Salvation for Three (3 page)

* * * *

"Orbit of The Endlands delayed due to lunar storm. Freighter will begin take off in…" The data chip in the security drone whirred. "Five Terran minutes."

Keer ran for the auto pilot. She might not be freighter licensed,
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but she knew how to make a climb in a simple ship like this. "Remove pilot." She slid into the forward seat and scanned the console.

"Order remanded."

Silence greeted her, no console path light, no data chips whirring.

Gods, this could not happen. Not now. She slammed a gloved hand against the autopilot console, impatient for response.

"
Remove
pilot." No sound returned above the roar of the storm shaking the freighter. Earth seconds ticked as she pounded the console with her words and her hand. "Remove Pilot
now
."

"Manual flight in ops. Pilot must engage." Finally the console flickered back to life. Keer slumped back in relief then pulled the double straps over the seat across her chest and reached for the helmet still snapped into the wall unit. If she crashed this bucket in a lunar storm, she wanted to keep her head intact.

The straining of the engines wasn't a good sign, but they were lifting. She adjusted the controls to heli up and over the storm thinking she could engage the blast engine once she cleared the red dust. The storm filled the freighter with shrieking, rattling metal.

Blinding red dust blocked the monitor that would have shown the ascent.

Five hundred clicks up and the freighter should be above the storm. Keer gauged the clouds, watching the console for clearance.

She tensed, feeling the rise, the winds buffeting against the ship that sounded like it was headed for space junk. She waited and counted clicks under her breath, hoping they would reach good air, praying for a way off this red dirt and away from the hunters.

It would have worked in theory, she reasoned later, if she could have just cleared the mountains.

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Keer must have lost consciousness briefly after the crash. The reinforced skin of the pilot's cabin had protected her jump seat and her neck but still it was a hard drop. She could feel pain in her arm and wondered vaguely as she lay in the remains of the cabin, the lunar wind howling, if she would have another enhanced limb after this trip.

Her fuzzy brain told her Drak was going to be furious. Crashing a rental freighter would cost more credits than the bloody trip into the Tarvian mine field she had taken when she was a young bondsman.

She blinked. Something warm ran across her face, dripping a red film on the eyeshield she had put into place before the ascent.

Blackness crept in at the edge of her vision. She could hear the remnants of the freighter being ripped apart around her. She thought the lunar winds must be tearing the shell of the ship apart. She moved her head, trying to release herself from under the bulkhead that had collapsed against her.
Drak will come. He'll find me.
Giving into the pain in her head and arm, she stopped moving. Dimly, she became aware of voices, even through the agony that assaulted her brain.

"Cian, she lives. She is wounded, but she lives." Warm hands grasped her shoulders, pulling on the straps.

"No." She tried to shake off the hands, still unable to see. The hands continued to torture her, lifting the metal that surrounded her.

"Going to die. Find Drak," she muttered, her teeth beginning to chatter. The cold assailed her as the metal ripped away.

"Woman, you are foolish, and you are no freighter pilot." The voice was firm but gentle, accompanied by more pulling on the belt that held her to the seat. She cried out, the blackness and cold
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descending on her. She tried to struggle, to resist with her good arm but even that failed her.

"Cease, my mate. You will not die. Tirin, remove the belt." More hands, warmer if possible, stilled her, and then she was free and falling forward to be caught and held against an impossibly wide, hard chest. She cried out in pain and felt the hands hold her carefully, lifting.

"Find Drak. He'll come for me."

"She has a mate! Who is this Drak she speaks of, Cian?"

She could feel the hunters wrapping her arm, trying to form a splint. Tears leaked from her eyes as the pain came crashing down.

"She has no mate. No human's scent is on her but that of the dead runner. If he did not lay dead, I would kill him now for touching her."

Keer felt the tears on her face. She was crying, crying in shame and agony. Lost in the Endlands to two hunters who would lock her away.

She had failed her mother after all this time. Failed to keep the secret of her very existence.

"Drak." Keer wanted to wail but her face hurt too badly. How could she activate the tracking chip to send for him when she couldn't see, couldn't lift her arms? The agony continued in waves, then trembling began then as shock set in. "I'm dying." She wanted to be conscious enough to pound her hands against this thickheaded hunter's chest.

"Cian, help her." She was moving, being carried like space cargo, from one hunter to another. This time the grasp was firmer. The heat from the big arms engulfed her and seemed to stream through her agony, numbing the pain, pushing her toward the darkness.

"Sleep. You will heal and come back to us. You will not die. This I swear to you." The rumble in his chest vibrated through her hands, soothing her broken body. She tried to fight the darkness, wanting Drak but somehow the hunter eased her fear. .

They carried her away from the crash. Away from the dead runner and the chip that she needed. Gods knew where she would end up this

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time. Her last thoughts were of Drak. He would come for her. She knew he would.

* * * *

The hunters returned to the trawler. Cian folded himself into the rear compartment holding the female to him. Finally she had let the healing sleep take her. He rested her against his legs like a child, holding her to his chest as his lieutenant piloted the trawler across the red dirt to the hidden subter entrance.

He was astonished that such a small human female would be given to him to share with Tirin, his lieutenant commander. She felt as delicate as one of the Telaura flowers that his mother had favored.

Small and fragile but lined with firm muscle. He pushed mentally, willing her body to mend itself.

He knew she felt pain and shock. The injury was somewhere in her arm, and bruises and cuts scoured her face and legs. He was aware of the pounding her head had taken in the crash but from the way she had struggled, she had some resource of will left. This mate of theirs was no coward. That was evident. He thought even the tears had been more of frustration and pain. While she might not top fifty kilos, her frame felt firm.

Cian shifted in the seat and let his hands explore her gently. Her hips flared out, and her legs were slim with a curved ass that didn't quite fill his grip. He pushed one hand across her ribs and under her breast, measuring. No enhancement made there by human scientist.

She had large, full breasts for a small woman. Still unconscious, she moved against his leg. His cock turned to steel under her bottom in an instant. He grimaced and tried to adjust himself without jostling the woman.

Cian nudged her mentally, sending heat and calm through her brain. Her skin felt cool still under his touch. He worried that she would not be warm enough and lifted her legs, cradling her closer
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against his skin and then against his burning rod.

He sent a sharp mental command to his bot implant.
"Stop virile
action."
Then he grunted when the reaction jolted him like a Terran cold shower.

The bot implants could be helpful in battle but using them to kill desire had its faults.

His assessment of this woman told him she would bear healthy children. Strong boys and possibly more strong-willed females would come to he and Tirin if she chose to share children with them .

Cian felt himself smiling, unusual for him. It had been many moon turns since he had smiled, maybe as far back as when he'd been a young soldier. He was the more sober of the warring team. While he was Tirin's commander, he was the silent one of the two.

Cian had become severe over the turns it had taken, waiting for the female. He had grown more quiet, reserved and strained as the time had passed. His ability to heal had developed with his silence, but it marked him as a predator amongst his people.

The few women in the subter compounds that met him feared him.

With the healing came the ability to see into the mind, to see thoughts, fantasy, misdeeds and desires. The dark hair and pale grey eyes made his fierceness legendary when neither he nor his lieutenant spoke of their battles above the ground or below. They watched and waited.

Cian told himself he was fortunate to be a hunter who was chosen by decree to have a mate. And to share that mate with his friend and lieutenant, Tirin, would make the blending easier. There would be no blood battles for bed rights between him and his comrade.

Cian and Tirin had shared women in the past. Usually Cian would mind block them from realizing he was a healer and then drive a small hole in their natural inhibitions. Most colony women kept their distance from any possible triad with a native Endlander thinking it would make them a sexual slave to the warriors.

Over the last few moon cycles both warriors had become celibate in an unspoken agreement. They could feel the nearness of the one

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destined for them. Cian had spent more than one rest cycle with his own cock in his hand, thinking of green eyes and a fierce tongue on the mate he couldn't find. He'd pictured her under him and above him, his cock stretching her while Tirin drove into her round ass. He'd groaned and stroked himself while he saw her riding his mouth, her hands held behind her by Tirin. He wanted to stroke her with his tongue, sucking the juice from her until she screamed. He needed to hear her groans while she took his cock, pulling the seed from him while Tirin rode her from behind.

They had dreamt together of this small woman and her arrival, spoken to each other of those dreams, which had been the same, shared on the same lunar cycle with matching visions of the dark-haired female with emerald eyes.

They would care for and protect her together. No human scientist would cage her and make her a breeder. He and Tirin, so unlike each other, agreed on this point.

Cian wondered at how the female would deal with two hunters so different in character. Tirin's easy laugh and amazing strength made him as popular with the citizens of the subter as Cian was feared.

While the blond hunter was greeted warmly and welcomed into quarters of both men and women, Cian was only called upon when illness struck or an injury was suffered in the subter community.

Hunters with the healing psyche were rare among the populace, so a certain reverence accompanied the visits and requests for help. Day to day, however, only his friendship and partnership with Tirin allowed him complete freedom in the underground city. Cian was feared for his abilities and his fierce expression, usually grim and tight with the knowledge of what any thinking creature was capable of.

* * * *

In the pilot seat of the trawler, Tirin, Cian's lieutenant, shifted
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uncomfortably. The piloting of this rough craft above ground was always difficult for a warrior his size. And now the female hovered near him.

He envied Cian his position, holding their mate, able to feel her softness and comfort her. He knew that with Cian's healing gift came the psychological depletion of his mental resources. Cian had seen many thoughts that would turn the stomach of a hardened warrior but had been cautious to report only those who would hurt children or women. On occasion, he had come across a warrior so mentally scarred from battle that he had relieved him of command. But those incidents had become rare. Most of the populace of the subter were abiding citizens that prayed for the success of the Colony and wanted to be left in peace.

It was draining for the big hunter to heal the minds and the bodies of the people in the subtercity. In the last millennium the warriors and their descendants had craved quieter society and left the battles to be visited outside their Colony.

Tirin's telepathic connection to Cian told him that his first in command examined the woman, mentally soothing her injuries and assuring her of safety while, in his own thoughts, he assessed her physically and desire raced through his brain.

Tirin nearly groaned aloud as Cian's hands moved over Keer. He accelerated the trawler. His own need was rising his cock pressing hard against the skins he wore. They needed to lay claim to this woman, to drive inside her and pound her mercilessly so she would think of no other, warrior or human.

His thoughts turned to the human she had called "Drak". He would come looking for her. She had been sure of it in the scattered words she gave them before the healing sleep took her.

"Commander, who is this Drak, do you think?"
He pushed the question to Cian through their mental link, addressing him formally to break the persistence of the sexual drive Cian thrummed into his thoughts via the woman. Cian could stroke the woman freely and

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Tirin would have knowledge of the touch.

The mate sharing ritual between hunters and all the principles attached to their agreement must be followed. His own frustration was Tirin's, as Cian's was his. They would share the need, burning them until their mate could accept them.

"Someone she hunts with. A...colleague. She respects him. Finds
him a worthy male."
Tirin's hackles rose.
"Stay those thoughts, Tirin."

Cian felt the anger coursing through his lieutenant.
"She does not
want him. He protects her, helps her in her journey. We will treat him
as brother."

Tirin grunted and closed the mental channel between them. While Cian had the ability to force him to maintain the link, he did not do so in deference to Tirin's privacy. His commander had learned many moon turns ago that forcing a link on a warrior whose blood coursed hot did not hold merit. His lieutenant's loyalty was of greater value to him than any information or thought he might hold. Tirin would still feel the pressure he applied to the woman's skin without sharing his own feelings.

Tirin leapt from the trawler as they reached the hidden gate to the subter colony. He approached the mountain under the jagged cliffs edge and pressed both hands into the rocks, mentally pushing the door to reveal itself. There was a faint whishing sound as the rocks disappeared, the hologram vanishing as the metal skin of the door came into view.

Tirin eased back into the machine, piloting forward into the freight elevator. "Subter 3." He issued the command and the glide below the surface began.

"Our mate is well? She continues to heal?"
He tapped the link back, unprepared for the blast of sexual heat that met him when the mental path was opened. Cian shook with need, holding the woman.

"Tirin, she is healing…and fertile."
Cian answered, suppressing a groan.

"
She is in cycle?
" Tirin felt his cock pulse, his length growing
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uncomfortable in his skin suit. "
Why is there no scent?
" He turned in the pilot's seat to look into the eyes of his fellow hunter. Cian's jaw clenched, a sheen of perspiration on his skin. His hands had stilled, no longer roaming the curves of the woman he held. His look was one of torture, and he sent that torture back to Tirin. Grim faced, his jaw set he answered.

"She is masked. Something hides her perfume from us. This
bondhunter, it appears, has survived by hiding her true nature. This is
what brought her to us."
Cian motioned to him.
"You have but to
touch her…"

Tirin rose and crossed into the passenger bay, crouching beside Cian and the woman. Reaching out to touch her face, he focused his thoughts and opened a wider mental path with the other hunter. The faint scent of ripe Devorian pears came to him, making the surge of need even greater. He was already engorged to the point of pain but grew harder. His gaze shot back to his commander. He struggled to form a coherent thought, and then shook himself.
"She smells of ripe,
sweet fruit. Why did it not come to me when she took down the
runner? The mask is this effective?"

Cian shook his head, silver eyes darkening to blue
. "Her
fragrance is of a Telaura vine…sweet yes, but heady like musk."
He saw Tirin's perplexed look and gave a sharp laugh and spoke out loud through clenched teeth. "She calls to each of us with the scent we most desire. I have seen you waste your credits to indulge in Devorian fruit. It intoxicates you. The same for me with the musky vine I spoke of. Her mask may hide her fertility but touch betrays this female to her true mates."

The woman stirred in Cian's arms. She moved against Tirin's hand, leaning into him, inadvertently shifting against Cian's shaft.

"These injuries must heal and soon, Tirin. Her need will grow as ours.

The more time we are in company, and we cannot leave her to her devices, the hotter she will burn."

Tirin felt Cian send a soothing wave edged with desire into the

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female's inner thoughts, again pushing the healing process. He lifted the eye shield of the helmet, knowing it would make the burn in his gut stronger but unable to resist looking at the female he had waited almost one hundred moon turns to find. Pale and bruised, dried blood smeared a cheek, and her face had begun to swell one side.

"She is strong. Another would have died in the crash. Foolish but
strong."
The hunter sought comfort in the thought that now their mate was safe. Nothing would take the steel from his cock at this moment but impaling this woman, as hard and deep as he could drive. He tried to find the ice in his veins that every warrior called upon but relied instead on his bot implant.

Tirin hissed at the agony of the hormone blast. While his female lay injured, he must shelter and protect. The time for filling her would come soon enough. With Cian's healing gift, they would soon claim the female.

The thud of the landing into the colony's arrival port pulled him up and away from the entrancing smell of Devorian pears.

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