Page 81 of Dark Space
I turned to take him in, my breath catching. He was magnificent, his shoulders rolled back and his chin set defiantly high. His horns were gilded, his eyes lined with gold, and there was gold shimmer dusted over his high cheekbones and lips. Vesper had stolen more cloth-of-gold from somewhere, and I’d sewn lines of it onto his black jacket, emphasising the breadth ofhis chest and the graceful lines of his arms, but his unruly red hair made the royal ensemble unmistakably and whollyAlcide.
‘My King,’ I managed.
‘Don’t start that,’ he said, his voice low. His eyes shone as he looked at me. ‘You look incredible, Cal. My heart.’
I licked my lips, ruining Anna’s careful work. I was dusted in gold, too, and Anna had painted swirls of gilt up my horns. Vesper’s cheekbones and lips glimmered, matching ours, and he’d fashioned himself an Earth-style suit of a black darker than the deepest space. He’d stolen Anna a dress, jumping all the way back to Earth to find a gown made entirely of golden sequins. Its neckline fell almost to her navel, though its hem swept the floor and its sleeves stretched to her wrists, the overall cut demure but for that stretch of lovely, smooth skin – a stretch I could barely tear my eyes from. It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen her naked now, how many times she’d impaled herself on my cock and ridden me to climax – I still couldn’t get enough. Of her, of Alcide – or, if I was honest with myself, of Vesper, who hadn’t touched me since the day I’d snapped at him on the bridge. It had been weeks of us being stilted, awkward, and though we’d still worked together to shatter Anna and Alcide to a million pieces more times than I could count, he didn’t reach for me, and I’d had to hold myself back from reaching for him. Anna had huffed at me, exasperated, but I wasn’t going to make myself vulnerable if the starling wasn’t willing to bother.
It hurt more than I cared to admit.
Anna squeezed my bicep. ‘You look so handsome, Cal.’ She took in her three males with obvious pride. ‘You all look so handsome.’
‘You look like a star, Anna,’ Alcide said thickly. He touched her hair gently; she’d pulled it back into some deceptively simple twist and fixed it with a pin lined with champagne-coloured diamonds, anotherfindof Vesper’s, one that I suspected wasworth rather more than the dress. In place of Alcide’s gilded horns, she had a circlet nestled in her fair hair, adjusted so that it was barely visible;the dress should say enough, Anna had commented wryly.
‘You have your weapons, don’t you, Anna?’ I said, suddenly anxious, despite the fact I’d strapped them to her lovely thighs myself.
‘Yes, Cal,’ she said patiently. ‘I have a knife on one leg, a stungun on the other, and both my pin and my circlet can be used for stabbing. I will stay close to you or Vesper at all times. I won’t go anywhere by myself.’ She squeezed me again. ‘It will be fine.’
I didn’t share her confidence, but I kissed her hair, then smoothed it down. ‘I know, my Queen.’
She snorted and poked me in the ribs. ‘Nope on that,’ she muttered. ‘Not from you.’
Vesper’s eyes had been closed; he opened them again, the glow so bright it was almost painful. ‘There are a lot of beings down there,’ he announced. ‘Mostly different cephalopod and decabrachia species, but there are a fair few Tirians, too. The Darnagh and the Kjidja have arrived, though I can’t see any Levros yet – they are famously always late.’ His brow creased. ‘There’s at least one of my kind, too. There should be more, but they could be resting after the jump.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘I can see an Illisean ship, and a cruiser from Sector Nine next to it, which I assume would have carried a mixed contingent.’
Anna gaped at him. ‘How do you know all that?’
Vesper tugged her into his side without opening his eyes. ‘My parents are politicians, lodestar. Criminality runs in the family. Theirs is just … legalised.’
‘Bryn, can you bring the cast up?’ Alcide said over his shoulder.
The engineer grunted his assent, and a moment later we could all see what Vesper had observed. A large pavilion had been erected before the grounds of the cephalopod Queen’s terra palace, and everything within it was a stream of movement as delegates presented themselves before the Queen’s huge golden throne. We could see her, a handsome blonde with storm-blue eyes, wrapped in a short tunic of a regal navy which left her eight thick limbs free to move. I didn’t know much about the Enterocti species, but I knew their limbs changed colour; the Queen’s were currently a calm sea-green.
Alcide took a deep breath. ‘Is everything ready, Bryn?’
‘Everything is ready, my King.’
‘Tell me again.’
Bryn gave a loud, pointed sigh. We’d been through the plan so many times I could have recited it in my sleep, but that was the point. ‘Vesper jumps you down, and we unveil the ship’s shields,’ he said patiently. ‘We play the cast you made. You deactivate your personal sight shields. You and Anna bow to the cephalopod Queen. They are so moved by your speech, so struck by the beauty of our little Queen, that they let you take part in the summit and they promise you an army to take back Scytha. The coup is successful and you reign as King for three thousand years.’
‘You added that last part,’ Alcide muttered. He straightened his jacket for the seventh time. ‘And if things turn nasty?’
Bryn swallowed. ‘We shield the ship. Vesper gets Anna back to the orb. We fly away.’
Anna’s lips twisted. ‘I still think –’
Alcide took her hand. ‘I’m not changing my mind, Anna.’
I exchanged a look with Vesper. He’d already agreed to take Alcide, too. I’d stay behind and cause as much disruption as possible as a distraction while the orb escaped. We all had military-grade personal shield activators nestled somewhere inour clothing, but I also had every kind of grenade I could find lining the underside of my jacket hem.
If they tried to hurt Alcide or Anna, I’d use every single one of them.
I’d tried to convince Alcide to stay on the ship, to make a livecast instead, but he’d argued that if they didn’t want to listen, they could simply take out the entire orb, which would mean Bryn and the rest of the crew’s lives, too. Divided, we gave them an extra target; Alcide suspected they would try to capture him alive if it came to that, which might give the ship – and everyone on it – the chance to escape.
It made sense. I hated it, but it made sense. And it was quintessentiallyAlcide. He wouldn’t risk his crew just so he could stay in relative safety.
But it meant the three beings I loved most in the universe would be in danger, and that made me … twitchy.
Alcide exhaled slowly. ‘Right,’ he said tersely. ‘Let’s go.’ He took Anna into his arms and held out a hand to me. I threaded my fingers through his, bringing his hand to my lips. Vesper draped his arms around us all and grinned, the space around us beginning to darken.
