by Kate Rudolph
Ygreen smiled up at her. “I’ll take my chances. I was on a hot streak.”
Gamblers. Vita didn’t shake her head, but it was a close thing. She could ask Ygreen more about what he knew of Roski’s operation, but she was pretty sure she knew all she needed to know.
Brax trailed after her as they left, and though Ygreen was no longer a prisoner she locked the door from the outside. She didn’t want him wandering around her ship.
She stopped before they got to the cockpit and leaned against the wall. Brax stood close, almost but not quite touching, and she leaned into him, tired of resisting the pull between them. His arm went around her shoulders and Vita could breathe. “I didn’t expect it to get this complicated. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get you home. I can’t just let Roski get away with what he’s been doing.”
The muscles in Brax’s arm stiffened for a second before he relaxed. “I don’t want to abandon you. And the bond between us is not some simple thing that I would happily break by putting distance between us. You are my denya, Vita. I’m with you.”
She had resisted ties for so long. Afraid that if she let herself care for someone else she would be taking on a different kind of slavery. She had resisted the yoke of affection and didn’t know how to react to someone like Brax. But she was tired of resisting, tired of everything, nothing in the galaxy made sense anymore... Except for him. If there was one pillar that she could build the rest of her life on, she was pretty sure that pillar would look a lot like Braxtyn NaZade.
“I need to reset our destination coordinates. Then let’s go to bed.” Everything else was a mess. But not him. And for tonight she wanted to get lost in him.
Chapter Fourteen
SOMETHING HAD SHIFTED between them in those moments in the hallway, Brax could feel it settling in his gut. But that didn’t mean that he knew exactly what it was. And that question had him pacing back and forth in Vita’s quarters. It wasn’t his first time here, nor his second, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, even if for a moment he had feared that he had overstepped while they were talking. But she had to know that he was determined to remain by her side. She was his mate, the one person in all of existence that he could rely on above all others. He didn’t need to go back to Earth, he needed to help her, and he needed her to believe in him.
But for now they needed something else, an affirmation of life, of affection, of love.
It was several minutes before footsteps echoed in the hallway outside of Vita’s room, and in that time Brax came up with a plan. His denya had been dealt a blow, and she needed to be cared for, as much as she would let anyone care for her. He knew she’d let him further inside of her carefully constructed emotional shields than she’d let anyone else, and he wasn’t about to back down now. He would care for her as much as she would let him, and he wouldn’t let her surrender to the darkness that had to be clawing at her.
The door slid open and Vita appeared, her bright red hair a bit mussed from the length of the day, strands falling out of her carefully crafted braid. There were shadows in her eyes and dark smudges under them, her shoulders drooped as if a great weight rested on them. He could practically see the thoughts dancing in her mind, how every issue from the moment she’d snatched him off the streets of Earth had led to this. She thought they were failures, but if they were, they didn’t belong to her.
And she needed a night to remember that she was more than just some bounty hunter who’d been betrayed. She needed to remember that she was a powerful woman who he would follow anywhere, who he’d happily walk beside for the rest of his days, no matter how many he had left, even if she never wanted to seal the bond between them.
“Didn’t I tell you to get naked?” she asked as she stepped inside and let the door close. The room was small, as he guessed most rooms on space ships were, and they were only a meter or so apart, just too far to touch.
Brax grinned. “You did not.” But he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, exposing his chest to the cool air around them.
Vita sucked in a breath but remained frozen in place. Her eyes roved over him like she’d never seen him naked before, and Brax stood there, waiting for her to look her fill, his cock twitching under her perusal.
“Don’t stop there,” she said, and there was something husky in her voice, like she’d been possessed by some spirit of pleasure.
He wanted to get naked, but instead he took half a step towards her and reached for the buttons of her top. “Things should always be equal between us,” he said, slowly exposing her. Her eyes were glued to his face, and he couldn’t look away, falling into her gaze. He had to find the rest of her buttons by feel, but she didn’t complain as his fingers brushed against the sensitive skin of her chest. She shuddered as he pushed her top off her shoulders and lifted her arms to allow him to remove her undershirt and support.
One of her hands came up, dragging her fingers along his chest before she slowly reached down and undid his pants. There was a bit of a tangle as Brax figured out how to step out of his shoes, and before he finished she had shucked her trousers and stood over him like a goddess. And he needed to worship.
He fell to his knees and trailed kisses over her skin, memorizing the taste of her as if he’d need to recall it from memory. His fingers skimmed her hips and he gently pushed her back until she was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs splayed open while his tongue delved into her most private depths. She let out gasps and her thighs quivered as his fingers joined his tongue, opening her up to him, bringing her to the edge of pleasure until she was writhing and begging for more.
His cock was so hard it hurt, and there was nothing he wanted more than to sink into her tight heat and claim her as his denya, but he couldn’t do that, not now, not until she demanded it of him. He’d never known that he could be tortured like this, or that he’d gladly submit to it for just one more moment with Vita, but if it was the price he had to pay, he’d do it over and over again, so long as he could watch her give herself over to desire, her head flung back and her hair falling out of her braid, more strands flying free by the moment.
She cried out as she came and Brax gave her time to breathe, but not much as he kissed his way back up her. He undid her hair and let it all out, until it hung down over her shoulders in curls, tickling his skin and circling his mate in a halo of red. Her fingers tugged on his hair and pulled him up until their lips crashed together in a primal connection. If Brax thought he was in control, Vita wrested it back from him with a single sweep of her tongue, and he reveled in it. Despite all she’d been through, when they were together he didn’t fear that her mind was somewhere else. She showed him with every kiss, with every touch, that she was right there with him.
She hitched a leg up and Brax was seated at the crux of her thighs. It wouldn’t take much to seal the bond between them, and he had to hold that desire in check with an iron chain. He wasn’t going to take her, not like that, not without her craving it as much as him. So when she spoke against his lips he couldn’t believe it.
“Fuck me,” she said, “make me yours.”
His cock got even harder, though it shouldn’t have been possible. But doubts quickly followed. The heat of the moment was not the time to make such a decision, and if he were capable of doing the right thing he would have pulled away. But all he could do was force himself to ask, “Are you sure?”
WAS SHE SURE? IF BRAX didn’t get his cock inside of her in the next ten seconds she was going to show him just how sure she was. She probably sounded impulsive, and maybe this wasn’t a conversation to have in the midst of fucking, but Vita had made up her mind. She wanted Brax. So quickly he’d managed to burrow his way into her life and make it so that she didn’t want to face her journey without him. And a few weeks ago that would have sounded impossible. She would have never believed she could fall so hard, so fast.
But here she was, in bed with him. On her ship, with him. Planning her future... with him. Wh
en she wondered what the next years would hold, she imagined him by her side, and she didn’t want to send him away. She no longer feared that this bond between them was some kind of ownership, some kind of trap. Brax had done nothing to make her think that, and she trusted him.
His eyes blazed blue, but there was doubt on his face. He didn’t want her to regret, and her heart clenched and cracked open at the care. She could see the way his cock twitched with desire, but he wasn’t letting himself be ruled by it.
It was time to stop thinking.
Vita jerked her hips and rolled, sending Brax flat on his back with her astride his thighs. She could feel the hard length of his cock teasing her and her sex rippled with need. He was making her greedy, but one orgasm wasn’t enough, not until she could feel Brax unleashing inside of her.
“I want you,” she told him again, emphasizing the words with kisses. “I choose you. And I want your cock inside me right now. Any questions?” She quirked up an eyebrow and couldn’t help the smirk, and Brax sucked in a breath, his eyes getting impossibly bluer. She’d seen Oscavian eyes before, but on him they were different, if only because the blue only came out when he was on the edge of something passionate. She loved knowing she could do this to him.
Brax’s hips jerked up, seeking contact, and he groaned as she wrapped her fingers around his cock. “Denya,” he growled, actually growled, and it sent a shiver of want racing through her.
Vita had run from anything resembling a claiming her entire life, but now she aligned Brax’s thick cock with her entrance and slowly sank down, allowing the artificial gravity on her ship to do the work for her. She bit her lip to keep the moan in as his cock slid inside her. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt on a lover before; there were ridges and valleys, textures that seemed designed to give her pleasure and hit every place exactly right.
“I want to hear you,” Brax said. “Give me your sounds.” It was a command, but if the moan that ripped out of her was any indication, it was one that Vita was happy to follow.
As she slid down his length she could feel something settling inside her, a cord reaching out to anchor into something she’d never thought to want before. She’d never felt the absence, but now she knew that if it were gone she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
The bond.
She moved her hips and felt it weaving around them and through them as sensation stole her breath. Brax jerked his hips as she bounced on top of him, his cock hitting her deep and making her burn. Her thighs quivered, but she was beyond anything but pleasure as she surrendered to the connection between them, throwing her head back and crying out Brax’s name as her body gave out and she came, a rippling tide of pleasure tearing through her.
The bond snapped into place somewhere beneath her heart, and she could practically see it stretching from her to her mate and connecting them on a cellular level.
With a final groan Brax joined her, unleashing himself inside of her in a hot thrust that sent an aftershock through her. It was too much. It would never be enough.
She collapsed bonelessly next to him and made an unhappy sound as he slid from her. Now that they were connected she didn’t want to let him go, not in any way. So she plastered herself to him, throwing an arm over his chest and entwining their legs until they were one mass of limbs and heat. Vita had never considered herself a cuddler, but she was discovering all sorts of things that were true when it came to Brax.
For several long moments they laid in silence, basking in the satisfaction of their mating. Vita wished every world would disappear so it could just be them with no worries about what was coming next, nothing to threaten them or the thing growing between them.
But the threats still existed, and even if her body was pleasure drunk, her mind started chasing after all the problems almost as soon as her breathing got back under control.
“I can’t let Roski get away with what he’s doing,” she whispered against Brax’s neck, words that should have been sweet nothings but might instead lead them to their doom.
His fingers curled around her hip. “I know.”
“He’s got a legion of people to defend him.” She had to let Brax know what they were up against, had to give him the option to back out even if she knew he’d never take it.
“That’s not going to stop us,” her mate responded, confirming her greatest hope and fear. She didn’t think she could do this alone, but she didn’t know how she could risk him.
“It’s not,” she agreed. “Let’s go take down a slave trader.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE DENYA BOND THRUMMED between them and Brax couldn’t keep from grinning, even if the dour look in his mate’s face threatened to sour the mood. He knew it wasn’t for him, and he wished that there was something he could do to cheer her up, but the stakes were too high. The moment they’d dropped Coyl Ygreen back at his gambling den his denya had been possessed by the need to race after Roski and get vengeance for the wrongs he’d done to her.
Brax couldn’t blame her, but he wished there was some other way they could do this, some force they could pull together to take on this man. From everything Vita told him, Roski would be a hard target to take down. They couldn’t fight him head on, and he had friends in high places and was too smart to trade slaves in the Oscavian Empire, where slavery was technically illegal.
No police would touch him, no military would target him, and they didn’t have the fire power to fight.
And even as the impossible odds stacked up against them, Brax’s mood was still light. He’d claimed his denya. Or, perhaps, more precisely, she’d claimed him and he couldn’t be happier. The bond was a welcome weight in his chest, reaching out and tugging him towards his mate whenever they separated, which wasn’t very often. The ship wasn’t big, but that wasn’t the reason. In the two days since they’d come together, it seemed they couldn’t bear to be apart. That desire would probably fade a bit as they grew accustomed to one another, but Brax wanted to revel in it while he could.
“Does he have any outposts?” he asked, coming back to the plan. They had to find a way to hurt Roski, one that would give them enough leverage to start to undo the damage he’d done. Maybe the two of them couldn’t stop him completely, but even slowing him down would have some impact. If they could stop him from trading one ship full of people, or even one person, that would be some action to right his wrongs.
Vita stopped scrolling through her tablet for a moment before flicking at the screen and engaging the holoplayer so he could see what she was seeing. A map of a star system he didn’t recognize lit up around them with three beacons brighter than everything else.
“He operates out of these three stations mostly.” She gestured, and one of the stations grew bigger as the rest receded. “This would be the main location.”
“Not where we met him?” Thinking of that day made Brax sick to his stomach and he had no desire to return to the place where Vita had almost handed him over, but he’d do it for her, if that was what it took.
She shook her head. “That’s just a convenient location for dropping off marks. The station is a hive of slavers and thieves, and maybe that should have been a clue about who Roski really is.” She sank into her chair and studied the map being projected by the holoplayer. “Whatever we do, we have to make it big. And we have to find out what happened to the people from Wefrare. I don’t know if there’s any way...”
To save them. This was becoming more and more of a life’s mission rather than a one-time attack, and Brax could feel the possibility of going back to Earth slipping away. But some things were more important.
“We probably only have one chance to hit Roski.” He didn’t want to bring her further down, but they had to face facts. They were two people against an incredibly rich man who had soldiers for hire at his disposal. “We have to make it quick and it has to count. Once he figures out it was us...” They’d be on the run for good. Vita had tracked him down to Earth like it was nothing; there wouldn
’t be a safe place for them once they were done.
She sucked in a shaky breath before standing. “He keeps physical backups of everything on a planet called Jaaxis. Ygreen already fucked with his system and Roski was in the middle of restoring everything when I captured you. If we destroy those files and can get Ygreen to do whatever he already did once, then that will leave Roski with nothing. He’ll be hobbled for months, maybe years. And by the time he’s in a position to recover, everything will have changed. His suppliers will have found new customers, new bastards will have moved in to take over his routes. We can’t stop the trade, but we can stop him.”
She sounded sure, and Brax wished he could feel the same. But it sounded too good to be true. Even so, it was their only real chance. Destroying records would be worlds easier than fighting an army, and even if they were only partially successful it would still hurt. “Do you think Ygreen will go for it?” He didn’t think the man would tip Roski off, but he wasn’t sure they could trust a gambler.
“He said he owed me a favor.” She reached out and laced their fingers together. “I want to kill Roski for what he’s done, for the lies he’s told, but this might be better. We can take out his entire operation with one tactical hit. We have to try.”
He cradled his denya’s face in his hand and rose up to kiss her. “Then we’ll try.”
Would it work? He had no idea, but he’d rather die at his denya’s side than live without her anywhere else.
IT DIDN’T TAKE MUCH convincing for Ygreen to work up another virus to hit Roski with. And when Vita gave him the broad strokes of the plan, he’d promised to send her another ‘gift’ to give to her former boss. Apparently physically taking out the servers at Roski’s main compound was no guarantee that the data would be destroyed, not unless they could smash every piece of equipment to bits and burn it all to ash. But Ygreen had another virus that could do the work as long as she could physically get at Roski’s main data stores. Information bounced from planet to planet and server to server far too fast for them to stop it all, but Roski had always been too paranoid to let go of his backups and that meant they could destroy him.
