Cosmic Cabaret

by SFR Shooting Stars

She patted his shoulder patronizingly. “Only if you go with Razer.”

  Kugen scowled through the screen at him. He had the look of a man who knew he was not going to win this argument.

  “If I miss the birth of my child, Bro, I’m going to make you sleep on the hard floor of the engine room every time we go on a mission.”

  Razer stared at his brother intently. “I promise, we’ll be home in time for your first child’s birth. We’ll be home shortly.”

  Thirteen

  Passing through customs on the heavily protected Crannor with a false ID and the loot of stolen gems had been easier than facing Razer’s fierce and intimidating brother Kugen and cousin Galen. The two giants had looked her over, glanced at each other and shaken their heads.

  “Razer is going to have his work cut out for him,” one of them said before catching Razer by the elbow and strong-arming him out of the room. Fortunately for Ayanna, the males’ very-pregnant mates waddled over and welcomed her with excitement as soon as they touched down on the rocky and green island they called home, hustling her away from the terse-looking guys to find her something pretty to wear, while distracting her with a flurry of intrusive, personal questions.

  Where did you two meet? Did you know Razer was your mate right away? Do you take everything off when you dance? What was it like to strip for strangers? Does stripping pay well? Are you sad to give it up? You know you’ll have to give it up. These guys don’t share. Where have you been in the galaxy? What’s your sister like? How is your father? How do you get your skin so smooth? What’s the dumbest thing Razer ever said to you? Tell us everything.

  She felt overwhelmed but accepted by their fussing and attention, and then Trina, Galen’s mate, plopped her daughter Shoshi into her lap with a warmed bottle of milk and left her to feed the infant with no further instructions. Razer had disappeared several cycles ago with the other males to plot the retrieval of her own family from Huldra. The only other person present was an older woman, a musician sitting at a harp, across the room, with her head down, gently strumming the strings. She played music both slow and calming at the same time. It was beautiful. Briefly, Ayanna wondered whether she was one of the rescued slaves Razer talked about. She had horns like Razer and the other males.

  Ayanna looked down to her arms at the beautiful baby with wild red hair, wide hazel green eyes, and watched her drink the milk with steady sucks. The baby’s swallows sounded in concert with the rhythm of the melody. Adjusting to the domestic world of Razer’s family after the noise and intensity, and superficial lifestyle, on Quantum took some effort.

  She was grateful for the peace and quiet of this moment, for the soothing music of the beautiful instrument, for doing something as simple as feeding a child. What if she stayed? What if Razer wanted her to stay? The answer seemed just out of reach, a lifeline…something she could grab onto after so long on her own trying to stay afloat, or something that could snap and leave her floundering, adrift, even more vulnerable than she already was. Did she risk casting her lot with Razer after knowing him for such a short time?

  She sensed movement at the door and looked up. Razer stood watching her, his arms crossed, feet planted wide apart, an impassive look on his face. He glanced over at the musician and the tune of the music shifted into something livelier. The baby let go of the bottle, the artificial nipple slipping out with a soft pop. Shoshi sighed deeply and closed her eyes so Ayanna set the bottle to the side.

  “What?” she asked defensively, cuddling Shoshi closer. Maybe he preferred her sexier image from Quantum?

  Then he smiled a bit dopily. “Just imagining the moment when you’ll be feeding our child.”

  Ayanna dipped her head down as a rush of pleasure flooded her head to toe. Why did his words make her feel so good? It’s like once he breached her defensive walls, she had no way to resist him anymore. The women in Razer’s family acted as though their mating was a foregone conclusion. Even her body believed it.

  But she hadn’t relied on anyone in years and slipping into a state of dependence felt wrong too. It’d be nice to be asked instead of told how their relationship was going to play itself out. Steph warned her earlier that these Kadisian males needed firm boundaries or they tended to ride roughshod over their mates’ preferences. She hid a smile.

  “If we have any children.”

  Razer ambled over to her and went down on his knees, caging her into the chair with the babe in her arms. He leaned down and brushed a soft kiss on Shoshi’s head. Then he pressed his lips hard against Ayanna’s, stamping them with his possessiveness.

  “When we have children. And if we don’t have children, for whatever reason, I’ll love you anyway.”

  Love?

  “You don’t know me well enough to love me.”

  He kissed her again. Harder and longer. The music picked up into a skipping tempo.

  “You’re smart, you’re tough, you’re hardworking, you’re honest, you’re protective of your family. You’re the sexiest damn female I’ve ever laid eyes—or hands—on.” He leaned back to run his hands up and down her legs, sending all her senses into a spin. He continued, nodding at the baby, “Trina and Steph took to you like sisters—you’ve already earned their trust enough to care for one of the kids.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “You’re my mate. All that matters to me is whether you can love me in return.”

  He looked away over her shoulder.

  “I need to tell you who I am.

  He paused and she waited patiently for him to speak again.

  “Before Kugen found me and my mother a year ago, I was living poor with her on the outskirts of a remote village. A scandal and a couple of outcasts.” His voice went hoarse. “Kadisian society assigns a lot of status on being of official birth, and in her youth, my mother returned from a job in the capital single, alone and pregnant with me. My genetic father was already married to Kugen’s mother, who had hired my mother into their household as an entertainer.”

  “They had an affair?”

  Razer looked away in mixed shame and anger.

  “Not exactly.”

  Ayanna tipped her head into his hand, rubbing her cheek against his palm to let him know she guessed the truth and felt his pain. She stayed silent, letting him collect himself. He cleared his throat matter-of-factly.

  “Typically, in these scenarios, a female would abort. A product of rape, an unwanted pregnancy. Gods know, I would have done it trapped in her position. But my mother was…is…what some would call simple-minded.”

  Ayanna frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “My mother, while beautiful and gentle, does not have all her mental facilities.”

  “Your genetic father raped a woman who was not capable of a relationship?”

  Razer’s lips thinned in disgust.

  “That sums it up. Apparently, her beauty was too difficult to resist.”

  Ayanna took a deep breath. “How did your brother find you?”

  “Ah, the happy part of the story.” Razer kissed her again, almost as if he anchored himself by doing so. “His mother, in an angry fit one day, because he refused to return to Kadis and serve the government with his powers, told him that he was no better than his father. Apparently in the ensuing argument, the truth came out. He came and found us, and brought us here.”

  Ayanna propped the sleeping baby in one arm and used her free arm to pet Razer’s long sideburns. “And you, in turn, went to work helping him rescue slaves.”

  Razer nodded.

  “Where is your mother now?”

  Razer caught her hand in his and pulled her and Shoshi up from the chair. He held her eyes with his and then led her to the woman playing the harp.

  “Ayanna, mate of my heart, I would like you to meet my mother.”

  Fourteen

  The family meal was a lively affair, a joyous celebration, which was followed immediately after by a solemn and serious parting of true loves. Ayanna had never seen such passionat
e embracing in her life. Until Razer, that is.

  Razer didn’t want Ayanna to travel with the males at all, preferring she stay behind on Illysia where she’d be safe with Trina and Steph, but the other male’s mates supported her argument that her father and sister would only come willingly if she were there. The males didn’t see the point in asking for their permission. A simple abduction in the dark was the most straightforward plan. Trina told them to pack their caveman mentalities away.

  Now she waited on their cloaked ship, hovering over on the dark side of Huldra, having lost the argument to accompany the men to the rendezvous point she’d sent by DUCIN to Luxia. Three against one had been an impossible fight to win.

  She paced the flight deck. She didn’t even know if Luxia had received her missive, and it was only because it had been received that she believed it arrived at its destination. Razer, Galen and Kugen had been gone for more than four cycles and she felt like pulling her hair out at the ends.

  Somehow, with magic or a level of psychic power she’d never seen nor imagined possible, the three males had circumvented all the military patrols to land safely on the moon colony just outside the last village where Luxia and her father had been hiding. They’d arrived just as the moon tilted away from the sun, casting the small settlement into pitch black. Geared up in sophisticated suits and helmets, they’d simply walked off the ship and into the night, leaving her half-panicked behind on her own with just an AI programmed to protect the ship. No one else had flown with them on the small jet designed for military action. Where they’d gotten hold of such a sophisticated spaceship, clearly part of the advanced Alliance Fleet, was just one more mystery she hoped to someday understand.

  A commotion at the rear of the ship and the lit security screen showed their return. She gave a cry of relief as she saw Galen and Kugen, carrying her father, and then Razer, armed and watching their backs, board together. Where was Luxia?

  Galen burst into the command center and immediately began powering the ship up for departure.

  “They’ve taken your father to the medcenter.”

  Ayanna ran as quickly as she could to locate them.

  Razer was lifting her pitifully weakened father into the medscan as she skidded into the room. Both looked grim and serious.

  Kugen looked up at her and smiled kindly. “He’s going to be okay. We’re taking him somewhere they can actually treat his condition.”

  “His illness isn’t terminal?”

  Razer engaged the lock on the medscan and began punching in codes. “We checked him when we first found him, and the equipment suggests he can be healed. It’s some kind of virus, possibly synthetic. We’ll know more after the full scans.”

  The minute the machine hummed into action, Razer stalked over to Ayanna and yanked her into his arms. Kugen coughed into his fist and made his exit.

  “Gods! I worried about you alone on the ship the entire time.”

  Ayanna slipped her arms around his waist and pressed against his chest. “I worried about you the whole time you were away.”

  Razer took her lips in a deep, demanding kiss that made her toes curl. When they broke apart, she gasped for air.

  “Ayanna, Sweet, your sister wasn’t with your father. Before he passed out in pain, your father managed to tell us that she went out to meet someone called Max yesterday and never returned. All our mind scans of living people in the geographical area drew a blank.”

  “Max?”

  “Could he have come here looking for her to find you?”

  “I supposed.” she conceded. “What if they’re in trouble?”

  Razer caught her face in his hands. “I need to tell you something you might not like. Do you trust me?

  Ayanna gazed into his dark brown eyes, and in her mind, she reached out for the life raft. “I do. I love you.”

  Razer froze. Then he swept her up and kissed her deeply and thoroughly.

  “Thank you, my Sweet. I’m going to do everything I can to make you happy for the rest of our lives.”

  “I expect as much,” she told him primly, keeping Steph’s advice in mind. “As long as I win half the arguments.”

  He grinned. “I’ll even let you win 50.5% of them.”

  She kissed him. “I’ll be keeping track, of course.”

  He chuckled, then grew serious again.

  “When I scanned Max’s mind back on Quantum, I found out about more than your name.”

  Ayanna frowned, puzzled.

  “Max is a trained assassin for the Alliance,” he told her. “He was working Quantum undercover on a rogue assignment.”

  “A rogue assignment?”

  “I didn’t bother to pick through the details—I was a little distracted by a hot set of tits on a dancer,” he told her sheepishly. “But I can tell you this—other than Kugen, Galen or myself, I wouldn’t trust anyone with your sister’s life like I would Max. He’s deadly, his body a trained weapon, and if anyone can keep your sister safe, he’s the guy.”

  Ayanna squirmed until he let her down. She paced the room, mulling over what Razer had just told her. Some inconsistencies in Max’s story suddenly arose in her mind. She’d dismissed them at the time because everyone on Quantum had secrets. She respected secrets. She went to the medscan. Inside her father rest peacefully, the machine recording a steady heartbeat. She turned to Razer.

  “You’re sure she’s not in the vicinity?”

  “We’re sure. Kugen is certain she’s not even on Huldra anymore. He’s able to read minds at a great distance. There’s no evidence of her.”

  That had to be some amazing telepathic ability.

  “Okay. Let’s go home to Illysia. I’ll try to reach out on DUCIN for her. My father needs help now, not later.”

  He pulled her in his arms and brushed his lips against hers in a caressing kiss. “I like hearing you call Illysia home.”

  Over the commsystem, Galen instructed them to strap in because they were about to fire the rockets to boost their way off the surface and into space.

  “Our mates may made us come with you two, but they also warned us to be back on Illysia for the births or we’d be changing all diapers for a year,” Galen growled.

  “Did Kugen read my mind just now?” she asked Razer, wondering at the timing of their conversation with the rumble of the jets taking off.

  “No, Sweet, he was reading mine.”

  Epilogue

  LS Quantum, Night of the Heist

  Max stood in Ayanna’s dressing area staring at all of her things. Abandoned. He had to find and rescue her. She was innocent of the heist charges. But that thief Razer could have taken her anywhere in the universe. The only person he knew she communicated with regularly was her little sister, Luxia. That’s where he’d start. On Huldra. He’d find the young sister and use her to track and locate Ayanna. Then he’d come back and finish his mission—a mission that had derailed months ago anyway.

  He’d only lingered on Quantum for her. Ayanna was the love of his life, and he was not going to let her go. He started packing up the dancer’s things, fingering one of her spare scarves. Gods, she was beautiful when she danced.

  If Razer hurt her in any way, he’d kill the guy. With his bare hands. Hell, Max intended to kill the guy regardless. But first, he’d find the sister.

  THE END

  The Adventure Continues…

  in Max and Luxia’s forthcoming novella.

  In the meantime, check out the first story in Selene’s Witches & Warlocks series – Brianna's Bewitching.

  Brianna’s a little bit wild, but isn’t that what being young and free is all about? It’s a new age for women and she intends to reap the benefits that new status provides her. She’s focused on developing a rewarding career and finding an adventurous lover. She’s also a witch. Her inherited powers are growing faster than her ability to control them though. She’s not sure if one of her reality shifting spells is the reason she’s become the love interest of one conservative and ut
terly sexist LAPD officer.

  Sneak peek of BRIANNA’S BEWITCHING

  “You pig you! Stay away from me,” Brianna shrilled at the giant, dark-haired cop who appeared at her feet; she pointed an accusing finger at the man and everyone turned to look at him. Some witchy part of her noticed just how damned fine looking he was, how familiar he looked, but she zealously squelched it. She was here for women’s rights, not to meet up with good-looking men in uniforms. Men of the established patriarchy who wanted to oppress women and keep them barefoot, pregnant and tied to the kitchen. This man was the dark night to Steve’s enlightened day. Her eyes welled up for a moment, thinking about gentle and sensitive Steve and his goodness, his belief in women’s equality with men.

  Her chest tensed in pain as she contemplated the possibility that she’d played a role in Steve’s sudden death. When she’d erased him from her vision during the ritual, she certainly hadn’t erased Steve, had she? She wished Traynor would return her calls. She had to believe that her magick was for good. That the New Moon love ritual and Steve’s death happening on the same night was mere coincidences. Steve was a good man. Something this monster of a cop would never understand or support. Her fight today was not just for women, but for the men who supported them. Men like Steve.

  The officer faced her with his mirrored glasses, making it difficult for her to guess what he was thinking. Or at what he was directly looking. Was he checking out her boobs? Probably. The jerk.

  “Get down and put your shirt on immediately, young lady, or I’ll arrest you for indecent exposure,” the officer ordered her.

  She bristled at his commanding tone. And tried to ignore his deep, sensual voice. Damn. She never reacted to a man this way. She diligently developed a cerebral rapport first. She only dated intellectuals. This he-man radiated testosterone and she was struggling to keep her mind rational while her body was lighting up like a candle-laden Yule tree.