Catalyst (The Kithran Regenesis)
Page 14
I gasped against his lips. “I’m gonna die here.”
“How about flying instead?” He whispered as Bastian’s pulled his fingers from me and replaced them with his tongue. I came up off the bed and screamed.
“Shit! Fuck!”
Amusement cushioned my fall back to the planet as Jacks was once again reduced to muttering four-letter words. I opened one eye and saw that Bastian had crouched over Jacks and pulled his hard cock into his mouth.
Hoarse cries spilled from Jacks’ mouth in between the cursing.
“Man has a wicked tongue, doesn’t he?” I whispered to Jacks, still breathing hard, tingles all over my body.
Bastian swept his hair away from his face so he could look at me while he loved Jacks’ cock with his mouth, and I knew he was pleased I hadn’t called him a boy this time. Watching him with Jacks, I didn’t see how young he was, I only saw how much he loved what he did with us…how much he loved us. I wanted to spend the rest of my life making sure he was touched every damned day.
I sat up and took Jacks’ jaw in my hands. “You said while we are in your bed. Jacks, Bastian and I want to always be in your bed, even if it’s here on this godsforsaken planet.”
“Kind of busy here. Not fair,” he gritted out between clenched teeth before he cried out, his back arching. “Fuck, Bastian!”
Low chuckling sounded from Jacks’ groin, and I grinned at Bastian before turning all my attention to watching the play of ecstasy over Jacks’ face. “I don’t play fair. You should know that after the two years I spent driving you nuts on my home planet. Bastian and I are going to stay here while you continue looking for Crichton. We are going to help you read those damned boring files, and your brother is going to bring us some nice things so this place isn’t so damned depressing.”
“Vala,” Jacks growled, then hissed as Bastian must have done something slightly painful. Jacks lifted his head and tried to glare at Bastian before his eyes rolled back in his head.
“You argue, Bastian retaliates. We’re a team. What you don’t seem to get is that all three of us are a team. We’re going to find your old lover and then we’re going to have serious discussions about you moving with us to Kithra. They need us, Jacks. They need Bastian and me and they need you. You’ll be a hero when all this comes out.”
“Not a hero.” This time, he tensed, waiting for whatever Bastian was going to do, but all Bastian did was slide his hands up Jacks chest while keeping up the suction. “Fuck,” he muttered, thrusting his hips, raising his hand to thread his fingers with Bastian’s. He looked up at me, eyes glazed. “Okay, okay! Just shut the fuck up and kiss me!”
Jacks sucked the smile right off my face then proceeded to make me pay for playing so dirty.
An hour later, I found myself staring at the cold walls of the room again as my men snoozed behind me. “I’m thinking tapestries. Great big tapestries would brighten up this room so much.”
Soft masculine chuckles sounded behind me and I came up on my elbow to find one of Bastian’s eyes aimed at me from where his face was smashed into the pillow. Amusement and love shone in the single stream of light still spilling from that bathroom. None of us wanted to get up to turn it off.
“She’s nesting again,” Jacks murmured into Bastian’s neck. He was curled around the taller man’s back.
Bastian patted the arm Jacks had around his waist. “Just go with it,” he said, voice muffled by the pillow. “She’s worth it.”
Jacks lifted slightly, met my eyes over Bastian’s head. “Yeah, she is.”
“This is it,” I whispered.
Bastian, Lux, Jarana and I all stood still as Jacks held his hand over the screen. With one touch, all the files he’d pulled over the years—along with the horrifically incriminating information we’d found on Para Lashin’s system—would be in the hands of every government system out there. We weren’t taking any chances, because corruption ran rampant in them all. Additionally, Jarana had hooked us into the top news stations, and they would be getting the same information the authorities would. At the same time.
We were about to unleash chaos on the universes, and my stomach was in the kind of knots it would take weeks to untangle.
Saturna didn’t stand a chance. They’d have nowhere to run. We still had to find Crichton, still had to learn about the explosive he’d used, and because my research had found other similar and sinister detonations across multiple planets, we now thought Kithra had possibly been part of a bigger plot. We’d only unraveled some of it.
“Everyone will finally know,” Jarana said, her voice breaking on a sob. Her knees gave out and Lux pushed her into the seat and kept her hand on Jarana’s shoulder. Tears spilled down the Tracker’s cheeks as she stared at the vidscreen.
My own cheeks were wet, and Bastian took my hand, squeezing it in his nice big warm one.
Jacks’ hand was shaking. He’d worked so hard for this. Tugging on Bastian’s hand, we crowded against Jacks’ sides, wrapping our arms around his waist. That seemed to give him the last push he needed. He touched the screen.
We held each other tight as streams of color shot out all over the map, and the universes found out why one company’s greed had nearly destroyed the small planet of Kithra.
About the Author
Dani Worth is a writer who loves to explore the boundaries of new worlds, love, desire or anything else that strikes her fancy. Good stories make life fun and she has such a blast writing her own. She’s currently writing sexy stories set in post-apocalyptic, science fiction and contemporary settings. She loves threads of paranormal and urban fantasy. Some of her stories will have pairs and some will have triads—Love is Love.
Dani has lived all over the United States, but currently resides in the Midwest with her family. She’s represented by Miriam Kriss of the Irene Goodman Agency.
You can keep up with Dani at daniworth.wordpress.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DaniWorthWrites.
Look for these titles by Dani Worth
Now Available:
After the Crux
The Kithran Regenesis
Kithra
Replicant
In a lonely, plague-devastated world, it is definitely not every man for himself.
After the Crux
© 2012 Dani Worth
Seventeen years after the Crux Virus wiped out most of the world’s population, Ross is doing what he can to keep his small community safe from raiders in a self-contained artist retreat in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. He’s made a habit of collecting survivors and they’ve all become family, but the most important members have always been Jenna and Dorian.
At fourteen, Ross stumbled into the basement where the nine-year-olds were hiding and the three have been together ever since. Years later, Jenna and Dorian became lovers. Now, at thirty, Ross hopes to find a love of his own on supply runs, but he suffers incredible guilt because his heart has long been snagged by his two best friends.
Alone with his tangled emotions, Ross is about to discover that his friends have their own ideas about their relationship…and how it is about to change.
Enjoy the following excerpt for After the Crux:
The Devil was in the details.
Ross pulled off his gloves and shoved them into the pocket of his heavy, gray parka as he strode down the hallway to the rooms he shared with Dorian and Jenna. He’d forgotten Jenna’s list. Flexing fingers sore from hauling cans of biodiesel, he grimaced when he saw the muddy prints his boots left on the hardwood floors. He was pretty sure Georgia had cleaned them yesterday. Not that she’d complain.
Late autumn sunlight faded the deeper he moved into the house. The three bedroom wings of the earth-sheltered dwelling were built underground to take advantage of consistent ground temperatures. Whoever had designed the place had been a genius, because the halls grew wider and the underground rooms utilized wide-open spaces to make up for the lack of light. Ross loved the house. Hated leaving it every single time.
Now that their family had expanded to include a married couple, a single woman and two orphaned kids, Ross was glad he’d chosen this place. Because they were the first here, Dorian, Jenna and Ross had already set up house in the west wing, which had two bedrooms on either side of a big den with a fireplace.
The faint rumble of the truck sounded and Ross grinned. Jake was probably growing impatient. They could have left without Jenna’s list—he had the damned thing mostly memorized—but he wanted a chance to say goodbye again.
He had a weird feeling about this trip, an unsettling rumble in his gut that made him want to skip it. But they were closing in on the winter months, and he really wanted to have one more hydroelectric generator ready to go before the heavy frosts hit. Winter was a real bitch if they weren’t prepared. Years had passed and he could still vividly recall their first cold season here. Never again would they survive on scarce wild game and vitamins eons past their expiration dates.
The Devil, in this case, wasn’t about some overly detailed list of supplies he’d be lucky to find—but his need for another hug goodbye.
It wasn’t the house he had trouble leaving so much as it was the two people he loved more than anything in this world. He’d wanted to take one or the other with him, but Dorian’s talent for healing with herbs meant he needed to stay with the others. Jenna… Well, he doubted he could pry the woman from Dorian since they’d become lovers. But he’d never risk her out there anyway. Not these days.
The sad ratio of female-to-male Crux Virus survivors had turned some roving groups into gangs out for one thing. Their housemate Georgia was heartbreaking proof of how bad it had gotten out there, and the thought of Jenna in that kind of situation made him break out in a cold sweat.
He heard the low moan when he was halfway across the den. He stopped, surprised to hear the sounds coming from the large supply closet off the room. A lacy, blue bra clung to the arm of the couch. His stomach churned and he held his breath. Jenna let out another low moan. Ross closed his eyes. He knew that sound, had heard it before. Muffled, but still sexy and full of something that twisted his heart into knots.
It brought to life every inappropriate feeling he’d experienced over the last couple of years. At twenty-five, Jenna had grown into a stunning woman.
“You have the hottest mouth,” she said, voice low and throaty.
They didn’t know he hadn’t left yet.
Dorian and Jenna always muffled their lovemaking when he was home. He knew it for sure now because these sounds were unfettered and passionate. A deeper noise from Dorian, like a growl, followed, and Ross’s body snapped taut. The door to the supply closet was open. He heard the heavy breathing, the gasps…and two seconds later, the slap of a bare back hitting the wall.
“Oh yeah, right there,” Jenna said. “Your fingers…yes. Damn, you have great fingers too—”
Her voice broke off, the last word a cry.
“So beautiful.” Dorian’s tone, strained and hoarse, told Ross so much about the man’s feelings for Jenna.
Feelings Ross understood more than he cared to acknowledge.
Duty. Devotion. Desire. When fate brings two isolated people together, love is in the cards.
Hunter’s Season
© 2012 Thea Harrison
An Elder Races Novella
As a palace guard and assassin for the Dark Fae, Xanthe always wore a mask, hiding her emotions to do her duty. But when her identity is compromised, she trades undercover work for guarding Queen Niniane—a position that often brings her in contact with Chancellor Aubrey Riordan.
Aubrey’s trust is shattered. A year ago his wife tried to assassinate their new queen in his name, a betrayal of everything he believes in. And now an attack on his life is proof the dark conspiracy is not yet over. Although injured and weak, Aubrey can’t help but be drawn to this shy assassin and loyal protector. Xanthe is everything Naida wasn’t, and the passion she stirs in him is something he thought had long passed him by.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Hunter’s Season:
The moment Xanthe appeared in the doorway, Tiago turned his head and so did Riordan. She dropped her gaze. “My lords.”
“There you are,” said Tiago. “You must have gotten my message just after dawn.” He put a booted foot on one chair and pushed it outward in her direction. “Sit and eat. Niniane will join us shortly.”
Disconcerted, she lowered her head. “Thank you, my l—sir. That’s very good of you, but I couldn’t do that.”
“Oh, you Fae and your social rules,” said Tiago. He sounded exasperated. “Get over yourself, soldier. Plant your ass down here and eat some breakfast. That’s an order.”
Startled, her head came up. Before she could help herself, she looked at Riordan.
He smiled at her, his expression warm, and gestured to the chair Tiago had pushed out from the table. “You heard your employer,” said the Chancellor. “Sit and help yourself to some food.”
She couldn’t help but stare. He looked different somehow than he had before she had left, less bitter in repose. Perhaps time was healing the wound that his wife had dealt him.
She took a deep breath and walked over to sit gingerly. She kept her gaze on her task as she did as she was ordered and helped herself to some of the breakfast on the table. There were boiled eggs, honey and berry pastries, fresh fruit and grilled venison. The bread and cheese she had eaten earlier seemed to have vanished completely, and her stomach rumbled. She tightened the muscles in her abdomen, hoping nobody had noticed.
She started to eat, and the two men resumed talking as if she wasn’t there.
“You should have mentioned something about the lawsuit sooner,” Tiago said.
After a slight hesitation, Riordan said, “I disagree. It’s my issue to resolve. At any rate, nothing will happen in a hurry. The suit will likely drag on for years.”
Everything in Xanthe went quiet. Riordan was involved in some kind of legal dispute? It was news to her, so it must have happened while she had been away. Unwilling to show any reaction to what was obviously none of her business, she had to make a conscious decision to keep eating as she listened.
“There’s no merit in the accusations,” said Tiago. “You had no knowledge of what Naida was doing, and you weren’t involved.”
Riordan said cynically, “It doesn’t matter whether or not we know that the case has any merit. The pursuant always has plenty of time to present their case and whatever they claim as true findings. That’s simply how the Dark Fae justice system works. What you and Niniane achieved when you tried and executed the conspirators involved in the coup that killed her family was highly unusual, and that was because it involved the Queen herself, imprisonment of powerful nobility and high treason.”
“Naida’s family is claiming you were treasonous,” Tiago said.
“Not quite treason, in the legal sense,” said Riordan. “Niniane had not yet been crowned. The best they can hope for is a charge of conspiracy. Since I was so much older than Naida and she was so young when we married, and all of Naida’s crimes were supposedly on my behalf, they’re claiming that I exerted ‘undue influence’ over her. Anyway, as you know only the government can instigate criminal cases. Since this is a personal suit and not an affair of the crown, the only thing they can hope to gain is monetary compensation.”
“So they’re being greedy,” said Tiago after a moment.
“Yes,” said Riordan flatly. “And to be brutally fair, they’re also angry and they’ve suffered a loss, not only in terms of family but also their reputation.”
“Well, the per
son they should be angry with is dead, and there isn’t any evidence you had anything to do with it. I had you investigated myself.”
“Of course you did,” said Riordan. “I would have had me investigated as well.”
Xanthe swallowed carefully, the food threatening to lodge in her throat. As she hadn’t been involved in any investigating, that was more news to her. But as she considered it, she couldn’t say she was surprised.
The Queen meant the world to the Wyr lord, and he was one of the most dangerous men she had ever met. He would have left no stone unturned in his investigation of Riordan. Even if he had not found any evidence, if he had the slightest suspicion that Riordan might have been involved in something that could potentially harm the Queen, Riordan was a dead man.
Having just killed a man herself on the Wyr lord’s orders, she should know.
Catalyst
Dani Worth
A woman seeking answers, a younger man seeking love, and an older man seeking revenge must work together to achieve all of their goals…
Vala Gorun’s family was off Kithra when the explosions happened and although she’s back on her home planet helping with the rebuild, something she saw all those years ago still haunts her. So she hires a Tracker to find the human man she’d once loved—one she thinks betrayed her in the worst possible way.