Oath Forger (Book 5) Read online

  As we’re about to leave, a woman rushes toward us down the hallway, her long black hair flitting behind her. “Madam Oath Forger!” She stops at a respectful distance, her brown eyes apologetic. “I’m so sorry for not welcoming you as you arrived. I was in a meeting. I wasn’t aware that we were expecting you today.” She wrings her hands with consternation as her gaze cuts to Uthan. “Krek Uthan.”

  Uthan introduces her as Meera, the director of the Institute. Then a man steps into the hallway behind her, and Uthan pauses before introducing him, his voice as hard as spaceship cladding. “Fered Wofol. The president of the Trade Alliance.”

  My muscles stiffen at the mention of the Trade Alliance. Fered Wofol is the man I saw in the shadow of the main building when we arrived. His all black clothes are made of some space material I don’t recognize. He is even more commanding close-up than from afar. Does he know yet that Fered Sayer, the vice president of the alliance, wants to replace him?

  He doesn’t look worried. He looks as if the word isn’t even in his vocabulary. This is a man who pays others to worry for him. “Oath Forger.”

  Did you try to kill me? I want to ask. Did the Trade Alliance send the poison to the palace?

  “I didn’t realize the Trade Alliance has interests on Rosin,” Uthan tells him, while I try to guess the man’s thoughts, whether he hates me, whether he wants me dead.

  Uthan’s thoughts must be running along a similar path, because his golden eyes glint hard, and his fingers clench at his sides, as if he’s considering grabbing the guy by the throat.

  “We had a recent discovery of cerium in the northern hemisphere,” Meera puts in with enough tension in her voice to make me think this is not a good development.

  I don’t ask what cerium is because I don’t want to look stupid. One of these days, I’ll catch up. I swear.

  “How much?” Uthan asks. “As rare a mineral as cerium is, even a little matters, doesn’t it?”

  I love him for spelling it out for me.

  Wofol watches me as he answers. “The deposits haven’t been fully surveyed yet.”

  “You must have an estimate.”

  Wofol’s response means little to me, as I’m not familiar with the unit of measurement he uses, but Uthan knows it exactly. “You could buy a small planet for that.”

  “I own plenty of small planets.”

  “You want the cerium for your manufacturing empire.”

  Wofol doesn’t respond, but Uthan is not deterred. “Since you’re at the Institute, I assume the Institute owns the area?”

  Meera clears her throat. “We do. The Federation granted us the northern hemisphere a decade ago when we had to rescue the last inhabitants of the Taboli ice planet.”

  All through this, Wofol keeps his gaze on me, which is beginning to feel weird.

  “Are you selling the area with the deposits?” I ask Meera, just so I’m not standing there like a big lump of idiot.

  Meera’s jaw clenches. “Fered Wofol would like the whole planet.”

  “Why?”

  “Water,” Wofol tells me. “I have other mines in the region.”

  Uthan glances at the sky, maybe toward a distant planet none of us can see. “Urib has no water at all, does it?” He turns to me. “And over a billion miners.”

  I wonder about their work conditions without sufficient water. Extremely poor is my best guess. “Is the entire planet a mine?”

  “Most of it.” A calculating look glints in Wofol’s eyes as he offers a predatory smile. “I’m not a villain here. I’ve come to make a very generous offer.”

  “And we will consider it,” Meera replies, the picture of polite professionalism, but her tone is strained.

  While we’ve been talking, Uthan has been shifting closer and closer to Wofol, and he’s close enough now to reach the man. I’m afraid he might go for it, so I put a hand on Meera’s elbow to draw the attention to us. “We should leave you to your negotiations.”

  “You should have let me strangle him,” Uthan tells me on our way back to his spaceship, after we have said our goodbyes to Jess and Dee.

  I raise an eyebrow at him. He’s not usually this bloodthirsty.

  He shrugs. “I didn’t like the way he was watching you. What do you think of the man?”

  “He seems to labor under the mistaken belief that he’s the king of the universe.”

  Uthan relaxes a notch and grins. “Everybody knows, that’s me.”

  I grin back. I appreciate that he let things be and didn’t outright confront Wofol, didn’t jump into a fight on impulse. Uthan is calm strength. He is a man of deep thoughts, and I like that about him. Roax’s first reaction to any problem is Kill them all. And in that regard, Koah could be his twin. If it were either of them here with me instead of Uthan, the encounter with the president of the Trade Alliance would have ended very differently.

  Something about the man doesn’t sit right with me, though.

  I call up a connection on my comm unit to Fered Sayer that goes through instantly.

  “I’m going to conditionally say that I will support your run for presidency for the Trade Alliance,” I tell the man. A few days ago, he came to Merim to ask me just that.

  “Thank you, Madam Oath Forger.” He sounds positively full of glee. “You will find a faithful ally in me, I swear.”

  I decide to put that to the test, then and there. “Would you turn over incriminating evidence on Wofol?”

  There isn’t even a pause. “If I thought he was doing something illegal? Yes.”

  “I suspect he’s connected to the pirates. I’d appreciate it, if you could investigate from inside the organization.”

  “Leave it to me, Madam. Let me prove how serious I am about our friendship.”

  As I end the call, I find Uthan watching me, all humor gone from his face. “Do you think Wofol sent the poison to the palace?”

  “I don’t know. And we can’t just attack him. If we accuse him, we’d better have proof.”

  Uthan shoots me a petulant look. A petulant genie. God help me.

  “I’m the Oath Forger. I’m supposed to uphold the rule of law.”

  “Well,” he says. “That’ll be cumbersome.”

  And the way he says it, nearly as droll as Roax, makes me laugh. “Thank you for bringing me to the Institute.”

  “The pizza alone was worth it.” He smiles. “We’re putting that on the menu at the palace.”

  We reach his ship and transfer, going straight to his quarters and leaving the take-off to the crew. Uthan takes my hand, his fingers enveloping mine. “Tired?”

  “A little.” Then as soon as I remember that we’ll be going to bed together, the tiredness flies away, and I tip over into wired instead.

  Inside the bedroom, Uthan draws me into his arms. “We can just rest,” he whispers into my ear. “Nothing else has to happen, if you’re not ready.”

  I’m ready. But before I can tell him, Krek Tiam appears on the display screen in all his royal glory, his long silver hair spilling over those warlord shoulders, his gray eyes inspecting me. He’s on his ship. I can see part of his command deck behind him.

  “How did the visit go?”

  Normally, a connection via display would require an approval on our end, like picking up a phone call, but Tiam is an excellent hacker. He might be a warrior king, but he’s also a total geek.

  Uthan is busy stifling a groan, so I’m the one to respond. “People are anxious to hear about their families. I can’t blame them for being impatient. I’ve seen video of Lily, and I’m still dying to see her in person.”

  “Soon.” Tiam promises. “Combining fleets with thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands of troops takes time. But we will rub out the pirates.”

  “Thank you.” He wouldn’t promise something he couldn’t deliver.

  “Also, we met Fered Wofol,” I tell him.

  Uthan fills him in, the two of them out-grumbling each other at the thought that the Trade Alliance c
ame that close to me.

  Tiam glares at Uthan. “You should have taken more guards.”

  “I know how to protect my Ava. Nothing happened.”

  “Well, something could have, dammit!” Tiam slaps his hands down, and the video flickers out. A second later it flickers back. He must have hit the command panel.

  His somber gaze holds mine as he gives a ragged, manly sigh. “I miss you, my Ava.”

  Uthan steps forward. “Any news in Merim?”

  His tone makes it clear that what he’s really asking is: Do you have an actual reason for rudely interrupting us?

  Tiam watches me for another couple of seconds before responding. “I was going through security footage of the Confirmation Committee hearing at the Onyx Tower, frame by frame, trying to see how Ava’s power works.” He smiles at me. “If I can gain a better understanding how the power is generated, I can better help you to control it.”

  That’d be great because right now, I’m just as likely to blow up our own people as I am to blow up our enemies. “Did you learn anything?”

  “Not yet.” His lips flatten into a frustrated line. “But... I accidently went back too far at first, brought up the wrong time stamp. I saw something interesting. A few hours before Olipha was kidnapped, the captain of the pirate ship that took her visited the Onyx Tower.”

  I flinch.

  The pirate captain. The man whose insides I pulverized before I knew what my power was, hell, before I knew I had powers. And since I killed him, we weren’t able to question him.

  “Who did he see?” I hold my breath as I wait for the answer.

  “Don’t know yet. The security system has too many blind spots. Most of the public areas have cameras, but plenty of them don’t. The building is used for diplomatic missions. Some of the diplomats prefer secret meetings.”

  Uthan shifts closer to the screen. “What was going on at the Onyx Tower that day?”

  Tiam taps on something off screen, then reads off the answer. “Public Works Tax Committee, Interstellar Environmental Pre-conference meeting, and the Trade Alliance had a small non-binding voting session on regulations for unmanned cargo ships.”

  Tiam and Uthan exchange knowing looks.

  The Trade Alliance. Here we go again. Yet it’s not concrete proof, is it?

  “Has anyone identified the pirate captain yet?” Uthan asks next.

  “Priv’tu. He wasn’t one of the major leaders, as far as we know. We have very little on him. He participated in various skirmishes on the Frontier. He has tangled with Federation agents before. Was captured once, but he escaped.”

  “Why do you think he was in Merim?” I ask. “Banking?”

  Some pirates bank in Merim, under assumed identities to keep their wealth safe, sheltered inside the Federation while they’re causing chaos and instability outside the borders. Finding and confiscating their accounts is an ongoing project for Federation agents.

  Tiam leans back in his seat. “That’d be my best guess.”

  “There was an unauthorized landing the day before Olipha was kidnapped.” I remember it because I’d ventured out into the city then got a lecture about security from Tiam.

  Uthan runs a hand over his shaved head. “So Priv’tu landed the day before. Then Federation agents rounded up his crew, but they missed the captain and a few men. They confiscated his ship. Priv’tu had no way to get off planet, but to steal a Federation ship the next day.”

  Tiam’s expression hardens. “Did he come to Merim with the express purpose of kidnapping my sister?”

  “Maybe not,” I tell him. “He landed, was discovered, his ship was taken, then he was stuck. But, say he had a contact, someone with power. He went to see that contact in the Onyx Tower. Maybe that contact pointed out a Federation ship Priv’tu could steal, and in exchange asked the pirate captain to take Olipha with him.”

  “Why?” Tiam’s gray eyes flash like deadly blades. “What has Olipha done to anyone?”

  We consider the question in silence. Seconds tick by, but none of us can come up with any answers. Then I put forward another theory.

  “Koah was off planet to push the pirates back from Earth. At around the same time, there were pirate attacks near Dason’s territory, so it could be expected that he would leave Merim, too, which he did. Roax wasn’t in Merim yet.” I pause, trying to make sense of my swirling thoughts. “Maybe whoever is behind all this wanted you off planet, too, Tiam. They knew that if your sister disappeared, you’d go and search for her.”

  Uthan frowns. “Why didn’t they try to remove me too?”

  “Maybe that plan fell through for some reason. Or they hadn’t gotten around to it before we circumvented their other efforts.” Tiam keeps frowning, thinking hard. After a few seconds, his gaze snaps to mine. “I think you’re right, my Ava.”

  “But why remove the kreks from Merim?” I ask.

  “To make getting to you easier.” Uthan wraps an arm around my shoulders, drawing me to his side and holding me there. “They didn’t manage to remove us, but they got to you anyway, didn’t they?”

  Poison. Except, Taly ate the poisoned fruit instead of me. I choke on grief and guilt. “Was either the president or the vice president of the Trade Alliance present at that meeting in the Onyx Tower?”

  “Neither,” Tiam tells me as he watches me through the screen. “When are you getting back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Uthan answers.

  Tiam shoots him a baleful glance. He looks as unhappy as if someone took away his intersolar network access. He opens his mouth, and I expect him to protest, to offer to meet us halfway, but in the end, he just wishes us a fast and safe trip, then signs off. The screen goes black.

  Uthan turns me until he has me in a full embrace. He kisses my forehead, then the tip of my nose, then he brushes his lips over my mouth. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Chapter Three

  “I’M NERVOUS,” I tell Uthan when he is in the shower with me, the two of us cleaning up before bed, together.

  He quirks an eyebrow, droplets of water hanging on his golden hoop piercings. “It’s just me. We’ve done this before. With spectacular results. Remember?”

  He moves forward, and I step back, my shoulder blades touching the shower’s wall pretty fast. We’re on a spaceship. Everything is smaller here than at the palace.

  My gaze dips. Okay, not everything. As heat floods me, I make myself look back up at Uthan’s face.

  He closes the last few inches of distance between us and reaches up to cradle my cheeks while water is misting over us from above as if we were standing next to the waterfall in the palace garden.

  He brushes his warm lips against mine then pulls back. “Why are you nervous?”

  When I sigh, my breasts push against his naked chest, my nipples rubbing against nothing but soft skin. Uthan keeps his body hairless.

  “Do you shave?” I ask, needing a diversion.

  The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I use an herbal rub as part of my mystic purification ritual.”

  “Should I do that?” Since I’m supposedly a mystic.

  “Do you want to?”

  I think about it. Hair removal has fallen by the wayside on Earth, for the most part. We live in underground tunnels and water is scarce. So is soap. Forget about razors.

  My legs have never been hairy, so it’s not that big of a deal. But now that the five hottest men in the galaxy are going to see me naked on a regular basis... “Yes.”

  He taps the wall and a dispenser pops out. Then he’s holding an egg-sized green thing on his palm that’s halfway between pumice stone and soap. It smells like...agra. I groan. Has he done that on purpose?

  The corner of his lips twitch. “Close your eyes.”

  I do.

  He begins talking in his own language, which I don’t speak since my translator is for FCL, Federation Common Language, except somehow, I feel what he’s saying as he rubs the little hair-remover thing over my armpits first, then my leg
s, leaving the area between my legs last.

  I understand that he is saying words of cleansing, words of letting go, words of washing away. He promises purity of heart and intentions.

  After he finishes, he rinses me off, and then he asks, “How do you feel?”

  “Renewed,” I tell him as I open my eyes. Weirdly, I feel lighter in spirit.

  He smiles at me, and I smile back.

  “I’ll make sure you have your own supply of these at the palace,” he tells me before he kisses me.

  Serenity ends.

  Passion flares.

  Touching Uthan is different from touching anyone else. I can feel each touch through my own nerve endings, but also through his. I feel his need as well as mine. His desire burns through me and leaves me breathless.

  He is hard and hot and ready.

  I shouldn’t be nervous, but I am. And then I suddenly realize that I’m nervous about more than just tonight.

  “How is this going to work?” I ask between immolating kisses.

  “The same way it worked before. We’ll do more of this,” he murmurs against my mouth. “And then we’ll do other things.”

  I laugh against his lips. “Not sex. The five of us together. What will I do when it’s not just you and me in the shower? When it’s you and me, and Koah, and Tiam, and Dason, and Roax?”

  A jealous lion sound rumbles up his throat. “I’ll smite them with my mystic powers.”

  I push at his shoulder, but I know my eyes are begging when I say, “Be serious.”

  He licks into my mouth and explores it in a thorough kiss before he complies with my request.

  “It will work, because we’ll make it work. We all care about you and want you to be happy. Nobody is going to ask for more than you’re willing to give, my Ava.” Then he adds, “If they do, I will smite them.”