Sons of Lyra: Fight For Love

Sons of Lyra:
Fight For Love

Lieutenant Lyra
IV is as sinfully handsome and irresistible as his older brothers,
but the one woman he wants seems to be immune to his charm. Every
man in his squadron is falling over themselves to win her.
Literally. When the reward is getting to see her, not even he can
stop himself from getting hurt in training every day. Losing feels
like winning when he ends up on her inspection table, and the pain
means nothing when she touches him.

Nurse
Emmanuelle knows exactly what the devilishly tempting and handsome
Lieutenant Lyra IV is doing and she’s not going to fall for it or
his attempts to make her call him by his first name, Remi. It’s her
duty to keep her distance and maintain a professional relationship
with him, even if her heart and body is crying out for
more.

When the fleet
is called back to Varka Two where Remi almost lost his life, he
can’t waste any more time. This time, he might not make it back. A
kiss that sets both their hearts on fire leads to more than he’d
dreamed of, and makes both their feelings clear, but will it be too
late?

Facing
overwhelming odds, is Remi strong enough to survive the battle and
return to Emmanuelle? If he ends up on her table again will
Emmanuelle be able to save the man she loves? Will they win their
fight for love?

Sons of Lyra:
Fight For Love

Felicity
Heaton

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright 2008
by Felicity Heaton

All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without written permission from the author, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

****

Sons of Lyra:
Fight For Love

“
Lieutenant
Lyra IV, you’re really going to have to start being more careful in
combat training. This is the third time you’ve been in this week.”
Nurse Emmanuelle, the most beautiful nurse in the entire fleet,
leaned over him.

She motioned for him to
move his hands out of the way. He did. He reached them out above
his head and grabbed the end of the inspection table he was laying
on. He flexed the muscles of his bare torso and arms for her. She
didn’t seem impressed. Her fingers pressed against the mottled
bruising on his right side, her touch so light he barely felt
it.

His gaze strayed back to
her face. She was beautiful when she concentrated like this, intent
on her work, her fine silvery eyebrows knitted together. She
turned, flicked her long silver hair from her face, and sighed as
she picked up one of the tools from the black tray table beside
him. His gaze slid to her body and the tight dark blue dress she
wore. They shifted across to the buttoned front of it and then rose
to her face again when he reined his desire in.

“
I can’t help
it,” he said, still studying her face, watching her tongue wet her
delicate rose lips as she turned on the device she held. He’d never
figured out where she was from. Perhaps she was an angel of Iskara.
She looked like an angel. “They’re all stronger and faster than
me.”

She shook her head a
fraction, a smile curving those delicious lips. “I find that very
hard to believe.”

He smiled at her when she
looked at him, her grey eyes touching his a moment before she went
back to her work.

With a nurse such as her
posted to his squadron, was it any surprise all the men kept
getting hurt? He could handle any man here in a one on one fight,
but when the reward for defeat was getting to see her, he didn’t
have the heart to win.

She held the device two
inches from his skin and ran the red band of light over it. He held
the flinch inside as it hurt, stinging as his body was repaired. It
was still worth it, even though it hurt more than getting beaten up
in the first place.

“
There, all
done. You can put your shirt back on now, Lieutenant Lyra IV.” She
placed the device back down on the tray and stepped
back.

He swung his legs around
over the side of the black padded table and pressed his palms into
the edge of it as he sat and looked at her.

“
Why won’t you
call me by my real name?” Her constant use of his title irritated
him. She called others by their name. Everyone but him. “Call me
Remi.”

She shook her head. “You
know I can’t. I don’t make the rules.”

“
But you can
break them,” he reached out to her with his left hand and winced
when his shoulder grated. His other hand went to it, holding it
tight. He must have damaged it during the fight.

“
Is it
bothering you?” she said, her voice low and concerned.

He nodded. “All the
time.”

“
Not the name
thing.” Her tone caught a note of impatience and then softened
again. “Your arm.”

He looked at it when she
touched it, as light and gentle as usual.

When he was in his
uniform, he could easily forget that it wasn’t really a part of
him, at least in the sense that he hadn’t been born with it. He’d
been given it two years ago after he’d lost his arm in an
insurgence on Varka Two. It had been his first mission. It had gone
horribly wrong. The Varkan’s had been waiting for them. Half of his
squadron had been killed. He’d been lucky to only lose an
arm.

The fleet doctors had done
their best, replacing his arm with a fully cybernetic one. It had
taken them a whole day of surgery to attach all the nerve endings
to the sensors in the arm. He flexed his fingers. When he thought
hard enough, he could almost feel the metal joints moving beneath
the dark silvery rubber skin. The nurses and doctors had told him
it was nothing to be concerned about. It was purely a residual
memory of his old arm he was feeling, and not the workings of his
new one. He wasn’t convinced.

Emmanuelle’s fingers
traced over the elastic rubber skin covering the metal bones of his
arm. He felt every sweep and press of her touch, as real as it
would have been if she’d touched his other arm.

“
How does this
feel?” she said, raising his arm up and moving it around to
different positions.

His shoulder grated again
when she pushed his arm out to the side and brought his wrist
towards his chest.

He winced.

She lowered his arm and
disappeared behind him. His eyes closed when she touched his back,
her hands warm against him. Her fingers pressed into his shoulder
blade.

“
I don’t think
it’s your arm,” she breathed close to his ear.

He sighed and then got the
better of himself. “So what is it?”

“
Just the Lyran
body not being able to withstand a few timely blows.” She placed
her hand against his shoulder. It warmed his skin. “You must have
landed pretty hard on it.”

He tried to look over his
shoulder to see it but all he could see was her hand, small and
slender, touching him. Her eyes spoke of concern when his met
them.

“
Do tell
Jericho to go easier on you,” she said with a small
frown.

He slid off the table and
grabbed his shirt. Everyone was always going easy on him. He was a
soldier. He wanted to be treated like one, as though he was just
one of the squad. He was tired of being singled out because he was
royalty. Had Balt and Acer encountered similar problems during
training? He couldn’t imagine them paying attention to any order
telling them to make the other soldiers go easier on
them.

Putting his dark blue
shirt on, he hid the pain it caused his shoulder and looked at
Emmanuelle. She was still watching him, as though she expected an
answer to what she’d said.

“
No,” he said
it flatly, without any emotion, and held her gaze. “I have to
go.”

Emmanuelle watched him
leave, knowing exactly where he was going to go. It was three
months ago when she’d first noticed that he liked to think alone.
She’d stumbled across him sitting staring out through the glass
dome of the hydroponics deck of the ship. Whenever he was angry
after coming to her, she always went there to watch him and ensure
he was alright. She waited a few minutes and then walked through
the ship, went up three levels, and walked out into the lush green
of the deck. She loved it up here, with the flowers, grass and
trees. They were all for research and to keep the air clean, but
they were still beautiful. There wasn’t this much green on all her
home world.

He wasn’t hard to find.
She figured out which direction the Lyra system was in and found
him sitting there, staring out of the window towards his home. She
kept her distance so she didn’t disturb him. She just wanted to
check that he was alright and then she’d leave him alone. Why did
he always stare towards home? Did he miss his planet and his
family?

He touched his shoulder a
few times, rolling it back occasionally. It was bothering him. If
he’d stayed in sickbay a few moments more, she would have given him
some medication for it and healed the skin. She hadn’t wanted to
push him though. The moment she’d met him, the first time he’d been
placed on her inspection table, she’d realised that he was
sensitive about his arm. He resented it somehow. She couldn’t
figure out why. Surely it was better than having no arm at all? He
would have been discharged from the imperial army if that had
happened. His family had paid dearly to have him patched up so he
could continue with the squad.

A crackling noise came
from the metallic grey communicator band around her wrist and she
placed her hand over it to stifle the noise so he wouldn’t hear.
She frowned out of the window when she saw a ship approaching. It
was a Lyran fighter. A glance at Remi revealed that he hadn’t
noticed it. He was too lost in his thoughts.

She wished she could do
something to make him feel better about his arm and being here. She
wasn’t blind. He hated it when she called him by his title, but it
really wasn’t her place to call him by his real name, no matter how
many times he insisted. It was unfair on him though. She called the
others by their names—Jericho, Alessandro, Pietr, Ambra. The
difference was, calling them by their names wouldn’t get her
discharged. To everyone on the ship, including his superiors, he
was Lyra IV.

The doors to her right
opened and a tall man entered, his build broad and muscular, and
his dark blue flight suit stretched incredibly tight over his body
like a second skin. He smiled, winked and nodded at her as he
passed.

She blushed at the knowing
edge to that smile. He wasn’t flirting. He’d been telling her that
he knew what she was up to—watching Remi.

She shrank back behind a
tree and continued to watch him, as she always would.

The man approached him and
the moment Remi turned to see who it was, he was on his feet. She
was surprised when Remi hugged the man. There was an exchange of
very manly back patting and then they broke apart. Now that they
were standing together, she could see the similarities between
them, although the newcomer was taller than Remi. They shared black
hair and charming good looks, and bodies to die for.

The newcomer was one of
his brothers. She looked at the window, replaying the sight of the
fighter ship coming into dock. Was it Captain Lyra II or Captain
Lyra III? She’d never met either of them, so she couldn’t tell, and
they all looked so similar—handsome, sinful and strong. She looked
back at the men. Remi gave a sour gesture to his arm and then
laughed when his brother said something. It was nice to see him
smiling again.

She ducked behind the
tree, breathing hard and desperate for Remi not to see her as they
walked in her direction. They went past and Remi walked through the
door. His brother said something and then turned back. Remi
disappeared as the door closed.

She gasped when she
realised the man was coming back to her. He caught her arm as she
tried to dive out the other side of the bush and held her tight,
pulling her back towards him.

“
Are you in the
habit of spying on my brother?” he said in a dangerous low tone.
All the smiles that had been in his eyes a moment ago had
disappeared. “What do you want with him?”