The Alpha Prime Commander (11 page)

The stone kills more than
it saves; no warrior would risk his Pletar on such a chance.  It is the idea
that they value.  A chance, besides the stone will be lost before that can be
an issue.

Not necessarily,
Lena
said, and the feel of both his Roenh once again in his head had Cordan closing
his eyes in profound relief for just a moment.  Sensing what he was feeling,
Lena moved closer to his side and he felt a warm touch of her soothing energy
brushing along his length.  It side-tracked them briefly as the touch sent them
all into immediate heat. 

Lena cleared her throat
and tried not to get even more distracted when Jackson’s growl rumbled through
her thoughts and his hand hit the small of her back, pushing her faster through
the corridors of the warship.

Say what you have to say,
before we get to our cabin, or it will go unsaid.  
Cordan
left no doubt in either of their minds what he meant.  Nobody argued.  Lena
spoke fast.  As soon as they left the moon, the connection returned between
them, stronger than ever.  And they were all feeling the heat.

The blood stone Jackson
touched, The Collector shoved it into my chest.  He said it was made from the
blood of my people, immortal blood, and with it I would be more Cascian.  I
think my blood carries the same immortality as the stone now.  If it does, we
may be able to figure out a way to get it to the people on Alpha Prime who need
it.  Hopefully, in a way that does not kill most who touch it.

We will have to consider
this more.  If we can find a way that does not endanger my own Pletar perhaps,
but that is a big if. For now, I can think of nothing but the feel of you
beneath me. 
He stopped and a door before them swished
open to show a large bed and very little else. 
I must feel that you are
alive, Lena.  That we all are.

Behind her, Jackson
growled his agreement, his eyes a hot brand on her ass.

I feel it,
she
grimaced and looked at her filthy blood-stained hands around the stone.  She
finished out loud and with steel coating her words.  “But nobody is touching
anything of mine, until we all get clean, and this stone is somewhere safe.”

“Then, that is what we
shall do,” Cordan answered in the same way. They headed for the showers.

Lena didn’t think of
anything at first but stripping.  Covered in a multitude of things, she wanted
it off her, now.  The business of death was a messy one, and while she wasn’t
squeamish about such things in a battle, that didn’t mean she wanted to wear it
like war paint at any other time. 

Wadding up a towel, she
placed the blood stone on it like a stand and then covered it with a bowl she
had blithely dumped the dried flowers out of to use.  The scent they released
was nice, but she didn’t linger.  She stripped down and stepped into the large
Prime-size shower stall.  This time she was thrilled to see that the shower was
full water, and not sonic.  She grabbed the harsh soap that would scrape off a
layer of her more fragile skin without a complaint.  At this point, scrubbing
off a few layers sounded like a good idea. Her Prime had other ideas, however. 
Before she could protest, he pulled the soap from her hand and replaced it with
something that smelled of flowers and softer things.  He kept the harsh soap,
and stepped into the stall behind her.  It crowded her out of the water, and
she turned with her own snarl ready to fight her way back to the blissfully hot
spray.  But then he activated a second and a third spray head and Jackson
stepped in behind him.  She got her first good look of both of them naked, and
almost forgot she was covered in dried blood and brain bits.

She had seen Lo naked
often, but Jackson was still new, and while he had less bulk than her bigger
mate, everything he had was built for endurance.  There was not an ounce of fat
on him to soften the hard muscles and stark lines of his body.  Every part of
him was perfectly formed and beautiful.  And the two of them side by side, with
heat in their eyes, only for her . . . well, bathing was suddenly the last
thing on her mind.  So when Lo reached up and took the soap out of her suddenly
useless hand, she hardly noticed.

Jackson she did notice
was soaping up his hands with that harsh Prime soap, and using it to slick the
grime from his skin.  While she gasped at the first touch of Lo’s hand on her
body, her eyes never left Jackson, and by the way he slowed down and soaped all
those hard streamlined muscles, he knew it.  She was distracted a few times by
the thorough cleaning Cordan was giving her, starting with her hair and moving
down from there.  His foray over highly sensitive and jutting nipples had her momentarily
closing her eyes, only to open them again and find that Jackson’s soapy hands
had moved to the jutting length of his cock.  When she started to breathe hard,
licking her lips, she knew Jackson saw it.  She felt his satisfaction over
their mate bond.  She didn’t let it bother her.  She could feel how much he was
enjoying the show Cordan was putting on with her.

Just to drive her crazy,
Lo chose to go from her waist to her feet and start working up from there.  She
started to hiss her displeasure, but when she looked down to see him kneeling
there like a great naked beast, she lost all train of thought again and let him
do what he wanted.  She was too busy trailing her eyes over naked skin and
drowning in hot gold eyes.

“You’re both beautiful,”
she said on a gasp, just as Lo reached the juncture of her thighs.  He spent
enough time soaping her from pussy to ass, pressing deep inside her in both
areas with soap, and spreading fingers until she was writhing with the need to
be filled.  But when he stood up, he just handed her over to Jackson, so that
her back was pressed all along the front of his naked length.

Cordan turned to clean
himself up with the soap Jackson handed him.  Lena watched him do it, just as
she had Jackson, and burned just as hot looking at the mate she had seen
thousands of times without his clothes on.  Looking at the sheer masculine beauty
of him, she knew the show would never get old.

When Jackson did nothing
but hold her while Lo bathed, she tried to turn to him and was denied with a
hot growl and nip to her ear.  He kept a firm grip on her, but could do nothing
but take it when she started rubbing her ass against the steel hard erection
pressed there. 

“You keep rubbing against
me like that I won’t make the main event,” he warned, his teeth digging into
her neck where it met her shoulder.  It was the first time she got an inkling
that her men were communicating together, making plans.  Lena arched her back
and gasped at the feel of him.  Jackson’s hands went to cover both her breasts
and press her back against him.  She was fairly certain
she
wasn’t going
to make the main event.

“Jackson,” she gasped,
and then Lo was before her.  Wet hair slicked back, eyes molten fire.  Then,
just when she thought he would kiss her, he dropped back down to his kneeling
position and pulled her thighs over his shoulders with Jackson holding her
steady at her back, his hands melded to her breasts.  Then she felt the heat
and wetness of Lo’s mouth and the thrust of his tongue.  She arched back trying
to get closer, trying to get more. 

With a growl he gave her
more.  He consumed her, licking, sucking, biting, and playing with that
incredible Prime tongue of his until she was screaming her pleasure.

Cordan stood with the
taste of his Pletar’s pleasure on his tongue.  He could wait no longer.  He
ripped Lena from Jackson’s arms and pushed her back against the tiled wall,
thrusting every inch of his pulsing cock into her in one thrust.  He took her
lips the same way, so that he swallowed her cries of pleasure.  He thrust and
pulled back, then again, finding that place inside her that drove her crazy. 
Then he turned and pressed his own back to the wall, spreading her ass cheeks
for his other Roenh.

Jackson did not need
further invitation; as it was, he had his hand on his dick trying to keep it
from spewing at just the sight of Cordan and Lena fucking against the wet tiles.
Water trailed down that long hair to drip over her soft ass.  He stepped up
until she noticed him even through the haze of need she was wallowing in. 

“Jackson,” she said, and
then turned her head and their lips were just there, melding together and he
was eating at her warm mouth like a starving man at a feast.  Then he
positioned his dick at her ass and thrust inside, he went easy while she gasped
and groaned into his mouth, but he went steady, working his way in and refusing
to give quarter.  Joining Cordan in their mate’s body, until he was fully
seated, and separated from the other man by only a small wall of heat. Lena
dropped her head to his shoulder and rested there, her breath coming hard and
her whole body shivering from the invasion. 

“You could warn a girl,”
she said.  Cordan pulled out and thrust back in.  Jackson did the same.  By the
third time, she was pushing and pulling trying to get more of both of them at
the same time.  Jackson was holding onto his control by a thread.  He thought
he had imagined what it was to fuck this woman, but it was more, even before
Cordan opened the link between them wide and the pleasure pain of the double
penetration crashed down on all of them from three different perspectives. 
After that, all they could do was move and feel.  At some point, Cordan wrapped
his arms around the both of them and turned so that Jackson was against the
wall, and Cordan took over the driving, thrusting with full power into Lena
while she slammed back onto Jackson’s dick like a vise. 

Despite that, Lena came
first, and her orgasm pouring over all of them started a cycle of pleasure the
likes of which Jackson had never experienced or even heard of.  Even before
they were through with one orgasm another started.  They burned together in an
out of a control fire.

***

After leaving the Prime warship,
Jackson was happy to take over the controls for the lighter, more maneuverable
commander’s skiff that was Cordan’s usual conveyance.  The size of it was more
Jackson’s speed since he could be both pilot and navigator.  It was faster and
lighter than any ship he had flown in the past, which was good, because they
were going to need the speed and firepower where they were going.

“You do know having the Prime
warship at the outer rim of the system is not really going to help us if the
Alliance starts a fight.”

“And they would be more
likely to start a battle if they thought they could blame someone else for it,”
Lena said before Cordan could answer from the captain’s chair.  Her amethyst
eyes seemed to glow in the light of the bridge.  They never left the main
screen where they were coming up on Lux Station.

She was standing beside
Cordan in a new set of treated leather, and she was wearing more weapons than
Jackson was.  Most of which he could not see, even having watched her put them
on in the first place.  The sword at her back was more obvious and an exact
match to the two that crossed his own.  It occurred to him that with the two of
them favoring black leather and Cordan so much bigger and in his preferred brown
untreated leathers, they looked like two Prime bookends, or elite bodyguards to
a barbarian king.  But the satisfying hum of good sex might just be making him
fanciful.

The com buzzed at him and
he raised a brow.  “We are being hailed by the
Jupiter
.”  Being on this
side of the communications was going to take some getting used to.

“By all means,” Cordan
said with a little half smile of his own, showing that he understood what
Jackson was feeling.  “Put them on screen.”

Lena stepped away from Cordan
and placed her hand on Jackson’s shoulder, briefly stopping him.  He looked up
into those amazing eyes and saw worry for him there.  “You sure you want to do
it this way?  You know what they will see and think when you return under the
command of the Prime.  I know what these men mean to you.  We can still do this
differently.”

He took a moment to take
the hand she had on his shoulder and kiss the palm.  “It needs to be a clean
break for their sake as well as mine.”  He turned back to the console and
opened full screen communications.  Lena returned to stand at the back of the
Prime, her eyes going cold.

The first person Jackson
saw was Tactical Officer Jus Bryant.

The man started to smile,
before fully taking in the seen before him.  Mainly, that Jackson no longer
wore his Alliance insignia on his shoulder.  The smile dropped off his face and
a speculative look came into his eyes.  Besides Flynn, he had served the
longest with Jus, having gone through basic training and more than a few
battles with the man.  He would be the least likely to believe Jackson’s sudden
defection without reason.  Before either man could say anything, a second and
third man came onto the scene.  Commander Charles Morgan, Jackson was quick to
note, now wore the insignia of captain.  He tried not to grind his teeth too
noticeably.

He saw Jackson and his
eyes hardened, his mouth firming in distaste.  But it was the general beside
him who spoke.

“This is General Reginald
Spears of Alliance Command.  State your business on this space station.”

Cordan laughed drawing
all eyes.  “It was my understanding that the Space Station Lux was in neutral
territory,” he drawled, his voice smooth.  “Am I to understand the Alliance has
taken command from the local government?”

“I will answer your
questions when you answer mine.”  His tone was officious, his stance arrogant
authority, until Charles leaned over and whispered something in his ear.  
There was a flash of consternation followed by a whole new attitude.  “Forgive
me, Alpha Prime Commander.  I did not realize who you were.  You do not fly the
colors of your rank.”  It ended in an almost accusation.

“I rarely bother
advertising my movements.  I did, however, inform your . . . captain, is it,
that we would be returning when I retrieved my Pletar from The Collector.”

Charles whispered
something else into the man’s ears that had him looking at both Lena and
Jackson.  “We certainly appreciate the return of Captain Jackson Ambar; he has
much to answer for in these matters.”  Then, his eyes turned speculatively towards
Lena.  “Am I to assume that since you have returned with this woman that you
also found The Collector?”

“I did indeed find him,”
Cordan said mildly enough, and then his voice hardened to a cutting blade.  “He
died quite horribly for trying to take what is mine.  A lesson I only ever
teach once.”  Then he went back to his mild voice.  “But, I’m afraid you
misunderstand my presence here.  I do not come to return anything.  I have come
at the bequest of the high council lords who attended the auction, and are
still on this space station.  I am to escort them to their own ships that wait
past the outer rim along with my own warships, of course.  After what happened
at the auction they feel safer with an escort out of neutral territory.”

“You have been in touch
with the lords?”  His voice turned scathing.  “This is Alliance business, and
we do not answer to Alpha Prime.  When this investigation is finished, the lords
will be escorted by the Alliance back to their territory.”

“That is where you are
wrong, General Spears.  Alliance business ended with The Collector and his
security agreement.  You have no authority to hold the house lords for
investigation or otherwise.”  Cordan smiled.  “We have left the warships of the
twenty-five lords with my own battle fleet at the outer rim as a courtesy, but
should you attempt to delay us, we will see it as an act of war, especially
after what has already transpired, and they will come get their lords themselves,
en masse.”

“This is untenable,” the general
sputtered, his face getting as red as his ears.  “The Alliance does not respond
to threats.”

“Threats?”  Cordan stood
up and Lena stepped up so she stood at his side.  “I am merely telling you the
will of the high lords you wish to protect.  You are free to contact them
yourself and verify my words.”

“It would be criminally
negligent to turn them over to the man in charge of their security in the first
place, and a woman we have come to learn has associations with the Black Hand. 
Once they understand what is at stake . . .”

“Then, by all means, talk
to them.  But I will warn you that Captain Ambar and Lena already made quite
the impression on the high lords when they saved them from death more than once
at the auction in question.  And General,” Cordan’s voice dropped, “I would be
interested to know who would have told you such slander about my wife as to
suggest Black Hand involvement.”

“Your wife?” he
sputtered.

Cordan sighed at the man’s
ignorance.  “A Pletar is a fated wife, and sacred to the Prime.  We do not
appreciate unsubstantiated slander, unless you have some form of proof.”

When the general just
looked redder, Cordan shrugged his massive shoulders and smiled at the man with
all his teeth on prominent display.  “Then, in an effort to avoid a galactic
war, I will overlook your words, and return us to the matter at hand.”

“Sir,” Tactical Officer
Jus Bryant spoke up, his hand on his earpiece, “the high lords are refusing to
stay sequestered and are heading for the docking bay.  They are telling the
soldiers they have no authority to hold them, and Corporal Dunn wants to know
what his orders are.”

Cordan raised his brow,
and Jackson could feel everyone holding their breath.

Finally, General Spears
spoke harshly.  “Let them go.  If they think they are safer without Alliance
assistance their safety is no longer our responsibility.”  Then he turned those
angry eyes on Jackson.  “Captain Ambar, you do fall under Alliance Command and
I am ordering you to report to the
Jupiter
for incarceration until this
matter is settled to my satisfaction.”

“As nice as that sounds,
I have tendered my resignation with Alliance High Command.  I do not fall under
your jurisdiction,” Jackson spoke for the first time, and the satisfaction of
watching the general’s head nearly explode was almost worth it.

“
You need to answer
for what happened here!
”  The general nearly bellowed it and the silence
that followed was deafening.

Jackson smiled right into
the general’s angry eyes, his voice a low growl that came across as a clear
threat.  “Any of the high lords have questions they can ask me directly.”  Then
Jackson looked at Jus who was watching everything with a blank face.  “In fact,
anyone has any questions they know where to find me.”  Then with a flick of his
attention to the terminal before him, he turned to Lena.  “I have a crowd
growing on the tarmac.”

She nodded, gave him a
secret little smile, and headed for the door.  “I’ll let in the lords.”

Cordan turned back to the
screen.  “Will the Alliance officers be bringing the luggage or should I
contact station management?”  With a hiss, the general stomped down and hit the
console himself.  The screen went blank.

“Guess I contact the station,”
Jackson muttered, a satisfied smirk on his face.  He sent a message to the
station and turned to face Lo Cordan.  “Then we get the lords home with the
information we have, and then what?”

Cordan gave him a real
smile this time.  “Alpha Prime.”

“Right,” Jackson
snorted.  “To take a magic rock back to its family.”

Cordan chuckled, “And I
introduce my already legendary Roehn to my people.”

“And then?” Jackson asked,
his eyes going serious.

“Then we go where we are
needed,” Cordan answered after a moment of studying Jackson’s face.  “I have
offered you the job of my pilot before.  I hope you will reconsider now that
you are free of the Alliance and mated to my Pletar.”  Jackson could not miss
the cool light of satisfaction in those gold eyes.

Jackson shook his head,
and had to laugh.  “You controlling son of a bitch.”  He was still laughing
when Lena returned.

She smiled seeing her
mates laughing together.  “What did I miss?”

Jackson stood up and
pulled her into his arms, bending her over his arm to claim her lips with
serious intent.  Lena lost track of her question and everything else.  When
Jackson finally stood her back up, her lips and her thighs were humming, and
she wasn’t quite sure where she was.  But she did know Cordan was no longer
laughing; instead, he was glaring at Jackson and snarling.  Then his eyes
turned with true heat back to her and she lost her breath all over again.