Rion

by Susan Kearney

  Drake nodded. “Dragonshaping would help us secure our world.”

  “Still, the battle won’t be easy,” Rion warned. “But if you understand what those Unari bastards do… you’ll fight to your last breath.”

  “You’ll really just give us—”

  Rion lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “Do you want the blood or not?”

  “Yes.” Drake rubbed his brow, as if his temple ached. “And the ship—such as it is—is yours.”

  Rion stood and held out his arm. “Thank you.”

  Drake clasped his forearm. “I’ve heard you’re a man of honor.”

  Rion smiled. “I would like my grandchildren to grow up free from the Unari, knowing true peace between our worlds.”

  “Goddess willing, the dragonblood will allow us to find the Unari moles. Once we rid our world of Unari, we can use Tor as a base to kick the Tribes out of the solar system for good.”

  Marisa hoped he was right, that this alliance would last.

  “I will do what I can,” Rion agreed. “Now, will you take us to that ship?”

  “You actually lucked out. As part of a joint project with a local university, my best engineering team has been making extensive renovations on the ship.”

  “How far have they gotten?” Rion asked.

  “It’s a work in progress.” Drake grinned and gestured to his door. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  The greatest conqueror is he who overcomes the enemy without a blow.

  —SUN TZU

  12

  Marisa and Rion followed Drake through the museum, and Marisa caught sight of Merlin several times, always from the corner of her eye. Drake didn’t seem to notice the bird, possibly because Merlin was adept at staying in the shadows and merging into the backgrounds of the interactive displays.

  Rion strode beside her, his pace relaxed, yet he remained vigilant, constantly scanning rooms and people as they passed through a series of exhibits. She recognized some displays, basic astronomy or geology in holographic presentations, but others, like a series of floating cubes that changed colors and shapes, baffled her.

  “So you are in contact with other Enforcers in the city?” she asked Drake. The question had been burning in her mind ever since he’d admitted to knowing they were coming to the museum.

  He glanced sideways at her. “Not all Enforcers are in league with the Unari.”

  “You’ve organized a secret network?” Rion asked.

  “Yes. We’ve been watching and monitoring transporter traffic in an attempt to figure out who the Unari are and who’s working for them. We’re especially interested in anyone who comes through the transporter illegally.”

  Rion raised his eyebrow. “It happens often?”

  “More than you’d think. Most illegal traffic is sophisticated smugglers trying to avoid paying import taxes. But every once in a while, someone comes through that I suspect is a spy or a mole. So I keep tabs on them. But it’s frustrating, because the Unari are very good at hiding among us.”

  Marisa was surprised Drake had acknowledged so much and wondered if his underground network might be even more elaborate than he’d just admitted. And once again, she had to consider why Drake trusted Rion at all.

  The next display they passed demonstrated cooking techniques, complete with the delicious scent of food and free samples. From there Drake led them into a domed area the length of three football fields. Hundreds, maybe a thousand flying machines of every shape and size rested on pedestals, hung from the ceiling, or floated on antigravs.

  “These machines look really old.” Marisa craned her neck, looking for something that wasn’t rusted, pitted, or corroded.

  Drake nodded. “They’re ancient. My people used these machines before the portal opened two thousand years ago.”

  Marisa looked at Rion and tried to suppress her shock. “Are you telling me we’re going to travel to Honor in a spaceship that hasn’t worked for—”

  “We can fix, renovate, and modernize the ship.” Drake pointed to a flurry of activity around one of the ships.

  A crane lifted a small capsule, about half the size of a car and shaped like a child’s spinning top. Talk about cramped. She wondered if she and Rion would even fit inside.

  But even worse, men in dark lab coats were pulling wires from the machine and tossing them into a coiled stack. Black oily metal that stank like old cheese had her breathing through her mouth. Worst of all, rusty cracks crisscrossed the spaceship’s hull.

  “That machine’s a death trap,” she whispered to no one in particular, then realized how ungrateful she sounded. “I’m sorry,” she said to Rion and Drake. “I know you think this is the best way—”

  “It’s the only way,” Rion interrupted.

  The capsule didn’t look any stronger than a tin can. She wasn’t a rocket scientist, but she understood basic physics. “But that structure won’t hold pressure or air. Even if you fix the leaks, what’s going to keep us from burning up as we enter the atmosphere?”

  Drake told her, “We’re cannibalizing parts from these other machines.”

  The other machines were just as old. Decrepit. She’d seen better metal in a junkyard.

  She didn’t want to insult these people or upset the new alliance. She reminded herself that Rion hadn’t gone to all the trouble of bringing her here to get her killed. She had to trust him. Still… “We’ll test it before we—”

  “I’m afraid not,” Drake said. “We have only one booster.”

  Marisa shook her head. Every brain cell was calling her a fool to trust her life to the dilapidated capsule. As the men inside worked, light shone outward through penny-sized fissures in the hull. That capsule had no more chance of flying than her Lexus.

  Rion must have followed her stare. “I’m sure Drake’s men can weld the holes.”

  She tried to keep her tone reasonable. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but your people have traveled by transporter for so long that I’m concerned you’ve forgotten the basics of space travel. For us to breathe, the ship needs to hold air. And stand up to huge pressures and heat. We need protection from radiation, shielding from space dust. A braking system when we land. Computer systems to navigate. A decent engine to boost us away from Tor’s gravity.”

  Rion turned and placed his hands on her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. We won’t go until you think it’s safe.”

  “WHILE YOUR MEN work on the ship, could you take us to a medical lab?” Rion asked.

  Drake turned and led them down another corridor. “This way.”

  The medical facility consisted of a tiny room with little more than a few cabinets stocked with basic medical equipment. It would do. Rion entered the room and turned around. “Do you have a physician on staff?”

  “We have a nurse.” Drake sent an Enforcer to fetch the nurse.

  Marisa took a chair near the door.

  Rion sat on the exam table and rolled up his sleeve. “We’ll need to draw my blood.”

  Drake frowned. “And then what?”

  Rion grinned. “That’s all you need.”

  “Out!” Drake dismissed the Enforcers. And he slammed the door shut behind them, leaving only Marisa, Rion, and Drake in the room. He lowered his voice to an angry hiss. “We are not stupid. Don’t you think that over the centuries we’ve taken blood from dragonshapers? A simple blood transfusion will not alter our genetics.”

  “My blood will,” Rion assured him.

  As a male nurse came inside, Rion looked up. “Can you take blood from my arm and place it into a sterile container?”

  “Yes, sir.” The nurse looked at Drake for permission.

  “Do it.” Drake folded his arms and leaned against the door. “What’s so special about your blood?”

  “My father is from Honor and my mother is from Tor. My blood carries the genes you need.”

  Drake’s eyes lit with hope. “How can you be so certain?”

  “I’ve done it before.”
There was no need to reveal that his uncle Phen could dragonshape.

  The nurse wrapped his upper arm in tight tubing. Rion made a fist. The nurse inserted the needle into his vein.

  Rion focused on Marisa. Sweet Goddess. The approval shining on her face humbled him.

  “You are not to speak of what you’ve heard here,” Drake told the nurse.

  “My lips will never speak of the sacred gift. But if this is dragonblood, I’m willing to volunteer for the experiment.” The nurse looked at Rion. “How much blood must I infuse into Toran veins to allow us to dragonshape?”

  “Three drops.”

  “How long until the Torans will be able to make their own dragonblood?” Marisa asked, her tone casual. He understood her concern. If the Torans held him here to keep producing more blood, they could delay his journey for way too long.

  “The gene replicates quickly. If you inject my blood into Drake’s veins today, in thirty more days, he can give dragonblood to your people.”

  Tears of gratitude shone in the nurse’s eyes, and his hands shook as he removed the needle from Rion’s arm and held the precious packet of blood. “I will pray to the Goddess for your safety.”

  Drake appeared mesmerized by the blood. “Go ahead. Inject both of us.”

  While the nurse went about his work, Drake asked Rion, “Is there anything more we can do for you?”

  “You mentioned you had contacts in the city. As you know from the tracer recordings, Phen helped us and was injured. Could you find out his condition for me? And if possible, could the recordings where he is mentioned by name be destroyed?”

  “I will do what I can,” Drake agreed.

  The offer sounded genuine, and Rion’s hopes soared at the thought that there might someday be a brotherhood between their two worlds.

  Love is like water. We can fall in it. We can drown in it. We can’t live without it.

  —UNKNOWN

  13

  Marisa paced in the quarters Drake had assigned, an apartment reserved for visiting museum lecturers that consisted of a living area and sleeping quarters. She’d tried to nap, but between overexhaustion and residual adrenaline, she was too unsettled to sleep.

  Rion had gone off with Drake to check on Phen and bring back food. What was taking him so long to return?

  She was watching the starscape of the city floating in the clouds when the door opened and Rion walked in with containers of piping-hot food. Bless him. The scent of sweetmeats made her salivate.

  Rion seemed quite pleased with himself and answered one of her questions before she could ask. “Sorry it took so long. Drake’s a busy man, and we had to wait until his Enforcer contact in the city got back to us. But Phen was making a good recovery in the medical center before he disappeared.”

  “He escaped?”

  “Looks like it.” Rion grinned and set the food containers on a table in front of the sofa. He tossed her a shirt and slacks. “See what else I brought us.” From his backpack he pulled out a small bottle of red liquid—a bottle that couldn’t have held more than eight ounces.

  “Wine?” She plucked a piece of meat from one of the containers and popped it into her mouth. A burst of flavors curled on her tongue, a crisp sweet-sour with a hint of apricots.

  His eyes sparkled in obvious pleasure. “Not just any wine. This is Alazon, a gift of the Goddess—well, actually a peace offering from Drake.” He twisted a cork from the bottle and placed the neck under her nose. “Breathe.”

  She sniffed. “Nice.” The wine had a very distinctive scent that reminded her of chocolate-covered strawberries that had been soaked in rum.

  “Nice?” He chuckled to take the sting from his objection. “This bottle is over three centuries old. The grapes were grown during the year of the eclipse on Albarin IV, a planet in the Waycom System, and harvested by hand, then transported at exactly the right temperature with no more than half a degree variation, and it has been stored in darkness with not even a hint of light shed on the bottle. Until now.”

  He poured the wine with care, filling her glass about halfway. She didn’t want to spoil his enthusiasm, but, in truth, she was much more interested in the food. Telling her gnawing stomach pangs to wait, she picked up the glass and breathed in the bouquet. This time the scent shot directly to her brain. For lack of a better word, she was already intoxicated. And she had yet to take a sip. The aroma opened her senses. She became much more aware of Rion’s smile, the way one side of his mouth curved just a tad higher than the other, of the sexy stubble of beard on his jaw, of her own pulse’s increased rhythm.

  “Are you trying to take advantage of my empty stomach to get me drunk?” she asked.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You can’t get drunk on Alazon. In fact, it has no intoxication properties at all.”

  She frowned at her glass. “Then what exactly am I feeling?”

  “Your true feelings. With none of the doubts, none of the worries, none of the complications that hold us back. After we eat, when I kiss you and make love to you, you’ll simply feel, sense, hear, and see details that you usually overlook or block.”

  Wow. He’d just given her a lot to process. His intent to make love to her had to go to the top of the list. Wine and the promise of making love sounded good to her. Between the danger stalking them and the danger that awaited ahead, tonight would be for them.

  Rion clinked his glass with hers and then drank. He helped himself to fruit and some cheese.

  Marisa sipped the wine and began to eat the food he’d brought. At first, she didn’t notice anything different. The food tasted really good. But then she was really hungry. She swallowed more wine and noted her fears dropping away. She didn’t forget the Unari invasion of Tor, or the spaceship that would never fly safely without a major overhaul, but she didn’t allow it to sour this moment. She was solidly in the now, more than she’d ever been. She still knew that Drake could break down the door and arrest them, she just didn’t care.

  No, that was wrong. She did care. It was just that her thoughts didn’t focus on her worries. Instead, she appreciated the flavors of food, the strange mix of textures and tastes.

  And she couldn’t take her gaze from Rion. He looked larger-than-life, extraordinarily handsome, extremely comfortable in his own skin, warm and open. Attentive to her every need.

  He handed her a napkin, then fed her a tidbit from his plate. “Taste. It’s an orangeberry, spiced with cinnamon.”

  His fingertips stroked her lips, the sexiest caress. She opened her mouth, and he slipped the orangeberry onto her tongue. When she closed her mouth, the pad of his thumb smoothed her lips, leaving an aching trail.

  She chewed, then swallowed the delicious juice, and without hesitation sucked his finger into her mouth. Used her tongue to lap at his flesh. And all the while she locked gazes with him, a heat swooping deep into her belly.

  Excitement poured straight into her core. Her nipples tightened. Anticipation, adrenaline, and desire surged through her system. She wanted Rion. That this passion was stoked by her growing feelings for him left her breathless. If she could have been anywhere in the universe right now, she would have chosen to be here. With Rion.

  She accepted that while the wine had enhanced her senses, she was clearheaded. It didn’t matter that Rion was from another world. That he’d kidnapped her. That they might die tomorrow. They had now. And she intended to make the most of this moment.

  She’d just finished a gourmet meal. They were alone. As safe as she’d been since she’d arrived.

  “Mm.” She sipped the last of her wine and kissed Rion, aching to press her body against his. He placed his hands on her hips, splayed his fingers over her buttocks, his fingers drawing slow and sensuous strokes that shot a tingle of heat between her thighs.

  His mouth angled over hers, and his tongue on her lips sent a shiver of anticipation through her. His lips were soft and tasted of wine, and she wanted this kiss to last and last and last. But at the same ti
me, she ached to press her bare skin against his. She needed a stronger connection. Fumbling with his clothing, she finally removed his shirt, then his pants, pleased to find that he wore nothing beneath.

  Then he was standing there naked, kissing her while she remained fully dressed. A zing of feminine power flowed through her. Yet even as she appreciated his wide silver-toned shoulders, his broad chest, flat stomach, straining sex, and lean thighs, she appreciated the kind of confidence he possessed to allow her to have her way.

  She wanted him. What could be more natural?

  She kissed his neck, nibbled a path over his collarbone, and breathed in his male scent. At the same time, she tried to memorize the feel of his muscles. His skin was firm, almost hot to the touch, his muscles flexing under her exploration.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he murmured into her ear, his tone low and husky.

  “Oh, yeah.” She tugged gently on one of his chest curls. Then she licked away the pain and enjoyed the goose bumps of pleasure that rose on his skin. She tugged more curls and again licked away the sting, letting him imagine where she’d go next and enjoying that he was allowing her to do whatever she wished, explore for however long she liked.

  Lazily, she nibbled his chest, trailing her lips down to his stomach and over his hip. She bit his skin, just hard enough to sting.

  With a grunt, he threaded his hands into her hair, massaging her scalp. She swirled her tongue into his belly button, a cute little inny, and he sucked in his breath hard.

  She mischievously ignored his gorgeous silver sex. Instead, she trailed her fingers along the insides of his thighs, taking delight as he released a low groan.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  His eyes widened, his nostrils flared, but a smile softened his face. He nodded and did as she asked.