Jerred's Price

Chapter Five

Giselle sat on her bunk, legs curled up to her chest, hugging herself. Damn him, why did he have to make her think of Hector Prime? She’d put it out of her head for months, almost a year. Why did he have to bring it all back?

She knew in her heart that whatever his flaws, he probably wasn’t personally responsible for the Saurellians’ decision to breach Hector Prime’s neutrality. But that didn’t make it any easier to deal with the memory of her lost friends and dreams.

Men and their wars. They were to blame for all of this, and he was one of them. His scar hadn’t come from natural causes; that was no birthmark. He’d gotten it fighting, and even if he’d never set foot on Hector Prime, he’d caused destruction somewhere else.

It was always the women and the children who paid for men’s wars.

She sat and sniffled for a while, allowing herself to wallow and feel sorry for herself. It wasn’t like she did it that often. When she’d lost her home and her business, she’d immediately gone out and gotten a job. And when a better opportunity came along to go to Transit Three, she’d taken that. She knew how to work, how to take care of herself. She’d done it before and she’d do it again. But just once, it would be nice to lay back and mourn all she’d lost.

Even now he was probably watching her. Even though the light was off, it was a good bet that there were infrared lenses on the spy cameras he had everywhere.

Defiantly, she raised one finger in a universally hostile gesture and waved it up at him, letting him know just what she thought of him and his fellow Saurellians.

All too soon, her pragmatic nature took over. She was trapped on this ship with him, and if she wanted to get away she would need to establish some kind of bond with the bastard. She’d already agreed to have sex with him. Hell, it wasn’t as if he didn’t attract her, at least on a physical level. Slowly, she stood and turned on the light. There was a small mirror on the back of the door; it reflected a face red and puffy with tears.

She scowled at her reflection, disgusted with her coloring. Why did she always have to look blotchy when she cried? It wasn’t fair.

Of course, better blotchy than dead, she reminded herself. It was more than her friends on Hector Prime had going for them, and more than she would have had if she hadn’t escaped Transit Three. No matter how mean Jerred might be, she didn’t doubt for one moment that the station guards would have been meaner.

She opened the door, intent on going to the fresher to wash her face. He was there, sitting on the floor in the corridor looking up at her. His face was cool and hard, no trace of emotion in sight, but he stood quickly and reached for her. She shot him a look of pure ice, and he pulled his hands back, and tucking them behind his back.

“Are you all right?” he asked stiffly. “I regret the harm my people did to you and your friends. I wanted to give you a nice dinner, to try and make some sort of peace with you. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“It’s all right,” she said, feeling tired. “You didn’t know. Can you please answer one question for me, though? Were you on Hector Prime? Were you one of them?”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it, although that hardly makes a difference at this point. They’re still dead.”

“A lot of people are dead,” she replied, sighing heavily. “I guess we need to blame the Emperor and the Saurellian Council for that. You aren’t on the Council, are you?”

she asked suspiciously.

“No, I have nothing to do with them,” he replied, startled. That emotionless mask slipped for a moment, and she had a burst of insight. He used that combination of emotional blankness and his scarring to hide himself from everyone around him. How interesting… And effective. She never would have guessed there was a man capable of compassion within him, but there was no faking his concern. He cared that he had hurt her.

“Would you like to finish dinner?” she asked softly. “If the Saurellians and the Imperials can manage to hold a truce, shouldn’t we be able to?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “May I escort you to the galley?”

He held out one arm gallantly, as if they were in a vid about the Imperial Court. She reached out and took it. When he seated her this time, the mushroom dish was gone.

The wine was still there, however, and within moments he placed a plate of something covered in a thin, speckled glaze.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s kvana, in a Beloni pepper glaze,” he said slowly. “It’s kind of my specialty. At least, when I can get the kvana. ”

She shook her head, wondering how he’d gotten kvana. Then she took a bite. The meat was tender, flavorful without being too strong—perfectly balanced by the sweet glaze. After a moment her tongue began to burn, and she took a sip of the wine to cool it off. The strange shiver of sensation it caused wasn’t unexpected this time, but it was still startling. The stuff seemed to go straight down between her legs. She looked at him speculatively, wondering if it was doing the same thing to him.

He really was quite an attractive man.

They ate dinner slowly, keeping their conversation light. When they were done with the kvana, he brought her a small cup of flavored ice, to “cleanse her palate.” She was on her third glass of wine by that time, and feeling more than a little silly when he followed the ices with a platter of greens, cheeses and fruits, many of which she had never seen before.

He also opened a new bottle of wine, this one much lighter and fruitier.

“So, where did you learn to cook like this?’ she asked as they moved slowly out of the galley into the living area. At some point he had turned the garden program on in there, too, because they were still surrounded by the soothingly natural sights and sounds. Now, though, the lights had dimmed, as if to simulate evening.

“I learned to cook from my parents’ cook,” he said as they sat down on the low couch. “She was an amazing woman, a refugee from the Imperial Court. She loved exotic foods.”

“Where did you grow up that you could get stuff like this?” she asked. “I thought Saurellia was pretty out of the way, kinda primitive.”

He burst out laughing. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around her. She snuggled into his warmth. It was amazing how nice he could be when he wasn’t actually going out of his way to be an ass, she thought drowsily.

“We are a bit isolated,” he said finally. “But I hardly think that we’re backward.

Saurellian customs and lifestyles tend to be simpler than Imperial customs, but that’s not a bad thing. For example, we don’t have to keep billions of slaves to support us. I may be crazy, but I find that to be rather civilized of us.”

“Well, you’ve got a point there,” she said softly. “Although I’ve never lived anywhere that had many slaves.”

“Really?” he asked. “What about Transit Three? Did you know that nearly 30

percent of the population there is slave?”

“What?” she asked, startled. “Where are they all?”

“Most of them live on the lower levels,” he said softly. “They’re the ones who provide the ‘transit’ of cargoes. Just out of curiosity, do you know what you friend Vetch does for a living?”

She sat up and looked at him.

“He runs cargo,” she said.

“What kind of cargo?”

“All kinds,” she replied, confused. “It just depends on where the money is.”

“Often, the money is in slaves,” he said. “They generally ship them with an assumed mortality rate of twenty-five percent. On his last run, Vetch lost thirty percent because one of his heat exchangers blew out. He still made a profit, though. In fact, he left some of it behind for you as a tip.”

She sat back, feeling sick. “I didn’t know that,” she said finally.

“Most Imperial citizens don’t,” he replied. “Of course, the Empire hardly goes out of their way to publicize it, but slavery is the backbone of their economy.”

“What about Saurellia?” she asked. “What’s the backbone of your economy?”

“Some would say fighting,” he said slowly. “At least for men like me. Almost all of us leave home to work as mercenaries sooner or later. But very few Saurellians hold slaves.”

“It is illegal?”

“On Saurellia it is,” he said. “But it’s just one planet within the federation. There are hundreds of others where slavery is legal. We do have economic sanctions in place to discourage it, though.”

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the slaves.”

“This isn’t going well, is it?” he asked finally. “I really don’t want to fight with you anymore, Giselle.”

“Why not?” she asked softly. “Honestly, why should you care? You have complete power over me—I’ve agreed to do whatever you want. Wasn’t that the plan?”

He fell silent for a moment, and then spoke again.

“Yes, that was the plan.”

“So why all the worry?” she asked softly.

“Because I don’t want to fight with you,” he said simply. “I don’t want to force you, either. When I thought you were a whore, I thought I could just pay you and everything would be all right. But I know now that you aren’t a whore, and to be honest, I’m not sure it would make a difference if you were. It just doesn’t feel right like this.”

“Does this mean you don’t want to have sex with me?’ she asked.

He gave a low, humorless laugh. “No, that’s not what it means.”

He reached over and took her hand in his. For a moment she wondered if he would lay it across his lap, repeating the crude gesture he’d made at Manya’s. But instead it carried it slowly to his mouth, turning it so her palm brushed his lips.

“I find that I just want to be near you,” he said after a moment. He kissed her palm softly, and she could feel the sensation singing down along her nerves. Between her legs there was an answering twinge, as if her body had just been waiting for him to make a move. He kissed her palm again, and then slipped his tongue out just enough to trace one line across her hand.

“It’s amazing to me,” he said. “We came from worlds that are thousands of light years apart, yet we’re made exactly the same. Same hands, same little wrinkles, same desires.”

“It’s why so many people have faith in the Goddess,” she said lightly. “Because no matter the distance between the human worlds, we all stay human. We’re tied together by our genes and our heritage.”

“Are we?” he asked. “I’m not so sure about that sometimes. Saurellians are different than most humans, you know. We can’t mate outside our species.”

She froze, and then carefully pulled her hand back from him.

“What the hell is going on here?” she asked, confused. “Call me crazy, but licking each other’s hands seems sort of like a prelude to mating. I’ve seen you down there, and you looked human enough to me before.”

He laughed, and then pulled her close again.

“I meant mating to have children,” he said. “I’m sorry, that did sound kind of strange. Saurellians can only mate with other Saurellians, and then only with a life mate. Unfortunately the Goddess hasn’t seen fit to grace us with enough women to match our men. Makes things a bit awkward for people like me.”

“People like you?”

“Men without a life mate,” he said. His mood seemed to change, and he turned to her, looking deeply into her eyes.

“This has been a very serious evening,” he said. “That’s not really what I was looking for. How about you?”

She shook her head, and then laughed a little out of nervousness. He constantly surprised her.

“No, not really,” she said. “But to be honest, I rather suspected we’d just have sex.

We’ve already done more talking than I was anticipating, that’s for sure.”

He stood suddenly and pulled her to her feet.

“Talking isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said. “Let’s dance.”

She looked at him, eyes wide.

“You do realize that you’re an enormous man who looks like a killer and who wears black leather, right?” she asked.

He nodded his head slowly, and then grinned at her. “It’s an image I cultivate,” he said. “Helps me get women. But I can still dance.”

“All right then,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Are we going to have music for this dancing, or are we expected to sing?”

“I think music would be in order,” he replied, eyes sparkling. “Jenna, play us something good. Try the harvest festival recording.”

A swell of lively music burst into the room, and he grabbed her around the waist.

She didn’t know the steps, but after a moment it didn’t seem to matter. He danced her across the room in giant, leaping strides, and she burst out laughing.

“You lied,” she gasped when the song ended. She could hardly catch her breath, and she clung to him, giggling. He looked down at her, smirking.

“How’s that?”

“You said you could dance,” she gasped, and he swung her around.

“Well, I didn’t say I could dance well. Jenna, let’s have something slower next.”

A new song welled out from Jenna’s hidden speakers. He pulled her close and they swayed together. Finally, she looked up at him and spoke.

“I think this is the weirdest date I’ve ever had,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied, dropping his head to kiss the tip of her nose. “It’s just my way to trying to make myself memorable.”

“Are you telling me that this is all deliberate, all part of your great plan? Because I don’t believe that for one minute.”

He winked at her, and then pulled her head back down against his chest. She sighed, and snuggled into his warmth. He was so big, so strong. She could feel the strength in his arms around her. His chest was hard with muscles, but still warm. He smelled good, too. Like leather, and man.

“Why do you wear leather?’ she asked quietly. “It’s nice, but it’s not what most spacers wear.”

“I like how it feels,” he replied. “It’s natural, reminds me that humans belong on planets, not space stations.”

“Do you live on a planet, then?” she asked. “I thought you lived on this ship.”

“Unmated men my age don’t stay on planet,” he said after a long pause. “I guess it’s a reminder of what I could have had, in some ways.”

She stopped dancing and looked up at him. His expression was distant, and a bit sad. She didn’t like it.

“Why don’t you kiss me?” she asked.

He looked startled, then smiled again. He lowered his head slowly to hers, and then his lips touched her. They were firm but still soft, and they danced across her mouth with a self-control that did nothing to hide his strength. Then he turned his head to one side, and his lips opened across hers, deepening the kiss with an intensity that made her sag in his arms. His tongue pushed into her mouth, and she knew that for all his restraint earlier that evening, there could be no denying the depth of his need. They might have been back at the hallway in Manya’s. His arms wrapped tight around her body, pulling her belly against the hardness of his groin. He grew against her, and his tongue plunged into her again and again. There was no doubt what he was trying to communicate to her—he wanted to be inside her, to take her with an intensity that was frightening.

It was the most incredibly sexy thing she’d ever experienced.

She’d been with men before, but not like this. There had never been the sense that they would die without her. The urgency of his every touch, the feel of him as his hips pressed again her—it was almost too much. She wanted to scream, scratch, even bite at him. To do something to release some of the tension that was building in her body. But she couldn’t—her entire body was held motionless by his, his mouth dominating her totally.

After an endless kiss, he pulled his mouth back from hers and she opened her eyes unsteadily. His face was flushed, and his scar had deepened to a deep, dark red.

“Giselle, would you be willing to join me in my cabin this evening?” he asked, the formality of his words at complete odds with the embrace they’d just shared. She took a deep breath and replied fervently.

“Oh, yes.”