When the Imdiko rose to stand be­fore her, ad­just­ing the height the man­a­cles held her at, Jes­sica whim­pered to see the cruel smile on his face. Egilka took her hard, the force­ful thrusts like Be­vau’s vig­or­ous style of love­mak­ing. Jes­sica en­joyed it, know­ing that later in her preg­nancy they would han­dle her with more care than she be­lieved she would pre­fer.

  Egilka swept her hair back and pulled her head to one side, ex­pos­ing the long line of her neck. He opened his mouth wide, and his fangs de­scended.

  Jes­sica sobbed in min­gled fear and arousal as his face drifted down to her vul­ner­a­ble neck. The sharp tips of his fangs touched her skin. Even as he pounded his groin against hers in a re­lent­less tat­too, he bit down slowly, mak­ing her feel the agony of pen­e­tra­tion.

  Or­gasm ex­ploded in a white-hot blast, mak­ing Jes­sica jerk in the cuffs that kept her spread wide. She cried out, shud­der­ing as eu­pho­ria coursed through her body. Egilka held her tight against his thrust­ing body, slowly with­draw­ing his fangs. His tongue laved the side of her neck, lick­ing the blood that pulsed from the punc­tures.

  His mouth cov­ered the wounds, and he sucked hard, feed­ing on her like a vam­pire. Jes­sica groaned anew, an­other cli­max build­ing as Egilka’s bru­tal thrusts lost rhythm. He growled, mus­cles tens­ing. His grip tight­ened, crush­ing her against him­self.

  Egilka’s head fell back, Jes­sica’s blood stain­ing his lips a shock­ing ruby as he howled. His sex pulsed, ex­chang­ing se­men for the blood he’d taken. Her spas­ming sheath de­voured his of­fer­ing.

  Af­ter the sev­eral min­utes it took them to quiet, Jes­sica looked at her other clan­mates. Cla­jak and Be­vau grinned, de­lighted with the show they’d watched.

  “Imag­ine hav­ing both of them do­ing that to you for three days,” Be­vau laughed. “Can you blame me for giv­ing in?”

  Egilka pulled free of her, his an­gu­lar fea­tures soft­ened by a smile. “It’s just as fun now as it was then.”

  A mo­ment later, Jes­sica was sit­ting on the bed. The men re­moved the cuffs. When Cla­jak and Egilka moved to give them back to Be­vau, Jes­sica snatched them away.

  “These aren’t go­ing back into his pri­vate room,” she grinned. “They can stay right here from now on, near at hand.”

  Chap­ter 21

  The shriek­ing blast of a siren tore Jes­sica from the black­ness of sleep. Light blazed from the ceil­ing of the sleep­ing room, blind­ing her. The warm bod­ies of her clan dis­ap­peared from her side in an in­stant.

  “Alarm off, lights half dim!” Egilka bel­lowed, and the claxon cut out. Jes­sica’s ears rang as she opened her eyes.

  The Kalquo­ri­ans were al­ready dressed in their form­suits. Be­fore she could say a word, they ran from the room.

  “What the hell?” Jes­sica splut­tered, rolling out of bed. She ran to her still un­dec­o­rated pri­vate room and snagged a shift out of the closet. She tugged it on over her head. Slid­ing on her fa­vorite bal­let-style slip­pers, she hur­ried out to the hall.

  Ex­cited voices led her to the greet­ing room where her clan sur­rounded Ko­rkla. The color had drained from the aide’s face, leav­ing his skin with a gray­ish tint.

  Cla­jak turned to her, his face stricken as she en­tered. The Dramok rushed over to grab Jes­sica’s hand. Tug­ging her to the con­veyance he said in a rough voice, “Good, you’re dressed. Your nurs­ing skills may be re­quired.”

  Ev­ery­one crowded into the con­veyance, and Be­vau barked, “Shut­tle bay.” Grav­ity shifted as the con­veyance rushed to obey.

  “What is go­ing on?” Jes­sica said. The grim fierce­ness in the faces sur­round­ing her made her heart race.

  Ko­rkla said, “Em­peror Zarl has been at­tacked at his coun­cil of­fices. The re­ports say he’s in poor con­di­tion. That’s all the in­for­ma­tion I have right now.”

  The con­veyance door opened onto the shut­tle bay. Fur­ther con­ver­sa­tion was im­pos­si­ble as Jes­sica was rushed to the clan’s per­sonal shut­tle. Be­fore she was prop­erly seated, the craft lifted into the air and sped into the night.

  Ko­rkla pi­loted. Seated next to Jes­sica, Cla­jak shook. His ex­pres­sion was a mask of ag­o­nized fury. Seated across from him, Be­vau kept his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell with deep breaths. Jes­sica saw his mus­cles tense and re­lax, tense and re­lax. She rec­og­nized the Nobek stead­ied him­self, clear­ing his head for what­ever ac­tion awaited him.

  Egilka sat next to the clan’s pro­tec­tor, his ex­pres­sion grim. Of the three men he seemed the most ap­proach­able.

  “Who would do such a thing?” Jes­sica asked.

  The Imdiko shook his head. “Zarl is well-loved by our peo­ple. This is un­think­able.”

  “You don’t think an Earther—”

  “Ab­so­lutely not,” Be­vau said, his eyes open­ing. “You are the only Earther with the se­cu­rity clear­ance to en­ter his of­fice at the Gov­ern­ment House.”

  The shut­tle al­ready ap­proached the cliff that made up the Gov­ern­ment House. Mo­ments later they landed in the bay. The in­stant the door opened, Be­vau, Cla­jak, and Ko­rkla were gone, mov­ing faster than Jes­sica’s eyes could fol­low.

  Egilka took her hand. He paused for an in­stant to press a kiss to her fore­head. “Thank the an­ces­tors you’re so strong in a cri­sis,” he mur­mured. “Let’s see what we can do to help Zarl, my love.”

  Stead­ied by the Imdiko’s care, Jes­sica stood on tip­toe to kiss him back. Hold­ing hands, they hur­ried to­gether down a long wind­ing hall. Royal Guards and mem­bers of Global Se­cu­rity swarmed the place, tak­ing only a mo­ment to sketch quick bows as the pair passed.

  Egilka pulled her into a door­way where voices spoke in quiet tones. Jes­sica’s gaze went to Cla­jak and Be­vau. They con­versed in­tently with Yuder, Ko­rkla, Raxs­tad, and an­other Nobek wear­ing the sleeve­less red-trimmed form­suit of Global Se­cu­rity.

  Jes­sica’s breath caught for a mo­ment as the Nobek darted a quick glance at her en­trance. She knew him right away. He was the first Kalquo­rian she’d ever met, Ra­jhir and Flen­cik’s fe­ro­cious clan­mate Breft.

  The mem­ory of the preda­tory Kalquo­rian bit­ing into her throat, leav­ing her to grovel help­lessly at his feet, made her shiver. Breft had given Jes­sica that first breath­less ex­pe­ri­ence of fear mixed with de­sire. She’d have given her­self to him back on Pla­sius had he wanted her and had his heart not al­ready been taken by Amelia Ryan.

  “Over here,” Egilka said, tug­ging her deeper into the room. At the sight of Zarl’s bro­ken body on the floor, all thoughts of Nobek Breft left Jes­sica’s con­scious­ness.

  The em­peror’s limbs jut­ted at wrong an­gles from his body. Blood pooled be­neath his twisted frame. His face, so dear to Jes­sica, was twisted in a parox­ysm of pain. He lay still.

  Flen­cik kneeled next to him, a large case of med­i­cal in­stru­ments yawn­ing wide open nearby. The Imdiko worked fast, his jaw set in a grim line. From her work as a nurse, Jes­sica knew the look. She’d seen that same ex­pres­sion on the faces of doc­tors who knew the fight was lost but couldn’t bear to give up yet. Her heart plunged.

  Tidro stood over his fallen clan­mate, wring­ing his hands. He looked up as Jes­sica and Egilka ap­proached, and an ex­pla­na­tion spilled from his lips even be­fore they asked.

  “He slept all af­ter­noon, ex­hausted from this morn­ing’s ses­sion. I didn’t want him to come here so late. He in­sisted, though. Zarl couldn’t sleep, and he said he might as well get some work done.”

  Flen­cik glanced up at them. “I’m glad you two are here. The med­i­cal shut­tle is on its way, but I need more hands right now.”

  Jes­sica and Egilka knelt at Zarl’s side. “Tell me what you need,” Jes­sica said.

  “A mir­a­cle,” Flen­cik mut­tered. He handed her a mon­i­tor with two flat lines trac­ing across it. “He’s got no pulse or res­pi­ra­tion. Tell me the in­stant any­thing changes. My prince, in­ject a tab of stim­u­lant into his heart.”

  As Egilka hur­ried to obey, Flen­cik pried open Zarl’s mouth. The physi­cian fed a long tube into his throat and at­tached a cylin­der to it. With a flick of a but­ton, the cylin­der hummed. Zarl’s chest rose and fell as the ma­chine fed him breath.

  From Jes­sica’s po­si­tion, she could see the hud­dled Kalquo­ri­ans at the other end of the room. She strained to hear their con­ver­sa­tion even as she paid close at­ten­tion to what Flen­cik was do­ing.

  Breft’s tenor reached her ears. “A main­te­nance su­per­vi­sor re­ported see­ing a man in the build­ing match­ing Nobek Marzk­lis’ de­scrip­tion. In the Royal Guard’s search for him, they dis­cov­ered Em­peror Zarl.”

  Jes­sica’s eyes widened. Wag­nox’s Nobek was be­hind the at­tack?

  Be­vau asked, “What about se­cu­rity mon­i­tor­ing?”

  Raxs­tad an­swered. “The sys­tem went into com­plete fail­ure an hour ago, mo­ments be­fore Marzk­lis’ pres­ence was re­ported. It’s still down. The mal­func­tion has been un­trace­able.”

  Watch­ing Flen­cik as he in­jected some­thing into Zarl, Egilka whis­pered, “Won’t the cell re­gen­er­a­tor take too long to be any good?”

  “To bring him back to life, yes. I’m start­ing re­gen­er­a­tion of the dam­aged or­gans to keep him alive should death re­lease him.”

  “Still no pulse,” Jes­sica re­ported. “How long be­fore it’s too late?”

  Flen­cik swal­lowed. “He’s dead, my princess. I’m mak­ing sure there’s no at­tempt left un­tried.”

  Tidro made a soft moan. “Please, my Dramok. Not yet. I’m not ready for this.”

  Jes­sica fought off tears with grim pro­fes­sion­al­ism. One did not fall apart while still at­tend­ing the pa­tient. Emo­tion was for later.

  Breft was say­ing, “Marzk­lis is an in­fil­tra­tion spe­cial­ist. He’s an ex­pert in dis­arm­ing se­cu­rity and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems.”

  Be­vau’s voice was cold. “If it’s only been an hour, he hasn’t got­ten far. I’d like to join the search.”

  “My prince, your as­sis­tance would be most wel­come. I know your field is large-scale bat­tle, but your rep­u­ta­tion as a tracker and hunter is well known.”

  Cla­jak’s voice shook with anger and grief. “I’m com­ing too. I want to be there when you catch the gurluck.”

  “No Cla­jak,” Yuder said firmly. “Zarl’s clan is bro­ken and un­able to con­tinue in our du­ties. You must as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Dramok Em­peror. We step down in your clan’s fa­vor.”

  Jes­sica’s shock at the rapidly un­fold­ing events was in­ter­rupted as the mon­i­tor gave a weak ping­ing sound. A small spike ap­peared on the oth­er­wise flat line of the heart mon­i­tor’s read­out.

  “I’ve got some­thing!” she said, her hands grip­ping the ma­chine hard. Come on, my fa­ther. Come back to us.

  An­other spike ap­peared, quickly fol­lowed by an­other. There was a space of a few sec­onds be­fore it hap­pened again. “In­ter­mit­tent heart­beat,” she re­ported. “He’s not done yet!”

  Tidro wrung his hands. “By the an­ces­tors, yes. Come back, Zarl.”

  “An­other tab of stim­u­lant,” Flen­cik or­dered Egilka, who wasted no time in­ject­ing the fallen man.

  Jes­sica stared at the mon­i­tor, will­ing the spikes to con­tinue. “Pulse is weak, but steady­ing. In­vol­un­tary con­trac­tions of the lungs be­tween forced res­pi­ra­tions. He’s try­ing to breathe on his own.”

  Flen­cik shut off the cylin­der and dis­con­nected it. Zarl’s chest rose and fell slightly as he took shal­low breaths.

  Egilka ran a med­i­cal scan­ner over the em­peror’s torso. “I’m read­ing in­ter­nal bleed­ing now that his heart’s beat­ing again.”

  The ar­rival of four Kalquo­ri­ans with a hover stretcher al­lowed Jes­sica to re­lax a lit­tle. She and Egilka moved aside to let the medics as­sist Flen­cik. From the cor­ner of her eye, she saw Be­vau, Raxs­tad, and Breft leave the room, pre­sum­ably to com­mence search­ing for Marzk­lis. Cla­jak and Ko­rkla joined the qui­etly weep­ing Tidro, their arms cir­cling him in sup­port.

  Flen­cik lost no time bark­ing or­ders. “Con­tin­u­ous flow of stim­u­lant. Pin­point ar­eas of in­ter­nal bleed­ing and cut off blood flow to the af­fected re­gions. Cry­ofreeze where you can. Tell the med­i­cal cen­ter I want a sta­sis cham­ber ready for the em­peror the in­stant we get there. Once he’s com­pletely frozen, we’ll op­er­ate.”

  The medics moved quickly to fol­low his di­rec­tions, and in no time they had Zarl on the stretcher. With Flen­cik ac­com­pa­ny­ing them, the medics whisked the in­jured man from the room.

  Egilka took Jes­sica’s hand again. He ad­dressed the silently wait­ing Cla­jak. “My Dramok, with your leave we’ll go to the med­i­cal cen­ter and await word on the em­peror’s con­di­tion.”

  Tidro added, “I will go with them.”

  Yuder said, “Wait a mo­ment. Royal Guard!”

  Six Nobeks ap­peared at his call. They stood at at­ten­tion, await­ing or­ders.

  Yuder told them, “The crown has passed from Clan Zarl to Clan Cla­jak. My Imdiko, do you con­cur?”

  Tidro nod­ded with vig­or­ous agree­ment. “I waive all claim to the throne in fa­vor of my son and his clan.”

  Yuder con­tin­ued to in­struct the guards. “In this state of emer­gency, con­fir­ma­tion by the Royal Coun­cil is sus­pended as our laws dic­tate. You are un­der the di­rect com­mand of Im­pe­rial Clan Cla­jak hence­forth.” He swal­lowed, the first in­di­ca­tion of emo­tion from the fierce Nobek.

  The mo­men­tary lapse didn’t last but an in­stant. The ex­pres­sion in Yuder’s eyes hard­ened. “An em­peror has been at­tacked in a place thought to be im­preg­nable to en­e­mies. The Im­pe­rial Clan is not to be left un­guarded un­der any cir­cum­stances un­til the as­sailant and his co-con­spir­a­tors have been ap­pre­hended. This squad will ac­com­pany Em­peror Egilka, Em­press Jes­sica, and Im­pe­rial fa­ther Tidro to the med­i­cal cen­ter and re­main close at all times.”

  “Yes, Im­pe­rial fa­ther Yuder,” the guards in­toned in uni­son. They turned their at­ten­tion to Egilka and Jes­sica.

  One stepped for­ward and bowed to the new em­peror and em­press. “I am the cap­tain of this squad. We stand ready to keep our em­per­ors and em­press safe, to our last breaths if nec­es­sary.”

  Feel­ing light­headed, Jes­sica looked at Cla­jak to see his re­ac­tion to their sud­den as­cen­sion to the throne. His steady gaze met hers. If the Dramok was the least bit re­luc­tant to as­sume his du­ties, he didn’t show it. De­spite his deadly se­ri­ous ex­pres­sion, his left eye closed in a wink. Jes­sica took a deep breath and man­aged a small nod. She was Kalquor’s em­press now. She must be strong too.

  Cla­jak said, “Egilka, Jes­sica, keep me in­formed as to the Im­pe­rial fa­ther’s con­di­tion. I will be sta­tioned at an emer­gency com­mand post in Global Se­cu­rity head­quar­ters.”

  “You will know all news as we re­ceive it,” Egilka an­swered. He looked at Jes­sica. “Come, my em­press.”

  Still feel­ing un­real but de­ter­mined not to show it, Jes­sica left with him, Tidro, and the com­ple­ment of guards.

  * * * *

  Jes­sica stared un­see­ing at the news vid in the med­i­cal cen­ter’s wait­ing room. It was the same thing over and over any­way; Em­peror Zarl had been at­tacked, Dramoks Pwal­dur and Wag­nox, Imdiko Sty­tyn, and Nobek Marzk­lis were be­ing sought for ques­tion­ing, Zarl’s clan had ab­di­cated the throne in fa­vor of Cla­jak’s clan, and spec­u­la­tion ran amok that Zarl had died from his in­juries. Egilka had muted the vid some time ago to ev­ery­one’s re­lief.

  The for­mer em­peror had been in surgery for hours. Jes­sica, Egilka, and Tidro re­laxed in the wait­ing area as best they could. Con­ver­sa­tion had faded away un­til they all sat silently in the bland, util­i­tar­ian room and waited for the news of whether or not Zarl lived.

  Near the door­way, the six Royal Guards stood watch, along with six more who had also been as­signed to the group. Jes­sica was im­pressed with how they never shifted po­si­tions, never spoke, never dropped their guard. De­spite the hours that turned night into morn­ing, they re­mained as vig­i­lant as the mo­ment they’d taken up their posts.

  Jes­sica fought off a yawn, afraid a show of tired­ness would be bad morale for ev­ery­one else. She shifted in her seat, and Egilka reached for her hand. His fin­gers twined with hers, and they ex­changed sup­port­ive smiles. She leaned over to lay her head on his shoul­der. He kissed the top of her head.

  The guards, al­ready stand­ing ram­rod straight, some­how man­aged to stand even straighter, their eyes in­tent on the hall­way be­yond the door. Alerted, Jes­sica sat up. A heavy tread ap­proached.

  “Dr. Flen­cik ap­proaches, my em­peror and em­press,” the cap­tain of the guards an­nounced.

  Jes­sica, Egilka, and Tidro stood. See­ing the worry on the white-haired Kalquo­rian el­der’s creased face, Jes­sica took his hand. Tidro seemed to have aged be­fore her eyes in the last few hours. He still man­aged a tight smile for her, al­ways think­ing of oth­ers be­fore him­self.

  Flen­cik en­tered the room, his pos­ture stooped with ex­haus­tion. A younger medic fol­lowed at his heels. Be­fore the physi­cian could speak, Tidro asked, “Zarl?”

  Tired­ness faded from Flen­cik’s face as he smiled, and Jes­sica’s chest loos­ened. “He lives, Im­pe­rial fa­ther,” the sur­geon said.

  Tidro’s eyes closed, and he sagged for an in­stant as if his legs would go out be­neath him. Be­fore any­one could rush to keep him from col­lapse, he stood up straight again.