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His muscles tensed against me. “What you overheard… was directed at a different matter, something about the Cryons that can’t get out,” he confessed.
“But she was with Lady Natoi that night.”
He moved slightly away from me so I could see his eyes, which were earnest and held promises. “I will get to the bottom of this, Heather. I swear. But I have to ask you to trust me for now. If Lady Madeema”—and here he ground his teeth and locked his jaw—“had anything to do with what happened to you, I will hold her accountable for it. She is a dangerous merrily. I need to handle this carefully.”
Despite my better judgment, I said, “I trust you.”
I carried Heather back to my suite, reluctant to break our contact, to let her out of my arms.
Guilt tore at me for having frightened her. Her! The one I vowed to cherish and protect. That her voice, her slight touch, had brought me back from the edge of going completely feral, was a small miracle.
Had I needed any further proof that she was my mekarry, this would have done it.
My body was still aroused as it had never been before when I gently placed her on the bed, but I realized that now was not the time to follow my baser instinct. She needed rest and she needed time to digest everything that had happened to her. The next time we made love I wanted it to be special, not overshadowed by all the darkness around us.
I was more than happy to lie down next to her, scoop her into my arms, and just relish in her nearness and the knowledge that she was safe and here with me.
I waited until her breathing evened out, telling me she had fallen asleep, and left the door open to go into my living room. I needed to do a few things, no matter how much I ached to just hold her.
My suite had been empty when I entered with Heather—Lady Madeema and Commander Noctus were gone. The table was set with drinks and food and, out of habit, I gravitated toward it, filled a glass with vepo, and ate a few bites. Chewing on them without noticing what I ate.
I needed to get a hold of the chaos in my mind.
Lady Madeema had been in Lady Natoi’s chamber the night of Heather’s abduction. Coincidence?
I didn’t think so. I had never seen the two of them interact with one another before. Had Lady Madeema been seen with anybody else on any other night, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. This though, I couldn’t discount.
Lady Madeema had also gone behind my back and abducted Sir Priough. It wasn’t in direct violation of an order, because there had never been one in the first place. I had allowed her a lot of free rein when it came to matters of intelligence, but abducting a foreign dignitary was a line I would have never crossed and she should have known that.
Not to forget the matter of her—also behind my back—pulling Xandros into her dark web of lies, making him choose between his loyalties to his emperor and to his friend.
It was the friend he confided in eventually.
At best, Lady Madeema was overstepping.
At worst, she was behind Heather’s abduction, and probably a whole lot more.
I tapped my fingers impatiently against my desk. Lady Madeema had been invaluable to me since the failed coup to overthrow me in my youth. But she was also dangerous and beginning to think of herself as more powerful than she was.
She was also in a position she couldn’t simply be fired from.
Neither could I have her executed just on the suspicion of what she had done.
Most of all, frankly, I had no idea why she would have ordered Heather abducted. As much as I racked my brain over it, I could not come up with one explanation.
Lady Madeema was a lot of things, but first and foremost, she was loyal. She might go about it the wrong way, but I had never doubted that she had my and the Pandraxian Empire’s best interests at heart. Just suspecting her made me feel disloyal to her and yet… I needed to know.
“Commander Noctus,” I commed him, knowing he would be awake.
“Your Imperial Highness,” came his instant reply, before clicks later his hologram appeared in my living quarters. He bowed deeply. “I trust everything is alright with the Lady Heather?”
“She is doing well, all things considered,” I acknowledged. “I need you to look into something, very discreetly.”
“I’m at your service, Emperor,” he replied, all but rubbing his hands in anticipation.
“According to Lady Madeema, the ship holding Sir Priough was shot down en route to the GTU,” I reminded him. “So far she has been unable to find out who was behind that attack.”
Commander Noctus drew his brows together. “Strange.”
