“Were drug addicts. They accidentally got pregnant with me while they were both high.” She didn’t meet his gaze. “I don’t know why they had me, or kept me. I was just a hassle. In the way of their parties and chasing their next high.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. So they’d drugged her. They’d created this gorgeous creature and taught her not to trust.
“Hey.” She pounced on him, pinning him to the bed. “No more talking.”
He raised a brow. He’d be happy to see that pain fade from her face. “You have something better planned, Lieutenant?”
She leaned down and nipped his lips. “I do.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” Jamie said.
Her space marines nodded.
“We’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” David said, his auburn hair glinting under the corridor lights.
Idris leaned his big body against the wall. “I’m enjoying training with the Eon. You focus on your mission.”
David’s jaw worked. “Wish we could come on this mission.”
Jamie clapped her hand on the man’s shoulder. “There’ll be other missions. For now, keep up your training. Hopefully, Medical Commander Kann-Ath and I will be back quickly, with the helians.”
“I’d like to kick some Kantos ass,” Idris growled.
Jamie knew the man liked a fight almost as much as she did. “You’ll get your chance, Idris. The Kantos appear to be escalating their actions.” She felt a skitter down her spine. How long before the bugs decide to attack Earth?
They had to be stopped.
“Good hunting, Lieutenant.” David bumped his fist against hers.
“Good hunting,” Idris echoed.
Her throat felt a little thick. These men, and the rest of her marines, had been her family the last few years. “No slacking off while I’m gone.”
As she strode into the docking bay, something leaped off the wall and landed on her head.
Jamie tensed before she realized it was Cutie. “Hey.” She snatched the furry creature into her arms. “How did you get out of my cabin?”
The alien chittered, her big, green eyes accusing.
“You can’t come,” Jamie said. “It’s too dangerous.”
More insistent chittering.
“Not negotiable. Lara has promised to take care of you.”
Cutie gave an unhappy squeak.
Jamie felt a rush of affection and stroked the creature’s head. “I’ll miss you too.” She set Cutie down. “Now, off you go. And Cutie, no fighting with Shaggy while I’m away.”
The alien gave her one last look, then scampered out of the docking bay.
Jamie turned to the black stealth ship, deliberately focusing her thoughts on her mission. She climbed aboard and settled in the angular cockpit. The seat cupped her body and she stared at the sleek controls. This was it.
The door opened and Aydin came in.
She loved the way he moved—so in control of that big, muscular body of his. A body she’d explored very intimately—with her hands, with her mouth.
She shivered.
“Ready?” He dropped into the pilot’s chair.
She managed a nod.
The viewscreen showed Davion, Eve, Caze, and Lara in the docking bay. Lara gave them a small salute, and a second later, Aydin started the engines.
Then, they were blasting out of the Desteron.
Aydin handled the ship like a pro. There was clearly nothing the man couldn’t do. Jamie forced herself to stop looking at him and stared at the stars through the viewscreen instead. He had her so worked up and confused. She was feeling things she didn’t want to feel.
She felt fingers brush the back of her neck and she jolted.
“You okay?” he asked.
She pulled away from his touch. “Fine. We’re on a mission, so no touching.”
He shot her an amused smile. “We back to the ‘only sex’ thing?”
“It’s always been only sex.”
“Mmm. You always sleep tightly wrapped around a man when it’s only sex?”
Her heart thumped. She’d never slept wrapped around anyone before. He must have read that in her eyes, because his smile widened.
Arrogant, annoying warrior. “How long for us to reach the planet?” She kept her tone businesslike.
“Six ship hours. We’ll cross into Kantos space in one hour.”
They needed to focus on the mission. She needed to focus on her work and not the distracting warrior beside her. “And the stealth ship will keep us undetected?”
“Yes, but it’s best we avoid any Kantos ships, regardless.”
They fell into an easy, companionable silence. Jamie wasn’t much of a talker, but Aydin didn’t seem to mind. He stayed busy, monitoring the ship and keeping an eye on the controls. A quiet calm filled the cockpit. Jamie familiarized herself with the ship’s weapons and navigation system.
Finally, he straightened. “We’re crossing the border into Kantos territory.”
Jamie pulled in a deep breath. Here we go.
But they hadn’t gone far when an urgent chime sounded from the console. Aydin leaned forward, frowning. His fingers danced over the controls.
“What?” she asked.
“Cren. A Kantos hive ship just hit the scanners. It’s accompanied by several battle cruisers and is straight on our path.”
Jamie stiffened in her seat. “Have they detected us?”
“No. We’ll try to slip past them.”
Soon, the Kantos ships came into visual range. She sat rigid as she stared at the alien ships. There were several raider-class cruisers, and a group of mid-size attack vessels. They all looked like bugs. The cruisers had large, outstretched legs, and bulky, segmented fuselages. The attack ships were more streamlined but angularly shaped.
“Why do they always need to invade and ravage?” she mused aloud.
“It appears to be a driving need in their species. Like it is in Terrans and the Eon to form groups, families, to procreate and succeed. They have the urge to destroy.”
An alarm sounded and Aydin tapped the screen. “Swarm ships.”
Jamie sucked in a breath. She spotted the tiny ships, moving like a cloud of insects through space. “Have they seen us?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think they’re doing training maneuvers.”
But the swarm ships’ trajectory was bringing them closer and closer to the stealth ship. They couldn’t see the stealth ship on their scanners, but if they got too close, they’d spot them.
“Drop beneath them,” she said.
The swarm ships raced closer and Aydin dropped the stealth ship, just before several swarm ships streamed past overhead.
Jamie watched on screen as one swarm ship slowed and circled back in their direction.
She held her breath. “Can we go faster?”
“If we do, they might detect us.”
Her pulse was pounding, and she watched the swarm ship making an erratic circle. It made her think of a bee flitting around.
She reached out and grabbed Aydin’s hand. He squeezed her fingers, and together they watched, as the swarm ship finally flew back to join the others.
Jamie blew out a breath. “That was too close. Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
“Approaching Veela,” Jamie said.
Aydin stared at the screen. In the distance, this system’s red giant sun gleamed like a lantern. Veela was the sun’s second planet, a dark hunk of rock with one small moon in orbit around it. Veela was crisscrossed with lines of red and dotted with bright-blue lakes.
“The planet’s volcanic and tidal locked,” Aydin said.
That meant one side of the planet always faced away from the sun, while the other was always in daylight. A freezing, dark side, and a hot, light side.
“Like Earth’s moon,” Jamie said.
“We’ll move into orbit and do some preliminary scans.”
All
of a sudden, an alarm screamed.
“What now?” Jamie demanded.
“There’s a Kantos cruiser coming off the planet.”
“Shit. Let’s move behind the moon.”
Aydin nodded. He touched the controls, and soon they were zooming in behind Veela’s small, irregular moon. Probably a captured asteroid.
Tense, they watched as the Kantos cruiser broke free of the planet, and disappeared into space.
“Well, seeing the Kantos cruiser is a good sign that the lab is definitely here,” he said.
Hopefully, the helians would be, too.
“Running scans now.” He touched the controls. “It’ll take a while.”
“But we should be able to pinpoint the lab’s location?”
“Yes. And hopefully detect the helians.”
“Then we plan our infiltration.”
She sounded eager for that bit, and he fought back a smile. “Yes.” He rose, and grabbed some food. He dropped the packets in her lap. “Eat.”
“Yes, Medical Commander.” She tore open a packet.
“I also brought some sampa.”
Her lips quirked. “As a bribe?”
“I thought I might need it.”
“I’m a Space Corps marine. I can’t be bribed.”
“We’ll see. I know your weaknesses now.”
She stilled, a shadow moving through her eyes.
“That’s not a bad thing, Jamie. Not when you trust the person you share them with.” He paused. “You can trust me.”
He watched her nibble on her food, but she didn’t say anything else.
He checked the computer and elation shot through him. “We found the lab.”
She shot upright. “Where?”
“Right on the edge of the dark side and light side of the planet, near the equator. It’s in a volcanic area, with lots of rivers and pools of molten rock. It’s built into a rocky ridge. Data’s still coming in.”
“The helians?”
Aydin shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Yet.”
He looked at her. “Yet.”
Her face was serious, but still so attractive. They were headed into danger, and he still wasn’t at peace with the fact that she was not just heading into trouble, but running headlong toward it. But he wouldn’t mess up again. She was good at her job, he knew that.
Whether she admitted it or not, she trusted him, and he had to trust her. He munched on his own food.
“The scan will take another hour,” he said. “I’m trying to get a map of the lab.”
“But?” she prompted.
“The volcanic rock is disrupting scanners. We’ll have a partial map, if we’re lucky.”
“It’ll be better than nothing. Once the scans are finished, we go in?”
He nodded. “We go in.”
They stared at each other.
“It’ll be dangerous,” she said quietly.
He nodded. “But we’ll be together.”
“Your family must worry about you,” she said.
“Yes. But they trust me to do my job.” He shot her a rueful smile. “Which I’ve learned is vital with those you care about.”
She huffed out a breath. “You don’t get this ‘just sex’ thing, do you?” She glanced out the viewscreen. “No one would miss me if I never returned from a mission.”
His body locked. “That’s not true. You have good friends on your ship, among your marines. Lara, Allie.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “They’d get over it and life would go on. I’ve never been important to anyone.”
He clamped his hand on her arm. “You be careful on this mission, Jamie, because like it or not, you mean something to me.”
Something changed in her face, and she set the remnants of her food down and rose. Before he could guess what she had planned, she slid into his lap and straddled him.
Instant desire hit him.
She leaned forward and nipped his lips. Then she deepened the kiss, her tongue tangling with his.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice guttural.
“Well, you’ve very successfully seduced me.” She bit his neck and he groaned. “Now I’m seducing you.”
“Jamie—”
“Shh. It’s my turn, my way.”
“What happened to ‘we’re on a mission, no touching’?”
“I changed my mind.”
The next kiss was hot and deep. Then, they were tugging their clothes out of the way.
“God, I love your cock.” She wrapped her hands around it.
“I’m very happy to hear that.”
Suddenly, she moved, keeping a grip on his cock as she lined him up between her legs. The head of his cock brushed against her and he bit back a groan. Then she sank down.
Aydin cursed and she smiled.
She took him deep, pausing a second to adjust to his size. He saw the flush on her cheeks, the desire burning in her eyes. Then she started to ride him. He clamped his hands on her hips and stared into her eyes.
“We come together,” he growled.
“Yes.” She threw her head back, panting hard. She moved up and down, making small husky sounds.
He slid one hand between their bodies and found her swollen clit. He thumbed it.
“Oh, God.” Her body rocked harder.
Cren, he was going to come soon. He rolled her clit between his fingers, and, with one last plunge, Jamie came, crying his name.
He bumped his hips up and pushed her down. He lodged himself deep, groaning through his own release.
His helian pulsed, happy and relaxed.
He slumped in his seat, holding Jamie’s long, lax form against him. Despite the dangerous mission ahead, he was calm and sedate.
He wasn’t letting this woman go.
Now, they just needed to survive their mission.
Chapter Sixteen
Their small ship zoomed through the cloudless sky.
Down below, the ground of the planet was a slick black, with veins of lava that glowed bright red. They were broken up by circular pools of electric-blue, toxic water.
Veela looked like hell.
Jamie shook her head. Trust the Kantos to find a hellhole like this to hide on.
Aydin was focused on flying them in, and soon, they landed on a bare patch of black rock. They both shouldered their backpacks and weapons, then she activated her helmet. Veela’s atmosphere wasn’t safe for Terrans or Eons.
Once Aydin’s helian had formed his helmet, they stepped out of the stealth ship. Heat radiated off the ground, making small shimmers in the air. The sunlight was bright and tinged with red.
“The ship will be cloaked?” she asked.
He nodded. “Unless someone runs into it, it should be fine.”
They set off over the rocky ground. Rivulets of lava crisscrossed the ground, looking like an artist had randomly slapped red paint everywhere. When they had to, they leaped over them.
“There’s the ridge up there.” Aydin pointed.
Jamie looked at the line of jagged rocks. Several of them poked up like huge spikes, making the ridge look like the back of a crouching dragon.
Directly ahead of them was a large, bubbling pool of lava. They skirted around it, and she watched as small bubbles of lava floated up and popped in the air. Some fluttered around.
And kept fluttering.
She stilled. What the hell?
She peered more intently at the bubbles. The bubbles had wings. Tiny, lava-coated wings.
“Aydin. There are some sort of bugs coated in the lava.”
He swiveled, just as one of the creatures flew right at Jamie’s head. She ducked.
Three more of the tiny lava creatures flew at Aydin. His sword formed on his arm, and he used it to slap the lava bugs away. But one darted in and hit his shoulder, burning through his armor.
Jamie drew her own sword and hit some of the fluttering creatures.
Together, she and Aydin backed up. She saw more
and more of the flying lava bugs rise up out of the pool. Crap.
One bug darted in and brushed against Jamie’s arm, burning a small hole in her suit.
Aydin morphed his weapon into a blaster. He fired it, aiming water at the creatures. It hit them in a cold blast.
She saw the creatures drop to the ground, the lava washed off of them. They looked like small, dragon-like reptiles.
“Go,” he yelled.
They swiveled and ran. Jamie leaped over the rough, rocky ground. Ahead, lay one of the bright-blue lakes. The surface of it swirled with an oily gleam.
Finally, they stopped, both of them panting.
“Don’t get near the water,” he warned. “At these toxicity levels, it would sear through our suits.”
“Nice.” She glanced back. “The creatures aren’t following us.”
Jamie saw that Aydin’s armor was self-repairing, thanks to his helian. She pulled a patch out of her backpack and slapped it over the burn on her arm.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Patch should hold.”
They continued on, skirting around the lake, and getting closer to the ridge. In places, small creatures skittered under rocks and slithered away.
Veela was not going on Jamie’s list of vacation destinations.
“According to the scans, there’s an access point halfway up that we can use,” he said. “We’ll have to climb.”
They reached the base of the rocky cliffs. Jamie crouched down and changed the mode on her boots to climbing. She couldn’t see the access point, but she didn’t doubt Aydin.
She looked at him and he nodded. They both gripped the rock and started climbing.
It wasn’t an easy climb. There were a lot of natural handholds, but in some places, the rock was smooth like obsidian. There, she had to jump up and hope she caught a handhold.
Aydin moved ahead of her.
She came to another flat spot, bent her knees and leaped up. Her fingers caught, her body slamming against the rock wall.
“Jamie, quiet,” he whispered urgently.
She stayed still, feeling the heat radiating from the rock. “What?”
“I hear something…”
All of a sudden, two large flying creatures swept over the ridge overhead. Their huge wings flapped up and down, their bodies covered in scales, and a long tail whipping behind them.
Mark of Eon: Eon Warriors #5 Page 12
