Camille's Capture (3 page)

She caught a glimpse of a raised dais and a couple bowing to an elder before she joined the line of waiting women. The native
s were stunning, slender, and almost as tall as their men. When she looked straight ahead, all she saw were endless backs.

Graceful backsides swayed and angled as the women in front of her
craned for a better view of the ceremonies. All of them wore elegant white gowns. No two were alike. Some were frothy, some severe, and some intricately decorated. Only she wore the formal robes of a Bon Sorority breeder.

Under
the elaborate costume, her new tattoo itched.

Hushed conversations mixed with nervous laughter as the other
s chatted. Their teasing familiarity reinforced the fact that she was the alien—a short Earth woman in strange handcrafted garments among the exotic natives. She was far from home and very alone in the crowd.

Sorority disciples had embroidered her
clothes with loving care, spending hours on working in the ancient fertility charms. She stretched her spine and lifted her chin, making every millimeter of her height count, determined to carry the ceremonial costume with pride.

On the opposite side of the vast room, a long line of warriors matched the column of women. Some wore dress uniforms, others dark, formal
garments. She darted curious peeks at them. It was the first time she’d gotten more than a glimpse of an actual man.

Holograms hadn’t done them justice. Dear
Goddess, they were big, very big, and even fiercer than she’d imagined.

Her courage faltered, but she stiffened her spine
again. She was a Bon Sorority breeder and matched with two of the fierce males.

The w
arriors had tested positive for viable seed. Nothing, especially not a case of foolish nerves, would keep her from fulfilling her destiny to reproduce. She longed for a babe of her own to love, but there was far more at stake. The sorority needed male offspring to ensure the survival of their race.

Every few minutes the lines surged forward as another couple met, made their vows, and received their sanctioned mating marks. With each step closer to the
mating ritual, her courage failed and her knees dissolved a little more until they felt like water. And with each step closer, her plan to return to Earth once securely pregnant seemed more foolishly optimistic.

Every
man in the chamber looked ready and able to defend what was his. The little she’d learned of warriors from the local news had taught her they were prone to violence and fanatically protective of their mates and babes.

She knew nothing
specific about either of the warriors she’d been matched with, but she wasn’t enough of an optimist to believe they’d be radically different from the rest of New Eden’s men.

Younglings were adored on this alien world, especially by their fierce fathers. She couldn’t imagine one of the
m agreeing to her leaving for Earth with his child. How could she break a man’s heart by stealing his son? Even if the youngling was half hers, abducting a babe didn’t seem right.

With a start she realized the line had ended. She stood alone.

Around her, happy couples neared and retreated in a dance of anticipation. Feminine voices blended with deeper male tones. Dozens of different fragrances, including her own clammy perspiration, added to her queasiness.

All the pairings were one man with one woman. Why then was she matched to two warriors? Was her mating notice a tragic mistake? Gathering her ebbing courage, she crossed to the dais on shaky legs, grateful for the stiff skirts and the heavy veil masking her terror.

A New Eden elder, distinguished by the elaborate gold braid decorating his white tunic and over-robe, beamed a politician’s practiced smile while his attention wandered the vast chamber. Two warriors stood slightly behind him. Both had neat goatees and dark hair streaked with silver. They wore matching black garments trimmed in red. Neither cast so much as a glance in her direction.

Her stomach knotted as if she’d just slipped into subspace, and she felt as cold as the syn-marble floor under her fragile slippers.

The elder turned and whispered something to one of the distinguished warriors behind him. The other man nodded, crossed the room, and then disappeared through a door on the far side of the chamber.

Camille took slow, deep breaths, silently counting by tapping her fingers against her leg to soothe herself while she waited for the mating rite
s to begin. She’d reached three hundred and twenty-four when the warrior returned. He conferred with the elder in a discreet whisper.

“What do you mean they are not here?” the official croaked, cutting his gaze to Camille for the first time.

“Who’s not here?” she asked, pleased nothing in her voice betrayed her weak knees and clenched stomach.

“Your matches.
Neither one of them.” He shook his head in irritated disbelief. Then he smoothed his thinning hair. “I don’t understand how such a thing could happen. I can assure you this occurrence is unprecedented in the entire history of New Eden.”

Silence fell behind her.

Camille refused to turn and look. She didn’t need to. Stares from the newly mated couples bored into her stiff back. The elder might as well have yelled,
Live news flash! Pathetic barren breeder rejected by not one but two of New Eden’s finest warriors!

“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.” The official’s harried expression warred with his patently insincere tone. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing more I can do. I’m afraid we’ve run out of time. I’m due in the council meeting.”

Camille nodded numbly.

He snapped his fingers at his attendants. “You will escort the Earth woman to her embassy.”

“I don’t need guards.” She backed away from the men, hating the flash of pity she saw on their stern faces. When even hardened warriors felt sorry for her, she was in serious trouble.

“It is not safe for a female to wander around unescorted.” The elder dismissed her objection, using enough force to make
his words a command.

Caged between the two fierce males, she focused on her feet.

The newly matched couples buzzed again. Their whispered speculation carried to her ears on notes of shock and pity.

A wide swath cleared as
though disgrace were contagious.

If not for the heavy costume, ridiculous headdress, and fragile shoes, she would’ve run. Her face heated, and she refused to look at either of her escorts. They signaled for a skimmer, a
much smaller, sparser model than the ambassador’s. By the time she sank into a seat, she panted for breath, pretending her hot cheeks were from wrestling with her elaborate costume rather than from rejection.

She almost snorted to think she’d worried about being unfair to the males selected for her. Obviously her concern for their tender feelings was a nonissue.
If her matches had shown…

Though her face still burned from the public humiliation, she shivered. She’d come frighteningly close to losing herself in this strange and violent world where women were property, men killers, and an endless war their daily reality.

Abruptly she made up her mind to leave this Goddess-forsaken planet on the next ship bound for Earth.

The warriors pulled the skimmer next to the embassy’s back gate, and Camille clambered out with a murmured, “Thank you.”

With curt nods in her general direction, they zoomed off. She trudged into the compound, dreading the round of explanations and pity parties waiting for the only female ever rejected in the whole history of New Eden.

No sympathy, please. Thanks anyway
. She was already full of self-pity. To give herself time to regain some composure, she took the path between the lush grounds and the outer wall. There no gain in sharing her disgrace with everyone in the embassy. Better for her to keep to the shadows and wait for the next transport back to the space station, where she could board the first ship returning for Earth.

On her second loop around the grounds, one of the sisterhood’s shuttle crafts touched down and idled on the landing pad. The
Goddess
was
watching over her. She picked up her cumbersome skirts and dashed for the waiting transport.

New Eden Space Sector H

Same day, 4402 SG

Jaxon snapped on the
battle harness, dropped the stern shields, and pulled the trigger before the system even registered his possession of the controls. “Come on, baby. We ain’t got all day,” he muttered, coaxing the fighter to respond.

A weapon indicator blinked green.
Jaxon had a lock. The blaster spit death at the ship angling for a kill shot. In the instant after firing, he thumbed to activate the forward shields. The force field snapped into place a fraction of a second before the enemy’s blast hit.

He whooped
with triumph as his shot rammed home before the other pilot raised his defenses.

The
Baldorean craft exploded into debris.

“
Well done,” Aegis, his copilot, yelled from the tail chair.

Two more enemy
fighters dove into range. Jaxon engaged top thrusters to drop below the incoming vessels. Aiming straight up, he fired belly shots. The first ship took a direct hit and flamed out. The second angled to ninety degrees, evading his blast. The survivor fired twice before phasing out of range.

“Damn! I missed. Got him?” Jaxon yanked his
duranium
-powered weapon back to level, already sighting in on the next target.

“The enemy flies within my
scope,” Aegis snarled. His copilot’s harsh words were punctuated by muffled plops as the tail blaster fired.

From the edge of his vision, Jaxon saw the Baldorean craft’s hull ripple before the ship
shattered in a flare of energized particles.

Three more fighters, one of theirs and two of the enemy’s, met the same fate before the Baldoreans retreated.

The squad leader issued the order for them to fall back, which meant they were out of the fighting for the next hour.

Jaxon took his time unsnapping his harness and levering out of the weapon chair. The loss of one of their fighters soured the sweet taste of victory.
Autopilot had the con when he stepped into the main cabin. The occupied light glowed above the santizer’s door. Good. Jaxon didn’t need to spend more time eyeballing his best bud’s tight ass and mooning over a hopeless fantasy of sharing a mate with the warrior.

The stubborn dream had sprung to life the first he’d heard of a tri-bond, and it refused to die.
He’d sought out all the information on the sole instance of an officially sanctioned mating between two men and one woman. Each new account had given him more hope. Surely something that had happened once could happen again. If the gods favored him with a miracle, the impossible—his forbidden craving for Aegis—became possible. Or it would as long as he ignored the small problem of the big guy’s alien status. His bud’s Hakanese ancestry hadn’t kept him out of the Space Corps maybe it wouldn’t be an issue.

T
he tri-bond had always been his personal fantasy, so he got to make the rules. Aegis’s naturalized citizenship definitely didn’t qualify as a problem.

After the last dogfight, he ought to be thanking the gods they’d been spared
, instead he longed for another skirmish. He lived to fight the stinking Baldoreans. The downside always came when the battle ended. High on the adrenaline rush and hornier than a spiny Anluvian in heat, he had no distraction from Aegis.

The sanitizer opened. Jaxon got busy, pretending to check his comlink for messages.

“I asked whatever gods may be to grant safe passage to Buck and Hex,” Aegis finished zipping up his jumpsuit.

Jaxon kept his peepers glued to the comlink, though he couldn’t remember a single message he’d scanned. “Their fighter added to the cosmic dust?”

“Correct. This was their first rotation.”

“Damn, we only met them at last week’s briefing. They were babes, barely out of the academy.” He turned away, suddenly too aware of
the big guy and too aware of the thin the line between life and death.

“Such is too often the way.” Aegis
made minute adjustments to the energy distribution. “How many of the enemy’s Eagles did you down, three or four?”

“Yeah, something
like that. You laid down some serious firepower yourself, bud. Doesn’t help those poor dead space jocks.”

Aegis
pressed his sensuous lips tighter and raked strong fingers through still-damp curls. Typical marks of his frustration.

Jaxon balled his hands into to fists to keep from reaching for his friend. Manly warriors didn’t cuddle their co-pilots. Cradling the big guy’s head and forcing him to accept some
comfort would just punch his sissy card. Still his fingers twitched, imagining the texture of his bud’s locks—wet silk over strong bones.

The tops of Jaxon’s ears burned, and he jerked back from the surge of forbidden
images. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and still sounded too damn raw. “If you’re done with your primpin’—”

The other warrior didn’t rise to the bait. He just stood there, a picture of rugged male beauty and stoicism as he crossed his arms in front of an impressive chest and stared into the middle distance. Not for the first time, Jaxon wished he could read the big guy’s thoughts the way he
did anyone else’s—a secret he’d never told.

Differences weren’t prized in the corps. Perfect compliance with an impossible ideal was the standard for pilot
s. His ability to read another’s mind with the slightest physical contact would get him a one way ride out of the unit. Besides, keeping his psy gift a secret turned the occasional poker night a sure thing.

It figured his special talent made absolutely no difference when it came to Aegis. H
e got nothing from his best bud. Maybe the big guy’s lack of transparency had advantages. Most of the time, Aegis’s blank wall drove him crazy. His thought-shield thing might be standard equipment for a Hakanese. How would he know? Aegis was the only native of that distant planet he’d met. “I’m going to hit the san-can. Give me a shout if anything comes up, ’kay?”

“Certainly.”

Minutes later, Jaxon glowered at the big jerk scowling back at him from the san unit’s mirror and mimicked himself.
Give me a shout if anything comes up, ’kay? Like what? His dick?

What in the seven hells was wrong with him? They’d been together for two service periods, almost four years. They’d logged countless hours fighting, flying, qualifying, testing, and occasionally knocking back a few Cafrimal brews.

They’d never fucked.

With damn good reason, a
couple of great reasons, actually. Number one, Jaxon didn’t swing that way. In hundreds holo-sex sessions, he’d always picked a lady of the light. He’d never felt the urge to try a lad of light. This made his craving for Aegis all the harder to understand and harder to forgive.

Number two, he was pretty sure Aegis didn’t swing that direction either. In fact, the big warrior was such a hard-ass that Jaxon wasn’t
certain the big guy indulged in anything as human as sex. Number three, and the real clincher, same-sex humping meant instant ejection from the Space Corps and pretty much the end of everything he’d ever wanted in this life, including hangin’ out with Aegis.

Whatever his sick obsession with his best friend was about, Jaxon didn’t care. The dream of a tri-bond was just that
—a pure fantasy. He wanted it gone. Easier wished than done, especially since he spent most of his time living with the big guy in the fighter’s cramped quarters. The craft was built for speed and killing, comfort wasn’t a consideration.

He stripped off his one-piece, tossed it in the
cleaner, and banged his elbow getting into the torture chamber that passed for a fighter’s shower. Sensors took care of the rest, spraying him with lukewarm water, a thin layer of sanitizing gel, followed by the final rinse, and then a slow blast of hot air. While he calmed down under the influence of the impersonal squirts and blasts, his jumpsuit underwent a similar procedure.

A clean body and clothes actually improved his mood. He inspected his mug without any smart-ass commentary and decided
against shaving. Tugging his mouth into a lopsided grin, he left the sanitizer.

Aegis raised an eyebrow. “You had best sit.”

“Why, what’s up?” Damn, he had to quit saying that kind of stuff.

“Sit first.”

Jaxon parked his ass on the edge of the console. “I’m braced. Lay it on me.” He winced inwardly. It was definitely time to knock off the double entendres.

“We have been matched.”

Jaxon stared at him, wondering what the punch line was. Wait a nanosec. Aegis didn’t make jokes. “
We’ve
been matched?”

“We, as in you and I, have been matched by GAIS with an Earthling breeder.”

’Kay, not to each other. Not in this lifetime. Keep breathing, idiot
. “What’s the catch?” Skepticism was automatic, but new hope flooded through him.
A fucking tri-bond.

Aegis
shrugged. “I do not understand. Since I am not eligible, the message must be an error.”

“Exactly where’d you get this hot scoop?” Jaxon narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion, trying to contain
the wild rise of excitement bubbling through his veins.

Aegis stiffened.
“Standard galactic is not my first language, but I am competent to translate it and seven other languages, including Baldorean.”

“Sorry, bud.”

“You meant no offense.” The warrior accepted his apology with a regal nod. “The message arrived in a properly encoded hologram from headquarters as any other official communication. You are welcome to check the incoming queue.”

“Both of us matched to the same breeder?
Beyond weird.”
Right into dream-come-true territory
. “You ever heard of anything like this happening?”

“There have been no GAIS
double matches, to the best of my knowledge, however, a sanctioned tri-bond is on record.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jaxon had damn near memorized the special mating text.
A thing that happened once can happen again
. His heart beat faster just thinking about the possibility.

“It took what?
An act from the council of elders for the first tri-bond to be recognized. Now all of sudden, you and I get matched to the same woman? Please.” Jaxon added a belated manly snort, keeping his crazy hopes for an officially sanctioned three-way mating right where they belonged—in his fucked-up head.

The big guy
’s mouth thinned. “I agree. The notification must be in error. Aliens, whether naturalized or not, have never been included in the genetic database.”

“
You know that’s not what I was talkin’ about.”

“She is beautiful
,” Aegis said flatly.

An awkward change of subject, but Jaxon jumped on it with an eager grin.
“Fire up the display. I gotta see this woman.”

With a few commands, Aegis played the message.

He hadn’t exaggerated. On a scale of one to ten, a ten being the best holo-ho Jaxon had ever dreamed up, she was a solid fifteen. The earthling was some kind of serious beautiful. Almost white blonde hair, hazel eyes, and creamy skin decorated a body built for breeding.

Even better, she
’d been designated the official filling for an Aegis-and-him sandwich. His cock jerked hopefully against his one-piece uniform. He ignored his hard-on and stared at the lifelike image as the woman rotated a full three sixty. She didn’t have a bad side.

The cool, faintly mechanical voice of the medi-scan computer provided catchy play-by-plays. “
Hold your breath please
.” Followed by, “
Please breathe normally
.” Topped off with, “
Please hold still
.”

“
When can I get dressed
?” Her words emerged from a mouth made for sin. The little beauty’s tone hovered in the definitely frosty range. Even pissed off, her voice was sheer erotic magic.

Jaxon grinned.
“Never, sweetheart, never.”

“She
addressed the medi-scan unit,” Aegis said dryly.

“
Yeah, whatever.” Jaxon’s eyes stayed glued to her naked perfection. He didn’t even try to wipe the ass-eating grin off his mug.

Bright green letters flashed every ten seconds, announcing Jaxon Farquhar, Aegis Trykol, and Camille d’Rondeur
—
match approved.

If he’d been alone, he would have replayed the message until he wore out the holo-unit or until more Baldoreans showed up, whichever came first. Since Aegis had on his stone face, Jaxon killed the display. “Even her name is beautiful
—Camille. Did we get lucky or what?”

“The message is in error. I am not eligible.”

“You were granted citizenship when? Five years ago.”

“Seven,” Aegis corrected.

“There you go. GAIS expanded its parameters to include naturalized citizens. You just didn’t get the memo.” Jaxon kept babbling like a nervous cadet. “Hey, if they opened it up to male dominant sperm producers, they’ve got no standards. Why not a decorated fighter pilot regardless of where he was born?”