Catalyst (The Kithran Regenesis)

by Dani Worth

“But you needed sexin’ up,” Bastian pointed out. He chuckled and began to lift his T-shirt.

  Jacks held up his hands. “Whoa! No, no I don’t. You have to ignore Anders. He’s always been kind of blunt and he’s a nymphomaniac. He’s probably driving my brother crazy.”

  “He deserves it,” Bastian said, tugging off his shirt.

  Jacks started backing up, looking everywhere but at Bastian. “I have to spend some time on the files. I’ll set you two up tomorrow, show you how you can help. For now, enjoy the pools. And don’t forget—you shouldn’t eat anything green or yellow.” He turned and stalked off.

  I grinned at Bastian. “You were being naughty.”

  “I was just going for a swim,” he countered.

  “You know very well he won’t be able to resist once he really looks at that body of yours.”

  Bastian stood and came to me. He leaned over the chair, his hair falling on either side of my face, enveloping us in a private world tinted with auburn. “You think my body is that good, huh?”

  “I know it is. So do you.”

  He laughed, kissed me, and walked back to the water, dropping his clothes the entire way. I lay back and decided to enjoy the show.

  That night, Bastian was asleep a second after we fell into Jacks’ bed. I wasn’t so lucky. I lay there a long time, thinking about everything I’d learned. Something about the story nagged at me, so I carefully crawled from the bed, stuffed my feet into my boots and scooped up a replicant crystal. I followed the stone halls back to the room with all the computers.

  Jacks and Bastian had carried one of the long, red chairs into the room and Jacks lay back on it, his ankles crossed, one arm behind his head. His other hand held a vidscreen. He caught me in the doorway and sat up.

  “Tell me about the explosive.” I felt like my heart was trying to crawl up through my throat.

  “You sure?” Jacks set the vidscreen down on the chair and stood. He walked to me, touched my arm, concern darkening his blue eyes.

  “I need to know.”

  Nodding, he walked to the big chair in front of the main wall of screens, sat and pulled a wireless keyboard into his lap. A few clicks later, an image opened on the biggest screen. “It’s grainy because I was using a faulty vidscreen. But this is it. The device. It had some kind of remote controlled mechanism on the top. The entire box was only an inch long.”

  I squinted at the image even though it was big. Jacks was right, it was grainy. “There’s a fine layer of powder, very small. Looks white. It must be some kind of pyrophoric metal, maybe air ignited.” I pointed at the top. “Small powder, small hole in the top. Whatever it is, it’s powerful. There had to be a lot of these in the mines.”

  Jacks shook his head. “I didn’t see them.”

  “That small, they would have been hard to spot.” Hugging my arms tight around myself, I stared at the image of the evil thing that destroyed my world. “Why didn’t you take it?”

  The agony that crossed his features dug into my belly like sharp claws. He closed his eyes. “I was afraid to move it. I knew it was some kind of explosive. Just touching it could have set it off.” He stood, slammed the small keyboard down onto the table and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I ran to find Crichton, we argued. I could see the fucking guilt on his face, though he wouldn’t tell me anything. Only that he was sorry he’d shared my maps. Then he got this look—he apologized, rubbed his thumb over my lip and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a small mining colony in Sector One.”

  “He drugged you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “There has to be more to the story, Jacks. I found record of you leaving Kithra. I also know you paid for my family’s vacation. Why would you have gotten me off that planet if you weren’t a part of its destruction?”

  Genuine surprise showed on his face.

  “You didn’t pay for it,” I whispered, staggering back to sit in the chair. “Then who?”

  He was silent for so long I didn’t expect him to answer at all. “It must have been Crichton.”

  “Why? Why would he do that? I mean, if he was evil enough to blow up an entire planet of people…”

  “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense, Vala. Crichton wasn’t evil. Maybe he and whoever else was in on this had no idea what would happen. Maybe the substance was new.”

  “Maybe it had never been tested in Kithra’s gassy atmosphere.” I blinked, my eyes burning. I didn’t cry. I never cried. But this was too much to take. And Jacks had spent all these years trying to solve this ridiculous puzzle. “I still don’t see why Crichton would have paid for my family to leave.”

  The smile that tugged at the corner of Jacks’ mouth held more sadness than humor. “He knew I loved you.”

  We stared at each other, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. I didn’t know if I believed him, though he looked sincere. There were too many hard years between then and now. I cleared my throat, stood and backed up a couple of steps toward the door. “Well, um…Bastian and I will help you work on these files, and I do want you to set up a way for me to contact my sister. My family has been through—lost—too much to deal with fear over what’s happening to me.”

  “I will.”

  I started walking toward the door, then glanced over my shoulder. “The Tracker you tried to kidnap? She’s tenacious as hell. You might want to think about working faster.”

  We worked long hours going over the files pinged by Jacks’ software. I took the sections related to the mysterious explosive, studying news stories, scouring countless entries on explosive materials, chemical discoveries. That section alone would take years to go through and this after Jacks had used other software to break down the first flagged sections.

  He needed an army of readers.

  I found myself staring at him a lot. He’d been here on his own, unable to trust anyone. Years spent reading obscure files, knowing that Saturna had the money to hire good Trackers, hackers and worse, hit men. His brother’s crew followed the leads Jacks discovered and that crew was small, comprised of the few people they trusted.

  Crichton was out there. The person responsible for killing so many and for saving Jacks’ life. And mine. Because, according to Jacks, Crichton’s lover had loved me.

  It was a lot to take in, to process.

  Jacks stared back. He watched Bastian and me, his gaze so pointed that at times it felt like a physical caress.

  That visual caress woke me two weeks after his confession. My hair obscured most of my face, so I cracked one eye to find one lone replicant crystal resting on the edge of the bed. I didn’t move, but I must have tightened muscles because Bastian squeezed his arms around me. His chin rested on top of my head, so the light would be cast on his face as well. He nuzzled the back of my head with his nose, something I’d felt him doing often in his sleep, before tucking my head under his chin again.

  In the shadows, I could barely make out Jacks’ form. What I could make out was his tension as he leaned against the wall, tension that coiled so tightly, he looked ready to combust. The strength of his desire to be in our bed rivaled that of his need to find Crichton. I couldn’t help but wonder if, like me, that old love still burned somewhere in the depths of his body. If maybe that love he spoke of toward me still existed.

  Desire definitely did.

  He stepped away from the wall and I closed my eyes, sensing him coming toward the bed, standing over us. He stayed still so long, it took all my effort not to open my eyes. He took the crystal and left the room.

  My tension released in a whoosh. I went limp.

  “It’s not the first time he’s come in here to watch us,” Bastian whispered. “He doesn’t know that I wake at the slightest sound and have since I was young.”

  I didn’t say anything, couldn’t.

  “He’s a good man, Vala.”

  I turned in his arms, wishing I’d left some of the crystals uncovered so I could see his expression. “Bastian, do you like him?”

  “I
do. But you love him. You’ve loved him a long time, haven’t you, Vala?”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I made a complete fool of myself as a teenager following him around.” I stroked my hand over Bastian’s arm, loving the feel of silken skin over muscle. “He was really in love with Crichton. The two were inseparable and you should have seen the way they kissed. Having him disappear like that? Knowing he had something to do with setting you up? I can’t imagine what Jacks is feeling.”

  “You can. You spent all these years thinking Jacks had disappeared after blowing up your home.”

  I was silent as I mulled that one over. He was right.

  “What you felt for him then was real love, not some crush, wasn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to, when a big part of me was coming to care for this man, too. “Bastian?”

  “Hmm?” He stroked hands over my hair.

  “I’ve seen the way you watch him sometimes. Are you attracted to Jacks?”

  He was silent so long, I thought he’d fallen back to sleep. He finally let out a long breath. “I am. But it’s not that easy for me. I don’t sleep with men.”

  I sat up, surprised. “You don’t? But when we were first together on the ship, you said you’d gone down on men.”

  Bastian sat up too, then leaned over the bed to pull the cloth off the small bowl of crystals. Soft light filled the area around the bed. His features were pulled tighter than I’d ever seen them. He looked at me through a fall of auburn hair and my belly tightened. I had a feeling I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. But I needed to. I was falling for him and starting to accept that I wanted both men. But it wouldn’t work if Bastian didn’t want that too.

  Bastian squeezed my fingers. “You want him, Vala? I know you still love him. Would you rather be with just him?”

  “No. I’m not even sure he feels the same way about me.”

  “Oh, he does. And you know that.”

  I didn’t know it, but I suspected it. The way he’d watched us just now, the way he did all the time.

  Bastian looked away from me, his lips tight.

  I laid my hand on his arm. “I want you, Bastian. When we go home, I’ll still want you. Do you understand? I’m starting to think we’ll need a lot more time to explore what we feel for each other.” It made me a feel a little better when he looked back at me. “But, Bastian. You’re so young. You have lots of adventures ahead of you, so I’m not talking about filing family status or anything like that. Think about all the years you’d miss out exploring all the different bodies out there.” I winked. “I know I’m not that much older, but I’ve been out there.”

  He cupped my cheeks in his palms. “I’ve already explored different bodies. More than you can imagine.” His eyes darkened, his brows drew together and he took a deep breath. “You know where I grew up.” It wasn’t a question.

  I nodded. Grimaced. “An orphanage on Sector Two.”

  “When I was five years old, my mother disappeared. I don’t know for sure what happened, but I did know she would never have walked off and left me. She must have died.” He pulled the sheet up over his legs. Looked at his hands. “I went into that orphanage, and for the next eight years no one touched me. Ever. The woman who ran the place thought Gwinarians were sex freaks, and she wouldn’t let me share a room with the other kids, eat with them. I was so starved for human touch, I ran off with the first person who paid attention to me. His name was Rulan.” A soft smile, one full of good memories, turned up his mouth. “I was thirteen. He was fifteen. It was innocent. We slept holding each other, we touched.” He stopped speaking, drawing the silence out. “We were starting to get more adventurous, but an entertainment scout found us and put us on a ship.”

  Horror slashed through me. I knew about entertainment ships. Everyone did. Governments had spent years trying to shut them down, then given up because it took too much time and money, and so many places were willing to hide them. Now they traveled from planet to planet, never staying in one place long. Any sexual fantasy or perversion a person wanted could be found on those ships. For a price.

  He nodded. “Yeah, one of those. So, I’ve had sex. With a lot of different bodies. Most of it wasn’t consensual, but some of it wasn’t so bad.” He let go of me and leaned back against the stone wall, then winced and jerked forward. “The wall’s like ice.”

  I hugged my arms around myself. I’d gotten caught up with space pirates and very nearly got into trouble a few times, but I’d always managed to keep from being taken against my will. “You were a slave?”

  “Does this make you not want me?”

  True shock stole my breath for a second. “Of course not! You were a child. And even if you’d willingly chosen that sort of life, I wouldn’t sit in judgment. Hell, I haven’t been a saint, you know.” I placed my hands on his legs. “So you don’t sleep with men because of that?”

  “Yes. One in particular hurt me a lot. I got out. Couldn’t find Rulan. I should have looked harder, but I didn’t know if he’d been traded off ship or if like me, he was kept in a room. They’d allowed us to see each other every once in a while the first few years, then nothing. But I should have kept looking, should have never left him there.”

  I covered my face.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Look at me. I’m fine now. But I’ve got a few demons to work out, Vala. I got out by trading a year of my life for passage back to Kithra.”

  I lifted my head, knowing he’d see the tears I couldn’t stop. “What do you mean a year of your life?”

  “Let’s just say, I traded for something far worse than what I’d had and leave it at that.” He swept his thumb under my eyes, wiping away my tears. “Vala, I love men. I loved Rulan. A part of me is so attracted to Jacks, I want to haul him into bed with us. But, I’m a little nervous.”

  “I’m surprised you like sex at all.”

  The smile that curled his lips was so sweet, my aching heart eased a bit. “Like I said, not all the sex I had was bad and you… I wanted you the second I saw you. I don’t think that will ever go away. I love the tattoos on your arms, love the way you focus so intently on whatever job you’re doing, even if it’s the most boring job in the world. Love the way you and your sister are so affectionate with each other.” He touched my top lip. “I love this funny little off center dip in your lip. The only reason I haven’t been reaching for you at night is I feel bad for Jacks.”

  I licked my lips, noting with amusement that his gaze narrowed on my mouth. “Bastian, Jacks look at you, too. He may be bossy but he’d never hurt you.”

  “I’m too big to be hurt like that again, Vala.”

  “There are many ways to be hurt.”

  “Look, I want you to understand that I won’t be upset if you want to be with Jacks. Truth is, I’m surprised he pays attention to me at all. He’s crazy about you and apparently his brother knew that. And…if he had such a problem with the difference in your ages, he damn sure has to have a problem with the difference between us.”

  “True. He was always stupid about that.”

  “You did say that stupidity ran in his family.” The corner of his mouth lifted.

  “So what do you want to do about this situation? Because I feel bad sleeping in his bed. I can’t help it.”

  “Then bring him into it.”

  I shook my head. “Not without you.”

  “I don’t mind. Vala, I think he really needs you. I can’t imagine what it’s been like living here alone all this time. Just reading those damned conversations, digging into files.”

  “He’s done nothing but try to right what happened.” I put a pillow behind Bastian and pushed him back against it before turning and snuggling between his legs, resting my back to his chest. He wrapped those long arms around me, and I reached up to pull some of his hair over us, so I could touch it. He had such soft hair. “I do still care for him. But I also care for you. We’ll figure out a way to make this work.”

&n
bsp; Jacks set one of the purple fruits on the table next to Bastian and continued on to his workstation. He’d dumped his clothes and blankets off the table in the sleeping area and dragged it in here, setting Bastian and me up on it. I found it awfully amusing that he had extra vidscreens for us to use yet so very little in the way of luxuries. But I also watched him stroke his hand over a small, powerful power supply as he described its properties to Bastian—who looked suitably impressed. The two shared a fondness for technology, which was fantastic, because it gave them something to talk about. Helped cover up the building sexual tension.

  Between all three of us.

  It seemed to be ever-growing, and it interfered with that concentration Bastian so admired about me. I looked at the vidscreen and all I saw was the three of us naked and giving that small bed of Jacks’ a workout.

  Bastian lifted the fruit, sniffed it with closed eyes before he sent a shy smile to Jacks. “Thanks.”

  “Looked like a good one,” Jacks muttered before settling into his seat. Within a second, he was touching screens, opening windows, a frown pulling his dark brows together as he watched the displays.

  Red flushed Bastian’s cheeks as he stared at the lush piece of fruit. If I hadn’t known about Jacks’ problem with age differences, I would have sworn he was wooing Bastian. I chuckled and Bastian glared at me.

  “Shut up,” he murmured before biting into the fruit and moaning.

  I didn’t miss the heated glance Jacks shot Bastian even though I didn’t want to pull my eyes off him. Bastian was just so sensual. About everything. Taste, smell and especially touch. Though knowing about his past explained so much.

  An image of him, the lone Gwinarian child in a house full of strangers, run by a person who loathed what he was instead of appreciating who he was, filled my mind and I quickly looked down. Eight years without touch. Blinking back the stupid tears that burned my eyes, I pushed away from the table. “Need a break,” was all I said before stalking out of the room.

  I hurried through the chilled cavern hallways and grabbed the dirty clothes Jacks had planned to wash in the pools later, before making my way to the court. Bastian and I had both fallen in love with the small, treed oasis in the center of the ancient ruins. I’d yet to be out here during one of those awful, hot rains, but Jacks told me the best time to swim was after one when the water heated up.