by Gun Brooke
“That soap is something else,” Reena muttered. “And you are driving me crazy.”
“I am?” Ayahliss’s eyes twinkled, but there was still something dark and intense in her features.
“Yes. You do. You know you do.”
Ayahliss suddenly pulled them both under the spray of water. “Computer. Rinse cycle and then instant drying sequence.”
The spray widened and soaked them completely. Ayahliss gently pressed the excess water from Reena’s long hair, then a warm gush hit them from all directions. Apparently, the soap’s effect wouldn’t rinse off easily, nor would the arousal Ayahliss’s presence induced.
“Ayahliss!” Reena exclaimed as Ayahliss lifted her and carried her out of the shower tube, through the ensuite, and into the bedroom. She placed Reena on the bed.
“Computer. Lights at seven percent. Play classic Gantharian music.”
Reena thought she was dreaming. She was supposed to be the seasoned lover here, and now Ayahliss was acting like she was well versed in the art of seduction. Had Ayahliss been studying for this, much like she had to become a protector?
“Ayahliss…I love you.” Reena gasped at her own words. She hadn’t meant to blurt out the truth like that, but she couldn’t take it back—not that she wanted to. If Ayahliss didn’t reciprocate, Reena still wanted her to know that someone did love her, no matter what.
“Reena?” Round-eyed, Ayahliss sat back on her heels for a moment. “You love me?”
“I do. I have, ever since you and Armeo got into trouble and I had to bail you out.”
“For months?” Blinking, Ayahliss put her hand over her mouth. “And here I thought it was just me. Reena, my heart is beating so fast.” She moved the hand to her stomach. “You know, at first I couldn’t even grasp that you were physically attracted to me.”
Reena’s heart slowed down. Of course. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s enough for me to know I love you. To know that you know.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ayahliss took Reena by the shoulders and buried her face in her abundant locks. “I’ve loved you just as long. When you spent so much time with me on the court ship orbiting Corma, I fell in love with you. I couldn’t believe it at first, and I didn’t recognize the emotion since I’d never been in love. In a way, I’m very inexperienced, and in other ways, I possess knowledge few people my age do.”
“Come here.” Reena threw her arms around Ayahliss. Letting herself fall onto the pillows, she reveled in the sensation of having Ayahliss fall on top of her. “I love you so much. Please, my sweet Ayahliss. Make love to me?”
“Gladly,” Ayahliss said with a smile. She pushed herself between Reena’s legs, probing her sex gently.
“Touch me. My breasts. Everything.” Grunting, Reena arched as Ayahliss closed her lips around a steel-hard nipple. Ayahliss’s tongue, probably meant to be soothing, inflamed her further, and Reena wrapped her arms and legs around her.
Ayahliss seemed to know just what to do. She pressed her fingers into Reena, filling her as Reena had once done to her. The sensation was pure fire, and when Ayahliss grazed her cluster of nerve endings, Reena cried out.
“Ayahliss!”
“I’m here. I’m yours, Reena. I’ve always been yours.”
“Yes. Yes.” Undulating, Reena knew she wouldn’t last long. She clenched her inner muscles around Ayahliss’s fingers and rode the passion harder and harder. A ravine opened up, and trusting that Ayahliss would catch her, Reena threw herself into it. The pleasure that seared her skin made her come repeatedly. Surprised at her own keening sound, Reena clung to Ayahliss, thirsty for her kisses. Finally, their mouths met and Reena drank from Ayahliss’s lips.
Once she was temporarily sated, Reena rolled Ayahliss onto her back. “Hello, lover.”
“Hello.” Ayahliss was already trembling, clearly on the verge of her own release.
“I’m going to taste you now, sweet soul.” Reena bent and began kissing her way down Ayahliss’s abdomen. “Mmm. Just what I thought. Delicious.”
“Reena?”
“Yes?” Reena murmured against Ayahliss’s satiny skin.
“Will I lose you? I can’t.” Ayahliss didn’t sound pitiful or pathetic, only insecure.
“Trust in me, sweet soul,” Reena said as she devoured Ayahliss. “No matter what happens, I won’t let you go.” She found Ayahliss’s silky, wet folds and parted them with her lips. She intended to show Ayahliss how much she meant to her by making beautiful, passionate love to her. Figuring out the logistics in their very different lives would be a challenge, but they would make it happen.
Kissing and licking, Reena carried Ayahliss gently into the same ravine she had just visited. As Ayahliss writhed beneath her, Reena hummed happily against the silken tissues. Once Ayahliss slumped back onto the pillows, Reena slid up along her and held her gently.
“Reena—” Ayahliss began to cry. No heavy sobs, no drama, just quiet tears as the last of the tension seemed to leave her system. “I—I love you.”
“And I love you.” Reena pulled a retrospun wool blanket up around them, as the conditioned air in their quarters cooled their damp bodies far too quickly. “Rest, darling. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Reena curled up and made sure they were both comfortable. Who could’ve guessed that she would fall for someone like Ayahliss? Who was she kidding? As soon as she saw Ayahliss, she knew. Stars and skies, help me, but I knew.
Reena kissed the top of Ayahliss’s head. Certain she wouldn’t sleep, she spent the next four hours merely gazing at the woman she loved.
Chapter Thirty-three
Trax M’Aldovar had never hated his disability or his hover chair more. Confined to the machine, he was forced to let it breathe for him, transport him, and perform other necessary functions too humiliating to even think about. Now, facing this veritable tribunal of Supreme Constellations officials and officers, he wished he could have, at least, been able to stand and tower above them. What good was it to be almost two meters tall if you had to cower in a chair like some geriatric idiot?
“Trax M’Aldovar—”
“General M’Aldovar.” Trax, scornful, was in charge of his vocal cords. “I do not recognize this assembly as a legitimate force in this part of space. You have no jurisdiction here.”
“On the contrary,” a woman with long, flaming locks said. “When the Onotharian Empire declared war on the Supreme Constellations Unification of Planets, laws of war went into effect. Within the battlefield, this assembly does indeed have jurisdiction.”
“I don’t know where you studied law, but—”
“At the best universities throughout the SC and intergalactic space. I’m Judge Amereena Beqq.”
“Charming.” Trax bit off the word abruptly.
“General M’Aldovar,” said a man Trax had earlier identified from the dossier he had read so many times: Admiral Ewan Jacelon, Kellen O’Dal’s father-in-law. To his left sat his wife, Dahlia, who held the most redundant position of all, in Trax’s eyes. Diplomacy. What a waste.
“You know some of us, you’ve probably heard of others.” Ewan Jacelon rose and stood in the center of the room. “The Brilliance has set a course for Corma, where you will be held as a prisoner of war until you can be tried for your war crimes and other criminal actions.”
“You cannot do this!” Trax wanted to throttle the self-righteous man with his paralyzed hands.
“Before we confine you to the prisoners’ hospital section, we have arranged this informal meeting, since some individuals have issues to address.” Admiral Jacelon nodded to the guard at the door. “Let them in.”
Trax drummed his fingers inwardly, a sign of impatience that he sometimes indulged in.
Shocked, Trax stared at the first one to enter. “Andreia? What the hell are you doing aboard this ship? An SC ship! And where have you been?” His sister had been missing in action since the resistance kidnapped her during an event that their parents concocted
. According to rumor, the thugs had beaten Andreia beyond recognition, and when his parents, famous Onotharian politicians, meant to disclose this outrage, the resistance fighters kidnapped her. She had been presumed dead and a national day of mourning had been proclaimed.
But here she was, looking healthier and more energetic than ever. Most disturbing, next to her stood a tall Gantharian woman with her arm protectively around Andreia’s waist. It was…Andreia’s friend from university, Roshan O’Landha, entrepreneur and collaborator. Trax moaned. Clearly this woman had fooled everybody. She had endured this rumor and the hatred of her countrymen for more than twenty years, and obviously worked in the resistance the whole time.
Trax knew the Gantharians hated him, but that didn’t matter, since he considered them ultimately inferior. Ruling by fear among his subordinates, he made sure he was at the top of the food chain.
“Trax. I can’t say I’m pleased to see you. I thought you were dead and, honestly, seeing you alive disturbs me deeply. Your crimes against the Gantharian people, and others, are hardly surprising, but it still pains me that we come from the same womb.” Andreia stepped closer and looked down at him with hard, amber eyes. “Your latest crime, stealing davic crystals and indulging in slavery—”
“Slavery?” Trax thundered. The coughing spell that followed annoyed him, but he pushed through it. “I have not enslaved anybody.”
“You took a young woman and stuck her in an oxygenizer chamber. She would have suffocated in there, drowned, if her friend hadn’t saved her.”
“That was no woman. That was a damn android. A machine.” Trax had no idea why he bothered to defend himself. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered to him if the android had been human.
“No. A human brain and spinal column in a BNSL body.”
“Liar.” Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. No doubt he was sweating profusely all over, like he always did when he experienced stress. “I don’t know what this is supposed to accomplish—”
“Closure,” a husky voice said behind Andreia. “Hello, M’Aldovar.”
Admiral Rae Jacelon, Protector of the Realm, circled Trax’s sister and stood before him. He remembered nearly killing her, and also what that had led to. He hated her passionately. She had a strong presence that would’ve been formidable had she been on the right side of this conflict. Like Judge Beqq, her hair was red, but more of a fiery auburn, and it suited her well, despite her cold stare.
“How’s your neck?” Trax said slowly, deliberately hinting at the damage he had done to her carotid artery. Seeing her in a pool of blood had been most satisfying. Such a retro battlefield experience.
“How is yours?” Kellen O’Dal, Protector of the Realm and guardian to the heir to the Gantharian throne, walked up to Admiral Jacelon. Her SC uniform only seemed to add to her stunning blond looks. “I thought I’d killed you. Guess I did snap it fairly well, though, since the finest Onotharian doctors couldn’t patch you up.”
“I did live. And I did rise in the ranks. I gained power.”
“And used it for your own gain. How noble.” Kellen’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Now we can continue to fight the good fight for Gantharat, knowing that the likes of you and your entire crew are where you belong. In a cage.”
“I have standards that need to be met.” He was beginning to realize that he was going to prison. His rank would afford him decent accommodations, but he was used to utter luxury. How would he tolerate “decent”?
“Your medical needs will be tended to,” Ewan Jacelon said calmly. “Regarding anything else, you will have to yield to the regular conditions of our maximum-security planetoid prisons.” He smiled coldly. “And an MSPP facility is not exactly like an Imidestrian resort.”
Anger rose so quickly within Trax, his mouth filled with bile. Swallowing it, he said, “You will not get away with this. You will not! My government—my family has connections all the way up to the chairmen of Onotharat.”
“I think we’ve said all we came to say,” Rae Jacelon said lightly. “Dinner, was it? In the officers’ mess hall?”
“I believe so.” Kellen O’Dal put her arm around Rae’s shoulders. “I’m starving.”
As the group of people who came to gloat left the room one by one, eventually only one person, apart from the security officer and a medic, remained. Andreia walked up to him, regarding him with a sad, wistful look.
“This will probably mean nothing to you,” she said, raising a hand and briefly touching his cheek. “When we were very young, and played together like children do, you were always the leader, always the one in charge, and I was happy to follow like the adoring sister I was. I can’t quite say when everything changed, but gradually it all became very clear how different we are and how fundamentally opposed our values are.” She drew a trembling breath and Trax wanted to take the opportunity to say something scornful, but she forestalled him. “I guess we’re the opposite sides of a medal. You are very much our parents’ son, loyal to our old, malevolently governed world. I’m the individualist, the freethinker who empathizes with and is loyal to the world we grew up in, Gantharat. The sad thing is, documents exist that prove this never had to happen. Gantharat was ready to share its resources with Onotharat, just as Gantharat had opened its intergalactic borders to allow limitless immigration.
“If the Onotharian government and its chairmen hadn’t been so greedy for political power and so afraid to lose face, Gantharat would have continued to flourish and been able to sustain two worlds. Worlds that once were sister planets!” Andreia blinked against tears.
Trax found it hard to speak, his breathing labored.
“Know this, brother,” Andreia said, her voice now low and menacing. “Gantharat will be great again. Onotharat and its hardcore leaders will never dupe it into trusting them. Perhaps, in time, new generations with less ambitious motives will reign and we can find a way back. As long as people of your kind are in charge, I don’t see that happening.” Her smile turned scornful. “At least we don’t have to worry about you popping up like rotting seed.”
“Don’t count on it, sister,” Trax muttered, but his voice held no power, no energy.
“Oh, but I do. Once you are in SC hands, they will keep you locked away and it will be up to you to see the errors of your way and make a change. Other people have. Weiss Kyakh, for instance. I’m afraid I gave up hope for you a long time ago. Our parents corrupted you, and you willingly let them.”
“H’rea deasavh!” Trax cursed in Gantharian without thinking.
Andreia laughed. “My thoughts exactly. Now I’m late for lunch. Good-bye.”
Trax sat motionless, like he usually did, and watched the medic and security officers punch in commands to disconnect his chair from the bulkhead power source. They wheeled him to a different door, which led to a transport corridor and directly to the brig hospital wing. As the staff helped him into bed and attached his life-support apparatus to the wall unit, he closed his eyes. He had thought his life was over when Kellen O’Dal nearly killed him. He’d proved himself and everybody else wrong. This time, he was even less optimistic, despite his bravado earlier.
He had no way out of this mess.
Chapter Thirty-four
“Bigger than our quarters about the Salaceos.” Madisyn tucked her hands behind her back, lacing her fingers.
“I would imagine the broom closets onboard the Brilliance are bigger than our old quarters.” Weiss motioned for Madisyn to sit down. “I hope you really are all right about sharing. I don’t think Dr. Meyer would have let you out of the infirmary if you were left to your own devices.”
“I got that much, and a long lecture what I can and cannot do in the upcoming weeks.”
“Anything I need to know about?” Weiss winked, but managed to look just as nervous as Madisyn felt.
“Plenty of sustenance and rest, combined with light physical training.”
“Huh. She told me the same thing. How about that?” Weiss motioned towar
d the couch. “Please, sit. Want something to drink?”
“Water, please.” Madisyn wasn’t really thirsty, but she needed to stall. She had longed to have Weiss to herself, but now that she did, she was ridiculously close to panicking.
“Here you go,” Weiss said, interrupting Madisyn’s thoughts as she handed her a glass of water.
“Thanks.” Clinging to the glass, Madisyn took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong, Madi?” Weiss sat down next to her, looking concerned.
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m a bit nervous, but I’m all right.” Having Weiss call her Madi actually helped. “I—I’ve missed talking with you. Just the two of us.”
“So have I.” Weiss moved closer. “All right if I hold you, Madi? I nearly lost you.”
“You saved me.” Madisyn acted without hesitation, wrapping her arms around Weiss’s neck.
Weiss pulled her closer, up on her lap.
“I’m too heavy,” Madisyn said breathlessly.
“You’re perfect.” Weiss buried her face against Madisyn. “You feel wonderful.”
“Oh.” Madisyn began to tremble at the tone of reverence and something more in Weiss’s voice. Desire?
“So soft.” Weiss pressed her lips against Madisyn’s jawline, tracing it as she clearly headed for her mouth. Yes, definitely desire.
The arousal echoing within Madisyn, she turned her head and caught Weiss’s lips with her own. Pulling the clasp from Weiss’s hair, she freed it and pushed her fingers through it. Touching Weiss like this, tousling her hair, was all she needed to see the Weiss she’d come to know aboard Podmer’s ship.
