The Bonding Read online

  “Off-worlders came to Trian. Three at first.” She drew a breath, considering how best to explain. “They knew our language, our ways. They spoke to my father and the elders. They said we had three days to leave Trian. That it was theirs and anyone who resisted would be killed. Then they left.” Her people hadn’t had wars in centuries.

  The population was so low there was no reason for them. If anyone had a problem, they saw her father or one of the elders and the matter was addressed. They’d had no weapons, no frame of reference with regards to physical threats.

  The warriors stilled, around her, waiting patiently for her to continue. She’d wondered before if time affected them a bit differently than it affected her. When Tam wanted to, he could move far more quickly than seemed natural. Similarly, they could still their bodies in a way she couldn’t, slow their hearts and breaths. The only motion in the room was Sero’s blade as he flipped it up in the air and caught it. No one interrupted her and Nissa felt a moment of appreciation for the males. In their shoes, she’d have peppered questions. They just waited, permitting her to tell the tale at her own speed.

  “We didn’t believe them. We couldn’t. They came back three days later and killed a hundred males. Lined them up in the central square of Trian and cut open their stomachs, pulled out their intestines as they screamed and bled. Anyone who tried to resist was killed. Three more days, they said.” She paused when Tam ran a soothing hand down her spine. She leaned against him, grateful when he tucked his arm around her.

  “My father said we should leave but the people wanted to fight. They armed themselves with farm equipment and carpentry tools. This time a thousand men were executed in the central square.”

  She remembered blood, pooling on the white stones, running in rivers down the streets, agonizing screams, more deaths as the people stampeded to escape. The great green birds that were sacred to her people, that were fed in squares, whose eggs were a delicacy, whose flesh was only eaten at sacred feasts, had landed on the bodies, pulled at entrails, feathers stained brown with Trianni blood.

  There had been no competition. The aliens had possessed weapons that made resistance futile. Their people had been brutalized, shamed, herded, subdued in a cosmic mockery.

  “They gave us three more days. This time we left. We went into the forest and they moved in. They took our city. They lived in our homes while we lived in the woods like animals, without food or medicines or shelter. People died. More every day. We’d had twenty thousand at the beginning but within thirty days our population was reduced to closer to thirteen thousand. Trianni started turning themselves over to the aliens, to be their slaves. Within another thirty days there were fewer than five thousand of us, free and living in the woods. The elders remembered the pods. They’d been buried in a bunker under one of our old cities. A lottery was called.”

  Tam pressed a kiss against her temple. It may have happened five centuries ago but to her it had been only twenty-six days ago. All her people, everyone she’d ever known, snuffed out of existence, save the people in the pods who might still be saved.

  She’d spent so much time actively trying to avoid thinking about it.

  “Vestige,” Sero said, his voice a whispery hiss. His knife gleamed.

  “Pretty sure,” Tam said. “But we need to be certain. And I want to know more about the moons.”

  “We could do a flyover while you are on the ground. You need more than just one night there, anyway.”

  Tam nodded, and she could see the irritation on his face as he glanced at her. He didn’t want her on the planet overnight.

  Too bad.

  Tycho had her draw a map of Trian, detailing the sea and the surrounding hills. They selected a landing spot for the small, stealthy vessel in which they’d land and another place where they’d hide during the day. The conversation went on and her body throbbed sullenly, a persistent void that only Tam could fill.

  She pressed the tip of her boot into Tam’s calf and he angled a strained glance her way. The day they’d left on their mission he’d given her a new wardrobe, clothes that he said Tribe youths usually wore. A pair of knee-length, lace-up leather boots like Tam’s and several black flight-suits. She’d loved the way the suits felt on and loved even more the feral gleam in Tam’s eyes when he’d seen the way the thin black material clung to her curves.

  But the belt and zippers were too complicated to put on and take off constantly. She’d stayed in the black dresses during their flight, the easier to raise her skirt so Tam could feed her addiction. When they got to Triannon she’d wear the clinging suit, but for now she wore the slinky black dress and the high boots.

  She kicked him again, harder this time, and saw Tycho hide a smile behind his hand. Tam continued talking to Sero and Kaleus about formations and supplies.

  She lost her patience. She grabbed his arm. “Now,” she said. “We’ll be fast.”

  Tam blinked. He straightened up from the maps they’d been studying and nodded. As they left the room, she heard someone mutter, “Lucky bastard.”

  In the passageway, she shoved him into a little tech closet, enjoying the look of surprise on his face.

  “I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been on my knees before you,” she said, staring up at his handsome face.

  He looked as if he might be doing some quick internal calculations.

  She jabbed his chest with her finger. “A lot of times.”

  He grinned. “Some of my fondest memories.”

  “I want to see you on your knees.”

  He narrowed his eyes and rotated his jaw, smiling in a way that said he was intrigued, irritated and turned-on at the same time. “Anytime. Just say the word.”

  “Now. On your knees.” She pointed at the floor in front of her feet.

  He shrugged and dropped his big body to the floor. She pushed him so his butt rested on his feet and the angle was right. She pulled her skirt up to her waist and lifted a leg to hook a knee around his shoulder.

  “Do something useful with that tongue.” She twisted her fingers in his hair and guided his face between her thighs.

  He looked up at her, eyes crinkling at the edges, and raised an eyebrow in a silent dare. Forcing her to say the words.

  You think I won’t? she asked him silently with a smile of her own. “Lick my pussy, Tam,” she said silkily. “Now.”

  He groaned, shaking his head reverently. “Woman, you fucking thrill me.”

  “Shut up.” She pulled his hair, earning a laugh. Moving without warning, he grabbed her other leg, lifting it so suddenly she had to throw her arms out against the bulkhead to catch herself from falling back. His hands dug into her ass and he used his tongue, stroking it along all the right places.

  And he wasn’t fast.

  15

  A pair of eyes so green,

  In a sea of red.

  NISSA STARED DOWN at Triannon with eyes as hungry as Tam had ever seen, and he’d seen a lot of hunger in those green, green eyes. It worried him, the strength of her emotions regarding her planet. Emotions could be dangerous. Emotions could kill.

  They circled the planet three times, trusting the ship’s stealth mode to prevent detection from the planet’s current inhabitants. They gathered intelligence from thermal, motion, density, lumen, sonar and digital scans. Everything would be sent back to Sierra-Six for analysis.

  They detected sentient life centralized around the city Nissa called Trian, in numbers around fifty thousand. From above there was no way to gather clear information about the inhabitants and they had a shit-ton of questions. Who were they? Decendents of Nissa’s Trianni? Vestige? Some other race entirely? How were they organized? What sort of defenses did they have?

  The planet below them was so intensely red it was hard to call it simply red. Crimson or scarlet or vermillion seemed more accurate. It glowed so brightly under the light of its sun that Tam’s eyes burned. The green sea that curled along the land like a massive, writhing river cover
ed a significant portion of the planet, a brilliant emerald- green in the deepest parts of the ocean that faded to citrine along the coasts.

  Tam had seen several living planets but never one in quite such concentrated color. He had to admit it was beautiful.

  Triannon had three moons, one large and red marbled, the other two smaller and a gray so dark they almost blended into the space beyond when the sun’s rays didn’t catch them directly.

  They’d detected a military base on the larger of the two gray moons. Without knowing more, Tam hesitated to request permission to do any ground recon on the moon and Sierra-Six hadn’t pressed them.

  There was certainly no telltale atmospheric haze. Lack of breathable air would make ground initiatives more difficult and, to Base’s directives, secondary to their goal. Several more ships could be sent for reconnaissance if Base decided to launch an assault against whoever occupied Triannon and her moons. After the group landed on Triannon, the ship would do a flyover of the moon’s base to see what they learned.

  Their primary objective was a survey of the current situation on the ground on Triannon. That was their focus. For now.

  Nissa changed into the skin-hugging black jumpsuit that molded over every curve like a wet dream. It made his palms itch just looking at her round ass. As if she knew his thoughts, she looked up from the planet in the window beyond and met his eye over her shoulder. That fast he wanted to pull her into the tech closet and fuck her, fast and furious. She smiled, eyes gleaming, reading his thoughts. She raised a brow.

  Behind her, night spread over half of Triannon. As they passed into the planet’s terminator, the edge of the light glowed a hot, fiery orange. She had climbed off his cock only a few minutes ago and yet he wanted her again. He always wanted her. Her eyes widened. She knew. She always knew.

  “I have something for you,” he said, stepping close to her. He pressed his swollen dick against her back.

  “I’ll bet you do,” she said and he dropped a quick kiss to her neck.

  “No time, sadly. Something else.” He turned her in his arms and handed her a thick black belt. The other warriors had given them a moment alone before they would board the grav-bus that would transport them to the ground. She pulled her hair back in a thick, curling tail behind her back. Her hair usually fell loose and wavy. He let a vivid fantasy run through his mind of pulling her hair while she wrapped her lips around his cock.

  Her gaze dropped to his lips. “Oh?”

  He wrapped the wide leather around her waist and her delicate brows rose. She looked down at the belt and the several items that hung from it.

  “What’s this?”

  Tam buckled it, tugging a few times to make sure it wouldn’t fall off if she had to run, that nothing would bounce and hurt her. He tapped the sheath on her hip. “A knife. In case we get separated, I’m not leaving you unarmed.”

  She looked a little too damn eager for his taste. With a hand under her chin, he forced her to meet his gaze.

  “Do not get separated from us.”

  She nodded.

  “Pull it,” he said.

  She grabbed at it with delicate fingers, as if she was pulling out a hair brush or a pen.

  “Not like that. Like this.” He showed her how to pull it in a swift clean motion that would end with the knife held in a stabbing position. “Try to stab right here, under the ribs. Tilt the knife up as you go.”

  She wrinkled her nose, making a frowny face that made him smile. “Okay.”

  “Wait until someone is close before pulling it. Don’t show you’ve got it. You’re small and pretty. They’ll probably assume you won’t fight. Surprise them.”

  She nodded again. He tapped another item on her belt. “This will contact the ship, me or the other men. Push one for me. Two for the ship. Three for Sero. If you get separated, contact one of us immediately.” The next item was a flashlight, then water, rations and a flare dart.

  “Do I get a rezal gun?” she asked with a frown.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?” Her brow wrinkled.

  “Have you ever held one?”

  “No, but...” Tam cut her off before she could argue. “That’s why.” He pulled a small box from his own belt and opened it. “There’s a band attached to the sheath. It’s designed to go in your hair, where no one would expect it, but a Tribesman.”

  She took it from his hands.

  “I got it for you before we left Base. It’s a weapon many warriors give to their mates. It’s tiny but if you get someone in the right spot, like the jugular,” he motioned to his neck, “you can do some serious damage. Never take it off. You’re little, you don’t look like a killer. Surprise them.”

  She ran her fingers over it. “It’s red.”

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “I do.” She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He wished he could think of a way to prepare her, warn her that the situation on the ground in Trian wasn’t going to be anything like she expected.

  Where the Vestige went, misery followed. Tam just hoped it wasn’t too awful.

  “We’ll drop down with four hours ‘til daylight. We’ll spend the day on the cliffs, while Tycho does a flyover of the base on the moon, and return the following night.” He stroked a hand down her cheek. “A full day. Nissa, don’t get separated from us. Not for any reason.”

  “I won’t.”

  He stroked a strand of hair behind her ear, unsure how to phrase the warning he needed to give her. “Whatever is down there, it might be your planet, but it’s not the same as it was. The people aren’t the same.”

  “I know,” she said but her eyes said she was lying to herself as well as him. She stepped close and pressed her body against his, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  On a visceral level, he knew Nissa did not accept that five hundred years had passed since she left Triannon. Emotionally, for her it was exactly the same as it was the day she’d left it. That was dangerous. In the heat of the moment people tended to turn to their gut, trust their instincts. He was pretty sure every instinct in Nissa’s body told her loud and clear that Triannon was hers. That its people were hers.

  He sighed and stepped away from her. He should tell her now that her father had been found. Give her something to hope for back home. He wasn’t ready to share her love, which made him the biggest bastard in three galaxies. It wasn’t just that though. The second she knew her father had been found, she’d change, he knew it. She’d focus more even more on Triannon and less on him.

  When he held out his hand, she took it and followed him to the grav-bus for transport.

  NISSA WRAPPED the band that held the tiny blade securely around her hair. She tugged and tossed her head a few times, earning a suspicious glance from silent Jingo, but the blade stuck and her hair was thick enough that it mostly concealed it.

  Her nerves buzzed and her stomach twisted. In moments she’d set foot on Triannon. She’d smell the salty breeze and the fecund soil, hear the familiar buzz of insects and birds. She’d see red ferns. She’d be home. Her doubts would be over.

  This close to the planet, it was hard to believe that five hundred years later there was anything she could offer the people who lived there.

  Hope unfurled deep within her. She’d be free. Finally. She’d be able to keep Tam. The Trianni in the pods could be recovered, awakened and they’d start a new life somewhere, with no debts to pay the people on her planet.

  Dressed like a Tribe warrior, with her own belt of weapons and tools, Nissa felt like a warrior too. It was empowering, invigorating and she couldn’t help but feel grateful for Tam’s eternal thoughtfulness. Since she’d met him, he’d taken care of everything. He’d anticipated her every need, from clothes and food—and he’d even noticed which foods she preferred—to hair-brushes and -bands, lotions and deodorant. Even underpants, which he’d given her with a good-natured frown, clearly preferring she leave them off. He didn’t ask for thanks. He didn’t wan
t her gratitude.

  He simply gave. Nissa had nothing to give him. She had come to him with nothing but a planet of problems. He’d accepted everything she’d thrown at him without complaint. He deserved better.

  So did her people. Didn’t they deserve a queen-designate who loved them enough to sacrifice for them? Who put their needs over her own? If only she weren’t the queen- designate, if only her father weren’t the king and it were as simple as two people. If only, if only, if only.

  In a few minutes, she prayed they’d finally lay all their doubts to rest. Tam checked the buckles and straps that held her in her seat. He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “Remember what I said. Do not get separated. Not for any reason.”

  “Don’t worry,” she insisted. “I’ll stay right next to you.” She wanted to say something that would make him smile but he moved away too quickly to take his seat. His eyes stayed clouded, his jaw hard. A pang of fear roiled through Nissa’s gut. Whatever they found on Triannon had the power to drastically alter the course of both their lives. She sent a prayer to the Goddess that they found the Trianni people, found them happy and healthy, who needed nothing from her at all. She prayed for freedom.

  She pressed her fist over her chest, trying to use the gesture to show her feelings for him. He stroked a hand down her hair and pressed his own, broad fist against his sternum, between the crossing straps and weapons.

  It was night on this side of Triannon, where they would land a thirty-minute walk from Trian. As they disengaged from the larger craft, the little grav-bus jolted and with a sound of turning gears and groaning metal, they lifted out into space.

  Through the glass in front of Tam’s pilot’s seat, Nissa watched as Triannon grew larger until she filled the entire window. Moonlight turned the seas into a shimmering rose-silver sheet of glass. Rivers curled, sinuous and glittery through a blackness that could only be the red forests.