Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) (6 page)

Taking in the harsh
planes of his face, she drew an invisible line across the precise cut of his
cheek bones.  His black hair was smooth with a pronounced widow’s peak and
trimmed precisely at the nape of his neck.  The wicked curve of his dark brows
slashed over eyes that were so dark blue they almost appeared black unless you
looked close enough to see the difference.  His skin was bronzed from the sun
and he had no beard stubble like Mac and the doctor.  Instead, his face was
fierce with its starkness and clean symmetrical lines.  His lips pressed tight
together did not negate the perfect cut of his features, or the surprising
fullness of those well-shaped lips.  And he said nothing, just letting her look
her fill, his face closed down, but his eyes never leaving her.

Danika narrowed her
eyes further, taking in the smooth bronzed skin of his neck above the precisely
buttoned collar of his coat.  He was dressed in what her research said was ship
formal.  Costly black leather pants tucked into high polished black boots, and
a flowing white shirt tucked under the long-tailed leather coat.  His hands
were covered in gloves of the same black leather.  It was very similar to what
he wore when she met him, only without the buffed shine that this leather
carried.  Everything was stark and added to the powerful body of the man
wearing it.  Even the sword that hung at his waist from the belt over the long
coat was shiny and sparkled with costly gems.  Yet, there was something not
quite right, a lie amidst all that.

Danika’s eyes were
continually drawn back to his.  Even shuttered of emotion, she could feel the
weight of years that resided there, pressing down from that deep blue.  Yet,
the lack of lines around his eyes belied those years.  And again, she spoke
without thinking past the truth she revealed.  “You are not human.”

Those eyes narrowed,
and Danika felt the wave of fury wash over her before he wrapped one leather-covered
hand around her throat, lifted her by the neck and shoved her back against the steel
door.  Even as she wrapped her hands around his leather-covered wrist to try to
pull him off her, she was assaulted by the frost emanating from him in waves,
while her back pressed against the cold of damaged steel at her back. 

Strange,
she
thought
, to shake with cold on a planet of two suns.

Luc felt her heart beat
flutter even through the leather covering his hands, and still she did not
struggle under his grip, just held on to his wrist shivering as if cold, her
eyes on his, as the light there began to flicker.  He dropped her to the floor
and stepped away, listening to her gasp for breath without satisfaction.  He
kept his back to her shivering form while he looked out over his opulent
rooms.  “You understand that I can kill you any time?”

When she didn’t answer,
he turned so fast his coattails arced around him.  “Do you understand I can
kill you anytime I want and no one will question it?”  With her hand wrapped
around her abused throat, she nodded, staring at him still with those wide
knowing eyes. 
Beautiful fucking truthsayer eyes.
  He walked to her,
until he once again stood over her, then he offered her his hand.  She looked
from him to his extended hand, and then after a moment of hesitation, she took
the leather-gloved hand. He pulled her back to her feet; wobbling, Luc held her
steady until she was able to stand on her own.  He led her to the table
overflowing with universal delicacies, and pulled out her chair for her.  She
sat after another short hesitation; then he walked around the solid wood table
and sat down. 

“Eat,” he said, picking
up his own utensil.  The little Bruha watched him take a bite before she
breathed out a slow exhale but she didn’t eat. Luc felt those eyes like a
brand, just like every other time she had looked at him.  “My cook went out of
his way to give you a little bit of everything,” the suggestion being she
should appreciate it.   

He watched a touch of
anger filter through before she raised her chin and touched a finger to the
angry red fingerprints he had left on her.  Her voice was scratchy from his
abuse when she spoke, and he immediately missed the smooth cadence of her usual
creamy tones.  “I do not think I am up to eating with you just now.”  There was
more than one meaning behind her words and he acutely felt the accusation
hiding behind those eyes.

He speared her with a
cold look and watched her freeze in her chair.  “Then return to your room and
wait for me.”

“Wait for you?”

He narrowed his eyes
and the little Bruha snapped her lips closed, but her face showed quite clearly
she was getting ready to mutiny. 
Does she hide nothing? 
“Return to
your room.”

She stood up, her chair
scraping loudly over the tiles.
 
She flounced out of the room and would
have been angered all over again if she saw how much he appreciated her show of
spirit.

***

Danika was pacing the
room in agitation.  From his own separate entrance, Lucan watched her; even
clearly disgruntled, she still moved like water.  Seeing her in the overdone “blue”
room, it annoyed him to see that she did not belong there.  The opulence of his
last mistress looked tawdry and cheap with Danika pacing its confines.

“Why is it called the
blue room?” she asked without halting her pacing or looking his way.  She
surprised him again.  Strange to think how long it had been since that
happened, it seemed a constant occurrence since she had arrived.

“Originally it was
blue.  Each occupant of the room changed it to suit them, as I hope you will
do.”

“Kira said this room
was temporary for everyone.  It would seem a waste of time to change things
when I will only be here a short while.” She finally turned his way, her green
eyes spearing him with a look.  “How long will I be here?”

His gut reaction was to
say forever, but he bit it back, knowing she would hear the truth of it.  “Where
would you go?”

She sucked in a breath
and turned to resume her fluid pacing.

“I will send the
servants to you tomorrow, and you can make whatever changes suit you.  For now,
here.”  He threw a jar at her and she caught it without thinking.  She looked
from the jar to him and he gestured his gloved hand her way.  “It’s for your
neck.  A salve.  It will help you heal.”

Danika looked again at
the jar in her hands and then tilted her head to study him, her eyes crinkling
in curiosity.  It was a look he had seen on her face many times since she
arrived.  “Why would you bruise my neck and then heal it?”

“The bruise was not the
point.”

She studied him, as she
studied everything around her.  Like a child seeing everything for the first
time, she looked at the world around her in wonder, and even after he had
almost killed her, she still looked at him without the fear and deference he
was used to. 

“If the bruise was not
the point, did you intend to kill me?”  She asked like it was academic.

“I intended to do
exactly what I did.  Press upon you the dangers of such speculation.”

She looked at the salve
in her hands again.  “Telling me to keep my thoughts to myself would have
worked just as well,” she murmured, “but your extreme reaction did press upon
me a few truths.”

“And what would those
truths be, little Bruha?”  He kept his voice mild as he leaned casually against
his bedroom doorjamb, his eyes heating as he took in the curves she hid under
the ship suit.

She met his eyes, her
own deep green sweltering with mystery in the shadows of the room.  “That I
would prefer eating in the public dining room, rather than spend time with a
man who would and could kill me for a passing thought.”  She said it with the
same inflection she would say she liked roast beef, but he could hear the truth
ringing in his ears and he felt it like a punch to his gut.

He stood up straighter,
his eyes hardening, his voice like a blade when he spoke.  “You said truths?
What else?” 

It was a dare, and he
waited for her to back down from the anger rolling over her, but instead, she
calmly answered his question.

“The other is obvious,”
Danika answered still showing only calm.  “You are in hiding, as much as I am.”

Lucan gritted his teeth
against the truth that rang through those words.  Then he strode forward until
he was close enough to touch her, or kill her.  “Do you not even know when you
should be afraid, little Bruha?”  She had to tilt her head far back to meet his
eyes, but meet them she did, and without the fear he was looking for.

“Why?  Will you grab my
neck and choke the life from me for speaking truth?” she asked quietly.  “Seems
excessive.”  She flinched when his hand took her throat again, but she did not
cower, and he did nothing but rub his thumb over the bruise that rested there. 
He studied her neck and her. 

“Truth then,” he
whispered.  “I do not like seeing marks on your skin.  I like even less that I
put them there.”  He leaned down until they were nose to nose, catching the
surprise that shone clearly from those expressive eyes, knowing she heard the
truth.  He leaned down, rubbing his hard jaw down the skin of her cheek until
he spoke directly into her dainty ear.  “The next time I have a point to make I
will make it in a way that will be just as memorable, but will end with you in
my bed, and the only marks you bear will be ones I like to see on your soft
skin.”

The feel of her against
his cheek was almost electric.  He heard her breathy gasp and turned his head
to press his lips to that softness.
More
.  He licked her skin and the
taste exploded on his tongue, sweet, hot, addicting. 
Bruha. 

Luc cursed and pulled
back out of reach, seeing the same bewildering desire on her face that he
felt.  It pissed him off nearly as much as the need for her skin did.  “Bruha.” 
He growled, his eyes hot and accusatory on hers.

She sucked in a
breath.  “Worse,” she said swallowing hard.  “You will not like this truth
either, I fear, but it would be better for both of us if you do not touch me. 
Ever.”

He licked the lingering
feel of her from his lips, knowing as he did it that he would need more even as
it pissed him off that he had so little control where she was concerned.  “Too
late for that, little Bruha.”  Even saying it, even knowing it, he still backed
away from the draw of her.  “Now, you will tell me what you are hiding.  All of
it. Why have you come here?  And why do I feel as if moving away from you is
like peeling off my own skin?”

Before she could say a
word, Luc felt his icom beep and he saw a high priority call for him to report
to medical.  He cursed. 
What now?

Need full medical scan
of subject.  Highest Priority.

“You and I will have to
finish this discussion after we take you on a tour of medical.”  Luc put away
his icom and headed for the door, more than aware that she had stilled utterly
at his words.  He caught her stiff arm as he was passing and pulled her along
with him out the door, being inordinately careful that they never touched skin to
skin.  She did not fight him, nor did she move with her usual fluid glide.  He
looked down at the top of her head.  Her profile was carefully blank.  “Something
you want to tell me, little Bruha?”

“Since I am attempting
to keep my secrets and you are about to expose all of them, there is nothing I
want or need to tell you.”

He tightened his hand
on her elbow feeling the skin give beneath the leather.  He eased his automatic
grip immediately when he saw her wince silently, but had a feeling she would be
wearing one more mark from him.  Still aware of the mark on her neck in the
shape of his hand and her raw voice, he wanted to bare his teeth in annoyance. 
He moved his gloved hand away from her, and instead used his much larger body
to direct her toward medical.  “I would wish that you were not so small and
delicate, little Bruha, when you seem determined to loosen my control.”

“I am a truthsayer. 
You do not care to hear the truth.  Seems a hopeless case regardless of my
size, but I do not think you can blame me for your propensity to grab.”

“Do you not?” he asked,
his eyes caressing down the shimmer of her braided hair.  He moved closer using
his bigger size to nudge her around the next turn.  Even through his leathers
and her clothes, he could feel her heat and softness everywhere their bodies
met.   Her scent was an intoxicating blend of sunshine and warm female. “I, on
the other hand, can blame you entirely for my ‘propensity to grab’.”

Danika looked over her
shoulder at him and he caught the widening of her eyes as his strayed along her
length.  She quickly turned back to face front.  She did not speak again; moving
just fast enough to stay ahead of him, she unerringly made the right turns
before he could move closer and nudge her one way or the other.  Luc lifted a
brow at this, and then watched, following close, his eyes narrowing when she
stepped up to the lift and it opened without a single word spoken.  He followed
and watched in amazement as the correct deck interface popped up on the screen
and the doors closed with a whoosh.  He watched her say nothing while they
descended, then lights flickering as they passed through the underground
tunnels into the public areas and back up to sea level.  The lift slid to a
stop on the public deck.  Again, the doors opened and she preceded him out to
the platform, heading directly to medical. Adjusting to the bright sunlight of
the town square, she blinked and seemed to come out of whatever maze in her
head had held her.

Unlike his private deck
that was open to only him and a select few, this one was public, because
medical was needed by everyone but him.  It was on the other side of the
bustling trade deck, where the markets and trading posts were opened daily. 
Since his moon was basically a collection of small islands, he had a transport
shuttle built that traveled underground to each section.  Basically, it was an
island with its own transport and shuttle deck.  With his security in place and
her lack of knowledge of the island, she should not have been able to one, find
her way to the correct deck, and two, leave his deck at all without his voice
authorization override.  So how the hell had she done it, and without using
either voice or manual control to do it?

“You and I are going to
have more to talk about than I thought, little Bruha,” he said, his voice mild
despite the suspicions and questions rioting in his thoughts.

She was too busy taking
in the market deck to pay attention to him, her eyes wide with childlike wonder
as she perused the many alien races represented here.  The trade deck was the
only island open to the traffic from space dock on PortSea.  The island spanned
hundreds of miles across, whereas his private island/deck was only about 20
miles in any direction, and far enough away that without transport or shuttle
it would take nearly a day to fly across to it.  Not to mention it was
restricted air space.  The space port was on the cold side of the planet with
its own unconnected shuttle pad that went to one destination — market deck.  So,
if you were approved transport to the planet, passed the rigorous security
screening, and his own personal seal of approval was requested and received,
here is where you would find accommodation and trade.  With the longer days
from the two suns making it likely that the market would be bustling all hours,
there seemed to be maybe a thousand people milling about, selling or trading
goods, and from the way Danika watched them, she had never seen anything like
it before.