Page 66 of Star Prince

Ian massaged the back of his neck. He didn’t likebeing forced into making a decision before he could give it proper consideration. But what choice did he have? His homeworld was descending into chaos stirred up by a man who’d like to see him dead.

Tee’s hand came to rest on his arm. “Your crew will be fine, but if we wait another day, Earth won’t.” Her golden eyes glinted strangely. “The needs of the many outweigh those of the few,” she whispered.

He searched her ardent face, drawing strength from her certainty and her faith in him.The needs of the many outweigh those of the few—a passage from the Treatise of Trade, the holiest document of theVashpeople and the foundation of their society. His mother and stepfather had drawn strength from that particular quote through some rough times. Sometimes Ian felt as if he lived and died by its close cousin—The welfare of the group comes before the desires of an individual.From both passages, he now drew the confidence to finish what he had started.

Chapter Seventeen

By the timePush arrived at the jail, allowing Tee’ah and Ian to depart, the main road out of town was deserted. Where the sun had set, the sky was soaked with shades of purple, indigo, and streaks of pink. Tee’ah leaned forward, as if she could somehow make the Harley fly swifter than it already was toward theSun Devil.And, ultimately, to Earth.

Lately, it felt as if her life was speeding by faster than any motorcycle, sweeping her with dizzying speed from one adventure after another, an existence that was as volatile as her days at the palace had been predictable and dull.

As Ian brought the Harley to a stop, she pressed her cheek to his strong back and briefly closed her eyes. A poignant pleasure, she thought, for each heart-pounding minute brought her closer to theday that she and Ian would have to go their separate ways.

“Get her up and going as fast as you safely can,” Ian said as they climbed off the bike.

“You got it, Captain.” The words seemed so horribly formal after their intimacy hours earlier. She turned to the gangway, but he caught her arm.

“I just wanted to say…thanks for this morning.”

Her cheeks warmed. She had been so awkward, so unskilled. “You don’t have to say that. I’m sure the palace pleasure servers are far better—”

“No, Tee.” His mouth tightened, as if she had insulted him. “They wouldn’t even come close. No one does.”

His esteem for her as an individual was an aphrodisiac like no other, and her sexual awareness of him skyrocketed. His intense gaze told her he felt the pull between them as strongly as she did. Smiling sadly, she touched her fingertip to the dark prickles of his beard poking out on his upper lip and cheeks. He looked so wild, so exotic. How could he truly be the rule-abiding prince she knew him to be?

But he was. And soon he would return to the very life she had fled.

She dropped her hand and left him standing at the bottom of the gangway. All through her pre-flight preparations, she remained focused on her tasks. But as theSun Devillaunched, thundering up and away from the forest, she couldn’t helpwondering what level of fate destiny hid beyond the cloak of the night sky.

Onboard theSun Devil,Ian closed the instrument panel on his desk, then stood and stretched. He joined Tee in the forward section of the cockpit, where she sat at her flight station, waiting until they cleared the space lanes before taking the ship to light speed. “I heard you talking,” she said.

“I sent one-way encrypted messages to Rom B’kah and my evil twin, Ilana. Now they’ll know I’m coming to Earth.”

She raised a brow. “Evil twin?”

“Yeah. Black and white. Yin and yang.”

“Am I going to have to fetch the translator?” she asked dryly.

He laughed. “No. I call Ilana my evil twin, and she calls me Goody-two-shoes. Which isn’t fair, of course,” he added quickly. “But we have different outlooks.”

“How?”

“I like to think things through. She rushes into action headfirst. She also doesn’t care much for rules, and she has no discipline.” He chuckled. “She’d make a terribleVash.And that’s fine with her.”

Tee was listening intently. “I believe I would like this woman,” she said slowly.

The lights flickered and went out. The emergency lights came on but the thrust levers flew back, all on their own. The sudden deceleration threw Ian to thefloor, but by some miracle he floated away from what would have been a bone-crushing encounter with the flight console.

“Gravity generator failure,” called the flight system computer.

“No kidding,” he muttered.

Tee worked at putting the thrust levers back where they belonged. “For the love of heaven, Ian! Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He floated like a kite above the empty chair. “Just relocated.”

He tugged himself into his chair, buckled in, and inventoried his body parts. What ached from ricocheting off the floor didn’t appear to be broken. Amazingly, his pulse had barely jumped. It meant he was getting used to the almost surreal, 007-like quality of his new existence. Though he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or bad. “What the hell happened?”

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