Warlord Reunited: 3 (Barbarian Claims) (6 page)

Berke gazed into her flushed face, unable to look away, having never seen anyone or anything as beautiful as his
gerel
. She was the heat to his coldness, the light to his darkness, the heart beating in his chest and the air in his lungs.

Ellie quieted and leaned her forehead against his chest, her breath hot on his skin, and he held her, the swelling at the base of his cock serving as an unbreakable physical link, a connection between the two of them.

I can’t lose her.
Berke clutched his little female closer to him. “I care, Ellie.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I care too much.”

“Territory scan complete, Captain,” the ship informed Elle three peaceful planet rotations later, that time having been spent orbiting Chamele 4, strengthening the ship’s defenses and rutting with her sexually insatiable Warlord. She couldn’t recall a time when she’d been happier. “Sixteen humanoids detected. Zero clones detected.”

“Impossible,” Berke scoffed, clad only in leg coverings and black boots, his big body dominating the chair beside her. “It must be a malfunction. I’ve requested all of our hunting parties to return to their home planets and prepare for an attack against Tolui.”

“You’re assuming they’re Chameles.” Elle transferred the information, displaying the sixteen humanoid heat signatures on the main viewscreen, the proof indisputable. The heat signatures ranged in size and shapes, each believably unique. “Your malfunction is heading toward the K
hatagtai
Mountains.”

“They’re off-planet squatters.” Berke leaned forward in his seat, the muscles over his back rippling, and Elle’s fingers twitched, her desire to touch him, to stroke his tanned skin, escalating. “How did we not detect them?”

“How indeed?” she asked dryly. “The monitoring system for this planet is older than I am. My first-solar-cycle students could land on Chamele 4 without detection.”

Red color streaked across Berke’s scarred cheeks. “It’s an inhospitable planet, unfit for permanent settlement.” He edged his voice with ice, his tone not fooling Elle. Her Warlord was clearly embarrassed by his failure. “And we’ve been preoccupied with fighting the war.”

“While I have one hundred and seven bounty hunters in training monitoring planets, places no one wishes to have monitored” Elle replied, her words as clipped and emotionless as his. “But yes, yes, they’re safe.” She anticipated his response. “As safe as I was on Dorian 2.” She touched the scar on her neck.

Berke lowered his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes, his face hard. “Ellie,” he growled.

The heat signatures disappeared. “Wait.” She scanned the area and couldn’t locate them. “You were correct, Berke.” Elle frowned. “It must have been a malfunction.” She edged the ship closer to one of Chamele 4’s moons, expanding her search. The heat signatures didn’t reappear. “Because they’re gone.”

“They’ve accessed the ancient tunnels.” Berke stared at the main viewscreen, his chin jutted, his profile as cragged as the ice-covered mountains on his home planet. “The rock on Chamele 4 acts as a shield, blocking all signals.” He swept one of his big hands over his hair, pushing the long black tendrils back. “I’ll add evicting squatters to my tasks to do.”

“It would be a great training exercise for my more advanced students.” Elle continued with her campaign, determined to prove to Berke that she and her students would add value. “They could work together, supervised by the trainers, experienced bounty hunters.”

“Ellie.”

“The junior females could upgrade your antiquated monitoring systems, detecting future squatters and possibly clone invasions.” She ignored Berke’s pussy-moistening growl, warming to the possibilities. “We’d run flights over the N
oirsooroi
Desert and—”

“An unidentified warship has entered the system, Captain,” the ship interrupted. “The unidentified warship has locked upon us.”

“What?” Elle straightened in her chair, fear coursing down her spine. “How were they able to sneak up on us like that?” She groaned, the answer obvious. “They hid behind the moon.”

“The moon is also shielded.” Berke flicked his fingers over his personal viewscreen, his expression grim. The image of a sleek black warship appeared before them, the more modern vessel having capabilities Elle envied. “That’s one of our warships. It was stolen from a base on Chamele
3 half of a solar cycle ago.”

“You need all of your monitoring systems upgraded,” she muttered, mentally noting to add that to her tasks to do, if they survived this encounter. “We can’t outrun the ship.” She considered their meager options, her ship designed for stealth, not open battle. “We could—”

“The unidentified warship is requesting we open hailing frequencies, Captain.”

“Tolui,” Elle said at the same time as Berke, their voices merging as one. “I told you he’d contact me.” She gave her Warlord a cheeky smile, hoping her assertions about Tolui not wanting to blow them up were also correct. Berke grumbled words in his native language she didn’t yet know. “Let’s see what he wants, shall we? Open hailing frequencies, Ship.”

“Video and audio link established,” the ship chirped.

Tolui’s broad, scarred face was projected upon the main viewscreen. His black eyes sizzled with unrestrained rage, his chest was bare and his long hair pushed back from his forehead. “I want the Chamele Warlord,” he demanded, forgoing communications protocol, his voice containing a Berke-like brusqueness.

“Do you?” Elle typed onto her personal viewscreen, silently instructing her ship to scan the warship for life forms. “I want to know how you escaped your restraints,” she quipped, playing the worlds-weary bounty hunter.

“I’m willing to pay for the Warlord.” Tolui ignored her request, staring straight at her, his jaw squared and his teeth partially bared in a menacing scowl.

He resembles Berke.
Elle placed an image of Berke on the main viewscreen, the similarities between their facial features uncanny and undeniable. Her Warlord stiffened beside her.

“There is more than one bounty on this fugitive’s pretty head.” Elle forced a coldness she didn’t feel. Tolui threatened her male, her mate. “If you want preferential treatment, you’ll have to top the highest bounty by ten percent.”

“I agree to that payment.” Tolui answered too quickly, not responding with the expected counteroffer.

Because he doesn’t plan to pay the bounty. He plans to kill both of us.
Elle tapped her short, blunt fingernails against the leather armrest, debating her next move.

Her personal viewscreen flashed red. She glanced at the results of the scan and a tremor rolled down her spine, the situation growing more complicated by the heartbeat. She sent the results to Berke. He inhaled sharply.

Elle muted the link and covered her mouth with her hand. “It’s Tolui. You see how angry he is. No one other than Tolui hates you that much.”

“Five clones, no humanoids are on board the warship,” Berke answered. “Those were the results of the scan. How can he be Tolui?”

How can he be Tolui?
Elle froze, the answer obvious. She reactivated the link, requiring confirmation. “You’re a clone.”

Tolui’s face darkened. “I am.” His eyes flashed with heated emotion. “Do you have a problem with that?”

He’s a clone, but a clone of whom?
Elle leaned back in her chair, her gut telling her Berke wouldn’t like the answer. “Does your humanoid source have a claim to the credits?”

Tolui glared at her. Elle gazed blankly at him, showing no emotion, having spent most of her life negotiating with beings more fierce than the Chamele
rebel.

“My Chamele
source deserted me after your fugitive, his beloved first son, was born,” Tolui spat, extending his claws. “He’s now dead and even if he wasn’t, I owe him nothing.”

The source had to be Berke’s beloved father.
Elle stared coolly at Tolui, concealing her emotions under a layer of ice, unable to turn her head and see her Warlord’s pain. Their lives depended upon her responses.

“Then I don’t have a problem with you being a clone,” she replied, her voice flat. “I’m sending you the transfer details.” She tapped on her personal viewscreen, relaying the information through the communications link. “Once I’ve confirmed receipt of the credits, I’ll grant you access to my ship.”

“Double-cross me, bounty hunter, and I’ll
take
access of your ship,” Tolui growled.

“I’ve heard that threat before, Chamele, and I remain here.” Elle gave him a small smile. “Ship, end transmission.” The main viewscreen returned to the image of Chamele 4, the red planet set against a black sheet of distant stars.

Elle exhaled, sagging in her seat, the tension easing from her shoulders. “We survived…barely. Tolui is extremely paranoid.” She slid her gaze to Berke.

He clasped his chair’s armrests, his spine rigid, his knuckles white and his claws extended. “He’s not a clone of my father.” Berke glared at the main viewscreen. “My father banned cloning. He wouldn’t enforce a law he’d already broken.”

Elle rose to her booted feet and shook the wrinkles out of her blue flight suit, choosing her words carefully, not wanting to increase her mate’s pain. “Perhaps that’s why your father made the law.” She moved to the first officer’s chair, standing between Berke and the main viewscreen. He continued to stare straight ahead, his gaze not shifting. “He realized from his own experience how dangerous cloning could be.”

Berke didn’t reply, his lips pressed together in a grim white line.

Elle slipped into his lap, his thighs solid under her ass, and her stoic Warlord tightened his grip on the armrests, digging his fingers into the leather. She sighed. Berke’s father had been his hero, a being who could do no wrong.

“I never met your father.”
I’ve never met any members of his family.
“But from the way you’ve talked about him, I know he was a great ruler.” Elle touched Berke’s forehead, reveling in his warm skin. “No ruler is perfect though and part of caring for someone is accepting all of them, their strengths, their weaknesses, their wisdom and their mistakes.” She brushed her fingers over his hair, stroking him, petting him, wishing to ease his torment, not knowing how.

Silence stretched, moments and distance hanging between them, and then Berke surged forward, wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face between her breasts. Elle held him as he shuddered, his broad shoulders shaking.

“I love you, Berke,” she whispered into his hair. “And we’ll get through this.” She nuzzled her chin into the long black strands, inhaling his distinctive musk. “Together.” Elle caressed his back, following the dip along his spine with her fingertips, rubbing warmth into his skin, lending him her strength, what little she had. “We’ll deal with Tolui.”

“
I’ll
deal with Tolui.” Berke raised his head, his eyes as hard as ice, his cheeks dry. “I’m fixing my father’s mistake, Ellie.” Waves of red-hot rage radiated from her normally cool Warlord.

“Some mistakes aren’t meant to be fixed.” She captured his face between her palms, knowing what he planned to do, feeling his anguish. “Don’t take any action you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret this.” Berke met her gaze squarely. “My father knew cloning himself was wrong. He created a law banning the process. He—”

“He allowed Tolui to live.” She swirled circles over Berke’s scarred cheeks with her thumbs, seeking to restore her mate’s reasoning. “That was your father’s wish.”

“That isn’t my wish.” Berke shifted under her and Ellie reluctantly slid off his lap onto her feet. “I won’t allow a clone of my father to exist.” He leaped out of his chair.

“And I won’t allow you to make a bad decision, not one that will cause you pain.” She faced him squarely, her fists propped on her hips. “You’re not thinking logically, Berke.”

“I always think logically,” he roared, his face flushing and his eyes flashing. “I’m a Warlord. I put my people’s needs before my own. This is a decision I’m making for them.”

“I’m a Warlord’s lady,” Elle yelled back, raising onto the tiptoes of her clunky boots. “I put your needs before my own and I’m protecting you from your own arrogant self.”

Berke glowered at her. She glowered back, not retreating one fraction.

“Foolish female.” He stepped away from her and retracted his claws. “What would you have me do?” His shoulders slumped as though collapsing under the weight of his responsibilities. “Tolui’s very existence puts everything my brothers and I have worked for at risk. It will cause dissention throughout the Chamele system. Some warriors will believe him to be a reincarnation of my father.” Her cool, collected Warlord resurfaced and her tension eased. Elle was able to reason with this version of Berke.

“I understand,” she murmured.

“Do you?” Berke met her gaze. “Because I can’t tolerate an extension of this war, Ellie,” he added softly, sounding heartbreakingly weary. “I won’t survive without you.”

He might not love me but he does care for me.
A warmth spread across Elle’s chest. “Killing your father’s clone will damage your soul, Berke. You won’t be the same being afterward. I know this, here.” She placed his hand over her heart.

“I know this also.” He sighed, splaying his fingers wider, claiming more of her body. “But the alternatives—”

“Are numerous. You’re bonded to the best bounty hunter in the system.” She grinned at him, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel. “I’ve captured Tolui alive once. As I’ve enhanced my restraints, I expect, with your help, I can capture him alive again.”

“We could capture him alive,” Berke repeated slowly as though he were contemplating her plan. “Where would we release him?”

“Tolui might like
Gehenna 5.” Elle leaned into Berke’s body, savoring his hard form. “That prison planet would allow him to vent some of his rage.”

“No one likes Gehenna 5.” Berke pressed his lips against her forehead. “Thank you,
gerel
,” he murmured.