Enemy Games (25 page)

“They believe they can infiltrate the Temple so easily?” Jayleia growled.

Tiassale smiled. “Your concern for the sanctity of the Temple is heartening. You’ll be relieved to hear I can’t kill you.”

Jayleia lifted her brows.

“You stand relieved of duty to the lives you pledged to protect. The Temple has offered asylum to the refugees you brought to safety,” she said. “We will train them.”

Relief burned through Jay, weakening her limbs, and setting prickles at the backs of her eyes. She could put down that particular burden. “Thank you. Most of these people are Autken. They don’t define family via bloodlines, like we do. They split along lines of alliance and loyalty.”

“And they mature sexually far earlier than our species. We will adapt. So will they.”

“High Priestess?” Jayleia recognized her mother’s voice behind her.

“Ah. Margol. Come in,” Tiassale commanded, straightening.

Heart lifting, Jay turned as her mother strode into the hall. The silver-haired woman took her hand in greeting.

“Mother.” She kissed her mother’s hand, wondering how she’d missed noticing how frail the woman had begun to look.

Jayleia saw the khaki uniform in the doorway before a tendril of awareness wrapped around her. Her heart and respiration rate increased. She imagined she could detect a hint of green growing things and fresh spring rain. Heat rushed into the center of her body.

“High Priestess, Jayleia,” Margol said, “may I present Major Damen Sindrivik?”

Jubilation fired through Jayleia, head to toe. Dizzy with fierce, ridiculous hope, she spun. He’d said he loved her. She knew, logically, that it was because of her blood. He’d had no choice in the matter, had he?

Her heart didn’t seem to care. It pounded against the inside of her ribs. Maybe she should be mortified by how desperately she wanted his “I love you” to be true.

A cool, remote Claugh nib Dovvyth officer stalked the Temple floor. He drew even with her and nodded to Tiassale.

“High Priestess,” he said. “Her Majesty, Queen Eilod Saoyrse extends her compliments and thanks you for your gracious hospitality in receiving her duly appointed representative. I, personally, thank you for the care you’ve given my family.”

“You’re the agent TFC tried to plant on Swovjiti?” Jay marveled, swallowing a laugh.

Damen turned a frankly appraising and appreciative stare her way. He drew a deep breath as if scenting her.

“Jayleia, Twelve Gods, you are beautiful,” he murmured.

The assault on her senses redoubled. She stiffened her spine and tamped down on the powerful impulse to throw herself into his arms.

Tiassale’s gaze moved between them, her eyes narrowed. “I am interested in knowing which branch of our government dared offer you a diplomatic clearance, Major.”

Damen returned his attention to the priestess. “My commanders wondered the same thing, madam. Our people are at work untangling the encrypted file origination tracers.”

“My money is on Gerriny Eudal,” Jayleia muttered.

Tiassale shifted, drawing Jay’s gaze. “Do not make the mistake of believing the lieutenant director of Intelligence Command is your sole, or even your worst, enemy.”

“Too many empire-building games are being played by too many people, too highly placed within the government,” Jayleia’s mother agreed. “Gerriny Eudal is a psychopath, but he may simply be the most visible of our worries.”

“Major Damen Sindrivik,” Tiassale said, “what is your purpose on Swovjiti?”

“A twofold recovery mission, madam,” he replied. “Her Majesty requests Jayleia Durante’s presence, along with the data store taken from Silver City.”

“Am I under arrest?” Jayleia inquired. Her blood ran hot at the avid smile Damen turned upon her.

“Are you fond of neural cuffs, then?” he asked.

“I recall that ended badly for you,” she said, grinning.

“I learn from my mistakes.”

“I perceive that the Temple need not extend an offer of sanctuary to Jayleia,” Tiassale noted, her tone sour. “However, three matters of interest to the Temple remain.”

Alarms fired off in Jayleia’s head, yanking her attention back to the woman on the dais.

“The accolade of the Temple is yours by right of battle,” the high priestess said, her expression stony and her gaze focused over Jayleia’s head.

Her mother gasped.

Jayleia gaped. She’d have rank in the Temple, a voice among her mother’s people once more. She’d have the right to wear the uniform she’d put on to save Damen’s life. Why would the priestess even consider. . . “Tiassale, I thought you hated me.”

“I do. You are a thief, a harlot, a half-breed . . .”

“That didn’t take long.”

“. . . and a disgrace to this Temple. But your mother is a much valued elder whose worth to the people is beyond measure. Nor can I overlook the fact that you have single-handedly brought over fifty abused and malnourished men, women, and mostly children to sanctuary,” Tiassale said.

“It was hardly single-handed. Their rescue was an intricate plan with many pieces,” Jayleia countered.

Tiassale awarded her a hard stare. “Do you deny that the plans had been in place for months prior to your arrival? Or that you took it upon yourself to alter those plans because of the immediate threat?”

“No.” Jay blinked, taken aback both by Tiassale’s knowledge of circumstances and by her judgment. She gathered that Damen’s people had been talking her up.

She also noted that Damen watched her, pride glowing in his face. His admiration reached something deep inside her. She’d spent so many years refusing to strive for anyone’s approval, yet she’d won his esteem merely by acting on her convictions.

The priestess looked away. “Perhaps, then, you have learned something of worth in exile.”

Fortified by Damen’s regard, Jayleia studied the woman. “More than you believe. Tiassale Gorn, I pledge my service as one of the trained to the precepts of the Temple and to the directives of their appointed guardian.”

Her mother laughed in pleased surprise and squeezed her hand.

“Well played,” Damen murmured for her ears only.

The stunned light in Tiassale’s eye heartened Jay. One should always endeavor to surprise the enemy and regardless of the civility of the conversation, she knew full well Tiassale would rather knife her in the back than offer up the accolades of the Temple. That she had done the latter led Jayleia to believe they could at least work together.

“Three things you said, High Priestess?” Jayleia prompted, feeling more at ease in the Temple than she could ever remember.

“The woman Vala,” Tiassale said, looking uncertain.

Sorrow bumped Jayleia out of her euphoria.

“She died while under your command.”

“Yes.”

Her mother’s hand tightened on hers to the point of pain.

“Then, by the law of the Temple,” Tiassale said, “the child, Bellin, is your responsibility, your son-by-right.”

“What?” Damen snapped.

“No,” Jayleia said.

Tiassale’s eyes widened.

“You refuse . . .” her mother gritted.

“No!” Jayleia exclaimed, her voice ringing through the room. “Major Sindrivik is Bellin’s father.”

She turned to face Damen, tugging free of her mother’s grasp. The pain shadowing his eyes wrung her heart dry.

“It’s our way,” she said. “When a warrior falls in battle, her commander adopts her children, sees to their welfare and their training. I’d be honored to do this for Bellin, for Vala, and for you, but he is your blood kin. I don’t have the right.”

She heard her mother catch a trembling breath.

Damen’s gaze darted over her shoulder at her mother. He frowned, the lines of conflicted feeling deepening around his mouth.

“My heart has ached for a grandchild,” her mother breathed, tears in her voice. She stepped in beside Jayleia to face him. “But not like this, never at the expense of a woman’s life. Bellin is your son, Major. What arrangements would you make for his care?”

Damen met Jayleia’s gaze, grief and confusion fighting for dominance in his face. As if on impulse, he brushed her cheek.

Jay tried to steel herself. It didn’t work. She leaned into the stroke and the air rushed from her lungs. One of the ridiculous bells in her hair chimed.

Damen’s troubled expression eased. “Bellin aspires to a career with the Murbaasch Tu.”

“Wise child. Intelligence Command is an unhealthy career choice at present,” Margol observed.

“You would entrust him to Madam Durante’s care?” he asked, offering Jayleia a tremulous smile.

Her heart started beating again. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Until my life would no longer endanger his, it would please me to have him sheltered in your family. He should have the opportunity to grow up as strong and as honorable as you have.”

Honorable? Pleasure twined around her heart.

“Mother? Will you train Bellin?”

Her mother froze for a moment, not even breathing. When she spoke, her words were thick with emotion. “It would be my honor. I will guard Bellin with my life.”

Jay closed her burning eyes and smiled.

J
AYLEIA’S mother clapped her hands. “It is your birthday, my dear, yet it is you and Major Sindrivik who give me the greatest of gifts. Dare I hope for another?”

“What?” Jayleia squawked, eyes snapping open. She’d known her birthday was imminent, but with diseased kuorl, healing trances, and plotting an exit off of Silver City, she’d managed to lose track of the exact day of the week.

“I perceive the Keeping of the Calendar isn’t among your devotions,” Tiassale said. “Remedy that.”

Her twenty-sixth birthday, the day her oath of celibacy expired and the day her mother’s people expected her to pick a man to father the next generation of warriors. After all these years away, after so much careful planning to be on the opposite side of the galaxy on her birthday, preferably elbow deep in some deadly outbreak somewhere, she’d ended up where she had least wanted to be. And she had no one to blame but herself.

“This brings us to the third and final matter of interest to the Temple,” Tiassale said. “You are bound, by your duty to the Temple and to your Lady Mother. Is this man your choice?”

She could admit to herself that she wanted him. Badly. But he deserved the chance to make his own choice.

“Major Sindrivik doesn’t understand our . . .”

“My brother then,” she said, her tone arch.

“Over my dead body,” Jayleia growled.

Tiassale smiled, the first Jay had ever seen on her face that overtook her entire countenance. “Something that could be so easily arranged. Or did you mean to betray your oath of loyalty so soon after uttering it?”

Damen’s lazy smile when he looked at her sent a ripple of heat down Jayleia’s spine.

He traced a hand down her bare arm. “Your oath of celibacy ends today, doesn’t it? Your mother made a point of telling me.”

“Twelve Gods,” she groaned, recalling his comment aboard the
Kawl Fergus
about not being safe from him. Could she admit she’d gotten damned tired of safe?

“You do have a choice in this,” she said.

“But you don’t,” he surmised.

“No.”

Damen’s expression hardened to cold Isarrite as he looked between the high priestess and Jayleia. “She would give you her brother? The one who raped you seven years ago?”

She gaped at him, heart in her throat. “W-what?”

He took her by the shoulders. “You are a smart, strong, lethal woman. Why would you let someone hurt you?”

Tiassale laughed, spite turning her voice shrill.

Damen snarled.

The woman fell silent.

“I was young and naïve.” Jayleia choked on humiliation. She had to clear her throat to continue. “I’d been using my training to steal things.”

“No,” Damen said. “I broke the sealed file your high priestess hid so carefully. Your males take items of value from the women they wish to bed and ransom those items for sex. Recovering what someone else had stolen doesn’t make you a thief.”

Some of the shame cleared Jay’s system. She blinked up at him.

He nodded encouragement, his bracing touch warming her courage.

“Say it,” he urged. “Tell me you were raped.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “Call it extortion, maybe. Tiassale’s brother realized what I was doing. I let him convince me that he wanted me, that if I slept with him, everything would be forgotten. I’d give up recovering stolen items. He’d forget he’d ever seen anything incriminating and no one ever need know.”

“He raped you and then turned you in anyway?” Damen rumbled, baring his teeth.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” she confessed, “but I upheld my part of the bargain. When I found him bragging that he’d turned me into his whore, I broke his nose and one leg. Mother lost her position in the Temple and her title. I was exiled.”