he wanted her, but if by some miracle they made it out of here, would that change? When there were more attractive options available?
“ Tikaya?” Rias asked gently, concern in his tone. The second boot had joined the first, along with the scratchy wool socks, but he still knelt, face tilted up, watching her.
“ Sorry, it’s nothing.” The future was a murky incorporeal place; best to enjoy what was real, what was now.
Rias stood, body solid and warm between her legs, but tense. “Please, tell me. I don’t want any more secrets, any more misunderstandings. I’m on your side out here, above all others.” His eyes probed hers. “Do you trust me?”
She blinked. “That wasn’t what I was doubting. I mean, I wasn’t doubting. I was just wondering if…if you saw me, back when you came to Kyatt to talk to our president, if I’d been in your path somewhere along the way…would you have noticed me?”
“ Ahhhh.” Rias grinned and the tension melted from him. “Indeed so.” His eyes grew hooded, sultry, and he leaned into her. “Especially if you’d been wearing that dress that so nicely accents your curves.”
He slipped his hands beneath her shirt and massaged his way up from her waist. She shivered at the sensations those callused but gentle fingers stirred. He kissed her mouth, her jaw, and down to her neck, and she closed her eyes, arching into him.
“ You do know…” he murmured against her throat, lips sending spirals of heat to her core. “Those dazzling blue eyes are rather rare in Turgonia. Exotic.” He spoke slowly, lazily, kisses punctuating his words. “And it’s always a challenge to find a lady of sufficient height.”
She would have laughed, but his mouth returned to claim hers, and she met him with equal intensity, humor forgotten. He broke away only long enough to say, “You’re a beautiful woman, Tikaya, and I love you.”
She gave him a fierce hug before turning to other matters. There was not much talking after that, and fortunately he proved more adept than she at removing military uniforms.
Tikaya woke with a start. The soft light of the room left her confused as to the time. She was in the sphere, with its shelf of air acting as a mattress. Though she had no blanket, a cocoon of warmth kept the alien bed cozy.
Rias sat next to her, head cocked, ear toward the window.
She touched his bare back. “What is it?”
“ I think I heard a scream.”
“ Not one of mine?”
“ Not this time.” He smiled and kissed her before crawling past her and out of the sphere. He reached the window before she maneuvered off the air cushion.
“ Better get dressed.” Rias jogged to their piles of clothing and tossed hers on the bed.
“ What’s going on?” She tugged her shirt over her head and tied her hair back.
“ I can’t see. There’s some kind of fog out there.”
As soon as Tikaya had trousers and boots on, she hustled to the window. A gray-blue haze made it impossible to see more than a few feet. She could not make out the reservoir, the walls, or the ground where the marines camped.
Rias belted on his sword and checked the rifle.
“ Wait,” Tikaya said as he headed for the lift. “What if it’s poisonous? What if everyone is already…”
Rias hesitated, one foot on the blue circle.
A yell of pain pierced the walls and was cut off.
“ They’re not dead yet,” he said.
But he did retrace his footsteps and find the towel he had used earlier. He tore it lengthwise, handed half to her, then wrapped the other half around his head to cover his nose and mouth. She tied hers and followed him down the lift.
Rias slid the door open and paused to listen before venturing out. “Stay close,” he whispered.
They slipped outside. The haze stung Tikaya’s eyes. Even through the cloth, she smelled an odor reminiscent of burnt coconut.
Rias led her toward the camp. Visibility ran only a few feet in the dense fog. They reached the first prone form, Agarik, still under his blanket.
“ Is he…” she started.
Rias knelt and checked for a pulse. “He’s breathing.”
“ Sleeping?”
Rias shook Agarik’s shoulder, which elicited a snore, but nothing more wakeful.
“ Not the type you can be roused from apparently,” Rias said.
They crept farther and found more sleeping marines. None of them could be shaken awake, and Rias stopped trying.
At the edge of the fog, a hint of green clothing appeared on the ground to the right. Tikaya stepped over a marine to find herself staring at an unknown face with blood still streaming from a slashed throat. She struggled for detachment-and to keep from stepping in the spreading crimson pool. The dead person was small and thin-boned with a green shirt and brown trousers that lacked any hint of military uniformity. Definitely not Turgonian, but she was not sure of the nationality.
“ Rias?” she whispered.
He had disappeared in the fog. She walked in the direction she had last seen him, but tripped over one of the marines. Her reaction was too slow and, almost as if she floated in water, she toppled face-first to land on the man. He grunted but did not wake.
Confused at the heaviness of her limbs, she pushed herself up. It felt as if a hundred pound rucksack burdened her. The cloth covering her face might delay the fog’s effects, but she would be snoring alongside the marines soon if she did not get away from it.
“ Rias?” she called a little louder.
“ Tikaya?”
She nearly tripped again. That wasn’t Rias. That wasn’t any Turgonian. It sounded like…
She put a hand to her chest. It couldn’t be.
“ Tikaya?” the voice came again. “Are you here?”
She closed her eyes. The voice, so familiar, was speaking in her language.
“ Over here,” she said. She did not say his name. She still did not believe it could be him. How could it be? He was dead, his ship sunk over a year before.
She held her breath as the fog stirred. A shape coalesced.
“ Parkonis,” she croaked, lifting a hand.
He was a slight figure in comparison with the Turgonians, and he looked even thinner than she remembered. His curly red-blond hair, always a mess, had grown and stuck out in every direction, much like the beard hiding his chin and neck. Anxious blue eyes looked her up and down. He was the one who had watched from the opposite side as the marines entered. Oh, Akahe, if she had been close enough to identify him earlier, would she have…
She glanced behind her shoulder. Where had Rias gone?
Parkonis started toward her, arms wide, a white toothy grin escaping the beard. But his toe bumped against the fallen green-clad man.
His smile faltered. “Tatkar, no.” His gaze darted a dozen directions. “One of them escaped the gas. We have to-”
A dark shape slipped out of the fog behind him.
“ No!” Tikaya shouted before she even saw the bloody dagger.
She lunged forward, knowing she could never stop the assassin in time. He, too, wore a cloth across his face, but it did not hide the intent in his cold, dark eyes.
Rias stepped out of the fog behind Sicarius and dropped a hand on the assassin’s shoulder. The dagger froze.
Parkonis whirled, took in the tableau, and stumbled back. Eyes still fixed on the assassin, Tikaya stepped forward and gripped Parkonis’s hand.
