His eagerness to see Emerald warred with his reluctance to present himself looking so shabby, but his need to reassure himself that she was alright finally won out. Tariq, who seemed to be searching the small galley for something to eat, flicked a glance at him as he came out, but he didn’t say anything when he immediately turned toward the rear cabin.
She was sitting in a casual chair in the small cabin. She looked up when he came in, though, and smiled when she saw him. “Koryn!”
It did strange things to him, overset his entire system so that he couldn’t decide how to react. Feeling short of breath and weak kneed, he moved to the bed and dropped down on the edge, lifting his hands. “Come here, baby.”
She got up immediately and surged toward him. He’d intended to look her over for signs of abuse, but when she rushed to him with such obvious eagerness, he forgot everything. Need exploded inside of him. Pulling her between his thighs, he looped one arm around her to hold her tightly against him and threaded his fingers through her hair. Dragging her head back, he opened his mouth over hers to suck at her soft mouth greedily and then explore the warm cavern. For a few moments, it appeased his need to taste and touch her when he’d thought he never would again, and then it wasn’t enough. He broke from her lips and explored her face and then her throat and then he lifted her high enough that he could explore her breasts.
“Gods damn it, Koryn! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Koryn jerked his head up guiltily when Tariq’s thundering voice exploded unexpectedly around him, staring at Tariq with blank, fevered eyes for several moments before anger and possessiveness rolled over him. His face hardened. His hands tightened on Emerald. He tensed, feeling the urge swell inside him to counter Tariq’s challenge.
“She just lost the baby, dunce!”
Koryn glared at him for calling him a dunce even though he immediately felt like one—and worse. He swallowed convulsively several times. “I wouldn’t have taken it any further,” he said tightly, knowing as well as Tariq did that it wasn’t likely he could’ve stopped himself before much longer whether he’d recalled her condition or not.
He discovered he needn’t have worried that Tariq would be too judgmental about his lack of control. There was a glazed look in his own eyes as his gaze flickered over Emerald. “We can’t right now … can we? She has to have time to heal.”
Koryn’s heart fluttered. His gut clenched. “It depends on when he did it. If he checked her right off and discovered you’d bred her, he would’ve acted then, in which case she might have had time to heal from it—it’s been nigh a month. If I had any way to check her, I could tell you. Unfortunately, I don’t have a damned thing.”
“There’s where you’re wrong. Seana’s a health freak. I always thought it was strange that she was so fearful of getting sick when she’d been regenerated four times—and hadn’t once had any serious medical problems that I ever heard about—but she was. I can guarantee you the sick bay is well stocked.”
Koryn stared at him in disbelief. “She has a sick bay on her private yacht?”
Tariq shrugged and grinned. “I told you she was a freak about her health! You didn’t notice how unnerved she was about the possibility of germs in the prison?”
“Yes, well the place was a cesspool! I would’ve been more worried about it myself except I figured I wasn’t likely to live long enough to die from anything I might catch down there,” Koryn said dryly. “Where is it?”
“I’ll show you after we eat.” He turned his attention to Emerald. “Come on, baby. You need to eat something. It looks like the bastard’s been starving you.”
“I was … unhappy,” she countered. “He said he would make me eat if I didn’t.”
Tariq’s expression hardened. “The son-of-a-bitch won’t make you do anything ever again. I guarantee you he’ll never get his hands on you again if I have to kill him.”
She paled. “I think that android did that already.”
A jolt went through Tariq. “What android?”
“Aeon. He said you sent him to get me and then Mylor came in and …. I didn’t see what he did. They fought and then Mylor was on the floor and there was blood everywhere. I only caught a glimpse and then Aeon leapt toward me, grabbed me, and threw me over his shoulder and then he … ran and crashed through the window. I guess I blacked out.” She frowned. “I remember others and then I felt a sting and the next thing I knew I woke up and you were standing over me.”
Tariq stared at her for a long moment and finally dragged her close. “Sounds like your escape was more exciting than ours,” he muttered. “It’s a gods damned shame we’ll never know for sure. I don’t suppose you know what happened to Aeon?”
“He’s here,” Koryn said. “The one that helped us, Daris, said that the servants sent to fetch Emerald had captured another android trying to flee with her. They put him in the hold.” He shrugged at the look Tariq sent him. “I never thought about it being Aeon. I thought he was one of Mylor’s servants.”
Tariq set Emerald away. “You two wait for me in the galley. I’ll be back shortly.”
Koryn stared at him in surprise when he turned abruptly and left. Shrugging he settled a hand on Emerald’s back and urged her toward the section of the ship that made up the galley.
It was a private luxury ship, unlike Tariq’s, which was a warship, and the galley was far more compact and included a lounging area. He told Emerald to sit down on one of the chaises and headed into the food preparation area to see what was available. Tariq returned while he was studying the fresh foods somewhat doubtfully. He had Aeon with him.
“You let him go?” Koryn asked in surprise.
Tariq’s lips tightened. “I’m sure as fuck not going to reward him for ripping Mylor’s head off for me by keeping him locked up!”
Koryn felt a little queasy. As badly as he’d wanted to kill the son-of-a-bitch himself, ripping his head off seemed a little unnecessarily … violent. “All the same, he was a lord.”
“Accident of birth,” Tariq growled. “He had no honor and no nobility. Somebody should have done the world a favor and killed the bastard sooner.”
Koryn had to agree. “You don’t think it’s setting a bad precedent?”
“I don’t. We aren’t bound by the laws of the Anunnaki any longer. We’re dead men if they catch us. We can never go back. We need to try to adjust to that. I believe I’m actually looking forward to it. I don’t think I realized just how sick to death I was of everything about my life until I realized that wasn’t going to be an issue much longer. Or maybe it was when we came through the sewer and I saw freedom?”
Koryn had thought much the same thing and it was still hard to accept that their fortunes had changed so radically. He didn’t think he was going to have any easier time adjusting his way of thinking than Emerald had had. “What about Emerald?”
Tariq turned to study her. His lips curled into a slow smile. “She’s my woman. Aren’t you, baby?”
She smiled at him. “And Koryn’s.”
Tariq frowned and flicked a hard look at Koryn. Koryn wiped the grin off his face.
Shaking his head, he pushed Koryn aside and began looking for cooking apparatus.
Koryn moved out of his way, but he didn’t retreat. “You aren’t planning to actually … prepare a meal?”
“That’s what I had in mind.”
“You know how to do that?” Koryn asked, more than a little doubtful.
Tariq snorted. “Like I said—I went to the military academy. They assume the possibility that we might find ourselves stranded … without servants,” he said dryly. “Stick around. You’ll want to learn this, too. I doubt we’ll have servants where we’re going.”
Koryn stared at him in disbelief, trying to figure out how he was going to focus on his work if he had to do everything else besides. “But … We have the androids! Are they just going to drop us off and go back?”
Tariq shrugged. “I don’t know, but I
’m figuring they bought their freedom and they can make their own decisions. That’s what I told them.”
Koryn’s lips tightened. It seemed to have escaped Tariq that he was still making fucking decisions for everyone! The flare of anger died after a moment as it dawned on him that he’d volunteered to give up everything long since when he’d told Tariq he would take Emerald to her own people to keep her safe. He hadn’t considered what all ‘giving up everything’ entailed, but he could hardly blame that on Tariq.
Clearly, slavery wasn’t anything humans were very familiar with anymore or Emerald wouldn’t have had such a hard time grasping it. It almost seemed strange considering it was the humans they’d adapted the practice from to begin with, but he supposed the advances in their technology had made it unnecessary. The early humans hadn’t had androids for labor, after all.
He frowned as it occurred to him to wonder if the Anunnaki had given the humans the idea for slavery after all. It was possible since they hadn’t known the androids they’d brought with them were their creations.
Well, they had, they just hadn’t grasped that the androids had been created in labs or the fine distinction between them and a completely biological entity.
Which made it all the more bizarre, to him, that Tariq had taken it into his head to ‘free’ them.
The meal Tariq cooked was surprisingly good. When they’d finished Emerald offered to clean up, which almost seemed as strange to Koryn as Tariq cooking. It annoyed him. He was anxious to check her, but Tariq not only seemed pleased about it, he seemed to think it was some sort of rite of passage or something of the sort—that it was a pivotal point for all of them in beginning their new lives.
He discovered Tariq hadn’t exaggerated the extent of Seana’s sickbay. Few commercial or even military vessels were as well equipped. It heartened him beyond the fact that he discovered everything he needed to perform a careful and accurate examination of Emerald. His life had begun to seem as if it had been turned completely upside down and was spiraling out of control faster than he could acclimate himself to the changes. This, at least, was familiar ground. Beyond that, it appeased the niggling fear at the back of his mind that he would discover his own knowledge and skills virtually useless to him or anyone else in the situation he’d found himself in. It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to learn or that he felt that he couldn’t, but it was comforting to know he wouldn’t be completely useless until and unless he did.
Just as importantly, he didn’t think Emerald would see him as being useless.
He completely forgot his discomfort by the time he’d examined her. She’d lost more weight during her ordeal than he liked, but she was strong and healthy and mostly recovered from losing the baby as far as he could see—at least physically.
He studied her face when he’d helped her to sit up again. “How are you feeling?”
She looked surprised and then smiled faintly. “I thought you would tell me.”
He found himself smiling back at her. “I can tell you that you’re in excellent shape and healing from the abortion, but only you can tell me how you feel.”
She sobered at the mention of the baby, frowning as if she was wrestling with something. “It didn’t really seem real to me until Mylor was so pleased about getting rid of it that he had to gloat about it. I hadn’t gotten far enough along to feel the changes. Now … I think it hurts more to know it’s gone when Tariq was so happy about it.” She met his gaze again. “Mylor said that I was ready to breed again.”
Koryn felt a mixture of emotions at that comment—primarily rage at the thought that the bastard had intended to breed her at all and partly because he’d meant to replace Tariq’s seed immediately with his own. Neither thought completely vanquished the excitement that she was right—she was ready to be bred again, fertile, and healed enough, he was sure, to make it safe to do so.
She looked distressed. “I need it to be Tariq’s baby—we both do.”
His excitement crashed, leaving the taste of bitterness in his mouth. He nodded, his expression taut. Emerald caught his hand when he would’ve turned away, however.
“Tell me you understand that this is something I need to get over the grief of losing his baby—and that he needs to get over his own grief. I love you, too. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I want to hurt him—and I want your baby.” She smiled at him, lifting a hand to caress his cheek. “We have time, now, and the chance to have a real life together. I wanted to have your babies—yours and Tariq’s—when I thought that I would only be a slave to you two and I wasn’t important to either of you beyond that. We can be a family now, though, have a family and raise our children together.
“Isn’t that why you and Tariq rescued me? Isn’t that why you’re taking me to the colony—so we can be together?”
Koryn swallowed with an effort. “That was what I intended, or at least hoped for, when we made the plans before,” he said slowly, but he hadn’t expected or particularly wanted Tariq to be part of that.
“It’s what I want, too.”
“Yes, well it’s entirely different,” he said irritably.
“Beyond the fact that it’s my choice, how is it different?”
He stared at her blankly.
“You aren’t a slave girl anymore. That’s how it’s different! It’s one thing to share a slave, and completely different to share the woman … you love.”
Emerald smiled at him and slipped her arms around him. “You loved me before or you wouldn’t have risked your life to save me from Mylor and a life of slavery.”
He put his arms around her, holding her tightly. “This isn’t some warped idea of avenging yourself on both of us for … what we did, is it?”
Emerald chuckled and leaned away, cupping his face in her hands. “Of course it is! I’m going to torment both of you forever by loving you as much as I can and having your babies.”
He grinned reluctantly and pulled her close to kiss her deeply. “You’re going to have a hard time convincing Tariq that this will work,” he murmured when he broke the kiss.
“I convinced you it would.”
He sighed. “Because I love you and I know that you love Tariq and I’d lose if I tried to convince you to be my woman instead,” he said wryly.
Emerald frowned at him in consternation. “I don’t love you less than I love Tariq. I just don’t think it’s fair or right of either of you to expect me to make a choice between you now when you didn’t give me a choice before. I couldn’t help but fall in love with both of you.”
She shook her head at him. “You know how stubborn I am. I want both of you and nothing less will do.”
Emerald could tell just from Tariq’s expression that he’d monitored her and Koryn when Koryn had taken her to examine her. Anger and determination glittered in his eyes. “Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked when he’d studied her for a long moment and finally transferred his attention to Koryn.
“He says I’m ready for you to breed me again,” Emerald volunteered.
Chapter Seventeen
Tariq’s cock leapt at the suggestion and began to inflate faster than his mind could process Emerald’s announcement.
Not that he’d needed to hear it from her. He’d monitored Koryn’s examination and had not only seen the results of Koryn’s tests himself, he’d seen and heard everything that passed between them afterwards.
It was the fact that Emerald had announced it herself that had his cock leaping to attention even though his mind was still churning with doubts regarding the wisdom of immediately impregnating Emerald again.
He didn’t think that he would’ve experienced quite as much turmoil if Emerald hadn’t said that she needed it to help her get through her grief over losing the other baby. He realized it wasn’t in him to want to deny her anything—especially anything that would comfort her after what she’d been through because of him. Beyond that, although he hadn’t consciously acknowledged it himself or even been aware that he felt
the loss himself, anything beyond the fury and helpless frustration that had consumed him, he knew she was right. He was angrier that they’d hurt Emerald and put her at risk than anything else, felt anger because of his guilt and remorse from having failed her, but he also felt the loss.
Their situation had changed dramatically, however, and although he was still trying to come to terms with it, he’d felt like Emerald belonged to him—still felt like she did. He hadn’t wanted to share her with Koryn to start with. Even though he’d acknowledged that it was a political necessity, even though he’d considered it essential to keeping Emerald, it had irked the hell out of him from the first.
He was ready to dispense with it now that circumstances had changed. Unfortunately, there were two road blocks to that—his word, and Emerald’s announcement that she loved both of them and expected them to continue as a fucking threesome!
He was inclined to think the change in their situation relieved him of obligations that were directly connected to the situation at the time—giving his word to share—but he wasn’t as comfortable about it as he wanted to be. And he didn’t know what the hell to make of Emerald’s insistence that she loved them both.
Actually, he did. He knew just as well as Koryn did that they’d conditioned Emerald not only to accept them but to become emotionally dependent on them. He’d been well aware that that was what they were doing all the time. It hadn’t particularly bothered him that he was ‘conditioning’ her devotion—as long as he had it because he hadn’t expected their situation to change so radically and he’d known that, once she was under his control that would continue.
Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I Page 27
