by Tana Stone
That was a reasonable explanation, but that did not explain her battle instincts. No female who’d spent her life working in a mine would know how to fight like she had. No, those moves only came from long hours of practice and plenty of actual grappling. None of which the empire would allow for a female miner living under their rule.
“You maintain that you were running from the empire?” I asked, my gaze locked on hers and my chest still heaving both from exertion and fury.
Her eyes did not waver as she returned my stare. “It’s the truth. You found me. You saw the state of my ship.” She lifted her bound hands to her face and the fading bruises. “You saw what they did to me.”
“Mmmm.” I’d also seen the steely determination in her eyes that was not common in humans who’d lived under imperial rule. It was the same iron will I saw reflected in my raiders’ faces every day.
My pulse raced as I studied the female. Every fiber of my being told me not to trust her and not to be lured by her beauty, while my body ached to taste her again. I cursed the weakness of my flesh and the swelling of my cock.
Spinning away from her so she could not see my growing arousal, I strode to the fireplace and braced my hands above the inset hearth. I focused on the cool stone even as I bit back a wave of disgust with myself. I’d doubted her earlier, yet I’d let her move freely about my warbird. It was true she hadn’t found anything aside from the battle ring, but if she wasn’t what she claimed to be, I could have exposed my raiders and my horde to danger. All because I’d been too flustered by my arousal to do what needed to be done.
I was Raas now, and that meant the safety of my horde came first, even above my own desires. And as a new Raas, I could not allow myself the indulgences of my predecessor. I had not led enough battles or claimed enough bounty to take a female as a prize. Even one who ignited something within me I’d never felt before. I curled my hands into fists. Especially not one who was lying to me.
I turned back to her and saw that the challenge in her gaze had softened.
She drew in a wavering breath. “Listen, I don’t know how else I can convince you that I’m telling the truth. You’re the one who found my ship floating in space, with no fuel and little food. It’s not like I asked for a Vandar horde to board me.”
Her words were persuasive, but they didn’t fit her. Alana was no weak female, no matter what her breathy sighs and quivering voice wished to convey. No, the real her had snapped at me back in the battle ring, her words acerbic and her movements skilled.
I looked intently at her, then her words sunk in. I did have a way to make her tell the truth. It wasn’t something I thought of because lying was not something Vandar did, and especially not a Raas. A Raas never lied. But he did have ways to force others to reveal the truth.
I walked closer to her. “You have told me the truth about yourself?”
She lifted her chin slightly to peer up at me. “Yes, Raas.”
I bent and made quick work of untying her feet and then her hands. “Lift your arms.”
She hesitated, then slowly raised them so they were straight up over her head.
I took the hem of her baggy gray shirt and swept it up and over her head in a single fast motion, leaving her chest bare and her breasts exposed.
Alana sucked in a breath as the beige skin around her nipples pebbled from the cool air. She didn’t cover them with her hands, though. Instead, she kept her gaze on me as she grasped the waistband of her dark pants and shimmied them down over the swell of her hips. When the fabric pooled at her ankles, she stepped out of them and kicked them to the side.
When I’d started to undress her, I wasn’t sure if I’d get the combative Alana or the temptress one, but the darkening of her eyes told me she was as eager to seduce me as she was to fight me. Her talent for adapting was impressive, and I suspected it was also something she’d practiced a great deal.
Wrapping an arm around her, I flattened a palm to the curve of her lower back and jerked her body flush to mine. Her breathing quickened, and the vein in the side of her neck throbbed.
“You know that the Vandar are raiders, and we take what we want,” I murmured, lowering my lips to brush against the tip of her ear. “Since I am Raas, I can claim you as mine.”
She bobbed her head up and down without speaking.
“Is that what you want?” I asked.
“Yes, Raas.” Her voice cracked.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of her warm skin, fresh from a fight. My hardness pressed against the heavy leather of my kilt, straining to break free. All I would need to do would be to drop my kilt and the only remaining barrier between our bodies would be gone. My body shuddered as I imagined plunging myself into her heat, and I ground my hips into her. It would be so easy to surrender to this version of her—the version who was pliant and inviting. But I didn’t want the lie. I wanted the truth.
Squeezing my eyes tight, I held her for a moment before opening them and pulling back. I looked down at her as I walked her back, my grip on her strong enough so that her feet barely touched the floor. “Close your eyes.”
She gave me a sultry smile before obeying, allowing her eyes to flutter shut and her dark lashes to fan across her cheeks. “Are you taking me to bed?”
I moved quickly across the room and past the large bed, through the arched doorway and into the bathing chamber. When I reached the half-moon bathing pools, I straddled my feet on two of the stone ledges dividing the colored waters, suspending Alana over the orange pool. “There will be time for that later.”
Bubbles popped around her toes and a spicy scent rose up from the pools, causing her to open her eyes. Her mouth widened in surprise as she stared at me, realizing that I had not taken her to my bed. Instead, I was dangling her over an orange, bubbling pool.
Then I dropped her.
Chapter Fifteen
Alana
The shock of hitting the water was nothing compared to the shock that he’d tricked me. My head went briefly underwater, but my feet hit the stone bottom, and I straightened my legs as water streamed down my face.
“What?…You…!” I was too livid to form a coherent sentence, as I wiped my face and spit out water. “I thought we were…”
“Not yet.” The Raas stood next to the pool with his arms folded across his chest. He was not smiling, but the corner of his mouth did twitch.
“Is this supposed to be a joke?” I made my way to the edge of the pool.
“No.” He flicked his fingers toward me. “And I have not told you that you can get out yet.”
I fought the urge to jump out and strangle him. All in good time, I reminded myself. I still needed to convince him that I was a harmless female, which was getting harder to do with each misstep and outburst. If only he wasn’t so infuriating.
I glanced down at the vivid-orange hue of the pool. It wasn’t as hot as the red water sending up steam in the segment of the pool next to me, but it was bubbling and the scent wafting up was spicy and sensual.
The only perfumed water I’d ever experienced similar to this was on Grantilia, but the water had been clear, and the scent had been overwhelmingly floral. My memories of the cloying scent were unfortunately melded with thoughts of drowning the viscount to ensure the empire’s successful invasion and overthrow of the ruling family. I shook these images aside and focused on the arrogant Vandar standing over me.
“Is this part of the Vandar claiming ritual?” I asked, making sure to temper my voice. I didn’t want to sound as furious as I was.
Raas Bron walked to the doorway and tapped an inset panel I’d never noticed before because it was as smooth and black as the obsidian wall, the buttons also flush and flat. Soon, the bubbles popping along the surface increased, and the scent grew more intense.
“Claiming ritual?” He turned to face me, then gave a single sharp shake of his head. “Do you not enjoy bathing?”
He was up to something, but I had no idea what. Mayb
e he was a control freak and liked keeping me on my toes, or maybe he had a fetish about females being clean. Either way, I could play along. Soaking in a scented tub was far from the worst thing I’d had to do for my job.
I sank down so that my chin bobbed at the surface, the bubbles tickling my neck as they popped. “I do. Do all Vandar have bathing pools like this?”
“Only the Raas’.” He walked to the long counter and leaned against it, stretching his muscular legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. “Some of the pools have different designs, but they all have four segments with the same kinds of infused waters in each.”
I glanced at the orange liquid I was soaking in. “Infused?”
“With various health benefits.” He tilted his head at me. “And other properties developed by our people using ancient techniques. The waters help us heal and recover from battle, and increase our strength.”
I scooped some water up in one hand and watched it drain through my fingers. “What does this water do?”
“It is used primarily for relaxing muscles.”
“Well, it’s working. “Although the water wasn’t hot, my muscles had already uncoiled, and my legs were like noodles.
His eyes swept over me. “Good. The longer you soak, the more will be loosened.”
I groped my way to the side and found a stone bench built in, and I gratefully sat. “The Vandar like to keep to the old ways, don’t they?”
“We do. Even though we now live in space—the raiders, at least—we retain as much from our decimated home world as possible.”
I let my neck fall back and my head loll on the stone ledge as my eyes fluttered shut. I’d never felt quite as relaxed in my life. It was as if all my worries had evaporated and every tendon in my body had been unwound.
“And what of your home world?” the Raas asked, his voice as soothing as a caress and as smooth as Carpithian silk.
“Faaral?” Faint memories of the planet I’d been born on danced up from the recesses of my mind. “I don’t remember much. I was so young when they took me.”
Somewhere in my brain, I remembered that I shouldn’t speak of this, but I couldn’t hold my tongue. It, too, had been freed from restraint.
There was a heavy silence, then the Raas asked, “When who took you?”
Telling the Raas the truth about my past felt completely natural. “The Zagrath, of course. They picked me out of all the children in my village. It was a great honor.”
“I’m sure it was.”
Memories of being wrenched away from my screaming parents made me flinch. Why was I telling this to the Raas again? Before I could answer my own question, more words spilled from me. “I didn’t want to go. Not at first. And my parents didn’t want me to go. I used to hear my mother’s screams every time I tried to fall asleep.”
“You grew up without a family?”
“The empire became my family,” I said, parroting the words I’d had drilled into me. Somehow, though, it felt wrong to repeat this lie to Bron. “But it wasn’t true. The instructors at the imperial academy weren’t family. Their job was to break me down and build me into something they could use. The empire is not my family. I don’t have a family anymore.”
There was such a long silence I wondered if the Raas had left, although my eyelids were too heavy for me to open.
“I also have no family, but the horde and Raas Kratos did become my family.” His voice was not more than a whisper.
“So, you know what it’s like,” I said. “To be alone.”
“It is rare to ever be alone in a horde, but I do know what it is like to feel alone. It took a long time after my parents died for me to not to ache from their loss.”
I nodded, the memories of being torn from my mother’s arm rushing up and threatening to choke me. “At first, I cried myself to sleep missing my parents, but if the Zagrath caught me, they beat me. I haven’t shed a tear since.”
His gaze didn’t leave me. “The empire took your life from you.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been alone for so long I don’t remember what anything else feels like.”
“You are alone, even though you work for the empire?”
I’d never spoken to anyone about my job, but it was as if I couldn’t stop myself for telling him. “I do the kind of work that you can only do alone. Not many Zagrath know I exist, even in the military.”
“You’re a spy?”
I laughed, the sound high and melodic. “More than a spy, Raas.” I put a finger to my lips. “I’m the empire’s most deadly assassin. They call me Mantis.”
Another silence as I breathed in the perfumed air and wondered why I’d kept such big secrets for so long. It was freeing to talk about them. Another laugh bubbled up in my throat. I hadn’t laughed a real laugh in longer than I could remember. Now, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“And are you here to kill me?” Bron asked.
I shook a finger lazily in the air. “A very good question, Raas.” I huffed out a warm breath. “That was my task, but I’m not sure if I can do it.”
“No?”
I shook my head and a wave of dizziness rushed over me. “I’ve always been able to tell myself that the individuals I killed were bad because most of them were. Even though the empire was taking them out for a reason, they were usually greedy or cruel. But you aren’t. And the raiders aren’t anything like what the empire says about you. I mean, sure you’re huge and terrifying, but you aren’t raping and pillaging like they claim.”
“You are an assassin who only kills those who deserve to die?”
I frowned at that. “Mostly. At least that’s what I tell myself. It makes it easier.”
The water splashed around my neck, rising higher, then there was a body brushing against my knees.
“What happens if you do not succeed in your mission?” Raas Bron pulled me out of the water and held me to his naked body. I forced my eyes to open, and his eyes were molten pools as he gazed down at me.
I stared up at him. “If I fail the empire but remain alive, I will have betrayed them. If that happens, they will send an assassin to kill me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bron
I swallowed hard as I looked down at the human female I held to my body—check that, the human assassin for the empire.
The scented water had done its work. The ancient oil with the rich, orange hue and slightly spicy scent was known for loosening inhibitions and lips, but even I was surprised by how effective it had been on Alana. I glanced back at the panel by the door. It hadn’t hurt that I’d considerably increased the amount of oil in the water. Feeling the oil go to work on my own muscles and inhibitions, I was actually surprised she was still conscious.
She lifted a hand and pressed her slender fingers to my chest, drawing my gaze back to her. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Her words were slurred as her eyelids drooped.
“That you’re an assassin for the empire?”
Her brow furrowed even as she traced the curved marks on my chest with one finger. “That I don’t want to kill the Raas.”
I held her so close I was sure I could feel her heart beating. “You are sure you don’t wish him dead?”
Her attention was fixed on the dark swirls climbing toward the hollow of my throat. “He isn’t bad.” She frowned as a tear slid from the corner of one eye. “I’m afraid he might be good.”
I cupped her face and brushed the tear away with my thumb. “What if he’s killed many?”
“I’ve killed many,” she whispered.
My gaze was riveted to her finger moving languidly across my skin. “What if he’s raided ships and destroyed outposts?”
She leaned in and brushed her lips against my chest. “That does not make him bad. I have met many bad creatures—and killed most of them—and I know the difference.”
My skin was scorched from her touch, and my throat was thick. “But the empire will kill you if you fail.”
She
pressed her eyelids together briefly, then opened them and peered up at me, smiling sadly. “They were always going to kill me eventually. I think I’ve always known that.”
“I will keep your secret.”
She gave me a drowsy smile. “And I’ll keep yours.”
“Mine?”
“About Zendaren.” Her eyelids sagged closed again, and she slumped against me, her breathing heavy. She was asleep.
Tvek. She knew about Zendaren, one of our secret Vandar colonies? I dragged a hand roughly through my hair as I held her with one hand looped around her back. Now what? I’d unmasked her true identity, but I’d also revealed her painful past. She wasn’t working for the Zagrath because she was one of them, or even because she believed in their cause. She’d been ripped from her family and raised in some kind of brutal academy, made into a killer by the same bastards who’d ruined her life in the first place. She was a victim of their cruelty as much as anyone the empire used for its own greedy purposes. And now, she also knew a secret about my people.
I brushed a wet strand of hair from her forehead, my gaze drawn to her seductively upswept eyes and the dark lashes fanning across her cheeks. My heart pounded as I thought about what the Zagrath had done to her. I would make them pay for taking a child and destroying her life and her future. I didn’t know where the Zagrath academy was located, but I would find it and destroy it and liberate all of the children who had been snatched from their life.
I was filled with a sense of purpose as I thought about my new mission, my pulse quickening as I imagined the damage I would inflict on the Zagrath. Then my stomach clenched into a tight ball. I had been right to suspect her and voice my suspicions to my closest officers. She wasn’t what she’d pretended to be, and she’d cleverly tricked her way onto my ship. My instincts had been right about that. But I also couldn’t tell Svar and Corvak what I’d learned. Not if I wanted to protect Alana.
