by Rebecca York
“What?”
“That same man says he would have quit, but he stayed on the job trying to find out something he could use against Tudor.”
“And he found it?”
When Max clicked to another section of the file, Amber gave him a sharp look. “What do you not want me to see?”
He glanced at her, then back at the screen. “Okay. He says Tudor was holding a woman captive in an isolated part of the house. He’d hear her screaming—and pleading for the master to stop what he was doing. Then the pleading stopped. Either he sent her away—or she was dead.”
Amber’s face turned pale as moonstone. When she stood and headed for the door, Max stopped her.
“Stay here.”
“Why?”
“It’s not a good time for you to be alone.” He stood and wrapped his arms around her, stroking his hands up and down her back. Lifting her against his chest, he returned to his chair and sat, cradling her in his lap.
He felt her shivering. Her worst fears about the man who had bought her had been confirmed, and all Max could do was hold her and stroke her. He couldn’t lie and say he knew everything was going to be okay. The only thing he knew for sure was that they had pulled a fast one on a very powerful man.
Amber pressed her forehead against his shoulder. She was a very strong woman. She’d conceived a desperate plot and pulled it off. Now she was shattered.
When she began to speak, it was in a flat voice.
“We used to talk.”
He gazed down at her. “Who?”
“The slaves. Late at night when we were alone, we used to talk about the future—what kind of man would buy us, what we could hope for. We knew we were valuable property, and we prayed to the gods that we would go to someone who would appreciate us and wanted to keep us around for a while. Maybe a few years—until we started to get old looking.
He winced, imagining those late-night confabs among captive women who had no control over their future. “We knew from what the guards said that there was hope our life might not be too bad. We knew we were beautiful and desirable. And we knew there were men who might want to . . . have a real relationship.”
“Yes.”
“We also knew there were some very bad masters, and we knew their names. Tudor was one of the ones we feared. He ordered a lot of women, so we were pretty sure he wasn’t keeping any of them around for a long time.”
Max winced. “He could have been buying them to sell them.”
“That could be true, but not from what we’d heard. When I found out the guards were saying I was going to him, I was desperate to get away.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I mean off planet. If I tried to stay on Naxion, they could recapture me—and the punishment would be severe.”
“But trying to escape still could have come out horribly.” She gulped in a breath and let it out. “I was so lucky it was you who showed up.”
He tightened his hold on her, hating to imagine this brave, determined woman going to a man who meant to abuse and kill her. She would be with Tudor now if she hadn’t pulled that trick at the beginning—telling him that the slavers meant to kill him.
He could have been angry. Instead he admired her. She had an agile mind—and a knack for survival. The same traits that had kept him alive for years in a field where a lot of guys made a fatal mistake and ended up as space debris.
When she raised her face, he gazed down at her. There was a charged moment when they stared intently at each other. Then she reached to bring his face down to hers.
He could have pulled back. He could have protested that they should be thinking about how to get themselves out of the swamp where they had landed. But he told himself that it wouldn’t hurt to give himself time to think. Sometimes when you didn’t focus on the answer to a problem, it suddenly came to you.
When she began to kiss him, he kissed her back—with passion but also with a sense that she was a woman he never would have met under ordinary circumstances—and that she had come to mean a lot to him in a very short amount of time.
Never mind that she had worked to make it happen. It wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t been attracted to her—and if he hadn’t admired her on more than a superficial level.
###
Amber pulled back so that she could search Max’s face. What she discovered stole her breath away. His gaze was dark, superheated, and—vulnerable. Although she’d started off by tricking him into rescuing her, it hadn’t taken long to figure out that he was strong and capable—as well as honorable. All the things she’d done to get him on her side had worked because he’d known she was in trouble and felt compelled to help.
At first, she’d just wanted to be rescued. She’d even considered disappearing on the space station if she thought that would be to her advantage. She’d known that was a foolish plan as soon as they’d set foot in the great hall, and she’d realized she was like a toddler thrown into a jungle pit.
She’d understood that leaving Max’s protection was foolish. And she wasn’t proud of her reasons for staying.
Now she knew how much more she wanted from him than what she’d envisioned at the beginning. She knew nothing of what really went on between men and women, beyond the superficial knowledge of how to please a man. But staring into his eyes made her ache for something real. If that was possible.
Could he want that too? Once she might have tried to force the issue. But she knew that wouldn’t get her what she really wanted.
She caught her breath as his fingertips caressed her curves, the look in his eyes going dreamy.
Was he thinking the same thing as she? She didn’t dare to hope for that much. But she knew she had made him desire her.
He set her on the floor and stood so that he could yank his shirt over his head, then opened the buttons at the front of her dress and pulled it off her shoulders as he gathered her to him. They both gave a little cry as the softness of her breasts contacted the hard planes of his chest. For a long moment, he held her still against him, and she savored the warmth of the contact. Then he began to shift her body from side to side, sliding her breasts against the springy hair of his chest, bringing glad little cries to her lips. She felt her knees buckle, yet she didn’t fall because he was supporting her weight.
Her breath came in little gasps as he backed her against the wall before his hands moved inward to play with her breasts, balance their weight in his palms, and reshape them to his grasp. Taking his time, he switched his attention to her nipples, drawing smaller and smaller circles around them.
“Please,” she gasped out.
“You want this?” He took the crests between his thumbs and fingers, squeezing and twisting, turning them into unbelievable points of sensitivity. The pleasure of it was almost more than she could bear.
One of his hands glided to her hips, urging her more firmly against the hard shaft behind the fly of his pants, rocking her against him. Quickly, her instincts took over and she began to move on her own, pressing, stroking against him, her need becoming more frantic as his hands did wildly erotic things to her breasts.
The heat built relentlessly, making her body tingle and her ears ring.
When he pulled abruptly away, confusion swept over her. It took a moment to realize she was really hearing something external, not in her own head.
“What?” she gasped out. “What is that?”
“An alarm.” He scooped his shirt off the floor and pivoted away from her, heading out the door.
She pulled the front of her dress together, buttoning it as she followed him down the short corridor to the bridge.
He was alternately staring at the view screen in front of him and powering up the engines.
In the center of the screen, a spaceship loomed, closing in fast on their location.
Chapter Eleven
As Max muttered a string of curses, Amber lowered herself into the chair beside his. “Who is it? Did Tudor find us?”
“I d
on’t know, but we’d better take evasive action.”
“Can you . . . shoot at him?”
He answered with a harsh laugh. “Merchant ships aren’t equipped with external weapons. If someone boards us, I can try to fight them off, but not when they’re in another vessel.”
She watched him check several readouts, then ease away from the lumpy chunk of rock beside where he’d parked the Golden Fleece. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, and she could see that any miscalculation could lead to a fatal crash with one of the rocks floating in space. With agonizing slowness, he pulled around the asteroid, putting it between himself and the ship that was closing on them. Out of sight, he executed a second maneuver, rounding another of the rough-looking bodies. They were so close that she felt like she could reach out and touch the hard surface.
She could see why this was a good place to hide. There were lots of these chunks of debris where ships could make themselves inconspicuous. On the other hand, she could also see that no pilot who wasn’t in complete control of his vessel should venture in here.
He wove around several of the floating bodies, apparently heading for a region where there hardly seemed to be space to wedge a ship between the obstructions.
She held her breath as they glided between two wicked looking specimens, then executed a sharp turn.
He had split the screen so that he had both a view of what was ahead of him and what was behind. She breathed out a small sigh when she didn’t see the other ship. She had just started to relax when the nose of the pursuing vessel rounded a rocky outcropping.
“Crap,” Max muttered.
“He’s as good as you,” she whispered.
He laughed mirthlessly. “Unfortunately.”
As she gripped the arms of her chair, another burst of noise—high pitched and ominous—rang through the control room.
Max sat up straighter, then flicked a switch on the control panel in front of him. Once again, she heard the intruding sound.
“What’s that?” she gasped out.
“A message.”
He adjusted the frequency, and she heard what sounded like a garbled word. “Tubendan.”
“What?” she asked again.
“Maybe we’re not in the slatter after all.”
Using the same channel, He sent his own reply, which also sounded like a random collection of syllables to Amber.
The person sending the original message replied, and Amber waited tensely to find out what was going on.
“It’s someone you know?” she asked.
He glanced at her, then away. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t they warn you they were coming?”
“They wanted to wait until they were within range to use short-distance communications.”
“You mean, they didn’t want anybody else picking up the transmission?”
“Right.”
“And how did they know you were here?”
“They didn’t for sure. But this is a place we’ve used in the past.”
“We?”
He kept his gaze on her. “Rafe Cortez.”
She felt like he’d just hit her in the stomach with a blast from his beamer. If she had been standing up, she would have fallen over.
“No,” she gasped.
“It’s okay.”
“He’s going to turn me over to Tudor.”
“No,” he said again.
She searched for absolute conviction in his voice and didn’t hear it.
“Let me deal with him.”
And let him finish the job he was hired to do. Not if she could help it, she thought, but she kept the words locked in her throat. Right now, she had to look like she was going along with Max’s plans.
The Golden Fleece stayed in position, and the other ship maneuvered to its side.
“Permission to come aboard,” a deep male voice said.
“Granted.”
Max turned to her “Stay here”
She gave a little nod.
Her heart was already drumming inside her chest as he stood and headed toward the air lock. The moment he was out of sight, she began looking wildly around the control room. If only Max had another beamer, she would have picked it up and hoped it was set to kill. But there were no guns or any other weapons lying around the bridge.
What could she use to defend herself? She saw a clear plastic box clipped to the underside of the control panel. Through it she spotted a variety of tools. Leaning forward, she fumbled for the catch on the box. Because there wasn’t much time to paw through the contents, she snatched up a heavy wrench, closed the box again, and wrapped her hand around the handle of the tool. It felt reassuringly solid in her grasp.
A quick glance told her she was still alone. Standing, she walked to the side of the doorway and waited with the wrench held down by her leg.
In the corridor she heard male voices talking, the conversation clipped and urgent. Were they talking about her? Was Cortez asking why Max hadn’t completed the assignment? Was he explaining where he’d been? Was he angry with Max for rescuing her?
She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she was sure of one thing. Why else would Rafe Cortez be here if he hadn’t come to grab her and take her to the man who had bought her? She wasn’t going to let that happen, and if that meant dying to prevent it, she was ready to accept that.
Every nerve in her body sizzled as she pressed herself against the cold metal wall.
Because she didn’t want to make a mistake and kill Max, she had to wait for the two men to enter the control room. Max was in the lead.
He glanced toward the copilot’s seat and stopped short.
“Amber?”
She didn’t answer, and he walked quickly to the other side of the chair, looking to see if she was hiding.
Rafe followed him into the room.
He was a tall man, with dark hair and what looked like a two- or three-day growth of dark stubble on his cheeks and chin.
As soon as she saw him clearly, she sprang away from the wall, raising the wrench and aiming a blow at his head.
But Max had turned, saw her, and shouted, “Watch out.”
A look of shock on his face, the other man dodged enough to keep the tool from coming down on his skull. It bounced off his shoulder, and he grunted.
Max was already in motion. Leaping forward, he grabbed Amber’s arm and tried to wrestle the weapon away from her. But fear and determination had given her strength to hold on. And she could tell from the way Max was fighting that he didn’t want to hurt her, only keep her from killing his friend. She didn’t want to hurt him either, which limited her options.
He could have bent her elbow back and twisted painfully until she dropped the tool. Instead he tried to immobilize her arm at her side.
“Kahlad,” Rafe shouted, rearing back in shock, then surging forward, trying to assist Max as she kept struggling.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
She only gritted her teeth and tried to raise the weapon.
With a curse, Max threw her to the deck, coming down on top of her, circling each wrist with a fist, pressing her hands to the floor. She could have tried to bite him. Instead she kicked her legs, landing a couple of blows, but Max only made a sound of pain and kept his grip on her while Rafe darted in and grabbed the weapon.
When the other man stepped back with the tool, she glared at Max.
“Kill me now.”
His face contorted. “What?”
She sucked in a breath and let it out. “He came to take me to that man—Tudor. I’d rather have a clean death than what he’s going to do to me.”
“No,” Rafe said.
“You want me to suffer?” she shot back.
“No, I’m not taking you to Tudor.”
“Why not?”
“Because Max went to a lot of trouble to scuttle the mission. There has to be a good reason.”
From her position on the floor, she stared from him to Max and back
again.
“Then why are you here? Why did you ask him to transport me in the first place?”
“Because I didn’t know the package was a woman.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re here to complete the job and get your pay.”
“No.”
From where Max held her captive, her gaze drilled into the other man. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because we’re all in deep slat, and I’m trying to get us out of it.”
She felt Max ease up a little on his hold. “If I let you go, will you behave?”
She had silently vowed that she would never lie to him again. But did it work the other way? Could she really trust Max or his friend?
“Will you behave?” he asked again.
She thought about it. She probably wouldn’t be able to fight these two strong men on her own. And probably she did need their help to get out of trouble—if that was possible and if it was what Rafe really intended.
“Okay,” she answered Max.
“Okay what?”
“I won’t try to kill him.”
“Or hurt him.”
“Or hurt him.”
He could have kept his hold on her. Instead he pushed himself away from her, stood, and offered her his hand.
She let him help her up. “How do I know I can trust him?”
“Because he’s been my friend for ten years.”
“You have friends who would bring slaves to a man who tortures them to death?”
Rafe winced. “Like I said, I didn’t know he was buying a slave. Are you telling me the truth? He really buys women to torture and kill them?”
“We have . . . circumstantial evidence that’s what he’s doing.”
“What kind of evidence.”
Amber answered. “The slave masters talked about him, about his reputation. And Max looked him up on a . . . database. One of the . . .” she paused and fumbled for the right term, “swamp rats heard a woman at his estate over several days screaming and begging him to stop what he was doing. Then she was silent.”
The color had drained from Rafe’s face. “The hell you say.”
“That’s what we know—and that he orders women fairly often,” Max answered.
“Kahlad. I knew he was a bastard. I didn’t know about the torture and murder part.”
