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She couldn’t get the tune out of her head.
It wasn’t even something Jupiter remembered hearing, but the scrap of music kept floating by behind all the business she had stuffed in her head, and every so often it got loud enough for her to pay attention.
Right now, leaving the Tax Council agenda meeting behind was enough to let it bob to the surface, and Jupiter hummed a fragment absently as she and her four-member escort left the wide polished corridors of the Council’s satellite for its docking bays. The latter was considerably less elegant, but then most Councilmembers used the transport-beam landing pads to leave as well as arrive. At the moment, she just didn’t have the patience for that.
The shuttle for her massive yacht was snuggled up to one of the docks, and everyone’s steps either clicked or jangled as they crossed the cold floor of the bay; Jupiter was still in the formals required by the meeting, and her long coat fluttered in the low draft that was a ubiquitous feature of any such place.
The airlock was a huge circular whorl of panels; behind Jupiter, one of her guards muttered a password into their comm, and the ‘lock spun open to receive them. On the other side was a brightly lit receiving room with two more guards and her secretary, and at the prospect of getting into the shuttle and not having to be on, Jupiter’s hum turned to a cheerful whistle.
She stepped over the sill of the ‘lock--and stopped abruptly as a big hand came around her head to cover her mouth and jaw.
“Never whistle going through an airlock,” Caine said in her ear, sounding not only serious but slightly worried.
Jupiter glanced back and up at him as much as she could, and reached up to tug down his hand. “What?”
“It’s bad luck.” It was amazing how someone so large could look so...meek, Jupiter thought absently, and then...Wait, what?
“Whistling in an airlock is bad luck?” she said skeptically, and wondered for an instant if it was all some kind of weird practical joke.
But Caine was nodding, and so were two of the rest of her escort, all of them looking painfully sincere.
Jupiter squinted at them. “Granted, I don’t have lots of experience with airlocks, but that’s a new one on me. How come?”
All four of them exchanged glances before Tove, the former Aegis noncom, spoke up. “Uh, your Majesty, it’s because a whistle noise in an airlock means it’s not sealing right and you’re about to die.”
“No one wants to tempt fate,” added Frumi Ious, who was ex-Legion like Caine and Stinger.
“Huh. You learn something new every day.” Jupiter grinned at them all. “I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
The tension went out of Caine’s shoulders, and Jupiter turned back to the airlock, passing through carefully silent and knowing the others would follow.
It wasn’t until hours later, when Stinger’s evening security brief had mellowed, as it usually did, into a late-night kaffeeklatsch and informal seminar on Gyre civilization, that Jupiter got back to the topic.
“Yeah, it’s an actual superstition,” Stinger confirmed, leaning back in his chair and sipping the oversweet brew he preferred. “Not everywhere, obviously, but most of the space services share it.”
Jupiter sighed and flexed her toes in the plush carpet. “I guess I never really thought about it. I mean, you guys are so advanced in some ways that I kind of figured you had left superstition behind.”
Stinger snorted into his mug, which was a measure of how far he’d come in the three months since they’d met; it had taken her weeks to convince him he didn’t have to be formal. “No chance in hell, Majesty.”
Jupiter grinned. “So what else have you got? Like, Legionnaires, or Splices in particular?”
Stinger’s amusement faded. “Eh, it’s not something we really talk about...but I suppose you should know a bit.” He reached up to cup one hand around his right shoulder. “It’s unlucky to get a wound that breaks your tattoo, which is bloody stupid considering how big it is, but there you are.”
“I suppose a lot of them don’t make much sense,” Jupiter said. Superstition wasn’t something she’d ever thought much about, but this new impossibly complex multisociety she’d been dropped into was endlessly fascinating--even the tax codes. “What else?”
Stinger shrugged. “Legionnaires name the cleaning ‘bots on board troopships--I’ve even seen some who give them little presents before going into battle, but that’s too much for me.”
Given that the cleaners were the interstellar version of Roombas, the image made Jupiter laugh. Stinger smiled a little in return.
“Most Skyjackers keep the first feather they lose from their wings, too, if they can get it,” he added. “Supposed to be good luck.”
Jupiter nodded. “A lot of businesses I’ve seen frame the first dollar they made when they opened.”
“‘Zactly.” Stinger took a gulp of his drink and gestured with the mug. “How about you, Majesty? If you don’t mind my asking. Do your people have superstitions?”
“Oh yeah, Russians are crazy superstitious.” Jupiter laughed a little. “Don’t step on people’s shoes, don’t sit at the corner of the table...I don’t know how much we actually believe in them, but I guess most people don’t. It’s just something you do, you know?”
Stinger made an agreeing noise, and the topic shifted to the guard rota and possible upgrades to the yacht’s portal systems, and Jupiter set the idea aside. There was still so much to learn.
Two days later Jupiter and her entourage landed on a world with the unprepossessing name of Shelt, which sounded to her like some type of boring rock. But the planet itself was breathtakingly beautiful, a carefully sculpted world of tame nature designed more or less from scratch.
It held one of Seraphi’s alcazars, an intricate, circular chain of structures set into a desert valley like a gemmed necklace coiled in a bowl. The alcazar had been kept in the Gyre version of mothballs since Seraphi’s death, tended only by mechs, but it was still in perfect condition, and it too was startlingly beautiful.
Jupiter set her staff to preparing some of the buildings for habitation, but took Caine in tow to explore the rest in the meantime. Stinger grumbled, but they’d brought enough guards to secure the valley from the air even without the yacht in orbit-lock overhead, and he went off to wake up the surface-level defenses while the others worked.
Jupiter took Caine’s hand as they headed away from the subdued hum of industry and into the nearest empty building. In three months she’d seen her free time shrink to nearly nothing, and space to spend alone with Caine was in short supply. He seemed to echo her feeling, his fingers warm and almost too tight on hers.
The low buildings reminded Jupiter a little of Kalique’s place on Cerise, but mostly because they were all connected by shaded walkways. The layout formed a pattern from above, she’d seen that on the way down from the yacht, but from ground-level it seemed a lot less structured. “It would be easy to get lost here,” she commented, sniffing the rich high-oxygen air.
“Only until you memorize the pattern.” Caine looked out over the expanse of sand spreading out from the alcazar. The mechs had tended that, too, over the long years, drawing lines and shapes like a Zen garden; the black and white grains sparkled in the sunlight. Somehow--Jupiter had no idea why--the valley was pleasantly warm, not scorchingly hot as the sand implied, but it seemed incidental at the moment. “Though it could have value in confusing intruders.”
“Hey.” Jupiter tugged his hand and smiled up at him. “You’re off duty. No worrying about security right now.”
It took him a moment, but Caine smiled back. He was never entirely off duty, Jupiter knew that, but she’d settle for close just then.
They wandered on, poking into various suites and rooms as they went. Seraphi’s tastes had ranged from dizzyingly rich to austere sterility, Jupiter had learned, and this alcazar fell about in the middle. Kalique would no doubt declare the whole thing hopelessly out of date, but it looked fantastic enough to Jupiter’s eyes--furniture and artwork from more worlds than she’d known existed, the hover furniture sitting deactivated on the carpets and some of the sculptures shrouded in protective forcefields.
It was a little eerie, all the rooms empty of sound and presence, but the tall figure at Jupiter’s side banished any chill that might otherwise seize her. If Seraphi’s haunting any place, it isn’t here.
Still, the idea was a little unnerving itself, and Jupiter broke the hush. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Caine looked down at her, squinting slightly. “Ghosts? The translator has several definitions.”
Oops. She tended to forget that they didn’t actually speak the same languages. “Souls of the departed dead, lingering in a place.”
Caine shook his head. “No. Dead’s dead.”
His flat tone didn’t allow for doubt. Slightly piqued, Jupiter cocked her head. “What, you don’t think someone can...come back?”
Caine hesitated, and she could see him sorting through what he wanted to say. “According to Lady Kalique,” he said at last, “you have.”
That made Jupiter roll her eyes, because whatever else might baffle her about the vast world of Entitlement and all that came with it, she was certain she wasn’t actually anybody’s reincarnation. “Not like that. Without bodies.”
“No.” Caine’s voice was flat. “I can’t be sure about pure humans, I guess, but Splices--definitely not.”
There was obviously some sore spot there, but Jupiter didn’t want to poke at it, so she nodded and went a few steps to deactivate the forcefield on something on a pedestal. It turned out to be an exquisite statue of an unclothed woman, so beautiful that it took Jupiter a few seconds to realize that it was Seraphi.
Blood heated her face at the sight of what was essentially herself in the nude, and Jupiter hastily snapped the field back on. When she glanced back, Caine’s ears were red and he was staring at the far wall.
Jupiter opened her mouth, hesitated, and chickened out. “Do Splices have superstitions?”
Caine didn’t look away from the wall. “No.”
The bare denial intrigued her, and Jupiter focused on that rather than her embarrassment. “No? That’s a little weird, why not?”
Caine finally shifted his gaze, his face closed and blank. “Superstitions are about luck. Splices...we’re not human. Luck doesn’t touch us.”
All her discomfort vanished in a rush of anger and pity, and Jupiter closed the space between them to put a hand on Caine’s chest, right over the steady beat of his heart. “That’s crap. You are human, Caine. No matter what anyone says.”
He looked down at her, and behind the stoic mask she could see an ancient pain, all the years of maltreatment echoed there. Jupiter knew there was no way to erase that, but still…
She reached up to cup his face in her hands, still marveling secretly at how easily he let her do it. Jupiter tugged him gently down and pressed her forehead to his. “It’s not true,” she whispered, knowing the words were useless. I don’t know what else to say. “It’s not true, Caine.”
He breathed out; acceptance or resignation, Jupiter couldn’t tell, but his arms and his wings came around her, and for a little while superstition was forgotten.
They worked their way along several more buildings--two bedroom suites, what Jupiter thought might be some kind of game room, and a gallery of portraits of people Jupiter didn’t recognize--before Caine spoke again. “Do you have any superstitions?”
And she was about to answer him as lightly as she had Stinger, except that in Caine’s presence was the constant reminder of one of her very own, most private superstitions.
My compass is broken.
Jupiter knew her taste in men--prior to Caine, anyway--had been poor. She’d had an uncanny ability to find the most charming asshole in any given crowd...and an uncanny inability to realize it. At least until it was too late.
Everything would be great, until I slept with them. It was obvious in retrospect that they’d just been using her, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. And while Jupiter knew Caine was the incredible opposite of her string of failures, some part of her was afraid that if they went beyond the gentle kisses that were all they had shared, it would all fall to pieces.
Jupiter shut her open mouth, not prepared to try to explain all that. Caine was getting the closed look she hated, the one that meant he thought he’d done something wrong and was waiting for the consequences.
“I do,” Jupiter said. “But I don’t want to talk about them right now.”
“Of course, your Majesty,” Caine said stiffly, and Jupiter patted his arm, trying to calm her agitation.
“It’s--it’s a thing. I gotta work through it, but I’ll explain later.”
“Of course,” Caine repeated, but he looked less upset. Jupiter tucked the whole thing away with an effort, and they went on exploring.
The suite she’d chosen in the desert alcazar was lovely, Jupiter thought as she strolled through it. It wasn’t too big to be comfortable, and enough of the furniture was Earthlike to keep her from being afraid to touch something. The set of rooms had entrances opening into the inner part of the circle, an enclosure forming a--well, garden wasn’t quite the term, Jupiter thought. More like yard, since it’s all sand and rocks.
It was cleverly done; out of all the buildings and walkways, her chosen suite was the only one that looked out on the inner portion, so the entire thing was private. There were stone-paved walkways out into the sculpted sand, with seating here and there; the circle was wide enough that the far buildings were hard to see in the oncoming dusk. Jupiter was looking forward to taking a stroll through it.
Movement caught her eye, and she squinted, but it was only one of the maintenance ‘bots trundling along, tending the patterns in the sand. She turned back to the room she was standing in, and the lights brightened without Jupiter even having to say anything.
Most of the rooms they’d explored that day were decorated in black and white, echoing the sand outside, but this one was all marble of the palest green, with white and tan streaks, and splashes of primary colors here and there in fabrics and furniture. It had the niches and small chairs that Jupiter had gradually realized were intended for an Exalted’s attendants, but since she flatly refused to be trailed around by half a dozen sycophants, they were now empty.
Outside the doors leading to the outer side of the alcazar were at least four guards, Jupiter knew. Caine wasn’t one of them; his guard shift was always daytime, so he could accompany her wherever she wanted him. He was in the rooms assigned to her security contingent, probably reading before bed.
Caine.
Jupiter sighed and went back into the bedroom, contemplating the hoverbeam that was the suite’s version of a bed. She’d used them once or twice before since waking in one on Cerise all those weeks ago, and she was still getting used to them, fun as they were.
Jupiter pulled off her robe and draped it over a chair before walking into the blue-glowing field, which immediately lifted her off her feet, turning her slowly until she was horizontal. It was weird; the negation of gravity meant one could sleep in almost any position, but going sideways to the rest of the room still felt the most natural.
The lights dimmed, leaving the field itself providing most of the light. Jupiter rolled over and stretched; the hoverbeam was more like water than anything else she was familiar with.
She had thinking to do.
The guard barracks at this alcazar were nice, Caine had to admit. Since her Majesty didn’t maintain a large court, there was space for everyone to spread out, with only two to a room, and the rooms were big enough to accommodate wings at full extension. And since his roommate was on the night shift, Caine had the place to himself.
You’d rather be outside her door anyway. It was a familiar wish by now, and Caine tried not to dwell on it. He stretched out on his bunk and let his eyes unfocus, wings relaxing to slide down his sides and drape over the edges of the mattress.
He wasn’t sleepy yet. Caine went over the day in his mind; he often did, analyzing what had taken place, trying to be what Jupiter needed him to be. Being a bodyguard wasn’t outside his skill set, but being a companion...that was something he’d never imagined. And he still didn’t really know what he was doing.
Yet his Queen didn’t seem to mind. She smiled at him, touched him freely, cheerfully explained things, expected him to treat her as an equal. It was dizzying, even after so many days.
Caine wasn’t sure what was the most astonishing--the fact that she considered Splices, him, to be people, or that she let him touch her in turn, even kiss her. Nothing in his life or his training had ever prepared him for that.
His comm implant chirped, and Caine reached up to touch it. “Yes?”
“Hey,” his Queen said. “You busy? I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, your Majesty,” Caine replied obediently.
“Oh, good. Listen...I’d really like to continue that conversation we were having earlier--if you’re up for it, I mean, not if you’re trying to get to bed or--”
“I’ll be right there.” Caine cut off her babble gently, unable to help the smile. She never seemed to understand that she could command his attendance at any time.
Though, as he rolled upright and pulled his tunic back on, he had to admit that there was a certain strange pleasure in being asked, instead of ordered. His answer was always the same, of course, it didn’t matter, but...still.
Her Majesty met him at the door to her suite, wearing a long robe patterned with what she had told him were radio telescopes, her hair released from its daytime coiffure to lie on her shoulders. She waved at the guards standing watch, smiling when they nodded back, and let the door slide shut. “Thanks for coming back.”
“Of course, your Majesty.” She smelled tense, and Caine wasn’t sure what to do, but before he could ask she dropped down onto a sofa and patted the cushion next to her. He didn’t hesitate in joining her.
Jupiter immediately turned to face him, pulling one knee up on the couch and wrapping an arm around it. “You sure I didn’t take you away from anything important?”
Thinking of you is always important traveled through his head, but fortunately didn’t make it out of his mouth. “I am at your disposal, your Majesty.”
Jupiter rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s part of the problem. Listen--” She raked her free hand through her hair. “What I said earlier--no, let me--argh.”
Caine suppressed a laugh and reached out to take her hand. “What do you need?”
She opened her mouth, then muttered “That is way too good a straight line. Look. When you asked me about superstitions I shut you down, and I’m sorry.”
Caine cocked his head. “You may do anything you please, your Majesty.”
Jupiter bit her lip. “That’s such crap--anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I figured something out when you asked the question, and I want to explain.”
She blew out a breath. “When I told you my compass was broken, it was true. Every guy I ever dated turned out to be a sleazeball as soon as I slept with them. So, I, I’ve kind of, um, not asked. Because I was afraid.”
It felt as if his chest had opened up so his heart could swell; Caine’s ears were ringing faintly. He struggled to process what he was hearing, to stay calm. “You think I would hurt you?”
His voice was hoarse, and Jupiter let her knee go to cup his face in her palm. “Not like that! No, not at all. I mean, it was stupid and irrational, I just wanted--I--if you feel the same way--”
Caine pressed her hand to his face, forcing his breathing to slow. Jupiter’s eyes were wide, and he pulled in lungfuls of her scent, rich with adrenaline and the familiar, tantalizing desire, no longer half-stifled. “Your Majesty?”
He felt her shiver at the touch of his lips on her wrist, heard her swallow and whisper. “Yes.”
Somewhere in the back of Caine’s mind, a small cold doubt persisted, muttering that this couldn’t possibly be real, not for him. But he barely heard it over the rapid rhythm of Jupiter’s heartbeat. There was nothing else in the ‘verse but his Queen, her scent suffusing through his every cell.
It was like the first time she kissed him, when she’d swung wide some gate within him that had been locked since birth. Everything he knew about himself, all the years of denial and isolation, were swept aside, and all he knew was her.
His Queen wanted him to touch her.
So he did.
He didn’t remember standing, or picking her up; there was just the softness of her hair to bury his face in, her warm weight to hold close. Then she was kissing him, and Caine gave over his attention completely to the softness of her mouth, the shy lap of her tongue.
She let him go long enough to mutter “Bedroom” against his chin. Caine stumbled through the rooms until the blue glow of the bed’s field brightened the air.
Jupiter swam out of his arms into the field, robe floating around her and her hair forming an aureole. She laughed and beckoned him after her, and Caine let the field take him, knowing it would expand to hold them both.
He slipped the robe from her and let it fall away, sliding his hands beneath the flimsy gown she wore beneath it, glorying in the warmth and softness of her skin. Actual thought was fading away, even the tiny voice, and for the first time in a very long time Caine felt no fear or shame.
Small hands were tugging at his tunic. Caine let Jupiter unfasten it, the sooner to be touching her again, and as soon as it was gone he opened her gown.
He’d seen her naked before, of course, but that had been the farthest thing from erotic and his only goal had been to cover her as soon possible. Now he had permission to look, and Caine filled his gaze with Jupiter’s form, the curves and angles; he bent forward to taste the flush along her collarbone and take her waist in his hands.
“Not fair,” Jupiter protested faintly, laughing, but the sound broke to a moan as Caine licked up between her breasts. The field made it easy to hold her in place, and Caine sucked a faint mark into the soft skin of her side, not quite daring to bite.
Hands on his head moved him inward, and Caine eagerly fastened his mouth on Jupiter’s breast, feeling her nipple tighten under his tongue and glorying in her gasp.
She tasted so good. He felt as if Jupiter’s essence was some kind of drug, loosening all the shame and denial he’d carried for so long. Caine explored her body with hands and mouth, trying to discover how many different sounds he could coax from her. Licking her navel produced a giggle; kissing the tender backs of her knees made her sigh; and when she pulled him up and bared her throat to him, the groan she gave when he set his teeth to her pulse made him dizzy with lust and reverence.
Desire was running beneath his own skin, but Caine could only focus on his Queen. He nibbled on her fingertips to make her laugh and let her hold him still for endless kisses, her legs wrapping around his waist to pull him close. Her hands mapped his skin in slow sweeps, scratching at the base of his skull and tickling delicately down his ribs, thumbs coming up to rub circles on his nipples. When Jupiter began working at the fastenings of his trousers, Caine forced himself to pull back a little.
“Are you sure?” he managed, disbelief rearing its head again.
His Queen grinned, cheeks flushed and eyes lit. “Get those boots off, Wise.”
That was the work of a moment, and his trousers followed his boots out of the field seconds later. Caine made a choked noise of his own as Jupiter wrapped a hand around his erection.
“Nice,” she purred, drifting close again, and for a few moments he lost his concentration to the light caress of her fingers, each gentle stroke sending fire up his spine.
Finally Caine pushed her back, pausing for just a second to take in the glorious visual of her floating in air, flushed with arousal and smiling at him. Then she held out her arms. “You’re too far away.”
He needed nothing more. Splices were sterile and could carry no known disease; and his Queen was commanding his attention. Caine drew her into his arms again, yielding to her kiss; then lifted her up and licked his way down to the source of the scent that had drawn him since he’d first said your Majesty, and nuzzled into her warmth and musk.
The sounds Jupiter made was something his hindbrain filed away to remember later, but mostly he concentrated on filling himself with her fragrance and flavor, learning her core as he had the rest of her.
He listened to her moaning and felt her spasm against his tongue, but Caine couldn’t bring himself to stop. She tasted too good, and he was pleasing her. It felt as though he could ask for nothing better.
But finally Jupiter squirmed, pushing at his head until he released her. “Oh fuck,” she gasped. “Caine--”
He took that as a command too, and let instinct take over. Caine pulled her close, back to his front; Jupiter immediately pressed back against him, her knees hooking behind his. It was easy to slip inside her, and the squeeze made him shudder and muffle a groan in her hair.
Jupiter laughed breathlessly and reached back to try to tug him closer. Caine swept his wings forward to blanket her in feathers, a private space for them--just for now.
They tumbled slowly in the field as they moved together. Jupiter’s fingers dug into Caine’s thighs; her head was pressed back against his shoulder, sweat spinning off her in glittering drops as she panted, and she was the most perfect thing he had ever seen. The column of her neck drew him, and he fastened his mouth there, sucking the salt from her skin and then biting her again, just hard enough to leave a mark. It came to him dimly that it was the same place a Splice wore their brand, and as if he’d somehow sent the thought to her Jupiter stiffened and cried out, one hand pressing his head closer still.
Fire bloomed along his veins, spreading to every nerve, and Caine gave himself up to it, immersed in shuddering bliss, his Queen’s name a ragged gasp against her throat and one wondering, dazed thought running through his mind.
Mine.
Caine had never tried to sleep in a hoverbeam before; but much later, after a long shared bath and a snack, he found he liked it. The lack of gravity meant he didn’t have to worry about his wings, and while he had to hang onto Jupiter to keep her from drifting out of his arms, that was no hardship at all.
She rested her chin on his chest and smirked at him sleepily. “We should do that more often.”
That made him snicker. “As you command, your Majesty,” he said, and refused to twitch when she poked his side.
Caine smoothed back a strand of hair that was drifting into her face. “Are you still scared?” he asked softly.
“Mmmnope.” Jupiter sighed happily, then touched a finger to his lips. “Are you?”
For answer, he kissed her, floating in the light.