Deep Indigo

by Cathryn Cade

  He surged to his feet. Great God beyond, that was so retro it was practically Earth I mentality. He was no primitive bridegroom, he was a male in his prime, embarking on a sensual liaison with a female. One that wouldn’t be allowed to overflow into his work, he’d see to that. Teaching Nelah the delights of sex would be a sweet diversion on a voyage that now promised to be otherwise fraught with as much danger and difficulty as the first three.

  He strode into his small but luxurious bathroom to wash his face and hands. He could use a shower-dry, but he had no more time. It was as the warm water splashed over his face that he was struck by an additional realization—he, who had always been so scrupulous in his use of his power, had used it on a naïve young woman, not just to vanquish an unseen enemy, but then in search of greater sexual satisfaction.

  He lowered the drying towel and stared at himself in the mirror. He’d enjoyed every moment of it too. Had known a savage delight in coaxing her to submit, to allow him to explore the hot, confused but delighted currents of her response. Had indeed, found his own pleasure increased twofold by her trusting surrender. And the realization she’d enjoyed it every bit as much as he.

  Just as he’d reveled in their unspoken communication. He’d never dreamed such explicit conversation was possible. How strange the two of them should be so attuned.

  He wanted to explore their ability to communicate on all levels. And he wanted more of it—much more.

  He turned away from the mirror and its uncomfortable truth. Casting one brooding look at the woman sleeping in his bed, he strode from the room.

  In the corridor, he activated his com-link.

  “Captain, Navos here. I’m on my way.”

  The body still lay there, outside the core reactor. And to Navos’s shock, it was a young Indigon who stared sightlessly into the bright lights. Of course—who else but another Indigon could have been broadcasting in such a manner to both him and Nelah?

  Navos stared back into the pale face, blue eyes flat with death. The dull knife of angry sorrow twisted deep in his gut. He’d been forced to kill one of his own people. It was all he could do to pull calm around him like a cloak.

  “Who is he?”

  Craig cast him a quick look of sympathy.

  “His name is Elan Bluet. One of a group of students on break from your university. Bound for the beaches on Aquarius.”

  “I remember him now,” Navos said, as the name clicked into a mental slot in the passenger list. “His profile—it was completely normal.”

  “Look at this,” said Halix, who knelt by the body, a small device blinking in his hand. “He has some sort of a tiny chip implanted behind his ear.”

  He pulled the youth’s uppermost ear forward and pointed to a tiny incision. “It shows up clearly on the reader. I believe it’s the type that is used on petty criminals to control their actions.”

  “He had no criminal record,” Navos said, uneasiness stirring in him. “Have Dr. Tentaclar autopsy him as soon as possible.”

  Craig nodded. “Yes. Call the med techs to come and get the body, will you, Izard?”

  He scowled at the alarms on the wall above them, still blinking silently.

  “Why did he want into the reactor area? Enough to keep at it even after he set off the sirens? They went off just as you found him, Daron.”

  “Not to mention after he did that.” Izard, a lean Serpentian with a shock of improbable green-gold hair who was acting guard commander, nodded grimly at the hatch leading into the reactor.

  The white cerametal was spattered and streaked with blood. Looking at the body, it was easy to see the source. His hands were torn and bloody, as was his forehead. Blood stained his clothing and the floor on which he lay.

  “Used himself like a human battering ram,” Craig muttered. “Damn it, it just doesn’t make sense! No one could break in there with their bare hands—why even try?”

  “He’d gone insane,” Navos said wearily. “Why, I can’t say.”

  Craig scowled fiercely, looking every inch the warrior he was.

  “Well, we’ll get to the bottom of this. It doesn’t make sense, but after our last three voyages, we’re not taking any damned chances. Slyde and Sirena are on a fast shuttle right now. They should reach us soon. We’ll meet at 0800 hours in the command center.”

  He gestured to the techs who waited in the background, a stretcher at the ready. “All right, guys, take the body to Tentaclar.”

  Then he turned to Navos. “Commander,” he said. “Go get some rest. I don’t want to see you again until you’ve slept, understood?”

  Navos acquiesced with a curt nod. He knew Craig was right—in his current state of weariness, compounded by shock, he was useless to his ship. He would rest and eat. Then he would divine what had caused an apparently normal young Indigon to go mad.

  Nelah woke slowly, luxuriating in the warmth and softness of the big bed in which she was cradled. So silky against her bare skin, so springy underneath her. It smelled heavenly, of clean male and the faint scent of some Pangaean herb, elusive and tantalizing.

  Slithering onto her back, she stretched from her toes clear to her outstretched fingertips and then relaxed, a smile curving up the corners of her mouth.

  She started violently as she opened her eyes and looked into those of the man leaning on his elbow beside her, shoulders and chest bared by the blanket he’d shoved down. His lean face was relaxed, those enigmatic eyes still heavy with sleep. His short dark hair was tousled as if he’d just run his fingers through it.

  Navos.

  Oh great God beyond, she’d slept with Commander Navos! Really slept with him. And before that—she flinched away from memories of their terrible task.

  His hooded gaze met hers.

  “You sleep soundly,” he murmured. “But I see memory returns.”

  She might have answered, but he stroked one long-fingered hand up her bare thigh and over the quivering plain of her abdomen, to her breast. He fondled it, watching her with those heavy-lidded eyes. An exquisite weakness flooded her. It was a good thing she was lying down, or she would have slid to the floor like an Aquarian jellyfish.

  He pinched her nipple slowly, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger. She arched into his touch, her legs drawing up, parting. She bit her lip and then touched the corner with her tongue as he moved on to the other breast, the nipple already drawn up tight with eagerness for his touch.

  “Ah,” he murmured. “Now you are awake, are you not?”

  “Yes.” Heat flushed her cheeks as she heard the sensuous tone in the single word.

  And those knowing eyes saw her blush as he moved over her, his legs levering between hers, making a place for himself there as he came down on top of her.

  “Good,” he said. “Then you won’t miss anything.”

  He kissed her, taking his time about it and sampling every shaken breath, every quiver of her mouth as he pressed her into the bed with his lean masculine weight, rubbing himself slowly against her. Every cell in her body sang with delight.

  She wanted to hold him too. She lifted her arms from the pillow and slipped them up around his neck. His shoulders were like silk-covered marble—no, not that hard, but so very firm, the muscles shifting under his skin. Last night had been so hard and fast, she hadn’t had time to discover the texture of his skin, the way he felt under her hands. Now she wanted to revel in every nuance of touch and scent and taste.

  Nelah lifted her head to kiss him harder, taste him a little more. Her legs tightened on his lean hips as he rubbed his hard penis directly up the furrow of her labia, sleeked by her arousal. His hot flesh raked her clitoris and her teeth closed on his lip as sensation shot through her.

  “Ah!” He lifted his head, licking the place she’d bitten and rubbed against her again. “I had better satisfy you, hmm?”

  She blushed hotly. “Sorry.”

  “Do not apologize for your passion.” He continued to move against her, watching her as she bit her own
lip this time, pleasure and need throbbing in her pussy. “Tell me what you want.”

  “Y-you,” she whispered. “Inside me again.”

  He gave her a swift kiss and reached over her head, into a compartment in the headboard. “There is nowhere I would rather be. May I offer you an analgesic? I believe a woman can be somewhat tender after her first coitus.”

  At her hesitant nod, he flipped open a small unguent jar and took a dollop of clear jelly on his fingers. Then he reached between them, parted her swollen labia with two fingers and stroked the jelly into her pussy.

  She gasped at the soreness of his invading touch, but a soothing warmth spread deep within her channel and she sighed, reassured. He deepened his touch, two fingers probing within her softness, then retreating to stroke the unguent over her labia and clitoris. He was watching closely as he did so too, his eyes heavy, glittering. At first she thought it was that which sent heat twining through her pussy, swelling her clitoris even as it soothed.

  “Ah,” he approved. “The unguent is somewhat of a stimulant too, then.”

  He touched her clitoris again and she whimpered and grabbed his hand with her own, holding it there so he wouldn’t stop touching her. Transcending all shame was the intense need he wrought with his hard fingertips on the swollen nerves.

  He stroked her with tender ruthlessness. Nelah gazed into his deep, deep blue eyes as pleasure suffused her.

  He came down into her arms, his face taut with need, and thrust into her in the same movement, driving her into the pillows. She gasped his name as he drove deep into swollen, still needy flesh.

  He froze, his nostrils flared white. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No!” she clutched at him, desperate for more. “No, don’t stop. Oh, please don’t stop!”

  “Wrap your legs around me, then. And hang on.”

  He thrust into her again, until the bed rocked under them. Nelah’s world narrowed down and down and down to the man in her arms and his penis working inside her. Just when she thought she would faint from the pleasure, it burst inside her, so hard and so long she screamed.

  He gave a muffled shout of pleasure and stiffened in her arms, their joining seeping heat and fluid as he gradually slowed. He moved to lift off of her, but she held on to keep him inside her. He relaxed, weighing her into the bed, and she turned her face into the side of his head, inhaling his scent.

  She knew if a meteor struck the ship and killed them all in that instant, she would die in perfect happiness.

  It lasted just until he lifted up on his elbows and spoke, his eyes running possessively over her face and bare breasts.

  “You’d better move in here with me for the rest of the voyage. I believe all the staterooms are full and we’ll need yours for my new intern.”

  “Your…what?” she managed.

  He withdrew from her and leaned up on his elbow beside her, one hand on her belly. “My new intern. I shall have to choose another.”

  Nelah jerked away from his hand and out of the bed with ferocious swiftness. Seeing her clothing hanging neatly over the arm of an easy chair, she marched over to it and began to pull them on. Ignoring her tiny lace cami and panties, she yanked on her tights, shoved her arms into her soft jacket and slapped the adhesive fasteners together anyhow. Painful heat roared inside her, so it was hard to breathe and harder still to hold back the swelling behind her eyes and in her throat.

  Her under-things in her hand, she turned with a snap toward the door, then stopped short. A naked Navos stood in front of it, his eyes boring into hers.

  “You’re upset. Remember, you chose.”

  Her eyes narrowed. How dare he feel pity for her?

  “Yes, I chose to ma—to have sexual relations with you. I don’t recall saying I didn’t wish to study with you,” she snapped.

  He closed his eyes briefly. “I cannot have an affair with an intern.”

  She raised her brows. “Oh, really? Tell me, did you intend we’d have an affair while you taught someone else?”

  His nostrils flared. “Yes.”

  She widened her eyes ingenuously. “Why, Commander, how ever did you think you’d manage both teaching and maintaining a sexual relationship at the same time?”

  Ah, that one had hit home. Now he was angry. Well, good. So was she and she never wanted to see his stubborn, fascinating, gorgeous, hateful face again!

  “I meant it would not be ethical,” he said through his teeth. “Not that I could not manage the two. Moreover, I am not sure you could. I’m experienced in using my power and in controlling my emotions. You are not.”

  At first, when he began to make love to her this time, she’d been secretly regretful he did not urge her to let him into her mind as well. But now, she was glad, because she’d blast with him with the reactor-hot force of her anger.

  “Kindly step out of my way,” she gritted.

  “Certainly,” he said, stepping aside. “Although you may wish to step into your shoes.”

  Without looking back, he walked into the bathroom. The hatch slid shut behind him.

  Nelah looked down at her feet and her toes curled into the carpet in sheer humiliation. She had indeed forgotten her shoes.

  Chapter Six

  In his shower-dry, Daron Navos leaned his head under the hot spray of water and cursed himself silently and at length. He’d known better. He’d known better and he’d done it anyway. He’d allowed the peculiar desolation of having taken a life and the deep intimacy of melding minds to suborn his own code. He’d had sex with a young, impressionable woman. She might be an Indigon, but Nelah Cobalt was as impulsive and temperamental as an Earth human.

  Indigons had learned not to mingle with humans. His own father had married one, allowing passion to overcome logic. The marriage had been a disaster, finally resulting in his death.

  Descended from Earth I space explorers who had settled on Indigo thousands of years ago, Indigons had evolved into a race with eyes the deep blue of an Indigon ocean and temperaments to match. They were cool, calm and thoughtful, prizing intellect over passion.

  Excellent at planning and designing, they created beautiful cities out of the white stone on their small planet. They built schools and a university. New studies emerged as another unique trait became apparent. Some Indigons, nearly always males, had developed intuitive and empathic abilities. Only rarely did a young woman exhibit the gift.

  Nelah Cobalt had an exceptional amount of power, but she’d have to study with someone else to develop it. Despite her biting sarcasm, he had strong principles, which precluded having sex with one of his interns.

  And that slip, the way she’d nearly said “making love”. He shook his head. She was simply too emotional. He was relieved, now, that he hadn’t penetrated her mind as well as her body again this morning. What a mess that would have turned out to be. He hoped to the seven hells she wasn’t going to turn out to be his worst mistake.

  Because just now he needed to bring his intellect to bear on much more important things—like this latest bizarre attack on the Orion.

  Navos strode onto the command deck. The sleek command console framed a breathtaking view of deep black space, dotted with twinkling stars. Silhouetted against it, the tall-backed chairs around the command console held the crew commanders. They all wore the silver grey of the Orion, with commander epaulets over the symbols of their specialties.

  However, gone was their usual bonhomie and good-natured ribbing. Even had Navos not been able to intuit the mood of his co-commanders, their faces and their silence would’ve told the story. He looked around the circle of chairs.

  Halix, head of operations, his round lavender face solemn; Ogg, chief mechanic, his weathered human face furrowed with a scowl; Dr. Tentaclar, head medical officer, his eye stalks waving slowly; Panthar, the Tygean navigator, hunting-cat eyes narrowed dangerously; Mra, the Pangaean chief interpreter, her green corn-silk hair wrapped tightly about her throat in worry.

  Standing with his hands br
aced on the console, face grim, Captain Craig looked up as Navos entered.

  “Ah, Daron,” he said. “And here are Sirena and Slyde.”

  Navos stopped by his chair as two stunningly attractive warriors glided in. Both wore golden-yellow guard uniforms, commander epaulets on their shoulders. Slyde Dragolin towered head and shoulders over his bride, but she moved with the utter self-confidence of one who wasn’t just lovely, but lethal.

  Sirena smiled briefly at everyone, slipping into the chair Slyde held for her.

  “Welcome back,” Craig said. “Sorry we had to interrupt your honeymoon.”

  “You know we’d never stay away at a time like this,” Sirena reproved him.

  “The Serpentian mountains will still be there after we have stopped these attacks once and for all,” her huge husband agreed in his deep, smoky voice. “If that’s what this was.”

  “Yes,” the navigator agreed, leaning forward with his powerful fists clenched on the console. “This time we’ll find who’s behind these cowardly attacks. And I’ll personally rip them to shreds.” He flexed one big hand as if it sported the lethal claws that appeared in his Tyger mating shift.

  Craig acknowledged their support with a nod. “You all know Commander Navos and his young colleague discovered and averted an attack. Unfortunately, they were forced to kill the attacker. Daron?”

  “It was obvious the boy was under some great duress,” Navos told them. “He screamed in pain and despair even as he continued to bodily assault the reactor hatch.”

  “Was he insane?” Sirena asked.

  “He exhibited a normal profile at the time of boarding,” Navos answered. “But during the time of the attack—yes, he exhibited clear signs of manic hysteria.” He looked at the old physician. “Dr. Tentaclar? Mr. Halix found an implant of some sort on the body. What more did you discover during your autopsy?”