by Leslie Chase
Finally our lips parted, leaving us both panting for air. There was a question in her eyes as she met my gaze.
"Yes," I answered simply. "Yes, Hope Alexander, I want this. No matter what your name is or where you are from, it's you I crave and desire. If you will have me."
Her answer came as a blush and an eager nod, and no more was needed. I swung her around and down onto the blankets and she gasped, reaching up and trying to pull me down to her. Not yet, I thought, standing over her. With a flick of my fingers, I switched off her dress. Hope froze in shock as it turned to liquid and poured off her, gathering itself as a black sphere in the corner.
But this time she made no effort to hide herself, and finally I had the chance to admire her beauty. My breath caught at the sight of her lying there, her full, bountiful breasts heaving as I watched her skin flush.
"As beautiful as I ever dreamed," I breathed, and Hope smiled up at me, making an impatient gesture.
"Come on, my turn," she said, and I almost laughed.
"Didn't you get enough of a look when I showered?" I asked as I quickly shed my clothes, dropping them beside me. Hope blushed brighter, but she laughed.
"That only whetted my appetite," she told me. "Now I want a proper look, so hurry up!"
I wished I wore the same smart fabric as her. It would be so much quicker, and I desperately wanted to be naked for her.
But there was something wonderful about undressing under her gaze, I discovered. The way her eyes followed my movement, the way she looked at my skin, the sheer need in her eyes. All pushed me onward as I stripped for her, and by the time I stood naked over her I ached for her.
Hope swallowed nervously as I lowered myself to her, and our naked bodies pressed together in a moment of perfection I couldn't have imagined. The soft, tender feel of her human skin against my scales made me take a sharp breath, and her warm scent filled my senses. I took another deep breath and kissed her neck, my teeth grazing carefully across her skin and making her shiver.
My kisses trailed down as I explored her with my senses, hands roaming across her body, mouth kissing and sucking and licking. The sound of her breathing filled my ears, and I looked up to see her throw back her head as my tongue darted out across her nipple.
"Oh god," she whispered, hand tightening in my hair and pulling me closer. I chuckled, and then gasped as her other hand slid between us and grasped my cock. Hope's moan of need made me swell in her grip, and her stroking fingers hardened me further.
"I need you," she said, and I growled with wordless desire. Language failed me, but I no longer needed it to show her how I felt.
My body made it clear enough.
With a single hard stroke, I sheathed my cock inside her, burying myself deep. Her pussy gripped me tight, squeezing around me as her back arched and she cried out, and for a moment we were locked together in a motionless moment of perfect pleasure. Neither of us wanted to move, to even breathe, in case we spoiled it.
Slowly I pulled back, almost withdrawing from her as she moaned, an edge in her voice, an emptiness and a need. My body ached to fill that need.
Hope looked up at me, eyes pleading, breathing quick short breaths. I answered by thrusting forward and her mouth opened in a gasp of pleasure. I could feel her body tighten with joy around me, her fingers digging into my back as she urged me on. Her face flushed, and she whispered something, too quiet for me to hear.
I leaned in, kissing her neck, my fangs scraping her skin and driving her wild. Hope cried out at that, writhing in pleasure, and I bit a little harder with my next thrust.
"Oh!" Hope's voice was husky, raw, full of need. "Oh, fuck yes, Xendar. Oh god!"
Her pussy tightened around me, squeezing hard, and it was my turn to arch and gasp. The feeling was so powerful, so wonderful, so exhilarating. I growled into her ear, feeling her body respond to the sound, and moved faster. Driving her down into the blankets, pounding into her.
Every thrust made her writhe and cry out, each one made her squirm with the same pleasure I felt building inside me as she drove me onward, my self-control cracking under the pressure of her touch.
I felt myself swell inside her, and her body stretching to accommodate me. It felt perfect, as though our bodies had been made for each other. As though fate had sent her to me, and me to her. My hearts pounded in unison as I felt her tense, the waves of orgasm building inside her to a crescendo. My own wasn't far behind, and her touch drove me on as she arched her back and closed her eyes.
Neither of us could last much longer, I knew. Grasping Hope's hips, I lifted, pulling her to me as I roared in triumph, thrusting hard to meet her and driving her over the edge into a wild, thrashing orgasm. Her fingers tensed, digging into my scaled skin, and at the last moment she bucked under me, crying out as she squeezed.
It was too much to bear, and I lost control completely. With a roar I cut loose, emptying myself into her as we rolled and cried out and thrashed amongst the blankets. The sensation of her was overwhelming, all I felt, all I could feel.
All I ever wanted to feel.
At last, we collapsed, spent, our bodies trembling with exhaustion and pleasure. I folded Hope in my arms and pulled her to me protectively, holding her tight against my chest. She snuggled in against me, looking up at me with bright eyes.
"That was wonderful," she whispered as she caught her breath. "You're perfect, Xendar."
I chuckled and shook my head. "You bring out the best in me, Hope. You're magnificent."
The blush that spread across her cheeks was delightful, but a sadness returned to her eyes. I squeezed her, not wanting to surrender this moment of peace to the reality of the situation we were still trapped in. There were questions I wasn't yet ready to answer, and this had only made some of them more difficult.
Damn it. Now I was thinking about it. The afterglow began to fade, and I sighed unhappily, sitting up. Hope moved with me, her arms wrapped around me. After a moment she spoke.
"You know that there's a simple answer to our problem," Hope said, a sadness in her voice again. The pleasure we'd given each other was an all-too-brief distraction from our fate, it seemed. "I'm going to do the obvious thing, and you'll be safe."
I looked into her eyes and shook my head firmly. "No. Out of the question. I don't know what we're going to do, or how, but I will not let you sacrifice yourself for me."
To my surprise, she smiled. It wasn't an entirely happy smile, but it was something.
"You're too good a man to die for me," she said. "Especially after I've been lying to you all this time."
I opened my mouth to object, but she laid her fingers on my lips. For a moment we looked at each other, motionless and silent. I knew that she'd be able to read my determination in my eyes. Her own was just as clear.
Then she turned away, sadness written in every line of her beautiful body as she reached for her clothes. How I wished that we could just forget the world outside this cabin, just stay in each other's arms forever, but something had to be done. I wracked my brain for any options, any plan, no matter how crazy, that might let us stay together rather than one of us giving up.
Hope got there first. She turned back to me, and I realized it hadn't been her clothes she'd been looking for. She held one of the verkesh stun prods I'd taken from the bounty hunters.
"I'm sorry, Xendar," she said, and for the first time I could remember, I froze at the sight of a threat. She'd taken me completely by surprise.
She didn't waste the moment. The prod struck under my ribs, and a powerful shock flashed through me, throwing me to the ground. As unconsciousness took me, the last thing I saw was Hope's tear-stained face looking down at me.
17
Hope
Dropping the discharged shock prod, I clapped a hand to my mouth, feeling ill. Xendar lay motionless before me, and for a moment I was afraid I'd killed him. But no, his chest rose and fell. He'd be okay, I told myself. Better, at least, than if he attacked Keshiir trying to keep m
e safe.
I leaned in over him, planting a kiss on his cheek. This was the only way I could think of to keep him alive while I did what I had to. But it hurt so badly, I nearly couldn't bring myself to let go of him.
With all the willpower I could muster, I stood and turned my back. Knocking him out was something I couldn't take back, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity it gave me. Picking up the black sphere my clothes had turned into, I dug my fingers in to activate it. Now that I had some idea of how the system operated, I could get it to flow back into the last configuration easily enough, and that was all I needed.
At the doorway, I turned back to look at Xendar for what I expected to be the last time. He lay still and unconscious, and I knew that he wouldn't hear my farewell, but I couldn't leave without saying something.
"Goodbye, Xendar," I whispered. "You were good to me, better than I deserved, and I hope that you find happiness."
Then I pulled the door open and left to meet my fate.
Stepping out of the asteroid miner was the hardest thing that I'd ever done. I couldn't bear to look back, so I marched away, head held high, trying to keep my eyes clear. To look like a princess again, for however long the deception mattered.
Above the city, Keshiir's ship hovered impossibly. My mind kept insisting that it had to fall, had to crush us all. Smoke from his first volley still wreathed the city, and as I left the scrap yard I saw the wreck of the ship he'd shot down. It still burned, lying on its side near the Nest Four. I hoped that there weren't too many people aboard when it went down, because I doubted anyone had survived that.
People spotted me as I marched onto the port's landing field, pointing and staring. At least none were close enough to grab me before I made it to Keshiir's people.
I couldn't tell what they thought. Hatred because my presence had brought this destruction to their home? That had to be part of it. I tried to not to think about it as I marched towards the nearest grays.
Seeing how many there were here made me certain that Xendar wouldn't have stood a chance. That made my heart a little lighter — I was making the right decision and keeping him alive. At least I'd been able to do something right. That didn't make my guilt any less, but it made it easier to bear.
Keshiir himself was with a group of grays at the center of the landing field, and I marched straight towards him, head held high. He waited until I arrived to address me.
"Your Highness," Keshiir said, mocking me with a bow. "Just in time."
"You gave your word that you'd spare the city if you had me," I said, fixing him with my best glare. "So let's go. Leave these people in peace."
A chittering laugh. "Shooting costs money. Not going to waste any when I have my prize."
He gestured with some kind of control wand and a light stabbed down from the ship above. I gasped, trying to cover my eyes, but it held me motionless and pulled me up into the sky. Keshiir and his troops were being lifted up alongside me, and I looked down at the surface of Erdush as we left it behind. I had no idea what was going to happen to me now, but at least I'd been able to spare the city and Xendar. That had to count for something.
I held the image of my alien prince in my mind. It was hard not to expect a last-minute rescue from him, even as the ship's airlock closed around me and the grays escorted me into a red-walled cell.
"What's going to happen to me now?" I asked.
Keshiir looked at me, those cold black eyes merciless. "Should kill you for the scar you gave me. But more money in selling you twice. Lucky you, get to go back to the empire and see what they want to do to you."
My skin crawled as he ran a cold, long-fingered hand up my arm. "Maybe they have no use for you. Then, yes, then I will show you why fighting back was a mistake."
"Or maybe this time I'll do more than give you a little mark to remember me by," I said, pulling my arm out of his grip. There didn't seem to be any point in trying to be nice, he already wanted me dead. If he wanted to see me grovel he was going to be disappointed.
With a snarl Keshiir stepped out of the cell, the door slamming shut leaving me alone with my thoughts. Wherever we were going it would be a long trip.
At least there was a bench against one of the walls. Sitting down on it, I tried not to think about Xendar and how much I wished I was still with him. I'd given that up forever and I would never see him again; I had to get used to that idea.
Nothing in the cell let me tell how much time passed apart from my need to sleep and eat. The light didn't change and there was no clock, and staring at the walls was mind-numbingly boring. At least there was a bathroom so that I could wash up.
Food arrived through a slot in the wall. More of the extruded food-mush I'd tasted aboard the verkesh's truck, which I was already sick of — but at least it was filling and kept me alive.
Eventually, after who knows how long, we arrived. I knew we'd left hyperspace when the lights dimmed and the hum of the air conditioning paused. But my first indication of where I was came when the door opened and Lord Rofain stood there glaring at me. Nothing of his old charm remained and his knuckles were white where they gripped the hilt of his sword.
"You are supposed to be dead," he hissed angrily.
Keshiir chittered beside him, and he made a chopping gesture with his hand.
"Yes, yes. You'll get your pay, mercenary." Rofain didn't seem happy about any part of this arrangement, which was a small cause for satisfaction. Anything that upset the old bastard was a good thing in my book.
"And you take her off my ship before anything happens to her," Keshiir insisted. "Not getting any blame for an Imperial Princess's death."
"She's not—"
"You know that, I know that. But you aren't going to let anyone else know that." Keshiir looked up at him and made a suspicious gesture. "Not going to trust you. Not going to be the scapegoat for this. Take my pay, go far away, and never speak of this again."
Keshiir might be a nasty piece of work, but I had to respect his intelligence. The way Rofain's face twisted it was obvious that he'd like nothing more than to be able to shift all the blame onto the gray and forget about the whole affair. But no, he was going to have to get his own hands dirty.
The bad news was that still left me in danger, but the longer it took the more chance I had of finding a way out.
I almost laughed at that thought. Hope Alexander, you are not an action hero, I reminded myself. How the hell do you think you're going to get yourself out of this?
It was a fair complaint, but I wasn't going to give up yet. Where there's life there's hope, I thought.
I stood from the bench, giving Rofain my best imperial glare. He shivered and looked down. Interesting. It seemed that decades working for the real Immorata made him quite vulnerable to a doppelganger. Maybe there was a chance I could use that somehow.
Perhaps realizing what he'd done, he straightened up and glared back at me before gesturing curtly for me to follow. I marched after him past Keshiir and off the ship again, looking around for some clue to where I was.
As soon as we were off Keshiir's flying saucer I came face to face with a full-length portrait of myself in a dress that looked almost like it had wings. Immediately I knew where I was — back aboard the Shadow of a Forgotten Love. Where else?
Rofain refused to answer me or even acknowledge my questions as he hurriedly led me deeper into the ship, and for a moment I considered running, screaming for help. It might work. The guards might take me for Immorata and arrest or even kill Rofain for me. More likely, though, it would just get me killed for impersonating a princess. Maybe I'd be able to take Rofain down with me, and that was tempting, but it wasn't enough reason to commit suicide. There would be a better chance. There had to be.
At last we came to a heavy door that slid aside at his gesture. "Get in there and we'll decide what to do with you."
Crossing the threshold, I had no idea what to expect. Some kind of dungeon, perhaps, or a cell. Maybe even just an airloc
k so he could flush me into space at his leisure. The last thing I'd have considered was the beautiful garden that greeted me. It seemed to go on forever, with a roof high enough that I could pretend it was the sky. There was even a sun, or a good simulation of one.
In the time I stood blinking, the door behind me slid shut, leaving me to gawp at the scenery. On a second look, I saw that there was furniture amongst the trees, and that the foliage was laid out to carefully guide the eyes away from the walls. The room was huge but not nearly as massive as it looked at first glance. Carefully, I walked forward across the smooth, soft lawn to a comfortable-looking chair in the shade of a tree.
If I was going to wait for my fate here, I might as well do it in comfort.
But before I could sit down, I heard someone moving among the trees. I wasn't alone here. Immediately my mind started spinning horror stories, and I tried to get a grip on myself. The horrible fears that jumped into my head were unlikely to be true: Rofain probably hadn't locked me up here with some kind of superpredator or sent an assassin to kill me right away. Probably.
Just to be on the safe side I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. Nothing presented itself. I could try to pull a branch off the nearest tree, but that would take more strength than I had and would, frankly, look ridiculous. Instead, I decided to meet my fate with all the dignity I could muster strode into the grove of trees doing my best to hide my fear.
It was like coming face to face with a mirror. The woman facing me even had the same expression of shock that I felt on my own face. The only difference was our outfits — while I was still in the practical hiking dress, she wore a white gown that made her look almost angelic.
For a moment we were both speechless, and then I finally managed to blink, curtsy, and speak.
"Princess Immorata, I presume?"
The genuine princess shut her mouth with a snap and glared at me as I straightened. Well, I probably deserved it for not curtsying low enough or for speaking first or something. I almost giggled at the idea of being worried about etiquette, and her cheeks heated.
