by Elsa Jade
“We got everything on the map,” she said. “But it wasn’t very much.”
He nodded. “Hopefully the other teams are finding more.”
“Maybe it’s good that there isn’t evidence of many more victims,” she mused. “I hate the thought of what he did to them.”
As much as he hated the thought of his little Earther torn apart by the power of the singularity. If anything else was torn apart, it would be Blackworm, Nor brooded, by his bare, unvarnished hands.
The dat-pad chirped an incoming message. But when he accepted the call, only hissing static came through. “The radiation must be interfering.” He queried again on a narrower band and received a text-only reply. “Lieutenant Linn, the shuttle pilot, says we’re getting some interference,” he told Trixie. “The neural gel is processing another batch of potential collection points. We just need to wait until the radiation clears enough to synchronize.” He tapped at the pad. “Sending a message to the other teams to wait for the second round of instructions. Since it shouldn’t be long, there’s no point in going back to Azthronos yet.”
She hunched her shoulders. “So we’re being irradiated right now?”
“The station shielding will protect us.”
“But we can’t even get messages to the other teams.”
“It’ll clear up soon,” he said, trying to soothe her obvious unease. “The solar storms never last long.”
Tucking the specimen bags into the satchel he brought along, he took her hand and tugged her over to one of the low steelcrete planters holding the jungle overgrowth. “While we wait, tell me about the nail arts.”
She settled gingerly next to him with a sidelong glance, as if she didn’t trust his interest. “I got the training because I knew I could do it anywhere. And I like the work. It’s soothing and pretty.”
“Just like you,” he murmured. When she wrinkled her nose at him disbelievingly, he shook his head. “Knowing you can do it anywhere was very practical,” he said, then grinned. “But I doubt you thought it would be this far out.”
She huffed out a laugh. “No kidding. But maybe if we end up making this place a resort, it could use a hair and nail salon.” Her green-brown eyes went a little hazy, not with shock this time but with thoughtful dreams of the future. He wished he could see what visions were unspooling in her mind right now.
And who else might be part of them.
He cleared his throat. “Talk to Raz,” he said, slightly more curtly than he intended. “I know he’ll do whatever he can for you.”
She nodded. “Maybe you could go with me, explain the resort idea. It sounded less crazy when you said it.”
Considering she’d snickered, that wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. But he mumbled some sort of agreement while he tried to imagine describing hedonism and freedom to his uptight, stalwart half-brother.
Restlessly, Trixie pushed to her feet and paced a few steps away from him. With a sharp gust of breath, she pivoted on her heel and lifted her face to the black hole looming above them. The luminous glow reflected in her eyes, giving his innocent mishkeet a mysterious sheen.
“You don’t get to steal my dreams,” she told it. “Everything else, maybe, but not that.”
The savage edge to her voice sharpened the pulse of his blood. She really was magnificent.
“Come here,” he called to her in a husky voice.
She wheeled toward him. “Did you get a call…?” When she met his half-lidded gaze, her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see what’s going on. It’s a booty call.”
He didn’t know what that was, probably something like perving and manspreading, which he apparently did instinctively and which she didn’t approve of. He was almost getting the impression she didn’t approve of him. Except for one thing, maybe… “Since we’re waiting for our next task, you might as well show that big black eye that you’re not afraid of it.”
She tucked her chin. “How? By kissing you?”
“We could start there,” he purred.
This time he got an eye roll from her. “You are such a manwhore.”
That term his translator could figure out. “I was. That was how I bought my way off the first ship where I was indentured to scrape the larfs off ships’ hulls. Larfs are the worst. If they aren’t scraped off, they’ll bore right through a bulkhead, so you can imagine how fast they’ll chew through an exosuit.”
With a wince, she stepped toward him, reaching out one hand. “Oh, Nor. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He laced his fingers through hers and reeled her closer. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I survived. As you survived.” He pointed at the singularity above them. “The sucking void didn’t get us. I say we kiss where it can stare at us and seethe.”
She leaned toward him, balancing her weight against his knees. Her gaze was serious. “Girls died in there, Nor.”
He nodded. “The black hole isn’t just death. It’s a reminder that we are trapped and alone and hopeless, with no force in the universe to save us. And yet…”
“Yet some of us were saved,” she whispered. “I was.”
“We fight.” He tightened his grip on hers. “We rage against the light sliding away. We hold onto every moment of life.”
“Strange how you know poetry when you want to get into my pants,” she murmured.
“Technically, those are my pants.” He parted his knees and let her fall toward him.
She did, gracefully, as if the only gravity left was between them, her hands bracing on his shoulders, her lips centered on his.
He wanted to tell her he’d kiss her until the singularity gave up its ghosts, but in his heart, he knew he’d want her longer than that.
Chapter 11
She was weak and scared, not because of the black hole’s proximity or being back on the station, but because she couldn’t believe how easily she gave in to a bad boy alien pirate captain and his wicked smile and his irresistible kisses.
Though she tried to steel herself, Trixie couldn’t hold back a soft moan of despair and desire as his big hands encircled her, snugging against her backside and drawing her closer, if that were even possible when she was already leaning into him as if only he could keep her from falling. All her nerves had been humming from the moment Nor told her about the mission to the station, and now the pressure of his fingers seemed to twang on every overstretched anxiety like brittle rubberbands breaking, launching her into a heady universe of sensation.
She clung to his broad shoulders to keep from floating away on a wild tide of wanting. How could he make her forget the terrible things that had happened to her here? And how thrilled was she that he could.
With abandon she kissed him, as if she had to make every kiss count, make every breath last an eternity, when the abyss was so damned close. For the ones who hadn’t made it, she would live and laugh and…
Yeah, she would even love.
Nor’s hands had drifted up inside her ill-fitting uniform and the coat he’d draped around her, so she used the leverage to wriggle out of those and stand before him only in a long, sheer tank top that passed for Thorkon underwear.
His pale blue eyes widened as she clambered up onto the planter to straddle him.
“You want to hold onto every moment?” she murmured. “Then start with me.”
She flattened her palm in the middle of his chest and nudged him over backward into the greenery. He took her with him, rolling her onto his castoff coat. The sweet fragrance of the exotic flowers hanging overhead and the tart scent of broken fronds wreathed them. In her mind, she’d understood that Earth was just a rock with a thin skin of water and air and life spinning through space, but on the station, she really got it, saw how close they were to nothingness. But still these flowers bloomed against the dark and her blood flowed so hot with Nor’s mouth on hers.
Wrapping her heels behind his butt, she wrenched him close, and his knees dragged through the damp dirt, releasing a whiff of earth after a rain. In this moment, he
wasn’t a spaceship captain and she hadn’t been abducted by aliens—they were just two bodies joining as one.
He jerked up the hem of her tank top and bent down to kiss a blazing comet trail across her skin. She arched into his mouth when he fastened on the peak of her breast, drawing the distended nipple over the threatening edge of his teeth. The hint of sensual danger sent a lightning bolt of pleasure lancing down her spine, and she grabbed at the waistband of his trousers, holding fast. The seal released under her grasp and she noted hazily that she’d done that. So much for always blaming him for his unfastened pants.
His swollen flesh surged into her palm. Oh, that was much better to hold onto anyway, velvet strong and yet it made her melt inside with a quicksilver violence that left her panting in need.
He reared back, stripping off his shirt to reveal the corded musculature along his chest and banishing the last vestige of civilized refinement. The move knocked the tie out of his hair, and the dark gold waves lashed around his shoulders. He pinned her with a wild blue stare, his erection thrusting into her hand. Then he crashed down on her with a growl that might’ve frightened her if the same noise of hungry possession hadn’t been singing in her own blood.
“You taste of kyapa-sho,” he rasped. “Like spice and craving.”
“It’s you.” She swiped her finger along his jaw where a faint dusting of gold from the crushed pepper berries marked him.
He nipped at her fingertip then kissed his way up her bare arm before crossing her body to lick the tight bud of her nipple. Lavishly, he serviced the other until she was writhing. As he roamed higher, the rough scrape of his teeth along the edge of her throat made her strain toward him, wanting to give him more, and when he plunged his tongue into her mouth at the same moment he pierced her core, the rising heat of the spice on his lips and the stroke of his cock on her throbbing clit seemed to ignite her from both ends.
She moaned breathlessly as the soft earth and crushed foliage molded around her with each jolt of his hips into hers. The thick alien jungle curved above the thick alien male ramming her with lusty intent, and for an everlasting heartbeat, she imagined the universe was one with their bliss.
Her climax burst like fireworks: primitive, maybe, and dangerous, but beautiful.
The release flared out through her veins irresistibly as Nor thrust again and again and again until he too spasmed with a hoarse cry.
She linked her hands at the small of his back as he arched into her, suspended for a breathless moment before slumping. His skin, more damp than the lush earth, slicked against hers, and she closed her eyes at the delicious friction between her legs.
She licked her lips, tasting the exotic spice and a dreadnaught captain even more delightful.
His mouth brushed over hers. “Take that, black hole,” he murmured. “We won’t be daunted.”
Cracking one eyelid to peer up at him, she smiled. “And if your worshipful crewmates walked in?”
“They’d get an eyeful too.” He waggled his ass, grinding into her to elicit another delicate spasm. “But actually I think we’re well hidden in this wilderness.”
If only they could stay like this. She sighed. The only thing worse than being abducted would be running away. One she could blame on Blackworm, but the other would be her own fault.
She lifted her hand to smudge away the last of the gold spice on his cheek and touched the scar beside his eye instead. “Why don’t you have this healed? Doctor Boshil told me even my old appendectomy scar could be erased with dermal regeneration.”
In a slow-motion collapse, Nor rolled to one side, pulling her with him onto his rumpled coat. When she nestled half on his chest, he wrapped his arm behind her back to keep her there, but a frown tugged at his mouth.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she started.
“No.” His tone was a little clipped, but she could tell he wasn’t aiming his repressed ire at her. “I’m just not…” He shrugged the shoulder that cushioned her head. “All the wounds that could have killed me, I had healed.”
“All?” she repeated faintly.
His lingering frown twisted into that careless grin she knew. “Captaining a flagship in a civilized, settled star system doesn’t leave many scars, but my life and near-deaths before that weren’t so kind.” He touched his temple, one fingertip tracing the crescent thoughtfully. “This one was nothing.”
She grimaced at his version of nothing. “A bit farther forward and it would’ve been your eye. A little farther back and it would’ve been the fragile part of your skull.”
“That reminder is why I keep it, I suppose.” He lowered his hand. “The blood champions of Thorkon have a saying: That which does not kill me—”
“Makes me stronger,” she interrupted. “We have that saying on Earth.”
“The Thorkon version is—Gives me the chance to try again.”
She blinked. “The chance to be killed again?”
His laugh was a little forced. “I think they meant the chance to fight again. Blood champions are renowned for their arrogance. But as a half-blood, I could never be a champion even if…” His smile flattened completely. “Even if the duke had claimed me as his son. The scar reminds me of that too.”
If she hadn’t been so freaked out about the concept of having her brain wiped, she could’ve gone back to Earth with no memories of what Blackworm had done or her time in space. But maybe Nor was right. Better to be reminded of what had happened—what could happen—and find a way to make the most of it. He’d taken his rejection and the scars, visible and not, and turned them eventually into a dreadnaught.
“You kind of amaze me,” she said.
The deep rise and fall of his chest underneath her froze, then he said glibly, “Of course. I amaze myself sometimes too.”
But she suspected his first response had been more true. The scar might remind him that he had survived, but he still longed to be part of the world that had turned him away.
As they rose, dressed, and pulled themselves together, she held the satchel of dust and debris to her chest for a moment and closed her eyes.
This might be all that remained of women she’d never know, and they’d be only an invisible mark on her soul, not a scar on her face for the universe to see, but from now on, she’d try to live her life in a way that showed how much she valued every breath and heartbeat.
She opened her eyes when a heavy warmth settled around her.
Nor angled the sleeves of the jacket as she shoved her arms through. “Fortunately the fatigue fabric is engineered and treated to shed flower and spice stains.” He smirked. “And body fluids.”
She spun away from him, flaring his jacket like a cape, and gave him an arch glance over her shoulder. “So you’re saying I could shoot you and nobody’d notice the blood?”
He laughed, blue eyes widening appreciatively. “I’d notice.” He grabbed her by the satchel strap slung across her body and tugged her close. “I probably wouldn’t even mind since it was you doing the shooting this time.”
She squelched the surge of happiness inside her. It was one thing to revel in the sexual pleasure of his body, or to take comfort in the slouchy shelter of his bad boy castoffs. But it would be silly of her to think he was offering more than some casual target practice.
And she was okay with that, of course. Because she’d just said she was going to challenge herself to a fuller, bolder life.
And her captain was definitely fuller and bolder.
She peered up at him through her lashes. “I wouldn’t aim for the good parts.” When he snorted, she rolled up on her tiptoes to kiss him.
Then she sidled away before she could want more.
Much more.
Before he could reach for her—if he even would have—his dat-pad blared discordantly, an urgent sound that made her jump.
“That’s not going to be a map update.” Nor frowned as he slapped his hand over the screen. “Lieutenant Linn, report.”
“Captai
n,” came a slightly clipped voice. “Got a short break in the solar storm and received a narrow-band message from Azthronos. The Grandiloquence—” The pilot’s words fuzzed out.
“Say again, Lieutenant,” Nor snapped. “I lost you.”
“The flagship, sir. It’s been stolen.”
Chapter 12
Trixie knew the look on his face, that blankness and intensifying dread. She’d felt it when her mother had announced each new divorce—and worse yet, each new marriage. And it had been worst of all when she’d fought her way out of stasis only to be shoved back in.
This was bad.
“Recall the teams,” he snapped into the pad as he spun on his heel toward the exit. “We’re heading home.”
Her throat tightened. Did he even realize he’d called Azthronos home?
He grabbed her hand and hauled her forward even as he spoke with the pilot. “Repeat everything.”
“It was a very short message, sir,” the lieutenant said helplessly. “The radiation degraded part, but they aren’t sure what happened.”
A burble of sound burst from the pad on Nor’s wrist and then stabilized. “At chronos nine ninety-seven, an unregistered regiment of combatants overwhelmed dock security and ejected the maintenance and resupply staff from the dreadnaught. One dock worker was killed, and eleven were wounded, three severely. The attackers took control of the Grandiloquence and left the dock. Damage was extensive. The dreadnaught engaged its mimic shroud, and its location is presently unknown.”
Nor cursed under his breath. “Lot of unknowns.”
And what was known sounded terrible. Death and destruction.
Trixie swallowed hard. “It was him.” Her whisper was too broken to be heard over the hiss of static from Nor’s dat-pad.
But somehow he heard. He stopped and swung toward her. “What?”
“Blackworm.” She forced the word through numb lips. “He stole your ship.”