Catalyst

As always, thanks so much to my family. They put up with a lot when mother is in storytelling mode. And edit mode. And new release mode…

I’d also like to dedicate this one to my readers who are enjoying
The Kithran Regenesis
series. You have no idea how much your comments and emails mean to me! To Jocelynn Drake, who sent me the most incredible fan email ever and gets first read on these from here on out.

To The Deadline Dames. I had no idea when I joined this group of nine, that I’d discover such a gift of support and friendship. I’m truly lucky!

“You have to stop following me.”

Suns.
I nearly crawled out of my skin when I slipped around the dark corner and ran into Jackson Canfield. He waited, silent and still, a broad shape obstructing the bit of light coming from behind him. Wide shoulders blocked the narrow entrance to a side tunnel. I thought about trying to squeeze into a crack in the mine wall or fade into the gloom—but both moves were pointless because my air suit was as scarlet as my hair.
Should have grabbed the gray one
. This section of the mines had only been open a short time, so it still crawled with shadows. Gray would have blended.

“Vala.” He sighed, and straightened from where he’d been leaning on the cave wall.

I let my hair slide forward in my helmet, trying to obscure my expression. As usual my tongue tied up in knots when he actually spoke to me. I could recite the valuable minerals and metals of every discovered world in front of my entire school, but Jacks stole my words.

He came up to frame the sides of my helmet with his gloved hands. “Vala, as appealing as you are—and trust me, you have appeal in spades—you’re too young for me. You really do have to stop sneaking down here.”

Pulling my helmet out of his hands, I spun around to leave before he could see what his words did to me. The man made me feel like I was turned inside out. I wanted him to feel the same about me so
much
. I’d been driving my sister and brothers crazy with my moping lately.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You do know I’m seeing someone, right?”

Turning back, I didn’t raise my gaze at first, didn’t want to think about that, about what I’d seen when I’d followed him home the night before. Jacks, pressed against his blond partner, his tongue thrust so far down the man’s throat, I was surprised either of them could breathe. I’d been hit with a razor-sharp jealousy that shredded my heart while at the same time a flood of heat had weakened my legs. But desire was nothing new around Jacks and hadn’t been since the second he’d stepped off a ship onto Kithra. One look and it was like I’d inhaled him into my lungs, brain and heart. He made the blood rush in my veins. Harsh, masculine features that most Gwinarians would find too severe drew me like he’d tied a permanent rope around my body, tugging me along. I followed him—all the time. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I had for two long years.

Even my mothers and father had asked me to stop.

Humiliation from their last conversation with me caused scorching heat to creep up my neck. I was one of the lucky few who had been chosen for a free ride to colleges on three different planets. They were scared I’d throw that away on someone who didn’t want me. But I didn’t know how to tell them my gut told me he
did
.

Realizing I’d been staring at his mouth, I slowly lifted my gaze to his, and the brief flash of raw need I caught made my breath freeze. My eyes opened wide.

“Dammit, Vala.” Jacks grabbed my arm and tugged me through the mines. We passed Gwinarians and the humans brought in by The Company to mine kithronite. He didn’t stop until we were upside and he’d pulled me into a rarely used tunnel—one that had air. Shaking his head, he unhooked the breathing tubes to my helmet and pulled it off before doing the same with his own.

I looked up and was snagged, just as I’d expected. Ice-blue eyes stared into mine. His hair, slightly damp with sweat, stuck to his tanned, human skin. I loved the dark brown color of his hair because it reminded me of my favorite Gowlen nuts. Matching stubble framed masculine lips, and I bit my own to keep from touching the whiskers, to see if they were soft or prickly.

He sighed and placed his hands on my shoulders. “You are such a smart, stunning girl, Vala—”

“I turned eighteen yesterday,” I blurted. “Isn’t that the age of consent on your Earths?”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Yeah, it is. So that’s why you followed me home last night.”

“You saw me?”

“You think I usually make out with Crichton in a public tunnel?” The muscles in his jaw clenched. “I was trying to show you I have a life, a relationship already.”

“But there can be more than two—”

He tugged off his gloves and place one finger over my lips. “I’m not interested in more. Not right now.”

“But maybe someday?”

The tension left his jaw and he chuckled. “Should have realized you’d latch onto that. Listen to me, Vala. I’m thirty years old and I only plan to be on Kithra another four months. You should be out with friends your own age, having fun. And didn’t I hear you won a big scholarship?”

“But,” I interrupted before taking a deep breath and narrowing my eyes. “You watch me, too.”

He closed his eyes and was silent so long, my heart started beating harder. When he opened them, the resignation there made my lungs freeze. “I know.”

I licked my lips and his gaze dropped.

“You don’t understand your own appeal, Vala. Not yet.”

“But I want to,” I whispered. “I want you to teach me.”

He groaned and took a step away from me, then another.

Jacks wanted me. I saw it in the way his breath picked up, in the way his nostrils flared as he stared hard at me. If anything was going to happen, I would have to make it. I advanced on him, knowing that what I was about to do could change everything. I wanted to change everything. I
needed
to.

Slowly, hands shaking, I raised them to the latches on my air suit.

Jacks reached out, placed his hands over mine. “No.” The word came guttural and low, and the end of it was a breath over my lips right before he slanted his mouth over mine. Fire erupted in my belly as his tongue slid inside to stroke my own. It was like I could feel him, breathing inside me. Heat swelled in my chest and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He groaned and deepened the kiss, spearing his hands into my hair and cradling my head. That connection I’d felt the moment he’d stepped onto Kithra two years before flared to life. His hands slid down my back and he pulled me compulsively to his bigger body, tucking me against him so tightly, I could feel the slam of his heart against my ribs—through the suits.

He tore his mouth away and rested his forehead on mine. “Damn it.”

The low, murmured words made me smile. I couldn’t help it. He couldn’t resist me. I was right. We had something between us, something my mothers told me rarely happens. “I want you so much I don’t know what to do.”

He pulled back, took his hands from me. “You don’t know what to do because you’re too young.
Shit
. I had a feeling it would be like that…” He stared at me, a wry smile tilting the corner of lips I knew now, lips I wanted to know even more. I licked my own to taste him again, my gaze clashing with his when he groaned again. “Vala—”

“Please.” I backed away from him, knowing if I didn’t leave him he’d come up with more excuses. Something told me he’d reconsider if I just left him alone. For a day. Maybe two if I could stand it. “I know you feel this—our connection. Think about it. That’s all I ask.” I turned and ran before he could say anything else.

It wasn’t the last time I saw him, but I spent the next nine years wishing it had been.

“Suns, Vala, the way that Sithbrun kid watches you makes
me
sweat.”

I frowned at my younger sister, but glanced at Bastian Sithbrun between strands of messy, red hair. It had fallen from the usual knot when I’d wrestled with a temperamental hover dolly this morning, and I’d been in too much of a hurry to get here and talk Lux into letting me fly out to the supply station with her to pick up Jarana. I desperately needed the information the Tracker wouldn’t share over the coms.

Bastian, catching my look, leaned forward, his dark, dark Gwinarian brown eyes locked and narrowed on me—as they had been every time I’d seen him lately. Which was a lot, actually. He sat on one of the benches along the wall of the loading dock, impossibly long legs stretched out in front of him. I’d been pretending not to notice his interest, but it was hard. The loading dock was a huge, cavernous space with gray walls and flickering lights. It held no open dome like the rest of the pods on Kithra, nothing of the splashes of bright blue jungle color to enjoy. Just gray. So Bastian stood out—even among the other colorful Gwinarians hanging around the dock today. That long, lustrous auburn hair on top of that tall, gorgeous body caught the eyes. Too bad he’d just turned twenty.

Too bad I had seven years on him.

Not that most Gwinarians cared about age differences. Not that I had once. Love was love. But there was a tenderness, an
inexperience
, to him that made me squirm. On one hand, I knew he’d be better off with someone young and a lot less jaded. I’d spent the better part of my adult life exploring the darker side of societies.

But on the other hand…oh, I wanted to explore that long body and teach him a thing or two.

Yaira sighed. “I wish he’d look at me like that.” She stared outright, her own coppery hair up in a perfect knot as usual.

“He probably just likes the art.”

“Still can’t believe you did that to yourself.” She touched one finger to the swirled bands of color on one of my arms. “I can’t wait to hear what Karil and Lana say about them.”

“Our mothers will probably want to get some for themselves.”

Lifting one eyebrow, Yaira chuckled then nodded. “You’re probably right.”

I’d discovered the tattoo artist on Earth Two when I’d hitched a ride with what had turned out to be space pirates. They took everything I had and dumped me, but I’d found Cahn, a Gwinarian who’d left Kithra long before the explosions had wiped out so much of our world. He and his wife took me in, got me back on my feet, treated me like the daughter they’d left Kithra to find. Cahn was a dream of an artist. I’d loved the first tattoo so much, I’d let him decorate both arms with images of a home I thought never to see again.

But things had changed. Kithra was in the midst of a rebuild and surviving Gwinarians were showing up all over the galaxies. Yaira and I had come ahead to help with the rebuild so the rest of our family could come home.

If only my father had lived long enough to come home too.

It had been four years, but the grief still fed like a parasite in my belly. He’d never truly recovered from losing all his extended family in one horrifying day. No Gwinarian every truly could.

“You know, I’ve never seen Sithbrun swimming or in any of the workout rooms or showers. Wonder what that body looks like naked.”

I rolled my eyes. Yaira was twenty-five and had sex on her brain at all times. When she wasn’t thinking about plants, that is. Everyone here was thrilled to have the youngest botanist in my family joining the team in the newly repaired greenhouse off the main tube system. They should be. Yaira was scary smart and could make a plant on the verge of death grow with the mere touch of her hands. It wasn’t some supernatural power, just the right amount of knowledge, caring and talent.

Of course once I’d been considered scary smart. And according to my mother, Lana, I’d thrown everything away when my scholarships had died along with Kithra.

I rolled back on my boot heels, impatient for Lux to get here, and saw Bastian’s eyes on me again. I tried not to think about him naked.
Thanks, Yaira!
But, I’d secretly wondered about the body he kept hidden too. He looked slim, but I had a feeling there were beautiful, tight muscles under the loose clothes he liked. I slid another glance at him and our gazes locked. Something moved inside me, some kind of curiosity, some strange need.

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt it.

And it scared the shit out of me.

It took effort to look away, especially when I saw an answering flare in his eyes. He leaned forward, lips parting slightly.

Yaira leaned close to murmur. “You really should at least have a taste. He usually has his face stuck in a book.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste because she hated old-fashioned paper books, preferring the environmental friendly vidscreen readers. She winked at me. “You’re obviously enough woman to grab his attention.”