“Never,” she rasped, releasing him only long enough to sit up, shrug out of her top, and press her naked chest against his back. Wrapping her legs around him, she slid her hands over his skin.
Leaning his head back against her collarbone, he combed her hair over his shoulders, and then slid her shoes from her feet. His deft hands kneaded the muscles of her bare calves, then up to her thighs until she could barely draw breath.
Following the line of muscle down the center of his belly, she ran her fingertips over the release for his trousers. “Coded to me?” she breathed into his ear.
He shook with a silent laugh, unhooked her legs, and surged off the bed, kicking his boots across the tiny cabin and shedding his pants while his gaze touched every part of her.
Flushed, she subsided into the mattress when he prowled up her body, glorious, passionate, male. She reveled in discovering every inch of him. When her trembling fingers brushed the heated length of his arousal, he sucked in a shuddering breath before shifting out of her reach and dropping his mouth to lavish kisses on her breasts.
Sensation exploded through her, wringing a groan from her throat.
Damen kissed and teased, touched, licked, and nibbled until the pressure of need drove her to the edge of reason.
“Now!” she implored. “Damen, please.”
Resting his forehead against hers, he eased into her as if afraid she’d break.
She whimpered.
He stilled and gasped, “Hang on. You won’t hurt me, even if you draw blood.”
“No!” she choked, smoothing her hands over the hard muscles of his backside, deliberately relaxing her grip.
“Still protecting me?”
“Until the day I die,” she swore in a ragged whisper.
He drew a breath that sounded like a sob and surged the last distance into her.
She cried out at the intoxicating blend of need, pleasure, and exhilaration. Arching into him, her body silently begged for completion.
He responded with a possessive, rough growl and claimed her mind, body, and soul until the volatile compound of sensation and emotion they’d brewed exploded. She felt the cry wrung from her throat, then Damen groaned, convulsed, and collapsed against her.
Breathless, reeling, she collected the scattered pieces of herself only to find her heart no longer where she’d left it. She knew where to find it, though.
Damen rolled them to their sides.
Jayleia pressed her lips against his chest and brushed scar tissue. She leaned back to get a better look.
The faint tracing of veins showed through his pale skin. Curls of golden hair drew her fingers to explore the silky texture. She found the pink, shiny spot she’d felt. It sat directly over his heart.
“Where your blood was introduced to my system,” Damen rumbled, a look of deep contentment and peace in his eyes.
She traced the pattern and frowned. “Was it my blood that made you want me?”
He picked up one of the bells still tied in her hair. “Your blood came a year too late to make me want you. It sensitized me to you. You’re my mate. I am not whole unless I’m with you.”
She stared into his face, her heart trembling. “You’re saying I have an unfair advantage?”
He laughed. “I am indeed coded to you. Now. Let me teach you about the rapid recharge rate of my species base.”
She knew.
Academically.
When Damen’s people had turned their prey drive from hunting humanoids to hunting ore, the exposure to radioactive minerals and toxic chemicals had negatively impacted fertility rates. Adaptation had taken over.
The species reached sexual maturity much earlier than primate-based species.
And as Damen proved in the most engrossing way possible, the males of the species required very little recharge time.
CHAPTER 28
WHEN Damen emerged from the shower, Jayleia had already dressed and left the cabin. He stood in the center of the room, closed his eyes, and drew in a slow breath, savoring the scent of her presence and of her pleasure, amazed by the sense of contentment wrapped around his heart.
He’d kidnapped her with every intention of seducing her if he could. Never had he imagined that she’d turn the tables with her vow to protect him until the day she died.
It made him dizzy. He had to pause in pulling on his fatigues. After a lifetime of fending for himself and of protecting others, fierce, sweet Jayleia had waltzed right past his defenses, scooped his heart out of his chest, and cradled it.
Now, he need only hear her say that she loved him.
He grinned and tucked in his shirt. Given her numerous sensitive spots, he suspected they’d both enjoy having him coax the admission from her.
Once the cabin door opened, he spotted her.
She sat at the edge of the open engine compartment, her knees drawn up to her chest and her forehead resting on her knees. Tension stood out in the set of her shoulders.
He froze opposite her, the gap of the open engine compartment yawning wide between them. His heart skidded into an uneasy rhythm. “What’s wrong?”
She glanced up, disbelief in her too-wide eyes.
“Wrong?” she echoed, an edge in her voice that stabbed fear through him. “I’ve done what I swore I’d never do. Gods. How could I be so stupid?”
“You slept with the enemy,” he concluded for her, clenching his hands. He’d pushed her too hard, rushed her.
She huffed out a desolate-sounding laugh. “Why not add that to the list, too? No. I’m falling for someone I can’t have just like my mother did.”
Shock and delight crashed through him. He felt the grin on his face, but didn’t care. Reeling, he lowered himself to sit on the edge of the open compartment.
“Falling?” he croaked.
The white edges around her lips faded. She met his gaze, the corners of her eyes lined with confusion.
He dropped into the engine compartment and closed the distance between them.
She straightened, letting her legs dangle over the side.
He insinuated himself between her knees and wrapped his arms around her. “You have me. I’m yours. Nothing can change or get in the way of that.”
She sighed and wove her fingers through his hair.
He closed his eyes, reveling in her touch.
“You can give up being Claugh to join us aboard the Sen Ekir? Or am I to abandon the innocent men, women, and children of Tagreth Federated to the traitors who seem bent on handing the known worlds to the Chekydran?”
Her questions drove a shard of ice through his chest. “We belong to one another.”
“It may not be enough,” she countered. “It wasn’t for my parents. How do you know I’m capable of love? I want to be, but I wouldn’t know love if it bit me.”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss against her fingers, then bit one knuckle gently.
She was already shaking her head and pulling out of his grasp. “No,” she said. “You can’t love me. You don’t know me.”
“I know what’s important, Jayleia.”
“You know a façade!” she protested.
“Your camouflage as a mild-mannered scientist?” he said, grinning. “What kind of predator would I be if I hadn’t isolated that parameter right away?”
“Your mixed predatory and computer-tech metaphors are giving me a headache,” she groused.
He laughed and swept her into his arms.
“You can run,” he said, his lips against her ear. “You can try to evade me, but you’re mine.”
The breath she drew sounded like a sob. She tried to extricate herself from his grasp.
He ignored the attempt.
“I’ll only hurt you,” she protested.
“I can take it.”
“I can’t.”
The despair in her voice pierced his heart.
“I won’t give up on you, Jayleia,” he swore, running a hand down the thick braid she’d put in her hair.
&
nbsp; She quivered beneath his touch.
Her response soothed the anxiety gnawing him. She needed time. Despite her doubts, her body recognized his claim. He’d use that.
She eased out of his grasp and darted a glance at him. The blush staining her cheeks seemed to rob her of words.
“I don’t want you to give up,” she murmured.
He shifted as the fit of his trousers tightened at her muted confession. Seducing her had turned into a damned uncomfortable double-edged blade.
She looked away to stare at the glowing crystal. “Right now, I think I should show you what I’ve found.”
Something in her tone dumped ice down his back. Discomfort forgotten, he straightened. This didn’t sound like Jayleia taking refuge in logic.
She sounded rattled.
He nodded.
She poked her handheld. A flood of data filled the screen.
“What is that?” he demanded.
Jayleia worked her handheld’s interface for several seconds. “Your crystal.”
“What?”
“The light it emits flickers,” she said. “It looked like a pattern, so I applied what amounts to a few tests for life and came up with a partial data stream. But look at this.”
Staring at the yellow glow in his engine compartment, he accepted her handheld. “You’re saying that thing is alive?”
“No,” she said, wrapping a hand around his arm. “Look at the handheld.”
He did. And started. “The eye.”
“Like the one you tagged in the Silver City data stream,” she affirmed. “Yes. I think we can conclude it wasn’t a leak of any kind, and neither is this. Damen, where did you get this crystal?”
“A rocky, hostile, uninhabitable planet at the edge of Chekydran space,” he said. “Admiral Seaghdh got wind of an UMOPG outpost on the planet.”
“Was that wind named Tahem?” she asked, her tone and her expression mild. “Vala mentioned he’d been feeding intel to you. And to IntCom.”
“IntCom?” Damen gritted, disbelief chilling him.
She nodded. “I don’t know who Tahem’s contact was at IntCom. It could have been my father, or it could have been any other agent. We have to assume that Gerriny Eudal has the same information you do.”
Rubbing his forehead, Damen swore, then sighed. “Your father was working with us.”
She went unnaturally still.
“Not for,” he emphasized. “With. He had agents inside the network of traitors working with the Chekydran. He hinted that he had a complete identity list and that it implicated people close to Her Majesty.”
Jay’s frozen expression thawed, turned considering. “Knowing my dad, he had a plan to take out the moles inside TFC. He’d expect Admiral Seaghdh to handle Claugh personnel. Dad would have used Dr. Idylle to pass the intel to Ari.”
“Yes,” Damen said, watching calculation run rapid-fire behind her brown eyes. “Before your father could hand off the identification file, he vanished.”
“One of his agents blew a critical cover then,” she said, sounding grim. “If you troll the data you grabbed from Swovjiti . . .”
“What makes you think I stole data while under a diplomatic flag?”
She awarded him a bland look that made him grin.
“You professed a desire to steal the Gods’ own database,” she pointed out. “You couldn’t help yourself. The rest of your people hunt riches. You hunt knowledge.”
He felt the impact of her offhand observation clear to the center of his being.
“You asked me whether the crystal was alive,” she said. “It isn’t, but it shows signs of having been made or altered by sentient life-forms.”
Damen clenched his fists. “What life-forms?”
“What lives on that rocky, uninhabitable world you took this from?”
“Nothing,” Damen replied. “The only signs of life were concentrated in a facility below the surface. No more than a few hundred.”
“ID?”
“It was a smash-and-grab,” he said. “I snuck in, snagged the crystal, and ran. I picked up energy signatures from at least three other ships on planet. I cleared out before they could lift. Their power curves didn’t match known vessels.”
Jayleia frowned. “UMOPG’s military base?”
“So far off the beaten path?” he countered. “We’ll pass within sensor range of the planet in a few hours. Maybe it’s time to get an indent.”
She nodded.
He studied the crystal glowing and flickering as if sending coded transmissions via light pulse. His brain stumbled. “Twelve Gods,” he wheezed.
“What?” Jayleia’s question sounded alarmed.
“It’s a data store,” he said. “You said it yourself. The crystal matrix changes in contact with energy. That means the physical, atomic structure has to shift and realign, which means energy discharge.”
“The light.”
He nodded. “It could be the equivalent of the data stream we’re accustomed to.”
She stared at the snapshot of information she’d frozen on her handheld and shook her head. “How do you read it? This is a deluge and I suspect I’m only picking up one tiny piece of what’s coming off that rock.”
Damen hauled himself to his feet and held out a hand. “Come on,” he said. “Cockpit. We’ll come at it another way. Above all, I think we’d better determine whether or not that crystal is broadcasting.”
Five hours later, Damen knew three things. One: he’d turned his entire ship into a pulsating beacon to whatever species had created the crystal. Two: the clamps holding the crystal in place had fused. Shutting down the broadcast would require stopping his power core and blowing it into space. Three: he adored Jayleia Durante. She’d attacked the problem of the fused clamps with imagination, determination, and a vocabulary every bit as off-color as his.
She tossed her wrench back in the tool bag and shook her head when he brought a stack of sandwiches. Jayleia boosted herself out of the engine compartment and crossed to medical to wash her hands.
“What now?” she asked.
“We eat.”
“I appreciate the application of pleasurable motivation, though I now consider the bar raised significantly higher than protein replacement sandwiches and water,” she said, the glimmer of humor in her eye belying the solemn expression on her face. She followed him into the cockpit.
“I take full responsibility,” Damen replied, leering over his shoulder at her, his pulse speeding. Would she let him show her how much fun a cramped cockpit could be?
She smiled, checked the readings on her handheld, then shook her head.
“I suppose we could power down the interstellar drive,” she mused, dropping into second seat.
With effort, Damen yanked his wayward attention back to business.
“Run atmospherics only?” he said. “I’m not opposed to spending the next forty years alone with you, but shudder to think you’d accuse me of torture after a few months of nothing but sandwiches.”
She replied with a wry laugh. “No one can live by protein substitute alone. You, least of all.”
“Supplements,” he said, and popped a pill into his mouth before picking up a sandwich.
Jayleia took a sandwich and studied him, a calculating light in her brown eyes. “What’s our fuel store for atmospherics?”
Proximity alarms wailed.
Jayleia started and spun to her station.
The tray of sandwiches Damen hadn’t gotten around to securing, crashed to the deck.
“What the Three Hells?” he yelled. “What is it? Who got past the long range?”
Jayleia silenced the alarm. “Chekydran?”
“No!” he said. “The entire Empire runs the Sen Ekir’s ion scans. If this is cloaking, it’s technology other than Chekydran.”
“Where are we?” she demanded. “I’ve got a solar system at the edge . . .”
“Damn,” Damen breathed. “The uninhabitable rock? That’s the system. T
hose energy signatures I couldn’t identify? Three on approach, coming in hot.”
Without a word, she brought up shields and primed weapons.
Damen grabbed his handheld and lowered the energy flow through the crystal. It would slow them down, but he wanted the extra power for shields.
The targeting warning buzzed.
“Damn it,” Jayleia said. “I can’t see anything out there!”
The ship rocked.
“Taking fire!” he said.
“Where the Hells is it coming from?” she demanded.
Damen scanned his panels, then his screen. “Not registering . . . Wait!”
The ship jolted again.
“They become visible when they fire! By the Gods, they look like UMOPG ore scouts!”
“I see them!” she countered. “Targeting last-known location. Pour on the particle flow! Get us out of here!”
“Can’t! We’ll lose shields.”
Two shots hit the ship at once. The panel above communications blew out. Smoking-hot debris rained over the cockpit.
Jayleia yelped.
The acrid smell of an electrical fire made Damen cough. He swore, heart pounding, calculated their odds, and slammed communications to life in spite of the result. “Broadcasting a distress call on all Claugh frequencies. This isn’t a warn-off. They’re executing a destroy-on-sight order.”
CHAPTER 29
DAMEN shot a glance at Jayleia.
She met his gaze with eyes watering. Hundreds of red pinprick burns showed on the backs of her hands and on one side of her face. Despite the lines of pain in her forehead, she turned back to weapons and fired a barrage at the last place they’d seen a ship.
The laser sprayed harmlessly through empty space.
“A kill order? Why? Try hailing!” she demanded.
“I have been,” Damen countered. “No response. I can’t offer to trade myself for your safety.”
She shot him a wide-eyed look. “I’d intended to trade me for you. But that is a good point. We don’t even know which of us they’re after.”
“Or if they even know who we are.”
“Then what the Three Hells have we stumbled over?” she shrilled.
Another flash of ore scout.
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