Gambit

by Kim Knox

  He frowned and suspicion lit his eyes. “Change?”

  “You have to know I don’t take passengers. And I don’t need a co-pilot.” She gave him a short smile. They’d stacked the game in her favor to set up their little scheme. “And I did win you fair and right.”

  “Yes, we investigated you, Captain Beyon. I was assigned to this mission and to you for a reason. Now…” He waved his arm to the far end of the long room. Light eased back the heavy shadows and revealed a hairline seam in the gray metal. “It’s time to go.”

  Unease itched up her spine. How far had these people investigated her? Her current occupation as a barely legal cargo runner was bad enough. Did they know about her life before that, working for her mother’s employer?

  Chae pushed down those thoughts. Who cared how far they’d dug into her past if she got to see Daned practically naked. She pushed the sliver of crystal into her boot, the softened leather enclosing it, hiding it from prying eyes. She straightened. “So you really don’t mind being seen as bought flesh?”

  A thin smile cut his mouth. “People will wonder how you could ever afford me.”

  Govan ran a quick hand over his thinning hair, a scowl tightening his face. “Enough.” He let out a slow breath. “You have six standard hours to reach Ladaia-prime.”

  Chae blinked. All right, cutting it fine. But her ship was gamma-class, a thing of beauty and speed. Rift lock would flow by in minutes, not hours. “How am I identified as a decoy?” She glanced at Daned. “Having him on board?”

  “The princes have spies everywhere. All Inner Circle members from every Family monitor each other. No doubt they’ll be aware of our time in the gaming rooms in Khovd to some degree.” Daned pressed a palm to the metal wall and it glowed around his imprint. With a groan, a door slid back, revealing a narrow corridor beyond. “Don’t worry, Captain, they will be following us. As long as they’re unsure where the principal is, we’re doing our job and keeping him safe.”

  He led the way down the narrow corridor. Chae had no choice but to follow Daned as Govan waved her ahead of him. Trapped between the two men, she was marched toward another door set at the end of the long corridor. “So an empty throne has you so regimented?”

  “Our throne, the sunder-seld, has been without a dynasty for nearly a hundred years.” Govan’s deep voice echoed off the metal walls. She could almost hear the start of a long and no doubt boring lecture on Ladaian history. Her shoulders sagged. His breathing changed, tightening with his tension. Yes, she was pissing him off. “Without the throne, we fall back into our initial patterns.”

  Chae laughed. “So you’re all in your factory settings. That must be dull.”

  Govan muttered under his breath, a string of guttural-sounding words that probably cursed her. “Maybe you would prefer to submit to the Host, long for the taste of blood and bone in your mouth, let it run hot into your belly?”

  Her stomach cramped involuntarily. She had no idea why her body reacted at the single word Host. It made no sense. But…they had pumped her full of crap to get her to their dark little den, so they could’ve easily added another drug to make her freak over one stupid word. She cut short her answer as Daned opened the narrow door onto another small room. A table sat on the middle and on it a box lit by the room’s single light.

  Govan stopped and his expression tightened. “I’ll wait here.”

  “What? Why?” But the door shut with a dull clunk, sealing her into the small space with Daned. Her fingers pressed against her lips before she realized what she was doing. She straightened her shoulders and fixed a bright grin to her mouth. She was not panicking. “Alone at last.”

  “Yes, we are.” And Daned slid his gaze to her as he loosened the collar of his shirt.

  Chae pulled in a tight breath and fought the quick pounding of her heart. Yes, the panic had surged into an entirely different emotion. Her hands balled into fists and she held them behind her back because the need to help him remove his clothes, to tease and touch his hot skin, powered through her. His steady gaze scorched her and his fingers moved, tugging open convenient tabs.

  “Early payment? Or just getting into your role?” she asked.

  “Bought flesh wears the mark of its owner.” He shrugged out of his jacket and shirt and dropped them across the table. His hands moved to his trousers as he toed off his boots. “And for that I have to be naked.”

  Chae bit back a grin. “Yes, yes, you do.”

  Daned lifted an eyebrow as his trousers joined his other clothes. “I told you I was assigned to you for a reason.”

  “So your investigations revealed that I’ve bought flesh.” Chae took a step closer. Her eagerness irked her, but she couldn’t help herself. His warm scent eased through the stale, dry air of the room and she had to pull it into her lungs. Her lips tingled. Damn it, she wanted to taste him. “Did you do in-depth research?”

  The brief, hard smile that cut his mouth made her blood pound. “You’ve obviously not met anyone from the Traern family before.”

  “No, I haven’t.” Her gaze darted involuntarily over his strong, lean perfection. Hell, he looked grown, something brewed in a laboratory and then molded into a stunning—and expensive—specimen. He was right. She could never afford him. Handy to have won him in a rigged game then. “So you all look like this?”

  Daned glanced down at his nakedness, running a hand over his flat stomach. The brush of skin against skin rippled a shiver through her flesh. Without thought, she caught her fingers in her hair and they tightened into a fist. The pounding in her chest almost made her head light, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. What was this? The overwhelming attraction, the lust gripping her…it just wasn’t her. A knot twisted hard in her gut. Was it something else they’d influenced? Though lusting after Daned distracted her, which couldn’t be exactly safe.

  He looked up and a brief flare of wickedness shone in his gaze. “Yes, we do.” He opened the small box on the table and lifted out the thin wrought gold that would form his costume. The single light sparked over shifting metal laid across his open palms. Daned raised an eyebrow. “I know you’ve done this before, Captain. Suddenly shy?”

  Chae glared at him. She wouldn’t admit that she’d never wrapped gold before. The lesser Igasho metals, yes, but never gold. Her owning of flesh had never stretched to such an expensive…bauble. She closed the short distance between them and took the long strings from his upturned hands. The living tech bound into the gold ran a tingle through her skin. “Did your wealthy prince buy these too? The growers are usually rabid about their live gold.”

  “You don’t have to worry about the details.” Daned straightened and lifted his chin, but he watched her and dark humor gleamed. “I’m getting cold, Captain.”

  “I doubt this will warm you.” Chae pressed her hand to his shoulder, the live gold writhing against her palm as it bonded her to him. She forced herself to breathe evenly as her palm eased the tech-embedded metal over the hard curve of his pectoral muscle. Damn, it shouldn’t be this difficult. She’d wrapped flesh before, but the bodies she ran her hands over had simply been passive, unresponsive…hadn’t felt real. The binding brought them life, activating the cybernetics at their core.

  Daned’s heart beat strong and even under her palm. His strength, the intoxicating scent wreathing around her, drew her in as the living gold bound him. Heat burned in her cheeks as the warming metal moved with her, molding to the satin-smooth skin of his stomach. The need to follow the run of molten gold, to press it into his muscles with her mouth, tease the bonding with her tongue, forced her to close her eyes and pause.

  “Captain?”

  His voice, low and too close, made her bite her bottom lip. What was wrong with her? Shit, had it been that long since she’d had a man not grown in a vat? “I definitely couldn’t afford you.”

  “And that’s a part of the decoy. People will wonder where you got the credit to buy me.”

  Chae willed her eyes to open and fixed
her gaze on his collarbone. Her hand dipped lower, skirting over his hip. She’d wanted this, time alone and him buck naked, but hell, she was nervous. Living gold bound deep, brought unimaginable bliss. She swallowed and skimmed gold over his abdomen.

  Daned’s chest hitched and he sucked in a quick breath. “Captain…”

  The title was almost a growl. Her head snapped up and she held his fierce, dark gaze. Her blood pounded in her ears and she ached to close the space between them, press herself up against his body and find out whether the rumors of bound gold were true.

  “We’re living an illusion,” he murmured. “Remember this is just a job.”

  “You’re bound to me.” Need and nerves fired through her and she forced the tremor from her hand to guide the gold over the length of his erection. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He could say it was a job, but the tech woven into the gold had other plans for him. “Living gold insists that my pleasure is your pleasure.”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. “Igasho metal can’t compare to the Ladaian coding in my blood.”

  “Is that a dare?” she asked. His smile curved into a wicked grin, one that had her moving closer, his bare skin so near the need to taste it burned on her tongue. “Because you shouldn’t throw a dare in the face of a runner.”

  Daned traced his index finger along her jaw, a feather-light touch that forced the air from her lungs. “Believe me, you’d know if a Traern found you of interest.”

  “And this?” She teased the blunt head of his cock with the thumb tip. Gold flowed over him. “What’s this, if not interest?”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “A biological reaction. My duty to the sunder-seld comes first.”

  Chae smirked at him. “Before you do? That has to be inconvenient.”

  “Finish this.” His mouth pulled upward into a bleak smile, but it didn’t soften his order. “Please.”

  “You’re no fun, Daned.”

  “I know.”

  Chae eased her hand away from his cock and pressed the gold over his other hip. She ducked under his arm to stroke the warm gold across his buttocks and up over the lean strength of his back. She closed her eyes against the feel of him under her palm, warm, sleek, his skin taunting her, demanding that she trail hot, open-mouth kisses up his spine. She held back a groan. Damn it, this was not fair.

  The length of gold met the first thread clinging to his shoulder. Her palm held it there, its molten heat stinging her skin. Daned didn’t flinch, even as Chae knew that the heat tore through the living gold to seal it to his flesh.

  The gold cooled under her hand. It was over. Well, almost. And the almost had her heart beating hard. She wanted to sag against him, let her forehead fall against his shoulder, needing the reality of him to sink into her flesh, her soul. Shit, she would come to hate living gold. The upside was that when it was time to break the bond, her interest would die too. Her gaze raked his back, enjoying the smooth play of muscles under cider-brown skin far too much.

  Yeah. Right. All interest would just…evaporate.

  Not a chance.

  Chae willed herself to take a step back. “Done,” she said.

  Daned turned to face her. Wry humor shone in his eyes and he had to know how attractive it made him. “Not quite. The Igasho have their incantation, the activating phrase.” He closed the space between them and his voice dropped, softened. “I believe it’s ‘Make me yours.’”

  The words spiraled through her blood and beat heat into her face. Bastard. Was he having fun at her expense? Chae lifted her chin and held his dark gaze. “Living gold needs more to activate it.”

  “Yes, I know.” His finger traced a path along her jaw, the same lightness of touch that flicked fire under her skin. “Is this enough?”

  His mouth hovered over hers, his breath brushing warm over her lips. Her heart beat hard in her ears and her fingers slid over the firm muscles in his forearms, gripping him, needing the contact to break her desire to take his mouth. His skin burned under her palms. “I don’t know.” Her gaze focused on his lips. They had to seal the bond with a kiss…and they both knew it. “Is my pleasure your pleasure yet?”

  His mouth quirked upward. “No.”

  “How about now?” The first slow brush of her lips over his hollowed her belly and sparked desire in her flesh. He tasted warm, soft, and the hint of strange spices urged her to change the kiss, to tease and play, and the first chaste kiss melted into another and another.

  Her tongue tip touched his and her fingers bit hard into his forearms. Damn it, since when did a simple kiss practically have her shaking? It was the gold. The bloody stuff twisted her thoughts, her reactions, but didn’t stop her from deepening the contact, from stroking her tongue over his, savoring him. She thought she moaned, a low, needy sound that seemed to fill her chest. Somehow, it brought Daned closer, his soft, subtle mouth making her heart pound and curse the fact that too much clothing separated her from him.

  Her fingers pushed up his arms, pressing herself against the hardness of his body. “This is not enough.” She groaned the words against his lips and drove him back into the edge of the table. “Not nearly enough.”

  For a timeless second she held his gaze, found heat and an unending darkness, just before his mouth and hands found her. Her world spun and her backside hit the table. Daned was ruthless, demanding, everything she wanted, needed. Chae clung to him. The living gold seared through the thick fabric of her tunic, branding her skin, binding her to this man. Heat coiled low in her belly. The rub of his erection against her flesh danced sparks behind her eyes. Almost. She could almost taste the fire of her release—

  Daned ripped his mouth from hers and stepped back. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and his eyes narrowed on her. “More than enough,” he muttered.

  Chapter Two

  Chae pressed her hands to her face and willed down the wild riot in her flesh. She pulled in slow breaths. All right, he wasn’t happy where the gold had almost taken him. She snorted and raked her fingers through her tangled hair. “For you maybe.” She pushed herself away from the table and stretched her spine. Shit, her body still ached and flicking a glance over Daned’s lithe perfection didn’t ease her need to jump him one little bit. Once they hit rift lock, she intended to bury herself away in her cabin, just her and her toy of choice.

  A smile tugged at her mouth. Better yet, she now had enough black crystal to custom order flesh, flesh that looked exactly like the man frowning at her. Not exactly legal, but crystal would ease a manufacturer’s conscience. Her smile grew into a grin. How pissed off would a copy make the original? “Ready to go.” Her gaze fixed on his erection, gilded in a cover of gold. Hell, flesh was always ready. She smirked at him. “If you are.”

  His frown deepened as he waved her toward the door.

  “You know, flesh never gets grumpy.”

  “I know.”

  She shrugged. “Just saying.”

  “Thank you.”

  The door opened and Govan glared at her. Chae bit back her smile, but only just as anger tightened his face. “I believe we’re ready.”

  Govan looked beyond her to Daned, and that strange sensation, a prickle running fast over her skin, flared again. Why had she lost out on Ladaian telepathy? Was it her usual crappy luck? Maybe it was a male thing, which was entirely shitty. Her mother had left so many gaps in her education about her race, but then she’d had no interest in learning her history herself. It looked as if that was a major error on her part. “Are you two finished? Can we go get my black crystal now?”

  Govan blinked. “Yes, it’s time you left.” He turned and led the way back down the corridor.

  “Something I said?”

  Govan ignored her. More twists and turns led them to an outer door. The older man paused. “Once I open this door, Daned is bought flesh. Duty and tradition bind you to your task. Do you understand the mission you are to undertake, Captain Beyon?”

  Chae stopped herself from rolling her eyes. T
hese people needed a new arse on their throne because their factory settings stank. “You give me one crate of black crystal, I’m a decoy so that your precious prince or whatever he is gets to sit on a throne before another aristocrat plants his backside there. Does that seem like I understand?”

  Govan’s mouth thinned. “You dishonor your heritage.”

  “I’ll live with it.” Chae straightened her shoulders and lifted an eyebrow. “Time is a factor here?” Govan muttered a string of guttural words that had Daned shifting behind her. “Well?”

  He looked past her to Daned. “Good luck,” he said, as he returned Chae’s weapon to her.

  She held down a snort. With her, that was doubtful. She flexed her fingers around the hard grip of her heavy-duty Sel-9, working it back into its comfortable shape. She slid it into the holster strapped to her thigh, its familiar weight against her leg making her feel more herself. “What about my tech?” She’d felt naked without it, but the promise of a large pot and an idiot waiting to be fleeced had forced her hand in Khovd. “I left it with the gaming room in good faith.”

  “You resisted on your way out. We could only salvage your gun, Captain. I’m sorry.” Govan sounded anything but. “Your payment covers all damages.”

  “And you expect me to get to my ship with just my Sel-9?” She patted her weapon. “I’ll be lucky to get to my black crystal. Do you know how shitty my luck is?”

  “Daned will ensure that you reach your ship.”

  She stared up at the almost naked man beside her. “He—”

  “Enough. We don’t have time.” Govan turned and pressed his palm against the smooth metal.

  The slow hiss of isomorphic tech filled the air and it pricked her skin. She would never have escaped the warren…well, not quickly. The faint glow around his fingers faded to dull, black metal again. Air gushed from the broken seals and brought with it the stale odors of the outside world. She pulled them into her lungs. She knew that stink.