“Trask?”
“Yes, Lana?”
“Hiss, boom, bang.”
He didn’t reply.
The pain medication had kicked in. “Do you have more of that stuff,” she asked, her speech slightly slurred.
“Why?” Chandra asked, sounding amused. “It seems to be working.”
“Not for now, for later, when the big scary alien flying this thing decides to finish his lesson.”
“Don’t even think about it,” came the low rumbled warning from up front. “Once she’s healed, she’s going to feel every smarting swat.”
Chandra squeaked as the warriors in the back chuckled harder. Lana suddenly felt a tingling warmth spread through her insides. He didn’t hate her so if he bothered to spank her, and he’d called her paulova. God, she’d missed that.
The drug was coursing through her veins now. She could tell by the fogginess in her head and by the way she couldn’t keep her eyelids open. But they didn’t keep her from smiling before she drifted away.
A SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU swept over her upon waking and staring into painfully bright lights.
“She’s awake, brother.” There was a pause, then his handsome face with the beautiful aquamarine eyes blocked out the light as he bent over her. “How are you, Lana? Still groggy?” Adria, rather than Trask asked.
“Yes, a bit. Where am I?”
“The clinic in town,” she replied as she moved away.
The overhead lights pierced into her brain again. “Must it be so bright in here? I’m being blinded.”
“Pardon me. It helps us with an examination if we can see. I’ll dim them.”
Lana relaxed as soon as the lights went from excruciatingly bright to only mildly irritating.
“You’re free to go as soon as you wake up fully.”
“My arm?”
“Healed.” At the familiar rumble from her other side, she rolled her head. Trask stood beside her bed.
She raised her arm. It looked normal, not bent or twisted, no swelling, and it didn’t have a scratch on it. “How is this possible?”
“We put you in the healing accelerator delivered only last week. It mended the fractures in your arm—both the radius and ulna were snapped in three pieces—and it healed the rope burn on your skin as well as a wealth of scratches, cuts, and bruises.”
“Amazing.”
“Has she been cleared by Ellar?” Trask asked his sister impatiently.
“Yes.”
He nodded once. “I’ll take her home.”
Adria looked up, glanced at the door then turned back, her expression grim. “But...well, she has a friend here. He’s been waiting since she was brought in and says he will be taking her home.”
“Beck is here?” she asked of Adria, feeling a wave of fury emanating from Trask, and not having the guts to look in his direction.
“Yes, and he’s been worried, pacing the floor constantly.”
“Tell him I’ll be right out.”
A growl rumbled from beside her.
“Brother...”
“Leave us.”
“But—”
“Now, Adria.” His order, issued in an ominous tone, left no room for misinterpretation. She whirled and headed for the door.
“Wait!” Lana cried. “You can’t leave me.” She left the “with him” she’d intended off for the same reason she wanted Adria to stay.
With a sympathetic glance over her shoulder, but not stopping, she explained, “I’ll tell Mr. Kincaid you’re awake and doing fine.”
Then the coward abandoned her to the looming, growling, seven-foot-tall irate alien.
“Who is that man to you?” he demanded to know as soon as the door closed and they were alone.
“A friend, like she said. And my boss.”
“I saw him carrying you on the street not long ago, and now he’s pacing the waiting area like a worried mate. Answer me truthfully. Do you have feelings for him? If so, I will go and ask him to see to your punishment.”
“As I said, he’s a friend, and no one is punishing me, Trask. Not Beck, and not you.”
He leaned over her, fists planted on either side of her body, and his eyes flashing with blue-green indignation seared into her. “You deserve to have your backside blistered for the stunt you pulled.”
“Yes, you mentioned that earlier, but you won’t.”
With a humorless laugh he challenged, “You think not?”
“You don’t have the right. Not that you ever did.”
He arched a brow but said nothing. He didn’t have to. He’d spanked her, yes, but as punishment went, for her, it was very ineffective. Having his big hands on her bare skin, swatting her butt, warming it, bringing a scrumptious sting to spots very close to other places which vibrated and tingled pleasurably was hardly a deterrent. She’d enjoyed it, much to her dismay at first. She’d wiggled and squirmed, groaning as her body heated, and, yes, begged for more, especially when his fingers dipped between her thighs and slid over her wet pussy, more proof, not that he needed it, how much she liked being over his knees.
He leaned down, his elbows bending until he was in her face. “What the hell were you thinking going out there, Lana?”
“I wanted to help, and I did. Ask the medic I assisted for nearly three straight hours.”
“The end doesn’t justify the means. I think that’s an Earth saying that applies here, don’t you?”
This time she stayed silent. It was on the tip of her tongue to demand he ask the injured she’d helped if the means justified the end. She guessed they’d say hell, yes. But he was ticked at her, in overprotective warrior mode and wouldn’t be reasonable right not. She kept quiet rather than poke the already-angry alien.
“Nothing to say?”
“You’ve said enough I think, General. Besides, you’ve already decided my guilt.”
“Lana...”
“I helped, Trask,” she snapped, coming off the bed enough her nose nearly touched his. “I’m not the type to sit by wringing my hands and waiting when I can be of assistance. Rather like you.”
“We aren’t discussing me. We’re discussing a disobedient, untrained female, impersonating a medic.”
“A technician, I never said I was a medic.”
“You dare argue semantics when you took someone else’s uniform and boarded a shuttle when I specifically told you to stay put.”
“Would I be praised if I were a man and had done the same?”
“That is not relevant either. You aren’t a man. And further, what about wandering away from the triage site? Your supervisor for today said she told you not to. You defied not only me but her.”
“I was just—”
“And you wandered close to the site of a still-smoldering mine!”
“Trask, I—”
“Tarus followed you there, to see what you were about.”
“I know, but—”
“And your recklessness ended with both of you up to your necks in trouble.”
“Will you stop interrupting and allow me to finish a sentence?” she finally shouted in exasperation.
Surprised by her outburst, he raised a black brow and inclined his dark head.
“Thank you,” she said in a more modulated tone as she lay back on the table. “If you recall, I’m a scientist. And I do have some expertise around holes in the ground spewing heat, rocks, and other debris. I thought I might find some clues as to the cause of the explosion.”
“We already know what caused it.”
“You do? What was it?”
He glowered at her before he straightened. She could tell he was hesitant to share.
“Someone caused this, not something,” she guessed. “Am I right? Why would someone do such a thing? Who would be so cruel? There were dozens of people working at the site.”
“Good question. I suspect the Purists are behind it somehow.”
She frowned. The Purists were vehemently against the treaty and furious over what
they felt strongly was a superior Primarian species with inferior humans. “I’m a geologist, not a military expert, but do craters pop up after Primarian underground bombs are employed?”
“When strong enough, it’s possible.”
“And this one was strong enough?”
“Yes, except it wasn’t a single explosion, but a series of them.”
“I need to go back. I think there might be more to this.”
“You’re not going back. It’s too dangerous.”
“But Trask...”
“No, dammit. You may not want to be my mate any longer, but I won’t have you exploring unstable blast sites surrounded by craters spewing rocks, ash, and lava.”
“Is that confirmed?”
“Yes. It seems we had the worst-case scenario. Therefore, the site is off-limits until the research team, which you are still not a part of, tells us otherwise.” He walked away, pausing at the door. “I need to get going, and your friend is waiting.” The last words came out in an ugly tone.
With him leaving, all the raw feelings she felt for him surged to the surface. A confession was on the tip of her tongue because after all this time she still loved him and didn’t think she could take the separation anymore. But she hadn’t changed and still wasn’t what he needed in a mate. The words evaporated, and she remained silent.
“I’ll speak to Kincaid. I know him from council meetings. I’ll make sure he intends to see you home.”
She nodded, her heart aching.
“Goodbye, Lana,” he said in a flat voice. “Be well, and please, so we don’t have to go through anything like this again, stay out of trouble.”
He left, and she lay back, choking on her misery and failing to hold back her tears.
Chapter Fifteen
LANA FOUND HERSELF in the same hard chair, at the same cold metal table, staring at the same council with the same frowning faces three days later. It was déjà vu all over again, except instead of five people determining her fate, there were six. That the new addition had a long white beard and wore the requisite robe of a Primarian elder did not shift things in her favor. Another human or a woman of either species would have increased her odds of a not guilty from zero to none at least. Of course, the council would be made up of all men; the colony was brimming with testosterone.
Her stomach felt sick. It had since the dour-faced warrior had come to her job site. “You will come with me, human female,” was all the explanation she’d gotten until Beck arrived an hour later.
According to her boss, news of her detainment was spreading quicker than a case of the snots in a one-room schoolhouse. Yeah, Beck sure knew how to turn a phrase, but it couldn’t be any clearer. By the end of the day, everyone on Terra Nova, and most likely Primaria, would know she was the prime suspect in the mine explosion although she didn’t have opportunity or motive.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s not good, darlin’. Some of us don’t believe for a minute you were involved; we’ve asked to let the investigation play out. But there were twenty-three men injured; one is still critical. And after months of work, the mine site is useless. Another location will have to be found and the process started again, from scratch, which puts us all behind schedule, including the Primarians who will be stuck protecting, feeding, and nurturing our dependent colony much longer than anyone anticipated. Therefore, the people don’t want answers as much as they want someone to pay.”
“Me?” she squeaked, tears flooding her eyes. “But I didn’t do it. I went there to help.”
“I believe you, Lana, but this is a small community and, in many ways, still a frontier. You’re a loner, mostly sticking to yourself since you got here. They don’t know you; many consider you an outsider. Barker is calling for your head, as is the mining contractor who’s out a small fortune. All of this lends itself to a lynch mob mentality.”
“What does this mean for me?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’ll do what I can to protect you, darlin’, but unfortunately, I disqualified myself the last time because I’m your friend. With the stakes higher, I won’t get a vote this time, either. The elders are still dealing with the pain of the mine blast on their planet a year ago. You’ll get no sympathy there.”
“And the others?”
“Mr. Pruitt seems to be siding with me, believing innocent until proven otherwise is still the way things should go even when we’re far away from home. Jonathan Thomas is the other councilman. I don’t know the man well enough to get a sense of what he’s thinking, which for a communications engineer is a bit ironic.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I have to hope he’ll side with old-fashioned Earth justice like Mr. Pruitt. And Trask can break the tie. He can’t possibly believe I’d do such a thing.”
“Lana, Trask won’t be voting either. Barker pressed for it, and everyone agreed, if I’m your friend and can’t be impartial, someone you were intimate with won’t be either, whether the bias is in your favor, or if he’s holding a grudge for the way things ended.”
“But that means it’s a hung jury. I’d have to be re-tried or set free, right?”
“No. According to the bylaws we adopted for the colony, a deadlock goes to a vote—by the people.”
She stared at him, dread building inside her. She’d been reclusive, except for her weekly bar nights with Beck. His crew knew her, and she’d been friendly enough toward the cashier at the general store, but her other interactions had been turning down men for dates.
Closing her eyes, she whispered, “I am so fucked.”
A knock on the door made her jump.
“Easy, darlin’,” he murmured as he went to answer it. She didn’t look to see who it was; did it matter?
“They’re ready to begin.”
When she looked up, a tear overflowed and rolled down her cheek. “I’m scared, Beck. What can they do to me? They punish criminals on Primaria with public floggings—twenty, sometimes, forty lashes. For the worst crimes, they send them into exile. My God, Beck. I’d take one hundred of the first over the last because, where would I go?”
Throughout her frenetic rant, images of being cast out of the city forced to live on her own somewhere, like in the jungle where she’d been captured that long-ago day. Hot, damp, unbearable conditions, with her only companions slimy, slithery, squishy things all around her; she couldn’t do it. Unable to sit still, and, at the same time, sick with dread over the unfair sentence she would undoubtedly face, she wrapped her arms around her belly and rocked while she sobbed uncontrollably.
Beck pulled her out of her chair and into his arms.
“Aw, darlin’, don’t cry. I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you. And no matter the history with your general, I can’t see him standing by and letting it happen, either.”
It sounded nice, but he was one man. And for all their talk of human autonomy on Terra Nova, the Primarian Warriors still called the shots. As for her general, considering how they left things a few days ago, she’d burned that bridge to ashes. Her hands clutched his work shirt as she continued to weep. “What am I going to do if they find me guilty?”
“Hush, now, we’ll figure it out.”
The door slid open behind her. She knew who it was without looking because the air went electric.
“What’s going on in here?” Trask demanded in a low growl.
“Nothing,” Beck answered for her. “She just needs a minute.”
“If nothing is wrong,” he persisted, his voice harsh and tight, “why is she crying?”
“Why do you think?” Beck snapped. “She’s frightened out of her mind. This is insane. You know she didn’t set those charges in the mine.”
Other than her ragged, tearful breathing, the room went quiet for a moment.
“Lana?”
She sniffled before she muttered miserably into Beck’s chest, “What?”
“Come here.”
She shook her head. Though she wanted nothing more than to go to
him, he hadn’t agreed when Beck defended her. What if he thought she’d done it? It would kill her to look at him and see condemnation in his eyes, so she kept her face hidden in her friend’s shirt the fabric soaked through to the skin by her tears.
“Can you let her go?” he barked at Beck.
“I’m not keeping her from you. It’s her decision.”
Hands curled around her shoulders. “Let go of Kincaid and come to me, paulova.”
No fair; Trask fought dirty. Her resistance crumbled, and she went from the arms of one big man into another—but it was where she most wanted to be. She slid her arms around his waist and up his back and clung to him, pouring out all the loneliness and desolation that had weighed on her in the past year.
He scooped her up and moved to a chair where he sat with her in his lap, arms encompassing her as he rocked her back and forth. Minutes passed without a word spoken. Lana tried to calm herself, so she could absorb everything about this moment, his strength, the warmth of his body, always a degree or two above her own, and how good it felt to be held by him again. There was also his scent. Once, she could smell him on her skin, but that faded along with the color of his eyes in hers. While apart, she tried to find something like it. She’d gone to fifty different stores and tried every man’s cologne, soap, and even shaving cream, but nothing came close to the fresh, clean, masculine scent of her general.
“We need to go in, Lana. You must answer to the charges.”
“I don’t want to.”
His arms flexed. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
“I know,” she whispered as she rubbed her eyes and sat up, but that’s as far as he let her go.
“I have a solution to this mess, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
Turning bleary eyes on him, she read concern, but also determination in his beautiful, troubled eyes. “I trust you, Trask. I’ll do whatever you recommend.”
“Come back to Primaria with me—as my mate.”
Defying the General Page 28