Kirek appeared genuinely puzzled. “Why would my family impress you?”
“Tessa and Kahn are legends.” She wouldn’t have been as impressed by royalty or presidents. But she admired adventurers and explorers. People who soared into the unknown and blazed trails. Perhaps she was romanticizing the Challenge, but she’d grown up reading the story in her history books.
He shrugged. “Dora and Zical are legends, too. They reprogrammed the Sentinels which guard the galaxy against the Zin. Xander and Alara saved the Federation from the virus. Everyone did their duty.”
“But they succeeded where others could not and in spectacular fashion. Why haven’t you asked them to help you with the Zin?”
“Zin spies are always watching. I have a better chance of slipping through their defenses alone, on a small ship, with strangers.” He spoke easily. “I’m just as proud of my mother’s cooking as I am of the rest of the family.”
As she bit into the salad and the tangy sweet taste spread over her tongue, she grinned. “She taught you well.”
“Thank you. Since I’ve been gone so much, she’s been cooking for Dora’s twins and Tessa and Kahn’s two boys.” His mouth softened as he spoke about his family, sending warning signals straight to her brain.
She knew Rystani valued their families. She’d read about their old-fashioned values. She realized that as sure as old Sol kept shining, Kirek would want a family of his own one day. The need was stamped all over his handsome face. For his sake, she should maintain a distance. Because clearly, he was interested in her. There could be no mistaking the heat in his eyes. But she valued her independence way too much to hook up with a Rystani male, one who took his “hooking up” way too seriously.
“How does Tessa find time to be a mom and run a planet?” she asked as she dug into a potato.
“My mother and Shaloma help. So does Alara. Tessa still frequently sneaks away for lunchtime picnics with Kahn and the boys.” Kirek made their life sound practically idyllic.
“Do you think Tessa is bored with her life?” she asked.
Kirek laughed. “She adores those boys. She’s trying to talk Kahn into another child. She wants a girl. I’m sure Tessa will get her way—she usually does when it comes to her husband. He loves her with his whole heart—even when they’re fighting. Maybe especially when they are fighting.”
“Now, that I would like to see.”
“Come to Mystique and I’ll introduce—”
“Captain.” Leval interrupted their meal over the com.
“Yes?”
“If we maintain this heading, we’ll exit the cloud within twenty Federation minutes. Already our sensors are picking up indications the Kraj ship is waiting for us.”
So Kirek’s assessment of the Kraj tactics had been correct. They hadn’t given up. Neither would she. “Change direction, twenty degrees to starboard.”
“Aye, Captain.” He paused. “The Kraj ship is turning with us.”
“I’m on my way to the bridge. Find an option to get us to Dakmar without confronting the Kraj ship.” She stood and took a potato with her as Kirek cleaned away their implements. “Thanks for the meal.”
On the bridge, Angel discovered the situation to be exactly as Leval had described it. The Kraj ship hadn’t entered the cloud and remained on the fringe of their sensor readings. While her first officer piloted, Frie monitored the data and shook her head in disgust.
“Kraj sensors must be more sensitive than ours. They seem to know exactly which way we’re heading but are no doubt afraid to follow us into this dust storm. With the Raven towing the Vogan ship, the Kraj are much faster. They can wait in safety and cut us off when we emerge.”
Since they’d used up the Raven’s booster fuel to secure their salvage, Angel’s options were dwindling. “Can we lose them if we go farther into the clouds?”
“I don’t know.” Frie’s hands flew over the console. “If you plan to go in deeper, let me increase the shields first.”
“Do it.”
Apparently Kirek had finished his kitchen duties, because he appeared on the bridge. He glanced over Frie’s shoulder at the console but didn’t comment. He looked like he wanted to make a suggestion but pressed his lips together and remained silent.
“Shields will drain power a little. Nothing we can’t handle,” Leval reported.
Angel nodded. “Understood.”
“Shields are now at full strength,” Frie said.
Leval kept a steady tone. “Captain, the Kraj ship is closing fast.”
As if determined to hold back a comment, Kirek now had his lips pressed together so tight, they’d turned white. With every muscle taut, it was obvious he wanted to say something, yet he didn’t violate her edict to remain quiet while he was on her bridge.
“Suggestions?” When her crew didn’t answer, she included him in her glance.
He didn’t hesitate. “Let’s cut through the center of the dust.”
Frie gasped. “We can’t. Our shields aren’t meant to—”
“I can calibrate them to a higher efficiency level.” Kirek looked at her for permission.
“How long will your modifications take?” Angel asked.
He glanced at the vidscreen. “If we steer toward the center cluster now, I should be done before we arrive.”
“Should be?” Leval asked.
“It’ll be close,” Kirek admitted.
Angel took a deep breath and released it in a whoosh of air. Since she’d decided to follow Kirek into the Andromeda Galaxy, she would have to trust him, his skills, and his timing. While she hadn’t expected to have to do this so soon, she had few choices open to her. Fighting the Kraj with the Vogan ship in tow was not a viable option. She wasn’t willing to hand Kirek over to his enemy. So they had no choice but to flee.
After she gave her permission to modify the shields, she’d expected to have to unlock the computer codes she’d installed to keep him out of her systems. But Kirek didn’t even move to the control panel for direct access to the computer. Instead, he remained still and closed his eyes, as if going into some kind of trance.
Angel exchanged a long glance with Frie, who raised an eyebrow. Then Frie’s gaze focused on her monitor and surprise caused her to stare then blink hard several times.
“Report.” Angel requested softly, unwilling to pull Kirek from whatever he was doing. However, later she intended to ask how he’d so easily bypassed her codes.
Frie rubbed her chin, leaning closer to her vidscreen as if to watch more carefully. “Captain, I’ve never seen this kind of configuration.”
“Will the shields hold?” Leval steered deeper into the thick of the dust cloud.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how he’s altering the systems without touching the controls.” Clearly fascinated, Frie didn’t even look up from her systems.
But Angel took a moment to glance at Kirek. He appeared more relaxed than she’d seen him since he’d come aboard. Whatever he was doing, he was right at home with their systems, displaying ultimate confidence in the casual tilt of his head and the squared set of his shoulders, fully assured in his ability to alter her computer.
Leval spared a glance from the vidscreen to Angel. “Ten seconds to contact with the thickest dust.”
“Kirek?” Angel asked softly.
“Almost there.”
“Five seconds.” Leval ticked down the count.
“Shield status?” Angel turned to Frie.
“One hundred and forty percent and climbing.” She bit her bottom lip. “We need one sixty.”
“One sixty-five point eight three,” Kirek corrected.
“Two seconds.” Leval kept his tone even as if he had no worries at all and complete faith in Kirek.
Angel held her breath and hoped she looked as calm as her crew. But her heart pounded. The hull groaned as it withstood enormous bombardment from the stray particles.
“Shields at one fifty. One sixty.”
“We�
�re in the center.”
“Kirek’s extended the Raven’s shields around the Vogan ship.” Frie’s tone rose in awe. “There is no way our computer system can do what the monitor says it’s doing. Even if he could force all our power into the shield, we’d be short energy by a factor of two.”
Leval piloted through dust so thick, the viewport looked as if they flew through a sandstorm. The hull held. “The energy has to be coming from somewhere or the dust outside would penetrate our shield.”
If the shield failed, the hull would be breached, and they’d lose pressure and explode. Angel looked at Frie. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“She’s correct.” Kirek jumped into the conversation without opening his eyes.
Angel assumed she could now safely ask questions. “Exactly what have you done to my ship?”
“I’ve tweaked the shields by routing power straight to the drives.”
“Tweaked?”
Her chief engineer frowned. “Captain, he’s done a lot more than tweak.”
Angel could hear the puzzlement in Frie’s voice. Obviously more was going on than normal engineering could account for. The unknown factor was Kirek. She looked to him for answers.
“I added my psi to the force field.” He spoke as casually as if he’d adjusted the thermostat.
“But you said your psi was damaged.”
“It is.”
Frie snorted. “If he’s damaged, I’d like to see him at full strength.”
“We’re shooting out the back side of the dust now,” Lavel reported.
“Any sign of the Kraj ship?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.” Angel forced her gaze off Kirek. “Set a course for Dakmar.”
“Course plotted and laid in. Expected arrival … late tomorrow morning. You have time for some shut-eye, Captain, but since the spare cabin is filled with cargo, you’ll have to find quarters for Kirek.”
Chapter Five
LEVAL WAS RARELY subtle, and this time was no different. Usually Angel didn’t crowd her copilot’s shift, leaving the decisions to him. With a nod, she handed command back to her able first officer, knowing he’d call her if anything else unusual came up.
Angel left the bridge and wasn’t a bit surprised when Kirek followed. Space on the Raven was at a premium. As husband and wife, Leval and Frie shared the largest cabin. Petroy’s quarters were tiny because he was such a loner; he’d insisted on his own private space when he’d joined her crew.
She had much to think about—and not just where to find quarters for her guest. Kirek was such an enigma. He displayed unusual abilities with such casual modesty that he appeared unassuming—yet she suspected he might be manipulating them all like a master puppeteer. Still, she couldn’t help wondering what else he could do—and she didn’t mean with his psi. Between his saving her ship and the special heat in his eyes that seemed to warm her straight to her core, he’d succeeded in imprinting his presence on her mind.
She couldn’t recall the last time a man had fascinated her like he did. That made her interested. Too bad he was Rystani—their no-divorce policy was positively uncivilized.
But Angel wasn’t accustomed to having good things dumped in her lap. She’d worked hard to scrape together the credits to enter the card game where she’d won the Raven, worked harder still to overhaul the ship’s systems to keep her running.
So when a perfect man like Kirek—who could have been anywhere in the universe—happened to turn up on her salvage, offering her a prize of all prizes to help him, her wariness increased. It was almost as if she’d been dealt four aces off the top of the deck.
So who’d stacked the cards? She knew enough about his powerful and wealthy family to know the Raven must be a slow, uncomfortable tub to him. No doubt, Kirek was accustomed to food materializers, sentient computers, and the best starship designs in the galaxy. Supposedly he needed her to help him enter Dakmar undercover, but with his connections, he could have made better arrangements.
She stopped and spun on her heel so suddenly, only his lightning reflexes allowed him to halt in time to prevent him from bumping into her. But she’d wanted to catch him off guard. “Why didn’t Tessa arrange for you to go undercover?”
“Due to the family connection, any arrangement she makes might be uncovered by Zin spies.” Kirek answered immediately, but not without a sheepish look.
“I’m not sure I follow. I thought the Zin couldn’t get past the Sentinels that guard our galaxy.”
“The Zin have coveted Federation space for a millennium. What is not well known is that the Zin once lived here. Before they left, they set traps. One of those was on the Jarn world. They changed the Jarn DNA and made them slaves. While the Jarn are now free, other races like the Kraj may work for them—willing or not.”
“That’s why you didn’t kill the Kraj—they might be unwilling slaves to the Zin?”
“Yes. If Tessa, Kahn, Dora, Zical, Xander, and Alara came along or helped me, we’d have a much higher chance of being spotted.”
“But the Kraj have found you. Why not call in help now?”
“Because it’s easier for a small ship like the Raven to disappear again in hyperspace after we leave Dakmar.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“If I asked, they would all help. But I don’t want to endanger families. My relatives all have children.” His voice softened as he spoke of them.
He came from a big happy family that looked out for one another. She suppressed a stab of jealousy by reminding herself that she was independent and self-sufficient because she’d learned to stand on her own from an early age.
“How do you think the Kraj ship found you?”
His eyes flashed, and she could see he’d already considered the problem. “Either someone in my last port or the ship that dropped me on the Vogan ship recognized me, or the Kraj intercepted one of my messages, or I was betrayed by the man who sold you the information about the salvage. For the duration of the mission, I don’t plan to make any communications with my home world. I’ll have to ask for the same commitment from your people.”
“Frie and Leval don’t have family except each another. Petroy is a loner.”
“That leaves you.”
“It’s not a problem.”
He slanted a shoulder against a wall, thrusting one hip slightly forward. His tone changed to a husky murmur, increasing the intimacy of his already suggestive tone. “We’ll have to depend on one another for conversation.”
Wow. For a warrior, the man knew how to flirt. While she might be suspicious of drawing four aces, she wasn’t about to toss in a winning hand. She’d made it clear to him she wasn’t marriage-minded and now saw no reason not to explore the possibility of knowing him better. She leaned very close to him and enjoyed watching his irises dilate and his nostrils flare. Using her psi to lift her body with null grav, she rose until her lips almost brushed his cheek.
He held perfectly still, watching her with a crooked and pleased grin.
She whispered into his ear. “Somehow, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about a lack of conversation.”
Before he had a chance to respond beyond a slight widening of his eyes, with a flick of her psi she dropped to her feet, spun, and started to walk away, making certain to sway her hips just a bit more than necessary—and was quite satisfied with his reaction.
She’d taken two steps when his hand closed over her wrist. With a predatory gleam in his eyes, he tugged her against his chest, and she barely restrained a pleased chuckle. Resisting didn’t cross her mind. In fact, she couldn’t have been more thrilled that he’d taken the initiative. There was something exciting about a man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to pursue it that got her blood pumping and her pulse racing.
And the Rystani did have a great chest. With his broad shoulders and powerful arms, he really possessed an incredible physique. She knew Rystani men were all built like warriors—but Kirek wa
s the only Rystani she’d seen up close. As a woman who appreciated well-made engineering and masculine lines, she couldn’t help but savor the contours of his hard muscles beneath her palms. At her touch, he dropped his psi shield, and she could feel the thump of his heart and the heat that radiated from him, upping her own temperature.
If the simple act of touching his chest was causing her mouth to go dry and her pulse to jump into hyperdrive, she figured a kiss would shoot her straight out of the dust nebula. His hands closed about her waist, holding her gently, and she half expected him to lift her to him, but he didn’t. Tilting back her head, she caught his eye, and at the sparks in his, her breath caught. They’d gone from zero to light speed in less than seconds, and her thoughts swirled.
He’d been hinting that he wanted her almost from the moment they’d met.
She’d taken his hint and raised the stakes. Would he fold, call, or raise?
Locking his blue gaze on hers, he lowered his head until his lips stopped an inch from hers. Then he waited … waited for her to close the remaining distance.
Oh, yeah. He was tempting, seducing. Not taking her for granted.
Perfect.
She’d wanted to know if kissing him was as good as talking to him, as good as looking at him. Past experience told her his kiss might be nothing but a pair of deuces. But at the first touch of his lips, she knew he wasn’t bluffing.
His kiss was exactly what she liked.
Not too soft. Not too hard. He applied the right amount of pressure to take charge, yet gave her wiggle room. She used it to wrap her arms around his neck and part her lips. While her fingers explored his thick neck and silky hair, she ached to press her breasts against his heat and fire more of her senses, but his hands held her in place, allowing no more than their lips to touch.
She inhaled, and he smelled like fresh-mowed grass after a spring rain. He tasted like ginger—not too tart, not too sweet, but with enough bite to make her want … more.
Again she attempted to lean into him. But he didn’t budge, holding her still. Right where he wanted her.
Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest Page 6