Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon

until she found the right one. As she closed the drawer, the small bottle slipped from her hand.
    “Great,” she breathed. She’d had a bad case of dropsies since she’d awakened. No doubt it was from her nerves and the fac>
    Worse, the bottle rolled beneath the bed to the far side, out of easy reach. She bent down to pick it up, then froze the moment her head was near the vent that ran under the bed. She heard a faint voice saying the most shocking thing she’d ever heard in her life.
    “Sarra will be dead before she leaves that ship. If you can get Desideria in the process, all the better. I’m even willing to have her become a state hero who died valiantly while trying to save her mother if you can deliver both their heads to me.”
    “It’s harder than you thought. There are cameras and security everywhere.”
    “Are you telling me you’re too incompetent to bypass them?”
    “Never.”
    “Then I suggest you get started. The sooner this is over with, the better for all of us.”
    “It will be done.”
    “Good because if the next transmission isn’t a newsfeed saying they’re dead, there will be one about how a certain someone had a mishap of her own and was flushed out an air lock.”
    Desideria pulled back, her heart hammering. Someone was going to kill her mother…
    Her own life didn’t matter to her. Well, not entirely true. She didn’t want to die, but her life was insignificant compared to her mother’s. As part of the High Guard, she’d taken an oath to lay down her life to protect her queen. Should she fail to keep her mother safe, her own life would be forfeit too.
    All members of the Guard would be executed should the queen die by assassination during their watch.
    She had to warn her mother before it was too late. Leaning in closer, she tried to hear more of their plotting, but the voices were too faint. Muffled as if they realized someone might be listening.
    Desideria moved closer to the vent…
    Now the voices were gone entirely.
    Damn.
    Grabbing the medicine, she quickly made her way back to the ship’s forward deck where her mother was talking to Pleba while the other aristos drifted near them. She didn’t know why, but the bright clothing reminded her of birds preening around each other.
    Except for her mother who was dressed in dark brown and black. The Qillaqs believed the body was a work of art and that it should be displayed and appreciated—why work to perfect something only to hide it beneath layers of fabric? Which was why her mother’s dress was made up of leather straps that barely covered the parts of her body other races found vulgar when exposed.
    Even so, Desideria was very conservative compared to the rest of her group. While she was proud of her body, she was still shy about flaunting it. She was extremely muscula, but compared to the other women in her family, she was rather heavyset and too many years of her mother and sisters insulting her weight had made her very self-conscious over showing too much of it lest they start in on her again.
    Her mother paused as she saw Desideria approach. She held her hand out for the medicine in an imperious gesture that irritated her.
    Desideria hesitated. “May I have a word with you, My Queen?”
    “Speak.”
    She swept her gaze over the Guard, making a mental note of who was missing. “Where are Xene and Via?” One or both of them had to be the muffled female voice she’d heard through the vent. No one else would be allowed close enough to her mother to kill her.
    “They had to go to the restroom. Would you like to join them?” She held her hand out again. “My medicine.”
    “Mother—”
    Her mother cleared her throat sharply at Desideria’s use of a title that was forbidden whenever they were in public.
    She clenched her teeth in frustration. “Beg pardon, My Queen, but my news is extremely important.”
    “Then speak it and give me my medicine to cure my headache instead of adding to it.”
    “I…” She bit