Laura Jo Phillips (17 page)

“I realize that the faulty human was to blame Lio,” he said, his voice so pure and sweet it hurt Lio’s ears.  “But you hired him.  I’m afraid that you must accept some of the blame, as well as some of the punishment.”  Za-Queg pulled a small blue rectangle from his pocket and Lio resigned himself to what he knew was coming.  Za-Queg pushed a button, then tossed the now useless device to the floor.  Lio tried to ignore the stench of scorched flesh and kept his eyes trained on Za-Queg.

Za-Queg smiled, that beautiful, angelic smile that frightened Lio the most.  “I destroyed your men who allowed themselves to be captured by the Jasani,” he said.  “Unfortunately, the
berezi
and the prime controller both survived the explosion.  I want them back, Lio.  You have one week.”  Lio started to bow, but froze when Za-Queg raised a finger.  “And, while you are about it, obtain for me the Dracon’s Arima as well, won’t you?” 

The last order caused Lio to finally lose his rigid control as his mouth fell open in surprise and horror.  Luckily for him, Za-Queg did not notice as he was already gone. 

Lio took a deep breath and slowly got to his feet, moving carefully due to the pain in his knees from kneeling on the hard floor for so long.  He noted with disgust that his entire office was splattered with blood and other less identifiable bits of what had once been Murray.  It wasn’t the first time either, which was why he no longer had carpeting on his floor.  He raised a shaky hand to wipe away something on his forehead and froze at the gore he saw there.  He dropped the hand to his side and walked to the corner where he kept his toys. 

The blue one was now a useless lump of flesh, the back of its head missing from the explosion of the controller Za-Queg had detonated.  Lio regretted the loss of his possession.  He had planned to turn both toys back over to the slavers for redistribution and a hefty credit to his account.  Now he would not be able to get anything for the blue one.  As expensive as the prime controllers were, he could have used the money from the sale of both of them. 

Well, he thought, at least he still had one.  As angry as Za-Queg had been, he must consider himself fortunate that only one had been destroyed.  He gave no thought at all to the person the blue toy, Lisa Tepping, had once been.

Lio turned around and walked to his desk, ignoring the pile of flesh on the floor that had once been Hap Murray.  He flipped a switch, curtly ordered his assistant to have his office cleaned and the refuse removed, then headed for his private bathing room to shower.  He had some serious planning to do, but he could not do it while covered in Hap Murray.

Chapter
15

Darleen Flowers slowed her ground-car to a stop just before passing through the main gate of the Dracon Ranch.  All of this could have been hers, she thought.  If only she’d had a little more time, she could have made it happen.  A little more time, and a sister who was a little more forth-coming with the facts about Jasani males, she amended.  Sometimes she had difficulty believing she and Caitlyn came from the same gene pool.

Darleen had been making men dance to her tune since she was old enough to realize that her big blue eyes and golden curls blinded them to anything and everything else.  That had been when she was four.  Now she was thirty-four and all too aware that her looks were beginning to fade.  Her first real clue to that had been when two men had filed blackmail charges against her, forcing her to flee Earth just ahead of an arrest warrant.  Ten years, even five years earlier such a thing would never have happened, she was certain of that.  Even though she herself could not see any signs of aging in the mirror, (and she spent a great deal of time looking) she was sure that somehow, men could sense such things.

By the time she had reached Jasan, she had worked herself into quite a little depression.  She had gathered her luggage and called Caitlyn out of the blue to tell her that she was there to visit, then sat down to wait for her sister to come and get her. 

That Caitlyn had no warning of her arrival, that she had a business to run, and that it was a three hour drive to the spaceport from the small town of Granite Falls where she lived, were facts that did not concern Darleen in the least.  It never even occurred to her that she was putting her sister out, and if it had, she would not have cared.

While she sat waiting in the spaceport for her sister to arrive, she noticed that there seemed to be a great number of unusually stunning men among the crowds coming and going.  Men unlike anything she had ever seen before.  Tall, lean, muscular men with handsome faces and piercing eyes.  And they all seemed to come in sets of three.  After awhile she got up and went in search of a gift shop where she found several different tourist booklets on Jasan.  She bought them all, returned to her seat and read them cover to cover.  She didn’t learn a lot, but what she did learn was, to her mind, the most important information.

There were two types of Jasani.  Citizen Jasani, who were essentially transplanted humans and humanoids and their offspring, and Clan Jasani.  It was the Clan Jasani, the people native to the planet, that interested her.  She learned that their weren’t very many of them, and that they were all male.  There were no female Clan Jasani.  As a result, they were constantly clamoring for more human women willing to marry and have children with them, and they married one woman to three brothers. 

While the idea of having children was in no way appealing to Darleen, the fact that Jasan seemed a wealthy, if rural, planet did appeal to her.  A lot.  She’d marry three brothers if they had enough cash.  Hell, she’d marry ten if they were really rich.

By the time Caitlyn arrived to pick her up at the spaceport, Darleen’s depression was gone.  If there was one thing she was confident of, it was her ability to hook any man she wanted, whenever she wanted.  She might be getting older, but she could still pass for 25 if she was careful enough with the cosmetics.  Besides, these Jasani men were desperate.  That would help.  All she had to do was settle in and take her pick.

Darleen laughed bitterly at the memory as she sat staring up at the stylized dracon carved into the arch over the main gate.  When she’d arrived on Jasan a year earlier, she had not seen any reason to think that Jasani men would be different from human men.  Males were males.  Or so she had thought.  She had learned a lot since then. 

The first shock had been learning that Jasani men were shifters, and that they all turned into some sort of animal.  She’d also learned that, as a human woman, if she were to marry and have children with a Jasani male-set all of her children would be male, and they would also be shifters.

The information about children didn’t matter to Darleen.  She had no intention of having children.  Even the knowledge that the men turned into animals didn’t bother her too much any more now that she’d had time to get used to the idea. 

The one fact that had brought her up short was that Jasani men had no sexual desire until they drank some sort of potion during a mating ritual.  Even then, their desire was only for their mate and they could not, literally
could not
have sex with another woman.  Ever.

She’d almost given up and headed back to Earth once she’d learned that.  After all, it effectively nullified her greatest strengths.  It was then she’d learned the most important thing there was to know about mating Jasani males.  Their women were given the gift of regeneration.  They would live for hundreds of years and never show any sign of aging.  Darleen wanted that.  She wanted that more than she wanted anything else.  Even money.  And she meant to have it, one way or another.

Of course, that didn’t mean money wasn’t important too.  She knew that she could have her pick of dozens of male-sets but she was Darleen Flowers, and Darleen Flowers never settled for less than the best.  And why should she?  She was the sexiest, the prettiest, and the most desirable female on the planet and anyone who didn’t agree with that was either blind, or stupid.  She was the best; therefore, she deserved the best.  She had done her homework and set her sights on the Dracon brothers.  The Royal Princes of Jasan.

She sighed and shook her head.  No use thinking about it.  It was done.  If Jasani males had been like human males, she would have easily seduced them away from the little, red-haired, freckle faced, urchin they had mated with.  But Jasani males were
not
like human males. 

So, after throwing one of her infamous temper tantrums, during which she had caused rather a lot of damage in her sister’s shop and been permanently banned from it, she’d had to go back to square one.  And square one had been filled quite nicely with the Lobo brothers.  They were not royalty, but they were the Prime Guardians, and as such very close to the Dracon Princes.  Even more important, they were rich. 

Darleen had been unable to learn exactly how rich they were because such things were kept private on Jasan and never discussed.  Darleen didn’t really understand that, but she recognized a social taboo when she saw one and left the subject of money alone.  It had been far easier to learn that the Lobos had a ranch adjacent to the Dracon’s that was nearly as big.  They had other people run it for them most of the time because of their responsibilities to the Princes, but Darleen imagined that with a ranch that size, they had to be wealthy.

Unfortunately for her, the only way she could think of to get close to the Lobos was to become friends with Lariah Dracon.  Ugh.  The woman was a waste to the position she held.  If it had been her…but no, she thought, stop thinking about that.  Instead, think about the last time you saw Ban Lobo and he asked, oh so casually, whether or not she would be interested in mating with a Jasani male-set, given everything she knew about them.

Darleen had played it as cool as she could given how excited she had been to finally hear one of them mention mating to her.  She had not made the mistake of trying to hide her excitement.  Instead, she played it up, passing it off as extreme nervousness and uncertainty.  She had told Ban that she saw no reason why any sensible woman would refuse such an offer, if one were made.  Then she had left immediately, afraid she would do or say something to give herself away. 

That had been during her last visit with Lariah a week earlier.  She had barely been able to force herself to wait her usual week before returning again, but finally the day had arrived.  At long last, the endless months of scheming were about to pay off.  Darleen smiled to herself as she drove through the gate onto Dracon land and headed towards the main house.

Chapter
16

Saige and Lariah sat on the patio sipping something yellow that tasted a lot like cherry juice with a healthy dose of chocolate thrown in, but which Lariah promised was actually fruit juice.  Though the sun was shining, it was chilly outside so they were dressed warmly and Lariah had a blanket across her lap.  Or, more accurately, she had a blanket over the gigantic bulge of her tummy which, much to Saige’s delight, occasionally jumped and twitched as the three babies kicked or rolled or danced or whatever it was they did inside there.  For a moment Saige tried to imagine what it would feel like to have babies moving inside of her, then pushed the thought away.  Such a thing would never happen for her and that was a fact.  Period.  No use in dreaming otherwise.

It had been a busy morning for them both, though Saige had finally been forced to threaten Lariah with calling Garen if she didn’t sit down and stay put.  Saige had seen enough of the interactions between Garen, Trey, Val and Lariah to know that the Dracons all but worshipped Lariah and would never harm a hair on her head.  Nor was Lariah afraid of her men.  She just didn’t want them hauling her off to bed and coddling her, which they would do if Saige hinted to them that she was overdoing things.  So she sat and stayed while Saige went through the three suitcases retrieved from the car fire. 

The first thing Saige discovered was that her toiletries bag was a total loss.  Everything inside of it had melted into one large blob.  That had been very upsetting, but she had pretended it didn’t really matter.  Lariah was watching her and she did not want her friend to become upset. 

She moved onto her clothes and, at first, she thought that most of them would be fine once washed.  That was before she realized how many melted buttons and zippers there were.  Many of the items that were made of stretchy fabric were so brittle they crumbled when she picked them up.  Items that were packed near the top or the bottom of the suitcases were scorched beyond repair.  Saige kept reminding herself that she and the Lobos were all alive.  That helped her to accept the loss of so many of her belongings.  Clothes, makeup and shampoo could be replaced.

When she was finished she was relieved that she’d been able to salvage about half of her clothing, a couple of pairs of shoes, a small velvet pouch containing her mother’s jewelry and a few good pieces of her own, and a few other items.  She was particularly happy to discover that the small photo album that contained the only images she had of her parents was undamaged, as was the antique silver hairbrush, comb and mirror set that had been passed down to the females of her family for generations.

Suly had graciously insisted on washing her clothes for her while she and Lariah took a break on the patio.  Saige had not been able to keep herself from hugging the older woman, something she rarely did even with those few people she knew well, aside from Lariah.