The Masquerade
Nero needed to move. Despite the fact that every molecule of his being was screaming at him not to budge.
He’d been dreaming half his life about what it would feel like to wake up with Dex Draven in his bed. And he was flat-out flummoxed the guy hadn’t just ghosted him and tiptoed off during the night.
In fact, he’d done the exact opposite.
Nero lay sprawled on his stomach in the ruddy dawn of Valyria’s red sun, thanks to the artificial climate control in his quarters, one arm flung overhead in the tangled mess they’d made of his bed. With Dex’s solid frame sprawled snoring right on top of him. Chest pressed to his back, face buried in his hair, one muscled thigh shoved possessively between Nero’s.
But what really got him was Dex’s arm thrown over his, his calloused palm pinning Nero’s to the mattress. Their fingers laced tight while they slept.
All of which meant he wasn’t going anywhere until Dex felt like letting him.
And when Dex woke up and pushed him away, he’d leave a smoking crater where Nero’s heart used to be.
Gods of Solaris, what an infernal farking mess. First I let Kaia trample my heart to a pulp under her sexy little cyber boots. Then I let Dex pour rocket fuel over what little I’ve got left. All he needs to do now is toss a match.
And I’ll go up in flames.
A heartfelt groan rolled from his chest.
Which turned out to be a major mistake.
Dex pulled in a slow breath and whispered into the back of his neck, “You’re still here.”
As if he needed any further evidence that the feel of Dex’s mouth on his body still made him rock hard in a heartbeat.
“You’re in my bed,” Nero pointed out irritably, trying to ignore the swelling ache of his cock pinned hard against the mattress. “On your flipping battleship. Where the punk was I supposed to go?”
“Nowhere. You’re right where I want you.” Dex sounded thoroughly satisfied with himself and this entire outcome.
It was all Nero could manage not to groan again.
Instead he battened down his mental barricades against the inevitable rebuff. If nothing came in—if nothing went out—then nothing could hurt him.
At least that was the theory.
Regrettably, his body hadn’t read the briefing memo. Subtly he shifted to ease the incendiary heat in his mindlessly idiotic, relentlessly insistent cock before he lost every vestige of personal dignity and started rutting into the mattress.
Which turned out to be another monumental mistake. Because the movement only lodged his ass against the rigid blade of Dex’s cock. They both moaned at the contact.
“For punk’s sake, Dex! Have a little mercy,” Nero muttered, hands knotting into fists in the tangled sheets.
Any second now, you’re going to go all Mogadon on me and freak the hell out—
“Still not a morning guy, are you?” Dex breathed in his ear. Which only made him shiver all over. “What’s the matter, gorgeous? Did I keep you up too late?”
A memory raced through him. A memory of how searingly good it felt to thrust against the slick friction of Dex’s cock. A memory of Dex’s explosive climax spurting all over him. Not to mention the surge of intense satisfaction it gave him to make the hopelessly unattainable object of all his secret fantasies finally lose his mind and cry out with pleasure in Nero’s bed.
Feeling his breath go rough, he muttered an exasperated curse.
“Come on, Dex. You have a ship to run—and a Tombola to finish. Today’s the masquerade. We need Zorin to ease up on the caveman complex, and Kaia to get her shapely ass back on board this ship before her suitors start a riot. Now let me up.”
Desperate to end his torment, he pushed hard against Dex’s solid weight.
That burst of defiance turned out to be his final mistake.
Dex growled and rocked into him, his taut heat wedging into the crack of Nero’s ass like he was gods-dammed made for it. His fist clenched hard in Nero’s hair to hold him still.
Nero barely contained a whimper of longing.
“The blasted ship and the blasted Tombola can wait. I’m not done with you yet. Stay still.” Dex’s teeth closed gently around Nero’s earlobe in not-so-subtle warning. A sting of mingled pain and pleasure made Nero suck in his breath. “You and I need to talk. About what happened last night.”
Here it came.
The big rebuff.
Practically panting with need, acutely aware this entire encounter was about a breath away from careening off the rails, Nero made a desperate attempt to fend it off.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Dex? First you manage to wrestle all those mighty Mogadon hang-ups into momentary submission just long enough for an actual guy-on-guy hookup. Then, after years of avoidance, you actually want to talk about it?”
“Damnation, Ben!” Now he actually sounded offended. “This wasn’t some bloody random hookup and you bloody well know it. And you’re bloody well right I want to talk about it! Hells, I’ve been trying to talk to you for two days about—”
The warble of his wrist unit peeled out. With a curse, Dex released Nero’s hair and muttered fiercely into the comm link, “Not now.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Nero sighed against the clutch of heartbreak splitting his chest. Too damn late now to fend anything off. He’d just have to suck it up and lick his wounds on the long flight back to Valyria. “It was a one-time thing. I get it! Now get the hell off—”
“Does this feel like a one-time thing to you?” Dex’s hard hand slid over his ribs and closed unerringly around the throbbing ache of Nero’s cock.
Which turned out to have a mind of its own. Same as always wherever Dex Draven was involved. Helpless to prevent it, he groaned and rocked into Dex’s fist.
“Damn it, Dex,” he whispered. “You’re too flipping good at this.”
“And you’re too perfect.” Breath rough and quick in his ear, Dex thrust against his ass. “You’re so blooming perfect for me, Ben.”
And feeling the guy’s cock—already slick and pulsing with need—lodged hard against his hole sucked every particle of good sense out of Nero’s head as effectively as if he’d just thrown open a portal and jettisoned his brain into the vacuum of space.
He’d always known Dex would never go for this. Never break down and give Nero what he needed at his most primitive, fundamental level. Because what he needed was nothing short of complete submission to Dex’s total possession. The possession that sprang from Dex emptying his cock and shooting his seed so deep inside Nero they’d never be free of each other. If there had ever been the slightest scintilla of a chance the military ruler of the Mogadon Empire might actually be on board for that plan…
But there wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t.
Yet stubborn hope made him a mindless idiot for his boyhood best friend.
Same as always.
“Dex,” he panted, thrusting into that knowing fist. “I can make this—easy for you. Do you want me to—?”
The cheerful carol of that farking wrist unit nearly made Nero tear his hair out.
“For flip’s sake, Dex! Don’t you dare answer that.”
“Commander?” The tinny voice of some youthful functionary over-rode his desperate demand. “Sir, you ordered a sit rep as soon as we—”
“Belay that order, prefect. My hands are… rather full at the moment.” Dex’s breathless chuckle sounded in Nero’s ear. “Not quite so blasted eager to go bolting out of my bed now, are we?”
“Go to hell, Dex.” His seeking hand found the corded length of Dex’s thigh, slid up to grip the luscious globe of his ass, and pulled him in tighter.
“Sure that’s what you want?” His slick tip lodged right up against Nero’s tingling pucker.
And despite the complete lack of any of the customary preliminaries to get him opened up and ready, Nero had to smother in his pillow a long low groan.
“Ah, sir—I’m not quite hearing you?” that infernal voice persisted. “We’ve found those missing Zephyrs.”
“Damn. We’ll have to make this quick,” Dex whispered in his ear. “Are you ready for me?”
His pride seethed with rebellion at the notion of being Dex’s morning quickie. But a far more prominent part of him surrendered completely to the plan.
Abandoning every atom of good sense and self-respect and Precursorial dignity, he arched his back and ground into Dex’s hard heat.
“There’s lube in the drawer,” he panted. “Know what to do with it?”
A frisson of discord eddied through the fog of arousal that clouded both their brains. Just a ripple of recoil.
But he felt that recoil like a slap in the face.
“Ben.” Dex’s tone was raw with denial. “I can’t—do that to you. I can’t—disrespect and—dishonor and—disgrace you like that. I can’t. Not ever.”
Disrespect.
Dishonor.
Disgrace.
That was how a quintessential Mogadon male like Dex felt about the union that was the greatest act of intimacy and love Nero knew how to express.
Gasping with pain and shock, Nero released his desperate clutch and struggled furiously to wrench himself free.
But Dex was having none of it.
“Easy,” he whispered into Nero’s neck, licking the sweat from his skin. “I can still give you what you need. And you’re still mine. Aren’t you?”
“Go to hell!” he snarled, twisting savagely in his grip.
“You’re mine,” Dex gritted, grimly undeterred. His determined hand tightened around Nero’s aching cock. “Let’s prove it. To both our satisfaction.”
A few hard, fast strokes brought him right to the edge, his entire body tingling, his balls clamped tight. He was so slick with his own precum they could both hear the wet slide of Dex’s quickening hand riding his shaft. Even over his own desperate panting.
“Gods—oh gods—please! I don’t—want you like this—”
“Yes, you do,” Dex groaned against his ear, breath harsh as he bucked into the crack of his ass, slick with the man’s own eagerness. Every thrust sent lightning bolts of need straight down Nero’s cock and made him cry out. “You want me the same way I want you—any way, any place, any time I can get you. You still love me?”
“I never loved you!” Nero gasped in one last desperate act of self-defense. “I just—lied through my teeth—to get in your pants.”
“Don’t be absurd! I was already bloody naked and out of my mind with rutting you when—”
Savage with craving and despair, Nero caught Dex’s burnished hair in a frantic fist and pulled him in for an openmouthed kiss that blazed with a bonfire of pent-up longing and throbbed with a lifetime of need.
“You do love me,” Dex panted into his mouth, undeceived. “You do. Promise me you’ll never stop. I need you so much, Ben. Need you so farking much.”
“Oh comets—oh gods—oh Dex—”
He didn’t know if it was giving away how he felt or shouting Dex’s name when his climax boiled through him or the rhythmic jets of seed shooting from his balls and spurting all over Dex’s hand.
He didn’t know anything.
All he knew was the deep, animalistic, intensely pleasurable groan that shuddered through the powerful body behind him and the hot spurt of Dex’s release.
Panting with exertion and slick with sweat, Dex collapsed across his back, his hand going slack around Nero’s shaft. Between harsh ragged breaths, he pressed repentant kisses to Nero’s trembling shoulder.
“Gods of Olympus, Ben,” he gasped out. “When are you going to stop fighting me? You damn well have to know—this isn’t a casual fling. Not for either one of us.”
Nero knotted his fists and slammed his barriers back down. Because the word love didn’t appear in the Draven dictionary. Dex’s head right now was one monumental mess.
Barriers or no barriers, Nero would have to be blind not to sense the howling storm of grief for his brother that Dex was fighting his way through. And comatose not to know Dex was hurting because of Kaia. The same way Nero himself was hurting. His lifemate’s defection was a gaping hole in both their hearts.
Right now, his bed was Dex’s port in the storm.
But it wasn’t going to last.
“You know,” Dex pressed him. “Don’t you?”
Nero answered without words from deep in the no-man’s land in his head. Deep enough in that Dex would never hear.
I know the thought of fucking me revolts you. And I know you had to get space-faced drunk before you could bring yourself to my bed.
“About those Zephyrs, boss?” A new voice crackled from Dex’s comm link. Deeper, older, and grimly persistent.
Dex pushed out a breath and rolled to his back. Leaving Nero lying in a pool of rapidly cooling semen. Grimacing, Nero grabbed a fistful of linen and started cleaning up.
Though he couldn’t help but notice the thoroughly proprietary look in Dex’s cobalt eyes as they raked over him. Looking way too satisfied at leaving the Valyrian Precursor in such a soiled and sated state—thoroughly claimed and ravaged and reeking with Dex’s mating scent.
A look of complete possession that left Nero tingling. Already halfway ready to drag his tongue down Dex’s body until they both got hard and went at it again.
Gods know that wouldn’t take long.
And despite all his unbreachable barriers, something in his face or his head gave Dex a predatory grin.
“Go ahead, Marcus,” Dex murmured, his eyes never leaving Nero’s.
“We found those fighters—all three of ’em —adrift.”
Dex’s smile vanished and his gaze turned hard. “Do we have Cato?”
“That’s a negative. Cato’s still MIA. But every man jack on those three flight crews is dead.”
“Damn.” Dex sucked in a breath and pushed up to sit. “Are you certain? Have you dispatched a medic?”
“We don’t need a medic in there. Just a guy with a mop. Poor bastards are smeared all over the cockpit.” Together, they waited through an uncomfortable pause. “Boss, it’s classic Swarm.”
“Right.” Crisp with command, Dex sprang to his feet and reached for his pants. “What about the novicide?”
“Tanks are empty. All of ’em. Your, uh, brother released his payload somewhere—we’re just not sure where. We’re trying to download some kinda flight path from their databanks.”
“Here’s what I want.” Moving with brisk efficiency, Dex scooped up clothes and boots and beelined for Nero’s bathroom. “I want every bit and byte in those databanks gone over with a microscope, am I clear? And I want that Tombola hall secured and guards placed on every one of the final hundred from now until they’re off my ship. Send a shuttle over to the Relentless ASAP to collect the maharani and that infernal Syndax. The ritual resumes at twelve hundred sharp. Make it happen.”
Without waiting for assent—because he took absolute obedience for granted—Dex switched off the comm link and tossed over his shoulder, “Mind if I use your shower?”
“Make yourself at home,” Nero muttered.
But the hiss of water swallowed his sardonic tone.
By the time a fully showered and impeccably uniformed Dex emerged, Nero had pulled on tunic and breeches, thrown a fur over the incriminating ruin of his bed, and busied himself in the galley brewing a stiff pot of chaco.
Having spent ten futile ticks trying like blazes not to imagine Dex Draven naked in his shower.
“I can’t stay. I’ve got suitors queued up in my ready room. And I want to inspect those Zephyrs and their databanks personally before Zorin turns up.” Dex snared the steaming cup Nero poured him and gulped a hasty swallow of the potent brew. “Ben, you and I need to talk. I promised Kaia—”
“No time,” Nero murmured blandly. “You said it yourself. See you later at the masquerade.”
“I suppose that’ll have to suffice.” Dex sighed. “Don’t be late—and make yourself beautiful. Gods know that won’t be difficult.”
Before he could avoid it, Dex leaned in to give him a hard careless kiss.
And even that—being taken and used as an object of careless enjoyment by his boyhood best friend—revved his engine to a fever pitch. Same as always.
He swallowed a wistful sigh.
Dex paused with one hand still gripping Nero’s waist and breathed him in with a frown.
“You’d best have a proper shower yourself before you leave this room,” he muttered. “Every head on this ship is supplied with a cleansing agent that’s engineered to mask the scent. It isn’t perfect, but it helps.”
“The scent?” Nero stared.
“You’ve got my mating scent all over you. No Mogadon with a nose could miss it. Sorry.” Attention clearly elsewhere, already cataloging the day’s duties and demands, Dex spared him a brief smile. “The cleansing agent will help.”
The shock of rejection slammed through him like a body blow.
Nero was privately astounded how much it hurt.
And fiercely determined to hide it.
“Oh, right. Because no one’s supposed to know.”
“I… regret the necessity.” Clearly sensing his mounting wrath, Dex gave him an apologetic grimace. “I’m afraid I’ve never been any good at this.”
“You mean relationships?” Nero’s tone dripped acid. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Come on.” Dex reached for him, but Nero slid deftly aside. “You know how precarious my position is—mine and Kaia’s. Just two nights past, I barely survived an attempted mutiny. Not to mention multiple assassination attempts. Yet I’m solely responsible for Kaia’s safety—and yours—while you’re aboard this ship. As I’m acutely aware, my fleet and I are all that currently stand between the two of you and another smack of Swarm assassins.”
“Get a clue!” Nero snarled. “I don’t need your farking protection any more than you need mine. And you’re the alpha in this floating fortress. Don’t tell me half this ship doesn’t already know you spent last night rutting in my bed. The rest will know by noon.”
Dex looked inclined to argue. At least about the not-needing-his-protection part. Instead, he sliced a glance at the time and sighed. “Just use the cleansing agent. That’s a start. We’ll sort the rest out later. You, me—and Kaia.”
And the chasm of naked yearning that split Dex’s soul and surfaced in his face made envy burn in Nero’s throat like alkali. They’d barely been apart a day, but Dex was on fire with longing for Kaia. The same way Nero knew—by the echo of an ache in his own chest—that Kaia was yearning for Dex.
Somewhere in the middle of this interstellar mess, his lifemate and his best friend had fallen in love.
For some damn reason, his eyes were stinging.
He hoped like hell Zorin could handle it when Kaia hurled herself into Dex’s arms and the two of them went at it. Comets, he hoped he could handle it himself.
Maybe Zorin would take Nero as a consolation prize.
Except, after the night he’d just had and the number Dex had just done on his heart, Nero was through being anyone’s consolation prize.
Right now he needed some consolation himself. Needed it more than oxygen.
Before Dex could sniff out the emotional carnage he’d left in his wake, Nero cleared his throat, turned away, and buried his face in the bitter chocolate steam of his chaco.
“Well?” The pressure of Dex’s eyes burned into his back. “The masquerade. Will you be there?”
“I’m still your neutral second. I’ll be there,” Nero said gruffly. “But we dock at Quorum in three days. Then this Tombola’s history.”
At which point I’ve got a one-way ticket home on a Valyrian cruiser to sire my forty-fourth offspring for the breeding program. Where you’ll never carve my heart to ribbons again.
Either one of you.
Behind him Dex’s voice rang steely with determination. “We’ll have to find some way to make this infernal affair work—you, me, and Kaia. Because I have absolutely zero intention of losing either of you.”
It’s not up to you, Dex. Not this time.
But that was one thought Nero managed to barricade.
And Dex marched off to discharge his Indomitable duties without hearing a thing.
#
Though he kept the impulse to himself, Zorin wished heartily he could spend the whole day in bed. Because all the gods knew neither one of them had gotten much in the way of sleep last night.
Not that he was complaining.
Sprawled comfortably in the pilot’s seat on the Relentless’s aging shuttle, with Kaia’s compact body tucked between his spread thighs and her capable hands on the yoke, he couldn’t hold back a grin of satisfaction.
Last night she’d blown every fuse in his body. Including a whole circuit board he didn’t even know he had. And based on how many times he’d made her shudder and sob and fall apart around his tongue and hands and cock, he figured it was fair to say he’d returned the favor.
His girl would be electric in the sack under any circumstances—one reason out of a million why Dex and Nero couldn’t keep their hands off her. But this whole fertility kick?
It made her insatiable.
She couldn’t seem to get enough of him. And, given all the mileage on his ugly carcass, he was flattered as all get-out.
Yep. Definitely not complaining.
“This shuttle handles like a cargo scull in an asteroid belt,” Kaia muttered as they jolted into a pivot toward the Inevitable’s sleek superstructure, floating against the vast glittering night of space. “We should have taken the shuttle Dex sent over. One of these days, you’re going to have to learn to trust him.”
“It’s not him I don’t trust, sweetheart. We think Proteus was behind those hits on your life and Dex’s—maybe even mine—but that doesn’t mean he’s the only threat on the gameboard. Don’t forget the Mogadon and the Syndax are still at war.”
“Fair point,” she sighed.
And just because he could and because she’d let him—and because he couldn’t keep his big paws off her hot body for more than a few ticks at a time—he slid his hands around her sleek bare tummy and nuzzled the side of her neck.
And the way she shivered and gasped and wiggled her tight little ass against his rapidly hardening shaft made every cell and molecule in his makeup sit up and say howdy.
Sure, they’d just done the dirty so many times he’d lost count. Right before they boarded, he’d come buried deep inside her so hard he saw stars.
Now, mileage or no mileage, he found he was plenty ready for another go-round.
Too bad they had company.
Six of his best boys packed the jump seats in back, leather creaking, chains rattling, muttering and farting and sweating and generally needing serious time with soap and a scrub in the thermae. He didn’t plan on letting that lot get any more of a gander at his girl than they were already getting, thanks to those sexy Syndax threads she was rocking.
Mars, they were only human, fueled by testosterone and edgy with all the pheromones he was kicking out in this confined space. Even if they did worship her with canine devotion after the way she’d saved their collective butts on Quorum.
He leaned in to punch a button on the rusting console. The rattle of the geriatric ventilation unit kicked in, pushing out a gust of stale-smelling oxygen from life support.
Which should take the edge off.
He hoped.
“I’m perfectly well aware you’re still at war,” Kaia murmured, tone pointed. Rubbing her sweet backside into his boner just to jerk his chain, the little space vixen. “You and Dex need to do something about that. As in today. Particularly since your temporary ceasefire ends in three days when the Tombola’s over. We’re running out of time.”
“Be a good girl,” he whispered in her ear, hands sliding over her metal-studded belt and black leather miniskirt to grip her bare thighs. “You’re gonna sweet-talk Dex into peace talks for me soon as the two of you get horizontal.”
“Mmmm.” Her thighs parted under his touch—a bold invitation he could barely resist, even with his boys salivating at the prospect. “What makes you so sure he’ll listen?”
“Pretty sure you’ll have his undivided attention.” His voice turned raspy. “Maybe I’ll even help if you ask me nicely.”
He still wasn’t sure at all Dex would go for it—his girl’s naughty fantasy of getting all four of them in the sack, matched and mated with her fanatical father’s blessing?
But damn if he wasn’t primed to give it his best shot.
“We’ll talk to Dex at the masquerade,” she murmured.
It took a lot of muscle to coax the balky shuttle onto a glide path for the flashing maw of the Inevitable’s landing bay, so he leaned in to help, but she shrugged him away and capably finished the job herself. A thoroughly Syndax instinct he fully approved.
Yeah, you done good, big guy. You couldn’t have found a better consort and a better queen for the horde if you gods-damned planned it. She’s made for you.
Which sure came in handy, given the fact he was toes over nose in love with her.
Heck, he’d fallen for her on Day One, when she defied her godlike dad to protect a scared kid. He’d fallen for her harder after the way she leaped at his unconventional Tombola bid—because he got her ferocious need for freedom from civilization’s petty rules. So perfect in every single way for the Syndax and for him.
And he’d fallen for keeps when he watched her face—transformed, transcendent, exultant, enraptured—the first time he made her climax.
His heart felt too big for his chest. Like it was beating outside his skin. He felt like he stood a hundred cubits high. He was crazy in love for the first time in his whole flipping life.
Unless he counted falling for his former protégé eight years ago.
Which he didn’t.
Because that would mean while he’d been racketing around the galaxy raising hell since his exile, punching every one of Dex Draven’s buttons, he’d been jonesing for the guy the whole time.
He cleared his throat and pushed a hand through the rough spikes of his hair. Which dislodged the carnival mask he’d shoved up over his brow.
“About this shindig today,” he murmured in her ear, just to feel her shiver. “I was gonna bone up on the protocol last night. But you kept me kinda busy, sweetheart.”
“Sorry,” she whispered, low and throaty.
“I’m not.”
And it was all he could manage not to unbuckle the sleek leather halter stretched over her succulent tits and work her nipples until she moaned and begged for more.
Not now, dickhead. Screw your head on straight. You’re flying right into the kill zone. We’re down to the last hundred—and those suitors of hers are desperate. You gotta keep your girl safe.
He cleared his throat and his head. “Why don’t you give me the down-low.”
Her fingers danced over the aging console, transmitting their call sign to Dex’s flight control like she’d been flying Syndax shuttles since she was five.
“The masquerade’s the capstone contest. How we narrow the field to the fortunate fifty. Just you, me, Dex, Nero, and the final candidates for my bed. So far, it’s been all about might and money. Now it’s all about seduction and sex.”
“Sounds like a Mogadon orgy.” He scanned the flashing blue lights that filled their viewport and framed the harsh glare of Dex’s landing bay.
Which used to be his landing bay. But that was a lifetime ago.
How many of his old enemies were waiting for him inside?
“Why do you think my father wanted Dex running the show?” Her tone cranked tight. “According to Kryll tradition, the masquerade has the highest per capita fatality rate of any Tombola event—except for the blood games, which go down tomorrow. Those are to the death. You’ll have to fight again. Gods, Zorin…”
Under his hands, she shuddered with a tangible tremor of trepidation.
“I survived the pit before,” he reminded her gruffly. Because he loved that she was actually worried over his sorry ass. “Tomorrow I’m gonna do it again. Right now we gotta focus on the masquerade.”
Clearly she wasn’t buying it, but his girl followed his lead in front of his crew. Her hands clenched around the yoke. “Basically, by tonight? Every candidate still standing will be horny, drunk, and desperate. This is the day a Tombola bride is statistically most likely to end up kidnapped, raped—or killed.”
A fist of angst gripped his gut, while adrenaline donkey-kicked him in the chest. That primitive drive to protect what was his—the oldest instinct in the Mogadon genome. Now that ferocious spike of protectiveness just about brought him out of his chair.
“That won’t happen to you. And that’s a farking promise.”
His boys in back rumbled with agreement and aggression.
“That’s why I need you to work with Dex today, big guy.” Kaia kept her eyes nailed on the landing drone, guiding their nose into the bay between sinister rows of sleek golden Zephyrs. Just like the ones that might’ve already dumped novicide—or something worse—on his folks at Quorum.
“You, me, Dex, and Nero,” she repeated adamantly. “It’s all four of us. That’s the only way we get this done.”
He made a conscious effort to unclench his fists. “How come we’re all wearing masks for this hootenanny?”
She pushed out a scornful snort.
“The masks are supposed to make it easier for my suitors to woo me. Since hypothetically I won’t know who they are, I’m supposed to choose the final fifty based on charm and chemistry—unimpeded by mercenary factors like money.
“But I’m a telepath.” She edged her voice in cynicism. “Yeah, they’re all aching to get inside my cybersuit. Especially with the Mogadon candidates kicking out enough pheromones to make a mastodon horny. But none of them want me for me. They want the Kryll Corona. They want the power and prestige of having the Patriarch’s daughter in their beds.”
A hard shiver worked through her. “And for the Kryllian candidates, they want me in chains.”
The steel of absolute certainty settled in his spine.
“Not gonna happen, sweetheart. Cuz you’re not taking a Kryll consort. You’re taking me.”
Once he might’ve been able to sashay away from all this.
Not anymore.
The stakes for him had shot through the roof. And his resolve had rocketed through the stratosphere.
The end of the war. The end of his exile. Security for the Syndax. Peace for the galaxy. Raising a passel of kids with Kaia. Waking up every morning next to the girl he loved.
Not to mention waking up next to that brooding Valyrian with his silky hair and his sulky mouth and his cataclysmic psychic powers. Elegant and electric, mesmerizing and magical, Ben Nero was a bonus he hadn’t expected—a birthday surprise Zorin knew in his bones an old pirate like him didn’t deserve.
But waking up next to Dex… getting his hands and his mouth all over that powerful sun-bronzed body he’d been fantasizing about forever… hearing the way the galaxy’s greatest general would sound gasping with pleasure if and when Zorin finally eased his straining cock inside him…
Shoot, he needed to think about something else. He needed to get his head straight.
“That’s what we both want,” Kaia breathed, following his fantasy without effort, her glowing eyes tinting the shadows lavender. “But my father has to agree. That’s why we need to conceive. He’ll see it as the Ninety-Nine Gods blessing our union. That’s our insurance policy.”
Her electric tension leaped between them. “We need to conceive, Zorin. If we don’t, we need to get Kylie out. Out of Kryll’s most impenetrable harem… the one no living soul’s ever broken into. Somehow. Otherwise he’ll make her… make my sweet little sister…”
“Syndax shuttle.” The comm link crackled with a grim Mogadon voice. “Proceed directly to Bay Six and await further orders.”
He pushed out a breath and grabbed the comm. Kept his cadence nice and easy.
“This is Zorin. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I got the maharani—and I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of her. We’ll mosey on down to Bay Six like you want. But we don’t take orders. We give ’em.”
“Commander Zorin.” The Mogadon traffic cop sounded slightly chastened, but firmly resolved. “Afraid you’ll have to take these orders. The First Indomitable wants a full security detail on the maharani before she sets foot out of that shuttle.
“And he definitely wants to talk to you.”
#
“Just how flipped at me do you think he’s going to be?”
Kaia’s question, forced through a throat tight as a clenched fist, fractured the brittle silence that hovered between her and Zorin like a secret. She didn’t care for the windowless closet Dex’s armed goons had decanted them into. One of the seedy little rent-a-rooms above the Blind Tiger, achingly similar to the dive where she’d hooked up with Nero.
She didn’t care for the no-nonsense way they’d been separated from Zorin’s boys—left standing in the hall since there was no room inside for six scowling Syndax.
And she definitely didn’t care for the wait Dex was putting them through.
All of which told her he was flipped.
Which meant she was punked.
Zorin sprawled on the narrow bed with his back against the wall and his big boots on the blanket. Because there was nowhere else to sit. Watching her pace their crowded digs like a chained tiger herself.
“Thought you wanted to trust the guy,” he said under the muffled grind and pulse of asteroid punk. One scarred brow hitched at her agitation. “How about we give him the benefit of the doubt?”
“I do trust him. All I’m saying is why the wait?”
Beneath the dim sputter of the lone light, she paused before the dingy mirror and tugged nervously at her short skirt. In the rusty womb of the Relentless, wearing some Syndax girl’s discarded party threads had seemed like a bold plan. Because all those scheming suitors might as well start accepting that Kaia was out of play.
That she belonged to Zorin.
Now—when it was way too late—the provocative choice of black leather boots and micromini, a black leather halter that barely buckled over her breasts, a studded metal belt riding low on her hips, and miles of bare golden midriff seemed disastrous.
She felt way too exposed. Even with her saber strapped over her shoulder and a Syndax knife stashed in her boot.
“We’ll be lucky to survive this bloodbath.” She propped her saber against the wall and gathered her burgundy curls in an anxious twist. Just to be combat-ready. “Even if we’re all four on the same page. If it turns out we’re not…”
“Leave it loose,” he rumbled, lids lowered to half-mast. “That just-bedded-by-a-Syndax fashion statement delivers exactly the right message. Besides, sweetheart, it suits you.”
“Blast.” She dropped her hands with a sigh and kept right on pacing. “This is all my fault, isn’t it? Why didn’t I just ask him—”
The shuss of the door shooting open brought her spinning around, heart wedged hard in her trachea.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” Dex began briskly. “I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a security hitch in the Tombola hall. These accommodations may be a trifle austere, but at least they’re discreet. And therefore secure.”
As the door whooshed shut behind his solitary form—shutting out the curious faces of Dex’s praetorians and Zorin’s pirates—Kaia caught a single searing glimpse of gold buttons and shining epaulets and burnished hair before her body toggled to autopilot and launched into a run. The familiar spice of Dex’s scent shot euphoria spinning through her. His hard arms closed around her and dragged her roughly against his powerful frame.
“Dex, I’m so sorry—” she got out on a gasp.
Before her words were swallowed by his blazing kiss.
She whimpered into his mouth and gave him everything, arms wrapping around his neck, lips parting beneath his need, tongues sliding together with the bitter bite of chaco. His hands closed under her thighs to lift her and she wrapped her legs around him. The world swaying around her, he backed her to the table and sat her on top.
An altitude that suited her just fine. Because it fitted the slick heat under the gusset of her panties right against his bulging cock.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m sorry,” she said between frantic kisses, fingers threading through his hair. Her eyes drank in the chiseled planes and angles of his face, brutal and burning with passion. She couldn’t seem to get close enough.
And every time her mouth said I’m sorry, her heart said I love you.
“You’re forgiven,” he muttered, gripping her thighs to haul her hard against him. “This time. But don’t you ever do anything like that to me again. I mean it, Kaia. Next time, I want you to try trusting me.”
She wondered if that was his way of saying Darling, I love you to the moon and back.
Sometimes telepathy sure came in handy—but as a half-Kryll hybrid, she couldn’t always control it. Which meant she really needed to hear him say the words.
She just hoped someday he’d oblige.
“I won’t,” she panted. “I mean I will. I promise. But only if you’ll promise not to shoot up my ship next time.”
“I was trying to protect you. Aiming for your cyberport because I could hardly aim for you.” Between hot, greedy kisses, his mouth curved against hers in a rueful smile. “Suppose it’s my turn to apologize, isn’t it? For my… lamentable penchant for violence.”
“Maybe it’s a job requirement for First Indomitables.” She nipped his lower lip just hard enough to sting. “But I’ll let you make it up to me. Where’s Ben?”
“Dealing with your unruly suitors and our precipitous change of venue.”
Calloused hands spanning her bare waist, Dex eased off long enough to get a good look at her Syndax garb. His gaze narrowed on the halter barely buckled over her breasts. His eyes kindled with gaslight flames. “What the devil are you wearing?”
“A Tombola gift from her future consort.” Zorin had slipped up right behind her—quick and quiet as a hunting wolf. “I figure we’re done keeping secrets. Kaia’s made her choice. Howdy, Dex.”
Dex’s head jerked up to meet his gaze. The air between them crackled with an arc of electricity.
Trapped between their solid heat, Dex standing between her thighs and gripping her waist, Zorin looming close enough behind to feel his breath in her hair, Kaia thought her skin would ignite.
Especially when Zorin’s big hands closed over his and pushed her into Dex’s arms. “It’s okay, kid. I know you missed her. I don’t mind.”
Dex pulled in a harsh breath and bent his head to claim another desperate kiss. Hunger tore through her and need pounded between her legs. Against her bare skin, Zorin’s fingers threaded through Dex’s. A degree of intimacy with his supreme rival Dex seemed willing—at least under these particular circumstances—to tolerate.
So aroused she could barely breathe, she rocked her hips into Dex’s straining fly.
“Kaia.” He pushed out a hoarse groan and licked into her open mouth. “You’re still… fertile. Aren’t you?”
“You bet your imperial boots she is,” Zorin murmured. “Till she conceives, she’s hotter than the core of a Mogadon reactor. She needs all three of us right now. On her side—and in her bed.”
Chest heaving, Dex lifted his head to look at him. Too hot to wait, Kaia leaned in to kiss his sun-bronzed throat and licked the salty sweat from his skin.
Zorin eased closer, starmetal armor pressing into her back. His voice rasped rough with passion. “I already told you I’m all in. How about you?”
Dex’s hand closed around her head to press her harder into his neck. Her frantic lips parted to suck a bruise onto his skin. He hissed under her mouth, hand clenching in her hair until her scalp tingled.
Which, in her current condition, only made her hotter.
“Let’s lay all our tokens on the table,” Dex grated in a voice like gravel, heart thundering under her hands. “She’s not the only one who needs something from me. Is she, Zorin?”
Zorin’s hands clenched on her waist. “You want me to come right out and say it? I’ll do ya one better. How’s this?”
Kaia lifted her head in time to see Zorin lean in to claim him with a brutal kiss. A purely masculine, purely dominant, purely I-know-what-I-want-and-I’m-taking-it kiss. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a hotter kiss.
A kiss to which Dex seemed far less stridently opposed than she expected.
Matter of fact, he hardly seemed opposed at all.
Glimpsing their twining tongues, hearing their throaty groans, feeling their urgent need telegraphed through their hands on her body, just about shot her core supercritical.
Dex surfaced gasping from that incendiary kiss. Zorin’s teeth scraped slowly over Dex’s lower lip—sucking it into his mouth in a power play that made her shiver—before Zorin released him.
By the time he did, they were both panting.
Dex licked his lips, candescent eyes glazed with passion. “Why don’t you tell me precisely how you fancy this wildly unconventional arrangement is supposed to work. I mean after the Tombola. Even assuming I replace Cato in the roster and assuming her father agrees—an outcome that is far from certain, Apocrypha precedent notwithstanding. You know the rules on Mogadon.”
“I’m Syndax. We do polyamory in the horde whenever. So I don’t have any rules.” Zorin shrugged against her back, blunt fingers finding the hem of her halter. “And your buddy the Imperator’s the Mogadon head honcho, so you can make your own.”
“You make it all sound easy.” Dex snorted. “And, public appearances to the contrary, the Imperator and I don’t always agree. He happens to want this war with you and your Syndax. It forms a handy pretext for raising taxes. And you know he’s never been one to flinch from a good bloodbath.”
But he wasn’t pulling away.
And his eyes were locked on Zorin’s hands like tractor beams, watching him toy with the buckle between her breasts.
She swelled and tingled under Dex’s combustible gaze, nipples pressed hard against the leather. When Zorin eased the prong open, she breathed out a soft whimper of craving.
“You’re not a kid anymore, Dex. You said so yourself.” Deftly Zorin released the buckle, and Kaia shivered as her breasts sprang free beneath Dex’s transfixed gaze. “I’m not the one who’s afraid of this. And neither is she.”
And while Dex gripped her waist and looked his fill, Zorin leaned in to circle her wrists and pin them together behind her. The move arched her back and thrust her breasts forward.
The brazen exposure made her moan.
“Question is,” Zorin drawled, “are you and me gonna give our girl what she needs?”
“Damn if I’m going to say no to that,” Dex muttered, filling his hard hands with her breasts. His thumbs found the tight nubs of her nipples. Heat streaked through her, zinging straight to the wet ache between her legs.
“Is this what you want, darling?” His eyes smoldered as they took in her flushed skin and heavy lids and breathless mouth. But his voice was tender. “Both of us together? With you? Right now?”
She was panting so hard she could barely speak.
“Yes—please—I need—both of you inside me.”
Triumph flashed in Dex’s eyes like a supernova. Zorin growled and leaned in to kiss him again. Their mating scents rose deep and dark—spice and steel, passion and predator. Zorin pinned her hands while Dex played with her nipples, tweaking and rolling and pinching. Twin jolts of pleasure zipped down her thighs and lifted her hips in a wanton plea for more.
“You see how much she wants you?” Zorin said, guttural with passion. “How hard she’s gonna get off, having me hold her down while you’re bucking inside her? Then, once you shoot your load deep inside her and get her all slick and soaked and ready for me, I’m gonna take my sweet time and ride her long and hard, just the way she likes it. While you watch till you’re ready for round two.”
Maybe with me this time if I’m lucky, kid.
She couldn’t tell if Dex picked up the thought. A low groan of naked need rolled from his throat and he shuddered between her thighs.
“Sounds like… a bit of a mess,” he whispered against Zorin’s lips.
“She’ll love it. Won’t you, sweetheart?”
Head lolling against Zorin’s chest while Dex worked her over, Kaia gasped out something affirmative. She barely registered the skip and thud of music when the song changed below.
But a not-so-distant bellow of rage prickled her skin with a frisson of violence.
Grasping for the fraying edges of her survival sense, she struggled to sit. “Angels and asteroids! Those suitors… they’re all still waiting down there, aren’t they?”
“Let them wait,” Dex growled, hot hands sliding up her naked thighs. “I’m burning to know what exactly you’re wearing under this indecently short skirt. And at the moment, I’m in no mood to wait myself.”
She swallowed a breathless, slightly hysterical giggle. “Well, but—we—we can’t do this now. Can’t just keep them all—stewing in their own juices—”
“Like Chiron’s coldest hell we can’t.” Dex gripped her thighs and held her spread. “Darling, you’re begging for this. Tell us we’re right.”
She loved the fact he’d said we instead of I.
And her exposed and helpless placement under their four hands—arms pinned behind her, breasts bared and thrust forward, legs spread and held wide, skirt riding high on her thighs—sent a dizzying dose of danger and desire shooting like a drug through every synapse.
They were two of the galaxy’s dominant powers. They knew exactly what they wanted. And clearly what they wanted right now was to pin her down and take turns rutting between her thighs while she begged them both not to stop.
Zorin whispered in her ear, “I don’t think we’re gonna give you any choice, sweetheart. Not with your eyes glowing like lamps and all those sexy sounds you’re making.”
His focus shifted to Dex, voice rough as sandpaper. “She needs your cock inside her. Right the hell now. Let’s see what you got—”
The hiss of the opening door barely made a ripple in the steam of arousal rising from their skin.
It took Nero’s strangled gasp and the psychic impact of her lifemate’s shock to send her shooting upright.
“Ben!” she cried, her intense surge of pleasure at seeing him spiked with carnal awareness of just what he was seeing—breasts exposed and flushed with passion, nipples taut and jutting for attention, thighs spread wide and wanton, Dex and Zorin with their hands all over her.
“Gods and demons.” Nero’s purple eyes swept over her, nostrils flaring to take in their mingled scents as a juggernaut of Mogadon pheromones slammed into him. “Kaia.”
Behind the glittering jet mask, above the raven sweep of his carnival cloak, dark and deadly as a fallen angel, his sculpted features hardened with lust.
The impact of her lifemate’s arousal swept over her and sucked her under. Her hips undulated in a tidal wave of need.
“Howdy, gorgeous,” Zorin rasped. “Don’t be shy. She’s been missing the bewhosis outta you.”
Nero’s smoking gaze slid from Kaia to Dex and his face went wary. “No.”
“Ben.” Dex extended a hand, his voice a deep rumble of desire that made her tingle. “I’ve been waiting for you. And so has she. Come over here and show me how you—”
“I said no!” Nero flung out a hand that told Dex to keep his distance more clearly than an electric forcefield. Purple sparks flared at his fingertips, and a gust of wind lashed his cloak in warning. “Good gods, Dex! Has it completely escaped your mind we’ve got dozens of drunk and desperate men at each other’s throats down there? One of your gods-damned Mogadon just knifed one of the Kryll over one of your gods-damned acrobats. I had to throw him through the wall to bring him down, and the psi fire’s still burning. Right in front of a live camera on interstellar news.”
“Bloody hell.” Dex pushed a hand through his hair and straightened his jacket with unsteady hands. “Bloody hell. I, ah, beg your pardon. I—lost my head. I’ll be down directly.”
“Fine.” Without so much as meeting his gaze, Nero pivoted to leave.
“Hold on a tick.” Buckling her halter, Kaia slid free of Zorin and hopped down from the counter. “Ben—wait.”
While Dex muttered orders into his wrist unit, she raced across the room and wrapped herself around Nero’s stiffly resistant form. The seductive incense of musk and sandalwood twined around her, laced with the potent bite of Dex’s mating scent.
Which was one hell of a turn-on. Just in case she needed another stimulus.
Her mind reached for his by instinct—
—and ran smack into a wall she couldn’t breach.
After that first powerful surge of shock and lust, he’d slammed down all his barriers.
Now she read nothing in his head but caution.
While she staggered and clung to him for reassurance, his hands closed gently around her shoulders and imposed an unbridgeable distance between them.
“Ben, what’s wrong?” Eyes wide with pleading, she curled one hand around the smooth plane of his cheek. “You can tell me. You know you can tell me anything. Just like always.”
“Kaia. Please.” His voice was stripped raw, eyes behind his mask hollow and empty as the void of space. “I can’t do this. Not anymore.”
“Do what?” An instinctive, unreasoning fear raised every hair on her neck. “Talk to me. What is it you can’t do?”
“You. Him. This.” Wildly he swept out a hand to encompass the seedy dive reeking of pheromones and sex.
Jerky with agitation, he stepped back from her touch.
Limp with dread, her hand fell away.
He sucked in a breath and steadied his voice. “Look, angel. We’ll talk later. Right now I need to go down and make this cosmic circus safe for you. If that’s even possible.”
And before she could say or do anything to hold him, he was gone. Leaving her with nothing but the alarming memory of his body gripped rigid in her arms and his mind locked tight against her.
Heart hammering hard with panic, she spun to face Dex. “Blast it! His barriers are jacked from here to the thermosphere. What in the seven devils—Dex—what have you done to him?”
A wash of ruddy color crept up Dex’s neck.
“At this point, just about everything,” he muttered.
She studied him with fascination. “Gods of my father, are you actually blushing? Meteors, did you and Ben finally—?”
“Kaia.” That was Zorin, firm and steady as a stone at her shoulder, strapping her saber into place. “Give the guy a little breathing room. We could all use it. Nero’s right. We gotta screw our heads on straight and finish this jamboree.”
She knew he was right. Her head dipped in a nod that acknowledged it. But knowing he was right didn’t make it any easier to quiet the clamor of questions jostling for answers in her head.
As he beelined for the door, Dex shot him an inscrutable look. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, kid.” Zorin reached past him to punch the exit panel. The door shot open and the electric pulse of asteroid punk plinked in. “Let’s finish this thing. All flipping four of us.”