by Shae Mills
Chelan shuddered. She was well aware that such a fate would never befall her at his hand, but she had nonetheless pushed him beyond his ability to deal with her as his mate. Suddenly, she knew she had better reassess the situation.
With shaking arms, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Then she held very still. Night was upon her and he was gone. For the first time since their reunion long ago, she was without him in their bed. They had made a pact never to end the day in anger, never to start the night without making love. She had made a huge mistake.
Suddenly a lump formed in her throat. She ran out into the Command Center but he was gone. Scanners failed to locate him, and his own security was ineffectual in finding him. Finally, riddled with defeat, Chelan trudged off by herself to the massive bed. And for the first time in nearly two years, she lay down alone.
KORBA PACED IN THE empty private quarters, his thoughts in disarray. It tore his heart to shreds to think of the danger Chelan would be in by simply setting foot on the floundering ship. He had lost her twice before. A third time would surely kill him. But what had happened tonight clawed at his heart, leaving it almost as bloody. He did not understand this new feeling of hers that plagued her relentlessly. The other phenomenon, the one that had first hit her while on Earth with Dar—he had experienced that eerie feeling himself, so he could not discount everything completely. But this new draw, whatever it was on RIBUS 7 itself that pulled at her, defied all logic and science, and his disciplined mind balked at the task of making sense of it.
But there was no disputing one fact. For whatever reason, she now had a powerful obsession with being on the decks of the ship she had always gravitated to, and despite all the technology available to him, he and his crew had been unable to find anything or anyone that rendered the very real mystery solvable. Yes, in the beginning, something had appeared to lead her to RIBUS 7. But now they were here, and there was nothing in those abandoned halls except emptiness. So did she hold the key to the solution?
Korba stopped his pacing and concentrated. He went through everything again. First there had been the phenomenon on Earth. Then there was the time a few months back when she was overtaken by some sort of reaction to the jump to hyperspace. Now this eerie perception of hers, coupled with the unexplained phenomena in the private Command Center—filters and ventilation systems maintained by nonexistent engineers and long-downed computers—ate at him too.
Korba slumped into a chair, his head falling back. Was it all entwined, or were all of these separate matters? Was any of it rooted in science, or was it all something unique to her psyche? Energy fields, maybe, that manifested in her presence only? Waves or vibrations only she could feel?
Korba clenched his fists in frustration. No one wore him down or buoyed him up like Chelan. She could throw him into the depths of chaos or take him to the heights of elation, all in a mere moment. And this situation was no different.
He sighed wearily. They needed to get to the bottom of all this; there was no disputing that. So there was going to have to be a compromise. He would grant her some time in the Command Center tomorrow. Then he would have to detain her—distract her somehow, completely, and indefinitely, until everything was resolved.
Tiredly, he rose to his feet. His eyes took in the ship’s lighting and then he sucked in a sharp breath. Instantly he was on the run. Flying through the Command Center doors, he skidded to a halt, his ears straining to net even the smallest of sounds. But there was nothing.
Warily, he entered the sleeping chambers and then stopped beside the bed. She was asleep. He hung his head, realizing his folly too late. In the heat of his rage, he had placed their love carelessly in the back of his mind. “Oh, Chelan,” he whispered.
She twitched at the sound of his voice, her breathing irregular and seemingly troubled. Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes coursing over her soft curves. “I am so sorry, my Lady.”
Chelan gave a soft moan, her eyes fluttering open. She rolled to her back and looked up at the dense black form beside her. She hugged a blanket to her breasts. “It is I who am sorry, my Lord.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I let my passion for RIBUS 7 and all her memories overshadow the passion I have for you. In my obsessive quest to solve the riddle, I overstepped both my bounds and your authority. I am so sorry, my love.”
Korba groaned and reached for her hands, her knuckles turning white from clenching the blanket so tight. “We have both overstepped our bounds. I am well aware of your brilliance... and of your passions. You are every bit my equal in the problem-solving arena, but I have no true passion that exceeds what I feel for you. I would even step away from the Empire to maintain what I share with you. That passion, the one to have and to hold you close and safe above all else, clouds my senses in all related matters.”
He raised her fingers to his lips, his kisses feathering over them. Then he sighed. “I send men and women to their deaths every day throughout the Empire. I take calculated risks every hour of every day myself, yet I cannot do that with you. To put you at peril in any manner, no matter how slim, eats at me as sure as the most caustic of acids. And putting you at risk—an unnecessary risk for a questionable cause—is almost beyond my ability to imagine. Yet my desire to please, to sate your need and your curiosity, plagues me.”
“Shhh...,” she whispered, pressing her fingers to his lips. She watched as his luminescent eyes closed to her touch, his features totally obscured in the darkening night. “I understand, my love, I truly do. I feel the struggle within you with all my being. But you must try to look at me as your mate, the woman who wants to do everything by your side with accomplishment and strength. No, I do not have the physical strength your people possess, but I have learned that I am every bit as accomplished intellectually. And if you can, you must come to forge a path that allows me to fight by your side—not with weapons, but with my mind on a playing field that you can become at least partially comfortable with, one that allows me to take chances right along with you. I want to be your equal. I want you to grant me the opportunity to be all that I can be to you, and with you. And to do that, somehow, in some way, you must come to terms with your fears.”
She watched as his eyes slowly opened, his grip on her fingers intensifying. But he did not speak. She rose up before him, retracting her hands from his grasp. Tracing his strong jaw with her fingers, she kissed his lips once. “I know we have spoken of spirits, but we both know better. Like your sixth sense that aids you in battle, I know something is reaching out to me. Call it a tear in the fabric of space, call it dark energy... or a parallel universe, call it anything we do not fully understand, but I felt this pull before I ever dreamed we would ever find RIBUS 7 again. Whatever I felt on Earth, be it some energy surge or some strange galactic anomaly, it is one hundred times stronger here. Forget my original reference to Fremma’s spirit. That was an Earthly attempt to explain what I felt. Let us both look at it as a scientific phenomenon that needs exploring. Grant me my wish, and in doing so, work to conquer the demons infesting you, driving you to protect me so fiercely that you diminish me in all the capacities you have encouraged me to develop.”
Korba’s eyes flared briefly, and then the flame settled. “Your wish is granted, my Lady.” His voice was husky with emotion. “And I will work to cage my demons. But know that I will always heed their warnings. I will restrain them, but I will never banish them. That would not be prudent of me.”
Chelan smiled. “That is a compromise I can accept, my Lord.”
Korba leaned into her, forcing her to her back as he stripped off his gloves. “Right now, my demons and your spirits are brushed aside so that I can love you as I am meant to do, as I yearn to do.” And his lips took her long neck while his hands sought her full breasts.
Her fingers entwined in his hair as he moved farther down her body, and she closed her eyes against the darkness around them. Then she arched and gasped as his hot mouth took her soft folds, thoroughly consuming her. Su
ddenly, all their spectral apparitions vanished; her Warlord, her lover, was her only obsession. For the moment, she had a single passion, and as his tongue brought about her first peak, she was weak under his spell. In her world right now, only the two of them existed. It was as it was meant to be.
Chapter 17
DAWN ARRIVED ON RIBUS 1, and the fighters were ready. Chelan was dressed and waiting in the Command Center as the first rays of morning light filtered through the ship’s lighting systems.
Korba entered the Center and smiled at her, noting her thinly veiled enthusiasm. “I still have this almost irrepressible compulsion to turn you over my knee and punish you for talking me into this.”
Chelan had to bite her lip to tamp down the heat that rose instantly through her at the very thought—not of his punishment, but of what would befall her at his hands once she was exposed for his taking. The loveplay of the night before dashed through her mind, and she nearly moaned.
Korba watched her from the corner of his eye as he adjusted his glove. “We could postpone, my Lady. I sense you.”
Chelan spied the lecherous grin at the corners of his mouth, and found herself glancing at the Command Center consoles. Then she closed her eyes and willed away the covetous images. She looked back at him, knowing full well that the man before her was more than capable of derailing her resolve, but she gathered her strength. “I know, but we need to go. Many preparations have been made. We should not delay.”
Korba’s grin intensified as he approached her. When over her, he reached for her chin and tipped her face toward his. “I delayed the Emperor once while I took you. I can delay the galaxy if I so choose.”
Chelan nearly gave in to her desire, its intensity undiluted by all that had gone before. Then he chuckled and offered her his hand. “My Lady,” he whispered.
Chelan actually sighed with relief, and within moments, they were off to the private hangar. There, they boarded their fighter, and with a large contingent around them, they left for RIBUS 7.
ONCE THE SHIPS HAD landed in the personal hangar of the battleship, Chelan leapt down unassisted. She peered around the vast space, but nothing had changed since her last visit. Taking in a deep breath, she glanced up into the blackness of Korba’s helmet. His nod indicated all was well, and that they should be on their way.
Soon, Chelan stood in the middle of the Command Center, where she performed a slow 360-degree turn, taking in all of its eerie familiarity. Finally, she faced Korba and his men. She stood very still.
The Emperor spoke, his deep voice emanating from the intercom within her helmet. “The Command Center only. We will return to the flight deck. You have thirty Earth minutes, as we agreed upon. You have an emergency button if required. And stay fully cloaked.”
Chelan nodded and watched as he turned on his heel and left, his men trailing in his wake. She stood silently and waited until she was sure he was through the security doors. Then her skin prickled, and a tremor ran through her. It was like a strange dream, one partially rooted in reality. She was completely free, Korba having promised that there would be no scanners operating and that he would not monitor the area in any manner. She knew he would honor his word.
She walked up to the Central Command chair and stared down at it. Then she traversed the length of the console, her finger trailing along its edge. Would it function? Actually function? As with all her previous portents, somehow she knew it would. Holding her breath, she entered old codes from the recesses of her memory. Her eyes widened. As she had suspected, the entire display danced to life.
Chelan edged back a few steps and stared at the dizzying array of screens, all awaiting her command. She approached the consoles once again, almost cautiously. Then her fingers tapped out an automatic sequence. The screen closest to her erupted into color. Chelan smiled. There it was, all the data she had once studied in order to learn about her Iceanean captors. Nothing had changed. Nothing had been deleted.
She shut the screen off. Then she sat down in one of the large chairs, her mind sifting over everything available to her. Suddenly, she became stone still. Could she call up the final minutes of the battle Talon waged against Fremma? Would it all be in the logs?
Chelan leapt to her feet and turned her back to the consoles. Of course it would all be there, all recorded in its vivid terrifying starkness. She had no doubt. But could she face it? That answer was simple. No. Even after all this time, there was no way she could watch the last moments of the grisly battle. The scanners would have recorded all the bombardment, all the destruction, all the human carnage. Yanis had convinced Fremma to leave the ship, but how far had the Commander gotten before he was lost? She didn’t want to know, or worse yet, to bear witness.
Suddenly, she felt as though she was suffocating. Though it ran contrary to Korba’s orders, she wrenched her helmet off as she reeled around, then tossed it on the consoles. Sucking in a large gulp of air, she stilled her thudding heart. She ran her gloved hand through her hair. She would, someday, dare to look at the data, but not now. The wounds were still too raw, and she dared not poke the still festering lesions.
She placed her hands on the panels and leaned over, hanging her head. She needed to find calm and concentrate on why she was here. Looking at the controls, she began hitting switches, combing slowly through the visuals, calling into play the scanners that functioned throughout the colossal ship. Corridor after corridor appeared before her, bleak and abandoned. Some areas were clear of debris, proof that the crews were hard at work; some were still littered with the signatures of war.
Then she called up the one operational engine room and looked over it. Except for the absence of men, it appeared normal, as it had in the days she once walked these decks while they still hummed away in all their military might.
Next, her fingers sought out the scanners in the private sickbay. It too looked ready and waiting, and Chelan smiled. “My first home,” she lamented almost fondly. Well, not too fondly. Sickbay and her first encounter with Manza coursed through her thoughts. The man had been her captor and her savior, but no matter the destressing details of her abduction, it was through those doors that she had been delivered into Korba’s arms, and the love story of a lifetime had been kindled.
Smiling, she switched areas and called up the officers’ quarters, starting with Fremma’s, then Tarn’s, Lazen’s, and the list went on, all her memories revisited. But then her smile faded. All the quarters were long since abandoned, all in disarray, all a stark reminder of the forces that bludgeoned these decks not so long ago, and her blood cooled.
Chelan sat and leaned on her fist as she continued through the ship. But very few of the scanners were operational, and many areas of mass destruction were unavailable to her. She knew she could access the orbs and rovers if she wished, thousands of them roaming the ship continually, but there was no point. She had access to them on RIBUS 1, and their data was not why she was here.
Finally, she shut the entire Center down and sat back, a shiver going through her. She was suddenly cold, haunting memories of Talon’s terror vying for dominion over the calm serenity that had surrounded her earlier. Eventually, she shrugged off the sense of foreboding, and rose sluggishly to her feet.
She turned around and then froze. The doors to the Command Center had just silently closed, and Chelan was momentarily paralyzed. Her hand instinctively went to the emergency button at her neck, but she did not press it. Her mind raced. Her eyes darted about the area, and her heart banged in her chest.
All the crews had been removed, the work stopped for her visit. Korba and his men were in the hangar. So why had the doors...
Chelan’s thoughts derailed as adrenalin surged through her. Suddenly, she sprinted toward the doors. They parted rapidly to her sudden advance, and she skidded to a halt in the corridor. Instantly she was on the run again, to where she knew not. Her eyes flashed left and right as she ran, passing crew’s quarters, conference rooms, and more.
Then she stopped, a
cold blast of air halting her in her tracks. She looked to her right and tried to catch her breath. There, before her, was another main corridor, its entrance barred by a security barricade. The area was off-limits.
Chelan squinted as she stared down it, the long-since-abandoned stretch disappearing into inky blackness. Her nose twitched. The air was not as pure here, the corridor breached somewhere, filters not functioning.
Chelan twirled around trying to get her bearings. In her haste she could not perfectly remember the layout of RIBUS 7. Where the corridor led eluded her. Yet somehow she knew that someone, or something, had entered it.
She straightened her shoulders and took a calming breath. “Damn,” she muttered. As badly as she wanted to search the area, there was no way she was going to take another step. Without her helmet, she had already been incautious. And besides, she had to get back to the Command Center. She knew her time was precariously short, and if Korba found out she had strayed, she would never manage to get back here no matter the state of RIBUS 7.
She closed her eyes. “Another time,” she whispered, and once again she was on the run, back the way she had come. She flew through the Command Center doors, dashed up to the main console, grabbed her helmet, and wrenched it over her head. Striving to calm herself, she plopped in the chair and leaned back, waiting for her breathing to return to normal, her racing mind impossible to tame.
Someone or something had opened the main doors, of that she was sure. But who, or what? She looked down at her clenched hands. What if someone had been watching her? But again, who? And how did she instinctively know that whatever had just intruded upon her had fled down the darkened corridor? Scent? Heat?