“Because I’m going to take my lady to Contúirtian where I
hope we can live in peace. I hope you will accept my retirement from active
service.”
“That’s one way to be rid of you and your troublesome habit
of abducting innocent young women for nefarious Tiogar purposes. You do plan on
marrying that pretty filly at your side, don’t you, son?” the admiral grumbled.
“As soon as it can be arranged, sir,” Taegin Drae replied.
“Oh, goody. Well, carry on, Drae,” the admiral ordered, and
the channel was closed.
“He just fired across the flagship’s bow, sir,” Forbisoe
said.
It was a tense few minutes while Admiral Ben-Alkazar’s men
boarded the Madras ship. There was a long silence then the admiral came on the
vid com. “You’ll never guess what we found,” he said jovially.
“Something of consequence, I take it, sir,” Taegin
responded.
“Oh, you could say that. My men were a bit stunned to find
Neala Acet herself, onboard when they dropped in.”
Marin turned to Taegin, her eyes filled with worry.
“Is she alive or did some man run her through as a matter of
course?” the Tiogar inquired.
“She’s trussed up like a feast goose but raving at the
mouth. You’d swear she had rabies. Are you sure you want this woman slapped in
the brig?” the admiral queried. “I would suggest a madhouse with the way she’s
carrying on. She actually bit one of my men and now he’ll have to get shots.”
He grinned. “How ‘bout the asylum at Baybridge? Or a kennel of some sort?”
“I don’t care where you put her, sir,” Taegin told his
commanding officer, “as long as I don’t have to worry about her causing us
trouble again.”
“Oh, I can promise you she won’t. I’ll tuck her wide load
where she won’t be bothering anyone. Ignore my shot across her bow, eh?” the
admiral growled, his eyes narrowed dangerously. He leaned his elbows on the
desk. “Initial reports coming to me are that the other women onboard that ship
are relieved at the chance of ridding themselves of Acet. I believe we are
doing them a favor, Drae.”
“If that’s the case, sir, perhaps the inhabitants of Riochas
Prime can get their act together and join the rest of the universe.”
“Still planning on retiring, son?” the admiral asked.
“Aye, sir. We’ll be leaving for Contúirtia as soon as I can
arrange it.”
“Well, carry on, Drae.” He smiled. “And give my regards to
that lovely lady standing beside you.”
The vid com went black and everyone on the bridge breathed a
collective sigh of relief.
“We are going to Contúirtia?” Marin asked. Her hand was
tightly in the Tiogar’s grip.
“Aye,” he said, and got to his feet, pulling her up with
him. “Mr. McGregor, the bridge is yours.”
Kale nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”
With Marin’s hand in his, Taegin walked to the elevator and
ordered the doors to open. Once inside the cage, he pulled Marin to him and she
realized he was trembling.
“What is it, my love?” she questioned.
“I died a little every second you weren’t with me, wench,”
he admitted, and she could feel moisture along her temple.
Pushing back from him, she saw he was crying. She groaned
and reached up to gently cradle his cheek in her palm. “I’m here now, Taegin.
There is no need to be sad.”
He gently moved among her thoughts and what he found there
nearly drove him to his knees
“Marin, my god! How could they have done such a thing to
you? How could any woman do that to another woman?” he said, his voice
breaking. “They tortured you and killed our child!”
Marin’s heart did a funny little skip in her chest. The pain
of their loss was still fresh in her mind. She could see the ache in her love’s
tearful eyes and knew he too had been sorely stricken by the destruction of
their child.
“We will have other sons, Taegin,” she said, caressing his
cheek. “That I promise you.”
“Was it very painful?” he asked, searching her eyes. He was
trembling, so devastated as he was by the news.
Marin stamped down her thoughts—fearful he would see the
truth and go after those who had hurt her. “It was my burden to bear, my love,”
she told him. “It is done with and all I want now is to move on.”
“The burden is mine,” he said. “If it had been the seed of
any other man—”
“They would have done the same thing,” she interrupted.
Taegin knew what she was doing and filed it away for when he
went after the bitches on Clohar. That he would one day go after the murderous
hags need never be mentioned to Marin. The retribution he would exact would
leave no doubt in the witches’ minds that the Tiogar had exacted his vengeance.
“We will have other sons,” she repeated to him, seeing the
fury lurking in his amber gaze.
Deliberately putting out the flames he knew were crackling
in his eyes, Taegin reached up to wipe the tears from his cheeks. He made a
great effort to lighten his mood and gently set aside his grief, pushing it
into a chamber of his heart to which he would never close the door.
“Aye, we will have many sons,” he agreed.
“Well,” Marin drawled, “a few at any rate.”
“You don’t want a litter every fall, wench?” he chuckled as
the elevator stopped and the floor settled.
“Perhaps every three or four falls, Tiogar,” she responded.
“Don’t worry. There will be a little Taegin howling about before too long, I
imagine.”
“That’s the least of my worries at the moment, wench.”
She frowned. “What else are you worried about?” she asked.
He cocked a thick dark brow. “Making sure you are
comfortable.”
The elevator doors snicked open and Taegin swept Marin into
his arms and carried her out of the cage, his long-legged stride eating up the
distance to the door of his quarters.
“Open!” he called out, and the door slid back. Carrying her
across the threshold, Taegin ordered the door to close and lock.
“Where will we live on Contúirtia, milord?”
“I have some land McGregor’s father gave me,” he told her as
he laid her on his bed. He straightened up and put his hands to his uniform
shirt ripping away the buttons. “We’ll build a hut.”
“You really are retiring?” she asked, watching him
unbuckling his wide leather belt. Her heart was pounding at the sight of his
hairy chest.
“It’s past time, don’t you think?” He pulled the belt from
his waist and let it drop to the floor.
She shook her head, unable to answer as he worked the
buttons on his britches then pushed them down his lean hips to reveal the hard
erection that sprang into view.
“See anything you like, wench?” he asked.
Marin licked her lips for he was standing before her in his
naked glory, the well-honed planes of his manly body beckoning her to lay hands
to it.
“Between here and Contúirtia we have about four hours,
wench,” he said, leaning over to grip the bodice of her ugly, shapeless habit.
“I don’t intend to miss a single second of that time away from your beautiful
body.”
Marin gasped as he tore the bodice apart, exposing her
breasts. Then he carefully slid his hands beneath her back and began gently
tugging the torn material away to reveal her nakedness to him.
“Taegin,” she said, putting her hands on his forearms. “I am
bleeding from what they did.”
He nodded. “I know, wench, but I can still look at you,
can’t I?”
For a moment, Marin just stared at him then her face
crinkled with amusement.
“You going to keep me naked until we reach Contúirtia?”
“How ‘bout this,” he said. “Give me a task, wench. Something
you think I can’t do. If I do it, you’ll remain naked as the day is long until
we reach our lands on Contúirtia.”
She blinked. “And if you lose?”
“I’ll build our hut in the nude.”
“Oh, yeah?” she challenged.
“Uh-huh.”
Marin lifted one slender shoulder. “I bet,” she said, a
wicked gleam in her eye, “you can’t name the countries on the planet Domhan in
the Cairghrian Galaxy.”
A slow grin pulled at Drae’s mouth. “How much you want to
bet, wench?”
She thought about it for a moment then cocked a brow at him.
“Name every last country—in alphabetical order—and I’ll stay naked until we
reach Contúirtia. If you miss a single one, get even one out of order, I’ll be
allowed to wear clothes but you must be in your birthday suit when we exit this
ship.” She waggled her brows for this was one bit of information she knew
perfectly. “You’ve done it before and you can do it again.”
“You lose and you’ll walk off the ship naked this time?” he
wanted clarified.
She thought about it for a moment then nodded slowly, sure
there was no way he could do what it had taken her months to learn.
He didn’t miss a beat or a country.
“An Afraic, an Éigipt, an Fhrainc, an Ghearmáin, an Ghréig,
an India, an Iodáil, an Ísiltír, an Ostair, an Rúis, an Spáinn, an tSeapáin, an
tSin, an tSualainn, Arabach, Astráil, Bhrasail, Gaelach, Iosrael, Meicsiceo,
Meiriceá, na Indiacha, Ollainnis, Riezell, Sasana, Stori and Uigingeach,” he
rattled off so quickly the names blurred together in his Riochasian brogue.
Marin stared at him, her mouth open.
“Did I forget one, wench?” he asked in a smarmy tone.
“No,” she replied, watching a spark glinting in his amber
eyes.
“Then I guess you’ll have to make good on your wager, eh,
wench?”
Chapter Ten
They were sitting on the beach near the hut Taegin was
building with his own hands, the lumber having been delivered the week before
by Silus McGregor and Kale’s younger brothers Andrew, Daniel, Timothy and Burl.
Kale’s oldest brother—a wounded veteran who had lost both legs in a
firefight—had helped Taegin design the spacious wood and tin hut, gently
instructing the Tiogar on correcting flaws in the plans Taegin had made long
ago. The entire McGregor clan from father and mother Maveen, to Kale’s wife
Phaedra, had adopted Taegin and Marin into their family.
To the south, a storm was brewing and the vista turning dark
as clouds rolled in, but to the newlyweds sitting on a blanket in the warm
summer sun, the spectacle of the approaching rain was fascinating.
“What do they call it when wispy clouds like that streak
down from the larger clouds?” Marin asked. She was sitting beside her shirtless
husband, her legs to one side, watching the steady rise and fall of his
muscular chest, fascinated with the sprinkling of sweat pebbling the dark chest
hair.
Taegin—sitting with his legs drawn up into the perimeter of
his arms—thought a minute. “Virga,” he said. “They also call it fallstreak.
Some call it dry rain or invisible rain.”
“Why?” she asked as she watched the wisps the virga.
“Virga is hydrometers that evaporate before they reach the
ground. The precip could be rain or snow.” He cocked his chin toward the
advancing storm. “Virga can be dangerous for low-flying aircraft.”
“How so?” She enjoyed listening to Taegin speak. His
Riochasian brogue was soothing and there seemed to be no end to the trivia
swirling around inside the man’s mind. She loved testing his knowledge of a
great many subjects, hoping to find one he didn’t appear to be a master in.
“Because virga is actually a dry microburst and microbursts
cause wind shear. Wind shear is a sudden change in the direction and/or
velocity of the wind. The pilot may not be aware there’s a wind shear facing
him. When he attempts to land, his craft will encounter a sudden change in the
headwind. The pilot has already reduced airspeed, which is what keeps the craft
flying. The plane flies through the headwind and encounters a downdraft
followed by a tailwind and that further reduces the airspeed and climb
potential—too rapidly—causing a catastrophic loss of altitude. The wind is now
at the tail of the craft and pushes it to the ground.” He shrugged. “The craft
crashes. It’s mostly inexperienced pilots or ones who aren’t paying attention
that get caught in such a situation.”
“Have you ever crashed a craft?” she asked.
He chuckled. “No, but McGregor did and gods-be-damned near
killed us on Rialta. I’ve never let him forget it either.”
Marin shook her head. The two men seemed to delight in
annoying one another. “Do you think Kale is happy with his assignment as the
new captain of the
Revenge?”
Taegin grunted. “The bastard is in his glory and should be
with a crew like the one on the
Revenge
.
They’ll make sure he
doesn’t fuck up too badly his first year out.”
“You had a good crew,” she agreed.
“I had a great crew,” he corrected her. “One of the best.”
She wriggled her toes into the sand. “Did I tell you what
Admiral Ben-Alkazar said to me in the bridal chapel when he came to walk me
down the aisle?”
The Tiogar grinned. “That you should run as fast and as far
away from me as you could while you still had the chance?”
She rolled her eyes. “That was a given. He didn’t need to
tell me that.”
“Well what other pearls of wisdom did he impart then?”
“He told me he hoped I understood what a truly wonderful man
I was marrying.”
“Yeah, right,” he said with a snort.
“I was so nervous that day. I—”
“You? Nervous?” he scoffed.
She swatted his arm. “I was terrified.”
“Aye, as well you should have been. Within the hour you were
to be shackled hand and foot to the infamous Tiogar. What woman in her right
mind wouldn’t be scared shitless having to do that?” he teased.
“It wasn’t you I was nervous about, milord Tiogar,” she
responded. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find my voice when it came
time to say my vows.”
“As I recall you said them loudly and clearly, and it is on
record that you said the two most important words—I do.”
She sighed in exasperation with him, ignoring his words. “I
asked the admiral how many people were assembled in the temple. I’ve never
liked crowds and I was hoping there wouldn’t be all that many, just in case I
did goof up and run screaming from the altar.”