Satisfied that what he’d begun could not be stopped, not even by himself, he stood up and walked to the door. It seemed odd that Stalnek hadn’t spotted him yet, but there was no one at the door, no one in the hall, no alarm bells ringing. He closed Stalnek’s door and started to go into his own room across the hall. His plan had been to sit in his room and wait for the ship to explode. It suddenly occurred to him that there was no reason why he couldn’t escape the destruction of the Chameleon. Darck would take him in, surely. He could spend the remainder of his days living in peace with his sons and grandchildren.
He checked his watch as he spun around and headed for the shuttle bay. Three minutes had lapsed since he’d started the countdown. Plenty of time. He took the stairs up one deck at a near run, then turned toward the rear of the ship. As he walked, he mentally reviewed the controls of the shuttle. It had been a long while since he’d piloted anything but a ground car, but surely he remembered enough to manage the shuttle. It practically piloted itself anyway.
Kevlin reached the shuttle bay and checked his watch as he pushed through the door. Nine minutes to go. He smiled and looked up, then came to an abrupt stop. The shuttle bay was empty!
He reached for the comm on the wall and entered the code for the bridge, his gut telling him who had taken the shuttle out before the captain picked up. He understood now why Stalnek hadn’t spotted him and raised the alarm.
Stalnek hadn’t stomped nearly long enough to burn off his anger but he paused anyway to see who the incoming message was from. Seeing that it was from Magoa, he hurried around the desk and sat down with more than a little satisfaction. He opened the message, and read quickly. When he was finished, he leaned back in his chair, thinking.
It didn’t take him long to make a decision. He contacted the captain and ordered him to have a pilot prepare the shuttle immediately. He disconnected before the Captain could ask why, or for whom, or any other ridiculous questions that he had no intention of answering. Then he accessed the thermal scans of Onddo that had been run when they’d arrived early that morning. He copied the scans onto a memory crystal, slipped the crystal into a pocket, and left his quarters.
A few short minutes later he was strapping himself into the Chameleon’s only shuttle, watching the pilot, a young male named Lerck, go through his pre-flight check with confident precision. Satisfied that the young man knew what he was doing, Stalnek relaxed. He wondered briefly if he should have told Kevlin he was leaving the ship, then dismissed the idea. Kevlin had been acting strangely since learning that their people had all died. If he spoke with Kevlin now, he’d just get irritated all over again. Better to have his meeting with Magoa without getting himself riled up first.
He leaned his head back and focused on appearing as relaxed as possible as the pilot took them out of the Chameleon and headed for Onddo. Not being a huge fan of small ships, it took more effort than he liked, but for no reason would he ever show fear.
“Oh, shit!” Lerck exclaimed.
Stalnek frowned. “What?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Stalnek, sir, but I think...I mean...,” Lerck trailed off as he stared at a screen on his control panel.
“My patience is at an end,” Stalnek growled, but the very paleness of the pilot’s face as he turned to face him froze the words in his throat.
“The Chameleon is gone, sir,” Lerck said. “It just exploded. There’s nothing left.”
Several questions ran through Stalnek’s mind, but he discarded most of them as being weak. “What caused it?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know, sir,” Lerck said. “As soon as we land, I’ll replay the sensor recordings. Maybe that will tell us something.”
Stalnek almost ordered him to turn around, to go back and be sure, then subsided. What difference did it make. If the ship was gone, it was gone. How it happened didn’t matter. What mattered was that he and this young pilot were the only Brethren left in the Universe.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Falcorans left the cafeteria with Faith and made their way toward the elevators in silence. They were all happy to be together without the stress and worry of the past few days, and were content to enjoy it without the necessity of words. When they reached Tristan’s room they all took the same seats around the table that they’d used before. Faith accepted some cold water from Tristan, knowing she was going to need it if for no reason other than to have something to do with her hands.
“Faith,” Tristan said. “We can feel that you are becoming nervous. Please know that we expect nothing from you.
“I do know that,” Faith said. “It means everything to me, too. I’m nervous because I have to say some things to you that are difficult to say. That’s all.”
“Say them in your own time, in your own way,” Tristan said.
Faith smiled, then took a deep breath. “Okay, first thing I have to tell you guys is that I can’t have children.” Faith took another deep breath, relieved to have that out. She looked at Tristan, Gray, and Jon, but their expressions hadn’t changed. She reached for their emotions, and found only concern, and a bit of sadness. Well, that was understandable. They’d already told her that they craved family. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Cinthy’s laser gun took more than my stomach.”
“Do not tell us that you are sorry for something that was done to you, please,” Tristan said. “We are sad for you, because we can feel how much it hurts you. But children are not going to be an issue, Faith. Please, I ask that you trust me on this.”
Faith nodded, though she didn’t understand what he meant. She supposed he meant they didn’t mind adopting.
“The next thing is, as I told you before, I have a lot of scars. I’m not pretty to look at.” She kept her eyes on the table when she said that, barely noticing when Jon pushed back his chair and stood up.
“Do they look anything like this?” he asked.
She looked up, startled to see him standing with his shirt pulled up, baring a stomach rippling with muscle. She swallowed hard, her mouth going dry, then realized that she was supposed to be looking at the scar. Once she got past the beauty of his sculpted body, she saw that he had a scar that looked a lot like her own, covering an area about twice the size of her fist on one side of his stomach. The scar was shiny, with ridges on the edges and white striations running through it.
“Radiation weapon?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jon replied, as he lowered his shirt and sat back down. “It’s one of the few injuries that our bodies cannot regenerate, or heal quickly. I remember how painful it was, which is why I asked you how much of your body got hit. I wasn’t concerned with how much of your body was scarred, Faith. I was concerned with how much pain you suffered.”
Faith blinked rapidly. She was not going to ruin this by bawling. “Thank you, Jon.”
He smiled at her. It was enough.
“I have nightmares sometimes, as you know,” she continued. “I have an aversion to being touched by strangers. And, I’m prone to panic attacks, though I’ve been able to head those off lately.”
“Is that why you left the Observation Deck that day, when Bubbles shifted in the elevator?” Gray asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “There are some words that set it off if I’m not expecting them, like radiation.”
“Understandable,” Jon said, surprising her with a wink.
“Okay, here’s the final bad thing, but it’s also the biggest,” she said. She took a long drink of her water. “From the first moment I laid eyes on the three of you, my body reacted in a way that I had never experienced before. I felt arousal. And it scared the hell out of me.” She took another drink. “That’s why the nightmares came back.”
“Wait,” Tristan said, frowning. “Your sexual attraction to us caused the nightmares?”
“Yes,” Faith said.
“I’m sorry, Faith,” Tristan said. “I do not understand.”
“I know,” she said with a small sigh. “I’ve only ever had one sexual
experience. So when my body began reacting as though it wanted...that...well, it terrified me.”
Tristan leaned back in his chair as understanding hit him. He’d guessed that she had an issue with the fact that there had been three guards, and there were three of them. But he hadn’t realized it went this deep. “Faith, we would never hurt you,” he began, but she held up one hand.
“I know,” she said gently. “In my head, in my heart, I know you would never hurt me. But that was the only experience I had. It was all I knew. All I could imagine whenever I thought about being with you three. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to insult you. It was just so confusing for me.”
“Please, again, don’t apologize to us for this,” Tristan said. “There is no need.”
Faith nodded, then finished her water and took hold of her courage with both hands. She was almost there. She had just one last thing to say to them, but it was going to be the most difficult. She forced herself to meet Tristan’s gaze.
“Now that I know what not to imagine, I was hoping you guys wouldn’t mind giving me something good to imagine, instead.” She dropped her eyes to the table. “If you still want to after the things I’ve just told you, of course.”
Faith blew out a long breath of relief that she’d gotten through all of that without shedding any tears. When she looked up, she froze, unable to decipher the expression on the men’s faces. It was a disconcerting mix of pleasure and displeasure.
“It’s all right Faith,” Tristan said. “We are just trying not to be insulted that you would think we would change our minds about wanting you because you have a few scars.”
“Its not the scars,” Faith said, surprised they thought that. “I’m not saying I like them, but they don’t bother me all that much. It’s my inability to have children that bothers me most.”
If she hadn’t been able to feel their confusion, it was certainly clear enough to be seen on their faces.
“Faith, that first night on the cutter, when we entered your cabin,” Tristan said. “We noticed that you had covered the mirrors with towels.”
Faith took a deep breath to ease the shock she felt. She hadn’t thought about this, hadn’t prepared herself to admit, or explain it.
“You don’t have to explain, Faith,” Jon said.
She gave him a grateful smile, but it was time to be fully honest with them. “Grace and I weren’t just identical twins. We were what are called mirror image twins. When you guys look in the mirror, you each see yourselves as different from your brothers because your reflection is a flipped version of what you see when you look directly at them. Not counting your eyes, of course. But when I look in the mirror, I see Grace. Exactly. I know she’s gone, and will never come back. I’m not delusional. But when I look in the mirror and see her, a part of me automatically responds as though it’s really Grace standing there. When that happens, I have to accept that she’s gone all over again. That’s very...hard. So I don’t look in the mirror.” Faith paused, then smiled. “I’ve been working on it the last few days though. I decided that it was time for me to stop avoiding things, including mirrors.”
“You are too hard on yourself Faith,” Gray said. “What you’ve been through would have destroyed most people. Yet here you are, still moving forward.”
“Mostly, I think I’m just too damn stubborn to give up,” Faith said with a faint grin.
“Now that it is easy to believe,” Tristan said, lightening the mood a little. “Faith, we love you. You. The person that you are inside. Your mind and heart. The scars on your body, the injuries you’ve suffered, your inability to have children, these are things that have no bearing on our feelings for you. We did not fall in love with the body your soul is housed in. Though I must admit, we have no complaints in that department. We find you to be the most beautiful woman we’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes, really,” Tristan replied. Gray and Jon both smiled and nodded their agreement.
“I think you three are sort of beautiful too.” Her face heated and she dropped her eyes to the table again. “Now what?”
“We would like very much to kiss you,” Tristan said. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Faith said, her pulse speeding up. “I don’t mind at all.”
Tristan stood up, then walked around the table to where she sat. She looked up at him, his bright emerald eyes locked with hers. He held one hand out to her and she took it, letting him help her to her feet, her head tilted back as she continued looking into his eyes. When he reached up with one finger and traced her lips, her entire body shivered, her skin pebbling. She wondered, in a small corner of her mind, how his fingertip on her lips could cause such intense feelings to arc through her body. Then his mouth came down on hers and all rational thought was swept away by the tidal wave of sensation that burst through her.
She’d been kissed before, when she was a teenager. She’d even had a few short term steady boyfriends. Of the handful of young men who’d kissed her, one had been downright gross, and two had lit a faint spark within her. Of those, neither had any real interest in her, and both had gotten angry when she refused to go further than the kiss. That had taught her not to kiss anyone again.
What she felt when Tristan kissed her was like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was shockingly intimate. His lips, his tongue, his taste and scent, his hands on her shoulders, his breath on her cheek, all of it combined to set her blood on fire as it raced through her veins. By the time he ended the kiss she was dizzy and panting, her knees were weak and her entire body was trembling.
She felt Gray and Jon on either side of her, so close that she could feel the heat from their bodies envelop her. She turned her head and looked up into Gray’s brilliant green eyes, a hot shiver racing through her at the expression of unbridled passion on his face. Tristan’s hands on her shoulders urged her slightly toward Gray. A moment later her arms were around Gray’s neck, his mouth on hers, his arms pulling her body close against his. When she felt Jon’s body press against her from behind she moaned softly, unable to contain the intensity of her arousal. His hands slid slowly along the silky fabric at her hips while Gray’s tongue plunged in and out of her mouth in a rhythm as old as time. By the time he lifted his mouth from hers she was panting, whether it was for air, or in need, she wasn’t sure.
“Jon’s turn,” Gray said in a low whisper that vibrated with desire, sending a rush of liquid heat through her core. She turned around in the tight space between Gray and Jon, her body rubbing against theirs, their soft growls of pleasure spiking her self-confidence. She was sandwiched between them, the hard bulge of Gray’s cock pressed into the small of her back, Jon’s equally hard bulge against her stomach as his mouth claimed hers. She shifted back and forth slowly, deliberately caressing them with her body. Their responsive groans gave her a sense of erotic power that heightened her own arousal.
Jon and Gray stepped away from her just enough for Tristan to turn her toward him. Then the three of them held her between them, caressing her gently until she calmed and caught her breath. She looked up into Tristan’s eyes, uncertainty returning in a rush.
“We want you, Faith,” Tristan said, his voice hoarse. “We want you so much we can barely think. But it has to be your choice.”
“Yes,” Faith said at once. “Absolutely. Now.”
She felt all three of them relax against her. “We should take this into your room,” Tristan said. “It would be more comfortable for all of us if Bubbles was in her own bed.”
Faith’s eyes widened, then she smiled, and laughed softly as she spotted Bubbles sitting on her chair, watching them curiously. “Agreed,” she said.
Tristan lifted her into his arms and Jon urged Bubbles onto his shoulder. Gray checked to be sure the corridor was empty, then they speed traveled to Faith’s room next door. Bubbles seemed to understand that they wanted privacy so, after giving Faith a series of goodnight kisses, she went into her lit
tle bed, curled up and went to sleep.
By then Faith’s arousal had cooled enough that she was beginning to feel self-conscious. Tristan pulled her gently into his arms and kissed her deeply, reigniting her passion and inflaming his own.
“We will only go as far as you want,” he said once he got his breath back. “Tell us to stop, and we will.”
Faith nodded quickly in understanding, then pressed herself tightly against him as she raised up on her toes and ran her tongue along his throat, causing his entire body to shudder. He threw his head back and gritted his teeth in an effort to keep himself from coming right then. Once he had himself under control, he kissed her again, then turned her around to face Jon and Gray, and pulled her back against him.
Jon leaned in to kiss her mouth, then trailed kisses along her jaw and down her throat while his hands caressed her breasts. Faith shivered when he lightly pinched her hard nipples, sending a sharp thrill of sensation straight to her clit.
Gray knelt down on the floor in front of her and ran one hand up the inside of her leg to her thigh. She leaned back against Tristan, relying on him to keep her from falling to the floor when her knees threatened to buckle.
“We want you naked,” Tristan whispered into her ear. She nodded, unable to speak through the intense sensations caused by their hands and mouths on her body. The moment she agreed they moved so fast she barely saw them. One moment she was leaning against Tristan fully dressed, then next she was completely naked, the cool air against her skin causing her nipples to harden to the point of pain. Almost as though he sensed her discomfort, Jon wrapped his hot tongue around one nipple while Tristan caressed the other with his fingers.
“You are so beautiful,” Gray murmured as he placed his hands around her ankles and urged her to spread them. Tristan helped by lifting her slightly, then lowering her slowly after Gray spread her legs wide. She felt a frisson of embarrassment knowing that, from his position, he could see everything. But the embarrassment was quickly replaced with anticipation as he ran his hands up her legs, followed by his tongue. Her pussy responded with a rush of heat, which caused Gray to groan with pleasure.
The Falcoran’s Faith Page 25