The Space Colonel's Woman (Dragonus Chronicles Book 1)

by Jay Shaw

  “Thirsty?”

  “You’ll be under the table after one sip.”

  She pouted, but allowed him to steer her toward a profusion of lush greens and autumn golds. He smirked at her curious stare and stepped up to the elderly vendor with Julia tucked tight into his side. When they moved on, Julia was convinced the old woman was in love with Mark. But then, who could blame her.

  “So…do you have an interest in botany you forgot to mention?”

  He braced his purchase on his other hip. Its waxy lilac leaves looked artificial against the black twisted rope of its trunk.

  “Me? No. You know that fruit you’re always snacking on, fuck, woman, the sounds you make…I’m hard as rock the second you take your first bite.” Julia stumbled at the image he painted and he tugged her closer still. “We should never run out of those damn fruit.”

  She laughed until her abs ached and his cheeks were crimson. He’d bought a fruit tree so she’d always have her favorite treat on hand, and he’d be able to listen to her eat them. It didn’t get more romantic than that.

  “Let’s go. I’ve a sudden urge to check into our hotel.”

  A warm swirl of need low in her belly had Julia squeezing her thighs together. Until, the magpie in her was distracted by something shiny and gorgeous.

  “Just one more purchase, please. Look at those lamps! When they’re lit, I bet the patterns they throw on the walls would look amazing.”

  And like every newlywed man before him, Mark bowed to his bride’s wishes and steered them to yet another essential bargain.

  ~*~

  The clerk at The Coronet’s reception reminded Julia of both Anora and Hayden. If their friends were to sire a child, she could imagine it would resemble the graceful carriage of the woman leading them up the ten flights of stairs to their room. She bore the same body art as Hayden did; only its design was a lacy feminine filigree of pink and orange iridescence riding the curve of her spine. It disappeared under both brown leather vest and short shorts, reappearing down the backs of her thighs and up into the tight dreadlock curls covering her scalp.

  “Thurac-Zefeirs.” Mark nodded when the clerk had returned downstairs. “Neither the Thuranian nor the Zefeirian cultures believe in interracial bonding, but of course it happens.”

  Julia frowned, finding it difficult to adhere the new information with what she knew of their friends. It didn’t fit. Anora was open in her thinking, willing to learn the intricacies of new civilizations. It seemed to be the main reason why she would be on Mark’s team. A queen could not rule wisely if she had a narrow, uninformed experience of the universe. And Hayden, though he carried himself close to the chest, nothing about the man seemed judgmental or elitist.

  Mark smiled, obviously having guessed the direction of her thoughts. “They’re unique.”

  “Yes, they are.” She agreed and turned her attention to their surroundings.

  From the outside The Coronet, named for the spiral of snow white confection atop its roof, that reminded Julia of a soft-serve ice cream with sprinkles, looked much like its neighbors. Being that it was an original among other originals. Its twelve story structure held no architectural logic and yet it had stood, just as it was, for three centuries.

  She loved it, and hoped Mark would bring them here again. Their room was less a single space and more a collection of alcoves, like the inside of a pumice stone or expandable foam that set like rock when dry. A myriad of colors licked over the room’s contours from the stained glass windows. She opened one, a wave of sound from the market below rushing in to lure her back out. But Julia was more interested in the horizon; a line of sun-glinted promise. An ocean of liquid bronze. She had to see that. Would it feel like any other ocean? Or would it cling to her skin and leave a shimmery sheen in its wake? She wanted to see Mark on his board, surfing metallic waves; wild black whorls shot through with glints of gold, and the long lines of his body flexing with the effort to keep balanced.

  “Care to join me, Beautiful?”

  She turned, unaware of how the late afternoon light played in her hair, to see her husband sprawled naked and ready across the intense purple fur of their bed. Open in a way he was with no one but her.

  Julia stripped with soft languid motions until she stood as bare and open as he.

  “No place I’d rather be, Handsome.” She whispered, soft and husky, into his skin; moving to lay her body over his.

  ~*~

  “Would you like me to signal a hovrick, Colonel Holden?” The reception clerk asked when she saw their shopping and luggage the next morning.

  Mark grinned. “Yeah, thanks.”

  A hovrick was a rickshaw hovercraft hybrid. It still had the man to steer it and the fold back roof, but the vehicle floated on a cushion of air instead of a single axle with two large wheels. Once they were aboard, Mark gave the driver the lot number where they’d left the glider and settled back to enjoy the short ride. His shoulders pressed against Julia’s in the snug space.

  It was like sitting on a mobile trampoline. Every stop-start and give way their driver made along the crowded route had his passengers swaying in their seats. Combined with the miasma of the market Julia would have preferred to walk.

  “Would’ve been easier to walk.” Mark echoed her thoughts and she smiled at him.

  “We’re nearly there, right?”

  He nodded, gaze lingering on the excess of décolletage Julia had on display.

  “It’s more revealing than it looked on the stall.” She shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the way the ethnic wrap top clung, despite how well it went with her jeans. “The girls aren’t used to this much exposure.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He dragged the back of his hand over the curve of one breast and up to tug the wide shoulder strap. “The girls seem happy enough to me.”

  She gave his knee a playful slap. “No surprises there.”

  “No, indeed.”

  Julia threw her head back and laughed, exposing the long line of her neck as well. Mark shifted his duffel further across his lap just as the glider came into view.

  The spaceship parking lot was every bit as crowded as the marketplace. A melting pot of traders arriving and departing in an incessant broil of engine drone, and high-pitched squeal of animals snatched from open fields to pay their owners debts with their hides.

  Julia had stopped by the hovrick while Mark unloaded their bags, fascinated by a pretty little ship descending into the vacant lot across the way. She was wondering what it’d be like to fly her when a massive hand closed around her neck and squeezed. Her hands flew to her throat, long legs thrashing in mid-air as her attacker lifted her with ease. She tried to kick, tried to aim for tender places, but her brain had no focus for anything other than its need for oxygen.

  A human wearing a black neon collar and cuffs moved in front of her. Julia increased her pathetic struggles to get free, to scream for Mark. And why wasn’t the hovrick pilot doing anything? He just sat there, eyes staring straight ahead while they took her. The cuffs weighed on her wrists like iron; lighting up when the catch was secured. They hummed like the drone of bees and the hairs on her arms stood at attention in fright.

  The fist around her throat released as abruptly as it had closed. She collapsed in a heap at the Arcadian’s cloven feet and the woman synched the collar in place.

  Julia could hear someone yelling beyond the collar’s hum in her ears and the voice in her head ordering her to her feet. She obeyed, following the other woman into line behind twelve others; mostly women, two men, and a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten. She jolted to attention when her collar connected to the others and stepped forward when the women in front of her did. A line of zombies no better than any other livestock bought and sold at Acilajan’s market.

  There was someone she thought she should remember. Someone important. Not as important as walking in line, of course, because nothing was more important than that. But someone, nonetheless. Someone with rough han
ds that could be so gentle. A deep voice that was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. And eyes that looked on her as if she were precious, someone treasured.

  The voice in her mind agreed. Her master would treasure her, provided she obeyed. She shivered at the images projected into her mind. She would obey. A bellow of laughter filled her thoughts, flowing with icy heat down her spine to settle deep in her bones.

  ‘What a good little slave you be, Red.’

  She preened as the voice stroked her mind, distracted her from the noise outside her collar’s hum. Red, she liked it; hoped her master would call her that. The voice rumbled with amusement and she ducked her head, only to jerk it back up when needles of fire stabbed her throat.

  ‘Keep that head up or you will lose it.’

  Red the slave trembled at the voice’s threat.

  She would remember.

  She would obey.

  New images filled her mind; a new collar and cuffs, red with silver hoops and so pretty against her pale skin. A reward for a slave who did her master’s bidding.

  Yet the other persisted. A sense of belonging held tight in her heart and fought against the lure of a master who wanted her for his own. The voice encouraged, turned seductive. Red shivered at the thought of giving her body to her master for his pleasure. But the other, Julia, was stronger than Red. She shared with her the fiery eyes and the memory of a touch more real than a master they were yet to know.

  The voice grew angry, reverberating within her mind as the collar shocked her again.

  ‘You are slave. That is all.’

  Red whimpered, but Julia stood defiant in the mind she owned.

  ‘NO!’

  Her collar shocked an increased charge and she fell to her knees, dragged forward by the obedient slaves. The voice’s mocking echoed too loud and she covered her ears, tried to block it out, but it was inside her; stripping away her intimate thoughts, leaving her exposed.

  Then it was gone; silenced.

  Her mind felt empty and she searched into the vacuum, bewildered.

  “Julia!”

  Sound surged in on her, loud and harsh and painful. Too-bright light assaulted her eyes.

  “Julia! Fucking hell! Julia, c’mon, snap out of it, Beautiful! C’mon!”

  The hands she’d remembered gripped tight to the back of her skull and yanked on her wrists. She blinked and they were there, those eyes. She would never forget their remarkable color, or the way she felt when they lingered on her.

  “Mark?”

  “Oh, thank Christ.”

  He crushed her to him, wetness seeping from his clothing across her bare skin.

  “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

  Julia clung to him as he shifted in the gravel, got his legs under him and stood with her in his arms; T60 pressed hard in the back of her knees.

  Mark turned back toward the glider and she saw the two Arcadian corpses, riddled with holes and oozing pink syrup; the group of dazed humans were helping each other free of their shackles. She raised a hand to her throat and hissed.

  “Hey, hey, I’ve got you.” Mark soothed, voice a choked and shattered remnant of itself.

  She tucked her head into the crook of his neck and he jostled her higher in his arms. He did have her, and she hoped like hell he always would.

  ~*~

  The bench seat in the rear cabin was the first thing Julia saw when she opened her eyes. She was naked under a scratchy military blanket and Mark’s arm lay heavy across her hip. The rest of him pressed reassuring against along her back, breath a hot whisper across her nape.

  He’d made a nest out of blankets and an air mattress for them in the floor space. She smiled, reaching her mind out to Glider one. The ship answered with a gentle stroke to Julia’s consciousness and she flinched; too soon.

  Mark’s arm tightened in his sleep and she ran a soothing touch to his inner wrist. All systems were on full alert. If anyone, or anything, approached wherever Mark had hidden them, they’d know about it.

  Julia pulled her arm from under the blanket and stared at her wrist in the low light. A sheen of ointment shielded the abrasion from infection. She tilted up her chin and felt more there too. It’d been a close call. She didn’t want to dwell on how close, how easily she’d submitted. Logically, she knew it was the collar’s influence combined with the Arcadian slaver’s subliminal suggestions. If Mark hadn’t got to her when he did.

  It didn’t bear thinking about. The collar’s connection might be severed, but she still remembered the images the slaver had projected into her head. She shivered and tucked her arm back under the blanket, and wriggled closer to Mark’s enticing heat.

  Dragonus was not just the sexy exterior portrayed on screen. It was as dark and seedy and dangerous as any place where one side wanted power and domination over another.

  Chapter 22

  Mark and Julia walked down Glider one’s ramp, hand and hand, to find Hayden and Ange waiting for them. Neither looked as happy as Julia had hoped they’d be when they saw them next, and the knot she’d had in her stomach a week ago was back. Whatever news their friends were about to impart, neither she nor Mark were going to like it.

  “Let’s go and unpack.” Ange picked up Mark’s duffel and two of the four hessian bags from Julia’s over-stretched fingers.

  “I’ll catch you up.” Mark called after them as Julia followed Ange across the Birdcage to the access bridge.

  It was obvious Hayden wanted to talk to him alone. She didn’t need to be present to find out what was going on. Mark would tell her later or Ange would tell her in a few moments when they reached their quarters. It was at this point in her mental wonderings, she realized Hayden and Ange meeting them at the Birdcage was more a strategic maneuver, than the greeting of much-missed friends it had appeared to be.

  Julia dumped her bags on the bed and turned to her friend with her I’ll have the truth now, thanks, and don’t leave anything out, look.

  “Okay!” Ange grinned, her hands up in a placating gesture. “It’s not as bad as you’re thinking, but it’s not all that great either.”

  “Okay.”

  Julia waited, the knot in her stomach refusing to budge without first knowing all there was to know.

  “Colonel Archer has been recalled.”

  “What?!” Julia’s hands flew to her hips, mouth falling open in a soft oh of shock.

  She’d taken a portal to Earth less than a day after they had left on their honeymoon. Colonel Archer’s comment to Mark about being back in a week made a bit more sense now. She had known about the summons and wanted Phoenix’s military commander on deck when her replacement arrived. Julia paced, wishing she was on the quay instead of in her quarters which allowed for a maximum of fifteen high-tension strides before needing to turn.

  “By who?” She asked, tone incredulous.

  Her understanding of the military’s inner workings here in Phoenix City was limited at best, but it seemed to her that Colonel Sarah Archer pretty much had things under control – as much as one could when working with alien technology in a foreign galaxy. It didn’t make sense to change her out for someone new. Aside from anything else, Julia hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to the woman who had not only permitted her to stay here with Mark, but given her an opportunity to prove herself professionally.

  “Mr Thomas Clayton, of the Galactic Oversight Commission.” Ange groaned, righting a toppled bag as she slumped down on the bed.

  “Oh.”

  Ange had been right. It wasn’t bad news, but it wasn’t great either. Julia had met Thomas Clayton twice since she’d been on Phoenix. He’d been polite, but disinterested. And more focused on the handling of Earth’s presence in Dragonus; eager to report back to his superiors. Colonel Archer had referred to them as performance reviews. Julia considered them the GOC’s way of making sure Colonel Archer knew who tugged her leash.

  “How long’s he been here?” Julia asked, sitting in one of the leather chairs and tucking
her left foot behind her right knee.

  “Two days.” Ange dropped her head in her hands, silken strands of blond hair falling forward in a protective curtain. “Everything’s so goddamn by the book.”

  Julia sighed. “Which one?”

  “The GOC’s. By all accounts, Thomas Clayton is their number one fan.”

  “This’ll be fun for Mark, everything here goes by its own schedule and no one’s even found the operating manual, let alone read it.”

  Ange chuckled. “That’s why we high-tailed it to the Birdcage when Hayden heard you were inbound. Less risk of Mr Clayton ambushing Colonel Holden before Hayden could warn him.”

  “Wise move.” Julia agreed, her suspicions about their greeting confirmed.

  If it hadn’t been already, their honeymoon was definitely over now.

  Mr Clayton was a bespectacled weasel of a man who took shorthand notes during every conversation he participated in; leaving the other person feeling like they were being interrogated.

  Julia’s initial reaction had been the desire to stomp on his head with her stilettoed boots, like the psycho flat mate from that movie. “Well, I suppose it’s possible to get used to anything, or anyone, given enough time. Right?”

  Ange groaned but neither confirmed nor denied Julia’s attempt at levity.

  “Anything else happen while we were away?”

  “No, all quiet on the western front, as they say.”

  “Oh, so you had a holiday too?”

  “No, I’ve been rather busy, actually.”

  Julia laughed, unable to keep up the pretense any longer when all she wanted was to hear the gossip. “Really, doing what? Or should I say who?”

  “Thanks to you and Colonel Holden, Hayden finally made a move.”

  “But was kissing you on the dancefloor at our reception, his only one?”

  “Julia!” Ange scolded, breaking into a face-splitting grin. “Y’know, you’re not as funny as you think you are.”