Memories crashed down on him. Suddenly, his head was crammed full of things he hadn’t recalled in several years.
The hijacking programs in his mind were his own design, but he hadn’t used them to steal ships to joyride; he’d made them to help his retired marine father in his salvage operation.
His father was dead, killed by the Moribund Company when they’d hijacked his freighter.
He hadn’t been arrested by the Agency. Fueled by burning anger over his father’s death, he’d volunteered to go deep undercover specifically to find the Moribund Company. The sleeper program was a lucid memory program that recorded everything that had happened to him. He had become a living, breathing recording device that utilized his ability to crack codes to tap into ships and record every operation, program, and code used in, on, or around him.
His father was dead.
He rose from the bunk and walked over to the duffel bag. Atop it laid a neatly folded pair of pants, a black T-shirt, and undergarments. Standard-issue boots were tucked neatly under the cot. He carried the clothes into the small bathing room attached to his tiny cabin to take a shower.
His father was dead.
His heart ached with the knowledge, but the tears rolling down his cheeks were for another absence entirely.
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Morgan Hawke
* * * * *
“Enter.”
The yeoman opened the door and bowed, ushering Aubrey into a darkly appointed and heavily shadowed ready room. The carpets were black, as were the chairs and the broad desk that commanded the center of the room.
The man behind the desk stood. He was painfully slender with sleek black hair pulled tightly back into a long, slender braid. His rich amber brown eyes burned with intelligence in a face that looked hewn from stone. “Aubrey, welcome back.”
Aubrey stepped into the center of the room and saluted. This time he recognized the tall, severe man. “Captain Sear.”
Sear arched a fine black brow. “Civilians don’t need to salute, Aubrey.”
Aubrey froze. “Civilian?”
Sear sighed. “I’m afraid that I must release you from the Agency with full honors, of course.” He rolled his eyes. “Not to mention a whole shitload of back pay.”
Aubrey’s mouth fell open.
Release me?
“But…why?”
Sear dropped back into his chair. “Simply put, you’re no longer a citizen of the Empire.”
Aubrey scowled, unconsciously baring his long teeth. “What kind of crap is that?”
Sear’s golden eyes narrowed. “According to medical, you’ve been genetically altered into a Skeldhi rehkyt.”
Aubrey frowned. “Yeah, so…?”
“So”—Sear folded his arms across his chest—“according to our treaty with the Skeldhi, that makes you their legal possession and legally dead to the Empire.”
Aubrey felt a cold wind blow around his heart even as a growl welled up. “Are you going to send me back?”
Sear tilted his head to the side. “Do you want to go back?”
Aubrey shook his head. He had joined the Agency specifically to destroy the Moribund Company, and that was exactly what he planned to do, with or without the Agency’s blessing. “I don’t deal well with collars.”
Sear nodded. “In that case, I seem to recall a mercenary craft that could use a first officer that knows how to talk to ships.”
Aubrey stiffened in shock. “Mercenary?”
Sear leaned forward and folded his hand together on his desk. “Through your fine efforts, we have uncovered that the Moribund Company has an extremely highly placed…patron. This means that they cannot be dealt with directly through official Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
95
channels, not even by the Agency. However, a mercenary destroyer is another story entirely.” He smiled. “Sound interesting?”
Aubrey smiled right back. “It does.”
Sear nodded. “In that case, you might want to consider using some of that back pay to make a few…cosmetic adjustments to conceal some of your less-than-human characteristics.”
Aubrey’s jaw tightened, though his smile remained. “I plan to, among other things.”
Lots of other things
.
* * * * *
A week later, he arrived at a tiny outpost with a covert clinic. Two days later, he left with the points of his ears clipped down to human roundness. At the next stop, his golden eyes were exchanged for those of silvery electrum with deep space piloting augmentation. In still another hospital located in an isolated space station, he received biomechanical arm enhancements. After a particularly long shuttle jaunt, he arrived on a backwater planet and received augmentations to his legs.
Aubrey stared at his reflection in the small sanitary cubical attached to his cabin.
Somewhere between hospital jaunts, his body gained in height and increased in muscle mass until he actually looked the age he was. At the same time, the golden sheen of his skin faded until he merely looked tanned. However, the dark waves of his hair remained tinted with deep red. He was not human, but the tall, broad-shouldered man that he saw in his mirror with gleaming silver eyes certainly looked human.
Another saying from his father came to mind. “
Adapt, overcome
.”
He nodded at his reflection. He was adapting. He
would
overcome. Moribund would pay for what he did.
After a very long jaunt in another solar sail courier vessel, he arrived on a distant colony world that was very nearly solid forest.
At the bottom of the courier ship’s steps, a lean, broad-shouldered man greeted him. He had long deep red hair, elegantly pointed ears, and gold-green eyes that were cat-slitted. He smiled with fangs. “So, you’re going to try hiding in plain sight?”
Aubrey’s brows rose.
He smells like…
He smelled like himself. The man was a rehkyt in hiding.
The man nodded. “Greetings, cousin.” He waved his arm toward the forest.
“Ready to learn how to actually use that body of yours?”
Aubrey nodded firmly and followed him into the trees.
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Morgan Hawke
For almost an entire year, he trained in a form of sword and dagger fighting and hand-to-hand combat that involved spectacular leaps. While training in survival techniques, he learned that certain animals normally poisonous to humans were in fact quite edible to rehkyt, and how to identify them by scent. He also learned that his severe allergic reaction to plant-based foods was genetic. The Skeldhi were strictly meat eaters, and so were the rehkyt they made. If it was green, it was damned near poisonous to him.
He came back out of the forest alone and boarded a shuttle. On board, he exchanged his forest leathers for breeches, a silk shirt with matching cravat, and a silver-trimmed blue waistcoat. His overgrown mane was neatly trimmed to just below his shoulders and tied back with a black ribbon. Spit-polished boots were set on his feet.
He shrugged into the royal blue long coat and belted on the sword of a first officer. Less than an hour after liftoff, he stepped on board the demon-class dreadnaught
Reaper
to report for duty to Captain Maria Melchior.
Finally, his very personal mission to wipe the Moribund Company from existence had begun.
However, in one particular area did his true rehkyt nature prove very difficult to adapt to, or overcome…
* * * * *
He curled his lip, revealing neat, white, flat teeth. “I would appreciate it if you did not use
that
name, Doctor.”
“Oh?” She lifted her dark chocolate eyes and pursed her full, sensual lips. “What would you prefer to be called?”
He held her gaze. “Ravnos will do.”
She blinked, then with a tilt of her head and a toss of her mass of red-gold curls that sent them tumbling over one shoulder, she slid her gaze out from under his and smiled brightly. “Very well then…” She lifted her chin, took a deep breath, lifting the ruffles of her pale gold low-necked blouse, which framed her full breasts to perfection.
“The captain tells me, Ravnos”—her sultry gaze met his for a brief instant—“that you seem to prefer your pleasure with a little pain added to the mix.”
He smiled sourly, folded his arms, and leaned back in the plush chair. “You could say that.”
Stupid sex drive
. He had no problems attracting lovers. He just couldn’t
keep
them. No one wanted a lover who simply couldn’t be gentle.
No one wanted a lover incapable of ever loving them in return, either.
She looked over at him and lifted a brow. “The captain also told me that if your needs are left too long unsatisfied, you become rather…destructive.”
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He winced and looked away. It seemed that someone had finally noticed his occasional bar brawls with off-duty marines. Probably because he kept winning them.
Stupid marines…
With all the heavy-duty arm and leg augmentations marines had implanted, one would
think
they knew how to fight.
She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the desktop. “Lethally destructive.”
He winced. Apparently, the sword duels he’d been participating in and sometimes instigating on random space stations hadn’t gone unnoticed either.
A soft, masculine voice whispered across his memory. “
Sex or blood…
”
She folded her hands together and smiled. “And so we come to why you are here.”
He lifted one dark brow. “The captain thinks I need a shrink?”
She shook her head. “I’m not a psychiatrist. I am a therapist, a sexual therapist.”
He choked on a laugh that wanted to be a scream. “Therapy can’t fix this.” He swallowed. “My aggression is…genetic.”
She rolled her eyes. “No one wants to fix you. You’re not broken. Trust me, I’ve seen broken, and you’re nothing like that.” She smiled. “I’m here to show you how to direct all that wonderful sexual aggression into safer channels.”
His brows lifted.
Huh?
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I hurt people when I fuck them. In fact, I can’t seem to get off unless I cause them some kind of pain.”
She rose from her chair, revealing an extremely short and very tight skirt. “And what you don’t understand, my dear young man, is that some of us can’t get off
without
pain.”
He frowned. “Isn’t that a little…abnormal?”
She shook her head. “Less so than you might think. You simply need to find a lover that will match your need to
give
pain, with their need to
receive
pain.”
He clutched the arms of his chair. “But I don’t want to hurt anybody!”
She tilted her head and winked. “If pain brings them joy, where’s the hurt?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t making sense.”
She smiled broadly. “Which is precisely why I am here. Tell me, Ravnos, have you ever spanked someone?”
“Huh?” He frowned. “As in, slapped their ass with my hand? Like a child?”
She chuckled. “I’ll take that as a no.” She pulled off her jacket.
He shrank back into his chair. “What are you doing?”
“Administering therapy.” She tugged up her skirt, showing stockings that ended at the top of her thighs and silky white panties. “Would you be so kind as to turn your chair to the side?”
He turned his chair, interested and somewhat aroused in spite of himself. His dick was already at half-mast. “What are you planning to do?”
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Morgan Hawke
“I am going to lie across your lap, and you are going to smack my ass. You are going to smack it hard enough to make it nice and red, and then we will go from there.”
He blinked and felt the blood rush downward to swell his cock. He
wanted
to smack her ass. “How hard?”
“Hard enough to make a nice, clean handprint.” She tossed him a grin. “Preferably several.”
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On his twenty-first birthday, in the austere stateroom of the Agency sweeper
Machiavellian
, Commander Aubrey Ravnos removed his royal blue first officer’s coat.
With quick, efficient movements, he slipped his arms into a black and silver captain’s greatcoat marked with the insignia of the demon-class dreadnaught
Hellsbreath
.
Captain Maria Melchior of the demon-class dreadnaught
Reaper
lifted a sheathed, silver-chased, live-steel sword and held it up crosswise, presenting it to Ravnos.
Ravnos accepted the blade marked with his new ship’s insignia with a slight bow, then buckled the sword-belt over the floor-length black coat.
The coat and weapon were holdovers from a more romantic time when ships sailed the seas rather than the stars. However, instead of the archaic tempered steel of the original officer’s saber, the live-steel of Ravnos’s mimetic blade practically hummed with nanites. The sword would return to shape from a forty-five-degree bend, would never lose its edge, and would withstand extremes in temperature, such as the absolute cold of space, without shattering. It would hold the perfect shape of its making for as long as it existed. Live-steel was said to be born, not made.
Captain Sear of the
Machiavellian
and Captain Melchior lifted their champagne glasses in quiet ceremony.
Ravnos lifted the delicate champagne glass in acknowledgment of their toast.
Once upon a time, he’d been little more than a half-wild kid struggling with strange drives and stranger urges. It had been quite a struggle, but at last, his life was orderly, perfectly under his control, and filled with purpose.