Read Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) for Free Online Page B

looks. Dannon took a good long swallow of his whiskey. It was his sixth drink in two hours, and much of his pain had receded into a blessed haze. For the past four days he’d tried to stay as drunk as he possibly could. He started drinking before breakfast mess and went from one lounge to the next throughout the day, until he fell into bed at night ill, but too numb to feel, too stupefied to have any of the nightmares that tormented him like demons with fiery pitchforks.
    That way he didn’t have to seriously think about Kayan being scorched or do the horrifying silent calculations of how many Gamant lives had been lost. The ache in his gut started to rise again. No. No! He took another long drink and forced it down.
    Farin smiled coquettishly. He strolled boldly toward her, melting into her circle. The other officers glared with repugnance, some gritting their teeth so hard they set their jaws at awkward angles. He knew why they despised him. Military fanatics had an unwritten law: Any soldier who betrays his own people is beneath contempt. Even though his act of treason against the Underground could have greatly benefited the Magisterial government—if they hadn’t screwed up the operation—they still hated him for it.
    But Farin didn’t care. She knew only that he was exceedingly handsome, a superb lover, and Gamant. To a Magisterially born and bred woman, all things Gamant rang with the exciting timbre of the forbidden. Gamant civilization had alternately warred with the government and fled its tyranny, hiding in the most inaccessible, hostile regions of the galaxy.
    In the soft golden light, Farin’s dark mass of curls glinted. He let his gaze caress the smooth lines of her oval face, lingering on her full lips. Her turquoise off-duty clothing drew his attention even more fully. The sheer, formatting gown belled at the sleeves and below the hips, clinging like the finest of shimmering spiderwebs. His gaze lingered on her protruding nipples. Large, dark nipples, he recalled.
    She surreptitiously watched the movements of his gaze and when he again looked into those magnificent eyes, he saw the dilated pupils, the silken flush of her skin.
    “Farin, dear, your beauty soothes even the most persistent of concerns.”
    Her lips parted provocatively. “Are you concerned about something tonight, Neil? I’m sure we can figure a way of—”
    “For God’s sake, Wyncol,” Lieutenant Jason Delio turned sharply. A short man with bright orange hair, he had a crooked nose and thick brows. He jabbed a thumb in Neil’s direction. “What do you hang around with scum like him for?”
    “Mind your own business, Delio,” she snapped. “I’ll keep company with whoever I damn well please!”
    Anger stirred in Neil’s breast, but he gave no evidence of it. He’d endured this sort of treatment for months now. He ought to be accustomed to it—but he wasn’t. He sipped his whiskey and draped an arm possessively around Farin’s shoulders.
    Delio grimaced as though ready to spit. “You like turncoats, do you, Wyncol? Prefer ’em over the rest of us?”
    Neil unconsciously glanced down at his purple uniform. Old friends and familiar places flashed in his mind and his heart began to pound. He squelched the feeling, forcing happy memories away before they slashed through the alcoholic haze he’d nurtured so carefully.
    Farin propped a hand on her hip. “What I do or don’t—”
    “You’ve got no more pride than a Giclasian sewer rat,” Delio accused. “At least have the decency to go hide somewhere if you’re going to sidle up to trash like—”
    “Shut your goddamned mouth!” Neil shouted.
    A hush descended over the room. The shrill strains of the metallic music seemed louder, more poignantly violent. Delio’s freckled face glowed beet red and he clenched his fists, spreading his feet as though ready for a fight.
    “You’re filth, Dannon!” he spat. “Drunken, cowardly filth!”
    Coward… coward…. The word