Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Valkesh was fourteen hours away. Brannik had checked the calculation four times.
The first time was because Krebb’s navigation system was old and badly maintained.
The second was because the coordinates came from a Grorn priest’s information network and trusting anything connected to Thressk was stupidity.
The third was because twenty years of false trails had taught him that hope was a dangerous thing and numbers were not. The fourth time he had no excuse for.
Fourteen hours.
He sat in the pilot’s chair and stared at the small point of light on the navigation display.
Valkesh. An abandoned settlement outside the northern trade routes.
Images of pale buildings and weathered markings that he was almost certain he remembered from childhood, even though he couldn’t read them. Aurelian markings.
Twenty years of searching, and he had never been almost certain of anything.
Everything had been rumors. A female with silver eyes glimpsed at a distant port.
A trader who remembered a small pale passenger who’d paid in untraceable currency.
A dead machine that had inexplicably awakened when someone touched it.
He’d followed all of them, and every trail had eventually dissolved beneath his feet.
This was different. This was an actual place. A place that was fourteen hours away. He was very carefully not thinking about the fact that the image only showed ruins. His fingers tightened around the edge of the console.
“You’re doing it again.”
He looked over his shoulder and found Amy standing in the cockpit doorway.
Every time he looked at her, he was still struck by the knowledge that she’d stopped disguising herself completely.
She wore a pair of trousers they’d found in the ship’s storage, rolled several times at the waist and ankles because they had been made for someone considerably larger, and the thin shirt she’d brought from Port Rusk.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. Her face was clean.
No hood. No stain. No bindings. Just a soft, pretty, and infinitely desirable female. Just Amy.
She carried two cups and held one out to him.
“What am I doing?” he asked, pulling his attention back to her earlier statement.
“Thinking loudly.”
“I am sitting.”
“Very loudly.”
He shook his head and accepted the cup. She leaned one hip against the console beside him and looked at the navigation display.
“Still fourteen hours?”
“Yes.”
“Was it fourteen hours the last time you checked?”
He gave her a look.
“And the time before that?”
“Amy.”
“I’m just trying to understand how navigation works. Does the planet get closer if you glare at it?”
He drank whatever she’d put in the cup. It was hot, bitter, and unpleasant. She watched as he took another sip.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.”
“Then why are you drinking it?”
“We don’t have anything better. I’m trying to convince myself it’s coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“An Earth beverage that brought me immense pleasure.”
“And does this remind you of it?”
“Not in the slightest, but it’s the best I can do.”
He looked at her cup. She sighed and surrendered it. Hers was considerably less bitter.
“You put sweetener in yours.”
“Of course I did.”
He handed it back.
“Thief,” she muttered, but she was smiling.
He liked making her smile. That was another discovery he hadn’t expected.
There were a great many things about being with her that he hadn’t expected.
He hadn’t expected to notice when she woke in the morning because of the change in her breathing.
He hadn’t expected to learn that she hummed tunelessly when she cooked or that she talked to machinery when it refused to cooperate.
He hadn’t expected to know precisely how her footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the cockpit.
He certainly hadn’t expected to enjoy being teased. He had spent most of his life avoiding people. Now he found himself constantly listening for this one.
She looked at the display again.
“Are you afraid of what we’ll find?”
“No.”
She turned her head to look at him, but he stared resolutely ahead.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I am an excellent liar.”
“You did spend weeks pretending you couldn’t talk.”
“Successfully.”
“Fine. You’re a very good liar about everything except this.”
“Except what?”
“Things you care about.”
He looked at her then, and realized she was no longer smiling. She put down her cup and moved closer.
“You’re afraid there’s nothing there.”
He said nothing.
“And you’re afraid there is.”
His jaw tightened, but her small hand settled over his where it rested on the console. That was the problem with someone learning your silences. Eventually they stopped protecting you.
“I don’t know which is worse,” he admitted, and her thumb moved softly across his knuckles.
“If there’s nothing there, we’ll keep looking.”
We. One small word, but it hit him with ridiculous force.
“And if there is?” he asked.
“Then we’ll figure out what it means.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“No. I’m making it sound like you don’t have to do it alone.”
He turned his hand beneath hers and closed his fingers around it.
Twenty years. He had spent twenty years believing that finding his mother was a task that belonged only to him. Now Amy said we as if there had never been another possibility. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her palm.
Her breath caught, and he felt her response all the way through him. He lowered her hand, but she didn’t move away. Neither did he.
The air between them changed. It had been doing that with increasing frequency. Last night she’d been naked in his arms, soft and trusting and beautiful, and she’d offered him everything he’d wanted.
He had stopped. He didn’t regret stopping. But that did not mean he’d stopped wanting. His body had spent the intervening hours reminding him of that fact with relentless enthusiasm.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and his body immediately reacted.
“How are your wounds?”
“Better.”
“Your ribs?”
“Better.”
“Your wrists?”
He rotated one.
“Better.”
“Anything still hurt?”
“Yes.”
Concern immediately sharpened her face. “What?”
He looked at her silently. Her cheeks turned pink as soon as she realized what he meant.
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate. And you did ask.”
She tried not to smile, and failed.
“I should point out that it’s entirely your own fault. I’m perfectly willing to, um, ease your suffering.”
His body definitely reacted to that. He tugged gently on the hand he still held, and she moved willingly between his knees. His hands settled on her hips, and he waited. She looked at him, and he didn’t find any uncertainty in her face.
“Yesterday,” she said, “you told me you weren’t ready.”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready now?”
He could have lied. He could have said yes because he wanted her, because every part of his body had been aching for her since she’d first kissed him in that cell. Instead he looked at the point of light on the display beyond her.
Valkesh.
He looked back at her.
“I don’t know what we’ll find tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if my mother was ever there. I don’t know if she’s alive.”
Her expression softened.
“I know,” she repeated softly.
“I have spent most of my life believing I couldn’t have anything else until I knew.”
She didn’t say anything. She was good at silence too, and he knew this one meant she was waiting. He slid his hands slowly around her waist.
“I was wrong.”
Something changed in her face.
“About what?”
“About waiting for my life to start.”
Her lips parted. He pulled her closer until she was tucked between his thighs, and rested his forehead against hers. For a moment he simply held her, while her fingers gently combed his hair.
“I don’t know what will happen on Valkesh,” he said. “But I know what I want now.”
Her fingers stilled.
“Tell me.”
“I want you.”
The words came with surprising ease. Perhaps some truths were difficult only until you finally spoke them.
Then her hands were against his face and she was kissing him. He kissed her back until she was making helpless noises against his mouth, and then he rose. She made a startled sound as he lifted her with him, and then laughed against his mouth when he set her on the edge of the console.
“Show-off.”
“You’re small.”
“You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”
“I like that you’re small.”
“I noticed.”
He kissed her again before she could argue, and her legs came around him, the sweet warmth of her core pressing against his erection. Every thought of Valkesh disappeared. There was only her.
He didn’t take the time to undress her completely.
He wanted her too much to wait that long.
He simply unfastened her trousers and pushed them down below her hips, and slid a thick finger inside her.
She cried out, her head falling back against the console as he explored her.
She was already wet, and when he brushed his thumb across the sensitive nub he’d discovered the day before, she bucked against him.
“Brannik,” she gasped, her hips moving against his hand, seeking more.
He watched her face as he touched her, just as he always did, studying her reactions. He learned that she liked it hard and fast, and he learned that she liked it soft and slow, and he learned that she liked a combination of the two that he continued until she was trembling and begging him.
“Please,” she moaned, and her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him closer. “I need… I need…”
He didn’t make her wait. He increased the pressure and the speed of his touch, and she shattered with a wild, abandoned cry, her body arching against him as she came. He held her through it, and then he kissed her, deep and hard.
When she was finally still, she looked up at him, her eyes dazed with pleasure.
“Do you want to stop?” she whispered, and he shook his head.
“No,” he growled, and it was the truest thing he’d ever said. He yanked her trousers down as she drew her shirt up over her head, leaving her naked in front of him once more.
“It’s your turn.” The words were a challenge but she was watching him as carefully as he’d watched her, and he knew she’d stop just as quickly.
He took a deep breath and shoved his trousers down, a groan escaping him as his erection sprang free.
Her eyes widened as she took in the full scale of him.
“It’s… big,” she managed, her voice a little breathless.
“I’ll be careful.”
“I know.” She met his gaze without a hint of fear, her legs parting. “I trust you.”
Those two words were more potent than any drug, more compelling than any touch, but he shook his head.
“Not here,” he added quickly, before she misunderstood.
He picked her up again, but this time they were both naked and her damp core was pressed directly against him as he carried her into the tiny cabin.
It was only a few steps, but by the time he made it to the berth, her eyes had fluttered closed and she was wiggling frantically against him.
He lowered her onto the bunk and rose over her, careful to keep his weight off of her. He hesitated for a second and her eyes opened.
“Still yes?” he asked, and her expression softened.
“Still yes.”
But then she reached up and touched his jaw.
“Is it still yes for you?”
The fact that she asked meant everything. “Yes.”
“Good.”
She smiled up at him, her face open and trusting as he took himself in hand and guided his shaft to her entrance, and then he pushed inside, slow and steady.
She was so tight, so wet, so perfect, and he had to force himself to go slowly, to let her adjust to him.
He watched her face for any sign of discomfort, for any trace of fear, but all he saw was pleasure.
Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, and a soft moan escaped her as he pushed deeper and that helpless, needy sound threatened to shred his control. He pulled back and then pushed in again, a little deeper this time, and she moaned again, her legs tightening around him.
“More,” she breathed. “Please, Brannik. More.”
She arched against him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her body accepting him, taking him in, and he moved within her in a slow, deep rhythm that was more possessive than any chains, more binding than any promise.
Each thrust was a question and an answer, a declaration of a belonging he’d never thought to find.
His gaze never left her face, memorizing every expression, every gasp, every flutter of her eyelids.
And then he lowered his head to kiss her neck and his fangs brushed against her throat. She cried out, a raw, broken sound that was half pleasure and half release. He froze, but she tangled her fingers in his hair and held him there.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, her voice hoarse with need. “Please, don’t stop.”
So he didn’t.
The pleasure built, a slow, inexorable tide, pulling him under, and he let it go. She gave herself up to it, to him, to the rhythm of their bodies and the beat of their hearts, a frantic, desperate dance in the quiet hum of the stolen ship.
When her release came, it was a shattering thing, crashing over her, and leaving her breathless and boneless and utterly sated. He followed her with a deep, broken growl he couldn’t have suppressed if he’d tried, his body shuddering against hers.
They lay wrapped together in the aftermath, their bodies slick with sweat, and the only sounds were the ragged gasps of their breathing and the steady hum of the engine. He felt more content, more whole, than he had in years.
Eventually he propped himself up on an elbow, studying her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, a small, breathless motion. “More than all right.”
She smiled and curled against him, warm and drowsy. Neither of them spoke for a long time, but then she traced one of the old scars across his chest and gave him her most innocent look.
He waited.
“So. Was that worth twenty-five years of brooding?”
He stared down at her, and her mouth twitched.
“I have not been brooding for twenty-five years.”
“Twenty?”
“No.”
“Fifteen?”
“Amy.”
She laughed and tucked her face against his chest, and the sound of her laughter was the best thing he’d ever heard. He wrapped both arms around her, smiling into her hair.
Fourteen hours to Valkesh. Thirteen now, or even twelve. But he no longer felt the need to check. The planet would still be there when they arrived. Whatever waited there—answers, another empty trail, evidence of his mother or only the ghosts of people he’d never known—he would face it.
Tomorrow. Tonight, she was falling asleep in his arms. And for the first time since he’d left Tuor, what was ahead of him mattered less than what he already had.