Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The

by Susan Kelley

  Her father had passed, killed at a mining site, but her beloved friend Vannie would take his duties. No glorious hall hosted the event, but rather a military conference room with the table and chairs pushed to the side. General Drant stood at the far end near Vin.

  Emma’s mother and Nate stood there also to bear witness for her. A stranger flanked Vin, a slightly taller man with vibrant blue eyes who looked enough like Emma’s marine to be his brother. She’d heard Joe Adell, consort to the Queen of Giroux, had arrived but she had yet to meet him.

  Joe exuded the same watchful grace as Vin though there was also a warmth of peace in his eyes. Emma hoped to see the same thing replace the ghosts in the haunted depths of Vin’s eyes someday.

  At the moment, Vin looked confused. Emma had known better than to wait for Vin to ask for her hand. So she’d told him what was happening. Now he waited for her, wary and unsure of himself. They hadn’t had one private moment since he’d been injured as she and her mother gathered the reins of their business interests more firmly into their control.

  The general and his staff had kept Vin busy as they grilled him on his recent adventures. He’d been a one man crime investigation team, exposing criminals no one had known had been in league with Geoff Hadrason. The only concerns were about the judgments he’d meted out.

  Emma wore a long dress, not even new but seldom worn. The silvery fabric moved like a cloud around her legs, the skirt ending just above her silver boots. Silver and shining black ribbons wove through her curls but she wore no jewelry.

  Vin stared at her as she walked to him. Vannie set her hand on Vin’s arm with a flourish and a large smile and then took his place beside Sandra.

  Drant cleared his throat and called Emma’s attention from Vin’s perplexed expression. “Against all odds, sometimes two people find each other across the expanse of the universe. May the one God bless this union as surely His hand was in the making of it.”

  Emma’s heart swelled with gratitude. The general’s words were his way of giving his blessing to their marriage despite all his attempts to talk Emma out of it.

  “Do you, Emma Brand, take Recon Marine Captain Vin, to be your husband for now and always under the laws of the Galactic Union?”

  “I do.”

  And do you promise to honor and love Vin for all the days of your life, through sickness and health and into old age?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?” Vin asked. “You love me?”

  Emma’s throat closed up. Why hadn’t she told him sooner? Of all people, she understood that he couldn’t have deduced her feelings for him. “I do now and always shall.”

  Vin swallowed. “Thank you for teaching me that love isn’t limited in quantity. I thought I could love only one woman and when she died, I expected to be alone for the rest of my days. I’ve learned from knowing your heart that humans have an infinite capacity to love. I love you, Emma Brand, now and always. I will protect you with my life and support all your endeavors. I am your man in every sense of the law under mankind and God. This I vow.”

  Emma could wait a moment longer. She pulled Vin’s head down to kiss her.

  Drant cleared his throat. “Well, that was better than what I planned to say. I pronounce you man and wife. I present Doctor Emma and Mister Vin Brand to the world.”

  Hugs were exchanged, much to Vin’s apparent discomfort when Sandra clasped him tightly to her. The men slapped Vin on the back. It surely hurt his injured shoulder, but he endured it with a small smile.

  Joe Adell gave Emma an awkward hug, clearly a man new to polite mannerisms but trying. “I’m glad he found you. You’ve healed him of a wound I thought would kill him.”

  “I’m glad he found me too. I didn’t realize how alone I felt against my stepfather until I had Vin to help me. Thank you for being here. I know it meant a lot to Vin that you came.”

  Joe nodded, a curt military gesture. “He’s my brother. My best friend since I can remember. I’ve missed him, and my wife informed me that I’m to invite you both to Giroux. She couldn’t be here as our baby is due shortly.”

  Emma thought Joe would likely father a lovely child and smiled, imagining her own dark-haired little Vins. “We’ll take you up on that but I’m not sure when. We have a lot of traveling to do until we get things in order.”

  “Speaking of that,” Drant said, stepping into the middle of their conversation and gesturing for Vin to join them. “I might need Vin for a little while. From our interrogation of Admiral Lester, we’ve learned more about the man called Nemon. Seems Lester and some of his friends started an experimental lab to produce their own style of super soldier. They worked on manipulating the brains of genetically designed strong men. Their goal was to eliminate all empathetic thought processes and limit independent thought. Nemon was only one example of their products from over thirty-five years of experimentation. They ran their epigenetics programs concurrent with the Recon Marine’s program and continued after the legitimate study was shut down. They used numerous bases and the only one Lester claimed to know was the moon base he took Emma to. We need to find the other labs, arrest those men and find out what else they’ve been up to.”

  “You have an army to do that.”

  “I can’t assign a regiment to this,” Drant answered. “I’ve been ordered to keep these crimes top secret. I need a small group and a Recon Marine has more experience in a variety of environments than any other soldier. Vin, you’ve probably visited more planets than any human alive.”

  “General,” Emma said before Vin could obey an order without remembering he didn’t have to. “Vin, Vannie and I will begin our tour of our mining interests five days from now after we’ve had a short wedding holiday. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I needed Vin.” And there was no way she wanted Vin confronting another monster like Nemon.

  “I have an idea, sir,” Joe said. “Mak is a bit restless at the moment. Acacia has gone off to teach at a university, and he needs a job.”

  Drant nodded. “Tell him to come at once. I’m putting a hunting team of scientists and soldiers together. I’ll give him command of the military side of the venture.”

  Emma’s mother interrupted and drew Vin and Emma away. “Why don’t you two go ahead to the house? We’ll be along. I’m looking forward to getting to know my son.”

  Vin’s expression amused Sandra as much as it did Emma. He looked between the two women with a hint of panic in his beloved gray eyes that Emma had once thought cold and emotionless. “How shall I address you, Mistress Brand?”

  Sandra smiled and stretched up on her toes to kiss Vin’s cheek. “I guess you’ll have to call me, Mother.”

  Emma led her stunned-looking husband to the covered hover waiting for them with a driver. Vin quietly watched the city pass as they navigated the streets to the Brand manor. They’d had a hundred workers cleaning and repairing the place. She didn’t understand how Vin had cut the window on the top floor to enter the house, but it was replaced now.

  “Are we going to live in this castle?” Vin asked as they walked inside.

  She’d grown up in the massive house, thinking little of how it might appear to others. That Vin called it a castle only further fulfilled her childish dreams of a fairytale marriage. “It will be our home base, but we’re going to be traveling a lot. I think we’ll outfit our star cruiser like a home with a room for Vannie and quarters for a crew.”

  “The ship Lester brought us here in would be a good size. It’s a top of the line model.”

  “Do you mind traveling so much?”

  Vin smiled. “I love traveling, but I’ve never had such company before.” He wrapped her tight with his one arm and lifted her chin with his bandaged hand. “I’ve never traveled with someone who smells so good.”

  She opened her mouth beneath his, welcoming his hungry kiss. They broke apart to make their way to her bedroom.

  Vin needed her help getting his clothing off. Bruises darkened his torso in an uneven s
peckled array. She kissed them one by one until his ragged breath told her he could take no more. He wanted to help her with her dress but his bandaged hand couldn’t manipulate the zippers.

  Once they were on the bed, she urged him to his back and enjoyed controlling the pace of their lovemaking from astride him. It felt like months since they’d enjoyed each other’s bodies though only days had passed. Emma’s orgasm surprised her as it came on her. He followed her so quickly the start of his extended hers.

  His shoulder didn’t seem to bother him as the next time he assumed the top position and moved in a slow rhythm that coiled the tension in her center until she added some scratches to his battered back. They finished together, his hard body pressing her boneless one into the soft mattress.

  Vin rolled to her side when he’d recovered enough. “When I first saw you in this room I couldn’t take my eyes off this bed. I imagined making love to you here.”

  She snuggled into his side, her body and heart satiated. “Was it as you imagined?”

  She couldn’t see his face but the tone of his voice told her he smiled. “I’m a Recon Marine. I don’t have that good of an imagination.”

  She laughed and rubbed her hand on his hard stomach. “I think we should visit Merris Five first. I’ve been worried about them.”

  “Good plan. We can deliver the equipment they need to mine the iridium.” Vin rubbed her back with his bandaged hand. “They should be fine.”

  “I hope they held off the Underboss’s thugs he sent after them.”

  Vin’s hand paused for a moment, but then he started up again. “I shot them all before I came after you.”

  Emma muffled her laugh against his chest. “Thank you.”

  Vin laughed a little too, more just a rumble in his chest. “At your service, wife”

  “I love you, Vin.”

  “I know.”

  * * * *

  Vin held his wife through the night, offering thanks to whatever God watched over soldiers and men like him. Whatever he was. He no longer felt the need to figure it out. Emma accepted him and understood him better than he did himself. That he could find love a second time in a life he believed damned humbled him. He would follow her anywhere a galactic wind might take them. He was the luckiest man in the universe.

  The End

  Also Available at NCP!

  The Marine’s Queen

  by

  Susan Kelley

  (C) Copyright by Susan Kelley, January 2013

  Chapter One

  “We’ll have heat for one more night.” Yalo swept her gaze across the stark landscape stretching toward the brightening horizon. “Then we’ll freeze and die.”

  Queen Callie Adell shaded her eyes against the glare and stared at the wreckage of the military cruiser sitting nearly a half of a mile from their own crash site. “Maybe we should have tried to walk out of here.”

  “You made the right choice to stay, my queen. The heat limits travel to a few hours in the morning and evening. Once out of the ship, we wouldn’t have anything to protect us from the heat of day or cold of night. Even if we did, our water would have run out before we reached the little speck of greenery I spotted on the scanners before they went dead.”

  The dawn lit the interior of the ship enough for Callie to see that the cold had roused all the others. Four year old Grace had cried off and on all night, sobbing complaints no one could answer. Not even those broke Callie’s heart as much as the frightening silence from Riba’s infant, Sally. Her hungry wails had stopped hours ago.

  Yalo sat up in her seat. She’d positioned herself nearest the broken door as if her strength could keep out the killing temperatures. She stretched her arms over her head with a great yawn and then the desert rose up behind her and pulled her out of the hatch. Her startled yelp ended in mid shriek.

  Callie rolled out of her chair, her legs tangling in the pile of coats and blouses she’d used as blankets. Screams echoed inside the ship from the other women, but Callie couldn’t make a sound over her shock.

  A tall figure shaped like a man but covered with sand sprang into the doorway. It moved aside and another similar but shorter being joined it.

  Callie finally found her feet and pushed the others behind her. Riba and Grace hushed their children as they could, but Sally’s mews continued. Her weak cries stabbed through Callie’s terror of the aliens looming a few steps away.

  The first invader called out to something or someone outside the ship, using a dialect unknown to Callie but speaking in a human voice.

  Human. Callie found she could talk. “What do you want?”

  The first one, she guessed it was the leader, looked in her direction. The growing light revealed the material covering its head and the entirety of it body appeared to be a suit and not sand at all. Its colors swirled sickeningly to match the sand outside the open hatch and the walls of the ship with some type of camouflage technology. Protective goggles covered its eyes.

  The leader spoke more strange words, and the second alien skirted around them. It moved with animal ease around their belongings and into the guts of their ship. Callie stood in silence between her people and the leader while the other one searched their vessel.

  Callie’s anger and despair rose above her fear of the strange interlopers and the odd weapons they held in their gloved hands. “Who are you, and what gives you the right to enter my ship?”

  “Are there no men among you?” the leader asked in the common language of the Alliance.

  Callie hesitated to give her answer to the fearsome apparition. At least it understood her words.

  “Does no one guard you?” it asked.

  Callie gestured toward the hatch where Yalo had disappeared. “That woman is my guard.”

  Sally whimpered in the silence, her tiny voice sounding frail after the deep tones of the stranger. The first rays of the morning sun edged in the door and brought a welcome warmth.

  “Tar,” the leader said over his shoulder. “Bring the woman in.”

  A third alien lifted Yalo in the hatch and then sprang up beside her. It released her immediately and drew back to the edge of the opening.

  “How did you come to crash on this planet?” The leader seemed to be speaking to Callie, but the angle of its head indicated it tried to look behind her at Riba and Sally.

  Callie shifted so she blocked her cousin and her baby from view. “Tell me who you are before we answer anymore questions.”

  Again its full attention swung to her. She lifted her chin and glared at it despite her pounding heart. What type of humanoid might this be? She hadn’t believed any of the rare creatures lived anywhere in this civilized quadrant of space.

  It swung its weapon around to its back using a long strap she hadn’t noticed. It pulled off its gloves revealing long-fingered human hands. The skin appeared sun-darkened at it tugged off its dark goggles and then its tight head covering. Eyes bluer than the cloudless sky of the desert planet stared at her. Short hair, dark as the bottom of a mine, stuck out at odd angles.

  “Joe.”

  “What?” Callie managed around her shock. No grotesque being stood before her but a man with the face of a god. No artist could have created more perfect lines to his jaw and cheekbones. Intelligence gleamed in his compelling eyes.

  “My name is Joe.” He gestured toward the other two men who had also removed their headgear. “Roz and Tar.”

  Callie nodded at the other two men, each as perfect in his way as Joe. If it weren’t for the heat already building uncomfortably inside her damaged cruiser she might have thought she had died and gone to the afterlife. These men certainly reminded her of the glorious servants of the Spirit Father as depicted in paintings.

  “Roz and Tar? Are those their first names or last names?” Callie knew there were more important questions to ask, but she wanted to proceed diplomatically.

  Joe’s expression didn’t change but Callie could see thoughts moving behind his eyes. Finally he answered. “
Only.”

  Yalo edged away from Tar and took up a protective stance in front of Callie. “Get out.”

  “Yalo.” Callie placed her hand on her guard’s trembling shoulder. Or was it her own fear coursing across her nerves?

  “Get back, your highness.” Yalo shot Callie a wide-eyed glance. “Don’t you know what these creatures are? One name like a pet or a savage guard hound?”

  Wondering if the fall out of the hatch had rattled Yalo’s head, Callie spoke as calmly as she could. “They’re men, Yalo. Maybe they can help us.”

  “Men?” Yalo might have meant her laugh to be mocking but it sounded hysterical. “They’re not men! They’re recon marines.”

  “Fash take me!” The science officer, Acacia, swore from behind Callie.

  Sally fussed again, and Riba hushed her with a quiet shaky voice.

  Joe took a step forward and reached for something hanging from his belt. Yalo started for him, but Callie took a firm grip on her guard’s arm. The marine unhooked a small sack and lifted it toward them.

  “Water with amino acids and electrolytes dissolved into it.” His smooth expression revealed no emotional reaction to Yalo’s harsh words.

  Callie took the water bag, her mouth salivating at the thought of a drink. They’d given the last of their water to Riba and little Glory last evening. Callie handed it to Riba who took it with an eager hopeful smile.

  The other two men hesitated only an instant before offering their water containers.

  “Vin?” Joe said over his shoulder.

  “Here,” a fourth marine answered from outside.

  “Water.”

  No one else spoke as the women passed the sacks around. Yalo continued to glare at the men, but she didn’t pass up the water. A quiet quarter of an hour went by before another beautiful man hopped in through the hatch. He carried more sacks of water and a few other packs.

  Vin opened one of the packs and pulled out long stalks of some type of dried fruit or vegetable. He offered it to Yalo and Callie first. When they hesitated he took one of the stalks and bit off the end.