Shadower (11 page)

The patch! Was it still there? She felt her right index finger. Thank Spirit! It was still on the tip of her finger. Sabin rested over her, obviously ready to take his own pleasure. "Wait!" she cried.

He drew back. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Moriah stared at him, amazed. He was concerned about her? The idea was beyond comprehension. Not that it mattered. She needed his attention diverted, and she had to plant the patch once and for all. "I'm—it's okay," she told him.

He leaned down and kissed her, sliding a hand up to caress her breast. "You're trembling," he murmured.

That was just on the outside. Inside, she was smoldering ruins. This man had just hurled her into a maelstrom of such sensual magnitude, there was no telling how long it might take her to recover. And yet, he acted as if what had just happened was the most natural thing in the universe. But she didn't have time to analyze what had occurred.

She urged him closer. "Please, just kiss me a little longer," she whispered.

"I think I can handle that." He lowered his mouth to hers. She looped her arms around him and peeled off the patch's cover. With a quick, firm push, and a twist of her finger, she transferred the sedative to his shoulder.

All that was left to do was wait. She tried to relax, to stay focused, which was difficult. The sensual strokes of Sabin’s tongue against hers were highly distracting. He touched her, too, caressing her hips and thighs, sliding his hands between them. When his fingers again moved between her legs, she gasped and jolted against him.

He lifted his head and looked down at her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Just a few seconds more. "Give me a minute to, um, recover from…you know…"

He stared at her, his eyes glazing slightly. He shook his head as if to clear it. "That's funny," he said, his voice slurring. "But you look…so…"

His head fell forward, painfully hitting her chin. At the same time, his body went completely limp, crushing her beneath its dead weight. She could barely breathe. To make matters worse, his erection had not gone limp and was now pressed into her abdomen.

With great effort, she extricated herself, heaving until he fell to one side. She managed to sit halfway up and roll him the rest of the way off. He slid over the edge of the bunk and landed on the floor with a loud thud. She stared at him lying there, a prime male specimen, even if his mouth was open and his eyelids only partially closed.

Guilt gnawed at her, feelings of regret that she had to do this. Sabin had treated her decently. He'd bandaged her wounded shoulder, prepared food for her. He had shown leniency when he could have killed her. He’d also shown her a glimpse of her own sensual nature. At least she was beginning to understand why some people actually claimed to enjoy mating.

But as she remembered how it felt to have him lying on top of her, pinning her down, she shuddered. It reminded her far too closely of her experience with Pax, even though Sabin had not tried to force her. And even though some of it had been…enjoyable. Perhaps one day—no. Mating would never be for her.

She got off the bunk and dragged him into a more comfortable position, then covered him with a blanket. He would have a terrible headache when he woke up. And he'd no doubt be furious at the loss of his ship.

Fortunately, after she left him on the next habitable planet, their paths would never cross again.

*  *  *  *

A malfunctioning thruster hammered somewhere nearby. Pounding, pounding, pounding…Spirit, but his head hurt! Sabin clapped his hands over his ears, trying to shut out the infernal noise. His movements blasted shards of pain through his head. He groaned, forcing himself to lie still, and the pounding receded—just slightly. His mouth…that taste…like rocket fuel. What the—

"Oh, Sabin…Sabin, sweetness, are you awake?" a high-pitched, feminine voice trilled. A wisp of sensation brushed across his face. "I have on my feathers!"

Feathers? Oh, no!
Don't sneeze.
He'd die if he sneezed. The pain would kill him for sure. Maybe he
was
dead. Pounding, pounding, pounding…No, he needed to pray to die.

"Sabin, honey, you're moving. You must be awake."

He squinted one eye open to a sea of deep blue Saija silk. The glare zapped him like a laser beam, and he quickly closed the eye again.
Saija silk?
Where the blazing hells was he?

"Sabin?"

He heard a rustling noise, and the surface beneath him dipped. Everything careened wildly inside him and pain exploded through his head. He dug his fingers into the silk. "Don't move! Not a single millimeter," he growled.

"Does your head hurt? Want me to rub it for you?"

He flinched. That voice, that high, grating voice. Where had he heard it before? A memory nagged at him, and he braved opening an eye. The figure before him blurred, then came into partial focus. Feathers. Lots and lots of blue feathers, covering a small body with big…assets. A feathered headdress rested atop fluffed blue hair that flowed over the woman's shoulders and the aforementioned assets.

"Lani? Is that you?"

"It is!" she squealed, shimmying the bed. "Oh, Sabin, you have such a good memory."

He waited until the room stopped spinning. "Lani, be still and tell me something. Where are we?"

"We're in the Pleasure Dome. In our usual room. Don't you remember?"

Pleasure Dome?
He struggled to focus his thoughts. Lani. Where had he last seen her? As the answer came to him, he started to bolt up, but then thought better of it. Sinking back with a groan, he rubbed his face. He ached all over. "What planet are we on?"

"Oh, Sabin, you are too funny! Saron, of course."

Saron?
The last thing he remembered, he'd been on his ship…with Moriah…in her cabin. That brought him more alert, as he tried to piece together his last conscious memory. Moriah, warm and incredibly sensuous, spreading shapely thighs for him, responding wantonly to his touch…Was that real? What in the Abyss was going on?

He forced both eyes open. The room settled after a moment, and he turned his attention to Lani's gamine face. "Lani, I want you to tell me exactly how I got here."

She giggled. "You should know better than to drink so much, sweetness. Some woman left you here. Came to the Dome and said you'd had a little too much Elysian liquor, but that your last—how did she  put it?—oh, yes, your last conscious request was to leave you at the Dome. She even gave us your credit disc and said to charge everything to it."

His credit disc? Before Sabin could assimilate all this information, Lani cooed, "By the moons of Alta, you are the most generous man."

He thought he might throw up. Breathing deeply to settle his heaving stomach, he gritted out, "What did this woman look like?"

Lani's bright blue lips rounded into a pout. "Oh, she was tall, with reddish hair." She arched back, jutting her generous breasts forward. "Not very well endowed."

That's not exactly how he remembered it, but Moriah's actual measurements weren't important right now. "How did I get
here
?"

She tsked and shook her head, feathers swaying. "You don't remember anything, do you? That's not at all like you, sweetness. We had the slaves carry you here."

He closed his eyes, trying to figure out what had happened. He slid his hands over the Saija sheets, feeling their coolness against his skin. Bare skin. Opening his eyes, he glanced down at his naked chest. Lifting the sheet, he saw he had on…nothing. "Where the hell are my clothes?"

"I don't know. You didn't have any when the slaves brought you. You were just sprawled out on that blanket, as naked as the day you were born." She sighed, running her fingers along his side. "It was a sight to behold."

He grabbed her hand to keep it from wandering. There was only one way he could have a major memory lapse and end up on Saron without his knowledge. He had seen enough narcotics used for controlling prisoners to recognize the symptoms. He'd been drugged—and he could guess who was responsible.

Moriah was going to pay.

Much later, after he'd revived enough to drink some broth and take a shower, he borrowed clothing and went looking for his ship. Nowhere in sight—and neither was Moriah. He limped back to the Pleasure Dome, his head still throbbing, but refused to let Lani lay a hand on him. He didn't want a female anywhere near him.

Oh, yes, the clever, thieving Moriah was going to pay for this, all right. If he didn't kill her first.

*  *  *  *

Moriah turned on the viewscreen. An image formed and sharpened into focus. Her body tensed, as it did whenever she came face to face with a Leor. In spite of the fact she'd had numerous contacts with members of the militant race; in spite of the distance of a quadrant between her and this particular Leor, his powerful presence jolted her. Reminding her that, at best, her position in this professional relationship was tenuous. At worst, life-threatening.

As Leor propriety dictated, she made direct eye contact, staring into impassive obsidian eyes. Leor eyes had no pupils, no expression or emotion. Instead, the black, bottomless pools had the ability to mesmerize a victim, either to probe the truth from a weaker mind or move in for the kill. Fortunately, that power didn't extend over great expanses of space. Again following the strict procedure mandated by the Leors, she waited for her contact to speak first.

"Captain Cameron," he rasped in his guttural voice. "Greetings."

"Your Lordship, Commander Gunnar," she responded. "May a thousand suns shine favorably upon you."

"You attended the iridon auction?"

As if she would dare admit otherwise. "Yes, your Lordship. The negotiations were successfully completed."

"When will the transfer take place?"

"In about twenty-five standard cycles. The iridon is not stored in this quadrant. It must be shipped in and then brought to Saron."

If this information displeased Commander Gunnar, he gave no indication. Since the Leors didn't want the Controllers to know of their desperate need for iridon, nor did they wish to pay the excessive tariffs on shipping the iridon out of the quadrant, they had to depend on smugglers such as Moriah to obtain it for them. Like a serpent lying in wait for an unsuspecting krat, the Leors were methodical and patient. They would achieve their goal.

The commander inclined his bald head, the light glinting off it. Leors, male and female alike, had no hair anywhere on their bodies. Because their bodies drew in heat from outside sources, they wore little clothing, to better absorb warmth from their environment. Moriah found her attention shifting to Gunnar's powerful, bare chest.

But it was another chest she was thinking of, one that had been warm and tantalizing beneath her lips. The unbidden recollection of how Sabin had felt pressed against her, how his mouth had taken possession of hers, sent surprising tremors through her. She struggled to shake away the memories.

"Captain! Did you hear me?"

"Uh, pardon me, your Lordship. I didn't hear your last statement."

His unreadable look bored through her. "I asked if you would be switching ships again. I remind you that our agreement allows us to track you at all times."

Moriah wasn't concerned about the Leors tracking her, not even to Risa. They already knew about it, having given land on the planet to her as payment for an earlier deal. She looked around the antiquated cockpit in disgust. She would have to replace the ship Turlock had taken as soon as possible. "I'm sorry about that, Commander. As I explained, the homing device is out of order on this ship."
I had to disconnect it so Travers couldn't track me.

"But I don't plan on picking up the iridon in this ship," she continued. "I'll be trading this in shortly, and I'll notify you of the homing frequency of the ship I'll be using."

"See that you do. We'll contact you in a few cycles with instructions on where to deliver the iridon. Signing off." Gunnar was gone without further ado, but she was used to the curt Leor ways. At least Leors meant what they said. They stood behind their word—and their threats.

But any threats pertained only to her. At the very beginning of their business dealings, she had procured Gunnar's vow that, should she fail the Leors, she alone would face the consequences, most likely death. They would not seek revenge against her sister or anyone close to her.

She set the coordinates to drop into Risa's orbit. Spirit, it was good to return to the only place she had ever considered home. This little corner of Risa she owned might be barren and bleak, with only rude structures for shelter, but it belonged solely to her and Celie, and the odd assortment of women who made up their extended family. Even the outcasts of the quadrant needed a home.

Her unruly thoughts flashed to Sabin again, and guilt gnawed at her that she might have taken away his only refuge when she had stolen his ship. He'd land on his feet, she told herself. Besides, she'd left him the one credit disc he possessed that wasn't charged to the maximum…and he'd get more clothing.

A sudden vision of him lying magnificently naked on the blanket sent unwelcome heat coursing through her, and with it, some very intimate memories. No! She did
not
want to remember those things, had willed herself to forget them. It didn't matter that Sabin had not used force to mate with her, that he had shown her pleasure instead of pain. She could never depend on any man, certainly never trust one. Not with her experiences.

Why, then, couldn't she get him out of her mind? Why had she tossed and turned every sleep shift since she'd left him on Saron, seeing midnight eyes and a sensuous mouth, remembering the feel of his hair brushing against her bare skin. By the Spirit! She would banish all thoughts of Sabin Travers. She would! She must.

Too many other matters cried out for her attention. The iridon delivery to the Leors, finding a new spacecraft, picking up several other shipments of contraband that had already been scheduled. And then, moving forward with plans to irrigate the land on Risa, build permanent structures, and invest the remaining miterons in ventures that would provide a stable income for seasons to come. She didn't want to depend on her small band of dispossessed smugglers forever.