Page 126 of Smuggler's Beauty

“Listen here, you sanctimonious bitch,” Emil hissed at Evelyn. He had maneuvered her arm into a locked position behind her own back, forcing her to face Aiden and the others. “Sentiment is not going to win the day here. You will continue to Amplify for me. You will announce to the planet that the new queen has struck a deal with the polity of Bauder. Things will continue according to my rule. Or these people will die.”

Evelyn’s face was twisted in anguish. She sniffed. Her free hand grasped at Emil’s arm, and her gaze found Aiden’s. She gave him a sad smile.

“It’s such a shame we never got to go bowling. I’d picked out an outfit and everything. The dress is green.”

For a split second, Aiden wondered if she’d also hit her head in the Senate chamber. But the near-encyclopedic awareness of every interaction he’d had with the woman was pinging around in the back of his mind, and he understood exactly what she wanted him to do.An encore.

The electric zing that Aiden felt when Evelyn unleashed her Amplification surged through his body. The little hairs on his arms stood on end, his body surging with borrowed power.

“My favorite color, dollface,” he said. He winked at her.

The pained look on her face vanished. Aiden knew a cue when he saw one. He focused his energy and shoved a pulse of power into the guard on the farthest side of the room. The man stumbled, falling into the man next to him in a far less destructive recreation of their escape from the medivessel. People tended to be squishier than droids and far less likely to catch fire when they slammed into each other, but the impact still made a nasty crunching noise as their bones broke, limbs splaying against the ground at unnatural angles.

The room erupted into chaos. Three more men went down like dominoes, crashing into the ground with bone-jarring force. Mathias’ men had started firing on the loyalists, providing them a bit of cover.

Aiden ripped the binding from his wrists, then Nannette’s. In a fluid movement, she reached under her jacket to release her twin blasters, took aim, and fired. He turned to remove the binding from Veselko to find Elenor already cutting off his bindings.

Pivoting, he focused on the weaponry in the hands of the enemy soldiers, ripping them away and lodging blasters in the ceiling plaster with a flick of his fingers. A falling weapon discharged, sending a stream of energy into the view screen on the wall. Sparks flew out of the device, singing the wallpaper.

I hope Evelyn’s okay with redecorating in here.

Pearl wasout of breath by the time she reached the receiving room. She found the peaceful, if tense, scene she had left had devolved into chaos. Soldiers were firing on each other. Blood spattered the carpets. Sparks were flying from the view screen. Weapons and fallen soldiers were scattered on the floor.

Dead center in her line of sight stood the love of her life.Veselko. Her traitorous stomach flipped at the sight of him rubbing his wrists, laughing at whatever quip Elenor had just made as she pulled a knife from the shoulder of a soldier. Radiating joy in the midst of chaos, as always, sunshine personified. Behind him, a dazed-looking soldier was groping for a blaster. Pearl recognized it as one of Bauder’s nastier weapons, lethal regardless of how precisely the stream hit. Lostin the chaos, he was lining up a shot at the largest threat he could see.

Pearl did the only thing she could in the split second she had.

She shot Veselko in the shoulder. Down he went. The energy stream from the man’s shot passed over Veselko’s head as he fell. Pearl took another shot, now that she had a clear line of sight at the soldier. Her beam went right into his throat. He slumped against the wall. Veselko looked in the direction of her shot.

She waved.

Evelyn had been sobusy trying to maintain her composure, she’d completely forgotten the most important lesson that she’d learned during her time on theDawn. Shewasthe weapon. It had been so easy to fall back into Tanalian princess mode — hide yourself, hide your talents, put on the mask and play the politics you hate — that she’d completely ignored the fact that she was the most dangerous player in the room.

Seeing the crew presented to her, bound and pissed off, had reminded her that while yes, she technically was Tanalian royalty, she was also much more than that. She had more tools at her disposal than policy and mind games. Queens were the most powerful pieces on the board.

So she now stood in her mind palace, focused on Emil’s energy signature as it pulsed around him.

There was something oddly familiar and wrong about the way his energy sparked in her mind. She had sensed him all those years ago, like a jet engine purring on a runway. The roar of his energy was there, but it was shot through with a distinct ripple of otherness. It was like someone had dumped a spoonfulof sage into their coffee instead of sugar. Conflicting vibes poured off of him in waves.

She gripped her hand around his arm more tightly. The difference in his energy was irrelevant. Academic, really.

He would never let her family out of those damn stasis pods.

He would never let her out of one again, either, unless it was to be a pretty puppet.

And if he thought he was going to lay a finger on Nannette? Veselko? Elenor? Aiden?

Fuck that.

She drew the energy she felt fluttering under her fingers into her mental chamber. Dust-colored wisps shot through with golden flecks circled around her, flowing from the arm under her hand. It filled the room, obscuring her view, dancing around them.

Evelyn’s focus snapped back to the receiving room when she felt the arm lock Emil had held her in loosen. His grip strength had abandoned him while she’d been siphoning off his energy, and he could no longer keep her in such a punishing hold. The rest of her physical senses came knocking, the scent of burning electronics and singed wood warred with the iron tang of blood on the air. She was surprised she’d been able to keep the volume of the fighting around her from breaking her concentration. The skirmish was anything but silent as theDawn’screw and Corrie’s soldiers fought Emil’s last few loyalists around them in the too-small space.

She twisted around to face Emil and screamed at the sight that met her eyes. The dour, well-dressed man from moments ago was nowhere to be found. The impeccable suit sagged on his desiccated frame, his skeletal figure a macabre mannequin. Skin dry as parchment was stretched across Emil’s skull, his cold, dark eyes bulging out as the lids continued to recede. The suitshifted with every labored breath he took, air whistling through his teeth, no longer guarded by his stern lips.

Be good, children, or the Siphon Queen will get you.

Horrified at what she’d done, she took a step back into a squishy, blood-drenched patch of carpet. A soldier to her left fell, his blaster flung to the ground as the life left his eyes. Quickly.