Creed of Pleasure; the Space Miner's Concubine (The LodeStar Series) (31 page)

“And making love with me under the waterfall,” he added, his arms tightening. “And in my bed, and on the sofa. And maybe a few other places.”

He kissed her again and then put her away from him, holding out his arm. “You come back to LodeStone, Taara Ravel, you can have as much damn color as you can stuff into the place. And a cruiser to bring you here to the city as often as you like, so you can keep up your business with your cousin.

“Now, let’s go show off your pretty dress, and then after a while maybe you’ll come back up to my room with me and we can start over, for the right reasons this time—because we belong together.”

Her heart brimming over with happiness and love, she took his arm and smiled up at him.

“Now that, Creed Forth, is a proposition I can put my heart into.”

The End

Thank you
for reading
Creed of Pleasure
. I hope you enjoyed it!

For an excerpt from
LodeStar
Book 3;
Captive of Pleasure
, please keep reading.

best,

Cathryn

The LodeStar Series

Book Three,

Captive of Pleasure: the Space Pirate’s Woman

Here’s an excerpt …

“My lord.” The tribeswoman stepped in through the open door hatch and peered around the lamplit tont. “Where is she? Has she escaped?”

“My new slave girl?” Shakhbar, lord of the Neghelle pirates and ruler of the eastern Frontieran plains, set his flagon of moonbrandy on the tray hovering at his elbow, and jerked his chin toward a shadowed corner. “She’s there.”

Nera, his cook and tont-keeper, held her robe away from her face with one hand and shook her head, puzzled. “Where, my lord?”

He grinned, his wide mouth revealing strong white teeth. With one large, bare toe, he indicated the rugs that covered the floor. One of them, in the shadows behind a pile of unused cushions, had a large hump underneath.

Nera gasped, her loose, embroidered robes swishing as she stepped forward. “My lord. Do you wish me to drag her out?”

He shook his head, long hair falling forward over broad, bare shoulders. “No, be at peace. She’ll come out when she’s ready. You enjoy the evening fires with your man. Drop the door cloth, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

She nodded, but he heard her tsk of disapproval as she stepped out of the tont into the warm desert night. Sounds of the camp were audible through the tont’s thin walls—crackling fires, the calls of tethered catamount ponies and the voices of the tribe as they settled down for an evening of leisure. Footsteps padded past, but a covered doorway meant none would bother their leader unless it was urgent.

He lay back on his comfortable divan, long legs clad in soft pants stretched out before him, and returned to perusing the holoreader in his hand. The tont was quiet, only the quiet strumming of a quithar audible from a nearby fireside. The rug in the corner rustled, followed by a tiny grunt of discomfort.

“You may come out if you like,” he said, in the relaxed, soothing voice he used on an unbroken catamount pony. “No one will bother you. There’s only you and me.”

When there was no answer except quiet breathing, he went on. “I have cool water. You must be thirsty by now. And, I don’t suppose those bastards fed you much, did they? I have ripe gremel fruit and some bread and meat rolls. We call them yamas.”

The rug moved, and his keen hearing picked up the sound of a stomach gurgling with hunger. He bit back the grin that threatened.

Very slowly, the corner of the rug lifted, to reveal tousled, dark blonde hair through which a pair of large, blue eyes peered. They held a look of wariness and distrust that rivaled that of any wild creature on this new planet. But they were indubitably human, and lovely.

“Would you like some water?” he offered casually, his gaze still on his holoreader.

Her full lips, dry and cracked, compressed with longing. Her long hair moved as she nodded.

Moving slowly, he leaned over to take a bottle of water from the low table at his side, set with supper. He bit the top off, spit it to one side, and leaned over to hold out the bottle. When she didn’t move, he set it on the carpet before her and lay back.

She pulled the bottle under the rug with her and drank so quickly he could hear the water gurgling down her throat and the bottle, crafted of organic wax and plant fibers, crackling as it collapsed. Then she sighed with evident relief.

He smiled to himself. “Plenty of food here,” he remarked. He reached over and took a gremel fruit from the tray and bit into it, slurping the insides from the skin. “Mm-mm, sweet and juicy, just the way I like them.”

The rug moved again, rising as she craned her neck to watch him eat. She swallowed audibly and her stomach growled again.

He wiped his fingers, then twisted in his seat to pick up the low table and deposit it on the carpet between them.

“Here,” he said. “Come and eat.”

She was still for a time, but when her stomach growled again, this time so loudly it nearly drowned out the quithar tune, she sat up very slowly, the rug slipping off her bare shoulders and back. She grabbed it, watching him carefully. He did not move a muscle.

“Eat,” he murmured and then went back to his holoreader.

He waited until she had her mouth full and her attention focused raptly on the rest of the warm, flaky roll full of meat in her slender, dirty hands, before he looked at her again.

She was going to be a beauty once the dirt was scrubbed off of her. The slavers had dressed her in a tiny, shimmering top that barely contained her full breasts, and a dancer’s loin cloth with beads and feathers framing her full hips, but they hadn’t bothered to clean her up. Her long hair hung in dirty coils, her limbs were smudged with grime and his hawk nose twitched at the stench of her unwashed body and that of her Mau captors.

He wondered if she had any idea how lucky she was that they’d kept her virginal to bring a higher price. The auctioneer had brayed ecstatically about her intact hymen, and he’d had to pay an astronomical price in galactic credits to outbid the other males and females wielding bidding coms. Of course it helped that most of them were afraid of him and of what he’d do if they outbid him.

He’d saved her from a brothel or worse. Now he just had to figure out what the seven hells to do with her. Lord Shakhbar had purchased a slave girl from an illicit auction, but Joran Stark had all the women he knew what to do with already.

And if his brothers ever found out he’d actually purchased a slave girl, they’d never let him hear the end of it.

Captive of Pleasure
will be available in early 2014.

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