by Nina Croft
“You know, you’re a nice guy for a demon,” Dylan said as they walked away.
“Half-demon. And no, I’m not. Don’t tell me you liked that any more than I did.”
“No. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. This whole setup does. As I mentioned. I’m ready to head home.”
“Well that’s not happening today. But it looks like we have some free time. What should we do now?”
“Let’s go see Destiny.”
Back at the shuttle, Milo went to the food dispenser and loaded up with food he thought she might like. She clearly had a sweet tooth. So chocolate? More donuts?
As they were about to leave, the comm system beeped and Rico’s face appeared on the screen. “Anyone home?”
Milo crossed the room and accepted the call.
“I’ve sent those engineering books you asked for,” Rico said. “Sardi sorted them out. What are they for?”
“Milo’s girlfriend,” Dylan said over his shoulder.
“Fuck off,” he muttered.
“Milo has a girlfriend?”
“He’s in love,” Dylan continued, sending himself straight to the top of Milo’s might-have-to-kill list. “With this really odd woman. Nice though. And seriously hot.”
“Really?” Rico looked intrigued. But then, he was quite aware of Milo’s aversion to anything even remotely resembling love. He’d been there for Milo’s first and last disastrous relationship. Had front row seats to how well that had turned out. Once again, his hand moved instinctively to rub at the scar on his neck. Then wished he hadn’t as Rico’s gaze homed in on the gesture.
“No, not fucking really,” Milo said. “What do you want?”
“Just checking in. And sending your girlfriend’s books.”
Milo growled.
Rico grinned. “And I’ve got some news on those people you asked me to look up.”
Dr. Yang’s family. Maybe he could get some leverage and get the woman off Destiny’s case. “And?”
“They’re dead. At least they’re not where they’re supposed to be. I presume you’re up-to-date on what happened with the recent murder investigation and the dead crew members’ families?”
He was aware that some of them had been changed for other people. Initially they’d believed their places had been sold to the highest bidder. It was amazing what people had been willing to pay to get off the dying Earth. Now, though, it seemed more likely they’d been substituted for people of Kinross’s choosing.
“I hadn’t gotten around to checking out the rest of the crew families,” Rico said. “Didn’t seem a priority with the Trakis One gone. Turns out your Dr. Yang’s ten-year-old daughter is six-foot-tall and has a beard. I woke the man up and with a little persuasion, he told me that he’s in the employ of your new best friend, Luther Kinross.”
Why did that come as no surprise?
Milo was betting there was a whole army spread throughout the fleet. How easy to just not wake up the crew members, and they’d never be aware that their loved ones had been dumped to make way for Kinross’s soldiers.
“A mercenary?” he asked.
“Well, he called himself a soldier of the New World Defense Force. Sounds better, I suppose. We checked the rest of the crew families on board and it’s the same story. There are eight ships left, thirty crew members per ship, three family members per crew, and ten rotations. That’s a good number of soldiers.”
“What did you do with them?”
Rico shrugged. “Left them asleep for now.” He gave a feral smile, showing the tip of one sharp, white fang. “I’ll leave them for when I’m feeling hungry.”
Milo shook his head but didn’t comment. They’d taken their chances and lost.
“What are your plans now?” Rico asked. “When are you coming back? There’s only a small window if you want to return via the shuttle.”
At this time, the planets’ trajectories meant that Trakis Two and Trakis Four were relatively close together and just approaching the point where they were the closest they ever were. After that, the distance would increase and soon would be out of the range of the shuttles. At that point, they would need to get a lift back. And if things got messy with Kinross, that might not be an easy thing to organize.
“Right now, we’re taking chocolates and other goodies to Milo’s girlfriend,” Dylan said. “Hey, we’re prioritizing. Then later tonight, Milo is going to take a look and see what Kinross is hiding under his castle.”
Rico’s brow rose. “He has a castle?”
“Yeah, it’s called Camelot and it has turrets and a round table and everything.”
“Sounds like I’d better start practicing my curtsy. Okay. Let me know what you find. We need to understand just how much of a pain in the arse this guy is going to be.” The screen went blank.
So Dr. Yang’s family were no more, but he wasn’t going to jump in and tell her…just yet.
First, he had to find out how he could best use that information.
Chapter Twenty
“If it is one’s lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness.”
—Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Destiny had stayed inside the tunnels since she’d seen the men. She didn’t want them to find her. Not now. Not yet. She’d curled up in one of the big chairs on the bridge of her spaceship and read.
She’d read Escape Route, a mystery written just before the fleet had left Earth, and then she went back to romance: It Had to Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. And she’d lost herself in the words and the magic, when she heard someone call her name.
“Destiny.”
Recognizing Milo’s voice, she jumped to her feet and hurried out and down the ramp. He stood at the bottom with Dylan beside him and she felt suddenly shy. She’d been reading too much sex!
He held out a bag. “Food.” As she opened it, the scent of sugar and other delicious things wafted out and her stomach rumbled. He also handed her a small flash drive. “Books on how spaceships work,” he said. “Just don’t press any buttons you’re not sure of.”
“Thank you.” Her fingers itched to go back and press some.
“What have you been up to?” he asked.
“I saw some men but I hid, and they didn’t see me. Then I stayed inside after that.”
“There’s no one around now. You want to go for a walk?”
With Milo? Oh yes. She nodded, placed her bag of food on the floor, then delved inside and picked out a donut.
“I’m going to stay and look around a bit,” Dylan said. “Let you two lovebirds have some alone time.”
Lovebirds? She blinked, then glanced at Milo. He was scowling at Dylan, but that didn’t stop her heart tripping a beat.
They walked side by side out of the tunnels and into the forest.
“Did Dr. Yang ever talk to you about her family?” Milo asked as they skirted the edge of the lake. The air was warm and the second of the suns was just hovering on the edge of the horizon, so the light was golden. She swallowed her last bite of donut, licking the sugar from her lips. “No, not really.”
“She didn’t mention she had three daughters aboard the Trakis Two?”
For some reason, a flash of hurt swept through her. Dr. Yang had shared nothing of her real life with her. Though really, that came as no surprise. From the books she had read, Destiny could see that Dr. Yang had never treated her as even a normal human being, had never shown any warmth, certainly never treated her as a daughter. Sometimes, despite the fact that they looked nothing like each other, Destiny had dreamed that Dr. Yang was actually her mother and would one day admit it and tell her she loved her and… And what? She hadn’t been able to come up with an “and what” back then and she certainly couldn’t now.
What she did know was that the doctor had been manipulative and…cruel. Ther
e, she’d admitted it to herself. Dr. Yang had been cruel. Not vindictive, but cold and heartless to a lonely child. Maybe that’s just the way she was. Except now it seemed she had real daughters. Waiting for her on the Trakis Two. Had she cuddled them when they were babies, sang them to sleep, played with them, hugged them when they were scared and lonely? All the things she hadn’t done with Destiny.
Her eyes pricked and she blinked and pressed her hands to them. She’d been pretty emotional lately. She suspected it was due to an overload of too many fictional emotions. From a life with no inkling that such things were normal, she was being flooded by feelings. She’d been emotionally repressed and now she was in no way prepared to cope with them. She cried at books—even the ones that were supposed to be funny.
“Hey,” Milo said, “are you all right?”
She nodded and then sniffed to prove she was lying. “I just accepted that Dr. Yang never really loved me.” She sniffed again. “I actually think sometimes she hated me. And I have no clue why. And she was all I had. All I have really.” She flashed a glance at his face, analyzed his expression. He looked worried. He was probably scared she was going to break down or something. She’d read that a lot of men didn’t like emotional scenes.
“You have me and Dylan,” he said.
She stopped then and turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing. “Have I? For how long?”
She knew now that they were up to something. She’d suspected it from that first night when Milo had hidden in her cell. Then Milo himself had confirmed it and the books she had read since had given her the contexts to understand a little more about what was going on.
He looked at her sharply. “Why do you say that?”
“You were right about stories. They help you make sense of the world and I can see more clearly now. You think there’s something hidden beneath the tunnels. That’s what you were looking for that night when you hid in my cell. And I think that when you’ve found what you’re looking for, then you’ll leave.” After all, he’d told her they would return to Trakis Two at some point. “What do you think is down there?”
He shrugged. “Weapons. We need to find out what are the possible consequences if we go our separate ways. Will he be able to enforce his…wishes on us when we’re on a different planet? Or can we just ignore him?”
He would go, and she couldn’t follow. Because however cold Dr. Yang had been to her, there was still the fact that Destiny had a role to play. She couldn’t abandon that without knowing more. And to know more, she would have to go back.
She cast a sideways glance at Milo. He was so beautiful he made her chest ache. She wanted him. If she had to go back, then wasn’t it only fair that she got to experience life—and love—first? Even if that love wasn’t returned. That was all she had ever really wanted. She stopped walking and turned to face him. He was watching her warily, and she gave in to temptation and reached out and stroked her finger down the scar on his cheek. Then rested her hand against his chest, feeling the thud of his heart beneath her palm.
“I’d like you to kiss me again,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Because you want more than I’m willing to give.”
“You don’t know what I want.” Anger flashed through her and then was gone. “How can you know, when I don’t know what I want?”
“Right now, you need a friend.”
“With benefits?”
He snorted. “What have you been reading?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She started walking again. “I have a feeling that things are going to go horribly wrong. I don’t know how or why, but I just want to experience as much as I can before that happens. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to fall in love with me or anything. I don’t think I’m very lovable. But would it be so hard to make love to me?”
She heard him swear under his breath and peered back at him. He was running his hands through his hair. “You deserve more.”
She stopped again and swung around to face him, hands on her hips, eyes glaring. “Why? What makes me so special? And what if I don’t want more?” She just wanted sex for goodness’ sake. Men were supposed to jump at the chance. What the hell was wrong with her? “Maybe Dylan would make love to me if I asked him nicely.”
“Don’t even go there.”
Ha. He didn’t want her, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her either. “Am I so…unappealing?”
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “I told you—I don’t do relationships.”
“And I’m not asking for one. I don’t do relationships, either. I just want sex.” Gosh, she sounded…whiny. And desperate. How to make a man run in the opposite direction. She needed to read more books.
“Jesus. I—” He paused and raised his head, his eyes narrowing. Then he moved fast, lunging for her and shoving her to the ground, landing on top of her, and then they were rolling down a short bank. They came to an abrupt stop at the bottom, with Milo on top of her.
“What—?”
“Shhh,” he muttered.
She listened and could hear it now, a soft whirring sound that was coming closer.
He shifted his body so he covered her completely and she closed her eyes and held her breath. She had no clue what was happening, but at least it had gotten Milo on top of her. She lay unmoving, her brain processing the feel of his hard body on hers. Burrowing her face in his shoulder, she breathed in, her nostrils filling with the hot spicy scent of him. Intoxicating. She might have swooned if she hadn’t already been flat on her back.
She wasn’t sure how long they lay there, but long after, the whirring had passed them by and faded to nothing. Milo pushed himself up on his elbows. The position brought his lower body harder against hers, and a wave of elation washed through her as she felt the hardness of his erection pressing into her thigh.
He wanted her. And he could have her. She pushed her hips against him then blinked and gazed up into his silver eyes. They narrowed on her, wandering over her face, settling on her lips, which she parted slightly.
“Fuck it,” he muttered and lowered his head and kissed her.
His mouth was hard, his lips firm, his tongue hot as it pushed inside, filling her. Heat flooded her body, tingles racing across her skin and settling in her belly, between her thighs, her nipples. His mouth left hers and she wanted to scream at him not to stop. Never to stop. Before she could get the words out, he was kissing the side of her neck, his teeth grazing her skin, then nipping and licking and her nipples tightened, pressing against the material of her jumpsuit.
The pressure eased as he lowered the zipper, freeing her breasts and for a moment he stared down at her, his gaze hot, intent. He parted the material and she felt the air on her bare skin, her nipples tightening further until they were hard little peaks. He kissed first one, then the other, and her spine arched as pleasure shot through her.
He stroked one with his tongue and then sucked it into his mouth and suckled her, and it was better than she had ever imagined. She needed him, his big hands on her and she writhed beneath him, trying to get closer, to show him what she needed.
He bit down on the taut peak, then soothed it with his tongue.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, one hand cupping her breast, framing it for his kisses.
He lowered the zipper farther, kissing her belly, and she went still. She suspected where he was heading and didn’t want to do anything to stop him. Nothing. She even stopped breathing. The pressure was building and building inside her. She was hovering on the edge of her first ever orgasm. Just a little more. A whimper escaped her lips.
“Am I interrupting?” A voice spoke from above them and Milo stopped his kisses. He rested his forehead against her belly for a long moment. Then he raised his head.
“Fucking goddamn Dylan,” he snarled.
<
br /> She wanted to scream in denial, but he was already pulling away from her.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its worm.”
—Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Her face was flushed, her eyes wide. She’d been so close; he’d felt the tension building inside her. He’d wanted to give her that pleasure. Maybe he should just tell Dylan to fuck off.
But the moment had passed.
Saved by the werewolf.
What had happened to “just friends”?
He’d told himself he could do friends. Just keep his dick in his pants and his hands and mouth to himself and they should be okay. All he had to do was avoid temptation. That hadn’t worked as planned.
There had been a lot of women over the years. He liked women, they liked him, but he never stayed with the same one for long or allowed them to get close. And he was always clear up front and told them there was no chance of more. He didn’t do relationships.
Just as he’d told Destiny.
Relationships always ended badly.
Except Destiny was different. He had no clue why, but she tugged at something deep inside him that he’d thought shut away forever. And that was so not good.
She was right, soon he would leave—he had to. There was no way he could stay on Trakis Four with Luther Kinross and the Church stirring up all the old prejudices. He didn’t want to hide any longer.
And Destiny would stay because she had a duty to do. He knew all about people he cared about and duty. It always came first. His mother’s had been revenge, and she’d left him to follow that course even though she had known it would mean her death. Maria’s duty had been her God and saving Milo’s soul.
So no, he wouldn’t allow himself to care. And he’d make sure Destiny didn’t care, either.
But his dick ached, and he stayed where he was while he got his unruly body under control. Finally he rolled off her and onto his back.