by Cathryn Cade
“Remember how we are together,” he said fiercely. “Like no two Indigons ever before, or again. I’ve never known such passion before, flower. Didn’t know it existed.”
She caught her breath, lifting her gaze to his. Her eyes were blue again, full of emotion.
“Daron,” she managed.
He kissed her again, hard, her soft mouth opening beneath his, giving way to his with sweet surrender. She kissed him back then and for one heady instant it was as if Cyan, the crew commanders and the guards were gone, leaving only the two of them.
She tugged at her hands again and he let her go, to feel one of her arms slip up about his neck.
“Fools!” Cyan sneered. “Enjoy the last kiss either of you will ever know.”
“Don’t let me go,” Nelah pleaded against Navos’s lips. “Don’t let him use me.”
“I won’t,” he swore fervently.
Dare he hope, just a little? Absurd as it sounded, it seemed to him their physical contact, this reminder of their passion, was having an effect no amount of psychic defense could ever have. For the first time she was looking at him with her eyes, not those of a vessel.
“Daron, for God’s sake,” said Craig urgently on his link, jolting him back to the room, as well as the fact they were the cynosure of other eyes. “This is not the time for sweet nothings! Everyone’s going crazy out here! You’ve got to do something…”
His voice was lost as a psychic wave of power the likes of which Navos had never experienced crashed around and in him and Nelah. She cried out, arching in his arms and he felt the same power race through him, building, building, building… Cyan’s maniacal laughter echoed through their minds, drowning Craig’s voice, drowning everything, rising in a suffocating wave of heat and power and darkness.
Ah, great God, it was too much. He was powerless, they were going to die. She and Cyan together were too powerful.
Nelah dove at him, but instead of attacking him, she kissed him. Her teeth cut into his lip, her clever tongue whipped into his mouth, her arm tightened about his neck even as she yanked fiercely at his jacket with her other hand.
Strangely, over all the thunder crashing around them, he could hear the soft sobbing of her breath, could feel her heart beating against his own. Feel her communicating with him, not on a psychic level, but on a very human one.
A thin strand of hope threaded its way through the crushing blackness. Twining about his senses, tickling and teasing, leaving a faint musky perfume…hers.
Nelah, female, warm and soft and alive, in his arms.
Kiss her back, taste her sweet, wet mouth, feel her response to him alone. His. His to hold and protect. To mate.
To mate…yes, that was it. They were mates, not only in intellect, but on a deep, visceral level. A passionate level.
Cyan’s voice screamed at them, pressing the suffocating darkness harder around them. Navos staggered, the room rocking under his feet as something thunked against the bulkhead outside. Nelah in his arms, soft and pliant, yet demanding as she lifted her legs to wrap them about his waist, pressing her softness against his groin, rubbing and rubbing until everything in him rushed to his loins, in a blazing, surging demand for more, more, more.
He reached between them to rip open his jacket, felt her hands on his skin with shuddering relief. Broke away from her mouth only long enough to strip her top off with one yank, then dove back into the kiss, hanging on like a lifeline, her breasts against his chest, silky skin under his arms, suckling at her tongue as if it were life-giving nectar, giving her back reassurance and breath.
He bucked in her hand as she found his penis, rigid and straining at his soft pants. Ah, love, yes. Clasping hand, sweet squeezing fingers, but not enough.
He found the waistband of her tights and ripped them savagely, so she was naked save for the tights hanging in tatters from her legs, knowing he left bruises on her soft skin. Sorry, sorry, love…must feel your sweet, flowing heat in my hands, ah there!
His, his, his…he lifted her with her sweet ass in his palms and drove into her pussy in one mighty thrust. Ah, great God beyond, such driving need, such hot, wet bliss surrounding him, her whimpers of need and joy echoing in his ears as he turned them so her back was against the wall and began to thrust in her with battering swiftness.
Opening his eyes, he looked into hers, aching sweetness flooding him as he saw the love and passion in those gentian blue eyes, so lovely, so vulnerable. Let her see the love in his own, the passion blazing for her alone, lighting up the darkness, driving it back, back, back…away from her, away from the Orion with every powerful thrust of his body, his penis inside her tight, clinging heat. Ah, so good, so perfect to have her thus.
“No! This isn’t possible, you can’t do this to me, I’m Indigon, I have powers, I have her, not you not you not you…”
She stiffened, shaking her head, a whimper of fear in her throat. He had to distract her, bring her back to him, to this.
“Everyone…sees you, flower,” Navos whispered to her, feeling his balls draw up so tight he knew he was going to explode in nanoseconds. “They’re all watching you. They see how beautiful you are, filled with me.”
Her eyes widened with shock, with excitement. He smiled, savage with triumph as he felt her orgasm begin. “Now they’re going to watch you come, my lovely flower.”
She moaned, a high sweet paean, her eyes losing focus as she imploded around him, her pussy milking him rhythmically.
“No! I’ll break you, both of you—”
“Go to the seven hells, Cyan!”
He slammed into her one last time and light exploded outward in a supernova of ecstasy as he came, pumping his life-giving fluid into her feminine depths.
He cried out, a deep shout of masculine triumph, and she again with him. For one moment, their voices drowned out their tormentor’s cries.
Navos sagged into Nelah’s embrace, his forehead on the wall behind her. They were both trembling, exhausted, awash in perspiration, his come and, he very much feared, his blood.
Even filled with the physical, mental bliss of the most powerful orgasm of his life, he could feel the laser wound throbbing, burning. Only locking his knees kept him upright.
“One last…thing,” he said hoarsely. “Flower…we must send…power back to him.”
She moved her head groggily, turning her face against his. “All right,” she muttered. “Put me down.”
He shook his head slightly. “Can’t…move. Just…let me…”
“You can’t…do it,” Cyan raged, although his voice was ragged now, as if he were slipping the tether of coherence. “It’ll take more than a cheap sex performance to best me, you fools.”
Summoning every reserve of his will, Navos gathered his psychic power and slipped into her mind. In through her thoughts, sweet, bewilderingly feminine territory. Further, spanning the proportions of her brain, humming with bliss, the remnants of terror and there—there, wrapped around her cerebral stem, like a horrid weed growing in a lovely garden, the device.
With one swift lunge, he surrounded it, enwrapped it so thickly that Cyan had no time to move and then gathering every bit of his will, he began to send power into it.
“Yes!” Her power curling around his, buoying him up, entwining with his like new branches in a mighty tree, growing and growing to wrap inward and crush the dark canker in their midst. “Yes, love. I’m with you.”
Navos caught his breath as sheer exhilaration rushed through him, a chorus wild and sweet singing in his psyche. And she was there, the sweetest song of all, light and life and joy, urging him onward. And unbelievably, he felt physical arousal surge through him again as well, felt his penis harden inside her, his balls tight and aching again for release.
“Daron!” Her pussy squeezed him as she tightened her legs around him, her nails digging into his back. “Again?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied, even as he kissed her, locking his mouth with hers as he began to thrust again, her pus
sy sleek and hot with his come. “Wouldn’t want…to disappoint…our audience.”
“Omigod, they’re watching us. Omigod, oh yes, oh, Daron, I want the whole galaxy to see you loving me, you’re mine, I love you!”
“Yes,” he agreed and felt her pussy begin to milk him rhythmically. As she came, her psychic power spiked, wrapping around his as surely as her arms enfolded him.
“Yes, love, now!” Together they destroyed the thing that had been planted in her brain, sending the dark power rushing back from whence it had come.
They heard their tormentor scream. It made this second climax even sweeter than their first.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Beryl Mazarin looked contemptuously at the gibbering wreck of her lover, huddled in the lounge area of her luxurious space cruiser before the holo-vid display of a tall, lean man and his slender, lovely mate, still locked in coitus. So much for their plan to destroy Daron Navos.
She watched for a moment, her face tight, as the holo-vid Navos lifted one hand to the Cobalt woman’s face and touched it with infinite gentleness. Then he straightened, staggered and slid slowly to the floor. His silver uniform was saturated with blood, oozing from the wound on his shoulder.
The girl tried to catch him, of course, and then knelt over him, not even caring she was nude, save for the ridiculous scraps of fabric hanging from her limbs.
She put her hands over the wound on his shoulder and pressed hard, babbling something to the holo-cam, her face white and frightened.
Turning away with a sharp movement of her draping garments, Beryl Mazarin activated her com-link.
“Send someone back to the lounge at once,” she commanded. “We’ve garbage to jettison.”
Craig, Slyde, Sirena and Tessa stood in silence for a moment as the holo-vid of Navos’s stateroom filled with medics and guards who quickly ascertained Navos’s wound was, while bloody, easily treatable, loaded him on a gurney and trundled him off to the infirmary. Nelah, wrapped in a coverlet, followed on another.
“Hah,” managed Craig finally. He sounded as if his throat was full of sand. “Great God beyond. Did they just…vanquish Cyan and his implant by—?”
“By fucking?” Sirena asked. She blinked slowly, as if coming back to herself. “Why, yes, I believe they did.”
Tessa’s eyes were wide and dazed, her cheeks flushed. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “I always wondered…all that intensity and control.” She fanned herself with one hand.
“Mmm, yes,” Sirena agreed. She and Tessa exchanged a look.
“First time a war has ever been won on that particular battlefield,” Craig muttered. He ran one hand over his flushed face, as if to wipe away the shock of witnessing his long-time friend and second-in-command in a prolonged incident of complete intimacy. But then his eyes met his wife’s and heated. He held out one hand to her and she went to him.
As Sirena’s huge husband rose, she met his eyes and smiled. “Not really the first time,” she murmured, going to him.
Slyde pulled her into his arms. “True. And I won that war.”
“We both won,” she chided him.
Craig kissed his wife, thoroughly. He whispered something in her ear that made her blush. Then he straightened, once again the captain of the Orion.
“Are things returning to normal on the ship?” he asked.
Slyde nodded. “According to Izard and the others, we have some bewildered passengers and crew, who can’t remember quite how they got assorted bumps and bruises.”
“I suggest free drinks all around,” Sirena said. “That’ll help them forget completely.”
Craig nodded. “Great idea. Halix? Ogg? Panthar? Everything okay out there?”
“Navigation systems safe and operational,” Panthar replied.
“Engines and reactor all okay,” Ogg said. “How’d it go on your end?”
“Ah.” Craig exchanged a quick glance with his guard commanders. One that instantly agreed nothing they had witnessed would ever leave the command deck. “Commander Navos received a flesh wound, but the medics assure us he’ll be fine after a transfusion and some glue-stitch.”
“Orion back to normal, Captain,” said Halix cheerfully.
Craig rose, grim satisfaction on his face. “Good. I’m going to speak with Stark and the IBI. Maybe we can get rid of these bastards, once and for all.”
“Do we know where this Cyan and the Mazarin woman are?” Sirena asked.
“They’ve escaped us, for the moment. But the IBI will find them,” Halix said. “They are on her ship.”
“Or we will,” Slyde said. He and his wife exchanged a smile that made a shiver run over Halix’s lavender skin. He was extremely glad that the two beautiful predators would never hunt him.
Nelah hung over Navos’s air-bed in the infirmary until he woke. The greatest relief of her life flooded her when he stirred and frowned.
“Are you there?” he asked, without opening his eyes.
“I’m here.”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly and he reached for her hand with his good arm.
She slipped her hand into his. Then, very carefully, she leaned over and laid her cheek atop their clasped hands, on his chest. She sent a prayer of thanks winging silently to the stars. He was safe, that was all that mattered.
“I’ll be right beside you, as well,” he promised.
She smiled mistily, feeling the strength of the words and the man, solid as white Indigon stone. She’d have to undergo surgery to remove what was left of the biotic implant, they both knew that. But it was inert now. She still felt a shuddering distaste for having it inside her skull, but she no longer feared it, or the conniving monster that had placed it there.
“I know you will.”
“When it’s over, we’ll be married.”
Nelah lifted her head, shocked. He opened his eyes, amusement in their indigo depths.
“We’ll speak of that…later.” She tugged at her hand and he winced, sucking in a sharp breath.
“Oh, Daron! Does it hurt you? Don’t move anymore,” she babbled, guilt flooding her.
He smiled bravely, still holding her hand. “Very well, love. I won’t.”
A twinge of suspicion moderated her guilt. She eyed him, frowning. Daron Navos was perfectly capable of playing others to get what he wanted, although she suspected she was the only being alive who knew this about him.
He lifted her hand to his lips, gazing limpidly at her as he pressed a warm kiss to her skin.
“But perhaps this time we’ll limit the spectators to just the ceremony,” he said. “And not our nuptial embraces.”
With a squeak of utter embarrassment, Nelah hid her flaming face on his chest. She’d hoped that, by some miracle, neither he nor any of their audience would ever refer to the episode again.
His chest quivered and he made a strange choking noise.
“Do not laugh at me!”
“Never, flower. Never.”
She groaned silently. It was a good thing she loved him so much, or she would have to suffocate him with one of the air pillows.
“You will marry me,” he said with trademark insistence. Although it was nicely tempered with more than a hint of need. She smiled to herself, unable to believe this incredible man, whom she’d hero-worshipped for so long, wished to marry her. And yet…
“Are you certain you wish to marry?” she asked wistfully. “Will your work always come first with you? You’ve lived for it for so long.”
“Flower, I put the Orion first only once. And I immediately realized my grievous error. You said you had forgiven me.”
“I have, but I…Daron, I simply don’t wish to be someone you remember between voyages. I couldn’t bear to live that way.”
“How can you suggest my feelings are so shallow? I love you. I have said so. I wish to marry you.”
“Can’t we…wait and see how things go?” Part of her could not believe she was putting him off. Part of her was screaming, “Say y
es, say yes, you fool!”
His hand tightened on hers and his eyes deepened in color and intensity, as if he would bend her to his will by the sheer force of his gaze. Nelah felt her heart melting, felt herself ready to submit and agree to anything he asked. Suddenly she realized the feeling was being enhanced.
“Stop that,” she said indignantly.
His brows shot together, but the urge slipped away.
He looked away, fidgeted under the covers and then sighed, as if much put-upon.
“Very well,” he said. “I perceive you will accept nothing less than total surrender. Holo-vid, on.”
He nudged her upright, as a small holo-vid sprang up in the air before them. Nelah watched in wonder. There she lay, pale and still on the gurney, an image of her brain revolving above her while Navos held her hand and Craig, Tentaclar and the guard commanders watched. They all looked grim.
“Daron, she agreed to help,” Sirena insisted.
“And she’s our only hope of catching this Cyan before he destroys anyone else,” Slyde added. “With these new implants, virtually undetectable, he’s a rogue in the galaxy. Governments could be toppled, security compromised anywhere someone pays him.”
Craig stepped closer to his friend and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I understand how you feel, Daron,” he said quietly. “But she did agree. You know we must stop him now.”
“You don’t understand,” Navos said, as if forcing the words out past his pride, looking down at her. “You can’t. I have spent my life living up to the standards of my father’s people. Barricading myself behind intellect and psychic power. Convincing myself this was the way I was meant to live—that passion was for other beings, those less endowed than I. Until she boarded this ship and tore all my carefully constructed control away, like so much tissue in her hands.”
Nelah’s eyes filled with tears, which spilled unheeded down her cheeks as she listened in wonder.
“I can’t lose her,” Navos said rawly. “I will have nothing to live for.”
The others were silent, gazing at him.
