Amorous Overnight (4 page)

“She’s considerably calmer now that the babes are safely delivered.”

“Excellent news, Doctor. My thanks.”

Cecine released an unsteady breath as he sank back to sit on his heels.

Peserin, he had babes, a son and a daughter. He’d fathered two of each in his mating with Antani and a daughter during his scouting mission to Earth. But he hadn’t even suspected Monica existed until she was an adult, and Antani had rarely allowed him to hold his sons when they were younglings—not out of any maternal fondness or protectiveness, but as a means to manipulate him. His daughters, she’d denied him completely.

When their mating was arranged, her mother’s social liberalism had given him foolish hope that Antani would buck tradition and maintain a unified family. Instead, she’d gone to the other extreme after Raia’s birth and relegated him to the male barracks, summoning him to the mating bed only when she desired another babe and her body was ripe for conception. Her coldness had taught him a bitter lesson, one he should have learned in his fifth year, when he was evicted from his mother’s residence along with his father. He’d made his resentment plain enough that after Lstel’s birth, Antani had banished him permanently from her bed and taken her pleasure from the household servants.

It was just the opening salvo in her campaign to punish him. Mere weeks after allowing his sons to join him in the barracks during their fourth and sixth years, she’d had him assigned to a deep-space exploration crew, keeping him away from the planet for months at a time. He’d remained a virtual stranger to their young until Antani finally obliged him by dying a quick but unpleasant death, and then the Narthani biowar attack had claimed both Raia and Lstel just as he was beginning to know them.

He’d missed too much of all his children’s lives, and the urge to hold his new babes, to smell them and bond with them and enjoy them in ways he’d never been allowed to before, was suddenly overwhelming.

It was time to join the council and make his claim to Shelley Bonham official.

Giving Portia’s round hips one last fond squeeze, he climbed off the bed. “Congratulate me, Portia. I’ve just become a father again.”

“Lights eighty percent,” a masculine voice commanded.

Clinging to the haze of drug-induced contentment, Shelley decided against opening her eyes when the infirmary lights went bright on the other side of her eyelids. She didn’t want to see the alien who belonged to that voice.

“Good afternoon, Shelley. Can you hear me?” he asked.

She nodded slowly.

“You know who I am?”

“Shauss,” she whispered. Her heart thudded uncomfortably at the sound of his name on her lips. She hadn’t seen him since that awful day Monica was kidnapped. She’d thought he was going to rape Jasmine right there in front of them all—he probably would have raped her if Commander Kellen hadn’t thought to track Monica with her biometric implant.

“You have nothing to fear, Shelley—Dr. Tiber is here to attend you,” he told her. “Open your eyes, please.”

She obeyed with considerable reluctance, blinking against the infirmary’s blue brightness. Dr. Tiber and Lieutenant Shauss stood beside her bunk, both in full uniform. Tiber gave her an encouraging smile as he laid a hand on her shoulder, while Lieutenant Shauss looked inscrutable—which beat the hell out of coldly furious, the way she’d last seen him. His black eyes were calm, and his straight black hair, striped with thick streaks of ice blue, draped over his broad shoulders like a silken curtain. How could someone so dangerous be so damn pretty?

His lips curled. “It does seem an unfair advantage, doesn’t it?”

Shelley blinked at Tiber, whose smile had widened. “Did I say that out loud?”

He nodded. “You did.”

Truly scared now, she asked, “Where’s Monica?”

“She’s tending to your young while I ask you a few questions,” Shauss said. “Tysan has infused you with corai serum to ensure your honesty, so you will answer me calmly and completely, without dissembling. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Her heart thumped harder. Shit, he was interrogating her? With some kind of truth serum?

“Very good. Were you married to Mark Bonham?”

“Yes.” The word spilled off her tongue before she had time to think.

“Was Mark Bonham his real name?”

“Yes.” Her eyes widened. “I mean, I think it was. That’s what he told me and that’s the name on our marriage certificate, so it must be, right? How would I know if it wasn’t?”

“When did you first discover he was Narthani?” he asked without replying.

“Yesterday, when Monica and Commander Kellen told me he was dead.”

“When did you first know he was sabotaging the ship?”

“Yesterday.” She began to tremble. “Commander Kellen said he killed himself trying to blow up the ship. And us—his own wife and children. He tried to kill us! And now he’s dead, so not only will I not have the pleasure of hauling his alien ass into divorce court but I won’t even get the satisfaction of seeing him tried for interstellar espionage. The fucking coward killed himself and tried to take out everyone else on the ship with him! What kind of monster does that? Tell me! What kind of fucking monster does that?”

It wasn’t until Tiber rubbed her back that Shelley realized she was screaming at them and crying at the same time.

“Be at ease, Shelley,” he said in a soothing tone. “All will be well.”

“I’m sorry.” Completely embarrassed, she looked away, wiping her eyes as she tried to calm her racing heart. “How could I ever have thought I loved a man who would kill his own children?”

“Thank you for your honesty, Shelley,” Shauss said.

The satisfaction glittering in his eyes pissed her off all over again. “Like I had any choice,” she spat.

He shrugged. “You’ll thank me for it later.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Now I want to dig a little deeper,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

Her breath stilled. “What do you mean?”

He exchanged a glance with Tiber. “Why don’t we start with how you really feel about the Garathani…”

Chapter Two

Shelley lay on the infirmary bunk and stroked her newborn son’s bald head while he dozed against her breast. As Monica had predicted, she really did feel like an idiot now for getting so freaked out about the delivery. Despite having undergone the Garathani equivalent of a C-section earlier, she felt very little physical discomfort, aside from some swelling from the transdermal fluid infusion, and her incision was already so faint as to be undetectable.

Her psyche, however, wasn’t as fortunate. Despite Tiber’s presence, Shauss’s interrogation had been the most frighteningly invasive experience of her life.

She blinked back tears of humiliation. The lieutenant’s heart was as cold, hard and black as his eyes—he now knew more about her than her own husband had. He’d explored places inside her head where even she’d never wanted to go and made her face some unpleasant truths. With just a few seemingly innocuous questions, he’d exposed her for what she was—a tool for just about anyone who wanted to use her.

Try riding that dragon, Zen girl.

“Shelley?”

Startled, she looked up to see Jasmine King standing just inside the infirmary door.

“Oh wow, look at you,” Shelley breathed. “Good Lord, and I thought you were gorgeous before. I think I hate you.”

When Monica had stopped by to gossip earlier that afternoon, she’d told her all about Jasmine’s transition, but nothing could have prepared Shelley for the seven-foot reality of a full-blooded Garathani female. It was all she could do not to gape—like Monica, Jasmine was skin and bones, but she’d grown a lot taller and was almost ethereally beautiful.

Monica had also told her Jasmine was mated to both Shauss and Tiber, which just blew Shelley’s mind. While she might be the teeniest bit envious that Jasmine’s crush had developed into TLA and she’d gotten a burning hunk of alien medical professional in the bargain, the idea of being mated to the brutal lieutenant made Shelley’s skin shrivel with horror.

“Are you up for visitors?” Jasmine asked, looking uncertain.

Although she’d hardly slept since she came aboard and was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life, Shelley dredged up a smile and patted the edge of the bunk. “Please, come sit down and talk to me.”

Anything to get her out of this bleak, terrified headspace.

Jasmine walked over and sat down gingerly. “They’re beautiful,” she said, looking back and forth between the baby in Shelley’s arms and the tiny baby girl asleep in the bassinet.

“Thank you.” Shelley stroked her son’s head again. “It’s a miracle they’re so healthy. If it weren’t for the treatments Dr. Tiber gave me, their lungs might not be so well developed.”

“What did you name them?”

“Nothing yet. I’d planned to name him after his—” She swallowed hard and focused her gaze on the iridescent blue wall. She hadn’t cried over him yet and she didn’t intend to start now. Mark Bonham wasn’t worth a single one of her tears.

“I’m so sorry, Shelley.”

“I was married to an alien,” she choked out. “How could I not know that?”

“There was no way you could have.”

Yeah, that’s what everyone kept telling her. Mark’s father was Terran, which explained why he hadn’t had a mating spur, the secondary sexual organ common to Garathani and Narthani males. But there’d been other signs—oh yes, plenty of them. She’d just misread them. God, no wonder he’d rolled his eyes when she accused him of cheating on her and said the last thing he needed was another woman. He’d been too busy fucking up the Garathani to sleep with his own wife, much less anyone else. The bastard.

She sniffled once and then there was no holding back the pain and fear.

“What am I going to do?” she sobbed. “How can I go back to Earth now? My babies are aliens, Jasmine. They’re part Narthani, and now everyone knows it was Narthani who blew up those bases. My God, Mark probably helped.”

“Oh, honey!” Jasmine leaned over and rubbed her back.

Without warning, the infirmary door opened again and an imposing figure in a long scarlet robe stepped inside.

Shelley’s sobs caught in her throat as her heartbeat stuttered. It was Minister Cecine, the man whose beautiful, scarred face had dominated most of her nightmares since Monica’s kidnapping. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget the way he’d handed Jasmine over to Shauss for that cruel and violent interrogation. Shauss’s rage had terrified her, but it was Minister Cecine’s bored detachment while he stood there watching with cold, soulless eyes that had frozen her solid. Even if she’d known then that Monica was his daughter, she still would have been scared stupid.

Jasmine stood up at the sight of him and Shelley grabbed her wrist.

“Stay,” she pleaded, ducking self-consciously to wipe her face on the baby blanket. She bit back a sigh of relief when Jasmine settled back on the bed beside her.

The minister hesitated before taking several slow, measured steps forward until he stood near the foot of her bed. His long flame-red hair clashed with his scarlet robe, but the jarring contrast only added to the overall drama of his appearance. The robe hung open enough to reveal his dark-gray Garathani uniform, and the longest freaking legs she’d ever seen. Right after Monica’s transition, Jasmine had likened her to a greyhound and it was easy to see which side of the family she’d inherited that trait from.

He inclined his head briefly. “Please allow me to express my deepest sympathies, as well as those of the council.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking away.

“If you require anything at all, you have but to ask.” After a moment of silence, he asked, “May I?”

Shelley glanced back up to find him gazing down at her daughter. She tensed but nodded warily. After all, what was he going to do—eat her?

Without hesitation, the minister reached into the bassinet and picked up her tiny, swaddled baby. Tucking her into the cradle of his arm with surprising ease, he held her against his chest and rocked her. His wintry gray eyes didn’t blink as he looked down at her.

“So very beautiful,” he said. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to the baby’s sparse hair.

Something about the way he did that scared the living crap out of Shelley. “Could you put her down, please?”

When he pinned her with that unnerving stare, she repeated herself, only louder. “Put her down!”

“Of course.” He immediately laid the baby in the bassinet and then bowed. “As I said, if you require anything at all, you have only need ask.”

The instant the door closed behind him, Shelley broke down again. “Oh God, what are we going to do?”

Hastion was both excited and terrified to be relieved from the rest of his guard rotation and summoned to Minister Cecine’s table for a late evening meal. He hadn’t expected the minister to contact him so soon after claiming Shelley and her twins. In truth, he hadn’t expected the minister to contact him at all.

“Command Deck,” he said as he entered the tranlift.