Gambit

by Kim Knox

  The roar of the engines evened out as the ship climbed through the atmosphere, following the flight plan overlaid on the screen. It was a more circuitous route than she was used to. Her gamma-class was a beauty—huge, smooth, would take up a lane, easing into the waiting rift stream. It was a joy. The tau-class had to weave through and around lumbering cargo vessels, rumble over the sleek, expensive high-atmosphere craft, and fight the pull away from Arkhengai’s gravity. She hadn’t had to put her body into flying for too long. She preferred to find her workouts in other ways…and made a point of not looking at Daned.

  “Entering the rift stream.” Noor’s voice broke through the riot of noise in the cockpit, his image flickering as the hull thunked. “Starting the countdown to rift lock. Expected flight time in the lock: twenty-three minutes. And that’s three…two…one. Have fun without me. Again.”

  “Poor, Noor. I’m—” But the rest of the sentence choked in her mouth as rift lock slammed into her. She broke her hands away from the guidance rods and dug her fingers into her damp thighs. Every breath was a labor, her chest tight with pain as the tau’s systems fought to compensate for the hard rush of space-time around its hull. “I hate…these ships.”

  Gradually the strain eased from her body and she pulled the sanitized air deep into her lungs. Noor vanished and left only the slight shimmer of the screen over the curving roof. Chae let her eyes close for brief moment. They’d done it. Escaped. Admittedly not in the way she planned, but being alive and on the move was a win right then.

  Chae expelled a slow breath and opened her eyes. “After two jumps—to Shavgar-7 and Istakatar—we’re there. Well, in the planetary system. The security surrounding Ladaia-prime is your problem.” She tugged at her harness and pushed herself to her feet. “I plan to dry off.” She flapped her wet tunic and grimaced as it sucked to her bare skin. “Order up some fresh clothes.”

  “It’s stripped bare. There’s a bunk with sheets and enough pattern energy in the production unit to make two of these.” He rubbed a towel over his shoulder and attacked his hair again. “Beyond that. Nothing.”

  Chae cursed. “Fine.” She yanked the tunic over her head and hung it high on the side wall above the instrumentation. It dripped onto the floor tiles. But the heat in the cockpit would dry it out. “So. I’ve done the decoy thing. Now you tell me where my crystals are.”

  “You’ll be paid, Captain. Don’t worry.”

  “Now see, I am.” Chae folded her arms across her bare chest. “You say I have a crate of black crystal in my hangar.” She snorted. “And if that’s still there when I get back I will be, well, stunned.” No matter how secure the Ladaians thought the crate was, the thieves of Ulan Bator would gain access. Someone other than her would be very rich that night. “Where and when do I get my hands on the rest of my payment?” She lifted her boot. “This sliver of crystal will not allow me the life to which I plan to become accustomed.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and his strength screamed at her. Cool air brushed over her bare skin, reminding her that she’d just yanked off her tunic without a thought. Shit. He wasn’t flesh. He had his own brain and would see…Her palms covered the scars on her belly and she fought the need for him that burned through her. It was soured by the knowledge that only the false desire of the living gold drove him to want her.

  Her breath caught. Had she just imagined him staring at her breasts?

  And then his question was a low growl that ran goose bumps over her flesh. “Is money all that you want?”

  Chae stared at him. Was his question a serious one? And hell, was he asking about money…or something else? She stuck with the money. The something else was too dangerous to explore. “I’m shallow, Daned. I want luxury. You’re an aristocrat. Grew up with anything you wanted. I want to forget how I’ve had to live for practically all of my life. If you’ve researched me, you’ll know why.”

  “I researched you. Your mother died when you were eleven, leaving you alone and on the streets of Ulan Bator. You survived running drugs for a local racketeer, Jobal Reve, the man who employed your mother as a chemist churning out caustic-angel in one of his dens.” He frowned. “Odd choice for a biologist and teacher.” He focused on her again, heat and anger in his gaze. “You’ve been arrested twelve times. Never convicted. How am I doing so far?” Daned stood too close, his height, the heat of his body making her heart pound. She began to back away, but he followed her. “And me being a Ladaian aristocrat? I was farmed out to one of the training camps at seven, learned to survive and to kill. A member of a faceless and secret army. It’s a holdover from the Host.”

  The word ran cold through her and she grunted as she hit the flat bulkhead beyond the cockpit. “What the hell is that?”

  “The Host?” His head tilted as she shivered again. “We told you. We become a race of warriors, bound heart and soul to our emperor. A horde of unstoppable killing machines who take joy from murder. Every one of us. No exception.”

  He teased the edge of her jaw and she sucked in a quick breath. The need she had to press herself against his skin, to run her hands over him, feel his strength, his power, taste him, fired through her body. Shit, her control was slipping. What she wanted from him scared her. Bought flesh was hers to command. Daned wasn’t.

  “I will fight to my last breath to stop it. Duty and tradition demand it of me.” His mouth thinned and anger glinted in his dark eyes. “And you’re worried about a few shards of our crystal. To buy you what? More flesh? A big ship?” He paused and his tension, the fury riding through him had her breath short. Hell, she could practically feel the thrum of the living gold that bound them together. “You’re Ladaian, a Beyon, born from the fifth caste of the Ara Family. It’s your duty too.”

  “You bought me. You and Govan.” She traced her finger over the golden thread that seared across his chest. The metal throbbed and Daned’s jaw tightened. “Only the fact that another Family had my ship has me here. Not duty. Not some insane caste system. So I want to know where my crystal is.”

  “Once our candidate is installed, the crates will be yours.”

  “What?” Indignation bubbled hot in her chest. That had not been the agreement. “You never said it had to be a success.”

  Daned laughed and her indignation flared into anger. “Captain, if we fail, you’ll be picking up a gun with the rest of us.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “No one can resist the call of the Host.”

  The cold spike cut through her anger, but she clung to it. “Where’s my money, Daned? I can easily stay rift locked so we overshoot the Ladaia system.” It was lie. She didn’t know if he knew that, but it was a gamble worth taking.

  He frowned and leaned closer, his mouth only millimeters from hers. “You’re in this till the bitter end.”

  “Bastard.” She growled the insult against his mouth, almost tasting him, her body trembling with anger and with her need to push herself hard up against his bare flesh. Since the first touch of her hand on his skin, she’d wanted him with a fierceness that frankly scared the shit out of her. It made no sense. She’d never hungered after flesh like this before. Maybe Aleph’s reconditioned stock had been faulty and living gold worked a sharper magic. Or maybe—her gaze fixed on his lush mouth, the full lower lip that demanded she bite it, hard—maybe it was Daned himself.

  “A bastard?” His breath warmed her lips and his palm gripped her waist, hot fingers pushing under the band of her wet trousers to her backside. He squeezed. “You have no idea.”

  “Why are you doing this?” The question escaped her. It was insane. She didn’t want to distract the…interesting play of his fingers. Yet she had to know why he’d given in to the lust. “You don’t want…” His mouth teased hers and heat bloomed in her chest. She couldn’t stop the escaping groan. “…me.”

  “Fucking you wasn’t on the mission report.” His wicked grin made her heart race and his tongue teased her lip. “Though the use of extraordinary meas
ures was.”

  “A report?”

  Daned eased his hand to the curve of her hip and dipped his thumb to stroke along the hollow of her pelvis. Heat scorched under her skin and a gasp broke from her. “A detailed report.”

  Damn him. He didn’t want this…but he pressed her tight up against his erection and all sense left her. She took his mouth, her tongue battling with his, eager, desperate. Her hand snaked up over his chest to his neck and then she buried her fingers in his damp, tangled hair, urging him hard against her lips. The temptation of living gold couldn’t be denied. And she didn’t want to.

  Daned pushed at her trousers. The wet fabric resisted and, with a growl, he shoved them down. This wasn’t how her bought flesh had ever behaved, the control had always been hers—

  She arched into him at the first thread of gold making a teasing push against her skin. “What—?”

  Daned smothered her question with his mouth, his fingers tight on her arse, and the gold shifted. It caressed her skin, slipping, sliding over her hip, her shoulder, binding them together, wanted, inescapable.

  With a groan, he pushed her up the smooth metal of the bulkhead and she cursed the fact that her trousers, her boots, trapped her legs. She twisted to try to free herself. She wanted to circle his waist so that he drove into her, hard and fast. “I need—”

  “Leave them.” His command cut her off. “I’m not flesh to be ordered. Get used to it.”

  Chae glared at him, wanting to ignore the press of his cock against her flesh. She wanted to stay angry at him because that would let her deny how much she craved him. How the gold burned against her skin and made her ache. “Your pleasure is my pleasure. Remember?”

  “Not exactly.”

  His hands gripped her hips and, with a sharp grin, he eased forward. His cock teased her, sliding through her slick flesh, sparking need low in her belly and making her arch into him. She wanted him hard and hot inside her. “Fuck me. Now.” Her low demand only brightened his wicked grin.

  “The gold binds us both.” He slid back and the feel of him ran a tremor though her flesh. “I can do what the hell I want.”

  Chae’s breath caught and she held his gaze. The fierce, dark desire there forced her to push hard against him. He growled and his fingers bit into her hips hard enough to bruise. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Daned found her mouth, his ruthless kiss searing through her flesh. His hips stroked forward, found her, and his groan fused with hers as he sank deep into her pussy. Heat and need made her meet each slow thrust, urging him to take her, the wet slap of their bodies an increasing rhythm over the growl of the engines.

  The gold scorched into her skin, tight, hot, firing a molten need into her thoughts, her body, that she didn’t want to resist. Chae broke her mouth from his, dragging in air, fighting the surge of liquid fire in her veins. She wanted to savor him, the delicious feel of him against her bare skin, her fingers in his hair, his hot, ragged breath against her sensitive throat. She wanted him imprinted on her flesh, as fiercely as the gold searing to her skin.

  His mouth dipped to her breast, his teeth grazing her nipple and she gasped. “No.” It was little more than a groan. It would be all over too bloody fast. Bastard.

  “No?” He ran his tongue quick, hot along the underside of her breast. She knew he was grinning. “Really?” He stroked into her harder faster, hitting her clit with each thrust. “You want me to stop?”

  The pressure of her approaching release had her gasping, her body shuddering in his hard grip. She clutched at his shoulders, his hair, wanting to deny that he could play her like this. Flesh did what she wanted. But he couldn’t stop. If he did, she just might have to kill him.

  Daned’s mouth brushed over her lips and she watched him, hating him, craving him. “Do you?” His smile teased her. “Because I can. I have the control to stop and just walk away…”

  “Bastard.”

  “You knew that already.”

  He bit at her lip and the quick pain spiraled through her flesh, stoking the growing fire in her blood. Damn him. He could not stop. She had no clue who this man was, no clue…but she had to have him. The gold—hell, instinct—demanded it. “Make me come.”

  Something shifted in his gaze, turning dark and predatory, and her heart tightened. “As you wish…lady.”

  His mouth took hers as he drove into her. Chae clung to him, wanting him, wanting whatever-the-hell it was that burned between them. The gold flared against her skin, igniting her flesh, her thoughts. Almost, she could almost taste the first fire of her release, and she wanted Daned with her. She broke her mouth from his to nip at his jaw, find his earlobe, her teeth tugging, biting.

  “I own you.” She breathed the words into his ear, enjoying the growl of his fury and the increased thrust of his hips. “You’re bound to me.” The promise triggered the first unexpected wave of orgasm and it smashed into her. She needed him to come with her. Everything screamed in her that it had to be that way. Everything. She rasped more words into his ear. “Your prince isn’t your master. I am.”

  Daned swore, anger, fury coloring his choice…and he came, the heat of his release coalescing with her own, pulling her into a wild rush of sensation that swept over her thoughts and ran shudders down through her limbs. Chae pressed kisses to his damp neck, needing to taste him, touch him and slowly, slowly, the insane thrum of her orgasm slipped away. The threads of gold curled away from her skin, snaking against Daned’s before melting back into place.

  Chae pulled in a shaking breath and let it out hot against his skin. “Shit, that was…” Words failed her. Maybe it was finally time to give up tech-enhanced men grown in a vat and try out the real thing. She giggled—she never giggled—and pressed a final kiss to his throat before she lifted her head. “Maybe we should take ourselves off to…” The shadows in his gaze, his thin drawn lips made her words falter. Her gut twisted and something like panic tensed every muscle. “What?”

  “You’re fifth caste.” He eased his hands from her hips, pulling himself free of her body.

  She staggered as her boots hit the tiled floor and she tugged at her trousers, yanking the cold wetness over her thighs and backside. “And? So? What?”

  “I’m first caste.” Daned ran his fingers through his hair, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.

  Chae blinked and the anger flowed hot and hard. Was that what had him so reluctant to touch her, so angry with himself for wanting her? “You’re a fucking sexual snob?” She backed away from him. Hell, she wanted to put as much distance between them as she could in the cramped space of the ship. Her fury had her shaking. How stupid was she to think that he’d want more from her? “Is that what the Ladaians do? Fuck within their caste? Everything must be done to keep the genetic imperative pure?”

  She traced over the bulkhead, searching for the doorplate. Her fingers found the smooth change in metal. She pressed her palm flat against it and the door unhooked and slid back with a soft clunk. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

  “Take it off.”

  She stared at him as he backed her into the cramped bunkroom. Her thighs hit the edged of the single bunk and she grunted. “Get out.”

  His gaze fixed on her as he swung his hand back and thumped the doorplate. The door thudded into place. “Take this off.” He ran his thumb along the living gold seared to his chest. “Now.”

  Chae ignored the sour burn in her chest. She’d known she couldn’t keep him bound, but the reality of it was suddenly painful. “Fine.” She willed herself to close the distance between them. His scent taunted her, a sinful mixture of him and sex, and the last thing she wanted to do was touch him again. But she had to. Only she could break the hold the tech had on his flesh.

  Her fingers curled into a fist over his collarbone and she fixed her gaze on the gleaming gold. Her mouth thinned. Fuck it. It was his loss. Her palm pressed flat against his shoulder and the gold writhed against it. Daned sucked in a tight breath and his body tensed.
>
  “I free you,” she muttered, her fingers curling away again. The gold shriveled from his skin, falling in the path she had taken. Unbound flesh would now be incapacitated, a lump of flesh and cybernetics ready to be returned to one of Aleph’s storage tanks. She should be so lucky with Daned. “There. Done.”

  She turned away from him to the small wash facility built into the side of the narrow room. A towel and quiet time were what she needed. Her day had been shitty. She wanted it over for the next few minutes, at least.

  “Do you really know nothing about Ladaians?”

  Chae ignored him. The clunk of metal said that the living gold had broken free of his body and found a home on one of the shelves jutting out of the far wall. She dialed out a pattern for a towel from the unit. The air fizzed with the hum and clunk of tech and then a thin white towel sat on the shelf above the sink.

  She pulled it free and pressed her face into its warmth. “I said get out.”

  “We look human, but we’re not.”

  Chae swore into her towel. If she ignored him, he’d get the hint.

  “When the Founders screwed with our DNA, they planned to ensure an individual’s genetic inheritance was never corrupted.”

  She let out a heavy breath and dropped the towel over the edge of the metal sink. “I got that. You’re first, I’m fifth and never the twain shall fuck.” She leaned back against the sink, her hands gripping the curved edge, and gave him a sharp grin. “You can always say the gold made you do it.”

  Daned had wrapped his towel around his waist. She told herself that wasn’t a damn shame and knew she was lying to herself. The need to kiss and lick his cider-brown skin taunted her. The knowledge that his taste would burn hot and sweet against her tongue twisted her gut tight. Her fingers pressed hard against the metal sink until her knuckles hurt. “So, as I said, I understand how you’re mortified. Conversation over. Get out.”