Tigron Empire of the Djinn
ARK IMPERIAL, Operating Theater

I haven't told them everything, and I'm not about to. No way am I going to invite anyone to take a laser to my privates. Ahhh, Fewmet!

The "battlefield analgesia" was wearing off. During the duel that he'd begun as Commander Jason and ended—defeated—as Prince Djetthro-Jason, he'd felt almost no pain despite the damage Tarrant-Arragon had inflicted.

Now, his massively bruised thigh throbbed heavily, his neck muscles ached, and his jaw...it hurt even to think about his jaw. Perhaps worse—but less so by the moment—was the damage to his alpha-male machismo as he lay strapped down, stark naked, in his enemy's operating theater, preparing his mind for surgery without anesthetic. Also for "the fate worse than death" which was to come.

If Tarrant-Arragon had observed Great Djinn tradition, the duel they'd fought less than an hour ago ought to have been to the death.

Why hadn't Tarrant-Arragon killed him then and there? To the victor went the Empire, the Ark Imperial, and gods-Right to any female he wanted...and they both wanted the same female.

Damn it! Even if he wanted to stop, I should've fought on after he crippled my leg and shattered my bloody jaw. Why didn't I? What's left for me?

What indeed?

I'll be the Djinn equivalent of a broken thoroughbred stallion put out to stud. It's fairly obvious why Tarrant-Arragon made an excuse not to finish me off.

The Great Djinn were nearly extinct. In twenty years' time, Tarrant-Arragon's and Djinni-vera's children would need true-Djinn mates, all entitled to the silent D-prefix to their royal Djinn names. That's why!

When the "fate worse than death" had been spelled out, it had been sheer bravado to mumble that he wanted to marry Princess Martia-Djulia.

Maybe I do. Maybe I don't.

It hurt how much he still wanted Djinni-vera, who'd been the last Djinn virgin in all the Communicating Worlds, and betrothed to be his, until Tarrant-Arragon abducted her by force and took her virginity.

What consolation would it be to have Tarrant-Arragon's sexy, fashionista bitch of a sister in his power and in his bed instead?

Djetth winced at the savagery of his thoughts about Martia-Djulia. Shards of pain shot along his broken jawline.

"Well, Djetthro-Jason, are you ready to be carved up for your new identity and your new life as my little sister's glorified love slave?"

From somewhere out of Djetth's line of sight, Tarrant-Arragon taunted him, stressing the part of Djetth's real name that he'd used until his cover as "Commander Jason" was blown and he was overpowered and arrested.

Djetth did not turn his head. The pain in his face and head was intolerable enough without moving.

"Ahhh, I do believe that Our Imperial surgeons are ready to do away with that distinctive jagged scar on your cheek," Tarrant-Arragon crooned. "And screw together your jaw."

What else might they do while he was under the laser and the knife? While his face was open, might they carve out a sensory gland or two? Implant a tracking device? Use his broken jaw as an excuse to weld a mask over his head?

Prince Djetthro-Jason would be a latter-day "Man in the Iron Mask" if they realized how closely he resembled Crown Prince Tarrant-Arragon. Which he would, without his scars, his colorful contact lenses and his long, blond-dyed hair.

Djetth glanced at the treacherous, turncoat 'Rhett, who'd been his bloody useless "second" at the duel, and who was still hanging around.

What for? Damn him. 'Rhett was too much the intergalactic statesman for his own—or anyone else's—good.

If the patient lost consciousness, Tarrant-Arragon could decide that the chances for galactic peace would be better if Djetthro-Jason were neutered...one way or another. Given the secrets 'Rhett knew, 'Rhett might agree.

"No—" Djetth groaned with the unexpected agony of trying to speak. He wanted to refuse anesthetic again. How he wished there was somebody present who he could trust!

A door swished open.

"Does he have to be in such pain?" The cause of all the trouble spoke from the doorway. She sounded on edge, as if she felt his pain telepathically.

Djinni-vera! No longer his Djinni. By conquest, by the irrevocable exchange of vows, and finally by her own choice, she was Tarrant-Arragon's.

By All the Lechers of Antiquity, how he loved her! At that moment. For coming. Mentally Djetth qualified his thoughts. Djinni-vera might not love him now, but she was honorable to the core. Tarrant-Arragon wouldn't dare do anything dastardly in front of her.

As she glided to his surgical table, Djetth looked at her wildly, helplessly, with mute appeal, hoping that she would read his mind and aid him this one last time.

Djinni-vera's amethyst eyes widened as if she had Heard him and understood. Her gaze averted, she reached out and dropped a gauzy white cloth of some sort over his monstrously inappropriate erection.

To others, her action might have looked like public modesty on her part. Djetth assumed that Djinni had read the part of his mind that was worrying about the striking tattoo that only showed up in the dark or when he was suitably excited.

Thank you, he thought. Please help me. Stay.

She nodded, and took his fettered hand with her undamaged left. "You've been macho about this too long, J-J. Why won't you let them put you to sleep?"

"Careful, my love," Tarrant-Arragon said, moving possessively to her side. "You can never call him J-J again. Nor may you use any of his other damned traitor's aliases. Not J-J, not Commander Jason. Traitors cannot be seen to survive their attempts on my life. Commander Jason is officially dead, and everyone—including Martia-Djulia—must believe it. From this day forward, he's Prince Djetthro-Jason."

"What a mouthful..." Djinni began; then her changing expression told him that she must have read a thought-pun he couldn't resist. "Djetth!"

She frowned sternly.

"I know you Great Djinn males can't help thinking of sex all the time. But it's not helpful, Djetth. As long as you have your saturniid gland, you're dangerous."

Not dangerous to you, kid. You won't ovulate while you're pregnant, and probably not for a while after that, he thought back at her.

Her mouth twisted in a wry smile.

"You'd be safer if you let them remove it."

Some aspects of Royal Djinn maleness one would rather die than surrender, he rejoined, hoping she would not read his darker thoughts.

"Martia-Djulia would be better off if you couldn't have the rut-rage again, too..." As she spoke, Djinni tossed her head as if shaking off a bothersome fly.

Djetth wondered if Djinni had unexpectedly Channeled someone else's reasoning. Djinni couldn't possibly know how savagely Martia-Djulia liked to be served in bed.

"I saw Palace footage of you having the rut-rage with Martia-Djulia." The little mind-reader's voice rose in protest at the thought he hadn't meant her to sense.

You saw? You saw what, exactly? His thought question was a ploy to distract her from thinking about the rut-rage, but no sooner had he asked than he dreaded how detailed her reply might be.

He dominated with an otherworldly seductive power . . .

What was happening to her? Former screen siren Shara Weston lived on an exotic and private South Pacific island as a recluse . . . until disturbingly masculine and utterly captivating Cade Archer fell out of the sky and into her life. Now, Cade gives her no choice but to follow him down a sensual path that fulfills her every desire.

Cade's on a mission to open a portal between Shara's island volcano and his world. But not everyone wants him to succeed. A powerful enemy has followed Cade to prevent him from sending the resources through the portal that will free his people.

While Cade's mission is as compelling as his dominating sensuality, Shara must find a way to fight him . . . to stop his mission because the fate of every man, woman and child on Earth is at stake.

It was a familiar dream and one that always left him with an empty ache upon awakening. He fought the rise in consciousness and held more tightly on to his fantasy, taking in the sandalwood scent of her hair, so soft against his face. And the warmth of her body, so neatly fitted against his. In his dream she sighed, arching her back, and her round bottom pressing against him caused an immediate reaction of heat and hardness. He groaned her name, drawing her closer, his hand finding the swell of her breasts as he did so. His thumb found a gap in the fabric of her uniform and his fingers slipped inside...

She stirred, let out a ragged breath as one finger traced that taut peak, and he didn't know if it was the sound of her pleasure or the ever-present yellow data readout across his mind that alerted him to the chance that this might not be a dream:

Tactile Data Input—Subject female humanoid—approximately age: mid 30s—body temperature 98.6—respiration fast—metabolic rate normal—

Sweet holy gods. Kel-Paten's eyes flew open. In his field of vision was a tangle of short, pale hair and an immense black starfield. And not another ship in sight. Their mysterious attackers hadn't followed them through the gate, though he'd double check that once he got ship's systems back online.

"Tasha." He said her name softly, remembering the bastard pirate's comment about Tasha's "mean right hook." A telepath. A Nasyry telepath—something that should have been in Serafino's file and wasn't, he realized with a start. An error or a deliberate omission? He'd ponder that later. Right now he was more bothered by the fact that Serafino had easily pulled the fantasy of making love to Tasha from his mind, along with his fear that—with death imminent—he'd never get the chance.

Yet he didn't feel dead. But he knew if Tasha woke up now and found his hands placed where they were, there'd definitely be that mean right hook to worry about. Still, the intimacy of their position was an opportunity to assure himself of her well-being—since he doubted any of the med panels functioned right now. He opened his hand slowly, let it rest against her chest, and dropped quickly into full 'cybe function, running a cursory med diagnostic on her with the sensors linked through his gloves. No internal injuries and only a slight bruising on her shoulders and back, probably from impacting the viewport. She'd be sore for a while, but nothing more.

He simultaneously ran his own diagnostics, expecting no damage and finding none. His brief lapse into unconsciousness, and hers, was due no doubt to a sudden drop in air pressure as life support shut off and recycled back on.
He withdrew his hand, letting it come lightly to rest on her hip as she let out a small, "Oh!" and rolled over to face him.

Her eyes fluttered opened. Her face wore a slightly lost expression. "Hey."

"You okay?"

She seemed to study him. "Yeah. Must have been a helluva bar fight. Who won?"

"I think we did." He had the distinct feeling she had no idea who "we" were.

"Hmpf!" She gave a short, low laugh. "Then the other guys must feel like shit." She sighed, snuggling against his chest.
She definitely had no idea who he was.

The feel of her pressing so intimately against him destroyed what little restraint he had left. He clasped her to him and was drawing her face up to meet his own when he felt her tensing, her arms stiffening. He knew that she'd just realized who—and what—he was.

"Bloody damn!" she said.

"Are you all right?" He tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible, hiding the hard edge of passion in it much better than he was able to hide the hard physical response of his body to hers. He shifted position away from her, let his hand fall from her face to the slick surface of the viewport on which they lay.
She followed the movement. It looked as if they were lying suspended in deep space.

"Gods!" Tasha sat up abruptly.

  He pushed himself up, reaching for her as she wavered slightly.

"Those ships—"

"I think we lost them. But I won't know more until I get things working." He motioned to the darkened console. The cockpit was bathed in a green glow, casting eerie shadows on the total disarray of cables and floor tiles—floor tiles?—and seat cushions and panel covers and Doctor Fynn's boots—

"Eden!" Tasha clambered around him onto the instrument panel before sliding to the floor. The CMO was curled peacefully around the base of the pilot's chair.

Kel-Paten pushed himself off the viewport and saw a suspiciously damp section of Fynn's shoulder-length hair. He grabbed a med-kit from a nearby panel.

"Let me take a look," he told Tasha as she searched for the medicorder. He laid his hand flat against Fynn's face and chest, then relayed to Tasha what his diagnostics found.

"Concussion. No major internal injuries. No broken bones."

Tasha flicked the scanner on, confirming his words with the unit's data.

"We briefly lost life support," he told her, seeing the worry and concern on her face even in the dim lighting. "She'll come to shortly."

Tasha eyes were a little wild. "Okay." She drew a deep breath and nodded in what he understood were her thanks. "Let's get this ship stabilized, make sure we're not in danger. I'll secure her."

The Galaxus was only slightly skewed. A minor adjustment to her internal gravs—thank the gods that still worked!—fixed the problem, though there were a few strange clanks and thuds.

Together they moved Fynn from under the chair and arranged the loose chair cushions around her. She stirred slightly. Kel-Paten left her in Sass's care and checked the pilot's console, still worried about their unknown attackers. But scanners were off line. And the viewport showed no other approaching ships.

"Serafino? Where's—oh, shit!" Tasha grabbed Kel-Paten's arm and dragged him to the back of the cockpit, where Serafino lay under a pile of rubble. "Wait 'til I scan before you move anything."

He crouched next to her, glanced at the data on the medicorder and then back at the man called Jace Serafino. A Nasyry telepath. A mindsucker with who-knew-what capabilities. He would like to believe Serafino was dead, but his brief glance at the scanner plus his years in combat told him he wasn't going to be that lucky. Serafino was alive. Injured but alive. The man had the proverbial furzel thirteen lives.

"Only a broken arm, so I think we can move this stuff," Tasha was telling him. She turned unexpectedly, caught the expression on his face before he could mask it.

"Don't look so damned disappointed that he's alive, Kel-Paten. He just saved your unworthy ass back there."

  She was defending Serafino—not only defending him, he thought as he carefully moved the debris, but she'd obviously been on Serafino's side even before they boarded the Galaxus. The laser pistol Serafino had pulled was Alliance command issue and Kel-Paten doubted the doctor owned such a weapon. Tasha had ordered Serafino to telepathically scan him, and he had, without hesitation. Tasha knew Serafino was Nasyry.

He had a thousand questions, including whether Tasha and the U-Cees had known what Serafino was before the mission. But he was equally if not more concerned that Serafino or Fynn had told Tasha about his feelings for her.

He couldn't forget her comment about selling him as scrap. That, in many ways, told him what he really wanted to know...