“No.” He thrust his body against hers, his cock striking her clit just right, making her breath catch. “Talk to me, Kiwi. Tell me the truth. Give me something about you. Something that tells me who you really are.”
“I’m who you see before you.” As she said it, she realized he wasn’t buying it.
He stroked her cheek. “Please. My life is an open book to you. All I’m asking for is a peek between the pages of yours.”
She put her forehead to his chin. “What do you want to know?”
“How about this him you just mentioned.”
She would have answered but the alerts, indicating an approaching vessel, sounded. Kiwi did what came naturally, she rushed to the arms cabinet on the maintenance bay, keyed in her code and opened it, pulling out what she thought she might need. Since the vessel they were on had turned into a safe haven for refugees of the war between humanoids and Vanos, on the outer quadrants, they’d stopped meeting boarding guests in the receiving area and started routing them through varying landing bays. The hope was, if an enemy were to arrive, the ship and its occupants would have time to ready to defend themselves.
As she strapped extra ammunition to herself, Conell shook his head. “How is it that something as tiny as you is so damn lethal?”
“I’m not sure.” She smiled. “Just lucky I guess. Pick your poison.”
“Ah, I’m a step ahead of you.” He turned, allowing her a view of the P893 G-pulse gun he had tucked in the back of his pants.
“Nice.” She was impressed. Conell, while brilliant with a body that screamed solider, had the heart of an academic. That only served to make her like him more but Kiwi kept that to herself. He didn’t need anything more in the way of encouragement. Besides, she’d already ridden him until he’d exploded in her not once, but twice.
“If I start carrying a backup weapon too, will you tell me your real name?” he asked, helping her strap the ammunition belt over her shoulder.
“Why do you keep insisting Kiwi isn’t my name?”
It wasn’t, but she was curious to know how he’d figured it out.
A shrug was his only reply.
She made a move to pass him but Conell caught her arm and held her in place. Her body tingled at his touch. Reaching out, he ran the pad of his thumb over the corner of her mouth, making her skin burn with delight. “Woman, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Kiwi tipped her head into his palm and closed her eyes, enjoying his touch more than she should. Her lips naturally puckered in hopes more was to come and she had to pull herself out of the needy state and focus. “Hmm?”
“I said,” he stroked her cheek, “you had some grease on you.”
When Kiwi opened her eyes, she found Conell’s face so close she could have kissed him. The sound of the adjacent hanger’s doors opening was the only thing preventing her from carrying out the action.
“I didn’t hear anyone grant permission for someone to dock.”
Conell stared at her a moment before resignation clicked. “Neither did I.”
He pushed past her, rushing in the direction of the adjacent hanger. She watched with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Conell walked right out and in front of the hanger doors. She seized hold of his waistband and yanked him backwards, utilizing the strength of her reconditioned arm. Thanks to Aeron, it had been successfully repaired. There had been a fear of her body rejecting it but that hadn’t been the case. A sensor had come loose. The operation to fix it was non-intrusive and Kiwi had been up and ready to go within hours.
Conell yelped and barely avoided falling. She hadn’t meant to use that much strength.
“Kiwi?”
She put a finger to her lips to silence him and pointed at the doors. “Standing directly in front of them when I open them is a great way to get blown to pieces. If you’d prefer to go back and take your chances, then by all means, please do.”
Pulling the gun from the back of his pants, he smiled down at her, looking nothing short of adorable. “No. I’m good. Thank you.”
Kiwi sighed and motioned for him to lower his weapon. He did and she clicked his safety off. He wasn’t going to shoot anything with it still on. “And people keep swearing to me you’re brilliant.”
“I am until I get around you and then I’m lucky to form a complete sentence.” He fluttered his eyelids and smiled. “You take my thoughts away.”
“Do you ever stop?”
He nudged her. “Will you agree to run off to the nearest union moon and let me stake my claim on you legally?”
“Nope,” she said, focusing on the doors, assuming Conell was being Conell and joking.
“Well, there is your answer then.”
She punched in the sequence to open the doors and waited a second before turning slowly, going to one knee and aiming her weapon. The moment her sights locked on a Star Union transport vessel, she let off the trigger and waited to see if it was a trap or not. The Vanos were known for underhanded maneuvers. This would simply be another in a long line of them.
Conell tried to walk past her but she grabbed his hand and pulled him down next to her. “What? They’re friendly.”
“So says the stamp on the side of the ship.”
Conell stared at her with something akin to worry and admiration. “In your past life, were you a military commander or a spy? Maybe a dictator of a small planet?”
“All of the above.” She realized she still had hold of his hand and refused to let go. Instead, she laced her fingers through his and gave a gentle squeeze. “What about you? What were you in your past life?”
“Brilliant, of course.”
She would have commented but the Star Union’s hatch opened. The second Kiwi spotted a tall, sandy blond-haired man with a body that rivaled Conell’s, her breath caught. She stood quickly, her finger near the trigger once more as she advanced on the man.
“Hands in the air!”
“Kiwi, no!” Conell yelled, trying to catch hold of her.
She slipped past his grasp and kept her weapon trained on the man before her. The man’s turquoise gaze landed on her and his eyes widened.
“Put your facq’elnin’ hands in the air. Now!”
“Kiwi, don’t shoot. He’s on our side,” Conell said, putting himself between her and the man—leaving his brilliance in question once more.
“No, he’s not.” She fought for air that didn’t seem to want to come as she stared past Conell at the newcomer. “Move, Conell.”
The man stepped out from behind Conell with his hands in the air. As shock moved over his handsome face, Kiwi felt something deep within her breaking. Her time spent at the mercy of the enemy was still fresh in her mind. Seeing this ghost from the past wasn’t helping.
“No,” the man whispered. “It can’t be.” He went to lower his hands and she jerked her weapon, unsure now if she was actually willing to use it.
“Who are you?”
He lifted a brow. “Who are you?”
“Guys?” Conell looked back and forth between them. “This is ridiculous. Darrin, this is Kiwi. Kiwi, Darrin. Think we can put the weapons down and act like normal, non-violent people? I realize it would be a stretch for you both but reach deep, folks, I think you can do it.”
“Kiwi?” Darrin repeated a second before he seized hold of Conell’s weapon and trained it on her.
Conell made a move to go at the man but Darrin shook his head. “No, Conell. Stay back. She’s not safe to be near.”
Kiwi stared harder at Darrin, unable to believe her eyes. “It can’t be you. I watched you…” Tears fought to come but she held tight to them as she stared at a man she’d long thought dead.
Darrin shook his head. “Stop screwing with my mind. You’re not her. You can’t be. I went back and she was dead. They’d… After they’d… You’re not her!”
The tears broke free. “What? You got away and then you came back? Are you stupid, Darrin, I thought I made you swear to me that you’d…
”
He tossed the weapon aside and stormed towards her. Kiwi didn’t shoot. She couldn’t even if she’d wanted to. Darrin pushed the barrel of her gun away from him and touched her redone arm lightly. “H-how?”
Kiwi dropped her weapon and tossed her arms around his neck. He was as tall as Conell and the moment he stood, he lifted her off the ground and spun her around in a circle. “Oh gods, Kisenia, I thought you were dead. I searched everywhere for you. How are you here? How are you alive? How are you in one piece? How did you get away?”
Tears continued to fall as she clung to Darrin.
He stopped and held firm to her. “Your family thinks you’re dead. Your dad will…”
“No. No one can know, Darrin.”
“Why?”
“That is the question of the hour,” Conell said, his voice even. “That among others.”
Kiwi wiped her cheeks and patted Darrin’s shoulders. “Put me down.”
“Hell no. I spent three years thinking you were dead, Kisenia. I’ll be damned if I let go of you now.” He chuckled. “All this time I thought you were gone and you’ve been shacked up here, with Conell? I should have known you’d find a posh life somewhere. You were always the belle of the ball.”
She knew Darrin was only joking but she couldn’t stop herself from spilling things she never thought she’d reveal to anyone. “I haven’t been free for three years, Darrin. I’ve been free for a year and a half. The first six months of which I spent running. They seemed to be able to find me anywhere I went.” She let out a choked laugh, but was far from jovial. “Trust me, if you spend enough time at their mercy and then running for your life, you get stars smart real fast.” She shoved off him and landed on her feet with ease. “You also push the thoughts from your head about the life you did have, the one you thought you were entitled to and you stare reality in the face.”
He paled. “The Vanos had you for over a year? That means when I went back for you…when the guards I captured told me you were dead…”
“They were lying. Think about it, Darrin, do you believe any of them would really let me die? Without me, they’d lose a valuable bargaining tool.”
“Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on and why he keeps calling you Kisenia?” Conell stepped forward and put his hand out to her.
Without thought, she took it and let out a deep breath. “Because it’s my name. Kisenia Wise, or the nickname I had when I was little—Kiwi.”
Suddenly, Kiwi had guilt for keeping that detail from him over the last several months. The hurt look in his eyes told her he too was upset with the fact it took a third party to bring about the revelation. “But you can’t tell anyone else here. Promise me. I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back.”
Conell’s brow knit. “I’d never let the Vanos have you back, Kiwi.” He pulled her into his arms and held her close. “Never.”
“Not them, Conell. I can’t go home…” a rather dramatic breath fell from her lips, “…to my family.”
“Your father never recovered from your, uhh, death, Kisenia.” Darrin stepped towards her. “Your mother doesn’t let anyone speak your name and whenever she sees me, she cries.”
Kiwi had spent many a day thinking of her family. Thinking of how they were. If they thought she was dead. She’d briefly considered going back to her home planet, simply to look in on them but couldn’t bring herself to do it. The shame in having been captured and for how many times she’d nearly broke, almost telling the Vanos what they wanted to know, kept her from going back. “I can’t, Darrin. Please don’t ask me to.”
“They won’t look at you differently, Kisenia. You’re their daughter, they’ll…”
She jerked away from Conell and shook her head, an array of emotions washing over her. “Kiwi! Not Kisenia! Kisenia doesn’t exist anymore, Darrin. She died in a Vanos prison camp and left me in her place. I’m not the same girl I was. I’m not the same naïve young woman who smiled when spoken to and who did whatever it was her father told her to do. I’m not the same person who agreed to let her parents arrange a marriage for her because it was expected of me and I’m sure in stars’ name not the woman you met in the watering station three and half years ago.”
Darrin put his hands up. “Kisenia…erm…Kiwi, please. I understand you’re not the same person but that doesn’t mean your parents shouldn’t know you’re alive.”
“Why? So they can pick up where they left off, marrying me off to some professor who, from the way you were acting when you first arrived for me, wasn’t even aware he was getting a bride?”
Darrin’s gaze moved to Conell. “I think he’s come around.”
Hysterical laughter fell free from her lips. “Right, and now he’d want a woman who spent a year and a half of her life being tortured because of whose daughter she is and because of what she carries in her.” She yanked at the ammunitions clip and pulled it away in a frenzy. “He’d want a woman who isn’t a full humanoid? One who is not only part synthetic, but who found out, while being held prisoner, that she isn’t even her parents’ biological child?”
“What?”
She laughed harder, sounding anything but amused. “Oh, yeah, I was just as shocked when their doctors came in, shoving the results of my DNA testing in my face. Daddy’s little girl, his little princess, wasn’t even really his, Darrin. Apparently, I’m the product of Vanos and humanoid mating. I’m an unwanted bastard born from the same line of things that beat me until I couldn’t move, who tried to kill the human in me. Who thought of that part as weak and were bound and determined to make me into something fit for their captain.”
Darrin looked as if he was going to throw up. “You mean to tell me that sick son of a bitch, Ajos, wanted to keep you for himself?”
She stared at him. “Did you miss the part about me not being fully human?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I knew that about five minutes after I met you. At first I thought you had on some sort of perfume,” he blushed, “that left me wanting to pin you to a wall. After a while, I realized I sensed something in you. Something familiar. Then I also realized something else.” His gaze went to Conell. “You were entirely too perfect for the man you’d been selected for. You, with your nose always in a book, always eager to learn, were exactly what the doctor ordered. Pun intended.”
She snorted. “Yeah, me, a real gal wonder, took to reading Vanos manuals whenever I could get my hands on one. Almost all were about combat, some sort of military thing or another. Some—” she touched her grease-covered backside, “—were on how to fix and fly ships. So, you tell me the truth, Darrin. Could the man my parents decided I’d spend the rest of my life with really want me?”
“I don’t know.”
She got a hold of her emotions. “At least you’re honest.”
Darrin locked gazes with Conell. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Right. I’ll pick up a com and make an interstellar call to him right now. How should I identity myself? Should I tell him the ambassador’s daughter is phoning? The woman his parents and my parents apparently thought was perfect for him? Or, how about the half-human, half-Vanos woman who is now sporting fake body parts because the men holding her prisoner thought they’d take a sledge hammer to her each and every time she refused to acknowledge their captain as her master?”
“Kiwi,” Darrin cleared his throat, “you should know something about the man I was sent to take you to.”
“What? Is he a Vanos fleet captain too?”
“He’s part Vanos,” Darrin said softly. “The same as me.”
She stilled. “That’s his worst thing? So, I have all this baggage and the worst he has is that he’s part Vanos? Gods, a huge chunk of the crew here are. I thought I’d hate being around anyone who reminded me of them but…” she glanced at Conell, “…the idea of leaving these people terrifies me.”
Darrin laughed. “Uh, no. He has much more wrong with him. He’s an ass. He’s full of himself. He’s
way too smart for his own good. He’s…”
“Pfft, he sounds like Conell.” As she said it, she realized Conell was there, hearing everything she said. Her stomach cramped as shame washed over her. “I-I have to go. I need to clean up and…”
“What is said here stays here.” Conell stepped closer and drew her into his embrace.
Kiwi almost yelled at him about not wanting his pity but she realized his hold was exactly what she needed. She wasn’t sure how much time passed with her clinging to him but when she finally pulled away, she said nothing as she walked out of the hanger and headed for her cabin.
Conell watched as the woman he’d fallen in love with walked away. She was so tiny and petite in comparison to him that he often wanted to pull her into his arms and shelter her from the world. He couldn’t explain his behavior before learning she’d been selected for him, nor had he tried, but after hearing the exchange between her and Darrin, he understood.
He locked gazes with a man he knew well. “Tell me everything.”
“She should be the one to tell you.”
“Darrin, don’t. She won’t and you know it.” He let out a long, shaky breath, stunned his brother knew more about Kiwi than he did. “Start at the beginning. You know, the part where Mom and Dad arranged for me to be married but didn’t feel the need to tell me.”
His older brother sighed. “You spent so long denying the Vanos part of us that they were afraid you wouldn’t look for your mate. That you’d ignore the urges and keep your nose buried in a book so they took it upon themselves to find her.”
His mate?
He’d heard of such a thing—that the Vanos, unlike humanoids, had a perfect someone they were compatible with. Sure, they could breed, even care for another, but in the end, legends told of how each had a lifemate, a perfect match roaming the universe. Being a man of science, Conell put little to no stock in legends. His parents knew him well. He’d have laughed at the idea of having a mate.
That was the old Conell. The new one had a nagging feeling there was truth behind the tales. From the very moment he’d laid eyes on the stubborn girl with a hot temper and a quick wit, his cock had been in a permanent state of erection. He hadn’t been joking when he told Kiwi he was a smart man until he was around her and then he suddenly had trouble forming sentences.
Droid Wars II: Magnetic Attraction Page 4