"So, we've got Stellar Winds full of unknowns, likely from outside the Alliance," Norian S&quato paced as he watched the large vid-screen inside his office. "Are all of them involved in human trafficking?"
"It's possible, but we still need more evidence," Lendill concluded. "And you won't believe what Rylend told me through mindspeech."
"What was that?" Norian didn't take his eyes away from the image. Lendill proceeded to tell his oldest friend what Reah had seen from inside a voyeur booth.
"Norian, are you kidding me?" Lissa blinked at her lion snake shapeshifting mate.
"No. Ry says that Reah was almost ill over it."
"Has anyone ever looked into what happened to Darletta's mother?" Lissa thought to ask.
"No. But I will now," Norian hauled out his comp-vid.
"Six successful deliveries of gishi fruit," Dee whispered gleefully to Gavril as they walked through the pool area behind Gavril's palace.
"It's what Mom calls the old shell game. We used three separate shipments, all going out at the same time," Gavril smiled slightly. "Cotton, wheat and nannas. Only all those cartons held gishi fruit in special, cool boxes. The prices are already up, so the boxes weren't such a stretch to afford."
"It worked," Dee grinned. And for an old vampire, that grin was something to see.
"We'll have to be just as subtle about other things, Dee. And we'll have to send some normal shipments, or their suspicions will be raised."
"Already thought of that. I asked Drix to send the culls on a ship and label it as gishi fruit. It will be; it'll just be what he normally wouldn't sell off-world."
"Good idea. Perhaps we can do that with rejections from electronic plants and such as well."
"Potentially making their black-market customers angry, if they get substandard equipment and supplies," Dee's grin was wider.
"The shell game just became more complicated," Gavril slapped his surrogate father on the back—quite hard. As a vampire, Dee barely felt it.
"Thank goodness." I breathed a sigh after our guests, expected and unexpected, left for the evening. They'd stayed quite late, drinking, laughing and not saying one damned thing that we wanted to hear.
"Reah, it was a good effort. I just think that Zendeval Rjjn isn't going to let you out of his sight. He's got it bad, baby."
"Ry, he only knows lust," I said, lifting plates off the table and carrying them to the kitchen.
"I know lust, too," Ry took the plates from my hand and set them on the counter, and then lifted me up to sit there. "Big lust," he sighed against my mouth.
Daddy Schuul left today, but his baby girl is still here and screwing Faldin and any other man she can pull inside one of those voyeur rooms, Ry sent as soon as I walked inside the apartment on Second-Day.
She's mortal; she has to do what she can while she can, I quipped silently, causing Ry to laugh.
" Sze=She's mo;Feel like going outside for a while?" Ry asked. Outside on Stellar Winds meant outside the vast complex of resorts and glassed-in tunnels and tubes that formed the city of Stellar Winds. There was plenty of planetoid left, but much of it was barren, not getting much rainfall. A small ocean bordered the city, and desalinated water from it supplied the needs of Stellar Winds. Hikers often went outside to climb nearby cliffs or explore canyons carved by eons of winds.
"If you go, I go," I smiled at Ry. The day hadn't been too bad, so I still had some energy left.
"After we walk, we can eat somewhere," Ry said.
"That sounds great. Just give me a minute to change," I said. Ry had already stepped into a more comfortable outfit, I saw.
"We'll go out the north gate," Ry said. The north gate led to the caverns and canyons. Ry had pulled a jacket from somewhere for me, too, saying it might be cool out. I nodded and slipped into it when we approached the gate roughly half a click later. It was quite the walk and we could have taken ground transportation but chose not to. Ry also held my hand as we walked. I couldn't recall the last time any of my mates had done that. I watched him covertly as we walked. Ry strode with purpose, his handsome face set. I wondered what worried him.
"I'm setting up a false signal for any sensors to pick up," he told me once we were half a click from the gate and well into one of the sandstone canyons. Blinking at him, I watched as he moved his hands gracefully, light forming around them. "It'll look like we're wandering around the canyon," he said, "in case anybody checks our employee chips. And I'll get a hit if anybody comes close." Ry took my hand again and folded me away from Stellar Winds.
"Hello, Erland," I said, as Ry led me to a table inside the Star Gazer restaurant on Tulgalan. Ry's father was there waiting on us, which surprised me.
"Hello, Reah. I understand that this may be more than just a show," he tapped the ring on my finger. Lendill had passed rings to Ry and me before we left for Stellar Winds, since we were supposed to be married.
"I didn't realize he made an announcement," I worried my lower lip as I looked up at Ry.
"I told Dad a few hours ago that I wasn't coming to this meeting without you," Ry leaned down and kissed me. "We're together, Reah. What affects you affects me, and vice-versa."
"I got quite an extensive message from my child, here, over how he's loved you for a very long time," Erland gave me a small smile. "I'll inform his mother as soon as we're done here. But I'd like to get dinner for both of you tonight. I should have seen this long ago. I couldn't imagine why my son wouldn't spend more than a single night with any woman. Now I know."
"I can't believe you didn't feel the envy radiating off me when I watched her with my brothers or any one of the others," Ry said, accepting a glass of water from the waiter.
"We'll have a bottle of your best sparkling wine," Erland said. The waiter, a discreet man who looked to be sixty and in his prime for Tulgalan, nodded and went to fetch it for us.
"While you're here, Erland," I said, "I need to ask some questions."
"About?"
"About Radolf. I don't want any cha S waontrges brought or anything, I just want them to walk away," I said. "He and Ilvan have been embezzling from Dees for years, and I've recently figured that out. I think it's time they managed on their own. I never officially married Radolf, but I don't know what the procedure might be for separating from him."
"You saw that, did you? Wylend finally admitted that he manipulated your relationship with Radolf, in order to keep Garek away from you." Erland's beautiful face looked troubled. Garek was Radolf's father, who'd stepped back in order to allow his son to become my mate.
"Why would he do that?" I asked, feeling hurt, even after all these years.
"He saw how much Corolan loved you, and worried that Garek would feel the same. Call it petty jealousy, if you will. Understand that he was in the first quarter of a female phase and that can happen. He knows now what that has cost him. And you."
"I won't ever go back to him."
"He knows that. His son, the Oracle, verified it."
"Oh, yes. I forgot about that one. The meddler." I thought of him that way—Lissa's father, that is. And Wyatt's. If he hadn't interfered at key junctures, Wyatt might still be alive.
"We all know what those things cost us." Erland couldn't read my thoughts any longer; none except the Larentii could. That shield was a gift from Nefrigar and I was more than thankful for it. Erland could read the expression on my face, however. He was adept at it, just as his son was. "As far as Radolf goes, why don't you let Lissa and me handle this one? Ilvan is still her cook, you know. I'll get into the records, determine the amount of damage they've done and then give them some choices."
"Only if it isn't too much trouble," I sighed. Suddenly, I'd gotten tired of being walked on or taken advantage of. There never seemed to be any profits from Dee's, although it was always busy. The books I'd been shown always accounted for each credit deposited. I didn't know how they'd managed to siphon away some of the income, but they had. And they were living in my house on Tulgalan while they did it. My uncle and my former lover, together, had done this to me.
Had they ever cared for me? I shook my head sadly at the thought. Our sparkling wine was served, with the rest of the bottle in an ice bucket next to the table. We ordered, I wanted fish. Nobody seemed to know how to make fish properly at Galedaro's, and I wasn't about to prepare it, in case Zendeval and Perdil showed up unexpectedly for dinner. I had the idea that Jerves had let it slip that he'd been invited, so Zendeval and Perdil came along, too. Erland answered some of Ry's questions about Tory's progress while we ate dinner.
"Tory now believes that Raedah and Tara are sixteen, and that Lara and Kara are fourteen. He was quite shocked when Lissa and the others brought out vid-photos of all of them. Now, we're working on Dara and Sara," Erland said, pushing his plate away with a sigh. "Lissa thinks that she might bend time a little when he comes to terms with all of it, just so he can see all of his babies when they were small. Kyler says that her father was taken back to the time of her birth, and it meant a lot to him that he was allowed to hold his daughter."
"Like Tory would care." A stream of smoke curled from my nostrils. That only happened when I was extremely angry or upset over something.
"Reah, he's coming to terms with everything now," Ry attempted to coax me into a better mood. S mo wi
"Ry, who has stood with me the past twenty-five years?" I looked into his beautiful, dark eyes. "I worked the groves during the day and then visited the palace in Veshtul at night, just so I could see my children. At times, I imagined that Garde and Jayd were holding them hostage. Don't think for a moment that they wouldn't have pulled them away from me if I'd complained."