The Healer's Kiss: Book Four of the Forced To Serve Series (40 page)

“This is not a fight,” Gwen said. “This is a warning. Don’t. Get. Naked. Again.”

Dorian grinned. “Sorry. I can’t promise that.”

Gwen rose, kicked her chair, and stormed out.

“I hope she stuns you again,” Ania said. “I’m tempted to do it for her.”

“Tomorrow my mate will be singing sweeter than Boca,” Dorian supplied.

Ania shook her head. “You would enchant Gwen out of her bad mood with Siren pheromones?”

“Chiang’s claiming has inspired me to try,” Dorian said.

“You better hope it works then.” Ania stood and sighed. “Praise the Creators I didn’t choose you for a mate. You make the stoic Liam Synar look like the best male alive.”

“I would never harm her,” Dorian said softly.

“You continue to underestimate the mate you picked. Don’t make me explain to Sarinnea why her only child was sent home as a pile of ashes.”

But Ania had to smile at the wicked pleasure on Dorian’s face.

***

Boca ran barefoot down the halls, laughing as her feet barely touched the cool metal. Outside the door of the meditation room she paused. She didn’t have access. How was she to get in?

Place your palm over the com port, Che’ta. Say Lieutenant Zade’s name
.

Giggling Boca put her palm over the device. “Lieutenant Dorian Zade” she said in her deepest voice, laughing at the silliness of imitating him. The door clicked open and Boca laughed more as she walked inside.

“Wow. I no longer need Malachi. Perhaps I am a demon now,” Boca said to the female she saw waiting for her.

“No, you are not a demon,” the emissary said, bowing her head to the smiling female.

“Good,” Boca declared. “I did not wish to be one.”

“Indeed, that is not your fate,” the emissary said, coming close and touching each side of Boca’s head.

It was like an extreme blast of cold, and Boca shook.

“Wow. That was harsh. Was I asleep?” She looked around at the meditation room, at the writing still on the walls. Then down at her nude body and bare feet. “Why am I here in this condition?”

Her emissary’s facial expression changed slightly. Boca thought it must be the species equivalent of a smile.

“We must let the emissary come out of you now. Then you can go back to your mate. I have merely blocked the Greggor pheromone effects for a short time.”

“Wait…you said I have an emissary in me?” Boca demanded.

“Yes. It was expedient and necessary. She was not ready to return to. . .never mind. Details are not important. Close your eyes, Che’ta. The flash is intense,” the emissary said.

Remembering what happened when she received her burning palms, Boca closed her eyes tightly. Moments later, she felt a tug on her middle and saw light behind her eyelids.

“You may open your eyes now,” the emissary said.

Boca did and saw a dancing light of bright colors hovering near the emissary who kept dropping in on her life with pronouncements and gifts that did nothing but cause more havoc. “Is this the energy that was in Rena Trax?”

The emissary bowed her head once. “Yes. She wanted to experience your mating with you. She changed nothing, merely observed it.”

“Why?” Boca demanded, narrowing her gaze at the dancing light.

Her emissary shrugged. “It will aid her in a decision she must make.”

“Malachi wants her back,” Boca blurted out. “I know he’s a demon, but he’s been grieving for her every day. She has his full compassion. Does she care for him?”

Her emissary shrugged again.

“Rena—the emissary in Rena--has no job anymore. Seta Trax and Zorinda are now merged,” Boca supplied.

“We are aware of what has passed. It was for the best,” the emissary said.

“Well, that’s all I know. If you don’t need me anymore, I’d like to go back to my mate. He’s going to be mad when he wakes up and finds me gone again,” Boca said, only to find she was talking to an empty room. “Yeah, goodbye to you too.”

The words weren’t out of her mouth for three seconds before a loud grunt and bang came from the door. The lock popped off and a naked Chiang popped his head inside. “I swear I am going to chain you to the bed.”

“It was the emissary’s fault this time,” Boca said, sliding into the shorter of the two robes Chiang had snagged from the meditation room rack. “There will be hell to pay tomorrow. I’ll have to fix the door and clean the robes to keep Zade from killing me. My guess is that he will not be in a good mood. After the whole naked thing, Zade is probably sleeping alone tonight.”

Boca giggled, but it wasn’t the pheromones this time, though she could feel their effects seeping back. “Are you going to chase me down every time I’m out of your sight, Chiang? That’s going to get really boring, really fast.”

“Only until you adjust to the pheromone’s effects,” Chiang said.

“Well, when will that be?” Boca demanded, laughing.

Chiang sighed. “I don’t know. I’m feeling guilty for letting them loose on you, but I can’t seem to hold back anymore. I like seeing you happy. I like causing it.”

“Okay. We’ll fight about them later. Can we find Malachi on the way back to our room?” Boca asked, letting her mate tug her along by her hand.

“He’s camping out in Medical again tonight. He puts his host body on the medical table and hovers in mist form over the stasis unit all night,” Chiang said.

“His emissary was in me,” Boca whispered. “When she came out, she was a dancing light of many colors as tall as my emissary.”

Chiang snorted. “Strange.”

“I know. I was possessed and didn’t even know it. That’s almost creepier than hosting a demon,” Boca said, then surprised herself by laughing. “Every time I look at you I get the urge to giggle. I don’t think I like this.”

Chiang laughed. “Come back to the room and I’ll make you like it again.”

Boca laughed as they veered into Medical, just in time to see Malachi lifting a moaning Rena Trax from the stasis unit. Chiang dropped Boca’s hand and rushed to Malachi’s side as he laid her down on the medical table he’d been using.

“I heard her moaning,” Malachi said. “Then she opened her eyes.”

Boca came over quietly and peered at the female. “She is even more beautiful in energy form.”

Malachi’s startled gaze rose to Boca’s. “You saw her.”

“Your emissary has been in me this whole time,” Boca said. “I just found out.”

Malachi looked back down as the female on the table rolled her face to peer up into his.

“You look so familiar. Do I know you?” she asked.

Malachi smiled. “Welcome back, Emissary.”

Her gaze clouded with confusion. “Why address me so strangely?”

Malachi and Chiang looked at each other.

“The host body probably has good reason to be confused,” Chiang said.

Malachi’s gaze flashed red. The female flinched.

“What is wrong with your eyes?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Malachi said, pulling back. “Nothing at all. This is not her, Chiang. I think this is the real Rena Trax.”

“Contact Seta,” Chiang told Boca, hoping she would be able to maintain enough composure to do so.

Malachi walked to the stasis container and closed the cover gently. “She truly is free at last. I guess she decided not to come back.” He walked out of Medical, giving no thought to the couple staring after him.

“Call Captain Synar. Tell him what has happened,” Chiang ordered, when Boca reported Seta was on her way. He watched Boca nod but kept his eye on her in case she decided to run after Malachi.

“Where am I?” Rena asked.

“What is your last memory?” Chiang inquired instead of answering, hoping to get some sense of whom he was actually addressing.

“We were on the Paladin, but it was imperative that Seta come to the Liberator. Is this the Liberator?” she asked.

“Aye, it is,” Chiang answered. “You were injured during a mission.”

“I was injured?
Seta?
” Rena asked, her voice trembling.

“She is well,” Chiang said. “How are you feeling now?”

“I don’t know,” Rena answered. “I am confused.”

Seta Trax came rushing into Medical, going to the table and throwing her body across her sibling’s, clutching her in relief. “You live.”

“Yes. I live,” Rena said. “So do you. Praise the Creators.”

Chiang pulled back and went to stand by Boca. “Do you have any idea what happened?”

Boca slowly shook her head. “No. But my emissary likes to cause trouble.”

Chiang snickered. “Isn’t this the same emissary who said I was your gift?”

Boca giggled. “Yes, but she was wrong. You are trouble. I can’t go around giggling and laughing all the time.”

“I will spend all my days making you this happy even when you no longer react to the pheromones,” Chiang vowed.

“Give your days to your patients,” Boca ordered. “I’ll take your sleep cycles.”

“Deal,” Chiang said, catching her up in a hug, seeing a frazzled Dorian Zade frowning over her head, giving their robes the once over.

“I don’t even want to know,” Dorian said tightly. “I woke Warro up to fix the lock on the door. I wouldn’t expect him to be your new best friend.”

Boca giggled, turning her face into Chiang’s chest to stifle her laughter.

“Would you believe this is all Boca’s emissary’s fault?” Chiang asked, feeling his mate clutching him as she fought not to dissolve at the excuse he gave for them.

“Take your giggling mate and go back to your quarters, Doctor. I’ll call if the Trax siblings need medical attention,” Zade said.

“I’m happy to, but Lieutenant—why aren’t you in your quarters?” Chiang asked.

Zade pulled his weapon from his holster, pointing it at a laughing Greggor, who picked up his laughing mate and ran.

# # #

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:
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~ Donna McDonald

KEEP READING in this ebook to read an excerpt

from “The Demon’s Change”, Book 5

in the
Forced To Serve
series

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Excerpt from THE DEMON’S CHANGE

He hadn’t been able to stop himself from checking on her multiple times a day. This time he had tracked her to Zade’s meditation room again, one of her favorite places to hide. Glad he’d left his body in his quarters so he could spy discreetly, Malachi seeped around the door edges until he was inside the sacred space that Zade guarded with his very life.

Near the front, his Ethosian quarry knelt in the middle of the Rylen meditation rug.

And she was weeping. Again. How her melancholy frustrated him.

Weeping seemed to be all Rena Trax had done since Kefira had left the ship. The Ethosian female wandered the halls feeling a despair greater than an unlinked demon with no host body. Rena’s spirit in energy form floated above her physical one most of the time, in the way that most creatures used depressed states to escape their lives. It was like she sought the disconnection.

Rising higher, Malachi floated his energy all the way to the ceiling, ignoring the symbols there warding off all manner of wicked actions. Zade’s energy in the space was strong, but Malachi no longer feared the male’s spirituality. If anything, he had developed quite the envy for the Siren who had willingly suffered a long-term, unnatural celibate state for his beliefs. He was appreciative since he was currently subjecting his host body to similar circumstances.

It had not missed his scrutiny that the former Captain Warro, now Lieutenant Warro and their newest crew member, used stimulation videos for self-gratification while he dreamed of bonding with the unsuspecting Lieutenant Seta Trax. The obtuse Ethosian female had rather remarkably resumed her duties within a day of Kefira merging her with the Demon Zorinda.

But her sibling had not done so well.

No, the entity still only identifying herself as Rena Trax spent her days, and many of her sleep cycle hours, either in silent meditation in this room or weeping heart-wrenching tears in any private space she could locate on their tiny ship.

“I feel you behind me,” Rena said finally, sniffling. “I refuse to be afraid of you.”

Drifting down nearer the floor, Malachi pulled himself into his old form—what he considered his original form—though after the many years of his existence, he wasn’t quite sure his recall of his original physical body was even accurate anymore.