“So long a term?”
He jerked a shoulder then grunted as pain ricocheted through him. “It’s all I ever wanted to do, Parker. Fly for the Fleet.”
She eyed him, eyed the almost lost-little-boy look on his face. He was pleading with her, urging her to understand and to believe in him. Her opinion mattered to him. For the first time in ever, Parker actually felt like she had some power in this relationship. Whenever she’d met Rafer, he’d been curt. Distant. Always pushing her away, even though she hadn’t exactly thrown herself at him. He’d held back, never touching her unless he had to, never even looking at her unless it was necessary.
That notte, two annals ago, had only happened as the result of one too many glasses of Novrisian whisky. That stuff could burn through wood, it was so strong, and it had certainly lowered Rafer’s walls.
Now, however, he was urging her to understand. The woman in her, that most feminine and intrinsic part, preened at this. It was the only word that could possibly describe how his pleading made her feel.
She eyed him carefully, trying to read between the lines of what he was saying. “Was this your last mission?”
When he nodded, her belly did a free fall. In relief.
She’d known for a deya that her second mate was in the Black Star Fleet, and in the same deya, she never had to fear losing him on a mission. Talk about lucky.
“If it weren’t for my legs, then I’d probably have to go back. As it is, they won’t know yet, not for a while, if there’s permanent damage.” He spoke about it so cavalierly that she blinked. “By the time they do know, my contract will be over. I only had six menses left.”
Six menses. If he thought it would take that long for his legs to fully heal, then shit, she was doubly glad he’d never have to leave for deployment.
Parker really was not made to be an Army Wife. Some women could do it, but they had more guts than her.
Parker blew out a breath. “Are you trying to tell me that for the last sixty annals, you’ve been pushing me away because of the enlisting contract?”
“It was the right thing to do.”
She wanted to laugh, cry, and smack him.
“You arrogant jackass,” she told him, but without any heat. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“I did it to protect you.”
“Okay, I’ll believe you.” She rolled her eyes.
“It’s the truth,” he stated with a growl. “It’s not like I’m making this lukcin up.”
She shrugged. “Be grateful I do. You’ll have a harder time convincing Knox.”
“That’s the way it should be,” he remarked, sounding completely at ease. “Shuzon twinlings ensure the other is always acting on their mates’ best interests. In my case, I was, but he couldn’t understand. Most of the Fleet, when they’re not on deployment, can lead normal lives. Have a family. Make a family. I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
He cocked a brow. “Even if I could tell you, I wouldn’t because it would give you nightmares. Look, I rose very quickly through the ranks, because I was very good at what I did. Do you think I wouldn’t have come home if I could? Hell, I could have made up some lie about my job to explain why I was always working away. I did what I had to do, and my thanks for it is sixty annals without my mate.”
“You made me doubt that, Rafer. You made me question whether I was your mate or not. And your mothers lauded that over me.”
He closed his eyes. “I know I did, and they did too, and I’m sorry. I had to hold back. It killed me to do it, but I had to. I couldn’t get close, it would have been too hard to leave.
“The instant I met you, I knew why Knox had chosen you. Why he’d ignored our ways and claimed you. I didn’t blame him. He thinks I did, but I never have. For sixty annals, I’ve been on the outside looking in…I’m looking forward to being in the inner circle. Even if it takes a few decades to win Knox around, I don’t mind. Just to be here is enough.”
She clenched her fists against his words, because they made her heart melt and she couldn’t act on the feelings they inspired. It was her turn to speak words hoarse with emotion. “You’ve no idea how hard it is not to hug you right now.”
“There’s nothing that says you can’t lie next to me.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “To be honest, I’d love it. When I saw you down in reception, it wasn’t the homecoming I’d had in mind all these goddamn annals, but you resting beside me will make up for it.”
She grinned at that, liking the idea of him imagining those moments when he could come home for good, feeling warm inside at the knowledge that that had kept him going during his missions—whatever the hell those missions might have been.
Parker stood, walked over to the bed, and set the tray on the floor. She slipped out of her shoes and removed the jacket she’d been wearing down on reception. Not wanting to jerk the mattress around, she was careful to balance her weight and gently move about the bed before she lay flat out beside him. It wasn’t as cozy as she’d have liked, but to be next to him, with his permission, was pathetically delicious. So much distance, so much time separating them, it was sheer luxuriating bliss to be so close.
A tiny shudder racked her frame as he maneuvered the hover chair to a flat position. This was even more intimate, and she wished so badly to put her arm around his belly and to just fall asleep in his embrace. Hey, she’d never said she wasn’t greedy.
“How come you were up here, anyway?” he asked when he’d finally stopped panting from the pain of moving just a few inches down.
Tension invaded her limbs at the innocently posed question. How did she answer that? Did she tell him the truth when there was nothing he could do? Or lie?
At her silence, he muttered, “Uh-oh.”
“Shuzons don’t say uh-oh,” Parker told him with a sniff.
“They do when they’ve been mated to a human for sixty annals.”
“You haven’t been.”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “But Knox has. I’ve kept in touch with him enough to hear him say it. Go on, spill. You might as well. You’ll probably rest easier.”
“Are you saying I need to sleep?”
He grunted. “I’m saying that you wouldn’t have lied down if you weren’t tired, and that you wouldn’t have been up here unless something was wrong. To facilitate the former, tell me about the latter. Even half broken, I’m used to carrying the load, Parker. It comes with my rank.”
“One of our receptionists has been kidnapped.”
He turned his head to the side and stared at her, a frown puckering his brow. “Seriously? A receptionist?” At her nod, he asked, “An angry ex? Or a family spat?”
Parker shook her head, and swallowed back the guilt at knowing an innocent woman had been taken out of mistaken identity. “I sent her out to pay for your taxi fare. They took her, thinking she was me.”
A long hiss escaped him. “Has Knox called the Garda?”
“No.” When he tensed, she pressed a hand to a non-bandaged part of his arm. “It isn’t what you think. The Garda’s as corrupt as all hell here. You can’t trust them.”
“You can’t just pay the ransom. These bastards won’t let her go.”
“We contacted the Fleet.”
“How the hell did you do that?” He slammed his fist down on the mattress. “You should have woken me. I’d have patched us through to the proper authorities.”
“No need. Knox looked through some of the comms the Fleet had sent him when you’d been injured decades back. He just contacted the numbers, and asked to be put through to someone who could deal with such a situation. They’re here now.”
“Lukcin, that was fast.”
“Good, though. For Tisiya’s sake, at least.”
He frowned. “Maybe. I need to go downstairs and talk to the men the Fleet has sent.”
Parker snorted, and sat up to lean on her elbow. “You’re way too weak to do anything but lie here, Ra
fer. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. If the Fleet came, just like that, then there’s a reason for it.” His mouth pursed, the muscles around his mouth darkening with the strain.
That was the weird thing about Shuzons. If she tensed her lips, they’d bleed white. Shuzon flesh turned a deeper, darker color.
She never ceased to be amazed by the differences in the race she’d mated herself to.
Not that now was the time to be even thinking about that.
She rested a hand on his belly and pushed down when he started to fidget on the hover chair. “There’s nothing you can do. So you might as well rest.”
“Of course there’s something to do, Parker. I need to speak with the men they’ve sent over.”
“Yeah, well, if you try to get out of this bed, I’ll set the doors on lockdown so you can’t get out.”
“This is your safety we’re talking about here, Parker. I need to be in on this. No one knows what I….” He broke off, and, for a second, looked extremely shifty. There was no other way to describe it. He quickly covered up his hesitation by saying, “Look, if you won’t let me go down, then bring them up here.”
She snorted. “How am I supposed to command an officer to do what I want?”
“You don’t. You show him my badge and that will do the talking for you.”
At his earnestness, she frowned. “Do you really need to do this?”
“If you want your receptionist to come home in one piece, Parker, then you need to give them this and bring them up here.” He pressed the controls on the hover chair, and a drawer shot open. Inside it, there were documents. Irrevocable proof of his credentials and identity.
She hadn’t even realized the hover chair contained storage. It was a lightweight silver board with seamless bends in its mechanism. If it was thicker than her pinkie finger she was being generous. There was an outboard computer that housed the machine’s program, but she couldn’t see where a drawer so big could hide.
“It’s latest generation technology,” he told her when she just gawked at the invisible drawer.
“I don’t know why I’m shocked,” she complained. “Sixty annals and this shit still takes me by surprise,” With a sigh, she grabbed the badge he handed her, and ordered, “If you move out of this bed, I will lock you in after you’ve met with the highest ranking officer.”
When he nodded, looking like a recalcitrant child with his bottom lip poking out in a pout, she just cocked a brow, before climbing off the bed and hurrying out of the room. In the elevator and heading down a floor, she fingered the badge and grimaced at the symbol most humans hated more than any other.
Even as the twenty-first century was coming to a close, the ramifications of the Nazi party in Germany, and the millions of people they’d slaughtered, had still made the swastika a renowned and hated symbol. Only the Fleet could really surpass it. A metallic oval-shaped ring with the initials BSFF—Black Star Federation Fleet—imposed on it. Starbursts distorted the elongated circle. The letters were holograms, and when she touched them, the image broke at the drift of her fingers and the tips burned with the heat of the badge.
The letters BSFF had been branded into most of the Earthling evacuees. Those who had resisted evacuation, or who had caused trouble, had that brand. It was proof that they were troublemakers. Even now, in some of the slave markets, you could still see the BSFF brand on some humans’ shoulders.
Grimacing at the memory, she stepped into Knox’s office, then jerked in shock at the war room that had once been a relatively restive work environment.
Comm units were on every surface, and temporary desks had been brought from God only knew where to litter nearly all of the floor space. Knox was at his desk talking to someone dressed in one of the uniforms that still plagued her nightmares.
It had been a Lieutenant that had taken her father away to one of the evacuation camps. The black britches tucked into black leather-like boots, the weird sweater-jacket that conformed to the body like a knitted jersey but was slashed through the middle with a kind of zipper. It separated the top half from the bottom, the former’s navy blue color indicated the rank.
God, she hated the Fleet.
Just seeing them there, all of the officers and lower ranks humming around like a hive of bees, sickened her. She needed them, and she hated that, but it didn’t take her anger away. No self-respecting Earthling could ever forgive or forget the Fleet’s role in the evacuation of their planet. Not that their opinion mattered worth a damn.
Christ, the Federation was a bastard of a place to inhabit.
Mentally coping with Rafer’s job was one thing, but coming face to face with a handful of soldiers was another kettle of fish.
“Knox, who’s the ranking officer?”
The multitude of species wearing the Fleet’s uniform all froze at her words. Almost as one, like some scary machine, they looked up from their comm units and gawked at her. One relatively normal man, with hair down to his shoulders save for two braids at his temples and piercings curved along his earlobes as was the Narcian way, glared at her. A Dirga male’s eyes glowed with distrust, and the two Burtzens, creatures from a lizard-like race, their tongues flickered out at her words.
She froze at the act of aggression—they were scenting the air. Once the ten-strong team recognized her as human, she saw the sneers on their faces and saw their scorn for her people. It made her stomach burn, and her fists clenched at her sides at the visible and unified sign of disgust. She wanted to lash out, but knew there was no point. Even in her position of power, she meant nothing to these people. Knox, considering his species and his rank on Shuzon, was probably having to fidget from having his ass licked so hard, whereas she was being treated like shit on the Fleet’s boots.
Go figure.
It calmed her to see that Knox was pissed at their reaction to her though. It soothed her anger, stopped the internal scream that appeared whenever she was in the presence of the Fleet.
That was another advantage of Madison. There were few battalions shipped here to the pleasure planet. Thank fuck. She’d probably have been sent to the Wall—the Fleet’s worst gaol, a place more like hell than a prison—for insubordination or yelling at soldiers.
“Lieutenant Jyk is in charge, Parker.” Knox turned to Jyk, whose mainly humanoid features were spoiled by a quirk of fate that had his eyelids closing from side to side rather than up and down. That alone marked him as a Likyen.
After evacuation, the Federation had reformed humans in the ways of the Union. That meant being fitted with ULTs, the internal translation units, then being programed with all of the known species in the Union. Being programed had been like torture. She could still remember the pain of having her brain piggybacked by some huge mainframe. That reprograming had been like uploading an encyclopedia into her mind.
Shuddering at the memory, she strode through the room, refusing to show her fear at being so surrounded by a body of people she considered to be her enemy. It unnerved her that she could still feel so strongly about men who had had nothing to do, probably, with the evacuation of Earth. It was irrational, but then, she thought most Earthlings were allowed to be irrational when remembering those hellish annals when their mother planet had been systematically destroyed.
Nausea crawled from her belly and gathered at the back of her throat. She had to swallow it back, and forced herself to turn to Jyk. With hard-won calm, and a poise she’d learned from running this huge hotel, she held out her hand and showed the Lieutenant the badge. “Rafer Baxx, my mate, would like to speak with you.”
That Jyk blanched at Baxx’s name was both worrying and amusing.
Ah, irony was really delicious. The petty, pesky human. Shit on these soldiers’ shoes, yet she was mated to Knox, one of the richest men in the quadrant, and Rafer, a man who could make the Lieutenant turn green—highly unusual considering the man’s skin tone was brown, and it made him look like camouflage.
She did
n’t like herself for it, but she felt smug. “I can show you up to our suite, if you want?” she asked, reiterating that she lived there. That this hotel was hers. That, if she wanted, she could buy and sell them in a heartbeat.
The pettiness was unlike her, but then, she’d never had to invite a team of Black Star soldiers into her home and business. So sue her.
“Yes, Maseign. I would appreciate that.”
It looked like it choked him to use the form of address, and that made her smile. When she held out a hand, indicating Jyk could step in front of her, Knox grabbed her fingers, then pulled her against his side. In her ear, he murmured, “Play nice.”
She cocked a brow at that. “Why should I? You saw my welcome,” she bit out. “Politeness is as deep as I’ll go,” she hissed, then laughed when he pulled a face.
She turned her back on him and caught up with Jyk, who was waiting in the still-hovering elevator. She used her keycard to take them to her floor, and with a quick pout of a kiss at Knox, locked herself in the lift with the Lieutenant.
The ride was short, thankfully. And not a word was shared between them. Twice, he cleared his throat, but she just stared out onto the complex. When they arrived at their suite, she stopped in the salon.
“I’ll show you to the bedroom. Monseign Baxx has recently been injured. I don’t want you to excite him, or encourage him to get up. Do you understand me, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Maseign.”
She ignored his sneer. “My mate’s health and welfare is my major priority, Lieutenant.”
He choked a little at that.
“Yes. Mate.” Parker took pleasure in the reiteration, even if it meant repeating herself. Her dad had always said she had a penchant for melodrama, and he hadn’t been wrong. Before Jyk could answer, she strode over to the door to the second bedroom and pressed the release catch to allow entry.
“Lieutenant Jyk is here, Rafer,” she said as she walked into the room. She glared at him, seeing that he’d moved from the bed, and was pale and sweating in the hover chair beside the window.
A Menage Made On Madison [The Federation 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 7
