Intimate Space

by Belladonna Bordeaux

  “What does it say?” Jen’Na’s question whispered from beside him.

  “It says, ‘For those we lost, we will rebuild our culture in your name. Let this tragedy never happen again.’” He peered down on her. Brushing a lock of blonde hair from her face, he tucked it behind her ear before he caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “Return the suite to normal.”

  He chuckled when she gasped in awe as the holograms and force fields lifted away to reveal his suite. “Welcome to my home.”

  Another chuckle lit from him when she blushed. “I’ll just gather my clothes and leave. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Jen’Na, I should have said, welcome to our home.” For now, he finished to himself. Once they boarded the Vor Tulden, the micro-ship would dock and then he’d show her the true power of Navorain technology. A space-worthy city differed greatly from the universal space stations in that the War Galleys never needed to repower or take on supplies. The Nova Class Cruisers had become the last, best hope for his people.

  Colonies were too worrisome. They required constant maintenance and a massive force of firepower to guard against marauders and infantile species who believed in the ideology that the planet with the most territory won some nonsensical tit for tat contest.

  Galactic supremacy came from the strength of the species, not the land they held.

  “Our…what?”

  He wanted to tell her to calm down, but he knew that was a worthless waste of time. “I can’t let you go.”

  “Why the farden frig not?” She stormed to where her clothes lay on the floor and began to pluck them from the carpet. A knifing pain hit him square in the chest when she turned wounded eyes to his face, the clothes barely held in her stunned grip. “I have a family—a job.” She shook her head. “A wedding to attend.”

  He watched her chest rise and fall. His shirt accentuated her pert nipples and the way her hands clutched her garments made him want to explore Oblivion with her once more. Snapping his gaze to her face, he saw not just anger in her luxurious light blue gaze but worry, too. What has you concerned, Tesra? The nanocytes provided the answer. Jen’Na didn’t want to disappoint him. She didn’t want to become like her mother. Gritting his teeth, he experienced her emotional pain. Those Tallorian fools.

  As inhumane as it might sound to her, he couldn’t deny the basic truth. They were bound mates. He raked a hand through his hair. “The mystic sands of Lazarus have spoken,” he told her plainly.

  A small derisive snort sounded from her. “Computer, expose the exit.” She stomped her foot when a slight ding sounded but no door appeared. He watched her shoulders jerk. “Please, just show me how to get out of here.” A pang of remorse struck him hard when she bowed her head. He didn’t want to defeat her. No, he wanted her as his partner.

  It hit him like a staff blast to the gut. Oblivion didn’t scare her one bit. Being treated like a Tallorian female did. “You fret for no reason, Tesra. I won’t turn you into anything you don’t want to be.”

  The ship lurched as the separation cycle came to an end. She would have gone tail over turbo thrusters if he hadn’t caught her when the micro-ship’s impulse engines flared to life. “Listen to me,” he said, pulling her into his embrace. He found himself chanting over and over that she wasn’t born of his culture, that she needed time to adjust to her new situation. What he needed was the opportunity to explain everything to her. Tell her how she infused the Navorains fight for survival with the hope which came from the next generation. “Come with me to the Vor Tulden. If at the end of three days you aren’t happy, I’ll return you to Talloria. I’ll make no demands on you after that.”

  A wild, petrified gaze stared up at him. Her clothes fell to the floor as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “My stepsister needs a designated driver. I have to be at the ceremony tomorrow.” She peeked at her stellar watch. “I mean, today.”

  His heart chugged hard in his chest at her statement. “I’ll inform the space station to see that she is returned home safely along with all her friends.” He brushed his hand down her silky hair. The empathy flowed through him as he sensed her loneliness, her dispassion toward all things Tallorian. “I swear on my oath to Fis Tulden and as a Navorain Warrior.” Beneath his hands he felt her emotions churn and seethe. “I’ve never broken a promise in my life.”

  “I guess I could take a couple days off after the ceremony. My attendance in the flesh-feast is non-negotiable. My mom and stepdad are counting on me to be there.”

  Using his connection to her, he realized she wasn’t looking forward to the orgy at the end of the ceremony. It was her deep-seated sense of duty to family that spurred her to attend. “Then it’s settled.”

  “Okay, three days. That’s all I can give you, but afterward you have to fly me back to Talloria.” A tear escaped the corner of her eye to trace a slow path down her cheek. He swiped it away with the pad of his thumb.

  Relief washed first through her and then the emotion rolled into him. I can’t blame you for not wanting to return to a planet you hate so much. Still, he had to broker the deal, and was assured that given a few hours he could gain her love. “Agreed.” He asked the Great Fathers for forgiveness from the sin of lying as the word passed his lips.

  A small smile lifted the corners of his lips when she snuggled against him. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to his bed. It wasn’t until he’d laid her in the middle of the comfortable mattress covered with the expensive linens that he barked his next command. “Computer, ahead, warp factor two—course heading 219. Take my Tesra to the stars.” He reclined beside her. Toying with her hair, he bent down to give her another soul-searing kiss but hesitated a scant breath from her lips. He searched her face with his gaze, feeling her surrender to the power of lust.

  A vision from the past rose to mock him and this mating. Lassistra.

  It was a part of the daydream he’d had the tragic morning the Vor Tulden docked at Prometheus station then learned the fate of his family.

  She stood at the gate leading from the airlocks to the main concourse, his son, Maverus, by her side. Radiant. It was the only way he could describe her. She glowed from within and the brilliant white light shrouding her encompassed Maverus.

  He should have known. Should have understood what the dream was telling him. They were gone. Ripped from the fabric of space, time and his heart. There destiny didn’t lie in Oblivion, the warriors afterlife, but to a place of joy, warmth—serenity.

  Damn me to the fires of Chaos.

  Rolling over, he took Jen’Na with him. Her body blanketed his. Running his hands up and down her back, his fingers tangling in the soft strands of her hair, he stared at her for a pregnant pause. “You are beautiful.” He didn’t know if he was commenting to the wife he’d lost over twenty-years-ago or Jen’Na.

  Through the subconscious music he heard Lassistra’s delicate voice. The attribute he’d found most appealing about her. This time her lilting words were a shadowy whisper from a vacant grave.

  The sand rarely gives a warrior a second chance at love. Let go the hurt, Coleverus. Let go the anger before it eats you alive.

  Gritting his teeth, he drank in a deep lungful of air. He exhaled slowly, wondering if he could go forward or if he was destined to suffer the loss of his mate and son for the rest of his forsaken existence.

  Do you have another option, my Addrain? Would you have my death turn your life bitter—empty?

  No, he answered silently. For you and Maverus, I choose to live.

  The touch of Jen’Na’s lips to his chin brought him back to reality. He met her gaze and held it captive. The image playing out in his mind’s eye retreated until all he viewed was the darkness of Oblivion. “What has you smiling?”

  Jen’Na shook her head.

  “Tell me.”

  “I was just thinking; you look like a warrior with a problem.”

  “Do I?” He chuckled at her. The burden he’d carried for two decades lifted as he pulled her
closer to him. Driving his hand into her hair, he cupped her head in his palm. “And how do you combat the issues you face in your life?”

  “Normally, I talk about them with friends. You know what I mean?” She dipped her gaze to his lips then snapped them back to meet his steady stare. “I get it all out there where I can deal with it.”

  “I am a warrior. Idle conversation rarely happens with me.”

  “I don’t know then,” she said. A glimmer of an emotion twinkled in her gaze. He thought it might be compassion. “How do you normally get through the bumps life throws your way?” she asked.

  “Sometimes I pray; others I partake of battle games. It depends on what’s rattled me.” He refused to tell her what he’d done after learning of Navora’s destruction.

  “You’re looking at the wrong girl if you think I can fight, let alone take on a guy as big as you.”

  He caressed her back. “No, with my Tesra, I prefer another tactic for ridding me of my foul moods.”

  “Want to show me what it is?” Her tone was soft, teasing—provocative.

  He smiled at her. “I’d prefer it if you would show me how you’d make me happy.” Pulling her head down, he set the pace with a slow exploration of her mouth. Licking the corner of her lips a low groan rumbled in his chest when her fingernails bit into his shoulders. She relented, and he swept into her mouth. With infinite care, he stroked his tongue against hers, mimicking the act.

  Unwilling to rush her, he waited until she pulled away before he spoke. “You taste like the sweetest honey from the Grand Plain,” he rasped. Molding her curves to his frame, his pulse blasted in his ears. “I would have you again.”

  “Will that make you happy?”

  “I believe so,” he said, joking. He caught her hand when she went to slap him. Laying a kiss to the supple skin gracing the inside of her wrist, he sighed. Contentment, such as he hadn’t known for a very long time rolled through him. His already hard cock twitched with anticipation. “Where would you begin? I’d measure your mettle.”

  “Argh!”

  “Come now, Jen’Na, you cannot be without feminine wiles.” Cupping her buttocks in his free hand, he teased her out of her inferiority complex. His fingers found her soft feminine folds, taunting them with quick, barely-there caresses. “Let go of all your worries and be with me.”

  Rather than give him a verbal answer, she slid down his body until she knelt between his legs. He moaned when she took his cock in her tender grasp. “By the Great Fathers.” His hissed exclamation slithered from between his clenched teeth. “You undo me, Tesra.”

  His hips jerked when she increased her grip on him. Her hand pumped him for a few beats, making him harder for her. In his subconscious, he listened to the mating dance play. The drums pulsing. The flute crying out for the lovers to come together. This is right.

  It was bliss when she licked the head. Her tongue darted down the sensitive underside then drew a long line up from the base to the tip but not before she’d tongued his sac. She hit every right spot on him. By Tallorian standards she might be a novice, but to his thinking she was an excellent partner. Her passion might just burn him alive.

  Quelling the urge to grip her head and thrust her mouth down his shaft, he closed his eyes to the sensations ripping across his nerves. The gush of his ejaculation crept up his shaft. This was bliss. He decided that when she started to take more of him in her mouth. Her tongue did wonders to him. Her teeth raked gently over his cock. “Stop,” he ordered her.

  The proximity warning shouted in his head and snapped him to attention. The empathetic sand, which attached Jen’Na and him, also basically hardwired him to the ship and its controls including navigational control and the tactical computer. “Jen’Na, you have to stop.”

  She lifted her head. Her hand took her mouth’s place. It stroked him absently. Her thumb teased his cockhead until he was mindless to almost everything.

  Almost, but not quite. “Evasive maneuvers. Cloak the ship.”

  “What…what’s…wrong?”

  Pulling her off him, he set her aside. He was halfway out of the bed when he finally answered. “Marauders. They’ve been persistent of late. Not even the League of Sentient Beings has made any headway to stop them in this quadrant.” He raked his hand through his hair. “They must have been waiting for one of the micro-ships to launch from the space station.”

  “Do they want your technology?”

  “They want to hold the captain of the ship for ransom. Navorains may not have a planet to call home, but we aren’t a poor civilization. The captain is worth more than even the ship because the marauders have deduced we’re repopulating our species.” He picked up his pants from the floor, then jammed his legs into them. “Stay here.”

  “The hell I will.” She bounced across the mattress until her bare feet were planted on the plush carpeting.

  “Don’t argue with me.” He strode for the shoot built into the wall while he threw on the clean shirt he’d collected from the chest situated at the foot of his bed. He wanted to tell her this wouldn’t take long but couldn’t deliver the lie. They were in the thick of it now. “If you need me, the computer will establish a com-link upon your request.”

  “You can’t just leave me here.”

  “This area is better protected than the bridge.” He appealed to her common sense.

  “Coleverus, please, don’t leave me.”

  Watching her scrub her hands up and down her arms, he imagined her captured by the intergalactic pirates known to troll this area and pictured her thrown into shackles before being sold on the open slave market. He sensed she’d prefer death to that horror. “Come on.”

  She ran to where he stood and took his hand. Without another word, he wrapped his arm around her waist and stepped into the fast running stream of air. The buffers of gravity beams kept them steady during their ascent through the nothingness of the shoot. He stared out at the five ships currently heading for the micro-ship. Flying in a ‘V’ formation, their enemy couldn’t see them, but they knew a Navorain vessel was close by. Repulsor beams shot from their fore guns to crackle across the thin barrier between normal space and hyperspace.

  They exited three decks up. “Sit down and don’t say a word until I’ve evaded them.” He strode for the area holding the navigations console and the tactical controls. From the corner of his eye, he watched her slide onto the seat in front of the communications station.

  “How can they track us in hyperspace? I thought that was against the laws of astrophysics. Won’t they destabilize the worm hole?”

  Which is exactly what they want to do. They wanted the wormhole to dissipate, dropping the micro-ship’s cloaking device. “Jen’Na, shh.” His fingers played over the lighted panel, realigning the quantum generator creating the slip-stream they rode on.

  “Sorry.”

  He read five ships on the screen. “Gravity restraints—on.” The invisible band went across his lap and around his chest. “Hold on, Jen’Na, we’re going to make a hard turn.”

  “In a wormhole? You’re crazy.”

  Probably. Then again, I don’t have a choice. Even with the Navora’s state-of-the-art tactical computers directing any of the vast weapons aboard the ship, they were outnumbered. All the marauders had to do was get one or two of their vessels in front of the micro-ship and it would be all over. He moved his fingers over the panel to lay in the course. He heard her gasp as their conveyance tilted crazily for a moment then corrected itself. “There’s a red button on the panel beside you. It has a blue symbol on it…”

  “The one that looks like a pitchfork?”

  “Yes.” Keeping his attention focused on the radar screen, he watched two of the ships miss the path he’d taken and jump out of hyperspace. “Press it.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It’s the ship’s homing beacon. If we’re captured, it will lead the Vor Tulden to us.” He caught a glimpse of her reflection against the view screen.

>   “Are they still behind us?”

  “Brace yourself.” His heart about blasted in his chest as he watched a pulsar beam shoot over the left wing of the micro-ship.

  “That was close. Have they locked onto us?”

  “No, they’re still shooting blind, hoping to hit us with a lucky shot.”

  “You can get us out of this jam, can’t you?” She gasped.

  “Yes.” He reset their course. “It might take me a few minutes to confuse the lead ship. I’m going to create a mirror image of the micro-ship. They should follow the reflection in the wormhole, giving us a chance to escape.” His warrior’s soul wanted to stand and fight, but it was out of the question. At least not with Jen’Na aboard.

  “You can do that? Oh, why am I bothering to ask? You wouldn’t have said you could if you couldn’t.”

  He smiled in spite of their dire situation. His little Tesra was a spitfire. “All right, I’m going to project the mirror image. When I do, I’ll bank our ship hard left then right.”

  “In other words, grab onto something and don’t let go.”

  “That would be correct.”

  “Oh God.”

  Chapter Three

  When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.

  Jen’Na would gladly murder him. Even after drinking in several deep lungfuls of the artificial environment’s air, she couldn’t stop shaking. That’s how close they’d come to being captured. Her brain shouted hooray, but the undiluted terror had left her sick to her stomach. “I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. Not even when the alarms sounded to warn everybody a swarm of Andromedain Buckets had been spotted over New York City.”

  She struggled against the gravity restraints holding her to the supple leather of the chair she sat in. “Will you tell these things to let me go?” Her frustration grew in direct proportion to her ire when he stood up and walked toward her. “Coleverus, Supreme Captain, or whatever your title is, order the computer to release me.”