Chapter 19

Aramon

I was dying for Evie to wash the dye from her hair so I could see her in all her glory. It was clear that being “just” Evie made her feel uncomfortable. She’d been forced to play someone else for so much of her life that she didn’t know how to be herself. I’d teach her. I was very good at being me. It wouldn’t be long until she proudly embraced being Evie and showed off her pretty green eyes and red hair for the whole quadrant to see.

The bright Ov’Korad sun was harmful to her skin, turning it red across the bridge of her nose. It also brought out tiny brown dots on her neck, her arms, and even her belly. They appeared most abundantly on her face, and I absolutely adored them. They tempted me to kiss every single one, but it was time we couldn't spare. With only limited food and water, I had to get us to shelter quickly.

Thankfully, I’d been smart enough to pack armor suits for both of us, along with weapons and medical supplies. With my psychic bond to Solear in place, I also had an open line of communication directly to the Varakartoom, where he remained. If we needed help, they could swoop in and rescue us at any moment—a safety line our enemies would never suspect existed. Though fabled, Asrai psychic bonds were usually very limited in their range. Not so with Solear and me; we had never been far enough apart for the bond to break. At this point, I did not think there was a distance large enough to do so.

Evie looked sexy in the armor, but I was worried about the effects of the sun on her fair skin. To keep her safe, I activated the helmet, ensuring that she’d be protected from any further sunburn as we traveled. Then the two of us climbed onto the hover bike, and I directed it toward the nearest town. As an extra bonus, it also kept the dust and sand out of her face. When I raised mine, we could use the inner mics to communicate directly without the aid of a com.

I peppered her with questions to keep her distracted from the chaos we had left behind, and, for a time, that worked. She sat behind me on the hover cycle, her arms around my waist and her head pressed against my back. It stung a little against the still-healing wounds, but that was a price I was more than willing to pay. Besides, what the tissue regenerator hadn’t fixed yet, my natural healing capabilities would take care of in the next few hours. I’d be right as rain by evening.

When we reached the nearest town a few hours later, I half expected it to look like the desert towns I recalled from my Asrai birth world, or even like the towns that dotted the Xurtal deserts—a mixture of tents and small stone buildings with thick walls to insulate against the heat. The small Ovt town we were approaching looked nothing like that, but I should have remembered what Ov’Korad exported: mushrooms.

There were tall white spires with homes and deep caverns dug beneath the desert. High-tech sails of shimmering silver spanned most of this town to supply solar power, and an artificial oasis had been created around the deeply bored well to supply water.

When Evie saw it, she drew in a shocked gasp. “What is that? Is this one of Ov’Korad’s famous farming towns?” She had to know more about it than I did, but I knew the mushrooms this planet supplied to the rest of the quadrant were pretty vital. They were the basis of many rations and long-lasting foods; some ships had food replicators that ran exclusively on the mushrooms they grew here. It was no wonder that they remained a powerful player in the quadrant while occupying only a single planet.

“It must be. We’ll get a room at the inn and sit tight until I get the word that it’s safe to return.” She objected to that, which I fully expected and ignored. This Xurtal alliance had to form fast, she argued, and if she ran and hid after this attack, it could fall apart. Maybe, but maybe not—we did not know for sure. What I did know was that someone had tried to blow up my princess and everyone she was talking to. I was not going to make her an easy target with those bastards out there lying in wait.

The inn was a tall spire with many tiny windows set at intervals in its thick walls. A flashing neon sign sat at the top, and lower above the entrance, it declared it the Shroom Hole, which made me laugh. That was a stupid name, and the innkeeper, who came out to greet us, looked equally silly with a round cap on his head shaped like the cap of a mushroom. It had glowing purple lines along the edges, which made me think that’s what the Ovt mushrooms looked like, and they were proud of it somehow.

This mushroom farmer-turned-innkeeper was nervous when he saw the hover cycle with the damage I’d done to the dash. It didn’t take a genius to realize the bike had been stolen, and that trouble was brewing if he let us stay. But money always talked, and he was more than willing to take my coin. The room he took us to was small and the bed lumpy, but the walls were thick, which was a blessing. It also took us out of the heat and the scorching sun, allowing Evie to lower her helmet once inside.

“Stay here,” I warned her, and I slipped the single pistol we had into her hand. “Shoot anyone that isn’t me, okay?” She gave me a suspicious look but took the pistol, her slender body perched awkwardly on the edge of the too-small, lumpy cot. Without her helmet, her green hair was very obvious, and we needed to do something about that fast. The innkeeper hadn’t seen her face yet, but if they caught sight of the green hair, they might make the connection if those chasing us spread the word of who they were looking for. I needed to fix this.

“I’m getting us supplies and something for your hair,” I said, pointing at the mossy locks that lay in a tumbled mess around her shoulders. Even windblown and sunburned, she looked gorgeous, and it wasn’t until Solear prompted me on our status that I got moving. She laughed huskily as I snapped upright and stalked out, and the sound chased me down the stairs.

Touching my chest, where my heart pumped slow and steady, I focused on Solear. He was never good at forming words to send my way; it was always in images and feelings with him. Since our doubling and meeting Evie, he’d gotten better at it, though—a clarity to our bond that surprised me.

First, he sent me an image of the bomb’s aftermath, then a tally of the casualties. King Kalzudaud has taken command. He felt conflicted about that, but he also gave me the impression that Asmoded, the captain, approved. The Tarkan has contacted Xurtal and pushed the survivors into continuing discussions. That was good news; if they were talking with someone on Xurtal now, that might mean Evie was safe.

I still went to see the innkeeper and demanded the supplies I wanted. Some had to be sourced from their general store, but I got what I needed twenty minutes later. A little Ovt boy ran in with my most important things in a basket, out of breath and rapidly licking his dry eyeballs free of dust. “Sandstorm coming,” the Ovt proprietor explained as he tucked his son against his side with his long, prehensile tail. “You will have to stay inside for the next few hours.”

That was only going to benefit us, and I had an extra bounce in my step as I headed up to our room to share the good news. Evie greeted me with a gun aimed at my face, but she dropped it immediately and threw herself into my arms, squishing the basket between us. “Damn it, Aramon. You were gone so long! I was getting worried.” I had never had anyone worry about me other than Solear, and that felt very different. I had to admit that I liked it—my female was waiting for me, worrying whether I was safe.

“Sandstorm, we’ll have to stay in,” I said to her, and then I ushered her into the tiny bathroom with the dye stripper. “Take care of this first, and then we’ll go down and have dinner. I’m starving after all that fun.” Of course, nothing ever went as planned, and when Evie returned from the bathroom a little while later without the green dye in her hair, my plans were definitely derailed. All those lush coppery locks and the soft freckles the sun had brought out were too much of a temptation.

“No, sex first,” I told her. “Then dinner.” She laughed, thinking I was joking, but she knew I meant it when I picked her up and threw her onto the bed. I did not let her out of that room for an hour, and by then, our stomachs were both rumbling.

***

Evie

I didn’t have to second-guess myself or doubt my attractiveness when Aramon’s response was as enthusiastic as that. It felt good to just be me again, and I was starting to believe that Evie was exactly what my crazy, sexy mercenary wanted—not the fancy princess; that was never going to work for him. We were matched as mates because we both liked the same things, and it wasn’t fancy food and fancy clothes. When we ate mushroom burgers with greasy, fried Haras sticks last night, that seemed like one of the best meals I’d had in ages.

Waking up as myself and in my mate’s arms also felt like things were finally going right. But how could I think that when a bomb had gone off and we’d been chased across the desert by a dozen hover vehicles and a handful of skimmers? Those hover vehicles would still be out there, searching for us, and they could easily deduce which town we’d gone to. This should be a dream: finding my mate and discovering how strong and brave he was. It felt like I was still trying to surface from a nightmare, and I had yet to locate the way out.

Who was behind these attacks? Ovt agents had played a role—that was a fact—but had they been hired, or were they acting on behalf of the Ov’Korad government? I could not make an accusation without definitive proof, and I was starting to lose the desire to see this through. It would be so easy to run away.

Now that I looked nothing like Evadne, it would be simple to disappear into the night with Aramon and leave others to deal with this mess. The question was: could I live with the guilt if an alliance failed to take shape without my help and an invasion leveled Xurtal? Aramon wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep—I knew that. He wasn’t wired the same as most people; he cared, but only about those who mattered to him. The rest might as well not exist.

He was tucking what little remained of our gear into the pouches on his armor, the gun already strapped to his thigh. I knew he had more weapons; I’d seen knives and even a garrote wire, but he wasn’t sharing. I was a trained fighter, but I was comfortable with not being armed and letting him do the fighting. I'd never wanted to be a fighter; it hadn't been my choice. Aramon was all about letting me be me. Evie did not want to fight. She didn’t know what she wanted yet, but she knew she wanted the chance to find out.

When we left the inn at the crack of dawn, the sandstorm had passed but had left a fine layer of dust over everything. The solar sails were coated with something that allowed the sand to slide right off, and it lay in large drifts throughout the town. Already, many Ovters were out and about, shoveling the sand back to clear the paths—an endless fight against the encroaching sand. Since I’d lived for most of my life in a similar desert—with green sand, rather than this pale white—I knew all about the ways sand got into everything. I was very ready to leave deserts behind me, never to return.

“Solear says it’s safe to go back. The Ovt referee has vanished without a trace; he was likely the reason that bomb was there, spying on your progress,” Aramon said as we walked past a sand pile to reach the parked hover cycle. He gestured with a hand. “It would have been devastating, but apparently, Theronix threw himself onto the bomb at the last moment. I don’t know how he got out, but he did, and he saved the day.”

I halted in my tracks and stared at Aramon’s back as he kept walking. “Hang on, Theronix threw himself on the bomb?” With a sinking feeling, I knew that meant the guard was dead. He’d gotten out from wherever the mercenaries had been holding him, but his final act had been to save me and the others—not kill me. I guessed it could be said that he’d always been all about saving Xurtal, and that attempt on my life really hadn’t been personal.

Oddly, I even felt a bit of grief for him. We’d survived a lot together—weeks of captivity, years of training, and protecting Evadne. The truth was, I had always felt that he’d carried a torch for the real princess, and once she’d died, all he had left was his loyalty to Xurtal. I was just a painful reminder of everything he’d lost.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Aramon asked, coming back to take my hands in one of his. With the other, he cupped my chin, tilting my eyes up to his face. It felt odd to stand out in public as just me, and I felt plenty of eyes on me from the curious locals. I felt naked without my hair dye, my contacts, and the illusion device. I had taken it off that morning, as there was no point in wearing it if I didn’t have the other two.

“Just sad, I guess. I didn’t think I’d be, but none of Evadne’s guard, or Evadne herself, deserved what they got. They were good people, Aramon.” He huffed, his mouth twisted with disbelief, but he didn’t correct me out loud. I knew I’d been dealt a raw deal by fate, by the Xurtal, and now by these assassins. But they had been my family, in a way—even Theronix. So, yeah, I was sad.

He pulled me into his arms without another word, holding me tightly as I allowed those feelings to fill me before sending them away. He held me so tightly that I felt safe enough to unravel for a little while, before I pulled myself back together. He held me tightly enough that it felt like those emotions had a safe place, that I was safe.

When I was done feeling sad, Aramon led me to the hover cycle, and we got on and flew away. I didn’t know what our next move was going to be. Without looking like Evadne, I couldn’t waltz into the negotiations. As if sensing my thoughts, Aramon’s voice came to me through my helmet’s tiny hidden speaker. “We are meeting a shuttle from the Varakartoom. Solear and Asmoded will be there. The captain will know what to do next. Don’t worry, Evie. By this time tomorrow, it will all be over. I promise.”

I hoped so, I really hoped so.