Intimate Enemy
Page 6
No fucking way.
He knocked Hower back and then dropped to the floor. Hower screamed. Lone grabbed Azure’s wrist. Her heart beat beneath his fingers. He envisioned her hotel room and activated their chips.
The plush carpet beneath him turned to hard mesh wire. He’d done it.
In the sudden silence of Azure’s hotel room, he could hear his brothers yelling in his head, demanding to know his location.
“Azure’s room,” he thought at them as he rolled to his feet with a grunt of pain.
He scooped up Azure and laid her on the bed, using their body link to check for injuries. Other than a badly bruised throat, she had only a few scrapes.
He breathed a sigh of relief—and smelled Vitca males. Shit.
Wharm and Kana materialized in the small room, making it feel even smaller.
“What happened?” Wharm asked.
“Her father tracked her down and was enraged to learn she was bonding with me.”
“Her father did all that to you?” Kana asked in disbelief, looking Lone’s battered body up and down.
Lone grimaced. “And his guards.”
“You dematerialized in front of them?” Wharm asked.
Lone heard worry in his brother’s voice but no censure, even though Lone had taken a huge risk exposing the secret technology to a room full of Vitcas.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Should buy us some time,” Wharm said instead of browbeating him. “But this room smells of Vitca males.”
“Her father must have come here before finding my room.” Lone smoothed Azure’s hair from her face and tried to think past his rage at her father, who probably had made easy work of finding her since the security on the space station during the peace talks was at the highest level and there were guards and security cams everywhere. “We need to get her out of here. Call Trius.”
* * * * *
“Look, Pemmi, she’s waking up!”
Azure forced her eyes open and saw the baby bot she’d seen when she was looking for Trius Daylor what seemed like years ago. The gold god walked into view, a pleased look on his too-handsome-to-be-real face.
“Where’s Lone?” She sat up and looked around.
“Creating an alibi so your father can’t accuse him of abducting his charge.”
She frowned, trying to take in the information. Pulling at the high neckline of the shirt someone had dressed her in, she asked, “Where am I?”
“Aboard my ship.”
She flipped back the covers and left the bed. “Where are you taking me?”
“Exactly where you want me to take you—union territory.”
“No, I— Who are you?”
“It’s a secret,” the baby bot whispered conspiratorially.
“We can tell Azure, Sar. She’s joining the union movement.” He gave her a slanted smile. “I’m Trius Daylor, leader of the—”
“Gods unseen,” she interjected. “I know who Trius Daylor is.”
Sar flounced down on the bed, her bottom lip protruding. “I thought it was going to be a surprise, Pemmi.”
“It was a surprise.” Trius walked over to the bed to pat Sar’s head. “See how surprised she looks.”
Azure closed her gaping mouth and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling she was making a fool of herself. Sar giggled. Azure turned her back on them and paced across the room.
“Is Lone okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“My father?”
“Impotent in his rage. Lone reported your father’s attack to the authorities. Normally such violence in the face of a daughter bonding with an unknown male would be overlooked but since it happened at the peace talks by a prominent member of society, the Vitca government is embarrassed.”
“They’ve turned their collective back on him?”
“Yes.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you know?”
“That you were looking for me? Yes,” Trius said. “I received your messages asking for my help and recognized you when I saw you.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you help me when we saw each other in the lobby?” she asked, completely flustered.
“I’m the most wanted male in the galaxy. I was being cautious. Making sure I wasn’t walking into a trap.”
The baby bot giggled. “That’s not what—”
“What I told you was a secret, Sar.”
“Oh, I remember now.” Sar nodded her baby bot head, her little lips pressed tightly closed as if she were swallowing the secret.
What was going on?
A door whooshed open. Corra walked in.
With a glad cry, Azure ran across the room. It seemed to take forever to reach her cousin, as if she was running in slow motion, but when she got there, she threw her arms around her and cried.
Corra hugged her, holding her tight against her well-rounded curves.
Still crying and holding on to her, Azure turned toward Trius and cried, “Thank you.”
Trius’ eyebrows rose. “Don’t thank me.”
Corra stepped out of her arms, tears streaming down her lovely face. “Your intimate and his brothers rescued me, Zu. They appeared in my rooms, told me you had sent them and transported me out of there with some amazing Nashete tech.”
“Shh, that’s a secret too,” Sar said, twisting a golden curl around her little silver finger. “Right, Pemmi?”
“That’s right, Sar.” Trius offered a hand to the baby bot and she took it, hopping down from the bed. “Why don’t we head up to the bridge?”
Sar tilted her head. “Can I pilot the ship?”
“Why not?”
Sar smiled smugly as she walked past. “I’m an excellent pilot.”
The door closed behind them and Corra tucked her powder-blue hair behind her ears and asked, “That’s the leader of the union movement?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks more like a supermodel.”
“Yeah.”
“I think Wharm is my intimate.”
“What?”
“I know, right?” Corra twisted her graceful fingers together. “He didn’t try to bond with me.”
Azure took her cousin’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “He will.”
She mustered up a smile and asked, “You ok, Zu?”
Azure released Corra’s hands to rub her eyes. “Not that I’m not thrilled out of my mind to see you, but you don’t happen to know where my intimate went, do you?”
“He still has business on Equate Space Station and said to tell you that he knows he failed you. He releases you. You have your freedom.” Corra frowned. “But if you ask me, he damn near choked on the words.”
Azure shook her head, trembling.
Her freedom.
Exactly what she had told Lone she wanted. Shit. How could he think he had failed her when he’d saved her life? Males. So driven by pride and possessiveness. And hers had let her go… He had given her Corra, passage to union territory and freedom. The three things she’d wanted when she’d first met him. Except now all she wanted was Lone.
“Hey, you okay?” Corra took both her arms to steady her.
Azure blinked back tears. She was done crying for the day.
Lone had saved her. Now it was her turn. Even if it meant saving him from his own stupidity.
Males.
* * * * *
It’s for the best, Lone told himself for what had to be the hundredth time since he left Azure with her cousin.
He still didn’t believe it.
Oh sure, giving Azure her freedom might make her happy, but he was ready to flush himself down a waste chute.
A whiplash of pain burned through his chest, the beginning bond of the heart reaching for his intimate even though he’d promised her freedom. Damn it. He wouldn’t go back on his word.
He sat next to an empty seat in a private room of the concert hall, listening to the sensual sounds of Nashete and Vista music being played
together publicly for the first time in centuries. The different but complementary music filled the room but did nothing to heal the frayed edges of his trinity-of-being.
Now he knew how his father had felt after their mother left him to return to her home world and Vitca-only social circles. Not just abandoned like Lone and his brothers had felt, but betrayed, broken, beaten.
As a child, Lone had told himself his mother had become lost and couldn’t find her way back to him. For years after she left he’d imagined her finding her way home, walking through the front door and into his life. He supposed that was why he’d been compelled to give his intimate the transport chip that would bring her to him in a blink of an eye no matter where in the galaxy she was—if she willed it, that is.
“Lone?”
The sound of her voice had him toppling his chair as he gained his feet.
His intimate. Standing in front of him.
“Azure?”
Tears filled her bright citrine eyes as she met his gaze.
“Hey.” He wanted to tell her he missed her, loved her, but all he could say was, “hey”?
He was speechless, held spellbound by her very presence when he thought he’d lost her—or she’d lost him.
Fortunately she knew what to do.
Azure grabbed him and pulled him down for a breathtaking kiss, showing instead of telling how much he meant to her. He moaned when she sent her heart and spirit seeking to bond with his.
Without hesitation, he bonded his trinity-of-being to hers—body, heart and spirit. And there on the Equate Space Station, on the last day of the peace talks, as they became bonded intimates, a sense of peace swept through him so profound that he knew he would never be the same.
About the Author
Jocelyn Modo grew up infatuated with science fiction and fantasy, reading everything she could get her greedy hands on. Later, when she discovered romance, it only seemed natural to combine the genres. She lives on the planet Earth but travels frequently to other worlds, always remembering to bring her badly beaten laptop with her.
Jocelyn welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Intimate Enemy
ISBN 9781419939099
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Intimate Enemy Copyright © 2012 Jocelyn Modo
Edited by Jillian Bell
Cover design by Fiona Jaybe
Photography: Lisa A/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication June 2012
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