The Price of Conquest

Kressa awoke to the delicious sensation of Devin's touch, and quickly decided this was the perfect way to start a day. Then she stopped deciding, stopped thinking, and simply let herself experience the excitement and pleasure inspired by Devin's attention.

"You know," she said well over an hour later, "I could get used to this."

"Me too," Devin said. He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. His eyes met hers and held them. "But you have to promise you won't pull another stunt like last night."

She furrowed her brow. "What about last night?" she asked, struggling to recall what they had done.

"You don't remember?" Devin asked. He sounded surprised, and his voice held a touch of hurt or concern.

"Remember what?" she asked, feeling a bit of concern herself as she realized she could not recall a single thing about what they had done last night. "What happened?"

"Damn," he whispered, almost to himself. "I told you not to take the shit that guy was offering. Now maybe you'll understand why I stay away from alcohol and drugs."

Kressa stared at him. What was he talking about? She couldn't remember taking anything from anyone.

"What guy?" she asked.

"The big guy in the club. You were all over him. Hell, I thought you were going to do him right there at his table."

"No." She shook her head. She didn't do things like that.

"Then it was your evil twin, and she's as good a look as you are in a singlesuit."

The singlesuit! She remembered that. She sat up and saw the pile of black spyder-silk puddled on the floor beside the bed.

"I remember the suit," she said. "You had it delivered."

Devin nodded.

"No wonder the guy was hitting on me," she said, recalling the teasing flashes of skin the garment revealed with every movement or stray air current. "I might as well have been wearing a sign that said 'available.'"

"Maybe the suit was a mistake," Devin said slowly. "But you did look incredible in it. And it was you hitting on him."

"I wouldn't."

"It must've been the alcohol then, or the shit that guy was feeding you like candy."

Kressa fell back to the bed with a disbelieving frown. Had she really drank so much that she'd hit on a complete stranger and let him give her some kind of drug? Now that she thought about it, her head did feel a little funny, sort of thick and muffled, but it did not feel like she'd done anything quite as stupid as Devin was claiming.

"What was I drinking?" she asked.

"I don't know. Something green. In layers."

"An Ilekian Starshooter?" She'd tried one of those—once. That was enough. Yet if anything could make her behave like that, a Starshooter would probably be at the top of the list.

"Oh no," Devin said, "not an Ilekian Starshooter. More like three of them."

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"Impossible. That'd kill me."

"That's what the bartender said when you ordered your third."

"I don't believe it," she said, but feared that she did. She'd had strange reactions to drugs before, something she attributed to her Nepurhan ancestry—the same ancestry that made her a candidate for Gendzet training—and to her engineered genes. If she'd been drinking Starshooters and taking some kind of unknown drug, there was no telling what might have happened. Still…

"Why don't I have a hangover? At least?" But she realized she might be able to attribute that to her ancestry, as well, leaving her with only the odd muted sensation she was experiencing.

"Maybe you got lucky." Devin pursed his lips and studied her for a long time. "You don't remember anything at all?"

She thought hard.

"I remember the singlesuit, and then… You were looking for someone, right?" She met his eyes. "Did you find him?"

"Actually, you found him, and then you wanted to go out and celebrate."

She shook her head and wondered if she should laugh or cry. "I don't remember any of it."

"Not even this?" He held out his right arm. His bicep was wrapped in a heavy bandage.

She recalled noticing the dressing a couple of times during their lovemaking, but she had not felt inclined to wonder about it at the time.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Your friend with the happy pills took a shot at me." He looked at her for a long moment and then frowned. "You don't remember that either?"

She shook her head, staring at his bandaged arm.

"Maybe it's time for you to lay off the alcohol."

She nodded ardent agreement and wondered if she'd taken her decision to follow this relationship as far as she could a little too seriously. Wearing the singlesuit, hitting the kinds of clubs they'd gone to, drinking way too much, and taking some unknown drug were not the kinds of things she'd imagined doing when she agreed to accompany Devin to Vaxua. She knew that a lot of people enjoyed spending their free time that way, but she was not one of them, and she hadn't thought Devin was either. Still didn't, in fact.

She touched gingerly at his arm and then looked into his emotion-clouded eyes. "This guy actually shot you?"

Devin nodded. "He got a little aced when I told you it was time to leave. He left, too, and got ahead of us. He had a gun."

She frowned, horrified by the thought that Devin had been hurt because of her. "How did we get away?"

He gave her a wry smile. "I'd like to say it was my skill and quick thinking, but in reality it was more like a healthy dose of luck and the fact that your boyfriend was as sliced as you were on whatever drug the two of you were sharing."

Kressa rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "I'm so sorry, Devin. I'm not normally like that."

"I know," he said tenderly. "If you were, you wouldn't have woken up in my bed." Then his voice grew stern. "But if it ever happens again…"

"No!" She rolled over to face him. "No, it won't. I promise."

He touched her face gently. "I believe you. We all make mistakes."

"I'll try not to make one like that again."

"Good idea." He gave her a quick kiss and then eased himself out of the bed.

He looked tired and his movements were stiff. Kressa wondered if her "friend" from the bar had done more than just shoot at him.

He began to gather up his clothes.

"Where are you going?" Kressa asked.

"I think we should get out of Vaxua in case your friend remembers more about last night than you do. Plus, I need to get you back to your ship. I've got to leave Vsuna for a few days."

"Leave Vsuna? Why?"

"Business," he said and started toward the washroom.

"Can't I come?"

"Not this time. But I shouldn't be gone more than a week."

"I'll miss you," she said.

Devin stopped and turned to face her, a troubled look in his eyes. "Yeah, me too." He returned to the bed and sat down beside her. "I'll tell you what… We'll take the Gamble back to Vsatt, and I'll wait until tomorrow morning to leave." He kissed her and started across the room again, but stopped halfway to the washroom door.

"When I get back to Vsuna," he began without turning, "we have some things we need to talk about." He glanced back at her. "Serious things."

"What about?"

He turned away. "Us."