by Liz Craven
Were the soldiers seeking her out to ensure her death?
The Inderian turned Lia to face the others, lifting her completely off her feet to do so, and she hated that her face was flushed. The impromptu flight embarrassed her. Where did she think she was going? There weren’t a lot of hiding places on a barren moon. Especially when you needed pesky little luxuries like water. Fortunately, the dirt and grime smearing her face hid her blush. At least she hoped they did.
He stood in the same place, his arms crossed and that infuriating eyebrow still cocked, making no effort to hide his amusement.
Caden held the scanner again, his gaze flicking back and forth between Lia and his commander who met Lia’s narrowed eyes for a brief moment before nodding.
Caden approached her cautiously, like drawing near a nest of vipers. Lia felt a crazy urge to laugh. The Inderian held her immobilized. She could barely turn her head, much less attack a trained soldier. She wasn’t fooling herself. The only reason she’d succeeded in kicking him before was the element of surprise.
No miner in their right mind would attack a League soldier. Lia supposed that meant she was no longer in her right mind. Not that it mattered, seeing how they were probably going to kill her.
She had feared for her life for as long as she could remember and had half-expected to feel relief at finally facing death. She didn’t. She was pissed-off, plain and simple. And under the anger, her heart ached that the one good thing she remembered from childhood—this cold and amused man—was an illusion.
An illusion that was probably going to kill her.
Caden pressed a button and a beam of orange light moved over her. The crucial procedure took mere seconds. The light disappeared, and Caden began inputting data into the scanner.
Scrapping together what little dignity she had left, Lia addressed the Inderian. “You can release me now.”
A nod from their leader, and she found herself standing on her own two feet. The Inderian shifted behind her and she knew he prepared to catch her if she bolted. He needn’t have bothered. With the scan completed, she felt oddly resigned and drained of energy. With her anger gone, the long day, the cave-in and her injury finally caught up with her. Not to mention the strain of the last five minutes. She wanted to sit down. Actually, she wanted to curl into fetal position. She did neither.
A pair of boots stepped into her field of vision and she looked up into the face of the man from her past.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” The brisk tone lacked warmth, but Lia sensed he was trying to be kind. Her anger had amused him. She wondered if her dejection bothered him.
She decided to answer his question honestly. “Yes, it was.”
He blinked, and she realized she had surprised him. Instinctively, she knew very little surprised this man.
He inclined his head politely. “I apologize for the inconvenience.” He hesitated before dropping his voice to prevent the rep from overhearing. “We only seek to find a missing person. The scan will be used to eliminate your DNA as a match for hers. Once done, you will be free to go. We will not be passing scan results on to authorities or storing them in any public database. Your privacy and secrets will remain intact.”
He thought her a criminal afraid of being caught. She was about to surprise him again.
He turned away from her, dismissing her. “Caden, I believe we have taken up enough of this young lady’s time. Record her as a non-match and reset the scanner for the next subject.”
“I can’t,” Caden sounded nervous.
“You can’t? The scanner is malfunctioning?”
“No, sir. I just ran and reran a diagnostic on it. I also ran the results four times,” Caden rushed to assure him.
“Then what seems to be the problem?”
“There’s no problem. It’s just that…” He hesitated.
“That what?” the commander barked.
“I’m a match,” Lia said wearily. “I’m your wife.”
Could he give up the stars…for her?
Earthchild
© 2008 Katriena Knights
Taken in as an infant and raised by the primitive, non-human natives of the colony planet Denahault, Noisy Girl has always known she was different. Human settlers initiating peaceful contact confirm it—her true home is a planet called Earth, millions of miles away among the stars.
Her search for her heritage leads her to the home of Harrison Fairfax and Trieka Cavendish, and their guest Jeff Anderson, Trieka’s former second-in-command.
For Jeff, Trieka’s offer to captain the legendary ship Starchild is a lifelong dream fulfilled. Then he meets Noisy Girl, an entrancing young woman who speaks only in sign language. She captures his imagination like no other woman ever has, and his efforts to teach her English deepens a relationship he never thought was possible for him.
But the claustrophobic, technology-laden atmosphere of Earth traumatizes the gentle Noisy Girl, and suddenly Jeff’s choices aren’t quite so clear.
If he accepts permanent command of Starchild, all hope of happiness with this beguiling woman will be destroyed. Unless a compromise can be found…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Earthchild:
“…so she just stripped right there and put it on.”
“At least you know she liked it,” said Fairfax.
Jeff glanced down the table at Noisy Girl. He wasn’t comfortable talking about her while she sat only a few feet away. But her smile reminded him she had no idea what he was saying. Even if she had, he didn’t think it would have bothered her because she had no idea why what she’d done might seem unusual.
Trieka gestured with her fork. “She has no concept of nudity, Jeff. Think about it. She’s lived her whole life among people who are physically incapable of being naked.”
He nodded. That part made sense to him. “But the merchant—he barely blinked an eye.”
“It’s a frontier planet.” Trieka shrugged. “Most of the people here left Earth because they wanted to get away from the restrictive environment. There’s a lot of acceptance here. As long as you aren’t hurting anything, nobody really cares what you do.”
“Personally, I’m highly in favor of women running naked in the streets.”
Jeff stared, barely believing the comment had come from Fairfax. It must have, though, because Trieka, grinning, smacked his arm. Fairfax, unfazed, opened his roast beef sandwich and added another spoonful of horseradish.
Jeff decided it would be easier to change the subject than to dwell on the fact he’d never in his life had so much fun shopping with a woman. And that it would have been fun even if she hadn’t taken her clothes off. “There have to be rules, though. Don’t tell me the whole planet is anarchist.”
“Not as many rules as there were,” said Fairfax, “and there weren’t many to begin with.”
He took her to the observation lounge. They sat at a small table near the huge, curved, transparent wall where the stars shone like a carelessly scattered bag of diamonds, and the great, blue sphere of Earth drew the eye. It still amazed Jeff with its pure beauty. From here, it looked unsullied, as if man had never touched it. The night side would be scattered with lights, echoing the surrounding stars, but the day side appeared as pristine as it must have been on the day of its birth.
“It’s beautiful,” Lark said. “It doesn’t look very different from Denahault.”
“Not from here.” He reached across the table to take her hand because he wanted more than anything in that moment to touch her. “From the ground, it’s a different story.”
“You’ll be with me.”
Her trusting smile humbled and frightened him. How could he promise to protect her from dangers she couldn’t imagine? But he would promise, and he’d do the best he could. “I’ll be with you as much as I can.”
It seemed an appropriate time. He slipped his free hand into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small velvet box. Gently, he laid it on the table. He’d bought it earlier in the day at one
of the space station’s newer shops, on an impulse, as he’d tried to work his way around the delicate dilemma Lark presented.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Open it.”
She withdrew her hand from his and picked up the soft, maroon box. He tried not to be impatient as she caressed the velvet, sliding her fingers around the small object as if it were something wonderful and new. He supposed it was to her. Another woman would have ignored the box entirely, bent on discovering the contents. Her admiration of it made his heart warm.
Finally she tipped the lid upward. He studied her face for a reaction, but saw only a small reflective frown. After a moment, she looked up. “Rings?”
“Yes.”
“They’re very pretty.” He could tell from her tone she was waiting for him to explain the rings’ significance, or if they had any at all.
“Call them promise rings,” he said finally. “I thought about having a contract drawn up, but you said you didn’t want that. So I got the rings instead, as a symbol of my promise to take care of you and be with you for as long as you want to be with me.” He paused, then took the plunge. “And to love you.”
Tears glittered through her smile. She pulled the larger ring out of the box. “Give me your hand.”
He held out his hand, suddenly conscious of the three or five other people in the room, the sudden silence that had fallen. He didn’t want to look up. He should have taken her back to his quarters for this, made it a private moment. But she seemed unaware of anyone but him as she slid the ring over his finger. Then she handed him the velvet box, and he slid the matching ring over her left ring finger.
From elsewhere in the lounge came applause. Embarrassed, he tried not to look, but Lark, grinning, stood and took a bow. “They’re happy for us,” she said, sitting back down.
He dared a sidelong glance, barely meeting a variety of warm smiles. “Yes, I think they are.” He kissed her hand, looking at the silver filigree ring, the way it fit her finger, how right it looked. “I love you, Lark.”
“I love you, Star Man.” She leaned across the table and kissed him. “Take me back to my room.”
She barely let the door close behind them before she was in his arms, her mouth finding his, her hands finding their way under his shirt. So much for a slow seduction, he thought. Then he quit thinking entirely and lost himself in her enthusiasm.
He’d made love to more experienced women, but never one with such exuberance. She kissed him hard and long, following his lead as his tongue found hers and danced with it. Her lithe, warm body responded to his every move until they were hot and bare and stretched across the bed that seemed huge after the narrow shipboard berths. It was far too late to turn back now, and he didn’t want to. If he could have everything he wanted in his life, it would be this woman and the Starchild.
She stretched long and sleek beneath him and he explored her with his hands, cupping her breasts, feeling the curves of her ribs, tracing the round tattoo beneath her right arm. Her skin was milky in places where the sun had never touched it, brownish and marked with tiny scars in other places where sunlight and the forest had left their signs. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful as the thorn-scratches on her ankles, or the odd blue-black mandala under her arm.
Then his fingers moved between her legs, found her hot and damp. Her hips jerked as he explored, tracing each fold, resting his fingers a moment against the evidence of her virginity. He hoped he wouldn’t hurt her.
“Have you done this before?” he asked, his voice quiet, strained with the effort of self-control. His erection grazed her legs, steely and insistent, while he forced himself to ignore it.
“Not with a partner,” she answered. The image of her pleasuring herself sent all the blood rushing from his head. He couldn’t think anymore. Instead, he moved his fingers away from her heat and put his mouth to her.
Lark was far from ignorant about sex, but she’d never anticipated this. She knew how her body worked, knew what caused pleasure and what brought the deep, pulsing fire. But what she’d discovered on her own was nothing compared to what Jeff coaxed out of her now.
She held still, letting herself feel. Jeff’s mouth and hands teased her for a time, then he shifted his body over her, his mouth on her breasts. She slid her hands down his back, reveling in the smoothness of his skin, excited by the tension beneath it. She knew he held back, also knew he had no reason to. Lowering her hands to his hips, she shifted under him, opening her thighs until his thick erection nudged against her.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
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