Arkadian Skies: Fallen Empire, Book 6 (37 page)

“Yes,” Leonidas murmured.

Alisa bit her lip. This would mean they would finally be on the same side, assuming she could figure out a way to get the Alliance to forgive
her
actions.

“You would have to trade in your red armor for our blues and grays,” Hawk went on, “but if the surgery was successful, there would be no reason you couldn’t have a family. Soldiers are people. They deserve happiness too, eh?”

Hawk smiled at Alisa, though she suspected that was more because he saw her as Leonidas’s prize rather than out of any interest in her. He wasn’t trying to recruit
her
back into the Alliance army. Not surprising, considering she had stunned him. Oh, well. She had other priorities now. She was all Jelena had left—and she was tired of fighting. She’d already missed so many years of motherhood. She didn’t want to miss more. If agreeing to this got Leonidas on peaceable terms with the Alliance, she would happily be his prize. She would miss having him on her ship and working for
her
, but surely he was more suited to the rigors of the military. Wouldn’t he be happier with more than Beck to order around? And she could still be with him from time to time—she could run most of her freight in whatever area he got stationed in. Whenever they were together, they could—

“I thank you for your offer,” Leonidas said. “But I cannot accept it.”

“What?” Alisa asked at the same time as Hawk did.

Leonidas stood up, leaving his coffee mug. “I can’t give the Alliance my loyalty.”

He headed for the crew cabins, his back stiff, as if he had been offended.

What the hells? This was a stellar offer. All he had to do was say yes. The empire was gone. Why couldn’t he see that? To cling to something dead was foolish and bullheaded.

“Leonidas,” Alisa blurted, stretching a hand toward him.

He looked back as he left the mess hall and held her gaze for a long moment but ultimately kept walking.

• • • • •

Alisa banged on Leonidas’s hatch, not caring if all of Hawk’s people heard it. Several long seconds passed, and she thought he wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t even discuss this with her. Maybe he knew she intended to argue, to try to talk him into it. And he didn’t want to deal with that.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down so she could be reasonable. Not frustrated.

Finally, the hatch opened. Leonidas stood there, wearing an extremely wary expression.

“Not ready to swear your allegiance to First Governor Vestergaard, eh?” Alisa asked, struggling for a casual tone. He wouldn’t want a lecture. Or wheedling. Or scheming. No matter how much craziness and danger she had added to her life by trying to get him the very thing those people were offering.

“No.”

“May I come in?”

He hadn’t stepped aside and extended his arm in invitation, as he usually did. His tense stance said he did not want to talk about this. Too bad.

“Since I’m the captain, I can override the lock,” she said. “And I’m not too afraid to storm into a cyborg’s cabin. Because I’m not that wise. You know this by now.”

Leonidas dropped his chin, the gesture looking more like a sign of defeat than acceptance. She didn’t want to do
battle
with him. She wanted to love him, damn it.

He moved aside so she could enter and closed the hatch behind her.

Alisa sat on the edge of his bunk, hoping he would join her there. “Leonidas… would it be so awful? The empire is gone. If the emperor were alive, would he truly begrudge you getting on with your life? Starting a
new
life? Wouldn’t you rather work as an officer—do battle and lead men again?—than live in hiding for the rest of your life? This is your chance to get all the bounties dropped, to switch to the side that is now the dominant power. Hells, I wish
that offer was on the table for me.”

Instead of coming to sit beside her, he gazed at the unexciting rivets in the bulkhead above the desk. “I thought you wanted me to stay here and work for you,” he said.

“I would
love
that.” Her voice caught on the words, and she realized just how true they were, how much she would miss him if he grew busy with a new command and was only a part-time entity in her life. If that. But wasn’t this for the best? Wouldn’t it suit him more? “But I don’t want you—or us—to have to hide from the Alliance as fugitives. I’m already worried about bringing my daughter into all this.”

Alisa folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them.

Leonidas sighed and came to sit beside her. Not close enough for her to lean against his shoulder, but at least it was better than having him stand and glare at the bulkhead.

“I don’t believe in the Alliance,” Leonidas said. “I know you were traumatized by what happened at the Perun Arcade Massacre, but I saw just as much of that perpetrated by your people. You didn’t have numbers or resources, so you used guerrilla tactics.
Terrorist
tactics. I understand. That’s what you do when you’re the underdog and it’s the only way you can win. That’s happened all throughout the history of war, and it’s depressing how often it works. You don’t have to be clever or intelligent to strap a bomb to your chest and walk into a spaceport and blow yourself up in the middle of hundreds of innocent people.”

Alisa scowled at him. She remembered the incident to which he referred, as it had been among the opening salvos of the war, but… “That was one fringe case. He wasn’t even working with the knowledge of our leaders.”

He gave her a sad smile, making her doubt her knowledge, making her wonder if he knew something she didn’t.

“Those who are clever find a way to work from within the system to effect change, especially when the system has been providing a safe and secure place for everyone for a dozen generations. You don’t throw all of that away and leave a void to be filled by lawless opportunists only out for themselves.”

“Your safe and secure empire was an oppressive, totalitarian place that everyone who wasn’t in power hated. And
feared
. You call the Alliance terrorists because you were bigger and they opposed you, but they were freedom fighters to us. The empire was the one spreading terror and—” She stopped talking because he was looking mulishly at the deck, and also because she didn’t want to have this old argument again with him. “I don’t want to fight about this.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I wish you to understand why I can’t be like Admiral Tiang. I can’t hop over to the other side, just because it would be convenient for my career to do so.”

“Have you looked up his past? His wife? I’m sure it wasn’t only his career that motivated him.”

“I don’t have such motivations.”

“You have
me
,” Alisa said, exasperation leaking into her voice.

He rubbed his face. “I can’t. Not when I’ve picked up the corpses of innocent people blown to pieces by bombs. When I’ve walked through the rubble left after enemy ships strafed cities. When I’ve seen children’s bodies crumpled in the debris. I can’t join people who chose civilian targets because they knew they would lose if they did the honorable thing and attacked military installations. I can’t join a people without honor.” He clenched his jaw.

Alisa had the urge to defend herself
and
her honor, but she knew he wasn’t directing his words at her, even if she had flown for the Alliance. Besides, she had made too many questionable choices lately that cast doubts on her honor. She couldn’t deny that.

“So, how about you tell them you’ll join, get your surgery done, and then disappear into space with me?” She smiled and bumped his arm with her hand, knowing full well that his honor would not permit that either.

He did offer her a faint smile. “How about we just disappear into space without the lies?”

His brows rose with hope, wary hope. Did he think she would reject him if he didn’t sign up to get himself fixed?

“Or is it too… frustrating for you not to have a fully functioning security officer?” he added quietly.

“That would be a strange thing to gauge a security officer’s effectiveness on. None of those security androids out there would have jobs.”

“No? I thought some of them were fully functional.”

Alisa snorted. “I think the
functional
androids get placed in another line of work.”

“I’m not an expert on that.”

“Because you’re too busy ripping their arms and legs off to get to know them.”

“Perhaps so.”

“Leonidas…” Alisa scooted closer and slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m not going to lie, since you’ve pointed out that I’m not good at it. I do selfishly want all of your parts to work, but the reason your refusal of their offer really upsets me is because I don’t want to see you hunted by the Alliance for the rest of your life. This would be a chance to avoid that fate.
And
have sex with me.” She kept herself from going on, from pushing her own agenda, but she couldn’t resist smiling and adding, “Then you could find out if I’m able to pronounce all the syllables of Leonidas while in the throes of passion, or if I’ll mangle it. Or have to shorten it to Leo. I’m certain you’ve been wondering.”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “As long as you don’t call me
mech
, I believe I would take a mangled name as a compliment.”

She wanted to say that she had never called him that, but she had once, when she’d been angry. “Just don’t put it in my head. I’d hate to have it on my mind so that I worried about it slipping out and offending you. It could give me performance anxiety.”

He slid a muscled arm around her back, shifting her closer to him. “I doubt
you’re
the one who’ll need to worry about that.”

She found that
who’ll
encouraging. Who will. Words to describe something that would happen in the future. That had to mean that he hadn’t given up on the idea completely, even if he had rejected Tiang’s offer.

“You never know,” she said, for he was gazing at her, as if expecting a response. “It’s been a long time for me too.” Too long, especially considering that he had been starring in her dreams lately. The suns knew she should have been too busy these last couple of months to have sexual dreams, but brains and hormones didn’t always operate logically.

“Twenty years?” he asked.

“Not quite that long. But combat armor isn’t the only thing I’ve been wishing the time to go shopping for lately.”

His forehead wrinkled.

“While you were browsing catalogs for weapons for the ship, I was browsing for… more personal items.”

The forehead wrinkle didn’t go away.

She decided not to go into more detail. It wasn’t as if she had placed an order. Alas, it was hard to have deliveries made to a ship that never stayed in one place for long. Of course, if she had
him
, she wouldn’t need such personal items. She rested her palm on his chest, the curve of his pectoral muscle firm beneath the thin shirt, his skin warm through the material. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was lying to herself about what she cared most about. She
did
want him to walk on Alliance planets without harassment, but she also wanted him, not just at her side, but in her bed. Maybe it was pure selfishness that was guiding her these days.

Leonidas must have figured out her catalog habits, or simply read the longing in her touch, because he lifted a hand to the side of her head. He stroked her hair a few times, then reached around her back and tugged her ponytail holder free. A tingle of pleasure curled through her body as he slowly unfastened her braid. She didn’t know what he had in mind, but stroking her hair seemed to please him, perhaps in an aesthetic or soothing way if not in a sexual one.

He surprised her by lowering his lips to hers when he finished unbraiding her hair, his fingers brushing the back of her neck, eliciting more shivers. He did not usually initiate kisses, even though he often went along with her when she did, and she thought to ask what he was doing and why. But when she opened her mouth, it was only to return his kiss, to run her tongue along his lips, to tease them open, to taste him fully. And to want him fully. The familiar ache in her soul blossomed, matching the more physical one growing within her body.

“Leonidas,” she whispered against his lips, thinking to say they should stop, that this would only leave her frustrated, but she couldn’t get the words out. She didn’t want to stop. She slid her hands under his T-shirt and over the taut flesh of his abdomen, thoughts of following those contours with her mouth coming to mind.

He leaned her back onto the bed, his fingers splayed on her back to hold her as he guided her down.

“Leonidas?” she asked. “What are we—uhm?” She didn’t protest being laid back on the bed, as all sorts of delightful possibilities filled her mind, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up, nor did she want to ask for… too much.

“I’m hoping to preclude the need for you to spend your money on toys,” he said, lowering himself to an elbow beside her, his broad shoulders and torso hovering close enough over her chest that she could feel the heat of his body.

She opened her mouth, intending to protest the idea of him needing to do this, even if she didn’t want to protest anything, but he untucked her shirt, his fingernails brushing the sensitive skin of her abdomen, and her breath and her words caught in her throat. Her body would never forgive her if she pushed him away.

“Money should be spent on combat armor.” He smiled, his eyes warm, then brought his mouth down for a lingering kiss. “Perhaps on chocolate.”

“Definitely on chocolate,” she whispered, pushing her fingers through his hair and pulling him down for another kiss—and whatever else he was willing to offer.

Chapter 20

Alisa woke up to the beeping of the alarm on her comm unit. She reached toward the desk, where it usually rested, but it wasn’t coming from there. And that wasn’t her desk.

She was in Leonidas’s bed, the lights dimmed, blankets covering her, her boots and her folded trousers on the chair, the comm unit bleeping from a pocket. She smiled at the memory of the items coming off, even if she was disappointed that he wasn’t in the cabin. He wouldn’t risk falling asleep with her again; she knew that. But she would have loved to reach over and snuggle with him, to thank him for what had definitely been more pleasurable than using items from catalogs. Her smile grew a little wicked as Mica’s jokes about enhanced tongues came to mind. She was fairly certain that only referred to taste buds, but he’d done quite an admirable job, considering he couldn’t have been that excited himself, and considering whatever memories he had of such actions had been twenty years old. She couldn’t deny that
she
had been excited. And sated. Even if she couldn’t help but feel a hint of frustration, more that she couldn’t return the favor than out of any disappointment that more organs hadn’t been involved. She would happily climb into bed with him every night for that, but surely it would become a chore for him, and that was the last thing she wanted.