Lord of the Storm

by Justine Davis

  His mouth was gentle yet firm, coaxing, and when he ran his tongue over her lips, she parted them for him without a thought. He plunged deeply, eagerly, and Shaylah moaned at the sweet invasion.

  His arms tightened around her, and he shifted until she was sprawled on top of him. His hands began to move, smoothing her body through the blue silk, searching out every curve as if he’d loved her forever.

  When his hands slid around to cup her breasts, his fingers caressing her nipples to tingling, taut peaks, Shaylah lost the last remnant of reality. This was no longer a man controlled, a man in a machine-induced hypnotic dream; this was the lover she’d always imagined, the man she’d always longed for.

  She twisted sinuously, arching to thrust her breasts harder into his hands. She heard him groan as he lifted his hips, and she felt the aroused length of him pressed against her belly through the trewscloth.

  Wild with this newfound need, she rolled to one side and plucked at the ties at his hip. The cloth fell away, and he sprang unfettered into her waiting hands, hot and smooth and massive.

  The moment her fingers touched him she heard him gasp, and his hips bucked sharply, driving that swollen male flesh hard against her palm. Instinctively her fingers curled around him, stroking, caressing.

  “Yes,” he hissed out between clenched teeth, “yes!”

  It happened quickly then, so hot and fierce Shaylah’s senses reeled under the impact. He tugged off the blue robe and rolled her beneath him, his mouth seeking out every tender place, every sensitive spot on her body. At her slightest moan he lingered in the place that had produced it, driving her to the brink of madness. He whispered to her, hot vivid words of love and need. Pleasure went through her in waves, rippling, making her every muscle ripple in turn.

  “Please,” she moaned, “oh, please.”

  He slid between her thighs, pausing only to tease and suck each nipple with his tongue and mouth. “Now?” he breathed against her quivering flesh. “Now, Bree?”

  Shaylah was so frantic she barely noticed the name. “Yes,” she gasped, “oh, yes, now.”

  And then he was in her, high and tight and driving hard. She gasped at the shock of it, at the sheer, rending pleasure of it. It was too much, she couldn’t take so much, he was filling her to bursting, impaling her, plunging fiercely. He was golden and beautiful and utterly male as he loomed above her, his body thrusting into hers.

  She gripped his shoulders, her nails digging at rock-solid flesh as she writhed beneath him, certain she was dying. Nothing else could explain this incredible reaching inside her, this impossible pressure that was sending her spiraling upward toward a pleasure she couldn’t even imagine. And then she was there, crying out as her body convulsed, then erupted into searing flares of heat.

  She heard him echo her cry, felt his body arch above her as he drove himself home one last time. Then he collapsed upon her, his breath coming in ragged gasps in her ear. It was a long time before he rolled to one side, keeping her close as he did.

  “Bree?” he murmured sleepily.

  “Sshh,” Shaylah said, even now unable to regret what she’d done. “Sleep now.” She reached over and shut off the controller. And with her curled tight to his side, he slept.

  SHAYLAH FOLDED the robe and put it neatly in her bag. Then followed the golden gown. It was hers to keep now, ironically, a badge of achievement that had lost much of its appeal for her. Except for her brush, that was the last of it, she thought. It was nearly dawning. Nearly time to leave.

  Drawn by a force she couldn’t resist, though she tried, she turned around. Wolf was still asleep, lying sprawled on the floor, his golden body barely covered by the thermoactive cloth she’d pulled over them. Last night was almost like a dream to her; it seemed impossible that this magnificent man had mated with her so sweetly, so powerfully, no matter what the circumstances. With a heavy sigh, she turned back to the mirror. She finished brushing her hair, then fastened the collar of her flight uniform.

  Something made the skin at her nape prickle. She whirled. Wolf was awake and staring at her. She’d hoped to be gone before this, fearing she wouldn’t be able to bear a good-bye; a weeping pilot would not help the Coalition image.

  “I meant to be gone,” she said, biting her lip.

  “I’m sure you did, after last night.”

  Startled by his unexpected ferocity, Shaylah took a step back. “Wolf, I . . . I got my orders last night. I don’t know what’s going on, but it must be bad. I’m leaving.”

  “Damn you.” His voice was cold, icy cold, and his eyes glittered green fury.

  She tried to make him understand. “Wolf, please. I might not come back. If it’s a battle . . .” She bit back the words that sounded so fearful and finished simply, “I couldn’t leave, and . . . and never know.”

  He was on his feet now, his naked body taut with rage. Shaylah had expected him to be upset that she had broken their agreement, but she hadn’t expected this fury. Yet despite it, she couldn’t help looking at him hungrily, from the broad shoulders that still bore the faint marks of her nails, to the sleek, smoothly muscled chest, to the flat belly, and to the thatch of golden curls below it, surrounding his potent manhood.

  “Damn you,” he spat out again. “You played me like an airharp, didn’t you? And I believed it, all of it, the tears, the sincerity—”

  “Wolf—”

  “So tell me, Captain. Did I live up to my reputation? Was I as good as all your others?”

  Shaylah jerked as if he’d slapped her. “There have been no . . . ‘others,’ save one,” she said huskily, then wished she hadn’t when the quiet confession only seemed to make him angrier.

  “Then why?”

  “Why what? What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about, Captain. Was it a challenge for you? Were you coached? Did you do it as a favor to your friend Major Claxton?”

  “Califa? What’s she got to do with it?”

  “Didn’t she tell you exactly why the Club kept me for so long, even with all the problems I caused them? Didn’t she tell you why I was so valuable?”

  “What—”

  “Would you like to know?”

  “No—”

  “She told you to try and wear me out, remember? Because no one else ever has. In all the time I was enslaved at the Legion Club, I pleasured whomever they ordered me to, whenever they ordered me to, for as long as they ordered me to.”

  “Stop it.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “My reputation for stamina? It’s true.”

  He wasn’t just angry, Shaylah realized. He was hurting inside, he was in agony, and he was striking back the only way he knew how. And it was working; the cold words in that lashing whip of a voice were killing her.

  “Wolf, please—”

  “I can pleasure someone all night long and into tomorrow, Captain. Because I have taken the Club’s training a step further than they expected. It is the one thing I can control. The one thing that they hadn’t counted on, the Triotian part of me they couldn’t command.”

  “What?” she asked, knowing she couldn’t stop him now.

  “My own release.”

  “Your own . . . ?” Shaylah’s brow furrowed, then cleared as her eyes widened. “You mean you don’t . . . ?”

  “Never.”

  When she thought about it for a moment, she began to see what it would mean to him. “You hold back . . . because it takes away from their mastery.”

  “They can force me to speak, to move, to act. But they can’t force a Triotian . . . to feel.” For the first time his expression changed, his mouth twisting bitterly. “It isn’t much, but it’s all I have. Or all I had. But you took that away last night, didn’t you? And you took it with deceit.”

  Shaylah gaspe
d in sudden understanding. He knew what she’d done. He remembered exactly what had happened; she could see it in his face. He wasn’t supposed to—

  Dear Eos, she’d forgotten. She hadn’t completed the hypnotic instruction, hadn’t planted the forgetfulness that should have come afterward, the absence of details, leaving only vague memories and a sense of fulfillment.

  “Wolf, I—”

  “You took what I told you in trust and you used it against me. You did what no one else has done in five years, Captain. You brought me to my knees—or should I say to climax? I hope you’re proud.”

  “No,” Shaylah whispered. “I never meant to—”

  “You don’t have to play the role anymore, Captain. You’re leaving now. You did what you came to do. You tamed the Wolf. I’m sure Major Claxton is grateful. Perhaps she’ll sell me back to the Club, now that you’ve given her the key. Now that I’m . . . domesticated.”

  “No! It wasn’t like that; I’m not like them—”

  “No, you’re not like them. You’re worse.”

  “Wolf!”

  “They only took my body. You took my soul, Captain.”

  He turned his back on her, only now reaching for the trewscloth to cover his nudity. He swiftly tied it on, but remained with his back to her.

  “Your ship is waiting, Captain Graymist,” he said coldly.

  Shaylah grabbed her bag, started to run, then stopped at the door and turned back.

  “No matter what you think, Wolf, it wasn’t like that. Yes, I was selfish. I was afraid I would never feel like you made me feel again. I had to know if it was true, if mating could really be something more. I was afraid I would die not knowing.” She took a gulping breath. “And you . . . I know what you have to go back to, after I leave. I thought maybe if I . . . if I gave you something back . . . one last time with the woman you loved . . .”

  He flinched as if she’d struck him.

  “I’m sorry Wolf. You weren’t supposed to remember. But even if you hate me for what I did last night, believe this: None of what happened between us was a lie. None of it.”

  On a choking sob, she turned and ran out of the room.

  SHAYLAH HAD NO idea how long it had taken, had no memory of clearing port, passing the Coalition inspection, and setting course out of the sector. Only when the alert call on the headquarters frequency went off did she come out of her numbness long enough to react.

  “Captain Graymist.” The general again, she thought dully. “Captain,” he repeated. “Is there a problem, Captain?”

  Wake up, she snapped at herself. This is supposed to be a two-way conversation, remember? She reached for the transmitter button and opened the channel.

  “My apologies, sir. I was just . . . updating my log. I’m ready for orders.”

  The general nodded. “Very well. Your coordinates have been transmitted to your navigational computer on four.”

  She turned to the navcom and spoke. “Captain Graymist, Coalition Tactical Defense Wing Three, Identification Number 122166.”

  “Acknowledged,” the computer returned.

  “Confirm receipt of transmission from Coalition Headquarters, secure navigational frequency number four.”

  “Confirmed and locked in.”

  Shaylah turned back to the comscreen. “Confirmed, sir.”

  “Good. After picking up your crew, you will rendezvous with TacWings two and five.”

  “Yes, sir. May I ask what the situation is?”

  “A small problem. A minor rebellion, although I hesitate to dignify it with that word.”

  If it’s so minor, Shaylah thought grimly, why is it taking three wings? And those pilots who had left last week had been offensive, not defensive.

  “Where, sir?”

  The general coughed. He shifted in his seat. And at last he answered.

  “Trios,” he said.

  Chapter 5

  “I TELL YOU, I have to admire those guys, but they’re a damned pain in the backside!”

  Shaylah looked at the man who had spoken. It was Krayton, an older pilot she knew slightly. He’d waved her down the moment she walked into the Darkstar’s briefing room just before dawning.

  “Cut your leave short, too, huh?” was all he’d said before starting his harangue.

  “Admire who?” she asked now. She had arrived at the general’s flagship only minutes before and had heard none of the usual rumblings.

  “Those damn Triotians.”

  Shaylah cringed inwardly. “Is there really a rebellion going on? I didn’t think there were . . . any of them left.”

  “That’s what the general thought, too. No sign of them for years. Thought they were wiped out.”

  Shaylah forced herself not to shudder. “But now?”

  “Appears some of them survived. At least, Legion Command thinks they’re Triotians.”

  “Thinks?”

  “Nobody’s seen ’em. They come and go like a whisperbird, not a sound, no traces left.” Krayton shrugged. “Started with a few little forays here and there, a little sabotage, an assault on a supply caravan, but nothing to make Command sit up and notice. Until last week.”

  “What happened last week?”

  “They captured a communications station.”

  “Captured?”

  “Took it quiet as you please, never even fired a disrupter. Let the staff go, too. Said they had no interest in holding non-Coalition personnel prisoner.”

  The Coalition, Shaylah thought bitterly, would have murdered them all, regardless. It was the standard solution to any potential problem, and Shaylah herself had been in deep murk more than once over her refusal to follow that policy to the letter. Only her sterling record saved her from disciplinary action; they couldn’t very well call her soft when she had more medals and commendations than anyone else in the Third Tactical Defense Wing.

  “Why are they in a fume over one com station?”

  “Because this com station was the storage annex for a whole damn cargo load of hand communicators. And a base station transmitter.”

  Shaylah’s eyes widened in realization. “Then they have communications.”

  “And a full range of frequencies to play tag with.”

  Shaylah let out a low whistle. “If they’re careful about any long transmissions, they could run for quite a while before anyone could get a fix on them.”

  The older pilot nodded. “And they know it. And they know the terrain, and they move fast. They disappear before we can react. And they have weapons of some kind.”

  “And now communications.”

  Krayton nodded. “All the necessities for combat.”

  Shaylah nodded slowly. “If they are Triotian”—she swallowed tightly and went on—”then why now? Why did they wait so long?”

  “Maybe it took them this long to regroup.” Krayton shrugged again. “Rumor has it the heart went out of them when the royal family was eradicated. Triotians set a lot of store by them. Some of them even risked death to try and retrieve the king’s body after General Corling had him executed. Doesn’t make sense to me. Every other figurehead like that was done away with eons ago.”

  “The Triotian king wasn’t just a figurehead,” Shaylah said. “He actually ran things, along with a council of elders.”

  “Oh?” Krayton looked at her curiously.

  “And judging from the kind of world they had, I’d say he did a pretty good job.”

  The pilot glanced around warily. “Better not let anyone hear you talking like that, Graymist. Sounds a little too close to treason.”

  “Do they—” Shaylah broke off as a nattily uniformed young aide tapped for attention.

  “People, please. Quiet for General Corling.”

  A silence as weighty a
s the man himself came down upon the room. He looked almost benign, Shaylah thought, like the rotund patriarch of some clan in the historic days when the unit of family was the cornerstone of life. He certainly didn’t look like a man who would order a wholesale slaughter of an entire planet’s population.

  The general began to talk. Odd, she mused. These briefings, heralding an upcoming mission, used to be life’s blood to her. She had reveled in them, thrilled to be a part of it all, to be in the same room with some of the names that had rung heroically in her ears for so long, conscious with her every breath that she had achieved her life’s dream, to belong in this room with them. What had happened to that joy, that electrifying excitement?

  You know what happened, she told herself grimly. A golden man, chained but not bound, enslaved but not beaten, held up the ugly truth and made you look at it. Made you see the Coalition for what it is.

  We aren’t all like that, Wolf, she cried inwardly. We aren’t all brutal and heartless. I’m not, and I know there are others. I’m not one of the cruel ones, the takers—

  Wasn’t she? It hit her with the force of a disrupter on full stun. Hadn’t she been as cruel as it was possible to be, using emotions shared in trust for her own gain? Hadn’t she taken what she needed, what she had to have, hiding the fact behind a half-truth, convincing herself that she was doing it for him as well as for herself?

  Had she really just simply forgotten to add the words that would have left him unaware of the truth of what had passed between them? Or had it been some trick of her own ego, wanting to leave him with the memory of having mated with her, not the long-dead Brielle? She didn’t know; she wasn’t certain of anything anymore, except that she had never, ever meant to hurt him.

  “Lucky you.”

  “What?” She looked up at Krayton, startled.

  “Better you than me,” he said. “It might be an honor, Captain, but I sure wouldn’t want to ferry the general around.”

  Shaylah’s head snapped around just in time to see the young aide disappearing through the doorway after Corling. Part of her brain must have been paying some kind of attention to the briefing, because she could hear the words echoing in her head as if they’d been recorded. The Sunbird, quicker and more maneuverable than the heavy Darkstar, was to be the temporary flagship for the initial reconnaissance before the search-and-destroy mission.