The cameras had always been there, as the Skirens made
offerings to the Goddess, as they danced. Years went by before she realized other children did not have cameras at their Solstice Gatherings. For them, it had been about family and celebration, not presenting an image of honor to an avid public.
From the moment of my birth, I was groomed to create alliances. Thats what children are to the first families of Argenti. Pawns used to further ambition. It was no different for my siblings and me.
Before I learned how to speak, my future mate had been selected.
He shifted on the bed, but said nothing. The idle brush of his hands had stopped. She had no idea what he was thinking, but she couldnt stop the words that came from her now, too long held inside.
A good match. Even I knew that. Piers was a Gavril. An alliance with his family would have profited everyone. And he was growing up to be a decent-looking man. A little quiet, a little easily manipulated, but there was nothing terrible about him. He and I were supposed to join in the mating ceremony the day after my sixteenth birthday. The planning of the event began two years earlier.
Kell touched her then. He picked up her right hand and examined her wrist. No mating band.
About six months before the mating ceremony, I went to my mother. Told her I couldnt go through with it. I needed to make my own decisions, chart my own course. A rusty laugh scraped from her. That wasnt well received. My family tried everything to get me to change my mind. Pleas, bribes. Threats. Punishment. She still had the marks on the soles of her feet.
His grip on her wrist tightened, the slightest increase of pressure.
Finally, my father said I did not have to mate Piers.
His grasp eased until he released her.
But if I didnt, I would be cast out. Not just from the family, but from Argenti. The Skirens have enough influence to have someone banished.
He rolled over onto his side and stared at her. She couldnt meet his gaze, just kept staring at the silk-draped walls, dappled with colored light from the lamps. Shabby attempts to make the room elegant, so different from the jewel-encrusted columns and lavish tapestries that hung on the walls of her ancestral home. Her home that wasnt her home. It never had been. Everything had belonged to her family, even her.
I spent my sixteenth birthday on a freighter heading off-world. Didnt know where I was going.
Didnt know anyone. I knew nothing about how to live on my ownbeing a princess does that to a girl. All I knew was that I could never go back, or else face execution.
You must have been terrified.
That was a mild way of putting it. She had never felt fear like that, not before and not since.
Instead of saying this to Kell, though, she made a dismissive wave of her hand. Found myself in the Makell System.
Thats a rough solar system. Surprise tightened his words. Another place liberated by PRAXIS, with predictably appalling results.
It was definitely different from palace life. Understatement, again. The anarchy and brutality of the Makell System had burned lessons into her, lessons she could never forget. I learned,
eventually. How to take care of myself. How toprotect myself.
Mara But she shook her head, determined to banish the memories of those horrible months, and what shed had to endure. It had taken years before she could sleep with the lights off. I talked my way onto a scavenger ship, becoming one of the crew. Eventually, I became owner and pilot of my own ship. Thoughts of the Arcadia helped push away the memories, and she knew there was pride in her voice when she spoke of the ship. Its not a plush life.
But its yours. It all belongs to you, and only you. Your life, your ship.
She did look at him then. He stared back, and the understanding in his dark eyes rocked her. No one had ever given her as much. She felt something inside her break and fall away. Leaving her open.
Raw. She could only manage a nod.
A wry smile shaped his mouth. Expectations dont last, not where were concerned.
Oh, he had the truth of it. Neither of them who they were supposed to be. Exiled royalty turned scavenger and a former street brawler turned 8th Wing hero.
He rose up from the bed, sleek and strong. Their gazes held as he stripped out of his remaining clothes. She allowed herself the pleasure of looking at his nude body, the shapes and surfaces of his muscles, and the play of jewel-colored light over his skin. He was wondrous to look upon.
When he held out a hand, she could not refuse, and he gently pulled her up to standing.
He kept silent as he slowly, carefully began to remove her
clothing. She started to help, but he shooed her hands away, so she could only stand, motionless, as he divested her of everything. He unbuckled her gauntlets and placed them on a nearby table. His long, blunt fingers undid her corset with surprising dexterity, and this, too, he placed on the table. The same for her blouse, her skirt, until she stood before him entirely nude, save for her boots.