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

by Athena Grayson

  The strokes continued and the shivers grew to tremors. Tiny sounds emerged from her throat and her limbs twitched. There was a warm body next to her. How long had it been since a warm body had touched hers? Sentient contact. But...I work alone.

  Yes, alone.

  I need no one.

  And nobody needs you.

  The ache surprised her with its sudden intensity. Little niggling doubts that she didn’t allow her mind to even form came rushing to consciousness in the blink of an eye. She moved restlessly, turning further into the touch. Her own hands ached suddenly to return it.

  The warm body next to her felt delightful. Something so simple as the act of a touch, and a touch returned unlocked a ripple of emotion deep in her body. With the intensity came fear—fear of losing the wonderful, basic sensuality of contact and she moved her body into the other’s, desperate to keep the contact from slipping away into dream.

  He opened one eye to see her, in the dim light from the single oil lamp. Her skin glowed with a soft, pale golden hue from the flickering flame. Her features in rest looked much more vulnerable than the tough Vice Hunter who kept knocking him out with tranquilizer darts at every opportunity.

  She still moved with the same purposeful motions as she did while she was awake. Her hands curled into fists at his hips—how had she worked her way under his tunic, anyway?

  “Treska,” he whispered. He didn’t want to startle her out of sleep—at point-blank range, a trank-dart couldn’t miss, and he didn’t want to be knocked out again.

  She burrowed deeper into him in response, slinging one leg over his. The contact sent a frisson of heat through him. He’d had plenty of time to admire the muscles of her legs on their journey, and now he could measure the reality of her thigh on his with the fantasy, and the reality far outweighed the fantasy. Her body heat warmed his leg through his trousers and the barest imagining of how satiny smooth her inner thigh must be sent a rush of blood to his groin. “Treska.” His whisper was a little more tense now.

  He moved his hand to her hair, purely with the intent of waking her up, he told himself. The red strands were thick between his fingers, coarse but not unpleasantly so. Earthy. Her limbs, splayed across his, were heat to the coolness of the air around them.

  She let out a moan from parted lips. Lips that he suddenly wanted very badly to kiss. That seemed to beg for his kiss. He didn’t need to be a psypath to figure out her desire, and yet it would be an abuse of trust to do so. But oh, how he wanted to.

  “Treska, wake up,” he murmured softly. When her head turned into the vee of his tunic and her mouth found his bare skin, and her hands opened again to tease into the waistband of his trousers, he added an urgent, “Please!” although he couldn’t say whether he was asking her to wake up or to keep doing what she was doing.

  She lifted her head and blinked sleepily. “Micah,” she murmured.

  “You were asleep,” he said hoarsely, holding himself perfectly still, lest she realize that she sprawled half on top of him.

  “I still am,” she murmured. “You’re collared, and I’m asleep. It’s okay.” She shifted and in a sleek movement, moved completely on top of him, her thighs cradling his hips and her heated core pressed against the bulge in his trousers.

  His hands curled into fists, painful in their tension. He cursed the mocking universe for putting him in this situation. “It’s not okay,” he said. “You’re not asleep.” Why, oh why was he pointing that fact out? Hadn’t he been trying to seduce her since his capture? To prove that the incorruptible was corruptible? All that had to change, given the circumstances.

  Not only had she provided him with an opening, but she was inviting him through the door! So why wasn’t he accepting the invitation? Especially when her hips made little movements that brushed her groin against his in a maddening rhythm.

  “It’s okay,” she repeated. “As long as you’re safe, so am I,” she murmured. “You can’t touch me.”

  “Treska. Darling, I’m touching you now. In quite a few places!”

  “No, no,” she murmured. “I’m touching you.”

  “Thank the stars for that little clarification,” he muttered.

  She punctuated her distinction with a poke to his midsection.

  Right in the gut wound. “Yeowch!” He sat up, mad fire ripping a line across his belly.

  “Shh.” She put a finger to his lips. “You don’t want Enlightenment to hear.”

  On the contrary. But her hand so close to his face made breathing an exercise in obeying her. He quieted, and the burn in his stomach became irrelevant next to the heat warming his crotch. “Not to put too fine a point on things,” he said, “but my gentlemanly concern for your Union customs only stretches so far. Please come to your senses.”

  She grabbed the front edges of his tunic and put her face in front of his, their noses touching. “I am,” she murmured. “I’ve even got extra ones.” She pulled his head towards the crook of her neck and whispered in his ear. “They tell me you like it when my lips go here—” She kissed a spot behind his ear that sent tingles through him. “—and when my teeth go here—” There was a spot, just under his jaw, and she nipped at it.

  The tingles turned to shudders and his fingers flexed against her upper arms, a reflexive tightening that was more to keep himself from dragging her all the way onto his lap than to cause her pain. “Treska, no one’s supposed to know about that spot.”

  She nipped his earlobe. “Could’ve fooled me. My senses are telling me just where to go.” She dragged her mouth against his cheek. She lifted her hands and placed them on the sides of his face.

  “Treska, please, I beg you—” He moved his hands from her shoulders to grasp her wrists.

  “I like it when you do that.” She smiled and leaned in to press her lips to his.

  He was hopeless. And a fool. And a terrible person, because he kissed her back.

  Micah was kissing her. His mouth moved over hers in a sensation she recognized, but this time she was Treska and he was Micah and neither one of them were unconscious, and oh! His lips were so soft. His tongue so warm, and with a hint of some minty spice that made her feel lightheaded, or maybe that was just him.

  He’s been well-trained in the kissing department. She couldn’t tell how she knew, but she understood the same way she knew how to clean and reload her wrist-shooter. He pushed just enough for her to open under him, and drew back so she chased him. Something playful rose in her chest, beating at the inside cage of her ribs. She arched her back, pushed herself against Micah to set it free. His fingers threaded through her hair and with a soft groan, he pulled away.

  His eyes were molten as they searched hers. “Treska.” His brow furrowed. “You’re not in your right mind.”

  “I’m in all the mind I’ve got.” She shook her head.

  The corners of his mouth tightened. “Not yet, you aren’t.”

  “It’s telling me to kiss you again.” She searched his face. “And—and there’s no Voice.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “Sweet Treska.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m not sweet.”

  “Tell me no.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Tell me no,” Micah repeated. “I don’t have to be in your mind to understand that it’s deceiving you.”

  “But this has never happened to me before!” She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, unconsciously mimicking his behavior of a few minutes ago. “This isn’t from my training!”

  An expression of immense sadness darkened his features. “Oh, Treska. Please, for your love of your Union, tell me no.”

  She didn’t want to tell him no. It didn’t feel right to tell him no. Yet— “I don’t know what’s right!”

  “That is why you have to tell me no.”

  This was a far cry from the shameless flirt she’d tranked on the Needle’s Eye, or even the mercurial traveling companion who still took delight in making her blush. Micah looked almost
panicked. And she couldn’t escape the sadness in his gaze. “Something’s wrong,” she said, her voice rising. “Something’s wrong with me, isn’t it?”

  “Something’s wrong with this whole situation,” Micah muttered. He disengaged with her, pushing himself to his feet.

  She gasped and pointed at his tunic. “You’re hurt!” The bloodstain cut a thin line of rusty dampness across the front of his shirt.

  He glanced down. “It’s just a scratch. I’ll have Enlightenment look to it.” She knew something wasn’t right. Her senses—the ones she was used to, anyway—told her the Voice should be going off, her internal instincts should be kicking in, yet there was a whole different level of awareness that told her a set of entirely different facts. “Enlightenment!” She called towards the outer room.

  The curtain rustled and Enlightenment’s head came through. “At your service, fair lady.”

  She struggled upright. “Something happened to Micah.” She pointed to Micah’s tunic, now spotted with rusty blood stains. Her instincts were telling her to cradle him, but her training sent punishing thoughts through her head that sounded like a pale shadow of the Voice. Indulgence in vice brings danger!

  “Yes, I should think so. I wondered where the smell was coming from.” The Mauw glanced at Micah. “My gratitude for not being a dead tunnel rat caught in the ventilation system.”

  “Oh, I do love it when I’m compared favorably with vermin.” Micah’s caustic reply was delivered with a wince.

  Treska reached for his tunic. “Do you have a medi-kit? If he got that from a Riktorian, it could already be septic—” She seized on the activity as a way to stuff down the strange duality in her head. Better a crisis on the outside than on the inside.

  Micah scowled and batted her hand away. “It wasn’t a Riktorian. Stop fussing.”

  “All the same, treatment is forthcoming.” The Mauw’s head vanished behind the curtain again and she could hear him rummaging in the room outside, opening and shutting drawers and cabinets. “I wish you’d have said something earlier. I’m not a savage, you know.”

  “And I’m not an infant. I’ve had worse.” Micah called back. At her, he lifted an eyebrow. “You’re certainly solicitous over your bounty’s condition.” In comparison to their exchange—their kiss—a few minutes ago, his expression had shuttered up tight.

  Her own brow furrowed. She did care about his well-being. Too much. Part of her wanted to—to nurture him. But that wasn’t in her nature. She wasn’t made for nurturing and caring. There was larger work to be done. Vakess had understood.

  Vakess summoned her to share tea with him, as was his custom when he visited.

  “Today we talked about family units,” she said in conversation. “Do you have a family?”

  Vakess had nodded, his serious face wearing a slight frown. “I do, although I’m shamed to say they are a product of the old way of thinking.”

  “Aristocracy,” she said. “You are a member of a Noble House.”

  Vakess nodded. “As shameful as they may be, however, they are my family.” His expression set. “And they will come around.”

  “Family is one of the pillars of protection,” she said. “Strong families protect each other from vice.”

  Vakess nodded and she could feel his approval. Then his face grew sad. “But families aren’t made for people like us.”

  This she already knew. Her instructor had cautioned her about her future many times. “Treska, a Vice Hunter’s life is a lonely one. Meeting and mating—you were not made for that life. It’s best that you understand that right away, and remember it always.”

  Vakess patted her shoulder. “We can never have love. But we can take consolation that we’re here to protect those who do.”

  Enlightenment returned before she could answer Micah’s challenge about her concern. “Now let’s see this wound.” He set the surgical kit down and held out a can of anti-bacterial spray. “I could use the assistance of a pair of gentler hands than mine, if you don’t mind.”

  She took hold of Micah’s tunic and shoved it upwards. It stuck to his wound and he hissed in pain at the tearing noise. “Gentler hands?”

  Now it was her turn to set her lips in a grim line. Even though her stomach quavered at the sight of the bright red cut and swollen tissue around it, she huffed impatiently. “I don’t do gentle.” She sprayed her hands with the anti-bac.

  Enlightenment probed the edges of the wound. “Whose delicate sensibilities did you offend in order to earn this?” Micah’s hand came down when he approached the thickest part of the tear and he slapped the hand away. But the hand returned and it was the Mauw’s turn to huff. “Treska, darling? Be a dear and probe that wound. I feel something beneath the skin and fear there might be infection.” Enlightenment growled low in his feline throat. “I will fight off Lord Handsy, here, so that you may do so undisturbed.”

  Treska paused to send a glare to Micah. “With relish.” At his suddenly horrified expression, she smirked. “Stop being such a baby.”

  She didn’t know what prompted her to soak the cleaning pad with biogel, but she did so, and watched the scabbed-over tissue soften and part with every fidget Micah made. Her own fingers felt what Enlightenment had suspected. “There’s something in there. It’s—oh, I hope it’s not a parasite.” She scowled up at Micah. “I can’t take you to the Capitol if you’ve got worms!”

  “I do not have worms!”

  Enlightenment lifted his hands in frustration and finally took one of the pillows from the lounge and hit Micah in the face with it. The action stunned the psypath long enough for him to peer down at Treska’s find. “No, my friend, you do not have worms.” He extended a claw and flicked out the foreign object. A slender, flexible tube of thin polymer skin was vacuum-sealed around something definitely foreign.

  “What the—?” Micah attempted to sit up.

  Treska shoved him back down and poked at the object. “Definitely not worms.”

  Enlightenment sniffed the thing, then looked up, abashed. “My apologies, dear Treska. The nose knows, and I detect…” Enlightenment trailed off as he peered closely at the object, then sliced the skin open.

  From the bloody leavings surrounding its packaging, a thin chain of silvery links tumbled out onto the upturned lid of the surgical kit. Treska gasped. Each link formed a long loop about the size of her thumbnail. In between the links, which were blackened with corrosion at their connections, tiny points of Guerran crystal rested in chased-wire cages. The crystal points stood perpendicular to the chain, forming the lumps in the small tube that housed it. Smaller beads of semi-precious stone cabochons were mounted inside the links at equal points along the chain. “If I’d have known you were full of jewelry, I’d have cut you open first thing.”

  Micah’s expression was so comically surprised, she couldn’t keep a snort of laughter from escaping.

  Enlightenment’s expression was more serious. “Who did you say gave you this wound?”

  Micah’s features shifted back into a state between worry and puzzlement. “Brezeen. We…disagreed on a salient point of salvage after she rescued me from the Riktorians.”

  The Mauw’s whiskers twitched. “It wouldn’t be the first time our feathered friend claimed another sent as salvage. You know she wants you for her harem.”

  “She offered to buy him from me,” Treska said. She stroked a finger along the surface of the chain and noted mottling on the back of one of the cabochons. “I didn’t know it was for stuffing.”

  Enlightenment snuffed. “Hard not to laugh at the irony in that, isn’t it? A Guerran, stuffing a human like a cluck-bird.”

  “Can we stop having fun at my expense and let me see what came out of my own body?” Micah snapped his fingers in a bid for attention. All things considered, going from his discovery of Treska’s secret to their first kiss to minor surgery all in one go had left him drained. But Brezeen’s stunt was the last straw. “I cannot believe that bird put something inside me
with her foot! Her foot, of all things!”

  Treska wrinkled her nose, but it was clear that she still found the situation amusing. Try sitting here with acid burning in your gut and stars-know-what else poisoning your veins. “Shush. I’m cleaning your wound.” She added insult to injury as she washed his open skin out with antiseptic, sopped up the mess, and laid a patch of syntha-skin over it.

  He winced. Most field medicine included training in use of syntha-skin from the can, which anybody could do. But larger wounds required the pre-grown sheets, and far fewer people were trained in its use in the field. From his vantage point—and his position of extreme disgruntlement—he could see how careful her hands were. “Thank you.” His voice was calm as he found his center again. The syntha-skin would bond to his own skin and eventually become absorbed in the healing process, but the application was critical. “I’ve seen a few field applications.” The sticky, delicate, stretchy biological material seemed to love to clump, and the wrinkled syntha-skin produced thick scars that could border on the painful.

  She glanced up and the unguarded moment showed the conflict in her emotions. “The—my—Union training—that is—” She stared down at the syntha-skin and frowned as if it suddenly weren’t one of the most common substances found in medi-kits throughout the system for hundreds of standard years. “You’re welcome.”

  His own problems receded. His wound might have been a distraction, but the anomalies in her behavior and thought patterns would catch up to her. “You’re very considerate and thorough.”

  She focused on the last bit of skin and sealed him back up. “I had the best doctors in my reconstruction and I still have scars. The scars, I couldn’t care less about. It’s the itching from the syntha-skin residue that’s enough to drive a person crazy. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”