Enemy Overnight (25 page)

Jasmine’s eyes watered as she looked up at Shauss, but she managed to restrain her gag reflex and swallow more of him. Oh Lord, how she’d longed for this!

Shauss spread his feet wider and made sure his zipper was as low as it could go. “Do you have any idea how to find my prostate?”

In response, she clutched at his uniform, shaking her head slightly in a negative response. Although that wasn’t what she’d meant when she wished to get her hands on his butt again, the idea of touching him so intimately sent whispers of excitement over every inch of her skin.

“You’ve got long, slender fingers, so it shouldn’t be hard for you to find it. Just curve it toward you when you’re two to three knuckles in and feel for a knot about the size of a walnut. Rub it hard. That should trigger my ejaculation, and you
will
swallow every drop.”

He eased his grip enough for her to pull her head back. She sucked her index finger into her mouth and pulled it out dripping with saliva, looking up at him with trepidation.

“Sometime before it freezes would be good,
aramai
,” he prompted.

Tugging at the opening of his suit with her left hand, Jasmine insinuated her right between his legs, under his scrotum. She watched, thrilled when that ruddy sac tightened. The entrance to his bottom was easy enough to find and the tight muscles there seemed to ease deliberately for her passage.

Letting go of his suit, she wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and took him into her mouth once more, loving him with her lips and her tongue, with the hollows of her cheeks and the back of her throat, while she probed his mysterious heat with her finger. His gasps and deep groans made her bold and she eventually she found the knot of flesh he described.

“That’s it,” he whispered, massaging her head with his strong fingers as she rubbed the knot firmly. “Oh yes, that’s it.”

Heat blazed from his skin and his harsh breathing was startlingly loud in the quiet morning, and Jasmine had never felt her power over him more keenly. She let her gaze travel up his bare, flat stomach, following the arrow of silky black hair over his chest to his face. His head was thrown back, exposing his strong throat, and everything in her melted. Physically, at least, he trusted her.

“Peserin, harder!” he gasped.

Determined now to taste his seed, she obeyed. The rings of muscle in his anus tightened until her finger tingled with numbness but she kneaded him eagerly, and it wasn’t long before he went rigid.

“Now!” He jerked once and she backed up in time to feel the first spurt of his semen hitting her tongue. Growling, he pulled her forward as he thrust again, not stopping until his cock was in the back of her throat. “Swallow it!” he roared.

Unable to do anything else—not that she was inclined to—she went limp in his grasp and swallowed everything he gave her.

Before he’d even stopped pulsing in her mouth, he leaned over and pulled her up into his arms. Breathing in great gusts, he planted an open-mouth kiss on her lips.

“You taste interesting,” he murmured.

“Thank you, Master,” she replied with a cheeky smile.

He smiled back. “No, thank
you
. That was very well done.” Then he set her away from him and fastened himself back into his gear. “Now you’re going to stay here until I tell you all is well. Is that clear?”

She gave him a grudging nod. While his praise was nice, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear—and neither was the order to cower behind him.

“If I’m not back here in ten minutes, you may assume something has happened to me and it’s not safe for you to come in. In that event, you will return to our landing coordinates and wait for a flareout. Understood?”

She didn’t like it, but she nodded again.

After he’d disappeared over the rise, she scooted up to watch him descend. His narrow feet didn’t keep him from sinking into the deep snow, but his long, lean legs carried him through it with ease. Although he scanned the area as he descended, he didn’t look back until he’d reached the mine’s entrance. Even from yards away, she could see his scowl when he spotted her, but she didn’t bother ducking out of sight. What was he going to do, come back and spank her?

She sighed as he slipped into the mine, resting her chin on her hands. The camp looked much the same as she remembered it—utilitarian. It wasn’t built for fun, but for work, and she’d rarely enjoyed their stays here. Only one of her “father’s” associates ever brought her children along, and though Jasmine hadn’t minded babysitting sweet little Cara while their parents were powwowing, Mark had been a different story. When he wasn’t giving her dirty looks with his beady brown eyes, he was hiding in the woods or trying to sneak off into the mine. She’d spent plenty of afternoons trudging through the snow after the rat-faced little stick boy, yelling his name until she was hoarse.

Mark.

Jasmine jerked straight up, her heart pounding thickly as the name echoed through her head. Oh no, surely not. There was no way Mark Bonham was
that
Mark, was there? Camp Mark had been two or three years her junior while Shelley’s Mark was…

She frowned. It was hard to say how old Mark was, but he seemed older. Of course, the fact that he was so much taller than Shelley could have something to do with it, as could the facial hair. And he’d seemed so familiar, though she’d never quite managed to place him.

But if Camp Mark was Narthani, then he couldn’t be Shelley’s Mark because aliens gave Shelley the creeps. She’d said it over and over—if it weren’t for the astronomical signing bonus, she’d never have taken the compound job. She and Mark had plans to build their own house in the Vail Valley after the babies were born and needed a big cash infusion to afford the down payment.

On the other hand, being married to a Narthani would certainly give Shelley a damn good reason to be creeped out by the Garathani. But why would Mark put his own wife—his own
family
—in such danger? Why would Shelley?

No, there had to be another explanation. Shelley would never deliberately jeopardize her unborn babies.

Jasmine rubbed her hands over her eyes, worn out from trying to untangle it all. Realization just beyond her reach hammered on her brain. Something Monica had said about spots of infection in the biologic pad…

In her mind’s eye, she saw Mark walking down the corridor in the predawn hours, trailing his fingers along the wall.

And then she heard Shauss’ telling her he never thought she’d contaminated the steripod—

In Ketrok’s lab
.

Her eyes popped open. Shit, she hadn’t touched the cube in Ketrok’s lab—Mark had. So which cube had been infected, the one she’d touched or the one Mark had touched?

Damn it, why hadn’t she picked up on that earlier, when she could have asked Shauss about it? The suspense of not knowing was going to kill her.

She peeled back her jacket cuff and glanced at her watch. Almost eight minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned yet. Had something happened to him? What was she going to do if he didn’t come back? Could she really go off and leave him alone? She hadn’t really thought it would be an issue, with his being some kind of deadly assassin, but he was taking an awfully long time.

Two agonizing minutes later Jasmine stood up and brushed the snow off her suit and then secured her gear at the base of a scraggly pine. No way was she skiing off this mountain without Shauss. It would take her almost an hour to get back to the drop-off point and he was in trouble now. She had to get in there and help him if she could—and the commander needed to know what she suspected. If Mark was sabotaging the ship, he had to be stopped before anyone else got hurt.

She scooted over the rise and waded slowly down the hill. Shauss could punish her all he wanted when they were back on the ship, but right now she was going in.

* * * * *

Shauss crept deeper into the mine shaft, being more careful the darker it became.

A whisper of energy current made him reach for his weapon, but he found himself unable to move.
Neural restraints?
How in Peserin’s hell had they gotten his cerecom signature?

“Empran, emergency flareout!” he ordered.

No response.

He fought the restraints until sweat broke out on his brow but his muscles simply wouldn’t respond. Fear blossomed in his gut.

“It’s no use trying to contact your vessel, Lieutenant.”

Flare lanterns on the wall hummed to life and a slender man walked into his line of vision. His heavily lined face was creased into a pained smile as he relieved Shauss of his pulsor and dagger.

Shauss’ heartbeat thundered in his ears. “Ragan King, I presume?”

The man nodded. “None other. I presumed I’d catch a Garathani in my little neural trap,” he said as he circled Shauss, “but I hardly dared hope it would be you. Strip him and put him on the table.”

The chilled air hummed and two more males and a female appeared in the room. One of the men looked somewhat familiar, but the other two Shauss had never seen.

King handed the weapons to the female.

Keep him talking. Buy some time.

Although the cold fear in his belly was bleeding up into his throat, he licked his lips, and asked, “Why did you destroy all those military bases? You killed millions of innocent people.”

“Oh, Famen did that,” King said with a coy smile. “I just built the bombs.”

“I suppose you killed him like you did Pret?” As if there were any doubt. Pret’s page was a dead man as soon as his face hit the Terran media.

“Naturally. He’d served his purpose, and after I sent out the video of him planting the devices, he would have been much too recognizable to have around.”

Even as the rational part of Shauss said
Just as well
, panic washed over him. He was a dead man—just like Famen. What would they do to him? How could he stand it?

Terrified by his own terror, Shauss grappled for control. Surely someone would come for him. If Empran couldn’t communicate with him, a search party would be dispatched…

Unless Empran had been compromised. What if the Narthani had taken control of the ship and jettisoned the crew? What if they were all dead?

The rigid restraints converted to full neural restraints and he collapsed onto the floor. He shuddered when King and the other males pulled off all his clothing.

“What are you doing?” he yelled. “Stop! Leave me alone!”

They dragged him across the floor. It took considerable effort, but they finally managed to hoist him up onto an icy-cold stainless steel table. Shauss’ stomach contracted in horror when he saw the troughs running down both sides—it was an autopsy table.

“No! No! Don’t put me there! I don’t want that!”

Chills racked him. Though he tried to fight the panic as he glanced wildly around at the rough-hewn stone of the mine wall, his pulse raced dangerously and his panting grew harsh. He began to whimper with every breath. Was no one coming for him? Had they all forsaken him, as his father had—left him here to suffer and die alone in the enemy’s frigid lair?

Shauss closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, reaching for sanity. Mother of Peserin, what was wrong with him? Was this any way to face death?

Focus, damn it! Act like the warrior you are!

Clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering, he said, “Your daughter is about to be executed.”

King stepped in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, brow drawn. “Is she, now?”

“He speaks the truth, Ragan,” one of the males said. “She was found guilty of high treason this morning for sabotaging the ship. The reason why they’re down here is because the pad infection has spread out of control and the other atmospheric generators have finally failed. They’re looking for an evacuation site, and they deceived her into revealing the location of this place. She is unaware of her death sentence as yet.”

The traitor was revealed—only Gillim had been fed that particular story. Damn the inflexible old bastard!

King continued to frown, and when his shoulders began to shake, Shauss thought he was going to burst into tears. The rumble of laughter that escaped him instead froze the marrow in Shauss’s bones.

“Oh, how delicious!” King grinned as the others joined in the merriment. “They’re going to execute her.”

Shauss stared at him. How could he have spent so many years with a female as lovely as Jasmine and be this coldhearted toward her? The man was a monster.

“Narthani pig!” he spat, trying to maintain the deception and glean more information. “She’s your own child!”

King sobered instantly, narrowing his eyes. “She’s no child of mine, Lieutenant, and I’ll thank you to remember it. She’s nothing more than a pawn in our little game.”

“What do you mean, she’s no child of yours? Whose child is she?”

“She’s the daughter of a very noble Garathani land owner.”

“So how did you end up with her?”

“Oh, I think that’s a story best saved for when she gets here.”

“She’s not coming here.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” King chided. Sliding a hand under Shauss’ cheek, he pushed his head over until he faced the other direction. “See? Here she is. Mardo found her trying to follow you into the mine.”

Shauss saw Jasmine’s slender body slung over the shoulder of a burly male and broke. His beautiful mate was dead. They’d killed her and now he would spend the rest of his life being tortured with cold and pain and loneliness. No one else had ever loved him and now no one ever would.

“Noooooooooo!”

The tormented howl yanked Jasmine out of her oxygen-deprived daze. Everything spun as her captor set her on her feet and she swayed, sucking in a painful breath.

The sight that met her eyes sent shock waves down her spine.
Shauss!
He lay unmoving on a stainless steel table, tears running from his closed eyes as his keening echoed through the mine shaft. What in God’s name had they done to him?

“How nice of you to join us, Daughter,” Ragan said in an expansive tone.

Jasmine swayed again. What was she supposed to do? There were at least four of them, and the woman appeared to be armed with Shauss’ weapon. God only knew what the others were armed with.