Lunar Lovers (7 page)

Seeing him, they all climbed into their monster-sized moon
transport and headed out toward the main mine. For Sam’s sake, Cannan flew the
transport only a few yards above the desolate surface of Twellen Moon. The
vehicle’s high beams flashed over the clusters of houses located in each living
compound they’d built to house their workers.

A couple hundred in all, the compounds were enveloped by
enviro-shields that allowed the inhabitants to live in a copy of their home
planet’s natural environment.

Because of the diversity in the races of their mineworkers,
the environments of the compounds were diverse as well. Sam wondered if his
mate preferred the environment of her human half’s planet, Earth, or of her
Rane half’s planet, Cohere. The environments were very similar but he would ask
her preference when he returned home.

The see-all was on, the small screen mounted on the
dashboard showing live footage of the mining accident, moving from clips of the
mine itself to the families of the mineworkers who were trapped.

This is a disaster
, he thought.

“Agreed,” Essar and Errol said together.

Sam shut down his mind link while giving his brothers a good
glare. The last thing he needed was six other voices in his head as he tried to
work the problem at the mine. Sometimes the familial bond was more of a pain
than a pleasure.

“Do we have a new plan?” Faolan asked from the back of the
transport. He’d been at school when the mining accident occurred two months ago
and they’d revised their emergency plan.

“Each of you is assigned a section of the mine to gather
information. You have one hour then report back to me at the control room with
everything you’ve learned. We’ll decide on a course of action from there.”

“How do we know which section—ouch!”

Sam glanced into the panoramic rearview mirror just in time
to see Dell punching Faolan on the arm.

“We sent the new emergency plan to you at school. You were
supposed to read it,” Dell said.

“I was a little busy with finals and then rushing back home
when you finally decided to tell me Cannan was hurt. Not a lot of time to
review the new plan, okay.”

“You’re an idiot,” Dell groused.

“I second that,” Shome said.

“Everyone shut the fuck up,” Sam said as Cannan pulled the
transport into the cavernous main garage, which was filled with mineworkers,
family members and reporters. “We’re here.”

* * * * *

For the life of her, Achelle couldn’t figure out where she
was in relation to where she wanted to be. The all-know panels flashed a map at
her whenever she hit the auto-locate button on the high-tech screens that were
staggered around the house every dozen yards or so, but she couldn’t read a map
worth crap.

“Where is the garage?” she asked, tucking her hands into the
pockets of the wide-belted blue-and-brown-colored dress Samius had purchased
for her at the station.

“The main garage is located in subbasement two,” the
all-know replied in an over-sexualized female voice. The panel lit with a map
again.

“Can you direct me?”

“Yes, please follow the blue arrows.” A fat arrow lit on the
recessed ceiling a few yards ahead of where she stood in the hall.

Achelle put one newly shod foot in front of the other,
following the arrows and suppressing her guilt.

Damn.
Had she really seduced Samius in order to
prevent him from reading her thoughts about leaving him?

“No less than he deserved,” she mumbled, trying to reassure
herself that she wanted to leave. Really she did.

With a hard sigh, she stepped into a chute that rushed her
to subbasement two on a stream of compressed air. Her long wavy hair twisted
around her body like gold snakes as the skirt of her dress ballooned up around
her boyish hips, and then her shoes clicked onto the slick surface of the
highly shined floor as she landed softly in the subbasement. The smell of
engine oil and afterburn hit her nose, making it burn and run the moment she
stepped out of the chute.

She sniffled, looking around the large garage crammed with
surface, short- and long-distance ships. A group of maintenance bots
congregated around one mid-sized ship, chirping and clicking at each other in
their bot language. She gave them a wide berth. As long as she didn’t get in
their way, they’d ignore her.

I’m doing what I have to
, Achelle thought. She
decided to take the same flip ship she arrived in because the autopilot
obviously worked. The rear door opened with a sibilant hiss. She stepped inside
and the bright interior lights came on, making her blink as her eyes adjusted.

If Samius had known she would try to leave, he would have
locked her away or put a guard on her. All his talk about family bonding and
mates was nothing more than manipulative lies meant to make her stay. And she’d
made him think he’d succeeded.

She squirmed around in the high-backed pilot’s seat,
remembering how good he’d tasted, how wonderful he’d smelled, how amazing he’d
felt as he made love to her.

Starting up the twin engines, she let out a huff. No, not
made love. Love had nothing to do with it…except her heart pounded as she
thought of his mouth pressing against hers, soft and sweet and then hard and
aggressive, his hard body moving over her, inside her. The heat in his eyes as
he looked at her as if she were the only female in the universe, the tenor in
his voice as he moaned her name, the taste of his tongue as it tangled with
hers.

She closed her eyes and groaned. Damn, he’d gotten to her.

With a disgusted growl, she flew the ship up out of the
garage only to be inundated with traffic.

“What the—?”

As dozens of sets of blinding headlights flashed around her,
she hit inquiry on the flight-info box. A stilted computerized voice said,
“Traffic heavy on Twellen due to incident at the moon’s main mine.”

Ah, of course.

Achelle entered the destination of Ploice Two and engaged
the autopilot. As she left the bright and shining moon behind for the deep
darkness of space, she rubbed her eyes. Her fingers came away wet and she
cursed her stupidity.

“I’m doing the right thing,” she assured herself. “He’s just
as bad as Captain Grab-Ass—worse! At least the captain didn’t pretend to care
about me.”

Determined to act nonchalant, she slumped back into the hard
chair, stretched her legs out to rest her feet on the dash, and stared out the
view screen into fathomless darkness until the hum of the engines and the
sameness of space lulled her to sleep.

She jerked awake hours later when the ship warned her with a
piercing chirp that the autopilot was disengaging. Sitting up straight, she
watched Ploice Two fill the view screen. Its glittering rings revolved around
the docking axis. Her heart kicked in her chest with excitement. She’d only ever
docked in simulations, never a flip ship.

She hailed the station and hit her mic. “Requesting
permission to dock.”

“Permission granted. Proceed to space four-twenty.”

With shaking hands, she gripped the controls and cautiously
guided the one-person ship to the narrow space that the station master had
indicated. The margin for error was next to nothing. The docking clamp opened
like a giant metal claw and locked the ship into place. The engines
automatically shut down, the song they hummed slowly fading to silence.

She unfolded from the pilot seat with a prayer of thanks to
Faran, the bright god of safe travel. The view screen darkened, becoming a
mirror. She scowled at her disheveled reflection. But before she could smooth
her hands over the dress, the smart material the outfit was made of released
the wrinkles, making it appear crisp and clean, as if she’d just put it on
instead of slept in it.

Too bad her hair couldn’t do the same thing.

After gathering up her bedraggled hair, she twisted it into
a rope and knotted it at the base of her skull. The style may not have been in
fashion but at least she looked tidy.

If only she could do something about the lost look in her
eyes.

With a sigh, she hit the release and stepped out of the
small ship onto the dock, a lone traveler in a sea of pinprick stars and
predators. The feeling of déjà vu licked up her spine, making her shiver. Once
more she ducked her head and tried to blend as she left the docks for the ring.

This time the revolution of the ring placed her in the
five-hundred circle, just where she needed to be—her first bit of good luck
in…she didn’t know how long. Sam’s green-blue eyes rose in her mind, reminding
her what it had felt like to be looked upon with love—damn lucky, that’s how
it’d felt.

With a frustrated growl, she headed straight for the ship
repair shop…and tripped over the damn trash bot a second time once she neared
it. This time, however, she was quick to jump out of the way when the bot
sprayed acid at her.

The stream of yellow liquid missed her by inches. More luck.
With a smug smile, she turned and slammed into a male who clamped his hands
around her upper arms and held her against him. He ducked his head and
whispered in her ear, “I knew you’d come back. Waited for you. Didn’t like the
plans that pretty boy had for you, did you?”

Captain Grab-Ass.

She jerked back, trying to break free. His fingers dug in
with bruising force as he lowered his mouth to the side of her neck and bit.
Hard.

Achelle stomped on his foot and twisted, forcing him to loosen
his grip. The bot wasn’t the only one who knew a little self-defense. She
sucked in some air to scream for help. Captain Grab-Ass slapped one hand over
her mouth as he locked his other arm around her waist, pinning her arms down to
her sides. He pulled her into the ship repair shop.

“Hey! No!” the same man who had yelled at her before about
tripping over the trash bot yelled at the captain. “You want to assault some
woman, do it somewhere else. Not in my establishment. Last thing I need is
station security finding an excuse to search my shop.”

Achelle bit the soft cushion of the captain’s palm. He
jerked away from her mouth but before she could scream he wrapped his hand
around her neck, cutting off her air supply. Tears sprang in her eyes as she
struggled to take a breath. She thrashed in his arms, kicking his shins,
stomping on his feet. His dual grips on her throat and waist tightened,
squeezing the life out of her like a boidae snake kills its prey.

Her vision blurred and dimmed. Her muscles weakened and
quieted. Her body slumped and collapsed.

Her last thought was not of herself or the captain but of a
green-blue-eyed man who claimed her as his mortal mate.

Chapter Six

The multitude of alternating see-all screens that covered
the front wall flashed scenes of celebration, joyful shouts and relieved tears.
Sam’s eyes burned from staring at the monitors too long—really, he wasn’t
crying like the little blonde girl in the see-all on the bottom left corner who
was overjoyed to see her mommy alive.

He rubbed at his eyes, hoping his brothers would give him a
break—the last cycle had been a hell of a ride and exhaustion was the culprit
for his overemotional state. With the mineworkers safe and accounted for and
the collapsed section of the mine secured, Sam could finally allow his mind to
focus where it wanted to—on Achelle. Hell, at this point, he couldn’t even
block thoughts of his mate from his brothers, who were mentally bitch-slapping
him each time his imagination became sexually graphic.

“We can handle it from here.” Cannan shuffled reports on the
interactive touchtable before looking around at all his brothers in the
standard meeting room—a dozen narrow hoverchairs, scrolling info walls, the
usual—to rest his gaze on Sam. “Get out of here. Your three-day bonding bed
awaits.”

Sam gave a grateful nod before hitting “lock” on his files
and heading out.

In the aftermath of the media raid, the halls were
shockingly quiet, as though resonating with the whoosh of silence heard after a
great storm. The garage now stood empty but for their family-sized ship. He
stopped and looked around the empty room, needing to take a moment to collect
his turbulent thoughts before sitting in the pilot’s chair.

He hated flying at the best of times.

The relief that had reached into his stomach and loosened
his gut when the last miner rose up from the shaft and reunited with her family
had nearly brought Sam to his knees. As the CEO of their company, he took his
duty to protect his workers seriously—his brothers often thought too seriously.
But he knew even if they didn’t that any one of them would behave exactly as he
did if they had to shoulder responsibility for the lives of the men and women
who worked for them.

Time after time he’d thought how thankful he was that
Achelle was safe at home. Just knowing she was in their room waiting for him
made the brutal hours he’d spent working to recover his people bearable.

With a sigh, he boarded the ship and left for home, mentally
reaching out to Achelle as he sped across the moon’s uneven surface. He was met
with a vague mishmash of thoughts, the kind that spun through a sleeper’s mind.
A smile broke over his face as he imagined how he would wake her when he
returned to their rumpled bed but when, several minutes later, he made it to their
room, she was nowhere to be found.

He activated the all-know with the punch of his fist.
“Locate my mate.”

“Mar Achelle is off-moon, having taken the one-man flip
ship,” the feminine voice stated without emotion.

“How long ago?” he asked as he ran out of the room and down
the hall toward the nearest chute to return him to the garage.

“Eleven hours, fourteen minutes, twenty-two seconds.”

Damn. Talk about a head start.
“Trajectory?”

“Unknown.”