TICEES

by Mills, Shae

  Chelan pulled away from him, frenzied by his agony. “Shhh,” she cooed as she moved to cradle his head. She looked down at him, his contorted face tearing at her heart. She held him a long time until his breathing once again eased and his hand left his chest. When she felt he had recovered, she released him and drew her gown back up over her. “I see you are still a fool,” she chided.

  Fremma looked at her as his lips quirked. “A fool in love,” he whispered.

  Chelan watched him as his eyes closed. “Our time will come, my love. We just have to be patient.”

  They lay quietly and unspeaking all afternoon as Fremma drifted in and out of sleep. Finally, Chelan began to wonder about Korba’s return. She sat up, and Fremma’s eyes opened to her. “Can I help you undress or get you anything before I go?”

  “No,” he smiled. “I just need some more rest.”

  “What about Dr. Stose? Maybe we should get you something for the pain.”

  He shook his head. “No medications. I am fine.” He reached for her, and his fingers feathered over her face. “You are the only drug I require.”

  Chelan’s heart liquefied. She took his hand in hers and pressed his fingers to her lips. “I will return tomorrow. Dredon may also be here to help me with the gown for the Koll, if that is okay?”

  Fremma nodded weakly. “So, Korba presents you then, does he?”

  Chelan detected the hint of bitterness in his words, and she touched his cheek gently, not at all sure what to say.

  Fremma looked at her, a small smile returning. “I will be there,” he whispered. “I would not miss your introduction to our people for the galaxy. I know you will be stunning.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. She leaned over and kissed him tenderly. “I love you, my dear warrior.”

  “I love you, sweet lady,” and he squeezed her hand. “Until tomorrow?”

  Chelan smiled and nodded. Then she left his bed and hurried back to the Command Center.

  Once there, she went straight to the shower. Chelan knew Korba had granted her permission with his blessings to be intimate with Fremma, and he knew they had been together all afternoon. But she would wash Fremma’s scent from her body out of her Earthly respect for Korba, for his keen senses would not fail in detecting it.

  It was late by the time she finished showering, and Chelan was tired. It was Iceanean night, and she had been awake all day with no naps. Even when she had lain with Fremma, she was too happy to be in his arms to let sleep rob her of any precious time with him. Now she was exhausted.

  She didn’t bother to put on her gown as she left the workout area and entered the sleeping chambers, immediately crawling into the massive, cool bed. She had no sooner closed her eyes than she sensed a figure looming over her. Chelan turned and looked up into Korba’s glowing azure gaze.

  Despite her fatigue, her body stirred. She did not speak, but her unspent desire kindled by Fremma consumed her.

  Korba sat on the bed and followed her every move with his catlike eyes as she slipped from the sheets and knelt beside him. “I see you are going to interfere with my sleep, my Lady.”

  Chelan did not answer. She peered at him coyly and reached down through his shroud. Her fingers brushed over his male softness, and then she stopped. “Speak now your objections, my Lord, or forever hold your peace.”

  She watched him closely in the dim light, but he remained still and silent. Then his eyes lit with a blue flame, betraying his response and his wishes.

  Korba grabbed her sensuous body. His appetite for her had hit him soon after he left her in the morning, and near the end of his meeting he could barely contain himself. Thoughts of lavishing himself with her full femininity and plunging into her deep warmth had plagued him all day long, and now his time had come.

  With potent grace, he rose and deftly turned her to her stomach, pressing her into the bed. Taking the time only to remove his gloves, he spread her legs wide. He lay over her and sheathed himself deeply in one indulgent thrust. Chelan gasped, tilting her shapely bottom toward him, encouraging him to take her deeper still. His hands slipped under her, clasping her full breasts and squeezing her nipples hard.

  He penetrated her several times before rising to his knees, his hands lifting her hips with him. He looked down, his swollen member embedded deep in her slippery folds. She buried her face in the pillows as he reached around her hips to her ripe flesh, stroking her, teasing her, tantalizing her until she exploded around him. She raised her head and cried out, her muscles clenching hard.

  Not waiting for her tremors to subside, he held her hips firmly with one hand and fisted her hair with the other, drawing her tightly to him. He plunged deep, his shroud enveloping them both, his need primal. There was nothing gentle about this lovemaking. He sought release within her, and his thrusts were unrelenting.

  Chelan welcomed it all as his impacts sent waves of pleasure throughout her body. And just as she came again, he cleaved into her hard, a guttural purr of satisfaction rising from his chest as he orgasmed. He released her hair, and she sagged down to the bed, taking him with her. They were both exhausted, both thoroughly sated, and neither wished to move from one another, ever.

  Chapter 2

  Korba awoke first, feeling refreshed and ready to assume his command, but he knew there was no rush. The Rigilean battle had been one of the fiercest he had ever fought, and he had come closer to death than ever before. To spend as much time as possible with his woman was a gift, a gift he had almost forfeited, and he was determined to savor as many precious moments with her as he could. He would wait for Chelan to awaken, and in the meantime, he was more than content to lie quietly beside her.

  He wondered how it had gone with Fremma the day before, realizing that Chelan would have been ecstatic to see the warrior up and around. He was also perceptive enough to notice her pent-up need, and had therefore deduced that Fremma was still not entirely well. Korba had witnessed the desire Fremma possessed for Chelan when they had played the war game in the Command Center only a few days previous, and Korba knew that only severe pain would have prevented Fremma from taking her. That was, of course, assuming Chelan would follow through on her commitment to the man. But Korba knew that Chelan would remain as true to her word as he was to his.

  Korba smiled as she stirred. He caressed her cool, exposed arm, hearing her murmur contentedly at his touch. She turned and looked up at him dreamily. “Morning,” she whispered.

  “Morning.” He bent over and kissed her tenderly.

  “Today’s the day, hey?” she commented lazily. “My Lord once again becomes Lord of his ship.”

  “Uh huh,” he breathed, his mind intent on her rather than his impending command.

  Chelan’s expression changed suddenly. She reached for his smooth face and stroked his cheek. “Will I see much of you?”

  Korba’s lip quirked. “You will see plenty of me, Chelan. You will be by my side often after the Koll, learning our ways, meeting my people, and sharing my time while I am on duty.”

  Chelan had not considered the fact that she had seen so little of Dar and Fremma over her long months on RIBUS 7 and 8 because of the secrecy surrounding her. She was not allowed to attend them outside of the Command Center. Once Korba presented her, that would no longer be a restricting factor. Chelan rolled to him, hugging tightly into his warm chest.

  She snuggled into him, content to languish against him for an eternity, but soon her curiosity was piqued. There was a change about her black-haired Warlord. She could not pinpoint it exactly, but it was as if a sense of calm or an all-consuming serenity had enveloped him. Chelan had expected him to be anxious about his command, but instead she felt that somehow he had been reborn, a true inner peace permeating from him as he held her, his caress gentle and unhurried, his breathing soft.

  Chelan looked up into his tranquil face and his brilliant blue eyes opened to hers. She continued to study him, searching for clues to the aura of pure harmony that surrounded him. He smiled
at her and then slipped down from the pillows, nestling her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Chelan held her breath, why she was not sure, but there was an air of anticipation in the room. Then, as if on cue, he spoke.

  “I talked to Stose yesterday,” he whispered.

  Chelan suddenly felt butterflies in her stomach, and her heart nearly stopped. She closed her eyes. Just hearing the doctor’s name threw her instantly into upheaval.

  “The genetic tests were nearly flawless, Chelan.”

  She exhaled sharply, relief washing over her.

  “There were some problem areas, but most of them require defective mates to cause issues in offspring, and I have none.”

  Chelan remained speechless as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands caressed his skin and stroked his long, iridescent hair.

  “Stose also mentioned that you carried some genes that make you susceptible to some forms of illness, and he wants to be able to watch you closely over the years. As far as any effects on a baby because of this, our technology will take care of that. His and my concern right now is you.”

  Chelan finally pushed off of him and looked down into his azure eyes. “Like what sort of illness?” she whispered.

  Korba smiled. “Like nothing you should worry about. We can take care of it all.”

  Chelan smiled back, but she was not letting him off the hook. “It’s my body. Like what?” she pressed.

  Korba submitted. “Like a genetic tendency toward depression, a chemically induced depression.”

  Chelan straightened slightly and looked at him sheepishly. “Gee, I hadn’t noticed that one.”

  Korba chuckled. “Well, I’m afraid that a lot of what you have felt since you came to us has been our doing. But with you, there is also an imbalance present that we can address if necessary.” He looked into her large, bright eyes. “If your world had been subjected to centuries of extremely restrictive genetic controls, with the most up-to-date and advanced genetic engineering at your disposal, all conditions like this would have disappeared from your people long ago. But since the breeding on Earth is random and unchecked, it is to be expected.”

  Chelan slumped back down onto his chest. “Okay, give me the rest of the good news,” she quipped sarcastically.

  Korba chuckled again as he stoked her long, slender back. “Actually, considering the abhorrent mating practices of your world, you’ve come out pretty clean. The only other notable problem area was a genetic susceptibility to some forms of cancer—”

  Chelan nearly crushed his chest as she leapt from the bed, her eyes wide with distress. “Cancer!” she cried. “Cancer kills!”

  Korba rose warily. “Chelan,” he gasped. “You’re not going to die of cancer.”

  Chelan stood very still, her eyes pleading with his. “What are you talking about? You just told me that it has been predetermined that I am susceptible to cancer, and you expect me to be calm?”

  Korba shook his head at her. He reached for her and dragged her onto his lap, cradling her. “I expect you to talk to me about this. I don’t understand the intensity of your reaction. I told you that Stose would watch you.”

  Chelan looked up at him. “What kind of cancer?” she asked with quiet restraint. “Can you tell?”

  Korba shrugged. “Yes, we can tell, but what does it matter? In our world, cancer is cancer.”

  “Of course it matters!” she exclaimed with frustration. “What if it’s breast or ovarian cancer! Thousands of women die from those each year, and the cure rate for ovarian, even if caught in time, is bleak at best.”

  Korba was rendered temporarily speechless. He smoothed his hand over her face and down her neck, looking deep into her troubled eyes. “Chelan, what do they do on Earth if you have breast cancer?”

  Chelan shuddered. “It depends on the type, its aggressiveness, and the stage at which it is caught. Sometimes they remove the affected breast completely, along with all the underlying chest muscles and the lymph nodes. Although now, such a radical procedure is a little less common. Some women will require radiation or powerful drugs that poison any remaining cells systemically. We call it chemotherapy, but it can make you very ill. And even if you are declared cured, you spend the rest of your life living in fear of a recurrence.”

  Korba felt a tremor run through his body at the description of the archaic butchery that the women of her world endured, and he sought to quell her fears. “Chelan, that will never happen to you. Genetically based cancers have been eliminated from our people, but we still encounter various types of environmentally induced carcinomas and some aberrant cell mutations that may occur as we age. Regardless, our technology for dealing with them is the same. What Stose will do with you is what is done with all our people, only he will keep a closer eye on you. I suspect that he will want to test you once a year or more for cancer cells. The first step toward that end will be a simple blood test. We can screen for nearly every type of cancer that way. Then, to make sure that nothing has been missed, he will take the genetic coding of your normal cells and prepare what we call a tagging code. In other words, he will manufacture a chemical using your DNA that is compatible with your normal cells and body chemistry. Every few years, he injects you with this substance, and it travels around your body, ignoring properly coded cells and attaching itself to abnormal ones. Then, with a sophisticated scanner, all the tagged cells show up.”

  Korba paused, watching her facial muscles relax and her eyes widen with interest. “If there are abnormal cells, you are injected with a similar tagging chemical, only this time, he will have added a heat-sensitive polymer that incorporates itself directly into the genetic structure of the originally tagged cells, no matter where they are in your body. Then you are given a small dose of a harmless virus, one that will force your body temperature to rise to a critical point that activates the heat-sensitive polymer. The abnormal cells simply self-destruct. The whole process takes maybe a couple of days. But, outside of going to his office for the shots, you’re up and around and doing everything normally throughout the whole procedure.”

  He smiled broadly at her. “Chelan, cancer does not kill my people, and it will never hurt you.” He looked down at her as she lay in his lap, her beautiful body exposed to him. His smile turned salacious as his hand smoothed over her soft fullness. “And believe me, no one is going to take these beautiful breasts from you, or from me.”

  Chelan twisted away from him, instantly self-conscious of his predatory gaze. But Korba caught her by the arms and pulled her back to him. He kissed her lips gently and hugged her to him. “So, you see,” he whispered, “you have nothing to fear, my Lady. We will take care of you.”

  Relief infused her, and she sagged into his steel-hard body, curling up contentedly in his firm embrace. Then he tilted her chin up and looked lovingly into her eyes. “And I have even better news,” he uttered.

  He drew her away slightly, his warm eyes coursing over her expectant face. His hand travelled down her silky skin and over her nicely toned abdomen, where it came to rest.

  Chelan looked down at his bronze hand, his fingers splayed out over her soft, white flesh. Her hand slipped over his, and their eyes met.

  Korba kissed her pink lips, and then he looked down at their hands, their fingers entwined in everlasting love. His voice was saturated with emotion. “Stose says we may have a child whenever we wish.”

  Chelan threw her arms around him, and they clung to one another, both processing the implications of Stose’s words. Then Korba lay back and rolled with her, his powerful arms squeezing her to him as if he never wanted to let her go. For the first time in countless years, he truly felt fulfilled.

  They lay together for a long time, both of them deep in thought, both of them trying to recover enough to speak. Chelan finally looked up into his eyes and took a breath. “When?”

  Korba remained silent for a time as pondered the future and its inherent uncertainty. “Not for a while, Chelan. First I have to find out why we have been s
ummoned home.” He brushed long strands of her silky hair from her face. “My future must be well planned, for I have decided that I will not leave your side while you are pregnant with my child.”

  Chelan peered up at him. “That’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “You know Stose would take good care of me.”

  “Yes, I know he would. But I do not trust the Breeders. I have caused them too many problems in the past. You could not be out of my direct protection from the time the decision is made, from conception through to the birth. There is no other way.”

  Chelan could only shake her head at him. “You worry too much, my Lord,” she affirmed.

  “I fear not, Chelan. But, once you are comfortable with Iceanea, and the Emperor has come to know you, then I will request two years of leave.” He lowered his voice and smiled. “And then, at that point, we can begin the whole beautiful process.”

  “Two years,” she blurted. “But this is your career. It is your life. You were born and bred to fight. You were—”

  Korba placed a firm finger to her lips. “No, Chelan. You are my life, and I want the two years, two Iceanean years. The first will be for us, your pregnancy and the birth, and the second will be for the three of us. After that, I will return to Ticees’ service, my capacity moderated.”

  Chelan could only continue to shake her head. But she knew she could not dissuade him from his decision, for no doubt he had thought it out well. But she was unexpectedly assaulted by a flurry of conflicting feelings. She loved him for his obvious devotion, but at the same time she felt a deeply rooted sense of guilt for taking him away from his first love, his career. Suddenly, she hesitated about having his child. She did not want him to come to resent her for the confinement he was bound to experience. Yet she knew how much it would hurt him if she refused.

  Korba watched her closely. ”I know what you are thinking. I will not feel trapped by you, my beautiful woman. But I could not go out into the battlefield and survive with my mind still at home in your arms. I would worry constantly for your health, both because of the Breeders and because of the pregnancy itself. I would want to be there should any problems arise, and …” he hesitated as he struggled with unfamiliar emotions, and he drew in a deep breath “… and I could not bear to miss the birth.”