by Renee Rose
Veck that. She was a trained pilot, and they needed her. She resumed running toward the next available battleship and jumped on, waiting until Tal joined her before closing the hatch. “Buckle up,” she shouted as she jumped into the pilot’s seat. “You’re on weapons because I don’t know how to work them.”
Tal whooped and slid behind the controls. “Whoa,” he breathed with appreciation, lighting up as he took in the state-of-the-art craft. “Where did they get all these ships?”
“They’re rich. But almost extinct.”
“Hence their interest in human females?”
“I suppose,” she mumbled, slightly offended at having her relationship with Lundric reduced to the economics of available females. That must have been how Lundric felt thinking she’d only been interested in him for the ways he could help her.
But she knew Lundric’s interest in her wasn’t just because she was female. He’d seen her. Been attracted to her. She had to show him she felt the same.
She lifted off and entered the fray. She saw at least four Ocretion police ships, all firing on them. “Hang on,” she yelled and made a tight turn, swinging the craft around to get behind one of the police ships. “Fire, Tal!”
Tal shot the laser. It went wide, and the police ship dropped down, out of range. “Give me another chance—I’m still figuring out how these work,” he yelled.
Below them, the pod lifted from the ground, the battleships circling around, protecting it as it made an escape. Where was it going? She hoped the Zandians had a plan. And she sure as hell wished she’d been privy to it, because she had no idea where to rendezvous if they survived this battle.
“On the right, on the right!” she shouted as one of the police ships appeared in their range.
Both ships fired on each other. She held tight when the ship sustained damage to the wing, but Tal nailed them with laser fire, and the police ship exploded.
“I did it!” he yelled. “Give me another one.”
“We might not have a chance!” She gripped the controls with all her might, trying to direct the craft as it fell into a spin.
Her mind raced, trying to remember what Rok had said about recovering from a spin. Cut the power, turn away from the spin and push down.
The ground came hurtling toward them, and her fingers flew over the controls, cutting power and pushing down and left, away from the spin. Nothing happened. Ten more seconds and they’d hit ground and they wouldn’t survive a fall from the height they’d been hit.
The craft wobbled. She pushed harder on the controls, encouraged she’d made any kind of change in the spin.
“Cambry!” Lundric’s cry rang in her helmet’s comm unit.
“I’ve got it!” The craft wobbled harder, then banked hard to the left, out of the spin. Thank sweet Mother Earth.
A second fleet of police ships appeared in the atmosphere, dozens of them.
“Retreat, retreat!” The command blared in her ears but three ships were chasing Lundric, at least she thought it was Lundric.
She joined the chase, Tal firing on the police ships from behind. He hit one, two. The third spun around them and fired directly on them. The windshield exploded in a ball of fire. Not willing to go down easily, she gunned the ship forward and rammed it into the police ship. Both ships hurtled toward the ground.
“Cambry, Cambry, no!”
Their descent slowed. The magnaray. Lundric must be above them. But her ship was on fire, which meant a fireball could travel through the magnaray and blow up Lundric’s ship.
“Leave us,” she screamed. “Release the ship!”
“Never.” His growl conveyed 100 percent determination.
Their ship lifted away from the ground. Five police ships surrounded them.
Tal unbuckled, racing to the rear of the craft. “Is there more firepower back here?” he shouted.
“I don’t know!” She hadn’t been trained in the weaponry part yet, just flying, but since the craft was unflyable and the forward part of the ship was on fire, she followed Tal.
“Here they are.” Tal climbed a ladder toward an upper deck.
She ascended behind him, only able to squeeze her torso into the small area made for one being. They both took controls, firing as rapidly as they could, causing the police ships to dodge and fall away, out of their range.
“Nice work, Cambry and Tal.” Lundric’s deep voice rang in her ear. “Hang on, I’m going to get you out of there.”
A lurch indicated Lundric had entered hyperdrive. She squeezed her eyes closed and held her breath, waiting for the explosion that ended them all.
A second passed. Then another.
Still alive.
She opened her lids. They were in space, hovering near the pod. Other Zandian battleships circled it. And the giant hangar-ship, an open craft that had housed all the smaller battleships, hung beside it.
“You are not cleared for landing in the hangar, Captain Lundric. Your cargo is on fire. Repeat, your cargo is on fire.” The lack of oxygen in space should have extinguished all the flames, but the cabin pressure kept the fires burning inside.
“Then get the fire spray ready, because I’m landing,” her warrior growled.
“No, Lundric, don’t,” she cried. She didn’t want to be responsible for setting the entire hangar on fire and wiping out all of Zandia’s battleships in one fell swoop.
Her mind racing, she ran for the container of fire spray located below on her craft. “Tal, help me with this,” she shouted.
Her brother scrambled down and the two of them attacked the fire on their ship. She needed to get it out before Lundric dropped them onto the hangar.
~.~
The only thing keeping Lundric from a total implosion was the fact that Cambry’s voice still registered on his comms unit. She was alive. Stars, she was still alive.
Twice back there, he’d been sure he’d lost her. What in the name of Zandia’s true star had she been thinking? At first, he’d feared she planned to run away again—to take her brother and leave. But she hadn’t. She’d stayed to fight, and he was so vecking proud of her courage and prowess as a pilot.
His little rebel—so brave. Such a fighter.
The moment he docked her ship and then his own, he leaped out. A crew already had the fire under control and had helped Cambry and Tal to evacuate the destroyed craft.
“Cambry!” He sprinted toward her.
She ran for him.
He opened his arms wide and caught her when she launched, squeezing the breath right out of her. “What in the veck were you thinking? I told you to go back to the pod.”
She scrambled out of his arms and stood facing him, chin lifted, her small fingers wrapped in the front of his uniform. “I’m a Zandian pilot,” she said, the determination in the set of her mouth daring him to disagree. “I fight for Zandia.”
He staggered a bit under the weight of her declaration. Truly? Had she taken his cause on as her own now? What had changed her mind?
He grasped the back of her head and pulled it against his chest, lowering his lips to her hair. “I guess I’ll have to get used to your being in danger, then,” he said gruffly, emotion closing his throat. He didn’t want to. He wanted to forbid his female from ever putting herself in danger again, but it would go against her nature. Cambry was a warrior like him. So was her brother, if the way he’d been shooting back there had been any indication.
He pulled her head back and cradled her face. “You were brilliant back there—both of you.” He lifted his gaze to include Tal, who hovered awkwardly nearby. “Thank you for serving Zandia. The prince will be pleased with your service.”
She probably didn’t give a veck what the prince thought, but he did. He needed Zander’s approval to mate her, to keep her, and with the stunt she’d pulled stealing the ship earlier, it might have been difficult. This act of service would go a long way toward mending things.
“Captain Lundric, Master Seke is demanding an immediate report,
” one of his guards informed him.
He nodded. There was too much work to do. Holding Cambry would have to come later. He kissed her forehead and released her. “Get yourself to medical. That’s an order.” He threw in a stern glance to be sure she understood the meaning of the word order.
She merely smiled. “Yes, Captain.” Something in her voice made him think she enjoyed taking his orders.
She’d better. He had a hundred more in mind just as soon as he settled the chaos at hand.
8
Cambry hissed as she climbed off the cot, her fresh laser tattoo still raw.
“Are you sure that’s how his name looks in Zandian? Because if I just wrote idiot on your back, you’re going to look pretty stupid.” Tal wiped off the laser ink gun Lily had managed to procure and put it back in its box. Lily and Rok had arrived immediately before the battle began with Ocretion police. They believed they had unwittingly attracted attention and led them there.
“I verified it with three different Zandians. They all told me it said Lundric.”
“You’re really serious about this male, aren’t you?” Her brother folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. “I have to admit, I’m shocked.”
“Why are you shocked?” A spike of defensiveness rose up, and she prepared to defend Lundric’s worthiness.
He shrugged. “I’ve just never seen you this way. You’re like a different person.”
“In a bad way or a good way?” she asked warily.
He grinned. “A good way. Definitely. Are you fishing for my approval here? Because you have it. Lundric won it the minute he came to that factory for me. But even without that, I knew he was the one by how you are with him. You’re different. Happier. More open. And he obviously would do anything for you. So, yes. A good way.”
A knock sounded on her door.
“He’s here.” Nerves made her stomach flutter. “Get out, quick.”
“I’m leaving, I’m leaving. Stars, you’d think you’d want to spend a little more time with me after how long we’ve been apart. Kidding!” He dodged her slap as he opened the door. “Good afternoon, Captain.” He made the Zandian greeting with his fist in the air. “She’s been waiting for you.” Tal slipped past a frowning Lundric and disappeared.
Lundric had dark circles under his eyes. She doubted he’d slept for the past two planet rotations since the battle with Ocretion police, and she’d hardly seen him. The Zandians hadn’t found a place to dock the pod or hangar, so they’d continued to float through space just on the outskirts of Ocretion territory. They were in an area Rok knew from his smuggling days, staying off the radar while they worked on a new plan. From what their intelligence had gathered, the Ocretions did not know it was Prince Zander who had taken possession of their death pod and launched battleships against their police, but it may only be a matter of time before they did. The Zandians were trying to move up their timeline for recovering Zandia, hoping to do it before they had to wage battle against the Ocretions.
The good news was the battle had won further allegiance from the beings on the pod. Now that they’d seen the Zandians wage a second battle against their former tormentors, their eagerness to join the fight had increased. Trust between Zandians and the refugees on the pod had improved.
Lundric shut the door behind him and dropped the latch into place, but he made no move toward her. The haunted quality to his gaze that had been there since her betrayal hadn’t left. He looked at her like a starved man who knew he’d never get enough to eat.
She had to dispel him of that myth. Holding his violet gaze, she peeled off her panties and leggings, then her tunic, and stood before him, nude.
He leaned his head back against the door, fingers opening and closing into fists at his sides. “Cambry, you don’t have to—”
“I know. I never thought I did.” She took a step toward him. “I wasn’t using you, Lundric. I never used you. I just…” She knotted her fingers in front of her, suddenly wishing she’d waited to strip until after they’d had this conversation. She didn’t want to touch him until she’d said everything, either. Didn’t want him to think she was using sex to mend things.
“Trust doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m sorry I didn’t ask for your help in finding Tal. I should have. And I’m so sorry I violated the bond between us. Most of all I’m sorry I left you.”
He flinched at the last one. Yes, that was the crux of the issue for him, she was sure of it. His mother had left him, and she’d done the same.
“It was a mistake, and I was relieved when you caught me. If you’ll still have me, I swear I won’t leave again.” That was the honest truth. It was why she’d had Tal brand her flesh with his name. She needed to prove her commitment. She drew a breath. It was odd how facing her imminent death in a flaming battleship was easier than what she had to ask next. “Am I still your female?”
Lundric’s irises turned violet, and something in his shoulders relaxed. “Always,” he growled, reaching for her.
“Wait, wait.” She skittered back out of his reach. “I want to show you something.”
He frowned. “What is it?”
She rotated slowly, giving him the view of his name tattooed at the base of her spine between the two dimples on the back of her pelvis.
Lundric said nothing, and she waited, legs trembling, breath rasping in her chest. She dared to look over her shoulder. Her warrior had his fist stuffed in his mouth, and his face had flushed a deep purple.
“Do you like it? I know this isn’t the way Zandians show ownership, but it’s the way humans are marked by their masters.” She touched the barcode at her nape, put there at birth by her first Ocretion master.
“I have this, too, if you want to mark me in the Zandian way.” Her hand shook as she drew out the piercing gun Lily had lent her. “But I understand if you don’t want to mate me anymore. Or yet. Or whatever.”
Zander dropped his fist away from his mouth and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Take down your hair.”
The deep command surprised her, but her nipples stiffened. She heard the promise of retribution and sex in the roughness of his tone. She pulled her hair from the thread gathering it behind her.
“The braids, too.”
She unwound the small braids holding the hair back from her face, letting it all cascade to her shoulders in thick waves.
“This is how you’ll come to me, always.” Lundric advanced, a predatory tension to his prowl. “I’m glad you’ve become inured to the idea of mating me, because I never intended to let you go, Cambry.”
His words should have offended her, but instead they made her heart sing, her pulse race with anticipation of his touch. She wanted to launch herself at him but forced herself to remain still. To allow him to claim her in whatever way he chose.
“Do you know where a Zandian pierces his female?” Lundric’s horns were stiff and thick, tilting toward her. She longed to suck one deep into her mouth.
“N-not exactly. Her ears?” Her breathy voice sounded over the scrape of his exhale above her. She’d seen the glint of crystals in Lily’s ears.
He pinched both her nipples and pulled. “Anywhere he likes,” he said darkly. “The ears show all others she is mated. But he marks her nipples and clit to claim the most intimate parts belonging to only him.”
A thrum of energy pulsed between her legs. Would he really pierce her there?
“Interlace your fingers on the top of your head.”
She obeyed. He picked up the piercing gun and shook out the tiny bag filled with Zandian crystal jewels that had come from Prince Zander, himself. They were meant for Rok and Lily, but Lily promised their mating ceremony was complete and she and Lundric were welcome to use anything that was left.
Lundric fit a stud into the gun. His lids drooped as he slid one nipple between the jaws. “Don’t move, Cambry.”
She held her breath.
Lundric pulled the trigger, and the stud punched through her
nipple, causing her to cry out. Lundric swallowed her cry with a kiss, the gun clattering to the floor as his arm circled her waist and his hand cradled the back of her head.
He kissed her with an open mouth, tongue sweeping against the seam of her lips, mimicking the motion of his hips against her belly as he plunged it in and out of her mouth. When he pulled away, his expression was soft. He cupped her chin. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
He screwed the cap onto the open end of the stud then picked up the gun and loaded it with a second stud. “You’re taking a lot of pain for me tonight, little female.” There was pride in his tone.
“Anything you ask of me,” she whispered, legs still trembling.
He fitted the gun over her other nipple and shot the stud through. She bit her lip against the cry it drew from her and tasted a drop of blood.
Lundric’s nostrils flared as if he smelled it. He attached the end crystal onto the stud then sucked her lower lip into his mouth in another long kiss. “Hold your hair up,” he rasped when he pulled away.
She lifted her hair back from her face, and he pierced her earlobes, sucking each into his mouth first.
“One more. Lie on the bed and spread your legs.”
Her heart thumped. He’d been serious about piercing her clit. She bit back the protests and questions that sprang to the tip of her tongue. She had to show Lundric her trust. This ritual held meaning to his species, and she wished to honor it.
~.~
Lundric’s cock was ready to explode. Nothing could be more beautiful than the sight of Cambry lying back on the cot with her knees open. Her breath came in quick pants, lifting and lowering her beautiful peach-tipped breasts.
He fit another stud in the piercing gun and dropped to his knees in front of the cot, unable to resist giving her a bit of pleasure first. He parted her labia and drank in the sight of her pretty little flower. “Who does this pussy belong to?”
“You, Lundric.” She didn’t even hesitate.