Rian stepped in, looking exhausted and stressed. She shot to her feet to greet him. He was paler than usual, and his blue eyes had half-circles beneath. The door slid shut behind him. She paused a couple of feet from where he stood, frozen by the look on his face. His expression was a mix of fear, anger, and desire.
“Rian,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“They’re talking about a court-martial,” he said, his voice low and angry.
Shock slammed into Lily’s chest. “Why?”
“I responded to their hail. I opened a comm link. I should’ve just fired.”
“They can’t be serious. They can’t court-martial you for that.”
“They can,” he said. He took a step closer to her. There was an unfamiliar, almost feral look in his eyes, one that made Lily’s heart skip a beat, but she stayed put.
“But it’s just talk, right?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “There’s more.” He took a deep breath. “The Defiant is being taken out of service. We’re changing course for Kevnar, and the crew is being reassigned. A battleship is going to patrol our territory until the Nym is dealt with.”
“Where will you go? You’ll be the captain on the battleship?”
“No,” he said and looked away for a moment. “I’m being reinstated as a commander. I’ve been posted to Kevnar, and I’ll be taking an executive officer position.”
He was being demoted, and he wasn’t even going to be on a ship. Lily’s hands balled into fists and she fought back tears of guilt and anger at this new injustice. “That’s not fair,” she protested. “They’re wrong. You had the guts to talk to them and you actually managed to destroy their ship. You should still be a captain.”
“Fleet doesn’t see it that way. It’s not just the Nym. They don’t like how I handle certain things. They refuse to see that you can’t look at everything in black and white when you’re in the star lanes these days. Things have changed since the admirals were out in space.” He relaxed a little, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “Lily, the Nym—I had to find out what they wanted, even though I already knew.”
“Me.”
He shook his head. “Not just you. I won’t let that happen.”
Rian wouldn’t let that happen. Not Fleet. Him.
“I think they’re planning an invasion into Commons space,” he continued. “I told Fleet, and they said they’re always planning an invasion. But this is different. I know it is. They don’t believe me.” He moved a little closer to her.
“I believe you,” she said.
He closed the short distance between them and gathered her in his arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “And they’re figuring out what’s going on with us,” he said, his voice strained. “Technically, they can’t punish either of us, but Admiral Kentz said I should ‘re-examine my personal relationships with others.’ He saw my comm logs.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know I was going to cause so much trouble for you.”
He tilted her face up. “Don’t be sorry,” he said firmly. “Any trouble I get into is worth it. You’re worth it. And you’ll be on Kevnar, too, so this isn’t all bad news.”
She debated whether or not to tell him she was falling in love with him, but something held her back. This wasn’t the right time—not with his career in jeopardy, largely on her account. “Rian,” she started.
“Mm?” he said against her hair.
She pulled away slightly so she could face him. “All that’s happened—” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to go back. I mean, I know I can’t, but I don’t want to anyway. There’s nothing left for me there. I want to be here.” She took a deep breath. “With you.” That was as close as she could get right now to confessing she loved him.
He seemed surprised, then pleased. “I don’t want you to go, either.” There was a palpable ache in his voice. A wistful sigh ruffled her hair. “Lily—I’ve told you how important my career is to me. It was the only thing in my life that kept me going.” His grip tightened around her. “But all that’s changed since I met you.” He looked down at her and raised a hand to brush away a tear Lily didn’t know was sliding down her face. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted hoarsely. “It’s a lot of things. The Nym. Your demotion.”
A hint of a smile ghosted across his lips. “Technically I was never a captain. I’m just being reassigned to a position that was available to me before. It’ll be an adjustment, not being in the star lanes, but I’ll get used to it.”
“Fleet should have given you a chance,” Lily protested.
“They did. They don’t like how I run things. I can’t change that, and I’m—well, I’m not fine with it yet, but...” He drifted off and pressed his lips to her forehead, and despite its chasteness, Lily couldn’t suppress a shiver.
“I’d rather be with you,” he finally finished. “I don’t know what we can call what we have, but I want it to continue.” His hands slid under her pajama top and caressed the small of her back. “I need you.” He softly kissed a trail down her cheek to her neck. “I want you.”
Lily’s eyes closed, her breath catching when Rian’s lips found the sensitive spot under her ear. She angled her head to kiss him, but he stiffened and loosened his hold on her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
The words yanked Lily back to reality. Her body protested at his stepping away and it took a few seconds for her brain to form a cohesive response. Irritation at the interruption, followed by amusement, colored her words, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “I know,” she affirmed. Taking a fistful of his shirt, she pulled him back to her. “And you’re going all beta male on me and overthinking this.” She stood up on her toes and kissed him fiercely. He immediately responded, lifting her off the floor. “My room,” she gasped. “It’s that way.”
Her bed was unmade and there were some clothes littering the floor, but he didn’t notice. He stripped off her pajama top and tossed it on a pile of laundry near the bed. He pushed her to the bed and slid her pants down her hips before kneeling over her. She felt exposed and a little self-conscious under his heated gaze.
“This is hardly fair,” she protested, her fingers on his shirt seal. It slid open, revealing the expanse of lean muscles beneath.
“I like how you look,” he replied simply. He tossed his shirt to the floor with the rest of his clothes. He kissed her, and she arched her body to meet his. His mouth drifted over her face and neck, his teeth lightly grazing her skin. Marking me, Lily thought, a shiver of excitement running through her. Branding her, claiming her for his own.
Her hand traced a line up his thigh to the erection that strained against the front of his pants. She wanted them out of the way and clumsily fumbled with the placket for a moment until they were open. He sucked in a harsh breath at her touch and helped her push them off.
He positioned her over him, and she raised an eyebrow. “I insist on my crew sharing the work,” he whispered, and she couldn’t help but giggle at that. It changed to a sharp gasp as he slid into her and grasped her hips, urging her to move along with him. With each thrust, she felt herself being taken higher and higher until she shattered, the force of her climax tearing a cry from her throat.
Without missing a beat, Rian smoothly flipped her on her back. He slowed down enough to kiss her neck and let her catch her breath for a moment. He pressed his mouth against hers and teased her lips open, his tongue tangling with hers possessively, sending another thrill through her. He hooked his arm around the back of her leg and started again, his strokes harder and deeper this time. Lily felt another climax building and whimpered. He slowed down again perceptibly. “Don’t stop,” she murmured against his neck.
His thrusts became more intense and she held on to his back, her nails digging in his skin. He moved faster and his body shuddered his release as she cried out again, both of their bodies spasming.
/>
His breathing was ragged in her ear when he finally sagged against her, his face buried in her neck. Aftershocks still twitched through both when he rolled on his side and pulled the sheet over them. He pulled her against him, spooning her perfectly against his chest as though their bodies were made for each other. Oh, hell, Lily reasoned, they were. His breath tickled the back of her neck, and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
She debated whether or not to tell him she loved him, and didn’t. Declarations of love post-sex—no matter how spectacular, how necessary—seemed false to her, even though she meant it.
Instead, she rolled over to face him. “Hey,” he said softly. He brushed a few strands of hair off her face.
“Hi,” she whispered back. Her arms circled his chest. Their breathing was almost in tandem, and soothing. All of her fears from the night before were fading, a soon-to-be-distant memory. They would be on station soon, the Nym stopped, and she and Rian could...continue what they had started, as he put it, she thought sleepily. Make a new life with the man she loved at her side.
“Lily,” he said and nudged her back awake.
“Mm-hm?”
“Was it that boring?” She heard the grin in his voice, but her eyes still flew open.
“God, no,” she assured him. “I’m just...” She fumbled for words. I’m in love with you, and all I can do is wreck your life. “Very comfortable,” she finished. Her earlier sense of safety fell flat. They were still aboard the Defiant, still in the Nym’s sights.
“Me, too.”
He settled her back against him, but Lily was wide awake again. “Rian? Don’t you have to go to work?”
“You’re trying to get rid of me already? You’re breaking my heart.” But there was a lightness in his voice. He kissed her, a slow, lazy kiss that was over far too soon.
“I don’t want you to get into any more trouble on my account.”
“None of this is any of your fault, and I’m off-duty until 1200 hours.” He ran his fingers over her back, eliciting a shiver from her.
“Then what?”
He sighed. “I have a vidconference with Fleet, and I have to run a diagnostics on security patches that were downloaded into the ship’s sensors. Fleet’s transmitting the program now. Are you worried?”
“Yeah, a little.” A lot.
“Don’t be.” His hand moved to trace her breasts, and his fingers teased her nipple until she gasped. His mouth covered hers, and he shifted his body until he was above her, supporting his weight on his elbows. “We’ll be okay,” he murmured and kissed her neck. Lily felt something in her respond, and she locked her fingers around his neck and brought his face down to hers, echoing her hopes. “We’ll be at Kevnar Station in a few days, and this worry will be behind us.”
* * *
Lily had set the cabin alarm for eleven, but she woke up early. She gently slipped out of bed and tried in vain not to wake him.
“Going somewhere?” he asked sleepily.
“Go back to sleep,” she said softly. “You have another half-hour. I was just going to get a glass of juice. Do you want some?”
“No, thank you.” He watched her leave the bedroom, still naked. A small smile played over his mouth at the sight. He ordered the illumination on, the lights set to low. She returned to bed with her juice and took a few sips before setting the glass on the nightstand. She chewed on her lower lip, and he knew she was concerned about something. “What is it?” he prodded.
“The usual,” she said. “Exams, moving, evil space aliens.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation right now, which surprised him. Ordinarily he was willing to discuss military theory and strategy any time, and he had in the past, while he was in bed with a long-ago lover. He didn’t want to talk about the Nym, not when she could make him forget everything except hunkering down in the covers for as long as they could get away with. But she seemed set on discussing it.
“Rian, we both know they were after me,” she said.
“Yes.” He sat up, the blankets bunching around his waist. “Some of the Fleet higher-ups think there may be something on this ship that’s broadcasting our business to unfriendlies, but damned if we can find it. Some kind of energy trail we’re not aware of.”
“You said the Nym’s technology outdoes yours.”
“It does,” he confirmed. “We could still pick up evidence of its use, though. Everything leaves a trail, even if we don’t know exactly what the device is.”
Lily nodded, understanding. “Could someone communicate with an unfriendly and erase the transit logs?”
That was what had woken her up—she was worried. Of course. So was he. “No. Well, theoretically, yes. But trying to make that kind of adjustment would lock down external communications, and the culprit would be caught. Also, no one on this ship, including me, has that kind of knowledge or training. We just look out for smugglers and haul science teams across the galaxy.” He gave a small, mirthless laugh. “You really pick good pillow talk.”
“You’d rather I tell you we should kick everyone off the bridge for an hour and play ‘Good Captain, Bad Captain’?” Some of the sparkle was returning to her eyes.
“I’ve never heard of that, but yeah, I would.” He crawled back under the blanket. “Come here. We both need sleep.”
Chapter 15
All was quiet in the Defiant’s airspace this evening, something that ordinarily would have pleased Rian if he wasn’t pissed off at losing his captaincy and paranoid about Nym activity. He was handling the former better than he would have a few months ago and found himself looking forward to the transfer to Kevnar. He could admit to himself now that there were upsides to essentially being a secretary to an admiral. He wouldn’t be a captain, but he wouldn’t have to deal with the Defiant’s crew either. As for the Nym, paranoid wouldn’t cut it. Scared shitless was a better term, but he’d be damned if he let anyone know about that.
At least Fleet had stopped talking about a court martial for the time being. He and Senior Captain Jena had had a private vidconference earlier in the evening. She, too, had been threatened with a court martial after firing on the disappearing Nym ship a couple of weeks earlier. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” she pointed out. “The rules about the Nym change depending on who’s pissed at you. They can’t control the Nym or predict their next move, so they control us instead. It’s fucked, Marska.”
He was finding that was true, but Rian Marska wasn’t Ursuline Jena. She terrified most of Fleet, including half the admirals. Hell, she would be an admiral herself if she had stopped referring to them as “a bunch of shit-brained no-nuts” about twenty years ago. “Don’t worry about it,” she had assured him. “Tell them the truth about what happened. The only way to deal with the Nym is to blow the fuckers to pieces on sight. If anything, they should be promoting you for having the balls to talk to them.”
He checked on Lily frequently, sometimes just her location, other times to say hello. It was out of fear, and he couldn’t help it. Despite Fleet’s assurances that all the scans conducted on the ship proved the initial suspicions otherwise, the possibility of a traitor aboard was something that weighed on his mind. He had been accused of being too analytical in the past, too paranoid, and after more thought, he tended to agree. Not this time. Something just wasn’t adding up, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was driving him crazy.
The Nym knew. They had figured out which patrol ships had stopped by Rubidge Station around the time Lily was found in the cargo hold: Bishop’s Pride five days before the Defiant, and the Shelian two days after the Defiant. Bishop’s Pride and the Defiant were older ships, the Shelian had taken her maiden flight out of the shipyards two years ago. The Defiant was equipped with a generously-sized cargo hold and was notorious for its constant repairs; the Pride had a single unused fighter bay and was a reliable old ship. Someone had put two and two together and possibly mistaken the Pride for the Defiant and tried to attack he
r first. Fleet had waved away his theory, but that didn’t deter him. He was going to find out how the Nym knew and how much they knew. This was the first time in his life he wasn’t doing something for the sake of his career. This was about Lily, pure and simple.
From his office, he ran every scan filter authorized by Fleet and an unauthorized one developed by his brother-in-law, who used it in the shop where he worked. Nothing unusual had shown up.
He was missing something.
Maybe Lily had a tracking device on her. In her, he corrected himself. From his office computer he pulled up the files from her last exam, administered by Mora Kharn. She had had three Fleet-approved vaccinations that day, guarding against Coll particles and venereal disease, and an immuno-booster. She had also had a contraceptive transderm implant. All standard vaccinations; everyone on board had them.
He looked more closely at the file. The drugs’ manufacturing stamps were recorded, per procedure, and nothing looked out of place.
A mediscan wasn’t out of the question, just to be on the safe side, but Rian had no intention of asking anyone in the infirmary to do it. He just had to get his hands on a unit and scan Lily. For the first time, Rian was glad he was forced into taking field medical courses during school.
Mora Kharn may be an admiral’s daughter, and her psych profile didn’t fit that of a traitor, but Rian wasn’t placing his faith and the lives of Lily and his crew on those criteria. Just because the profiling program hadn’t failed in the past didn’t mean it was infallible. There was a first for everything.
He checked the computer in his office to see who was scheduled for duty in the infirmary, and by a stroke of luck found it was Dr. Bekri and a lone nurse on the evening shift. Bekri would be too absorbed in the latest installments of the vid serials to care if the captain strolled in and helped himself to a mediscan unit, and the nurse was fresh out of school and still had a healthy fear of authority.
He slipped out of his office and took the lift to the infirmary. He strode in the doors, setting off a chime. Bekri stayed in the glassed-walled office, a datatab in his hand and his eyes glued to his computer screen. He offered the barest of nods to Rian in greeting and didn’t say a word. Someone would have to flail around a severed limb to get the man’s attention.
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