His turn to gasp then, and with a growl he pushed her down on the bed, needing to taste her and feel her, to reassure himself that they were alive, that she was his. Her hand slipped away from him, but he ignored that for the moment, driven only by the desire to bury his face between her legs, to touch his tongue to the delicate nub there. She cried out as he licked her, but then he felt her shifting beneath him, moving so she could take him into her mouth as well, her lips closing around him, tongue gliding over the sensitive flesh at his tip.
All the blood in his body seemed to be drawn there, to the pulsing core of his being. He knew she could make him come so easily, but he didn’t want that — not yet, anyway. So he turned his focus to pleasuring her, to circling that delectable little knot of flesh with his tongue, using quick, feathery movements, the way he knew she liked it. Her moans reverberated along the length of his shaft, and he felt it then, felt her spasm against him, tasted the flood of her juices, that nectar he desired more than anything.
And as she lay there, breasts rising and falling with her jagged breaths, he took her by her tiny waist, turned her over so he could run his hands over the smooth white flesh of her lovely backside, then pushed into her wetness and womanliness from there, hearing the sharp intake of her breath as he took her, pounded into her, felt her move with his rhythm, all the need and heat and desire in his body swirling down, down, to the sensation of her flesh tight against his, fitting better than any woman ever had and ever would.
He came then, a groan tearing itself from his throat, guttural and harsh. She clenched around him, pulsing, her own orgasm coming a second or two after his, her body still rocking with his, drawing every drop from him, until at last he pulled out and fell onto his side, still gasping, and she nuzzled up against him, her face buried in his flesh, her mouth showering kisses into his chest, his stomach.
In that moment he knew he loved her, loved her with a searing intensity that surprised even him. Women there had been before, but never one like this.
He wouldn’t allow himself to reflect on the irony of finding the true mate of his heart among the enemies of his people. Instead, he only held her close, held her as her soft little rain of kisses died away, and she slept in his arms, quiet, trusting, her hair a spill of dark silk across her shoulders, caressing the curve of her breasts.
Dream well, heart of my heart. For I will be here to make sure you come to no harm.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Charybdis Shoals lay approximately ten thousand light-years away from the Gaian system, and since navigating the area was tricky — odd gravitational fluxes, clouds of gas, constantly morphing asteroid fields — most starships stayed far, far away. No planets here, nothing of any interest…unless you were looking for a quiet, dark corner to plot your next move.
Rast still slept in the cabin, tangled up in Gared Tomas’s ridiculously expensive sheets, but Lira had wakened a few hours after they’d made love and quietly slid out of bed, making her way for the cockpit. No reason the ship’s automated functions couldn’t handle the drop out of subspace on their own, but because the Shoals could be treacherous, she wanted to make sure she was there at the moment of realspace arrival, just in case.
The Chinook didn’t even shiver as the swirling colors of non-orthogonal space dropped away, and unfamiliar constellations formed around them. Through the viewscreen Lira saw ribbons of pale gas in shades of violet and blue, but they were strangely beautiful, and did not present any immediate threat. A quick scan of the instruments told her the region’s problematic asteroid fields were millions of miles away. The course that had brought them here had deposited the ship in a backwater of the Shoals, a place where they could linger unmolested for some time, if necessary.
So she and Rast were safe…for now, at least. Why, then, did she feel so uneasy?
Well, the sensation could have something to do with having just uncovered what could be a vast, galaxy-wide conspiracy…but somehow Lira knew that wasn’t the real problem. No, that was just a little closer to home…sleeping in the cabin down the hall, in point of fact.
Lying to herself was useless. No, she’d always prided herself on looking at things straight, even if she didn’t always like what she saw. And what she saw now was a man who should have been her enemy, and somehow had become the exact opposite.
Lover? Yes. He coaxed reactions from her body that she’d never experienced with anyone else. It would be easy enough to say that’s all it was — just a physical reaction. Chemistry. But that was a lie. Oh, not that they didn’t set off sparks between them hot enough to start a forest fire. There was far more to it than that, though.
Hard to admit it, but she actually liked him, liked his sense of humor and the sound of his voice and his gentle patience with Jerem. And somehow all those qualities made the whole situation that much more difficult, because it was a lot easier to dismiss a relationship based purely on sex than one that involved respect, even admiration. Long ago she’d given up on believing she’d ever meet someone who made her feel this way. She’d convinced herself that it was all right, because all she really cared about was being captain of a ship in the GDF, making a difference. Love and romance, kindred spirits, all that? It was for someone else, not Lira Jannholm. A fling here and there, to burn off the biological back-pressure when necessary, but the notion of love, real love, was something she’d dismissed years ago.
What a mess.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, trying to stave off the headache that threatened to build there. Not enough sleep, especially after the insanity of the firefight at the Thorn homestead and their precipitous flight away from Gaia. What she needed to do was focus, to figure out their next move. She and Rast couldn’t float out here forever, although at the moment the illusion of tranquility was more than a little seductive.
Somehow they’d have to try to track down whoever it was on Eridani that had suborned Admiral sen Trannick, find out why he’d been paid off in the first place. She had no idea how, though. As she’d told Rast, she was a pilot and a captain, not a spy or a hacker.
A hacker…
No use trying to get Miala Thorn’s help — her ex-merc of a husband had made it pretty clear that Lira and Rast would get a few warning shots across their bow if they attempted any further contact. However, she couldn’t overlook Jackson Wyler as a resource. Maybe now that they knew the root of the treachery had its source on Eridani, he could do a little more to help them. After all, he traded in information…and the revelation that the Eridanis were apparently behind the plot could be worth a good deal.
Another thing Jackson could help them with was new identities. She’d scrubbed the Chinook pretty well, and so far they’d more or less stayed off the grid, but if their search for the truth involved any sort of contact with the Gaian or Eridani governments, she’d have to make sure their records were flawless. Probably they’d need to get retinal realignment and fingerprint transplants, too, just to be safe.
So she opened a subspace channel to New Chicago, to the comm coordinates Jackson had given her, and sent him a ping. She had to hope it wasn’t too ungodly an hour in Michende — not that Jackson had ever paid all that much attention to diurnal patterns. He worked when the mood struck him, and if that was at 0400, then so be it. Just another reason he quit the Academy; he had never been able to maintain anything resembling a normal schedule.
Less than a minute went by before her ping was answered by a request to open a secure channel. She did so, entering the code Jackson sent her, and a second or two later his voice came over the comm unit. No video. Maybe he had been asleep.
“Miss me already?” he inquired.
Her mouth tightened. Just for once she’d like it if he took something seriously. “Sorry to disappoint you, Jackson, but actually I could use some more assistance.”
“Really? Am I going to have to send you a bill?”
“I doubt it. I have some information I think you might be int
erested in.”
“So my contact on Gaia worked out.”
“More or less,” Lira said, choosing her words with care, reminding herself that Jackson knew nothing of Miala Thorn’s identity, save that she was located on Gaia. “But before we go any further, Rast and I are going to need some new documentation — ”
“No problem,” Jackson cut in, sounding almost gleeful. “I know a guy on Miris Prime whose work is so beautiful it would make you weep.”
“I hope weeping won’t be necessary, but thank you.” She hesitated, not sure how many requests he’d be willing to handle at once. Still, they couldn’t function properly if they had to keep looking over their shoulder at all times, wondering who or what was going to jump them next. “Also, while we were on Gaia, we were attacked by a group of Bathshevan mercenaries — ”
“And lived to tell the tale?”
“Yes,” she said, her tone curt. No way she could explain that the only reason they’d survived their encounter was because Eryk Thorn had been there to provide defense. “They didn’t get the drop on us, luckily. However, it would really help if we knew who had hired them.”
“That I can do.” He was starting to sound happier than a kid who’d gotten a pony for Christmas. “Bathshevan security is notoriously sloppy. They’re great at killing. Computers? Not so much.” A pause, and then Jackson went on, “So that must be some information you’re sitting on, if you’re using it to bargain for all this other stuff.”
“It is.” Now it was her turn to hesitate. She knew the channel was secure, that Jackson had myriad ways of safeguarding all his transmissions, locking them down so hard he could give lessons to the GDF’s security people. Even so, saying such a thing to a person light-years away felt odd, as if somehow, despite all Jackson’s protocols and defenses, someone might manage to overhear what she was about to say. Her voice lowered, although she knew that was silly. It wasn’t as if anyone was in the next room, eavesdropping on her. She pushed her loose hair back over her shoulder, drew in a breath, and said, “The money behind sen Trannick? We traced it to Eridani.”
Dead silence, for one second, two, three… In fact, it stretched on so long that Lira began to wonder if the transmission had been cut off somehow.
Then Jackson said, “You’re serious.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Another silence. “Shit.”
That about sums it up. “Yes, Jackson, it’s big. So big that frankly, I don’t know what to do about it.” Her head throbbed again, and she reached up to rub her brow, wondering if she was going to have to dig a pain-tab out of the first aid cabinet. “Right now I’m trying to do this one step at a time. If I stop to think about the big picture, I’m just going to freak myself out.”
“You don’t freak out over anything.”
“Then this may be a first.”
“Okay,” he said, after another one of those pauses. “That’s some serious information you handed over. I may have to think up more things to do for you just to even the score.”
“That’s not necessary. Just your contact on Miris Prime is enough for starters, and we’ll worry about the Bathshevans after that.”
“Sending it over now.” Even across the light-years that separated them, Lira could practically feel the excitement coming off Jackson in waves. “I can’t wait to start digging into this. Now that I have an origin point — ”
“Sounds great,” she said wearily. “If you have something new to pass on, let me know. We’re going to head for Miris Prime immediately.”
“Coordinates have been beamed over.” He let out a small sigh, one that sounded almost concerned…for Jackson. “Be careful, all right?”
“I always am,” she told him, and flipped the switch, ending the transmission.
Movement behind her made her turn around, and she saw Rast standing there, looking far grimmer than a man should who’d just had spectacular sex less than five hours ago. For a few seconds she wondered if he was angry at her for speaking to Jackson, but dismissed that notion as foolish. Then she realized that he held her toiletry bag in one hand, and she frowned.
“Do you want to tell me what that’s about?” she inquired, with a jerk of her chin toward the bag. Somehow she doubted he was looking to borrow her deodorant.
Rast’s mouth thinned. “I think I just discovered how the Bathshevans found us on Gaia.”
* * *
He’d slept afterward, of course, drowned in a satisfied slumber, content, the woman he loved curled in his arms. But sometime later he’d awakened and discovered she wasn’t there. At first he was concerned, although almost at once he reassured himself, realizing that she probably wanted to check on the ship, and so had slipped out without disturbing him. He’d lain there for a while, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the almost imperceptible motion of the ship beneath him, wondering if perhaps he should try to fall asleep again. For some reason that idea did not sound wise, so he’d begun picking over the day in his head, wondering how it was that the Bathshevans had tracked them down on Gaia, when Eryk Thorn himself said that he’d double-checked the Chinook for any trackers. The ship was clean.
So it had to have been something else that drew down the mercenaries. Somehow he and Lira had been tracked there, even though the ship had been swept. That meant it had to be something they carried on their persons. He’d pawed through the satchel that held his meager belongings, but found nothing suspicious.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to wait and take his suspicions to Lira, but surely she couldn’t be upset by a quick check of her things. There wasn’t much to see, anyway — one change of clothes, several changes of underthings, a bag that held small containers of cleansers and lotions, a tube of what he thought was lip color, another tube of some liquid apparently meant to darken her eyelashes, although they always looked dark and lush to him.
The lip color tube had an odd little dent at one end, possibly from being thrown carelessly into a bag or a pocket, but even so he thought it merited a second look. He tugged on the casing, finding it to be wedged on there more tightly than he had initially thought. In the end, though, the little metal tube was no match for a Stacian’s strength, and he yanked it off — only to have small chip fall out, a chip that he knew had no business being hidden in a tube of cosmetics.
He picked it up, eyeing it narrowly, but he was no expert in electronics, let alone the minuscule devices employed by the less trustworthy of the galaxy’s citizens. Best to show it to Lira, and see what she thought. He took the chip and the tube of lip color and dropped them back into the cosmetics bag, then went forward to the bridge.
She was speaking to someone as he approached. Jackson Wyler, from the sound of it, and although Rast would have been more than happy if she never had contact with her former lover again, he knew that Wyler possessed skills and talents that could help them along their road to discovering why the Eridanis were in bed with Admiral sen Trannick. The transmission ended as he approached, and so he only had the impression that she’d gotten Wyler to help them out once again.
When she turned to look back at him, Rast could see at once how weary she was, how shadows stained the fine skin beneath the clear blue eyes. But her back was straight enough as she turned around in her seat to more or less face him, then inquired as to why he was holding her bag of toiletries.
He told her, and added, “I don’t recognize that chip, but maybe you do?”
She took the bag from him and pushed past the ruin of her lipstick without comment. The chip she brought up, held between one slender forefinger and her thumb. “Well, goddamn,” she said after staring at it for a moment.
“Do you recognize it?”
“Miniaturized subspace tracker. Pretty sophisticated one, too, from the looks of it.” An expression of disgust crossed her delicate features, and before he could say or do anything to stop her, she dropped it to the floor of the bridge and ground it to dust beneath the heel of her boot.
Frowning, Rast inqu
ired, “Was that wise? We might have been able to discover who planted it on you if we’d inspected it more closely.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Are you an expert in that sort of thing?”
“Well, no, but — ”
“Neither am I. And that goddamned thing was transmitting our coordinates as we sat here. Thank God I know where we’re going next, so we can get out of here before anyone else shows up.” She turned away from him and began entering commands into the shipboard computer, obviously lining them up for their next subspace hop.
Knowing it was useless to protest, Rast instead eased himself into the copilot’s chair, waited for the moment when the ship shot forward and realspace melted around them, to be replaced by the shifting colors and patterns of subspace. It came within the minute; Lira hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she knew where they were going.
“So what is our destination?” he asked.
“Miris Prime. Jackson has a contact there who can give us new identities. I’m not saying we won’t still be a little conspicuous, but at least that way there’s less chance of being tracked quickly.”
Given this information, Rast could only nod. Miris Prime was a Gaian world, a planet that had been heavily industrialized because of its rich deposits of various useful ores. By all accounts it was a grim, gray place, but he had to remind himself that he and Lira were not going there to vacation, but for the all-important purpose of masking their identities.
She settled back in her seat, not exactly relaxed, but freed of some of her piloting responsibilities now that the ship was set on its course. Rast thought perhaps she was now ready for more questions.
“Who do you think put that tracking device in your belongings?”
A sigh, as she pushed her hair back behind her shoulders. Another good thing about her being freed of military service — those glorious silken locks were now allowed to fall loose, instead of being bound up in the tight little knot that the Gaian Defense Force’s dress code apparently required.
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