Chapter 5
FIVE
“We cannot release the females to Warlord Mek-la.” Blood roared through Niir’s head, pounding as hard and fast as he would like to be doing to the luscious female in the officers’ guest quarters that very moment.
He felt the primal form rising in his veins, warming him, making him want to smash something against a wall, very hard.
Trak looked up from his cup of taga. “Why?”
Niir scraped back a chair and dropped into the seat opposite him.
They had the small officers’ lounge to themselves for the moment.
He picked up the bottle of taga and poured some in an abandoned cup.
Probably Pizol’s. He didn’t care at that point.
He would have drank it out of the bottle, and he wasn’t even a big taga drinker.
The stuff tasted horrible. “Because they are unaware that they are going to be sold off.”
“Bloody hell.”
“I do not understand why you continue to use these English phases.” Niir’s patience was thin, thanks to the raging erection that had not abated since leaving Calinae. Sexual frustration wasn’t something he was accustomed to.
“Anna likes them,” Trak replied, wiggling his eyebrows. “A lot.”
“She’s not even here.”
“I know.” Trak tipped his cup to his lips and took a sip of the strong, blue liquid. “I like to keep in practice, and honestly, I rather like the way those Earth blokes talk. Rather poetic, if you ask me.”
A red film covered Niir’s vision. “I cannot deal with your poetry right now, Trak. I really can’t.”
Trak raised one eyebrow and studied his short-tempered communications officer. His eyes widened. “Good God, you bedded her.”
“Who?” Stars, Trak possessed an uncanny perception when he wanted to.
“The female. The blue-haired one.”
The fact that Niir wanted to bed her, and quite possibly almost had, did not improve his mood. “No, I did not. And her name is Calinae. Not ‘the blue-haired one.’”
“I beg your pardon.” Trak flattened a hand to his chest in theatrical style. “Calinae. Tell me, mate, does the lady return your affections?”
Niir scowled at him. “Possibly, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Considering how modest I know you to be, that answer is a yes. I don’t want to know the details of how you came to this conclusion.” He tapped his chin, having no ability to resist gossip. “Actually, yes, I do. Did she try to seduce you?” He cocked his head. “How far did things get?”
“They didn’t get anywhere,” he nearly bellowed. “Because I am an officer of this ship and she is a guest who just learned that her entire existence is a lie. And it gets even worse than that.”
“Oh no, please.” Trak poured himself more taga. “No more. The knowledge that you’ve dallied with one of Warlord Mek-la’s females is nightmare enough for one cycle.”
“I haven’t dallied. I received the medical results for the females’ genetic makeup,” Niir said. “As I suspected, they have substantial human DNA.”
“So those females were made in a lab somewhere?” Trak drained his cup in one gulp. “I despise you right now.”
“Yes, yes. Write a poem about it,” said Niir. “Later,” he quickly added. His prince and captain had a penchant for poetry, which had the effect of clearing a room when it was drunkenly recited.
“Does she know?” asked Trak. “Did you tell her that she’s a bioengineered being?”
Niir paused. “I thought telling her that her home world didn’t exist and her betrothed already had several dozen wives was enough to process.”
Trak’s eyes widened. “She seriously thought she was the only one?”
“She did,” he replied. “Trak, we need a new plan.”
“Why is that, again?”
A red film covered his vision. “Because we don’t deliver human trafficking victims to their captors!” he exploded.
“Of course, we don’t.” Trak pressed a hand to his forehead. “And no yelling after I’ve had three cups of taga, you sadistic mountain of muscle. One look at those females and I knew we probably wouldn’t be delivering them to the warlord.”
Niir’s joints softened with relief. “Okay.”
“But if we don’t, Mek-la will hunt us down to the ends of the galaxy. There will be no safe quadrant for us to travel through,” said Trak. “And that would be a problem.”
“Worse, if he sends mercenaries after us.” Niir knew very well how they operated.
“I sent a message to the warlord,” said Trak with a grimace. “He was not pleased about the delay.”
“I’m sure he was not,” he said, turning to the exit.
“Oh, and Niir?” Trak called out.
“Yes?”
“If this female turns out to be special to you—”
“She’s not,” Niir said, quickly cutting him off. “You know she can’t be. Why no one can be.”
Trak sighed. His prince was also his friend and knew how close Niir’s primal form lived to the surface.
But Trak was an eternal optimist and, yes, a romantic.
An interesting trait for a Virilian who had a fair number of kills to his name.
Each kill was commemorated by a strip of leather or metal around the wrist and sometimes, ink on the skin.
Niir’s skin held far more marks than Trak’s, or anyone else on the ship.
His past was marked all over his body and both his wrists were covered with bracelets, marking his mercenary past.
“I think you are being overly dramatic,” said Trak.
Niir turned his gaze to the ceiling. “That is quite a statement, coming from you.”
“I know, I know.” Trak waved a hand. “I have a flair for the…well, a flair. But you live in fear of your own self. I know your past caused the primal form to run amok within you, but you live like an assassin lies around every corner.” He shook his head, tossing his blond hair away from his eyes.
“I’ve never seen you fail at anything you put your mind to, and you’ve put your mind to a good many things since we met.
It perplexes me that you won’t even try to control the primal form. ”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Niir’s voice was a growl.
“You think I don’t have to work at keeping it from turning me into a walking nightmare of fire every time we go into a dangerous situation?
” He swung around, finger pointed at Trak’s straight nose.
“I push back every day. Fighting and sex. Those two things bring it to the surface. And it’s always a struggle to keep it tucked away. ”
“Well then.” Trak folded his arms and cocked his head. “I guess you’ll need to find a fireproof female.”
Niir stared at his prince and captain, who gazed back at him with a perfectly bland expression. “Stars. You’re not joking.”
“’Course not.” Trak poured a splash of taga in his cup. “There must be a species out there with females willing to take on a massive, ugly—maybe not that ugly—occasionally molten Virilian male such as yourself.” He raised the cup in the air. “To fireproof females!”
Niir shook his head and turned back to the door just as Anna entered.
“Anna, m’love!” Trak patted his lap. “Come, have a sit with your beloved. Where are the children?”
“Asleep.” She raised an eyebrow at Trak, then looked to Niir. “Do I want to know what this is about?”
“No,” said Niir, but a chuckle was making its way up his throat. “You definitely do not.”
He left before Anna settled on Trak’s lap, and headed back to his quarters. He paused by the door next to his. Under normal circumstances, it would make sense to place a foreign visitor close to the communications officer, but Niir now wished he had put her with the rest of the females.
He entered his own quarters and removed everything but his pants.
His room was much larger than Calinae’s.
He kept it simple and uncluttered, adorned only with items that held a purpose.
The center of the room was the most important place for him.
It was where he meditated. A colorful rug made in Virilia’s Tagja City spread out over the floor and several large, flat cushions lay there in front of the large open window.
He hadn’t been honest with Calinae about the view.
It was very much something to look at. At least, it was to him.
He sat on a cushion, cross-legged, and rested his hands on his knees.
His gaze settled on the silent darkness outside.
Pinpricks of stars glittered as far as the eye could see.
They were impossibly bright, improbably distant.
This was the most effective tool he had found to quieting the raging primal form inside.
It made the impulse to release the fiery beast easier to contain.
If only he hadn’t trained it to transform him at will.
He’d empowered something that should have only been a weapon of last resort.
He’d heard the stories of mercenaries who had found themselves trapped in primal form, unable to change back.
In his gut, Niir knew that he had been on the cusp of that, once.
The last time he’d changed into primal form, it had taken a very long time to go back.
He knew then, deep inside, that the next time he changed, there would be no going back.
That was the day he’d walked away from the mercenary’s life and chosen a new one.
Now, here he was, many cycles later, trying to meditate away a sexual pull that made the primal form stretch and squirm inside him.
He breathed deep and began his mind-clearing exercise, but a pair of gold eyes and full, pink lips kept drifting to his mind.
He did not fight it. He’d long ago learned that it did no good to push back on anything when meditating. That only made things worse. Instead, he allowed her image to swirl through his mind’s eye until his thoughts settled and his breathing turned deep and even.
He would get through this. He would not dally with her.