Lady Lure (7 page)

“Of all the egomaniacal -” Determined not to
rise to his continuous baiting, Perri made herself lower her voice.
“I am concerned that, if you are left unsupervised, you will
attempt to sabotage the Space Dragon”

“Sabotage? From the galley?” His eyes lit up
with sardonic amusement. Perri was absolutely certain he did know a
way to sabotage the ship from the galley. She was not going to give
him the chance to try. They were too close to Regula, too near the
successful completion of her mission for her to allow any such
lapses of judgment on her part.

She had spent the two days since their
quarrel reviewing every action she had taken after learning of the
sentence upon Elyr. She honestly did not think she could have
chosen any other path. Looking the other way and refusing to help
Elyr would have left her with a conscience so burdened by guilt
that she could not have continued to live after his death. By all
she had ever been taught, she was doing the right thing.

Why, then, did she have so many unanswerable
questions, so many doubts? Oddly, she did know the answer to that.
It was Halvo’s fault. She also knew that, even if she were to
return to her old life in Elyr’s household, her questions would not
cease and, inevitably, they would cause trouble for her. Elyr did
not like her to ask questions. He never had. So whether she asked
or kept the questions to herself, the peaceful security she had
once known had been permanently destroyed.

“Perri.” Halvo spoke in the firm tone of
command. Stepping closer, he took her by the elbows. “Tell Rolli to
change course arid take us away from Regula. Do it now, before
their instruments can indicate our approach. This is our last
chance.”

“I cannot.” Gazing deep into his eyes, she
drew a long, shuddering breath. “I wish I could help you, Halvo,
but I have promised to deliver you to the Chief Hierarch. I cannot
break my word to him.” She wondered why the tense expression on
Halvo’s face did not change at what must have been the final blow
to any hope he held of regaining his freedom.

“All right,” he said. “If you won’t give me a
last meal of my choice, and you won’t order Rolli to change course,
then grant me another wish. It will be my last wish, Perri.”

“What do you want of me?” Perri asked, adding
regretfully, “We do not have much time.”

“It won’t take long.” His hands slid up to
her shoulders and then farther, to cup her face between his
fingers. His voice deepened to a seductive whisper. “All I want is
one kiss and for you to kiss me back as though you meant it. Can
you do that much for me?”

“I should not,” she said in protest. “It
would be most improper.”

“Improper to kiss a dying man?”

“No, don’t say that!” She knew he was playing
on her emotions. She was sure he sensed her disgraceful yearning to
feel his mouth on hers once more. “You want me to pity you and to
help you escape.”

“Pity is the last thing on my mind. I want
you to want me,” he whispered. “Just one last time, I want to know
a beautiful woman desires me.”

“I am not beautiful,” she said, aching to
tell him she did desire him and fully aware of how wrong it would
be to admit such a thing to him.

“If you are not beautiful,” he murmured,
“then all other Regulan women must be incredible.” Unbidden,
without waiting for her permission, he lightly brushed his mouth
across hers.

“Halvo.” The sound of his name was a soft
whimper of undeniable longing for an unknown possibility that,
within a few hours, would be forever lost to her. She knew if she
gave him what he wanted then she, too, would be lost.

He took the choice away from her. His mouth
covered hers with a firm sureness that stopped her breath. His arms
gathered her close.

If she had been able to think clearly, Perri
might have marveled at the way in which Halvo could combine such
hot, primitive demands on her with a tenderness that enriched their
physical contact, enlarging it to a depth and intensity she had not
dreamed possible. Deep inside Perri something stirred and spread
like a sprouting seed in spring, a force still new and fragile, yet
demanding life, insisting upon space and warmth in which to grow.
And moisture. There was moisture aplenty in the heated blood
coursing through her veins, in the burning between her thighs.
Never, never before…

Halvo moved, drawing her hips against his,
letting her feel his hardness. He lifted her off her feet, still
holding her against the length of his body. Her arms were around
his neck and she clung to him, moaning, whimpering, wishing they
had hours and days …wishing they had forever.

Dimly, she realized that they were out of the
galley. She imagined he was heading toward her cabin, or perhaps
toward his, to the nearest bed. She did not want to resist him, but
she knew she must. She could not forget her imperative duty, not
when she was so close to success. Halvo’s arms were still around
her. She could barely move. He was holding her much too
closely.

“What?” She opened her eyes to look at him.
It was not desire she saw on his face, and she knew what he was
trying to do. While he kissed her, he was easing her toward the
bench with its restraining bands. “Don’t, please. No, Halvo.
No!”

“I’m sorry, Perri. If you won’t save
yourself, then I’ll have to save both of us.” He should have
covered her mouth with his hand, or kissed her again so she could
not cry out, or held her so tightly that she could not fight what
he was doing.

“Rolli!” she screamed. “Help me! Help!”

The controls were already on automatic, so it
took only a split second for Rolli to wheel to her side. Perri was
struggling as hard as she could, kicking and scratching and yelling
at Halvo to let her go. His strength surprised her. She had
believed in the weakness of which he constantly complained. It took
Perri and Rolli together to subdue Halvo, and Perri suspected it
was only a bout of dizziness that forced him to give up at the
last. Whatever the cause, a few minutes later Halvo lay flat on the
bench, straining against the flexible metal bands that held him
fast.

“You are going to regret this,” he said in a
cold, deadly voice. “You little fool, I could have helped you. Now
whatever happens will be on your own shoulders.”

He would not stop talking. He swore at her,
demanded that she let him off the bench, warned her of a dreadful
fate to be visited on her, and finally, in a voice so poisonously
sweet it made her teeth hurt to hear him, he informed her that she
would never be able to forget that she was responsible for his
inevitable death and for her own demise and the end of Rolli’s
existence.

“Be quiet!” Perri covered her ears with her
hands. “Oh, merciful stars, Halvo, leave me alone! When will I ever
be at peace again?’

“Not on Regula,” Halvo said with unconcealed
relish. “Not anymore. This adventure has changed you, hasn’t it,
Perri?”

“Yes, it has!” Taking her hands away from her
ears, where they were having no effect quelling the sound of his
voice, she balled them into tight fists. “I have learned never to
trust males who are not Regulans. You tricked me once too often,
Halvo. You pretended to make love to me, but you only wanted to put
me on that bench where you are now.”

“That,” Rolli said, blue eyelights blinking
in Halvo’s direction, “was exceptionally devious of you,
Admiral.”

“Rolli, remember our conversations on this
subject and release me,” Halvo said. “You must understand that I am
trying to help Perri as well as myself.”

“You said nothing about attempting to seduce
her into compliance,” the robot replied. “You should have tried
logical arguments first.”

“I did!” Halvo said. “Logic doesn’t work with
her.”

“Perhaps it was not the right kind of logic,”
Rolli said.

“Then you try to talk some sense into her!
She is stubborn, willful, and deliberately blind to the danger she
is in.”

“The only danger I have been in has been from
you,” Perri told Halvo. To emphasize her resolution in regard to
him, she pulled a small, oblong box from the shelf beneath the
bench and held it up for him to see. “In this medical kit there is
a strong sedative. If you say one word more I will inject you with
it and you will not awaken until you are dragged before the Chief
Hierarch. I believe you would prefer to walk, would you not?”

Halvo’s only reaction to her threat was a
groan as he strained his shoulder muscles against the metal
bands.

“Do you understand me?” Perri leaned over
him, searching his face. If she had seen there any trace of the
tenderness she had imagined she detected in him earlier, she might
have listened to his arguments against continuing to Regula. His
passionate embrace, false though it undoubtedly was, had done more
in his favor than all his sensible talk. The thought of turning
Halvo over to the Chief Hierarch produced an ache in her heart that
she knew would never heal.

But Halvo’s eyes were cold and hard as they
bored into hers, and his mouth was pulled into a narrow, grim line.
Telling herself she had argued enough, with herself and with him,
Perri straightened.

“What do you wish me to do?” Rolli asked, the
blue eyelights fixed on her face as if to read all the emotions
registered there.

“We continue to Regula as planned.” Perri
spun away from Halvo and the robot. “You may not release Halvo
until we reach our destination.”

“Understood.” The robot wheeled quietly back
to the ship’s controls. Unable to bear the bitterness of Halvo’s
gaze any longer, Perri fled to her own cabin.

Halvo craned his neck, watching Perri leave
the cockpit. “The woman is suicidal.”

“Merely inexperienced in treachery,” Rolli
said. “Regulan females are deliberately kept innocent of the
intrigues that so happily – and so dangerously – occupy their
menfolk. The males prefer their women uninformed about the truth of
Regulan life, believing feminine ignorance will result in
compliance with every masculine wish.”

“Does the theory work?” Halvo asked.

“It has kept one half of Regula’s population
in subjugation,” the robot said, adding, “sometimes to their great
detriment, and occasionally to their deaths.”

“I thought you were supposed to protect
Perri.” Halvo’s eyes sharpened, watching the robot, but there was
no way to tell what the effect of his words were on Rolli. The
robot appeared to be doing nothing more than monitoring the ship’s
controls.

As silence fell and lengthened in the cockpit
of the
Space Dragon
, Halvo knew the time had come for any
sensible man to accept his fate, to steel himself to meet the
immediate future with dignity. He had always been a sensible man.
And yet…and yet.

“Perri, daughter of the Amalini Kin, make
your report.” The sonorous voice of the Chief Hierarch filled the
cockpit of the
Space Dragon.
“Have you successfully
completed the mission I delegated to you?”

“Yes, sir, I have.” With a growing sense of
foreboding, Perri faced the large main view-screen. In the
background she could see evidence that the Chief Hierarch was in
his private chambers, in the same room where he had granted Perri
her initial interview with him. She recognized the spiral on the
wall behind the desk and she could just see one end of the Cetan
sword on the adjoining wall. The Chief Hierarch was standing in
front of the desk. Instead of his hierarchal robes he was wearing a
white tunic and trousers, an outfit that made him appear even
thinner and more ethereal than he ordinarily did.

Perri had assumed that for this occasion,
when he accepted delivery of her prisoner, the Hierarch would
require all the ornaments of his high status and would want to be
formally attired and to sit behind the desk in his public office.
The lack of official accoutrements suggested that the matter of
Elyr’s conviction was still being handled on a confidential basis.
Perri should have been reassured by these signs, but she was not.
Even the Chief Hierarch’s benevolent expression could not soothe
her uneasiness. Telling herself she had allowed Halvo’s
insinuations to influence her thinking, Perri smiled at the face on
the viewscreen.

“Sir, where shall I deliver the
prisoner?”

“First, bring him forward,” the Chief
Hierarch said. “I wish to confirm with my own eyes that you have
found the right man.”

“I have confined him, sir. As we approached
Regula he became a bit unruly.” She had decided not to tell the
Chief Hierarch how Halvo had attempted to deflect her from her
proper course of action. If he knew, he would surely hold it
against Halvo and order a more grievous punishment. Perri did not
think the Chief Hierarch was going to have an easy time with Halvo,
but she would let him discover that fact for himself. Thus, Perri
would not be responsible for what happened after Halvo was out of
her hands. She told herself she would feel less guilty that
way.

“Have your robot release the prisoner and
hold him in front of the viewscreen,” the Chief Hierarch
commanded.

“This really is Admiral Halvo Gibal,” Perri
said, stung by the implication that she had not done her job
correctly. “I confirmed the fact with the identification material
you ordered loaded into the
S
pace Dragon’s
computer
before we left Regula.”

“Do as I tell you, Perri!” The Chief
Hierarch’s benign expression changed slightly. The new, cold gleam
in the pale green eyes, the stiffer posture, the strange harshness
in his voice, all registered in Pern’s mind. These subtle
alterations, however, did not have their previous effect on her.
She no longer trembled in fear and respect. Instead, she merely
noted his effort to manipulate her. Nonetheless, she obeyed
him.