Prisoners of the Wind Copyright© 2005 Charlotte Boyett-Compo
His hands were gentle but insistent upon her heated body. His fingers were sure and knowing and where they stroked, intense pleasure followed in the wake. Kneading the muscles of her shoulders, those educated fingers elicited a response that lulled her, eased her tension and made her feel as though she was melting into the mattress.
Working his way across her upper back, he increased the pressure slightly until she began to purr like a kitten. It was heavenly—his touch—and she welcomed the feel of his hot flesh upon her naked back. As he massaged the column of her spine, seemingly to manipulate each vertebra, she sighed deeply, feeling the stress falling away.
Lower that touch went until it fanned out along the small of her back, his fingers spreading outward with sure, deft strokes that pressed her downward and left her flesh tingling.
But when those strong fingers slid to her buttocks, she tensed, quickly drawing in her breath.
“Relax, wench,” he whispered, leaning forward so his breath was warm against her ear.
He was sitting on his haunches between her spread thighs and as he bent over her, she could feel the weight and the hardness of his cock dragging along the folds of her vagina. She shivered and groaned, moisture flooding the area like dew forming upon rose petals.
It was his low chuckle that eased the stiffness of her muscles and she did as he ordered, though it took every ounce of her willpower to relax against the feel of that enormous cock now lying between the cleft of her ass.
“You are wet, Marin,” he whispered, and touched his hot tongue to the spiral of her ear.
Goose bumps ran down her spine as his heated breath joined the invasion of his tongue inside her ear. Her womb tightened and she could not stop the moan of pleasure that trilled from her lips.
He laved her ear, the tip of his practiced tongue thrusting ever so gently inside the entrance to her auditory canal before it moved around the perimeter from just beneath the helix to the lobe, upon which he lightly clamped his teeth and softly worried the tender flesh.
“Merciful Alluvial,” she whimpered.
“Wicked warrior,” he corrected, and his hot lips trailed from the side of her neck to her shoulder blade then on to the cervical curve of her spine.
His rough tongue dragged downward over the thoracic curve and into the hollow of the lumbar region. There it lingered just above the division of her ass, flicking lightning thrusts at the sensitive concavity, swirling a pattern of lazy figure eights that slowly lowered toward her opening.
Marin grabbed handfuls of the coverlet beneath her, anticipating the sweet invasion of that sinful mobile mass of muscular tissue so close to her anus. When her midnight lover sank his teeth gently into her left buttock, she shuddered and cried out.
“Lie still,” he ordered, his tone brooking no rejection of his demand.
She found herself panting, sweat oozing along her upper lip. She ached for him to stab her with that hot tongue, to lap at the puckered rim of her anal opening. His fingers were spreading her cheeks, opening her for his steady assault. She was quivering, moaning, waiting…
Yet it was not his tongue that delved into her nether region but the long, purposeful breadth of a finger. Barely grazing the inner fold of flesh, he pivoted the stiff digit from side to side, his fingernail scarcely inside her.
“Please!” she begged, and tried to lift her ass to impale upon his questing finger.
“No,” he denied, and as one hand held her pressed firmly to the bunk, that wicked finger delved slowly deeper until she felt the knuckles of his hand graze her rump.
Seated firmly inside her, he slowly twisted his finger, pressing downward gently until he seemed to find the spot for which he had been searching.
Marin writhed beneath him, silently pleading with him to end this delicious torture.
With his finger still buried to the hilt within her rectum, his thumb slithered like a living creature into the hot and dripping slit of her cunt and pulled upward as though he could make middle finger and thumb meet inside her.
The sensation of those digits pressing toward one another, moving out a ways and then going in again, sent Marin over the edge of endurance. Heat was building in her womb, an intense itch was crawling through her lower belly. Her body was trembling as though with the ague and when the bright flash of passion flared then flooded her pelvis, she screamed her release, pressing her face deep into the coverlet to shut out the sound.
“Mine,” he said, and withdrew his thumb to touch—and tease—the engorged swell of her clitoris. “And mine you will always be!”
* * * * *
Marin sat bolt upright on the hard cot upon which she had been thrashing and stared into the darkness with wide, glazed eyes. The dream had been so real, so intense it was hard for her to accept that her midnight lover was but a figment of her fevered desire, virginal though it was.
A sheen of perspiration covered her upper chest and trickled from beneath the pendulous weight of her aching breasts. Her heart was pounding, her blood thundering through her veins. She was quivering like a leaf in a stiff breeze and she felt hot, her skin pebbled. That mysterious region between her legs felt heavy and it throbbed in a way that made her squirm. Wrapping her arms around herself, she realized it had been nothing more than a dream. She groaned with frustration and drew her knees up into the protection of her encircling arms. There was wetness between her thighs—she could feel it, smell it—and a barren hopelessness deep in her womb.
“Another bad dream?” one of the other girls asked.
“Aye,” Marin whispered, tears easing down her cheeks.
“Try to go back to sleep, Marin. Tomorrow will be a long day,” someone advised.
For the remainder of the night, Marin stared into the darkness, despair building in her with every ragged breath she took.
How, she wondered, could she be so deeply in love with a phantom man she had never met?
He was the most intimidating male Marin had ever seen. She was sure if she looked into his eyes, it would be like falling into the fabled Abyss. What would look back at her would be malevolent and she was sure it would give her the sensation of falling beneath ebon wave after wave, lost forever from the world of light, spiraling lower into the inner circles of Hell, plummeting to the very core of all that was evil.
“Is that him?” Marin heard one of the women ask in a quivering voice.
“Aye, that’s the captain,” the guard replied, “and that’s his ship docked over there. She’s called the Revenge.”
Marin followed the jerk of the guard’s thumb and felt her fear increase. The ship nosed into the docking bay was a prison transport. Built for maximum speed and stealth, the matte black exterior made the ship as forbidding as the man who captained her. The maw of its loading bay doors gaped like the jaws of a beast lying in wait for its prey.
“Don’t get on the captain’s bad side and you’ll fare well enough,” the guard added. “Cross him and you might not live to regret it.”
Switching her attention back to the imposing man who stood in three-quarter profile some thirty feet away, Marin felt a chill travel down her spine. Dressed entirely in black, from gleaming leather boots to the black-hooded robe covering his tall frame, he commanded attention. The unbuttoned robe revealed black leather britches and a black shirt encasing long legs and broad shoulders.
“Lieutenant Tarnes will show you to your quarters, ladies,” the guard said, indicating a blond-haired youth walking toward them. “He’s from Serenia so be careful of your hearts.”
“W-why?” one of the nervous women standing with Marin asked, her words squeaking out as though being pressed from her body. “W-what do they do with hearts?”
“Contúirtians are rumored to be heartbreakers, Iadella,” Marin mumbled. “They are lady-killers and unabashed flirts.” She glanced at the approaching man but her gaze slid back to the man in black.
“Oh,” Iadella said with a long sigh of relief. “Flirts I can handle.”
“Ladies,” Lieutenant Tarnes said as he joined them. “I am Roman Tarnes and I have been assigned to see to your needs.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling as his gaze wandered over the group of six women. “Any needs you have, just come see me. Despite the circumstances, I intend to see you enjoy your trip to Fiáin. If there is anything you desire, just call on me.”
With thick blond hair and striking cobalt blue eyes, the lieutenant was an exceedingly handsome male. He appeared friendly and welcoming, and as he ushered the women toward the prison transport, he kept up a light conversation that put all but Marin at ease.
“We are so happy you ladies volunteered to work at the women’s prison. Finding teachers to man the classrooms has been a bit of a dilemma, I’m afraid,” Tarnes told them.
“Volunteered?” Marin asked, reaching out to put a hand on the lieutenant’s arm. Tall for a woman, she was almost as tall as he. “They told you we volunteered?”
Tarnes stopped and looked down at her. There was a crimson stain on his youthful cheeks. “Well, they did say you were doing some sort of community service. The captain might know the particulars of why you are here, but he hasn’t shared that with me.”
“Nor does he have reason to share that information,” a deep voice spoke from behind them.
Tarnes’ body snapped to rigid attention, his arms straight at his sides. “Aye, sir. No, sir. You do not, sir!”
“Carry on, Mister Tarnes.”
“Aye, sir. Thank you, sir!”
Marin was keenly aware of the black-robed figure who swept past them. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears as she stared at the captain’s broad back while he boarded the transport.
“He’s enough to make you tow the line, ain’t he?” one of the other women commented.
Tarnes relaxed and ran a hand over his face. “The captain is strict but he’s a good man to work for. I am lucky to have been assigned to the Revenge.” He swept his hand toward the transport. “She was commissioned the year I graduated the Fleet Academy, so I was privileged to be on her maiden voyage. The captain was given the honor of naming her since the Fiáinnian Tribunal personally gave him command of her.”
“Isn’t that rather unusual?” Simone, one of the women, asked.
“Aye, it is, but in the eyes of the Tribunal, the captain’s father was a martyr and the ship was built in his memory.”
“A martyr?” Iadella asked, swallowing. “What do you mean?”
“You ladies know what happened on Riochas Prime, don’t you?” Tarnes inquired.
Iadella glanced at Marin. “You mean the civil war among the Riochasians?”
“Aye,” Tarnes said. “You know why the war was fought?”
“For female equality,” Simone snapped, her gray eyes blazing with hatred. “The women of Riochas were tired of being second-class citizens and at the beck and call of any male with enough money to purchase them. The Madras rose up, shook off their shackles and took what was rightfully theirs.”
Tarnes scratched his head. “Well, there was more to it than that.”
The women exchanged puzzled looks but Simone cursed in her native tongue. “Do we look like country bumpkins who’ve just fallen off the turnip cart?” she groused. “We know what happened during the conflict.”
“There are two sides to every war, ladies. The winners usually have one opinion and the losers another,” Tarnes stated. “The winners—in this case the Madras—went a bit too far when they murdered innocent men.”
“Murdered innocent men?” Simone hissed. “What of the women who died at the hands of the male Riochasians?”
“Ladies,” Tarnes said in a reasonable voice, “that was war. Combatants die in war.”
“Aye, they do and they died horribly in battles such as the one at Imeagla Point. The Madras were slaughtered there!”
“That may be true, but—”
“There isn’t any ‘may be true’ about it!” Simone shouted, not caring who heard. “You bastards—”
“Ma’am, I am a Contúirtian,” Tarnes said, his own ire rising. “I wasn’t even in the Fleet when all that happened and, even if I had been, my people had nothing to do with what the Riochasians—male or female—did.”
“Why is it when men fight, it is war and they are held up to be heroes. But when women fight, men mock them and accuse them of being criminals?” Simone spat.
“I didn’t call the Madras criminals, my lady,” Tarnes denied.
“You might as well have,” Simone threw at him. “It is obvious you took the side of your sex! You have no concept of what it was like to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, to spend your life in subservience because you were considered nothing more than chattel. Madras women were traded and sold by their menfolk until they could no longer stand the feel of shackles around their wrists and ankles!”
“So they rose up and did a wholesale slaughter number on their menfolk,” Tarnes said, his jaw set. “The gas Mulla Xul created to poison the Madras males took the lives of every Madras male—no matter his age!”
“Mulla Xul was insane,” Simone shouted. “No one knew what she was about until the children started dying. The Madras did not condone what that mad scientist had done. Xul was assassinated, her creation destroyed.”
“Aye, well by then it was too late and the men of the Tiogar Clan had tried to save the innocent male children. The men ventured onto Madras lands with nothing more than mercy on their minds, with no thought of conquering the Madras. We all know what happened then, don’t we?” he threw at her. “The Madras extended their war to the Tiogar—who had never done anything to the women of the Madras clan—and all hell broke loose on Riochas Prime.”
The workers on the docks had stopped to listen to the heated words of the beautiful young woman railing at Tarnes. A few had blank looks on their faces but many had angry looks and were nodding in agreement to his words.
“Tiogar men killed Madras women,” Simone snarled between her teeth. “They went after the leaders of the Madras and tried to annihilate them.”
“That is true, but only to try to stop the war,” Tarnes agreed. “But that is in the past. Things are different.”
“Oh, aye, things changed all right!” Simone sneered. “The Madras won their independence and freedom. They defeated the Tiogar Clan and took over the entire planet. The Madras won because they had right on their side. We, like our Madras sisters, will fight for our rights!”
“I hope you don’t,” Tarnes said through clenched teeth. “And I suggest you don’t make any mention of any of this within the captain’s hearing. He might take exception to your rhetoric.”
“W-why is that?” Iadella inquired.
“Because his father was one of the men executed by the Madras during the war,” Tarnes replied. “There wasn’t much love lost between father and son, but the captain’s father was a national hero to our people and he vowed to avenge the man’s death. In a strange way, I suppose the captain admired his father.”
“Who was his father?” Marin whispered.
“Captain Seamus Drae of the Riochasian Fleet Command,” Tarnes replied.
Marin felt the hairs stand up on her arms and could not stop the shudder that ran through her.
“Sweet Aneas!” Iadella gasped. “Please don’t tell me you mean… The captain isn’t a… He can’t be a…”
Tarnes’ face creased in a frown. “The magistrates didn’t tell you Captain Drae is a Tiogar?”
“The Tiogar Clan was destroyed during the rebellion,” Simone stated.
“Not all of them,” Marin said quietly, and when Simone turned shocked eyes to her, she held the woman’s stare. She shrugged helplessly. “Apparently at least one bloodson of Seamus Drae survived. The Madras has a bounty on his head.”
“A bounty he finds amusing,” Tarnes said. “The captain’s five cousins were believed killed during the conflict. To his knowledge he is the only member of his family to have survived.” His lips tightened. “We Contúirtians hid several wounded Fleet members in the Contúirtian Alps during the wholesale slaughter of men on Riochas Prime, Captain Drae among them. He nearly died at the hands of a Madras general.”
“So he has no love for Riochasian women,” Iadella whispered, looking over at Marin.
Tarnes shook his head. “No, ma’am, he does not. No more than any of us do. The men of our galaxy were horrified at what the Madras did after they won the war. Reaching out to try and subjugate other worlds in their quest to be the mistresses of the galaxy did not set well with warriors far and wide,” Tarnes stated.
“The battle on Fireannach proved that,” Marin reminded her friends. “The Madras were outnumbered and outgunned. They learned a very hard lesson during those three days of bloodshed. Many women lost their lives.”
“I agree the Madras should have been content with winning their freedom on Riochas. I was amazed that they tried to take over other planets,” Iadella said. “That was a grave mistake.”
“At least they learned from that mistake and have kept to themselves,” Tarnes said. “It took a dozen years before there were relations established with Riochas and, even then, it has been a limited contact. The League of Planets was forged so such a thing wouldn’t happen again. As I’m sure you know, they put restrictions on the Riochasians hoping to keep them in line. Should they venture past their airspace and into League territory for any warlike purpose, they will be arrested.”
“When do you suppose that mighty League of Planets will allow Riochas Prime to join their hallowed ranks?” Simone demanded.
“When they prove they can be trusted,” Tarnes told her.
“Or until men once more rule Riochas Prime?” Simone scoffed.
“Both Baineannach and Iontach belong to the League and there are no men ruling those worlds,” Tarnes reminded her. “To my knowledge males aren’t even allowed on Iontach. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all male children born to Iontachian women are sent automatically to Fireannach.”
“At Tribunal order,” Simone snarled. “The Iontach have paid dearly for siding with the Madras during the war. Among the other members of the League, Iontach is the only world not allowed a vote in the Tribunal!”
“That’s only because the Iontach refuse to send a representative to the Tribunal,” Tarnes said in an exasperated tone, “just as Baineannach has. You can’t have representation if you do not have a delegate.”
“Are there Riochasian women at the penal colony on Fiáin?” Marin asked quietly, wanting to change the subject. The talk of war depressed her.
“We’ve never transported a Riochasian woman and, to my knowledge, there are none at the colony,” Tarnes answered. “But there is no need for you to be concerned. As Laidineach, you—”
“What if one of us was Riochasian?” Iadella interrupted.
Tarnes sighed. “Then we’d have something to worry about,” he said.
Marin swallowed against the lump that formed in her throat. Iadella was D’Nelian but the others were, indeed, Laidineach, except for Marin who had been born and raised on Riochas Prime, the daughter of Neala Acet, the Grand Leader herself. Acet was the woman responsible for attempting to wipe out the Tiogar Clan during the war. It would not matter to Captain Drae that Marin had no love for her mother and had rarely seen the leader of the Madras during Marin’s years in boarding school on Laidineach. Her Riochasian heritage would surely condemn her in the eyes of the Tiogar.
“Would he hurt her?” Iadella wanted clarified. She was Marin’s oldest and dearest friend.
“What are you babbling about, ‘Della?” Simone snapped, reaching out to push Iadella. Her eyes were narrowed in warning. “These hypothetical scenarios of yours do get tiresome. I, for one, am sick unto death of your fantasies and make believe what ifs!”
“Iadella is a Shanachie, Simone. It is her nature to make up stories,” Marin mumbled. She tugged nervously at the long blonde braid that fell over her shoulder.
“You are D’Nelian?” Tarnes asked, his eyes twinkling. “I should have known such a lovely lady would come from that blessed Isle.”
“She has a tongue on her,” Simone grumbled. “That’s for sure.”
Iadella lifted her chin. “I just want to know what to expect if—”
“Mr. Tarnes?” one of the workers called out. “The captain says to hurry up.”
“Ladies, we need to get onboard,” Tarnes told them. “As I’ve said, you’ve nothing to worry about so let’s just get you to your quarters and—”
“You mean our cells,” Simone grunted.
“No,” Tarnes said. “You are not prisoners. You will be doing community service for whatever transgressions you committed.”
“We are political prisoners,” Simone informed him with pride. “We spoke out against the League of Planets and are being punished for our beliefs.” She narrowed her gray eyes at him. “That makes us political prisoners.”
“We egged the Chief Tribunalist’s runabout,” Caro, the shortest of the six women, giggled. “That was our way of speaking out against old man Rigel and his policy of no women in government.”
Tarnes grinned. “You egged a Tribunalist’s ship?” His lips twitched. “Oh, you evil women. Perhaps we should put you in isolation for such a violent crime.”
“They egged the ship,” Uneta, the largest of the six women, corrected. “I kept watch.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to tell the guys in the mess to keep all eggs out of your reach,” Tarnes chuckled. “You will be in crew quarters and not on the prisoner decks. I’ve assigned you three to a room so it should be a comfortable journey for you.”
“You do have prisoners onboard, though, don’t you?” Dealese, the tallest of the women, asked.
Tarnes’ smile slipped from his mobile lips. “Aye, ma’am, we do. Some are dangerous felons on their way to the Saothar Penal Colony after we drop you at Fiáin.” He held his hand out, indicating they were to continue on into the ship.
Marin looked up at the black expanse of the prison transport and felt her knees grow weak. She wanted to turn and run as fast as she could, but knew if she did, she would be caught before she got out of the docking bay. She flinched as she felt a touch on her hand and jerked around to see Iadella standing close, threading her fingers through Marin’s.
“It’ll be all right,” Iadella said softly.
“I hope so,” Marin muttered.
“We’ll do our four months and be as good as we can be,” Iadella insisted. “No more eggs and no more political protests. We’ll go back to school, graduate with honors and go on to lead productive lives.”
“I don’t think I’ll be graduating.”
“Why ever not, Marin?” Iadella asked.
“My mother has disowned me,” Marin said. “Did I tell you that?”
They were now inside the ship and aware of the bustling of its crew.
“For something so silly?”
“I shamed her,” Marin replied. “She has—in her words—cast me to the Winds.”
“Well gock her, then,” Iadella said vehemently, using a vulgarity she’d learned from one of the Nusian students. “She’s never been anything but a name to you anyway!”
“What will you do?” Simone asked, having overheard their conversation.
“Find a job somewhere,” Marin replied. “She won’t pay my tuition now. I’ll have to leave school.”
“The hell you will!” Simone said. “I am sure my father will help.” Simone’s father was a prince of the royal house of Laidineach.
“I can’t ask him to—”
“You won’t have to,” Simone insisted. “I will take care of it.”
“Ladies,” Tarnes called out, drawing their attention. They turned to see him standing with a female crewmember. “This is Petty Officer Jannsen.” He consulted a PDA he held in his hand. “Caro Ludd, Dealese Varell and Uneta Wardlaw, please go with her. She’ll show you to your quarters on Deck Four. Simone Hesar, Iadella VanDries and Marin Deringnoe, you are—”
“Deringnoe stays here.”
It was not only the forcefulness of the words that turned Marin’s knees weak it was the tone of the voice that spoke them. She slowly looked around and when her gaze meshed with the speaker’s, she knew the captain was aware of her true identity.
He was standing a few feet away, his face stone-cold rigid, and his golden eyes riveted on Marin. The hood of his robe was thrown back, revealing dark brown hair barely a shade lighter than the black of his attire. His arms were folded over his broad chest, a muscle flexing in his jaw. His stare was as hard as steel, narrowed to a thin, cutting edge that passed over her with a fury that seemed barely held in check.
Despite her temerity, Iadella stepped in front of Marin. She held out a hand. “We aren’t going to let you hurt this girl!” she said firmly, though her voice trilled with fear.
Taegin Drae cocked his head to one side. “Did I say I was going to hurt her, Lady Iadella?” he inquired, letting them know he knew who each of them was.
“Marin has not been back to her home in ten years. She—”
“Is the daughter of the Madras leader Neala Acet,” Drae interrupted, his Riochasian brogue thickening huskily, the woman’s name on his tongue sounding like a curse.
“Marin had nothing to do with what her mother and the other women of the Madras clan did to your people,” Simone broke in. She, too, stepped in front of Marin.
Drae glanced at Tarnes. “Talking out of school again, Roman?” he inquired.
Tarnes’ mouth opened and closed several times but he couldn’t seem to find any words to excuse his actions. He simply hung his head.
“Escort Lady Simone and Lady Iadella to their quarters, Tarnes,” Drae commanded. “I’ll deal with your wagging tongue later.”
“He only answered our questions,” Marin said, pushing her friends aside. “Please don’t punish him for trying to allay our fears.”
Drae ignored Marin. His hawk-like stare went to Petty Officer Jannsen who had not moved since her captain had spoken. “Do you need an engraved invitation to take those other women to their quarters, Jannsen?” he barked.
“Sir, no, sir!” Jannsen was quick to respond. She put her arms out and tried to push the other three women into motion, but all three refused to budge.
“Marin is our friend,” Uneta declared. “She is—”
“Going to have a talk with me,” Drae interrupted. “Now, unless you ladies would like to be put into the general prison population on Deck Five, I suggest you accompany Petty Officer Jannsen and Mr. Tarnes.” He clenched his teeth and spoke through the constriction. “Now!”
Marin sensed the danger to her companions and knew they would be put in harm’s way if she did not act. Her knees were trembling, her palms sweating but she nevertheless asked her five friends to go with their escorts. “I’ll be all right,” she said.
“But Marin, he’s a Tiogar!” Simone stressed.
Tarnes grabbed Simone’s arm. “Shut up or he’ll make good on his promise! Believe me, you don’t want to be thrown in with a bunch of men who haven’t been near a woman in months!”
“I don’t know, Roman,” Drae said with a snort. “They might enjoy being ravished.”
“Go!” Marin insisted, shoving her friends. “Do as he says!”
With Simone’s arm in one hand and Iadella’s in the other, Tarnes pulled them away, speaking so low Marin could not hear his words, but whatever he said caused both women to pale for when they looked back at Marin, the blood had drained from their faces. Even Simone’s militant look had been replaced with an uncustomary fear.
Caro, Dealese and Uneta reluctantly allowed Jannsen to lead them away but their mouths were set mulishly, their hands clenched at their sides.
Marin was left alone with Drae. The crewmen who had been so busily engaged in whatever work they had been doing were now nowhere in sight.
“Are they virgins?” Drae asked.
Marin’s eyes widened. “W-what?”
“Your friends, wench. Are they virgins?” he repeated, annoyance clear in his golden eyes.
She stared at him, her heart thudding so painfully in her chest she had to put a hand there to ease the pressure. Her legs were threatening to buckle and the blood was pounding so loudly in her ears she could barely hear his next words.
“I don’t see what—”
“If they aren’t, I won’t worry about it,” Drae growled. “But if they are, and one of my crew or one of the prisoners at Fiáin takes their maidenhead while they are under my protection, I’ll drain him dry.”
“You’ll what?” she asked, having missed the last part.
It was all she could do not to back up as he closed the distance between them. Her breathing was ragged, her fear escalating as he came to tower over her, his body only inches from hers. His powerful body overshadowed her slim, womanly curves and he was so tall, she had to crane her neck to look up at him.
“If a man harms one of those women, I will snap him like a twig, gorge myself on his blood until there isn’t a drop left in him and, when I’m finished, there won’t be anything remaining but a few tufts of hair and a splinter of bone or two,” he said. “I will devour him alive, taking him apart piece by piece as I feed.”
Marin wavered for a moment, staring into his dark amber eyes, feeling the waves of hate crashing toward her, and then her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted.
Trying to swim upward within the dark flowing liquid that tugged at her feet, Marin struggled back to consciousness. All around her the water was thick and a deep crimson color, smelling of iron as she drew it into her lungs. She was drowning in that viscous fluid, helpless as she fought the pull of it dragging her down. Above her a word—Feasting—shimmered beneath the shifting waves of vermeil. The word terrified her and she strove to put distance between herself and it. Her arms flailing, she cried out when something hard wrapped itself around her upper body, imprisoning her. Unable to move, to break free, she released a shrill scream that brought her fully awake.
“Shit, woman!” Drae snarled. “You nearly pierced my gods-be-damned eardrums!”
It was the captain’s arms encircling her that were restraining Marin. He held her so tightly she could barely draw breath. His arms were like steel bands across her. His chest was a wall of cement to which she was pressed and just as unmovable as she pushed against it with the heels of her hands.
“Be still, wench!”
Her eyes fluttering, Marin went rigid in his arms. A low moan of fear vibrated from her trembling lips.
“Don’t you pass out on me again!” he warned, shaking her. “Are all Madras women this wimpish?”
Staring up into his molten gold glare, Marin felt as though her heart would burst, so fiercely was it beating. She began shivering so violently her teeth were clicking together.
“Ah, hell,” the captain spat and released her, allowing her to fall back to the bunk upon which he’d laid her. He sprang up from his position where he’d been sitting beside her and stood staring down at her. “I knew it was a mistake to bring you here.”
Marin whimpered and scooted upward on the bunk until she was crouched against the bulkhead wall behind it, knees drawn to her chest. Her eyes were locked on the Tiogar as he angrily paced the small confines of the cell. She watched as he raked a hand through his dark brown hair then flinched as he pivoted around to point an accusing finger at her.
“You are my prisoner, wench,” he said in a fierce voice. “The Tribunal handed you over to me. You are mine to do with as I please. Do you understand that?”
Fear bleached all color from Marin’s softly tanned face. So terrified was she, she wanted to scream, but such a foolish thing would surely irritate her captor. All she could do was hover there—shuddering and feeling sweat breaking out on her forehead.
He strode to the bunk, braced one hand on the wall over her head and leaned over her, his amber glare flaring when she pulled herself into a tighter ball as though he was about to beat her.
“Please,” she whispered. Her voice was tiny and breaking with terror. “Please, don’t kill me.”
His free hand was coming toward her and she squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to see the moment of death as it claimed her.
But his hand was gentle as it touched her long honey-gold braid, fingering it for a moment before she felt his palm press lightly along the side of her neck. Her green eyes fluttered open.
He was staring intently at her. The golden jewels in his dark eyes seemed to flash with a light of their own—moving and swirling, blending from topaz to citrine then warming to honey amber. That unearthly gaze moved over her face as though he was memorizing every feature, dipped to her lips and held for a fraction of a second before shifting up to fuse with her wary watchfulness. She felt as though she was drowning in his stare, being pulled into the vortex of that intense look, captured and held there by the very strength of his male power.
“Kill you?” he queried so softly his words were barely audible. “No, my lady, I have no intention of killing you.”
He withdrew his hand and straightened up. There was brutal authority in his rigid stance, unalterable arrogance in the narrowed eyes and barely controlled vengeance balled into the fists at his side.
“Kill you?” he asked again, his voice only a decimal louder. “I intend to fuck you until I’ve had my fill then throw you in with the worst criminals this transport carries!”
Marin’s eyes flared wide. “No, please! I’m a virgin and—”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound so evil and malevolent Marin began to quake. “Do you think that will stop me, wench?” he threw at her. He shook his head. “Nothing will stop me from having my revenge, you daughter of that murderous hag!”
“I had nothing to do with what my mother did,” she cried. Tears were cascading down her cheeks. “I wasn’t even on Riochas Prime during the war.”
“The sins of the mother are visited upon the daughter,” he said hatefully. “Let’s see how well that slut of a daughter bears up to the punishment I will exact!”
He spun around and marched to the cell door. “Open!” he demanded, and the pneumatic portal slid open.
Marin sobbed hysterically. She crossed her arms over her chest, grasped the shoulders of her detention center-issued jumpsuit in her fists and sat there keening shrilly.
She had no illusions that the Tiogar would carry out his plan. She had seen the determination in his steely glower, had heard the vindictiveness in his harsh tone. There was no doubt in her mind he would do exactly as he promised.
Trembling, Marin rocked back and forth, every tale she’d ever heard of the Tiogar Clan coming back to taunt her.
“They transition into beasts every three months or so,” her mother had informed her when she was a little girl in an attempt to make the child hate the Tiogars as much as her mother did. “They become beasts with a beast’s needs. They devour their enemies, lap up their blood and leave not a trace of that poor person behind.”
“Can they come in here, Mother?” Marin had asked, terrified of the images her mother’s words were painting.
“Not if you are a good child and do as you’re told. Tiogars can’t touch good little girls. It’s only the bad ones they go after.”
Vaguely Marin remembered something about a drug Tiogars had to be given once a month and that it was more a punishment than a help, for it was a very painful injection that caused great agony when it was administered.
“Addictive it is,” her mother had said with glee, her eyes glowing. “It turns their blood to molten lava in their veins, burning its way through their hellish bodies. Too bad it isn’t necessary for them to have it every day like other beasts of which I’ve heard.”
“W-what other beasts, Mother?” Marin had asked, shuddering with fear.
“Ones that eat bad little girls.”
The stories her mother told frightened Marin terribly and brought her awake in cold sweats, trembling, crying out as phantom shadows drifted across her walls from the trees beyond the window.
“Aye, Marin, that was most likely a Tiogar trying to gain entrance to your room,” her mother would tell her. “What have you done to bring the beast to punish you, eh?”
Tears running down her cheeks, Marin sat there and went over and over in her mind all the old tales her mother had regaled her with about the infamous Tiogar Clan. She had painted gruesome pictures for the little girl and had brought on many nightmares that had jerked Marin from her sleep screaming.
“The Tiogars are listening to everything you do, Marin,” her mother warned. “They are always lying in wait for bad little girls. You wouldn’t want one to crush your bones between his fangs, would you? What have you done to bring the beast to punish you?”
Marin whimpered, repeated that question to herself—what have you done to bring the beast to punish you?
Kale McGregor looked up from the computer screen upon which he’d been playing a video game and quickly reached over to turn it off as his commanding officer barged into the rec room.
“Are those nit-twits settled in?” Drae demanded.
“Aye, they are,” Kale replied cautiously. The two were more than commander and second in charge. They had been friends for many years and had spent four of those years hiding in the barren chill of the high Contúirtian Alps. “How is Deringnoe?”
“The gods-be-damned woman is so afraid of me I think she pissed herself,” the Tiogar complained. He slumped into one of the form-fitting chairs flanking the wide expanse of portal beyond which stars streaked past the Revenge and thrust out his long legs. “I thought women of the Madras clan were made of sterner stuff. Just goes to show they are still women.”
“What did you do to frighten her, or should I ask?” Kale asked.
“I may have said something about devouring an enemy,” Drae said with a grunt. “I don’t exactly recall.”
“Depending on how much detail you handed out about the devouring, I could see that scaring the wench,” Kale agreed.
“I want her afraid of me,” Drae grated as though he hadn’t heard. A muscle worked in his lean cheek as he plucked at the leather cording along the chair arm, frowning at the offending material as though it was alive. “I want her to tremble at the sight of me! I want that flat little belly quivering with terror and those slender hands clasped in pleading while she’s on her knees to me. I want those jade eyes of hers shimmering with tears, those spiky lashes fluttering with dread.”
“Do you really?” Kale asked quietly.
Taegin Drae turned his angry glare on his 2-I-C. “Aye, Kale. I do!”
Kale relaxed, for when the man sitting there in the rec room with him used his first name, they were no longer commander and second in command—they were equals.
Their closeness had been forged in the crucible of war when Kale’s family had helped to hide the last of the Tiogar Clan from Madras enemies attempting to annihilate him. Assigned by Fleet Command to be the Tiogar’s bodyguard when Drae fled for his life with a whole squadron of Madras close on his heels, Kale had found the job nerve-racking with never a dull moment. Taegin Drae took risks no sane man ever would, yet McGregor had been right there beside him, leaping into the precipice of danger along with the Tiogar.
Because of their months of hiding, struggling to survive, with McGregor always at his back, Taegin and Kale had formed a fierce bond each of them treasured—though even under threat of torture neither would ever admit such a sentimental thing.
“Is that why you’ve been sending out subliminals to her for the last six weeks?”
Drae waved a dismissive hand. “I wanted to prepare her.”
Kale leaned back in his chair. “For what were you preparing her?”
The Tiogar started to speak, but two crewmembers ventured into the rec room, stopping dead-still when they saw their captain.
“Get the hell out!” Drae shouted. “Now!”
The crewmen hurried away. No one intruded upon Taegin Drae when he was in one of his dark moods.
“Can’t a man have any peace on this gods-be-damned ship?”
Kale hid a smile behind his hand. “What exactly do you have in mind for the lovely Miss Deringnoe, Taeg?”
“Acet.” Drae spat out the word as though it was a bad taste. “I believe she only used Deringnoe when she was arrested. The gods only know who Deringnoe was.”
“Her father, perhaps?”
Drae snorted. “I would wager the little bitch was sired by a slimy demon from beyond the Abyss. What other creature would mate with a hag like Neala Acet?”
“I hear she is quite lovely.”
“She is,” Drae said, and his voice softened a notch. “She has the softest hair and her lips are—” He stopped, realizing McGregor meant the mother, not the daughter. He narrowed his eyes. “You go to hell.”
“Been there,” McGregor chuckled. When the Tiogar ignored the remark, he asked again for what purpose was Drae preparing the young woman.
“They wanted to exterminate every last one of us,” Drae said. His jaw was tight—his words falling like stones from his taut lips. “They murdered my father then my cousins. They came after us with a single-minded vengeance, intent on wiping us out. I am the only one left from among the Tiogar Clan.” He momentarily closed his eyes, took a calming breath and then released it, slowly opening his eyes as he exhaled.
“By all accounts, Lady Marin had nothing to do with what transpired on Riochas Prime,” Kale reminded him. “She has been in boarding school on Laidineach for—”
“I know all about that!” Drae snapped. “I know everything there is to know about her.”
“Really?” Kale watched his friend catapult himself from the chair and begin pacing in front of the sweeping portal. It was a sure sign of agitation in the Tiogar when he started plowing his hand through his thick hair and tugging at it.
“She is at the head of her class,” Drae recited. “She excels in every subject, every class and every sport in which she is allowed to participate. She is only three credits away from receiving a degree in biological engineering.”
“A worthy occupation,” Kale observed.
“She is saving herself for a gentle man who loves animals as she does. She wants to marry that paragon of virtue and have a brood of children,” Drae said with a grunt. “Two boys and two girls.”
“I don’t see how you could find fault with that,” Kale said.
Drae spun around. “Oh, she’ll get at least one of those boys, but she’ll get no gods-be-damned girls from me!”
Kale blinked. “What are you saying, Taegin?”
The Tiogar advanced on his second in command and grabbed the arms of McGregor’s chair, leaning over him. “I am going to take her precious little maidenhead and maybe even give her Tiogar seed in exchange,” he growled.
“You are going to rape her?” Kale gasped. “Taegin, no! You can’t do that. It—”
“Who said anything about rape, McGregor? Besides, I’ve taken her many times already, Kale,” the Tiogar asserted. “Even if it’s all in her mind.”
“Is that what you have been doing to her over these past weeks?” McGregor asked. “I thought you were simply frightening her with those sublims. Have you been mentally seducing her instead?”
Drae let go of one arm of the chair and held his hand before his friend. He waggled his fingers then closed his fist until only one finger—the middle—remained rigid. “With this, aye!”
Kale groaned. “You are playing with fire, my friend. If you mate with her—”
“It won’t be mating,” Drae stressed. “It will be revenge.”
“But—”
“But nothing!” the Tiogar snapped. He stood up. “Is the Sobek ready to transport her friends to Fiáin tomorrow morning?”
“Aye, but, Taegin—”
“Then make sure they are onboard and dropped off first thing. I don’t need them onboard the Revenge while I’m doing what needs to be done. It’s best she has no friends here to whom she can turn.”
“Where is she now?” McGregor asked, giving up trying to argue with his captain.
“In an isolation cell where she will remain until I am done with her,” Drae replied.
Staring into his friend’s eyes, Kale knew it would be futile to try reasoning with Taegin Drae. The Tiogar was in charge—not the man—and the Tiogar would have his vengeance.
“What if they balk at leaving without her? The Tribunal made it clear they weren’t to be harmed in any way.”
“Sedate them,” Drae snapped. “Use one of the heavy-duty neuroleptors Healer Tuat devised. That will put their asses out so they can’t give you any shit.”
Kale sighed deeply. “It will take three days out and three back for me to transport the women to Fiáin.” He frowned. “How close are you to Conversion?”
Drae drew himself up to his full six-foot-four-inch height and stared at his 2-I-C, ignoring the question. “You’d best be hitting the rack, Mister. I want the Sobek out of here by 0500 tomorrow morning. Is that clear?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” McGregor acknowledged listlessly. He got up from his chair and headed for the corridor.
“Don’t worry, Kale,” Drae said, slapping his friend on the back as he walked alongside him. “I’ll see that she enjoys her ravishment!”
Long after McGregor had left, Drae remained in the rec room. He stood at the sweeping bank of windows and stared out into the black velvet swatch of space, seemingly mesmerized by the streaks of passing stars on the fabric of the heavens. His arms crossed over his chest, he stood with his legs apart, a muscle working in his jaw.
It was the dreams, the sublims, which he had been transmitting to Marin over the past few weeks that occupied his thoughts. Each one had been carefully planned, calculated with just the right amount of erotic content, the most vivid of images and sensations. His intent had been to make her his willing slave, in need of what her midnight lover could provide, and he knew he had succeeded his wildest dreams. He had conquered her easily and then had made her his.
“The Madras don’t need men, eh?” he whispered to the ebon vista stretching out before him. “They don’t require what a man can give.”
He closed his eyes and sent his thoughts winging through time and space until it came to a mind seething with hatred, with all-encompassing power, and there he allowed an insidious tendril to weave its way through that murky mentality and plant a seed, dropping the kernel in the seething depths where it would take root and spread.
“Who are you?” he heard the shout of disgust and smiled grimly, opening his eyes to stare blankly out the window.
It was a brutal mental image he had sown in Neala Acet’s enraged brain—an image of her innocent daughter lying spread upon a stained, disheveled bed, her nude body helpless to disembodied hands that plucked and twisted her naïve young flesh, left deep scratches bubbling with blood on her soft belly and breasts. He added sound to the picture—grunting, slobbering, vulgarities. He added movement—Marin struggling, writhing, her body shrinking away from her abusers. He added the smell of unwashed bodies, the ripe scent of spent semen, the coppery odor of blood from a breached hymen.
“May you rot in the Abyss!” Neala Acet screamed, trying to force the sights from her subconscious.
He laughed hatefully at the curses being heaped upon him as Acet flew into a rampage, her mind a quagmire of savage torments she wished to visit upon her unseen, unknown assailant.
“What do you want?” she bellowed.
Taegin Drae reached out easily with his mind and placed another image into the Madras leader’s teeming brain, this time with deliberate cruelness.
Marin lay in a wanton pose, her legs and arms wide, her mouth open, sweet tongue flicking across swollen lips. The patch of her crisp curls at the junction of her thighs was wet, the smell of her need wafting on the air. She lay there eagerly awaiting her lover, her arms up to bid him come to her.
“No.” The one word was a soft denial, spoken with a breaking heart.
Slowly the image in the Madras leader’s mind stripped the clothing from his powerful body. The black shirt was discarded, the black leather pants shrugged from lean hips to display a steely erection thick with promise.
“No.” A heartbreak of sound coming from a throat closing with tears.
Stretching out upon the willing body of her daughter, Neala Acet’s tormentor thrust himself between luscious thighs and seated his weapon deep into her waiting channel. Velvet arms closed around him, eager legs lifted to wrap around his waist, aching breasts pressed close to his hairy chest.
“No!”
He stood there at the window, and as he had done many times over the past weeks, he let the action play itself out but with one minor change—the Tiogar let Neala Acet see him for the first time, and he could hear the quickly indrawn breath that told him she recognized who he was.
“No!” A stone of a word dropped in violent refutation. “No!”
He made sure the Madras leader saw him come deep inside her daughter. He made sure she heard Marin’s trilling release of pleasure as the young woman arched into her phantom lover’s body. He made damned sure Neala Acet smelled his scent oozing from her only offspring before slowly withdrawing, leaving behind in his enemy’s mind a sadistic seed that had taken firm root and would grow wildly like a noxious weed, choking out all good thoughts, sapping the strength from any hope the older woman might have.
A sardonic smile stretched Taegin Drae’s mouth as he broke the mental contact between him and the woman who had taken his father’s life. It had cost him dearly to obtain a single drop of Neala Acet’s blood, but it had been well worth every pay chit he had spent to have that vile fluid in his possession.
Turning his attention to the younger of his two objects of torment, he opened the way between him and Marin, his revenge aimed now at her.
“Rape?” he said aloud. “No, it won’t be rape. There will be no need to take her against her will, for I intend to make sure she wants me with every fiber of her being.”
The dream came again as Marin lay slumped against the wall of her cell, but this time, her faceless midnight lover not only had very distinct features, he had a name and the horror of that brought Marin awake with a thudding heart.
She shivered, experiencing the last of the deep quivers inside her body that signaled a strong climax as she opened her eyes.
Marin buried her face in her hands. The feeling of being lost, stripped bare of all hope filled Marin’s soul. She now knew that the dreams had been sent—somehow—by her captor. That he could reach across time and space and violate her so intimately, so thoroughly, lanced her to the quick. The devastating knowledge that she had reveled in those shameful dreams, had thrilled to her unseen lover’s touch, hurt her.
What was worse, she wanted that touch still. Despite knowing it belonged to a man who hated her and had every intention of humiliating and degrading her, she longed for the feel of those strong hands upon her. She ached. She needed.
Against all reason, she was in love with her midnight lover.
“Why?” she whimpered. The last thing she wanted was to desire the very man who had threatened to hurt her. Finding out Taegin Drae—a very dangerous man—was the one behind the pleasures she’d been experiencing had stunned her. Realizing she had fallen in love with him was a treacherous torment that hurt her deeply.
A Tiogar, she thought with a helpless groan. She had fallen in love with a being her mother had attempted to make her daughter hate and fear. A man who completely destroyed those with whom he fought, devouring their remains like the beast he was. Yet the knowledge of what he was didn’t seem to matter now that she’d known her midnight lover and knew him to be the same man her mother so loathed. Such was his nature and that nature only exhibited itself when he was in the throes of Conversion, and she intended to never be near him when that transition happened. She knew a gentler, more sensual side of him and she thought perhaps that was the true man and not the image he was striving so hard to make her fear—an image her mother had helped to instill.
Her fanciful virgin dreams of a skillful lover who knew the innermost desires of her untried body without being told and who could wield her passions so adroitly had been the one bright moment of otherwise lonely, bleak days. With an exacting curriculum taught by demanding instructors who brooked no frivolity or enjoyment of the disciplined courses, the only pleasure Marin found was in her dreams. Now even those had been taken from her. She was facing reality now and that reality was stranger than any fiction she had ever found in any library.
All because of a basket of eggs Simone had stolen from the lunchroom…
“Rigel himself will be here on tour next week. I’ve a mind to egg that bastard’s runabout. Are you with me?”
What had started as a prank to ease the frustrations of repetitious days and nights spent cramming for stringent tests had become a living nightmare that had seen those who had taken part in the act sent to a detention center. The parents of the other girls came to the hearing that had sentenced them to four months of community service at the women’s prison at Fiáin. Marin’s mother had not nor had she sent an emissary.
“I am told your mother is very displeased with you, young woman,” the magistrate informed a downcast Marin. “She says she has washed her hands of you. You are no longer to consider yourself her daughter.”
“She ceased being my mother the day she sent me to Laidineach,” Marin said defiantly.
“Well, I can see there is no love lost between you. Perhaps that is best,” the magistrate commented.
“Does she know what will happen to me?” Marin asked. “Does she even care?”
“One would presume the Lady Neala is embarrassed by the situation and does not care to know the particulars.”
Marin wondered if her mother would even care that she was in the hands of one of the hated Tiogars. As much as her mother hated the warriors and had done her best to eradicate the entire race, she could not help but think Neala Acet would be horrified to learn her daughter—her only child—was now at the mercy of Seamus Drae’s son.
“Not only horrified but sickened, I’m sure.”
She had not heard him come in. She looked up listlessly and saw him standing with his back against the door to her cell with his arms crossed. She didn’t question how he had fathomed her thoughts. She simply accepted that he had. If he was able to send subliminal dreams to her, he could easily pluck her thoughts from the ether.
“What, no trembling today, wench?” he asked. “No pathetic sobbing meant to soften my heart?”
She lifted her chin. “Do you have a heart, Tiogar?”
“Aye and it’s black as coal and a hundred times as hard,” he replied.
She looked up at him. “Have you thought of what might happen when you force me to have sex with you?”
Taegin cocked his head to one side. “Force you to have sex with me,” he repeated. “What a cut-and-dried way of putting it, wench.”
“It’s a kindler, gentler expression than rape,” she said. “Don’t you think?”
“Either way, you’ll still be lying beneath me, my sweet, with my cock inside you.”
Marin steeled herself not to show any emotion whatsoever, although his answer sent a chill down her spine. “Are you here to hurt me or just taunt me?” she asked, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears.
“Outside of war, I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, although, if allowed, I’d make an exception for your mother.”
Marin saw true hatred gleaming in his dark gaze and nodded slowly. “I have felt the same way about her over the years.”
“No love lost between you, eh?”
“I have never known any affection from her, no,” Marin admitted.
“Why, then,” he asked, his forehead crinkled, “did she have you? Why not abort you if that was the case?”
Again she shook her head. “She wasn’t allowed to abort me. She wanted the man who sired me, but he didn’t want her and she blamed me for it. If I had been a male child, most likely he would have stayed with her.”
“Who was he?” Drae asked, squinting. “Do you even know?”
“I never met him—never even saw him—but I know who he was. He was a genetic engineer and a member of the Riochasian High Command. My mother was given to him as an award for his great strides in genetics, for what he helped to create. He used her for his pleasure then cast her aside.”
The golden eyes of the Tiogar flared wide. “Dearing Noah?” he questioned. “Was he your sire?”
Marin nodded. “I am sorry for what he did to you and your people. I…”
“Why are you sorry? You had no hand in what he did,” he said brutally.
“He didn’t create that virus for it to hurt anyone,” she said. “He created it to enhance, not destroy.”
“Oh, he enhanced us all right,” the Tiogar snapped. “I am a warrior superior to all because of your sire. I have keen eyesight and extremely acute hearing. My strength and endurance is that of twenty men. I have acute psychic abilities that make it possible for me to read the thoughts of others as easily as I can hear them speak. I can also communicate with and influence other humans at a great distance. I also can track them wherever they go if first I ingest a small portion of their blood.”
Marin blushed deeply as she realized that was exactly what he had done with her over the last few months. She could not look up at the hateful, knowing leer that had eased over his handsome face. “You took my blood? When?”
“Do you remember your arrest seven weeks ago?” he asked. “A sample of your blood was taken for identification purposes. I knew you were Acet’s whelp and having your blood became a priority. Such samples are easily available to Fleet Officers.”
Her stomach roiling at the thought of him ingesting her blood, Marin put trembling fingers to her lips.
“Aren’t you proud of what your sire helped to create, wench?” he sneered.
“No,” she said so quietly he barely heard her.
“You don’t think he was a great man?” he pressed, surprised at her answer.
“To some I suppose he was a great man. He was considered a national hero,” she said. “The Tribunal held him up as the definitive patriot for creating warriors without equal with whom they could win any war. He was given the finest quarters, the best of everything. As far as the Tribunal was concerned, he was a god.”
“Do you know how he died?” he asked.
“It was an accident in his lab,” she said. When he remained silent, she asked if that was a lie.
Drae knew the real story behind what had happened to Noah. Despondent over what he had created, realizing the young boys into whom he had inserted the virus he had created were suffering terribly for his sins, the bio engineer had locked himself in with a Tiogar going into Conversion and had met a horrible end—torn apart by unsheathed talons that had ripped the scientist limb from limb.
“Sometimes when a man plays god, when he believes he is one and things go horribly wrong, he can’t live with the consequences of his actions,” Drae said. “Such was what happened to your sire.”
“His death wasn’t an accident?” she asked.
“It was suicide.”
“Captain?” It was a hail from the vid com outside the cell.
“What the hell is it?” Drae snapped.
“You are needed immediately on the bridge, sir.”
Drae cursed beneath his breath, turned and stormed out of the cell without a backward glance.
Marin breathed a sigh of relief for despite the fact her body seemed to be craving the attention of the Tiogar, her mind and soul told her he was big trouble, warning her to keep out of his clutches for as long as she could. She feared the man—and what he was capable of doing—so the attraction she felt for him made no sense to her.
“Aye, well, it’s those knowing hands and that devilish body you are hankering for, fool,” she said aloud.
Groaning, Marin stretched out on the uncomfortable bunk and lay there with her knees up and her hands toying with the metal teeth of the zipper at her waist.
How could a man with such a sensual nature as the midnight lover who had visited her in her dreams turn out to be a wild beast, a murderous assassin with a heart as black as pitch, she asked herself.
It was the dichotomy—the two totally opposite parts of the same whole—that both intrigued and worried Marin. Such a man was completely unpredictable and extremely volatile. Could she handle a man like that or would he consume her in the crucible of his passions, she wondered.
“Not damned likely,” she said on a long sigh.
Turning to her side, she stared at the cell door and knew she had to come up with a plan that would at least let her have some say in the matter of her future in the Tiogar’s hands. She knew she could not allow him to do with her what he planned. She had to find a way to make him change his mind about ravaging her then discarding her to the prisoners aboard his ship.
She thought about her question to him and how he had neatly sidestepped the issue of what might come about after he had ravished her. She’d never known a man and hadn’t contemplated having one outside of marriage, so there had never been any need for her to worry about birth control. She certainly wanted children but didn’t even know if she could conceive. Lying there thinking about the Tiogar impregnating her sent waves of despair flooding through her soul.
She had to find a way to make him as besotted with her as she was with him and she had to find that way quickly!
* * * * *
Taegin twisted the blade in his opponent’s body then withdrew it, spilling the man’s entrails upon the already slippery deck. Lifting his foot to kick his foe away from him, he barely had time to step aside, spin around and meet the attack before another enemy struck out at him with a wickedly curved blade. The clash of his blade against the honed edged of the scimitar screeched like a banshee as the hilts of both weapons met.
“You are a dead man, Drae!” his enemy promised.
More than the foul breath washing over his face and the malodorous body odor that made his eyes water, it was the sight of the oily, pocked skin of his adversary that turned Taegin’s stomach. The infected skin was dotted with thick blackheads and upraised red pustules. The man’s flesh was a sheet of inflammation that bore witness to his disregard for his person. Ridding the world of his useless presence would be a blessing to those who had to look at his putrid face.
Easily dispatching his reeking foe, Drae paused long enough before engaging his next opponent to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. He assured himself his boarding party was handling their end of the fight then with casual elegance met the frenzied attack of a new attacker.
Studying the clean, determined face of the man with whom he was parrying, the Tiogar knew this one would be for the Feasting. He drew the scent of the fellow deep into his lungs, smiled brutally and made quick work of ending the young man’s life.
By the time the vicious snarls began, the boarding party from the Revenge had meted out the last measures of punishment to the ones who had dared tried to overtake Captain Taegin Drae’s ship. Making sure no life was left alive on the ship they had overrun, the boarding party transported back to the Revenge, leaving their captain behind to finish his business.
Tarnes looked up as the men began appearing on the transport pad. “Was it Graham’s men?” he asked.
“Aye,” Ensign Villarreal reported. “Come to break him out.”
“Fools,” Tarnes observed with a twist of his handsome mouth. “They should have known better than to come after us.”
“Won’t make that mistake again,” Villarreal said. He grinned. “Ever.”
Every man except the captain accounted for, Tarnes could have gone back to his duty station, but he waited for the Tiogar to return. He spoke quietly with the chief engineer until the buzz from the pad began, signaling the captain’s return.
No man on the engineering deck cared to view what might materialize upon the pad. Their eyes were turned away, a hand to their noses to help mask the smell that always accompanied the manifestation. Only Tarnes stood facing the pad, his hands clasped behind his back in parade rest, his chin up, jaw clenched and his eyes straight ahead. He snapped to attention when dark amber eyes flicked casually over him.
“All accounted for, Captain,” Tarnes reported. “No casualties. A few cuts and bruises but nothing of consequence. I’ve given the men a few days off to recuperate.”
“At ease,” Taegin Drae growled as he moved off the pad. He was tired and badly in need of the bath he knew Tarnes had waiting for him. “The woman?”
“Lady Marin is well, sir.” He fell into step beside his superior.
“I, too, will need a few days off, Tarnes. I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“I will see you are not disturbed, sir.”
“I’m close enough to retirement to taste the Balikian rum, Tarnes,” Drae stated, thinking of the highly potent amber liquid he had only in the last few years been able to afford. “And I’m more than ready for it.”
Tarnes mentally calculated the captain’s age. Since all Fleet Command members began their service at age fifteen, he realized the Tiogar had to be close to thirty-five. To Tarnes—at the ripe old age of twenty-six—that was almost ancient. “Any other orders, sir?” he asked.
“Keep a close watch while I’m down, Tarnes,” Drae ordered.
“Anything in particular I should be looking for, sir?” Tarnes asked, his face scrunched with concern.
“Anything that looks like it means us harm,” the Tiogar replied. They had reached the elevator and he waited for Tarnes to punch in the number for the deck on which the captain had his quarters. “That’s the only reason I’ll accept for you disturbing me.”
“Aye, sir,” Tarnes replied. He made no move to enter the elevator with his captain and was still standing there when the doors closed on the blood-splattered face of the Tiogar.
Ensign Villarreal let out a long breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the smell of spilled blood on him,” he confessed.
“You will. It took me awhile but I barely notice it anymore,” Tarnes told him. “It’s what he calls the kill stench and it bothers him a lot more than it does us, believe me. That’s why he insists on a long, hot bath after one of these interludes.”
“Interludes,” Villarreal muttered. “That’s a genteel way of putting what he does. At least he didn’t come back this time as the big cat.”
Tarnes laughed. “I’ve got to tell him that one, Villarreal! He’ll get a kick out of it. If I remember the last time he did, that when we had a new crewman onboard, the man slimed himself trying to scramble away from the transport pad.” He fanned the air in front of his face. “Now that was a smell!”
“The shape change doesn’t bother me all that much. It’s the not knowing if he’s going to be a man or a beast that makes me uneasy,” Villarreal said. “But it is a bit unsettling when you look and there he is snarling at you with those wicked fangs still stained with an enemy’s blood. That I don’t care for.”
“Umm, aye, I must confess that startles me when he appears in Tiogar form. Thank the gods he doesn’t do it all that often.” Tarnes thought about it for a moment. “You know I think that only happens when he’s too tired to shift back. And it might have something to do with how ferocious he’d been during the hunt.”
Villarreal shuddered. “The hunt,” he repeated. “Now that’s a term to make a man have nightmares.”
Tarnes nodded. “Let’s hope we never do anything to have him on our trail!”
It was two days before Marin saw the Tiogar again. She had been sitting listlessly in her cell, staring at the dull gray walls and feeling more claustrophobic with each passing hour she was awake. Her sleep had been troubled with images of violence she knew came from her captor. The rivers of crimson blood flowing through pristine green valleys, rocky ledges littered with bleached bones drying in the sun had long since ceased to upset her. Violent scenes of horrendous death and devastating destruction no longer surprised her when they intruded. Something told her the Tiogar wasn’t even aware he was transmitting such atrocities to her. Something told her she was intercepting his dreams.
She had asked the steward, who brought her two meals of the day, if she could have some small measure of freedom outside her cell, but he had shaken his head in denial.
“The captain would drain me drier than a husk if I so much as let you step one foot outside this cell, ma’am.”
“May I at least have a basin of warm water and a cloth so I can wash up?”
“I’ll have to check with Mr. Tarnes,” the steward had replied.
But no basin of water had been brought to her. There was nothing in the cell with which to pass the time and the dull gray walls were beginning to close in on her. Luckily, there was a stainless steel toilet and tiny sink with cold running water for her sanitary needs.
Marin drew her legs up onto the cot and lowered her head to her knees. She was a prisoner and she had to reconcile herself to that fate. If her mother knew where she was, she apparently didn’t care, else she would have sent someone to rescue her. Feeling sorry for herself, she was crying quietly when the door to her cell snicked open.
“Miss me, wench?” he asked.
“No,” she said, wincing at the peevishness she heard in her tone.
“Not lying there wondering when I’d next appear to ravage you?” he inquired.
“You’ll do what you’re going to do,” she said. “What good would it do me to worry about it?”
The Tiogar chuckled. “You’ve got spunk, wench. I’ll give you that.”
She sat up and leaned against the wall. “Were you keeping away from me so I could sit here and worry about your next visit, Captain?” she asked. “If so, I hate to disappoint you.”
He grinned. “I just bet you do, but no, it wasn’t by choice I kept away from you, wench. We had a slight run-in with a band of pirates or I’d have been back sooner.”
Slowly lifting her head, Marin looked up into the expressionless face of her warden. “You look none the worse for wear, Captain,” she said. “I assume you won the day.”
“I fed well,” he stated, his eyes hot.
Images of the blood and destruction that had been assailing her the last few days rose up in her mind’s eye and she frowned, realizing she’d accepted his bestiality as a matter of course and was surprised it no longer bothered her.
Drae cocked his head to one side, reading her thoughts. “I wasn’t aware I had broadcasted my deeds to you.”
“Well, you did. Please be more careful next time,” she said. “I don’t care to see what atrocities you perpetuate.”
Straightening his shoulders, Drae arched one thick brow. “You prefer more erotic sublims, do you?” When she didn’t answer, his grin turned nasty. “Now that I’ve had my fill of Feasting, I’m ready to satisfy my other appetites.”
Marin had had time to accustom herself to the inevitable. She knew there was nothing she could do to prevent or stop what was going to happen. There would be no last-minute intervention by her mother, no reprieve. She was on her own and at the mercy of the man ogling her with single-minded intent.
She reached up to push her tumbled hair back from her face. “You are going to rape me,” she stated.
He simply smiled brutally, his eyes locked on hers.
“What if you get me pregnant?”
He shrugged. “You’ll have the bantling, what else?”
“And if I fight you?”
He shrugged. “It won’t stop me from taking what I want. Hell, it might even add spice to the venture.”
Stated so boldly, his words sent a shaft of terror through Marin’s soul and she knew he was telling the truth. Either she could give into him and get it over with or she could allow him to ravish her, cause her untold pain. The outcome would be the same.
A few years earlier, Marin had taken a course on the effects of long-term incarceration of Tribunal prisoners during times of war. One of the most effective weapons used against the prisoners was rape. Being made to undress before the violator was one of the primary purposes of psychological torture. Meant to degrade, to humiliate and to bring home to the prisoner his or her inability to control what happened to them, such an act seared the soul and took away any will that might be left.
With her hands clasped in front of her, she met his amused stare. “Then get it over with.”
Drae’s lips twitched. “Ahhh,” he said, drawing the exclamation out. “We are playing martyr, are we? Are you going to lay there—arms and legs outstretched—while I do the nasty to you?”
“You’ve made it clear I have no choice in this matter,” she said. “I would be foolish to allow you to hurt me so I won’t fight you.”
“Well, hell, it won’t be much fun then, will it?” he mused.
Marin kept her jaw clenched tightly although she wanted to scream at him, beat him with her fists and demand he stop tormenting her. Instead, she lifted her chin.
“What is it you want me to do, Captain?”
He grinned, shrugged, and then turned his back on her. “I’ll have to think about that.”
Marin stared at the spot where he had been standing, unable to believe he’d simply turned and left her. She waited for him to return and when—after ten minutes had passed—he had not, she picked up her pillow and threw it at the door, calling him a name she’d heard Simone use many times when referring to men.
Another day passed before he turned up at her door. She looked up to see him lounging against the doorjamb, not having heard the pneumatic door swoosh open.
“More torment, Captain?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“I thought about what it is I want to do to you,” he said after a long moment of silence.
Marin lifted her chin. “And what is that?”
His eyes narrowed only a fraction before a tight, lazy grin stretched his full lips. “I want you,” he said, shifting his shoulders, “to strip for me. If I have to rip off your jumpsuit, I promise you it will not be gently and I might not provide you with a new one.” He cocked his head to one side. “Although having you naked all the time would expedite matters.”
She held his stare for a long moment then unclasped her hands and reached for the zipper that ran from neck to crotch. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. She wanted to get it over with, for the suspense was rubbing her nerves raw.
“Slowly,” he ordered.
Grinding her teeth, Marin began to lower the zipper.
Unconsciously, Drae cocked a dark brow as the zipper came down. He caught a glimpse of white lace behind the opening at mid-chest level and had to school himself not to smile. As the metal teeth separated and the appliance moved lower, he felt a stirring in his groin that made him shift his shoulders again.
“That’s enough,” he said, his voice deep and throaty.
Marin looked up. “What?” she asked, but he had disappeared again, the door shushing to behind his departure.
The Tiogar was standing just outside her cell door, pressed up against the wall, his heart pounding in his chest. He was ready for her, so completely wrapped up in the needs driving his body, he had forgotten to plumb her thoughts, had not been paying heed to what was going on in her mind and that was foolhardy. He needed to know she feared him. His had become a single-minded pursuit and that quest was to have her writhing beneath him, enslaved to his masculinity. He needed to know she was dreading the moment he took possession of her. That was part of his plan—a plan that was quickly unraveling by the lust that had overtaken him.
Unaware he did so, Drae reached up to wipe the sweat from his upper lip. He passed his palm over his mouth, annoyed that his hand was trembling. He slammed his hand down to his side, standing there trying to get his erratic breathing under control, fingers curled into fists.
“This was to be revenge,” he said to himself. “Nothing more.”
Unbidden, the thought of her lovely face floated before him. He could smell the sweet scent of gardenia that seemed to cling to her. His palms itched with wanting to run his hands over her silken flesh, to heft the weight of her breasts. His cock throbbed with a need of its own that all but drove him to his knees.
“Stop it!” he ordered himself, pushing away from the wall.
Since when had revenge become desire? he asked himself.
He had set out to punish Neala Acet by sending her graphic images of Marin being ravished but that had not seemed to have the effect he had intended. He soon began to realize Acet viewed the images of her daughter being brutalized for what they were—phantoms of vengeance. She knew Marin was safe and unlikely to have such things happening to her. Fleet Command would see to the young woman’s safety, but…
Images of Marin, true images of her in the thrall of unbridled passion, taken straight from Marin’s own fevered mind proved to be a weapon of supreme power. By turning Acet’s innocent, virginal daughter into a writhing mass of wanton craving, to have that cosseted daughter yearning for sexual release in the arms of a man, was a vengeance so devastating, Neala Acet began communicating with him. He knew to a man-hater like the Madras leader nothing could be more abhorrent, more repulsive than to have her own flesh and blood shamelessly giving herself willingly to the enemy, but…
The plan had backfired on Drae. Along with the gloating pleasure he got from torturing Neala Acet, he had gotten a rude awakening. In that awakening, desire had reared its undeniable head and lust had washed over him in waves of longing he could no longer control. So furious had he been upon realizing he was having feelings for the young woman he should not be having, he turned his anger upon her, making threats that he now knew he had no intention of ever carrying out.
Groaning, Drae brought his hands up and covered his face as he slid down the wall, hunkering there on his heels, his rump pressed to the titanium sheathing behind him.
He hadn’t counted on feeling anything, he thought as he crouched there, his body awash with need. The intense erotic longings he had tried to instill in Marin had rebounded on him, and now he had been caught in his own web.
“Stupid, arrogant man,” he said with a sigh, lowering his fingers so he could stare unseeingly at the opposite wall. “Conceited, egotistical fool. You didn’t stop to consider the consequences, did you?”
The mental images he had transmitted to Marin had come straight from his own well of desires, dredging up from his very soul the things he needed, he craved, he ached to experience. Not once did he question those midnight transmissions. He had wanted to share them with her and now that he had, he had to pay the cost.
* * * * *
Still another day passed before they laid eyes on one another.
The door to her cell opened and she looked up to see him framed in the doorway.
It was his heavy, shallow breathing that drew Marin’s immediate attention. Though there was not a discernible expression on his hard face, she detected the heat of lust simmering in his eyes and she remembered part of the lecture a few years back…
“Prisoners learned quickly that to keep their tormentors from hurting them during the rape sessions, they needed to seduce the violator,” the aged instructor had droned on, seemingly disinterested in her topic.
Drae seemed disinterested too, but the swell in his black leather pants belied that disinterest. Though Marin knew very little of men, she knew what that bulge signified and she knew she had best use it to her advantage unless she wanted him to damage her. That he would hurt her was a given. She understood the breaking of the hymen would cause pain. It was the degree of that pain she hoped to lessen.
“Another significant lesson learned during their imprisonment was that it was easier to have one violator abusing them than to be at the mercy of several. It became vitally important to become the willing plaything of one guard rather than suffer the attention of an entire cellblock.”
Without him asking, she put her hand on the jumpsuit’s zipper and slid it down as far as it would go. She lifted her foot and using her toes against the heel of her other foot, slipped off one of the canvas shoes that had been allotted to her and stepped out of it. With one foot bare, she removed the other shoe in the same manner.
“I have been told I have pretty feet,” she said, trying to distract him, keep him from intercepting her thoughts, and almost smiled when he started, dragging his eyes from that portion of her body to her face. “Do you think so?”
Her question confused him so he didn’t answer, though his brows had clashed together across his forehead. She was less than eight feet from him and he could smell the light perfume that radiated from her flesh. It was that fragrance that held him so still. He had intercepted her thoughts about rape and it was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he had no such violence in mind, but he was caught and held by that soft scent of gardenia, and it was doing strange things to his libido.
He could also smell the musky aroma of her sex and that scent made his mouth water and his cock ooze. He looked down at the juncture of her thighs and saw another swathe of lace riding low in the opening over her hips. Unaware he did so, he licked his lips.
“Do you want me to stop?” she asked softly.
He shook his head, unable to speak.
Marin reached up to tug the bodice of the jumpsuit from her shoulders.
Creamy, he thought as those soft, round corners were revealed to him and he knew they would be silken to the touch. His cock stirred when the bodice slid down her arms and she pushed it lower until it bunched around her waist.
“I am also told men like to suckle a woman’s toes.”
Drae jumped as though he had been prodded with an electric current. Her words had gone straight to his cock and set it to throbbing. It was all he could do not to throw himself at her, drag her to the floor and rip into her like the beast to which he had always been compared.
“In my dreams, you never got that far down my body though, did you?” she asked softly.
His confusion deepened as he dragged his eyes from the lace of her bra to the beauty of her face. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen and he wanted desperately to take her into his arms, mold his mouth to hers and claim her as his mate.
Marin saw him shake his head as though to clear it of forbidden thoughts and it was at that moment she knew she was the one wielding the power, not him. His lips were parted and his breathing was loud, his wide chest heaving.
Carefully, Marin, she mentally warned herself. Take charge of the situation. Lead him where you want him to go.
Drae stopped breathing as she wriggled the jumpsuit over her hips, down her long legs and then gracefully stepped out of it. He had to remember to swallow for his mouth was flooded with moisture and he risked drooling like a pre-pubescent cadet. There was no doubt in his mind that she had taken charge of the situation, was leading him where she wanted him to go, because he was completely incapable of thinking and doing for himself.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I believe you are a skillful lover, milord Tiogar,” she whispered, walking toward him. “The dreams showed me that.”
“No!” he said, and his voice was raspy. “Stay where you are.”
Marin stopped. She smiled then reached behind her to unhook her bra.
He could feel the blood rushing through his veins. His cock was as hard as a rock and straining valiantly to burst through the leather of his uniform britches. His breathing was erratic, so shallow he felt lightheaded. Either the room had become unbearably hot or his body temperature had elevated to such a level he felt sweat beneath his armpits.
“I was always on my belly,” she said, “when you came to me in my dreams. You never had a chance to taste my nipples.”
His groan shamed him but he had enough willpower to remain still. She was less than seven feet from him but already he could feel the heat of her body and his palms began to sweat.
She took another step closer, allowing the bra straps to slip down her arms. Her breasts sprang free. The tips were dark coral, the areolas a lighter shade of ginger. Full and lush, beckoning his hands upon them, those glorious orbs rode high on her chest, the nipples engorged.
“Would you,” she said, taking another step closer, “like to taste them now?”
Drae’s gaze was locked on her breasts. She was five feet away. Four… Three… Two…
He looked up and lost himself in her jade green eyes. There was no fear on her face. No tremor to the hand she lifted to place along his cheek. Her flesh was soft as down upon his face.
He closed his eyes, then without even realizing he was doing it, turned his lips into her palm and kissed it gently.
You have him, Marin, he heard her thinking. Now reel him in!
Hell, yes, his own mind shouted. Reel me in, wench. Reel me in tight!
“Do you really want to hurt me?” she asked.
Opening his eyes, he looked at her. He found he could not speak for fear his voice would break.
“Do you really want to share me with other men?”
He glanced down at her bare breasts, wanting nothing more than to take their fullness into his hands, to run his thumbs over the turgid peaks, to taste their sweetness.
“No,” he denied. “Never.”
“Have other men fill me with their seed? Impregnate me?”
“No!” he roared, taking a step toward her. He was standing there with his fists opening and closing at his side. “The only seed you’ll receive is mine!”
“I’ve thought about that,” she said softly, “and I believe I would like to have your child, milord Tiogar.”
Tamping down the fear that rippled down her spine, she lifted her arms and put them around his neck. Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her body to his and—opening her lips—offered herself to him.
It was all he could take and his arms went around her to crush her to his chest. Lowering his head, he slanted his mouth over hers, thrust his tongue between her sweet lips and impaled her.
Marin had not expected to feel the arousal that suddenly flowed through her body. She felt it from the tips of her breasts to the folds of her vagina and she strained against him, pushing her lower body against the bulge in his britches. She felt—as well as heard—the low growl that pushed up from the depths of him. One moment she was draped down his body, the next, his hands were beneath her rump, lifting her and dragging her legs around his waist.
She locked her ankles together as he hurried to the cot and fell with her upon the mattress. His weight was exquisite and the heaviness of him pressing against her lower belly and breasts was a delight she could never have imagined. The insinuation of his knee between her legs—pushing her apart and readying her for his plunder—set her nerves to singing.
“Marin,” he mumbled as his lips trailed from her mouth to her neck then lower still.
She threaded her fingers through his hair as his firm lips found her nipple. His thick hair was like dark brown silk in her fingers.
His knee rose to press against the juncture of her thighs and she whimpered, her own breathing becoming as labored as his. When his hand slid over her hip and his fingers hooked into the waistband of her panties, she arched her hips, thrilling to the sound of the fabric tearing.
He moved over her, trailing kisses from breast to navel, plundering that little concavity with the tip of his tongue. Her hands were smoothing over the silk of his black shirt, pulling at the shoulders, needing to know what it was like to have his naked flesh against hers.
Drae rose up and with eyes as hot as the embers of Hell put his hands on the front of his shirt and ripped it apart then shrugged away the material.
Marin ran her hands over his shoulders, down his brawny arms and over the thickly pelted expanse of his chest. Her fingers stroked his manly paps and when she plucked at one hard little nub, felt him quiver beneath her touch.
“Never,” he said, his teeth clenched, “will any man ever touch you save me!”
A part of Marin knew a moment of relief while the rest of her rejoiced at his pronouncement. He was hers for the taking and if she was to make the most of her captivity at his hands, now was the time to see that he never regretted his vow and held to it.
“Make love to me, Drae,” she heard herself say, and was shocked at her own words.
All notion of vengeance had long since fled from the Tiogar’s mind. He wanted the woman lying beneath him. He needed the woman lying beneath him and he would have her.
She gasped as he flung himself off the cot and she reached out to him, thinking he had only been toying with her, but he was fumbling at the closure of his britches, cursing it as the black pearl buttons refused to open as quickly as he demanded.
“Captain?” the vid com interrupted.
“Not now!” the Tiogar shouted.
“Sir, I hate to interrupt you, but—”
“Then don’t!”
“Sir, Admiral Ben-Alkazar wishes to speak with you. It is a matter of some urgency.”
“Fuck!” Drae roared. He stood there, most of the buttons on his britches torn off. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, Drae, it can’t,” an imperious voice snarled from the vid com. “Get your ass on the bridge, Mister!”
Marin watched the Tiogar squeeze his eyes tightly shut, his jaws clamped together so firmly a white line had formed to either side of his full lips.
“Aye, aye, Admiral, sir,” Drae snapped. He cast one last heated look at Marin then spun around, trying to stuff himself back in his britches, and stalked from the cell, so infuriated he didn’t even bother to order the door locked behind him.
An amused look passed over Marin’s face. Not only had her would-be ravager been thwarted, he had inadvertently allowed her a measure of desperately needed freedom. Quickly scooting to her feet, she hurried to the cell door, stuck her head out to survey the corridor, and upon seeing no one about, dressed quickly and went in the opposite direction from her captor.
* * * * *
Drae stood in the shadows and watched his prey moving stealthily toward the runabout lying in its docking harness. He watched as eager hands ran along the black skin of the Fiach model runabout, searching for a way to open the expensive piece of machinery.
Against Fleet policy, he kept the impressive ship built by the famous Tappas Industries of an Ghearáin for his own personal use, well-hidden—or so he thought—in a far corner of the loading bay. The runabout had cost him dearly for the Gearmánach were known for building the best-engineered ships in the galaxy. The Fiach had taken a year’s credits to buy and he had no intention of allowing anyone to take it from him.
Especially not the potential thief who had—against all odds—found the code to gain access to the runabout’s interior.
“Daughter of a hag bitch,” he said quietly, impressed at the stealthy one’s ability. He uncrossed his arms and moved away from the wall on which he’d been leaning. Slipping silently across the corrugated steel of the catwalk, he melded into the shadows and pressed up against the runabout’s hull, listening as its would-be bandit settled into the console seat.
Marin scanned the control panel of the sleek little ship and thought she knew what each switch and button operated. Though she’d only flown one other runabout—and that one a much less complicated model than the celebrated Fiach—she prayed she could power this one up and get the hell off the Revenge. In her agitated state of mind, the thought of being able to open the docking bay doors to make her escape hadn’t yet occurred to her. She was too intent on reasoning out how to activate the engaging sequence to notice the shadow that slid into the runabout.
“Okay,” she said to herself, fingering what she thought must be the panel that turned on the ship’s computer.
Moving stealthily, Drae slipped silently into the jump seat at the rear of the runabout and settled back, his eyes locked on the young woman’s back. Never would he have imagined she could power up the onboard processor and when she did, his mouth dropped open.
“Talk to me, you beautiful piece of engineering,” Marin drawled as her fingers flew over the computer keyboard.
Stunned when he heard the engine throb into life beneath him, Drae’s eyes narrowed dangerously and his hands tightened on the arms of the jump seat.
“I’m the woman,” Marin complimented herself as the runabout’s engine purred like a giant cat.
The Tiogar’s lips twitched at Marin’s words and the chilly, lethal expression that had been building in his eyes began to warm.
Running her attention over the buttons of the communication array, Marin picked a switch she hoped was the correct one and when a recorded voice issued from the vid com speaker above her, she grinned broadly.
“Control, this is Drae. Open bay door number five.”
Drae winced. How the hell had the wench known he’d input that damned command? He had to mentally shake himself to keep from slapping his forehead with his palm.
Laziness, he reminded himself with a mental kick. Pure, unadulterated laziness and a supreme arrogance that no one other than himself would know he’d done it. Despite the anger at his stupidity and foolhardiness, he had to admire the woman who was sitting there gloating as an answer came back from control.
“Bay door five opening, Captain.”
The sound of one of the titanium irises cycling open made Drae shake his head. When the harness in which the runabout was slung dropped away with a slight metallic clink of chain, he tensed, afraid Marin couldn’t control the intricate craft, but the runabout didn’t even dip one inch. She was in total control of his prize ship. Slowly, he lifted himself from the jump seat, his amber eyes glowing.
Marin was smoothly working the controls of the Fiach. The ship was handling effortlessly and as she backed it away from the dock and began easing the sleek black nose around in preparation for shooting out of the docking bay, she felt nervous sweat dripping down her temple.
She had no idea where the Revenge was at that moment or how far it was until she could reach any semblance of safety. Her fingers sped over the keyboard. Alternating between the screen and her inputting, she called up a trajectory screen, opened a fuel capacity screen beside that one, and then opened another window atop that with a star map of the sector.
“Iontach is pretty damned close,” she observed aloud. Rapidly, she typed in the coordinates.
“Iontach, Captain?” Control questioned.
Marin froze, her eyes jerking back and forth across the communication array. Tucking her lower lip between her teeth, Marin cut off all access to the com array, reasoning that would be Drae’s overconfident retaliation at being second-guessed.
“Captain?” came the nervous query. When there was no answer, Control said, “Have a safe trip, sir!”
Slapping a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud, Marin settled back. “Too easy,” she said softly. “It’s just too damned easy. Something is bound to get in the way.”
The moment his hands touched her shoulders, curling gently over her collarbones, Marin’s heart sank as though a heavy, leaded weight had just been hooked into it.
“Throttle up a bit more, wench,” he told her in a quiet voice. “I wouldn’t be waltzing out of here at such a ridiculously low speed if I was pissed at being second-guessed.”
Blood pounding in her ears, her chest feeling as though it was being squeezed in a vise, Marin opened up the runabout and shot out of the docking bay like a Seapánach dragon was breathing fire down her neck. She barely felt his hands tighten on her as the G-force increased.
His fingers were caressing her shoulders, seemingly in an attempt to massage away the iron-hard tension that had tightened her entire body. The Tiogar’s thumbs moved in little circles on her trapezium muscles as his fingers flexed along her collarbones. “Cut back to thirty percent,” he advised.
Throttling back, she glanced down at the destination map that had been plotted for Iontach and hoped he wouldn’t take notice.
“Turn the com link back on, wench,” he said in a conversational tone that was more frightening than if he had yelled at her.
Automatically doing as he requested, she closed her eyes as he spoke with Control.
“Excellent work, Mr. Lutz. You passed my little test,” Drae complimented. “Now plot me a course for Oceania, if you will.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Marin heard, recognizing relief in Control’s voice.
Upon hearing the new coordinates, the Tiogar told Marin to input the data.
Marin did as he instructed and when he told her to engage the autopilot after changing course, she obeyed without so much as a blink of her worried eyes. As soon as the autopilot was engaged, the Tiogar’s hands left her shoulders and the console chair in which she was seated started to swivel around.
Feeling slightly queasy, Marin wanted desperately to close her eyes, for she feared what she would see once the chair had completed its arc, but she forced herself to sit still, looking straight ahead of her.
It was his belt buckle that swung into view as her chair came around to face him. The gold emblem of the Tiogar Clan—a leaping jungle cat with claws extended—put the fear of the gods in Marin. She stared at the buckle, unable to tear her gaze from the Draedful thing and when Drae hunkered down in front of her, she flinched as though he had drawn back a hand to hit her.
How he came to be wedged between her legs she would never know, but his left knee was pressed firmly against her right thigh, his hands on the arms of her chair, effectively pinning her in.
“Where,” he asked, locking eyes with her, “did you learn to steal runabouts, Lady Marin?”
Unable to speak for her mouth was as dry as the low desert dunes of Arabach on Domhan, Marin shook her head.
“You don’t know where you learned to be a thief or you don’t want me to know who taught you such larceny?” he asked.
Her friend Simone’s face flitted across Marin’s mind a second before she clamped a lid on the treacherous thought. She lifted her chin, willing to take her own punishment without implicating another.
“Simone,” he said, his voice a tender caress.
Marin’s shoulders slumped. She should have known he’d pluck that knowledge from her mind as easily as drawing a breath.
“A talented lady, your little revolutionary,” he quipped. “What other tricks did that firebrand of rebellion teach you?”
“Don’t blame Simone,” she was quick to tell him. “She was only trying to help.”
Drae’s eyebrows shot up. “Help how, wench?” he inquired. “What possible reason could she have had to teach you how to steal a man’s ship?”
“In case I needed to escape some…” She stopped, clamping her lips shut lest she say something to wipe the pleasantness from his lean face.
He cocked his head to one side. “To escape what, wench? Or should I say who? Some would-be rapist, perhaps?” he prodded.
“If the label fits, aye!” she threw at him.
The Tiogar shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue at though at an unruly child. He sighed deeply. “You never cease to amaze me, Lady Marin. Scared shitless of me one minute then at battle stations the next.” He held her gaze. “Can’t make your mind up whether to slap me or fuck me, can you?”
Marin’s eyes flared and she lashed out at him, intending to slap the smirk from his face, but he caught her wrist in his powerful hand and jerked her to him. She slid out of the chair, her body pressed tightly to his, her right leg draped over his left thigh as his arms came around her back like steel bands. The wrist he held felt as though it was shackled. Her other hand was caught between the two of them, her palm flattened against his rock-hard chest.
“I think it’s time we settled this, don’t you, wench?” he asked, his face only inches from hers.
Her body shivering from his tight, imprisoning embrace, warmth curling in the lower part of her belly as ripples of need traveled through her, her nipples tingling with an ache she could not explain. Marin could only stare into the golden depths of his eyes as his lips slanted slowly—possessively—across hers in a kiss she felt to the tips of her toes.
One moment she was kneeling there on the bridge of the runabout with him and the next he was lowering her to her back, his powerful body lying atop hers, his mouth still clinging to hers. When she was stretched out beneath him, he lifted his head, breaking the kiss.
“I will not wait until we get back to the Revenge,” he said in a husky voice. “Before we go another click, you will be mine.”
“The ship…”
“Is on autopilot and a Fiach is built by superior craftsmen. It will warn us if something comes up,” he stated.
Falling into the passionate depths of his aureolin gaze, Marin could feel a deep throbbing between her legs. She wanted the man poised above her, his lower body pressed intimately against her own. She was glorying in the weight of him lying atop her. She needed to know what mysteries lurked beneath the heated eyes that were devouring her.
No words were necessary for Taegin Drae. He leaned to one side and reached up to grasp the zipper of Marin’s jumpsuit between his thumb and middle finger. Slowly he opened her garment, his index finger trailing down her flesh as the zipper lowered.
Marin shivered beneath his touch. She made no move to stop him as he lifted her upper body from the floor and peeled the jumpsuit from her shoulders and arms. The warmth of the floor—the titanium sheath lying just above the powerful Tappas engine—and the steady vibration felt good against her back. Nor did she protest when he slid the jumpsuit down her legs, slipping off her canvas prisoner’s slip-ons before removing the garment.
She lay there, her chest heaving, quivering as his hooded attention shifted slowly over her body.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
Marin did not react when he unhooked the front closure of her bra and laid the two panels aside.
“So very beautiful,” he said, and his voice was a mere breath of sound.
He lowered his head and captured one hard little nipple between his lips, flicking his tongue over the pebbly surface before drawing it deeply into his mouth to suckle her.
Marin closed her eyes and gave in to the delicious tingling that spread across her chest. She lay there like a sacrificial lamb, feeling the hardness of his fleshy sword pressing against her thigh.
His hands roamed over her flesh—down her sides, over her belly, along her hip. He cupped her sex with a hot palm that brought a groan of pleasure from her lips.
“Do you still want me to make love to you, Marin?” he whispered.
“Aye,” she answered, barely able to get that one word out.
One long, hard finger slid into her moistness and Marin writhed beneath that sweet invasion. Her eyes flew open and she looked in a golden gaze that was burning with passion.
“This isn’t rape, wench,” he said, his finger moving in and out of her.
“No,” she agreed, licking her dry lips.
“This is a claiming of what is already mine,” he said, easing his hand from her.
Marin moaned for he had started an itch inside her that was building, aching to be eased. When he rolled off her, she wanted to scream with frustration.
She watched him get slowly to his feet and only blinked as he tore the shirt from his chest, the black buttons popping off, the silk material rending with a satisfying sound that brought another ripple of heat surging through her belly. When he yanked off his boots and tossed them away carelessly, she sucked in her breath, heard the blood rushing against her ears.
The britches too were shoved down his lean hips and tossed aside, freeing his straining erection, the tip of which was pearled with love juice.
She looked away from the jutting evidence of his arousal, her face turning hot, but she had enough presence of mind to welcome him atop her, her thighs parting as he wedged himself between them. The back of his hand was at her groin as he positioned himself at her entrance and she felt her womb leap with anticipation.
“Do you still fear me, wench?” he asked.
Marin gave him a searching look, her eyes taking in his handsome features, delving into the gaze coming from the windows of his soul. “No,” she answered.
“You are not my prisoner,” he said. There was an ache in him that could only be soothed by her trust, her acceptance of him.
“I have moved past that, milord Tiogar,” she said. “You’ve captured me in a way I believe you intended.” She touched his cheek. “And I don’t believe you would knowingly hurt me.”
“I cannot promise you it will not hurt, wench,” he said, his eyes narrowed with apology.
“I know,” she whispered, and closed her arms around his shoulders to draw him down—the quicker to be over the ordeal of losing her maidenhead.
“Captain Drae!”
The interruption from the vid com brought a growl of pure rage from the Tiogar and he threw his head back and howled, sending shivers of fright down Marin’s backbone.
“What the hell is it?” Drae bellowed.
“You asked about ships that might be shadowing the Revenge,” Tarnes reminded him. “We have a bogey closing in and they are not answering our hail.”
“Shit!” the Tiogar hissed, beating his hand on the floor beside Marin’s head.
“Sir, they are closing fast.”
Marin winced as her midnight lover leapt to his feet, stomping over to the command chair and flopping down so savagely, the entire console shook. She sat up, watching him work the com array, his face angry and set.
“Put your clothes back on, wench,” he ordered, but not with the same tone he demanded Tarnes tell him from where in the cosmos the unknown ship was coming.
Marin got up and retrieved her jumpsuit, stepping into it quickly as the Fiach sped recklessly through space. She stumbled a few times as he changed course, rushing them back to the Revenge, but managed to snatch her bra and stuff it into the pocket of her jumpsuit so no tell-tale sign of their lovemaking might inadvertently be left behind.
“Is it my mother you think?” she asked, as she slid on her shoes.
“Someone sent by her,” he growled. “Take a seat and buckle in. I don’t want to be out here and unprotected in any case.”
Fearing for him but not for herself, Marin sat down in the chair beside his and latched herself in. Her heart was pounding but when she looked over at him—took in the powerful build of his naked body—her mouth went dry.
“Stop thinking those thoughts,” he commanded, sparing her a quick sideways glance. “I can’t be hearing that right now.”
Marin blushed for her thoughts had, indeed, been of his body and what he had almost had time to do before they’d been interrupted.
Careening through space at a speed she didn’t believe was either safe or prudent, Marin sat silent and tried to keep her thoughts from the sensual man so close to her. She ached to touch him, to feel his body atop her own.
“Don’t, wench,” he pleaded, and she could hear the hopelessness in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, and tried to keep her mind on the asteroids flashing past the Fiach’s windshield.
Something rocked the ship—a percussion wave that dipped the craft downward for a moment.
“Bitch!” Drae yelled, his hand on the com array. “Her daughter is in here with me!”
There was silence then an imperious voice came over the vid com. “Lay to and allow us to board.”
“Go fuck yourself, you leispiach bitch!” Drae insulted the speaker. His fingers raced over the command keyboard and the Fiach shot forward even faster.
“Sweet Aneas!” Marin yelled at him. “You’re going to tear this ship apart!”
“Have faith in the Gearmánach engineering, wench. This machine isn’t anywhere near her limits!”
Though it had seemed they were far from the Revenge, the prison transport suddenly appeared right before them, tracers of laser cannons firing to either side of the Fiach, rippling the space around the expensive ship and making for a very bumpy ride.
“Blow the bitch out of the sky!” Drae yelled.
“Please don’t,” Marin pleaded. “She’s only doing her—”
There was a loud explosion behind the Fiach and the ship buckled forward, heading straight for the docking bay iris that was revolving open.
Marin threw her arm up, for the Fiach was racing through the docking station and headed straight for a solid sheath of titanium wall.
Drae felt the terror in Marin’s mind but he was too busy bringing the ship under control, slowing it down, and by the time he did the Fiach was a mere few inches from the wall toward which it had been hurtling. It hovered there—engine idling.
“Mother of Alel,” the Tiogar whispered, his breath coming in gasps and his body drenched in a fine sheen of sweat.
Marin opened her eyes to stare horrified at the wall that seemed close enough she could reach through the windshield and touch it. She felt moisture at the seat of her jumpsuit and knew she’d wet herself. Slowly—very, very slowly—she turned her head to look at the man sitting rigidly beside her. “Don’t,” she said, her voice low and shaky, “you ever do that to me again.”
Drae nodded, unable to speak. He, too, was staring at the wall into which they’d come very close to splattering themselves. Sweating—and if truth be told his chair was none too dry—he was barely aware of Marin unbuckling her harness with shaking hands and retrieving his leather pants, placing them in his lap before bending down to pick up his discarded shirt. She brought it to him and stood there holding it as though it was an offering.
“I’m going to turn us around and settle into the docking harness,” he said, amazed his voice sounded so normal.
“Okay,” she stated in an equally level tone of voice, taking her seat once more. She sat there with her hands buried in his silk shirt.
Very cautiously, expertly, Drae nosed the Fiach around and ran her smoothly and efficiently back to the hidden docking harness where he kept her, keeping her well under docking speed. With an expertise he certainly didn’t feel, he seated the expensive flying machine into the harness and cut her engines. He let out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“I’m hungry,” Marin said.
He turned to gape at her, blinking at her set face. “You’re what?” he asked.
She looked at him. “I’m hungry,” she repeated, extending his rumpled shirt to him.
His hand came away from the console to take the shirt. “All right.”
Marin didn’t watch him as he unbuckled his harness and stood up to drag on his leather britches, but she could feel him staring at her, could almost hear his heart pounding. As soon as he slipped into his shirt, she eased her head around so she could look at him.
The buttons were gone from his shirt and he was standing there with it gaping open, displaying the powerful plane of his chiseled chest with its abundance of curly dark hair. Her gaze slid down the tiger line from just beneath his manly paps to below his navel. Her palms tingled wanting to touch that wiry trail.
“Wench,” he warned, and their eyes met. He was more than aware of the erection that had suddenly come to life in his britches.
“You’re going to have to court me, milord Tiogar,” she said, lifting her chin.
“Court you?” he echoed, blinking.
“You are familiar with the word?” she asked. “You do know what it means?”
“Aye,” he said, drawing the word out, almost as though it was a question.
“You no more want to rape me than I want to have you do so,” she said. “I think we both want to experience those wild dreams you sent me but neither of us wants you to hurt me.”
He shook his head. “No, that isn’t my intention.”
“Then you’ll have to court me,” she said.
“And if I don’t have the patience or the endurance to do that?” he countered.
“You brought this craft into the docking station with the proficiency of a master pilot. We were inches from dying, milord Tiogar, yet you would not allow that to happen. If you have that much adeptness, that much iron will, you have the ability to control your own body.”
He swallowed, holding her gaze with his own for a long moment then nodded very slowly. “So be it,” he said.
“You will court me?”
“Aye, wench. Like you’ll never be courted again.”
* * * * *
Six days had passed and Kale McGregor was lounging in the rec room with his arms on a table reading a dark romance ebook his lady had sent for his enjoyment—and no doubt instruction—when the Tiogar sauntered in. He bookmarked his place in the steamy erotic novel and observed Taegin as he stopped to talk to a few crewmembers who were playing cards. McGregor cocked his head to one side for there was something different about the captain, something calmer, easier on the spirit, and a slow grin began to form on the Contúirtian’s lips. He was smiling broadly by the time the Tiogar straddled a chair at McGregor’s table and took a seat.
“Did you get the wenches to their destination okay?”
McGregor nodded. “They weren’t pleased that they had to leave Deringnoe here. I thought I was going to have to sedate them like you suggested. My ears are still ringing from all the abuse that termagant Simone bombarded me with.”
“What are you reading now?” Taegin asked, having lost interest in the subject of Marin’s fellow conspirators.
McGregor blushed. The title was sure to get a derisive snort from his friend. “Desire’s Sweet Longing,” he answered, running a finger under his collar.
“Is it any good?”
Kale blinked, surprised by the question. There was no scathing look of disdain on the Tiogar’s face, no scornful contempt or cynical mocking. In his tone had been no hint of sarcasm, only mild inquiry. McGregor cleared his throat. “Actually, it’s hotter than a pulse rifle’s barrel in a firefight,” he answered.
“Drop it by my quarters when you’re finished,” Taegin said. “I’ve had more than my share of tech manuals.”
“The house building manuals? You’ve had enough of them?” McGregor questioned, one eyebrow lifted. For as long as the two of them had been assigned to the Revenge, Kale had watched his friend devour every manual Taegin could get his hands on. Addicted to learning all he could about the planning, construction and maintenance of the home he one day hoped to build with his own hands, Taegin would sit for hours on end with his nose pressed either to the computer screen or in a hardbound book, or with drawing instruments in hand, designing his own home.
“They’re starting to bore me now,” the Tiogar admitted.
McGregor sat back in his chair, staring at his captain in such a way a casual observer would have thought the captain had grown a set of horns. There was a look of complete astonishment on McGregor’s handsome face. His mouth was open, his eyes slightly wide with apparent shock. He sat there for a moment—staring at his friend—then pressed his lips together, swallowing loudly. “All right,” McGregor snapped. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
The Tiogar’s brow furrowed. “There’s nothing wrong with me. What’s wrong with you? You look like I just told you I was going to fuck your granny.”
“Granny would like that,” McGregor stated in an off-hand manner, “and you know gods-be-damned well what I mean. When have you ever asked to read one of the books Phaedra sends to me?”
Taegin shrugged. “I told you, I’m tired of tech manuals and—”
“No,” McGregor said, shaking his head. “I’m not buying that.” He squinted. “What have you gone and done now, Drae?”
The Tiogar held up his hand to signal one of his junior crewmen. Upon gaining the young man’s attention, he asked, “Would you get me a snifter of Antas brandy, Jorgensen?”
“Aye, Captain!” Jorgensen agreed, and hurried over to the duplication module.
McGregor waited until Jorgensen brought the fiery brew and had departed before he lowered his voice. “Did you rape that woman?” he demanded.
“Not yet, but I’ll get around to it,” Taegin said with a grin, taking a small sip of the blistering liquor.
With eyes narrowed into thin slits, McGregor spoke through clenched teeth. “You are not going to rape that woman!” he said.
“Well, now, there’s rape and then there’s rape, Kale,” the Tiogar said with a wink. “Eventually on down the line I can see myself raping her gently and with her complete approval and cooperation. I think she’d like that.”
“No woman likes to be raped!” McGregor hissed.
Taegin’s eyebrows shot up. “Correct me if I’m wrong but while we were hiding out in the Contúirtian Alps with Phaedra tagging along behind us like a moonstruck calf, I seem to recall a few episodes when the two of you were sharing a blanket when I believe I heard Phae say, ‘Oh, please, Master, be gentle with me’.”
Kale’s face turned a deep crimson color and he looked stricken, embarrassed someone—and especially Taegin—had heard their playacting. He looked around to see if anyone else had heard. “Will you lower your voice?” he pleaded.
“Well, didn’t I hear correctly?” the Tiogar pressed. “Didn’t I hear you reply to her that she was at your mercy and you would—”
“Enough!” McGregor snarled under his breath, the blush spreading down his neck and beneath the crisply knotted leather of his tie. “There’s a difference between what Phae and I do, and you do to that woman!”
“What’s the difference?” Taegin asked, taking another cautious sip of the potent brew.
“Phae and I are married,” McGregor said, raising his chin. “Married people can do things single people can’t!”
Taegin rolled his eyes. “Like what? Kiss the lady goodnight and roll over to start snoring and farting?” He nudged McGregor’s foot with his own. “Single men don’t dare do that if they want a repeat performance sometime during the night.”
“Don’t you rape that woman,” McGregor said, eyes flashing.
“I never had any intention of doing so, Kale,” Taegin said on a long sigh. “I just wanted her hellcat of a mother to think I was going to.”
“You told me you were going to rape her,” Kale reminded him.
“Aye, well, I tell you a lot of things,” Taegin told him. “I’m really not the ogre you think me.”
“Nah, you’re just a pussy cat,” McGregor chuckled.
“Even pussy cats have claws,” Taegin warned.
“Well, annoy the mother all you like,” Kale said, “but keep your hands off the daughter!”
Taegin grinned. “A little too late for that suggestion, McGregor.”
McGregor groaned. “You took her maidenhead,” he complained.
“Not yet, but I will. I’ve got to court her first.”
Shock flashed across the Contúirtian’s face. “You’ve got to what?”
“Court her,” Taegin replied. “You know—mince around like a besotted fool, bring her flowers and candy, escort her to the image deck on a sweet stroll around some moonlit lake.” He cocked one shoulder. “The usual shit women expect a man to do when he’s trying to get into their pants.”
Such a prospect was so out of character for the Tiogar, McGregor couldn’t think of anything to say for a few moments. He simply stared at his friend and tried to gauge the sincerity of what Taegin was proposing. With his gaze locked on his captain’s, McGregor realized the Tiogar was serious.
“You’re attracted to her,” McGregor accused.
“Never said I wasn’t,” was the reply.
“Tarnes told me that you mentioned retiring.”
“It’s getting about that time, Kale. I’m tired of gallivanting all over the megaverse, and I’m sick to death of the intrigues going on within the different alliances. I intend to build a home on that land on Contúirtia I was given and settle down.”
“With this woman?” McGregor asked.
“Maybe,” the Tiogar agreed. “We seem to mesh fairly well.”
“Like you meshed with Kali?” Kale inquired.
At the mention of the Contúirtian woman who had warmed his bedroll on the many cold nights trekking through the Alps, Taegin winced. “That was different,” he responded. “She was there.”
“Aye, you’re right. It was different. Kali was a camp follower and her cunt had been stretched by enough cocks to fit it over a hay bale, but as I remember, you two were inseparable. She believes when you get ready to settle down, you’re going to look her up and ask her to share your abode with her.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or did I mishear you say to her that you would be taking her as your hut mate when you returned to Contúirtia?”
Taegin squirmed in his chair. The time he had spent with Kali had made his days of running and hiding from the fury of the Madras less desolate in the icy climes of the Contúirtian Alps. With a wealth of cinnamon-colored hair that swung to the crease of her shapely ass, violet eyes and a lush mouth, overly abundant breasts bullseyed by succulent nipples, long legs that could wrap around his hips like a vise, Kali could be any warrior’s wet dream. To have her pressed against him on the cold, cold nights or her supple mouth drawing upon his cock with an expertise that made his shaft leap just thinking of it, or lie there as she slid her hot, wet cunt down him—the smell of her sexual scent so intoxicating it still made his mouth water remembering it—had seemed all he had needed at the time. Conversation? Who needed it? Her mouth was best applied in other endeavors than talking. Intellect? Not of any importance when all a warrior needed from her could be achieved in the grasp of a firm, little hand. Companionship? Compatibility? Caring? None of that mattered when the wench was more than willing to bend over backward to please her man. But looking back on it now, all there had been between him and Kali had been their private parts—and hers she’d shared with more men than he cared to imagine. He’d never respected her, just used her and realizing that now made him acutely uncomfortable.
“Men of my clan have been known to screw a lot of women, but we only take one true mate and I’ve chosen Marin as that mate,” he stated, trying to justify his actions to himself.
“All right, but did you hear what I asked?” McGregor pressed.
“Aye,” Taegin growled, looking down at the tabletop. “I heard you.”
“So what are you going to do about Kali?”
The Tiogar drew in a long breath then exhaled slowly. “I’ll handle that situation when the time comes. There’s a hell of a big difference between taking a woman to share your hut as your hut mate,” he emphasized, “and the one and only woman you want to spend your life with as your sole mate.” He thought about that. “Your soul mate.”
“I know Kali is a lusty woman and she’s known her share of men, but I’ve got to tell you, I think she loves you.”
Taegin waved away his friend’s words. “She lusts after me, McGregor. There is a difference.”
“Are you deliberately trying to avoid the situation, or do you really not understand that woman is obsessed with you?” Kale asked. “How many women would follow a man up into the frigid climes of the Contúirtian Alps, stay at his side through the kind of hardships we endured in that frozen wasteland?”
Drae clamped his teeth together, a muscle working in his jaw as he looked at his friend.
McGregor folded his arms over his chest. “Are you serious about taking Deringnoe to Contúirtia with you?”
“Aye, I’m serious. I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t!”
“Then you’d better think about what the situation might be like when you get back. Kali isn’t going to just give you a peck on the cheek and go away like a minor headache, Taegin. She’s going to cling on like a vicious hangover and you’re going to have to fight to get her off you.”
“Stop borrowing trouble before I ever have it, McGregor,” the Tiogar snapped. “I’ll make it clear to her that I want nothing more to do with her, and that will be that. I’m not going to allow Kali to dictate to me how I’m going to live my life.”
“And what of the Deringnoe woman?” Kale pressed. “Will she leave your new love alone or will she come after that woman with dagger drawn?”
“I’ll take care of Marin,” Taegin said.
The lady in question took that moment to enter the rec room. Now allowed to go wherever she liked upon the ship, she had been exploring and had finally made her way to the last place she had expected to find Taegin Drae.
“Speaking of the temptress,” McGregor said, unfolding his arms and coming to his feet as she approached their table.
Taegin turned his head and drew in a quick breath. His eyes widened, for his lady prisoner was no longer dressed in the jumpsuit of a prisoner but clad in a flowing, wispy gown that made him swallow like a green youth. As she headed for his table, he watched her hips swaying beneath the gossamer green fabric and his cock went as rigid as steel.
“Sweet Merciful Alel,” McGregor said, accompanied by a low whistle. “No wonder you want to rape her.”
His stare going from the top of her honey-blonde hair that was hanging free to flow down her shapely back to the tips of her sexy little toes strapped into gold lamé sandals, Taegin felt his body clench with pure, unadulterated lust. He wanted nothing more than to grab Marin, fling her over his shoulder and take her to the nearest cot to be ravished until she was hoarse from crying out his name.
“Am I interrupting?” Marin asked, smiling at McGregor.
“You could never be an interruption, milady,” McGregor said as he pulled a chair out for her. “A distraction, aye, but never an interruption.”
Taegin grunted. He and McGregor had been friends for a very long time—their friendship having been brewed in the cauldron of adversity—but he didn’t like the man flirting with the woman he had chosen for his own.
Marin sat down and almost immediately four crewmen were crowding around her, asking if they could help her in any way. She heard the low warning growl coming from the man sitting to her left and watched with amazement as the crewmen scattered as though the hounds of Hell were close on their young heels.
“Shame on you,” Marin said, giving Taegin a stern look. “They were only trying to help.”
“If you need anything, wench,” the Tiogar said, “you’ll be getting it from me!”
“Fine,” she said in a cheerful tone. “Fetch me a grape and orange punch then.”
Grumbling, Taegin got obediently to his feet and headed toward the duplicator.
“By the gods, milady, but I believe you’ve tamed the Tiogar!” McGregor said in a low, conspiratorial voice as he took his seat.
“I have not yet begun to teach that old cat new tricks,” Marin responded with a wink.
Taegin returned with a cloudy purple beverage and placed it before Marin. “Those were two tastes I’d not thought to ever blend,” he groused as he sat.
“Did you taste it?” she asked.
The Tiogar shrugged negligently. “Only to make sure it was palatable,” he replied. He swept his eyes over her. “From whence did that garment come, wench?”
Marin batted her eyes. “Oh, this old thing?” She smoothed her hand down the bodice. “One of your yeomen was kind enough to sell it to me,” she answered.
Taegin’s eyes lowered to thin slits. “And from whence came the payment for the garment?”
“I had Yeoman Schultz charge it to your pay account,” she told him, smiling into his lethally dangerous gaze. “I knew you would want me to be properly dressed.”
McGregor had to hide a smile behind his hand, for the Tiogar’s only comment to Marin daring such a thing was a humph of sound.
“Have you nowhere to be, McGregor?” Taegin asked, turning to stare at his friend.
“No.”
Marin saw Taegin’s hands clench into fists.
“Then I suggest you find somewhere else to be other than here,” Taegin ordered.
Sighing as though he had been much put upon, McGregor nodded and got up. He bid Marin a good evening, flicked an amused glance over the Tiogar and took his leave.
“One of these days that Contúirtian is going to step over the line and I’m going to put his ass in the brig,” Taegin complained.
“No you won’t,” Marin told him. “You like him too much.”
Another humph was Taegin’s reply.
“He’s your friend,” she said. “I can tell.” She took a sip of her punch. “Am I right?”
“Unfortunately for him, I guess he is,” Taegin admitted.
“Are you free this evening?” Marin asked. She was nervously running the tip of her index finger around the rim of her glass. For all her amusing banter, she was unsure of this new relationship between her and the mighty Tiogar.
“Why?” he asked. “What is it you wish to do?” He ground his teeth. “Take a walk on the image deck along a moonlit lake?”
“Let’s take the runabout out again,” she suggested, and when his eyes met hers, she watched the most determined, possessive smile tug at his chiseled lips.
“And all that that conveys?” he said in a low voice.
Marin had spent the day thinking about what had almost happened on the Folaithe, Taegin’s personal runabout. She could not keep the erotic image of him naked from slipping unbidden across her mind.
“You like the way I look nude,” he stated.
Marin’s jaw tightened. “Don’t do that,” she warned. “I don’t like you reading my thoughts.”
He shrugged. “Get used to it.”
Not liking that remark, Marin lifted her chin. “On second thought, I believe a moonlit walk along Lake Ursherly would be even better than taking the runabout. I’m glad you mentioned it.”
“I’d prefer the runabout,” he said firmly.
“Too bad,” she countered. “It’s the lake or nothing, milord Tiogar.”
Blowing out an angry breath, Drae pushed his chair back and stood. “Then let’s go walking.” He held out his hand almost as an afterthought.
Marin slipped her fingers between his and got to her feet. The electricity was arcing between them and neither seemed to be able to look at the other. He led her out of the rec room amid hushed whispers from among the few crewmen assembled.
Those the couple passed as they made their way to the elevator stopped dead still in their tracks and stared as though what they were seeing did not fully register. As they waited for the cage to come down to the rec room level, Drae kept his eyes on the polished titanium doors.
“I believe we are going to be the subject of much speculation, milord,” Marin said nervously.
“Do you think I care?” he snapped, and felt like kicking himself because the lady beside him tried to remove her hand from his grip, but he tightened it, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “I am on edge, wench,” he admitted.
Marin heard a gasp from someone who was passing them. She felt the man standing next to her stiffen and just as he started to open his mouth to berate the person, she leaned into him. “I, too, am nervous, milord,” she divulged.
He looked down at her. “Truly?” he asked, searching her beautiful face.
“Truly.”
“There is no need,” he said gently.
The doors to the elevator slid open and Taegin ushered her inside, not releasing her hand as he did so. “Image deck,” he ordered the onboard computer.
“Aye, Captain,” the vid com responded.
They rode up to the image deck hand in hand, standing close to one another. When the cage stopped, he led her out of the elevator and up to the desk of the concierge who took the reservations for image deck use.
The concierge snapped to attention. “Good evening, Captain! How may I serve you?” His shocked eyes flicked quickly over Marin then away.
“Is there a room available?” Taegin inquired.
Marin watched the concierge’s face pucker with fear. “I’m sorry, sir, but—”
“When will one be available?” the Tiogar cut him off.
Looking as though he was about to wet himself, the concierge raised a trembling hand then slammed it down again. “N-not for several hours, sir. I could—”
“Well, we tried,” Taegin pronounced. “The runabout it is.”
Turning away from the reservation desk, Taegin led his lady back to the elevator.
“Did you plan that?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.
“Contrary to popular belief, wench,” he said, “I do not control everything on this ship.”
As the elevator took them down to the docking level, Marin suspected she’d been outmaneuvered, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was still holding her hand—seemingly unwilling to allow her to leave his side—and she could feel the heat of his body beside her.
“Besides,” he said, as though there had not been several minutes of silence between them, “we’ll have more privacy on the Folaithe.”
“They’ll still know where you are,” she reminded him.
“True, but if anyone—anyone—dares to interrupt me tonight, they’ll spend the next twenty cycles doing hard labor on Toxis,” he said through clenched teeth.
Marin was even surer she’d been bamboozled when she found out the Folaithe was fueled and ready to go, its engines idling. She cast the Tiogar a bemused look but said nothing as he instructed his crew that under no circumstances save that of impending loss of life or ship were they to hail him once he was onboard the Folaithe.
Once seated inside the expensive runabout, Marin buckled her safety harness and watched with admiration as Taegin expertly piloted the Fiach class runabout into the soaring darkness of space.
“At last,” she heard him say. “We’re alone.”
Marin’s stomach did a strange little flip and she looked away from his handsome profile to watch the asteroids flashing past. Her hands were twisted together in her lap and she could feel the sweat on her palms, and knew that she had left the Tiogar’s ship a girl and would surely return a woman.
There was silence as Taegin maneuvered the Folaithe through the cosmos. He was unbearably aware of Marin sitting beside him and kept flicking his eyes toward her, watching her as she stared out the windshield. His hands on the controls were sweating and a very uncomfortable rigidity had claimed his tool so that it was becoming painful to continue sitting without shifting to relieve the hardness of his cock. Under no circumstances did he want to bring attention of his condition to Marin. He could sense her extreme nervousness and he did not want to add to it.
“Did you feel anything when you were sending me those images, milord Tiogar?” she asked softly, not looking at him but keeping her eyes straight ahead.
Taegin’s head pivoted toward her as though attached to a puppeteer’s strings. “Feel?” he repeated.
She nodded and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Aye,” she said, her voice even softer. “Did you feel anything?”
Did he feel anything? He repeated to himself. Aye, he mentally answered the question. By the gods, he had spent an agony of arousal each time he’d flung the wicked images at her. He’d experienced stimulations that had actually been excruciating because he refused to relieve himself.
“Did you?” She turned her head toward him.
Drae swallowed before answering. “Aye, wench,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I felt whatever you were feeling and then some.”
She tilted her head to one side. “You experienced the arousal I felt?”
He felt the heat rising up his neck and his hands tightened on the controls. “And then some,” he repeated.
“Did you enjoy that arousal?”
“No,” he said, and winced at the plaintive note in his vote.
“Why not?”
He turned to meet her eyes. “Because I did not think it honorable that I should arouse you and leave you wanting then pleasure myself. I was just as frustrated as you were, wench,” he stated. “And then some.” He looked away from her.
She studied his profile, tracing it lovingly with her gaze. It was a proud profile, a powerful side view of a powerful, imposing man. Taegin Drae was classically handsome, virile and completely male. “Are you going to take me tonight?” she asked, and her question was but a breath of sound.
“As the gods are my witness, aye, wench,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I don’t, my cock is going to explode.”
Her eyes dipped to the juncture of his thighs and she could see the thick bulge that strained at his leather britches. She licked her lips, unaware he had seen the gesture and that it was what caused the leap of his shaft. Her face flamed and she jerked her eyes away. She could hear her labored breathing and was barely aware that the man beside her was putting the runabout on autopilot. She flinched when she realized he was standing beside her, his hand out.
“Come, milady,” he said softly.
Despite her trembling, Marin managed to unbuckle her harness and place her hand in his. She could feel their sweat mingling and laughed self-consciously, meeting his amused look with one of her own.
“You’d think I was a green boy,” he told her as she got to her feet. “If I break out in zits and start babbling incoherently, it’ll be your fault.”
She was standing close to him—so close his body heat was engulfing her and causing a firestorm of warmth in her lower belly. She lifted her free hand and placed her palm on his cheek. “I don’t think a pimple would dare attack your flesh, milord Tiogar,” she said, caressing him. “As for babbling, I think not.”
Taegin was staring down into her eyes. She was taller than Kali and so much more beautiful, it took his breath away. He pulled her to him and slowly lowered his head, claiming her lips with his.
His kiss was a heady blend of the forbidden and the needed. Marin found herself falling beneath waves of passion and clinging to him—her arms now looped possessively around his neck. She was pressed so tightly to him she could feel his belt buckle digging into her stomach. His arms were around her like titanium steel bands, imprisoning her—an unbreakable bond that welded them together. The velvet texture of his tongue had slipped past her lips and was thrusting gently into her mouth, swirling around inside it and withdrawing to lick delicately at the corners of her mouth—causing a ripple of sensation to undulate through her loins. He was tasting her, feathering the tip of his tongue across her upper lip and running that tip between her lower lip and her teeth.
Marin felt her knees growing weak, giving out beneath her and she sagged, only to have his arms sweep her up, holding her high against his broad chest. In his arms, she felt dainty for the first time in life and utterly cherished for the look in his eyes said he had taken possession of her—heart and soul and soon, body.
He carried her to the rear of the runabout where two wall-slung bunks hung across from one another. Lowering her gently to the starboard bunk, he slid his arms from under her and reached up to loosen his tie.
Marin could hear her heart pounding, running away with her, and feel the dampness gathering between her legs. Her breath was erratic, shallow as she watched him strip the tie from his collar, toss it away then begin working open the buttons of the shirt. As the curly hairs of his chest came into view, she moistened her suddenly dry lips with her tongue and stopped breathing—as had he.
Taegin’s cock had oozed with undeniable lust when he saw her tongue come out to lave her lips. It was all he could do to tug the tail of his shirt from his britches and shrug it from his shoulders. His hands were trembling as he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free of the loops.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, needing to break the unbearable silence.
“I am pleased you think so,” she replied. Her gaze lowered from his face to his hands as he flicked aside the buttons on his britches then hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband to push the leather uniform pants down his hips.
Drawing in a quick breath as his shaft leapt from the lowering garment, Marin turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut, but not before she’d taken in the full extent of his erection. The boldness of his cock, the jutting thrust of it as it sprang free of its confinement had sent a tremor down her spine. He was huge, powerfully built with heavy veins rolling along his length. The tip of his manhood was dusky and a drop of passion’s juice clung to the tip. Her face burned as she thought of that pearly drop.
“Look at me, Marin,” he whispered, and leaned over her, his palm flat against the bulkhead beside her.
Slowly she turned her head and stared up at him. His chest was a broad plane of muscle, the pectorals looking as solid as rock. She could feel the tip of his cock touching her hip.
“Do you want me to undress you this time?” he asked gently.
She nodded, unable to speak. She knew she’d never have the courage or the strength to undress for him now. There were no bones in her body, no sinews, no muscle. She was nothing more than a melting pool of longing, desperately needing the touch of his hand to mold her.
Taegin hunkered down beside the cot. “Will you sit up for me?” he asked.
As though she was in a dream, Marin pushed herself up and allowed him to swing her legs from the cot. With infinite slowness, he lifted her foot and took off her shoe then set it aside. With his eyes on hers, he massaged her foot for a moment before letting it go to take off her other shoe and putting it on the floor. He caressed that foot, kneaded her toes, and then wedged himself between her thighs so that her knees were bracketing his waist then he put his hands on the silky bodice of her gown and in one slow, tantalizing motion ripped it straight down the front.
Marin looked down at the mound of rent material gathered about her hips. “Oh,” she said, dismayed at the destruction of the lovely gown.
“Shush,” he said, soothing her. “I’ve a garment for you to wear.”
“But it was so pretty,” she complained, plucking at the torn garment.
“I’ll buy you more gowns than you will ever be able to wear,” he promised.
She looked up from the gown to his handsome face and smiled gently. “I’ll hold you to that, milord Tiogar.”
He smiled back at her then continued tearing the gossamer gown from waist to hem then pushed it aside, baring her lovely body to his fevered view. The soft beige color of the lacy strapless bra and matching barely there panties made the blood pound in his head. His palms itched to place his mouth to the deep cleavage that beckoned like a sweet, verdant valley, bidding him to lay his head upon the soft vista. Not even noticing how his hands shook, he reached to unhook the front closure of the bra and when the tension of the lacy garment released, he let it slide from his fingers to the floor of the craft.
Marin drew in a long, deep breath as he crouched there staring at her chest. There was a fine line of perspiration that had formed on his upper lip. His eyelids were half closed as he looked at her bare breasts.
“Lovely,” he whispered, and slid his hands to the sides of her breasts to cup her gently.
The feel of his palms weighing her, hefting the fullness of her sent shivers down Marin’s spine. His thumbs feathered over her nipples and she moaned lightly, closing her eyes to the delicate touch. As his hands slid downward, she opened her eyes and watched as he took one flimsy side strap and ripped it. His fingers slid promisingly across her upper belly to the other side and he parted that strap as well. With a dark brow crooked, he tugged at the material that rested between her legs and she levered herself up, drawing in her breath as the garment slid suggestively against the crack of her rump and the soft folds of her vagina. By the time he dropped the torn panties to the floor, she was nearly panting.
“Do you have another pair of panties in your bag of tricks, milord?” she asked in a breathy voice.
“No,” he said, his eyes still glued on her nakedness, “but what the hell do you need them for anyway?”
“You don’t wear underwear?” she countered.
“Never,” he replied. “I like the feel of the leather against my…” He looked up and grinned when he saw the light flush steal across her face.
He had been sitting on his heels when he removed her panties. Now he straightened up, put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her. Gently, he laid his cheek upon the soft pillows of her breasts.
Marin could feel him trembling and the warmth of his breath across her exposed skin—her right nipple growing hard from the wash of the rhythmic air fanning over it. She put her hands on his head and cradled him, combing the fingers of one hand through his thick, dark hair.
“I know women who would kill to have such a glorious amount of hair, milord,” she said.
He made a sort of half-laugh, half-grunt sound that heated the air already wafting over her erect nipple. “I shaved it all off once,” he told her. “I won’t tell you what I looked like.”
She smiled. “Will milord Kale tell me?”
He growled for real that time and tightened his embrace. “Let’s not ask him, okay?”
“Afraid to show any vulnerability?” she teased.
He pulled back and looked up into her face—caught and held by the heat glowing in her green eyes. “Not with you,” he returned.
She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “Never be afraid to share anything with me, milord. I believe the great goddess Aneas made me for you.”
“You do?” he asked, the fingers of one hand swirling against her side.
She shrugged. “I tried to fight the attraction I have for you, but since you indoctrinated me so well in my dreams, made me feel things for you I shouldn’t have, I finally gave in and realized you’d captured me well and truly.”
“No more fainting dead away?” he inquired.
“I think not,” she replied, laying her hands on his cheeks, “unless you go all caveman explicit on me like you did that time.”
He dragged his hand around her side and slid it up to cup her breast, his thumb pressed against her nipple. The action pooled heat low in her belly and her womb did an odd little tremor. Her hands tightened against his cheeks. Their eyes were locked on each other—his filled with heat, hers with trust.
“Do you want to suckle me?” she asked so softly he had to strain to hear her words.
“With all my heart and soul and body,” he stated.
She pulled his head to her and when his lips closed around one turgid nipple, she let her head fall back, her eyes closed, her arms glided around his shoulders to mold him to her.
Taegin had known many women in his thirty-five years. He had slept with more than he cared to remember. Not a one of them had come to his bed—or to hers—a virgin, and he had to remember to go slowly with Marin, to court her as she deserved to be courted. Although every manly instinct in him screamed for him to throw her down and thrust into her so deeply, so fully, he kept a tight rein on his passion, suckling her gently, reverently, his tongue swirling patterns over the erect little bud. When he moved to her other breast, he laved it with moist heat, his tongue stabbing quickly at the engorged point.
With her fingers threaded through his hair, Marin could feel the dampness of his forehead, his scalp on her flesh as she laid her cheek on the top of his head. He was a heated missile prepared to be let loose, and she was the engineer readying him for blast off. The wayward thought made her giggle.
The Tiogar released her nipple and looked up at her. “You find this amusing, milady?” he asked, then dipped lightly into her mind to see what she’d found funny. He grinned. “A guided muscle, wench. Not a guided missile.”
Marin threw her head back and laughed. She realized he had read her thoughts and started to protest, but he had returned his lips to her flesh—this time between the valley of her breasts and was trailing light kisses down her chest to her navel. When his tongue spiraled into and around the concavity of her bellybutton before going lower, she tensed, her fingers in his hair tightening as his hot breath washed over the triangle of hair at her thighs.
Simone’s eldest sister Niane had made sure her youngest sibling and Simone’s friends knew what went on between a man and woman. Not having been told herself and having to discover the wonders of sex on her own, Niane had set out to make sure the girls of her acquaintance were prepared for what would happen to them. Since she had found the act intriguing, fulfilling and totally pleasurable, she wanted to see to it that there were no strange notions that would inhibit her sisters and friends from enjoying sex as much as she did. Niane had left nothing out during her lectures on what occurred during sex.
So it was, that despite the fact Marin was a virgin, when Taegin’s tongue flicked at her core, she did not clamp her thighs shut with outrage and gasp in indignation. Between his sublims and Niane, she knew what to expect and she wanted to show him she’d learned her lessons well.
“Relax your legs and open them fully to give him free access to you. I promise you the sensation will be one you will want again and again,” Niane had instructed.
Taegin intercepted the thought that rippled through his lady’s mind and smiled. Thank you, Niane, he thought, and dragged the flat of his tongue over as much of Marin’s sex as he could reach with her sitting there on the edge of the cot. He wanted more—a fuller taste of her sweetness—and leaned back, sitting down on his haunches. Looking up at her, he told her to lie down.
A shiver trilled through Marin and she lay back, staring up at the ceiling of the runabout, drawing in her breath when the Tiogar lifted her legs and put them over his shoulders. As his lips closed over her clitoris, she whimpered and grabbed handfuls of the cot’s thin cover, dragging it toward her. Every nerve ending in her body was firing pulses of heat, tingling, itching, demanding attention. Her breath came in soft little pants, her toes curling. His mouth, his tongue, his teeth! By the gods, his teeth! He was grazing her with his teeth, nibbling, sending chills spreading through her body and down her extremities. His tongue, his glorious tongue, was doing things to her she had no idea could be done! Her entire body was quivering, her legs as weak as a newborn colt’s. She could feel the sweat gathering between her breasts, on her upper lips, at her temples. When that delicious, wicked muscle drove into her, she yelped as though she’d been singed by a fireball.
Taegin raised his head and before his lady could deny him, inserted a finger into her hot, dripping slit. He had to force himself not to grin when she nearly levitated her body from the cot.
“Milord!” she gasped, and wriggled against him, needing release from the building pressure that was burning her loins.
He inserted a second finger to join the first, and this time he could not stop the smile that broke upon his face when Marin slapped both her hands on his wrist to hold him where he was.
“Uh-huh,” he denied. “Put your hands down, wench.”
Groaning, Marin did as he told her and grabbed the cover again, twisting it as he rotated his fingers inside her. She was dragging breath into her lungs, panting as though she’d just run a marathon. Chill bumps covered her flesh yet she was hot—so hot her flesh glistened with sweat. His fingers eased out of her and she moaned with denial. Those wicked appendages eased into her again—twisted gently from side to side—and Marin oozed with readiness.
Taegin pulled his fingers from her and placed them in his mouth, tasting her juices, making sure she watched what he did.
“W-what,” she asked, “does it taste like?”
With a cocky grin he thrust his fingers slowly into her once more, his grin widening at her indrawn breath, then he withdrew, offering her an answer to her question, but she shook her head, shivering as she did so. She could smell the essence of her body and it seemed to stimulate the flow of her juices.
“I can’t describe the taste,” he said. He stroked her, rubbing his palm up and down between her legs. “All I know is your taste does things to me I’ve never felt before.” He eased her legs from his shoulders and stood up.
“No,” she pleaded, her legs returning to the edge of the cot.
He simply smiled and hooked an arm under her legs and lifted them to the bed, turning her body as he did. He eased his arm out from under her legs and pushed her knees down so that now she was lying full-length upon the cot.
Marin could not take her eyes from the steely erection that jutted from between his muscular thighs. She stared at the head of his penis, her lips parting. He looked entirely too large for her to accommodate. Niane had made sure her pupils knew that the act of sex—at the first try—would be uncomfortable, though not necessarily painful.
“It depends on the woman, the way her body is built,” Niane had lectured, “but if you relax, any actual pain is usually minimal and quickly forgotten in the heat of passion.”
“It will fit,” Taegin assured her, and when her eyes lifted to his, he reached out to cup her chin in his palm. “You will stretch around me like a tight sheath and when your maidenhead is breached, there will be a twinge of discomfort, nothing more.” His thumb moved over her lips. “I would not cause you undue pain for all the universe and its riches.”
Marin relaxed beneath the seductive softness of his words. He was staring into her eyes—gentleness in the amber depths—and she could read his heart if not his mind. She nodded, prepared for his possession.
“Open your legs for me, Marin,” he said softly.
Doing as he bid, Marin instinctively held her arms up for him, ready to cradle him to her.
The Tiogar put one knee on the cot and straddled her, easing himself down, and wedged his lower body between her parted thighs. He braced himself on his elbows to keep from allowing his full body weight to descend upon her. For a moment he knew true contentment as her arms enclosed him in a light embrace and he laid his cheek between her breasts.
Marin felt the thick steel of his manhood pressing upon her, its throbbing length oozing in the pelt of her nether curls. His heart was beating so fiercely, so fast she could feel it against her belly. She caressed him, running her hand along his broad back.
“I don’t know how much longer I can wait, wench,” he said, and she heard the strain in his voice.
“I am ready, milord,” she whispered.
He pushed himself up and looked down at her. “Are you sure?”
“Aye,” she replied in a shy voice. “I’m sure.”
He shifted his body so that his weight was on his left arm, reaching down between them with his right to grip his cock. Gently he pushed it down until it was at the threshold of her womanliness. She could see the vein in the side of his neck pulsing furiously. The suprasternal notch—that sweet indention at the base of his throat—was throbbing as well and that fascinated her as she watched it. She ached to place her lips in the slight hollow.
“You can place your lips anywhere on my body you wish once I’ve claimed you as mine,” he said, interrupting her absorption in his pulsing veins.
“Stop doing that,” she said. “Don’t read my thoughts.”
He made no comment to her order. To distract her from dwelling on his ability to net her feelings from the ether, he pressed the tip of his cock to her entrance and entered her. He drew his hand up to cup her cheek, staring down into her eyes as he pushed inside her.
Marin ceased to breathe. There was a slight pressure, a silken assault that stretched her and stopped. A bit more pressure and a building sensation began deep within her as he moved further into her sweet channel. The tip of him was just beyond the entrance of her vagina and it had met the flimsy obstruction of her maidenhead.
Gently he invaded her mind, careful not to allow her to know he was there. He wanted to know what it felt like for her—this first time, this initiation into womanhood. He needed to know. He had to know. He could experience a portion of it if only through her impressions. Her nervousness, her tension, the way she stiffened beneath him told him more than words ever could have. He could sense her wariness, the apprehension and anxiety building in her mind and along her nerve endings. She was a solid mass of tension.
“Relax and breathe, wench,” he cooed to her, feathering the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. “I will be as gentle as I can with you.”
Her breath came out in a rush. “I know,” she whispered, and slowly relaxed, his heavy weight within stretching her, filling her.
He poised above her, drawing her eyes to his, then he slowly lowered his mouth to hers and with a gentle kiss, pushed himself fully inside her.
A slight sting, the awareness of an enormous organ sheathed inside her, a flood of juices that lubricated that weighty tool and set Marin’s hips to grinding filled Taegin’s mind. There was no real pain she was experiencing—only a building tension that helped to ease his own fears that he might inadvertently hurt her.
His stroke was sure and slow. His arms braced his full weight from crushing her while his hips worked like slow pistons in and out of her cunt. The heat was building and the itch had started along Marina’s folds. She clung to him, arching her hips up to meet his thrusts, encouraging him to go deeper, faster, harder into her.
His mouth was still locked to hers, his tongue dueling with hers. She could feel him straining and knew he was valiantly trying to keep his climax at bay until he satisfied her.
As the ripples started deep within her and the flow of her juices washed over his burgeoning staff, as her clitoris swelled against the base of his shaft and she dug her fingernails into his back, the Tiogar threw back his head and howled.
Marin’s climax was shattering and far more intense than any she had ever experienced in the dreams he had sent her. His naked body was pressed to hers. The wiry hair of his chest was prickling her sensitive nipples. His weight was glorious and the feel of his knees pushing her legs aside, a pleasure unto itself. The feel of him inside her, the pulsing of his cock, the smell of his juice as he came, the slickness of the sweat on his back and the heat of his mouth upon hers, all combined to send her careening into a limbless, weightless state of ecstasy.
He shuddered then lay still for a moment—limp and exhausted, though trying to keep the fullness of his weight from crushing her. Her arms were around him, her face was in the hollow of his shoulder, her lips pressing gentle kisses there. As his breath slowed, he eased off her to lie beside her and pulled her into his arms, wrapping them protectively around her.
For a long while they lay there in silence, each lost in thought. His hand stroked her arm—her fingers swirled and plucked at the hairs on his chest.
“How many women have you had?” she asked.
Taegin smiled to himself, for it was a question it seemed every woman had to ask.
“I don’t keep count, wench,” he told her.
“A dozen?”
“More.”
“Three dozen?” Marin asked. That seemed a fair amount.
“More,” he replied.
She lifted her head. “A hundred?”
He shrugged. “The tally no longer matters to me, Marin. You will be all I will ever have from this day forward.”
His words shocked her, driving her to silence once again. She lowered her head to his shoulder and thought about what he had just told her. It warmed her heart and she felt a melting sensation within her.
After a while—as she wound a lock of his chest hair around her finger, she asked if there had ever been a woman he had considered marrying.
“By the gods, no!” he said with a laugh.
“No one who even came close?”
He thought of Kali and her wicked ability to bring him to his knees with her expert hands and tongue.
“There was, wasn’t there?” Marin queried, his quietness telling her there had been.
“One,” he said after a moment or two, “but it was not serious between us. At least, not as far as I was concerned.”
“She thinks differently?”
“Kale says she does. She fully intends to become my common-law wife when I return to Contúirtia. On Contúirtia, if a man and woman live together for ten years, they are considered common-law married.” He shook his head. “I knew damned well I’d never be able to live that long with her so it never crossed my mind that I’d be tied to her the rest of my life.”
“Is that what you intend for me?” she asked, holding her breath for his reply. “To make me your common-law wife?”
“No, wench,” he said, his arms tightening around her. “I intend to make sure you are unable to escape me, though.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he moved over her and claimed her lips with his.
* * * * *
Three hours after Taegin Drae’s runabout the Folaithe shot through docking bay door five, it raced through the iris and settled gently into its waiting harness. The engines idled for a moment then quit. Silence filled the craft as the two occupants sat side by side in the two console chairs, staring out at the technicians who were waiting to service the returning ship.
“She handles like a dream, doesn’t she?” Taegin asked.
Marin nodded. She was still lost in the soft afterglow of passion that had been there when she had awakened in his strong arms, his chin atop her head, the fingers of his right hand laced in hers. That and the great compliment he had paid her by allowing her to bring them back to the Revenge on her own had eased aside any anxiety she had been feeling.
“Can we go out again?” she asked.
“Whenever I have the time,” he answered, grinning at her eagerness. He knew damned well it wasn’t the flying that she found so entertaining. “We’ll drop the male prisoners off tomorrow then head for Ennead to pick up another batch.”
Shyly glancing at the man sitting in the chair to her right, Marin blushed. Though she had put on the silken gown he just happened to have onboard, he sat there in all his naked brazenness, as calmly as though such a state of undress was natural for him.
“My ancestors fought in the nude,” he’d told her when she asked if he wanted to put at least his britches on. He reminded her he couldn’t since he’d ripped them off his hips.
“But when we get back to the Revenge…”
He’d shrugged. “I’ll get dressed.”
“It isn’t that I find your body unattractive, milord!” she’d been quick to tell him. “It’s just that I don’t like… I mean I wouldn’t want to—”
“Share my body with someone else?” he finished for her, laughing at the deep crimson stain that attacked her cheeks as she looked away.
“Something like that,” she’d mumbled, making his heart soar.
She’s played you like a master, he thought as he lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss upon it. That knowledge pleased him rather than angered him, as he would have surmised it would. He had read her thoughts earlier as easily as though she had spoken them aloud and his grin widened when he thought of her “reeling him in”.
“What amuses you, milord Tiogar?” she asked, turning back to look at him.
“You,” he said.
Marin stiffened. Had he been toying with her only to hurt her now?
“No,” he said. “It was never my intention to hurt you, wench. I’m not that much a beast even in my worst times.”
She pushed away from him. “You are reading my thoughts again!” she accused.
“Not happy with the catch you reeled in, wench?” he asked with a chuckle. “Finding him harder to handle now that you’ve caught him?”
Before she could stop herself, Marin snatched her hand from his and burst into tears, slamming her hands over her face as she sobbed with such force, her chair shuddered.
The Tiogar sighed. He got up and stood gazing down at her. “You act as though you didn’t enjoy what I did to you.”
“Leave me alone!” she cried. “Just leave me the hell alone!”
“You can’t call it rape when you took an active part in what was done to you, can you?” he asked. “Is that why you’re wailing? Because you enjoyed it?”
Her tearful sobs grew louder, sounding more like keening than crying.
Rolling his eyes, Taegin glanced at his clothing lying scattered on the floor then shrugged. He ordered the door to the runabout open then strode out naked as the day he was born with a jaunty strut down the catwalk, whistling as he went.
* * * * *
Lying in his bunk later that evening, looking up at the ceiling he had had commissioned for his enjoyment, Taegin was frowning. He had never slept well and what few hours of sleep he managed to get during the night were always filled with torturous images that made him break out in a cold sweat.
His head was cupped in the valley of his hands as he fought sleep, his fingers laced together. Though a cool draft played over his naked body, he made no attempt to pull the covers up. He was heated more than he had any desire to be and as uncomfortable as he could ever remember being.
His cock was as hard as stone, flexing as though it was trying to garner his attention. He could almost hear the wicked thing yelling at him, “Hey, look at me! Drae, look at me! See what you did, you idjut? Do something about it! Don’t leave me like this!”
He would have slammed the damned treacherous shaft down between his legs if he knew it wouldn’t spring back up again to torment him even more. The pressure building in his balls was enough to make him grit his teeth and he could not force his mind’s eye away from the sight of Marin naked and willing.
* * * * *
Marin dressed listlessly after the warm bath in her new chambers. No longer locked in a cell, she was in a pleasant suite reserved for visiting dignitaries. Gone was the prison jumpsuit she had worn and in its place a pair of snug britches and a silk shirt—both black—that no doubt had been meant to mark her as Taegin Drae’s property. Her closet was filled with such garments—no gowns in sight save the one she’d worn off the runabout.
Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose dripping and she was as miserable as she had ever been in her life. She was a fallen woman, damaged goods and if her mother had ever thought of killing her that decision would surely be made now once she found out Marin had been soiled by a loathsome Tiogar.
“Never,” he had said, “will any man ever touch you save me!”
Stretching out on the firm, comfortable bed, she could not get his face out of her mind. She seemed obsessed with remembering the way his hands had touched her, the way his mouth had felt upon hers. She could not push aside the memory of those golden eyes seeming to look into her very soul.
Taegin Drae was a major specimen of male beauty. Despite the hardness of his expression—which changed drastically when he smiled—there was something very gentle in the amber depths of his gaze.
“Sweet Aneas, help me,” she said. “Show me where you wish me to go, for I am as lost as any woman has ever been.”
She was completely unprepared when Drae suddenly appeared in her sleeping chamber. She had not heard the door open, had not heard him approaching her bed. One moment she was alone with her uncertainties and the next her heart was thudding heavily as she looked up to see him standing there.
“The gods help me,” he said, “but I can’t stay away from you, wench.”
His shoulder-length hair was as sleek and glossy as a sparrow’s wing and was held back from his clean-shaven face with a golden clasp at his neck. Thick, arched eyebrows curved boldly over eyes the color of dark amber, and those glowing eyes were shielded by the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. The almost perfect shape of his nose hinted at softness to his nature while his lips gave lie to the suggestion of gentleness and labeled him aggressive and perhaps a tad cruel. There was nothing in his expression that suggested he was anything but a potent conqueror, a man not to be challenged.
“I am glad you do not find me loathsome, Marin,” she heard him say, and she forced her stare from his lips to the compelling darkness of his eyes and was caught—and held—by the sensuality lurking there.
Marin felt as though she was drowning in that intense gaze, being pulled down through a maelstrom of dark needs that set her blood to singing and her juices to flowing. Without knowing she was doing so, she lifted her hand to him as he skirted the desk with feline grace and reached out to accept her offering.
“I must warn you, wench. I am near my time.”
Marin stopped breathing. “Your time?”
“My Conversion.”
At the mention of the phase of his existence that brought about the shape change from man to deadly beast, Marin felt a current of fear wriggle down her spine.
“Should I be afraid of you, Captain?” she whispered.
“Why should you fear me? You are not my prey, wench,” he said as he walked to the bunk and held out his hand. “You are my woman.”
Marin swallowed hard but lifted her hand, placing her palm in his, unable to do anything else. And when their fingers met, she sucked in a wavering breath and felt her knees growing weak as his strong hand closed around hers. He pulled her to her feet and against him.
“Milord?” she asked, snuggling into his embrace.
“Aye?”
She hesitated then gathered her courage. “Why did you warn me about the Conversion?”
His arms tightened around her. “I don’t ever want you to see me in my Tiogar form, wench. It is not a gentle sight and one that might disturb your dreams,” he admitted. “Even my men don’t like seeing me that way.”
“But it’s a part of who and what you are,” she said. His chin was rubbing against the top of her head and the image of a big tomcat flitted through her mind.
“I’m more than a big tomcat when I convert, Marin,” he said, but he smiled at the picture that had formed in her head.
“More like that, then?” she asked, and dredged up the memory of a mountain lion she had once seen in a book.
“Aye, but a lot more ferocious than that little feline and three times the size,” he bragged.
She pulled back and looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding!”
He shook his head and pushed a strand of hair back over her ear. “I’ve never had myself weighed, but I imagine I’d come in at around eight hundred pounds. I do know I’m at least ten feet in length because that is the width of a Ojani shuttlecraft and I had to turn around inside one once. My shoulder width is most likely around three feet.”
She stared at him. “You’d be hard-pressed to skulk around looking like that,” she whispered.
“Wench, when I go into stalking mode, my prey doesn’t see me until I’m already on them and by then it’s too late.”
Marin shuddered. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t want to see you like that. If you’re that powerful an animal, what must your growl be like?”
He grinned mischievously and tweaked her nose. “Believe me when I tell you that you can hear my roar two miles away, it’s just that loud.”
“Then don’t you go roaring at me,” she said, pressing her body against his once more.
“Has your goddess Aneas answered you, my wench?” he asked softly, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“Aye,” she said, giving in to the overwhelming emotions this man was generating in her body. Even though she knew he was reading her thoughts, it didn’t seem to matter. She’d come to accept that was something he was going to do, whether she complained or not. “I believe She has.”
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “Then I thank Her for Her blessing,” he said.
He lowered his head and his mouth captured hers in a heady kiss that took her breath away. When he released her lips, he reached up to gently cup her cheek. “When I take you this time, wench, you will discover a pleasure much more intense than that which you experienced earlier,” he told her.
Marin stared up at him, her eyes wide. “It can be more pleasurable than what I felt on the runabout?”
“Much,” he said, and put his lips to her ear. “Imagine my cock—as hard as steel—buried deep in your tight sheath. Imagine it as warm as honey sliding in and out of you, going deeper and filling you completely. Imagine my body covering yours—the weight of it pressing you to the fur and hot against your skin, my knees pushing yours wide apart, your legs wrapped around my waist to anchor me to your sweetness.”
Marin felt goose bumps popping out along her arms and there was an ache, an itch developing in her nether regions again. She gripped his forearm, liking the feel of the crisp hairs beneath her palm.
“Then,” he said, running his tongue along the spirals of her ear, “imagine me thrusting into you, the friction causing such an exquisite awareness between your thighs and in your cunt that your knees feel weak.”
Marin trembled. As afraid as she was, as nervous, his voice sent shivers down her flesh and deep inside her lower abdomen, she felt a sweet clinch.
His smile was a white-tooth gleam of sexuality and she lazily raised her gaze to the sharpness and length of his canines. The smile was boyish, but there was nothing boyish about the lethality of those teeth.
“Be easy, wench,” he whispered. “Their sting will never be for you.”
“Are they growing?” she asked. “They didn’t seem that long before.”
He chuckled. “The closer I come to Conversion, a few changes begin to show. I’ll try not to grin like the lovesick fool I’m becoming.”
She looked up into that fevered gaze and thought she saw red flames leaping in the dark orbs.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he was saying to her, and his voice seemed to be coming at her from far, far away, from beneath waves of cool wind. “I could no more hurt you than I could lie down and die of my own accord.”
He moved his free hand to her face and used the rough pad of his thumb to smooth a slow, sensuous line over her bottom lip.
“Such a gorgeous mouth,” he whispered, and his head began to lower toward her.
She would dream of that moment for the rest of her life. The softness of his lips was like a feather’s touch, but the pressure was exquisite and the feel of them against her own was enough to melt any resistance she might have ever entertained. When his tongue parted her lips to slip inside, she lost all semblance of maiden modesty and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him eagerly to her.
“Mine,” he whispered against her mouth.
His strong-looking fingers ran unhurriedly down the buttons of his black silk shirt. Never taking his eyes from hers, he slowly pulled the tail of the soft shirt from black leather britches that encased his lean hips like a second skin. Leisurely, he pulled the shirt from his broad shoulders and the thick, dark pelt of hair that formed a curly V from between his manly paps to the deep indention of his naval.
Marin felt the tips of his fingers against the hollow of her throat as he began unbuttoning the silk blouse. Her breathing quickened and became shallower as he worked his way to the waistline. She sank into the heat of his gaze and became boneless, unable to move a muscle as his hands spread the bodice of the blouse open, peeled it from her shoulders then turned attention to the black silk britches, tugging them down her hips. She was acutely aware he had removed the garments from her body and tossed them aside.
Marin did not know she had put out the tip of her tongue to curl it over her bottom lip. She caught her breath as his eyes widened and he stilled.
“At this moment, I feel the beast crouched within me,” he said in a gruff voice. “Every impulse I have bids me throw myself upon you and ravage you. Help me to not give in to those instincts, Marin.”
“You were gentle with me my first time, Taegin,” she said. “There is no need to be gentle now.”
“Aye, there is,” he disagreed. “My blood is boiling and my cock is as hard as tempered steel. I need to slow down else I’m afraid I’ll be too rough in the taking.”
“Then strip for me, Tiogar,” she said, holding his gaze.
Taegin grinned like a mischievous schoolboy, the twin dimples in his cheeks announcing his pleasure. “Strip for you?”
“Strip for me very slowly.”
“Am I to be your plaything now?” he asked.
“I believe so, Tiogar,” she replied, holding her breath for his reply. “Perhaps it will cool your blood a bit.”
His eyes lit with humor. “All right, milady. I am at your command,” he said.
Her eyes followed him as he stood. Her gaze lowered from his face to the bare flesh of his broad chest to the wide leather belt with its wicked Tiogar logo that he was slowly pulling from its loops. Dreamily, she watched him slowly unbutton the studs at his crotch then peel the slick leather from his lean hips. Her breath caught in her throat as the wiry curls at the juncture of his taut thighs slid into view and the thick staff that sprang from the spiky patch jutted forth. She did not hear the groan that escaped her throat.
Barely breathing, she watched him step from the tight confines of his britches, toss them aside then sink unhurriedly toward her, stretching out his tall body beside hers.
Drae propped himself up on his elbow, his hand threaded through the dark sleekness of his hair as he stared down at Marin. His gaze drifted over her from blonde curls to the wild pulse beating in her neck to the turgid peaks of her lush breasts then moved downward. Beneath his scrutiny, her body burned with heat and she began shivering with the force of the emotions bombarding her.
Lazily, he reached out his free hand to twirl a lock of her hair around his index finger. “You should always wear your hair down,” he said, lifting the lock to inhale it. Releasing the lock of hair, he put his index finger to the hollow of her throat and stroked her flesh gently. Very slowly, he ran his finger down her chest until he could splay his fingers upon her sternum, the tips of his fingers stretching toward the peaks of her breasts.
Marin moaned for the heat of his hand was intoxicating and she felt a growing ache deep in her belly. She writhed beneath his touch, unaware she did so.
His hand traveled lower, the tip of his middle finger dipping into the well of her navel, the heel of his palm coming to rest just at the silken fringe of her pubic hair. He said nothing but his eyes spoke volumes. There was passion lurking in the dark rum depths. His finger circled her navel slowly and the base of his hand pressed firmly against her belly.
“Ah,” Marin sighed, reveling in the weight and pressure of his strong hand upon her flesh. The force pressing down on her belly seemed to heighten her awareness of the area between her thighs that had begun to ache so sweetly. Her crotch felt heavy, very sensitive, and a part of her actually felt as though it was throbbing.
Drae’s hand slid up her belly, dragged over her rib cage, his fingertips feathering along the skin until they came to rest beside her breast. Before she could take another breath, his hand was over that weighty globe, the erect nipple pressed into his palm, his fingers gently kneading the softness.
“You are perfection, Marin,” he said, caressing her. With each movement of his hand, his palm touched then arched away from her straining nipple, sending shivers of delight racing along her sides. He gently twisted the mound, swirling his palm over her then pressing it firmly down until her nipple was a hard little pebble aching to be plucked.
And pluck it he did with the hardness of his short fingernails.
Marin arched her body upward at that intimate touch. Her face burned as her body ached and she could not lie still beneath the sensations he was causing in her lower body. When he leaned over her and replaced his fingertips with the hot, moist prod of his tongue, she gasped loudly and shuddered, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. The self-imposed blindness only added fuel to the fire already beginning to creep out of control from his tongue and the sweet pressure of his suckling lips fanning those flames to a roaring fire that threatened to consume her.
Drae was licking her nipples very, very slowly, his tongue dragging over that highly responsive area from base to erect tip. Now and again, he would lightly clamp his teeth over the straining peak, chuckling softly to himself at the mew of pleasure that came from Marin’s throat.
Feeling as though she was standing in front of a roaring inferno, Marin longed to feel the full length of Drae’s body pressed to hers. She threaded her fingers through his dark hair and pressed his face closer to her breast, trying to turn so she could feel the heat of him along her.
Releasing her nipple from a delicate grip between his teeth, Drae lay down, pulling her into his embrace, nestling her head in the crook of his shoulder. He held her firmly, enjoying the seeking of her fingers through the crisp hairs on his chest. She was trembling—and ready—but he pulled her even closer until she was forced to wedge her leg between his thighs.
“Oh,” Marin said on a long sigh as the hardness of his shaft stabbed at her thigh. Shyly, she slid her hand under his encompassing arm and touched the head of his cock.
“A man’s rod is designed to give great pleasure to his lady,” Drae said, willing his body to complete control despite the animalistic urge he had to ram into Marin’s lush body.
“It is so smooth,” she said, circling the head of his penis with her index finger.
“Yet as hard as steel,” he said. “And very sensitive.”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No,” he was quick to reply. “You are pleasuring me, wench.”
Her questing hand returned to cup him gently. The tip of her middle finger touched very soft flesh beneath the weighty sac and she stroked the area. “So very soft,” she told him.
“And so very sensitive,” he repeated, panting.
“Like my sensitive places?” she asked.
One moment she was lying beside him and the next she was flat on her back, his body sliding down hers until he could grasp her hips in his hands and drape her legs over his broad shoulders, his hot breath fanning over the very core of her open crotch.
“Let’s see if I can find any,” he said gruffly.
Marin nearly came out of her skin as his tongue dragged over her nether lips. She shrieked so loudly she stuffed a fist to her mouth. He was lapping at her—his tongue spiraling along the folds of her sex—and when he touched something down there, she bucked against him like a wild bronco.
“I think I found one of those places, wench,” he said with amusement, only a split second before his lips closed on that highly sensitive area and Marin had to stifle her cry with a palm pressed tightly over her lips.
Curling warmth began to spread through Marin’s lower body and her hips were undulating as the Tiogar worked his teeth lightly over her erect little clit. She was itching deep inside and she pushed against his invading mouth with tiny little jerks that soon became a quick rotation of her pelvis.
“Um-hmm,” she heard him grunt.
It was his finger slipping firmly inside her that brought an exquisite sensation rippling through her womb—clenching and spiraling—and carrying her into a realm to which she had never before ventured. She felt a rush of blood invade her upper body then a pleasure so intense, so all-invasive that she felt as though she was spinning out of control and falling, falling, falling until she landed softly in a warm place that cradled her gently. Her heart was pounding. She was gasping for breath. Her body was trembling uncontrollably, her legs shaking as though she had the ague. Her skin crawled with energy and was so sensitive she thought she could feel each individual hair on her flesh stirring.
“Did I find it?” Drae asked with a chuckle as he slid up her body and gathered her to him, holding her securely in his strong arms.
“You found it,” she whispered, and felt perspiration clinging to her body.
Marin reached down for his shaft but he stilled her hand.
“Taste me,” he asked. “Take me in your mouth and suckle me.”
She didn’t question him but rather slid down on the bunk, bent over his turgid shaft and took it between her lips. She drew on the smooth head then pulled it from her lips. “He’s leaking,” she said, smiling.
“He’s readying himself for you,” he told her.
She slid him into her mouth once more, laving his head with her tongue, drawing on the fluid that escaped his slit.
Drae could feel the blood pounding in his ears and knew if he didn’t stop her, he’d come in her mouth. He didn’t want to break her into the sweet act of a woman loving a man in this unique way with such abruptness. He put his hands on her cheeks and lifted her away from him.
“I need to be inside you,” he said, his breath erratic. “I need my cock buried within your sweet body.”
She stretched out beside him and opened her arms. “I am ready, milord,” she said.
“Taegin,” he said softly, correcting her.
“Taegin,” she repeated.
Her arms encircled him and she lifted her hips to lock her legs around him. They were looking into one another’s eyes as he slowly—but firmly—pressed into the tight warmth of her. There was a wondrous ache that infused her and she dug her nails into his back, for the feeling was so powerful, so pleasurable, she wanted more of it.
Taegin felt her shift against him, lift her hips in invitation and he pushed a bit deeper, held himself there until she wriggled again then began to piston in and out of her—slowly at first and shallowly—but then a bit faster and a bit deeper until she was clawing at him, panting in concert with him. His stroke lengthened and quickened until he was ramming at her with such power, such raw energy, he had no other thought than to satisfy the burgeoning lust that was building to a crushing crescendo within his pumping body.
Marin tightened her hold on his hips, arched herself up as far as she could, reveling in the intensity of his rhythmic thrusts. She could hear their lower bodies slapping together, punctuated by low grunts of need from him and tiny moans of pleasure from her. Her nails were scoring his broad back but she was as unaware of that as he was of the indentions his nails were making in her rump as he held her to him, lifting her to meet his thrusts.
When pleasure spilled over to satiation, her cries were muffled within his mouth. His own growl of completion was lost between her lips as their tongues dueled. With one last deep thrust, he stilled—holding his cock at the very core of her—and felt the last of her clenches relaxing around his spent member. He jerked one last time within her then collapsed atop her, his mouth sliding from hers so his lips were pressed against the line of her jaw, his heavy breathing fanning a stray wisp of hair at her temple.
Marin gathered him to her, moaning a little as his shaft slipped moistly from her body and lay upon her thigh. She stroked his damp hair and crooned to him as though he was a child.
When Marin woke, she was lying beside Taegin, yet they were not in her small bunk, crowded against the bulkhead, but in a lavishly wide bed in a stately room she knew must be his quarters. His head was on her shoulder, his arm draped across her waist, one powerful thigh wedged between hers.
Overhead the ceiling was covered with a comprehensive star map of the galaxy, the pale yellow stars spreading out over a black heaven and interspersed amid the stars were the planets of the Réalta Galaxy. Beneath their naked bodies was a soft, sleek fur throw, warm from the heat of their bodies.
“Do you see our homeland?” he asked.
Marin turned her head as he shifted away from her, rolling to his back, claiming her hand where it lay between them.
“That big red ball over there on the left,” she replied, looking at his profile.
“Can you name the Federated Moons of Parhelion?” he asked.
Marin’s eyebrows drew together as she stared at the five moons, which revolved around Riochas Prime.
“SOPOS. Saifír, Omrá, Péarla, Opál and Smaragaid,” she replied.
“Very good, wench,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Now what of the countries on Stoidiaca? Can you name them?”
Groaning, Marin knew she couldn’t, so she challenged her lover to see if he could.
“In alphabetical order there are an Cúpla, an Gabhar, an Leon, an Mhaighdean, an Mheá, an Portán, an Reithe, an Saighdeoir, an Scauro, an Tarbh, an tUisceadóir and Na hÉisc,” he rattled off.
“Well, that’s impressive,” she said. “I always forget about an Tarbh.”
“It’s easy to forget that ineffectual monarchy,” he said with a laugh.
They were quiet for a moment, each looking at the detailed drawing overhead.
“Do you still claim Riochas Prime as your home?” she asked.
“That was where I was born, though I have not stepped foot on that world since the war. No man has been allowed to.”
“I’ve not been there for ten years,” she said. “And I don’t care if I never go back.”
“You won’t have to,” he said as he lifted her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand.
“Are you going to keep me onboard the Revenge for the rest of my days?”
He brought her hand to his chest and held it there. “You will be wherever I am, wench. You’re in my blood.”
“No more thoughts of punishing me for what my mother did?” she asked quietly.
“Just having you lying here in my bed, my essence within you will be enough to make that bitch pull her hair out,” he said, chuckling. “That’s revenge enough for now.”
Marin stiffened. “Is that all this is to you still?”
He turned his head on the pillow and locked his eyes on hers. “You know it’s far more than that, Marin,” he replied. “I think we both found that out the moment we first mated.”
“Did you make me fall in love with you when you sent me those erotic dreams?”
Taegin stopped breathing. She was admitting she loved him and his heart soared with the knowledge.
“No Tiogar has such power, Marin,” he said.
“Then explain to me why it is I feel the way I do,” she said.
His heart skipped a beat. “Because the Fates decreed it?”
“You think I was destined to fall in love with you?”
“And I with you?” he countered.
Marin’s lips parted. “Is that true?”
“As true as the black blood that pulses through my veins,” he replied. “I have deep affection for you, Marin.”
“Deep affection?” she echoed, a bit let down because he had not used the word love.
“While I was tormenting you with those sensual images, you got beneath my skin, wench. Every time I touched you, a part of me became lost in that touch. When I wasn’t looking, you burrowed beneath my skin and into my heart, and there is no force on earth or in heaven that will ever dislodge you. I am truly trapped, held fast to the line you threw out so carelessly.”
“Do you want to be set free?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I would be miserable without you, Marin. I can’t sleep at night without dreaming about you.” He stared into her eyes. “Are you sending me erotic sublims, milady?”
She smiled. “If only I could,” she laughed.
“You’d torment me for sure, wouldn’t you?” he asked, matching her grin.
“Aye, I most certainly would!”
“T’would serve me right, I suppose,” he said with a sigh.
“So you don’t want me to cut the line and let you escape, milord?”
“No, wench, I don’t. You have firmly snared me, so if you don’t like the catch you reeled in, it’s too gods-be-damned late. I’m so much obsessed with you, I can barely function normally.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I think I fell in love with you weeks ago.”
“Marry me,” he said abruptly.
Marin gasped. “You don’t mean that!”
“I never say anything I don’t mean!” he told her. At her raised eyebrow, he grinned. “Well hardly ever, unless I’m trying to intimidate someone, but this I mean with my entire being, wench.”
Marin was looking into his eyes, searching. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she could hear the blood rushing through her ears.
“Marry me,” he said softly, stroking her face gently with the tip of his index finger.
“But it’s too soon,” she protested. “We don’t really know one another and—”
“I know all there is to know about you. Ask of me what you wish to know and I will gladly tell you,” he interrupted.
“Taegin, I don’t want to—”
“Don’t ask then,” he said. “We’ve a lifetime for you to learn all about me, for I’ll never let you go,” he stated, his eyes firm. “I’ll never allow another man to lay hands to you. If you prefer we not Join legally, you’ll have to content yourself with being my doxy.”
“Doxy?” she repeated, her eyes narrowed. “Like that woman on Contúirtian?”
“After ten years a common-law wife is considered legal. Will that suit you?”
“I think not.”
“Then marry me,” he said again. “Make an honest man of me.”
“I don’t want to make a mistake,” she said, finishing the sentence he had cut short.
“There is no mistaking our feelings for one another, is there?” he challenged.
“I don’t think so but—”
“I am pledging myself to you, wench. I am offering my sword hand for your protection and placing my heart into your keeping.” He rubbed his forehead against hers as he looked deeply into her eyes. “Treat it gently, will you? I am a fragile being, you know.”
Marin snort. “You are about as fragile as a titanium shield.”
“But a thousand times warmer,” he said.
She smiled. “You are sure this is what you want?”
“Surer than I have been about anything in my life.”
There was only a moment of hesitation.
“All right, Taegin Drae. I would be honored to be your wife.”
The Tiogar gathered her to him in such a tight embrace Marin could barely breathe.
“Taegin, stop!” she said, grunting. “You are smothering me!”
“I will set McGregor to seeing to the details when we return from Ennead,” he said, releasing her only a little. “We can have the ceremony on the image deck. What setting would you like?”
“Ennead?” she repeated then her eyes grew wide. “The penal colony!”
“I think not,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you want your Joining at a penal colony for—”
“No, you oaf!” she protested. “Sweet Aneas! My friends!” She sat up, turned and stared down at him. “Where are my friends?”
“Ah, well, they are at the penal colony on Fiáin,” he said, scratching his jaw.
“Without me?” she asked in a tiny voice. “I have to perform my community service or the Tribunal will—”
“I had no intention of you going to that hellish place,” he said. “And before you yell at me, I’ve made sure those women are well protected. By the time we pick them up at the end of their four-month community service stint, I think they will be glad to find I didn’t molest you.”
“You did molest me,” she reminded him.
“Aye, but it was a gentle molestation, wench.”
“I’d say you gave me one hell of a fright before you gave me that gentle ravaging,” she snorted.
“I want to give you the world, Marin,” he said. “I will give you the world!”
“But what about my community service?” she asked, worry clouding her green eyes.
“You are performing it right here,” he said.
Marin rolled her eyes. “I don’t think the Tribunal will consider servicing you as a fulfillment of my community obligation.”
“Well, it should be,” he pointed out.
“Taegin…” she began in an exasperated voice.
He held up a hand. “I assured the Tribunal that you would be made to atone for the grievous act of mutiny in which you shared culpability with the other women.” He scratched his unshaven jaw. “Unfortunately, I told them I’d then return you to Laidineach when you were through—ah, atoning—so I’ll have to let them know that won’t be happening now.”
“I doubt my mother cares what happens to me so I don’t think you need to tell the Tribunal anything,” she said.
“If that’s what you want,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t let her have you anyway.”
She reached a hand up to cup his smiling face. “All I want is you, milord Tiogar.”
He threw back his head and whooped, his joy so obvious Marin had to laugh at his exuberance. “Well, for better or worse, you have me, wench,” he agreed.
Marin reached down and wrapped her fingers around the hard length of him. “How tightly do I have you?”
“Ah,” the Tiogar groaned and his flesh leapt at her touch. “Damned tight, I’d say.”
“Shall I make sure he understands that?” she asked softly, his member clasped loosely in her hand.
“Aye,” he said, his breathing ragged. “I think he’d appreciate knowing how you feel about him. He’s a bit—well—hardheaded at times.”
“A very hard head, milord,” she giggled, bending toward him.
As her lips closed around him, Taegin gently stroked her hair. He spread the heavy locks around her shoulders then placed both hands on her head, guiding her, teaching her the rhythm that would give him the most pleasure. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and gave himself up to the sweet pain her mouth was exacting on his throbbing flesh.
Marin liked the saltiness of his juices on her tongue as she swirled it around the bulbous rim of his hot shaft. She lapped at that saltiness and slid her hands under his balls to cup him gently, but did not venture too far down his rigid length for fear she would gag.
“Relax your throat, wench,” he said. “Allow me to go as deep as possible.”
There were no taboos rising up to hinder Marin, no forbidden worries to concern her. She did as he asked and enjoyed the way his member filled her mouth. His hands were clutched in her hair, his rod as hard as a cord of wood, and his breathing was coming in gasps that gave her a heady feeling of control.
She felt him stiffen and knew he was on the verge of releasing his seed. She instinctively clamped her lips tightly around him and when his tool jerked, she felt hot liquid flowing down her throat. She drew on his flesh, swallowing the essence of him, draining him with such ease he lay weakly in her power—her lips and tongue clearing away all vestiges of his cum. When he was clean, she cuddled against him, her head on his shoulder, her fingers weaving through the thick hair on his chest.
His breathing labored, his blood pounding in his ears, Taegin rose up and leaned over her, swooping down to claim her lips with his own.
She tasted warmly of him and the scent of his juices on her tongue sent a shiver down his spine. His kiss deepened as their tongues dueled and when at last he could take no more of the passionate pain, he dragged his mouth from hers and held her tightly against him, his chin on the top of her head.
“Can we do that whenever we want to?” she asked, not realizing her naïve question had sent a spiral of lust through his lower body.
“Except when you are on your monthly,” he answered in a gruff voice.
“You can’t make love to me when I’m on my period?” she asked, disappointment rife in her small voice.
“I didn’t say that, wench,” he told her. “It just wouldn’t be good to be inside you at such a time. I might hurt you and make you bleed more.” She felt him shrug. “Not to mention it would be a bit messy.”
“I’m off limits to your cock until I’m clean again?”
“Aye,” he said, his blood heating as though he had walked inside an oven.
“But you won’t have to wait that long,” she said. “I can pleasure you as I just did.”
Taegin swallowed. “That you can,” he said, his voice shaky.
“I’ll have to wait an entire week to have you inside me,” she said on a long sigh. “That’s doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“No,” he disagreed, drawing the word out. “But we can do it like this.”
Lifting her into his arms, he pulled her over him as he insinuated his knee between her thighs and rocked her against him.
Marin’s eyes widened for the pressure of riding his thigh was creating a wondrous sensation between her legs and when he put his hands to her hips to show her the rhythm he wanted her to learn, she eagerly set her hips to rotating.
“Squeeze your thighs together against mine,” he instructed, putting one hand up to pluck at her nipple.
“Oh,” she said on a long breath as the sweet friction began to build between her legs.
With his right arm tightly around her back and the fingers of his left toying with her nipple, he lifted his leg a little higher, smiling at her gasp of pleasure and the increase in the speed of her rocking, rotating against him.
Marin’s mouth was open, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, every fiber of her being concentrating on the warmth forming at the juncture of her thighs. She pushed against him, dragging her swollen sex along the hard length of his thigh. When the itching, demanding, warm radiation of release crept over her, she dug her hands into the sheet beneath him, arched back her head and trilled with the pure enjoyment of her release.
Drae gathered her to him, locking his arms around her trembling body as he planted light kisses on her forehead. She was slumped upon him, the side of her face pressed to his shoulder. Her breathing came in shallow gasps that fanned the hair on his chest.
“Damn but I liked that,” she said, purring like a kitten that’d had her fill of cream.
“I thought you would,” he said with a laugh.
“Arrogant Tiogar,” she chastised, gently plucking at his nipple.
“Satiated Tiogar,” he corrected, stilling her fingers on him for the sensation was giving rise to the curious fellow between his legs.
“Are you satisfied then?” she asked softly.
“More than satisfied. You are what I have longed for all my life, Marin,” he said in a forceful tone, reaching up to rub at his temple. “I just didn’t know it was you I was missing to make my life complete.”
“I want to make you a good wife,” she said shyly. “I want to…” She stopped. “What’s wrong?”
Her lover was frowning as he rubbed vigorously at the side of his head. His eyes were narrowed and a thin line of perspiration had formed on his upper lip.
“Taegin?” she questioned.
The Tiogar’s head was suddenly pounding and he felt hot. There was a sharp ache along his spine and when he realized what it was, he shot off the bed as though propelled from a rocket launcher.
“What is it?” she asked, terrified at the gleam of sweat that was forming all over his face even as she watched.
“The gods-damn-it,” he complained, and his voice sounded like that of a petulant child. “I don’t need this now! I don’t fucking need this!”
Before Marin could question him, he turned and fled his chamber. The pneumatic door snicked shut behind him and she heard him yell, “Lock her in!” a second before the bolt engaged with a dull thud.
Marin sat up and slid off the bed. There had been fear in the Tiogar’s dark golden gaze—fear and acute pain. When the truth of what must have caused his abrupt departure hit her, she staggered and had to reach out to grab the foot rail of the bed.
“He’s going into Conversion,” she said aloud, and the word made her flesh crawl.
* * * * *
Taegin barely made it to the repression cell before the transformation from man to tiger-like beast overtook him. With a yelp, he dropped to the floor on all fours and in the last moment of lucidity—while he was still mostly human—ordered the cell to lock behind him.
Bright, intense pain shot through every muscle, every sinew and every bone in his rapidly changing body. Thick, coarse fur sprouted from his flesh and spread over his entire body, dark rust color overlaid with dark black stripes, doubled and extending vertically over the back and down the sides of his eight-hundred-pound body. His hind limbs lengthened longer than the forelimbs—heavily muscled—and his body became thirteen feet of rippling muscle and awesome power. Huge forepaws equipped with long, sharp retractile claws clicked against the metal floor and gleaming white teeth lengthened into wicked fangs. Along the ridge of his backbone, something pulsed and rippled, causing intense agony that made the Tiogar howl. His entire body shuddered then he collapsed on his side, his limbs—now those of a beast rather than a man—flailing at the air as he writhed in pain.
A passing crewman heard hideous growls then a piercing roar echoing down the corridor from the containment cell and knew what was transpiring. He sprang to the vid com on the wall as fast as he could to let Lieutenant Tarnes know he was now the commander of the Revenge.
“By Alel’s beard!” Lieutenant Tarnes whined. “This isn’t good! Why the hell did McGregor have to go out testing one of the shuttlecraft this morning! The gods-damn-it, I need him!”
From his place on the Revenge’s bridge, Tarnes had been on the verge of sending a message to Captain Drae. He sat in the command chair—his knuckles bled of color—and stared at the five vessels that had suddenly uncloaked to surround the ship.
“They aren’t answering our hail, Mr. Tarnes,” Lutz, the com officer reported.
“Who the hell are they?” Tarnes asked, his hand trembling as he swiped at his nose.
“Those are Riochasian vessels,” Mr. Forbisoe, the engineer stated.
“Riochas doesn’t have cloaking ability for their ships,” Tarnes said.
“Apparently they do now,” Forbisoe said with a grunt. “That’s Iontach technology and what they have, you better believe the Madras has as well.”
The ships that had stealthily overtaken them had appeared out of nowhere with laser cannons locked on the Revenge, a single shot flying across the bow in warning.
“What do they want?” Mr. Lutz, the com officer asked.
“My guess would be the prisoner our captain had in that isolation cell on five forward,” Mr. Forbisoe replied.
At that precise moment, a very stern, determined female face appeared on the viewing screen. A woman of imposing features and eyes that held great malice demanded the release of Marin Deringnoe.
“Who are you?” Tarnes asked, stalling for time.
“I am Captain Dyreil of the Riochasian Fleet Command. You are surrounded,” the woman snapped, her jaw tight. “Hand Deringnoe over to us or by Aneas we will turn your ship into space dust!”
Tarnes turned terrified eyes to his crewmembers. He was completely out of his depth here. He had never actually commanded a ship before that afternoon and had no idea what to do. Captain Drae would be unreachable for the duration of his Conversion—generally five to eight days without Feasting—the fresh blood upon which he lived. Since the Conversion had come on out of cycle and so quickly, there had been no time to stock the containment cell with the precious liquid.
Mr. McGregor, the second-in-command, was somewhere near Karak Point and would not return until later in the day.
“What is your decision?” the woman demanded.
“Give her the prisoner,” Forbisoe advised. “Unless I miss my guess she is some kin to their leader. Those bitches mean what they say.”
“If the Riochasian attacks us, she’ll kill the Deringnoe woman, too,” Tarnes argued. “Doesn’t she—”
“Care?” Forbisoe interrupted. “The Madras is a bloodthirsty bunch and no, she doesn’t care. If she has to fire on us, they’ll use our denial as grounds for breaking the truce between the League and Riochas. Unless you want to become known as the man responsible for beginning the hostilities again, do as she says, man, and turn the prisoner over to her!”
Taegin hated the aftereffects of a Conversion more than he hated the actual transformation. The craving for blood was so intense, so demanding, he was nearly out of his mind with need. He had a bitching headache and his body intensely itched from the withdrawal symptoms caused by the absence in his system of the tenerse drug that kept his Conversion cycles on schedule. He was grateful too that he only needed the addictive drug once a month, for the injections were pure hell. For whatever reason—and he suspected he knew why—the tenerse had not done its job this time around. He made a mental note to talk to the pharmacy mate about increasing the potency of the hellish med.
“It didn’t work this gods-be-damned time,” he snarled as he crouched naked on the floor of his cell. He stared at the clothes he had ripped to shreds and sighed deeply.
The Tiogar pushed up from the floor. He staggered, weak from his need and exhausted from the violent pacing and clawing he had poured upon the floor and walls over the containment cell.
“Captain, are you back?”
It was Kale McGregor’s voice coming from the vid com set high in the containment cell ceiling—a ceiling so high the Tiogar could not jump up to disable the device.
“Aye,” Taegin said hoarsely.
“I’m on my way in with clothes and Sustenance.”
Even before the door opened, Taegin knew something was wrong. He had sent out his power to touch Marin, to make sure she was comfortable, and had encountered only darkness. When he tried again, he knew beyond any doubt she was no longer onboard the Revenge.
“Where is she?” the Tiogar shouted as he grabbed McGregor by the front of his brown uniform shirt as soon as he saw the Contúirtian. He shook his 2-I-C, lifting the man from the floor. “Where is my woman?”
Though they had been friends for many years, Kale still carried a healthy fear of Taegin Drae. Having seen the Tiogar at his deadly work, McGregor understood better than anyone the murderous rage of which the Tiogar was capable. Because of this, he was loath to answer but knew he might well wind up with a broken neck or a crushed spine if he didn’t and quickly.
“The Riochasians waylaid the ship and took her while you were in Conversion,” Kale answered as he clutched Drae’s clothing in one hand and a flask of crimson liquid in the other.
The Tiogar’s eyes widened. “Her mother?”
“Aye. Tarnes had no choice. There were five ships, including a warship, and every one of them armed to the teeth with laser cannons primed. They would have blown us out of the sky.”
Staggering back, Taegin let go of his 2-I-C and slumped against the wall. “How long ago?”
“Four days,” Kale answered. “I encountered a meteor storm on the way back from taking my shuttlecraft to Karak and had to land at Havershaw, so I just got back about an hour ago. Tarnes is in his quarters praying to Alel you won’t devour him.”
Taegin squeezed his eyes closed. For a moment he stood there, breathing heavily, then slowly opened his eyes. He stared across the cell then snatched the flask of Feasting from McGregor’s hand and drained every drop before he threw the glass as hard as he could to the floor.
Kale jumped at the violence and backed away as his captain jerked the clothing from him and began dragging on the tight, black leather britches. With the uniform pants only half-buttoned and his chest bare, the Tiogar spun around and stormed out the door. The 2-I-C took a moment to pick up the black silk uniform shirt with the red triangle insignia of the Tiogar Squadron and rushed after his commanding officer.
It was to the bridge Drae marched and everyone there came to attention as he entered. “Hail that bitch on Riochas Prime, Lutz!” he ordered. “And watch me closely for a signal to terminate the link.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Lutz replied, and his fingers flew over the keys of his communications pad.
The face that appeared on the viewing screen was quite beautiful despite having passed the seventh decade of life. With white hair piled elegantly atop a small head, pale green eyes that bore no telltale moistness of age and firm lips painted the color of ripe cherries, the leader of the Madras was an imposing figure.
“She is out of your reach, Tiogar,” Neala Acet declared without preamble.
“Give her back to me,” Taegin growled. “Now!”
The Madras leader smiled hatefully. “That is out of the question, you should know that. She is at Clohar and there she will stay for the remainder of her life.”
Taegin flinched. “The nunnery?” he asked. “You bitch! How could you…?”
“She had a filthy Tiogar zygote within her!” Neala Acet got to her feet as she shouted. “A piece of filth I made sure was scraped from her womb despite her pleading and hysteria! The nuns will make certain she atones for allowing you to lay hands to her so you could slime her with your malignant seed!”
Overwhelming sorrow rose up in Taegin Drae and it was all he could do not to show how deeply the woman’s words had hurt him. It was bad enough to find out Marin had been violated in such a vile way but something worse yet to know their child had been destroyed.
“What, no curses upon me, no depraved threats for the zealousness with which I protected my daughter, Tiogar? Did you really believe I would leave her in your corrupt hands? I would rather see her dead than enslaved to you!”
The Tiogar’s hands were clenched into fists at his side. He was breathing heavily, a vein throbbing forcefully in the hollow at the base of his throat. His eyes were as hot as the fires of hell.
“You don’t give a warthog’s prick about Marin. What is it you really want?” he demanded.
“You,” she replied, and her chin rose.
McGregor cast a look at his friend and saw Taegin nodding. If rumor was true, Taegin Drae was the last of his kind and one of only a few remaining Riochasian males to have survived the genocide on Riochas.
“Turn yourself in to me and I will set Marin free. It matters not a whit to me what happens to her after that.”
“What guarantee do I have you’ll keep your word?” Taegin countered.
Neala Acet’s eyes narrowed into thin slits of hatred. “Because I want to see you dead!” she shouted at him. “I want you hanged, drawn and quartered, stretched naked on a granite slab with me standing over you with a sharp blade in my hand!”
“Well, if all you want is to see me naked, Neala, I can accommodate you right here and now,” Taegin drawled, his fists opening and closing as he stared into the infuriated woman’s eyes.
“I will take great delight in slicing that offending staff from between your legs before I disembowel you,” she threw at him, “then feed it to my mastiff!”
“Sure you wouldn’t like to stuff it in your cunt before you do that?” he asked.
Outrage filled Neala Acet’s face and turned it crimson red. Her eyes flared. “I should have had my commander blow you from the skies when she had the chance!”
“And kill your own flesh and blood in the bargain?” he asked. “I don’t think even you are that evil, Neala.”
“Stop calling me that!” she screamed at him. “You will afford me the respect I am due!”
“What respect?” he snarled, walking closer to the vid com. “You have done nothing to garner respect, bitch! You killed my father!”
The Riochasian leader pulled the ceremonial dagger she wore strapped to her waist from its sheath and held it up for him to see. “With this very blade did I slit Seamus Drae’s useless throat!” she bragged. “And with this same blade will I end your worthless life!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Taegin said. “You have to catch me first and that isn’t going to happen.”
For a long while there were no words between the warrior and his tormentress. They were staring at one another—he, with pure venom shooting from his stare, she, with eyes that roamed insultingly over his naked chest. The crew of the Revenge stared at their captain.
“She’ll end her days at Clohar,” the older woman declared. “I am told it is not a particularly pleasant sojourn as a novitiate there.”
“You’d do that to her simply for loving me?” Taegin asked.
Everyone on the bridge saw the irrational fury take possession of Neala Acet.
“Love you?” she screeched. “If I thought for one moment she did, I would kill her myself!”
Taegin knew he’d made a grave tactical error and that error could very well end Marin’s life. He had to protect her, ensure her safety and release from Clohar. The nunnery was a vile place, little less than a madhouse for women who embraced a strict, disciplinary doctrine he knew Marin would never accept. To leave her there was unthinkable and the mere thought of her deranged mother killing her simply because she loved him made the hair stand up on his arms. He made a decision in that moment he hoped he could see to fruition.
“Bring her back to this ship and you can have what you want,” he said.
“Taegin, no!” Kale gasped.
The Tiogar held up his hand, silencing Kale. “Return her. When I know she’s safe, I will place my life in your hands.”
Kale groaned.
“Do you swear it?” Neala Acet said, and her eyes were fiercely bright as she walked closer to the viewing screen. “On the grave of your father, do you swear it?”
Taegin nodded. “Let her go,” he replied. “Then you can have me.”
Neala Acet glared at him from the vid screen. “I’ll make your last days a living hell, you know that, don’t you?” she warned.
He held the Madras leader’s stony look. “I’ve no illusions about what you’d do once you got your hands on me,” he answered.
“You will die in excruciating agony, Tiogar,” she promised. “I will personally see to it.”
“As long as Marin is safely out of your reach, it won’t matter.”
Silence settled on the bridge of the Revenge and every eye was trained on the bitter face of the woman who filled the vid screen. There was virulent hatred in Neala Acet’s narrowed eyes and when she spoke, her voice was filled with venom.
“So be it. Marin is of no use to me anyway. She is spoiled goods now that you have thrust your filthy staff into her cunt,” she said. “I will give the order to have her returned to your ship when I have you—”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You must really think I’m stupid to agree to such a condition. I’ve no guarantee you will go through with the deal once I’m in your hands.”
“You have my word of honor!” she yelled.
“What honor?” he flung back at her. “I’ve seen no honor on your part. Stop talking about honor, bitch. You don’t know the meaning of the word!”
“And you do?” she sneered.
“No one in the megaverse has ever questioned my honor, woman.” He cocked a brow. “Can you say the same?”
Her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, the Riochasian could not dispute the fact that her name had been sullied from one planet to another, her honor, her reputation soiled by ignorant, jealous males who vied for her downfall. It did not matter that she had rallied the women of Riochas, had led them to freedom over their tyrannical oppressors against vast odds. Men from every quadrant of the megaverse spoke her name with loathing and not with the fear she had wished it to be. Such was evident in the way the Tiogar was speaking to her. His disdain, his contempt for her was almost as great as hers for him. He had escaped her blade once—he would not again. She would have him in her hands at any cost.
“What guarantee do I have you will not go back on your word once Marin is on your ship?” she questioned.
“I have sworn on the grave of my father that I will turn myself over to you. You have no reason to question my honor.”
Neala Acet stared from the vid screen, her face as set as stone. The anger fairly leapt from her green eyes and the pursing of her lips let it be known that she was ready to explode.
“I do not trust you,” she finally said.
“And I should trust you?” the Tiogar queried.
For another long moment the two adversaries stood frozen as they stared at one another. Neither gave away anything by their body language, but one look at their faces, the glint in their gazes was enough for even the densest of fools to know a monumental decision was in the making—a decision that would affect many lives.
“I do not trust you,” Neala Acet repeated.
“Fine,” Taegin said, and with a wave of his hand, the communication between them was broken.
Breaths were held on the bridge of the Revenge. It was less than five seconds before the hail came from Riochas Prime.
“Wait,” Taegin said softly, his hand up. “Don’t answer yet.”
The hail came again.
“Wait.”
McGregor’s nerves were stretched as far as they would go. The last thing he wanted was to lose his friend, and what the Tiogar was proposing was suicide, sure death—excruciating and prolonged—at the hands of Taegin’s worst enemy.
The hail came a third time and Taegin lowered his hand, nodding at the com officer to open the vid com channel. Almost instantly, the livid face of the Riochasian leader filled the vid screen.
“Don’t you ever do that again, you contemptible—” she thundered, but was cut off in mid complaint.
“Let’s cut to the chase, bitch,” Taegin said, folding his arms over his chest. “You want me, and I want Marin out of your loathsome reach. You hand her over to me and I’ll place myself at your rather dubious pleasure.”
“I will not—”
Taegin lifted his hand once more and the connection was instantly severed.
Kale McGregor whistled and wiped his sweaty palms on the front of his uniform shirt. He looked at his hands to see them shaking.
The hail came four times before Taegin nodded for Mr. Lutz to open the connection.
“You son of a whoring Riochasian bitch!” Neala Acet threw at him.
“What’s it to be?” Taegin asked.
“I will—”
The Tiogar started to lift his hand.
“Stop!” the Riochasian leader shouted. She came as close to the vid com on her end as space would allow. She was so close everyone on the Revenge could see her nose hairs. “I will hand her over to you, but if you—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m as enamored of you as you are of me, you vicious old hag,” Taegin exclaimed, ignoring McGregor’s quickly indrawn breath.
“If you do not keep your end of the bargain, I will blow you out of the sky even though Marin is on that ship. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear,” Taegin replied.
“I’ll dull my blade for you, Tiogar!”
With that said, she broke the connection.
No one moved on the bridge of the Revenge. Every eye was locked on the Tiogar.
“Jannsen,” Taegin said, “I want you on the transport deck when Marin arrives. Make sure you immediately place an interrupter on her so they can’t snatch her back from us. Double, no, triple, the strength of the interrupter signal. I don’t want there to be any chance of losing her again.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Janssen acknowledged.
“Mr. Forbisoe, as soon as my lady arrives and is safe inside this vessel, throw everything we’ve got at the ship that brought her and any accompanying that ship. I don’t want one ion particle left when you’re through with it.”
“Aye, sir!”
“You’re not really going to turn yourself over to that witch, are you?” Kale asked.
“Hell, no!” Taegin snorted. He turned to his navigational officer. “Lock in a course for Siochánta, Mr. Lutz. As soon as Forbisoe blasts those Riochasian hags to dust, I want you to get us the hell out of here and push the Revenge to her limits.”
“Aye, Captain!”
“Don’t you think Acet will send her entire fleet after us?” Kale asked.
“I’m counting on it and once we’re past Siochánta and they dare to follow us into Ciumhas airspace, they’ll have broken the treaty. When that happens, the League Forces will go to Riochas Prime and arrest Neala Acet.”
“The Iontach pass through Ciumhas all the time and the League says nothing to them,” Kale reminded his captain.
“True, but the Iontach have had no sanctions placed upon them such as the Riochasians have,” the Tiogar responded. “The Madras breaks the treaty and the entire might of the League will be brought down about their ears.”
“Sweet,” Kale said. “I would never have thought of such a plan.”
“Aye, well be thankful I’m a bit more devious than you, my friend,” Taegin said.
McGregor’s face puckered with concern. “But you swore an oath to turn yourself over to her. There will be those who will bandy it about that you reneged on the bargain you made. Your honor will be called into question, Taegin.”
“She asked me to swear on the grave of my father,” Taegin reminded him, then saw enlightenment flash across his friend’s face.
“By the gods, Taegin, you are a thoroughly clever bastard,” Kale stated. He looked about him, sure that every man and woman on the bridge heard him. “The captain’s father has no grave. His body was burned and the ashes cast to the winds. You can’t hold a man to an oath made on a hollow premise or given under duress!”
Thunderous applause, hoots of derision, whistles of approval met McGregor’s words. The crew of the Revenge was relieved their captain’s reputation would not be called to task.
* * * * *
Marin glared at the two guards who escorted her into the runabout. Neither would answer her questions and both were rough with her, their hands tight upon Marin’s already bruised upper arms. With her hands shackled in front of her, Marin felt like the criminal they were treating her. Dressed in the drab, loose-fitting dark brown habit of the nunnery, she had never felt more unattractive and unwanted.
“You have your course?” the taller of the two guards asked the runabout’s pilot.
“Aye. I know where to take the traitor,” the pilot sneered. She cast Marin a disgusted look. “As far as I’m concerned, I’d just as soon jettison her into space and be done with it. Let her gasp for breath in the cosmos!”
The guards shoved Marin into a seat and locked her shackles into clips on the arms. Without another look, they turned and exited the short-range craft.
“Where are we going?” Marin asked the pilot, but that one ignored her as well.
Fear was building inside Marin. She had already gone through more than her share of hell at the infamous nunnery on Clohar. What other evil could they throw at her? Thinking back to what had happened to her from the moment she had stepped foot on the barren Plains of Aithreachas on which the nunnery sat like a crouching dragon upon the shifting red sands, she strove to find a clue as to what more they would do with her now.
Jerked from the Riochasian LRC and into the gaping maw of the dark gray limestone walls of the nunnery, Marin could feel the cold cutting through her clothing. That cold had intensified when she’d been stripped, shoved under an icy spray of disinfecting water then taken—naked and shivering—to a room that might well have been the coldest place she’d ever been.
Forced to stand before a machine that tracked every organ in her body, Marin had heard the whispering behind her and although she could not make out the words, she had a good idea of what they had found—Taegin Drae had given her a child.
At first the thought had thrilled her and she had put a hand lovingly to her belly, caressing herself where their baby grew. But she should have known such joy would not be allowed to last, for savage hands had gripped her and she had been pulled down long, cold corridors until she was shoved into the presence of the Mother Superior.
She shifted against the uncomfortable chair and winced. Her back was crisscrossed with welts from the thin leather belt Mother Superior had laid so vigorously across it.
“Whore!” the Mother Superior had shouted. “Tiogar slut!”
At some point Marin had passed out from the stinging pain and been revived by hot, searing pain splashing down her back as a harsh astringent was thrown over her. She had screamed—loud and long—as the caustic liquid bit into her raw flesh.
“We will rid you of your sins, girl! You’ll not want to open your legs for another detestable beast!”
Blood had dripped down Marin’s back and when the coarse material of the habit had been dragged down her lacerated flesh, Marin could not stop the scream of torment that escaped her lips.
“Mother has ordered a whipping for you each week until you atone for your transgressions,” the wardess who had dragged Marin back to her cell informed her. “And you have a lot to atone for, whore. You may count on months, perhaps years, of retribution.”
The pain of her punishment was not nearly as devastating as the invasion of her body later that same day. That was revenge she would remember all her life.
Barely able to keep from whimpering as two stern nuns had pulled her from her bunk and marched her barefoot to the infirmary, Marin’s face lost all color when she realized what the Madras were about.
“No!” she yelled as she fought the rough hands that jerked the habit from her, mindless of the bloody material that clung to the cuts on her back.
Struggling vainly, kicking out as hard as she could, Marin had been bodily lifted to the exam table and vicious hands had lashed down her limbs, anchoring her legs into the stirrups, exposing her privates to the glare of a hard-faced healer.
“Please!” she begged. “Don’t—”
A large piece of tape was slapped over her mouth, effectively cutting off her cries. Even though her words had been silenced, her muted grunts and groans behind the gag, the tears streaming down her cheeks, her hands spasmodically clenching and unclenching beneath the straps which kept them pressed tightly to the table, gave evidence of the young woman’s hopelessness.
Rough fingers had been inserted into her—twisting and turning, deliberately causing pain. Something icy cold was then jammed into her and she felt herself being widened.
The healer leaned over Marin and held up a loop-shaped steel knife so the frightened woman could see it.
“You might say this is my own Tiogar’s scythe, missy,” the healer said with a giggle.
Awake and feeling every ungodly pass of the curette that was inserted inside her as the healer scraped her womb, Marin passed out at some point, the agony between her legs and in her belly more than she could bear.
All trace of Taegin’s seed had been drawn from Marin, leaving behind a telling emptiness that was far worse than the procedure that had accomplished it.
“You will bear no beast’s get!” Mother Superior had promised.
As the ship sped into space, Marin became more depressed than when she had arrived at Clohar. She missed having her freedom, but she found she missed Taegin Drae even more. She thought she knew where they were taking her and if that was the case, she knew the Tiogar would be unable to come after her. If he did, he would end up in the hands of her mother and that Marin could not endure.
“Merciful Aneas, please keep him safe,” she whispered as the runabout shot into the black sky over Clohar. “Don’t let him find out where they’re taking me.”
The pilot glanced around at her. “You must think it’s a great honor to have a man give up his life for you, eh?”
Marin stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“The Tiogar has pledged to turn himself in, in exchange for your worthless hide,” the pilot chuckled.
“No!” Marin shouted, and struggled to break free of the bonds holding her.
“I’m going to put in a leave chit so I can see them gut him on Riochas Prime before the entire assembly,” the pilot chortled. “I missed the last auto-da-fe.”
“Taegin, don’t do it!” Marin screamed, twisting like an insane woman, breaking open the sores on her back, knowing he would hear her, though the lead-lined walls of the convent had reflected the probes she knew he’d sent. “Taegin, please!”
“Taegin,” the pilot sneered, “can’t hear you!”
“Taegin!” Marin whimpered, the name drawn out as tears cascaded down her cheeks.
“Marin, be still!”
Almost instantly, Marin calmed. His voice had been so distinct in her ears she thought he was onboard the runabout.
“Like that bastard can hear you!” the pilot said with a snort.
“All will be well. Stay calm.”
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
“Marin, I can hear you without you having to speak,” he admonished. “Don’t let the pilot know we are in contact. She might render you unconscious.”
He told her what was going to happen once she was back onboard the Revenge and warned her to do exactly as she was told. When she silently asked if he planned to turn himself over to her mother, she could almost see his Cheshire smile.
“And make you a widow before I even make you my wife? No, Marin. I have no intention of giving Neala Acet what she wants.”
Marin shook her head for her lover’s words were weaving their way through her head and causing her heart to skip a beat. She could have sworn she felt his hand caress her cheek.
“You are mine, Marin. Mine to protect and cherish, and mine you will stay. Think you I would allow your mother to take you from me?”
He told her she was but an hour’s flight from him and that he would be eagerly awaiting her return. He also informed her he had been in contact with the League Forces and should her mother send a fleet after them, she would be arrested.
“Settle back and watch the fun begin!” he whispered.
Just as he had promised, within the hour the Riochasian runabout rendezvoused with the Revenge and the pilot whistled as she took in the awesome bulk of the prison transport.
“I wouldn’t mind captaining that sweet piece of machinery,” the pilot drawled. She engaged the autopilot then got up and came back to stand over Marin. “Maybe you’ll get a little kiss from your sweetie before he turns himself over to me.”
Marin glared at the pilot, keeping her lips tightly shut as the woman leaned down and unlocked the shackles that restrained her captive.
“Maybe I’ll try him out once I have him in that chair instead of you.”
“He wouldn’t touch you if you were the last female in the megaverse,” Marin snarled, and could hear Drae’s laughter wafting through her head.
“You tell her, wench,” the Tiogar agreed.
The pilot drew back her hand and slapped Marin. “You watch your mouth, slut!”
Jerking the young woman to her feet, the pilot shoved her to the transport pad, keeping well back as the particle beam activated.
Marin felt nauseous as her molecules coalesced aboard the Revenge. Before she could react, an interceptor was draped around her neck so she could not be transported off the Tiogar’s ship.
“You’re safe now, milady,” the female ensign stated. She flinched when she saw the vivid handprint on Marin’s face.
“Where is he?” Marin asked Petty Officer Janssen.
“Don’t worry about the captain, ma’am,” Janssen said. “He’s on the bridge. Let’s get you to your quarters.”
“No,” Marin said, shaking her head. “I want to be with him.”
Janssen opened her mouth to argue, but there was steel in the Riochasian woman’s gaze. “Aye, aye, ma’am,” she agreed.
Taegin glanced at his lady as Marin appeared on the bridge. He grimaced when he saw the mark on his woman’s cheek. “Come sit beside me, wench,” he said as a vast explosion rocketed the ship and he staggered beneath the concussion.
Marin saw the runabout disappear in a trickle of brilliantly flashing particles. Though any loss of life disturbed her, she couldn’t dredge up any pity for the pilot of the runabout. There was no doubt in Marin’s mind that if that bitch had gotten hold of Taegin, she would have hurt him—raped him in the least.
“That’s assuming my cock would have risen to the occasion, wench,” Taegin reminded her with a grin.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have been able to get it up, Tiogar?” Marin challenged in a low voice.
The Tiogar wagged his brows. “For anyone other than you? Not likely.”
McGregor got up from the co-command chair so Marin could sit down. Even before she was seated, the Revenge shot forward, pressing her into the cushions and tumbling the 2-I-C half in her lap.
“Be careful of my woman, McGregor!” the Tiogar admonished, reaching out to take Marin’s hand as the g-force pushed against their bodies.
“There are nine ships behind us, Captain,” Forbisoe called out, “and closing fast. Two warships, cannons primed.”
Taegin lifted Marin’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. When she winced, he narrowed his eyes, swept her thoughts for the reason, and when he learned she’d been whipped while he lay in hard Conversion, a dark crimson glow shot from those amber orbs and he snarled, barring his teeth.
“Come about!” Drae ordered, stunning everyone on the bridge.
“Why?” McGregor asked. He was gripping the co-command chair as the Revenge accelerated.
“They hurt my woman and I’ll see them crushed to space dust!” Drae yelled.
“No,” Marin denied, and when he would have ignored her, she jerked on his hand. “They had nothing to do with it. Leave them be, Taegin. Let the League see to my mother and her cronies.”
“They hurt you!” he stated, pain filling his eyes. “They laid a lash to my woman’s flesh!”
“It would hurt more if I lost you,” she countered. “I don’t want to take that chance.”
He stared into her face for a long moment as everyone on the bridge held their breaths, then he relaxed. “Belay that order, Mr. Forbisoe. Just get us to Ciumhas as fast as you can.”
With a pack of Riochasian Fleet Command cruisers just out of firing range, the Revenge swept quickly toward its destination.
“A League LRC is hailing the Riochasian flagship, Captain,” the com officer reported. “They’re warning her off but she’s ignoring them.”
“Good,” Taegin said. “Who’s commanding the LRC?”
“Admiral Ben-Alkazar, sir.”
Taegin grinned. “Old Piss and Vinegar, himself, eh? He’ll fire once across their bow and if they ignore that, he’ll disable them and arrest everyone onboard.”
“He’s hailing us, sir!”
“Open the channel.”
The admiral appeared on the screen. He was sitting at his command chair with fingertips pressed together under his chin. A stately gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair worn close to his head, he sported a thin goatee that made him look especially rakish. “How are you, Drae?” he asked in a conversational tone.
“I’m fine, sir. How’ve you been?” Drae returned.
“Going about my business until you streaked by with the hounds of hell nipping at your heels. What have you done now, son?”
“Do you see this lady beside me, sir?” Drae asked.
Tev Ben-Alkazar sighed. “Aye, who could have missed her?”
“She’s mine,” Drae stated. “They don’t want me to have her.”
“I see, and are you there of your own freewill, milady?”
“Aye, milord. I am.”
“You want that rakehell Drae?”
“With all my heart, milord,” Marin answered.
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. They’re trying to take you from him. Is that it?”
“They are trying to take him from me,” Marin corrected.
Ben-Alkazar’s left eyebrow crooked upward. “What’s your name, sweeting?”
“Marin Deringnoe,” she answered.
The admiral’s lips twitched. “Am I correct in assuming you are Neala Acet’s daughter, milady?”
“I am, milord.”
The admiral grinned nastily. “Well we can’t have your poggleheaded lover in her hands now, can we, milady?”
“No, milord,” Marin said. “We can’t.”
“So what are your plans, Tiogar?” the Kensetti warrior inquired, dusting unseen lint from his tunic where a fruit salad of medals clung to the left side of his chest.
“I would appreciate it if you’d arrest that treaty-breaking daughter of a demon and get her off our trail, sir,” Drae replied. “If you don’t, she’ll keep coming after me and any other luckless man in the galaxy until we’re all ashes in the Wind.”
“I think I can arrange that. And then what?” the admiral asked.
“There are five women doing com serv at Fiáin. Do you think perhaps you could have someone pick them up for me?”
The admiral scowled. “Why under Alel’s blue sky can’t you pick them up, Drae?”
“Because I’m going to take my lady to Contúirtian where I hope we can live in peace. I hope you will accept my retirement from active service.”
“That’s one way to be rid of you and your troublesome habit of abducting innocent young women for nefarious Tiogar purposes. You do plan on marrying that pretty filly at your side, don’t you, son?” the admiral grumbled.
“As soon as it can be arranged, sir,” Taegin Drae replied.
“Oh, goody. Well, carry on, Drae,” the admiral ordered, and the channel was closed.
“He just fired across the flagship’s bow, sir,” Forbisoe said.
It was a tense few minutes while Admiral Ben-Alkazar’s men boarded the Madras ship. There was a long silence then the admiral came on the vid com. “You’ll never guess what we found,” he said jovially.
“Something of consequence, I take it, sir,” Taegin responded.
“Oh, you could say that. My men were a bit stunned to find Neala Acet herself, onboard when they dropped in.”
Marin turned to Taegin, her eyes filled with worry.
“Is she alive or did some man run her through as a matter of course?” the Tiogar inquired.
“She’s trussed up like a feast goose but raving at the mouth. You’d swear she had rabies. Are you sure you want this woman slapped in the brig?” the admiral queried. “I would suggest a madhouse with the way she’s carrying on. She actually bit one of my men and now he’ll have to get shots.” He grinned. “How ‘bout the asylum at Baybridge? Or a kennel of some sort?”
“I don’t care where you put her, sir,” Taegin told his commanding officer, “as long as I don’t have to worry about her causing us trouble again.”
“Oh, I can promise you she won’t. I’ll tuck her wide load where she won’t be bothering anyone. Ignore my shot across her bow, eh?” the admiral growled, his eyes narrowed dangerously. He leaned his elbows on the desk. “Initial reports coming to me are that the other women onboard that ship are relieved at the chance of ridding themselves of Acet. I believe we are doing them a favor, Drae.”
“If that’s the case, sir, perhaps the inhabitants of Riochas Prime can get their act together and join the rest of the universe.”
“Still planning on retiring, son?” the admiral asked.
“Aye, sir. We’ll be leaving for Contúirtia as soon as I can arrange it.”
“Well, carry on, Drae.” He smiled. “And give my regards to that lovely lady standing beside you.”
The vid com went black and everyone on the bridge breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“We are going to Contúirtia?” Marin asked. Her hand was tightly in the Tiogar’s grip.
“Aye,” he said, and got to his feet, pulling her up with him. “Mr. McGregor, the bridge is yours.”
Kale nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”
With Marin’s hand in his, Taegin walked to the elevator and ordered the doors to open. Once inside the cage, he pulled Marin to him and she realized he was trembling.
“What is it, my love?” she questioned.
“I died a little every second you weren’t with me, wench,” he admitted, and she could feel moisture along her temple.
Pushing back from him, she saw he was crying. She groaned and reached up to gently cradle his cheek in her palm. “I’m here now, Taegin. There is no need to be sad.”
He gently moved among her thoughts and what he found there nearly drove him to his knees
“Marin, my god! How could they have done such a thing to you? How could any woman do that to another woman?” he said, his voice breaking. “They tortured you and killed our child!”
Marin’s heart did a funny little skip in her chest. The pain of their loss was still fresh in her mind. She could see the ache in her love’s tearful eyes and knew he too had been sorely stricken by the destruction of their child.
“We will have other sons, Taegin,” she said, caressing his cheek. “That I promise you.”
“Was it very painful?” he asked, searching her eyes. He was trembling, so devastated as he was by the news.
Marin stamped down her thoughts—fearful he would see the truth and go after those who had hurt her. “It was my burden to bear, my love,” she told him. “It is done with and all I want now is to move on.”
“The burden is mine,” he said. “If it had been the seed of any other man—”
“They would have done the same thing,” she interrupted.
Taegin knew what she was doing and filed it away for when he went after the bitches on Clohar. That he would one day go after the murderous hags need never be mentioned to Marin. The retribution he would exact would leave no doubt in the witches’ minds that the Tiogar had exacted his vengeance.
“We will have other sons,” she repeated to him, seeing the fury lurking in his amber gaze.
Deliberately putting out the flames he knew were crackling in his eyes, Taegin reached up to wipe the tears from his cheeks. He made a great effort to lighten his mood and gently set aside his grief, pushing it into a chamber of his heart to which he would never close the door.
“Aye, we will have many sons,” he agreed.
“Well,” Marin drawled, “a few at any rate.”
“You don’t want a litter every fall, wench?” he chuckled as the elevator stopped and the floor settled.
“Perhaps every three or four falls, Tiogar,” she responded. “Don’t worry. There will be a little Taegin howling about before too long, I imagine.”
“That’s the least of my worries at the moment, wench.”
She frowned. “What else are you worried about?” she asked.
He cocked a thick dark brow. “Making sure you are comfortable.”
The elevator doors snicked open and Taegin swept Marin into his arms and carried her out of the cage, his long-legged stride eating up the distance to the door of his quarters.
“Open!” he called out, and the door slid back. Carrying her across the threshold, Taegin ordered the door to close and lock.
“Where will we live on Contúirtia, milord?”
“I have some land McGregor’s father gave me,” he told her as he laid her on his bed. He straightened up and put his hands to his uniform shirt ripping away the buttons. “We’ll build a hut.”
“You really are retiring?” she asked, watching him unbuckling his wide leather belt. Her heart was pounding at the sight of his hairy chest.
“It’s past time, don’t you think?” He pulled the belt from his waist and let it drop to the floor.
She shook her head, unable to answer as he worked the buttons on his britches then pushed them down his lean hips to reveal the hard erection that sprang into view.
“See anything you like, wench?” he asked.
Marin licked her lips for he was standing before her in his naked glory, the well-honed planes of his manly body beckoning her to lay hands to it.
“Between here and Contúirtia we have about four hours, wench,” he said, leaning over to grip the bodice of her ugly, shapeless habit. “I don’t intend to miss a single second of that time away from your beautiful body.”
Marin gasped as he tore the bodice apart, exposing her breasts. Then he carefully slid his hands beneath her back and began gently tugging the torn material away to reveal her nakedness to him.
“Taegin,” she said, putting her hands on his forearms. “I am bleeding from what they did.”
He nodded. “I know, wench, but I can still look at you, can’t I?”
For a moment, Marin just stared at him then her face crinkled with amusement.
“You going to keep me naked until we reach Contúirtia?”
“How ‘bout this,” he said. “Give me a task, wench. Something you think I can’t do. If I do it, you’ll remain naked as the day is long until we reach our lands on Contúirtia.”
She blinked. “And if you lose?”
“I’ll build our hut in the nude.”
“Oh, yeah?” she challenged.
“Uh-huh.”
Marin lifted one slender shoulder. “I bet,” she said, a wicked gleam in her eye, “you can’t name the countries on the planet Domhan in the Cairghrian Galaxy.”
A slow grin pulled at Drae’s mouth. “How much you want to bet, wench?”
She thought about it for a moment then cocked a brow at him. “Name every last country—in alphabetical order—and I’ll stay naked until we reach Contúirtia. If you miss a single one, get even one out of order, I’ll be allowed to wear clothes but you must be in your birthday suit when we exit this ship.” She waggled her brows for this was one bit of information she knew perfectly. “You’ve done it before and you can do it again.”
“You lose and you’ll walk off the ship naked this time?” he wanted clarified.
She thought about it for a moment then nodded slowly, sure there was no way he could do what it had taken her months to learn.
He didn’t miss a beat or a country.
“An Afraic, an Éigipt, an Fhrainc, an Ghearmáin, an Ghréig, an India, an Iodáil, an Ísiltír, an Ostair, an Rúis, an Spáinn, an tSeapáin, an tSin, an tSualainn, Arabach, Astráil, Bhrasail, Gaelach, Iosrael, Meicsiceo, Meiriceá, na Indiacha, Ollainnis, Riezell, Sasana, Stori and Uigingeach,” he rattled off so quickly the names blurred together in his Riochasian brogue.
Marin stared at him, her mouth open.
“Did I forget one, wench?” he asked in a smarmy tone.
“No,” she replied, watching a spark glinting in his amber eyes.
“Then I guess you’ll have to make good on your wager, eh, wench?”
They were sitting on the beach near the hut Taegin was building with his own hands, the lumber having been delivered the week before by Silus McGregor and Kale’s younger brothers Andrew, Daniel, Timothy and Burl. Kale’s oldest brother—a wounded veteran who had lost both legs in a firefight—had helped Taegin design the spacious wood and tin hut, gently instructing the Tiogar on correcting flaws in the plans Taegin had made long ago. The entire McGregor clan from father and mother Maveen, to Kale’s wife Phaedra, had adopted Taegin and Marin into their family.
To the south, a storm was brewing and the vista turning dark as clouds rolled in, but to the newlyweds sitting on a blanket in the warm summer sun, the spectacle of the approaching rain was fascinating.
“What do they call it when wispy clouds like that streak down from the larger clouds?” Marin asked. She was sitting beside her shirtless husband, her legs to one side, watching the steady rise and fall of his muscular chest, fascinated with the sprinkling of sweat pebbling the dark chest hair.
Taegin—sitting with his legs drawn up into the perimeter of his arms—thought a minute. “Virga,” he said. “They also call it fallstreak. Some call it dry rain or invisible rain.”
“Why?” she asked as she watched the wisps the virga.
“Virga is hydrometers that evaporate before they reach the ground. The precip could be rain or snow.” He cocked his chin toward the advancing storm. “Virga can be dangerous for low-flying aircraft.”
“How so?” She enjoyed listening to Taegin speak. His Riochasian brogue was soothing and there seemed to be no end to the trivia swirling around inside the man’s mind. She loved testing his knowledge of a great many subjects, hoping to find one he didn’t appear to be a master in.
“Because virga is actually a dry microburst and microbursts cause wind shear. Wind shear is a sudden change in the direction and/or velocity of the wind. The pilot may not be aware there’s a wind shear facing him. When he attempts to land, his craft will encounter a sudden change in the headwind. The pilot has already reduced airspeed, which is what keeps the craft flying. The plane flies through the headwind and encounters a downdraft followed by a tailwind and that further reduces the airspeed and climb potential—too rapidly—causing a catastrophic loss of altitude. The wind is now at the tail of the craft and pushes it to the ground.” He shrugged. “The craft crashes. It’s mostly inexperienced pilots or ones who aren’t paying attention that get caught in such a situation.”
“Have you ever crashed a craft?” she asked.
He chuckled. “No, but McGregor did and gods-be-damned near killed us on Rialta. I’ve never let him forget it either.”
Marin shook her head. The two men seemed to delight in annoying one another. “Do you think Kale is happy with his assignment as the new captain of the Revenge?”
Taegin grunted. “The bastard is in his glory and should be with a crew like the one on the Revenge. They’ll make sure he doesn’t fuck up too badly his first year out.”
“You had a good crew,” she agreed.
“I had a great crew,” he corrected her. “One of the best.”
She wriggled her toes into the sand. “Did I tell you what Admiral Ben-Alkazar said to me in the bridal chapel when he came to walk me down the aisle?”
The Tiogar grinned. “That you should run as fast and as far away from me as you could while you still had the chance?”
She rolled her eyes. “That was a given. He didn’t need to tell me that.”
“Well what other pearls of wisdom did he impart then?”
“He told me he hoped I understood what a truly wonderful man I was marrying.”
“Yeah, right,” he said with a snort.
“I was so nervous that day. I—”
“You? Nervous?” he scoffed.
She swatted his arm. “I was terrified.”
“Aye, as well you should have been. Within the hour you were to be shackled hand and foot to the infamous Tiogar. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t be scared shitless having to do that?” he teased.
“It wasn’t you I was nervous about, milord Tiogar,” she responded. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find my voice when it came time to say my vows.”
“As I recall you said them loudly and clearly, and it is on record that you said the two most important words—I do.”
She sighed in exasperation with him, ignoring his words. “I asked the admiral how many people were assembled in the temple. I’ve never liked crowds and I was hoping there wouldn’t be all that many, just in case I did goof up and run screaming from the altar.”
“As though I would have allowed that, wench,” he asserted.
“The admiral didn’t help matters when he said the temple was filled to standing room only.”
“That surprised me, too,” he said, remembering the large crowd who had gathered to observe his and Marin’s Joining in the Temple of the Winds. “I couldn’t help thinking they were oozing out of the woodwork, there were so many.”
“Your entire crew was there. Did you know that?”
“I knew many of them were there but I didn’t stop to do a head count. There was only one head I was searching for and that was yours.”
“Do you know why they all came to the Joining?” she asked softly.
“For the free food and liquor at the reception?” he countered.
She shook her head. “They came, the admiral told me, because they not only admired and respected their commanding officer, were honored to have served with him but that they loved him.”
Taegin blinked, staring at her with an odd look on his face. “The crew was my only family for over a decade,” he said so quietly she barely heard him.
“Aye, well, they considered themselves such according to the admiral,” she said. “At the reception, when I was dancing with your best man, the future captain of the Revenge, Kale said to a man, the crew demanded to be allowed to witness our Joining because they wanted to make sure they sent you off in the fashion you deserved so you would know to what high esteem they held you.”
Taegin looked back toward the crashing waves that were starting to break upon the shore with a soothing sound. “You know we are the talk of the entire fleet, don’t you?” he asked.
She giggled. “I’ve heard what they are calling you now,” she said.
“Aye, well you won’t repeat it if you know what’s good for you, wench,” he warned. He intercepted her mind thought and turned to look at her with an arched brow and a low growl.
Marin held up her hand. “You just said I shouldn’t repeat it, Tiogar. You didn’t order me not to think it!” she said, her chin in the air.
“Pussy Cat Boy,” he mumbled. “By Alel, I could snap Tarnes in half.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have gone into Conversion as soon as the Joining was over. That was rather thoughtless of you, not to mention it scared the hell out of our guests.”
“Like I had a choice of when to go into Conversion? I thought I had another week, maybe even two!” he complained. “Damned tenerse. I had to have the med upped and that shit hurts, Marin!”
She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. It wasn’t so much that he’d gone into Conversion too soon but what had happened afterwards that had the fleet buzzing.
He had never wanted her to see him in full Conversion but it had happened so quickly that day with dozens of people milling about that there had been no time for him to be locked up anywhere to keep from hurting anyone. The physician said the early Conversion had more than likely been brought on by nerves—and the Tiogar had been nervous on his Joining Day. The memory of that day was burned in the minds of everyone who was a witness to it.
There he was, his body contorting, his fur rippling, fangs growing, claws unsheathed, snarling mad, furious, growling, and his bride had simply reached out and laid a hand on his forehead, patted him, and told him to go play somewhere else and leave the nice people alone.
“You weren’t even afraid,” he grumbled. “You didn’t even bat an eye!”
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, Taegin,” she said. “And actually, seeing you in Tiogar form really turned me on.”
He snorted. “Aye, I bet it did,” he scoffed.
“It did,” she protested. “You are quite a handsome pussy—” she stopped, her eyes wide “—feline.”
“Leading me around by my gods-be-damned ruff,” he groused.
“I had to get you to the containment room somehow, Taegin,” she argued. “Would you have preferred a leash?”
He growled low in his throat at the suggestion. “It was humiliating. No wonder they call me Pussy Cat Boy now.”
Marin sighed with exasperation. “Let it go, Tiogar.”
“Pussy Cat Boy,” he ground out. “I’m going to gut Tarnes the next time I see him.”
Marin sighed again, this time with pleasure. “It is so peaceful here, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Aye,” he replied softly. “It is.”
“I know we’ll be happy here.”
When her husband did not agree, she turned her head to look at him. She was stunned to see tears running down his cheeks. She reached out to him. “What is it, dearling?” she asked.
Taegin was staring at the coming storm clouds. He felt his wife’s hand on his arm, sensed her concern for him. “I’ve never really had a home of my own,” he said quietly. “This will be my first one and that’s why it meant so much to me that it be just as I had dreamed.”
She stroked his arm, feeling he needed to talk about whatever was causing his tears. “Did your family travel that much?” she asked to encourage him.
He nodded. “My father was a captain of his own ship when I was born. The military was his life and it provided government quarters for him. By the time I was five, we’d lived at four different operational bases.” His chin trembled as some distant memory touched him and his voice went lower. “I was never allowed to have a pet, never made any friends because there weren’t many children in senior officer quarters.”
“That must have been hard on you.”
He shrugged and another tear slid down his cheek. “My mother tried to make up for there being no one for me to play with. We spent a lot of time together.”
“And made a lot of memories, no doubt,” she said, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“When I was five, I was sent away to boarding school—just as all the sons of military members were.”
“Where was that?” she queried.
“At Scoil,” he answered. “Five thousand miles away.”
Her heart ached for him for she could hear the loneliness and fear in the voice of that five-year-old child from years before.
“I remember my mother crying as I was being led away by the headmaster’s representative,” he said, reaching up to swipe at his own tears. “My father was standing there as I will always see him in my mind’s eye—military straight, stern, irritated that my mother was disgracing him with her quiet sobbing, hissing at her to be quiet. I can still feel the pressure on my upper arm like a shackle as the representative pulled me toward the transport. All I wanted to do was pull out of his grasp and run back to my mother. I didn’t want to leave her, for she’d been my world, the only constant in that world I’d ever had. Quarters came and went. Neighbors came and went. Friends came and went. My father was rarely home and when he was, he never found time for me, but my mother had always been there.”
Taegin was silent for a while and when he began to speak again, there was brittleness to his tone.
“At Scoil, students were allowed to go home only once a year, in high summer and just for one week. That was harsh enough, but one of its ironclad rules was if a boy cried on his first night there, he would not only receive a caning on his bare ass, he would not get to return home for two years. If he cried the second night, another year would be added onto his punishment and the caning would be doubled from five to ten passes. If he dared cry on the third night, he would not be allowed to go home until he was ready for the military academy when he turned thirteen and he would receive twenty passes of the cane. It was a punishment designed to make gods-be-damned sure a boy towed the line, acted like the man he was expected to be.”
Marin tightened her hold on his arm but she didn’t think he felt it. He was lost in the memories of that long ago time.
“I was eight when I saw my mother again. My father—because I’d been one of the caoiners, a weeper—had come to escort me home. From the moment I saw him standing in the headmaster’s office I knew he was furious with me. His jaw was set, his eyes boring into me as though I was a worm to be stepped on. I had dared to disgrace him. By crying those two nights I had made it appear that he had not been a stern enough father, had not taken his position seriously enough.”
“He sounds like he was a very demanding man.”
“He was a bastard,” Taegin said through clenched teeth. “He didn’t speak to me on the way to his runabout that day. He was as rigid as a steel rod when he took the controls. Not one word did he say to me until we landed at the base where he was then stationed.”
“What did he say when you landed?”
Her husband’s voice went even lower.
“That when I left the runabout I was to remember whose son I was. I was to act according to the correct military protocol and if I—in any way—deviated from that protocol, he would turn around and take me straight back to Scoil.”
Marin was almost afraid to ask what protocol. Taegin’s face was creased with hurt. “How were you to act?”
“I was to snap to attention, salute my mother then extend my hand in greeting, politely wishing her a good day, madam, and immediately inform her that I would be spending every available moment of my time in my room, studying.”
“Oh, Taegin, how cruel!” Marin couldn’t stop herself from saying.
He swiped angrily at his tears, pulling them down his face and onto his bare chest. “I could see my mother standing on the flight line waiting for us. Her face was beaming with happiness and she began waving madly when she saw me, calling out my name. I was her only child and I’d come late to her in life. I remember her telling me the night before I was sent off to school that I was her heart, the only reason she was living.”
“She must have loved you very much,” Marin said softly.
“I know she did,” he told her.
“What were you feeling as you sat there watching her?”
“A part of me wanted to throw off the safety harness and rush to the door, jump off the runabout and race to her, grab her and hold on for as long as my father would allow it.” Taegin snorted. “Which would have been as long as it took for him to get his hands on me. He’d have beat me until I dropped if I’d dared do such a thing.”
“Oh, Taegin,” she said, her own eyes filling with tears.
“Mama was standing there twisting her hands, and when I stepped from the craft she ran to me despite my father’s warning hiss for her to stop.” Tears were flowing freely down her husband’s cheeks. “He reached out, jerked her away from me and shoved her to the ground, yelling at her that she was even more of a disgrace than her worthless son.”
“What did you do?”
Taegin lowered his head to his knees.
“Nothing,” he replied, his voice muffled, his pain reverberating in his answer. “Not a gods-be-damned thing. I didn’t dare. I knew what was expected of me and if I did anything other than what was expected, I knew my father would make sure I didn’t see her again for five more years, maybe even longer. I just stood there looking at her as she got to her feet, her hand out to me in pleading, tears in her wounded eyes, lip quivering, her smile wavering until it finally crumbled from her face. It is a sight I carry with me every day of my life.”
Her husband seemed to crouch there on the sand, drawn in upon himself, his memories tormenting him.
“I snapped to attention like I’d been instructed to do, saluted her with as stony a face as I could muster although I was dying inside then recited those hateful words. I watched the light fade from her eyes and when she hung her head, I felt like the vilest creature on the face of the planet.”
Marin scooted closer to him and put her arm around him. “Dearling, you could do nothing else. I’m sure she understood.”
“No, she didn’t. She thought I no longer loved her—that the love I’d once had for her had been drummed out of me.” He lifted his head and looked at Marin, his eyes red and swollen. “That was what they did at Scoil, and she knew it before I was ever taken there. The reason they keep you away from your mother is so her touch won’t weaken your sword hand or soften your heart. All they wanted was to turn us into emotionless automatons like my father. Is it any wonder the Madras rose up and rebelled against such treatment? That the Madras killed their own sons and grandsons and brothers? The men of Riochas were unfeeling bastards like Seamus Drae.”
“That may be true, but they didn’t deserve to die,” Marin reminded him.
“I killed my mother,” he said, his voice breaking. “As surely as I am sitting here, I killed her.”
“Taegin, no. You—”
“This was the woman who had given me life, who had brought me into the world after hours and hours of pain, who had rocked me to sleep, sang to me, tended my scrapes and bruises with tender care, sat up with me all night when I was sick with a fever. How could I have just stood there and looked at her as though she meant nothing to me?”
“Did you love her?”
“With all my heart,” he said, tears flowing freely.
“Then I’m sure she knew how you felt,” she said, trying to soothe him.
“My father ordered me into his quarters and I turned my back on her and left her to face his rage alone.”
“You were eight years old, Taegin. What else could you have done?”
He looked away from her, shame filling his eyes. “When they finally came into the quarters, she went to her bedroom and shut the door. I never saw her alive again.”
Marin’s eyes widened. “What happened?”
“My father said it was a coronary but, to this day, I believe she died of a broken heart.” The last two words he spoke brought on a torrent of sobs, and he leaned against his wife and put his head in her lap, crying like the child he had never been allowed to be.
Hating Seamus Drae with every fiber of her being for having hurt his son so deeply, Marin crooned to her husband, stroked his back and let him have all the time he needed to purge the guilt he felt. She looked out over the troubled sea. The storm was closer and the freshening winds blew her hair in waves behind her. She closed her eyes to the fresh scent and felt the first drops of rain prickle her face.
“After everything he put you through, you still honored him,” she said.
“He was my father,” Taegin said, and that was all the explanation he would ever be able to give her.
Taegin lay with his head in Marin’s lap, her fingers threaded through his hair as she stroked his scalp. The two of them were drenched as the rain and wind lashed against them, though neither seemed to notice. Staring straight ahead of him—his eyelashes bejeweled with raindrops—his tears were gone but he held onto his wife as though she was an anchor to keep him affixed to his world.
On the high cliffs that overlooked the pristine beach, a watcher stood surveying the lovers. The wind howled and pressed against the sentinel—the fierce rain peppering a face set as hard as stone—and briskly billowed the hooded robe that concealed the observer from head to ankle. A white-knuckled hand clasped the robe to a throat constricted with hurt and fury. Violet-colored eyes narrowed in hatred never left the couple.
Kali Reid had never known rage as she was experiencing it at that moment. Not even when the village folk had driven her from their fold six months earlier had she felt the anger that engulfed her at that moment. Condemning her as a whore, a harlot—even a witch—she had been threatened with tarring and feathering if she stayed, so she had fled in the middle of the night, taking to the high bluffs and making a cold, barren warren of caves her new abode. Now she understood why the elders of Comhcheol had ordered her from her birthplace, the home of her clan for seven generations.
“Taegin,” she said, and the word was whipped from her mouth by the vigorous wind.
To her, he was her husband, marked as such by his own words to share his life with her when he returned to Contúirtia. Once—long ago—they had fed one another a drop of their own blood on a piece of bread. It had been a part of the Pósadh, the handfasting ritual of her mother’s people that had bound Taegin and her together for all time. Though Taegin had been so drunk he could barely ingest the offering and had no idea what he was actually doing, the deed had been done, the bargain sealed.
Her furious glare went to the woman in whose lap Taegin had laid his head and Kali growled low in her throat—a warning, a threat, a promise.
For over a week now, she had watched the man she had claimed for her own working shirtless on the stilted hut he was building for the slut he had taken to legal wife. Stripped down to the black denim jeans, which fit his long legs like a second skin, Taegin was unaware he was being watched. He had eyes only for the blonde bitch who sat upon the glistening white sand under a date palm instead of being of help to her man.
“Lazy cunt,” Kali whispered.
Her fingernails digging into her palm as she kept the closure of her sopping wet cape together, the flame-haired beauty cursed the woman Taegin had dared to use to usurp Kali’s rightful place at his side. “May all that springs from your womb be diseased and insane! Crippled and hideous of face!” she flung at the blonde’s head.
Despite the wrath building within her, Kali’s heart was breaking. For years she had waited for Taegin’s return. Though she had not kept her body only for him, she knew he had not kept his loverless for her. He was—after all—a man, a warrior who needed the comforts of a woman’s touch and the relief her body could provide. She had had no illusions about him being faithful to her as he raced across the cosmos, but she had expected him to return to Contúirtia and make good his promise to take her as his common-law wife when he retired from service. The last thing she had expected was for him to return legally Joined to another.
“You will regret the day you ever laid eyes on her, Taegin Drae,” Kali swore. “Her days are numbered, my love.”
She turned her fierce look upon the hut Taegin was building. The land upon which the hut would stand was a prime building site, coveted by many, but the McGregors had reserved it for their adopted son, the man who was their son Kale’s best friend. An acre of beachfront swept back nearly five hundred feet, sweeping up against the forest on three sides to create a glorious tract Taegin had long ago christened Suaimhneach Cove, the Contúirtian word for peaceful. Thirty feet to the south of the cove was a waterfall that cascaded in a steady, freshwater stream from a crevice in the lush, green mountain. It was a beautiful piece of land and Kali had been proud to think it would one day be her home.
Set back from the beach a hundred feet or so, the teakwood structure’s first floor had been laid, the walls to be raised within the week with the help of Silus McGregor’s sons. The tall stilts upon which the hut perched had been driven deep into the sparkling white sand so that when high tide came into the sheltered cove, the water would flow beneath the structure to help cool it during Contúirtia’s sweltering summers. Piles of tin roofing were stacked near the lush tree line that formed a crescent around the structure—much of the thick vegetation having been cleared to build the hut—to break the wind and salt spray.
“It’ll be two stories high with wide decks and staggered staircases,” Kali repeated what she had heard Burl McGregor telling one of his brothers when she had dared to sneak as close to the building site as she could get without being caught.
Already the trusses and four gables had been built and were waiting for the tin panels that would cover them.
Lightning streaked across the cinereous sky to the south and lit the dark gray clouds in a spider-scrawl of electrical current. Thunder boomed in the distance but the storm was wearing itself out, trekking slowly away to the east. The rain was falling gently now and the wind was not so strong.
Kali jerked her eyes from the loathsome hut for there had been movement on the beach. She stiffened—Taegin was sitting up, raking a hand through his wet hair. Even though she could not hear what he was saying to the slutty blonde, she remembered his thick brogue and the soft way in which he used it to melt a woman’s heart and set her loins to throbbing.
Brutal stabs of jealousy drove through Kali’s very soul when she saw Taegin lift a hand to cup the blonde’s cheek. Hissing like a cat, she watched the woman tilt her head into the Tiogar’s palm.
“Bitch!” Kali spat beneath her breath. “Daughter of a jackal!” Mindless of the blood that was trickling down her wrist from the half-moons her fingernails had made in her palm, she took a step or two closer to the edge of the cliff, quivering with rage as she put her hands to her head, smearing blood on the headband that held her red hair in place.
Taegin was on his knees facing his wife, his palms bracketing her face. The woman who had taken him from Kali was on her knees as well, her hands on Taegin’s knees as he pulled her face toward him, his lips settling on hers.
“You will live to rue the day you ever put your thieving hands to my man,” Kali snarled, and her eyes flared wide, her breath choked off as she saw Taegin begin to slip the blouse from the woman’s wet shoulders.
Unable to bear the sight of the man she loved more than life itself fornicating with the usurper, Kali turned, her cape billowing out behind her, and headed down the cliff, the air around her blue from the vulgar curses she was heaping on Marin’s head.
* * * * *
Taegin stared at his wife’s ivory breasts as he peeled the blouse from Marin’s shoulders. Her flesh was dewed with raindrops, her ash blonde hair hanging in strands that stuck to her shoulders and arms. He bent his head to catch a drop of water that was running down her cleavage with the tip of his tongue.
Marin threaded her fingers through his wet hair and held his head to her as his tongue traveled the breadth of her chest. She let her head fall back as his cool lips closed around first one then the other nipple, enclosing her in the warmth of his mouth.
There was no need for words. Each knew what the other wanted. Each knew what the other needed. As one, they eased down upon the sand, Marin turning to her back as her lover bent over her and worked his way from her throat to her belly with tingling little kisses that made her melt inside. She slipped her hands through his hair—unable to keep herself from touching the thick curls—as he swirled his tongue across and dipped into her navel.
The rain had not stopped, but it was now a gentle misting that fell sweetly upon her face as she looked up into the scudding clouds. Her lover was working the button of her jeans, his fingers sliding across her waist as he tugged the garment down her legs. She laid there like a sacrificial victim to his desire, her hands leaving his hair as he moved further down her body to pull the britches from her. She smiled for he kissed the top of each of her feet before he slid up and over her once more.
“Have I told you how much I love you?” he asked, his heart in his amber eyes.
“Not nearly enough, I don’t believe,” she replied, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck. “And you are clothed entirely too much for my needs, milord Tiogar.”
He cocked a brow at her and put his hands on the buttons of his jeans, flipped open the top one then rolled off her, turning his head to look at her.
“I’ve got to undress you?” she queried.
The shadows were leaving his tawny eyes, a xanthic flame beginning to catch in those sensual orbs. “If you want what’s in my pants, you’ll have to, wench,” he replied.
Sighing again—this time as though the weight of the world was on her slender shoulders—Marin sat up and finished unbuttoning his jeans. The wet fabric was stiff and clung to his lean hips as she tugged them down, Taegin lifting his rump to accommodate her. She eyed him as he lay there—hands crossed beneath his head—and worked the wet fabric down his long legs, giggling at the staff that sprang instantly to attention as soon as it was free of the britches.
“He’s ready for you, wench,” the Tiogar said needlessly.
“Aye, he’s always ready,” she countered.
“I can’t help that he has a mind of his own.”
“Makes me wonder what kind of father you’re gonna be if you can’t control the little imp,” she stated, and quickly looked up at him, wanting to kick herself for bringing up the subject of fatherhood, but Taegin was leering at her.
“He isn’t little, wench, or haven’t you noticed that?”
Tugging the jeans from his bare feet, she tossed them aside. The garment landed on the sand with a heavy thud as she came to straddle his hips, his staff riding along the crease of her ass. “Aye, Tiogar, I’ve noticed.” She wriggled against his lower abdomen.
“Do me, wench,” he instructed, closing his eyes, a smile on his face.
Marin would do anything for the man she had come to love more than her own life—now more than ever. She had known there was something painful lurking in his past and now she knew what it was. She intended to push the sad memory from his mind.
Pushing up to her knees, she reached back and took hold of his thick erection, positioning it at the entrance to her vagina. Slowly, with care, she lowered herself upon the steely shaft, impaling her body on his.
“Umm,” he said, and shifted his upper body more comfortably on the blanket upon which they had been sitting for most of the morning. Despite the blanket’s wetness, his body heat had warmed it.
Marin leaned forward and put her palms on his chest, massaging him as she lifted her buttocks then settled them down upon him, driving his manhood deeper into her cunt.
“I like that,” he said, his eyes still closed, the smile in place.
“You do, do you?” she questioned. Her fingers moved over his nipples and she tweaked them, making him squirm.
“I’ll give you an hour to stop that, wench,” he said.
Her fingers still gripping his paps, she leaned down further and claimed his lips, thrusting her tongue past his smiling lips.
Never breaking the kiss, Taegin yanked his hands out from beneath his head and enveloped his wife in a brawny grasp, easily flipping them over until she lay beneath him, his cock buried in her wet heat, his lower body wedged between her thighs. He grunted as she lifted her legs and imprisoned his hips between them, locking her ankles behind his back.
He was buried to the hilt within her, unable to begin the thrusting his cock demanded of him. Their mouths were fused, tongues dueling and her fingers—her hands wedged between their two bodies—were lightly twisting his nipples, eliciting a tingling sensation all the way to his belly. He ground against her and tried pulling up so he could push into her, but her constrictive hold on his hips was like a steel vise keeping him in place. He groaned—she chuckled low in her throat. He growled—she purred and relaxed her grip.
The thrusting that began could have been heard by anyone close by, for Taegin’s balls slapped against Marin’s butt cheeks as he pistoned into her, his hands jammed beneath her, lifting her for his invasion.
Marin managed to extricate her hands from between them and slid her arms around his back, her fingers digging into his hard muscles as he rode her. When she came, her cry of release was lost in the folds of his mouth for their kiss still went on. His grunt of satiation tore their lips apart and he buried his face against her shoulder, thrusting hard one last time and holding himself steady in her so that the last of his cum shot deep into her body.
It was not until late in the night—when a strange light lit up the tent in which they slept—that Taegin realized he had an enemy at Comhcheol and knew immediately who it was.
* * * * *
He’d not thought of her since the day he had first told Marin of her existence. Now as he walked toward Silus McGregor’s hut, he realized he had made a bad error in judgment in not remembering about Kali. A set, hard look on his face, he was furious with himself and determined to stop trouble before it took a toehold on his life. He had left Burl and Daniel at the cove with Marin—more for company than protection—and had promised Kale’s younger brothers that he would handle the situation that had the young men so upset this morn.
Maveen, Silus’ wife, was hanging clothes on the line as the man she and her husband had adopted as one of their own came up the stone steps, which led to her home. Putting one hand to her hip, the other to her forehead, she shielded her eyes from the bright sun that had driven away the storm clouds from the day before and knew right off the young man was angry. She suspected the cause and sighed.
“What happened?” she asked as Taegin reached her.
“Someone set fire to a stack of lumber last night,” the Tiogar said with a growl.
“And I think we know who that someone is,” Maveen stated.
“Daniel said the village ran her off,” he said. “Do you know where she went?”
Maveen shook her head. “No, and I don’t think it’s a good idea that you go hunting her, lad. Best to leave this to the constable.”
“I can’t prove she did it,” he countered.
“Can’t prove she didn’t, neither,” Maveen retorted. “Constable O’Malley will know right off who the guilty party is, son. You don’t have another enemy in Comhcheol.”
“That I know about,” Taegin said, plowing his fingers through hair that had already been tousled many times over the last few hours.
“That anyone here would know about,” she reminded him. “Comhcheol isn’t that big that we wouldn’t hear if someone was after you.”
“It’s my problem, Mave,” he said. “I have to handle it.”
“Silus is down to the Reillys helping to pull a calf, but if he was here, he’d advise against you going looking for that whorish woman,” Maveen said with a sniff of disdain for the subject. “Best you leave well enough alone and let Jamie O’Malley see to warning her off.”
Taegin looked up at the verdant mountains that ran along the northern section of Siocháin County. “She’s up there, I take it.”
Maveen shrugged. “Somewhere, I reckon, but there’s a rabbit warren of caves in those mountains. The whole southern side of Mount Gogadh is honeycombed with them.” She turned her head to survey the mountain. “Must be over a hundred or more up there from what Silus once told me. None of them have ever been mapped as I know of.”
“I can’t let her plague me, Mave. I won’t let her do so,” he stated, his jaw clenched, a muscle grinding in his cheek.
“That’s understandable, but if you go up there looking for her, you might not come back down, lad,” she warned.
Taegin tore his attention from the mountain and settled it on Kale’s mother. “You believe she’d do me harm?”
“I believe she’s crazy enough to do so. You know what they say about a scorned woman, lad.”
“Hell hath no fury like one, eh?” he provided.
“And that little witch hasn’t ever been known for being a levelheaded woman,” Maveen reminded him. “What she wanted, she went after with a single-minded obsession ‘til she got it, and the only thing I know of she wanted more than anything else was you.”
Taegin flinched. “I never promised to make her my wife, Mave.”
“You didn’t have to,” Maveen said. “She heard in your words—or the lack of ‘em—what she wanted to hear. She considered you hers and let every woman in Comhcheol know it.”
“Do you think she’s dangerous?” he asked in a soft voice.
“To you? Aye. To your lady? Possibly.”
“I don’t care about me, but if she tries to harm Marin—”
“I’m not saying she might not think on it, might even fantasize about it, but you’re the one she’s mad at. She’ll want to hurt you like she fancies you hurt her.”
“Aye, and the worst way to hurt me would be through Marin,” the Tiogar reasoned. “I think I need to talk to her personally, Maveen.”
“I advise against it, but you’re a grown man, lad. I reckon you’ll do what you think is best,” Maveen said with a slow shake of her head. She locked eyes with him. “Just promise me you’ll go on in to the village and speak to Jamie O’Malley or at least send one of my boys in to talk with him. You need to make him aware of what went on out to your place.”
Taegin nodded, took a few steps closer to the older woman, bent down and kissed her weathered cheek. “Thank you for you advice, milady,” he said.
Maveen blushed and swatted at him as he turned to go. “You two are coming to an Domhnacn dinner, aren’t you?” she called after him.
“And miss your legendary baked ham and sweet potatoes?” he yelled back at her. “No way!”
She waved goodbye, her face creased with worry as she watched him disappear into the forest that separated her place from the land she and Silus had given Taegin. Sometimes—she thought as she returned to her wash—men refused to see the forest for the trees, and she feared this was just such a time with Taegin Drae.
* * * * *
Kali slipped behind a tall banyon tree as she spied on the woman who had ruined her life. The blonde was beginning to tan and to Kali nothing was more distasteful than a bronze sheen on a woman’s skin. Her own pale flesh was ideally suited to her flame-red hair and sun only brought out unsightly freckles so Kali was careful to cover up in the harsh months of summer. Since reaching her thirtieth year, she’d taken to bathing in buttermilk—believing the liquid would help to keep her flesh soft and supple. Unfortunately, it also gave Kali a slightly sour smell. Thankfully, she was down wind of the trio who were waiting for Taegin to return from wherever he’d taken himself off to.
“To Simple Silus’, no doubt, to tell the old man what happened,” Kali mumbled to herself.
“Could have been lightning,” Daniel McGregor surmised.
“It was set,” Burl, the cripple, decreed. “There’s a smell of kerosene on the wood.”
“Taegin believes it was that woman,” the one called Marin suggested.
“That woman,” Kali hissed, her nails digging into the tree, “has a name!”
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Burl said. “She’s been known to do some pretty hateful things.”
“He thinks he should talk to her.”
Daniel—the last male Kali had fucked before being run out of the village—took off his straw hat and scratched his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Do you, Burl?”
The cripple cocked a shoulder. “I don’t know the woman well enough to make an educated guess.”
“You know me well enough to have humped me a half-dozen times or more,” Kali seethed.
“I’m ashamed to say I went to her cottage a few times,” Burl admitted. “All she ever talked about was Taegin and when Taegin would return to Comhcheol. My thoughts are she’s madder than a Márta hare and this is only going to get worse before it gets any better.”
Daniel ducked his head. “I was with her the night O’Malley came to tell her to get out of the village,” the young man said. “If da and ma knew, they’d skin me alive.”
Marin whistled. “Both of you have slept with her?”
“More’n half the men in the village have,” Burl answered. “Those unattached, I mean.”
“And some what aren’t,” Daniel said softly. “I’m ashamed I laid with her too, Burly.”
Hearing the men say such things hurt Kali deeply and tears entered her violet eyes. She didn’t want to listen to any more upsetting things and slipped quietly away, her dark green cloak melded into the lush forest. She was long gone by the time Taegin returned to the cove fifteen minutes later.
“I went into the village and spoke with the constable,” he told his wife and friends. “He doesn’t know where Kali is living, but he’ll be on the lookout for her and has asked his deputies to do the same.”
“She’s a sly one, Taegin,” Burl told him. “I think you need to post guards here until the hut is finished.”
“You think she’ll try to burn the hut?” Marin asked with eyes wide.
“No,” Taegin said. “A stack of lumber is one thing, a building is another.” He turned to look at the wood that was still smoldering. “My guess is that was her invitation to come talk with her.”
“Do you not sense her?” Marin asked. “Can’t you read her thoughts?”
The men exchanged a glance and it was Burl who told Marin of the mysterious headband Kali wore every moment of her life.
“It’s made of iron,” Burl explained. “It’s said her mother placed it on her when she came of age so the women of the village would not be able to intercept her thoughts.”
“Can they do that?” Marin asked, a deep blush passing over her face.
“They can among their own,” Taegin replied. “Kali was initiated into the Multitude when she was thirteen.”
“Just as every woman in Comhcheol was,” Daniel supplied.
“Multitude?” Marin questioned. “Do you mean the Daughters of the Multitude?” She looked from one masculine face to another in astonishment. “I thought that was an old wife’s tale. They don’t really exist, do they?”
“They do in Contúirtia as well as many other countries,” Taegin told her. “The only world where I know the Multitude never existed was on Riochas.” He gave her a querying look. “Surely some of your friends were daughters of Daughters.”
“If they were, they never mentioned it,” Marin said. “So iron will keep her thoughts from being read?” At Taegin’s nod, she asked if it also meant he could not send sublims to her.
“No, that I can’t do and it’s probably a good thing considering how angry I am at her right now,” he answered. “The headband also keeps her from reading the thoughts of others so she’s never known what I was thinking, else she most likely would have driven a dagger into my heart long ago.”
“Don’t say that!” Marin commanded.
Taegin reached out and pulled his wife to him. “Don’t worry, wench. I’m not going to allow anything to come between us, especially not a jealous bitch or her spite.”
Marin clung to her husband. She felt cold despite the heat of the summer day. With her head pressed against his chest, she could hear the steady beat of his stalwart heart—slow and calm like the man who possessed hers. She had to trust he knew what was best for them and, if had no worries about Kali, she would do her best to relax and show him a confidence she didn’t feel.
An Domhnach meals at the McGregor hut were an experience to be savored. Maveen’s smoked ham was succulent in its juices, ringed with whole new potatoes and parsnips that had been baked in with the ham and bore the meat’s smoky flavor. A mixture of three types of greens had been cooked with a cured ham hock and were steaming hot. Floating amid the pot liquor from the greens were doughboys—a plump dumpling made of flour, salt and water, and dropped by the tablespoon into the boiling liquid. Buttery corn on the cob was piled high on a platter beside a heaping dish of beets in orange sauce. Tomatoes fresh from the garden lay sliced beside stalks of green onion, celery and carrots as a relish tray. Pickled crabapples, spiced whole peaches and gingered pears sat in a large crystal dish. With no hard liquor allowed in the McGregor home, pitchers of cold milk stood handy to fill the tall goblets of the diners. If anyone left Maveen McGregor’s table hungry, it was his or her own fault.
“By the gods, I’m stuffed,” Silus McGregor pronounced as he pushed his plate away and rubbed his protruding belly. “Chalk yourself up another dandy meal, woman of the house.”
Maveen nodded and passed the last of the tomatoes to Burl to finish up. Precious little was left of the food on the table when her menfolk all sat down together on their day of rest.
Kale’s wife Phaedra offered—as she always did—to help clear the table, but it was an ironclad rule in the McGregor house that on an Domhnach the women cooked and the men cleaned up. Maveen shooed her and Marin out to the back porch where a cool breeze wafted and a tall, iced pitcher of lemonade awaited the womenfolk.
“You outdid yourself, Maveen,” Marin complimented the older woman. “I’ll never be able to cook like that.”
“Your man has a hollow leg,” Maveen said with a snort as she seated herself in the oversized rocker that had been her wedding present from Silus’ mother. “You’d best learn to cook well and quickly, lass. I taught Phae and I can teach you.”
Phaedra smiled, cupping her burgeoning belly in a light embrace. Having gotten with child on the night of Taegin and Marin’s Joining, Kale’s wife was as content as a sow in mud. She sniffed the air. “There’s a strange smell in the air. Almost smells like tar. Do you smell it, Ma?”
“The Hamptons are thatching their roof. Most likely that’s what you smell,” Maveen—who knew every ounce of village gossip—informed her daughter-in-law. She picked up her crocheting, her fingers flying through the stitches.
“I thought maybe someone had found the witch and was tarring her,” Phaedra said with a giggle.
Maveen snorted. “Wouldn’t hurt my feelings none if that was the case.”
“Are you talking about Kali?” Marin asked.
The women looked at one another then at Marin. It was Maveen who nodded. “Don’t like using that woman’s name. Most of the female population of Comhcheol considers it a bad omen to do so.”
“Yet she’s one of you, isn’t she?”
Maveen’s lips pursed. “If you’re talking of the Daughters, aye, she was one of us until the Great Lady dismissed her from the group.” Her eyes narrowed. “If your meaning is that she’s one of the women of Comhcheol, we don’t claim her as such and never have.”
“May I ask why?” Marin inquired.
“Why do you want to know about her, Marin? Isn’t that borrowing trouble?” Phaedra asked. “I’ve never inquired about Kale’s women before he took me as his sweetheart. I didn’t care to know.”
Maveen stopped crocheting. “Phaedra Boyle McGregor!” she said. “You and my Kale were sweet on one another when the two of you were running around in diapers. There’s never been another woman in his life save you!” She pointed her crochet hook at Phaedra. “And don’t think I don’t know what went on up in them mountains when Kale was running with Taegin years back.”
Phaedra’s face turned scarlet red. She glanced at Marin then away.
“As for the witch,” Maveen said, commencing her crocheting again with a vengeance, “she wasn’t born on Contúirtia. She was from some heathenish place somewhere beyond the Celadon Sector. Her mother was supposedly fleeing the wrath of a religious zealot and came here to ask for asylum.” She snorted derisively, her fingers flying. “Stupid menfolk of Comhcheol took her in because she was a comely wench with a head full of curly black hair down to her knees. She was a Rom if you ask me. The gods only know who fathered that child of hers.” She looked up at Marin. “Some say it was Raphian Himself!”
Marin shivered. Such talk unsettled her. Anything that bordered on the paranormal always had.
“There’s nothing mystical about who the witch’s father was,” Phaedra said. “She once bragged that he was a highly placed official on the planet where she’d been born and it was from his wife’s wrath that the witch’s mother was fleeing and not a religious zealot.”
“That’s more likely the truth of it,” Maveen said, then stopped crocheting, laying the piece in her lap. She sniffed the air as Phaedra had done. “That smells more like creosote than tar pitch for a roof.” She lay her crocheting down and stood up from her rocker and went to the edge of the porch, peering in the direction of Taegin’s cove. “Marin,” she shouted, “get the men. There’s smoke pouring from the cove!”
* * * * *
By the time the McGregors and Taegin—along with a wagonload of neighbors who’d seen the smoke—arrived at the cove, the hut was fully engulfed in flames. The floor had fallen through and the creosote pylons upon which the floor had sat were crumbling to the sand. A few trees around the structure were aflame, the leaves of nearby plants shriveling, as buckets of water were filled from the waterfall and poured on the conflagration. It took most of the afternoon and into the evening before the last flames were put out and all that remained of the structure Taegin had been lovingly working on for over three weeks lay in a smoldering pile.
Constable O’Malley came over to Taegin, running a sooty hand over his beefy face. “There’s a tin of kerosene over by the stack of tin roofing, son. Looks like this was deliberately set.”
Taegin nodded. His face was blackened with smoke, his eyes red from the heat and fumes. His an Domhnach best shirt was torn in places, burnt in others. He stood facing what had been his dream for longer than he could remember, his heart aching.
“We’ll help you rebuild,” the constable said, putting a hand on the Tiogar’s shoulder. When he received no answer, he patted the younger man and walked off, motioning the others who had come with him into the wagon.
The McGregors were the last to leave, Silus pleading with Taegin to spend the night with his family, but the Tiogar declined. The tent he had been sharing with Marin was now a pile of rubble—as were the few belongings they’d brought to the cove with them. All he asked was the loan of another tent, which someone had hurried off to bring him back one. The tent had been pitched, towels, washcloths, a clean set of clothes for Taegin and Marin, two cots and bedding had been provided by the Boyles, Phaedra’s parents, who owned the dry goods store in Comhcheol.
“If you change your mind, we’ll leave a light burning for you,” Maveen said.
Long after the others had gone, Taegin stood where he had been standing for over two hours. He was bone-tired but could not force himself to move away from the sight of his shattered dream. The only light came from the glowing embers of the fallen wood, a single lantern and the half-moon that was rising overhead.
Marin didn’t know what to say to her husband. Her heart ached for him. She too had lost the beginnings of her new home, but it didn’t have the same overwhelming meaning for her as it did for Taegin. Wherever he was, that was her true home. She ached to tell him so but she didn’t think that moment was the time to express how she felt. Instead, she went to him and slipped her hand in his, laid her head on his shoulder.
“I’m going to have to talk to her whether I want to or not,” Taegin said.
Marin closed her eyes. There was a tone in her husband’s voice that did not bode well for the woman who had caused it. “You’re sure it’s Kali who did this?” she questioned.
Taegin looked down at her. “Who else would it have been, wench? Who hates me enough to do this to me? Who wanted to hurt me this badly?”
A part of Marin despised the person who had stripped her man of his precious dream. Another part of her knew a killing rage she feared Taegin felt as well. She’d had a long talk with the constable, and he had told her no one would blame Taegin if he took the witch’s life for what she’d done, but Marin didn’t want her husband to have the death of a woman on his conscience—even a woman as patently vicious as Kali.
“What would the law do to her if you arrested her?” Marin had asked.
“She’d never make it to trial,” O’Malley had prophesied. “Taegin Drae is a respected man in Comhcheol, a war hero. There’s not a man—or woman—here who doesn’t have a deep care for the Tiogar. The witch is hated by every living soul in the village and I suspect by a great many lying under the ground as well!”
“She’d die in her cell?” Marin had asked, stunned at the vehemence of the man who was sworn to uphold the law in Comhcheol.
“She’d die up on that mountain,” O’Malley corrected. “She’d never see a cell. We got no love for witches in Contúirtia.”
Taegin slowly lifted his wife’s hand to his sooty lips and kissed her equally dirty fingers. He had been proud of her as she had worked alongside the men to help put out the flames. She had worked unceasingly in bringing water, wet clothes and food to the workers, and he could tell she was as tired as he was.
“Take off those clothes, wench, and let’s take a swim. I feel gritty.”
Marin smiled. “You’ll say anything to get me out of my clothes, won’t you, milord Tiogar?”
He snorted softly. “The goddess Morrigunia Herself could drop down naked before me tonight, wench, and I’d have to decline Her offer.” He kissed her hand again then released it. “I’ll go to the tent and fetch us some clean clothes and meet you on the shore.”
“Are you saying not even I could tempt you tonight?” she countered.
He shook his head. His shoulders were stooped as he walked away from her and she could feel the sadness welling within him. She doubted he wanted her to try to arouse him in the water but perhaps a wild romp would help him lose himself for a while. If nothing more, she could bathe him in the cleansing salt water then lead him over to the waterfall that plummeted down behind what was left of their hut.
“I’ll go get the clothes,” she said, running to him and passing him, turning around so that she was walking backward, shooing him away with the backs of her hands. “You go strip those smelly clothes off and I’ll join you. How’s that?” She snatched up the lantern.
He was too tired to argue with her. He simply turned and headed toward the beach, his head down, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. It was Marin’s scream as he tore the shirt from him that made his heart stop beating. He spun around, going to one knee in the sand as Marin screamed again. He dug his booted feet into the sand and ran as fast as he could for the tent.
It was coiled on the skirt that Siobhan Boyle had given to Marin. Three feet of blotched brown skin diamonded with lighter brown patches was glistening in the light of the lantern, a triangular head raised, tail standing straight up in warning as an ominous rattling sound underscored Marin’s harshly drawn breath. A pale red forked tongue flashed out of the slit of a mouth to taste the air.
Taegin threw the flap aside just as the viper moved, its body shooting straight for Marin, fangs exposed. Marin screamed again, throwing up an arm to protect her face, but the creature never touched her. It was knocked from the air by a being that had changed in the blink of an eye from man to beast. One moment his hand was outstretched toward the viper and at the next instant the viper was being pinned down by a massive shaggy paw, the snake’s body whipping about on the tent’s floor, coiling around the furry appendage, lashing along a black and orange striped leg. As she watched in horror, the beast twisted its huge head toward her—amber eyes glowing with deadly intent, fangs extended—and she heard her husband’s voice in her mind, “Get the shovel, wench!”
Her mind seething with disbelief, her gaze went dazedly to the pair of britches that lay ripped on the canvas flooring, the boots that were split open at the side seams, unable to move.
“Get the shovel, Marin. Now!” came the shout in her mind that galvanized her into action.
Marin ran outside for one of the shovels and brought it back to drive it down between the feline’s huge paw and the viper’s wedge-shaped head. The sound of the head detaching from the body made her ill and she bent over to throw up. She’d never killed anything—not even a bug—and it sickened her, even if she had taken the life of something trying to take hers. Everything she’d eaten for an Domhnach dinner came back to haunt her. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she heard her husband pulling on a pair of britches but the sound barely made sense to her. Strangely, she half-giggled, wondering why a huge cat would need pants to cover his back legs.
It was as she dredged up the last of her meal that she felt strong arms lace around her and pull her back to a firm, human chest. She turned in her husband’s sweaty arms and pressed herself tightly to him, her hands scrabbling at his naked chest.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s done for.”
Marin was trembling so violently, he picked her up and took her out of the tent. Although he was dead-tired, he walked barefoot the mile and a half from the cove to the McGregors with her in his arms. As promised, his adopted family had left a light burning, and when Silus heard him call out, he and Timothy came hurrying out.
“What’s happened now?” Silus demanded as he skipped barefoot down the steps.
“Take her,” Taegin asked, and stumbled beneath the slight weight of his wife.
Silus took her from his arms and frowned as the Tiogar collapsed, going to his knees. The young man was panting, his arms quivering, bent over as though the last of his strength had been taken from him.
“Get her inside and have Maveen see to her,” Taegin said. “She’s more scared than anything else.”
“What about you?” Timothy asked, and made to help Taegin to his feet.
“No!” Taegin said, holding up a hand to ward the young man off. “I have to… I am going to…”
Father and son watched as Taegin began to change, his britches practically exploding from his hips as those hips became the haunches of a powerful beast. Fur sprouted on Taegin’s limbs, joints cracked, sinews stretched with a pulling sound, claws came out in a squelch of sound, bones shrieked as they extended. As one, they hurried up the steps, needing to put distance between them and the beast that was already snarling viciously behind them.
“Taegin!” Marin called out, trying to get out of Silus’ arms, but the older man would not allow it. He told her to be quiet.
“He’s doing what he has to,” Silus told her. “You knew what he was when you Joined with him.”
“Aye, but—”
“He went through Conversion a week before the Joining, Da,” Timothy reminded his father. “Why is he going through it again this soon? He should have at least another few months before his next cycle.”
The roar shook the panes in the windows as Maveen—belting a robe around her—came into the sitting room. Everyone stopped still in their tracks as the roar came again, this time further up the mountain.
“He’s going after her,” Marin said, “that’s why.” Silus had laid her on the settee and she automatically sprang up, trying to get past him. “You can’t let him!”
“What brought you here, lass?” Maveen asked. “What did the witch do?”
“That doesn’t matter. He—”
“What did she do?” Maveen demanded.
Marin groaned. “She put a viper on my cot.”
Maveen gasped, her hand going to a pendant, which hung around her neck. She touched the talisman, her lips moving silently.
“The gods have mercy on her then,” Silus whispered, “for the lad surely won’t.”
He had been roaming the caves of Mount Gogadh for over an hour, searching for the scent he remembered from long ago. The keen night vision had held him in good stead and he could see things he couldn’t in his human shape. His nose to the ground, he had at last found her spoor and was following it higher up inside the mountain. Stopping as a small animal leapt away from his approach, he sat down on his haunches for a moment, furious at himself for having come after her during a Conversion. Though he was incapable of human speech, he was fully cognizant and capable of human thought. True Conversions often lasted nearly a week and came four times a year—at the very most—but one caused by the fury that had gripped him at the McGregors or the fear that had altered him in order to protect his mate would last only as long as the emotion lasted. Already he was feeling the changes striving to revert and he was angrier with himself than he was with Kali. He struggled to hold his animal shape for it was in that condition that he wanted to meet up with the treacherous slut.
His whiskers twitched and he opened his huge jaws and yawned. He was tired—too tired to be doing what he was trying to do. While it was true he had more power and stamina in his felidae form, he was worn out both mentally as well as spiritually, and his physical strength was waning. Soon he would need to rest, to feast if he was still in his beastly form, and then pick up the scent again. But that wasn’t why Taegin Drae was so annoyed with himself.
Lifting a paw, he hooked it toward him and swiped at it with his rough tongue, spreading his toe joints to lap in between the razor-sharp claws. He did it more to calm himself than from any real need to groom his paw.
“You’ll be as naked as the day you were born, fool.” The thought drove the anger deeper into his heart. “Naked and vulnerable, trekking through caves she’ll know by heart, your dangly swinging in the breeze. What a way to meet up with her.”
He chuffed, the sound one of disgust at his inability to control his temper. He stood up, shook himself as though throwing off unwanted burdens then began following Kali’s scent once more, making no sound at all as he moved.
Another twenty minutes found him deep within a long, narrow tunnel that was cooled by a strong sea breeze. The wind was blowing Kali’s scent back to him and he knew she was close. He looked around—taking note of the landmarks of the tunnel then turned and trotted back the way he’d come. Once outside, he again surveyed the landmarks, lifted his leg to mark the entrance and began his long journey back down the mountain, for it was no longer possible for him to keep the Conversion in place and he was rapidly tiring in an attempt to do so. As he took the trail that would lead him down to the McGregors, he gave up trying and allowed his human form to take over.
When he wearily made his way to the McGregors’ front porch, he smiled to see a pair of boots sitting on the top step and a pair of jeans hanging over the railing. His was a riper scent than any human should ever experience so he picked up the boots, tugged the jeans from the railing and went behind the hut to bathe in water from Silus’ well, scrubbing himself with the bar of soap he knew Maveen had left for him. Hair still dripping from bucket after bucket of cold water he’d doused himself with to rid his flesh of the lemon-scented soap, he dragged on the jeans and tiredly climbed the steps of the back porch, curling up in Maveen’s prized redwood swing and falling asleep as soon as his head hit the slats, unable to go a step further.
As the first rays of the dawn sun pulsed in his eyes, he woke—every muscle in his body screaming with protest at the cramped position he’d kept all night. He groaned and managed to turn over on his back, his knees bent, his right arm over his belly. Shielding his eyes from the sunlight beneath a crooked left arm thrown over his face, he lay there listening to the early morning calls of the birds and the low rustlings in the bushes of the little first-rising animals. Soothingly, he could hear the morning tide coming in, the breakers washing gently to shore. The smell of the salt water made him draw deep lungfuls into his sore and aching body. He knew the moment Marin’s feet hit the floor for he had delved lightly into her mind—something he had sworn to himself he would not do again once they were Joined. He smiled as he envisioned her running down the stairs.
“Easy, wench,” he warned.
He felt her elation as well as the irritation at him poking around inside her head again and then the consternation as she flung the front door open to look for him, obviously not finding him there.
“On the back porch,” he whispered, then withdrew from her mind.
He listened to the front screen door slam shut then her running footsteps through the hut. As soon as the back screen door squealed open, he smiled for the first words out of her mouth were so like his lady.
“Did you kill her?” she asked, coming to stand over him. Her voice was higher pitched than usual and rife with worry.
He could feel her eyes roaming over him, looking for damage. When she repeated her question—her voice now filled with a semblance of relief, he let his arm fall behind his head and he looked up at her.
“No, wench. As far as I know, she’s still breathing this morning. Had I been less tired last eve, I’d have sought her out and wrung her neck, though.”
He watched Marin let out a long breath. “So you decided to trot back here and sleep out on the porch so I could wake up and nearly die from fright when I thought you weren’t back?” she accused.
“I didn’t have the energy to come inside, wench,” he drawled. He held out his right hand to her. “Take pity on your tired, aching husband, please?”
She ignored his hand and put her own on her hips. “Do you realize you scared me half to death last night?” Her eyes narrowed. “That I laid awake until well past two in the morning worried sick about you?”
“At two this morning, I was most likely lying here on this swing in a fetal position, dead to the world and snoring,” he told her, his lips twitching. “Something you tell me I do all too often as it is.”
Maveen stuck her head out the door. “You want breakfast, son?”
“Aye, milady,” he said with a sigh. “I am starving.”
“Serves you right,” Marin snapped, spun on her heel and went inside, slamming the porch door behind her.
Silus squeaked open the door and came out, his pipe and pouch of tobacco in hand. “Got a mite touchy little filly on your hands there, lad,” he observed as he sat down in his oversized rocker and began filling his pipe.
Taegin sighed and sat up. “She’ll get over it,” he said. He rubbed a hand over his bare chest. “Leastwise I hope she will.”
Silus chuckled lowly. He flicked his eyes over Taegin. “You look none the worse for wear. Didn’t find her, eh?”
“I know where she is up there,” the Tiogar said, letting his gaze slide up the mountain beyond the McGregors’ hut. He got up, grunting as his body screamed with aches and he felt every last one of them.
“Take a piss off the porch if you like,” Silus suggested. “Don’t look to me like you can make it up to the john this morn.”
Taegin nodded and walked to the end of the porch to relieve himself in Maveen’s flowerbed. He heard the scratch of a match behind him then smelled the rich aroma of Silus’ cherry wood-flavored tobacco wafting on the air. He shook himself, stuffed his manhood back in his jeans and padded over to pick up his boots.
“A few of the neighbors are going to help us clear out the rubble today,” Silus said as he puffed away on his pipe, rocking gently as he did.
Taegin bent down—groaning as he did—and snagged one boot. The other fell over and he groaned again having to bend lower.
“I see your adversary has been here during the night,” Silus said as he watched a scorpion skitter out of the Tiogar’s overturned boot. He moved quicker than a man his age had a right to, shooting out of the chair and bringing his slipper-clad foot down on the deadly anthropoid to crush it, pivoting his foot to grind it to a pulp.
Taegin stared down at the pulverized insect and let out a particularly vulgar Riochasian curse. “She had to know that wouldn’t kill me,” he spat.
“Most likely not, but it would have made you sick as a mangy dog,” Silus agreed, kicking the mess off the porch.
Spearing his fingers through his hair, Taegin drew in a long breath then released it. “Don’t tell Marin about this,” he asked.
“Didn’t intend to,” Silus acknowledged as he went back to his rocker.
“Where the hell did she get a scorpion on Contúirtia?” Taegin questioned.
Silus shrugged. “Ain’t no telling about that woman,” he replied. “She trades with a few of the more exotic ship crews what come to Comhcheol Harbor. Could have had the damned thing for a pet for all we know.”
“Trades with the crews? You mean services them,” Taegin scoffed.
Silus’ pipe stem was clenched between his teeth. “Something like that, I imagine,” he replied with a grin.
Marin came to the door and announced breakfast was starting then walked back into the house.
“That little gal is royally ticked at you, son,” Silus laughed. He got up, put his pipe on the porch railing then held his hand out for Taegin to proceed him inside.
Daniel, Timothy and Burl were already at the table waiting for them. Andrew had grabbed a biscuit and a few slices of bacon and left for town to round up the workers who would help them clear away the debris from Taegin’s building site.
“I appreciate the help,” Taegin said, taking a seat beside his wife who ignored him.
“That’s what family is for,” Maveen reminded him.
From the corner of her eye, Marin saw her husband lower his head and a great deal of her anger simply evaporated. It was hard to stay mad at a man who had such sorrow buried deep in his soul. She didn’t hesitate to take his hand as Burl reached for hers while Silus gave the Blessing over the meal. She even squeezed Taegin’s hand before releasing it and turned to smile forgivingly at him.
Taegin bent over and kissed his wife’s cheek. “I’m sorry I worried you,” he whispered.
“You should be,” she replied, and that was that. Her anger—though not her worry over him—vanished.
“MacFee will mill us more lumber,” Silus said as he took the plate of biscuits from Timothy. “Reckon we should have the pylons in by the end of the week.”
“It’s a good thing Taegin had more of the stilts made than he needed,” Daniel said.
“I’m thinking we need to post a guard until O’Malley arrests the woman,” Burl said, not using Kali’s name out of respect for his mother and Phaedra who had strolled in yawning and taken her seat across from Marin.
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Silus granted.
Nothing more was said about what had happened in the cove. The subject of Kali was dropped that casually. When breakfast was over, Marin offered to help clean up but Maveen and Phaedra declined her offer, telling her she’d best accompany Taegin back to the cove.
“We’ll bring out sandwiches and the like at lunchtime,” Maveen said. “The menfolk will be gasping for food by then.”
Thanking their hosts, Taegin and Marin headed home, her hand tightly clasped in his as they made the mile-and-a-half trip. Silent all the way back, it wasn’t until Taegin saw the pile of burned wood that he spoke.
“Did I frighten you last night, wench?”
Marin knew what he meant. “Running the risk of further inflating your already over-inflated ego, milord, I found your inner beast as handsome as his host.” She glanced up at him. “A very powerful, manly beast he was, I must say.”
“He didn’t scare you?” he nudged.
The Tiogar’s wife shrugged. “Perhaps impressed is a better word, for I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Never,” was the heartfelt pledge.
“He’s a little hard on your clothing and footwear, though,” she said, her lips twitching.
“Aye,” Taegin said with a sigh. “He is.” He squeezed her hands. “Thank you for putting the boots and britches out for me.”
“That was Silus’ idea,” she told him. “It didn’t occur to me, but it will next time.”
He fully intended there be no next time, for he didn’t like the idea of his wife seeing him in Conversion. He rolled his shoulders, uncomfortable with the memory that she ever had.
Sensing he was ashamed she’d seen him in his felidae shape, she stopped and locked eyes with him. “I have to tell you, milord Tiogar, that I was glad for that virus my father developed last night.”
Taegin frowned. “Why?”
“Had you not gone into Conversion, I might not be here this morning. I don’t want you to make a habit of dropping to all fours in front of me, but should the occasion arise, just know it will not bother me.” She smiled. “I like having such a potent protector at my beck and call.”
He snorted and they continued walking toward the rubble.
“What was it like the first time you went through Conversion?” she asked, feeling it was best to get it out in the open for they had never talked about it. The few times she’d hinted about it, he’d changed the subject.
There was one stack of lumber that had not been touched by flames and Taegin walked her over to it, let go of her hand, put his hands on her waist and lifted her up to sit on the stack. He hopped up beside her, crooking up one knee and resting his wrist on it.
“All right, wench, we’ll talk about it just this once then we won’t mention it again,” he said, not looking at her. “What do you want to know?”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Did it hurt?”
He nodded. “More than I could ever explain or want to remember,” he answered.
“How were you chosen as my father’s subject?” That question had been on her mind from the moment she first had seen him on the Revenge.
“Now that I can’t tell you, but I suspect he chose us because we were close blood kin from among the Tiogar Clan. I imagine he had some purpose in that. There were six of us—my five cousins and me.” He cleared his throat. “I think he got the idea for turning us into big cats from the word Tiogar, the meaning obvious.”
“I never thought of that,” she said. “You mean you could have become a wolf or bear or something?”
“Possibly.”
“So who was the first to go into Conversion?”
Taegin sighed. “Me since I was the oldest and was head of my class at the academy. Banning was next, then Erin, Teague, Micheil and Neacal.”
“Did you know what you were being chosen for?” she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder. He moved his arm so that it was around her.
“We were told it was an experiment to make us better warriors,” he said as he stared into the distance. “From the moment you enter the academy you are indoctrinated to be the best you can be, so the notion of becoming ultra warriors played to our over-inflated egos.”
Marin smiled as her own words came back to her, but she made no comment.
Taegin craned his head to look at her. When she remained silent, he chuckled lightly and went on with his tale.
“The injection didn’t hurt but within twenty minutes I felt like I was coming apart. The pain was excruciating and when it was all over with and I stood there in beast form, I felt like any normal fifteen-year-old boy would. I strutted around, twisting this way and that to see my ass, flinging my tail like it was the most important part on me.”
“Smelling your pee as Maveen would say,” she injected.
“Exactly,” he admitted. “I felt invincible and—boy-like—full of myself.” He frowned. “It wasn’t until the hunger set in that I realized I might not be able to change back into a human and that scared the shit out of me.”
She looked up at him. “You didn’t want to remain a big cat?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. The novelty of it wore off quickly, let me tell you.”
Marin imagined her husband being terrified he would remain a beast the rest of his life.
“That first Conversion lasted only a few hours but it was enough to make me realize that I was now a freak, a part of me capable of becoming a vicious beast with a taste for bloody meat.” He shuddered. “I cursed the day your father chose me.”
“Were the next Conversions easier on you?”
“No. The next one came unexpectedly in the middle of the night four months later. We were in cells side by side—unable to see one another—but we could hear as each one went through the agony.”
“What did they think of what was happening to them?”
“I never knew, wench,” he said. “We were separated not long after without ever having a chance to talk to one another. We were sent to different sections within the Fleet Academy on Cruinne and trained for various positions. I became a pilot right about the time the war broke out between the Tiogars and the Madras. When it was apparent we were losing the war, the Fleet sent me to Contúirtia. I never knew why but I think it was to make sure at least one of us survived, and since I was the first and my father was by then a captain, he had some clout.”
“That should have told you he had feelings for you, milord.”
He shrugged, but said nothing to her statement. “As it was, the Madras came after me, determined to kill the last surviving member of the Tiogar Clan. I was in the Contúirtian Alps for three years before the bitches gave up and went back to Riochas Prime and settled down, striking for peace with the League. After the treaty was signed, Kale and I were picked up and taken back to Cruinne and I was given the Revenge as their reward for the years I’d spent freezing my ass off.” He nudged her. “The Madras left me alone until I dared put my filthy paws on their leader’s little girl.”
Marin grinned. “Filthy, degenerate paws,” she corrected.
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the approach of wagons and the sound of men laughing and talking amongst themselves. Taegin jumped down from the wood stack and held his hands out for his lady. She slid into his arms and he held her against him for a moment before allowing her to slide down him.
“Degenerate,” she giggled, for his cock had leapt against her as he lowered her to the ground.
“Later, wench,” he said, wagging his brows.
The slightly cool morning shifted into a steaming noon as the men worked shirtless in the broiling sun. Every last stick of charred wood had been loaded onto the four wagons that would cart it off to the landfill on the far side of the county by late afternoon and the base of the stilts had been sawn off. New holes for the next set of pylons would be dug the following day.
Constable O’Malley found Taegin resting as the men were piling into their wagons for the return trip home. He hunkered down beside the Tiogar. “Did you find her cave?”
“Aye,” Taegin said. Everyone knew what had happened the evening before.
“Care to tell me where or are you going to handle this yourself?”
“She tried to kill my woman,” Taegin said. “Burning up my work is one thing. Coming after Marin is another. I believe I’ll handle it.”
O’Malley nodded. No one would dare gainsay a retired Fleet Officer and certainly not one of Taegin Drae’s reputation. Whatever the Tiogar saw fit would be accepted and a blind eye turned if that whatever turned deadly. To a person, the village folk had no love for Kali and less compassion now that she had attempted to harm their beloved Taegin’s mate.
“Just watch yourself,” the constable suggested.
Taegin thanked O’Malley for his concern and bid him goodbye. He was tired again but it was a good tired this time, and all he wanted to do was take a shower and stretch out on Maveen’s swing to let the cool evening breezes wash over him.
“I won’t hear nothing but that you’ll be staying with us ‘til your hut is built,” Maveen had declared before Taegin and Marin had set off for the cove. “You get your butt back here with Silus and my boys. Don’t you stay off down there by yourselves.”
Marin was motioning him over to Andrew’s wagon, stamping her foot in the sand when he just looked at her. Knowing she intended to make sure he followed Maveen’s orders, he sighed and got wearily to his feet, dusting the sand off his sweat-dampened britches. Trudging over to his wife, he lifted her onto the back of the wagon and hopped up beside her.
“Are you always going to be waving your apron at me and shaking your ladle, wench?” he inquires softly.
“If need be,” she returned.
“She’s got you on a short rope, son,” Silus chuckled. “Best you learn to come up short before strangling yourself.”
The McGregor men laughed at their father’s advice. Burl was sitting beside his father, his stumps redder than usual for he’d been lounging in the sun working on some revisions to the house plans he and Taegin had decided upon.
Taegin leaned over to whisper to his lady. “When we get to bed this eave, I’m going to strip you as naked as a jaybird, tie you to Maveen’s big four-poster, gag you and turn you inside out with my tongue, wench.”
“Promises, promises,” she said with a deep sigh.
“I’ll stick my fingers inside your hot little cunt and make you come twice before I allow you to have my cock driving deep into you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She pretended to yawn.
“I’ll suckle your nipples until they are as hard as little pebbles then I’ll—”
“We can hear everything you are saying, Tae,” Burl ground out. “Some of us don’t have womenfolk to ease the burden of what has popped up with your filthy talk.”
Marin’s face turned bright red and she hid her face against her husband’s chest. She didn’t see the crimson stain that had touched his countenance, but she cringed at the hearty laughter of the McGregors, mortally embarrassed.
Taegin Drae kept his mouth shut the rest of the way home.
Kali crouched before her fire, staring into the dying flames as she worked the magick her mother had taught her. It was of the Old Ways—a dark and dangerous enchantment that shifted the strange shadows on the cave walls into grotesque shapes that prowled the rocky tunnels in search of prey.
Naked, the witch took up a small silken bag and undid the drawstring closure. She dipped her fingers inside and drew out a pinch of dried blood flecks then cast them into the fire.
“As the fire burns, Taegin Drae, so will your blood burn once more for me and me alone,” she chanted. She tossed another pinch of her coveted dried blood into the flames then carefully drew the silk pouch closed and set it aside. “You will come to me of your own desire unable to rest until you do.”
The blood was the warrior’s own, gathered from a shirt upon which he had bled when they had first met. Carefully preserved, Kali had lovingly scraped the dried blood from the shirt and kept it in the silk bag worn next to her skin. There were other bags that held his nail clippings, strands of hair, even dried semen she held more precious than all the other takings of the Tiogar’s. Each could be used for the potent—perhaps even lethal—rituals she would perform in the next few days to gain her revenge on the man who had spurned her.
Between her knees she held a basket of laurel leaves. With her gaze intent on the dying fire, she gathered a handful of leaves in her left hand and dropped them into the flames. The leaves were used to produce strong effects of fire and warmth in a person’s emotions, the spicy aroma filling the air.
Watching them catch fire, the witch’s words were strong and said with power.
“Sweet laurel burn like love’s great desire. Show him to me in the flames of this fire!”
In the flames the image of Taegin Drae appeared, but he was not alone. Beneath him—her body entwined with his—was the woman who had stolen the Tiogar’s heart.
“No!” Kali screamed, dropping the entire basket of laurel leaves upon the fire. She scuttled back from the blaze, her face seething with fury.
Screams of outrage filled the cave, bouncing off the walls. Curses rang out—heaped upon the head of the man with whom Kali was obsessed. She stared at the flames and saw the man she loved coupling with the usurper, bestowing upon the evil one the rightful affection that Kali believed was hers. Reaching up, she tore out handfuls of her red hair in her anger and ran her wickedly long nails down her bare chest, leaving behind long scratches that oozed with blood.
“No,” she whispered, her violet eyes turning a deep purple as she scrambled forward to maniacally throw dirt upon the fire to douse the flames. “No. No. No. No. No!”
Gone was the love she had once harbored for Taegin Drae and in its place was a hellish ire that bubbled like venom through her veins. Where she had thought to punish him before bringing him back to her, now she wanted only his utter destruction. Not just mentally, she thought, as she got to her feet, her chest heaving with passion, as she had with the destruction of his beloved hut. That had hurt him—and hurt him deeply—but the cut had not been nearly deep enough. She wanted only to bring the Tiogar to his knees before her so she could run the blade of her athamé across his lying, cheating throat, and the only way to break him completely was to take his woman from him.
* * * * *
Taegin was restless—tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable though he was dog-tired. He was afraid he would wake Marin with his fidgeting so he eased from the bed, putting on his jeans as quietly as he could. Plucking a black cotton T-shirt from the bedside chair, he picked up his boots and left their bedroom.
The McGregors were all abed for it was long after the witching hour when all good folk should be asleep. Quietly, he let himself out on the back porch, being extra careful to keep the screen door from squealing. Placing his boots on the flooring, he tugged on the T-shirt, for the night was cool, another storm brewing to the west. He went to stand by the porch railing and let his attention drift up the dark mountainside to the spot where he remembered the entrance to Kali’s cave to be. He put his forearms on the railing, clasped his hands together and leaned on the railing.
“Can you hear me, Kali?” he whispered to the night air.
There was movement in the forest to his right and he turned his head to look that way. A small boar stood frozen in place, staring up at him, then it melted back into the lush foliage, making as little noise as possible as it scurried to get away from him.
Taegin listened to the night sounds and heard them cease as something passed in the darkness. He strained to see but whatever was moving was doing so stealthily, cautious in its actions. Straightening up, he sniffed the air and caught her scent. She was upwind of him, and that particular odor she had about her wasn’t hard to pick up. It flowed past the McGregors’ hut, heading toward his cove.
A hateful grin tugged at the Tiogar’s chiseled lips. As quietly as possible, he picked up his boots and carried them down the back stairs. He leaned against a palm, put the footwear on and blended into the night as furtively as the prey he sought.
* * * * *
Marin turned over in the bed and flung out a hand. It was something she did often just to assure herself her husband was with her. When her fingers encountered only cool pillow and turned-back sheet, she sat up, her heart pounding in her chest.
“He’s gone after her,” she said, fear running rampant through her heart.
She threw back the covers and got up, dressing hurriedly in jeans and pullover, determined to go after him and keep him from doing something he would regret all his life. Having no idea how long he’d been gone, she knew she’d need to hurry, but she moved as silently as she could through the house and out the front door.
* * * * *
Kali drew her blade from its sheath and crept toward the clearing. She moved quietly but, even before she reached the tent, she knew it would be empty. Frustrated, she checked the tent anyway to be sure. Realizing Taegin must be at the McGregors’, Kali cursed under her breath then flung open the tent and ducked aside. The moment she did, her upper arm was caught in a brutal grip that jerked her around to meet the blazing eyes of the man she had once loved so passionately.
“Looking for me, Kali?” he asked.
Bringing the knife up, she made a stab toward him but he blocked her attempt, pummeling her wrist with the edge of his hand so savagely, she cried out with pain and dropped the dagger. She tried for his eyes with her fingers hooked into claws but he caught her wrists and slammed her against him.
“Now that wasn’t nice,” the Tiogar said.
She tried kneeing him in the groin, but he moved so quickly—his leg shooting out to trip her so that she fell heavily to the ground at his feet. Before she could scramble up, he bent over and his palm spanned her throat, squeezing while she raked at his hand to remove it, gasping for breath.
“I should choke the life out of you for trying to harm my woman,” he spat at her as he dragged her to her feet.
Kali was digging her nails into his flesh—scoring it with bloody furrows—but he didn’t seem to notice. He was holding her up by her neck and her feet were no longer touching the sand. She was strangling and dared not struggle too much for fear he’d snap her neck. Stars were coming down from the heaven as wind rushed in her ears. He was killing her, but a moment before she thought her life was about to end, he tossed her away from him as though she was a piece of garbage. Landing heavily on her side, Kali gasped for breath, her depleted lungs heaving as she held on to her bruised throat.
“Be thankful my lady has the heart I don’t, witch,” Taegin told her. “If you come after me or mine again, there will be no leniency. I’ll snap you over my knee like a twig.”
He turned away—dismissing her—and started back toward the McGregors’. So angry was he the thought of her dagger lying on the ground near her didn’t even register. He forgot all about it until he heard the snarl coming from her and half turned to meet the threat. The dagger slid wickedly beneath his ribs, grating against bone and puncturing his right kidney. He went to one knee as the blade was yanked free and driven into his left shoulder as Kali aimed for his heart.
Shrieking like a banshee, Kali jerked the dagger out of his shoulder and tried again, but he threw up an arm to block her, the blade slicing through his forearm. He was losing blood rapidly and weakening too quickly to strike for a Conversion. It was his only chance to escape the insane woman repeatedly striking at him and it was all he could do to bat her plunges away, sweeping out a leg to trip her up.
Kali fell—the wind temporarily knocked out of her—as Taegin levered himself up. He crashed back to the sand twice before gaining his feet. Scrambling for his life, he pushed up, staggering, his right side on fire with an agony that sent hot blood flowing down his leg. Panting, he stumbled away, hoping to gain a wooden board—anything—he could to protect himself from the virago he watched turning to her side in the sand.
There was nothing close by for him to use to fend her off. She was already on her feet and coming at him, the knife raised in her hand. Shuffling backward with his eyes on the bloody blade, he didn’t see the log on which Burl usually sat and tripped over it. He went heavily to his back, his injured kidney an excruciating fire burning through his lower body. He hurt so badly he couldn’t move his leg, couldn’t kick out at her as she came at him, diving in for the kill, her enraged eyes wide, lips peeled back from clenched teeth. His leg arm was useless but he held up his right arm to try to hold her off but there was no strength left and he knew it. Closing his eyes to the inevitable, he braced himself as best he could for the burying of the blade in his chest.
It was a strange sound—an odd plinking sound but one with depth and power in its song. It was accompanied by a squishing thud, a grunt and a loud crash that brought the tent collapsing down. Taegin opened his eyes, turned his head to search for the source of the sound. What he saw made him shudder.
Marin was standing over Kali’s body, the shovel she had used to kill the viper the night before clutched in her hand and arched over her left shoulder. Blood dripped from the shovel’s blade. She stood there like a warrioress of old with blood fever turning her face red with rage and her lovely green eyes vicious, her legs braced apart and stiff. Her breath was heaving into and out of her lungs as she glared down at the lifeless body of the woman whose head she had pulverized.
“Are you alive, milord?” he heard her ask in a tight voice. When he didn’t answer her right away, she swung her head toward him. Her face made his blood run cold.
“Aye, milady,” he replied as blackness swept up with greedy arms and dragged him down into oblivion.
It took him two weeks to recover from his wounds. In all that time neither Marin nor Maveen would allow him out of bed except to relieve himself in a chamber pot kept close to his side of the big four-poster. He was pampered and cosseted, spoiled rotten, his every wish instantly gratified. All he had to do was ask and it was received—no matter how trivial. To make sure he did not disobey them, there was a woman in his room every hour of every day and a guard outside in the hall to make doubly sure he did as he was told.
Phaedra looked up from her mending as the Tiogar woke from his afternoon nap. “Do you need something, Tae?” she asked.
He stretched, wincing as the stitches in his back pulled. “How much longer, Phae?” he asked—as he had every day for damned near the entire two weeks.
“Maveen says perhaps tomorrow,” Kale’s wife answered—as she had every day for damned near a week.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” he mimicked, his mouth twisted. “I’m so sick of this bed I could shit in it!”
Phaedra made no comment to his vulgarity. She plied her needle with remarkable calm although personally she was getting tired of Taegin Drae’s convalescence almost as much as he was.
“Where’s milady?” he grumbled, fanning the covers. He lifted his left arm and tested the strength in it. It was mending a lot faster than his temper.
“I imagine she’s at the cove.”
“Where I should gods-be-damned be,” he mumbled.
“You are right where you belong,” Maveen said as she came in to relieve Phaedra. In her hand was a plate with a large slice of lime chiffon pie.
“Glory be to Aneas,” Phaedra said. “I was beginning to think I’d have to sit there and make more conversation with him.” She got up, wadded her mending into a ball and tramped out of the room.
“Don’t leave on my account, Phae!” Taegin shouted after her. He grinned up at Maveen. “Is that for me?”
Maveen lifted her chin. “Do you think you deserve it?”
“Probably not,” he responded, a twinkle in his eye.
“Most likely not,” Maveen grumbled, but she handed him the pie, smiling as he dove into it, smacking his lips like a little boy. “Marin’s sick today.”
He stopped with a forkful of pie halfway to his mouth. A crease formed between his eyebrows. “How sick?” he asked, the pie forgotten as he set the plate on the bedside table. “Sick from what?”
“Very sick,” Maveen allowed. “Daniel brought her home early from the cove and I’ve got her lying on the settee in the parlor.”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, throwing the covers aside and swinging his legs to the floor.
Maveen made no effort to stop him as he snatched up his jeans and pulled them on. She sat in the chair Phaedra had vacated. “Nothing nine months won’t cure,” she said softly.
“Nine months?” he gasped, his hands still on the top button of his jeans. “By the gods, Mave, what’s wrong with her?”
“Well, now, lad, you should know,” Maveen said. “You were the one what caused it.”
“Is the healer here? Has he seen her?”
“We don’t have no need of the healer yet,” Maveen reported.
“The hell you say. I want my lady taken care of,” he snarled, padding barefoot toward the door.
“She’ll be right as rain in about nine months, I’m thinking,” she said, stressing the nine months.
Her words weren’t registering with him. All he’d heard was that Marin was sick and he knew he had to get to her. Although he was lightheaded, he was moving as quickly as he could to the door when the implication of what his adopted mother had said hit him like a sledgehammer. He came up short, turned around, stumbling to catch himself with the bedpost and stared at Maveen with wide eyes.
“She’s pregnant?” he whispered.
“Aye, lad,” Maveen agreed. “That she is.”
“She’s pregnant.” The two words fell from his numb lips like falling timbers.
“As much as she can be, I’m reckoning,” Maveen said.
“Pregnant,” he said, gripping the bedpost as though it was an anchor. He sank down on the mattress.
“When you feel up to seeing to her, be quiet about it. She’s resting,” Maveen said. She got up from the chair. “I’m thinking your recuperating is at an end, lad.”
He lifted his head and looked up at the older woman. There were bright tears awash in his amber eyes. “She’s going to have my baby, Mave,” he said, his voice filled with wonder.
“Well, it had gods-be-damned better be yours,” Maveen said with a laugh. She went to him and reached out to cup his cheeks in the palms of her hands. “Congratulations, Taegin Drae. You’re going to be a father.” Her lips twitched. “In about nine months.”
Without thinking of what he was doing, he put his arms around Maveen and pulled her to him, burying his cheek against her ample breast. Tears were flowing down his cheeks as his adopted mother smoothed his bed-tousled hair.
“Let’s go down and see your lady,” she encouraged, bending over to place a kiss on the top of his head. She eased out of his embrace.
“Aye,” he said, sniffing. He ran his hand under his nose. “Aye, let’s do that.”
Together they walked slowly down the stairs. He was weaker than Maveen would have liked and had to stop halfway down to rest, but it was time for him to be up and out, to flex his wings again. He’d nearly died from the loss of his kidney but the healer and surgeon sent to Comhcheol by General Ben-Alkazar had performed a near miracle in saving the Tiogar.
Marin was sitting up with Phaedra and Timothy fussing over her, plumping her pillows. Silus stood by with a glass of iced water at the ready should she require it.
“Let’s leave them alone now, dearlings,” Maveen said, shooing her kinfolk ahead of her and toward the back of the house.
The door to the kitchen closed as Taegin came to sit down beside his wife on the settee. He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. His eyes fused with hers.
“Are you feeling better, wench?” he questioned, his heart in his gaze.
“I passed out again, milord Tiogar,” she said with a sigh. “And after you warned me not to.”
He smiled. “I’ll have to take you to task for that a bit later on when the both of us are feeling up to a little slap and tickle.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“Count on it.”
“Oh, goody,” she said, taking his hand and placing it on her flat belly.
He caressed her. “Are you really okay?” he asked, searching her eyes.
She nodded. “I found out something about myself that night, milord,” she said.
Taegin gave her all the time she needed to talk about it. He didn’t press, didn’t try to guess what she’d felt about killing another human being.
“She dared put hands to what was mine,” Marin said, pressing his hand close to her abdomen. “I didn’t like that, milord Tiogar.”
There was a glint in her pretty green eyes that shone like steel. She was made of sterner stuff than he could ever have imagined.
“If you ever want to talk…” He left it open.
“Perhaps I have more of Neala Acet in me than I ever realized,” she stated in a voice that said this would be the one and only time she’d discuss the matter with him or anyone else. “No one lays hands to what is mine and hurts it.” The gleam became a hard glint. “No one.”
He put his free arm around her and pulled her head to his shoulder. “Aye, wench. I know the feeling.”
Outside the McGregor hut, the wind was blowing gently, swaying the palm trees. On the breeze was the scent of newly hewn lumber. The waves were breaking calmly to shore as the pylons of the Draes’ new home cured in their diggings.
It was just another day in paradise.