Cosmic Cabaret

by SFR Shooting Stars

  “A female?” she sputtered in disbelief? “And a male. What do you think we are?”

  Razer chuckled, and before Ayanna could say anything, he took off her cape, tossed it over her head, then bent and hoisted her up over his shoulder.

  “I’ll get her to safety,” he told the males and they let him walk past him out the stairwell and into an empty hallway. It happened so suddenly, she was caught by surprise. She was effectively trapped, pinned in place by her cloak and Razer’s powerful arms.

  Ayanna fought, squirmed, screamed, cursed, and accomplished little more than to make herself breathless, her voice muffled under the thick cape, her arms and legs trapped by heavy fabric and an extraordinarily strong hold.

  She struggled to take a few calming breaths; she was infuriated, hanging upside down, well aware of the fact that she needed to calm down. She needed to think. She was not going to let another man ruin everything she’d accomplished, all the dreams she had for herself and Luxia. Last time it had just been her job and reputation. This time it could be her freedom, even her life. The Alliance killed people for far less than theft. From what the guards were saying, it sounded like ship security considered her part of whatever crazy, illegal act this Razer guy had perpetrated.

  She had one advantage. Somehow, Razer was controlling other people’s minds, but not hers. She didn’t know whether it was deliberate on his part, or something else prevented him from controlling her in the same way he so easily controlled others. No matter, she needed to use the one advantage she had with the guy. She stopped fighting him and tried to figure out where they were headed. Not an easy feat, turned topsy-turvy over her abductor’s shoulder.

  Razer slowed his jog to a stop and Ayanna heard the telltale sound of an escape pod activating and opening. Surely he didn’t think they could get far in one of those? LS Quantum had left the planet Kadis behind more than a day ago. They’d be sitting ducks out in the middle of nowhere. Never mind that the pods were only made for one person. And she suffered from claustrophobia. She began to struggle again, even more earnestly this time.

  “No, no, no,” she yelled, letting herself fully panic, flailing under her containment as hard as she could.

  “Shush, Ayanna,” she heard Razer order. He swatted her behind, hard, as if her efforts to free herself were nothing more than a real Earth butterfly’s fluttering. Argh.

  Then she was being set on her feet and her cape yanked off. Air. She took two deep breaths, her breast heaving, and opened her mouth to scream, but Razer quickly and firmly covered it with his giant hand. For the first time she felt true trepidation at the guy’s presence. He tipped her head up and forced her to look into his eyes. The intensity of his dark expression shut her up.

  “A shitload of armed guards are headed this way right now. More than I want to deal with at one time. You are in as much trouble as I am, so I suggest you save your pathetic attempts to capture me for later.

  Gone was a playboy looking for a good time. He didn’t even strike her as a petty thief. This Razer was smart, serious and clearly on a mission. Why hadn’t she realized how potentially dangerous the male was?

  Before she could process the change, she was shoved, somewhat roughly, into the capsule, along with her cape, headdress and mask. Her pack, stuffed full and heavy, was thunked down in her lap.

  Loud shouts called out, “There they are! Stop them!” Shots were fired, laser burns zapping against the walls of the walkway. Razer staggered backwards away from the escape pod entrance as he got hit by a shot. He sank down onto his knees and then fell forward onto his side, half in the capsule, half out of it. He looked up at Ayanna, gritting his teeth. A single guard had hold of his leg and the others were only moments from reaching them.

  “Go,” he told her and moved to push back, clearing the doorway so the capsule could close and detach.

  Ayanna realized he was letting her go without him. Not sure where she’d go to hide, but he appeared to be sacrificing himself to save her. No one else had ever done that for her. She caught hold of his collar and, using all her strength and his momentum, she yanked him into the pod with her just as he must have taken over the guards’ mind, who then let go of Razer’s leg. The bulk of his body landed on her and she fought to pull his feet in too, and then Razer was crowded into the tiny space with her.

  “Make room,” he ordered as she turned her face to avoid a mouthful of his bleeding shoulder, now pressed uncomfortably against her face.

  The pod’s entry door slid shut, a few beeps sounded and Ayanna felt their safety capsule detaching from the ship. She clutched the back of his coat as she pictured them dropping away into space and anxiety overwhelmed her momentarily. He must have heard her whimpers.

  “Hang on, little racia, this pod is just a temporary route to our destination. We’ll be out of it in a few moments.”

  She hoped he was telling the truth. She started to hyperventilate, and claustrophobia threatened her sanity. She could taste the iron of his bleeding wound in the back of her throat.

  “Fuck.”

  Somehow, Razer shifted around in the tight space so that they were facing each other, then he was holding her tight against his chest, as he maneuvered them to flip their positions, leaving him facing the door again, with access to the control panel behind her shoulder. Her pack was pushed down at their feet. He cradled her head in his hand and pressed it against the hard center muscles over his heart, which beat a steadying, reassuring thump under her ear, despite his injured state. The pod tipped back so that she felt herself pressed fully long his whole body. He operated the command screen and the pod jerked forward. He was driving them somewhere specific, it seemed.

  Rationally, she knew they couldn’t be out of breathable air, but her vision started to blink out.

  “Ayanna, c’mon, sweet racia, stay with me.” His tone was softer, laced with frustration and pain, rather than the intensity and anger of moments before.

  She blacked out then.

  For how long, Ayanna didn’t know, but she assumed it had only been a few moments. When she became conscious again, the pod was jerking all over the place, bouncing against outside forces. Razer was cursing and pounding and swiping at the control panel. There was a final hard slam against an unforgiving surface and then the pod was rolling, spinning end-over-end. Ayanna was sure they were going to die, her fear the only thing keeping her from throwing up. The pod came to a slamming halt against yet one more surface. Ayanna fought to hold her nausea down, sucking in oxygen even as she pressed her sweaty face against Razer’s chest for comfort.

  “Sorry about the rough landing, Sweet. You okay?”

  Ayanna didn’t trust herself to speak so she just nodded her head. Surely, they would be covered in bruises.

  The safety capsule’s door sprang open and Razer awkwardly attempted to climb out of the pod with her in his arms, despite his injury.

  He started barking orders in a foreign language and a sultry female voice responded. Vaguely, Ayanna wondered why Razer spoke in a language unrecognized by her language interface device. She blinked to clear her vision and noticed that they were in an empty cargo hold of a mid-sized ship. Razer set her down on the hard metal flooring, emptied the escape pod of their things, including her pack, and, catching her by the elbow and pulling her to her feet, lugged them all unceremoniously towards a large, hinged metal door with locking levers. He opened it, hustled her through it into a utilitarian empty hallway, tossed down their things and closed and relocked the cargo door. He shouted a couple more orders and she felt the vehicle lifting and launching away from what she suspected was LS Quantum docking bay. She couldn’t be sure.

  Razer swiped the computer interface at the door to the vehicle’s cargo bay and she heard the sound of suction, probably a sign that they’d just dumped the escape capsule along with its Quantum homing signal.

  Her captor scooped her up over his uninjured shoulder and bolted down the hallway and up a flight of metal stairs. Before she could
make sense of their situation, he had her strapped into a chair on a flight deck. In front of them, a large computer screen displayed the vast spread of stars in the Q’Tran Galaxy. LS Quantum was nowhere in sight, so she assumed it lay behind them. A quick glance to another screen confirmed their relative nearness to the luxury liner.

  Razer rapidly began tapping on the flight screen in front of him and the ship rumbled slightly, then shot away from LS Quantum. Moments later, the large screen in front of them lit up with the streaking evidence He had activated the ship’s hyper speed. The black universe and its star-studded screen zapped into the glowing, spreading white light against bright blue blur of the Alliance ship lane. This was hyperspace, something Ayanna had only ever experienced from deep inside the luxury liner with no screen views of the skyscape. It was both beautiful and terrifying. The most terrifying thing of all though, was that Razer could be taking her anywhere, years away from LS Quantum, and far, far away from Luxia and her father.

  Eight

  Razer sighed in relief as he swiftly switched out the data on the ship’s identity codes to one of the hundreds they stored in the AI’s memory. He deleted the one he’d used to land on the luxury liner. There was no way Quantum would be able to track them, but to be sure, he instructed Astarn, the ship’s AI, to run a full diagnostic to ensure nothing had ‘attached’ itself to the ship or its occupants while on the liner. He’d land them on the other side of the Q’Tran universe, near Crannor, still a hyperspace shot away from Illysia and his family’s island compound. If they were being trailed, he didn’t want to lead his adversaries directly home.

  He slid a glance over at Ayanna. She looked shell-shocked. Her face was pale, her eyes huge and watery. Some of his blood was drying on her cheek.

  He got up and knelt in front of her to unbuckle her from the co-pilot seat. She covered her mouth and then promptly threw up all over him. A sob wrenched free and his heart broke. He knew he never wanted to see her cry. Instead of annoying him like other female’s tears had done, it blasted his heart open more painfully than his laser wound.

  “Ayanna, Sweet.” He released the belts holding her against the chair and scooped her up into his arms, his shoulder stinging.

  “Astarn, activate the cleansers,” he ordered the AI as he gingerly carried Ayanna away from the flight deck and toward his sleeping quarters. She lay stiff and unmoving in his arms.

  “Shush, don’t cry.” Tears had started a steady stream down her face. He imagined her confusion, her humiliation, her terror—“

  “Put me frakking down!” She began fighting him in wild swings and kicks, catching him across the face and in the side, forcing him to set her down or risk dropping her.

  She didn’t run. She simply took advantage of the floor under her feet as a launching surface to continue to pummel him. It took him a moment to capture her hands and lock them down. Damn, she was tiny. He remembered picking her up and setting her into his lap in the club and how light she’d been then. Without her platform shoes and the feathered headdress, she barely reached his shoulders. Even the cape had added height to her stature, but now, he was reminded that in just her flat boots and flight suit, she was surprisingly petite and slight. Fragile. He loosened his grip on her wrists, worried about bruising her fine skin. She responded by driving up a sharp knee with speed and surprising accuracy towards his manhood. He barely dodged the hit.

  He managed to get a grip on her wrists firmly again and moved her out-of-range of his manhood. Despite his long reach, she still got in a few good kicks against his shins and her boots were effective at leaving bruises, not that he’d notice them against all the other bruises they both likely sported during their escape from Quantum. His shoulder wound wasn’t serious, but it still burned like a poisonous craffer sting. They needed to get cleaned up and each take a turn in the medscan to enhance their healing before the pain set in too deeply for the scan to alleviate easily. Unfortunately, Ayanna looked like she needed a brawl first. He could relate. He’d just rather brawl after showers, medscans and in the comfort of his bed.

  “You’ve ruined my life, you ass!” she screamed at him.

  Absorbing the continued hits with grim determination like the warrior he was, Razer once again tossed her over his uninjured shoulder and headed to the cleansing unit located off his sleeping quarters. He’d planned on giving Ayanna space and time to clean up on her own, but her actions weren’t conducive to civil behavior.

  Picking up a black eye and a split lip in the short distance to his cabin, he stripped them both down to bare skin. He squeezed them into the cramped space of the shower and activated the chemical wash, making sure to swap their positions so she didn’t get the stinging soap directly in her face. She kept struggling and fighting against him. She was a determined little jinka. He shouldn’t have been aroused by the violent actions in the shower, but being naked against Ayanna’s slick skin was impossible to ignore. He did manage to protect himself his more tender parts with one hand.

  After the shower finished the drying cycle, he picked Ayanna up, face forward, her delectable, curved backside mashed intimately against his chest and unmistakable erection. Holding her several measures above the floor, he carted her to the medical room, where he struggled to get her resistant body into the scanner. Eventually, he had to strap her down to get the shield locked in place.

  “Close your eyes or lose them,” he warned her through the glass, relieved that she actually followed one set of instructions. When he was sure her eyes were shut, he hit the diagnostic command, panting a bit at the physical effort it had taken to get her to this point. Only surface injuries. Good. He instructed the machine to administer the healing response. Since that would take a few moments, he sank down onto a stool in relief and tried to ignore his burning shoulder.

  Questions ran like a river in his mind. How long would she stay angry at him? What could he offer as enticement to make her less angry? Why couldn’t he control her mind? Why had he brought her along? When could he get her into his bed? Was she his destined mate?

  When Ayanna’s healing cycle ended, Razer seriously debated just leaving her in the chamber, maybe administering a sleeping agent. He moved to stand, and discovered it was a struggle. He realized he was damned sore from that escape. He’d curled around Ayanna to bear the brunt of all the banging around when they were in the escape pod, and his muscles let him know it now. Ayanna’s attacks afterwards hadn’t help his injuries or his pain level either. If he didn’t get his own body into the healing chamber, he’d be at a disadvantage to protect her should they be pursued. That decided it. He’d do anything to keep her safe.

  She thumped on the glass to get his attention and he looked down at her. Her eyes had started to widen in panic, her hands pushing against the chamber walls, and he remembered her claustrophobia from earlier. He couldn’t just let her out though. He groaned at the likely consequences to come later, but overrode the medscan’s treatment orders and added a powerful sedative to the chamber’s air mix. Moments later, her face still furious, eyes wide in outrage, mouth still spewing derogatory epithets, Ayanna subsided into a deep sleep.

  When she went completely still, he opened the chamber, the lid sliding into its protective slot with a soft whoosh. She looked so peaceful now. He wanted to kiss her. Maybe he could keep her asleep until they reached Illysia, yet knew that they needed to head to Crannor first, the independent banking planet where his family kept their secret account and safe.

  He lifted her dead weight, groaning a bit at the strain to his shoulder, and carried her to his bed. Laying her down, he contemplated leaving her naked, but decided she might feel too vulnerable in that state when she did awake. Still, he took a moment to enjoy how beautiful she was. Mine, he thought. If she’d have him.

  Her skin glowed golden and as smooth and lucent as silk cultivated from the nunneries on Yird. Under the low lighting of his bed chamber, it glowed luminous. Just as he’d admired during her performance, her full breasts peaked
with bright pink nipples that pulled up tight and firmed as he brushed a feathering fingertip across them. Her hips spread out from her pinched waist, making him want to trace their expansion and follow the outside line of her body down to her dainty little feet, then return up between her shapely legs to the apex of her thighs where her pussy glistened, waxed of all but a tiny strip of hair. She’d kept her mons covered during her dance, but it was openly displayed for him now and he salivated at the idea of tasting her.

  That was probably never going to happen, he sighed. She hated him. One thought did give him hope. Ayanna hadn’t left him behind during their escape. He’d have made it to the ship regardless, since there was another escape pod in the hall, but she didn’t know that. Once he’d dispatched with the charging guards, he’d have caught up with her. He suspected he’d never let her get too far away now. They were tethered by something more than lust.

  He managed to dress her in one of his softest shirts, a pullover with no buttons or zippers, therefore nothing to turn into a weapon. He didn’t put it past her to find a way to grind something hard down into a sharp tool. The shirt was huge on her, and went to her knees, but he enjoyed knowing what she looked like underneath it. He clumsily rolled the cuffs up to expose her elegant hands and wrists. Then he left her alone and safely unconscious while he returned to the medscan to attend to his own healing.

  Nine

  Waking with a luxurious stretch in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, Ayanna took in her surroundings. Alone and dressed in a warm, stretchy shirt, she noticed that her thick hair was damp near her scalp. She must have showered? Her memories came flooding back and her sense of contentment flat-lined.

  That crazy horrible kidnapping asshole! She was going to make him pay for what he’d done, but she needed to contact her sister as soon as possible.