by Reagan Woods
The Warrior pressed something behind his ear as she’d seen Calyx do a time or two and began talking in the harsh, guttural alien language.
His demeanor changed abruptly. “The Commander requests you return to your station,” he relayed respectfully. “He will come to you when he is able.”
“I didn’t ask for the Commander,” she griped. “I asked for Calyx.”
Eyes dancing with humor, the Warrior answered somberly, “Commander Calyx will make himself available to you at his earliest convenience.”
“Commander Calyx? He’s a Commander? Since when?” And why hadn’t he told her?
“Since this morning.”
“Well, alright then.” Tara knew her face was red as a tomato as she backed away. The gatekeeper’s expression remained sober, but she knew he was laughing on the inside. Ass.
Calyx didn’t make it to her until well after the dinner shift had ended. One look at his hollow eyes and she bit back the torrent of questions poised on the tip of her tongue.
She sighed as he sauntered over to the counter where she updated her logs, scanned over inventory. “Have you eaten at all today?”
“I had a bar,” he answered, waving a hand vaguely.
“When?” Hands on her hips, she turned to him and pressed, “Yesterday? Last week? You need to eat, Calyx.”
A wicked, flirty grin had those irresistible dimples dancing in his handsome face. “I’m trying to move you along to someplace private, so I can do just that.”
“Honey, you haven’t got the energy to keep those kinds of promises.” She snorted. “We’d get to the main event and you’d fall over from exhaustion. You can’t pass out on me, Calyx, you’re so big I’ll suffocate. So, I guess you’ll just have to eat some of this red beans and rice I saved you. And maybe taste the gumbo.” She pulled the food out and sat it on the counter.
He sniffed the two bowls she’d kept warm appreciatively. “Have I mentioned that I love you?”
“I’ll never get tired of hearing it. Now, eat.”
Sporkful after sporkful disappeared into his mouth. The moans of appreciation as he ate were almost erotic. Tara ogled his biceps under his snug shirt as he brought food to his lips. Yes, she’d missed her man. A lot.
Before she let her glands lead her too far down that path, though, they had a few things to discuss. “How come you didn’t tell me you’d been promoted?”
Calyx stopped chewing, swallowed hard. “Did I not?’
Shaking her head Tara sighed. “Did you change your mind about us?”
Silver eyes went wide. “Of course not,” he stopped eating, sent the gumbo a wistful look and put everything aside. “Why?” His eyes narrowed. “Did you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she huffed.
“Then what’s the problem?” He mirrored her challenging posture, hands on hips, shoulders squared.
“Nothing,” she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest so her breasts peeked out from the low vee of her shirt. She wasn’t above playing dirty. “Not one thing.”
“Why are you pretending to sulk if nothing is wrong?”
“I thought you were going to Claim me when you got a promotion.” Tara sniffed, looked away. “But I guess since Shirok is dead, you don’t feel like we need to do that anymore.”
Calyx picked up his discarded bowl of gumbo and began shoveling it in his mouth like a machine.
“What are you doing?” Tara asked, taken aback at the speed of his gulping. That hadn’t been the reaction she was hoping for.
“Fueling up,” he answered between mouthfuls, laughing eyes never leaving her face.
“Um. Why?”
The wicked gleam in his eye matched the smug smile he flashed her way. “Taver and Jinlee are across the hall waiting to witness our palm scans. The approval for our match came from the General’s office late this evening. After we make our relationship official, I’m taking you back to our new quarters and making love to you until one of us falls unconscious. I’ll need my strength.”
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” Tara grabbed his sleeve and dragged him toward the door.
“You were so sweet to worry over me. I couldn’t let your efforts go to waste.” He feigned reluctance but allowed himself to be led.
“You mean I nagged and you were hungry,” she corrected, shooting him a wry look over her shoulder.
“That, too.” The white slash of his smile, framed by boyish dimples, remained plastered on his face throughout the very business-like contract reading, the formal palm scans. He didn’t even try to hide his glee, his fierce satisfaction as Taver and Jinlee, expressions laced with envy, offered congratulatory arm clasps.
Later, in their new and comfortably large bed, Calyx kept his promise, making her come with teeth, tongue and fingers repeatedly. By now, her voice was hoarse, her throat raw. God, how she’d missed this passion, this closeness.
Tara’s chest heaved, lungs screaming for air, skin slippery with sweat as her lover slithered up her body, his generous mouth igniting nerve endings and destroying brain cells.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she rasped. “But I love it.”
Taking himself in hand, he pressed into her. The pleasurable burn wrung a moan from deep in her body. She was going to ache tomorrow - because she was loved, she belonged.
“I want a family with you, Tara,” Calyx growled, thrusting deep. “I want to watch you grow ripe with my child and I want everyone to know you’re mine.”
“Ohhhh,” she groaned as he bumped deliciously over that spot deep inside. “That’s a really sweet thing to say, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, Calyx.”
He dragged across her g-spot again and again and again. “Why not?”
An orgasm exploded through her body, rendering her mute and blind for long, glorious moments.
“Why not?” He repeated, his unhurried thrusts impossibly stirring the lust in her belly.
“Not fertile,” she panted, arching up to meet him urgently with each lazy stroke. “Give me that cock, Calyx,” she moaned. “Oh, it’s so good.”
“I bet I could put a baby in your belly tonight,” he grunted, thrusting faster.
“Can’t we talk about this later?” She muttered, lost to sensation. “Just fuck me now.”
“I can do that.” He balanced on one arm, turned her head to him and kissed her with wild passion.
This time when she crested, the hot violent spasms working through her core, his violent rhythm stuttered. His pubic bone ground into her clit as he flooded her, wringing every ounce of pleasure from the moment.
As they collapsed, bodies in a tangled heap, Tara’s satisfied grin matched Calyx’s. This incredible thing between them only seemed to get better.
Contentment, the deep and abiding feeling of knowing she was where she was meant to be, trickled through her. “You were worth the wait,” she mumbled, drifting toward sleep.
He gathered her close, covered them with the coverlet and slid a possessive hand over her hip. “I couldn’t have said it better.”
Chapter 47
“I must speak with the General!” The petulant tone had Calyx seriously considering throttling the Doranos.
The room, used for storage and, lately, for interrogations, was crude. Two chairs and a narrow table were the only furniture in the cramped room. A bright overhead fixture shone unforgivingly on the scuffed floors and dinged modular walls. All the work camp’s rooms were designed for function over form, but this was the meanest of them.
Before him, garbed in soft gray clothing, perfectly manicured hands fisted on the long table in front of him, Dorit seethed. The epitome of a First Son of a Doranos House, he’d be considered handsome by Doranos standards with his long face and brilliantly purple eyes. Skin of the purest white matched the hair that fell down his back in two neat braids. A longish nose presided over a full-lipped mouth and pointed chin.
Now, his wide mouth turned down in a sulky frown as he spread his long-fingered hand
s in appeal. “Surely you can appreciate my position. I – my people, I mean, were treated abhorrently by your predecessor. I’m willing to let that go, to keep it out of my report to the High Council, provided you return control of the camp to me.”
“That’s quite an offer,” Calyx replied, resting easily in his own chair across the table from Dorit. Unlike the Doranos, Calyx was very aware every moment of this confrontation was being recorded for posterity – and probable review by the High Council. Dorit didn’t seem to care.
“You’re willing to forget that some of your people – handpicked by you for their jobs on Earth - betrayed the Alliance and ran off with the inhabitants of a conquered planet. You’re willing to ignore that none of your remaining staff will admit to aiding the criminals, and as a result, we’ve had to imprison all of your males. You’re willing to cover up the murder of one of your own, as long as I allow you to continue running a sub-par work camp, is that the gist of it?”
Fists pounding the table, Dorit sat up as straight as his electric manacles would allow. “What would you know of administering a CGA work camp? This is only your second invasion, Warrior Calyx. Oh, yes. I know all about you. You’re nothing more than a last son of back-water scum from a dried-up planet on the edge of civilized space.”
“That may be, but you’ll refer to me as Commander Calyx,” he rebutted mildly. The goal was to find out who’d killed Shirok. To do that, he needed to give Dorit a place to vent his frustrations, to air his grievances. If he did all this here and now, without informing anyone else of his intentions, he was skating close to the edge of violating protocol – if not actual CGA law – but he took a gamble that the High Council and General Darvan were too busy to notice his slight bending of the rules. He intended to finish out what Skylan started.
“Now, tell me what you know of Shirok,” he invited. “He’s your friend, your colleague. Certainly, you’d like some justice for him, for his murder?”
Dorit laughed bitterly. “It’s obvious he fooled us both, that he helped the traitors escape, his actions during the raid speak plainly. I told all this to Commander Skylan…” He trailed off before taking a different tack, “He betrayed me, too, you know. I’ve known him since we were younglings and he used my trust, my blind faith, to put us all in this situation. It’s humiliating and insulting.”
“It is,” Calyx agreed. “But he was your assistant. You expect me to believe he wasn’t acting on your orders?”
“I have too much to lose at home to let a piddly handful of Earthers jeopardize my future. Sure, they’re fun playthings, but I’ll have real power, a seat on a Planetary Council at the very least, once I prove my worth here,” he related seriously, the petulant child routine falling away. “I have no reason to help those cowards who bashed a bunch of tiny, alien females over the head and ran away with them like a bunch of barbarian heathens. They’ve made me into a scape goat is what they’ve done.”
“It seems like you do have a lot to lose,” he agreed sympathetically. “Help me clear your name.” He waited for his appeal to sink in. “Did Shirok admit to you, to any of your people, that he helped pull off the abductions?”
Studying his short, buffed nails, Dorit answered, “Once he awoke and joined us in the holding cells,” his lip curled, "Shirok refused to answer questions. So, we shunned him. He spoke with no one save the Earther.” Derision laced Dorit’s words.
“Was Shirok upset by this ‘shunning’?” He made a mental note to research a Doranos shunning and to find out if there were any recordings of these supposed conversations between Peter and Shirok.
“He seemed resigned.” Dorit fidgeted. “I really do need to speak with Darvan,” he pressed.
Dorit’s story wasn’t ringing true given the high value placed on communication, on words, in Doranos culture.
“After what Jorkan - he’s your cousin, isn’t he? – anyway, after what Jorkan did to him, to his bond mate, I would wager the General is not feeling too favorably toward your kind at all.”
Dorit appeared at a loss, his mouth going momentarily slack. “Bond-mate?” He squeaked. “What did Jorkan do?”
Briefly, Calyx told him. When he finished, he said, “You can see, can’t you, why the General might not trust your story?”
Dorit closed his eyes. Calyx caught a glimpse of the tears welling against the purple irises.
“I need to find out who killed Shirok,” he pressed. “Someone must answer for all this.”
“Isn’t it obvious, or are you simply trying to hang all your problems on me?” Dorit asked dejectedly.
“If it were obvious, do you think we’d be sitting here?” Calyx asked dryly.
The Doranos’ lips curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “They call Commander Skylan ‘The Ambassador’ when they send him out to clean up their messes.”
“Who calls him that?” Calyx frowned.
“The Council. He’s their assassin.” Dorit dropped his head into his manacled hands. “He tried to get Shirok to talk for days. I’m certain he’s not accustomed to being denied answers.”
Calyx did his best to cover his shock. It wasn’t a surprise that Skylan was an assassin, he’d always been secretive, always disappeared and reappeared at seemingly random intervals. What got him was that Dorit spun a plausible story. Skylan had the necessary skills to get Shirok out of the holding cell without anyone or anything detecting him.
Still, that kind of vicious attack didn’t seem like Skylan. He was too cold, too remote to rip a throat out and toss the body on the ground like a rag doll.
“Why would Commander Skylan kill Shirok?”
“Like I said, Shirok wouldn’t talk. Whoever he was protecting, he was willing to take that information to the grave with him,” he explained impatiently, the spoiled, wealthy child showing through again. “I’m certain Skylan decided to interrogate him one last time and simply took it too far.”
“If that’s your theory, I can’t go anywhere with it. I need a real, plausible scenario for the General. He’s not going to buy that his top Warrior in this system needlessly killed a vital link in recovering the missing Earthers,” Calyx relayed coolly, standing so Dorit would understand they were done here. “When you’ve got a less nonsensical story, you know how to reach me.”
“I need to speak to the General,” Dorit yelled testily as Calyx palmed his way out of the tiny room.
“I can guarantee he doesn’t want to speak to you.”
Epilogue
Living with Calyx in the Commander’s apartment was much easier to get used to than Tara anticipated. Because she was the Commander’s Claimed Female, the Warriors programmed her biometrics into the gate-pass system, into the barracks, and just about any other place she wanted to go. Calyx’s insistence on continuing to have her escorted everywhere that he couldn’t take her himself was equal parts frustrating and touching.
She’d tell him off for his high-handedness, but somewhere in the last few months, Calyx had morphed from the charming young Warrior she’d fallen in puppy love with to The Commander. The Commander was hard and hot and fierce…and a little bit scary. He knew his mind, knew his men and took his position very seriously.
At night, he made fierce, passionate love to her, and she reveled in what they had together. During the day, he often worked more hours than she did.
The Ferocious Five had stepped up and taken an active interest in sourcing food. The kitchen was running more and more smoothly, and she was needed less and less. At this point, she simply showed up to help cook, worked her shift, helped tidy up, and left. Tara wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Right now, she was on a mission. She’d gathered the ingredients, set aside the time, and by God, she was going to bake a cake. It had been ages since she’d done it and she wasn’t sure how it would go. That was why she’d come back to the kitchen in the middle of the day.
Her little walky-talky, the alien communication device her paranoid lover insisted she carry, signaled an incoming
call. “Yes, Calyx?”
“Where are you?” The deep timbre of his voice with its alien accent never failed to raise gooseflesh on her skin.
She giggled. “Who ratted me out?”
“You Earthers have such charming slang,” he commented dryly. “It doesn’t matter who,” he purred. “What matters is that you aren’t resting. Jinlee said you need to rest more, Tara.”
“Calyx, you need to stop hounding me,” she admonished seriously. “I’m not some delicate flower. I need to work. I can’t just sit around a be pregnant.”
That was the biggest change, the thing she had the most trouble wrapping her mind around. She couldn’t recall seeing a baby. How could she be six short months shy of birthing one? It didn’t bear thinking about, so today, she baked.
“Who said you have to sit around?” He asked testily. “I’m simply pointing out that you’ve been on your feet for hours now.” Pushing through the double doors behind her, he disconnected. “I thought I’d find you here.”
She whirled to face him and planted her feet on the glossy white floor. Angry and fatigued, he still took her breath away. She couldn’t let his sexiness get to her. The situation called for her to take a stand.
“Don’t start!” Finger wagging in the air, she gave him her best version of his narrow-eyed hunter stare. “You do not want to push me today. I’m feeling very edgy. I just want to bake a damned cake.”
“If that’s what you need to do to smooth out the edges, fine.” Hands up in surrender, he took a step back. “But please don’t over-do it.”
“I’ll over-do you!” As threats went, it wasn’t her best. His chuckle of amusement was a far cry from cowering in fear and promising to stop nagging.
“I can’t wait.” He dropped his hands and wandered closer.
A good look at the lines of tension around his mouth had her deciding cake baking might not be that important after all. “What’s wrong?”
“We talked about you taking a transport back to Corian Space,” he reminded.
“We did.” She closed the distance between them, gripped his fingers with hers. “You don’t want to live there, so why send me, right?”