Three Worlds 01 - Seduce Me In Dreams (32 page)

Testing
his
sanity.

The roll of possessive emotion that followed every roll of pleasure that buffeted through him was breathtaking and intimidating. He had never felt anything so fierce and strong as he was feeling right then. Not for any woman. Not even close. It was like being introduced to a part of himself he‟d never met before. A different and powerful part. A potentially dangerous part.

And just the knowledge of that made the next stroke of her tongue against him seem like she had poured acidic pleasure across him. As inexperienced as she was, as awkward and seeking as her discovery was, he was positive that all it would take was just one more sinful second inside of her mouth and he would come apart. His mind and his emotions had made him a hair trigger.

And, of course, with that uncanny instinct she always seemed to have, she did exactly that. She used her tongue to draw him into the hot haven of her mouth, and then she began to test him in increasingly strong sucking draws.

But not nearly strong enough.

“You won‟t hurt me,” he choked out. “I‟m so hard right now that nothing could hurt me.

Suck me harder. Just a little—ah! Heaven help me, you‟re going to—”

Oh yes. One day soon she‟d be giving the most skilled head in the universe, but today was about firsts and about onlys. It was about him being her choice and her being his.

It was everything.

“Ravenna, I‟m going to come,” he warned her, trying to draw her away because he knew how shocking it would be to her inexperienced tastes. “Ravenna!” he cried when she wouldn‟t give way, “I‟ll fill your mouth and then some and—and—”

He was in no space to properly explain or make even the remotest kind of sense. The urge to release was ripping out of him like a violent storm, and his whole being shook with the power of it. He began to ejaculate into her mouth, the hard spurts like spasms as they shot from his body. She drew back in surprise, releasing him about halfway through and letting herself get shot with pearly strings of the stuff against her cheek and lips and then down over the fingers that still had hold of him.

Bronse had all he could do to suck in breath after breath and keep himself from yelling out for the universe to hear.

The proximity alarm went off, jolting Bronse out of the deepest sleep he‟d had in years.

He felt Ravenna startle awake where she lay in the crook of his arm. He should have bolted out of bed and started gearing up, but he knew that Justice wouldn‟t park them until he gave her the go-ahead to dock. It gave him just enough of an excuse to spend time breathing in the smell of his shampoo in her hair. It wasn‟t Ayalya spice, but it was yet another stamp of himself on her that gave him a deeply grounding sense of rightness and satisfaction. By then he had stopped trying to understand it and was simply embracing it. It was right for him. It felt right on every level. That was all that mattered to a man like him who lived by his gut instincts.

“What is it?” she asked sleepily, her beautiful eyes confused in the dim light of the panel that was flashing the alert just to the left of the bed.

“We‟ve reached the IM station. We‟re home.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I guess I better go wake up the others.”

But she wasn‟t moving any faster than he was to get to her feet. And it was no wonder.

They were extremely comfortable as they lay there snuggled together beneath the warmth of their blanket. It would be hard for anyone to want to leave such a safe haven and leap forward into unknown dangers ahead. It was a moment of reckoning for both of them. Things were about to get really crazy, and it could all go very smoothly or it could get shot to hell.

They simply didn‟t know which.

But they both realized, in that moment, that they would find comfort in each other over the next few days and weeks. No matter what the days threw at them, there could be nights of respite, just like last night, waiting for them.

“I‟m going to be right with you,” he promised her softly, gently brushing her mussed hair from her cheek. “I‟ll fight like hell for it. I won‟t let anyone hurt you or your Chosen Ones.”

“I‟ve always believed that,” she told him. “If I didn‟t, I wouldn‟t be here.”

He gave her a kiss, something warm and passionate to remember him by as they worked their way through the next hours, and then he broke away from her, finally sitting up and climbing over her to get out of the bed. She was very quiet as she watched him dress in his entire uniform, absently re-dressing herself in the shirt she had borrowed from his belongings. Bronse got the distinct feeling she was gearing up just as he was, but hers was a mental process instead of the actual strapping on of a knife and the cinching of a belt.

They left the room together but immediately went their separate ways. Bronse headed straight for the bridge and his weary pilot.

“Hey, Commander,” Justice greeted him. “We‟re approaching base and it‟s right in the middle of night cycle as planned. Most of them are snoozing away.”

“Hopefully not Chaser. He said he‟d greet us at landing. I‟m counting on that.”

“I‟m with you on that one, sir.” Justice kept her eyes glued to the space station looming large on the front screens. She passed chatter with the landing dock for a brief minute, then guided the ship smoothly into port.

By the time the docking was finished, the deck was swarming with Bronse‟s crew and Rave‟s Chosen Ones. Bronse walked up to her, his mouth grimly set and keeping his hands and everything else firmly to himself. He was nervous for her, and he knew it showed to his crew, who knew him well. He only hoped he wasn‟t showing it to her and that it wouldn‟t be apparent to anyone else.

“Stay on board until I call for you. Okay?”

“I want to come with you. I should make a strong approach to these leaders of yours who will want to use us. I want them to know I am not afraid and I am not hiding behind anyone.”

“In this case,” he said quietly, “I think it‟s best you appear to be hiding behind me. I want them to know you have a protector. I want them to know that everything they want out of you has to go through me first.” He cut her off before she could voice a protest. “At least at first. It‟s the best way to keep us from getting separated right off the bat. If you have no guide into this place, you will end up lost and floundering. That will ruin your image of strength very quickly.”

She thought about it for a long minute, then finally nodded. “All right. I see your logic.

For now,” she stipulated.

“Just for now,” he assured her.

The ramp and hatch opened when Bronse touched the button, and he felt the Chosen Ones move back out of sight almost as a single entity. His crew did the opposite, the lot of them strong at his back as he stood at the top of the ramp. He waited until he saw the group of highranking men moving toward their ship.

Bronse had never been so glad to see Chaser in his whole life. They‟d been part of a crack team back in the days before he‟d gotten his own command. He‟d worked his way from a position similar to Ender‟s all the way up to Lasher‟s. He‟d been Chaser‟s second a good two years before Bronse had been promoted. He knew there was no better man in the militia and no one he could trust more, other than his own crew.

Bronse strode down the ramp and offered a ready hand to his superior. Chaser smiled with just one corner of his mouth, as always, and turned to introduce the men at his side.

“Commander Chapel, this is Admiral Hural, commander of Spec Ops, and this is Admiral Greays, from tactical.”

“I‟ve met you before, Admiral,” he said to Greays as he shook his hand. Then he turned to the man who deserved his more focused attention. He had all of sixty seconds to get a feel for the Special Operations admiral before he would have to introduce his passengers to him. He needed to know what he was dealing with.

“Commander. I hear you‟ve had an unusual mission.”

“More than you‟ll realize,” Bronse assured him. “I need to know, sir, if I have a guarantee that nothing about what you‟re going to see will go beyond you and the highest levels of Spec Ops. I have reason to believe that there‟s a viper in our nest, sir, and believe me when I tell you that this is the last thing you want a viper to know about.”

“I‟m intrigued, Commander,” the admiral said. “But why don‟t you let me decide what‟s worthy of a lockdown in Spec Ops.”

That made Bronse want to smile. These people had no idea what they were about to get into. It was inconceivable really. No one had ever seen anything like the Chosen Ones before.

“Then join us for debriefing, sir. You‟re in for a treat.” He checked the decks of the landing bay for extraneous personnel, then glanced up at the video surveillance equipment that was standard in all the bays. “I‟m going to need a blackout, sir. Those two cameras. Just for this initial arrival. I don‟t want anyone looking up the video files and seeing what you‟re about to see.”

“Commander, you‟re beginning to sound paranoid,” Greays said gruffly.

“Trust me. If you knew what I knew, you‟d be ordering it yourself. Just humor me until you‟re up to speed. Then if you want, you can send me to Psyche Services.”

After a moment of sizing up Bronse, the admiral turned to his aide and ordered the blackout. It took only a single call and then they were ready.

“Ravenna, could you come here, please?” Bronse called back to the ship.

The Chosen Ones emerged.

“Well,” Greays said after a long minute, sitting back in his seat to eye Bronse, his crew, and the Chosen Ones, “you spin a hell of a story, Commander.”

They had all gone to one of the security rooms for the debriefing, the camera that was recording the session something only the top brass of the IM could watch. Even JuJuren would be denied access. Only if he had been there for the session would he have a clue as to what was being said. And Bronse had laid it all out in the open. Everything. Both of their failed missions, Trick‟s findings, all of the double crosses and mayhem. Then he had very bluntly told them about Ravenna visiting him in his dreams and everything that followed, with a few personal exclusions. Now his words hung on the minds of these superior officers, who would have to pursue his accusations and his claims to their bitter ends, whatever that may be.

“Well, young woman, all I have to go on is the reports I‟ve heard from this crew,” Greays said to Ravenna. “What I need now is some empirical proof that they‟re not all out of their minds.”

Rave stepped forward, her long, proud bearing a breathtaking sight as she walked up to the table that the three admirals sat behind. She reached out to put her hand over Admiral Hural‟s. Her eyes closed briefly as she turned her attention to the influx of information she was getting from just that simple touch. Then she opened her eyes and stared hard and cool into his.

“Last night your wife became angry with you and lost her temper. She threw one of your medals at your head. It had a ribbon with a blue and gold stripe.”

“For Great Being‟s sake!” the admiral gasped.

Chaser chuckled. “Trudy always was a firebrand,” he said to the other man.

“She‟s right then?” Greays asked. “Have you told Chaser about it already?” He still seemed suspicious, and Rave knew immediately that her intangible power would not be the one to convince him.

“Vivi, come here, please.”

Vivienne moved quickly to Rave‟s side, ready to do anything she asked. The dynamic was not lost on the men before them.

“And what is it you‟re going to show me, young lady?” Greays wanted to know in his brusque manner. Vivi looked to Rave for guidance.

“Vivienne, shut down all the power in this section of the station,” Rave instructed quietly.

The admiral guffawed as if she had told a ridiculous joke. “This station has too many redundant systems. A power failure is impossible.” Just the same, he turned a CompuVid screen toward Vivi, a silent dare to see if she could hack her way to her goal.

But instead of trying to type instructions or commands into the system, Vivienne simply laid her hand on the equipment itself. With only a small flicker to warn them, there was a sudden slamming sound, the sound of generators and turbines and hundreds of little bits of electronic gadgets all shutting down at once. The room went black, and then the gravity plating failed.

Anyone who wasn‟t holding on to something began to float off the ground. It took only fifteen seconds for Greays to shout uncle.

“Holy shit! Make her stop!”

“Vivi,” Ravenna said softly.

Vivienne lifted her hand away from the terminal. The sudden whine of everything powering back up was followed by the sound of bodies crashing back to the floor.

Bronse had managed to land on his feet and was quick to turn to the admiral.

“Convinced?”

Greays stood up, straightening his uniform.

“Commander, let‟s find some quarters for your special friends.”

Bronse sat back with a sigh, rubbing his tired eyes for the hundredth time that day. It had been a week since they‟d been debriefed about the Ebbany mission, and since then his crew had been reassigned to Spec Ops for the sole purpose of watching over the IM‟s newest hot commodity.

And if he was exhausted just
watching
the gauntlet of tests they were subjecting the Chosen Ones to, he could imagine how Ravenna and the others felt.

Ravenna. He hadn‟t had a moment alone with her in a week. The quarters they had been given were behind lockdown, and no one had access in or out unless they had very specific clearance. He could have come to see her, he supposed, since he was one of those few, but he would have been seen by at least four sentries as he passed by, and he didn‟t think it was such a good idea to let people know that he and Ravenna had a personal connection. Not at that point, anyway. If he let it be known that he had a personal stake in any part of these events, he‟d be snatched out of Spec Ops so fast that his head would be missing. Then it would be months before he saw her again, if he was lucky.

No. It was best to keep things cool and professional for now. He and his team were there to protect the Chosen Ones. That had to be enough.