by Laney Kaye
“If nothing else, I’m good for a romp.” His gaze cut to one of the bunks, which he must assume was mine. “I believe you’ll be pleased by my…services.”
“That part of the equation is just a pesky afterthought, something to be endured.” When the time came.
“Believe me, there’ll be no enduring. I come highly recommended.”
“Pay attention,” I said as I placed my bag beside my bunk.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s expected here, besides you and me…”
Counting to ten—no, make that forty—I stared past his shoulder, at the wall hanging one of my roommates had made. Silly to spend precious resources on something that was merely…ornamental, when so many had nothing. “There’s more to this mission than just that. When you become my husband, you’ll incur incredible risk.”
He scratched his head, and his eyes twinkled. “You like to fight in the sack?”
“Would you please stop it?” Strain filled my voice. “I don’t believe you know what will be expected of you.”
“Sure, I do.” He tucked his arms across his broad chest. “We’ll stroll into the Regime compound and steal a communicator.” His grin came out overconfident. “I figure it might take us about ten minutes. Tops.”
I fumed. This man was too cocky, too arrogant.
Too attractive.
Shoving that notion aside, I rolled my eyes. “You’ll need surgery before we leave or you’ll never pass for Tracin.”
“No way.” He crossed to the door, and I thought this was it; he’d leave. But he turned and leaned his butt against the sturdy frame instead.
“You think we can just stroll through a camp full of bloodthirsty soldiers? You’re a cat shifter mercenary, originally hired to work with them before you defected.” They’d out him and kill him in seconds.
“Not quite defection.” His lips curled, and I knew I’d hit a sore spot. “Thing is, I kind of like the shape I was born in. Not sure why I need to change it. I can wear a disguise. We won’t be there long enough for anyone to see through it.”
“But that’s exactly my point. Unless you become him by igniting his blade, Smithton will see who you really are.” And then, he’d eliminate Jag.
“Smithton doesn’t seem clever enough to see much beyond his overactive cock.”
“He’d laugh to hear you say that. Never misjudge him.” Smithton survived by giving the impression he was stupid. “We need to convince him you’re Tracin, the only Dragarian left on Glia who can supply him with dragonstone.” Smithton would never know that, when the surviving Dragarians boarded their ship and fled, they took the last of the pure dragonstone with them.
Jag’s pause indicated he was absorbing my words. “What do you propose, then?”
“You’ll need changes to your face, your neck, because you’ll need scales. Terra will give Janie drawings she can use to turn you from a lowly cat-shifter into a mighty Dragarian warrior.”
“Who you calling lowly?” His voice growled out of him. “Unless that’s what this is all about. You want it dirty. You like going low.”
Unexpected heat swirled through me. Could I truly go through with this? Let this man…
I tightened my spine and faced him down. I’d have to. It was my only chance of succeeding in the mission I’d set myself two years ago, after my father murdered most of the Dragarian emissaries and mortally wounded Tracin. “We’ll need to color this hair white, of course.” I flicked some of the thick, black locks off his shoulder. The strands were too silky for a man. Too touchable. “Your ears will need to be sculpted.”
He rubbed them and winced. “Like these babies the way they are, too.” His gaze honed in on my face. “What other improvements are we talking about here?”
I ran my gaze down his front, stopping at his groin. For whatever reason, I couldn’t look away. “Nothing we can do about that area, I suppose.” My voice came out breathless, and I hated it, because it gave away something about me I needed to keep hidden.
I’d…developed unwelcome feelings for this shifter. We’d spent considerable time together, encouraging my people to come in from the wild, to the Resistance headquarters, where, perhaps, they could find protection from the Regime—from my father. I…liked Jag. “But you won’t need much of a package to fulfill that part of our brief contract.”
“Not a damn thing wrong with my package. You’ll be well-satisfied.”
I hugged my arms across my chest again—where his gaze had strayed. “I don’t need satisfaction.” It hadn’t been a part of my last pair-blade bonding.
Chuckling, he brushed past me so close I felt the breeze, and dropped onto my bunk. He kicked his feet up, propped his hands behind his neck, and grinned. “I come guaranteed.”
“Please.”
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about. I do like it when a woman begs.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you like it.”
“I do not!” Realizing I’d shouted, I clamped my hand over my mouth, before lowering my arm and continuing in a more reasonable tone. “Let’s keep this about business, if you don’t mind.”
He flicked his hand for me to continue, but he watched me. Studied me.
And the bulge in his pants grew.
There was nothing arousing about me standing here. I decided to ignore it. “While we’re in camp, you won’t be able to shift.”
“Or I’ll lose the alterations when I change back,” he said, tapping his temple. “Figured that one out all on my own.”
“There’ll be no turning back once we’re inside.”
“I can live without shifting. For a while.”
Only time would tell.
His brow narrowed. “Not sure why I need to be your dead husband for this to work, however.”
“My father…” I sighed and paced the small room, my heels hitting solidly on the stone floor. “If I returned with you, say, as my friend or guard, even in disguise, he’d still be able to complete his original plan.”
Jag’s eyebrows lifted.
“He engaged me to Tennant. We’d be married in seconds.”
His growl rang out in the room, low and threatening.
“My thoughts exactly. But he knows a pair-blade bond cannot be so easily…broken.”
“Except with the murder of a bonded husband.”
“That does not completely break the bond.” My hand went to the knife I wore always. “The blades require bloodthirsting after one of the bondmates dies.”
Jag lifted his shoulders uncomprehendingly.
“The details do not matter to you,” I bit out. “But if we’re bonded, Smithton won’t touch you for fear of losing the tool he has in me.”
Jag frowned. “You were bonded to Tracin, yet now, you’ll switch it up and bond with me?”
I couldn’t stop my back from stiffening. I’d wanted to act on the bloodthirsting. The call of my blade filled my cells to overflowing. “It’s not that simple. I still must release Tracin’s spirit fully.”
“Sounds heavy.”
I scowled. “That part doesn’t involve you. I just need you to be Tracin, my pair-bonded mate, standing by my side. Then my father won’t try to marry me off to someone else.”
“Surely, he’d give up that plan anyway, happy just to have you back?”
“You don’t know Smithton. I lived only to serve a purpose.”
“Which you’ve now taken from him.”
Stolen, actually, by choosing to flee the Regime compound, rather than remain behind to submit to my father’s will. “Remember, he wants dragonstone. Tracin could supply him with it.”
“Smithton could just take your blade, that’s dragonstone, isn’t it? He doesn’t need me.”
“It’s been bonded; it’s no longer pluvar dragaris—pure stone.”
“He’s going to find out pretty fast that I don’t know where the pluvar…whatever is.”
“We’ll have the communicator by then. You—” I coughed
. “We can flee, return to the Resistance.”
“Okay.”
The tension that had been thriving inside me eased. I’d been worried he’d refuse. “All you have to do is pretend you don’t remember Smithton tried to kill you when he murdered the other Dragarian immigrants.”
“I can do that,” he said reasonably, but his lips twisted. “So, all this sounds…fun.”
I snorted. Dropping down in front of my weapon’s chest, I sorted through the items inside.
“When do we get to the good stuff?” Jag asked, his attention focused on my ass.
Inside, I squirmed. My breasts actually tingled. They should not tingle. “I assume you mean the sex.” What else would he consider important in all this?
“You did mention something about fucking. Not sure where it comes in, but I’m game. Won’t deny I’ve…watched you.”
And I’d felt his gaze, like a subtle caress. It made me want to go to him. Lie with him.
Where would I have taken this if my future did not belong to my knife?
“Why do we have to screw, anyway?” he asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“Smithton knows about pair-blade bonds from my mother, though they never officially bonded. He insisted on a Glian marriage. She was a Dragarian.” Though he banned my mother from ever speaking about the Dragarian culture to me, I’d learned from Terra. “Without it, he’ll see you’re not Tracin immediately.”
Jag stared at my knife, but when he shook his head, I could tell he didn’t get it.
I barely got it myself, and I was part Dragarian and had lived with Tracin and Terra for months.
“To convince Smithton, you’ll need to wear Tracin’s blade.” Inside the chest, I slid the long, lethal weapon from its sheath. Standing, I stared down at it. It was a match for mine in every way except one.
Jag sat up on the side of the bed and reached for the hilt, but I held it away. No one but me could touch it. Not until…
“I thought blood-blades were identical pairs,” he said.
“They are.”
“Then why is that one dark gray while yours is off-white?”
“Tracin is dead and most of his spirit went with him.” I stroked my fingertip along the side of the blade. Never along the edge, because it would sink into my skin with almost no pressure.
“Are we going to do some alterations on the knife, too? Paint it white, maybe?”
“Once we perform the blade ceremony, which Terra is preparing for at this moment, you’ll fuck me. A bit of your spirit will then reside in the blade and give it life. And the color will immediately match my own. Smithton will believe you’re Tracin. Then we can locate the communicator, get it out of the compound, and save our people.”
He lifted his hands, as if he now worried I actually would let him touch Tracin’s blade, which was an about face. “This sounds a bit more like commitment than I was prepared for.”
I lifted one eyebrow, daring him. I’d thought he was braver than this. “You’re backing out already?”
“I don’t do permanent.”
I’d guessed that already. From the way he catted around the Resistance stronghold, I knew he wasn’t a man to settle down with just one woman. “Perfect. Because I only need you to be Dragarian” —or mine—“for a short time. In fact, being Dragarian could be more dangerous to your health than being Felidaekin.”
Jag arched an eyebrow. Even in the desert, stories of Smithton’s hatred of the big cat shifter mercenaries had reached my ears.
I sighed, irritated that I needed to educate him. Hells, offering him my body should be enough. “When the Dragarians arrived a little over two years ago, they didn’t realize the Regime had taken over the government. I was sent to the Capital to welcome them. We became friends over the next month, as I showed them around, made them feel welcome. Smithton likes to…play, so he encouraged them to believe he’d give their people refuge, but in truth he was desperate to locate the dragonstone. He ordered me to bring them to the compound, stating he’d have more time to discuss their relocation plan there, but he really just wanted them out of the Capital and under his control. When the Resistance attacked the compound, Tennant and Smithton used the chaos to carry out their evil plan to systematically eliminate the Dragarians who refused to provide the information they wanted. But a few escaped into the desert.” Me, with them.
“Does Smithton realize you know what he did?”
“I don’t believe so. He told me to stay in my room during the Resistance attack, but I saw his face, his satisfaction with their deaths, and I knew he’d orchestrated it.” It was horrifying. My friends! “Because I’d been looking for a way out of his plan for me, I used the opportunity to pretend the Resistance kidnapped me. I found Terra and Tracin, and we fled. Then, I made sure word filtered back to Smithton that I’d been raped and murdered.”
I’d taken special pleasure in the fact that my father believed the Resistance stole what he’d been willing to give away to secure his own greedy future.
“We caught up to the other Dragarians, and I begged them to let me remain with them. They only agreed when Tracin offered to marry me. We bonded not long after that and were together for three months before he died.
“Blade-bonded, you mean.”
“Yes, you’re right. Dragarians don’t actually marry. They bond to the blades.”
“Different than the Felidaekin, then. That’s body, heart, and soul. Some of them, anyway.” A wry look overcame his face, and I knew he was excluding himself from the some.
“Don’t you wish to meet your bondmate?”
“It’s rarer than my guys would make you think. Herc and Maya, Khal and Lyrie, and Leo and Janie? That many bonds don’t happen in most shifter’s lifetime.” He shrugged. “It won’t happen to me. I’m a loner. All jags are.” His silky hair moved when he shook his head. “There’s not a woman alive who can pin a male jag down.”
“Which suits my needs perfectly.” I’d watched him, seen how casual he was about relationships. Because of this, I knew he was one of the rare men who would not feel the call of the blade bloodthirsting after I was…gone.
“You sure there’s no other way of reigniting the blade?”
I cut my gaze to his groin again. Why did I keep looking there? “Unfortunately, no.”
He adjusted his pants, as if they were too snug. “Way to make a guy feel good.”
“Don’t you get it?” I shook my head. “This isn’t about you or any brief bond you’ll have with me.” I turned away, before he could see the tears brimming in my eyes. “You needn’t worry. We won’t be linked for long. I intend to sever the bond shortly after we finish our mission.” Shortly after I finished my mission, but there was no need to tell him that now, if ever.
“I assume this ceremony involves that fucking you were begging for, out in the hall.”
There he went again, falling back on sarcasm. Was this man ever serious about anything?
“The ceremony does culminate in…fucking.”
Leaning forward, he patted the rolled-up scrap of material I used for a pillow. “Want to get to it, then? We might need practice.”
“There are rituals that must be followed first.”
“Of course, there are,” he murmured, soft enough I wasn’t sure he intended me to hear him.
“What?” I asked pertly, not sure why all this grated down my spine like the sharp scales of a snilish beetle. I knew when I’d proposed this idea to Jag that I’d need to give my body to him. It was a necessary component to our success; no different than dyeing his hair or tweaking his ears.
I’d lie there, and he’d do it. Then we could get to the more important parts of this project.
“Well, since you don’t yet need my services, I guess I should be leaving,” he said, rising and striding toward the door.
“By tomorrow night, we’ll see our blades connected,” I said. And the clock would start ticking down on my short future, as well.
He grinn
ed. “When I’ll get to be the one wielding the blade.”
“Please,” I whispered, peeved with his attitude.
He came over to stand so close to me, I took a step back. To preserve my space, not because he unnerved me.
“Get used to begging louder,” he said in a deep, husky voice. “I’m going to make you beg all night long.”
A rush of something hot and urgent centered between my legs. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like Jag.
I’d be the one in control tomorrow night. Not him.
And there would be no begging.
“All you need to do is complete your part of the ceremony—which Terra will explain,” I said. “Restore the blade with your spirit. Then you just need to get it up and keep it up long enough to finish the final act.”
“Not sure I’ve made myself clear,” he said.
When he reached out, as if he intended to touch my hair, maybe even stroke it, I ducked underneath his arm. I moved to stand by the door, my fingers hovering over the lock. If he came after me, I’d escape.
Because I wasn’t sure I had the will to resist him.
“You’ve been much more than clear,” I said.
He was in this for one thing only.
“You’re skittish, which I understand,” he said. “But, trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’m no virgin.”
“That’s good,” I said, opening the door and stepping into the hall. I did need to escape.
But, before I fled, I looked him in the eye. Made sure he completely understood why this would be a one and done mating and nothing more.
Yes, he’d fuck me. I’d endure it; nothing else.
“You may not be a virgin,” I said softly. “But I am.”
Chapter Three
Jag
The mermits battered against the halolights, no doubt confused by their endless darkness turning to permanent, if dim, light.
Yeah, well, they were less confused than I was feeling.
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, rubbing at my biceps, though the temperature in the caves remained constant thanks to the humidity caused by both the water running down the walls, and the huge aquifer many levels beneath us.