Ceasefire_Team Orion Nebula

by Kayla Stonor

  * * *

  “The whole ‘captured High Priestess’ could be a sham too,” Tierc mused.

  It was a definite possibility. Crandal hadn’t denied Ahnna’s accusation over the geo-scan on Altaira, although he didn’t give Crandal’s claims much credence one way or the other. “How much do we trust Axo’s research of current events in Verdon? Octiron owns his systems.”

  He and Ahnna debated their next task on the ship’s bridge over a cup of coffee and Tierc paused, predicting the AI wouldn’t let the slur go unanswered. He didn’t wait long.

  “If you do not trust the data I provide then your task becomes more complicated,” Axo extolled, his neutral response at odds with his abrupt appearance. The AI cast Ahnna a cautious look, but when she said nothing, Axo appeared to relax, its robotic features taking on a more human appearance despite the internal light-show, and still Ahnna did not object.

  Thinking it over, Ahnna seemed less mercurial generally.

  Except in bed.

  Tierc shifted in his seat, his pants uncomfortably tight, his Qui itching to emerge. He fingered the closed cuffs on his wrists, relieved they hugged the skin tightly enough to pass cursory inspection. Should have made Ahnna lock them properly—it had been a mistake thinking he had his mating urge under control. A startled look appeared on Ahnna’s face and she peered at him more closely.

  A monumental effort vanquished emergence of his Qui, but did nothing to alleviate his discomfort. “Axo, please could you give us some privacy?”

  Zeke instantly materialized into the room before Axo could disappear. The vid operator walked over and studied Tierc. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  Ahnna slammed her coffee cup down. Tierc recognized a reflexive response, more agitation than anger. She hated Octiron’s ever watchful eye stalking her at every turn.

  Zeke turned to her. “Both of you.”

  “No,” Ahnna said flatly.

  “You have not heard the deal?” Zeke protested.

  Her eyes narrowed. “We are not putting on a sex show for the masses.”

  The thought turned the hard lump in Tierc’s pants to iron. Fuck, his unrelenting attraction to Ahnna had switched on some wild fantasies, but Zeke’s weaving head and wry expression suggested Ahnna had got it spot on.

  “Why would you suggest such a thing?” Tierc asked Zeke.

  “You flush blue when you’re horny.”

  Alarm widened Tierc’s eyes. Skal! He needed to get those cuffs locked.

  Zeke winked lewdly. “First noticed it during your introduction interview.”

  Now Ahnna looked shocked, then a smug grin burst through her defenses and punched Tierc in the gut.

  Zeke turned to the woman spinning Tierc’s equilibrium into meltdown, perhaps sensing an opening. “Look, I’ll be discreet. I’ll make it sexy, but nothing on show—a glimpse of curves, a tender kiss, maybe a shot of Tierc’s ass lifting the bedsheet.” Ahnna’s arching eyebrows didn’t stop Zeke. Octiron’s cameraman was on a roll, his hands framing shots Tierc didn’t want to imagine because he could barely control his Qui from tackling Ahnna in front of the camera. “I can make it look like you’ve done the dirty deed and are relaxing in happy bliss before you reach any real action. Then I‘m out the door. No drone. No spying. I guarantee you privacy. My word.”

  “No AI spying on us,” Tierc countered.

  “What?” Ahnna yelped, her eyes widening. “Axo spies on us? Where? In the bathroom?”

  “I can arrange that,” Zeke answered Tierc, and then to Ahnna, “Technically, no, not the bathroom, unless you went in together…”

  Tierc threw his hands out in surrender. “If it gets you out the bedroom, I’m in.”

  Ahnna’s glare threatened to burn a hole through his skull. “You hump your ass as much as you like, count me out!”

  “Ahnna, we need this. I need this.” Tierc stared back at grey eyes bordering on silver, willing her to see past her fury and embarrassment. He sought words she would understand but Zeke would dismiss. “I want you so badly, Ahnna. I’m in physical pain here.”

  So much flashed across her face—first disappointment, followed by amusement mixed with surprise, and then understanding. Her jaw tightened, she looked torn. “Fine, but you’re not talking me out of going after the High Priestess. Tierc, she’s hardly more than a child… stolen from her home and family.”

  Skal. What a jerk he’d been. Rescuing Xecara was intricately tied to the loss of her son.

  He reached out to her. “Ahnna, I owe you an apology. I thought you identified with the cause—an indigenous people standing against a spiteful empire—and taking on the government of an entire sector is a crazy dangerous stunt. I just want to complete the race and I thought you were seeking a new cause in Paragon. I should have realized…”

  She placed her fingers in his and a charge shot up his nerve endings.

  Her eyes crinkled in retrospective thought and then she shook her head. “No, you were right, some of that is true, I can’t deny it. I was raised to fight injustice, oppression, and now I’m so mixed up, I’m questioning everything I believe in but, it’s just… Tierc, I’ve done the research and she’s so young! Her parents are devastated and I just know that if Xecara were my child and I could do something…” A tear brimmed up out of nowhere, sparkled on her lower eyelashes.

  Tierc clutched her fingers, the moment stretching between them, broken by Zeke clearing his throat.

  The man crouched down beside Ahnna, Zeke’s ability to interact with their environment uncanny. “Xecara is not a scam for entertainment. This challenge is genuine and you two could make a real difference to the people of Sorsei, not to mention opening up Verdon to outside media will have ramifications way beyond Octiron’s ambitions.” His nose screwed up with reservation. “Although I’ve no idea how you intend to pull it off. Look, I want to help you here. Give me enough material and I can eke it out, satisfy my producers. They’ll never know it came from one shot. Crandal’s off fighting fires above my paygrade. This is the ideal chance. Damn, I’ll make it my finest work. You two together are hot. By the time I’m finished, Paragon’s wormholes will be asizzle.” Zeke stared into Ahnna’s eyes, an honest connection that jumped the lightyears between them. “You’ll never be ashamed of this, Ahnna, I swear on my last drone’s headstone.”

  Ahnna snorted and then nodded. Zeke’s clinching promise won them both over.

  They all felt it. Zeke had joined their team.

  * * *

  In Tierc’s bed for the dirty deed, Ahnna naked in his arms, Tierc waited until Zeke’s attention was distracted. He felt guilty for the deception. However much he liked Zeke, the man still worked for Octiron. Pulling the cover over their heads, he whispered in Ahnna’s ear.

  “Lock them. I need the cuffs to maintain control over my Qui.”

  To his relief, Ahnna didn’t argue.

  Reaching up, she gripped his cuffs. Her eyes closed. The intensity of her expression impressed on him as the cuffs tightened uncomfortably. A touch-backed psycom command in the locking mechanism explained why Octiron failed to hack the device. He ground his teeth as nerve endings fired in protest. Skal that hurt! The sensation subsided.

  So, he was truly hers now… again.

  His cock stiffened and that familiar punishing pain shot up his wrist and through his core.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, reacquainting himself with the sensation, using the pain to control his Qui. Better this way. If Zeke’s camerawork detected his skin coloration then he would also detect scaling and Tierc couldn’t risk his shifting ability being investigated. His shift abilities went beyond scaling and wings, a change Paragon would view as relatively uninteresting given other shifting species that existed here, like the cat-like Tygean, Mia, or Luc Amaveo with his dragon scaling.

  Finish the race, get out of Dodge, and disappear with Ahnna. Maybe then he could be his true self, although if Ahnna asked, he could live forcibly human. Living with both cuffs and Ahnna had improved his
control no end, the odd twinge of pain bearable.

  Except the odd “twinge” still had the power to take his breath away.

  Cool air fanned Tierc’s bare ass as Zeke directed Ahnna to lift her arm.

  Virtual Zeke moved a vid drone into position. “Okay, Tierc, do your stuff. Ahnna, arch your back. Beautiful, honey, real sexy.”

  Zeke had no idea.

  Tierc wanted to tongue those pert swollen nipples. He fought back pain and perspiration, banned by Ahnna from entering her while in Zeke’s presence. Wedged against the soft delicate flesh of Ahnna’s thigh, his cock throbbed to distraction. They had been working for thirty minutes. Zeke knew his stuff, had an easy way of relaxing Ahnna who had a tendency to collapse into giggles the moment stuff got hot.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered catching Tierc’s scowl as her body quivered in a fresh spasm of laughter.

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Cut.”

  Tierc closed his eyes, grabbed the sheet and covered himself before turning. “What now?”

  Zeke grinned. “I have what I need. The room is yours.” And with a flourish and a bow, their merciless torturer winked out of existence. The drone flew to the door. Tierc launched up and let the holovid out, slamming the door shut in case Zeke changed his mind.

  For a few seconds, silence reigned. Tierc looked down on Ahnna who was biting her lip. She threw back the cover and seductively bent a knee, inviting him in. He wasted no time, relishing her soft flesh beneath him.

  She reached up and cupped his face in her hands, drew his head down. “I need you,” she whispered, her lips tantalizingly close to his. He kissed her, increased the pressure as her fingers wandered into his hair. Shifting position, he entered her slick warmth, his actions releasing her delicious scent. Nails scraped his shoulders and he rose up, grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. She drew breath and closed her eyes, her features trapped in a sensual expression of pleasure, turning him on even more.

  Unable to hold back any longer, he came, carried away by a pulsating release as Ahnna clenched around him with a soft cry.

  Chapter Twelve

  “W hat’s your problem? The fucker owns a slaver ship,” Ahnna hissed at Tierc stood beside her at the bar.

  She fought not to look at him, still fascinated by his altered appearance, his eyes a strange blue courtesy of decorative lens, his hair cropped shorter, shaved one side, and a dark stubble altering the shape of his jaw. She wasn’t so enamored with her own appearance, her long wavy hair tied back in multiple colored braids, eyebrows thickened and extended, and the lens in her eyes a soft emerald. She wore lipstick and fake eyelashes. She hadn’t recognized her reflection in Club Voltai’s bathroom.

  She sipped a shot of the local brew and glanced back at the slavering slaver captain, found the Rafter’s leering eyes glued to her black leather-clad ass. The slaver leered and beckoned her back to the dealing table. Ahnna turned her back on him. Captain Valen Astori would hate that.

  “He touches you and I’ll break his neck.” Tierc spoke through gritted teeth, favoring the jaw he’d broken earlier that day in a pit fight while earning more funds to gamble.

  “You will not!”

  Ahnna bit her tongue. Her teammate turned lover displayed a jealous streak that both warmed her most intimate regions and irritated her to hell. She’d taken a break from playing poker to steady her nerves, not nursemaid Tierc’s mating pride. The barman moved to place a second shot before her, but Ahnna refused. During six months apprenticeship as a female Dominant in a seedy Vegas casino she’d played numerous poker games and noted three general reactions to her haughty winning streak from men and women alike, riveted interest, bemusement, and outrage. Astori she had not yet pegged. He had logged his ship with Club Voltai as guarantee of payment, as she had done with the Orion Nebula, but unlike Ahnna, Valen Astori was running low on funds and well-fueled on drink.

  She needed to provoke him a little more.

  The barman moved to another customer and Tierc rested his elbows on the bar, eyes fixed on his smoking liquor. “I don’t like this.”

  “We’re good. There’s nothing in Octiron’s rule book about cheating and the man’s a damn slaver!”

  Tierc scowled like a fly farted in his drink.

  The noble Qui wanted to win fair and square. Not possible. Cheating was the simplest, smartest way, assuming they didn’t get caught. Despite the advantage of knocking off another challenge by winning the slaver ship, she and Tierc had considered alternate strategies to gaining a slaver ship. A hijack was too crazy; they’d be outnumbered, outgunned and wind up on a Central Alliance felon list. Likewise, the Orion Nebula wouldn’t stand a chance in an all-out dogfight. Even if they provoked the slaver into firing first so they could claim self-defense, they needed to acquire a ship undamaged. Nor would they risk harming any slaves on board. A gambling hijack made the most sense. Slavers reassigned ownership of their ships all the time, usually to pay off a debt to the Central Alliance.

  In the end, they went with Atton’s tip of a gambling den on Roltair Med popular with Rafters.

  “What’s my next play?” she asked.

  “Axo reports an eighty point two percent chance the next ten cards will be low swords.”

  The AI was tapped into the den’s security cameras, counting cards even when Ahnna wasn’t playing. Octiron wanted access into Verdon and, suddenly, Axo couldn’t be more helpful. In addition, the Orion Nebula carried a small supply of miniature cameras no bigger than a fly. Zeke’s drone watched from the exposed steel girders supporting the ceiling.

  This game was their best chance and Astori deserved to forfeit his ill-gotten gains. Despite the fact they were cheating, hardcore, they still held the moral high ground over a slag bucket slaver.

  Sitting across from Captain Valen Astori, Ahnna detected a gleam in the Rafter’s eyes, excitement quickly hidden. The other two players dropped out. She studied her hand, cool, calm and collected, almost disinterested in the outcome. Low swords would have provoked a slight tightening of Astori’s knuckles, and Axo had been proven wrong before. She’d steadily forced the captain to sink every last coin onto the table. The asshole wanted a win. Needed a win. Judging by the aggression rolling off Astori, the creep longed to slam her face into the ground. She allowed a smile to twitch her lips, took her card and pushed her winnings across the table without looking at the new hand she’d been dealt.

  Anger flashed across Astori’s face. He looked again at his hand, hiding it from the audience gathered around them. Witnesses helped her cause, upped the pressure on her opponent. She calculated a pulsar remained in the deck. A sane man, even one gripped by a waking wet dream, would play his hand. Valen resisted the sensible play. She smiled triumphantly. Astori Valen had a second to decide. She moved to collect her winnings and the captain struck.

  “Hold.” Astori’s jaw visibly ground one way before he got a grip.

  Aggrieved, Ahnna sat back. “You pulled out at two million credits yesterday.”

  “At least they were my credits.”

  “I won my stake fairly.” Never had she spoken a lie so easily. Axo had researched Astori’s ship, the Krakan Toll. Astori logged a carrion weight equivalent to a thousand men. Did he have no conscience? She regulated her blood pressure. The more she looked in complete control the more she goaded him. If she lost her stake, Tierc could earn enough fighting to start again. If Astori lost, he surrendered his living, his pride, his self-respect.

  Astori snuck a peek at his cards one last time. He unwound a pendant from around his neck, placed it on the table in front of him. “Will you accept a ship?”

  “Does it carry lawful cargo?”

  “Yes.”

  Liar.

  Ahnna turned to the watching dealer. “I require certification.”

  “Of course.”

  The captain placed his finger on the indented screen and the pendant lit up displaying registered details including the ship’s name:
Krakan Toll.

  A man Ahnna assumed was Astor’s lieutenant bent down and whispered urgently in the captain’s ear. Astori snapped back, and the man winced. Shrugging, he stepped away. Astori pushed the pendant into the accumulated stack of credits and grinned, self-confidence oozing from every pore. He dared Ahnna to win. Slowly he placed his hand face up, a straight flush of high swords. The cards always defy the odds. Ahnna blinked, looked down at her hands. She laid down the first ace, the second. Astori lunged out for his pendant but the dealer slapped down his arm. Both dealer and Astori watched her lay out five of a kind, including the wild card she’d nursed from the first hand.

  Pure luck, no cheating required.

  Poker was easy. Building the stake was the true skill, and playing her opponent’s character flaws to the fullest.

  Ahnna pushed her finger into the groove receptor. The screen returned to its metallic appearance and Ahnna placed the pendant around her neck. Astori looked ready to rip her head off with his bare hands.

  “The win has been recorded and certified,” the dealer announced. He glanced at Astori and then turned back to Ahnna. “Do you wish to avail yourself of an armed guard, courtesy of the house?”

  Ahnna stood as house security moved in. “I do. Please arrange the transfer of my winnings to my account?”

  “Of course. Well played, Anaisha Sur.” The dealer leaned forward. “I will be watching your next exploit with great interest, Anaisha. Huge fan.” His voice dropped, lines creasing his eyes. “I’m really sorry about your little boy.”

  Ahnna’s heart lurched and then she smiled, the first genuine smile she’d given since entering the establishment. “Thank you.”

  Pleasure lit up the dealer’s eyes. He looked ready to swoon. Fuck. Had Octiron aired Zeke’s shots of her and Tierc in bed? Were they heating up the black market across the entire sector? Clearly they were getting favorable coverage, but if the dealer spread word of GSR contestants winning the Krakan Toll… They needed to get to Verdon fast, assume a better disguise. At least the dealer would never realize he’d been party to a scam, even if she’d won that last hand on her own intuition. Octiron couldn’t be seen colluding with its contestants, forcing Ahnna and Tierc to keep quiet, too. The gag order in their contracts forbid them from ever divulging information that could bring Octiron into disrepute, got Octiron out of the whole abduction thing and a multitude of other sins as well.