Page 31 of Star Prince

Her study of the young pleasure server was cut short as Tee’ah looked back over her shoulder. The hooded man was heading toward the doorway into which she had ducked. Balling her left hand in a fist, Tee’ah made an abrupt about-face and pushed into the arcade. Her pursuer was right on her heels. She tried to run, but the crowd pressed in all around her.

“Tee’ah, stop,” a voice called. “I want to talk to you.” The voice was deep and sweetened by the educated burr of a full-bloodedVash.One that knew her name.

She made a sound of dismay and dove forward. She had barely gotten a taste of freedom, and she wasn’t about to give it up so soon.

“Tee’ah. Stop.” Her pursuer grabbed her upper arm, spinning her toward him so fast that her eyeshaders clattered to the floor. Almost instantly, they were crushed by the boots of one of the arcade’s customers.

“Let go!” Her plea was drowned by the thunder of voices.

The man tugged off his hood, revealingVash-goldeyes and hair the color of Mistraal sunshine. “Tsk, tsk,” he said, smiling. “The entire family is talking about you.”

“Dear heaven,” she gasped. Her ex-betrothed’s younger brother’s face was painfully familiar after all the holo-recordings their families had exchanged.

Her thoughts spun wildly. Klark Vedla’s ambition and brash behavior were often frowned upon at her father’s palace, although many of the same critics admired him for being an impassioned supporter of his older brother, Ché—the prince she was supposed to have married. But never would Tee’ah have guessed that Klark was devoted enough—or smart enough—to find her in a trash-littered virtual reality arcade on a poverty-stricken asteroid at the farthest edge of settled space.

“How did you know I was here?” she demanded.

“I’ve been following you since Donavan’s Blunder.”

Klark was on Blunder?Tee’ah scoured her memory for anything she might have seen or heard that would substantiate that claim. Then she remembered the hooded man in the market on Grüma. He had been following her, indeed.

He must have guessed that she made the connection. “So, you did see me that day,” he said smugly.

She took a step backward. “What a surprise that we bumped into each other. Small galaxy, yes? My apologies for running off, but I’m needed at my ship—”

The man’s hand shot out, and his fingers clamped around her upper arm. Her heart lurched and her mouth went dry. Her free hand inched toward her pistol. “Forget it, Klark. I’m not coming with you. I’m not going home.”

“Relax,” he said. “I’m not here to apprehend you. I’m not supposed to be here myself. So let’s keep this little meeting from the family—agreed?”

Tee’ah stared at him. “Ché didn’t send you?”

“None of this is about you, princess—as hard as that is to believe.”

She bristled. His implication that she was self-centered hit a nerve. She had struggled with that doubt since leaving home. “Then what are you doing here?”

He took her by the arm and pushed her toward the bar. “We’re two vagabonds far from home. Let us share our experiences over a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink.” She didn’t have time for one, either. Ian would be frantic by now. Or furious.

Klark waved away her protest as if she was a bug with no opinions or desires of her own, and he pulled a floating tray between them. Amazed by the absurdity of the situation, she watched him take a flask and two thimble-sized glasses from his cloak, filling them with a pink-tinged liquid. “Join me in sampling a liqueur created from one of the rarest fruits in the galaxy. It is from a planet with the briefest of summers. When the snow melts, the starberry bushes bloom.”

Tee’ah almost growled. She teetered at the precipice of losing her dreams, and Klark acted as if she were paying a social call.

He held the glasses to the light. “The flowers are extremely fragile and fall with the first flurries ofautumn. The ripe berries must be picked immediately, else within days they’ll be buried under hundreds of standard feet of snow. This makes starberry liqueur the most precious of drinks. It is—”

“I know what it is!”

“Then you know it must be shared in the traditional way.” Klark dipped a finger into his glass and rubbed his glistening fingertip along her bottom lip before she was able to block his arm. Reflexively, she licked at it, tasting the tart sweetness left behind. Starberry liqueur was a rare and special treat to be shared by lovers. Or potential lovers. By anointing Tee’ah’s lips with the precious liquid, knowing that they had no past except for her intended engagement to his brother, he had all but called her a whore.

“You, Klark Vedla, are unforgivably rude.”

“And you”—he took in her fuzzy, greenish-brown hair, her dusty boots, and everything in between— “are an aberration. Ché deserves better. He deserves more.” His expression darkened, and his fingers squeezed her arm. “Far more than the subordinate role Romlijhian B’kah is inclined to give him.”

Tee’ah plunged her hand into her pocket and pushed her pistol hard against the fabric. “Let me go, Vedla, or I’ll put a crater between your pretty eyes.”

Klark’s neck muscles corded, and he sucked in a deep breath. Her legs trembled withadrenaline. She had never dreamed she was capable of such audacity.

“My apologies,” he said smoothly. “My temper will prove to be my undoing yet.” He drew the wobbling tray between them as if he expected they would now finish their drinks.

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