by Susan Hayes
The table kept moving with the force of his thrusts, and within minutes he’d forgone it entirely, lifting her into his arms and walking over to the nearest wall instead. He pinned her to the wall with his hands, holding her in place as he moved. The heat between them built until it was like they were lost in the center of a star, her inner walls pulsing around his cock and her legs locked around his waist.
Their lovemaking was as wild as a summer storm, and when her orgasm came, it hit with the same intensity. She buried her face in the crook of his neck to muffle her cries as he kept going, stretching out her release as he reached for his own.
He came hard, her name on his lips as he emptied himself into her. When it was over, he turned his head to nuzzle her hair, his lips almost brushing her ear as he whispered a single word. “Mine.”
“Did you just claim me?”
“Maybe.”
She lifted her head to stare at him. “But Torskis and humans don’t do that.”
“And Vardarians don’t normally share their mahaya with a male who is not their anrik. We’re breaking new ground here.”
She considered that for a moment. “What if I want to claim you, too?”
His cock twitched inside her. “Then I’d be a very happy male.”
“I wasn’t going to mention this just yet…” She raised her arm and pointed to the arm band. “But… that third strand of metal represents you. Kade had them custom-forged. He had three made. Yours will be finished soon.”
Denz froze. His gaze locked on the band she wore. “I thought something was different about yours.” He touched the interwoven strands of metal. “Kade did this?”
“He did.”
“That sneaky son of a starbeast. He didn’t mention it to me when we met up.”
“You did? When?” This was news to her.
“Yesterday afternoon. He wanted to talk. I met him at one of the training centers. Got to see him give a master class in aerial ass-kicking with some kind of metal staff.”
“Please tell me he didn’t set that up so you’d be intimidated or something.” Males were weird that way. It didn’t matter what species they were.
Denz chuckled and gently eased their bodies apart. “Nothing like that. He wanted to know if I was serious about you and asked me to be here for you when he couldn’t be. With his job, he’ll be gone a lot.”
“I know. And I can’t go with him.”
“Not right now, but that rule won’t stand forever. This is a colony, not a prison planet.”
She hopped off the table. “And while he’s gone, we’ll have each other.” She had been doing her best not to think too much about the long stretches when Kade would be away. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t something she could change, either. They’d figure it out. They had to.
“Right.” He dropped a kiss to her brow and then turned to look over at the kitchen. “Why don’t you clean up and I’ll finish making dinner. We can talk about what we’re going to do with all that time alone we’ll have when trader Kade is off-planet.”
He wandered back to the cooking area without bothering to dress.
“You’re going to do that naked?”
“Yep. I figure it will save time later. Because once I’ve fed you, we’re doing that again.”
“What? No dessert first?”
He tapped the door of the cooler as he passed it. “Chocolate mousse is in here. If we put our minds to it, I’m sure we can come up with a way to incorporate the two ideas.”
She laughed as she gathered up their clothes. “I’m sure we can too.”
15
Kade was sitting on a sun-warmed rock surrounded by deep grass. He had his saryk in his hands and was playing a love song for Shadow. She was nestled beside him, her head on his shoulder. Her blonde hair stirred in the summer breeze, but her head was turned so he couldn’t see her face.
Kade sang as he played, his soul more at peace than he could remember. Children were laughing somewhere nearby, their voices blending with the song. They were high on a hill overlooking the colony, and beyond it lay the gleaming blue depths of the sea. He recognized this place. It was the spot he’d taken Shadow the first day he’d found her. It felt like something they’d done a long time ago.
Shadow started to sing with him, her voice an enchanting alto. He knew this was her favorite tune, though part of him was aware he’d never sung it for her. Before he could think too much about that strange dichotomy, a child ran into view, her piping laughter growing louder as she raced through the grass. Her blonde hair streamed out behind her like the rays of a star, her golden skin as bright as a newly minted coin. She changed direction suddenly, darting toward them with her little wings outstretched. She was still too small to have the strength to fly properly, but her wings gave her enough lift to let her bound gracefully across the field of red and gold grass.
“Daddy, catch me!” the little girl called, her chubby hands reaching for him. The saryk vanished from his hands and he threw out his arms to catch her. She leapt into the air, laughing gleefully.
He saw himself in her features. His mouth. His smile. She had her mother’s hair and face, and…she had Denz’s eyes, dark as a starless sky.
She vanished as he caught her, her last words a bewildered wail of loss that echoed in his ears as he woke from his dream…and into a nightmare.
He came to with the taste of bile burning the back of his throat and making his eyes water. He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes but found he couldn’t move his hands. They were bound in front of him. And he was lying on something cold and hard.
Drugged. The thought wandered through his brain for a few seconds before it solidified into something he could hang on to. He’d been drugged. How? Why? The answers came to him with frustrating slowness. He’d met with Nesht. Had a drink. Walked away… only he hadn’t made it very far.
He opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He couldn’t see much. It was a small, dimly lit room with bare metal walls and no furniture. It wasn’t much bigger than a closet. A storage room, maybe?
Even easing himself to a sitting position was enough to make his head throb and his stomach roil in warning. Whatever he’d been drugged with, his nanotech hadn’t completely cleared it from his system yet. Which meant either he hadn’t been unconscious long, or they’d given him a big enough dose it had overwhelmed his defenses.
Once he was upright, he managed to use his legs to propel himself backward until he could lean against the wall farthest from the door. He took a few seconds to assess the situation. He couldn’t be on the orbital platform. The room didn’t have the feel of a Vardarian place. The door was too narrow, the space too confined. The platform was also too new to sport the kinds of dents and wear he could see from where he was sitting.
They wouldn’t take him to Haven, either. So, he had to be on a ship. Concerned, he pressed a hand to the deck and strained his senses, listening for anything he could hear. It was quiet, and the floor had no telltale vibration to indicate an active engine. All he heard was the occasional hiss from the air recycling vent near the ceiling. He wasn’t on the platform, but they weren’t moving, which meant they were likely still docked.
Whatever Nesht’s reasons for keeping him alive, they didn’t appear to involve leaving orbit. The Jeskyran probably thought he could convince Kade to recall the Chism’ah remotely. Normally, he could have, but he’d deactivated that part of the ship’s systems before leaving. At the time, he’d thought he was being overcautious. Turns out, he hadn’t been cautious enough.
“I shouldn’t have had that drink.” It was yet another error in judgment he’d have to answer for. His species had lived with nanotech enhancement for so long that they all assumed they were immune to mundane attacks like drugs and poison. Normally, they were. Which left him wondering what Nesht had done to him, and how the qarf he’d done it.
Even knowing the odds were against him, he tried to reconnect to the Chism’ah. If it were still
making its descent to the planet, it might be in range, and he had nothing to lose by trying. He tried several times. No connection.
He sighed and let his head rest against the wall. “Why is it long shots never work for me?”
He gave himself a moment to regroup and let his nanotech scrub more of the drugs from his system, but he couldn’t wait long. Nesht or one of his goons would be walking through that door soon, and he needed to be ready.
A quick check of his bonds showed that his hands were restrained with a pair of magnetic cuffs. Once activated, no being in the galaxy was strong enough to break them apart. In better news, no one had thought to bind his wings and his legs were wrapped with what looked like a few loops of repair tape. Sloppy.
His pockets had been emptied. Daggers, his terminal, even the remote was gone.
He drew up his legs and checked his boot. Thank the ancestors, they’d missed the kes’tarv tucked inside. He shifted that to an inside pocket where he could reach it quickly and then set to work unwrapping the tape from his legs.
While he did what he could to make ready for whatever unpleasantness came next, his head was full of recriminations and guilt. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. He’d come up here intending to fix this mess one way or another. He’d known the odds were against him living through this. It had taken him until the trip back to the platform to accept it, though. He’d wanted to believe he had more time with Shadow, even when part of him knew better.
That’s why he’d made the preparations he had. He’d sent messages to both his father and Marik through intermediaries to make sure they learned about his mahaya. Between them and Denz, she’d be taken care of. The Chism’ah had been programmed to fly back to Haven and deliver the message he’d recorded for Shadow. He’d explained everything. The plan. The threat to the colony. How to contact his family. He had come to this meeting prepared to sacrifice himself to protect everyone else from his screwup. Only he’d qarfed that up too.
“Daddy, catch me!” the voice from his dreams echoed inside his head. A daughter. Children. A life with Shadow. He’d sacrificed so much more than he’d realized.
She deserved better than someone like him. Even when he was trying to do the right thing, he qarfed it up. But still… he thought about the little girl with blonde hair and gold wings. It made his heart hurt. He didn’t deserve it, but by all the winds that blew, he wanted that.
A wave of regret and bitter amusement crashed over him. It was too late for revelations about what he really wanted. If Shadow hadn’t seen his message yet, she would soon. And when she did, she’d know everything. The gambling. The debts. The spying he’d done on Haven. As his mahaya, she would desire him for the rest of her life, but that didn’t mean she’d ever trust him again.
“I warned her that she deserved better than me,” he muttered. The words were as empty as the room he was locked in. She had no choice about their mating. None of it was her decision. It was destiny.
The thought made him pause. That wasn’t entirely true, though. Their mating was fated, but some decisions she could have been a part of, like how he intended to deal with Nesht. Instead, he had kept it all a secret.
He thumped his head against the wall behind him in frustration. “I should have told her.”
He’d told himself he was trying to protect her, but the truth was she didn’t need protecting. She was a cyborg, designed to be the perfect, always obedient, soldier—a fact he kept overlooking because it didn’t match her sunny smile and gentle demeanor. All she wanted was to live free and happy. To make her own choices. And he’d taken that from her too. If he got out of this mess, he’d have to do better. Be better. If she didn’t kick his ass from here to the Vardarian empire for lying to her.
A surge of sharhal-fueled lust hit him as he imagined the two of them sparring, her hands on his body… He thumped his head against the wall again and growled in a voice that sounded eerily like his father’s. “Focus, you fool.”
He braced his feet against the deck and adjusted his position again. His hands were bound, but he could use his legs and wings to get to his feet. The space was small enough he might be able to drop whoever came through that door and get past them. After that, he’d have to find a way off Nesht’s ship in a hurry.
Scenarios played out in his head as time passed with painful slowness. He kept his body balanced between relaxation and readiness, his chin on his chest and arms resting on his thighs as if he were dozing.
Footsteps came his way eventually. The door slid open, but no one entered. He waited.
“Boss? He’s moved. That’s not where we dumped him,” a male voice stated.
“What? If he’s moving, he’s awake already. Fraxxing liars. They swore that stuff would keep him down for at least an hour,” Nesht snarled.
Kade latched on to two tidbits of information. He hadn’t been unconscious long, and someone was creating drugs designed to incapacitate his species. Who would do that and why?
“I know you’re awake, D’vrayn. The drug I dosed you with had a paralytic. It was also supposed to act fast enough to drop you before you could do anything…like trip a fraxxing remote and send your ship out of reach.”
Kade raised his head and gave a half-hearted wave to the figures standing in the doorway. Neither Nesht nor his goon had set foot inside the room. “I guess it’s lucky for me the drugs didn’t work as promised.”
Nesht’s smile widened, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it. “Not really, no. You’ve got one last chance to take the easy way out.”
“Which is?”
“You recall your ship, get a little beaten up for the trouble you caused, and we call it done. Maybe I’ll even give your ship back to you when I’m done with it.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then we hurt you until you change your mind.”
He exhaled slowly. “I’ve got no way to recall the ship. The AI was programmed to land at the colony and not leave again until the new owner ordered it.”
“New owner?” Nesht hissed. “Who?”
“Someone you’ll never get to.”
It had been a thin hope that Nesht wouldn’t make the connection, but it had been worth a try. “You gave it to your mate. Didn’t you? You’re fraxxing insane. Why would you give your ship to a female?” Nesht waved a hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t care why you did it. All that matters now is getting it back from her. And I have a good idea how to make that happen.”
Kade’s stomach dropped. “Leave her out of this.”
“I didn’t drag her into this mess, D’vrayn. You did.”
Nesht turned to the goon. “I want him bloodied but not broken, and make sure he can still talk. I might need him to record a message for his female.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Oh and use a stunner on him first. It’ll speed things up.”
The goon pulled a stun-baton off his belt and grinned. “You got it.”
Qarf. Kade set his jaw and braced for what was coming. He had almost no chance of winning this fight, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.
Shadow was curled up with Denz, watching as the last light of sunset painted the walls of his bedroom in a soft golden glow that reminded her of Kade’s coloring. It didn’t feel at all strange to be lying next to one of her lovers while thinking of the other. She had room in her heart for both of them. It would take time and a lot of communication to figure out how to blend their lives together, but they’d find a way. This felt like the way it was supposed to be.
When her terminal chimed, her first instinct was to ignore it, but then she realized it might be Kade letting her know he was on his way home. She slipped out from under Denz’s arm and wandered over to her things. The terminal was resting atop her clothes, and a quick scan confirmed that Kade had sent her a vid-message from his ship.
“Kade?” Denz asked. He was sitting up now, and he still filled a good portion of the bed.
“He sent me a recorded vid.”
“He probably didn’t want to interrupt us with a live call.” Denz grinned and patted the bed beside him. “Which I appreciate. Come back here and let’s see what he has to say for himself. Or if you’d rather, I can go into the other room so you can watch it alone?”
She thought about it and then shook her head. “If this is going to work, we’ll need to be open about everything. They covered some of this in my seminar about Vardarian courtship and mating.”
“Oh sure,” he grumbled. “I bet there isn’t a class on Torski mating rituals.”
“Well, no. But there’s only two of you on the whole planet, and both of you are now spoken for.” She settled in beside him.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and then bowed his head to press a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Damn right we are. Raze would slaughter any male foolish enough to so much as look at Sevda the wrong way. And you…”
“Would smile sweetly and remind them it’s not wise to piss off a former assassin,” she finished for him.
“Mhm. Something like that.”
“I’m retired.”
“You didn’t look very retired yesterday when you sprang to my defense in my office.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “That was just a reflex. Now hush, I want to know what Kade has to say.”
She expected to see her mahoyen’s sexy smile and get a quick update on when he’d be coming home. What she saw instead was Kade looking grimmer than she’d ever seen him. Her stomach twisted and her throat tightened until it was difficult to breathe. Something was wrong.
“Hello, my beautiful dyna. If you’re seeing this message, odds are good I’m not coming back. I told you that first night that you deserved better than someone like me. Now, I need to tell you why. I’m sorry, Shadow. This wasn’t how I wanted our story to end.”
She listened quietly as he explained it all. The debts, the spying, the demands to spy on Haven. How to contact his parents and let them know their son was gone. She soaked up every word and sent the entire recording to her databanks so she could review it later. If these were his last words, she wanted to hold on to them forever.
