by blood wind
“Aye, Sir!” the Reaper shouted back.
Kahn said nothing for a long time, then he put his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “To knowingly commandeer another warrior's intended simply because you outrank him is a serious breach of military ethics. I am appalled that you were allowed to do it.”
For the first time, Cree felt a shaft of wariness lodge against his spine. Kahn was known for his strict adherence to military protocol and any warrior who did not abide by those strict regulations and mandates, often found himself billeted aboard a mining station in the middle of hell.
“Despite the fact that he is your biological father, I can not understand why Drae Cree saw fit to allow you to take another man's bride-to-be away from him.” A hateful look settled on Kahn's face. “At least, Konnor Rhye had honorable intentions in regard to the Terran female. What were your intentions, Commander?”
Once more Cree's eyes met the Admiral. “I purchased her as a domestic. To see to-”
“You had sexual relations with her,” the Admiral cut in.
Cree's chin came up. “It was not my intention to take her as a concubine when I purchased her. It was only later that-”
“If I had been on duty that day, I can assure you, I would have denied your request and censured you for making it!” It was on the tip of Cree's unruly tongue to say it was a gods-be-damned good thing Kahn had not been OIC that day for there would have been serious trouble had the request been turned down. Serious trouble and one dead Keeper!
The Admiral straightened, reading Cree's mind easily. “And you would have hanged for it, Mister.” Cautioning himself to control his wayward thoughts around this psychic warrior, Cree resumed his scrutiny of the wall above the Admiral's head.
Kahn folded his arms over his chest. “You not only had sexual relations with this female without obtaining permission from my office, you did so without authorization from the Ministry of Public Health. ” He grunted irritably. “Is there no end to your insubordination, Cree?”
The Reaper knew better than to attempt to answer that charge unless he wanted to end up flat on his back on Dr. Dean's torture table again. He clenched his jaw and strove hard to think about anything other than his dislike of Kahn and the very real possibly that if the Admiral attempted to return Bridget to Konnor Rhye, there was going to be a murder.
“Oh, I think not,” Kahn grated, watching Cree flinch. “Computer!”
“Yes, Admiral Kahn?”
“Send my orderly to bring Commander Cree's concubine to my office.”
Cree's gaze flew to the Admiral. “Why?” he asked and could have bitten off his tongue when he saw the glitter of satisfaction flit through Kahn's frigid brown glower.
“Do you dare to question me, Lieutenant?”
Shock puckered Cree's face. He squeezed his eyes shut with helplessness, wincing at the further reduction in rank. If he didn't mind his tongue and his wayward thoughts, he was going to wind up-
“On a garbage scowl in the Epsilon Quadrant,” Kahn finished the thought for him.
Cree opened his eyes, letting out a sigh of defeat. “Why are you doing this to me?” Kahn smiled brutally, and then sat down at his desk. “You have brought all of this upon yourself, Cree,” he stated. He leaned back, threaded his fingers together and put them behind his head to brace his neck. Stretching out in his chair, he observed the unease and the hopelessness settling in on Kamerone Cree. “You have no one to blame for your predicament, but you. I find it interesting that you do not realize that, Kamerone.”
Once more the muscle bunched in Cree's cheek. Khan was six years Cree's senior and had risen quickly through the ranks with a brutal agenda of his own. Those who had dared to oppose Tylan Kahn, did so either from a lack of understanding of the man's lethal nature, or else they had nothing to lose by pitting themselves against him. It was said that when Tylan Kahn found something
‘interesting’ while disciplining one of his men, that man suffered the ignominy of a crushing defeat.
So what was there to lose?
“Dr. Dunne and I have formed a relationship, Admiral,” Cree heard himself explain. He stared right into the other man's face.
“One such as I have heard you enjoy with a certain Chrystallusian noblewoman.” The Admiral's smile faded. “Do you dare compare your situation with mine, Cree?” Cree shook his head. “Not at all, Sir. I am merely making an observation.” Before the Admiral could reprimand Cree for his blatant lack of respect, the Vid-Com interrupted, announcing Bridget's arrival.
“Send her in!”
Cree heard the door shush open behind him and the soft swish of footsteps on the Admiral's thick carpeting. He did not dare look at Bridget as she came to stand beside him although he was more than aware of her body heat and the pleasant scent of her perfume. The hands clasped behind his back tensed, wanting to grab her and run before their lives could be torn apart by Tylan Kahn.
“Dr. Dunne,” Kahn said, rising. He extended his hand to her in the time-honored Terran fashion. “Please, sit.” He indicated a chair to the right of his desk.
Bridget glanced at Cree before graciously declining the offer. “Have I caused a problem for Captain Cree, Sir?” she asked and wondered why Cree flinched at her question.
“Let me assure you, dear lady,” the Admiral smiled. “Any problems he has, Cree has created all on his own.” He came around the desk and held the chair. “Now, please. I insist you sit.”
Bridget knew she had no choice and took a seat. She cast another concerned look to Cree, but he was staring at the wall, his body as rigid as stone. There was a white line along his jaw and she knew he was grinding his teeth. Something had happened and she heard alarm bells going off in her head. Be careful of this man, she reminded herself; Kahn is dangerous.
“There is no reason to be afraid of me, Bridie, ” the Admiral said gently, drawing both Bridget's and Cree's attentions immediately to him. “I am told you are from the Midwest. Iowa, is it?” Bridget nodded slowly, hesitantly. “Yes, Sir.”
“Ah, the Heartland,” he sighed. “Isn't that what they call it on Terra?”
“Ah, yes. Yes, it is,” she replied, glancing up at Cree, but he had yet to look at her.
“I would like to visit your world one day.” He spread his hands. “Unfortunately, I have to leave such conquests of space to my men for the time being. Perhaps when I retire?” He walked behind his desk and sat, leaning back comfortably in his chair. “I am told you are a biochemist.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Fascinating work,” Kahn remarked. “Had I not been destined for the military, I would have liked to have worked in that field, but, it was not to be since males are not allowed in the scientific fields now.”
“I wonder why?” Cree mumbled, causing Bridget to glance warily at his tone.
“You may go, Lieutenant.”
Bridget looked around, but there was no one else in the room except for the three of them. She frowned, then when the significance of what she'd heard registered, she gasped, her head snapping toward Cree, her lips parting in shock.
“Aye,” Kahn sighed. “I am afraid his little outing yesterday has caused Cree a bit of a problem.”
“Sir,” Bridget said, standing. “We were caught in the storm without means of communications. Captain Cree tried to raise engineering, but-”
“Did I not tell you that you were dismissed, Lieutenant?” Kahn interrupted, swinging a brittle look at Cree.
Sensing more than just Cree's fury building in the room, Bridget put a calming hand on her lover's arm. “It's all right. I'll explain everything to him.”
For the first time, he looked at her. “You cannot.” He searched her face.
“Get the hell out of here, Cree!” the Admiral bellowed. When the Reaper looked at him, and the Admiral saw sheer malice staring at him from murderous brown orbs, he stood up slowly, his voice as soft as down. “Or do you want to spend another two weeks on Dr. Dean's torture table?”
&nbs
p; “Go!” Bridget was quick to say, pushing Cree. “Now, Kam. Go!”
Cree swallowed the bitter retort he had been about to make, snapped off a crisp salute, then spun on his heel and marched to the door, barely breaking stride as it shushed open then shut behind him.
The room was utterly still, as silent as the tomb, then Kahn let out a long, tired breath. “That sonofabitch is one very stubborn man.” When Bridget looked uneasily at him, he smiled. “Come, Bridie. Sit down. We must talk.”
“Excuse me, Admiral?” the Vid-Com clicked on.
“Aye?”
“Doctors Dean and Sejm are here as requested, Sir.”
Bridget turned to stare at the Admiral. At his nod and pleasant smile, she felt her heart thump hard against her ribcage. “Why are they here?” she asked.
“Be patient, Bridget,” he advised. When the older women entered, he ushered them to the small conversation area off to one side of his desk and sat down with them, Bridget seated beside him on the sofa.
“Have you told her?” Sejm inquired.
Bridget looked around. “Told me what?” She looked from one to the other. “What are you doing to him, now?”
“Nothing that isn't absolutely necessary,” Sejm reported.
“I don't believe that!” She turned her anger on Kahn. “Tell me!”
“I am going to take you away from him.”
Bridget's eyes widened. “You can't do that!”
“My adopted son outranks Cree,” Dr. Hael Sejm snorted. “He can do whatever he feels like doing.” If she was surprised at the connection between the Empire's most influential warrior and the Chalean chemist sitting across the way from her, Bridget hid it well. She turned toward Dr. Dean. “This isn't necessary. He knows I'm part of the Resistance.”
“He would have to be the imbecile he thinks Kullen is if he did not know by now.” Kahn chuckled.
Bridget looked at him. “Give me a few more days. I can-” She stopped for Kahn was shaking his head.
“He took you away from Konnor Rhye; I am taking you away from him,” Kahn informed her. “That should be the final push to send him straight into the arms of the Resistance.”
“He has to be made to understand that he is nothing more than a pawn controlled at the whim of the Empire. He no longer has any rank or privilege with them now that he has been demoted. He has to see himself, and you, as being expendable, at the mercy of men who have no regard for love or happiness or morality. I know how that feels; now Cree will know, too!”
“I will return you to him when the war is over. Have no fear of that.”
“And what if we don't win?” asked Bridget.
“We will,” Kahn said emphatically. “There are more of us than you can imagine, Bridie. We need Cree only because where he goes, the other Reapers will go. Especially now that I have humiliated him and they learn that one they think of as invincible can tumble off his pedestal. They won't like it.”
“And where the other Reapers go, so go the Shepherds and Keepers,” Dr. Dean put in.
“Once we have taken over the Empire, there will no longer be a need for such men,” Dr. Sejm declared.
“Then what happens to Cree?” Bridget demanded.
“When this is over, the two of you can do whatever you like,” Kahn replied.
“What if he is arrested by the Tribunal before all this comes to a happy end? ” Bridget sneered. “Then what?” Her eyes grew wide. “What if he is killed during the takeover?”
“That is not going to happen and there is no need for you to be worrying that it will! ” Kahn stated. “He is the most powerful warrior our worlds have even known. He's not about to allow himself to be caught, Bridget.”
“I know we've asked a lot of you before now,” Dr. Dean said, coming to kneel in front of Bridget. She put a comforting hand on Bridget's knee. “And you have risked so much to help us. We understand your hesitation; but we can't finish this without your help.”
“You have come this far, Bridie,” Kahn told her. “Can't you go a few steps further? Don't worry about Cree. I'll do everything in my power to keep him out of harm's way.”
“Tylan has considerable authority with the Empire, Bridget,” bragged Sejm. “And there are other considerations you do not need to know about at the moment that will insure Cree is alive and in good health when the war is over.” Dr. Dean glanced at Hael, but didn't question her odd statement. Instead, she patted Bridget's knee. “Do you think I would allow Drae's son to be harmed, Bridget?”
“You will have a few more months in which to decide,” Sejm put forth, standing. “He leaves the first thing tomorrow morning.” Bridget swung her head toward Kahn. “What is she talking about?”
“I am sending him to Terra on a Retrieval team,” Kahn replied. “As a lowly Shepherd.”
“He'll kill you,” Bridget whispered.
Tylan Kahn chuckled. “He can try, Bridie. He can try.”
****
HE LOOKED up as she came into his quarters and sighed deeply with relief. Before she could speak, he shot to her and grabbed her in his arms, crushing her to him. “By the gods, Bridget, I thought he was going to take you away from me!” His mouth crushed hers in a bruising kiss that took away her breath. She clung to him as he swept her up in his arms and carried her to his bed. Neither spoke as they tore at the other's clothing until they were naked and entwined.
“Hold me!” she begged. “Kamerone, please hold me!”
“Always!” he swore and thrust his claim of her to the hilt.
Their lovemaking-and he wasn't even sure he could call what they did by so gentle a name-was frenzied, animalistic and he was left with long bloody scratches down his back where she had raked him with her nails. The Reaper tattoo on his chest had a double row of teeth marks through its center. Their bodies were soon slick with perspiration as they strained against one another.
The deep growls that rumbled from the back of his throat only underscored the soft whimpers coming from hers. Together, they reached the summit of their lust, then fell gasping back to sanity, their bodies pressed so tightly along one another it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began.
“Lieutenant?”
Cree ignored the Vid-Com's smug voice. His hands flexed around Bridget's body.
“Lieutenant, you are wanted at the door to your quarters.”
Cree let out a vulgar curse then eased his arms from around Bridget. He swung his legs off the bed and snatched up his uniform trousers. He wasn't aware of Bridget's tenseness or the tears falling onto his pillow as he stepped into the leather pants and stomped to the door.
“Aye?” he snapped, slapping at the control panel. “Who is it?”
“Yeoman Dants, Sir,” the voice on the other side of the Vid-Com screen announced. “I have your orders, Lieutenant.”
“Orders?” Cree questioned. He pushed the button to open the door and before the yeoman had time to step back, Cree slammed his fist against the wall. “These are transport orders!” He swept his angry glower from the black-edged papers to the messenger. “What the gods-be-damned hell are they trying to do to me?” A little yelp of terror was the only answer the messenger was capable of giving. The last Cree saw of him, he was fleeing down the corridor, his hands in the air.
With another vulgar curse, Cree slammed his fist against the control panel, shutting the door, then stalked back into his bedsuite. “The bastard is sending me to Terra tomorrow!” he raged.
Slowly, Bridget turned over in his bed and looked up at him. “I am so sorry,” she said and her shoulders began to tremble. She buried her face in her hands and the sobs came in waves.
“Ah, Bridget, don't!” he pleaded, coming to sit on the bed and take her in his arms.
“I am the cause of this.”
“No, you are not,” he denied, unnerved by the tears that wetted his bare chest. “Don't cry, Sweeting.”
“I love you!” He was lost in her misery, unmanned by it, and for the first time i
n his life, felt another person's pain. That it was his mate's made it worse for him and he gathered her to him, lifted her onto his lap.
“Make love to me,” she insisted, her voice full of an emotion he'd never heard before. “Now, Kamerone. Make love to me now!”
She didn't give him time to either agree or disagree. Her hands tore at him, jerked him to her trembling body. He had no notion what had set her off, but whatever it was, it turned her into a mindless she-beast in heat. When her climax came, she stunned him by throwing back her head and screaming with the release.
“My god!” he breathed, shaken to his very core by her reaction.
Almost as soon as the scream died away, she was asleep, lying exhausted in his arms, her sweat-drenched body clinging to his.
He held her all night, never closing his eyes, just watching her sleep, studying the tearstains on her cheeks. Never would he have imagined his departure would create such an intense reaction in her. If he had ever doubted her feelings for him, he doubted them no longer.
“Lieutenant?”
Cree signed. “Aye, Helen. I'm getting up.”
He hated to leave. The sight of his mate sleeping so peacefully made him long to stay with her. Tenderly, trying not to awaken her, thinking it best he be gone before she woke, he placed a light kiss on her brow then extricated his arm from beneath her head.
He dressed quickly in one of the black serge jumpsuits and was gone before he could make any noise to disturb her sleep.
****
“KAMERONE!”
The Reaper turned and saw her running along the platform toward him. He looked at the men on the gangway, frowning at them until they looked away, then stepped away from the Sirroco's hatch.
“What are you doing here?” he asked only to grunt as Bridget flung herself into his arms. Had the night before never happened, Cree might well have been embarrassed by her show of affection, but this morning, all he felt was supreme satisfaction that this woman was entirely his and that she loved him.
“You left without kissing me goodbye,” she accused.