Queen of dust, p.1
Queen of Dust, page 1
Also available from H. E. Dare
and Carina Press
Writing as Hanna Earnest
Night and Day:
Book 1: All the Best Nights
Book 2: End of the Day
Queen of Dust
H. E. Dare
To small pleasures
(may there be many)
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from All the Best Nights by Hanna Earnest
Chapter One
Mara would not clench her fist.
Let the damsel glitter. Even in the low light of the ship’s humming overheads, the woman’s silvered skin sparkled like morning sun on frosted glass. She was painted from head to toe, including the bottoms of her feet—which Mara could see as the damsel knelt in front of Liam, her head bobbing up and down while he watched. His eyes weren’t the only ones on the damsel; the observation deck was filling with passengers the way it always did before dinner.
And that was what threatened to close Mara’s hand, to set her mouth in a hard, tight line.
That he’d done it with an audience.
A dalliance was fine, expected, healthy. But Liam had chosen to broadcast this one to an entire ship full of people who looked up to him, and not just because they had to. Liam Pent, CEO of the Pent Corporation, was as ubiquitous and powerful in the universe as the Dern Empire. But here, on his ship, he was admired. A manifest full of high-class passengers who could afford a Fold, and had chosen this one, to spend the time with the man who’d grown a business to span the universe. And what was he telling them now? That he’d had to outsource his Balti Temptress. That Mara wasn’t what she claimed to be.
Mara flexed her fingers and forced her features to relax. She kept her face pliable, refusing to flatten her pouty lips. Instead she parted them, sipping something bitter and tart out of the heavy-bottomed coup glass she’d carried from her room, aware that eyes had pulled from the spectacle and found her. Aware that people were waiting on her reaction.
The ship’s front viewing deck was part lounge, part boardroom, complete with a throne-like chrome-and-leather chair reserved just for Liam. Typically, Mara’s place was right beside him. And she knew why. Despite the skeptical whispers about their relationship, Mara knew the strength of the threads that tied them together. They both had legacies that set them apart. Legacies that were impossible to escape, that were better to embrace—showing people what they expected to see had its advantages. And then there was their shared, open disdain for the Dern. If there was one part of her Balti heritage she didn’t have to learn, have to work at, it was despising the empire that had cost her a home. That came as naturally as breathing.
Liam’s past was different from hers, but he hated the Dern as she did. A ship like this had been his childhood home. He had no land, and his loyalty to the Dern crown was entirely financial. They’d tried to convert him, of course, but subjugation wasn’t one of Liam’s interests. When the pushiest of his Dern partners was last aboard to discuss the renewal bid for military supplies, Liam had proven his disinterest in Virtue by taking Mara on the glossy boardroom table. Midmeeting. Mara remembered it in a rush, how Liam had bent her forward, water sloshing in the pitcher at the center of the table with each of his thrusts.
Liam Pent was no Dern. Liam Pent did as he pleased, when he pleased. And Mara Leanor was happy to help, happy to show the Dern her equal disregard for their oppressive Virtues. How good it had been: the Dern watching them, shifting uncomfortably in their loose, simple tunics, needing the deal to go through, forced to allow Liam his theatrics. His display of power. Mara remembered best smiling and coming hard.
Now he was putting on a show with someone else.
Sauntering through the room, her feet crossed with each step, the way she’d been taught by Jimma. The only other Balti she’d ever known. Mara hoped no one registered that one faltered step when she’d spotted Liam with the damsel. He must have picked her up on Satsume. But why not leave her there when he’d finished? Mara assumed they’d been docked long enough. It was hard to tell. Time in the Black was weightless, as unbearably useless as up or down. This “morning” seemed ages ago and she had slept the whole “day,” only to awaken to another stomach-churning lurch from the ship’s nuclear reactor. Another nauseating jolt of power thrusting her forward, correcting and maintaining their course in spurts and spasms.
With her face composed, and her grip on the glass as light as she could get away with, Mara kept her struggles to herself. Why had Liam brought the damsel here? Mara looked again at her painted skin—paint that had yet to smudge—meaning Liam had saved her for this display, the same way he waited until they were almost out the door to don a fresh white shirt. He was not generally a patient man, but he cared how things looked. And this was something he wanted Mara to see.
“Fine evening,” she said, the common greeting practiced on her tongue. Though it wasn’t. Not fine nor evening, just more cold, dark Black.
Liam looked up from the damsel and smiled, a guiltless offering that dared Mara to question what he could and could not do, on his ship or anywhere.
“What’s this then?” she continued.
Jazzy notes of a song she’d heard at least a hundred times bounced around them. Even the musicians on board were recycling stale product.
“Just a little entertainment,” Liam said, trailing off with a satisfied grunt. His pale fingers threaded into the damsel’s braided hair, linking them further.
Entertainment. Oh. So Mara had brought this on herself.
“I hate space,” she’d told Liam that morning. “I can’t breathe in this lifeless air anymore—and can’t they do something about the cold? I’d think I were dead if I weren’t so bored.”
“Bored, cold, in need of livening? I can think of a remedy or two,” he’d said and reached into the slit of her silk robe.
Mara had forgotten herself and jerked back from his icy hand.
The recycled air that tasted of laboratory O2 had felt thin before, but Liam’s hard stare seemed to collapse her lungs. Mara reached out a remedial palm for him at the same moment his attention shifted to the communication stone glowing on the table. Normally she resented its constant presence, but the interruption had been a relief.
“We’re landing on Satsume, for supplies,” he’d said, standing up. Mara had stood too, pressing the pad on the wall to open the closet. She had held his shirt for him as he stuffed his arms into the sleeves. “Are you coming?” he’d asked, looking her over as he secured the buttons. She should have loosened the knot of her robe, let the shoulder slip to reveal the tight bud of her nipple, let him think the shivers that started from her bare feet on the cool floor were for him. But she tightened her arms across her front. Maybe if Satsume weren’t full of covered cities, maybe if it were open to the elements, the air and the sky, but she’d only have been locked in another layer of tin.
“I’m tired, I—”
“Suit yourself,” he had said and was already at the door, the metal panels opening like a concertina at his touch. They’d flattened shut and Mara had been alone.
If only there were a button she could push to flatten the layers of anxiety that spiked her moods. Mara had been trying to contain her agitation for weeks and it had only been getting harder. She longed to do what she’d been taught: balance feelings like these with pleasure, let raw need wash out the tension that plagued her. But it was as if she couldn’t focus on desire, she was too overwhelmed by her nerves to feel anything else.
When she complained to Liam, it was easier to claim the Black as the cause—and she did hate it. Hated the windows that showed her nothing, the view always the same. Hated how stifled and restless eight months on the ship made her. Hated the repeated jolts that accompanied every nuclear reaction propelling them forward. It would have been harder to admit that the pressure making her so reactive was an unexpected dread that built as they neared their destination. As she neared her home.
Balti waited for her, growing closer every day.
The planet that had all but dissolved in her memory would be tangible soon. She’d feel the sea wind on her face, taste the salt of the air, hear the rush of vital water from every direction. For eighteen years she’d been drifting so far from it; now she was caught on a
She should have been excited. Wired and ready. Instead her energy flagged as trepidation rose to the surface of her mind. Today she had given in to it, sleeping the entire time they were docked on Satsume. But when she woke, still on the ship, alone in the dark, she knew she had to do something, and soon, before the feeling drowned her completely. She’d showered and poured herself a drink strong enough to burn her throat, tried to heat herself up for Liam’s return, thinking she could make them both forget. Forget the moment that she’d refused the distracting pleasure he offered her. But Liam never forgot a thing.
So Mara watched, along with the rest of the people on deck—employees, partners, and travelers who were posh enough to afford a ticket on one of Pent’s Folding ships, the people who made up Liam’s corporate court. Watched as this done-up damsel slopped her tongue all over Liam’s hard cock.
Mara wasn’t sure if it was comforting or insulting that the damsel’s technique was so very bad. It amused her slightly to see Liam reach for his stone, his attention pulled from the performance in his lap as it never would have had Mara been starring in the role. Of course he often multitasked—but his attention never wavered when she coaxed his cock from his pants. Pleasure was her heritage. She should have drawn on it this morning, to avoid the embarrassment now.
But embarrassment was internal—and she wouldn’t show it. Would never admit this was anything that bothered her. Let Liam make a wet mess of his damsel. Let him stamp his hands on her painted skin. Mara had been taught to accept bad with good—both were fleeting. And it was in her power to create more pleasure than pain. That was the Balti way, and Mara had committed herself to it.
Smiling at a board member she knew, at a stranger, too, Mara let everyone see how unbothered she was. How relaxed, how uninvested. With a magnetic click, she set her glass down on a long side table and made a show of choosing an edible from the bowl next to it. The zyng-root flavor filled her nose even before she’d bit through the gummy square, felt its spicy heat on the back of her tongue. Having another drink would make it look like she needed immediate relief—the edible would prove to them that she had time, that she could take it.
Mara caught a raised eyebrow from across the room—Harper, one of the security personnel Liam insisted on. He prized loyalty and Harper was incorruptible. Her face was round but her eyes were sharp. She was a presence just like the Black, always waiting, always there. Her skin as rich in hue, her reach as penetrating. Liam’s shadow, she saw and heard everything. And if she didn’t buy what Mara was selling, Mara had to elevate her pitch.
The Balti let a better smile pull her mouth open, one cheek at a time. She squinted at Liam like they were conspirators. “Am I next?”
Liam didn’t grin like she’d expected him to. He didn’t react at all for a minute, his mouth moving with the quiet murmurs that told her he was in the middle of composing a message. Some urgent missive about interplanetary ore deliveries or updated trade treaties that opened new markets. Nothing that mattered to Mara very much. There was only one planet in the system she cared about. And she was almost there.
When Liam did focus on her, he closed his fist around the stone and rested it under his chin. His other hand stroked the damsel’s hair, following the ribbon that wove through her braid to the knotted end. Mara mashed her tongue to the roof of her mouth—the only way to express the tension she was feeling without it showing. She’d never risk a furrowed brow, or any line that would illustrate what she was really thinking.
As Liam considered her, his eyes a foamy green, deceptively soft, Mara felt the cold of the ship again, the thinness of the air. She’d told him she was bored. But she hadn’t meant of him. Liam had been her rock since Rozz had died. And there was more than that fueling their attraction, sustaining their connection. What the Dern had done on Balti had impacted both their lives.
But since Liam had taken over his father’s company at sixteen, he hadn’t spent a day without everything around him exactly to his liking. Mara usually reveled in that power: his ability to create the world he wanted for himself. What she would give to do the same. He watched her now and she knew he was trying to figure out what that was.
What would Liam like next?
“She’s all yours,” he said finally.
“I can hardly wait.” Mara didn’t miss a beat, allowing a hint of relief to shine through her eyes. She didn’t mind letting the damsel have a go at her cunt next. A bit of pleasure to balance the negative trend of her day. And it would work for Liam, too, smooth his ruffled feathers. It wouldn’t bother her to let him and any other interested parties watch. She was not bound by abstract Virtue. Liam was ready to get over their tiff. Mara would be getting off easy—
The metal doors surged open and Liam glanced at the new arrival. A grin split his face as he returned his attention to Mara. She stood straighter in response, a wire charged by unexpected current.
“Why should you have to wait?” He beckoned to someone behind her and Mara craned her neck to see who it was. “I’ve got an assignment for you, Captain—Ms. Leanor requires a little warming.”
Nerves fizzled in Mara’s chest. “Liam—”
He interrupted her. “Isn’t that your complaint about space travel, my dove—too dreary, too cold? Too boring? This will be interesting.”
Mara didn’t trust herself to protest again, not until she had control over the rapid-fire pulse of her heart. She’d caught sight of the man Liam had addressed, a grunt, a Dern soldier, this one with a shell of dark hair smoothed over his head. And she knew when he turned her way she’d see black eyes and thick lashes and the resigned face of a man she’d been determined to dismiss.
Chapter Two
The Balti had been eerily pale in the first moment he’d seen her. So pale she glowed, ethereal and unreal. He’d blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again, not trusting his own sight. That had been in the unpredictable light of the tram tunnel, and he had no reason to think her a vision now that he’d caught up to her on the deck. She was real—real and fired up—an invigorating color enlivening her face. Her hair was as striking as before, red-gold and set off against all that phosphorescence. He supposed the contrast was exaggerated by deep space, where there was no sun to bake her skin, only an internal heat that flushed her cheeks in Liam Pent’s presence. Liam Pent, who was unaware of the conversation that had just transpired between them. Liam Pent, whose Balti Temptress had already piqued Calvy’s interest.
The ship’s internal tram had brought her right to him. It should have been empty, what with his stop being on the lowest of decks. The end of the line where he’d found himself, with only one direction open to him. Instead, through the car windows, the Balti had stood. Glittering. Glorious. Shocking him. And that was all before he’d noticed her hand spreading open the folds of her dress, caressing herself just below the trim patch of red curls that glinted at the apex of her thighs.
Virtue be damned.
It wasn’t the first time Calvy had had that thought in recent months. Recent years. The further he got from home, the more he saw of the galaxy, the harder it was to be that boy who’d tried so diligently to find solace in the rules of his people. It had worked for him—for a time—when his family and their advisors had told him to wait. Wait until they’d figured out what they should do with him. It had worked because, at his core, he believed in patience and compliance and dedication—he believed he had a purpose. He could feel it, looming, a little further off. Someone he was meant to be. A promise between him and the unknown. It was only later he realized those qualities could—and did—exist throughout the galaxy, without any connection to Dern Virtue. Without the inflexibility of Dern demands.
The Balti was a perfect example of life outside those rigidities. Her ensemble had made that clear enough. She was traversing the ship in a dress not much different from a robe—the slit skirt and plunging neck gathered together in a narrow swath from above her navel to barely below her pussy. When the tram droned into view, the material, a metallic auburn, flickered in the passing tunnel lights like flame.
The car slowed, the doors hissed open for Calvy to enter, and then shut, without the Balti paying them—or him—any mind. Lost in her own world, she parted her painted pink mouth and scraped her teeth across a full bottom lip.
