DeadlyPleasure

Lexxie
Couper

Mercy, Book Two

No one on Spaceport Mercy knows who Corvan Jareth really is.
Everything about the bouncer at The Steam, the port’s most popular bar, is
shrouded in mystery. The only certainty—don’t piss him off if you value your
limbs. And
definitely
don’t mess with Emylie, his equally mysterious
companion, if you value your life. That’s all anyone knows, and that’s the way
Corvan likes it.

So who’s the woman in skintight red leather who suddenly
appears on Port Mercy? The one with the massive partner known only as Forty-Two?
The one asking questions about the secretive bouncer? And why do her eyes burn
with familiar hunger when she finally finds him?

Corvan Jareth’s dark past is about to catch up with him. And
it couldn’t be more dangerous. Or erotic.

A
Romantica®
sci-fi erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Galactic Union Covert-Ops Compound, Batrium Nuun’r
Prime

Galactic Union Calendar 208

“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to fuck and leave?”

Unit Zero Agent Proserpina glared at the man who was her
mentor and lover—as well as an efficiently lethal killer. Watching him shove
long, corded legs and his very impressive cock into a pair of Ezilian leather
combat trousers made her shift on the tangled sheets. His cum trickled slickly
over the inside curve of her thigh, making her sex constrict and her heart
thump.

He lifted his gaze from the strafer now in his hands and his
piercing eyes made her pussy squeeze again. “I didn’t have a mother. I
do
have a new target.”

His deep voice—calm and completely composed—stroked the
silence of the small room. Pulse leaping into wild life, Proserpina scrambled
upright. “Alone? Without me? What about my training?”

His silver stare dropped back to the strafer, sure fingers
checking the weapon’s complicated charging system with blurring ease. “Your
training is complete. You’re now the second-best assassin in the GU. Probably
the second best in the known systems.”

Proserpina’s throat grew tight. “
Second
best?”

One of her mentor’s exceptionally rare grins curled the
sides of his mouth. “After me. You’re not
that
good.”

He slid the strafer into its holster on his right thigh, and
not for the first time since knowing him, Proserpina found herself unnerved.
When had he strapped the holster around his leg?

She’d fought like a demon to be assigned his student upon
being recruited by Unit Zero. More than one night had been spent spitting up
blood, tending her injuries after a workout in the Galactic Union assassination
division’s holo-dojo, wondering if she’d lost her mind, if it was all worth it.

What had kept her going through each and every brutal,
bloody training session the computer created was the knowledge she was being watched.
She’d felt eyes on her every time, studying her form, her technique, noting how
she handled each broken bone, how swiftly she dealt punishment to every
simulated attacker. Every session, as she swallowed her blood, sweat and pain,
she prayed those eyes belonged to Unit Zero’s most mysterious, deadly and
feared agent.

Code name—Thanatos.

Little was known about him, other than when he was assigned
a target, said target was dead within the cycle, regardless of who it was, how
untouchable the target was supposed to be.

Sixty days into her training, after she’d shed more blood
and killed more simulated targets than she’d believed possible, Thanatos
himself had appeared in the dojo. His massive frame radiating an icy menace
that had made her gut churn.

Silver eyes raked over her, marking her. Noting her scars
and sweat. Making her heart thump with hope and her cunt constrict with an
excitement she’d never experienced before. She’d met his silent stare through
the tangled mess of her hair, dragging one ragged breath after another through
her nose, her blood roaring in her ears, her body burning with adrenaline.

Jaw clenched, she’d lifted her chin, daring him to break the
silence.

He hadn’t. Instead, with a barely perceptible nod, he’d
left.

The dojo had shimmered around her, the training program
she’d spent weeks in replaced by what could only be described as a torture
arena, with weapons of every kind imaginable hanging on the walls. Waiting to
be used.

Before she’d had the chance to draw breath, he’d leapt at
her, seemingly materializing out of the arena’s shadows, smashing her against
the wall even as his fist smashed against her jaw.

And so her
true
training began.

Over time he’d broken her, torn down her weaknesses,
destroyed her inhibitions. Educated her on every possible way to extinguish a
life—up close or from a distance. Taught her how to control every emotion she
had, every fear, every thought. He’d remade her, sculpted her, molded her into
an image after his own likeness.

Turned her into a killing machine.

She’d grown to hate him with every minute of each training
day. Despise him. Loathe him and wish him dead—as much as she’d grown to revere
and respect him.

Almost as powerfully as she’d grown to lust after him.

He practically owned her. He’d tortured her, humiliated her,
viewed her naked vulnerability with the same flat, emotionally detached eyes
that gazed upon her naked body. Yes, his hands had brought more pain than all
her holo sessions combined. But the rare flashes of approval in his usually unreadable
eyes had bolstered her pride and sense of self-worth.

He’d taken the unrelenting shame of her childhood—the
parentless existence in a GU refugee compound where she’d barely survived,
scavenging whatever she could barter, including her once-innocent body—and
turned it into a poised, detached resolve more solid than the Five Moons of
Maylaria.

He’d done all that and more, but not once had he ever done
what she so deeply, secretly, desperately wanted him to do.

Fuck her. Claim her.

Until tonight.

Tonight, he’d walked into her cubicle, torn her vest open
and thrown her onto the bed.

One orgasm so powerful she’d felt sure her heart would stop.
One mind-blowing, body-crushing, explosive taste of his mastery. It wasn’t
enough.

She feared it never would be.

And now he was leaving.

Proserpina studied him, letting her gaze skim over the chest
both harder than baridium steel and smoother than Zondarian velvet, over the
stomach muscles her tongue and lips had caressed only moments earlier. “But I
always go with you.”

She mentally cringed at the whiny tone in her voice. Gods,
she was a UZ assassin, not a desperate, clingy female. What in the name of all
the hells was she doing?

Silver eyes studied her as he shrugged into a heavy and
well-worn black leather jacket, the pockets of which Proserpina knew contained
at least five weapons of death. “As I said—your training is done, Proserpina.
You’re now a professional killer.”

She swallowed. Not just at the use of her code name, an
ancient Terran name he’d assigned her after she’d survived the first week of
his training, but at the smoldering desire she saw still burning in his
normally unreadable eyes. Her pussy constricted and her breath grew short. He
might be going on a mission, but he wanted to fuck her again.

“Yes. I am,” she said, holding his stare.

The corners of his mouth twitched a little as he lifted his
neutralizer from the room’s com-desk and slipped it into the waistband at the
small of his back. “You told me once you knew how to make an Itillian Slap.” He
deactivated the door’s locking mechanism and stepped into the empty corridor.
“Killing’s thirsty work. I’m pretty certain I’ll be needing that drink when I
get back.”

The door slid closed between them, blocking Thanatos from
Proserpina’s sight.

She sat motionless, listening to the thick silence of her
quarters, imagining his passage down the corridor, his massive frame dominating
the narrow space, his finely tuned muscles coiling and flexing with each step.

He was gone. He’d left her and she didn’t know when she’d
see him again. Or when she’d get the chance to make him that—

The glum thought faded away and a grin split Proserpina’s
face. Itillian Slap.

He’d requested an Itillian Slap.

The highly illegal and
very
potent aphrodisiac used
by sexual partners to stimulate all the body’s senses during copulation.

Wriggling on the bed, she took a deep breath, letting the
musky scent of their passion seep into her being. He wanted to fuck her again.
When he got back from the mission, he wanted to fuck her again.

Feeling for the first time in her life like a real woman,
she threw up her arms and dropped backward onto the tangled sheets, grinning
widely.

“I’ll make you an Itillian Slap, Unit Zero Agent Thanatos.
And after you drink it, I’m going to show you why you named me Proserpina, the
ancient Terran goddess of birth-death-rebirth.”

She wriggled some more on the sheets, breathing in the
trainer, mentor and all-around lethal killer’s distinct, addictive scent.

“You may have created the
second
-best assassin in the
known systems,” she stated, smiling at the ceiling and seeing Thanatos in her
mind, “but I bet I’m the
best
lover you’ve ever had. I don’t want to be
on my own anymore, and the look in your eyes told me you don’t either.” She let
her fingers dance over her pebbled nipples, down the flat plane of her stomach
to the throbbing button hidden between the folds of her still-damp sex. “Which
means it’s time for you to experience a rebirth of your own.”

She closed her eyes and slipped her fingers into her sodden
pussy. “When you get back,
your
true training will begin.”

The Steam, Spaceport Mercy

Galactic Union Calendar 211

“Who’s goin’ t’make me?”

Corvan Jareth suppressed a sigh, his stare fixed on the
inebriated, slightly swaying Mendovian waving a broken bottle in his face.

Every time a new ship docked, every time a new smuggler,
illegal trader or bounty hunter landed on Port Mercy, he had to deal with at
least one idiot too intoxicated to realize they were about to get their nose or
muzzle or snout broken.

Tonight was no exception. The Mendovian with the broken
bottle and twitching eye stalks had spent the better part of the evening—and a
shitload of credits—pouring ale after ale down his throat and boasting to
anyone who cared to listen about the haul of Ezilian Dream Spice he’d just
snatched from under the GU’s nose.

And also mauling the bok’i spin table girls, groping the bar
staff and hurling insults at Koftii’s karaoke rendition of the Zondarian hit
Whip
Me
.

As far as Corvan was concerned, the drunken imbecile should
have been ejected from the bar after his second drink, but Rejelle—being a big
fan of pissing off the Galactic Union—had given the smuggler a little more
slack than usual.

That was, at least, until he’d tried to stick one of his
tongues down her throat.

“So?” The Mendovian snarled, growing less inebriated and
more controlled with each wavering jab of the broken bottle. “Ya goin’ t’answer
me? Who’s goin’ t’make me leave? You?”

Corvan nodded. Once. “Yes.”

Then he moved.

At the exact second the Mendovian lunged at him.

Mendovians are fast. Corvan was faster. He always was. His
fist smashed into the smuggler’s ample gut, knuckles punching into a thick
layer of winter fat and stopping at a wall of solid muscle. The Mendovian let
out a choked “
oomph
,” a sound of both pain and surprise. He doubled over
deeply, as if attempting to smack his own forehead against his knees.

Corvan readied to deliver another blow if needed. It rarely
was. Once opponents realized how quick he was, they usually scurried out of the
bar, tattered pride dragging behind them.

Something about
this
opponent, however, kept Corvan
more on guard. Alert.

The bar fell silent, all eyes on the stooped smuggler. A
mild air of dread and excitement thrummed through the gawking crowd. The
regulars shuffled their feet, casting Corvan knowing looks. They’d seen him
fold more than one difficult patron in half and most likely suspected they were
going to see it again tonight. Koftii skittered off the stage, tail swishing,
ears flat, deserting her beloved karaoke for the safety of wherever it was the
Felinia escaped to when things in The Steam got ugly.

Corvan stared at the back of the Mendovian’s head, muscles
coiled. Ready. “Don’t do it,” he said. Calm. Composed.

Twin eyestalks twitched. Wide shoulders bunched under the
Mendovian’s heavy flight jacket.

Corvan ground his teeth—
ah, fuck
—and swung his fist,
connecting with the smuggler’s jaw the precise moment the Mendovian leapt up
from his stoop to charge him.

A loud gasp filled the bar.

A flash of blinding light erupted somewhere to his left.

Corvan bit back a curse. Fuck. Itia Va and her smartcam. His
image would be in the
Mercy Watcher
for a week.

The Mendovian’s body arced backward, eyestalks flapping,
arms flailing. He hit the floor with a thud, the impact sending a shock wave of
dull vibrations up Corvan’s legs. Some SOB foolishly burst into applause, Va’s
smartcam flashed again and Koftii’s crooning tones wafted from the karaoke
stage once more.

Corvan shook his head, giving the still and decidedly
unconscious Mendovian an indifferent look. Lifting his head, he ignored the
sight of the petite but determined Va cutting a path through the crowd toward
him and nodded at one of his crew. Diirch detached himself from the writhing
mass of patrons on the dance floor and hurried over.

“Get rid of him,” Corvan said, not looking at the motionless
Mendovian on the floor. “Put him back on his vessel and arrange for a doc to
mend his ribs. I’m pretty certain I broke at least two.”

Diirch smirked. “Only two? You feeling soft t’night, Boss?”

Corvan gave the Doirnn, one of the bar’s wittier bouncers, a
level stare.

Diirch grinned. “Gotcha, Boss. Doing it now. Charging the
doc’s bill to the usual account?”

Corvan nodded, turning back to the bar. It was late, and he
wanted to—

“Another patron reluctant to leave, Jareth?” The reporter
for the
Mercy Watcher
blocked his path, smartcam zeroing in on his face
like a striking serpent. “You dealt with him a little harsher than normal. And
faster. Care to offer a quote for the story?”

Corvan met the woman’s intense stare. Itia Va had been after
his “story” since the moment he’d arrived on the spaceport. The fact she’d been
unable to dig up anything annoyed the shit out of her. It was almost enough to
make Corvan smile—if he didn’t know just how good she was at her job. Her
tenacity made him wary.

Thankfully, she hadn’t questioned him too much about Emylie.
So far. Perhaps because, despite her dogged journalist’s mind, she’d recognized
the threat in his eyes the one time she’d dared mention Emylie’s name.

She licked her lips, a pugnacious light in her brilliant
blue eyes. “
Steam Bouncer or Steam Brutalizer?
It’s a catchy title,
don’t you think?”

Corvan clenched his fists. He didn’t need this right now. He
just wanted to finish his shift and—

“Or maybe I should run with,
Corvan Jareth. The Man with
No Past Strikes Again?
”

“Itia.” Port Mercy Security Commander Kassandra Scott
suddenly appeared beside the reporter, towering over her. “I’ve been meaning to
ask you about the Slessorian article in last week’s
Watcher
.”

Va turned to Scott, irritation mingled with suspicion crossing
her face.

The security commander flicked Corvan a quick look—
you
owe me
—before taking Va’s elbow in her grip and turning the reporter away
from him.

Corvan ground his teeth harder. Kassandra Scott was a
brilliant security officer. She knew as little about him as Va did, but until
recently hadn’t seemed bothered by the fact. Apart from offering him a job on
her team when he’d first arrived, an offer he’d refused, she’d left him alone.
She also kept any images of him, or stories Va wrote about him, off the GU
sub-space info-link ether. He didn’t know how—Kassandra Scott had her own
secrets, it seemed—but whenever Va threatened to make him a feature of her
reporting skills, Scott intercepted.

He knew, however, that she kept an eye on him. Someone his
size with his obvious skills was never going to pass under her radar, but that
was all it seemed to be—a professional eye. If he’d known she was in The Steam
tonight, he would have been a bit slower dealing with the Mendovian.

Port Security Commander Kassandra Scott wouldn’t have missed
how preternaturally fast his strikes were. To be honest, no one would have.
Curse it.

This is what he got for losing his focus.

And if you lose your focus, Emylie could end up dead.

The unbidden thought sent a chilling tension straight
through his chest.

Stepping over to the main bar, mindless of the customers
almost stumbling out of his way, he flagged Rejelle’s attention. “I’m finished
for the night,” he said, his voice carrying over Koftii’s drawling rendition of
the Old Earth classic,
What’s New, Pussycat?
“Priirj and L’wxan are on
’til close.”

Rejelle gave him a small smile and nodded, her eyes warm and
understanding. “Give her my love.”

Corvan felt the sides of his mouth curl in a rare smile. He
returned Rejelle’s nod before weaving through the crowd and exiting The Steam.

A cacophony of sound hit him. People shouting, laughing,
screaming. Felinia hissing at those passing too close to them, claws scraping
the cold metal floors. The catcalls and moans from Blow Job Alley, the chimes
of the bok’i dens, the goading insults from the slave auctions. Nighttime on
Spaceport Mercy. A symphony he’d grown accustomed to quite quickly.

He walked through the usual mix of humanoids, aliens, IAs
and service-bots, casting not one of them an interested gaze as he headed home.
With the exception of the odd drunken new arrival at the spaceport, and the
dubious merchants and smugglers who hawked their wares and services, no one
caused him any hassle. Ripping the tongue from the mouth of a Mentuan slave
merchant—the one who’d offered him ten thousand credits for Emylie mere minutes
after they’d first set foot on Mercy—had quickly cemented his reputation as
someone not to mess with. It was also the only information Rejelle had required
before offering him the job as The Steam’s head bouncer.

His mind wandered back to that first hour on Port Mercy,
Emylie’s fingers threaded through his, her soft, warm body trembling slightly,
dark-brown eyes wide, pale-blonde hair a shining halo in the spaceport’s low
light.

She’d said nothing as they’d made their way to their new
home. She rarely did. Her eyes told him everything—she was scared, but she
trusted him. She still looked at him that way after all this time. It made him
feel meek and invincible at once. It made him want to stop time and do
everything in his power to make her smile; that gentle, small stretching of her
lips rarely seen. It made him feel like he had a soul.

If she only knew.

A lump formed in Corvan’s throat and he clenched his jaw,
quickening his pace. He despised these moments of emotional vulnerability. They
were completely out of character. They reminded him of another life, another
time, another female—

He shoved
that
unwanted and entirely unexpected
thought away.

Fri’ac, he needed to focus. Losing control tonight in The
Steam, and now dwelling on a life long in his past?

Think about Emylie. Get your head where it needs to be
and keep it there.

Rounding a corner, he paused at a food dispatch station.
Waving his Port ID card at the scanner, he waited for the station to register
his credit balance before extracting a New Earth apple. It was expensive, and
his credit balance was about to be hit with the doctor’s bill for healing the
inebriated Mendovian smuggler, but worth it all the same. The exotic fruit from
the dilapidated planet was Emylie’s favorite. If she was still awake, he’d
present it to her. A surprise luxury to make her smile.

He tucked the small piece of red fruit firmly beside his
favorite de-atomizer inside his jacket, continuing toward Level 9 and the small
unit he called home. Most of his neighbors were day workers; legitimate
merchants, medical staff, educators for the Port’s two schools. By the time he
normally finished at The Steam, the silence of the still corridors would always
roll over him like a calming meditation, easing the knots in his muscles and
subduing the epinephrine in his system.

Partially. He never fully relaxed. He was incapable of doing
so.

Fifteen minutes later he stood at his door, eyes closed,
limbs loose. Taking a steady, deep breath, he let the last of the night’s
adrenaline seep away. He’d deal with Kassandra Scott and Itia Va later. The
rest of the night was his…and Emylie’s, if she was awake.

He stepped into his apartment, reaching down and withdrawing
his strafer from its holster as he did so.

“You’re home early.”

The soft female voice shifted his focus from the weapon, and
he studied the gynoid standing by the room’s lone porthole. Not for the first
time, Corvan found himself impressed with Mare’ree’s perfect humanoid façade.
Her honey-brown hair thick and glossy, her blue eyes caring and friendly, her
soft, cuddly frame—complete with ample bosom—made deliberately with hugs and
comfort in mind.

Yet beneath it all, beneath the warm, maternal exterior, the
female ’droid ran a protection program that made her a killing machine. If the
need arose, she could tear an attacker apart in six point two seconds. And as
far as Corvan was concerned, that made Mare’ree the perfect companion for
Emylie while he was at work.

“I gave myself an early mark,” he answered, tossing the
strafer onto the closest sofa before withdrawing his de-atomizer from his
jacket and placing it on the bench behind him. “Is Emylie awake?”

The gynoid shook her head, soft curls bouncing around ears
so carefully created he could almost believe he saw wax in their cavity. “She
tried to stay awake for you, but sleep finally took her. I saw her to bed
sixty-seven point five nine minutes ago.”

Corvan’s lips curled into a small smile. He withdrew the
apple from his pocket and sat it beside the de-atomizer, giving the ’droid a
slight nod. “Thank you, Mare’ree. You may retire now.”

The AI tilted her head to the side. “Sleep well, sir.” With
fluid grace, Mare’ree crossed the living area of Corvan’s apartment and
disappeared into a recessed booth in the far wall. A low hum followed by a
lower click told Corvan she’d connected with her core unit and put herself into
rejuv mode. He chuckled softly. Obviously Emylie had given her a hard time
tonight.

Unbuckling the strafer’s holster on his right thigh, he
dropped it onto the sofa beside the highly illegal gun, removed the synaptic
neutralizer from his waistband at the small of his back, slid the neo-energy
gutting blade from its sheath on his left biceps and disengaged the small
neural disruptor from its hidden compartment in his right boot.

He shucked off his jacket, withdrew the baridium dagger from
its harness on his left wrist and crossed the room. Emylie was asleep. It was
time he slept too.

The small bedroom was shrouded in shadows. He moved through
them, the soft, even sounds of her breathing a beacon in the darkness. Stopping
at the bed, he silently lowered himself to the mattress, perching on the edge
as he passed his hand over a nearby sensor.