The cloth had slipped from my eyes and I was staring, openmouthed and perhaps for the first time, truly, at Rylend Morphis. "You were the one who said I'd be the King Karathia deserved. Do you know what that did to me, Reah? That you had faith in me, when everybody else saw me as the child conceived by artificial means? Do you know that many on Karathia saw me as an unnatural aberration?"

"Ry, honey, don't ever think that." I pulled his head toward mine and bumped my forehead to his. "Those people are backward and don't know any better."

"Reah, you said you loved me. Do you really love me? In the way a woman might love a man?" Ry kissed me, the kiss becoming more than just a peck. He wanted something from me. Wanted a response of a certain kind. I gave it to him. His kisses were demanding after that. I was lifted out of the tub and my skin drie S myse d with power. Ry's fingers might as well have been charged with electricity, they were sending tingles everywhere. And when he laid me on the bathroom floor and buried his head between my thighs, I shrieked with pleasure.

"Reah was right." Garde stared across Jaydevik Rath's desk at his brother, the King of Kifirin.

"About?"

"About the shipments. The nanna shipment was taken by pirates, when we labeled it as gishi fruit. The gishi fruit we labeled as nannas was left alone."

"Unbelievable. Have you informed Lendill Schaff?"

"First thing," Garde nodded. "Lissa told Norian, since he was spending the night."

"Then there are people providing information on the ground or on the ships," Jayd blew a smoky breath. "How much did that lost shipment cost us?"

"That was only half the harvest from the southern grove. The second half got through and we're labeling half the western grove shipment as wheat," Garde grinned. "The wheat harvest is going on, as you know. We'll just have to be creative to label the other shipments. We only lost about an eighth of our profits to the pirates. If we get the rest of the shipments through, we won't get hurt that much. I hear that some of the gishi fruit growers on Avendor have been devastated by the losses of this year's crop."

"Reah was right to work our harvests around theirs so we supply when they can't. It means a steady flow of fruit, instead of waiting for the proper seasons on Avendor."

"Reah was right about all of it, brother. With the cost of gishi fruit going up due to the pirate attacks, we'll be able to pay off the debt by the end of the year if our remaining shipments go through," Garde said.

"You know all those trees—the seedlings that created the groves? Do you know who paid for those?" Jayd watched his oldest brother carefully.

"What about them? That was twenty-five years ago."

"Who paid for them?"

"I don't know. Didn't the Crown pay that expense?"

"No. There isn't a single record that the Crown paid for anything regarding those seeds or seedlings. In fact, I don't even know which it was. When Reah mentioned it, I almost laughed in her face and told her that if she wanted to grow gishi fruit on Kifirin, she was welcome to waste her time."

"Reah paid for it."

"Yes. Whether she bought fruit and planted seeds or managed to get seedlings from Avendor, I have no idea. But she did. We don't officially own those trees, brother. Reah does."

"She'll never push it. She won't call us out on it. She hasn't yet. We're her family." Garde looked out the window that covered an entire side of Jayd's private study. The city of Veshtul spread out below the palace. The city was beautiful, laid out originally by the same vampire who'd designed the palace.

"No. She won't push it. She won't demand what is hers by right. Hasn't ever from us, has she? And yet we have the balls to insist that we're her family."

"Perhaps a terrible family, but still family," Garde insisted softly, rising to stand before the window. "Tory thinks his eldest are fourteen, now. Li Steetillssa and the Larentii are about to tell him that he has a second set of twins."

"How is he dealing with all this?"

"He's angry at first, because so many things have slipped away from his memory. I wish I knew what truly caused this," Garde's sigh was heavy and weighted with worry.

"As do I. The healers and the Larentii say they find nothing physically amiss."

"I think those Larentii know something and they're not saying. It's that damned rule they have of noninterference." Garde blew a cloud of smoke. "And I think Reah could help with Tory's memory loss, if she wasn't traipsing across the Alliance, somewhere, looking for that missing wizard."

"Do you look to Reah to solve all your problems, Gardevik?" Jayd said softly. "What will you do if she doesn't come back to us? If she doesn't return to Tory? We may have burned those bridges, brother. Think about that."

"I hate these things," Gavril muttered angrily as he walked through the tunnel connecting the San Gerxon Casino with his palace. Dee walked beside him. They were meeting with a section of Princes, Kings and Governors who were hardest hit by pirate attacks upon major exports.

Dee merely nodded in agreement. These meetings were extremely difficult. The potentates only wanted to shout about their losses, with none willing to sit down and talk reasonably about what measures might be taken to prevent the next wave of attacks. President Drix was among those gathering inside a meeting room at the San Gerxon. More than a third of the gishi fruit shipments from Avendor had been seized by pirates, in addition to crews and the ships hauling the fruit.

"Gavril?" Lissa appeared at her son's side.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" Gavril would always be young to his mother, although he was nearing a hundred years of age.

"Reah came up with a plan that worked for Kifirin, but if it works elsewhere, the less who know, the better. We pretty much have proof that somebody somewhere, either on the ground or on the ships, is passing information to the pirates." Lissa was walking swiftly at her youngest son's side.

"What?" Gavril was certainly interested in his mother's information.

"Kifirin just shipped a load of gishi fruit in sealed containers that were labeled as nannas. The nannas were labeled as gishi fruit. Both were picked up at the same time and hauled on separate ships. The nannas labeled as gishi fruit were taken while the gishi fruit labeled as nannas went right through."

Gavril cursed. Stopped in the middle of the tunnel and cursed again. "Mom, this might work for a while, until the pirates figure out what's going on. And then we'll have to deal with it again."

"But at least some shipments might get through," Lissa pointed out. "I assume something is jamming all the locating beacons you slip into those shipments."

"Yeah. We can't get a handle on any of it. It's like the things go dead the moment the pirates hit."

"I'll come with you to your meeting, honey. Maybe we can work something out."

"If they stop yelling long enough," Gavril agreed. He already had a headache, and it was only going to get worse.

< S win just sfont size="+0">* * *

"Jerves, would you like to come to dinner tomorrow evening? I'm off and Ry wants ox-roast for the evening meal." I was inviting Zendeval's assistant to dinner. I hoped he'd talk freely with us, especially after we served him a few glasses of wine with the meal.

"Yes. I'd love to come," Jerves usually vibrated in a restless sort of way, but he seemed happy, now.

"Good. Be there at eighteen bells and we'll start with drinks," I said.

"I will." Jerves trotted away happily to do Zendeval Rjjn's bidding.

"Baby, if we hadn't invited Jerves for dinner, I'd lift you onto this table and love you senseless," Ry wiggled against me suggestively. He was my secret, now. And he could almost make me come just by smiling and placing his hands in certain spots. I don't know what kept us apart all those years, but he was certainly attempting to make up for lost time.

"Ry, I really do love you," I said against his mouth.

"I love you more," he said and kissed me.

I was pulling the ox-roast out of the oven when Jerves rang the guest bell. He then walked into the apartment, followed by Zendeval Rjjn and Perdil the Dwarf.

"I hope you prepared enough for two extras," Ry gave me a brief frown while his back was turned to all three of our dinner guests.

"I did," I sighed. So much for having leftovers on Second-Day. Ry got them seated in our tiny sitting area and offered all of them the rum and fruit drink I'd prepared earlier.

"You'll love this," Ry said as I laid plates of ox-roast covered in mushroom sauce and baked inside a pastry in front of our guests a short time later. "I think it's my favorite thing that Reah makes."

Perdil was in raptures after the first bite. Zendeval Rjjn was staring at me as he chewed. Jervis was busy eating as quickly as he could. I refilled drinks before sitting down to my own portion of food.

"Reah, I wish to be invited to dinner every time you serve this," Perdil demanded as he held his plate out for a second portion. I also laid salads by each plate, with a special dressing drizzled over the long leaves and tiny greens.

"I've never seen anyone cook as you do," Zendeval finally stopped stuffing himself long enough to say a few words.

"And you may never see it again," Ry said, holding up his glass to me.

"Thanks, hon," I smiled at him.

"This is a live feed?" Norian watched the dinner party with interest. Ry had hoped to get information from the assistant they'd invited to dinner. Instead, two others had shown up. Lendill had received mindspeech that those two were Zendeval Rjjn, the one who managed the five best resorts on Stellar Winds, and one of the other master cooks from Galedaro's kitchens.

"I've sent both images through the databases, and nothing comes up," Lendill said as he watched Zendeval Rjjn stare at Reah. He wanted to growl and fold there, just to kill the man. Zendeval had designs on Reah—Lendill recognized that predatory look.