Jac’s rooms were dark and, like most of the suites in this section of the palace, fitted with high level security systems. Not that that bothered Rynn in the slightest. Bypassing them to gain entry was child’s play to someone like him, and now he sat in the darkness, watching the door for her return.

Anger rolled through him like the waves of the Aratoria Oceans he’d briefly lived beside as a boy. Those few years he’d spent with his uncle as a child were indelibly etched in his mind. Like his brother, Draxx was a warrior, which meant the bulk of caring for a youngling had fallen to his mate.

Although ill herself, she’d done her best to care for an unwanted boy, giving him the love and affection he could never look to his father for. She’d died not long after he’d left to train as a warrior, yet even to this day he treasured her memory and that of those few short years. But nothing, not even remembering his nata, could pull him out of his foul mood as he sat and brooded.

Jac had been talking with other males. Gifting them with her presence, intelligence and easy smiles. His fists clenched at the memory. He’d walked into the formal gathering arranged to welcome her to court to find her laughing and smiling up at his own father.

On a normal day he’d have been able to cope with it. She was an open and approachable person and he had no claim on her. No say in who she spent her time with…

The corner of Rynn’s jaw pulsed. Who was he trying to kid? As soon as he’d seen her there, surrounded by other males, white hot rage had overwhelmed him. It had taken everything he had to keep his feet rooted to the spot and not do something stupid like storm over there and threaten the emperor’s champion himself. He might have been Rynn’s father and they often sparred, but that didn’t make any difference. Challenging him for real was tantamount to suicide.

Rynn’s expression in the darkness tightened dangerously. No. He could take his father. Xaandril was the emperor’s champion, a warrior whose honor ran through the very blood in his veins, and even though Rynn might have been brought up a warrior, he wasn’t any longer. He was an assassin… the emperor’s shadow. He worked in the darkness and didn’t need to look his opponent in the eye before stabbing him in the back. A serious fight between him and his father would end only one way. With his father’s death.

A sound outside the door warned him of imminent company, and he focused all his attention on the door. It cracked open, the warm lights of the corridor outside spilling into the darkness of the room in a bright wedge. It almost kissed the toe of his boot but he resisted the temptation to move.

“Thank you.” Jac’s soft voice floated to him on a whisper, the sweep of her skirts announcing her as she backed into the room. “No, no… I’m good thanks. I just need to get some sleep. It’s been a full couple of days.”

A feminine voice replied, the words too soft for him to make out, and he relaxed. Jac wasn’t speaking to another male then but probably Lady Jessica. The suites she and the lord healer shared were also in this wing.

Good. He surged to his feet, moving unseen in the darkness. If it had been another male, they’d never have found his body, but he was pleased to note as he slid into the shadows behind the door that the other voice was indeed that of Lady Jessica.

“Yeah, totally. You get some sleep, hun, and I’ll catch you in the morning.” There was a small silence and a rustle of silks. Even though the door was between him and them, Rynn’s mind filled in the two women embracing quickly before Jac stepped back.

“See you in the morning,” she said softly and then closed the door.

She didn’t get more than two steps into the room before he was on her. His expression tight and his body tighter, he spun her around and backed her up. Her small cry of panic was cut off abruptly as her back hit the wall by the door and she looked up into his face.

“Rynn? What the hell are you doing in here?” she whispered, her eyes wide.

For a moment he didn’t answer her, instead taking the time to look down at her. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He’d thought so from the first moment he’d seen her, even later in the filth and grime of the prisoner cells in the bowels of D’Corr’s ship, but now, dressed in the finery of a Latharian noblewoman, she was stunning. Silks sheathed her curvy figure, her dark hair somehow caught and piled on top of her head with jeweled clips, exposing the slender, delicate length of her neck to him.

He growled in the back of his throat, his body reacting to the sight and feel of her in his arms. His cock was hard and heavy, pressing against the fastenings to his pants, eager to be freed.

“What am I doing?” His anger surged again at her question. “What the draanth were you doing in there? Flirting and laughing with those males?” he demanded, dropping his weight and pinning her in place with his bigger body. Her soft curves yielded against the harder planes of his and any control he’d thought he had shattered in a heartbeat.

With another growl, he bent his head and claimed her lips. She didn’t resist, opening up for him as soon as he demanded entrance. Burying a hand in her hair, he scattered the delicate pins as he drove in, claiming her mouth as he longed to claim her body.

The kiss went from hot to supernova in seconds. She whimpered and kissed him back, small hands sliding under his leathers with a need that fanned the flames of his own desire. Without breaking the kiss, he struggled out of his jacket, letting it drop to the floor. He surged against her, both hands now in her hair as he kissed her. He nibbled and licked as he drank from her lips and then surged within, his tongue thrusting in and out in a mimicry of the act of claiming.

When he broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavily. He looked down and locked gazes with her, barely recognizing his own voice when he spoke.

“You will not talk to other males again,” he ordered, covering her lips with his before she could reply. Her indignant gasp was lost in his mouth, but he didn’t care. She was his. The sooner she came to terms with that, the better.

She held herself rigid against him for a few seconds, refusing him access to the honeyed sweetness beyond her lips. But he was not without resources, and he knew she desired him… could smell her arousal like the finest perfume on the air.

Sliding his hands down from where they cupped her neck, he slid one around to the small of her back to haul her up against him while the other sought the edges of her overlapping skirts. Latharian women dressed to please their males, their clothing designed for easy access, and he used that ruthlessly to his own advantage.

She gasped again, softening in his arms as his fingertips swept against her inner thigh, working their way upward. He swallowed the small sound of pleasure as he found the apex of her thighs, easing them open so he could stroke the delicate petals of the flower hidden within.

Wet heat bathed his fingers as he found her lower lips, a slipperiness he slicked over the tiny nub of her clit. The bundle of nerves hardened under his attentions, pert and proud as he stroked and caressed. He circled and teased, her soft gasps as she clung to his upper arms music to his ears.

Her hips rocked against his hand, her breathing in short, ragged pants when she broke away to rest her forehead against his shoulder. He reveled in the tiny, feminine sounds of pleasure as he teased her. She was so open and responsive, eager for his touch, and it stroked his ego in a way nothing else, no other female, ever had.

Dropping a kiss against her temple, he found the entrance to her body and then slid his finger deep within. A groan broke from his throat as her sheath clamped around him, the warmth and tightness of her pussy sending his arousal into overdrive. He had to have her, and soon…

But not until he’d made sure of her pleasure. Altering his position, he cradled her in his embrace, adding a thumb against her clit as he slid a second digit deep within her. The added pressure increased the sound of her moans and the rock of her hips against his hand as though seeking more pleasure.

“Enough,” he broke away to growl when her cries were almost at fever pitch. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and glassy, unfocused with the pleasure that rolled through her system.

“What?” Her soft whisper was almost pained, her expression confused. “You don’t want to—”

Something in the tone of her voice pulled at him, but rather than analyze it, he leaned down and claimed her lips in a hard kiss. “I do. But not here. A bed, before I take you against a wall again.”

“Ohh…” Comprehension filled her eyes as he bent down and scooped her up, walking through the darkened quarters toward the sleeping chamber at the back.

No words were exchanged between the two of them, the silence stretching out and tension mounting between them with every step he took.

Her bedchamber was as dark as the rest of the suite and sumptuously decorated as befit a guest of the emperor. Rynn saw none of that as he laid her down in the center of the silk-covered bed.

“Undress,” he ordered, his voice little more than a rasp as he stood over her.

His body was motionless but his eyes saw everything as she lifted a tentative hand to the clips at her shoulder and hip that held the court gown in place. It was designed around those two pins, often jeweled and usually gifts from a male to his woman. Once undone, the silk would fall away and reveal the treat of her naked form hidden beneath.

Her hands shook, fingers struggling to undo the clasps for a moment, but then she had them. The pins slid easily from the silk and dropped unheeded on the bed beside her as she held the edges of the dress together.

“Show yourself to me.” His demand was little more than a growl but it didn’t seem to scare her. If anything, the little hitch in her breathing and the sudden darkness in her eyes said it had the opposite effect.

She parted her hands, the silk flowing with them. The fabric separated like waves rolling back from the shore, revealing the expanse of her creamy skin.

He sucked in a breath as his gaze roved over the perfection of her body. His cock pulsed savagely in his pants, protesting the layers of material that constrained it. He’d already had her, claimed her body that night in the D’Corr cells, but, concerned about interruptions, he hadn’t actually seen the perfection of her naked form completely. And in the shuttle, he hadn’t been present mentally.

She was… breathtaking.

“Please,” she whispered, moving to cover herself with her hands. “Say something.”

“No!” He was over her in a heartbeat, stopping her hands. “Never cover such perfection. You’re beautiful.”

Pulling her hands up over her head, he pinned them there with one of his own. The other he slid down the side of her body, flirting with the soft curve of her waist before cupping her breast. She bit her lip as he rolled his thumb over her nipple, the soft catch in her breathing shredding the last of his control.

“I wanted to do this slowly,” he panted, a hard knee between hers parting them. “Make you scream over and over. But I can’t wait.”

She nodded, rocking her hips to welcome him as he settled between her thighs. Reaching down, he checked she was still ready for him, their groans mingling in the air as his fingers slid between her slick pussy lips, and then he tore open the front of his pants.

A second later the broad, thick head of his cock pressed against the entrance to her body. She arched against him, a small sound of pleasure in the back of her throat as he slipped half an inch inside her.

The pleasure of his tip being wrapped in the tight, wet embrace of her body made his eyes cross. He surged forward, a bark of pleasure escaping as her body accepted him, the hot sheath warm and welcoming. His hips jerked back of their own accord, and then he buried himself in her again. And again. Each time bringing a cry of pleasure to her lips as he worked himself deeper.

He didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, not even when his balls hit her ass and he was fully sheathed within her. Need and desire drove him, his hips pumping as he took her hard and fast. Her cries of pleasure and the straining of her hips against him spurred him on. He let go of her hands to brace himself and then hissed in pleasure as she raked her nails down his back. The bed rocked, the frame complaining, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was the two of them and the pleasure between them.

Need rode him, heat spiraling through his veins and racing up and down his spine. It reached his lower back, tightened his ass and looped around his balls, drawing them up tight. Feeling his end drawing near, he reached between them. He pressed his thumb against her clit as he upped the pace, determined to make her climax before he did.

She gasped, eyes rolling back in her head, and he felt her pussy begin to spasm around him. A silken grip of utter ecstasy. With a roar, he increased his pace again, the muscles in his legs and ass screaming, but he didn’t care. The need to drive into her, to take her, overrode all else.

She screamed his name as she came hard over his cock. Wave after wave, her pussy clamped so tightly he had to grit his teeth as he slid into her. His vision went white at the edges as he exploded. His cock jerked and pulsed, bathing the neck of her womb with his white-hot seed.

Claiming her.

His woman.

Always.

For someone like Rynn, trailing one human female was child’s play. Although he had other duties, missions he should be planning, instead he was skulking in the shadows as Jac walked through the emperor’s gardens.

She really was gorgeous, he mused, watching as the dappled sunlight reached through the herris trees to caress her creamy skin. Dressed in the manner of a Latharian woman again instead of her ugly Terran clothes, she took his breath away as she moved through the gardens.

A soft hum on her lips, she touched each of the flowers as she passed. His gaze riveted to the soft brush of her fingertips, remembering what they’d felt like against his skin. That one memory opened the floodgates… The feel of her beneath him, the softness of her skin beneath his lips. The smell of her hair.

He shivered and closed his eyes for a moment. The smell of her hair, fragranced with herris blossom, would stay in his memory until the day he died. That one memory, over and above all the others, was the last thing he thought of before he slept and the first thing that filled his mind on waking.

She was, in his eyes, utterly perfect. And far too good for him. Which was why he refused to claim her. She could do far better than a male who lived, and killed, in the shadows. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t watch her now. And kid himself that he was too noble to sneak into her room under the cover of darkness later.

She’d reached the center of the garden, sitting on the raised edge of the ornamental pond to trail her hand in the water. Her soft laugh of delight as the hetesg fish flapped their triangular fins against her fingers filled the air.

A warm, fragrant breeze washed over his face and he opened his eyes. Movement behind Jac caught his attention and his eyes narrowed. A small group of warriors had just entered the garden from the other side. No. Not warriors. It was a bunch of youngsters. Only their ringleader, Coaar, had gained warrior’s braids, a fact that certainly showed in his swagger as he spotted Jac.

“My lady Jacqueline!” he cried out, arms spread as he strode toward the Terran woman as if they were old friends. She turned at his voice, standing, and to Rynn’s approval, backing off a couple of steps before Coaar could reach her.

Rynn, meanwhile, moved like lightning. He was across the garden and between the woman and the small group of males within a heartbeat.

“Walk on, lad,” he advised in a low voice, sweeping a hard glance at the small group.

He didn’t trust any of them to act with decorum or honor. Not hyped up after training and excited at being the presence of an actual, live female as they were.

“Says who?” one of the group demanded, shooting a glance at Rynn’s hair. He’d removed his braids in preparation for his next mission, a fact that made the young lad’s lip curl back into a sneer. For a male of Rynn’s age to be unbraided… he wouldn’t have dared to show his face at court for the shame. “Our boy here is braided. Step aside and allow the better male to talk to the lady.”

Rynn’s lips twisted in a small smile that had nothing humorous about it. Any male with half a brain cell would already have put it together… Rynn’s obvious warrior build, his blond hair and lack of braids all added up to something far beyond their capabilities to deal with.

“Errr… Taalan…” One of the group pulled at the speaker’s arm, but it seemed the newly named Taalan didn’t have the sense he’d been born with.

Instead of listening to his colleague, he got right up in Rynn’s face to snarl, “Unless you want me to make you, old man.”

“How about I make you dance a jig instead?” Rynn said pleasantly, adding a push behind his voice. Taalan’s eyes widened as his feet began to shuffle. An older, more experienced warrior might have been able to resist… Maybe. But then, an older and more experienced warrior would never have challenged Rynn in the first place.

“What’s the matter, Taalan?” he asked as the lad’s friends suddenly realized their error and started to back up. Fast.

“Y-you’re a shadow?”

Rynn lifted an eyebrow. “Really wasn’t wise to insult a male you know nothing about. Was it?”

“No… sir. I mean, my lord. You have my apologies,” the kid spluttered, his face red as he tried his best to apologize quickly. He’d broken out into a full-on jig now. Sweat poured down his fear-stricken face. Rynn could order him to dance himself to death and they both knew it. His only hope now was that Rynn offered him mercy.

He was tempted but a small hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks. He looked down. Jac’s hand rested on his bicep in the softest of touches, a plea in her eyes as she looked up at him.

“How about you dance yourself back to your barracks and think on your manners?” the big shadow suggested.

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Thank you, sir,” Taalan gasped, already turning to dance away.

Rynn watched him and his little group leave and then turned to find Jac watching him. She’d stepped away, but far from the thankful expression he’d thought he would see, her arms were folded across her chest and her expression stormy.

“You’re an asshole, Xaandrynn,” she told him, her voice sharp. “Making that poor kid dance all the way through the palace.”

He arched his eyebrow again as he approached her. “You think I should have let him off?”

She snorted but didn’t argue as he slid his arms around her waist. “Hell no. He was an asshole as well. You didn’t need to show him up to the whole palace, though. Did you?”

He shrugged, more concerned with how well she fit against him than the males that had just left. She was perfect, even with the tiny dark shadows he could see under her eyes. Marks of tiredness because he’d been keeping her up most nights. It was beginning to show on her, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry. Not in the slightest.

“Just as long as you never pull that… trick…” She stopped and looked at him. “Wait. Have you ever done that to me?”

“I tried,” he admitted. “That first night… But it gave you a migraine. I haven’t since.”

Her relief was palpable, the tension in her expression easing as she relaxed against him.

“Good,” she murmured and lifted her lips for his kiss. “It’s not fair if one person in a relationship has that kind of power over the other. It’s not equal. Not right.”

Her lips were so soft and pliant under his that he didn’t have the heart to tell her that what they had—them—couldn’t last.

They had no future together.

All they had was the present.

And he intended to make the most of it.