Chapter Ten

Outer Reaches. Geonate New Time, Year 2402
Mission: Day 11
Venture Stranded: 3 days

Anna tossed in her bunk, swimming to awareness from dreams of prickly flowers blooming across her skin and long muscular legs and arms tangled around hers. Her uniform bunched around her, and she twisted to the side only to find little room to move.

“Damn!” a man exclaimed near her ear.

Anna cracked open her scratchy lids and looked directly into a pair of glassy, red rimmed eyes.

Piotr.

Why is he in my bed?

Jerking aside, she had nowhere to go, caught between his hard body and the wall. Heart racing, she regained her senses and shook off sleep. She peered at the agitated man leaning over her. The red streaks in his dark, tangled hair contrasted with the scarlet rims of his dimly glowing eyes.

“I didn’t believe we could mate, so I didn’t understand when I started to sense your emotions. I still don’t know how I could mate to a human. Oh, hell! Come with me.”

“Mate?”

Mate. Mating meant sex. Sex with Piotr? Her mind buzzed, and she missed whatever he said so passionately.

Piotr jumped up and tugged on her to follow. One hand in his, she used the other to yank her uniform tunic down from where it had ridden up beneath her breasts. He led her to the lavatory. Close behind her in the small room, he shut the door and positioned them to face the mirrored back.

“Don’t pull away. I’m not trying to make love to you.” Piotr’s outward agitation faded into a calming rumble. Anna’s breath caught when he reached to the bottom of her tunic and slid it up several inches. “I need you to look at yourself.”

He motioned toward the mirror.

She didn’t notice her reflection. She was too intent on the hard muscles of his chest tight along her back. He was so tall. Well over a head taller than her. And solid.

“Look,” he cajoled and pointed again.

At first she didn’t understand, mistaking the color as a blush. Then she noticed the pink markings, like the outline of a tree, branches reaching up her torso toward her barely covered breasts. The trunk trailed down and disappeared in the low-riding waistband of her leggings. In a daze, her eyes widened. The blue narrowed as she studied the impossible red outline ringing her irises.

“Unbelievable,” she croaked. She coughed to clear the lump lodged in her throat. A trembling started in her hands and washed over her. She shook like a leaf caught in the updraft of a hoverbike.

“Now, look at me.” Piotr softly ran his hands over her stomach. Outlining her markings with feathery touches, he moved inexorably upward.

Wincing with the effort, she stilled beneath his touch, though she wanted to leave. Leave this room. Leave this ship. Wanted to rewind history and be back at Academy, fresh and excited to join the Nex.

But, she needed to face this. Whatever this was.

Wrapping her arms around her bared midriff, she twisted away. Virile and handsome, the sensitive and protective warrior crowded the tiny room that shrank even more as she took in his appearance. His ill-fitted borrowed uniform parted to reveal his chest. She couldn’t breathe without his cinnamon aura coating her.

The natural tattoo that marked him phoenix had dulled from bright crimson to a more subdued rust. Intrigued, her shaking abated, she reached out to trace the lines with one finger, up the left side of his chest, stopping at his nipple and circling it. At his sharp intake of breath, she remembered where she was, what she was doing, and cringed inwardly at her forwardness. With trepidation, she glanced at his face to see his response and gasped. “Oh, your eyes are brown!”

Piotr's eyes had changed to brown, circled by a thin red circle as Anna's now were. Clearly not pleased, his brows lowered.

“These changes indicate that we are mating. It probably started when you touched my phoenix form. If I’d known this could happen, I would not have kissed you to further it along, and I certainly would have warned you of the possibility. How could this have happened? You’re human.”

She flinched against the door with the mirror cold against her back. His words were biting, accusatory, but before she could reply, he continued. “This must be why I’ve been a little shaky.”

“Shaky? You passed out.”

He ignored her. “Mating causes a DNA shift. Much like you would respond to a virus. You have medications and gene therapy to deal with most illnesses immediately. Have you had a virus make you ill enough to take to bed? Had a fever?”

“No, but I’ve seen what a virus can do on some of the poorer space stations,” she replied, but he continued his impassioned explanation as if he hadn’t heard her.

“This is the first stage, but we’ll never bond. It’s impossible. We aren’t genetically compatible to join signatures. I’ve never heard of a phoenix halting the process once it’s started, but I’ll have to find a way.”

A small sound left her throat, but she didn’t speak. She turned her head away from those brown eyes full of anger.

“You should go,” she managed past her dry lips. “I need to check on the scans for Koschei’s ship. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

Fighting for her usual cool facade, she palmed open the door behind her and strode out of the suffocating washroom.

“You probably passed out, the same as I, for your body to undergo such a rapid transformation.”

“Enough. I ordered you to go.” The stinging in her eyes hadn’t been there in years. She’d be damned if she broke down in front of him.

“Ordered?”

“Leave,” she insisted, but couldn’t look as he did, so silently she didn’t hear him depart. The absence of his presence and energy registered, and a piece of her cried out, alone and lost.

She didn’t give in to the urge to crawl back into bed. Besides, his cinnamon scent would still be there, wrapped in her covers.

Her world may have tilted, irrevocably altered, but her crew’s situation still remained. What had been discovered in the scans and recon? Determined to deal with her altered appearance later, and perhaps head to sickbay to run some scans, she needed to check in with Len first. She smoothed a hand over her uniform to right herself, but stopped when the new markings on her chest itched.

“Damn,” she said to the emptiness surrounding her.

She couldn’t let Piotr’s rejection bring her down. She hadn’t let Belusi’s treatment and the repercussions ruin her life, and she’d deal with this in due course.

Belusi.

For the first time, thoughts of that madman didn’t cause her to blank out. No visions of horror danced before her eyes. No imaginary iron bar crashed down to make her shoulders bunch.

Belusi.

The baby.

Sorrow brought her to her knees, arms wrapped around her middle in a tight hug, but she held it together. She stayed in the here and now. She didn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry.

Her crew still needed her. Joylnn’s baby needed her. Anna’s baby had been a blazing star to end the dark abyss of Anna’s imprisonment, but she’d never grieved the loss of her short life.

She had no time to do so, now.

A lone tear ran down her cheek, and Anna touched it. Rolling the moisture between her forefinger and thumb, she promised herself a vacation when she got her ship out of the Outer Reaches. Somewhere away from Lotus-9, Jacaranda, and the memories there. Maybe it was time to retire.

Another tear escaped as she rose and hand-brushed her hair. She left Piotr’s lingering scent behind in her bedroom and palmed open the door of her outer office.

She halted in her tracks. A tall shape stood outside her door, hand in mid-air.

*

When Anna had rebuffed him, Piotr stomped out, all too willing to leave the aggravating woman who now bore the mark of phoenix. The mark that tempted him to touch her.

No longer plagued with vertigo, he stopped outside the captain’s office door as it swooshed closed. His hormones were to blame. His phoenix had mistaken a woman for whom he lusted with a woman with whom he could bond.

No matter what she was to him, friend, mate, or bonded partner, he had to protect her. He needed to go on recon.

Before he could mindspeak with Nadia to determine their progress, a niggling question halted him. Could he mindspeak with Anna?

The wave of despair hit him. So much stronger than what he thought mated pairs could share. It was so potent he could nearly reach out and touch it. She hurt. What have I done?

The wall of emotion snared him, tied him to her, and he raised his hand to the control panel outside her door to announce his presence. The portway swished open.

She stood there. Beautiful and strong.

The lone tear on her cheek made his chest ache.

He’d brave the desolate Waste Flats of Sirin to be with Anna once. Just once before he had to turn his back. Before he had to find a way to reverse this false mating. He had to bond with a phoenix, with Vivie, but he wanted a taste of this human who, given a choice, he’d cherish for one lifetime. He’d have only one lifetime. He shook his head.

“I have a duty to my race. I can’t give up rebirth.”

“I know.” She stood unmoving in the doorway with wide eyes. The red rim of her blue irises mesmerized him.

“I’ll go out on recon, but it’s best if I don’t come back to this ship. You now have functioning solar sails, and the Firewalker can’t be more than a day away. I’ll locate the mimics and coordinate their dispatch from the Firewalker. I’ll leave Gregory and Ivan aboard to help with anything you need to get underway.”

Though he expected her feathers to be ruffled over his orders, she didn’t call him on it. She stared past him when she responded.

“I agree. Your plan is for the best.”

What was she thinking?

Opening up to her, his mind sought hers again, and the emotional outpour of moments ago dampened like a wall had come down between them. She’d locked away her despair with chilling efficiency.

“I’d like to say goodbye.” He hesitated as she continued to look anywhere but at him. He wasn’t inexperienced, but he’d never had to dance around attraction before. Anna required careful handling and forthrightness. “I’d like to say goodbye while I hold you. And kiss you, again.”

“Oh,” she gurgled. Had he frightened her?

“Damn. I’m not saying this right.”

“No, I understand you.” She drew in a shaky gulp of air. “I’d like to say goodbye, too.”

Not giving her a single second of doubt, he folded her into a tight embrace. After stiffening for a moment, she relaxed in direct counterpoint to the energy spiking in his runnels. He wasn’t relaxed at all.

“Are the lines on my chest supposed to itch?” she asked after long minutes of standing there, arms around each other. “They’re burning.”

“Mine are, too.” His huskiness voiced his desire. “They respond to you, to our passion.”

Leaning back she looked down at the still parted uniform shirt he wore. “You’re glowing, but it’s dim compared to when you recharged the batteries.”

“It doesn’t feel dim,” he croaked. The energy coursing through him wasn’t new, but the compulsion to relieve elemental urges was something he’d never experienced. “Might I see yours?”

If she said no, he might burn to cinders in her doorway.

Anna didn’t move. She didn’t answer, but her eyebrows slanted as her forehead knitted, concern etched on her strong and beautiful features.

“Please. I need to see your markings. See how they compare to ours.”

She nodded. “I’d like to know how it compares, myself. I’d like to know how this happened.”

“Would you ...?” He gestured to her shirt, and his heart skipped a beat when she moved to comply. A glimpse of pale skin with streaks like angry scars branching out from her waistband made his pants too tight for comfort. He might see phoenix women without clothing on a regular basis, but anticipation for Anna made his mouth water.

Her hands trembling, she gripped the bottom of her tunic but hesitated with the barest amount of skin showing. Too much space separated them. Space that buzzed with static, heating by slow degrees.

“I need a closer look.” He pointed behind her. “Could you sit on your desk so it’ll bring you up higher?”

He asked with as much calming reverb he could put into his voice. He resisted the urge to sing his firebird’s song to soothe her. If she couldn’t maintain her stoic calm, he might bundle her away to a safe place, give up that birthright of life after life, and not care that he’d given up the fight for his people.

But he couldn’t do that. And she couldn’t show fear.

Daring to be closer, he leaned down once she’d positioned herself on the corner of the desk. With deliberateness, he caught the bottom of her tunic between two fingers, but even with his hesitation, she didn’t stop him.

He halted beneath her breasts though he wanted to rip off the offending material. She brought her arms down tightly against her side and held the shirt in place.

Her markings were rusty, like healed scars, but they didn’t contain energy. The flow and ebb of current didn’t show beneath the skin. He didn’t realize he’d held onto any hope, but the crushing weight that landed on his chest made it hard for him to see straight. Beyond all reason, he’d wanted proof she had an energy signature. She might have what appeared to be an exact replica of the phoenix markings, but they didn’t carry essence. They would not form a bond.

To be sure, he flicked his eyes up to meet hers. She stared back with resolve, no trepidation. “May I touch them to sense the energy levels?”

“Go ahead.” She leaned back a fraction to give him more access, curiosity plain in her darkening eyes, but she didn’t flinch away or become rigid.

Though he already sensed the lack of running current, he touched a finger above her waistband near the bottom of the tree fanned across her torso. She shivered when he lightly skimmed up until he reached the shirt bunched around her chest. His runnels flowed in a clamor, responding to his near-mate’s markings, but hers didn’t emit the barest static.

Disappointment made his fingers clench around the material of her uniform. The small ripping noise in the quiet made them both jerk, and the material slipped higher to reveal one rosy nipple.

Bonding could wait.

He stroked a thumb across the tight peak, and she groaned. When she leaned forward for his hand to cup her entire pert breast, the last tenuous hold on his desires broke free.

His mouth found hers, and their tongues tangled in a hot, greedy rush while he kneaded the soft flesh in his hand.

He might have halted. He might have found some reserve of the noble warrior, but her willingness broadcast over him, her eagerness to touch him rang out across his phoenix-mate sensitivity. Combined with his own lust for her, he couldn’t deny the passion that had already joined together into one blazing torch in his mind. If she caused this much turmoil now, what would happen to him if they could bond?

A jolt of panic almost made him back away, but her hands threaded underneath his shirt to touch his skin. He shuddered as she stroked him, pulled him closer. Nowhere in evidence was her previous reserve. He understood some of her past, but she’d shed the reminders, and if she could do so, then so would he.

He needed her hands to touch him everywhere.

He pulled back a little to look at her wet, red lips, and she tried to tug him back against her.

“Just a minute,” he panted and yanked his shirt over his head.

Eager hands ran over him, touching and stroking the runnels that flowed in a molten beating he’d never felt before.

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful” Her cheeks flushed and accented the new scarlet rims of her eyes. Did they glow, or did he wish it?

“I agree.” He meant it to the depths of his being—that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The purring from his chest grew louder, and he nearly lost all coherent thought when she smiled shyly.

“Let me see more of you,” he whispered and tugged at the shirt that had fallen back down to her waist.

“No,” she said, and the old rigidity threatened her posture, but she still breathed in a loud rapid cadence. She still desired him. “I can’t.”

He stilled, confusion warring with the urge to peel off her pants and sink into her. Passion still rolled off her aura in waves.

“You can’t?”

She tamped on her PCU on the wrist of her uniform top. “Lights out.”

The room plunged in darkness, but the glowing from his markings still lit the area around them.

“Can you turn that off?”

He laughed and the awkwardness between them dissipated.

“No. I can’t stop it right now. You turn me on in a way I’ve never experienced. This won’t stop while you’re just as turned on as I am.”

Though his words might have caused her to back off only a few days ago, she pulled him back to her and kissed him with renewed passion. She used her whole body, and that kiss speared through the control that was already in tatters. Pressing against him, nudging up from the desk and into his hips, she writhed beneath him and gripped his hair to keep his mouth on hers.

Fine by him.

They rocked against each other, their hips grinding together despite the clothes.

She fanned her hands down his back and around his ribcage without breaking their intoxicating kiss. When she tugged on his waistband, he groaned in agreement.

With desperation, he yanked down his pants, and the constriction keeping his desire in check gave him ease for a split second, but then he wanted to be inside her. His cock buried in her. Connected to her. Nothing kept him from that except for her own clothes.

“Your turn,” he panted.

His hands wrapped her waist, and when she put her hand on his to stop him, he whimpered. She’d been hurt, and though he’d seen some of her wounds, he didn’t truly know what had happened to her. He’d go if she asked, if she really needed him to do so, but he might beg first. At this point, he didn’t doubt he would.

“I need a couple minutes,” she insisted, and at his tortured moan, she continued “Only a minute. Half a minute.”

She jumped off the desk and before he could process what had happened, she’d scampered out of her office, through her bedroom, and into the bathroom as the door swished closed.

Desire coursed through his chest, and her responses still came to him as he stalked through her room to stand on the other side of the slim barrier between them. Rustling behind the door piqued his curiosity. His brows rose as the portway slid open.

She stood there in a robe, for a moment backlit by the light in the lavatory. She was nude, except for the wrapper that hugged her slim curves.

He hardened even further.

“Come with me,” she said.

No more wonderful words had ever been spoken.

Lying back on her bed, she didn’t remove the robe but pulled him atop her. The moment before him tempted him to linger, but he couldn’t wait. Not when hips rubbed together in delightful friction. Not when her hot and wet readiness slid over him.

“Now,” she insisted. “I don’t want to wait.”

He was all too willing.

His mouth crashed down on hers, and her legs wrapped around his waist. Her robe parted. He slid into her, and her tight and slick welcome nearly ended him. The current in his chest blazed and pulsed with the movements of his hips that began the magical dance of give and take.

“Are you alright?” he asked before his sanity left him.

“Oh, yes. Yes.” She yanked his head back down to her lips. She tasted so much like home, like the sweet outdoors of Sirin’s coasts.

Rocking into her over and over, he couldn’t stop plunging into her with abandon. He wouldn’t last long. Couldn’t. Desperate, he shoved his hand between them and sought along the entrance to her body until he found her clit. She gasped. He rubbed. The arm he used to balance above her shook. They moved against one another. Urgent.

Her hips strained up to meet his, and he couldn’t hold off much longer. The bliss of his body spread through his entire being, and stars built beneath his eyelids.

“Anna.” His pleading could mean only one thing. He held onto the edge by the barest tendril.

“Yes, I’m with you.” She moaned.

She tensed beneath him, and her hold tightened to a stranglehold as tremors swept her head to toe.

He reached his zenith and the lights beneath his lids exploded. Like his entire life-force flowed from him and into her, he exalted in the heavenly relief of finally being inside her, like being home.

Hugging her to him, he remained inside her for as long as he could. When his senses cleared, he realized she’d left the robe on, covering so much of her warm skin.

He kissed her nose.

“That was wonderful. Thank you.” His words were woefully inadequate.

“I’ve never known it could be like that.” She nuzzled his ear. “My chest itched like crazy the whole time. What’s happening to me?”

He didn’t know, but before he could answer, the Venture alarm clamored.