Page 68 of Star Champion

The men bore the arguable burden of the fans’ attention. It left her free to ogle myriad goods and food items in the store windows, tempting the hungry Baréshti girl that lived inside her. She wanted to press her nose against the panes to stare at the culinary delights behind them. It was surreal knowing she had enough credits to her name to buy anything she wanted off those shelves.

More than once her teammates turned to find her slowing to gaze at the wares of one store or another. “You’re showing your frontier roots, Kes,” Heddad said with affection, being the one to gather her up this time. His glow-tats grew brighter as dusk crept over the city.

“Aye. We don’t have stores like this where I’m from.”

“We need to get you out more often.”

I feel like I’ve been caged all my life and now I’m finally free. But she wasn’t really free, was she? Not if she couldn’t walk openly with her lover. To hold hands with Klark, their fingers laced together, as they explored every corner of this vibrant jewel of a city. He had been at her side for nearly every other “first” she had experienced in her new life. It felt strange not to be with him now.

But, no, the cog was off with his swanky friends about whom he had revealed nothing. Team business, her eye. He was attending toupper-classbusiness. A governor’s uppity reception, whatever that was. Not only was she unwelcome at the function, she was too lowly to know about it.

That was the crux of her irritation, his not having told her. Well, she had friends of her own. They might not be commoners like her but her teammates were notVash Nadahroyals, either. If they wanted to show her a good time, she was more than happy to oblige.

CHAPTER21

At sunset,Klark escaped the reception. The governor himself escorted Klark to his speeder, chattering on about this or that, encouraged by Klark’s cordial smile. The press hounded him outside, asking after all the players but in particular Kes Aves. “I just held a press conference,” he told them. “Nothing has changed.”

“Except that no one has seen the young star in the flesh,” one reporter said.

“Only a few more days,” Klark promised with a laugh.

The first moon loomed in the sky. Last night at sunset Jemm had said she thought it resembled an overripe mar-melon with its orange hue and pockmarked surface. Smiling, he realized how impatient he was to see her, to hold her, to hear her laugh. To make love to her. It was hard to believe that they had spent so many weeks together, only occasionally in the company of others, and yet their time together seemed not nearly enough. This was not an opinion he ever expected of himself, especially after wondering how his brother Ché had endured spending months on a honeymoon alone with his new wife, Ilana—months—without going mad. At one time, the prospect of anyone’s long-term company, let alone a female’s company, sounded tedious to the maximum degree. That had all changed. He wanted Jemm in his life, for the rest of his life!

You cannot have what Ché has. Your situation is different.

Because Jemm is different.

Klark had put the options through the grinder of his inner logic many times of late. Being with Jemm versus upholding his clan’s reputation, personal happiness versus family embarrassment, forging a true relationship with Jemm versus decimating her chances at success as a professional bajha player. But no answers came of it.

He did not like it. In life he wanted logic and a plan of action. In this he had neither.

Klark and the governor stopped in front of the speeder. He made sure his facial expression did not reflect any of his inner thoughts. This was no time for doubt to come to roost. Not this close to the season’s start.

“Where is your pilot, Your Highness?” the governor inquired, seeing the empty cockpit.

“I prefer to fly myself, when the opportunity presents.” He shook the governor’s offered hand. “Once again, thank you for your hospitality, Governor. I will see you on opening day.”

Klark settled into the snug interior of the personal speeder and pulled the hatch closed. It sealed and his eardrums popped as the craft pressurized. He noticed for the first time the icon on his personal comm telling him of a message of routine priority.Yonson Skeet: Sir, if you’re looking for Kes, I’ve got him. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.

The private club was luxurious by Jemm’s standards. Crat, by any standards. The stink of swank and body odor was absent. No underlying funk of smog or sewage clogged her nostrils. The music was not the thump she loved, but the banging beat was a mild imitation. The urge to move to the beat was strong, but she danced like a lass and didn’t dare.

Female gazes followed her as she walked with her companions to a table. Jemm fought the impulse to jerk away when a few of the bolder women trailed fingertips along her chest. If anyone detected the padding she used to disguise her breasts, it was game over.

But no one seemed to suspect anything. Expectation bias was on her side once again.

Soon drinks came, and then food. Her teammates were irreverent and raucous in the relative safety of the private club. Jemm laughed with them and joined in the banter. But her high spirits nosedived when Xirri brought an attractive woman in a short, red, skintight dress to the table. “Kes, meet Theeran. Theeran meet Kes.”

Jemm mumbled a hello. Theeran was beautiful in an exotic way with fair coloring, high rounded cheekbones, and flared brows that twinkled with minuscule purple lights at each end, each one as tiny as a grain of sand. The lights complemented her eye color, an unnatural but striking shade of lavender. The curves of her body were so precise they seemed engineered, and probably were.

An expensive sex server.

“Welcome to the team, Kes,” Xirri said, his hands wrapped around the woman’s tiny waist as he pushed her toward Jemm. “Enjoy your gift.”

“That’s all right, I—”

The woman settled onto Jemm’s lap. Her perfume hovered around them in a cloud. Jemm recognized some sort of musk. She had heard about chemical pheromone attractants, and guessed it was present now.

“What a sexy man you are.” Theeran smoothed back Jemm’s hair and kissed her chastely on the lips, pulling back to search Jemm’s face with subtle, amused affection, making it clear she assumed she had been hired to woo a young, inexperienced, even skittish lad into bed.

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