Lunar Lovers (8 page)

“Probability that the destination is Ploice Two space
station?”

“High.”

Sam ran through the garage and activated the streamer, the
fastest ship in the garage, a personal egg-shaped transport made of living
metal that warped around his body, crackling as it morphed from liquid to
solid. Encased in the claustrophobic ship, he pressed his palms against the
empathic inner skin of the craft and thought,
Ploice Two
.

The low, singing engines engaged to propel him out of the
garage and off the moon. As claustrophobia spun his thoughts and emotions out
of control, he gritted his teeth, trying to push the memory of his parents’
death out of his mind. But the fear he felt for Achelle seemed to meld to the
memory of his parents’ accident and sear his frontal lobe, acting out for
attention like the child he’d been when they’d died.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

With a goofy grin on his fourteen-year-old face, Sam scanned
the newly updated chip embedded in his hand that now identified him as a
class-A student flyer. The scanner blinked white, accepting his license, and
the full-heavy, a company ship transporting mining equipment to their new site
on Twellen Moon where his younger brothers waited for them, rumbled to life
like an old male coming awake after an alcohol-induced nap.

Pride in her twinkling silver-blue eyes, Sam’s mother leaned
over from the copilot seat to press a kiss to his cheek. “I can’t believe my
baby is learning to fly,” she said, brushing his unruly hair from his forehead.

Normally he’d duck and weave to avoid his mother’s
demonstrative behavior but today he happily accepted her babying. He was, after
all, at the age of adulthood and adult males honored their females—especially
their mates and mothers—in all things.

“I’m going to pull away from the dock, Samius,” his father
said, his low voice ringing with a happy note of satisfaction. “You can take
over, with your mother’s guidance, as soon as we’re clear.”

Sam looked over his shoulder at his father who sat buckled
into the imposing captain’s chair and gave the large, thick-muscled male a nod
of his shaggy head. The disembark signal flashed green outside the bridge’s
main view screen and the docking clamps disengaged, releasing the jumbo-sized
ship to navigate away from the station.

They accelerated slowly, giving Sam plenty of time to review
their plotted course and submit it to the station before taking over the
controls and heading out into the vast darkness of space. The first in a series
of short jumps went well and was met with praise from both his parents. No
matter how hard he tried to maintain a countenance of solemn concentration, he
couldn’t beat back the jittery joy that came with his first flight.

Suddenly, without warning, the ship trembled as if in fear,
the hull screamed like an injured infant. Electrical lines broke and unraveled
from the ceiling, snaking wildly though the air, sparks burning up the oxygen,
making him choke on smoke-thickened atmosphere.

On the control panel, every light indicator flashed red,
every system was offline. The hull had been—and continued to be—breached.
External see-alls showed…damn, a meteorite storm tearing holes through the
ship, breaching the hull, killing the engines, tearing through the vessel like
tiny missiles. They were almost past it, but the ship was more than crippled;
the vessel had become a deathtrap preparing to snap and kill them all.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother jerk and
slump in her chair. Only the restraints prevented her unconscious body from
sliding to the floor. He released his seat buckle and checked her pulse…
Nothing.

“Dad!” he shouted.

No reply.

As if in slow motion, he turned to find his father writhing
in his chair, one of the unraveled lines biting at his chest, sending jolts of
electricity through his muscular form, killing him before Sam’s eyes.

Sam stumbled over to his father and knocked the line away.
Even before he checked, he knew he’d find no pulse. The burn marks and stench
of burnt skin and released bowels stole his hope.

The emergency siren squealed to life, a high-pitched scream
that stabbed past his panicked thoughts only to peter out just as quickly,
going off-line like everything else.

Trembling from head to foot, Sam ran across the bridge, dove
into a chute, and stumbled out onto the first main deck where emergency
capsules were located.

The air was thin there, forcing him to pant and gasp as he
ran to the closest porthole and manually forced the door open to crawl into the
capsule. The door sealed, he pushed and kicked the release lever until at last
the tiny life raft popped free and floated away from the ship and the last of
the meteor storm. Sam choked on his shock and grief and guilt. Later he would
learn that an experienced pilot would have seen the signs of the meteor storm
and avoided it. Sam’s ignorance had killed his parents.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When Sam reached the old, clunky space station, he
compressed the streamer into a sleek, handheld device that he pocketed as he
made his way through the glittering shopping district, once again following
Achelle’s pulse-pushing scent. The feeling of déjà vu bit at his heels as he
ran down the wide walkway. He prayed to the gods high and low that his mortal
mate was still on the run-down station…and within his reach.

It felt as though she was close, but maybe that was wishful
thinking. As long as she’d been gone, Achelle could have found and purchased passage
on a new ship going anywhere.

Her scent led him into a crowded ship repair shop named
Toio’s that looked more like a den of thieves than a legit business. Four
unwashed, unshaven males squatted in the middle of the main room, barking at
each other like rabid dogs as they played dice, gambling credits that were no
doubt stolen.

“Hello?” he shouted over their yelled curses.

A long, lanky male with a mashed nose glared over his
shoulder before returning his attention to the game. “Yeah, what?”

“I’m looking for my mate. A blonde, magenta eyes—”

“Captain of that piece-of-shit commuter ship grabbed her a
couple hours—”

Sam spun and ran out of the shop, backtracking toward the
docks, realizing now that her scent had been so strong because she had doubled
back on her trail. But concern over whether she’d done so of her own volition
or was taken against her will was what drove his feet to a dead run. He moved
in and out of the clumps and groups of family and friends strolling, window
shopping, laughing and talking, loving each other and the time they were having
while he felt his whole life slipping away from him.

If Achelle was lost, he would be incomplete. He and his
brothers had all bonded to her. Ranes mated for life. Without her…their family
would be forever broken, he half the male he was meant to be.

At the long, orange-and-white-striped chute that would
return him to the polluted docking ring, he pushed his way past several
slow-moving groups and shoved his way into the airstream. He burst out onto the
dock and stumbled in his bulky boots before he caught his footing. A
centuries-old passenger ship loomed in front of him, Achelle’s sweet smell
leading Sam up the steep plank to the captain who walked with a distinct limp.
He grabbed the lean man’s shoulder and wheeled him around.

“Where is she?” he asked, getting right up into the
captain’s generically handsome face and letting the male see the violence Sam
knew showed on his own visage. “Where is my mate?”

The captain jerked his shoulder out of Sam’s grasp and
stepped back, placing himself higher up on the ramp so he looked down on Sam, a
sneer cutting across his symmetrical face. “If you’re talking about the blonde
bitch, I refused her passage. Don’t need trouble like her on my ship.”

The growl that clawed its way up Sam’s throat and tore out
of his mouth widened the captain’s eyes and loosened his jaw. The man stood in
a state of shock that would have been laughable if Sam weren’t so pissed off.

“Where exactly did you see my mate last?” He bit each word
off as if he was tearing meat from the bone.

The captain’s eyes widened and bulged. He swallowed twice
before responding. “O-over by the far chute.” He motioned with his head,
nodding toward the service chute across the port from where Sam had entered.

A full-heavy obstructed Sam’s view, and for a moment Sam
stood there staring while flashes of his parents’ death in the same type of
ship ripped through his brain, reopening old emotional scars. Shaking his head
as if he could fling the memories away, he refocused on his mortal mate.

He bolted down the narrow plank and hopped over the rail
when he neared the end. The people in his way, the ships crowding around him
didn’t even register—they were nothing more than ghosts, blurred obstacles that
stood between him and his mate.

Her scent pounded through him now, rich and refined like
moonberry wine, delicate on the tongue and silky smooth as it slipped down his
throat.

He found her around the full-heavy, slumped on a long bench,
hands folded in her lap, head down, her long blonde hair obscuring her
beautiful face. When he sat at on the opposite end of the bench, he heard her
quiet crying, tasted her salty tears on his tongue.

Closing his eyes, he breathed past his self-loathing. Her
unhappiness, her despair were his fault. He’d pushed her too far, too fast—not
that he’d had any choice thanks to their Rane genetics. But if he’d just been
able to keep from coupling with her before they’d reached his brothers, if the
bonding ritual would have been explained to her and properly completed…things
might have been different. She might not have run from him.

Now that he’d found her, he didn’t know what to do. Force
her to return home with him? He was not the captain, caring only for his own
wants and needs. Let her go? Allow his bonded mate to leave him to live a half
life as half a male? Every cell in his body revolted at that idea.

A bonded Rane male without his mortal mate—was nothing. The
same could be said about a bonded Rane female but Achelle was half human. And
humans were notorious for breaking their mate bonds, their marriages, and
bonding with someone else.

Achelle felt more than saw Samius sit on the opposite end of
the squat metal bench, his long legs making him look like an adult sitting in a
child’s seat. The moment she sensed him, she came alive and her heart leapt as
if trying to reach him.

He doesn’t love you. How could he? He knows your body,
not your mind.

She winced at the pain that accompanied her thoughts,
lancing her heart, matching the emotional with the physical pain.

You love him.
The thought sang, a ringing of ancient
Earth bells, the kind she’d read about being used in weddings.

She laughed at the ridiculous thought and wiped at her
overflowing eyes, smearing away her tears.

“Achelle?” Sam’s voice was thick with unnamed emotion, which
comforted her.

At least she wasn’t alone in her bewilderment. And if his
presence here meant anything, it was that she didn’t have to be alone ever
again, not if she didn’t want to.

Gods, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. But really,
how could she say she wanted him and retain any self-respect after he’d backed
her against a wall. Yeah, she’d been foolish, running, falling into the hands
of Captain Grab-Ass again—a smile twisted her lips—but who would’ve thought that
all she’d had to do to get rid of the captain’s unwanted attention was to stop
running and face him… Well, that and awake before he boarded the ship so that
she could grab a handful of his junk and twist until his face turned purple and
he released her, whimpering like a little boy who’d lost his favorite toy.

She glanced at Samius, peering through the long length of
hair that fell like a curtain around her face. What she saw stopped her breath
and broke her heart. He looked at her with such raw longing in his
square-jawed, masculine face that she winced. What were the chances of him
feeling the same way about her as she did about him? And could either of them
trust feelings apparently fueled by their Rane nature?

“Will you talk to me?” He met her eyes, proving he was
paying far more attention to her than he had let on.

“I don’t know what to say,” she replied, and it was the
truth.

“Then will you hear me?”

“Yes.” Her voice cracked on that one word, reflecting how
torn she felt inside.

He slid down the bench until they sat hip to hip, close but
not touching. “I thought the natural drive to couple would supersede everything
else between us…or not yet between us. I know my arrogance now.” He closed his
eyes and shook his head. “If I had been honest with you from the start… Well,
maybe you wouldn’t have believed me, but at least the Rane need to bond with
your mate and his brothers wouldn’t have taken you by surprise. At least then
you could’ve trusted me a little.”

He gripped his knees, holding on to himself as if holding on
to his intense feelings. Achelle realized then that it was more than intuition
that allowed her to read him so well. This was part of what it meant to be a
bonded mate. Too bad he was right. He’d lied. She couldn’t trust him. More, she
couldn’t trust herself when it came to him.

He seemed to sense her conclusion, his head dropping, his
shoulders angling down. She could feel his response and it wasn’t what she
thought it would be. Achelle had expected anger, demands—not this, not
disappointment, sadness, acceptance.

She felt her brow go all wrinkly. She was honestly stunned.
Would he really let her go without a fight?

Only one way to find out.

She gripped the edge of the bench before collecting her
courage, pushing up off the cold metal to stand on shaky legs. “I’m sorry. I
really am. But I’ve got to go.”