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it was over, but the big guy had refused.
Tanith was more useful to them if she stayed on the planet. How the hell was he
supposed to protect her with Raoul on the loose? No matter what happened
tonight, there was going to be huge fallout. Tanith would never marry someone
who was involved in her brother’s imprisonment. He’d be lucky if she ever spoke
to him again.
    The cabin door opened and Pete eyed the ring box on the bed.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
    Jake flipped the box closed and dropped it into a drawer.
Picking up his weapon, he slid it into the pocket of his tunic. “Yeah, Pete. Ready
as I’ll ever be.”
     
    Her human was quiet tonight. They weren’t in their favorite
restaurant as they had planned but sitting at a boring function for two hundred
people at the ambassador’s residence. She couldn’t understand it. Jake always
hated these things. Between the interminable speeches, he had reached under the
table to hold her hand, but he didn’t laugh or joke or try to pull her into a
quiet corner to steal a kiss. During dessert, he whispered that he was feeling
ill and that he had to go. Then he kissed her and almost ran from the hall.
Something was very wrong. Tanith made her excuses and followed him, but the
rear lights of the Terra-pod were already passing through the gates.
    “Hello, Tanith,” a voice called from the shadows. “Don’t you
have a hug for your brother?”
    Tanith spun around. He was a little older, perhaps thinner,
but it was he. She ran to him, laughing. “Raoul, when did you get here? Why
didn’t you say that you were coming?”
    His cold expression stopped her in her tracks. “Where is he,
Tanith? Where is the human you’ve been whoring with?”
    What was wrong with him? Why was he saying these horrible
things to her? “It’s not like that, Raoul. Jake and I love each other. We want
to—”
    His hand reached out to strike her and she sidestepped the
blow, stumbling on the gravel. “You stupid bitch, your lover is a Fleet Command
spy.”
    He was wrong. Raoul had to be wrong about Jake. Jake loved
her, it couldn’t be true. Raoul grabbed her arm roughly. “Go home, Tanith. I’ll
deal with the human.”
    With that, he strode angrily to his Terra-pod and climbed
inside. The vehicle shot through the gates at a screeching speed. She felt
sick. Raoul was going to hurt Jake. Her eyes raked the vehicles parked near the
entrance. She needed something fast.
    Tanith raced through the city until she reached the narrow
streets surrounding the spaceport. There was no sign of either of them. As she
passed the entrance to a side street, she heard the low thrum of laser fire and
her heart dropped. Abandoning the vehicle in the middle of the street, she
kicked off her heels and ran toward the sound. She couldn’t let Raoul kill him.
Tanith could hear sirens in the distance. A crowd of onlookers had formed at
the top of the street, watching the battle from a safe distance. An elderly
Cyraelian stepped in front of her. “Law enforcement officials are on their way.
It’s dangerous, don’t go down there.”
    She brushed past him and kept going. Tanith crept along a
line of parked vehicles until she reached the safety of a doorway. Why hadn’t she
brought a weapon? Jake could be hurt. From her vantage point, she could see one
man lying in the middle of the street, his arm outstretched at an unnatural
angle. He was obviously dead. Two others exchanged fire across the narrow
street. Tanith watched as an injured man dragged himself behind a parked
Terra-pod. His clothing was dark. It’s not Jake , she realized with shaky
relief. It’s not him.
    She could hear a voice coming from the far end of the
street, but she couldn’t see him. It was shouting now, but she couldn’t make
out the words. There was a brief flash of laser fire and one man flew across
the street, colliding with the side of a dark Terra-pod. Tanith glimpsed a pale
uniform emerging from between two vehicles. A