It says here that she has some investments we need to look at.”
“Investments? What are they?”
Xaviara opened the results window for more details. “Oh. Oh! Oh…”
“I can’t wait to make you make those noises later, little viaar,” Nicholen’s voice was low and sultry, “but you can’t keep a guy in suspense like that.”
She could feel a blush creeping over her face. Even after what we just did? “Gloria has stock in PDJ Holdings, Inc.”
“PDJ Holdings? Unfortunately, I’m only the pretend trincaar. Camlan might know what that is, but I can’t keep all those diplomatic details in my head.”
“It’s the rival corporation to the one who won the contract to mine the space anomaly for the humans after this contract is signed.” Xaviara gasped. “And it’s a lot of stock. Gloria, you really should have diversified.”
Nicholen pushed himself upright. “So once this treaty completes, the company’s stock is going to lose money?”
“It already has, but yes, essentially. If she can halt this treaty, that would give PDJ time to make a deal with Ice, Limited, who won the contract, or maybe challenge their bid altogether. I mean, they’ve already challenged and lost, but…” She flipped through the detailed results. “Look, it says here that she’s been gathering these stocks since she was young. It looks like the first one was bought twenty-eight years ago.”
“There must be a reason for that.”
She tabbed back to the search list. “An uncle who’s a Senior Vice President at PDJ.”
“That’s the perfect motive. And she has the means, with all the security clearances.” Nicholen pulled the sheet up his torso. “She wouldn’t necessarily need to do it herself. She could lend her clearance to one of her underlings and have them enact whatever the plan was.”
“Yes…”
“Did she ever hint about your loyalties?” His voice turned stern—clearly he was back in security mode.
“No.” Xaviara had little interaction with the woman. Most of it was through Manda. And she didn’t want to talk about her embarrassing rivalry with Piotr. “I was hoping to get back into her good graces after what happened with Boring Tom.”
Nicholen raised an eyebrow. “Boring Tom?”
She laughed. “Yeah, sorry, that’s what I call him in my head. The guy I was on a date with, who got that suspicious mail.”
Nicholen bristled. “Ah. Boring Tom.”
“Jealous?” she teased.
“No… No!” His grin was sly. “Do you have a nickname for me?”
She cocked her head to the side. “How about Super-Sizzlin’ Nicholen? It doesn’t quite rhyme, but—”
He guffawed. “I love it. Come here.” He held out a hand.
She stood and took it. He pulled her into him, and they tumbled onto the bed, laughing. His kiss was long, passionate, and full of promises that he wasn’t going to forget the debt he owed. Good. He’d better not. She smiled into the kiss, and he rolled her over to give her neck a nuzzle.
“All right,” she gasped, “what are we going to do with this information? We’d better do something before night falls below.”
“We already did something.” Nicholen pulled away from her neck, propping himself on his hands, and letting his hips drop to grind against hers. “Want to do something more?”
“Oh, stop.” She was breathless. “I mean about your stranded prince.”
That sobered him. “I doubt Camlan would be so reckless as to leave the ship overnight. At least not the first night. But you’re right. We’d better get to the bridge.”
He kissed her again, flicking his tongue across hers and lingering long enough that she could feel the stirring of his hard-on. Before she could change her mind—after all, who wants to wait for dessert?—he pushed himself up and off the bed.
She groaned. “All right. But you’d better not forget that you owe me one.”
As he reached to the floor to pick up his shirt, his sexy smile shot liquid desire straight through her body.
* * *
Xaviara was something else. Nicholen didn’t know what to think of her, although he could spend hours upon hours doing so. But they had a job to do. After checking that the hallway was clear, he let her scurry out the door in front of him, watching the sway of her hips and her little sidelong once-over.
As they made their way to the bridge, his head cleared. They had to do something about Gloria, although he didn’t know what. She was going to be unhappy no matter what he said when they got to the bridge. He did have some authority here as trincaar, although it was a sticky situation.
Camlan had never anticipated that he wouldn’t be around to back up Nicholen’s decisions as the true trincaar, so everything Nicholen asserted now was unsupported. He doubted any of the kadyyza would challenge his decisions. It helped that he was Captain of the Guard, so they were used to listening to him—even irritating Lianndra begrudgingly paid him respect when she had to.
With that line of thought opened an entirely new wellspring of frustration, but he pushed it aside.
Lost in thought, he almost walked onto the bridge, but Xaviara held out a hand to stop him. “What are you going to do?”
His hand hovered over the door open button. “I’m not sure. I need to confront her, but…”
“… but this is perhaps a job for diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy? Or brute strength?”
“What?” Xaviara’s eyes widened.
“I could throw Gloria into the brig. Take over the rescue mission on my authority as trincaar.” He activated his link. “Thoxxin, Kalliph, meet me at the bridge.”
She tugged on his sleeve. “Are you sure she did it, then?”
“Reasonably sure. I don’t think it’s Lianndra, and I suspect Breniel less than her.”
“So, no?”
“Let me get a status update, and then I’ll decide. We know she has the means and motive, and it wouldn’t have been hard to create the opportunity. Okay?”
Xaviara looked down the empty hallway, suddenly unsure. “What if she finds out I’m helping you?” His psy-sense picked up a chilly scent, like the air after a cold rainstorm.
Something bright flared in Nicholen’s chest, a fierce protectiveness for this woman. If this were true, they were going into the den of a predator who had control over her life and livelihood. And in post-coital bliss, he’d just walked through the ship with her at his side. Fuck, man, think! “I won’t stand for any repercussions against you, no matter what happens.”
“I like you, Nicholen. A lot. Enough to risk whatever trouble I could get into,” she whispered.
“If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll be the one to take the blame. And I will use all of my resources as trincaar,” he smiled wryly, “and after, as Captain of the Guard, to ensure that this doesn’t come back on you.”
“Thank you.”
His guards would be here any minute, but despite that, he kissed her fiercely, stirring a longing that would never be sated. He pulled away. “Do you want to watch from your room?”
She shook her head. “I’ll wait a couple seconds and then come in.”
He nodded and punched the door open button.
* * *
Nicholen pulled himself to his full height, and Xaviara sighed inwardly at how commanding he was. That declaration meant he felt more for her than this sexual chemistry zinging between them. He wanted her.
On the bridge, Gloria was bent over a console, giving directions to the communication officer, Samantha. “Keep trying,” she said. “We’ll break through eventually.”
“Any progress?” Nicholen’s voice was gruff, but he walked in like he owned the ship. Briefly, Xaviara wondered if he would act this way when acting as Captain of the Guard, but then—remembering how awkward he seemed at first playing the trincaar—realized this was his true self shining through.
She couldn’t wait to get him back into the bedroom and have a true matching of equals.
Gloria’s face was neutral as he approached. “We have not yet been able to break through the planet’s magnetic field and get a message to the ship below.”
“And have they sent us anything?”
“We’ve been monitoring all channels, but nothing so far.”
“That’s disappointing.” Nicholen strode to the console and brushed aside the communication officer. “Let me take a look.”
Xaviara recognized the program he was booting up. It was a raw review of all the information the ship was taking in. During a space voyage, massive amounts of data were collected by starships—locations of systems, radio signals that usually ended up being neutron stars, and any other random information that was passing through.
That information was uploaded to a central body that sorted through it and used it to create more accurate space maps. One of her classes in university was how to parse through the information, but unfortunately, she’d not been great at differentiating the code-like strings of data at the time, and she’d forgotten most of it now.
Nicholen was scrolling through the information, pausing, and then scrolling again. It was impressive how quickly he was reading it, but then, the Captain of the Guard would have reason to monitor all communications going in and out of the ship, even mundane ones. To the computer, he said, “Override previous commands with security clearance for Valkkh Nicholen.”
“Excuse me,” said Gloria, “but we’ve been monitoring the commdump, and we haven’t found anything.”
A staticky voice broke out over the overhead speakers. “Anchor ship… is lead ship… crash-landed… following coordinates… Repeat.”
Nicholen pinned Gloria with his gaze. “Haven’t found anything? It’s right here.” To Samantha, he said, “Clean up that transmission and compile a response.”
Gloria’s mouth flopped open. “Now wait a minute. I am in charge of this mission.”
“Gloria Falchuk of the Sol Alliance Coalition, I am invoking my right as Imdali System trincaar to remove you from your position as interim Lead. You are being accused of treasonous acts against peaceful diplomatic delegation KH-159, and I am ordering your confinement to the brig.”
The two kadyyza officers Nicholen had summoned appeared at the doorway. Gloria’s head snapped to look at them. “What? That’s ridiculous! I—”
“I don’t want to hear more about it. Lock her up. I’m taking over this rescue operation.”
Nicholen flicked two fingers in the air, and before Xaviara could take another breath, they were propelling Gloria out of the bridge and toward the brig.