Chapter 11
The corridor outside the Imperial Suite was a study in Imperial perfection: white panels and seamless joins. The lighting mimicked the soft, golden hour of Lathar Prime. It was designed to soothe, to project an air of effortless tranquility suitable for the highest echelon of the court.
And it felt like the inside of a tomb.
Raaevik stood at his post, back to the wall, feet shoulder-wide apart. The passing servants and minor functionaries gave him a wide berth, their eyes sliding away. They saw the uniform and the Emperor’s crest, but they didn’t see the male.
They certainly didn't hear him losing his mind.
The need to go to her was a physical ache. She was distressed. She was alone. And he was out here, useless, when every instinct he had demanded he break that draanthing door down and take her into his arms.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles creaked and focused on the discipline he'd been taught virtually from the cradle. He was a warrior of the Empire. He was K'Vass. He had sworn an oath to protect his Emperor, and he would keep it.
But the memory of that little scene in the café burned behind his eyes.
He'd let her go earlier—it wasn't his place to tell the Empress-to-be where she could go, only to make sure she came to no harm.
So he'd followed, close enough to intervene but far enough to give her the illusion of freedom.
When she'd ducked into that café, he'd watched her from his post at the door, maintaining the perimeter, as she sat in that hard plastic chair and looked like she was bleeding out.
He had seen the way she touched her pocket, the desperate set of her jaw. At least she seemed to have found a friend in the red-haired human female. That was something. Perhaps the only good thing to happen to her since she'd arrived.
He sighed, resisting the urge to rub his face.
Such a display of emotion while on duty would be unseemly for one of the Emperor’s Guard.
The corridor air was recycled, scrubbed clean of scent and life, and too damn cold.
His physiology ran hotter than a human's, his metabolism a furnace designed for sustained combat, and the station's ambient temperature always felt like a mild chill against his skin.
Today, though, the cold seeped deeper, right into his bones.
"I don't care about the schedule!" His head snapped left as a voice cut through the silence.
Emily’s mother marched down the corridor, her chin high, and her gaze fixed on the dataflex in her hand.
"The credits haven't transferred," she snapped into the device. "I checked the account this morning. The contract said payment upon the public announcement. The announcement was yesterday."
She stopped near a viewport and stared out at the starfield, but he highly doubted she saw the stars. All she saw was the reflection of her own ambition.
"Don't give me that bureaucratic nonsense," she hissed. "I delivered her, didn't I? If the Emperor is happy, I still expect my payment."
He froze. The anger drained out of him, replaced by a cold stillness.
Miranda paced in a tight circle, her heels clicking staccato beats on the deck.
"She's fine. She's dramatic. You know how she is.
She gets these ideas about 'agency' and 'choice.
' I told her, you don't get to have choices when you're the face of a galactic alliance.
You get to smile and wave and make sure the check clears. "
She laughed, a harsh, jagged sound that grated against his ears like broken glass. "Oh, she'll behave. I told her if she got difficult, I'd have the shelter shut down. Nothing motivates Emily like a sob story. She's pathetic that way. Soft heart. Soft head."
He shifted his center of balance, the sole of his boot whispering over the deckplating. The sound was soft, but Miranda stopped talking. She turned around.
He took a step toward her. He didn't draw a weapon. He simply let the mask slip. Let the professional indifference and the guard's blank stare drop away.
She froze, wide eyes fixed on his face.
"Excuse me," she said, her voice trembling. "I am on a call."
Dropping any pretence of human movement, he stalked her, eating up the distance between them until he stopped less than two feet away.
Close enough to smell her perfume… a cloying scent that couldn't hide the sharp, metallic scent of her fear.
The frantic rhythm of her pulse hammered in his ears, a bird trapped in a cage of ribs.
"You are disturbing the peace," he growled, one step down from a snarl. "This is a secured sector. Silence is mandatory."
"I... I am the Empress Mother!" Miranda clutched her dataflex like a shield. She drew herself up, indignation in every line of her body. "I have clearance."
"You have access," he corrected in a low, dangerous voice. "Clearance is earned."
He leaned down an inch. Just enough to let her look into his eyes and see the vertical slits of his pupils narrowing to razor-thin lines.
"If you speak of her that way again," he whispered, each word precise as a blade, "as if she is an item to be sold... if you threaten her... if you so much as look at her with anything other than absolute reverence..."
He let the silence stretch.
Her breath caught, and her pupils dilated as her imagination filled in the rest. The blood draining from her face, she scrambled back, nearly tripping over her own gown. "I... have other places to be. An appointment..."
She fled. Not walked… ran. Her heels skidded on the polished floor, dignity abandoned to get away from him as quickly as possible.
He watched her go and felt nothing. No satisfaction. Just cold clarity.
He turned to the door. Emily was behind it. Alone.
She wasn't alone. She had him. Whether she wanted him or not.
Protocol dictated that he remain at his post. Protocol was the only thing keeping him in check.
It wasn't enough. Not tonight.
Reaching out, he hit the door chime override. The lock disengaged with a soft click, and the door slid open in front of him.
The suite was dim, the lights low, casting long shadows across the plush furniture and the silk hangings.
He took a deep breath. Even the air carried her scent—vanilla and something sweeter underneath, the same warmth that had been tormenting him since the alley.
It cut through his defenses like a blade.
He barely saw the outer rooms, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered was her. He found her in the bedroom and stopped dead at the door.
She wasn't sleeping. She sat on the edge of the massive bed, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. Ugly, raw, gasping sobs that shook her small frame filled the air.
The sound tore something loose in his chest.
Draanth the Emperor. Draanth, the fact that he was committing treason.
He didn't care about either. All he cared about was her.
"Emily," he murmured.
She jerked her head up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, wide with shock. She stared at him, and for a second, he thought she might order him out.
Her shoulders slumped as the fight went out of her, and the look she gave him was naked. Unguarded.
"Raaevik," she whispered.
He wasn't aware of crossing the room. Kneeling before her, he brought himself down to her level.
"Tell me," he rasped, his voice rough. "Tell me what you need."
"I need..." She choked on a sob and reached out, her hand hovering near his face, trembling. She didn't touch him. "I need it to stop. I need the noise to stop."
He took her hand and pressed it flat against his chest, right over the thunder of his heart.
"Then I will make it stop," he swore. "Name it, kelarris. Name the enemy and the price. I will burn it down. I will burn it all down."
She stared at him, her fingers flat against the heated skin of his chest, and fresh tears spilled over, tracking through the ruin of her makeup.
"Even you?" she whispered. "If the enemy is you?"
He closed his eyes. He turned his face into her palm, inhaling the scent of her skin as he surrendered the last scrap of his soul.
"Especially me."
* * *
Emily hadn't slept.
She'd tried. She'd lain in the ridiculous bed in the ridiculous suite, staring at the ceiling while her brain replayed the same loop over and over. Raaevik kneeling. His hand on hers. The rough gravel of his voice saying, ‘Especially me.’
What the hell was she supposed to do with that?
She'd given up around three am, then sat in the dark and watched the stars wheel past the viewport, trying to make sense of a universe that had gone completely insane. By the time her handlers arrived to prep her for the day's schedule, she was hollow-eyed and running on spite.
Dance lessons. Of course. Because the universe had a sick sense of humor.
The studio was beautiful, she had to admit. Mirrored walls, soft lighting, polished floors that gleamed like honey. It looked like something out of a dream. Or a nightmare, depending on how you looked at it.
She looked like shit. Utter shit. The flowing practice clothes they'd put her in were gorgeous—pale fabric that moved like water—but the woman wearing them had dark circles under her eyes, and a jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.
The instructor was Latharian, but not a warrior. Tall, elegant, patient in a way that made Emily want to scream. He moved through the steps like they were breathing, natural as gravity, while Emily stumbled and missed beats and generally made a mess of everything.
"The bonding dance requires perfect synchronization," the instructor said for the third time. "You need to anticipate your partner's movements. Feel the connection between the two of you.”
"I'm trying," she said through gritted teeth.
She wasn't trying. Her brain was back in her suite, on her bed, with Raaevik's hand wrapped around hers.
Name the enemy and the price.
She missed another step.
"Perhaps we should take a moment to—"