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“You’re physically here, but your mind is somewhere else. Is there something bothering you?”

He knew it was pointless to lie to her. “Yes, there is.”

“Is there anything I can help with?” Elisha asked.

He sighed. “Bart cannot find Mirilla.”

“The female that they thought was involved with planning an attack on the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s because you gave her your credit band to help her escape.”

“True.”

“Why is it a problem that Bart cannot find her? I thought that was the point.”

“Not necessarily. It is true that she needed to get away from Cruestace before too many emotionally charged individuals decided to take her into custody, but he should have been able to locate her by now. He is not without his own military forces and their intelligence reports surely told of a female searching for her brother. She wasn’t headed toward planets — she was planning to search the space ports.”

“You’re worried that she might have come to some kind of harm?” Elisha asked.

“I’m not sure what I’m worried about, just that something doesn’t feel right. They should have found some trace of her by now.”

“Maybe she was smart enough to hide the fact that she’s a woman… it has been done, and successfully I might add,” Elisha said, laughing softly. “Maybe she’s taken on the appearance of a man.”

Ba Re’ nodded, thinking back to when Elisha had masqueraded as a male for so very long that no one had any indication that she was in fact female. He’d even thought she was a male when he recognized her as his Ehlealah and was completely confused until he figured out that she was a female.

“You know, if you want to be sure that she’s okay, why don’t you have someone track your credit band. It would at leastgive an indication of where it’s been used last, and possibly even located at the moment, then you could tell them where she is.”

Ba Re’ slowly sat up, his arms coming up instinctively to hold her against his chest to keep her from falling off of him to the bed or to his lap. “I could tell Rokai. He would track the band for me and let me know if she is well or not.”

“You could. Or you could just tell Quin.”

“I don’t know if she wants to be found or not. Perhaps she’s found her brother.”

“You mean the brother that set her up to take the fall for the treasonous acts he committed?”

Ba Re’s brows rose.

“She may need saving from her brother,” Elisha said.

Ba Re’ quickly lay her beside him and jumped out of bed. He grabbed a pair of trousers and a loose shirt and pulled them on as he hurried toward their door. “I’ll be back,” he said as he rushed out of the door and slammed it closed behind himself.

Elisha sighed as she stretched her body, before snuggling under the covers and letting her eyes fall closed. “Women should run things… things would be so much easier.”

~~~

Ba Re’ ran down the hallway to the royal residence. He lifted his chin in greeting to Yaghn and Var don. They returned the greeting but didn’t stop him, knowing that he was family to Sire Zha Quin.

Ba Re’ tapped on the door, then eased it open. “Sire!” Ba Re’ called out.

There was no immediate answer, so he stepped inside and closed the door. Moving silently on bare feet across the entranceway and into the living room, he listened for any indication of activity. Murmured voices could be heard from the kitchen, so he went directly there.

“Sire,” Ba Re’ said again.

Quin didn’t turn around, though Vivian and Samuel both did from where they sat at a small round dining table while Quin spooned food onto his own plate.

“I told you I will not answer to Sire when we are alone behind closed doors. You have been a brother to me since we were children and I will not answer to Sire.”

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