by Maggie Shayne, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford
Because she had reason to fear him. If she was a traitor, he'd destroy her. Considering the rage that boiled through him at the very idea, he didn't think he was even capable of showing her mercy.
He hated traitors. Over the past five years, he'd watched them work to destroy their own people for personal advancement. He'd do anything to stop them. Anything at all. Lie, kill, whore, or steal, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except stopping them.
He'd loved Alina with everything in his soul, and she'd turned her back on him. But had she also turned her back on everything they'd once believed in? Everything he still believed in? Sweet Goddess, he hoped not.
Because when he'd lain with Alina in his arms last night, looking down into those brilliant eyes, he'd realized he loved her still. Despite everything she'd done to him, despite the decades of separation. None of it mattered. He loved her.
If she was a traitor, her destruction would be his own.
The Antares Empress catered to professional spacers and soldiers from a dozen different worlds. Its accommodations were not lush by any means, but they were relatively comfortable.
The ship itself was shaped roughly like a star, with a globular central body that housed passenger and command functions. Several long, spine-like pylons thrust out from the core, housing the generators that created the jumpspace bubble around the ship, permitting it to travel at supralight velocities.
Baird and Alina got settled into their respective quarters, then arranged to meet in the ship's workout deck. Building and maintaining muscle was almost a religion for Vardonese warriors. The trip time was an opportunity to get in a little training.
Among other things.
They could have ended up with worse facilities, Baird decided when he walked onto the exercise deck. It was completely open, wrapped around with a heavily shielded viewport that gave a stunning view of jumpspace. Stars streamed past, bleeding a kaleidoscope of hot colors—the radiation of this alien dimension, where the laws of physics no longer quite applied. If it hadn't been for the bubble of normal space that protected the ship, the bizarre forces around them would have torn the Empress apart.
The deck itself was equipped with benches and assorted equipment designed to work specific muscle groups. Baird preferred the simplicity of gravity bars. He picked up one of the featherweight rods from the rack that held them and chose a spot where he could keep an eye on the lift.
He was doing arm curls with the gravity bar when Alina walked in. The sight of her was incendiary, clad in that narrow breastband and hipsnugs that displayed every lush curve of her long body. Baird almost dropped the bar as his cock hardened with a rush of approval.
Evidently his body didn't share his doubts.
Alina grinned and returned his hungry gaze, violet eyes mischievous. Since he wore nothing more than a pair of snugs, there was a lot of him on display. He barely suppressed the urge to flex.
She strolled over to one of the racks that held the bars, chose one of medium length, and lifted it down. Steadying it with both hands, she murmured, "One hundred kilos." The wiry muscles in her arms leaped into relief as the bar immediately increased its weight to the setting she dictated.
Lazily, she began to rotate the rod like a quarterstaff as she strolled toward him, arms flexing as she worked to control the weight. "There's something about a man concentrating on working up a sweat that makes me want to… distract him." Looking at the rod he held, she lifted a blond brow. "But considering how much weight you've got on that bar, I'll refrain. Hate for you to put a hole in the deck."
Baird breathed deeply and did another slow, deliberate curl. His arms felt as if they were on fire, but his ego wouldn't even let him grunt. "I'll try not to drop it."
"You never used to lift that much." She grinned. "But then—you've grown."
"Like I said, so have you." His gaze lingered on the full mounds of her breasts, barely contained in that band. "I remember when you were a skinny little fifteen-year-old, all legs and bravado." The thought of her innocence then stabbed him in the heart. He had to look away.
Alina laughed and moved away until she had room to swing the rod without hitting him. Falling into a combat stance, she took a deep breath and leaped into the air, whirling her weapon in a mock attack on imaginary opponents. Unable to resist, he found himself watching her again, admiring the flex and play of her slender muscles.
"I was so damn green, I pissed chartreuse," she told him. "Which I did frequently, since I was terrified all the time." She stopped, one knee lifted high, the bar held in perfect balance. It was a breathtaking display of strength and athleticism even by Warlord standards.
Baird lowered his own bar to watch. "I thought you were very brave." And honest, and loyal. Had he been wrong?
"Had you fooled." She whipped around, slicing the bar in a hissing arc. "But the lieutenant saw through both of us."
He smiled slightly, remembering. "Lieutenant Grev and Sergeant Avo. I wouldn't be alive today if the sergeant hadn't saved my ass. Five or six times." Baird had been a half-grown kid fresh out of House Arvid Creche, pressed into duty only because the invading Xer would have shot him oh sight simply for being a Warlord. Grev and Avo had taught him and Alina tactics, discipline, and the art of staying alive.
Pumping a kick at one imaginary opponent, Alina thrust the bar in a move Avo had taught them both. "God, those two loved one another. First time I'd seen married warriors."
Baird nodded. There had been six warriors in their guerilla unit to start out with, but two of them fell to the Xer early on. Over the next four years, Alina, the Warfem Grev, and her Warlord husband, Avo, had become the closest thing Bard had ever known to family.
The two adults had loved each other with such utter commitment, they'd inspired Baird and Alina to start playing at passion. In time, what had begun as imitation love grew into the real thing.
"There's a reason you don't see bonded warriors that much, though," he said, brooding. "His wife's death at the Xer's hands gutted Avo. He got reckless and sloppy. And it got him killed." Good thing Baird and Alina had been nineteen by then, seasoned by four years in combat, or they'd never have survived without him.
"Love always carries a cost." The long muscles in her arms were beginning to tremble slightly, but she didn't seem to notice. Her gaze had turned inward, brooding. Then she smiled, sudden and blinding. "But it's worth it."
No. No, it wasn't. There'd been a time after Alina had left Baird that he, too, had courted death. But he'd been in the stellar service by then, and too many other lives depended on him. He'd steadied down, done his job, earned his medals.
But he'd never fallen in love again.
"You remember the Ortaris?" Alina asked suddenly.
Brows lifting, he looked up at her. "Yeah." They'd encountered the little family right after Sergeant Avo was killed. Baird himself had been badly hurt in the failed attempt to rescue the sergeant. Since there had been no regenator available, he'd had to heal the hard way. For the month it had taken him to recover, Mr. and Mrs. Ortari had hidden Baird and Alina in their basement. "The Xer would have killed us if it hadn't been for them."
Alina nodded. "Big risk, particularly considering the three kids."
"Yeah, that's right," Baird said, remembering. "There was the little baby, the ten-year-old son, and that teenage daughter."
"The one with the crush on you."
He grinned. "Suyo." The girl's attention had been almost as flattering as Alina's incandescent jealousy.
Apparently catching sight of his smug expression, Alina turned and stuck out her tongue at him, a gesture she'd learned from Suyo herself. Baird roared with laughter, then had to throw up an arm to ward her off as she waved the gravity bar at him. "I should have known you'd remember her, rodent," Alina growled, thoroughly irritated.
"Rodent" had been her favorite insult before Avo taught her how to swear. Baird laughed even harder.
With a huff, she turned away and pretended to ignore him while
he tried to get control of himself.
When his gasping laughter died, they settled into a companionable silence. Suddenly Alina asked, "Did you ever wonder what it would be like to have a mother?"
Baird frowned. Technically, neither had any mother beyond the genetic engineers who'd constructed their DNA. Both had been raised in their respective House Creches among several hundred other genetically engineered children. Their caretakers had been civilians and a few warrior instructors.
"I suppose," he admitted. "But I've always been a little skeptical about the whole mother concept. It seems a bit like one of those stones they tell little children, like the ones about fairies and talking wolves. It can't possibly be as good as they say."
Alina gave him a wicked little smile. "Actually, I've met a talking wolf or two."
Baird shot her an impatient look. "Cyborgs. You know what I mean."
"Yeah." She took up the combat pose again. "You were unconscious most of the time, but I got to watch Mrs. Ortari with her children. It was like Avo and Grev with us, except more so. Very warm and… nice." She swung the staff in a circle. "I envied those kids. She let me hold the baby sometimes."
"Oh?" Interested, he looked at her. Somehow he had the feeling this detail was more important than it sounded. "What was that like?"
"Frightening. And yet it was… there was this tiny person with these big eyes and miniature hands, and she looked at me the way nobody has ever looked at me before. Like I was… everything. At first it was uncomfortable, because I was so afraid I'd hurt her. But then"—she shrugged—"I liked it. I missed her when we left."
Baird frowned, realizing this had obviously been a major experience for her. "You never mentioned it."
"No. Thought about it a lot, though." Alina turned her attention to the bar. "Off," she told it, and went to put it away. "There's a zee-gee tank next door. Want to… practice?"
Something about the way she said the last word told him she had something more than martial arts in mind. "Sure. Why not?"
Already hardening in anticipation, he followed her across the corridor to the soaring, three-story, zero-gravity tank. Like most jumpships, The Antares Empress maintained simulated gravity, but the fields had been known to fail, especially during combat. Thus, anybody who ever served in space made it a point to practice zee-gee hand-to-hand techniques.
Besides, it was a hell of a lot of fun.
In zee-gee, Baird's size and weight advantage became mass he had to maneuver, which meant he and Alina could compete as physical equals. More or less.
Not that either of them had much competition in mind.
* * *
CH@%!*R 6
As they entered the tank, Baird checked it out with the wariness of long habit. You could get seriously hurt in a poorly designed tank.
Luckily, this one was first-rate, with well-padded curving walls one could hit at speed without breaking anything. More important, the jutting handholds were of the breakaway type, rounded and flexible, so a fighter didn't have to worry about impaling himself or his opponent during a throw.
"Gravity off," Alina told the ship's computer.
For a moment, Baird had the sickening sensation they were plunging downward, as if the chamber had become a elevator in free-fall. But that was just an illusion created as the artificial gravity vanished, and in a moment, his battle computer compensated.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Alina flex her legs and launch herself at the opposite wall. She hit the thick padding, bounced, and shot straight back toward him like a deliciously curved cannon shell. Baird kicked off and twisted, grabbing for her as she shot by. He managed to snag her upper arm and got towed along for his trouble, but as they tumbled toward the wall, he started wrapping himself around her. He needed to get those long arms and legs under control.
Then he'd have her.
Yet Alina had no intention of allowing herself to be had, at least not yet. She twisted as they hit the wall, grabbed a handhold, and heaved him clear before he had time to get a good grip. While he flailed, she kicked lazily away.
By the time Baird got himself stopped, she was grinning at him from the other end of the tank. "Point for me," she said, gently mocking.
Baird bared his teeth at her as his competitive instincts awakened in a hot rush. "That's the last one you get."
"I don't think so." Alina sprang.
This time he was ready when she barreled into him. Allowing her momentum to carry them toward the wall, he snagged her right wrist and slung a leg over her hip. Zee-gee or not, he was still stronger than she was, and his arms and legs were longer. If he could get a good grip on her, he could do whatever he wanted.
And he wanted to do plenty, especially with that round little backside rubbing against his groin.
For whatever time they had together, he wanted all of her.
Unfortunately for his frustration level, Alina had learned her way around a tank sometime in the past twenty years, and she was flexible as an eelcat. She rammed an elbow into his sternum, squirmed loose when he gasped, and kicked away. He shot after her, his cock as hard as ferocrete behind the tough fabric of his snugs.
Alina hit the wall an instant before he did and caromed off like a billiard ball. He bounced after her, kicking hard enough to give himself the speed to catch her.
The trouble was, all that mass and momentum was hard to stop. As he overtook her, she twisted, grabbed him by the hand he reached with, and heaved. The physics of equal and opposite reactions sent him shooting in one direction while she shot in the other.
Laughing.
"That," he told her, "was a mistake."
She grinned. "Probably, but it was fun."
Baird peeled his lips back from his teeth. "We'll see."
There was something wickedly intoxicating about pushing her luck with Baird.
Probably because Alina could see the exact moment when it ran out. He looked at her across the width of the tank, his eyes flaring bright red with frustration and erotic hunger. His black hipsnugs barely contained his cock, which looked on the verge of escaping his waistband any minute. Hard muscle flexed all along his body as he gathered himself.
He wasn't playing anymore.
Her heart pounded hard, and her nipples were tight beneath the fabric of her breastband. She was already wet between the thighs.
Most men got sloppier when they were ticked off. Not Baird. Thanks to his training, he grew colder, more controlled. More dangerous. She deliberately gave him a goading grin and watched him explode.
He shot across the tank like a mortar shell. Alina launched herself off at an angle, determined to stay out of his grip as long as she could. She knew if he got his hands on her this time, she wouldn't be getting away until he was finished with her. And they'd both enjoy it more if she made him work for it.
Behind her, Baird's feet hit the tank wall with a meaty bang. She could almost feel him barreling after her, but she didn't look back as she bounced off one wall and shot toward another. A big hand swiped at her ankle and missed. She didn't stop to gloat, too intent on ricocheting off every flat surface she could find.
Chancing a quick look, she saw him at the other side of the tank clinging to a handhold and watching her with predatory intensity.
Her eyes widened as he launched, hard and fast. She tried to twist away, but she had too much momentum.
He hit her with a growl of male triumph, snapping one arm around her torso and knocking them both into a dizzy tumble. Blinded by her own whipping hair and flying beads, Alina tried to plant an elbow in his gut and kick free. He refused to let go. Instead he wrapped one long leg around her right hip and the other around her left calf. She drew a fist back for a quick punch, but he engulfed her wrist in one hand. Cursing, she tried for a left cross, but before the blow could land, he'd captured that hand, too.
Alina looked at him as they tumbled in midair. Her sense of humor pricked her instinctive competitive streak like a balloon, and she smiled. "Oops."<
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He grinned darkly at her from a tangle of free-floating hair and glittering beads. "Oops indeed. You seem to be caught."
"Maybe." She gave him a testing wiggle, but he tightened the grip of both legs, silently making it clear she wasn't going anywhere. If this had been a true fight, she'd have had to do some real damage if she wanted to break his hold.
Instead, Alina rolled her hips against the thick ridge of his erection. It felt so hard, she licked her lips in anticipation. "Well, now," she purred. "Apparently you've got me after all. What are you going to do now, Warlord?"
"What I'd do to any captured enemy." Baird's teeth flashed as he circled both her wrists with one big hand. "Search you for weapons." With his free hand, he pulled up the hem of her breast-band. Freed, her breasts bounced, nipples tight and tingling. He grinned at them. "You do seem to be well-armed."
He swooped down to engulf one of the hard peaks with his mouth, gave it a slow, thorough suckling as he caressed the full mound with his free hand.
She inhaled sharply at the lazy rise of pleasure. "You've got a weapon or two of your own."
Baird looked up, gave her a slow, heart-stopping smile, and rolled his hips slowly against her belly. "And I know how to use them."
"That's putting it mildly." With a moan, Alina savored the teasing promise of that big shaft, imagining how it would feel thrusting deep inside her. She rocked against him sinuously. "Here's a thought. Why don't you let me show you what I can do with that particular blade?"
He lifted a brow, intrigued. "You've talked me into it."
When Baird released her wrists, she went for the waistband of his snugs and started pulling them off. It wasn't an easy maneuver in zero gravity. They found themselves tumbling slowly while she peeled and he tried to squirm free.
Baird started to laugh in a rich, almost tactile rumble that soon had Alina joining in. The laughter, and the clumsiness it engendered, only made them tumble faster.