by dark wind
He leaned his head against the wall. “What other choice do I have, Lady?”
“None as I can see it.” She laid a hand on his knee. “If you get lonely, look me up. We’ll take an engine apart or something.”
He chuckled then he surprised Barb by lying down and putting his head in her lap. She threaded her fingers through his sleek curls, stroking his head, and began to hum much as a mother would to a troubled child.
“I never knew my mother.” The bond of blood between him and Khiershon Cree gave him insight into the woman’s thoughts.
“Didn’t know mine, either.”
He looked up. “Truly?”
She nodded. “Seems we got a lot in common, huh?”
Iyan closed his eyes and settled his head more comfortably in her lap. Before either of them realized it, he was sleeping soundly, at peace for the first time in days.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Ravenwindslipped into the docking harness one hour before The Orion landed on Corinth colony.
Upon arrival the Terran men aboard Iyan McGregor’s ship were taken into custody by the Serenian Guard and escorted to a holding facility. The Long Range Cruiser was then camouflaged to hide it from any marauding Amazeen ship that might be lurking nearby. When The Orion was locked into the harness, she, too, was transformed from a sleek Terran vessel to a rusting deep space freighter.
“A computer program generates a holographic image overlaying the ship,” Khiershon explained to Marti.
“That’s how we’ve been able to elude the patrols over the years.”
“Pretty neat program,” Marti agreed as she stared at the outside view of The Orion. To the unknowing eye, the meteor-pitted hull and cancerous rust eating away at the ship’s exterior looked far too real.
“Unfortunately, it takes a lot of system resources to maintain the image, so we use it only during down time,” added Sinjin. “We can metamorphose into the dilapidated star cruiser you see out there now, but we can’t maintain that image for extended periods of time.” Marti glanced at The Revenant and shook her head. “You’d sure never know that was an LRC.”
“Are you planning on cannibalizing the Orion?” asked Lida.
Sinjin looked to Cree.
“We’ll be taking some parts, aye,” the Reaper answered. “When we’re through, we’ll have a ship that could pass for an Amazeen StarRaider and we’ll have the capacity to make the jump from here to Rysalia Prime.”
“You’re going to alter The Orion?”
“We will make her better, Lady,” Sinjin injected. He smiled at the tall blond woman called Marti.
Marti looked away then locked gazes with the Viragonian. A sparkle shimmered in her gray eyes and she began asking Wynth questions about Corinth’s engineering designs.
“I believe there might be another conquest about to take place,” Cree whispered to Caitlin.
“She has a friend on The Orion. Lin Dixon, our First Officer.”
“She’d best forget about him, I would say. Sinjin has a gleam in his eye that tells me he’s staked claim to that one.”
“Can I see our men?” Caitlin asked her new husband. “I want to make sure they’re okay.” The parasite slithered under Khiershon’s skin, a jealous prod the Reaper refused to acknowledge. “I’ll have Dak escort you over to the holding facility.”
“What am I to tell them?”
“Whatever you wish them to know,” he replied. “No harm will come to them. They’ll be safe here. As far as the Amazeen know, this is a junkyard for useless hulks from Serenia and Necroman. Each time an Amazeen ship has passed this way looking for parts, they haven’t found any. They no longer bother to look.”
“How many people are on Corinth?”
“Above ground?” he asked with a shrug. “Fifty or sixty. It varies depending on intelligence reports of the Amazeen’s movements. But below the planet’s surface is a vast complex of caverns that house close to four-thousand resistance fighters and their families. In all, we number in the five digits with representatives from the Nine Planets.”
“Which are?” she prodded.
“Serenia, Diabolusia, Necroman, Virago, Chale, Ionary, Chrystallus, The Outer Kingdom, and Rysalia.”
“You have Rysalians here, too?”
“Those warriors we could pluck from under the noses of the Multitude. There are not many but they are loyal.”
“If you give our men a chance, I imagine they’d help, too. All except Wellmeyer. He is about as helpful as an ingrown toenail and just as pleasant.”
Cree grinned. “I take it you don’t like the good Captain Wellmeyer.”
“The man’s a twerp. A mean-spirited, vicious twerp.”
“Want me to maim him for you?”
She pretended to think about it for a moment. “Nah, I’d just have to fill out a report and I really don’t want to be bothered.”
“Want me to bother you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Why, Reaper, what ever do you mean?”
He lowered his mouth to her neck and nibbled at her soft flesh. Slipping his hands around her waist, he pulled her to him, grinding the hardness of his shaft against her hip.
“Is this one of our captive Terran sluts?”
Cree jumped as though he’d been prodded with a hot iron and let go of Caitlin so quickly she stumbled back. He had to grab her to keep her from falling.
“Raphaella,” he muttered, cautioning Caitlin to silence with a stern look.
Caitlin looked at the beautiful black-haired woman who was glaring at her with enough venom to kill an army of men. Shapely and statuesque, the Amazeen princess was stunning. Her long legs were bare beneath the abbreviated hem of a white mid-thigh gown. Her lush stygian tresses fell in a thick queue to her hips over the place her right breast should have been. The thick braid rose and fell with the anger of her breath as she glowered at Caitlin.
“Princess Raphaella, may I present-”
The Amazeen warrioress stepped forward and grabbed his arm, snapped him against her and plastered her mouth over his, cutting off his introduction.
Caitlin knew all about the woman whose tongue was thrust halfway down her husband’s throat. She folded her arms and watched Cree trying to extricate himself from the woman’s embrace, his eyes pleading with her for help. She smiled sweetly at him, but made no move to assist him. When Raphaella finally removed her mouth from his, the Amazeen turned in triumph and locked eyes with Caitlin.
“This is my betrothed,” declared the Amazeen. “He may well have used you for his amusement while in route to Corinth, but now that he is home, you will be...”
“In his bed, lying naked beside him, no doubt discussing how embarrassed he was while you were manhandling him in front of his chosen wife.”
Raphaella recoiled as though she’d been slapped. She turned her hostile eyes to Cree. “Wife?” she questioned, eyes narrowed in warning.
Cree spread his hands. “You didn’t give me a chance to-”
“Wife?” The word was an explosion of disbelief.
“Aye, wife,” Caitlin answered for her husband. “And a wife who allowed you the opportunity to say goodbye to him with that last kiss, but who warns you if you put your hands on him again, I’ll carve off your other tit!”
Cree’s eyes widened. The challenge was like a gauntlet thrown in Raphaella’s direction and he jumped between the two women, knowing Raphaella well enough to know she’d leap at the change to fight.
“No!” he shouted, shielding Caitlin from the fury that erupted like a volcano. He felt Raphaella’s nails drag down his arms as she tried to get around him, clawing at Caitlin. “Enough, Raphie!” he ordered.
“Enough!”
“I will mutilate the bitch!” the Amazeen vowed, kicking Cree’s shin.
The Reaper grunted with the pain of her sharp boot to his leg. He made a grab for Raphaella, but Caitlin shoved him aside and met the other woman’s challenge with one of her own. Cree staggered and fell, crashing
into a docking strap that opened a deep gash in his forehead. Shaking his head to rid his eyes of the blood flowing into his eyes, he stared in disbelief at what was taking place not two feet from where he lay sprawled.
All eyes were on the deadly confrontation. No one could have predicted the outcome and bets would have been lost had there been time to make them. One moment the Amazeen had hold of Caitlin Cree’s hair, the next Raphaella was on her back with a dagger to her ivory throat, the blade digging into the princess’ windpipe.
“How did she do that?” Iyan asked Barb. He was staring at the Terran healer and was as astonished as everyone else gawking at the spectacle.
“Nine times kickboxing champion of Seventh Fleet,” bragged Barb. “Three Olympic gold medals if I remember rightly.”
“Four,” Caitlin corrected. She was sitting on the Amazeen’s chest, pressing her weight against the other woman’s throat. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the blade into the thick black braid coiled beside Raphaella’s head.
“Merciful Alel,” Cree whispered as he sat up. The gash over his eye was being healed quickly by the parasite, but black blood still dripped unheeded down his face.
“Let’s you and me be perfectly clear about something, Princess,” he heard Caitlin say. “I’ve been reading up on the customs of your race and I learned some interesting facts. That man over there belongs to me. I challenged you. You accepted the challenge, we fought, and I won By right of combat, he is mine. I have claimed him and there can be no discussion according to Amazeen law.”
“You,” Raphaella sneered between clenched teeth, “are not Amazeen and have no right to any claims of our race.”
“I am a woman and it matters not my race. According to the Laws of Alluvia, by right of combat, the Reaper is mine and if you put one finger on him, the Tribunal will not be pleased.”
“He is my betrothed!” Raphaella protested, tears filling her eyes.
“He is my husband! We were Joined legally with witnesses who will swear he got down on his knees to beg me to marry him.”
Cree groaned; humiliation flooded him at the word picture Caitlin had just painted for the Serenians milling about. He felt gazes aimed his way and could not look up. Instead, he stared at the black blood dripping on the metal floor.
“Khiershon,” Raphaella complained in a whiny voice. “Tell her you are mine!”
“I cannot,” he said. “I’ve never belonged to you, Raphaella. That is the truth and you know it.”
“We are lovers. We would have been Joined!”
“No.” He looked up. “We discussed this. I told you that I would never Join with you.” Tears streaked down Raphaella’s temples as she stared up at Caitlin. “You are an evil witch who has cast a spell on my Reaper!”
“I am the woman to whom he has given his heart.” Caitlin eased the dagger from the Amazeen’s throat.
“And I am the woman who is willing to overlook what happened today if you promise to keep your paws off Khiershon Cree. Else...”
Raphaella tensed as the dagger returned to her throat. “Else?” she echoed.
“I’ll slit your gullet and be done with it.”
“I think she means it, Raphie,” Cree warned.
“I know damned well she means it,” said Helen. “There was that woman on Venus who...”
“Hush!” Lisa hissed, looking about them. “We aren’t to discuss the dead one, remember?”
“Or what horrible things were done to her before Caitlin...” Marti injected.
“Be quiet!” Lida warned.
Barb had to press her lips together to keep from laughing. Only Iyan saw the merriment in her dark eyes and knew the other women were playacting. He schooled his face not to reveal his own laughter, but turned his gaze to Caitlin and the look that passed between him and the Reaper’s woman was anything but angry.
Raphaella’s ivory skin had paled as the Terran women’s words slithered into her brain. She stared up at the woman Cree had Joined with and knew this woman was evil beyond knowing. For the first time in her life, the Amazeen princess lowered her gaze to another woman.
“We understand one another?”
“Aye,” Raphaella agreed in a small voice.
With a lithe bound that brought an admiring ‘ah’ from those gathered, Caitlin got to her feet and sheathed the dagger no one knew she had secreted on her person. She thrust her hand to the woman on the deck.
“I’ve no need for an enemy. I don’t wish to look over my shoulder wondering if you’re there,” she told Raphaella. “Give me your hand and your word that this discussion is at its end and I will give you my word that should the time ever come, I will stand back to back with you and fight for your honor.” A collective gasp escaped the Serenians.
Raphaella looked at Cree. He was as shocked by the offer as she was, but he knew she saw in his eyes the deep admiration for the Terran woman. Raphie could be no less honorable than the outlander so, with reluctance, she took the proffered hand and winced as the strength in that hand jerked her to her feet.
Caitlin put her arms around the Amazeen and drew her close so that only Raphaella could hear her words. “Break the vow between us and I will cut out your heart. Do you understand?” Raphaella’s lips were close to Caitlin’s ear. “You already have, you Terran witch, for you have stolen my heart from me!”
Caitlin pushed the Amazeen away, smiling as though they were old friends. “Good,” she said. “That’s good to hear, Raphaella.”
Raphaella bowed her head, cast Cree one last wounded look then walked away, her back ramrod straight.
“I cannot believe what just happened,” said Iyan. He stared at Caitlin.
“Cait is an Irishwoman,” Barb explained. “I’ve read that in medieval times, the Celtic women warriors were much more vicious than their male counterparts. I guess we learned today that may well be true.”
“She has made an enemy for life,” Iyan warned.
“So has Raphaella,” Barb countered.
“Are you going to sit there all day, Reaper?” asked Caitlin.
Cree stared up at his wife. He was reclining on the deck, one wrist crooked over his raised knee as he contemplated his lady. He shook his head then got up. “Woman, you certainly are more than I bargained for.”
“More than you can handle?” she threw at him with a saucy wink.
“No,” he drawled. “Just more than I bargained for.”
“Disappointed?”
He grabbed her, pressed her against the stanchion of the docking harness and slanted his mouth across hers. Ignoring the shocked silence his action brought to those watching, he pressed his body against his wife’s and thrust his tongue deeply into the warm recesses of her mouth. Her small groan of desire brought his knee up between her legs so she was riding his thigh as he pressed into her. His hands went to her breasts, molding the firm mounds so expertly, his lady-wife was barely able to breathe for the passion running rampant through her trembling body.
“For the love of Alel, take it to your quarters, Reaper!” Iyan chuckled, surprised at himself for being amused by the situation.
As those on the docking bay watched, Khiershon Cree swept his lady into his powerful arms, hefted her high against his chest and carried her down the rampway to vigorous applause and laughter.
“Show off,” accused Caitlin.
Khiershon Cree smiled.
In her quarters, Raphaella locked the corrugated steel door and demolished every breakable item she could get her hands on. Pottery was smashed against the stone walls; paper, cloth, and bedding were pulled apart and shredded; and food was strewn about the carpeted floor and ground into the fibers.
“The gods punish you, Kherishon Cree!” she shrieked as she peeled art from the walls and put her fists through the canvases, snapped the frames in twain. “You will regret casting me aside!” Oblivious to the cuts and splinters on her hands and arms, she took her broadsword from its stand and struck out at everything she had not destroyed wit
h her bare hands. Feathers and cloth fibers drifted on the wild currents fanned by her maniacal destruction and the stench of fruit and vegetable pulp saturated the walls.
“Damn you, Reaper!” She swung the broadsword into the back of an overstuffed chair and split the piece of furniture in half.
When at last her moment of insane rage passed, she sank her weapon onto the floor and knelt beside it, her head on the wobbling hilt.
“Why, Khiershon?” she sobbed, her beautiful face screwed into a mask of grief. “Why?” From the moment she had first seen the Reaper cadet many years before, she had fallen in love with the handsome Ry-Chalean warrior. Her nightly dreams were filled with his virile young body and her days spent staring at him every chance she got. She had plotted his freedom, thinking he would give his heart to her if she could but gain his release.
Such had not been the case.
Though she had been able to set him free of his captors and he had taken her with him when he fled, he had shown her nothing more than brotherly affection and none of the overpowering passion she knew him capable of exhibiting.
Had she not had the same wicked dreams her sister Amazeens had experienced when still he was captive? Had she not felt the heat of his passionate gaze when he looked at her? And had not the few times he had taken her to his cot not been among the most wondrous of hours for her?
He had been her first, his sword piercing the flesh of her body with such authority and expertise she had barely felt the pain. If anything, she had to admit, she had rejoiced in the slight sting that had branded her his woman. She had exalted at the feel of his magnificent body and the power of his desire turning her to a quivering mass of surrender. She had given him her body and had allowed him to have her heart and soul as well. He had claimed her, marked her with his seed, and she had reveled in the knowledge that she, alone, had tamed the Reaper Cree.
Thus, she thought as she knelt there on the floor, her sorrow manifesting itself in scalding tears of self-pity and betrayal, she had thought of herself as Khiershon Cree’s life-mate. But now?
