Fallen Star (27 page)

Fallon blinked. He was trusting her? “All right.” Her fingers danced across her keyboard. “The code is ready for upload.” She took the tandem jack and swallowed. The probe had exposed some of her -- this would expose all of her.

Trust
. He trusted her. She was going to have to trust him, too.

She got up out of the chair. “Please, have a seat.”

Khan frowned slightly. “Will it hurt?”

Fallon bit back a smile. She’d asked him that about the probe. “Actually, no, but it does knock you off balance when it’s first activated.”

Khan tugged at his robes and sat.

Fallon affixed the tandem link and readied the upload. She looked over at him. “Ready?”

He flashed a brief smile. “I am.”

Fallon hit the mark key. “Beginning upload.” She watched the code proceed down the page. “Nearly done.”

“I don’t feel a thing.” Khan’s voice was steady, but Fallon was pretty sure she could smell nervous sweat coming from him.

She smiled but kept her eyes on the screen. “You’re not going to, your mind can’t see it yet.”

“How many people have this code?”

“I do, and Peter, though I’m sure Peter’s given the code to someone else, by now.” Fallon tapped the keyboard and made an adjustment. “And you.” She looked at Khan. “Ready to activate?”

Khan swallowed and took a breath. “Do me.”

Fallon blinked, then reached in and touched his code. The strains of the orchestral piece that held the activation key pulsed from her mind directly into his.

He frowned. “Music again?”

Fallon didn’t answer. She turned to the display. The code shifted, connected, and came into harmony. It was active.

“Oh ...” Khan sighed. He leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed. His eyes snapped open and he jerked forward, focusing on the display screen. His eyes narrowed. “I can see it.”

Fallon swallowed. Oh, yes, he could.

His brow rose. “Can I disappear the way you did?”

Fallon glanced at the window of rushing stars and lifted her hands to remove the jack in her data port. “You said you wanted a copy,
‘Syr
.” She took a deep breath. “You can do everything I can, and you can tell if someone has that program active in their system.”

“How?”

Fallon lifted her shoulder just a little. “They tend to ... resonate, like tuning crystals.”

Khan removed the jack from his skull. “Resonate ... I see.” He turned to her. “How do I work it?”

“When you sleep, it plays a kind of how-to file. When you wake up, you can use it.”

Khan frowned. “I dream it?”

“It was the easiest way to do a tutorial,
‘Syr
.” She’d been a kid at the time. Dream-flight had been the
only
way to do a tutorial.

Khan pursed his lips. “And it cannot be tampered with, because no one can see it?”

Fallon nodded. “Other codes can’t detect it, because the languages are made of opposite compositions.”

Khan shook his head. “How did you come up with this to begin with?”

Fallon looked at her toes. “I had a really vivid dream,
‘Syr
.” Inspired by one too many retellings of Peter’s stories of flying children and a sparkling gold pixie, no doubt ...

“A dream?”

Fallon nodded. “I was eleven at the time.”

Khan turned the chair to look at her. “You wrote this when you were
eleven?
”

Fallon looked up and smiled. “No,
‘Syr
. I had the dream at eleven. I actually made it when I was fourteen.” Her smiled faded. “I was seventeen before it could do everything it does now.” She hadn’t needed to be completely invisible until she started breaking into sentient ships.

Khan rose from his chair in a rustle of black and red silk robes and set his palm on the broad black desk. The holographic displays winked out and the keyboard she had just used was absorbed back into the desktop. His eyes narrowed and a smile curved his mouth. “Are you ready for your whipping?”

The hair on Fallon’s neck rose. “What?” She took a step back.

Khan lifted his hand and uncoiled the meter-long whip from his left wrist. “You need to be punished.”

Fallon took another step back. “
‘Syr!
I gave you my program!”

“Yes, you did.” He set the whip on the smooth desktop and pulled his daggers from his sash, dropping them in his abandoned chair. “You also omitted telling me that it was there.” His chin dropped and his copper gaze heated as he unfastened his over-robe, exposing his black under-robe. “But I think you are missing the point entirely.”

Fallon searched her memory.
Point?
He had a point? She lifted her chin, exposing her throat in instinctive submission. “
‘Syr
, I don’t understand!”

Khan nodded. “I see that.” His smile broadened, showing teeth as he peeled his black and scarlet over-robe from his shoulders. “Go around to the front of my desk, and take off your robe.” He began to unwind the scarlet sash closing his black under-robe.

Fallon hunched her shoulders and turned away, tugging at her red sash. It was probably better to just endure it than piss him off any more by trying to talk him out of it. She’d been cornered and beaten before ... but not with a whip. She pulled the robes from her shoulders and took deep breaths. As long as she was still breathing at the end of it, she would recover.

Bare-chested, wearing only his long black kilt, with whip in hand, Khan followed her around to the front of the desk. His long pale braid lay over his shoulder and across his breast, nearly falling to his waist. The black band around his brow and his matching black nipple rings gleamed with midnight rainbows under the light. He tugged her robes and sash from her fingers and dropped them on the desk. “Go to the window.”

Fallon walked over to the huge window and stared at the streaming stars of jump-space.

Khan stepped behind her and set his right palm on the glass.

A gleaming black rail oozed into being just below Fallon’s chest height, forming directly from the window. The rest of the window darkened and became opaque, then lightened to become reflective.

Fallon stared at her reflection and that of Khan standing behind her, his arm extended past her right shoulder. She frowned. “A mirror?”

Khan smiled. “I want to watch your face.” His smile broadened. “As you scream.”

Fallon winced, hating the fear that widened her eyes. Anger tightened her mouth.
Sadistic
 ...

Khan nodded. “Yes, yes, I know. I’m a sadistic bastard.”

Fallon flinched. The collar. He was listening in on her thoughts through the damned collar.

Khan’s eye narrowed.
Yes. No more secrets.
He moved behind her, and his warm hands cupped her shoulders. The whip was a cool length dangling down the side of her arm. He leaned closer, his mouth brushing against her ear. “The point you were missing is that I am beating you because it pleases me to do so.”

Fallon lifted her chin, exposing her throat, and swallowed.
It would please him ...
A small shiver raced across her skin. She
wanted
to please him. To her complete surprise, her belly clenched with sudden hunger, and moisture pooled.

“Yes, now you understand.” His lips curved in a smile. His mouth slid down the side of her throat, his hot breath scorching her skin. His left hand slid down her arm and swept across her belly. “I fully intended to whip you, all along.” He pressed against her back. He was urgently hard under his kilt. His copper eyes gleamed with hunger in the mirror before them. “Your disobedience was merely a convenient excuse.”

Sudden, demanding erotic heat scorched through her. Fallon shivered hard and her knees wobbled. She grabbed for the rail to keep from falling.

His hand swept up her belly to cup her bare breast. Her nipple hardened in his palm. He smiled. “Ah ... yes.” He closed both arms around her, his whip a cool length falling against her bare belly to curl around her feet. “You want to feel the kiss of my whip as much as I want to hear you scream.” He pressed a soft kiss on her throat.
Mine
.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Fallon shivered in Khan’s arms. His cocks were hot, rigid lengths against the small of her back even as the whip in his hand was a cool threat against her belly. And yet, erotic anticipation coiled within her and tightened. Her body both feared and hungered for what he was about to give her.

Reflected in the glass, Fallon’s eyes widened to dark pits framed by thin rings of bright emerald and color flushed her cheeks. There was no mistaking that her body was looking forward to the pain he was about to unleash. She vibrated with the feral need for pain at his hand, driven by an instinct that demanded he touch her, that he mark her with his possession. Some part of her needed him to prove to her that he wanted her. That she was his.

It was not love, it was instinct. And somehow, that hurt.

Khan’s reflected gaze caught hers. His eyes were bright rings of copper around blackness. His cheeks were warm with color and his lips looked flushed and rich.

And she had caused it. She had brought the scent of arousal rising from his skin. He wanted her. She could see it in his hot gaze, feel it in the erections pressing against her backside and in the pressure of his fingers against her belly.

Impulsively, she turned toward him and lifted her mouth to his, pressing a sudden kiss to his lips.

Khan received her kiss and replied gently, then hungrily. His arms tightened, and he growled into her mouth, his tongue lashing and his teeth clicking against hers.

She replied with a trace of that odd vibration, her purr.

His hand left her belly. “Hold tight to the rail.” His voice was deeper than usual and rumbled with a touch of a growl. “Stay upright but keep your head down, and keep your feet together.” He brushed her black braid over her shoulder, and it swept against the top of her breast. “My target is your back, ass, and thighs.” His lips pressed against the base of her neck. “If you wish the whip to kiss your breasts and belly, extend your arms.”

Fallon nodded. She simply couldn’t find the breath to speak.

He stepped back, and the whip snaked across the blood red carpet as he placed himself behind her.

Fallon stared at what she could see of his reflection. Her hands closed tight on the rail. Moisture slicked her thighs and dribbled down.

The whip cracked loud and sharp.

Fallon jumped. He hadn’t touched her.

Khan smiled. “Ready?”

Impatience and a touch of annoyance at her cowardice spurred her mouth before she thought. “Do I need to be?”

Khan’s brows rose. “No, not really.” His hand moved, just barely. The whip didn’t make more than a whisper of sound as it flicked through the air.

Fire erupted across her left hip.

Fallon’s head shot up and she hissed. “Shit!” She dropped her head and arched her back, stomping her foot in reaction.

The whip cracked.

Her right hip flared with pain.

Fallon choked, but kept her head down that time. She could not stop the instinctive arch and twist of her spine.

“Oh, very pretty.” Khan stepped to the side and smiled into her mirrored gaze. “You dance well under the whip.”

Fallon clenched her teeth and shot a glare at his reflection. “Gee, thanks,
‘Syr
.”

He grinned. “You’re welcome.” He nodded. “Hold tight and try to stay still. I’m going to stripe you, shoulder to ass, very fast.”

Fast
 ... Fallon cringed. “Great.”

His hand rose and fell, and rose ... over and over with incredible speed. The whip snapped almost continuously.

He stopped.

Huh?
Fallon took a startled breath. She’d barely felt a whisper. Her entire right side abruptly bloomed with ferocious heat, and then blazed with fire. She took a deep breath. And then another. And then another ...

“Isabeau, breathe!” His voice lashed through her, cutting through the white heat of her back. “Don’t hold it! Let it go!”

Let it go?
She threw back her head and shouted every obscenity she could think of. She arched and twisted to relieve the searing burn of her scorched skin, knowing damned well that it wouldn’t do a drop of good. She didn’t let go of the bar.

“Breathe!”

Fallon pressed her brow to the cool mirror before her and breathed. There was a slight tightening in the back of her mind -- and then a loosening. Her entire body followed, her muscles releasing and relaxing. A calmness seemed to steal over her, and her thoughts drifted apart. It felt like she was getting just a little ... high. The pain on her back didn’t fade exactly, but it seemed to matter less.
Oh
 ...

“That’s it. Breathe deep and slow.” Khan’s brow rose. “Ready for the other side?”

Fallon eyed his reflection and considered a number of rude comments. She discarded them all. She was actually feeling too ... relaxed to put any real energy into them. She pushed upright and braced herself. “Fast again?”

Khan’s smile was slow and malicious. “Not quite. This time I want you feel each one.”

He wanted her to
feel each one?
Fallon had to remember to breathe. Temper surged, and slipped away. It was hard to be angry in this odd frame of mind. “Fine, whatever.”

Khan grinned. “Good.” He drew his arm back, letting the whip slide across the carpet. “Hold as still as you can, and shout or scream to let the pain go through you. Don’t try to hold onto it.”

Crack!

A thin line of fire sliced across the meat of her left shoulder blade. She gasped and gripped the rail tighter.

“Relax, don’t hold it.”

Fallon loosened her hands and took a breath. The pain faded.

Crack!

Another line of fire erupted exactly under the first. She gasped and squelched the small cry that tried to escape with it.

“Let the pain out with your voice.” His voice was calm and firm. “Breathe.”

She breathed.

Crack! Burn ...

She yelped and arched, only a little.