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friends. He’d
    never betray her the way she’d betrayed him. She struggled but he didn’t let her go.
    Instead he deepened the kiss. It felt as if they’d merged and become one entity. Her head swam and only his arm held her upright as her knees weakened.
    She gasped when he broke the kiss.
    “Surrender to me, darling,” he whispered.
    His quiet demand that seemed to echo her need slammed against her mind. What
    was wrong with her? She couldn’t trust him. “Never,” she said.
    “You will surrender. Gage always wins,” Fakzi said.
    Tamara started. The creature was so silent it was easy to forget his presence.
    “Fakzi is right. You will surrender,” Gage said. He gave her another quick kiss and then led her into the captain’s cabin.
    The viewport had captured her attention the first time through. Now she took a
    moment to survey her surroundings. The captain’s cabin was actually a luxury suite. By spaceship standards, the room was comparable to the most expensive appointments found on ships of the Stellar Lines. Tamara wondered if Gage had remodeled the ship.
    The military normally didn’t spend any extra money to make their officers comfortable.
    Gage chuckled. As always, he had an uncanny talent for reading her thoughts as he
    answered her unspoken question, “This is the way I found the ship. The rumor I heard is that the ship was designed for the aristocratic officers, not for those who rise through the ranks. The aristos dislike being kept in quarters they would not give to their slaves.”
     

    Tamara filed away the information and continued her inspection. A soft-looking
    sofa faced the viewports and scattered armchairs were set before a freestanding
    fireplace. It couldn’t be real. No one had a fireplace on a spaceship. Fire was the enemy in an oxygen-rich environment. Art decorated the remaining walls. Expensive art, Tamara realized. Art was too large and difficult to convert so she’d never pursued it but she could recognize it and she knew it was one of Gage’s passions.
    Through a doorway in the far corner Tamara could see a large bed against one wall.
    The viewports on one wall in the bedroom seemed to be a continuation of the viewports in the living area.
    Tamara’s mouth dropped a little as she took in the scope of the viewports. She’d
    never seen any ship, not even the luxury cruiser, have two rooms with multiple
    viewports along one entire wall. She walked closer and touched the wall before
    realizing they were an illusion. It was not a real glass wall.
    “It’s the real view. Cameras project it into the wall,” Gage said.
    “It’s just an illusion.”
    “But a powerful one,” Gage said.
    The fake viewports were open, showing stars blazing across the window. He was
    right. It didn’t matter that the view was an illusion. Tamara was entranced. The stars seemed to streak against a black canvas. It was a peculiar effect of hyperdrive that stars streaked like comets when in reality the movement came from the ship. Some people got space sick from watching the stars. Tamara didn’t. It was one of the things she and Gage shared, the sensation that they were streaking across space and time. Too fast to ever be caught.
    She stared at the viewports. Like the ancient print she’d once seen. It played with time and reality in a mind-bending sensation of perspective. The view and the movement should have been distracting but it wasn’t. It created an incredible sensation of unity with the universe.
     

    Gage always did know how to combine luxury with ruthless, practical reality. He
    must love this wall. Tamara startled as she realized just how much she’d missed Gage’s flair and intellect. She turned from the viewport. Such a line of thought was dangerous.
    Gage had taken away her freedom and he threatened to do more. She had to maintain a grip on her thoughts and emotions.
    Gage leaned against a wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d been
    watching her take in her