Ranse, p.2
Ranse, page 2
Catarine stares at me blankly, then frowns at Esme. “Did you want…sauce…”
Esme chews her french fries. “Hm?”
“For your…” Ten minutes later, she’s still trying to get out a complete sentence. “Food sticks. Food…”
“Fries,” I say.
Catarine’s fists unclench, and she nods. “For your fries.”
“Fry sauce? That’s so sweet. My heart is racing. I…” Esme’s eyes roll back in her head and she slams helmet-first into her tray. Her food goes flying.
Wow.
I continue eating my meal while the others, you know, people with actual empathy, scramble to clean up the mess. “Don’t we have cleaning robots?”
“Oh, you’ve got a stain.” A pale brunette, Lia, dabs at my sleeve with quiet competence. Her spine is finishing-school straight, and her tone is polished. “This is a poly-cotton blend, isn’t it? With a tablespoon of vinegar and some ice water, I can keep it from setting.”
She’s as good as her word, and the stain disappears.
The next time I wear the shirt, several days later at another dinner, she double-checks that the stain is truly gone. “I’ve removed my share of stains. I have more tricks if it comes back. Speaking of which, Esme, I brought my sewing kit to fix your leggings after dinner.”
“That’s so useful,” Esme says earnestly. “You’re like a pro hostess. Your family must miss you.”
Lia rubs her bare ring finger, then hides it away beneath her right hand. “My daughter’s just started college at Second Harvard. She should be too busy to think about me.”
“Oh, Allie knows a professor at Second Harvard.”
Lia turns to me politely. “Oh?”
“An old friend,” I say, because that professor didn’t realize I was a student when he took me home from the bar, and I, as usual, couldn’t have cared less. “We don’t keep in touch.”
“Show Allie the napkins,” Esme says eagerly.
Lia gives Esme a look as if this is an embarrassing request, but she takes the top one off a stack that Esme’s produced for this purpose and, with a few careful folds and smoothing of edges, creates three different silverware holders with elegant lines. We ooh and ah, because they do look nice, and this encourages Lia to fold more exotic arrangements—a bow, a fan, a flower, and a fleur-de-lis—and we exclaim over every one. For a brief moment, a child-like excitement glows in her face. Satisfaction from the small deft movements and skilled turns. She tells us she once folded sixty-five napkins in two hours while simultaneously coordinating the kitchen and entertainment because her support staff got stuck on the wrong side of customs. Her grandmother was hosting the opposition to broker a cease-fire, and their enemies had tried to prevent it from happening. But, thanks to quick efforts, the event went off as planned.
“Your grandmother’s in government?” I ask. “America?”
“North Ukraine. She was a senator before the war.” She catches herself. “Before the last war. I often helped her schedule meetings and events. Nothing too important, unfortunately. I am a little more than a glorified hostess.”
“Event planners are in demand right now,” I say. “My last boss paid competitive wages for your line of work.”
The glow is snuffed out like a candle. She looks down and rubs her barren ring finger again like she’s used to toying with something that’s no longer there. “No, that was…It was just something I did in my past. I have no job history.”
She collects the napkins and unfolds them all, smooths the creases, returns them to the pile as if they never had left. Like her politeness, it doesn’t feel cold. It’s like she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself. If she does, someone might realize she’s actually made of spun glass.
“You…Lia…” Catarine nods slowly to a beat only she can hear. “You’re an artist?”
“No.”
“But you…work…”
“No,” Lia repeats firmly.
“You…work…?”
“I raised our daughter and supported my husband’s career until the appearance of symptoms made it impossible.”
Catarine blinks. “But you do…work…”
“Not outside the home. I was on my way to the sanitarium when this medical cruise was announced.”
“I was in one,” Esme says cheerfully.
Catarine still looks blank, which comes off as confusion, and Lia says kindly, “I’m sorry that your symptoms cause this brain fog, Catarine. That must be frustrating for a woman who was once a scholar.”
Catarine stares blankly. “You…work…”
“Not for years.”
“But…you work…”
This is killing me. I burst out, “She was a housewife.”
“What?”
“She worked in her house. She was a stay-at-home mom who took care of her daughter and her husband.”
“Yes, thank you. I have never been officially employed in any capacity. During my marriage, I was nothing but a housewife.” Lia sniffs and rubs her nose. “Allergies.”
Oh.
But the others don’t notice her momentary falter, and the familiar term finally seems to penetrate Catarine’s brain fog. Her brows clear, and the neural cat ears on her head relax. “Housewife.”
“Right.” Lia smiles.
Since it seems to help Catarine, we go around making up nicknames. The captain is the captain. The great-granddaughter of a pre-contact movie starlet introduces herself as an ace. Catarine turns to Esme.
“Me?” Esme giggles. “Oh, I don’t know. What do fainting spells and a fetish for older men add up to? I couldn’t…” Her eyes roll back, and her helmet bounces off the table with a loud crack.
“She’s an ingenue,” I say dryly, and the others titter.
“Me?” Catarine says.
“You’re a diplomat.”
Catarine blinks, expressionless, but her cat ears look pleased.
“What are you?” the ace asks me, her skin glowing with a perfectly blended full face. “Fashionista?”
“I’m an accountant.”
The captain chokes on her bitter black stims. “Yeah, like I’m a ‘repairman.’” A red light goes off on the side panel. She swears, tosses back her drink, and jogs to the sparking panel, which the rest of us collectively ignore.
You’re going to die out there.
Yeah, I know.
“Financial literacy is a core skill.” Lia scoots closer to Esme and measures a small patch to fit over the hole in the knee of her leggings. We all just ignore how she’s still passed out, drooling and snoring, on the table. “True numeracy is a superpower. With a little luck, you could rule an empire.”
“I don’t want to rule, I want to bring the current emperor to his knees.” I ball my hand up into a fist, the anger coursing through me like rivulets of lava, hot and sharp. “Make him sob for his mistakes and fix everything. And if he can’t, I’ll kick him right in his chaste, shriveled-up, Arrisan balls.”
“So you don’t want to rule, you want to choose the ruler?” The ace smiles, a luminous beauty that blesses us with stardust. “You’re a kingmaker.”
I like it. We never really know our own power. Give me the right kind of man, and I will make him a king. “Absolutely.”
As the weeks pass, Catarine’s and Esme’s debilitating symptoms worsen. Hopefully, the Vanadisans can figure out how to cure them.
I’m perfectly fine.
You’re going to die out there.
Humana is a tiny, conquered planet in the middle of a vast, harsh alien empire.
And whenever someone is vulnerable and defenseless, some jerk will eventually show up and make their lives hell.
I’m not a scholar like Catarine, but I’m sure it’s a natural law. A Natural Law of Jerkitude.
So we’re several months—or, I should say, kortans in Arrisan Standard time—into the voyage and barely halfway to Vanadis when what I knew would happen in fact happens.
The emergency sirens blare, the lights flash, and the computer voice intones, “Evacuation alert. Hull breach imminent.”
Yeah, we’re all going to die.
Esme faints.
Multiple women scream.
“Get to the escape pods!” The captain grabs Esme under the armpits and drags her backward to the hall pods. “Eruvisan pirates are cracking our hull. Go, go, go!”
But nobody moves. They’re frozen in fear.
I stalk to my room, swing my purse over my shoulder, and lift my fingers, snapping. “Listen to the captain, ladies. Get in the pods.”
The women turn en masse and follow me.
I do not want to die alone among the stars. Not when I’ve spent all these kortans plotting out how I will go to Arris Central, swing an audience with the emperor, and tell him that his treatment of Humana is totally wrong. He’s wasting us. We have much more to offer the empire than just producing food.
I don’t know what he wants or how this meeting is going to happen, but the fury burns in my brain, and I one hundred percent believe that I will be able to convince him—just as soon as I reach Vanadis, an ally planet, and get from there to Arris Central, where I will be the first human to ever enter the palace.
The harness clicks me to my seat, and the escape pod door closes, sealing me in.
I really hope I’m not about to die…
…
An antiseptic scent, like the narco-stasis gas my sister uses for surgery, fades from my nose. My sudden headache increases as if someone’s twisting up the volume on a pain knob, and my stomach heaves.
What happened?
Light pierces my eyes, cracking them open from a great distance, but when my lashes flutter open, it’s almost dark.
I’m seated inside the same dingy, single-person escape pod. The safety harness holds me to the seat.
Its door hangs wide open. The escape pod is inside a large, luxurious…castle?
The castle hall is massive and dim, with a false fire crackling in a wall viewscreen. A window shows a maroon sun setting on fields of nutrient cube vines, more lush and bounteous than any I’ve ever seen on our planet, even in my grandfather’s old images from beautiful central Africa.
My head pounds.
As the gas fades, in its place seeps the undeniable scent of money. Precious metal inlays, jewels. Some peppery spice hooks into my nose.
Sitting on a wall bench, leaning forward with a black chalice of liqueur between his bent knees, is a man.
A man?
Liquid honey pours into my bones. I don’t know how long it’s been since I fed my sickness, but if I made it all the way from Humana to Vanadis, that would have been months and months—and my brain shoots itchy needles through my body. My center throbs with agonizing pins. I need this man more than food or water or air. I will say, do, become anyone to have him.
He’s not human.
In fact, he wears the gray cloak of the conquerors and studies me with a tired, deadly air.
But he also doesn’t look quite right, even in the false firelight. Arrisans have black hair, silver skin, and small black spikes on their ears.
There are small points at his ears. Four of them.
But his skin is pearly silver, iridescent, and his hair is shaggy and bluish-silver.
A chevron pattern tattoos his wrist.
No, wait. It’s not a tattoo.
The Arrisans took over our planet in a day. Blowing us up from space got too boring, so they deployed elite foot soldiers who grew massive swords from their wrists. They sliced missiles in midair and carved up tanks. The chevron pattern is the opening flap for one of those arm-bone sheaths.
He’s an elite Arrisan soldier. A blade.
I should hate him.
At the very least, I should tell him his honored ruler is an idiot.
Instead, desire pulses through my body.
I suck in his scent with every breath.
It’s not enough.
I need to wrap my thighs around him, take his cock deep, beg him to mute my cravings. The Arrisans have cocks, right? Their lust hormones were removed, so they’re celibate monks, but I need him to make an exception. Dampen the fire in my brain. Lose my mind in his arms right now…
I can’t unsnap the safety harness. My wrists are manacled to the armrests.
I wriggle against the thin, flat fabric, then lift my chin to give him my best, most entrancing smile. “Release me.”
“In a moment.” His liquid-silver irises are hypnotizing. “I’m hoping we can help each other.”
“And you are?”
“Call me Ranse.” He passes the chalice to the table and leans against the sculpted gray wall, his total command pressing into me like hundreds of silent kisses promising delicious fulfillment if only he’ll cross the distance and give it to me. “Welcome to Arris Central, Allie. You are the sole witness to the emperor’s death. Tell me everything you remember. Now.”
Two
Allie
The Arrisan blade, Ranse, waits with infinite patience while I push against the restraints.
What happened after I entered this escape pod?
Where are the other women? Lia and the captain? Catarine and Esme?
The last thing I remember is ejecting into space. Then…
The memories are gone. I probe the blanks the way I’d trace the empty sockets of missing teeth.
Somehow, I’ve traveled across the universe from the outermost fringe where Humana lies to the very heart of the empire.
The conqueror’s home planet, Arris, was destroyed generations ago by an even deadlier enemy. Arris Central, this massive reconstructed satellite, is their home now.
I made it inside. Not only inside the fake planet, but all the way inside the palace to the very feet of the emperor.
Did I tell him he was an idiot?
I hope so.
“This isn’t the palace,” I say.
“We won’t be interrupted here.”
“Or some military prison, guard station…” I’m fishing now.
He folds his hands. “My office is very private. You can tell me what you know without any pesky witnesses.”
I will say anything he wants if it gets his broad palms gripping my waist, his cock thrusting inside me. I just need a hint. And the antiseptic smell lingering in my nostrils is a start. “I was in narco-stasis…?”
“But there must be something in your brain, hidden inside.” His bluish lips curve, but the easy mirth is not shared by his watchful eyes. “Isn’t there?”
A shard of emotion spikes the last syllable. A hint of desperation.
This man Ranse has stolen me from the palace—me, witness to the assassination of the most powerful ruler in the universe—and he got away with it. Either he’s an exceptional thief or he’s a man who won’t be stopped. And he already knows my name.
I lick my lips. “Release me, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“You’re strapped in for your own safety.”
“I don’t need to be safe.”
“You’ll attack me. And I can’t promise I won’t respond.” He tilts his wrist, and the hard silver blade embedded there emerges. A shiver of death trails down my spine. “Your blood is infected with Arrisan lusteal. It’s our procreation metal, the substance we need to mate, and it shouldn’t be compatible with anyone but another Arrisan, yet…” His gaze trails down my body. “…I can smell it on you.”
My nipples pinch in my bra. I am coiled tight. He has what I need, and apparently, I have what he needs. How did I get his sex metal inside me? That must be part of my missing memories too. Good planning, past Allie. Supply and demand. “Ravage me, then.”
His blade sucks back into his wrist with a snap. One corner of his mouth curves. “Fragile lesser, where’s your sense of self-preservation?”
I splay my legs, the spiked heels clinking against the pod floor. “Come over here and find out.”
A bluish-silver brow lifts, and his smile broadens. My intuitive senses are working. Although it’s a risk to defy him like this, I’ve managed to amuse him.
His gaze travels down to my panties, which I hope are visible through my skirt, and then he glances at the wall chronometer. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time.”
“I do.”
“I’m overdue to entertain two thousand of the empire’s elites.” He stands and stretches, hinting at coiled muscle beneath his flowing robe. “But I will strike you a bargain. Lessers like bargains. It’s one of their defining traits.” He ambles to a stop directly in front of me. “I know the man who assassinated my father. But I want you to identify who else was with him when he died.”
His father?
“Orunfax couldn’t have worked alone,” Ranse continues. “Identify the minor pawns, the unnoticed employees who facilitated this deadly attack in my father’s palace…”
“And?”
He cups my chin, his hand warm and strong, and teases his thumb across my trembling lower lip. “I’ll give you a nice reward.”
I catch his thumb in my teeth, hard.
His nostrils flare. His lips part, and his pupils dilate.
He smells like the burn of liquor, heady and dangerous, and I just want to drink him in. Wrap my thighs around his taut waist, embrace him, find my sanity in his iridescent skin and uncompromising manhood.
The wall viewscreen chimes. “Ranse. We have a problem.”
He focuses on me but raises his voice. “Yes?”
“Orunfax knows you have the lesser. He’s coming to take it.”
“How long until he arrives?”
“His advanced guard are demanding entry now.”
“Well, we can’t be inhospitable to my father’s assassin.” A false smile curves his lips, but real anger flashes like silver lightning in his eyes. “Let him in. I’ll be right down.”
“Understood.” The intercom clicks to end the call.
“It seems we’ll have to continue this conversation later.” He draws back. “I have to get rid of an unwelcome guest.”
“Let me out.” I shift in my seat. “I’ll make your enemy lose his mind.”
