Stark Pleasure; the Space Magnate's Mistress (The LodeStar Series) (42 page)

Then she straightened her shoulders. She might look a bit rough, but inside she was better, stronger than the woman she’d been then. She’d learned not just to take help from someone stronger, like Stark, but to be part of a group. She hadn’t wanted to be aboard the
SixPac
, but she’d pitched in and done her best, helped those who helped her.

She’d even spent her last day aboard teaching Gravia all her secrets of making great coffee. Thanks to her, the
SixPac
had a permanent barista.

But Kiri had learned some things herself. She didn’t need to chase security. She had everything she needed within her. Scala was right; she could make her own family wherever she ended up. Like many of the immis streaming into this port would do. Some had brought their families or at least a mate, but as many were alone. Didn’t mean they had to stay that way.

Also didn’t mean they had to accept less than they deserved. Neither did she. She’d give Stark a chance to explain himself and then … then she’d decide. Her heart yearned to stay with him, but she was perilously close to giving him her heart along with her body. If he didn’t return her feelings, that way lay heartbreak and shame.

She smiled wryly at herself. Her voyage had shaken her out of her world, but maybe it had given her a bigger one.
 

Back on the concourse, she gaped at the cloudless sky overhead, and the green trees dancing in the warm breezes. It was like a giant travel holovid. It was late spring on this side of Frontiera, Gim had told her. It would be hot in a month but now it was warm and balmy.
 

Scala had given her a pair of sun goggles to protect her eyes, and warned her to be careful in the sun when it was directly overhead, until her skin was used to it. Kiri was glad of the eye protection. This sun was not just part of a holovid, it was real, warm and very bright.

She pushed the goggles up onto her head and wandered through the space port, smiling back at friendly faces and enjoying the unfettered openness of the huge airy dome, with openings at intervals to let fresh air and sunlight in. The dome made her feel protected, used as she was to the cloisters of life indoors. But it let her experience the outdoors, too.

She sat again, out of the way of the busy luggage porters with their hovies, and the beings waiting either to leave or for someone to arrive. Some of them were as scruffy as she felt. Most of the beings immigrating here were workers, like her, here for a better life.
 

If she were going to stay here, she would take Scala’s advice and open a coffee stand or two. Everybody needed java, especially tired space travelers. She could probably make a killing here, get in before MoonPenny or another big chain. She hadn’t seen one real coffee stand in the place, just a cheap dispenser in an open cafeteria. Probably made lousy coffee.
 

Then a huge ship sailed into view, hidden by the dome but visible on the holovid screens. Kiri forgot her musings, her stomach knotting. The
Orion
had arrived.

She was beautiful, a graceful silver shape towed in by port authority craft to her landing dock. Kiri’s heart began to pound a swift rhythm. This was Logan’s ship; one of his fleet.
 

He would walk off the ship any sec and see that she was alive. That she hadn’t left him, not willingly. Was Scala right, that he’d only been barricading his emotions behind disparaging words? Did he really care for her? Or had he said exactly what he meant? When he saw her, would he consider her a fool who’d gotten what she deserved?

Not that her future hung on this, or anything, she assured herself. She just wanted some closure, that was all. Before she got on with her life.

Once the huge ship docked, one section of the dome lifted, and the side of the ship was visible. Landing ports slid slowly open, and port authority officials bustled to work, roping off landing areas and readying their rosters to register the new arrivals.

Unable to sit any longer. Kiri eased closer to stand by the ropes designating a wide walk way for those disembarking.
 

Logan.
 

***

Steve Craig surveyed the holovid displays from the control room of his ship. He had a clear view of the departing passengers, the landing zones, and the port terminal. Everything routine, he noted with satisfaction. Even the Tygers were departing in an orderly fashion. Another successful voyage—and a peaceful one.

Idly, he scanned those waiting for departing passengers. Then his gaze stopped, caught by a slim form waiting at one of the gates.
 

“Close-up, gate three.” The holocams zoomed in on a woman peering between other travelers. He squinted then scowled. She looked familiar. Why? A passenger from a past voyage? She was very pretty but a bit bedraggled, her face dirty. No, by the seven hells, that was a faded bruise. A dockworker, perhaps?
 

But as he watched, the woman froze. Her lovely face paled, as if she’d seen a specter. She shook her head once in denial, and then turned and bolted away from the cameras, disappearing into the crowds.

Craig flicked an assessing glance over the disembarking passengers, enjoying his little mystery. What had she seen that so distressed her?

Then he saw it—or rather them. Logan Stark strolling off his flagship, a slight smile on his face as he looked down at the woman on his arm. A lovely, Serpentian blonde with a smug tilt to her head and satisfaction in every step.

“Quark it,” Captain Craig swore viciously, startling the crew members working in the control room. He knew now where he’d seen the woman.

He cued his comlink. “Mr. Stark,” he said crisply. “Return to the command center, please. Mr. Stark to the command center.”

***

Stark was not pleased to be summoned back onto his ship. He wanted away, where he could link with his people, find out if there’d been any new developments in the search for Kiri. Barring that, he was ready to battle wild beasts or something equally barbaric. That would certainly burn up some of the fire in his belly. This waiting was hell.

Kiri was supposed to have been at his side when he walked off the ship. He’d been looking forward to the expression on her face, to hearing that delighted chuckle when she saw new vistas, new creatures, and experienced the sheer freedom of being outdoors in the clean wild.
 

Now she was somewhere, God and Tal Darkrunner only knew where, and according to his Indigon security specialist, who had ascertained that Darkrunner had been telling the truth when he said he’d removed Kiri from danger in New Seattle, this whole mess was Stark’s own fault, for failing to keep Kiri safe.

“Please excuse me,” he murmured to Raava.
 

“Of course.”

Stark walked back onto the ship and took an elevator up to the top of the ship. He strode into the command center to find his friend and captain waiting for him, a peculiar look on his face.

“You need to see this,” Craig said without preamble.

Stark froze, staring at the holovid image of the woman waiting by the ropes, her eyes wide as she surveyed the landing ports. She was
here
. Right here—he needn’t search for her any more at all.

But great God, was that a bruise on her face? What level of hell had she been through, to look like a battered wraith of herself? She’d lost weight, her leathers hanging on her.

Forget killing a wild beast. He was going to kill Tal Darkrunner—with his bare hands. Slowly. The ganger had not taken good care of his little cat.
 

“Is that her?” Craig asked quietly.

Stark blinked. “What?”

“Is that the woman I saw you with on Earth II?”
 

“Yes. When was this made?” Stark demanded. “How long ago?” She might be gone already.

“Less than ten minutes.”

She was outside
now
. Stark turned sharply, but Craig stopped him, a hand on his arm. “Logan, watch the rest,” he counseled, a look of near pity in his blue eyes.
 

Quivering with impatience, Stark watched. His gut tightened as Kiri’s eager look changed to one of denial, then pain. She turned and disappeared into the crowd.
 

He froze, realizing what she’d seen even before the holovid changed—Raava sauntering off the ship clinging possessively to his arm, as he smiled down at her, apparently a man without a care in the world. With no sign of the anger and tension roiling inside him. Quark, maybe he’d gotten too good at maintaining a facade.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, but it did nothing to clear away his shock or the shame spreading sickly inside him. That look on her face ... undeserved. And his fault.

“I’ve got to find her.”

“Port authority’s already on it.” Craig’s comlink chimed, and he nodded. “In fact, that should be them now.”

Chapter 38

Kiri could not believe her quarking luck.
 

Had the entire universe turned against her? She’d finally made it off the ship from hell, onto a strange planet, just in time to see Logan cozying up to a leggy blonde. And now she was being detained by the Frontiera Port Authority.
 

“I haven’t done anything,” she insisted, dodging the helmets who were trying to herd her toward a door in the side of the concourse. “I was shanghaied, worked my way to your backward quarking planet, just got off the quarking ship and
I haven’t done anything!”

She clenched her fists, glaring as passersby stared. Why did all her most embarrassing moments happen in space ports?

Fighting tears, she followed as she was hustled through the door and into a quiet room.

The door closed behind her, and the room was silent. Good, maybe they’d left her alone. Except that she could feel someone in the room with her. Fighting for calm, she turned, ready to give them a piece of her mind.

She froze and then stumbled backward, away from the man who stood, regarding her silently, face taut, gaze molten silver.

“
No.
” She shook her head in fierce denial, a perverse part of her reveling as Stark’s face paled and creases of strain bracketed his mouth.
 

“Stay away from me. You quarking liar.”

He said nothing, merely stared at her, as if he wasn’t sure she was real.
 

Fine, then. She had things to say, even if he didn’t. She paced, spearing her fingers through her hair as the story poured out of her in disjointed pieces.
 

“First Tal shanghaied me. I woke up on that stinking ship. You know how scared I was to fly? Well, their engines failed
twice
. I thought I was going to die out there.

“I had to work and fight—they tried to rape me, did you know that? Tried to force me and steal my leathers—that I’ve worked in and slept in for a week. Bet I don’t smell very sweet, huh, Stark? Better go back to your high-class whore, who gets to bathe every day and go to sleep without waking up at every quarking noise, wondering if they’re back to finish it.”

His eyes blazed. “Just tell me
why
. Why did you go to him, Kiri? Why did you leave Rak behind, when he was there to keep you safe?”

She shook her head in disgust. “Simple. So simple. Because Tal had my strongbox.” She hugged her rucksack, feeling the familiar shape inside.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” he demanded.

“Why?” She glared at him. “Because I heard you, that’s why. I heard you telling your brothers what you really think of me. You made me—I thought—no, never mind that. Guess my pride was all I had left, Stark. So I went by myself.

“He gave it to me all right. And then he drugged me. Said someone wanted me gone. Was it you?
Was it?
”

Stark shook his head sharply in pained negation then stepped closer, as if compelled. “Of course it wasn’t me, you little fool.”

She backed away. “I’m a fool all right. I
cried
for you.” Her voice was shaking now. “Wondered if you thought I was dead—and then ... then you walked off your ship with your fancy woman—you had her, didn’t you? While you were on that ship.”

The look in his eyes, the dull creep of red across his cheekbones said it all.

She leaned against a table, her legs almost too weak to hold her upright.

“Didn’t take you long. Did you even notice I was gone?”

“I noticed,” he said harshly.
 

She grabbed at the table for support. “Bet you didn’t. I was just ‘your current woman. A sweet c-cunt’.” She watched that strike home.
 

Striding to her, Stark swept her high in his arms and held her so tightly she couldn’t move.

“Kiri, I didn’t mean it—shouldn’t have said it. You’re more than that. I noticed you were gone, all right. And I’m not letting you go again.”

She should struggle, should insist he let her go her own way. But she was so tired of fighting.
 

As he strode out through the door onto the busy concourse, Kiri closed her eyes and turned her face into his neck, hiding from curious eyes. Hiding from reality.