Did he really have the guts to broach such a life-changing subject?
Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind of the vision of Noah and Alivia his for the taking and concentrated on the fact that they needed to get the hell out of here.
“Noah! Alivia!” he called out. Both looked up at him. “We have to go. Now.”
Noah stood up. “What’s wrong, Ronan?”
He shot a quick look at Alivia. “Pops was murdered.”
Alivia gasped. “Are you saying someone was murdered because of me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
She nodded. “If I’ve brought trouble to you then I am sorry.”
He brought his hand up and ran the back of his fingers over her soft cheek. “Noah and I will protect you. My ship is fast so we’ll get you to Marvala as quickly as possible. But you’ve got to tell us who we’re running from.”
“I don’t know,” she implored. “Honestly. But I’ll tell you everything.”
“Okay. Go help Noah pack our stuff. I’ll say good-bye to Valin and then get the ship ready to launch.”
Noah grabbed her hand and they hurried back inside. Ronan followed after but went into the kitchen where Valin was packing food.
“We’ll be leaving shortly,” he told the doctor. “Thank you for all your help.”
“She should be fine,” Valin said. He held out a small brown vial. “For her throat, just three drops in water until the rasp is out of her voice. Other than that, her vitals are all normal and her body has flushed out the tynilium.”
“You going to be okay?”
“Sure. I’ll camp out on the ridge and keep a lookout. Once whoever is coming discovers you’re long gone I should be safe.”
He held out his hand. “We’re going to take her home, so vidscreen me if you need anything.”
Valin shook his hand firmly. “Will do.”
* * * *
They flew out half an hour later. For Alivia, the experience was better than the first time she’d flown through space. Then she’d been frightened for her home, for her family, for what was about to happen to her. Now, she could sit back and marvel at the wonders of space.
“It’s so big,” she murmured. “I don’t think I noticed that the first time.”
“The Cold Lands are going to seem fucking small pretty soon,” he told her. “To get to Marvala quickly, we have to go through the center.”
“Is that bad?”
“On a scale of one to ten it’s an eleven,” he answered.
“Oh.”
“Let’s hope we can slip through undetected.”
“Is that a probability?”
“More like a big fucking impossibility.”
“Oh.”
Chapter Ten
It took Valin about two hours to hike to the lookout point surrounding Jag Wild Crater. The crater had been made millions of years ago during what had surely been a planet-wide devastation event. It was so large that it was hard to see the other side. But the bowl of the crater housed thousands of kinds of amazing plant life that he was researching for potential medicinal uses.
He set up his small pup tent and sleep bag and then made himself comfortable as he watched his home through a pair of binoculars. Three hours later he was rewarded by seeing a small ship set down on the landing pad. He followed the movements of the pilot as the man methodically searched every part of the living quarters and laboratory. Valin had kept the cold coffin partly because Ronan and Noah had been in a hurry to put distance between them and this dude trailing them, and stuffing that fucking thing back into the cargo hold would have been a bitch. But mainly he wanted it for parts. Many of the wires and systems he could adapt for his own use.
He hoped the asshole didn’t bust it up.
He saw the pilot come out and put his hands on his hips as he turned in a slow circle, seemingly taking every detail in and analyzing it. Valin could see the thoughtfulness on the man’s face. For a second, it seemed the man centered in on Valin’s hiding space, staring straight at him.
But that was ridiculous. He was too far away for the man to see him.
At least he hoped to hell he was.
* * * *
The pilot pulled beside the darkened cottage that seemed half laboratory and half living quarters. He got the sense it had been abandoned quickly since there wasn’t an air of neglect about the place, which meant he’d missed someone. The two fuckers had been warned he was coming. Perhaps the female medic had known more than she let on.
He walked through the darkened rooms and saw the cryo chamber that the girl had been in, confirming that she had, indeed, been awoken. He stared at the empty coffin with mixed emotions, wishing like hell he could have saved her. But the king would never relent, never allow her to live.
A beep came through his com and he connected the call.
“Where is she?” asked the man on the other end.
“I missed her at this location,” the pilot informed. “Not by much, a few hours I think.”
“She cannot get away,” the man stressed. “She cannot come to Marvala.”
“I know.”
“Deal with it. I’ll deal with issues on this end. One way or another, Marvala will get the ruler it deserves.”
“I’ll find her.”
The com link went dead as the call ended.
As the pilot walked back outside he looked around the nighttime landscape and felt someone’s eyes on him. He switched on his neural net and brought up his nighttime eyesight, slowly scanning the tall ridge wall of the crater until his gaze landed on the man holding a pair of binoculars. A second later the man startled and ducked out of sight.
If that’s the way he wanted to play it, so be it.
The pilot got into his ship, lifted and flew away. After a far enough distance where his engines couldn’t be detected, he found a clearing to park. Even though his ship may be small, the size came in handy for tight landings. He departed and slipped into the jungle, silently making his way back to the homestead on foot.
* * * *
Valin watched as the man flew away with a sigh of relief. That pilot hadn’t been just a man on a scouting mission. He’d been a warrior, a hunter. He hoped like hell that man never caught up to his friends.
Just to be cautious, Valin waited a couple of hours to make sure the coast was clear. Then he packed up his tent and supplies and headed home. He could’ve just spent the night on the ridge but he wanted to send a message out to Ronan. He only hoped like hell he and Noah weren’t out of vidscreen range.
He entered the laboratory and looked around to see if the hunter had disturbed anything, but nothing seemed moved or out of place. Even the cryo chamber seemed to be untouched.
Valin set his backpack down and moved from the lab section into the house, opening the door that led to the kitchen. And as soon as he stepped inside, the barrel of a blaster pressed hard against his temple. Valin froze, knowing at this close range the weapon would blow his head clean off.
“Where did they go?”
The hunter’s voice was rough, as if he didn’t talk enough to exercise his vocal cords.
“Who?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” the pilot warned. “Two men named John and Jim.”
“They left.”
“When?” The blaster pressed harder. “I asked when!”
“A couple of hours before you showed up.”
“What about the girl?”
“What girl?”
The man slammed Valin’s head into the wall and his nose broke with a sharp snap. Valin cried out in pain as blood poured like a faucet over his mouth and down his chin. He cupped his nose, his eyes tearing up and leaking down his cheek. It took him a moment to make sure he wasn’t going to pass out from the pain.
“Oh,” he gasped through the agony. “That girl. They said they were taking her home but I swear I don’t know where that is!”
“Don’t wo
rry,” the man said. “I do.”
As he took a step back and aimed his blaster, Valin hit a button on his watch. Bright, eye-hurting light flooded the room. The man threw his hand up to shield his eyes, groping around since he was all but blind. A second later the lights turned off and the man blinked, trying to get rid of the red haze that would have messed up the cones in his eyes.
Valin had designed the system as a last resort against intruders since he was all alone out here in the jungle. By activating it, the lights had given him a few seconds to disappear, although from his hiding spot he could easily see the hunter and track his whereabouts.
“Well played, Doctor,” the man called out. “Be glad I’m on a time schedule.”
The man turned and stormed out of the house. Valin listened carefully from his location under the floor and heard an engine roar to life and then fade away. But he would be a little more cautious this time around. He needed to fix his nose, warn Ronan and Noah, and either get a fucking guard dog or a damn bigger gun.
Chapter Eleven
The first day in space Alivia didn’t move from her seat. Fear and worry had played a mighty battle inside her, and she’d been afraid she’d be sick if she moved a muscle.
Noah helped her calm down.
He sat with her, talked with her, assured her Pops’s death wasn’t her fault.
That had become a heavy burden on her heart, especially when she didn’t understand why any of this was happening. Why had she been left alone for thirty-one years in a cryo coffin? Would she have been forgotten? Would she have just died when the energy supply ran out?
Would anyone have cared?
Eventually, she loosened up enough to start smiling at Noah’s jokes, even enough to allow some of his comfort to ease the abandoned feeling gnawing at her insides.
That night she got to taste the canned rations living in space produced. Some ships, bigger cruise vessels, had refrigeration and what not, but being a salvage ship didn’t allow for much space. The cargo hold, being the most important aspect, had taken every available square inch possible. Logical, really, since the more it could hold the more money they could make.
The quarters were even smaller, or at least hers were. Ronan and Noah headed to their bed and she got a little bunk that folded down from the wall. She lay in bed that night trying to listen to them making love, but couldn’t really hear anything through the walls. It left her feeling a bit frustrated. They had been so beautiful, so close, and she envied that, having had nothing like it growing up.
The next morning she was up early, although it was hard to say when it was day or night on a ship. All she had to go by was the clock. She fixed herself some coffee and put her throat medicine in it. The last vestiges of the tynilium seemed to have left her system. Her joints felt fine, no pain in her spine, her stomach seemed able to digest again, and her throat barely hurt. It was almost as if those thirty-one years had never happened.
Almost.
She got to thinking of her nannies and of her mother. Her mother had visited her every couple of months, checking to see how she was progressing in her studies or excelling in her extracurricular activities, like water coloring. The visits were always short and nice, and they always had left Alivia hungering for more.
What would it have felt like to snuggle onto her mother’s lap?
Or to have her mother wish her a happy birthday?
Or to have her mother praise her for…something, anything?”
Not that she blamed her mother for the inadequacies of each visit. Her mother was, after all, a queen. Taking care of a child simply wasn’t as important as ruling a kingdom.
“Are you hungry?” Noah asked, startling her from her deep thoughts.
She blinked. “No. Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“Don’t worry about that hunter.”
“What?”
“That hunter back on Outpost Four.”
She hadn’t really thought about him, trusting in Ronan and Noah to take care of her. “Did we lose him?”
“There’s no one following us,” Ronan assured her as he also came into the small galley. “And right now we’re on a straight course through the Cold Lands. It’s the fastest way to reach Marvala.”
She nodded, her thoughts turning back to yesterday and the man who had died. Why was this man, this hunter, after her? It had to be because she was brought out of cryo stasis, that was too much of a coincidence, but why now? She’d been an easy target crashed upon that moon. Her eyes flashed between Noah and Ronan. Were they in trouble because of her? She couldn’t stand the thought of them being hurt because of her and she shivered a bit, glad to be sitting down.
Ronan squatted next to her and took her hand in his, the thumb gently caressing the patch of skin near her thumb. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head and tears welled up in her eyes. She felt herself losing control. Ronan set her mug down and pulled her into his arms.
“It’s going to be fine, Alivia,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “We’ve got you now. We’ll protect you.”
“I feel helpless,” she sobbed into his chest. She gripped his shirt tightly, holding on for dear life. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Shh,” he whispered and rocked her. She felt Noah’s hand gently rub circles on her back. Eventually, her tears subsided as she felt pity and sorrow give way to feelings of safety and security.
“Please don’t leave me,” she begged softly.
“We won’t,” Ronan assured.
She pulled away to look into his eyes. “Everyone I’ve known has left me. I’ve been hidden all my life. Please don’t leave me like that. I don’t want to be forgotten anymore.”
She glanced at Noah and saw the same type of mixed emotions she felt and knew he was a kindred soul. He understood what she was trying to say. But as she looked back at Ronan, she saw a fleeting wariness flash across his face and knew she would have to figure out something to make sure he wouldn’t leave her behind.
Before she knew what she was doing, she placed both her hands on his cheeks, closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him on the mouth. His lips were soft, full, lush against her own. She felt something come to life deep in her heart but wasn’t quite sure what it was. He didn’t respond to her kiss at first. In fact, he’d immediately grabbed her upper arms as if he wanted to push her away. But she pressed her body closer to his, refusing to let him slip away. She didn’t understand why she had this desire to stay with these two men, but her instincts were telling her that she had to be by their side.
Before she realized what was happening, the kiss changed. It was taken out of her hands as Ronan licked the seam of her lips, making her gasp. He seized the moment by slipping his tongue inside her mouth. All rational thoughts fled as his kiss overwhelmed all her comprehension skills.
His tongue found hers, caressing it with tantalizing strokes. The taste of him exploded in her mouth, a heady mixture of spice and mint and all male. His kiss was sin and heaven at the same time, turning her body into one hot pulse of want and need. She was lost in its depth, craving more with every beat of her heart. And just when she thought she would pass out from lack of oxygen, he broke the kiss. Panting, she gaped up at him, her heart thundering in her chest.
Only he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was fixed firmly on Noah over her shoulder. It dawned on her that she’d just kissed Ronan in front of Noah.
What have I done!
Horror washed through her. The last thing she ever wanted to do was bring trouble between these two men. Eyes wide, she turned to look at Noah.
“It’s okay,” Noah assured, his blue eyes soft with comprehension. “Ronan, I touched her yesterday morning.”
“What?”
“I made her come in my hand,” he admitted calmly. “I tasted her.”
Ronan’s brow wrinkled. “You feel it, too?”
“Yeah. That’s never happened to me before. At least, not with a woman. I felt it immediately
with you, of course. And now with her.”
“I was afraid you’d be pissed.”
“I thought you’d be disappointed.”
“Oh no, baby,” Ronan murmured. “But this changes things. Doesn’t it?”
“Yes. We’re going to have to talk about our hard limits again.”
Alivia felt herself torn apart as her gaze bounced back and forth between them. She didn’t understand the byplay between them, other than the fact that Noah was relating what happened in the bed on Outpost Four and Ronan wasn’t mad.
Suddenly, a warning alert pealed over the com system. Alivia felt herself dumped on the floor as Ronan jumped to his feet and raced away. Noah followed after him. Her heart now pounding for a whole different reason, she rose and hurried after them. They were back in the cockpit, frantically checking sensors and monitors. She eased down into an empty seat behind Noah and strapped herself in.
“Fucking hell!” Noah yelled. “Large energy signature coming up fast starboard side.”
“I see it,” Ronan said grimly. “What type of ship is it?”
“Patchwork,” Noah replied. “Can’t use design flaws on it.”
“Shit! Okay. Start defensive maneuvers. When it gets a little closer, let’s see if our modifications out modify theirs.”
Alivia gripped the armrests on her seat tightly as she stared out the view screen. Everything looked calm and peaceful, belying the tension that suddenly drenched the cockpit. She’d heard what Ronan and Noah had said but it was hard to believe that they were suddenly under attack.
And then the ship rocked.
“Just a graze!” Noah shouted. “It bounced off our shielding.”
“They’re targeting our engines,” Ronan said grimly. “Probably using heat-seeking blasts. Deploy—”
He broke off as the ship rocked and then lurched.
“Fuck!” he yelled. “Deploy the decoys!”
“Already on it!”
Ronan’s body twisted as he flew and Alivia could feel the ship lurching this way and that. The ship seemed to get bumped again, but nothing like the last time. Even though her body froze with fear, she felt a calmness descend over her, as if preparing herself for the end. She could die right now. Part of her rebelled but another part asked why the hell it mattered she stay alive now when everything she knew was gone.
Sleeping Beauty (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 7
