Authors: April Zyon
She
shook her head. “I trust you,” she told him, and once his back was
turned
she took off her top first,
then put on the new shirt. She stood, her legs shaking as she did
so,
but she did it all the same. She
braced her hand on his back and slipped her panties off, then pulled on the
shorts he had given her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him.
“I’m dressed.” His jacket lay on the bed beside her and she held her clothing
in her hands. “I think these need to be
burnt,
” she told him with a small
smile.
Nodding,
he pulled the jacket off the
bed
and went to hang it up. He then took her old clothing and moved to another
wall. With the press of his
hand,
he opened another panel that he dropped her clothes into. Returning to the
bed,
he sat to take his boots off. Tucking
them away, he grabbed some other clothes from the cupboard. He lifted a brow at
her, and with a single finger and an amused look he indicated she should turn
around.
She
moved so that she was lying on her side on the bed. She yawned as he tugged at
the bedding, and she wiggled and moved so she was under it. When his arm closed
around
her waist and pulled her
close,
she sighed. “God that feels so
right,” she confessed and closed her eyes. “I don’t understand
it,
but I’m going with it,” she said with
another yawn.
“I
swear to you I will tell you everything, little one.” He slipped his other arm
under her head, drawing her in even closer to his body. His breath was warm on
her neck. “Sleep, Samantha. I will be here if you need
me,
if the dreams become too much. You are
safe, sleep.” His lips brushed against her shoulder.
She was drifting on the edges of
oblivion, allowing his heat to surround her, to lull her into dreams. Real
sleep and not a medically induced coma from
cryo
-sleep.
Chapter Three
When
she woke
up,
it took her a few seconds to come to grips with what was happening. The bed
under her was comfortable. It curved to her body like a memory foam mattress
from back home. The man beside her shifted slightly. “Petr?” And that fast
everything went rushing back into her brain. Memories from
cryo
-sleep,
memories of waking, and the madness in Dillon’s eyes as he took two lives.
She
curled into Petr and sniffed several times. “Oh
God,
he killed those men.” Yeah, that was
yesterday and this was today, but she could still mourn the loss of life. “Have
your men found him yet?” She didn’t know how Dillon would be able to hide from
Petr’s men on what was left of their craft. There simply wasn’t enough of it
left.
As fast as her questions came,
however, so did the rumble of her stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten
real food in a very long time. “Sorry, I think we should eat before the whole
ship hears my stomach rumbling.”
He
stroked a hand down her arm, the action
settling
some of her nerves. “I’ll see
what the reports say from the
end
of the
shift.
Hopefully,
it will give us some answers. I have to check your medical review before
ordering food, but I will have something brought up for us once I know what it
says.”
She
nodded, then looked up at him and watched him for a moment. “You were going to
tell me something last
night,
but I fell asleep on you.” Again she found herself reaching for him, his touch
soothing. “Why do you comfort me so much? What have you done to me?”
Petr
cupped her face to stare into her eyes. “I will explain everything while we
eat. When you’re
ready,
come out to the other room. We’ll talk, we’ll eat, and I’ll give you all the answers
you want. Take a deep breath, Samantha. You have no reason to panic. It will
all make perfect sense.”
She
took a deep breath, moved to the side of the bed, and looked toward the
bathroom. “Okay, the toilet. Is there anything about using it that I should
know?” Because now that she was moving she needed to pee and had no freaking
clue if this craft’s bathroom was different than the one on her ship.
“Sit,
attend to business, and stand. It self-cleans once you move your weight off,”
he told her. “Don’t sit back down or you could end up stuck. If it fails for
any
reason,
there is a small button on the far side nearest the sonic shower you can press
to activate the cycle. I won’t be far. Call out if you need me.”
“Right,
okay. Thank you.” She could see her getting her butt stuck to the toilet and
having to call him to come in and help get her unstuck. Why not? She had done
everything else in the world that was
backward
with this man. “If I don’t come out in five, come check on me?” She was shaking
as she stood
there,
but she stood, so that was a huge improvement from the previous day. “I’m going
to have to do so much work to get my butt back into shape.”
He
frowned and looked her up and down. “
Your
butt, as you call it, appears to be perfectly fine. Go, the sooner you are done
the sooner we can start our talk and I can answer your questions.”
After
she did her business, she looked at what she assumed was a sink and held her
hands there. “Okay, Petr, I think I need help,” she called out.
Jesus,
she was being reminded just
how out of her time she was. The door slid open to reveal him standing there.
“How do I wash my hands?” she wanted to know.
“Sink
on, one minute,” he said. The water came on in a thin stream. “Sorry, Samantha.
You have me forgetting too
easily
you are not from this time,” he told her while she washed her hands. Petr
lifted a thin towel from the hook near his shoulder to hold it out to her.
“I
keep forgetting, myself,” she admitted, drying her hands. “I feel like I’ve
known you all my
life,
as if I’ve been here all my life. So strange.”
He lifted a hand to brush his
fingers over her cheek. “Not really. It will make more sense to you soon,
Samantha. Come, the food will be here soon. And your crewmate has been found
and detained. He
’
s
in one of the cells, with two security officers on duty in the room and three
in the hall.”
“Thank
goodness.” She let out a relieved breath. “He’s completely crazy. Please don’t
let him out. I can’t prove
it,
but I thought that he had killed one of our crew before we were forced into
cryo
-sleep. I had ordered the man that had stayed out of
cryo
to wake me before him because I needed to go over the
tapes to prove myself either wrong or right, but yeah.”
“The
crew is working to retrieve all data from your craft. It’s slow going because
our systems are not compatible. They are taking their time to make sure they
don’t destroy anything inadvertently.
Hopefully,
you will soon have the answers to those questions from the flight.” A soft
chime sounded. “That will be our food.” Cupping her cheek, he left his hand
there a moment before letting it fall away when he moved through the bedroom
into the outer sitting room. Sam heard the door slide open, a
soft
exchange of words. Then the door slid
shut again.
She
walked out to the outer rooms where Petr was waiting and took a seat. “Whatever
that is, it smells so good.” Her stomach rumbled
with
hunger, but she knew she would have to
go slow or risk making herself sick.
He
set a glass before her. “The doctor recommended you drink one of these before
every meal. It will help to fill some of
the space
up while not overwhelming your
system. It will also help you digest our foods until you become accustomed to
them. Nothing in them should harm you, but I have a kit on standby in case you
have a rare reaction. Our
scans
and testing
is
extremely thorough, but even we can miss something small.”
“Thank you.” She accepted the
glass and took a drink. It was sweet but not overpoweringly so. She took
another sip and licked her lips. “This is very good. If the food is this good I
see myself getting bigger than a house.”
Petr
was wearing the frown again. Sam was beginning to realize it was his confused
face. “These are a variety of fruits from some of the worlds we recently
stopped at to visit,” he told her, pointing out items on the large platter
before her. “Some different vegetables. This is a dough based item with a tart
filling we commonly have for our first meal of the day, and these are dried
bread.
We dip them into these
containers of
pastes
and sweet sauces.”
She looked at the bounty before
her, then looked at him. “I’m sorry. I keep using slang terms that I used back
when. I don
’t mean to
confuse you all the time, I promise.” She gestured toward the food. “Will you
eat with me? Show me which ones you like?”
“I
want you to be yourself, Samantha. You don’t need to change for me. Not now,
not ever.” He gave her a small smile. “As to my favorites, they are all on this
dish. The dining officers are attempting to impress me during my stay so that I
give the crew a recommendation. They don’t really need to bother. I’m already
impressed by all I’ve seen of them.” He lifted one of the dough
pockets
and held it out to her. “These
are a weakness of mine.”
“So
this isn’t your ship?” she asked, then took a bite of what he gave her. “
Oh,
this is very good.” She all but moaned
in delight. “So if you’re not the captain, who is? You have to be a
high-ranking officer for the crew to bow to you as they do.” She found herself
leaning closer to him, her knee touching his.
“This
is not my cruiser, no. It’s one of six training crafts for the new officers who
come out of officers’ school. They go through six years of rigorous studies and
drills before doing two years on a ship like this. Out here they gain real
experience in the field while under the watchful eye of their training
officers.
Chevon
is the best, and all the new officers vie for a slot here. My position as a
fleet admiral, the highest rank still allowed in the field, garners me the
crew’s
respect,
nothing more. We were on route to meet up with my cruiser when we received the
sensor data from our border about your vessel.”
Sam
nodded, then said, “So … do you want to talk to me about why I need to touch
you?”
Wiping
his
hands,
he put some fruit onto one of
the small
plates
and passed it to her before filling
the
second
one for himself. “I can only give you the facts as they
are, Samantha. What you do with the data is up to you. My people, the
Imarians
, give off a pheromone that is meant to call to our
other half. We don’t know why, but it only activates, according to our
scientists, when someone our primal brain recognizes as a fitting mate is
registered. You are likely feeling the effects of the pheromone. Again,
according to our scientists, it’s used to draw the other individual in until
they either give off their own in
acceptance
or one that repels it. Apparently the brain registers whichever one it happens
to be.”
Well,
that was a surprise. She just looked
at him, completely shocked that he was telling her this. “And do you feel what
I feel?” she asked softly, reaching out to touch him again. She might seem to
be absolutely crazy but Samantha had always been one of those women who grew up
in a family of people who simply believed in what they felt when they felt it.
And what she felt for him was soul deep. It was intense and sudden but she
recognized it for what it was—a feeling that she’d never had before but one
that she was going to embrace with every fiber of her being. “Do you feel the
same way I do? The need to touch me? The need to be close?” He nodded, and she
leaned into him again. “And what happens when you get to your ship? Will you
take me with you?” She hoped so because she didn’t want to be alone in this
strange world. “Or will I have to go off alone without you?”
Petr
immediately lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “Samantha.” He said her name like a
caress, his
voice
deeper,
more sensual. “If you’re willing, I would take you with me when we get there.
The idea of letting you go, letting you out of my sight for more than a moment,
has every baser instinct screaming for blood. We may be more technologically
advanced, but we are still mortal beings governed by a brain that not even our
scientists have fully figured out.” Leaning in, he brushed his lips to her own,
back and forth. “Will you come?”
“I
want to go with you.” She let out a breath of relief. “I was thinking that I
was going to have to beg you to take me with
you,
” she admitted.
“Never,”
he promised quietly. She felt the brush of his lips
on
her cheek, jaw, then down
to
her throat. He pressed his nose to her
throbbing pulse
point
and inhaled deeply. “We should eat. You need to regain your strength before we
take any other steps.”
She
breathed in the scent that was all male. “The things your scent does to me
…
”
She wanted to move into his lap, wanted to rub against him and keep him close.
“Is that why you asked me to stay quiet? Do the people on board this ship know
that I’m yours or whatever?” She just knew he smelled so good. She knew that he
was everything she had ever wanted in a man. It only took her
some
years and space to be able to find
him.
“
No,
they don’t know yet. They’ll be able
to guess soon enough, I’m sure.” He drew away from her so she could see his
brightly colored eyes. “Some of my people can be mistrustful. We are on the
brink of war with another system of peoples, the
Craegins
.
They’ve been our enemies for more time than any of us can recall, the why long
since lost to the dust of the past. I, along with several other
high-ranking
officers, am trying to uncover
the reason for this sudden new interest in decimating them. My sister is soul
bonded to a
Craegin
officer who is trying to do the same from his side of the border with his own
group of trusted colleagues. On my
cruiser,
you can move and speak freely, but during our time here be aware that anything
you say could be used against us both, Samantha.”
“It
’s hard to believe
that even with the time that
has passed people still are at war. It doesn’t make any sense. I would have
hoped that we would have gotten over all of that nightmare in this time. It’s
just surreal to me.” She shook her head. “I will guard my words carefully. I’ve
had to do that more often than I care to admit in my time alive on Earth. It
makes no sense to me, none. One would think with as advanced as your society is
there wouldn’t be wars. Is it because of lands?” No, he’d just said that the
reason for the war was lost to time.
Well,
bugger. “Do you get to see your sister at all?” she asked quietly. “I couldn’t
imagine being parted from your family as you are from your sister.”