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laser blast narrowly missed him and
he returned fire. Then there was an eerie silence. The battle was over. She
called Jake’s name and ran toward him.
    “Tanith?” Jake’s expression was a mixture of surprise, guilt
and regret.
    Tanith looked beyond him at the body lying on the street
and, with an aching feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew. She tried to
get past him to reach Raoul, but Jake blocked her path. She flung herself at
him, beating her fists against his face and his chest. “You used me, you
bastard. All this time you pretended to love me so that you could kill my
brother.”
    Jake reached for her. “Tanith, please, listen to me. It
wasn’t like that.”
    Her eyes blazed with hurt and anger. “Don’t touch me, Jake.
Don’t you ever touch me again.”
    The rest of the night passed in a blur of questions. She
spent hours sitting in the small interview room repeating her story over and
over for the security forces. None of them expressed sympathy for her loss. It
didn’t matter to them that her brother had been killed. She could almost taste
their disapproval. No respectable Cyraelian female would take an off-world
lover. It was almost as if she deserved this.
    When they released her at dawn, she caught a last glimpse of
Jake climbing into a law enforcement transport unit, accompanied by two officers.
He was wearing restraints on his arms. She should have been glad, but the sight
of him like that made her heart break. Captain Hallstrom and Jake’s techie
friend, Pete, emerged from the building and followed her down the steps. The
captain called out to her, but she turned her back on him and ran across the
street.
    * * * * *
    The red graffiti had been cleaned away but the words were
still faint but visible on the door of her apartment— Die, Wanton Whore .
Tanith jumped when she heard the elevator doors open and she inserted her
access card into the lock quickly, trying to get inside before she encountered
her neighbors. The building supervisory committee had already left two
messages, requesting that she contact them. It looked as if she would have to
leave.
    When the judges issued their verdict of acquittal this
morning, her official bodyguards had abandoned her without a backward glance.
She was no longer the star witness for the prosecution. She was just a
scandalous Cyraelian woman whose human lover had killed her brother.
    She had gone to the tribunal every day. Not because Raoul’s
crazy friends insisted, but because she wanted to see the humans. Strom’s voice
had been calm and steady, no matter what the prosecutor asked him. Pete was
obviously uncomfortable but determined, and finally, Jake. He had borne the
brunt of the cross-examination and his eyes watched her face closely as he gave
his answers to the tribunal. Answers she didn’t want to hear.
    Yes, he had been ordered to seduce her by his captain.
    Yes, he had done it to provoke Raoul.
    Yes, he had killed her brother—but only in self-defense.
    Each response had been like a knife in her heart. She dug
her nails into her palms, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t give him the
satisfaction. It had all been a lie. Everything that happened between them was
a lie. All the nights that she had lain with Jake, loved him. How the human
must have laughed at her. She held Jake’s gaze until he flushed and turned
away. At least he had the grace to look ashamed.
    Her evidence hadn’t been compelling enough to convince the
tribunal otherwise. She hadn’t seen Jake shoot Raoul. She had glimpsed laser
fire on the street and her brother had died with a weapon in his hand. Despite
allegations of criminal activity on other worlds, Raoul had never been
convicted of any crime on Cyraelia and her people didn’t extradite their own
citizens. On the face of it, Raoul was an innocent man, shot dead in an
alleyway by an off-worlder.
    The judges were undecided. Just when it seemed that Jake
might be convicted, the humans offered to bring irrefutable