by Zoë Archer
Within moments, they both shook. Their eyes met and held. Her gaze went straight through him,
sharp as an energy blade, but the wound felt good and he would not look away. She knew who he was and what he’d done, and, in exchange, had given him secret, guarded parts of herself. They saw each other at that moment, removed from their demarcated roles of 8th Wing pilot and scavenger. Street brawler and outcast princess. Kell and Mara. Themselves alone.
Emotion shone in her gaze. Yet she did not turn away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his taut shoulders, her legs around his waist, and held him tightly.
“Be inside me now,” she said, her words soft and hot against his mouth.
He slid into her. Deliberate, slow, feeling every silken inch of her take every thick inch of him until he was fully within her, hips cradling hips. Their gasps of pleasure mingled. For a few heartbeats, neither moved. They stared into each other’s eyes. Intimacy wove between them. Stillness could not last, not when she felt so good and her cheeks flushed and her lids lowered and he had to move now or else explode. He dragged his hips back, nearly pulling out entirely, before sinking back into her. Again and again. Her eyes closed, her head tipped back.
“Kell.” Her movements matched his, sleek and hungry.
His intent to take this slow burned away. He could not stop himself, his pace increasing, until the sounds of flesh meeting flesh joined with her gasps and his groans.
She was so tight, so flawless. Liquid and flame. It had never been this good, not with anyone but her.
He reached between them, finding her clit with the pads of his fingers, then stroking, rubbing.
Her legs clasped him as she bowed up to scream her release. Control shattered. His climax tore through him, a fiery annihilation that scoured him from the inside out. At the moment of his release, he bit her neck. Mine.
Her quick yelp of pained shock turned to a moan of pleasure.
They stayed like that for a long while, even as his legs, boneless after release, demanded he lie down. He refused to heed them. All he wanted was to savor this moment as he and Mara twined together, shuddering, sweat-dampened, complete.
He felt demolished. And rebuilt.
The ship sped on.
Mara stood in the UV stall, cleansing light streaming over her body. She’d been in here longer than she needed to be, but she wanted time alone. Everything felt sensitive, tender. Not merely her body, but her heart. She’d thought her heart had grown protective calluses over the years, yet they seemed to have disappeared, worn away by Kell.
Gods, simply thinking his name made her tremble. He hadn’t just fucked her, he had made love to her. The look in his eyes as he made her come, as he released into her—no one had looked at her like that, not a soul. She never experienced any of this before. It made everything she’d done prior to meeting him resemble empty, crude movement, basic and thoughtless as single-celled organisms dividing.
Making love with Kell wasn’t about division, but union. She rested her head against the wall as light poured over her. In a short span of time, everything had changed, including what she knew about Mara Skiren. After her banishment from Argenti, and the harrowing months that had followed, she’d created one goal—to need and answer to only herself.
He had changed all that. Direct and ruthless, yet somehow respectful of who she was. And that devastated her most of all. She could have shouldered him aside, or used him for mere physical gratification, if he had attempted to defeat or change her. Instead, he accepted. Even seemed to… cherish her. No one had ever done that, not even Mara, herself.
Gently, her fingers probed the tender spot on her neck where he’d bitten her. It might leave a mark—she discovered she wanted that. If only there was a way to ensure it stayed.
She stepped from the UV stall and slowly began to dress. Instead of her flashy Beskidt By clothing, she opted for her typical uniform: tank top, cargo pants, boots. It felt more genuine, and just now she hadn’t the heart for pretending.
As she dressed, she tried to beat down the flutter of hope rising in her chest. No future existed for her and Kell. When the mission was over, they would part ways, as they had to. An ace 8th Wing pilot and a scavenger could not be together. He had his fight against PRAXIS, she wanted only to be left in peace as she sold black market merch across the galaxy. They were two comets briefly crossing paths, flaring brightly, never to meet again.
Well, she couldn’t hide in her quarters. Straightening her shoulders, she walked out into the galley. Kell leaned against the table—she would always remember it as the site of their intense lovemaking—wearing only his pants. Her breath caught at the sight of him, but, even more stunning was the way he looked at her, as if nothing else existed, not the ship, not the planet, the quadrant nor the galaxy.
A woman could get very used to being looked at that way. A woman could—but she could not.
She didn’t know what to say to him. So she chose something mundane and meaningless.
“Cleaning stall is all yours.”
Wordlessly he rose and moved toward the hygiene chamber. But he stopped directly beside her.
He put a fingertip to her chin and raised it, then bent to kiss her. A gentle kiss, laden with tenderness, soft but confident.
Her heart fractured, almost to breaking.
He ended the kiss, and continued on toward the hygiene chamber. The UV stall hummed as he started it up. She pictured him nude, gilded in light, and forced herself to step into the cockpit and check to make sure they were headed in the right direction. They were.
If only there was autopilot for my heart.
She returned to the galley. It was impossible to sit at the table. To busy herself and keep her mind and body occupied, she ran the Arcadia through several diagnostic protocols. Unsurprisingly, given the amount of attention she lavished on it, the ship ran perfectly. Which left her with far too much time to think about things—about Kell—that she shouldn’t.
He emerged a few minutes later, clean and, thankfully, completely dressed, down to his boots and that horrible long, thin scarf wrapped around his neck. She would yield to temptation if even a single fastener on his clothing or lace on his boot was undone.
They stared at each other for a long, fraught moment. All she wanted to do was cross the small space of the galley and wrap her arms around him, feel his solidness, his warmth.
Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall. “There’s something you should know.”
He tensed slightly. “Tell me.”
“No one is permitted to bring weapons into the auction.”
He released a breath, easing. “That, I can handle.”
She couldn’t resist asking, “What did you think I was going to say?”
“That you were mated to someone.”
“I couldn’t mate anybody.” But, gods, within the hour, she had started to entertain thoughts that frightened her with their seriousness. Her hand strayed to her other wrist, feeling for the band that wasn’t, and never would be, there. Finding her wrist empty, her fingers reached up to trace over the already fading bite mark.
Following her gesture, his eyes flared. “Mara—”
“Time to plan the rescue,” she said, overlapping him.
He allowed her a brief reprieve. “Already on top of it. I figured that no one could be armed at the auction. They’ll likely confiscate all weapons and keep them in a guarded chamber.”
“Which will leave us unarmed, as well. Making for a difficult rescue.” Impossible, actually.
“I’ve got a plan.” He said this with confident authority. He went to his duffle and began pulling out items, which he set on the galley table. Then he outlined for her what he intended to do, their respective roles and how the rescue of the lieutenant and her ship would be effected. As he spoke, her admiration for him grew. Gods curse it.
“Quite an ingenious operation you have planned for us,” she murmured. “Provided it succeeds.”
“It will. I have faith in us both.”
Damn him. He kept demolishing her defenses.
“Mara.” His voice gleaming and dark, his eyes the same. He was fierce, burning, and she could no more turn away from him than she could escape the fatal gravity of a sun.
“Be ready,” he said. “Because, when this is over, I’m not letting you go.”
Her heart squeezed tightly. “You’re assuming we will still be alive when this is over.”
“We’ll make it.” Again, that unshakable, quiet confidence.
“Not everything is going to survive this mission.” She gestured to the space between them. “This won’t.”
His expression darkened. “Nothing is certain.”
“Some things are.” She turned away, unable to look at him. “8th Wing and scavenger scum don’t mix.”
His boots pounded the metal floor. Large and strong, his hands covered her shoulders and turned her around to face him. Anger tightened his features. “Neither of us fit into shiny little boxes.”
“So tell me,” she fired back, “what’s the flight plan, Commander? You fly missions for 8th Wing while I wait at the base, weaving plasma pistol cozies and hoping you make it back alive? Or maybe you keep the Arcadia clean while I do scavenging runs? Or, how about this,” she pressed on, relentless, “we live for brief windows when we can meet up, maybe on some resort planet for a few solar days, fuck like crazy before it’s time to go, time for goodbyes, never knowing when we’d get another chance to see each other.” Her mouth firmed. “All of those scenarios are punishment.”
Frustration hardened his jaw. “You’d rather have emptiness. The ache, here.” He dug his fist into the center of his chest.
She felt that ache now. “I already see it, see what I become. Thinking about how much time we have left together, or worrying that you’ll find some nice 8th Wing medical officer and send me a Dear Jane comm.”
“Join 8th Wing.”
Longing flared within her, but she crushed it as ruthlessly as she had once crushed hope of returning home. “They’d laugh me out of the station. Or throw me in the brig.”
“You keep seeing things that aren’t going to happen.”
“And you don’t know they won’t.” She twisted away from him. “Just—can’t we have this?
There’s so little time. And then…when the mission is over…if we’re still alive…we just…” She hated that she couldn’t even complete the sentence, let alone the thought.
Yet he knew where she was heading. “We walk away,” he finished, hollow. “No.”
“We have to.”
For a long while, he said nothing. Then, “You continue to surprise me, Mara Skiren.”
“Surprise?”
“I made my judgment early. Scavenger. Then I learned. You were so much more than that. But never, until now, did I think you were a coward.”
She couldn’t speak, not even when he sat at the table and began to work on assembling the necessary components to the rescue mission. He worked silently as she stood nearby, frozen with hurt.
After several moments, she went to the cockpit and sat, staring out the window. It had always been her place of refuge, where she had complete control, complete safety. She felt none of that now.
For the first time in many solar years, tears welled in her eyes, and she let them fall noiselessly down her cheeks as the world passed by below.
Chapter Nine
Gavra’s compound sprawled in the middle of the Kueng Steppe, an uninviting stretch of scrub and stunted trees. Cold western winds scraped across the Steppe, making it inhospitable to any but the most dedicated recluse. Settlements were sparse, so that the compound was the only notable feature for kilometers, and that was precisely the point. Nowhere to hide out here. No surprise attacks.
As Mara piloted her ship toward the compound, she directed Kell’s attention to the patrol drones circling. “Gavra likes a show of force. Getting past them on the way out is going to be a difficult dance.” Assuming she, Kell and the lieutenant lived long enough to attempt an escape.
“Programming can’t match a good pilot’s instincts.” He barely gave the patrol drones a glance,
instead focusing on the nearing compound. Nearly fifty ships of different sizes and makes filled a stretch of plain just outside the compound. “Popular ticket.”
“The lure of profit.” She recognized most of the ships, though some were unknown to her,
newcomers in the business of disreputable trade. “That belongs to Nalren.” She pointed toward a large frigate bristling with guns. “Slaver.”
Kell’s jaw hardened. “Celene won’t see the inside of that ship.”
Mara wondered at his use of the lieutenant’s first name, but occupied herself with following the queue of ships to the designated landing area. More patrol drones here, and even some piloted guard skiffs. Manned quad-barreled plasma cannons ringed the compound. Only PRAXIS installations were better guarded. The beginnings of apprehension tightened her nerves as the danger of what she and Kell were about to attempt truly sunk in.
A tough call, deciding what she feared most—the upcoming rescue operation, or facing the tension that snapped and splintered between her and Kell. His anger was a palpable thing, sharp-edged and ferocious, and it slashed to tatters whatever tenuous connection had existed between them. He wanted more than she could give. His words had cut, and the pain continued to throb long after they had been said.
She brought the Arcadia down, engaging the landing gear, knowing full well that the feel of the ship touching the ground marked the end of her time alone with Kell. Once they set foot off the ship, the mission would take over. She would not feel his arms around her, his mouth on hers, his body within her own. Never again. Her throat tightened.
You’re not a lost sixteen-year-old kid fleeing Argenti any more. Take your hits. Fly on.
For a moment, they both sat in the cockpit, the silence thick. Several times during the flight, they had gone over and reviewed the plan. Which left them nothing else to talk about.
She drew in a breath, released it. She rubbed her palms on her pants to dry them, then began to rise from the captain’s chair. Kell’s hand on her wrist stopped her.
“I fought my way off Sayén.” His gaze fixed her just as surely as his grip. “I fought my way into the 8th Wing. I’m tenacious.”
“Obstinate.” Still, his words sent a dark thrill through her.
He released her, his expression opaque. In the galley she watched him arm himself not just with plasma weapons, but with his soldier’s bearing and vigilance. His other face, his other self, hard as terasian armor. She almost believed that the man he had been with her—the fierce, tender lover—had never been, so complete was his transformation. He handled his plasma pistol comfortably, yet with the same hand that had touched her and brought her the most extreme pleasure she had ever experienced.
Warrior, lover. Which was he?
She needed the warrior now, to fight and win the oncoming battle, and then she and the lover would never see one another again.
Kell wrapped his scarf loosely around his neck and finished gearing up. At his nod, the ship’s door opened, and they stepped out to face the impending dangers, leaving behind unwinnable battles.
They followed the jostling crowds heading toward a security checkpoint. In addition to the manned cannons surrounding the compound, the structure’s borders were demarcated by towers transmitting a plasma signal. Anyone foolish enough to walk between the towers would be vaporized.
The only entry in and out of the compound, as far as Mara could see, was through the security checkpoint, guarded by half a dozen armed sentries. Mercenaries.
As she and Kell stepped through the gate, a stiff-faced guard aimed the barrel of a plasma rifle at them.
“Remove all weapons!”
Wordlessly, she and Kell did as they were told, unholstering their plasma pistols and handing them to a waiting sentry. They watched
as the sentry carried their weapons to a nearby outbuilding.
The door to the outbuilding opened, and she caught a glimpse of tables loaded down with firearms and weaponry of every variety.
“That was my favorite plasma pistol,” she said.
“You’ll get it back after the auction is over.” Another guard handed her a chit as if she had just checked her coat at a nightclub. “Walk through the scanner.”
She recognized the scanner as a plasma-detection instrument. If anyone tried to smuggle in a plasma energy-generating device, the guards would be alerted. She complied, and Kell did the same, impassive. He seemed utterly unperturbed. Reminding herself that a person’s attitude was the biggest giveaway, she forced herself to relax and look like any other smuggler trying to land good merch. It was tough, though, knowing how vulnerable she was without weapons, and what she and Kell had planned.
When he sent her the tiniest wink, she let out a shaky but relieved breath. She wasn’t doing this alone.
They started to walk toward the large structure at the center of the compound, but a commotion behind them had everyone turning to see what was happening. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Two guards held a man while two more guards mercilessly pummeled him. Blood splashed down his shirt and into the dust, along with some teeth.
“I swear,” he panted, his mouth ruined, “I didn’t know I had it!”
It, Mara guessed, was the plasma pistol another sentry now held.
“Someone tried to bring an advantage to the party,” Kell murmured.
It did not take long before the man lolled between the two guards holding him. They dragged him back through the gate and threw him to the ground like rubbish. As he lay in the dust, groaning, the guards gave him several kicks to the ribs and legs for good measure. Even from a distance of dozens of meters, Mara heard the crack of bones shattering.
She winced. Displays of merciless violence were nothing new to her, but Gavra seemed to be paying her mercenaries extra to ensure they inflicted the maximum amount of damage.
