by Renee Rose
And now he didn’t believe her feelings for him were real.
Her heart ached as if physically bruised. It was so much worse than her throbbing ass, or her well-used anus and pussy, or all the other small bruises Lundric had left from the rough vecking, which she wouldn’t trade for anything. While Lundric may have shut her out emotionally, he had been painfully direct with her physically, and she loved his honesty.
She would have to find a way to prove to him she hadn’t been faking anything with him, either—that all her responses to him were as honest as his expressions of love.
Lundric had told her not to open the door for any being but him. He didn’t say whether she could leave of her own accord. Though her stomach growled with hunger, she skipped dinner and stayed in her chamber, too raw emotionally and physically to face any being. Exhaustion, both emotional and physical, soon crept over her, and she pulled off her pants and crawled into bed to sleep.
In the middle of the night, she woke to the scrape of a knife through the door, lifting the latch. She fumbled under the mattress for the dagger Lundric had given her and swung up to sit, holding her breath as the huge outline of a Zandian appeared silhouetted in the doorway.
“It’s me,” her warrior muttered, shutting the door behind him. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Her chest tightened. Despite his anger, he still showed such consideration of her.
I love you.
The realization of the depth of her attachment to him shouldn’t surprise her, but she’d spent her whole life believing only Tal could be trusted. Only Tal deserved her love.
“Lie down.”
Still sleep-fogged, she sank back on the cot. Lundric slid onto the narrow bed beside her, making the legs groan with his added weight. He draped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him.
“Lundric?” she’d whispered.
“Shh. Go back to sleep.”
He’d come to sleep with her? They never slept together because his shift spanned the night. But he’d come back just to hold her. Tears closed her throat.
His hand slid down her side and covered her ass, fingertips gently exploring the welts on the backs of her bare legs. “We’ll find forgiveness, you and I.” He sounded uncertain.
She wanted to assure him she bore him no grudge for his treatment that day, but her fear he may never forgive her made the words stick in her throat. Tears slipped down her nose.
Somehow, though she’d been silent and it was pitch-black in her room, Lundric knew, because his thumb mopped them up.
“Don’t cry, Cambry. Go to sleep.” His voice sounded heavy, tired.
Because she didn’t want to cause him more stress, she obeyed, letting her lids close and matching her breath to his until she slid back into sleep, nestled against his massive chest.
7
Cambry walked toward the guard’s sleeping quarters. She hadn’t seen Lundric anywhere, all planet rotation.
He’d left before she woke that morning. She didn’t even know how that was possible—she always slept with one foot on the floor, alert to any danger, so she should have felt or heard him move. But she hadn’t. Maybe she felt that safe in his presence.
She didn’t know how long he’d stayed or why he’d felt the need to come in and hold her. Had it been to comfort her? Or himself? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t find him. He’d been absent in her flight training.
She drew a breath, mustering the courage to knock on his bunkroom door.
Sten answered. He rubbed his face with one hand, looking groggy. Light poured out of their room, amplified by what appeared to be the crystal Lily had given Lundric for his healing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She tried to peer past him into the room, but he shifted subtly to block her view. “Is Lundric here?”
Sten shook his head. He didn’t smile or offer anything more. She’d sworn Vokart and the other flight instructors were less friendly to her than usual that planet rotation, but she might just be paranoid. No being had said anything to her about what had happened the planet rotation before. She’d half expected to be kept from flying that day or even thrown in a cell or locked in her chamber. She’d certainly expected to be called up to Master Seke or Rok or even taken to the palatial pod to answer to Prince Zander for what she’d done.
But nothing had happened. She’d woken to find Lundric gone. Had dared to leave her chamber for breakfast and attended training as if nothing had happened. She’d been allowed to fly, although she suspected her trainers watched her far more closely than usual. But Lundric was missing.
“He’s not here,” Sten said.
Disappointment wilted her like a balloon losing air. “Do you know where I might find him?”
Sten shook his head. “If he didn’t tell you where he was going, I’m not going to.”
No, she hadn’t imagined the animosity. It was real.
She sank against the doorframe, needing it to hold her up. “Listen, I know I’m probably not your favorite human right now, but I—”
“I can’t help you, and I was trying to sleep.” Sten shut the door in her face.
She stuck her boot in the door before it shut.
The huge warrior looked down at the boot then at her, lifting a brow.
She swallowed down the fear his challenging look inspired. “Please.”
“No. Move your foot.”
“Sten, who’s at the door?” a sleep-disgruntled voice called from inside the bunkroom,
“Would you shut the veck up?” another one called.
She withdrew her foot. Sten shut the door, leaving her standing there, staring at the gray metal door, her stomach heavy as a stone.
Where had Lundric gone? Was he in trouble because of her? Maybe he’d been summoned to the Zandian palatial pod to see Prince Zander.
She lifted her chin and marched to their headquarters. A Zandian warrior stood in the office.
“Is Master Seke here? Or Rok?”
“Seke went back to the palatial pod and Rok hasn’t returned. Lundric’s also gone. I’m next in command after Lundric. What do you need?” He studied her. “Ah. You’re Lundric’s female.”
She flushed but forced herself inside the office and stuck out her hand in a human-style greeting. “I’m Cambry.”
He looked at her hand like he didn’t know what to do with it and raised his fist at a ninety degree angle. “Samsen.”
“Where has Lundric gone? When will he be back?”
Samsen folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know, and if he didn’t tell you himself, no one else around here will.”
“What is that? Some part of your code of honor?”
“Yes.”
She meant to be strong, but the fear Lundric wanted to put distance between them, or that he was in trouble because of her made her heart thump too hard against her sternum. “Will he be back?” Her voice was an octave higher than normal.
Samsen shrugged. “I cannot say.” He studied her for a moment. “You are safe here.”
Annoyance flashed through her. Did he think she was afraid without Lundric? Stars, these Zandian warriors truly were so chivalrous. Grudging appreciation melted away her irritation.
“I’m not concerned for my safety. I need to speak with Lundric. If you hear from him, will you relay the message?”
He bowed. “I will.”
She dipped into a curtsy—the first she’d offered any of the Zandians. “Thank you.”
As she walked away, she chewed on her lip, her stomach churning. She needed her male back. They had things to discuss. She’d hurt him, and she wanted to fix the rift she’d caused. The trouble was, even if she knew where he was, she wasn’t sure how to fix things.
~.~
It took Lundric three planet rotations to locate the twenty-year-old slave named Tal, the only living relative linked to Cambry in Ocretion slave records. He found the young man working as a slave in a factory not far from the one Cambry ha
d escaped from.
He used his life savings to purchase the human, though he had to buy three other males with him, to avoid raising suspicion. The four of them all sat in his battleship now, their wrists in manacles, their faces masks of wariness.
He faced them. “Humans, you have a choice. I only need one of you—the young one.” He lifted his chin toward Tal. The boy’s hair was brown, not auburn, but he had the same pale coloring as Cambry, with the light dusting of auburn freckles over his nose and identical brown eyes. He also had the same intelligent mistrust in his gaze. They narrowed when Lundric indicated him.
“The rest of you can come with me, or I can sell you back to other Ocretions. If you come with me, you will no longer be slaves, but you’ll serve the same master I do, follow the rules I follow, and will have to fight the battles I fight to win a better life. The choice is yours.”
“Who is your master? Where are we going?”
“I cannot tell you where, and if you decide to go with me, you cannot change your mind. Once you’ve seen our headquarters, you cannot leave. My master is Prince Zander, the rightful ruler of the planet Zandia.”
From their blank faces, he would bet they’d never heard of Zandia or Zander.
“What about me? Why do you need me?” Tal demanded.
“I will tell you after they’ve made their decisions.” He didn’t want to mention Cambry in front of the humans if they were not coming along. Any hint to Ocretions his female was still alive would put her, his species, and his mission at risk. “So, humans? Make your decisions, quickly. I don’t have time to waste.”
The oldest one, a tiny man with white-streaked hair, shrugged. “I’ll go with you.”
The wiry male in the middle slouched lower in the chair. “What is the work?”
“Battle.” Maybe when they won Zandia there’d be more, but it was all he had ever known.
The wiry man grinned a broken-toothed smile and sat up straighter, flexing his fingers in the manacles. “Battle, eh? Count me in.”
The third man, nervous and missing one eye, ducked his head, as if Lundric might not notice him.
“What about you?” Lundric demanded.
The male muttered something softly under his breath, but Lundric couldn’t make sense of it. He appeared to be a bit simple.
“Quin is in, aren’t you, Quin?” the wiry male asked.
Quin bobbed his head. “Quin is in, yes, Quin is in.”
“Good.”
“So? Will you tell me now? What do you need me for?” Tal asked again.
“Cambry wants you.” His voice roughened just speaking her name.
Tal’s face transformed as well. It went from brazen defiance to a mixture of hope and anxiety. “You have Cambry?” His voice raised in pitch.
He nodded.
“She’s alive? Because I’d heard—”
“She’s alive. So you will come with me. Agreed?”
The boy swallowed and nodded.
Lundric unlocked each human’s manacles even though there was a chance they could overpower him and take the ship. “Buckle up. We’ll be there soon.” He dropped into the pilot’s seat and started up the engines.
Back to the pod. To Cambry. He rubbed his sternum, which had ached since the moment she’d left him. Maybe now that she had her brother, she would no longer run. He couldn’t make her love him, but he could, at least, provide what she needed to be content. Because he wasn’t letting her go—not ever again.
~.~
Cambry swooped around Shooku, pushing the battleship to go faster, diving in and out of the rock formations to practice her skills. Vokart gripped the edges of the copilot’s chair with white knuckles, but he didn’t say a word.
“Captain Lundric requesting permission to land.” The deep sound of her warrior’s voice crackled over the comms unit.
Her heart bounded. Lundric had returned! She swung the craft around, searching the skies for him. There. He had just entered the planet’s atmosphere.
“There’s one student flight in the air, Captain, but otherwise you’re clear,” someone spoke from the landing dock.
Without asking permission, she positioned her craft and executed her best landing yet.
She’d already unsnapped her harness before she turned to Vokart.
He pursed his lips, appearing half-annoyed, half-amused. She’d asked him a dozen times for information on Lundric’s disappearance and return. “Permission granted,” he rumbled. “If you were going to ask.”
“Yes, I was,” she said, already halfway out of the craft. “Thank you.”
She grabbed a helmet and shoved it over her head, running the distance to the pod. Lundric and four other beings had gone in ahead of her. She entered through the hatch and waited for the atmosphere to clear before opening the interior door.
“Lundric!” she shouted as soon as she entered, ripping her helmet off and hanging it on a hook on the wall.
Lundric and another warrior stood with four human males. One of them snapped his head in her direction.
“Cambry!” The voice that answered wasn’t Lundric’s.
“Tal!” Her heart flew up to her throat. She ran for her younger brother, and he met her halfway, grabbing her and squeezing so tightly, he picked her up from the ground.
“You’ve grown,” she laughed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “At least two more inches since I saw you last.”
“Have I?” he asked gruffly, his voice choked. “They told me you were dead. That you killed three guards escaping and they sentenced you to death. What happened?”
She tore her focus from her brother to look at the broad-shouldered warrior standing several feet off, watching with eyes still shadowed in pain. A Zandian was leading the three other humans away.
When Lundric saw her looking, he nodded once and strode off down the corridor.
“Lundric!” She bolted after him. “Lundric, wait!”
He turned just in time for her leap, catching her as she hurtled at him.
She strangled him in a hug, burying her face in his neck. “Thank you.” She dropped little kisses behind his ear. “Thank you, Lundric.”
“Stop.”
Her heart twisted.
He pried her from his massive body, lowering her to the floor. “I like the show of appreciation, but that’s not why I did it.”
The emptiness of his tone slapped her. Blood drained from her face as she realized her warrior was still just as withdrawn as he’d been before he left to find her brother. Her eyes watered. “I know that. You did it because you’re Lundric and it’s what you do. Because I’m your female.”
He went very still, watching her warily. “Yes.”
Tal had joined them, and he cleared his throat. “So—?”
She drew back from Lundric to include her brother. “So, you’ve met Lundric?”
Tal nodded and extended his hand.
She reached over and folded his fingers into a fist bending his elbow to form the ninety degree angle of the Zandian greeting. “This is how they do it.”
Lundric’s gaze lighted on her face with the curious, appreciative glint they usually held, but then it dimmed again. “I’ll let you two catch up.” He turned and walked away.
“Wait—Lundric?”
He didn’t turn or acknowledge her, his broad shoulders stiff as he disappeared around the corridor.
Her nose and throat burned.
Tal squeezed her shoulder. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
She blinked rapidly and forced a smile. “Come on. Are you hungry? Let’s get some lunch.” She brought him to the main meeting room where the food packs were being distributed and picked up two.
They settled on the floor with their backs against a wall to eat.
“So, what is this place? How did you get here?”
“It’s a bizarre story.” She tried to push back the thoughts tangling around Lundric, the irrepressible urge to keep running to him, to keep leaping un
til he kept her.
“This originally was the death pod the Ocretions put me on. But I got lucky. They also put an escaped human slave named Lily on here. She happens to be the sister of the Zandian prince’s mate. Her boyfriend, a Zandian captain named Rok, orchestrated her rescue and pulled this pod down. So now, all the beings on the pod have been conscripted into the Zandian army, and we’re being trained for battle, because they want to take their planet back. Are you following?”
Tal grinned. “I’m trying. So who’s Lundric?”
“My mate. Except he’s still angry with me for stealing a ship and trying to leave to find you.”
“Who flew the ship?”
Her lips curved into a self-satisfied smile. “I did. They’ll train you, too, if you want.”
She didn’t really have to ask. Her brother was a born warrior, like her. “Veck, yes. When can I start?”
An alarm went off, screeching through the pod and echoing off the metal walls. “Ocretion police ships have entered the atmosphere. All pilots report to the loading dock. Repeat, Ocretion police ships have entered the atmosphere. Every pilot report to the loading dock. This is not a drill.”
She scrambled to her feet. “Come on, let’s go.”
Tal raced behind her as they ran to the loading dock.
She didn’t wait for instructions like the rest of the humans gathered, but grabbed two helmets and followed the Zandian warriors out of the pod, running over the rocky ground for a battleship, her brother right behind her.
“Cambry!” Lundric’s anguished roar came over the comms unit. She stopped in her tracks, looking around for him. He’d halted in the hatch of a battleship when he’d caught sight of her.
He thought she was running again. She’d just have to prove to him she planned to stay.
Battleships lifted off the ground around them and, above, the first shots were fired.
“Fire at will, repeat, fire at will!”
“Get back in the pod,” Lundric roared, jumping into his ship.