by Amy Pennza
“Hey,” Rogan said, “don’t look so worried. No one here is going to force you into the mines with no experience. Ivar is smarter than that. And if you’re good with kaptum, you can earn your freedom even faster.”
“What happens then? When you’re free? It’s still Tolbos. I didn’t see any vacation homes on my way to the mountain.”
“A lot of people stay. Others go live in one of the settlements.”
She sat up straighter. “There are settlements here?” That had a very specific meaning. When the Council established settlements on distant worlds, it set up all the spheres of normal life—schools, government, medical care. Hope unfurled like a banner within her.
He looked away. “Ah…no. Not like that.”
“Like what, then?” She leaned forward, but he’d angled his face away from her. “Rogan?”
He glanced at her. “Just settlements. Look, we’re not really supposed to talk about the details.”
She tamped down her frustration. His mouth was tight. He clearly didn’t want to answer questions, but if there were settlements here—any kind of settlements—she wanted to know about them. She made her voice light. “Details? You haven’t talked about it at all.”
The sound of the vehicle’s engine split the air. He surged to his feet. The paper from his lunch parcel fluttered to the ground.
Nadia scooped it up. “Is this made from the trees?”
“Yes.”
She smoothed it on her palm and ran a forefinger down the paper’s scratchy surface. “I’d love to study one of the—”
“Lunch date’s over, Red,” Talitha said over her. “Get up.”
Nadia stood and stuffed the paper in her pocket. What was it with this woman and that stupid nickname? “It’s Nadia,” she wanted to snap, but she clamped her mouth shut. Talitha was twice her size, and who knew what she could do with that kaptum arm? Discretion…discretion.
“Got something you want to say?” Talitha asked. Behind her, the men by the vehicle nudged each other and stared.
Nadia lowered her gaze. “No.”
“That’s what I thought.” She raised her voice. “You assholes waiting for dessert? Everyone back to work!”
Nadia moved away, but Talitha grabbed her arm. “Word of advice. Be careful with your little flirtations. You have an observer.”
Nadia followed the woman’s gaze up the mountain. Ivar stood on the ledge, bare-chested and unmoving. The black tattoo around his bicep was a sharp contrast to his tan skin. His stare burned into her. She wondered how long he’d been there, watching her sweat and stumble through the stinking, rotting mounds.
Talitha released her and stalked away. Nadia tore her gaze away from the ledge and started to follow, but something made her look back. Her stare collided with his once more. She experienced a rush of déjà vu. The distance between them was greater than it had been at the auction, yet the odd color was just as clear as it had been the day before. Her breathing slowed, and her face heated. Low in her body, desire stirred. She exhaled on a shudder. She lifted her chin.
Up on the ledge, he smiled.
She did an about-face and marched to the vehicle.
Over the next long, interminable hours, Nadia resisted the urge to glance up at the mountain—without much success. No matter how hard she fought it, Ivar’s presence was like a magnet that pulled her gaze back to the ledge. Every time she looked up, he was staring at her. He didn’t seem to change position either. He just watched, his arms crossed over his bare chest. Today, he wore a pair of black pants that contrasted sharply with his golden skin. Even from her position on the ground, she could tell they rode low on his hips—a problem he seemed to suffer from permanently. Maybe she could find him a belt in the garbage pit.
Sweat dripped from her forehead and splatted on a sheet of crumpled metal under her feet. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt. The fabric scraped her tender skin. The protective salve was long gone, and her bare arms were pink and angry. Her skin no longer tingled with sunburn—now it was just numb. Her leg still stung, but the slow ooze of blood had stopped.
Despite the screaming protests of her body, nothing could distract her from the weight of Ivar’s gaze. It followed her everywhere—a constant, throbbing presence that made the hair on her arms stand up.
A strange awareness settled over her. Her shirt teased against her nipples until they formed hard peaks that ached when she moved. The seam of her pants shifted and pressed against the sensitive skin between her legs. Her breaths grew labored—each one a dragging weight in her chest. The suns’ heat battered her, yet goosebumps broke out across her skin. She spotted a piece of glass on the ground and bent to retrieve it. Fabric brushed her clit, and a spark of bliss fired deep in her belly. She shot upright. Her heart thudded against her ribs.
A spot between her shoulder blades tingled. Slowly—so very slowly—she turned. Looked up.
Ivar watched her.
His tattoo slid down his arm. She caught her breath as it swirled around the muscle and glided smoothly to his wrist. Something flashed in his palm. A…blade? As he’d done before, he flipped it up and caught it without breaking eye contact.
Metal flashed again. Silver-blue kaptum flowed up his arm, tracing a slow, sinuous path. It twisted around his biceps and darkened to black.
She met his gaze. His words echoed in her mind. “Flatter it…master it.”
He gave her a final scorching look and then turned and left the ledge.
The vehicle rumbled. Across the pit, someone shouted. She looked around, dazed. Nearby, men bent and pulled things from the trash. She hurried to the nearest pile. Apparently, no one else had noticed Ivar’s little kaptum demonstration.
No, that had been just for her.
9
Ivar heard footsteps on the stairs.
Talitha’s voice rang out. “I brought the slave like you asked.”
He pushed back from his desk and stood as she shoved Nadia through the doorway. Nadia stumbled, and he caught a flash of fury on her face before she rounded on the taller woman.
Talitha smirked and held up her artificial arm. “Pleasure meeting you today, Red. Let me know if you change your mind about that leg.”
Nadia’s hands curled into fists at her sides. She took a step forward.
Ivar cleared his throat. “Thank you, Talitha. That will be all.”
She shot Nadia another smirk before turning and disappearing through the doorway.
Nadia’s back and shoulders relaxed, but her fists stayed put.
A surge of admiration rushed through him. She was fierce, and she checked every one of his boxes. His body vibrated with need each time he looked at her. “What did she mean about your leg?” he said.
She faced him. She definitely looked the worse for wear, but even her bedraggled state couldn’t hide her stunning beauty. The red hair was sweat-dampened and lank, but its vibrant color was undiminished. Her delectable breasts still thrust against the shirt, her nipples dark shadows under the thin material. She lifted her chin. And just like that, blood pounded in his veins.
Like a fucking tuning fork.
“I…scratched it.”
“There’s blood on your pants.”
“It’s nothing.”
He considered telling her he probably knew more about her day than she did. Porter’s reports were always thorough. He lowered his chin. For good measure, he raised an eyebrow. There. Even the most hardened kaptum miners quailed under the threat of that eyebrow.
She folded her arms, the look on her face telling him in no uncertain terms just how unimpressive she found him.
He passed a hand over his mouth as he fought to control his smile. “Ah…” He cleared his throat. “Any trouble in the pit?”
“Not unless you count Talitha on my case all day.”
“Don’t take it personally. She probably took one look at you and assumed you were weak.”
She huffed. “That’s disappointing, considering she�
��s a woman too. She shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Not because you’re a woman. Because you served on a starship.”
“How could she know that?”
“Word spreads fast, especially when it involves a newcomer.”
“Oh. Well, in that case…” The defiant, challenging expression drained from her features, and her face grew pinched. She shook her head like she was trying to clear it.
“Nadia?”
Her eyelids fluttered. She swayed.
He was on her in seconds. He swung her into his arms, ignoring her squawking as he carried her to his bed. As soon as he set her down, she sprang back up.
“How dare you!”
“You were ready to fall.”
“I was not!”
He crossed his arms. “Could have fooled me.”
She stepped away from the bed, then looked at it like it was a nest of snakes.
“Are you afraid of my bed?”
“What? Of course not.” She crossed her own arms, seemed to realize she was mirroring him and flung them to her sides. “I just don’t need to lie down.”
“How did you hurt your leg?”
She stared, as if deciding how much to tell him. “I fell in the pit. It bled a little. Talitha offered to cauterize it—with her hand.” She shivered.
Ivar knew the feeling. Talitha scared him too. “I assume you declined?”
“Aside from the obvious fact that she hates me and probably would have made it as painful as possible, I don’t feel comfortable around that much kaptum.”
“I assure you, Talitha hates everyone equally.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me.”
Her lips twitched. “Why? What did you do to her?”
“I don’t know that I necessarily did anything to her. I think it’s more that I have a penis.”
Ah, now she did smile. Funny how something as simple as the curling corner of those pink lips made his chest tight. He wanted to taste her there—to see if her mouth was sweeter in that tiny, perfect spot. An image of her on her knees, her emerald eyes glittering up at him as he fed her his cock, appeared in his brain.
She licked her lips, and he swallowed a groan. “Did she lose her arm in the mines?”
He looked up from her mouth. Had she asked a question? He cleared his throat. “What?”
“Talitha.” Her reddish-brown eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Her arm?”
Talitha. Right. She’d just reminded him why he’d summoned her. Porter’s knowing smile flashed in his mind. Thinking with my cock, indeed. He walked to his desk and leaned against it. “The Council cut it off for stealing.”
“Yes…they do that.”
He pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
She looked like she might refuse, so he added, “You’re also welcome to sit on the bed.”
She crossed to the chair and perched on the edge.
He let his gaze fall heavy on her face. Like most redheads, she blushed easily, but her deep sunburn made it impossible to gauge if his scrutiny bothered her. She returned his stare, her eyes clear and focused. After a minute, he said, “The Council punishes theft by amputation. Repeat offenders get sent to Tolbos.”
She shifted ever so slightly. “Yes.”
“Yet here you sit with all your limbs.”
“I told you, I got caught before I took anything. The charge was attempted—”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why take the risk?” What was it Porter had said? “Her story has some holes.” Yeah, and this one was a crater.
She looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s a problem, because I do.” He leaned forward until he recaptured her gaze. “I run a mine filled with prisoners. Criminals. Some are here because they pissed off the wrong person. Others were just stupid. But the majority have done terrible things. I need to know what kind.”
Her gaze faltered. She stared at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. When she spoke, her voice was low and measured. “The Council doesn’t amputate unless there’s an eyewitness or holo-vid of the theft. And even if there had been, I wouldn’t have been punished.” A bitter smile touched her lips. “Or so I thought.”
He kept his body still, his muscles relaxed. He’d lost count of how many prisoners he’d questioned over the years. In all that time, he’d learned that the best interrogation technique was patience. Most people couldn’t abide silence. Given a long stretch of it, they’d start talking just to fill it. He waited for her to continue.
Head still angled down, she said, “I must have triggered a silent alarm, because police droids showed up outside my quarters. Mine and my fiancé’s quarters. Everything happened so fast. The arrest, the trial. I kept waiting for him to fix everything.”
“Your fiancé?”
She nodded.
“Why did you think he could?”
She looked up. “Because he’d done it before!” A single tear streaked down her cheek, and she brushed it away with quick, angry movements. “For himself. Spencer took crush here and there. A lot of people did. It’s an open secret that most officers use it.”
“By took you mean stole.”
“Yes.”
“And the penalty for stealing is amputation.”
She met his gaze, her own steady. In an even tone she said, “Not when your father is deputy director of the Council.”
Ivar pushed away from the desk. He rounded it and faced his weapons wall. He wasn’t certain he could keep his face blank while he processed the bomb she’d just dropped. The Earth-Space Intergalactic Council ruled over thirteen planets and four billion people. And she’d just said she was engaged to the son of its deputy director— the second most powerful man in the universe.
She spoke again, and this time there was resignation in her tone. “Spencer said his father wouldn’t help him again. Then he said he was worried about his career. H-he just left me there on the restraint board.”
Ivar stared unseeing at the wall, straining to hear the truth—or deception—in her words. More than anything, she sounded…heartbroken.
But there was also shock in her voice. He’d heard the same from others who’d fallen from the Council’s good graces. For all its talk of equality and prosperity for all, the Council had a selective view of which people were worthy of those things. There were the elites—and there was everyone else. If she’d attended the Academy, Nadia had likely never known what life was like for those in the latter group.
But her fiancé surely did. As the son of a Council member, he would have seen the dark underbelly of the shining, glorious “model government” the Council liked to pretend it was. A person couldn’t stand in that much light without seeing some shadows.
Ivar’s gaze landed on a long, thin blade. He’d been a leader long enough to know that power was seductive. Addicting. People who had it never gave it up easily. Most would do just about anything to keep it. And given the choice between a life of privilege and life on Tolbos? Some would sell their soul to keep their position.
Or sell out someone they loved.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice thick. “I broke the rules. I deserved to be punished. I thought I was above the law b-because of my rank and…and who I knew.”
He faced her. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“But if I’d known the punishment would be this place… Being stripped and sold and forced to work in that pit!” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “It’s not that I feel sorry for myself, but—”
“Yes, you do.”
She snapped her mouth shut. Surprise and the beginnings of anger stirred in her features. He raised his hands as he drifted back in front of the desk.
“I don’t blame you. I’d probably feel the same in your position.” He made his voice gentle. “But you’re not angry because you got sent to Tolbos. You’re angry because the person you trusted above all others betrayed you.”
A tear slipped down her face.
He grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Anger can be a useful emotion,” he murmured. He brushed his finger down her cheek, tracing the path of the tear. “But not if you let it consume you.”
She lifted her gaze from their joined hands.
“You can’t change what happened,” he said, resting his fingertips on her face. He closed his eyes and pulled at the kaptum inside him. It rushed to do his bidding, sparking along his nerve endings in a million tiny electric shocks. He moved his fingers over her sunburned skin, careful not to press too hard. He opened his eyes. Her skin bloomed fresh and even, the creamy white restored. “You can only move forward.”
She pressed her hand against her cheek, wonder in her gaze. “You…healed it. You can do that?”
“I can do a lot of things.”
Her nostrils flared. Oh, yes. She interpreted that correctly. He brushed a hand down her arm, taking the burn as he went, savoring the shivers that lifted the fine hairs on her skin. He captured her gaze. “Stay with me.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
She shook her head. “I… What would people think?”
They’d think he was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet, that’s what they’d think. He ran his palm down her other arm. “Who cares?”
She pulled away. “Tell me, would you make the same offer if the Council had taken my arm? Or if I was scarred?”
“Is that what bothers you? That I want you?” He stepped closer. “Or is it that you want me just as bad?”
“I don’t—”
“Ah-ah, Na-dee-ya, I can tell if you’re lying.”
She blanched. “You can?”
“No.” He smiled.
She sucked in a breath. “You are an insufferable—”
He pulled her to him and then leaned in until his lips hovered above hers. “Bastard? Asshole? Scoundrel? The first one is technically wrong, but you’re probably correct on the others.”
