“Off my tail, you bastard!” Jas dragged Sharron’s relentless pilot through maneuvers designed to bleed off his energy and slow him down. But it wasn’t working. Thrusters capable of light speed far outperformed the jet engines she was used to, and the starfighter stayed in her six o’clock. At most, her tactics kept him from firing, giving Rom the precious minutes he needed to repair the uploader.
“Blasted thing’s up and running,” he said, pulling himself to his seat.
WEAPONS READY blinked on the status screen. When Rom didn’t immediately grab the controls, Jas understood what he wanted her to do. She rolled the speeder upside down and pulled hard on the yoke. Head-to-head with the pursuing ship, she fired. A blinding flash blotted out the stars. “Yes!”
“Well done.”
“Thanks.” It was nice to see she hadn’t lost her touch.
Rom took control of the speeder. Muffin’s ship streaked past, trailed by a swarm of enemy starfighters. Half the squadron broke off the chase and headed their way. Her mouth went dry. “There must be twenty of them!”
“Hang on.” Rom pushed the thrust lever forward, and the stars elongated into streamers. A moment later they blasted into deep space.
“Light speed?” Jas asked when she felt her heart slow down.
“Yes. They can’t track us through hyperspace if we don’t transmit coordinates.”
“What about Muffin and Zarra?”
“They made the jump when we did. As briefed.”
“So it’s over. We’re safe.” She relaxed a fraction.
The lines bracketing his mouth deepened. “Not yet. We jumped to light speed blind. There’s no quicker way to kill yourself.” Visibly bracing himself, he slowly brought the thrust levers out of maximum. “Because you never know where you’ll come out on the other side.”
“Watch out!” Jas reared back in her seat as one of hundreds of jagged boulders tumbled past. “We’re in the middle of an asteroid field!”
Rom swerved the ship left, then right. She clamped her hands over her armrests and simply hung on. They were almost out when one of the huge rocks hit. The hollow thud vibrated through the ship. The maintenance status panel began scrolling out a list of systems affected and in need of repair. “Help me find a place to land,” he said evenly.
“What are we looking for? A flat top?”
“Flat.” He lifted his shoulders. “And wide, I suppose.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Never had the occasion to land on an asteroid.”
She bit back a groan.
Rom rolled the starspeeder. An asteroid careened past, scraping the underside of the ship.
She should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. She’d never trusted anyone as much as she trusted Rom. An hour ago he’d saved her life, and, she didn’t doubt he’d do it again.
They spied the immense platelike asteroid at the same time. Craters pockmarked the hulk, which was rotating slowly like a fallen leaf on a pond. Rom aimed for it. “Hold on.”
The landing was noisy, bumpy, and short. The starspeeder skidded over a shadowy, meteorite-strewn plain, then into a shallow embankment. One last jolt threw them against their shoulder harnesses.
Jas sat perfectly still, half expecting the final blow. “We made it,” she said tentatively, glancing around.
Rom unstrapped. There was just enough gravity from the asteroid to keep him planted on the ground. Bracing himself on her armrests, he leaned over her.
“We’re alive,” she whispered. “Alive.”
“I fear I frightened you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In the compound. I didn’t drop my weapon as ordered.”
“Rom—”
He held up one hand. “It was a risk. But not one I made because I took your life lightly. My senses told me that Vash traitor would step on her own toes—given enough time.”
“You called her bluff,” Jas said. Rom shook his head in bemusement at the statement. “It’s the hallmark of the best poker players,” she explained. “Unflappability. Poker is an Earth card game.”
He almost smiled. “Yes, I know of it.”
“Beela wanted you to believe she held better cards. But she didn’t. You knew, but you didn’t show it. You forced her to play her weak hand, and she folded. You were brilliant.”
When relief suffused his handsome face, all at once she realized how worried he’d been that she thought he had risked her life unnecessarily. Profoundly touched, she reached up and framed his face with her hands. “You’re the most incredible, the most selfless man I’ve ever met. I don’t understand how or why we ended up together, only that you bring me so much joy.”
He grasped her head in his hands, then lowered his mouth to hers. Jas grabbed his cloak and deepened the kiss, straining against her waist and chest straps to pull him closer. Desire more powerful than anything she’d ever thought possible consumed her. Driven by an almost primal need to mate with him, she became the aggressor, fumbling with the fastenings of his cloak. When they wouldn’t come loose, she wrenched them open with a sharp hiss of torn fabric.
“I want you,” she said in a gasp. To refute Sharron’s claim she belonged to him, to erase Jock’s mocking words, to obliterate every lonely year in between. “Anywhere, the floor, the seat, I don’t care. I just want you.”
The stoic control that was such a part of him vanished. With hurried fingers, he unbuckled her harness and hauled her toward him. His hands closed firmly over her buttocks, pulling her hard against him. His kiss was possessive, demanding, and there was nothing gentle or reserved in his touch.
His caresses became rougher, but so did hers. She threw their cloaks to the side, yanking off his shirt as she pulled him backward into a narrow bunk. In the light gravity, they fell onto the mattress in slow motion, as if they were underwater. Dazed by her urgency to join with him, Jasmine let her hands tangle with Rom’s in a race to free him from his trousers. Her short dress billowed to the floor. Warm, callused palms slid under her rear. And then, in one swift, incredibly deep thrust, he raised her hips and drove into her.
She cried out, her toes curling. He moved atop her, his body heavy on hers, his entry burning where he’d stretched her. But as she pushed her hips against his, the sting throbbed into sweet, aching heat.
He rocked against her, his mouth and his hands hungry and possessive. She clung to him, her fists clenching over the heaving muscles in his back, her cries of pleasure cut short as he ground his mouth over hers in a raw, savage kiss.
This was nothing like the lovemaking they’d experienced on the Quillie; it was a frantic, desperate mating fueled by adrenaline and a thousand emotions she could not define. They crashed together in a wild, primitive bond, an extraordinary celebration of survival. And when his powerful body stiffened, then shuddered, liquid heat filled her, triggering a sharp, exquisite climax.
They collapsed together, limbs intertwined.
Rom’s head sagged forward until his wet forehead grazed her breasts. Savoring the delicious tremors coursing through her, she sifted lazy fingers through his damp hair. Long moments passed before either was coherent enough to speak—or think.
He lifted his head. “What have I done?”
She smiled and her lids drifted half-closed. “Made me about the most thoroughly loved woman in the universe.”
Great Mother. Rom rolled away in self-loathing. Jamming his fingers through his hair, he sat on the edge of the bunk. By all that was holy, she was an unschooled frontier woman and he’d all but raped her. “I am an animal.”
“Mmm. An incredibly delicious animal, at that.” Jas climbed to her knees and wound her arms around him. His heart sank as she made a small snarl.
“A warrior does not give in to his own needs before those of others.”
“Wait—the way we just made love bothered you?”
“That was not lovemaking,” he said crisply. “It was primitive and undisciplined.”
“And”—she slid her slender arms around his chest to rest her cheek on his shoulder—“incredibly wonderful.”
Her soft, warm breasts pressed against the taut muscles in his back. He wanted nothing more than to lean into her embrace, to close his eyes and lose himself in her gentleness, her generosity of spirit. “I needed you,” he offered lamely. “My only thoughts were of how much I wanted you. I lost control.”
“Ah,” she said quietly. “The real issue.”
“It is inexcusable.”
Her fingertips skated lightly over the scar on his chest. “That’s what you were taught.”
“Since birth.”
“I can’t see that applying to sex.”
“Vash Nadah children receive instruction in the art of lovemaking from their earliest years.”
“Instruction?” she blurted, aghast. “What kind of instruction?”
“Discussions, the answering of questions by teachers experienced with the curiosity of youngsters. Nothing on the physical level until the teenage years—and then only for the males.” Memories washed over him, the perfume worn by the palace courtesans. Odd that he would remember the scent but not the bodies.
Jas’s fingers faltered over his scar. “So you had sex lessons when you were a teenager?”
“Yes. Until a Vash Nadah man marries, he is allowed as many women as he pleases. The purpose is to gain skills designed to bring his partner pleasure, ultimately to strengthen a marriage. ‘The foundation of society is family. Sexuality enhances spirituality.’ It is written in the Treatise of Trade, which is an integral part of our culture, and our faith.”
“I’m not criticizing any of that. And I’m by no means an experienced woman when it comes to sex. But knowing I can let go when we’re together…it’s the beauty of our lovemaking—losing control without the fear of losing myself. It’s exhilarating, like falling when you’re certain someone will catch you. I want you to feel that way with me. It doesn’t have to extend to other parts of your life if you don’t want it to. It can be something beautiful and special just between us.”
He leaned back into her arms and closed his eyes. “Here I saw my loss of control as dishonoring you, while you consider it a compliment.” He smiled at the absurdity of it all. “Ah, Jasmine. It won’t be easy turning off the teachings of a lifetime.”
At his words, she swept tender kisses along his jaw. “I love you, Rom. It scares me to death, but I do; I truly love you with all my heart.”
He twisted around and pulled her onto his lap. Gruffly he said, “I love you. I’ve waited a lifetime for you.” Joy lit up her face. Tasting salt and sweetness, he kissed her with a depth of tenderness that was new to him, wanting to convey without words the profound emotions she evoked in him. Never had he felt closer to another.
“The idea of being stranded with you is awfully appealing,” she said when they moved apart. “We’ll have to talk—about Sharron, about a lot of things. But for now, I hope we’re not in a rush to repair this thing.”
“The only thing I want to repair is lost time.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and tossed her onto the bunk. Though the menace of Sharron’s survival and Beela’s threats remained, for a brief moment his heart felt as light as Siennan mist. “I say it’s time we took advantage of the fact that we’re temporarily marooned.”
“Fast and furious,” she asked teasingly, “or slow and sweet?”
He gave a deep chuckle and gathered her close. “On that, angel, you’ll simply have to trust me.”
All through the night he loved her with skill and tenderness. As the hours melted one into the next, he introduced her to erotic forms of lovemaking far beyond her experience, bringing her pleasure beyond her imagination. Her fragile sexual confidence bloomed.
When they finally rested, Jasmine whispered, “I didn’t think I was capable of this.” She was a real woman again—a normal woman who could give and receive intimate pleasure. Maybe it was because this time she’d chosen a man, instead of a boy masquerading as one. Rom filled the emptiness inside her as no one ever had, and she wanted to see where the relationship would go. But with light-years separating her from her children, from her family and friends, how could she with a good conscience consider staying in space longer than the time she’d planned?
As if sensing her disquiet, Rom wordlessly embraced her, his fingertips wandering over the contours of her back.
Lost in thought, she snuggled against him.
“Lights,” Rom said after a while. “Setting dim.” Only an overhead light in the bunkroom glowed faintly as they lay twined together, no barriers between them.
Rom wondered what his father would say if word reached the palace reporting that his erstwhile heir was consorting with a once-married, midnight-haired frontier woman with no knowledge of the Treatise of Trade—a mate who would have been absolutely the wrong choice in his former life. No doubt Lord B’kah would denounce him as he had before, iterating to all that his son lacked discipline, that he was impulsive, and that he cared nothing for the foundation of their society. What better way to prove the old man right than by openly taking Jas Hamilton as his lover?
But the very thought of using her induced a shudder of self-loathing. Jas did not belong in a pointless game of spite. She belonged in his arms, warm and sated, while his ship traversed the eternal night of endless space.
Your life is your own now, he reminded himself. Yes, he could be with whomever he pleased. Wrapping his beloved in the protection of his strong body, he let her quiet breathing lull him to sleep.
“Zarra’s dead.”
Dead. Too shocked to speak, Rom shifted his gaze from Gann’s face on the viewscreen to the meal he’d been sharing with Jas before being hailed by the Quillie in what he presumed was a routine call to set up their rendezvous.
“Oh, God,” Jas murmured in her language, dropping into a crouch next to Rom’s chair, her hand resting on his thigh.
“He got to his feet as soon as he went down,” Gann explained, his words, Rom suspected, as cautiously chosen as footsteps in a nuclear minefield. “The boy even boarded the speeder on his own. But the blood loss was too severe, too swift—there was nothing Muffin could do. He…died a warrior, Rom.”
Rom stared fixedly at his half-eaten stew. Another futile death in this undeclared war. The realization echoed inside him, until the desire to avenge Zarra boiled over. His knuckles turned white, and he expelled a hiss of air. The spoon clutched in his fist cracked in two, as surely as he wished to snap Sharron’s neck.
“Rom?” Jas whispered. Her hand slid over his, warm and reassuring, but he did not, could not, release his grip on the broken utensil. The urge to weep was as powerful as his murderous desire to return to Balkanor immediately and kill Sharron. But when he lifted his eyes to Jas’s face, and then Gann’s, and saw in their expectant gazes the willingness to follow him back to Brevdah Three against all odds, he shuddered. He would not risk them. Not for a fight that was no longer his.
Rom fought to keep his voice steady. Stiffly, he addressed Gann. “I want you to take the Quillie to Skull’s Doom.” He knew from long experience that the best way to keep guilt and grief at bay was an exhausting schedule. “Finish our transactions there,” he said. “After that, head to Karma Prime and sell our salt as originally planned.”
As if Gann worried Rom planned to seek retribution against Sharron on his own, the man’s head swerved to Jas. “And you? Where will you go?”
Jas waited for Rom’s answer with a steady, unwavering gaze. Her eyes softened with understanding and relief when he replied quietly, “To regroup.”
And to somehow find a way to atone for yet another death.
Rom’s anguish throbbed into impotent wrath. Each time he confronted Sharron, the monster took someone he cared about. Only this time, he wasn’t alone in the aftermath. Jas shared in his mourning, sustaining him with her tenderness and unconditional love, and he was almost relieved when his grief finally dulled into the soul-deep regret to which he’d grown accustomed.
Over the next few days he would busy himself getting Drandon Keer’s starspeeder fixed enough to fly. Once off the asteroid, they would fly to the Gorgenon system, where he knew of a mechanic. When the starspeeder was up and running, he and Jas would take a day or two for themselves, to mourn. Nearby, was a planet famous for what was one of the strangest diversions in the known galaxy.
“Oh, my God, Rom, giant snails!” Jas blurted, clinging to a thick branch for all she was worth.
He pried her left hand off the tree they were perched in and pressed it to his lips. “I thought you couldn’t wait to ride them. In fact, I recall you asking me questions for a good hour about the first time I came here.”
“Anticipation and reality are two different things,” she teased back. In truth, though, she was enjoying herself. The respite was welcome after the intensity of their ordeal.
Ceres was enchanting. The climate was temperate and humid, like Hawaii in January, making it ideal for camping. The boulder-strewn glade Rom had chosen in which to pitch their tent was safe from the snails’ nightly path—or so he insisted. High above, the trees leaned into each other, their fronds lacing together to form a canopy that muted the daytime sunshine and tinted it green. If only the real universe and its demands—the threat of Sharron, her family waiting for her on Earth—didn’t claw at the edges of this brief idyll. She could easily go on like this with Rom forever, living like nomads, moving on when they felt like it. Or simply staying put for a while, as they had during those days on the starspeeder, when time had blurred in a sensual haze. They’d found escape and solace in each other.
Another snail hissed past. Jas gripped the tree. “They’re as big as houses.”
“And harmless, gentle creatures. Ceresian mollusks are found nowhere else but here. If you pass up this chance you’ll regret it the rest of your life.” Rom’s golden eyes glinted in the dark, starlit night. “But if you’d rather, we can return to the tent. A game of cards, perhaps—”
“Quiet. I’m mentally preparing myself, that’s all.” Jas set her jaw and peered down at one of the monsters gliding by. Its scarred brown shell glowed in the light of a rising moon, which made the slime on its bumpy skin shimmer. It scraped over the forest floor with a snapping of twigs, its two antennae waving from side to side. Her heart thudded in her chest, and adrenaline made her hands sweaty.
In the distance she heard another couple’s laughter as they dropped out of their tree to land on one of the mollusks. People did this all the time, she reminded herself. The goal was to ride the creatures to their feeding area near the sea, and enjoy the view their height afforded.
“I say we take this one here,” Rom said. With his chin, he motioned to an approaching brown hulk.
The snail thumped into the tree behind them, jarring it as if it were a fragile twig. She took a steadying breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“On my call we drop onto its back.”
“And then it’s ‘ride ’em, cowboy.’” The creature’s antennae veered her way. Jas shrank back. The thing was probably plotting a round of snail rodeo. Or were snails too dense to tell if you were intimidated, unlike horses and big dogs? She hoped so.
Rom shifted position. “Ready?”
She gulped. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Three, two, one—go.”
Her stomach soared up to her ears as she plunged from the tree. She hit the snail hard and scrabbled for a handhold. The cool, moist shell smelled like wet leaves, and the texture was similar to that of a coconut husk, making it easy to grip. Rom helped her crawl to the hump near the snail’s undulating neck. The surface was wider and flatter than she’d thought, giving them room to spread out. They held on to the shell’s rim, sprawled on their stomachs, side by side. As it crested the hill, the snail swayed slightly, like a gigantic elephant. Silent, they watched the landscape move slowly past. Two moons rose and another set. Ahead the sea gleamed like a treasure chest of pearls.
“What do you think?” Rom asked, the white teeth of his grin visible in the dark.
She laughed in delight and relief. “It’s beautiful!”
Rom wound his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “You’re beautiful.” He nuzzled her ear, then settled his mouth over hers in a warm and sensual kiss.
She risked letting go of the snail shell with one hand to sift her fingers through Rom’s clean, silky hair. He deepened the kiss. The excitement of the ride and her seemingly nonstop desire for him spiraled into an explosive mix. Almost giddy, she followed the line of his jaw with breathless, nipping kisses. He responded with the familiar sound he made in the back of his throat whenever she aroused him.
“If you continue doing that,” he said, caressing her breast, “you’re going to find yourself being made love to on the back of a snail.”
“Hmm. Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Made love on a snail?” She worked her thumbs into the waistband of his pants. “Or will I be the first?”
He forced her onto her back. “You know the answer,” he said, seizing her mouth.
Joy shot through her. She was first with him, always first. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and kissed him passionately. His rich masculine scent blended with the fragrance of damp earth.
Rom’s movements became more earnest. His boots scraped over the shell’s uneven surface, and she felt him unfastening his trousers, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. She was wearing stretchy pants under a tunic, and he easily tugged them to her ankles. Her legs fell open to the cool evening air. And then he filled her with his thick heat. “Omlajh anah,” he murmured. “Inajh d’anah…” Gripping the shell’s rim above her head, he anchored her with his body, rocking slowly.
Her eyes found the starry sky above, and she spiraled higher, soaring in the magic of his touch. The ocean breeze cooled her perspiring skin; the swaying of their bodies mirrored the snail’s unhurried gait. Timeless. Eternal. She teetered on the line separating conscious thought from pure sensation. Her pleasure tightened, became exquisitely focused. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and she arched into Rom with a soundless plea for release.
He caught her moan with his mouth, kissing her until they found heaven together, limbs entwined, souls meshed, joy resonating between them until only the sound of their labored breathing filled the night.
In the tent the next morning, dawn seeped through the canopy of trees and past the thin membrane of their shelter. Unable to sleep, Jas watched the filmy blue light caress Rom’s sleeping face, softening his patrician features. By all appearances, he was a happy man. But she knew he privately tormented himself over Zarra’s death, and questioning whether Sharron would eventually attack the Vash homeworlds. The eight ancestral planets were critical, and surely his first targets. If the worlds were decimated, it would break the back of the Vash Nadah federation. Without a central government, there would be carnage, turmoil, a battle for control.
What would happen to Earth in such a collapse? The thought chilled her. Without a space fleet, her planet would be helpless in an interstellar war. Not to mention all the other planets that might be destroyed.
No political system was perfect, certainly not the Vash Nadah, but the alliance of ancient families was all that seemed to separate the galaxy from the terrifying, lawless place it had been eleven thousand years ago. The realization unnerved her, pricking her soldier’s instinct to defend. It was time to do something about Sharron.