Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Order Form
Author Bio
Back Cover
 
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Email us at admin@LionHearted.com Visit our web site at www.LionHearted.com Cover design: M.A. Heathman Copyright © 2005 Joy A. Clarke All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
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ISBN: 1-57343-067-6 Printed in the U.S.A.
To Jared and Aidan, 
who provide constant inspiration in my life.
 
Chapter 1

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Second Rising Fortis Cluster

She wanted the drug back. Wanted the blessed state of apathy it induced, then she wouldn’t have to think about what was happening to her.
For the first time in days, the fog in her head dissipated, but into its place crept the all too familiar, terrible, mind-numbing fear.
Cassie Gordon knew her reprieve had run out. Weeks of captivity and sheer terror had led here—to this luxurious prison—a place with no identity, no location. Why had her comfortable, drugged routine of an unknown number of days been broken?
The future terrified her.
She faced the rose-tinted wall in the warm, perfumed room, positioned by hands that had become intimately familiar with her body. Her mind screamed a warning. Her limbs, still in the grip of the drug, wouldn’t, couldn’t react as a long scarlet scarf, fine and feather-soft, slid against her naked flesh. Another of teal followed, then one of deep gold, then a rich purple mixed with sea-blue until her paralyzed body was
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covered in layers of sheer erotic fabrics. Gentle fingers, that moments ago had applied cosmetics to her face, grasped the heavy weight of her dark hair and twisted and bound it against her nape.
Another scarf covered her hair, then something else was lifted over her head. Her terror increased when she caught a glimpse of a webbed metal visor that soon blinded her vision. Hands grasped her unresisting wrists, drew them together in front of her, and secured them tightly. There was a touch on her leg and each ankle received a manacle.
Cassie stifled a moan, convinced the familiar gag would be next. Determined to resist it, she clamped her lips together hard enough to cause pain. The pressure on her jaw never came. Instead, she was guided to sit on the bed. She heard the light rustle of robes as her attendant moved away. Her captors didn’t seem interested in ensuring her silence this time and the realization caused her dread to escalate.
The small space of movement in her ankle restraints was just enough, she judged, to allow her a slow shuffle, but not enough to attempt an escape. She sensed her attendant was still in the room, although no sound betrayed the woman’s position.
With the hiss of the opening door accompanied by a spate of harsh, guttural words, she knew the guard who had placed her here days ago was back. Her attendant gave an odd choked sound of distress. It was the only sound Cassie had ever heard from the woman. A hard hand grasped her arm and jerked her to her feet. She knew the exact moment she crossed the threshold from the false comfort of the perfumed room into the unknown. Her mind, clear and sharp for the first time in days, knew with growing certainty what she had so carefully been prepared for. Panic almost buckled her knees.
With a trembling breath, she forced her unsteady legs to move. The relentless pressure on her wrists dictated she walk or be dragged. She would not let them see how terrified she was, nor would she give in to the fear that threatened to consume her.
Their pace was slow enough to accommodate her restricted movements. Even so, it wasn’t long before the guard drew her to a halt. In an exchange of rapid and incomprehensible words, he handed her over to another man.
The place to which she was then led was in shocking contrast to her expectations. Loud noise assaulted her from every side— raised voices, shouts of laughter, and the whine of a machine. Somewhere close by a large object crashed to the floor. The sound was followed by the roar of rough male voices and a sickening crunch, flesh against flesh. Her nostrils filled with the odor of unwashed bodies, the scent of something pungent and sweet, and the spicy incense favored by geish smokers.
Noise rose and fell in waves around her. As she passed, it diminished then swelled louder than before behind her. She sensed many beings, but none except for her escort made contact with her. Her bare toes stubbed on some solid object and she tripped. Her escort caught her arms as she fell, jerked her upright, and led her up a short flight of steps. Her hands were released, only to be drawn backwards and fastened again around what felt like a slender pole at her back.
A man shouted next to her. Then came a rapid, horribly loud staccato sound. It was a signal. The room fell silent. From both sides of her, two men barked out a stream of words and the crowd roared its approval and excitement.
Cassie willed her legs to hold her, prayed that whatever was about to happen would be over quickly. She fought back a wave of nausea as her stomach heaved, and forced to mind an image which normally brought comfort—the delicate crystal blooms of her favorite orcan flowers. But her entire collection had been lost in the same attack that had placed her in this hell, and that memory was still a raw, gaping wound.
A tug at her head removed the scarf over her hair. A louder clamor rose from the crowd. Voices babbled near her. Then came a scuffling followed by a thump and cruel laughter.
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She swallowed a moan of terror when she felt a hand in her hair. As the heavy, dark mass was released from its confinement and slid down her back, the shouts became louder, more frenzied.
There was another tug, and cool air swept across her left breast. Full and horrifying realization swept over her.
Vague memories of stories, whispered and giggled amongst childhood friends, now returned in chilling detail. They had laughed at the time and embellished on the rumors. It was all true, and the reality was utterly terrifying. A ruthless fate had led her to the notorious flesh auction block.
She was about to be sold to the highest bidder.
It took all her self-control, all her concentration, all her pride to remain upright. The babble of noise swelled. She became aware of a loud argument being conducted behind her back.
A new sound penetrated. The heavy clump of booted feet circled around her, behind her. Warm breath, with a faint smell of sweet tiug leaf, tickled her ear.
“I’ll try to help you,” a masculine voice whispered so softly she wasn’t sure if her terrified mind had conjured up the words or if they were real. His breath circled her and fanned her other ear. “Trust me.”
A tiny spiral of hope and excitement snaked through her. In this hell of incomprehensible languages, he spoke in a tongue she understood.
Another violent argument erupted behind her.
More angry shouts. More ominous thuds. The bonds that held her to the pole were cut. A not ungentle hand pushed her forward and down the steps. The crowd was not pleased with this latest development. Their entertainment had ended. Frustration and anger were evident in the press of bodies she felt much closer to her this time. Hands reached out to tug at her hair, and tweak at her flesh. She sensed the protective body behind her, felt the movement of the arm that deflected a number of the assaults, heard the warning growls.
Then the noise abruptly ended. They must have entered a private room. Still surrounded by people, she stood helpless and exposed as the arguing continued, and her fate was decided.
Desperate, she forced out a whispered, “Please?” If anyone heard, they ignored her.
A hand touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I have to do this. The other bidder insists. I won’t hurt you.”
Another scarf slid to the floor, and another, until she stood naked in a room grown quiet. A hard hand touched her bottom, stroked across the rounded curve, then slid up to brush her hair aside and briefly cup her breast. He was close. She felt his body’s heat against her bare flesh. He spoke to someone in a harsh, guttural tongue.
Shouts, fierce and angry, broke out again. They were answered with increasing impatience by the deep voice until the arguments quieted and died to a series of satisfied grunts. Something soft and heavy was placed around her shoulders. A hand fumbled with clasps at the front of the garment, drawing it together to shield her nakedness. Arms reached around her under the cloak to unbind her wrists and draw them forward only to bind them again.
She was still a prisoner then, despite the promise of help.
Another murmur came in her ear. “Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.”
She could do nothing but follow. She had simply exchanged one imprisonment for another. What she had come from had been bad enough, but she was under no illusions. There were far worse things that sentients did to one another. This man had paid an enormous price for her, she guessed. What he would demand in return didn’t bear thinking about. The memory of his intimate touch, gentle though he had been, made her shudder.
Their pace was too fast for her restrictive bindings. She stumbled several times, but each time he caught her. Once
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again, her whispered plea was ignored. Her bare feet grew sore from the textured surfaces they encountered. Her mind whirled with questions she wanted desperately to ask.
“Duck your head and step down!” The tone of his voice was normal. A hand on her head urged her to comply with the first command. Another on her back guided her forward. Pain sliced through her shoulder as she bumped it against a solid jutting object. “Sorry.” Seconds later, she was pushed down onto a padded seat. “Stay here. I’ll remove your bindings and visor when we’re well under way. I don’t trust the Gerfins with a moin-taw, and particularly not with a transaction like this. And they have even less reason to trust me.”
His own words seemed to amuse him. He chuckled, then grunted. Metal slid against metal. “They’ve probably found some item to dispute in the trade agreement already. Put your harness on.”
He moved past her, mumbling to himself.
Outrage swept through her, replacing fear and uncertainty for an instant. Transaction? She was a trade transaction? After all she had been through, the man’s careless comment was the final insult. The emotion died just as quickly as it had been born when she heard his boots again.
He uttered a soft curse. “Sorry, I’ll do it.”
She didn’t understand what he meant until she felt the bite of straps across her shoulders. He gave her head a pat. “On our way. Relax.”
Minutes later, she felt a shudder.
They were moving, and she was with a man she had never seen, and didn’t know anything about.
A man who had bought her. Seen her naked. Touched her intimately. Who, by the liberal definitions of free trade, now owned her body and soul.
And she hadn’t the slightest idea where he was taking her.
A sudden rush of hot tears took her by surprise. She blinked them away and let anger rise in their stead. With bound hands, she tore at the hated visor, an attempt that only proved futile and painful. She slumped in her seat, discouraged.
The faint throb of the vessel’s engines seemed a grim validation of her lost future and shattered dreams. The steady rhythm spoke of purpose and a destination over which she had no control. Her immediate past didn’t bear thinking about. Her future was a void defined by fear and uncertainty. In the pale gray world of her metal visor she could only allow herself a thought or two about the man who had bought her. She must have dozed then because she awoke with a start, instantly panicked when she felt hands on her.
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.” The masculine voice was calm and soothing. “You must want to be rid of these bindings.”
She quieted under his touch, forced herself to be still while he lifted the metal bands from her wrists, then pushed aside the cloak at her feet. The large hand on her ankle was gentle, yet caused a peculiar heat to flare out from the spot where he touched her.
The visor seemed to give him particular difficulty. As he wrestled with the clasp, unintelligible mutters issued from his mouth and the scent of tiug leaf became stronger. His grunt of satisfaction came at the same time she heard the twang of metal. The visor was lifted away from her face.
Reflexively, she put her hands up to rub the pinched skin at her temples and lifted wary eyes to the face of the stranger.
He was a big man. Even balanced on his haunches before her, he looked down on her. But it was his eyes, the color of the pale gold of the sea stones from the caverns on Barthos, that compelled her attention. His gaze embraced her with warmth and compassion. The hard knot of fear in her chest eased a little.
“Welcome aboard, lady.” His lips curved in a smile. She had an unexpected, irrational desire to reach out and run her finger down the deep laughter grooves carved below his cheekbones, to trace a path around his well-shaped lips.
J.A. CLARKE

“Sebastian Asteril at your service. You’re aboard my vessel, the Shilmonite. You have nothing to fear here.”
Cassie swallowed and barely managed a nod of acknowledgement. She couldn’t tear her gaze away and his eyes were starting to crinkle at the corners with amusement, but he seemed otherwise undisturbed by her stare. He couldn’t be called a handsome man. His features were too rugged, too uneven, the crooked nose too large. The thought that his unruly thatch of dark blond hair looked as if it took constant abuse from his fingers was confirmed when he lifted a hand and raked it through an untidy strand that had fallen across his forehead.
The action revealed something else.
At his temple, there beat a tiny pale gold pulse in the shape of a prism.
Only one race in four star systems laid claim to the unusual temple mark. Cassie’s gaze fixed on the distinctive characteristic as her mind worked frantically to identify it. The knowledge was elusive.
“Where…?” Her voice was horribly scratchy and tight. She cleared her throat. “Where are you from?”
“The Mariltar Nation.” The smile faded from his face. A faint frown gathered between his brows.
“The Crestar System?”
His frown disappeared and he nodded.
Enormous relief swept through her even as a voice inside her head urged caution. If he was true to his race, she had found sanctuary, and possibly transport. The Crestar System and the planet, Treaine, a multi-racial colony, had been her intended destination before the attack on the transport vessel had thrust her into captivity.
Excitement prompted her to open her mouth with another question, but then she remembered and snapped it shut again. She looked down at her hands. This man had seen her unclothed, had touched her intimately in a vulnerable moment. He owned her. How could she begin to trust him?
“You’re of Earth descent?” His quiet voice held no threat.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You’ve had a rough time, haven’t you?”
The compassionate tone, after weeks of sheer terror, undid her. To her horror, she discovered that, this time, she couldn’t stop the tears. They welled out of her eyes and streamed in hot rivers down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to gulp in air and heard a wail swell out of her throat instead. Embarrassed, she dropped her face into her hands and prayed for solitude.
Hands grasped her under her arms and lifted her out of the chair. Instinctively, she kicked out and twisted in his grasp but he subdued her easily and moved her to another small compartment where he chose to sit on the floor rather than a narrow sleeping platform. She found herself in the cradle of his lap.
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. You’re safe now.” A hand smoothed over the top of her head, and strong fingers pushed through the strands of her hair to begin a gentle massage of her nape. Cassie buried her face in the rough weave of his shirt and wept harder. She should resist this stranger’s touch but the comfort he offered was too potent. Pent-up stress and misery of the last few weeks flowed out of her. As the storm of emotion died down, muffled sounds began to penetrate her consciousness.
Disjointed words and soft curses tumbled around her. A hand rubbed up and down her back in jerky strokes.
Then a garbled imprecation was followed by a clear burst of frustration and helplessness. “Balls of Sortor! What, by Cor’s blood, do I do now? Why do women have to cry over everything? I’m not the one who hurt her. I’m only trying to help, and cursed expensive it was, too! I’ll never understand females. I hate it when they cry. Where is that blasted, lazy, good-for-nothing Rom-pin when I need him? He’d know what to do!”
Cassie felt a hysterical giggle well up inside of her. It burst through her lips before she could stop it. The hand on her back
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paused in its rough ministrations.
“What now?”
For some reason, the pure bewilderment in his tone struck her as enormously funny. An uncontrollable howl of laughter escaped her. Horrified, she tightened her grip on his shirt, and pushed her face against the warmth and hardness beneath. What was the matter with her? He was going to think she was out of her mind. His arms tightened around her and the mutters resumed, this time in a language she didn’t understand.
Then, abruptly, she had herself under control. A strange sense of calm washed over her. It was comfortable here in the cradle of his lap. Safe. She was struck by a powerful urge to close her eyes and let sleep take her.
“Better?” His deep voice rumbled against the top of her head.
She nodded. The small action seemed to take tremendous effort. “Who’s Rom-in?”
“Who? Oh—Rom-pin. He’s my partner. Sometimes. When the mood strikes him.”
Exhaustion warred with curiosity and gave her courage. “D–do you always talk to yourself?” She risked peering at him through the tangle of her hair, conscious for a fleeting instant of how she must look with swollen eyes and reddened nose.
His mouth dropped open. She had taken him by surprise, but only for a moment. The grin he flashed robbed her of her breath and sent a quiver through her lower belly.
“I’m compelled to entertain myself when companionship is lacking—which is often. I’m a trader. I make long voyages.” He offered her a square of cloth pulled from a pocket. “Here, I think my shirt is all used up.”
Embarrassed again, she scrubbed at her face, bent her head and blew her nose. All sense of safety and comfort had vanished. She sat in his lap with only the inadequate barrier of the loose cloak to cover her nakedness.
All of a sudden, she couldn’t bear his touch.
She finished drying her face and risked another glance at him from under spiky, wet lashes. He grinned back at her.
“I’m sorry. I d–didn’t mean to lose control like that.”
He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “You’re entitled. Anyone who’s had to endure Gerfin-style hospitality and a flesh auction can be forgiven for losing control. What’s your name?”
“C–Cassie Gordon.”
“Well, Cassie Gordon, you’re safe with me.” He glanced around the small crowded compartment in which they sat. “The question is, what do we do now?”
It was a lazy speculation, but it brought back all her fears and nervousness. She gathered her courage and pushed herself to her feet, clutching the cloak protectively around herself. The golden gaze immediately swung back to her, but his arm fell away. He made no move to stop her.
“I–I need to find transport to Treaine. Can you—will you help me?”
His demeanor didn’t change, but Cassie felt her request had surprised him in some way. He took his time to stretch his large body with slow, unselfconscious pleasure. Muscles rippled under the fabric covering his arms and thighs.
“Treaine’s a long way from here. Why do you want to go there?”
“I have a position there. A–at least, I think I do.” She moved away from him, hesitated, then settled gingerly on the edge of the narrow sleeping platform and drew her bare feet under the hem of the cloak. She had lost track of time during her captivity and had no idea how long it had been since the Araminy had been attacked. It was entirely possible, probable even, that her superiors thought her dead and had filled the position already. But it was even more important she get word to her parents who must be frantic with grief. She glanced again at the man on the floor. He looked as if he were about to fall asleep. Half-closed eyelids shuttered his expression. Amusement lurked in the tilt of his mouth.
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Panic and doubt beset her again. She wondered what he had meant by that lazy first question. Of course he would find the request ridiculous. She was his property. He wouldn’t just put her on a vessel bound for Treaine.
He owned her.
And, no doubt, would want to exact some recompense from her.
Chapter 2

? ? ?

Sebastian Asteril studied the huddled figure on his bed.
He had obviously lost his sanity.
There was no place in his life for charitable gestures. He was too highly trained to give in to impulse. An important negotiation had been interrupted, a critical contract put at risk over this demented lapse in judgement.
His feelings confused him. The intense sexual attraction he could understand, but this fierce protectiveness, this need to soothe, comfort, and reassure was alien—and not welcome.
Compassion was no justification for jeopardizing his mandate. On top of that, he had ignored all the sanctioned rules of commerce and participated in the flesh trade. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision. When he had turned in time to see, across that noisy, reeking, crowded room, the veil of long dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, he had ceased to think. Before he knew it, he had found himself on the platform beside her, bartering a vessel’s worth of trade goods.
He had seen many women come and go on that particular auction block, many with a greater claim to beauty. The deep anger and revulsion he felt over the foul practice had always been kept in check.
He had always been able to walk away.
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Until now.
So why was he allowing his conscience to dictate his actions at such a crucial time?
What made this woman so different?
Perhaps it was because she had been destined for a particular bidder. That much had been obvious from the very beginning when other interested parties had quickly fallen away. It had fired his determination and motivation. No Mogton warlord was going to get his blood-fouled hands on this fascinating creature. But after a brutal round of bidding, his rival had faded away, given up—far too easily, in complete contradiction to his reputation. It worried Sebastian.
His body’s reaction was the other answer. It throbbed with a savage sexual desire. He wanted her with an urgency he hadn’t felt in years. Wanted to push her back down on the bed and persuade her with the expertise that made him welcome in many a bed in four star systems.
And yet, he had a far deeper desire to draw her back into his arms to smooth the worry from her face, and pledge to her that he would keep her safe with all the considerable skills and resources at his disposal.
From his position on the floor of the compartment, he studied her. He saw the pink tip of her tongue brush and moisten her upper lip, then her teeth nibble on her lower one. She slanted him a nervous, uncertain sideways glance.
She didn’t trust him—and why should she? He could only guess at the terrible experiences she must have suffered.
And what, by the blood of Cor, should he do with her now?
He couldn’t keep her with him. His assignment would be put at risk, his judgement condemned in an instant. His body wouldn’t tolerate her presence.
He forced his thoughts back to her surprising request. It was ironic. Of all the women in the star system he had to choose to rescue, why did it have to be one bound for Treaine? This development could prove a grave complication if he let it.
And in that instant he made up his mind. Against his better judgement, and against all his instincts, he knew he would keep her with him—for a few days anyway. He could at least take her part of the way to her destination. There was a reason he had done what he had done. Time would reveal what it was.
The uncertain look on her face had turned to panic. He realized she still waited for a response and his reply was short. “I can arrange to get you to Treaine.”
Puzzlement registered on the expressive face, then cautious relief. He wondered what answer she had expected. She edged forward on the sleeping platform, a sudden eagerness lighting her eyes. “Could we send a message to let them know I’m on my way? Could I also send a message to my parents?”
“At this distance, we’ll have to relay to Treaine, but messages can get through. Communicating with Earth from this sector is virtually impossible.”
“Oh, no, my parents aren’t on Earth. They’re on Grale-Tern.”
“Grale-Tern?”
“It’s in the Flotorian System. I lived there before–before…” She looked away.
Sebastian stretched his cramped legs out before him, folded his hands behind his head, and studied her further. The mystery had taken on new meaning. Signals were going off in his head. “You were traveling from Grale-Tern to Treaine? It’s a long trip. To do what?” The Flotorian System subscribed to interplanetary law. How had she fallen into the hands of the Gerfins to become the main attraction in one of the most notorious flesh auctions in this star system? He wanted to bombard her with questions but knew he would have to proceed with care and patience. She was, with good reason, nervous and very unsure of him.
“I’m an apprentice engineer. I–I received the assignment when I graduated from the Barthos Academy.”
“And you must be an excellent one. Treaine takes only the best.” He hid a smile at the color that flooded her face. She was
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in her mid-twenties at least, yet she lacked the sophistication of the women with whom he usually associated. It was part of her appeal.
Then something she had said struck a cord in his memory and the signals in his head went crazy. Barthos! It was too much of a coincidence. “There was a vessel, a transporter registered on Barthos which was attacked and destroyed two months ago. It was assumed that everyone aboard had perished.” He kept his tone casual but watched her carefully.
With a violent shudder, she shrank into the cloak. Her eyes stared at him, but it was obvious she saw something else. Something infinitely terrifying.
“The vessel was the Araminy. You were a passenger, weren’t you, Cassie?”
Dark pools of pain gave no indication she had heard the question. He leaned forward, touched her hand and repeated it.
She blinked and shivered, moved her hand, drew back from him. “Yes,” she whispered.
“You’re the only known survivor then. The Barthos authorities must be notified. They’ll want to know what happened.”
“No! Not yet. I can’t… Please, not yet. Will you–will you send the messages?”
“I will.” It would be difficult under the circumstances, but he could try. It was doubtful the one bound for Treaine would arrive much in advance of its sender.
“You won’t send me back to Barthos, will you? I can’t go back.” Her voice held a note of hysteria.
“Of course not. We have to sort out our–er, unique arrangement first. I’m headed in the other direction anyway.” He hated to mislead her, but it was a justification to himself to keep her when, by all rights, he should turn her over to the authorities at the border post. It had been two months since the attack. What harm would another few days do? A message would suffice—when he was ready to send it.
She was tense and withdrawn again, not looking at him as she pleated and unpleated the folds of fabric in the cloak. “You promised to help me get to Treaine,” she whispered.
“I did, and I keep my promises. Tell me what happened, Cassie. I’ll need something for the message.”
He waited. His impatience grew but he held it in check. He had been trained by the best. Then the shining dark head lifted. Tears shimmered again in the stunning violet eyes. Her voice quivered with emotion as she told a horrific tale of the sudden attack, killings, incarceration of the women passengers, and grueling, forced labor. Clearly anxious to be done, she finished with a few short words of how she had ended up at the flesh auction.
The fabric of the cloak twisted around her fingers. Her hair slid forward to hide her face, but not before he saw her anguish. “I don’t know where we were. Th–those other women—is there a way to find them?”
“I’ll tell the authorities on Barthos,” he said quietly. He had little expectation that anything could or would be done. The territory in which he had found her was off limits to most of the peace-abiding nations. The Araminy had clearly ventured far off course. Even if the government of Barthos was inclined to request the return of its citizens, of whom would they make such a request? The sector was fractured into numerous barren asteroid strongholds, each ruled by its own despot. And he had only an unconfirmed suspicion.
Her next words came as a whisper. “You bought me. Why?”
He stilled, then forced his lips to curl in the semblance of a grin. “You were in need of help. I was in a position to provide it, and the buying and selling of females is accepted practice in this region. It was time for a good deed on my part—an atonement for all the trouble I’ve gotten myself into lately.” It was an answer that revealed nothing of the powerful emotion which had driven him to offer a first bid. He had yet to define the feelings that had fueled his determination when he realized she was intended for the Mogton. He had every conceivable
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reason to walk away, but everything in him had rebelled against letting this intriguing creature go to what he knew would be a grim, horrible destiny.
“How–how much did you pay?”
“Enough. It doesn’t matter!” The deliberate roughness in his voice forestalled the objection he saw quivering on her lips. He would have traded three times the amount of cargo he had forfeited to release her from that nightmare.
A nightmare that might not be over yet.
He should check the controls again. He pushed himself to his feet.
There was more to her story, he suspected, and much she probably didn’t know. The Gerfins were not her original abductors. Flesh traders they might be, but their procurement methods didn’t include attacking star vessels, nor mining operations. “I’ll be out there.” He gestured to the closed door between the two compartments. “Prepare your messages, and I’ll do what I can to send them to their destinations.”
She had shrunk into the cloak again and stared at him from wide, fearful eyes. Her long, dark hair tumbled in riotous disarray over one shoulder.
His body tightened. She had an extraordinary effect on him. He was crazy to keep her. “You have my word I’ll help you,” he said softly, the need to reassure her as great as the growing urgency to determine their status. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
And tight schedule or not, he was going to plot a detour to visit the dubious pleasures of a not too distant substation. The clear, fresh memory of a slender, naked body, with gentle curves in all the right places coupled with the current view of that same body curled up on his bed was too much for his deprived libido.
Cassie’s expression didn’t change. He hesitated, then turned to the door.
“C–Captain Asteril?”
The sound of his name on her lips sent a jolt of pleasure through his body. He turned back to her. “Sebastian, please.”
“I have…would you show me where I prepare my messages? And, do you have something else I can wear?” Her face flushed with embarrassment. She searched the crowded compartment as if she expected something to materialize out of thin air, looking everywhere but at him. “And w–where is the–ah–um…?” Her voice trailed away. The nervous hand movements were back.
Hiding his amusement, he waved a hand and said with matter-of-factness, “The head is behind that panel. You can use the information console over there.” He pointed to equipment partially concealed by containers on the opposite wall. “Just activate it with the yellow switch on the far right. Speak, and then close it off again when you’re finished. The message will be stored until I can transmit it. As for clothes…” He paused, then said with some doubt, “You’re welcome to see if any of mine will work. They’re in the cabinet over the sleeping platform. I’m sorry, women’s clothing is the one thing I don’t trade.”
Out in the privacy of the navigation module, a quick scan revealed no other vessels anywhere in their vicinity. Captain Sebastian Asteril, a decorated commander in the Seventh Fleet of Mariltar, or a trader of questionable ethics—depending on whom was asked—settled into his seat and forced his mind away from the woman behind the closed door.
He flicked a switch and stared at information he had spent countless hours analyzing. There was no new information in the database. But Cassie Gordon had revealed more in the last half-hour than he had been able to uncover himself in a long time. Forced labor. Mining operations. Mogton warlords. His gut told him there was a link. He just had to find it. His instincts were always sound.
His determination grew to keep her with him until she told him more, willingly or not.
J.A. CLARKE

He flicked another switch. More reports, more deaths. Each individual death was a tragedy. And the threat to an infant society struggling to maintain a hard-won peace after generations of warfare was immeasurable.
Shlil dust. A strong hallucinogen. Irresistible. Soul destroying. Deadly.
The rage rose in him, as it always did, when he remembered a good friend, a woman, who had succumbed to it.

It was a great relief to be left alone. Exhausted, Cassie stared at the closed door through which the Mariltar had disappeared. The reliving of the past weeks had utterly drained her. She had sketched the bare facts of the story for him, but hadn’t described the screams that still echoed in her head, the sheer terror, the helplessness, and the hopelessness.
She allowed herself to slump over until her body rested on the sleeping platform. She had nothing to fear from this man. He would help her. He had said so several times. Yet something bothered her. Something about him. He seemed kind enough, concerned enough, interested in her story.
Perhaps too interested? For a trader?
From somewhere inside her mind a tiny voice urged caution. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but knew, despite his reassurances, there was still a threat here.
The warmth of the cloak couldn’t prevent the deep chill that shuddered through her body and raised the fine hair on her flesh.
The size of his vessel, the quality of his clothes, the volume of containers stacked in the sleeping compartment suggesting the cargo hold was still full, despite his trade for her—all signs that he was very good at his profession. Successful traders benefited from every deal. And there was no escape from the fact that he owned her.
She had to convince him she would repay her purchase price, just in case he started to look for an opportunity elsewhere to make a profit off her. It made her nervous that he had shrugged off that particular question with such abruptness. She hadn’t been able to read him, but she would, she vowed. She would persist until she had an answer and then she would do whatever it took…
Fighting off an overwhelming desire to close her eyes and sink into oblivion, she pushed herself off the sleeping platform and went to investigate what he had called ‘the head.’
J.A. CLARKE

Chapter 3

? ? ?
“Captain Asteril?”
Sebastian jerked his head up. Deep in concentration, he hadn’t heard the hiss of the compartment door. She stood framed in the doorway and the sight of her made his body clench with a rush of desire.
She had found something with which to tie up her hair, and now the heavy length hung tamed down her back. Her face was washed clean of the cosmetics used to enhance her appearance for the auction and she had made good use of his personal belongings.
He would never think of those particular clothes the same way again. Sleeves and pant legs were rolled up to accommodate her shorter height, and she had belted the shirt in around her waist. But oversized and baggy as the clothes were on her slender frame, they somehow lent unexpected and unintended sexual appeal even though the curves of her body were not clearly evident.
“You’re very resourceful,” he said, trying not to think about what she had or didn’t have on under his clothes. What was it about her that attracted him so strongly and made his body react like that of an adolescent boy?
Her cheeks flushed pink and she made an awkward gesture at her borrowed garments. “Thank you.” She took two uncertain
steps into the module.
“Use what you need. Everything that’s mine is yours.”
She nodded and came another step closer. He smelled the cleansing powder he kept in the head. On her, the almost indiscernible scent transformed into something mysterious, exotic. His blood pressure notched up. He’d had his fair share of sexual encounters, had taken women more beautiful than this one to his bed, but she had a more powerful affect on his mind and body than the aphrodisiacal aroma of a fleniam blossom. He didn’t know why, and was deeply mistrustful of the extraordinary urges that had no hope of being satisfied anytime soon. But he did know that as soon as they were through the Myerta Array, he was going to chart a course for that substation.
“Am–am I disturbing you?”
“I’m always glad for company. Have a seat.” He waved her to the empty chair beside him. He tried to turn his attention back to his nav chart, but found himself watching her instead.
After a slight hesitation, she sat. “I wanted to ask—”
“A moment, please. I need to finish this up.” The course through the shifting canyons of the Myerta Array was an intricate one and required all his concentration. He should send her back to the other compartment.
He checked the tracking sensor again. The blip was still there. They were being followed. The twinge of concern became a full-blown alarm. But they would be inside the array within another hour. Few knew the canyons as he did, and fewer still would be prepared to follow at the speed he planned. The magnetic field would shield their direction, prevent them from being tracked, disguise their exit point. Once through, it would be only a matter of days before they arrived at the substation.
By then, he would have decided what to do with her. Until then, he hoped his body could withstand this sweet torture.
He sneaked another look at her. She was gazing with rapt
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fascination at the brilliant streaks and swirls of light through which they were passing. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!” she whispered. Awe filled her voice. “Where are we?”
“In the Cycla Depression, heading for the Myerta Array. This is one of my favorite spots. Watch!”
He touched a control and the vessel danced sideways. The streaks of light shattered, changed color and reformed. Her uninhibited exclamation of delight was a spur to his desire to impress her. He grinned, and pressed another control. The vessel rocked gently from side to side. A triple ring of multicolored light appeared directly in front of them. She gasped, then laughed, and the sweet sound of it drove him to greater effort. For the next twenty minutes, he forgot they were being pursued as he performed a series of maneuvers to entertain her. The haunted look, at least for a few moments, seemed to disappear from her eyes.
A warning beep shocked him. The tracking sensor had identified another vessel a hundred lins distant, but still far too close. Their pursuer had increased his speed while he had been distracted. He swore soundly under his breath, irritated at his own carelessness. The other vessel should never have been allowed to get this close. His own vessel responded instantly to his commands. The rapid increase in speed blurred the lights to solid waves of neon-green. He would have to be careful he didn’t overshoot the entry point into the array.
“What’s the matter?”
The worried question drew his attention for only a second.
“Playing was so much fun, I forgot where we were,” he said in a tone of forced cheerfulness. “Just need to concentrate on navigating through some rough spots. We’re going to hit some bumps. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable in there?” He jerked his head in the direction of the inner compartment.
She had been dismissed. Nicely. But there was something in his tone that told her she didn’t really have a choice.
Her desperate need to ask about her purchase price would have to wait. There was a new urgency in him. And something he wasn’t telling her. Cassie had noticed the tension that gripped him when the control panel had beeped, yet his verbal response had been unconcerned. Now deep in concentration again, he ignored her when she rose to follow his suggestion.
A short while later, she lay curled on the sleeping platform in absolute misery, convinced she was going to die. A giant hand played a cruel game of tossball with the Shilmonite. The vessel shuddered and groaned as it rode through stomach-curling swoops and bounced off solid objects. The scream and grind of tortured metal rang in her ears. A painful encounter with the floor early on persuaded her to use the restraint system attached to the bed, but now she wondered how the vessel could possibly even hold together.
She jerked in fear as a container burst its ties from a stack near the door and fell. Its contents of small mirrored pyramids spilled across the floor. Nerves in shreds, she buried herself under a mound of covers and pillows, but still couldn’t muffle the dreadful noises enough.
The agonized sounds and terrible battering continued unabated.
Then, surprisingly, she fell asleep.
She wrenched into wakefulness in complete and absolute silence. It was utterly eerie. Even the faint, reassuring shudder of the Shilmonite’s engines had ceased. The only sound was the fast, harsh panting of her own terrified breaths. In the false security of the cocoon she had made, she lay still, hands clenched tightly in the pillows, and strained her ears for the slightest indication of something, anything. The door hissed. Footsteps approached.
“Cassie? Are you in there?”
The calm voice with its undercurrent of laughter produced
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an irrational wave of irritation. How could he sound so calm and unconcerned and amused after what they had been through? Some perverse sense made her lie still and silent. Maybe he’d think she was asleep and leave her alone. It was a vain hope.
One by one the pillows were lifted and flung aside. He talked the whole time.
“It’s all right, you know. To be scared, I mean. I was terrified when I first navigated through this array. Didn’t think I’d make it. Thought I’d never find my way out of the Gala Canyon and I’d become one of those ghost ships drifting forever. But really, it sounds far worse than it is. The Shilmonite comes out with a few more dents each time, but nothing serious. I enjoy the challenge of collecting fewer holes each time I go through. It’s a… There you are!” The last pillow over her head was grabbed out of her resisting hands. Sebastian’s face grinned down at her.
Cassie lost her temper. “I wasn’t scared,” she snapped. “But you could have warned me. You said we were going to hit some bumps. That was more like a massive asteroid storm and wind tunnel combined.”
“A lot worse, technically,” he countered with relentless, cheerful unconcern. He reached over her to release the restraints. “Glad you weren’t scared. Next time you can hold my hand.” He picked a pillow up, tossed it into the air, and caught it. “Hungry?”
Hungry? The man was insane. How could she possibly be hungry when her stomach was still tied in knots in anticipation of the next bottomless swoop? She frowned and opened her mouth to deliver an irritated denial, then realized she was starving, couldn’t remember in fact the last time she had eaten. She muttered an affirmative reply that didn’t sound too gracious and immediately regretted her tone.
Sebastian wasn’t paying attention anyway. He had begun to paw through a storage bin. A stream of words issued from his mouth all the while. Cassie’s mood lightened as she listened.
She fought the urge to giggle. He was doing it again.
“Why are the vessel’s engines shut down?”
“Eh?” He stopped in mid-word and looked up as if surprised to find her still there, then went back to what he was doing. “They’re not. They’re just idling. We’re riding in a balian cloud while I get some rest. Unless you know how to pilot a star vessel?” He peered at her. Thick blond eyebrows waggled in an exaggerated expression of hope.
She wanted to giggle again. “No, of course not.”
He lifted broad shoulders in a careless shrug. “You never know. Hah!” In triumph, he held up two small containers. “I knew I had some left! Vargon soup. You’re in for a real experience if you’ve never tried it before.”
He dropped them into the food heater, retrieved them moments later, tore off the lids and handed her one. Cassie studied the chunky, vermilion-colored brew with some doubt. It smelled wonderful, but she wasn’t an adventurous eater, and had forced herself to consume too many strange-tasting foods recently.
“Eat! You’ll like it!” her companion encouraged. He plunged his utensil into the container and quickly devoured the soup.
His confidence about her food preferences brought back her irritation. She lowered her head and took a cautious sip. To her chagrin, she discovered he was right. The food was delicious and not unlike, in fact, her father’s favorite soup recipe. As hungry as she was, she ate slowly to savor every bite.
A sudden flurry of activity erupted next to her. Finished with his meal, Sebastian bounded off the sleeping platform, tossed his empty container into the waste disposal unit, then grabbed several pillows off the sleeping platform and dropped them on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Cassie stopped eating to watch, amazed at the amount of energy he put into such simple actions.
“Have to get some sleep before I set a course for the
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Ilianan substation.” His body followed the pillows. His various limbs shifted independently of one another as he tried to settle himself.
Unsure of herself, Cassie took another bite of food as he twisted and turned and grunted. “You can’t sleep down there,” she blurted in exasperation.
He rolled over, a grin on his face. “You’ve got a better idea?”
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Can’t allow that,” he said. “You’re my guest.” He turned over again. She heard another stifled groan.
Helpless, she stared at his back. Guilt over taking his bed warred with the suspicion that his display was one big act. The man was irritating, funny, generous, a successful trader, a terrible pilot—and a little strange. But even though she was beginning to think he was basically harmless, she knew she must never forget he owned her. Just then, he rolled onto his back, a pained expression on his face, and released a heavy sigh. Cassie wavered, then gave up.
“All right. The sleeping platform is narrow, but probably big enough for both of us, as long as you can stay in one place. And don’t–don’t get any ideas.” Horrified, she squeezed her eyes shut unable to believe what she had just said. The last thing she wanted to do was antagonize him; neither did she want to give him even a hint of encouragement. In the end, it didn’t matter what she did. He owned her. She cracked open one eye to assess his reaction.
“Works for me.” Far from being offended, he flashed her a wide grin, bounced up from the floor and dropped onto the sleeping platform. She got out of his way so fast she almost spilled her soup.
“Hey!” she squeaked in protest, unable to bring herself to say his name. Where did he get all his energy? Wasn’t he supposed to be tired? A muffled grunt answered her. She contented herself with a suspicious frown at his broad back and sat back down to finish eating her soup. By the time she had spooned up every morsel of food, deep, regular breathing issued from the prone shape next to her. She disposed of her container as she had seen him do, then picked up the spilled pyramids he’d ignored. There was nothing else to do.
She didn’t want or need to sleep again so soon, but she lay back down beside him anyway on the very edge of the platform.
As she listened to his breathing, dark memories from recent weeks assaulted her mind and, try as she would, they couldn’t be banished. In desperation, she rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. Her rescuer’s face, relaxed in sleep, had a boyish appearance. It was a nice, normal, very masculine face, she decided. One that anyone should be able to trust. And she so desperately needed to be able to trust him.

Four days later, Sebastian relaxed in his command seat and watched with pride as Cassie navigated through a small asteroid field.
For lack of anything better to do, she had taken to spending much of her time in the Shilmonite’s control module where he delighted in teaching her some basic navigational skills and piloting techniques. She was an apt student and, though not at all a risk taker, would make an adequate commercial pilot if she ever wanted a career change.
To his relief, there had been no further sign of pursuit. The canyons of the Myerta Array had been the discouragement for which he had hoped. Even so, on the two quick stops they made at sparsely populated outposts along their route so he could pursue his trading business, he left the Shilmonite concealed in whatever cover was handy, and took Cassie with him on the tiny shuttle. Despite her protests, he never allowed her to leave the shuttle, and always conducted his business nearby.
He watched her neatly dodge a small obstacle. She gave a crow of triumph and looked at him for approval.
J.A. CLARKE

He grinned. “Don’t get too cocky. You have another hour of this before we can shut down for the night.”
“At least I missed it. You would have navigated right over it,” she shot back.
“It’s a matter of choosing one’s battles, rookie. I don’t waste energy on the small stuff.”
“That’s because basically you’re just lazy.”
“Insults again.” He heaved a deep breath, tipped his seat back and closed his eyes. “You must not want to hear about the Crestar System tonight.”
“I did. I do! Don’t you dare go to sleep on me.” There was a hint of panic in her voice.
He yawned. “You’ll do fine. Just make sure you miss the big one a half lin directly ahead.”
“What? Where? I don’t see it. Sebastian? Sebastian!”
He hid a grin and didn’t respond. She would figure it out soon enough. A pilot had to be prepared for anything. He heard a series of soft beeps that indicated she was already checking her instruments. He sank deeper into his seat. The last few days had been among the most delightful, frustrating, and hardest of his life. She was still largely a mystery to him, a creature of lightning mood changes, one moment capable of withstanding his teasing, the next sad and distant and sometimes fearful. There were times when she didn’t hesitate to say what was on her mind or deliver a sharp scolding, and other times when she withdrew abruptly inside herself to a place he couldn’t reach.
In the close quarters they shared, it was impossible to avoid physical contact. With each touch, he craved more. He found himself, under the guise of playfulness, twining his fingers in the silk of her dark hair, curving a hand over a rounded hip, kneading the soft skin of her nape. And each encounter became a little more painful, because she neither accepted nor rejected the contact. Sometimes, she delivered a sharp reminder not to touch but, more often than not, she behaved as if it had never happened.
Once he had wakened to find he’d rolled into her during the night and taken her into his embrace. He’d lain there, tortured by the warmth and sweet curves of her, by her closeness, yet unable to pull away. His arms were curled around her. One hand cupped the full, firm curve of her breast. His hips fit snugly against her bottom; a fierce erection pressed into her softness. She had awakened all too soon and extricated herself without fuss while, like a coward, he had let her think him still asleep. And despite his increasing discomfort and need, he never had plotted that course to the sub-station. Now it was too late. They were past it. The border was days away.
“Sebastian? I still don’t see it. Are you making it up? Because if you are, I’ll give—Oh, my God!”
Target identified. Right on time. She’d done well, but then he’d have been disappointed if she hadn’t seen what many pilots so often made the mistake of ignoring at great cost.
He’d discovered she had a laser-sharp intelligence. Early on, he had bullied her into learning a couple of versions of the Mariltar mind skills game. Once she tried them, her engineer’s mind was hooked. She quickly built her expertise to the point where she won every game and, in exaggerated disgust, he refused to play with her until she promised to let him win once in a while.
Something hard jabbed him in the ribs—a first. She never deliberately made physical contact. “Wake up, you worm! What is this thing?”
“Your test,” he said without opening his eyes. “If you can get past it, I’ll tell you about the Crestar System.”
“And if I don’t get past it?”
“There won’t be any need to tell you about the Crestar System.”
“You are joking. It looks like a perfectly harmless cloud.”
“It’s not. It’s impenetrable and has a gravity burn of thirty-two.”
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She inhaled sharply. “You’re crazy. I’m not doing this. Look at the passage. It’s–”
“More than adequate. You’ll do fine. Wake me up when we’re on the other side.”
“Sebastian, I really don’t want to do this.” The panic was back in her voice.
He almost succumbed to it, but hardened his heart and sank further into his seat. He heard her mutter something under her breath that sounded like another uncomplimentary name. His body, sensitive and finely attuned to every movement of his vessel, felt her make the necessary adjustments to the flight pattern. He cracked an eye open to be sure and relaxed again.
She had progressed from refusing to call him anything at all in the first two days, to an interesting selection of epithets in defense to his teasing. And he encouraged it in a resolute quest to learn more about her. Despite constant, subtle probes she wouldn’t talk again about her abduction and imprisonment but, in small snippets, he learned about her childhood, her parents, and her education, which was impressive. She only made brief mention of Treaine once more, but the look in her eyes told him more than words could of her hopes and dreams. Then she turned away, as she often did, withdrawn, distant, and mistrustful.
Today, he had promised to tell her about the Crestar System. He had avoided it for as long as he could, but she had pinned him down during the last mind game they had played.
He felt the vessel shudder as it encountered the gravity field of the zorn star. She had the Shilmonite well under control as a peculiar tension rippled around the ship. Then they were past the worst of it and back into clear space.
Cassie turned to him, a little shaken but triumphant none the less. “Tell me!” she demanded.
And so he talked to her of growing up in the Crestar System and the difficult times inherent to a people at war for generations. As a child of Mariltar, he had been sheltered from the worst of the effects of constant warfare, but adulthood had brought the responsibility of defending the neutral planet against enemies who wished to enslave it and control its rich resources.
He didn’t dwell on the Conflicts, but deliberately shifted the focus of his story to the post-war climate. It was the planet, Treaine, she really wanted to hear about. All but abandoned for many years, the planet lay on a defunct trade route in a corner of the Crestar System. Now, brought to life by a group of visionaries from each of the nine nations in the Crestar System, its mandate was to enforce the Coalition peace treaty and oversee the reconstruction of a star system torn apart by war.
As they idled the Shilmonite for the night and moved into the inner module to select and heat a meal, Cassie asked the question he’d always known he’d have to answer. “Have you been to Treaine?”
He reached for a bottle of Mariltar ale, snapped the top and took a long swallow. “Yes.”
“How long did you stay? Is it as beautiful as they say it is?” She leaned forward on the bench, her face alive with curiosity, her meal forgotten.
“It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”
“How long were you there?” she persisted. “How much did you see?”
He’d considered lying to her, but once she reached Treaine she’d discover the truth soon enough. It was somehow important that he keep deception to a minimum with her. He raised the bottle again and studied her over the top of it as he took another swallow. The brew slid down his throat and settled uncomfortably in his empty stomach. “I was there for more than a year.”
A look of shock crossed her face. “You–” She swallowed. Her teeth bit at her bottom lip. “You were part of the original reconstruction team?”
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“Yes.”
“A trader?”
He forced a smile. This was far harder than he had ever imagined. “Traders were part of the second settlement. People need goods and services, after all.” He looked away. “I wasn’t always a trader.”
“What were you?”
“Part of the security team.”
“Of course,” she whispered. “The Seventh Fleet of Mariltar, charged with keeping the peace. Your rank?”
“Captain.”
“Captain! How did you get from there to here?”
“People change careers all the time. I thought you wanted to hear about Treaine?”
“Later,” she said impatiently. Her mood was determined, he saw with resignation. She wasn’t going to let this go. “How does someone leave an elite fighting force with a critical mission to become a trader whose activities are… questionable?”
Sebastian looked at the congealed food in front of him and decided he wasn’t hungry after all. He’d told her about the trading business that took him to distant places, and made no effort to hide the fact his activities were not always legitimate. His was a mercenary business and extremely competitive. He bought and sold whatever produced a reasonable profit, whatever his clients wanted—with a few exceptions—and, in the process, crossed over the many blurred and confused legal lines of trade regulations. “I was doing a little trading on the side. Not much. But got involved with the wrong people.” He clenched his hand around the bottle and looked directly at her. “I was thrown out of the Fleet.”
Nothing in her expression changed and it was she who looked away first. His heart ached a little as he recognized the signs. She was visibly withdrawing from him, going to that place where he couldn’t follow and reach her no matter how he tried.
He picked up his plate. “I’m going to go check the nav grids.” There was no reaction. She was already gone. He hesitated. “Cassie?” Still no reaction. He wanted to drop his plate, grab her shoulders and force her to acknowledge him. Force the terrible memories out of her.
Time was running out and he would have to let her go soon. Just yesterday, he’d been given new orders. He gave the silent, withdrawn woman one last glance and moved into the command module to check for additional messages.
Two hours later, as he eavesdropped on several very boring conversations over the comm links, a shrill scream ripped through the vessel. He slammed his hand down on the panel to close off the link and raced through to the inner module.
Cassie heaved and twisted on the sleeping platform in the grip of a nightmare. Scream after scream issued from her throat. Sebastian grabbed one arm, then the other and pinned them down, amazed at the strength in the slender body as she fought him wildly.
“Cassie. Cassie, wake up!” He kept his voice steady and calm. Her struggles lessened. Her eyes opened. There was no recognition in them at first, but he continued to talk to her quietly until he felt the violent trembling of her body begin to ease. “What is it, love? Talk about it. Tell me.”
The endearment slipped out, but she didn’t appear to notice. In a flood of anguished words, she began to talk. And, at some point in the dreadful recital, he gathered her into his arms, desperate to relieve her of some of the terrible pain. She spoke of the attack on the Araminy again but, this time, described the attackers and the man who led them, a man with no soul who could order the murder of half the transport vessel’s occupants and laugh about it. Cassie had somehow caught his attention.
“His eyes,” she whimpered. “It was his eyes. There was nothing in them. They were just dark, soulless holes. I thought he would kill me too, but then he just… let me go.”
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Into a nightmarish captivity of grueling labor and fear. Yet she had been treated differently in one respect. She relived the mistreatment of her fellow women captives, and confessed to a terrible guilt because she hadn’t suffered the same fate.
“Cassie,” he murmured, and tightened his embrace. She was where he had longed for her to be, but not like this. A powerful emotion, dark and destructive, seeped through him. She had escaped serious physical harm, it seemed, but how profoundly had the experience affected her otherwise? “You couldn’t have prevented what happened, nor could you have had any influence on the outcome.”
“They blamed me… those women. They hated me… some of them… because it didn’t happen to me.”
It was a question he’d asked himself. Why had her captors left her alone? Young, and extraordinarily attractive, she should have been a prime target for any male bent on satisfying his lusts. His mind sorted through all the information again. The physical characteristics she had talked about could belong to any one of a dozen different sub-groups in that particular sector. A mining operation in hot, humid, underground caverns could be anywhere.
“Cassie, think!” he urged her. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Or any idea why they treated you… differently?”
“No, of course not,” she snapped, suddenly angry. “I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. They—” Her face went blank, her gaze unfocused.
“What, love?”
She was silent, a tight, tense ball curled in his lap. He waited, his body still and relaxed, his mind a whirl of impatient activity.
She whispered something.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said quietly.
“Sis-ka’la. They treated me like anyone else until they looked in my face. They were repelled by my face and they called me Sis-ka’la and left me alone. Except–except for him.
He kept staring. He–he seemed fascinated, but I never saw him again after the attack on the Araminy.” A deep shudder shook her body. “Sebastian, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He barely heard her. There was a great roaring in his head as large pieces of a dangerous puzzle clicked into place with complete and utter clarity. He had concentrated too hard on the known factors; had foolishly discounted as too insignificant one small link in the insidious chain. The link hadn’t been insignificant at all. Mogton warlords. Mining operations. Shlil dust. Slave labor?
He nudged at Cassie’s resisting chin, and lifted her face. Violet eyes, filled with anguish and fear, stared back at him.
“Sis-ka’la. It was your eyes, Cassie. Your eyes are the color of the pur sponge, a valuable commodity used in many applications. But it also produces sis-ka’la, a vital ingredient in a powerful hallucinogen called shlil dust. It’s dangerous, volatile and very valuable. It was the sponge you were forced to harvest, I’m sure of it. Your abductors must have been Mogtons. They would have hesitated to harm a woman whose eyes glowed like the sis-ka’la for fear you might have controlling powers as does the drug. They’re a very superstitious race.”
Mogtons, he thought exultantly. It had to be! The pur sponge was their livelihood but, more than that, a sacred symbol. If they had become organized enough to attack neutral vessels to obtain slave labor, what other influence might they have on the manufacturing and distribution network of the shlil dust drug outside of their own territory? Mogtons kept to themselves, didn’t form alliances—or did they?
But if Mogtons had attacked the Araminy, why had Cassie been sent to a flesh auction only to be sold to a Mogton warlord? The puzzling question intruded even as he planned his message to his support team. Operatives in the Fortis Cluster would be ordered to concentrate on the root of the lucrative business. The planetoids that sustained the Mogtons were multitude and off-limits to non-natives. A search for the caverns that nurtured
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the sponge would be a forbidding task. But there were ways. There were always ways. Others on his team would begin to look for Mogton alliances, something they hadn’t considered possible before. The next secure relay wasn’t scheduled for another two days. He had to get a message through before then.
Something warm and wet splashed onto his hand.
“Cassie?” He tightened his embrace. Her body was pliant, the tenseness gone, but tiny shudders shook it.
“W–what?”
“Don’t cry, love. You’re safe with me.” For as long as he had her, and it wouldn’t be much longer. A deep ache, such as he had never felt before, spread through his chest.
“I’m not crying,” she denied with fierce pride. “I just can’t help thinking about those p–poor women.” She pushed closer against him, burrowed damp cheeks into his shirt. He groaned as fire blazed hot and aching and urgent through him. She had no idea what she did to him, this beautiful creature of lightening moods. He had never denied himself like this before.
For a split moment, a second in time, he contemplated giving up everything and taking her to a place where it would be just the two of them, where nothing and no one would interfere. It was an impossible fantasy. Duty won out. Duty and the burning need to protect and defend… and revenge. He loosened his hold with reluctance and made to move away.
“Do you think you can sleep now, love?”
“S–Sebastian?”
“Mmm?”
“Will you–will you stay with me and hold me?”
Hope flared bright as a laser light and was quenched in an instant. Fool! That wasn’t what she meant.
“Of course.” Body clenched in protest, he eased her down and held her close. He continued to hold her, staring out the porthole above their heads, long after she had fallen asleep
It was several hours before he put her aside and went to send a coded transmission into the depths of space.
Chapter 4

? ? ?
Substation 9

“Rom-pin? Get Cassie back to the Shilmonite. Now!” The command was loud enough, transmitted through a device around her companion’s neck, that Cassie standing an arm’s length away also heard it. She raised a startled gaze to the dark face of the man towering over her. Sebastian’s partner made a gesture, his features expressionless.
“You heard him. Let’s go!”
“But I haven’t finished yet. You said Sebastian promised we could ask the master broker if anyone had any orcan flowers, and I was thinking of taking several of these shirts and—”
“There’s no time now. Go!”
Cassie opened her mouth to argue again, took another look at Rom-pin’s face, and snapped it shut. The man hadn’t made a move, but she understood, without a doubt, he meant what he said and would see that she did it. She shoved the shirts back onto the shelf in the tiny booth stuffed to overflowing with colorful garments.
Sebastian wasn’t playing fair, she fumed, as she marched down the busy corridor in front of her escort. He had given her his marker and promised her some time, but she hadn’t even
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begun to explore the substation to find the things she needed.
She was angrier than she had been this morning. Threats and pleas had left him unmoved as he prepared to seal her on his docked vessel as he always did while he went to tend to business. And he had only laughed when she resorted to calling him a few choice names. He didn’t understand she was beginning to lose her mind in the small crowded space of the Shilmonite, and just wanted a little freedom, not to mention some comfortable clothes that fit, as well as one or two other necessities she was too embarrassed to request.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t provided for her. He had tried. But the two robes he had chosen on one of his many mini-trading excursions were ill-fitting, too tight and on the small side, and revealed too much of her body.
Of course, Sebastian didn’t notice. Worried, at first, that he would demand sexual favors as the price of her freedom, she had quickly come to the relieved conclusion that she didn’t interest him at all that way. He treated her like she imagined an indulgent big brother would. He had a disturbing tendency to grab her and wrap her in an exuberant embrace when she said something that amused him and, despite her testy exhortations to keep his hands off, liked to poke her in the ribs and tug at her long hair.
His favorite chair had taken a few well-aimed kicks after he had left that morning, and she was plotting a petty revenge when Rom-pin had shown up. With odd dangling ear ornaments, one of which looked suspiciously like a small bone, and a vicious scar that curved down one cheek, Rom-pin looked disreputable and downright frightening. He informed her in two short sentences he would be her escort for the morning, told her she was to buy some clothes after which they would look for orcan flowers and flashed Sebastian’s marker at her. He hadn’t said much since.
That was all just fine, Cassie thought furiously, as Rom-pin hustled her down the corridor leading to the docking port, but there hadn’t been time to do any of it.
Suddenly, a shove against her back sent her slamming into the wall. Something zinged by her ear. At the same time, she heard Sebastian shout, “Keep going!”
The dark man picked her up under his arm as if she weighed nothing at all. The next few moments were a blur of images. She saw the docking platform, saw the hatch to the Shilmonite slide open, caught a glimpse of Sebastian as Rom-pin turned to one side at the open door. He said something she didn’t understand and shoved her inside. A sharp pain shot through her hip as she landed awkwardly on the floor.
The thin outer hatch to the Shilmonite slid closed again as she lay dazed and trying to catch her breath. Loud shouts came from outside the vessel and more of the strange zings. The sounds registered. Weapon fire! They were being fired upon? There was a murmured consultation near the door, followed by a whoop of laughter from Sebastian and a deeper rumble from Rom-pin. Anger turned to fear and disbelief. The idiots were going to get themselves killed while they stood out there and indulged in some mysterious male bonding ritual and juvenile humor. She started for the door, only to be knocked back and onto the floor again as it opened without warning. Sebastian tumbled through, a weapon grasped tightly in his fist. The hatch slid closed behind him and the inner seal activated. A second later something hit the vessel with a resounding thud.
Sebastian sprang to his feet and flashed her a grin. “Hello, love.” Over his shoulder as he made for the control module, he shouted, “Sorry we have to leave so soon. Ran into a little unexpected trouble.”
It was one of his most flagrant understatements yet. Through the thick barrier, the outcry continued, fainter but no less urgent and threatening. More thuds rained down on the Shilmonite’s hatch. An ominous high-pitched whining joined the other sounds. Then the vessel shuddered as the docking clamps were released, and the sounds faded quickly as they
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swept out into space.
Cassie stared in the direction of the control chamber. What had just happened? Her hip throbbed where she had hurt it the first time she had fallen. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to laugh. Blast the man, anyway! His incessant cheerfulness and odd sense of humor exasperated her. And he was completely and utterly irresponsible. If he wanted to get shot at, fine. But he had no right to put her in harm’s way.
He had every right. The little voice popped out of nowhere. That issue was still unresolved because he had refused to talk about it every time she raised it.
She couldn’t wait to be rid of him.
A twinge in the region of her heart rivaled the pain in her hip. As she rose to her feet, she told herself she felt nothing for him at all except maybe gratitude. She ignored the small voice that reminded her of the sense of abandonment and panic she felt when he left her alone. How much worse would it be when he left her for the last time? Which would be soon. He had talked about it again last night.
She was curled up on the sleeping platform, her mood glum, her thoughts depressed, when Sebastian strolled into the chamber.
“Have fun with Rom-pin?”
“Oh, yes! He was so entertaining. A laugh a minute. I especially liked the part where he treated me like a tossball.” She regretted her sarcasm instantly. Sebastian had made an effort, after all, to accommodate her. She was about to apologize when she glanced at his face and saw unconcealed, wicked amusement. The apology died on her lips. She wanted to slap his face.
“Go away,” she said crossly.
He reached out and tickled her in the ribs. “Looks like we’ll have to provide more rest and relaxation for you in the future since it encourages such a delightful mood.”
“Stop it!” She tried to wriggle away from the relentless fingers. A reluctant giggle escaped her as he continued the attack and soon she was laughing helplessly. “Sebastian, stop!”
“First you have to say, ‘Thank you, Sebastian.’”
“For what?”
“Where are your manners, rookie?” He reared back in exaggerated horror. “For letting you go shopping on the substation, of course. It was your heart’s desire, wasn’t it?”
No! Her heart’s desire was something else entirely. She stilled for a moment. The uncomfortable thought wouldn’t complete itself and she took refuge in sarcasm. “Thank you for an unforgettable experience. I didn’t need the clothes anyway, and being used for target practice was a nice touch.”
“Oh, that! That was nothing,” he said. “Happens to me all the time.”
She frowned. “It’s not funny, Sebastian. Why do you take such—?”
He interrupted her as he rolled off the sleeping platform, his mind clearly and abruptly focused elsewhere. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about—a thought I had.”
“Really? Did it have anything to do with trying to stay alive one more day?”
A curious expression crossed his face. The golden gaze took on a predatory look and he lunged at her with a suddenness that took her by surprise. She shrieked and flung herself to one side of the sleeping platform but wasn’t quick enough. She was caught in an iron grip. A hand reached down to punish her ribs once again, and her frantic squirms had little effect. She drew a leg up for leverage. Her knee connected solidly with a softer part of his body with astonishing results. He released her instantly and rolled away with a groan, his hands clutched between his legs.
“Sebastian?” she said, uncertain if this was another one of his acts. When he didn’t answer, she leaned over his shoulder
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and saw genuine pain reflected in his face. “Oh, Lord, Sebastian. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Is there anything I can do?”
Eyes closed, he released another groan and said in a strangled voice, “When it doesn’t hurt so much, you can check me out. Make sure everything’s still in working order.”
“Ohhh!” She scrambled back. It was a very unbrotherly suggestion. Confused and shocked, she kept a wary eye on him as he rolled over onto his back to stare up at the porthole.
She saw him take some deep breaths. Then he turned his head to look at her and said with as much seriousness as she had ever seen from him, “We do need to talk, Cassie Gordon.”
He sat up. The golden eyes glowed with an expression she couldn’t interpret. “You’ve asked several times what it cost to free you from the Gerfins; how you can repay me. I’ve determined the price. Are you still willing to repay the debt?”
A chill slid down Cassie’s spine. It was time.
The urgency of wanting to know and demanding an answer in the beginning had faded with the passing of days. She realized just how comfortable she had become with him.
He had become a friend.
Unreasonable disappointment welled in her that he would even demand satisfaction, and it reminded her of how very complicated he was and how little she really knew him. She dropped her gaze to her hands twisting in her lap and fought the rise of panic, the return of all the terrible helplessness and hopelessness.
She didn’t want to know the price. He had paid a fortune, she guessed at that much. She’d have to spend the rest of her life satisfying the debt, or else he was going to demand something she was in no way prepared to give.
“Cassie?” His hand covered both of hers and stilled the nervous movements.
She forced herself to look at his face. The rugged features were expressionless, unreadable. She swallowed hard and gave the tiniest of nods.
Get it over with.
Sebastian’s gaze flickered and focused on something just past her shoulder. “There’s something you can do, and I would consider the debt fully repaid.” He paused.
Cassie resisted the urge to turn and look behind her. He seemed mesmerized by something, and showed no sign of continuing.
Get it over with.
The discussion she would have welcomed in the early days now held a terror she didn’t understand. “W–what do you want?”
His eyes had darkened to a deep amber and his temple pulsed. The Shilmonite’s environment, as always, was set to a comfortable temperature yet sweat beaded his brow.
A curious thought pushed aside Cassie’s fear. He seemed… nervous, but Sebastian was never unsure of—
“Marry me!”
She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”
His eyes flickered and he took a deep breath. “It wouldn’t be a real marriage. The ceremony would be legal. But we don’t have to–won’t, ah, engage in, er, conjugal relations. Not unless you want to. But I know you don’t after what you’ve been through. I don’t think you do. Do you?” He studied her face a moment, shook his head, released a deep sigh and fell into deeper contemplation of the interesting object behind her shoulder.
Speechless, Cassie stared at him. Marriage? Conjugal relations? Where had that archaic term come from? A giggle welled up inside of her but she struggled to control it. He was too serious.
Marriage! Of all the demands she had anticipated he could make, this one had never crossed her mind.
It wouldn’t be a real one. But why did he want this? Curiosity grew as she thought about the bizarre request. It had
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advantages. It also had disadvantages.
“Cassie? Please don’t… Balls of Sortor!” he muttered. He thrust a hand through his hair and switched his gaze to her face. “It would only be temporary, and I wouldn’t expect you to change your plans. If we don’t consummate our marriage, under Mariltar law either one of us can request a dissolution at any time within the next fourteen months. The marriage would terminate automatically at the end of that period even if we didn’t pursue a formal dissolution in the interim.”
He either knew Mariltar law extremely well or he had studied it recently. Or he wasn’t telling the truth. “Sebastian?”
His gaze shifted away again. “Yes?”
“Why are you asking me to do this?”
An embarrassed look stole across his face. “I’m in a tight spot. That, ah, incident back at the sub-station could make my life a little awkward.”
There was a subtle but tangible shift in the balance of power between them. “Why?”
“One of my trading partners decided I’d make a–ah, good marriage partner for his daughter. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he refused to see my point of view.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing! I swear it—on the hearts of Crilac.”
Cassie folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. A grin tilted the corner of her mouth. She was beginning to enjoy herself.
“Oh, all right, I slept with her once—maybe it was twice. But it was a long time ago. That’s not justification for a life-time commitment.” He shuddered. “And I swear on the blood of Cor I wasn’t the only one. I’ve heard she sleeps with anything with the right equipment.”
“Well, that says a lot for your taste in women and judgment in selecting trading partners.” Cassie couldn’t resist the jab. It did little to dispel a hollow feeling that yawned in her chest. What did she care with whom he slept? “I still don’t see how marrying me would help.”
“If her father knew I was bonded already, he’d go after someone else. That sub-station is important to my trading business. I can’t afford to cut it out of my established route.”
Something didn’t ring true. Once again, she sensed he wasn’t being entirely open with her, and she suspected there was another motive for his unexpected proposal.
How would marriage affect her future? She had dreamed about it once, as young girls do. Romantic, frivolous dreams. All destroyed by a man with hollow eyes and no soul. But now her entire being was focused on reaching Treaine and starting her new life there. On the other hand, Sebastian had saved her life, and she had a debt to repay. She was forced to acknowledge that in the time they had spent together a deep connection had been established. She did have feelings for him, had never had a friend with whom she’d been so close.
She owed him everything.
Her gaze met his. He gave a tiny shake of his head and stood up. “It was just a thought. I know it’s a lot to ask and I—”
“Yes.”
“What?” His head jerked around.
“I said, ‘yes’. I’ll marry you.”
The expression on his face could only be described as shock, and she felt a moment’s irritation. What had he expected her to say? But then he released a wild whoop of excitement and swept her into a crushing hug that drove the breath from her lungs. She managed a squeak of protest. The pressure eased a little and when she regained her breath, she looked into his face and said, “Just remember, this won’t be a real marriage. You still have to keep your hands to yourself and you still have to get me to Treaine.”
His eyebrow arched at her stern tone. “Yes, ma’am!” He opened his arms and she tumbled backwards on the sleeping platform, but the glare she sent in his direction was wasted. He had already disappeared into the control chamber, leaving only
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the echo of a cheerful whistle.

A few days later, the Shilmonite crossed over the border into the Crestar System and was granted clearance to dock at a Mariltar-controlled border outpost. The marriage took place immediately. The ceremony was brief, attended by several people with whom Sebastian appeared to be at least on nodding acquaintance. They were, Sebastian informed her in an undertone, needed to confirm the legality of the marriage partnership.
Cassie paid little attention to the ceremony conducted in the native tongue of Mariltar. She was fascinated with the architecture of the room in which they stood. Soaring arches and curves combined with unusual lighting to create mysterious shadows and cozy, intimate gathering areas in the large chamber.
A tug at her arm brought her back to the business at hand. Sebastian was raising the loose sleeve of her robe. She glanced at him questioningly, but his eyes were lowered. A look of intense concentration was stamped on his features. He had already bared his own arm.
A small black box appeared in his hand. As the incomprehensible ceremony proceeded, Sebastian held the box up. A sparkling golden light snaked its way out and curled around their bared upper arms, forging a link that bound them together. A strange tingle rippled across Cassie’s skin. Someone took the box from Sebastian and the link that bound them together dissolved. It left in its place a thin, glowing golden band embedded in the flesh of their arms.
It was over. She was married.
Smiling and talking, the group broke up. Several of the men pounded Sebastian on the back.
Cassie stared at the band on her arm and then at the man by her side. Husband, but… never lover. Why not? The thought appeared from nowhere, shocking her. Then there was no more time to think as a man and a woman approached with goblets of Mariltar ambrosia and she and Sebastian were separated.
She noticed him later, half hidden by one of the recesses in the large chamber, deep in conversation with a man in uniform. It wasn’t long before he came to inform her it was time to leave.
As they walked along the tunnel toward the docking bay, Sebastian teased her mercilessly about her obvious lack of attention during the marriage ceremony. But there was a tenseness in his voice she hadn’t heard before, and she wondered about it.
“Here we are.”
The door slid open. Cassie prepared to step forward to descend the ladder and froze. “This isn’t the Shilmonite.”
“No, it’s not.” With a gentle hand, Sebastian turned her to face him. He held her loosely by the shoulders, and gazed deep into her eyes. And at the look on his face, a cold hard knot began to form in her stomach, while panic flooded through her body. She knew, before he opened his mouth again, what he was going to say.
“This is good-bye, Cassie, love. I can’t take you any further. I’ve arranged for you to travel the rest of the way on this vessel. It’s Mariltar military. You’ll be safe. Treaine is just a few days away. They’re expecting you.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” Her voice was sharp and high. He was her lifeline. How could he do this? She hadn’t realized until too late just how dependent she had become on him.
Without hesitation, he gathered her close against him. “You’ll be fine, love.” The words, spoken against her hair, sounded gruff. She struggled to hold back tears, a part of her knowing that the separation was inevitable. She had expected it. It had just come far sooner than she thought it would. And she hadn’t counted on this overwhelming sense of sorrow and abandonment.
She was about to lose her best friend.
Sebastian loosened his hold and tipped her chin up with one hand. His eyes searched her face and in them she saw an
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expression that made her breath catch painfully in her chest.
“I don’t know when or if I’ll see you again, love. I’m headed for Dialeena since circumstances are forcing me out of the Galorg System. You know I’m not welcome on Treaine, and my business takes me far from the Crestar System anyway. If you want your freedom from this marriage partnership before the fourteen months are up, just take your case before a Mariltar quorum.” A large thumb stroked her cheek. “I can’t tell you how much these last few weeks have meant to me. I’ll treasure your friendship always.”
His gaze flicked beyond her and he gave a short nod. A hand reached out. Dazed with shock and disbelief that he was really abandoning her, Cassie allowed herself to be drawn down the steps.
The door slid closed and he was gone.
Chapter 5

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Liariam Belt

The dream shattered.
Fragmenting into a thousand bright shards of light, the beloved image slipped away with the swiftness of a dying zorn star, swallowed into the gray fog of dawning consciousness.
He resisted with all his might. He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. But even his legendary willpower was helpless against the sudden, piercing intrusion of reality. As the last fragment—a corner of her smile—faded into nothing, he felt a terrible sense of loss.
A primitive howl of pain welled inside him, clawed at his innards, demanded release.
And was never voiced.
There was something else. A sense of something not quite right. A vague hint of threat.
His warrior’s instincts struggled through layers of numbing exhaustion to bring him to full awareness. Yet another part of him craved with an intensity that denied all the laws of survival to sink back into that blessed dream world where everything was right and exactly as he wanted it to be.
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He dragged his eyes open with reluctance.
The vastness of space yawned before him. The velvet darkness was lit with intermittent bright flashes from the vast storm nebula he knew lay directly in his path. It was a barren stretch of the star system. There were no hiding places to shield a hunter—or prey for that matter—and it was easy to make good time, two reasons he had finally allowed himself the luxury of sleep. He shifted his cramped body to a more comfortable position and adjusted his command seat. His eyes moved automatically over his instrumentation as he searched for an indication of what had woken him.
There was nothing.
Puzzled, he checked his control panel again. A myriad of lights winked back at him. None gave off a warning. All were reassuringly normal. He was dead on course and, at this speed, should make up for some of the time he had lost coming through the Gerianali Channel. Any pilot worth his merits knew the Channel was a favorite hunting ground for the vicious dag pirates, loners who preyed on the drug trade vessels and, of late, legitimate traders as well. He had taken the appropriate camouflage precautions but still, only hours into the Channel, he became the object of someone’s very persistent attention. Precious time was wasted as he toyed with his pursuer and tried to identify him. In the end, he had lost patience. There was no more time to spare. His unwelcome company was easily shaken in a tyuine cloud vortex.
Or so he thought.
He checked the time. He was going to be late.
It would accomplish nothing but he rotated the transparent bubble of the vessel’s control center anyway to perform a complete visual inspection of the area through which he traveled. Again, nothing. Except, it seemed, in his mind. Yet his instincts, developed and honed in many a battle, rarely failed him.
He sighed and leaned his head against the padded seat designed to his body specifications and allowed his eyes to drift closed again. Perhaps it was the dream itself that had introduced the threat. It seemed unlikely. It hadn’t been that kind of dream at all. For the first time, as he tried to recapture the essence of it, he became aware of the heaviness of arousal in his lower body. An image flickered again in his mind. He tried to hold it but, once again, it vanished.
Desperate to experience once again the exquisite sensations that still lingered in his memory and held his body clenched tight in anticipation, he tried again. There she was! But, this time, the image was different.
Gone was the face filled with passion and the promise of a thousand delights for him alone. She still smiled, but eyes of rarest Abysforan violet were watchful, their expression wary and haunted. The dark hair that, in the dream, had flowed like a river of cilian silk almost to her waist and licked his skin with a multitude of teasing caresses, was drawn back and confined in a tight, severe style at the back of her head. The beautiful body that had writhed naked under his with such abandon, and arched and rubbed against him with urgent invitation, was fully clothed.
And it sent a clear don’t-touch-me message.
It was no use. The memory, the certainty, the pure, mind-shattering pleasure of knowing she was about to become his, had accepted him without reservation, was lost. Because it was only a fantasy. It had never happened that way in the short time they had spent together.
Cassie! His wife.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep now. His eyes flickered open again to stare at the bleak wasteland before him. Five days ago when he knew that his business would lead him home—his adopted home—after an excruciatingly long absence, he had been euphoric. In one sense, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. He would finally see her again even though he hadn’t allowed himself to believe he ever would,
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hadn’t been sure she would stay on Treaine. But she was still there and, of even greater importance, the legal bond between them remained unsevered.
She was his wife, and there was still time, although precious little, to ensure she remained bound to him for life.
Yet, as he narrowed the distance between them, more doubts beset him. They had been close once, had shared a friendship that had arisen from extraordinary circumstances, but he wanted, fantasized of so much more. And many months had passed. More than a year. He had no way of knowing how she felt now, how she would react to his unexpected reappearance.
So much was still unresolved.
That she hadn’t exercised her prerogative and broken their marriage bond gave him a faint hope, and fueled a fierce determination and a sure knowledge that this was one battle he could not afford to loose.
A warning ping sounded at the same time his trained eyes caught the briefest flicker of movement far off to one side of him. He was being followed. His instincts hadn’t been wrong. Fully alert now, he reached for the controls. His arrival would have to be delayed a little longer. His unsuspecting wife wouldn’t care, but there were others who would.

? ? ?

Crestar System; Planet Treaine

“Cassie?”
“Cassie?”
“Cassie!”
The tone, impatient and urgent, penetrated the shield of her concentration. This was not a minor interruption that would vanish just because she willed it. Cassie Gordon lifted her head and swung around. She blinked rapidly to better focus eyes that had stared too long at elusive formulas. A petite Merlon woman stood in the doorway.
“Oh, hello, Emla.” She gave an inward sigh. Only one purpose could have brought her boss to her workstation without warning.
She straightened and winced as muscles too long unused protested the movement. Tiredly, she knuckled the small of her back. A pang of hunger shot through her belly, a reminder that it had been hours since she’d last had anything to eat. She didn’t remember how long she’d been there, hunched over and focused so hard on her work. Her refusal to have a timekeeper in her office gave her fellow engineers just one more reason to think her a little odd, a perception she was content to foster. The boundaries most people placed on their daily lives had become meaningless to her a long time ago.
Emla advanced into the room, her graceful, unhurried pace at odds with the urgent tone of voice she had used to command Cassie’s attention. There was a curious expression on her face as she came to a halt at her subordinate’s side and studied the partially completed work.
Cassie felt a tingle of nervousness moisten her palms. “I’m sorry. This problem has me at my wits end. I don’t know what’s wrong. I know you wanted this completed by now.” Her gaze joined Emla’s to stare at the screen which had demanded her full attention seconds before. An intricate grid of lines and symbols covered it. A second display to the right exhibited a complex set of formulas.
“Well, I suggest you set it aside for now. It wasn’t what I came about anyway.”
The cool response with an overtone of amusement puzzled Cassie and increased her nervousness. Emla was a fair but hard taskmaster with little tolerance for missed deadlines. Cassie was perilously close to missing this one. “But the rest of the group—”
“Is further behind with their assignment than you are. It’s a difficult project. You’re my best apprentice engineer. I’ve told
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you so enough times and would think you’d have some confidence by now. If anyone can solve this structural problem, you can. But not if you make yourself ill because you don’t take care of yourself. I’ve decided to extend the deadline.”
“Oh, but—”
“Just what time did you get here today? Or did you just not bother going home last night?”
“I—”
“Never mind.” Emla waved a heavily beringed hand. “I really didn’t come here to discuss your atrocious work habits.” She stepped back and regarded Cassie with that curious expression which seemed to be a blend of amusement and anticipation.
Despite Emla’s denial, Cassie braced herself. The Merlon woman had become more vocal about the long, driven hours Cassie put in at the office. More than once, Emla had accused her of using her work as an excuse to avoid the socializing and other activities in which the rest of the group participated in their personal time. Just the other day, she convinced Cassie for the first time to join a small group for the mid-day meal. The proposed ‘business’ lunch turned out to be nothing more than a social chat. Emla seemed determined to take her under a motherly wing and refused to find excuses acceptable any longer. But then Emla was the only person outside the Medical Quarter, as far as Cassie knew, who had any knowledge about why she had arrived on Treaine several months late to take up her first assignment out of the Academy. And Emla had only the barest details.
“Come back from wherever it is you went.” Emla touched her shoulder. “I have news. I hope it’s good.”
Cassie blinked and focused on the familiar face with its sharp features framed today by the pale yellow hood of a qualrobe. Out of her miniscule circle of acquaintances on this planet, Emla would be the one in whom she would confide, if she ever decided she could confide in anyone at all. But she still wasn’t ready to see the kindness in Emla’s dark eyes
change to pity and horror. Her gaze wandered back to the screen.
“Cassie, are you paying attention?”
“Yes, of course,” Cassie muttered as she stared at a set of numbers that all of a sudden didn’t seem quite right. She wished Emla would leave.
“Cassie!” Her boss was beginning to sound exasperated.
“What?”
“Your husband is here.”
“My… WHAT?” She was on her feet, towering on shaking legs over the tiny woman in front of her. Bitter chills raced through her body followed by a raging heat. Multi-colored spots danced in front of her eyes. A great cavity yawned and memories—oh, God, the memories—threatened to burst out and bring utter chaos with them.
Emla shoved her back down into her seat. “Your husband. He’s here,” she repeated, her brow creased with concern. “He’s in the conference room waiting to see you. Your communication line is deactivated, by the way—again!”
The calm rebuke shrank the gaping hole and held back chaos—for now. Cassie squeezed her hands that were suddenly freezing cold together and forced herself to take deep breaths. Emla had to be wrong. Sebastian couldn’t be here.
“Cassie.” Emla’s face appeared in front of her, forced her attention. “Do you want me to send him away?”
Cassie’s gaze slid in the direction of the conference room a few workstations away down the corridor, past the entrance to the secured area. Helplessness and panic threatened to crush her. “H–he’s here? I–in the conference room?”
“Yes. Weren’t you expecting him?”
“O–of course I was. Just not this soon.” A wave of heat burned her face as the lie was uttered. Emla, she saw, was skeptical but chose to ignore it. She ducked her head and focused on the swirl of the orange embroidered emblem that decorated the front of Emla’s skirt. Countless hours of therapy
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at the Medical Quarter kicked in. Panic receded.
“Well, you should plan on taking a few days off. It’s been a year since you’ve seen him. This project is not so important it can’t wait a little longer.”
An automatic objection rose to her lips but was stayed by the slash of Emla’s hand through the air. “I insist. Now, go to him! I doubt he’s capable of waiting quietly much longer. I’ve never seen so much energy and impatience in that conference room before.” She turned to leave, then hesitated. “If you need me—for any reason—you know where to find me.”
Cassie stared at the spot vacated by the Merlon woman. Deep breathing banished her lightheadedness. Panic and confusion subsided.
… so much energy and impatience.
A hard little bubble worked its way up her throat and burst from her mouth. It could have been a giggle.
Oh, God. She had to get a grip.
Sebastian!
Here?
But why?
And why now?
Why hadn’t he given her any warning? She never really expected to see him again.
A memory, a good one, filled her mind. Sebastian’s face, all rugged features, untidy blond hair and golden eyes—eyes that masked an exceptional intelligence behind a teasing expression, eyes that saw everything. Then in her mind, his expression changed. Amusement faded to be replaced by raw, sensual desire. The golden eyes blazed with purpose. Powerful arms reached for her… A thread of excitement coursed its way through her. Her heart pounded faster. Her breath quickened. Her palms dampened.
No! It had never happened like that. The image was too frequent a visitor in recent months. With his appearance, it became a threat and not an erotic daydream.
She rubbed her damp hands against her tunic, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had to calm down, couldn’t let him see her like this. He had always been able to read her slightest emotion.
The tremble in her hand when she reached out to place a security lock on the computer disturbed her. Impatient, she pushed herself to her feet, then had to fight the all too familiar darkening of her vision and momentary wave of dizziness. On shaky legs, she walked to one of the three narrow window slits in her workstation.
In the year since she had arrived at this place, this planet, Treaine, she had begun to think of it as home. She had made a life for herself here and, simple and unexciting as it was, it suited her for now. Gradually the sweat-breaking fears that had beset her in the beginning had receded as the memories dimmed. But now he was here and everything she had struggled to achieve, especially peace of mind, was at risk.
Her thoughts in chaos, she stared out at the scene before her. The settlement, nestled between thick forest on three sides and a lake on the other, glowed like a precious jewel today, bathed in shimmering light from a pale lavender sky. The view the window afforded was of one of the main paths into the colony’s Marketplace, a busy gathering place, where food and dry goods vendors mixed with a wide variety of entertainment houses. The arterial seemed unusually busy for the time of day. She braced herself between narrow metal columns and leaned her burning forehead against the cool glass.
What was he doing here, and what did he want of her? Whatever he wanted would carry too high a price. Just the knowledge of his being here brought a stab of pain that shocked her with its intensity.
She had once trusted him with her life, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to fully trust him.
He had been one of the best friends she ever had.
Then he had become more than a friend. He had become
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her marriage partner.
But never a lover.
And under Mariltar law, the marriage had almost run its course.
What if he wanted to stay? It seemed unlikely given the circumstances of his departure from Treaine long ago, but then his being here now was just as unlikely. Panic returned as she thought of what being together again would mean.
Sharing living quarters.
Putting up with his teasing.
Tolerating the excessive activity that always surrounded him.
Sharing stories and laughter.
Treasuring those rare quiet moments.
Sharing a bed?
He would turn the quiet routine of her life into chaos, awaken emotions she had kept locked deep inside. But she had missed him. Unbearably! And the sudden realization brought fierce heartache.
How much more agonizing would it be when he left again? And he would, of that she had no doubt.
The colorful scene below her swam into focus. A mother chased a laughing child down the path. The child darted between two men and ducked around the full, lush curve of a crimson fleriole bush. The mother followed and they both disappeared from view.
Cassie shook her head; tried to clear her mind of the chaotic thoughts. Her heart still pounded in a hard uncomfortable rhythm. The more she delayed the inevitable, the worse it became as she remembered what she had forced herself to suppress for so long. And if she waited much longer, he would loose patience and come looking for her and find her cowering here like a spineless, gutless mertole.
She couldn’t bear that.
She straightened her shoulders and turned. Better to get it over with, find out what he wanted.
Chapter 6

? ? ?

Sebastian Asteril, his back to the room, stared out through the transparent wall in front him. Hands clasped behind him, he rocked on the balls of his feet as his gaze roamed with greedy restlessness, devouring the magnificent view.
By the mystical powers of Moiwn, he had missed this place! Even though it wasn’t his birth planet, and he had not lived here long before he was forced to leave, the beauty and tranquillity appealed to some deep elemental need inside of him.
A door hissed as it slid open. He spun around. Balls of Sortor. Memory was no match for reality! Great liquid pools of violet framed by a sweep of dark lashes looked at him from the face of his dreams. Then she took a step forward and he saw the thinness in the body hidden underneath the loose clothing, the hollows under her cheekbones. He saw also the confusion in her face, and the questions in the beautiful eyes. Questions he couldn’t answer with complete truth.
Not yet.
And she deserved so much better.
The powerful emotion that welled inside of him was expertly masked. He allowed no trace of it to reflect in his expression. Instead, a happy grin split his face as he strode
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forward and grabbed her hands.
“Cassie,” he said warmly. “Treaine agrees with you. You’ve grown more beautiful than ever.” His hand reached out of its own accord to touch her head and follow the curve of the shining dark hair to where it ended at her shoulders. “But you’ve cut your hair.”
She pulled back, freed her hand, moved out of his reach.
A small frown furrowed her forehead. “Sebastian, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“Now is that any way for a wife to greet her marriage partner after a year apart?” he teased. He tried to ignore the sting of disappointment at her lack of enthusiasm. What had he expected after all? That she would fall into his arms? Shower him with kisses? Drag him off to a warm, scented bed? Only in his dreams. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“No! Yes! I don’t know.” She made an impatient movement with her hand. “What are you doing here? I thought you were exiled from this planet.”
He forced another grin and a careless shrug of his shoulders. “Worried about me, love?” He laughed when she wrinkled her nose at the endearment. Some things, at least, were still the same. “I was, but absence has a way of blunting memory. The Ambassadors’ Council made it very clear I’m not exactly welcome, given my, ah, past indiscretions, but granted me a temporary trading permit anyway. Seems I have some trade goods that several people in this colony are anxious to acquire.”
“You’re staying? For how long?”
“Indefinitely. Until I’ve completed my business. Perhaps longer. I like it here. I’ve missed it.” He kept his tone casual, but studied her closely, noting the nervousness that caused her to twist her hands together.
She was examining the floor, apparently engrossed in the intricate bold pattern of the thin metallic covering. Then she raised her head, stared across the space between them, and with a quiet resolution he had never seen before asked, “Th–these trade goods, are they legitimate?”
Anguish twisted inside of him. She shouldn’t have to ask such a question. He replied with false cheerfulness, “Of course, love. I wouldn’t have been granted a permit otherwise. It also helps that I have a wife here. Makes me more respectable.”
She nodded but avoided his eyes. An awkward moment of silence stretched.
Watchful again, he said, “I need a place to stay.”
He saw a flicker of something in her eyes, he couldn’t quite decide what. She didn’t seem surprised by the request. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and he sensed her reluctance to make the obvious offer. It was a simple enough thing to do. The hospitable thing. A favor for a friend. She must feel she owed him that much at the very least.
Except he wasn’t just a friend any more.
She looked down at her hands, at the fingers twisted tightly together. “Wh–what about the entertainment houses or your vessel?”
“My vessel is in for repairs and an extensive overhaul, and you wouldn’t condemn me to a tiny cell in an entertainment house, would you?”
He wished he could see her eyes. Maybe it was just sheer exhaustion, but he wasn’t reading her well at all. After a small pause, she sighed and looked up, but not at him.
She gave a short nod. “All right, you can stay with me. But I make the rules. You clean up after yourself, prepare your own meals, don’t interfere with my schedule and–and–” Her cheeks flushed pink. “I only have one bed. You’ll have to sleep on the floor or the couch. The same rules apply from the Shilmonite, Sebastian. Don’t get any ideas. My living unit is small and I—”
Exhilaration roared through him and he gave a whoop of victory that drowned out the remainder of her words. He caught her around her too-slender waist and tossed her high above his head.
“Sebastian!” She grabbed for his shoulders. “Put me
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down!” One thin hand missed his shoulder and tangled painfully in his hair. He paid no attention. The laughter in her eyes, even as she tried to force a frown, warmed his heart. The woman with whom he had fallen in love still existed, albeit behind a thicker facade of reserve and distrust. He had built those barriers and he would take the greatest pleasure in tearing them down.
In due course.
With reluctance, he set her on her feet. His most urgent goal had been accomplished and he would follow her rules for now. But rules were made to be broken and achieving his heart’s desire would require a complete revision of this particular set as well as a great deal of skill, cunning, and patience.
She shook her finger at him as if he were a child and scolded, “If you don’t behave yourself, you can find someplace else to stay.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tried to respond with appropriate humility and backed off, hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
She wrinkled her nose and sniffed, some of her tension gone. “Don’t make promises you won’t keep. I suppose you want directions?”
“Would be nice, love. I’m a little tired, you see. Haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.”
This information only produced a skeptical look, so he embellished. “It’s true! I’m dead on my feet. I had to elude a lunatic who thought I’d cheated him at ili feln, then navigate through a blasted inconvenient and difficult asteroid field, and a magnetic storm cloud filled with protostars. On top of that, I had to face an inquisition once I arrived here. I could use some sleep.”
The amusement, he saw with relief, was still there, evident in the slight crinkling at the corners of her eyes. He even saw her lips twitch before she ducked her head to hide her expression. “All right. Come to my workstation. I’ll pull up a
map and authorize your hand scan so you can get in.”
“I was hoping you’d show me the way.”
Already on her way out of the room, she stopped in her tracks and turned. Her eyes were narrowed with suspicion. “Why? You’re a master pilot. You’ve navigated through several star systems. I’m sure you’ll be able to find your way to my living unit. You must know this settlement far better than I do.”
But that wasn’t the reason, Sebastian thought, as he considered her, not sure at all that he cared for her tone of voice. The months that separated them seemed like a vast chasm filled with star pits and unknown hazards. She had once depended on him for everything, but Treaine had obviously done its part to improve her confidence and self-sufficiency. He should feel relieved, grateful. But unreasonably, he wanted the old Cassie back—for just a heartbeat.
Exhaustion was seeping faster through his limbs. He had to rest before he continued with the most important battle of his life. Because, if he told her the real reason—told her about the feelings that had strengthened with each day, each hour they had been apart, about the dreams that had left him frustrated and burning with need, about the longing to see, to touch that at times had been overwhelming—she’d undoubtedly bolt for the nearest security station, and refuse to allow him anywhere near her.
The truth was, he simply couldn’t bear to be separated from her so soon after finding her again.
He opened his mouth in one last attempt to persuade her, but she had already turned and was heading for the door. He heard her mutter, “Oh, all right, maybe I will. I need a break from this problem I’m trying to solve anyway. Besides, there isn’t much food in the unit and you eat like a giant duin. I don’t suppose you can eat all your meals at the Marketplace, so I guess I should pick up some supplies.” She stopped in the doorway. Her hair fanned out from her head as she jerked
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around and slanted him a warning glance. “Just don’t expect me to cook for you!” And without waiting for a response, she stalked out of the room.
Sebastian struggled to contain an urge to laugh. Insults were a small price to pay for sweet victory. “Welcome home, StarJumper,” he said under his breath just as she popped her head back around the doorway.
Impatiently, she inquired, “Are you coming, or have you fallen asleep already?”
“Coming, ma’am. Right away!” He sprang forward and followed hard on her heels as they left the building.
Outside, the air carried a light, heady scent. A glorious blanket of pale blossoms covered the trees lining the pathway. Their canopies formed a graceful, shady arch overhead while, from around the base of each roughly barked trunk, a miniature forest of oddly shaped sponges waved thin tentacles. Thrown off at random from cups on the tiny plants, balls of moisture introduced their own elusive and exotic perfume as they broke and dissipated in the warm air.
Sebastian closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. In his travels, he had discovered many places with their own unique beauty and appeal. He had seen many strange and extraordinary sights, but Treaine was different. Special.
Once again, he wished the business that had prompted his banishment was done with, that he could plan a future, perhaps raise a family. This last wasn’t a new thought. It had grown on him during many long and lonely hours, and even his dreams held visions of small dark-haired miniatures of the woman at his side.
The strength of his own feelings for her had convinced him in those times when he had little else to think about that she could not possibly be indifferent to him. That conviction had just been tested by the reality of her less than enthusiastic welcome. For all he knew, she might have met someone else, perhaps even taken a lover. He immediately rejected the thought. If that were the case, she would hardly have allowed him to cohabit with her. Anyone who cared to take note would believe they were living together as marriage partners. Treaine had its secrets, as did he, but his return from exile and his marriage to this woman were intended for public knowledge.
Even though the marriage, so far, had been a sham.
She walked along beside him, head bowed, brow furrowed in thought. For all the attention she paid him, he might as well not exist. His unexpected and unannounced reentry into her life was an ego-deflating non-event. He was grateful she had required little persuasion to allow him to cohabit with her. It would have been awkward to achieve his business objective if she had resisted, and would have thrown up a huge barrier to his personal objective.
He battled a wave of impatience, so hard to control in his present state of exhaustion. He wanted to take her back into his arms and force the reaction he so desperately wanted from her. Instead, he took advantage of her preoccupation and studied her.
The shorter haircut was an attractive frame for a face that wasn’t beautiful in the classical sense but was, nonetheless, striking. Unlike most women of his acquaintance she used no cosmetics, but the flawless skin, in his opinion, needed no enhancements. Her pale violet eyes were ringed with tiredness, but he remembered the countless times he had found himself sucked into their luminous, liquid depths, mesmerized by shifting shades that hinted at untold erotic pleasures.
Pleasures that were denied him.
He threw up a mental wall to prevent himself from wandering too far down that particular pathway, and continued to take inventory. She was too thin. Another wave of impatience burned through him as he studied the telling signs; the hollows under her cheeks, the fragile wrists. She wasn’t taking care of herself. He watched a wing of dark hair swing against the translucent ivory of her cheek, remembered the soft silky mane
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that had hung halfway down her back, and regretted its absence. Her clothing, he decided, was hideous. He was no expert, but it was unflattering in fit and color to her tall slenderness, and did an excellent job of concealing the shape of her body. He remembered with absolute clarity the one time he had seen her unclothed. Although the memory was less than pleasant for other reasons, his tired body tightened in response to the wave of heat that surged through it.
They started up a flight of stairs. Contrary to what he had led her to believe, he knew exactly where they were going, had made it his business to know. The colony was a planned melting pot of the nine nations of the Crestar System and many races from beyond. His wife had chosen to settle herself amongst her own kind in the tiny Earth enclave. He hoped it had helped her adjust to this new life. The limited information to which he had access seemed to indicate that was the case. Now, seeing her in person, he wasn’t so sure.
Abruptly, Cassie seemed to shake off her preoccupation. “Where have you traveled since I left you and came to Treaine?”
Progress, he thought. At least she remembered he was there. “In the Galorg System for a while. It has numerous small colonies spread throughout the Teign cluster with some very profitable trading opportunities.”
“Oh?” She threw him a puzzled look. “I thought you had to leave there. Didn’t you decide to try your luck on Dialeena?”
It was the reason he had given her at the time, when he had been forced to put her on the Mariltar border patrol vessel headed for Treaine. But he hadn’t told her the truth then. His motivation was a compelling need to have her far away and out of danger. Now the threat was closer, engineered by his own actions, and she was at risk again. This time, he couldn’t send her out of harm’s way, and could only hope the protection he had been promised would be adequate.
“I did go to Dialeena for a short time,” he said. “Many of the trade goods I have with me now were sourced there.”
Dialeena had been a very brief stop on his way to other places, places he couldn’t tell her about. Instead, he continued with a selective description of his activities, deliberately exaggerated, vividly detailed. He wanted to see her smile, see the laughter light her eyes to sparkling brilliance. He had always been able to entertain her with his stories.
But this Cassie walked quietly beside him and he wasn’t even sure she paid him much attention. Her expression was blank, her eyes downcast. In the time they had been apart, she had learned to mask her feelings better. Where once he had instantly been able to determine her mood by her facial expressions and body language, now he couldn’t tell. She had changed. And it sent a chill of uncertainty to his heart.
They turned down a narrower pathway into a residential area, crossed over a small bridge and approached a blind curve where the path ahead was obscured by thick shrubbery. As they moved around the curve, he saw two men in the uniform of Mariltar security officers approaching from the other direction.
Sebastian tensed. He had prepared himself for this but fatigue and excitement had drained his mental energy reserves. He cursed under his breath and finished his story with a few quick words, not sure if they made sense, not sure if it mattered. But in his peripheral vision, he saw Cassie glance at him curiously.
“But Sebastian, you just said the vessel was—”
“Good day.” The men were upon them and had stepped aside to allow them to pass, their bodies held to rigid attention, their expressions cold and distant. They avoided eye contact. Sebastian acknowledged them and quickened his pace.
“Sebastian!” Cassie protested, trotting to keep up with him. “What was that about?”
“What, love?” He turned his head enough to ensure the security officers had continued on their way, thankful the moment had passed without incident. He knew it was only due
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to Cassie’s presence that it had.
“You know,” she said impatiently. “I’m surprised the laser-rays didn’t come out. Who are those two men?”
“Mariltar security officers.”
“I know that. You know them?”
“Yes.”
“They don’t seem to like you.”
“I’m a security risk, love. You know that.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s not important.” He forced a grin. “I’m here on legitimate business this time. They have orders to leave me alone.”
“Sebastian!” She came to a sudden stop in the middle of the pathway and fisted her hands on her hips. The loose tunic top billowed in front of her. He sighed and stopped as well. His entire body protested the delay; screamed with fatigue.
“You can’t keep putting me off,” she scolded, her expression determined, her mouth drawn into a mutinous curve. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. You tell these ridiculous tales to cover up the truth but, one of these days, you’re going to have to tell me what you’re really doing and why you’re doing it.”
He blinked and tensed. “I’m not sure what you mean, love. What am I doing?”
“Oh, stop it. Of course you do.” She waved her hands frantically in the air. “I don’t know exactly what you’re doing. But it’s something you shouldn’t. You’re my friend and I’d really prefer you didn’t keep getting into trouble.”
He relaxed. “You don’t need to worry about me, love. I’m just as good at getting myself out of trouble. It’s nice to know you care, though.” Deliberately, he swayed on his feet. “D’you think you care enough to show me the way to your bed?”
“In a minute. Can’t you—? Wait, I said you had to sleep—”
“Another time, love.” He allowed a touch of steel to enter his voice. “I can barely think to talk just now.” He wasn’t sure he could remain upright much longer. His body ached and she was partly to blame for that. Even in the hideous clothes, she had the blood roaring through his veins as she stood there, bristling with determination, prepared to do battle. He braced himself as she wrinkled her stubborn little nose and looked ready to argue. Then, with a sniff and a toss of her head, she unfolded her arms and marched past him, and he had to hurry to keep up with her, a genuine grin, this time, curving the corners of his mouth. Great Sagar, but she was adorable. And she cared. The knowledge compensated a little for the cold, hard fist lodged in his chest from the encounter with the two security officers.
They had been under his command once, had respected, sought guidance, and taken orders from him. Now they could barely acknowledge him. It affected him more than he thought possible. At that moment, sleep deprived, too sensitive to the woman beside him, Sebastian was almost convinced that the task ahead was impossible.
He glanced at the stiff little back marching ahead of him. He would have to share more information with her at some point, had been encouraged to do so. His dilemma was how to protect her.
“Here we are.”
Her tone was cool. She wasn’t going to forgive him easily. With amusement, he remembered anew the moods that had both exasperated and enchanted him and changed with the rapidity and frequency of an ice desert wind.
They had turned off the path into the arched entryway of a living unit. A thick gray-leafed vine grew over the arch and trailed down the sides to mingle with a host of miniature sponges that grew in delicate profusion beside the columned entrance. The concealed panel at the door slid aside to accept Cassie’s hand identification. They entered an attractive, light-filled room decorated in soothing soft violets, blues and creams.
Her colors, Sebastian thought. Colors he wanted to see her
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wearing.
“The bedchamber’s over there.” Cassie waved her hand at a doorway. “And the cleansing facilities are on the other side. Are you hungry?”
“Starving!” he declared. He was hungry, but his body craved sleep even more.
“I don’t think I have much food here.” She crossed over to a compact utility area. “I’m on a regular delivery schedule for some things, but I usually stop at the Marketplace at the end of the day to pick up something for my evening meal.” Opening a storage cabinet, she peered inside, and even he could see from where he stood that the contents were meager. She closed the panel with an impatient bang. “I’ll run down to the Market and get you something. Make yourself comfortable.”
He wanted to tell her not to bother, but it wasn’t worth the effort. And it did feel remarkably good to have her doing something for him. He stood in the middle of the room as his energy levels faded, and wondered if he would even make it as far as the bedchamber.
“Sebastian!”
He looked up. She was by the door, the deep mud-brown of her clothing an ugly contrast to her surroundings, her brow puckered with concern. “Are you all right?”
He made one last effort. “I’m good. Never better.” He waved a hand. “Go! I’ll just go use the, ah, facilities.”
In the bedchamber, the sight that greeted him brought his body to an unwilling halt. He stared in amazement at the multitude of overstuffed, lacy, ruffled pillows arranged in mounds both on the bed and on the floor. Deep swathes of a rich, silk fabric draped across the ceiling, dripped from the walls and framed a transparent sheet of glass that curved in a deep arc out toward the forest. The colors in the main room were repeated here, but there the comparison ended.
If that contrast wasn’t strange enough, the orcan flowers that bloomed around the room in their shallow containers would have caused any collector to swoon. Treaine must be an excellent source of supply. The meager specimen in his belongings still on his vessel seemed pathetic by comparison.
The contradiction between her ugly clothes and her living quarters was very odd, though it was a puzzle he would have to solve another day. The big, pillow-covered bed set on a low platform beckoned, but the shower tempted him more. He began to strip off his clothes. It had been too long. The waterless cleansing unit on his star vessel was more than adequate to do the job, but not designed to soothe an aching body.
He stepped into the small bathchamber, tossed his clothes into the regenerator, and activated the shower. As he set the multiple streams to maximum force, a sigh of pure pleasure escaped his lips and he turned his back and leaned his head against the wall to let the water pummel his tired muscles.
Minutes later, he swiped a toweling cloth across his body, stumbled into the bedchamber and fell face down across the bed.
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Chapter 7

? ? ?

The living unit was quiet. Too quiet.
Cassie juggled two containers of supplies over to the utility area and stopped to listen again.
“Sebastian?” Starpits! He couldn’t be asleep already after all the trouble she had taken. He would just have to wake up.
“Sebastian? You are not going to do this to me. I won’t let you.” The mundane chore of shopping hadn’t done a thing to settle her feelings. Quite the opposite, in fact. Panic had mushroomed. How could she let him back into her life when she had just achieved a relatively stable existence? How could she have given in so easily? She had to get rid of him before she lost her tenuous grasp on peace of mind.
She dumped the containers on the counter that separated the utility area from the great room and walked over to the doorway leading to the bedchamber. “What do you want to eat? I brought some—” Her voice froze. He was fast asleep, sprawled face down across her bed surrounded by lace and ruffles.
Stark naked.
She swallowed against a sudden dryness and failed utterly in tearing her gaze away. Even unconscious, his body exuded power and energy. Muscles bunched in his arms and thighs and across his back where they rippled gently with each breath. She moved closer, allowed her eyes to roam, greedily devoured the tight curve of his buttocks, the lethal strength evident in his long legs.
He moved, shifted, and flung out one arm. The pale gold band embedded in the flesh of his biceps caught the light. Her own hand crept to her arm where the same brand lay concealed under her clothing. One of his hands hung over the side of the bed closest to her and an image took hold in her imagination— of that same hand touching, stroking over her skin. If this were a true marriage—No! It could never be.
She shook off the thought and stepped back, then paused again, reluctant to leave. Lord, what a magnificent male creature! With a passion that shocked her, she craved to touch him, to smooth her hand over the velvet skin on his back, to feel the hardness and softness of him. Instead, she clenched her hands so hard the nails bit deeply into the tender skin. She shuddered and backed away. Such thoughts were crazy. Dangerous!
As she forced herself to leave the room, she was surprised to realize her heart was thudding rapidly and her breath was coming in short hard little gasps. She began the task of putting supplies away. It took very little time, and she found herself wandering aimlessly around the room, her gaze drawn often to the entrance to the bedchamber.
“Hellfire!” She stopped in the middle of the room. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it, you idiot! This is crazy. He doesn’t want this. You can’t feel this way about him.” She couldn’t seem to erase the vision of naked masculine beauty from her mind and she wanted desperately to look again. She gave a chair leg an impatient kick and came to a decision. If he was going to sleep the day away, there wasn’t any point to her hanging around. She might as well go back to work.

She returned late in the evening, exhausted from wrestling with the still unsolved structural problem. It had been difficult
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to concentrate when her disobedient thoughts insisted on turning in other directions. Her heart pounded as she stepped into the unit, but hope turned to disappointment at finding the unit still and quiet. Yet she sensed his presence in the other room. Only by great effort of will did she prevent her feet from moving toward the sleeping chamber. She turned instead to prepare a simple evening meal, making enough for two without a conscious realization of what she did.
With Sebastian only a room away, she couldn’t prevent the rush of memories, and she found herself giggling over images of his more outrageous actions, the colorful exaggerations, the relentless teasing. She had forgotten how easily he could lighten her mood and chase the shadows away.
But the good memories couldn’t be separated from the dark ones for long and the smile on her face soon faded. She had sensed today that, once again, Sebastian wasn’t being completely honest with her, that she was hearing only a small part of his story. A vise clamped around her heart.
Why couldn’t he trust her, and what was he hiding?
He had done so much for her, and she trusted him with her life. But, by his own admission, he didn’t always follow the rules. It was the reason for his exile from Treaine, perhaps the reason for their hasty marriage. It gave her a deep discomfort.
By the time she finished her meal, darkness had swept with its usual startling rapidity across the sky. Outside, Treaine’s five moons loomed large and glowed behind a veil of soft mist. The planet’s beauty had always enchanted her, yet tonight it failed to soothe. She couldn’t seem to shake an insidious feeling of dread.
She dispensed with the remains of the meal and forced herself to destroy evidence that she had prepared food for him as well. Sebastian’s deep, steady breathing greeted her as she reached the bedchamber door.
His sleep had been restless. Pillows lay tossed and scattered around him and he now lay angled across the middle of the bed. There was no room for her. The realization produced a spurt of anger. This was her unit and her bed, and already he was disrupting her life just as she had known he would. Tomorrow she would demand he find some other place to stay. She was still too fragile to deal with the overwhelming force that was her husband.
She thought about moving his legs, but couldn’t bear the idea of him waking to her touch. So she averted her eyes and hurried across the room to grab an extra coverlet from the storage cabinet. The couch in the great room held little appeal but would have to do for tonight. And tomorrow she had every intention of forcing her life back to its normal, comfortable, safe routines.
The thought didn’t improve her mood. She threw the cover on the couch with unnecessary energy and started to remove her clothes, then realized she had forgotten a night robe. Nothing in the universe was going to drag her back into that room tonight. Her teeth gritted against a wail of pure irritation, she finished taking off her outer layer of clothes. The delicate veil of fabric underneath hugged her body, both revealing and concealing, and seemed shockingly inadequate now as an undergarment when a male presence saturated the very air of her rooms.
She had purchased it and others like it to give her spirits a boost, in rebellion against the drab clothes she forced herself to wear to avoid attention. But it was, she remembered the ancient vendor at the Marketplace telling her with a wink, guaranteed to inspire lustful thoughts in any normal warmblooded male.
It wasn’t something she cared to put to the test.
She wrapped the cover around herself before she lay down.

“Aaaaieeee!!”
The piercing scream drove Sebastian up on his elbows. In complete disorientation, he searched wildly for his attacker,
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rolled over and fell to the floor. Several pillows landed on top of him. As he pulled himself up, he struggled to remember where he was. A string of curses and vile threats issued from behind a closed door.
Cassie! He relaxed against the side of the bed, allowed his warrior’s pumping adrenaline to subside.
Where, he wondered in admiration, had she learned language like that? He scrambled to his feet and stretched with bone-popping satisfaction. Then, scratching his chest and yawning hugely, he ambled toward the door, mildly curious about the uproar. Just as he reached it, it slid open with a bang. His wife hurtled through and slammed into him.
“Careful!” His arms reached out and caught her.
And in that instant, if he had possessed the power to do so, he would have frozen time.
Her face was buried in his chest; the entire length of her body was pasted to his from the force of her advance and anchored there by his arms. He could feel every soft, luscious curve of her. The cloth she had wrapped around herself was a woefully inadequate barrier. And if he could feel her, he thought, she could feel him and, more particularly, his reaction that no amount of willpower in the star system could suppress. The flash of desire his tired body had felt for her yesterday was nothing compared to what he was feeling now. The instant his arms closed around her, his male flesh surged to uncomfortable hardness. He held his breath, intensely, achingly intent on what she would do next. For the space of a few heartbeats, she did nothing. Then she reared back, freed an arm and pounded her fist into his chest.
“It’s your fault! Let me go! You… you… you…”
With every utterance emphasized by a blow from her fist, Sebastian’s eyebrows climbed higher. He hid his amusement as he waited to hear what epithet this creature of unpredictable moods would bestow upon him. He couldn’t fathom the reason. What precisely was his fault? Since he had entered her unit, all he had done was sleep.
“… inconsiderate, idiotic jackass!” she finished, her face flushed with triumph. Her violet eyes flashed indignation and defiance before they shifted and fell beneath his interested gaze.
Jackass? The word was unknown to him. Somewhat disappointed, he tucked it away in the back of his mind. He had a more serious problem. Cassie’s feeble attempts to free herself were a threat to his self-control.
“Let… me… go!” Her voice rose to an outraged squeak.
“Certainly,” he said, and released her with a suddenness that caused her to stumble back and lose her precarious hold on the cloth clutched around her. It sagged to reveal one perfect pink-tipped breast, and then slipped from her fingers altogether. Her moan of horror as she stared at her protective covering lying useless at her feet found an echo in his own involuntary moan.
There was only so much a man could take, after all!
In the brief seconds the vision before him stood revealed, all creamy skin, long limbs, mysterious shadows and rosy peaks that beckoned with a siren’s invitation, Sebastian forgot the vow he had made to himself so long ago, and started forward with determination. He hesitated only when the vision swooped to snatch up the cloth and hold it protectively before her once again.
And then Cassie’s gaze collided with the undeniable evidence of his arousal.
“S–Sebastian?”
The confused, haunted look on her face reminded him of another time and it stopped him cold as nothing else could have done at that moment.
His shoulders heaved in a shrug of regret as he said with a casualness he was far from feeling, “Sorry, love, I can’t help it. You took me by surprise.”
A wave of brilliant color washed over her face. She looked
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away and snapped, “Well, then we’re even! Oh, just–just get out of here and let me finish.”
He was still clueless about the cause of the commotion, but one look at her face convinced him the best strategy would be to wait until things were calmer. He turned to leave the room, then promptly reversed course when she flung after him, “And put some clothes on!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get my clothes. They’re in there.” He gestured to the clothing regenerator behind her in the bathchamber.
“Ooohhh!”
It was a sound of pure frustration. Sebastian choked back a chuckle and continued toward her. She jumped out of his way and stalked past him as he slid aside the panel to gather his clothes. His gaze followed her, focused on her back.
“Cassie!”
She stopped but didn’t turn. “What?”
“What’s wrong with your back?”
She tilted her head and studied the ceiling. Her voice, when she answered, was too soft. “I don’t know. What could be wrong with my back? It feels like a few layers of skin have been peeled off.”
Sebastian winced. A niggling suspicion became certainty. He stepped into his breeches. “It, ah, looks painful. What happened?”
“What happened? What happened?” She whirled around, a miniature tornado, arms waving wildly. The toweling cloth appeared to be in imminent danger of falling off again. “Some brainless masochist left the shower controls on maximum. I hardly slept at all last night, because that same brainless, inconsiderate jackass was selfishly taking up the whole bed, and that couch in there is a torture instrument.” She stabbed a finger in the direction of the great room and this time the towel did slip again. She rescued it just in time. “And then—and then you go parading around without any clothes on, especially in that condition, and now I’m late, and my back hurts and— aargh!” Her elbow slammed against one of the columns surrounding the sunken tub. She shot him another hurt, furious look as she cradled it against the curve of her waist.
Sebastian finished fastening his breeches. He was amazed at the lengthy list of indiscretions. He also wanted to laugh but she looked like she was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry,” he said with sincerity. “I’ll try to behave better in the future. Where’s your med dispenser?”
“Why?” she shot back.
“Because your back needs attention,” he explained patiently. This delightful morning grouchiness was sweetly familiar and how he had missed it!
“It’s over there.” She waved her hand at a panel next to the clothing regenerator.
He flipped the panel open, studied the contents and selected an ointment. “Turn around.”
A horrified expression crossed her face. “You’re joking! You are not touching me. I’ll do it myself.” She thrust out a hand.
“Balls of Sortor, love. I’m not going to attack you. Turn around and drop the towel. You know I have a medical license.”
She hesitated, darted him another suspicious glare, then drew up the towel more tightly before presenting her back. A strangled whimper escaped her and he saw her shudder as he squeezed the healing cream across her shoulders. He refused to allow himself to wonder about the significance of her reaction as he used the pads of his fingers to massage the ointment in. The sting of the burn would vanish instantly, he knew and, upon closer inspection, her back wasn’t as bad as it had first appeared.
“Better?” He gave into temptation and stroked his thumbs over the feminine curve of her shoulders. Head bent, soft, dark hair pulled out of the way, her nape was seductive and vulnerable.
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He longed to drop a kiss on the tender spot. She gave the
briefest of nods.
“Drop your towel!”
“What?” She jerked under his hands.
He tightened his grip, not allowing her to move away. The healer in him had a task to complete. The man in him knew the root of her reluctance, yet didn’t fully understand her resistance. “Cassie, I need to reach the rest of the burn. I can’t do that through a covering! Just loosen your towel a little.”
“I can do the rest.”
He lost patience, gave a sharp tug to the covering, then slid his hand inside and swiftly covered the middle and lower portions of her back. He allowed himself to venture onto the swell of her buttocks where he wanted to linger, but she had clearly had enough by this time and jerked away.
“Done!” Stepping back, he added with irrepressible hopefulness, “Anywhere else?”
“No—thank you.” Her tone was grudging. She turned to face him and raised an eyebrow as she reached for the small cylinder of ointment.
“My cue to leave?” He grinned at the face she pulled and went to gather up the rest of his clothes.

By the time she arrived home that evening, Cassie’s mood was not much improved. As she struggled through the front door of the living unit with another armload of packages, a small container lost its precarious balance and fell with an ominous splat on the floor.
“Oh, starpits!” She eyed the spreading mess with dismay. It seemed the final straw to what had turned into a very bizarre day.
In the struggle to concentrate on her work project and keep thoughts of Sebastian at bay, she had forgotten her plan to order additional food supplies early in the day. It was only when she was almost home that she remembered her decision and, tired and grumpy, she changed direction with reluctance to head for the Marketplace. She would feed her unexpected guest dinner, then she promised herself, she would ask him to leave.
By the time she had almost completed the task of selecting supplies, it was late and well past the traditional hour for the evening meal. She was passing a small booth in search of the Mariltar ambrosia Sebastian favored, which no one seemed to have, when a vendor dashed in front of her and thrust a small vial of silver liquid under her nose. With exaggerated gestures and a stream of incomprehensible words, he pulled off the stopper. A thick, sweet scent rushed from the bottle. Memories exploded in her head that made her reel. For a split moment, she was convinced she had descended into madness as the scent drove her back into drugged captivity. It took all her concentration to hold herself together, to back away. The chattering vendor followed but the look on her face must have convinced him in the end she was not a buyer and he moved on to other prey.
Now she took a deep breath and stared around the familiar room as she willed the memory away and felt her body rhythms return to normal. Coincidence—that’s all it was, pure coincidence that Sebastian’s arrival and this ugly reminder of her past should occur together. It was surprising there hadn’t been more such incidents. But why that smell?
She rubbed her hands down the side of her face and sighed. She wasn’t at all certain anymore that pushing Sebastian out her life was the right thing to do. If nothing else, he represented safety. He would protect her with his life.
She took a step toward the bedchamber and stopped. What was she thinking? From what did she need protection? She was safe here. Treaine was safe. All those hours in therapy had convinced her of that.
Hadn’t they?
“Sebastian?”
J.A. CLARKE

There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected one. All her instincts told her she was alone. Even so, she moved to the entryway into the bedchamber and peered inside.
The room was empty, the bed neatly made, the pillows an untidy pile on the floor.
Disappointed and irritated again, she turned back to the utility area and began to unpack the supplies. This was so typical of Sebastian. Gone without any clues, any explanation! She had wasted precious time searching the food booths for Mariltar delicacies and he wasn’t even here to appreciate her efforts. She slammed down a cylinder of haga chips in the storage cabinet with such force the top popped open and its contents spilled out.
She leaned her head against the cabinet with a groan. What was wrong with her? Her emotions had been in an uproar ever since yesterday when he had arrived so unexpectedly. Without even trying hard, he had been a disruption just as she had known he would. Her concentration was non-existent, her routine a shambles.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him! She wanted to be with him, hear his voice, his laughter again, listen to the lunatic stories that could only be half-true.
What was he really doing here? And what exactly did he expect or want out of this marriage? He could easily have stayed somewhere else, but he had chosen to stay with her and publicize the marriage. The image of his naked body stretched out on her bed filled her mind. It was followed by one of him standing before her, at ease with his maleness in all its power and strength so fully and casually displayed. The sight had shocked her, weakened her knees, sent fiery tingles of sensation racing through her body. For just a moment, he had looked at her as if he desired her, but then he had brushed it off in a deflating reminder of what their relationship was.
What did he want?
Restless and upset, she wandered around the quiet unit.
Too distracted to prepare a proper meal, she nibbled occasionally on chunks of stuffed herb bread. Underneath the myriad of thoughts that invaded her mind, she was aware she was waiting, hoping for Sebastian to make an appearance.
By the time darkness had made its rapid descent, she knew he wasn’t coming. With a heavy sigh, she pulled herself together. It was late and she was tired. There was no sense in waiting any longer for him to show up when he might not at all.
In the bedchamber, she made two discoveries that turned her emotions upside down again. Her storage closet held several sets of masculine clothing and, when she went to pick up her hairbrush, she found a new shallow crystal dish beside it. It held an orcan flower, a pale gray unspectacular specimen, but one of the rarest. Tears clogged her throat as she stroked the silk-soft petals.
What was he really doing here?
Despite her unsettled emotions, sleep came quickly. But with sleep came confused and horrific dreams.
Caverns, dark and hot, sprayed a continual mist of foul smelling liquid. Her hair and clothes were soaked through. Her back and arms ached. The aches became fiery blades of pain. Her hands and feet were bound, preventing movement when she desperately wanted to flee from a horror she couldn’t see but knew was close. Her vision was blinded by a hard metal band that squeezed her head. Greedy hands reached out to snatch at her hair, tear the clothing off her body, pinch and stroke at her bare skin, and prod at her. A babble of angry voices, all the more terrifying because she couldn’t understand them, rose and fell in waves around her. And through it all a shadow lurked, never fully seen except for dark fathomless pits, soulless eyes that beckoned with seductive yet deadly intent.
Cassie shot up in bed, gasping for breath. Her body shook in a fit of trembles. She was drenched in sweat; her shirt stuck to her body. Her own arms wrapped tightly around her waist
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gave her no comfort.
She dragged herself out of bed, stumbled into the great room and dropped into a chair positioned so it faced a view of the vast forest that climbed the slope of the mountain behind the complex of living units. Most nights, the soaring majesty of the giant trees, bathed by the bright glow of the planet’s five moons, fascinated and soothed her. Tonight, at the end of their cycle, the moons were dulled. Mysterious shadows, chased by gusts of wind, and a faint howl which seemed to come from the very bowels of the forest itself, raised the hair on her arms and deepened her foreboding.
This time the memories couldn’t be held back. This time they burst forth with all the force of Treaine’s wind storms. Curled into a tight ball, she shuddered and whimpered with fear as she succumbed to the onslaught.
Chapter 8

? ? ?

“Cassie! Cassie, love, wake up!” A hand shook her roughly. “Cassie!”
She had been so lost in memories, she hadn’t heard him come in. She lifted her head; felt the stiff muscles in her neck protest. Sebastian’s concerned face hovered close to hers.
“You didn’t even let me say good-bye.”
“Oh, Cassie. Dreams again?”
She shook her head. “No, memories. I wasn’t sleeping.”
An expression of sadness, perhaps regret, crossed his face. “I’m sorry, love. If my being here causes you too much pain, I’ll leave. I wouldn’t hurt you. You know that. Do—?”
“No!” she interrupted, her earlier determination to be rid of him somehow evaporated. “I–I don’t want you leave. It isn’t because of you. The memories and dreams come and go. Sometimes they’re worse than others. Usually, I–I just try not to think about what happened.”
“Cassie, did you get help after you arrived here?”
“I saw a counselor in the Medical Quarter for a while. It helped. I’m all right, Sebastian. Really.” She heaved a sigh and stared out at the windswept darkness. Then she whispered, “I just can’t help wondering sometimes what happened to those other women.”
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He rose to his feet and reached for her arm. “You need to sleep, love. Come, let’s get you to bed.”
She gave a brief little laugh that held no amusement and gestured. “The dawn is here. It’s time to get up.”
“Maybe so. But you need to sleep.”
Still she hesitated, mesmerized by the streak of light that had appeared over the forest canopy. A giant yawn caught her unawares; her body sagged in the chair. He was right. The thought of facing the day without sleep stole any last objection she might have voiced. His hand under her elbow urged her to her feet, and she allowed herself to be led into the bedchamber.
“Sit!” He pushed her down onto the bed, then crouched in front of her. “Cassie, your shirt is soaked. You need a dry one. Can you get this one off while I look for something?”
She nodded because he seemed to expect it, but his words hadn’t made any sense at all. She continued to sit, too exhausted to make the effort even to crawl under the cover. He returned and his hands began to tug at the fastenings on her shirt. Cool air slid across her exposed flesh and caused her shivers to intensify. Then soft cloth shielded her once again. Gentle, strong hands laid her down and pulled a cover over her.
“Sebastian?” She struggled to remember what she wanted to say to him as unconsciousness began to claim her.
“What, love?”
“Don’t leave. Stay—stay with me?”
“Of course.”

Minutes later, Sebastian eased himself into the bed beside her and took her into his arms. She was fast asleep already, and would never know whether or not he had kept his promise or would even remember that she had asked. So why did he torture himself? The truth was, he wouldn’t and couldn’t deny her or himself the dubious pleasure of holding her chastely when his body demanded so much more. He hadn’t thought that any of this would be so hard. But his feelings for her had only intensified with the long separation, and he wasn’t sure he had the patience or the will power to conceal the depth of his emotion for her much longer.
This other business had to be finished quickly.
He had to free himself to pursue and claim his wife.
He thought about the state in which he had found her, her body shaken by tiny shivers, the garment she wore damp from perspiration, her eyes haunted by grief and fear. Concern speared deep inside him. Had she received the proper treatment? He would have to find a way to request the release of her medical data to satisfy himself. Once, it would have been easy.
She would always wonder, he knew, about the fate of the other women. One day, he might tell her but not now. She wasn’t strong enough, nor had she shaken off the guilty feelings about her own escape from that nightmare when they had been left behind to suffer.
She snuggled against him more closely then and, with a contented little murmur, slid a slender leg between his. His blood ignited. In desperation, he sent a silent petition to the great gods of his clan for guidance and the strength to endure.

He was thinking about that night several days later as he carefully checked over the small pile of climbing equipment in front of him on Cassie’s great room floor.
The intervening days had been both a delight and a torment. He had rediscovered all the pleasures of cohabiting with her. Of being able to watch the graceful movements of her body, but not being able to touch. Of seeing her enchanting lips curve with laughter—or purse with mutiny during an argument—but not being able to kiss. Her moods were more volatile than he remembered, and it had become his most enjoyable challenge to see how quickly he could convert a somber mood to smiles.
Behind him the door hissed and he heard Cassie’s quick footsteps in the hallway. They came to an abrupt halt. In the dead silence, his nape prickled but he resisted the urge to turn
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around. “Hello, love.”
Something dropped on the nearby table with a thud. “What are you doing?”
He finished rewinding a slender cord, then said, “Hello, Sebastian. How are you today?—Oh, I’m doing quite well, thank you—I’m delighted to hear that. How did your business go last night?—So glad you asked. I had such a successful trading session, I’m giving myself a couple of days off.”
He heard her sigh and she came to kneel beside him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why you put up with my moods.”
He put down a hook and looked at her. Today she was dressed in dark, unflattering gray. There were shadows under her eyes. “It’s what… friends do, love.” Something was wrong. He thought he could read her moods well, but he wasn’t always sure what caused them. And in the last few days, he’d become convinced she was holding something from him. But then, he thought bitterly, as he tugged at a binding, there was far more he hadn’t yet revealed to her about his own activities. Relationships with secrets were doomed. He had to find a way to tell her, and soon.
“What’s all this for?”
“It’s climbing gear.”
“I know that. You’re going to climb a mountain?”
He gave her a sharp look. Her attention was riveted in apparent fascination on the harness. “Yes. There are several excellent peaks around here.” Treaine’s mountains were awe-inspiring. Carved into spires by ages of violent weather systems peculiar to the mountains themselves, the peaks soared high above the surrounding forests. Climbers came from three star systems to test their skills on the formidable slopes.
He planned on climbing the Talan slide, one of the most challenging.
The equipment seemed to fascinate his wife, so he asked even though he didn’t want to, “Have you climbed before? Do you want to come?”
A shudder shook the slender body. “No. Thank you. Who are you going with?”
“No one. I always climb by myself. Have for several years now.”
“Sebastian!” Her tone was tight and high. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
She was concerned. The knowledge brought a rush of exhilaration but he hid it with a casual shrug. “There’s some risk, but it’s no more dangerous than navigating through the Gala Canyon. Probably less so. I’m a good climber.”
She stared at his hands, her expression frozen and withdrawn. Then she looked up, and he was shocked to see a sheen of tears in her eyes. Without another word, she rose to her feet and wandered to the table where she had left a package of food. She picked it up, carried it over to the utility area and, with jerky, distressed movements, began to prepare a meal.
The sharp crack of a plate on the counter caused him to glance up seconds later. She seemed to be working herself into a frenzy. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?”
She slammed another plate down on the counter and glared at him. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why are you always putting your life at risk?”
“That’s a little extreme. This will be a test of endurance more than anything else.”
“And what if you fall and injure yourself? How long are you going to be stuck up there before help arrives?”
He held up a slender black box. “This is a monitor. It’s required. So you see, I won’t be completely on my own.”
“I don’t see why you have to go by yourself.” She banged the panel on the heatalator closed. “Dinner’s ready.”
The conversation during the meal was subdued, avoiding all discussion of his planned trip. Only at the end, as she was gathering dishes for the regenerator did Cassie ask, “When do you leave?”
“In another two hours.”
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She nodded, then came to curl up in a chair to watch him work with his equipment until he packed it away and went off to change his clothes.
When he reentered the room again, she rose to her feet and approached him. “Be careful.”
The softly spoken plea and worried expression on her face almost undid him. He caught himself just in time from blurting that he wouldn’t go. Instead, he forced himself to respond with cheerfulness. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll be back in two days. And you’ll be wishing I’d stayed away longer.”
It didn’t seem to reassure her. She gave a sad little smile and reached up to touch his face. The touch in itself was an astonishing surprise. Before he had recovered from it, she shocked him even more when she raised herself on tiptoe to brush soft lips against his.
Stunned into immobility by the action, he could only watch as she fled the room. What had happened to the ‘no touching’ rule? His lips tingled; his manhood surged uncomfortably against the confines of his clothing.
He was half inclined to dump his equipment, follow her, and satisfy every erotic imagining he had ever had about her. It took extraordinary effort to resist the impulse. Not yet.
But soon, he promised himself, as he heaved the pack over his shoulder. Soon there would be no secrets between them.
Chapter 9

? ? ?

In blank incomprehension, Cassie stared at the complex pattern of grids in front of her. Her mind had long since refused to focus on the task at hand. It had been a hard day, and she should finish up and go home. But, somehow, an empty living unit held little appeal. She blew out a heavy breath.
Sebastian was gone—again. And she didn’t expect him back until the following day. Lord only knew what he was up to this time, since he saw little reason to enlighten her about his activities. Several weeks had passed since the first climbing expedition. Despite her best intentions, she had spent hours worrying, but he’d returned, of course, none the worse for wear, craving sleep, and inordinately proud of his accomplishment.
Between his climbs, trading missions and other mysterious activities, they had spent a total of two evenings together in the last few weeks.
She missed him.
It seemed the more he was gone the more desperate she became for his company. It had even crossed her mind he might be deliberately avoiding her.
In a matter of weeks, their marriage partnership would dissolve. And what would happen then? Would they continue
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as before? Would Sebastian still use her living unit as a convenient place to stay when he had nowhere else to go? Or would he disappear from her life forever? The legal bond which bound them, tenuous as it was, was still a lifeline. Even when they were first separated, and she had no real expectation she would see him again, it was still a link to him. She had a dreadful suspicion that, once the bond was severed, she would be cast adrift, without direction or purpose.
What should she do? Unbidden, from the recesses of her mind sprang the image of Sebastian lying sprawled in naked male glory across her bed. The image shifted, reformed and now he stood before her again, confident and at ease in his nakedness, his body primed for passion, even though his mind, apparently, was not. Now, as then, an odd mix of shock and confusion and strange excitement shivered through her. Her nipples tightened and heat spread from her very core.
She wanted him to make love to her.
She wanted to run her hands over his broad shoulders, and down the planes of his chest. Wanted to feel the contrasting softness of skin and hardness of muscle. Wanted to touch and stroke the very maleness of him and watch it spring to life for her alone. All of her woman’s dreams and desires, strangled and stagnant since the violence she had witnessed a year ago, bloomed and burst forth with agonizing intensity.
If she asked him, what would he do? Would he run, disappear without a trace? Sebastian had never shown any indication he wanted anything more from her than friendship. Even his teasing, often filled with sexual innuendo, was an inherent part of his character, and nothing more than he would have displayed to any close woman acquaintance. He hadn’t even hinted he was aware the end of their marriage partnership was imminent.
When had the emotional ties of friendship crossed the line to become something different, stronger?
The screen in front of her pulsed out and in. She blinked and watched in fascination as the grid lines shattered and rearranged themselves—like her life. She should go home. She stretched cramped muscles and pushed her chair back. As she rose to her feet, her knees buckled and she collapsed back into the chair.
Without warning, a violent pounding bit into her temples. A wave of nausea followed and she dropped her head onto the table in front of her as dizziness overwhelmed her. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was a pair of hollow, hungry eyes staring at her from a mass of writhing grids.

Sebastian was far closer than she knew.
At that moment, under the administration building on the far side of the Marketplace in a secure chamber few knew about, he listened to a report from the man on the vidblock. His heart thundered in this chest. His palms sweated. He wanted to smash the vidblock, wanted to arrest what he had set in motion. Instead, he sat and did nothing.
It was a betrayal of the worst kind.
Five other men and one woman were gathered around the large conference table with him. All eyes were focused on the vidblock and the image of Rom-pin as he concluded his report on the first stage of a plan to trap the Mogton warlord, now known to head the largest drug operation in four star systems. Over a year of work had come to this.
“We have him,” said the woman.
“So it seems. But let’s not be too confident.” Alex Mariltar, Ambassador to Treaine and head of its security force, touched a button to shut down the recorded image. “It may appear as if he’s taken the bait but he’s fooled us before. Well done, StarJumper. Your instincts, as usual, are correct. It seems he can’t resist the lure of your wife. I—”
“He cannot be allowed anywhere near her.” Sebastian heard the words before he realized they came from his own mouth.
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The ambassador turned a cold sapphire gaze on him. “We’ve implemented every precaution. There’s still time to back away from this course of action, Captain. No one will think any less of you.”
Just for an instant, he wavered on the brink, torn between an old fealty and a powerful feeling he couldn’t yet name. Cassie’s face smiled at him from a blurred image in his mind… and dissolved. Six pairs of eyes watched him. Rage welled up inside of him. It was the only way.
He slammed a fist down on the table. “No! The decision was made days ago. This is the best course of action. He has to be brought down. His influence grows by the day.”
“Everyone understands how you feel, Sebastian.” A blond captain with a faint scar down one cheek spoke quietly. “She’ll be safe. You know he cannot get past our defenses and when he tries, we’ll have him.”
“This is too easy. He’s too smart. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“The first stage has been flawless. What is it that worries you?”
“I don’t know.” Sebastian stared in frustration at six concerned faces. “Maybe nothing. She still has nightmares about this Mogton. She may never get over what he put her through. If she ever learns what I’ve done—”
“She doesn’t need to know,” the ambassador interrupted. “If all goes well, this business will finally be done with and you’ll have your life back.” The piercing stare swept the rest of the group. “I don’t have to remind you, people, we have an innocent life at stake here. There can be no mistakes. Brief your crews and—”
He broke off as an urgent beep filled the air. Six pairs of eyes turned to Sebastian. With amazement, he saw the signal had come from Cassie. She had never attempted to communicate with him in this way before. A deep unease gripped him and he didn’t bother to seek permission before he activated his communicator. “Cassie?”
It was a male voice that filled the silence of the room. “Sebastian? This is Jor-an. I work with your wife. I stopped in her workstation before leaving just now and found her—I think she’s ill. She’s barely conscious but mumbling your name. I thought I’d contact you before calling a med team.”
“I’ll be there right away. Thank you, Jor-an.” He was on his feet before he realized he was the focus of attention and remembered the business of the meeting had not yet been concluded. An apology on his lips, he turned to face the ambassador, but before he could speak, the man waved a hand.
“Go! She needs you. We’ll finish up here and brief you later.”
Sebastian hesitated then nodded his thanks and made his way to the door. Training and fealty warred with his concern over Cassie. He knew a med team could take care of her, but his need to see to her welfare himself was urgent.
When he burst into Cassie’s workstation minutes later, he found the man he assumed to be Jor-an pacing in a tight, agitated circle. Cassie was slumped over her worktable. He went straight to her and bent over her. She didn’t stir when he touched her cheek and he jerked his hand back reflexively. “Blood of Cor, she’s burning up.”
“I know. There’s an illness in parts of the community. I’m sure it’s what she has.” Jor-an’s long, thin face showed gloom.
“Can you get me a visual to the Medical Quarter?” Sebastian bent over Cassie again and turned her head to examine her more closely. A chill coursed through him. A greenish shadow ran down the side of her face. He noticed similar marks on the hand that lay so still on the table.
“Med team here.” The voice sounded weary, hurried. It changed to surprise and pleasure. “Sebastian? I’d heard you were back.”
Sebastian jerked his head up. “Alar, I didn’t know you’d decided to stay.”
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The young man on screen grinned and shrugged. “In the end, I couldn’t resist the mejian water—among other things.” His tone became professional. “But you connected for a reason. What is it?”
Sebastian gestured to Cassie slumped in front of him. “It’s my wife. She’s running a high fever. She’s unconscious and seems to be developing lesions.”
The med team member hesitated, then nodded. “It sounds like another case of Gyrial fever. But I’m puzzled. This is the first case of it infecting a Mariltar. Our immune systems are supposed to fight it off.”
“She’s not Mariltar. She’s from Earth.”
“Ah. The most vulnerable of all the races represented here. It’s sweeping through their ranks with amazing swiftness. What color are her lesions?”
“Pale greenish-yellow. Is it dangerous?”
“If you mean life-threatening, no. Just very uncomfortable. She’s in the very early stages and, if treated properly, the cycle can be arrested. Unfortunately, we’re at capacity here already, and expecting more. With your training, I’ll have to ask that you treat her at home. You’re at her workstation?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll transmit instructions to your home communication center, and send a med robot with the treatments. Check back with us every four hours to give a progress report. Do you need a med cart to transport her?”
Loathe to delay Cassie’s treatment by even the few minutes it would take for the cart to arrive, Sebastian shook his head. “No, I can manage.”
“Very well.” The man paused. “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to have you back.”
“Thank you.” Alar had always displayed the deepest loyalty, had never questioned the actions of his commanding officer. Despite his concern, Sebastian felt a wave of appreciation spread through him. He bent to gather Cassie in his arms.
“Can I help?” Jor-an came forward, but Sebastian shook his head. He carried Cassie’s limp body down strangely deserted pathways and up the flight of shallow steps to her living unit.
As Sebastian lifted her to carry her through to the bedchamber, he saw the med robot had been there ahead of them.
He laid her on the bed, then hurried through to the information console in the great room to listen to the med team’s instructions. On his way back, he picked up the small pouch of medications. Cassie stirred as he approached the bed. He sat down beside her and brushed the silk-soft dark hair away from her hot face. Violet eyes flickered and opened. For a moment, he wasn’t sure she saw him. Her look was blank and unfocused. Then she gave him a weak smile.
“Seb–Sebastian?”
“Yes, love.”
“I don’t feel very well.”
“I know, love. I’m going to try and make you feel better.”
“Oh.” Her gaze wandered beyond him, and her brow creased. “I don’t remember getting home.”
“You were, ah, sleeping. I carried you.”
Her eyelids lowered. “Bastian, did you see the man with hollow eyes?”
“A man with hollow eyes? No, I don’t think so.”
“He scares me.”
A chill slid through his body. Whatever she had seen, it was an hallucination, of course. With all of Treaine’s sophisticated security systems, she was safe here. “You have nothing to fear, love.”
“I know.” She waved a hand in feeble dismissal. “You can go away now. I’m going to sleep.”
“No, you’re not. You have to take a bath first.” He grasped her under her arms and hauled her to a sitting position.
She giggled and flopped sideways as he released his hold, then pouted, eyes still closed. “Don’t be silly. Don’t want to.
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Just want to sleep.”
“Later.” he said firmly and pulled her upright again. “I’m going to remove your clothes.”
She opened one eye. “You are?” Slender arms wound themselves around his neck. A soft cheek nestled against his. “Mmm. Oh, good! Are you going to take yours off as well?”
Cor’s blood! Sweat beaded on his brow and he wondered, with a great deal of sympathy for the staff in the Medical Quarter, if the illness had the same affect on everyone. He yanked at her top and dragged it over her head. With both of his hands occupied in removing the garment, her body was left unsupported and, as the top came off, she toppled back on the bed again.
Sebastian stared, forgetting for a moment his purpose. The black undergarment, fragile and transparent, clung to her body like a second skin and supported a pair of impudent, perfect breasts. Their rosy tips peeked through the satiny cover and tantalized and beckoned in irresistible invitation. It was a garment whose sole purpose was to be removed by a lover— and the last thing he expected to find her wearing. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and reached for her again.
“Sebaaaastian?” The throaty croon in his ear raised his blood pressure another few notches.
“What?” he said with a sharpness he didn’t intend as he concentrated on freeing the stubborn bit of temptation. Why did women have to wear such complicated clothing?
She drew back and examined his face. A slow smile tilted up the corners of her mouth. His own clothing became more restrictive and uncomfortable. “You have the most beautiful eyes. Have I ever told you that before?”
“No, you haven’t but thank you.” He lost patience and jerked at the waist of the garment.
She sighed deeply and leaned into him again. “Will our child have golden eyes or violet?”
He paused and allowed a smile to creep across his lips. It was a pity she wouldn’t remember a thing about the conversation when she recovered. “Depends on if it’s a boy or girl. The Mariltar genes are always dominant in a male child.”
“Oh!” She slid her fingers up into his hair. Shivers of pleasure raced through him and fought with the urgency to begin her treatment. He gave another tug and the garment came free.
“What do you want—boy or girl?” Her face turned up to him, curious, serious.
“Both,” he said. “You?”
A sly look crossed her face. “How many do you want?”
He pretended to give the question serious consideration. “Two boys—and four girls who look just like their mother, all with silky, dark hair and beautiful violet eyes.”
“Wow!” she said with awe. “That many?”
With one more hard pull the undergarment came off. He was ready this time and caught her. As he laid her back on the bed, his concerned gaze skimmed over her bare skin. The lesions had darkened. Hurrying now, he removed her shoes and rolled down her loose fitting trousers only to discover the equally provocative mate to the flimsy garment he had just removed. This one too did little to conceal, and rather served to emphasize the dark triangle of hair at the juncture of her thighs.
Sebastian swallowed a groan of pure frustration. He’d never be able to look at her again without seeing a mental picture of what she wore under the hideous outer layer of clothes. She lay limp and relaxed on the bed, her eyes half closed, the brief spurt of energy spent. He stripped off the last garment, swept her up in his arms and carried her through to the next room where he put her down carefully in the raised bath. After he adjusted the temperature controls to the level recommended by the med team, he activated the massage streams, and added several crystals from one of the containers in the pouch. The water became a froth of speckled amber. He
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took another odd-shaped vial from the pouch, and poured a
small amount of thick liquid into a cup.
“Cassie?”
Her eyelids lifted a fraction. “Mmm?”
“Drink, love,” he urged. “It’s medicine.”
She made an effort, but he had to hold it for her as she drank. Her movements were slow, uncoordinated. She shuddered as the bitter liquid slid down her throat, and pushed his hand away with a petulant gesture.
The potion and the healing power of the crystals worked swiftly. She was half-asleep by the time he picked up a cloth and ran it over her face and hair to dampen the skin not submerged in the water. The lesions already looked lighter. When the prescribed time had passed, he lifted her unresisting body out of the bath and dried her off.
She whimpered with contentment when he laid her on the bed, but he wasn’t finished. He took yet another container from the med pouch and, with tender care, began to rub an ointment into her skin. Even as his fingers achieved his heart’s desire to learn every precious curve and hollow of her body, he forced himself not to linger. And when he was done, he drew a cover up over her, watched her sleep for a few moments, then leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against the softness of hers.
Chapter 10

? ? ?

Softness and warmth.
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to disturb this feeling of utter comfort and contentment. She stretched out a leg. Her whole body sprang to life with aches. She groaned, more from disappointment that the moment was shattered than from discomfort.
Rolling over, she opened her eyes. The room was lit with the brightness of day that poured through the glass panels to one side of the bed. It had to be late morning. Why hadn’t the computer woken her? And why did her body ache so much? She hadn’t done anything to cause her muscles to hurt this much. But she didn’t remember coming home yesterday either. The last thing she remembered was feeling extraordinarily tired at her workstation and resenting Sebastian for not being home.
Cautiously, she stretched her aching limbs. Bare skin slid against the softness of the cover. She frowned. Strange, she hadn’t slept naked since Sebastian had shown up. A slight sound made her roll her head around. The room rocked, then steadied.
What was Sebastian doing here? He wasn’t supposed to be back for at least another day. She struggled to put a clamp on
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the all-too-familiar feelings of panic and helplessness. Maybe it was tomorrow already. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she remember anything?
“Morning, love.” Her husband’s cheerful tone was reassuring. He grinned as he sat down next to her. “How are you feeling?”
“Horrible.” Her voice sounded hoarse to her own ears. “Have I been ill?”
“You are ill. You have a mild case of Gyrial fever.”
“Oh.” Whatever it was, it didn’t feel mild at all. “I–I don’t remember much. How–how long have I been sick?”
“Since yesterday. I brought you home. What do you remember?”
She thought a moment, then shook her head. “I was at my workstation and I remember feeling tired and then… nothing.”
“Well,” he said, “don’t worry about it. It’s not important. Jor-an used your communicator to get in touch with me and I brought you home.”
“How long does this illness last?” She shifted and was reminded of her nakedness. Realization of how she must have arrived at that state suddenly burst upon her, and she felt a burning heat spread across her face.
Sebastian frowned and reached out to touch her neck. “If you do everything you’re told to do, when you’re told to do it, you should be on your feet in a few days.”
As bad as she felt, Cassie was appalled by the prognosis. She couldn’t afford to take that much time off work and she’d go crazy on her own here in her living unit. “Can’t I get something from the Med Quarter to make me feel better? Sebastian, I can’t be away from—”
“Stop. Stop, Cassie, and listen to me.”
His stern tone startled her. The intent, hard look on his face shocked her. He leaned forward. “This fever can be very serious. It’s hit the Earth community here particularly hard. Just about everyone of Earth descent has been infected. The Medical Quarter is at capacity, which is why you’re here and I’m charged with your care. If the fever is caught early enough, and treated correctly, recovery can take just a few days. Otherwise the illness can last for weeks and is very uncomfortable.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose and heaved a deep sigh. She had no intention of lying about in bed for that long, but he didn’t need to know that. He would be gone again soon anyway. “All right, what do I have to do? Is that medicine?” She looked at the jars on the small table beside the bed without much interest and muttered under her breath, “I hate taking medicine.”
Sebastian gave her another grin which she mistrusted instantly. “That’s only part of it. You also have to take baths in treated water at regular intervals, and spread ointment on your skin to inhibit the development of lesions.”
“How often is regular?” A hard knot of dread settled in her stomach. She didn’t want to go down this path.
“Twice a day for the bath. Four times a day for the ointment.”
It was far worse than she thought. She slid lower in the bed and pulled the cover up over her chin as another wave of color heated her face. “Did—?” She couldn’t complete the question.
Her tormentor gave an unfeeling chuckle. “I’ve given you one bath and two ointment treatments already. You’re responding very well.”
The heat in her face was unbearable. She pulled the cover over it. His full-throated laugh was maddening. The man, she fumed, was completely insensitive.
“Cassie?” She felt him tap the cover over her face. “Cassie?”
“Oh, go away!” Her voice came out as a high-pitched squeak. “Just let me die of humiliation in peace.”
“Well, do you think you could postpone this event for a while? I’d really hate for you to go through it twice.”
She froze in horror. Surely he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. “What do you mean ‘twice’?”
“It’s time for both treatments again. If the schedule isn’t rigid, they’re not as effective.”
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Filled with determination and not a little anger, she pushed the cover back to her shoulders. “I can take care of myself!”
She could see he doubted her, but he shrugged and rose to his feet. “All right. I’ll just go prepare your bath.”
“Can you give me my robe, please?” This sudden feeling of distrust and awkwardness was peculiar and something she hadn’t experienced since the very first days she had spent with him. The garment in question was on the far side of the room. She watched as he retrieved it. After dropping it across her lap, he flashed her a smile and disappeared through the doorway into the bathchamber.
Cassie felt the tension seep from her body. What little energy she might have had seemed to go with it. Just watching him made her feel extraordinarily tired. Her face grew hot again at the thought of him tending to her, seeing and touching her nakedness again and she wondered if she would ever get over her embarrassment. Somehow, the lover’s touch in her dreams was far different from the reality of his touch when she was unconscious and at her most vulnerable.
Their relationship seemed to have gone through some subtle, unexpected shift. He had a medical license. It was only logical he take charge of her care in this apparent crisis. But still, there was something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, something about the way he looked at her.
The act of sitting up took a shocking amount of energy and she was exhausted before she even reached for the robe. By the time she struggled into it, the exertion had multiplied the aches in her body and she dripped with sweat. She sank back against the pillows, closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain.
“Cassie? Your bath’s ready.”
She groaned. She was to be allowed no respite. He was still in the bathchamber, and she was determined to show him that she could do this. Gritting her teeth, she swung her legs off the side of the bed, braced herself and pushed away. One short step later her knees gave out, and she collapsed in an ungraceful heap on the floor. “Damn!” Helpless tears spurted to her eyes.
“Let me help you, love.” All amusement was gone from Sebastian’s voice. His tender tone only caused the tears to flow faster. She felt his hands under her armpits. “If it bothers you so much, just pretend I’m your doctor.”
Oh, that was going to be really easy. She sniffed into his shoulder as he carried her into the next room, her thoughts in a muddle about what their relationship really was.
He set her on her feet, but kept a supporting arm around her, while he tipped her chin up with his other hand and brushed at the tears with his thumb. “I’m going to help you into the bath now. All right?”
She nodded in resignation, and then became aware of another need. “I have to—” Her voice trailed off in embarrassed misery.
“Sorry. I should have realized.” He helped her over to the screened enclosure and then, to her relief, left her alone.
Moments later, with his assistance, Cassie rested in the amber bath water. It soothed her fever while the massage streams worked on her aches. She released an involuntary sigh.
“Feeling better?”
She nodded and opened her eyes. Sebastian was perched on the bench at the end of the bath. One foot swung idly. His unruly blond hair looked disheveled as usual, although it had been trimmed recently. He was dressed in a tight black body suit which hugged his muscles, heightened his rugged looks and emphasized the broadness of his shoulders. His golden eyes glittered with ever-present amusement. He would never be considered handsome, Cassie thought dreamily, but his looks had their own appeal. She might not remember anything after she had lost consciousness at her workstation, but she did recall with amazing clarity what she had been thinking prior to the sudden onset of the fever. The memory heated her cheeks again and she saw a frown gather between his eyes.
She ignored him and tried to turn her thoughts in other
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directions. The knowledge of what was to come after the bath had her stomach doing cartwheels. In desperation, she blurted, “Aren’t you home early?” It sounded too much like an accusation and she cringed.
It didn’t seem to bother him. He quirked an eyebrow and the annoying grin appeared. “By a couple of days. Why? Disappointed to see me?”
“No, of course not. I just didn’t expect you home so soon. I just never know what to expect from you.” Lord, she did it again. They might as well have a real marriage. She certainly sounded enough like a disgruntled wife. Disgusted with herself, Cassie fell into gloomy contemplation of the amber bubbles.

Deciding a response wasn’t required, Sebastian studied what he could see of her face. Now what was going on inside that beautiful, complicated head of hers? He teased himself with the idea her behavior suggested she cared about him in some small measure, but he kept his expression neutral as his thoughts shifted rapidly around his dilemma. If something wasn’t done about this marriage, it would terminate in just a few short weeks.
It was the last thing he wanted.
He was running out of time.
And time was so critical at this juncture when he needed all his skill and concentration to execute this other business. The strategy session Jor-an had interrupted had only been one of several. He hadn’t been gone from Treaine on another trading voyage as he had led Cassie to believe, yet the records would show he had left the planet, thanks to clever manipulation of the exit logs and Rom-pin, who was even now piloting his vessel through the trade routes.
If all went well—if the plan worked—honor and rank would be restored. Then he would ask her for a permanent marriage, ask if she could develop any feelings for him at all other than those of friendship. She must never know how he had betrayed her.
The poor timing of her illness was incredible. How could he begin to prepare her, say all the things he wanted to say when she was battling deep body aches and dizzying weakness? It was hardly romantic. Nor did she seem delighted he had tended her body so intimately. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was ironic the one woman to whom he was ready to make a commitment showed no apparent interest in him, when so many before her would have welcomed the golden arm band.
But there had been that intriguing conversation last night. In her feverish state, she couldn’t be held accountable for her words but she had brought the subject up. The thought must have had its genesis somewhere. And, if necessary, he might just manipulate the truth a little to remind her of their joint decision to produce six children.
A soft beep came from the timing mechanism on his communicator. Cassie looked up and her expression became anxious as she realized the significance of the sound. He rose to his feet and stretched, then reached for a heated towel.
“Time to come out, love.”
She closed her eyes. Once again, the color rose in her cheeks and he could see her gathering her courage. She bit her lower lip, pushed herself up, swayed dizzily. Her hand reached for him. He was ready and caught her about the waist. He lifted her over the edge of the bath, wrapped a warm towel around her and gathered her close as she leaned heavily into his body. In the bedchamber, he laid her carefully on the bed and went to retrieve the med kit. He sensed her anxiety but when he returned, she was struggling higher against the pillows, her eyes focused on something behind him.
“Sebastian, what is that?”
His glance followed hers. A strange, soft glow permeated the glass panels. “Want to see? The moons are in perfect alignment today. The effect is spectacular.”
He came back to the bed, lifted her again and carried her to
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the transparent panels. He would take any opportunity to cradle her in his arms. She drew in a deep breath, and he saw the awe written in her face.
It was a magical sight.
The moons glowed a faint iridescent gold through a veil of lavender mist. Minuscule particles of moisture, sparking bright as prisms, danced in the lavender veil and weaved in and out through hundreds of miniature rainbows. Not to be outdone, the forest, on the mountain slope behind the complex of living units, shimmered with a tinge of gold in its everyday grays and greens.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so beautiful,” Cassie whispered.
“No.” She was too enchanted by the scene in front of her to notice that he wasn’t seeing what she saw. He hoped he would remember forever how she looked and felt at that moment. Translucent skin glowed from the crystal bath treatment. Dark hair brushed like silk against his neck. Violet eyes shone and lips parted enticingly with wonder. She had never appeared more beautiful or more desirable to him than at that moment, despite the faint evidence of her illness still apparent beneath her fine-textured skin.
Cassie glanced up then and whatever it was she saw in his face caused a subtle rearranging of her expression. His gaze locked with hers, and he deliberately probed the violet depths with all the intensity he had avoided before as he willed a response from her, a sign she was not indifferent to him. For a brief instant he thought he saw the look of a woman who desires a man. Then the thick dark lashes swept down to shield her thoughts. She turned her face once more to look outside. The moment passed. He was left shaken and wondering if his imagination hadn’t conjured the response he so badly wanted from her.
As he sought to recover, he shifted her in his arms and pretended to loose his grip. With a squeal, she flung her arms around his neck and barely held on to her modesty as the towel shifted. He strode back to the bed and dropped her onto the pillows. One pink-tipped breast appeared for an instant before she hastily adjusted the covering.
“Sebastian!” Her tone was indignant, her scowl a welcome return of her former spirit.
He turned away with an unrepentant smile, but had schooled his expression into seriousness by the time he’d opened the small container. The task he was about to perform was hard enough when she was unconscious. It would be grueling while she was awake. The knowledge that she would feel every touch of his fingers inspired a nervousness he hadn’t felt since his first days in the Academy. He had to keep this neutral. She wasn’t ready for a lover’s touch. Sitting down beside her, he asked, “Cassie, do you trust me?”
She looked at him first with suspicion, then he saw the flare of awareness. Her hand clenched on the cover. Her eyes widened and a flush rose in her cheeks. She swallowed hard. Her mouth opened, but she bent her head before she whispered, “Yes, of course I do.”
He reached out, then drew his hand back before it touched her cheek. “I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that. I’ve been charged with your care and I want you to get better. I realize you may feel uncomfortable about this, Cassie, but please don’t be frightened. Do I have your permission?”
She managed a stiff nod of her head. Her action belied the trace of panic she failed to mask on her face and, once again, Sebastian wondered at the depth of discomfort she displayed whenever they were drawn into more intimate circumstances.
Did he hold no attraction for her at all as a true mate or had her ordeal with the Mogtons left her with hidden scars that would never heal? The medical records he’d been allowed to view had indicated good progress before she’d stopped going to regular therapy sessions.
“It won’t take long. I’ll start with your face.”
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She flinched and closed her eyes when he touched his fingers against her forehead. There was no escaping this, for either of them. It had to be done, and she lacked the strength and energy to do an adequate job. Her body tensed and trembled under his touch but, as the soothing massage moved into her hair and the healing powers of the ointment dulled the aches, he felt her relax. Her body softened under his hands. He turned her over on her stomach, and worked his fingers down her back.
A small sigh of pure contentment escaped her. About to pull aside the covering from her hips, he froze, then gritted his teeth and reached for more ointment. His own body throbbed and ached with a furious need, which would only grow ten-fold before he finished. She would never know how much he wanted to linger and explore every curve and fold of velvet skin.
Twin mounds of soft flesh lay revealed to him. A man could only resist so much. He reached for her and in slow sensuous circles, quite different from the impersonal medical touch he had forced himself to use thus far, he stroked and kneaded; allowed his fingers to graze unexplored territory. Still, she lay relaxed, gave no indication the game had changed. Then she shifted, an almost imperceptible movement. Her legs fell apart a little. She sighed again.
He was torturing himself! It was more of a signal than he’d dared hope for, but he couldn’t take advantage of it. In a hurry now, he finished the backs of her legs and feet, then rolled her over.
Her eyelids fluttered but remained closed, the only sign she was conscious, and aware that her intimate secrets now lay fully revealed to him. He passed his hands across her breasts, and her nipples tightened into hard rosy peaks. His palms tingled with an urgent desire to stay, to feel, to win a greater reaction.
He forced himself to continue. Across her belly and over her thighs, he rubbed, stroked, brought a faint pinkness to her skin wherever he touched. The curve of her knee fascinated him; the arch of her foot delighted him. He slid his fingers between her toes, then back up to massage the softer skin of her inner thighs. He watched her face carefully as he worked but, other than a slight wrinkling of her brow, she gave no sign he was venturing into forbidden territory. She remained completely relaxed and, even when he nudged her legs further apart, she made no objection.
He couldn’t resist. Nothing in the entire star system could have prevented him from doing what he did next. One finger reached out and delicately stroked through the soft triangle of hair, down into her cleft and discovered what he knew by now without a doubt he would find. Her flesh was swollen. Heated moistness drenched his finger, ample evidence that she was as aroused as he by the experience. Knowing he could bring her to release with just a few strokes of his finger, he nevertheless removed his hand with reluctance. When he took her, he would do so with her full consent and cooperation uncomplicated by her illness.
He pulled the light cover up over her, then bent to murmur in her ear, “Sleep, love. You’ll feel much better when you wake up.” His lips grazed over her forehead and lingered a moment before he moved away. She appeared to be fast asleep when he returned a few minutes later. He smoothed a strand of hair off her face. Unaware he voiced his thoughts aloud, he said, “You do belong to me, love. And I will never let you go!”
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Chapter 11

? ? ?

When Cassie awoke, she felt much stronger but, as the details of what her husband had done to her and her own responses came rushing back in force, she shrank away from him. Sebastian seemed not to notice her embarrassment as he took a scan of her condition to report to the Medical Quarter, and informed her cheerfully she was now strong enough to continue the treatment on her own if she promised to abide strictly by the schedule.
Over the course of the next few days, she recovered rapidly. If it hadn’t been for occasional, sudden attacks of debilitating weakness, she would have rebelled against Sebastian’s constant vigilance and tyrannical insistence that she keep her activities to a minimum. To his credit, he never allowed her to sink too far into boredom. He kept her well supplied with unusual little games and entertainment cubes from the various nations represented on Treaine, and tempted her slight appetite with a wide variety of delicious foods.
He strolled in and out of the living unit at all hours of the day. Sometimes he stayed to relate amusing stories or challenge her in a game or two; at other times he was there barely long enough to drop off his latest discovery for her entertainment.
Try as she might, Cassie couldn’t convince herself that his behavior was any different than before her illness. She was beginning to think she had only imagined those highly erotic moments, now emblazoned on her memory, because she had wished so desperately for them to happen. Sebastian teased and cajoled her, insulted her and complimented her, made her laugh and made her sulk. Once he scolded her thoroughly when he caught her communicating with her fellow engineers. He was definitely not, she thought gloomily, behaving at all like a lover should. Self-pity became a frequent companion in his absences because she saw not a glimmer of intimacy or desire in his manner or behavior.
She didn’t know where he spent his nights—certainly not next to her in the big bed. Her nights were plagued with vague dreams of pleasure, of hands that caressed and stroked, of a warm sensuous tongue that aroused indescribable sensations. And always, before she could achieve the ultimate shattering ecstasy, she woke up panting and gasping, the thin cover twisted around her damp body, her arms empty, the dream vanished. On the fourth morning of her recovery, disgruntled, upset and impatient, she watched the door close behind him. She had refused to promise she wouldn’t get in touch with her colleagues again. Without even bothering to argue with her, he had simply locked her out of the information console’s program, waved a cheerful hand in her direction and left. Tormented by remnants of a particularly erotic dream that had woken her up that morning, and irritated beyond measure by his cheerfulness, which nothing seemed to disturb, Cassie pounded her fists on the pillows in sheer frustration.
Out of nowhere, a shard of memory pierced her thoughts.
Sebastian, staring at her, golden eyes glowing with surprise and something more—something infinitely exciting as he reaches out and tugs at black gauze and lace.
The image dissolved. She shook her head. Where had that come from? Wishful thinking? It had seemed so real. And why, she thought with
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grim determination, couldn’t it be real? What did she have to lose anyway? She sat in the middle of the big bed as a forbidden excitement, mingled with a horrible nervousness, swept through her body. Instead of waiting for him to make the first move, which might never happen given the distinct dearth of interest on his part, why shouldn’t she play the temptress? A shudder shook her body. Doubt consumed her and she questioned if she had the courage to take the necessary steps.
The wall panels concealing her clothes drew her gaze. She had the clothing to raise any normal man’s temperature. After she had arrived on Treaine, she had chosen unflattering styles and colors for outer wear to deter unwelcome attention, but what went underneath soothed and satisfied her feminine vanity and should attract the attention of even a disinterested man.
She slumped back on the pillow as she felt the excitement drain out of her. What if it didn’t work? What if she made a fool of herself? She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he laughed at her, rejected her. But neither could she bear it if their marriage partnership dissolved without him ever being aware of how she felt.
With a new surge of energy, she pushed herself up off the bed. She hadn’t experienced an attack of weakness in more than a day and now, she convinced herself, was the time to try before he disappeared again.
Her hair was a good place to start. Neglected for days, because she hadn’t had the energy to take care of it and hadn’t wanted to ask Sebastian for help, it hung in limp, lifeless strands. It took some effort but she felt immeasurably better after it was washed and dried. Dressed in a comfortable lounging outfit, she felt ready to tackle her next project. The food supply in the utility area was meager. It wasn’t as bad as she had expected, but it wasn’t terribly exciting either.
So much for visions of a clever, creative feast lit romantically with crystal stars.
She wondered if she could convince the food booth she patronized most frequently at the Marketplace to deliver on such short notice. It was worth a try.
But even as she turned to move around the curve of the storage cabinets, she felt the terrible, familiar weakness wash over her again. Her knees buckled. Helpless, she collapsed in a heap on the floor. She lay still, knowing from experience it did no good to fight, and concentrated on trying to control and slow her breathing.
The sounds, at first, didn’t register. Then the thump of a boot striking the floor and a soft whistling made her freeze. What was he doing back already?
She stifled a groan, and closed her eyes. A faint, ridiculous hope that he wasn’t there to check on her fizzled as the footsteps passed by on the other side of the counter and headed in the direction of the bedchamber.
“Cassie?”
She curled up in a tight ball. It was all a dream and she would wake up in bed, she told herself without hope. The tightness in her throat threatened to become tears. This was not what she had planned. She didn’t want him to find her sprawled on the floor, incapable of helping herself.
“Cassie?” He was coming back. His voice contained an overtone of worry.
“There you are.”
She didn’t so much as move a finger to acknowledge him.
“What are you doing down there? Are you all right?”
She thought she detected amusement in his voice. He might as well have laughed out loud. Infuriated, she opened her eyes and glared at him. “I’m just fine,” she snapped. “I was tired of the bed and decided to take a nap on the floor. Go away and leave me alone.”
The infernal grin was on his face as he leaned on his arms against the curve of the counter and peered down at her. “Doesn’t look very comfortable. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be in bed?”
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It was too much. Her plans for a romantic evening of seduction were in tatters. It had taken an enormous amount of courage to get this far, and now he had added insult to injury by laughing at her. She opened her mouth to deliver a stinging reply and burst into noisy tears instead.
Strong arms lifted her as if she were a baby and cradled her securely. She was borne through to the bedchamber and laid down in the soft, welcoming comfort of the bed.
“Cassie,” he scolded gently, “I’ve told you, you cannot be wandering around for at least another two days. I know it’s hard to stay in bed when you’re feeling so much better, but you’ll just delay your recovery if you persist in expending energy before you should. Another two days, love, that’s all I ask. By then the disease will have worked its way out of your system, and you can do as much as your strength allows.”
She took faint comfort from his concern even as she cursed the weakness that had provoked the embarrassing outburst. At least he had no idea what she had been doing. He didn’t stay long, and left with a promise to return by nightfall with the evening meal.

The summons came at an hour when the mists were just beginning to rise off the lake and the light of the moons had dimmed to a greenish glow. The soft chirping woke him instantly, and he responded with a quiet acknowledgment even as he sat and stretched the kinks out of muscles cramped from sleeping on the uncomfortable, too-short couch.
He listened to the coded message grimly and with a sinking heart. Someone had misjudged and their plans had gone awry. The prey had eluded them and he was needed to help rebait the trap.
Another delay. His longing gaze shifted to the shadowed door opening a short distance away. Would he be back in time? For a brief instant, he toyed with the idea of petitioning to send someone else, but the bonds of loyalty were too strong, his fealty too deep, his experience and knowledge too valuable to the cause.
With economy of movement, he was ready to go in short order, and moved through to the bedchamber to pick up a couple of extra garments. Her soft, even breathing tore at his heart and, against his better judgment, he moved over to the bed to stare down at her. In the dim light he had activated to see more clearly, she lay with a hand curled under her cheek, dark lashes feathered against creamy skin, silky hair spread like a shadow behind her head and spilled across the pillow. Again, a shaft of pain pierced his heart. He reached down to stroke her hair.
No, he thought fiercely. He wouldn’t leave her again with nothing but a brief, cold message to greet her in the morning. If all had gone as planned, she would be his wife in truth by now, and they would have been sleeping in one another’s arms. There was no time to say all the things he had planned to say. He had to trust his instinct.
“Cassie?” Gently, he shook her shoulder.
“Hmm?” She tried to shrug his hand off and turn over.
“Cassie, wake up!”
“Bastian? Wh–what’s the matter?”
The diminutive of his name squeezed at his insides. “Wake up, love. We have to talk.”
“In the middle of the night?” Her voice was husky with sleep. She pushed herself up on the pillows and looked out the panel of glass. “What time is it anyway?”
“A few hours from daylight. Cassie, I have to leave. I’ve had word from a critical trading partner. She’s heard of an opportunity that’s too good for me to miss.
“She sent you a message in the middle of the night?” Disoriented as she must have been at being awakened from a sound sleep, skepticism was heavy in her tone.
“It’s not the middle of the night where she is.” He felt her shrink away from him, and cursed under his breath. He did-n’t have time to figure out what was going on inside that 120 J.A. CLARKE

complicated little head.
“Cassie, listen to me!” Distracted, he shook her shoulders again, and ignored the emotions that chased across her expressive face. “I don’t have much time.” Even as he spoke, his wrist communicator chirped again. He sighed with frustration. Too much time had been wasted. He couldn’t even say what he had planned to say. He paused, hands on her shoulders, and took a deep breath. The next few words he spoke would determine the course of his life. “I have to go, love. This is important to me, but you are infinitely more so. I want your promise that you’ll behave yourself and follow the instructions I left on the information console. You must request an evaluation from the med team in two days. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I will be back, and when I return there are things we need to talk about. I need you to trust me— implicitly. Will you? And will you be waiting for me?”
He deliberately softened the last of his words to a husky tenderness. In the dimness of the room, his gaze probed hers with heated intensity, held her stare, commanded a response.
She looked at him. Her lips parted. Her tongue flicked out to moisten them. “Yes, of course,” she whispered.
His gaze dropped to her lips, then rose again. He wouldn’t venture without some sign she was willing. Her shoulders shuddered under his hands and he tightened his grip. Then her body seemed to sway of its own accord. A tiny movement toward him. But it was enough. He lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.
Soft and teasing, testing, then hardening almost instantly his mouth moved hungrily to capture the sweetness he had denied himself for so long. He traced the outline of her lips, then slid his tongue between her teeth to greedily plunder the velvet contours of her mouth. She moaned and collapsed against him. Her fingers dug into his arms.
This was not the resistance he’d half expected. She was wholly accepting of his touch, seemed to welcome it even. Her response dazzled him and broke his control. And he wasn’t gentle. He couldn’t help it. He had wanted her for too long, and he desperately wanted her to have something to remember, something to remind her of him in the critical days ahead. He held her tightly and ravaged her mouth. She seemed to revel in his possession, pushed harder against him, gave as much as she received, matched every stroke of his tongue, every fiercely possessive nip of his lips.
The chirp came again, and he tore his mouth away. His breath came in hard pants as he leaned his forehead against hers. “Ah, Cassie, love.” He pressed his lips against her skin and inhaled the intoxicating female fragrance of her. She moved, tilted her head, touched her mouth against the bottom of his chin. The blood roared in his body at the clear invitation.
“No, love. I have to go. I wish I didn’t, but I do. Remember, trust me. Wait for me.”
“Yes.” Her answer, this time, came without hesitation.
He sighed with regret, kissed her forehead again, laid her gently back against the pillows and, silent as a shadow, slipped out of the room. The dim lights faded and extinguished with his departure.

Three weeks later, Cassie was wondering if she had dreamed the whole episode.
The morning started out badly. She overslept, then indulged in a crying fit when the communication console once again remained silent at her request for messages. As she made her way to work, every doubt and uncertainty she had ever had about their relationship wreaked havoc in her mind.
Trust him, he had said. Trust? When she hadn’t received one word in the days since he’d been gone, and each new day brought a growing worry about where he was, what he was doing and, especially, with whom he was spending his time.
Wait for him, he had said. For how long? What else could she do? By her calculations, their marriage partnership was
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just days away from being dissolved, and she was no longer sure at all what had been on his mind when he had spoken those words weeks ago.
He had left her in darkness, her body aching for the return of his comforting hardness, trembling with unsatisfied need. And in the bright light of day she wondered if she had dreamed or hallucinated the whole encounter. Only her tongue passing over tender, sensitized lips assured her she hadn’t. But as the days passed, her thoughts focused more on his reason for leaving, and her doubts returned full force.
He had gone to meet a trading partner, a woman, in the middle of the night. The gender of his trading partner was cause for suspicion as was the ‘good’ opportunity which surely could have waited for a more civilized hour. But then, Sebastian’s business wasn’t civilized. And always involved risks. She’d known that from the very beginning.
In the deepest recesses of her heart, she knew she was being unfair. But her grief at so many lost opportunities and the certainty she was about to lose him fed a fear unlike anything she had ever felt, and clouded rational thought. Their marriage could be over by the time he returned, if he even planned to return.
But even when her thoughts were at their darkest, somehow the bright memory of that kiss always reappeared. There had been no mistaking his intent that time. It had been a lover’s kiss. And as the doubts multiplied with his lengthening absence and the silence tore her apart, she struggled to remember that magical moment when he had swept her away into a passion that surpassed even her dreams.
Her moods these days swung wildly between dreamy absentmindedness and anticipation of their reunion, fury at his neglect, and determination to tell him once and for all that she was done with him. She simply could not live with this constant uncertainty in her life.
As she stamped up the shallow flight of steps leading to the building that housed her workstation, she paid scant notice to the clear, brilliant beauty of the day and the bustling activity through which she passed.
But inside the building when she roused herself sufficiently from her introspection to greet her fellow engineers, it struck her that something seemed different today. The office was relaxed and noisy. Many of her colleagues stood talking animatedly in small groups. Very few seemed to be at their stations engaged in Coalition work.
Her steps slowed and she glanced around. A cheerful voice greeted her, and she turned to find Emla behind her.
“You’re late this morning. Has that husband of yours finally shown up?” The teasing question was instantly followed by an apology as Emla saw her face for the first time. She grabbed Cassie’s arm and hustled her into her workstation. “No word yet?” she asked within the privacy of the cubicle.
Cassie blinked against a rush of tears and looked away. “No,” she whispered and slumped into her chair.
“Cassie, Mariltar men are nothing if not fiercely loyal and honorable. He’ll be back. I know it’s hard waiting, but the best thing you can do is keep busy, especially during the hours you don’t spend here.”
“I know.” Cassie put on a brave face. Emla knew some things but she didn’t know about the marriage deadline. No one knew about that except herself and Sebastian, and Sebastian it seemed had forgotten or just didn’t care. Her fingers tapped on the table in front of her. “I’m just so frustrated. I don’t know where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s safe—anything.” Pain was fast resolving itself into anger again. “He’s the most inconsiderate, irresponsible, overgrown, sorry excuse for a man I know and I won’t—” She broke off to stare at Emla with suspicion. “What’s so funny?”
Emla’s grin spread over her face. “Nothing, really. Have you told him?”
“Told him what?”
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“Told him that you—never mind! I honestly don’t think you have anything to worry about. If something had happened to him, you would have heard.”
Cassie sighed. “I know that too, but I can’t seem to stop worrying anyway, and I’m irritated with myself for doing it. You’re right. I need more distractions.” She nodded at the activity behind Emla. “What’s all the excitement about?”
The small Merlon woman perched herself on the corner of Cassie’s worktable then grimaced as a loud burst of laughter rolled through the door. “Any excuse. Amazing how the senior engineers are the worst offenders when they should be setting an example for you apprentices.” Her tone was tolerant. Her staff put in far more hours than they were contracted for. “It’s the Merlon Celebration of Passage today.”
When Cassie shrugged her shoulders, she said, “This is what I mean. You would know if you’d only spend more time with the group. It’s a ceremony which happens every fifteen and a half months to mark the passage of Merlon children into sexual maturity. The ceremony itself is private, open only to Merlons, but the festivities associated with it are very public. The whole community participates. You arrived after it took place last year. It’s a rowdy, spirited, true celebration of life. This place will be empty in another hour. I’m really surprised to see this many people here. I’m meeting Ral in the Marketplace shortly, myself. Would you like to join us?”
Cassie hesitated. The invitation was tempting, but something held her back. She was tense with an anticipation that had no foundation. Today just felt different somehow. It felt as if something was about to happen. She could only dream that Sebastian would surprise her today. It was equally likely he would disappoint her. Longing for him wouldn’t make him appear. The familiar mixture of emotion—anger, frustration, irritation, worry, and love—yes, love—she realized with sudden shock, churned in her.
She needed a strong distraction.
She opened her mouth to accept the invitation, and found herself saying instead, “Thank you, Emla. It sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll look for you later.”
Emla looked doubtful. “It might be hard finding us. The whole community will be there. But if you change your mind and want to join us, I’ll be here a little while longer.”
She rose to leave. “That’s a beautiful scent you’re wearing today. What is it?”
“I’m not wearing anything. I thought it was yours.”
“Well, its something in this workstation,” Emla declared. “I think it’s grown stronger as we’ve been talking.”
Cassie nodded, puzzled. Nothing was out of place in the utilitarian workspace. She closed her eyes and sniffed. “It must be under here.” She bent over and slid open an empty storage bin under her worktable.
“Oh.” Stunned, she stared in at the beautiful object shimmering in the dim light of the cabinet. Stronger now, the delicate scent rushed out to bathe her in a cloud of sensation. The flower rested in a jel-bed. It’s fragile petals quivered and trembled as it formed one beautifully shaped bloom, then another.
Emla crouched beside her in a rustle of scarlet robes. “It’s exquisite. What is it?”
With infinite care, Cassie reached to pick up the small crystal container, then held it up to the light. The petals captured and reflected the light streaming through the glass behind her. In the center of each bloom shone a liquid, deep violet pool.
“It’s an orcan flower,” she whispered. “But I’ve never seen one quite like it before.”
“There’s a message.” Emla pointed to a small communication chip nestled in the center bloom.
Dizziness swept over Cassie as the bite of despair threatened to overwhelm her. Sebastian. It had to be from him. Why was he sending her a gift? Why wasn’t he here in person? Her stomach cramped as she reached to pick up the tiny chip, but 126 J.A. CLARKE

her hand trembled so much, she drew it back.
“Let me help.” Emla deftly removed the flower from Cassie’s hand, retrieved the chip and inserted it into her communicator. Her hand rested in brief comfort on Cassie’s shoulder as she prepared to leave. “I’ll be here if you need to talk.”
After she had gone, Cassie stared at the communicator on her wrist, afraid to press the button that would activate the message, afraid not to. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths. The next few moments could determine the course of her life. Her finger shook as she touched the tiny button, and then pressed harder until she heard a faint beep.
Sebastian’s voice, warm, and so cheerful filled the small room. “Hello, love. Meet me this afternoon, after the mid-day meal, at the north corner of the Marketplace. This Merlon celebration is too good to miss. The flower is from a Gorbeinan asteroid. It’s genetically enhanced, of course, but it reminded me—” Another faint beep cut off his voice. She pressed the button again but the tiny chip remained silent.
Cassie stared at the blinking light on her communicator. That was it? Reminded him of what? It was so typical of Sebastian. No excuses, no explanations, no hint of his feelings, only a supreme confidence that she would do as he asked. Resentment welled up inside her. He wanted to play when their marriage, her life, were at stake. What about all those reassurances she wanted to hear so desperately? What about his promises, the sincerity with which he had told her she was important to him? What about what she wanted?
Anger slammed through her with all the force of an ice desert wind. She wouldn’t meet him. Let him wait all afternoon for her. Maybe she would join Emla after all, and show him— show him what exactly?
She dropped her face in her hands. She was the one who wanted him so badly it hurt, so badly the fear of losing him had become a constant companion. She knew she would go as he asked, even though her instincts clamored to stay away to show him she couldn’t be taken for granted. Tears clogged her throat, and she swallowed them back with fierce anger. Would she ever understand him?
Her blurred gaze fell on the exquisite gift in front of her. In an instant, resentment and anger evaporated. She should be grateful he was back at all, she thought more calmly. At least, she might have a chance to settle this matter of their marriage partnership once and for all.
Now that her decision was made, she began to worry about her appearance. She had expanded her wardrobe in his absence. But this time, with the intent of making herself attractive for him, she had chosen the colors and styles she loved and had denied herself for so long. The clothing hung still unworn in her bedchamber.
She turned her attention with a sigh to her workstation. It was several hours to the appointed time. She had to do something to keep herself busy in the meantime. One frustrating hour later, she acknowledged to herself that work wasn’t the answer and pushed herself away from the table. She was doing more harm than good, and would probably have to reformulate most of what she had worked on today. She headed down the hall to Emla’s office to tell her she was leaving. True to Emla’s prediction, most of the engineering staff seemed to have disappeared already. An eerie silence had replaced the normal noise and bustle of the office. Busy on her computer, Emla waved a cheery hand at Cassie’s news that she was meeting Sebastian, and sent her on her way with an admonition to enjoy herself.

A protective wall at her back, Cassie stood halfway up the long flight of stairs leading down into the Marketplace. Her hard-built optimism of the morning had faded and been replaced once again with the all too familiar anger and irritation. She shifted from one foot to the other and scanned the surging
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crowd around her again. Where was he? For the fourth time, she checked the communication chip to make sure she had the right place.
The admiring glances she was attracting only increased the sense of vulnerability and nervousness which had begun when she put on the soft violet tunic that molded faithfully to her curves and left bare a good expanse of slender legs. She thought again of running back to her unit to change into the armor of drab, baggy clothes she had worn since her arrival on Treaine.
More than one man had approached her, but moved off again after she had conspicuously folded her arms in front of her to allow the split sleeves of her tunic to reveal the golden band around her upper arm. It was a tactic she had discovered quite by accident and, so far, it had worked every time.
With one exception.
Once again, her gaze swept the crowd around her. The tall figure of her husband was nowhere in evidence. Nor was the man in the hooded uniform. At first, she convinced herself she was being paranoid. The man was there to have a good time like everyone else. And there were similar uniforms—security, she thought—elsewhere in the crowd. But the somehow sinister figure kept disappearing and then appearing again, always in a different location, and every time she saw him, he seemed to be staring directly at her.
She couldn’t see him now, but it didn’t reassure her. Despite the warmth of the day, she was chilled. She was being watched. She felt it in her bones, in the prickles of sensation that raised the fine hairs on her nape.
It was time to leave. She felt too exposed. He wasn’t coming.
She swallowed against the painful tightness in her throat, and prayed the dam of emotions wouldn’t burst until she reached the privacy of her home. The narrower, shorter flight of stairs she headed for led to a more circuitous route behind the Marketplace, but it was a route that would allow her to avoid the worst of the crowds.
Just as she reached the first step, a hard arm reached around her waist and pulled her backwards. Her yelp of surprise and fear was lost in the noise of the crowd. Instinctively, she raised her free arm to strike, but her attacker immediately immobilized that as well. As she was jerked against a warm body, she caught a familiar scent. She twisted her head.
Sebastian grinned back at her. “Leaving so soon?”
“You scared me!” she hissed. “And you’re late.”
“Sorry, love. On both counts.” Vibrant, cheerful, energetic, he looked anything but sorry.
No excuses, no explanations, she noted bitterly. In spite of herself, she leaned into him a moment, the warm comfort of his strong body too great a lure to resist.
He hadn’t released her and her face, turned and tipped back, stared straight into his. His hair was tousled as if he’d been running his fingers through it. His mouth was curved in a smile that deepened the grooves in his cheeks. He should have looked like an overgrown, mischievous boy, but the expression in the brilliant golden eyes sent a very different message. For an instant, a quiver of fear mixed with unbearable excitement raced through her.
Hunger. He looked hungry. A predator in search of a meal and she was it. All sound and movement around her vanished as she waited breathlessly for the promise to fulfill itself.
Something caught her painfully in her ribs. “Sorry!” An apologetic face flashed past her. Sebastian smiled and turned to shield her with his body as a loud and gaudy group pushed by. The moment was lost.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Sebastian, what—?”
“Shh.” He laid a finger against her lips. “Later, love. Let’s go have some fun.”
How could he possibly know what she wanted to ask? He was doing it again, ignoring her needs when she wanted his
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reassurance and had so many questions. Instead, it seemed, she was just expected to fall in with his wishes.
For a brief instant, before he dragged her off into the thick of the crowd, she thought she caught a glimpse of the same hooded head again and a shudder of distaste passed through her. But in the whirl of activity that followed, she had little time to think at all as Sebastian plunged into a group of wildly gyrating bodies, male and female fused together.
He pulled her up against him and the shock of their bodies melding together from chest to hip intensified as he bent his head and whispered in her ear, “It’s the Merlon mating dance. Just follow my lead.”
There was nothing else she could do. He had one arm locked around her waist again, the other cradled against the back of her neck. Her body seemed to follow his of its own accord, even as her mind rebelled against such a public display. At first, the dance seemed to be an uncontrolled, highly suggestive exhibition, punctuated by loud whoops from the male participants. But as it progressed, it resolved itself into a repeated series of intricate, fluid movements encouraged by the deep throb of music welling from all sides.
Then the pace slowed. The steps became more sensual.
As she looked at the genuine enjoyment on the faces around her, Cassie allowed herself to relax. She closed her eyes, and leaned into Sebastian’s chest. The fast thrum of his heart beat against her ear. Her body followed his lead without conscious thought.
Utter contentment swept through her. This was where she had longed to be. In his arms.
Her traitorous emotions had gone through a complete switch. Anger and frustration had been vanquished. He was here. He was with her and all the unresolved issues and concerns could wait. This was enough for now.
It was with an aching regret that she heard the music swell to a climax, then stop abruptly. A second later the male participants filled the brief silence with a series of loud whoops and yells. Laughing and talking, the crowd started to move off to participate in other entertainment.
Sebastian steered her first to a rather long enactment of a piece of Merlon history, then to a mock battle where the participants, men and women alike, used ancient Merlon weapons. Afterward, they discovered a quieter area where Merlon children, so physically different from their elders, mimed the everyday traditions of family life. Finally, they arrived at a corner of the Marketplace where a spectacular array of food was displayed. Ignoring her protests, Sebastian piled a single platter high with a selection of unfamiliar food.
She turned to look for a place to sit in the crowded area, but he took her arm with his free hand and said, “Not here, love. This way.” He maneuvered her through the press of people and along an alley in the wall that defined the Marketplace. They emerged on the pink sand beach that edged the lake and joined a group settling down with an expectant air. Darkness was rolling across the sky and, almost in an instant, day became night.
“What are we here for?” Cassie asked as she sat down and watched Sebastian stretch out on his side. He attacked the platter of food with great gusto.
“Patience, love. If I told you, it would spoil the surprise. Here, try this.” He took a small slab of something black and spotted unappetizingly with raised orange lumps and held it up to her.
“What is it?” She looked at the strange food with doubt, and then at Sebastian’s wickedly expectant expression.
“It’s good. Try it and then I’ll tell you.”
“Why won’t you tell me first?” Her suspicions increased as he failed to hide the wide grin on his face.
“Because you should always try something new untainted by a preconceived opinion. See, it’s good.” He broke off a small piece, popped it in his mouth and chewed with evident
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enjoyment. He offered the remaining portion to her again, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
Still mistrustful, Cassie hesitated. The morsel held so close to her mouth was odorless. She reached out her hand to take it.
“Uh, uh.” Sebastian pulled his hand back. “Open your mouth.”
With resignation, she did as he asked. He lifted the food to her mouth again, and she closed her lips expecting him to release the food and remove his hand. Instead, he held on, and she felt the deliberate brush of his fingers against her tongue and lips. Their eyes locked and held as with sensual slowness he withdrew his fingers from her mouth, and brushed them gently over her lips, moistening them with her own saliva.
The food didn’t really need to be chewed. It simply melted in her mouth as it delivered a sweet-tart taste. Tiny shivers shook her body and blended into a deep ache that spread through her lower body. She squirmed in the sand, trying to find relief, aware that Sebastian still watched her intently. Strange that the food had caused such a peculiar sensation or, maybe desperate as she had been to see him again, her body was somehow overreacting to his touch. Sebastian’s fingers dropped away from her lips but his gaze never left hers.
Her voice sounded strange and husky to her own ears when she trusted herself to speak again. “So, what is it?”
“Meilgore tart—also known as an aphrodisiac. The Merlons consider it to be their most effective mating food.”
The brief moment of intense sexual awareness had passed. The teasing grin was back.
“You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not.” The innocent expression he tried to assume failed miserably, conquered by the wicked laughter in the golden eyes. “I understand it’s made with a special syrup which is supposed to, ah, improve performance and enhance pleasure.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Sebastian laughed outright, and rolled on his back, temporarily abandoning the platter of food. “Look!” He pointed skyward and drew her attention to a pinpoint of light far above them. As they watched, it spread and shattered into a myriad of bright colors. For the next hour, they observed a spectacular display of patterns and color woven by pilots in small vessels, until the five moons became brighter and competed for space and attention in the night sky.
As the performance wound down and other lights glowed to life on the beach, Sebastian urged her to her feet. He pointed out a small group of people a short distance away. “The ambassadors and their wives.”
Cassie studied the group with curiosity. Here were the Coalition’s chosen, the leaders of the multi-ethnic colony. She’d had no occasion to come into contact with any of them since she had arrived on Treaine. Some were easily identifiable by their distinct manner of clothing and appearance. “The tall one with the short, dark hair is the Mariltar ambassador?”
“Yes,” Sebastian confirmed. “You’ve met his wife, haven’t you, the woman next to him with the red hair? She’s of Earth descent as well and very active in the community.”
At the negative shake of her head, he looked surprised and glanced back at the group, a puzzled expression on his face. But when he turned to her again, a smile was once more in place. They moved back through the alley to the Marketplace, drawn by the deep throb of music that pounded and echoed around them.
“Good. They’re starting the mating dance again. Let’s go.”
Cassie squeaked out a half-hearted protest, but her husband ignored her as he plunged back into the crowd and cleared a path with sheer energy and bulk. She didn’t think she could move through the vigorous motions of the dance again. But she did, and enjoyed it even more than the first time as her natural inhibitions were overcome by the sensual, mesmerizing rhythm.
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Chapter 12

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“Oohhh.” Cassie groaned and leaned her head back against the wall as Sebastian activated the door mechanism.
He laughed and placed a hand on either side of her head. “What’s the matter, love?”
“My feet hurt, and I think I drank too much of that blue stuff you gave me. I don’t think I can move another step.”
“Well, you’ll have to, because I’m not carrying you,” he said heartlessly. He pushed himself away. “And I’ll have you know, you ungrateful woman, that the ‘blue stuff’ was a very rare and costly Mariltar wine.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the unit after him, through the great room and into the bedchamber. Then he left her standing by the bed, staring after him as he announced he was going to get cleaned up and disappeared into the adjoining room.
There was, she thought in complete confusion, not a sign of that passionate, hungry look he had given her earlier, the tenderness with which he had held her and shielded her from the energetic crowd. Now, in the privacy of their unit with no one else around, his behavior left something to be desired.
And she didn’t know whether to scream or feel relieved. Instead, frustrated and tired, she kicked off her shoes. The tiny satisfaction she felt as they flew across the room to thud loudly against the bathchamber door was fleeting.
She dropped onto the bed. Where did he think he was going to spend the night? Certainly, not in the bed with her. Less than an hour ago, she might have tried to contrive just such an opportunity. But not now. She was too tired to think, let alone handle these emotional games. She eyed the closed door and ran through a litany of scathing things to say to him when he reappeared.
She said none of them. When Sebastian walked through the door a short time later, he was damp from a shower and wore nothing but a thin toweling cloth stretched across his hips. Cassie gulped as her eyes collided with a magnificent expanse of bare, muscular chest. Her mind went blank and tiredness disappeared miraculously as a hot rush of desire and nervousness took its place. With an energy she didn’t know she possessed, she scooted off the bed and into the bathchamber without a murmur.
She had barely finished the sketchiest of cleansing rituals when an outraged roar from the bedchamber pierced the thick walls between the rooms. As she hastily rearranged her clothes, she heard her name shouted again with even greater urgency.
The sight that met her eyes when she opened the door almost caused her to break into hysterical laughter. Sebastian, dressed in loose fitting trousers, stood next to the clothing storage panel. From his outstretched hand dangled a furry ball with long, wildly flailing limbs. The creature emitted a series of squeals and hisses. The expression on her husband’s face was priceless and, for once, anything but amused.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “What is this creature doing in my clothing storage making a mess of my shirts?”
Cassie stared at the squirming animal in consternation. How could she possibly have forgotten? “He, uh, needed a bed, and sort of just chose your shirts himself. I meant to put him somewhere else before you came home, but just—ah— forgot. Besides which,” she added with righteous indignation, 136 J.A. CLARKE

“you didn’t give me any warning, as usual.”
Dead silence greeted her pitiful explanation.
Cassie forced her gaze from the pathetic ball of fur to Sebastian’s face, and had to bite back a giggle at his perplexed expression. He studied what he held in his hand as if he couldn’t decide what to do with it.
“Do you always give your food someplace to sleep?”
“My what?”
“Do you always give your food a bed?” he repeated patiently. A hint of amusement was back in his voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I want to eat him?” She stared at him with suspicion, convinced he was teasing her again.
“Cassie, do you know what this is?”
“Well… not exactly. I saw it in the Marketplace one day, and thought it would make a good pet.” The admission sounded lame and slightly ridiculous even to her own ears. She had been especially lonely that day, the first day she had been up and about after her illness. She had acquired the creature on impulse, drawn to its small furry body and impossibly long, awkward limbs and devastated by its pathetic, sad little cries.
Sebastian’s shoulders shook, although to give him credit, he made an obvious effort to contain his laughter. “A pet? Cassie, this is a leriam. It’s a Soron delicacy. They’re bred for eating.”
Still suspicious that he was joking at her expense again, Cassie glared at him. “I don’t believe you. How can you eat something that’s more hair than anything else?”
Sebastian’s control deserted him and he doubled over with laughter. He lost his grip on the small animal which took the opportunity to bound back into the shirt drawer hissing and squealing all the way.
Between gusts of laughter, Sebastian explained, “It’s the hair that makes it a delicacy, love. What little meat there is just holds the hair in place during preparation.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose in distaste, still not quite ready to believe him, although now she remembered she had acquired the creature from a food booth in the Marketplace. “Well, I—” she started then paused to watch in fascination as a shirt flew out of the drawer and draped itself neatly around Sebastian’s head. Just as he extricated himself from that one, another one flew out and then another.
Cassie started to giggle. Sebastian swore as the barrage of shirts continued. Then came a pause. The creature erupted from the drawer. It snatched up a flower from the nearest container, tore the petals apart and continued its merciless attack on the intruder.
“Oh, no,” Cassie wailed. “Sebastian, stop him! He’ll destroy my flowers.”
“Then maybe you should stop him. I seem to be the problem here.” He lunged for the excited animal just as a shower of tiny, broken petals floated through the air.
The sight was too much. Cassie collapsed on the bed with a howl. Tears of laughter streamed down her face as flower petals began to stick to her husband’s damp hair and skin.
Sebastian’s warning threat had no effect. He bounded after the creature which now swung from the swathes of decor fabric draped across the ceiling.
“Cassie,” he warned, as he stepped over her on the bed, and then twisted around as the animal changed direction suddenly. Trying to anticipate his moves through blurred eyes and helpless laughter, Cassie rolled in the wrong direction and crashed into his legs. He collapsed over her but his arms came down at the last minute to catch himself and hold most of his weight off of her.
Cassie’s laughter died in her throat. She was barely aware of the tear that trickled out of the corner of one eye. All her attention was concentrated on his face, on his body pressed so intimately to hers, the hard feel and length of his legs, the weight of his hips pressing into her soft belly.
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His warm breath fanned her face. His finger reached out to trace the path of the tear with exquisite gentleness. And with a tender huskiness, he said, “You are so beautiful. And I want you so very much.”
She stared at him, not daring to believe what she had heard. But the look on his face was impossible to misread. Elation surged through her, powerful and intoxicating. The golden eyes held a heat that promised to consume her in fire. Naked need, a barely leashed, primitive desire that would devour her was etched on his features.
He wanted her!
The brief shudder of fear was quickly suppressed. This was Sebastian, and she was ready for him. A small voice from the corner of her mind intruded with the mocking reminder she wanted it all. She wanted to hear him say he loved her. But she slammed a door on the voice. She would take what was offered and it was enough for now.
She reached out a hand and lightly touched the side of his face. A shy smile quivered at the corner of her mouth. “I want you, too,” she whispered.

He almost asked her to repeat what she had said. He couldn’t quite believe he’d heard her correctly. The statement was so bold, such a contradiction to all the shrinking and avoidance of intimacy he had observed before.
He had regretted his words as soon as they were spoken. They’d been blurted out without thought, driven by an aching, age-old need that couldn’t be denied any longer. It wasn’t what he had planned to say at all. He had prepared a whole speech, wanted to take it slowly, to reassure her. He didn’t know how much of her terrifying abduction and treatment would affect her reactions to what he wanted so badly of her. Despite the med team’s conclusion that she had recovered, he still harbored some strong doubts.
Now, examining her face, he saw clear invitation and was stunned. Thinking to test her, he turned his head, captured a finger in his mouth and gently sucked on it. Her eyelids fluttered half closed, and she sighed. Her hips moved beneath his. Her lips parted.
Unable to resist, he released her finger and bent to cover her mouth with his. Slowly at first, and then with increasing urgency, he traced the sweet shape, nibbled at her bottom lip with his teeth and used the tip of his tongue to tease her mouth open a little. She moaned deep in her throat as his tongue probed harder, thrust and retreated, explored the pleasures so long denied and now offered so freely. Her hands came up to grip his shoulders, then one moved onto the back of his neck and threaded through his hair. The sensation that jolted through his body then was even more powerful. He forced himself to hold his hips still, when he wanted nothing more than to grind them into her. The self-imposed restraint was made more difficult by the movement of her own pelvis against him.
When her hands moved across his back and down to his waist and he felt her fingers slip under the waist of his trousers, he tore his mouth away and rolled onto his side.
“Cassie,” he groaned and stopped as he tried to slow his breathing.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. A small frown creased between her eyes, even as her hands traced restlessly across his chest, and her fingers found the hard nubs of his nipples.
He groaned again, eyes closed, and captured her hands in his, held them still on his chest. “Listen to me, love.”
He opened his eyes and rose above her again to gaze with intent seriousness into her face. He had to make sure she understood. “If we do this—if we make love, you must understand that we will never be able to dissolve our marriage partnership.”
The corner of her mouth quirked. The frown disappeared. “I know,” she said simply, and slid her hand around the back of his head to urge it lower.
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“Cassie!” He pulled back slightly, not yet finished. “There are things you don’t know about me, things I can’t—”
“Sebastian?”
“What?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” Her hands slid down his chest and tugged impatiently at his trousers. “I want to see you.”
He didn’t remember what he’d been trying to say. Her boldness astounded him and seemed so utterly out of character, but was all the more exciting because of it. More than one of her reactions in the last few minutes were so different from what he’d expected. He wondered if there was some truth after all to what was said about the Merlon mating food. Then he ceased to wonder at all, as her hands slipped under the fabric of his trousers, and found the hard length of him for the first time.
His lips came down to crush hers, and he lost himself in a storm of sensation as he hungrily and thoroughly took possession of her mouth. Waves of pleasure from her stroking hands crashed over him. He reached for her tunic.
A loud thump intruded on his consciousness, and he reared up. “Where’s that creature?”
“I think he went back in your drawer.” Her tongue tickled the inside of his ear. A fingernail trailed with agonizing slowness down to the soft sac at the base of his staff.
“Good.” He made a supreme effort, rolled off her and went to slam the panel shut. He ignored the squeal from inside and turned to find her kneeling on the bed, hair in disarray, lips parted, slightly swollen and tilted at the corners in an entrancing smile.
“You’re overdressed,” he growled, and leapt for the bed. “Take your clothes off.”
“You are, too,” she fired back. Her gaze was focused on the front of his trousers which bulged with the evidence of his desire. She lifted her eyes and bestowed an impish grin on him. “You first.”
He knelt on the bed in front of her, amazed by her boldness. Holding her gaze with his own, he hooked a finger under the top of each sleeve and pulled the tunic down over her arms. As the top passed over the peak of her breasts and fell loose to her waist, he lowered his gaze and sighed with delight. Black lace and gauze, the stuff of his dreams, stretched over the perfect little globes and didn’t quite conceal the dark pink tips.
“Ah, Cassie, love.” He reached out and cradled her breasts. Their size and weight in his hands were pure pleasure. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of doing this, of seeing you like this.”
“You’ve seen me without clothes before,” she reminded him in a whisper. She swayed closer, eyelids half lowered.
“No, love, not like this. Never like this.” With a surge of impatience, he dispensed with the fragile garment, then pushed her back on the bed and tugged her tunic down over her hips, leaving just one thin scrap of fabric remaining. Slowing again, he ran his hands up her legs to just graze the sensitive flesh inside of each thigh. Her legs fell apart. Her arms were flung to each side. She was his to do with what he wanted.
He tested her; stroked his fingers lightly across her woman’s mound. Her eyelids trembled, but even when he slid his forefinger down between her legs, she remained relaxed. Then he pressed hard and discovered with supreme male satisfaction her heated wetness through the light fabric.
“Sebastian!” She bucked up against his hand, jerked her legs away and positioned herself on her knees facing him.
For a moment, he wondered if he had gone too far, too fast. But one glance at her face reassured him. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, glazed with desire. She wasn’t withdrawing, only preparing herself for the next move in this game where she seemed to want to be as much the aggressor as he. They were both breathing hard, and he waited, curious to see what she would do next.
In one quick movement, she slid her last piece of clothing
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down over her hips, wriggled out of it and reached for him. She pushed at his trousers, lifted them carefully over his erection, then abandoned them as with a sigh of pure bliss she closed her hands around him again.
He shut his eyes as waves of pleasure rolled over him. Her touch was both torture and ecstasy, and the tension in his body built rapidly until he caught her hands and drew her against his chest.
“Don’t be greedy, love, or this will be over before it’s even started.” He touched his tongue to her nose, kissed her eyes closed and pushed her back against the pillows again. As he followed her down, he kicked off his trousers. But she surprised him once again by rolling out from under him and then on top of him where she pinned him down with her knees on either side of him and settled her bottom on his pelvis. She began to rub herself against his hardness in a slow, sensuous dance. The sensation of soft flesh against him drove him crazy, all the while her hands roamed over his upper body as if she couldn’t get enough. Enchanted by the sway of pink-tipped breasts so close and yet not close enough, he allowed her to lead until his control had reached break point and he tossed her on her back again.
He nudged her legs open with his knees and settled himself between her thighs. A deep-throated indistinguishable murmur came from her lips. She shifted against his hardness as he made contact with her opening, seemed to draw back a fraction. He held his lower body still and bent his head to lick at her nipples. As her moans increased, he drew one hard little nub fully inside his mouth and sucked hard. Her hips jerked against him wildly and almost drove him inside her before he was ready. He wanted to prolong the sweet agony of anticipation, but didn’t know if his body would obey his mind. All he knew for sure was that which he had desired for so long was finally within reach.
And she was ready. Erotic little whimpers of need escaped her lips.
He slid a hand down between them, across her firm belly, between her legs. The soft folds of moist flesh opened under his touch. She moaned again when he found the hard little button. Her face, a study in passion and desperate need, enchanted him. She writhed against his persistent finger until it became too much and she tried to pull away, only he wouldn’t allow it.
Her eyes flew open. “Bastian!” There was a wealth of pleading in that one word, a cry for release from the torture he inflicted. She reached up and tangled her fingers in his hair to pull his head down to her shoulder. He thrust a finger into her and she clutched at him more fiercely and keened in his ear. “Please, Bastian.”
The blood roared in his body. He shifted, withdrew his finger, replaced it with the thickness of his engorged male flesh. He pushed into her that first little bit, felt the delicate tissues stretch and close around him.
Cor’s blood, but she was tight! He barely restrained himself from plunging fully into her. He had to take it slowly, didn’t want to hurt her. Their first time together would be an experience she would never forget and would erase forever everything that had gone before.
He breathed deeply, felt a measure of control return, then leaned forward to whisper tenderly in her ear, “What do you like, love?” He traced the outer curve of her ear with his tongue, and felt with deep satisfaction the tiny shudders that shook her body. “Slow and gentle or fast and hard or— somewhere in between?”
She whimpered and squirmed impatiently against him. Eyes closed, she turned her face into his neck and bit his earlobe, even as she pushed her hips against him in a silent plea.
“Want me to find out for myself? Hmm? There is nothing that would give me more pleasure!”
As he spoke the last word, he adjusted his position. He’d
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intended the first thrust to be gentle, a tender breach of her body for their first joining, a test of her pleasure points. But as he pushed into her and felt the unbearable delight of moist heat close tightly around him, her hips arched up hard against him and drove him fully and completely into her.
“Aaahh—” The cry was muffled against his neck and immediately bitten off. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Her entire body tensed against his.
Sebastian jerked his head up. Her head rolled back; her throat stretched in distress.
“Cassie!” Horrified, his mind confused and fogged by denial, he instinctively started to withdraw from her body, then forced himself to stop. Gradually, she relaxed and the painful grip on his shoulders lessened. He lowered his head and nuzzled her neck, then trailed a line of kisses along her throat. He felt her hands move to stroke his back and he shifted his hips.
“All right, love?” He kissed her eyes gently, and then her lips. She half-opened her eyes and gave him a watery smile. A tear spilled down her cheek and he caught it on his tongue. He moved in and out once and stopped, but her hands reached down to urge his hips on and her legs locked around his back. As her body accepted his, his own pleasure began to build unbearably again, and he knew he was close. He bent to suckle her breasts again, and felt her jerk and writhe against him as his tongue and mouth teased the sensitive peaks. Then his own moans filled his ears as his final hard thrust brought him to the crest and threw him into a vortex of sensation.
Breathing hard, energy momentarily drained, he was barely able to hold his weight off her. Memory returned and with care and regret he slid himself out of her, ignoring her soft sound of protest. On his back, he pulled her into his arms, cradled her head on his chest and spread a hand across her rounded bottom to bring her hips against his side. With gentle strokes he massaged her back, encouraged by the soft, deep-throated, sighs of contentment he drew from her.
They lay in quiet contentment as their body rhythms slowed and returned to normal. Sebastian couldn’t remember when he had ever felt so utterly replete, fulfilled, satisfied. This particular journey had been long and, at times, agonizing, but well worth the conclusion, as he had known it would be. She was his. His wife. His marriage partner for life. This enchanting creature who constantly surprised him. He didn’t need to look at the twin bands of gold embedded in the flesh of their upper arms to know they shimmered more brightly, proof for all to see.
The top of her dark head brushed against his chin and Sebastian allowed a smile to curve his mouth. He wanted to laugh out loud. How could he have been so blind? Inexperience. All those confusing little signs he had interpreted so differently were due, in part, to inexperience. The barrier she had erected fell the moment he stated his need for her, and she had shed her inhibitions as easily as she had shed her clothes. Untutored and unknowledgeable in the art of lovemaking, she had thrown herself into the experience with an amazing enthusiasm and boldness, and let her instincts guide her. And what instincts they were!
He chuckled out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
“I ought to exercise an ancient Mariltar custom and use a talik on a certain part of your anatomy,” he said. The portion of her anatomy in question was firm and softly smooth beneath his hand. He couldn’t seem to stop stroking her there.
Her head jerked and barely missed his chin. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “Why?” she demanded.
“Did it ever cross your mind to tell me you were a virgin?”
She wrinkled her nose, which inspired an instant desire in him to kiss it. “I didn’t think it would make any difference.”
He rolled his head to stare at her in astonishment. “Not make any difference? Unless we were having separate experiences, this was a fairly painful thing for you, love. If I’d
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known, I’d have been more careful and taken it more slowly.
Surely you were aware there could be some discomfort?”
“Well, I didn’t know it would hurt that much.”
Sebastian took her chin into his hand. “I’m sorry, love. I wanted nothing more than to give you pleasure. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You did give me pleasure.” The violet eyes were earnest. “I’ve never felt like that before.” The impish look he loved so much crept into her face, and curled the corners of her mouth. She captured his unresisting hands, pulled them up over his head and held them down. “And,” she continued as she wriggled on top of him, “it won’t hurt next time, so when can we—?”
“No,” he interrupted. His body, amazingly, was ready again but he freed himself, rolled onto his side and tipped her off. “Because one of us isn’t ready.”
“Oh?” Before he could stop her, her hand found its way to his groin. “Well, it’s not you,” she accused as his flesh responded with a mind of its own. He groaned as she slid her hand up and down on him, then leaned forward to plead sweetly in his ear.
He plucked her hand away and said with regret as he retrieved the damp toweling cloth he had used earlier. “Your body needs time to recover, love. I don’t want to hurt you again.” His gaze found the telltale smears of blood on the bed covers. He lightly brushed the toweling down her thighs and over his own body. His heart contracted painfully. It was done. There was nothing to be gained by wondering how he could have made it a different experience for her if only he had known.
“But Sebastian,” Cassie whispered and ran her tongue down the side of his neck as she danced her fingers across his chest. “I want to feel like that again.”
Understanding exploded in his head and he cursed himself for being so selfish and blind in his own fulfillment. He slid a knee between her legs and rubbed gently. “There are other ways, love. Just relax and let me show you…”
He began a slow worship of her body. With nibbles and kisses, he encouraged her unrestrained moans of delight. His finger rubbed and plucked at her pleasure core as he drove her higher and higher. He judged his moment and pushed two fingers carefully into her. She cried out, a high moaning sound, lost in the storm of sensation he aroused. With great satisfaction, he felt the tiny muscles contract hungrily around his fingers, and he withdrew them only after the last shudder had subsided.
With little murmurs of contentment, Cassie curled against his side and laid her head on his shoulder. “Sebastian?”
“Yes, love?”
“Are we married now?”
A rumble of amusement shook him. “Irrevocably and unquestionably.”
“Good.” she sighed and rubbed her face against his chest. “I thought we were going to miss that horrible deadline.”
So she had worried about that, too. The admission swelled and strengthened his emotions to bursting point. “Never, love. I would never have allowed that to happen, because you were mine from the very beginning.”
She yawned, the gentle explosion of air across his chest came with a soft snort of skepticism. Her voice was heavy and slow with tiredness as she hovered on the edge of sleep. “How could you know that?”
“I was convinced of it. I just needed to convince you.”
“So why didn’t you do it sooner?”
“Ah, love, you don’t know—” He broke off, not sure what he should say.
But she had already slipped away into sleep.
Sebastian waited, listening to the deep, even breathing that assured him she slept. Then with great care, he slid her off his chest, went into the bathchamber and came back with a fresh,
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warm, damp cloth to finish what he had started earlier. In the dimmed light, almost as if in silent ritual, he parted her thighs and with infinite tenderness cleansed any remaining traces of blood from her pale skin. He considered the stained bed covers for a moment, but decided to leave them alone, knowing it would disturb her too much to change them. Within minutes, he was beside her again and drawing her back into the warmth and shelter of his arms.
“Bastian?”
“Yes, love?”
She was silent for so long he thought she had slipped back into sleep, then so softly he almost missed it came the whisper, “Thank you for the beautiful gift.”
Chapter 13

? ? ?

She was warm and cozy and didn’t want to wake up. Pillowed in the softness of the bed, she fought against the slowly dissolving bonds of sleep. Her body had found the ultimate in comfortable positions: on her stomach, legs sprawled apart, head buried under a pillow. In that deliciously drowsy state, half-way between sleep and wakefulness, she sensed a disturbance near her. The rich, heady aroma of what she vaguely recognized as a Mariltar brew drifted across her nostrils. Her eyes flickered open, and the events of the previous evening spilled full force into her consciousness.
She abruptly threw off the pillow and raised herself on her forearms to survey the room. A slight sound came from behind her. Her head swung around to the other side. Still blinking the sleep from her eyes, her gaze encountered her husband propped high on his side against a mound of pillows. He was stark naked, wearing nothing but a lazy grin.
“Morning, love. Would you like some nourishment?” The question was posed casually enough, his mouth smiled a greeting, but he studied her with wariness as if he had no idea of what to expect from her this morning. Then his glance dipped to her breasts which swung bare between her arms. His expression became fixed, his eyes glazed, and his body jerked 150 J.A. CLARKE

in reaction. He reached hastily for the cover.
Fully awake now, all her senses vibrant and alive, her own body pulsed with a surge of heat that compelled action. She dropped back on her stomach and rolled toward him, thwarting his intention by pinning the part of the cover he wanted underneath her. She remained modestly concealed herself. With deliberate languidness, she stretched and yawned, arched her back, curved her arms around his head and gave him a brief glimpse of her breasts again before she relaxed her body.
“Yes, please.” She tipped her head back and smiled up at him.
He looked confused. She brushed her hip against his groin, and he closed his eyes and groaned out loud.
“Yes, please—what?”
She laughed softly at his hoarse tone, and sighed and stretched again with exaggeration, making sure her breasts slipped out from under the cover again.
“Yes, please—I’m in desperate need of nourishment. I’m absolutely famished.” She tickled the back of his neck, and threaded her fingers through his hair with a rhythm designed to stimulate and arouse. Her breasts still arched toward him in blatant invitation.
A grin slowly spread across his face. “You’re not talking about food, are you?”
“That depends.” She coyly adjusted her position so her face brushed against his chest. “What are you offering?” She flicked her tongue lightly across the flat circle around his nipple. The muscles in his arm and chest quivered underneath her and she felt the tension in him. She smiled to herself. The game was pleasure in itself. He was giving her silent permission to explore. His breathing sounded loud and rapid in her ear and, from the corner of her eye, she saw he was fully aroused.
“Fruit,” he said, his voice strangled. “Slices of gnieran and seeka.”
She licked his nipple again. “Never heard of it.”
“Never heard of what?”
“Gnieran.” She took his nipple between her teeth and bit gently.
“It’s a sweet bread eaten with heavy syrup.”
“Hmm. Sounds tempting.” She drew back to examine the small piece of flesh she’d been tormenting, then bent and swirled her tongue around the hard nub again. He gave a deep groan and jerked beneath her, but made no move to touch her. Disappointed, she shifted her position and, so abruptly he jumped, closed her hand around his engorged shaft. She stroked her hand up and down its length amazed again by the velvet feel of him around the hard core. Her thumb lingered on the curve of the blunt tip.
Still he made no move, but lay quiescent beneath her touch, his body tense, his breathing coming in faster pants. She wanted to continue stroking him, wanted to explore more, but she forced herself to stop. Rolling away from him, she sat up, let the cover drop, and looked around. Her gaze came to rest on the tray of food he must have set by the bed earlier. “All right, I’m ready. Let’s eat.”
As she prepared to scramble toward the edge of the bed, Cassie risked a peek from the corner of her eye to see how he was taking this treatment. Just for an instant, she saw him frozen, the expression of shock and disbelief on his face at odds with the beautiful, sculpted body so obviously and magnificently aroused. Then with a speed that left her no time to react, the long limbs and hard muscles bunched and flashed in fluid movement and, with a roar, he pounced. She squealed, and tried to wriggle away, but was no match for his superior strength. With little effort, he had her pinned underneath him, held down by the weight of his hips across her lower body.
Gasping for breath, and trying not to laugh at this thoroughly satisfying response, Cassie stared up into his face and waited in trembling anticipation for the next move in this game with few rules.
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“And just where…” He dipped his head and kissed a nipple with lingering and excruciating thoroughness. “… did you think you were going?” His teeth bit her gently in perfect imitation of what she had done to him.
She arched up against him as ecstasy raced through her to center and pool hotly in the core of her body. But when she grabbed his hips and tried to pull him closer to rub herself against that tempting hardness, he resisted her.
“Hmm?” he demanded.
“T–to get something to eat?”
He raised his head. The grin on his face was wicked and full of purpose and she realized without regret that, for all her teasing, he was the one in control, the experienced teacher in this game she had started. He would lead, and she would follow—gladly.
“That can be arranged.” He dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth, levered himself on one arm, and reached toward the tray of food. A finger coated with syrup appeared in front of her mouth. “Open,” he commanded.
Even if she had wanted to, she was powerless to resist the compelling promise in his golden eyes. She opened her lips and took his finger into her mouth, swirled her tongue around it and sucked off the sweet substance. A slow, satisfied smile crossed his face.
“My turn.” He withdrew his finger and reached again for the tray of food. Cassie closed her eyes in anticipation as she felt him shift to one side. Something wet and cold touched the hollow of her throat and her eyes flew open in shock.
“Sebastian?”
“Lie still,” he commanded her, his expression intent as he concentrated on pouring a thin line of liquid across her belly, into the dip of her navel and down to the curls at the juncture of her thighs. He disposed of the small bowl, and then propped himself up to examine his handiwork.
His face took on an exaggerated, predatory look. “Breakfast time,” he announced. “And I am famished.”
In helpless fascination, Cassie held her breath and watched as he bent his head. He licked a small portion of skin clean between her breasts, raised his head, and smiled a slow erotic smile. She whimpered as he bent his head again. His tongue was warm against her cool skin and sent rivers of sensation racing through her. Her hips began to squirm, and he reached one large hand across her thigh to keep her still.
Up to her throat he licked and lingered, then down between her breasts again. He followed the trail of syrup to her navel, where his probing tongue caused her to writhe in ecstasy. But he didn’t stop there. Down he went, even further. As his lips whispered against the tops of her thighs and his hands grasped her legs to separate them, Cassie realized his intent and panicked. She clutched his hair and pulled.
“Nooo, Sebastian. Please.”
He resisted, then with clear reluctance, gave up his quest and kissed his way back up her body. Soothingly, he rubbed his syrup-sweetened lips against hers. “We’ll save that particular pleasure for another time, then.” The promise sent heat surging through her veins. He kneed her legs apart and lowered his hips until his thick, straining hardness nudged at her entrance. For a instant, she tensed, remembering the discomfort of the earlier experience, but he murmured encouragement until she relaxed again. This time, he eased his way inside with slow care. This time, there was no pain, only pressure and fullness as his bulk stretched her to the limit. But her body adjusted quickly and, as he teased her with nibbles along her chin, and tickled her ear with his tongue, she felt the unbearable tension build. He drew back. A streak of fire raced through her as he thrust once, and then again. A harder thrust, driving deep, had her digging her fingers into his shoulders.
Her control slipped as each thrust drew her deeper into a whirlpool of sensation she hadn’t dreamed existed. The whirlpool sucked harder, pulled her toward the vortex. She
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heard a cry; didn’t care that it came from her own throat. She gripped his shoulders to save herself from falling. Her head tossed on the pillow as her body strained against his. With one final thrust, harder than the rest, he sent her spiraling over the crest, and she shattered into a thousand pieces. A scream tore from her. The waves of pleasure seemed to go on and on. Sebastian groaned, his movements slowed and then ceased altogether.
He collapsed against her and immediately rolled on his side, holding her against him, still buried inside her. She nuzzled her face against his sweat-damp chest and heaved a deep sigh. She loved the intoxicating male scent of his skin.
“Tired?”
She shook her head. “Not really. Is it always like this?”
She felt his hand cup the back of her head. “No, love. What we’ve shared is special. But—” He rose up on one elbow and grinned at her. “I suspect we can find a few more ways to make it even better.” He rolled his eyes at the draped ceiling. “After we’ve added some extra sound barriers.”
“Oh.” Mortified, Cassie hid her face in the curve of his neck and refused to look at him until he tickled her ribs unmercifully and won some helpless giggles from her.
But his face was serious when he leaned over her. “Don’t ever be embarrassed by anything that happens between us, love. You delight me in every way, and I have never felt like this about anyone before.”
He bent to kiss her and, beneath his touch, her lips curved in a secret smile. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but it would do for now. And, she vowed, she would make sure he never had reason to change his mind.

It was late in the morning before they shared the meal Sebastian had prepared.
Cassie finished her seeka, a rich, aromatic Mariltar brew, and leaned back to watch Sebastian devour a lilira fruit. She loved the way his mouth closed so sensuously about its plump amber roundness as he sucked at the juice within. She shifted her bottom and felt the soreness throbbing rawly between her legs. Every curve and hollow of her body had been thoroughly explored and caressed, and she had never felt so relaxed. Her skin was still highly sensitized, every nerve ending still tingled. Their passion for each other had strengthened and fed upon itself with each kiss, each caress, and all caution had fled. Now she was paying the price.
Sebastian finished the fruit and licked his fingers, then picked up another and attacked it hungrily. He glanced up, caught her gaze and smiled. It was so beautiful and tender an expression that her heart flipped in her chest, stumbled, and sped up.
He shook his head at her. “No serious thoughts allowed until we leave this bed, love.”
“I was just wondering what would have happened if you hadn’t made it back in time.”
“That was never even a remote possibility.”
“Sebastian, how can you say that? What if you’d run into a storm, or your vessel had trouble, or–or something? There were only five days left.”
He grinned and shook his head again. “Not true. The last possible day for the consummation was today.”
“What?” she shrieked. “You left it that late? How could you? Do you know what I went through? You–you—aaaaah!” Words failed her. She grabbed a pillow from behind her and swung at him. The tray with the remains of the meal crashed to the floor. Bread and fruit, syrup and seeka mixed into a gooey mess on the pale blue floor.
Cassie hit him again with the pillow. “Now look what you’ve done. It’s a mess!”
Sebastian grabbed his own pillow and whacked her across her bottom. “Did you ever think about taking responsibility for your own actions?”
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“My actions? You started it.” She thumped him on the head with the pillow again.
“What did I start?”
“This whole thing. Oh, no. Sebastian, don’t let him.”
“Eh?” Her husband paused in mid-swing and turned a confused face to the floor. The leriam, crouched on long legs, busily licked at the mess.
Cassie shoved Sebastian in the back. “Don’t let him do that. He’ll get sick.”
“I’m not touching that creature. He’s your food, pet— whatever. Besides, lady, you have some apologizing to do. If there’s one thing I cannot tolerate, it’s being wrongfully accused.”
He turned. Cassie took one look at his face, shrieked and rolled for the other side of the bed. She didn’t make it. He had her pinned underneath him before she realized it. In spite of herself, her treacherous body responded with a warm rush of sensation.
His expression gentled and he smoothed a hand through her hair. “There was never anything to worry about, love. I told you that you were mine from the beginning.”
“Well, I didn’t know that.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t. I didn’t know your feelings either. But I did know that one way or another I would not have allowed our marriage partnership to be terminated.”
She relaxed. “What if I hadn’t developed these, ah, feelings for you? What if I’d wanted out of the marriage?”
He shook his shaggy head. “Wouldn’t have happened, love. I didn’t even consider it. You belong to me.”
“Lord, you’re insufferable!”
“Umm. I know. And overbearing and arrogant.”
“Spoiled! Deceitful! Inconsiderate!”
He sighed. “Guilty. And what did you call me once? Jackass? What is that?”
“Never mind! How about crazy fool?”
“A fool maybe, but not crazy.”
She laughed and ran her hands over his naked chest. “Oh, Sebastian, but you make me crazy. Now we are really married?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s legally binding?”
“Without question. Look.” He pointed to the golden circle around her upper arm. “See how it shimmers around the edges where before it was dull?”
“Oh.” She studied the shining gold band for a moment, then raised her eyes to his, smiled, and drew his head down for a kiss.
He broke the contact a moment later and rolled onto his side to prop his head up to look at her. “What I want to know is how I came to have a twenty-eight year old virgin in my bed last night? Weren’t there any men on Barthos?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Embarrassed again, Cassie lowered her eyes, unable to meet the interested golden gaze which saw far too much. Vulnerable, she tugged on the cover, but he refused to budge and the best she could do without initiating another undignified scuffle was cover herself to the waist.
“Cassie?” The tone was gentle but persistent.
“Well, of course there were.” She plucked at the cover with distraction. He would have his answer one way or another. “It–it wasn’t that I wasn’t interested or–or curious. It was just that I didn’t ever seem to have much time or opportunity to–to get involved with someone. I told you before, my parents traveled extensively when I was young. By the time they settled on Barthos, I was ready to enter the technical institute, and then went on to advanced studies at the Academy. I really enjoyed what I was doing, but the engineering program demanded a huge commitment, and I wanted a level one apprenticeship very badly. Relationships just never seemed to work out.”
“But you must have had some free time.”
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“A little.” She dared to look at him. This wasn’t so bad. He neither judged nor teased. He was just interested. “There was never anyone who interested me that way. I came close once, because I was curious, but it didn’t feel right, and I broke it off.” And almost precipitated the very event she had tried to avoid, she remembered, thinking of a very angry young man and what she had narrowly prevented. She shuddered.
Sebastian’s voice, low and husky, broke into her thoughts. “And what we did–did that feel right?”
“Oh, yes! Every single minute of it felt utterly, intensely right.” She leaned forward, her breasts, nipples puckered, swung so close to his mouth she felt the warm puff of his breath. “Are you complaining about my lack of, ah, experience?”
His gaze, locked onto her breasts, rose again. A hungry leer crossed his face. “Absolutely not! I will take the greatest delight in instructing you, and showing you pleasures you haven’t even dreamed about.”
“Because—” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “if you are, I can get more experience. I’ll just take a little walk down to the west corner of the Marketplace, and offer myself for free at the–the, oh, I forget the name of it.” She waved an unconcerned hand and delighted in the expression that crossed his face, “You know, the one that advertises the two women with the—”
“Enough!” His face a study in outrage, he reared up, grabbed her shoulders and jerked her close. “Balls of Sortor, how did you even know about that? If I ever catch you down there, believe me, love, I’ll make you regret it.”
“Oh, yes?” She wriggled in delight beneath him and felt the now familiar male appendage start to thicken against her thigh. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know,” he said thickly and nipped her ear. “But I’ll think of something, and it won’t be pleasant.”
“Well, whisper some possibilities.”
Chapter 14

? ? ?

Today, the rose-tinted beach was deserted. Cassie stood where she and Sebastian had shared a meal days before and drew idle patterns in the sand with her foot. The weather was a perfect match for her mood.
Normally a deep greenish-blue, today the lake had taken on the dark, forbidding gray of the smooth, uniformly rounded rocks that lined the north shore and cascaded down from the slopes of the thickly forested mountain. It was difficult to see where water ended and rock began. The mist that defined the night hadn’t completely dissipated. Thin wisps of it crawled through the thickened air lending an eerie and disembodied feel to the day. Up above, the sky was dull and colorless.
She wondered if a storm was brewing. The weather was so unpredictable on Treaine. Much of the time, it was warm and pleasant, but she knew from experience it could change in an instant. This unusual dreariness had greeted her when she opened her eyes in the morning and had lasted all day.
After four days and nights of pure bliss, Sebastian had been called away in the middle of the night—again. Cold without the warmth of his body to cuddle against, she hadn’t slept after he was gone. She missed him badly. An aching pain deep in her belly refused to go away. A part of herself felt lost.
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Her attempt to distract herself with work proved futile and she had given up after the midday meal and come down to the beach to try and sort through her thoughts.
She loved him. But now with his absence, the doubts were back even stronger than before and she could do nothing to dispel them.
Who was he—and what was he?
Somehow in all those loving, passion-filled hours, and in the quieter times they had spent cuddling, temporarily sated yet unable to keep their hands off each other, she hadn’t asked the questions.
Why was it he had to leave so abruptly in the middle of the night on a simple trading mission? What could be so urgent about this business? And why couldn’t she accept he was the trader he claimed to be? She had been in his vessel. She had seen the proof of his activities.
Something wasn’t right.
How could she feel this way about a man she couldn’t trust?
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, chilled, even though the day was warm enough, belying its dreariness. The strange hours, the uncertain schedule, the stories she couldn’t always quite believe. He couldn’t be involved in anything criminal. Yet he had once told her outright his business wasn’t always legitimate.
She shook her head. The questions wouldn’t be answered today but they would be asked when he returned. If only she knew when that would be. Impatient with herself and desperate for a distraction, she walked back up the beach, and made her way through an arched entrance and into the Marketplace.
The place with its colorful displays was busy and noisy. Mouthwatering aromas filled the air, but Cassie paid little attention as she wandered down the alleys and in and out of the booths. Today the exotic food offerings of the Crestar System’s nations held no appeal. The beautiful woven floor mats from Merlon, the small tables carved from the soft, pale desert rock of Agasan, the ropes of glowing beads crafted from the thrusting roots of the mature shimarin tree didn’t tempt her and failed miserably to distract her from her thoughts.
She paused outside the Mariltar food booth to stare at a freshly baked carilm. It was one of Sebastian’s favorite foods, although it’s sharp bite and lingering spicy flavor were not to her liking at all. She saw her hand reach out for it and snatched it back with a shock of awareness. What was she doing? It was amazing how quickly habits formed. About to move on, she changed her mind and decided to place an order for delivery in a few days. He would surely be home by then. She entered her identification in the computer console at the entrance and began to move through the booth making her selections.
Someone jostled her elbow. “I’m sorry!”
Cassie turned. She knew the woman instantly although they had never met. The bright red-gold hair and beautiful face of the Mariltar ambassador’s wife were unmistakable.
The woman smiled and extended her hand in greeting. She said again, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. You’re Sebastian’s wife.”
“Y–yes. Cassie Gordon.” Cassie flushed and wildly searched her memory as she realized she didn’t remember or perhaps had never known if Mariltar custom dictated she take part of her husband’s name. Married more than a year, and she didn’t know that simple fact. She was mortified but her mind was set at ease in the next instant.
“Joanna Chase,” the woman in front of her said. “The Mariltar Ambassador’s wife. I’ve been longing to meet you. If you have a few minutes, I’d be delighted if you would join me for a cup of tea.”
Cassie hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, thank you.” She would have preferred to be left alone with her thoughts, but the ambassador’s wife with a shared Earth heritage aroused her curiosity. She excused herself for a moment, finished making her selections and closed out her account on the computer.
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Joanna seemed to have no further business in the booth and had strolled to the entrance to wait for her.
They left the food alley and made their way across the busy thoroughfare to where colorfully decorated tables and chairs marked the eating area. After placing their orders at a nearby refreshment bar which offered a wide selection of Earth beverages and snacks, Joanna led the way past a number of empty tables to a quiet corner.
There was a short, awkward silence. The ambassador’s wife broke it with an abrupt confession. “I didn’t bump into you by accident. I really have wanted to meet you for a while, but circumstances have never allowed it. When I saw you go in there, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.”
It was a strange announcement and Cassie didn’t know what to make of it. “I–I know I haven’t been involved in any of the Earth community’s activities, but I’ve been reachable through the engineering establishment.”
Joanna nodded. “I know. It’s just that—oh, this is so awkward. There’s so much I’m not supposed to say, and I don’t really understand it all myself, but now that you and Sebastian have finally honored your marriage commitment, I just thought …” Her voice trailed away. She grimaced, hung her head and muttered, “I’m confusing you, I know. I really am making a mess of this.”
“Wh–what do you mean, honored our marriage commitment?”
The question hung in the air as a server approached with their order. Joanna waited until he was out of earshot again, then smiled at Cassie. “There is, ah, rather obvious physical evidence that Mariltar marriage partnerships are alive and well if you know what to look for.” She wiggled her own hand which bore a glowing band of sapphire encircling three fingers and nodded to the golden ring on Cassie’s arm, barely visible under the short sleeve of her dress. “But Sebastian also made an archive report three days ago. You two certainly cut it close.”
In no doubt now as to what the ambassador’s wife referred, Cassie felt her face grow uncomfortably warm. “He did?”
Joanna grinned and nodded. “We all wondered what took so long. Yours was an unusual arrangement to begin with, but it was obvious from the beginning how Sebastian felt about you.”
“It was?” Cassie was growing more confused by the minute. Who was ‘all’, and how did this woman know something she herself hadn’t known until a few days ago? And how many people were aware of what she and Sebastian had shared before he left? Her composure had deserted her. Her face glowed. She raised her hands to cover her cheeks and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ve embarrassed you, and I didn’t mean to.”
Joanna glanced over Cassie’s shoulder, frowned and leaned forward. “I just want you to know that things aren’t always as they seem. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you, and I’ll probably be made to regret it, but I don’t understand why two women who share a common Earth heritage can’t get together to talk over a cup of tea. Mariltar men all seem to have what I consider to be a significant failing which is being far too protective of their women. They think we should appreciate being shielded from all the difficult and unpleasant things in life. Well, I don’t and I never will, and my thickheaded husband doesn’t understand that yet.”
Cassie blinked, amazed at these revelations from a woman she didn’t know. The whole encounter was so very bizarre and suggested a hidden purpose at which apparently she was supposed to guess. In spite of it, she found herself warming to Joanna. “I appreciate your candor, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Joanna looked startled, then laughed. “No, of course you don’t. And I can’t explain because I’ve already said too much, and don’t know everything myself.” Once more she leaned forward. “But please, if you need help or just need to talk to someone about anything, I’d be glad if you’d consider me.
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Sebastian is—was very close to my husband once, and I grew fond of him. I’d like to be your friend, Cassie.”
“Thank you.” Still puzzled and confused, Cassie toyed with her cup. Her thoughts of the morning were getting mixed up with Joanna’s statements. Somehow there was a connection and Joanna had some of the answers. She watched as her companion took a sip of tea and made a face. Neither of them had touched the tea and it must have cooled considerably. “Wasn’t Sebastian outcast from the Mariltar security team and the Ambassador’s personal guard for getting mixed up with the wrong people? I understood he wasn’t even allowed back on Treaine until recently.”
Joanna hesitated, then nodded. “The guard elected his discharge and put him under investigation over a year ago. But remember what I said about things not always being what they seem. I think that you and I may be considerably enlightened in the next few weeks. It’s the waiting and not knowing that’s so hard.”
“Is something going to happen? Is Sebastian in danger? I don’t even know where he is.” For the first time in days, the insidious panic showed itself, invading her veins, squeezing at her heart.
Joanna reached over and covered her hands. “No, not that I know of. I don’t mean to worry you. Now, tell me what you’ve been doing here on Treaine before we’re invaded by two major forces of the Star System.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” Joanna waved a hand. “Tell me what you do.”
Even more confused, Cassie forced herself to respond and they chatted amiably until her companion’s brilliant green eyes focused on something beyond her shoulder.
“Hello, you two. Did you have fun?”
“Your little demon was the life of the infant cariolt. What did you expect? But I feel more grumpy, fat, ugly and uncomfortable than ever.” A blonde, arrayed in a kaleidoscope of colorful, floating scarves which emphasized an advanced state of pregnancy, thrust a chubby baby at Joanna and sat down clumsily in one of the empty chairs. She studied Cassie with open curiosity, then gestured at Joanna. “She has a penchant for testing the all-powerful male authority.”
“Melissa! This is—”
“Sebastian’s wife. Glad to meet you, finally. I’m Melissa Shale. Welcome to the lunatic club.”
“L–lunatic club?”
“Earth women married to Mariltar men.”
“Oh.” Feeling as if she was being sucked into some bizarre dream, Cassie had no idea of how to respond to such an odd statement.
Melissa grinned and turned to Joanna. “You just couldn’t resist meeting her, could you?”
“Melissa!” Color washed across Joanna’s cheeks.
Melissa snorted and muttered, “Our instructions were very clear, no matter how much we might disagree with them. Don’t complain to me if you reap less than comfortable consequences for today.” The infant in Joanna’s lap squealed and pounded his fists on the table. “You’re as bad as she is, you little imp. God, I hope mine’s a girl.”
Joanna caught Cassie’s eye and grinned. “The two major forces of the Star System. This is my son, Alerik.”
“He’s beautiful.” The child had extraordinary eyes. Their brilliant sapphire color matched the shade of a tiny temple mark, the identifying trait of a Mariltar.
The Mariltar genes are always dominant in a male child. Sebastian’s voice was so clear in her mind, Cassie glanced around startled. Where had that come from? She had no memory of a discussion about children.
“He’s beautiful, but he’s inherited an overdose of stubborn from both parents. Pity the poor woman who has to deal with him when he grows up.” Melissa shifted her chair and groaned. “Maybe I want a son after all. Are either of you going to eat 166 J.A. CLARKE

those scones?”
As she watched Melissa devour the scones, and listened to the two laugh and argue together, Cassie’s sense of unreality increased. What was Sebastian’s current relationship with these people? There had never been a hint he had maintained any of his old ties and, knowing what she did of the story, she assumed he didn’t even have a choice. What was behind this strange encounter?
A sudden shiver shook her body as a deep sense of foreboding swept through her. It distracted her attention from the friendly banter. She looked around. It was a normal day, a normal scene.
The feeling intensified. A man in a security uniform made his way through the maze of tables which had begun to fill up. Two young girls played a game of parchar next to them. Beyond, a man in a hooded body suit hurried away from a small booth offering a variety of entertainment cubes.
For some reason, Cassie’s gaze stayed with him as he crossed the thoroughfare. His clothing looked familiar. There was something about the way he moved…
“Good day, ladies.” It was a male voice, pleasant and even-toned.
Cassie reluctantly turned her head. The man in the security uniform stood behind Melissa, his hands on her shoulders, his gaze on Cassie.
Melissa’s face bore a guilty expression. She glanced accusingly at Joanna. “Told you. They have eyes everywhere. I’m just surprised they sent the big man.”
“No one else wanted to run the risk of you going into labor on them, darling. Captain Jason Trion, ma’am.” He inclined his head at Cassie. “Also known as Melissa’s marriage partner, when she wants to claim me.”
“He made a joke. We’re really in trouble, Joanna.”
Captain Trion ignored his wife. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal these ladies away. They have an event to attend.”
“Yeah, he’s going to take us to that little dark, cold, secret room where they rearrange your brains and—”
“Captain Trion.” Joanna’s voice was cool, commanding. The baby in her lap sat sucking his fist contentedly. “Do you know anything about where Sebastian Asteril is right now?”
Melissa looked startled. Her husband’s expression didn’t change. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. All I know is he’s off planet. Ladies, we really do need to go.”
They left with promises from the women to arrange to meet again, and an invitation from Joanna to attend the next monthly gathering of Earth women. All energy and vitality went with them. Cassie was left in a strange little microworld of silence and secrets while normal life bustled around her. She found herself searching for the man in the hooded body suit.
He was, of course, nowhere to be seen. The girls playing parchar had left.
She shivered. Time to go home.

Later that evening, in a residence in the ambassadors’ sector, a door slid open with unnecessary force and a voice bellowed, “Joanna?”
“Uh, oh.” Lying on her back on the floor, gazing into the small, smiling face above her, Joanna said, “Your sire is home, young man, and he doesn’t sound happy with your Mama, does he?” The baby gurgled in agreement and buried a fist in the bright hair.
The floor vibrated under her head, as booted feet stamped up the shallow flight of stairs leading to the sleeping chambers and found their way unerringly to the entrance of the baby’s room. “There you are! Why didn’t you answer me?” Alex Mariltar, Ambassador to Treaine, was clearly not in the best of moods. He leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and surveyed the scene before him. The dark sapphire of his eyes and temple pulse indicated his unhappiness, but an unwilling smile tugged
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at his lips. His wife relaxed slightly and hefted their chubby, infant son, who was stark naked and damp from his bath, higher on her chest. The baby raised his head, and squealed with excitement upon catching sight of his father.
Joanna tipped her head back to look at him, smiled beguilingly, and replied with little logic, “Because you’re angry, and you’re just going to shout at me anyway.”
Annoyance flashed across the handsome features, then his eyes settled on some point below her waist and he heaved a sigh. “You do this on purpose, don’t you?” He pushed away from the wall, and stalked over to tower above them.
Refusing to be intimidated by her large husband, Joanna asked innocently, “Do what?”
“This!” Alex gestured. “You know I can’t be angry with you in front of Alerik, especially when you look like–like this.” Now that he was closer, his gaze sharpened and moved slowly over her body.
She wore a thin robe that rode high on her thighs and revealed a fair expanse of bare flesh. The robe was disarranged by the child’s vigorous movements and she hadn’t bothered to pull it down. It was also plastered to her body in other places, having served as a drying cloth for the boy’s small, wet body.
Diverted, at least for a moment, her husband asked with interest, “What are you two doing, anyway?”
“He just had a bath.”
“That part is obvious,” Alex said dryly. “I just wondered what you’re doing on the floor. Alerik has a rather unique way of drying off, but maybe I should try it sometime.” His sapphire eyes darkened and his gaze locked with hers, the child forgotten for an instant. Joanna’s breath caught in her throat at the flare of desire.
But even as he bent over her, he appeared to remember his original purpose and straightened, a frown once more fixed in place. Impatiently, he stalked away before turning to look at her again. “Even after all our discussions, you couldn’t stay away, could you?”
“Alex, it was hard enough before, but now that they’ve chosen to honor the marriage partnership, I just don’t see why—”
“Joanna, we’ve been through this before. You shouldn’t require a reason, other than the fact that I requested it. You know there is a highly sensitive security issue here. I wish I could tell you more, but for your safety and that of others, I can’t.” Clearly exasperated, he turned away to pace the room. “What did you talk about?”
“Nothing, because I don’t know anything—thank you very much. I bumped into her by accident in one of the food booths, and asked if she wanted to have a cup of tea with me. It seemed the courteous thing to do.” At the skeptical glance thrown in her direction, she amended, “Oh, all right, I deliberately followed her. I just wanted to let her know she has some support if anything happens. I’m sure she knows even less than I do, and she lives with the man.”
She sat up, clutching the baby to her chest. Thumb in his mouth, her infant son contentedly laid his head on her shoulder. “Alex, why is this taking so long?”
Her husband had come to a halt by the bank of glass panels at one end of the room, and now stared out at the dismal gray day. He shrugged and admitted, “I don’t know.” When he turned to face her again his face showed an unguarded expression of extreme frustration and worry. It was gone in an instant.
“Is—is Sebastian in danger?”
Clearly unwilling to answer even that question, Alex looked away again before answering. “He’s always been in danger. He knows it. It’s part of the job. Circumstances recently—ones we hadn’t anticipated and haven’t been able to control—have just increased exponentially the chances of something happening.”
“What about Cassie?”
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“She’s at risk, which is one of the reasons I want you to stay away from her.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t—ouch! Owww!”
Tired of being ignored, Alerik had buried his little fists in his mother’s hair and began tugging at the strands. In an instant, Alex knelt before them. As he untangled his son’s chubby hands from Joanna’s hair, he scolded gently, “It’s not polite to treat your mother this way, son. And isn’t it time you got some clothes on?”
As he dealt with the last of the clinging strands, Alex’s knuckles grazed Joanna’s soft cheek. She turned her face and flicked her tongue against his fingers.
Attempting to restrain with one hand the wiggling naked child now propped on his lap, he lifted his eyes to glance at her, and a slow smile curved his mouth. “Shouldn’t he be taking a nap—or something?”
Joanna leaned closer, her eyes fixed on Alex’s lips. Her tongue traced a slow outline of her own, and she delighted in the growing desire she saw in his face. “He just woke up an hour ago, but maybe we can put him—”
“Cor’s blood!” The outraged shout startled both the son and his mother. Alex held the child high in the air to glare down at the large wet patch across the front of his breeches. He rose swiftly to his feet and bore his son off to an adjoining room. A moment later, he poked his head back around the door frame and said threateningly to his wife, collapsed in laughter on the floor, “Stay where you are. We haven’t finished our discussion—and take that robe off!”
Chapter 15

? ? ?

Cassie paused and looked around. The pathways were unusually deserted for this time of day and she saw no one. Why, then, did she feel as if she were being watched?
She shivered and drew her cloak more tightly around her. The promise of the gray skies two days before had materialized into bitter, bone-numbing cold, which had driven most of Treaine’s population indoors. The colorful sponges lining the pathways of the residential area had vanished without a trace. A thick fringe of ice had formed along the shore of the lake, and a constant pall of heavy mist hung over everything as warm waters battled the frigid air.
Trudging up the shallow stairs to her living unit, Cassie wondered how much longer they would be subjected to these extreme conditions. Even with highly sophisticated equipment, the weather patterns on Treaine were difficult to predict, and the reports sent through the information consoles were guesses at best as to how long the uncomfortable cold spell would continue.
A sharp crack and a thump came from behind and startled her, and she turned as fast as her bulky clothing would allow. A small tree branch had broken off and fallen, narrowly missing her. She sucked in a lungful of painfully cold air.
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Adrenaline pumped through her body. Her heart raced. Lord, she was becoming paranoid. But the sense of threat she felt strengthened with each day Sebastian remained away. She couldn’t shake the feeling, which came and went, of being watched whenever she ventured out beyond the walls of her office or living unit.
And she wouldn’t be out today, she thought with some resentment, if Sebastian hadn’t been gone. She would have sensibly stayed home, like the majority of the community. But she found herself unable to tolerate the silence and loneliness which even the antics and affection of the leriam couldn’t dispel. How that wild, passionate time with Sebastian, brief as it was, had altered her outlook. The solitude of her living unit, previously so welcome after a hectic day of work, no longer attracted her. She found herself seeking out company, desperate to keep busy and distracted to ease the pain of loneliness and longing his continued absence brought. The office, with its skeleton staff on a day like today, was far preferable to staying at home where she couldn’t seem to control speculation about when he might be home, and why he hadn’t contacted her.
She reached the door of her living unit, and looked around again. For a moment, through the drifting mist, she thought she saw movement at the curve of the pathway, but when she looked again, nothing was there. As she entered the welcome warmth of her home, she gratefully shrugged off her bulky outer clothes and flexed stiff muscles. Emla had talked her into playing a game of tiralan the day before and the vigorous exercise had left her muscles sore from unaccustomed use. What she needed now, she thought, as she wandered aimlessly through the empty rooms, was a bath and a massage.
A short while later, she lay naked on the massage bench and sighed with pleasure as the vibrations eased the knots in her back. When she rolled over on her stomach, she reduced the hard kneading action to gentle waves and allowed herself to drift.
A brief burst of chatter from the leriam penetrated her consciousness. It was an unusual outburst from the normally quiet creature but, since it wasn’t repeated, she allowed herself to sink back into a deliciously relaxed state.
More asleep than awake, she dreamed. Dreamed that hands lightly rubbed her feet, skimmed over her calves and up her thighs, paused to massage her buttocks, then trailed up her back to her neck, where they brushed her hair aside. When warm lips touched the ultra sensitive spot on the back of her neck, and began to cover her back with soft kisses, drowsiness vanished in an instant of realization.
This was no dream.
Her first instinct was to roll over and throw herself into her husband’s arms. But the exquisite sensations he aroused felt too good. She didn’t want him to stop. Let him think she was still asleep.
Pleasure and excitement built. Her front ached for the same attention. She heaved a deep sigh and rolled over, eyes still closed, still pretending. His hands and lips didn’t miss a touch, a stroke. Her body tensed with the effort not to arch up against him as his tongue laved at her breasts. Her legs fell apart as his hand slid between them and his fingers began to explore the moist, aching folds of flesh.
“Cassie?” His lips touched hers. She didn’t respond, wanting to prolong the moment. He repeated himself, drawing out her name, rich laughter in his tone, “Cassie, love?”
She fluttered her eyes open and allowed a tiny smile to curve a corner of her mouth. “Oh, it’s you.”
He reared back, a ferocious expression on his face. “And who did you think it was?”
She arched, stretched, drew his gaze to her chest, and closed her eyes again. Her smile widened. “I don’t know, but you interrupted this most delicious dream. Go away so I can finish it.”
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In the next instant, she was snatched up from the bench, carried to the bedchamber and dropped rudely onto the bed.
“Sebastian!” Her squeak of protest was smothered as his lips ruthlessly claimed hers, and she sighed with pleasure as his body pressed hers back against the pillows. She inhaled deeply, reveling in the male scent of him—perspiration mixed with the slight tang of the sarla berry cleansing liquid he used. But she caught a hint of something else as well, something which jolted a vague memory. A strange yet familiar musty smell seemed to be coming from his clothes. Before she could make a connection, she was swept into a tide of sensation, ravaged by his mouth, drowning, powerless to do anything but submit.
When he finally raised his head, she lay limply beneath him, her eyes half closed.
“Oh, Sebastian.” She raised her arms lazily and wound them around his head. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too, love. More than I can say.”
She studied the strong, rugged face hanging over her. Her hand came down to lightly trace the beloved features, and touch the dark circles under his eyes. “You look tired.”
He turned his head to kiss her hand. “Exhausted,” he admitted. “And you’re partly to blame.”
“Me? Why?”
He raised himself on his elbows and swept her body with a hungry, lustful gaze. “Because every time I closed my eyes, I kept seeing you like this, and remembering what it felt like when you do this.” He grabbed her hand and moved it down his body to where his manhood strained at the confines of his breeches. “And then I thought about those breathy, erotic passionate little sounds you make when I’m moving deep inside you. So how, love, was I supposed to sleep?”
“Oh.” Sex, she thought bleakly. He missed the sex. What about love? She watched her finger outline his firm lips before she could trust herself to look into his eyes again. What she saw there stilled her hand and sent a shaft of inexplicable fear through her. His expression was unfathomable. Something in the glowing depths of his eyes caused a chill to slide over her flesh. “Sebastian, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all, love, now that I’m home with you. Except that I do need to clean up. And then I intend to have my revenge.” He kissed her hard on the lips. “Keep the bed warm. Don’t move. I’ll be back before Pormiam can sing.”
He sprang off the bed with an energy that belied his tiredness and hurried into the bathchamber, stripping off his clothes as he went.
As she watched him go, Cassie felt pain slice through her chest and cramp deep in her belly. He was hiding something. He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her the truth. She wondered if her love was strong enough to survive deception, if she could continue to ignore the signs without demanding an explanation. And if he refused to give one, what then? An ultimatum? And if he gave an answer, would she be able to accept it? She knew she wouldn’t be able to live without him, but could she live with him while doubts and deceit continued to gnaw at the already shaky foundation of their marriage partnership?
The door to the adjoining room slid open, and Sebastian bounded through the opening and onto the bed without a pause. He caught her up in his strong arms, and erased all doubt with a storm of kisses. Gentle strokes turned quickly to heated, passionate caresses and whispered endearments.

“He wants to do what with you?” Emla inquired. She was perched on the corner of the table in Cassie’s workstation, watching Cassie hurriedly finish a simple design chart.
“He calls it ‘skimming’. I have no idea what it is, and he refused to tell me, although it’s an outside activity. I do know we’re going outside the settlement.”
“You don’t know what it is, but you’re going to go anyway?”
“I don’t expect I have much of a choice.” Cassie looked up at Emla and laughed at her expression. “Don’t look so worried.
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I trust him.”
“Crelmier! I hope your trust isn’t misplaced. Your husband has a wild streak, my dear, that drives him to test his physical capabilities to the limit. I just hope he isn’t planning to test yours.”
Cassie glanced at Emla sharply. “There seems to be something behind that comment. What have you heard?”
Emla’s gaze slid away. “Nothing much. Ral comes home occasionally with stories he’s heard during those mysterious male bonding sessions in the Marketplace. Rumors seem to abound about how Sebastian takes on the most dangerous mountain peaks around here, and always outlasts everyone else at zuer. He has quite a reputation as a risk-taker. You’re not like that at all. I wouldn’t want to see you pushed into doing something you’re not comfortable with.”
Cassie leapt to her husband’s defense. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s very safety-conscious. I’ve seen him put a lot of careful preparation into his climbing expeditions.”
“Humph.” Emla slid off the table and walked to the door. “Just enjoy yourself.”
After Emla left, Cassie sat slumped in her seat. The enthusiasm and urgency that had hummed through her body earlier were considerably dimmed. Love did strange things. She had just defended the man against the very concerns she had herself. In truth, she didn’t know what to think. She often felt she didn’t know her husband at all.
She sighed and thought again about what Emla had said. She was convinced Sebastian wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize her safety. But her experience with the Mogtons had banished any adventurous spirit she ever had. Until now, she hadn’t even had a desire to venture outside of the familiar, protective confines of the settlement’s perimeter.
She was embarrassed to admit to her fears. Sebastian was a man who feared nothing and the last thing she wanted was to appear weak in his eyes.
Impatient with herself, she closed down her workstation and left the office. When he told her that morning he wanted to take her with him on a skimming trip outside the city, she had jumped at the opportunity, eager to spend precious time with him, excited, for the first time, to see some of Treaine’s spectacular natural attractions. The cold weather had vanished as abruptly as it had arrived and the colony was, once again, enjoying warm, balmy days. She assumed it to be a simple excursion and hadn’t questioned him. Now Emla’s words worried her. Her feet dragged up the stairs leading to her door. As she put out her hand to open it, she gave herself a mental shake. She was going to enjoy herself. She would be with Sebastian. That was all that mattered.
“Hello, love. You’re late.” He stood in front of her, a grin on his face, the golden eyes bright with laughter, his large frame, clad in a dark blue body suit, exuding impatient energy. “Here, put this on!” He handed her an impossibly small bundle of black, stretchy fabric.
“What is it?” She shook out the clothing and stared at it in doubt.
“A protective body suit. Go! Hurry up!” He ushered her into the bedchamber and disappeared.
Protective? Cassie dropped the garment onto the bed and hugged her middle. Nervousness began a slow burn through her stomach. She turned and headed for the door. “Sebastian?”
“What, love?” He was packing a traveling pouch and didn’t look up.
“Where are we going?”
“Outside the city.”
“Yes, but… what are we doing exactly?”
“I thought I told you. We’re going skimming.”
She lost her patience. “Well, what is skimming, and how far will we be going, and why do I need a protective body suit?” she snapped.
“Cassie, love, if you don’t stop asking questions and get
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dressed right now, I’m going to come in there and help you. If I provide answers to satisfy that insatiable curiosity of yours, it will take all day and spoil all the surprises I planned. Now go!”
She was tempted to outright refuse. The man was impossible. He looked up at that moment and cocked an eyebrow and she understood, without a doubt, that he would do precisely what he said he would and enjoy doing it. She didn’t have a chance. Defeated, she disappeared back into the bedchamber.
Minutes later, she stared in shock into the reflecting light beam. It gave back a three dimensional image of a slender body silhouetted against the pale walls. Every curve and dip and hollow was clearly outlined by the thin black suit. It was a provocative sight, leaving little to the imagination. For half the population of Treaine it might be standard dress, she thought, but she had no intention of leaving her living unit dressed like this. Her hands reached again for the fastening.
A sound, deep and guttural, came from behind her. She whirled around and froze. Her husband’s body filled the doorway, and the expression on his face left no question as to what was on his mind. He dropped the pouch and, with a growl, sprang toward her.
“Sebastian!” Her voice rose in a squeak. She twisted away from him, ducked under an outstretched arm and ran into the great room. He followed, determination and purpose written on his features.
“Sebastian, no! I thought we had to leave.”
“I suddenly find—,” he leapt over the couch which separated them, “—that there are other matters here that require my immediate attention.”
She eyed him warily, feinted to the left, then dodged right. It didn’t work. Her arm was seized, and she was yanked into a crushing embrace. She giggled and struggled against him as his mouth devoured her exposed neck in a series of hot, wet kisses. His hands were everywhere on her body, gently squeezing a breast, cupping a rounded buttock, running down between her thighs and lifting her off the floor.
Cassie felt the familiar drugging sensation sweep over her, but she tried once more half-heartedly. “Sebastian, we can do this later.” And that, she thought in complete confusion, didn’t make any sense. As nervous as she was about this excursion, she should welcome any delay.
To her surprise, the kisses stopped and his embrace loosened. Leaning his forehead against hers, he groaned. “You can be sure of that. All right, let’s go before I change my mind.”
“I can’t leave looking like this.”
“Why not?” He swung around. As his gaze passed over her again, an exaggerated, lecherous expression twisted his features.
“Sebastian,” she warned, backing up.
He relented. “Put this on.”
He handed her a thigh length, hooded jacket, picked up the pouch, slung it over his shoulder, and guided her out the glass-paneled front door. Around the corner of the building, in the middle of the path sat a curious, ungainly vehicle.
“The skimmer. Designed it myself,” Sebastian announced with pride. He opened a small hatch in the back of the vehicle and deposited the pouch, then gestured. “Let’s go.”
“You designed it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s, um, lovely,” she lied. “Do you use it often?”
“All the time,” her husband said. “On you go—in the back, there. Unless you want to navigate?”
“Very funny.” She slid one leg over the narrow seat, and settled herself against a lightly padded, high backrest. She shifted and hoped they weren’t going very far. This wasn’t comfortable at all. The vehicle rocked as Sebastian climbed astride.
“Watch out!” He punched a button and the web of straps that had been lying on the ground inflated and rose up around them to shoulder level. He grinned at her over his shoulder. “A unique safety feature, don’t you think? Helps to keep you on 180 J.A. CLARKE

the vehicle. Put your arms around my waist and hold on.”
She gritted her teeth and followed his instructions. The vehicle lifted off the ground and in a gentle, floating motion began moving at fast walking speed down the path.
Cassie relaxed and leaned her cheek against the broad back in front of her. This wasn’t so bad. It was very pleasant, in fact, and only a little uncomfortable. The pace remained steady as they moved through the settlement and out through the security checkpoint. As they proceeded down a deserted trail and entered the forest, the speed increased but, even then, she didn’t feel threatened by it. She leaned into Sebastian’s warmth and watched in fascination as giant tree trunks, thick-leafed plants, curling vines and delicate fronds flashed by. Occasionally, she heard the cry of some forest creature and, once in a while, Sebastian made a comment. But, for the most part, the trip was accomplished in silence until she became aware of a gradually increasing noise.
“What’s that sound?” she asked in her husband’s ear.
“Our destination. You’ll see in a minute.” The noise became thunderous and blocked out all other sound. Without warning, they burst through the edge of the forest. The vehicle slowed and came to a stop. They were suspended in mid-air a short distance away from a foaming waterfall. It boiled in rhythmic bursts out of a cavity in the cliff directly in front of them, the force and volume unlike anything she had ever seen.
“Look down, love.”
She complied. Her stomach heaved and she gave a yelp of terror. Far, far below, she glimpsed a deep green pool. She closed her eyes and willed herself someplace else.
“Cassie? Cassie, love? You can let go now.” His voice held tender amusement. She felt him prying her clenched hands apart and she slitted one eye open. They were on the ground at the base of the falls, the noise of the water diminished by distance from its outlet. She hadn’t even been aware of the rapid descent.
She opened both eyes and looked up as Sebastian climbed off the vehicle and turned to her with a concerned expression. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. It just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“I should have told you. It’s an overwhelming sight the first time.”
“No, it’s all right,” she reassured him. She swung her leg over the seat and stood up. “This is a lovely place.”
“One of my favorites.” He opened the hatch and removed the pouch. “Let’s go over there.”
It was, Cassie reflected lazily an hour later, a perfectly idyllic interlude. Her earlier concerns now appeared to be nothing short of ridiculous. They had talked about nothing in particular, consumed the food from the pouch and basked in their exotic, beautiful surroundings. On her stomach, about to fall asleep, she felt an abrupt disturbance next to her. Sebastian was on his feet stripping off his clothes. She groaned. The man had too much blasted energy. Now what was he up to? She decided she didn’t want to know and rolled her head to the other side.
He nudged her with his naked foot. She grunted and ignored him. Another nudge was accompanied by a muffled snort of laughter.
“Go away!”
“I want you to come with me.”
“Where?”
“In the pool.”
“Uh, uh. Don’t want to.” Treaine’s sun was warm on her back. She wriggled to get more comfortable.
“Yes, you do.” His foot nudged her again.
“I’m not taking my clothes off. You go.”
There was silence. The skin on the back of her neck prickled with awareness. A strange tingling coursed down her spine. Drowsiness vanished. Her body tensed with anticipation.
The suspense proved too much. She turned her head and
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opened her eyes. His magnificently naked form loomed over her. Although his expression was shadowed, she was left with no doubt as to his intentions. His body was heavily aroused.
She heard him laugh softly, but it wasn’t enough of a warning because, in the next instant, he was rapidly unfastening her body suit.
She tried to roll over to avoid his hands, but found herself hauled to her feet instead. In a few swift, practiced movements he had her divested of her clothes and had pulled her body tight against his own.
“You made me a deal earlier. I’m holding you to it. Now.”
Resistance fled as she gazed into golden eyes filled with promise and purpose. A slow, seductive smile crossed his face. He lifted her easily in his arms and strode toward the edge of the pool then, to her utter shock, he leapt into it still holding her. The water closed around them, buoyant, deliciously, surprisingly warm, silky soft. They surfaced, and his lips covered hers as he let her body slide down against his.
Time was suspended as gentle kisses grew more urgent, built to a hot, desperate, dizzying need. Her feet weren’t touching bottom but, somehow, she found it effortless to stay afloat locked against him. She felt his erection nudging against her as his hands cupped her bottom and frustrated her ability to push herself down onto him.
He moved, swirled her through the water, ran his hands over her again and again until the water became a burning torment against sensitized flesh desperate for relief. Finally, he backed her up against the edge of the pool and turned her around so she clung to the soft, spongy side. He entered her with one quick, sure thrust from behind. One hand spread across her breast, the other rubbed between her legs until the waves of pleasure built and shattered into a thousand points of light. She reared back against him as her cries of mindless ecstasy mingled with his own groans of pleasure.
Much later, as they prepared to leave, Sebastian tenderly fastened her jacket to her throat and pulled up the hood. “It’s going to be cooler on the way home, love. We’re going a different way.”
“We’re not going up there?” She looked up at the towering cliff face in relief.
“No. We’ll head along the canyon floor for a while, then turn back through the forest.”
As they left the tranquil spot behind them, Cassie looked back with regret. A curious, aching sadness bloomed inside of her; a sudden dreadful sense of loss. She fought a rush of inexplicable tears and turned her face into Sebastian’s back.
It had been a perfect day. The type of day, filled with love, and tenderness, and laughter, that dreams are made of. She had put aside her worry and the questions that always hovered at the edge of conscious thought and frequently marked her waking hours. If only it could always be like today.
At least she would have the memory.
The pain in her chest faded to a dull ache as she watched the cliff walls, covered with lush growth, flash by. The skimmer lifted and dropped. Her bottom slammed against the hard seat.
She gave an involuntary yelp.
“Sorry about that, love. We hit the currents sooner than I expected. Hang on!”
Another gut-churning swoop. Another punishing blow to her bottom. Sebastian whooped with excitement and increased the speed.
“They’re strong today. Grip with your knees!”
All very well for him to say. The contraption was designed to fit his body, not hers! She clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as her tender posterior crashed down on the seat yet again. She opened her mouth, but another bone-jarring bounce closed it again. He wouldn’t be able to hear her over that awful noise he was making. She was going to kill him! If she survived.
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When she thought she wouldn’t be able to stand another blow to her burning bottom without screaming, the ride smoothed out and they entered the shadowed coolness of the forest.
Sebastian gave one last whoop. “Outstanding! The currents were particularly tricky today. That was the best ride I’ve ever had!”
Wonderful, Cassie thought. Just her luck. She sagged against him in relief and tried not to think about the pain radiating through her nether regions.
“Cassie? You all right?”
She grunted and hoped it would be enough of an answer. It must have been, because the remainder of the trip back to their living unit was accomplished with only the sound of Sebastian’s merry whistle.
Jumping off the skimmer with a disgusting display of energy, Sebastian pulled the pouch out of the hatch, then extended a hand to assist her.
“Come on, love.”
She glared at him. “I don’t think my legs work anymore. They lost all feeling after the third plummet in the canyon.”
He laughed—actually laughed—and slung the pouch over his shoulder. “Ah, can’t be that bad.”
He fit his hands under her armpits and lifted her off. She stumbled against him.
“Cassie?” He peered at her a little uncertainly, then put a hand down to pat her on her bottom and guide her toward the door. She screeched and danced away from him.
He paused and frowned. “Sacred stones of Crelai, you’re not joking, are you?”
“No, I’m not, you lunatic! Every single pore of me, from the waist down, hurts.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I tried to. But I couldn’t make myself heard over your caterwauling.” She bumped up against the glass doors.
Sebastian reached to open them. To her displeasure, he was grinning widely and didn’t seem at all bothered by her discomfort. He obviously wasn’t taking her seriously. “Well, let’s go look at the damage!”
“You aren’t going to look at anything! And the next time you want to surprise me with something, consider spanking me instead. It would be kinder.”
“Hmm.” He tossed the pouch carelessly onto a chair and stalked her across the room. “I’ve never seriously considered that as a form of entertainment before, but I’m willing to try anything once if you really want to.”
“Oh, you’re just hilarious! You really—Sebastian, no!” She saw the gleam of lust in his eyes too late. He caught her hand and dragged her to the bed where he pushed her down on her stomach.
She felt his hands begin to tug at her clothing, and struggled. “Sebastian, it really does sting. I don’t want to—”
“Shh. I just want to look.” Moments later, she heard him hiss through his teeth. “You weren’t joking. You’ve got a pretty little blush down here. You deserve to be throttled, love, for not telling me sooner.”
“This is my fault now?” Incensed, she pushed herself up on her elbows prepared to deliver a blistering counter-attack, then collapsed, completely undone by the gentle, cooling stroke of his tongue against her heated skin. As he continued his ministrations, her aching flesh dissolved under his touch, and an urgent, entirely different kind of ache took its place. She sighed and all thoughts of the well-deserved scolding she intended to give shattered and dissipated like seeds in the wind.
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Chapter 16

? ? ?

It was far worse than she had ever dreamed. The damning words screamed from the screen of the information console and blurred before her eyes. Why did she have to find out this way? Did he care so little for her?
The betrayal was so absolute and complete.
How could he do this?
How could he do this to her?
To them?
How could she have so badly misjudged him?
She felt her stomach heave and raced for the utility area to empty its pitiful contents into the waste receptacle. Afterwards, exhausted, uncaring, she sank to the cold floor, and curled into a miserable, shivering ball.
She had never experienced pain like this before and wondered dispassionately if she could survive it. Her lungs burned with the need for air, but she couldn’t breathe. Her head was being held and squeezed in a vise-like grip. She couldn’t think. The cramp in her belly was so intense, she thought she would vomit again. Her eyes burned fiercely, but she couldn’t cry.
Later, she didn’t know how much later, the chimes on the computer announced someone at the door. Her eyes blinked once, but she ignored the sound, hoping whoever it was would go away.
The hope was a vain one.
Her persistent visitor began to pound on the door.
Huddled on the floor, Cassie prayed they would give up and leave her in peace. She wouldn’t, couldn’t see anyone. The pieces of her life lay shattered and exposed around her.
When the pounding stopped, she breathed a small sigh of relief. But then the door opened and she heard footsteps.
“Cassie!” Emla knelt before her, reached out a hand to stroke her shoulder. Ral’s worried face appeared behind her. Not caring enough to ask how they had accessed her living unit, Cassie felt compelled to make some sort of effort. Her uninvited guests looked so frightened and concerned.
She pulled herself up and leaned back against the wall. “I’m all right. Really! I j–just had a dizzy spell.”
“Oh, Cassie.” Emla’s voice was filled with such sadness, it would have brought tears to Cassie’s eyes if she could cry. But she couldn’t, and never would again. “We know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you should be alone. Ral used his emergency services code to open your door.”
And why, Cassie thought tiredly, shouldn’t they know? Everyone knew. It was the day’s news. Right there on every information console for everyone to see. Her husband, identified as the mastermind and leader of the most extensive network ever of shlil dust distributors, was now a wanted man. She would never see him again. Didn’t want to see him again. And yet her heart and mind screamed her need for him, begged for a chance to hear him deny the terrible accusations.
She was vaguely aware of Ral and Emla talking quietly, and then Ral disappeared. Emla grasped her hand, led her through to the sleeping chamber and helped her onto the bed. The dreadful pain hadn’t receded one bit, and she felt a curious mixture of resentment that she wasn’t to be left to wallow in it, and relief that someone else was there so she didn’t have to suffer it alone.
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Emla took her chilled hands and rubbed them vigorously between her own. “I won’t try to give you false comfort by saying he couldn’t be guilty. A charge like this is too serious for the authorities not to have indisputable evidence. But there may be extenuating circumstances. Hear his side of the story, Cassie, before you judge him completely.”
“I love him, you know,” Cassie whispered.
“I know you do.”
Cassie stared at the canopy overhead. It trembled slightly in the air currents in the room. Without meaning to, she heard herself verbalizing her thoughts. “I just can’t believe he’d do something like this. He’s so gentle, and tender and caring, and–and he makes me laugh even when I’m in a bad mood and don’t feel like laughing.”
She rolled her head on the pillow. The vise at her temples was easing. She heard a wealth of despair in her own voice as she continued, “But I always felt like he wasn’t telling me everything about the trips he took, the times he was gone. There were so many gaps in his stories—just little ones. I always wondered, but never asked. I suppose I just didn’t want to hear the answers, mostly because I was afraid he might lie.
“He saved me, you know. That’s how we met. The vessel I was traveling on, the Araminy, was attacked. They executed all the men in cold blood and they took the women and forced us to work in a mine.” She gave a short, ugly laugh. “I found out later that what we were harvesting was the main ingredient in shlil dust. Sebastian told me that. He would know, wouldn’t he?” She lapsed into silence.
“And Sebastian found you in the mine and rescued you?” Emla prompted.
“No.” Cassie rolled her head impatiently. “Harvesting the sponges wasn’t the only thing the women were used for. One day, they came and took them all, even the young girls… but they didn’t take me. They seemed afraid to touch me.”
She ignored Emla’s exclamation of horror. “Sebastian told me later it was because of the color of my eyes. My eyes! They’re the color of sis-ka’la, you know, the plants we harvested. These men must have been very superstitious about it. Shortly after that, they took me away, cleaned me up, and—and put me up for sale at one of the flesh auctions. Sebastian bought me.”
“Oh, Cassie.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” The voice wasn’t hers. She felt disembodied. Emla’s image swam before her in a haze. “I owe him my life. I thought he was taking me away from that hell. But he’s part of it—the very worst part of it.”
Emla’s eyes were dark pools in a face drawn with sadness. She leaned forward and laid a cool hand comfortingly against Cassie’s burning cheek. “You don’t know that, Cassie.”
“But everything makes sense now. And he’s disappeared, hasn’t he? If it’s not true, why isn’t he here to defend himself? Why hasn’t he contacted me?”
“I don’t know, but sometimes things aren’t always as they seem.”
Cassie’s eyes flickered and widened. Her breath hissed between her teeth and a quiver of hope raced through her. “Someone else said that to me recently.” She sat up, her brow furrowed in thought, her gaze focused intently on her lap where her hands twisted together.
“Who said that?”
“The Mariltar ambassador’s wife. I’m trying to remember exactly what she said. It’s almost as if she knew something like this might happen. Lord, I’m so confused!” She sank back on the pillows again.
“Maybe she was trying to warn you about Sebastian?”
“No, no. It wasn’t like that at all. It was more like she was trying to tell me not to believe everything I heard.”
“Did she have any specifics?”
Cassie shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t go into detail, and she said she didn’t really know too much herself.”
Emla shook her head. “Sounds very odd, Cassie. I wouldn’t 190 J.A. CLARKE

place too much credence in it.”
“I have to talk to her. She said I should think of her as a friend.”
Emla made a muffled sound of skepticism. “Not any more. My guess is, security won’t let you near her.”
Cassie held her tongue. Let Emla think what she liked. The spark of hope had burgeoned the more she thought about that conversation. Joanna would talk to her, she was convinced of it, and perhaps shed more light on the very curious statements she had made that day they met.

Unfortunately, Emla’s words proved only too true. Cassie’s efforts to contact the ambassador’s wife were frustrated at every turn. The communication channels she tried to open were frozen and unresponsive and, when she got up her courage to approach the woman in her home, she was turned back by a security detail at the entrance to the ambassadors’ quarters.
Hope faded as the days slipped by without any contact from Sebastian. The damning evidence against him mounted. And in the reports that were regularly made available to the public, Cassie saw fragments of Sebastian’s own stories, and despair carved its own insidious and very cold place in her heart.
She had reverted to the routine of her early days on Treaine. The soft pastels and curve-hugging tunics Sebastian loved on her so much had been replaced by the old baggy, shapeless, drab clothing. Numbed by grief this time, instead of fear, she spent much of her day immersed in work and tried to ignore the speculative glances of coworkers and pretend she didn’t hear the whispers. She went home only to sleep and care for the leriam. Emla’s repeated attempts to involve her in other activities failed until, finally, she ceased to try altogether. Cassie saw the worry in her friend’s face, but couldn’t find the energy or will to change the pattern to provide Emla with some reassurance.
Nights were a living hell.
The nightmares were back, wrenching her from fitful rest, drenching her with sweat as cavernous eyes devoured her and beast-like hands tore at her flesh. Her screams of terror and pain rang in her ears long after she knew she was awake and the monstrous shadows couldn’t reach her anymore. Disoriented and shaken, she would reach for Sebastian only to clutch at the cold, empty space on the bed. Her features became more haggard and deep, dark circles developed under her eyes. And, as time went by, grief was more frequently replaced by rage.
Rage that he could have abandoned her so easily.
And so completely destroyed her trust.
And betrayed the fragile blossoming of her love.
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Chapter 17

? ? ?

“We’re going to have to postpone the trip,” Emla declared with resignation as she surveyed the small group of people in the conference room.
A chorus of protests greeted the news.
She held up her hand for silence. “I know, I know. It was perfect timing. With the members of the Coalition Council touring the restoration work on Taragon, we had a chance to present our plans for a subcity in the Alyen province, not only to Taragon’s leaders, but to the Coalition as well.” She shook her head in frustration. “Zaren’s illness is extremely unfortunate. There is no chance he will recover before the transport vessel leaves tonight, and not one of the other senior engineers knows this project well enough to make an effective presentation. We’ll just have to postpone it until he’s well again. We’ll miss the Coalition, but will just present the plans to them by secured transmission as we’d planned to do originally anyway.”
Arok groaned. “It won’t be the same. Sliek! The man’s timing couldn’t have been worse. How sick is he, anyway? The trip takes five days. Time enough to recover, I would think. Couldn’t we get a med officer to accompany him?”
Emla hesitated, then said quietly, “It’s serious. They’re not sure what it is. He’s in stasis isolation until they know what
they’re dealing with.”
“Sliek!”
Silence descended on the room. Each face reflected a varying range of emotions from disappointment, to worry and gloom. Then Arok spoke up again. “What about Cassie?”
Emla paused in the act of rising to her feet. “What about Cassie?” She turned her head and met Cassie’s startled gaze across the length of the table.
“She’s been working at Zaren’s side throughout this project. She knows as much as he does—more, probably.”
“Cassie is an apprentice, hardly qualified to make such a critical presentation,” Emla reminded the group sharply.
Arok snorted. “Title qualifies you to make a presentation? I fully respect Zaren’s experience and abilities, but a good communicator he is not. I say, send Cassie.”
“I agree she would do a more than adequate job of explaining the project, but there’s more at stake here. Sending an apprentice engineer would be considered an insult to the Taragon government.” The look Emla shot Cassie was apologetic.
“I’ll go with her.” Heads swiveled to where Jor-an sat, leaning back in his chair, arms folded. “I’m somewhat familiar with the project. Cassie can fill me in as we travel. We’ll make a joint presentation.”
“Cassie?”
Cassie swallowed hard as heads turned in her direction. Her mouth was suddenly dry and the palms of her hands were damp. Excitement surged over this unexpected opportunity to advance her career, to leave Treaine with all its terrible memories behind for a short while, at least. But she felt a deep nervousness as well. The responsibility placed squarely in her lap was huge, and how she carried it off would be a reflection on the whole team.
Even as she opened her mouth to accept, she hesitated.
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This would be her first off-planet trip since she’d arrived on Treaine, and she wasn’t sure she was ready. The nightmares had caused the memories of that terrible attack to become fresh in her mind again. Yet the Crestar System was safe enough, she reminded herself. The vessel would not be leaving Coalition territory.
And what if Sebastian tried to contact her and she wasn’t there? But she couldn’t think like that. That part of her life was gone, vanished like a puff of air as though it had never been, and nothing could fill the empty, aching hole inside of her. She had only her work left and, now, the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I’ll go,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse to her own ears.
Emla considered her thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. “All right, it’s decided then. Jor-an and Cassie go to Taragon. This meeting is adjourned. You have a lot of work to do team, before they leave tonight. Let’s get to it! Cassie, stay behind, please.”
The room emptied out quickly in a babble of voices, and Cassie was left nervously twisting her hands as she waited for Emla to speak.
Emla sighed. “Cassie, you don’t have to do this.”
Cassie studied her hands and forced herself to hold them still. She lifted her head. “I know. I want to.”
“You’ve been through so much lately. I’m afraid this will just add more stress. It won’t be easy. The Taragon government is difficult to deal with at best, without the added complication of the Coalition Council. Even with Jor-an there to support you, it’s going to be an extremely tough presentation to make.”
“You don’t think I can do it?”
“No! No, I don’t think that at all.” Emla’s lips quirked in a grim smile. “Arok is right. I think you can do a better job than Zaren. I’m worried about you for other reasons.”
“Don’t be!” Cassie rose to her feet, her voice strong with determination. “My work is the most important thing in my life, and I really want to do this, Emla. I do know this project better than anyone else and I won’t let this organization down.”
Emla nodded. “It never even crossed my mind that you would. Thank you, Cassie.”
Cassie turned at the door and shot her a smile, “I have to ask you something, though.”
“Anything you want.”
“Will you take care of my leriam while I’m gone?”
Emla groaned and rolled her eyes. “Aagh! I knew I was going to be punished somehow for going along with this decision. Very well, just don’t blame me if it ends up on the menu. I haven’t had any experience pampering food before.” She laughed at Cassie’s shocked expression and waved her out of the room. “That was a joke. Go! You need to prepare.”

The planet of Treaine, surrounded in lavender haze, shrank rapidly, and within seconds disappeared altogether. Cassie turned away from the small window slit to survey the spartan space she would occupy for the next five days.
The hardest part of this whole trip wouldn’t be the presentation, it was fighting this mind-numbing fear of being on a star vessel again. It didn’t seem to matter that this was the Crestar System or that the Great Conflict had ended with the formation of the Coalition and the marriage of cultures on Treaine. While occasional pockets of fighting were still reported, the System was ostensibly at peace. No one would dare attack a Coalition vessel, and the borders of the Crestar System were well patrolled.
But from the moment she had stepped on board, she had been shaken by an awful sense of impending danger. It had been so strong she had frozen without realizing it and Jor-an had to give her a little shove to get her moving again. Even then it had taken all her will power not to turn around and flee the vessel.
She stared at the hard sleeping pallet. It looked unappealing and uncomfortable even in her exhausted state caused by too
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many nights filled with violent dreams and waking hours with too much emotional distress. She had reached the point where she had seriously been considering a reevaluation at the Medical Quarter.
But now she had the trip to deal with.
As she settled herself on the pallet, her stomach complained and reminded her she hadn’t had anything to eat since early morning. She thought about trying to find the galley. Maybe Jor-an would be there. She wanted to talk about the curious incidents that had marked their departure.
In the rush of last minute details, no one in the office had thought to notify the authorities there had been a change in personnel travelling to Taragon. To compound the problem, they had arrived at the boarding platform late because, for some strange reason, the ground carrier they had requested hadn’t arrived and another wasn’t immediately available. The small transport vessel’s engines were already rumbling and two crewmembers were waiting impatiently at the entry hatch when they reached the security check point. Jor-an had been passed through security with barely a hesitation upon presenting his hand and credentials for scanning. Right behind him, Cassie had been a different matter. Her hand pressed against the scanner not only hadn’t released the gate mechanism to allow her passage, but had brought two security officers running.
Brisk and official, one had taken her card with her credentials to run through the scanner again, while the second had stepped behind the computer console. Puzzled and nervous, Cassie had shrugged her shoulders at Jor-an and turned back just in time to see the two officers exchange a curious look.
The one closest to her handed her card back. “Please step back, ma’am. I’m sorry, but we cannot clear you for departure.”
Shocked, Cassie’s mouth dropped open. Jor-an’s warm soothing tones came from behind her. “I suggest you check again, officer. She’s travelling with me on Coalition business.”
“Sorry, sir. There’s no mistake. I have no authority to override a class ‘A’ restriction.”
Jor-an glanced back at the impatient crewmembers. His composure slipped. “Then I suggest you find someone who does have the authority to clear her. This is a ridiculous mistake. She’s an apprentice engineer. There’s no reason why her travel should be restricted.”
“No, sir,” the first officer agreed blandly. “But I still can’t let—”
The explosion was deafening, and sent Cassie reeling into the gate. Two berths away, a tender had erupted into flames. In the ensuing pandemonium, the security officers disappeared. Cassie turned to look helplessly at Jor-an, and felt the gate shift under her hands. She stepped back as it slid aside. Uncertain about what to do next, she hesitated.
“Cassie, come on.” Jor-an motioned her forward.
“But they said—”
“They must have changed their minds. Let’s go.”
They hurried down the ramp.
“This won’t delay our departure any longer, will it,” Jor-an inquired as they passed the crewmembers who, urgency forgotten, were gawking at the activity a short distance away.
“Uh, no sir. We’ve already been cleared. We were just waiting for you.”
“Good! Let’s get under way, then.”
As the scene faded from her mind, Cassie’s eyelids drooped and a deep lethargy crept through her body. She really was more tired than hungry and any movement now felt like too much effort.
Curious about that travel restriction, though. Why would she be a class “A”, whatever that meant? It must have been a mistake.

“Cas-van!” Sebastian spit out the expletive, and slammed a fist down on the edge of console. Pain radiated up his arm but he barely paid it attention. Fear curled around his heart, 198 J.A. CLARKE

squeezing, cutting off his life’s blood.
“How did this happen? How could you let it happen?”
“Calm down, Sebastian. No one let anything happen. There was an irregularity at the security checkpoint, nothing more. She was stopped, but because of the explosion and a brief mechanical failure, she was able to pass through. She’s in no immediate danger. We’ve sent a shadow vessel and she’s travelling under the Coalition’s protection.”
Watched warily by Rom-pin, Sebastian paced around the tiny control center of his vessel. Fists clenched tightly at his side, he shook his shaggy head and cursed loudly and viciously. He resisted the urge to smash something, anything. He had never felt so utterly helpless in his life. The source of his distress, a group of three men, watched him from a transmission cube.
Coldly he said, “As long as he is out there, and we aren’t sure where he is, or how far his influence reaches, she is in mortal jeopardy, and I hold all of you responsible for failing to protect her.”
“Sebastian!” A fourth man joined the tableau on the transmission cube. His expression forbidding and impatient, the Mariltar ambassador glared at his subordinate. Sebastian suppressed a start of surprise. He should have expected his commanding officer to be there.
“Sir?”
“This is no one’s fault. She will be protected to the best of our ability. You cannot let this distract you. Excise the source of the corruption and you won’t have to worry about her. You said yourself the trap is about to close.”
Sebastian turned away in frustration. Aah, if only he could believe that. The Mogton had slipped through seemingly foolproof nets before. But he sensed he was closer this time than ever. All his information, all his painstakingly nurtured contacts pointed in the same direction. And the trail led straight to Treaine. The foul monster had been under their noses for who knew how long, widening his path of corruption, contaminating everything he came into contact with, observing and laughing at them all. He hadn’t backed off from the trap they had set with Cassie as bait, after all. He had slipped right through it.
He’d been watching Cassie. Waiting for his opportunity.
Something was very wrong with this voyage of hers. His gut roiled with fear. He swung around again and shoved his face close to the cube.
“What’s she doing on this trip, anyway? An apprentice engineer wouldn’t have this kind of opportunity.”
“No, you’re right. We questioned her superior. The senior engineer planning to make the trip became violently ill the morning he was supposed to depart. He was giving an important presentation to the Taragon leadership, and the Coalition Council just happened to be scheduled for an inspection tour at the same time. It was a good opportunity to present to both bodies concurrently and the group chose not to delay the trip. Cassie was selected to replace him since she, as his assistant, knew the most about the project.” Alex Mariltar hesitated, then said quietly, “As it turns out, they feel the decision was a sound one.”
“Why?”
“The man never recovered. He died a few hours ago.”
The pain in Sebastian’s gut grew stronger. “What was the cause of death?”
“I don’t think they know yet.”
“Cas-van!” Sebastian resumed his pacing. His uneasiness swelled inexorably like a black storm nebula over Treaine’s highest peak. This entire situation had a very putrid stink to it. Why was he the only one to smell it? He stopped in front of the cube again, slammed his hands down on either side of it, and lowered his face to within a hand’s distance of the surface.
When he spoke, he bit out his words with little emotion in deference to his commander. “The engineer designated to make a five-day trip to Taragon falls fatally ill on the day he’s scheduled to leave. My wife, an apprentice, is selected to take
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his place, unheard of with a project of such importance that the Coalition Council is invited to review it. Security measures at the boarding platform fail, allowing her to pass through even though she’s a class “A” restriction. Coincidence? I hardly think so. He’s behind it all somehow. He wants her and he’s after her. A shadow vessel will be nothing, a puny gilar, in the face of the resources he commands. It will be completely ineffective against him. You know that as well as I. Nothing short of the Unified Fleet surrounding that vessel could stop him from getting to her. And I’m beginning to think even that won’t be sufficient.”
He straightened up and met Rom-pin’s worried gaze. Here, at least, was someone who understood his concerns. His mind frantically sought a solution through the fog of fear that threatened to smother him. He was being torn asunder. The overwhelming need to protect and defend from harm the woman who had come to mean more to him than anyone else in his life, threatened to overpower the ties of fealty that had bound him since birth. Images of her passed in rapid succession through his mind.
Cassie—angry with him, scolding him as if he were a child, her eyes shooting lightening bolts.
Cassie—laughing with him, helpless against his teasing, her face alight with happiness.
Cassie—lying beneath him, moaning with need, arching up against him in the throes of passion.
He petitioned her God and all the benevolent deities of the Mariltar nation to keep her from harm. This could not happen to her again. And if, if by some horribly unkind fate, that stinking spawn of a desert worm had her and dared to touch her, he wouldn’t rest until the man’s blood flowed under his hands.
“Sebastian!” Alex Mariltar’s sharp tone brought his attention reluctantly back to the group on the transmission cube. “You must trust us to protect her. You have a mission to complete. I will do everything I can to keep her out of harm’s way. But I think you’re overreacting. All our information indicates the target is here on Treaine. She travels on a Coalition vessel which provides the highest level of protection in and of itself. Few would dare risk the wrath and retaliation of the Unified Fleet. You must believe she’s safe for now. We will continue with the original strategy.”
Loyalty battled with love and fear, and emerged weakly triumphant. The bonds, forged on the day he was born, and strengthened with the tradition of generations were simply too compelling. Against every instinct, he would have to trust others to protect her. Logic presented a strong case that she was safe enough and in a controlled environment where danger could be averted if it threatened. But nothing that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours appeared at all logical to him. His heart and instincts shouted fiercely that what threatened her was too cunning, too driven by a monstrous need.
He caught Rom-pin’s gaze again. Softly, so the sound wouldn’t carry over the cube, his companion said, “You must finish it, my friend. We’ve worked too hard for this, and there is too much at stake. You must trust him. You’ve trusted him with your life many times before. Now you must trust him with hers.”
His back turned to the cube, Sebastian wiped his hand over his face in defeat. “I know.” Why, then, did his heart feel so heavy with grief and dread?
Slowly, he turned around. “We continue with the mission, but—” He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was steady, anger gone, “—take care of her. She is my life. And when she arrives on Taragon, keep her there. I’ll pick her up myself.”
The High Lord of Mariltar leaned forward. “Done! Keep your mind on what needs to be accomplished, Captain. You’ll be with her soon enough. Now shut down this transmission before we’re all compromised.”
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The image blurred and faded out. Quickly, Jason Trion reached out to enter a series of codes to cut off the shielded transmission.
“We shouldn’t have told him.”
“He has a right to know.”
“He might go after her.”
“He won’t. He’ll do his job.” Alex Mariltar thrust his hands in the pockets of his breeches and contemplated the now blank screen of the information console. “We had to tell him that much. But by the sacred crystals of Sagar, this does not sit well with me. He’s right. Something’s wrong here.”
“In our defense, sir, the source and motivation were not immediately apparent. We had no idea the Mogton had infiltrated Treaine so deeply.”
“But when he released those rumors about Sebastian, trying to throw suspicion off himself, he made his first mistake and aided our cause. We know more about his network now than ever before.”
The Ambassador shook his head. “But Sebastian doesn’t know the rest—that his wife believes he’s a wanted man, that he’s betrayed her. If he knew that, I don’t care to speculate what his choice might be between duty and allegiance and the woman he loves. If that were my wife out there, at the mercy, for the second time, of a monster, would I trust her protection to those who had already failed?”
“Should we call in the Unified Fleet?”
“No!” the Ambassador spoke sharply. “We cannot draw attention to this. The shadow vessel will have to be enough. She’s safe for now. We know the Mogton hasn’t left Treaine.”
“Sir, are you sure you don’t want to authorize a sweep?”
“I’m sure.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, leaving several dark strands sticking up untidily. “I will not subject this community to an act of desperation. He’s too smart to be caught in it anyway. We wait for Sebastian. He is the gateway to flush him out. And make it very clear to your officers that until further notice, the five point security check on every departure and arrival is to continue.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Ambassador turned to leave. “Cassie Gordon is safe. Let’s make sure she stays that way without overreacting. There is more at stake here than the protection of one woman. I will not put a community and a star system in jeopardy by taking protective measures that will be far too obvious and could risk the destruction of everything we’ve worked for in the last year and a half.”
He strode out of the Control Center, leaving his captains to review and finalize details.
204 J.A. CLARKE

Chapter 18

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Sintus System

Cassie was dreaming.
She woke up with a gasp, covered in sweat, completely disoriented. She wasn’t sure she was awake at all until the fleeting pain from a self-imposed pinch on her arm assured her she was. She wondered why she was having difficulty breathing if this wasn’t a dream. With eyes closed, she forced her breathing into a more normal rhythm.
As the pounding of her heart slowed, she became aware of oppressive heat.
Wet, heavy, suffocating heat.
Memories flooded her mind of another time not so long ago.
Another place.
Another experience.
She couldn’t possibly be on a Mogton vessel. Panic threatened to overcome logic. She was on a Coalition vessel, in the Crestar System.Wasn’t she?
Her eyes flew open. Oh, Lord, where was she?
Impenetrable blackness surrounded her. For the first time, she realized she couldn’t hear the faint hum of engines. They must have stopped and the environmental system must have failed to cause this terrible atmosphere. Her hand reached behind her to grope along the wall for a light control but, instead of a solid surface, encountered an all too familiar clammy, spongy substance.
Dread clawed at her. This couldn’t be happening again! She was having another nightmare. It only seemed real. There was no possible way she could be on a Mogton vessel again in the middle of the Crestar System. But what if they weren’t in the Crestar System? Treaine sat right on its boundary. The vessel could have strayed and been attacked.
Not again. It would be too coincidental. Surely she would have been aware of an attack. She lay back, ordered herself to calm down, tried to think what to do next.
She had to find Jor-an. He had to be around somewhere. She sat up again and swung her legs over the side of the pallet. With one hand on the wall, she groped her way along. The space seemed the same as the cubicle to which she had been assigned, only the walls had a definite soft, spongy texture. She continued to grope, hoping to find something, anything that would trigger some light or open a door. Her hand encountered a smooth, solid surface, and she pressed against it.
With growing horror, she watched as the walls slowly lit up with the distinctive eerie, yellow glow that characterized a Mogton living environment. Her knees weakened and her body trembled as she looked around the room. The space was exactly the same as the one to which she had been assigned on the Coalition vessel. In one corner, under an attached table unit, she saw her small pouch of belongings, exactly where she had placed them upon entering the room. She couldn’t see the window or door apertures, but the control panel was in the same position. Tentatively, she touched a button and watched the window appear. She touched another button. The door slid soundlessly open to reveal a tunnel-like, dimly lit corridor.
Hurriedly, she closed it again.
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She wasn’t ready to face what was out there. Not yet.
As she manipulated the room’s environmental control, she watched in complete confusion as, with shocking rapidity, the sponge-like walls solidified into a smooth surface. The yellow glow disappeared to be replaced by the soft, soothing beads of light around the ceiling of the room and the temperature cooled. Within minutes, the room appeared completely normal.
Cassie felt her temper begin to rise. Someone was messing with her mind, and playing an incredibly cruel joke. She punched at the door button again, and swung around to stalk out of the room. A figure, garbed in a gray and green body suit, mask blotting out his facial features, blocked the exit from the room. Beyond him, the corridor remained dark with only a faint illumination seeping from the walls.
A scream welled up and erupted before she could prevent it. The figure shrugged, stepped into the room and deposited a tray of food on the table. Then he left without saying a word. Cassie sank trembling back onto her pallet.
She was in the hands of the Mogtons again. She now had no doubt. But how had it happened and why did they want her? She was almost convinced the vessel was the same as the one she had boarded at Treaine’s dock. But if that were the case, they had gone to a lot of trouble to take her. As closely guarded as the borders of the Crestar System were, it had been a tremendous risk to venture into Coalition territory. They wouldn’t do that just to recapture a woman they had once forced to work in their mines.
Or would they?
A horrifying suspicion was forming. The ugly accusations that had shattered her world so cruelly several weeks earlier now shouted with vicious triumph in her mind.
Sebastian—deeply involved in the shlil drug trade.
Sebastian—controlling a powerful drug network.
But allied with the Mogton, the most notorious and ruthless of all the producers? Allied with the monstrous race at whose hands she had suffered so much?
Her heart violently rejected the connection even as a question crept insidiously into her consciousness and wouldn’t be suppressed. Why were they treating her so differently from the first time? They had given her food. She had control of her environment. And if he was behind this, why didn’t he come to her, or send some word? He must know how terrifying it would all seem. The image of Sebastian as a tender, passionate lover, delighting in her responses to him as she followed unquestioningly where he led, wouldn’t be reconciled with the image of a man allied with a violent race.
He loved her. At least she thought he did. He had demonstrated it in so many delightful little ways. But he had never said it. And the omission was agony and left her vulnerable to the crushing weight of all her doubts.
Unable to sit still, feeling as if she would go mad with uncertainty, she rose and wandered to the window slit. Deep, yawning blackness greeted her. Not a single pinpoint of light was visible. She couldn’t even tell if they were moving. Discouraged, she turned back. Her gaze fell on the untouched tray of food. Reminded that she hadn’t eaten since before boarding the vessel, she walked over and raised the cover.
And froze.
Instead of an unpalatable Mogton meal, a tempting selection of some of her favorite Earth foods was displayed. The wave of grief that hit her was so powerful, so unexpected, she almost doubled over. The cover dropped from her nerveless hand with a clatter.
Sebastian!
She was now convinced beyond a doubt he was behind this abduction. Who else would know with such accuracy what she liked to eat? The knowledge should have reassured her, should have quelled her fears but, instead, the pain of betrayal and the complete and absolute destruction of trust threatened to overwhelm her.
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She wanted to scream her agony.
She wanted to smash something in her rage.
Instead, she calmly picked up and replaced the cover, then went to the control panel.
“Yes?” The voice that responded to her activation of the communication channel was neither male nor female. She was so numb, the communication in her language didn’t surprise her.
“I’d like to speak to the captain of this vessel.”
“I’m sorry, he’s unavailable.”
“Where are we?”
“I can’t disclose that information.”
“Where is Jor-an?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Impatient now with the polite neutrality of the voice, Cassie said, “Jor-an. The man who came on board with me on Treaine. We were travelling to Taragon together.”
“I’m not aware that anyone bearing that name came on board with you. I’ll make inquiries.”
“How long have I been on this vessel?”
There was a hesitation. “Approximately twenty-six hours.”
Not so long then. She was relieved she didn’t have any missing time to wonder about. “Where are we going?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that either.”
“Tell the captain I’d like to speak with him when he’s free.”
“I’ll communicate the message.”
Frustrated, Cassie slapped her hand against the pad to close out the channel. Her stomach rumbled and reminded her again how long it had been since she last ate. She glanced longingly at the tray of food. Could she trust it? What if it were drugged?
She walked over and lifted the lid again. The smell of herbs rose tantalizingly from the stew on the heated plate and teased her nostrils. Hunger overcame caution.
Feeling immeasurably better after devouring the food, she went to the window slit again. But the unrelieved blackness only increased her sense of disorientation and she turned away from the sight.
Back on her pallet, she reached for her project portfolio in an effort to keep herself distracted. She wondered with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension how long it would take for the captain to respond to her request. A very small, but insistent voice in her mind questioned if it wouldn’t be Sebastian himself who would eventually walk through the door.
And how would she feel then?
And what would she do?
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Chapter 19

? ? ?

The captain never acknowledged her request.
The same voice, always polite no matter how angrily Cassie demanded answers, offered the same bland responses and no real information. Afraid of what she would find if she ventured out of the confines of her small cubicle and into the humid, dark tunnel beyond her door, she never took advantage of the unlocked panel.
Three meals a day were always delivered promptly and silently by the same individual. The food was designed to tempt her appetite and included, with uncanny accuracy, all her favorite dishes prepared to perfection. Her conviction that Sebastian must somehow be involved in her abduction began to erode. They hadn’t spent enough time together for him to know her tastes this well. But if not Sebastian, who then?
Her confidence was also shaken when holographic entertainment cubes began to appear with her meals. Prior to her husband’s return to Treaine, she had spent many lonely hours to the point of addiction navigating her way through an array of intricate mazes and puzzles. But she couldn’t recall ever playing with this particular variety—her favorite for many months, in his presence. With the walls of the tiny cubicle closing in on her, she began to look forward to the arrival of a new cube with every meal and, by losing herself in the games, managed to endure the excruciatingly slow passage of time.
One day, not long after an exquisitely prepared meal had been delivered, the vessel began to shudder and roll. Cassie ran to open the window slit but, once again, was greeted with nothing but blackness. Even as her eyes strained to penetrate the darkness, seeking the faintest pinpoint of light, the shuddering ceased and the familiar sensation of not moving at all returned. An hour or so later, she had just started into the latest puzzle cube, when the door panel slid open. This time, two figures entered the room. One was her regular visitor, the other was unknown to her.
As she rose to her feet, she saw the flexible metal band held by one of the Mogtons. Fear swelled to clog her throat.
The Mogton gestured, and the voice that had become her only verbal contact for the span of the voyage, issued from his mouth. “We have arrived. We have orders to escort you directly to the dwelling of the Overlord.”
Cassie took a step backwards. Her mouth was dry. She ran her tongue over her lips and managed to ask, “Overlord? Who is this Overlord?”
“You’ll know shortly. He waits to greet you. Come!” The voice was neither patient or impatient, but determination was evident in the man’s posture as he began to advance the short distance toward her.
Her gaze fixed on the metal visor, memories of another time, another place, rushed upon her, threatened to drown her. “Please,” she whispered. “I can’t… I won’t wear that.”
“You must. You have no choice.” He reached for her and spun her around, subduing her struggles with insulting ease, and fixed the band in place over her eyes. This time, they didn’t bind her hands but, one on either side of her, clasped her arms and led her into the oppressive heat of the corridor. They entered what must have been a lift tube. It began a rapid descent that seemed to last forever. When it came to a halt, 212 J.A. CLARKE

they stepped out into the same fiercely humid conditions.
A short distance later, her escort drew her to a stop. Instinctively, she knew someone else was present. Just as instinctively, the last remaining atom of hope that it might be Sebastian died.
This was not Sebastian who stood in front of her. This presence was frightening, sinister, overwhelming.
A brief guttural command preceded the release of the metal band over her eyes. As it dropped away, her chin was grasped tightly to the point of pain, and she stared straight into the dark, hollow pits that had haunted her nightmares.
Unlike his companions, this man wore no mask to obscure his features. The face that loomed over her was not like any she had ever seen. A deeply ridged, broad brow shadowed the huge black circles of his eyes. The lower part of his face was compressed, flattened, giving a rectangular shape to his head. The mouth was wide slit. The nose barely protruded.
“Sis-ka’la!” A smile, if it could be called that, stretched horribly across the terrifying features. “At last!”
If he saw her fear, he gave no sign, but turned her head from side to side to examine her. The hollow gaze fell again and again on her eyes. And when she closed them against the compelling intensity that threatened to suck her into a bottomless void, his grip on her chin became a vise and forced her to open them again.
He smiled and nodded, and in a voice without inflection said, “You fear me, don’t you? But you don’t know how close I’ve been to you these past few months, watching you, learning your habits, your likes, your dislikes. You will come to appreciate how well I know you. Now, I’m all you have. And for as long as I can sustain you to serve me, you will want for nothing that is within my ability and desire to provide. I have waited too long for this moment, Sis-ka’la. You should have been mine a long time ago.”
What was he talking about? Terror weakened her knees and blocked her ability to think. With a dreadful fascination, Cassie saw the features crumple and rearrange themselves into an even uglier mask of hatred.
The dark gaze shifted to touch on the golden arm ring, then lifted to stare over her head. His hand released her chin. “Yes, you should have been mine a long time ago,” he repeated, his voice slow and thick. “The man you call husband has much to answer for. How badly I underestimated him. I thought he was merely a nuisance, chipping away at the edges of my dominion, stealing a trade pipeline here and there, too little, too insignificant to bother with, although I could have crushed him in an instant. But he served to help distract the attention of the security patrols, this rebel of the mighty Mariltar fleet. I was convinced the nations of the Crestar System had no idea how deeply they were infiltrated, particularly their jewel, Treaine. The Coalition’s Vision!”
He gave a short, contemptuous guttural laugh. The black voids suddenly focused on her again, and sent a streak of pure terror spiraling through her body. “But then he stole you, and those incompetent fools let him. And after that, my dominion began to crumble. Several of my supply mines were annihilated, blasted into oblivion, and no one could tell me by whom. One by one, my acquirers began to disappear. They simply weren’t there any more.”
He leaned closer until his breath, hot and unpleasantly sweet, fanned her face. A burning sensation started behind her eyes and intensified until her head ached. He seemed driven by some compulsion to reveal details which, to her, held a terrible fascination. “I thought my streak of bad luck had been reversed when the opportunity I sought for so long finally presented itself. It was so easy. With very little manipulation, you were thrust into a role you should never have achieved so soon, and I could finally set my plans in motion to bring you to me.”
“Jor-an?” she whispered, compelled to ask but knowing the 214 J.A. CLARKE

answer. He was dead. A good man’s life destroyed.
“Your companion? A necessary casualty. It was almost insultingly easy how quickly the security measures were breached. The Crestar System thinks it is so advanced. But our Mogton technology is far superior—so superior, Treaine security couldn’t identify a Mogton vessel disguised as Coalition.”
His features shifted, once again becoming hard and hostile. “Arrogant shabots!” He spat out the words in a fine spray of saliva. “They think we’re so primitive. But soon they’ll learn just how wrong they’ve been.”
His hand flashed out and caught her chin again. “And your husband will learn the hardest lesson of all. Do you know how simple suggestion can become rumor out of control? Except this time it didn’t work. Everyone but Mariltar security believed your Mariltar rebel led the shlil dust trade. Do you know why? Shall I tell you the rest of the story? About how word came three days ago, while you were on your way here, that a massive initiative had taken place? How my network on Treaine was destroyed? And how shortly after that, report after report came in, all bearing the same news? My penetration into the Crestar System has been completely annihilated. And I finally learned who was behind it. The rebel captain of the Mariltar fleet was no rebel at all.”
If Cassie hadn’t still been in the firm hold of her escorts, she would have collapsed on the floor. She sagged between the two of them, her thoughts in chaos, hardly daring to allow herself to believe what she was hearing. Sebastian wasn’t a criminal after all? Far from being a part of this monstrous network, he had worked to destroy it.
Why hadn’t she trusted her instincts?
And what had it cost her? The Mogton gave her head a jerk and continued his bizarre story. “But he failed in his most important task. If I hadn’t left early to wait for you here, I would have been swept up in his net as well. He not only doesn’t have me, but he’s lost you as well—against all odds. I should have questioned more thoroughly why Mariltar security went to such measures to protect one who was not their own, especially the partner of a banished comrade. I should have made the connection sooner. But it doesn’t matter.” He gave a hard, confident laugh. “I still have my network outside of the Crestar System, and unlimited supply sources. Now that I have you, I will grow bigger and stronger than before. Losing the Crestar System was a small price to pay for the pleasure and power you will give me, Sis-ka’la.”
His tone of voice as he uttered the name could have been a caress. This time the inference was clear. Her future was written clearly in the heavy body that sent a message she couldn’t ignore any longer, in the face that once again had changed and now observed her like a vicious ganilian about to devour its prey. The dark voids held her gaze captive. Try as she might, she couldn’t look away. The burning behind her eyes spread to the rest of her body. She was consumed by tiny flames that tormented and ate at her control. A strange blankness crept through her mind.
She managed to whisper, “You’re insane. He’ll find you and destroy you. He won’t give up now.”
A grunt escaped the bloodless lips. “Perhaps! But by then, I will have made what was his my own. And I will welcome a confrontation. Even if he does find me here, he won’t win against me in my dominion. And are you so sure he will want you back badly enough to venture here?” The hollow voids sucked her in. She struggled to hold on to the image of Sebastian as a wave of tiredness and dizziness overwhelmed her.
Just before she lost the battle and sank into unconsciousness, she heard him whisper, “You’re mine now. I will kill you before I let anyone else have you.”

When she awoke, she was disoriented, hungry, and thirsty. She lay still, eyes closed, ears straining and tried to get her
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bearings. She had been captive before in the same hot humid environment. This time she wasn’t restrained, but this time she was naked. They had taken her clothes away. She cracked open eyes that didn’t want to open. The space in which she lay was illuminated only by the eerie yellow glow from the walls.
It was enough to see her surroundings.
She lay on a slightly raised platform covered in soft, very fine fabric. The platform was surrounded by dark columns that rose into the shadows above. Beyond the columns she could see occasional flickers of movement.
She sensed a presence behind her and froze.
“You’re awake. Excellent!”
With a gasp, she rolled to her side and tugged vainly to free the fabric underneath her to cover herself. A large hand covered with hair clamped down on her hand. “Don’t! It will do no good. Our females don’t wear clothing in their private quarters.”
Teeth gritted, fear spiraling through her again, she responded without turning, “I’m not one of your females.”
“You are now. Turn around!”
“No!”
“Very well.”
Her hand was released. She heard the soft pad of feet, and within her line of vision appeared a thickly muscled, heavily furred body, also unclothed, except for a thin strip of fabric which barely covered and thrust into prominence the enormous male organ jutting from between his legs. He grasped her chin and jerked it upward. His head was the only part of him not covered by hair.
He studied her deliberately, his gaze moving slowly over her body. Even expressionless, his face was a brutal mask. “You may address me as ‘Overlord’. We have no given names, as in your culture. We are known simply by the functions we perform within our immediate units and colony. There are five males, including me, and two females within this immediate unit. The two females are shared by all the males. You will not be shared. You are mine. You now exist solely to serve me as I desire. You will have very little interaction with the rest of the colony outside this unit.”
His face held an unmistakably greedy expression now, and her skin crawled with loathing. His hand left her chin and slid down her chest to close around one soft breast. He grunted.
“Your human female bodies are so exquisite, yet so fragile. You—”
A burst of noise from behind them startled Cassie and caused Overlord to release his grip on her breast. She seized the opportunity to slide away from him. Two men stood behind them at the edge of the platform and argued in loud guttural voices. Overlord broke in to add a few words in an angry tone. Forgotten for the moment, Cassie shielded her body as best she could and eyed the two warily. Similar in build, size and appearance to their leader, they had also left off their clothing except for the small piece of fabric covering their loins. Abruptly, the argument seemed to end and one left. The other glanced in her direction. His gaze wandered over her without interest but when he met her defiant stare, he gave a start and backed hurriedly away.
Overlord gave a short laugh. “You can see, you have nothing to fear from them. Even if they didn’t fear you, your fragility has limited appeal to most males of our species, and the two females in our unit keep them well satisfied.”
“Then let me go.”
“I said ‘most males’—I, on the other hand, have not been able to forget you from the first moment I saw you. You fascinated me even when others were repelled by you. Do you remember?”
“How could I forget,” she said, sickened once again by the memory. “You had just ordered the slaughter of half the people on the vessel.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he said calmly. “It was necessary. The males and wounded were of no use to us. Women are far more
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valuable as harvesters. Their fingers bruise the sponges less, and they are quickly subdued.
“But you, you were a problem even then. The Mogtons I commanded in the attack on your vessel wanted to leave you behind, and those who guarded the mines were afraid of you. When they looked in your eyes, they saw the sis-ka’la—the death of their individuality, the destruction of their will, the entrapment of their minds.
“I saw the means to gain great power, to draw the fractured Mogton colonies together to create a force with no equal. But I had to be careful. One misstep, the slightest miscalculation in timing would destroy everything. My plan was to make you my morialte—concubine. The timing had to be exquisitely fine and had to coincide precisely with the sign of Thanglea. If I could survive the mating ritual with the living spirit of the sis-ka’la during the most powerful season of convergence, I would command the allegiance of the colonies as no single Mogton has been able to do.
“I had to let you go to the mines with the other women, because the timing wasn’t right to keep you with me. But despite my instructions, I couldn’t be sure of your treatment so, as we sometimes do with female prisoners, I sent you to the flesh auction on Gerfin. You were supposed to be purchased by someone who was well compensated to conceal my role from others and anyone who would have questioned my acquisition of you. You would have been held until I came for you. But the fool let his greed rule him, and he gave you up to the Mariltar.” He smiled unpleasantly. His eyes flared. The darkness in them deepened. “He won’t make the same mistake again. The Mariltar captain was ridiculously easy to follow. He thought he had lost me in the Canyons, although I was right behind all the time. I was unprepared to follow you into the Crestar System but, by then, I knew where you were going.”
He leaned closer and, once again, she felt the heat of his sickly sweet breath. She was no match for his strength and, as he pushed her down on the bed, she realized with despair that she couldn’t stop what she knew he intended. His weight on top of her drove the breath from her lungs, and the roughness of his body hair scraped against her skin. Thick thighs pushed her legs apart, and she felt his cloth-covered male member nudging at her.
She closed her eyes and stiffened her body as she still struggled weakly and ineffectually in his grasp.
Hot breath fanned her cheek. “Yes, you fear me and what I can do to you. But you will give me what I want. You are an obsession, Sis-ka’la, an untasted pleasure, one I cannot experience until the time is precisely right. Then I will achieve ultimate power and incomparable ecstasy.” His hand stroked through her hair and tightened at her nape as she shuddered and tried to roll her head away. He ground his hips against her, grunting with enjoyment as she squirmed in desperation. Then he rolled away. Without another word, he rose, stalked through the columns and was gone.

Shuddering with disgust and terror, Cassie lay curled in a fetal position on the bed. She had been spared—this time. But he would come again and, at some point, when he judged the time to be right, take what he wanted. Her mind screamed out for Sebastian, begged his forgiveness for not trusting him, for not giving him a reason to trust her, for not telling him how much she loved him. A loud snort broke through her misery. She opened her eyes to see a female of the species standing in front of her, face averted. Her body also was thickly furred, but the enormous naked breasts thrusting through the pelt on her chest and lack of a bulging loincloth clearly proclaimed her gender. She offered a covered plate of food.
Cassie’s first inclination was to refuse it, but her instinct for survival was too strong, her reason for living too compelling. Sebastian would know how much she loved him. If he couldn’t rescue her this time, she would make every effort to save
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herself, or die in the attempt. For a moment, when she thought of what she faced, she wanted to shrivel into a ball on the bed and pray the nightmare would disappear. Instead, she pushed herself up with arms that trembled to take the food. The woman nodded, grunted something, and sat down on the floor, giving every indication she would wait until Cassie was finished.
The woman’s presence was unnerving. Like the other male before her, she was obviously fearful of this stranger in their midst and kept darting nervous little glances around her. She never looked at Cassie directly.
The vegetable casserole Cassie had been offered was delicious, and she finished every bite then handed the plate back. The creature lumbered clumsily to her feet. With many quick gestures and grunts, she indicated that Cassie was to follow her. Reluctantly, Cassie pushed herself off the platform and stepped through the columns, which offered an illusion of protection, into the cavern beyond.
She wasn’t given a chance to examine her surroundings but was led down a narrow passage that ended in an equally narrow chamber. Just as they entered, one of the males came out and brushed past them without a glance or an acknowledgement. As uncomfortably warm as the sleeping cavern had been, this room was even hotter. Steam curled up through vents in the floor and disappeared into the shadowed depths above. The woman walked over to one of the vents, squatted astride it and relieved herself. Her gestures made it clear Cassie was to do the same. Remembering the male who had just left, Cassie glanced nervously behind her before approaching a vent a short distance away from her companion.
The creature waited patiently for her to finish, then crossed to where the yellow glow from the walls was bisected by a dense shadow. She appeared to brace herself as she put her hand out toward the shadow and, with amazement, Cassie saw it disappear inside. The woman grunted and pulled back slowly. There was a loud sucking and her hand reappeared clutching a thick, broad oval-shaped object. She scrubbed vigorously at her body with it, then reached back into the shadow, withdrew another and offered it to Cassie.
The object was soft and oozing with moisture but had a faint, unpleasant smell. With reluctance, Cassie rubbed it down her arm. Her companion grunted and gestured again, and sent several quick glances toward the entrance to the room. Quickly, Cassie finished running the strange object over her body and had barely finished before the woman snatched the thing from her and thrust both back into the shadow. As she followed the Mogton from the room, Cassie reached out and touched the dense blackness. It yielded under her fingers but, even with more pressure, didn’t allow her to penetrate the surface.
Back down the tunnel they went until they reached the room filled with columned sleeping platforms. It appeared to be deserted. This time, Cassie examined the cavernous space with close attention. The vast area was configured symmetrically with a series of tunnels leading off it at regular intervals. There was nothing that distinguished one passageway from the next. She realized she couldn’t even identify the tunnel they had just used.
What was down those dimly lit passages? And how was she ever to find her way out of here, assuming she was even given the chance? She realized suddenly she was alone. The woman had disappeared without a sound.
Her heart pounding, Cassie studied the room once again. There wasn’t a sound or a flicker of movement from even the deepest shadows. She hurried over to the center sleeping platform. She had to have something to cover her nudity and the only possible option was the thin fabric covering on the bed.
But it refused to give. Try as she might, she couldn’t determine how it was attached to the platform. She tore several nails, one to the quick, before giving up in frustration. The 222 J.A. CLARKE

fragile fabric was tougher than it looked.
As she sucked on her stinging finger, she considered each tunnel entrance. It was hopeless. None offered a clue as to what lay beyond. She would just have to take her chances. There was nothing to be gained by cowering in this empty cavern.
Choosing one gaping hole at random, she approached on legs that trembled and threatened to collapse beneath her. The glowing yellow walls stretched away in front of her, pulsing obscenely with a life of their own. The cavity was deserted.
She took a deep breath, stepped into the tunnel and stopped.
Nothing happened.
Encouraged, she took a few steps forward. As her confidence grew, she increased her pace and forced herself not to look behind her, but focused instead on the shadowed depths far ahead. At times, the passageway seemed to climb a little, but once or twice she was certain she followed an almost imperceptible descent.
There was nothing to break the monotony of the pulsing walls. No bulge in the smooth surface, no outcropping, no loose material on the floor. The only sounds were the soft padding of her bare feet, her own breathing and a low, humming vibration from the walls.
Once, she thought she heard a noise—the faintest sound, a ping of metal on metal. She paused and glanced back nervously. Her eyes strained to penetrate the distant shadows.
There was nothing.
She started forward again. She was growing tired now. The tunnel was endless, the heat debilitating. For all she knew, she might be headed hopelessly in the wrong direction. Her pace slowed. Her feet dragged. She wanted to rest, but didn’t dare lean against the pulsing walls. Her head was starting to spin. The vibration from the walls seemed louder. She had no idea how long she had been walking.
Head down, she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. She no longer paid attention to what lay ahead of her. The view never changed. Her escape attempt had assumed nightmarish qualities. She wondered if she was doomed to wander this corridor until she dropped from fatigue. She wondered if they would bother to look for her, or would leave her to starve to death. Not once did she consider the option of reversing her path and returning to the cavern.
She thought she heard another sound. This time it was the faint rush of air, a disturbance so slight, she again wondered if she imagined it. Tiredly, she looked around. Again, she saw nothing. She might have been at her starting point for all the difference she saw in her surroundings. The urge to scream overwhelmed her and she had to clamp a hand tightly over her mouth to stay silent.
Just when she was beginning to think that even the appearance of a Mogton might be a welcome relief from this dark, silent, claustrophobic world, the shadows in the distance seemed to fade. Her feet picked up speed, her heart pounded with excitement. The shadows were fading. She was approaching an opening.
She moved nearer to the wall, hoping to make herself as inconspicuous as possible in case anyone watched the tunnel. She knew it was a futile exercise. There was nothing to hide behind. What lay beyond appeared to be large, cavernous, with columned shapes, very similar to what she had left behind hours ago. As she stepped into the deserted room, the nightmare shattered into unbearable horror.
It was the same room!
Or an identical one.
Defeated, she fought back tears. She wouldn’t give up. Not yet!
There was a faint smell of food in the room and it made her sharply aware she hadn’t eaten in hours. The smell led her to the center sleeping platform, where a jug of stew, fresh flat bread, and a carafe of warm water sat waiting on the floor.
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She devoured the food hungrily and drank half the water despite its warm, brackish taste. Her spirits revived a little by the nourishment, she examined the room again. It was the same one, she was sure of it. The tunnel she had chosen had simply led her in a loop that had returned her to this place. But there were other tunnels. And she would try again. Her determination was shaken only by the realization that her absence hadn’t been a cause for concern. No one had come looking for her. And the meal left for her indicated an expectation she would reappear.
Chapter 20

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Sintus System; Bortag Caverns

She did try again. Twice more. And each time, the results were the same.
In this place with no night and day, the Mogton population didn’t keep to rigid schedules, but came and went, slept and ate as they felt like it. The two women were in constant demand for sexual services, and the grunts and groans, the rhythmic, muffled slapping of flesh, and generally rough treatment they received from the males often had Cassie cringing against the fragile barrier of her sleeping platform.
The group ignored her, except to the extent the women delivered her food and accompanied her to the steamy cleansing facilities. Overlord had not made a reappearance and, while Cassie was grateful for his absence, her imagination found many ominous implications to it.
There were times when the entire group disappeared and it was during these times that Cassie took the opportunity to explore more tunnels. To her pure frustration, and after hours of walking, each tunnel had merely returned her to the cavern, as the first had done. On her third try, she had re-entered the
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room to find most of the group there engaged in various activities. Once again, she was ignored. They didn’t care, she realized. They didn’t care where she had been, because they were confident she couldn’t find her way out of the maze. The realization crushed the last spark of hope, and she huddled on the bed for hours afterwards, oblivious to the activity in the cavern, ignoring the food that was brought.
When hunger gnawed enough at her belly to rouse her to eat, she was surprised to discover an unusually tempting array of delicacies. Some were familiar; most were not. There was a bowl of small, sweet-tasting multi-colored fruit balls, wedges of bread smeared with a vegetable paste and crisp oval leaves the color of amethyst dipped in a light sauce. Her appetite grew with each new discovery. Each flavor was more delightful, more unusual, more intense than the last. Her world shrank to total concentration on the food in front of her.
A quarrel erupted behind her and a coarse scream caught her attention. She raised her head and discovered her vision was blurred, her hearing muffled. The room seemed brighter, and grew brighter still as she turned to seek the source of the quarrel. In a single instant, the knowledge hit her that the food must be drugged.
She didn’t care.
The quarrel continued, louder now, more violent. She lost interest. It wasn’t her concern.
She pushed the empty food containers off the bed and fell back to contemplate the shadows above her. Except they were shadows no longer. A spinning vortex of white light had replaced the darkness. It hypnotized her, sucked her into a whirlpool.
And she went willingly.

Sebastian.
She arched up against him, welcomed the weight of his body after its long absence, absorbed the warmth of him, adored the strength and power of his muscles under her fingers.
Whispers of encouragement and murmured endearments, so well-remembered and cherished, tickled her ears. The tip of his tongue, alternately soft and hard, traced a path from behind one ear, across the curve of her jaw to flicker with light, teasing strokes over the outline of her lips.
She quivered with anticipation. Nerve endings became more sensitized with each stroke of his hand. She throbbed, ached with unbearable need at her very core. Her legs fell apart to accommodate his bulk between them. Now she raised her knees and pushed against the bed to raise herself against him, desperate to feel his hardness, frantic to have him fill her emptiness.
He held himself away from her, tortured her with his nearness, denied her what she wanted most. She whimpered and begged as she slid her hands down between them.
Something wasn’t right.
His body hair wasn’t this coarse.
At the edges of her consciousness, the thought quickly vanished as waves of pleasure once again took over. Her hands had a definite destination and purpose but, before they achieved their goal, they were seized and drawn back up and over her head. She writhed and cried out in disappointment, but when he released her wrists they remained captive, bound by bonds she couldn’t see or feel.
What was he doing?
She wanted to object, but again the sensations created by his hands as they continued to glide over her body drove the thought from her mind. His fingers returned to play with a nipple, and she felt a pinch that was too hard. He transferred his attention to her other breast. She arched against his hand. The pleasure he aroused raced straight to the aching dampness between her legs. She moaned. The moan turned to a gasp as her breast was tweaked a bit too roughly.
Why was he treating her like this?
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She struggled to focus, as pleasure once again quickly conquered pain. Through a dense fog pierced by brilliant white flashes, she caught a glimpse of another face bending over her. The face was frightening and merciless, filled with savage lust. And ranged around it, a myriad of other faces, similar yet different, some expressionless, some fearful, some lustful.
In the next instant, the nightmare image was gone to be replaced by the blurred, rugged features of her husband. He studied her with intent tenderness, the look that said he was anticipating the precise moment to bring her to fulfillment.
She smiled and murmured, wanted to touch him, to feel the textures of his strong body, to close him in her arms. But she was still restrained by the bonds she couldn’t feel.
Time had no meaning. Pain became pleasure and pleasure became pain. She didn’t care any longer. She begged for a release he refused to give her, this man who tormented her flesh.
Who wasn’t her husband.
Or was he?
She couldn’t distinguish dream from reality, and it didn’t matter. Her body’s release from this exquisite agony was the only thing on which her mind could focus, the only thought she could allow herself.
And when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, when her flesh had been reduced to a quivering mass of nerve endings, when she was so swollen with need, she hurt, her body exploded in a firestorm.
And through the kaleidoscope of colors that spun faster and faster to suck her into unconsciousness, she realized with despairing finality that Sebastian had never been there, and she understood she would never see him again.

Cassie opened her eyes. She felt terrible. Her head pounded. Her body hurt. With the tiniest of movements, isolated little patches of pain flowed into one massive ache, with the center point right between her thighs.
She couldn’t remember why she felt this way.
She couldn’t remember what she had been doing.
She couldn’t remember.
Her last clear memory was of returning to this cavern from the tunnels. She remembered eating and then she must have fallen asleep. She forced herself to sit up, and groaned as pain speared through her.
At the edge of her consciousness a memory flickered—an image of nightmarish quality. Then it was gone and, try as she might, she couldn’t recapture it.
What had happened to her? Then she remembered the Mogton’s promise made on the day of her arrival in this place, and knew with utter despair he had kept that promise.
She would never leave this place alive. Because she knew that he would come again. And the next time, or the time after that, or the time after that, he would require her fully conscious participation in the act. And while her body might survive, her mind would be destroyed.
She closed her eyes and struggled to block from her imagination what must have occurred. The reality of it couldn’t possibly be more terrible than her imaginings. Then from the darkest recesses of her memory, a tiny image emerged and grew. It refused to be banished even though she couldn’t bear to contaminate it with her current thoughts.
Sebastian.
Sebastian smiling tenderly, lovingly, leaning over her, thoroughly satisfied and satiated, delighted with her and himself.
Tears pooled in her eyes, and crept down her cheeks, and she threw back her head and screamed her need for him. The sound echoed and reechoed from the deep chasm above. She collapsed on the sleeping platform and wept her heart out, exhausting herself in a storm of emotion. Nothing mattered anymore. The only question was, how long would she have to endure this terrible ordeal?
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Later, much later, as she lay quietly, tears spent, staring at nothing, a whisper of a sound caught her attention. She turned her head listlessly and saw one of the females standing behind her. The woman hurried to place the food she carried on the sleeping platform beside Cassie. She immediately drew back and stumbled over her own feet. In her face, Cassie saw pure, unqualified terror. The woman released a wail as they made eye contact, turned and bolted.
Puzzled by the odd behavior, Cassie sat up and looked around the deserted cavern. Nervous indifference had become pure fear in at least one of her captors. Why?
The food disinterested her. She turned away and hunched herself over her updrawn knees.
“Eat!”
The unexpected harsh command made her shriek with fright. She had thought she was alone. Now here he stood, towering over her, cloaked in impatience, power and menace. Obsession, he had called her. An addiction. Perhaps, but there was no softness or caring in him. He might want her for now, but she had seen how easily he could snuff out life. She had no defense against him. She shrank back, terrified, as he approached, knowing yet not knowing what he had done to her and could do again.
He picked up a bowl and thrust it at her.
“Eat!” he commanded again. “You need your strength. Your body is weak. I will lose you soon enough, but not before I’m ready to do so.”
“You’ll kill me?” she whispered.
He shrugged. A slow, cruel smile stretched across his face. “Eventually. Your body is not conditioned to withstand multiple matings with a Mogton. Each time will be worse than the last.” He set the bowl of food down again as she made no move to take it. After a short silence, during which she could do nothing but sit and tremble with horror and despair, he spoke again tauntingly, “You remember nothing of our first mating, do you? But you know it happened. The sis-ka’la drug is a powerful hallucinogen. Unfortunately, it also numbs and erases memory.”
The hideous smile deepened, and he leaned closer. “So, I’ll tell you what happened. You performed magnificently, better, far better than I had hoped or expected. You gave me exquisite, intoxicating pleasure, just as I knew you would. But more importantly, the ritual of Thanglea was an unqualified success. Even now, word of my victory is spreading to the other colonies. I, Overlord, conquered the living spirit of the sis-ka’la, absorbed its power, but deflected its destructive abilities. My leadership is assured.”
The hollow eyes absorbed her into their bottomless depths again, swallowed her, destroyed her willpower, made her dizzy. She tore her gaze away. “What makes you so sure of that? You don’t believe I’m the spirit of the sis-ka’la. Why should they?”
“Oh, but they do. The drug has controlled our race for uncounted generations. Not one of our people has seen eyes the color of the sis-ka’la before. Your appearance heralded the season of Thanglea and was too coincidental. They believe without reservation. Have no doubt about that. Our next mating, this time observed by the leaders of the other colonies, will establish their ultimate acceptance.”
He leaned over her now. The hot, sweet breath washed over her in sickening waves. His massive hair-covered shoulders filled her vision as she desperately tried to avoid his eyes and the terrible lust that twisted his features.
He pulled her to a sitting position, picked up the bowl of food and thrust it at her again. “Eat,” he commanded again, “or I’ll have it forced into you.”
Cassie closed her eyes and turned her head. It was easier to resist him when she could shut out the shadowy nothingness of those eyes that compelled her to simply give in. He growled with anger. A large hand closed around her nape and jerked her
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head back. Her eyes flew open as pain radiated through the back of her skull and across her shoulders, and she stared straight into soulless pools of blackness and was lost. Even as her will seeped away, she whispered defiantly, “I won’t. The food is drugged.”
“Yes. Believe me, sweet Sis-ka’la, it’s better this way.” He lifted a morsel of food and pressed it against her lips.

The bed shuddered and heaved beneath her, and she opened her eyes to see the spinning vortex of white light above her. Dreamily, she watched it, fascinated by the twisting motion that faded in and out of itself. The sleeping platform trembled again and the columns surrounding it swayed gently like saplings in a strong breeze.
Curious.
She felt neither concern nor fear, anchored as she was by a slender thread to the solidness beneath her. She drifted in pleasant, lazy contentment without need or conscious thought or will to do anything different.
A sudden eruption of sound was too faint, too distant to hold her attention for more than a few seconds. She closed her eyes and heard her mother’s laughing voice. It encouraged her to try again, to concentrate, to stay afloat in the warm, dense waters of Saratan’s bubbling cave springs, when she kept allowing herself to be sucked under the surface to watch the tiny creatures that wove in and out of the sparkling fronds of surea grass that formed a magical forest on the sides of the deep wells.
Another explosion, louder and closer, disturbed the treasured memory only briefly. Cassie sighed, turned over on her belly and pillowed her head on her arms. Her mother called her again, told her it was time to leave. Another deeper voice added its own persuasion.
Father.
She knew it was time to go. The cruiser that had brought them and ten others was waiting. They had to leave before the daily winds became too strong and made the treacherous terrain even more difficult to navigate. But she couldn’t bring herself to move. She hung suspended in the water as it pushed and surged against her, reluctant to leave this comforting cradle, this fascinating miniature underwater world.
Hard arms, warm and familiar, took her and held her in their embrace.
Father!
No, not her father. Sebastian.
“Cassie?”
The voice was distant, indistinct. But she knew it, and she turned toward it, reaching out blindly.
Sebastian’s beloved image wavered in front of her. His features were blurred and, for some reason, she couldn’t focus enough to determine his expression but, without a doubt, it was Sebastian. His blond hair was more shaggy than ever. He needed a haircut and she wondered if she could persuade him to trim those thick, unruly locks. The thought of Sebastian sitting still long enough to submit to the attentions of a personal care specialist in one of those private cells in the Marketplace made her laugh.
The features before her shifted, changed shape. The hands clasped on her shoulders tightened, clamped down, hurt her. A wave of sickly sweet air washed over her.
It was happening again.
Sebastian had deserted her again and left her at the mercy of this monster. And in the dim corners of her mind, something shrieked a warning, told her she had been here before, that he had done something terrible to her.
She bucked and lashed out, determined to fend off the horror. A scream of outrage and anger erupted from her throat. But her body betrayed her. She felt her strength seep rapidly out of her and despair overwhelmed her.
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Sebastian stared at the whimpering woman who thrashed and tossed with weak ineffectual movements under his hands. She had seemed to recognize him briefly, but she was clearly under the influence of a drug and hallucinating, and now seemed to be trying to escape him. Physically, she appeared well enough, but his tortured thoughts refused to relinquish the question of what she might have endured.
Without warning the great cavernous space was plunged into blackness. Prepared, he had already activated the beam on his shoulder pack, and now it shone directly into Cassie’s face.
“Sir?”
His head snapped up. Belatedly, he remembered Cassie’s nakedness and hastily tore off his light survival jacket and shirt. Easily fending off her ineffectual attempts to strike him, he pulled the shirt over her head and then shrugged back into his jacket.
“Sir?” The voice of his young officer now came from directly behind him and brought with it additional illumination. “We’ve shut down the core of the complex. They’re blind now without the wall sensors.”
“Excellent. Number still at large?”
“We have five, including two women, cornered in one of their steam rooms. There’s no way out. We’ll have them neutralized in minutes.” He hesitated, then said with obvious reluctance, “Several made it into a surface corridor before we shut off the core, but we have a team waiting for them up there. There’s no place else for them to go.”
Sebastian’s heart contracted with dread. He knew instinctively that the one he sought had once again eluded them for now. He swore viscously under his breath. He couldn’t fail her again. “Put every available man up there. And check again. Make sure there are no other exits. If he escapes, I’ll have the merit crystals of every man in this unit.”
He was being unreasonably harsh, and he knew it. This Overlord had eluded him for months, taunted him by continuing to expand his activities, even as other parts of his network were shut down or destroyed. And then he had stolen Sebastian’s wife. He had an uncanny ability to simply vanish, then show up in a distant star system, and the chase would begin again. But this time, they had the advantage. The surprise attack on the distribution center in one of the many underground halls on Treaine had been complete. So complete, they had managed to take several people alive, including a Mogton. The mind probes, employed instantly, had yielded enough information to locate this place, and understand enough of its configuration and defenses to disable the nerve center of the colony with little effort. The glowing walls that not only provided illumination but also traced and identified all movement now stood darkened and ineffective, the incessant hum finally silenced.
“What?” Preoccupied with holding Cassie’s legs still to preserve her modesty, Sebastian became aware that his officer had spoken again.
“How is she, sir?”
“She’s hallucinating. They’ve probably kept her on shlil dust.” Another explosion caused the ground to shudder. “We should go.”
He bent forward and tried to gather Cassie in his arms. A surprisingly strong blow caught the side of his face and a small heel drummed painfully on his thigh, perilously close to his crotch. He grunted, and tried again to gather up his wife. She had become a wild thing. Arms and legs flew everywhere. He concentrated on trying to subdue her flailing limbs long enough to pick her up, but he wasn’t prepared when she twisted, reared and bit him hard on the hand.
“Aargh.” He jerked back and stared in disbelief at the blood welling from his punctured skin.
“Sir?”
“Stay back!” Sebastian snapped. His patience was fast wearing thin, but, by the balls of Sortor, he could handle his
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own wife. An ominous rumble spurred him to action. When he grabbed at her, he barely avoided being bitten again. He had no time to deal with the demons that drove her. The rumble was growing in volume. Swiftly, he twisted an arm behind her back and, with his free hand, he tapped her neatly under her chin. As she slumped, unconscious, he caught her and heaved her over his shoulder.
He ignored the shocked expression on the other man’s face. “Let’s go!”
Guided by their locator bead, they moved without hesitation in the direction of the tunnel from which both had emerged not long before. Behind them, a sharp staccato crackle fractured the air and pounded painfully on their ear drums. Sebastian glanced back and spared a precious moment to watch as one of the tunnel entrances simply dissolved before his eyes.
Then there was no more time.
Shifting his burden on his shoulder, he broke into an easy jog to catch up with his officer. The journey to the surface was accomplished quickly, the portal in the walls which had been invisible to Cassie easily located.
The news was not good.
The surface team had waged a fierce battle with the group of surviving Mogtons. One Mogton had died, but Sebastian had also lost two men. And a number of the creatures had escaped. They had disappeared into the barren wasteland, vanished into the gray soil and, so far, the most sophisticated scanners available to the Mariltar warrior force hadn’t been able to track them.
Even as Sebastian received the briefing, a high pitched whine filled the air. The group scattered, scrambling for cover, as one of the multiple shallow mounds dotting the terrain broke apart and a mid-class Mogton warrior vessel burst through. Three Strikers on patrol overhead descended, fire beams blazing, to drive it away from the men on the ground.
As the vessels vanished in the distance followed closely by two of the most sophisticated and powerful battlecruisers in the Mariltar fleet, a voice behind Sebastian said, “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll finish them off.”
Nodding automatically in acknowledgement, Sebastian wished he were as confident. Rage and a terrible helplessness surged within him. Cassie would never be safe as long as that creature still breathed. For a brief moment, he struggled with the overpowering urge to commandeer one of his pilot’s Strikers. With all his heart, he wished that he were the hunter in pursuit of that elusive, and cunning prey. The flame of revenge was hot and strong, and the burning pain in his gut would only be quenched with the knowledge that the monster who had tormented his wife had been annihilated.
But he had to place his trust in his men, let someone else try to accomplish what he had been unable to for all those months. He had a more urgent concern. His wife needed attention, and he had to ensure her safety. This time, he wouldn’t fail at that.
Then, he vowed, as he looked at the empty horizon and shifted his precious burden, then he would settle the debt.
238 J.A. CLARKE

Chapter 21

? ? ?

Something tickled her ear. She raised a hand to rub the spot, only to have the annoying sensation return as soon as her hand was removed.
She turned her head on the cloud of softness beneath her. She didn’t want to wake up. She was too comfortable and wanted to recapture the wonderful dream she had been having. Just as she was sinking back into unconsciousness, she felt the tickle on exactly the same spot on her other ear. Irritation coursed through her and banished the dregs of sleep. But still she refused to let reality claim her just yet. She groaned and tossed her head, tried to dislodge whatever it was that was determined to disturb her. Her fists clenched on a loose fabric covering, and she hauled it over her face.
The cover was promptly lifted, and the persistent tickling continued, a sensation as light as the fronds of a molai traced across her eyelids, her nose, her mouth. She giggled in spite of herself and opened her eyes to a dream.
“Sebastian?”
“Hello, love.” He leaned over her, propped on one elbow, a wicked grin stretching his mouth. But his eyes, his beautiful golden eyes were dark with shadows she had never seen before.
“Sebastian?” Her voice wavered. She reached up a shaky hand to touch his face. Was this real? Was he real? It seemed she had dreamed him once before, and the dream had turned into a vicious nightmare. She wasn’t sure that she was awake, wasn’t sure she had left that floating dream state behind, couldn’t really believe that he was here. She was dizzy. The remnants of the spinning white vortex still flashed in irregular patterns in front of her eyes.
“It’s all right, love. You’re safe on a Mariltar vessel.”
“Oh!” Reluctantly, her eyes left his beloved features to examine what she could see of the unfamiliar, spartan room. The oppressive heat and humidity were gone, and the environment was pleasant, comfortable. She wasn’t completely convinced, and he must have seen her uncertainty when she turned her eyes to him again. He gathered her with care in his arms and held her gently as if she were as fragile as one of her orcan flowers.
She tensed but he only cuddled her, his face pressed against the side of hers. A swath of her hair prevented skin to skin contact and she smelled what he must have smelled—the odd earthy fragrance that saturated the dark strands. It was another hated reminder of what she had come from, and there were so many such reminders.
She squeezed her eyes closed. She was dressed in what appeared to be one of his shirts which revealed a lot of bare skin. “How did I get here?”
He drew back to look at her. “What do you remember, love?” She frowned in fierce concentration. Accepting for now that he was real, she leaned against him. “The–the last thing I remember w–was I was in the cavern, and–and you were there, but it wasn’t you. It was the Mogton, Overlord. He was t–trying t–to…” Another deep shudder shook her body, and she turned her face against his neck.
“No, love. It was me. You have a strong concentration of shlil dust in your body and you were hallucinating. I brought you out of there. The Mogton habitation is completely destroyed.”
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She thought about what he had said. It was odd, but she felt absolutely nothing—neither relief nor satisfaction nor anything else. Just nothing. In a small voice, she asked, “Is he dead?”
“No.” There was heavy regret in Sebastian’s voice. “He escaped. But we’ll find him. He won’t hurt you again.”
He slid a hand under her chin and touched her on a spot that was incredibly tender. She winced with pain.
“Sorry, love. I forgot.”
She moved her jaw. “It aches.”
“I know, love. I had to knock you out. I’m sorry.”
“You did? Why?”
“You were hallucinating and fighting me. The caverns were collapsing. It was the only thing I could do.”
He hung his head, looking so contrite and miserable, she wanted to smile. But she had to drive the terrible shadows from his eyes. “I thought you didn’t believe in abusing females.”
He jerked his head up. “I didn’t do—I don’t. I’ll make it up to you, I swear it.”
She instantly regretted her poor attempt at humor. He looked so shocked and horrified. But then his face relaxed. His lips twitched. “You’re teasing me.” It was a shadow of the old Sebastian, but it was better than nothing.
“Can I have something for it?” She touched her jaw again.
“I’m sorry, love,” he said again. “I would have given you a pain neutralizer before now, but you still have a heavy residue of drug in your system. I’ve consulted with specialists on Dorina and they want to make a thorough examination before deciding on a course of treatment. Shlil dust can be very volatile, and produces different reactions in people.”
She swallowed and nodded, his words a spoken reminder that much remained to be said between them. “Sebastian, you’re not really a trader, are you?”
The golden eyes flared with surprise. For a moment he hesitated and she felt the familiar coldness of despair chill her body. Even now, after all they had been through, he couldn’t trust her to tell her the truth.
Then he shook his head slowly. “No, love. I’m a captain with the Seventh Fleet of Mariltar, bound by allegiance to Alex Mariltar.” He grasped her shoulders and gazed deeply into her eyes. “The time for deception is past. From now on, there will be only truth between us. The trader role was a cover used to search out and infiltrate the tentacles of shlil dust trade that had crossed the border into the Crestar System. How did you know?”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “I didn’t. I suspected something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what it was.” Her heart hammered in her chest. She paused, then said, “He told me. It was so strange. As soon as he started talking, everything suddenly made sense.”
Tears threatened to choke her. “Sebastian, why did I have to hear it from him? Why couldn’t you trust me?”
“It wasn’t a question of trust, love. I thought I could protect you better by not telling you, and I still think that. There was so much at stake, so many others at risk. I thought you were safe enough on Treaine with the Mariltar security forces watching over you. But we misjudged terribly and I’ll never forgive myself. Believe me, love, there were so many times I wanted to talk to you about what I was doing. I saw the doubt in your eyes, the questions, and it hurt more than you’ll ever know that I had to deceive you.”
Beyond the pain and distress, Cassie saw at last what she had sought so many times before—the truth. He had finally revealed himself to her and, if they were to move forward, she had to expose her truth as well. She took a deep breath and turned her face away as she struggled to find the courage. She couldn’t watch his reaction. “I–I don’t know this for sure, be–because of the drugs, but–but I think he d–did something to me, Sebastian. I th–think he—”
A great sigh escaped him, and the arms holding her tightened around her and threatened to squeeze the breath from
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her. He knew the truth, she realized, and probably knew more than she did.
“We can deal with this, love—and overcome it. What we have between us is too strong and too rare to be crushed by this. You do believe that, don’t you? And you do know that I love you?”
She closed her eyes as he buried his face in her hair again. He had said it. But would it be enough to get them through what lay ahead, to overcome the fears, the deep sense of violation even though no real memory supported it, the nightmares that had characterized the nights of her first months on Treaine and now would again? Her greatest fear was that, as long as Overlord remained at large, she was at risk and it could happen again. Sebastian couldn’t be around all the time to protect her.
She felt a strange sensation at the top of her head where his cheek rested and drew back a little to examine his face. With steady calmness, his golden eyes gazed back at her. His expression revealed no shame at the trace of moisture on his cheeks. Her strong, fearless, warrior husband was shedding tears.
All her nurturing instincts swelled fiercely within her. She flung her arms around his neck and covered his face with frantic kisses, wanting, for now, to reassure him. The doubts and fears were still there, but she buried them as deeply as she could. His chuckle, as they fell backwards together on the bed, sounded like a sweet chord of music in her ears. She continued to kiss every fragment of exposed skin until he begged for mercy, rolled her over, pinned her down with a heavy thigh across her legs, and pulled her hands above her head.
All of a sudden, a frightening image loomed at the edges of her memory. Dream or reality? She didn’t know, and it scared her. Abruptly, Sebastian released her and moved to the side, not touching her at all, but watching her closely. She felt abandoned but couldn’t object. Instead, she rolled her head to look at him. “What happens now? Are we going home?”
He absently picked up a strand of her hair and rolled it between his fingers. “No, not just yet. We—I thought you might enjoy some rest and relaxation, a completely different environment. We go to Dorina, a pleasure city.”
Where the medical specialists are, she added silently to herself.
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Chapter 22

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Crestar System; Dorina Asteroid

Dorina.
Beautiful, serene Dorina.
Created for pleasure. Created for relaxation.
A place to meditate. A place to heal.
The city floated high above the asteroid’s surface, its multi-layered modular units tethered to solid ground only by long, fine, flexible cables. Every guestroom was afforded a spectacular and breathtaking view of sweeping fields of jagged, laser sharp rock that jutted in irregular waves. Completely transparent, the rock glowed first amber, then crimson, sapphire and silver depending on how the light reflected through it. It was a fabulous display, and more than one guest had been hypnotized into observing it for hours.
The city was a favorite destination among those who sought pure relaxation and more solitary pursuits, but was known as well for its effective trauma treatments. While each guest was assigned a space that was completely private, the city’s architecture, inspired by the host asteroid’s mild climate, left much of each room wide open to take advantage of the spectacular views. Small floating disks whisked each guest upon arrival to their assigned units, where most would spend the duration of their stay without seeing another soul or exploring other parts of the city.
On the first day, Cassie found the courage to wander over to the ornate railing which ran around two-thirds of the room’s perimeter, the only barrier, it appeared, and an insubstantial one at that, between her and the plunge to the planet’s inhospitable surface.
Her stomach heaved in protest as she approached the barrier, and she came to a stop still some distance away. It was ironic that Sebastian would bring her to such a place when he knew about her terrible aversion to heights. But then, Sebastian had other motivations and most definitely also had other things on his mind.
The trip to Dorina had taken three days, one day longer than expected, and she had seen little enough of him during that time. A massive storm, filled with erratic, deadly currents, and potentially damaging twister bolts had lain directly in their path, and was too big to circumvent. It had demanded the full attention of the small crew of the Mariltar warrior vessel to navigate through it.
Sebastian had checked on her frequently, but there was an awkwardness between them that had never been there before and she didn’t know how to overcome it. She wanted desperately to talk, but was afraid to explore his feelings about what had happened to her, terrified that it might have permanently damaged their still new and fragile relationship despite the assurances he had given.
And she still hovered in a limbo of not clearly knowing what had happened. She suspected Sebastian knew more and since he wasn’t talking, she wondered if the truth was too horrible to reveal. When he made no attempt to bring up the subject again, she avoided it as well. They would have plenty of time to delve into the painful issue later, she convinced herself. It 246 J.A. CLARKE

was, after all, the principal reason for the trip to Dorina.
Besides, it was obvious from the brief periods he did spend with her, he needed to rest. But her heart grew heavier as each day passed. Sebastian’s attitude toward her was clearly different. He held her and kissed her, but it was without a lover’s passion. Gone too was the light-hearted teasing filled with sexual innuendo that had so characterized their earlier relationship, and had often been a source of great irritation. Now its absence raised doubts and questions which fed a liquid, growing pool of pain inside her.
Soon after their arrival on Dorina, he had excused himself and left her, saying he’d be back shortly. But it was two hours later, and he was still gone. Misery and imagination started to get the better of her as she alternately believed something dreadful had happened to him, or he had forgotten about her altogether in the pursuit of his own pleasure. She swallowed back tears and scolded herself, then tried to convince herself without much success that her thoughts were without foundation.
She wasn’t sure what attractions the city offered. Sebastian had described it as a pleasure city, but that could mean many different things. He had also told her it would be a chance to spend time together without the many distractions of their day-to-day responsibilities on Treaine. But, she reminded herself again, it was also a place where she would undergo treatment to help her deal with her ordeal with the Mogtons.
So where was he now? Why wasn’t he here spending the promised time with her? Anger began to burn through her. She wrapped her arms around herself. A sudden urge to just let go and scream.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she turned once more to the panorama spread out before her and watched, blindly at first and then with growing interest, as crimson lightened to palest pink, then blended into a deep sapphire.
After a while, the light display began to soothe her. She found herself becoming curiously light-headed. Giving in to the not unpleasant sensation, she sank down into the cushioned comfort of a large, body-molding floor bolster. From far off in the distance came a thread of music, soft and sweet, and somehow infinitely reassuring.
She leaned her head back and allowed the combined sensations of sight and sound to wash the troubled thoughts from her mind.

The cool brush of air across her naked skin roused her. The front of her body was exposed and chilled. Her back was pushed up against a source of comforting warmth. A heavy weight lay across her waist. Disoriented, she examined her surroundings in the dim light of the chamber.
Memory quickly returned. This was the unit assigned to them on Dorina. The same strains of music she had heard earlier were still present, fading in and out. And, from where she lay, she could see the glow of changing colors, more muted now in the twilight that had settled over the city.
She didn’t remember undressing.
She rolled her head around. Sebastian’s face, relaxed in sleep, came into view. Hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing him, she examined his beloved features. She had never noticed before how ridiculously thick his eyelashes were, but then she had never had the opportunity to study him this minutely before. Usually, he was in constant motion and it took most of her energy just to keep up with him. Fanning his cheeks as they did at this moment, the thick lashes gave him a vulnerable appearance. Sleep softened and youthened the ruggedness of his features, and a stray length of his unruly blond hair straggled across his cheek. He looked like an overgrown boy but, as her gaze shifted to the massive shoulders, she was reminded that the boy had a man’s powerful body.
Her neck began to ache from the awkward position. To relieve the pressure on it, but not willing to give up looking 248 J.A. CLARKE

just yet, she swiveled her lower body toward him.
A streak of desire shot through her. Her bottom had nudged up against a thick, hard protrusion. Sebastian might be sleeping, but one part of him was definitely awake.
Was he sleeping?
She examined his face again. He slept on. His deep, steady breathing and innocent, relaxed expression convinced her he wasn’t pretending.
She turned until she lay facing him. His arm was still draped across her waist, but now his penis nudged at her belly. If she slid upward just a little way, maybe, just maybe, she would be in the right position to wriggle herself onto him. Liquid heat and a deep, pleasurable ache had begun with startling suddenness between her legs. She wanted him deep inside her with a fierce, desperate urgency, unlike anything she had known before.
But first, she wanted to touch him, to explore the hard body while he slept on unaware. It was a deliciously exciting thought. She shivered again, more from anticipation now than the coolness in the chamber, picked up his arm and rested it on the side of his body.
There was no reaction.
She held her breath and slid a hand down her own body to avoid touching his until she reached her ultimate goal. Alert for the slightest twitch, the smallest alteration in the deep, even breathing, she closed her fingers around heat and hardness sheathed in velvet. It jerked in her hand with a life of its own but, still, there was no change in expression on the sleeping features. She took her time and allowed her fingers to make a slow exploration of the length of him. The texture and ridged smoothness of his skin, the coarse, springy hair surrounding his hardness, and the soft sacs she took into the palm of her hand delighted her.
The urgency of her need escalated to pleasure-pain. She pulled her hand away, pushed herself upward on the bed and lifted one leg over his hip. As she reached down again to position him at her entrance, she braced herself for the final push onto him.
With a suddenness that took her breath away, she found herself flat on her back and staring up into Sebastian’s amused, and very wide awake face.
“Starting without me, love?”
“Well, it took you long enough,” she grumbled, mortified by the realization he must have been awake the whole time.
The wicked grin flashed. “Didn’t want to wake up. I was having this very delightful and stimulating dream.”
“Was I in it?”
“Not sure.” He picked up her hand and examined it, then wiggled the fingers. “Must have been. These fingers were there.”
She giggled. This was the old Sebastian, playful, teasing and—as the heavy pressure against her thighs proved—very aroused.
“Are you sure?” She snatched her hand back, reached down and grabbed him. He jumped and groaned. And groaned louder as her hand began to stroke him.
“No doubt about it.” He slumped forward and buried his face in her neck. His tongue licked her in slow, tiny feather strokes, that created an exquisite pleasure. She squirmed underneath him, impatient with the tender ministrations she normally adored. He made no other move to touch her and her desperation mounted. Now that he was conscious, she badly needed him to take an aggressive lead, wanted him to possess her thoroughly, needed this very tangible sign she belonged to him.
She couldn’t wait any longer.
With a show of strength and boldness, she heaved him backwards, climbed astride him, and prepared to sheathe him in her body, only to find herself caught and held in an iron grip.
“No, love. We need to talk.”
“Sebastian,” she wailed. “Not now. I don’t want to—”
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“Yes, now,” he said and rolled her over on her back. “You’re not ready for this, Cassie.”
“I am!” she cried in fury. In fear and frustration, she lashed out. “You don’t want me anymore. I don’t remember what happened to me, but you know, don’t you? It repels you, doesn’t it?” Helpless tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head, not wanting to see the pity and revulsion in his face. For a moment, she teetered on a precipice, a great, yawning pit of despair. She was about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
Then she felt him grab her hand.
“Does this tell you I’m repelled, love?” His voice was husky and tender in her ear as he closed her hand around warmth and hardness. “I don’t think so. I want you very badly and I love you, Cassie. I blame myself for what happened, for not protecting you, and for as long as I live, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Then w–why won’t you make love to me?”
“Because, physically, you’re not recovered enough.”
She gave a choked sob. “What do you mean?”
“Mogton physical characteristics are different than ours. The two races are not sexually compatible.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Cassie,” he said, and gathered her close. “Be patient, love. You’re healing already. You should be fully healed in a few more days.”
“But I feel fine.”
He sighed and nuzzled her hair. “I know, love, but you’re not. He—he only had you once. It would have been progressively worse with each time. You wouldn’t have survived very many times.”
The raw pain in his voice tore at her battered emotions. She shifted to look him full in the face. His features were tense and she caught a glimpse of an expression in his eyes that sent a stab of terror through her.
It wasn’t over and would never be as long as the Mogton lived.
Because her husband harbored a killing rage within him.
“Sebastian, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry, love.” He released her abruptly, then stared in regret at the red marks left on her arms where he had gripped her. Gently, he rubbed at them. “You’ll have bruises.”
“I’m all right.” She reached up to stroke his face, feeling a fierce need to reassure him. “He mentioned something like that. I didn’t really know what he meant. But I’m all right, Sebastian. I remember very little, and you say it’s because of the drugs. I just have these vague disconnected dream-like images in my mind that seem more like something from a nightmare than reality. I feel I should have a sense of invasion, of violation—but I don’t remember. Sebastian?”
“Mmm?”
“Please don’t go after him. He wants to kill you. He wants to kill you as much as he wanted me. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.” With a strange detachment, she heard her tone become frantic and hysterical.
“Cassie.” His tone was stern. “You are not going to lose me, love. I have survival skills few others have. Besides,” his voice gentled and he leaned over to brush a kiss across her lips, “as much as I want to neutralize him, I won’t take unnecessary risks. You and I have only just begun.”
She twisted her head away from him and ignored the rush of sensation. She had to convince him. “Promise me you won’t go after him. Let someone else do it this time.”
He leaned his forehead against her temple. “I can’t make that promise, love. I know him better than anyone. If anyone can destroy him, it’s me. And he has to be destroyed, Cassie. He’s the heart of the evil, the critical piece that pumps the lifeblood to the rest of the network. We can cut off pieces here and there, but they’ll just grow back somewhere else. Cut out the heart, and we’ve dealt a mortal blow. The whole network 252 J.A. CLARKE

will wither and die, at least for a while.”
She stilled and turned her face away so he couldn’t read her expression.
“Cassie?”
She ignored him, tried to breathe through the pain in her chest.
“Cassie?” He shook her shoulder.
She swung around, struggling to hold back the burning tears that threatened again, and said with absolute certainty, “He’ll kill you.”
“I’m not going to let him kill me, love. Have a little faith in my abilities.”
“You’re going after him, then? No matter what I say or how I feel?”
“Balls of Sortor, I have a job to do, love. It’s not about what I want or you want. It’s about what has to be done.”
“You’ll just go off and get yourself killed because it’s your job?” She wasn’t being fair and she knew it. She saw his frustration mount. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Strangely, she relished his reaction. He had always been so thoroughly in control of himself. Perversely, she wanted to see him lose his temper, wanted to see that incredible patience slip a little.
“Of course there’s always that possibility.” His gaze bored into hers. He wouldn’t even give her false reassurances. This was the truthful Sebastian, she reminded herself bitterly. “But I’ll have a powerful force to support me. The Seventh Fleet of Mariltar is the most highly trained and elite fighting unit in the System.”
“Then why haven’t you caught him before now?”
Annoyance and anger flashed across his face, but his voice remained patient. “We understand him better now and, this time, he won’t escape. I don’t deny that the Mogton is a formidable enemy, Cassie. He’s cunning, quick, and seemingly invisible. But we know more about him now than we have ever known. We know his retreats, his hiding places, know his routes, have a good idea of where he will surface next. And he has been greatly weakened by the attack on his colony.”
There was a deep conviction in his words. His expression commanded her to accept his belief, to ignore her fears and feelings. The effect was quite the opposite. The seed of panic swelled and grew with the certainty that if he persisted in this quest, she would lose him.
His next words did nothing to reassure her. “I am not going to get myself killed, love.”
“You can’t resist, can you?” She couldn’t draw a deep breath. It hurt too much. “You like putting yourself in these ridiculously dangerous situations. Does it make you feel like more of a man?” She shoved at his shoulder and pushed away from him in an attempt to shut him out, a small revenge for the discounting of her fears.
He wouldn’t allow her even that small satisfaction. Visibly annoyed now, he pulled her back and thrust his face close to hers. “Cassie, love, nobody likes dangerous situations, but I have a level of training and skill set few others have. I’m not going to recklessly endanger my own life, or others for that matter. I wouldn’t hold the rank I do in the Mariltar fleet if that were the case.”
“Why did they have to choose you for this mission?”
“Cassie!” The word was shouted and shocked them both. They stared at each other. It was the first time she had ever heard him raise his voice in anger.
He groaned and rolled over, breaking contact with her altogether. And she suddenly felt bereft. She had achieved what she thought she wanted so badly. He had lost his temper. And she felt worse than ever. She watched him wipe a hand across his face. It was a tired, defeated gesture. “I don’t know what more I can say to you, love.”
“Sebastian?” Her voice was little more than a frightened whisper, but he heard it and turned his head. Once again, his expression was calm, but his eyes brightened with concern when he saw the tears trickling down her cheeks. He reached 254 J.A. CLARKE

for her, dragged her back into his arms and hugged her.
Cassie gulped and spoke into the reassuring warmth and hardness of his chest. “I do understand that you have to do this. I really do. I hate it, but I do understand. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Nothing is going to happen to me, love. The House of Mariltar would have my merit crystals and my rank, which I’ve grown quite attached to.” He poked her in the ribs. “Can’t find the kind of perks that go with the position just anywhere. Nor would I want to face Alex Mariltar if I let this Mogton get the best of me, especially when I have a whole fleet to support me. Come to think of it,” he added thoughtfully, “I don’t know who terrifies me more— my wife or my commanding officer.”
She stifled a slightly hysterical giggle. It really wasn’t funny and she wasn’t ready to dismiss the issue, but he was stroking her back and, gradually, she allowed herself to relax. The embers of the fire he had so abruptly quenched earlier stirred to life again and she arched into his touch and slid a leg over his hip to pull him closer. He hesitated. She moaned in frustration, and pulled him closer still to cover his chest in frantic kisses.
She danced her hands over his body, nuzzled against his neck and licked at him until he groaned with pleasure. Then she bent to whisper soft pleas in his ear and, with delight, saw his legendary willpower begin to crumble beneath the heated onslaught of mindless desire. But not quite.
Without warning, he tossed her on her back, grabbed her hands and held them still at her side while he kissed his way down between her breasts, over her belly and into the cradle of her hips. She whimpered a protest. He ignored it, as his mouth grazed the hair curling at the vee of her thighs. He inserted one knee, then a second between her legs and released her hands so he could use his own to spread her even further apart. She understood what he intended and was powerless to resist. At the first touch of his warm tongue against her moist, aching folds of flesh, she jerked against him. He held her, drove her into a frenzy with each nibble and stroke. She wanted to beg him to stop, but couldn’t form the words. She wanted to escape the sweet torture, but found herself pushing against the source of torment. Then his finger joined his tongue, and she lost her last vestige of control. She writhed and bucked under the restraining hand until, unbelievably, she heard herself scream as she fell apart.
He pulled himself up to lie beside her and she snuggled against him. Her face burned. Tremors still shuddered deep in her body. His hand under her chin urged her face upward. Shyly, she met the burning golden gaze and all embarrassment fled before the fierce, possessive look she saw there. His lips descended to claim hers hungrily.
She smoothed her hand over the curve of his tight buttock. His body was tense, vibrating with need but he made no other move to take her. Wriggling closer, she brushed her nipples against his chest and drifted a hand lazily across his hip where she let it fall as if by accident on his erection. For a moment, she rested it there, and reveled in the power she had over him. He groaned and made an impatient movement. Teasingly, she scraped her nail down the hard, thrusting length and bit back a giggle at the growl of warning that issued from his throat. The warning was followed by a request. She opened her eyes and smiled demurely at him.
“Like this?”
He groaned again. “Like that.”
Amazed by his reaction, Cassie learned in a few short minutes what pleased him and what drove him to the point of losing control.
But the time of shared pleasure and loving was all too fleeting and later, as they lay together in lazy contentment, Cassie found herself tensing as her thoughts turned again to his upcoming mission.
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“What is it, love?”
Somehow, his question didn’t surprise her. He understood
her far better than she understood him. “When do you leave?” He released a heavy breath. “Not for several days.” “Do I stay here?” “Yes, until I come back for you.” She turned and settled her head on his shoulder as her heart
quietly broke. “All right.”
Chapter 23

? ? ?

Sebastian paced impatiently. The small room was just large enough to contain seven of his restless strides before he had to turn again.
The situation was ridiculous. Outrageous! Beyond belief!
All his careful planning and preparation had been sabotaged by one simple little thing. His—Sebastian’s—missing authorization token, when he could have sworn he had tendered it on the day of his arrival.
Cursing inefficient procurement masters everywhere, Sebastian swung sharply around again. He should have been well on his way to a rendezvous with Rom-pin and two Mariltar Strikers by now. Instead, he was stuck in some stuffy little room waiting for a reluctant, very junior flunky to rouse someone with enough authority to clear his vessel.
How long had it been already, and just what was taking so cursed long? Cassie would be waking soon, and he wanted to be gone, with several lins of space between them, when she got his message. He had never felt so much like a coward, and he didn’t like the feeling.
They hadn’t discussed his leaving again after that heated debate on the first day. It had almost gotten out of hand. He remembered fighting back an unfamiliar feeling of panic,
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resisting the temptation to reach for the hidden pad on the side of the bed that would summon professional help for all the wrong reasons. He had known he had to do this himself and, in the end, he had almost convinced himself she understood.
But he also knew he didn’t fully understand her. Didn’t understand what brought on the rapid change in moods, the deep fears, the aversion to what he had trained his whole life to do. He should have listened harder when his friends discussed their women. Rom-pin, in particular, seemed to have excellent insight into how a female’s mind worked. He’d had to search desperately for what to say to her next, to reassure her, convince her. And his confidence in his ability to do so had been severely shaken. She hadn’t responded well to any of his reassurances and her accusations had been ridiculous. He’d been at his wits’ end. A man would instinctively know and accept there wasn’t a choice.
Nor was he sure why he was sneaking out without so much as a goodbye. He had left without waking her, without telling her again he loved her. He had left with only a light kiss on her forehead as she lay fast asleep, a few hurried words of explanation on the information console, a heart that was heavy with grief, and the suspicion he had once again betrayed her.
Perhaps it was, he thought, as he watched his hand reach for the door control and freeze, because he had come so close to losing her that he couldn’t bear to say goodbye again. The last few days had been the most contented, most loving of his life, and he couldn’t bear for them to end, didn’t want the memory of the loving and supremely happy hours to be shadowed by tears, objections and accusations. He would make it up to her, he vowed. Surely what they had would survive this one small deceit. Because, no matter what she wanted, this was what he had to do.
The pain that tormented him and twisted and squeezed at his gut had refused to abate. The monstrous batriel-ra had taken what had been his alone. Killing rage rose in him again, strong and hot and sour, surging in liquid waves as he thought of what had been done to her.
Physically and mentally, she had responded well to treatment, and the medical specialists were pleased with her progress. Their close confinement together had only fed their hunger for each other and, against his better judgement, had driven them to sexual intimacy sooner than the specialists had recommended. But, despite some initial discomfort for her, the encounter had been deeply satisfying for both of them. Their passion for one another seemed to grow and strengthen by the day, and led to creative, frequent and exhausting lovemaking. They had discovered things about each other and remembered things about themselves they hadn’t thought about or shared with others in a long time, if at all. And now the sweet memory of those whispered promises given in the twilight of soft, shifting colors, the vows made in the heat of passion came back to taunt him.
It could never have lasted, he knew. Their hunger for eachother would have faded a little, their thirst for every detail about each other’s lives eventually, gradually quenched. But why did it have to be cut off with such abruptness so soon? Too soon!
The summons had come minutes after she had fallen asleep, still making those deep-throated whimpers of contentment that, more often than not, aroused him again and drove him to new efforts. He’d been watching the play of soft shadowed colors outside, allowing them to numb his mind, and was on the verge of sleep himself. And then had come the insistent, soft hum, and his mind had jumped to full alert knowing its implications. As it turned out, the news was better than he expected. This time, the cursed, elusive Mogton hadn’t been so lucky. This time, he was cornered, and Sebastian had to be there.
He stared at the hand still stretched out to the control panel. No, he couldn’t just leave in complete disregard for protocol.
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A year ago, a month ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated, and would simply have dealt with any repercussions at a later time. But he had to think of Cassie. He was leaving her behind, and couldn’t afford to have his actions reflect on her, on her treatment. It was entirely possible—probable—that this decision would set back her recovery, but it was a risk he had to take, and had known about it and wrestled with it from the beginning.
Turning, he began to pace again, his body tense and primed with the need for action. His mind sorted through the possible complications that lay ahead while his heart yearned for the woman who still lay asleep and unsuspecting.

Panic shredded Cassie’s nerves and ripped at her patience.
Where was he? She must be on the wrong vessel or Sebastian would have been here by now.
But how could she have chosen the wrong one? The Mariltar vessels were so distinctive with their long, rounded, streamlined shapes and blank, smooth exteriors.
The docking area had been deserted when she arrived. The floating disk whisked her without need for further instruction to the only Mariltar vessel she could identify of the three in dock.
Another thought struck her, stunning her momentarily. Perhaps he had already left?
“No, no, no!” she wailed, and hugged herself. He had to be here. He just had to. There hadn’t been enough time to complete departure formalities, with which she was so familiar after being dragged around half a star system with him, and she hadn’t been that far behind him.
Whatever it was that had alerted him hadn’t roused her, but she’d known immediately when he’d left their bed. As she struggled against the drugging, insistent call of sleep, she knew instinctively that something wasn’t right, and had pinched herself fully awake. It hadn’t taken her long to realize he was leaving, even before his softly spoken message into the information console confirmed it. She forced herself to pretend sleep when he returned fully dressed to kiss her goodbye. Nothing she could say at this point would convince him, but there might be another way. In any event, she couldn’t let him leave without trying.
His vessel’s security system had been ridiculously easy to breach. The outer level, requiring palm identification, had already been disarmed in preparation for departure. The inner level had taken only five attempts. She’d smiled in spite of herself when the successful code turned out to be a sequence Sebastian had used over and over again when he’d taught her the Mariltar mind skills game to pass the time on the trading vessel. He had seemed unaware that she’d figured out his secret very early on, and she’d never confessed.
She hadn’t expected to get this far, but had thought to intercept him as he boarded, and beg him to take her along. Now she was on the vessel… and wondering what had gone wrong. Departure formalities should never be taking this long.
Again, she circled the tight confines of the navigation module, and had just convinced herself she must be on the wrong ship when a flicker of movement in the darkened docking facility caught her eye. Three men hurried toward the Mariltar vessel. The one in front strode with purpose and impatience, and seemed unaware of the other two who scurried along behind him and were barely able to keep up without running. Beyond a brief glance, she dismissed these two and focused on the tall black-clad figure of her husband.
As he drew close to the docking ramp, she saw a scowl on his features where normally there was amusement, and she panicked again. All confidence in her ability to convince him not to leave her behind vanished. Frantically, she sought a hiding place where there was none to be found. He would be in the navigation module at any moment, and he didn’t look like he was in a negotiating mood. Nor could she afford to lose.
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The thought of being left behind opened up the terrible pit of cold despair she had closed with such resolution just days before. She knew beyond a doubt if he left without her, she would never see him alive again. And, this time, because of how she felt about him, because of what they had shared, she couldn’t envision a life without him, only a great, gaping black void. She would remain incomplete, without purpose or direction.
She barely made it through the sliding panel that divided the small navigation module off from an even smaller sleeping alcove before she heard the hum of the outer door. The warrior vessel, a long-range reconnaissance vehicle, was designed to carry three people, four at the most, and the tiny compartment contained three slender sleeping platforms stacked one on top of another up the wall. There was no place to hide in the spartan room.
A thump and the sound of voices sent her leaping across the small space to the panel concealing the head. As it slid down and closed her in, she leaned her head against the coolness of the smooth surface and forced herself to take deep breaths.
Over the pounding of her heart, she strained her ears for sounds from the other side.
There was silence.
She cursed the soft thud of her heart which interfered with her ability to distinguish sounds further away.
What was going on out there?
Had the others left?
What was taking so long? Sebastian surely knew by now she was on board. The security systems on a warrior vessel had to be more sophisticated than on a simple trading vessel.
A soft, muffled crunch and then a thud against the wall set her heart racing all over again. Resigned to being discovered, she straightened up and stared at the panel, tempted to open it herself and get it over with. Instead, she clenched her fists against the impulse and did nothing. She had to give herself every chance until the very end. She could not give up. She stood tense and still for what seemed to be an eternity before it dawned on her that perhaps discovery was not imminent after all.
Weak with relief, she slid down against the wall and sat, resting her head on raised knees. And then she must have drifted off because she was jerked back to consciousness by a thump and a familiar voice saying, “Are you going to be in there much longer? I have to go.”
Muffled by the barrier between them, the tone of her husband’s voice was hard to read. Cassie heaved a sigh, and rose slowly to her feet. She had no idea how long she had been in the tube, and there was no indication the vessel had even left the dock.
Resigned to a verbal battle after all, she reached out to activate the door.
Sebastian stood propped against the wall outside, arms folded, one knee bent and an ankle crossed negligently over the other. His face was expressionless; his golden eyes shuttered. Dressed in a black survival suit that faithfully molded to every powerful muscle in his body, he was beautiful and intimidating as he towered over her even in this relaxed stance.
Seconds passed as they gazed at one another in silence. In desperation, Cassie tried to find a trace of the passionate, tender lover, the mischievous friend in this warrior’s stern image. She smoothed a hand over her tangled hair and tried to speak only to be utterly humiliated when only a squeak came out.
Sebastian shifted and straightened up. She thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch but when she checked to be sure, his face was still an emotionless mask.
“I really do have to go,” he said, with a gesture at the tube.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He was partially blocking the exit and gave no indication he was going to move. She swallowed hard
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and sidled past him. The heat of his body seared her. His eyes bored a hole in the top of her head. Although she tried hard to avoid him, her hip still brushed against his thigh and a jolt of heat went singing through her body.
Without another word, he entered the tube. Anxiously, Cassie paced back and forth in the small space, unconsciously twisting her hands together. She made a turn and glanced up as she passed the open entrance to the navigation module, then stopped and stared in shock. The deep, velvet blackness of space filled the transparent bubble. The occasional star or asteroid streaked by at a distance and suggested the speed at which they were travelling.
“See something out there that interests you?”
She jumped and whirled around to find her nose almost pressed into her husband’s broad chest. Taking the offensive, she raised her hands and pushed against him. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what?”
Warned by his tone, she looked into his face and gulped at the unfamiliar glitter in his eyes. “You’re angry, aren’t you?”
“No. Anger doesn’t begin to describe how I feel, but it’s a useless emotion at this point and doesn’t solve the problem you’ve created.” With each word, bit out in a hard, cold tone, her confidence shriveled. “The real question is—what do I do with you?”
Unable to face the expression in his eyes any longer, she dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t let you go without me. I–I didn’t want to stay there on my own and I just–I just…” Her voice trailed away. She couldn’t verbalize the absolute conviction that something terrible was going to happen. She longed for the comfort of his arms, but he made no move to offer it, and her desperation grew to find the right words to somehow convince him.

Sebastian studied his wife through narrowed eyes. He wanted nothing more than to hug her tightly and assure her everything was right with their world.
But it wasn’t.
She had put herself in terrible jeopardy with her actions, yet he couldn’t blame her too much. Most of the blame should be at his door… for not understanding the depth of her feelings, for passively assuming she understood when the issue of his departure and mission hadn’t come up again and, most of all, for failing to observe pre-departure procedures. That was an unforgivable omission on his part, and one that would have resulted in immediate demotion had he caught a subordinate failing to do the same.
But he had been so anxious to make up lost time, and the security lock had given no indication there had been a breach. How had she penetrated it anyway?
When he had reached a charted corridor and turned the vessel over to automatic navigation, he had discovered her presence almost immediately. His first impulse had been to turn around and take her back to Dorina, but he discarded it. He couldn’t afford to lose more time. The only option was to seek an acceptable alternative which, so far, the computer hadn’t identified.
His hand itched to stroke the dark head bent before him, and smooth the tangles from her hair. “Cassie, we’ve talked about this, love. I know you’re worried, but this is my job. It’s what I do. There is an element of danger, but I’ve told you before, I have a level of training few others have and I’ll have a large team of extremely skilled warriors supporting me. I cannot afford to have you as a distraction, nor do I want to expose you to any danger. You’ve been through enough. I’m putting you off at the nearest Coalition colony.”
The dark head jerked up and he was treated to a fierce scowl. “No! You can’t just dump me off like unwanted garbage. I won’t distract you, I promise. I’ll stay in here while you do what you have to do. You won’t have to see me or think about me.”
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He shook his head. “Love, it’s very likely there will be a battle. This is a warrior vessel, designed to maneuver at speeds you cannot comprehend. I don’t want to have to worry about you getting hurt. I need the freedom to employ whatever tactics I think are necessary, and I won’t have that as long as you’re on board.”
The scowl vanished, and the slender shoulders slumped in defeat. “You’ll worry about me, but not yourself. With me here, you won’t take risks that you would normally take, will you? That’s why you want to get rid of me.”
Sebastian gave in and reached out to pull her close. “No, love, never. I would never want to get rid of you. I love you, more than I possibly describe with words. I just want you out of harm’s way.”
She tilted her head back to look at him. “I love you, too,” she said in a soft, sad little voice. “And I want to grow old with you, have your children, make love with you again—not necessarily in that order.” The flash of humor in her eyes was gone in an instant.
“And we’ll do all that. Do you know you once promised me six children?”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“You’re making that up. I don’t remember.”
“But I do. I’m going to hold you to it.”
She giggled into his chest, but he could tell by the tenseness in her body she was unconvinced. He didn’t delude himself that the upcoming battle was going to be easy. The Mogton had proven himself to be a formidable enemy, wily, devious and dangerous but, this time, he was trapped and outnumbered. This time, he wouldn’t escape and, while the risk was always there, Sebastian didn’t intend to be a casualty. His team was handpicked from the elite warrior squadron of the Seventh Fleet. He had the best. This time they would succeed. If only he could convince his wife of that.
His arms tightened around her. His body automatically responded to her closeness.
“Sebastian?”
“Hmm?”
“Please?” The tone was different, husky, pleading, seductive. Her body softened and melted against his.
He grinned into her hair. She had learned her lessons well–-too well. And his body reacted instantly. But two could play at that game. He was, after all, the ultimate gamemaster.
“It’s not open for negotiation, Cassie,” he growled in her ear. He badly wanted to take the soft lobe into his mouth. “The question is, what do I do with you for now?”
“What?” Confusion replaced seductive intent.
“You don’t think I’m just going to ignore this incident, do you? A good wife of a Mariltar warrior listens to and obeys her husband. I’ve been easy on you because I played the role of one of less privileged rank. But no more!”
Amazement written on her face, Cassie stared at him. He schooled his expression to blankness and, with great effort, controlled the twitch at the corner of his lips as he turned a little to shadow his eyes and mark at his temple. They were clear indicators of his mood although he didn’t think she had learned to accurately read the signs yet.
He knew the exact moment when confusion turned to suspicion and then to outrage. He relished the coming skirmish. It would do her good to squirm. The anger he felt over her impulsive action that endangered them both still hadn’t entirely dissipated.
“What do you mean, a good Mariltar wife obeys her husband? she snapped. “I didn’t know the Mariltar nation endorsed slavery. Obedience was never part of our marriage contract. That’s something out of the Dark Ages. And—,” she jabbed her finger into his chest, “—if you think for one minute I’m going to do whatever you want me to do just because you happen to think it’s the right thing to do because of some mis
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guided belief about superior male intelligence and experience, or whatever, you’d better think again you–you overgrown hulk!”
She managed to complete the entire convoluted sentence without taking a breath. Fascinated, Sebastian almost lost track of what she was saying, and barely managed to maintain his impassive expression. “You’ve never complained about my size before,” he commented mildly.
Her mouth dropped open and her gaze fell to his crotch, then flew back up again. “I–I d–didn’t mean—Oh!” She slapped her hand against his chest. “I don’t know why I bother arguing with you. You can never be serious about anything.”
He caught her hand and held it firmly. He might be baiting her, but the situation was critical and she still didn’t understand that. “Oh, but I am very serious about this, Cassie. You’ve put this mission in jeopardy, because, even after all our discussions, you decided it was the right thing to do, without a thought as to how it might affect others.”
“And, obviously, my feelings on the subject are completely irrelevant.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you’re thinking. Just admit it!”
Sebastian ground his teeth and mentally recited the eleven steps of carthan. She was sucking him back into an argument that would lead nowhere and was distracting him from the definite purpose he had in mind.
His body tightened as he looked at her. By the sacred crystals of Sagar, she was beautiful. Her face was flushed with indignation, her eyes sparkled a deep violet-blue with anger, her body quivered with the depth of her feelings. Desire, raw and primitive, roared through him. He had to take control of the situation right now before he lost complete control of himself.

He didn’t understand.
And she couldn’t bring herself to express this deep, numbing
certainty that something terrible would happen to him if she let him out of her sight for fear it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was a risk-taker. He’d proven it time and time again. Her only hope was if she were there with him, maybe she could somehow avert the disaster she knew awaited.
He whispered something.
“What?”
“Take off your clothes.” He repeated the command in a normal tone of voice. His face, expressionless, stared back at her. A shiver ran through her.
“Why?”
“So I can decide your punishment, of course.”
The man was a maniac. She didn’t have a clue as to his intent. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she knew him at all. Lately, his moods were as unpredictable as the weather on Treaine, and changed as often as her own did, but she had the uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t always interpreting them with accuracy either. Not for the first time, the thought crossed her mind she was in love with someone not entirely in possession of all his faculties. “Wh–what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. Take off your clothes and let’s find out.”
Cassie moistened her lips. His gaze landed on that exact spot where it focused with ferocious intensity. She tore her eyes away and glanced around, wondering if she could make it through the door into the navigation module and somehow lock him in. The plan was dashed before it was even fully formulated as he seemed to read her thoughts, reached past her and touched the control panel to seal them in.
“Be an obedient wife, and listen to your husband. Take off your clothes.” This time it was a seductive, husky whisper in her ear.
She turned her head and caught the unmistakable gleam of mischief in his golden eyes and tell-tale twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then his expression froze into granite again.
An explosive outrage threatened to erupt. So he was playing
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with her, was he? She was trying to have a serious discussion and defend her position and he was making a game of it? Well, she was as good at the game as he was. Outrage evaporated into burning heat and tension. Liquid warmth pooled at the junction of her thighs. She lowered her eyelids to veil her expression, bowed her head submissively and stepped back a pace as she raised her hands to tug at the fastening of her shirt.
With deliberate clumsiness at first, she drew out her actions with feigned reluctance. Then her movements changed subtly to a sinuous, sensuous dance. The shirt dropped to the floor. The loose trousers slid down over gently gyrating hips. Her hands seemed to unconsciously cup her breasts as the body sheath came down, and her fingers slid through the curls between her thighs as the garment loosened enough to fall to the floor on its own.
Head bowed, she could only guess at Sebastian’s reaction. But then she heard a muffled noise that sounded like a groan. She shivered and dared a quick look. The black body suit he wore concealed nothing, and it crossed her mind he might be experiencing some discomfort.
She waited. The silence stretched out.
Then softly he said, “Very good. Now remove my clothes.”
Obediently, she stepped forward. Without looking at his face, she loosened the flaps at his shoulders and pushed the garment down his body. He stayed her hands at his waist while he stepped out of his boots, then let her continue to peel the garment off.
She straightened up and fixed her gaze on the magnificent evidence of his desire. He might be able to exercise iron control over other parts of his body, she thought exultantly, but not this part. It demonstrated a life of its own as it jerked and spasmed under her eyes.
He moved in a blur of speed and she found herself flat on her back on the cold floor without knowing how she got there. The weight of her husband’s lower body was against the cradle of her hips and his thighs spread hers wide apart.
“What am I going to do with you? You can’t even be submissive in the proper manner, can you?” He thrust into her in one smooth, hard stroke.
She gasped and arched against him. “You didn’t think that was submissive enough?” She bit down on his ear lobe as he withdrew from her body, then stroked into her again.
“If you’d been any more submissive than that, I’d have embarrassed myself,” he panted. “Now be quiet!”
“Yes, sir. Anything you say, oh, lord and ma—Oh!” Fire raced through her, flamed brighter, grew and spiraled. His mouth covered hers, his hands squeezed and kneaded her bottom, raised her to accept him more fully.
“Now, love, now!” he groaned against her lips.
And the fire consumed them both.
272 J.A. CLARKE

Chapter 24

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Sintus System; Arganl Concentration

Eighteen hours later, Sebastian brooded over the view through the glass bubble of his navigation module. A cluster of very small planets lay in front of him. A constant stream of traffic moved around and between them, testimony to the activity and highly developed communities on the planets’ surfaces.
The Arganl Concentration was where the Mogton had decided to hide. With his uncanny ability to blend in, he had simply disappeared into the highly diverse populace. Sebastian’s team knew he was there. They had tracked him, caught glimpses of him, seen the evidence. Now they had to flush him out.
He glanced to his right. Too far away to be identified was Rom-pin’s vessel and beyond him, and encircling the Concentration was all the power and might of the Seventh Fleet of Mariltar. The authorities in the Concentration were cooperating to a point. Every vessel entering and leaving the Concentration was subjected to intense screening but, while Mariltar warriors were allowed onto the planets, their activities had been limited, the use of weapons forbidden.
The Mogton knew they were here. He knew he was trapped. It would only be a matter of time before he tried something, and they would be ready. But Sebastian was in no mood to wait. He wanted this business over. They needed a lure.
A sound disturbed his thoughts and he jerked his head around. Cassie, rumpled and sleepy, stood in the doorway. She wore one of his shirts and nothing else.
He swore under his breath as his body spasmed in response. This was exactly why she shouldn’t have been here. But in the end, and against his better judgement, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to transfer her when a Coalition vessel had crossed their path. The excuse that the vessel was a lin away was pathetic. He could still have made the rendezvous.
“Is that where he is?”
“Yes,” he said, curtly.
“Where’s the rest of the fleet?”
“They’re here.”
“What happens now?”
“Cassie.”
“All right! All right! I’ll just be an obedient, submissive little Mariltar wife and disappear. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Far from reassuring him and allowing him to focus again, her words raised vivid mental images of what had happened the last time the issue of her obedience and submissiveness had come up. As the door closed behind her, he was tempted for just an instant to follow her.
He swore and punched the communication light as it started to flash.
“Sagar’s Crystals, StarJumper. I expected you to be in a better mood.”
“Don’t start on me, Captain Trion, and unless you have a solution to…” A giant fist squeezed Sebastian’s guts and drove the breath from his body.
“Solution to what, StarJumper?” Jason’s voice was puzzled, 274 J.A. CLARKE

cautious. It was an uncoded comm link.
“To why women do what they do?”
“To why—?”
“Out, Captain Trion.” He flicked the line closed.
He had betrayed her once before and that truth was still a secret from her. He couldn’t do it again.
He had to.
Chilled to the bone, he came to a decision. “Cassie!”
The door behind him slid open. “What? I thought you wanted me to stay in there.”
He swiveled his seat. His heart swelled with pain and love at the sight of her. Behind him the comm link squawked insistently. He ignored it. “I love you.”
Her expression softened. “I love you, too. But I was just about to get dressed and—”
“Cassie, I love you but I betrayed you.”
She pushed her tangled dark hair back from her face. Her expression was curious, not concerned.
“And I have to do it again.”
“What are you talking about? Sebastian, if this is another one of your sick jokes, I just woke up and I—”
“Listen to me!” This was, by far, the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. They had a better chance if they could lure the Mogton out, but he couldn’t do it without telling her this time.
Without telling her that, once again, he had to betray her. Once again, she was the lure. “There is one more truth we haven’t talked about yet. He found you before because of me, Cassie. I led him to you. What happened to you, happened because of me.”
“No.” Her face twisted. She turned. For a moment, he thought he had lost her, thought she would disappear back into the inner module. “No, Bastian.” She lifted violet eyes swimming with tears. “Don’t think that. He knew I was there all along. He told me himself.”
“I failed to protect you.”
“No, you didn’t. It’s not your fault.”
It was a point he could analyze and argue endlessly. There was no time now. “I need to lure him out again, Cassie. If he knows you’re here—”
She looked him straight in the eyes. “Do it.”
He held her gaze and flicked the comm link open. “I told you to stay in there, Cassie. I don’t want you out here distracting me.”
“Well, what do you think I was doing? I’m just trying to be a sub—”
He slashed downward with his hand. Her brow creased in a frown and she opened her mouth, but shut it when he jerked his head. “Stay in there. And get dressed,” he added in an undertone. “In the equilibrium suit.”
She made a face, mouthed, “I love you,” and disappeared.
He slumped in his seat, his guts still tied in knots and waited for the reaction. The uncoded line was open to the Mariltar fleet and anyone else interested enough to break the security link and listen in. The impenetrable shuttle frequency was used for disseminating more important information. Sebastian locked the frequency closed.
The trap was set.
“Sebastian, what by Sagar’s crystals are you doing? Was that Cassie I heard?” From the tone of his voice, Jason wasn’t happy.
“It was.”
“Why is she with you?”
“Didn’t have any choice. She hitchhiked.”
“She what?”
“Hitchhiked.” Despite the coldness in his gut, Sebastian savored Jason’s annoyance for just a moment.
“And I don’t suppose you could have done anything about it?”
“Not at all. Didn’t have any choice.”
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“You just let her manipulate you?”
“Earth women can be very persuasive. You know how that works. You’re married to one, too. I never asked, are you a father yet?”
“No,” Jason said sharply, “and we’re not talking about me. Are you completely addled, man?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Did you ever consider taking her back?”
“Wouldn’t have been enough time.”
“Don’t you think—?”
A loud noise crackled across the line. Rom-pin’s voice broke in with a pre-arranged signal.
The quarry was on the move.
The bait had been taken.
The waiting was over.

Like a monstrous growth, the Mogton vessel rode within the circle of the Mariltar fleet, cornered, helpless, awaiting its fate.
It had been far too easy. Sebastian peered through the bubble at the drama playing itself out far below. The vessel had appeared right after Rom-pin’s warning. Fast and agile, it had evaded the first two Mariltar vessels to reach it and, in a dazzling display of navigational skill and maneuvering had swung around behind Sebastian’s vessel and come straight for him at suicidal speed. It had taken all of his concentration and skill to evade the Mogton until the remainder of the fleet had appeared and intercepted the craft. Three zuefron fire beams, one a direct hit in the vicinity of the navigation module, had convinced the Mogton he was outnumbered. The vessel’s engines were shut down and now it drifted.
Even as Sebastian watched, a tether snaked out from one of the Mariltar vessels. It attached and drew the two vessels closer until the space between them vanished and they locked together.
Too easy, Sebastian thought again. A deep unease gnawed a hole in his gut. This wasn’t the crafty, fearless foe who had haunted him for so many months. Yet Rom-pin had been so sure, had received indisputable confirmation that the one they sought had entered that vessel.
Something was wrong.
Yet the vessel had been tracked from the time it had left the cluster. It wasn’t possible for a substitution to have occurred, or a transfer. There had been no other vessels in the vicinity.
“Is it over?”
Sebastian jerked and swore. Intent on his thoughts and focused on the scene below, he hadn’t heard Cassie. She stood directly behind him.
“Balls of Sortor, woman. I thought I told you to stay in there until I gave you permission to come out.” He swung around to glare at her, and received another unpleasant surprise. The equilibrium helmet that enabled human bodies to adjust to excessive speed and maneuvering was dangling from one hand. Her other hand was busy unfastening her suit.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking it off. It’s uncomfortable. It’s all right, isn’t it? I’ve been listening and it sounded like it was all over.” She glanced past him. “Is that the Mogton vessel?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. He had never felt like wrapping his hands around someone’s neck as much as he did now. All his instincts screamed a warning. “Fasten your suit, put your helmet on, get back in there and strap down. Now!”
The stubborn expression that had enchanted him on so many previous occasions crossed her face. “I don’t think—” Her eyes shifted beyond him. The expression of horror that crossed her face transfixed him and delayed him by a split second in turning around.
He caught a glimpse of a small craft before a flash of light exploded against the bubble and a giant hand lifted his vessel
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and flung it carelessly through space. Cassie had more warning, but was puny against a greater force. Nor was she protected as he was by the helmet and harness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her go down. She struck her head and didn’t come up again.
And he couldn’t worry about her or they both would die. Another explosion, this one farther back, sent the warrior vessel into a downward spin. Neither hit had damaged the vessel. The strength of the beams was not at full force. Their attacker was conserving his firepower.
Because he wanted Cassie alive.
He fought to regain control. Automatically, blindly, using evasive tactics, he swung the vessel around and rotated the bubble of the navigation module. The space around them was empty. There was no sign of the attacking craft.
Far away, four Mariltar vessels had broken out of the circle surrounding the enemy mother craft and headed toward them.
Too late, he thought. They’ll be too late. And all he could do was sit and wait, captive to a technology far superior to his own. The suspicion he had had for many months, all the rumors he had heard, all the speculation, were now confirmed. The Mogton hadn’t attacked and run. He was using a sophisticated vanishing device that Sebastian’s sensors couldn’t detect, he was now sure of it. The batriel-ra was close by. He knew it. He sensed it. And the monster wanted Cassie.
He spared a glance at his wife even as he continued to vainly search the emptiness around him. As if on cue, she moaned and moved. Violet eyes fluttered open and looked blankly at him. A trembling hand lifted and pressed against the back of her head.
“Cassie, get your helmet on!”
Instinctively, he thrust his vessel backwards and avoided the third fire beam, stronger, now a crippling strength. This time, he managed to get a shot off of his own, and had the satisfaction of scoring a hit. But a fourth fire beam had been released and this time, as he activated another weapon, and thrust the controls into high speed, he knew he couldn’t avoid it. He braced himself for the impact, yelled a warning to Cassie and hoped with every fiber of his being she was conscious enough to hear and heed him.
The navigation module took a direct blow. Something struck his shoulder and sent a fiery stab of excruciating pain through him. The same object knocked against his helmeted head hard enough to blacken his vision momentarily.
From a great distance, he heard Cassie’s voice tinged with excitement and hysteria. “Sebastian? You got him. You destroyed him. Oh, no! Oh, Lord!”
“Cassie?” He tried to speak, worried about the abrupt alteration in her tone, but couldn’t hear his own voice. Her face swam into view, her expression horrified and scared. At least she had listened, he thought through his pain. The helmet was back on her head. He tried again. “I thought it was a direct hit. He’s gone?” He blinked to clear his vision and moved his head to try to see for himself. Terrible, nauseating pain lanced through him. He wondered how badly he had been injured, but Cassie was of greater concern.
She shook her head frantically. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she babbled something he couldn’t quite make out. Something about his arm.
It took tremendous effort, but he lifted his head. The object that had struck him had cut deeply into his shoulder, through muscle and tendons and bone, and opened a deep gash. His arm dangled uselessly. His suit was soaked in blood. He would bleed to death if nothing were done immediately. He summoned up a fast fading reserve of strength and whispered, “Cassie, get the med kit.” Then he turned and, with his good hand, slowed the vessel’s speed. As he brought it under control, he cursed the blurred vision that prevented him from searching for the Mogton.
“Sebastian?” Her voice was small and frightened.
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He turned his head. The pain was excruciating. Even tiny movement took so much effort. There was something he had to tell her before he lost consciousness. He had to remember, fight the temptation to let go. His gaze encountered violet pools filled with fear and panic.
“It’s all right, love. I’m not going to die.” A wave of blackness washed over him. “The blue cylinder… against my neck… under my ear.” Her tear-streaked face faded.

Cassie tore open the container. The bright blue cylinder lay in a prominent position, impossible to miss. With trembling fingers she detached it and broke off the top. His neck, she thought frantically, he had said his neck, and something else she hadn’t caught. Oh, God, there was so much blood. He was dying. How could he possibly survive such a blow?
His head had slumped to the side. His eyes were half open, unseeing. Blood continued to pump from the ghastly wound. She pressed the cylinder against the thick cord pulsing against the side of his neck and squeezed the trigger.
His body stiffened slightly, his eyes rolled up, the lids fluttered shut, and he relaxed completely.
“Sebastian?”
There was no response.
“Sebastian? Don’t do this to me. Please, don’t do this to me.”
His body was still. She drew back, her gaze drawn in sickened fascination to his shoulder. It took a moment for the knowledge to sink in. The wound no longer bled.
She leaned closer again as she battled against an overpowering urge to empty the contents of her stomach, to scream out her fear and growing rage.
This wasn’t real.
He couldn’t die.
He couldn’t leave her like this!
“Sebastian?” She reached out and tentatively touched his face. His skin was cool and she snatched her hand back. The dark vortex inside of her yawned and roared loudly.
She reared back and bumped her knee painfully against something. The narrow slice of metal that had flown across the module to strike Sebastian the crippling blow lay jammed against his seat and the control panel.
The pain in her knee brought back awareness of other sound and movement. The comm link squawked and crackled. She glanced through the glass bubble to see a Mariltar vessel riding so close she could see its pilot. And there were two others just beyond the first.
The crackle and squawk intensified and resolved into individual words that made demands and asked questions. As if in a dream, Sebastian’s patient, teasing voice swam through her mind from so many months ago, as he explained the intricacies of the control panel and instructed her in its function and use. She saw her hand reach out of its own accord and touch a small pad.
“Cassie, this is Captain Jason Trion. How badly is he hurt?”
A strange lassitude overtook her and she turned to stare into her husband’s beloved face. It was cold and still. The life in his golden eyes was shuttered. The pulse at his temple had ceased to beat. His lips would never touch hers again. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
“Cassie?”
She jumped, startled by the sharp, urgent tone.
“How is he?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s dead.”
The dreadful words were spoken. The silence hurt. Captain Trion’s voice came back on, his tone altered. “What are the extent of his injuries?”
“He’s… There’s blood—all over. His arm is–is almost completely severed.”
“Cassie, this is important. Did you give him anything?”
“Yes. He–he told me to use the blue cylinder from the med kit.”
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“Good! Has the bleeding stopped?”
“Yes.”
“How does his skin feel?”
She didn’t want to do it, didn’t want the ultimate confirmation. Her hand shook uncontrollably as she reached over to touch him again. In the few seconds since she had last felt it, his skin had become frigid. “Cold.”
“Good. We need to get you down on the ground. It’ll be faster than trying to couple the vessels and I’m concerned about the integrity of your shell. Sebastian told me you’re familiar with the navigation system?”
“A little, but—”
“Good.” His tone altered again, gentled. “Don’t worry, Cassie, we’ll get you down. You’ll do fine.”
“C–Captain Trion?” She glanced over at Sebastian, and swallowed hard, fighting back the debilitating tears that threatened again.
“Yes?”
“I really think he’s dead.”
“Was he conscious when you administered the drug?”
“I–I think so. Barely.”
“The drug shut his body down, Cassie. He’s in stasis. But it’s temporary. It’s critical we get him medical attention as quickly as possible. Now, I want you to listen carefully.”

Later, Cassie wondered how she had made it through the next hour. Her memory of those frantic moments was incomplete, blurred by fear, panic and despair. But through it all, Captain Trion’s deep voice had soothed and instructed and calmed even in those last moments of panic when she had to dock the vessel, convinced she would never be able to do it. The first attempt was aborted. She had come in too fast. The second attempt had been rough. The vessel had smashed against the side of the dock, taking down a guide beam. But they were down, and safe. She had slumped in relief over the console, knowing others could now take over.
Her next awareness was of many voices, all shouting instructions. A blond man lifted her up and hugged her, squeezing the breath from her, saying over and over, “He’s alive, Cassie, he’s alive. He’s going to live. You are a miracle, woman.”
Miracle? She didn’t feel like one. She felt drained, exhausted, scared—terrified that she wouldn’t see Sebastian alive and breathing again, in spite of Captain Trion’s repeated reassurances. Hands touched her, pulled off her helmet. She heard a faint hum, disjointed words that didn’t make any sense, felt a pinch behind her ear. Then came blessed oblivion.
284 J.A. CLARKE

Chapter 25

? ? ?

Larion Confluence:/Fifth Rising Crestar System; Planet Treaine

She would have missed the faint twitch of his mouth, if she hadn’t been leaning over to examine every beloved line and groove, curve and hollow in his face. She loved to watch him sleep. The strong, rugged, masculine features smoothed out in repose and took on that boyish, vulnerable appearance. She drew back a little and wondered if she had imagined that tiny movement.
Probably.
After six days, during which Sebastian had been placed in a healing suspension cocoon to travel back to Treaine, he had only been allowed to regain consciousness this morning. The message had come through just as she and Rom-pin had been about to leave for the Marketplace. No one had wanted to leave her alone and, in a way, she was grateful. After the first day, she hadn’t been allowed to see Sebastian. He wasn’t conscious and she couldn’t see much of him anyway, buried in and surrounded as he was by the equipment that healed his body.
A constant stream of visitors kept her occupied, kept her sane when she thought she couldn’t tolerate the waiting any more. The Mariltar ambassador came with his wife, and Jason Trion with the heavily pregnant Melissa. The women bullied her into shopping expeditions for baby clothes and paraphernalia about which she knew nothing. And Emla visited, bringing a small project she could work on from her living unit, and returning the leriam with a comical show of relief.
The blow she had taken to her head was minor and required minimal treatment, but she found herself without energy, uninterested in working even to stay occupied. On the few occasions she was left alone, she sank into depression and became filled with doubt that Sebastian was truly going to recover.
Rom-pin had accompanied her to the Medical Quarter, then left her with an expression on his face as close to a smile as she had ever seen. Excited and nervous, she entered the recovery room where her husband lay on a normal sleeping platform, covered with a thin blanket.
He appeared to be fast asleep—except for that tiny twitch.
“Sebastian?”
There was no response. Nothing.
She leaned closer and on impulse touched her lips to the firm warmness of his. Her eyes closed as a surprisingly painful emotion wracked her body. She had once thought she would never do this again, hadn’t been able to believe that this warmth would return to his body.
“Sebastian?” She dared to trace the outline of his lips with her tongue.
He moaned. His eyes fluttered open and he gave her a weak smile. “Hello, love.”
Elation filled her. “How do you feel?” Her eyes flicked to the thin green web stretched across his shoulder and torso. They had told her the arm would heal completely, but she hadn’t believed it at first, hadn’t been able to believe it wouldn’t suffer lasting damage, even after Jason told her
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Sebastian had experienced worse. She thought she had lost him altogether and, even now, couldn’t quite allow herself to believe—dream—there was a future for them. It was so hard to see him like this, helpless, drained of his usual vitality and boundless energy.
“All right, I suppose.” He groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Fear burned through her again, and she looked frantically around. Where were the medical personnel?
“Nothing.” Another soft moan belied his denial.
“No, you’re in pain. Should I call someone? What can I do?”
“Well, I have this little ache.” He made a vague gesture. “Maybe you could rub it.”
“Of course. Where?” She gently touched his shoulder.
“No, not there. You’ll have to climb up on the platform.”
“All right,” she said with some doubt and slipped off her shoes. “Are you sure?”
“You have magic hands, love. They feel so much better than a machine.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” She scrambled up to stretch out against his uninjured side.
“Under the cover,” he whispered, and rolled slightly to flick his single covering over her.
A suspicion started to knock in warning at the back of her mind, but another soft moan of pain banished it. “Here.” He picked up her hand and moved it onto his bare stomach. She shivered with pleasure at the warmth and vibrancy of him, the softness of his skin, the hardness of his flat, muscled belly.
“A little lower,” he whispered in her ear. His warm breath caressed her.
“Lower,” he moaned and pushed against her hand.
Her fingers brushed against heat and hardness.
“There.”
“Oh!” She snatched her hand back and reared over him.
He was wide awake, a wicked grin stretching his face, a laugh erupting from his lips. A steel-hard arm whipped around her waist and, with surprising strength, he pulled her down on his chest. His hand clamped against her bottom when she would have wriggled off.
“Sebastian, how could you? I was so worried about you. You’re deceitful. You’re deranged. You–you–how could you do this to me. No!” she shrieked, then clamped a hand over her own mouth as she felt his fingers slide up under her tunic and probe at her intimately. “No, what are you doing, you lunatic? You’re not well. You can’t do this. Stop it!”
“Stop wriggling, or you’ll do some serious damage,” he said in her ear. “Just lie still, and follow doctor’s instructions.” The stern command was delivered with a lascivious grin.
Mouth open in shock, she stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.”
“But what about—?”
“The privacy screens are up. No one will disturb us—unless you start screeching like a demented banshee again.”
“We can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because–because you’re injured. Because you just woke up today after six days of unconsciousness. Because you can’t possibly do—this. You’ll hurt yourself again.”
“Are you still questioning my abilities, love?” His voice lowered and he inserted his tongue in her ear. Shivers ran down her spine. “Just follow my lead. Listen to teacher, love. I’m ready, willing, and able. See?” He grabbed her hand and closed it around his hard shaft again.
“You’re a lunatic.” She slumped against him as the familiar fire began to build inside her. His fingers were busy under her tunic again, tugging, probing, doing wicked things that caused her to writhe against him. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I thought you were going to die.”
“Takes more than that to kill me off, love,” he murmured against her mouth with outrageous confidence. “I keep trying
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to tell you that. Besides, I have too much to live for.” Heat slid between her thighs.
“He really is dead, isn’t he?” She had to ask it, to reassure herself, to hear him confirm it.
“Yes. Jason told me the last weapon I fired disabled his vessel. It was out of control. I didn’t kill him. He self-destructed, love. He knew he was finished and chose death over captivity.”
“Oh,” she hadn’t known that, and the brief spurt of jealousy she felt at the news he had seen Jason before her was firmly squelched. Time spent with the other Mariltar captains recently had made her realize there was a powerful bond between them she might never fully comprehend.
“What—?”
“Balls of Sortor, love. Be quiet!”
“Oh.” The hard, hot length of him slid inside her. “Can I say one more thing?”
“Can’t it wait?” His good hand encouraged her hips in a slow rocking motion.
“No, it can’t.” She shifted, caught the pace he had set, then boldly increased her movements and drew a groan from him. Leaning forward, she whispered into his ear, “I love you.”
He groaned again, opened his eyes, and grinned. “I know, love. I’ve always known.”

THE END
 
J.A. Clarke

J.A. Clarke is an award-winning author of futuristic and contemporary romance novels. She grew up in Africa where weekly trips to the library were highly anticipated and the main entertainment event of the week. She has traveled on three continents but is now firmly grounded in the Pacific Northwest. Together with her husband and two sons, she frequently explores the beautiful scenic attractions of the area. Someday, she plans to take her family on an adventure in Africa. Please visit her at her website, www.jaclarke.com .