As he tuckedher hand into the crook of his elbow and led her forward, the assembly parted around them. If there were any more whispers or tittering, he didn’t hear it, focused as he was on the woman beside him. For her part, she kept her gaze straight ahead.
“Your mother said to find her to make my presentation,” she said from the side of her mouth.
“I’d say you presented yourself quite well enough.” Atwist of jealousy annoyed him that she thought she needed anyone else.
Besides him, of course.
“I see her in conversation with the Octiron producers,” he said grudgingly. “Let’s leave them to their conspiring.” He angled her away from the denser throng around the dowager. “Would you like something to drink? Are you hungry?”
“I would throw up if I ate anything,” she informed him. “I swear theseweird contraptions that keep my skirt floating are making my stomach flip too.”
“Not just nerves?”
“I told myself not to be nervous. It’s got nothing to do with me, what happens tonight. I’m just doing my part until the Earth envoy comes.” She slanted a smile at him. “Also, I am well armed. Or well handed, I guess.” She laid her palm over his forearm, flashing the Eye of Zalar ahead of them.“It’s practically a laser beam. I feel invincible.”
“No one will touch you with Zalar’s Eye upon them.”Until the Earth envoy comes. Came to take her away. Or so she intended.
The twist in his gut tightened, and dread tossed another loop around his neck, keeping him from speaking.
The dowager had informed him, none too kindly, that she had managed to sidetrack the envoy and the Open WorldsFor All representative with a delaying excursion through the space station, giving him one more day at wooing Rayna and securing her rights to the station for Azthronos.
The order had left a vile taste in his mouth, like pixberries gone sour and coffee at its most bitter, and his expression must have betrayed him, because his mother had shaken her finger at him.
“You object?”
“To pilferingthe reparations of an abduction victim? How could I be so naïve?” He managed not to roll his eyes.
She didn’t do him the same courtesy. “Take your complaints to the God of Eternity where your sire now resides. Unfortunately, the due dates on our debts are not so far out as that.”
Eternity was how long he’d hate himself for trapping Rayna into union she wouldn’t want.
And he suspected she’dhate him longer than that.
How could he ask her to tie herself to a galaxy that wasn’t her own, that she’d never have known about if not for Blackworm’s crimes? Especially now that she had the universe at her feet, like that silly little nebula floating beneath her.
“Woo her. Win her. Wed her.” His mother had ticked off the steps on her fingers. She ended with, “Beguile her and bed her.” Thenshe waved her hand. “In any order you’d like.”
He glowered at her. “I will not lie to Rayna.”
“Would it be a lie?”
Hearing the dowager’s words echo made him shake his head.
Rayna’s hand tightened on his arm. “Raz, what’s wrong? Er, Your Grace.”
He shook off his torment. It wasn’t hers to suffer with. “What’s wrong is you calling me Your Grace.”
“Seems to fit you best in this situation, likeyour uniform.” She pulled slightly away to cast an assessing eye over his formal black attire with the high, asymmetrical neck only somewhat softened by the icestone white cravat like a jagged, frozen waterfall. “Very…respectable.”
The throaty way she said respectable made him glad for the ballistic protection over his crotch. Otherwise his burgeoning erection might’ve gone right for her.Beguileand bed.
“And you could be a grand Thorkonos lady, except not so much respectable as ravishing.”
She smoothed her palm down the dress, knocking free a few more crystals that swirled away in streamers of glittering light. “This is probably terrible for anyone with allergies. But if people start sneezing to death, I guess I can tear off this tissue-paper skirt so they can blow their noses.”
He found himself snorting. “Not respectable at all.”
And she would definitely find herself ravished if she got naked in front of him.
