The Empire's Fringe: Science Fiction Romance Bundle by Elin Wyn

Author:Elin Wyn [Wyn, Elin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction Romance
Publisher: ClockWalk
Published: 2015-10-26T05:00:00+00:00

Audrey slept long and hard, her body making up for the rough paces she’d put it through in the last few days. When she did wake, it was to the smell of fresh, real coffee being waved under her nose. She opened groggy eyes to the sight of Phillip Lapsys—no, Jack Stewart—sitting naked on her bed, holding a breakfast tray.

She slowly pushed herself upright. “I hope you didn’t answer the door like that.”

Jack looked down at his naked form. “Why ever not?”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“It does make for excellent service,” Jack pointed out. He offered her the steaming mug, and she took it with a smile, inhaling deeply before taking a quick sip.

“You are a miracle worker.”

He shrugged. “Getting things places is sort of my line of work.”

“So it is,” she said, laughing again. The reality of her freedom hit her hard, and she laughed louder. Jack’s offer from the night before was still rolling around in her mind, but there was one thing that bothered her about it.

Leaning over the tray, she picked up his sweater from where they’d let it fall. Reaching into the pocket, she pulled out the Jewel of the Empire, looking it over closely again. Jack leaned back to watch her. As before, it seemed there was something off about the jewel, but she couldn’t decide what it was until she saw the scorch mark that had been made by the explosion. It had melted a part of the stone.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. “It’s a fake!” She tossed it at him, laughing loudly. “Well, at least now I know why you were willing to trade it for me.”

Jack caught the stone and held it up to the light. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I had wondered. Why would you trade a priceless jewel for a woman you’d just met?”

Rolling the stone in his palms, Jack frowned down at it for a long moment. “When I took over Panegyric, I knew that my biggest income would be from wealthy businessmen and government officials who would be willing to pay any price to get their goods across the galaxy. I was okay with that, because I knew it would allow me to sell small, unused berths on my ships for quite reasonable prices, shipping them for almost no cost at all for people who couldn’t ever charter an entire ship for their cargo, not even pooling resources.” He tossed the stone up and caught it. “The wealthier clients never even had to know about it, and those who did were willing to put up with it because no one else offered security like I did. Being a thief has its advantages there.”

Audrey drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, sitting back, content to hear the story whether it ever reached a point or not.

“I used to pilot the ships myself. Kept costs down tremendously. On my first run, after I’d dropped a load of silk and dyes to the fashion houses on Trident 6, I delivered my first small batch.

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