Taken By Storm (28 page)

Even if she chose the House of Aune, the closest she could get to Tal would be his brother!

* * * * *

“If I hear the words ‘greater good’ one more time, I’m going to hurt someone,” Charlotte shouted. She didn’t often raise her voice, but this nonsense justified the outburst.

She insisted—repeatedly—that the sects were already reunified through her existence, that there was no need for this barbaric ultimatum. But the TSC

voted—unanimously—to uphold the Clarification.

Deaf to her protests, Prefect Aune resumed the speech Lilt’s

arrival

had

interrupted.

Once

his

“pronouncements” were complete, the meeting adjourned and the council simply dispersed.

Stinking cowards!

That left her in the council chambers with Trey and Tal. Even Vee slipped away without explanation.

“I don’t want to be High Queen of Ontariese.” Charlotte glared at the Aune brothers, giving each equal time beneath her scathing gaze. “Give this
honor
to someone else!”

“It is not an occupation or an elected position,” Tal said softly. “It’s your birthright.”

“Well, la-de-da!”

The brothers wisely stayed on the other side of the table. Charlotte slapped her palms down on the tabletop and leaned toward Tal. “If all my birthright entitles me to is a loveless marriage and the
honor
of being a brood mare, you can keep it. There has to be meaning in a monarchy or it should be abolished.”

“You are being unreasonable,” Tal said.

“You’re damn right I am, and I have no intention of changing my strategy. This is ridiculous!” She stopped to catch her breath and Trey Aune took up where his brother left off.

“Charlotte, you must understand what this war cost us. If our joining—”

“
Our
joining?” she cut in. “You’ve got the cart before the horse there, Commander Aune. I have no intention of marrying you.”

“You would rather join with Joon?” he protested.

“Or one of the others?”

“I’m not going to
join
with anyone.” She kicked Lilt’s toppled chair, sending it skittering across the length of the room. “Your father spoke of peace treaties and negotiations. Any treaty is only as good as the society backing it. Ask the Symposium to research the American Indians, if you don’t believe me. Do you trust Lilt dar Joon? Do you honestly believe he’ll abide by whatever conditions we lay down, even if I am High Queen? This is foolishness.

There has to be a logical way out of this mess and I intend to find it.”

“The Standards are clear—” Trey began.

“To hell with the Standards.” She turned her back on him dismissively. “I want to talk to Tal alone.” She barely heard the heavy doors open and close over her ragged breathing. The TSC’s expectations infuriated her, but she couldn’t believe she stood alone. No one spoke a word in her defense. Not even Tal. They all agreed that she should willingly sacrifice her happiness to benefit the “greater good”.

Tal moved to stand before her. He reached out but she slapped his hand away. She could hear blood rushing in her ears and she licked her dry lips.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“It is not that simple.”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I do, but this is not about love.” She closed her eyes against the pain. He wouldn’t fight for her. He loved her, but he loved his precious traditions more. Preparing herself for the coming rejection, Charlotte opened her eyes. “Then take me back to Earth or somewhere, anywhere. I don’t care.

Just as long as it’s a place where our love matters more than anything else.” Tears burned in her throat, making it hard to speak.

“If it were just we two, I would not hesitate. But you are the High Queen of Ontariese. I cannot—”

“You ask me to sacrifice our love for your traditions, but you won’t sacrifice your traditions for our love.”

His fingers touched her cheek so softly it felt like a farewell. Grief ate at her composure until she wanted to wail.

“I will be your faithful consort,” he pledged. “I will love you with my body and soul.”

“Even after I marry your brother?” she cried.

“It is acceptable for a woman to have a consort, even after she has chosen her life mate,” he admitted stiffly.

She shook her head, repulsed by what he suggested. “Maybe that bastard is right. Maybe it’s time I learned more about the Reformation Sect.” Tears blurred her vision but she shook off his hand and stormed from the room.

Lilt dar Joon glanced up from the vidscreen centered on his desktop as the dark-haired lad entered his office. The boy carried the food tray Lilt had requested earlier, but something in his manner caught Lilt’s attention.

“Place it there and leave.” He pointed to a small table by the windows, making the command unusually gruff.

As the lad obeyed, Lilt carefully watched his movements.

“Is something the matter, sire?” the boy asked.

“Are you having fun, Dez?” Lilt responded, careful to keep all emotion from his face.

Without replying, the servant walked to the door, but instead of departing, he cast a Mystic seal, preventing both interruption and eavesdropping.

“You’ve always been able to spot my shifts,” Dez said, returning to his customary shape. “It’s really very disappointing.”

“I looked for you at the council meeting but I didn’t see you there.” Lilt leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desktop. “Of course I was rather occupied.”

Dez stopped directly in front of the desk, his arms folded, his hands slipped into the opposite sleeves.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you had planned? I must admit I was impressed. I’ve never seen you so…assertive.”

Lilt stood and walked to the table, now bearing the food tray. “You’ve never really seen me. It’s as simple as that.” He sat and shook out his napkin. “What do you want? You’re spoiling my meal.”

“Do you really imagine she will come crawling to you?” Dez asked, his gaze narrowed and hostile.

“Did you bother to learn anything about the world on which you found her? The Reformation Sect has far more to offer a High Queen who believes in ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ than the Traditionalist Sect will ever understand.” The sound of Dez’s laughter halted Lilt’s fork halfway to his mouth. “My interest in Charlotte has very little to do with the Reformation Sect.” Lilt set down his fork and pushed back from the table. “I may be invisible to you, but you’ve always been transparent to me. I know what you want, and thanks to Charlotte, I know how you get it.”

“Then it
was
you.” Dez sneered and his eyes began to glow. “I wondered why there were no females anywhere near Fortress Joon.” He advanced.

“You can destroy me, brother. I don’t doubt your power. But how will you destroy her if you use up what little energy you have left on me? I’m incidental.

You can take care of me once you’ve finished off Charlotte.”

The intensity in Dez’s gaze subsided but his expression still promised murder. “Where are all the women?” he demanded.

Lilt laughed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Now that’s interesting. It occurred to me when I heard about your captives that without a ready supply of females to recharge you, the fight might be a bit more interesting.”

“I can find them,” Dez bragged with a haughty toss of his head.

“Oh, I’m sure you can—eventually. But the Mystics aren’t going to wait around while you do.”

“I’m your brother! Why would you do this to me?”

“It also made me wonder when I heard about your captives if Ijhana wasn’t quite as mad as I’d been led to believe.”

“Ijhana?” Dez made the name sound like a snarl.

“What does this have to do with your life mate?” Leaning his hip against the table, Lilt shrugged.

“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.”

“She slit her wrists five days after giving birth to Lor. How can you blame that on me? Many women go a little mad after a birthing.”

“She complained of nightmares even before she conceived, but especially after. She said I would come to her and lie with her but it wasn’t me. She said she fought this creature but he paralyzed her with his evil and fed upon her very soul. I believed then that her mind had gone, but now I wonder. Were they nightmares or did my brother force himself on my life mate while she was carrying my child?!”

Expecting shock, hoping for regret, Lilt was stunned when his brother laughed.

“What makes you think Lor’s your child?” Dez taunted, and shifted from the room.

* * * * *

Mist curled around Charlotte’s body, gossamer strands
caressing and carrying her. She floated peacefully,
weightlessly. Gently swaying, moving effortlessly with the
breeze.

The wind intensified.

She flew.

Free. She was free. Laughing and twirling, she reveled
in the freedom. She soared over snowcapped mountains,
squinting into a bright blue sky. Pangs of longing
interrupted her joy as the familiar landscape blurred in the
distance, fading and twisting. But she was still free.

Eyes watched her, followed her, searing her with their penetrating stare. She couldn’t escape the watcher. She ran—he followed. She hid, always hiding. Her legs ached from running. Her lungs burned.

She burned. Smoke choked her, stinging her eyes.

She ran toward the smoldering ruin of her cabin, her feet kicking up ash with each frantic step. She gasped.

Soot filled her lungs. Coughing and wheezing, she sank to the charred ground.

Overwhelming despair sprang up within her. She wept,
tears flowing from her body in torrents, turning the ground
all around her to mud.

The mud smelled like smoke. She gagged. It sucked at
her, consumed her, seeping into her pores. She screamed,
flailing wildly to free herself from the mire but it pulled her
deeper.

Darkness.

Turquoise smoke.

She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Desperately tilting her head back, gasping for breath, she felt the smoky mud ooze into her ears, fill her mouth…

Charlotte sprang up in bed, panting and shaking.

Her head pounded in time with her heart. She told the lights to brighten and scooted until her back pressed against the wall. The room was small and perfectly square, each wall a bright primary color. “I feel like I’m trapped in a Rubik’s Cube,” Charlotte whispered, and then chuckled, resting her head against the yellow wall.

Thank God for Dro Tar. She hadn’t known where else to turn after the fiasco with the TSC, but Dro Tar had welcomed her without hesitation.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and took two steps toward the door before she remembered it was the middle of the night. Returning to the bed, she stared up at the dark blue ceiling but thought of a bright blue sky.

* * * * *

“You have a visitor,” Dro Tar said from the open doorway.

Charlotte reclined on the Ontarian version of a couch in Dro Tar’s version of a den. Plants cluttered every conceivable surface and hung from hooks in the ceiling. One entire wall became a viewing screen for a variety of entertainments. Charlotte wanted only to relax so Dro Tar programmed the wall to resemble a white sandy beach at sunset.

“Male or female?” Charlotte asked. “If they’re male, send them away.” Dro Tar was the only female she knew on Ontariese so they both knew it was a silly question.

“This particular male isn’t an Aune. Does that change your answer?”

“Not if he’s a Joon.”

Dro Tar laughed. “Nope. Do you want to keep guessing or should I just let him come in?” Charlotte sat up and shoved her hair out of her eyes. Dro Tar had sent a message to the Symposium requesting a direct connection for Charlotte. Had they contacted Vee or had she inadvertently broadcast her emotions? “If I refuse, he’ll just pester me telepathically. I guess I’ll see him.”

The Mystic glided into the room and rested his hands on the back of the sofa before Dro Tar could tell him Charlotte’s decision.

“I only entered thy mind uninvited because there was no other alternative,” he reminded her.

He hadn’t really been uninvited either, just unwelcome.

“Do ye realize how hard it was to find thee?” Vee asked, impatiently commanding his hair over his shoulder. “Tal Aune is quite perturbed.”

“I decided to see if I could use the catalyst to strengthen my own abilities,” she muttered.

“Well, thy shields are impenetrable.”

“Then how did you find me?” It helped to have friends in high places.

Vee shifted through the sofa and sat. Charlotte rubbed the bridge of her nose and tried not to laugh.

Would she ever get used to shape-shifters?

“When thy energy pattern just vanished, we became concerned that something ill had befallen thee.”

She pivoted, facing him by raising one knee to the seat. “The only thing ill to befall me is an exasperating Mystic and a ridiculous set of traditions he finds sacred.”

“Tal Aune’s upbringing and—”

“I don’t want to argue with you. I understand why he feels so strongly, I just don’t happen to agree. You didn’t answer my question.”

“The Symposium is inundated with requests for direct links. They encourage those who can access a person with an existing link to utilize the Wisdom of the Ages in this way.”

“So they sent you—”

“All requests of the Symposium are confidential.

They would never compromise thy privacy in such a way. Dro Tar contacted me about an anonymous friend. She wanted to know if I, as an official of the Symposium, would be bound by their privacy pledge.”

Charlotte smiled. Oh, she liked Dro Tar more each day. “And are you? If you have contact with me, as an official of the Symposium, are you unable to share any information with anyone else?”

“Council-client privilege?” Vee chuckled. “As thy friend, Shar Lott, I would not share anything ye did not wish me to share. As an official of the Symposium, it is forbidden.”

“Then I officially request your services as an officer of the Symposium.”