Chase Me (12 page)

Welcome
aboard. Take your ease. What do you desire? It’s yours—for a price.

Luckily for Beddoe, there was an endless stream of gamblers and sexual adventurers willing to pay a very high price for their pleasure.

Most of the guests paid absolutely no attention to the stunning panorama on the other side of the huge hull window. Ta’al was piloting the cloaked ship in a slow, circuitous route for the sightseers tonight, far enough away from the system so that features of individual planets blurred. But down on the Third, darkness sliced across the large northern land mass. In his mind, this wild territory and its precious, clean water was already his. He almost had enough coin to pay the exorbitant claim stake that would finally free him from Lorcan’s yoke.

Almost.

The beacon had blipped once, very strongly, then had inexplicably disappeared. Had anyone else picked up the signal? It was just a matter of time before the quadrant swarmed with scientists, profiteers, and all manner of fortune hunters, including Lorcan himself.

He had to get down to the surface again—but first, business. Beddoe gestured his newest employee toward him. As impeccably attired as the guests he mingled with, the wildly attractive young man wore a discreet pin on his lapel indicating that he was available for the guests’ entertainment. The spoiled youngest son of a scion of industry, he still saw paying off his debt through sexual servitude as an exciting lark. Beddoe glanced at the large screen flickering on the wall opposite the hull window. Stephen, four floors below, listlessly serviced a giant of a woman with his tongue, his body half obscured by her huge, pillowy thighs.

Unfortunately, new employees’ enthusiasm didn’t last very long.

The young man approached. “Yes, Captain?” His flashing white teeth rivaled the investment banker’s reflective dress for brightness.

“Could you bring these to the ladies?” Beddoe indicated the two women. “They might enjoy your company.”

“Certainly, Captain.”

The young man delivered the drinks and engaged the women in conversation. It didn’t take long for Willa to pounce, stroking the lethal fingernail down his jacket front. The man shifted closer, murmuring to her, bending his head slightly so his hair flopped rakishly over one eye.
Yes, excellent.
Benna wandered away, leaving them alone.

More murmured conversation. Two nods. Negotiations complete.

As the young man leaned in for a kiss to seal the deal, Willa’s fingernail sliced through his vest lacings, continuing mercilessly south. When the young man’s eyes bulged, Beddoe’s ballocks pulled up against his body in sympathy.

Hand still on his sac, Willa tugged him to a privacy pod, the door quickly snapping closed behind them.

Welcome
to
the
TonTon, boy.

A throat clearing near the entrance captured his attention, and when Beddoe saw who it was, satisfaction overflowed like bubbly ambrosia. “Welcome, Sirrah,” he said, greeting Ambassador Armand Tierney Ta’a’pet with a firm handshake, drawing him into the room. Yesterday the taciturn politician had lost enough coin at the Fein du Chin tables to fuel the
TonTon
for a week.

He couldn’t cover his debt.

“Captain.” Ta’a’pet acknowledged his greeting with a curt nod. “This is an… unusual place to discuss business.”

“Let’s leave business for another day, Ambassador. Tonight, let’s simply enjoy.” Beddoe escorted the ambassador to the selection of alcoholic beverages, powders, herbs, vials, and injectors attractively displayed on trays. “May I offer you a libation, Ambassador?”

Ta’a’pet chose a cigarillo. After lighting it himself, Beddoe drew the man into conversation. Though the ambassador relaxed only slightly—one didn’t amass his fortune or wield his power without knowing how to quickly adapt to different surroundings—Beddoe noticed the Valkyr ambassador kept his back to the room, studiously avoiding Stephen’s performance, and ignoring the dozen or so privacy pods that rimmed the perimeter of the room.

“Should you desire privacy, Ambassador, the unit at the end of the row has been reserved for your use,” Beddoe informed him quietly. Each privacy pod was furnished with a soft lounger, a screen, and a variety of erotic accoutrements.

The ambassador’s eyes fired with interest—quickly hidden, but not quickly enough.

Subtle, subtle.
He was in the business of providing excellent personal service. And if, during the course of providing that service, he happened to record the ambassador enjoying some of the
TonTon’s
more exotic pleasures? Even better business.

A sharp sound from the screen drew everyone’s attention. “Faster,” the woman ordered Stephen, whose right buttock now sported a raised, bloody stripe. She held a riding crop in her large hand.

“Yes, madame,” Stephen said listlessly.

Beddoe couldn’t tell if the flush on the woman’s round, doughy face was from pleasure, rage, or a mixture of both. The woman was the bondmate of his most reliable liquor vendor. The vendor had requested a session with Stephen as payment for his most recent delivery and was watching the performance from one of the privacy pods.

He sighed as he watched Stephen lap between the woman’s legs with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Beddoe half expected the door to burst open, the vendor screaming for a refund. Damage control time. “Please enjoy yourself, Ambassador,” he murmured with a respectful bow, moving in the direction of the vendor’s pod.

Something had to be done about Stephen. Ever since his recapture, the incubus had been a shadow of his former self. The wicked, naughty glint that clients used to find so appealing was gone, as was his legendary stamina. He jerked at the slightest sound and rarely came out of his quarters except for his regular health check. Through some misadventure he wouldn’t speak of, his head bore permanent scars he refused to have removed. He often rubbed at his chest, at some silent pain, though repeated scans revealed no abnormalities.

Stephen had lost his puckish joy—always his most marketable commodity.

CRACK.

Madame hit Stephen harder this time, but the expression on his face still didn’t change.

“Again?” she threatened.

No reaction from Stephen.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. Soon Stephen’s back and buttocks were slick with blood. Beddoe considered cutting the feed but decided against it. Most guests’ eyes were positively glued to the screen. The woman’s mate hadn’t left his pod.

Dia.
Any hope he had that Stephen might help him build his personal account more quickly flew out the hull window. The incubus would be out of service for days as he healed.

“Captain.” Minchin’s tone was barely respectful, and he didn’t even try to disguise his interest in the scene playing out on the screen behind his captain.

Anger rose like a Coriolis storm. Lorcan’s worthless nephew was the one who’d allowed Stephen to escape down to the surface of the Third in the first place. His price? A world-class tongue bath. Beddoe yearned to deposit the man on the coldest, most remote outpost he could possibly find, but he couldn’t—and Minchin knew it—but earlier in the day, Beddoe had assigned his first officer an endless list of menial tasks and confined him to the ship.

The stakes were way too high to allow this stupid man to roam at will.

When Beddoe snapped his fingers, Minchin finally dragged his gaze away from Stephen—and if looks could kill, Beddoe would be a crumpled heap on the floor.

“My uncle would like to speak with you,” the vampire said. “Now.”

Beddoe swallowed back sour bile. His previous first officer, who’d also been his lover, had been reassigned to another ship in Lorcan’s fleet because this entitled
japarr
needed toughening up. The very thought made his blood boil.

“Captain. He said now.”

“Acknowledged.”

Minchin’s lip twitched, displaying the tip of a pointed incisor. Beddoe’s own fangs shoved down at the flagrant insubordination. He took one step forward. Another. Then he crowded into the other vamp’s space until their noses nearly touched. He smelled herb and fear on the other man’s breath. “Are you issuing a challenge?”

After a slight hesitation, Minchin dropped his gaze, bent his head, and took one step back.

It wouldn’t be long before Minchin challenged instead of retreated. But not here, and not now.

On screen, the vendor’s bondmate spasmed and shrieked, her hand buried between her own thighs. Stephen, slumped on the floor at the foot of the bed, was bloody and unmoving. As the screen dimmed, the milling guests made their way to the privacy pods to watch the last act: the whispered-about
TonTon
alien abduction finale. Unfortunately, the man Minchin had acquired from the surface for tonight’s performance was a popular television meteorologist whose absence had already been noted. Very sloppy work.

“See to our guests’ comfort,” he ordered the first officer. Though the assignment was more of a reward than a punishment, it couldn’t be helped. He, unfortunately, had to contact Lorcan. “Minchin. After the guests depart, you will clean the privacy pods with your own hands.”

The thought of the first officer scrubbing a galaxy of bodily fluids filled him with great satisfaction.

Minchin’s lip twitched at the menial order. Beddoe stared at him until the first officer nodded, adding a hasty, “Yes, Sirrah.”

After the guests disappeared into the privacy pods, he thanked the libation server for his usual impeccable service and walked to the door. When the first hoarse shouts and the sounds of physical struggle emanated from the still-dark screen, he turned around momentarily. The lights came up on a performance space stage-dressed in gleaming metal, bubbling test tubes, and large trays festooned with probes and medical tools. A monitor on a levered arm hovered over the brightly lit examining table.

The doors whisked open and four
TonTon
employees wearing bug-eyed Aanadari protection suits carried in a thrashing, kicking, naked man. It took the strength of all four employees to finally get the man lashed down. Bids from the guests in the privacy pods scrolled across the monitor suspended above the examining table. Several enthusiastic guests, including Ambassador Ta’a’pet, had already selected which implement they wanted to see used on the man first.

His preferences were duly recorded and stored along with everyone else’s.

After a short wait, one of the employees theatrically picked up the largest probe on the tray. Scoffing at the ambassador’s lack of imagination, Beddoe nonetheless made a note to send a gift assortment of similar devices to the man’s personal quarters.

Beddoe hailed Lorcan as he left the room, the door swishing closed on the man’s first shriek.

***

Paige boosted herself up onto the big workroom table, leaned over, and peered at the yellowing topological map. “Where did you find this? It’s, like, ancient.”

According to the date Alka had scribbled in the map’s corner, she’d drawn it when Gabe was a teenager, which probably made him “like, ancient” too. After yet another night spent tossing and turning on a blow-up mattress in a chilly tent, this morning he felt every one of his years.

While Lorin and the crew worked at the primary site, he’d spent the morning digging through the treasure trove of old maps he’d found standing upright in a cardboard box. He’d hit the jackpot, finding a topological map of the entire property, not just the area the crew was actively working. The map was hand-drawn but very detailed and meticulously done. The fact that the maps weren’t being preserved more carefully was an issue that had to be addressed, but right now he was too busy kicking his own ass for not bringing ground-penetrating radar equipment with him from Sebastiani Labs. “Are you aware of any survey work that’s been done over here?”

“Way over there? No. Why do you ask?”

Good
question.
How could he explain why the northern portion of the property tugged his attention so much? He’d jogged past the area three times now, and every single time he felt a tingle at the base of his skull. Something about the area was just… off.

“About a mile away,” Paige mused. “No road.”

“Deer trails.”

Paige glanced at him. “Not a problem for a wolf.”

He made a noncommittal sound that neither confirmed nor denied her assumption that he’d explored the area on four legs. Because of his vision problems, Gabe hadn’t shifted in so long he’d almost forgotten what his wolf looked like.

“Maybe Lorin knows,” Paige said, twirling a piece of blond fluff around her forefinger. “I’ve never been that far away from the compound myself. And to run there?” She shuddered. “I’ll never understand why you and Lorin spend so much time running when there are perfectly good couches to nap on.”

Unrelieved
horniness.
“It’s great cardio,” he said aloud. “Someday, when you’re ‘ancient,’ maintaining your body will become—”