Enemy Overnight (8 page)

Then he said to Shauss, “Escort her to Tactical One when Tiber is finished with her. Don’t take your eyes off her until then.”

* * * * *

Garathani medicine was a thing of beauty, she admitted reluctantly. After permitting the painless ferilyde injection at the base of her skull, she’d felt a hundred times better within seconds. Any other injury to her skull would just have to heal on its own—there was no way she was subjecting herself to computer scans of any sort.

When she entered the tactical room, escorted by Tiber and Shauss, she was too focused on the occupants to give the room more than a cursory glance. It was unnerving to find the ever-annoying Zannen standing guard inside the door. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as she walked past—no doubt he was tracking her with his black gaze the way a buzzard eyes a wounded calf.

And, oh Lord, Minister Cecine had been brought into this and he didn’t look happy about it. He stood by a window with his arms crossed over his chest. Kellen sat at a long table, which was surrounded by at least a dozen chairs.

“Please be seated.” Commander Kellen gestured to the chairs opposite him

“I’d rather stand if it’s all the same to you.”

He nodded. “As you wish.”

She was grateful for Tiber’s presence beside her. She could practically feel concern emanating from him.

Kellen didn’t wait for the minister to sit before he launched his offensive.

“Miss King, you have made it eminently clear that you cannot be trusted to supervise yourself,” he said. “I’ve discussed this with the minister and we see only two alternatives. You may spend the rest of your stay with us in the detention bay or join the ranks of the recruits and take mates to supervise your activities.”

Well that was a no-brainer. “I’ll take detention.”

“Very well,” Kellen said. “Be aware, however, that there is no privacy in a detention cell. You will be confined by a transparent containment field at all times. You’ll eat, sleep, bathe and use waste facilities in full view of the guards, and your activities will be recorded by Empran. You will have no visitors. You may exercise only within the confines of your cell. Your access to Empran will be restricted to entertainment files.”

Jasmine’s hands got clammy as she stared at him. “That’s ridiculous. Even death-row inmates on Earth get to leave their cells for an hour a day.”

“Death-row inmates on Earth do not have the potential to end thousands of innocent lives in the blink of an eye.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” she said in an uneven voice. “I just wanted to go home.”

“Be that as it may, you could very well have killed yourself and everyone aboard this ship in your ill-advised escape attempt. You have no training and no experience operating an escape pod.”

Jasmine bit her lip. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be risking any lives but her own.

“And for all I know,” the commander continued, “you intended to crash it into the
Heptoral
, kamikaze style.”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“So you say.”

She swallowed her arguments. He had no reason to believe her and every reason to doubt her. But, good Lord, under guard twenty-four hours a day, and they’d be able to watch her bathe and use the bathroom… Would their pheromones reach her through the containment field? Did it even matter now?

“Commander, there has to be some other way,” she said desperately.

“As I said, you may take three Garathani mates who will assume responsibility for you in continuous shifts.”

She gaped at him, her mouth working soundlessly.
Three?

“Yes, three,” he said. “That way one of them will be guarding you at all times.”

“Neither of these options is acceptable,” she declared.

“Miss King,” Minister Cecine thundered, “you are lucky to have any options at all, considering the peril you placed my daughter in.”

“Why don’t you just beam me back to the surface? I’d be out of your hair forever then. You’d be happy—I’d be happy.”

“At this point your happiness is of little interest to me. What is of interest is the safety of the people on this vessel, and your returning to the surface with whatever information you may have gleaned here is not an option.”

She looked away from the minister, knowing her protests would, as always, fall on deaf ears. Licking her lips, which were suddenly bone dry, she asked carefully, “Would I have to…”

“Have intercourse with them?” When she gave a jerky nod, Kellen said, “It would be advisable for your protection. If they don’t each claim you at least once, you would be open to a situation like the one you helped put Monica in.”

“Just once? That would be enough?” She swallowed hard, trying to blink away images of herself being bent over and used repeatedly by three huge aliens. The curling sensation in her stomach was
not
arousal. It wasn’t.

Kellen watched her inscrutably for a long moment before answering. “Miss King, the laws of our new order specifically prohibit females from refusing their mates sexual congress unless they are pregnant or otherwise physically incapacitated.”

Her first instinct was to object, but the commander’s thoughtful tone made her hold her tongue while he continued. “However, given the circumstances, the council might grant you a special dispensation from that requirement, provided you agree to cooperate fully with each initial claiming—and by fully, I mean
enthusiastically
. If these males voluntarily relinquish their right to take you at will, I’ll expect you to make that one time worth their while.”

Well, that was better than nothing. “Who would choose these mates?”

“Any male may petition to be your primary mate,” Kellen said. “Upon approval by the council, he, in turn, would select secondary and tertiary mates.”

“I don’t have any say in the matter at all?”

“If you have some preference, Miss King, now would be the time to voice it, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

Her face flamed, knowing Shauss was watching her.

“And when this crisis on Earth is over, I’d get to go home, right?”

“When and if the crisis on Earth is resolved to our satisfaction, and when and if you are deemed to be no longer a threat, you would be given the option to dissolve your bond and return to your home planet.”

Jasmine bit her lip. God, this was crazy. The idea of having to have sex with not one but three of these giants was enough to make her babble like an idiot. But at least she’d have the possibility of escaping at some point. In a cell, under constant surveillance, she’d have no chance.

“So how will this work? Do you show me a list of potentials or something?” she asked uncertainly.

“Two males have already filed petitions to mate you.”

She stiffened. “What? Who?”

“Lieutenant Zannen’s petition preceded Dr. Tiber’s by roughly one second.”

“No,” Jasmine said immediately. “N. O. No. There is no way in hell.” She glared at Zannen and nearly screamed at the look of lustful triumph on his face. “I’d sooner be mated to an ape. A whole herd of apes. In fact, I’d rather be spaced. Seriously. Just point me to the nearest airlock and I’ll show myself out.”

“Don’t be afraid to tell us how you really feel, Miss King,” Kellen said dryly.

She glared at him. “I
really feel
Dr. Tiber would be a much better choice.”

“Your preference is duly noted.” Kellen froze, staring at Shauss with a strange expression on his face. “There is an urgent matter which requires my attention. These proceedings are on hold until tomorrow morning. Ketrok will stand guard over her until midnight. Shauss, I trust you’ll take the next shift?”

“Of course.”

He was going to kill that baldheaded ape.

Shauss watched Jasmine’s colorless face as Tiber led her away and ground his teeth in rage when Zannen winked at him before following them out.

“Shauss.”

He turned to find Kellen staring at him. “I wouldn’t be too concerned about Zannen at this point. Neither he nor Tiber can claim Miss King.”

Shauss raised his brows. “Why not?”

“When the minister gave her to you to interrogate, Empran recorded the claim.” Kellen paused and then gave him an enigmatic smile. “You, my friend, have two mates.”

Monica cornered him again right outside his door. “You’re not really going to let that asshole have her?”

Shauss edged past her to enter his quarters, still trying to wrap his head around the idea that Jasmine King was officially his.

He almost grinned at the image of his head warping and stretching to accommodate such a concept. English might be a frightfully inconsistent language that required daily updates to his cerecom download, but it was also quite entertaining, especially when it sprang from Monica’s sharp tongue.

“Zannen might be the best choice to keep her and everyone else aboard safe,” he said neutrally.

The instant he understood the implications of Kellen’s statement, the urge to keep Jasmine out of his brother’s hands had gone to war with his honor. How could he bow out of his bond yet again, force Monica to accept another mate, for the sake of a Terran female—especially one who showed a marked predisposition to deceit, conspiracy and violence?

Monica followed him inside, looking around curiously. He glanced around as well—the only thing his surroundings revealed about him was an intolerance for clutter.

“Shauss, seriously, you can’t do that to her. If you do, I’ll be so pissed, I may never sleep with you again.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” he said as he settled onto his couch and folded his hands across his stomach. “If I don’t claim Jasmine, you’ll never sleep with me again. If I do claim Jasmine, you’ll never sleep with me again. Isn’t that what’s commonly referred to as a Catch-22?”

She settled beside him with a disgruntled sigh. “Well hell, it’s not like you’ll be missing anything, since you don’t sleep with me anyway.”

Ah, hoist on his own nobility. Or was it his pride again?

“And it’s just temporary, right? When all this mess gets straightened out, she can go home…” Her gaze intensified as she added significantly, “If she wants to.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to?”

“Don’t play naïve with me. You know, or at least suspect, she has feelings for you. Kellen told me what you said to her during your
interrogation
.” She made a face. “I can’t believe you were so cruel to her.”

“Indeed, so why would she want to be mated to me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Again with the naïve crap. Shauss, you heard her this morning. Who did she call for when she was out of it?”

“I was a familiar face.”

“So was I, but you didn’t hear her calling out for me, and you certainly didn’t see her laying a liplock on me.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m far from an expert on matters of the heart, Shauss, but it looks to me like she might be less frightened of you than of her
feelings
for you. And call me crazy, but I think she might be a better match for you than I am. It was obvious this morning that there’s something pretty powerful going on between you two that has little or nothing to do with fear.”

He opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted. “You know I care about you. A lot.”

“You don’t love me anymore?” he asked with a half smile.

“About as much as you love me,” she countered.

Shauss scrubbed his palms over his face. He felt great affection for Monica. He really
should
love her, and if he had an ounce of sense, he would. His life would be so much simpler if he could just settle for her leftover passion.

“You gave me my first kiss, Shauss, and that’s something a girl never forgets,” she said earnestly. “If you loved me and wanted to stay with me forever, I’d be totally happy to keep you. But we both know that’s not how it is, and you can’t leave Jasmine to that ugly fucker’s tender mercies just to protect me from having to choose another mate.”

“How is forcing her to mate with me any better than forcing her to mate with him?”

“At least with you I know she’ll be getting someone who knows how to give pleasure as well as receive it. And I trust you to choose a second and third who’ll do the same.”

“Meaning you trust me not to choose Zannen?”

“Exactly. You’d never choose someone you couldn’t control.”

His hackles rose. “You think I couldn’t control Zannen?”

“Please,” she snorted. “Not without a fight, and you and I both know you want something a little…different.”

“Oh?”

“Oh,” she affirmed flatly. “You’ll want absolute control over every member of your bond, no matter how temporary it is. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you fucked whatever guys you chose just to show them who’s boss. But even if you could wrestle that bastard into submission, for some reason I just can’t see you fucking him.”

Shauss fought a grin and lost. Perhaps he’d underestimated her awareness of his needs—even without knowing Zannen was his brother, she’d certainly divined that he could never fuck the bastard.

“Have you always had this fixation on males fucking each other?” he asked.

“I don’t understand why all you guys are so resistant to the idea,” she insisted. “It’s the perfect solution to your most immediate problems.”

“And I suppose if all the males in the universe dropped dead overnight, you’d hook up with Miss King?”

“Damn straight. She’s hot,” she shot back. When he gave her a startled look, she said, “Hey, you’re the ones who turned me into a slave to my libido.”

Then she looked as if a thought struck her. “Oh hell—how do you feel about children?”

“In what context?”

“I mean having some of your own.”

He studied her for a moment, and then said, “The Andagon house spawned numerous heirs to its legacy, and I feel no desire to continue the Frantere name. Why do you ask?”

“Frantere? Is that your name, Shauss Frantere?”

“It’s my father’s family name. I’m a first son of the family Frantere, but I hail from the third house of Andagon, which descended through my mother. In America, the two names would probably be hyphenated so I’d be Shauss Frantere-Andagon.”

“How weird is it that I didn’t even know your full name until now?” Then she turned serious again. “Anyway, I asked because Jasmine wasn’t a candidate and she’s never been evaluated. She’s…very slender, Shauss, and her pelvis looks pretty narrow. It would be a miracle if she could carry a Garathani baby.”

“I’d already assumed contraceptive measures would be applied, since Jasmine hasn’t agreed to more than a single mating with each male.” Not that he was bound by any such restriction—or at least any more bound than he allowed himself to be—but he had no desire to tie her to him permanently with an unwanted pregnancy. No child deserved that.

“I can’t believe you’d settle for just once.”

“I’ve managed it with you,” he pointed out indelicately.

“Thanks for the reminder, but this is different and you know it.”

It
was
different, and obviously more complicated than Kellen had explained to her.

“Monica, with you I have friendship at the very least. What do I have with Jasmine King? What if we prove utterly incompatible and she returns to Earth? I’ll have given you up for nothing.”

“Sometimes you just have to take a chance.” When he hesitated, she added, “Just talk to her before you make up your mind. Kellen says I’ll have three months to select another mate. Hopefully this mess with Earth will be straightened out by that time, then Jasmine can go home and you can just step right back into our bond, if that’s what you both want.”

“What if you’ve already selected another mate?”

“Then you’ll have to settle for third place,” she grinned.

He digested that for a moment, and then said, “I could live with that.”

“Bullshit. You can’t even stand to be second.”

He stared at her and she stared back. They both knew that even should his claim on Jasmine turn out to be temporary, if he vacated this bond, he wouldn’t be back. Their friendship would remain just that—friendship.

* * * * *

He was there, standing outside her cell as she lay on her bunk. It was too dark to see his expression, but she could feel his concentration focused on her just like she had in her dream. She knew
he
knew she was awake.

Or maybe she was dreaming again. It was hard to tell in the surreal setting of the Garathani ship.

“Miss King.”

She pulled the blanket more securely around her and closed her eyes tight. If this was a dream, she was better off not answering. Shoot, even if it wasn’t a dream, she was probably better off not answering. After all, what did they have to say to each other? She was about to spend some quality time with three of his king-sized cohorts, and if she survived, she’d head back to Earth. End of story.

“No matter whom you’re mated with, you’ve no need to be frightened,” he said gruffly. “Kellen wouldn’t allow you to be harmed.”

Her anger spiked. “He didn’t seem to have any problem with your harming me.”

“On the contrary, he believed I wouldn’t carry through with my threats.”

“He doesn’t know you very well then.”

After a moment, Shauss said, “Apparently not as well as you do.”

Her heartbeat skittered. He
would
have followed through with his threat, not that it mattered. “Why are we having this conversation? I’m tired.”

“Because I’m curious. Empran, deactivate confinement field.”

Jasmine’s eyes popped open as Shauss walked into her cell, determination clear in every line of his body. He stopped beside her bunk and held out his hand. Her eyes followed it up his arm to his shoulder and finally to his face. Her heart raced even as her cheeks flamed. Somehow she knew he was curious to find out if what he thought he knew of her feelings was true. It wasn’t clear why—his ego didn’t appear to need boosting, and there was bound to be nothing in it for her except more humiliation.

But even as her brain screamed at her to roll over and ignore him, her hand reached for his. She shuddered with reaction to his warm, dry skin as he helped her rise. She longed for and dreaded this experiment in equal measures.

“Shauss, please.”

The echo from her erotic dream startled her and she tried to pull away, but his hand tightened while his other hand slid behind her head.

“Please what?”

“Please don’t do this to me,” she said weakly, clutching at his tight-fitting uniform. “It won’t help anything!”

“That remains to be seen,” he murmured. He leaned way down and she turned her head just in time to avoid his kiss. His mouth slid down her cheek to the hollow under her ear and her heart skipped a whole handful of beats when he pressed her body against his.

“Oh God,” she whimpered against his chest. “Why didn’t you just leave me back at the compound to die? It would have been better for everyone.”

His hand forced her face up. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and take what you want.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. She went up on her toes as he came down and then his lips landed on hers.

Tears squeezed out from under her eyelids as emotion erupted from every cell in her body. Her mouth opened on a sob and Shauss drew back long enough to shush her. Then he dropped gentle kisses along the tortured curve of her lip as she tried to hold back her anguish. This was so wrong! He was her enemy, her captor, her interrogator and near-rapist. He’d literally scared the piss out of her, for God’s sake.

So why did his kiss taste like…home?

A low wail escaped her, but he just kept kissing her lips, drawing their edges between his like he was testing her flavor.

She pounded his shoulders with clenched fists and he responded by settling in for a deep, tongue-filled kiss. Lord, this had better be a dream—her nose was running, and that wasn’t how she wanted him to remember her any more than she wanted him to remember the pee running down her legs. All
she
would remember was the symphony of joy that welled up to wash away the knowledge none of this would last. She had this moment, this touch, this one deliberate, wide-awake taste of the beautiful alien who could never be hers.

She was barely conscious of Shauss walking her backward and lifting her until his body crushed hers into the padded wall. The hard ridge of his cock straining between them thrilled her out of her mind, and she thrust against him without thought, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He lifted his head slightly and pressed his lips to each of her eyelids in turn as tears continued to rain down her cheeks. “Don’t cry,
aramai
.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she choked. Then she remembered. “Oh my God, Monica! I can’t do this!”

She shoved at him and he stepped back, letting her drop to the floor and stumble away. “I don’t know why you did that, but I hope you’re satisfied.”

God knew she wouldn’t be, mated to that baldheaded ape and whoever else he chose to inflict on her.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “But I will be.”

* * * * *

There were way more people than she’d expected when Tiber and the guards escorted her into the council chambers through a side door. The commander, the minister and four old men she assumed were council members sat at a curved table at the head of the oval room, holding a quiet discussion, and a couple of dozen warriors sat mute in a gallery at the back. Zannen stared at her from the front row, his face devoid of emotion, and she fought back the urge to scream at him as her skin tried to crawl from her bones.

Shauss and Hastion stood in the huge open area in front of the table, their expressions equally unreadable. Ugh. Nothing like facing your accusers in front of your judge and jury.

Hastion’s lips curved in a rueful smile as she and Tiber joined them. Though he looked much better than he had yesterday, the brownish-yellow tinge of fading bruises still marred his eye and nose.

Cringing, she glanced at Tiber. He’d been strangely silent, which was really making her nervous. She wished she’d had a chance to talk with him privately, but being under guard had eliminated any chance of that. The jerks who’d taken over for Shauss wouldn’t even face the other away for her to use the toilet, so she’d held it all night. When Tiber showed up at the crack of dawn, he’d taken one look at her and ordered them to turn their backs so she could relieve herself. For that alone she could have kissed him. Then he’d had them escort her to a room with a private shower and given her a grooming kit and ten minutes to clean herself up. That’s when she knew she’d made the right decision.