Captive of Pleasure; the Space Pirate's Woman (The LodeStar Series) (16 page)

She stared up at the holovid readout of the camp hovering under the ceiling, watching the bright blue skies, the sun searing down on the circle of tonts and moored air craft. Tall trees blocked some of the view, their spreading branches with large glossy leaves swaying in a breeze.
 

There were people moving about the camp. Some, clearly warriors, wore sun goggles and vests bristling with weapons over their soft shirts and pants, tall boots covering their feet and lower legs. Others were robed against the sun like Nera. A group of women lounged in the shade of a tont awning. In contrast to the warriors, they wore leggings, pretty tops or long, sleeveless dresses of jewel tones. They were all attractive, adorned with cosmetics and jewelry. Two of them held small children.

Were these the women of whom Nera had spoken, that Stark and his men used for their pleasure? And would she be joining them soon? At least if she had to do so, she would have their companionship. They didn’t look unhappy, so perhaps no one hit them, and they looked as if they got plenty to eat. And with this reassurance she must be content, it seemed. She looked around her, searching for distraction from her fears.

Storm clearly enjoyed personal possessions. Items from the mundane to the beautiful to the mysterious were strewn about his living quarters. A variety of woven throws and pillows were strewn on the leather divan, some lii silk, some fine wool. The floor was covered with hand-knotted rugs in jewel tones.
 

On the hovertray floating at one end of the divan sat a sculptured bird of red Serpentian fire-glass, a knife in an ornate leather sheath and a leather pouch full of game pieces carved from bone. There was also a holovid reader, which she touched with relief. The controls felt as familiar under her fingertips. She had the sense she read a lot.

A cabinet to one side held among other things, a selection of ornate decorative coins and some odd trinkets she could not decipher, as well as a laser weapon, a sleek, ornamented cerametal barrel with what looked like an iridium grip. When she turned it in her hands, a design swirled in the cerametal, ghostly lightning spearing along the barrel. The workmanship was exquisite. She put it carefully back on the shelf.

A beaten metal shield hung over the divan, a long, deadly looking spear behind it. On the shield, graceful painted warriors battled in ancient armor. The victor resembled the shield’s owner, the Storm.
 

He was clearly the master of this tont, his cruiser and this camp of varied beings. Everyone did what he said, and without much protest.
 

Surely this meant she was safe, even if he did use her for sex. It wouldn’t be so bad, not if waking in his arms this morning was any indication. He was very strong and fit. The feel of his hard, muscled body against hers had been very pleasant. She wouldn’t mind sleeping that way every night.
 

She wasn’t going to call him ‘Master’, though. She was almost certain he’d been joking when he instructed her to do that. She would call him...well, nothing, until she heard his real name. She would know it when she heard it.
 

A secret knowledge was growing in her—she was skilled at picking out the nuances of conversation, and parsing how beings related to each other in their particular social hierarchy. She had spent a lot of time doing this—as much time as she spent reading. She could use the knowledge to guide her interactions. She could blend in, like an animal in its habitat.

She wandered into the sleeping room. It still smelled of him—a spicy man scent that she liked very much. It made her want to bury her nose in the source and just inhale. Unlike the slavers and the beings at the auction, he was very clean—that is when he didn’t smell of another woman.
 

When he had her, Zaë, in this big bed, he would smell of her afterward. This thought caused an odd but not unpleasant twist low in her belly, but it also made her face and throat feel hot, and her breasts tighten so that she had to press her palms to her nipples to soothe them.
 

Turning away from the bed, she saw his storage locker, built of ultra-light cerametal into the core walls of the tont.
 

When she opened it, his scent was stronger. On a shelf sat a small box of male rings and armbands. Necklaces hung from hooks. She ignored them. Leaning in, she breathed in and then gave a hum of pleasure. Closing her eyes, she pretended it was he standing before her, and not his leathers hanging from a hook.

“Spying?” a deep voice inquired close behind her.

A scream ripped from her throat. She started violently, tripped over his feet and fell backward, into his arms. His big hands closed on her arms and pulled her back, away from the cubby.
 

“Nothing of value in there,” he said, his voice hard. “Although, guess you’ve figured that out by now. Just the same, you don’t mind if I search you, do you, bunny?”

Her heart pounding with fear, face and throat burning with shame, Zaë stood still as he slid his hands over her, from shoulders to knees, and everywhere in between. She made a small sound when he cupped her breasts and stroked down over them and then into the valley between, then again when his hands moved down, one probing the notch between her thighs from the front, the other sliding deep from behind. The heat of his fingers burned through her thin pants, and that low twist of tension occurred again, then disappeared in fear.

Without a word to her, he let her go, but only to delve his fingers into her hair. With slow precision he wound it in a rope down the middle of her back. Then he exerted pressure, tugging her head back and to the side, so she had no choice but to look over her shoulder into his face.
 

His eyes were narrowed, and full of suspicion that smote painfully at her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was only...curious, really. I wouldn’t take anything. I am not a thief.”

He coiled the rope of her hair more tightly around his hand, and she stumbled back against him, her head on his shoulder. She was panting, shallow panicked breaths.
 

“Oh, wouldn’t you? And how do you know this, my Zaë? Since you can’t recall so much as your name?”

“Because...” She searched desperately for the truth that had seemed so self-evident when the words came out of her mouth. Pain stabbed behind her temple and she flinched. “I—I don’t know. I feel that it’s true, that’s all.” Then she whimpered and lifted her hand to her head. “Please. It hurts.”

He let her go instantly, his arm going around her to support her as she swayed. “What? I hurt you? Fuck me, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

She leaned into him, her hair sliding down her neck and over her shoulder as it uncoiled. “No, not you. My head...whenever I try to remember.”

His hand came up to cup the back of her head. It felt good, so warm and strong, the heat soothing away the pain. She pressed her face into his shirt, her breath catching on a sigh as his musky scent filled her nostrils. Even with the sweat of the summer heat, he smelled good.

“Well, you won’t find any answers in my clothing,” he said. “Anything of value is laying out somewhere. And you wouldn’t plant anything among my possessions, would you, my Zaë?”

“No.Why would I do that?”
 

“Why, indeed?” he mused, his fingers playing in her hair, while his other hand rested in the small of her back, as hot as a brand. “Unless
you’re
the plant, courtesy of Cerul.”

Zaë tipped her head back and looked up at him. “Who is Suh-rool?”

He gazed into her eyes. For Zaë, time slowed. The sounds of the camp receded, leaving only her blood swishing slowly in her veins, and her breath soughing in and out, in and out. His silver eyes took on a bluish tinge as he leaned closer.

“Tell me true, Zaë,” he murmured, his deep voice like velvet. “Why are you here?”

“Because you rescued me,” she said, the words flowing from her mouth as if set free by a force outside her body. “You saved me.”

“Why else?” he probed.
 

The tugging in her mind grew stronger. She blinked and then frowned. “Stop that.”

His brows lifted. “Stop what?”

“I can feel you pushing at my mind. It won’t—I mean, I don’t think it will work on me.”

“And you know this because...?”

“I don’t
know.
I just feel it.”

He cocked his head, regarding her with interest. “Huh. You have any other skills I should know about, my Zaë?”

“I don’t know.” She ducked her head to hide against his chest. Did she?

“So there’s no other reason you’re here,” he muttered.
 

“Well,” she fumbled. “Um, because I’m yours now.”

He chuckled, his broad chest quivering under her cheek.
 

“You said so,” she reminded him.

“Because I said so. Ah, if only the rest of the galaxy was as amenable, bunny.”

His hand tightened on her back and then slid away. He set her away from him. Dizzy from the loss of his strength, she plopped on the edge of the bed. She looked up at him.
 

“So, with those big blue eyes of yours, you part Indigon, my Zaë?”

“Oh,” she breathed, startled. “That’s—
you
are part Indigon, aren’t you? That’s how you are able to probe minds.” A chill of fear trickled down her spine despite the warmth of the room. Indigons were dangerous.
 

“Me? I’m just a man, as you can see.”

She shook her head. “Your eyes...I saw something.” Deep indigo blue. Just a flash, but it had been there.

He leaned toward her. “Yeah, well, my father was a loser, but at least he left me something worthwhile. But keep it to yourself, bunny.”
 

“Why do you call me that?” she asked.

A half-smile quirked up one side of his sensual mouth. “Because, when I first came out here, I found a baby desert bunny cowering under a shrub. When I picked it up and held it in my hands, it sat very still, quivering the only evidence it was still alive. The softest thing I’ve ever touched, with beautiful liquid eyes. It smelled of the blossoms it had been nibbling.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”

He gave her look of disgust. “Hells no. I let it go. Between one breath and the next, it was gone. Vanished.”

“Oh, good. How amazing to hold a creature like that.” A wild thing, there one moment and gone the next. But after that one would always hold the knowledge its kind were out there. Her hands curled, imagining it.
 

Or remembering. Had she once held one? But though she peered down into her empty hands, trying to summon the memory, this only caused her to wince with pain.

His fingertip crooked under her chin, tipping her face up to meet his obdurate gaze. “Amazing, yeah. Just remember, I’d been hungry, I would’ve eaten that bunny and not regretted it. There are plenty of beings, some right here in this camp, who’ll eat you up—figuratively at least. My men are rough, so are many of the women.”

“I went outdoors earlier, just outside the tont, and no one bothered me. I like being outside.” She seemed to crave it, or perhaps just the freedom it represented. No walls, no ceiling but the sky.

He grunted, and she looked up to see his narrowed gaze on the cupboard. “We pretty much live outdoors here—the whole point of camping. I suppose I can put a marker on you. Kind of a tether, to let everyone know to go gentle on you, and keep track of you.”

“A what?” She pulled away. “I will wear no such thing.”
 

“You’ll wear what I give you. In fact, I’ve just the thing.” He gave her the edge of his sly, silvery gaze, then turned away to rummage in a chest. “Know it’s in here somewhere...ah. Here we are. Got this off a merchant on Serpentia. Specialty shop, for wealthy beings with pets.”

Zaë did not like the way he said the word ‘pets’, his tone laden with hidden meaning. Nor did she like the look of the metal collar in his hand. Oh, it was lovely and ornate, with jewels winking from the oblong links of silvery metal, but it was still a collar.
 

 
She drew her feet up onto the bed, scuttling backward like a beetle. “I won’t,” she said, her heart pounding. “I’m not your—your pet.”

He tossed the necklace up in the air and caught it, the delicately wrought metal dripping from his tanned, powerful hand. He raised his brows. “You won’t, eh? Then I reckon you’re choosing to stay in here,
pet
.”

Oh, why had she blurted out her objection using that word? Now she’d given him another term with which to tease her.

“No, no, please?” she begged. “I will be very careful. I won’t go far at all. I will sit right outside your tont, and be very still. Like a-a bunny.” A wild thing, ready to spring for freedom.

He didn’t answer. He also didn’t move. And the set of his hard face said there was no give in him, not for this. The gleam in his eye said he was enjoying their contest of wills.

She glowered at him, only just swallowing the angry words that beat at the back of her throat. He was larger and more powerful than she. If she didn’t wear the collar, he could keep her trapped in these small rooms. Even if she ran, she had nowhere to go. And if she made him angry enough, he might still sell her.