Chapter 24 #2
Dhomhes called Olmed on the private route.
“That's the station buyer's freight account,” Olmed said after reading the two records. “I gave you that.”
“You did. Adryel found the payment on the other end.”
Olmed leaned closer to the image. Tori appeared beside him.
“She worked there?” Tori asked.
“Serving drinks.”
“And they talked in front of her.” Tori's mouth tightened. “Of course they did.”
The next invoices paid an off-world workshop for further units. Those quantities still needed checking. The matching shipment was enough to connect Rhysgarrd money to equipment Olmed had already traced.
“I want your statement on the match,” Dhomhes said. “Only what you can identify.”
“You'll get it. Don't make this about every miner in the Guild. Some of us were trying to stay alive while they moved this filth around.”
“I won't.”
After the call, Dhomhes returned to the accounts. Payments from the freight operation passed through businesses that supplied Vandrel's office: transport, staff, expenses hidden among ordinary service charges. A senator's influence cost money. Here was part of the bill.
He sent the matches to the investigators, with the unverified entries marked for examination. Adryel had not needed to understand stabilizers to endanger the people selling them. She had kept a copy of their books.
He called Sereya and told her what Vessik had confirmed.
“She wanted to know where people would be,” she said. “Which entrance. What time.”
“Yes.”
“And she didn't get it from that packet.”
“No.”
Sereya was quiet for a moment.
“Good.”
He went to Hawn before returning to the refinery. The Head of War received him beneath Fiviel's weapon that had been cleaned and oiled recently.
It shone, ready for Fiviel to return and take it up.
“No further contact?” Hawn asked.
“Not yet. The search is continuing.”
Hawn looked toward the weapon.
“He'd tell me to stop staring at his things and get some sleep.”
“He would.”
“And he'd be right.” Hawn turned back. “Keep going.”
“I will.”
Sereya was wearing his shirt when he returned. Adryel sat beside her in the window seat, with enough covered dishes on the table to provision an expedition.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked.
Sereya shook her head, but kept looking at Adryel.
“I meant the apology I gave you on the ship,” Sereya said. “I let her hurt people, and I helped her do it. Being frightened doesn't make that disappear.”
“No,” Adryel said. “It doesn't.”
Sereya nodded, looking down at their untouched cups.
“There was a moment when I wanted to agree. Just to stop her saying my name.”
Adryel set down the cup in her hands.
“But you didn't bring me.”
“No. I called for help. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
Adryel reached for her hand. “I'm glad you did. Both things.”
Sereya held on until Adryel rose to leave. Then she walked her to the door and promised to return the dishes.
When she came back, she settled into the window seat with his book on her knees. The shirt sleeves were rolled neatly, and the hem almost reached the middle of her thighs.
“The advocate says I can add to my account if I remember anything else,” she said.
He remained in the doorway, heat spreading through him at the sight of her in his clothes.
Yesterday he had carried her out bleeding.
Now she sat with a book on her knees and her bare legs tucked beneath her, waiting for him to come home.
He gripped the doorframe before she could see his hand shake.
“Dhomhes?”
“I'm listening.”
She looked down at herself, then back at him.
“You don't appear to be listening.”
“I'm managing both.”
Her smile spread slowly.
He closed the door.
There was a bottle on the table with a note from the medic, apparently left for him after a previous visit. Sereya caught him looking at it.
“I thought about it. Then I decided I'd rather remember the evening.”
“Tea?”
“Later. Tell me what happened.”
He sat at the other end of the window seat. He told her about Fowles, and Havent, and the expression on Havent's face when Ruthak approached with the attestation in his hand.
She began laughing before Dhomhes realized he was doing Havent's voice.
“Tivek was right.”
“About what?”
“You should never be permitted to do that in public.”
“I rely on the discretion of my audience.”
“A dangerous habit.”
She put the book aside and moved closer. Her knee touched his thigh.
“How was Hawn?”
The amusement left him.
“Waiting.”
She rested a hand on his arm. He looked down at it, then back at her.
“You don't have to make this an entertaining report,” she said.
He hadn't known how tired he was of trying to leave every person he visited a little steadier than he found them.
Sereya's fingers moved to his jaw.
“May I?” she asked.
He turned his face into her hand.
She kissed him.
Softly at first, with a hesitation that lasted only until his mouth answered hers. Then she shifted closer, her other hand catching his shirt, and he forgot the report entirely.
He slid his hand into her hair, careful of the dressing. She made a small impatient sound and came into his lap.
The borrowed shirt rode up her thighs. His armor rose beneath his own, tightening the cloth across his shoulders. Sereya moved against him once and went still.
“Oh.”
He rested his forehead against hers.
“Yes.”
“That wasn't a complaint.”
“I hoped not.”
She kissed him again, harder. His arm closed around her waist. She was warm and solid in his lap, her fingers curled at the base of his horns, her mouth opening beneath his.
He broke the kiss just enough to speak.
“We still need that conversation.”
“We can talk.”
“You are making an excellent argument against it.”
She laughed against his mouth, then sat back and pulled the shirt over her head.
He had imagined her. He could admit that now. None of those carefully dismissed imaginings had prepared him for Sereya watching his face while she bared herself to him.
Her skin warmed beneath his palms. He touched the curve of her breast, then lowered his mouth to it. She arched toward him as he drew her nipple between his lips, and her hands tightened around his horns.
Pleasure shot down his spine.
He made a sound he had never made in a Coalition chamber.
Sereya went very still, then stroked the base of one horn with her thumb.
“That one,” she whispered. “That's a good one.”
“Everything is a good one with you.”
Her answer was a kiss so hungry it cost him what remained of his composure.
He slid his hand between them. She was wet through the thin cloth of her underthings. He pushed it aside, touched her, and felt her forehead drop against his as her breath caught.
“Tell me,” he murmured.
She moved into his hand.
He learned her slowly. The pressure that made her fingers clutch his shoulders. The stroke that turned her quiet and made her eyes close. When he slid two fingers inside her, she whispered his name and held him there.
“Like that?”
“Yes. Don't stop.”
His thumb moved against her while she rocked in his lap. He kissed the side of her neck, feeling each uneven breath beneath his mouth.
Then her hands were at his trousers.
“Wait,” she said. “You too.”
He stopped at once. She worked the fastening open and wrapped her hand around him.
For a moment he couldn't breathe.
She watched him while she stroked, learning the pace he wanted from the involuntary movement of his hips. He had spent days being looked at by this woman. He was beginning to understand how little mercy her attention contained when she decided to enjoy herself.
She guided him against her, along the wet heat of her, and rocked.
He caught her waist.
“Not inside. Not yet.”
She stopped. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” He had to swallow before he could continue. “The knotting. I want you to understand before we do that. I won't make it a decision we have to explain afterward.”
Sereya held his gaze. Then she nodded.
“This?” Her hand moved over him again.
His breath broke.
“This is very much welcome.”
She smiled, and he kissed her while he returned his hand to her body. Her movements grew less careful. She pressed down against his fingers, her mouth open against his cheek, and when he curled them inside her she cried out.
He held her through it, feeling her tighten around his hand. Her face pressed into his neck. He could hear his own name, breathless and unguarded, against his skin.
She was still trembling when she drew back.
“Your turn.”
Her hand closed around him again. She stroked him with the sure rhythm she'd discovered, and his head fell against her shoulder. He tried to hold on, tried to make it last, but her other hand moved over his risen armor and he lost the effort entirely.
He came with her name against her skin.
For a while afterward they stayed where they were, tangled together on the window seat. Sereya traced the back of his neck. He rested his palm against her side, feeling her breathing settle.
“That,” she said eventually, “was the least composed I have ever been. In either life.”
He kissed her shoulder.
“I intend to treasure the memory.”
“Only the memory?”
He looked up. She smiled at him, a little shy now and entirely pleased with herself.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we'll go back to the garden and talk. Then you can tell me whether you're ready.”
“With the briefing.”
“With the briefing.”
She brushed her mouth over his.
“Then we'd better get some sleep.”