Morningstar

by Robyn Bachar

  “Not all of them. Lord Renden’s youngest mate, Sharaiya, was sold into slavery by agents of House Nightfall. When Talena’s heritage was discovered a few months ago her existence brought the truth out to the public, and now there’s an unofficial war going on between House Nightfall and House Sunsinger. The ruling council is divided by people taking sides. It’s only a matter of time before war is declared openly.”

  Civil war. Bryn shuddered and cursed under her breath. Things on Cyprena had been unstable before her capture thanks to centuries-old grudges between the houses, and apparently matters hadn’t improved in her absence.

  “The blade I found belonged to a male with Nightfall markings.”

  Captain Hawke scowled and shook her head in disgust. “I’m not surprised. We discovered that they’ve been working with the Eppes group for years, secretly selling other Cy’ren into slavery. Both groups are destroying evidence of their ties to the other. That’s why the jump station was attacked, to get at the indexer. He’s been trying to locate information about the research the Eppes were doing on Nepheros.”

  “Poor Malcolm. He’s probably climbing the walls by now.”

  “I’m trying to keep him busy.” Captain Hawke tilted her head as she studied Bryn. “Sabine has a Nepheros slave mark. It was a Sunsinger mining colony before Nightfall took it over and the Eppes set up shop. Has she ever mentioned it?”

  “No. She has a lot of slave marks. And I don’t know what house her parents were from, but as long as she’s my mate, she’s a Wintersend.”

  The doctor cleared her throat. “I can’t keep her sedated without risking her health.”

  “She’s lasted this long. A few more days shouldn’t make a difference.”

  “They might. Sabine’s body is under constant stress from the phase, and there are signs of damage to her cardiovascular system. The sooner the phase ends, the better. I did uncover some encouraging information about the phase while you were sedated.”

  “Oh?” Bryn said. Encouraging and phase weren’t two words that usually went together.

  “Most reports of the phase lasting for extended time periods were of females who fought the effects, denying the sexual urges instead of fulfilling them. This resulted in the phase taking longer to complete—weeks instead of days, if the female didn’t conceive. I believe that because of Sabine’s…profession, once she takes a male mate, the phase should proceed quickly. It could be over within a few days.”

  Bryn swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. As much as she hated it, it was inevitable. They had known that even before Sabine had gone into phase. Every female Cy’ren lived with the knowledge that she would go through the phase several times over her life—at least fertile females would. After branding Bryn as an aggressive runner, her last master had sterilized her, considering her too dangerous to be allowed to breed. It was a bitter scar, but it spared her from undergoing the phase again.

  Before Sabine’s phase they had dreamed of escape, whispering plans to each other in the dark when the other girls slept. They wanted to find a male who would agree to stay long enough to end the phase but not insist on a formal arrangement. Bryn wasn’t opposed to males. She’d first gone through the phase while training to become a shadow sword, and though she’d mated with several of her fellow shadow swords, she hadn’t become pregnant. With no child to bind her to a male, both she and her partners had agreed that their duty was more important than taking a permanent mate. Bryn had been relieved at the time—her training would have been wasted if a mate and a child forced her to settle down. Now she wondered how her life would have been different if she had stayed on Cyprena.

  Bryn squared her shoulders. “She shouldn’t be sold to a male just because he has equipment I don’t.”

  “She won’t be forced into anything on my ship,” Captain Hawke said. “There are three males onboard. Sam isn’t interested in taking her as a mate, but Jace and Durgen are. That’s Commander Durgen Soth, and Lieutenant Commander Najacen Harrow, my second in command. The one you snarled at. He can be difficult, but he’s a good officer. They both are. You should speak with them. You might be able to work something out.”

  Harrow. The Morningstar. Bryn’s stomach twisted into sour knots. Work something out—as though she was Sabine’s new master, trying to get the best price for her. Unfortunately, unless she wanted Sabine’s suffering to continue, she had little choice.

  “Dr. Morgan, can you wake Sabine? I need to speak with her about all this,” Bryn said.

  The doctor nodded and loaded a hypo with the appropriate meds. “I can’t promise she’ll be very coherent.”

  “I know. We’re used to it.”

  Dr. Morgan administered the drugs, and then she and the captain walked away to give the Cy’ren privacy. Bryn stroked Sabine’s hair as her mate’s eyes opened, and Sabine smiled up at her.

  “A’mhain,” Sabine murmured. My darling. It was one of the few Cy’reni words that she knew. Cy’ren slaves were forbidden from speaking their native tongue.

  “How do you feel?” Bryn asked.

  Sabine turned her face and nuzzled Bryn’s palm. “The same. What’s going on?”

  “Can you sit up?” Bryn asked.

  Sabine nodded slowly. Bryn eased her up, and Sabine wrapped her arms around her and laid her head on her mate’s shoulder. Bryn held her and kissed her hair as she fought the wave of emotion that threatened to swamp her.

  “What’s wrong?” Sabine whispered.

  “There are two males who want you, a’gra. I want it to be your decision if you want one of them as your mate. Dr. Morgan can keep you sedated until we get to Cyprena, if you’d prefer, but it could be dangerous. The doctor says you’re in bad shape.”

  “Do you like them? The males?”

  “I’ve only met one of them,” Bryn admitted.

  “Pick one for us.”

  Bryn blinked. “Us?”

  “Yes. He has to take us both, or not at all.”

  “No male is going to want a sterile female as a mate. A few of the houses even forbid it.” They were ruling houses, of course, and it wouldn’t surprise Bryn if Morningstar was one of them. House Wintersend wasn’t foolish enough to try to restrict such things. Then again, the ability to breed a large population was one of the factors that divided the ruling houses from the lesser houses.

  “Don’t care. We stay together, no matter what. I won’t go anywhere without you.”

  “A’gra, you could die, your body is burning up as it is,” Bryn said softly.

  “I’d rather die than live without you.”

  Bryn exhaled a shaky breath. Sabine was right—they had to stay together. Bryn would certainly rather die than lose her. She’d be hollow without Sabine. She couldn’t go back to her shadow sword days, returning from each mission to an empty bed, an empty life.

  “All right. I’ll speak with them,” Bryn said.

  “I love you. Pick a good one for us.” Sabine smiled—her expression was filled with trust, but her golden eyes were bright with the phase.

  “I will. I promise. Get some rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  Sabine curled up, and Bryn drew the blanket over her and kissed her. Bryn squared her shoulders and approached Captain Hawke.

  “Where are they now?”

  Chapter Four

  “Still three green, two red,” Jace called to Sam.

  After an icy shower, change of clothes and a complete weapons diagnostic, Jace had been recruited into helping Sam with repairs to the VFF drive. They chased a glitch in the cooling system before moving on to the containment field. The crew was still breaking in this ship after the first Talon had been destroyed in the battle to liberate Nepheros. Sam had crawled into an overhead duct to access a circuitry panel, and now only his feet showed. Jace stifled a smile at the string of muffled curses that emanated from within. The engine
er had a colorful way with words.

  At first Jace had volunteered to crawl in and do the manual labor, intent on distracting himself from the fever heating his skin, but after he’d crossed the wrong wires three times, Sam had hauled him out and demanded to do it himself before Jace got them all killed. Exhaustion weighed on Jace, due to a combination of the work, lack of sleep and the constant fight against the instinct to claim Sabine as his mate.

  One indicator light flashed from red to green on the control panel. “Four green now,” Jace called out.

  “I don’t think this configuration will work at one hundred percent,” Sam replied.

  “We’ll have to return it to the previous settings then.”

  More muttering floated down from the vent, complete with, “You mean I’ll have to restore the settings.”

  Jace snorted, but before he could reply he spotted the captain approaching, and his brow rose at the sight of the female behind her. The shadow sword, and as he sighed with annoyance he realized she was coated with Sabine’s scent. A low growl escaped him as his hands clenched atop the control panel.

  “Is there a problem, Lieutenant Commander?” the captain asked.

  “No,” he ground out in reply. Jace looked up at the duct and warned Sam not to come down. Hopefully the secondhand scent wouldn’t travel far. Jace might not have noticed it if he hadn’t already overindulged on Sabine’s scent in the med bay.

  Captain Hawke glanced up. “So those are Sam’s feet?”

  “They are, yes.” Jace cleared his throat.

  “I’ll help Sam. This is Lieutenant Brynnaren Viera. She’ll be joining us on temporary assignment. You two talk. Civilly. And get Soth, he’s in the armory.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Jace turned to the lieutenant. “If you’ll follow me.”

  Lieutenant Viera cleaned up well, but she still looked as though she wanted to stab him. It was a look he was rather used to receiving from Captain Hawke—the two would probably get along well. Both females were tall for their species, and lean with muscle mass where most females were soft and curved. Like Sabine…

  As they walked away he heard the captain barking at Sam. “Why are there red lights on this board? I thought you were making progress?”

  Though he thought it tempting fate, Jace led the lieutenant to the armory. Commander Soth was cleaning a pistol, the various disassembled parts of it spread out across the work table in front of him. Jace paused in the center of the room and watched Lieutenant Viera. For a moment a spare suit of armor distracted her. She trailed her fingertips over the dull metal breastplate.

  “I’ll need a set of armor. And a proper service pistol,” she said. “I don’t trust merc equipment.”

  Soth snorted and muttered something derogatory involving females and guns as he continued with his work.

  “We can equip you with armor before our next mission,” Jace replied. Normally they didn’t carry armor that would fit a female. The Talon had lost its only female soldier—a human, Sergeant Greggs—on a mission shortly before the ship was destroyed. But Bryn would likely fit into one of their spare suits, and if not, Captain Hawke might have a suit that she could borrow. He selected a pistol and holster and handed them to the lieutenant, who in turn handed him a pistol she had doubtless looted from the station.

  “Commander Durgen Soth, meet Lieutenant Brynnaren Viera of House Wintersend,” Jace introduced. Soth grunted in greeting, and Bryn nodded in reply.

  “I spoke with Sabine, and we have a condition to agreeing to a mate. Sabine and I stay together. If you want her, you have to take me as a mate too,” she announced as she strapped the pistol on. “You may not respect our relationship, but Sabine and I made a commitment to each other. And in the interest of full disclosure, I can’t have children. I was declared too dangerous to breed by a former master and was sterilized.”

  Dear gods. Jace had heard of male slaves being castrated or sterilized for being dangerous or aggressive, but never a female. She must have fought her captors at every opportunity—as any shadow sword would—to have earned such a punishment. Bryn had already demonstrated her bravery by leading the other females off the station and defending her mate from Jace. He had no doubt that she would have dueled him in the med bay if Dr. Morgan hadn’t sedated her.

  Soth’s brow furrowed. “That’s a shame, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be a mate. No law against it. Not in House Sunsinger, anyway. Can’t speak for the Morningstars.”

  “Would you mate with a female who couldn’t give you children?” she asked Soth.

  “Doesn’t bother me. But I’m not sure that I could support two mates at once,” he admitted. “They don’t pay me the big money.”

  “I support myself. Captain Hawke has reinstated my commission, provided the doctor clears me for duty.”

  Soth nodded. “I’m also concerned about mating with a female who might run me through if she’s pissed.”

  “If you hit me, or her, I will hit back. We’ve been abused enough by our masters. I won’t stand for it from a mate.” Bryn squared her shoulders and glared at them.

  “Fair enough,” Soth said.

  Jace pondered his father’s reaction if he brought home not one but two former whores as his new mates, one of whom was incapable of producing heirs. Then again Jace wasn’t in need of heirs, considering that he had nothing to inherit unless something unfortunate happened to Wylarric. Unlike his brother, Jace loved his family enough not to kill one of them to obtain power.

  “I would be open to the idea of taking you both as mates,” Jace said, “but I cannot offer you full rights as a mate. My house does not allow it.”

  “Figures. What can you offer?”

  The corners of Jace’s mouth twitched with a grim smile as he thought of his sister Andelynn, who referred to the Morningstar mating rights laws as the “heir incentive package”. The more children a mate produced, the greater her access to the family’s finances. Andee hated their house’s policies on the rights—or lack thereof—of female mates, and had spoken out against them for years. Wylarric, on the other hand, seemed to revel in any rule that kept his mates as powerless as possible.

  “I can grant Sabine full rights,” Jace said, “but though I am not in need of heirs, the rules of my house are centered on rewarding fertility.”

  “And punishing sterility, right. So you want Sabine strictly for her womb?” she asked.

  Direct. He respected that. “I think my reasons for desiring Sabine should be obvious, considering her condition.”

  “So you’d take any female in phase you happened upon as a mate?”

  “Perhaps. She is only the second female I’ve encountered in phase,” Jace said.

  “Don’t get out much, do you? From the lack of mate marks I assume you let the first one go.”

  “I stopped pursuing her out of respect for the captain,” Jace explained.

  His brow furrowed at the memory of how close he had come to taking Talena as his mate. They had shared one erotic moment, both drugged with phase pheromones and the exquisite sensation of a Cy’ren’s bite, before being rudely parted by Captain Hawke. After that, the captain had become romantically involved with Talena and Dack, and Jace had forced himself to stay away. Fighting the lure of Talena’s phase had been a difficult battle—one that he doubted the captain knew he had faced. But Captain Hawke was vital to the resistance, and to the ship, and Jace had refused to risk his already tenuous relationship with her.

  Bryn studied him thoughtfully. Her eyes were an odd shade of green, almost teal. Aqua, he decided, continuing the ocean theme. Her hair even had a silver shade to it, like moonlight on the water… Jace rubbed his face wearily, deciding that the phase pheromones must have truly affected his mind if he was rhapsodizing about a female who had threatened to run him through. The faded remnants of Sabine’s scent filled Jace with the desire to grab Brynnaren a
nd bite her. A Morningstar mate mark would look lovely against that azure skin…

  “And you?” Bryn peered past Jace at Commander Soth, who was calmly polishing the barrel of the disassembled pistol.

  “Been with a few females in phase before, but none of them got pregnant, so I never took a mate,” Soth replied simply. “I’m not getting any younger. I’d like to have a family.”

  “But why with Sabine?” she asked. “Neither of you knows a thing about her other than she’s in phase. She and I chose each other as mates with no phase pheromones involved.”

  Jace swallowed the obvious reply that Sabine was not her mate, as though he could hear the captain cursing him for his lack of tact. Instead, he chose a more diplomatic route. “You can’t end Sabine’s phase. I can.”

  “Congratulations. You have a cock. You must be so proud.”

  Commander Soth erupted into hearty laughter as Jace blinked, stunned.

  “On second thought, I think I like this one,” Soth said.

  Jace cleared his throat. “I have thought of other reasons, if you’ll let me explain.” During the past few hours his pheromone-addled mind conjured numerous justifications for why he suddenly needed not just a mate, but Sabine in particular. Though he did well as a shadow sword, politics had always been his first love, and he would rather fight with words than weapons any day—though in his experience, both were likely to get one killed.

  “Go on,” Lieutenant Viera said.

  Jace paused—this wasn’t a simple subject, and not one that he was eager to discuss. Wylarric’s paranoia ran deep enough that he had arranged two assassination attempts, and having had the good fortune to survive them, Jace kept his distance from Cyprena to avoid provoking a third. He couldn’t bring himself to harm his brother, and he knew that no amount of oaths on his part would ever convince Wylarric that he had no intention of taking rule of the house.

  Though Jace enjoyed being a shadow sword, the life of a spacer didn’t agree with him, but it was better than no life at all. Wylarric’s mates had given him only daughters, so until he produced an heir, Jace remained a threat to his future lordship of House Morningstar. If Jace took a mate, she would be in constant danger on Cyprena—but with a fierce shadow sword like Bryn to protect her, Sabine would be safe from harm. As a lesser mate, Bryn wouldn’t draw as much attention, particularly if it was clear to the rest of the family that Bryn wasn’t capable of producing heirs. This might work…