"I’ll let you go back to your people. Just your ship. The rest of your armada stays here. Return when you’ve made a decision. Fleet will be here by then, so don’t come in shooting unless you want to die early."
The GenTec slowly inclined its massive, ungainly head, before the viewer went dark.
Ryelle turned to Daniel with a smile. "Thank you. I think you may have saved us all."
Daniel’s brow furrowed, his thin body tensing. "You expect there to be peace between our people? After all that’s happened? That’s stupid! That’s—that’s—"
Ryelle moved swiftly toward him, pausing a moment before she knelt at his feet. The boy blinked, hands loosening as he stared at her. Declan eased closer, not because he was afraid for her exactly, but because he desperately wanted to see her face, wanted to be near her.
"Daniel, there is no such thing as peace, but what we make for ourselves. The universe is chaos and change. It will always be that way. Once we accept that and move with it, we can find what we need to be happy, to love and be loved, to create peace within ourselves. I don’t expect either side of this war to cease hostilities just like that. It’s going to be a rough road for all of us. But I’m hoping that if we can learn to understand each other, than tolerance won’t be too far behind. Maybe even coexistence…someday. A few generations from now," she added with a wry smile.
Declan wanted to kiss her very, very badly.
Daniel, on the other hand, gave her a quizzical look then yawned so hugely that his jaw popped. "You’re very strange," the boy mumbled.
"Thank you. I don’t like to conform. Would you be more comfortable if we put two beds together?"
Daniel nodded and trudged back toward the sleeping area.
Ryelle watched him with a fond smile for a moment, before she rose to her feet and glanced at Declan. "Well, that could have gone worse," she commented in a low voice.
A sound drew Declan’s attention and he looked over to see an empty bed floating to the one Rose and Jake occupied. When it settled next to them, Daniel climbed on and collapsed with the loose-limbed abandonment of youth. Declan was sure he’d fallen instantly asleep, but just as he was about to turn away, he saw the kid reach out with slow stealth to rest his fingertips against Rose’s back. The sight sent a horrible squeezing sensation through his chest.
Ryelle’s sigh pulled his gaze back to her. She was watching the children and the beauty of her sad, tender smile shook him to his core. He could do nothing else but pull her into his arms. The silky, tormenting brush of her power made him wince and grit his teeth, but he couldn’t let go this time.
"What are you working on?" he husked, closing his eyes against the tempting feel of her soft body snuggling into his.
She slipped her arms around his waist, rubbing her cheek against his chest with a low murmur of pleasure. "I’m helping the GenTec Prime get his ship underway and keeping an eye on the rest of them to make sure they stay put. Plus I’m keeping a finger on those explosives, in case security has an accident."
"Busy."
"It’s been one of those days. Do you feel too much of it?" she asked, hands splaying across his back and tightening her hold on him.
He made a rumbling noise in his throat, rubbing his chin across the silk of her hair. "Not enough, actually. I need you to touch me until I can’t stand up anymore. Feel like retiring early, Telenetic Soliere?"
She tipped her head back, meeting his gaze with half-lidded, smoking eyes. "Mmm, you don’t know how tempting that is." Then she sighed and shifted away. "But I can’t."
"Why not?" he asked a little sharper than he’d intended. Her withdrawal sent little pointed spears of anxiety through him. Was she breaking it off already? That didn’t seem to fit with how she responded to him, but that didn’t stop the painful prick of doubt.
"I need to stay with the children. And while I’d love to have sex with you pretty much anywhere, I will draw the line at doing it in front of kids."
But they’re sleeping, his stupid libido groaned, but he ignored it in favor of a more rational response. "Why stay?"
She lifted an eyebrow at him. "You were the one who said, ‘Watch them, Ryelle!’"
"You and I both know you can do that from anywhere. You’re watching the GenTec right now."
"My beautiful Declan," she said with a sultry smile, hands coming around to slide up his chest and burrow into his hair. "Just how do you expect me to watch anything while writhing and screaming in ecstasy?"
"Huh. So you do have limits." Catching her hips, he eased her into tight contact with him and bent his head to nip her bottom lip.
Her fingers tensed in his hair. "Apparently. When you touch me, I can’t concentrate on anything but you."
"I’m touching you now," he growled against her mouth.
"And I’m fast losing concentration." She pulled back with a little moan of protest and a heavy sigh, twisting out of his hold. "Duty first, Master Chief. Maybe when I get them back to the Institute, a whole bunch of someones can spell me and—" She froze then met his eyes with a tormented look that ate at his insides.
"You’re leaving," he said in a flat voice.
She fisted her hands in his shirt, eyes turning fierce and pained. "I’m not leaving you. But I can’t leave them alone right now. I have to be the one to take them, to get them to the Institute. Once they’re there, maybe they’ll adjust so well they won’t need me all the time. Then I’ll be back." She dropped her forehead to his chest with a groan, her slender form tense under his hands. "This is going to kill me."
He said nothing. There was nothing in his mind but bewildered pain.
"Declan," she said without lifting her head from his chest, "I’m not leaving. I love you."
He shook his head against the agony blooming inside him. Then he cupped the back of her neck, slipping a thumb under her jaw to tilt her face up. Lowering his head, he molded his lips to hers, slow and sweet, then slow and seductive, tangling his tongue with hers for a long, steamy moment. Raising his head, he breathed, "Goodnight, sweetheart," against her lips and let her go.
"G-goodnight," she responded faintly, her fingers slowly unclenching and falling away from him. Her eyes were luminous and endless and he wanted very much to fall in and never surface.
Instead, he brushed his knuckles against her cheek in a swift caress and turned on his heel, heading for the door before he lost the strength to walk through it. He was striding down the corridor, frantically searching for something to alleviate the impossible ache in his chest, when her voice sounded in his ear.
"All right, what the hell was that?"
It took him a second to answer. He’d forgotten about the communicator. "What the hell was what?" he responded with what he thought was admirable calm.
"That wasn’t a goodnight kiss. That was a goodbye kiss. Hot enough to melt my brain for a bit, but I’m all recovered now. I can tell the difference, Declan McCrae, and you’d better have a damned good explanation for it."
She sounded supremely pissed off and for some reason that helped ease the ache in his chest. He almost wanted to smile.
"Sure that was a goodnight kiss. You can tell, because I said goodnight right after."
"Bullshit!" she hissed in his ear. "You’re running away again, you coward! Things get a little complicated and you bolt."
He stopped dead in his tracks, the urge to smile crushed under a wave of anger. "I’m not running anywhere. I’m just not staying with you because I want you so bad my balls hurt and I can’t keep my hands to myself," he snarled. "If complications scared me, I would never have gone near you in the first place!"
The silence lasted so long he started regretting his words. Then she said, "Good point," in a grudging tone. "Sorry. The old memories still hurt. And I still don’t know quite where I stand with you."
The words came rolling up his throat, but he swallowed them back down in a hurry. Now was not the time or place. Besides, she was returning to the Institute soon. Old memories di
d still hurt and the habit of protecting his heart was hard to kick. He rubbed the back of his neck with a heavy sigh. He wanted to hold her in his arms, reassure them both, but knew that wasn’t going to happen. There was an alternative, though. He felt a surge of fondness for technology. "How ‘bout you come to bed with me?"
"Torment of the sweetest kind," she responded in a softer voice. "I’d love to. And I think I can help you out with your problem."
He frowned. "What problem?" Out of nowhere, her talent licked him, a slick, hot flame that set him ablaze and made his whole body jerk.
"Find your bed, darling, because I’m going to touch you until you can’t stand up."
"Wait," he groaned, trying to catch his breath. "Just…let me settle things. With the station. Then I’ll find…someplace to…"
She laughed low in her throat, a sound that stroked across his senses and called up images of her writhing under him. "Make sure it’s soundproof," she teased with a sexy little purr in her voice.
Declan gritted his teeth and lunged for the nearest com unit, contacting main ops. It was still early to change shifts, but after the day they’d had, he figured his crew needed the break. He told Pete to call in the night skeleton crew and relayed that their only job was to keep an eye out for unwelcome guests. The wormhole wasn’t operational, the GenTec were still under Ryelle’s control, the Fleet wasn’t due in yet, and they’d captured Ventura, so it should be a quiet night. Declan didn’t want to be caught unprepared, though.
Pete told him that everyone had returned to their residences or stayed in the safe areas, since Declan hadn’t cleared the public areas. Declan left it at that, to be on the safe side. The people who’d been injured in the bombings were stable and recovering, except for the single casualty, an elderly gentleman who’d been part of the maintenance crew. Security was doing a more formal interview and interrogation on Ventura in isolation. Everything else was fairly calm.
"Let’s keep it that way, Pete," Declan commanded.
"Sure thing, boss," his employee responded with a roll of his eyes. "I’ll just twitch my magic wand and make it all go away. Want I should find you someplace to drop? You look like hell."
"Take a look in the mirror ‘fore you talk, sarkhead. I’ll find somewhere. Don’t think that blast took out all the guest quarters."
"Where’s Mem Soliere?"
Declan narrowed his eyes on Pete but manfully refrained from snarling at him to mind his own business. "She’s keeping an eye on the telenetics."
Something in his tone or expression must have been less than cordial, because Pete’s eyes widened and slid away from Declan’s while he grinned uneasily. "Good. Guess we should, ah…try to rest, then."
"Don’t suppose many of us will sleep tonight, but give it a try anyway, Pete."
"Do my best, MC. Night."
Declan ended the connection and headed down the corridor, plotting a route that would take him around the blast site that had destroyed Ryelle’s quarters and damaged his. They were going to have a hell of a lot of cleanup and repair to do. His station couldn’t have gotten much more banged up if they’d been through a war zone. Stepping into the corridor that ended in a huge, ragged pit, Declan conceded that they had. Moving cautiously to the side of the hole and staring at the twisted metal and debris that used to be Ryelle’s quarters, he felt his hands fist at his sides while a shudder wracked his frame.
"Bastard came so close," he hissed through his teeth, his insides knotting at the narrowness of Ryelle’s escape. If she had died…he shuddered again, taking rapid, shallow breaths.
"But he failed," Ryelle whispered in his ear. "Can you see your rooms? Did you lose very much, Declan?"
He glanced over to see the gaping tear in the entrance to his quarters, took note of his destroyed kitchen and living room absently. He wasn’t going to be able to reach his possessions without going over the wreckage, but it didn’t seem to matter. "I didn’t lose you. The rest is just stuff."
"Oh, Declan," she sighed. "Maybe you should just try to sleep. We’ve had a rotten day."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Now who’s the coward? Unless you’re too tired to—" The lick came again, harder and sweetly punishing. He sucked in air, aching and weak-kneed in its wake.
"Still standing?" she asked with a wicked chuckle.
"Give me two minutes," he rasped and stumbled toward one of the remaining guest quarters.
Chapter 22
The next couple of days were difficult for Ryelle. She got very little sleep while trying to remain telenetically vigilant and chaffed at the restraints in her physical relationship with Declan, though they managed stolen moments here and there. The GenTec drifting outside the station had a pins-and-needles effect on everyone’s nerves, and the forced inactivity increased the tense atmosphere. Declan tried to keep the residents busy with cleaning and repairing the damage to the station, but not everyone could participate.
On the plus side, the children were learning to trust her more and more, relaxing by slow degrees and coming closer to accepting her as a friend and teacher instead of their enemy. And Ryelle was getting along much better with Declan’s mother. Regina seemed fascinated with the children, spending a lot of time in their makeshift quarters, time which helped the women become more comfortable with one another.
The two of them were trying to teach the children a card game and arguing amiably about the rules when Declan caught Ryelle’s attention with his sexy voice in her ear. "Honey, the cavalry has arrived."
"Fleet’s here?" she asked, carefully laying down her cards and meeting Regina’s piercing gaze.
"Yup. With an old friend aboard."
"Oh, don’t tell me—"
"The admiral threatened dire things if you didn’t meet him at docking," he drawled with undisguised amusement.
"Only because he knows I was going to anyway. Now he can boast I came scampering because he threatened to paddle my a—behind," she amended quickly with a glance at the attentive children.
There was a short silence. Then Declan said with much less humor, "That wasn’t one of the threats. He’d better keep his hands off your behind."
She snorted, rising to her feet. "At ease, soldier. How long ‘til they dock?"
"The big beast is still slowing down, but I see two transports coming in hot. They’ll be parked at the third platform in five."
"Meet you there?"
"Wouldn’t miss it," he growled darkly.
She snickered and looked at Declan’s mother. "Regina, could you stay with the children, keep them company?"
"Sure. Then I can show them how this game’s really played." The woman sent a sly wink and smirk at the children, receiving a furtive grin from Jake in return.
"Won’t that be educational," Ryelle said dryly. "Behave yourselves. I’ll be back in a little while." But as she started toward the door, Daniel’s voice called her back.
"Ryelle? Will the Fleet…attack?"
"They have no reason to, Daniel. I have the GenTec ships under control." She saw by the wrinkle in his smooth, dark forehead that her answer hadn’t helped. "Even if they did, I would stop them."
His expression eased into something close to a smile and he nodded before turning his attention to Regina and her cards. Ryelle turned away with a grin, pleased by his trust.
True to his word, Declan met her at the top of the short flight of stairs to docking, right where she’d first laid eyes on him. His smile lit her up from the inside until she felt like she must be glowing.
"Finally, I have you to myself," he leered, tugging her into his arms and burying his face in her throat.
She laughed, shivering at the feel of his teeth sinking gently into her flesh, followed by the hot flick of his tongue. "I wish, but any second now—"
"Girl, you’ve got some explaining to do," a stern voice interrupted.
She saw Samuel Task at the bottom of the stairs and grinned, wiggling out of Declan’s hold. "Sam! Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’
d be coming?" She bounded down the stairs and into his arms, squeezing him in a tight hug.
He returned the pressure with gentle strength. "I like surprising you. You do it to me so often, seems only fair. And who do we have here?" His voice slowed and deepened on the last sentence, curiosity barely concealing menace.
Ryelle leaned back and glared at him. "Oh, stop it. You remember Declan."
"I remember the boy lit out from Mirabella like his ass was on fire and broke your heart." The menace was no longer concealed, Sam’s lean face growing red with fury. His hair had receded to the point of merely ringing his bald pate in a short, sandy fringe, but the shine on his bald head didn’t detract from the force of the man.
Ryelle glanced up the stairs to see Declan staring back coolly, though the hand he had clasped around the stair rail had white knuckles.
"Memory’s a funny thing," Declan said in a voice as hard as the admiral’s. "I remember it the other way around."
"There were extenuating circumstances," Ryelle said hastily, not liking the increasing male aggression she could feel in the air. When Sam snorted and curled his lip in contempt, she punched him lightly on the chest to get his attention. "Eban Hoti interfered. He sent Declan a false message and kept us from contacting each other."
Sam blinked down at her in surprise. "Hoti?"
"Uh-huh. He and I are going to have a talk when I get back." The flare of bitter fury she felt over those lost fifteen years colored her voice and seeped into her expression. She didn’t try to hide it from Sam.
He frowned. "When you’re finished with him, give him to me."
"If there’s anything left, I’d be delighted. So if you two are done snarling at each other, can we go somewhere and talk?"
Sam transferred his frown to Declan. "Are we done?" he barked.
Ryelle saw Declan suppress a grin. "Yes, sir."
"Right, then. Let’s talk about what the hell kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time, girl."
Ryelle sighed and rolled her eyes, giving Declan a long-suffering look as she climbed the stairs toward him. "The man acts as though I get into trouble every other day. It’s just simply not true."
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