Release Page 4

  “We don’t if we can help it,” said the bartender. “Part of the allure of the colonies is being away from the Evon Sector.”

  Ariana’s face crumpled. This was too horrible to be believed. Was she going to be stuck out here, living her life on a colony planet? Would she have to wear the dreadful sort of clothes they wore?

  The bartender patted her hand. “Now, now. Don’t worry. This isn’t the only comm on the planet, you know. There’s other towns. You can probably commission someone to drive you to Geirido. It’s only a two-day speeder drive from here, and with you being the daughter of the duke, I’m sure money isn’t a problem.”

  “I don’t have any money,” said Ariana. “I was kidnapped.” Even her comm, which could have gotten her access to credits from her spending account, was gone. Keirth had it, and besides, the battery was dead. She really was going to start crying. She felt the lump growing in her throat, tears pricking her eyes. She rested her arms on the bar and buried her face in them, waiting for the sobs to come.

  “Okay, okay,” said the bartender. “But everyone knows who you are. Someone will take you. And when you contact your father, he’ll pay the driver. Right?”

  Ariana lifted her head. Yes. Yes, that could work. Of course, by the time she got in contact with her family, Keirth would already have killed Risciter. She couldn’t get the authorities here on time. “Is there a police force on this planet?”

  “Police?”

  “The man who kidnapped me is dangerous. He’s planning on killing someone—someone important. I know where he is, and if I could tell the police, they could—”

  “There’s a volunteer militia, but you’d have to pay them too. They don’t work for free when their farms need tending.”

  This place was barbaric. It was like being dumped into some kind of pit where civilization didn’t exist. Ariana was horrified. She didn’t know what to do. If she found someone to drive her to the next town, she’d be saved, but Risciter would be gone. Did she want to return to her life without Risciter, knowing that he’d died and she’d done nothing to protect him? He was practically her fiancé. She had to do what she could for him.

  She’d have to go back to where she’d left Keirth. Maybe she could get a large stick and bash him over the head with it. Then she could tie him up and wait for Risciter to arrive. When he did, he’d know what to do.

  It was her best plan. She started to thank the bartender for her help, but to say she’d have to try something else, when the door to the tavern opened, and Keirth walked in.

  Why was he here? Had he already killed Risciter?

  But from here, she could see that he’d taken a holophoto of Risciter out of his pocket, and that he’d approached the first booth inside the door. Keirth was asking if the people there had seen the man in the photo.

  That meant he hadn’t killed him yet. He was looking for him. Risciter must have given Keirth the slip! Ariana’s heart soared. There was a chance. She’d have to follow Keirth without his seeing her. Once he found Risciter, she’d do something to save her fiancé—her almost-fiancé—and together they’d stop Keirth.

  She got off the stool and stepped backwards into the smoky, dark recesses of the tavern. Keirth wouldn’t be able to see her from here. From a distance, she watched as Keirth moved to the next booth, showing the holo picture. She could barely make out the conversation from here.

  “Sure, I’ve saw him here before. He’s some kind of rich guy, ain’t he?” said a man in the booth.

  “Have you seen him today?” Keirth asked.

  The man shook his head. “Not today, no. But he usually stays in the inn next door when he’s in town. I played him at cards once a while back. He won, but I swear he cheated. ‘Course, you can’t argue against rich folk like that.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said Keirth. “The inn, you say?”

  “Yeah. I reckon if he’s in town, that’s where he’s staying.”

  Keirth thanked the man. He surveyed the bar, his gaze dragging over Ariana once, but he didn’t seem to see her. He didn’t seem to see anything of interest, because he turned and left the tavern.

  He was going to the inn, then.

  Ariana waited a few seconds, and then she followed Keirth out of the tavern. She was cautious at the door, afraid that Keirth would see her leaving. But once she got back out on the street, Keirth was already opening the door to the inn.

  He went inside, but Ariana didn’t dare follow him through the door. He’d see her for sure. Instead, she scurried over to the building and put her ear against the door. She could hear the conversation, but it was muffled.

  “Oh, yeah, he checked in an hour or two ago,” said a voice, probably the innkeeper. “You want me to ring up to him, tell him you’re here?”

  “That’s okay.” Keirth’s voice. “Just give me the room number. I’d like to surprise him. We’re old friends, and he’ll be so excited to see me here. Both of us on a colony planet. What a coincidence.”

  Could the innkeeper be so stupid as to give out the information? Certainly, he had to protect Risciter’s privacy. Why, in the sector if someone tried something like that—

  “Only five rooms in the whole place,” said the innkeeper. “He’s in the first one. Top of the steps. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” said Keirth.

  He was going to go to Risciter now! She’d planned to knock him out with a huge stick, but that plan hadn’t worked. She had to stop him. How...?

  She didn’t have much time.

  She opened the door to the inn. There was a desk there. The innkeeper was behind it. He looked startled to see her enter. Keirth had already started up the steps. His back was to her. Next to the steps was a decorative statue, about three feet high, of a strange animal of some kind. Maybe it was native to this planet.

  It would have to work.

  She ran for the statue, heaving it above her head.

  Keirth turned at the sound of her footsteps.

  And she brought the statue crashing down on his forehead.

  Keirth made a strangled noise and fell down on the steps, his limbs tangled.

  “What the hell is going on?” said the innkeeper, coming out from behind his desk.

  Ariana didn’t wait to talk to him. She hurried up the steps, taking two at a time, yelling, “Risciter!” At the top of the stairwell, just as the innkeeper had said, was a room marked with a number one. She pressed the open switch on the wall outside. It opened. “Risciter!” she yelled.

  The room was small, containing only a bed. But the bed was crowded. Risciter sat straight up to face the open door, and the three naked women who were in bed with him sat up too.

  Ariana’s jaw dropped. Three...?

  She stood agape in the doorway, staring at the man who was nearly her fiancé, who was clearly engaging in inappropriate activity with three women at once. She could see his bare chest, and that was scandalous in and of itself.

  “Miss Gilit?” said Risciter, astonished. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was saving your life,” said Ariana. And then she slammed the door, too horrified to look at him anymore.

  Chapter Five

  While it was true that noblemen were held to less strict standards of morality than noblewomen, something like this was beyond the bounds of decency. The women with Risciter were clearly whores—and colony whores at that. And three of them. What did a man even do with three women? No, it was clear that Ariana would never be able to face a marriage bed with a man who engaged in this kind of behavior.

  The women were gone now, Risciter was dressed, and Keirth was gagged and tied to a chair in Risciter’s room. He hadn’t awoken yet. There was a fire going in the fireplace in the room. Risciter paced in front of it, his hands clasped behind his back. It had gotten remarkably chilly when the sun went down, and apparently this colony world didn’t have any kind of normal heating units, so Ariana was glad for the warmth. She sat in a ratty upholstered chair, letting the heat f
rom the fire radiate over her.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Miss Gilit,” said Risciter. His voice was calm and composed, and it still had the silky lilt that Ariana used to find so irresistible. But after finding Risciter in the state she’d found him, she was horrified. He didn’t evoke the same kind of response in her anymore.

  “Is there something I should say?”

  “Perhaps you’re in shock,” said Risciter. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal with this hoodlum here, I warrant.” He gestured to the tied-up Keirth. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “What I’d like,” said Ariana, “is for this nightmare to be over. I suppose you’ve contacted someone from the sector to arrest him? I suppose they can give me passage back home? Of course, our courtship is quite over. I can hardly bear the sight of you.” Maybe that was rude, but she was having a hard time being polite to Risciter. When she looked at him, she couldn’t help but think of him shirtless and brazen with his hussies.

  Risciter stopped pacing and fixed her with his gaze. “You haven’t really thought this through, have you, Miss Gilit?”

  “Thought what through?” What was he talking about?

  “I haven’t contacted any authorities. I don’t suppose it would be very prudent to do so.”

  Not contacted... But that made no sense at all. “What do you mean?”

  Risciter began pacing again. “I can easily pay the local militia to dispose of him.” He waved a dismissive hand at Keirth. “And I think it would be best if we never mentioned him at all.”

  “You’re going to have him killed?” Ariana wasn’t sure why, but she wasn’t keen on that idea. “He should be brought to trial. Punished by the state. It’s not your place to mete out his punishment.”

  “That’s the last thing you should want,” said Risciter. “Think about it. Imagine what it will be like when you arrive back in the sector. You were kidnapped by a man, taken against your will. No doubt he sullied your honor. The two of you were alone on a ship for hours. He must have done dreadful things to you.”

  Ariana drew herself up. “He most certainly did not.”

  “It won’t matter, though, will it?” asked Risciter. “Once the nets get hold of the story, they’ll have it so that he raped you repeatedly, don’t you think?”

  Ariana gulped. He might be right. This sort of scandal was bigger than anything she’d ever heard of. Why hadn’t she thought about this before? Well, she supposed she’d been focused on saving Risciter’s life. And she and Risciter were as good as engaged back then, though now she hated the sight of him, so she hadn’t worried about the repercussions. Risciter would be grateful for her actions, she’d thought.

  “You’ll be tainted goods,” said Risciter, turning to face her. “It’s unfair, I know. It wasn’t your fault. But there’s not a man of the nobility who will want to marry a woman whose virginity has been called into question, even if it wasn’t her own fault.”

  He was right. She was ruined.

  “You say our courtship is over,” said Risciter, “and I’m sorry for it. I’ll also be sorry to see what your prospects are once the scandal from this incident dies down.”

  Ariana bowed her head. She wouldn’t cry, not in front of a man who committed abominations with three whores at a time. He didn’t deserve to see her vulnerability. She wished now she’d never tried to save Risciter. If she’d hid in the docking bay, he’d be dead now—

  Well. She didn’t really wish him dead. He wasn’t a good man, like she’d thought, but he wasn’t a bad man either. Not exactly.

  “However,” said Risciter, “maybe you’d want to reconsider ending our relationship.”

  She looked up at him.

  “I hardly want you spreading a story all over the sector about my...” He took a deep breath. “Indiscretions. It wouldn’t go quite as badly for me as it did for you, but it would be damaging to my reputation. I think it would be better for both of us if we never mentioned a kidnapper. Instead, we’ve eloped.”

  “Eloped?” She couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.

  Risciter rested an arm on the mantel of the fireplace. “Still scandalous, I know, but much less scandalous than your virginity lost and my tastes for multiple women. I’m a duke. You’re the daughter of a duke. We know your father wouldn’t object to our union. It would be the talk of the sector for a few months, certainly, but it would blow over, leaving us both in a better standing.”

  Ariana pursed her lips. What he said made sense. It was a much better option than going back to the sector a ruined woman. She’d be married to the duke, which was what she’d used to want. “How will we explain eloping? It’s something people usually do when there’s resistance to the match.”

  “We’ll say we did it on a whim,” said Risciter. “We’ll say we were carried away by romantic feelings for each other, and it caught our fancy to get married.”

  She supposed that worked. But she really didn’t want to marry Risciter now. Even though she’d thought him the best catch possible mere hours before, she couldn’t help but see him as thoroughly disgusting now. “I don’t know if I could ever love you now.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Risciter. “We needn’t spend too much time together in our married life. There are many planets in the Evon Sector, and I have several estates on each. There’s the business of an heir, of course, but once you’ve given birth to a son, we really wouldn’t have to see each other very often.”

  It sounded awful. Hating her husband? Spending all her time away from him?

  Risciter sat down next to her in another threadbare chair. “After the child was born, if you were discreet and careful, you could always take a lover.”

  Ariana’s jaw dropped. She was appalled. “You’re hideous.”

  Risciter smirked. “I’m realistic. I’m trying to make a potentially disastrous situation for both of us into something that won’t damage us.”

  She really didn’t have much of a choice, did she? She had to agree. She and Risciter would lie, and no one would ever know that she’d actually been kidnapped or that she’d saved Risciter from a murderer and kidnapper—

  Wait. She shook her head slowly. “It won’t work.”

  “Why not?” asked Risciter.

  “I contacted the authorities in Ossile before we came here. They know I’ve been kidnapped. They tried to apprehend our ship, but Keirth got away from them.”

  “Keirth?” repeated Risciter. “You call him by his first name? That’s quite intimate.”

  She tilted her chin up. “I refuse to give him the respect of calling him ‘mister.’ There’s a difference.”

  Risciter got back up out of the chair. “That does complicate things. It does.” He began to pace again. “I do wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “Well, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought they’d capture him, and you’d be safe.” She didn’t want to marry Risciter, not exactly. But she didn’t like the alternative either. Was the alternative the only option now?

  Risciter paced silently for several minutes, looking deep in thought. Then he stopped and turned to her, smiling. “We’ll figure something out. Just need to think on it a bit. Let’s ring for some champagne to celebrate our nuptials, shall we?”

  Ariana wasn’t sure whether she felt relieved or apprehensive. “Champagne sounds nice.”

  Risciter sent a message to the innkeeper, and within a few minutes, a maid delivered champagne to the door, along with two glasses. She left it inside the door on a small wheeled table. Ariana watched while Risciter popped the cork and then turned his back to fill the glasses. He whirled with flourish and brought Ariana a long-stemmed glass filled with sparkling liquid.

  Gesturing with his own glass, Risciter said, “A toast. To the two of us together.”

  Ariana raised her glass and took a sip. It wasn’t the best champagne she’d ever had, but she supposed it was the best to be found on the colonies. After the stress of the recent past, she found
the champagne a welcome luxury. She continued to sip at it.

  Risciter set his glass on the mantel. “Perhaps we could say your message to the police in Ossile was a practical joke.”

  Ariana wrinkled her nose. “How would that work?” She took another drink of champagne.

  Risciter opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a muffled roar of rage from Keirth, who’d regained consciousness and was now struggling against his bonds in his chair.

  “Ah,” said Risciter. “You’re awake.” He picked up his glass of champagne, strode over to Keirth, and ripped the gag out of Keirth’s mouth. “Miss Gilit and I are to be married. Care to drink to our health?”

  Why was he giving Keirth champagne? He’d tried to kill Risciter. He didn’t deserve hospitality. The fire was very, very warm. Ariana slumped in her chair a little.

  Risciter tipped the glass into Keirth’s mouth.

  Ariana was feeling a bit drowsy. It had been quite an eventful day, after all. Maybe she could nap in this chair. The fire was so warm and pleasant.

  Keirth spit the champagne in Risciter’s face. “You’re never getting married. I’ll kill you before you have the chance.”

  Risciter laughed. “Making threats while tied to a chair? You’re either very brave or very stupid.” He pinched Keirth’s nose. “Now have some champagne, won’t you?” He poured the liquid into Keirth’s mouth and tilted Keirth’s head back. Keirth was forced to swallow.

  Ariana’s limbs felt like they were made of lead. Her eyelids were drooping. Why was Risciter making Keirth drink champagne? And why did she feel so very sleepy? A sluggish thought of panic rose in her brain. Had Risciter drunk any of the champagne? She didn’t think he had. Was there something in it? Had she been drugged?

  She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Things were growing hazy now, and her eyelids were so, so heavy. Her chin drooped against her chest.

  And everything went pleasantly dark.

  * * *

  Keirth struggled to open his eyes. He was cold, and he was still tied up. The last time he’d come to, he’d been in the inn in town, tied to a chair. But now, he didn’t know where he was. He forced his eyes open, his head pounding from whatever had been in the champagne Risciter had poured down his throat. He was inside a ship, in the cargo bay. The interior lights were lit, casting a blue-ish tint over a few trunks and boxes. Judging from the size of the bay, he was inside Risciter’s ship. This was a small storage space, suitable for personal belongings, not something big enough for commercial use. And judging from the heft of the gravity in the room, they were still planetside. The synthgrav in space felt a little different. Whatever Risciter planned to do, he must think it was better done in the anonymity of a colony planet. Ariana was lying a few feet from him. She was also tied up, and from the looks of things, she was still unconscious. He’d seen her nod off right when Risciter drugged him in the inn. Keirth tried to scoot across the floor to her, to make sure she was breathing. He wouldn’t put anything past Risciter. Women meant nothing to a man like that.