Authors: Sandra Harris
She directed the gun to the coordinates. Eugen and a squad approached a group of wounded Angrigan soldiers. Delighted relief flowed warm through her gut.
“What ambush? I can’t see one.”
“Bluthen can camouflage themselves into the surrounds, if you know what to look for you can see them. The General won’t be able to detect them from the angle he’s approaching and the laser fire refracting the air. The Bluthen are behind our wounded.”
“So I can’t fire on them?”
“Not without causing our injured further harm, no.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to fire on the General.”
“What?”
“Can I download the power of this thing?”
“Yes, but you can’t—”
“Shrenk’
.”
“Think about lowering the power, on your screen a graphic should reflect the reducing output.”
Okay, power down. Power down. Fuck me, it worked!
She aimed at a spot far enough in front of Eugen and his team to, she mentally crossed her fingers, do them no harm, but instead halt their advance.
She squeezed the triggers. The ground of her target exploded in a hailstorm of rocky debris. Her lips pulled back in a wincing grimace.
Oh shit! Is he, are they, alright?
Eugen hauled himself to his feet quite some distance from where he had been. Her anxiety eased from a rushing tide, then the remainder of the squad scrambled to cover as the Bluthen opened fire.
“You did it.” Awe and disbelief coloured Shrenkner’s words. “You actually fired on the General!”
“Yeah. Do think he minded?”
From the refuge of a partially destroyed wall, Eugen pointed his binos in their direction.
“Uh-oh,” Sandrea said.
“Indeed.”
“I guess we don’t have to worry about not telling the General then.”
Shrenkner failed to respond.
“Look on the bright side, Shrenk’, maybe we’ll be captured by Bluthen, then you won’t have to face him.”
“There is some merit in that thought. General Mhartak has signalled he’s sending reinforcements to help secure this gun. He asks that we don’t fire upon them.”
Smart-ass.
She resumed firing to the coordinates Shrenkner provided. The gun swung in smooth arcs back and forth, up and down . . . Motion sickness swelled in her stomach and she struggled to contain its burst for freedom. Her arms and hands stung with uncomfortable severity and an almost overpowering urge for release nagged in her bladder.
“Mark the vehicle leaving the compound,” Shrenkner said. “That is Sergeant Kulluk and I think he would be even less happy than General Mhartak if we fired upon him.”
“Right you are,” she confirmed, swallowing nausea. “No firing on the sergeant.”
She continued with her task, blasted a Bluthen armoured vehicle attacking Kulluk’s ATVEH, then another that came too close to the hill. She turned her attention back to the sky, and then to the barracks as Shrenkner classified the importance of targets and relayed their positions.
Exhaustion dragged at her senses before the attack ended. Her forearms felt like they’d been dipped in acid and she was close to throwing up where she lay. When Shrenkner finally declared an end to their participation with a, “We’re done, Sandrea,” she struggled to remove herself from the weapon.
She squirmed from the firing cockpit and hauled herself to her feet, gritting her teeth against the violent urge to vomit.
“Miss Sandrea,” Kulluk acknowledged.
“Sergeant, glad to see you’re in one piece.”
“Thank you.” His glance flicked to the body of the battered Bluthen. “Now that we have a moment, assuage my curiosity, what happened to him?”
“I happened to him,” she murmured, forcing back the pain-induced tears pricking her eyes.
“He killed her dog,” Shrenkner offered, proudly displaying her knowledge. “A very bad thing.”
Kulluk’s eye ridges rose ever so slightly. “So it would seem. Private, you have some explaining to do to the General.”
Ah, fuck, I really don’t feel up to that.
She barely made it down the hill on her own and a sharp cry tore from her as she bumped an arm getting into the ATVEH.
“I need to see one of Drengel’s assistants,” she groaned to Shrenkner.
No doubt there would be many in worse case than she, she’d just have to join the queue.
Shrenkner sent a glance over her. “You are unwell?”
“I’ve had worse,” she managed over a strangled moan, channelling the black knight.
“Sit tight, I’ll get you there.”
“Thanks, Shrenk’.”
Unconsciousness hovered like a dark, welcome cloud by the time they got back to base. Shrenkner reached a hand to aid her from the vehicle and she flinched.
“Sorry, Shrenk’, I don’t think I can cope with being touched.”
“Sergeant Kulluk,”
Shrenkner bellowed. “We need assistance
now!
”
Sandrea awoke when she couldn’t scratch her nose. Well she could, but her hand felt like a hoof. Her weighty eyelids didn’t want to lift and she had to apply some serious resolve to force them open.
Bandages turned her hands into paws and covered her arms to the biceps.
Oh my God! I’ve turned into a mummy!
“Are you well?” a voice asked.
She glanced up.
“Hiya, Shrenk’!” she burbled. “Whatchaupto?”
A frown crossed Shrenkner’s face. “Is she sound?”
Drengel moved into her line of vision.
“Doc, ya gotta shtop shwayin’! Hey, I don’ feel shickan’more!”
“I may have overestimated the dose,” Drengel confessed.
“Dosey, dosey, dose,” she sang to herself.
“May have?” a deep voice doubted.
“Eugen! Yurarlive! Hoowah! Three cheers for Shzeneral Mhartak, three cheers . . .”
“Yes, General, may have. I have not previously used this anaesthetic on Sandrea. She was in considerable pain from severe burns. I could not fully predict the effect on her system.”
“So long as it is not dangerous,” Eugen growled.
“Oooo, I just
lurve
your voice, my Shzeneraaal.”
“Naturally I have continuously monitored her vitals,” Drengel replied, and she giggled at his funny tone. “They are normal. She is in no danger.”
“Dnger, dnger, dnger,” she added then promptly dropped off.
Sandrea’s first sight when she emerged back into the world was of Eugen receiving a report from Lieutenant Graegen. Memory offered up recent events.
Did we get royally screwed?
“What happened?”
Eugen turned and strode to her bedside.
“Good morning. We have repelled the attack.” He placed a hand on her thigh. “You are safe.”
She felt safe. “Morning?”
His head lowered in affirmation. “The attack took place yesterday.”
I’ve been out of it since then?
She slid a disgusted glance about the room. “I’m back where I started. I hope this isn’t becoming a habit.”
“As much as I enjoy your company, Sandrea,” Drengel said as he walked through the doorway, “so do I.” He came to the opposite side of the bed to Eugen and checked her pupil reaction. “I’m afraid the gel dressings will have to stay on for a couple of days.”
“These?” She held up her mummified arms.
“Yes. You received significant burns from something in the Bluthen cannon.” He ran a quick scan. “You’re free to go and collect your things.”
“Thanks, Doc. Collect what things?”
“Private Shrenkner reporting, Sir.”
Sandrea tilted her head and peered around Drengel to Kendril standing in the doorway.
“Come in, Private,” Eugen ordered.
Sandrea braced her hands on the bed and pushed to sit up. Pain so fierce it strangled a cry in her throat lanced through her hands and arms. She whimpered and slumped back. Tears stung her eyes.
Eugen’s big, gentle hands eased onto her shoulders.
“Do not try to move, Sandrea.”
Burning waves echoed through her flesh.
Yeah, I got that, thanks.
“We suffered significant damage,” he said. “I’m afraid the base is no longer operational. I’ve ordered an evacuation.”
“We’re retreating?”
He smiled at her. “Not in so many words. A fleet has been deployed to protect this sector.” His beautiful eyes turned from her and narrowed at Shrenkner. “I would like some answers from you, Private.”
“Is this about the cannon? It was my fault, General,” Sandrea said, not feeling in any way assertive lying flat on her back.
Eugen’s eye ridges rose as his gaze returned to her. “It was your idea to attack the cannon?”
She cut short a snort of scornful denial, refutation of the fact would not clear Shrenkner.
“It was my idea to capture the cannon, General,” Shrenkner declared.
“And to use the weapon?”
“That would be me,” Sandrea owned up, raising a bandaged paw.
“And you allowed this?” Eugen speared his glance back to Shrenkner.
“She had n—”
Eugen spoke with smooth authority over the top of her. “That exhibited good resource management, Corporal. I congratulate you.”
She swivelled her eyes to Shrenkner.
Corporal?
Eugen turned back to her. “And thank you for firing upon me.”
“General?”
“To prevent my squad and me from being caught in that ambush.”
She grinned. “Pleasure was all mine, General.”
He touched a loose fist to the centre of his chest in a gesture she recognized as a thank you. “You are ready to collect your personal items?”
“Yes, if I can get up.”
“I will assist you.”
His hands slid under her shoulder blades and her body sprang to pulsing attention. She stared into his eyes and felt cocooned in an intimate wrap of safety.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
His biceps bunched and she rose. At the merest brush of his chest, heat spread in a blanketing wave through the hospital bag clothing her breasts. He settled her into a sitting position and ran a large hand down her spine. Her eager body traced its warmth and hungered for more.
“You are steady?” he asked.
Not if the pounding of my heart is anything to go by.
“Yes, thank you.”
One of his hands rubbed comforting circles over her scapular. Her breasts cried for him to reposition his attention.
“You are sure?”
A lightness of heart washed her spirit. She smiled, leaned forward, and placed a soft kiss on his chin. Someone gasped. Electric bliss hummed along her lips.
“Thank you, I am fine.”
“Very well, I will continue to hold you steady as you stand.”
“You’re a prince, my General.”
She swung her legs to the floor, planted both feet and stood. Blood scorched through the veins of her hands and arms. She winced and swayed.
“Sandrea?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Doctor!”
“It’s alright.”
“You are certain?”
The pain receded.
“Yes.” A moment later she said, “You can let go now.”
His fingertips pressed gently into her flesh. A good five seconds passed before he released her.
“The Corporal will accompany you,” he said.
“I know the way, General. I’m sure Corporal Shrenkner has more pressing duties than to play nurse maid to me.”
“As I am the one who assigned her to you, that is my decision,” he replied with an amiable touch of steel. He lifted a hand and brushed the long fringe from her eyes. “I am deeply regretful you were injured.”
She shrugged, wanting to reassure him. “Shit happens. Besides, thanks to whatever the Doc has given me, I can’t feel any pain.” A rueful smile tugged her lips. “So long as I don’t try to use my hands or arms.”
Chapter 6
A Heart By Any Other Name . . .
Due to the damage the frigate
S’La
had taken during the battle, Sandrea evacuated to the battle cruiser
En-Da
along with General Mhartak, Lieutenant Graegen, and Alpha squad. The unfamiliar, technological surrounds of the ship and her crew emphasized her alien-ness. At least here she was not the only minority and she took some comfort in that fact.
She identified the two other races of the Alliance, both upright, bipedal beings. The tall, slim, partially fur-covered Magrans and the quite hairy Legolopanths who, because their physiology boasted well-developed muscles, tended to look like human-shaped bags of rocks. There were even a few females amongst them who seemed to prefer their form hairless. She wondered how they achieved it; her legs and underarms were veritable forests.
The piped call for evening mess whistled through the speaker system. Sandrea stared at the quarters she and Corporal Shrenkner were billeted to share, without really seeing them.
She’d killed. Taken the lives of a staggering amount of Bluthen and felt little remorse or regret. She frowned at her reluctance to consider them beings. Okay, so she’d de-anthropomorphized them, it made them easier to dismiss. Or at least for her to dismiss the fact that she’d killed them.
Was that wrong? Should it bother her?
Because, quite frankly, it didn’t.
Mhartak marched into Sandrea’s quarters and scanned the woman whose mere existence pitched him into a tailspin of delight and dread.
“You are settled?” he asked, stepping close to her.
Pleasure hummed along his skin as she accepted his nearness as though commonplace. He intended it would be.
“You could wait until I asked you to enter, Eugen. Is there something you wanted?”
Yes!
He quashed that thought.
“My apologies. Angrigans take friendship very seriously. I am concerned for your well-being. Do your arms pain you?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
Her delicate chin hitched up and to one side, and her expression turned speculative.
“Are you in much trouble?” she asked.
My dervre, I find myself in very serious trouble where you’re concerned.
“With whom?”
“Whomever you report to. Your headquarters
were
blasted to pieces by the Bluthen.”
“I had not forgotten.”
Regret twisted across her beautiful features. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be thoughtless. I just thought you might be in hot water and, well, I wanted to offer whatever support I could.”
A rush of something like honeyed lava flowed along his veins.
“You are concerned for me?”
“Yes.” Her eyes smiled into his. “Humans take their friendships seriously, too.”
He lifted his hands and ran his palms from her bandaged elbows to her shirt-covered shoulders. Longing clutched his heart.
The sooner you are mine, my dervre, the better.
He could not help from tugging her closer. Her poor, bandaged hands lifted to rest on his chest. Their bodies brushed and he savoured the warmth of her expression and her body.
“Your . . .”—
Should he use the word?
—“affection gladdens me greatly.”
She did not flinch or object to his terminology, nor his physical familiarity. He slipped a hand around her back.
Would cradling her against my chest pressure the boundaries of our fledgling friendship?
“I am not in ‘hot water’ as you put it,” he murmured into her hair and inhaled.
Her scent spun hot passion through his blood. Beneath his hand, a tremor passed down her spine. His body answered with a mixture of desire and concern. He forced himself to put some distance between them, though continued to hold her within the circle of his arm.
“We were not the only base to be attacked. We
were
the only base to capture possible Bluthen camouflage technology.”
Her upper body drew back and her eyes lit as she stared up at him.
“Go team!
How’d we manage that?”
“The cannon you and Corporal Shrenkner secured and the bodies of the Bluthen that accompanied it. Engineers are evaluating each piece of equipment and isolating anything unfamiliar to them for further investigation.” He glanced around the cabin. The only places to sit were the cots.
Not a good idea.
“Did you mean it?”
“Did I mean what?”
“That you like the sound of my voice.”
“I
said
that?”
He nodded, and honesty compelled him to admit, “You were under the influence of drugs at the time.”
A thoughtful veil shaded her gaze and anxiety stabbed through his gut.
“I mean it, Eugen. Is that a problem?”
Triumph contracted his biceps.
“Not for me.” He pulled her soft, warm form closer.
Her willing acquiescence and the way she moulded her body to his slammed red-hot waves of wanting along his every long nerve. The steamy sensation boiled across his lower abdomen and surged into his sex. He took a hasty step back.
Damnation, I want her to know I care! Thrusting evidence of my untamed desire on her too soon could well derail my quest to make her mine.
A sudden thought rocked his world. Did human females enjoy monogamous relationships? Or did they prefer a ménage as many Magrans did? A possessive streak roared that he would
not
share her. He would simply have to convince her he could fulfil her every desire. A project he would more than happily undertake.
An erotic shiver rippled through him and he forced restraint over his libido. If she could arouse him to this extent simply by welcoming his embrace, what would it be like to make love to her, to have her mouth on him as it moistened his skin with long, wet strokes . . .?
He fought for command over his body.
“What happened to the other bases?”
The calmness of her words surprised and, admittedly, annoyed him. He peered down into her face. Her widened eyes held a dazed quality and her breath seemed to hitch and stumble, as though her heart skipped and her torso leaned toward his as though to bridge the slim gap between them. Her shirt outlined the hardened nipples of her breasts and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. They had done that before.
A sign of arousal?
He’d felt their hard thrust across his cranial ridges when she’d massaged him and again in the turbo car when his hands held the exquisite weight of her breasts.
Is she trying to hide her desire as well? Or are these signs of fear?
She did not pull away and he was not inclined to offer a freedom she may not wish.
“Utterly destroyed, I’m afraid. Fewer casualties than could be expected, no doubt due to the relentless drills we implement.”
“Have we, you, lost much territory?”
A thrill of pleasure gripped him.
Has she aligned herself with them? With
him
?
He lifted a shoulder. “A marginal area. No populated planets. If they’d taken Kintista, the result would have been considerably worse.”
“And there is a fleet of ships deployed to protect that sector,” she remembered.
“Yes, I formed a strategic defence plan and ordered ships on patrol.”
He wasn’t above a bit of posturing to impress her.
“
You
ordered?”
“Yes. Do you find that hard to believe?”
She shook her head and tapped a hand on his chest. “No, it’s just that where I come from a general is in charge of the army or in some countries the air force. He doesn’t have tactical authority over maritime military.”
“Ah. Well, here I am General in Charge of the Galaren Sector. That means I can order anyone about.”
Her quirked eyebrow disputed that claim and he amended, “Almost anyone.”
The glow of rapport radiating from her answering smile washed over him in a gentle, all-consuming wave. The undertow tugged at something profound buried deep in his heart, threatening to drag forth an emotion he suspected he would quite willingly drown in. The urge to wrap her up and keep her somewhere safe, out of harm’s way, bit into him.
“So, General, what happens to me now?”
He reached up and encased one of her hands where it lay on his chest, allowing himself the pleasure of brushing her long hair from her face. “Hmm?”
“Am I still going to Mrilala?”
He twirled an auburn lock around a finger. “Mrilala, yes.”
“Eugen.”
The beguiling texture of her hair entranced him. “Mmm?”
Her wrapped fingers prodded him in the chest. “Eugen, are you listening to me?”
He blinked, drew in a sharp breath, and focused on what she was saying, not on how her locks felt like the finest Bahan silk or how its colour rivalled the cascading leaves of fall. How her skin—
“Eugen!”
“My apologies. I was . . . thinking. The
En-Da
will rendezvous with a destroyer, the
Vega
, at Charnos Space-Station. Alpha squad will escort you on board the ship as well as the station. The
Vega
is not expected until the third day after our arrival at Charnos.”
Her silent regard seemed searching. She moved the hand he had not captured to slide behind his neck and rose on tiptoe toward him. The plump firmness of her breasts teased across his chest. An explosion of hot, needy spikes rampaged through him.
“I think, Eugen,”—her lips almost brushed his jaw, her breath puffed against his mouth—“you’d better tell me why either I need the protection of a squad, or if it’s the
Vega
and Charnos who do.”
For a split second, Mhartak thought he could control the blistering response of his body to her closeness. Then, like a colossus surrendering to the inexorable force of gravity, he crumbled.
His arm wound around her narrow waist and lashed her to him. Hot need surged along his veins in a flare of blazing lust. His chest and abdominal plates softened in arousal. The approval and welcome in her eyes took his breath.
Very slowly, her hand skated up the back of his head and halted just shy of his swelling ridges. The bandages felt so soft against him yet he craved the touch of her skin. He longed to tilt his head back, rub his ridges against her, but that would sever eye contact and that he could not bring himself to do.
“I would have you guarded,” he rumbled in a voice roughened by desire to a pitch he’d never experienced.
“Oh?”
Her lips feathered across his chin.
Have mercy!
Her tongue flicked like lightning against him. Testosterone pumped through his every cell. Her lips closed on his jawline and her tongue lathed a hot, moist stroke over his skin. The need to possess her hammered his restraint.
“Sandrea, I must warn you . . .”
“Mmm?”
Her husky, sensual tone savaged his control. Then she thrust her hips against him. The hard length of his erection buried into her soft abdomen and he came within a thought of expending himself there and then.
Dear g’Nel, does she have any idea of the effect she has on me?
He managed to grasp her shoulders and push himself back, about a millimetre. He called on his soldier’s discipline, but the sideways slide of her pelvis reduced him to atavistic fervour. He made a final grab for sanity.
“You must stop this unless you wish to be ravished.”
She pushed an open mouthed kiss into his neck. “I have no objection to that.”
His brain seized.
Slowly, he perceived the pounding in his ears to be the insistent knocking on the door.
Sandrea flopped to her cot and stared at the door through which Eugen had returned to the duty that summoned him.
“We will speak later.”
That’s what he’d said in an odd, strangled sort of tone.
What caused his expression of severe displeasure? Had her loss of control repulsed him? Or had he found his own reaction to her repugnant?
Dear Lord, that had been one hell-of-a—
a
back-arching shaft of pleasure twisted through the core of her sex
—impressive erection.
She sighed. Once again she’d been too forward, thanks to her lack of control around him, and once again he hadn’t reacted badly. Well, he’d threatened to ravish her, then scorched her with a look of utter impatience.
Had it been a warning? Was that to be the subject of their ‘talk’? A definitive explanation on the etiquette of Angrigan friendship and the boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed?
Mhartak strode towards the bridge where his presence was required, his mind struggling to replace stunned, yet ravenous lust with pragmatic calm. Libidinous energy sizzled in every muscle and forced his stride from brisk to vigorous.
She has agreed to a closer more intimate relationship between them.
Well, not quite so categorically, but her words and actions had implied more than an acceptance of his atavistic warning.
Hell and damnation, he had to get her alone. Somewhere he could investigate, without interruption, her apparent mirroring of his desire.
The next morning, in the limited space she had in the cabin, Sandrea unwound from a yoga side stretch pose into a mountain pose and breathed deep. Her muscles flowed with quiet energy, her mind relaxed.