Return to Dark Earth (16 page)

The ledge was quite spacious, several meters
wide and it ringed the entire lobby. Farther down she saw a large
statue, and several more directly across from them. She figured if
the situation wasn’t quite so dire, Niklas would have enjoyed
studying them.

She heard the drone before she saw it, a
faint buzzing sound, like an annoying insect. It flew in through
the front door and then zoomed up, out of zombie reach. It hung in
front of them for a few seconds, its multiple rotors spinning. Then
it headed toward them.

“Phoenix and Darc, the attached pouch
contains the necessary meds. There are also some rations.”

It was Agent Ryant’s stern voice coming from
the drone’s speakers. Nera was still a bit surprised the man hadn’t
written them off as a lost cause.

“Got it.” Niklas detached the bag. “See you
in the morning…hopefully.”

“Stay where you are, and we’ll come as soon
as we can. We’ve also included a temporary emergency shelter. It’s
the small silver box. Just press the controls to activate it. It
will provide some limited protection from the radiation.” A pause.
“It’ll be a tight fit, but the drone couldn’t carry two.”

“We’ll be fine,” Niklas said.

Nera watched Niklas fish the shelter out of
the bag. It was a small box no bigger than his palm, but she knew
with one press of the controls, it would open into a clear
protective dome. She’d spent an uncomfortable few hours in one
during a poison rainstorm on Digila V.

“Good luck,” Agent Ryant said.

The drone whizzed away, this time rising
upward. It maneuvered through a small hole in the dome and
disappeared.

Niklas pressed the control on the box and
set it on the floor. A clear, flexible bubble appeared. Big enough
for one person and pretty damn tight for two.

“I’ll go first.” He climbed in and sat.

Nera ducked inside, the door sealing behind
her with a hiss. “Cozy.” She settled beside him, putting her boots
up on the curve of the shelter’s dome.

“Well, now it’s just you and me,” Niklas
said.

She studied his rugged face. There was no
panic, no sheen of perspiration, no nerves. Just calm, steady
Niklas. Most people she knew would be having a panic attack by now.
“Us and several hundred flesh-hungry zombies.”

“Yes, well…they aren’t the politest of
companions, are they?”

With a smile, she looked up through the
enviro shelter and the dome, and saw that night had fallen and the
stars were coming out. Then she looked down at the stirring mass of
monsters.

“So you think they’re people who lived on
Earth?”

“Not these ones,” he answered. “The original
humans would have been irradiated, then over the years they bred,
somehow. Evolved—or devolved, may be a better description—in their
own way. That’s what these poor creatures are.”

Nera shuddered. “If I get bitten, kill
me.”

He turned to look at her. “No. I couldn’t do
it.”

She blinked. “You’d condemn me to that?”

“No. I’d contain you, and work until I had a
cure to turn you back.”

Something warm bloomed in her chest. She
leaned over and pressed her mouth to his.

He made a noise, his arms wrapping around
her. He took control, kissing her in that all-consuming way that
made every nerve ending light up.

He pulled back, breathing heavily. “This
isn’t really what I had in mind when I fantasized about seducing
you.”

“I don’t need silk sheets and simulated
candlelight.” She’d had that once. Silk sheets still made her
shudder.

“But you deserve more than dust, an enviro
shelter, and irradiated zombies.”

She stared at his face. They might not make
it out. What if she lost him, before she’d ever had him? Emotions
swirled inside her, messy and chaotic. Everything she’d avoided her
entire life.

Maybe she should give him what he really
seemed to want from her. Now, her heart thumped so hard she was
sure it was twisted into a knot. She stared blindly at the mass of
moving shadows below. Was she really going to bare her soul to him?
A soul far uglier than the zombies beneath them?

“I was born on Luvanoi. A moon of
Klavinoi.”

He stilled and was so quiet she couldn’t
even hear him breathing.

“All the moons and planets in the system pay
tribute to the Klavinoi overlords every year.” She swallowed. “A
tribute in slaves. My looks became apparent when I was very young
and I was earmarked as a tribute.”

“How old were you when they took you?” His
voice sounded rusty.

“I was eight.”

She sat quietly for a moment. The memories
had been dulled by time. In the early years, she’d tried a great
many things to dull them, eradicate them, or replace them…until
she’d learned that she had to just learn to live with them. They
didn’t hurt so much anymore, but they weren’t pretty.

“My mother cried when they took me. But
really, I’d been gone to them from the day I was tribute-marked. I
think my father thought of me as just an extra mouth to feed. I was
taken to the harems of Vina, Klavinoi’s capital city. I was
beautified, trained, educated. The sex slaves of Klavinoi are the
most skilled in the galaxy.” She looked at him now, trying to see
his face in the shadows. She sensed the tension in him, and
finally, he muttered a curse.

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful and pretty
they make it, it’s barbaric. All slavery is. No one can ever belong
to someone else.” His hands grabbed hers. “Unless they choose to
give themselves. And even then, that isn’t slavery. And no
one—
no one
—has the right to turn a child into a sexual
toy.”

“It’s not just about the sexual acts. The
most skilled are trained in everything—dancing, combat, household
skills. You’re a bed partner, a valet, a bodyguard.”

“Slaves in every sense.”

“Yes. You give them everything.” And they
took your individuality, your soul.

“Was your…master kind?” Nik’s words sounded
like broken glass.

“I had a master and a mistress.” She shot
him a thin smile. “They weren’t the cruelest of all slave masters,
but they weren’t kind either.” Oh, no, they’d had a sadistic streak
a mile wide. And they’d demanded obedience in everything.

Nera stared at the zombies. They weren’t
free, either. They were slaves to the desires that drove them. They
had no choice, and for so long, she’d had no choice either.

“I’m sure I don’t need to go into the
details.” She’d been used, shared, expected to service guests with
a smile, endure pain. “My duties were varied and they included
acting as bodyguard to my master and mistress. To protect their
lives with my own.” Even now, the thought burned her. She had taken
a laser for them once. “Nothing like having a beautiful slave who
can suck cock and fight off an assassin at the same time.”

Niklas slammed his fist into the
enviro-shelter wall. The clear dome wobbled under the impact.

She stared at him and swallowed. No one had
ever been angry on her behalf before. “Niklas, I’m not telling this
to upset you—”

“I want to go back and smash my fists into
their faces. I want to kill them.”

Such vehemence from a man who, beneath the
toughness, was really a scholar at heart. “Well, you can’t. I beat
you to it.” She drew in a breath. “There was a party.” Guests. So
many cruel guests who’d pinched, slapped, used and hurt. She’d been
sixteen then, bleeding from various places and so lost. She’d not
made a single choice for herself in years, and had not had a chance
to discover herself. “By then, I’d started taking drugs to…dull
everything.” Her mistress had fed her and the other slaves the
stuff. They’d liked her docile, obedient. “But during that party, I
watched my mistress and master join in the abuse of another guest’s
slave. It was nothing out of the ordinary. I’d seen it a hundred
times before.” And suffered it herself. “But that night, the girl
slit her wrists with a piece of jewelry.” So much blood. The girl
had been sleeping beside Nera in the harem. All that red that
soaked into Nera’s nightgown. She still saw it in her dreams. “She
was eleven.”

“Jesus.”

“Something ignited inside me. A desire, a
burn. For freedom. For myself and for that girl.”

Nik made a sound and a shaft of moonlight
illuminated his face. Her stomach clenched. His face was contorted,
his hands in tight fists. She reached over and placed one hand over
his fist and cupped his strong face with the other. “I got out.
During a combat display to show off my skills the next morning, I
beheaded them both with my sword.” And ran through a few of the
other more sadistic guests. Her memories were a little blurred by
the drugs, but she remembered the strange sense of horror and
freedom she’d felt.

“I ran. I stole a ship.” She took a deep
breath. “And I went home to Luvanoi.”

“Your family. They helped you.”

His tone made her think he’d guessed the
truth.

“They were horrified. I’d shamed them. I was
no better than a criminal and I’d put them at risk by going back to
them. They looked at me like I was a stranger who’d trekked dirt
across their floor.”

Niklas cursed and hit the wall again.

She pressed her body into his. “I left. I
survived. Please, put away the pity and anger.” She lifted her
chin. “I don’t want it.”

He gripped her jaw, his blue eyes
glittering. “I don’t pity you. I’d never pity you. When I look at
you, I see—”

She licked her lips. “Yes?”

“Strength. You are so damned strong, Nera.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Finish your story.”

“I changed my name. I got clean.” She still
remembered the shivers and horrible pain of the drug withdrawal. “I
was good at fighting, so I worked some freelance merc jobs for a
while.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wasn’t very good at taking
orders.”

“What a surprise.” There was a faint trace
of humor in his voice. She thought his tense muscles might have
relaxed, just a little.

“I was good at sneaking and stealing, too. I
bounced around between a few different quadrants. For the first
time in my life, I had choices to make, and I had no idea what I
wanted to do.” She gave a little laugh. “Then one day I was sitting
in the Institute’s museum on Beneer.”

“The Museum of Cultural Heritage.”

“Right. I was hungry for culture, to learn
about different planets and their histories. I heard a couple of
curators talking about the ‘damned Phoenix brothers’ and some crazy
treasure hunt you’d just pulled off. They also mentioned how many
e-creds you’d made.” She smiled. “They were cursing the three of
you, but at the same time, I could tell they admired you as well. I
think they were a little jealous.”

“Maybe,” he murmured.

“I decided to give treasure hunting a try.”
And she’d finally found something she liked, something that was her
choice from start to finish.

He cupped her cheek. “I’m glad you visited
that museum.”

“Despite everything I’ve stolen from you? Or
how many times I’ve hurt you or your brothers?”

He leaned closer. “Yes. If we got hurt, it
encouraged us to be faster, better. And every time you stole a hunt
out from under us, it made us plan better.” He nipped her lips.
“God, I want you, Nera. All of you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and
kissed him. Oh, that wonderful taste of his. She could spend hours
and hours kissing him.

Desire ignited, scorching hot. She climbed
into his lap, straddling him. He pulled her closer, groaning into
her mouth. His hands slid under her ass, his fingers kneading her
cheeks through her fitted armor.

Then he pulled back and pressed his face
against her neck. His hot breath panted onto her skin. “I’m not
making love to you here.”

She nipped his ear. Hard enough to hurt and
make him growl. “How about fucking me, then?”

“No. When I’m finally inside you, I want a
damned bed. And some privacy, and hours—lots of hours to do
everything I want to you.”

Her breath hitched. “Niklas, please.”

“I will not make love to you with a pack of
crazed zombies below us, trying to work out how to get up here and
eat us.”

She huffed out a breath. “I knew you were
conservative, but…”

He shook her. “Behave.”

“Okay, no sex.” Damn, that pained her. She
was primed, every cell in her body yearning for him.

“Besides, I want to give you some time. I
want to make sure you’re ready.”

She pushed against his chest. “Phoenix, is
that your blundering male way of asking me if I have any hangups
over sex?”

He glowered at her. “I’m being
considerate.”

She snorted. “You’re playing the macho
protective alpha.” She was not going to tell him that a part of her
liked it. “I did have some issues. I’ve worked them out over the
years.” She lowered her voice. “I really, really want you inside
me.”

He groaned. “Now, you’re just being mean and
torturing me.”

She hid a grin. Hmm, maybe she was. She
liked it. “And be warned, I like to be on top. I like control, and
I might hold you down.”

He groaned again. “I don’t care how I get
you.”

She ran a hand down his chest. Soon, she’d
get to see him all, but right now, she was enjoying seeing a
strong, good man’s reaction to her. She scooted backward a bit.
“Well, we’ve agreed no fucking, but I think we can…do a couple of
other things to while away the time.”

His face turned wary. “Nera…”

“Undo your pants, Niklas.”

***

Four words and his semi-firm cock went hard
as space rock. Nik swallowed, trying to retain some shred of his
control.

But that was always impossible around Nera.
And when she was like this, almost playful, he couldn’t seem to
find any semblance of control.

“Niklas.” Her tone was firm. “Undo your
pants.”