The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  “Thank you for taking the time to meet, Ms Selkirk,” he said. “The holiday season is meant to be shared with family.”

  I met his eye, my chest tightening, and my hand frozen near the creamer.

  “Ms Selkirk?”

  Damn it. I pulled in a breath, but couldn’t force my hand to move. At least I couldn’t feel it shaking.

  “No family,” I managed to say in an even tone. “Just me.”

  He studied me with a gaze that felt as if it might be burning through my skull to get a look inside.

  I couldn’t break free.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “My HR department is thorough. I believe I saw mention of an accident.”

  I found myself nodding. Since my folks had died in a car crash two years ago, I’d felt as if most of me had shriveled and died, too. Holidays were a sharp reminder of the fact that I’d buried my heart with my family’s remains.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. The flicker of pain in his eyes told me he meant it.

  I blinked. My eyes stung. It was beyond time to change the subject.

  “Mr Carrollus—” I said as I poured the cream.

  “Trygg,” he countered.

  I paused, mid-stir, to glance at him.

  “If you don’t mind, I prefer a more informal approach to interviews,” he said. “Your résumé is intriguing, but it doesn’t tell me who you are. I’d like you to call me Trygg.”

  So that was it. Put the interviewee at ease and find out whether or not she could play well with others. Psychological battery. Been there, done that. I should have recognized the set-up.

  I nodded, but couldn’t talk myself into standing down the alarms still jangling my nerves. “Trygg,” I repeated, straightening my cup and saucer. I studied him a moment.

  He held still, his expression bland as if he were allowing me to look my fill.

  “Scandinavian,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

  “It means ‘true’,” he said, nodding. “My mother’s choice, though I never understood why. The family isn’t Scandinavian. Your name. Finlay. Celtic?”

  “Yes.” I took a sip of coffee. My toes curled in delight. “Oh, that’s excellent. Bonus points on the coffee.”

  He lifted one jet eyebrow. “Do I need bonus points?”

  “Depends on the answer to my original question.”

  “What question is that?”

  “The one I didn’t get to ask because we got sidetracked by names,” I replied.

  His gaze followed my every move as if he were a cat and I the mouse he was thinking of pouncing upon.

  The thought curdled the cream in my mouth. I swallowed hard and set the cup and saucer down with a clatter. So much for my poker face.

  “Why did your assistant trip over himself to not call you Commander Carrollus?”

  “I am active reserve,” he admitted. “This is a separate venture, however, reporting to no one but me. I will not have this venture flown into the ground by political wrangling and financial mismanagement. It’s too vital to me and to my . . . to the people with a stake in this endeavor.”

  I found myself nodding. That felt true. It was the first unvarnished statement I’d gotten from him, even if he had stumbled over not saying “my investors”.

  “Okay,” I said. “Where does that leave us? If I had to guess, I’d say you had this office staged today.”

  Interest gleamed in his gaze again, and he leaned closer. “What makes you say that?”

  The question felt like a caress. I jumped and had to fumble for my train of thought. “It’s too clean. There’s not a speck of dust on anything. It doesn’t smell right. Without looking, what’s on the shelf just over my head?”

  He grinned. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “You do think on your feet, don’t you?” he murmured, smile dying as he took my hand again. He lifted it and pressed his lips against my fingers. “Well done. I have no idea what’s on any of these shelves.”

  Heat rushed into my face. “Trygg.” It came out a croak. I cleared my throat and tried again. “My hand, Trygg. I need that.”

  “Do I frighten you, Finlay?”

  Of course he did, but I’d eat that dusty, dry science brief I’d been reading in his fake reception area before I’d admit it.

  A wave of dizziness slammed me. I held my breath and frowned, willing it to pass. A buzz filled my ears and I noticed two things at once.

  One, Carrollus watched me far too intently, an odd, avid gleam in his eyes. Two, he hadn’t touched a drop of his coffee.

  Fear burned a path straight down my throat to my stomach. I tried to jump to my feet and ended up wavering to them instead.

  “You unbelievable bastard,” I gasped. I grabbed the spoon. I’d had two sips. Maybe I could stick the handle of the spoon far enough down my throat to trigger a gag reflex. My numb fingers refused to cooperate.

  The spoon hit the carpet with a thunk.

  I bolted for the door, except, of course, I moved as if I waded through hip-high mud.

  Carrollus snaked an arm around my waist.

  “Oh, no,” he murmured at my ear.

  He swept me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all.

  I couldn’t protest.

  Heat joined the dizziness. I felt the fine sheen of sweat on my face. My breath wheezed when I drew it.

  “Lieutenant!” he snapped at the receptionist.

  “Sir?”

  “Alert the medical team,” Carrollus ordered. “She’s having an adverse reaction.”

  He’d poisoned me, yet he had the gall to sound concerned.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Hang on,” he muttered to me. “I’m not willing to lose you, Finlay Selkirk.”

  Something dinged. Doors opened. He stepped in.

  I groaned. “God, not an elevator.” An insipid muzak version of “Jingle Bells” on sax.

  “Close your eyes,” he urged. “It’ll help.”

  It sounded like a good idea.

  He pressed cool lips to my brow.

  Surprise and a tendril of pleasure pushed back the dizziness for a split second.

  “My everlasting regret is that I can’t have you myself,” he said in a voice that led me to believe I wasn’t supposed to hear him.

  Then the buzzing in my ears rose to a deafening shriek and it occurred to me it sounded curiously like my own voice.

  I woke in a bed not my own. I couldn’t call it too soft because it was exquisitely comfortable, but it cradled my body in a way my bed never had. It was nice. If only because I felt like an entire tank squadron had driven through my head. From the rumble in my brain, I gathered they might be circling for another pass.

  I hadn’t had a hangover since the single ill-fated experiment with alcohol I’d undertaken at my first and last party at nineteen. What on earth had possessed me this time?

  Ah. That’s right. Poisoned coffee and Commander Carrollus had. Not literally. At least, I didn’t think so.

  Just as well. If there were going to be bad things done with those lips of his, I wanted to be awake for it. Could I ask for something like that for Christmas?

  Unfortunate that those lips were attached to someone I fully intended to prosecute. Commander Carrollus in prison for slipping me a mickey. The thought shouldn’t have made me smile, but it did.

  Someone shifted.

  “Finlay?”

  Carrollus.

  My eyes snapped open and I gasped at the searing array of fabrics and colors surrounding me. “Dear God. You drug me, kidnap me, and bring me to hell?”

  I was tucked into an enormous Gothic horror of a canopy bed hung with sheer, gauzy fabrics that vibrated with combinations of saffron, teal, crimson and violet. The nightmare curtains had been drawn back on one side to show me the rest of the room, decorated with the same Marquis de Sade flair. Padded leather handcuffs dangled from a chain attached to the ceiling. A bitter tendril of fear slithered into my chest.


  I had no idea where I was or how long I’d been out. Why kept rolling around the inside of my skull, accompanied by an unsettling feeling of helplessness. Stop it, Finlay. First rule of running a psychological battery: put the subject off guard by any means possible.

  Commander Carrollus had succeeded.

  I suppressed a shudder.

  He appeared to be sitting vigil at my bedside. Sweet, in that “the jerk who poisoned me gives a shit whether I live or die” kind of way. He’d deserted Armani’s army. Even though I didn’t recognize the black uniform he wore, that’s exactly what it was, and it fit far too well for my comfort.

  “Finlay?” Carrollus, again. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I am not all right. Could you turn down the melodrama in the room? My eyes are about to bleed.”

  His lips twitched like someone who wanted to smile, but knew he wasn’t supposed to. “You’re feeling better.”

  He’d won this round. I’d be damned if I’d let him win another.

  “I’m better enough that you can start explaining,” I grumbled as I struggled to free myself from the bed.

  “There are explanations to be had. It is not my place to give them to you. If you’re able to dress, I’ll escort you to my CO.”

  I knew it. Goddamned military op. I was pretty clear that my government wouldn’t have spent the cash on a military op that dealt in negligees like the one I discovered I was wearing when I rolled out of the bed and stood. My hair swung down my back, free of the French twist I’d so carefully put it into.

  A low, inarticulate sound came from Carrollus. “Finlay, you are beautiful.” He sounded grudging, as if he thought he ought to explain his growl of appreciation, but didn’t like the fact that he’d reacted at all.

  Heat suffused my skin. I glanced down at the lace and pink silk barely covering me, then met his gaze. Irritation put lines in his forehead. What annoyed him? The fact that I was still standing there half-naked? Or was it the desire clouding his blue eyes that troubled him? For that matter, shouldn’t it bother me rather than make me tingly all over?

  I lifted an eyebrow.

  He had the grace to flush. His gaze slid away. “Mary insisted you’d be more comfortable like that. You’d better dress.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Where are my clothes?”

  “You’ll find clothing . . .”

  “My clothes,” I growled. I sounded like I meant business. I wished all over again I’d worn slacks, but the stupid skirt, blouse and jacket were the closest thing to a power suit I had at the moment. And something told me I’d need a bit of power to get out of . . . whatever it was I’d gotten myself into. Trying to face a military kidnapping while dressed in a pink nightie didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Your clothes are around the corner,” he said.

  I marched past him and into the alcove he’d indicated. A curtain of the same colorful fabric covered the wall in front of me. I spotted my clothes neatly folded on a vanity, my shoes on the floor as if waiting for me to step into them.

  I felt his gaze follow my every move, the weight of his regard like a caress against my bare limbs. My body heated and I gritted my teeth against the sensation. Biology apparently didn’t care that I was heartless and cold. The fact remained, I reminded myself, that no matter how solicitous and gorgeous my captor, I was a prisoner.

  Where did that leave me? To my horror, hot prickles ran up the backs of my eyes.

  That pissed me off.

  Hoping for a clue as to my location, I glanced surreptitiously at my surroundings. To my right, an arched doorway opened onto a bathroom tiled in deep blue and green and gold. It reminded me of a stained-glass window I’d once seen in one of Europe’s oldest cathedrals. To my left, another archway led into a closet.

  I could be anywhere. I slid my skirt on over the insubstantial silk negligee. No help for it. I’d have to strip before I could put on my bra, shirt and jacket. At least I had my back to Carrollus.

  I yanked the nightie off over my head and hurriedly fastened on my bra, then put on and buttoned my white silk blouse.

  “You’re taking your situation very well, Finlay,” Carrollus commented.

  Meaning what? That he’d expected me to weep and gnash my teeth? The thought made me shudder. I should have found something heavy and knocked him flat.

  “If by ‘my situation’,” I sneered, tugging on my jacket, “you mean ‘being kidnapped’, I assure you I am not taking it well at all.”

  He risked a glance at me.

  “You are bigger than I am and I don’t have a gun,” I clarified.

  Amusement sparked in his eyes a moment. “You need a gun to take me out?”

  My smile in response felt tight. “No, Commander, but a gun would make a satisfying mess, and I’d get to hear you scream when I shot you in the kneecaps.”

  He grinned.

  My breath caught.

  What was he playing at? Weren’t kidnappers supposed to be mean, vicious thugs with missing teeth and psychopathic tendencies? How was I supposed to respond to a sexy commander exuding power and authority? Especially when he smiled at me as if I’d surprised him into enjoying himself?

  “You’re a disciplined woman, aren’t you?” he said.

  I blinked. “Disciplined? No. I am not.”

  “You have so many questions,” he observed, closing the distance to stand directly in front of me. His frame blocked out the rest of the room and I had to look up to meet his eye. “I see them running circles in your eyes. Yet you don’t ask.”

  “You said the explanations weren’t yours to give,” I breathed. “But if the whole kidnapping thing isn’t enough of a power trip without me begging for information, then I can oblige. Where am I? Why me? Because I have no family? Is that it? You imagine I don’t have a life?”

  My voice wavered.

  He scowled.

  I should have listened to the instinct whispering at me to keep my yap shut and my eyes and ears open. The fact that I hadn’t been hurt didn’t mean I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – be.

  And it certainly appeared that I’d ceased to amuse him.

  “Our world was at war with the Orseggans,” he said. “We were hit by a biological weapon. The bio-agent enhances sex drive.”

  I frowned. Weaponized Viagra? Why not take advantage of that with one another? Why kidnap me? The blood rushed from my head and I stumbled into the curtained wall. Rage drowned out rational thought. Shoving off the surface at my back, hand clenched, I punched Carrollus in the stomach.

  His breath went out in an audible rush. He didn’t quite double over, but I wasn’t looking up into his face anymore and that felt good.

  Temper stoked, I cocked back for another blow.

  Gasping for air, Carrollus rushed me. His shoulder took me in the ribs, driving me back.

  I hit the curtain-shrouded wall. One foot twisted beneath me. Fabric tore and I slid to the floor.

  Carrollus followed me down.

  When my butt hit the floor, I found I had enough leverage to shove him off of me. It felt like trying to shove a freight train.

  “You son of a bitch,” I wheezed. “You’re infected with a sexually transmitted disease and you kidnap people from Earth to assuage the symptoms?”

  He crouched in front of me, posture wary, guarded; but curiously, I saw no anger in his face or body.

  “Your species cannot be infected,” he said. “Our medical staff made very certain before we began recruiting from your world. We could not ethically sacrifice another species to save our own.”

  “Medically necessary sex?” I sneered. The burn behind my eyes spilled over. “That has to be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

  “Finlay.” As if he couldn’t help himself, Carrollus rose to his knees and reached for me. One warm hand on my hip set my nerves alight, the other cupped my damp cheek. “When both sexual partners are infected with the bio-agent, it activates, killing both partners. If an infected person doesn’t have sex of
ten enough, the agent activates.”

  I sucked in a horrified breath. “But . . . condoms?”

  He shook his head. “Whenever two infected people are intimate, regardless of barriers to sexual fluids, the bio-agent activates. It’s as if their immune systems cancel one another out. It was a genocide weapon. One that worked. Our population was devastated until we worked out the disease mechanism.”

  The waterworks evaporated. I believed him. Awareness of him rippled through me, tempting me to melt into the feel of his skin on mine.

  “When you worked out how the disease spread, it ripped families and loved ones apart?” Visions of lovers torn from one another ran through my head. Mothers wouldn’t have been able to nurture their own children. Sympathy made my breath catch.

  He blinked at me.

  I thought I detected the first inkling of respect in the softening of the lines around his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look sick.”

  He shook his head. “We’re not. Sex with uninfected partners keeps the bio-agent in remission. Our medical people believe there’s something in the human immune system that bolsters ours.”

  “So what does that mean? If you don’t have sex what? Every week? Every day? You’ll die?”

  “Each of us has to work out our interval,” he replied. “Most find that two or three times a week is sufficient.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from asking him his.

  “Does this mean that because of the bio-agent, your people can’t reproduce?”

  He nodded. “Hybridization is our only option.”

  My mind reeled trying to work out how many alien babies might already be walking around on Earth.

  “You don’t hit like a girl,” he noted.

  “Sorry.” I sounded sullen.

  “I earned it,” he said, smoothing tear tracks from my skin. “If it’s of any comfort, Finlay, we mean you no harm.”

  I twisted out of his too-soothing grasp and barked a laugh. It sounded vaguely unhinged.

  Scrubbing tears from my face, I climbed to my feet.