Intergalactic Dating Agency ~ Black Hole Brides ~ The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss

by Elsa Jade

  She tightened her grip on Lishelle’s hand and dragged the bigger woman away from the table, overcome by the urgent need to scuttle away, to hide. She’d always been small; if she could find the right hole, they’d never find her…

  The inquisitive stares of the other diners felt more menacing now, like the judgment of a kidnapper assessing their weaknesses. Back down the hallway toward their rooms. She knew the turns, she’d counted the steps, she wouldn’t be stopped until they were safely—

  “Trixie.” The deep, masculine voice barely penetrated her mental chant.

  It wasn’t until the big shape was actually in her path that she had to stop. Or run him over, which she was totally willing to do.

  “Get out of my way, Captain,” she said, dimly surprised her voice wasn’t a scream of panic.

  Nor frowned at her. “I just heard the news from the duke,” he said. “And I wanted to check on you.”

  “We’re okay.” Lishelle tugged free from Trixie’s strangling grasp and stepped up beside her. “Why wouldn’t we be okay? He’s…he’s a long way from here.” Her voice wavered, and its Southern twang sounded more like a broken banjo string.

  “Very far,” Nor confirmed. “Of course you’re fine.”

  That was what people said when they didn’t want to deal with freaking out. Trixie knew, because she used the technique all the time.

  She brushed past them and sped down the hall, ignoring Lishelle calling her name.

  But she couldn’t ignore the captain’s presence right behind her.

  She had to stop and face him since she couldn’t stand to have him at her back. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, feeling for the wall behind her. Her fingertips brushed the panel’s cool, hard surface (so unlike the captain’s soft, warm lips) and some of her panic eased.

  “I didn’t,” he said, then amended in a lower voice, “this time.”

  Lishelle rushed up to join them. “Trix, why’re you running off?”

  “I need…something from my room.” She couldn’t stop herself from slanting a quick glance up at the captain.

  His pale blue eyes narrowed, then he grunted, not quite a laugh. “The blaster.”

  Lishelle set back on her heels. “You have a blaster? How’d you get one of those?”

  “That’s what I wondered,” Nor muttered.

  “And where can I get one?” she finished.

  With another mutter, he held out one hand to stop the questions. “Neither of you should have blasters.”

  Trixie glared at him. His honey-brown hair was neatly bound in a club at his nape—and his pants were fastened—but she still saw the rogue in him. Maybe it was that crescent scar beside his too-sharp blue eyes. So why was he judging her concealed carry? “The duke gave it to me,” she said through gritted teeth. “I showed him I can shoot.”

  “Yes,” Nor drawled. “You showed me too, as I recall.”

  “But I wasn’t sure how long it takes to recharge, and…he’s not here to ask.”

  “A stun charge doesn’t take as much energy as a kill shot.” He watched her, his blue eyes piercing. “Keep it quick and you should only need a few minutes for an ambient recharge. Assuming the duke gave you one of the better models.”

  She wavered, actually wavered, her knees weakening. But she needed to know, just like she needed to count steps. “Will you…will you look at it?”

  He nodded, his expression serious. “Let’s see what you have.”

  She hurried to her room so he’d only be behind her for a minute. Plus, Lishelle was back there and would keep him in line.

  Palming open her door, she rushed through the sitting area toward her bedroom, calling back to them, “Just wait there.”

  She didn’t want them to see the way she’d barricaded the bed.

  Alone in her room, she trembled with the compulsion to dive under the luxuriously beautiful covers. She locked her knees, and at the abrupt movement, the rattling in her marrow seemed to jolt loose a deeper feeling—

  Fury.

  The prick of her teeth on the inside of her lips as she’d bit down to stop the scream of rejection was like a mouthful of tacks. She would spit those pins and blood at Blackworm until he screamed back.

  When she returned with the blaster, Nor and Lishelle were side by side, looking at the dat-pad.

  She studied their grim faces. “What now?”

  Nor shook his head, scowling. “Blackworm shouldn’t have been able to escape the penitentiary. And even if he did get out, he shouldn’t have been able to evade recapture. He’d have been implanted with a tracker and partially impaired with management drugs.”

  Partially… He’d kept her and the other the Earth women he’d taken comatose in stasis. Trixie wondered which was worse: to be partially drugged or out of it entirely. But she had zero sympathy when he’d brought his punishment on himself while she’d done nothing to deserve his attack.

  Lishelle swore under her breath as she kept reading. “They say he must’ve had help.”

  Nor frowned. “He was a Thorkon nobleman, shunned by the peerage for their own questionable reasons. But he still had connections and credits when he was captured by the captain of the Sinner’s Prayer. All of that should have been stripped from him.”

  “Apparently it wasn’t,” Lishelle said.

  When Trixie held up the blaster cradled in her hand, Nor glanced at her sharply. His pale gaze took in her stance and the way she held the weapon, the same way the duke had studied her. Only then did his eyes drop to the blaster.

  “I’ll say this for the Duke of Azthronos,” he murmured. “He always buys top-of-the-line.”

  “So it’s recharged?” Trixie pressed. “It’s ready to go?”

  He smirked. “If I say yes, will you shoot me again?”

  “Again?” Lishelle asked curiously.

  Trixie shook her head. “Just don’t try to kiss me again.”

  “Again?” Lishelle repeated with more asperity.

  Nor straightened. “With the duke away, it falls on me as the commanding officer of the ducal flagship to oversee security for the estate.” He fixed Trixie with a gimlet stare. “You hold it like you know what you’re doing. But I want to see you in action.”

  What was it about his words that made her blood run hot? She was just mad that he was questioning her when the duke had already given her his titled blessing. “I don’t have to prove myself to you.”

  “I doubt you could,” he drawled. “I’ve been shooting one of those things—and not that nice either—almost before I could walk. But you need to show me that you’re not a menace to yourself and others.”

  “Except for Blackworm,” Lishelle muttered.

  Trixie stiffened at the thought, and Nor inclined his head, but only said, “It won’t come to that. He’s far away, and you are here in the safety of the estate.”

  Trixie blew out a harsh breath to defuse the acid sting of her anger. “Fine,” she said through only partially gritted teeth. “Where shall I shoot you?”

  “Shoot for me,” he corrected. “There’s a firing range a short way from the estate. I’ll take you there—”

  “I know where it is,” she said. “That’s where Raz took me.”

  “Oh, so it’s Raz now,” Nor muttered.

  Trixie flushed in embarrassment. “The duke,” she snapped. “Your boss. He said I could call him Raz.”

  Lishelle watched the byplay between them with one sculpted brow arched high. “Well, isn’t this just interesting,” she murmured. In a louder voice, she added, “I’d come to chaperone—or referee—but I have a meeting with Cook in a half hour. Can you not shoot each other?”

  “I shot at him,” Trixie complained.

  Lishelle waved one hand in airy dismissal as she headed for the door. “Well, assuming you both make it back, maybe you can show me how to use one of these blaster thingies.”

  Nor groaned. “Closed-worlders with blasters. What is this universe coming to?”

  “Ca
n’t help but notice you only use that excuse to get what you want,” Lishelle noted, leaning around the door. She flashed him a smile with a lot of white teeth. “Maybe it’s our turn now.”

  Nor gave her a small bow as she sashayed out. “What a brassy female,” he murmured, his pale eyes half closed. “I like her.”

  Lishelle was almost as tall as the engineering officer he’d been dallying with earlier. Trixie squelched the spurt of jealousy. No use whining about the extra foot of height she herself didn’t have. “You don’t have to take me shooting,” she told him. “You could just trust me.”

  He shrugged one shoulder, briefly wrinkling the fitted lines of his fatigues. “I don’t trust anybody. No offense to you.”

  A shadow moved across the pale blue sky of his eyes, somehow more real than his very obvious smirk. She knew about not trusting. But she squelched the unwanted twist of empathy. “Let’s go then,” she said brusquely. “Because I’m not giving up this blaster, not when Blackworm is out there.”

  “He’s not a threat,” Nor objected. She noticed that he didn’t say they wouldn’t go.

  Later that morning, they took a small hovercar to the shooting range on the edge of the estate. The ride with Raz and Rayna had been a fun outing, even though she’d hyperventilated a little when they left the protective dome of the energy shield over the estate itself. With Nor, the atmosphere in the cockpit vibrated with tension. She hated tension. Tense things ended up breaking.

  Or exploding.

  He had left off the jacket of his military fatigues, revealing a light gray, almost silvery, undershirt. The fine fabric clung to the muscles of his chest and made his pale eyes more wintry than ever. Why were all these alien males who lived with technology and ease so darn ripped? Rayna had giggled something to that effect when they’d had an Earth girls’ pajama party shortly before she departed on her tour of the system. After a few cups of ghost-mead, they’d decided male ego wasn’t just an Earther phenomenon.

  Handling the hovercar with finesse, he landed them on the edge of the range. The last time she’d been here, there’d been a small group of Thorkon nobles at target practice, but this time the range was empty. Shoot, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with the captain.

  Well, she had her blaster at least.

  Or she would in a second… She hustled out of the hovercar while Nor unloaded the weapons cases.

  “I’ll take mine,” she said.

  With a cocked eyebrow his only reply, he handed over the case. She went to the middle stand where a small table with controls waited. She’d watched Raz operate the practice options, so she dialed in a target midway out in the field. She opened the case, checked the blaster, sighted down the lane, and drilled the target.

  She lifted both her eyebrows at Nor; she could be at least as annoying as he was. “Can we go back now?”

  ***

  Nor pursed his lips as he eyed the smoking hole in the middle of the anonymously round target.

  As he’d noted before, the blaster was high-end, with assisted sighting and automated targeting. And she’d apparently taken him at his word about controlling the output charge since she’d fired just long enough to make her point.

  She knew what she was doing.

  But he’d already suspected as much. Raz was a haughty, cossetted nobleman, but he wasn’t an idiot, and he wouldn’t have armed her carelessly. The way she’d held the blaster had already hinted at a familiarity with weapons. Why he’d insisted on a demonstration, he wasn’t sure.

  Except he’d been curious. Not so much about her shooting ability as about her.

  Why? Because she was a closed-worlder? Because she seemed so delicate after all she’d been through—or because she seemed willing to shoot after what she’d been through?

  Thoughtfully, he released his blaster from its case and sighted downrange.

  With a short, controlled burst, he incinerated what remained of her target.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Mine doesn’t do that.”

  “Yours is legal.”

  Nose wrinkling, like a little mishkeet finding her way, she studied him. “Shouldn’t the captain of the duchy’s flagship be less proud of being a pirate?”

  He chuckled. “Former pirate. And probably.” He reset the targeting program.

  When a moving target zipped across the field, he aimed and fired, obliterating the form. Two more targets ran out. He removed those. Six was a little harder, especially because they included a non-combatant target that wove hectically between the others. Like a panicked hostage might.

  Trixie watched without comment as he systematically destroyed them. Except for the innocent one, of course.

  At last she stirred. “You’re trying to show me I shouldn’t be worried about Blackworm escaping and coming here and capturing us again.”

  Actually, for some reason he’d been showing off for her. But he’d grab her excuse since that was true enough. “He has the whole universe to hide in. He’d be insane to come back here.”

  Trixie gazed at him, her green-brown eyes hazy. “Blackworm kidnapped and drugged women on the edge of a black hole for unknown reasons. Yeah, why would we think he’s insane?”

  The sarcasm sharpening her tone didn’t bother him at all compared to the fog of fear in her gaze. “Whatever Blackworm wanted, it was out there with the infinity of the singularity, not here on Azthronos’s worlds.”

  “We’re here,” she whispered. “What’s left of the Black Hole Brides.”

  The bleakness of her words pierced him.

  When the Grandiloquence had been rerouted from its system tour to the rescue at the space station just beyond the duchy’s borders, he’d followed the orders—partly because they were orders, but also because he’d been intrigued by the idea of a disgraced Thorkon noble seemingly mocking Azthronos. On the whole, Thorkons were an uptight, stuffy bunch, not much inclined to being disgraceful.

  Himself excluded, of course. But he was only half Thorkon.

  But his amusement at a misbehaving noble had palled after discovering the five abducted Earther females, plus one who had expired in a malfunctioning stasis pod, plus an unknown number of others, since Blackworm had refused to say how many of the empty pods had at one time been filled.

  And witnessing Trixie’s fright now only made him feel worse.

  “Whatever Blackworm wanted with you, it’s over,” he assured her. “You’re off the space station and you never have to go back. That’s all behind you.”

  But his words didn’t seem to reassure her any more than his shooting had.

  If anything, her mud-puddle eyes seemed even more murky. “I should be looking ahead, sure,” she muttered. “Figure out what I want in this universe.”

  “That’s what I did,” he said. Larf it, he sounded like a smug noble himself, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to reassure her. “Once I knew what I wanted from the universe, I went after it.”

  She grimaced. “I don’t need a dreadnaught. This blaster is fine.” She sidelonged a glance at him. “Unless you want to give me yours.”

  “Not a chance.” He set another pattern in the targeting system. “Take another shot. Moving this time. Practice is good, even if it’s obvious you know how to shoot. Where did you learn?”

  “I grew up in a place called Nebraska.”

  “What is it like?” he asked curiously. “Besides the weapons training.”

  “Nothing like here.” She eyed him. “Besides the jerks.”

  He grinned. “Oh, the mishkeet shoots at me again.”

  “I know how to shoot,” she said softly. “What I need to know is how to kill.”

  He’d had to do worse things in his life than kill, but still, her words erased his amusement. Because she shouldn’t have to do worse things after all she’d been through.

  He handed her his blaster. “You don’t get to keep it,” he warned. “But take a shot.”

  If she wouldn’t believe in his words or his firepower or
the quantumly tiny chance that Blackworm wouldn’t be recaptured, maybe he could at least let her trust herself.

  Chapter 5

  When the charge on their weapons beeped with low-power warnings, they took a break. Nor had to admit, even with the moving targets, she was capable enough. Not as good as he was, of course, but he’d needed the skills to survive.

  “Set the blaster for ambient recharge,” he reminded her. “And come with me.”

  At the back end of the hovercar, he pulled back a cover to reveal the small repast he’d asked Cook to pack.

  Trixie looked at the offerings, her brow furrowed. “You brought a picnic to the firing range?”

  “The weapon needs to recharge and so do you.” He eyed her critically. “You are too small.”

  She eyed him back. “You’re too big.”

  “All over.” He leered at her.

  With a snort, she settled herself on the hovercar’s back stabilizer fin and pulled her slippered feet up, tucking in the hem of her gown. He got only a glimpse of her trim ankles, her skin creamy against the shiny brown of her skirts. She plucked a triangular-cut pastry from the bin. “Why do you do that?”

  He poured two cups of pixberry sparkler and handed her one before lounging back against the other fin. “Do what?”

  “Act like a perv.”

  He consulted his universal translator and found…nothing. “A perv?”

  She looked down into her cup, a blush staining her cheek almost as dark as the berries. “Uh, never mind.”

  “Oh, now I’m intrigued.” He sat back with a smirk.

  “That.” She waved one hand at him, scowling ferociously. “That smile is being pervy. Looming over me when I asked you to move away. All that.”

  He dropped his gaze to the angry curl of her lips. For all her inconsequentially small size, her mouth was…rather perfect, the curve of her lips softly wide enough for a somewhat careless landing. Maybe he’d been a little wayward with ghost-mead when he’d stolen that kiss. “And the kiss last night? Was that pervy?”