He’d thought he had more time with her. That he’d be able to play her husband for longer, as long as it took for the legal wrangles to be sorted out. Weeks at least. “Are human courts really that fast?”
“We need it to be fast,” Marika said, shooting him a small smile. “The longer my father has, the more of a defense he can marshal. At present the facts are: I am of legal age and I am married, so now in a separate household from my father. He can no longer claim the right to control my shares in the company. Those were left to me by my grandfather, not gifted to me by my father. The only way he could control them was if I remained under his roof or if I died without issue.”
“Without issue? He can take control if you die easily? Like a nonviolent death you mean… so he can’t have you killed off?”
She chuckled. “No, he can still have me killed. Probably already has plans to.”
“I don’t get it.” He shook his head. Sometimes, he swore the Terran language was just as tricksy as the creatures themselves, full of double meanings and things that just did not make sense.
“It means if she dies without children,” Beauty piped up again from the back of the room without looking up from his book. He almost always had a book on him. Skinny didn’t want to know where he hid them.
“Ahh… aren’t you the font of knowledge on all things Terran?”
Beauty flicked his wrist, his last two fingers extended in the galactic version of a Terran flipping of the bird.
“Okay. So tomorrow…” he leaned forward to ask. Marika’s life was on the line, so he was damn sure going to be listening this time. Nothing was going to happen to his little mouse. Ever.
14
She’d never been more nervous in her entire life. Marika shivered, keeping close to Altav as they made their way to the petitioner’s box. The Elder’s court was the highest court in the system but also a bit of a misnomer. There were no elected elders anymore, just government officials. The judge in session today was not one her father had bought either, so they had a good chance of this working. Whether luck had put their petition on the same day as a favorable judge or Beauty and Zero, who both seemed to be hacker extraordinaires, had done something, she didn’t care. This was going to work.
The steward bowed and showed them to their seats, eying Altav and their “bodyguards” warily. She didn’t blame him. They were out in force today, every Warborne planetside with them and dressed to kill. Literally. She knew most of them were carrying more weaponry than a small army. Even Eric, the doctor, who tugged at his jacket restlessly. The movement earned him a sharp look from T’Raal and he stopped quickly.
“Thank you,” she leaned in to whisper to Altav, squeezing his hand. “I couldn’t have gotten even this far without you.”
He smiled as he leaned in, brushing her temple in a soft kiss. “Always, little mouse.”
A soft, fuzzy feeling spread out from the center of her chest, and she took a moment to look around the court. There were two levels. The public gallery was below with the petitioner’s galleries on the same level as the judges, one on either side of the hall. She scanned the gallery on the other side quickly. There were a few small groups of businessmen, one expensively dressed woman whose style screamed “imminent divorcee” and a group of Sisters of the Crescent Moon, their robes and veils making them look like a group of sleeping penguins in the middle of the gallery.
Her father wasn’t here, and a sigh of relief escaped her. If he wasn’t here, he couldn’t challenge the petition. They were nearly home and dry.
“And finally… in the case of Mrs. Marika Wolven vs. Mr. Anton Ingrassia…”
She sat up. This was them.
Before the official could continue his sentence, though, all hell broke loose. The nuns in the other gallery stood up, throwing their robes off as the air around them was filled with the sound of gunfire. Marika screamed as Skinny shoved her down to the floor, the glass partition in front of them shattering into a million pieces and cascading over her. She watched tiny cubes like diamonds spill over the floor in front of her.
“Contact right!”
“Take cover!”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me… killer nuns?”
They weren’t nuns, though. She’d gotten a split-second view of her father as he threw his disguise off with the heavy machine gun in his hands. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. He’d disguised himself as a nun to try and kill her. To actually kill her. She’d always known it was a possibility—actually a certainty—that she would die at the hands of one of her father’s allies or his heavies… but she’d never dreamed her father would do the deed himself.
“Stay down!” Altav ordered, keeping his bigger body over hers protectively as he fired back. The rest of the Warborne around them did the same, the gallery turning into a shooting alley as the other petitioners screamed and ran. She watched in horror as one man, possibly the one getting divorced, ran for the exit by the recessed steps set into the gallery. Before he was halfway, a bullet caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around. The look of surprise on his face turned to terror as red circles exploded over his chest and stomach like little starbursts. The light was gone from his eyes before he hit the floor, sprawled inelegantly up the steps, his hand reaching out toward her as though begging.
“Did he tell you he’s Edanian, Marika?” Her father’s voice reached her through a lull in the firing. “He’s not, you know.”
“Don’t listen,” Altav ordered, his hand on her shoulder as he lifted up. The heavy pistol in his hand spat but didn’t stop her father’s voice.
“There’s no Altav Wolven in any of the Edanian records.”
She curled up tightly as she tried to block his voice out. Her father was a liar. Excellent at spinning half-truths and illusions that sounded plausible.
“In fact, Altav isn’t even an Edanian name. Ask him! Look at him. Tell me he’s human… go on.”
Looking up, she caught Altav’s gaze. He froze and her world cracked.
“He’s right. Isn’t he?” she whispered. “You’re not—”
“We’ll talk about this later.” He turned to fire again.
She grabbed his arm.
“We’ll talk about it now!” she demanded. “Are you Edanian?”
“No!” he hissed, ducking as bullets slammed into the wood in front of them and showered them with splinters. Almost immediately he was up again, returning fire, but Marika barely saw that as her world went past cracked and completely crumbled around her.
Anguish filled her, flowing out from the jagged split in the center of her chest where her heart had cracked in two. He’d lied to her… outright lied to her face. She’d thought he was human. Edanian. He knew that. She’d even asked him. Hadn’t she? Maybe. Maybe not. But she’d referred to him and the others as Edanian enough times he had to know. Had to realize that was what she thought.
She blinked up at him, no longer hearing the bullets flying or the damage they were causing. It was all a dull roar in her ears.
He’d lied to her, which meant he was just like her father—charming and caring when he was getting what he wanted… but what happened when he didn’t? What happened when he was bored with her? Her father might be dangerous, but Altav was lethal. If she was lucky, she’d end up cast off on some back-water planet. If not, it would be the airlock. Hadn’t T’Raal already threatened that… and Fin…