by Tamara Hogan
Welcome to the TonTon, boy.
A throat clearing near the entrance captured his attention, and when Beddoe saw who it was, satisfaction overflowed like bubbly ambrosia. “Welcome, Sirrah,” he said, greeting Ambassador Armand Tierney Ta’a’pet with a firm handshake, drawing him into the room. Yesterday the taciturn politician had lost enough coin at the Fein du Chin tables to fuel the TonTon for a week.
He couldn’t cover his debt.
“Captain.” Ta’a’pet acknowledged his greeting with a curt nod. “This is an… unusual place to discuss business.”
“Let’s leave business for another day, Ambassador. Tonight, let’s simply enjoy.” Beddoe escorted the ambassador to the selection of alcoholic beverages, powders, herbs, vials, and injectors attractively displayed on trays. “May I offer you a libation, Ambassador?”
Ta’a’pet chose a cigarillo. After lighting it himself, Beddoe drew the man into conversation. Though the ambassador relaxed only slightly—one didn’t amass his fortune or wield his power without knowing how to quickly adapt to different surroundings—Beddoe noticed the Valkyr ambassador kept his back to the room, studiously avoiding Stephen’s performance, and ignoring the dozen or so privacy pods that rimmed the perimeter of the room.
“Should you desire privacy, Ambassador, the unit at the end of the row has been reserved for your use,” Beddoe informed him quietly. Each privacy pod was furnished with a soft lounger, a screen, and a variety of erotic accoutrements.
The ambassador’s eyes fired with interest—quickly hidden, but not quickly enough.
Subtle, subtle. He was in the business of providing excellent personal service. And if, during the course of providing that service, he happened to record the ambassador enjoying some of the TonTon’s more exotic pleasures? Even better business.
A sharp sound from the screen drew everyone’s attention. “Faster,” the woman ordered Stephen, whose right buttock now sported a raised, bloody stripe. She held a riding crop in her large hand.
“Yes, madame,” Stephen said listlessly.
Beddoe couldn’t tell if the flush on the woman’s round, doughy face was from pleasure, rage, or a mixture of both. The woman was the bondmate of his most reliable liquor vendor. The vendor had requested a session with Stephen as payment for his most recent delivery and was watching the performance from one of the privacy pods.
He sighed as he watched Stephen lap between the woman’s legs with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Beddoe half expected the door to burst open, the vendor screaming for a refund. Damage control time. “Please enjoy yourself, Ambassador,” he murmured with a respectful bow, moving in the direction of the vendor’s pod.
Something had to be done about Stephen. Ever since his recapture, the incubus had been a shadow of his former self. The wicked, naughty glint that clients used to find so appealing was gone, as was his legendary stamina. He jerked at the slightest sound and rarely came out of his quarters except for his regular health check. Through some misadventure he wouldn’t speak of, his head bore permanent scars he refused to have removed. He often rubbed at his chest, at some silent pain, though repeated scans revealed no abnormalities.
Stephen had lost his puckish joy—always his most marketable commodity.
CRACK.
Madame hit Stephen harder this time, but the expression on his face still didn’t change.
“Again?” she threatened.
No reaction from Stephen.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. Soon Stephen’s back and buttocks were slick with blood. Beddoe considered cutting the feed but decided against it. Most guests’ eyes were positively glued to the screen. The woman’s mate hadn’t left his pod.
Dia. Any hope he had that Stephen might help him build his personal account more quickly flew out the hull window. The incubus would be out of service for days as he healed.
“Captain.” Minchin’s tone was barely respectful, and he didn’t even try to disguise his interest in the scene playing out on the screen behind his captain.
Anger rose like a Coriolis storm. Lorcan’s worthless nephew was the one who’d allowed Stephen to escape down to the surface of the Third in the first place. His price? A world-class tongue bath. Beddoe yearned to deposit the man on the coldest, most remote outpost he could possibly find, but he couldn’t—and Minchin knew it—but earlier in the day, Beddoe had assigned his first officer an endless list of menial tasks and confined him to the ship.
The stakes were way too high to allow this stupid man to roam at will.
When Beddoe snapped his fingers, Minchin finally dragged his gaze away from Stephen—and if looks could kill, Beddoe would be a crumpled heap on the floor.
“My uncle would like to speak with you,” the vampire said. “Now.”
Beddoe swallowed back sour bile. His previous first officer, who’d also been his lover, had been reassigned to another ship in Lorcan’s fleet because this entitled japarr needed toughening up. The very thought made his blood boil.
“Captain. He said now.”
“Acknowledged.”
Minchin’s lip twitched, displaying the tip of a pointed incisor. Beddoe’s own fangs shoved down at the flagrant insubordination. He took one step forward. Another. Then he crowded into the other vamp’s space until their noses nearly touched. He smelled herb and fear on the other man’s breath. “Are you issuing a challenge?”
After a slight hesitation, Minchin dropped his gaze, bent his head, and took one step back.
It wouldn’t be long before Minchin challenged instead of retreated. But not here, and not now.
On screen, the vendor’s bondmate spasmed and shrieked, her hand buried between her own thighs. Stephen, slumped on the floor at the foot of the bed, was bloody and unmoving. As the screen dimmed, the milling guests made their way to the privacy pods to watch the last act: the whispered-about TonTon alien abduction finale. Unfortunately, the man Minchin had acquired from the surface for tonight’s performance was a popular television meteorologist whose absence had already been noted. Very sloppy work.
“See to our guests’ comfort,” he ordered the first officer. Though the assignment was more of a reward than a punishment, it couldn’t be helped. He, unfortunately, had to contact Lorcan. “Minchin. After the guests depart, you will clean the privacy pods with your own hands.”
The thought of the first officer scrubbing a galaxy of bodily fluids filled him with great satisfaction.
Minchin’s lip twitched at the menial order. Beddoe stared at him until the first officer nodded, adding a hasty, “Yes, Sirrah.”
After the guests disappeared into the privacy pods, he thanked the libation server for his usual impeccable service and walked to the door. When the first hoarse shouts and the sounds of physical struggle emanated from the still-dark screen, he turned around momentarily. The lights came up on a performance space stage-dressed in gleaming metal, bubbling test tubes, and large trays festooned with probes and medical tools. A monitor on a levered arm hovered over the brightly lit examining table.
The doors whisked open and four TonTon employees wearing bug-eyed Aanadari protection suits carried in a thrashing, kicking, naked man. It took the strength of all four employees to finally get the man lashed down. Bids from the guests in the privacy pods scrolled across the monitor suspended above the examining table. Several enthusiastic guests, including Ambassador Ta’a’pet, had already selected which implement they wanted to see used on the man first.
His preferences were duly recorded and stored along with everyone else’s.
After a short wait, one of the employees theatrically picked up the largest probe on the tray. Scoffing at the ambassador’s lack of imagination, Beddoe nonetheless made a note to send a gift assortment of similar devices to the man’s personal quarters.
Beddoe hailed Lorcan as he left the room, the door swishing closed on the man’s first shriek.
***
Paige boosted herself up onto the big workroom table, leaned over, and peered at t
he yellowing topological map. “Where did you find this? It’s, like, ancient.”
According to the date Alka had scribbled in the map’s corner, she’d drawn it when Gabe was a teenager, which probably made him “like, ancient” too. After yet another night spent tossing and turning on a blow-up mattress in a chilly tent, this morning he felt every one of his years.
While Lorin and the crew worked at the primary site, he’d spent the morning digging through the treasure trove of old maps he’d found standing upright in a cardboard box. He’d hit the jackpot, finding a topological map of the entire property, not just the area the crew was actively working. The map was hand-drawn but very detailed and meticulously done. The fact that the maps weren’t being preserved more carefully was an issue that had to be addressed, but right now he was too busy kicking his own ass for not bringing ground-penetrating radar equipment with him from Sebastiani Labs. “Are you aware of any survey work that’s been done over here?”
“Way over there? No. Why do you ask?”
Good question. How could he explain why the northern portion of the property tugged his attention so much? He’d jogged past the area three times now, and every single time he felt a tingle at the base of his skull. Something about the area was just… off.
“About a mile away,” Paige mused. “No road.”
“Deer trails.”
Paige glanced at him. “Not a problem for a wolf.”
He made a noncommittal sound that neither confirmed nor denied her assumption that he’d explored the area on four legs. Because of his vision problems, Gabe hadn’t shifted in so long he’d almost forgotten what his wolf looked like.
“Maybe Lorin knows,” Paige said, twirling a piece of blond fluff around her forefinger. “I’ve never been that far away from the compound myself. And to run there?” She shuddered. “I’ll never understand why you and Lorin spend so much time running when there are perfectly good couches to nap on.”
Unrelieved horniness. “It’s great cardio,” he said aloud. “Someday, when you’re ‘ancient,’ maintaining your body will become—”
“Gabe, there’s exercise, and then there’s just crazy,” Paige mumbled around a wad of grape bubble gum. “Lorin’s already been running twice today, and she was just out clearing brush with Mike and Nathan.”
Burning off energy because he’d left her hanging last night. He leaned his hips against the table so Paige wouldn’t see how vigorously his “ancient” body was reacting to the thought of Lorin wearing shorts, a T-shirt, steel-toed boots, and sweat.
Apparently he now found lumberjacks highly erotic.
Gabe carefully rolled up the fragile map, half kicking, half congratulating himself for not joining her last night. Thank the universe for ringing phones. If Elliott hadn’t interrupted them, he would have done something mindless without thinking it through first, and then tortured himself with Monday-morning quarterbacking afterward. He couldn’t be ruled by his dick on this one, even if it shouted, “Yeah, you can, you dumb shit” at the top of its hormone-addled lungs.
She maddened him. Mesmerized him. Challenged him. Made him hard as a diamond-tipped drill bit.
Gabe released a deep breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. He’d thought it through, and… he was going to sleep with Lorin Schlessinger—if she was still talking to him.
Yeah, he was going to do this. Lorin was a jittery mess, the demands of her Valkyrie physiology slowly but surely making themselves known. For his part, Gabe hadn’t had sex since he and Kayla had broken up.
Sleeping with Lorin was, as Elliott would say, a 1 + 1 = 3 solution.
Damn Lukas for planting this fool idea in his head. Now that the seed had been planted, it wove insidious roots. But the alternative? Lorin getting her physical needs met with someone else? Gabe’s fists clenched. Unthinkable.
The snap of Paige’s gum jolted his brain back to practical matters. Before he and Lorin could sleep together, they had to talk, set some ground rules—if she was still interested. Leaving her hanging last night might well have nipped his foray into sexual harassment in the bud before it even started. Lorin might well have changed her mind—
Rosemary mint. Sea salt. Sun-baked sweat.
Lorin leaned against the frame of the open workroom door. She wore another of her endless supply of fleece zip-up jackets with the clingy black leggings she favored for running, and that definitely favored her back. Her quads subtly flexed as she shifted her weight. He nearly groaned as he imagined them vised around him while he bottomed out in her body.
Her green eyes burned with annoyance, and with a hunger she didn’t bother to hide.
“Paige, let’s call it a day,” he said, not breaking his gaze from Lorin. He could smell her humid need from here. “Thanks for the information. We’ll pick this up again tomorrow.”
Paige scowled at the rolled-up map Gabe held. “I hate missing things.”
“We don’t know that anything’s been missed.”
“What’s going on?” Lorin asked, levering her weight off the doorjamb and sauntering into the workroom.
Sex on the prowl. Gabe shifted his weight as the zipper of his jeans bit into some damn tender flesh. Was that why every man on the dig favored baggy cargo pants?
“Gabe had some questions about an area of the property that I’m not familiar with,” Paige said as she dropped from the table to the floor. “Maybe you can help.”
“They’re about to start Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle in the bunkhouse,” Lorin said.
“Nathan’s turn to pick the movie?” At Lorin’s nod, Paige rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll pass. You two have plans?” She looked back and forth between them and smirked. “Of course you have plans. I’ll just leave you… to it. See you tomorrow!” she called over her shoulder as she left.
Lorin approached the long wooden table that bisected the workroom and leaned against the other side. Gabe’s nostrils quivered with scents: her after-dinner coffee, pinesap, and wild, wet arousal. Saliva pooled in his mouth.
“What did you and Paige find?” she asked.
Shove it down. Gabe cleared his throat and carefully unrolled the map again, pointing to the area he and Paige had been looking at. “I’m curious about this area to the north.”
When Lorin carefully touched the brittle edge of the map, Gabe felt like she’d stroked his very body. The movement was completely unconscious, which made it all the more provocative.
“That’s part of our property, but it hasn’t been assessed in any detail. Our focus for the last decade or so has been the petroglyph cave, and the current site. And”—Lorin shot a quick glance over her shoulder, lowering her voice—“now that the box has been discovered there?” She shrugged. “I don’t see our focus, or frankly our budget, stretching any further afield right now.”
“If that box is what we think it is, you’ll be in a strong position to lobby for more funds.”
“We’d have to go to the Council, go head-to-head with Krispin Woolf.” Lorin’s eyes lit with challenge. “Is that something you’d be willing to do?”
It was an important consideration. Krispin Woolf wasn’t known for temperate reactions, and disagreeing with the WerePack Alpha—his alpha—could have long-lasting implications. “I really hate politics,” he muttered.
“But you’re so good at it.”
He wasn’t sure whether her comment was a slur or a compliment. “You’re dressed for running,” he said, shifting away from the table. “Feel like running to the north? Maybe you’ll notice something I haven’t.”
Lorin’s gaze flicked down to his bulging groin, then back to his face. “I would think you might find running a challenge at the moment.”
“I think I can manage.” She was staring at his lips. Jesus. He cleared his throat again. “Let’s get away from camp for a while. We need to talk.”
“Okay. Need to change?”
His jeans had a stranglehold on his dick. “Yeah. It’ll only take me a minute.”
The suggestive twist in her voice contradicted her words. There was every reason to rush. “Ladies first,” he said, gesturing toward the door with his hand.
“I’m no lady.” She sauntered out in front of him. “Don’t forget the lights.”
He about-faced and slapped at the switch. Damn it, she had him as addled as a juvenile getting his first sniff of tail. Time to get his brain back in the driver’s seat, at least for a while. He’d change, get them away from camp, and they’d have the conversation they needed to have. Then he’d—
“Hi, guys.” Mike and Gretchen stood in the building’s entryway, hand in hand. “Ready to lock up for the night? We’re done with cleanup.”
Hell. He hadn’t even thought about locking up, or that there might still be people in the dining area next door.
“Hi there,” Lorin replied. “Are you going to the bunkhouse to watch the movie?”
“Nathan’s choice, right?” Mike glanced at Gretchen. “Harold and Kumar. Want to go to Tubby’s instead?”
“Sure.” The young siren’s single-word response was an erotic novel.
Gabe reached for the vulnerable slice of skin at the small of Lorin’s back. She stilled at his touch. “Have fun,” he said.
Mike eyed them both and grinned knowingly. “You too.”
The younger couple walked away still holding hands, their shoulders brushing as they strolled down the tree-lined road leading away from the site. When Lorin cleared her throat and stepped away, Gabe was almost relieved. She was nervous too.
Crossing the compound, they finally reached Gabe’s bright blue tent. “I’ll just be a second,” he said as he unzipped the door.
“Hurry.” Lorin wasn’t a siren, but the demand in her voice hit him like a roundhouse kick.
Gabe shouldered into the tent’s back room and assessed his workout clothes. What could he wear that wouldn’t get him laughed off the site before he and Lorin got to someplace more private? Something that could be stripped off quickly in the event that she was as hungry for him as he was for her?
It wasn’t possible, but a man could dream.