"Norian, what do you want? I don’t know whether I'm prepared to add to the mate department."

"You do not care for me."

"Honey, I didn't say that. If I didn't care for you, you'd be shredded instead of getting petted when you make your way into my bed, invited or not."

"Will you pet me now?"

"Honey, come on," I grabbed his arm and dragged him toward my bedroom. "Just keep in mind that petting is all you'll get."

Norian settled into my bed and curled right up as the lion snake. What do you do when a two-hundred pound lion snake curls up in the center of your bed? "Honey, if I roll over on you, it'll be your own fault," I muttered, trying to scoot him over. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he settled his head on my stomach and closed his eyes in bliss when I stroked his face. When I woke the next morning, his head was right under my chin—I'd rolled over on my side and he hadn't turned a scale in response.

"No, cheah-mul, not yet," Norian changed in a blink and wrapped his arms around me when I tried to slide off the bed. His arms were warm around me in the chill air of our hotel room—Lendill had set the temperature, so he obviously liked it cooler. He had no way of knowing about Norian's penchant for warmer air.

"Norian, you're naked." I was pointing out the obvious.

"Yes. Isn't it wonderful?" He nuzzled my chin and neck, then wandered toward my mouth.

"I thought we were only petting."

"You are not petting anything at the moment." He lifted himself over my body. "Don't turn me out. I'm begging you."

"You have that begging thing down pretty good," I muttered and misted away. His head was stuck inside my shower minutes later—yeah, he was still naked.

"Norian, you get a kiss. That's it," I said, moving toward him. He settled for that and walked off grinning. His ass is really nice, and I watched it walk out of my bathroom.

* * *

"Grampa, she won't take money or any other kind of compensation." Shadow just wanted to get out of his grandfather's office.

"We can pay for a portion of the gold." Raffian made the suggestion.

"Drake and Drew say that Kifirin pulled that gold from Cloudsong's own veins of ore. They paid for that themselves. Besides, Lissa would just throw it right back at us."

"At least Melida is off our planet," Glendes sighed.

"A suggestion was made to me, and it made sense when it was presented," Raffian went on. Shadow watched his father—Raffian was excited about this idea and wanted Glendes to agree.

"What suggestion is that and who made it?" Glendes turned to Raffian.

"Kyler made it, but I think it may have come from her Larentii." Raffian had a wry smile on his face.

"What is the suggestion, then?" Glendes' daughters, Cleo and Kyler, hadn't been speaking to him lately.

"She suggested that we apply to join the Alliance. We don't do business with any Alliance worlds, because they don't allow outside trade. We'll still be able to work with the worlds that aren't members, because there aren't any laws against grandfathering in current clients, we just have to abide by the rules of trade as set by the Alliance, but we already do that, Dad." Raffian was pitching his case to his father. Glendes lifted an eyebrow at the suggestion.

"What do you think the economic impact will be? I know Le-Ath Veronis pays a percentage of their income," Glendes was intrigued by the idea.

"A small percentage to pay for benefits, and we'd have an entirely new market for our work. We wouldn't have to worry so much over vetting our clients first," Raffian said.

Shadow was watching the exchange between his father and grandfather, without commenting. They'd gotten completely away from the subject, and that had been what to do to lure Lissa back to him. He felt like folding away and working this out on his own—or perhaps with Drake and Drew, but he didn't want to strain the relationship with his father and grandfather more than it already was. Now was the time to make amends with everyone involved and for Shadow, Lissa was first on that list. He breathed a relieved sigh when Glendes turned back to him.

"I know we've wandered away a little," he smiled at his grandson. "We'll do our best to bring Lissa back to you. We just have to figure out how to do it."

* * *

"Here is the information you wanted." Zellar handed a note to Viregruz. Viregruz lifted an eyebrow at his pet warlock as he carefully unfolded the small slip of paper. Only a short, handwritten message was depicted. Viregruz smiled.

"Get the Liffelithi for me—and quickly. I'll be more than happy to hand over most of the money we received from Solar Red and San Gerxon to take her out, just to get this done as swiftly as possible. They'll need a shield, too, to get a ship inside the Alliance. I expect you to provide that shield until our target is hit. You can withdraw it immediately after."

Zellar felt a momentary pang of conscience. The Liffelithi held a weapon that had been outlawed from one end of the universes to the other. If the Alliance suspected they had it, they'd have mobilized their army already and gone after it.

Liffel was a nondescript world and home to several races of dwarves, all of whom fought constantly. The inhabitants' willingness to war with each other was the reason the planet's application to join the Alliance had been rejected on many occasions. One particular faction had gained possession of this weapon when all the others like it had been dismantled and destroyed by the Alliance.

Viregruz had discovered its existence—the ones who held it had contacted him discreetly, letting him know that for a price, it could be borrowed. Viregruz was about to see how effective this weapon might be and that concerned Zellar. He shook off the worry, however, and went to do as Viregruz bid.

Viregruz watched Zellar leave, rereading the note one last time before tearing it into tiny bits, which he swept into a waste bin. This was the Queen's fault, if she didn't watch over her population better than this. She should have known that someone close to her would likely pass the information along, not even thinking that it might end in the Queen's death. Viregruz knew where the Queen was, now. All he had to do was pay the Liffelithi and her death would be swift. Viregruz smiled widely and sat back in his seat.

Chapter 9

"Lissa Beth, are you good with names?" Norian was now the Director of the ASD and not a lion snake who'd spent the night in my bed. Lendill was standing next to him and they'd cooked something up, I could see it in their eyes.

"I have almost total recall," I said, frowning at Norian.

"Good," he smiled. Norian can certainly turn on the charm when he wants. "We've called a meeting of all our operatives this afternoon," he said. "And I'm depending on you to tell me which ones have taint about them—who might be in on replacing Lendill or anything else that ties my tail in a knot. I'll introduce Lendill as my new assistant, Rych," Norian added.

He'd pronounced the name Rych like "rich." "Is that short for anything?" I asked, crossing arms over my chest.

"Rycharde," Norian was still smiling. "We're thinking about making it permanent."

"Honey, what are you doing? Does Lendill really want this?" I was skeptical, all right.

"It works, at least for the moment," Lendill sighed. "New face, new name, I suppose."

"Then let me do this," I said, and went to Norian, placing my hands on his face and gathering power around me. When I dropped my hands, Norian had mindspeech. "Now you," I did the same thing for Lendill/Rych.

"What did you do?" Norian didn't know, yet. Neither did the newly named Rych.

"Gave you mindspeech, but you can only communicate with me and a few others—you won't be able to do anything with somebody who doesn't have the gift." Norian's eyes went wide in shock. That's how Rych sent first.

Does this really work? he sent to me.

It really works, I sent back. Rych laughed—a full laugh that I hadn't heard before. This truly was a gift for him.

Lissa Beth, do you hear me? Norian finally had his head wrapped around this, I could tell.

Honey, I hear you and you can even communicate like this while you're in snake mode, I replied.

"This will make things so much easier," Norian muttered. "Come on, let's do a little snooping."

We did some snooping, three blocks away from the Temple of the New Dawn that was under construction. A market district surrounded the new structure and just about anything could be had up and down that street. We got breakfast sausages rolled up in baked dough and we ate first, before Norian began asking questions.

"Have there been any disappearances?" Norian asked a vendor who sold silk scarves.

"Rumors are everywhere, and we all look to the news vids for better information, but there's nothing coming from the news services." The scarf merchant sniffed as if he suspected the news vids weren't accurate. He was right.

"Is there anyone you know who has come up missing?" Norian pressed on.

"A vendor down the way disappeared two eight-days ago," he said. "I didn't know his family, so I haven't made any inquiries about his disappearance. He could be ill or called away on some errand. I don't wish to jump to conclusions." Our vendor wasn't sure what to tell us, exactly, since he didn't know who we were. Therefore, I placed compulsion. Things went smoothly after that.

"Everyone is frightened," the vendor stated, after I ordered him to speak the truth. "We don't know whom to turn to, any longer. The people who are missing—nobody has seen any of them again. Children are missing, too. We don't like it, but the ones who have contacted the journalists also end up missing."

When we got as much from him as we could, I placed compulsion to forget that we'd been there before moving on. I say we take out the fuckers now, I sent to both my companions. My language caused Rych's eyebrows to rise momentarily.