The Star King Read online

  “Jas?”

  Rom was wearing that same look. Her heart twisted, and longing blanketed her eternal loneliness. Oh, how she wanted to believe in magic—his magic.

  No!

  She lashed out in a harsh whisper. “‘Holy pleasure,’ ‘sacred sex.’ Garbage! You are no different from my…my…” What she intended to say stuck in her throat. Nothing translated to ex-husband, so she blurted out the next best thing. “From my husband!”

  “Your husband?” Rom exclaimed, equally shaken.

  “Yes.” Her voice throbbed with pain. “Intimacy meant nothing to him, either.” She snatched her shoes out of his hand and stormed off.

  “Children?” Gann inquired mildly as she passed by.

  “Two.” Head held high, Jas disappeared into the corridor.

  “And so the story unfolds,” Gann said cheerily. “Boys or girls, I wonder?”

  Chapter Seven

  Misery loves company, Jas told herself, seeking refuge that evening with the crew in the Quillie’s common room, where Kendall Smith, the reporter from Earth, dominated the oversize viewscreen. The image was clear and bright, as if the correspondent stood in Washington, D.C., and Jas were watching from her living room at home. Thanks to Terz, chief engineer and sought-after handyman, she’d now be able to see all of Smith’s broadcasts.

  The group of rowdy crewmen made for a perfect distraction. They found the idea of a “frontiersman,” expounding on tourist attractions while being wined and dined by the Vash Nadah, entertaining. And that, in turn, gave her a humorous insight into their world. So far they’d told her how to book passage on tourist shuttles, the best vacation spots, and that the Romjha Hotel was the place to stay when she arrived at the Depot.

  Setting aside the pen she was using to take notes, she reached across Muffin’s lap to a hammered copperlike bowl, scooping up a handful of the crispy little question marks that passed for chips. They were spiced with something savory instead of salted…and she couldn’t get enough of them. “My thighs hope that shimmer crackers don’t taste better than these. I could live on these toppers—or rather, poppers.” Jas dusted crumbs from her hands with a napkin. “That isn’t it. What do you call them?”

  “Positively addictive.”

  She stiffened at the sound of the familiar voice. Arms crossed over his chest, one shoulder propped against the door frame, Rom was watching her intently. She fought the urge to dive for cover, wishing she were anywhere else but beneath the stare of those unwavering, hauntingly familiar golden eyes.

  “Croppers is the common name,” he said pleasantly. His devil-may-care exterior didn’t fool her. And that expression of practiced boredom was a mask. She’d bet her bottom dollar that the muscles tensing in his jaw indicated barely contained fury. “You’ll see them again and again. They’re a staple in drinking establishments from the galaxy’s heart to the frontier.” He looked her over with something akin to contempt. “Surely you’re looking forward to socializing during your, ah, unfettered travels…Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Nodding, she choked down the suddenly dry wad of croppers that had stuck to her tongue.

  “Ah, Rom, glad you could join us,” Gann sang out as he returned, two large bowls brimming with peculiar glittering crackers in his arms. He set one bowl close to Jas. “Shimmer crackers. Freshly baked.”

  Rom followed him into the room. Hastily she camouflaged Gann’s empty spot with pillows, but Rom stopped in front of the couch, towering over her. Everything about him looked bigger, stronger. Threatening. She could hear his slow, even breaths, could smell the broken-in leather of his work boots, the laundered fabric of his loose-fitting silvery shirt, and his skin—warmly scented with hygienic shower soap—mingled with something exotic, musky…and distinctly male.

  The way he tasted.

  She gulped. Rom gestured to the cushions stacked between her and Muffin. “Any claims on this spot?”

  Jas beseeched Rom’s tall friend with her eyes. “Gann, I saved your seat.”

  Gann waved demurely. “Sit, B’kah. Rank before beauty.”

  “That’s age before beauty,” Jas corrected sourly.

  “Rom wins on both counts then.” Gann tipped his head toward his captain, then settled onto a pile of pillows on the floor. Rom sat next to her. The viewscreen’s muted, multicolored image behind him made his perfectly sculpted profile look as cool and impenetrable as marble.

  He spoke in hushed tones. “I would have thought it impossible on such a small ship, but aside from glimpses here and there, I haven’t seen you all day.”

  She could barely hear his voice above the background noise of chitchat and laughter. Leaning closer, she unintentionally brushed her arm against his. His biceps went taut with the contact. “I have been painting,” she said uneasily. “And reading.”

  An emotionally charged silence pulsed between them.

  “Tell me, Jasmine, do you intend to avoid me until the end of the voyage?”

  “I did not have a plan one way or the other.”

  “I see. A vague reply to blunt your deceit.”

  She bristled, whispering harshly, “Explain what you mean.”

  The small creases etched on either side of his mouth deepened. Disturbingly calm, he pressed his fingertips together, flexing them. “I cannot stomach adultery.”

  “What?”

  “I made a grave error in assuming you were free to make love with me. Because I was so sure that you were the incarnation of my vision, I did not consider that you might be a wife. Had I known this I would not have asked you to make love. Never would I take a woman who has spoken the sacred vows with another.”

  “Rom,” she said softly. “I am not married.”

  There was no mistaking the relief in his eyes. “You are a widow, then.”

  “No. The marriage was”—she hunted for the best words—“legally severed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me on the bridge?”

  “I tried. But there is no Basic that means ‘broken marriage.’” He looked so bewildered that she rushed her explanation, stumbling over the simplest Basic words as she told him how her marriage had officially ended almost a year ago, and how they’d lived apart even longer. Still, she skirted any mention of how they’d ceased to have a real marriage long before that.

  “Jock.” A hint of a grimace curved Rom’s lips, as if the name itself left a bitter taste. “He left you without a protector? When you had children?”

  “They are grown. Nineteen in Earth years. Duplicates.”

  Rom raised one nutmeg-colored brow. She could tell from his expression that she’d chosen the wrong word. “Twins?” he supplied, almost smiling.

  She nodded. “A boy and a girl.” Her voice mellowed. “I miss them…”

  He gazed at her with open and respectful admiration. Then his expression darkened and he jammed his fingers through his hair. “You could have clarified this earlier.”

  “I was furious,” she reminded him.

  He jerked his palms in the air. “This I don’t understand, either.”

  “You embarrassed me. You announced the private details of our dinner. It…it made what we shared trivial and cheap.”

  “You misunderstand!” Under the scrutiny of a dozen curious stares, he lowered his voice and took her hands in his, studying her fingers as they lay nestled in his wide palm. “There is much between us, Jas. None of it trivial or cheap.”

  Quietly, he added, “You may not accept this, but I do: we’ve met before, you and I. If not in the flesh, then in the realm of dreams. On a battlefield…on a planet called Balkanor. I was badly wounded, grieving for Li-jhan, my brother, who was killed there. I didn’t care if I lived or died…But you did.”

  Her mouth tightened. “It wasn’t real. It did not happen.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Her doubt must have been obvious enough to give him his answer, for he gentled his tone. “My culture places great import on visions, on dreams. Hence, I’m less inclined to dismi
ss what happened to me on Balkanor as mere hallucination—or disregard your resemblance to the woman I saw there.”

  She stared her clenched hands. “In my dream there is a man with eyes like yours. But I always wake before I walk close enough to see his face.”

  “My face, Jas. You dream of the desert. Balkanor is a desert planet.”

  She lifted her eyes. “Coincidence.”

  “There are no coincidences, Jas. Nothing happens by accident, nothing. Including your appearance on my ship.”

  A sensible person, like herself, knew that what he suggested was impossible; but, good Lord, he made it sound so reasonable. In less than three days he’d intimidated her, awakened her desire, embarrassed her, and angered her. Now he claimed he could interpret her dreams. Yet instead of fleeing the insanity of it all, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and kiss that sweetly sincere face of his. Never had her emotions been on such a roller-coaster ride. To gather her wits, she focused on Kendall Smith’s broadcast, vaguely aware of having missed half the show.

  “…I’ll spend two full days there,” the reporter was saying. “After that I’ll take you to a land of magical beauty.”

  An image of a glowing, picturesque, almost iridescent forest of tall, feathery conifers appeared behind him.

  The crew grumbled appreciatively.

  “Sureen,” Rom murmured in her ear. His warm breath raised tingles along her neck.

  “Sureen,” the reporter’s voice echoed distantly. “A popular tourist destination for thousands of years…”

  Rom’s velvety lips brushed over Jas’s ear, fanning her tingles into a bonfire. “Been there a dozen times,” he whispered, his iron-hard thigh pressing against hers. “The trees there are phosphorescent, and at night they glow so brightly it never becomes dark.”

  “—producing a unique phenomenon I liken to stepping inside a rainbow,” the reporter said in a narration nowhere near as fascinating as Rom’s very personal one. “Heightening the effect, the inhabitants incorporate the substance responsible for the phosphorescence into their architecture and artwork.”

  Jas’s fingers ached to grasp a brush soaked with the lush hues. She lifted her chin, nearly meeting Rom’s lips. Only because of the decided lack of privacy did she inch away from the tempting possibility of a kiss. “They paint with the substance? What color is it?”

  Everyone answered her at once.

  “Turquoise and lavender,” Zarra declared.

  Muffin waved his big hand. “Not at all. It’s as green as jampala jam.”

  “Don’t buy any trinkets painted in the rainbow colors,” Terz cautioned.

  “Or the paintings,” Rom added. “Beautiful as they might be.”

  Gann chimed in. “The merchants make a hefty profit selling them. But once you leave the planet, they all turn gray.”

  “Because the phosphorescent substance can exist only there,” Jas said thoughtfully. Sureen would be one of the places she visited, if only to paint in the extravagant shades.

  A loud, female-sounding, computer-generated voice pierced her reverie. “ALERT, ALERT. SMOKE DETECTED IN SECTION SIX B.”

  Terz groaned. “Blasted gravity generator. It’s overheating again.”

  Jas’s stomach flip-flopped, and she blinked away a vague dizziness. Then she floated off the couch. She laughed in shock and delight, levitating amid clouds of liberated croppers and shimmer crackers.

  “To your stations,” Rom commanded. The men reacted calmly, as if they’d been through similar situations before. In a wildly incongruous picture, they streamed out the door, some headfirst. “Gann, stand by on the bridge to bring us out of light speed, should that become necessary.”

  Forgotten while Rom conversed with Gann and Terz, Jas pointed a shimmer cracker at a whirling empty tock cup and flicked it with her thumb and index finger. It missed the cup and spun into the other crackers, creating a ripple effect across the room. Chuckling, she snatched another cracker out of the air and took aim, but Rom grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her toward him.

  “We’ve had trouble with the generator ever since we had it serviced by that no-account mechanic on Gamma Nine,” he said. “I guarantee I’ll be making a return visit.”

  “I recall seeing a reference to the gravity generators on the maintenance status page on the computer. But I never imagined it meant this could happen.”

  Rom appeared surprised and somewhat troubled. “You’ve accessed the computer?”

  “Terz showed me how. So I could plan my travels,” she added, in case Rom was worried that she was a security risk.

  “ALERT, ALERT. SMOKE DETECTED IN SECTION SIX B,” the computer droned.

  Rom laced his fingers with hers. Using the bolted-down furniture for leverage, he steered her into the corridor. “How long will we be weightless?” she asked.

  “Varies. Hours, perhaps. I want you go to the bridge and wait it out. Find a chair and strap yourself in. Gravity might come back at any time. When it does, it’ll—”

  They plummeted to the floor. Rom twisted so she fell onto his body instead of the unforgiving metallic surface. Nonetheless, her left arm glanced off the wall. Gritting her teeth, she tucked her smarting elbow to her chest. Rom eased her to the floor, cushioning the back of her head with his hand. Concern shadowed his face when he noticed how she clutched her arm. “You’re injured.”

  “Just bumped it.” She gasped, sitting up, still startled by their sudden fall. He tugged her sleeve almost to her shoulder and examined her arm, gently probing the bruise.

  “ALERT, ALERT. SMOKE DETECTED IN SECTION SIX B.”

  He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. “There are cold packs stored in the medical kit on the bridge. Ask Gann. I have to go below, or I’d tend to you myself.” They floated off the floor again. “Bucket of bolts,” he muttered, and guided her to a row of metal rings on the wall. “Handgrips. Do you think you can pull yourself to the bridge?”

  Jas flexed her arm. The twinge of pain faded as she flexed her elbow. “I think everything is in working order.” To prove her point she grabbed two handgrips. The motion caused her lower body to arc upward. She gave quick, surprised laugh, stopping just short of a giggle. “Hey, this is fun.”

  Rom pointed toward the bridge. “Go. And no acrobatics along the way.”

  “Not even one…?” She didn’t know the word for somersault so she rolled her hands one over the other.

  “Absolutely not.” Planting his boot heels on the wall, Rom pushed away with the agility of an Olympic high diver. “You never know when the gravity will come—” He plunged to the floor and landed with a resounding thump.

  “Back?” she supplied.

  Rom propped himself on his arms. “Precisely.” Even sprawled on the floor, he managed to maintain his noble demeanor, as if it were bred into his bones.

  “ALERT, ALERT. SMOKE DETECTED IN SECTIONS SIX A AND SIX B.”

  “Two sections now.” A trickle of unease ran down her spine. “It’s spreading.”

  Rom’s tone turned serious. “Go to the bridge.” The change in his mood told her all she needed to know. She nodded, her heartbeat accelerating. Rom climbed to his feet and limped into a jog. Gravity fled and he’d lifted off the floor even before rounding the corner.

  Favoring her sore elbow, Jas drifted one-handed, peering down the darkened corridor. It was a long way to the bridge, particularly if she had to use the handgrips. The generator room was closer. She’d lived through more than her share of aviation mishaps. Surely she’d be able to offer some help to Rom and the others down below.

  “WARNING, WARNING. FIRE DETECTED IN SECTIONS SIX A AND SIX B.” This time an earsplitting klaxon followed the honeyed computer-generated voice. Curiosity paled with the thought that the men were in danger. And Rom…

  Adrenaline surged through her, accompanied by the need to protect him, a force as elemental and instinctive as ensuring her children’s safety. She decided not to analyze it, but to act. Hand ove
r hand she made her way to a ladder that descended into the cold, echoing bowels of the ship. Though the air recyclers hummed loudly, an acrid stench of burning wires stung her nose and throat, and a white haze billowed near the ceiling. Gravity returned. She dropped to the floor, landing on the thick soles of her boots, and sprinted toward the bright lights at end of the corridor. The dancing reflection of flames and what she figured was an extinguishing agent flickered over the metallic flooring. The ship gave a long, controlled shudder. She stumbled. Righting herself, she kept going. Rom must have given the order to come out of light speed. Not a good sign. Finishing the voyage in zero-g was one thing, but what if the fire damaged the ship? Would they limp along until supplies ran out? Or worse, be marooned in space?

  Whatever experience Rom had at squeezing out of tight situations, she hoped he would use it to get them out of this one.

  To her right were two widely spaced doorways leading into the smoky generator room. Shielding her nose and mouth with her sleeve, she glimpsed Rom, Muffin, and Terz about thirty feet farther down the hall, across from the first hatchway. Animatedly engaged in a discussion, they were gathered around a panel with blinking green and red lights mounted on the wall, a larger version of the door control panel in her room. Relief washed through her at the sight of Rom’s muscled, athletic frame and confident stance; yet her nauseating dread lingered. She’d best distract herself, or risk going crazy.

  “PURGE SEQUENCE ACTIVATED. TWO MINUTES UNTIL DEPRESSURIZATION,” the computer intoned.

  It sounded as though Rom was going to open the outer hatch doors to space. The resulting vacuum would suffocate the fire in an instant. But wouldn’t he have to close the inner corridor hatches first? If not, everyone and everything not bolted down would be ejected into space. The handgrips looked more enticing than ever. But as she opened and closed her hands, fighting the impulse to grab on for all she was worth, the urge to reach Rom was stronger. Awash with an unsettling vulnerability, she scrutinized the two closest doors, praying they’d hold tight during the imminent depressurization.