The Price of Freedom (18 page)

It was good.

She turned her face into the stream and closed her eyes. Despite everything—the suffering, the loss, the pain—life was good. Even if she died within the next hour, she had had this one perfect moment in the shower. The absurdity of her thoughts hit her, and she laughed out loud. The sound echoed off the walls of the shower, and she laughed again with sheer pleasure.

The door opened abruptly.

"Bethany, are you all right in here?" Jess asked, his voice tense.

"I'm wonderful, Jess," she said, laughing again. "You have no idea how wonderful this shower is."

"Bethany, what's going on?" he asked, stepping into the room. She could hear the concern in his voice, and realized that she must sound crazy to him.

Fair enough.

"I'm happy, Jess," she said, pushing open the door to the fresher. She smiled at him invitingly, lifting her arms and slicking back her wet hair. She could feel her breasts lifting, her nipples hardening as the cool air hit them. The look on his face was priceless.

"I'm happy despite everything that is wrong right now, because I'm alive and I'm in a shower and all the odds were against success. Would you like to join me?"

He shook his head slowly, and she laughed again. She reached up and cupped her breasts, kneading them softly with her fingers.

"Are you sure?" she asked archly.

He grunted, then shrugged out of the pants he must have pulled on after she left the room. He stepped into the small booth with her, reaching both arms down to her butt and pulling her up hard against him. His mouth took hers, harsh and demanding. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sunk into his kiss with a sigh of relief.

They were connecting with each other again.

He was hard against her, and she wiggled, enjoying the feel of him as he grew more eager for her touch. Bethany felt as if the Goddess were inside her, feminine energy and power pumping through her veins as her tongue darted out, meeting his in a dance as old as time. He groaned, and then kissed her even more deeply. He pressed her against the wall of the shower, his pelvis pumping against her even as he sought entry to her body.

She lifted herself, and he thrust deep inside her. He hit her cervix and she gasped; it always amazed her that they fit together so well. He was massive, yet her body seemed to have been created for his touch. Nothing they did could be anything less than perfect.

He pulled out of her and then thrust back inside, seeming to go deeper and deeper with every motion. Tension built within her. She was aware of the slippery surface of the shower wall behind her in a vague way, and that the hot water still slid over them, yet he never lost his grasp. A sudden thought caught him. What would it be like if they could do thing this together in a tub full of water? Before she could think any further on her new idea, he thrust against her again, this time at a slightly different angle.

She could hardly breathe because now his entire length was rubbing against her clit. The arousal that had been slowly dancing along her nerve ending grew suddenly urgent. She couldn't breathe; she could hardly hold on to him. Everything in her body seemed to be wrapped up in him. He was her ground, her base, the source of her energy. She needed to take him into her fully, to become one with him.

She tried to urge him to move more quickly, grasping at his neck and shoulders as hard as she could, but the water kept her from gripping him like she needed to. Instinct cried out for her to clutch him tight, to bind him to her as her mate. Without thinking, she opened her mouth against his shoulder and bit deeply. He moaned, and she felt something salty filling her mouth. Blood.

He was pounding into her now, each thrust grinding her clitoris against her pelvic bone. The tension was tight within her, and she squeezed him, desperately seeking something more. More pressure, more of his hardness. She had to be filled.

Then it slammed over her. She felt the waves of heat moving through her body, and she screamed out in a mixture of triumph and joy. He followed her a moment later, hips pulsing as hot waves of his seed shot deep into her body. She collapsed against his shoulder and his grip on her softened.

They stood there in the shower, breathing heavily, for several minutes. He leaned down and kissed her wet face softly. She started to say something, but she was cut off by a low-pitched buzzing noise.

"May I have your attention please," a voice said coolly and calmly from a small speaker in the corner of the shower. Bethany started, then realized it was yet another emergency system announcement.

"Discovery Station Commander Ivankov will be addressing all station residents in two minutes. Please proceed to your vid screen for this important and mandatory presentation."

Jess reached behind himself, fumbling to turn the shower off.

She relaxed her grip on his shoulders, expecting him to set her down, but he lifted her away and strode out of the fresher. He carried her all the across their room to the bed, where he sat down, still holding her close. They were dripping all over the bedding, but he didn't seem to care. Instead, he simply pulled her against him, then grabbed a blanket to cover them both.

Within seconds, the vid screen flickered to life, and a man who looked strikingly like Jess came into view.

"Who are these guys?" she asked. "Why do they all look like you?"

"They're Saurellians," Jess replied. "And they don't look like me. At least not to anyone besides you."

"Are you sure?" she asked, doubting him. "I thought you looked an awful lot like Logan."

"You're crazy," Jess said, kissing her on top of her head. "I'm a slave, I wasn't even born on the same side of the quadrant as these guys."

She pursed her lips, wondering how he could miss the resemblance. Sure, he and the man on the vid screen looked different. The man was wearing a military hair cut, and his eyes were a different color. But that was just a matter of dress and grooming. Their bone structure was strikingly similar, although Jess was far paler than the man…

"As I'm sure you are aware, the station was attacked early this morning. We have determined that this attack was planned and executed by members of the Pilgrims of the Apocalypse, apparently in response to activity that has taken place on the far side of the asteroid belt.

"Several days ago, our sensors detected an extremely large explosion centered in this region. We have yet to determine who was behind this explosion, but we have assured ourselves that Imperial interference is highly unlikely. Not only have our scouts failed to detect any sign of Imperial spacecraft in the area, we have received assurances from the Imperial capital that they were not involved in this incident. Given the fact that such an attack would cause the Emperor a great deal embarrassment, combined with a complete lack of any understandable motive for such an attack, we find no reason to believe they were involved with events within this system.

"What is clear is that this fringe group holds the Saurellian government responsible for the destruction of a large area they inhabited. I can assure you that our government had no reason to attack, and until now had very little interest in the Pilgrims on any level. Now that they have attacked our facility, this has changed."

He paused, and Bethany shivered, snuggling further into Jess' arms.

"I wonder how many Pilgrim mining camps were destroyed," she whispered.

"I wonder
how
they were destroyed," he replied, his voice sober. "It takes a hell of a lot of firepower to pull something like that off."

"The majority of those involved with the attack on Discovery Station are dead," the station commander continued, his face stern. "The attack on the station proper appears to have been a suicide attack. The ore processing plant is a different story because timed explosive devices were placed there.

We have also discovered that every known inhabitant of the station who was affiliated with the Pilgrim group evacuated several days ago. We can only assume that plans for such an attack were in place even before the destruction on the far side of the asteroid belt. Presumably, the explosives that caused the destruction there were meant to be used against Discovery Station itself."

He paused for a moment to allow his words to sink in. Jess caught his breath.

"There are more than a million people living on this station," he said quietly.

"I can't believe that!" she replied. "How would my people have pulled off something like that? I'm sure I would have heard something about it. How could you keep a plan like that completely secret? And why would they want to kill all these people?"

"As a result of this attack, the Saurellian Federation feels that it has no choice but to consider the Pilgrims of the Apocalypse a dangerous and unwelcome group. If there are any Pilgrims lefts on the station, they are encouraged to turn themselves in to Saurellian authorities within the next cycle. They will be granted amnesty, and the opportunity to return to Imperial space or build a new life for themselves outside the Pilgrim movement. Those Pilgrims who do not choose to take advantage of this one-time amnesty can expect to be arrested on sight once this 24 hour offer of immunity expires. We have already put plans into place that will allow us to more closely scrutinize everyone entering or leaving the station. If you're one of them, we will find you," he concluded, his voice ringing with controlled menace. She shivered.

"How are we going to get off the station?" she asked quietly. "They'll know that we arrived here on a Pilgrim transport ship. Maybe we should give ourselves up."

"No," he said. "For one thing, we have no idea that they're telling the truth about how they'll treat Pilgrims who turn themselves in. For all we know the poor bastards will be shot for their trouble; it's the sensible thing to do with saboteurs, and the Saurellians are no fools. They're capable of all kinds of things."

"So what are we going to do?"

"We'll brazen it out," he said coolly. "For one, nobody really knows who that ore ship belonged to.

It was registered as a derelict in station records. I simply claimed to have salvaged it before selling it.

From there the trail is even harder to follow. I accepted payment for it in cash—"

"Cash? Isn't that kind of dangerous?" she asked. "How did you know the seller wouldn't just hit you over the head and take the money back?"

"Because I sold it in the Exchange hall," he said. "It's policed by the smuggler's guild. There's no safer place on Discovery Station, trust me. You make one mistake in there and you'll never be seen again. I also bought the new ship there. It's completely clean, brought in a few weeks ago by a traveling Saurellian soldier reporting for duty. He sold it because he didn't need it any more."

"That still won't explain how we got here," she said anxiously. "Won't they find it strange that we appeared on the station out of nowhere and purchased a ship?"

"I've got that covered too," he said, running one hand through her hair absently. "Our new identities belonged to a couple who arrived here on a freighter about two months back. They came to a rather unfortunate end, but their deaths had never been documented. I checked the records myself, before I bought their identities."

She looked at him in horror.

"Were they killed for their identities?" she whispered. "Did they kill them just for us?"

"No," he said. "Not that I'm denying things like that occasionally happen here, but that wasn't the case at all. According to the information broker, they were killed during a botched robbery, and I don't get the impression he was lying to me. It happened weeks before we arrived."

"Oh," she said, still not feeling much better. In some ways, the world outside the mining belt wasn't much safer than what she'd left behind, she thought grimly. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead softly.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Their death had nothing to do with us. We're going to use their names to make a new life for ourselves. That can't hurt them."

"I guess so," she said, still feeling uneasy. "So, now what? Now that we don't have to go after Bragan, does that mean we're finally free to do whatever we want?"

She deliberately didn't mention Calla. He'd been so distant when he first came back to the room, she didn't want him to turn into himself like that again.

"Not quite yet," he said softly, He reached up with one hand and stroked her hair softly. "I still have one more thing to do. Then we'll be free."

"What's that?"

"I need to find Mistress Jenner," he said.

"The woman who used to own you?" she asked. "Isn't she gone? I thought you told me she was a Pilgrim."

"She is a Pilgrim, and she is gone," he said. "She's also the reason that Calla is dead. If she hadn't sold me into the mining belt, then Calla wouldn't have tried to escape. She wouldn't have been killed.

Instead, we'd both be free by now. The Saurellians freed all the slaves at Jenner's hostel when she left."

Bethany bit her lip, unsure of what to say. If he hadn't been sold into the mining belt, she never would have met him. She'd still be there. Or rather, what was left of her would still be there… She—and everyone else—would have been killed in the explosion. She didn't point that out, though. Instead, she held him, wishing she had some way of showing him how much she cared, how much she wished she could take his hurt into herself and heal him.

"I think I know where I can find her," he said softly. "Or at least a place to start looking. We're going to have to move quickly because the Saurellians are going to be looking for her, too. I don't want them to find the bitch before I do."

"You know, if you gave the Saurellians whatever information you have," she said softly, "they're probably reward you and catch her themselves. You can have your revenge that way. You already said they'd probably kill any Pilgrims they caught."

"I want to find her," he said, voice cold. He stiffened in her arms. "I want to find her myself and look her right in the eyes while I kill her. I want her to know why she's dying and who's responsible."