Shades of Dark

by Linnea Sinclair

  But it was a polecat Sully had played with before.

  When we were finally back on course, we’d lost over two hours in transit time. Not a huge amount, but I was tired and I still had to find out what had gone wrong with the guidance program.

  “Ten-minute break?” Sully said, swiveling toward me in his chair.

  I shook my head. “I need to get that program fixed.”

  “Verno can hold her on course for ten minutes.”

  “Twenty, thirty, more if you need me to, Sully-sir. You and Captain Chasidah aren’t even supposed to be on duty now.”

  “Emergencies have a way of messing up duty schedules,” I told Verno with a wry grin.

  Sully was tugging on my braid. “Ten minutes.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Sully—”

  Now.

  I sighed. He pulled me out of the pilot’s chair, warmth spiraling up my arm from his fingers around my wrist. “If you’re thinking of shoving me under a cold shower,” I warned because Philip had done that once in a training camp when I was flat-out fatigued, “you’ll regret it.”

  Philip had.

  Sully only smiled, was still smiling when he guided us back to our cabin down the corridor from the bridge. The door closed behind him. He drew my hands against his chest, pinning them there with his left hand, then rested the fingers of his right on the side of my face.

  “Chasidah,” he said, his eyes shifting through infinite shades of dark, silvery mist drifting over his shoulders. “You’re tired. I think I can help. Trust me. Please.”

  “Ten minutes, Sullivan. I have work to—”

  Energy poured into me, making the shock of a cold shower mild in comparison. I sucked in a hard breath. It tempered, slowing.

  Sorry. Still learning.

  The bright blaze Sully held in the palm of his hand earlier flared briefly between us then disappeared. Sully seemed more in control this time. And I thought of when he made love to me last night, and the vision I’d had of him offering me the twinkling star in his hand.

  Prescience?

  Playing, last night. I’m not always sure how to tell you things. Words, when I use words, seem so wrong, so inadequate. What I am, I cannot always explain.

  Lethargy leeched from my body. The power of the Kyi was…intoxicating. Every inch of me quivered with energy. I leaned into him because I didn’t know how to lean into it.

  Where our bodies touched, they blazed. And two things occurred to me simultaneously. One, Sully was pulling off my pants. And two, we had only ten minutes.

  Silver haze swirled between us as I kicked off my boots.

  He pinned me against the bulkhead. I wrapped my legs around his waist. His kisses were frantic, deep, searing. He thrust inside me and I felt my own heat encompass him, just as he felt my pleasure at the way he filled me. The way he stroked, they way we…I…he…

  Oh. God. Sully.

  Chasidah. Mine.

  Sensations roared through my body, my release and his exquisite, blinding, more intense than anything I’d ever experienced. We were sweaty, panting, then his fingers slipped between us and I was soaring all over again. His touch was literally electric. I was on the edge of the galaxy and he plunged into me, harder than before, throbbing pleasure, wanting me, needing me, needing him, wanting more, giving all.

  He cried out my name and we went nova together, shuddering, gasping, the Kyi like a spiral of stars, so bright I had to close my eyes. I clung to his shoulders. He brushed kisses down my neck.

  “Chasidah,” he said hoarsely in my ear. “Feeling better?”

  I opened my eyes and there was that damned, wicked Sully-grin.

  The clock glowing red from the galley said twelve minutes had passed. All that in only twelve minutes. I felt like I could easily run fifty laps. Or make love for another five hours.

  Praise the stars, I felt great.

  Technically, I couldn’t fix the guidance program. What I could do was amend it so that when it wanted to malfunction, it initiated a self-correcting program and sent out a warning notice that would rouse me from sleep, pull me away from the dinner table or out of Sully’s arms so I could reset the program and get us on course again.

  “Just you?” Sully, on the bridge at nav, studying last available traffic and route data out of Narfial, voiced his objection. You’re not General Manager of the Universe, angel.

  But I am captain of this ship. And it’s only a few more hours to exitgate.

  Delegate.

  He was right. That had long been a problem with me; one that hadn’t escaped Philip’s notice either.

  Ah, but Guthrie was interested in maintaining Fleet policies. I’m just here for the sex.

  I was about to take a sip of tea at the moment. Had Sully’s comment come seconds later, I would have spewed out my mouthful. Or snorted it in a very uncaptainlike way out my nose.

  “If Verno or Marsh wants to be added to the alert list, I can do that,” I said out loud, shooting a quick, sideways, narrow-eyed glance at Sully’s back.

  Verno, on duty at the helm, immediately volunteered. Marsh, off duty but in his cabin and monitoring bridge activity, relayed his interest via intraship a few minutes later. I created a quick tutorial, ran Verno through it. He’d teach Marsh.

  Sully logged off duty while I was going over the guidance program with Verno.

  I’ll be at Ren’s, he told me. I feel a streak of luck coming on.

  His never-ending card games. Sully’s stress relief and a source of much amusement for the crew. Despite his notable losses, I was glad he’d started playing cards with Ren again. It signaled to me that the old Sully was returning. His emotional episode with this stronger version of the Kyi a few hours ago in our cabin worried me. But my acceptance of it, and my refusal to let an instinctive fear surface, seemed to reassure him. He was not a monster.

  Maybe I could still convince him to confess to the crew.

  I left Verno in the command sling and wandered to the ready room behind the bridge. A lot had happened in the past two days and for some reason the ready room seemed the better place for me to sit and sort it out. Part of the reason was that the energy Sully had shared with me still danced brightly in my veins. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.

  Instead, I brought up the data on Narfial Sully had been working on but stared at it with unseeing eyes. Everything I was truly concerned about replayed in my mind.

  Was it only two days ago I’d stood in the back of the bridge, trying to understand the source of my disquiet?

  I think I understood it now.

  Sully’s changing relationship with the Kyi and its increasing power fields impacted me. We were linked, often when I didn’t know it. He’d been using honeylace more frequently at night. I knew why; I could feel why. He was overcharged. Honeylace nullified that, at least somewhat and at least temporarily. Personally, his growth in power fed his male ego—something Sully would not all that begrudgingly admit he had. Privately, it frightened him. I’d vehemently rejected him when I first learned he was a Ragkiril—a soul-stealing demon, a mind-fucker, human variety. He’d saved my life, anyway. He’d loved me, anyway. He’d even saved the life of my ex-husband, his acknowledged rival.

  My acceptance of Sully—human—and Gabriel—Ragkiril—became Sully’s acceptance of himself. And now here we were at the crossroads again. Only this time he had no idea who or what he was asking Chaz Bergren to love and to trust.

  I saw that very clearly. He didn’t know himself. And he didn’t feel he had the right to ask me to come along on his ride toward self-discovery. Because it was dangerous?

  Yes, it could be. Gabriel Ross Sullivan was not a man who frightened easily. Yet the power coursing through him had brought tears of fear and shame to his eyes. That alone made me pause: both his fear and his willingness to show me his vulnerability. He’d never done that before.

  Now he was back to the joking, flirtatious Sully-the-rogue, the handsome bastard with the seductive smile. Hi
s usual role. I needed to know more about the man who’d dried his tears in my hair. But pushing, I knew from experience, would only make that part of him hide more deeply in the shadows.

  I logged off the Narfial data and brought up the Ragkiril research Gregor had done. I reread the articles but found nothing Sully hadn’t told me, nothing Philip hadn’t warned me about. The facts about Ragkirils were tightly interwoven with the legends of soul-stealers. The facts about the Kyi version of Ragkirils were even more cryptic.

  It worried me that Sully’s hit-and-miss experimentation as he tried to understand what was happening to him might have serious consequences. I needed access to the data Philip said his family had gathered for years. I just didn’t know what lies and promises I’d have to create in order to get that.

  Which led me back to the one subject I did not want to think about, the one I’d been avoiding thinking about. Thad. And my father.

  My brother had betrayed me. Part of me still wanted to believe Philip’s information was wrong, his conversation with my father a misinterpretation. I couldn’t reconcile the man who’d offered Sully and me sanctuary on Marker with the one who’d reveal Sully’s secrets to First Barrister Tage—and by so doing, put my life at risk. Under torture, under a Ragkiril mind-probe, yes. But not voluntarily.

  Yet put my father into the picture and everything changed. It didn’t matter that Thad and I now outranked him. Lieutenant Commander Lars Bergren, recently retired from the Imperial Fleet, Aldan First Battle Group, exuded an air of authority that admirals envied. To describe him as dedicated and unshakable was an understatement. The men and women he’d served with had nothing but praise for him. But he could also pin you with one glance and wither you with one word.

  Thad might outrank him, but Lars was in charge. Which was why I’d reassured myself he’d never let anything happen to Thad. Lars would do anything to save his son.

  Even kill his own daughter.

  Exiting through the gate for Narfial, the Boru Karn performed flawlessly.

  Less so Gabriel Sullivan, her owner of record, though Ren and I were the only ones who knew that.

  Ren noticed after a few minutes in the ready room, but I knew more than an hour before Ren did because I was stuck in the captain’s quarters while Sully paced, fidgeted, and argued with me.

  No, for the last time, he would not tell the crew, especially because Gregor was now awake and back in the pilot’s chair. If anyone was bound to react violently to the word Ragkiril, it was Meevel “Gregor” Gregoran.

  I didn’t discount that. And the reality was, Sully was more concerned with the crew’s feelings than he was with his own.

  “I can handle their hatred,” he’d said. “They shouldn’t have to handle their fear.”

  And if someone downloaded the news—assuming Tage had released the information—before we hit Narfial?

  “That’s why I have Gregor on the bridge. He’s not going to check the news vids on duty.”

  That meant I was off duty along with Ren, Verno, and Dorsie, who was sleeping. Sully sat at the table in the ready room, two chairs away from me on my left, tension all but vibrating from his body.

  The Karn received the first packet of messages within five minutes of clearing the gate exit—proximity to the gate always muddied if not blocked transmits—but it would be a good forty minutes at sublight before we intercepted a data beacon. The first transmit packet held no surprises. Not even a thank-you to Gregor from the Farosians. Sully and I vetted them in the ready room before releasing them to ship’s systems.

  Sully relaxed a little but kept checking with nav as to our position relative to the nearest data beacon. I began to question whether he really could handle the crew’s hatred if—no, when—it came to that.

  “On open dock, yes. Here?” He leaned his elbows on the room’s large table and scrubbed at his face with his hands. “Here, I’d want to side with them. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with me on a small ship either.”

  I wanted to tell him he was blowing things out of proportion but I couldn’t. I remembered too clearly when the crew believed Ren to be a fully functioning Ragkiril. I remembered the loathing, the fear.

  But Ren being Ragkiril had been a natural assumption.

  Sully being one wasn’t, and I said so.

  “Then use that to your advantage,” Ren advised, his voice soft and soothing. Gentle waves lapping at the shore of a safe harbor. “Human Ragkirils are rare. If you say your talents are minimal, I doubt anyone can provide evidence to the contrary. I’m willing to—”

  “No.” Sully cut in sharply, darting a glance at me and Ren. “No,” he repeated, more calmly. “I won’t do that again. Ever.” He turned back to the screen slatted through the tabletop.

  The incoming transmit signal pinged. Sully jabbed at his deskscreen. One transmit.

  “Drogue,” he said but I already saw the monk’s smiling face filling my screen and his.

  “Some good news I thought Captain Bergren might like to hear,” Drogue said. “Her brother, Thaddeus, has been transferred out of Holding Block Three into much nicer quarters. Protective custody is what I think they’re calling it, but it’s an apartment, not a cell. He continues to be guarded, but I’m hopeful this signals a change of heart and mind by the authorities. I’m sure they realize the charges against him were in error. Prayers do get answered because I’ve been praying they’d come to this conclusion.” Drogue was nodding. “That’s all I’ve heard through our people there. If I learn more, of course, I’ll send immediately. Blessings of the hour upon you. Praise the stars!”

  The screen blanked without showing the official arch-and-stave of the Englarian Church. And the transmit ID confirmed it was sent through Drogue’s private communications system. The government, for the most part, left the Englarians alone. But there was no sense in taking chances.

  Sully leaned back in his chair. “They’re planning on us coming after him. An apartment on station is far less secure than lockup.”

  For a moment a small hope blossomed. Thad hadn’t really turned state’s evidence, caving into pressure from Lars, telling Tage all he knew about me and Sully. Tage only said so to draw me, to draw us out. Putting Thad in a vulnerable location was another step in that plan.

  I could almost believe that, if Philip hadn’t told me my father was involved.

  “They probably assume you’d send me,” Sully continued, “and I’d kill him, rather than risk his talking further. I’m who they’re after. They’d love to add murder to whatever list they have with my name on it.”

  Thad and I were just different versions of bait. I knew that.

  “They might kill him anyway, through a zragkor, and blame me for it,” Sully added, his voice softening. “It’s something you need to consider, angel-mine.”

  The truth in Sully’s words hit me. A light warmth comforted me from two directions: Sully and Ren. I accepted it, but it didn’t take the worry away. Or the realization that no matter what happened, my brother’s life was at risk.

  I still wasn’t 100 percent sure he had betrayed me. There were always half-truths, just enough to make Lars and Tage believe he was cooperating. But even if he told everything, he was still my brother. I may have lost respect for him. I may never want to speak to him again. But I didn’t want him dead.

  Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized Thad knew too much. There was no way Tage or Burke would keep him alive.

  Philip. He still might be able to do something. “Sully, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I need to talk to—”

  “I know.” He reached across the vacant chair between us and closed his hand over mine. “Until we hit Narfial, it’s just too risky.” I’ll work on it. I promise.

  I understood. The closer we got to our meeting on Narfial with a contact we knew only as Del, the tighter our security had to be. Sully’s contacts in the Takan community—many through Verno and the church—had brought Del’s name to Sully’s attention. Verno didn
’t know him. Drogue knew of him but had never met him. We didn’t even know if he was human or Takan. We only knew the Takas trusted him and sources seemed to prove he was as interested in stopping Burke’s jukor labs as we were.

  That he was part of the Takan “Circle of Life Breeds Death” brigade was also possible, though we had no proof of that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be associated with someone who viewed rape as an answer. Neither did Sully. It would be akin to working with the Farosians. So for the moment he fell into the “enemy of my enemy” category.

  But he was an enemy of my enemy with information we needed: ship’s ident on Burke’s jukor lab and crew.

  Sully brought up a hologram of Narfial Starport through the viewer in the center of the table. It was cylindrical like Marker 3 but less than half the size, with a section of gangly looking protuberances near its base to accommodate ore tankers and other large ships. As we were running under the ident of a small commercial supply ship, we’d be docking on the opposite axis and probably a few levels above. Ore tankers—often overloaded with cargo and less-than-sober crew—had an unpleasant way of hitting things on their way in and out of stations. Wise captains knew to stay clear.

  “We need to go over some scenarios,” Sully said. “We have ten, fifteen minutes yet before we hit the first data beacon.” And all hell breaks loose.

  Sully. My mental admonition was echoed by Ren’s. So he was linked to both of us at the moment.

  “I’m a realist,” Sully said out loud with a sigh of exasperation.

  The tension of not knowing when and what Tage would release was wearing on him.

  “Most likely we’ll dock on Level E, but maybe F.” Sully pointed his lightpen at the holo, illuminating the areas. “We have to assume things might go wrong. We have to assume this might even be a trap. We need to know at least three ways back to the ship.”

  “I could never believe Drogue would betray us,” Ren said.

  “Drogue’s a messenger, not the source,” Sully pointed out. “The trap could also be for Del and have nothing to do with us. Plus, if Tage puts a high enough price on my head, we could find ourselves with a whole new problem. Which is something else we need to discuss.”