HeartStorm (HeartFast Series Book 3) (18 page)

            The room went incandescent. White hot light flooded her soul, blinding her, and scorching her muscles. Star cried out, and she lost the power of flight.

            Hunter caught her before she fell. Sliding onto the shower floor, he pulled her onto his lap and continued to pump into her as she leaned her head on his shoulder. Working her over him in his frenzy to find release. Seconds later, he grunted, followed by a deep groan, and he allowed Star to slump against him as he leaned against the shower wall.

           
They continued to hold each other, their breathing irregular, his arms wrapped around her waist and hers touching his neck as their mutual satisfaction simmered inside them. Vaguely, Star could only wonder what the rest of the night would bring, or if they'd even get any sleep at all.

            Although none of it mattered. None of it was more important than being together, sharing their lives and their love.

            Presently, Hunter moved, and she felt his softened erection slipping out of her. "Did Mom say she'd prepared bor brithin for supper?"

            Laughing silently made her fuller breasts rub along his chest. Gasping, she reached down to protect her extra sensitive nipples. Hunter also chuckled and deliberately rubbed his stubbly chin across her collar bone.

            "I'm hungry," he told her. "For food, this time. Or else I won't have the energy to continue loving you."

           
Cupping his face again in her palms, Star looked down into his warm gaze. "You know, I think I'm becoming partial to that beard you're trying, or not trying, to grow."

            Hunter smiled. Bowing his face, he started to kiss her shoulder again when he stopped. His eyes grew wider, and he quickly glanced up at her.

            "Terrin, our crystals."

            "What?"

            She turned to look at the shiny inner surface of the chamber and her slightly fuzzy image. Reaching over, she wiped the silvery wall with one hand, and her eyes riveted on the tiny stone lying in the hollow of her throat.

            The HeartCrystal, which had been clear all these months since Hunter disappeared into the wormhole, was now black and glowing. Restored.

            Emma had come back to them.

* * *

            Black and glowing. Cementing their love until it was stronger than ever. Star reached up to caress the temporal stone, when Seeker's voice interrupted her thoughts.

            "Star? Will you be much longer?"

            Glancing up from where she'd been staring down at the meeting room table, Star managed to smile at her fellow Guardian who had come looking for her.

            "Yeah. I'm on my way," she replied and rose from her seat.

            Hunter would find Callie. She had every faith in her husband that he would. Just as she had every belief now that her father would pay for every hour, every year of misery he'd forced upon her since that moment when he sold his only child to a traveling gypsy faire.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Accused

            Star felt Hunter's approach before her husband notified Command. Standing on top of
Transport Two
where she'd been helping with patching, she looked up at the huge bay doors and waited. Within moments, Hunter's voice announced over the open intercom, "
Transport One
to base. Coming in to land."

            At the same time, the ceiling doors parted and began their slow descent sideways. Before they were halfway open,
One
entered the bay to nestle precisely in its cradle. Star drifted down to the floor as the other Guardians gathered nearby.

            As soon as he shut down the engines, Hunter popped out of the craft without lifting the cockpit hood, and gathered his wife in his arms for a kiss. A second kiss to her forehead, and he released her to face Deceiver.

            "All right. I've brought
One
home. I'm going back to the space station to look for my daughter," he told the Guardian leader, as if challenging him to delay his hunt even further than it already was. Deceiver nodded, and started to reply, when a soft voice interceded.

            "She's not on the space station."

            Everyone turned to stare at Destiny, who emerged from the shadowed section where she'd been working. Hunter stared at her, brows knitted.

            "Run that by me again? Callie's not on the space station?"

            "Neither is DiMackerlyn," the woman added.

            Star sensed her husband's resentment roiling inside him like thick black clouds. He took a step toward the psychic with undisguised anger.

            "How long have you known?" he accused her with that soft voice that sent chills down the spine. "You knew all along I wouldn't find them, didn't you? And here, all the way back, I kept wondering if you'd picked up anything. If you knew all this time, why didn't you tell me before I left so I could take someone with me to bring back the ship, and free me to resume searching for them? You
knew!
"

            "Why didn't you tell us, Destiny?" Star joined in. "What are you keeping silent? What information are you not sharing with us? Huh?" She also took a menacing step forward. "I want to know where my baby is! I want my baby returned! If you know
any
thing,
tell
us!"

            Seeker spoke up. "Destiny, are you saying DiMackerlyn and the baby are not on the station
now
? Or that they won't be there when Hunter arrives?"

            For once, they got an answer of sorts when the pale little woman shook her head. "They're not there now, nor will they be there when Hunter goes back."

            Beside her, Star felt her husband stiffen. At the same moment, an awful thought came to her, and her stomach nearly turned itself inside out. Not to her surprise, Hunter voiced it.

            "Then tell me this. Was that sorry SOB and my daughter on the space station when I was there?"

            Destiny remained frozen in place, either refusing to answer, or unable to. Or not wanting to. But it was the answer Star was dreading.

            "Oh, dear gods, she
was!
"

            She wanted to strangle to woman. Her hands came up, fingers curved, as if she was ready to place them around the woman's throat and squeeze until the cartilage buckled under the pressure. Star was unaware of the others around her as she started to advance toward the woman, when she heard a collective gasp of shock. Pausing, she saw them all staring past her, and Star turned to glance at her husband.

            Thick ebony wisps swirled around him like ethereal creatures as he brought forth his power, the dark, raw edge of his abilities to hunt and capture. His eyes were no longer the deep blue she loved to gaze into. They were black and as soulless-looking as a collapsed star. When he spoke again, his voice was hollow, reverberating throughout the huge docking bay.

            "Tell me now, Destiny, or by all the stars in the heavens, I swear I'll—"

            A loud dinging sound pealed around them. Unlike the emergency claxons, the Guardians recognized an incoming call from one of the visitors kiosks.

            "What on earth could they want?" Animator questioned aloud.

            "Could be anything," Disaster mumbled. "Maybe there's an emergency with one of the tours."

            Blender strode over to answer it, and everything went on temporary hold as they listened. Beside her, Star felt Hunter's temper continue to boil, but he kept himself in check. The black shadows circling him abated. If she looked, she knew she would see his blue eyes once again.

            "Guardian Command. This is Blender."

            "Uhh, hello, Blender." The voice was young and obviously belonging to someone inexperienced with speaking one-on-one with a Guardian. "This is tour kiosk station C. I have a couple here who claim to be Hunter's parents. They're requesting entry onto the base."

            Star glanced at her husband, who also looked at her. "Were you expecting your—" she started to say, when Hunter suddenly disappeared. Seconds passed without him returning, leading Deceiver to comment.

            "We're wasting time standing here, people. We need to get back to our repairs."

            The others agreed and went to continue with what they were doing. Star remained where she was and glared at the psychic. All of her rage and heartache seethed inside her, rising to the point where she could hold back no longer. She advanced toward the woman, when Destiny held up a hand to stop her.

            "Stop, Star, and think. Think back to what I told you when I applied to become a Guardian." Without waiting for an answer, the woman walked away to resume her seat at the comm board.

            "What she said?" Star muttered under her breath. "What she said? Or what she predicted?"

           
Terrin.

           
Hunter's silent call came to her, along with a plea to join him. Giving the psychic one last resentful look, Star stalked out of the landing bay. She knew the other Guardians would see her leave, including Deceiver, but at that moment she didn't care.

            She went directly to the main entrance where Hunter was waiting, along with his parents. By the expression on their faces, she could tell he had already told them the bad news.

            Cara gave her a sympathetic hug. "This is tragic. I'm so sorry, Terrin."

            "Let's take this to our quarters where we can discuss it further," Hunter suggested.

            He led them through the short corridor and out onto the central open plaza, which separated the living quarters from the main building. Although his parents had spent some time at Guardian Command after Hunter and Star were married, this was the first time they ventured into this part of the base.

            They entered the apartment, and Star immediately noticed that Commander had returned the incubation capsule to its spot near the bed. At the sight of the small cylinder, fresh tears threatened to overwhelm her, and she took a deep, calming breath.

            Vall and Cara each took a seat at the table in the kitchen area. Since there were only the two chairs, Star opted to float in a sitting position nearby. Hunter remained standing.

            Vall spoke first. "Tell us what's going on," he demanded in that terse way that bespoke of his years of commanding a fleet of battle flits.

            "The gist is this," Hunter told them. "Years ago, Terrin's father sold her to an interstellar gypsy faire, to be used as an object of curiosity."

            "How old were you?" Cara asked.

            "I don't remember. Four or five, I think," Star admitted.

            "Oh, dear gods. Why would he do that?"

            "We don't know," Hunter said. "From what Terrin can remember of the whole ordeal is that at some point the faire's transport ships were destroyed. She has no idea how, or why, or who was responsible. But the majority of the crew, including the live cargo, were killed when the vessel she was in exploded, and everything was ejected into space. That's how she discovered she could survive in the void."

            Star picked up the story. "By that time my magnetic abilities had grown to the point where I could maneuver from star to star. I went from planet to planet, offering my help wherever I could in exchange for a meal and a place to rest. I happened to be in the vicinity where the Guardians were on a mission and ran into trouble, and that's how I ended up here."

            "So why did your father come back into the picture?" Vall asked.

            Star shook her head. "Udo and I haven't figured that out, either. At least, not the truth."

            "We were at the Stellar Police Force sector base in the Du Barinn quadrant when the man hailed us. He identified himself as Aginthon DiMackerlyn, and asked if he could ride with us back to Guardian Command." Hunter paused. "Actually, he demanded to go with us. When we asked why, that's when he told us he was Terrin's father, and that he'd been searching for her for years. It sounded plausible, but what made me further suspicious of him was the fact that he didn't know me."

            Vall frowned. "He didn't know you?"

            "He knew we were Guardians, but he didn't know us individually. Not by our names, nothing. And he definitely didn't know I was married to Terrin."

            "How odd," Cara commented.

            "So you brought him back here," Vall continued, glancing at Star. "What was his excuse? Did he tell you why he was searching for you?"

            "He said my mother was dying, and he felt I needed to know. He pressed the issue that I needed to accompany him to the medical facility where she was located, but he creeped me out. So I told him I'd have to think about it."

            "Apparently he got the message that he no longer had any control over Terrin. He also must have realized that if he tried to use force, or any other means to take her with him anyway, he'd have to contend with having to get by all the rest of us. And since he wasn't familiar with who we were, or what the extent of our abilities were..." He left the rest of his comment unspoken, yet its intent was perfectly clear.

            "Then, how did he find out you were married? How did he learn about the baby?" Cara wondered aloud.

            "Bruiser was put in charge of keeping the guy out of our hair while we tried to figure him out," Hunter answered. "He took him into the room where we have all our accolades, and apparently DiMackerlyn discovered that, not only were Terrin and I married, but that she'd just given birth to our daughter." His voice unconsciously hitched on the last word. It was not lost on his parents.

            "How did you discover he'd taken the baby?" Cara whispered.