The Catch (Huntress of the Star Empire Episodes 7-9)

by Athena Grayson

  About The Huntress

  She always gets her man…

  Ever since she was found in the aftermath of alien attacks, Treska Sivekka has been trained to one purpose--to hunt down threats to the security of the Union that gave her an identity. But when the Union's biggest threat inspires desire, and not fear, it’s going to take all her training to protect her principles against his persuasive onslaught.

  The Huntress's neuro-collar and repulsor cuffs may keep Micah bound to her mercy, but they can't stop him from challenging her convictions, and the lies she's been told about his people. But when the secrets surrounding her own missing memories begin to reveal themselves, he may be the only one she can trust.

  Pursued across the star system by the Huntress, helpless as his psionically-talented brethren were brought down one by one, Micah Ariesis must sacrifice himself in a sketchy revolutionary plot aimed at the Union’s heart, but the mystery surrounding his pursuer's mysterious origins puts danger to a much closer heart—his own.

  Huntress of the Star Empire is a sci-fi romance serial adventure. For more about the series, visit www.athenagrayson.com/huntress or sign up for the newsletter at bit.ly/AthenaNews and receive notification of new releases right to your inbox.

  Find Athena: athenagrayson.com | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

  The Catch: (Episodes 7-9) Huntress of the Star Empire

  A Sci-Fi Romance Series Adventure

  by Athena Grayson

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright Notice

  © 2015 Jen Sokoloski. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Published by Uncharted Worlds Media. unchartedworldsmedia.com

  Cover Artwork: © Jennette Marie Powell Heikes. All images licensed and used with permission

  Huntress of the Star Empire

  The Complete Season One

  Binge-read with the Bundles:

  The Chase (Episodes 1-3)

  The Snare (Episodes 4-6)

  The Catch (Episodes 7-9)

  The Release (Episodes 10-12)

  Table of Contents

  Episode 7: Double-Edged Sword

  Episode 8: Heart of Betrayal

  Episode 9: Lost Girl

  The Complete First Season

  Episode 7: Double-Edged Sword

  Objective Reassessment

  The fury of having lost his prey burned in Sharpclaw’s veins and his claws extended from their sheaths to slice the upholstery on his command chair. “The prey is lost? To those avians? Find them. Shred them. Leave nothing but their bones. And execute the incompetents that lost them.”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind.” He rose from the ruined chair. “I’ll go myself.”

  ***

  Brezeen’s booth rattled with the impact of a Riktorian body slamming into it. “Female,” Sharpclaw growled. “I will have you skinned for the theft of my prey.”

  Brezeen brought out the blaster strapped beneath the plumage of her thigh. “I don’t think so.”

  Sharpclaw’s troops stepped out from behind their cover to her left and right. “But I do,” Sharpclaw said.

  The avian’s eyes narrowed and she backwinged. “Well, then, shall we draw? And see which of us drops first? Can your men drop me before I drop their leader?”

  “I will rend you myself.” Sharpclaw’s claws came up to her throat. “I will not lose my honor and my quarry to a stupid bird!”

  Brezeen’s feathers rippled. “As I have no such ridiculous notions of honor, I’ll simply pull my trigger and blow a hole in your gut that will stink up this joint for days. Either way, we’ll both be dead, and you’ll be dead at the hands of a ‘stupid bird.’ Which has less honor?”

  Sharpclaw snarled. “It is worth my honor to have my enemy die by my hand.” He brought his claws up.

  Brezeen stepped on the stud at her feet and the booth filled with smoke. “Again, having no such honor, it’s worth more to me to stay alive, lizard man.”

  As the smoke filled the booth, the floor beneath her feet opened up and she dropped into the small underground passage put there for just such an occasion. When the smoke cleared and the gagging Riktorians peered around through runny eyes, there was no sign of the Guerran matria. Sharpclaw took out his rage on her booth, though, and the chips of crystal smashed satisfyingly, filling the air and coating the rubble that used to be the booth with a thick layer of shattered crystal dust, the artifacts they used to be now utterly obliterated.

  Crawling away from the remains of her booth, Brezeen sighed with regret. Most of those artifacts would have fetched a fine price to the unsuspecting and casual collector of half-decent replicas. The single real artifact’s loss would hurt. A slice of ancient psypath history, now forever gone from Guerran nests.

  She just hoped her tasty flightless friend would find it where she’d planted it on him before his companion did.

  Guerre crystal had caught him off-guard once. It wouldn’t happen again.

  Micah watched Treska fidget through slitted eyes. The climb had worn him out, and the cut across his abdomen burned as the antiseptic gel’s anesthetic properties wore off. He was grateful for the injury, as it kept him from falling into a slumber that tore down his shields and allowed the Guerre crystal to play such cruel tricks on his mind.

  He couldn’t help dozing though, and every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the temple. Enlightenment’s pillows were covered with coarser fabrics than star-silks and real linen, but they were just as soft and decadent to a man for whom bare dirt had begun to feel like a luxury. The crystal surrounding him forced him to analyze every stray thought. When Treska flung out an arm in her turning, he took her hand and settled it on his chest, then started rubbing her back.

  In staving off sleep, his mind began to inventory her reactions to him. Something that Enlightenment had said earlier made him think. He wasn’t using his powers to encourage an attraction from Treska, because of the damn collar, but there was an attraction there. Why else would she have cut off his clothes? Her behavior had not been typical, even for her. Guilty looks and spellbound glances were not found in the Huntress’s methods. It was why he’d chosen to confront her with seduction and flirtation, rather than intimidation and fear. He never thought it would work so well.

  Her scent came to him. Warm musk and spice, with the after-hint of cool fresh water, swirled into his head, curling in his belly. Next, warm hands slid around his waist and a delicate whisper of silky hair brushed over his upper arm. The warmth from another body seeped into his side and he turned into her heat. Soft pillows cradled his body and that of the woman beside him and the sensual feel of comfort kept him all but boneless. The whisper of a heartbeat in time with his and soft skin under his hand.

  “Mmm…” the light, feminine voice murmured as sleep forced her into yet another turn. The joy of contact, too long denied him, flowed through him and he stroked the hand resting on his chest. Another deep breath from her brought her breasts in contact with his side and the slumbering desire in him came to life. The background whispering that accompanied his every moment drowned out whatever feeble protests his mind might have generated, and his hand moved up her arm to her shoulder and down the line of her back to press her closer against him. The faint scent of temple incense mingled with her spice and he willfully dove back to that happier time, when the temple was home and pleasure wasn’t forbidden, but embraced.

  ***

  Lady Lysan, high priestess of the Temple of Pl
easures Untold, pinned Micah with a pair of emerald-hued thighs and a frank stare of penetrating jade. “The Goddess does not embrace the unwilling, young man.”

  “Ma’am!” From his up-ended position, Micah watched his House flitter-craft merge into the tri-axial traffic he still wasn’t used to, on the Capitol planet he still found overcrowded and overwhelming, and tried to breathe around the weight of the well-connected—and well-endowed—woman on his chest.

  He’d no sooner entered the Temple when the statuesque, brightly-hued Hathori high priestess had gone from poised stillness to lightning-fast attack. Micah found himself sprawled on the entryway’s carpet with the woman on top of him and her attendants peering down at him in a circle of classically beautiful, jewel-colored faces whose disapproving expressions were as intimidating as they were lovely.

  Lysan’s face relaxed into a smile. “You were ordered here by your head of House. To become experienced?”

  The young Micah nodded. Her thighs were squeezing his lungs so that he breathed only in short, shallow gasps. “I’m—to be—auctioned—in marriage—next month.” But the slight movements of her body made the dozens of chains that comprised her clothing shift and shimmy over her curves, revealing bare skin as fascinating as it was exotic. He knew it was ungentlemanly to react, but his body was having other ideas.

  One of the lady’s attendants held up a padd engraved with his House crest. Her shimmering robe of starsilk showed off the lush curves of her nude body underneath it. Micah’s head fogged with sudden lust. Lysan glanced at it, mossy eyebrows raised. “My instructions are to ‘make a man of you’ with a generous gratuity if you emerge from the temple a little less of a prig than when you entered it.” She tapped her chin. “Are you?”

  He lifted his head. “Am I—what?” He concentrated on taking breaths, and summoned the most severe of the monastery’s disciplinary exercises. Between labored breaths, his head began to clear and he saw why Hathori women were legendary.

  “Are you a prig?”

  Micah considered the possibility. His father, the current head of House Ariesis, had not been impressed with his ‘release’ from Ursis Amalia. It was only the old man’s belief that he hid mental talents greater than he actually possessed that prevented Micah from being outright disowned. Instead, the old man had promptly offered his son up on the auction block for an alliance marriage to a number of strategically-placed houses, but Micah had shown poorly. His youth was a benefit, but his unworldliness a liability. The other young men his age had been amassing tactical advantages from age ten—friendships of influence, real estate and personal wealth, connections, small armies. In the eight years since he’d turned ten, he’d amassed a collection of artifacts from a dozen different worlds, worth absolutely nothing to anyone without an unhealthy obsession with psypaths in the ancient Star Empire.

  He finally answered her. “Probably.” His head drooped back down and he stared up past the ring of Hathori female faces, to the roof of the temple, where friezes ornamented the domed ceiling and artfully-carved negative spaces allowed light in from the sky. He recognized the pattern of the skylight right away, although the orientation seemed a bit off, and his heart jumped. If the orientation were correct, making adjustments for galactic time, that would make the temple old enough to— “How old is that fresco up there? Have you got the provenances of the artwork? Identity of the artists?”

  Lady Lysan’s eyes narrowed. “How much will it torment you to be denied the answers to those questions?”

  His poor showing, the displacement he felt after the abandonment of the monks he considered more family than his own, receded as he narrowed his eyes. If he squinted, he could just make out the details in the artwork. Yes, I see it! The skylights— Micah’s eyes widened as the esteemed lady squeezed her thighs together again, cutting off his airflow. He tore his attention away from the ancient art and addressed her question. “How much would—you like me to say?” he wheezed.

  Lysan’s laugh took him by surprise. “You’re a fast learner, at least.”

  His attention was already back on the ceiling. Just a little closer…

  The high priestess suddenly wrapped her legs all the way around him, and her arms, too. The attendants each grabbed his limbs, and the sudden flurry of activity knocked his concentration back down to where his body was.

  A deep pink attendant held his wrist in an iron grip. She looked about ten years older than he was, with sleek black hair falling in front of her face. “What is this?” She shook his wrist hard enough to hurt.

  He tried to take it back, but glanced at his hand and realized two things. The first was that his hand had formed a kata on its own. The second was that he and the high priestess on top of him were floating a meter off the floor.

  Shame flooded him. The high priestess’s face turned from speculation to surprise as he wobbled. “Your father didn’t mention you were a psypath,” she said tightly. “That will cost him extra.”

  “It’s already cost me everything.” Micah’s retort was unthinking at the time, and would turn prescient in the future. But he averted his eyes, sealing away the fresco’s image until he could escape his current predicament. He glanced at the fuchsia woman. “Madame, if I could have feeling back in my hand, please? I’d like to make this a soft landing for your lady.”

  Fuchsia snorted. “Oh, he’s definitely a prig, all right.” She narrowed her eyes, but at the high priestess’s nod, released his wrist. Micah adjusted his breathing and carefully shifted his fingers from Lift to Descend. His body, along with his passenger, lowered slowly to the floor. He was grateful for the cold marble floor, as it cooled some of his shame.

  “So you are,” Lady Lysan said. She glanced at the back of the padd and the seal etched on it and frowned. “And are you a man?”

  He understood what she was asking. Have you been with a woman? Was your father sending you here to divert attention from your interest in men? Did you suffer from or indulge in sexual proclivities unacceptable to the Nobility? He knew the Noble’s answers to those questions but they were not the answers he gave. “I do not believe the ability to breed upon a strategically-chosen female is an accurate measure of what defines a man,” he said. “I believe the question cannot be answered in a mere moment’s consideration, nor by a few minutes’ evaluation from a woman I have never previously met, respected as she may be.” He lifted his head, although the rest of his body remained held by the rainbow of priestesses intent on preventing another levitation episode. “And I do not believe a woman as learned as an Hathori high priestess would hold anything but contempt from a small-minded Noble whose opinion of her entire culture is little higher than that of very specialized servants.”

  A gasp greeted his statement, this one coming from an attendant whose pale blue features were closer to his own age. Her eyes were clear crystal, and her mouth formed an ‘O’ as she understood his meaning. The blue girl lifted those crystal eyes up to the ceiling for a deliberate moment, then brought them back down again to meet his.

  The high priestess understood his meaning as well. As did Fuchsia. “It suits us well to maintain this fiction. Jeopardize it at your peril, rebel boy.”

  Micah felt the real weight of the slight pressure of the high priestess’s thighs around his ribs again. He lifted an eyebrow. “My lady, we all have our secrets.”

  “And we all have our masters,” Lady Lysan said. She rose off him in one fluid motion. “It is in our interests to accept the contract of House Ariesis.”

  Ignoring Micah, still sprawled on the floor, she addressed the line of attendant priestesses. “Who will accept the service?”

  Micah stared up at the silent six. “Don’t all jump at once,” he muttered, sitting up.

  “We all know who should accept it.” One priestess, her skin a deep gold, folded her arms. As one, five of the priestesses looked at the sixth.

  The azure-skinned beauty hunched her shoulders. “The archives need defragmenting. The crystals are out of tune
and the data’s a scandal. I could take someone next week—”

  A deep peach priestess huffed. “You’ve been making that excuse for the past three weeks! Either that archive’s going to be fixed or not.”

  Micah looked at the girl’s terrified face. Nine bloody screaming hells. He didn’t need to be a psypath to detect her nervousness, but his talents were kind enough to magnify it for him. He experienced a flash of her terror at lying with him before he shielded himself properly. He turned, still sitting on the floor, and rose onto one knee. “My lady, I would be honored for your companionship in the Temple. It would be my joy to while away the hours with you in pursuits of pleasure.” He pulled her down, so her face was close to his. “I love to defragment archives. I could spend weeks tuning data crystals.”

  Her eyes met his for a long moment. He sent the slightest mental push in her direction—not invading her mind, but amplifying his own thoughts. I mean you no harm.

  Her distress eased a bit, and she nodded. “I will grant the benediction of Pleasures Untold upon you.” She turned her hand in his and cupped his cheek. The warm scent of her pheromones filled the air and his youthful heart skipped a beat.

  “Oh, this I have to see.” Fuchsia stepped up beside him. “Watching Zara teach this one? It’ll be a short lesson.”

  Zara, the blue girl, lifted her chin. “Shut up, Xenna. You could have spoken for him.”

  The high priestess cleared her throat. “Zara’s been recently promoted to full priestess from acolyte. Xenna will supervise. Inform the head of House Ariesis that he’s getting a two-for-one deal on his request.”

  ***

  Enlightenment’s soft rustle brought Micah out of his reverie. The Mauw stood in the doorway and observed Treska shifting around uncomfortably. She didn’t realize it, but her hand kept straying towards her belt, to the small pocket where she kept the tube of medication.