Farin the Dark Read online

  Farin thought about everything she was saying and everything that could go wrong. "How will I pick up the girl and when?"

  Ariel looked up at her mate and he just gave her blank face as if it was her show. "We'll be in touch, when do you start escorting the delegates for Earth?"

  Farin fought not to make a face. He had really hoped that it would be Brax and his men doing the escorting. The Tellox, earthlings, and if he had his way, a certain woman warrior with hair like a live cloud of silk. "I will need to make arrangements and I have some other business that I must settle first, and Earth will need to get their own people ready. I believe they want to start with the galactic conference that will be happening in a few months. But I will either need a female Tellox as escort or you will have to be ready to provide protection by then."

  "We will be in touch."

  "Was there any other business?"

  Brax looked him over carefully. "You seem to be in a hurry.”

  Farin raised his brow again and smiled coldly. "Let’s just say I have a date with more than one female in the near future to settle."

  Brax looked surprised and then pleased. "Tested?"

  "No, but she will be," it was a vow that had all the men shifting restlessly.

  "Yours?"

  He could have said several things, like that had yet to be determined, but instead the words that came out of his mouth betrayed him. "Mine." And no one could miss the claim. It was foolish and premature but even the memory of her scent, like ocean air and flowers called to him in his short memory of her. He forced himself to add more. "If fate be so kind."

  Brax looked him over and nodded. He looked at his own mate and even from feet away no one could mistake the look in his eyes for her. Heat, possession and need. Brax looked back and him and smiled. "May your hunt be successful."

  Ariel rolled her eyes. "Does this female you are chasing know what she is in for?"

  Farin smiled, his dark eyes as predatory as the show of teeth. "She will."

  CHAPTER SIX

  "I don't know about you two, but I am thrilled that is done." Charm grimaced as she adjusted the controls to take them out of Alliance space. Since they did not have anywhere they had to be now, no one asked her what trajectory she had plotted for her flight plan, or what her real trajectory would be once they were past the border sensors. "I know it pays well, for little danger, but are we really coming back here for the galactic conference?"

  Lyric sighed, not looking any happier about that then Charm was. "Unfortunately, but we have some time before then, so we can figure out what we want to do after and make plans."

  Ember looked at her oldest friend besides Charm. "You are really thinking of ending your illustrious singing career?" Then she looked at Charm in the captain’s seat. "Not to become pirates, please tell me we have more sense than that?"

  "Smugglers," Charm muttered, but Lyric laughed.

  "Not pirates or smugglers. But something else. Something low key and not guaranteed to get us taken as slaves or killed, preferably," she said also looking at Charm. "We have time to figure out what that is, but considering the attention we have gained doing this, I think new identities and a totally different occupation is in order."

  Ember looked at her friend and noticed the grim line of her lush mouth. "You feel something?"

  Lyric sighed again even as Charm growled. "I have a feeling we have garnered too much attention." Was all she said.

  "Because of the Tellox?"

  "Because we are becoming too well known," Lyric shrugged. "I may have changed my looks enough to fool anyone looking but my personal guard is becoming nearly as popular as I am. And you we cannot change enough to fool anyone."

  Ember looked up to find Lyric looking at her with a worried frown on her face. She kept the cursing to her own head. But they all knew that it was her and her siren lure that made hiding difficult for them. Charm could blend in anywhere and Lyric looked nothing like the female who had escaped the labs. It was only Ember that could not hide, and it would be her that endangered them as long as they stuck together.

  "You should have let me leave the first time," she said quietly after the silence drug out too long.

  "Not this again," Charm muttered, even as Lyric shook her head.

  "How many times have your skills saved us?"

  Ember blew out a breath. "Charm is nearly as good as I am in a fight now," she said mildly enough.

  “Better,” Charm injected with a toothy smile.

  Ember ignored her sister’s empty boast. "And I draw more danger to us than I end." She stood. "I'm going to my cabin."

  She did not wait for the other two to continue an argument that would do them no good, but turned and headed for her cabin, listening to her friends curse behind her.

  The Star Caravan was a class B star ship. Charm had won the blasted thing in a card game years ago, and they had updated and brought it back to luxurious life when Lyrics fame had taken off and they could finally afford it. Ridiculously big for just the three of them. They had updated it and weaponized it better than most battle cruisers, but it was still at heart a long-distance pleasure cruiser. Which meant it was more luxuriously appointed than most ships and it had several spaces, like the recreation room, and the holoroom that most ships lacked. Which meant that there was no need to make frequent stops as they would have had to in a smaller vessel, but it also meant the walk from the cockpit to the personnel quarters was long and gave her plenty of time to think.

  The ship around them was eerily quiet since they had parted with their extra guard contingent as soon as the contract was over. They would not meet up again with Shiva and Rhysa until it was time they returned to Alliance space for the last performance. Which would be when they absolutely had to. For now it was just her and her adopted sisters. The way they all preferred it.

  Usually being out on their own in space made them feel safe, but for some reason this time the paranoia continued long after they left everyone else behind. Charm was jumpy and unable to settle. Ember could not say exactly what they were all afraid of, but like Lyric, she had the bad feeling that they had clung to this identity too long. She just could not say if it was the old threat hanging over their heads that had found them again, or something entirely new.

  The Alliance and their machinations had been relatively easy to deal with, suspiciously so. But something about the ease of it had her worried. Perhaps it was ego. She had a hard time believing the dangerous commander she had seen at the market would give up so easily, even if it made logical sense. After all she was one female in a billion. But she had not forgotten him so easily, nor that brutally beautiful darkness he exuded.

  They had only met in passing, a chance meeting, over in moments. It was entirely possible he had made his play and then wrote her off when he was informed she did not fall under the authority of the Alliance, or the treaty they had signed with them. Why then was every drop of blood in her body telling her that it was not over? That she would see Farin The Dark of the Tellox again. That he would come for her. Which meant there was more than one reason she should leave her family behind and finally go out on her own. Another reason she was going to ignore if she were honest. She sighed and shook her head at her own continuous loop of convoluted thoughts. She had fought too hard and too long for the family she had made to let them go out of fear. They all had. She just hoped that decision did not cost all of them more than they were willing to pay.

  Ember walked into her luxury sized cabin on autopilot ignoring as she always did the untouched look of the room. If someone were to try and find her room among the many on this deck, they would not be able to tell from looking at it. They would have to open all the secret wall spaces to find her things to even know the room was occupied. She stripped herself of her weapons and clothes, putting everything in its place in the same habitual way she always did. When everything was put away and secure and she had washed in her shower cubicle and dressed for rest, she threw herself on the bun
k and felt it expand to double its size for her sleep cycle. As was her way, she wore her sleep tunic and two blades to bed. Even in her distracted state she would not allow herself to deviate from that habit. She had spent too many years on the run to ever let her guard down completely.

  She sighed and pressed the screen above her bed that controlled the room, switching off the lights and setting her sleep cycle time. She was glad her friends did not hear that sigh and ask questions.

  She clearly lacked intelligence, she mused self depreciatingly as she looked up at her dark ceiling. Because even she could not decide if that sigh was one of worry or longing and wanted to slap herself. She needed to get the warrior out of her head. Then she argued that it was alright to yearn for a man in her mind, and in the dark heated realms of her dreams. She was not foolish enough to want a Tellox warrior of her own in real life, but she had no control over her fantasies.

  She let exhaustion take her, wondering even as her eyes closed, if she was foolish enough to wonder what would have happened if she had taken the mate test for the Tellox without a fight. But then when did she ever do anything without a fight?

  ***

  Ember woke sometime later with her usual clarity, her senses fixed on the ship around her even as she pretended to still sleep. She did not need to open her eyes to understand her nest had been breached. She scented the air with barely a sound and smelled nothing even as she knew deep down, what or, more correctly, who had trespassed.

  His name flew from her lips without her prior authorization as she reacted to what her senses were telling her.

  Ember flung herself out of her bed slapping the sleep panel for the lights as she did so. And was not even surprised when a moment later a giant Tellox male seemed to appear out of thin air, braced against the wall across from her bed as if he had been standing just so watching her sleep. The automatic bed folded itself away giving her more room to maneuver even as she cursed long and loud and pulled one of her blades.

  How the hell had he gotten on board their ship without setting off any alarms? Because it only took one look at the control panel in her room, and a thought to know that everything was reading normal.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Farin smiled at another low curse from the woman. With her hair completely unbound and in nothing but a sleeveless tunic that ended high on supple thighs, she stood before him with a three-pronged blade already in each hand and showed little surprise at his presence. How she had known he was there he could not say. But she had whispered his name, as if she were dreaming of him. Then was standing and prepared for battle before he had even lifted the shield that made him invisible to most senses and all sensors.

  He could see quite plainly that the ease in which she detected him and reacted that she was ready for any threat, even as she slept. A true warrior this one, one who had enemies he needed to be aware of?

  "You were expecting someone else?"

  She sighed. "Not really no." She raised her chin and met his eyes with challenge infusing her own. "But then I was not really expecting you either. I had heard the Tellox were honorable warriors."

  Farin continued to study her, his eyes going from the wild undulations of her long hair to her flashing lavender eyes. He ignored her implied insult and asked his own question. "Why did you refuse to be tested?"

  "Why didn't you take no for an answer?" she shot back, her eyes flaring with frustration.

  "You are not truly surprised to see me." He moved a step closer to her and took in the way she was holding herself.

  "I have learned never to underestimate the male and his ability to try to take what is not his to take," she said. Her tone, if not her words mild enough.

  "It was my right to have you tested," he answered in the same manner. Her hair fluttered wildly. It was as if all that silky silver was caught in a nonexistent wind. "It was part of the agreement we made with the league giving us the right to test any female not already claimed by a mate and of age."

  He watched her grit slightly elongated canines before she answered. "So the diplomat said, but I am not a member of your league. Therefore I am not bound by its laws. No matter what you, or they, think."

  Farin shrugged his massive shoulders as he tried to find his way beyond her mental shields. If she was trying so hard to keep him from seeing her honest emotions, he would find another way. "Which makes you outside the reach of their protection as well."

  "Something you intend to take advantage of?"

  "If you like, but knowing you have no protection it is my duty and right to offer you mine."

  Ember blinked at him as if something he said had finally surprised her. Then she laughed. "Is that how you validate kidnapping and force? By claiming it is for my own good? I assume you are here to take me," she smirked at him. "Or at least try?"

  He ignored her jab and wondered at her continued resistance to his mental probing. "Agree to the test and if you are not a match for the Tellox we will escort you and your ship to safety."

  "Neither I nor my companions have need of your safe escort. We have traveled the universe quite well on our own for years."

  Farin growled at the thought of three woman, this woman, taking such risks. It was the first real reaction that had escaped his careful guard and he saw in her eyes that she caught it. "The Tellox will bring no harm to you and yours, but we are not the only race in the galaxy who has the technology to board your ship as I have." He looked around. "I see no one here to protect you from me."

  She stood to her full height slowly shaking her head at him while that hair undulated, drawing his eyes again and again with the need to touch it, tame it. Tame her. He gritted his teeth at the need growing in him even as he caught the fire in her lavender eyes. "That is what you do not understand yet, but you will." She said as she glared at him. "I do not need anyone to come to my rescue, and the one you should be worried about, is you."

  She gave no further warning before she attacked.

  Farin barely dodged the blades that came a little too close to his naked chest. The next blade came at his head forcing him to lean out of reach since he had no chance to move fully out of the way. The third swing caught him across the thigh, and if it had not been for the armor treated leather of his pants, he had no doubt he would be bleeding from his femoral artery even now. She was fast.

  In the market she had moved like water to avoid the touch of him and his men, but he had not realized that was not as fast as she could move. Now in the close confines of the room he was suddenly working to stay out of reach of her flashing knives. He had known she was skilled by the way she moved, but she still surprised him with more than one slash of steel against exposed skin.

  Farin realized that if he did not get his head into the fight he would lose. The woman was a bloody menace. The choice to leave most of his armor and defensive shields back on his ship might turn out to be a costly one.

  He moved fast enough to avoid the worst of her strikes but that did not mean he was not bleeding from a few close calls. He started looking for a breach in her defenses. He needed to worry less about hurting her and take her down before she cut him enough to cause real damage.

  Before he found an opening, a lurch of the ship had them both distracted. She looked up as if trying to place the feeling but before he could take advantage of her distraction and grab her, she was growling, and her eyes were back on him.

  "What did you do?"

  He shook his head slowly and spoke grimly. "That is not me or mine."

  He did not need to check with his warriors to know that. None would have gone against his orders or attacked the female’s vessel regardless.

  She narrowed her eyes, but her blades stayed battle ready as she seemed to listen to the ship around them. There was another thump and explosion somewhere and she had to steady herself against the wall before she fell. He did the same before his eyes went back to hers. He shook his head again, denying her suspicion. She growled again then stomped over to the console, ho
lstering one blade, she banged on it even as she kept the other blade up and at the ready between them. Her eyes never left his.

  "Charm?" she asked but was cut off before she could even finish her question.

  "Ember! We have two ships that appeared out of fucking nowhere." There was some static before the voice returned. "One of them attacked and the other came out of empty space and started blasting the first ship. We have no blasted idea what is going on. Get up here!"

  Farin pulled up his own com even as he spoke to her. "The second will be Tellox and they are not the enemy."

  She thought about what he said and then growled again before she said with clear animosity into the com. "Try not to hit the second one, apparently they are trying to help us."

  "How would you know that?"

  "Because the Tellox Commander is here, in my room, telling me that."

  There was a moment and then a screech that had both Ember and Farin gritting their teeth at the sound. "On the ship!?"

  "We are on the way," Ember said emphasizing the we. She hit the com again, switching it off even as another curse came through to them.

  She spoke to Farin her voice hard and deadly as she holstered her second blade. He tried not to be distracted by the flash high on her thighs when her blade into the thigh holster. He was only partially successful. She pointed at him, again with warning and anger bleeding into those ferocious flashing eyes. "You had better be telling the truth."

  "Who is the other ship?" he asked grimly getting his mind back to the business of protecting his female.