Stegian focused on the female before him, breaking away from Lorelei just as she began to sense him. “I shall deal with you later. Know that I will not permit a child to be born from you.”
* * * *
Lorelei’s head snapped up as she felt the presence of evil all around them. Holding tight to Sevan’s thigh, she continued to feel him coming in spurts deep within her, fertilizing the egg that her power assured her was there. “Sevan?”
Running his hand over her low abdomen, Sevan sighed in her ear. “I’m sorry our first time was like this, Lorelei. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. The need to be in you was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”
Every alarm bell in her went off. Stegian. It was his presence she’d sensed. “He touched your mind, Sevan.”
“Who touched my … oh, gods. That’s why I wanted to pull out in mid thrust and ram my cock into your….” He stopped in mid-sentence.
“Into my what?”
Sevan hugged her tight to his chest. His cock was still in her, partially sated but there all the same. “I had the strongest urge to pull out and come in your ass.”
Lorelei nodded as she drew in a deep breath. “He didn’t want you to release your semen into me. The last thing he wants is another generation of Janelles standing in his way of owning everyone on this planet.”
“It was hard to resist, Lorelei. All I could think about was missing our window of opportunity for a child together. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give that up. Not when you want it so bad. Hell, I want it too. I want a life with you. I want a family. There is no way in hell that some crazed lunatic with some half cocked gift of mind control is going to stop that.”
It hit Lorelei then. Sevan had stood up to Stegian without even knowing it. Somehow he’d managed to keep from falling completely under his spell. If he’d found a way then that meant the others might be able to as well. “You did it. You blocked him from taking full control.”
“No. I didn’t allow him to take my chances at a family with you, Lorelei. That’s all I did.”
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. Sevan wasn’t raised with the fear of Stegian in him. No. She understood that and she almost felt sorry that he couldn’t appreciate what an accomplishment he’d achieved.
Opening her mouth to comment, Lorelei stopped when her stomach cramped. She took hold of it, cradled it tight and cried out as heat flared through it. Sevan’s hand which still rested on her lower abdomen pulled her back into him more.
“Baby, what’s wrong? Why are you so hot?”
Lorelei glanced down and watched her markings fading fast. “Oh gods, Sevan.”
“What?” he asked, sounding as panicked as she felt.
“It worked.”
“What worked?”
Placing her hand over his, she smiled. “We created life.”
He held her so tight that Lorelei thought she might burst. The feel of Sevan’s large arms wrapped around her and the sense that he was as happy if not happier than her made it all perfect. Granted, being bent over outside and fucked hard and fast wasn’t how she envisioned their first meeting to be but in truth, this wasn’t their first time together. Six month’s worth of dreams had placed them in one another’s arms more times than she could count.
Holding tight to her husband’s hand, Lorelei let it all sink in. “You’re here. You’re real and you’re here.”
“And I’m not going anywhere, honey. I promise you that.”
Chapter Six
“Yeah, back at you, lady,” Jordan bit out glaring at Nina as she stormed off in the other direction. Her tight little ass sashayed even though she struck him as a woman who would never do it on purpose. Naturally sexy and everything his cock could hope to dive into, the woman could bring him to his knees if she tried hard enough. Christian laughed and Jordan snarled. “What’s so funny?”
“I have not seen Nina take a real interest in a member of the opposite sex ever.”
“She’s into women?” The thought, while exciting, worried Jordan. He’d already made a fool out of himself by opening his mouth and inserting his foot when he suggested that someone with breasts was hardly qualified to lead an army but the idea of Nina not even giving him a second thought because he had a penis scared him even more.
Christian laughed again. It seemed to be what he’d done most since they’d gone to assure themselves that the children were safe. “Jordan, she more than likes men. The problem is, Nina views them as disposable. She can bed one and move onto the next. She has unlimited access to the unmated males and they adore her.”
He swallowed hard at the implication that Nina fucked her entire army. “She hasn’t, um…?”
Christian pulled a box of tools down from the cargo bay container and arched a sandy blond brow. “If you are asking if Nina has pleasured the entire legion of men under her command the answer is no. Even she needs to pace herself.” The smirk on his face told Jordan he was kidding but that didn’t stop the jealous streak that threatened to consume him.
“Have you been with her?”
“No.”
Jordan kept a close eye on Christian, hoping to get to know him better. There was something about the man that screamed powerful yet he hadn’t tried to use that on any of them yet. “Have you been with Lorelei?”
Christian stilled and Jordan knew the answer to his question. Christian had indeed been intimate with Lorelei. It would kill his brother to know that but if Jordan had to guess, Sevan already knew and didn’t like it one bit. “Lorelei and I have a unique relationship. It is difficult to explain to an outsider. Our customs and ways, while similar to that of humans, are not the same.”
“Meaning you’ve not only fucked her, you’ve done it many times.”
“She is to be my wife as decided by the elders and that is all I am willing to offer on the matter at the moment. Let us see to your ship. So far, the reports coming in from our FST department are bleak.”
“Yeah, one of my Lt. Commanders gave me the abridged version of your Fleet Support Team’s analysis. Our own system dialogistic matches and I have to agree it’s not looking so good.” As Jordan looked out at Alpha Brig Three, he shook his head and sighed. “The air compression chambers in all space pod docks have completely gone haywire. Our navigational system appears to be offline but we can’t tell for sure due to our data analysis log’s issues with staying active.”
“Do you often pilot a vessel that should be in a salvage station?” Christian asked, his lip curling into a half smile.
If the man didn’t fill the doorway and look as though he made a habit of breaking others in two, Jordan would have punched him just for the hell of it. It wasn’t like he was a small guy in any way, shape or form but Christian had him beat. “No, I don’t make a habit of that. The Alpha Brig Three is only four years old and that makes her a baby in the eyes of ship life. She’s also top of the line and has passed all of her inspections with flying colors. It was weird. We were on our way to Margaidia and passed through a stream of stellar remains. Our fuel tank spontaneously cracked, leaking fuel out and into the gas from the remains and we cut the engines, unsure if a spark would ignite a massive explosion or not.”
“Stellar remains? Where? We’ve had no supernovas in our region of the galaxy for thousands of years,” Christian said, confirming what Jordan already believed.
“What would you say if I told you that it didn’t feel right? The entire event felt different, like something was interfering with us, something big and….”
“Mystical?” Christian nodded. “It would explain much. It was written long ago that when the time came for the rise against evil that great warriors would fall from the sky and old ones we’d lost along the way would return. I did not believe this legend. Perhaps I was wrong.”
“Warriors would fall from the sky?” Jordan wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.
Christian nodded. “Yes. Long before the others came to be it was said that demons populated us and th
at warriors would soon follow. Well, the demon part was accurate. But they have all but overrun our planet in the last one hundred and fifty years. Not all are demons and evil. In fact, it is the select minority that terrifies so many villages into states of panic, leaving them prejudice to any who contain the blood of the others. I find that rather ironic due to the fact that Shamenians and natives of Sargaidia have always possessed skills and gifts greater than humans.”
“The others? Care to elaborate?”
“Don’t bother going into detail with the likes of him. You will waste your breath and he will retain but a tiny bit of it all.”
The sound of Nina’s voice, while alluring and cock hardening made Jordan see red. “Woman, stop treating me as though a human is the lowest life form in the universe.”
“Stop treating me as though a woman should be barefoot and in the kitchen and we will no longer buck horns, Vasil.”
“It’s Jordan and you know it.”
Nina smiled and blinked her eyes innocently. “Right you are and my name is Nina not woman.”
“Touché.”
Grinning, the vixen pushed past him and put her hand on her slender hips, leaving his cock twitching madly in his pants. “Christian, it is clear we cannot have them up and operational at the current rate of repairs on their vessel. As adamant as I am that we not allow outsiders to stay on our world after suns set, it would appear we have little choice in the matter.”
“I agree. Have sleeping quarters arranged for the entire crew. Give them free access to the village but allow no outside passes to be administered to them. I will not allow them roaming out of the boundaries and ending up food for Stegian’s men.”
Nina nodded and glanced over her shoulder. The second Jordan locked eyes with her his chest pounded. She smiled wickedly. “You can pretend not to like me all you want, Vasil. I can smell your desire pouring off you.”
“Yeah and I can smell your bitchiness, woman, so we’re even.” Jordan had never wanted to fuck a woman more and she knew it. Since the moment he’d stepped off the ship and watched her approach, his cock had been in a constant state of readiness.
Watching Nina in action only served to make it worse. The way she seemed to handle herself, no fear, no restraint, made his gut twist into a tight knot. Sure, Jordan was accused of the very same things when it came to issues of his own safety but that was different. He was a man, not the most beautiful creature in the entire universe. The need to protect her was almost overpowering.
Nina licked her lower lip. “Can I help you?”
“Huh?”
“You are staring at me.”
“No, I’m not,” Jordan said firmly but somehow still managing to sound like he was only ten years old.
Nina offered him a sly smile and shrugged. “Your eyes are locked on me and you aren’t looking away. Correct me if I am wrong but is that not staring among your people?”
“Perhaps it is just called concentrating too hard where he comes from,” Christian said, laughing softly under his breath.
Clearly not getting any help from Christian on the Nina front, Jordan narrowed his gaze. “I’m not staring--well, not that much anyways.”
The second a smile poured over Nina’s face Jordan couldn’t help but grin. This woman, this compact, petite stick of dynamite had the power to break him with nothing more than a flash of her amusement. She also held the gift of being able to set his temper off faster than a Palertaire barge trader on a hot Exellion day.
Chapter Seven
Sevan stared up at the electromagnetically charged village fencing system. “With the amount of panic that wells up at the very mention of this Stegian’s name and from the sight of what lengths they go to in order to keep him out, I’m beginning to think he’s fifty feet tall.”
“At least,” Jordan said, arching a brow as he tossed a rock towards the fence. It bounced back hard and fast, nearly taking Jordan’s head with it as it went. Nina appeared behind him and caught it with one had so effortlessly that both Sevan and Jordan’s jaws dropped.
She smiled. “Careful, boys, it would be most unpleasant to find you decapitated by your own hands.”
“See,” Jordan adjusted his navy blue, off-duty, shirt collar, “told you she cared.”
Nina laughed. “If caring means I will have to spend my evening gathering outsiders’ heads off the ground before a child can wake to find them, then yes, I do care.”
Unable to hold his laughter in, Sevan let it loose as he watched his brother do his best to play off the obvious blow to his ego. Nina walked up to them slowly, eyeing Sevan in a way that left him unsure if she was about to turn on him as well.
“You never made it to the quarters that were arranged for you, Captain.”
“Uh,” he murmured, drawing a blank instead of an explanation. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d want to hear that he’d spent the night bunked with Lorelei, holding her in his arms and making love to her again and again as he had in his dreams.
“Want to tell us about this Stegian guy?”
“Not particularly.” Her lack of emotion took him by surprise.
Sevan shifted awkwardly at first before deciding he had a right to know. “Excuse me but after the report I received about someone sabotaging repair efforts on my ship and the encounter with the were creature yesterday, I think circumstances warrant us being informed about the situation, in full.”
Nina drew in her lower lip, an action he’d seen Lorelei do in many dreams. “I see. So, I take it that you believe it was one of our people that tampered with your vessel?”
“I can assure you that it wasn’t one of my own.” As Sevan said it, he wasn’t sure he believed it. If what they had told him was correct and Stegian really did have the power to control men’s minds then it could very well have been one of his own. The thought left him slightly chilled.
Nina merely smiled, not appearing offended in any way by his comment. “Captain, how well do you know your people’s history?”
Jordan snickered and Sevan shot him a nasty look. He shut-up. “Well enough. Why?”
“Do you know of Project Exorcism?” she asked, arching a dark brow as she ran her fingers over a set of blue markings on her forearm. For a split second, Sevan was positive that they began to glow. It was gone so fast that he wasn’t positive it was his mind playing tricks on him or not.
Jordan cleared his throat. “What does Earth’s removal of supernatural beings have to do with Stegian? Of all the vessels sent out containing paranormal payloads, only one survived.”
A horrible thought occurred to Sevan. He gasped, not wanting to believe it to be true. “No, brother. Only one made it to the predetermined destination. The rest were presumed lost--destroyed by the meteoroid shower.”
Nina nodded. “I see that you’re a fast thinker, Captain.”
“Are you telling us that Stegian escaped from one of the vessels before it was torn apart?” Jordan asked, stealing the question from Sevan’s lips.
“No,” she let out a soft laugh, “no escape pods were necessary. The vessel made an unauthorized, emergency landing just outside of our village almost a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Nina.”
Sevan looked behind him to find Christian standing there, his blond hair tied back at the base of his neck and wearing only a pair of dark brown pants. He locked gazes with Nina and the look he gave her was anything but friendly. “The man you assigned to do morning systems checks has not completed them or reported in. I sent Pheebes to look into the matter.”
“Hey, Chieftain,” Sevan said, not caring how sarcastic he came across. “How’s your day so far? Anything evil take your mind over and try to make you hurt my wife?”
Nina and Christian both stared at him with wide eyes. It was Nina who finally spoke. “Your wife?”
Jordan tipped his head, looking past Nina and smiled as he locked eyes with Sevan. “Smooth way to let them know.”
“Let us know what?” Christian asked, h
is already deep voice suddenly sounding even lower.
“Jacquelyn!”
Sevan glanced around and did his best to figure out what was going on. They’d all mentioned Jacquelyn several times since he’d arrived but he had yet to meet her. In an instant, a young girl, no more than twelve appeared before him. She was so close that part of her should have brushed up against him or even pushed him back. It didn’t. No. The girl before him, with a head of long black hair and bright blue eyes, seemed to go through him. “What the…?”
She giggled. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Brother-in-law.”
“Brother-in-law?” Christian asked. “So, it is true?”
The young girl nodded. “Yes. The ritual was completed yesterday. The prophecy is coming true, Christian.”
“Umm, anyone want to tell me why my hand is going through her?”
“Her name is Jacquelyn.” Nina took a small step forward. “She is the youngest of the Janelles.”
“She’s your sister?” Jordan asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Nina snorted. “While sharing your mother’s womb did you allow the Captain to soak up all of the fluids necessary for natural thought?”
“No. Why?”
Sevan couldn’t help but laugh. “Jordan, I think she was making a joke.”
“Oh, I knew that.”
Jacquelyn giggled again, this time disappearing quickly. Sevan felt around the spot she’d been in, finding nothing to prove anyone at all had been there.
“The place is haunted,” Jordan said, softly.
“No, not haunted. Come quickly I’ll show you to Jacquelyn,” Nina said, appearing less than pleased with the entire arrangement. She quickened her pace and they were forced into a slight jog to keep up with her.
They followed, but didn’t say a word. Long, gray corridors began to run into one another, leaving Sevan unsure where one stopped and another began. For a brief moment he was positive that they’d walked in circles but when Nina stopped outside of a large red door, she looked back at him nervously. “This, gentlemen is my sister, Jacquelyn.”
Paranormal Payload Page 7