by Mary Wine
“No.” Cole stepped in front of Cassandra to stare at the warrior. “I didn’t free one woman just to place another one in her place.” Cole turned to look at Ravid. “Take Zeva home and complete your mission. I’ll finish mine out by getting Cassandra out of this wilderness.”
“I will accompany you, Cole Somerton.” Eyes shifted as one of the warriors moved forward. His eyes considered Cassandra before she frowned and bit into her lower lip. The warrior looked back at Cole. “I am Dyne. I will erase the memory from her mind. This gate must remain secret.”
“Oh great.” Cassandra rolled her eyes and shot Cole’s warning look right back at him. “Save it for someone who’s impressed, Somerton. But hey, if you are talking about making me forget about being stuffed in a truck for hours on end…who am I to argue?”
“We could just take you with us.” Dyne sounded amused by the idea.
Cassandra shrugged and faked a yawn. “So I heard, but you know, I really don’t need to be walked home. I can get there all by myself.”
“It would be simpler to take you with us, yet it would be dishonorable.”
Cassandra fluttered her eyelashes and Zeva stifled her laughter. Warriors took everything way too serious. Dyne was a memory shifter. The Judgment official would move the memory to a part of her subconscious where it would not surface. It was a calm ending to a year that had felt endless.
Her memory reminded her of just where the new gate was and Zeva turned towards it. She ached to get her feet off this wretched planet and back onto her home. Cassandra did not need her and she just couldn’t wait any longer.
Her legs moved her over the uneven ground with amazing speed. Zeva moved faster as she felt Ravid behind her. She didn’t respond to her name being called, instead she ducked into the mouth of a dark cavern and walked right into the heart of the blackness.
Tiny fingers of blue light reached through the thick darkness. Zeva lifted her hands towards the signs of home. The air was chilled but her heart beat quickly and her blood warmed her cold skin. Her feet closed the distance to the blue glow until she reached the room where the gate formed.
A hundred feet of pulsing blue current split the cavern. Blackness surrounded it as it twisted and hummed. Zeva didn’t stop, she was drawn to it, to the promise of her own life.
Freedom screamed at her as she felt Ravid and Keenan closing the distance behind her. She jumped towards the gate as her name erupted like a roar from their wide chests.
“Zeva!” Their voices merged into a single thrust of male threat. Zeva dived into the current as two strong arms caught her body. The pulsing current swept them along with its flow as she was pressed between two hard bodies.
Zeva hated her own body in that moment. She was the weaker being, strength surrounded her taking the form of hard muscles that her own limbs melted against. Her breasts gently lifted as her belly gave a faint twist of need for closer contact with such prime males.
A second later she stood on Alcandar. She shrugged against the embrace but was caught up closer to Keenan who faced her. Ravid took one step and pressed her against his comrade in arms and firmly used his body to trap her there.
“Let me go.”
The arms around her tightened for a moment and then granted her request. The fact that she knew it was a request they did not have to grant made her angry. She stared into Ravid’s face and bit her lip. “I do not need an escort.”
The second they released her, Zeva could breathe again. Her body instantly returned to a measure of control that held some dignity. Maybe it was the fact that she had found the strength to deny what she craved… Zeva didn’t know or care. All that mattered was the fact that Keenan and Ravid had stepped away from her.
Her body shivered and she frowned. Temptation taunted her with a strong wave of memory. Both warriors were solid muscle. Between them her body could become a vessel made for pleasure. Her belly gave a harder twist and she recognized just what the sensation was.
Need.
The desire to lift her eyelids and look at Keenan pulled at her incessantly, gaining more force as their separation grew larger. Her head turned without conscious thought as the warrior moved away from her. Zeva couldn’t control the need to look at his wide chest just once more. She craved another view of them both even as her feet kept moving away from being contained by their powerful bodies.
Keenan watched her. His eyes targeted her the second she lifted her eyelashes. The moment froze as she felt him. It was a connection that broke through the walls of expectation. Instead they touched on some plane where explanations didn’t matter, only sensation did.
One second and Keenan surged forward. She had always thought him the calmer one. Zeva jumped away as his body tightened and sprang towards her. Ravid caught his companion’s arm and Keenan’s face tightened with anger. Zeva turned away and shook her head.
Stupid foolish emotions!
Warning flashed through her brain as longing twisted her belly. Zeva bit into her lower lip as she lamented both looking and leaving. That didn’t make any sense but she was suddenly too tired to care. Fatigue landed on her shoulders so heavy it threatened to crush her beneath its weight. Her brain froze in mid-thought and refused to process information beyond picking up her feet.
Chapter Three
Ravid watched Keenan and grinned. It wasn’t a happy expression, instead his lips rose into a taunting little smirk that he enjoyed. Keenan slammed a goblet down and glared at the empty vessel.
For once his companion was the one fighting for control. Ravid took a moment to savor that odd occurrence before his own emotions roiled dangerously. Keenan was not the only one battling the urge to break century-old traditions. Charging into the women’s hall tempted him almost beyond the limits of his control.
Zeva was there.
The knowledge moved through his body like fire. So close, he could touch her, discover what her skin felt like, draw her scent into his head and…
Ravid shook his head and grabbed a drink from the center of the table. Keenan growled as it disappeared and punched the command key for another one for himself.
“That will not help.” A dark-haired warrior took a seat at the table and kept his face calm. Keenan scowled as Jett, Zeva’s brother, let a grin lift his lips. “Truly it will not.”
Ravid grumbled but Jett only continued to grin. “Drinking keeps me here.” Keenan grunted an approval as he too lifted a goblet.
Jett’s face went somber as he nodded his head. “Aye, yet it will do you no good.” Jett considered the Judgment Hall and the warriors who sat at nearby tables. He was an Alcandian warrior but a guest in this hall. He was from the Sinlar clan. The Judgment Hall wasn’t a place he went to often and there was a large part of him that did not wish to be there tonight. “My mother wishes to thank you for returning Zeva.”
“It was our duty.” The words sounded flimsy to Keenan even as they came out of his own lips. Jett raised a dark eyebrow at him.
“A pleasant duty for a change, yet we are still thankful.”
Both warriors nodded, they were no strangers to being the target of family members’ anguish. No mother wished to admit that her offspring would be guilty of lawbreaking.
Ravid drew his hand back before his fingers touched another goblet. His body surged with protectiveness and it balanced his need. Guilt tore at his thoughts as he dropped onto a bench next to Jett. Seeing Zeva’s brother here meant she rested under the protection of her family.
He should leave her there.
Ravid shot Keenan a look and found his companion struggling against his own desires. Neither of them would win the battle. Zeva was their mate. The contact had triggered a reaction that would only feed on itself until nothing mattered but the raging storm of need.
The only fact that made it bearable was the certain knowledge that Zeva would feel it also. Alcandians were far more advanced than humans. Their brains separated lust from mating fever and Ravid understood the burning sensation swee
ping aside his judgment.
It was a binding fever. Soon, nothing would matter but Zeva. But he would not be alone in his need. Keenan shared it through their link and Zeva would awaken to the reality of their union.
That fact gave him no satisfaction. It only fueled his desire to bury his need, suppress it until Helmut and Craddock were dead. Yet even then, he and Keenan were still Judgment officials.
That would never change.
* * * * *
Alcandar.
Zeva smelled it before she opened her eyes. She was almost afraid to lift her eyelids and discover it was a manifestation of her desperation. Instead the sound of a guilatar floated across her ears and she opened her eyes to see the small yellow bird bathing in a copper urn perched on the windowsill.
The shield was off, letting the morning air flood the room, and Zeva jumped out of the bed to look out at the memory that had kept her sane for a yearlong eternity. The hanging vines were green and covered with white blooms as they twisted down the brown sandstone columns that surrounded the main courtyard outside her sleeping room.
Alcandian women moved across the courtyard in their long jackets and loose pants and there wasn’t a single splotch-colored human in sight! Two girls hurried past in a training uniform that her eyes drank in the sight of.
It was her studio colors and Zeva laughed as she watched the two run up the steps and around the corner on their way to class. She twirled around in circles like a little girl with her hands flung out and stopped as she looked at the bathing pool in the room.
Her skin crawled with the need to wash. Zeva tore her Earth clothing away and smiled as she heard the fabric rip. She passed a hand over the controls for the bath and smiled as Alcandian symbols greeted her eyes.
Her world and her language! Such little things that meant so very much when you were denied them!
Zeva splashed into the bathing pool until the water covered her head. The pool was large enough to submerge in if she bent her legs. Her head broke the surface of the water as her smile faded. She looked at the expanse of water and noticed for the first time exactly why Alcandian bathing pools were so big.
They were made for three.
Her nipples tightened despite the warm water covering them and Zeva gasped. Sensation ran from the little hard nubs to her belly where heat began to flicker inside her womb. She dived under the water but the heat remained.
Reaching for soap, Zeva scrubbed at her skin trying to cover the rising sensations. She refused to think about them. Her hair hung in wet hunks down her back and she attacked the thick brown length but groaned as her arms lifted above her head. Her breasts tingled as she moved her arms and it fed the heat moving along her limbs. She was keenly aware of her hard nipples and the slide of water over the soft globes.
Sinking into the water, Zeva rinsed the soap away as the curtain to her chamber swished aside.
“Daughter!”
Paneil hurried into the chamber with two of her friends on her heels. Zeva felt an odd pang of shyness hit her as the women just walked right up to the edge of the pool. It was an unexpected sensation. Alcandian baths were rarely private.
She bent her knees and smiled at her mother. Paneil picked up a pitcher and dipped it into the pool. She dumped it over Zeva’s head as Zeva tried to toss aside her reluctance to stand up. Lanai, a golden-haired woman who was considered family, came towards the edge of the pool with a towel.
Zeva bit her lower lip and went towards her. Lanai’s son, Dylan, was companion to her brother Jett. When warriors bonded, their families became just as intertwined. Lanai didn’t think twice about walking into the bathing chamber and neither did Paneil. Zeva’s sudden attack of modesty would be viewed as the oddity.
The towel was wrapped around Zeva’s head to hold every strand of her hair out of the pool. Paneil watched with a careful eye as Lanai nodded to her. Her mother pressed a control button and a slight electrical shock passed through the water. Zeva gasped as her heightened nerve endings jerked.
A foul word crossed her mind as she stood up. Pitchers were dipped into the water and poured over her shoulders. The water slid down her skin sending a little ripple of sensation into her womb. Every inch of her flesh wanted to be stroked. Touched and pressed between the hard bodies of…
Grrrrr!
Zeva snapped her teeth together but didn’t quite contain her frustration. Her skin doubled its awareness level as every body hair she had was rinsed away with the water. She was smooth and completely bare. It should have made her feel wonderful. Instead she was acutely aware of her bare sex.
That was absurd! Alcandian females never had body hair. Warriors did but women were smooth and free of even a hint of stubble. Zeva hadn’t even known how long her pubic hair could grow until she was forced to live in the primitive conditions on Earth. Using a razor to remove the hair was barbaric but better than living with it. She groaned again as she looked down her body at the top of her mons. The skin was smooth and completely bare, the hairs having slid out of their follicles so that there was no stubble left. Ravid would like her this way.
“Zeva? Are you all right?”
Stepping out of the water, Zeva helped pull a towel around her body. The fabric felt rough against her skin and she tucked it tighter against her breasts. Her body could just hurt as far as she was concerned. There would not be any further stimulation that required a certain pair of warriors. Her body could just become used to that fact.
“I am more than all right, Mother. I am home!”
Paneil raised an eyebrow as her eyes scanned Zeva’s body with a mother’s knowing eye. Zeva tightened her grip on the towel and moved towards the clothing that had materialized on her neat bed.
“I have missed sensible clothing!” The long top garment was a coat that had a high waistline to support her breasts. There were a pair of pants that were loose and the jacket had open slits up its sides so that her legs were not trapped inside the fabric.
It was so much better than human dresses. Those skirts forced a female to be dependent on either male protection or accept being weaker. Zeva detested their pants almost as much. The seams were too tight and rubbed against her sex.
Alcandian clothing was built for function and practicality. The fabrics were rich and they shimmered with highlights but they were not tucked and folded along a female’s curves. That sort of advertisement wasn’t necessary in a society where mates were chosen by the ability to merge. Warriors did not follow their erections into binding, instead they followed a full range of senses that settled on a female for so much more than just the coloring of her features or the curve of her bottom.
Her stomach rumbled and the women around her smiled. Dressing didn’t take long and they all joyfully walked with her to the women’s hall for a meal. Zeva took a last second to toss her ruined Earth clothing into a pile she aimed a designation beam at. Not even a speck of dust remained, and she smiled as the beam turned off. Life would resume and she intended to forget about Earth.
* * * * *
Zeva’s communications unit chirped for a full minute before she recalled that it was actually someone trying to contact her. She looked at the line of text and stood up. Food lost all appeal as she looked at the summons again. It was from Keenan and she pressed her lips into a tight line before the little surge of excitement broke through and showed up on her face for everyone to see.
Friends and family were clustered around the table. The women’s hall was still full as her clan’s women ignored their daily work to welcome her home.
“What is it, Daughter?” Paneil stood up and twisted her hands as she took in Zeva’s frown. Zeva instantly felt remorse for troubling her mother. The summons was not unexpected, but she hadn’t considered that the idea that just seeing Keenan’s name would excite her.
“It is nothing to worry about mother. I must go to Judgment Hall today.” Several females nodded approval. The ugly realities of crime were often dealt with on Judgment grounds. Zeva did ad
mire Ravid and Keenan their dedication to law. It was warriors like them who allowed life on Alcandar to be something worth longing to return home to.
“Your brother will take you.”
Zeva nodded but couldn’t help wishing she might go alone. Her brother Jett might see too much. A little sigh escaped her throat. Jett was not her main problem. Ravid and Keenan were. Her ultrasensitive nipples were a huge concern because her body was dissolving into a primitive sea of emotion. The control she’d used to endure her imprisonment was crumbling in the face of yearnings that she had never noticed were hidden in her own brain.
* * * * *
“Craddock!” Helmut kicked a pile of debris aside and ran into the lower eating hall of their hideout. It was a rotting pile of rock barely fit for warriors, but they were outlaws, on a world where everything flowed through central computer lines. Any functioning home would transmit their location the second they activated the bathing pool. “Craddock!”
“Outside.” Helmut smiled as he moved towards his companion’s voice. The scent of smoke hit him as he got closer and his stomach rumbled as he noticed the fresh meat turning over a fire. They were true warriors, not the weak-blooded type who roamed Alcandar now. He and Craddock could survive off the planet and they would never accept the current crap about treating females gently. Strength begat strength. A warrior needed a female who could take his strength to bear his offspring. Alcandian females were too coddled to suit him.
“They brought Zeva back.”
Craddock turned away from his kill to look at him. “Did they claim her?”
“Don’t know and it does not matter. They chased her before they left.” Helmut spat on the ground before kneeling down to look at the cooking meat. “That’s good enough for me.”
