After her recent encounter with the Rystani, she anticipated she’d have no difficulty recalling his scent, or the shape of his muscles. With his image branded into her brain, she anticipated a lovely evening.
Alara ran hot water and added a scent of rolilly, a wildflower she’d collected last spring during a trip to the forest east of Nacene. She always took the opportunity to search for rare DNA combinations, so between experiments, she arranged to spend time outside the laboratory. Her numerous expeditions kept her gallery supplied with art and had led her to the discovery of many exotic plants and animals. She examined them, studied the DNA combinations, carefully mapping their genome sequences before returning them unharmed to the wild.
Using her psi to turn off the shield that prevented the water from reaching her skin, she sank slowly to her knees, hips, and waist until only her head remained above the surface. She could have submerged totally and adjusted the suit so she could continue to breathe underwater, but then she wouldn’t have been able to smell her flowers, listen to her music, or let the candles bathe her in their flickering golden light.
Her thoughts wandered back to the most interesting part of her day. Xander. Ah, how ironic that the big Rystani warrior, an enemy, had been the first man to present her with an opportunity to go off world where she could examine alien DNA. She’d often wondered if the cure that she sought to alleviate the Boktai and the bonding might not be on Endeki at all, but elsewhere. If only Endeki law permitted her to leave, she might find the exact DNA sequence she required on another Federation world.
With her wealth, Alara could have broken the law, bought a small spaceship, bribed a port official to look the other way to allow her to depart. But she could never have returned. Despite her falling-out with her government, this was home. She had friends, her work, a successful business, and absolutely no wish to leave her world forever.
But that wouldn’t stop her from fantasizing over possibilities. She reached for the special oil and dabbed a bit into her palm. She’d seen holovids of Rystani warriors, but Xander was the first one she’d ever met in person. No holovid could convey his charm, or his sheer size or the blatant masculinity that had seeped from every pore like a potent drug. She recalled his features as easily as if he were still before her. Xander’s startling purple eyes had seemed to stare straight into her soul. His massive muscles had shouted he was all male, and his fabulous cheekbones and chiseled jaw had defined his face with broad appeal. Now that she was alone, she could allow herself to dwell on how attractive he was. With his hefty muscles, a body like his would make a wonderful Boktai partner.
Endekian men tended to be short and rounded. In contrast, the Rystani’s long limbs allowed him to move with a graceful elegance that suggested he’d spent years training as a warrior. She hadn’t missed that despite his size, he’d exhibited a balance and agility that reminded her of a cheetark, a wild feline, on the prowl.
If he’d been a sculpture, she would have purchased him. The idea made her grin in delight. Especially when her image of him contrasted with how he’d react in real life. His temper would undoubtedly flare at even the concept of his posing for her pleasure.
But the idea of him standing naked before her pleased her so very much. He was a beautiful man. No wonder her senses had gone into overdrive. Alara smoothed the oil over her neck, let the water soak into her tense muscles, and slowly, she relaxed. Another kind of tension began to rekindle. At the memories of the big warrior, her breasts swelled and so did her labella, the slick folds between her legs thrumming.
And her yonia yearned for sweet fulfillment. Ever so slowly, she spread the oil down her collarbone. In anticipation of touching her breasts, she arched her spine until she raised her chest from the water. Cool air wafted across her nipples and they tightened, the tips darkening.
She didn’t understand why none of her partners ever grasped that she liked a slow, gentle touch. Perhaps it was her fault. She always waited until Boktai drove her into a frenzy of lust before seeking a partner—and by then she hadn’t the discipline to suggest slow and easy.
Like all Endekian women, Alara knew what pleased her. But unlike most women, she never seemed to find a man who shared her tastes. Her friends often told her she didn’t look hard enough, that she should spend more time hunting for a man instead of searching for art treasures or missing DNA links.
Alara didn’t have the answer. She only knew that it seemed much more pleasant to fantasize about the huge Rystani warrior than to go out and settle for an Endekian. In her fantasy, the Rystani warrior was perfect. He knew exactly how to touch and tease and caress. As her fingers softly cupped her breasts, her thumbs slowly circling her nipples, she imagined doing so with Xander watching her, encouraging her, patiently waiting while they both anticipated what would come next.
He would look at her hungrily, and his interest would feed her own. It would be difficult for both of them to wait. She imagined Xander joining her in the tub, his big body sliding next to her, his entry causing the waves to lap against her burning flesh. He’d place his hands on her waist, easily lift her and set her down so she straddled his hips.
He would take time to lock gazes. He’d smile an arrogant but tender smile that would cause the air to whoosh from her lungs. Oh, yes. The Rystani warrior would read her mind and know exactly what she liked.
His mouth would find her lips, her breasts. He would do wonderful things with his tongue. Gentle things. Rough things. Wickedly delicious things.
Alara’s hand dipped lazily between her thighs. Lost in her fantasy, she drew tighter, the tension causing her back to bow, her breath to come in great gasps. When the fire flashed through her, she moaned softly, knowing that she still needed more.
3
XANDER HAD INTENDED to leave Kirek behind, send him back in the shuttle where he’d be safe aboard the Verazen in orbit above Endeki. Especially after Xander had listened in on Kirek’s hyperlink conversation with his parents.
“Mom. Dad.” Kirek had greeted his folks with a youthful grin and a serious gleam in his eyes. “Don’t worry if I’m unable to contact you for a while.”
Back on Mystique, Miri and Etru exchanged long significant glances, their concern traveling through the vidscreen as clearly as if they’d been aboard the shuttle. Having a son who apparently had been born for great things was hard on Kirek’s parents, but they didn’t protest.
Miri’s eyes filled with tears, and Etru roughly cleared his throat. “We love you.”
“And I love you.” With his hands not visible to his parents, Kirek clenched his fists, evidently well aware how difficult it was for them to let him go into danger. “I’ll be fine. Please, don’t worry.”
“We won’t.” Miri’s voice choked. “We have faith in you, son.”
Xander saw the resignation in Kirek’s parents’ faces, and they had his sympathy. While he didn’t yet understand the importance of Kirek’s accompanying him, he sensed the young man had a crucial part to play. If Kirek knew better than they exactly what his role would be, he was keeping the details to himself.
After he’d ended the conversation with his parents, he squared his shoulders and unclenched his hands. “You’ll need my help to deal with Drik.”
Xander didn’t know whether the rumors were true and the boy could see the future or not, but he had a reputation. His predictions had never been wrong. Still, it wasn’t easy being in charge and responsible for a prodigy, a legend in his own time. As much as Xander didn’t wish to put Kirek at risk, he had a mission to accomplish.
“Fine.” Xander spoke in an even tone. “But you take orders from me.”
“Of course.” Kirek shrugged his shoulders, but with difficulty, as if a huge weight pressed him down.
“If one of my experienced crew orders you—”
“No one else should go with us.” Kirek bit his bottom lip, his
eyes worried, but his voice was certain and confident.
Xander had planned to have the second shuttle bring down several of his crew. If Tessa’s scheme failed, he had no wish to take on six highly trained and armed Endekians, the elite of Drik’s personal guard, with only a half-grown man at his side. Yet, he sensed Kirek would not have spoken without good reason. Not once during the journey from Mystique to Endeki had he so much as made a suggestion.
“Why must you and I go alone?”
Kirek winced.
Xander waited, his arms crossed over his chest. Kirek held his gaze and after an extended silence, spoke gently, almost as if Xander were the youth and he the experienced captain. “Have you ever experienced something you couldn’t explain?”
Xander didn’t have to think twice. One moment in his life stood out like a beacon of shame—one he wished he could have forgotten. Even when he managed to put aside the cursed memory during his waking hours, dishonor haunted his nightmares. Too often he awakened in a sweat, his heart hammering as he tried to figure out exactly what had happened. During his youth, the invading Endekians had captured and tortured him in order to make him reveal the location of Rian, his village. The pain had been extraordinary. His mind had run away to escape the agonies his body had endured. He’d simply gone . . . elsewhere. Xander had never spoken to anyone about how he’d resisted the incredible pain with an act of cowardice. Friends and family considered him brave. But in truth, his mind had snapped, separated from his body. He’d been lucky not to have gone insane.
Xander eyed Kirek warily. “Yes. I have experienced the inexplicable.”
Kirek nodded. “Then you understand how difficult it is to put certain knowledge into words.”
Xander was accustomed to making command decisions on the basis of facts, or the lack of them. But Kirek was asking for trust, faith—and not giving him one blessed reason to support his request. If anyone but Kirek had suggested that only two Rystani meet with Drik, Xander would have dismissed him as stupid or arrogant, but Kirek possessed the strongest psi known on Mystique. His IQ was immeasurable.
“All right.” Xander handed Kirek a sidearm. “We go together. Just the two of us.”
“Thanks.”
Kirek attached the stunner to his suit and helped himself to a knife from the armory, as well. He might have been a prodigy, but Kahn and Etru had taught him how to fight. He should be fine. But as they flew the shuttle toward Drik, Xander had the niggling suspicion that he’d forgotten a crucial detail, that he’d overlooked some factor that might affect the outcome of their meeting with the wily Endeki leader. Although he racked his brain, nothing consequential occurred to him during the short flight.
They landed on a shuttle pad next to a public park without incident. Before Xander opened the hatch, he adjusted his portable computer unit that allowed constant communication with Ranth and those back home who would likely be monitoring the mission.
“Ranth, what kind of data are you picking up about our flight?”
The computer had already tapped into the Endekian communication system and was undoubtedly monitoring thousands of conversations. At the moment, Xander’s interest focused on military chatter about any Rystani as well as the locations of civilian patrols.
“No one seems particularly interested in your whereabouts,” Ranth assured him.
“If that changes—”
“I’ll inform you pronto.”
“Pronto?” Xander recognized the slang as Terran, one of Tessa’s phrases. While the suit automatically translated the many Federation languages, idioms often didn’t come through with the exact shade of meaning the speaker intended.
“I’m attempting to incorporate slang into my systems. It’s supposed to make our working relationship more comfortable.”
At Ranth’s explanation, Kirek grinned, rolled his eyes, and stepped through the hatch. Whether Ranth understood enough humor to lighten their mood and had deliberately done so, Xander didn’t know. But after he sealed the hatch, his steps through the park were lighter, his breath easier.
Tessa’s plan could go wrong. But his awareness sharpened. He loved his job. Meeting the unexpected made him feel alive. He’d always enjoyed a good hunt, a rousing adventure, and journeys to new places. Ever since he’d met Alara, he’d felt inordinately invigorated.
Xander would settle for no less than a full-out effort to achieve his goal. He knew how to push himself, knew how to lead his crew. Proud that Tessa and Kahn had entrusted him with such an important mission, he was determined to succeed, and neither the Endekian doctor’s past nor his would stop him.
Night on Endeki was a long one, eighteen Federation hours. In the darkness, the park was almost empty. A late-night jogger ran beside his soaring keyton, an amphibious bird with a white beak. Embedded shop advertisements glowed in the sidewalk, the volume that pitched products muted. Xander and Kirek ignored the ads and made their way toward Drik’s three-story residence that sprawled over a city block. They strolled openly past scraggly trees and prickly grasses, as if unbothered by the lack of more solid cover should they have a sudden need to hide from a suspicious patrol.
Despite the heat, Xander’s suit cooled him, and while he would have liked to use filters to keep out the unpleasant scents, he didn’t. Scent could warn him of a surprise attack. While their suits could withhold scent, Endekian men in battle emitted an odor that they believed weakened their enemies’ soul. Xander doubted the truth of that religious belief, instead knowing that if he could pick up the odor from a distance, he’d have advance warning of attack. His steady pace gave no indication that the Endeki scent often came back to him in his worst nightmares.
Although Endeki prisons were harsh and the sentences severe, computers did most of the policing. At Drik’s residence’s outer gate, Xander’s fake passes were accepted by guards without cursory questions. Apparently, their leader often entertained offworlders, and no one seemed unduly alarmed to see two Rystani men, no matter how much they towered over the Endekians. Once inside the barren complex, Xander and Kirek strode down several long, narrow halls into an area of tighter security monitored by robots and a complex alarm system.
The robot asked Xander to remove his weapons and frisked him, but ignored Kirek, who didn’t register on the machines. Calmly, Kirek scooped up Xander’s weapons, and after the robot passed them through the sensors, he handed them back to Xander.
“I wish you could teach me how to make the machines ignore me and everything I carry,” Xander muttered, admitting the kid was useful after all. He was now glad Kirek had come along. Otherwise he might not have made it through the second level of security without alerting every guard in the residence. Briefly, he wondered if Kirek had anticipated the problem, then refocused his attention on his surroundings.
Drik’s home was large, ugly, and uninviting. Most leaders tended to have elaborate carpets, sculptures, and holovids. But the walls and floors here were made of plain stone, barren of all ornamentation and art, the lighting stark and gray.
When they reached Drik’s last level of security, it was almost anticlimactic. Tessa’s plan had worked. Their food half eaten and a bottle of drink overturned, all six Endekian guards slept, one slumped against a wall and several remaining in their chairs with their heads on the table. One was laid out flat on the floor, snoring loudly. The reek of spilled drink and half-eaten foul food permeated the room and made his stomach clench.
Kirek strode past the sleeping men and opened the door to the inner sanctum. Xander tensed, but when no alarm sounded, they slipped through. The change in decor was like walking from a prison into the gaudiest palace. Silver and gold holovids lined the walls, their intricate designs revealing changing scenes from Endeki life: battles, feats of engineering, colonies on their moons. However, the images were jarring. There was no pattern, no balance to the sequence of visuals, almost as if a co
mputer randomly displayed them and gave no consideration to what came before or after.
Beneath their feet was a plush carpet that changed from silver to crimson to magenta as they strode over it. From frescoed ceilings hung crystal chandeliers that lit up the foyer with the brightness of day. A fountain with two gracefully kneeling nude women laser-carved from smokey jadeite dominated the space, the water bubbling under a cloud of swirling smoke that appeared to be part of the sculpture.
It’s too easy.
Xander looked right, left, over his shoulder and above their heads. Surely, the Endekian leader wasn’t so lax that no security men stood guard inside this private area, that no computer system could detect their presence? However, the Endekian political system was filled with bribery and corruption. Where computers could go, so could hackers. But obviously the Endekian leader believed he was safe in the heart of his residence and that no one would dare to penetrate his personal quarters. His overconfidence might be the only reason they reached him without a fight.
Through their portable units, Ranth displayed a tiny holovid map of the residence’s layout, so they knew exactly which path to take. When they finally reached Drik’s sleeping quarters, sounds of feminine laughter filtered under an ornately carved metal door.
Without hesitation, Xander shoved open the door and the two Rystani men moved inside, their weapons ready, their feet poised to send them into diving rolls if they encountered armed resistance. A naked Endekian male, Drik, sprang to his feet and reached for his weapon on a stand beside the bed. Before he could arm himself, Xander kicked over the table and the weapon skidded across the floor.
“Don’t move, and no one will be hurt.” Xander aimed his stunner at Drik. Supposedly large for an Endekian, the leader of this world didn’t reach the height of Xander’s shoulders. While his yellow skin and rounded musculature magnified his potbelly, his eyes revealed a wily intelligence. Xander braced for trouble and didn’t let down his guard.
The Ultimatum Page 4
