Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare

by Susan Kearney

  During their conversation, Tessa prepared emergency kits in the back. Dora lowered her tone so only Tessa could hear. “I’m modifying my portable unit in hopes that when you enter the cavern, we can maintain contact.”

  “Great.”

  “The modification may not work.”

  Tessa picked up a laser weapon. “Understood. How long until the drop?”

  “Two minutes.”

  Up front Kahn stood, placed Kirek in the copilot seat, and then strapped him in. “Stay.” His tone was harsh, but he gave away his true feelings when he tousled the boy’s hair with a gentle hand.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Etru muttered.

  At Kahn’s approach, Tessa braced as if fearing her husband was about to give her the same order. But Kahn had learned that his wife rarely obeyed him. At the sight of three packed kits, his eyebrow lifted. “You’re coming along?”

  “You might get into too much trouble on your own. Besides you’ve been telling me I work too hard and need to relax more.”

  “You call dropping out of a skimmer relaxation?” Kahn sighed at his rhetorical question, but his lips ticked upward into a grin. He opened the hatch and wind blasted into the skimmer. Kahn leaned forward and gave his wife a fierce kiss. Almost always during times of intimate contact, one of them commanded Dora to leave their presence—while all the interesting stuff happened. However, they appeared so wrapped in the kiss that she had a perfect opportunity to observe.

  All she could think was … yum.

  Dora couldn’t wait to find a man to look at her with that kind of heat and tenderness. A man who’d kiss her with that combination of untamed need and savage possessiveness.

  As always when she thought of a mate, her thoughts turned to Zical. Dora had done her best to ensure that the composition and elasticity of her human vocal cords produced the same timbre as her computer-generated voice. Would he find her human voice as sexy as her computer one? If she made herself attractive enough, would he be compelled to make love to her?

  Chapter Three

  BY THE STARS, had he fainted? Zical rubbed his aching forehead, groaned, and forced his eyes open. The blinding golden light had disappeared. Soothing darkness backlit from the portal allowed him to view the alien machinery surrounding him, and he was relieved to find himself on his stomach only a few feet from the cavern’s entrance. After he gathered his strength and regained his feet, he’d do what he should have done in the first place—what Dora had suggested—go back outside and report his find.

  Dora’s tone prodded him, but with the ringing in his ears, he couldn’t make out her words. What had knocked him flatter than the geological pancakes on Damar, Mystique’s second moon? Breathing lightly past the tightness in his chest and the fullness in his loins, an odd side effect that his suit would take care of now that he was conscious, he ran his hands over his face while the ringing in his ears subsided and Dora’s voice slowly became clear enough to comprehend.

  “Zical. Talk to me. Are you hurt? Do you require—”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “I’ve already given you sixty.”

  He wouldn’t consider rolling over until the suit finished countering his arousal. Luckily, Dora hadn’t seemed to notice, or no doubt, she would be asking personal questions for which he had no reasonable answer. Thanks to the suit giving men control over their passions, Rystani males did not have erections unless they were ready to have sex.

  Stunned by the fierce sensation of need, need that he had no way to satisfy at the moment, he winced and lost track of the conversation. “Say that again, please?”

  “I would have summoned help but communications are still down.”

  “You sensed no immediate danger?” he guessed, rolling to his side and sitting up cautiously as he avoided putting pressure on tender areas, pleased his suit had done the job. His head pounded as if the entire Rystani army had tromped through, muddling his thoughts, scrambling his impressions. Yet, his skin tingled as if stroked.

  “Are you ill?”

  “I don’t think so, but …”

  “But?” she prodded.

  Stars. He wanted a woman so badly that he’d almost said so—a clear sign he was thoroughly rattled. Perhaps Dora’s discussion about breast size right before he’d blacked out had remained in his mind and stimulated him. Yeah, sure. More likely, he’d put off for too long a visit to a holosim, a holographic simulator, that would relieve his needs, so the first time his consciousness relaxed, his body felt as though he’d gotten a weekend pass to play. However, with Dora expanding her circuitry into every business on the planet, Zical couldn’t be certain his time with the holosim Xentos would remain private. The idea of Dora knowing about his personal business with a holosim disturbed him, so he always left his portable unit at home during his infrequent trips to that part of town.

  “What happened while I was out?”

  “Nothing. Your respiration and pulse remained within normal limits. You remained flat on your stomach, unmoving. Why?”

  At the sound of a skimmer outside the portal, Zical staggered to his feet. Nothing hurt, but his bones throbbed in a way he’d never experienced. Something odd had happened to him when the golden beam had struck. He would have thought he was simply suffering from the aftereffects of repressed sexual desire, but he recalled images, images so erotic that he suspected they couldn’t have originated with him.

  Zical peered toward the portal. “Who’s here?”

  “My communications still aren’t functioning. But my mainframe may have sent a rescue party when—”

  “Zical?” Kahn’s voice shouted through the portal.

  “Stay where you are. I’ll come out.” Zical straightened, bumped into a panel, and swore under his breath. Machinery rumbled, clicked. Zical’s scalp prickled, stopping him in mid-curse.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Dora’s voice deepened with urgency.

  Overhead, a fan-like noise whirred and fresh air wafted inside the cavern. Zical tipped back his head and spied what looked like a ventilation system, then the lines of the grill formed a shape that reminded him of the sensual sway of a woman’s hips. Lips pressed to his neck, but no one was there. A wispy soft breast brushed his cheek, yet he was alone, his suit in proper working order. Not prone to fantasizing while at work, he blinked, stared hard, now saw only the grill from the ventilation system. What in Dregan hell was going on?

  “Zical,” Dora’s tone commanded with authority. “Come on. Move.”

  His muscles pulsed. His bones vibrated strangely as he forced one foot in front of the other. He put down the fantasizing to the aftereffects from his knock on his head. Had his presence, his bump into the machinery, or the rescue party’s arrival brought the machines to life? Were they about to undergo another attack of golden light? Would the portal close and trap him?

  Kahn poked his head into the corridor, one thick arm blocking Tessa from entering. In a sweeping, intelligent gaze, Kahn took in the hum of machinery and Zical’s unsteady steps.

  Without hesitating another moment, Kahn entered the cavern, approached, and placed a steadying arm over Zical’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Zical rubbed his forehead again as another jolt of sexual need coursed through him. “Everything. I don’t know.”

  Tessa slipped to Zical’s other side, and together they helped him stand and go outside. “Dora, what happened?”

  Concisely, Dora reported the pertinent details, including that Zical’s portable computer unit was undamaged and again in contact with the mainframe now that they were outside. She concluded her analysis with the suggestion, “Zical should undergo a full physical exam.”

  “Dregan hell. I’m fine.” What he needed was an hour with Xentos to take the edge off, a night to douse the flames of desire from his system. He hoped the sensation would abate when they left the cavern. It didn’t.

  For some damn reason, every time Dora spoke, erotic images of her with a body flood
ed his mind. Dora dancing naked for him. Dora kissing him, her mouth sultry and warm. Dora’s hands busily stroking … damn. The golden light must have put those images in his head, and no matter how much he tried to focus his thoughts on the ancient machines and their purpose, he failed to get Dora out of his head.

  With Tessa, Kahn, and Zical standing outside in the niche, the spot was so crowded, he couldn’t move. Zical closed his eyes and more exotic images of Dora filled his mind, images similar to those that he’d dreamed while unconscious. Dora with a sexy neck, large breasts, and sensual hips. Dora with a body like Xentos, his holosim. If he shared this odd information with Kahn, he’d not only have to suffer through a physical, but he’d also have to withstand a psych evaluation. He hated nothing more than talking to a therapist, resented anyone probing his mind, digging into old and painful wounds better left alone.

  He could imagine the therapist’s questions. Did he fulfill his needs with a holosim, not a real woman, because he couldn’t put aside his failure to protect Summar? He would honestly answer yes, but no good would come of tearing open old wounds. The fact remained that Summar was dead, and while he’d unconditionally loved the baby inside her, he’d always had deep reservations about his child bride and resented their arranged marriage from the beginning when he’d recognized they were a poor match. After her death, he’d tried to numb his grief and forget his failure to protect his family by accepting one war mission after another. If he was reluctant to involve himself with another woman, he could blame his people’s need for competent starship pilots and his busy schedule.

  Tessa peered at him, her concern in eyes as green and deep as the valley far below. “Do you think the golden light is a weapon?”

  “Rays of golden light cut through my suit like a starship through hyperspace.” Slowly, the thrumming ebbed, leaving him certain that if the creators of the technology inside Mount Shachauri had wanted him dead, he wouldn’t still be breathing. “I’m not hurt. Maybe it was a welcome?”

  “A welcome that knocked you out?” Kahn muttered sarcastically.

  “Dora says these machines are ancient. The builders couldn’t possibly have anticipated what effect their technology might have on beings other than themselves,” Tessa countered, peering around Kahn to the interior.

  The Terran’s curiosity brightened her eyes, made her muscles taut with eagerness to explore. Kahn, always cautious and protective around his wife, seemed torn between exploration and keeping Tessa safe. Four years of marriage had taught him to word his concerns with care.

  “Why don’t we come back tomorrow with a team of engineers, scientists, archaeologists, and—”

  “Let them have all the fun?” Tessa slipped around him and entered the cavern. Kahn swore and followed. Zical kept his gaze carefully averted from Tessa. In his highly charged state, he didn’t want Kahn thinking that he was ogling his wife. Zical loved Tessa like a sister, nothing more, but right now he didn’t trust his reactions.

  Tessa hurried forward as if aware Kahn would attempt to stop her progress. “There’s no point in sending in a team until we know if it’s safe.”

  “Specialists should decide,” Kahn argued, but he, too, seemed fascinated by the ancient machines that amazingly still worked. Apparently, one system could turn on the next. Lights blinked. Dials glowed. Crystals flowed like rain across monitors. Deep within Mount Shachauri, engines stirred, their vibrations seeping upward through the stone like a hibernating animal that slowly stretched, yawned, and awakened.

  Zical scowled. “We have no specialists on the Perceptive Ones.”

  “Not true,” Dora piped in. “Several Zenonites are experts.”

  Was Dora trying to make her voice sound even sexier than normal? Or had the golden light altered him in some way to make him more sensitive? Turned on by just the sound of Dora’s voice, Zical tried to keep both desire and irritation from his tone, he also had to stiffen his suit around his tavis to prevent his blood from engorging the sensitive area. “Zenonites rarely leave Zenon. Besides, even if one of them consented to come to Mystique, he would take days to arrive.”

  “These machines have been here for eons. They aren’t going anywhere,” Dora countered, then announced, “I have solved our communication problem. We have contact with my mainframe.”

  “Good.” Zical felt better, knowing Dora’s vast resources could now work on the problem of helping to figure out exactly what they’d found. Part of him throbbed with guilt for being secretive about his unusual thought patterns. Part of him—just throbbed. Despite the suit that prevented his desire from showing, he ached, his balls tingled, and his tavis zinged with intoxicated, unruly desperation.

  “Did you lower the force field?” Kahn asked Dora.

  “I found a back door through the shielding. The field is still intact. In fact, I’m currently using a portion to communicate through a network that’s similar to but much more advanced than my neurotransmitters.”

  Zical stopped short, his thoughts wild and furious. Had the golden light temporarily changed his brain waves? His hormones? Perhaps it had been the knock on the head. Either way, he was having difficulty focusing beyond a driving need for sex, which he ruthlessly squelched. “The system’s alive?”

  “That would depend on how you define life.”

  Kahn, Tessa, and Zical strolled through the corridor. The golden light didn’t reappear. Perhaps only the first person to break the portal’s seal was welcomed or examined or whatever by the golden light.

  Kahn peered at crystals floating along one wall. “Have you anything in your data banks that’s similar to this equipment?”

  “The machines are mostly constructed of bendar. Those monitors are likely used to view data, but of what sort, and whether they still work may take years to discover. The complex is over three miles wide and twenty-five deep. Zical, you stumbled into the apex. There are four other similar portals all at the same altitude.”

  He should speak up and tell them about his sudden, strong, and vivid sexual fixations before some poor other unsuspecting soul strode under another cone of golden light. If he’d known for certain that the alien beam, not the knock on his head and the fall, had caused his sudden cravings and inexplicable fantasy about Dora, he’d have spoken up—embarrassing subject or not—but if the effect was short-term, in time, he could ascertain that for himself. While the suit hid his condition, he remained uncomfortable, and he fully intended to see Xentos at the first opportunity.

  ZICAL LEFT HIS portable computer unit and Dora behind, stepped off the street into a private retreat, and prayed that Dora’s spy-in-the-sky satellite sensors hadn’t picked him out from the hundreds of other pedestrians on foot who were out for a good time. Of all the cities on Mystique, this was the oldest and the capital—a busy spaceport, a business center where anything could be bought, for a price. Mystique’s wealth had filtered down from the planet’s owners to create a wealthy middle class. Storefronts with luxury items, restaurants with gourmet foods, and entertainment centers were plentiful amid towering apartments, wide boulevards planted with flowering shrubs, colorful butterflies and exotic birds that emitted a pleasant thrilling hum.

  The first time Zical had sought out a holographic simulation, the establishment’s owner had assured Zical that the holosims at the hotel didn’t tie into planetary systems—not so much to ensure the customers’ privacy as to keep out the authorities and overly inquisitive spouses, family, and friends. So if his luck held, Dora would have no idea where he was.

  “Good evening, sir.” A gorgeous holosim greeted Zical from behind the front desk. “What’s your pleasure?” She gestured to a monitor.

  Zical ignored the machine and removed a credit chit from his suit. He’d make his choices upstairs. Since charges began when he unlocked a door to his private room and ended when he exited, most customers apparently wanted their companion preferences decided beforehand to maximize the time in their room. He’d gladly spend the extra credits in return for privac
y. As impatient as he was for release, once he reached his room, Zical still put thought into what kind of holosim suited him. Tall—his chin height. Slender but curvy. Big breasts. Funny, he’d always chosen women of medium-sized proportions until Dora had put the suggestion of large breasts into in his head. Cinnamon hair. Amethyst eyes. He moved on to the personality traits.

  Eager?

  Of course—a man would have to be a savage Endekian to enjoy forcing a woman.

  Self-confident?

  Absolutely. Zical didn’t want anyone who reminded him of Summar—his child bride, one so terrified of sex that after she’d conceived when they consummated the marriage, they’d never had marital relations again.

  Adventurous?

  Hmm. Not today. He was too on edge to bother being inventive. He simply needed to take care of business.

  Talkative?

  He marked one notch above the minimum. He didn’t require conversation. But dead silence seemed so … unnatural.

  Aggressive?

  Another time. With his nerves raw, he fully needed to be the one in command.

  Clothing?

  None. What was the point? He was here to satisfy his lust.

  Skill level?

  Expert. No hesitation there. He preferred a partner who knew exactly what she was doing. Teaching wasn’t for him, and he moved on swiftly choosing music, something with a beat.

  Scent?

  Orangeflower.

  Wall color?

  Golden. No. He needed no reminder of the golden cone of light that had caused his arousing condition. Scarlet. Yes. To match his passion.

  Lighting?

  Bright starlight with an ebbing moon across a black velvet sky.

  He chose humidity and temperature. Although furniture was totally unnecessary, since the null-grav in his suit could float him, he liked the ambiance of a large bed. Finally, he punched in his final decision and let the sophisticated machine do its work. If he’d preferred, he could save his choices in the system for his next visit. But each time he came here he vowed it would be the last. He should find a real woman. But he never had time … Besides as a man who’d become accustomed to guarding his privacy from a certain inquisitive computer, he didn’t like leaving clues to his activities behind.