The Siren's Call (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance) (FORCED TO SERVE) (6 page)

But the last time a male had felt this good, she had changed her life and her destiny, given up her dreams to become something she had never planned, something he’d chosen for her. Never again would she let anyone else become the master of her fate. Boca backed away from Chiang, willing her senses to forget the pleasure of being near him.

“I’m sorry. I—perhaps I’m not as free of my ordeal on Lotharius as I had hoped,” she said quietly. “Forgive me for ruining the test. Did I break the device?”

“No,” Chiang said, frowning at her and how right it had seemed comforting her. “I think I broke the lock, but it will be less trouble to mend than you would be if the collar had truly hurt you.”

Boca bowed her head in shame. “Thank you for saving me.”

Chiang frowned at her bowed head. “Did it hurt as bad as it looked? You went down immediately and hard. It wasn’t set to harm.”

Boca shook her head. “I was just caught completely off-guard and I—I fear I am weaker or more sensitive for having suffered the wires. I do not think the commander will find it as much a challenge. She is…perhaps it is ready to test on her.”

“Perhaps,” Chiang agreed, ready to say anything that would keep her near him. “Are you sure you…”

Boca held up her hand and climbed to her feet. “I am fine. It’s passing already. I simply was… not ready. Do not be concerned. I regret not doing a better job in helping you.”

“Will you have dinner with me tonight? Just dinner. I…I,” Chiang stopped and sighed. “I’m interested in getting to know you, Boca. You can talk more about your Sumerian mate if you want. I don’t mind hearing about your life, and I think you should talk to someone about it.”

Boca looked at the floor, studied a spot there, but it held no answers on how to tactfully decline.

“I am having my evening meal with Malachi. I will talk to him,” she said.

“The demon?” Chiang asked. “You trust him to know your weaknesses.”

“I sense he wishes to help. He feels compassion for me as you do,” Boca said softly. “I think I will return to Medical now. If you get the clasp fixed, I will come back to test and try to do better next time.”

“No need,” Chiang said, setting the collar on the bench. “I’ll contact Gwen for the next test. Thank you for helping.”

Boca bowed her head to Chiang, and then despite how much she wanted to stay, she fled to Medical.

Chapter 4

“We’re still six hours away,” Gwen said, pacing. “I’m wearing out the carpet Zade probably spent several months of credits to buy.”

Ania laughed. “Want to go the training room and see if we can work some of this out of you?”

Gwen shook her head. “It wouldn’t help. Jurek had me work out with several of the Ensigns he’s instructing in the Yokar method. I fought all five and didn’t even get tired. Two ended up in Medical for sprains. Synar hired a bunch of babies barely out of academy. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Ania snickered. “I can’t wait until Dorian sees you fight now. Next time he takes you on, he’s in for a big surprise.”

Gwen stopped her pacing.

“Thanks for saying that,” she said, looking at Ania, who looked confused. “Not just for the compliment—you know—thanks for thinking we’ll find him, that there will be a next time.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Ania said with confidence, standing and walking to Dorian’s upright clothes locker.

She pushed around his clothes but didn’t see what she was looking for among the shirts hanging there. Then she saw the flat trunk in the bottom, hidden back in a corner. Finding it unlocked, she opened it and lifted out a tattered shirt.

How many times had she seen Dorian wear the shirt to class? Too numerous to recall. She knew some of the slash marks were from her practice knife ripping through the cloth.

“Here is a distraction,” Ania said briskly, walking to Gwen with the shirt in her hands. “Put this on. If you are able to sense the energy from this shirt, you will know the Dorian Zade I knew—the less spiritual, less controlled one. He was quite the typical Siren male back then, so you might see more than…well no matter. You will handle it all, I’m sure.”

Gwen took the all-but-disintegrated shirt and held it up to her. “This was Zade’s? It’s full of holes. I can’t imagine him wearing a shirt in this condition.”

“Yes. Most of those rips and tears came from me. No one else would fight him after the first three months. He wore the shirt to remind himself to stay on guard and not become complacent with his skills,” Ania said.

“That sounds just like him,” Gwen said on a snort, pulling the shirt carefully over her uniform shirt. An image of Zade trapping her against the training room door filled her mind. She smiled to think that incident had taken him back to his youth.

Instead of letting the memory torture her, she gladly tuned her mind into the insistent male in him joyfully asserting himself. Though the memory of his hard body did make her groan a little, it also made her laugh to see how he’d felt about that day because she’d been mad enough to kill him with her bare hands.

“It appears I’ve met that side of him—at least once,” Gwen announced on a laugh.

Ania laughed with her.

“Indeed,” Ania said flatly, imitating Dorian’s favorite dry answer as well as she could.

Gwen laughed at her teasing. “So how come you and he never hooked up—I mean—you’re both so…intense and amazing. You’ve known each a long time. Was he like a brother to you or something?”

Ania laughed again as she pulled out the chair at Dorian’s desk to sit. “No. I was well aware of Dorian as an appealing male. But I was devoted to my spiritual quest then every bit as much as he was to his when you came along two years ago. There was no mating pull to fuel the interest like in your case, just normal curiosity between two unmated beings.”

Ania tilted her head, thinking about it. “Perhaps there was a tiny window once where I wondered what it would be like, but I never acted on the interest. Then he met the first human mate he took. Did he ever tell you about her?”

“No—he only mentioned his faithfulness. Before he left, I admit I tuned him out a bit, afraid to want him any more than I already did. I wish I hadn’t put that distance between us now, but. . .so okay, tell me about the first female,” Gwen said on a sigh.

“Her name was Zelphyria. I remember she was quite beautiful and one of those females who enthrall men with her appearance alone. My very tiny flicker for him faded away never to return when he claimed her. As far as I could tell, Dorian was very happy with Zelphyria. Actually, he was happy with both his mates in different ways, though Liam did not care for the second female. He still describes Talen as a doormat and says she let Dorian tell her when to breathe. I did not know her as well as I did Zelphyria. I was serving as ambassador then and went almost half a century without seeing Dorian much. In the time I didn’t see him, he lost Talen and went back to stay with Sarinnea until his grief passed. Next time I saw him, he was serving on Liam’s first ship.”

Gwen paced around the room wearing his shirt and thinking about the mates that preceded her. She felt no jealousy for the dead females. She knew she was nothing like either one of them. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure she was feminine enough for any male, much less a Siren. All she knew how to be was a warrior.

“I asked Zade once why he chose me. He said he didn’t. I think we ended up arguing about it. Yet I know the first time…well, it doesn’t matter. It’s like we’re starting over anyway,” Gwen said morosely. “I need to stop thinking about how it once was between us, but those memories are hard to put away.”

“It seems to me that both Dorian’s previous mates let him be a hundred percent Siren male, so it’s hardly surprising that he was contented with them,” Ania said, snorting at the idea. “There isn’t a male born who wouldn’t take advantage of an adoring female whose sole purpose for living was to meet his every physical need.”

“That’s the truth. Who knows? Maybe Zade will find another frou-frou female in the one that follows me,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes at her own acceptance of the fact. “After meeting his mother who looks as young as him, I’ve accepted that I’m just number three in a very long line of females for Zade. Yet he’s probably going to be the last male in my life.”

“After observing mated couples for as long as I have, it seems to me that each relationship is more about quality than length. I never had any serious interest in a male until Liam Synar, and even now I still don’t know why he has been the only one in my very long life. He simply says ‘stay with me Ania’ and I can’t make my feet cooperate enough to walk away. Liam bends my will to his demands with too much ease. It defies my understanding.”

“You’re the smartest, wisest person I’ve ever met,” Gwen said, dropping down on the bed with an exasperated sigh. “If you don’t get how this mating crap works, I don’t stand a chance in hell of ever understanding. I’m definitely not going to make Zade content. His mother laughs behind her hand every time we speak to each other because we end up arguing. All I can be is who I am, which will probably drive him every bit as crazy as you do Synar. Then again, this is not exactly the kind of permanent relationship I envisioned for myself either, so he’s not the only one getting a bad deal here.”

“Really? What kind of ideal mating relationship did you have in mind?” Ania asked with a grin, actually quite fascinated to hear the answer. Gwen Shenu Jet was probably the most independent female she’d met in her long life. It was one of the things Ania liked best about her.

Gwen lay back on the bed and scooted up until her long legs were off the floor. Zade’s bed was big, and she enjoyed the amount of space in it. She stared at the ceiling as she thought about how to answer the question.

“I have enjoyed being unattached. Sleeping with several men at a time, changing up new partners with every ship I served on, all that worked well for me. I figured on living like that until I got too old to want to bond as much as I do now or I made captain. After one of those happened, I figured I’d find some good-looking guy who had an on-planet job and would keep our home going while I went off on missions. I was planning to pop out a child or two to keep him and my parents content. Mostly, I just didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. I certainly didn’t plan on Zade and his…intensity. He’s always trying to improve me.”

Ania laughed at the derision in Gwen’s tone as the last statement faded off. “The Creators of All have a strange sense of humor, don’t they?”

There was no answering laugh, no snarky comeback at the mention of the Creators.

“Gwen?”

Ania stood and peaked over to see Gwen’s eyes closed. She smiled and whispered words to shield Gwen from feeling any vibrations that would disturb her for the next six hours. By the time the warrior awoke, it would be time to head out on their mission to collect her mate.

***

“Is there some punishment Medical imposes on volunteers for incorrectly folding bandages? You redid those so many times now that each one is the exact same size as the previous one. I do not see how they could possibly be made more perfect,” Malachi said, taking the finished stack from Boca’s hands.

Reaching over to a shelf, he turned and gave Boca a full box of freshly cleaned implements. “Here—sort these. At least do something useful with that angst.”

“I failed Chiang with the tests. He broke the Xendrin collar because of me and then had to work all through his sleep cycle to fix it. I saw him coming into Medical for a stimulant this morning,” Boca said, swallowing her guilt. “I panicked when the shock came from the collar. I am weak.”

“Your self-loathing serves no purpose except to cloud your mind with illusions. Sweep them aside and see the truth. He didn’t have to break the collar. You know why the Greggor didn’t think to use the control device to stop the signal, don’t you?” Malachi asked, sliding up on the counter stool by the table where Boca was rapidly laying out instruments into groups.

“Yes. Chiang was worried about me because I am weak,” Boca said quietly.

Malachi snorted. “Weren’t you mated twice? You know exactly why the Greggor ripped it off you. That male would throw his body in front of a stunner for you and not even realize he’d done it. Of all the unexplainable contracts the Creators have put into place among sentient creatures, natural mates are some of the most torturous. They are the height of irrationality, forcing sane beings to do insane acts because they have almost no control over such urges. I was fortunate that only a few of my hosts ever came across theirs.”

“I wouldn’t know about natural mates. My first mate was an arranged relationship, and at his request I was taken away from my warrior training to become a medic. My second mate was a selfish master, and I was no more than his slave. I refuse to be mated with another male against my will—or any male, no matter my urges. I will not be controlled again. I know you understand this more than most creatures,” Boca stated flatly.

Malachi tilted his head to one side, ignoring her argument and preferring instead to look at his own urges in being drawn to Boca Ador.

“It is most odd that I feel the need to help you correct your thinking because I know that means my compassion is activated for you even though I did not choose it to be. Not that I allowed myself to care for Ania Looren either, but since her, it is like I am compelled to fix every broken female that crosses my path. I do not want this level of responsibility. I was intending to ask you for bonding and seduce you when you said no. I am quite drawn to you physically, or at least my host body is.”