by Kate Rudolph
It was one thing for a formerly betrothed couple to spend a few minutes in pleasant conversation in the company of others. Spending the entire morning together? That could make people talk.
At least he could retreat to his room. It wasn’t the sanctuary that it had been during his childhood, not when his brother could walk in at any moment, but it put a door between him and the court and that was the best that he could hope for at the moment.
When he spotted the lump of covers on the bed at first he was confused. He’d put it all to rights before leaving, so why would the blankets be piled up now? When they moved with a groan he approached slowly, his heart beating fast as he caught the tang of blood in the air.
What had Ceetr done?
It never occurred to Xandr that there could be an innocent explanation to all this, not when it came to his family. And as he got closer to the bed he recognized the cadence of the whimpers and agony ripped through him. He wanted Andie in his bed, but not like this.
He crossed the distance in two steps and carefully peeled the covers down to reveal his woman, a bruise on her eye so swollen she surely couldn’t see out of it, another on her jaw which had to make it hard to swallow. She was curled up on one side, protecting her stomach, and bile roiled in his. She’d been beaten, and Ceetr was responsible. He’d bet all the credits to his name that his brother hadn’t struck any of the blows, but he’d ordered them.
Xandr wanted to gather her up into his arms and hold her close, but he didn’t want to make the injuries worse. Andie leaned toward him anyway and he placed his hand on her head, the springy curls soft under his fingers.
“He had a medbot scan me when they finished,” she whispered. “Nothing broken. Even gave me regen gel, but...” She shifted again and raised her hands. They were bound together with rough rope, her hand gripping the sealed cap. If she’d tried to apply the gel while bound she would have wasted more than she could afford to lose.
“He wanted me to see you like this.” Xandr almost didn’t recognize his own voice. It had gone cold, frigid enough to freeze steam, and it was only the need to tend to Andie that kept him from running from the room to end his brother once and for all.
She managed a small nod and bit her lip, trying to hold back a whimper as the moving had to hurt. Xandr carefully removed the gel from her hands and then untied them, mindful of her bruises. She’d been worked over well; whoever had done it clearly a master of the barbaric beating. “I will burn this place to the ground,” he vowed.
Somehow Andie managed to smile. “Just want out of here.”
“We’ll get out,” he promised. He undid the cap of the gel and started to carefully work it into the bruises on Andie’s face. It wouldn’t do much for the pain, not immediately, but it sped up healing and what would have taken weeks to fade would now be gone in a matter of days. He removed Andie’s shirt with care and bit back a curse when he saw the way the bruises had turned her beautiful brown skin gray and an unhealthy purple. She hissed as the cool gel hit her skin, but that was her only complaint. Xandr took his time, letting his fingers give her as much comfort as he could while holding back the rage he felt.
He would tear the estate down brick by brick and bury his brother under them for doing this. The war was supposed to be between the two of them. Andie should have never been hurt like this.
“Keana,” Andie said before hissing when his fingers ghosted over a very dark bruise.
“She’s okay,” he assured her. “Zeesa’s looking out for her.”
Andie swallowed and blinked. “No. With the crew. She was beaten. Has a plan to get out.”
So Mebion had hurt both the woman he loved and the woman he considered a sister. Who was next? There would be time for questions later. “Let’s get you better, then we’ll talk.”
She seemed like she would object for a moment before her eyes slid shut and she let out a breath, surrendering to sleep and the only relief from her pain that she’d get for a while.
While Andie slept, Xandr paced. The walls were closing in on him and he wanted out, but he wouldn’t leave Andie alone. She should have been safe, or as safe as a prisoner could be. Ceetr wasn’t supposed to know about their relationship, but he’d clearly found out. Had one of the crew betrayed them? He dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it bubbled up. Every one on that ship had been with him for a long time. They were loyal. And he and Andie hadn’t exactly been discreet. There were plenty of other ways Ceetr could have found out, especially if he’d been looking for Xandr for awhile.
When he got tired of pacing, Xandr sat and watched Andie sleep, reassuring himself that she would be fine once the regen gel did its work. He lost track of time, and was shocked when the room got dark from the setting sun. Andie stirred as the evening lights automatically turned on and before he could switch them off to let her sleep she was sitting up. Already the marks on her face were beginning to fade and she barely groaned as she moved.
“Beatings, not awesome,” she told him with a wry grin. “Water?” Xandr offered her a glass and before he could move away she latched onto his wrist. “We’ve got a nice big bed. Sit by me.”
“I don’t want to make things worse.” He’d considered laying by her for a moment before taking his chair earlier, but he didn’t want to risk jostling her.
Andie waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve had worse. Don’t get me wrong, this absolutely sucks and if I get the chance I am tying that asshole to a chair and beating him with a stick in return, but the medicine is already working. Trust me.”
He sat beside her. “He tied you to a chair and beat you?” Xandr had no idea how he managed to keep his tone even, but he didn’t want to make Andie upset, not when she was already hurt.
“His goon beat me. But yes.” She took a long drink of water and glanced at him, assessing.
When she didn’t speak, Xandr prompted. “What?”
Andie let out a long breath and set the glass on the bedside table. “He wants you to confess your crimes to the prince. If you don’t, well,” she waved a hand over her body, indicating that Ceetr would have her beaten again to ensure Xandr’s compliance. “I can’t say I’m a fan of either of those outcomes.”
“No, I can’t say that I am either.” He took deep breaths, clung tightly to his control. Somewhere Mebion was walking in the estate, convinced that he was well on the way to executing his vengeance. All Xandr had to do was find him and they could settle things once and for all. But if Xandr ended it now, the guards would take it out on the crew, on Andie. “I have to be smart about how I do this,” he said.
“Zeesa’s plan?” Andie asked.
“Is there another?” he responded. Ceetr had earned every piece of pain he had coming and Xandr would relish paying back everything he’d done to Andie. Perhaps it made him a bad man, selfish, that he couldn’t make this choice until someone he loved was injured, despite knowing all the terrors that Ceetr had inflicted on strangers. At the moment Xandr didn’t care. His brother had to be stopped.
Andie shifted and winced before laying her hand on his arm and sliding it down to lace their fingers together. “Keana has a way out, too. She was moved to the house right before I was taken away. She said some friends would get us all off planet.”
He’d taken that route before and it had landed him right back where he started. “If we keep running, this never ends. He won’t stop chasing me.”
Her expression grew grim, but she nodded. “You’ll do what you have to do.”
CHAPTER SIX
ANDIE SENT XANDR FOR food at some point and by midnight most of her bruises had subsided to nothing more than a bit of stiffness and discomfort. She didn’t look forward to the next beating, and she was certain Mebion wouldn’t be so kind as to provide regen gel. Not unless Xandr confessed to crimes that would see him executed. And in his attempts to manipulate his brother, the duke had sealed his own fate.
At least she hadn’t been moved back to the house yet. There wasn’t much to do in
Xandr’s room except pace and contemplate their next steps, but she’d take as many moments with Xandr as she could get. This was probably meant to be another part of the duke’s manipulations, but there was no use dwelling now.
Xandr came out of the connected bathroom in a cloud of billowing steam, covered only by a towel, and Andie’s mouth went dry. Now that was something to contemplate.
Her man grinned as her eyes raked up and down, taking in the rippling muscle and the pure beauty of his purple flesh. “You like what you see?”
She grinned back. “I love it,” and then her expression grew serious. “I love you.” What was the use of holding those words back when they could be separated at any moment? No matter their schemes, they weren’t in control of their own lives, instead bound to the whim of a man set on wreaking vengeance for things that had happened a decade ago.
Xandr let the towel drop as he strode across the room, but Andie’s eyes were glued to his face and the intense storm in his lightning blue eyes. He cupped her cheek and kissed her nose, then her forehead, his thumb stroking a soft pattern on her skin that made her shiver. “You are my dearest love, cavria. And there is no one else I would want at my side.”
She leaned into his heat, letting her hands roam over his skin, still hot from the shower. It smelled sweetly of whatever soap he’d used and she breathed deep, as if she could bond them together by will. Their lips met, teasingly at first, soft and playful, as if too much pressure would break the moment, would snap them out of this time and make them face the reality around them.
Xandr loved her. Andie smiled into the kiss, unable to contain the glee bursting out. Loved. Loved! No lover had ever used those words before, had never cared for her as much as her Oscavian outlaw lord. Whatever fear she’d had about saying the words, about the emotion not being reciprocated, dissolved as Xandr’s fingers stroked her skin and his lips marked her as his.
Loved!
Delirious laughter threatened to bubble up, and to stop it from happening Andie deepened the kiss, her tongue tangling with Xandr’s as she pulled them close and felt every bit of his hard body pressed up against hers. He should never be allowed to wear clothes, she thought as one hand glided down his back and ended on his ass. He was a work of art and she didn’t want one centimeter covered by fabric when it was just the two of them.
Xandr broke the kiss, his expression suddenly worried. “You were injured, we shou—”
“Finish that sentence and see what happens,” she warned, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “Really,” she reassured him when the worry didn’t leave his eyes, “I’m fine, I promise.” To prove it she stripped off her top and threw it away. “See, most of it’s fading already.” She could see the second his eyes stopped focusing on the bruises and instead looked at her bare torso and naked breasts. He licked his lips like she was a four course meal and Andie felt the heat of it all the way down to her core.
Xandr kissed her again and moved, guiding her back to the bed where he laid her down gently, mindful of everything that had been done to her. At another time Andie might have objected. She really was fine and the more he kissed her, the more he touched her, the less she could feel the memory of everything that had been done to her. As her blood heated, any lingering pain faded.
But Xandr moved slowly, and that was a torture in and of itself, but one she didn’t resist, not when he hovered over her and trailed kisses down her neck, taking his time and licking and nipping at the sensitive flesh, leaving his own mark to blot out anything that had been left there before. Her fingers tangled in his hair, but she didn’t try and hold him there. He clearly had a plan and she wanted to see where it went.
Lower. It went inexorably lower.
He kissed over her collarbones and she’d never before considered that an erogenous zone, but anywhere Xandr touched went up in flames, and when his tongue lapped at one of her nipples she couldn’t stop from crying out and arching into his touch. He took that as encouragement, swirling his tongue around and increasing the pressure, and when he pulled back, Andie almost yanked on his head to keep him in place. But when he gave the other side equal attention she let herself fall into the sensation as Xandr kissed his love onto her body.
His fingers brushed between her legs and she let her thighs fall open to give him better access. At some point her pants had disappeared and she wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. She couldn’t think beyond the sensation as he gave her pleasure on two fronts, his tongue on her breast and his fingers between her legs. But she needed more, needed to be filled and shown just how much he loved her. They’d done this dozens, hundreds of times, but never after saying they loved one another.
“I need you,” she begged, somehow still managing complete sentences. “I love you.”
She felt his lips grin against her flesh and he looked up, pulling back just enough to talk. “I love you.” Then he went back to work, fingers plunging into her and thumb brushing tantalizingly over her clit. Not enough, never enough, not until they were joined.
“Inside me,” she said. She bucked her hips, chasing his fingers as he pulled them out. “Fuck me.”
“You want my cock?” She couldn’t quite see where his hand had disappeared to, but from the way he hissed out a breath she could tell he was stroking himself.
“Want to see,” she replied. The longer they were together, the easier it was to speak when they were making love. There was no request she could make that would make Xandr push her away. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, even if they’d been born thousands of light years apart, her a nobody on Earth and him a lord of the Oscavian Empire.
Her lord shifted so she could see his fingers gripping his cock, not quite managing to wrap all the way around. His size had been intimidating at first, but now she couldn’t get enough of it, and as she watched him stroke herself she was torn between wanting his thick length between her legs and wanting to taste him, wanting to watch him come apart under her tongue.
“Keep looking at me like that, cavria, and this won’t last long for either of us.” He gave his cock another lazy stroke before letting go.
Andie watched the organ stand proudly, covered in veins and valleys unlike any human cock she’d ever seen. It was purple, like the rest of him, but darker as it filled, ready to bring them both to the heights of pleasure. She pulled up one leg and let her other knee fall to the side in debauched invitation.
Xandr’s nostrils flared and his eyes seemed to crackle with that lightning that made them so blue. He kissed her raised knee and traced a path up her thigh until he made it to the heat of her sex, where his tongue showed her exactly what it could do, circling and teasing, tracing a path through her most secret parts and making her squirm and shiver, pant and moan. His fingers joined in on the action, plunging back into her, making her ready for him and promising to wring out every bit of pleasure her body could endure. Andie made promises, begged, pleaded, and demanded that he give her more, even when she was sure she’d had enough, too much. But Xandr knew her limits, knew exactly what she loved to take, and he gave her what she needed.
She came apart, her vision going white for a moment as she cried out, calling his name, declaring her love, and mumbling things she’d claim to forget if he ever mentioned them.
When he hitched her legs up she made encouraging sounds, far beyond the ability to form more than the most basic words. And when he eased his cock inside her their eyes met and locked. A spark of heat leaped between them, and on its tail came the fire of love, something binding them together more firmly than they’d ever been bound before. They’d found each other, chosen each other, and they would fight for their future, fight to get off this planet and see all that the stars had to offer.
Together.
They came together, Andie crying out at the same moment as Xandr as they clutched each other tight and made promises with their bodies that their hearts would fulfill. It was a heady thing, adding love to their already combustible relationsh
ip, but Andie wouldn’t trade it for another, not if it meant giving up one bit of Xandr.
She’d found him and she was keeping him. For good.
EVERY MINUTE THAT XANDR was away from Andie was a small torture, but she’d convinced him that he couldn’t guard her all day. If Ceetr was going to make his move, he’d do it whether Xandr was there or not. The fact was no comfort, but Andie had been insistent. If they were going to get away from the planet, they had to work towards their goal, and staying in bed all day would accomplish nothing.
Well, nothing that would get them to safety and freedom. No day spent in a bed with Andie could be truly wasted.
He had to keep his expression neutral even as he could feel the grin threatening to split his face in half. She loved him. Despite his faults, despite his lies, despite the things his brother had done to her, she loved him. She chose him. She wanted to stay with him. He could hardly believe that it was true, but as their lovemaking had subsided into sleepy whispers she’d said it again and again, as if she couldn’t believe that she could say it out loud.
They were quite the pair, both jumping at the shadows of their emotions and yet unable to hide them from one another for long.
He had to chase those thoughts from his mind. Ceetr knew he cared for Andie and wanted to use that against him. Xandr didn’t know the lengths he would go to in keeping her safe. But he didn’t trust his brother to uphold his word, not given their past, and any promises he made about Andie and the crew would be thrown away as soon as he had Xandr where he wanted him. Xandr didn’t need to be a genius to know that, he just needed to know Ceetr.