Hers to Captivate

by Patricia A. Knight

  “Shit. Should’ve said that in the beginning. Fine, fine… give me a minute—and you owe me one, Stults.”

  The “go-to-guy” to make things happen sat on a low wall and kicked his heels for many long minutes until the mysterious head of the largest human slavery consortium in the known universes finally came on line.

  “So Mr. Stults, you have news for me about the woman.”

  “Yeah, boss. As we thought, the doctor disembarked at the Verdantian spaceport with a GAPS agent—that Khlossian. Two military types met her and hustled her away to some sort of domed lockdown. The security and protection around her is significant. She’s opaque to us as long as she remains where she is. We’ll have to wait until she leaves her current location.”

  “Has the original contractor made planet-side?”

  “Yes. It’s here. I told it to stay out of sight.”

  “Tell it to finish the job it started on Talleo IV, and I want proof of death. I don’t care how long it takes.”

  “I understand.”

  “Call me when it’s done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Three

  Mage had chosen a secluded table at the Eight Bells, but even so…Captain Magellan Aiolos DeLan closed his eyes with a groan and jerked his uniform tunic over the prominent bulge in his fitted pants. He must stop thinking about that kiss! Tristan DeHelios. By the Mother, Tris was alive. The thoughts and feelings he’d forcibly left behind as he’d rode from Nyth Uchel as fast as his horse could carry him rushed back headlong. Anger. Humiliation. Rejection. Even now, eight years later, Mage could feel the hot tears on his cheeks as he’d bitten back sobs of devastation on that headlong gallop; but Tris had not been indifferent. Why had the man struck out so viciously at his tentative approach?

  Mage raised his glass and drained the remainder of the cold brew. What are you going to do about it, Mage? He peered into the empty mug and mused as he ran his forefinger around the top. He had some decisions to make—if he hadn’t already predetermined his fate by agreeing to stay with Tris instead of onboard the Revertar.

  “How about a refill for my handsome captain?” He felt the light press of a hand on his shoulder and looked up. His lovely blond server smiled and held up a pitcher.

  “Not right now, but thanks, Tia.” He returned her smile. “I’m meeting an old friend for dinner. I’ll take that refill then.”

  “Sure.” Her smile dimmed. “A male friend or a female friend?” she asked.

  “Last time I saw him, Tristan was definitely male.” Mage laughed. Tia had many fine qualities. Subtlety was not one of them, and the fact that Tris was male didn’t exclude him from being an eligible lover. Like many off-worlders new to Verdantia and unfamiliar with the culture, Tia forgot that most Verdantians, at least the noble class, were bisexual.

  Her smile brightened. “After we get off, several of the staff are going to the Clube Firestide. The Gratum Mortuis are playing. Would you and your friend like to join us?”

  “The Gratum Mortuis are still around? They were popular when my grandmom was a teen.”

  Tia laughed. “Yeah… they have sort of a cult following. I don’t think they’ll ever stop touring.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Well, how about it, Captain?”

  Mage knew her invitation included more than her company at the nightclub, and if not for Tristan he would have taken her up on it. Tia was charming, with wicked bedroom talents. He could testify to that from personal knowledge. She’d been a bright spot in his infrequent stops in Arkodaenia. As it was…“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll ask him and let you know.”

  Tia lifted her hand and saluted him. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Mage laughed, returned her salute and watched the undulations of her pert bottom as she wove her way back to the bar.

  “Does that lovely ass belong to a friend of longstanding?” At the sound of Tristan’s wry voice, Mage swung around with a laugh.

  “Tris. Sit, please. Ah, I’ve known Tia for a while, yes. I’ll introduce you.” The large form of Tristan DeHelios settled into a chair and Mage could feel his lower body respond to the heat in the other man’s eyes. “We’ve been invited to join her and her friends later this evening. I could put in a good word for you.”

  “No thanks. My interest lies elsewhere.”

  Mage held Tristan’s gaze, hoping he disguised his reaction to the provocation in Tristan’s eyes. He had no desire for Tris to realize how unsettled he was.

  Tris raised his hand and waved at the pretty server. She nodded in acknowledgment and started back to their table. Tristan regarded him in silence, then his mouth stretched in a warm smile and his gray eyes shown with appreciation—an expression that would conquer hearts far less vulnerable than his. “Damn you for being a fine looking man, Magellan.”

  Mage buried his head in the menu though he could have recited its items by heart. Tristan’s low chuckle did nothing to restore his equilibrium. By Her light. I feel sixteen again. He ground his teeth at the thought. He wasn’t sixteen. He was a starship captain and by the Goddess, before they went any further, he’d have an explanation. Both men gave their orders and menus to Tia, and over a refilled mug of brew, Mage regrouped. “So, Tristan DeHelios.” Mage pursed his lips. “Explain yourself.”

  The arched eyebrows and explosion of laughter from the man across the table was not the response Mage anticipated. “I’ll bet those words and that expression strike fear into your officers and crew.” Tris grinned. “I’m not one of them.” His eyes softened and his voice lowered to an intimate growl. “I’m sorry. I’m so gods-be-damned sorry, Mage. Pushing you away like that was the last thing I wanted to do.”

  “Then why?” Mage said. “You must have known I worshipped you.” For a moment, he was again that sixteen-year-old boy with all the pain and heartbreak he had felt apparent in his raw voice. Tristan’s expression shuttered and his mouth tightened. For a second, Mage saw a man filled with bitter cynicism, but then Tristan shrugged and his expression morphed to devil-may-care disregard. It all happened in an instant, and Mage questioned that he’d seen anything at all.

  “My father had chosen a woman for me to wed—an appropriate bride for a young DeHelios prince, a magistra to aid in the working of the Great Rite. No matter that she was ten years my senior and I’d never met the woman.” Tristan chuckled. The sound contained no humor. “Father was quite dispassionate in his explanation of what he required of me. While I wasn’t needed—I was the extra, after all, there was my oldest brother and his wife, and Hel and Athena—I was not discharged from my obligation to the people of Nyth Uchel.”

  Tristan drew a figure eight on the table as he spoke. “You were so young and innocent, just sixteen.The eight years between us seemed… I knew you’d never…” His hand clenched into a tight fist. “By the Mother! I was doing the ‘right thing’ for once. Imagine that. I should have… I wanted to… ah, fuck it.” Tris straightened and took a long pull on his brew. He set the mug down with painstaking care and gazed into the amber fluid as if it contained all the answers in the universe. “I’m making a complete hash of this.” With a sigh, Tristan dropped his head back.

  “The lady made it abundantly clear she would tolerate no competition for my time. She and I had an ugly fight. I went to the stables to cool off, and there you were.” Tristan’s voice dropped to a bare whisper. “You offered yourself to me… and I couldn’t have you.” He held Mage’s gaze for a long moment. Again, Mage saw disillusionment and sorrow before Tris shuttered his gaze and his face lost all expression. “I was angry and bitter and I said things I immediately wanted back. Of all the shameful things I have done in my life, and believe me, there have been a few, my conduct that night is the thing I regret most. I searched for you almost immediately to apologize, but you were gone.” Tristan cleared his throat. “And you never came back. So, though it is eight years too late, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said flatly.

  Mage held Tristan’s stoic stare for
long seconds—then his mouth quirked at the corners. “It’s worth quite a bit, actually.”

  Tristan’s face lost its frigid appearance and a tentative smile climbed to his eyes. “Good.”

  “And the lady who was to be your wife? What happened to her?” Mage murmured.

  “Dead in the massacre along with all my family—all but my middle brother, Hel. The Haarb were mercilessly thorough.”

  “Gentlemen, your dinner.” Tia’s arrival with their food interrupted whatever else Tris might have said. When satisfied they had all they needed, she left. Mage looked up from his plate. “So… why aren’t you dead?”

  “Pure accident.” Irony gleamed from Tristan’s eyes while he chewed and swallowed. “I was tagging along with Hel on a little jaunt down our mountain when the Haarb decimated Nyth Uchel.”

  “What have you been doing since?”

  “Busywork for my brother. Nothing of any importance.” Tristan snorted. “I believe he prioritizes my assignments based on how far and how long they will remove my presence from Nyth Uchel.” Tris busied himself with his food.

  Mage winced inside for Tris. Unless Tristan had transformed in the past eight years, Hel’s dismissal of his younger brother would sting. As much as he, Mage, had idolized Tristan, so Tristan had idolized his older brother. In return, Hel had avoided Tristan whenever possible. It seemed that hadn’t changed.

  Tris looked up from his plate. “And you? How did you wind up in the Verdantian navy?”

  Mage exhaled and scrubbed his fingers across his mouth. “Hmm. Where to start. From Nyth Uchel, I went home to mother and father and then into the cavalry. You remember what things were like when the Haarb invaded. Our Mother Verdantia needed every man and woman who could sit a horse and swing a sword. Toward the end of the war, I was stationed in Arkodaenia and the technology here fascinated me. I had no reason to go home. My family, like yours, was murdered by the Haarb.” Mage paused for a moment to master the pain of that memory.

  “I’m sorry,” Tris murmured.

  “Yes… well. Most of us on Verdantia have that in common.” Mage gave Tris a crooked smile and shrugged. “We have all lost people we loved. At any rate, to see the starships, to realize the practical application of what had been only an exercise in book-learning to a teenage boy?” He laughed. “I had to be part of it.”

  The wonder and excitement of those days of discovery infused his voice, but Mage felt no embarrassment about his child-like enthusiasm. Sitting across from him, his eyes lit with appreciation, was one of the few men who’d ever shared Mage’s excitement with all things mechanical or electronic.

  Tristan straightened in his chair, suddenly eager, and ten years fell from his face. “Did you see the new anti-grav generators they are installing on dock slips three and four? How slick is that! Flip a switch and no gravity. The portmaster tells me they are only two of the twelve coming to modernize the port.”

  Mage nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, the time savings in loading and unloading is incredible. Did you hear the navy is getting the latest interspacial navigation upgrade? The ISNAC-7. It will enable greater hyper-light jumps—perhaps as much as from Triton to Nuovo Terra in one jump.”

  “Is that the one with the cerebral data port? What I wouldn’t give to be a navigator using that interface.” Tristan gazed off as if viewing unseen heavenly bodies. His comment of “I wonder if that technology could be applied to ground-based systems,” collided with Mage’s, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…”

  Both men looked at each other and started laughing. Tristan ran his fingers through his hair with a sheepish smile. “Guess we still share a fascination for the techy toys.”

  Mage nodded. “When the Galactic Court awarded the Haarb’s ships to Verdantia I leapt at the chance to crew our suddenly acquired space fleet. Naval officers from the League of Federated Planets whipped my ass into shape.” Mage scratched his head and shot a rueful glance at Tristan. “Brutal, intensive, on-the-job training, but I soaked it all in… and here I am. Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else. The freedom and sense of discovery is addictive. I have found what I want to do with my life.” Mage could feel the heat of Tristan’s appraising eyes and blood flooded his lower body. He shoveled a forkful of green vegetables into his mouth.

  Tris arched an eyebrow over an observant gray eye. “From what I can determine, your ass suffered no lasting harm, and I’ve scrutinized it intently.”

  Mage choked on the food he was chewing and reached for his brew to wash it down. “You mentioned something about working as the new medcenter’s security and liaison officer?”

  Mage listened closely and finished his dinner as Tristan elaborated on his current occupation. Orderinga more potent liquor than the brew they’d been drinking, and a few sweet delicacies, Mage relaxed back into his chair. Anticipation shivered through him at the thought of spending time alone with the DeHelios prince who’d monopolized his daydreams as a young man. His days as a student of magicks in Nyth Uchel had thrown Mage into the company of the youngest of the DeHelios princes, and given the eight-year gap in ages, they’d formed an unlikely pair. He couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d wanted Tristan’s brotherly mentoring to become something—other. He still hadn’t decided if he wished to explore that “other” now, but Tristan’s ravenous kiss—and his own body’s response—proved a strong argument in favor.

  As the evening wore on, Mage felt the full weight of the overwhelming charm and perceptive attentiveness Tristan used to mesmerize those he wanted under his spell. With a rueful inner laugh, Mage acknowledged he was no more immune to Tristan at twenty-four than he’d been at sixteen. He couldn’t remember a dinner he’d enjoyed more—though the face of a certain violet-eyed beauty he’d spent three weeks with on the Revertar did slip into his mind. Best he go now while he could still force himself to leave. With a groan, he slid his chair away from the table and stood. “It’s late, Tris. I’ve got to get back to the ship.”

  Tris swung around and looked at the timekeeper on the wall over the bar. “Damnation. I didn’t realize the time. I’ll walk you back.” Throwing money down on the table, Tris stood. “After you, Captain.”

  They accomplished the short walk back to his ship in comfortable silence, each man lost in his own thoughts. Just before Mage turned to walk up the gangway to the Revertar, he paused. “I’ll contact you when I’ve gotten the details lined out. As I said, it will take a day or two, and Tris… I enjoyed tonight.”

  Tris studied him and muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. With an implacable hand, he guided Mage behind a large stack of cargo containers and out of sight of the crewman assigned to guard the entry to the ship. Silently, with a broad hand planted in the middle of Mage’s sternum, Tris pushed him back against the hard plasti-crate. “I’m going to kiss you again, Captain.”

  Mage’s heart thudded in his chest and warmth flooded his lower body as Tristan’s face came inexorably closer. He stopped a hair’sbreadth from Mage’s lips. His teeth gently caught Mage’s lower lip and sucked it into his mouth before Tris completed his gentle attack with a tactile meeting of lips and a tangle of tongues. His lips were the only place Tristan touched him, and it was devastating—as if years of pent up desire spilled out of his mouth into Mage. Mage’s cock strained at his pants, full-blown and painfully hard in a matter of seconds. He lost himself until Tris stepped back and put some space between them. Mage let his head fall back to rest on the crates, his mouth still pulsing from the sensual assault.

  Tristan’s voice came out a warm, honeyed growl. “I intend to have you, you know.”

  “Yeah. Message received, loud and clear,” Mage said with a soft laugh as he gazed skyward, never looking at Tristan. He couldn’t and remain composed. “Please leave, Tris. I have to stand here a few moments before I’m decent to board. Your presence won’t help.”

  The man laughed, turned on his heel and walked into the night.

  Chapter Four

  Wh
en Angelica had walked out of her apartment that morning, she’d had to look twice at the gorgeous hunk of man flesh who waited with two cups of steaming kaffé, one of which he held out to her with a charming display of even white teeth. His striking face was freshly shaven and he smelled of soap with an occasional hint of an herbal cologne or aftershave—something woodsy and smoky. He towered over her. She was eyelevel with the nipples on his chest, clearly outlined through the finely woven fabric of his black t-shirt. His powerful body didn’t carry an ounce of extra flesh. His form-fitting shirt and closely tailored black slacks would have shown any excess. She didn’t know why, perhaps it was in the way he held himself, alert to his surroundings, or the controlled fluidity of his physical movements, but he appeared dangerous. Not a bad trait for a bodyguard, I suppose. Then there was the telltale shoulder holster holding a Razar 88K snugged to his left side. Angelica thought she’d covered her momentary pause and indrawn breath until she saw the knowing amusement in his silver gray eyes. She accepted his offer of kaffé with a murmur of thanks and then attempted to ignore him for the rest of the day. She might as well have ignored a fell wolf loose in the room—an impossibly sexy fell wolf.

  Between interviewing incoming staff and overseeing the placement of her precious neurological equipment, the first day at the medical center proved long. Angelica looked forward to a relaxing soak in a hot bath and an early bedtime. As she walked the gravel path through the natural beauty that comprised the compound, she could feel herself relax. Only her silent shadow, the disturbing masculine presence of her bodyguard, continued to be a source of discomfort. It wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t want to drop to my knees and ask to serve him every time he looks my way. She sighed softly. I still owe him an apology.

  When they arrived at the entrance to her apartment, Tristan handed her a small tablet. “Here are the instructions for activating the artificial intelligence in your apartment. There is a protocol to follow for the verbal commands or the AI will not respond. I’m sure you have used systems like this before.”