Fenturi Fate (Spacestalker Saga Book 1) (20 page)

Zebram blew out a breath. “Thela’s brother is behind it, isn’t he?”

“Wh-what? How, I mean, do you—”

“Come now, Thela.
I’m not as stupid as I must look.” He met her guilty gaze, still unable to dismiss her loveliness, the way his heart beat just for her. “I’ve known since your arrival who you really are. But it doesn’t matter to me.”

“And who is that?” Thela challenged bravely while Myla watched the two of them, her eyes gleaming with merriment.

Zebram moved until he stood mere inches from Thela, committing her delicate features to memory.

“You’re the sister of the Mikhel—the Fenturi Leader—and my future queen.”

Ren woke the next morning with a horrific headache.
He cursed his stupidity in drinking too much, then groaned when his body protested any sudden movement.
A banging on the adjoining door echoed too loudly, and he swore in silence for the Fenturi witch to be still.

“Ren, I know you’re out there.”
Her voice tormented him, even muffled through the door.

Ren slowly sat up and dragged himself toward the door.
Entering the security code to unlock the panel, he waited with a growing headache, wondering what Dare could possibly want so early in the morning.
The panel opened, and he growled, “What do you need?”

Her jaw dropped, and he wondered if he truly looked as bad as her expression reflected.

“What happened to you?” She lifted her hand as if to touch him but tucked it back at her side before she gave in to the impulse.

Ren wondered at her actions.
Did she worry about him, or was it all an act? And what the hell had he been thinking to
visit her room late last night? He could only be glad she knew nothing of it.

“A small fight on Vembi.”
He shrugged. Her eyes narrowed.
“Again, what do you want?” He leaned against the doorway for support.

“I’d like to get out of this room.
I’m going stir crazy.
Could I at least go to Mra?
I know you have her somewhere on this ship.”

Ren recognized something in her glowing blue eyes, though he couldn’t pinpoint the emotion.
He absently noticed that she had used the lav facility, for she smelled of the Jonkwyr apple soap he’d once purchased on a lark for a future lover.

Sweet and addicting, the scent of her wafted through him.
T
hough his body ached from the previous night’s exertions, he felt his desire for the stubborn female return at a rapid rate.

He cleared his throat. “Just give me a minute to clean up and I’ll give you a small tour.”
He straightened, and she settled a graceful hand on his arm. The
temperature in the room seemed to rise.

“Aren’t you going to use the med unit?” Her blatant concern confused him.

“No,” he said without pause.
“Weakness makes one stronger.
To deny myself any opportunity to gain strength would be like trusting my worst enemy.”
My worst enemy—you.
He wanted to distance himself from her.
But instead of drawing back, she frowned at him.

“You don’t have a lick of sense, do you?” She mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like
Vembi whores
and flounced back to her bed, no longer expressing worry.

Ren closed the panel behind him. How could a simple Fenturi could keep him so off-balance?
As he washed and changed into clean clothing, he thought about Dare.

She captained a hugely successful pirate vessel commanding several dominant creatures—Jace, a man who looked like he would never bow to anyone’s will other than his own, Roc, a Rovi with the strength to easily crush her entire crew under his fist, Shea, a red-haired spitfire who happened to be the most wanted thief on Lynar, and Mra, a Stalker cat that acted more like her companion than her pet.
 

Dare also possessed the uncanny sensuality, beauty and arrogance that had made the Bylarans so fearful and envious of the Fenturi for so long.
Her exotic dark hair streaked with odd tips of gold and red beckoned his fingers to run through it, to recall its silken texture.
Her lips never failed to tempt him to sample the ripeness of their taste.
And if he stared at her a little too long, he found it difficult to break away from her laser-sharp gaze.

He turned the solar bath temperature to cold.
Once more determined to keep his odd desire for the female under control, he strove for the right amount of distance and a faint trace of disdain before he joined her again.

He opened the door and found her staring at her bared shoulder in the reflecting glass by the lav.
Such creamy, golden skin…

“Don’t you ever knock?” she snapped and quickly pulled her shirt back over her shoulder.
He noted with surprise she wore some of the spare clothing he’d found on board the ship after a rather adventurous party thrown by the twins.

In the Vembi clothing, she looked so very feminine in the thin purple shirt and skirt that looked as if they’d been made for her.
His own Vembi pleasurer, he thought with a grin
.

“What?” She looked down at her feet, encased in the rough black boots she’d arrived wearing.
“I’m not going barefoot.”

“Come with me.” He motioned her to follow him.
Staying any longer in the privacy of his rooms with her would be a monumental mistake.

They moved together down the hall to the galley.
He found Phin sitting at the table ingesting a bowl of something still squirming.
Ren’s stomach heaved at the sight, but he willed the feeling away and forced himself to sit next to the Informa.

He uttered a soft command, and a hot cup of Seven java appeared before him.
Dare blinked down at the bowl of Bylaran porridge he’d requested for her.

“How did you do that?” she asked in surprise.

Phin beamed.
“It’s the latest in Nexian technology, my dear.
A food transformitter and preparer.
Of course, you have to make sure to have a fully stocked galley, but for the Bylaran Stalkers, no expense should be spared, I say.”

Ren said nothing, guzzling his cup like a thirsting man. Every time Dare shifted, he caught the provocative scent of apples and woman. He finished one cup and ordered another.

The day promised to be a long one, indeed.

Dare watched Ren with amusement.
After much thought this morning, she’d decided to brave the devil in his den.
Instead of the brusque warrior she’d been expecting, Ren had appeared hung-over and miserable. Not at all the brute who’d whispered last night that he could take her if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t.

She hadn’t liked his tone, had sensed the thread of darkness in his mood. But he’d left her alone, once again feeling oddly safe around a man she should consider her enemy.

Her curiosity to understand this man kept pressing at her until she thought she’d do almost anything to find out more about him.
Not a good thing. She needed a diversion, stat.

 Curious as a cat, she continued to subtly watch him as she ate. He looked terrible.
He had an abrasion under his left eye and a bruised lip.
He wore a sleeveless tunic, and his arms showed a few more scratches to match the ones he’d gotten from the Olm pirates, yet his golden skin glowed beneath them all the same.

She wondered if his chest and ribs wore bruises and flushed as a sudden heat enveloped her.
Stop thinking about him, idiot.
She focused
on her food.
Once finished, she looked up and found Phin staring at her.

“However could you
not
know you’re the Mari?” His small, beady black eyes watched her with fascination.

“How could you know I
am
the Mari?” she countered.

Phin stabbed an escaping piece of his meal before he spoke.
“I’m an Informa.
I see things most creatures ignore as unimportant or just plain don’t notice.
I must say, though, you do a fairly decent job of hiding it, as you’re doing now.
To the untrained eye you seem as desirable and beautiful as a Vembite pleasurer. But not unusual. Yet to me, y
our skin has a faint luminescence you never seem to lose.
Plus,
your bright blue eyes gleam with Fenturi energy.
Don’t they Ren?”

“Hmm,” Ren murmured over his cup, though he stared at Dare as Phin did.

She squirmed, hating to be the center of attention.
“I think I could look like just about anyone in the System. A Vembi? Sure.”

“But not to me,” Phin argued. “The Vembi have a darker skin tone, though with so much crossbreeding anymore, you could maybe pass as a Vembi half-blood. Yet I still see too much Fenturi in you.
It’s in the way you move, Dare.”

“What?”

“Your movements are fluid and graceful, not deliberately seductive like the Vembi.
Don’t get me wrong, you’re plenty sexual,” Phin said earnestly.

Dare felt her face flame.
Ren, she noted, stared into his cup with a wry twist to his mouth.

“But yours is a natural byproduct of your blood, not a desirability created by falsity and cosmetics,” Phin added.
Would the Informa ever shut up?
He glanced over at when they entered, then he leaned closer to her.
“Watch what I’m talking about,” he whispered and nodded toward the Hams.

They appeared as haggard as Ren, but without the bruises.
Nesh and Ned acknowledged Ren and Phin. But the pair stopped suddenly when they saw Dare.
At once, she felt a familiar surging in her body and realized with confusion the truth of the matter.

“You’re
Fenturi
?”

They stared back at her, recognition burning in their heated gazes.
So alike she couldn’t discern any differences between the two, only by their different colored tunics could she differentiate Nesh from Ned.

The one in blue nodded to her before the one in black did.
Their eyes glowed for a moment before a small movement from Ren had them banking their expressions and moving down the table from her, sitting near their captain.

When she glanced at the Informa, he nodded. “You see?”

Ren seemed angry, which further baffled her.

Though she didn’t understand what had just happened, something inside her had flared to life in recognition of the two men of her race.
Y
et something in them still seemed foreign to her.

She ignored Ren for the moment and studied the twins, searching inside her for a deeper sense of knowing.
Both large and handsome, with an air of danger only adding to their appeal, they sported shaggy, light-brown hair and startlingly blue eyes.
Their skin, like hers, seemed to be muted, as if they too tried to control their outward appearance.
Dare experience a searing curiosity, connected to them in a way, but still so very different from them.

“Enough,” Ren growled, and the twins looked down at their food, consuming it as if the meal might very well be their last.

Dare snorted. “Odd for a man who hates the Fenturi to have two of them in his crew, hmm?”

The twins grinned until Ren’s sharp reply erased any sense of humor in the room.
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern now,
Mari
, is it?” He leaned over the table, his aggression more than apparent.

Dare blinked, startled at a strange insight. She sensed an odd similarity between him and the twins.
For a moment, things seemed crystal clear, as if the answer to all her questions lay in his light green gaze.

“Destination Nexios, one hour.” Primo’s voice over the intercom broke the sudden silence in the galley.

Ren pulled back quickly and stood.
“If you want that tour, come on.
Y
ou two—” he glared at Nesh and Ned “—make sure you eat enough to rebuild your strength. The stars only know how much energy you expended last night.”

Dare followed Ren out the door, but one last look over her shoulder at the twins startled her into hurrying after him. The
need
heating those Fenturi warriors spurred unfamiliar surges in her own body. She held a hand to her head, puzzled at what she was feeling. A connection? An emotional and…
physical
…connection?

For some reason, her nature seemed to be calling out to her Fenturi brethren. By the Goddess, could she possibly be projecting some of that sensuality Jace always teased her about?
It would make sense, considering the sensual nature of her people and the twins’ odd reaction to her.

She stared at Ren’s broad back as he took them above deck through a stairwell.
Had she done that to Ren as well?
Perhaps he did have the right of it in accusing her of bewitching him.
But no,
he
had bewitched
her
.