THE SHIFT from ID space to regular speed was smooth and uneventful. It wasn’t always that way; the ship could shift over into the middle of an asteroid field or even into the path of another ship. Someday someone would come up with a warning system. It would undoubtedly save lives.
Traveling in ID was usually safe, allowing the pilot to relax and nap when needed. Griffin had a pull-down cot near the piloting array. He’d been catching short naps while we traveled. Travel in real time was often rife with danger. Once we shifted, Griffin stayed at the helm, completely focused on the journey. He didn’t even respond to my mild efforts at flirtation.
There were no more lessons on piloting, no more chatter about past owners or the implications of the imprint he’d forced on me.
What if the imprint held? Frankly I didn’t mind being enraptured with the man, but considering I was the heir to the kingship of our people, there would undoubtedly be dire consequences to consider. If Griffin wished to rule from behind the throne, I’d be at his mercy. Thankfully he appeared more disturbed by the turn of events than I felt.
Secretly I could admit that it was nice to be under his control. There is a lot less stress once you lose all responsibility for your life. I didn’t have to worry about what the future held, knowing Griffin held the reins. He was strong and safe. I’d known him for mere days, perhaps weeks, and had never felt so at peace.
Of course, my mind kept straying to carnal matters. In all honesty, my thoughts had been on carnal matters since the first moment I’d seen him in the bar, but now various scenarios played out in my imagination. I pictured myself on my knees, servicing that beautiful cock of his. I lay still and prone as he fucked my ass, spread his seed all over my body. In my heart, I lived to serve him. In my brain, an angry little voice wouldn’t let me indulge in those fantasies without a severe lecture. I ignored the voice and luxuriated in the novelty of having a painless erection.
If I wanted to, I could have retreated to the privacy of my quarters and relieved that hard-on, but I sort of liked it. It made me feel like a man again. That was empowering. What frustrated me was the distance he’d put between us. Granted, he was piloting the ship, but still, he’d shut down to my advances. I’d grown sensitive to Griffin’s moods, to the subtle expressions on his face, and I knew he was worried. No doubt the consequences of the imprint weighed heavily on his mind. As we grew steadily closer to our destination, he barely spoke.
Within an hour, we’d drawn close enough to the Barris 9 spaceport that it was time to begin preparations to dock. Griffin became tense; I knew he didn’t like relying so heavily on the computers to bring the Aida into port, but his vision impaired him too much to do otherwise. I had the rare wisdom to keep my mouth shut and stay out of his way. At the same time, I carefully studied the procedure. Perhaps someday I’d be of more use in the cockpit of a ship.
The port grew enormous in our view screen, eventually dominating the entire landscape. After hours of manipulating the ship into the complex docking system, we finally inched into place. The cruiser shuddered to a stop, and Griffin released a deep breath, slumping slightly in his chair. Now I understood the toll this trip must have taken on him without having another pilot to back him up.
“When’s the last time you slept?” I turned to face him fully, concern overwhelming lust for the moment.
“I napped while you were sleeping. We’ll start taking shifts on the trip out.”
He activated a computer console and quickly entered data. I watched curiously, too far away to read the entry. As usual, he noticed my interest.
“I’m notifying the port authority of our arrival, where we traveled from, and also attached our bill of lading. They want to know what we are transporting and who we’ll be conducting business with here.”
“What exactly is our cargo?”
His grin was roguish. “Mostly agrichemicals. B9 is a farm planet. That’s why you see all those heavy freighters out there.”
“And what else?” There had to be another cargo, one that didn’t appear on the bill of lading.
He shrugged and rose from his chair. “We’ll be staying on the station a couple days. There’s a case already packed in your closet. I’ve reserved rooms at the Phase. It’s one of the nicer establishments here.”
I’d learned his poker face by now. He could be either laughing at me or hiding something dangerous. Part of me was angered, but that little voice was stifled by the happy, content feeling that clouded my mind.
Once we disembarked and headed into the station, I had to fight to walk beside Griffin rather than behind him.
“Why couldn’t I bring my sword?”
He glanced at me briefly. “It’s too obvious. Plus it’s the badge of your status in the Sun Temple. If word gets out that you’re alive and with me, we might end up walking into an ambush somewhere. And you’re not ready to fight.”
Funny. I felt ready to fight. My hands itched to hold my blade and Griffin’s watchfulness was rubbing off on me. Rather than feeling drowsy at the tension, I felt alert. Dangerous. I couldn’t recall ever feeling dangerous. But the man in the holo-images had been a warrior. He’d been dangerous.
Griffin looked around warily, the lines of his body hard and cautious. Most of the men and women I saw as we entered the station had the same posture. This place was miles above Trell 57 and the other seedy bars I’d visited, but everyone I looked at was ready to fight.
We boarded a lift and rose to the upper levels of the station. Through the glass walls of the car, I could see most of the station interior. It was huge, very nearly the size of a small city. Plants grew abundantly, and space jockeys hurried from shop to shop, laying in supplies, shopping for clothing and goods, or simply taking time out from constant space travel.
A pair of middle-aged women strode through the crowds with focused determination but no clear destination. After seeing them loop around and repeat their route, I grinned. They were power-walking.
When I turned and looked in the other direction, huge windows showcased the planet below. Barris 9 was shrouded in blues and greens, testament to an abundantly fertile environment. I wondered what it would be like to live the life of a farmer. Of course, the farmers below were corporate and rarely touched the soil from which they drew their living. Heavy robotics and machinery did all the hard work. In time, the lack of human touch would take its toll on Barris 9, and the planet would begin a tragic decline. Soil would erode, water would diminish, and the stewards of the land would flee to search out another planet to harvest. Ironically, they knew better. They were scientists, trained in agriculture. In their way, they were as bad as the—
Pain shot through my head. I blinked, surprised at what seemed to be a deliberate gap in my memory. I breathed through it and moved on to another, less painful topic.
“Griffin, what is the name of our planet? You’ve never told me.”
“It doesn’t have a name. It was considered too unimportant by the early surveyors. Officially, it’s called HP1500.”
“How sad.” The lift began to slow. “What do you call it unofficially?”
Griffin turned his head so he could look at me. “Home. We just call it home.”
I sighed. Home. That was a good name for a planet.
We stepped off on a high level of the station. Not the highest, as those were typically reserved for the truly wealthy and for members of various governmental entities. Nevertheless, the halls were cool and hushed; thick padding kept our footsteps silent.
We worked our way through the crowds until we arrived at a hotel with a discreet-looking doorman, who ushered us inside.
The lobby was spacious but not huge; the décor was remarkably elegant. Griffin checked us in. I swallowed a twinge of fear as the scanner checked my ID card, but I was confirmed as Markus Dayspring. I guess the hair didn’t seem to be too much of an anomaly.
Shouldering my bag, I followed Griffin into another lift. We rode in silence. The door slid open directly to our room, and with a sigh of relief, I stepped in, grinning at the plush carpeting and luxurious appointments of the suite. I dropped my case and wandered around, peeking in at the water bath and playing with the room settings. In the other room, Griffin was securing the privacy doors on the elevator.
“Damn, Griffin! This place is big enough to….”
I turned, slamming right into the big pirate. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. There didn’t seem to be much point in speaking, so I just held him back, soaking up the luxury of his touch. Sexy as the whole scenario might be, I could feel his fatigue. This wasn’t the time for sex.
“Back then, you did this too. You were always poking around in new places, like a kid.” He sighed and loosened his hold on me. “You asked about our cargo.”
“You said it was mostly agrichemicals.” Now I’d get to the heart of the story. Unless I missed my guess, Griffin had a side business that had nothing to do with fertilizer.
He nodded and walked back into the suite. The room was divided into a business area and a sleeping area. We bypassed the sleeping chamber. I craned my neck to look at the huge bed that dominated the room. Bed, as in singular. That was promising.
He picked up my small overnight case and ran his hand smoothly over the edges, and I watched in surprise as a slender compartment opened. Carefully he lifted out a flat box and carried it to the table. He opened it as though it contained the heaviest burden a man could carry. When I saw the contents, it took only moments to understand why.
“Griffin, where did you get this?” Reaching out, I ran an index finger over a chunk of mineral that was rough edged yet clearly priceless. When he didn’t object, I picked it up, watching the play of fire and light over its surface. “This is candar. I’ve never seen sunstone specimens this large.”
Candar is one of the rarest, most highly sought-after gemstones in existence. So rare that I had no memory of ever touching a piece, and yet I recognized it. Candar is as hard as diamond, with similar characteristics. It’s cherished as a gemstone, but more importantly, a single good-sized crystal can be used to power the engine of a ship or a turbine for energy. A handful of these could power a super-freighter; a dozen could light up a small city. I turned it, watching the crystal shift from clear white fire to hot red and then to cool blue.
“How could you possibly be crazy enough to travel with a case full of these things?”
I gently set it down and retreated a bit. Frankly, being so close to the stones frightened me; many people would kill for these little gems.
“The planet we were exiled to is little more than a barren rock. We could irrigate, but the water is so far below the surface that we don’t have the available technology to drill that deep. Without access to water, we have no crops, so we subsist on imports. And when I say subsist….” He looked at me meaningfully, and my heart dropped.
“One day, a child brought one of these stones to her mother. She recognized what it was and brought it to me. I sold it on my next trip out, and the proceeds fed us for many months. Later we discovered that deposits of candar are scattered throughout the entire planet. Other valuable minerals as well.”
“And if you sell more, you can purchase the equipment you need to farm the planet.”
He nodded.
“Griffin, do you realize the implications of this? You’ve barely settled the planet, and if it becomes known that so many valuable deposits exist, we’ll be overrun by miners. Or worse.”
My mind reeled. “Have you done a geological survey of the planet? Can we possibly be self-sustaining without resorting to this? At least for the present time?”
Something flickered in his expression—apprehension and… relief? Was he relieved to share this burden with me?
“Not yet. The council was so elated to find something marketable that it didn’t stop to consider the consequences of revealing that we were the source of the mineral.”
“You brought it here to sell? All of it?”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “I tried to tell them how dangerous it could be, but I was overruled. They told me I’m a dangerous man and could deal with the situation accordingly.”
“Shit.” I rose and paced the room, looking warily at the glittering gems. They shimmered with malevolent charm. They represented food and warmth and prosperity, but when I moved my head just so, their gleam turned the same red as the flow of blood. To send Griffin out with this case of stones was enough to seal his fate. Many people would kill for a single stone this size. That case had dozens of stones.
“I’m….” I cleared my throat; the words just caught there, unwilling to come out. “I’m king now. Is that correct?”
Griffin nodded. Had he been afraid of this responsibility? Had Markus known what was in the travel case?
“Griffin, if you show these… like this… you’ll die. We’ll both die. We won’t make it off the station.”
“I know.”
“I’m king. I’m sure there are formalities, and if there’s a council, it may not even recognize my claim. But at this moment, I’m king, and I forbid you to sell all of these.”
Can I tell you how hard it was to force those words from my mouth? The imprint screamed…. Griffin was the master… not me. Not me. But if I remained silent, he’d die, and the imprint screamed even louder at that thought.
I stepped up, plucked two moderate gems from the tray, and stepped back. “We’ll sell these. Later in the trip, we can sell another if the opportunity arises. We’ll imply that they’re stolen… perhaps from our own royal treasure.” Two stones would buy much, particularly if the buyer was carefully chosen. When Griffin slid the tray back into the hidden compartment, the tension gripping my chest eased a bit. There was another tray, and I glimpsed more mundane stones…the fire of diamond and the graceful gleam of sapphire. All exquisitely cut and polished. All priceless. I removed several and added them to the small cluster of stones.
“The buyers will be here soon.” The confident, dangerous mask slipped over his face once again. It was amazing that he’d shown me his moment of weakness. It moved me deeply. It spoke of confidence in my judgment. It spoke of trust.
I slipped the stones into a pocket and then ran my hands through my hair. Strands had pulled loose from the braid; they trailed around my face. Impatiently I opened the top of the case and pulled out my hygiene set, then headed to the bedroom to put myself to rights. The braid unraveled into a sheet of rippling fire cascading down my back. It was really too much.
“Griffin, can I cut it? Maybe just to my shoulders?”
He moved up behind me and peered into the mirror. “You don’t have to ask my permission.”
But I did. He put out his hand, and I set the brush into it. The feeling of having another tend my hair was luxurious and decadent. Since it was Griffin… well, it was beyond that.
My eyes dropped closed in pleasure as he stroked gently, separating strands, massaging my scalp. When I looked, the expression on his face rivaled any look of love or passion I’d ever seen. He was enjoying himself. Nurturing me was becoming second nature to Griffin. I let out a long sigh of pleasure.
“You like it?”
“It’s beautiful.”
It aroused him. I pictured myself astride Griffin, the silkiness of my hair trailing over his skin. “I won’t cut it, then.”
“Thank you.”
He gave a small lopsided smile and then looked up at my image in the mirror. For a moment, we froze as our gazes met.
“Helios… your eyes….”
I glanced at myself, seeing nothing unusual. “My eyes?”
“Did you bring the cosmetics you wore when we met?”
I flushed; I’d dropped the brushes and kohl into my bag along with a few other items. They were the only things that were really mine.
“What exactly are you thinking?”
“You were an uncommonly beautiful whore, you know. Once the veil came off, it took me by surprise. In fact, I nearly didn’t recognize you with rouged lips and blackened eyes.”
“And you think….”
“You might be a very effective distraction.”
I wasn’t sure I liked this idea, but in a way, it appealed to my sense of adventure. I hadn’t been ignorant of the looks I’d drawn from both men and women as we walked through the station. Griffin hadn’t been indifferent either; he’d growled under his breath the entire time. I suppose the imprint might have made me a bit more willing to obey Griffin’s orders as well. Damned imprint.
“The robes were left at U’shma’s.”
“I don’t want you to dress as a whore, Lio. Just… pretty.”
“Pretty?” Great.
“Yeah, man-pretty. Get rid of the utility vest. I packed a silk shirt….” And he had. Within moments, I was out of the knit shirt and he was dropping a white silk tunic over my head. The fine fabric was nearly sheer, clearly an item meant to be worn under a dress jacket. The style was strange to me but oddly familiar. The garment felt appropriate against my skin.
It was a little large, which added to the drape and flow of the garment. When I moved, the silk clung to my body, a clever contrast to the deep brown leather of my pants and boots.
“Can you put your hair up partway?”
I played with it a moment, finally drawing it back from my face and into a tail hanging from the crown of my head. It was the style of a swordsman and a warrior but so very appealing. It took only moments to shade my eyelids and to subtly tint my lips.
I turned, spreading out my hands to show Griffin the entire effect. His eye went wide.
“Damn, Lio… just… damn!”
I returned to the mirror and was pleased with the result. Not feminine, not exactly. The makeup was subtle. The hair was a common style among cultures that wore long hair. The clothing wasn’t flamboyant, just slightly exotic.
“You need a sword.”
“You wouldn’t let me bring it.”
He sighed impatiently and dug into his own pile of discarded weaponry, finally settling on a long, slender blade. After giving it a few test swings, I belted it over the tunic, low on my hips. He stood back to evaluate the effect. “Dangerous in more ways than one.” He grinned, then pulled me tightly to his body, grinding his pelvis into mine. His lips were close to my ear.
“You’ll do anything I tell you to do, won’t you?”
I didn’t like the gleam in his eye as he said that. I did like the feel of his cock pressed snugly against mine.
“What are you planning on telling me to do?” I decided to play the sex card and gave him a glance from under my lashes. “I might say yes…. I might say no.” I rubbed my cock against his and reached around his body to stroke his ass.
“You’re going to do exactly what you’re doing now, Helios. You’re going to flirt.”
“With you?” I leaned in close, my lips dangerously near his.
“With me. With anyone who walks in that door.”
“So I’m back to being the distraction.” I wanted to be surly; after all, this wasn’t far from what I’d done for U’shma. Maybe a bit less hands-on.
“With U’shma, you were distracting his opponents so he could cheat at cards. With me, you are distracting our opponents for the lives of our people.” He hadn’t moved back, and his lips feathered against mine as he spoke.
“That does make a difference, doesn’t it?” I reached up and stroked his cheek as I pressed a kiss against his lips. I caught his tongue with my teeth, drawing it into my mouth, sucking lightly. Immediately heat flared between us. He clasped my head, and the kiss grew hot and wild. My heart pounded as loud as a drum in my ears. The sound of our labored breath filled the room.
“God, Lio, I want you. I thought I’d left it behind….” He looked down into my face; hunger radiated from his body. “I never thought I’d need you as badly as I did back then.” He stopped speaking and returned to my mouth, kissing me with lips and tongue and teeth. For a moment, I forgot everything—the gemstones, the buyers, even the unknown people waiting for me on a nameless planet. For that moment, my world was Griffin.
He was the first to break the kiss, but he didn’t let me loose. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close, and I held him too. The next kiss was light, nearly apologetic. He stood back then and carefully rearranged my hair as he ran a finger over my swollen lips.
“You look like you’ve just been kissed.”
“Is that good or bad?” I stepped back slightly, looking steadily into his rugged face.
“It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.” His hand dropped, briefly caressing my cock. It couldn’t possibly get harder, but under his touch, it did. I stood mesmerized, wishing he’d keep going, keep fondling, but just then, a buzzer sounded lightly. Our guests.
He let me go and turned away to return to the side of the room that had been set up for business. Following him, I then took a seat on a low sofa and relaxed, letting my thoughts settle. Time to go to work. I looked at Griffin, and he smiled—a harsh, wicked expression. His gaze darted to my groin, to where my cock swelled and ached so sweetly. His own pressed tightly against the front of his pants. If he wanted our guests to think they’d interrupted something, he’d no doubt succeed.
He flicked a switch on the wall, disengaging the security.
“Enter,” he called.