Sons of Lyra: Fight For Love (7 page)

Remi was breaking with
tradition at the wedding and borrowing something from Kayla’s
species’ history. It was called a ‘best man’. From how Kayla had
explained it, he’d got the impression that it was someone to
support you on the day and someone you were close to. He wanted
Jericho to be that man.

“
I thought we
were seeing the happy couple off,” Jericho said, the smile evident
in his voice even if the dark visor of his new face didn’t shift to
show it. “Ambra was panicking that we’d be late. She stood you
up?”

Remi turned his glare on
him. “No... I’m sure she’s just late.”

“
You sure?”
Ambra said, hanging off Jericho’s arm and grinning. “Maybe she got
cold feet—”

“
Why would she
do that?” he barked.

“
I’ve seen your
flying... it gives me the chills.” She laughed and hid behind the
bulky mass of Jericho when Remi tried to grab her.

Remi sighed and then went
still when the door opened again, this time behind him. The steady
tap of boots on the metal walkway rang in his ears, a step so light
that it could only be her.

“
She’s
beautiful.” Her soft voice caressed his ears and warmed his
heart.

He turned and looked at
Emmanuelle.

“
She certainly
is,” he whispered, turning her comment about the fighter towards
her, and caught her wrist, pulling her close to him. “I thought you
were standing me up.”

She giggled and stepped
out of his embrace. When she twirled on the spot, his attention
fell to her clothes.

“
I had to
change,” she said and ran her hands down her sides and over her
hips, following the line of the snug blue flight suit. “Acer gave
me it. He said that you didn’t fly in a fighter without
one.”

Her grey gaze fell to his
body and a half smile tugged at the corner of her lips. There was a
hint of sensuality about the soft curve of it and the way her eyes
raked over him.

“
They’re a
little revealing,” she said and took hold of his hand. “I like you
in it.”

“
My thoughts
exactly,” he whispered and went to kiss her.

Jericho cleared his
throat. Remi shot him another glare and turned back to Emmanuelle.
She had moved and was now waiting on the gang plank to the
ship.

“
Are we
flying?” she asked with a wide smile.

He smiled at her. “I don’t
need a ship to make me fly.”

She blushed at his sexual
reference. He still couldn’t get used to the insane energy
transference that happened. It was better than any drug, but there
was something that would make him happier than it ever
could.

“
After you,” he
said and ushered her onto the ship, impatient to get going now.
“The quicker I meet your parents, the faster I can marry
you.”

She laughed. “Don’t the
sons of Lyra know how to take things slow?”

She looked over his
shoulder in the direction of his brothers. He looked there too.
Balt shrugged. There was a look in Acer’s eyes that said slow was
torture. He’d seen him around the female engineer from his ship
several times now, and it was obvious to him that he liked her. He
looked back at Emmanuelle. Perhaps speed was a must when it took so
long to get the courage to act on feelings. It seemed that neither
he nor Acer could move as swiftly as Balt and Sebastian.

He pushed Emmanuelle onto
the ship, waved a quick farewell to his brothers and Jericho and
Ambra, and then closed the door. Striding up to the deck, he
focused, intent on getting out of the atmosphere and to Dazkara as
soon as possible. It would take at least two days to get there and
then three to get back to Lyra Prime. He could be married to
Emmanuelle within a week. He smiled.

“
You alright?”
she said close to his elbow.

He nodded, wrapped his arm
around her waist and kissed her hard, his tongue tangling with hers
as their mouths fused together. When he let her go, she was panting
and breathless.

Before she could say
anything, he grabbed her waist and settled her down into the
co-pilot’s chair. He buckled her in and then hopped into his own
chair. Her fingers closed over the end of the armrests when he
fired the engines up and the roar shook the ship.

“
I’ll have you
home in a heartbeat... two heartbeats.” He grinned across at
her.

She looked
petrified.

“
Take your
time,” she squeaked. “Honestly... I’d rather make it there and back
in one piece.”

“
Slow?” he said
and she nodded. “What was it you said about the sons of
Lyra?”

Her eyes widened when he
dropped the thrusters and raised the ship out of the dock at
break-neck speed. He laughed.

“
We don’t do
slow.”

She squealed when he
pushed forwards on the controls and they shot into the atmosphere.
Before he could blink they were through it and heading out into the
infinite darkness of space. He punched the coordinates in for
Dazkara and then looked across at her. Her skin was as pale as her
hair.

The computer announced
that at their current speed the Dazkara system was a day
away.

“
I’ll marry you
before the week is out,” he said and released the controls, letting
them ease back into their auto-pilot position. “I’ve gone slow
enough.”

Emmanuelle wondered if a
handful of months before getting married could be considered slow.
She closed her eyes when the ship slowed, rocked and then dropped
into sub-space. When she opened them again, stars were streaking
past in a constant dizzying line. Perhaps this was slow for a son
of Lyra. She’d made him wait and it only seemed to have increased
his desire to wed her. Seeing his rush to marry her now that he
could fly her to Dazkara and fulfil her stipulation was beautiful.
She’d never felt so loved before.

“
So what are
your parents like?” he said, leaning back into the chair with such
a cocksure air that it only made what she was about to say all the
sweeter.

She turned to face him,
smiled broadly and then said, “They hate Lyrans.”

His face
dropped.

“
Seriously?” he
said with a hopeful look. If he thought she was joking, he was in
for a shock when he met her family. “So why did you join the
imperial army? Don’t they hold it against you?”

“
They do, but I
don’t really care what they think.”

“
So why are we
going to meet them?” He reached out for the controls, as though he
was going to turn the ship around.

She placed her hand on his
nearest one and took it away from the controls. It was his
cybernetic arm. She stroked the strange rubbery skin and smiled at
the way his fingers flexed, slowly closing around hers and holding
her hand.

“
It’s tradition
on Dazkara for the future groom to ask for a daughter’s hand from
her mother.” Her eyes met his. Her smile turned mischievous. “Think
of it as challenge number two... convince my mother that a Lyran is
worthy of her only daughter.”

“
Only
daughter?” His cheeks paled and his eyes widened. “This isn’t going
to be easy, is it?”

She shook her head. “No
one says no to a son of Lyra though.”

His lips curved into a
wicked grin. “No one.”

Unbuckling the safety
harness, she looked around the bridge and then over her shoulder at
the exit. A day to her home world. Remi was going to need a stern
stomach to face her mother and win. If he thought battling Varkans
was dangerous, he was in for a shock. Dazkaran mothers could be
deadly when it came to a suitor they didn’t approve of. It was
cruel to take Remi there to ask for her hand, but it would prove
just how much he loved her and how much he wanted to marry her. She
didn’t care if her mother said no. As long as Remi stood up to her,
even if it was only for a few minutes, she’d marry him. She’d be a
fool not to. A son of Lyra was chasing her. Remi was chasing her.
It was more than she’d ever dreamed of. She’d fallen for him the
moment he’d come into her office.

She stood and pulled on
his hand, convincing him to follow her. His grin turned sensual
when she led him towards the door. She licked her lips and smiled
back at him.

“
I think I need
to give you a graduation present, Lieutenant Lyra IV.”

He slid his arm around her
waist and pulled her flush against him. His lips were dangerously
close to hers, setting her twin hearts thundering with
anticipation.

“
Call me Remi,”
he whispered against her mouth and then claimed her lips, kissing
her so slow that they tingled and ached for more. Her whole body
followed them.

“
Remi,” she
breathed into his mouth, her fingers twirling his dark hair around
them, keeping him close. “I love you so much.”

He smiled against her lips
and then whispered, “I know.”

She frowned and shoved him
in the chest. He chuckled, his rich deep brown eyes twinkling with
his smile.

“
I love you
too.” He scooped her up into his arms and looked down at her. “I’m
going to marry you.”

There was such sweet
determination in those words and she honestly believed that nothing
would stop him from achieving his desire.

“
No one, not
even your mother or the entire population of Dazkara, is going to
stop me. Even if it takes the whole of the Lyran Imperial Army
fleet to convince them, I won’t give up until you’re
mine.”

When he said it like that,
with such fire in his eyes, she couldn’t wait to get to her home
world and watch the calamity unfold, sure that he would be the
victor.

“
Remi?” she
said with a sly smile.

He frowned down at her,
his eyes darkening with hunger.

“
Shut up and
kiss me.”

He flashed a grin full of
white teeth at her and then dipped his head and kissed her so deep
that her head spun and her hair flew up, floating and twisting in
mid air.

In a week they’d be
married.

She didn’t care what her
parents said, just as he didn’t care what his thought.

No one was going to stop
her.

No one was going to stop
them.

The
End

###

About the
author

Felicity Heaton
is a great believer in love at first sight and the romantic ideal.
Having grown up reading extensively, she developed a deep love of
classical literature, ranking Jane Eyre, North & South, and
Persuasion amongst her all time favourite reads. The most romantic
moment of her life was when her husband got down on bended knee on
the steps of Sacré Coeur, Paris, at night in front of several
hundred spectators and proposed. She was too drunk on love, and
subsequently champagne, to care about the audience. All she could
see was the man that she loved. A writer of emotion and life, she
always strives to touch a chord of familiarity in her readers and
give them characters they can love and a read to
remember.

Connect with
me online:

Website:
http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/felicityheaton

Blog:
http://felicityheaton.blogspot.com/