by Celeste Raye
Marik sighed. “I wish there was some way to heal the rift between them. It seems as if many of them have found a way to move past the class lines they once knew, but so many have not, and like most of you, I worry that they never shall either.”
“If they don’t, we will have a war here,” Talon put in. “I hate to say it, but perhaps I made a mistake in bringing the refugees here. We brought so few, a mere three thousand, and left so many behind. People that I see every night in my dreams. I know they suffer there but given the mood of so many that we brought, I wonder… I do… if it was the right decision to bring them.”
“It was,” Marik said. “I was there, and I saw what was happening there. We could not have left them. I only wish we had brought more.”
Of course, he did. Marik always felt sorry for the broken and lost. Jeval sighed. “We have bigger problems than just that, and that’s why we’re all here, so let’s discuss that instead.”
Renall said, “As you know, Clara doesn’t just go out because she is an accomplished carder. She goes to listen for us and the news she has brought back this time is grim.”
Jeval’s nerves balled and tightened under his skin. His lips went flat. That was hardly a shock. The universe had never been a particularly good place since The Federation had been formed, and as of late things had been really unstable.
Jeval asked, “What is the news?’
Renall said, “The Federation has declared that all planets are under Fed rule. Even the ones who are not under their rule. They are using the wars raging through Old Earth and other systems as just cause.”
Talon swore violently. Marik shook his head. His hands scratched his head. “All right, what does that mean for us? We are so far away from it, from every other planet and system that it seems like they would hardly even notice us.”
Renall said, “We need to cloak the planets in our system. The Feds know there are private planets out here but one of the reasons we chose this system is that it is not on the maps that they have.”
Jeval sighed again. “Cloaking will do no good if they decide to sail an armada through here. They’d just run right over us.”
Marik said, “That’s a good point.”
Talon said, “I agree with both. We should cloak until we see ships.”
“What if we don’t see them? The Federation has some of the most sophisticated cloaking devices in the universe. If they don’t want to be seen, they won’t be.” Jeval’s fingers pressed into the skin above the bridge of his nose in an effort to force back a massive headache.
His eyes closed. Margie’s face swam up in his mind’s eye, and he groaned inwardly in real frustration. That woman, she was the most maddening, irritating…beautiful…woman he had ever seen.
Dammit! The last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about her, but he was. He had seriously considered snatching her up and turning her over his knee, and giving her one good spanking.
Naturally, his dick stiffened at the thought, just as it had out there while that uproar was happening and that thought had hit him.
He could almost feel her firm and springy ass cheeks below his hand, feel the yield of her flesh, and see the jiggle of it too. He wanted to run his hands across that flesh, hold it as he drove his staff deep into her body…
“Jeval?”
Marik’s query snatched him out of that sexy little daydream. He found himself grateful for the table that he sat at and which hid his lower body.
Jeval cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else and didn’t hear you.”
Renall said, “We need a plan. “
No shit. He needed a plan that would keep him as far from that infuriatingly sexy Margie to start with. He said, “We need to send scouts out again, but Clara’s time to have your child is coming soon. She can’t keep risking the travel she’s been undertaking.”
Renall said, “I was just about to say that. There is no way I will allow her to go again. Her family is equally skilled at carding and spying, and they can bring back news, but we all know humans are looked on with a lot of suspicion, even the ones out here in the universe, and with good reason, so we need someone less…less likely to gather suspicion.”
Talon said, “It can’t be me. I’m wanted by The Federation, and so is Jessica. Even though they gave us what they call amnesty risking this is too much to ask from us. If we get caught gathering intel, we will be killed. I won’t have her risk it, and what is more, I won’t have any of you talk to her about it. You all know if there is a fight, she is the first one out the door and with a weapon in her hand.”
There was a round of laughter. Marik chortled out, “I do not envy you that one. She is a warrior, and I know she could probably kill me with a pan I told her to cook me a meal in.”
“She’d kill you with a fork,” Talon replied, his eyes dancing.
Jeval knew that it was Jessica’s warrior spirit and skills that attracted Talon. He loved her to distraction, and they’d grow old together, if they didn’t end up dead from some battle first.
Besides, Talon was right. After all that he had done and been through, he deserved some peace now, and so did Jessica. Talon was as much as a warrior as his mate, but even the greatest warriors had their limits, and those two had seen far too much war lately.
Marik was also out. He was too needed there on the planet, he and Jenny both. They were always healing something, and they had begun a project to test medications made from natural things, and that too was a needed thing because eventually, they would have to start sending the citizens away from the small city they had begun to build and outward, to settle other parts of the planets.
Jeval said, “It seems I am the only and best option then.”
Renall nodded, but his eyes held a wary expression. Jeval knew why. He was the bloodiest of them all, and he rarely cared about things like peace or safety. He had been known to kill for the sheer pleasure of it, or at least they thought it was for the pleasure. They just did not understand why he did what he did, and he knew he could have explained it, but he didn’t choose to.
Sometimes it was better to see someone as a rogue killer rather than as what they really were.
That damned and cursed gift of his. How had he been given it and why could he not get rid of it?
Renall said, “I have a plan, but you won’t like it.”
Jeval listened as Renall outlined that plan and found that Renall was right.
He didn’t like it at all.
Chapter 3 - Jeval
“Hell no!”
Margie’s indignant yelp hung in the air. Jeval glared at her and her hands went to her hips, her foot tapped at the floor, and she glared at him, her temper rising with each passing second. Her teeth sank into her lips and her throat worked as she managed to get a few words out, “Why me?”
Jeval slapped a hand down on the back of his neck. His tone was surly. “I don’t like this either.”
“Oh, I bet you don’t! You aren’t the one who gets to pretend to be a sex slave!” Her temper flared again, and a glint of wickedness lit her eyes. “Though you could be. I mean, why not? I could dress you up in a cute little collar and some shiny pants and haul you—”
“Woman, stop!” His roar held outrage, and for some reason that struck her as funny, but it didn’t help her anger to abate.
“Oh no I won’t! For all I know you will sell me off to some…some critter!”
“Critter?” His eyebrow lifted, and so did his upper lip. “Did you just say critter?”
Her chin came up. “I did. I worked in your hall on Orbital, remember? There were plenty of critters there.”
“Not going to argue that one with you.”
“Good!”
They stood there scowling at each other. Margie’s eyes surveyed his lean and tall body and that unbidden desire hit her all over again.
He said, “Listen, if I didn’t have to do this and with you, I would absolutely refuse. The truth is we need informati
on, and we need it fast. The Federation is planning something major, and we need to know what it is. They’ve declared martial one rule over every planet in the universe. Even this one.”
Her mouth fell open and hung ajar. “You can’t be serious! They have no rights here! This is a private planet. It’s a private system. The resources are so few because the planets are so small that they’d be a mere drop in The Federation’s bucket. Why on earth would they bother with us?”
Jeval said, “That’s what we need to find out. They’ve broken every promise to every system, and yet they still have loyal supporters and followers. At some point, someone is going to have to come up with some information that breaks The Federation’s back in its stranglehold on this universe. I don’t know that we will gather anything of any real importance, but we have to try.”
Margie looked down at her feet. “Okay. I can see your point. But why in the hell do I have to pretend to be your sex slave?”
His voice was soft; it probed at all of her senses. “Would you prefer to actually be my sex slave?”
“Keep it up,” she muttered, “and I will slap you right across the face.”
It actually wasn’t a bad idea. He always seemed to bring out the worst in her. She always found herself torn between the desire to punch him and the equally ardent desire to throw her arms around him and press her body close to his. He was the most bothersome creature she had ever met, and he had a way of getting under her skin and rubbing against every emotion she had ever possessed. Not to mention he also had a way of making her body go hot, flushed with desire every single time he shot a glance in her direction.
Pretending to be his sex slave?
That was a recipe for disaster.
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why can’t I pretend to be your assistant or your wife or something of equal footing?”
His hands came up in a gesture of helplessness. “The places we have to go don’t respect those things. Most of them don’t even respect women. That role is the only one you can take on because I need you to talk to the women. They won’t open up to a woman who’s not undergoing the same situation that they are. They will confide in you if they think you too are a slave and unable to speak to me.
“Also, when it comes to sex, all creatures have a tendency to talk more than they should. So those sex slaves that you will be meeting will know things, things they should not know. Things that they will never say in front of me or in front of a woman who is a mate or spouse or an assistant.”
He had a point. Dammit! The whole idea made her uncomfortable. She had come close to actually becoming a sex slave at one point. And she hadn’t met that fate because of him and his brothers. They had rescued her from that slaver ship and that horrible fate. She owed them a large debt, whether she wanted to or not, and she had to repay it.
She had worked as a gurley on Orbital, in a dance and gamble hall that he and his siblings had owned there. She had earned quite a few credits and had paid a huge chunk of her safe passage from those credits. For a while, she had thought she would be okay.
Life on Orbital had been good, but very expensive. The pleasure planet charged for everything—even air! Her earnings had let her pay her debt to the brothers and live well, drinking real water and being clean, and she had not really minded the dancing—even if there were times it left her feeling like she was just an animal in a cage.
She’d just begun to dream of a future. She’d heard that there were large expat communities of humans across the universe and that many of those expats lived in large worlds where the living was cheap. She had hoped, she had, that once her debt was paid, she could find a way to live more cheaply on Orbital then retire from the gurley life and head off to some far-flung land where she could just spend her life in peace and with some semblance of ease.
She’d been so close. So very close. But once The Federation had discovered where a lot of those credits had come from, they had immediately issued an order to take the siblings into custody for treason and the crimes of wrecking and war. They had had to flee that pleasure planet in order to survive The Federation’s order. So her debt had remained unpaid for the large part.
Her dream had died, but it had been resurrected by the trip to Revant. At first glance, it had been something she had not wanted.
It was primitive, though it was rapidly gaining and making strides. But that first day, when they had touched down, the sheer beauty of it had paled in comparison to the fact that there was nothing and nobody there.
She had been so afraid of being there, and now she was afraid of leaving the place that had become the home she had always dreamed of, even before she had known she could dream of such things or what they even were.
She tucked a strand of her shining hair behind one ear and said, “Okay. I’ll do it. But I won’t like it.”
His eyes, large and wide and as blue as the sky, danced with a sort of amusement. “I didn’t expect you to.”
She grouched, “I still don’t know why we can’t make you act as a sex slave. I’m sure you could charm the hell out of the female sex slaves and probably even a few of the male ones if you really put your mind to it. I’m sure they’d really take a liking to you.”
His face took on an indignant and outraged expression once again. His chest puffed up. His hands went to his hips. His eyelids slanted downward. “You do know that I’m not going to excuse you from this no matter how many insults you hurl at me or how many pokes you take at my manhood?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, her eyes traveled down his attenuated and leanly muscled body, right to his crotch. There was a chubby and plump outline there, one that she had seen before. He was so well-endowed that even the baggy trousers that he wore could not completely disguise the fullness of his member. A hot blush stained her face, and she jerked her eyes upward again. “Who says I’m trying to poke at your manhood?”
Oh, God. Had she just said that? She had! Things just kept getting worse by the second!
He said, “Good to know.”
He strode out of her hut, and as he went, she couldn’t help but notice the way that his tunic top rested just above his narrow waist and right above the firm and tight swell of his enviable ass. How he managed to keep an ass like that was beyond her. It was perfect, all muscled and full and…
God dammit!
That she had long been attracted to him was no secret to her, and she was fairly certain that it was not a secret to him either. The real question was how in the hell she was going to pretend to be his sex slave and do that around a large crowd of people while still ignoring the attraction that was so blistering hot that it often made her skin feel as if she were being exposed to not one, but several, suns.
Her long raven-black hair swung around her as she paced up and down the confines of her hut. She had a lot on her mind. The woman who had been sentenced to be sent back to Old Earth had been screaming for most of the day, her voice ringing through her hut’s thin walls and out into the world. Her daughter, a young and sincere woman who did, in fact, work hard, and who often tried to hush her mother’s complaints, was on edge. Mostly because she had been refused admittance to the hut. In fact, her things had been taken from it and then placed in a nearby hut shared by two young girls around her own age.
The punishment was harsh, and Margie was still conflicted about her part in that woman being sent back to the war-torn planet from which she had come.
She knew it had to be done. But she regretted her action and escalating the situation. She should not have spoken. And if she had spoken, she should not let the situation get so out of hand that the brothers had interceded.
Jeval was cruel, sometimes unconscionably so. He would not think sending that woman back was unkind. He would see it merely as a tool to prevent open hostility between the two very different sects of humans there on the planet. It was actually that and nothing else, but that decision didn’t take humanity into account. It took into acco
unt only the greater good.
She stopped, her head lowering between her shoulders. The crown of her head met the cool stone and mud wall of the hut, and she sighed, her shoulders drooping low as yet another scream from the hut, situated very near hers, rang out.
Margie said, aloud, “I don’t have to do this with him. I could refuse. Here, all can refuse. I have the right to say no. But I also have the right to bargain. If he wants this for me, he has to rethink that decision. Perhaps the threat and the day’s imprisonment will be enough to make that woman rethink her position.”
Could that be possible? She supposed it could be. It was worth a try anyway. She didn’t want that woman’s death on her conscience any more than she wanted to refuse to go along with the rather outlandish plot that had been hatched around her and created for her. She did not want to question herself as to why she wanted to go and do that so much.
It was a stupid thing to do. She was probably going to get her silly self up and killed, or something even worse!
If she had learned anything over the years of living on Old Earth and in the Below, it was that treachery abounded and that nowhere was safe. She had learned the hard way that people would do anything to save themselves, even jettison off those that they claimed to love the most.
What if he deserted her at the first sign of trouble?
Would he leave her there to fend for herself on a strange planet among strange creatures? Would she stand a chance if he did?
She had to consider that. If it came to a point where he had to get out and she was not in his immediate vicinity, he would absolutely choose to leave her behind in order to serve the greater good. In order to serve the planet he and his siblings had labored centuries to have and the people upon it.
Margie knew about his past.
He had been born on Revant, that long-gone planet. In his veins ran the blood of kings of his kind. His people were warriors and gifted with strange gifts. He and his brothers had taken up where their father and mother had left off, wrecking ships in order to preserve their people’s way of life on a planet outside of Federation grasp and rule. They had been attacked by the parasitic race known as the Gorlites and, with full Federation cooperation, they had been sold off to the highest bidder.
