Page 32 of Star Prince

“We were never officially promised, Ché and I. I’m truly sorry if my leaving insulted him. But it’s said that blessings sometimes come of unpleasant circumstances. I agree. Because at least now I’ll never have to endure having you as a brother-in-law. Good day, Klark.” She left him standing by the floating tray.

Suddenly lightheaded, she ducked through the crowd, but the Baréshtis jostled her, slowing her progress. A floating sensation enveloped her body in a vague pleasantness at odds with her near panic. Starberry liqueur was notoriously potent, but this was ridiculous.

She pushed onward.

Her knees nearly buckled at the sound of Ian’s voice coming from near the front exit. The young pleasure server Tee’ah had seen earlier was talking to him, and he was gesturing wildly. Struggling forward, Tee’ah cried, “Ian!” above the clamor of music and voices. The woman accepted some credits from Ian, then pointed him in the right direction before she melted into the crowd.

By the time Tee’ah stumbled into the Earth-dweller’s arms, her head was spinning. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her faceagainst his chest, breathing in his scent. At first she clutched him out of fear, then for comfort, and finally for pleasure.

He seemed to sense the change and caught her by the shoulders, moving her back. “Thank God.” He appeared as sharply relieved as she felt. “Muffin, I’ve got her!” he called.

The big security chief joined them within seconds. Steadying herself, Tee’ah tried to work saliva into her mouth, but her tongue felt numb, like it had after that first glass of Mandarian whiskey. “Lesh—let’s get out of here.”

Disbelief and then reluctant acceptance clouded Ian’s eyes. “Ah, Tee.” His voice thickened with pity. “You can’t keep out of the bars, can you?”

Something warm unfurled within her at his genuine concern. “I wasn’t drinking.” She hiccupped and pressed her hand over her mouth. “Not intentionally.”

Muffin snorted.

“Denial, we call that on Earth,” Ian muttered.

She tried to look over her shoulder, and it knocked her off-balance. Ian wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned on him far more than was necessary, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not what…what it seems. Someone bought me a drink I didn’t want.”

“Yeah. And they made you drink it too.”

She wanted to howl. Salvaging her reputation meant explaining what had really happened. But ifshe did, she risked having to say who Klark Vedla was and how she knew him. She didn’t want Ian and the crew to view her as irresponsible; nor did she want her two lives to collide. Her ensuing indecision was almost physically painful.

They burst out of the arcade onto the street. When she saw that Klark was not waiting there, her chest ached with relief so sharp it hurt. She took his disappearance as a sign that she should keep the incident to herself. The prince was part of a life she wasn’t ready to reveal, and now it looked as if she wouldn’t yet have to. Perhaps all Klark had wanted to do was get her drunk, humiliating her in front of her employer and thereby avenge her jilting of his brother. That made sense, did it not? She tried to concentrate, but her speculation blurred in a liquor-induced haze.

“We’ll get right to work getting you sobered up,” Ian said, all business again. “Muffin, you get the tockready, and Tee, you shower up and get something to eat. We’re launching for Grüma as soon as you’re able.”

She gave a silent groan. Wonderful, she thought dazedly. Here we go again.

They completedthe return journey to Grüma with no ship malfunctions. Ian liked Tee’s reasoning that the computer was behaving itself only because it feared the consequences of further mischief. Her joking explanation was as good as any Quin hadcome up with so far and was one he suspected had paralleled her own outlook since she had gotten tipsy on Barésh. Aside from remaining acutely apologetic about losing his extra pair of sunglasses, she avoided all mention of the incident. Yet here he was, bringing her to a bar on her first night back on Grüma. He needed his head examined.

“Randall’s here,” Muffin said as they emerged from the woods.

Anticipation buoyed Ian. Tonight he would finally meet the man he had chased halfway across the frontier. The local merchants had told him that Randall liked to eat dinner out and socialize in the town’s pubs afterward. Ian would be waiting for him when he did.

“What is the Earth word for that…ground car?” Tee peered in fascination at the jeep Randall and his men had left parked outside a restaurant.

Ian smiled. Like the curious crowd milling around the Army-issue vehicle, sniffing at the quaint scents of fossil fuel and rubber tires, she had probably never seen a plain old everyday automobile. “It’s a jeep.”

“Ah.” She repeated the word as if savoring the sound. He had long since learned that the pixie worshipped anything to do with his home planet.

The last of Grüma’s three moons settled below the horizon, plunging the downtown strip of eateries and bars into shadow. The planet’s major city was a lonely swath of civilization cut into a continent-sized forest, a fact made more apparent as the darknessdeepened. Jumbo-sized insects with veined wings and tiny bat-like creatures crisscrossed a sky glowing with trillions of stars, but stranger still were some of the revelers in the rowdy pubs.

With Push on watch back at theSun Devil,Ian led the remainder of his crew across the street. “We’ll wait for Randall next door,” he told them. As badly as he wanted to know how the U.S. senator had learned about Barésh, Ian was determined to take things slowly. He wanted to get a feel for the man and gain his trust before he revealed his identity. Diplomacy would keep the galaxy at peace. In this modern age of interstellar politics, threats and aggression were as barbaric as Roman Empire gladiator matches. He hoped the senator understood that.

A waitress clad in an ivory pantsuit and matching knee-length hair met them at the door of the pub. “A table by the window,” Ian said, slipping a fair amount of credits into her palm. “That one,” he said, pointing to the window closest to the adjacent restaurant, from where laughter and the scent of roasting meat drifted in the night air.

The waitress shooed away a table of drunks so Ian and the crew could sit. He thought they would protest the incident, but money was plentiful on Grüma and bars abounded, so the revelers merely grumbled good-naturedly and stumbled out through the doors leading into the chilly night air.

Tee appeared utterly unaware of the attentivegazes she received from men at nearby tables, interest that waned the instant she swiped his ball cap off her head and combed her fingers through her freshly touched-up clumps of mud-green hair. Ian watched with misgiving as the whiskey-loving pixie settled her shapely and very distracting rear end on the stool next to him. Fortunately, Quin took the seat to her right. Ian forced himself to relax. She was surrounded. If she wanted to drink herself into oblivion, she was going to find it damned hard with her hands held behind her back.

His fingers flexed involuntarily as an image exploded in his mind…of Tee warm and eager in his arms, her mouth opening under his as he kissed her, holding her clasped hands at the small of her back.

A bolt of heat in his groin yanked him out of the vivid fantasy and back to reality in the smoky bar.

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