“Thank the gods, boy. Where have you been?”
Caillen smiled as he heard Darling’s sharp castigation. “I’d say you wouldn’t believe me, but yeah, you would. We’re on an Andarion outpost.”
“We?”
“Me and the Qillaq princess. We were attacked and—”
“Don’t say anything more. We’ve only got a few words before this is traced. Her people think you kidnapped her. Right now all authorities are being told to shoot to kill if they see you.”
Caillen clenched his teeth as his fury settled deep in his stomach. Oh yeah, her mother was a major bitch. “Guard my father and her mother. The assassins after us are after them. Her mother’s Guard are traitors.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Darling cursed. “No one will believe that.”
“I know. Guard her until we have proof.”
“Will do. Smooth journeys, brother.” Darling hung up on him.
He’d be offended by the abruptness except he knew it was to protect them.
Desideria held an expectant glint in her dark eyes. “What did he say?”
“Your mother has put a call out for my head. Shoot to kill. Apparently I’ve kidnapped you.”
She scowled. “Why would they—”
“Her traitors can kill us both now and say that I killed you and that they killed me while I was being apprehended. It’s the perfect way to silence us both at once and leave them free to murder your mom.”
Desideria let out a sound of deep frustration as he stowed his comlink. “What are you doing? Why did you turn your link off?”
“If it’s on and they find my UIN, they can track me. I don’t want any surprises, so until I need it, it’s off.”
That made sense and she was grateful he knew about such things. Funny, she’d always counted herself as being extremely educated, but as her father had pointed out, there were a lot of things her people didn’t know. Luckily Caillen’s experience made up for her lack of knowledge. “Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?”
“Telling whoever you were talking to to protect my mother. You have every reason to hate her and want her dead. But what you did was decent and I appreciate it.”
He scoffed at her praise. “Oh don’t worry, Princess. My reasons are purely selfish. I want her to live. I don’t want anything to happen to her—not even a hangnail—until I have the chance to choke the life out of her personally.”
“You know I can’t let you do that.”
He raked a measuring gaze down her body. “Then you better start practicing ’cause, honey, you ain’t big enough to stop me.”
That went down her spine like a razor and made her hackles rise. “I assure you, I’m more than capable of handling you.”
Still his eerie eyes mocked her. “Whatever lie feeds your ego, babe.”
She curled her lip at his derisive tone. At the moment she wanted to slap that arrogant look off his face. Gah, if he was one tenth the soldier his ego thought he was, they wouldn’t have been caught in this situation. After all, he’d have been killed by her mother’s Guard had she not shoved him into the pod.
Come to think of it, he had yet to thank her for that.
Yeah… and that made her even angrier at him.
“You are so insufferable.”
“At least I wasn’t spawned by the she-bitch.”
She clenched her fist to keep from punching him in their tight quarters. Oh, how she wished she could get away from him or give him the beating he deserved. But that might get them taken and knocking that smug look off his face wasn’t worth her life or her freedom—though it was hard to keep that in mind while he ate his crappy food in a way that really annoyed her. I hope you choke on it, you arrogant prick. Why had she thought for even a nanosecogri he was decent or handsome or anything other than a repugnant oaf?
Unable to stand it, she lay down and turned her back to him so that she wouldn’t have to look at him for even a trifle of a moment longer.
Caillen was strangely amused by her angry response to his insulting her mother. Surely she had to know the woman was a bitch. How could she not want to choke her herself?
She’s her mother. No matter what, people tended to be forgiving of those who birthed them. He probably would have been that way too had he ever had one.
And as he chewed, he tried his best to remember his adoptive mother’s face. But all he could remember was Shahara looking so tired as she took care of him, Kasen, Tess and their mother. Of his sister holding him in her arms and weeping the night her mother died. He’d been too young to really understand it. Their dad had gone out on a drinking spree that had lasted for days. Meanwhile Shahara, just a child herself, had been left to make all the arrangements for burying her mother.