Lord of the Storm

by Justine Davis

  Shaylah felt the rush of color to her face. “Wolf—”

  “But perhaps you are only capable of that with a man who is there by your command, a slave to your desire instead of driven by his own.”

  Shaylah drew back as if he’d slapped her. This was too much, cut too deep, and the unfairness of it spurred her. “You came to me, remember?”

  His mouth twisted in an acid mockery of a smile. “Oh, yes, I remember. I remember fighting the summons even as I welcomed it, fool that I am, because I wanted it at the same time I hated being ordered to it.”

  He had said something like that before, she thought dazedly. Something about feeling like a rebellious child refusing what he wanted most because he’d been ordered to take it.

  “I never . . . ordered you,” she said.

  He shrugged; she was getting weary of the evasive gesture. “Small difference,” he said. “Convenient, isn’t it, Captain? Just push a button, and I arrive, already hot for you—”

  Shaylah’s gasp of shock cut him off. Realization, fiery, piercing, and furious, slashed through her.

  “Damn you! How dare you say that?”

  He drew back, startled. In some part of her mind not consumed by her rage, that puzzled her; what did he have to be surprised about? Then she saw his gaze flick to the controller that still sat on the shelf behind her.

  “Wolf,” she breathed, “you think I used that thing on you? Even after that first night?” His gaze came back to her face, and despite his studiedly even expression, she saw her answer in his eyes. “Eos, you do believe it!”

  “It’s all right, Shaylah. I understand. I was glad you had sent for me. And I was glad that you weren’t using the deep hypnosis system any longer.” His mouth quirked wryly. “Not that you needed it. By the night the pirates hit, I didn’t even care any longer that it was . . . the controller.”

  The heat drained from her face, leaving her pale, almost ashen. “You think I did it . . . every time? That I used the controller to force you to come to me? To mate with me?”

  “You had it in your hands the first time.” He shrugged. “And it is always here.”

  “How could you, Wolf?” Her voice was tremulous, but she was too shaken to care. “Do you think I didn’t know what I did to us that first time on Carelia? Do you think I didn’t realize that I . . . I took something so very precious to you and . . . dirtied it?”

  “I know you never meant to—”

  “But you still think I would, knowing what it did to you to have no will of your own, knowing now what it means to be a slave . . . You really think that I would do it again?”

  Wolf shifted uneasily, staring at her like a man who has just realized he might have made a grievous mistake. Vaguely, Shaylah registered that the pain was gone. The ache she had carried since she’d admitted she loved him was gone, replaced by a numbing cold that left no room for anything else.

  This explained it, then, the feeling she had always had that, even in those most intimate moments, he was holding something back, keeping something of himself from her. It explained the odd things he’d said, things that had bothered her but that she had ignored in the heat of her passion, her need for him. She lowered her head, unable to look at him.

  “I never had a chance, did I?” Her voice sounded as cold as the knot in her belly. “You never believed me, never trusted me at all, did you?” He started to speak, but she cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “Stop. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. I have only one thing to say to you; then I want you to leave.”

  “Shaylah . . .”

  She raised her head then, her face bleak, her eyes gone suddenly as hollow as she felt. Whatever he’d been going to say died unspoken.

  “I never touched the controller, except to see if I could disarm it to free you. I realize now you won’t believe me. But I don’t care anymore if you do. I know it’s true, but if you choose to believe I’m like all the others, there’s nothing I can do to change that. Eos knows I’ve tried.” She took a shaky breath. “What you felt was real, Wolf. As real as what I felt. When you came to me, it was because you wanted to. And nothing you can do can change that.”

  And I’ll live on it for the rest of my life, she added silently, wondering just how long that would be when this blessed numbness wore off. Wolf just sat there, staring at her. She had never seen an expression of such utter confusion. She couldn’t seem to care.

  “Leave now,” she said flatly. “When you’ve decided what you want to do, I will take you wherever you want to go. The Coalition owes you that much, at least.”

  “Shaylah,” he began, his voice full of his obvious bewilderment.

  “Captain,” she corrected, not feeling one bit of satisfaction in the way he winced. “And make no mistake, I am still captain of this ship, for now. And I wish you to leave my quarters. Now.”

  Somewhat to her surprise, he did. Even her numbed, weary mind registered that he was shaken. Gone was the smooth, graceful stride she’d thrilled to; he moved toward the door as if he were feeling as paralyzed as she was.

  Shaylah sat there staring after him for a long time. At last she lay back in her bunk, clinging to the oddly distant feeling that had enveloped her; she was terrified of what would happen when at last this frozen impassiveness melted away. She held on to it, and it lasted just long enough for her to slip into a troubled, Wolf-haunted sleep.

  SHAYLAH WALKED the corridors of her beloved Sunbird. With the ship set for night now, the passageways were only dimly lit. Not that it mattered much, she thought gloomily. Boreas was so far from the twin suns, the light was little more than a hunter’s moon on Trios.

  The old phrase, drawn up out of some old childhood memory of fanciful stories told by her parents about the place they had so loved, gave her pause. She hadn’t realized how much of her childhood was tied up with the legends and history of Trios. She had merely accepted it as a fascination of her parents, much as she accepted her mother’s predilection for old books and her father’s fascination with the tedious process of preparing one’s own food.

  It had been part of the fabric of her life, yet a part easily pushed aside when she had realized the truth about the Coalition’s conquest and subjugation of the world that had enriched all others. But now there was Wolf, and he would not be easily pushed aside.

  She knew were it not for the numbness that still held her mercifully in its grip, she would be feeling a stab of pain; as it was, she felt merely a distant sadness. She hadn’t slept for long after Wolf had left, and after awakening to those same deadened emotions, she began to wonder if they would ever thaw, if she would ever feel anything again, other than the chilled blankness.

  As she did whenever she was troubled, she made her way to the observation port. It always soothed her, whether she looked out at the smooth, untroubled sphere of a planet or the distant, star-spotted reaches of space. She was two steps up the ladder to the platform when she realized it would not soothe her tonight; Wolf sat in the farthest chair, staring out into the spangled night.

  Shaylah hesitated, frozen on the steps. But then she saw him go still as he realized she was there, and her pride wouldn’t let her retreat. This was still her ship, and she wouldn’t be denied any part of it by anyone.

  Slowly, she clambered up the rest of the steps, wishing she had put on her flight suit rather than just slipping on the golden gown she’d brought from Califa’s. She wondered, in a brief moment of uncharacteristic self-analysis, if she’d done it intentionally, albeit subconsciously. Did she see it as armor of sorts, reminding Wolf—and herself—who she was? Or was it an attempt to do the impossible, to go back to the time before . . . before what? Before she’d met Wolf? Or before she’d ruined any chance at gaining his trust by tampering with his precious memories?

  He didn’t look at her as she sat in the narrow viewing chair opp
osite him. He continued to stare out the viewport, elbows propped on his knees and his chin braced on his upraised, interlaced hands. Yet she knew he was aware of her, vividly aware; she could see it in the sudden tautness of his body, in the slight tightness in his jaw.

  She was a little taken aback that he was clad only in the old trewscloth; after her thoughts about why she had worn the golden dress it was a bit unnerving. More unnerving was her own response to his near-naked state; she had thought this emotional chill would damp that instant, heated reaction, yet her nerves were leaping to life with startling quickness. She tried to control it, reminding herself sternly that this was the man who thought so little of her as to believe that she would manipulate his mind in order to force him to mate with her against his will.

  Shaylah sat silently, watching him as he watched the expanse beyond the port. She said nothing for a long time, simply because there was nothing more to say.

  She shifted her gaze to the vastness that spread out before them, finite yet limitless, a concept that had baffled her even as it fascinated her. Here and there a particularly bright star glimmered, and Shaylah wondered why people had ever thought that reaching the stars would rob them of their romance when there were more, always more, untouched and unexplored, just beyond their reach.

  There was, it occurred to her, one more thing to say. She turned back to Wolf.

  “Have you decided where you wish to go?”

  He seemed to stop breathing; then she saw one corner of his mouth twitch as he let out a short, compressed sigh.

  “‘Decided,’” he quoted slowly. “It’s been five years since I’ve decided anything for myself.” His hand touched his throat, as if he still could not believe the collar was gone.

  “That is over now.”

  “Yes.” He turned his head, his gaze unreadable as he looked at her. “Thanks to you.”

  “It is payment of a debt,” she said stiffly; she could deny it was anything more just as well as he could.

  “A debt owed by the Coalition, not you.”

  She shrugged; she could use that gesture as well as he could, too, she decided. “I am part of the Coalition.”

  “Now, perhaps. But not when they find out what you’ve done, Captain. Sooner or later, someone will begin to add things up, which will lead them to your medical officer, who will have no reason to lie to them.”

  “That is my problem.”

  “So what will you do?”

  Do I have a choice? she thought. She smothered the words that rose within her, pleading words, words that would ask him to take her with him, wherever he decided to go. Why would he say yes, when he believed her capable of such betrayal? Or worse, what if he did agree, out of gratitude for his freedom? Perhaps she had too much pride, but she could never accept that.

  “Well, Captain? Will you just wait for them to find out, live looking over your shoulder for them to come for you?”

  “I could always turn myself in and get it over with,” she muttered.

  “Throw yourself on the Coalition’s mercy?” His laugh was harsh. “You would end with a collar around your neck.”

  It was a measure of how much she had learned, how clearly she now saw the truth, that she didn’t deny his words.

  “You know,” he said softly, “when they first put that collar on me, I didn’t understand. I thought it was merely a brand, a marker to identify me as Coalition property. I even tried to tear it off. When I realized it meant they owned my mind as well as my body, that they could make me do, feel, think what they wished and that I would think it was my own idea, I wished that I had forced them to kill me.”

  Involuntarily Shaylah’s gaze fell to his left wrist and the heavy scar tissue that marked it. He saw her look and nodded. He held up that hand, flexing it. His thumb, index, and middle fingers curled smoothly toward his palm, and the outer two stayed unmoving in a slight, frozen curve.

  “I thought it worth losing this hand, and much more. But I kept passing out from the loss of blood. They found me, and I lost much more than my hand.”

  Shaylah shuddered, rubbing her hands over her arms at the sudden chill. She bit back the cry that was trembling in her throat; she would not let him see her break again. He turned to look back out the viewport.

  “You can’t know,” he said, his voice so soft she had to strain to hear it, “what it’s like to not have one single thought, not one urge, not one idea, that you’re sure is your own, that you’re sure hasn’t been planted by whoever happens to have control of you. Or to come out of that control and remember things that sicken you . . . and know that they had made you believe you had wanted it.”

  Shaylah made a tiny sound, unable to stop it. He went on as if he hadn’t heard, although she knew from his quick glance that he had.

  “Oh, yes, for everyone who erased the memories for their own privacy, there was one who wanted me to remember what they had done to me, and made me do.”

  Shaylah broke then, a strangled sob escaping. How could she ever begin to understand what had been done to him? How could she ever have expected him to trust her, to trust anyone, after what he had been through? It was too much to ask of anyone, especially a strong, proud man like Wolf.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Oh, Wolf, I’m so sorry.”

  He looked at her then, and if he was pleased he had once more shattered her composure, it didn’t show in his face.

  “Don’t be, Shaylah,” he said, dropping the taunting “Captain.” He let out a breath. “You gave me back myself.”

  “You never lost yourself,” she choked out. “Through it all, you never truly lost yourself. You shame me with your courage, Wolf.”

  He shook his head. “I merely survived. If you wish to speak of courage, speak of the courage to learn to see the truth even when it destroys your perception of your whole world. Speak of risking your very life, and the position you’ve spent that life attaining, to free one slave. That is true courage.”

  Shaylah had never felt less courageous and shook her head in denial. “I’m not . . .”

  “Of course you are. But then, I knew that before I ever saw you for the first time.”

  She drew back a little, blinking. “What?”

  “Even the slaves knew of the celebrated Captain Graymist. Of her exploits, her heroism.” His mouth quirked into a crooked smile at Shaylah’s wry expression. “And her fastidiousness. It was one of Major Claxton’s favorite subjects, this oddity of yours. She couldn’t understand why you never—”

  He broke off suddenly, staring at her. “My God,” he whispered, a look of stunned realization dawning on his face.

  Shaylah stared at him. “What?” she prompted, wondering what had just struck him speechless.

  “You didn’t ask for a slave for mating,” he said, his eyes wide with astonishment. “So there was no reason for Major Claxton to use the controller . . .”

  Shaylah’s brow furrowed. “Of course not. She knew I had no interest in . . . that.”

  “My God,” he repeated, suddenly breathing as if he were having trouble drawing in enough air. “Then it was real.” He shook his head as if dazed, then repeated, “It was real.”

  “Wolf,” she began, but stopped when his gaze suddenly focused on her. Something lit his eyes, something she’d never seen there before. She couldn’t name it, but it took her breath away.

  “That first night,” he said, “when I knew I was to serve your table. I wondered what the famed Captain Graymist would look like. I had envisioned someone older, more battle-worn, as I thought one would have to be to have achieved such success in the Coalition. When I saw you there, in that dress . . . I had to revise my vision. When I saw your eyes, I had to throw it out altogether.”

  Shaylah knew she was staring at him, but she couldn’t look away. She was caught and held inex
orably by this new, strange emotion that was lighting the vivid green of his eyes. It seemed to echo in his voice as he went on.

  “From your reputation I knew that you were brave and clever. I had heard from the other slaves that you were kind and gracious. I hadn’t expected you to be so beautiful . . . or so compassionate.”

  Shaylah blushed. “Wolf, what are you trying to say?”

  He let out a long breath. “That I thought you—or Major Claxton—were using the controller.”

  “Then?” She stared at him, astonished.

  He nodded. “It was the only explanation. I thought.”

  “Explanation?”

  “Of what I was feeling.”

  Her eyes widened in shocked understanding. “You mean . . . even then . . . ?”

  He nodded. “The moment I saw you, sitting there in that dress, your eyes so blue and soft with concern—for a slave—I was lost.” He took in a long, deep breath. “I knew what I was feeling, but . . . I couldn’t tell the difference anymore, Shaylah. It felt real, but . . . I couldn’t be sure. I could never be sure.”

  “Oh, Wolf . . .” She swallowed. “And I thought I was crazy. That first night, when you came to my quarters at Califa’s, I wanted so badly to . . .”

  She trailed off, the glow that came into his eyes then making it impossible for her to go on. All her doubts, all her reservations faded away in the face of the knowledge that this time he wanted her, only her, so undeniably that the need in him was nearly palpable. It no longer mattered why, or that it was only for the moment, to test his freedom.

  “Shaylah?” he said softly. “I’m . . . sure now.”

  He lifted his hand, held it out to her. With a little cry she went to him, gladly, eagerly. She felt his already aroused flesh beneath her thighs as he tugged her down on his lap, twisting her around to face him. His hands shot upward, cupping her face between them as he pulled her down for his kiss. Her fingers threaded through his hair as she met him, her mouth seeking his.

  The kiss was a fierce, vibrant thing, the spark to the fuel they’d been hoarding. The fire flared anew, so high, so quick that it left her shaken. She heard Wolf make a low, growling sound, felt his hands tighten around her head as he plundered the waiting heat of her mouth with his tongue.