Release(36)

He didn’t really want that to be true. He wanted to kill Risciter himself. It was his reason for living. But if Risciter were really gone, then... “I guess I’d still be in trouble for kidnapping you wouldn’t I?”

“If you weren’t in trouble with the law,” she said. “Would you want to be with a woman then?”

He laughed. “Not in trouble with the law? That’s never going to happen.”

* * *

Ariana lay in the darkness, listening to Keirth’s even breaths beside her. He was asleep now. And she was probably going insane.

Back in the sector, Ariana had spent time amongst circles of women. Sometimes, she’d listened to her maids giggling as they dressed her and her sister for an event. Sometimes, she and the other women at a dinner party spoke of things in giggling whispers while the men had rejoined to the study for brandy and cigars. So she knew things about falling in love or lusting after a man. And throughout her courtship with Risciter, she’d sometimes recalled those conversations and wondered if something was wrong.

While she admired Risciter and found him very pleasant to look at (everyone in the sector thought he was gorgeous for that matter), she’d never experienced the sort of draw the women had spoken about, whether they were maids or noblewomen. She’d never felt as if she wanted to spend every second in his company or as if she were interested in every facet of his being. She’d liked him. Sometimes, before seeing him she got a nervous feeling in her stomach. And yes, occasionally, the sight of Risciter made her heart patter.

But she’d sometimes wondered if she was missing something.

She’d told herself not to worry about it back then. Now she realized that there was something very wrong with Risciter, and perhaps she’d noticed an emptiness about him that she’d dismissed. Back then, however, she thought that Risciter was a good match and that marrying him was wise. Since he was so very pretty, she thought that was a bonus. For a man to be good looking, of high social standing, and quite polite was really extraordinary. She was grateful to have found him, even if there was no undercurrent pulling her to him.

But now she’d felt it. The thing that the women were always talking about. The draw.

To Keirth Transman.

Which was insane. He’d kidnapped her. He’d dragged her across the galaxy. He was rude to her constantly. What was more, he didn’t even like being around her. He wanted to take her back home and wash his hands of her.

She should hate him. She should want to be free of him. But something about him made that impossible, and she wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was only that he was so noble. He had high standards that he held himself to. Maybe it was because her heart broke for him when he spoke about his mother. Or maybe she simply shared his anger against the monster Risciter for every horrible thing he’d done.

But there was no denying the signs. There couldn’t be any mistake that she must have had ulterior motives when she decided to style herself as Keirth’s wife. And now she was lying next to him in a bed. He was so close, she could reach out and touch him.

She couldn’t be developing feelings for this man. It was madness. It was utterly inappropriate.

She shook her head against the pillow. No. Perhaps this was more trauma thinking. After everything she’d been through in the past few days, certainly she couldn’t be feeling normal emotions. She and Keirth had been in two near-death situations—one with Risciter and one with the gellococcus. Maybe some kind of adrenaline had surged through her and made her lose her head. Maybe if she waited, the strange feelings would pass.

Or maybe, said a darker part of her brain, she was developing these feelings because she saw Keirth as an escape. Now that she was socially ruined, her prospects for marriage gone, with nowhere to go except back to her life as a spinster, the idea of being with Keirth Transman seemed appealing. Wouldn’t it solve all her problems if he would fall in love with her and whisk her about through space having adventures? Wouldn’t that make everything easier?

She wasn’t a woman falling for a man, but a calculating mercenary, trying to worm her way into his life.

And hadn’t he made it clear he had no interest in forming bonds with a woman?

She corrected herself. He hadn’t said he wasn’t interested. But he’d said he wouldn’t do it.

Still...

Oh. No. She couldn’t keep thinking about this. It was ludicrous and offensive. She was Miss Ariana Gilit. She was not some common woman who could throw away everything to travel around the galaxy.

Why not? whispered a voice in her head. Why couldn’t she leave behind the rules and strictures of the sector? Why couldn’t she be free? Because, with the exception of being nearly raped and killed by Risciter, these had been the best days of her life. She felt like life actually meant something, suddenly, having come so close to losing it. She didn’t want to waste it away at balls and dinner parties. She wanted to live, really live. Like this. Going from one breathless encounter to the next.