Free The Dawn Star by Catherine Asaro Page B

the moment you took my freedom.” He knew he should grab her, use her as a hostage, bluff his way free. The guards were outside the suite, but she had come in without their protection. Why? He leaned forward, and she watched as if daring him to touch her. So he did something even more perilous than taking her captive.
    He kissed her.
    For one astonishing instant, her lips softened. Then she gasped as if jolted back to reality. She gave him a hearty shove and sent him stumbling back into the balcony wall. Drummer stared at her, his heart beating hard. He couldn’t believe he had been such a fool to take that liberty. Ah, but what a liberty. Eyes blazing, Vizarana Jade stepped up to him, and she was truly an unparalleled sight.
    Then she slapped him.
    Her palm hit his cheek before he recovered his wits enough to block her strike, and his head jerked to the side. He stared at her, his hand over his smarting cheek.
    â€œEither you have a suicide wish,” Jade said, “or your brain is addled.”
    Drummer knew he should stop. This wasn’t some prank that would get him a few nights in jail. But by the saints, what a woman. He coaxed a ripple of notes from his glittar, as erotic as they were sweet. “That’s for you.”
    Jade’s cheeks turned red. “I shall be relieved when I can send you back to your poor, put-upon family.” She spun around and stalked away like a wildcat, graceful even in her annoyance.
    Drummer sagged against the wall. He felt as if he had just stepped out of a whirlwind. Taka Mal’s queen was a force of nature that left him spinning.

    Jade sat on a polished stone bench. Trellises looped with vines and royal-buds surrounded her. Weeping fronds hung from puff-top trees and brushed the paths that curved through her private garden. Sculptures of cats peeked out of the bushes. It was lush for a desert garden, kept that way by water piped in from underground and fed to the little waterfall.
    Today the serenity of the gardens did nothing to calm her. She had a lot to do. Her meeting with the Zanterian caravan masters was in an hour. She had to study a design for aqueducts with the city planners this evening. And she needed more strategy sessions about Jazid. She had no time to brood over ill-mannered minstrels. She ought to have him clapped in chains and locked in a cell.
    Either that, or in her bed.
    â€œBah!” Jade ripped a royal-bud off the nearest vine and hurled it into the waterfall. Mist wafted across her face, but it couldn’t cool her mood. Bed, indeed. She wouldn’t touch that scoundrel if the House of Dawnfield offered her a thousand urns of gold hexa-coins to take him off their hands.
    Leaves rustled. As she looked up, Baz appeared around a stand of trees barely taller than himself. He wore his field outfit today rather than the dress uniform encrusted with medals.
    â€œLight of the morning,” her cousin said.
    â€œIt’s afternoon,” Jade grumbled.
    His grin flashed. “Glad to see you, too.” He sat on the bench and motioned at the ring she wore, with its large topaz. “Your secretary is looking for you. Some scrolls need your seal.”
    â€œYes. I’ve work to do.” She was talking to herself more than to him. “I’ve been thinking about Ozi.”
    He spoke dryly. “By whom, I take it, you mean His Magnificence, the Atajazid D’az Ozar of the House of Onyx.”
    Jade waved her hand. “Yes. Him. Ozi.”
    Baz leaned back on his hands. “Jade, my dear, I hardly think that calling our moody neighbor ‘Ozi’ will predispose him to ally with us against Cobalt Escar.”
    Jade gave him an innocent look. “Why, Baz, whatever makes you think I wish to fight Cobalt Escar?”
    â€œMaybe that glint in your eyes, like you want to pulverize someone.”
    â€œPulverize indeed,” she muttered, thinking of Drummer. “I would like to invite Ozi here as soon as