Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) (13 page)

***

Danika waited in the
blue room where Tuft had brought her when he escorted Kira away.  Danika
refused to stand around dreading Lucan’s return like a child, so she stepped to
the porch and let the fury of the waves calm her.  She felt Lucan enter the
room behind her like a force of nature and turned to face him serenely.

He did not just walk
into the room, but stormed it with intent, his anger a hot wave that smacked
her in the face before he stepped one foot over the threshold.

“What part of stay out
of trouble do you not understand?”  He gritted his teeth, his eyes slashing her
with the heat he did not bother to bury behind the usual cold facade.

“She hit Kira.”  She
said it simply and without apology.  “What would you have done?”

“Not announced that I
am truthsayer with awesome powers for others to exploit.”  He came at her in a
prowl.  “Do you have any idea what you have done?”

“I defended my friend,”
Danika said with pride, and then ruined it when she stepped back at the look he
shot her.  He had her in full retreat in the blink of an eye.

“You put a target on
your back, and somehow ignited a war between the classes, if what I heard
coming through the square was any indication.”  By his last words, he had
herded her back across the deck and around until she was back in the blue room
where he wanted her, and still he pushed.  “And all within a matter of solar
hours.”

Danika found herself
stumbling around furniture before hitting the wall at her back.  Lucan boxed her
in on all sides with a hand snapping to the wall on either side of her head
when she would have slid away.  She raised her chin, refusing to be
intimidated.  “What would you have done?”

“I have a better
question,” he said, his voice dropping while he studied her, the heat of anger
igniting a different heat that they both tried to ignore.  “What
exactly
did you do to Briar?”

Danika opened her mouth
to argue and then huffed out a breath instead, and quietly admitted.  “I don’t
know.”

The salt air from the
sea intensified as Lucan studied her.  Danika did not know what he saw, but
eventually his tension eased until he was less a menacing stranger pinning her
to the wall and more a blanket of reassuring heat along her front.

He finally spoke, his
voice as soft as the brush of leather along her cheek.  “It scared you, what
you did out there.”

It wasn’t a question,
but she breathed out and took it as one anyway.  “While it was happening I was
just angry.  When it was over and I could feel the fear of the crowds we
passed, and Kira . . . yes, it scared me.”

“Why?”

Danika tilted her head
so that her hair accidentally brushed the gloved hand braced there.  He
captured the strands in his fist like the pirate he was, and while the grip did
not hurt, it extracted a gasping breath from her.  At the sound, his grip
tightened, his eyes flashed to hot, and she could feel his body tighten and
harden all along her length.  She closed her eyes and tried to suppress the
liquid way her body wanted to melt into that hardness.

He just repeated his
question.  “Why?”

She fought the need to
lick her dry lips, and chose instead to consider the question carefully.  “I do
not know myself,” she finally answered, her eyes meeting his, knowing he could
read the fever there that matched the one in his, ignoring it as best she
could, trying to will him to understand her meaning.  At the same time, her
body fought her control, heat slithering seductively through her veins until
she thought she might scream from the pressure.  “I hope that I am a moral
person, I try to be fair and just in my dealings, patient.  I am learning who I
am every day and some days, like yesterday, I like it.  Decorating, doing normal
things that normal people do, spending time with Kira.  It made me feel like I
might do more than survive.  But today . . .”  She shook her head and looked
away from those piercing eyes.  “I lost my temper, and I became someone I do
not recognize.”  She grabbed for her courage and looked him once again in the
eye, waiting for his condemnation.  “I could have killed her so easily, and I
would have done it without a single scrap of conscience or hesitation.  And I
cannot even say if it was because she struck Kira, or because she laid claim to
you.”

He never did quite what
she expected, but when he lifted his hands and casually removed one glove and
then the other, Danika felt as if her heart was going to pound right out of her
chest.  “What are you doing?”  He could not miss the panic behind those words. 
Instead of a verbal answer, he brushed his hands through her hair on either
side of her head and took hold of her, his thumb rubbing against the soft skin
of her cheek, only this time it was skin to skin.  He closed his eyes with a
hard shudder, and then they flashed open again, even as her hands were going to
his wrists to try to push him away.  “The doctor said . . .”

“Hang the doctor.” 
Lucan pulled her face up until he had her positioned just where he wanted her.  Then
he stopped, his eyes a hot brand on hers.  “I am not a man used to this concept
of self-denial, and I find I don’t care for the lesson.”  His hand tightened,
pulling her just that much closer, so close she could feel their breaths mingling.  
“You worry because you wanted to hurt Briar.  I would kill any man who touched
you – painfully, and with great relish. Do you understand, Danika? I would soak
in their blood and it would not even occur to me to regret it later.  You worry
because you have violence in you, jealousy, and rage?  Do you know what that
tells me, little Bruha?”

She shook her head
incapable of speech with his hands on her skin. 

“It tells me that you
are capable of stopping me if you want to.  It tells me that you feel what I
feel, and it tells me that you are, indeed, made for me.  So I am going to take
what’s mine, no more waiting, and if you want to stop me,
you are
welcome to try
.”  The last was almost a dare, but she was incapable of
taking it on, not when his lips were finally pressed full to hers, and his
tongue was thrusting in to lay claim.  The first taste of him was a rush of
fire that had her groaning into his mouth.   Then his arms were around her and
he was yanking her up and slamming her back against the wall with his whole
body once again.  Only this time she wrapped her legs around his waist and
pressed back.

She wanted to feel all
of him at once, and the heat he generated, it was as if it was the only kind of
heat truly made to feed her fire.  It poured into her, filling all her cold
places, and overflowed.  She cried out when he pulled her from the wall because
she needed to be closer to him.  Lucan turned with an inhuman snarl, taking her
across the room and to the high bed.  He tossed her on the bed and she was
coming back to him, even as he joined her there, so that they met and melded
before he pressed her into the mattresses beneath them. 

“Luc,” she groaned, her
hands fisting in the back of his tunic, even while his hands fought against the
wrapping of her sarong, ripping it in places until he could fling it off her. 
He stilled above her, then ran his hands and eyes over everything he could see
from the waist up while she shuddered and tried to twist closer.

His hot rough hands
settled over the petal soft skin of her breasts, and she fell back on the
mattress, her back arching in mindless invitation.  “A man’s fantasy come to
life,” he murmured, his eyes so hot they blistered everywhere they claimed.  “If
they come for you, little Bruha, if this is a trap . . .”  His hips thrust
almost painfully for the briefest moment, hard leather against the silk of her
panties.  Danika fought to think, to hear him.  He leaned down and lapped at
one nipple then the other, then blew on them both while she twisted at the
strange tightening it produced.  His eyes returned to hers and she stilled
because she read death there, rage enough almost to swallow the fever of
desire.  “I will be sure to thank them before I put my sword through their
brains.”

She took hold of his
face and held when he would have kissed her again.  “Lucan . . .”

“You said Luc before,”
he interrupted.

“Luc,” she swallowed
and tried again, beating back the desire as it threatened to swamp her, her
eyes holding the heat in his with an effort, “I don’t want to be a trap for
you.”

“Oh, little Bruha,” he
said softly, easily pushing against her feeble strength to kiss along her lips
while he spoke each word like a low caress, and a dare, “give it your best shot
anyway.”

It was so unexpected a
statement that it made her laugh, despite everything else.  At the same time,
his wrist icom started beeping.  With a growl of annoyance, he looked at the
screen and then cursed fluently.  He looked down at Danika and she wondered
what he saw that made his eyes go that liquid warm as he looked at her. 
Whatever it was she liked it, as much as she hated his next words.

“Medical.  Code Red.  The
doctor wants to see me, and your presence is also requested.  Again.”

She was so busy dealing
with her own disappointment and worry that it took her a moment to realize he
was not moving off her.  When she concentrated on his face above her, he seemed
to be at war with himself, his eyes hot and running over every inch that he
could see.  Danika felt her cheeks redden when she realized just how much he
was seeing.  “Shouldn’t we be going?”

“We should,” he said
and still just looked her over.  Then, he finally met her eyes and the heat she
had assumed wiped by the call to medical and what it suggested had not
disappeared, but was still there, and seemed several times hotter.  “You will
be in my bed tonight, looking just like this.”

“Lucan . . .”

“Luc.”

She huffed out a
breath.  “Luc.  I don’t think we’re ready for this.”

“I’ve been ready the
second you appeared before me, in a baggy jumpsuit looking like you had just
been kissed.”

Danika blinked and
remembered she had, indeed, just been kissed before she was transported to
their meeting.  She felt it prudent not to share that fact, but instead
addressed the real issue.  “I don’t think
I
am ready for this.”

He leaned down and
kissed her thoroughly once more, and by the time he pulled back again she was
clinging to him all over again.  He pulled himself and then her off the bed
until they were standing beside it, Danika still blinking away the effects of
that last kiss.  “You’ll be ready,” he growled, “I’ll make sure of it.”

As she tried to right
her hopeless sarong with Luc watching and offering not a scrap of help, she
pondered his words, and the way she shook from head to toe with the warmth he
generated with each touch.  Finally giving up on what she was wearing and
heading for the few clothes Kira had thus far managed to procure for her, she
could not help but think he was right on that point.  All he had to do was look
at her the way he was right now and she was ready for anything he cared to
suggest.  But then that was not the kind of ready she was referring to.

She was not even sure
what scared her more, that he would imprint on her or that he wouldn’t.  She
did not want to feel what she was feeling all alone, and she did not want him
forced into anything he did not want.  Even with the extensive vocabulary at
her disposal, it seemed a hopeless conversation.  How do you explain to a
pirate that you are afraid of becoming his love slave?

She was still pondering
her worries when she returned from the closet dressed and ready to go.  Seeing
Lucan Warrung waiting at the door for her was an incongruous thing.  From the
look on his face, she did not think he was used to waiting for anyone or
anything.  “You do not have to accuse me with your eyes; you were the one who
ruined my sarong.”

He huffed out a breath
and held open her door.  “I am not a patient man,” he said by way of
explanation, and with no hint of apology.

“If you do not wish to
wait for me, then do not.  I can assure you I will happily forgo another trip
to medical if it will ease your impatience.”  She preceded him out the door,
her words matter-of-fact.  She heard him snort his doubt at her statement and
then felt the warmth of his hand at the small of her back leading her forward.

“No doubt you would,
but I have found in the short time you have been in my employ that you get into
trouble when you leave my sight.  So, I have decided you shall not leave my
sight, and you will accompany me to the doctor where we will learn our fate
together.”

She did not like the
finality in that statement.  “We have not imprinted yet. We are not trapped
together yet, if that is what you are suggesting.  If the doctor agrees that my
DNA is a match for your imprint I can still find other arrangements.  Out of
your sight, the draw will be less.  We are still free to make choices.”

She felt his hand move
from her back to her hip and pull her tighter into his embrace.  She looked up
and found herself captured by midnight blue eyes.  “It is too late for that,
little Bruha.  I will not give you up.”

She could feel the
blood draining from her cheeks at his words and the claiming look in his eyes. 
“Already?”

“I told you, you were
mine the first moment I saw you.  Do not mistake that.”

“Then I have trapped
you,” she said feeling the cold waves of guilt.  He laughed, making her blink
owlishly up at him.  “What could you possibly find funny about this, Lucan
Warrung?”

He tipped up his lips
in a half smile, but she finally noticed it did not reach his eyes.  Instead,
they held the heat of promise and she would not be surprised if he bared his
teeth at her such were the waves of dominance he exuded so readily.  “I find it
funny that you see it that way.”

“What other way could I
see it?  You have been trapped by the blood in your veins to want me.  How else
could I possibly see it but as a trap?”

“Perhaps, but which of
us is the hunter and which is the prey?”

She stopped in her
tracks, or she would have if he did not continue to drag her along to his private
port.  She ground her teeth at the predatory smile playing on his face.  “You
see this as some kind of challenge, don’t you?”

He shrugged his massive
shoulders and kept them moving.  “It’s really not that complicated.  I saw you,
I wanted you, I am keeping you.  The rest is just semantics.”

Danika let herself be
pulled along while she huffed out a displeased breath.  “Pirate diplomacy,” she
muttered with disgust.

“What was that?”  He
pulled her to a halt and put in his personal code for the lift while he arched
a supercilious brow her way.

“You lack subtlety
along with your dreaded impatience,” she informed him.  “It seems to me a very
pirate characteristic.”

He pulled her into the
opening port with a yank that drew her right into his arms.  He smiled an
annoyingly sexy smirk down at her while she tried to back out of his embrace.  “Whatever
works,” he said, right before the doors closed and he took yet another chance
to kiss her.

It was unfortunate for
Danika that he tasted that good, and he knew how to use that wicked tongue of
his for more than just arrogant talk.  She did not even realize when the door
opened again, but she heard the doctor gasp at the sight of her wrapped around
Lucan like a limpet.