Thieves In Paradise (8 page)

He felt something when he looked at her, and as much as she hated to admit it, she did, too.

But a well placed rock lobbed at his sleeping back would go a long way toward curing them both of any adolescent attachments. She busied herself collecting ammunition while he slept.

The visions rarely came in dreams, but when they did, they were more vivid and detailed than usual.

Kol stood watching a Valencian ship descend through the trees not a kilometer away from the wreckage of his shuttle. The long-awaited rescue would be swift and efficient and absolve him of the burden of complete responsibility for the human female.

He moved toward the landing site, with the prisoner following, bound and tethered to him as before.

The Valencians greeted him and immediately offered food and fresh water. They expressed regret over the loss of his ship and amazement that he had survived so well on the desolate planet.

Then, with no warning, one of them struck the prisoner. A vicious slap across her face knocked her to the ground and left her dazed and bleeding. Kol interceded before the Valencian could land a second blow.

"She's to be punished on the authority of Gar Gremin,” the man said and his companion dragged Charity to her feet and pressed an electric prod into the soft flesh of her abdomen. She screamed in agony and doubled over.

Kol rushed forward, but the long barrel of an automatic pulse rifle barred his way. “You've done your duty, bounty hunter. She's ours now."

With the weapon pointed at his heart, he watched one of the Valencian guards kick the prisoner until she lay moaning in the dirt. When he'd finished, the toe of his gray uniform boot was crimson with her blood. Broken sobs had replaced her screams.

Then the second guard turned the pulse rifle on her and fired.

"NO!"

Kol rolled to his feet, sick with anger and disgust. His gut hurt and his heart threatened to tear itself from his chest. Beside him the prisoner sat, staring at him, jaw slack, eyes wide.

"Did something bite you?” she asked.

He held her gaze for a moment, battling with himself. He'd brought prisoners to execution before, murderers, warlords, men who probably deserved punishments far worse than a swift death. He would never have condemned one of them to the abuse he'd witnessed in his vision. He could not allow it, but how could he stop it?

Wordless, he rushed forward and the female scrabbled back, suddenly afraid. He grabbed her wrists and freed her from the cuffs, then tossed them into the underbrush. She rubbed her bruised flesh and in that moment, Kol hated himself as much as he hated the Valencian guards. He was no better than they were.

While she stared, he retrieved her communicator from the case to which he'd transferred the crystals and thrust it into her hand. “Call your allies. You're free to go."

Her mouth worked, but no words came out. Finally, he clamped his hands over her shoulders and shoved her toward the perimeter of the camp. “Go. I will not follow you."

"Uh ... if you don't want to have sex again, why don't you just say so?” She took only one hesitant step and Kol contemplated raising a stunner and chasing her away.

"You need to leave before the Valencians arrive. Hide if you can, and I'll tell them you are dead."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I...” He drew in a deep breath, laced with the rising scent of the pollen. He'd have her again if she lingered too long. “Because if I turn you over to them, they will kill you."

Charity raised a brow. Suddenly the bounty hunter was worried about her dying? “No they won't. Gremin wants me alive.
He'll
kill me.” She cocked a hip at him. “But his lackeys won't."

He reached her in three long strides and curled his trembling hands around her arms again. “Listen to me. His men
will
kill you. He's instructed them to bring your body back to him, in pieces."

She pursed her lips. “That's not his style. I've been—"

A'Kosu shook her. “It's the truth. I've seen it.” With that, his lips twisted in what appeared to be disgust. Why did he care what the Valencian guards would do to her?

"You've seen it?” She glanced at his rumpled bedroll. “You mean you had a dream?"

"A vision within a dream.” He held himself still, seeming to calm the tremors in his muscles with visible effort.

"So you have visions?” Whatever he'd seen had enraged him and that terrified Charity.

"Many Antareans have visions. It was a trait bred into us over generations. We see glimpses of the future—not always linear, not always easily interpreted, but always accurate. What we see comes to pass one way or another."

She paced back and forth at the perimeter of the camp, turning her communicator restlessly in her hand. What was she waiting for? She could radio Gossamer and be on her way home before Gremin's people came for her. “You know what's going to happen in the future?"

"Sometimes I see it with perfect clarity. I saw your ship crash and you walk out of the wreckage. I saw myself chasing you through the forest and I saw myself ... the two of us..."

"Fucking?"

"Several times.” He looked away. Did it embarrass him? Charity turned away to hide a blush. No wonder he'd come after her so readily in the lake. He probably already knew she'd be willing.

"Ah. That explains a lot. How come you didn't know about the carnivores?"

"The visions are selective. We cannot control what we see. They don't exist to warn us of danger, but to show us moments in time that will shape who we are. What they show us comes to pass. It cannot be changed except in the most unusual circumstances. I intend this to be one of those times. If you run now, and hide where the Valencians won't find you, perhaps you can avoid your fate."

"Are you going to give me the selenite?"

He moved toward her again and she backed up instinctively. “Aren't you listening? They're going to torture you to death."

"And my contact on Gossamer doesn't give a broken asteroid about me if I don't have the selenite."

"Perhaps you need a better class of allies, then."

"I never said he was my ally, just my contact. I give him the selenite. He gives me four million credits and I take that back to Celrax to buy rations and medicine for the colonists. It's strictly a business deal. There's no friendship involved."

"If I don't at least return the selenite to Gremin, he'll hunt you, and the next bounty hunter who captures you may have orders to kill you himself."

"Then I'm stuck, aren't I? If I have nothing to sell, I'm worthless."

Her words cut Kol to the quick. She obviously meant worthless to her contact, but the deeper meaning was clear. This human judged her worth on what she could steal. Those who depended on the food and medicine her risky endeavor would buy didn't see her as a savior, merely a means to an end.

"There must be someone to whom your life matters more than those crystals. What about your mother?"

Pain flashed briefly in her golden eyes and she let out a harsh laugh. “I'm sure she would care if she was alive. The Dedicants executed her four years ago. One night, we didn't run as fast as we should have and she was captured."

Kol closed his eyes. It bothered him that he felt her anguish. “You have no friends?"

"My friends are starving on Celrax. If they had ships, they wouldn't be there waiting for me to sell stolen ... I mean, not stolen, but, oh, never mind. You get my meaning. Look, A'Kosu, I appreciate that you don't want to see me get killed, I really do. But from where I'm standing the only way to avoid the things you saw in your vision is for me to take the crystals and sell them to my contact as planned. I never had any doubt Gremin would hunt me down. I'm prepared to run for a while, until he gets tired and turns his attention to someone else. I can deal with that."

"That's the life you plan to lead? Running in fear like your mother did until the day you're captured and killed?"

"What other life is there?” She fixed him with a stare that arrowed right through his chest and constricted his lungs. Then she stalked off into the darkening forest.

He waited a beat, unsure of what to say to her. When he caught up to her she had opened the communicator, but hadn't activated it. He closed a hand over her shoulder, and she stiffened at his touch. “I'll give you the selenite."

She didn't turn, only bowed her head. “And fail in your mission? Gremin won't accept that."

"I'll worry about Gremin. Call your contact and tell him to hurry. He must get here before the Valencians do."

Charity sat before the fire A'Kosu had built and turned a single selenite crystal over and over in her hands. She'd won. She'd escaped from Gremin's influence without even really trying and soon she'd be free of the bounty hunter as well. Why wasn't she pleased with herself?

On the far side of the crackling fire, A'Kosu stared into the flames. He'd been silent for so long, she'd begun to wonder if he might be having another vision. In the dark, with his features lit only by the firelight, he looked dangerous and surreal, born to be a warrior.

That thought excited her, made her long to feel his hands on her again.

She dismissed her growing desire as another reaction to the pollen. Though specs of the golden dust still fell lazily from the leaves, the musky, intoxicating scent had dissipated to just a faint perfume on the breeze.

Perhaps they'd be able to resist the carnal urges tonight. Charity believed that, right up until the first plaintive mewling of the carnivores reached them through the shadows.

Then A'Kosu's eyes met hers through the rising smoke and she was lost.

They came together on the thermal blanket he'd given her to sleep on. As eager as the animals copulating nearby, they tore at each other's clothing until naked flesh met naked flesh.

This time though, rather than fevered thrusts and a desperate rush to orgasm that would free them both from the thrall of the pollen, A'Kosu's movements were slow, measured. He spread her thighs gently and brushed his fingertips over her waiting sex. The soft touch made her moan for more and writhe beneath his muscular body.

With practiced skill he rose above her and guided his erection inside her. Though she'd grown used to his size, the sensation of his thick cock parting her inner flesh set her shivering with need. His rhythmic thrusts, coupled with the rough touch of his hands on her breasts, her hips, had her lost in wave after glorious wave of passion.

Charity forgot about the proximity of the carnivores, and let her voice rise to urge him on. She met each incursion eagerly and cried out, louder each time as her body ripened toward climax.

Braced above her with one hand, he wrapped one muscular arm around her waist, sealing her sweating body to his, and when he shuddered with his own release, she called his name, not caring what manner of creature might respond.

"A'Kosu! Finish me. Make me come."

"Kol.” The word escaped his lips as he drew back, preparing to fulfill her request. “My name is Kol."

Charity barely heard his soft words. Her body reacted to the hot rush of his ejaculation, spasming to draw his pulsing sex deeper toward her womb.

Some still-coherent part of her brain registered the significance of his sharing his true name with her, and that knowledge heightened her pleasure and touched her soul.

She wrapped her trembling legs around him to pull him even closer against her, and she brought her hands up to his face. With a gentle sigh, she guided her lips to his and drank him in.

As if he'd waited all his life for her kiss, Kol dove into her hungrily. He devoured her, sucking her tongue, tasting her lips. Charity pulled away only long enough to gasp in a breath of the musky night air, flavored with the scent of pollen and their own co-mingled pheromones. Then she took his mouth again, meeting his new demands as readily as she'd taken his cock inside her.

Together they sank into a dim oblivion, letting passion guide them eventually into contented sleep.

When Kol woke later, the forest was silent. He attributed the quiet to the coming of dawn, those few precious moments on any world when all of nature sleeps at once.

Next to him, curled in the crook of his arm, Charity slept so deeply he could barely discern the rise and fall of her chest.

He'd told her his name.

In the heat of their unnatural coupling, he'd given her something reserved only for those who had earned their place in his life.

The word “unnatural” echoed in his head as he shifted position to allow her more room on the scant bedroll. Last night hadn't been a reaction to the pollen. Anyone versed in rudimentary botanics could tell Lebron's hyper-growth cycle was ending.

No.

Last night he'd taken her because he wanted her, and he didn't need a vision to tell him he would do it again.

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"I hear the ship! It's here.” Charity practically danced through their campsite late that afternoon, dropping a precious container of water in the dirt in her haste to collect their scattered belongings.

Kol rose and instinctively kicked dirt over the fire he'd just prepared. “Who is here?"

"My contact from Gossamer. I recognize the ship. He's hovering over the lake. I know he saw me. He'll be landing on the far beach no doubt—there's no closer space that's wide enough, so we may have to wade through the shallows to reach him. Let's go! Goddess, bless us, we're getting off this rock."

Relief battled with natural apprehension, but that didn't stop Kol from snatching up the last of their supplies and the selenite. He raced after Charity, who sprinted along the treacherous forest trails as though she'd been born to the place.

She'd be free now, and Kol would have to decide how to present his failure to the tribe. The A'Kosu elders would not be pleased that he had doubted the veracity of his visions, or that he had allowed personal feelings to interfere with his work.

He pushed his anxiety aside now and followed Charity all the way to the narrow crescent beach. When he reached her position, she pointed at the dilapidated hull of the descending trade ship. The monstrosity looked cobbled together from a host of spare parts like a mechanical chimera.