by Zoë Archer
They stepped into the passage. It was an unadorned, dimly lit corridor lined with pipes, the floor mottled with stagnant puddles. Scuttling sounds revealed that at least one szemét rat called the passage home.
“This leads to a cargo lift.” Mara’s voice echoed in the corridor. “That takes us to the ground level.”
She headed down the passage, but something prickled Kell’s awareness. He turned around, plasma pistol in hand, just in time to see a man also stepping into the corridor. The panel slid shut behind the stranger, closing all of them in. Kell recognized him as the blocky man from the night before, the one who thought he remembered Kell.
“I know who you are.” Blocky had two plasma pistols out, one trained on Kell, the other pointed at Mara. “And you aren’t a Halu pleasure slave.”
“Turn around.” Mara had her own weapon aimed at the interloper. “Then get the hell out.”
But the man didn’t listen. “Got to thinking last night, about that move you used to take down Jorgo. Seen it only once before—by a street brawler on Sayén. Dangerous fucker. Killed at least two men in the ring.” He stepped closer, and the dimness turned his eyes to small, sharp beads. “Can’t forget someone like that. He disappeared, though. Then word got out that he’d joined the 8th Wing.”
Cold heat tightened Kell’s muscles, yet he felt perfectly calm, focused.
“Think of what I could buy, selling that intel,” Blocky continued. “A nice villa on Merane. A half dozen Halu pleasure slaves of my own. But I’m a businessman, so I’m willing to deal. I take creds. Or I can be creative when it comes to payment.” His gaze flicked to Mara, and that was when Kell’s anger roared to life.
Blocky was an idiot. He’d gotten too close, within striking distance. Kell kicked a plasma pistol out of his hand. As the man yelped in pain, Kell grabbed his other arm and broke it with a swift movement. A louder scream of pain. The second weapon landed on the ground with a clatter. Kell had the barrel of his own plasma pistol lodged tight against the underside of Blocky’s jaw.
The would-be blackmailer’s small eyes widened as much as they were able. He shook with the combination of fear and pain.
Mara hurried forward and collected the fallen weapons. “Going to stamp out his miserable life?”
Blocky whimpered.
Breath and rage pushed through Kell’s body. The fucker had threatened Mara. Kell demanded blood.
But, as Blocky had helpfully reminded him, Kell was 8th Wing. They had a code, a sense of honor that had to be preserved. Cold-blooded murder was PRAXIS’s way.
“I want to.”
Blocky whimpered again.
He slammed a fist into the side of Blocky’s head. The man collapsed to the ground, splashing in the greasy puddles.
Mara gazed down at the unconscious man. She nudged him, not gently, with her boot. “Why not?”
“I shed that skin when I left Sayén.” He hefted Blocky’s substantial bulk over his shoulder. Gods, the man was heavy, but Kell didn’t stagger under his weight. “A killer’s skin.”
She gave him a look, and he distinguished the gleam of respect in her eyes. It nourished him, far more than killing ever had or could.
He turned and strode down the passageway.
She followed. “We’re not taking on any passengers. Especially not this ass.”
“Only room for two on the Arcadia.” They reached the cargo lift, and, in silence, rode it down to ground level. The lift spit them out into an alley. Garbage rested in moldering heaps, and Kell kicked the heaps apart to find precisely what he needed. Lengths of touw cord, used to bind pallets for shipping.
Mara knew exactly what to do. She wrapped the touw cord tightly around the unconscious man’s wrists and ankles, then, for good measure, she gagged him with a scrap of coarse cloth—without brushing off the dirtroaches skittering through its folds.
A largely-empty waste drum proved an excellent location for hiding the would-be interloper. There was just enough room to cram him inside and replace the lid. Didn’t look like the alley got much foot traffic, so the location was secure. It wasn’t a death sentence, but it would take a lot of effort and determination for Blocky, with his broken arm, to fight his way free.
“That ought to hold him. Ten solar hours, at least.” She glanced around the alley. “Appropriate he should wind up here, with all the garbage. One regret, though.”
He glanced at her, curious.
“I didn’t get to punch him.” She kicked the drum. “The shit tried to hurt you.”
The only people who defended him were other Black Wraith squad members. She was the first civilian who gave a damn about him.
He didn’t care that they were standing in a grimy alley. He kissed her, hot and demanding. Her hands gripped his biceps, her hips cupped his. He wanted her against the wall—just like last night.
With a growl, he finally tore away from the kiss. This wasn’t the time, and definitely not the place.
“You keep promising a banquet.” She struggled for breath. “But all I’m getting are snacks.”
“I’ll give you a feast. But our appetites are going to be unsatisfied for a while.”
“I’m not good with delayed gratification.”
“We’re both hungry.”
“Wish that gave me some comfort.”
Hand-in-hand, they ran from the alley. Time kept moving onward, slipping away. Lieutenant Jur would be sold into slavery in a few hours. He readied himself for any threat, considering all the possibilities, all the hazards. Not just hazards to himself, but to Mara. Nothing would hurt her.
As they headed toward the docks and her ship, understanding hit him. He’d never been a covetous man. He deliberately kept his needs simple—street life had taught him that. But now he burned with greed. Each time he kissed Mara, each time they touched it only made him want more and more of her. Until he had everything. Until she was entirely his.
Chapter Eight
Saying goodbye to Beskidt By wasn’t a hardship. The place reminded Kell too much of what he had left behind on Sayén, what had been lost when PRAXIS used then abandoned his homeworld. He’d never known Sayén before it had been ruined, but he knew it after, as an animal that had devoured itself.
Even Mara, piloting her ship out of the city, looked faintly disgusted by what she saw, the same as when she’d taken a long look at the club’s daylit interior. Long-held beliefs falling away to reveal something raw and new beneath.
“Good to shake off that dump’s grime,” she murmured. She guided the ship above the skyline, through the columns of greasy smoke and between the soundskiffs blaring pop songs and advertisements. Thick storm clouds formed a roiling, lightning-lashed boundary above them. “It’s time to start looking for a new place to roost.”
“Because of me.” A flat statement of fact that nevertheless cut deep. PRAXIS had ultimately cost him his home, but the 8th Wing had taken Mara’s by forcing her involvement, turning her traitor.
“Because of me.” She glanced over at him sitting beside her, and her eyes were the crystal green of distant oceans.
She didn’t blame him, though she had every right to. This day alone, she had given him unexpected gifts—protection, absolution. All he knew of honor and friendship was from the 8th Wing. Mara owed him nothing. She was not a fellow soldier adhering to a shared code of conduct. What she gave him came from herself, her own will, her own strength.
He felt a change within his own self. Yet he did not feel diffused. Rather, he’d never been so sharp—she was the stone that honed him into a razor edge.
“Plausible deniability,” said Kell. “Tell everyone you didn’t know I was 8th Wing. That I was working undercover as a pleasure slave, and I forced you to cooperate.” Which wasn’t far from the truth.
“And lose my scavenger rep.” Her mouth quirked.
“Maybe your pride will get knocked down a little,” he acknowledged, “but you’ll come out clean.”
“As clean as anyone can b
e in the Smoke Quadrant.” She guided the ship through the heavy traffic above Beskidt By.
“You need cover, and I’m giving it to you.”
“And you don’t have to. I’ve got some thinking to do. Maybe after this is over, I’ll have to chart some new paths.”
The idea that she might want to be anything other than a scavenger startled him. She seemed to cling fiercely to the life she had made for herself. Yet it made sense. She was wasted as a scavenger. He hated to see anything, anyone, squandered.
“I feel like I should apologize,” he said, “but I can’t apologize for something I don’t regret.”
“The damn problem,” she answered, turning away to look out the cockpit window, “is that regret’s in short supply for me too.”
A silence that wasn’t exactly comfortable, yet not completely strained, fell between them as Mara flew them out of the boundaries of the city. They both seemed to sense that they had strayed into unknown territory, where delineations of allies and antagonists, partner and lover, blurred. He understood only three things with absolute clarity. The first is that he would find and rescue Lieutenant Jur. Second, he would keep Mara safe. And thirdly, but just as important, he would have her. Nothing else held relevance.
Beskidt By disappeared behind them, giving way to stretches of scrubby plains blotched with signs of habitation. He thought he spotted a few private compounds nestled in the sides of hills and ringed with plasma fences that doubtless incinerated anyone stupid enough to try and breach them. Smugglers’ lairs. Gods knew what kind of contraband or illegally-gotten merch was being stored down there.
It was a planet populated entirely by criminals. On his homeworld, he had also been a criminal, doing whatever he needed to stay alive. He had killed, he had stolen. Nothing he was proud of. But he survived, just as Mara survived.
Cool and sleek as Almirian winter, she entered the coordinates for the auction site into the auto pilot. “At the speed we have to travel, we’ll just make the cut-off time.”
He burned with impatience to get to Lieutenant Jur, but revving his engine for the next few hours would accomplish nothing except burning fuel. “Give me as much intel as you’ve got about these auctions.”
“Can’t tell you much. Not my game. I’m a scavenger, not a merch go-between.”
“A woman in charge.”
Her smile was pure, wicked temptation, sending thick heat straight to his groin. “I’m very good at it too.”
Oh, he knew, recalling with blistering lucidity how she looked, how she felt, as she rode him. Like the sweetest torture, too good to be endured. It had been just last night, yet too long ago. He wanted inside her, not just physically, but in every way, and that want grew ever stronger the closer they came to completing the mission. To her, their time together had a finite beginning and end. She would slip away from him, elusive, likely to disavow anything to do with him, both to anyone who asked and to herself.
A dark, primitive need uncoiled within him. On his homeworld, there had been no law or no magistrates to conduct the mating rite. When a Sayén man claimed his mate, he dug his teeth into the back of her neck, actually breaking the skin and drawing blood. The man staking his claim would rub ash into the wound, resulting in an indelible marking on his mate. It was savage and coarse, something he’d gladly left behind. Only now did he understand and feel its purpose.
He needed to mark Mara, claim her, so that she could never fully distance herself from him. She would know, in the depths of space and night, he had been inside her, had made her his own. The need was primal, and he yielded to it without a struggle. Mara was his.
His cock hardened, pressing tight against the fly of his pants, but he forced himself to stay exactly where he was instead of pouncing on her. He had hours to formulate a plan for the rescue, but now, in this brief window of time, he wanted only Mara. To brand her however he could.
“You’re good at being in charge?” He eyed her up and down, a deliberate provocation. “Prove it.”
She naturally rose to his goading, even as she sent him a look that said she knew exactly what he was doing. “The flyboy wants substantiation? That, I can provide.” After locking the autopilot, she rose from the captain’s seat.
Kell watched with hooded eyes as she slipped between him and the control panel. A change came over her, so subtly that he felt more than saw it. A freeing of herself, the deliberate choice to be as physical and unrestrained as she wanted. This was different from what had happened between them at the lodging in Beskidt By. Then, she had succumbed to the desire between them. Now, her choice to go wild was deliberate. His arousal burned hotter.
She bent down, placed her hands on his knees and pressed them apart, giving her more room and giving him an incredible view of the soft shadows between her breasts. Her nipples beaded against her blouse, tight points beneath the silk. She leaned close, keeping her mouth a bare inch from his own.
“This feels like proof.” She reached out and cupped him through the front of his pants. “And this.” Her whispered words were punctuated by the movement of her hand, grasping his shaft and running up its length.
He thought he might lose his mind when she unfastened his pants and took his cock into her hand. Her slim fingers wrapped around him, stroking him, bare flesh to bare flesh. She caressed him as if he was more than a means to pleasure. As if he truly meant something to her.
Then she sank down to kneel between his legs. Kell’s breath ripped out of him as he stared down at her. The sight of her grasping his cock as she licked her lips made him fight for reserves of discipline—otherwise, this would be over far too soon.
“This,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
She lowered her head. Ran her tongue around the ridge of his cock. Around and around. And then she took him into her mouth, as much as she could fit. What she could not get into her mouth, she grasped with her hand, so that no part of him went unattended.
He lost the ability to form rational thought. Words, impressions, spun through his mind and body as Mara sucked him. Hot. Wet. Ruthless. Clever. Perfect.
The ship continued on its course, and he saw through slitted eyes the land passing beneath them. The distant landscape rolled away, and no one below had any idea what went on in the ship flying overhead.
This was about her control, but he couldn’t stop himself from threading his fingers into her creamy hair, both guiding and being guided as she moved. Her eyes met his for a moment before closing in satisfaction. To give him pleasure gave her pleasure, aroused her.
When her free hand came up to stroke her nipple through her blouse, he groaned.
It was good. Too good.
“Stop, me luna. Before I—fuck, yes.”
She sucked at him harder, moving faster. His hand dropped from her head, and he grasped the edges of his seat, his grip steel-tight, as his hips surged.
He came with a harsh groan. On and on it went, his orgasm streaming from him in bolts stronger than the lightning above. His climax felt drawn from every part of his body. She swallowed him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes closed, as if wanting to know only the taste of him.
Wrung dry, he collapsed back against his seat, panting.
“See? Command comes naturally to me.” Though her words were a taunt, her expression was tender. She had selflessly given him ecstasy—something a casual fuck would never do.
“Sometimes it’s better to let someone else take control.”
Before she could say another word, he had her up against the control panel. This time, he knelt between her legs, his hands on her thighs. Her calves pressed against his shoulders as her feet braced on the chair behind him. The look on her face was one of shock and fierce arousal. And gratitude. She did not expect him to return the favor.
“Beginning to see the wisdom in that,” she gasped.
He hiked up her skirt, then growled when he noticed that she wore no panties. All he saw was her bare skin, her slick, swollen pussy. Gods, she was
beautiful. He had to taste her, brand her with his body by giving her the most intense pleasure possible, as she had done for him.
At the first touch of his tongue to her folds, they both moaned. He teased her at first, tracing her, playing lightly along her sensitive flesh, circling her entrance. She writhed beneath him like living energy, gasping wordless demands. He knew what she wanted, and he wanted to give it to her. His strokes deepened as he licked her.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since forever. The moment I saw you.”
Spice and sweetness. Nothing more delicious. He swirled around her clit. She thrashed at the sensation, yet held him closer. Two of his fingers plunged into her, and he felt her clinging heat pulling on him.
His lips fastened on the bud of her clit, and he sucked as he worked his fingers in and out. Coiling tension vibrated through her body, her thighs on either side of him.
“Kell…yes…gods…” She came with a scream, flinging her arms out, pushing up from the control panel. Her taste flooded his mouth, the primal fire of her essence. He needed to give her this—pleasure that was hers alone, that showed she meant more to him than simple physical gratification, that even when they parted ways, he would never be apart from her.
He would not relent. Not until he licked and sucked her through two more climaxes, his fingers deep within her. Rather than diminishing, her releases built atop one another, lasting longer each time, her cries filling the cockpit and the whole ship with sounds of pleasure.
Sprawled and gasping, she barely had strength to open her eyes and gaze down at him kneeling before her. “We’re both very good at being in charge.”
“A good commander knows when to quit, but an even better commander knows when to hold firm.”
She shifted and her eyes widened when she saw that his cock had hardened again, standing up thick and ready for more of her. Pleasuring her, marking her, had done that to him.
