Plan B Read Free

exchange must have been on Shan's skill, without anything at all from me. I can't even bespeak you, Miri, as closely as we are linked."

    "Tried it, have you?" She grinned briefly. "But didn't your brother tell you what kind of danger?"

    "Just that Plan B was in effect. . ."

    "Moontopple," Miri muttered and Val Con laughed even as he shook his head.

    "Things were rather confused at the time, recall. The Agent was hunting me, you and I were separated, Shan was talking inside my head—and very annoyed he was, too! We hardly had time to set up a rendezvous before contact was cut."

    "So you did set up a meeting!" Approval lightened her face. "Where?"

    He took a deep breath and looked her steadily in the eyes. "At the home of your family, Miri."

    "My fam—" She stared at him, dropped his hand and backed up, shock rattling the constancy of her song. The back of her knees hit the edge of the co-pilot's chair and she sat with a slight bump, eyes still wide on his face.

    "Look, boss," she said finally, "I ain't got a family. My mother's dead—died my second year in the merc. And if Robertson ain't dead he oughta be, an' I don't wanna be the one does the deed."

    "Ah." Sorrow touched him: Clan-and-kin, indeed. He perched on the arm of her chair. "The family I meant was Clan Erob."

    Her hand dropped to the pouch built into her wide belt. "Clan Erob," she said huskily, "don't know me from Old Dan Tucker. I told you that."

    "Indeed you did. And I told you that Erob would not shun you. You have—what? Twenty-eight Standards?"

    She nodded, wariness very apparent.

    "So," said Val Con briskly. "It is high time for you to be made known to your clan and to make your bow to your delm. Now that you are informed of your connection, you would be woefully rude to ignore these duties."

    "And besides, you told your brother to meet you there, so that ends that. Might just as well go there, first ," Miri glared at him. "I just hope you know where it is, 'cause I sure don't."

    "I know exactly where it is," Val Con said, taking her hand and smiling at her.

    Miri sighed, though she did return the pressure of his fingers. "Why don't that surprise me?" she asked.

     

    "No," Miri said flatly, teacup clenched tight in a hand gone suddenly cold.

    "Cha'trez. . ."

    "I said no!" She glared at him over the cup-rim. "This is your idea, Liaden, not mine. You wanna visit a buncha strangers and claim favors, you take sleep-learning to find out how!"

    "I already know how," Val Con snapped. "And the case is, my lady, that you will be claiming not favor, but rightful place, based on kinship. Proof will be properly offered, in the form of—"

    Miri slammed the cup down. "A piece of enamel—work my grandma most likely swiped from some poor sot in an alleyway somewhere, along with everything else in his pockets!"

    ". . . a gene test." Val Con finished, as if she hadn't spoken.

    She took a hard breath against the upset in her stomach.

    "Don't need to talk to get a gene test done. Comes to that, I can talk, some. You taught me Low Liaden. No reason why you can't teach me enough High so I don't embarrass you."

    "Miri—" He sighed, raising a hand to stroke the errant lock of hair out of his eyes. Miri bit her lip, knowing as plain as if he'd spoken that he'd noticed her upset inside his head, just like she could see his frustration inside hers. And he'd figured out she was far more upset than she should be, given the request, given the partnership, given the love.

    "It is not a question," he said now, "of shaming me. We are lifemates, Miri: I am honored to stand at your side. But there is this other thing, when one is lifemated—would you send me into battle without insuring that I knew the field as well as you?"

    "Huh?" She shook her head. "Likely get you killed, holding back information. And I'd have to give you everything I had, 'cause you never know beforehand what's gonna be important."

    "Exactly." He leaned forward, holding her eyes