Phantom of the Wind Copyright© 2006 Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Ryden Bakari, the Emperor of the Aduaidh Alliance—also known as the Burgon—was a newly commissioned ensign the year war had broken out between the Aduaidh and the Coalition of Federated Worlds. The dispute had begun at the borderland of small planetoids between the Aduaidh Quadrant and Amhantar, that green world from which had come greedy warriors intent on grabbing Aduaidh land at all costs. The hostilities had begun with a violent skirmish or two then had escalated rapidly to all-out warfare, bringing other worlds into the fray. No sane voices arguing for a settlement could be heard for the conflict had become a brutal contest for supremacy waged by both sides. The Burgon before Ryden had been a savage man intent on winning no matter how many casualties or how vast the destruction of lands it would take a hundred years or more to bring back to use. By the time Ryden took the throne, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children had died on both sides of the war. Thousands of acres of land would never be fertile again and plant and animal life had long since disappeared from those war-ravaged regions.
Tired in spirit and weary of body, Ryden had long since given up all hope of there being a decisive victory on either side of the coin. He had lost ten of his brothers and three times that many sisters. Numerous friends and even more numerous acquaintances had lost their lives to a war that had ceased to have meaning for those planetoids that had been the cause of the war had been destroyed—blasted into so much space dust—long ago. The reason for the war was no more, yet the hostilities continued for thirty long, terrible years.
Until the Burgon took it upon himself to sue for peace between the Alliance and the Coalition.
There was only one place in the entire megaverse that would be suitable for the warring factions to meet. It was there where only three humanoid life forms are allowed access to that region at any one given time, where non-humanoid forms such as cybots and the like are expressly forbidden, to which no weapons of any kind may be taken, that the Burgon and two representatives of the Coalition met to discuss an end to the hostilities.
The Plaines of Geschäft ranged in a vast semicircle along a cold desert north of the capitol city of Führen on Aduaidh Prime. There was no vegetation amidst the bright rose sands of the barren land for it never warmed enough for plants to grow. Star dunes lined the plain—indicating the fierce winds that created them had blown from many directions across the sand seas. As devoid of water as it was plant life, no animal made its habitat in the shifting, desolate land—the only break in the bleak vastness were large boulder-size meteorites scattered about the landscape.
Three Fiach runabouts landed that day on the ice field of the Plaines of Geschäft. The first ship to land was the Sekkeen belonging to Ryden Bakari. The next to land was the Saoirse, a sleek black ship personally designed by its captain Prince Cair Ghrian of Amhantar. The last ship to land—the Turas—belonged to King Ruan Cosaint of Gaelach. As ice crystals swirled around the warriors they made for Goath Pluais the Wind Cave where they would try to put an end to the killing and destruction that had been theirs for as long as each had drawn breath.
Over a roaring campfire, the men hashed out the details of a formal agreement whereby those who were of a like mind to end the war could live peacefully, their children and their children’s children never having to know the atrocities those gathered there that day on the Plaines of Geschäft had endured since birth. When the warriors left that barren ice plain they took with them the fledgling hope that the war between the Alliance and the Coalition of Federated Worlds would be put to an end.
Two months later on the neutral world of an tSualainn where all the leaders involved in the peace process met at the United Court of Justice, the Burgon Ryden Bakari of Aduaidh Prime, King Ruan of Gaelach, and Prince Cair of Amhantar as well as Prince Gabriel Leveche of Stori put their hands and seals to an agreement to end the Border Wars. These men not only formed a strong confederation of their own but began friendships that would last them a lifetime.
But there were those among the Coalition of Federated Worlds who did not want peace. They did not want there to be an end to a war that had brought them power and prosperity. It was not to their advantage that men such as the Burgon and King Ruan become allies.
Knowing there were those who would work diligently against peace even though they had pledged themselves to it, the Burgon and those who felt as he could do but one thing—find a way to bring down those men who would continue the war and the losses of life. To accomplish that end, they involved a man named Rory Quinn in their plans…
Kendall Bryne thought she had cried her last tear over Rory Quinn. Two years before, the swashbuckling thief had broken her heart into a thousand pieces and left her to a misery it took months to get under control. Just when she thought she had it beat, just when she thought she could pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, tuck them away and move on, the Riezell Guardians announced they had arrested Quinn. The buccaneer who had been evading them for years had finally made a serious mistake and they were bringing him back to face the justice he’d thumbed his nose at for so long.
Sitting in the lounge of the Medivac Transport the Sláinte, staring out at the passing stars, Kendall lifted her cup of Jabolian coffee only to realize her hand was shaking. She put the cup down, put her hands in her lap, twisted her fingers together and felt hot moistness prickling at her eyes at her show of weakness.
“Damn you, Quinn,” she whispered. “Why did you have to go get caught?”
She knew what fate the Riezell Conclave would send down for Rory. He had eluded them far too long, shown his disdain for their laws too openly and gotten away with too much. They would need to make an example of him. His sentence would be harsh and carried out on Vid-Screens throughout the megaverse.
“You look like someone just pulverized that mangy cat of yours,” Lieutenant Karl Walker commented from across the room. “What ails you, Doc?”
Kendall looked around at the navigator. “Munchkin doesn’t have the mange,” she replied listlessly. She put her hands on the table, fingers still entwined.
“Could have fooled me,” Karl said as he came over to her table and took a seat. “What’s with her fur, anyway?”
“She’s an Elfinish,” Kendall said. “Their fur grows that way.”
“In clumps? And what’s up with her ears?” the navigation officer said with a pretend shudder. “I have nightmares about that cat’s ears.”
“She’s an Elfinish!” Kendall repeated.
“Damned cat has ears like a fox I once had chase me on Durac.”
Kendall stared at him for a moment then realized what he was trying to do. She smiled faintly. “I bet it wasn’t a fox but a Duracian hooker running after you to get her money.”
“Well, now that you mention it that might have been the case. Damned whore had ears like a fox as I recall.” He winked at her then reached over to lay his hand over hers. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”
Karl was a good friend. She’d known him since Fleet Academy and he’d unselfishly spent many hours listening to her problems—so much so he’d nicknamed himself Father Karl. He understood and had tried to help her get over the breakup with Rory Quinn.
“I didn’t get any sleep,” she confessed, and at his admonishing look she shrugged. “You know what they’ll do to him, Karl.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know he brought it all on himself,” the navigational officer pointed out. “He had a chance to go legit and he threw it back in Fleet Command’s face. He’s got no one but himself to blame for his predicament and you can’t let his stupidity destroy you, Kenni.”
Captain Liam Breen came into the lounge—his gaze going directly to Kendall—then he started toward her.
“I don’t like the look on the captain’s face,” Karl said, easing his hand from Kendall’s.
Breen nodded at Karl when he reached the table then turned his attention to Kendall. “We just got a message from the Borstal. They are in need of a medic and are bringing one of their prisoners to us.”
She knew before she asked. “It’s Quinn?”
The captain nodded. “They’ll rendezvous with us in about half an hour.” He gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Doc. This is the last thing I would ever have wanted to happen.”
Kendall looked away, down at her clutched hands. “Did they say how badly he was hurt?”
Karl exchanged a look with the captain. “He could just have appendicitis.”
“He doesn’t have an appendix. None of his kind does,” Kendall said, tears forming in her eyes again. “They probably beat the hell out of him.” She reached up to swipe angrily at her sign of weakness.
“I don’t think that’s possible, Doc,” Breen said with a faint smile. He too knew Rory Quinn.
She gave him a faint smile and started to stand. Like the gentleman he was, Breen pulled her chair out for her. Before she turned to go, he laid a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re here for you, Doc,” he said. “For anything you need.”
“A new heart?” she asked softly. “The old one is in pieces.”
The two men watched her walk out of the lounge and Breen cursed eloquently in his native Cengusian then shot Karl an angry look. “Why the hell did that bastard have to come back into her life?”
“The luck of the Domhan,” Karl quipped. “Some of us are doomed to having the stuffing knocked out of us on occasion. Kendall was born under a bad sign, apparently.”
“What kind of sign?” Breen snapped. “One that says walk all over me?” He hung his head. “I’m sorry. Quinn and I go a long way back, but he just about destroyed her and I’ll never be able to forgive him for that.”
Every crewmember on the Sláinte knew how the captain felt about their medical officer—everyone that was except Kendall.
“You think they’ll execute him?”
A muscle clenched in Breen’s cheek. “I think that’s the only way she’ll ever get that son of a whoring bitch out of her life once and for all!”
“Aye, but will it take him out of her heart?” Karl countered.
Breen rattled off another prime Cengusian curse word then spun around and stormed off, his shoulders hunched. “Will it take him out of her heart?” the captain snarled as he whipped around the corner and out of sight.
“I don’t think so,” Karl answered his own question then sat there looking out the sweep of windows at the blackness of space.
Kendall informed her med techs they would be receiving a patient who might be severely injured. She made sure everything was ready, checked a second time then straightened her tunic and made her way to the transport pad, taking two stretcher bearers and a stretcher along with her. The captain was already there and after one look around her, she knew the crewmen knew who was headed their way.
“You need us to do anything, Doc?” Breen inquired gently.
All too familiar with the smug attitudes of the crews who manned the five penal transports, Kendall looked over at the captain. “Just don’t let them give us any of their crap, Sir,” she asked.
“Duly noted,” Breen agreed.
Glancing up at the Vid-Screen, Kendall tensed as the image of the Borstal sped into view. Like its sister ships—the Barracoon, the Vortex, the Serenian Star and the Revenge—the matte black prison ship was an eerie sight with its long, sweeping wings that gave it the appearance of a bird of prey in flight.
Before the Borstal came to a halt facing the Sláinte, the image on the Vid-Screen shifted to the face of its captain. “Are you ready to receive the prisoner, Captain Breen?”
Breen nodded. “Aye, Captain Jaborn, we are.”
The Dahrenian gave a curt nod then the Vid-Screen image returned to a shot of the Borstal.
“Friendly kind of guy, ain’t he?” Karl remarked as he joined them.
“Oh Sayed’s a pretty okay guy most of the time. He just hasn’t gotten over being born ninth out of nine sons to the Dahrenian king therefore being required to make his own way in the megaverse. I’ve heard he thinks being assigned to a penal transport is beneath him,” Breen said.
“Four coming in,” the tech manning the transporter pad announced. “Two cybots, two humanoids.”
Karl moved a bit closer to Kendall as did Breen. The crewmen of the Sláinte were very protective of their medical officer, especially so since she was the only female onboard the all-male ship.
Kendall could feel the blood pounding in her ears. Her palms were sweating and all she wanted to do was go over to the corner, face the wall and curl up into a ball. As the four forms began materializing on the transporter pad, she was terrified of what she might see. She put a hand to her chest.
“Breathe, Kenni,” Karl whispered to her. “Just breathe.”
Steeling herself, Kendall straightened her shoulders and carefully schooled her face not to show the emotions roiling inside her. She lifted her chin, dropped her hands to her side.
The two cybots were massive Class 10 titanium constructs. Their wide shoulders were boxy, their upper bodies and legs segmented with hydraulic sleeves. Their heads were very small in comparison to their torsos with two bright red gleaming lights for eyes, and their legs were wedge-shaped, built for speed and endurance. At an impressive seven feet in height from the huge, flat rectangles upon which they stood to the communications array housed in the clear dome of their heads, the ‘bots were nightmarish creatures no one would want to see lumbering after them.
Hanging between the ‘bots was a man, his upper arms in the massive grips of the artificial intelligence units. Apparently unconscious, his head was sagging to his chest, his feet dragging on the floor. Drops of blood splattered to the floor of the transporter pad.
Materializing last was a very tall, muscular woman—her height nearly that of the cybots—and in her right hand was clutched a Dóigra, a wooden pike-like instrument with a star-shaped glass bulb at the top. She wore the formfitting gray uniform of a Riezell Guardian and had hair as white as snow that fell in waves to below her shapely hips.
“Amazeen,” Karl whispered needlessly, for everyone in the transport room knew the race of the woman.
“Who is the healer in charge here?” the woman demanded, her fingers flexing around the rod of the Dóigra.
Kendall stepped forward. “I am,” she said, trying not to let her eyes drift to the woman’s prisoner. “This man needs to be on a stretcher.”
“And you are who to tell me this?” the Amazeen sneered.
“Doctor Kendall Bryne.”
The Amazeen’s mouth twisted and her piercing gray eyes, the same shade as the uniform she wore, narrowed dangerously. “Ah yes. I know of you. You were his Domhan whore.”
“One more comment like that and I’ll have you thrown into my brig for insubordination to a superior officer,” Breen snapped. “You might get away with that crap on Jaborn’s floating barge but not here, wench!”
“Wench?” The word seemed to draw the Amazeen to even a taller height and she sent a murderous glare toward the captain. “You will afford me the honor I am due as a Riezell…”
“Riezell, friezell, I don’t give a Diabolusian warthog’s pecker what you are,” Breen growled. “You’re just a glorified cop, and from the look of those gold anchors on your collar, Dr. Bryne outranks you so you’ll keep a civil tongue in your mouth or I will have my men take you into custody.” Before the Amazeen could protest his comment, he turned to one of the transport personnel and ordered him to open a channel to the Borstal’s captain.
“Aye, Sir!” the engineering mate agreed.
Captain Jaborn’s unsmiling face filled the Vid-Screen. “What did she do?” he asked on a long, irritated sigh.
“Take her back over to your ship or I’ll slap her ass in the brig, Sayed,” Breen stated.
“Get back over here, Shanee,” Jaborn ordered. “Now!”
“But, Captain!” the Amazeen protested.
“I said now! I warned you about going over there in the first place.” Jaborn’s angry visage disappeared from the screen.
Fury shifted across the hard features of the Amazeen and she lifted her chin. “The ‘bots remain with the prisoner,” she warned, “and if anyone attempts to allow him to escape, they have orders to incinerate Rory Quinn!”
In a flash of multicolored molecules the Amazeen disappeared, leaving behind the ominous threat of her words.
“Captain, he needs to be lying down,” Kendall said, shifting her attention entirely to Quinn. “There’s no telling how much damage has already been done by him being manhandled like that.”
“Hail him again,” Breen directed.
“What now, Liam?” Jaborn grumbled, but looked resigned this time.
“She left these two hulking machines over here. We need to get the prisoner on a stretcher and not have him dangling by his arms.”
“Primä One, take the prisoner carefully into your arms and place him upon the stretcher,” Jaborn commanded. “Primä Two, stand down.”
The red lights on the titanium skull of the cybot darkened to a deep crimson color then the massive machine swung one leg to the side and bent its segmented lower body so it could scoop the unconscious man into its hydraulic arms. The other machine let go of the prisoner’s arm only when he was in the hold of Primä One.
With heavy thuds punctuating each step, the cybot came toward the stretcher bearers who looked as though they were about to piss their uniform pants. Gently placing the prisoner on the stretcher, the ‘bot straightened up and swung its carmine scrutiny to Kendall where it held with malevolence.
“The ‘bots have been programmed to kill, Liam,” Jaborn warned. “I bid you be very careful around them. They are Tappas Industry constructs and belong to the Guardians. I have very little control over them.”
Kendall wasn’t listening to the conversation between the two captains. She was staring down into the dearly loved—but severely battered—face of a man she had never thought to see again. She had to dig her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from screaming at the sight that nearly threatened to drop her in her tracks.
A dark bruise covered his left cheek. Around his swollen eyes were streaks of red and dark brown discolorations, a crescent-shaped cut just to the left side of his nose ran down to his upper lip. There was another cut on the right side of his mouth and his lower lip was split. A deep gash slanted across his forehead still oozed blood. There was no doubt in her mind that his jaw was broken and if that were the case, she knew there would be broken ribs as well.
Forcing her attention from his face, she looked down at his hands and flinched. Every one of his fingers were swollen and misshapen, most likely broken. The nails on several fingers were hanging by a thin sliver of tissue and would need to be completely removed, hopefully reset on the nail bed to use them as splints for the growth of new nails. Abrasions and cuts on his knuckles gave evidence that he’d fought back against his captors during or prior to his arrest.
“This man has been tortured,” she said through clenched teeth. She snapped her head up and directed her anger to the captain of the Borstal. “This man has been tortured!”
Jaborn cleared his throat. “Aye, Healer, he has,” he admitted, and had the grace to blush. “But I assure you that was done before he was brought aboard my ship. I contacted Captain Breen as soon as I saw his condition.”
“How benevolent of you,” Kendall grated.
“Who did this, Captain?” Breen asked the other man, reaching out to lay a calming hand on Kendall’s shoulder.
“The Amazeen and her ‘bots,” Jaborn replied. “She says she was interrogating him, trying to find the whereabouts of his crew and their homeport.”
“He would have died before revealing that,” Kendall said, shrugging off Breen’s hand. She turned to her stretcher bearers. “Get him to sick bay, stat!”
The two men carrying Quinn’s stretcher started into the corridor. As one, the two giant cybots turned, their thudding step falling in behind the orderlies.
“I’ll not have that conglomeration of nuts and bolts hindering my care of the patient,” Kendall said.
“They will only watch, Healer,” Jaborn said, “and not interfere unless someone tries to liberate Quinn. Should that happen, they will be forced to act.”
Using a few curse words of her own, Kendall stormed out into the corridor, unable to make it to the elevator before the cage doors closed behind her men. The last sight she had of them was of two very frightened orderlies flanked by the titanium monstrosities. Having to wait until the elevator returned irritated Kendall but it gave her time to get her emotions under control.
As she stood there her entire body was quivering with outrage. She had known how the Coalition would treat Quinn once he was captured but seeing him bruised and beaten to a bloody pulp made her want to pick up a laser rifle and go on a rampage of her own.
The elevator came back to her level and the pneumatic doors shushed open. Kendall took the cage and with her jaw clenched gave the deck number of the sick bay. Though she was severely claustrophobic and elevators brought perspiration to her underarms, for the first time in her life she paid no attention to her phobia. Her mind was seething too savagely with what had been done to Rory Quinn.
Kendall had trained her med techs well and already they were in the process of transferring Quinn to the sled that would glide the patient into the TAOS mapping module. Once inside the Tissue Artery Organ Skeletal diagnostic and restoration unit, his injuries would be assessed then repaired.
“We didn’t remove his clothing but I ran a scan,” Med Tech 3 Parks informed her. “There’s no metal on his prison garb to interfere with the mapping.”
“By Alel, this guy is a mess,” Med Tech 4 Andrews commented as he gently secured a plastic web arm restraint around Quinn’s wrist.
“Amazeen,” Kendall spat out as though the word was a bitter liquid in her mouth.
“Aye, so I heard,” Andrews replied. “They’re vicious bitches to begin with and some fool made her a Riezell Guardian?” He shook his head as he moved down the sled and carefully secured his patient’s legs.
“I intend to file a formal complaint against her with Fleet Command,” Kendall said. “Torturing prisoners went out with the shutdown of R-9 four years ago.”
“I put a line into his carotid, Doc. Just in case,” Andrews told her.
“Good work,” she complimented.
“All secure,” Parks said. “Engaging the TAOS.”
The unit into which Quinn had been placed was a state-of-the-art tool that cost more than the ship on which it had been placed. It was the future of space medicine and could mend injuries and cure a plethora of illnesses that had taken many a life over the span of history. Only two of its kind were in operation. The Sláinte had been the only med evac transport to win the bid to carry the ultra-expensive machine.
Shaped like a long, clear glass tunnel, wires so thin they could not be seen by the human eye formed a network grid like a fine mesh along the surface of the domed glass. Magnetic signals bombarded the patient from the mesh to read injuries within the body. Once the mapping was completed, the actual work of repairing the damage would be carried out by rapid energy pulses that could meticulously knit bones back together, disinfect, cauterize and close wounds, make minute sutures in flesh, tissue and arteries, and destroy any bacterial microorganisms that might later cause infection.
As the TAOS geared up, a pale pink light flooded the inside of the tunnel and spread over Quinn. As each sector of his body was mapped, it showed up on the three-dimensional diagnostic screen behind the TAOS.
“Man, oh, man,” Parks said as he glanced up at the screen. “He’s coming to.”
“Twenty milligrams of pairilis,” Kendall ordered. “I don’t want him awake any time soon.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” Andrews responded. He reached over to his tray of meds, took up the inject vial of the high-powered drug and put it into the IV line in Quinn’s neck.
Kendall put a hand to her mouth as the diagnostic mapping began forming on the screen. Parks was speaking into the Vid-Mem so a transcript of the injuries could be recorded into the patient’s file. Although the med tech was giving each injury its scientific name, all Kendall heard was a list that seemed to go on forever.
Quinn had a severe concussion, a broken jaw, his right clavicle was fractured along with both wrists and each of his fingers. The rotator cuff of his right arm was torn. The palms of both hands had brutal scrapes on them as did the tops of his thighs. There was a fracture at his pelvis. He had four broken ribs and both kneecaps were shattered, the patellar tendons disconnected from each. His left ankle was broken. Internal injuries also included a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen and severely bruised kidney.
“They really worked him over,” Andrews said.
“I want everything fully documented with slides,” Kendall said. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to have that woman thrown out of the Guardians.”
“That seems to be the extent of his injuries, Doc,” Parks said.
“Ain’t that enough?” Andrews countered.
“You ready for me to switch over from diagnostic to treatment?” Parks asked Kendall.
“Is there any internal bleeding?” she asked.
“Seepage from the liver and quite a bit from the spleen but no intracranial or pericardial,” Parks reported. “Nothing we’ve got to handle right off the bat.”
“Then cut his clothing off, start at the top and work your way down,” Kendall said, turning away from the table. She had to sit down else she was afraid her legs would give way beneath her.
“Doc, you want me to get you something to eat?” Andrews inquired.
“I’m not hungry,” she answered.
“Well, when you are, let me know and I’ll make a run to the duplicator.”
Kendall nodded as she pulled a chair out from Parks’ desk and sat down.
“You want me to keep him out if he should start coming to again?” Parks queried.
“Aye.” She looked away as Andrews manually pulled the sled upon which Quinn lay out from beneath the TAOS and carefully began slicing the prison uniform from his battered body.
It would take hours to repair the damage done to Rory Quinn’s body. The reconnecting of the kneecaps alone would require complex, time-consuming pulses of energy. EnergySurg would be needed to extract the ruptured spleen.
“How is he?”
Kendall looked up to see Breen standing beside her. “She did a lot of damage but nothing that can’t be repaired. We’re starting with a concussion and working our way down his body.
Breen looked up at the diagnostic screen and winced. “Merciful Alel,” he whispered. He wasn’t a healer but it didn’t take a medical degree to understand the injuries showing on the 3-D screen.
“I want her badge,” Kendall said.
“And you’ll get it,” Breen promised. “There was no call for her to do all that to him.”
“She was trying to get him to tell her where the crew of the Lhong Shee is,” Kendall reminded him.
“I’d venture to say she found out you don’t get anything out of a Scaan when he doesn’t want to give it to you,” Breen said with a snort.
“Phantom,” Andrews translated. “That just about says it all regarding Quinn, doesn’t it?”
“Concussion healed and we’re moving on to his jaw,” Parks said.
“The doc hasn’t eaten, Captain,” Andrews said softly.
Breen glanced at Kendall and found her staring intently at Rory Quinn. “Leave her be,” he ordered in a near whisper, “but if you get the chance, make sure she eats and then ease her down if possible. She’s had little sleep.”
Andrews nodded.
Kendall’s attention shifted to the two massive cybots stationed across the sick bay. They were hulking creations and their very presence made the hair stiff on the back of her neck. Staring into the twin red lights that pulsed from the main processing units on what passed for their heads, she knew the Amazeen was watching her. The healer bent all but her middle finger toward her palm then saluted the Riezell Guardian with the megaversal sign.
“Way to go, Doc,” Parks said softly as he scanned the vital signs of his patient.
Somewhat appeased at flipping off the Amazeen, Kendall sat back in the chair and stretched her long legs out in front of her. It was going to be a long afternoon and longer night. Full repairs would not be completed on Quinn until the wee hours of the morning. “You never met him, did you, Parks?” she asked the med tech.
“No, Ma’am,” Parks replied. “I didn’t come onboard until after the peace treaty with Stori was signed.”
“You’ll like him, Parks,” she said, reaching up to rub her eyes with the heels of her palms. “He’s got a truly wicked sense of humor.”
“I’ve heard quite a bit about him from the crew,” Parks told her. “I guess most of them were here during the war.”
“I guess they were,” she said then heaved a long sigh. Since the news had reached her early in the morning two days ago that Quinn had been captured, she’d had little sleep and no appetite for anything other than an occasional power shake and even those she hadn’t managed to keep down. Her head was throbbing and she recognized all too well the signs of an impending migraine.
“He has some loose teeth I didn’t notice on the original scan,” Parks said. “I’m programming TAOS to take care of that.”
“Do whatever you need to,” Kendall replied. She twisted in the chair and laid her head on her arms on the top of Parks’ desk.
“Headache?” Andrews inquired as he came over.
“A real whopper,” she answered.
“I’ll get you some tenerse, Doc.”
Closing her eyes, Kendall tried to block out the pain thudding through her temples. She barely felt the sting of the vac-syringe needle as Andrews injected the drug into her neck but she felt the fiery potency of the liquid as it flowed through her veins. Sucking in a breath, she had to clamp her fingers on her folded arms to keep from crying out, the med hurt so badly coursing through her.
“Never gets any easier, does it?” Andrews asked.
“No, it does not,” she said, and realized he hadn’t inquired how much tenerse she needed and that he’d added a little something extra along with the tenerse. She lifted her head and glared up at him. “Don’t do that again.”
Andrews shrugged. “You need to rest, Doc, or you won’t be any good to anybody.” He glanced around at the patient. “Especially him.”
Already feeling groggy, annoyed with Andrews for shooting her up with enough tenerse and avatane—a potent beta blocker—to make her sleep, Kendall could do nothing but put her head back down.
“Sweet dreams, Doc,” Andrews said, and patted her shoulder.
Sweet dreams were the last things Kendall knew she’d have. Nightmares would be more like it. Tenerse and avatane mixed together never failed to give her vivid and disturbing dreams that bordered on hallucinations. Memories she had tried desperately to keep at bay always surfaced after a strong dose of the drug combo.
“Don’t do it again,” she repeated as Andrews walked away, annoyed her words were beginning to slur.
“You’re braver than I am,” Parks told Andrews.
“You have no idea what this is doing to her,” Andrews said. “She blames herself for him getting caught as surely as we’re standing here repairing the damage done to him by that vile Amazeen cunt.”
“How can the doc blame herself?”
“There is an old Cengusian saying that goes Ná glac pioc comhairle gan comhairle ban. It means never take advice without a woman’s guidance. Unfortunately, Rory Quinn didn’t listen to that proverb. He listened to his crew and not the woman he called his own. If he’d listened to the doc, he would have struck for amnesty when it was being offered him and wouldn’t be lying on that sled half-dead right now.”
From a numb distance Kendall heard the voices of her med techs but she couldn’t make out the words. She was drifting—listless and sinking under a darkening layer of soft insulating mist. Flashes of reddish-orange light tracked beneath her closed eyelids and she sat there with her head on her arms and watched the pulse of blood making sweeping, flowing, stitching patterns that drew her ever deeper into the realm of sleep.
“Don’t do it again,” she said one last time then sank beneath that soft mist and into the dominion of dreams.
* * * * *
“Graih my chree,” he said with just a touch of frustration. Translated in his native Cengusian High Speech it meant love of my heart.
“Why won’t you listen to me, Quinn?” she asked.
“I am listening, Lhiannan,” he responded. “I hear every word that comes out of your pretty little mouth.”
He always called her his Lhiannan, his sweet lover, and when he spoke to her in his sensuous Cengusian brogue—no matter what he said—she melted, all resistance gone. The only Cengusian she had managed to master up until then was ta graih aym ort which meant I love you. That phrase and the one that named him what he was—Scaan.
“The Burgon has offered amnesty and you took that. Why won’t you take the amnesty offered by the Coalition?” she asked.
“Because the offer is bogus,” he answered. “The minute I walk into Fleet Command, they’ll arrest my Cengusian ass and throw me to the wolves on the High Council.” He tweaked her nose. “I’ve no desire to have my neck stretched, Lhiannan. Thank you just the same.”
“You can’t know that, Quinn,” she grumbled.
“Donal Brell took them up on their offer and he and his crew were arrested on the spot and thrown into prison within the hour,” he stated. “That was a year ago and they’re still sitting in prison—where they’re likely to be until the Gatherer swoops down to claim them.”
“Donal Brell and his men were murderers. They weren’t just pirates,” she said. “They were rapists too if memory serves. If you’re that concerned about the Coalition playing you false, contact King Gabriel Leveche of Stori and get him to vouch for you. Or what about Prince Cair Ghrian of Amhantar?” She flung out a hand. “Or better yet King Ruan Cosaint of Gaelach. You’re all High Warriors in the WindWarrior Society and aren’t you also in the Order of Taibhse with King Ruan?”
“Aye, wench, but I’ll not trade on my relationships with such men,” he said with a deep frown.
“Why not? They’d help you,” she said, annoyed with the whine in her voice.
“Aye, but at what cost?” he inquired. He shook his head. “I won’t do it, Kenni. Just let it go. Besides, Leveche may be a friend, but he has no love for pirates. I doubt he’d help me.”
“Merciful Morrigunia! You are an idiot!” Kendall threw her hands up in the air and stalked off. Some days the man could be more stubborn than a Diabolusian jackass and today was one of those days.
He jogged behind her then reached out to tug gently at her long red gold braid. “You’ve got your dander up, haven’t you, Lhiannan?”
“You’re impossible, Rory Quinn,” she accused, jerking her waist-length braid out of his hand and over her shoulder.
His midnight blue eyes twinkling, Quinn snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “I can be, aye,” he agreed, “but I’m lovable.”
“Not to me,” she groused. “Not at this particular moment.” She tried to wriggle out of his hold, but he tightened his grip.
“Everything will work itself out, Lhiannan. You’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?” she snapped. “You being hanged in the Courtyard of the High Council?”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” he replied.
She stopped and turned so she was facing him. She put her hands to either side of his face and stared him in the eye, her own dark green orbs flashing. “If you don’t strike for amnesty, they’ll continue to hunt you until they bring you to ground, Quinn. Why can’t you see that? You’ve made some very powerful enemies—”
“Like General Alphon Morrison,” he said on a long sigh.
“Aye! Morrison and half a dozen more influential members of the Coalition. What if Morrison decides to send one of his Riezell Guardians after you?”
“And you think he hasn’t already?” he countered.
Kendall’s eyes flared. “Quinn! Please tell me that was you just being facetious.”
He just looked at her. “Don’t worry about it, Lhiannan.”
Kendall felt the tears springing up to cloud her vision. She dropped her hands from his cheeks and laid them on his chest. “You’re going to make me a widow before you ever make me your wife,” she prophesied.
Quinn wrapped her in his arms, pressing her head to his heart. “Will you please stop borrowing trouble, Kendall? I’m not a green lad who’s never gone up against the powers of the Coalition before. I do know what I’m about.”
She had taken leave from the med evac ship to which she was assigned and had met him in the highlands of Aduaidh Prime, one of the few places she knew he’d be safe. She held his life far dearer than did he. She worried about him constantly and had since the day they’d met four years earlier.
“Do you remember that day?” he asked.
Kendall sighed. She was accustomed to him reading her mind. It was one of his remarkable abilities as a Scaan, but sometimes it truly annoyed her.
“I remember it as if it were yesterday,” he said. “I even remember what you were wearing.”
“You do not,” she muttered.
“It was a dark green gown with that strappy thing on one shoulder while the other shoulder was bare. The strappy thing had sparkling copper rhinestones along the edge and swooping across the neckline. Angled down the skirt of the gown the gems had been sewn to resemble a dragonfly in flight.” He snapped his fingers. “And there were gems on the hem of the gown as well.”
“What kind of shoes was I wearing?” she asked.
“Copper-colored kid boots with very high heels,” he replied.
She lifted her head and looked up at him, amazed he remembered what she’d worn to the Burgon’s ball. “Earrings?”
“Green and copper-enameled dragonflies on little copper chains that dangled down your neck,” he whispered, running the tip of his index finger from the lobe of her ear to her shoulder, “and brushed your collarbone.”
“And my hair?”
“Braided in one of those mind-altering creations that are such a treat to unravel,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “You had copper silk ribbons running through the braid and it was perched atop your head so precariously I kept waiting for it to fall. I spent the entire evening wanting to take the pins out of your hair and let that fiery red gold hair hang free.”
“You spent the entire evening with the Burgon and his friends,” she accused.
He put his lips to her ear. “I danced three dances with you as I recall so I can’t have spent the entire evening with Ryden and his friends.”
“You were this close,” she said, holding her thumb and index finger close together, “to being called out by my escort.”
Quinn made a rude sound with his lips. “Your escort,” he scoffed. “It would have given me great joy if that twerp had called me out, but he wouldn’t have done that, Lhiannan. I hate to break it to you but he had eyes for another lady there.”
Kendall sighed. “I know,” she said. “Every man was ogling Chastain Cosaint. She’s too beautiful for the rest of us to compete with.”
“She wasn’t the only beautiful woman in the room and I wasn’t ogling her,” he denied. “I was ogling you.”
And he had been, she thought, as she felt his lips on the side of her neck. His rapt attention had brought color to her cheeks. No matter where he was in the room, no matter with whom he was speaking—Burgon, king, prince or general—his gaze followed her every move.
“As I recall,” he said, running the tip of his tongue across the hollow at the base of her throat, “I asked you to run away with me that night.”
“That was just after I learned who you were,” she said.
“Damn Ruan Cosaint and his big mouth,” Quinn complained. “He scared you away before I even had a chance to win your heart.”
“King Ruan merely mentioned that you were a pirate and I should be careful around you.” She grinned. “His lady-wife told me that pirates make the best lovers so I shouldn’t listen to her husband.”
“She said that in front of him?” Quinn asked and she nodded. “Wonder why she’d say such a thing? I’m sure he didn’t find the remark amusing.”
“I don’t know. If you’d seen the gleam in his eye, you would have sworn she’d just issued him a challenge.”
“She was a Primary Riezell Guardian before she met Ruan,” he reminded her. “I would imagine her challenges can be very intimidating.”
“He didn’t look intimidated,” Kendall said. “He looked horny.”
Quinn threw back his head and laughed. “You’ve no respect for royalty at all, do you, Lhiannan?”
“There were two former Guardians there that night. Ardor Leveche was there with that studly King Gabriel,” she said with a sigh. “I have a thing for black Gaelachuan men.”
“Black Cengusians too, apparently,” he pointed out, referring to the black hair and dark sapphire eyes of the men of his race.
“Same race root but this Cengusian man has something Gaelachuan men don’t,” she replied.
“What’s that?”
She rubbed up against him. “Me.”
They were high above the verdant An Gaoth Aduaidh Valley, the Valley of the North Wind. Here the lush pine forest peppered gently rolling hills and scarlet clover blanketed the meadow, vying for spots in the sun with dainty black-eyed Susan. A fan-shaped silver waterfall stair-stepped its way down from Loch Cinniúint, the mesmerizing deep blue lake on the crest of Ceol Mountain and fed into the fast-moving Carraig River. The air smelled of honeysuckle and there was a light breeze upon which red-tailed hawks sailed across the bright azure sweep of the sky.
“It has been a long time since I made love to you,” Quinn said in a low, throaty voice that made Kendall’s womb pulse.
Heat gathered low in her belly and sent a wash of juices flowing within her warm sheath. The blood began pounding in her ears. She could feel the hardness of him pressing against her.
“And whose fault is that, my handsome Phantom?” she whispered.
“Mine, my love. Entirely all mine,” he replied. He slid his hand to her breast and cupped her, stroking her nipple through the soft cotton of her blouse with his thumb. “But I’m more than willing to make up for lost time.”
“Are you now?”
“Damned straight, wench,” he drawled.
They sank to the wild clover matte at their feet. The ground was cool, inviting, and the meadow was sweet with the scents of wildflowers. Kendall stretched out on her back, Quinn lying atop her, their fingers laced together as he held her hands to either side of her head. With sensual purpose he slid his leg between hers and pushed her legs apart so he could press his knee against her heated core. His staff was like steel against her thigh. When he slanted his mouth across hers, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
He nibbled on her lower lip until she opened her mouth to him. His tongue was a wicked weapon that flicked at the corners of her lips then slipped gently between to take possession. Thrusting boldly, swirling over the roof of her mouth, dragging between her lower lip and her teeth, he was a master of the art and his expertise sent waves of need coursing through Kendall’s body.
She writhed beneath him, wanting the hardness of him, the heat and length of him buried deep inside her. Quinn’s lovemaking was always wild and thrilling and filled every need she had ever had when it came to a lover. He had never left her wanting for anything save his glorious body again and again until they were both too tired to do anything but sleep.
Quinn untwined his fingers from her left hand and slid it up underneath her blouse. His hand closed over the softness of her breast as he kissed his way down her chin and throat. “By Alel, but you have the sweetest tits this side of paradise,” he groaned as he molded her flesh. Pushing the blouse up, he cupped her breast in his hand and lowered his mouth to suckle her.
The fingers of Kendall’s right hand tensed around his and she brought her free hand to his thick black hair, raking her fingers through the lush curls. “And how many tits have you known to make that comparison, Phantom?”
He latched his teeth lightly upon her nipple and spoke around the possession of his prize. “More than my share,” he replied. He gently worried her swollen tip between his teeth.
“Yet I have known only one cock,” she said with a sigh.
The Phantom lifted his head and captured her eyes with his. “And only one is all you will ever know, wench,” he warned.
She smiled at him. “How can you be so sure?”
His eyes flared for just a moment before he lowered his hand to her long skirt and jerked it up roughly, hooked his fingers in the fine lace of her panties and ripped them from her. With slow deliberation he reached to the front of his britches and flicked the buttons aside, freeing the rigid staff, the head of which was pearled with moistness.
“How can I be sure?” he queried, one thick brow arched.
Just as she knew he would—wanted him too—he thrust into her with one mighty lunge that made her grunt with the force. He impaled her on his flesh and pounded into her as she brought her legs up and clamped them around his pistoning hips. He had let go of the hand he held captive and plowed both hands beneath her rump to lift her for a deeper penetration.
Kendall dug her short nails into his broad back, scoring the fabric of his fine silk shirt. Her legs tightened savagely around him as he drove into her with mindless need. She knew they would both be bruised come morning, but all that mattered at that moment was to feed the desire lashing through them. She arched her hips, pressed her breasts to his chest and gloried in the feel of his lips claiming hers once more.
The climax that rocked them both, the shuddering release that brought a roar from him and a trill from her came at the same moment, and as he strained to the very depths of his reach within her, she plunged against him as hard as she could. They both stilled to feel the last spurt of his seed spraying into her, the last pulse of her vaginal walls around him.
He collapsed atop her, his head on her shoulder, her arms around his heaving back, and they lay like that until sleep reached up to claim them.
Then—just as dreams will do in the space of a single breath—the images changed. She found herself at the Burgon’s field tourney where knights engaged in mock battles and their ladies watched their men folks’ heroics from canopied tents scattered around the perimeter of the field. The pageantry left her breathless, restless and aching for the touch of a man whose hand had guided her the evening before upon the ballroom floor.
Kendall had been asked to watch the festivities from the Burgon’s own luxurious pavilion and she had been honored by the request. Sitting amongst such dignitaries as the Emperor of Aduaidh Prime, Kings Gabriel Leveche and Ruan Cosaint, Prince Cair Ghrian and their lady-wives, she felt a heady sense of wonder and excitement.
“You’ve made quite a conquest of our Scaan,” Queen Ardor leaned over to whisper to Kendall. “He couldn’t stop asking questions about you at the ball last eve.”
Kendall turned to the queen, blushing beneath the other woman’s twinkling gaze. “We only danced together a few times.”
“Aye, but I do believe you captured Rory Quinn’s heart with those stolen moments,” Queen Chastain remarked.
Pleased, Kendall had looked out over the field of honor and found him sitting astride a mighty destrier. His coat of armor fit him like a second skin. He sat his prancing steed like a competent horse master—one hand light upon the reins, his spurs shining brightly in the early morning sunlight. His ebony hair fluttered in an errant breeze and when he turned his head, searching her out of those assembled in the Burgon’s pavilion, she felt his dark blue eyes passing over her.
“He is the oldest illegitimate son of King Kelton Kaneen of Cengus,” Princess Davan Ghrian said, turning in her seat to look at Kendall. Davan’s pale green eyes were alight with conspiracy. “He’s a privateer.”
“You mean he’s a pirate,” Kendall said.
“Oh no, Kendall. Quinn received a Letter of Marque from Cengus to act as its agent. He has the authority of the Cengusian government to attack, capture and plunder any enemy ship in this time of war.”
“Aye,” Queen Ardor agreed with her friend’s words, “but Quinn has been declared an outlaw by the Coalition of Planets for it is their ships he is plundering, Davan. So technically, he is a pirate in the eyes of the High Council.”
“Pirates are a lusty brood,” Queen Chastain commented. “A woman could do worse than having a handsome corsair courting her.”
“Shush!” Davan said. “He’s coming over here!”
Kendall turned to see Rory Quinn walking his beast toward the pavilion. His black armor glistened in the sun and the helm, which he carried resting on his thigh, sported a rakish black plume.
“Ladies,” he greeted them as he walked his steed close to the rail of the pavilion, bowing his head gracefully.
“Who is your first opponent, Lord Rory?” Queen Chastain inquired. Kendall watched as he pivoted his head toward the lists, the field where the tourney was being held. “I believe it is Prince Nelbert,” he replied.
“An easy conquest for you, Milord,” Princess Davan said with a grin.
“Let us hope so, Your Grace,” Quinn replied. His eyes shifted to Kendall. “How are you this fine day, Healer Bryne?”
“I am well, Milord,” Kendall said, and felt the sensuous touch of his eyes gliding over her.
“Would you grant me a favor to take with me into battle?” he asked. His voice was a husky deepness that brought heat pooling in the lower realms of Kendall’s body.
“Your scarf!” Empress Anastasia, the Burgon’s wife, said. “Give him your scarf, Kenni.”
Kendall’s face stained with a crimson blush but she reached up to untie the scarf at her neck. She extended the pale green silk to Quinn and he took it in his mailed hand, bringing it to his lips where he placed a soft kiss on the fabric.
“I cannot help but win now,” he said, dipped his head to the ladies then wheeled his horse around and galloped back.
“My, my, my,” Princess Davan said, fanning herself. “That man is something else!”
“The kind of man a woman wouldn’t mind plundering her wealth, eh?” Queen Chastain inquired.
Kendall’s face burned as the ladies around her laughed openly. She could not take her eyes from the handsome knight who had tied her scarf to the end of his lance.
The rest of the day flew by in a blur of sights and sounds and spectacular displays of athletic prowess upon the field of honor. Quinn had won each of his engagements and had been presented with many of the most precious of prizes being given to the combatants—síorí crystals used to fuel long-range cruisers.
“Lord Rory did himself proud,” King Ruan commented. “He has asked for the honor of your company after the final prizes have been awarded, Kendall.” He exchanged a sultry look with his lady-wife. “A stroll through the park I believe is his intent if you are of a mind to comply.”
The women around her turned eager faces to Kendall and she had to duck her head to keep the blazing stain from setting the ladies to giggling again. “I would be honored to accompany him, Your Grace,” she managed to reply.
Though everyone there thought Kendall a modern woman—one who knew the intricacies of male and female relationships—Kendall was still a virgin at the ripe, old age of twenty-nine, and though she knew the medical ins and outs of such pairings, she had yet to experience even a wayward touch by an escort.
Later, walking hand in hand with a knight freshly showered and shaved, her heart was thundering in her breast and it was hard to draw a decent breath. They were walking along a bubbling stream in a secluded section of the Haverhill Woods. It was a cloudy day with a hint of rain looming. The forest was a vast green, the light overhead muted by the leafy arms of the trees under which they passed. Water gurgled over rocks dotting the stream. There were other soothing sounds in the woods—the rustle of lacy ferns growing along the banks of the stream, the whisper of the wind passing from tree leaf to tree leaf and the occasional call of a bird flitting high among the branches. As the sun overhead played hide and seek from the dark clouds running after it, a few shafts of light filtered through the tall stand of pines to shower dust motes.
“This is such a beautiful place,” she said shyly, her hand wrapped protectively, possessively, in his larger calloused one.
Quinn brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. He seemed so at ease, so content just to be with her. “It pales in comparison to you, Milady,” he told her.
As with many dreams, the image flowed from looking into his penetratingly beautiful blue eyes to lying naked beneath him in a field of ferns, the lush greenery surrounding them hiding their doings from passersby.
“I am still a maiden, Milord,” she said shyly.
“Then I will be as gentle with you as though you were a priceless crystal vase,” he whispered as he planted fleeting kisses on her eyelids and nose. “Your vessel I will cherish.”
He had been as careful and as loving as a maiden could want while still taking her beyond herself into a realm she could never have imagined. His hands were sure. His body was strong and heavy, pressing her down to the earth with an authority and possessiveness that made her head reel. His staff was thick and long and filled with a power that brought her only a nick of pain then such glorious pleasure she had nearly swooned from the joy of it. And afterwards he had been a courtly, caring lover who enfolded her into his arms and spoke sweetly to her of tomorrows to come.
“Tá mé caillte gan tú,” he whispered against the side of her face.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
He hooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face, their eyes locked upon one another. “I am lost without you.”
She stared at him. “Please do not speak of love when I am but a moment’s passing fancy for you, Milord.” She tried to get up, but his leg was over her thigh.
“I never say anything I do not mean from the very soul of me, Lhiannan,” he stated. “I have waited a lifetime for you.”
She searched his eyes and saw the truth in his words. His arms were around her, his naked body pressed intimately to hers, the stain of her maidenhead still clinging to him.
“Stay with me always,” he asked.
The bargain they made that day would last until he sent her away, breaking her heart and shattering the illusion that they were meant to be together for all time.
“Doc?”
Kendall flinched as she was lightly shaken, coming awake with a start. She sat up—disoriented for a moment—then ran a hand over her face to wipe away the dream images that had been so real, so painful. “What is it?” she asked, her voice rough from sleep.
“He’s waking up,” Parks informed her.
Being jolted back to the there and then brought an ache to Kendall’s heart. She sighed deeply and stood up. “Where is the TAOS treatment now?”
“On his pelvic fracture.”
Kendall let out a tired breath. “Where’s Andrews?”
“He went to get something to eat,” Parks replied. “Would you like something, Ma’am?”
“A hot cup of Chrystallusian tea might work wonders on my scrambled brain,” she answered. “And perhaps a roll or two?”
Parks nodded and hurried off to the galley to fetch her order.
Kendall walked over to the TAOS unit and stared down at the naked man lying there. There was movement beneath his eyelids and that surprised her. He was obviously in REM sleep and should not have been. She looked over his vitals, adjusted the concentration of energy pulses being directed at his fractured pelvis then glanced back down at him to find his blue eyes open and looking at her with what could only be described as intense longing before he shut down his emotions—something he was a master at doing.
“You’re on the Sláinte in a TAOS unit,” she told him, moving back from the TAOS. At his frown, she explained the unit was based on Amhantarean technology. “The same principal as their Net only the TAOS reconstructs instead of deconstructing like their defense shield.”
His gaze followed her. “Why can’t I move?”
“You’re secured to the diagnostic sled. Your injuries are being treated. One slight miscalculation of the energy pulses could do more harm than good,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone.
“You always did want me naked and bound before you, didn’t you, Lhiannan?” he asked quietly.
“Not me, Phantom,” she denied. “Must have been some other woman you used and discarded.”
She saw him slowly close his eyes and knew she’d scored a direct hit on his conscience.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
“It got in the way.”
“I liked your hair long.”
“That’s partly why I cut it,” she said and saw him flinch. “By the way, I’m curious. Were you dreaming?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at the glass dome of the TAOS. “Aye,” he said tiredly. “We were back at the waterfall on Ceol Mountain.” He cut his attention to her. “Do you remember it?”
“Barely,” she lied.
He sighed again loudly, no doubt to let her know he knew she was lying. “How long have I been here, Lhiannan?”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “Not ever again. I am nothing to you.” She ground her teeth as he released another long exhalation of breath.
“How long have I been here?” he repeated.
“Five hours so far,” she told him. “You’ve another four to five left to go depending on how long it will take the TAOS to piece back together your kneecaps and ligaments.”
“Where’s the Amazeen?”
“On the Borstal where she’d best keep her brazen self,” Kendall reported. “Where the hell were you when she came after you?”
His answer came with what sounded like a mental shrug. “I have no idea where I was. Somewhere on Cengus is all I know. I don’t even remember how I got there.”
“Laa er-meshtey as laa er ushtey,” she threw at him. Parks walked in at that moment and she turned to him. “A drunken night makes a cloudy morning.”
“I wasn’t drinking and when the hell did you learn Cengusian High Speech, wench?” he demanded, his chest heaving against the restraint. He was glaring at Parks.
“Don’t look at me, Milord,” Parks said, holding up his hands. “I’m Serenian.” He glanced at the screen. “Starting on his knees now, Doc.”
“I’d love to start on his knees,” Kendall hissed. “With a ball-peen hammer.”
“Why don’t you just let the ‘bot stomp on them again?” Quinn asked. “And why bother putting me back together when you know damned well the Coalition is going to take me apart again?”
“Martyrdom doesn’t become you, Phantom,” Kendall said, feeling his words to the bottom of her breaking heart. She was doing her best to insult him, to pretend she didn’t care about him, while inside she was screaming and sobbing so savagely it was all she could do to keep standing.
“Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh,” he said in a bored voice.
“Aye, what will be, will be,” she agreed, and wanted to yell at him when he closed his eyes, shutting her out as he had done so long ago. Digging her fingernails into her palms, she whipped around and stormed out of the sick bay.
“Doc?” Parks called after her. “You forgot your tea and rolls!”
“What son of a whoring bitch has been teaching her Cengusian?” Quinn asked the med tech.
“Andrews is Cengusian, Milord,” Parks said, “but so is Captain Breen.”
“Liam Breen,” Quinn said, and the name was a curse on his lips. “I can’t believe he was once my friend.” His eyes narrowed. “I should have guessed. How long has she been seeing him?”
Parks’ eyebrows shot up into the dark blond hair covering his forehead. “I didn’t know she was.”
The man the megaverse knew as the Phantom wanted to struggle to break free of the secure bonds holding him to the diagnostic sled but he couldn’t move, not even an inch. He was lashed securely to the sled—even his fingers were in secure restraints at each knuckle and flexiform bands ran around his neck, chest, upper arms, wrists, waist, thighs and ankles. “Get these damned things off me so I can sit up,” he ordered.
“I’m sorry, Milord, but I can’t do that even if I wanted to, and I sure as heck don’t want to because the doc would have my head on a pike. The TAOS is locked until the end of the treatment,” Parks told him.
Snarling with anger, Quinn subsided with a hiss of irritated breath. He was in ungodly pain and being held so rigidly down was adding to the misery but he didn’t want those around him to know how badly he hurt. Sweat was dotting his face and chest and ran down the crease of his legs.
“Are you thirsty, Milord?” Parks asked, noticing the sheen of perspiration on his patient’s face and thinking Quinn was overly hot. “Would you like some ice chips?”
“I’d like a goblet of cold water,” Quinn replied.
Parks shook his head. “Ice chips only, I’m afraid. But you can have as many of those as you’d like.”
“Whoopee,” Quinn sneered. “That’ll have to do.”
The med tech walked over to the refrigeration unit and put a stainless steel goblet under the ice dispenser. He filled the goblet half full and brought it back to the TAOS unit. He pushed a button and the glass cover slid back. “Here you go, Milord,” he said as he picked up a small sliver of ice and brought it to Quinn’s cracked lips.
Soothing coolness trickled down his throat and Quinn tried to pretend the agony in his knees wasn’t turning him inside out. If he couldn’t stand the pain of the healing treatment, he’d never be able to endure the torture reserved for him by the Coalition.
“Where’d she go anyway?” he asked Parks.
“I don’t know, Milord. She spends a lot of time with Counselor Innis,” Parks replied.
“Gerraint Innis?” Quinn growled.
“Aye, Milord. He’s been on the Sláinte for about a year now. Do you know him?”
“Is it him she’s seeing?”
Parks shrugged. “Milord, I don’t believe she’s seeing anyone. If she is, she’s kept it to herself.”
A muscle began to tick in Quinn’s jaw. “Go get that wench and tell her I am hurting.” He knew it was a sure-fire way to get her ass back with him.
“I can give you something—”
“Go get her!” The command was not to be ignored.
“Aye, Milord!” Parks agreed, and made a hasty retreat.
“Primä One?” Quinn called out. He knew the ‘bots were in the room with him and when the one he’d spoken to geared up and came lumbering over, its heavy treads shaking the floor, he could feel the jolts in his throbbing knee. He clenched his teeth to keep the pain at bay.
“I am here,” the mechanical voice of the cybot thundered from its metal chest.
Quinn looked up at the menacing automaton hovering over him. “Has she found Aleyn Kaneen yet?”
“She has not.”
Quinn squeezed his eyes shut. “Thank you, Primä One.”
The ‘bot bowed just a little then began walking backward, its plodding steps bringing more pain to Quinn’s shattered knees.
“You hurt me real bad, ‘bot,” he whispered and the AIU stopped in mid step.
“S’doogh lhiam, Chiarn Scaan,” the cybot said softly.
Kendall heard the ‘bot address Quinn as Lord Ghost and tell him it was sorry as she came back into sick bay. She glanced at the fear-provoking machine for a moment and flinched when it continued walking backward until it was even with its partner where it appeared to shut down. She shivered. Such creations bothered her and the hulking ones in the room with her were more terrifying than others she’d seen. The red eyes glowed at her as though it could read her thoughts.
“What did you want?” she asked Quinn in a sharper voice than she intended.
“I hurt,” he said.
Hearing him admit to such a thing surprised Kendall. He had to be in a great deal of pain for him to do so.
“I can’t let you up if that’s what you’re angling for,” she told him. “You must remain perfectly still so the unit can align the bones properly. If not, you could be a cripple for…” she stopped, realizing what she had been about to say.
“Until they hang me?” he asked.
“They’ll do more than hang you, Quinn,” she said, feeling tears gathering in her eyes.
“Well, it’s been a long time since they had a good, old-fashioned public spectacle. I’ll see what I can do to accommodate the High Council.”
“It’s not a joking matter!” she shouted. She came over to the unit to stare down at him.
“Do you see me laughing?” he asked. “Just be a good little healer and give me something for the pain.”
“Who’s going to give you something when they start in on you on Riezell, Quinn?”
He gave her a pleading look. “Please, Kendall?” he asked. “If you want me to beg you, I will, but just give me something to knock the edge off. My knees are killing me.”
The pain had to be excruciating for him to show such weakness to her. She turned and walked over to a cabinet and withdrew a vial of tenerse—thought better of her choice—and plucked a vial of pairilis up instead along with a vac-syringe. She drew up the payload and brought it over to the unit. The cannula was still in Quinn’s carotid so she injected the strong narcotic into his neck.
“Sweet Merciful Alel,” he gasped. “What the hell did you give me, wench?”
“Aye, I know it burns, but not as bad as tenerse would have, so be thankful I chose the lesser of two fiery drugs.”
“Fiery drug my hairy Cengusian ass!” he said, dragging in breaths. “That stuff is an inferno!”
“You don’t have a hairy ass unless you’ve started shaving it since last I saw it,” she quipped. Stepping back and looking at his backside that pressed against the sheet of the sled, she snorted. “Nope, no hairy ass there, Phantom.”
The drug was taking immediate effect and he was beginning to float away on a fine membrane of cool, dry air. Kendall’s face wavered for a moment and he thought she had never looked so lovely.
“Who are you seeing now, wench?” he asked pleasantly.
“It’s none of your business who I’m seeing,” she told him, unable to stop herself from laying a hand on his brow to push aside the damp black curls that fell over his forehead.
“Tell me,” he said.
“You don’t have the right to ask.”
The last thing Quinn remembered was her soft, sweet hand stroking his brow gently, possessively, and there was a slight smile on his face as he went under.
* * * * *
He was back beneath the waterfall, his soapy hands in Kendall’s long red tresses. Washing her hair was a treat for him and some of the silky strands clung lovingly to his forearm as the streaming water rinsed the suds away. The scent of lemon drove him wild for her, his flesh straining toward her nest of fiery red curls.
“You are a satyr, Phantom,” she teased, looking down at his erection.
“And you are a veritable goddess stepped down from the vault of heaven,” he replied in his thick Cengusian brogue. He gathered the weight of her thick hair in his hands and pushed it to lie down her back.
It had been three months since he’d taken possession of her maidenhead and branded her his own. He remembered that day as clearly as if it had been that morning. She had graced him with the most precious of gifts and that was something he did not take lightly. She was his and he intended it stay that way.
“How was the last run?” he asked.
The war between the Coalition and the Alliance was gearing down at last. There had been far too much bloodshed, too many widows made and orphans left, destruction spread across a wide swath of territories. At last, peace was being negotiated though there were still skirmishes going on. Kendall’s ship the Sláinte was one of four med evac ships flying under immunity from both sides of the conflict, taking care of the wounded no matter the side for which the injured fought.
“Fewer casualties this time out,” she told him as he gathered her to him. “I’ve got a two-week leave this time.” She wriggled against him. “Let’s make the most of it, Phantom.”
He slid his hands down her back to cup her shapely buttocks. “How’d you like to take a ride aboard the Lhong Shee?”
Kendall’s eyes flared. “Your ship? The one they call the ghost ship?”
“The one and the same. We can fly over to the Green Sector,” he suggested. “I’m itching to show you the volcanoes on Seabhac from orbit.” He frowned. “I wish I could take you to the rain forest on Theristes but the planet’s suddenly off-limits and Réalta Madra is too far out.”
“Why is Theristes off-limits?” she asked.
He cocked a shoulder. “Don’t know but we aren’t even allowed to do fly-overs. Must be a secret base there the Burgon doesn’t want us to see.”
“Do you think there is any truth to the rumor of him releasing his concubines?” she asked.
“Aye, I heard it said he did, and even gave his second wife a choice of whether she wanted to stay with him or go,” he replied as he lowered his head to the sweet indention at the side of her neck.
“Did she take it?”
“I guess she didn’t like sharing him with wife number one for she did indeed go.”
“So he only has the one wife now,” she said. “I never thought to see it happen.”
Quinn lifted her against him. “Pay attention to me, wench, not the Burgon’s affairs.” He slid his shaft between her thighs. “He needs consideration, he does.”
The heat and size of his rod pushed all other thoughts out of Kendall’s mind. She put her arms around his neck and—with his help—lifted herself up and onto the thickness of his cock, sliding down gently.
“Now that’s more like it, Lhiannan,” he said.
With the rush of the water cascading over them, he walked her to the smooth stone wall of the canyon and sat her on a small natural shelf carved from years of tumbling falls. With his psychically enhanced abilities he knew many a lover had perched his lady there for just the sort of activity the Phantom had in mind. The shelf was at just the right height for a man of his size to pleasure his woman without undue strain on either his legs or neck. Though Kendall’s legs were wrapped tightly around him and her arms were around his neck, he could thrust upward easily, filling her to the very core with his steely erection.
His tongue slid against hers as his cock eased into her sheath. He drove deep into the moist sweetness of her mouth just as his rod pushed strongly against her womb. He set the rhythm—an easy, slow in and out glide. There was no hurry for they had the entire day.
Kendal threaded her hands through the heavy, wet curls of his hair to anchor his head, taking as much pleasure from his tongue as she did from his shaft. She suckled his tongue, flicked her own around the contours of his mouth, reveling in both impalements that made her blood hot and her juices thick.
Quinn increased the tempo of his thrusts, his hips pushing against hers. He could feel her legs tightening with even more strength around his waist. Pulling his hands free of her buttocks for she had been sitting on his palms, he slid them up her back and jerked her closer to him, tearing his mouth from hers to plant a kiss at the hollow of her throat. With one arm like an iron band around her, he used his other hand to mold her breast, caressing it, stroking its peak until he could lower his mouth to the burgeoning tip to suckle it.
Pulled back from the wall enough to let her head fall back, Kendall rode him with all the joy and abandonment he could sense in her soul. She was his and he was hers. They were merely sealing the bargain again. His mouth drawing upon her nipple, she was milking him with the tight folds of her channel.
He drove thrust after heated, slippery thrust into his lady until the rhythm grew quicker, the force harder and the need one long, desperate desire. With the water falling all around them—foam boiling at Quinn’s feet—he took her to the very heights of passion and placed her there for a moment before they both plummeted over the edge, their mingled cries of satiation echoing among the rocks.
For a long while Quinn stood there with his head pillowed on her breast, still coupled to her, afraid to breathe too deeply lest he pull out of her sweet, warm sheath. Her hands were in his hair, stroking him, running over his shoulders. With a groan, he finally slid out of her. Sliding his hands under her rump once more, he lifted her from the shelf and took her out beneath the canopy of the falls. He let her ease down his body until she was standing before him under the water.
“Still want to take me on the Lhong Shee?” she asked.
“Still wanna go?” he countered.
“Aye, Phantom. I do.”
Less than an hour later they were dressed and he was leading her down the mountain to the valley where the flagship of his privateering empire was hidden, cloaked with pilfered Amazeen technology so that no one flying overhead could spot the vessel.
Kendall stood looking at the empty valley. “It’s really there?” she asked.
“Aye, wench,” he said. “It’s really there.” He tugged at her hand. “Come on.”
He walked her right up to the ship, took her hand in his and then laid her palm against the cool surface of the wing. Grinning at her look of surprise, he rapped five times on the wing and the ship began to fade into view.
“Oh my,” Kendall whispered as the pale gray hull of the Lhong Shee revealed itself.
The gangway opened and he escorted her up into the ship, his hand at the small of her back. Inside, the ship was layered in darkness, the corridor ahead of them in deep shadow.
“Where is your crew?” she asked.
“They’re here,” he said. “You just can’t see them.”
She believed each member of his infamous crews was Scaanagh—a race of beings with many paranormal abilities. One of those abilities gave them the facility to make themselves invisible. Being a phantom—a ghost—had many advantages. Not even the most sophisticated scanners could pick up a Scaanagh body-heat signature.
“Can you teach me to be invisible?” she asked.
Quinn laughed. “I’m afraid not, wench. You are not a warrior.”
“They don’t let women in?” she asked, her stare militant.
“Aye, they let them in, but they’ve got to be gods-be-damned good at a variety of warrior skills in order to join the Order of Taibhse,” he reminded her. “Besides, you can’t actually become invisible unless you’re of the Tribe. We just teach full-fledged members of the Order how to appear as though they’re invisible.”
Kendall’s lower lip thrust out in a pout as he took her hand and led her down the shadowy corridors. He watched her as she surveyed everything they passed, missing nothing. He knew there would be little on the Lhong Shee she had seen on other ships. Scaanagh vessels were unlike any others in the megaverse.
Paton Dougherty, Quinn’s 2-I-C, was standing at the end of the corridor, his arms crossed over a wide, brawny chest, and with his face set into a fierce scowl, he asked his captain what he was doing. “Cre’n obbyr t’ayd?”
“Ny bee imnea ort!” Quinn replied, telling Paton not to worry.
“T’ee mooadaghey y boirey,” Paton snapped.
“There’s no reason for her to add to your worries, Paton,” Quinn stated. “She’s not our enemy.”
Dougherty turned his angry stare to Kendall. “Milady, do you not know what couthutlaugh means?”
“Paton, for the love of Alel…” Quinn began.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Cengusian,” Kendall told the man glaring at her.
“Couthutlaugh isn’t a Cengusian word. It is Serenian and it is a crime under Coalition Law. Their High Council has made it a hanging offense to aid and abet any person who has been declared an outlaw.”
“I’m not going to allow anything to happen to her, Paton,” Quinn said, adding he loved the woman at his side. “Ta graih aym urree.”
The 2-I-C nodded slowly. “I know you do. Ta dooinney ayns graih ny vlebbin.” He unfolded his arms and walked away.
“What did he say?” Kendall asked for Quinn’s face had turned red.
“He said a man in love is a fool.”
Kendall turned at the sound of a woman’s voice, surprised to see a female among the Phantom’s crew.
“I am Fenella,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I am the idjut’s cousin.”
“And our healer aboard the Lhong Shee,” Quinn injected as the two women shook hands.
“I am a shamaness,” Fenella corrected him, “not a healer.” She smiled at Kendall. “I use holistic methods to treat my patients.”
“I’d be interested in watching you,” Kendall said.
“Perhaps you can take her to our sick bay,” Quinn suggested, but when Fenella shook her head, he asked why not.
“Paton is right, Rory. She shouldn’t be here. Her status is neutral in this conflict and it should remain so for her safety. Just by bringing her aboard our ship, you have placed her in harm’s way. All it would take is for one spy to see her here and report her to the Coalition. If you love her as you say you do, then take her out of here now,” his cousin warned. She turned to Kendall. “I am not saying this to hurt you, but you are a liability to him. The Coalition would use you against him if they get wind of this.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Quinn said through clenched teeth.
“Take her back to the palace, paitchey,” Fenella said then continued on her way.
“What did she call you?”
“Paitchey,” he said with a sigh. “It means bantling. She’s ten years older than me and never lets me forget she used to change my diapers.”
He turned back the way they’d come, taking her hand once more in his. “As much as I hate to admit Paton is right, I may have blundered royally, Lhiannan.”
She leaned against him. “Is Paton your cousin too?”
“He’s Fenella’s husband. They’ve been married almost thirty years now.”
“She must have been a child!” Kendall exclaimed.
“A very ripe old seventeen, actually,” he said. “And dymmyrk ee mac.” He smiled. “She brought forth a son.”
“She was pregnant when they married?”
He nodded. “It was the only way they knew my uncle would allow them to coventyn, to Join.”
“Your uncle didn’t approve of Paton?”
Quinn laughed. “What man ever truly approves of the man his daughter chooses? Paton was from across the Kayagh Glion, the Misty Valley. He is not Scaanagh. He is Najooragh, the only one of the crew who is.” He looked at her. “You know there are three races on Cengus?”
“Scaanagh, Najooragh and what else?”
“The Shuitelagh,” he replied. “They keep to themselves up in the Sleitoil, the Highlands.”
“Why?”
“They are shape-shifters, werefoxes,” he said. “Most Cengusians fear them.”
Kendall shuddered as they started down the gangplank of his ship. She looked back once they moved off the last step but there was nothing behind her, the Lhong Shee was once more cloaked in invisibility.
“With the Coalition in control of my home world, only the gods know how the Shuitelagh have fared. Their Council of Elders voted against going to war alongside the Aduaidh so maybe the occupation hasn’t been as bad for them as it has for the rest of my people.”
They were walking toward the Fiach shuttlecraft in which he would fly them back to the Burgon’s palace.
“How long has it been since you’ve been home to Cengus?” she asked.
“Too long,” he replied. “But one day I’ll go back and reclaim all I lost.”
* * * * *
2149 CMT
“He’s dreaming,” Andrews marveled. “How is that possible with a strong narcotic zinging through his system?”
Kendall didn’t answer. She was studying the mapping of the treatment being administered to Quinn’s knees and wasn’t happy with what she was seeing. “There was a hell of a lot of damage done,” she said. “The TAOS is just now finishing up reattaching the ligaments. It hasn’t even begun realigning and re-fusing the bones.”
“He must be in a lot of pain,” Parks commented.
“He is,” Kendall said. “Keep him under for a few more hours.”
“Why don’t you go get some sleep, Doc?” Andrews suggested. “You are starting to look a little frayed around the edges.”
It was on the tip of Kendall’s tongue to tell her med tech to mind his own business, but she was tired and cranky and her headache was a living torment squeezing at her temples. She drew in a long breath then exhaled slowly. “You’ll wake me if I’m needed?”
“On my honor,” Andrews swore, hand to heart.
She took one last look at Quinn. “Don’t let that Amazeen take him anywhere while I’m down.”
“Ain’t going to happen,” Parks promised for the both of them.
She hesitated for a moment longer then turned away. Her shoulders felt stiff, her neck aching as she walked down the corridor to the elevator. What she needed was a long, hot soak in a tub, her soft cotton pajamas and about four hours of uninterrupted sleep. She knew she’d settle for a quick shower, a clean medical tunic and pants, and a stretch out across her bed.
On the way down to her quarters, Kendall kept going over the ‘bot’s words to Quinn. Why, she wondered, would the AIU be apologizing to him? And for what? There had been respect in the cybot’s tone and—she knew she had not been imagining it—misery in the way the creation gave its apology. AIUs were not programmed to have emotions and especially not a Class 10 construct.
Putting aside the suspicions growing inside her, she unlocked the door to her quarters and went in.
Her quarters were nothing to write home about, she thought as she opened the door then locked it behind her. It was utilitarian, nothing more. Sparse on furniture—only one sofa and one chair—in the living area, the dining area was even more Spartan with one barstool at the peninsula, no table or chairs. The peninsula served as her eating area as well as her desk. Her sleeping quarters consisted of a full-sized MemFoam mattress lying on the floor, a bedside table with lamp and a chair over the back of which she threw her clothes. Wall built-ins concealed her worldly possessions, which consisted of clothing, shoes and boots, and a few jackets. There were no decorations, no paintings, no bric-a-brac scattered about the quarters. Not even one framed photo was to be found. The room could have belonged to any nameless, faceless, personality-deficient member of the crew, she thought.
The only personal thing in the place was the feline who looked up from the foot of the mattress when Kendall came in to take off her clothes.
“Hey, Munch,” Kendall greeted the Elfinish. She kicked off her shoes and flopped down beside the cat to rub it behind its overly large, overly pointed ears. “How’s it going, sweetie?”
“My bowl is devoid of milk,” Munchkin accused in a droll tone. “The room temperature is not precisely at seventy degrees as I prefer and you did not leave the An Éigipt music on as I asked you. I do not find such behavior on your part tolerable, humanoid.” With a shake of her body, a flit of her hairless tail, the feline hopped off the mattress and strolled regally from the room, looking for the entire world like a huge dust bunny on stilts.
Kendall sighed. Elfinish were highly intelligent creatures and prone to sarcasm when annoyed. Kendall sighed again, this time accompanied by a groan. She pushed herself up and went into the galley area, opened the refrigerator unit and realized there was no milk. She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Munch,” she said. “We’re out of milk.”
“Apologies are not acceptable, humanoid. I am thirsty.”
“There’s water in your other bowl,” Kendall protested.
“You expect me to drink water that is room temperature?” Munchkin groused. “I am also hungry.”
Kendall looked over at the fluffy rug where the Elfinish’s food and water was kept. “You’ve got a full bowl, Munch.”
“Of some indefinable, tasteless concoction only a warthog would find palatable. Must I remind you I have an extremely delicate constitution that requires a heartier repast than flavored grain?”
“The pellets are a highly nutritional diet that helps promote a healthy skin and coat while maintaining ideal weight and—”
“Humanoid,” Munchkin interrupted with an exasperated roll of her pink eyes, “you have been reading the bag again, and I have discussed this with you previously. I desire moist substance, preferably Chalean lamb or Diabolusian bovine. An occasional Oceanian white fish is tolerable, though I have a preference for Amhantarean cod—which I know is rather difficult to come by out here in the wilds of space. I do not find enjoyment in—nor am I amused by—hard, granulated chunks of indeterminate matter with no taste beyond that of dry sand.” The feline made a wretched gagging, coughing sound, and then regurgitated a slimy ball of fur, which she deposited in the middle of the floor then strolled away as though nothing had happened. “I have refined tastes as I have related to you many times. What part of picky eater do you not understand?”
“Munch,” Kendall complained, wincing at the dark orange-colored fur ball. “The vet on Serenia said this food is better for your fur balls and—”
“You mock me, humanoid!” Munchkin stated with a hiss and an arch of her sparsely covered back. “Must I remind you that Elfinish do not require the same primitive care as creatures such as canines and other lesser members of the felidae family?” She shuddered delicately then padded over to the settee and hopped up. “Please do not insult me further.” She turned around and around until she found a comfortable area of the cushion, curled up and draped one paw over her eyes. “You have disturbed me so I find that I am now in need of a nap.” She flicked her tail. “Good night and please keep it quiet.”
“About the milk, Munch—”
“Run along, humanoid. You are bothering me. I thought it was understood I need quiet in order to nap.”
So regally dismissed from the living area, Kendall went into her bedroom, peeled off her med tunic and then slid the elastic waist of the pants down her legs. Pitching the uniform into the hamper, she went into the bathing area and turned on the water in the shower. After stripping off her bra and panties, she walked barefoot over to the mirror over the basin and leaned forward, staring at her tired face.
“You look like shit,” she said to the image staring back at her.
“Keep it down in there!” Munchkin called out.
“He’s in the sick bay, Munch,” Kendall said softly. She watched tears forming in her eyes then spilling down her cheek.
The Elfinish came into the bathing area and hopped up on the toilet seat, perching there like a statue. “‘He’ as in the Phantom?”
Kendall swiped at her tears. “They tortured him. He—”
“Get in the shower, Kenni,” Munchkin said gently. “We’ll discuss this when you’re through. Go on now.”
Opening the glass door into the shower, Kendall stepped in and stood there beneath the onslaught of the water. She let the heated spray beat down on her shoulders, soaking her cap of short curls, running over her face to mingle with her tears. Listlessly, she took the soap, lathered her body and then rinsed off, moving as though in a daze as she opened the shower door and hooked the towel from the rack.
“Is he going to be all right?” Munchkin asked as she licked her paw and swiped it across her face.
“I think so but he’s in a lot of pain,” Kendall said. She stepped out of the shower, wrapped one of six extravagantly fluffy towels—the only luxuries she afforded herself—around her then tucked the end in at her breasts. She ran her fingers through her wet hair.
“I’m sure you’re doing everything you can to make it comfortable for him.”
Munchkin hopped down from the toilet and followed Kendall back into the bedroom. She jumped up on the mattress and strolled to the head of the bed.
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore right now,” Kendall said. Her heart felt heavy and there was a wicked lump in her throat.
“Then lie down and I will curl up beside you to soothe you, Kenni,” Munchkin declared.
With the wet towel still around her, Kendall stretched out on the bed. As soon as she pulled her pillow to her, the Elfinish was pressed tightly to Kendall’s stomach, purring gently.
“I love you, Munch,” Kendall said.
“Just as it should be, of course,” Munchkin agreed. “I do—well—care for you as well, humanoid. You have some qualities that are acceptable.”
As Kendall fell asleep, the Elfinish lay awake staring across the room, her preternatural awareness drifted past the titanium walls of her companion’s quarters and down the long, stench-filled corridors where the smells of humanoids was a disgusting miasma that sorely tried the feline’s sensibilities. Her gift took her up the elevator shaft—where she stopped now and again to inspect something that caught her eye—and into the place where she had been only once in the two years she’d known the healer.
There was the fool called Parks and the partially intelligent one called Andrews. A third man was standing at a shiny glassed-in contraption toward which Munchkin sent her astral spirit.
“They’re chomping at the bit to get him back,” the third man said.
“Doc isn’t going to agree to that until she’s sure Quinn is healed, Captain.”
Munchkin stared up at the third man and found she did not like either his odor or his aura. He was a shifty person and when she delved into his psyche, found he hated felines and was allergic to them. Knowing this was one of the reasons the third man had not come to her humanoid’s quarters to introduce himself to the Elfinish who ruled there, Munchkin deigned to ignore the man, finding him both beneath contempt for his dislike of her species and unworthy even of passing thought.
It was the man lying beneath the glass who concerned Munchkin and she levitated her spirit until she could get a good look at the man who had broken her humanoid’s heart and who was causing her such grief even now.
My, my, my, Munchkin thought as she looked down at the man Kenni called the Phantom. He was not bad as humanoids went. Long, dark eyelashes fanned his cheeks and without doubt, he would be considered extremely handsome to members of his species—female and male alike. With glossy, thick black hair that curled at his forehead and at the nape of his neck, he was swarthy and hard-muscled and his joystick was long and quite well-proportioned for that of a humanoid male. While preferring the spines of her male companions, which point backward to rake the walls of her vagina during copulation, the cock she was viewing would surely be of great delight to a humanoid female. She inspected his hands and found the fingers long and tapering, good for a sufficient scratch behind furry ears. His legs were muscular with a nice abundance of hair as was his chest. She settled down on that wide expanse and rubbed her face back and forth across the thick pelt of hair on his chest, releasing familiarization pheromones to mark him as one of hers. Even in her astral state, she left behind a marker that was significant only to her.
So this was the one who held Kenni’s soul in his hands? Munchkin thought as she stared at the humanoid male. He had hurt her companion deeply, but he was the one suffering now. She could read his sleep thoughts easily and the dream images filling his mind were overflowing with such deep, consuming desire and stark need it sent a tremor of embarrassment through the Elfinish. Finely tuned to humanoid emotion, Munchkin learned things while watching his dreams that Kendall should know. After another few moments of intercepting the sorrowful mind wanderings of the male, Munchkin could take no more bombardment of grieving and hopped off his chest to streak back to her companion’s side, fleeing rapidly through the ship as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her delicate paws.
Once more in the roost she ruled, the Elfinish melded into her physical body and sat there on Kendall’s bed brooding. She had to find a way to get the two lovers together again without the threat of death looming in the background.
Kendall was faring no better than Quinn in the dream department. She was thrashing so badly in her troubled sleep the Elfinish was forced to hop down and vacate the room, leaving her humanoid to cope with the nightmare on her own.
Whimpers came from Kendall’s throat to accompany her along her disturbing journey through slumber’s shadowy confines. Bright crimson streaks of spilled blood splashed over the dark gray landscape and thick, gripping black tar sucked at her feet as she tried to run from the advancing horrors. The shrill, piercing cries of raptors punctuated the slow, steady thump-thump-thump of a deep bass drum keeping cadence to the progress of whatever unknown entity lumbered after her. Bitter cold wound its way into her bones—chilling her and making her teeth chatter. Naked, defenseless, completely alone in her bad dream, she could feel hot, rancid air between her shoulders but she dared not look back for fear of what she’d see.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Quinn calling to her. He sounded lost, hopelessly lost, and devoid of any expectation that she would come to him. He had been caught by the darkness, was now a prisoner of the Abyss. There was no future for Rory Quinn and his past was being methodically erased by the persistent entity trailing behind Kendall. Though she strove to reach him, she knew it was already too late. He was lost to her, nothing more than a specter on the horizon of hell.
“Quinn!” she cried out, her head whipping from side to side on the mattress.
“Kendall, help me!”
Overhead, thick, black branches glistening with some alien luminosity formed a canopy over her as she plodded through the tar clinging to her feet. Vultures perched on the skeletal limbs and grinned down at her, their long necks bobbing as if in agreement to whatever beast crept closer to her from behind. Twisting, turning, parasitic vines snaked down from the rottenness of the branches to pluck at her hair, slide across her face and pluck at her arms. A giant crimson moth swooped down to drop something malodorous on Kendall’s body and the substance hardened, became living threads from which she struggled to break free as it formed a cocoon around her. She could feel it squeezing the air from her lungs, winding tighter and tighter, restricting her movements, choking off her own cries for help.
“Kendall!”
Quinn’s voice was growing weaker and farther away. The harder she worked to reach him, the thicker the tar became, the tighter the cocoon pressed. With one final attempt, she managed to break free of the wrapping and found herself on a high, dark hill in a blisteringly cold wind that whipped at her body and threatened to push her backward off the incline.
Looking down to the valley far below her, she could see thousands upon thousands of people looking back at her. Their mouths were opening and closing, their faces twisted in anger but no sound came forth. They were pointing at her and from their fingertips drops of blood fell.
“They’ve his blood on their hands,” a voice thundered from the heavens, and Kendall slowly turned her head to the left.
Quinn was crucified to a gnarled oak. Its nightmarish, charred limbs held the Phantom’s body spread-eagled as vines wound around and around his arms and legs ever tighter. One thick vine lashed his throat to the twisted trunk and crisscrossed his chest, creepers sinking barbed suckers into his flesh to torment him as he writhed in pain. Above him the sky was boiling with red waves of clouds that sped quickly across the heavens. At his bare feet, kindling was being piled stick upon stick by a little girl whose clothing was soaked with river water.
The thump-thump-thump grew louder. It drew nearer and Kendall spun around to see two cybots marching in perfect step toward the twisted oak. Each was carrying a blazing torch in its hands.
“They have orders to incinerate Rory Quinn,” the voice boomed out of the vermin heavens.
“Kendall, forgive me!” she heard the Phantom beg.
He was struggling to turn his head toward her as the vines worked to strangle him.
“I love you,” he said. “I will always love you.”
Thump-thump-thump. The constructs were lumbering closer. The torches sizzled, whipped by the wind to fiery beacons of death.
“I will always love you.”
The tar that surrounded her feet caught fire and spread like an ocean wave toward the tree to which Quinn was bound. The wind pushed the flames closer and closer until it rushed up the gnarled oak and fanned out to every black, slimy branch.
“I will always love you!”
Flames folded inward, upward, downward, and washed over the Phantom with a roar that drowned out his agonized cry.
* * * * *
0338 CMT
“No!” Kendall screamed, struggling to sit up, thrashing at the towel wrapping her body. She tore mindlessly at the fabric, ripping it with a frantic strength born in her nightmare, twisting off the bed to land on the floor.
Free of the constriction of the towel, she stumbled back and hit the wall so hard she slid down it, waving her hands at the images that still came at her. Her mouth open—dragging in labored breaths—and her heart pounding so fiercely she could hear its beat in her ears, she sat there shivering from head to toe, her arms wrapped around her raised knees. A keening sound came from her very soul and when the pale, furry body rubbed up against her thigh, she screamed again as though touched by a roaring flame and kicked out her leg.
“It’s all right,” Munchkin said, moving back out of the humanoid’s range lest she strike out again. “It was just a dream.”
Gasping for breath, covered with sweat, Kendall curled up into a ball and began sobbing so fiercely the Elfinish grew alarmed. The feline didn’t know how to help her companion. Such emotions were alien to her species. Pleasure, frustration and affection she understood. Jealousy, vengefulness, sadness at the loss of something for which she had affection and even killing anger were not beyond her comprehension, but this overwhelming grief, this all-encompassing sorrow was beyond her feline ability to appreciate. Anguish and misery were things with which she did not know how to deal.
“Should I summon the man who smells like garlic?” Munchkin asked, unable to remember the name of the humanoid, but she knew he dealt with matters of the emotions.
Kendall was trapped in her despair and unable to answer the Elfinish. Pain was driving through her in spikes of guilt and need and remorse. All the anxiety she had been enduring all this time finally took its toll and let go with a snap, the band of emotions breaking and releasing a torrent of tears that had no tap with which to turn them off. To her, it felt as though she were drowning in a tidal wave of sorrow.
“Kenni, tell me what you need,” Munchkin pleaded, irritated by the whine in her voice. She crept a bit closer, reaching out a clawless paw to tap her companion’s hip. “What can I do?”
The dream had been so real. It had seemed so genuine, as though it were actually happening. She could hear the sizzle of the fire, the crack of the wood as the blaze caught it, see the flames racing up the branches and onto Quinn. She could actually smell the horror of his flesh burning and that—alone—brought a terror to her heart that threatened to stop its beat.
“I can’t let this happen,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.
“What, dearling?” Munchkin asked in a soothing tone.
“I have to stop it,” Kendall said. “Even if I die in the trying, I have to stop them from hurting him anymore.”
Munchkin crept closer still until she could insinuate her large head under her companion’s elbow, flicking out her rough little tongue to abrade Kendall’s bare flesh, knowing that would garner the humanoid’s attention.
“Munch, don’t,” Kendall said, moving her thigh out of the Elfinish’s reach.
“Are you at yourself now?” Munchkin asked, and grunted in a most undignified way when her companion scooped her up and buried her face in the patchy clumps that was Elfinish fur. Resigning herself to the show of affection, Munchkin clamped her sharp little teeth together and endured.
“I have to get him to tell me where his ship is,” Kendall said, thinking aloud. “They have to come get him.”
“The ghost ship is just off the starboard beam,” Munchkin squeaked, irritated even more at hearing herself speak that way.
Kendall held the feline away from her. “How do you know?”
“I went to take a look at this marvel of humanoid sensuality you have been carrying on about since I made this my home,” Munchkin replied. “He was dreaming too.”
“Who let you out of the apartment?” Kendall demanded, anger flashing across her face.
Munchkin sighed with annoyance. “I projected my way to him. Do you never listen to anything I tell you?”
“He was dreaming?” Kendall asked. “What was he dreaming?”
“He was conversing with other humanoids,” Munchkin replied, squirming to be put down. Once Kendall released her, she shook her body from head to tail then extended her rear right leg straight out behind her in a series of three quick jabs that she’d explained to Kendall were called diddits. Diddits were a feline way of saying “fuck you”, she educated her companion.
“Who were the other men?”
Munchkin rolled her eyes. “Now how would I know?”
“Describe them.”
“One was tall, rather stately, black eyes, grayish hair worn in a tail at his neck. He had power about him. There was a long scar on the right side of his face.”
“The Burgon?”
Munchkin licked a paw, unaware and uncaring that the humanoid called the Burgon was the most powerful man in the megaverse.
“The other men?”
“One looked a bit like the Phantom and the other was a truly handsome specimen with dark hair and golden eyes. He carried himself like a lupine though, which I found disconcerting.”
“What were they saying?”
“I did not hear words. I garnered impressions. Your mate did not want to do something the powerful ones wanted him to, but was given no choice in the matter.” Munchkin narrowed her pink eyes. “Like when you foist worm pills down my throat.”
“He was upset? Angry?”
“Sad,” Munchkin revealed. “I sensed great sadness but resolve.”
“Something isn’t right here,” Kendall said. She slid her back up the wall until she was on her feet. She snatched the towel and wrapped it around her. “Quinn is too good a warrior to let himself get caught by an Amazeen.”
Munchkin’s ears twitched. “Is that what you call the tall one with white hair and teats encased in gold swirls? I have heard of her race.”
“The Amazeen was in his dream?” Kendall asked.
“Later. You humanoids have strange mind wanderings when you sleep. The tall one was at his side, her hand on his arm,” Munchkin reported. “There was great affection in the tall one’s gray eyes. She seemed to be comforting him.”
“Affection? You mean love?”
“Affection,” Munchkin repeated. “Such as appears on your face when you speak of the Phantom. If that is love, then aye, she looked at him with love.”
“And how was he looking at her?”
“Like he would let her share his catnip and other interesting things if she asked nicely.”
Kendall sat down on the mattress with a grunt. “Really?”
“Do they share things, your mate and the tall one?”
Kendall’s green eyes turned hard as beach glass. “I’d like to know the answer to that myself.”
“He was in great distress in his dream,” Munchkin told her. “His thoughts were on you as he lay broken on the ground. He wanted nothing more than to reach you and have you help him.”
Turning her head, Kendall stared at the Elfinish. “He wanted me to help him?”
“The tall one was bending over him, crying, but all he could think of was you.”
“Son of a bitch!” Kendall sneered. “He was on Cengus, but he didn’t know how he got there, huh? She was on Cengus—supposedly chasing him—with two ‘bots, one of which said it was sorry.”
The workings of a humanoid mind confused Munchkin and bored her. She hopped up on the bed, lay down, hiked her back leg into the air and began cleaning her vulva. She’d lost all interest in her companion now that the humanoid was up and about.
“The ‘bot said it was sorry,” Kendall repeated, and got up from the mattress. She walked over to the wall of closets and slid open one of the doors, ripping a fresh tunic from the hanger and tossing it to the bed. She took a pair of matching pants from among many hanging in the closet and threw them to the bed as well. Rummaging inside her lingerie drawer, she picked up a bra and pair of panties and began dressing, her jaw clenched tightly. When she was dressed, she thrust her feet into her shoes and stood looking down at Munchkin with her hands on her hips. “The ‘bot said it was sorry.”
“I have no idea what a ‘bot is or why it would say it was sorry, but if it makes you feel good to relay such trivia to me, then so be it,” Munchkin said then yawned hugely. “Are you going out again?”
“Aye,” Kendall answered. “I’m going to see a snake about a rat.”
Munchkin’s eyes lit up. “A rat for me?” She hopped down and wove in and out between her companion’s legs as Kendall stomped to the door. “A nice juicy rat? A smelly, musty, hairless rat that crunches well when its head is bitten?” She began purring loudly. “A crunchy rat, humanoid? A fresh crunchy rat? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
“A lying, underhanded rat,” Kendall said, slapping at the door’s control panel.
“Don’t forget the milk!” Munchkin called out as the pneumatic door slid shut behind her companion.
* * * * *
0329 CMT
Quinn’s eyes fluttered open and for a moment he had no idea where he was, but then a movement out of the corner of his vision brought one of the med techs into view and he relaxed. His knees were still hurting but not quite as badly as before Kendall had injected him with the fiery liquid that had felt as though it were melting his veins from the inside out.
His dream had been so vivid, so real, and his heart was still aching from the bittersweet memory of the time he last held the woman he loved in his arms. What had started out merely as a bad dream had become a nightmare then a brutal hurt that brought tears to his eyes.
“You need something for the pain?”
The older of the two med techs had come to stand beside the TAOS unit. He seemed a friendly enough fellow and there was genuine concern in his gaze.
“How much longer do I have to stay penned down like this?” Quinn asked.
Andrews glanced up at the screen. “At least another two, maybe three hours.”
Quinn groaned. “Why the hell is it taking so long?”
“Your knees were shattered, Milord,” Andrews answered. “If you ever want to walk again, you’ll just have to give it some time.” He glanced at the two ‘bots. “Having them drag you over here by your armpits didn’t help matters. The weight of your body was hanging on your knees.”
“Aye, then. Give me something to put me back to sleep,” Quinn agreed. His entire body was anchored to the diagnostic sled. Even his fingers were individually strapped down—his feet encased in some kind of restraint that made it impossible for him to wiggle his toes. Having bad dreams was better than lying there immobile, unable to move anything save his eyes.
Andrews checked the notations Kendall had made on Quinn’s chart then went over to fill a vac-syringe with tenerse instead of the drug the Scaan had been previously given. He administered it into the cannula at Quinn’s neck. He flinched when his patient sucked in a pained breath. “Hurts like a mother,” Andrews commiserated. “I know, but it works faster and better than the pairilis.”
“Did Kendall invent that to torture me with?” the Phantom grumbled.
“It’s been around a long time, Milord,” Andrews told him.
Lassitude was setting in so he let his eyes drift shut. The soft, fleecy cloud that awaited him was floating across the room. His body was becoming pleasantly numb, the godawful pain in his knees just slipping away. He could understand why addicts liked narcotics so much. They made even an agonizing world soft enough to live in.
“Vel oo dooisht?”
She was asking him if he was awake. He smiled without opening his eyes. “Aye, my ghrai,” he answered her, calling her his love.
“Can you hear me clearly, Phantom?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. “Aye, wench. I hear you.”
“He is known to you,” she told him. “The man I’ve been seeing.”
He looked up through the glass, his gaze locked on her face. “Who is he?”
“Tell me about the Amazeen?” she said.
Quinn’s left eyebrow crooked upward. “The Amazeen?” he repeated.
“What is she to you?” Kendall whispered.
“Who are you seeing now, Kendall?” he countered.
Kendall smiled. “Why do you care, Phantom?”
His jaw clenched. A muscle worked in his cheek. He spoke to her through grinding teeth. “You belong with me,” he said. “You belong to me.”
“Cha feer shen,” she whispered.
“Aye, you do!” he snarled, her telling him she didn’t making his gaze burn.
“You threw me away like a worn-out pair of boots, Rory Quinn,” she said, holding his stare. “Dy yannoo peccah not leigh, te daanys, agh dy yannoo eh not graih, te dwoaigh.”
“Stop with the gods-be-damned Cengusian, wench!” he shouted at her.
“Then let me make it perfectly clear to you, Quinn,” she said, translating her words. “‘To sin against the law is boldness, but to sin against love is hateful.’ Can I be any clearer than that in how I feel about you now?”
Kendall spun around and left the room despite her patient yelling at her to come back.
“Kendall!” Quinn bellowed.
“Milord, you should try to lie calmly,” Andrews told him. “Please calm down.”
“Who is he?” the Phantom spat. “Who is the man she’s sleeping with?”
Andrews glanced across the room, exchanging a look with Parks. “Milord, I can’t answer what I don’t know.”
Quinn was so enraged, so hurt, he could feel moisture gathering in his eyes. He was in a living hell being confined as he was and the pain in his knees—though nearly gone—still plagued him enough that he was uncomfortable. As long as he was strapped down, he couldn’t make himself invisible and that bothered him more than anything else. Scaans had to be able to move freely in order to cast a cloud of invisibility over themselves. It was all an illusion, a mind trick that made them virtually unseen by human eyes. He was so upset he didn’t notice the med tech administering another dose of tenerse until the brutal, fiery sting spread through the veins in his neck.
“Don’t do that anymore!” he yelled.
“Doc’s orders, Milord,” Parks said.
He wanted to shout, to vent, but his world was shutting down again and he groaned with the helplessness of it. He didn’t want to dream anymore. The dreams hurt worse than the pain in his broken kneecaps and torn ligaments. He fought it for as long as he could then his eyes closed, a single tear falling slowly down his cheek.
* * * * *
The dream was in black and white this time—which was unusual for him. His other nightmares had been in full, vibrant color, and because this one was different, it seemed all the more ominous. Something else about the dream unsettled him even more. He was reliving a day he had hoped never to think about again…
Rain was pouring from the overhang of the cottage where he had bid her meet him on Aduaidh Prime. They were alone in the greensward where the Burgon had a hunting lodge not too many klicks away. Beyond the back door of the cottage—about fifty feet away—the mighty Darkstan River was nearing flood stage for the rains had been falling for nine straight hours and showed no sign of letting up. Lightning was forking across the sodden heavens and the sharp shriek of the discharge and the resulting roll of thunder shook the cottage.
He had been distant, distracted, and even his kiss—normally enthusiastic and filled with desire—was perfunctory, almost brotherly when he met her at the door. He knew he appeared tired, his face showing lines she had not seen before.
“This will be the last time I’ll have off for at least six months, Lhiannan,” he’d told her as he shut the door behind her and began helping her out of her rain gear.
“Six months?” she questioned, shocked. She turned as he opened the door again. “Where are you going?”
“To unsaddle your mount, wench,” he lied.
Before she could tell him what he already knew—that she’d seen to her horse and the steed was stalled safely in the barn—he was out the door, running across the muddy yard, his boots splashing water around him.
A sharp crack of lightning made the barn’s tin roof vibrate and he heard Kendall yelling for him. He was sitting on a bale of hay, his horse and hers ensconced in their stalls, munching contentedly on bags of oats. A lantern cast the barn in a rosy glow but it did nothing to alleviate the damp that was seeping into his bones.
“Quinn?” the call came again.
“I’ll be there in a minute!” he yelled back.
His teeth were chattering as he sat huddled there with his arms wrapped around him. It wasn’t that he was all that cold. He barely felt anything save the dampness for he was soaked through, his hair plastered to his forehead and neck, his shirt sticking uncomfortably to his chest and back.
“Ah, Kendall,” he said, his voice filled with hopeless misery.
Kendall Bryne was not psychic like him, but she often received impressions that left her uneasy. Call it a woman’s intuition or some residual leftover from human evolution. Whatever it was, he could feel it manifesting itself and knew his lady was troubled. Though his back was to the barn door, he could see her clearly in that part of his supernatural mind where she always dwelt. She was standing on the porch, wisps of rain speckling her face as she watched for him. She was shivering from the cold that was sweeping down from the higher elevations.
Although it was summer, they were in the Highlands of Aduaidh Prime and the evenings and nights turned chilly—sometimes dropping to well below fifty degrees with a howling wind that shook the rafters and tin roof. Quinn had laid a fire and the flames had been catching, the smell of cherry wood wafting through the cottage when she’d ridden up. He’d hung a cast-iron kettle over the burgeoning fire for she would need the warmth of a hot toddy to ward off the chill.
“Go back inside,” he shouted to her. “I’ll be in shortly!”
He saw her go into the cottage, easing the door shut behind her. He followed her to the fireplace with his mind’s eye and saw her hold her hands to the warmth of the flames.
Kendall loved the cottage as much as he did. It had been a present to him from the Burgon and it was rustic enough to please the warrior, yet comfortable and well-appointed enough to please the warrior’s lady. There were two rooms—a living and eating area and a nice-sized bedroom in which stood—behind an ornate trompe-l’oeil screen in one corner—a huge copper clawfoot tub, washstand and toilet.
With hardwood floors throughout, ceiling-to-floor shutters on the mullioned windows and a cook’s dream of a kitchen provisioned with every gadget known to man, the living area sported a large sofa, two chairs, a dinette with two chairs, assorted end tables and a well-stocked bar and larder—the cottage had everything save that which would distract the warrior and his lady. There was no desk, no Vid-Com, no entertainment center—nothing that would allow the world to intrude.
In the bedroom, an oversized scrolled copper headboard and footboard with faceted green glass finials and knobs held a plush mattress made of MemFoam. The coverlet was a thick blanket of plush dark green velour and the sheets were a pale peach color. A large armoire, two nightstands, two overstuffed wingback chairs that sat to either side of the cottage’s second vast fireplace, made the room cozy and inviting.
They had spent many a night making love on the softness of his bed, many a comforting hour with her head on his shoulder and his arms around her beneath the silken sheets. Had eaten many a meal she had prepared for them at the little table in the dining area. Night after night—and many a morning—had found them in the plush spaciousness of the copper tub, her back to him as he shampooed her long red gold hair, perfumed bubbles lapping over their heated bodies.
Now Kendall was staring down into the flames, her heart uncomfortably tight in her chest, sensing something wasn’t right and deeply troubled by her feelings.
He too was troubled for he had a task to perform that had kept him awake for three days straight, two bottles of Chrystallusian plum brandy and a glass close at hand. After he’d consumed the brandy and called for a third bottle, he’d passed out, coming to in a dimly lit seedy hotel room somewhere on Idimmu Prime with three men standing over him with stern expressions that had brooked no argument. Sobering up had been hell for he’d received no sympathy from the men. Now a week later, he’d had precious few hours of sleep but no brandy to dull the pain that was piercing his heart.
Standing up, he walked to the barn door—his fingers hooked on the doorjamb—and stood there with the rain pummeling him, hitting him savagely in the face. He welcomed the stinging for what he was about to do was tearing him apart.
* * * * *
1026 CMT
Kendall stood beside the TAOS unit and marveled at the movement of Quinn’s eyes beneath his closed lids. He was deep in REM sleep once again and whatever dreams he was experiencing were tormenting him. Now and then he would whimper and that was so unlike the man she’d known and loved, it added to her overpowering feeling that something was wrong with the whole scenario of the Phantom being taken down by the Amazeen. She looked around at Andrews.
“Open a channel to the Borstal,” she said. “I want to speak with the Riezell Guardian.”
Andrews’ eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious, Doc?”
“Just open the gods-be-damned channel!” Kendall barked, almost laughing at how much the order sounded like Quinn’s arrogant tone.
The imperious face that filled the Vid-Com screen stared back at Kendall with hostile but wary eyes. “Have you completed the outlaw’s treatment?” the Amazeen demanded.
“No,” Kendall said. “He’ll be here another couple of hours at least.”
Anxiety shot through the pale gray eyes of the Riezell Guardian. “Then why are you bothering me?”
“Come over here and see,” Kendall said then motioned for Andrews to sever the contact.
Parks let out a low whistle. “Man, Doc. You think she’ll do that?”
“I know she will,” Kendall said. She started out of sick bay. “Tell her to come to my quarters.”
“Ah, I don’t know that that’s such a good idea, Doc,” Andrews said. “I—”
“Just do it and don’t give me any shit, Andrews!” Kendall snapped at him.
Riding down to her quarters in the elevator, Kendall sensed the surge of power that signaled the transporter pad had been engaged. She smiled nastily, imagining the surprise on the crew’s faces as the Amazeen appeared.
“Doctor Bryne?” It was Captain Breen’s stern voice.
“Aye, Sir?” Kendall said. Although there were no Vid-Com screens in the elevators, there were speakers and she looked at the mesh grid as she spoke.
“I understand you invited Major Shanee Iphito to your quarters?”
“Aye, Sir, I did.”
There was a long pause then Breen warned her that he hoped she knew what she was doing.
“Sir?” Kendall called out before her commanding officer could break the connection.
“What?” Breen snapped.
“I will be putting my quarters on blackout status until I am finished with my conversation with the Amazeen so please don’t be alarmed if you can’t contact me.”
“She’ll make mincemeat of you, Bryne,” Breen said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
Munchkin looked up as her humanoid companion came in. Upon seeing no carton of milk, the Elfinish was not pleased and the sharp hiss, flounce of her hairless tail and a darting into the sleeping area was the feline’s way of showing her displeasure.
Kendall shrugged. She had more important things to take care of than her cat’s moodiness. She cast a quick look around and was satisfied her quarters were in no need of tidying. When the hard knock came at her door, she flung it open.
“Turn off your Vid-Com,” Kendall ordered her visitor. “What I have to say is between just the two of us.”
Shanee Iphito glanced about the room then reached up to turn off the link attached to the lapel of her Riezell Guardian uniform. “What is this about?” she snapped.
“How did he get hurt so badly?” Kendall asked, and watched the wariness in the Amazeen’s eyes turn to suspicion.
“I told Captain Jaborn—”
“I know what you told Jaborn,” Kendall interrupted her. “I want to know what really happened.”
Shanee lifted her chin. “Why don’t you ask my prisoner?”
Kendall walked over to her sofa and sat down, not bothering to invite her guest to do the same. She laid her arm on the back of the sofa. “Is he your prisoner or your lover?” she asked.
Munchkin padded out of the sleeping area and stood framed in the doorway. She was staring intently at the Amazeen, and when Shanee became aware of the Elfinish, the tall woman’s eyes lit up.
“An Elfinish!” she shrieked, and rushed over to kneel before the small feline. “Greetings, Worldly One!” she gushed.
Kendall’s mouth dropped open as the Amazeen bowed her head then held out her hand, palm up.
Munchkin lifted a paw and lightly tapped the woman’s palm then strolled past her. “You may rise, warrioress,” she said in passing, her tail straight up in the air, her nose held high. She padded over to the sofa and hopped up beside Kendall, perching as close to her humanoid companion as she could get. “You did not tell me the tall one was a woman of breeding and intelligence, humanoid,” she told Kendall.
Shanee stood and came over to sit on one of the chairs facing the sofa. Her eyes were no longer filled with hostility. “Any woman who has the companionship of an Elfinish and is allowed to converse with the Worldly One is worthy of my attention if not respect.”
“Whoopee,” Kendall said in a droll tone.
“Behave, humanoid,” Munchkin said. She turned her pink gaze to the guest. “You are a friend of the Phantom?”
Shanee nodded. “He and I are close friends,” she answered then smiled. “Very close.”
“What the hell do you mean by close?” Kendall asked, but the feline reached out to put a paw on Kendall’s thigh.
“Let me handle this, humanoid. You get too wound up at times while I—on the other hand—am quite levelheaded and less inclined to jump the gun, as they say.” She took her paw from Kendall’s leg. “Now, tall one. What is your humanoid name?”
“Princess Shanee, Worldly One,” the Amazeen replied.
“Oh goody,” Kendall said with a roll of her eyes. “An honest to goodness princess yet.”
Shanee raised her chin. “I am the daughter of Polemusa, the defense queen.”
“Well, ain’t that special?” Kendall mumbled.
“What are you to the Phantom?” Munchkin asked. She flicked her long, pointed ears. “And do not try to lie to me. You know it is impossible to do so without my knowing.”
The Amazeen inclined her head. “Never would I lie to an Elfinish.” She cut her eyes over to Kendall for a moment. “He is technically my prisoner now but—in the past—we have been lovers.”
“How far in the past?” Kendall growled.
Shanee’s gray gaze was lethal. “Two, three weeks, perhaps?”
Hurt like nothing she had ever experienced before lanced through Kendall’s soul. Though she had hardly expected Quinn to remain faithful to her when he threw her out, hearing proof that he had taken another woman to his bed, to his body was almost more than Kendall could stand. Though she hid it from her guest, her feline companion sensed the misery enveloping her humanoid and was not happy.
“Who did such damage to the Cengusian warrior?” Munchkin demanded. “Was it you?”
Shanee shook her head. “There are some things I can not reveal to you, Worldly One, even though I am sure you would not repeat what I would tell you. Some things are best left to the Goddess to reveal at a time She believes best.”
Munchkin inclined her regal head with its sharp ears and single tuff of hair that sat between those radar-like appendages. “As well it should be, Shanee.”
“If you don’t mind, I would like to check on my…” Shanee smiled. “My prisoner.” She stood up, cast Kendall a haughty look and then started for the door.
“By all means,” Munchkin agreed. “Run along, dear, and may the Wind be always at your back.”
Shanee bowed respectfully to the Elfinish then departed.
“Bitch,” Kendall pronounced when the door had closed. She reached up to rub at the headache that was once more throbbing in her temples.
Munchkin sighed dramatically, hopped down from the sofa, speaking over her shoulder as she padded into the bathing area. “You’d best turn the Vid-Com links back on and let them know you survived your visit with the tall one.”
“Aye,” Kendall said, and did as her companion ordered without thinking about what she was doing.
Coming back into the living area, the Elfinish dropped a meds bottle on the floor at Kendall’s feet. “Since the Goddess did not see fit to give me opposable thumbs I can’t open the bottle for you, but take two and lie down for a bit. Let Andrews know you’ll be down a few hours with the headache.”
Kendall was so depressed by what she’d learned from the Amazeen regarding her relationship to Quinn, she didn’t question that order either. She picked up the bottle, called up to the sick bay then shook out two pills and went into the galley for a glass of water.
“She slept with him, Munch,” she said, tears gathering.
“Aye, but there was about her admission a tiny bit of information she left out,” Munchkin stated as she hopped up on the chair the Amazeen had vacated and sniffed it thoroughly.
“What?” Kendall asked, listlessly as she tossed the pills into her mouth and swallowed them, washing them down with a long drink of tap water.
“A funny odor,” Munchkin observed. “One I can’t quite identify.”
“What did she leave out, Munch?” Kendall asked as she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the sofa, one arm crooked over her eyes.
Munchkin sniffed again. “Very strange,” she said then hopped down from the chair and jumped up onto the one beside it.
“Munch? Her less than forthcoming information?”
“Ah yes. The tall one failed to mention that on the evening she and the Phantom became lovers, he was quite the worse for having drunk far too much of something called brandy.”
Kendall lifted her arm, turned her head and looked at the feline. “He was drinking?”
“I believe the saying is he was drunk as a skunk,” Munchkin reported. “Whatever a skunk is.”
“Did she seduce him?” Kendall asked, hope rife in her voice.
“One gets that impression, aye,” the Elfinish replied. “Now close your eyes and let the medicine work.”
The pain pounding between her eyes, Kendall lowered her arm over her face once more and tried to relax. Just the thought of Quinn lying with the Amazeen was enough to make her want to scratch the other woman’s eyes out and pull every strand of her ugly white hair from her head.
“Stop obsessing and relax,” Munchkin ordered, intercepting her companion’s angry and hurt thoughts.
“He said I belong to him,” Kendall said. “And he goes and screws that walking mop.”
Munchkin shook her head, curled her front paws beneath her and stared at her humanoid, willing her companion to sleep. From past experience, she knew it was the only way Kendall would be rid of the terrible, crushing pain in her head.
“I hate him,” Kendall mumbled as the med began to take effect.
Munchkin yawned.
* * * * *
Kendall fell lightly into the dream. The tenerse had lulled her and given her a sense of peace as she found herself in the cottage in the Highlands. Rain was drumming against the tin roof and it was a pleasant sound though the cracks of lightning and the low rumble of the thunder made her a bit edgy.
He was soaking wet when he came walking across the yard from the barn. She was watching him at the window and hurried to open the door. The wind blew in a gust of cold spray as he scraped the soles of his boots on the porch step.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
Quinn leaned against the porch railing and tugged off his muddy boots, tossing them aside before crossing his arms in front of him, taking the tail of his shirt and peeling it over his head.
Kendall drew in a breath for the sight of his naked chest always did aching things to her lower body. With the wide expanse of shoulders, chiseled pecs set in a wiry thatch of curly black hair and rigidly defined abs, Rory Quinn was a prime specimen of maleness.
“The river is rising,” he said as his hands went to the buckle of his belt. “It will wash over the banks before morning.”
She licked her lips for he was unbuttoning the fly of his black jeans and pulling down the zipper. “Are we in any danger of being flooded?” she asked, her eyes on the dark tiger line of fine hair that delved from his deep bellybutton to the V of his pelvic bush.
“We’re too far up the slope,” he said, pushing the jeans down his corded thighs.
Heart pounding so loudly she could hear it in her ears, Kendall was filling with a need that had started the juices flowing between her legs. Quinn never wore underwear so what she saw when he kicked off his jeans was a cock that was half erect.
She lifted her gaze to his and found him staring at her with such vibrant passion, she took a step back.
“Come here, wench,” he said. He was standing there with his legs spread, the evidence of his need growing larger and harder as he reached a hand down to stroke it.
His hair was dripping water on the floor and there were beads of moisture all over his flesh. She went to him and knelt at his feet, putting her hands on his lean hips to lap at a droplet that was easing down his thigh.
She felt his hands in her hair and his touch was rougher than usual, more possessive. His fingers were tangled in her long red gold strands, massaging her scalp as she traced another drop down the inside of his thigh. If this were to be the last time for six months she would be with him, she wanted him to remember their lovemaking and dream of it until they could be together again.
Lightning flared outside the window as she took him into her mouth, swirling her tongue over the thick head of his rigid member. She traced the slit of the opening, stabbing down into the moistness and then suckled him deep into her throat until she heard him draw in a quick, excited breath. His fingers tensed in her hair as she slid her hands from his hips to cup his sac. She kneaded him gently with one hand while she used the other to search for that small indention between his anus and balls. Pressing firmly against that spot, she felt his cock jump as she mouthed him.
“Damn it, wench. Enough!” he said, and grabbed her upper arms to drag her away from him. His hands hard on her flesh, he pulled her brutally against him until he could slant his mouth across hers, his tongue thrusting deep. He took possession of her mouth with a kiss that was filled with such longing, such unbridled desire, Kendall could feel her blood singing in her veins. He lifted one leg and slammed it between her thighs so she was riding him, her feet leaving the floor, and tore his mouth from hers.
“I want you, Kendall,” he said through clenched teeth. “The gods help me but I have to have you!”
In the blink of an eye the dream changed and they were lying entangled on the floor, his body covering hers, his staff buried deep in her silken folds, her clothing vanished. Her legs were around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, her fingers digging into his back. He was thrusting into her with such savage strength she knew she’d be bruised come morning. His hands were beneath her ass, lifting her up so the penetration could be as deep and as hard as he could make it. There was no gentleness in his lovemaking, no soothing, knightly manners in his actions. He was a warrior filled with lust and his grunts as he pistoned each thrust into her softness gave evidence of his need to possess her completely, thoroughly, so that no other male would ever satisfy her.
She clung to him, sensing more than just the passion riding him. She could feel tremors in his body that—when she finally realized what they were—shocked her to her core. He was pumping into her violently and crying at the same time. When his climax came, he roared with the release and she looked up to see tears falling down his cheeks.
“Quinn?” she questioned.
He was gasping for breath, his cock still deep in her body. Slowly he lowered his head and when their eyes met she saw the terrible hurt, the sorrow that had been dredged up from his very soul.
“Baby, what is it?” she asked.
“Did you come?” he countered, his chest heaving. “Did you come, wench?”
She hated to tell him that she hadn’t so she nodded. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
One moment he was inside her, the next he was across the room, sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, his knees drawn up. “Your horse is saddled,” he said. “You’d best leave before it gets dark.”
Kendall sat up, her forehead crinkled with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I want you gone, wench!” he yelled at her. “As quickly as you can get your clothes on.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m tired of you,” he said in a hateful voice she had never heard him use before. His dark sapphire eyes were almost black with anger. “You’re nothing but a millstone around my neck, wench. I’m sick of you moaning about how we don’t spend enough time together.” He plowed a deeply tanned hand through his black curls. “Hell, I’ve a job to do. I don’t have time to play lift-the-skirts with you every day I get off from this fucking mission that never seems to end!”
She could do nothing but stare at him as lightning cracked, thunder rolled and the rain pounded relentlessly against the roof. Unable to believe he would send her out in weather such as that was more than she could comprehend.
“You don’t mean that,” she said, coming to her knees. She reached for her blouse, bringing it to her bare breasts.
“What part of I don’t want you here do you not understand, bitch?” he shouted.
Kendall was trembling so violently she could barely stand. He was glaring at her with such hatred, such anger, she felt it like a slap in the face.
As dreams went, it became a living nightmare in the flash of a fiery stitching down from the heavens. In slow motion, Kendall relived it—as she would over and over again for many years. She watched him shoot to his feet and stalk over to her, grabbing her upper arm in a cruel, vicious grip that made her cry out.
“Get your ass out of here, woman!” he shouted into her face. “I’ve no more use for you!”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. She was dragging in hitches of breath, her hands trembling with emotion. She held a hand out to him. “Quinn, why?”
He knocked her hand away. “Because I’ve found a new woman and she’s twice the whore you are in bed,” he said viciously, shoving her away from him. “Now get the hell out!”
Once more the dream changed and she was on her horse, the rain pouring down upon her as she lashed her mount, racing him recklessly through the forest and down the mountainside. She didn’t care about the lightning zapping to the ground around her. A part of her wanted it to hit her, to wipe away the agony of spirit that was mixing her tears with the pummeling rain.
“You’re a son of a bitch,” Kendall told Quinn.
He opened his eyes to look at her. “You’re just now discovering that, wench?” he asked.
“You were crying in your sleep, you bastard,” she threw at him. “Did you know that?”
His face shut down. “My knees were hurting. Did you know that?”
“Your knees are mended, Phantom,” she told him. “There shouldn’t be any pain now.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Were you dreaming about that last day at the cottage in the Highlands?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at her.
“I think you were. I think you were dreaming about throwing me away like an old pair of worn-out boots so you could slide into another, tighter pair!”
“Why are you bringing that up now, wench?” he asked.
“I belong to you,” she said. “Isn’t that what you said?”
“Aye, you do,” he said through clenched teeth.
“You know for a man who is looking at a very horrific death, you seem awfully composed to me,” she said. “Doesn’t he to you, Parks?”
Parks shrugged, obviously not wanting to get involved in the discussion.
“And you seem very anxious to get back over to the Borstal.” Kendall tilted her head to one side. “Are you really that restless wanting to be slapped into a cell?”
“You don’t think I’m in a cell right now, wench?” the Phantom countered. “I’m strapped to this hellish thing to where I can’t move. I’m getting claustrophobic here!”
“Uh-huh,” she said then turned her attention to Parks. “Is the TAOS gearing down?”
“It’s doing one last diagnostic scan of Captain Quinn to make sure everything is all right,” Parks replied.
“Okey-dokey then. When the machine’s done with its evaluation, unstrap him and make sure he stays here at least another hour or two before you alert the Amazeen to come fetch him. He may want something to eat before she comes to get him,” she said, heading for the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Quinn snapped.
“I’ve a late luncheon engagement,” she said, not even looking around or missing a step. “Tell Parks what you’d like to eat and he’ll supply it.”
“I’ve got questions for you, wench!” the Phantom yelled after her.
“Parks can answer them.”
Quinn was so frustrated he was breathing heavily. He had things he wanted to talk with her about. He glared up at Parks as the med tech lifted the dome of the TAOS and began unbuckling the restraints on Quinn’s right arm.
“How the hell often does she eat with Innis?” he demanded, snatching his arm up and flexing his fingers. He was on a fishing expedition and held his breath waiting for the reply.
Parks signed wearily. “Milord, I told you I can’t answer any questions about Doc’s private life. She doesn’t make me privy to such information. What she and Counselor Innis do—”
“Gods-be-damned warthog son of a diseased bitch!” Quinn seethed. “They washed him out of the Academy then some idjut had the bright idea to send him over to the Fleet Metaphysical Division.”
Parks’ lips twitched as he unbuckled the restraint on his patient’s right leg. “Milord, please lie still until I get all the restraints undone.”
Quinn was flexing his fingers, balling them into a fist and releasing them. “Innis is about as qualified to help someone with their mental problems as I am to knit a sweater. All he knows how to do is help himself to another man’s woman!”
Andrews looked up from the med cart he was restocking and met Parks’ gaze. Andrews cocked a brow then bit his lips to keep from laughing.
“I ought to carve my initials on that asshole’s forehead,” Quinn murmured.
Parks was unbuckling the Phantom’s right leg. “When I get the restraints undone, Milord, just lie there for a few moments before you try to sit up.”
Totally ignoring the med tech as soon as his left hand was free, Quinn sat up and swung his legs off the sled. When he did, his eyes widened and Parks had to grab him before he could tumble face first from the sled. Parks helped him to lie back down.
“You’ve been lying down approximately twenty-four hours, Milord,” Parks reminded him, “in complete restraint. Just lie quietly until your body adjusts.”
“Where are her quarters?” Quinn demanded. “On what deck?”
“Three,” Parks answered then frowned. “Why, Milord?”
“I’m hungry,” the Phantom stated. “Didn’t she say I could eat?”
“What would you like, Milord?” Andrews inquired.
“To walk to the galley and pick out what I want,” Quinn growled.
“Ain’t going to happen, Sir,” Andrews denied. “I don’t think the ‘bots would allow it even if I did.”
Quinn turned his head and looked at the cybots then let out a string of curses in Cengusian. He pivoted his right ankle and winced. “Damned knee still hurts,” he complained.
Parks frowned. “It shouldn’t.” He checked the final diagnostic but everything appeared normal. “Maybe it’s just the muscle complaining from being in a rigid position for so long, Milord.”
The Phantom grunted. He was lying there mentally twiddling his thumbs, his eyes narrowed, a muscle working in his jaw. “Roast bovine,” he said. “Rice with gravy. Green beans with potatoes, a carafe of Chrystallusian tea and bread.”
“I’ll get right on it, Milord,” Andrews declared.
“What about Breen?” Quinn asked.
Parks glanced over at him. “What about him, Milord?”
“How often do they have meals together?”
The med tech rolled his eyes. “Every night, I believe, and twice on Dé Domhnach,” he lied.
The Phantom lifted his head and stared over at Parks. “You’ve got to be kidding! That often?”
“Sir,” Parks said, releasing a long breath. “I don’t have any notion how Doc spends her off time. Will you please stop asking me?”
Narrowing his eyes dangerously, Quinn lowered his head to the soft pillow Parks had provided for him now that he was no longer lashed to the sled. “I need to walk around,” he complained.
“I’d rather you not do that until the doc has a chance to look you over since you’re complaining about your knee hurting,” Parks said. He came over to hand Quinn a pair of loose white pajama bottoms.
“She knows every gods-be-damned inch of my body already,” Quinn stated, “and then some.”
Parks blushed. “All the same, Milord. Let’s wait until she comes back.”
“She thinks she’s going to get rid of me but she’s sorely mistaken,” the Phantom muttered. “What time is it anyway?”
Parks glanced up at the Coalition Mean Time clock. “1610, Sir.”
“How long does it take the woman to eat?”
“She’s been gone less than an hour, Milord,” Parks said.
Quinn said something under his breath then eased himself into a sitting position. He wasn’t going to take another chance of falling off the sled this time. Gingerly, he swung his legs over the side. “Damn,” he snarled. “It still hurts.” He tried lifting his right leg, the strain of the movement showing on his face. He grumbled as he struggled to get the pajama bottoms on.
“I don’t understand that,” Parks said, and once more he looked over the TAOS diagnostics.
With a loud explosion of breath, Quinn pulled his legs back up on the sled and stretched out again. “What if I’m crippled for life?” he asked.
Andrews came back in with Quinn’s supper. “Captain Jaborn is having a fit wanting to know when we can send Captain Quinn back over to the Borstal.” He came to stand beside the TAOS unit. “Sir, would you like me to put this on my desk for you?”
“You going to carry me over there?” Quinn snapped.
All three men jumped as one of the ‘bots came thumping toward them. Parks and Andrews moved back, their eyes wide as the cybot advanced on Quinn then slid its massive arms under the Phantom’s back and legs and lifted him carefully, stepping back then turning toward the desk Andrews had indicated.
“My gods-be-damned knee hurts like hell, Primä One,” Quinn complained.
“S’doogh lhiam, Chiarn Scaan,” the cybot replied again.
“It should be sorry for doing all that damage to you,” Kendall said from the doorway.
With infinite care, the ‘bot lowered Quinn to the chair beside the desk then straightened up and moved back to where it had been standing, taking up position beside its companion.
“Did you enjoy your fucking meal?” Quinn hissed.
“That comes later this evening,” Kendall replied, turning to Parks. “Why did he make such a face when the ‘bot lifted him up?”
“He says his right knee is still bothering him.”
Delving into his food, the Phantom ignored Kendall as she came to stand beside the desk.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked.
He looked up, vigorously chewing a slab of roast meat. “When your knee hurts you, wench, where does it usually hurt you? In your sweetly turned-up ass or in the middle of your shapely little leg?” He grinned around the mouthful of food.
Kendall walked over to the TAOS. “Show me the final diagnostic scan of his leg.”
Parks pulled the scan up on the screen. “I can’t see where anything could be hurting him.”
Neither could Kendall but she didn’t reveal her thoughts. “When he’s through eating, have the ‘bot put him back on the sled and let’s just wait until morning to send him back to the Borstal.”
“Captain Jaborn isn’t going to be happy,” Andrews said.
“I imagine not, but that’s what’s going to happen,” Kendall said. She started out of the sick bay again.
“Where are you going now?” Quinn demanded.
Kendall looked pointedly at her wristwatch. “I’m going to go back to my quarters and…” She snapped her fingers. “I need some milk!” Without another word she hurried from the room.
“What the hell do you need milk for, wench?” her patient shouted after her.
“She has an Elfinish, Milord,” Andrews explained.
Quinn stabbed angrily at a green bean. “Those have to be the ugliest felines in the megaverse,” he said.
“Munchkin is rather homely but she’s good company for the doc. I hear they carry on long conversations.”
The Phantom’s head shot up. “She talks to Kendall?”
“I believe so, Milord.”
Methodically pulverizing the green beans in his mouth, Quinn thought about that for a moment then nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, that’s how she knows things I didn’t tell her,” he said. “Elfinish can do astral projection. That cat came sneaking in here while I was dreaming.”
Andrews and Parks were finalizing the remainder of their duties in preparation for the shift change that would relieve them after their thirty-six-hour rotation. The med techs looked at one another but made no comment to the Phantom’s statement.
Finishing up the last of his rice and gravy, Quinn looked over at Primä One. “I need to piss, ‘bot,” he said.
Primä One engaged and came over to pick Quinn up. He held him until Andrews pointed at the door to the facility. The ‘bot carried Quinn over there as Parks hurried over to open the door. Unable to get its wide chassis through the restroom door, the ‘bot gently lowered Quinn to his feet and stood blocking the opening as the Phantom hobbled over to the urinal.
“There must be ligament damage the TAOS isn’t picking up,” Andrews commented.
After washing his hands, Quinn limped back to the ‘bot and Primä One lifted him up again and took him back to the unit. With great care, the ‘bot lowered the Phantom to the sled, stepped back until it was alongside Primä Two.
“Do you want something for the pain, Milord?” Andrews inquired, watching Quinn wincing as he tried to get comfortable on the sled.
“No. I’d best not get used to it, I guess. I don’t think they’ll offer it to me at the Coalition Prison, do you?”
Andrews shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so, Milord.”
Giles Walker and Tomas Vander Mere came in to take over the duties of med tech for the next thirty-six hours. The two Viragonians glanced curiously at Quinn and nodded politely to him as Parks introduced them.
“He’s unable to get about without the help of the ‘bots,” Andrews informed his replacement Walker. “But he doesn’t want any pain meds.”
“What I’d like is to get some real sleep for a change,” Quinn said, staring intently into Walker’s eyes then Andrews’.
Walker smiled. “We’ll turn off the lights in here and work in the other part of the sick bay, Milord.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Quinn said, closing his eyes.
“The ‘bots have been programmed to keep a close watch on him, so you don’t have to worry about checking on him unless he calls out to you,” Andrews said.
“Okay,” Walker said, and all four men left the diagnostic treatment room, lowering the lights as they went.
Quinn smiled. It was an easy thing for him to influence the minds of others with a steady stare. He’d been doing it since he was a toddler. The only person he couldn’t bend to his bidding was Kendall and he knew precisely why that was—she was his Chosen Mate, picked for him by the Fates long before either of them had been gleams in their fathers’ eyes. To counteract not being able to manipulate her, he’d been given the hateful ability to hurt her deeply at times. It wasn’t a trade-off he liked, but one he had been given whether he wanted it or not.
He lay there in the semi-darkness and waited until the CMT clock on the wall told him it was 2100. The majority of the crew of the Sláinte would be in their quarters, settling in for the night with only a skeleton staff keeping watch. With the expertise of a man who had performed the task many, many times, the physical body of Rory Sean Quinn slowly began to disappear, leaving behind only a faint aura that—should someone look in upon the sleeping patient—would convince an untrained eye that the Phantom was still abed.
Slipping unseen past a few crewmen walking about the corridors, Quinn eased into the elevator behind two women who were discussing one of the engineers’ abilities in the sack. It was easier for him than flowing into the elevator shaft and making his way down to her deck. Listening to the women, he was amazed at what they were saying. If he’d had corporal shape, he knew his face would be beet red by the time the elevator doors opened on the women’s deck.
He had to go back up two decks to the one on which he’d been told Kendall resided. He had forgotten to ask what the number to her room was, but he knew he’d be able to find her by the psychic link he had forged with her long ago. Strolling down the corridor until the scent of her was strong in his nostrils, he realized hers was not the only scent behind the closed door. For a long moment he stood there sniffing until his eyes hardened to sapphire chips of ice.
Munchkin didn’t like the man who smelled heavily of garlic because she didn’t like the stench of the pungent plant that seemed to cling to him. She was perched on the solitary barstool—well away from the garlic man and her companion who were sitting on the sofa. Thus it was that Munchkin noticed the tiny spiral of smoke that issued from beneath the door to her humanoid’s quarters and she sat up, her pointed ears twitching as the smoke drifted in a slowly spinning twist along the floor and up the leg of the chair in which the Amazeen had sat. She turned her sparsely coiffed head to see if either her humanoid or the garlic man had witnessed the arrival of the Phantom but those two weren’t looking that way.
Yawning hugely, the Elfinish jumped down from the barstool and padded over to the chair in which the smoke had settled. Without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped into the chair and settled herself on the invisible lap of a man whose ethereal body was rigid and fairly quivering with anger. She began to purr loudly when strong, unseen fingers smoothed over her patchy fur.
Gerraint Innis turned his head and looked at the feline. “Munch seems quite content tonight,” he observed.
Kendall glanced at her cat and was about to look away when the Elfinish arched her back end into the air and swished her tail. Peering closer, she noticed the feline was looking back at her with a smug grin on her puckish face. In that moment she knew she had an unseen visitor in her quarters. She turned her head away.
“I really enjoyed supper tonight,” Kendall said.
“It’s always a pleasure to accompany you,” Innis said. He reached out to take Kendall’s hand in his. “You know I’m always here for you, Lhiannan.”
Innis might not have heard the low growl, but Kendall did. She was acutely tuned to the vibrations that were rocketing through the room and she didn’t need to check the thermostat to know the temperature had dropped at least five degrees and would continue to drop until she escorted Innis out.
“Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed our evening together,” Kendall said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to call an end to it. I hate to admit it, but I’m beat.”
“Of course you are!” Innis agreed. He brought her hand to his lips, and when he did, the temperature fell another five degrees. He frowned. “Am I imagining things or is it getting colder in here?”
“I have the thermostat set to lower when I go to bed,” she lied.
Innis looked into her eyes. “I would be very happy to keep you warm if you need me to.”
This time the growl was low, menacing and rife with promise, and though he hadn’t heard it, the counselor sensed it and he looked around, searching for the source of the uneasy feeling that had made the hair on his arms stand up.
Kendall got to her feet, pulling her hand from his grip. “I’m really tired, Gerry. I just can’t seem to keep my eyes open.” She walked to the door and opened it. “Thank you again for a wonderful evening.”
Innis reluctantly followed her to the door. He reached for her but she stepped back, smiling at him, but making it clear with her body posture that she was not in the mood for any amorous advances. He had to settle for cupping her cheek. “Sweet dreams,” he said.
“From your mouth to Alel’s ear,” she replied. She put a hand to his shoulder and urged him out the door.
Munchkin continued to purr as she watched the garlic man say goodnight to Kendall. The invisible hands stroking her fur were sure and gentle and smelled heavenly of some spicy scent that was very pleasing to the Elfinish’s Jacobson’s organ in the roof of her mouth. It wasn’t catnip, but it was definitely arousing.
Kendall shut the door and turned around. She leaned her back against the portal, crossed her arms and waited for her visitor to materialize. She didn’t have long to wait.
“You’d best tell him to stand aside, wench, or by the gods, he’s a dead man,” Quinn said as he appeared.
The Phantom was sitting with his right ankle braced on the knee of his left leg. Munchkin was perched on his right thigh, her front paws curled delicately beneath her chest and he was stroking her from neck to tail in a slow, sensual way that made Kendall’s womb clench. Quinn’s chest and feet were bare but he was wearing a pair of sick bay pajamas.
It never failed to amaze Kendall how he could redistribute molecules in such a way neither he nor his clothing could be seen by others when he went into Scaan mode. She had always been in awe of that talent. Nevertheless, she frowned at him.
“Well now,” Kendall said. “It looks like your knee is all healed.”
His slow, infuriating grin made her want to heave herself at him and slap his handsome face. The dark blue of his eyes glittered. “Miracles do happen,” he agreed.
She nudged her chin toward the Vid-Com. “I’ve turned it off and have the quarters under blackout. Nothing we say will go any further than this room.”
Quinn nodded. “I know.”
“Then tell me what’s going on or by the gods, I’ll call Jaborn and have them come get you.”
“No you won’t,” he said softly. He held her stare.
Kendall let out an exasperated breath of air. “Are you that sure of me, Quinn?”
“I hurt you,” he admitted. “And for that I am sorry.”
“You tore the heart out of me,” she said, her gaze filling with moisture.
Munchkin jumped down and padded quietly from the room.
He didn’t say anything for a long while. His fingers were twined together in his lap, his gaze steady on her angry face. At last he looked down at his hands. “You asked why I was sending you away that day. Why I was pushing you out of my life.”
“Oh I know why,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, you don’t.” His voice was soft and filled with sorrow. He looked up. “You have no idea how hard it was for me to say those things to you, to deliberately hurt you the way I did. I…” He had to swallow before he could continue. “I still see your face in my dreams. I see the tears falling down your cheeks. I hear you sobbing and the last thing I hear is the slamming of the door when you left.”
“But you didn’t come after me,” she accused.
“I couldn’t.”
She moved away from the door to sit on the sofa. There were only a few feet separating them, but to her it felt like miles. She ached to go to him, to cast aside her pride, her self-respect, her self-worth. All she wanted was to feel his arms around her, the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek.
“Why, Quinn?” she asked.
“I was away for those six months, Lhiannan. I spent those six months and four others on Hell-Twelve,” he told her.
Kendall put a hand to her breast. “You were in prison?”
“I knew where I was being sent that day at the cottage. I wasn’t about to tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about me. I knew there wasn’t any way I could protect you with me in prison, and if I didn’t make it out of there, I didn’t want you grieving for me.”
“Grieving for you?” she asked, her voice incredulous. “I spent two years grieving over what you’d said to me! I spent the first year trying to understand what it was that I’d done to make you turn away from me.”
“You hadn’t done anything,” he said.
“But you made me think I had!” she threw at him. “You made me believe I was being cast aside for a newer model!”
“I had a job to do, Lhiannan,” he said. “If I didn’t survive the assignment, at least you wouldn’t have been sitting somewhere waiting for me to come back to you. They told me to break it off with you and when—”
“Who told you?” she shouted. Her eyes were flashing fire.
“The Burgon, my king and Gabriel Leveche.”
“Oh!” she said, flinging out a dismissive hand. “Three powerful men all got together to tell you to break up with me. How convenient for you, Phantom!”
“Will you just listen to me?” he asked, holding out a hand to her, palm up. “I’m trying to explain why I did what I did. I didn’t have a choice, Kendall.”
Kendall thought about Quinn’s dream that Munchkin had related to her concerning three men. “Your mate did not want to do something the powerful ones wanted him to but he was given no choice in the matter.”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s just say I believe you. Three very important men wanted me out of your life—”
“Temporarily,” he stated emphatically. “It was only to be until the assignment had been completed.”
“And has the assignment been completed, Quinn?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet, but I’m close.”
“To what?” she questioned. “Being hanged, drawn and quartered in the High Council Courtyard?”
“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I’m not going to allow it to happen. The Burgon won’t let it happen.”
“So you’re working with the Amazeen,” she said. “You’re not her prisoner.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you are her lover,” she accused.
Quinn winced. “I was drunk and it was just the one time, Kendall. I wasn’t aware of what was going on until I woke up in her bed the next morning. The Amazeen have something they call θερινό κρασί. They give it to their captured males. It’s supposed to control them, to keep them docile and make them horny as hell.” He plowed a hand through his dark hair. “I told her if she ever did that again, I’d strangle her.”
“So since you threatened her, she sicced the ‘bots on you.”
His forehead creased. “What?” When he realized what she meant, he shook his head. “No, Kendall, no. She had nothing to do with what happened.”
“Then who did?”
“Will you just let me tell you without the third degree?” he asked.
Kendall draped an arm over the back of the sofa. “So tell me.”
He got up from the chair and began pacing. There wasn’t the slightest sign of a limp as he walked. “You know who my father is.”
“King Kelton of Cengus,” she supplied.
“I’m the oldest of his illegitimate sons,” he reminded her. “There are nine younger than me, no sisters, by the way. As for his legitimate children, he has four sons and two daughters. The oldest son is Aleyn.”
“A randy man is King Kelton,” she remarked.
He cast her a look then continued to pace. “When the Coalition invaded Cengus, they rounded up all of the royal bastards except me and shipped them off to Amerigen. It’s a minimum-security prison but it’s well-guarded. No one gets in or out without Coalition knowledge.”
“Where were you?”
“I was making good use of my cover as a privateer by raiding Coalition merchant ships, so when Cengus was overrun by Coalition troops, I was near Stori.”
“What do you mean your cover?” she asked. “That was what you were assigned to do, wasn’t it? Raid merchant ships?”
“Among other things,” he said. “I did whatever the Burgon told me to.”
When he was excited or tired, his brogue thickened. He had stalked into the galley and was pouring himself a glass of water.
“So your brothers were jailed on Amerigen,” she coaxed. “Royal sons too?”
“No,” he said. “Three of the princes were too young to be of any threat to the Coalition and the girls were easily intimidated by the threat of being sent off to Galrath.” He downed the glass of water and poured another. “That left Aleyn and the Coalition had plans for him.”
“He is the crown prince?”
“Aye.”
“Go on.”
He was back to pacing. “To ensure my father did what the Coalition wanted him to and caused no trouble, the invaders took Aleyn into custody as a hostage. No one knew where they sent him, but we received word he was on Hell-Twelve.”
“And that’s why you were there,” she said.
He nodded. “But when I got there, he’d been moved. I learned he was on one of the penal transports.” He raked his hand through his hair again. “It was a hell of a lot easier getting into Hell-Twelve than getting out. It took longer than anyone could have imagined. By the time I escaped, Aleyn had been moved several more times.”
“The Coalition knew you were after him?”
“They knew someone was after him. It was imperative we get him back. As it was, the Burgon was concerned Aleyn would have been indoctrinated, his mind bent toward the Coalition. That may have happened for all we know.”
“Where does the Amazeen come in in all this?” she asked.
“Shanee is the daughter of the Amazeen defense queen. She volunteered to help the Alliance for the Amazeen have little love for the Coalition.”
“Yet she’s a Riezell Guardian,” Kendall said. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t even want to know how she accomplished that, but however she managed to do it, she has the respect of General Morrison and his new head of Fleet Command Louis Sturgeon. She rose up quickly through the ranks and is vying for Prime along with two other women.”
“And if she were to bring you in, she’d get that promotion hands down, wouldn’t she?” Kendall ground out.
“She wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
He stopped moving and met her gaze. “Because she is in love with me.”
“Oh,” Kendall snorted.
He waited for her to say something else and when she didn’t, he finished off the glass of water in his hand and put the glass on the end table. “We learned Aleyn was on the Borstal and that it was docked on Cengus taking on supplies. It was decided that I would suddenly show up in the Highlands of my home world and Shanee would capture me, take me to the Borstal.”
“Whose bright idea was that?”
“Mine,” he said, not seeing her roll her eyes. “Anyway, I had the Lhong Shee drop me near Grian Lostee. Paton contacted Shanee…”
“You told me you didn’t know where you were,” she reminded him.
“I lied,” he admitted.
“You?” she asked.
He waved a dismissive hand at her sarcastic tone. “Shanee flew over, dropped the two ‘bots for them to capture me. Everything was going according to plans until Primä One tripped.”
Kendall’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“It was behind me,” he said. “Shanee was getting my capture on Vid so it would look as though I really was being run to ground. I was sliding down a rocky incline with the ‘bots behind me. Primä One is normally sure-footed but it must have hit a loose patch of scree for the next thing I know it’s plowing into me and we’re falling, rolling and skidding down the incline, its chassis slamming into me with every roll. I tried to stop the skid and pulverized my palms in the process, taking the damned skin off them. I could feel the shale digging into my thighs and belly. I heard several of my fingers break as I struggled to get a grip on a boulder or something to impede the slide and felt every fingernail that popped back.”
“Oh, Quinn,” she said, her eyes wide.
“When we landed, I was on my back and Primä One was stretched out atop me. I knew I had broken bones. My jaw was slung to one side and my entire insides felt like they had been squished. It sensed my pain and scrambled to its feet. The only problem was, its knees were on my knees, and when it pushed itself up, he pulverized my knees.” He sat down in the chair. “The last thing I remember doing is screaming. When I came to, I was here.”
“You were brought over to the Sláinte from the Borstal so at some point she had to have transferred you to the penal transport,” Kendall said.
He nodded. “Aye, she did. When she brought me and the ‘bots up onto her ship, she knew I was going to need immediate medical care. She contacted the Borstal and the Borstal contacted you.”
“After the Coalition announced your capture,” Kendall snapped.
“I don’t know. Shanee kept slipping me pain meds every time I opened my eyes.”
“You’re lucky we were close. Another Coalition ship could have picked you up and taken you the gods only know where,” she said. “At least the Lhong Shee is off our starboard side.”
He stared at her. “How do you know that?”
“I told her,” Munchkin said as she ambled through the room and went into the galley for a lap of water.
“You saw the ship?” he asked.
“I saw it in your mind,” the Elfinish replied. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “I saw a lot of things in your mind, Phantom.”
Quinn blushed. “And told Kendall all of it, didn’t you?”
“Not all of it,” Munchkin replied. “Now get on with your tale. This is fascinating.”
“So the crown prince is on the Borstal?” Kendall inquired.
“Shanee found him while you had me stuck in that torture chamber,” he grumbled.
Kendall rolled her eyes. “The TAOS isn’t a torture chamber and be thankful we had it or else you might still be crippled.”
“I didn’t appreciate being confined like that, Lhiannan, and to me, it was nothing but sheer torture.”
“Ergo,” Munchkin said, “to him it was a torture chamber.”
Quinn exchanged a grin with the Elfinish. “Thank you, Worldly One,” he said.
“You’re in contact with the walking mop through the ‘bots,” Kendall said, drawing his attention back to her. “That makes sense.”
“Walking mop?” Quinn queried.
“The Amazeen,” the feline told Quinn then looked at Kendall. “And it also explains why the ‘bot apologized to him, Kenni.”
“So once you’re back on the Borstal, you’ll rescue the crown prince—your brother—and transport him over to the Lhong Shee and you’re off to where? Aduaidh Prime?”
“Even though the war is over and the treaties have been signed, Cengus is still under Coalition control. Until Aleyn is safe, the king doesn’t dare try to make them leave Cengus. The Coalition wants to keep a base in the Idimmu Galaxy and as long as they have possession of the crown prince, they can get away with it.”
“But if they have no leverage, they’ll be forced to leave Cengus,” Kendall observed. She looked at him. “But there’s still the matter of a warrant out for your arrest. You will still be an outlaw. Nothing changes that, Quinn.”
“The Burgon has plans for me,” the Phantom said. “For making me do what had to be done that day at the cottage, he will ensure my safety and yours.”
“My safety?” she questioned. “What are you talking about?”
“When I have Aleyn safely under my protection, the Burgon has agreed to allow me to retire from service. He’ll send the two of us—”
“The three of us,” Munchkin corrected.
Quinn smiled. “The three of us somewhere where we won’t have to worry about Coalition bounty hunters.”
“And where in this megaverse would that be?” Kendall snapped.
“On Theristes,” he replied. “With the Reapers.”
Before Kendall could comment, there was a heavy knock at her door. She jumped, her head swiveling toward Quinn, but he was already fading from sight. Her heart pounding, she got up and hurried to the door, opening it just as Captain Breen was getting ready to knock again.
“Your Vid-Com is down,” he accused. “Didn’t you turn it back on after the Amazeen’s visit?” he asked, plowing past her.
“Aye, but I turned it off again for personal reasons. Sorry,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Turn on the Vid-Com and you’ll find out!” her captain snarled.
Although Kendall couldn’t see him, she knew Quinn was still in the room. She could sense him and Munchkin was staring at what appeared to be a blank wall.
Walking over to the Vid-Com controls, Kendall turned the unit back on and as soon as the screen came up, she gasped, her eyes going wide.
“It’s a Class 9 StarDestroyer from Riezell,” the captain grated. “It’s here to pick up your patient.”
The warship was massive with quad banks of plasma cannons that looked like the maws of ferocious prehistoric dinosaurs. With a wingspan that took up the entire viewing screen of the Vid-Com, the steel gray ship was sitting there giving all who saw it chills. Running lights arched across the elevated bridge, and beneath the belly of the gargantuan vessel were two Delta Division SubCruisers that had accompanied it as escorts.
“Morrison himself is on the Raptor. I had no choice but to invite him to be our guest but thank the gods he declined. He demanded we turn Quinn over to him immediately but I explained the man was still critical.”
Kendall slowly turned her head toward her captain. “You did what?”
Breen raised his head. “I was a friend of Rory Quinn’s before I was a warrior of the Coalition. Quinn may be a son of a bitch but he doesn’t deserve what the Riezell Conclave has planned for him. To even consider allowing Morrison to take him makes my blood boil. How the hell he ever managed to get himself caught…” He took a deep breath then blew it out through his teeth. “I can’t let the fool be turned into a cow patty. I have an urgent message in to both the Burgon and King Gabriel of Stori as well as King Ruan. One of them has to get back with me.”
“What did General Morrison say when you told him Quinn wasn’t able to be transported?” she asked, nervously twisting her hands. She wished she could tell him the Lhong Shee was close by—cloaked—and waiting her captain’s arrival.
“He gave us until 0900 tomorrow morning to turn Quinn over or he will send guards to fetch him. We’ve got…” He looked down at his watch. “We’ve got a little over eleven hours to think of something if I don’t hear back from the Burgon or the others.”
“You’re protecting him even though you know he’s an outlaw?” she asked, her respect for Breen growing as she saw him nod.
“Aye, I intend to.” He glanced at the Vid-Screen. “I’m going back to the bridge. Perhaps you should let Quinn know what’s happening.”
“I will,” she said, walking with the captain to the door. “Thank you, Sir.”
Breen cocked a shoulder. “I haven’t done anything yet, Doc, but I don’t intend to hand him over without doing everything I can to protect him. We may no longer be friends and he may hate my guts but I can’t just stand by and watch him meet the fate the R.C. have planned for him.”
As she closed the door behind her captain, she felt hands on her shoulders. She laid her head against the door. “You need to get back to sick bay and contact the Amazeen. She probably has to stuff tissue in her ears to keep the steam from spurting out.”
He pulled her back against him. “Not until we settle this between us, Lhiannan.”
She turned in his arms, slipping her hands around his waist and pressing the side of her face to his broad chest. “It is settled, Quinn. I knew there had to be an explanation for what you did that day at the cottage.”
“You forgive me then?” he asked softly.
“No, and I may never be able to forgive you. I know gods-be-damned well I’ll never forget what you did, but we can discuss it all later when there isn’t a StarDestroyer perched outside our window.”
“I did what I was ordered to do, Kenni,” he said. “I did what I thought was best for you.”
She smiled sadly. “Go back to the sick bay and find out where the crown prince is. If you need Captain Breen’s help, he’ll give it to you.”
“Aye, I believe he will, but what of Jaborn?”
“They are good friends, I think. My guess is Jaborn doesn’t know he has Prince Aleyn onboard his ship.”
“I don’t think he does either,” Quinn agreed. He crooked his finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up. “Just tell me you don’t hate me, Lhiannan.”
“I’ve never hated you, Phantom,” she said. “I just don’t like you very much right now.”
He smiled slowly. “How can I change your opinion of me, wench?”
“I don’t know that you can.”
Quinn lowered his lips to hers and gently kissed the sides of her mouth, her chin, the tip of her nose. He fused his gaze with hers. “You are my heart,” he said. “I merely existed until you came into my life. I was born in your eyes. When I could no longer see myself in those beautiful eyes, I was a lost and lonely man. All I did, I did so we could be together without the fear of looking over our shoulder every minute. The Burgon, Leveche, Cosaint, my father—they all promised me that I will not have done all this for nothing.”
His breath was warm and sweet across her face. He was looking at her with such longing, such passion and need, she felt it all the way to her toes. She ached for him. Her body yearned to feel his pressed down upon it. The juices of her sheath flowed with the memory of his fingers, his cock buried deep within her.
“It was hell for me, Kendall,” he said. “I stayed drunk a good deal of the time just so I could get through another day without you. Even on Hell-Twelve and sweltering in the sun breaking rocks twenty hours out of the day, I could not get you out of my mind. I kept hearing you cry and—”
She brought her hand up and laid her fingertips across his lips. “Don’t,” she said. “What was done is done, and it’s over now.”
He took her hand in his. “Not until you and I are back as we were before that day at the cottage,” he said. “I want our lives to be as they were.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, Quinn,” she said.
Moisture glistened in his eyes. “Can’t we at least try?”
“Oh we’ll try, Phantom,” she said. “We will definitely try.”
Munchkin was sitting in the doorway of the sleeping quarters. The Elfinish was very interested in what was going on over by the outside portal. Scents reached her and she sniffed, skinning her lips back to better draw in the strange smells. One smell was male and it oozed from the handsome humanoid male. The other smell was entirely female and it was hot and musky, signaling the humanoid female’s eagerness to mate.
Stretching out on the floor, the feline watched the two humanoids as they embraced. Their mouths were pressed together, slanted across one another in a very unsanitary fashion as far as Munchkin was concerned. She sniffed—disdainfully this time—but kept watching, eager to know how humanoids engaged in mating.
The handsome one dipped his knees and slid his arms under Kendall’s legs and back and lifted her. He carried her to the sofa, laid her down and covered her body with his. Once more their mouths locked as the female threaded her fingers through the male’s thick crop of black curls.
“Exchanging spittle is disgusting. Think of the germs you are giving one another,” Munchkin informed them, but they either didn’t hear her or were ignoring her.
The Elfinish’s pink gaze took in the male pushing up Kendall’s tunic and lifting her teat from the lacy thing that she insisted on strapping it in. She saw him cover the nipple with his mouth and begin to suckle.
“You have milk you didn’t tell me about?” she demanded of Kendall.
Annoyed with her humanoid companion, Munchkin decided she wanted to know what the milk would taste like so she closed her eyes and sent her spirit into the male, searching for the answer.
The feline’s eyes popped open. “No milk?”
But there were utterly astonishing thoughts running through the male’s head that garnered her immediate attention and fascinated the Elfinish.
He was heavy between his legs, painfully throbbing, and so full he felt nigh to bursting. The taut nipple between his lips was sweet, doing things to his lower body that should have been declared illegal eons ago. His hand was trembling as he held the soft globe steady for his suckling, the flesh like warm silk as he kneaded it. The thick erection lying between him and his woman gave evidence of his strong arousal and the smell of her juices wafting beneath his nose nearly drove him insane with want.
His lady was so exquisitely yielding beneath his hard body, her heat calling out to him like a siren’s song, beckoning him to enter and lose his soul. Her smooth arms draped around his shoulders and her hands were buried in his hair. He could feel her foot stroking the calf of his right leg as he wedged himself even tighter between her thighs. The stab of his cock probed against the junction of her legs and he strained, wanting to burst free of the fabric covering him, protecting her, and ram himself into her velvety sheath.
Frustrated, he grazed his teeth across her burgeoning nipple then practically levitated himself off her, coming to his feet to push the offending pajama bottoms from his taut body. He was staring at her—at the lushness of her one exposed breast, at the way she laid there so invitingly, wantonly. He could not stand there being any obstruction between them and took her hand, drew her to a sitting position then worked feverishly at peeling the tunic from her body, making quick work of ripping the fragile lace bra from her breasts, baring them to his view, his touch, his mouth as he bent down and captured one rosy peak.
His cock was fiercely erect, the dewy knob red and swollen and eager to penetrate his lady. He groaned at the thought then straightened, grabbed the elastic waistband of her uniform pants and began tugging them down her long legs, inhaling deeply at the wetness that clung to her lacy thong. It was all he could do to put his trembling hands on that frilly impediment and tear it from her, leaning down to bury his face in the sweet musk of her nether curls.
“Oh my,” Munchkin said, opening her eyes to see what was happening.
He rained kisses on the reddish-golden curls that wound so sweetly over her channel. Fleetingly, expertly, he flicked his tongue along the creases of her upper thighs then lapped over the moistness that drew him like a magnet. He zeroed in on the swelling bud that called to him then clamped his lips around that small, enticing protrusion. He growled low in his throat when his lady arched her hips up, the better for him to devour her. Lapping at her juices as he raked his teeth across the highly sensitive nubbin, he mentally grinned for his lady’s fingers were taut in his hair, pushing his head closer to her warm lips.
Sliding his hand over her thigh, he turned his palm so he could wedge it beneath her, his middle finger slipping unerringly into the dampness that beckoned him. In and out that one finger stroked his lady’s sweet heat then he added another—in and out, in and out—going deeper with each thrust. A third finger joined the other two and he hooked them upward, seeking the spot he knew would give his woman pleasure.
“Quinn, now,” Kendall pleaded. “Now!”
Munchkin sat up straight, her pink eyes widening as the male shoved his hands beneath her female companion and lifted her hips. He drove his straining cock between her legs, impaling her on his hard length.
“You’re supposed to be behind her, moron!” Munchkin said, but then realized humanoids apparently could have sex front to front as Kendall hooked her legs around the Phantom’s hips.
The male’s mind was roiling with images that—had she been able to do so—would have made the Elfinish blush. He had visions of being milked dry by his lady’s cunt. His staff was buried to the hilt inside her sheath and he was thrusting quickly, filling her so deeply that she grunted with each push. Once more he slanted his mouth across his lady’s, stabbed his tongue into the recesses of her honeyed cavern and in perfect unison with the thrusting of his cock took both openings like the corsair he was.
Musky, alluring, infinitely interesting smells were coming from the two humanoids. The scent of the male’s essence, the welcoming spice of the female’s bathing his cock in warm, wet ooze wafted to the feline. There was a slight hint of humanoid sweat coming from the male and blending with his natural scent only made him the more alluring.
It was the cries of delight that came from the humanoids at the moment of release that made Munchkin jump up and run back into the sleeping quarters to hide in embarrassment for her humanoid. The male threw back his head and howled his completion. The female trilled hers then together they made little groaning, moaning, whimpering sounds that should not have been heard by any other ears save their own.
Coming to his senses as the last squeeze of her warm, velvety fist pulsed around him, Quinn lay there as though every bone in his body had dissolved. He was panting, sweat glistening on his upper body. Her arms and legs were wrapped protectively around him, holding him captive against her and he was a willing prisoner. What lay beyond her door could wait, for at that moment nothing mattered except Kendall and the unrestrained love she had given him.
“Do you forgive me now?” he managed to ask.
“Not yet,” she said, her breath coming in little pants. “You’ve a long way to go before I grant you forgiveness, Phantom.”
He smiled as he rested there with his cheek pillowed on her satiny breast. The fingers of her right hand were weaving spirals through his hair, her left hand smoothing up and down his back.
“I love you, wench,” he pledged.
“I love you too, Phantom,” she replied.
He knew he had to go. There was a job left undone. There was danger in the form of a StarDestroyer blocking his path. He had a few hours to get the task done and escape, taking his lady with him.
“Pack what you absolutely have to have,” he ordered her. “Do you have a kennel for the Elfinish?”
“Aye,” she said, slipping her arms around him, holding him to her as though she never intended to let him go.
“Then have everything ready. I hope to have Aleyn transported to the Lhong Shee before Morrison realizes he’s missing. I’ve got to get him and Shanee safe first before I can come back for you.”
“Is Paton captaining your ship?” she asked.
“Aye. I’ll give him the coordinates of your quarters so be ready to leave before that 0900 deadline.” He eased out of her embrace, holding himself above her, looking down into her eyes. “I don’t leave here without you, Kendall, so don’t leave these quarters under any circumstances. Do you hear me?”
“What if—?”
“Under any circumstances!” he interrupted her. “If you are not here, if we don’t time this just right…” He shuddered. “Just be here, Lhiannan.”
“I will be here,” she swore to him.
He pushed himself up, retrieved his pajama bottoms and dragged them up his long legs. With one last long look at her, he simply vanished.
Kendall sat up, feeling as bereft as she had when he had pushed her out of his life so long ago. Though she had—at last—her answers to why he had done such a thing, had hurt her so deeply, she would not breathe easy until Munchkin and she were safe on the Lhong Shee, fleeing the wrath of the Coalition.
Slipping her tunic and pants back on, she looked around the room. There was precious little in her quarters that she really cared anything about. Since her breakup with Quinn, she had either sold or given away most everything of a personal nature, preferring to be free and unencumbered should she ever decide to just melt into the galaxy. The only thing she really cared about was Munchkin for the Elfinish had been a gift—one she could not return to the giver once the feline had made a place in Kendall’s heart for herself.
“What do you think it will be like on Theristes?” Munchkin asked as she came into the living area.
“I don’t know,” Kendall answered. She was still sitting on the sofa, trying to decide what she could fit into one bag that was worth even taking with her.
Munchkin hopped up beside Kendall and stood there gazing into her humanoid companion’s eyes. “Must I ride inside that smelly kennel?”
“It would be safer for you until we get on the Lhong Shee.”
“Do Reapers eat Elfinish?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Kendall said.
The feline curled her lip, drawing the scent of the lovemaking into her Jacobson’s organ. “I want my own mate, humanoid.”
Kendall reached up to scratch the Elfinish behind her ears. “I’ll find you one.”
“You’d better,” Munchkin sniffed, and hopped down. “Pray put a nice padding of towels in that kennel if you expect me to get into it, and a sprinkle of catnip would not be amiss.”
* * * * *
Quinn reappeared on the sled just moments before Breen turned on the lights. He pretended to be startled, throwing up an arm to block the intrusive brightness of the overhead illumination.
“Get up, Quinn. We’ve got problems,” Breen said.
“What’s wrong?”
Breen came over to the TAOS unit. “I know damned well you were in Doc’s quarters when I informed her about Morrison,” he snapped. “The Elfinish gave you away.”
“Gods-be-damned interfering feline,” Quinn said with a sigh, sitting up. He swung his legs over the side of the sled. “I need to have a talk with the Worldly One.”
“That can wait. I’ve no faith that Morrison will wait ‘til the 0900 deadline before he sends someone after you. I’ve heard nothing from the Burgon or the others so I’m assuming we’re on our own here,” the captain of the Sláinte stated. He put his hands on his hips. “Is your ship nearby?”
“Close enough,” Quinn replied. He trusted Breen.
“What’s on the Borstal that you got yourself arrested to retrieve?”
Quinn scratched his cheek. “It’s a good thing you aren’t my enemy, Liam. You’re too observant by far.”
“I know you,” Breen snapped. “You wouldn’t be so easily taken and you certainly wouldn’t have allowed anyone to beat you up like that unless you had a good reason for it. Who did that to you and did you just stand there and let whoever it was have a field day the better to impress Kendall?”
Quinn smiled. “If I’d known that was all it would take to impress Kenni, I’d have had Paton beat the shit out of me long before now.” He shook his head as Breen started to speak. “No, Paton didn’t do it. No one did. One of the ‘bots fell on me and I went tumbling down a mountain.”
Breen snorted. “Now that I’d like to have seen.” He narrowed his eyes. “I take it the Amazeen is working with you then?”
“Aye, and I wanted her to depart with us but she believes her position as a Riezell Guardian shouldn’t be compromised. She thinks she’s in a place to help should she be needed again.”
“You spoke to her? How?”
Quinn nodded toward the ‘bots. “As soon as I came back from Kenni’s I contacted her. She’s sitting on pins and needles over there, but she intends to stay once our target is out of danger.”
“So there is someone you’re rescuing over on the Borstal?”
“Someone very important, but I shouldn’t tell you who it is, Liam. If Shanee wants to after we’re gone, that’s up to her. She’ll go back to Riezell with Morrison.”
“Having someone inside Morrison’s operation is helpful,” Breen agreed. “We’ve got to bring that man down once and for all.”
“He’s got powerful friends,” Quinn reminded Breen.
“Or he has incriminating intel on people who would just as soon keep him in power than have him where they can’t see him,” Breen commented.
“What about Jaborn?” Quinn asked. “How much can you trust him?”
Breen thought about it for a moment. “He has no love for the Coalition but he takes his job seriously. The only reason he remains a penal transport captain is to make sure prisoners are treated humanely. That hasn’t always been the case with Coalition internees.”
“I know that for a fact,” Quinn told him.
“Do you want me to contact Jaborn?”
“Can you do so without Morrison finding out?”
The captain of the Sláinte lowered his head, deep in thought. “He owes me a favor. What do you need me to tell him?”
“That I’m coming over there and that I need to extract one of his prisoners. I’ll also need to incapacitate Shanee so there’s no indication she might have helped me. I sure as hell don’t want to leave her here for Morrison to arrest.”
Breen chewed on his lower lip. “How am I to explain you not being here if Morrison decides to send someone over earlier than planned to retrieve you?”
“Hopefully I’ll have transported to my ship before that happens.” He shrugged. “I’m a Scaan. I can disappear at will.”
“Aye, Morrison knows that and demanded to be reassured that you were strapped down, unable to get free.”
“I’ll be taking Kendall with me so they’ll believe she released me from the restraints. There shouldn’t be any reason for Morrison to suspect you or any of the rest of the crew.”
“And Morrison will issue a warrant for Kendall,” Breen said.
“With any luck at all, that won’t matter. We’ll be far away from Coalition control by the time they realize we’re gone.”
“I take it whoever you’re going after is also a Scaan so he or she can also just disappear once the fetters are removed.”
Quinn didn’t reply.
“How are you going to get from here to the Borstal?” Breen asked. “If we rev up the transporter—”
“If I tell you, then I’d have to kill you,” Quinn said with a grin.
Breen’s brows drew together. He stared at his old friend for a moment then his forehead smoothed out. “By the gods, Quinn! You’ve got some kind of phantom transportation device they don’t know about, don’t you?” His eyes widened. “You can transport and not be detected!”
“Let’s just say the Amhantareans have their Net, the Storians have their Web and there are more things between hell and heaven than even the Coalition can conceive.”
Breen shook his head. “You scare me, Quinn, and you’re right. Maybe I don’t want to know,” he said. “Just get going and for the gods’ sakes be careful. I’ll contact Jaborn and let him know not to interfere.”
“He won’t even know I’m there,” Quinn said. He hopped off the sled and stretched out his hands. “Thank you, Liam.”
Breen clasped the Phantom’s wrist. “May the Wind be at your back, Quinn.”
Before he released Breen’s wrist, Quinn looked the man in the eye. “If something should happen, if I manage to get my Black Cengusian arse caught, do everything you can to protect the woman we love.”
Breen’s eyebrows shot up. “You know how I feel about her?”
“I’ve always known,” the Phantom told him. “Just keep her safe. I’ve already given Paton the coordinates of her quarters and he’s locked onto her and the feline. Don’t let anyone get to her before he can snatch her up. The ‘bots will be taken up at the same time. I won’t leave them behind.”
“When did you have time to contact Paton?” Breen asked as he released Quinn’s wrist.
“On my way back up here from Kendall’s quarters. Conversing with my crew doesn’t require a Vid-Com.”
One moment Quinn was there in front of the Sláinte’s captain and the next he was gone. Breen stood there for a moment then spun around and walked to the Vid-Com. He ordered his communications officer to connect him with Jaborn.
A very sleepy and irritated Sayed Jaborn materialized on the Vid-Com screen. “What now?” he mumbled, sitting up in his bunk.
“I can’t sleep,” Breen announced.
Jaborn opened his eyes wide in an attempt to force the sleep from them. “What?” he asked.
“Let’s finish the game of estrategia we started earlier.”
Confusion spread over the Dahrenian’s face for a moment then he frowned. “You wake me in the middle of the night to finish a stupid board game with you, Breen? What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I can’t sleep,” Breen repeated. “This whole thing with the Coalition sitting parked outside my door is unnerving. Humor me, Sayed. I’m a wastrel, as you well know.”
Breen’s last sentence made Jaborn stiffen. It was a code the men had developed many years before when they had been recruits at Fleet Academy. Jaborn ran a hand over his face. “Oh all right,” he snapped as he flung back his covers. “But you’ll owe me now.”
They two men had, indeed, been playing the game they had created during their plebe year at the Academy earlier in the evening so the board with its red and gold playing pieces was on Jaborn’s desk in the living area of his quarters. Barefoot, he walked into the room and sat down before the board. “All right. The next move is yours,” the captain of the Borstal mumbled. “What’s it to be?”
“My guerrero primero to the fourth level.”
Jaborn reached for the gold figure Breen himself had carved long ago. A similar set—carved by Jaborn—was in Breen’s office on the Sláinte. “That’s a very costly move,” the Dahrenian commented, moving the piece.
“Perhaps but the only way the GP can complete his mission to rescue the damsel justo.”
“All right,” Jaborn said, “then I will move my guarda primero to block his attempt.”
“Do you really want to do that?” Breen asked. “Look at your board, Sayed. My guerrero primero can not be stopped and if you move your guarda primero to cut him off, you will leave yourself open for me to attack.”
Jaborn seemed to hesitate with his hand paused over the board. He glanced up at the Vid-Com for a moment then returned his attention to the game as though deep in thought. “I could send my guarda primero to the fifth level and that will block any interference.”
Breen threw up his hands. “Shit, then I’ll have to figure out how to get my GP past the fifth and onto the Golden Sixth without being detected,” he mumbled. “I’ll get back to you.”
“It’s just a game,” Jaborn said, yawning. “Don’t pester me anymore tonight, Liam. I’m moving my guarda primero out of the way and then I’m going back to bed! We’ll finish this tomorrow.”
Jaborn’s face vanished from the Vid-Com screen.
Breen turned the lights out in the sick bay and headed for Kendall’s quarters. He would be there if she needed help.
* * * * *
When Quinn materialized aboard the Borstal, the Amazeen was waiting for him. No alarms went off to signal his intrusion and no one saw the tall man suddenly appear beside the Riezell Guardian.
“So what do you think of the Maze now, Shanee?” he queried.
“Gloat later about your Scaan invention. We don’t have that much time, Phantom,” she snapped. “The prince is in a deep containment cell, kept strapped down.” She looked him over. “You are healed?”
“I am,” he assured her. “Now where is he?”
She took his arm and pulled him down the corridor. “You smell of that woman,” she accused, her upper lip curling.
“She is my woman,” he reminded her.
Shanee stopped, her hand tight around his biceps. “I could be your woman, Phantom.”
He just looked at her. There was nothing to say that he hadn’t said before. She knew how he felt—he’d explained it to her many times over the last two years—but she refused to accept it. Perhaps now she would.
The Amazeen hung her head. “She doesn’t know what she has,” she whispered.
They hurried along the corridor, deeper into the bowels of the penal transport. Past cells that were securely locked without even a peephole to break the smooth, black surface of the titanium doors. Shanee took him to the very last cell.
“I can’t get it open and I have not found even a vestige of a slit through which you could pass,” she told him.
Quinn ran his hands over the door, the sensitive pads of his fingers searching for the minutest of imperfections in the metal and around the frame. The door slid into the wall without a break. He couldn’t find an entry point either.
“Have you made friendly with the gatekeepers?” he asked.
“Aye,” she said.
“Take me to the control room. You’ll have to distract them while I find a way to get into that cell.”
She nodded and they started back down the corridor. “Every other cell has its inmate labeled except for that one. I knew he had to be in it.”
“Good work, Shanee,” he complimented her.
The control room where the mechanics of each cell was maintained held two guards behind a securely locked portal. They both looked up as the Amazeen came to the thick, glass view panel and pressed her breasts against it. She smiled coyly then ran her tongue over her lips. She watched the men exchange glances before one got up from his chair and came over to open the door.
“Are you lost, Major?” the guard asked.
“I was looking for company,” she said in a throaty whisper. “I chose the two of you.”
The guard looked pleased but he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we aren’t allowed to have visitors in the control room.”
Shanee felt a wisp of movement against her and knew the Phantom had slipped in unseen. She flicked her eyes up and down the guard as though assessing his ability to satisfy her. “Too bad,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Perhaps when we get off our shift?” the other guard called out. He got up from his console—completely unaware of the switch to temporarily shutdown the alarm system in the deep containment cell area being disengaged or the pressure lock for cell number 18 being pressed to release the seal on the door.
As another light touch pressed against Shanee to let her know the Phantom had exited the control room, she leaned against the doorframe, thrusting her ample chest forward to garner the immediate attention of the guards.
“When will you men be free to take me?” she asked, her words having a jolting effect on the men.
“T-take you?” one of them stammered.
Shanee smiled. “I want you both,” she said, her sultry gaze spearing into them, raking down their bodies to linger at the juncture of their legs. “One may hold me while the other fucks me.”
The guards drew in quick, excited breaths. They licked their lips, and when she continued to tell them they could then switch places holding her and making love to her, the men actually groaned. One put his hand on his erection and rubbed.
“How long will you be?” she asked.
“We g-get off at 0630,” the taller of the two guards informed her.
“Then we’ll all get off at 0700,” she said with a wink. She put her hand to her breast and rubbed, holding their fevered stares as she told them what else they could expect when they came to the quarters that had been assigned to her. She spoke slowly—drawing out the lurid, detailed description of what would happen in her bed—to enthrall them and hold them captive until she felt another light touch slip past her. Looking over the guards’ shoulders, she saw switches being maneuvered by an invisible hand then once more something pressed against her before vanishing.
Straightening, the Amazeen flicked out her tongue one last time then turned to amble away, casting a seductive look over her shoulder as the guards re-closed the control room door.
Once out of sight of the guards, Shanee hurried down the corridor and was in time to see Quinn helping a young man up from the floor where he had left him so the Phantom could re-engage the security system on the containment cells.
“Is he all right?” she asked.
“Weak but he’ll be able to dematerialize when the time comes.”
The young man being supported by Quinn lifted his head, craning his neck to gaze up at the tall woman towering over him. “Amazeen?” he questioned.
“Friend,” Quinn told him. He held Shanee’s gaze. “A very good friend, Your Grace.”
Sagging against Quinn, the Crown Prince of Cengus could barely walk. He had been so long stretched out on his back, his arms and legs fettered to the bunk, he had little control over his ability to maneuver.
“The Wind be at your back, Phantom,” Shanee said.
Prince Aleyn Kaneen gave a start and he swung his gaze to Quinn. “You are Rory Quinn?” he asked.
“Aye, Your Grace,” Quinn acknowledged, “and we have to get the hell out of here before the Coalition snags us both again.” He pushed lightly against the prince. “Can you invisibilize?”
“I hope so,” the prince replied. For a moment he seemed to be deeply concentrating then his body began to slowly disappear.
Quinn waited until the prince was nothing more than a wisp of smoke before turning to Shanee. “Be safe, Lady,” he said to her.
Shanee nodded.
The Phantom smiled at her for the last time then disappeared. A slight rush of air was all there was as he and the prince fled the corridor and were transported to the Lhong Shee.
* * * * *
0359 CMT
Paton Dougherty intercepted Quinn’s thoughts as he and the prince sped across the distance from the Borstal to the Lhong Shee via the Maze of undetectable transporter beams between the two ships then turned to his wife Fenella. “Bring her over. Now!”
Fenella engaged the transport, snatching up Kendall and her Elfinish only a microsecond before transporting the ‘bots as well. The massive cybots materialized first on the pad, then the Elfinish’s kennel then finally Kendall.
“They are in!” Paton shouted. “Douglas, get us the hell out of here!”
Douglas, the Lhong Shee’s co-navigator and pilot, didn’t answer. He just nodded, his eyes glued to his screen.
The Lhong Shee jolted forward—her cloaking device still engaged. The Phantom’s vessel banked steeply to larboard and shot away, her engines screaming as she went.
“We’ve got company,” Paton said, and his wife came rushing over.
The StarDestroyer was in hot pursuit and Paton’s engineer Xavier Morgan reported the massive ship was gearing up its plasma cannons.
“How did they know we were out here?” Fenella asked.
“They must have a more sophisticated scanning system than we know about,” Paton said. “When we accelerated, the air displacement must have triggered some monitoring device and alerted them.”
“Do you think they can see us?”
“I doubt it, but their monitoring device must be following our heat signature,” Paton told her. “All we can do is attempt to evade until we can shake them.”
“If we can shake them,” Fenella muttered.
“We’re a smaller ship,” Paton said. “We can maneuver where they can’t.” He looked at the navigator. “Find us an asteroid field, Douglas.”
One of the crewmen had helped Kendall to a chair and was locking her into the safety harness. Munchkin’s kennel was being securely lashed to a stanchion attached to the wall. The two ‘bots were lumbering toward a section of the ship’s wall that obviously had been designed to store their enormous chassis in flight. The cybots locked themselves in then appeared to turn off.
“You all right over there, Healer?” Paton called out to Kendall.
“Aye,” Kendall said. “Where’s Quinn?”
“Don’t worry, wench. He’s on the ship with our target in tow,” Paton told her.
“They’re getting ready to fire, Mr. Dougherty,” Xavier warned.
“Where’s that asteroid field, Douglas?” Paton snarled.
“One coming at us!” Ian Shannon yelled.
The Lhong Shee bucked, dropped a few hundred feet as the repercussion from the cannon fire streaked past them.
“Piss-poor shot if you ask me,” Ian commented with a sniff of disdain.
“They’re not trying to hit us, Ian,” Quinn said as he and a tired-looking young man came onto the bridge. “They can’t afford to take the risk of blowing us up with the prince on board. That would start another war.”
Paton clapped his commander on the back then handed him the infamous scytheblade that marked Quinn as a member of the Order of Taibhse. Quinn strapped the short sword and its fine leather sheath to his left thigh.
Kendall breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the Phantom. She closed her eyes and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving to Alel. When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring across the expanse of the bridge directly into her lover’s cool blue eyes. She smiled when he winked at her then turned back to his 2-I-C.
“You think they know we have him?”
“Morrison knows I wouldn’t have left there without him. My guess is he came to collect the both of us to take back to Riezell—me to my death and the prince to a cell somewhere where no one would ever see him again.”
The prince looked up from the floor. “You think our father wouldn’t keep trying to get us back, Rory?”
Quinn’s face softened. “I would hope so, Your Grace, but—”
“Aleyn,” the young man said firmly. “My name is Aleyn and I’m your brother. Don’t call me Your Grace again or I’ll slap you in irons until you say uncle.”
The Phantom threw back his head and laughed. It was the first time in a long, long time Kendall had heard the man she loved more than life itself laugh and it felt good. It sounded good to her ears and brought a sheen of tears to her eyes.
“They’re firing at us again,” Xavier reported.
“Get yourself buckled in, Aleyn,” Quinn told the prince. “Those idjuts just might hit us by mistake.”
The young prince walked over to the seat beside Kendall and smiled at her as he sat down. “Is that your Elfinish?” he asked.
“Aye, Your Grace,” Kendall replied.
“What’s his name?” he asked as he secured his harness.
“It’s a she and her name is Munchkin.”
“I have a male,” the young man said then his face turned sad. “Or I did. I hope my mother is caring for him since I’ve been gone.”
“Elfinish live well over a hundred years,” Kendall said. “I’m sure your companion is awaiting your return, Milord.”
“Does she insult you?” he asked.
“Only every chance she gets,” Kendall replied.
“Dasher did that to me,” the prince said with a sigh. “He doesn’t think I’m particularly smart.”
“I suppose to them we aren’t,” Kendall said.
“I have heard it said they only speak to certain humanoids. I guess our two consider us smart enough to communicate with.”
Kendall giggled. “I guess so.” She leaned over. “Munch spoke to Quinn so I guess he’s fairly intelligent after all.”
The Phantom heard his lady and his prince chuckling and glanced over at them. Another blast of cannon fire rocked the bridge and he had to reach out to grab a stanchion to keep from being bowled over by the percussive wave.
“Best to keep your mind on our business rather than gawking at the skirt,” Paton reminded his captain. “There’ll be plenty of time to ogle her when we’re away from that gods-be-damned StarDestroyer.” He frowned deeply. “And for the gods’ sake, will you buckle into your seat before you’re pitched across the room? You want another concussion?”
“Gilly?” Quinn called out to his com officer. “Can you patch us through to Aduaidh Prime?”
“Those Coalition bastards are blocking transmissions, Sir,” the com officer reported. “I’ve been trying to raise Rabushu or Utuk Xul, but I can’t get through to either.”
Taking the command chair, Quinn slung his safety harness over him. “Breen had been trying to reach the Burgon or Leveche but hadn’t been able to. I wonder what the hell is going on?”
“If they knew we needed them, they’d be here unless they’re up to their necks in trouble,” Paton stated.
“Aye, that’s what I’m thinking,” Quinn said, nibbling on a hangnail. “Could the Coalition have started the war up again?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Paton said with a grunt. “They want to run the entire megaverse.”
Once more an explosion shook the Lhong Shee and the LRC did a ninety-degree roll before righting itself.
“That was a little too damned close for comfort,” Paton said.
“And they’re starting to piss me off,” Quinn growled. “We’re using too many of our system resources to remain cloaked. Decloak us, Xavier, and then get us the hell away from that lumbering menace sitting on our tail.”
That was all the incentive Ian Shannon needed as he sat down in the co-pilot seat. He was grinning maniacally as he did as his captain ordered, turning to grin at Douglas. Within the space of a heartbeat, the Lhong Shee was well beyond the range of the Raptor’s cannons.
“Keep trying to raise Aduaidh Prime,” Quinn ordered. He turned his head so he could look around at Kendall. “Will you sit beside me, wench?”
Kendall felt her heart do a funny little flip and she unbuckled her harness and got up, smiling apologetically at the prince. She sat down in the seat reserved for the Phantom’s 2-I-C and took the hand Quinn held out to her.
“You’re an outlaw now, Lhiannan,” he told her. “You’ll never be able to go back to your favorite mall in the Cairghrian Galaxy.”
“There are other malls, Quinn,” Kendall replied, rolling her eyes. “Not all the planets in the CG will be off limits to me.”
“Speaking of Cair Ghrian,” Paton said. “The man, not the galaxy. Did you hear his lady is expecting again? The Black Sun may have another son before the year is out.”
“Lucky man,” Quinn replied. “He and Davan deserve only the best.”
Kendall’s forehead creased for she realized that she and Quinn had not used any protection on the Sláinte. She tucked her lower lip between her teeth, concerned that she might have conceived.
“I would have known,” Quinn said, easily reading her mind.
She looked at him. “Really?” At his nod, she relaxed. “I’m not ready for motherhood, Phantom.”
“No more than I’m ready for fatherhood, wench,” he replied. “We’ll be a bit more cautious next time, eh?”
“I just thought of the reason the Burgon didn’t answer Breen’s hail,” Paton said. “He is on Gaoithe. The Toshiaght is this Jesarn.”
“Jesarn is our Saturday. What is the Toshiaght?” Kendall asked.
“The Initiation into the Order of Taibhse,” Quinn said. “The Burgon is being inducted?”
Paton nodded. “He and three others,” he said then smacked his forehead with the heel of his palm. “That’s where they all are! Leveche, Ghrian and another man I don’t ever remember meeting or even hearing about.”
“What’s his name?” the Phantom asked.
“I don’t recall it,” Paton said.
“The Burgon wielding a scytheblade,” Quinn said. “That is a scary thought and Leveche and Ghrian entering the Order? That is an even scarier thought.”
“The Order will be nearly invincible,” Paton declared. “We’ll have so many Grand Master Swordsmen, no one could defeat us.”
“When can I join the Order, Quinn?” the young prince called out. “I’m old enough now, aren’t I?”
Quinn nodded. “Aye, Aleyn. You are, but it’ll have to wait until you are no longer a hunted man.”
“He could be trained on Theristes,” Paton said.
The Phantom cocked an eyebrow. “Now there’s a thought.” He twisted around in his seat to look at the prince. “Did Ambelson train you in fighting, Aleyn?”
“Aye and I’ve the scars to prove it,” the young man said. “Was he your trainer?”
“He trained all of us then,” Quinn said. “I’ve also got scars from Derek Ambelson’s blades.”
“The man must be at least in his seventies by now,” Paton said. “He taught me as well.”
“He trained our father too,” Quinn declared. “If you passed Ambelson’s course that should hold you in good stead for training with the scytheblade.”
“May I ask for you as my sponsorship?” Aleyn asked shyly.
Quinn smiled. “I would have been hurt if you hadn’t.”
Kendall squeezed her lover’s hand for she saw the pride shifting across his handsome features.
“Ah, we’ve got a slight problem here,” Ian Shannon reported. “That damned Coalition ship is back on my screen and gaining.”
“What kind of turbo booster do those bastards have?” Paton grumbled. He went to stand beside Shannon’s chair and stood there frowning at the screen. “By the gods, but they are closing, Quinn.”
“Where’s that asteroid field, Dougie?” Quinn questioned.
“Hold your horses,” Douglas mumbled. “We’re looking for it.”
“We may have to turn and fight,” Paton suggested.
“I don’t like the odds in that,” Shannon said. He looked at Douglas, his co-navigator, who shook his head.
“Neither do I,” Quinn said. “They’ve got a hell of lot more firepower than we do, and I don’t want to risk them making space dust of my ship.”
Kendall saw her lover glance down at the sword handle that lay strapped to his thigh then she watched him smile nastily. “Well,” he said. “That’s an interesting development.”
“What is?” Kendall asked, watching Quinn caressing the sword handle.
“They want me, Lord Phantom,” Aleyn said. “Why don’t you just let them have me?”
“Aye, well, they don’t want just you, my prince,” Paton said. “They want the infamous Phantom as well.” He stared into the prince’s eyes. “You, they will let live if they get you back. For him, they’ve reserved a very exacting death.”
“Oh,” Aleyn said, his face burning red.
“They’re not going to get either one of us,” Quinn told them. “Gilly, open a channel to Morrison.”
The com officer did as he was ordered and Morrison’s beefy face appeared on the Vid-Screen.
“Stand down, Quinn, or we will be forced to fire. There are too many innocent people on your ship who don’t need to die because you are a coward running away from his just punishment,” Morrison growled, his jowls wobbling, his beady eyes narrowed.
“I wasn’t running anywhere, General,” Quinn said. “I was merely taking you on a tour of our fine galaxy. How do you like the Idimmu Galaxy?”
“I won’t issue another order for you to stand down, you bastard,” Morrison said. “We’ll run right up your tailpipe and blast you to ion particles!”
“The Raptor is closing fast, Captain,” Shannon reported. “We’re…” He stopped then began smiling broadly, glancing up once to intercept an amused look sent his way by the Phantom.
“Take us right through the opening, Mr. Shannon,” Quinn said.
“With the greatest of pleasures, Sir!” Shannon replied.
Paton bent over Shannon’s screen for a moment then straightened up. “I’ll be a Diabolusian warthog’s prick,” he said. “Tell me we don’t have the Luck of the Cengus with us!”
“He hasn’t seen them yet,” Shannon said. “He’s got his cannons locked on our keel, thinking to disable us.”
“General?” Quinn questioned in a polite voice. “I believe you should have your gunners gear down, Sir.”
“The hell I will!” Morrison said. “I’ve—”
“I don’t think you really want to mess with the Hounds of Hell, now, do you, Sir?” Quinn asked.
“We’re passing through,” Paton said, his voice a soft purr, “and they’re closing ranks behind us.”
Morrison’s face was on the Vid-Screen and everyone on the bridge of the Lhong Shee saw his eyes widen and his mouth drop open. His words made the crew of Quinn’s ship howl. “Pull up! Pull up! Goddamnit, pull up!”
“What’s going on?” Kendall asked.
“On screen, Dougie,” Quinn said quietly.
They were spread out across the vista of the sky. Gabriel Leveche’s the Sangunar, Cair Ghrian’s the Saoirse, Ruan Cosaint’s the Turas and a ship Quinn didn’t recognize fanned back from the lead ship in a perfect V formation—the Burgon’s flagship the Sekkeen. Every plasma and pulsar cannon was aimed directly at the Raptor.
“Do we know whose ship that is behind Cosaint’s?” Quinn asked.
“I’m scanning her now, Captain. She’s the Tiogar, Sir,” Shannon reported. “She’s captained by Lord Taegin Drae.”
“That’s who the other man was who was being inducted into the Order!” Paton said. “Admiral Ben-Alkazar is his sponsor.”
“And most likely gave him that ship since the admiral owns a goodly portion of Tappas Industries,” Quinn observed. “Open a channel to the Burgon, Dougie.”
Ryden Bakari, the Emperor of Aduaidh Prime, was beaming ear to ear when he appeared on the Vid-Com. “Did you like that little maneuver, Phantom?”
“Very slick, Sir.”
“It was Gabe’s idea,” the Burgon said. “He likes those big grandstand plays, eh, Lord Savidos?”
The laughing face of Prince Gabriel Leveche showed briefly on the Vid-Com. “Was that little jiggle as good for you as it was for us, Phantom?” the man known as Lord Savidos chuckled.
“Sure as hell turned me on just at the right time, Gabe. Burgon, you have my eternal gratitude, Your Excellence,” Quinn said. “As do each of my brethren of the Order. My sincerest congratulations to you, my Emperor, and to you, Lord Taegin, on winning your blades.”
The Burgon beamed. “I am most pleased and the Tiogar will be howling when he gets back home, I’m sure! You do know where you’re going, don’t you, Quinn?” the Burgon inquired.
“I do, Sir, and we’ll head that way as soon as I know the Coalition won’t be following.”
“Oh Morrison ain’t going nowhere,” the Burgon said, his eyes hard. “He’s sitting there facing a wall of firepower that would reduce him to his lowest common denominator. I do believe he’ll turn tail and run like the coward he truly is.”
“This isn’t over! You men will pay for your gods-be-damned interference! I shall report you to the Conclave for this treasonous act!” Morrison shouted.
It was Cair Ghrian’s stony face that showed up on the Vid-Com. “Turn your fat ass around and hie back to Riezell, General, or by the gods I promise you I’ll make you regret the day you ever sent my lady into harm’s way!”
Morrison’s rubbery lips sputtered but it seemed he couldn’t find anything to say. He cast a look to his right and the face of Major Shanee Iphito suddenly appeared.
“I am the new Primary Riezell Guardian, Lord Phantom, and I won’t rest until I have you in my hands again!” she said.
“That’ll be a cold day in the Abyss,” Kendall mumbled.
“Congratulations on your promotion, Amazeen,” Quinn said. His eyes were locked on Shanee’s. “Maybe you won’t have so much trouble with your next target.”
“A Riezell Guardian who didn’t get her man?” Cair scoffed. “What a shame.”
“I will see to it that your lady is cashiered out of the Guardians for your part in this day’s infamy, Lord Cair!” Shanee said, her chin lifted. “As will your lady-wife, King Ruan.”
“I’m sure Chastain will be as brokenhearted as Davan will be to hear that,” King Ruan drawled in a bored tone. “But thank you for your concern, Amazeen.”
Shanee’s eyes twinkled. “Until next time, Phantom!” she snapped, and the Vid-Com went black.
“Please tell me she was joking,” Kendall said. “Surely she doesn’t mean to come after you, Quinn.”
“She won’t,” the Phantom said. “That was for show. If she’s to keep doing her job for the Burgon at Fleet Command, she has to maintain her hard-ass persona.”
The Vid-Screen came back up. “And what a hard ass she has!” the Burgon said, fanning his hand in front of his chest. “If I weren’t a married man—”
“Say goodbye, Ryden,” King Ruan suggested.
“You’re no fun, Cosaint,” the Burgon complained.
“Take care, Quinn,” Cair Ghrian called out.
“Goodbye, dear Phantom and Mrs. Phantom-to-be!” the Burgon joked. “May the Wind be always at your backs!”
The Lhong Shee was rapidly speeding away from the powerful formation that had appeared out of nowhere to protect the Phantom’s back.
“You knew they were on their way, didn’t you?” Kendall asked.
Quinn reached down to touch the handle of his scytheblade. “She pulses whenever there is another member nearby. When she practically jumped out of her sheath, I knew we had some gods-be-damned powerful company practically right on us.”
“We could see ‘em but no one else could. They were cloaked until we shot right by the Sekkeen’s port side,” Paton said, “then they decloaked to scare the shit out of Morrison.”
“That must have been one helluva sight to be facing,” Aleyn commented. “It was impressive enough just seeing it from behind those warships.”
“The Tiogar himself,” Quinn mused. “I’ve always wanted to meet that man. He’s a legend.”
“Like you,” Kendall said, and there was pride in her voice.
Quinn smiled. “Well, there’s a difference, wench,” he said.
“And that is?”
“I have you and he doesn’t,” the Phantom bragged.
Kendall raised one red gold brow. “You think you have me, Lord Phantom?”
“I’m trying, Lhiannan,” he said.
“Oh how well I know, Rory Quinn. You can be very trying,” she replied.
It was a breathtaking view over which the Lhong Shee passed. Spreading out like a raven in flight, Mount Korak was an impressive vista. Two wide sweeping “wings” arched gracefully from a tall peak that time and wind had carved into the likeness of a bird’s beak in profile. Strange, rippling striations across the mountain range only added to the illusion of a massive raptor sailing in flight for the grainy horizontal stripes appeared like feathers on the stone.
“It’s called the Raven,” Quinn told Kendall. “That’s what the word korak means in Theristesian.”
“Beautiful,” she pronounced. “Absolutely beautiful.”
Their ship was skimming low over the rainforest, aiming for fertile ground, lush grassland bisected by a serpentine river with a high cataract to the south. Tariq’s village would be at the base of Mount Korak.
“There!” Paton said. “I think that’s it!”
Luxuriant colors spread out like jewels beneath the keel of the Phantom’s ship as Shannon throttled her down, aiming for a circle of white stones that was their landing site. Bright greens of every shade and turquoise water sparkling upon a river that wound down from the higher elevations and fell into a breathtaking canopy of falls above which mists clung like liquid diamonds mesmerized the eye. Multi-colored birds—scarlet, bright yellow, electric blue, piercing orange—winged through the air and to the north of the landing area, wild white ponies frolicked in tall, crimson-colored grass.
“What is that lovely grass?” Kendall asked, in awe of the wavering garnet stalks.
“They call it Blood Grass,” Quinn answered. “Appropriate for a planet on which Reapers are born, don’t you think?”
Shannon landed the ship with only the softest of bumps.
Quinn unbuckled his harness and went to stand in front of the wide sweep of windows that overlooked the valley into which they’d landed. “By the gods, this is spectacular,” he said. “I can see why the Burgon comes here for his rare vacations.”
But it was not the stunning scenery that caught and held Kendall’s attention as she started to get up from her chair. She just happened to glance up at the Vid-Com. The outside Vid-Array had picked up movement at the edge of the forest and zoomed in on a being that made the young woman’s womb clench with sheer, unadulterated lust.
He was tall with a wide, heavily muscled chest pelted with dark hair that wedged in a V to between his long legs. Broad shoulders tapered to a slim, flat belly with abdominal muscles that were sharply chiseled. Strong-looking thighs were braced apart as he stood there observing the ship. Dark brown hair—so dark it was almost black—hung down to his waist and was flowing free in a slight breeze, draping behind him like a silken cloak. Naked as the day he had thrust from his mother’s womb, his staff was long and thick and held Kendall’s undivided attention. She swallowed hard, unable to look away.
“I think that must be Cree,” Fenella said in an awed voice. She had come to stand beside Kendall and she also seemed unable to look away from the magnificent warrior standing at the edge of the clearing.
“That,” Kendall said, “is prime male.”
Quinn heard his lady and looked around, his gaze going up to the Vid-Screen. He blinked, blinked again and his mouth fell open as he stared at the imposing man whose handsome face was slowly breaking into a knowing smile.
“Greetings, Phantom,” a disembodied voice wound its way into Quinn’s head.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll let my woman out there with something that looks like him!” Paton snapped. He too was staring at the Vid-Com.
“He has his own woman,” Fenella reminded her husband. “Remember what we were told?”
“I don’t like the looks of him,” Quinn said, snapping his mouth closed and speaking around grinding teeth.
“Her name is Bahiya and she has been my mate for longer than you have drawn breath in the megaverse, Phantom,” the voice whispered. “I would no more dishonor her with another woman than you would dishonor the one you call love.”
“Aye, but do the other Reapers look like you?” Quinn demanded, casting a look at Paton.
Tariq Cree grinned, showing sparkling white teeth, and when he spoke, his words came out of the Vid-Com for everyone on the ship to hear. “Every last mother’s son of them,” he said then chuckled. He waved his arm at them—motioning them to join him—then melded back into the tall verdant foliage from whence he’d come.
“I don’t know, Quinn,” Paton said. “Naked men…”
“They have Reaper women too,” Fenella reminded her husband. “If the men look as good as that, can you imagine what the women must look like?”
Shannon perked up. “You think they’ll be naked too?”
“As the day they were born,” a female voice trilled over the Vid-Com. “And not all of us are Reaper.”
Shannon’s grin nearly split his face. “All right!”
“Didn’t I hear something about the Burgon having sent some of his concubines here as mates for the Reapers?” Kendall asked.
“Aye!” Fenella said. “I heard that too, and there were hundreds of females he sent!”
“Hundreds of naked females?” Douglas asked with awe. He looked at Shannon and both men rushed to the airlock.
“I didn’t say we were going out there!” Paton shouted after them.
Quinn chewed on his lower lip, trying to decide if he dared allow his woman to be amongst such handsome brutes with unbelievable physiques. He looked around at Kendall when she came to put a hand on his shoulder.
“You are everything I could want, Phantom,” she said, “but you’ve got to win my trust again.”
“And you expect me to compete with men like him?” he countered.
“Well, if you don’t feel up to the competition…”
Quinn reached for his lady, yanking her to him. “Don’t play with me, wench. I’m not feeling very confident right now after seeing the Reaper.”
“Quinn…” It was a breathless word that had the captain of the pirate ship looking around to the young prince.
Aleyn Kaneen was staring up at the Vid-Screen at what had to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his young life. She was standing where Tariq had stood but she was fully clothed. Young—about his tender age of twenty-two—she was a tiny thing with long blonde hair in a rustling mauve-colored gown.
“I want her,” Aleyn whispered. “I want her!”
The prince was scrambling out of his safety harness, hissing at the buckle.
“Easy, Your Grace,” Paton said, going over to aid his prince. He calmly swatted the young man’s hands away from the buckle and unlocked it. He grunted as Aleyn pushed him none too gently aside and scrambled for the airlock that was cycling open as he reached it.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Aleyn ordered.
“I don’t know…” Quinn said, but Kendall reached up to cover his lips with her fingers.
“The Burgon would not have sent us here had there been even a hint of danger involved, Phantom,” she told her lover. “We are meant to be safe here, remember?”
Hesitant, feeling less than adequate, Quinn nodded. “I suppose so.” He watched Shannon and Douglas tripping down the gangplank behind their prince and frowned. “You men should lead him, not the other way around!”
“We’ve got his back, Cap’n!” Shannon called back.
“Quinn, look,” Kendall said, and pointed out the windows.
Many people had gathered at the edge of the forest. Some were naked but most were clothed. Those who were naked were stunningly attractive, but each was holding the hand of one who was undoubtedly their mate. Many of the clothed were women and they rushed forward to meet Shannon, Douglas and a few other members of the crew who had followed the navigational officers.
“Your little brother has been conquered,” Kendall said.
Quinn groaned for he too saw the prince stopping before the beautiful young woman with the long, fair hair. He rolled his eyes when Aleyn went to one knee before her and took her hand in his. “What the hell is he doing?” he demanded.
“Staking his claim,” Kendall said with a laugh.
“And the chit doesn’t seem to be adverse to it either,” Fenella remarked.
Paton slipped an arm around his lady. “Let the unattached do whatever they feel the need to but if you so much as ogle one of those naked men, Fenella, I will—”
“Pout the entirety of the day,” Fenella said. “I intend to look my fill, Paton, so you might as well pucker your lips and maintain.”
Quinn sighed. “We might as well get on out there, Paton. We’re going to be here a while.”
None too happy about venturing into the group of overpoweringly handsome males, Paton reached down to capture his wife’s hand and held it tightly as he pulled her toward the airlock, mumbling in a low voice to her as they went.
“He can order her not to touch,” Kendall said, “but don’t forget why the Burgon wanted me here, Quinn.”
Quinn’s frown deepened. “Lhiannan, I don’t think—”
“I am a healer, Phantom,” she said. “There aren’t just Reapers here, although I am dying to find out how their anatomies differ from ours.” She slipped her arm around his waist. “I’ve heard whispers of such beings, but to actually meet one?” She shivered delicately. “I am beside myself with curiosity.”
“Look all you want,” Quinn said as he walked with her to the airlock. “Touch if touch is required to heal one of them, but if you bat your eyes at them, wench—”
“Duly noted, Phantom,” she said, cutting him off.
Those members of Quinn’s crew who were unattached had already migrated to some of the women who had been volunteered to come to Theristes when the Burgon shut down his harem of concubines. Most of the women were still virgins and were shy with the new men entering their territory, but a few were brazenly flirting with the crewmen, staking out their own claims among the Phantom’s men.
Following the parade of clad and unclad bodies into the verdant luxuriance of the jungle, Kendall was amazed at the new varieties of plants and trees she was seeing. The smells were intoxicating and wafting over her in gentle waves of pleasures. Off to the right was the gurgling river and the sound of the cataract tumbling over glistening rocks higher up was a soothing resonance that put her at ease.
The village was a surprise that had Quinn stopping in his tracks. He had expected huts made from native grasses or interwoven branches but he found stone buildings with metal roofs.
“Lord Quinn?” The voice was the same one that had spoken to the Phantom in his mind. The tone was deep, authoritative and friendly.
Quinn turned to the tall man who strode forward with his hand extended in greeting. “Lord Tariq?”
“I am he,” Tariq replied, and the two men grasped wrists in warrior fashion. “My wife Bahiya is preparing a repast for us else she would have been here to greet you and your lady.” He turned to Kendall. “You are a most welcome addition to our village, Healer.” He let go of Quinn’s arm and turned to draw Kendall into a light embrace. “May your days here be productive and your nights fruitful.”
Quinn tensed as the handsome man put his arms around Kendall, but it was a fleeting hug and very respectful. He saw Kendall blush at the greeting.
“Your journey was uneventful, I hope,” Tariq said, searching Quinn’s eyes.
“We had no trouble once we left the Coalition ship behind as it faced the Burgon and his allies,” Quinn said.
Tariq grinned. “I believe Cair said you called them the Hounds of Hell. That is a most appropriate name for warriors of such renown.”
“You’ve met them?”
“A few have journeyed here. Now and again the Burgon sends warriors who wish to embrace our heritage and become one with us.”
Quinn winced. “You don’t mean becoming Reapers, do you?”
Tariq shrugged. “It is not a punishment, Lord Quinn. It is an honor.” He laid a hand over his heart. “I am proud to be what I am.”
“How many Reapers do you have here?” Kendall asked.
“There were sixty made on Riezell-Nine from my Queen,” Tariq said. “The Black Sun and his lady-wife also joined us.”
“Cair and Davan are Reapers?” Kendall asked with a gasp.
Tariq nodded. “Aye, they are. Queen Ardor is also.”
“I had no idea,” Quinn said, feeling a bit queasy knowing such powerful people had embraced the Reaper parasites.
A very handsome young man hurried up to them, smiling fleetingly at Quinn before speaking in a low voice to Tariq. The Prime Reaper held up his hand, frowning. “Where are your manners, Caith?” he chastised. He looked at Quinn with apology. “My eldest son apparently forgets himself.”
The young man’s face reddened but he turned to put out a hand to the Phantom. “My sincerest apologies, Milord. I am Caith Cree, son of the Prime.”
Quinn clasped the young man’s wrist and felt the same jolt of power coursing through the son as pulsed in the father. These men were commanding warriors with a strength he knew he could never best. He tried not to notice the son was just as naked as his sire.
Caith bowed respectfully to Kendall. “We are most pleased you have joined us, Healer Kendall,” he said politely then he looked up at his father who was a foot taller than he.
Tariq sighed deeply. “What is it?” When his son started speaking in Theristesian, the older man held up his hand once more for quiet. “Lord Quinn is not only our guest, Caith. The Burgon sent him here as leader of his people. What you find you must say in private to me can be said in front of him.”
Caith ducked his head. “Aye, Father,” he responded. “We have had bad news from Aduaidh Prime.” He turned to Quinn. “It must have come after you and your people left your ship. I am sad to report the Coalition has attacked the capitol, destroying the palace of the Burgon. The Empress Anastasia was killed in the attack as well as two of her children. The third, they have been unable to find in the wreckage.”
“Oh no!” Kendall said, putting a hand to her mouth.
“The Burgon?” Tariq asked, his face hard, his eyes brittle.
“He was visiting Piscina when the attack occurred. His men have rallied to him.”
“This will begin the war all over again,” Quinn said, his eyes meeting Tariq’s. “What the hell could the Coalition have been thinking?”
“They do not think,” Tariq said.
“Many of their former allies have condemned them,” Caith reported. “Amhantar, Gaoithe, Ennead and many others in the Cairghrian Galaxy have refused to get involved—they are tired of war. Some are sending their warriors to aid the Burgon.”
“I need to get back,” Quinn said.
Tariq put a hand on the Phantom’s shoulders. “There will be many from among those the Burgon sent here who will want to accompany you. It would not surprise me to learn all sixty of my bloodsons will want to go to his aid. There are two of Cair’s brothers here and three of his wife’s brothers. I know they will wish to leave with you.”
“I will go too,” Kendall said, and when her lover began shaking his head, she lifted her chin. “You will need a healer to care for the wounded. I am going, Phantom!”
Quinn opened his mouth to protest but seeing the militant look in his lady’s eyes, he just shook his head. “All right, but we need to leave right away.”
“Caith, gather those who wish to accompany Lord Quinn,” Tariq said. He was looking across the village to where Prince Aleyn was standing with a young woman who had come from the Burgon’s harem. “I don’t believe he would want the young one to go with you.”
Quinn turned to see where Tariq was looking. “Most definitely not. He is the future of Cengus. He must be kept safe.”
Tariq tilted his head to one side. “He wishes to become a warrior of your Order.”
“He has had a bit of training but—”
“We have a Master Scytheman here,” Tariq said. “He can teach the young one while you are away.”
“A Master? Here?” Quinn questioned. “Who?”
“Coireall Donnan. The Burgon sent him to us a year ago when Coir was recuperating from an attempt on his life. He decided to stay when he met a certain lady from the harem.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Quinn said, respect showing in his gaze. “Aleyn couldn’t ask for a better instructor. Donnan will take him down to the bedrock of his ability then build him up layer upon layer until he is a master with the blade.”
“I am sorry your stay with us must be so brief,” Tariq said, “but I understand your need to support the Burgon in this hellish time. He loved his wife dearly and must be devastated at her loss.”
“Would you like to come with us?” Quinn asked.
Tariq shook his head. “My Council forbids those of us born here from engaging in battles beyond our home world. We are a peaceful people and will fight only to protect our own. You will have more than enough warriors when my bloodsons are unleashed on the Coalition.” He turned to his son. “Seek out your bloodbrothers and tell them to ready themselves to leave with Lord Quinn.”
Caith doubled his fist and slapped it to his heart in a sign of obedience then ran off to gather the Reapers who would want to go with Quinn.
Paton came hurrying up. “Have you heard?” he asked.
“Aye,” Quinn said. “Looks like we’ll have a ship full of warriors on our return trip to Aduaidh.”
“I’m having Douglas shepherd our crew back to the ship.” He scratched his cheek. “They’ve put their claims in on some of the women. I had to tell them the women could not come along with us. They weren’t happy about it.”
“How many women are you talking about?” Kendall asked as Fenella joined them.
“Ten or so,” Paton replied.
“We will need nurses if this is indeed another war,” Kendall said. “Do we have room on the Lhong Shee for them?”
“Aye,” Fenella answered for her husband, “and Kenni is right. We will need help with the injured.”
“Then bring them onboard,” Quinn said, though his tone said he didn’t like the idea. “If the men are that gung ho on having them, let them know I’ll be performing Joining ceremonies as soon as we’re out of orbit of Theristes. I’ll not be having illegitimate children popping out nine months from now.”
“That’ll curtail a few such requests,” Paton said with a grunt.
“I figured as much,” Quinn replied.
An absolutely gorgeous woman with long silvery hair that swept the ground came shyly forward. Her eyes were as black as onyx and set in a lovely face with a flawless complexion. She had lush breasts that swung gracefully as she walked.
“My lady-wife Bahiya,” Tariq said, pride evident in his tone. He slipped his arm around the small woman’s shoulder. “The light of my life, the love of my soul.”
Bahiya’s red lips parted to reveal starkly white teeth. “My husband is my heart,” she acknowledged. “I had wished to show you our hospitality. Will you promise to return to us so we may welcome you as you deserve?”
“We would be honored,” Kendall said.
“We’d best get back to the ship,” Quinn said, and he offered his hand to Tariq. “Pray for us in this hour of darkness, Lord Tariq.”
“The Wind be always at your back,” Tariq said. He gripped Quinn’s wrist tightly. “Give the Burgon my best wishes for a swift end to these new hostilities.”
“I will,” the Phantom said. He nodded politely to Tariq’s wife then put a hand to Kendall’s back to usher her back to the ship.
Walking beside her lover, Kendall glanced up to see her lover’s face set and hard, a muscle working in his lean jaw. “This is bad, isn’t it, Milord?” she asked.
“Do you remember how the war began in the first place?” he asked.
“That was before I was born,” she said.
“It began as a border war between Aduaidh Quadrant and Amhantar,” he told her. “There were greedy men on Amhantar who wanted the minerals and gems that abound on Utuk Xul and Rabushu and they were willing to kill to mine those treasures. Soon the border war became a raging conflict that brought allies from other worlds to both sides. Men of reason could not rationalize with the warring factions and within two years it became a conflict that spanned two galaxies. The Burgon before Ryden was a real bastard. He didn’t care how many people died, how much land was destroyed, how many resources were depleted. When our Burgon ascended to the throne, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children had died already. Thousands of acres of land would never bear again. Some plant and animal life disappeared never to be seen again. It was a terrible time.”
“I remember the Burgon once saying he had given up hope of the conflict ever ending, but it looked as though it finally would. Now this? He has to be distraught.”
“He’s a good man,” Quinn said. “Morrison and his ilk have been known to destroy good men without a single qualm. I want nothing more than to see Morrison and his cronies defeated once and for all.”
“You think the attack came because of us escaping Morrison?” she asked. Her lover’s footsteps were eating up ground toward the ship and it was all she could do to keep pace with him.
“I have no doubt at all that it did. What the bastard hoped to accomplish is beyond me. Surely he had to know there would be men like Cair Ghrian and Taegin Drae who would side with the Burgon. I can’t begin to fathom what the Coalition was thinking to bomb the palace on Aduaidh Prime, killing the Burgon’s wife and children. They had to know he’d retaliate.”
They were at the gangplank and he motioned her ahead of him up the steps. “Some men,” she said, turning her head to look at him, “cannot live without war. It is a sickness, an addiction in their blood. Peace is as abhorrent to them as war is to the rest of us.”
“You may be right,” Quinn said. He walked around her and headed for the bridge. “How many are coming with us, Paton?” he asked. “Do you have a count?”
“Lord Caith says there are about twenty of the Reapers who are either in Transition or are so close it would be folly for them to go with us. We’re only taking those whose Transitions are at least six weeks away. As it is, we’ll have to make damned sure we have containment cells available should they be of need.”
“Where the hell are we to get containment cells?” Quinn snapped.
“Lord Caith suggested we take a swing by Seabhac before we leave the Green Sector. Apparently there are two LRCs docked there and both have six containment cells each. We can transfer them to the Lhong Shee.”
“But that will take time!” Quinn grumbled.
“According to Lord Tariq no more than an hour. There are cybots on the ships that can be activated to help ours.”
“Then let’s get this party on the road!” Quinn ordered. “Gilly, can you open a line to Aduaidh?”
“Aye, Cap’n.” There was a brief pause then the communications officer said, “General Reeve on line, Sir.”
The Vid-Screen came up and on it was the grim visage of an older warrior with stark white hair and very piercing blue eyes. “Quinn, where the hell are you now?”
“We’ll be leaving Theristes momentarily, General,” Quinn replied. “We are bringing along forty or so Reapers.”
“Good,” Reeve said, nodding. “We’re going to need them, though we’ve been getting messages from all over Alel’s creation from planets that are furious with the Coalition and are either staying out of this or are aiding the Alliance. It looks right now like the only ones backing those treacherous bastards are one or two others from the Cairghrian Galaxy.”
“Do we know who?”
“Looks like Diabolusia,” the general said with a twist of his lips. “As though that was a surprise. Those idjuts can’t go a month without starting a war somewhere! As for the others? It’s anyone’s guess but we think perhaps Necroman and possibly one or two—maybe more—of the Federated Moons of Rysalia.”
“Necroman?” Quinn said. “That is unanticipated.”
“Amazeen has demanded the defense queen’s daughter be allowed to leave the Raptor, but so far Morrison has been ignoring them. Either Major Shanee Iphito is there against her will or she’s decided to throw in with the Coalition.”
“She’ll do what she has to,” Quinn said. “Where do you want me to head for, Sir? We’re going to stop on Seabhac and pick up some containment cells then I’m all yours.”
“Right now there are only nine Coalition ships prowling around out there. King Ruan blew two out of the sky and Prince Gabriel’s the Sangunar is in hot pursuit of another. Odds are that ship will crash within the hour. That will leave eight including Morrison’s flagship. The Burgon is on the Sekkeen and he is personally going after the ship that dropped the bomb on the palace. You might want to join up with him since I hear the Raptor has two SubCruisers with it.”
“It was the Raptor that dropped the bomb?”
The general clenched his teeth. “Aye, it was.”
Quinn ran a hand over his face. “I am to blame for this, General. I—”
“You are not to blame!” General Reeve bellowed. “You were the excuse, perhaps, but Morrison would not have brought that StarDestroyer out here simply to pick you and Prince Aleyn up. Don’t give a second thought to the notion that you were the cause of the Coalition’s perfidy. Now get your ass to Rabushu as quickly as you can. That’s where the Burgon is headed.”
* * * * *
1823 CMT
“Lord Quinn?” A warrior came up to Quinn and held out his hand. “I am Liam Ghrian, Cair’s brother.” He turned to the men with him. “These men are Lorcan and Roman Shanahan, Davan’s brothers. We are Reapers.”
Quinn shook the men’s hands. “I am honored to have you aboard, gentlemen.
“I’ll be in charge of the Reaper squadron,” Lorcan said. “The Prime Reaper bestowed a temporary Prime upon me for the duration of our time with the Alliance.”
“These are bad times,” Quinn said. “I thought I would be allowed to know peace for a little while.”
“Didn’t we all?” Roman Shanahan agreed.
“Captain? The Burgon is hailing you, Sir!” Gilly called out.
The face that appeared on the Vid-Com screen looked as though it had aged ten years overnight. Deep lines scored Ryden Bakari’s forehead and bracketed his mouth. He looked tired, but his voice was strong as he greeted Quinn.
“I am sorry to have drawn you back into this mess, Phantom,” the Emperor of Aduaidh Quadrant apologized.
“We are here for you, Your Excellency,” Quinn responded quickly. “Our sincerest condolences on your losses.”
“Acknowledged, Quinn,” the Burgon said then ran a hand under his nose. “Between Taegin and myself we’ve pushed Morrison and his two escorts back into the Cairghrian Galaxy. Cair is on his way to join us. If you would, please join us beyond the Sinisters. We’ll make it damned hard for those cowards to come sailing back over the boundary of the Idimmu Galaxy any time soon.”
“Is there any particular place you want us stationed, Milord?”
“We’re not sure about Necroman’s intentions but it looks as though King Rakanja Taborn is siding with the opposition. If there’s any way for you to find out for us, it would be greatly appreciated so we’ll know where we stand in that sector.”
“Will do, Your Excellency,” Quinn agreed. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“I understand you have Reapers onboard?”
“Aye and two of them are Lorcan and Roman Shanahan, Sir.”
“Have them transport over to the Sekkeen and I’ll find them ships if needed. I don’t want to use them unless we have to engage in full-scale battle.”
“Understood, Your Excellency.”
“Did you leave your brattling brother on Theristes?” the Burgon inquired.
“He didn’t want to stay behind, but once he found out he would be under the care of Lord Coireall Donnan he calmed down a bit.”
The Burgon’s lips tugged at a smile. “I’d rather be in the midst of a battlefield with twenty bloodthirsty and brutally crazed men circling me with drawn swords and me weaponless than be at Donnan’s mercy. I pity your poor little brother.”
“He was your instructor, Sir?” Quinn asked.
“Lucky me, huh?” the Burgon asked.
“You had the best, Your Excellency,” Quinn complimented.
“Take care, Phantom, and give my regards to your lady.” The emperor’s eyes narrowed. “You have Joined with her, have you not?”
“There hasn’t been time, Sir, and I haven’t even gotten around to asking her,” Quinn confessed. He glanced over at Kendall. “I don’t think she’d be all that receptive to me right now anyway.”
“Fool,” the Burgon said on a long sigh. “Get it done, Quinn, before you join us at the Sinisters.” He cocked a brow. “That is an order, mister.”
The Vid-Com screen went blank.
Kendall’s hands clenched on the arms of her chair. “He wasn’t serious,” she breathed.
“He was very serious,” Paton said. “Looks like I’ve a Joining to perform as auxiliary captain.”
“I haven’t agreed to that,” Kendall protested.
“He is my Burgon, wench,” Quinn said. “He just issued an order and I must carry it out.”
“I am Domhan,” she reminded him. “I have no Burgon. I am…”
“Technically our enemy,” Lorcan Shanahan said. “Is she under arrest, Captain Quinn?”
Kendall squinted her eyes at the Reaper. “That isn’t funny. As a healer, I am neutral in this.”
“You’d best take sides, Kenni,” Fenella told her. “You’re either with your man or you’re against him. Which will it be?”
Quinn was looking at his lover, staring her in the eye. She was fuming, angry at not being given a choice in the matter. Sitting there rigidly in her chair, she glanced around at the faces looking back at her, each one unsmiling. It was not a laughing matter. It was serious and she took it that way.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said.
“No, he didn’t give you one,” Quinn agreed. “But if it makes you feel any better and less put upon, it is what I desire with my entire heart and my entire being, wench. I would have gotten around to asking you on Theristes when the time was right but—”
“Gotten around to it,” Kendall snapped, anger making her eyes flash. “You make it sound like an afterthought, Quinn!”
“If it was an afterthought, Lhiannan,” he said softly, “it kept me sane in the hellish heat of Hell-Twelve. It allowed me to sleep at night and get up to put one weary foot ahead of the other each morning. Finding you, getting back together with you, asking you to be my wife, was all that kept me alive.”
Tears formed in Kendall’s eyes and she had to look away. “I’m not saying no,” she said. “I’m just voicing my objection to being made to do something I wasn’t expecting.”
“Duly noted,” Quinn said then turned to Paton. “Mr. Dougherty, if you would do the honors and if my cousin will stand up for my lady, I will return in a few moments to take part in the Joining.”
“Where are you going?” Kendall demanded as Quinn unbuckled his harness and started from the bridge.
“Would you do me the honor of standing at my side, Lord Lorcan?” Quinn asked Shanahan.
“It would be my greatest pleasure, Sir,” Lorcan agreed.
“Where are you going?” Kendall asked again, but her lover did not answer. She threw her hands into the air. “This can’t be happening!”
Fenella smiled. “It’s what the Phantom has been talking about for years, Kenni. You never had a chance to tell him no.”
Kendall pursed her lips and made quick work of undoing her harness. “I don’t like being forced into this.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Fenella whispered as she threaded her arm through Kendall’s.
They were standing before Paton when Quinn came back. He was smiling, his boyish grin like that of a little boy who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“What did you do?” Kendall asked as he came to stand beside her.
“You’ll see,” he replied enigmatically.
With Fenella standing at Kendall’s left hand and Lorcan at Quinn’s right, Paton began the ceremony of Joining that had been laid down by his ancestors over a thousand years before. The Cengusian High Speech might have been lost on Lorcan and the Reapers and womenfolk who had accompanied them from Theristes, but Kendall understood every word and the tears fell silently down her cheeks at the lovely words—made even lovelier by the way Paton spoke them in his soft brogue.
“And will you take this woman as your love, your companion, the mother of your future children, the sharer of your fate from this day forward until the Gatherer separates you from her?”
Quinn did not hesitate. “I will.”
Kendall felt a lump rising in her throat as Paton turned to her.
“And will you take this warrior as your love, your companion, the father of your future children, the master of your fate from this day forward until the Gatherer separates you from him?”
Kendall turned to look at the handsome man standing beside her. “I will as long as he courts me properly before he expects me to allow him to be master of anything of mine,” she said.
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you I would, wench?”
“Swear it before God and man,” she stated, expecting him to argue with her but his smile made her knees weak.
“I so swear that I will court you as you deserve to be courted and I vow before God and man that I will not rest until you are mine completely of your own free will,” he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a small velvet box. He opened it to remove a ring resting there on red satin.
Kendall stared at the golden ring, her heart doing a funny little flip.
“This is a Gaoithean Claddagh,” he told her. “It was my great-grandmother’s given to her by my great-grandfather on the day of their Joining. She handed it down to her daughter on her Joining Day who handed it down to her daughter, my mother, when she was carrying me. When my mother was on her deathbed, she gave it to me and asked that it go to the woman I chose for my bride.” He slipped it on the third finger of her left hand. “The hands are a symbol of the friendship each marriage must have for it to last. The heart symbolizes love for without love there can be no true Joining. The crown is a symbol of the loyalty to one another the couple must possess for love to last. Friendship first, love second, loyalty always. That is the Claddagh. I entrust you with my heart, my love, my friendship, my loyalty and—above all else—my soul which I place into your keeping with this ring.”
“Then I pronounce you husband and wife,” Paton said quickly, obviously not taking a chance that Kendall would halt the proceedings.
Quinn’s kiss was a lithe touching of his lips to Kendall, but the hot promise in his eyes made liquid fire ooze between her thighs.
“You are shameless,” she whispered against his mouth.
The Phantom made no comment but turned to Shanahan and ordered him to set a course for the Sinisters. With Kendall’s fingers threaded securely with his own, Quinn tugged her away from those gathered.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her face flaming.
“Where do you think?” he asked in a throaty voice.
Munchkin—sitting in her kennel and very unhappy about it—stared at her humanoid companion and the sexy male escorting her from the bridge and hissed. It wasn’t that the Elfinish was unhappy with the situation. Just thinking of sharing the same bed with the Phantom pleased her since he did not seem adverse to paying her the attention she required. What annoyed Munchkin was that she was being ignored, her needs not taken into consideration. When Douglas, the co-navigational officer, strolled by on his way to the lounge, the Elfinish deigned to speak to him.
“You!” Munchkin said. “With the ungodly ugly red hair.”
Douglas stopped and looked around, his freckled face turning mean. “Who said that?”
“I did, you walking lit match!” Munchkin replied.
Slowly lowering his gaze to the kennel, the nav officer stared at the feline. “You are speaking to me, Milady?” he asked in awe.
“Is there another humanoid with such awful hair?” Munchkin snapped. “I think not. Aye, I’m speaking to you.”
Douglas moved closer to the kennel. “This is an honor, Milady. I am so honored.” He put a hand to his chest. “You have no idea how much—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Munchkin said, rolling her pink eyes. “Look, Torch. How’s about opening the door and letting me stretch my paws? I think Kendall will be occupied for longer than I want to remain cooped up in this vile place.”
Douglas turned around. “She’s speaking to me! Can you hear her? The Lady Elfinish is speaking to me!”
“Tell the whole galaxy, why don’t you?” Munchkin spat at him. “Open the gods-be-damned door, Torch!”
Scrambling to do as he was ordered, Douglas was obviously aware of those on the bridge watching him with envy for his chest was puffed out and he was beaming from ear to ear—his freckled complexion turning a very unattractive ruddy color. Everyone knew Elfinishs only spoke to certain privileged recipients and he’d been chosen.
With the door open, Munchkin strolled out with a flick or two of her sparsely haired tail. She padded around—sniffed, wrinkled her nose, twitched her whiskers—then made a beeline to Paton. She looked up at him as he gazed down at her with what appeared to her to be a bit of disdain then rubbed against his legs.
“Oh great,” Paton said. “I hate cats.”
Munchkin spread her scent on his other leg then ambled off, inspecting things that had intrigued her from the kennel. Humanoids spoke to her but she disdained to answer, merely nodding in passing, not even giving them the courtesy of a purr or a meow until the one called Fenella came forward with an offering.
“Here you go, Milady,” Fenella said, placing a dish of warm cream for the Elfinish’s approval.
One sniff and Munchkin was in heaven. She looked up at Fenella and though she didn’t verbally thank the humanoid, she did allow one small chirping meow before lowering her head to the treat.
“Did you hear that?” Fenella asked. “She chirped at me!”
“She spoke to me,” Douglas said.
“No one heard her,” Paton grumbled.
“She spoke to me,” the nav officer stated emphatically.
Munchkin duly noted the pride in the red-haired man’s voice and decided she would even grace him with the honor of holding her on his lap when she was finished with this unexpected treat. She hoped he knew how to properly stroke a goddess.
“Who decorated your quarters?” Kendall asked suspiciously as she stood at the threshold and got her first look at her new husband’s living area.
“I did,” Quinn answered, and gave her a slight push but Kendall didn’t budge. “Really, I did.” His hand was at the small of her back and he nudged her once more, frowning when she didn’t move. “What’s wrong?”
Kendall looked up at him. “Have you no conception of tradition, Phantom?”
He thought about it for a moment then blushed. “Oh aye. Right.” He bent down and swept her into his arms to carry her over the threshold.
Kendall’s frown deepened as she took in Quinn’s quarters. She was not happy with what she was seeing and wriggled against him, wanting to be put down. When he lowered her to her feet, she turned on him. “Who decorated your quarters?” she asked again.
With a sigh, the Phantom ran a hand through his hair. “All right, I had a little help,” he confessed, “but I picked out the sofa.”
Looking away from her husband, Kendall surveyed the sleek room with distaste. Done entirely in leather and suede earth tones, she would have best described the living area as Seduction Central. It was all done in muted, soft tones of taupe, dark brown and burgundy with just a touch of pale gold for emphasis on the throw pillows on the large sofa. The end tables and coffee table were glass-topped and sitting on thick pedestals of burnished copper. An area rug in a bold, geometric pattern had a high pile and stretched out before a mock tortoiseshell-fronted fireplace. The paintings on the dark brown suede walls were of stylized nudes—brown ink on a taupe background, framed in copper. The oversized dark burgundy sofa was covered in leather and was flanked by two buttery brown occasional chairs. Everywhere there was bric-a-brac—statues of leopards, tigers, wolves, elephants. In one corner was a floor-to-ceiling carving of a giraffe.
“You don’t like it?” he asked as he removed his scytheblade and laid it aside.
Kendall didn’t answer. She swept her gaze over the galley with disdain then headed for his bedroom. What she found there made her clench her hands, her nails digging into her palms.
The bed was huge—as she knew it would be. It was covered in what she hoped was a fake fur spread. Everywhere she looked she found fur or leather or polished copper. The only thing she liked about the quarters was the copper.
“You don’t like it,” he said, his shoulders slumping.
“She helped you, didn’t she?” Kendall growled, turning around to face him. “The walking mop helped you, didn’t she?”
Quinn’s eyebrows drew together for a moment then he realized who she meant. He opened his mouth—not really knowing what he should say—then closed it. “Aye, she did.”
“And is that where she seduced you, Phantom?” she demanded, pointing a rigid finger at his bed.
He merely nodded, feeling like a little boy being chastised by his mother.
“You will not claim me as your bride on that bed,” she said, and plowed past him, bumping into his shoulder for emphasis. She went into the bathing suite and was standing there staring at his oversized shower. When he came in behind her, she didn’t even bother to look around, but asked him if the Amazeen had ever been in the stall.
“Aye,” he said, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Just once though.”
“Uh-huh,” Kendall said. She turned around to glare at him. “And you thought you’d get away with me not caring about all this, huh?”
He studied her for a moment then reached for her hand. “I’ll have it all torn out and replaced to your satisfaction as soon as possible,” he said, tugging at her as he headed back through the sleeping room.
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
“The only place I know,” he said, his jaw set, “since you insisted on sharing your quarters with two of the Burgon’s former concubines.”
“It was only right,” she protested.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t, but we could have used your quarters were they available,” he snapped.
Those they passed as he led her through the corridor to the elevator did not miss the annoyed look on their captain’s face or the strange look on his lady’s pretty countenance. If anyone questioned why the couple was prowling the ship instead of consummating their Joining, no one dared do so aloud.
In the elevator, Kendall was very aware of her husband’s taut stance. He was staring straight ahead, her hand clamped possessively in his. She was nibbling on her lower lip, wondering if she should have made such a big deal about his living quarters then decided she had justification. There was no way she would have ever been comfortable lying in the same bed where Quinn had thrust his way into the Amazeen. No sleep—let alone passion—would have ever come to her under those conditions.
When the doors to the elevator opened, Quinn led her out of the cage and down a long, dark corridor.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The brig,” he replied.
Kendall’s eyes widened. “The brig?” she repeated as they stopped at a door and he slapped the control panel beside it. Before she could protest, he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the cell.
“The other quarters are all taken by my crew and the Reapers,” he said as he took her to the bare cot and lowered her to it. “This will have to do for now.”
“But a jail cell, Quinn,” she complained, pushing herself up on her elbows as she reclined there.
“Nay, wench,” he said, his hands going to his uniform shirt. “A dungeon cell to which your lord and master has brought you to be ravished for daring to deny him his rights.”
A speculative light entered Kendall’s green gaze. “You wouldn’t, Milord,” she said.
Quinn’s dark brow quirked upward. “And pray tell me why I would not when you are helpless and entirely at my mercy here in the bowels of my keep?”
She was staring at his chest as he peeled the shirt from that broad expanse. The dark matting of hair seemed to gleam in the low light from the corridor outside the cell. His muscles rippled, his pecs flexed, his abs tautened and his biceps bulged.
“You believe me helpless, Milord?” she challenged, licking her lips.
With infinite slowness, Quinn unbuckled his belt then slowly pulled the wide leather from his britches.
“You are my prisoner, wench, to do with as I please,” he said, and the words made Kendall’s womb clench. “It will please me to ravish you all evening and into the wee hours of the morn.” He smiled crookedly, evilly. “Perhaps even longer.”
“My men will rescue me before you can do your dastardly deed,” she said, lifting her chin. “I am not without means, Milord.”
A slow, taunting smile dragged over Rory Quinn’s sardonic features and he moved so he was standing right beside the cot, the belt hanging loosely in his hands. “Do you dare to deny me what I want, woman?”
“I will fight you to my last breath, rogue,” she threw back at him.
He moved quicker than she could have thought possible, jerking one arm from where she leaned upon it and looping the belt around her wrist, making quick work of snagging the other and lashing them together, pulling the belt to the top stanchion of the cot and securing it.
“Milord!” she shrieked.
“Deny me at your peril, wench,” he said, his hands sliding down her upraised arms to mold around her breasts. “You are mine and I will have you.”
Kendall wriggled, pulled on her bonds, but he had secured her wrists and she was indeed helpless as he massaged her, his thumbs stroking over the peaks of her breasts until she felt herself growing hard. She tried to kick out at him, but he stepped away from the cot.
“No one knows you are down here in the bowels of my castle, wench,” he said in a gruff voice. “No one will come to your aid. Fight me and I will be forced to hurt you.”
Tremors of delight were shimmying through Kendall and she was breathing hard, feeling the effects of his words on her libido.
“Had I another belt or two, I’d tie your legs open for my ravishment.”
“You are an evil man, Rory Quinn,” she said.
He merely grinned as he sat down beside her and pulled off his boots, tossing them aside. He turned so he could unzip her boots and draw them from her feet. He dropped them to the floor then kicked them away.
She grunted as he stretched out atop her, wedging her thighs apart. “You are—” she began but he swooped down to claim her mouth, bracing himself on his elbows to keep from pressing too hard against her breasts. His tongue stabbed between her lips and took her with a kiss that snatched the breath from her lungs. So thorough was that kiss, so exacting, she felt moisture gathering between her legs.
He released her mouth then swept his tongue across the fullness of her upper lip.
“You go too far, Milord!” she protested.
“One more comment from that pretty little mouth and I will gag you,” he warned. “Do you understand me, wench?”
Her chest was heaving, her breasts pushing into the cup of his hands as he worked his evil magic on her nipples. She sucked in a breath as he tightened his hold on her.
“Do you understand?” he repeated. “A nod will suffice.”
She nodded slowly and whimpered as he pushed himself up and got to his feet.
“I have waited a long time for this,” he said, unsnapping the top of his britches then dragging the zipper down the hard erection she could see pressed against the front of his pants. The rasp of the zipper sent chills down her spine.
Rory Quinn never wore underwear and as he pushed the britches down his lean hips, his steely hard-on sprang forth larger than she could ever remember it being. The length and breadth of it made her mouth water. There was a pearly drop clinging to the broad head and she ached to lap it away with her tongue.
Scaan men could read minds so easily and he had intercepted her wayward thought. He reached down, caught the drop on the tip of his finger, looked down at it for a moment and then extended his hand to his lady’s lips.
Kendall flicked out her tongue to catch the salty drop, licked it from his finger then curled her tongue back into the warm recesses of her mouth. She swallowed.
Quinn groaned as he stood there naked beside her. He bent over, his hands on her tunic and ripped the material apart, exposing her.
“Quinn!” she protested but he held up a finger, ticking it from side to side in silent warning. She clamped her mouth shut. His hands were on the waistband of her uniform pants, tugging them down over her hips until she lay there on the cot, her tunic flayed apart, shivering in her lacy wisp of a bra and thong.
“Beautiful,” he said, running his hand down between her breasts, flicking his middle finger through the deep indention of her bellybutton—stroking it, circling it—before moving his palm to the crisp nether curls that beckoned.
It was the heat and pressure of his strong sword hand that set Kendall’s juices to flowing. His fingers were splayed over her lower abdomen, the heel of his hand rocking, pressing against her. She could feel her clit hardening and writhed.
“You belong to me, wench,” he said in his throaty voice, the brogue thick. “This belongs to me.” He lightly clawed her abdomen, tensing his fingers, drawing them through her wiry curls. One firm tug removed the thong from her hips. Another tore the lacy band between her bra cups apart. He pushed the material aside and let his hand span the area between her breasts—his thumb on her right nipple and his little finger on the left. “These belong to me.”
She shook her head mutely, denying his claim as his hand slid down her body, but when his thumb slipped into her moist folds, she tensed, going as still as a statue, sucking in her breath as he flexed his thumb within her.
“You’re hot and tight for me, aren’t you, baby?” he asked, circling his thumb inside her. “You want what I have, don’t you?”
Once more she shook her head, whipping it back and forth on the cot. She strained against the belt, tried to clamp her legs shut, but he knelt down beside the cot and pushed her left leg away from the right with his hard elbow.
“Be still or I’ll be forced to do something you won’t like,” he warned. He pivoted his hand, drawing his thumb from her wetness.
Kendall moaned at the loss of that wicked appendage but opened her eyes wide as he slid his middle finger then his index into her, his thumb stroking her bud in little up and down movements that had her wriggling beneath his touch.
He bent over her—his fingers caressing her internally—and slipped his lips around her nipple, drawing it deep into his mouth, suckling it strongly, his tongue laving the tip.
She was lost, giving herself up to her captor’s ravishment. Never had she felt such a strong reaction to his lovemaking. He was teasing her, tormenting her, but it was a silken punishment she was enjoying, aching to feel more, to experience the full depths of whatever he wished to visit upon her. She had not forgiven him for pushing her away two years before, but he was making it damned hard for her to remember why she was angry with him.
Quinn licked her nipple, swirled his tongue around it as his fingers moved slowly in and out of her, coating his flesh with her slickness. He wanted—needed—her to know he loved her, wanted to be with her, had chosen her for his one and only mate. He could read her thoughts and knew it was up to him to atone for what he had done before she would fully accept him again. But at that moment in time, his desire for her, his passion, overpowered his need to make amends. Very gently, he thrust deep into her then withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth to taste, to lap away the sweet moistness.
Kendall’s belly clenched and heat flowed through her lower body as she watched him licking his fingers. She could smell her own muskiness, and when he pushed up and slanted his mouth across hers, she could taste herself on his lips and tongue.
“You taste good,” he whispered. “I need more.”
He stood up and moved to the foot of the cot. Kendall pressed her legs together but he just laughed, bending down to push them apart, splay her open as he hunkered down at her feet and slid his upper body onto the cot, his mouth going unerringly to her heated core.
She gasped as his lips encompassed her. His tongue was playing havoc with her senses as he swirled it around and around her quivering lips, flicking along the creases, stabbing at the clitoral hood, circling it with the tip of his tongue. His warm breath against her vulnerable center was like a mighty aphrodisiac and her blood thickened, pooled in her loins. His fingers were digging into the softness of her inner thighs as he held her open for his invasion.
Quinn raised his head and looked up at her. “Do you concede your body to me, wench?” he asked.
“Never,” she replied, holding his gaze.
“Then I will be forced to make you do so,” he said, and lowered his lips and fluttering tongue to her heat.
Kendall strained against the belt, her hips arching as his devilish expertise continued unabated. He was laving her heat, licking at the moisture between her legs, thrusting his tongue into her nether folds and drawing from her gasps of pleasure that were rocketing through her lower body and along her spine. His fingers were creeping up slowly, gently clawing their way to her center. She could feel the short nails grazing at the crease of her thighs, touching the outer lip and pulling it farther apart.
“Sweet,” she heard him say, and trembled as he pushed one finger into her, his mouth claiming her clit, his tongue swirling over it. His palm lay upward, the heel pressed tightly to the junction of her thighs. He was stroking that mysterious place on the roof of her vaginal walls that always made her writhe with abandon.
“Aye, Phantom,” she said. “There.”
Sliding his fingers back and forth across that mystifying place, he could feel it beginning to swell beneath his touch. Kendall was pressing down upon his hand, rotating her hips as she pushed against him. He increased the pressure he was exerting, and his lady was panting heavily as she strained. Her hands were clutching at the restraint of the belt, her legs were quivering, her heels digging into the bare mattress of the cot. He could feel wetness seeping from her then she dragged in a quick breath, went suddenly still as she bore down and her vaginal muscles rippled violently—the walls clutching his fingers tightly—and fluid that smelled sweet like clover washed into the cup of his palm.
“Quinn!” Kendall cried out, her entire body shuddering with the force of her orgasm. She was writhing, moaning, for his thumb was on her clitoris, rubbing so fiercely she came again, then a third time until she began to beg him to stop the exquisite torture.
He withdrew his fingers from her and clamped his mouth to her moist heat, suckling her core as a scream of pleasure tore from her throat and reverberated through the cell.
“No more!” she begged. “Please, Quinn, no more!”
Her heart was thundering in her chest. He could feel the wild pumping of her blood through her veins as he pressed a kiss to her belly. He was rock-hard, his erection standing straight out in front of him, so painful he could barely take a breath. He thought he might unman himself before her if he didn’t have her as quickly as possible.
“Take me,” she said, her eyes on that steely rod. “Now!”
He put one knee between her legs, brought the other leg up to shove her thighs apart and stretched out upon her. He pushed his hands beneath her rump and lifted her high to position her against his cock. With one quick thrust, he was seated deep within her sheath, pressed hard to her very core. He was no sooner buried to the hilt inside her than his cock pulsed, a thick stream of cum shooting so violently he shuddered. His orgasm was so intense, so strong, and lasted for such a long moment in time, he was completely drained as he collapsed atop her, her arms holding him tightly to her, her legs wrapped around his hips.
“By the gods, woman,” he said, panting, “I may never walk again.”
Kendall smiled, soothing his bare back, trailing her fingers along his spine, down his sides. “You can be so melodramatic, Phantom,” she accused.
Sated, feeling boneless and depleted, he lay there with his head pillowed in the valley between her lush, sweet breasts, feeling sleep racing up to claim him.
“Do you forgive me now?” he asked, his voice slurred.
“No, but I’m getting there,” she replied.
He slipped easily through her mind and he saw the forgiveness there. He smiled, intercepting her desire to never mention the past again. What was done was done and over. He would not ask her for her forgiveness again, for to do so would be to raise the issue and it was best left to die an easy and painless death. Neither would he ever bring Shanee’s name into their world. All traces of the Amazeen would be removed from his quarters.
“Quinn?” she said, knowing he’d read her thoughts.
“Aye?”
“Before we lay the past to rest, I must tell you something.”
The smile faded from Quinn’s face and all desire for sleep departed. He raised his head to look up at her. “What, milady?”
She threaded her fingers through his tousled hair, pushing the thick curls back from his forehead. There were lines on his face that hurt her and she wondered if she’d put one or two there.
He shook his head in answer but remained quiet.
Kendall drew in a long breath as though seeking courage then exhaled slowly. She moistened her lips—watching his midnight blue gaze lower to her mouth.
“A year after you and I parted,” she said, “I went to Oceania on leave for a month.”
His gaze returned to her eyes. He knew whatever she was about to say would hurt but he had no one but himself to blame so he kept still.
“I met him on the beach my first morning there,” she said, holding his gaze. “He was on vacation. We struck up a conversation and spent our time together while we were there.”
“Who was he?” He had to ask. He had to know.
“His name was Riordan O’Shay,” she answered, and when he shook his head, obviously not recognizing the name, she relaxed. “He was from Sceirdiúil.”
“I don’t know anyone from there,” he told her. He was searching her eyes—his own filled with pain. “Go on.”
“He’d been widowed six months before,” she said. “His wife had died giving birth to twin sons. He was having a hard time adjusting to her death.”
“Not too hard, I take it,” Quinn said, and could have kicked himself for the petty remark.
“We were both lonely,” she said, ignoring his comment. “We were both alone and we made each other laugh.”
“Is that all you did?” he asked. “Made him laugh?”
She shook her head. “We became lovers. We enjoyed each other’s company but I think we both needed the other’s touch, the other’s comfort. Neither of us expected to see the other again.”
His heart was breaking but he tried not to show it. “It was just the one time then?”
She looked away from him. “No,” she said. “Unlike your one time. I believed myself a free woman.”
“I understand,” he said. “There’s no need to bring it up again.”
“There is more,” she said.
Quinn tensed. “What more could there be if you haven’t seen him since Oceania?”
She looked as though she would cry. “Two months after I returned to the Sláinte, I realized I was carrying his child.”
Quinn flinched, stricken by such news. “You had his child?” he whispered. Raw pain was etched through his words.
“I miscarried,” she said. She watched the relief flood his face but she knew he wasn’t rejoicing at her loss.
“I’m sorry,” he said, although he was relieved there was no reminder of those nights with O’Shay. “Is he the one who taught you Cengusian High Speech?”
“Aye, he taught me quite a bit and the rest I learned from a computer program he gave me,” she said. “How did you know?”
“Sceirdiúllian uses the same mother tongue we Cengusians do,” he told her.
“You had a right to know about him, Quinn.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me,” he said. He laid his head down on her chest, desperately trying not to cry. His hands were clutching the mattress to either side of her hips.
“I haven’t seen him since that month on Oceania, but I hear from him now and then. He writes to me.”
“That will stop,” Quinn stated, his words thrust from between clenched teeth.
“I sent word to him before I left the Sláinte that I would no longer answer his letters and I told him why,” she said.
“He knows about me?”
“Aye. The message was timed to be sent long after I was transported to the Lhong Shee.”
Kendall let her memories of O’Shay drift away, vowing never to mention them again. She stroked her lover’s hair. “Are you sleepy?”
“I’m tired, but this isn’t going to make a comfortable resting place for either of us,” he said. All vestiges of sleep had fled his troubled mind. “I’ll need to ask Shannon or Douglas if we can trade quarters until I can get mine redone.” He pushed himself off her and bent over to retrieve his britches.
“What am I going to wear?” she asked. She shrugged off the remains of her torn bra. “I can’t go wandering through your ship in just my uniform pants.”
He snagged his shirt from the floor and handed it to her with a sad smile.
She recognized the hurt flitting across his face. “Do you want to talk about this some more?”
“No,” he said quickly with a vigorous shake of his head. “Never again, Lhiannan.”
“All right,” she agreed, shrugging into his shirt and buttoning it slowly.
There was a sound out in the corridor and Quinn stepped out of the cell. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
Kendall recognized Shannon’s voice.
“We’ve been boarded by a raiding party, Cap’n!” the navigational officer stated.
The bridge had been overrun by tall ebony-skinned men with broad shoulders shrouded with thick animal skins, oiled, naked chests adorned with brightly colored beads and breechclouts of rawhide that gave them a frightening appearance. Each carried a strange-looking sword with a broad blade and thickly scrolled hilt.
“Ah, the captain has returned from his honeymoon, I see,” the tallest of the men said in a gravelly voice. He looked down at Kendall’s bare feet as well as Quinn’s. “I must have interrupted you two lovebirds.” He strode forward, his sword resting on his shoulder. “How could you tear yourself away from such a lovely one, Phantom? She’s a pretty little bird, isn’t she?”
“I don’t remember inviting you to my ship,” Quinn complained.
The leader of the dark men waved his hand and two large men standing close to Quinn grabbed the Phantom’s arms and held him.
“I don’t need your permission to do anything, boy,” their leader said with a snort. “If I want this ship, I’ll take it.”
“Like hell you will,” Quinn replied.
Munchkin made a choking sound and everyone turned to look at her as she sat beneath Douglas’ chair. She gagged again then deposited a dull, orange roll of fur ball on the floor, looked at it and then pranced off as if Dougie had been the one who’d done it.
“Is that an Elfinish?” the intruder asked in an incredulous tone.
“You leave my cat alone!” Kendall yelled. She started forward only to be grabbed by two more of the dark men. She struggled against the men holding her.
“Ah, the little bird has a sharp beak, doesn’t she?” the dark man said with a laugh.
“You never want to make an enemy of her,” Quinn warned, “and you’d best not mess with the feline. It bites.”
Munchkin hissed and dragged a paw down the air as if on cue.
“Oh I’m shaking in my sandals,” the leader quipped, and stepped forward. He lowered his sword from his shoulder and placed the tip to Quinn’s flesh. “How about you, Phantom? Are you afraid of me?”
Kendall’s heart was racing as she stared at the tall man who was pointing a sword at her husband’s throat. Gleaming black flesh draped over a mountain of a warrior with hard, obsidian eyes that bore into Quinn’s with not one single trace of compassion.
“Why the hell should I be afraid of you?”
“Because you belong to me now,” the hulking giant boomed, his thick lips breaking into a wide grin of pleasure. “I can do with you whatever I please.”
Kendall’s blood ran cold, the scenario was too much like that which playfully she had shared with her husband only a few hours before. Her heart was thudding in her chest and she struggled against her captors.
“I could turn you inside out with pain.”
“If it pleases you to think so, who am I to argue?” Quinn asked. He met the dark man’s look boldly.
“I could fuck you if I choose to, pretty boy,” the colossus growled.
“You could try,” the Phantom countered.
“I’d ride you hard, little boy, and have you squealing like a pig.”
“Ain’t gonna happen, lard ass,” Quinn stated.
The men holding Quinn’s arms drew in a gasping breath as the gargantuan lowered his sword, stepped forward and wrapped a huge hand around the Phantom’s neck, his large thumb stroking the smaller man’s Adam’s apple.
“I could fuck you then take your woman. What think you of that, blue eyes?” the man taunted in a low voice.
“Not much, actually,” Quinn said. “She’s more woman than you can handle.”
Kendall winced, sagging against the steel-like hands that held her upper arms. “Quinn, please, don’t—” she began, but the giant swung his head toward her, his eyes narrowing at her, daring to interrupt.
“She is a scrawny thing, pretty boy,” the dark man observed. “I would break her in half with one hump.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” Quinn responded.
“And what about you? Let’s see what you’ve got,” the dark man said, reaching out to rub the front of Quinn’s britches. “Well, that certainly ain’t much, now is it?” he insulted.
“I’ve always heard it’s not how big the weapon but how you wield it that counts,” Quinn threw back at his captor.
“You’ve a mouth on you, white boy. Perhaps I should give you something to fill it, eh?”
“If you no longer desire to keep your dangly, go ahead,” Quinn snapped.
“Oh God,” Kendall groaned at her husband’s bravado.
The giant moved closer so that his body was pressed intimately to the Phantom’s. He ground his lower body against Quinn’s. “I think I prefer your tight ass to hers. I believe you’ll last longer impaled on my prick than she will.”
“You mean your prick hasn’t fallen off by now from ramming it into the local sheep herd?”
“Quinn!” Kendall yelped.
The huge dark man threw back his head and laughed then wrapped his arms around Quinn, lifting him free of the ground. “How goes it, pretty boy?” he thundered.
“I’ll let you know if you haven’t broken my ribs, you son of a diseased warthog,” Quinn grunted.
Kendall’s mouth dropped open as the two men holding Quinn’s arms let go of him and the Phantom threw his arms around the giant. She turned to Paton. “They know each other?” she asked. “They know each other?”
“Aye, wench. They’ve been swapping insults since childhood,” Paton informed her.
The giant’s arm was draped companionably around Quinn’s shoulder. “So this is the wench, eh? This is your beloved Kendall, the healer?”
“That’s her,” Quinn said, his eyes bright as he looked at Kendall. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
“More woman than you deserve,” the dark man said. He unwound his arm from Quinn and came lumbering toward Kendall, his large mouth set in a grin. “Did you think I’d lower myself to take that Cengusian jackal, wench? My dangly would fall off if I even tried!” Before she could speak, he flung his arms around her in a tight embrace that lifted her from the ground. “Greetings, woman of Quinn!”
Kendall could barely breathe for the arms encircling her were like iron bands. When the giant lowered her to the ground, he slung his left arm around her, nearly toppling her with the weight and his right around Quinn who had come to join them.
“I am happy to see you are not being stretched on the racks of Morrison’s torture chamber, my dear pretty boy,” the dark man said with a chuckle.
“Wench, this is Prince Ayo, son of King Rakanja Taborn,” Quinn introduced her.
“The Mighty Prince Ayo,” the dark man barked. “The Mighty and the…”
“Loud,” Quinn snorted.
Ayo jerked his friend closer until his chin was atop Quinn’s head. “I was going to say Long, but Loud works well too.” He released his friend and Kendall. “Where is that beautiful Elfinish?” he asked, looking around for the cat. “Come here, sweeting!”
Munchkin came strolling over nonchalantly and allowed the big man to lift her up. She endured him rubbing the side of his face against her own then settled into the valley of his arm as he held her, one paw pressed to his naked chest.
“Necromans hold Elfinishs to be sacred,” Ayo said. “I have only seen two in my lifetime and both were males. This one is a lady of great beauty.” He stroked the sparse tuft on the feline’s head. “Does she talk to you, Kendall?”
“She talks to both of us,” Quinn replied.
“Will you talk to me, precious one?” Ayo asked.
The Elfinish patted the dark man’s chest and winked one eye as if to tell him she might were they alone.
“I take it you aren’t siding with the Coalition,” Quinn said.
The Necromanian made a rude sound with his large lips. He set Munchkin down on the floor. “If it pleases them to think my father and brothers and I are waffling, so be it. You know the truth and we would appreciate you informing the Burgon of that.” He narrowed his pitch-black eyes. “It was a brutal thing that was done to the emperor and one for which we Necromanians are most displeased.”
“I know the Burgon will be relieved Necroman is with him. He had no desire to make war on your people.”
“Ryden Bakari is a good man,” Ayo pronounced. “He has the support of our allies, the Chrystallusians as well.”
“That’s good to know,” Quinn stated.
“So, you were headed for the Sinisters when I claimed your ship for my own,” Ayo said.
Quinn snorted. “In your dreams, black man.”
Ayo gave the impression he was ready to get down to the business of war. “The Burgon is nearby, I take it?”
“Aye. I was to find out where your people stood but there’s no reason to go lurking about Necroman now. We can rendezvous with the Burgon and find out what he wants us to do next.”
“Bomb the hell out of Riezell,” Ayo snapped. “I’d love to skewer Morrison on a pike and present him to Ryden.”
“Morrison is just a puppet,” Quinn said. “I want the bastard behind him.”
“Well, I know it wasn’t Kurt Bowen,” Ayo declared. “A friend of yours took that one out on Aduaidh Prime.”
“So I heard.”
“Whoever he is, he’s got balls the size of Serenia,” Ayo said.
“It would have to be someone who hates the Burgon,” Kendall said, not wishing to be kept out of the conversation.
“Not necessarily,” her lover said. “It could be someone who wanted to continue with the war.”
“But why?”
Ayo rubbed his fingers together. “Money, pretty one. Riches can be made during a war.”
“That would be my guess,” Quinn said. “It’s someone who was making money on armament or ships and didn’t want to see his well dry up.”
“Like someone at Tappas Industries,” Ayo suggested.
“I hope not,” the Phantom said. “Admiral Ben-Alkazar is associated with them now. He owns a fair-sized chunk of TI stock, bought with that huge retirement check he received.”
“You don’t think it could be him, do you?” Kendall asked.
“Not a chance,” Quinn replied.
“I agree,” Ayo said. He slapped Quinn on the back. “Well, I’d best get back to the Camara. We’ll tag along behind you. Try not to go so slow we’ll run up your exhaust out of boredom.”
“Why not?” Quinn countered. “You’re always threatening to ram into my backside.”
Ayo grinned nastily. “Oh I’ll take you one day, pretty boy, but it will be when you’re least expecting me.”
Kendall’s face turned red at their banter. She wasn’t sure if the Necromanian meant his words or was merely teasing. After he and his men departed, she looked up at her husband, query in her green gaze.
“Aye, he’s of that bent, Milady,” Quinn said. “When we were young men, he tried to seduce me and we had a hell of a fight that put both of us in the infirmary. After that we became good friends. That’s all there will ever be to it.”
“For you perhaps,” she said, searching his face. “But maybe not for him.”
He smiled sadly. “He’d give his life for me if it were needed.”
“Would you do the same for him?”
“Aye,” he answered without hesitation, “but not for the same reason.”
Kendall understood what her lover was implying. He considered himself a good friend to the Necromanian prince but Ayo was in love with Rory Quinn.
Paton came over to say the Burgon was expecting them to meet with him shortly. “He’s trying to get a bit of rest right now.”
“I doubt he will be able to,” Quinn said. “He will be grieving hard for his Anastasia.”
“We’ll reach the Sekkeen in about fifteen minutes,” Shannon called out then yawned broadly. “Excuse me.”
“I’m getting a strange message, Cap’n,” Douglas told Quinn. “It’s not in a language I recognize.”
“Put it on the Vid-Com speakers,” Quinn ordered.
“Ésta es la nave de la alianza la fuerza del vendaval. Nos han golpeado y necesitamos ayuda.”
“What language is that?” Paton asked.
“It’s an Spáinneach,” Kendall said. “He’s saying he is the Alliance ship La Fuerza del Vendaval and that he has been hit and is in need of help.”
“You speak an Spáinneach?” Quinn asked her, one brow elevated.
“I had to find something to do to occupy my time these last two years,” she said then shrugged. “I learned a few new languages.”
“Like Cengusian High Speech,” the Phantom said with a grunt. “What other languages did you learn, wench?”
“Iodálach,” she replied, smiling for she knew he also spoke the language.
“Why Iodálach?” he asked.
“I spent four months there learning to use the TAOS machine,” she said. “When in Iodáil…”
“Ti amo più che vita in se,” he said softly, telling her he loved her more than life itself.
“Voi essere mio tutto, Milord,” she replied to let him know he was everything to her.
“Well, that’s all well and good,” Paton said, obviously annoyed that he didn’t understand the language, “but why is that an Spáinneach contacting us?”
“The question is,” Kendall said. “Why would someone speaking an Spáinneach be on an Alliance ship? The an Spáinneach are members of the Coalition.”
“Good question,” Paton said. “Why don’t you ask him, wench?”
“I’ll ask him who he is,” Kendall said. “Vessell de la alianza, La Fuerza del Vendaval. ¿A quién son que habla?”
“Capitán Raoul De Salvo. Por favor, necesitamos ayuda. ¡Muchos están muriendo!”
“I understood his name,” Quinn said. “What else did he say?”
“He is begging for our help,” Kendall replied. “He says many are dying.”
“Why hasn’t the Sekkeen gotten in on this conversation?” Paton asked. “Wouldn’t her captain know the men flying for the Alliance?”
“Hail the Sekkeen and let’s find out,” Quinn said.
Douglas shook his head. “The signal to them is being blocked, Cap’n.”
“Interesting,” Quinn said. “Can you pull the an Spáinneach ship up on the screen?”
The communications officer shook his head. “Negative, Sir. I’ve been trying.”
“And I can’t triangulate its position,” Shannon added.
“It’s a trap,” Paton said.
“Obviously,” Quinn said.
“¡Apresúrese por favor! ¿Qué usted está esperando? Tenemos Raoul importante Breva a bordo.”
Kendall frowned. “Who is Major Raoul Breva?” she asked.
“Gabriel Leveche’s brother,” Quinn replied. “Why?”
“He says Breva is onboard and he’s asking what we are waiting for.”
“Tell him to put Breva on the horn,” Quinn said. “I’d know Raoul’s voice.”
“Capitán De Salvo, déjame por favor hablar con Breva importante,” Kendall said.
“They’ve broken off communications, Sir,” Gilly reported.
“Isn’t that convenient?” Quinn said. “Still having trouble hailing the Sekkeen?”
“Aye, Sir.”
“Try hailing the Necromans.”
“I did,” Gilly replied. “The signal is being blocked to them as well.”
“In other words,” Paton said, “the mystery ship is after us.”
“It would seem so,” Quinn said. “The question is why.”
“To get us away from the Burgon and the Necromans,” Kendall said. “Whatcha wanna bet the man behind all this is on La Fuerza del Vendaval?”
“He obviously wants us,” Patron told Quinn.
“Looks that way,” the Phantom agreed. “Keep trying to connect with La Fuerza del Vendaval, Gilly.”
“Aye, Sir!”
“Something just occurred to me, Quinn,” Kendall said as she and her husband sat down in the command chairs. “If Tappas Industries is behind the resurrection of the war, they’d have good reason to hate you. You plundered a lot of their ships if I remember correctly.”
“That I did,” Quinn said. “Mostly ship parts from their main factory on an Ghearmáin, transporter pads from the factory on Astráil and síorí crystals mined in Amazeen, but we did confiscate an entire shipment of new Fiachs destined for high ranking officers of Fleet Command.” He grinned. “That alone would make me a few enemies.”
“What did you do with the runabouts?” Kendall asked.
“Dispensed them to deserving individuals among the Alliance,” Paton answered for Quinn. He struck his chest with his thumb. “I got one of them.”
“Who owns Tappas Industries?” Kendall queried.
Quinn shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’ve heard he is an Ghearmáin. You may be on to something, Lhiannan. He could be an Spáinneach.”
“Obviously we were being singled out,” Paton said. “Did whoever was on the an Spáinneach ship think we’d break off and run after them?”
“Apparently so,” Quinn replied. He was watching Shannon who was yawning, his eyelids drooping. “Ian, when did you last sleep?”
The navigational officer opened his eyes wide. “Sir, I don’t remember,” he answered.
“He has taken up with one of the Burgon’s ex-concubines,” Fenella called out.
“Where is the lady now?” Quinn asked.
“In my quarters, Cap’n,” Shannon replied.
Quinn exchanged a look with Kendall. “How ‘bout you and me swapping quarters for a while?” the Phantom asked. “And let Dougie take over for you. Being asleep at the wheel ain’t good.”
Those on the bridge studiously avoided looking at their captain. It was apparent they all understood what was being asked.
“It would be my pleasure, Sir,” Shannon was quick to say. He winked at Douglas.
“Then go to your lady, slap some clean sheets on your bunk and then take your new friend to my quarters. I had the linens on my bed changed yesterday and no one’s slept on them,” Quinn told his navigational officer. He glanced at Xavier. “Change the entry codes on the doors accordingly, Morgan.”
Xavier was biting his lip to keep from smiling. He nodded and set about doing as he was told.
“Well done, Sir,” Paton said with a chuckle.
“Get bent,” Quinn replied sweetly.
“Message coming in at last from the Sekkeen,” Douglas reported.
“That’s a relief. On screen.”
The Burgon’s tired face appeared on the large screen. “Quinn, I’d like to see you over on my ship. Prince Ayo will be joining us.”
“Aye, Your Excellency,” Quinn replied. “On my way.”
Nodding, Ryden Bakari ended the connection between the two ships.
“He looks awful,” Kendall commented.
“I’d look that way if I’d lost you,” Quinn told her. He got up from the command chair, reached out to take his wife’s hand and kissed her upturned wrist. “Why don’t you have Fen take you down to our new quarters? I’ll join you there when I come back.”
* * * * *
Ayo Taborn appeared only seconds after Quinn on the Sekkeen’s transporter pad. The dark man was scowling. “I tried hailing you but you were blocking my transmissions, pretty boy. What the hell was the meaning of that?” he demanded.
“I’ll explain when we speak to the Burgon so I don’t have to do so twice,” Quinn said. “Something is definitely rotten in Virago.”
“What has Virago to do with anything?” Ayo asked.
Quinn sighed. “It’s just an expression,” he replied.
“You and your stupid Cengusian expressions,” Ayo complained as the two men followed a guard to the Burgon’s private quarters.
Their escort stopped at the Burgon’s door and announced them. The door shushed open and the guard stood aside to allow Quinn and Ayo to enter—the door slid closed behind them.
“Take a seat, gentlemen,” the Burgon said. He was sitting in a swivel chair that was turned so he could survey the dark heavens beyond his ship. In his hand was a snifter of flamed-colored liquid. “Atkins, pour a libation for my guests. Chrystallusian plum brandy for Lord Quinn and tangomanji wine for Prince Ayo.”
A cybot stood off to one side of the room and it bowed before going over to the bar to do as it was bid.
“I enjoy tangomanji,” the Burgon observed. “Very refreshing, but then again I’ve always liked iced watermelon.”
“I will send you a case of it from my cousin’s winery,” Ayo offered. “It is the best to be found in Necroman.”
“I would like that,” the Emperor of the Alliance said.
With their refreshments in hand, Quinn and Ayo took a sip, waiting for the Burgon to tell them why he had sent for them.
“Diabolusia has decided to stay out of this,” the Burgon said. “Once their king realized ninety percent of his galaxy was against the attack on Aduaidh Prime I suppose he reasoned it was not to his advantage.”
“Cowards,” Ayo said with a sniff. “Don’t trust them, Your Excellency.”
“Oh I don’t,” the Burgon said, swiveling his chair around to face them. “The other countries involved are an Ghearmáin, Diewan and Jabal of the Federated Moons of Rysalia and Astráil.”
“All places prominently in league with Tappas Industries,” Quinn said.
The Burgon frowned. “Tappas?”
“My lady-wife has a theory,” Quinn said. “She believes TI is behind the attack on your palace. I believe that attack was meant to lure me back from Theristes.”
“Don’t we think highly of ourselves?” Ayo asked in a droll tone.
Quinn set his snifter of brandy on the table beside his chair and sat forward, his fingers threaded together between his knees. “Ayo tried to reach me a while ago but all transmission to my ship was being blocked. We tried reaching you as well as the Camara but couldn’t get through.”
“We weren’t blocking your transmissions,” the Burgon stated.
“No, but an an Spáinneach ship was.”
Ayo’s eyes widened. “From where?” he asked. “My crew did not tell me we had a Coalition ship close by!”
Quinn explained to the Burgon and Ayo what had occurred on his ship and the reason he believed he’d been singled out.
“How do we find out who owns Tappas Industries?” Ayo questioned, his dark face set and hard.
“We have a spy within Morrison’s office and normally I could contact that person, but right now it would be dangerous,” the Burgon explained. “But I can contact Ben-Alkazar. He will know.”
“You do not believe the Dahrenian Admiral is involved, do you?” Ayo asked.
“No,” the Burgon and Quinn said at the same time.
“And I am sure he is livid that Diewan and Jabal have thrown in with what Morrison is calling the New Coalition.”
“If a New Coalition has been organized, the High Council will not take it lightly,” the Burgon said. “A New Alliance won’t be as forgiving as the old one was to those who stand against us.”
“Fool,” Ayo called Morrison.
“You say this mystery ship tried to lure you away from us with a call for help?” the Burgon asked. “Do you believe they will try again?”
“Perhaps not in the same way, but if catching me is their plan, I’m sure they’ll try something else.”
“Equally stupid, no doubt,” Ayo said with a snort.
“No, I think it will be a more carefully thought-out plan,” Quinn said. “They must realize we saw through their first ploy. The second won’t be as tactless.”
“Quinn’s right,” the Burgon agreed. “But the next time around, you need to engage them. I want whoever is behind this, and I want the pleasure of lopping his head from his neck with my new scytheblade.”
“You have joined the Order of Taibhse?” Ayo asked, awe rife through his voice. “I already had much admiration for you, Your Excellency. Now I am envious!” He turned to his childhood friend. “Why have you never sponsored me for membership, Phantom?”
“We’ve been through this before. It takes finesse with a sword to even be considered for membership in the Order, Ayo,” Quinn said with a long sigh. “All you know how to do is slash and chop. You’d maim yourself with a scytheblade with the way you thrash about in battle.”
Ayo’s eyes narrowed. “Impudent,” he labeled Quinn. “Impudent and uppity!”
The Burgon laughed for the first time since he lost his wife. He drained his glass of Chalean brandy then held the snifter out to his ‘bot for more. “Leveche has gone after the Jabalan ships—there are five of them—and Cosaint sent word he’s taking on the lone Astráil ship and will then go after the Diewanian. Taegin Drae and Cair Ghrian are standing by should Leveche need them. That leaves the an Ghearmáin fleet.”
“How many are in that fleet?” Ayo asked.
“We can account for twelve, but if this mystery ship of Quinn’s isn’t in that count, then we’re looking at thirteen.” He thanked the ‘bot then laid his head on the back of his chair. “I had planned on the three of us seeking out the an Ghearmáinachs.”
“But now?” Quinn pressed.
“I think you should leave yourself open for your mystery ship to draw you out,” the Burgon said. “If Kendall is right and the man behind this is on that ship or maybe even on the Raptor—which we haven’t been able to locate and this might be why—I want him. We’ll set our own trap for the bastard.”
“If this is the owner of Tappas Industries, I’ve cost him a lot of money over the last several years,” Quinn said. “My guess is he was on the Raptor and itching to get his hands on me. That’s why Morrison came to intercept the Borstal.”
“I imagine you’re right,” the Burgon said. “And now Mr. X is even more determined to catch you.”
“Give us the coordinates for the an Ghearmáinach ships and we’ll separate. Chances are the mystery ship will come after the Lhong Shee,” Quinn said.
“We need to coordinate this, but if they have a way to block our transmissions to one another, it will be hard for us to stay in contact,” the Burgon reminded them.
“All the more reason to believe Tappas Industries is behind all this,” Ayo said. “They would have the newest technologies that aren’t incorporated on Alliance ships.”
“That makes sense,” Quinn agreed.
“I am sorry I had to draw you back into this, Quinn,” the Burgon said. “You’ve given enough and suffered enough. I had hoped you could find peace on Theristes.”
“It’s not your fault, Your Excellency,” Quinn replied. “My loyalty is to you and the Alliance.”
“All right,” the Burgon said, brushing away the telltale moisture that had gathered in his eyes. “Head back to your ships and I’ll send the coordinates over for the twelve ships we know about. Pick four you want to go after and let my navigational officer know. We’ll split up and head after our targets. As soon as Cosaint, Drae, Leveche and Ghrian are finished playing around with their own targets, I’ll have them rendezvous with the Sekkeen. We’ll take things from there.” He clutched his hand into a fist. “I’m going to end this war once and for all.”
“He apologized for having to bring me back from Theristes,” Quinn told Kendall as they lay on the bed they were now sharing. “He looked so tired and you could tell he was trying not to show his grief to us.”
“Did I tell you about the conversation he and I had after you and I split up?” she asked.
“No. Where was this?”
“He came to an Iodáil for a conference, and when he learned I was there at the medical institute made a point of coming by to see me, along with about a dozen of his personal bodyguards.” She smiled. “You can imagine what a hit I was with my fellow students when the Burgon himself showed up in class asking for a moment of my time.”
“He would have created quite a stir,” Quinn said.
“We walked outside on the quad—his guards at a safe distance behind us—and he asked how I was doing. He didn’t mention you and neither did I, but looking back on it now I think he wanted to reassure himself that I would be around when you came after me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh it wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it. He was on a fishing expedition, but at that time I didn’t realize that. He asked if I was seeing anyone and I told him I wasn’t, that I didn’t have time and that I wasn’t looking. He said that was wise for we never know what life has in store for us. He told me I should immerse myself in my job and allow Fate to do the rest.” She threaded her fingers through her husband’s.
“He knew how I felt about you,” Quinn said. “They all did. I know they hated to ask me to do what was needed, but the others—Cair, Ruan, Gabriel—they were already married to their ladies or had kingdoms to run. I was the only one they considered unencumbered.”
“I can see their reasoning,” she conceded.
“So what else did you and the Burgon talk about that day?”
“We talked about him having emptied his harem,” she said. “When he said it, I wondered why in the gods’ green world he felt he needed to tell me—of all people—but now I understand. He told me that he’d never once laid a hand to any of the women in his harem. Most of them were given to him as gifts or had been taken as hostages for their fathers’ good behavior.” She giggled. “I remember him saying something like—‘oh, here you go, Burgon, old man. Here’s another girl for you. Add her to your seraglio for she’s eating me out of hearth and home!’”
Quinn laughed. “I can hear him saying that.”
“He only wanted the Empress Anastasia. His second wife had been foisted off on him—his words, not mine—to avoid Aduaidh Prime going to war with Idimmu Prime. He slept with her once to consummate the Joining and in order to make it legal but never went back to her bed again.” Kendall shook her head. “Now it all makes perfect sense why he would have told me all that back then, but at the time I was confused and not a little bit unsure of his motives.”
“If I know one thing about the man, it’s that he never does anything without a proper motive,” Quinn allowed.
“My heart is aching for him, Phantom,” she said. “He has gone through so much and to lose the woman he loved…”
“I feel the same,” her husband said.
“We have to find him a woman,” she stated.
“Ah well, I don’t know about that,” Quinn said.
“He seemed a bit enamored of the Amazeen.”
Quinn jerked. “Lhiannan, no! Don’t even joke about such a thing!”
She reached down to caress him with her free hand. “What’s this?” she asked, deliberately trying to get his mind off Shanee Iphito.
Quinn knew what she was about. “It’s my horn of plenty,” he said with a sniff. “Wanna blow it?”
Their eyes met then she let go of his hand and wriggled down on the bed, positioning herself between her husband’s thighs. She cupped his balls and began gently massaging him, weighing them in her palm. “What are these?”
“My bag of nuts,” he said. “Wanna nibble?”
“Are they salty?”
“Try them and see,” he said in a gruff voice.
Kendall wrapped her hand around his staff as she continued to lightly squeeze his sack. She used her elbows to nudge his thighs farther apart.
“And you call me an evil man,” he whispered.
She lowered her head and licked the top of his captive penis, the tip of her tongue flicking across the opening. Quinn drew in a ragged breath, his hips arching upward of their own accord. Taking him into her mouth, she slid her lips all the way to the base of his cock, drawing on that thick rod, increasing the pressure around it as she suckled him.
“By the gods, Lhiannan,” he said. “You have the sweetest mouth.”
She looked up at him and saw his eyes were closed and his hands gripping the pillow beneath his head. Grinning to herself for she thought him too controlled by far, she slid her hand from his balls, and up along the creased of his hard rump until the tip of her middle finger was pressed lightly at the puckered rim of his anus. She watched his eyes pop open and his head lift so he could look down at her.
“What are you…?” he began but stopped, going absolutely still as she inserted her finger into the creased little hole, going as deep as the finger’s length could travel. “Kendall!” he gasped.
She began a concerted effort of dragging her mouth up and down his cock, her finger gliding in and out his rectum—mouth up, finger driving deep—finger pulling almost out, mouth sliding all the way to the base of his rod. She could hear him panting, feel him trying to writhe beneath her but she clamped her elbows on his thighs to hold him down. His hands were no longer gripping the pillow but were buried in her hair, aiding her as she raised and lowered her head as she suckled him.
“Oh my God,” she heard him say, and then his entire body clenched and he came hard, his cum gushing down her throat. His penis was hot and pulsed like a nova between her lips. He was dragging in breaths and his hands had stilled in her hair, holding her scalp tightly as the last flicker of movement arched his cock and the last little spurt of liquid eased down her throat.
Kendall swallowed then licked him clean, her tongue swirling over the head of his shaft. She gently removed her finger and slid from the bed, going into the bathroom to relieve herself and wash her hands. She slipped on her nightgown and left the bathroom. When she came back, she saw he had dragged on his black silk pajama bottoms and was curled in a fetal position, a smile on his face, sound asleep.
Shaking her head, she climbed into bed beside him and watched him as he slept. He was an uncommonly handsome man with the longest eyelashes she had ever seen on a male. Darkly smudged against his cheeks, she wanted to plant a kiss on those feathery spikes. Her gaze wandered over his sexily tousled hair, the fullness of his mouth, the cleft in his chin, the twin dimples in his cheeks and her heart soared. He was her man, her lover, her husband, and she loved him so much it actually made her hurt.
He had asked if she had forgiven him. Kendall knew she had. He was everything she wanted and everything she needed. He was…
Gone!
Kendall lay there for a moment—too stunned to react. Slowly she sat up, her heart pounding, her lips parted. He had disappeared right before her eyes, the sheet still imprinted with his weight.
“Quinn?” she questioned, reaching out to touch his side of the bed. The place was warm to the touch. “Quinn?”
She knew he hadn’t simply vanished into mist as he was able to do. He’d been snatched right out from beneath her eyes and the gods only knew where he’d been taken.
“Quinn!” she screamed.
* * * * *
0305 CMT
Ayo was pacing the bridge, his black face glistening with sweat. He was angry but there was a hint of desperation in his black gaze. “We detected nothing,” he told Paton. “Absolutely nothing!”
“Neither did we,” Paton stated. “Whatever technology they used to take him, it was stealth based. Not a single blip showed on our screens and no intruder alert went off.” He frowned. “That’s too gods-be-damned much like our Maze for my comfort.”
“By the gods I hope you have everyone secure here now!” Ayo said. “Is your crew wearing interceptors so they can’t be plucked off this ship?” He looked pointedly at Kendall.
“Aye,” Paton said then his shoulders sagged. “We are now.”
Kendall was sitting huddled in Quinn’s command chair, her knees drawn up, Munchkin in her arms. The Elfinish was purring so loudly to comfort her humanoid companion everyone on the bridge could hear her.
“The Sekkeen is steaming toward us,” Shannon reported. “As are the Sangunar and the Saoirse. King Ruan and the Tiogar are finishing up what they started and will be joining us as soon as possible.”
“Where the hell could he have gone?” Ayo demanded.
“He could be anywhere,” Paton replied.
“He’s on the Raptor,” Kendall said. “I know he is.”
“Well, if he is,” Fenella said, “Shanee will do everything in her power to protect him.”
“If she can,” Kendall said. Her eyes were swollen, her nose red from crying.
“We have to think positive thoughts,” Paton said.
“Cengusian rubbish!” Ayo said. “I say think murderous thoughts for when I get my hands on the man who took the Phantom, I will break his neck!”
“They could be torturing him,” Kendall said, fresh tears falling down her pale cheeks.
Ayo and Paton exchanged a quick look then Ayo went to hunker down in front of Kendall. The dark man put a hand on her leg. “Why would they do that, sweeting?” he asked in a gentle bass voice. “What purpose would it serve?”
“He’s made a bad enemy, Ayo,” Kendall said. “Someone who meant to capture him at all costs. Whoever it is won’t just toss the infamous Phantom into a cell and throw away the key. He will want to make Quinn suffer.”
“Don’t think like that,” Ayo said. “We’ll get him back. On my honor as a Necromanian prince, I swear to you we will.”
“One way or another?” she asked, her lips trembling.
The dark man’s face fell. “Aye, wench. One way or another.” He pushed to his feet and turned around, but not before Kendall saw the tears glistening in the Necroman’s eyes.
“The Sangunar is hailing us, Mr. Paton,” Douglas said.
“On screen.”
King Gabriel Leveche—the legendary Lord Savidos—appeared. Beside him was his brother Raoul Breva. “Has there been any word on Quinn?” Leveche asked.
“None,” Paton reported.
“Well, I don’t imagine we can be expecting a ransom demand,” Leveche said.
“No, Your Majesty, I suppose not,” Paton agreed.
“Do you have any notion which ship might have taken him?”
“Lady Kendall believes it was the Raptor, the StarDestroyer from Riezell that came after him the first time. I believe she may be right.”
“All right,” Leveche said. “We’ll start looking for that bitch of a ship in Alpha Quadrant. Cosaint, Drae and Ghrian can take Beta, Gamma and Delta when they get here. The last I heard from the Burgon, he was scouting around Uigingeach and Admiral Ben-Alkazar was headed for an Ghearmáin.”
“We are grateful to you, Your Majesty,” Paton said.
“He’s our friend too, Paton,” Raoul Breva pointed out.
The screen went black and the stillness was so disquieting several crewmen cleared their throats to break the silence.
Ayo threw his hands into the air. “I’m going back to my ship. If you hear anything—even a blip!—contact me at once.”
Paton nodded. He was chewing on a fingernail, his nervousness there for everyone to see.
Kendall was staring at the floor beside the command chair. Munchkin was licking her companion gently under the chin but Kendall seemed unaware of what her cat was doing.
It was just after 0300 but none of the crew of the Lhong Shee were in their beds. Each was at his or her duty station, praying for word of their captain.
* * * * *
0436 CMT
Swish.
Quinn closed his eyes to the repetitious sound that was driving him insane. He was lying on his back on a cold stone slab with his wrists and ankles spread-eagled to the slab by what felt like thin, heated wire. Even the slightest movement of his limbs brought excruciating pain as whatever shackled him sank into his flesh. He could feel his blood running from each wound and pooling beneath him. The darkened room in which he was being held was as frigid as the arctic climes of Virago and his bare chest, arms and feet stung from the cold. He had to keep his jaws tightly clenched to keep from shivering so badly.
Swish.
Above him was the worst of the torments being inflicted on him for that one was diabolical and designed to twist and warp the mind before the agony of it ever reached his body. He couldn’t watch the thing, but he was reminded of it every moment for the sound had slithered its way into his mind and was slowly taking him where he had never wanted to be. He couldn’t block out the sound, and with the sound came an unbidden vision of the torture device even though he was not looking at it with his eyes.
Swish.
“Will you sign the papers now?”
The disembodied voice belonged to the man sitting across the room from Quinn. That man had been there from the moment Quinn had come to, struggling against two burly guards who were lashing him to the slab. Even though Quinn couldn’t see him, he had etched the bastard’s face into his memory, could find him no matter where he might try to hide.
Swish.
“With every sweep of the clock, the blade drops another millimeter,” the man said, satisfaction evident in his voice. “Don’t wait too long, Quinn.”
“Go to hell,” Quinn snarled, and despite his resolve opened his eyes to stare at the blade glinting in the light of the four tall candlesticks that gave off the only light in the room.
The crescent-shaped blade was attached to a long rod that swung from a massive wooden beam. With an edge so razor-sharp it could barely be seen as the pendulum swung slowly above the Phantom from well past his head to beyond his feet, the hideous music of the passing of the horns of the blade as it sliced through the cold air set its victim’s nerves on edge.
“It will take an hour, maybe longer before you will feel its first kiss,” the man in the shadows said. “I imagine the first part of you to experience that dubious pleasure will be your cock since—at least from the angle at which I’m sitting—seems to be the closest to the crescent.”
A shudder ran through Quinn. With each pass of the blade he could feel the air being displaced around it. The ungodly sound of its course swinging over the length of him caused the cogs in the teeth of the device to click, bringing the edge of that razor-thin blade that much closer to his helpless body.
Swish.
“All you need do is sign the papers and I will still the machine.”
The bastard made it sound so simple, Quinn thought as moisture formed in his gaze to blur the long, slow process of the pendulous death sweeping over him. He was not a coward—or at least had never known himself to be one—but the passage of the horror perching over him was proving to be more than his mind could stand. It seemed that the lower the blade came toward him, the faster the speed of the descent and the more often he heard its swish and clink.
“Suit yourself,” the man said on a long sigh. “I’m quite content to sit here and watch it slice you in half from crotch to throat. A shallow nick here, a long cut there. What’s a little agony between rivals, eh, Quinn?”
Quinn tried to blot out the man’s voice as well as the song of the pendulum, but he could do neither. His heart was pounding like a drum in his chest and even the minutest of moves on his part drove the wire banding his wrists and ankles deeper into his flesh. He could not struggle without doing himself great damage, possibly amputating a limb, and so he lay as still as he could although every instinct screamed at him to fight.
When he had first seen his tormentor, he had known this man was his worst enemy. He had read the knowledge in the cold gray eyes that were grinning down at him. There was hatred in that smile, lethal intent and a promise of agony to come.
“You’ve led me a merry chase, Quinn,” the man said softly. “But all good things come to those who wait.” He had laid a hand on Quinn’s thigh. “I have you now and that’s all that matters.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“The man who’s going to take everything you hold dear away from you.”
Quinn had yet to see the maniacal torture device paused above him. At that moment he was staring into a face that could have rivaled that of a god. Unlike Ayo who found men more attractive than women, the Phantom had never paid much attention to the faces of other men, but this man’s countenance was so striking, so handsome, it made Rory Quinn feel inadequate. Even when the smile slipped from the man’s chiseled lips, he lost none of his attractiveness.
“I didn’t particularly mind you plundering my merchant ships,” the man said as he folded his arms over a white silk shirt that fit him like a glove. “What’s insurance for, after all? Actually, in a way I admired you, Quinn. You certainly lived up to your title of Phantom. I even applauded you a couple of times when you up and vanished without a trace while my men were scurrying about trying to catch you.”
“Happy to have entertained you,” Quinn mumbled.
“Oh you did. Quite often.” He bent over his prisoner. “I could have caught you once or twice if I’d really put my mind to it, but I didn’t. I let you get away as free as a bird.”
“So why come after me now?” the Phantom asked. “If you didn’t care about my stealing your cargo. Why now?”
A slow, taunting smile tugged at the man’s lips. One dark, reddish-brown brow quirked upward. “Don’t you know?”
“If I did I wouldn’t have asked,” Quinn snapped.
“I know she told you about me.”
A tremor ran down Quinn’s backbone. He let out a long breath. “O’Shay,” he named the man.
“Collin Patrick Riordan O’Shay at your service,” he introduced himself. “I knew she would have mentioned me to you.”
“In passing,” Quinn said, a muscle working in his jaw.
“Now that I don’t believe,” O’Shay said. “She would have told you about our month of wild passion on the tropical sands of Oceania. Aren’t wives supposed to own up to their husbands on their Joining night?”
Though Quinn knew it was a lucky guess on O’Shay’s part, it nevertheless bothered him that the bastard could know what had transpired between his wife and him.
“She most likely told you I impregnated her during that sweet month.” O’Shay’s white teeth glistened in the darkness of the room. “That was intentional on my part, but unfortunately she lost our child. I’ll take better care of her the next time around.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Quinn denied.
“Oh but there will for I’m going to give you two options, Phantom. In one option, you can sign away your rights to her, putting your messy handwriting to the divorce papers my lawgivers have drawn up or—and I actually loathe laying this option before you myself—you can die and make the sweet darling a widow. Grieving, I’ll grant you, but I will be there to comfort her, just as I comforted her on those balmy nights in Oceania. Have no fear on that account.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’ll sign anything,” Quinn threw at his tormentor.
“I was hoping you’d say that, but you have yet to understand how you will die. Perhaps the knowing of that will change your mind.”
It was then O’Shay pointed to the ceiling of the room and Quinn’s gaze reluctantly swept upward. A frown of puzzlement marred the Phantom’s face until a signal from his captor set the blade into motion. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. He’d never seen the torture device before, but he knew what it was. He heard himself whisper the name.
“Aye, a pendulum. An awesome sight, isn’t it?” O’Shay asked. “Quite frightening I’ve been told.”
When the first click resounded through the room, Quinn flinched for—almost imperceptibly—the blade had dropped. He began to breathe quicker, more shallowly, and he could feel his testicles drawing up.
“The blade is made from the finest Ionarian steel,” O’Shay informed him. “It is honed to such a razor sharpness I am told you will barely feel the cut on the first pass but you will experience the sting as it tracks back across the slice.”
Quinn had slowly closed his eyes, the insidiousness of the torture almost more than he could bear without whimpering.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sign the papers, Quinn? I don’t particularly want to see you filleted. I really do have a grudging admiration for you.”
“You’re a sick bastard,” Quinn labeled him.
“I’m a man who wants what he wants and will do what it takes to possess it. In this case, it is Kendall I want. You are an obstacle, but one I can overcome easily enough.”
There was another click and Quinn could not stop himself from jumping. The wire bit into his wrists.
“I tell you what,” O’Shay said. “I’ll tell you a little story. Maybe that will take your mind from your impending agony. You can hear the pendulum’s music, can’t you? Listen closely. She’s whispering to you with every sweep of her pretty blade.”
He had not heard that swishing sound until O’Shay mentioned it, no doubt intending for the mind-altering resonance to writhe its way into his captive’s subconscious. He heard it then, and each swing of the blade sent a trill of fear down Quinn’s back.
“I knew about your lady-love, of course,” O’Shay said. “Morrison has quite an extensive dossier on you, but he didn’t know about Kendall Bryne and—I’m sure you’ll thank me for it—I helped keep it that way. The picture my spies brought back of her intrigued me and I found myself looking at them over and over again, touching them, stroking them. I had my spies follow her, delve into every facet of her past and present. The more I learned about her, the more intrigued I became. I started dreaming of her, fantasizing about her when I masturbated each night.”
“Not only a sick bastard but a twisted one,” Quinn told him.
“I became an obsessed bastard,” O’Shay said. “I wanted to meet the woman who had stolen the infamous Phantom’s heart. But then you jilted her, tossed her off like yesterday’s garbage. You broke her heart, you hurt her, and for that I vowed you’d one day pay. I stepped up my efforts to have you captured because you had made her so unhappy.”
Quinn had nothing to say to that for he knew what he’d done to Kendall.
“When I learned she was going to Oceania, I arranged to be there when she arrived. I met her, knew I had to have her—not just because she was your former lover but because of the unique and lovely woman she is. I wanted her for myself alone and that was what I set out to do.”
“You were a pleasant interlude for her. Nothing more,” Quinn snapped.
“Aye, I’m sure I was, but I was gently courting her as I felt she deserved to be courted and eventually she would have come to me on my terms had you not come back into the picture. I am a patient man. Anything worth having is worth waiting for. I suppose I should have made a concerted effort to woo Kendall but there were more pressing things going on, you understand. The Coalition needed my guidance and I had to concentrate on making sure Morrison found you and got you out of our hair. I certainly couldn’t allow you to get in the way of what I planned later for Kendall. When I discovered she’d lost our child, I was rather relieved. Joining had never been my intention with Kendall or any other woman, but I would have insisted had she carried the babe to term. Although Kendall is a truly exceptional woman and I enjoy relations with her, taking her away from you was far more important to me than anything else.” O’Shay frowned deeply. “Now here you are with her again. That will not do.”
“Aye, well, shit happens,” Quinn said.
“It does, indeed, as you can attest to at this very moment, eh?”
All that had been said over an hour before and the blade was still only one-third of the way down the ceiling on its descent toward Rory Quinn. O’Shay fell silent but Quinn could hear the man breathing. They were alone in the room, just the three of them—Quinn, his captor and the blade. There would be no help coming for no one knew where he was or how he came to be there. The Raptor had been sitting right beside the Lhong Shee the entire time, its stealth technology so far advanced to the Amazeen cloaking abilities Quinn’s ship possessed. Now the Raptor—with even more stunning advancements—was thousands of miles away and undetectable by any scanners save its own.
Quinn had never felt so helpless or without hope in his life. All because of the woman he loved and believed he at last was going to be able to spend his life with.
It hadn’t been about the Phantom’s preying on Riordan O’Shay’s company manifests that had sent Morrison’s men after Quinn. It had been about Kendall.
“She’ll hate you for this,” he said.
“She’ll never know,” O’Shay replied, and got up from the chair in which he’d been passing the time. He came over to the slab, looked up at the pendulum for a moment and then lowered his gaze to Quinn. “I will return your body to her so she can go through the grieving process. She—and I’m sure the Burgon as well—will be grateful to me for finding you but, alas, not in the nick of time.” He looked up at the pendulum then laughed. “I’m sure you appreciate the humor in that statement.”
“The Burgon knows it was you behind the attack on his palace.”
O’Shay blinked. “He can’t know.”
“He does,” Quinn said, sensing the first chink in the man’s armor. “Ben-Alkazar will have told him who owns Tappas Industries by now. I can tell you this though—Ryden Bakari will come after you with everything he has and he won’t stop until you are at the end of his blade. There is nowhere in the megaverse you can go that he won’t eventually track you down.”
“I have stealth capabilities—”
“Twenty-four hours a day?” Quinn asked. “Thirty days a month? Twelve months a year? You can’t stay cloaked forever, O’Shay. You’ll slip up and when you do, he’ll be there waiting and he’ll take your head.”
“I bombed his palace to bring you out of hiding!” O’Shay said. “I had no idea his wife and sons were there. They were supposed to be on Sauria.”
“Shit happens,” Quinn repeated, but this time with a hateful smirk.
“I did not mean to make an enemy of the emperor,” O’Shay said. His eyes were troubled.
“Even had the empress and princes not been there, you destroy a man’s home and don’t think he’s going to be your enemy for having done it? You’re a fool.”
O’Shay began pacing beside the slab, his circuits slow like the swing of the pendulum. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his trousers and his gaze was going back and forth across the stone floor as though he were deep in thought.
“There’s only one way out of this,” Quinn told him. “Let me go and maybe the Burgon will let you slip away.”
“The Burgon might hold you in great esteem, Phantom, but if he does know who I am, he will not stop until we meet one another across the points of our swords.” He lifted his chin. “I am not afraid to meet him on the field of honor. My sword is lethal.”
“As his is as a scytheblade,” Quinn pointed out.
O’Shay stumbled and he raised his stare to Quinn. “He joined the Order of Taibhse?”
“That was where he was right before you massacred his family.”
The news apparently stunned O’Shay for the man turned and left abruptly, the sound of a heavy door closing putting finality to a situation that made Quinn’s bowels loosen. He feared being left to the embrace of the pendulum, of dying in that hideously cold, dark room. His only consolation was that there would be no one to hear his screams of agony as the blade sliced through his body.
They were rendezvoused just beyond the neutral zone where the Burgon had decided to await word of Rory Quinn. They were all there with the emperor—Ruan Cosaint, Gabriel Leveche and his brother Raoul Breva, Cair Ghrian, Taegin Drae, Ayo Taborn, Quinn’s crew and Admiral Tev Ben-Alkazar. Had they the power and force, the New Coalition could have wiped out the entire command of the Alliance by destroying the nine ships sitting in a ring, bows pointed to the center. Joining the Sekkeen, the Turas, the Sangunar, the Saoirse, the Tiogar, the Camara, the Lhong Shee and Ben-Alkazar’s personal ship the Gehenna was the Sláinte with Captain Liam Breen at the helm.
“If he’s still alive,” the Burgon said over the closed circuit Vid-Screens that connected the captains of the ships and their executive officers, “what are the chances they will have harmed him?”
“The chances are good,” Leveche said. He had once been a prisoner of the Coalition and knew their ways better than the other men.
“Not necessarily physically though,” the admiral injected. “Morrison has a team of psychological interrogators who can so mess up a man’s mind, he’ll long for death.”
The Burgon winced. “And the chances of them doing that to Quinn?”
“I can’t see it,” Ghrian said. “I’m not saying they wouldn’t, but why would they? For what purpose? Does he have knowledge Morrison needs?”
“Not that I know of,” Paton replied. “The only thing that might be of interest to the Coalition would be the escape routes we used and even that would be a stretch.”
“So why would they want him that badly?” Drae asked. “This was planned, gentlemen, not something done on the spur of the moment.”
“I agree with Drae,” Cosaint put in. “Is there something in Quinn’s background other than his involvement in the smuggling that would make this man at TI want him this much?”
“Quinn has sporked this man’s company over many times,” Ayo said. “Isn’t that reason enough to want the Phantom stopped?”
“Sporked?” Drae questioned.
“Fucked,” several men said at the same time.
“Ah,” Drae said, filing the word away in his memory.
“There’s more to it than we are able to see,” the Burgon said. “There has to be.”
Paton turned his head and those viewing him on their Vid-Screens saw him frown. “Kendall, you shouldn’t be here,” they heard him say.
“I can’t keep sitting in our quarters, fearing what might be happening to him,” Kendall said as she took a seat beside Paton. “Please fill me in on what you’ve been discussing.”
“Are you all right, Kenni?” Breen inquired.
“I will be when I have my husband back,” she replied.
“I don’t think you should be—” The Burgon started to say but the admiral interrupted him.
“We were asking what there could be in Quinn’s past that might have caused O’Shay to come after him like this.”
Kendall had been sitting there with her hands folded atop the table in front of her, her eyes not really focused. At the mention of O’Shay’s name, she lifted her head and her eyes opened wide. “O’Shay?” she repeated. “Riordan O’Shay?”
“Aye,” the admiral acknowledged. “He owns Tappas Industries.”
“He’s not a Fleet Command officer?” she asked.
“He was, but that was before his father married Irena Tappas and the company needed a man to run it. Irena’s husband Klaus had suffered a heart attack two years before and she all but ran the company into the ground trying to keep it afloat.”
“Do you know this O’Shay, Kendall?” the Burgon asked for he was studying her face closely.
“Aye, I know him,” she said. Her fingers clenched around one another. “We were lovers.”
The men on the segmented screen—each in his own box—stiffened at that news.
“When was this?” Cosaint asked.
“A year or so ago,” Kendall replied, her face crinkling with even more worry. “Do you think he is the one who has Quinn?”
“We know he is,” Leveche answered for them all. “We just don’t know where the Raptor is at the moment.”
“But I believe we now know why Quinn is being held on Morrison’s ship,” Drae put in.
“It isn’t Morrison’s ship, Taegin,” the admiral corrected the Tiogar. “It is and always has been O’Shay’s ship.”
“Quinn has an ally on that ship but whether or not she can be of any help to him we don’t know,” Ghrian told her.
“She’ll do what she can,” the Burgon stated.
“There has to be a way to contact Riordan,” Kendall said. “If I could talk to him—”
“I don’t mean to hurt you with what I’m about to say, Lady Kendall,” Cosaint broke in, “but this is looking more like a spurned lover going after his rival and that makes for a dangerous situation all the way around.”
“Aye, I agree with Ruan,” Leveche said. “Men aren’t ever fond of their lady’s former loves, and since you are now Quinn’s legal wife, I would venture to say O’Shay is now even less fond of the Phantom.”
“A situation I might be able to defuse if I could talk to Riordan,” she suggested. “Even if it means trading Quinn for me. I could do that without a thought.”
“You forget I have reason to want Riordan O’Shay for myself,” the Burgon told her. “He was responsible for the deaths of my wife and sons.”
“They have found your other son?” Admiral Ben-Alkazar asked softly.
“Aye,” the Burgon said, his voice breaking. “What was left of him.”
Kendall’s lips trembled. “Your Excellency, I am so sorry, but Quinn might die if we don’t do something.”
“He may already be dead,” Ayo said.
“I disagree,” Ghrian said. “If he were, there would no longer be any need for the Raptor to remain in stealth mode. It would be hightailing it back to Riezell or an Ghearmáin.”
“Cair’s right about that,” Leveche said. “I think those of us who are of the Order of Taibhse would know if one of our own had passed.”
Cosaint nodded. “Aye, Gabe, we would.”
“And I don’t have any sense of him being tortured,” Leveche added. “Although I feel a great sense of turmoil and fear about him.”
“You exchanged blood with him?” Drae asked.
“Once, and quite by accident,” Leveche said, tossing out a hand in passing. “We’d had a few too many snifters of plum brandy and we became bloodbrothers.”
“Oh for the love of Alel,” Cosaint snorted, rolling his eyes.
“Boys will be boys, Ruan,” the admiral said with a chuckle.
“Well, since they shared blood, you should be able to find Quinn. Aren’t Reapers just as good at being a bloodhound as we Tiogars are?”
“We’re better,” Leveche snapped, “but though I can sense him, I haven’t been able to locate the ship. It’s out there. We know it’s out there, but finding it is proving to be the challenge.”
“It’s like pollen in the air, Taegin,” Ghrian said. “Your nose tells you it’s there, you know it’s there but you can’t see it. We could have passed that ship several times and not known it was there. Apparently that’s how good this new stealth technology of TI’s is.”
“Can’t we at least send a message out?” Kendall asked.
“To whom?” the Burgon asked.
“Anyone! Everyone!” Kendall responded. “I don’t care who hears it. I just want to contact Riordan, try to make him see reason.”
“A universal message,” the admiral said, rubbing his chin. “It might work. Hell, for all we know, he might be listening to our conversation right now.”
The Burgon shook his head. “Not possible. I have blocking on all the transmissions.”
“Aye, but TI might know how to bypass that blocking,” Ayo said.
“No,” the Burgon stated emphatically. “Trust me. They don’t.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try Lady Kendall’s suggestion,” Cosaint said.
General Reeve came into the picture behind the Burgon and bent over to whisper something in the emperor’s ear. From the look that passed over Ryden Bakari’s face, it was not good news. He looked at the Vid-Cam before him, his expression filled with concern. “We have received a transmission from the Raptor,” he told those assembled. “O’Shay will exchange Quinn for the Lady Kendall and my assurance he will not be brought to justice for the attack ordered by General Morrison on the Aduaidh Prime palace.”
“We know gods-be-damned well Morrison didn’t order that attack!” the admiral barked. “Who is this little bastard trying to kid?”
“He is saying Morrison is responsible but we’ll never know for sure if he was or not,” the Burgon said. “Morrison apparently felt so bad about what he’d done to my family, he walked out of the airlock and is now floating around somewhere out in the megaverse.”
“That’s a bunch of kenyesi,” Ayo snorted, “and it stinks!”
“All kenyesi does, Taborn,” Ghrian quipped.
“I don’t think mine does,” Leveche said with a straight face. “Just ask my lady. She’ll be happy to tell you.”
Everyone, including Kendall, laughed at Lord Savidos’ joke. It relieved the high tension but not the look on the Burgon’s face.
“I have great affection for Quinn,” the emperor said, “and I would even go so far as to accept a portion of the liar’s bargain, but I cannot and will not allow Lady Kendall to place herself into O’Shay’s hands.”
“I’ll do so gladly if he will give Quinn back to us unharmed,” Kendall said.
“We know you would, sweeting,” Ayo said, “but we cannot trust this man’s words.”
“And Ryden deserves satisfaction from the man who killed his family,” Cosaint put in. “There are too many stipulations here.”
“Aye, but I can always get my revenge after Quinn is safe,” the Burgon said.
“Not if you give this coward your word of honor,” the admiral reminded his old friend. Though they had fought on different sides of the war, they had remained close over the years.
“If the pledge comes from the Emperor of the Alliance, but not from Ryden Bakari, I could go after O’Shay and make him atone for his crimes. Honor would be satisfied in that way.”
“Are you suggesting that you step down from your office?” Ben-Alkazar asked, his expression one of shock.
“At least temporarily,” the Burgon said. “I no longer have sons to whom I can pass the title but I have friends here who might take on the responsibility for me for a short time.”
“Say just time enough for you to go after Riordan O’Shay and lop his head off?” Cosaint asked.
“Perhaps a little longer than that,” the Burgon said. “I am tired, Ruan. I need some time and I won’t get that if the burdens of my office stay on my shoulders.”
“Who would you choose?” Ghrian asked. “Most of us have our own burdens, Ryden.”
“Tev doesn’t,” the Burgon replied. “He’s retired and according to Rutheen is getting under her feet. Perhaps he needs something to occupy his time.”
The admiral’s eyebrows shot up. “Getting under her feet?” he repeated.
“Will you do it?” Cosaint asked. “Would you be willing to take over the office until Ryden can rest and regroup?”
Ben-Alkazar shrugged. “If I am needed, aye, but why would the woman say I get under her feet? Just because I make a few suggestions here and there and move a few things I’ve always thought should be in a different location, she says I am getting under feet?”
“Such is retired life,” Ayo commented. “Or so I’ve heard, Admiral.”
“Then it’s settled.” The Burgon took off the signet ring that was the Great Seal of Aduaidh Prime and handed it to Reeve. “Transport this over to the Gehenna immediately.”
“Aye, Sir!” Reeve agreed, and disappeared from his place behind the Burgon’s chair.
“Tev, as soon as you put that ring on, you’re the new Burgon. Use your power wisely,” the Burgon said, his lips twitching.
“As my first decree, I will make it a class-five felony for my wife to complain about what I do,” Tev said, and as he spoke a hand was extended toward him. With reverence, he took up the ring of the Great Seal and slid it onto his finger.
“All Hail the Burgon!” Ayo called out and those gathered echoed the cry.
“Perhaps I will make that a class seven so I can jail her wide-load ass if she gets under my feet!” Tev mumbled, looking at the bulky ring.
“What now, Ryden?” Cosaint asked.
“I still don’t think Kendall should be handed over to O’Shay,” the Burgon said.
“She’s a big girl and can take care of herself.”
The voice came from under the table at which Kendall and Paton were sitting. Everyone heard it but no one commented. All were honored to have heard the voice of an Elfinish, annoyed as it might have been.
“Munchkin is right,” Kendall said. “I can handle Riordan. The important thing is to get Quinn off that ship.”
“All right,” the new Burgon said. “Reeve, contact the Raptor and tell O’Shay the Burgon will accept his proposal. Tell him the proposal will be drawn up and the Great Seal of Aduaidh Prime will be fixed upon the agreement by the Burgon himself. Tell him Lady Kendall has agreed to come to him and that the Burgon has agreed reluctantly to allow her to do this. Make sure he understands the Burgon is the one making this decision.”
“He likes using that title, doesn’t he?” Leveche asked wryly.
“Do not disrespect your betters, Lord Savidos, or for my second decree, I will order you to Seabhac for an extended duty among the tribes there and without that lovely lady of yours to accompany you,” Ben-Alkazar said with a sniff.
Leveche held up his hands in surrender. “I am at your command, Your Excellency,” he said quickly, his lips twitching.
“Insolent prick,” the new Burgon sniffed.
“I feel as though the greatest of weights has been taken from my shoulders,” Ryden said.
“Let’s hope whatever is causing Rory Quinn to tremble is taken from his shoulders soon,” Leveche said quietly.
* * * * *
The blade had descended to within two feet of Quinn’s body before O’Shay came back into the torture chamber. Sweat was glistening on the Phantom’s bare chest as he dragged in gasping breaths. His dark curls were damp from the perspiration yet chill bumps peppered his flesh. He had forced himself to lie perfectly still so the wires banding his wrists did not cut through the arteries though blood was seeping still from the injuries.
“Have you decided to sign the papers?” O’Shay asked in a pleasant voice.
Quinn cut his eyes over to his tormenter. “Go fuck yourself, you shit-eating prick!”
“Oh my, but the Phantom is not a happy camper, is he?” the Sceirdiúillian quipped.
Swish.
Clink.
The pendulum seemed to fall another foot, stopping the breath in Quinn’s throat as he stared at the blade with horror as it slowly passed over his head then swung back the other way.
“I thought you might like to know a few things,” O’Shay said.
“I know all I want to know,” Quinn growled. His jaws were clenched tightly together, his teeth grinding against one another. A tiny trickle of blood eased down the left side of his mouth for at some point he had bitten his lower lip.
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.” O’Shay reached up as the blade swung past and stopped it directly over Quinn’s groin.
Quinn swallowed, hating the tremors that rippled down his body.
“I have contacted the Burgon and he has agreed to forgive the debt of honor concerning his family’s death. He understands Morrison ordered the attack and has agreed not to hold me responsible.”
Quinn just stared at his captor, unable to believe what the man was saying. He knew Ryden Bakari better than that, and knew the Burgon would never forgive the man who ordered the death of his family. He also knew him well enough to know Bakari would not have agreed that Morrison was the culprit.
“I have the agreement with the Great Seal upon it so there will be no reprisal forthcoming from the Burgon.”
“Do you really think I believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe. In exchange for your worthless life, the Burgon has given me his personal word that I will not be held accountable for the attack on the palace.”
“You’re lying,” Quinn said.
O’Shay smiled hatefully then started the pendulum swinging once more. He pulled and another clink sounded in the cogs before its time and the blade when it swung back over Quinn’s groin was less than a foot above the prisoner’s body.
“Just so you’ll know,” O’Shay said. “Kendall has agreed to join me. Once she is on board the Raptor, you will be put in a Fiach and sent on your merry way, bound and drugged of course so you can’t come after us.”
“You’re full of shit!” Quinn hissed.
“She may not be thrilled to be with me, but I will have her, nevertheless. As long as I promise her your safety, she will stay with me wherever I decide to go. I am a wealthy man and that could be anywhere I choose.”
“And I’ll come after you no matter where you go,” Quinn vowed. “You’d better kill me, O’Shay, or I swear to you I will gut you for ever having touched my woman and for what you did to the Burgon’s family!”
“I’m sure you’d try,” O’Shay said. He looked up at the pendulum. “Well, I won’t be seeing you again. Think of me with Kendall. That should keep you warm until the pendulum stops. Once she is with me, I’ll let them know where you are. I know you hope they will arrive in time!” Maniacal laughter followed O’Shay as he walked away.
Another swish, another clink and the blade descended another millimeter. A tiny spurt of urine escaped Quinn’s cock for he could have sworn he felt the brush of the cutting edge scrape across the waistband of his pajamas. He turned his head—searching for O’Shay—but the man was gone, the room as quiet as the grave save for the swishing of the blade passing over the slab.
“Alel, please,” Quinn begged. “Don’t let me die like this.”
It seemed hours yet it was only a few minutes before he heard footsteps running toward him. He heard someone gasp then felt the blade graze his cock. He yelled—seeing a bright wash of red clouding his vision—then he pitched into perfect ebony darkness, his mind finally shutting down from the strain.
The Phantom’s eyelids fluttered open and he found himself staring into the worried gray eyes of Shanee Iphito. He hurt in every bone and muscle in his body but it was the stinging between his legs that dropped a single tear down his right cheek.
“You’re safe, Quinn,” Shanee told him. “O’Shay has gone and I am in control of the Raptor.”
“My lady?” Quinn rasped, his throat dry, his spirit crushed.
“She is with O’Shay.”
Quinn groaned, completely demoralized by such devastating news. He wanted to cry, to scream, to rant and rail, but he was so weak, he could do no more than turn his head on the pillow and close his eyes.
“You have no idea how scared I was when I saw you under that thing,” Shanee said, rubbing his forearm, careful not to touch the bandages the healer had applied to his wounds. “Another minute and I would have been too late.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he managed to whisper.
“You didn’t lose anything if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said, and laid a hand gently between his legs. “It nicked you, but it was only a scratch.”
That news helped to ease the horror in his mind, but just knowing Kendall was at the mercy of a madman hurt more than any cut on his body ever could.
“The Burgon and his supporters will be joining us shortly. They are worried about you,” she told him. When he didn’t respond, she moved her hand to his chest and stroked him. “You rest. Everything is going to be all right.”
He must have slept for quite some time for when next he opened his eyes, Ryden Bakari was sitting beside him.
“How are you, my friend?”
“Kendall?” Quinn asked, the word sounding rough.
“She is with O’Shay but we know precisely where she is, even though they are on a specially designed Fiach that is supposed to have advanced stealth capabilities. When they land—wherever they land—I’ll be right behind them. I just wanted to make sure you were all right before I left.”
“You swore—”
“Me?” Ryden asked, putting a hand to his chest. “I swore nothing to that liar, Quinn.” He smiled. “When Ben-Alkazar comes in, be sure to afford him the respect due the new Burgon of Aduaidh Prime, will you?”
Quinn’s brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
“Ayo will explain it to you. He’s chomping at the bit wanting to come in to see you.” He patted Quinn’s shoulder. “Take care, and when next we meet, I am hoping it will be in Theristes where I can take a nice, long rest.”
He must have drifted off again for when he woke this time, Ayo was sitting in a chair, his chin to his chest, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
“Ayo?” he had to call twice before the dark man sputtered awake, jerking his head up.
“Well, at last, you lazy Cengusian!” the Necroman said. “How much beauty sleep do you need, pretty boy?”
“What’s happening to me? Why can’t I stay awake?” he asked, barely able to stay awake.
“You were given a strong sedative when Bakari left. He wanted you to sleep for he said you looked—I think the word was wounded.” Ayo shrugged. “I’ve been waiting hours for you to open those delicious blue eyes of yours.”
“I have to go after my lady,” Quinn said, but he couldn’t even lift his arm though he struggled to do so.
“Stop that!” Ayo said, and put a hand on Quinn’s arm. “You are strapped down so you can’t go strolling about.”
“Untie me, Ayo,” Quinn demanded. “I have to—”
“What you have to do is mend,” someone said, and when Quinn managed to turn his head, he was surprised to see Gabriel Leveche leaning against the doorjamb. “Everything is under control.”
“Untie me,” Quinn said.
Leveche pushed away from the door and nodded at Ayo. Together, they unbuckled the restraints that were holding the Phantom’s forearms down. “We thought you might like to know O’Shay left Kendall in an Rúis and has taken off without her.”
“He discovered she had the implant?” Ayo asked.
“Aye, and apparently didn’t want to waste time having it removed before he fled,” Leveche said, folding his brawny arms across his chest. “Once he found out Ben-Alkazar is now the Burgon and it was he who signed the agreement, O’Shay realized Ryden was coming after him.”
“May he find that bastard and whittle him into little pieces,” Ayo said.
“Oh he’ll find him,” Leveche replied. “He has the taste of him in his mouth and that’s all he’ll need.”
Quinn struggled to sit up but neither man would allow him. He batted away their hands but his own soon fell uselessly to the sheets. The cloud of the sedative was undulating through his system and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.
“What is he talking about, Ayo?” the Phantom asked.
“Don’t look at me,” the Necroman said. “I’m not the Reaper here.”
The last thing Quinn heard was Leveche’s laughter and a sentence that made absolutely no sense to him…
“Ryden said he never wanted to be like me but he changed his mind.”
* * * * *
By the time Quinn came to himself without the blurring of the sedative crippling his mind, the chair was occupied by the most beautiful sight in all the megaverse to him.
“Lhiannan!” he gasped, and tried to sit up.
Kendall shot up from the chair and put her hand in the center of his chest. “Lie back down or I will leave,” she ordered. She pushed him down. “Do you understand, Phantom?”
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes roaming over her, checking for injuries.
“Better than my husband, it seems,” she said. “You lost quite a bit of blood.” She lightly touched his wrist. “I unwrapped the bandages and checked the sutures that old-fashioned healer on the Raptor did. The man needs sewing lessons! Once we got you over here to the Sláinte and under the TAOS, you were fine. There is barely a line now where those wires sliced into your flesh.” She giggled. “Even your pee-pee is all healed.”
“What a ridiculous name for a male’s goody point,” Munchkin said as she looked up at Quinn. The Elfinish was sitting on the floor at Kendall’s feet. “That is almost as silly sounding as tallywhacker.” She shuddered. “And this is just gross.”
“Munch, why don’t you go find Parks and get him to give you some milk,” Kendall suggested, but the feline merely blinked up at her and remained where she was.
“I’m on the Sláinte?” he asked, confusion lurking in his blue eyes.
“Aye, we are, and we’re on our way back to Theristes, this time for a longer stay, I hope.”
“The Burgon?” he asked, searching her eyes.
“Which one?” she queried. “The old or the new?”
“Where is Ryden?” he asked.
“Somewhere out there after O’Shay,” she said. “He’ll find him, and when he returns, I intend to find him a new lady to occupy his time.”
Quinn groaned. “Don’t start playing matchmaker, Kenni,” he pleaded then remembered the curious statement Gabriel Leveche had made.
“Leveche? Where is he?” he asked.
“He and the others—Drae, Cosaint, Ghrian and Ayo—are on their way back to their home worlds. They didn’t leave until it was a sure thing that you were on the mend. General Reeve and the new Burgon are on their way to Aduaidh Prime and Paton is a few clicks behind us. I believe the Tiogar is taking the Reapers back to Theristes so he can meet Tariq.”
“Leveche said…”
“Aye,” she interrupted him. “I know what he said. He told me and he also told me you’d want to know what he meant.”
“He gave Ryden a fledgling,” Quinn said. “Didn’t he?”
“Ryden asked for he what wanted to make very sure there would be no way for O’Shay to escape the justice he planned for him.”
“He hinted they had put some kind of device in you?” he asked, his face showing his concern.
“A tracking device. I was told to make sure O’Shay knew I had it in me and that I was to scratch him, draw his blood, get it under my fingernails and—”
“And save it for Ryden,” Quinn finished for her.
She nodded. “All of which I did. When O’Shay realized I would fight him ‘til my dying breath, he lost interest fairly quickly. I think he was more concerned about keeping out of Ryden Bakari’s sights than keeping hold of me.”
“Ryden won’t rest until he has taken O’Shay,” Quinn prophesied.
“And we’ll hear all about it when he returns,” she agreed. She stroked his cheek. “Why are you crying?” she asked.
“I died a thousand times thinking of you with O’Shay,” he told her.
She smiled, wanting to drive the shadows from his eyes. “Did you hear me tell you that your pee-pee is mended?”
“A man wouldn’t ignore a woman telling him that, wench,” he said, sniffling.
Kendall slid her hand down to his cock. “Let’s make sure though, okay?”
He opened his mouth to protest but she was already bending over him, his pajamas being pushed down, her warm, moist mouth enclosing him with the artistry he had come to expect from Kendall Quinn.
Munchkin rolled her pink eyes and turned around to pad from the sick bay. “Humanoids,” she said with a snort. “All they think of is sex. It gets to be—”
He was standing at the end of the hallway, his sparse black tail straight up in the air at the female’s approach. He opened his mouth, curled his upper lip back and drew her scent in through his Jacobson’s gland along the top of his mouth. His red eyes glowed with a fiery light.
The Elfinish female came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the male, the first one she’d ever seen. She flicked her tail, sniffed. Turned sideways and sidled a few feet closer, her whiskers twitching, showing him her sharp teeth.
“I am Dasher, the Dashing Romeo,” the male said as he came strutting forward, his tail waving like a banner. “The humanoid Aleyn Kaneen belongs to me.”
“I see,” Munchkin said as though completely disinterested and sidled past the male, making sure he got a good whiff of her hormonal secretions as she padded away. “I suppose someone fetched you from Cengus for him.”
“Aye, though I could have declined the invitation,” the male stated, trotting alongside her, keeping pace. “I made the decision to join him on Theristes. He cannot do without me, you understand.”
“Aye,” Munchkin said with a sigh. “They do require careful watching else they get themselves into such silly situations.”
“I will take Aleyn well in hand when I see him,” Dasher stated, and deliberately bumped Munchkin with his shoulder.
“Get away, male!” Munchkin said, though she returned the bump with one of her own.
“You are a precious little thing,” he purred, his whiskers twitching. “How is it you don’t have a mate already?”
Munchkin sniffed. “I’ve not desired one,” she lied, her head in the air, her tail crooking from side to side.
“Well, I am here now, dearling,” Dasher said. “And I will be all you’ll ever need.”
“You think so?”
Dasher gave her a knowing look. “I know so, my pet.”
They continued strolling side by side, their little feet making no noise. Those humanoids they passed greeted them but neither deigned to acknowledge the adoration and respect extended to their august persons.
“What are you thinking, my love?” Dasher inquired.
“I am thinking I hope you have your own litter box,” Munchkin replied with a sniff of disdain. “I don’t share my litter box with anyone but…” She turned the full force of her pink gaze on him—hot and filled with promise.
“But what, pretty lady?” Dasher inquired with a lift of his whiskers.
“I will share my catnip,” Munchkin replied in a sultry voice, “and other, more interesting things.”
Which she did under the twinkling stars of space flickering past the portholes of the Sláinte.
Charlee is the author of over thirty books. Married 39 years to her high school sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons, Pete and Mike, and the proud grandmother of Preston Alexander and Victoria Ashley. She is the willing house slave to five demanding felines who are holding her hostage in her home and only allowing her to leave in order to purchase food for them. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she grew up in Colquitt and Albany, Georgia and now lives in the Midwest.