Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Prince (7 page)

He frowned and raised his
hand up, swiping the blood away with the pad of his thumb. Her gaze
ran over his tattered black clothes.

“
You must have
put up quite a fight when they captured you.” She shuffled closer
to the bars.

Staring at the blue blood
on his thumb, he said, “You are not the only one who wishes they
were common. I will always fight hard to achieve that which I have
set my heart on.”

Before she could ask what
he meant by that, he had opened his mouth. She stared in
fascination as he poked his tongue out. The sight of it stirred a
strange desire in her, a hunger to feel it against her. It was
blue, as exotic as the rest of him. The glide of his tongue over
his thumb was erotic, sensual, igniting fire in her veins as she
drank in the sight of it. The fire was fanned into an inferno when
he licked his thumb again and she imagined how good it would feel
to have that tongue laving her flesh, caressing her. She wanted to
feel it, desired his mouth against hers and his hands on her
body.

Shaking her head, she
snapped herself out of it. She had been up in space too long if the
sight of a man’s tongue gave her fantasies. Her eyes roamed back to
his mouth. But what a tongue. The way he had licked the blood off
his thumb had told her without question that he would know exactly
what to do with that implement of divine torture if she gave
herself to him.

The door opened again and
a guard entered. He closed the door and stood in the corner near
it. The lights above her dimmed until only the light from the blue
bars of the cells illuminated the room.

“
Sleep,” Tres
said, gathering his blanket around him and returning to his bench.
He lay down on it on his back, his blanket covering him and his
arms below his head.

Renie took the blanket
down from the bench in her cell and wrapped it around her as she
lay down. The bench was hard and uncomfortable. She looked across
at Tres to find him watching her, his skin blue from the lights and
his eyes dark. Only their pupils shone strangely, bright as though
they fed off the blue light.

“
Tres?” she
whispered, afraid of raising her voice in case the guard berated
her.

“
Yes?”

“
Do you think
Rezic will be safe?”

Silence.

A dark look entered his
eyes, one that spoke of strength and belief.

“
I swear they
will not hurt him. I will make sure of that.”

Renie looked at Tres a
little longer and then closed her eyes, curling up on her side on
the cold bench with her arm as a pillow.

Even though Tres was a
prisoner too, she believed him.

He wouldn’t let anything
happen to her brother.

****

Chapter
5

Tres paced the small cell,
his body stiff and aching as he forced himself to move. It was
painful, but it did reward him with a little heat. The temperature
had dropped again to the point where it was too cold for him to
sleep. He tugged the dark grey blanket tighter around him and
hunched up. Perhaps he should have asked the guard for an extra
blanket before he had left.

The lights gradually came
back up. He looked over at Renie and switched on his ocular
implants to check her vitals. She was cold, but still warm enough.
A desire to somehow get through the bars and curl up with her in
his arms settled inside him. He stopped pacing and stared at
her.

He wanted to touch her
again.

It wasn’t just because she
was warm. It was so much more than that.

It was so much more than
want.

He longed to touch her
again, desired it more than anything.

She was so beautiful. Her
nose wrinkled in her sleep and she mumbled something as she
snuggled into her blanket, drawing her knees up into a foetal
position. So enthralling.

He longed to cross the
cellblock, kneel beside her, and stroke the rogue strands of her
long black hair from her face so he could see it clearly. He
desired to watch every nuance of sleep cross her face and wonder
what she was dreaming as she fitfully slumbered. He hoped they were
good dreams, dreams of freedom, dreams of travelling with her
brother, dreams of him. If he had the power, he would see to it
that this nightmare ended for her and that something like this
would never happened to her again.

Raising his hand, he
rubbed his thumb across his fingers. The burns were taking time to
heal but they had been worth it. He would do it all again to feel
her hand on his, to see the affection she had shown him light up
her eyes again as she looked at him. He loved the way her hand had
felt in his, and how she had let him hold it. It had been
wonderful. The way she had leaned into his touch when he had
cleared her tears away had left him desiring her more than
ever.

Could she ever want a male
like him?

There would be
difficulties to overcome. It wouldn’t be easy. If she gave him the
chance, he would try though. He would do anything for
her.

After the commander’s
visit yesterday, it had taken a lot for Tres to speak to her, to
admit that he wanted to know her. It was a step in the right
direction he supposed, but it was all moving too slow and he was
growing tired of being trapped in this cell, unable to show her
that he wanted her.

Unable to save
her.

He needed to save
her.

There was a shuffling
noise as she wriggled under the blanket and then a soft sigh
escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open. Tres remained still,
trapped by the wonderful sight of her waking. He wished she had
been in his arms as she had awoken, sighing gently as though coming
around from a good sleep.

Renie sat up slowly and
rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Her delicate hands moved to her
hair and she frowned, pouted almost. With a little smile in his
direction, she tidied her hair, letting it down so it tumbled
around her shoulders in soft dark waves before pinning it back into
a loose knot at the back of her head.

She was so beautiful, even
when waking.

She stood and stretched.
Her white shirt pulled tight across her breasts and Tres felt as
though she had punched him in the stomach as he stared blatantly,
unabashed. She would be the death of him if she kept doing things
like that. He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in his tight thermal
suit. The violent reaction to the sight of her breasts was a new
one for him. He had never desired that kind of company before, but
as he watched her, he found himself imagining how her breasts would
feel beneath his fingers, his lips.

Renie turned to face
him.

Tres swallowed and cast
his eyes down at his feet. He idly pulled the collar of his thermal
suit up again, trying to cover more of his body with it.

“
Are you still
cold?” she said, her voice soft and mesmerising. He found the
courage to look at her again.

She had moved to the bars
near his cell and was looking at him with concern in her large dark
eyes. She worried about him. He truly had never met someone as warm
and caring as her.

He nodded.

“
I could
probably fix it. Let me take a look.” She tipped her head back
twice in a gesture that told him to come to her.

He groaned inside. She
didn’t need to order him to go to her. He would always go to her.
He couldn’t stop himself.

She knelt down by the bars
and he knelt opposite her, looking deep into her eyes for what
seemed like hours rather than seconds.

“
They did
something to the back of the suit,” he said and turned around,
moving as close to the bars as possible so she didn’t hurt herself
on them by having to reach too far.

He removed his blanket,
pulled the black jacket off and placed them both on his
lap.

Her breathing quickened
and he wondered whether it was fear of placing her arms through the
bars or trepidation about touching him that made it change. She
hadn’t seemed frightened yesterday when she had held his
hand.

His eyes rolled closed
when she gathered his hair in her hands. Her fingertips grazed his
ears and he bit his tongue to hold the moan in. Warm shivers danced
through him, stirring his body. Her hands brushed his neck and then
paused, still holding his hair.

How could touch be so
forbidden when it felt this good?

The heat of her wasn’t the
only reason her touch affected him. It was something deeper,
something that enslaved him and stirred his blood.

“
You’re not
wearing a translator,” she said and dropped his hair. Her hands
disappeared. He turned, twisting around so he could see her. She
touched the small black device in her ear. “Are you speaking
Lyran?”

He shook his
head.

“
Terran?”

Another shake.

“
How can you
understand me without a translator?”

“
I know most
languages, just as I know most greetings and many other things. I
have been well educated. I even know some dead
languages.”

Her look turned to
fascination. “Dead languages?”

Tres nodded. Dead
languages fascinated her? He had thought she would be impressed
with his knowledge of the living ones but it was the dead ones that
had caught her attention. Females were confusing. What he thought
would impress her didn’t. What he thought was of no consequence,
made her smile.

“
Can you write
them too, translate them?”

He paused, wondering where
she was going with her line of questioning, and then
nodded.

“
Marshan or
ancient Varkan?”

“
Ancient Varkan
is still spoken by some.”

“
Marshan then,
or old Perseian?”

He smiled at her. “I can
read, write and speak those languages.”

“
How? They’ve
been dead for centuries.”

“
My education
was thorough. There are many I cannot speak though but most have a
similar phonetic system or symbolic.”

She smiled, a radiant one
that drew another hard beat of his heart from him.

“
Perhaps if you
fix my suit, I will be inclined to tell you more?” Tres said,
desperate to get warm again and get her away from the cells. This
was no place for her. This dark world in which he lived would taint
such a beautiful and delicate butterfly.

She nodded and he turned
away again. Her hands touched his back. He swallowed and closed his
eyes, heightening the feel of her fingers against him. They were
gentle, dancing lightly over his thermal suit as she explored it.
What was she thinking? Feeling? He wished he could order her to
tell him everything that crossed her mind. He wanted to know if
this affected her as much as it did him. He shifted to relieve the
tightness of his suit against his crotch.

“
Do you have a
male?” he said, the words slipping out before he could even
consider what he was saying.

“
A male?” Her
voice was small.

She was going to say
yes.

“
Not in a long
time,” she whispered and her hands stilled against his
back.

Tres snapped his mouth
shut before he could ask whether she wanted one. He knew her enough
to tell that she wouldn’t be interested in him. She was only making
small talk because he was the only one here. He was sure that if
there had been a Lyran male in these cells with them, she would
have been talking to him instead. No. Something deep inside his
heart said that it wasn’t like that. She had been so open with him,
so unguarded with her feelings, and had touched him. She had sought
comfort from his touch. It couldn’t be a one sided thing. He was
sure that she liked him, but he wasn’t sure if she liked him
enough.

A frown crossed his face
when he ran over what she had said and realised that it implied she
had once had a male. The thought of a male touching her made his
fingertips twitch, his claws itching to tear the male’s throat
open.

She went back to work on
his suit, humming a quiet melody to herself. The feel of her
fingers chased away his dark thoughts and he found himself quietly
willing her to touch his skin again, to give him a little relief
from his growing hunger. He needed to feel her soft warmth against
him. Ached for it.

“
Are you
certain you know what you are doing?” he said, wishing that he
could see what she was looking at and clawing back a little
control.

He didn’t have a clue
about how the suit worked or how to fix it. He hadn’t paid much
attention during his engineering lessons. Those lessons had taken
place in a room near the atrium and he had spent most of his time
there staring out of the window whenever his teacher had had his
back turned.

“
My brother and
myself are the only crew of our ship. If things break, we have to
know how to fix them. I like to think that I’ve become quite
skilled at repairing things or installing new parts. I’m sure I can
fix this.” Her hands paused at their work again. A cold breeze
against his back chilled him to the bone. She must have opened the
suit to get to the same area the commander had accessed.