Talson Temptations 2: Talson's Test (11 page)
“Do you think it will always be like this?” she asked, panting over his chest.
Before he could answer, the ship rocked, throwing them close to the edge of the bed.
“What the hell?”
He grabbed her tightly as they were pitched off the bed, landing on his back to protect her. Cursing, he disengaged from her to rise quickly to his feet and dressed, memories of his nightmare coming to haunt him.
“We’re under attack,” he said with a certainty he wished he didn’t feel.
Adri simply nodded, accepting his words as fact. “What can I do?” His first thought was to tell her to stay in the cabin and lock the door, but staring at her, knowing what she was capable of, he did the opposite of what an Otra male normally did in times of crisis. He asked for her help.
“Come with me.”
She hurriedly finished dressing and raced with him out the door, past frightened passengers up several decks to the bridge, where Val and the captain argued.
“Those two fighters are missing, and I want to know where the hell they are.” Val’s eyes glowed with anger that grew as the captain hemmed and hawed. Rage filled the small cabin, like a force that whipped between the two men. Something felt decidedly off here, and Z knew the time had come to confront the frightening future he continued to see in his dreams. He’d be damned if he’d let her get hurt.
“Val? What’s going on?”
“Captain Dickhead here has no idea where the port-flanking defense fighters are.” Val advanced on the captain, all but in his face. “Nor can he explain why those same shields are down. We’ve been attacked by two Cam class vessels, no doubt pirate but small enough to have gone undetected as a threat by our scanners. Problem is, with those shields down and the fighters missing, they can stall us if they hit our lower port engines, and with the way we’ve been rocking and rolling, I’d say that’s their plan.” Z shot the sweating captain a knowing glance. “Interesting they knew just where to find our hidden engine mounts when the exhausts are at least a five-length below us.
And to disengage the shields, one has to know the proper codes, codes very few on this ship possess.”
The captain swallowed audibly and took a step back from Val and Z. Before he could run, Val used his telekinesis to haul the man onto a nearby stool and held him tight with a band of
psychei
. The weaker Otra could only sit in Val’s angry psychic embrace.
“I know how to handle this.” Z glanced to the ship’s offensive weapon controls.
He’d trained for just such an occurrence, but had never thought they’d have to put those practices into effect.
Val shot the captain a dark look. “Did I mention our offensives are coincidentally malfunctioning?”
“All of them?” Z jerked his gaze back to the captain in surprise. Their saboteur had done a damn fine job of sinking the ship, so to speak. As it stood, they were nearly dead in space, a vessel begging to be boarded and overhauled.
Adri’s warm hand gripped his own.
“I can help,” she said quietly.
My fire is strong, Zaret. Let me show you.
Remembrances of her lying so still on the ground shook him.
It’s not just me,
she reminded him.
We need to save everyone on the ship,
iriu
. Trust me. I
can do this.
Are you sure?
Between living and dying? Yes.
He knew she was right. The pirates would take the ship to their nearest station, salvaging all the precious metals and items they could, raping and/or selling what women and men they figured would make them currency. The rest of the passengers would be killed, and only the lucky ones would die quickly.
Okay, then let’s do this. Both of us. Use my
psychei
to aim your fire. The minute you feel
any pain, break away. I mean it.
Yes. Fine.
I swear I’ll spank that ass for weeks if you don’t. I won’t lose you now. Not when I’ve finally
found you.
She smiled, her love so sweet and giving he knew he couldn’t live without her.
Z took a deep breath and prayed for calm.
Okay. Aim for that vulnerable spot on the
ship, right there
. He mentally showed her where to hit the pirate vessels as one passed through the bridge’s viewport.
Z watched in awe as Adri stood back and stared into space, transfixing her gleaming eyes. The dark purple of her irises suddenly took over the whites of her eyes, and her pupils turned from black to bloody red, a pinpoint of energy that grew as she drew from him. She closed her eyes and fists, drawing hard on his
psychei
.
Z himself felt a moment of weakness, and then
boom
.
The luxury liner rocked as fragments of metal hit the outer hull. Quickly calling forth whatever temporary shields hadn’t been damaged by the pirate’s attack, he watched through the viewport as the burning ships quickly died, the flames smothered by dark space.
The world around him grayed. Odd moments of bright colors, a woman’s laughter, and the sights and sounds of myriad destinies converged in his mind. But the one that mattered most drew him.
He swayed on his feet and nearly fell when he turned, only to see Adri on the ground. Blood dripped from her nose, eyes and ears. Her entire body was covered in flames that slowly tapered, taking most of her clothing with it. Behind her Val stood with a phaser in hand, his gaze locked on something behind Z.
“Put it down,” Val yelled.
Before Z could figure out what had happened, Adri stirred.
Thank God.
Then pain, a fissure of energy burst from his chest and filtered through every cell and vein in his body. Pain burrowed in his heart and traveled along his spine to his brain.
He thought he heard Adri cry out, but then darkness consumed him.
Adri felt something wrong and blinked into sudden bright light. The ship had righted. Next to her, Val fired his phaser. Something hit the deck hard. Then he swore and crouched over someone next to her.
An emptiness in her
psychei
literally hurt, and as she rose unsteadily to her feet, she saw Zaret lying still on the ground, a burned patch of black in the middle of his chest.
“Fuck, Z. Snap out of it.” Val sounded frantic as drawers and panels all over the bridge opened and closed. “Dammit. I need a medical kit,” he yelled. Then he spied Adri. “Hurry, honey. We need to save Z. Captain Jackass hit him with a Mystifier.” One of Chartrell Shipping’s newest measures of protection when flying through unfriendly territories in space. The information hit her like a two-by-four, especially because it came from Zaret.
“I hear him.” She stumbled to his side. “Wait, Val. Let me. My fire should burn out the nanoreplicators eating at his insides. Find a kit, though.”
While Val scrambled to find help, she pulled the last bit of energy from inside herself and burned through the foreign bodies in Z’s flesh. It didn’t take long. Still joined, she could sense what didn’t belong. And Z, bless him, retained enough of his faculties to help her.
Val returned and injected him with a healing salve. He caught her as she fell over her
iriu
.
She smiled and tried to tell him, “He’ll be okay. We both will.” But she wasn’t sure he understood.
“Shit. I hope you just said what I think you did.” Val’s shaky smile was the last thing she saw before she fell into Z’s dreams. And damn if they didn’t land naked into a bed together, perfection in paradise.
When Adri woke she had a doozy of a headache.
“There you are.”
She felt relieved to hear her
iriu’s
deep voice. “Did we get them all?”
“You did,” Zaret said quietly.
She glanced over at him, only to see him sitting beside her on the bed. He wore a pair of light-colored trousers and no shirt, showing the faded burn of the Mystifier in the middle of his chest. She wondered if it would ever go away.
He caressed her hair. “You scared the shit out of me. I saw you fall before I even knew you. But loving you and watching you bleeding, not moving…” He paused and kissed her on the mouth, his heart in his eyes. “Don’t ever do that to me again, woman.”
“I could say the same. Seeing you unconscious wasn’t good. If I hadn’t been so groggy myself, I probably would have freaked out and scared the crap out of Val.” He paused. “Adri, before I met you I whined about The Testing. I didn’t want it now, not when I had so many other pastimes to pursue.” By “pastimes” he obviously meant women. He sounded thoughtful, and not a little amused, so she stemmed the tide of jealousy rearing its ugly head.
“I didn’t want children, didn’t want one woman when I could pretty much have whoever I wanted.”
“Oh?” She couldn’t help it. He was starting to piss her off.
“Basically I was a moron.” His bright smile felt hotter than any fire, and it warmed her from the inside out.
He put his hand over her heart, and she covered it, wanting him to know she felt what he was saying. “I know we just met,” he admitted. “That we don’t know nearly enough about each other, with the exception of how good we are in bed together, and that you don’t like the color blue or Taskishi potatoes. You cheat at cards—”
“I do not.”
“And you lived a hell of a lot longer than I did with a family who put the word
criminal
in the Werfal database.” He paused. “But I can’t help loving you.” Tears filled her eyes, despite wanting to appear strong and collected.
“I want to spend the rest of my life showing you how right we are together, and how very, very happy I am you went into Selection at the same time the universe pushed me into The Testing.”
“I love you, too, you giant oaf.”
His eyes lit, the pupils dotted with red—
her fire
. “I feel your fire,
veyu
. And I feel the burn of your love deep inside. You healed me. Not just from the Mystifier.” He rubbed his chest. “But by loving me. I’ll be the man I was meant to be with you by my side.” His smile faded, and he took a slow look around the room before lowering his voice.
“And if you ever tell Val or my other brothers how damn sappy I just sounded, you’ll pay. And you’ll pay dearly.”
The gruff warrior returned, but he couldn’t hide the soft lover, her mate and other half, watching her with love in his eyes.
“Then I guess you’ll have to concede to my many demands, won’t you?”
“Blackmail?” His smiled widened. “I can handle that. Like father like daughter, eh?”
The comparison, oddly enough, made her smile. “Wait and see.”
“Oh I will,
veyu
. I will. But one more thing.”
“Just one more?” She’d noticed the erection he didn’t even try to hide.
“We have to have a traditional wedding ceremony. Something to knock my baby brother on his ass, now that he thinks he’s the favorite. So do you think you could suck up to my mom for a little bit? I promise if you’re nice to her, I won’t kill your father or brothers when one of them annoys me the next time we meet.”
“Deal.” She ran her hands over his thighs. “Now how about you stop teasing me with that monster in your pants? Your poor
veyu
needs some loving.” He smiled and lowered himself to lie next to her. He hugged her to him, and she felt comforted, aroused, accepted.
Zaret laughed. “You know, my family is just going to love you. But no more than I already do.”
Valis Talson ‘Or Fal stared at the trembling man wearing a tattered captain’s uniform. His face hadn’t weathered Val’s fists well. Nor had he seemed too happy to have his body hung from a height of thirty feet in the cargo bay of the ship.
Beyond angry, Val let his rage fuel his
psychei
and gave his telekinesis free reign.
“Tell me again,
Captain
, who your real friends are in Chartrell Shipping, and where I can find them.”
It didn’t take more than a few minutes slamming from bulkhead to bulkhead and viewport to floor before the man babbled facts and figures of real interest.
Val made note of everything and resolved to fix their competitor once and for all.
He knew just where to start. The woman would pay, and pay dearly.
About the Author
Marie Harte is a professed bibliophile with an addiction to romance. She’s fond of things that go bump in the night, especially if they happen to be tall, dark and handsome. Life has given her some interesting insights into the male mind. After majoring in English, she spent several years in the Marine Corps, followed by stints in information technology, logistics and the transportation fields. And yes, herding cats is easier then trying to manage truck drivers.
Now a wife, writer and crazy woman with children, she spends most of her time bugging her kids to do their homework while typing with a mad zeal to make deadlines. She’s a multi-published and bestselling author of erotic romance who’s obsessed with email, so feel free to drop her a line.
Marie welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her
author bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com.
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