by Kim Knox
The exit door slid open before him.
This was the way it had to end. The need to have her was almost overwhelming, but it was wrong. He thought of the reception that would await him on Beta-Ursae-7. He grimaced. Sex with Scar would be more like suicide.
His gut cramped. Yes, he was a total shit.
Chapter Three
“Ms Myers you have permission to enter the Myers’ compound with your guests.”
Scar acknowledged the clipped military voice with a short, “Thank you.”
She stepped into the silver-edged alcove set behind the passenger cabin. Tyler and Rochester followed. Scar focused on running her fingers over the teleport panel strapped to her wrist, detailing the coordinates. For a moment, she thought of whisking Tyler off into space, or burying him a kilometre beneath the planet’s mantle. Her gaze fixed on the sharp edge of his jaw, the muscles tight. The taste of him still burned on her tongue and it had been over twenty hours since he had walked away from her.
With her gut knotted, her fingers paused on the panel. It was tempting. So tempting to accidentally misplace Tyler…but something she didn’t want to name held her back.
She stopped herself from sighing and tapped out the correct landing coordinates. The familiar spiralling damp air swirled around her, bright specks of light flashing past her eyes. Her skin prickled, there was a sharp tug and the small bay vanished.
The scent of mown grass washed over her, bringing with it clean air. Scar opened her eyes to a bright blue summer sky and breathed the freshness deep into her lungs. It’d been months since she’d been planet-side and the pull of natural gravity worked her muscles. They’d landed in the cobbled courtyard, set lower to the west wing of the mansion house. Stone steps ran up to the terrace and Scar looked up to find four Seagar 9-70s aimed unerringly at them by blank-faced guards. More weapons fired up around the courtyard, but Scar didn’t turn around. She smiled. Yes, it was her usual homecoming.
The Seagars were the weapons of choice for the Corps. Tyler would feel right at home.
Another black-clad guard padded down the steps and waved a scanner over them. Cold eyes narrowed as he read the results. He gave a quick nod. “Welcome home, Ms Myers. Welcome to the compound, Mr. Rochester, Commander Tyler.”
Scar gave the guard a half smile. “Where do we go?”
“Your mother is waiting for you in the entrance hall.”
She nodded. “Thank you.” She moved past the guards, leaving Rochester and Tyler to follow behind her.
“Nice welcome, Scar,” Rochester murmured.
“My stepfather doesn’t trust anyone. His security measures are why I don’t come home.” She stared up at the grand house in which she’d grown up. The pale, smooth stone gleamed in the bright sunshine, the light flashing over the windows stretching up four stories. Surveillance devices gouged the fabric of the building. Her spine itched, knowing that they watched her and operated a host of artillery aimed at her head. It didn’t matter that she was Oliver Myers’ stepdaughter; that she had been a part of his household since she was a two year old. Her reflection caught in a box-sashed window. Honeyed marble stained her pale skin and her deformed tail twitched. Her Caraniae heritage was too obvious. So, she was still and always would be suspect.
“Isn’t this overkill?” Tyler muttered.
“What?” Rochester stared over the open lawns that stretched away from the front of the mansion. He turned back to look at the courtyard. “The guards have gone.”
Tyler laughed. “This is why I’m your bodyguard, Iain.” He stared up at the house and Scar tried not to dwell on the perfect line of his jaw. Her gut tightened. She failed. Her obsession for him hadn’t faded. Not one bit. “Every movement is scanned and evaluated. Cough at the wrong time and you’ll be so much dust.” He caught her staring at him. “Can’t you feel it?”
His voice dropped heat through her body. Scar glared at him and increased her pace over the crunching gravel. He was playing a dangerous game. A smile pulled at her mouth. Mess with her here and she would see him atomised.
“Sheehan!”
Her mother rushed down the curve of the front steps and enveloped her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” Andra murmured close to Scar’s ear. “I had to agree or they would’ve hunted you down.”
Scar pulled out of the hug. She made herself nod. The Caraniae could be over-enthusiastic in a hunt. They couldn’t guarantee that they’d bring her back alive. “It’s all right.” She let out a slow breath and walked with her mother. “What’s going to happen exactly?”
Andra’s mouth thinned. She linked her arms through Scar’s and turned back to the house. “Your father’s here. And there’s a small honour guard accompanying your betrothed.”
Tyler muttered something and Scar turned.
Andra stared at him. She blinked. “He’s Corps.” Her eyes roamed over him and fire surged in Scar’s gut. Her throat ached to growl a warning. “He’s lithe…and yes, pretty. Officer class, if I’m not mistaken. Oh, this is going to be fun.”
Andra turned back and took the last step up, walking towards the open front doors. There was no more comment about Tyler and for that Scar was grateful. Her overreaction to her mother’s frank appraisal of him was disturbing. She put her mind back to her more pressing problem. “When does this kick off?”
“Tonight at moons’ rise there will be a…simplified…ceremony.” She gave Scar a half smile, her eyes shadowed. “We put our foot down about the blood sacrifice. Though Rilean is somewhere in the South Woods slaughtering a beast right now.”
“Rilean…” Scar rolled the name around her tongue.
“Rilean Harannah of the Red Crag, First son of the First House and so on and so forth…” Andra rolled her eyes. “I stopped listening.”
They entered the wide entrance hall, bustling with caterers and staff. Scar stared around the familiar vaulted room, thick with gleaming white marble and gilded with too much red gold. Her stomach twisted. It was the only home she had ever known. And it was why, at the first chance she had, she’d forced her mother to charter her the Ioannos and then she had taken to the stars.
“Why is he doing this? My father.” The title tasted strange in her mouth.
“The war is over. You aren’t the stigma you once were. Kajetan’s grabbing his chance for power.”
Andra stated the facts baldly and Scar laughed. “Yes, I didn’t think there would be any fatherly affection thrown in.” She paused, unaccustomed nerves eating at her insides. She had never met Kajetan Vall. No affection ran through her for the man, and some part of her knew she would try to kill him for his abandonment. Family as well as honour formed the core of Caraniae culture. “You said he’s here?”
“He’s staying in one of the houses at the edge of the compound. Don’t worry, Sheehan. We’re keeping you apart.”
“Good plan.”
Andra stopped at the bottom of the stairs, which curved up into the crystal dome. Light splintered down over the smooth, cool marble. “You have your old rooms.” She glanced back to Rochester and Tyler, her gaze delaying on him for a moment longer than necessary. Scar’s hands clenched. “Iain and Antony are close by.” She ran a hand over her dark hair and a frown caused her brow to crease. “I have to prevent a major incident from flaring. Myers will insist on hiring ex-Corps personnel. Throw in a cohort of young hot-headed Caraniae…” A smile twisted her mouth. It wasn’t echoed in her dark eyes. “It’s already been a stressful few hours.”
“It’s your job, Mother,” Scar reminded her.
“Was my job.” Andra stepped back from them, her gaze already moving on. “I left the Diplomatic Service a long, long time ago.”
“It shows.”
Andra snorted, but humour now lit her face. “Be back here as soon as you can. The party is waiting on you.”
“Wonderful.”
Andra sighed. “That isn’t the worst of it, Sheehan, believe me.” She waved and strode out across the black and white tiled h
all, her boots clacking against the stone.
Scar turned back to the wide stairs and started to climb. The house was centuries old and Myers and her mother didn’t believe in spoiling it by putting in conventional platforms between the floors and rooms.
“Your mother was a diplomat?” Rochester matched her pace up the great sweeping curve of the staircase. “You never said.”
“Always pumping for information, Rochester.” He’d known who her mother was, he simply wanted the little titbits, the secrets left out of Andra Myers’ official biographies. He wouldn’t get them from her.
Scar stopped at the top of the stairs. The long gallery stretched out before them, glass arcing over the principal drawing room. A smile pulled at her mouth. “She was one of the first negotiators between the Coalition and the Caraniae. It was how she met Kajetan.” As a child she had often wondered who she would have been if her mother had not chosen that path. “For a short time, Kajetan risked the shame of thinning his blood with the enemy. Then I was born with this skin and this tail.” Her laugh was harsh; she couldn’t help it. Her tail, at almost thirty centimetres, still shocked pure humans, but to Caraniae it was an insult. “The Caraniae are very proud of their long tails. My spikeless little stump, as Kajetan called it? He really couldn’t live with that.”
Rochester smirked. “You know I love your stump.” But the familiar playful tug never came.
Scar stared. Tyler had Rochester’s hand in a tight grip, their boss’s fingers already bloodless. Tyler’s face had hardened and his eyes burned. “Don’t,” he muttered in a voice she hardly recognised, “touch her.”
“Antony, what the hell—”
Tyler shook his head and dropped Rochester’s hand. He backed away, his face flushed. “I’m… I don’t know.” He cursed and the professional mask slid over his features. His shoulders straightened. “Sorry, sir.”
Rochester stared at him, absently rubbing his already bruising hand. “What did you think—”
A black-suited butler appeared. “If you’ll come with me, sirs.”
Tyler’s eyes flickered his relief at the interruption. He waved Rochester ahead of him. With a backward glance at her, Rochester followed the butler, Tyler three paces behind his boss. He didn’t turn around.
Scar let out a slow breath and wiped a hand over her mouth. Her blood pounded. Don’t touch her. The words had her so wet her tail had curled. She willed herself to breathe in and out until her body was almost her own again. The fire in Tyler’s gaze…no, she had to stop thinking about him. He had no right to her; had forgone that right when he refused to claim her—
Scar growled against her own stupid thoughts. She wasn’t chattel.
She stretched her spine and willed down the urge to track Tyler to his room. This lust would work with her betrothed. Scar snorted. Then Tyler would be of no interest to her; she would be bound irrevocably to her Caraniae mate.
It would make everything easy.
The taste of Tyler’s blood, his sweat seared her tongue, even though the memory was almost a day old. “No,” she grunted the word at herself. “Save this lust for Rilean.”
Scar made herself move, turning left and following the curve of the dome. She stopped herself from staring through the thick glass to the chaos of the room below. She had a vague memory of the ritual involved. Even sanitised, there would be a lot of blood. The Caraniae couldn’t help themselves.
Her room wasn’t far. She had a suite of rooms that overlooked the front lawns, private, secluded. She rubbed at her neck. Yes, she’d needed that privacy. Caraniae children were semi-wild things and only having half the genes hadn’t saved her.
She palmed open the door and entered her old sanctuary.
The scent of polish and filtered air swept around her as the door clicked shut behind her. Her little sitting room hadn’t changed. Books lined a floor-to-ceiling alcove, couches curved around the ornate granite fireplace and her plants still lined the deep windowsills. Her mother had insisted on them, insisted she care for them. Scar winced. Andra had never taken the step to her looking after pets. Plants she couldn’t slaughter. It’d been hard for a growing child to focus on caring for something else other than her need to run through the woods and kill anything and everything in her path.
Scar stared out to the lush green of the lawns, the South Woods a dark stain on the horizon. Rilean was out there, slaughtering something, bathing in its blood in a claim to her. She wanted that image to call to her. But she saw only Tyler, naked and splattered with the blood of a dead Zacetian.
She forced down that memory and brushed a broad, sword-shaped leaf of a snake-head plant, tracing over the bronzed variegation that matched her own marbled skin. Its woody scent softened the air and she breathed in the familiar odour.
She padded into the bedroom and stopped at the foot of her bed. She stared at the clothes laid out over the white silk sheets. Her mother had said it would get worse. Scar’s nails dug into her palms and she stared at the few scraps of bleached animal hide they expected her to wear.
It was a compromise. They should be naked when they bonded.
“Show me an image of Rilean Harannah,” Scar said, lifting up the thin strips of stitched hide.
The air shimmered and a liquid image spun and coalesced. It settled and thickened into the image of a pure-bred Caraniae. His skin was the colour of clear honey, smooth and unblemished. Scar envied him that. She stalked around his image. Achingly lithe with beautifully defined muscle, Rilean’s face was almost feline. His tail swished idly, ivory spikes gleaming. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t deny that something in his perfection called to her. “Aren’t you beautiful,” she murmured.
“Is he?”
Scar’s heart stopped. Tyler leaned against the doorframe to her bedroom. “What are you doing in here?”
Tyler pushed himself away from the frame and adrenalin surged through her body. “Is that who you want?” The softness of his voice belied the fire locked in his gaze. “This…” he waved his hand through the computerised projection and the image flickered and dissolved, “…insubstantial thing.”
“Get out, Tyler.” Her chin lifted. Heat swept up through her body and her tail flicked. Already, the subtle scent of her arousal drifted on the air. It was the exercise chamber all over again. The fire, the need to fight and fuck flaring in her blood, despite her every attempt to deny it. “Now.”
His eyes had darkened as his chest lifted and he breathed her in. Scar swallowed, her throat dry. Something screamed in her to run. Her mate had already been chosen. In a few hours, she would have her bond. She heard her own shallow breathing and an ache throbbed low in her belly. Everything else shrieked at her to tear the clothes from Tyler’s back.
“We were warned about Caraniae women in the Corps.” Tyler ran a slow finger down the front of her flight-suit, tracing over her breast. “That you could steal our minds, our souls.”
Scar’s breath hitched. “What are you doing, Tyler?”
“But I’m not in the Corps anymore.” His soft chuckle ran a rush through her flesh. “I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll take you, fuck you. Put all thoughts of that pretty boy from your head.” Scar’s heart thudded. A smile pulled at his mouth, dark, predatory, as his fingers brushed her lips.
“Ready?”
Chapter Four
Her eyes were wary. She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t fight the slow slide of his hand over her jaw and down her throat. “So compliant, Scar. Just as you should be.” He stopped at the edge of her flight-suit. “Take this off.”
Her mouth twisted into a hard smile and she stepped back. “No.”
Fire burned up from his gut. More of her games…but there was her scent again, drawing him in. The house swarmed with Caraniae, with her family, but Rochester had almost touched her and fury had surged. Scar was his to claim. No one else’s. “Are you going to fight me?”
“You’d like it too much.”
“Imagine us naked again, Scar.
I’d pin you to the wall, our bodies slick with heat and sweat. I’d find you.” He moved forward, inching her back step by step. “Fuck you.” He grinned and watched her swallow. Tyler lifted an eyebrow. “Want me to leave now?”
Scar’s pulse beat fast at the base of her throat and her skin flushed. “Why are you here?” Her voice strained the question. Scar uncertain? He liked that. “You made it obvious that I was the last person you wanted.”
Tyler laughed. “Oh, I want you, Scar. I was being…sensible.”
“And now?” She backed into the white plastered wall and winced.
“Iain almost touched you.” Anger at that act tightened his chest. He grabbed her backside, lifted her, pressed Scar hard up against his erection. She gasped and he ground against her. “You know that’s not allowed.”
“Isn’t it?”
The smirk on her mouth had him growling. “Scar…”
She ran an idle finger along his hairline and down his temple, her twisted smile sharpening. “I’ve known Rochester for years. I’m sure he wouldn’t have stopped after our fight, left me sweaty and aching. He would have—”
Tyler swallowed her words, her breath. Her tongue fought him, her hand fisting in his hair. Her scent filled him and a riot of liquid heat rushed through his blood. He pulled his mouth away.
“Tyler, what the hell—”
“Strip.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Make me.”
Tyler threw a laughing Scar onto her bed, her amusement twisting the ache in his flesh. He had to have her. He pulled off her boots and dropped them with a dull thud into the carpet. “Undo the suit.”
Her fingers traced down the front of the black fabric, playing with the fastenings. Tyler’s heart thudded. The ache in his balls, the need to bury himself deep, deep within in her had his brain on fire. What was she doing? “I’ll shred it, I swear.”
