by Cathryn Cade
She sighed. “Oh, play the guilt card,” she said. “You don’t fight fairly.”
He chuckled and took her hand in his, playing with her fingers. “Anyone who fights fairly with you is destined to be ground under your lovely heel. Now be a good patient, and I will play holo-dice with you.”
“Hah. A game for children.”
“Nonsense. It is played in all the worst dives on Serpentia. The night we met, I watched a man at the bar wager his custom glider on a game.”
“The fool.” She shook her head as he took out the small flat board patterned with colored squares. The holo-display hummed to life, the dice spinning slowly above the board. “I can think of much more interesting wagers, none of which involve financial considerations.”
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sure you can,” he said. “But what if I win?”
“Oh, we both win, either way,” she assured him.
He gestured at the game board. “Then let us begin.”
They’d just begun their game when one of the techs stuck her head into Sirena’s cubicle. Her face was pink with excitement. “Commander Blaze,” she whispered. “It’s the prince. May I tell him to come in?”
Sirena nodded, and the tech disappeared. Wordlessly, Slyde moved their game board to the side. He rose as Azuran swept in, filling the cubicle with a blaze of silver and gems. He wore state robes, ready for travel. Two of his men hovered outside the door.
“Commander Blaze, Dragolin,” he greeted them. Amusement lurked in the look he gave Slyde. “Why am I not surprised to see you at her side?” he murmured.
Slyde bowed. “Azuran.”
He didn’t respond to the jest, and Azuran turned to Sirena, who smiled up at him. He smiled back and bowed as he handed her a small jeweled container.
“A small token of my boundless admiration and esteem,” he said. “Not only was it my pleasure to meet you, you saved my life. For that I thank you.”
“I am glad to have met you, also,” she said. “And as for the rest, you are most welcome, Your Highness.”
He bowed again. “I leave you now. If either of you are ever on Aquarius, you must visit me, yes?”
“Indeed,” Sirena promised.
Slyde nodded, and the prince swept out.
Slyde sank into his chair again. He looked at Sirena. “Aren’t you going to look at his gift?”
“Hmm? Oh, I suppose.” She opened the little box, then blinked. An enormous jewel gleamed up at her, the blue-green of an Aquarian ocean swirling in its depths. She had heard of Aquarian sea-stone, but she had never thought to own one. She admired it for a moment, then closed the box, setting it aside. She would no doubt enjoy it far more when she felt better.
“I thought we were going to play holo-dice,” she said.
Without a word, Slyde pulled the board back into place.
After an hour of playing, Sirena grabbed the game board and hurled it into the corner. Her head ached, her arm throbbed, and she had just lost eleven games out of twelve, a resounding defeat. She was sick of lying still, sick of inactivity, she mistrusted the gleam in her opponent’s golden eyes and she wanted to smack the smug smile playing about his gorgeous mouth.
“All right,” she said pettishly. “You’ve won. What do you want?”
“For you to take an analgesic,” he said calmly. “You are hurting.”
“I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do,” he interrupted her. As if on cue, the hatch hissed open and one of the med techs came in. Sirena glared at Slyde, but held still as the med tech pressed a small capsule into the crook of her elbow, and held it for a moment. She felt a small jolt as the analgesic entered her system and then the pain melted slowly away.
“Do you need anything else, Commander?” asked the tech.
“No,” Sirena said. Then, as Slyde eyed her steadily, she added, “Thank you.”
The tech glided out, and Sirena scowled at Slyde. “You haven’t said what you wish from me for your winnings.”
He watched her broodingly for a moment. “What would you ask, were you the winner?”
She grinned at him with deliberate naughtiness. “A night of you doing my bidding. I would work you very, very hard.”
He picked up her hand and held it in his palm, studying the difference between her slender, capable hand and his own huge, sinewy one.
“Is that all you would wish for?” He looked at her, and she saw sadness in the golden depths of his eyes.
“That will do,” she said haughtily, lifting her chin. For some reason, she felt as if she’d failed a test of some sort. Why must he push and push? She felt deeply uneasy, nearly frightened, panic hissing softly in her ear. “What will you have from me?”
He hesitated, then closed his hand around hers, leaning over her. He cupped her face in his hand, his gaze burning into hers. She saw it again, that yearning that had so intrigued and called to her since the night they met. But now it was deeper.
“I want you to come with me,” he said. “Away from here, to Serpentia. To the mountains. I want to show you my home. It’s wild and beautiful, like you. You’ll love it there, as much as I do.”
Her heart began to race, the strange panic hissing louder, slithering into her very heart. She tugged her hand from his, clutching at the covers. “Why do you care what I think of your home? It’s just a place. We can as easily go to a resort somewhere.”
“Because I want you to see it. I want you to come and live there with me. Siren—we could be happy, you and I.”
She interrupted him, the words bursting out of her, panic hidden under derision. “Oh, Slyde, you are such a boy. You saved my life, and you’ve given me much pleasure. That doesn’t mean you own me.”
He flinched as if she had slapped him, his face paling. She steeled herself against the naked pain in his golden eyes and against the hot curl of shame in her gut as resignation settled on his sculpted face.
“No,” he said very quietly. “I don’t own you. No one ever will, will they, siren? You’ll never allow anyone close enough to own even a part of you. Even if they only want…your heart.”
He closed his eyes, as if he could no longer bear to look at her. Then, without another word, he rose and walked away.
She watched him disappear. She shook her head slightly, her lips parting to call after him. No, that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He hadn’t even argued with her or tried to carry her off and make love to her until she changed her mind.
He hadn’t offered to slay the coiling fear that deviled her.
She lay back in the bed, gazing sightlessly at the empty hatchway. She had been a fool to expect anything else. Everyone left. Everyone.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Without giving himself time to think, Slyde strode down the passageway from the medical center and rode the elevator up to the command deck. He found Craig and Navos there, studying star charts.
“Commander,” the captain greeted him. His heavy, sandy brows shot together. “What is it?”
“Captain, Commander Navos,” Slyde said. “I regret to inform you that I am resigning my position as co-commander of the guard, effective immediately.”
Navos raised a dark, arching brow, but said nothing. Craig, however, shot out of his chair.
“Resigning?” he echoed. “Great God beyond, man. You’ve been through a harrowing experience, but surely a furlough—some R&R on your home planet will fix you up.”
Slyde looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry, Captain. This goes a little deeper than that. I…cannot continue to work onboard the Orion.”
“This is between you and Commander Blaze?” Navos put in quietly.
Slyde nodded shortly.
“Ah-hah,” Craig said, realization dawning on his face. “Well. Damn.”
“I am sorry to spring this on you so suddenly, Captain,” Slyde said. The words seemed to echo from a deep, howling fire growing inside him. “But I must get off of this ship.”
“You
r cruiser can be readied in a docking bay in moments, Commander,” said Navos. “Until then, hold steady.”
Craig eyed him warily. “I trust you can make it off the Orion without shifting again?”
Slyde nodded with an effort, fighting the flames. “I can and will.”
Craig held out his hand. “Goodbye, then, and Godspeed.” The two men shook hands.
Navos rose and walked around the command table to him. He held out his hand and, as Slyde took it, a cool, soothing current flowed from the other man’s grasp, surrounding the flame of his brother Dragolin.
“Travel well,” Navos said, his dark blue eyes holding an ocean of calm as he looked into Slyde’s. “Time enough when you reach your home to let your other self free.”
Slyde nodded, embarrassed but also relieved by the Indigon’s calming. Shifting now would have been the final humiliation, even beyond admitting to these two men that he needed to get away from Sirena, couldn’t bear to be near her any longer, knowing that she placed no value on him other than a sexual partner. That he was just another callow youth who had fallen at the feet of the legendary siren.
“Goodbye, Commander,” Craig said. “Thank you again for what you’ve done for the Orion—for all of us. We’ll be in touch soon.”
Slyde nodded again, then turned and strode from the command deck.
In the Orion’s vehicle docking bay, he boarded his sleek cruiser, sliding into the pilot’s seat and taking the familiar controls with relief. Within moments, he had powered up and was gliding along the aisle to the release hatch.
“All set, Commander?” asked a voice. A small hovie with the Lodestar emblem on the side hovered alongside, a docking bay tech at the controls.
“All set.”
The tech saluted him and zipped away. The hatch doors sealed shut behind him and the outer doors slid open, nothing before him but limitless black space, spangled with stars.
“Launch when ready. Have a great flight, Commander.”
Not trusting his voice, and knowing he was on holo-vid display, Slyde nodded shortly and shoved the accelerator forward. The cruiser shot out into space. He banked away from the huge cruise ship, turning toward Serpentia. In seconds the Orion had vanished into the panoply of stars.
Meanwhile, on Pangaea…
Lly watched as Rra paced the bedroom of his luxurious penthouse on Pangaea. He wore only an open robe of lii leaf silk. The dark fabric billowed around his thin frame as he strode, his narrow face fixed in a scowl, green hair writhing about his head.
He had just received word that his latest saboteur aboard the Orion had been captured and his extremely expensive serpents destroyed. And although he’d first channeled his anger into sex, throwing her onto the bed and thrusting himself into her until he was spent, he’d soon worked himself into a rage all over again.
“The very stars are against me,” he ranted. “The perfect plan once again brought to ruin, through no fault of my own! I paid an astronomical amount for those quarking serpents—outfitted with cerebral goads, for Pan’s sake! And as for the services of my fellow Pangaeans—who would suspect so many of us were so stupid?”
Lly moved on the mounded silk pillows, wincing as her delicate body protested. Although a skilled lover who knew how to send her to the heights when he chose, Rra no longer chose to be concerned about her pleasure. Or her comfort, it seemed. He had used her like a paid sex companion, forcing himself on her without even allowing her to use unguents to ease his entrance in her unaroused body.
Her fear of him was rapidly being replaced with a new emotion—hatred.
“Let me bring you a drink,” she said, proud of the soft submissiveness of her tone.
She slipped on her own silk robe, the pale pink of a lii blossom, and hurried from the room. At the bar, she prepared his favorite drink, moonstone brandy tempered with gremel syrup. Looking in the mirror over the bar, she saw him still pacing the bedroom. She picked up a small, decorative box on the bar and pressed a latch. A tiny drawer, concealed in the ornate carvings, slid open. She pressed her finger lightly into the nearly invisible powder in the bottom of the shallow space, then used the finger to stir one of the glasses.
With another quick glance in the mirror, she closed the box and rinsed her hands carefully before carrying the drinks back into the bedroom. Handing Rra his glass, she went to the window that looked out over the jungle as she sipped her drink.
She could see his reflection as he paused long enough to drain his glass in one gulp. He threw the empty tumbler into a corner. She winced, but it thudded harmlessly on the carpet.
“I am PanRra Air,” he shouted. “I am the best—everyone knows this. Do they not?”
She turned, a placating smile on her lips. “Yes, my love. You are the envy of all.”
“Thass right,” he sneered, his eyes falling over her. “C’mere an’ show me you know it.” His voice slurred.
“Of course.” She set her drink on a low table and walked slowly toward him. Her head was held high, but her hair wrapped around her throat. He smiled cruelly. But then his smile slackened into bewilderment and he staggered and fell sideways onto the bed, out cold.
Lly hauled him up into the middle of the bed where she covered him with the silk coverlet. Picking up her glass again, she drained it in one draught and stared down at him. He would sleep the rest of the night and remember little in the morning, if the sleeping powder worked as it was supposed to. She had purchased it recently for an occasion such as this, from a dingy shop near the docks.
She really didn’t want to have to start over with a new lover and a whole new set of problems. She’d created a cozy nest for herself, lined with jewels and silk, as well as currency stashed in her private credit account when she could manage it without him knowing. As his mistress, she moved in only the best circles on Pangaea and the surrounding planets, drove a luxury hover-car and traveled on the private PanRra Air cruiser.
She turned back to the window just as the lights of a huge spaceship lifted into the night sky and then zoomed off on its galactic voyage. It might be either a PanRra or a LodeStar ship—they both flew in and out of the nearby port.
The crew commanders of the Orion were no doubt celebrating another narrow escape, she thought bitterly. Damn them, they had all the luck. If they would only die, her life might once again be one of ease and comfort. But she feared that Logan Stark and his successful LodeStar Corporation weren’t going to go away, and Rra’s obsessive hatred of the man would never ease. Therefore her position here was untenable.
She sighed, running her fingers through her hair as she looked down at the man sprawled in the bed. She was either going to have to leave him or kill him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Slyde flew straight to his mountain lair, to be alone in the place that had always welcomed him, soothed him. The cave that had sheltered his grandfather and his father before him had been passed down to him as eldest son. From the outside, to the casual traveler, it was only one more slit in the rocks high above a narrow mountain valley.
Inside, it was a retreat. A huge hearth had been carved into the rear wall of the cave, and stairs into the soaring walls, leading to other rooms as well as passages back into the mountain itself. Rugs and furs covered the stone floors; massively hewn furniture cushioned with hummel leather invited rest and relaxation.
Each time Slyde walked into the cave, the troubles and cares of the outside world seemed to slip off his shoulders, fall away like empty husks in the wind whistling down from the peaks.
This time it didn’t help. Navos’ calming had carried him through his voyage to Serpentia and his landing on the small plateau near the cave. But as he strode into his retreat, the Dragolin in him reared his head and roared in rage, in agony.
He had returned alone. He had failed in his greatest quest—that of finding a mate, a female he loved who would cleave to him, bear his children and love him for life.
Like his father and grandfather before him, go
ing all the way back to the dragon king who had first mated with a Serpentian woman and brought forth the line of Dragolins, half-man, half-dragon princes of the mountains, he must mate for life. And once he had done so, if she rejected him or died before him, he must live out the rest of his days mate-less, childless. For unlike other Serpentian males who cast their seed carelessly, he gave his heart and his seed to only one.
He’d fallen head over heels in love with Sirena the first instant he saw her. And even once he knew who and what she was, he wanted her so badly that he’d gambled it all on the chance she would find him the one male she couldn’t do without. He’d gambled it all, and lost.
He turned, stumbled back out of the cave and stood, trembling on the brink of the cliff, the night wind whispering around him. Above him the stars twinkled soullessly.
Alone… It filled his mind, echoing in his ears, a silent scream echoing down the empty canyon. It stretched out before him like his life, full of cold empty shadows, a dark abyss.
Alone… no mate, no children, no her—alone, alone, alone…
“No!”
He threw himself off the edge, the wind tearing his voice away and sending it flying out into the chasm.
He felt himself shifting as he fell dangerously close to the stony ground at the bottom of the canyon, not caring if it was in time.
Tentaclar’s analgesics kept Sirena from being in physical pain while her body fought off the last of the wraith venom. But she refused to ask for the kind of drugs that would dull the other pain she felt. When Slyde didn’t return to her side, she didn’t allow herself to ask for him. The big lug obviously needed time to brood. He’d calm down, and then they’d resume their partnership and she’d convince him they should continue their affair as well.
So she told herself and, for a while, she almost believed it. But in the long hours of the night, she finally admitted such rationalization wasn’t going to work.