by Shae Mills
Braedon watched her for a while as he ate. “You are not interfering,” he offered softly. “Your company is welcome.”
Chelan smiled. “You came for the solitude.”
“I came to work. The solitude and living off what the caverns have to offer are an added bonus but not entirely necessary.”
Chelan reclined on the fur, suddenly fatigued, but she feared sleeping in the presence of the stranger.
Braedon observed her silent struggle against the inevitable. “You should rest. You are safe. I will not touch you. You must trust this Southern man.”
Chelan smiled weakly. “I will trust this Southern man,” she uttered. After all, she had no choice at the moment.
She watched as he finished his meal and then moved over to the large fur near the rocks. From a nearby pack, he removed a book-sized device and began working with it. Chelan realized it was a computer but was too tired to ask about it. He glanced over at her and smiled. Finally, Chelan closed her eyes and relinquished herself to sleep.
Chapter 18
Talon took one more look at the equipment and then nodded to the men. “All is in order, and I see that the Telesians serve us just as well as they did the old Empire. Continue as you were.” And he left the main Control Center.
He walked a short way down the corridor and then passed through a set of doors. They closed behind him. In the middle of the small room, relieving himself of his weapons and shroud, he flopped onto the bed. He rubbed his weary eyes and stared up at the ceiling. All was going well. The Empire seemed stable; the last pockets of resistance on Iceanea had been squashed some time ago. All the fleet’s primary battleships had been repaired and upgraded by the Telesians, and now everything was relatively calm. Of course, there were the usual colonial suppressions, the acquisition of new planets and goods into the realm, not always peaceably, but continuing nonetheless.
Talon turned his head toward the wall. He supposed he should feel some degree of contentment, but far from it. A gnawing agitation consumed him, and now, in this moment of respite, he sought to isolate its source.
He supposed that, like his brother, he had been born and bred for the battle, and, as for Korba, calm spawned for him discontent. But unlike Korba, Talon knew he could not rule the Empire and fight all of its battles too. One or the other would suffer, and he had no intention of replicating his brother’s folly.
In the end, only one thing had contributed to Korba’s downfall. He had spread himself too thin. With his attention out in the field, he had failed to see the whole picture. His home had crumbled, and with it, he had lost all—his Empire, his life, and his lady.
Talon took a deep breath, the little alien seeping into his restless thoughts. It had been a couple of weeks since she had left, and still, she plagued his disciplined mind. He had told Lethiason that her absence was for the best, her presence distracting him. But now he wondered about the lunacy that infected him. Indeed, her absence distracted him more than her presence ever had.
It was at this moment, when she was not accessible to him, that he realized just how much he had taken her for granted and how much he craved her proximity. Though he had, as he had told Lethiason, not professed love, Talon now realized that no other had tugged at his heart as she had. And no other had stung him so badly by the simple act of walking away. He maintained an unshakable majesty around his men, but Chelan’s absence ripped unmercifully at his heart.
Talon closed his eyes. On Calley, he had known his mission and his quarry and why he sought to obtain her. But the very first time he confronted her, the mere sight of her had sent him reeling. Though she was the enemy and Korba’s mate, the shock that had hit him that day had knocked the wind from him. The blow had been so forceful, he had not even permitted himself to analyze it, the conclusions potentially too dire to endure. All throughout her captivity, he had treated her more ruthlessly than necessary simply to distance himself from the insidious feelings that grappled with his mental discipline every time he entered her company.
Talon took another deep breath. Even when she had submitted, offering herself and taking her place by his side, he had balked. He had indeed distanced himself from her for so long and so hard that he no longer knew how to accept her. And should he accept her now, he knew he would be admitting his vulnerability to her, a thought that genuinely disturbed him.
Talon rolled to his side. There was no denying reality now. The majority of his discontentment was caused by the little alien and her departure. Talon clenched his jaw, images of the past suddenly playing relentlessly through his weary mind. At one point, he had thrown her onto her bed, deliberately terrorizing her even while she was pregnant. When he saw the fear in her eyes and realized its source, he had told her he would not consider contaminating himself with her alien depths. Now, he understood that she’d thought he had threatened rape, his ultimate denial to himself of her body insinuating that she was so repulsive that sex with her in any form was undesirable to him.
Talon returned to his back, his chest constricting. Other images of her tore through his mind… her beauty, her determination, her struggles, and her final surrender. He had taken the innocent creature and broken her, physically and mentally. A casualty of war? Possibly, but a war he alone waged against her, a war she took no part in, and a war she could have never won, no matter how hard she tried.
He closed his eyes and attempted to erase her from his mind. But suddenly, he pictured her soft features and her elegant body clad in white. He remembered the first time he took her lips, her trembling, her sweet scent, and her pretty eyes.
Talon bolted upright. He saw her on her bed the first day she wore her gown, her slender fingers coursing seductively over her own body. It had ignited a fire in him so fierce, it had burned him, the same fire her image kindled within him now.
He wanted her by his side; that was unmistakable. He wanted her to rule with him; that was a given. But now, he also wanted to love her, this final admission causing his heart to clench. He tilted his head up and closed his eyes. He wanted to comfort her, to protect her, to apologize to her, and ultimately, to make love to her.
Talon shuddered as he rose and began stripping off his uniform. He needed a shower—a very cold shower—and he stepped into the en suite. There he leaned against the wall and clutched at his head, fighting to curb the path his thoughts were taking. But vivid images continued to plague him. He watched as her hands slid under her dress toward her own milky depths, and he slid to his knees, his breath taking off. He wanted to be over her, touching her, entering her, and he looked down at his engorged manhood. He closed his eyes and tried to think of Roeena, but her image quickly faded, and he jumped to his feet.
Entering the shower, he hit a button, the icy spray shocking even him. But it did little to subdue his raging desire. Why an alien? Why her? Talon’s head thudded against the shower wall as water cascaded down his steel-hard muscles. His mind wandered over her body—her slender neck, her white skin, her large, soft breasts—and he groaned. He wanted to feel her, to taste her, to take all of her in his hands and in his mouth, and his body shuddered with irrepressible hunger.
Talon reached for himself, his own touch so foreign. He tried once again to concentrate on Roeena and considered summoning her, but he knew he would only be using her, and she vanished from his mind. More thoughts of Chelan floated about him and suddenly, he experienced an unexpected serenity interwoven with passion. He saw his massive body over her, her femininity dwarfed by his maleness and power. He entered her, and he gasped, his hand clenching down on himself as his strokes intensified.
Then he stopped, his pounding heart missing a beat. He thought of her size and her fragility. He did not want to hurt her. But then, she had been Korba’s and Dar’s. Gentleness was the answer, and his hand became less hurried. His fantasy finally ran away with him as he made sweet love to his lady, his little one. And when he thought of her reciprocating willingly, her hands touching all of him, his body shuddered wit
h ecstasy, his final need met.
Talon hunched over in the cold water, attempting to catch his breath. The spray pounded on his broad back, and his long hair streamed over his face. He honestly could not remember the last time he had resorted to his own hand, and the realization hit him hard. Was it lust? No—though his loins had cooled, his heart had not. Then he burst from the shower and hit an intercom switch.
“My Lord?”
“Sept. Have my personal fighter readied.”
“Yes, my Lord. Do you require any accompaniment?”
“No. I go alone.”
*****
Chelan awoke to the morning light feeling refreshed. She looked around, noting that Braedon was absent once again. The man worked long hours. Throughout the caverns, he had stashed a multitude of pieces of sensitive seismic equipment, along with devices for measuring heat, air currents, magnetic anomalies, and gases. On his tours, he also collected and analyzed numerous water samples, checking mineral and particle contents against the chemical compositions of the surrounding formations. With his in-depth knowledge of hydrology, he could map the laminar and turbulent flow of the groundwater throughout the various subterranean geologic structures.
Once her leg had healed sufficiently, he had taken her on a few of his forays. Chelan was instantly captivated by the sights and sounds of all the interconnecting caverns and tunnels. Upon their returns, Braedon would enter the information collected into his computer, sorting through the data and showing her the complicated diagrams that resulted. Chelan knew the geologists and geophysicists of Earth would be awestruck if they could see this. And that wasn’t even counting the floating, three-dimensional forms that would be produced when all the data was fed to the more powerful computers at Braedon’s place of work in the South.
Today, Chelan peeled back the pelts that covered her and looked down. Her leg had healed beautifully, but it would take time for all the stiffness to abate. She stood and then began shedding her uniform. It was time for another swim in the healing waters. She slithered in and sighed with contentment.
Floating in the mineral-laden pool, she stared up at the vaulted ceiling. Though she had planned to leave immediately for her own cavern, Braedon had convinced her to stay with him until her leg was well mended. In the meantime, she had become so enthralled by the technology and the caverns that one day had simply melted into the next, and she had lost track of time. But today she knew she would leave Braedon to work in peace. Though he seemed to enjoy her company, she was still an intruder. He needed his space, and for that matter, so did she.
He had never pressed her about her past, and Chelan had not volunteered much, but she had learned a lot about the people of the South through him. Korba, during his short reign, had liberated the South and ended any squabbling between the two hemispheres, and Talon had left the South unmolested. Yet both Empires had been oddly bereft of information on the Southern people. Chelan had come to feel during her time in the old Empire that the Southern people were backward, both in their ways and technology. But she now knew that was far from the reality. Not only had they always been technologically advanced, but after the Ticeenean Empire had fallen, Korba had granted them full access to Telesian technology for civilian purposes. The people of the South, though not as advanced biologically as those of the North, also had their fair share of extremely talented scholars, scientists, and engineers. Braedon was a prime example.
Chelan heard a sound and righted herself. Then she watched as Braedon emerged from the adjoining caverns, fully clad in suede of his own making. Chelan grinned. My Indian, she thought teasingly.
Braedon swung his pack off his shoulders and squatted down to rearrange the contents. He glanced at her and smiled. “You are up early.”
Chelan returned his smile. “I went to bed early too.”
Braedon nodded. “Have you eaten?”
Chelan continued to tread water. “Not yet. I wanted to exercise my leg first. It is still stiff in the morning.”
Braedon stood and stretched. “Hmmm… Perhaps you have been overdoing it. Let me take a look at it when you are ready. Maybe I can massage any knots out of the surrounding tissues. In the meantime, you can pick the morning menu.”
Chelan moved to the edge of the pool. “Pass me my shroud, please.”
Braedon glanced about and then scooped it up and held it out to her. After eleven Earth years in the old Empire and an additional year in the new, Chelan had finally learned not to make a big issue of her nakedness. Though she had not cast all her prudish ways into an abyss, they were much tempered. And even though Braedon was of the South, he was obviously unaffected by her presence regarding his own ease, so she acquiesced.
She pushed herself out of the pool and stood still as he surrounded her with the voluminous material. Then she sat down and curled up against the cool air. Braedon slipped out of his tunic and let it fall to the ground. Chelan picked up the soft material. “How come you made this? Surely, you could have brought as much clothing as you needed.”
Braedon smiled as he slid out of his pants. “I have other apparel here. This is just part of my back-to-nature crusade. Living off the Batex was a slow transition, but it is nice to know that I am now self-sufficient here if I ever need to be. There could be a cave-in or any number of smaller catastrophes that could extend my stay here indefinitely.”
Chelan nodded and watched as he slipped into the pool. Then she looked over at one of his caches of clothes and shuffled over to it. Sorting through the clothes, she picked out another long tunic. Without asking, she pulled it over her head and let the shroud fall away. Then, with a strip of Batex leather, she bound it at the waist.
The tunic was similar to the ones she had made for herself so long ago. And though it fit his form perfectly, it was oversized on her, exactly the way she liked it. The scoop neck just covered her breasts and dropped slightly over one shoulder. The soft material pleated at her slender waist and fell to mid-thigh.
She picked her way back to the pool where she sat and waited for Braedon to finish his bath. When he surfaced, he turned to her, and his eyes lit. “I would say perfect,” he declared.
Chelan smiled. “Not too big?”
Braedon shook his head. “Just right.” And he hoisted himself from the water. He looked at her as he dried himself with a pelt. “Consider it yours.”
“Only temporarily. As soon as I have made my own, I will return it.”
Braedon nodded. “As you wish. Now, let’s look at that thigh.”
Chelan twisted slightly and pulled the tunic up. Braedon moved to her and ran his hand over her silky skin. The entire side of her thigh was thoroughly healed, but he could feel some rough areas deep within the muscle.
Chelan watched him closely as he continued to press on her leg. “I am going to leave today,” she whispered.
Braedon’s touch faltered, his gaze fixating on her flesh. “I knew you would be going soon.”
Chelan reached for a handful of his glossy hair, her fingers feathering through it to the ends. His eyes met hers. Chelan studied his now somber features, his dark eyes, his high cheekbones, and his strong jaw. The sudden change in his demeanor took her by surprise. “I—” she began. “… You need your time alone.”
Braedon faced her more directly. “I have my time alone, Chelan. Do not leave because of me.”
Chelan felt her heart skip a beat, but she was resolute. “I do not know your ways,” she whispered. “And I do not wish to continue intruding. I have been following you everywhere.”
Braedon leaned in close to her. “You are not intruding—I have enjoyed your company and input immensely. And as far as my ways are concerned, what else do you wish to know?”
Chelan searched his eyes. “Well, I have learned a lot about the caverns while here. And you have told me a lot about the people of the South in general, but I know very little about you, personally. I know nothing of your past, your customs, your mores, or your family.”
“Nor
do I know yours. But if you stay, we can share all about one another. We need not be strangers here.”
Chelan smiled. “I would love to know everything about you.”
Braedon sat down comfortably in front of her. “Hmmm… Okay, I will start the conversation. I suppose the most important thing to me is my family. I could tell you all about them here, or I could take you with me when I return home, and you could meet them for yourself.”
Chelan’s eyes widened. “You would take me to the South with you?”
Braedon looked perplexed. “Of course, I would. Why does that seem so strange? You are a friend. Do you think I would have a reason to keep you hidden?”
Chelan shook her head slowly. “Well, I… It is just that your people…”
Braedon frowned at her. “That my people what?”
Chelan remained mute. She was worried that his people might recognize her as Korba’s mate, a position that might not sit well with a race of people who for the most part despised the Empire. “I would worry,” she said instead, “that they would not accept an alien.”
Braedon relaxed. “Then they would indeed be foolish. We have never been as immersed in the pursuit of flawless genetics as the people of the North. Not that I am against what they have engineered: it has served them and the people of the Empire very well—both Empires, for that matter. But we have much more diversity, so, though you are obviously alien, I am sure you would be more than welcome, especially among my family.” And he smiled.
Chelan warmed to him just that much more, his laid-back demeanor thawing any residual wariness she had carried pertaining to him. In fact, she was more at ease with this man than she had been with any other man since her induction into the Empire, save Jason, and her heart mellowed on the spot.
Braedon’s brows rose in response to the faraway look in her eyes. “Fond memories?” he asked.