I caught her eye, tipped my head toward Rhys, who was deep in conversation with Marcus, and raised an eyebrow. She blushed then grinned. “And I told him who I am,” she whispered, “so you don’t have to call me Yasmin anymore. You and Loch?” She raised her own eyebrow. I nodded and grinned, though in truth, I was uneasy.
The sex had been beyond amazing, but I’d expected Loch to be gone when I woke. When he wasn’t, Rhys’s warning had come back to me with a vengeance. One-night stands I was comfortable with, relationships I was not. It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way during my first season.
At seventeen I’d been allowed to join the adult Consortium events for the first time. James had been a decade older and handsome as sin. He was from a small house of no importance, but he showered me with the attention and affection that I secretly craved. I’d thought myself in love.
My parents refused to let me see him, which only made him more tempting. He wooed me with all the skill and cunning of an apex predator. He was my first, and it was only thanks to my older sisters that I didn’t end up pregnant—they had taken me to get a birth control implant a month before my debut.
No one could deter me from James, and when he asked me to marry him, it was the happiest day of my life. I accepted and broke the news to Father. Father laughed until he saw I was serious, then he told me that I was free to marry “that bounder” but that I would be cut from the House if I did. I didn’t care—it was true love.
James had a different reaction. I told him that Father would disown me if we married, but I would sacrifice my House for him. I’ll never forget his sneer and his response: “You are worthless to me without your name. I can’t believe I wasted months on you.” Then he turned and walked away, just like that. At the very next event he had showered attention on Elizabeth Rockhurst while the Consortium ladies twittered behind their fans at “that poor von Hasenberg girl.”
It wasn’t until years later that I realized exactly how lucky I’d been, but by then the damage was done. I’d become just as cynical and jaded as the rest of the Consortium, especially about relationships, which I avoided like the plague.
But no matter how cynical I became, I couldn’t escape my younger self, the girl who just wanted someone to love me for myself and not because I was a daughter of High House von Hasenberg. It was a personal failing, so I armored over the weakness and kept people at arm’s distance. If I didn’t give them an opening, then they couldn’t use me.
Loch’s continued presence was a gigantic opening. Why would he decide to stick around? Did he realize how vulnerable I was to him? Doubts assailed me.
But while my mind had concerns, my body had no such qualms. Loch brushed a casual kiss across my mouth on the way to the dining room and I nearly hummed in pleasure. This was bad, so very bad.
Rhys fed us breakfast, and it was over delicate crepes that my com exploded with messages from all of my sisters. I read the first one and my heart sank. House Rockhurst was now overtly threatening war over my broken non-engagement and demanding my dowry in exchange for peace. Father was having none of it because we didn’t have any official agreements in place.
“What’s wrong?” Loch asked.
“House Rockhurst is rattling their sabers at us and demanding my dowry, with or without me. And Father doubled my bounty in an ‘excess of caution,’ so I’m now worth more than some planets.”
“What is so special about your dowry?” Veronica asked.
I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t know, then paused. Richard had demanded marriage when I’d talked to him on TSD Nine, too. I had meant to look into why he wanted my dowry, but I’d forgotten to do it. “That’s a really good question,” I said. Bianca, bless her completionist heart, had attached a list of what my dowry included. Money, land, ships, planets, and mineral rights were all included, mostly for planets I’d never heard of.
But one rang a bell: a tiny frozen planet in the heart of the Antlia sector. Hadn’t I heard something about Rockhurst and that planet already? I pulled up the planet’s info on my com but it was listed as barren. So why would Rockhurst want a frozen, barren planet?
I widened my search and found Rockhurst controlled several planets in that sector already. All were mining planets, but none listed what they were mining. That was unusual but not completely unheard of. It usually meant they were mining something they wanted to keep under the radar.
So, if they’d found a new resource, they wanted to corner the market before they released any info. And our planet threatened that monopoly. But what would be worth starting a war over?
None of the reasons I came up with made any sense, except one: faster FTL drives. If the resource needed to produce faster drives was only available in the Antlia sector, that would absolutely be worth war, or at least the threat of it.
“What’s the fastest you’ve ever heard of an FTL drive being able to recharge?” I asked the table.
“I’ve heard rumors that Yamado’s got it down to five hours and change for moderately sized ships,” Rhys said.
“Five or six hours is what I’ve heard, too,” Veronica said. “Why?”
I considered everyone at the table and how much I trusted them. I sighed. At least if they betrayed me, someone besides myself would know the secret. “Because the ship I stole from Richard can jump in an hour. I plotted it up to four jumps and they were all going to take an hour each.”
Loch and Veronica looked only mildly surprised. They must’ve guessed we were jumping faster than normal from our travel time. Rhys, however, looked stunned.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked.
“Yeah, it means you’re all likely to betray me and try to steal my ship,” I said drily.
Rhys shot me a reproving glare. “It means you’re sitting on a piece of information worth unimaginable wealth. Your father would drop the bounty in an instant in exchange for the ship. Yamado would grant you safe passage and set you up like a queen. And Rockhurst will kill to keep it a secret.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s why I plan to leave today after I stock up on supplies. I’ve shut down communications and the trackers I’ve found are all short-range and dependent on the ship’s communication array, but even so, it’s not safe to stay in one place for too long. That’s why I wanted Veronica to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Rhys and I talked last night,” Veronica said. She almost managed it without a blush but faint color stained her cheeks when I grinned knowingly at her. “I still think joining you for a while is my best option. I know it will be dangerous, but if we’re in a ship that can out-jump everything else out there, the danger should be manageable.”
“That would be true if I planned to keep running, but if it comes to war then I can’t. I might not care for Father or his policies, but I’m still a von Hasenberg. Plus, I do care about my siblings and want to be there for them.”
“Could you bring me in as part of your Cabinet?” Veronica asked.
“I could,” I said slowly, thinking it through, “but I would have very little power to protect you. I’m the fifth of six children. Father only cares about me insofar as what my marriage will gain him. But it is possible that I could make your safety and position a condition of giving up the ship.”
Veronica nodded as if that settled it.
“However,” I said, “I’m planning to go check out a hunch first. It’ll take me deep into Rockhurst territory, very likely territory they don’t want looked at.”
“Why not have your father send someone?” Loch asked.