Pirate Bound: A Prequel (Telepathic Space Pirates)

by Carysa Locke

  Nerves fluttered through Sanah. I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know how.

  I’ll show you.

  “I was simply,” Niall continued, shrugging off whatever had caught his attention, “waiting for this gentleman to lose consciousness.” All three of Niall’s puppets turned to look at Haggerty at the same time. In the next instant, their heads snapped around, their focus fixed on Nayla.

  “Stop!” The word whipped out sharp as a blade and full of reproach. Sanah noticed that only the woman was speaking. Perhaps Niall didn’t have enough power to speak through all three.

  Emotionally distraught people are harder to control, Cannon said. Sanah was having a hard time paying attention to him, but she tried.

  “I’m not going to let him die!” Nayla’s gaze was on Haggerty.

  She’s been using her gift, Sanah realized.

  “You will—”

  “Stop, Niall,” Sanah said. Weariness flooded her, overwhelming the tension that was cutting nauseated swirls through her gut. She couldn’t let this continue. “Just stop. Have you no love for us at all?”

  Her brother looked at her out of that woman’s face, and Sanah felt the sting of his anger against her skin. The woman’s expression crumpled into a look of contempt. “Stop? And allow you to blithely turn our sister over to our enemies? You speak of love, sister, while turning your back on everything we’ve worked for, everything Mother and Father worked for.”

  Good. He’s emotionally off balance as well. That will help. Cannon’s words came faster now. Projecting emotion back at them is a lot like sending a thought to someone else. In fact, most people do it on a subconscious level anyway. It’s how we sense tone and meaning behind telepathic conversations. I want you to—

  He broke off, a sudden tension coming from him.

  “No!”

  Nayla screamed, her helpless pain and anger cutting through Sanah with stabbing intensity. It choked off her breath like a punch to the gut, staggering her. Haggerty’s pain cut to nothingness.

  He was dead, or close to it. They’d run out of time.

  “Time to go,” said Niall, and began dragging Nayla toward the emergency hatch beside the lift, while the two men advanced on Sanah with menace in their eyes and knives in their hands. She backed away, trying to use her shields to push all the conflicting emotions back on them. It didn’t work. Nothing happened.

  What do I do? But Cannon didn’t respond to her frantic question. She felt his focus elsewhere and wondered what was going on. “Niall! Don’t do this.”

  “Good-bye, Sanah,” said one of the men. It rang with a terrible, cold finality.

  She backed away until she felt the wall behind her, and suddenly Dem was there, a blur of movement between her and everyone else in the corridor. Both techs were picked up with telekinesis and thrown against the opposite wall. There was a horrible crunching sound as the lights inset into the wall above them flickered and went out. The knives fell and went skittering across the floor. Fresh pain came in waves against her shields, violent rage rolling over it so that Sanah found herself leaning against the wall, panting as she tried to control it.

  Breathe. Cannon’s voice was back, sounding distracted and labored.

  Where did you go? Even to herself, Sanah’s mental voice sounded panicked.

  I’m sorry. There are reasons why empaths make bad captains. When a crewmember dies, I feel it.

  She tried hard to concentrate on his voice, on words instead of emotion. It must be very difficult to lead like that.

  The pain had gone, the rage, too. A coldness she couldn’t place occupied its place. Empty, dark, and unfeeling.

  It is, at times. But I have a highly capable first mate.

  The sound of a woman’s scream reverberated off the walls. The bodies of the men, twisted and limp, fell to the deck, where they lay in a jumble of broken limbs at odd angles. Nothing came from them now, no Niall, just empty husks, wrecked and discarded. Dem moved toward Leanne.

  Sanah focused on Nayla, saw her stagger back, wide-eyed, from Leanne, who stood tense and gasping, one hand clawing desperately at a blank wall as though seeking purchase. Terror spiked alongside Niall’s rage, and Sanah winced.

  Control it, Cannon said.

  Sanah could only think of her sister. She’s terrified, panicking. Niall’s losing her. Dem, what’s happening?

  Treon. He’s winning, but I don’t know if Leanne will survive it.

  Sanah had a brief flash of Niall and Treon, locked in deadly combat inside the soft flesh of the poor woman’s body. It was too much to hold, too much for anyone to handle. Then Dem was there, his arms going around Leanne as he shielded her with the metaphysical equivalent of his own body.

  Get Nayla out of here.

  Sanah took a stumbling step toward her sister, who suddenly whirled around and dropped to her knees beside Haggerty. Blood soaked into the hem of her dress, but she didn’t notice as she thrust both of her hands against him.

  Sanah, help me. Fear trembled through Nayla’s mental voice, but she radiated a fierce determination.

  He’s alive? Sanah came to stand behind her. She didn’t believe, looking at Haggerty. She sensed nothing, and blood no longer pumped from the knife wound in his abdomen.

  She was no physician, but that was a bad sign, wasn’t it?

  Quiet. I’m concentrating. Could you…block for me? It would help if I wasn’t so nervous.

  Nayla, I don’t think—

  Please, Sanah! Desperation, guilt, an intense hope, all overshadowed with anxiety and fear, made Sanah’s stomach swim in a sickening jolt.

  She pushed it aside. Reaching forward, she placed her hands on Nayla’s shoulders. She took in a breath, and tentatively opened a hole in her shields. Fortunately, it wasn’t the first time she’d done this. It wasn’t blocking out emotions, as Nayla seemed to think, so much as removing them. She found her sister’s fear, and took it into herself. She began to tremble, her fingers digging into the skin beneath her hands. But Nayla felt calmer, steadier as she reached with her Talent into Haggerty, forcing his heart to palpitate, contracting the muscle with her mind. Similarly, air moved down his throat and filled his lungs, inhaling and exhaling in a regular rhythm.

  Odd, but she’d never before been connected to Nayla while she used her Talent. It was fascinating to feel the way she manipulated the cells of his skin, weaving them back together—the cells of his blood, forcing them to reproduce, tripling his body’s production of them, and then doing it again.

  But the longer she worked, the more stress Sanah had to take from her sister and into herself. Her throat tightened with it, her legs becoming shaky, and her breathing labored.

  Let me help.

  Cannon’s presence had an instant effect, soothing and steadying, the tide of emotion falling away.

  Take it in, and then let it go. Don’t keep it bottled up inside yourself. Like this.

  He showed her how, and after a few tries, she was able to do it on her own.

  Once his wound was closed, the torn flesh healed, Nayla gathered her Talent close, building it like energy looping back on itself. It built bigger, greater, until Sanah wondered how her sister’s tiny frame could possible contain so much power.

  Nayla sent a spike straight to Haggerty’s heart. Nothing happened. Nayla let out a shuddering breath, and then did it again. Sanah felt a cold sweat filming over her sister’s skin, felt the exhaustion pulling at her as she gathered her energy yet a third time. She siphoned off the fear and desperation, and as Cannon had shown her, let it go. Then she felt an unexpected rush of…something pass from Cannon, through her, to Nayla. There was a simultaneous inhalation of breath, a bright burst of strength filling Nayla’s tired limbs. Then it exploded out from her, hitting Haggerty’s heart like a metaphysical sledgehammer.

  Incredibly, the heart contracted…and began beating.

  Nayla sagged back, and Sanah hastily knelt to catch her weight. A moment later, another pair of hands was there,
helping to support them both. A current of heat went through her, and she knew it was Dem before she looked up and saw the blue of his eyes, the dark flash of skin and hard line of his jaw.

  “Leanne?” she asked, her voice a rasp.

  “Alive, unconscious, but in possession of her own body. Cannon’s here, now. He’s taking care of her.”

  “Out of the way,” a terse voice said, and Doc pushed his way past, kneeling beside Haggerty with his field kit. He checked for a pulse first, and then shot an unreadable look at Nayla. He ripped open Haggerty’s uniform to examine a wound that was now a freshly healed scar. Doc stared at the puckered length of skin beneath rivulets of drying blood for several long seconds before rocking back onto his heels.

  “Muri,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Impossible.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Nayla asked, anxiety making her tremble as she pulled away from Sanah.

  “Okay?” Doc repeated blankly. He looked at her. “You saved this man’s life. More than that, you brought him back from what was certainly at least a minute and a half of physical death. You brought him back.”

  “I couldn’t let him die for me,” Nayla said. Her voice was as hoarse as Sanah’s. Worse. She closed her eyes, letting exhaustion overtake her.

  Wonder and awe spilled from Doc. “Kiseki yo. Never, not once, did I imagine this was possible. Cannon felt him die.”

  “Doc.” Sanah couldn’t keep silent any longer. He shifted his attention to her briefly, to where she lay against Dem. “We need to keep this quiet, if we can.”

  He looked back at Nayla. “Yes,” he said.

  She could feel his complete agreement.

  “Yes, it would definitely be best to keep this from the crew at large.” He stood up, and Haggerty’s body shifted, lifting effortlessly into the air behind him. “I’ll take him to the infirmary.” Doc shouldered his field kit and offered his hand to Nayla. “You should come as well. Kirell always required a great deal of rest and caloric intake after a healing. I can’t imagine what fuel your body might require after something like this, but I would prefer not to have you pass out, or worse, slip into a coma.”

  Alarmed, Sanah sat up. Dem placed a restraining hand on her arm.

  Doc will care for her. He’s going to keep her in the infirmary overnight, and he’ll see that she receives an infusion of fluids and nutrients. If you go now, you’ll get in his way and make him…even more irritable than usual.

  Honest concern radiated from Doc, concern touched with a protective quality that was almost paternal.

  “Nayla?”

  Her sister looked up, managing a weak smile. “I’m all right, Sanah. I want to go with Doc. I need to make sure Haggerty recovers.”

  Doc’s gaze swept the hallway, one hand supporting Nayla’s arm as she moved to stand beside him. He grimaced, fixing his eyes on Dem. “Leanne?”

  Dem stood, helping Sanah to her feet as he spoke. “Cannon is taking her to the infirmary. He says she seems well, physically, but he’d rather be sure.”

  Doc made a noise in his throat. “Good. Exactly what I would have recommended.” He cast a second look around at the hallway. “We need to clean this up quietly if we’re going to keep attention off Nayla. It’s a little too obvious the blood spilled is more than a man can reasonably lose.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Dem said.

  Doc nodded. “The lift?” he asked.

  “Powered back up.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to try to manage him through the emergency tubes.” With Nayla beside him, Doc started toward the lift with Haggerty in tow.

  “I believe I have some old journals you might find useful,” he was saying to her as the doors closed behind them.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sanah turned to Dem as soon as they were alone. Before she could say anything, his hand was at her face, touching her cheek. The words died before she could form them. His hand slid from her face, down her arm, and she shivered.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Sanah didn’t know how to respond; she didn’t even know if she could speak. Dem’s hand on her arm was distracting in ways she hadn’t anticipated.

  Physical touch naturally enhanced her gift, especially after what she’d just done.

  He was always so carefully controlled; she’d had no idea what lay beneath the surface, not until this moment. The surge of fierce protectiveness might have been something he’d feel regarding any woman on this ship, given the circumstances and his duties. But she didn’t think so. There were layers to the feeling. If she closed her eyes, they moved through her like heated milk with honey, warming her and making her feel…safe and comforted.

  An odd response, given the individual emotions in question; it was hard to delineate and assimilate them while his hand was still on her, but she tried.

  First, there was that protective top layer, edged with tightly controlled violence. The echoes of it still filled the area, coating the floor, walls, and support beams with fear, rage, and…an implacable coldness.

  Beneath that was an intense longing. Lust. Need. Want. A powerful trinity that made it perfectly clear just how intensely Dem desired her. Once discovered, it spilled over everything else, threading through her until her body warmed in response. The intense attraction that both of them had ignored since the moment of their meeting wasn’t going to be so easy to push aside in the future.

  But that wasn’t the final layer. Beneath that were other things. Admiration. Caring. Respect. Pride. Affection. Fear. Uncertainty. Dem genuinely liked her. He didn’t know how to handle it, or what to do about it, but he liked her, and he wanted her.

  For her part, Sanah couldn’t deny the attraction she felt. At the same time, she wanted to know him better. After the last few seconds, she thought she might be starting to.

  “Sanah, answer me.”

  She forced herself to focus on his voice instead of the feelings coming from him. It was difficult, to say the least. Concern had just risen to the surface. Worry and alarm cut sharp and fast, leaving her shaking.

  She needed to let go and step away from him. She needed him to stop touching her, but the emotional resonance between them acted to create the opposite effect; she wanted to be close to him, to savor the things he felt.

  “I…I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Did they hurt you?” Anxiety. Fear. Anger.

  “No. They didn’t have time.” Relief. Gratitude.

  It was becoming difficult to breathe evenly, and her pulse was thrumming in her ears, too fast. Sanah couldn’t think. Dem was crowding her, but his actions weren’t unwelcome. This was something she wanted. She reached up and cupped the side of his face with her hand, felt the jolt of her touch go through him, then through her.

  For a ruthless pirate, Dem chose the oddest time for nobility. She felt him struggle with himself, trying to control what he considered base emotions. She didn’t let him.

  Sanah leaned up until she could brush her lips across his. The effect was immediate, the feeling between them electric. She gasped. The second her lips parted, he gave a low groan, and then his mouth covered hers.

  Exultation caught Sanah by surprise. She hadn’t realized how much part of her had waited for this. What a relief to actually be feeling from him. Finally, that unnatural control of his broke. Desire flashed over her skin like warmth from a solar flare.

  Dem kissed her, and it didn’t matter that they were standing amid echoes of violence. His hands came up her back to thread through her hair, his tongue doing a slow, sensual slide against hers.

  Thorough. That was how Dem kissed. Very slowly, very thoroughly, while he backed her against the wall. His body pressed against her, and she realized they were standing at the same height; Dem’s telekinesis was lifting her up. With no effort at all. Her hands found the width of his shoulders, and she felt anchored. Safe. And utterly desired. It was unlike any encounter she’d ever had. Not that there had been very many, but this
was a definite first.

  “Well, this is a surprise.”

  Treon’s voice was a sudden douse of ice water. Worse, the emotional resonance coming from Dem shut off instantly, leaving Sanah bereft and empty. His body went tense beneath her hand.

  “This seems a strange location for a tryst.” Treon stood in the doorway of the lift. He looked tired, his eyes half lidded and surrounded by shadows, his shoulder propped against the lift door. As he looked around the scene, taking in the pool of drying blood and the motionless, broken bodies of the two techs, hot embarrassment washed over Sanah.

  He was right.

  Dem stepped back, gently lowering her back down the wall until her feet touched the floor.

  “Treon,” he said. His tone was even and mild. But when Dem turned, the look he gave his brother had a lethal edge. Sanah put a hand on his back, where Treon couldn’t see.

  He looks unwell, she said on a tight mental thread.

  Dem swept Treon with his gaze. He frowned. Yes. He said. I would have to agree.

  “I would ask your help in cleaning up this mess,” he said aloud, “but you don’t look up to it.”

  Treon immediately straightened away from the lift. Affronted pride wafted off him, twisted with faint embarrassment and a bone-deep level of fatigue he couldn’t hide from Sanah.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of performing a menial task.” He arched one black brow. “Just because I’ve interrupted your flirtation, that’s no reason to insult me.” He stepped into the hallway, clearly determined to pretend everything was fine. Sanah didn’t need her empathy to see that.

  Dem, she said, I think you’d better call in some of your dogs.

  Why? He seemed genuinely surprised at the suggestion.

  Because this still needs to be dealt with, and your brother’s about to collapse. He came here for your help; he just has too much damn pride to ask.

  “Treon,” she said, drawing his gaze to her. “What happened with Niall?”