Chapter 12

Bing.

Zyair groaned and rolled over, looking at the clock. It was the middle of the night, which meant it was first thing in the morning back on Noxxa. And the ringtone indicated PAPS was calling.

He sat up in bed and grabbed his comm. He answered in voice-only mode. He was naked and—he realized—extremely aroused. He had been dreaming about Layla. The memory of her warm, soft, writhing body underneath him flashed in his mind, and he tried to dismiss the memory. His physiology, however, was slower than his mind.

He glanced at the comm before answering and realized it was the head of the intelligence division calling. He worked for PAPS but also held a high rank in the Lorr high command.

"Sir," he said, wincing at how his voice cracked from the dryness.

"I know it's the middle of the night there," Colonel Amreicht said.

"No problem," Zyair replied and meant the words.

Nothing got his heart pumping like a call from command. Well, nothing had until Layla came along. Zyair crossed his fingers and hoped something a lot more interesting than some old heiress losing one of her artifacts was about to get him off this crappy planet but immediately realized that thought was now accompanied by a sense of sadness at having to leave Layla behind.

God, I'm definitely falling for this girl. Focus on the goddamn job, Zy.

"We have some intel," Colonel Amreicht said. "Now, bear in mind, you are getting this as a PAPS agent, not as a member of the royal family of Lorrz."

"Understood," Zyair said, his curiosity piquing.

"It's unconfirmed at this time, but we are hearing a lot of chatter that the Jorvlens have acquired something."

"Sir?"

"It's no secret that they want to conquer Lorr."

Zyair nodded grimly involuntarily. "Yes. Of course. Please continue. I know the protocol."

The threat of attack was the price he and his brothers paid for being in the royal family of one of the most desirable planets in the known universe. Still, the Jorvlens always made him shudder.

Zyair was sure they would not only crush his people under a brutal regime but also strip the planet Lorr of everything that made it desirable to begin with. Then they would move on, leaving the planet a husk of what it had been and the people to starve and fight among themselves.

"They are looking to create a weapon of mass destruction," Amreicht said.

Zyair stifled a groan. "Thank you for the update. Is that all, sir?"

He was prepared to reach through the comm and strangle Amreicht if he had woken him up for that. "In the conversations we're hearing, there's a confidence we haven't heard before. And our informants are scared. The most definitive thing we've heard is that they're certain they have the right materials to create a WMD with whatever they've recently acquired."

"Huh," Zyair said.

"That's all I have."

"They don't want me to come back?" Zyair questioned. "Isn't this more important?"

"No. Recovering the Desolation Stone is still priority one, um. For you."

Zyair knew better than to question or complain.

"I have another meeting," Amreicht informed him.

"Okay, over and out. Thank you, sir."

Zyair ended the call and flopped back onto his bed. He needed to find that damn stone. If the Jorvlens really had something they could create a WMD with, something they had been trying to do for eons, he wanted to be a part of it.

Zyair jumped out of his bed and threw on his clothes. He was out of his room and down the hall before he knew what he was doing. The moonlight lit the hallway through the floor to ceiling windows. Zyair stopped.

It was still the middle of the night. He really wanted to talk to Darina now. He couldn't burst into her bedroom, though. He stood there, wondering what he should do.

Priority number one, Zyair thought.

That was strange. Everyone at PAPS thought the assignment was a joke. Some doddering old lady probably left her precious bauble in the wrong room.

But if the stone was more than just a pretty rock as he'd discussed with Layla…

"Sir?"

Zyair jumped. He turned and saw the elderly house servant standing there.

"You're up late," Zyair said.

"I just got up, actually." The man shrugged.

"She makes you get up this early?" Zyair said.

"I just don't sleep much anymore." The man sighed. "You'll know one day, if you're lucky. If you're looking for the guest house, it's that way," he said, pointing. "Going to interrogate the suspect again, are you?"

"No." Zyair glared at him. The man just stared right back. Zyair decided that the question had probably been sincere. "I actually… I know it's late, early, whatever. But I really wanted to speak to Lady Indorsha."

"Is it about the stone?" the man asked, perking up.

"Yes, actually. I have some more questions. But it can wait until morning."

"Nonsense," the man said as he turned and trotted down the hallway. "If it's about the stone, she'd want to know immediately. Her orders were very clear."

Zyair followed the man and waited outside the large double doors to the heiress's private rooms. It took far less time than Zyair expected, but he was ushered into the sitting room. Through another set of doors, he saw a large bed on a raised platform, and the heiress walked toward him from it.

"You've found it?" the heiress said hopefully.

"No," Zyair said. "I just have more questions."

"What more can you possibly want to know? You need to find it!"

A small amount of bile rose in Zyair's throat, but he pushed it back down. He put on his most serious face, the one he used for interrogating the worst criminals in the galaxy. If she held out on him, and Lorr was attacked…

"What is the stone?" he barked.

"What do you mean? It's…"

"Can it do anything? Be used for something? It's not just an inanimate rock. Is it?"

That was another interrogation technique. Trick them into thinking you know something, and they will tell you everything.

"Mel, out," she yelled.

The servant ran from the bedroom where he had just finished making the bed and left them alone, slamming the doors shut behind him.

"He's loyal, but I can't trust him to hold his tongue. He seems to forget more…"

"The stone!" Zyair thundered.

"It has great magic," she said. "That's why I reported it to PAPS. I thought hiding it out in plain sight, surrounded innocuously by all the other pretty things, no one would pick it as something valuable to steal. If I locked it away, a thief would understand it had value, even if they didn't know what it was."

"So, what you are saying is…"

"Whoever stole it knew what they were looking for. They knew the power it can bestow upon the owner. In the past, long before my time, it was used for great good. But in the wrong hands…"

"It could be used for great evil," Zyair finished for her.

She nodded and smiled sadly. "I'm sorry I wasn't fully honest with you," she said. "You must have heard… something?"

Zyair maintained his serious look but didn't speak. He shook his head in a manner that let her know he had, but he couldn't discuss it.

She nodded again and wrung her hands. "You must find it. As fast as you can."

"That's what I'm trying to do." Zyair sighed.

"If there is nothing else…" she said gently.

"I'll go. Sorry for disturbing you."

Zyair let himself out. As he closed the door to the suite behind him, he saw the heiress climbing back into her freshly made bed. He didn't have time to worry about their personal particularities. He needed to find the stone. His whole planet was counting on him, even if they didn't know it, yet.