Page 46 of Star Prince

“Hey. I happen to like your rambling.” Her eyes glittered. With happiness? With tears? Before he could decipher her strangely emotional reaction to his simple comment, she folded her arms atop her head and turned in a slow circle, her face tilted into the sunshine. “Oh, Ian. The ride…this... it’s wonderful.” She lowered her arms, sighing in pure pleasure. “I never really felt part of the events and people around me. I thought I must be defective in some way, because I felt as if I were living my life inside a bubble. But not anymore.” Her mouth twisted in a slow, shy smile. “Did you ever just dare yourself to leave behind what was safe and familiar, so you could finally experience what it was like to be alive—crazily, utterly alive?” Her voice faltered and became husky. “Then did youever get so frightened by what you’d done that you could hardly breathe?”

The back of his neck tingled.The moment our lips met, I felt all those things.

“Yes,” he said carefully. “I have.” He kept his expression neutral as he helped her climb onto his Harley. Not for the first time, he contemplated the enormous responsibilities that went along with his new role as heir to the galaxy. Obligation, sacrifice—they were what gave his life meaning, and he couldn’t picture living without a defined sense of purpose. Only now, in an instant, he couldn’t picture living without Tee. With no apparent effort, she had taken his just-fine-the-way-it-was, black-and-white existence and blasted it into sense-wrenching color. He fought a sharp sense of loss, envisioning the day they would have no choice but to go their separate ways.

He zipped his jacket to his chin, turned up his collar, and lowered his helmet visor. The last thing he wanted was for Tee to witness his inner battle; it would only complicate what was to come.

At the market,Tee’ah recognized admittedly exotic versions of many ingredients she had seen presented at meals on Mistraal. Although she had never visited the kitchens, she often strolled through the shady, peaceful orchards and humidity-laden vegetable gardens in the vast greenhouses on her homeworld. Fresh produce made the best meals, in her opinion,and she decided to prepare dinner from as many fresh ingredients as she could gather, mentally recalling the myriad dishes she had admired and consumed over the years.

After the purchases were made, she and Ian walked back to his Harley, which was secured beyond several trees. “I suppose we do have to go back now,” Tee’ah said. “The crew will be wanting their dinner.”

“We can always go on another ride some other time.” He regarded her for a moment, an affectionate smile playing around his lips. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier…how you feel alive now, but you didn’t before. I can’t imagine you any different from how you are now.”

As they stood in front of the motorcycle, Tee’ah shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He was making an obvious attempt to get to know her better. She relented and took the first step; someday, if things progressed as part of her hoped, there would be no more secrets between them. “I had a very comfortable life, actually. I should have been content, happy, satisfied, all those things. But I wasn’t. I loved my family. I still do. But if I’d done what they wanted, if I’d married, I would have died a little more every day until my spirit, the part in here”—she tapped her chest with her right hand— “that’sme,drained away.”

She dropped her hand. “But I don’t expect people to understand why I was so miserable in what otherswould consider extremely pleasant surroundings.”

“Not everyone has the strength to fight what is expected of them, Tee. If you ask me, it takes more guts to leave a nice life because you’re supposed to be happy. If you’re not, it’s easy to blame it on yourself. What you did took courage,” he said admiringly. “So many people never go after what they truly want out of life. You did. Be proud.”

His comprehension took her breath away. They stood there, a few feet apart, more passing between them with a simple gaze than what a thousand words could convey.

“You speak as if from experience,” she managed finally.

“It was my mother’s experience, not mine. Her story is a lot like yours. It took her years to work up the courage to change her life, but she did, and now she’s married again and happier than I’ve ever seen her.” His mouth tightened and he jerked on his gloves, one finger at a time. “My father had other women. It hurt her. But she held the marriage together for the sake of my twin sister and me. When we were teenagers, my parents separated and my father remarried a much younger woman, and he had a kid with her. They’re divorced now too.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “But I digress. What I’m trying to say is that after the marriage ended, my mother had friends, a career she was passionate about…a perfectly nice life. But not contentment, not happiness. She felt that with all she had, she had noright to complain or to crave more.”

Tee’ah felt a shudder ripple through her. Ian’s description of his mother’s quandary was so close to her own experience. It was reassuring to learn that others felt as she did. Which didn’t take away her guilt over leaving home, but it made it easier to bear.

Ian pulled on his helmet. “You’d have thought a woman who flew jets wouldn’t have been afraid to break out of a rut,” he said, lowering his visor. “But she was.”

Tee’ah felt the blood drain from her head. “She—she flew jets?” Her world tilted, and she clutched the Harley’s seat to keep her balance. Jas Hamilton B’kah was a pilot. She was also Rom B’kah’s queen and—

The crown prince’s mother.Numb, she prayed Ian would again offer her something, anything, to indicate he was not Ian Hamilton, the prince admired for his faultless adherence toVash Nadahtradition. She couldn’t fathom what he would be doing in the frontier, without luxuries, without the trappings of power. Was this a way to prove himself to those who doubted his ability to rule?

Perhaps. But what good did it do to show he could live without riches, without protection, when he would never be asked to?

Ian spoke as he tightened her helmet’s chinstrap.The dark visor hid the panic in her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “She’s a pilot. A good one too. Like you.”

Her dry lips formed a hoarse. “Thank you.”

He patted the seat. “Let’s head home before Quin has a heart attack.”

Or beforeshedid. Shakily, she mounted the two-wheeled transport and balanced herself on the seat. Despite the crisp air, a droplet of perspiration trickled down her temple. She pondered the physical resemblance between Ian and Jas. They shared the same lovely shade of greenish gray eyes, accentuated by dark lashes and brows, but that was all. Yet when she added in Ian’s knowledge and grasp of galactic politics, his scandalized reaction to the conditions on Barésh, and his quickness to defend theVash,her throat tightened until she could barely swallow. Sweet heaven, what was she going to do?

“Hey.” Ian pressed a gloved hand onto her shoulder. His expression was unreadable behind his tinted visor. “Why so quiet all of a sudden?”

She drew on all her strength to stay calm. There was no use fretting until she was certain of Ian’s identity. And she had yet to figure out how she might become so. “I’m thinking of dreams,” she said softly. “And how badly I want to hold on to mine.”

“Go for them, Tee. Don’t let anyone stop you.”

You wouldn’t say that if you knew who I was.Woodenly, she replied, “I won’t.”

For no reason at all she felt like weeping, and she didn’t understand the reaction. She ought to beterrified at the possibility that she sat inches away from a paragon ofVashvirtue. Instead, she regretted that she might never again experience the heart-pounding joy of a Harley ride. Or Ian’s kisses.

If he was the crown prince…

Ian threw his leg over the seat and let the engine warm up before rolling the motorcycle forward over the bumpy dirt to the road. As they raced back to theSun Devil,Tee’ah couldn’t help but wonder if the handsome Earth-dweller would prove to be her liberation or her doom.

She waiteduntil she was alone in the galley before she fell apart. With the hatch shut against curious visitors and potential crown princes, she leaned over the counter, head bowed, unable to catch her breath. Ian could end her newfound freedom with one call to the palace on Mistraal. Dar security would be dispatched immediately. She wouldn’t elude them this time; they would know exactly who and where she was.

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