Fallen Star (15 page)

“Isabeau.” His arms closed tight around her and his finger nudged her chin toward him, encouraging her to look at him.

She turned to face him but closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see what was in his gaze. She didn’t want him to see what was in hers.

“Isabeau, look at me.” His voice was soft, but very firm.

She opened her eyes and braced herself.

There was a slight smile on his lips and warmth in his odd copper gaze. He was very pleased about something. “Your feelings have changed, have they not?”

Huh?
Fallon gritted her teeth. “No.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. His smile widened. “Toward me.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “You feel differently toward me.”

Fallon opened her mouth to deny it, but closed her mouth instead. She didn’t believe in lying.

He raised his brows. “Yes?”

She licked her bottom lip where his thumb had been and desperately wanted to agree, just to please him. This need for his approval was the most frightening thing she’d ever felt. It honestly felt as if she would die without it. Her breath stuttered in her throat and a fist crushed around her heart. She couldn’t make herself say no, but she couldn’t make herself say yes, either.

He smiled. “You do feel it. Don’t you?”

Sprawled across his folded knees, her breath stopped completely and tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Ah ...” His arms closed tight around her. He crushed her to his chest and sat up, taking her with him. “You do.”

Fallon wrapped her arms around his neck in complete dismay at wanting to be held just like this. He didn’t smell wrong, he smelled right, and good ... and strong. And it hurt. She could feel her heart ripping completely in half. She dug her nails into her arms and held her breath to keep the feeling at bay. Silent tears dripped down her cheeks and spattered down his back.

His lips brushed her ear. “It’s all right. This is supposed to happen. You’ve taken an impression.”

What?
She had to gulp for breath before she could speak. “How can I have two impressions?”

He sighed and his cheek rubbed against hers. “You can’t.”

She froze and anger flashed at the back of her skull. Her tears dried instantly. “My feelings have not changed for Sobehk.”

“I suspected that they hadn’t.” His hand swept down her spine. “I don’t think you ever impressed on him.”

“What?” She tried to push back, to look in his face, but his arms tightened. She finally gave up and set her arms around his neck again, letting him hold her. “If it’s not ... that, then what’s going on?”

“Isabeau, what you feel for him is different from what you feel for me, yes?”

She frowned. “Yes.” Very different, almost the complete reverse of each other.

“You want to comfort him, you want to care for him, you want to make sure he’s safe. Yes?”

Her frown deepened. “Yes.”

“But you want
me
to care for
you,
yes?”

She stilled in alarm. That was exactly what she was feeling.

“Isabeau, if you had impressed on him, you would not have yelled at him for being foolish. With no physical contact for almost two whole days, impression would have driven you insane to get him to bleed for you, or fuck you.”

Fallon shook her head. “That’s stupid. He was hurt ...”

He chuckled. “No, it is instinct for a
rehkyt
.” He sighed. “What you feel for me is more basic, more physical, and very primal.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Isabeau, you love him.”

She froze and her heart turned over.
Love?

“But you need me, physically. You want to be mine.”

His?
She frowned and shook her head slowly, even as her eyes filled and spilled over.
No
. She didn’t want to be anybody’s. So what if he’d put his DNA in her body? That was her
body,
not her heart, not her soul.
I’m still me, inside, where it counts.
Her arms tightened around his neck and her nails cut into her forearms.
I don’t need anybody.
Anger was a refreshing heat that swamped the feeling of helplessness trying to overtake her.

He caught her shoulders and pushed her back to stare into her eyes. “No?” A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “You’re quite sure?”

Fallon set her jaw and nodded.

His brow lifted. “Then you won’t mind taking a shower by yourself?”

She glanced down. She was covered in brown smears of dried blood and other bodily fluids. She was seriously nasty. She grinned defiantly at him. “Are you kidding? I would kill for a shower and some privacy.”

He nodded. “Very well.” He pushed her up, and his cocks slid from her body.

Fallon winced as the piercing bars at the end of his cocks slipped free. She stood up on the filthy mattress on shaky legs. Every muscle in her body ached and shivered. Thick gobs of moisture slid down her thighs. She grimaced. “Oh, gross ...”

He rose to his feet, his long braid swinging at his hips. “You don’t like being dirty?” He stepped behind her and tugged free the thing he’d put in her data jack.

She winced. “I hate being dirty.”

“I see.” He stepped past her and strode toward where Sobehk’s bed had been.

Fallon turned and followed. She blinked. A massive and complicated tattoo sketched across his shoulders and swept down his back in swirls of dark blue ink. It was all sweeping lines and points, like thorns, but it didn’t seem to be a picture. It was more a design ... but something about it nagged at her. The shape was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

At the head of the room, Khan moved to the left of the colorful but completely incomprehensible holographic display. He pressed his palm on the blank wall. The wall spiraled open into an oval door. He turned to face her. “Take all the time you need. I’ll shower after you.” His smile held open anticipation, but a touch of cruelty seemed to hover on the edges.

Fallon grabbed her elbows and slipped past him. He was up to something.

Chapter Thirteen

Fallon looked around with interest. The small facility was very spare, with plain steel walls, a covered sink, and a zero-gravity commode commanding the back wall. A shower stall was set into the wall on her right, with towels hanging on the left of the shower’s sliding door. The towels seemed silly. There was a perfectly good water collector unit in the shower itself.

The chance to use the commode in utter privacy was near blissful. She pulled the shower door open and the interior light went on. The walls were highly reflective, but she was only interested in turning on the hot water. She wasn’t interested in knowing exactly how filthy she was.

She got the water on and stepped under the spray with her eyes closed. The burning hot water poured down her head and spilled down her body in fierce rivulets. The scratches and bites on her ached under the water’s heat, even as her muscles loosened and unknotted. She pressed her palms against the wall, moaning in sheer animal pleasure. She dashed the water from her eyes and reached for the soap.

Arm outstretched, Fallon blinked at her nude reflection. Her over-large emerald green eyes widened, and her deep-red lips parted in surprise.
What the fuck ...?

Frost-white streaks from her temples blazed in the midnight darkness of her well-beyond-shoulder-length hair. The graceful tips of pointed ears peeked out from her overlong mane. Her bruised and somewhat battered skin gleamed under the water like burnished gold.

She choked.
That’s not me!
She looked down. The curved white nails on her feet looked more like claws than toenails. It
was
her. Scarlet nipples crowned her breasts, framed by livid gouges from being bitten by long teeth -- gouges that were already closed and appeared to be well on their way to healing.

She turned to look at the reflection of her back and muscle rippled. She did not remember having that much visible muscle. She investigated the bites on her shoulders and neck. Those bites were healing, too -- healing faster than she’d ever healed in her life. Fingers tipped in curved white nails drifted up to the points of her ears.

She frowned at her face. “Damn it, I do
not
have green eyes!” She had hazel eyes, kind of bluish, kind of greenish with brown mixed in them ...

The four reflective walls stated otherwise.

She scowled and saw her fangs for the first time.
Damn, they’re longer than I thought.
The small spurt of pride took her by surprise. She stepped back to look at her entire length.

She didn’t look human at all.

But then, they’d been telling her she wasn’t human. Not anymore. Her heart thumped hard. Sweat soaked her back. What had they done to her?

They had changed her. Just like Peter had said they would.

Fallon closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m still me. That’s just the outside.”

Peter had also said that she wouldn’t
want
to come back. An image of Sobehk flickered in her mind, followed by a stronger image of Khan’s naked back covered with marks from her nails.

“No.” She folded her arms tight against her stomach and felt the bunch of muscle under her palms. “On the inside, I’m still me.” She opened her eyes and reached for the soap in the wall dispenser, refusing to look at her reflection.

But she wasn’t her on the inside either. Someone had jammed a sleeper program in her head.

Terror froze her where she stood, and the visceral desire to find Khan swamped her utterly. She had the shower door open before she stopped. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Damn it, she could handle this herself. She was a top-notch hacker in her own right. If she could get into her own head, she could disable the program -- if she could find it.

But she wanted him.

“No, damn it. I don’t need him.” She slid the door closed and took several bracing breaths. She turned around and stomped back to the water to finish her shower. She didn’t need him.

Not right then, anyway. She could wait.

No, damn it!
She slapped soap on her skin and lathered, shaking her head. She
didn’t
need him. But part of her did. Part of her wanted to hear his voice, to feel his hands touching her ... the perfume of his scent on her skin.

She scrubbed her golden skin with a vengeance, but the color didn’t come off.

Fallon shut off the water feeling more exhausted than when she had gone in. Tension sang in her bones. She wanted out of that bathroom. She activated the water collector and was dry in seconds. The scent of clean water and soap wreathed her skin. She smelled clean.

But she didn’t
want
to smell clean. The absolute worst urge to bolt out of the shower stall to find Khan burned through her. Something in her desperately wanted to rub against him to change her scent to his.

No, damn it!
Stiff-legged, she stepped out of the shower and deliberately turned her back on the open door. Instead, she searched for a brush to do something with her overlong hair, but couldn’t find one.

She faced the door and gripped her elbows to keep from running. She stepped out and automatically searched for him.

Khan was on her left with his back to her, using a small computational. His pale skin was marked by old sword scars, smeared in dried blood, and covered in fresh scratches. Sleek muscle shifted in his shoulders and arms, creating an arresting display under that strange and sweeping tattoo. His long braid fell down his spine in a creamy line.

He had a great ass, too.

Her gut clenched. He was painfully beautiful to look at. She wanted to touch him, to be touched by him. She desperately wanted to get him to turn around and at least look at her. She set her jaw.
No, damn it.
It took everything in her to hold still and wait.

Khan shut down his computational, sighed, and raised his head, setting his hands on his hips. “You’re very stubborn.” He didn’t turn around.

Fallon looked around. There was no one else in the room with them, so he had to be talking to her. A smile lifted the corner of her mouth, part relief that he had acknowledged her, but more in the fact that she had held out. “Stubborn is what I do best.”

His head lowered and a small chuckle escaped. “I strongly suspect that we are better suited than I thought.”

Fallon felt a small rush of elation. He thought they suited. Then her heart clenched.
Sobehk
 ... She closed her eyes and turned her face away. Good-bye was coming. She took a breath and shook her head. Good-bye always came. It was just the way it was. She should be used to it by now.

“What is it?”

Fallon opened her eyes. Khan was at her side, less than a hand-length away. His hands were still on his hips. She hadn’t heard him walk over. She took a shallow breath and yet the scent of his skin reached her. She turned to face him, but crossed her arms and dug her fingers into her upper arms to keep from reaching for him.

What should she say?

How about the truth? That was usually unexpected.

She looked up into his copper gaze. “You’re taking me from Sobehk.”

His eyes widened just a hair then his mouth set in a firm line. “I
took
you from Sobehk, last night.”

She flinched. The truth cut both ways.

Khan sighed. “Isabeau, it’s better this way. Believe me. He couldn’t have handled you. You’re too much for him.” He turned to the side and swept a hand across his jaw. “I don’t think he has any real idea what you’re actually capable of.”

Fallon felt a spurt of anger. “And you do?”

Khan snorted then shook his head. “According to his report, you’re a talented acrobat, a damned fine fighter, and quite a successful escape artist. You’re listed as a thief.” He turned to look at her. “But according to your personal data your real talents are not physical, they’re mental. Just from the style of your personal programs, it’s very obvious that you’re one of the finest programming architects I’ve seen in a long time. You are definitely a thief, but not for objects -- for information. You could make or break just about any code out there.”