Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Pleasure's Foehn (28 page)

Liam smiled as he saw his new sister and her mate ducking into the room where she had spent the night while Cair was outside on the planet looking for the Saurian. He heard one piercing giggle, a thunderous laugh and then silence as he passed the room on his way back to the transport that would carry him and the rest of the former prisoners of Riezell Nine home to Amhantar. The ship would be leaving within the next few hours.

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“It is a great responsibility to which you go, Prince Liam,” The Burgon had told him earlier. “When next we meet, it will be across a peace table and the decisions you and I make will be recorded in history.”

“Let’s hope it will be the last time the Alliance and the Coalition need to sit down to such negotiations,” Liam had replied. “I, too, am as weary of this ill-begotten war as are you.”

His fellow former internees were boarding the
Iompar
, the Empire-class transport, when Liam arrived back at the docking bay. With the exception of the three who were going through Transition at that moment, they would all know freedom—the first time in over a decade for some of them. The four nearing their cycle would be taken to the containment cells and locked in during the journey for they would be in Transition before reaching Amhantar.

“We’re almost set to leave,” Roman reported as he walked up to Liam. “I’d like to stay and see my sister off if you don’t mind.”

“What a grand adventure they’ll be undertaking,” Liam said. “I have no doubt they’ll find Tariq’s home world.”

“I have a feeling when your brother sets his mind to something, he’s a hard man to turn,” Roman said. “The same holds true with my sister. She’s a hardheaded lass.”

“They make quite the pair, don’t they?” Liam laughed.

“A match made in the heavens,” Roman agreed.

Tariq sauntered over to them. The ship he and the lovers would be taking was all fitted out and having its main fuel tanks recharged as well as extra cells loaded on board. He leaned against a metal stanchion and crossed his ankles.

“You two will have a long wait,” Tariq advised. “Once one of our kind begins to mate, that mating can last for hours.”

Roman’s eyebrows shot up. “Hours?”

“Once Bahiya and I mated for nearly an entire day,” Tariq confessed. “I was so sore I could barely walk and I’m fairly sure I got her with child that time.” He stared at the
Turas
. “He would be a man grown by now.”

“Was that on the day you were captured?” Liam asked softly. Tariq nodded.

“I didn’t want to bring this up until I was fairly sure of it, but there is a way to track where the
Hespra
might have gone,” Roman said.

“How?” Tariq demanded.

“Well, I asked The Burgon to check with his security forces to see if they had the ship’s flight plan recorded anywhere. True to Aduaidh form, they didn’t, but when we contacted the Coalition Forces, we found out the Spánnis did. The
Hespra
passed right by them on the way out of the Green Sector. The Spánnis had been tracking them for days, waiting for them to cross their paths.”

“Why was that?” Tariq asked.

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“To shoot them down,” Liam answered for Roman.

“That’s why the ship crashed?”

“Presumably so, although the Spánnis say their shot went wide of its target.”

“The Spánnis rarely ever admit making a mistake so for them to do so means they hit the ship and won’t own up to it until they find out what’s in it for them to make the admission,” Liam said with a snort.

“Where does the Spánnis say the
Hespra
entered from?” Tariq questioned.

“Réalta Madra,” Roman reported. “Most likely the third planet in that galaxy from all indications.”

“The Spánnis know that much about the galaxy?” Liam asked.

“More than they are telling us, I’m afraid. All they would say is the planet they believe the
Hespra
left was called Theris.”

“Theristes,” Tariq corrected. “My world is called Theristes!”

Liam frowned. “Does that mean the Spánnis might have ventured to your world, Tariq? Could they know about warriors such as you?”

“There are stories of flying men who visited our world many years before I was taken. We thought it was legend for they left nothing behind nor did they take anything from Theristes.”

“Just the knowledge of your world,” Roman said.

“One of our Old Ones swore he had conversed at length with the flying men but no one paid much attention to him for he was
mainomai
,
insane.” Tariq shrugged. “He was well over a thousand years old and had long before lost his mate so his word was discounted.”

“Would the Spánnis have thought him crazed?” Liam asked.

“Anyone who talked to Iphis would have known he was a few rocks shy a ton,”

Tariq replied.

“So if he told them about Reapers, he wouldn’t have been believed,” Roman said in a low voice.

“Hopefully that was the case,” Tariq agreed.

“Well, at least you have a good idea where to look for your home,” Liam said. “I know you’re anxious to get started.”

“Aye,” Tariq said on a long breath, “but that won’t happen until Cair Ghrian and Davan have satisfied their lust.”

* * * * *

His hands wove like lightning over her body, sending spirals of tantalizing heat into her very core. Passion filled his touch and the ardor that had turned his amber eyes 159

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

to molten gold blazed back at her so unwaveringly Davan felt weak in the knees. Strong fingers were everywhere on her, in her, and she writhed beneath those sure strokes, purring like a kitten. One thrust that twisted gently inside her cunt brought her hips up in fervent beseeching.

“Do you like that, wench?” Cair asked with a growl and swiveled his strong finger inside her.

“Aye, warrior!” she agreed. She fanned her fingers through his dark hair to anchor his head and bring his mouth to slant possessively across hers. His tongue invaded the sweetness of her mouth and volleyed with her own. The taste of her filled his senses and strained harder, wanting to devour the honey of her lips as he gently pulled at them with his teeth, nipping along their full length. Davan slid one hand down his back, over his hip and wedged it between them until she could grip the rock-hard erection that was probing at her thigh. She enclosed the stiff cock within her hand and stroked it, feeling warmth oozing from him and spreading along her palm, lubricating him.

“Sweet woman, be careful,” he mouthed against her lips. “I am near to bursting now!”

Her grunt should have warned him but Cair was too drawn up into the fabric of his desire so that when she flipped him over as though he weighed no more than a feather, he lay there stunned, his eyes wide as she threw a leg over his hip and slid along his weighty arousal.

“Lay there, warrior,” she said, “and let your wench pleasure you.”

She leaned down, took his wrists, and spread his hands wide, patting him to let him know she wanted his arms to remain in that position. Likewise, she wiggled her feet between his legs to let him know she wanted him spread-eagled for her. Cair obliged his lady, but it was all he could do not to move as she ran the tips of her fingernails over his chest, up and down the insides of his arms and along his sides. He bit down on his lower lips to keep from squirming for his flesh was pebbled with goose bumps and his cock harder—if that was possible—than when they had begun.

“These,” she said, plucking his paps between her thumbs and middle fingers, “are like little rocks.” She lightly twisted the swollen flesh and scored the hard little nubs with her nails.

“Wench!” Cair protested. He was on fire with need for her and his heart was thundering against his rib cage. Sweat had broken out on his forehead and in the center of his breastbone.

“Lie still or you won’t be allowed satiation, warrior,” she warned.

“The hell I won’t,” he said between clenched teeth. “Try to keep it from me, wench!”

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Davan smiled wickedly and leaned over to draw one firm little pap into her mouth to suckle it. As her lips and teeth tortured the warm nubbin, she worked the other with her fingers as her husband’s body shuddered. She ground her hips over his. Cair grabbed handfuls of the sheet beneath him to keep from grabbing her. He ached to throw her down and ram himself to the hilt inside her soft, hot body so it was sheer agony for him to allow her to run her velvety tongue down his chest and into the deep indention of his belly.

“Ah, wench,” he groaned.

She laved him around and around the pucker of his navel, dipped her tongue into the center, and then trailed little kisses through the spikes of his nether hair. Cair’s cock was trapped between the top of his thigh and the bottom of Davan’s. It was like steel and throbbing so fiercely, he feared he would come before he could be sheathed in her dampness.

“Poor baby,” Davan said, moving off him so she could stretch her legs out between his. Her hot breath was against his belly as she took his staff in her hand and blew across its wet tip. “He wants some attention, too.”

Cair jerked as her lips slid over his tool and he found himself seated in the hot warmth of her mouth. She was drawing on his flesh, suckling him with strong pulls from base to tip and back again, her hand cradling his balls gently as she worked.

“Davan, I’m going to come!” he warned her.

Once more she stunned him by moving so fast he barely saw her until he was seated in the hot warmth of her cunt and her mouth was fastened on his, her tongue halfway down his throat as she ground her lower body against his. She rode him as though he was a wild stallion and needed to be broken to saddle. Her hips rotated over his, rocking against his pelvis. Her cunt slid up and down his cock, lubricating him. Her tongue swirled within his mouth, her teeth drawing at his full lower lip.

Cair could stand it no more and snatched his hands down to clamp onto her hips, guiding her movements, lifting her and seating her on him in savage jerks that had them both gasping with pleasure and pain mixed. He was at the very mouth of her womb, asking for entry.

“The babe,” Davan gasped.

“No harm would come to the child,” Cair grunted. “The parasite won’t allow him to be hurt.”

That knowledge gave them both free rein and their lovemaking was almost violent as it strained toward completion. When that completion came, Cair roared his possession and Davan screamed her release. Such devastating passion claimed the two of them that she collapsed atop him and he lay completely motionless, their hearts hammering, and their breaths drawing in harshly.

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“I can’t take much more of that,” Cair whispered as sweat trickled down his underarms.

“That was just round one, warrior,” she said, pushing up so she could look at him.

“I’ll give you a minute and we’ll step it up a notch.”

Cair stared at her. “You’re joking,” he said in a weak voice.

“Well, unless you’re content to walk on eggshells around me…”

The Burgon raised his hand to knock on Davan’s room door but he heard a wild squeal that made him think better of his decision. He wanted to say goodbye to Cair and his lady but it didn’t seem like the right time. There would be other occasions, perhaps, in which to speak to them. Another peal of laughter convinced Ryden Bakari to continue on his way, his lips twitching with laughter of their own. 162

Pleasure’s Foehn

Tariq was sweating so fiercely, he kept wiping his face on the sleeves of his jumpsuit. Though it was obvious he hated the clothing covering his body, it appeared he had found a use for a portion of it. The travelers had been speeding toward Theristes for three weeks now. The closer they came to Tariq’s home world, the more nervous Tariq became.

“It’s a lovely world,” Davan said as she studied the pale green and white globe toward which they were speeding.

“It is a beautiful world,” Tariq said, chewing on a fingernail. “But is it mine?”

“Are there any landmarks you would recognize?” Cair asked as he began slowly the ship. “Some place we can shoot for?”

Tariq was silent for a moment. “It’s been a long time,” he replied. “But I know every mountain, every stream and every tree on Theristes. Fly me over Mount Korak and I will know immediately where I am.”

The closer they came to the planet, the more Tariq paced, despite being told he needed to buckle into his seat before they reached the planet’s gravity ring.

“I’ll sit when I can no longer walk,” he said.

“Sit down, warrior,” Davan warned, “else you might go flying out through one of the ports. I’ve no desire to try snagging you out of deep space.”

Tariq flopped down into the chair and fumbled with the belt, his fingers shaking. Davan rolled her eyes, unbuckled her safety harness and went over to buckle his.

“Stop being such a baby,” she told him as she securely strapped him in. It was a measure of just how nervous the Reaper was that he didn’t reply to her insult. He sat bolt upright in the seat, his hands clasped on the arms and stared avidly at the Vid-Com screen.

Davan took her seat and buckled in just as Cair nosed the ship into Theristes’

gravitational field.

“You should stay with us through your next Transitions,” Tariq said, trying to calm down.

Cair and Davan exchanged a look.

“We have to return to Riezell Nine and pick up our kinsmen,” Davan reminded the warrior.

“Birthing a Reaper child carries some danger for the mother,” Tariq told them. “I would feel better if you would stay on my world until the babe is born. Your Healers know nothing of what it takes to bear one of our sons.”

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Davan smiled. “That’s several months away, Tariq. Are you sure your people won’t mind putting up with us that long?”

Tariq’s head came up. “I am a Prime Reaper. My word is law!” He stabbed a thumb against his chest. “I have invited you and that is all that is needed!”