“We roll him.” Mogens studied the unconscious shifter. “He’s so big that it’s not practical to lift him. Ah, here is Tobias now.”
Together, with the aid of a dragon shifter, they moved Ransom and massaged his naked large body—his arms and shoulders, his back, buttocks, thighs and calves. A hint of dragon scales showed beneath his skin on his shoulder blades and that part of his skin felt more abrasive to her fingertips. They rolled him again and repeated the process.
Her eyes widened as his cock filled and lengthened. “Oh.”
“One way of discerning he isn’t dead,” Mogens said drily. “Ignore that part of him. It will become flaccid soon.”
Jazen grimaced at the shifter’s groin and ignored the security dragon’s sly amusement, clear in his slanted eyes.
When they’d finished and his naked body hid beneath the lightweight covers, Mogens angled to her. “I’m worried about him. He’s losing weight, despite the nutrition we’re pumping into him. I’m at a loss as to what to do next. I’m encouraging his friends and family to visit and talk to him, because I’ve learned unconscious patients have cognitive responses, even if they can’t communicate. Have you heard that?”
“Yes,” Jazen lied without a blink, falsehoods second-nature to her after years of experience. “I chat with my patients as a matter of course. They respond well to cheerful conversation.”
“Excellent. I must replenish my stock of salves and potions, and I wish to do a cloud reading. I’ll leave the patients in your care. You will find me in my rooms, should you need my aid.”
With a wave, Mogens swept away in a swirl of his white robes. An interesting man. She’d never met a being of his race. His skin changed color from black to white and hovered in between the two shades. No doubt she’d learn the meaning behind the changes. She eyed him until he disappeared.
It wouldn’t do to take him or his friends at face value. During her research, she’d learned a thing or two about the Indy crew and their presumed relationship with the royal family of Viros. They were all soldiers and skilled in warfare. No, she mustn’t underestimate them. That way lay disaster.
A bell tinkled in Nanu’s chamber. She jogged in that direction and the bell ceased its clamor when she entered.
“Ah, there you are.” Nanu’s amber-brown gaze gleamed with naughtiness. “I’m hungry.”
“Mogens said you must not put on weight.”
Nanu’s good humor dispersed, his scowl accentuating his slanted almond-shaped eyes. “I am not fat.” He whipped off his shirt to display a muscular chest with defined pecs and acres of bronzed skin, many shades darker than her own pale complexion. His stomach appeared as iron-hard as his biceps and pecs. “Take back your words.”
Jazen blinked, mesmerized by his masculine strength. “Pardon?”
“Tell me I don’t have a flabby stomach.” Mischief brightened his countenance, and it was his twinkle that jolted her from her lust-induced haze.
“You don’t have a fat belly. You must spend many marks of each cycle training.”
Nanu settled himself more comfortably. “Ry insists on us staying fighting fit.”
“Who is Ry?” She’d take whatever information he offered and reconfirm what she’d already learned.
“Ryman Coppersmith, captain of the Indefatigable. My boss.”
Jazen tried to ignore the gleam in his eyes and his intriguing hair and rushed into her next question. “What do you do when you’re not lying around in bed?”
“I have a broken leg.”
“Yes.”
“It’s time to rub on the speed-healing balm. No one has applied it today.”
“Very well. Let me find the balm and clean restorative bandages.” Thank the goddess she had to collect the supplies from a separate storage chamber.
She needed to regroup.
Something about Nanu made sex jump to the forefront, and the glimpse of his torso…well, she craved a touch, wanting to test the strength in his muscles. In fact, if she’d ventured close enough to run her fingers over his flesh, licking and nibbling might have been the next logical step.
But no. The job came first.
Jazen gave her head a hard shake, then scanned the message Chobe had sent.
I have a chance to buy a house. It has long been Sergy’s dream to have her own home and somewhere safe for Raffey to play. Can you lend me the currency? I am short and need a loan.
Another message had arrived after the first.
New plan. Don’t need a loan now.
Jazen groaned. Chobe and his plans. He’d better not take a loan from a market shark. She sent back a quick comm.
What do you intend to do?
When no message bounced back, she grabbed a roll of bandages and scanned the labels of the different salves. Ah, healing salve. In her line of business, a healing salve would come in handy—if it worked as Mogens indicated. Perhaps she’d liberate these items once she discovered the information she required to capture the cyborg. The balm would prove useful even when she retired from active duties.
She sucked in a huge breath before she re-entered the chamber, told herself to ignore her interest in Nanu and do her job, before she sailed back into his presence. Her next breath contained a hint of herbs and forest greenery, and she smiled as memories of the long cycles of training, high in the mountains assailed her.
“You’re pretty when you’re happy.” The man smiled at her again, a wide and friendly beam, and she found her gaze straying to his naked chest. Muscle packed his body. She suspected he’d be taller than her. Her fingertips tingled with a crazy urge to stroke those bulging muscles to test their hardness. She reached before her brain gave her permission.
Appalled, she wiped her expression clean and jerked her hand to her side. Back to the job. “Can I pull back the covers to check your leg?”
“It would be my pleasure,” he purred.
Jazen froze at the sensual heat in his amber eyes. No. No. No! She forced herself to move, to draw back the covers and to adapt a nurse-type mien. The rest of his body was as finely formed as his chest and arms. Strength and toned muscles. Unbidden, her gaze darted to his groin. Instead of the normal loose, baggy underthings she and her brother wore, his clothes cupped and highlighted his masculinity.
“Where did you get your clothes?”
“I picked them up during my travels. I find them comfortable. Do they entice you?”
She ignored the question and removed the clasp fastening at the top of the bandage. Taking care not to jolt Nanu’s leg, she unwound the dressing. A sharp tang rose to her nose.
“What is that scent?”
“Peppermint.”
“I have never encountered the aroma.”
“Mogens collects healing plants wherever we travel,” Nanu said.
“Do you enjoy journeying to new territories?”
Nanu shrugged. “We go where the work is.”
“Do you have a favorite place?”
“We’re based on Viros,” Nanu said. “That’s home now.”
He hadn’t answered the question. Instead, he tilted his head and stared at her. The angle of his head, the masculine confidence, shoved at her memory. She’d crossed paths with him somewhere. The where would come to her, eventually. “Have we met?”
“From which planet do you hail?”
“Grumseics.” She didn’t offer more information. Standard procedure of anyone in her business and drummed into her by her trainer. Perhaps he’d received the same training. Had she seen him at one of the training camps? No, his distinctive hair. She’d recall that because the style was memorable.
“That’s a cold, gloomy place to live.” He broke the silence between them. “Do you visit home often?”
“No. Do you have much pain in your leg?”
“Thanks to Mogens’s treatments, my leg is healing fast. I’ll be back at work soon.”
“Work?”
“We have a contract with the dragons.”
“I s
ee.” She hadn’t discovered that, yet her information web had never failed in the past. “Do you work on Narenda then?”
“For several cycles every quarter.”
She required more information. “What do you do for the dragons?”
“I can’t discuss the details.”
She pursed her lips, grudgingly respecting his loyalty and discretion even as it stymied her mission. The healing balm was the source of the peppermint, the scent wafting up to her when she opened the tub. Jazen dipped her finger into it and steeled herself to touch Nanu.
The first contact of skin against skin was every bit as bad as she’d feared. Something about this man called to her. Her nostrils quivered as peppermint and manly musk filled each breath. Despite the urge to linger and sigh over him, she forced her hands to make measured and practical strokes while trying not to press too hard on his injury.
“You’re fantastic at that.” Lazy humor lurked in his husky tone, although she didn’t risk a glance at his bold features and way-too-attractive face.
“Doing my job. How did you break your leg?”
“The tender I was piloting crashed.”
“So you’re not a hot-shot pilot?” she teased.
“It was an accident. I’d give my left nut for it not to have happened. Ransom is in a coma because of the crash.”
He’d gone from lazy charm to icy hauteur in secs flat. Interesting. “Where do you work when you’re not on Narenda?”
Nanu relaxed a fraction. “It depends on the contract. We try to limit our time away from Viros now that Ry has children. Camryn and the twins come with us on the short trips.”
“You are on first-naming terms with your employer?”
“Ry might be captain, but he’s family too. The entire crew has a share of the Indefatigable and we all have a say in the contracts we accept.”
“That’s unusual,” she said, her hands stilling.
“It works. You ask a lot of questions.”
Frag it. Raising suspicions wasn’t the way she wanted to start this assignment. “Making conversation.” Jazen wound the healing bandage around his limb, fastened the closure and stepped away.
“How long have you been a nurse?”
“Several rotations now,” she answered.
“Do you enjoy the work?”
“Meeting new people and traveling to different planets and moons is fun. It’s a challenge.” As usual, the lies flowed off her tongue, but for the first time, they made her uncomfortable. She shoved away the attack of guilt.
Chobe. She had to complete this contract to raise the funds to lend to Chobe and step closer to her ambition to run her own business. Hopefully, Chobe wouldn’t do anything stupid and go to money-lenders. Of course, she’d lend her brother the currency. She didn’t need much to survive, and Azarious had already tried to talk her in to staying now that her ten-rotation contract had ended.
“What are you thinking about?” Nanu asked, his head cocking in alertness. “You’ve gone pale.”
“I need food,” she said. “I haven’t eaten this morn.”
“Eat,” Nanu ordered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Jazen scooped up the dirty healing bandage plus the tub of balm, glad of her creditable excuse to escape. “You have your bell, should you need me.”
“I won’t hesitate to use it,” he assured her.
Time To Get The Gattoc In Order
Two cycles later
Nanu studied his friends, glad of a distraction from his craving for Jazen. His body cried out for her, his dreads vibrating enough to rattle the beads decorating the ends. His gums ached and his cock rose to prominence, ready for mating every time she entered his chamber. Worst of all, the compulsion to get his courtship gattoc in order was driving him crazy.
He’d have to come clean with his friends because the nesting instincts meant finality for him and Jazen. Without her, he would decline, his inner beast desperate for the satiation of sex with the one he’d chosen as mate.
His friends—Ry in particular—would understand, but they’d ask questions, and Kaya would tease him unmercifully. He clenched and unclenched his hands, forcing his mind to focus.
“What is your opinion of Jazen?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
Camryn frowned, as did Kaya, and Nanu’s gut bucked in alarm. He wanted his friends to approve of his future mate because he hated to envision a life away from his adopted family and Viros.
“She asks a lot of questions,” Mogens replied first. “Some of them dip into nosiness.”
Kaya puffed out a breath. “Yes! It’s almost as if she’s seeking information about one or all of us.”
“I ask her questions in response,” Nanu said, disloyalty swelling inside him because a tiny part of him doubted the woman his inner beast craved. One of them had to be levelheaded and reasonable, though, and until the beast prevailed, that had to be him. “That usually makes her stop. She is close-mouthed about her past and doesn’t even discuss her earlier patients in generalities. That’s strange, right?”
Ry scowled. “I checked her references myself. Why is she raising your suspicions? What questions is she asking?”
“She wants to discuss our adventures and what we did before arriving on Viros. She asks about the people we’ve met and who is on the crew.” A muscle in Nanu’s jaw twitched and a trace of disloyalty had him hesitating. No, she might present a danger to the crew—his friends. He continued. “Will she meet them all? Are they all professional warriors?”
“She asked me similar questions,” Kaya said.
“Me too,” Camryn added.
Ry strode to the chamber door and peered into the passage. “Mogens, is there a way to keep her busy with Ransom while we talk in private?”
“I mentioned bathing Ransom,” Mogens said.
Nanu attempted to restrain his growl and failed. His dreads vibrated hard enough to rattle his beads.
His friends studied him in surprise.
“You haven’t fallen for her?” Kaya asked.
Nanu tried for impassive and judging by the concern in his friends, he failed. “That is something else I wish to discuss.”
Mogens stalked to the window and peered out at the sky. A ribbon of black seeped into Mogens’s cheek as he faced them again. “I will speak with Jazen and organize several tasks to keep her busy. Bad omens. I must consult the clouds.”
“As a precaution, we could ask a favor from one of the Incorporeals. Get them to place a communication bubble around Nanu’s chamber to halt eavesdropping. They might grant us this boon if we explain the circumstances,” Camryn suggested.
“I will speak to Niran,” Ry said. “You’d better comm Jannike and have her standing by for our discussion. She should have a say in our upcoming work schedule even if she can’t leave the palace.”
Ry reappeared with Seedric, the Incorporeal who had found Nanu after the crash, and he set up a privacy bubble for them, that somehow allowed them to still speak with Jannike. Nanu lacked understanding of how the race managed their magic, but they were excellent allies.
A three-dimensional figure of Jannike flickered into prominence, and it was almost like seeing the statuesque blonde in person.
“Whoa!” Kaya blurted. “I’ve seen huts smaller than you.”
“Yes. Yes! I can’t see my feet.” Crankiness radiated from Jannike as she waddled, her enormous stomach drawing the gaze. “I require help to don my shoes. My temper is nasty. Please, do not toy with me this cycle, or I will exert my queenly powers and toss you in the palace dungeon.”
Kaya sniggered, and Jannike’s gaze switched to deadly.
“I understand your tension and uncertainty. It won’t be long now,” Camryn soothed, stepping in to calm the stormy atmosphere.
“Twelve more cycles, according to Mogens.” Jannike’s grumpy expression didn’t ease. “I am counting the cycles.”
“Twelve to fourteen cycles,” Mogens corrected.
“We’re re
ady,” Ry said. “Thank you, Seedric.”
The Incorporeal pressed his palms together and inclined his head. “You are welcome. The barrier will last until blacklight.” He blinked out, leaving them alone.
“What’s going on, Nanu?” Ry asked.
“I believe Jazen is my mate. No, she is my mate since my body is changing and I have an urge to prepare my gattoc.”
Ry snapped to attention. “Your mate?”
“What is a gattoc?” Camryn asked.
“A mating custom of the Indra race. Essentially, it is a mating bower—a private place where a couple cement their bond.”
Curiosity blazed in his friends, and Nanu sighed.
“I haven’t told you much about Indra, my home planet and why we left. You accepted Yep and me as crew and became friends, and you’ve never asked for details. You let our work record stand. We appreciated that more than anything.”
“We’re not Jazen,” Kaya informed him.
“I understand, which is why her constant questions strike me as something more.” He closed his eyes briefly and centered his mind. Talking about his brother still hurt. “Yep and I left after a powerful commander zapped us with a death sentence. A wealthy corporation runs Indra, and they wield immense power. Yep was friendly with the wife of one of the corporation leaders. When Yep learned the leader beat his wife and tortured her, he agreed to help her leave. Her escape upset the leader. He discovered Yep and I helped her leave Indra and manufactured charges against us. He had her murdered and accused us of the atrocity. The charges stand. I am a wanted man with a price on my head.”
“Good to hear.” Kaya winked. “If you ring for me with that stupid bell thing, I can dob you in.”
“Kaya,” Jannike said in her imperious queen tone. “What else, Nanu?”
“You’re no fun now that you’re the queen,” Kaya complained. “The power has gone to your head.”
Camryn raised her right hand. “Shush, we need to finish this discussion before Jazen realizes we’re conducting a meeting. Continue, Nanu.”
“The atmosphere on Indra is different. It has special properties that start the mating process. When a male of my planet reaches maturity, they physically change. A compatible female will awaken the beast inside them. Once this happens, the male experiences an urge to prepare the gattoc in readiness to capture their mate.”
Betrayed & Seduced (House of the Cat Book 6) Page 3