Love Partner Read online

  Love Partner

  Robie Madison

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  ISBN # 1-4199-0669-0

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Love Partner Copyright© 2006 Robie Madison.

  Edited by Nicholas Conrad.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication: July 2006

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Prologue

  1100th Year of the Great Sand Lizard, Dakokata

  Slabs of shale-like rock stretched across the wasteland, their smoothness marred by row upon row of steep-sided cones. Despite their deceptively benign appearance, Judan Ringa was not taken in. He started counting and reached eight before the first eruption burst on the horizon sending a searing hot geyser of water and gas straight into the air. He refocused on the next string of cones and started counting again. Predictably, the eruptions spouted with increasing speed. The force of the geysers eroded the steep sides of the cones, sending a thick, liquid mass oozing across the uneven landscape in a series of steamy rivulets.

  Judan shifted his gaze downward to the young boy who stood motionless in front of him. Normally he’d be honored that in all things Zane sought to emulate him, but not here at this exhibit.

  The first time his own father had brought him to the OtherWorlds he’d been older than Zane, at least seven. Even so he’d quaked in his boots when the holographic geysers had erupted so close he’d thought he felt the spray and the heat burning his skin. And, when the last geyser had erupted at his feet threatening to carry him away, only the steadying pressure of his father’s hands on his shoulders had prevented him from turning tail and running.

  Judan flexed his hand towards the boy, but left it hanging uselessly at his side. Past experience had taught him the boy resented being thought so weak. At three and a half, Zane imagined himself to be as fearless as Judan, a man of thirty-three. But, whereas the OtherWorlds had captured and channeled Judan’s need to learn and to challenge himself, he knew quite clearly that for Zane the OtherWorlds represented one more way to harden himself against the pain of loss.

  He couldn’t blame the boy for his angry sullenness. Or worse, his desperate attempts to suppress all his emotions and feel nothing. Unlike the simulated wasteland before them that could be repaired in an instant for the next visitor, Zane’s life was permanently scarred by the death of his parents.

  Yet, what Judan the man understood was that it was not his training that made him appear fearless, nor had it gained him the position of Ktua at an unusually young age, since most of the other members of the Ktua were in their fifties or older. It was the fact that he’d never forgotten that seven-year-old boy with the quaking boots. But Judan worried he would never be able to tell the story of that boy so Zane would understand.

  Memories of his own father flooded his mind as the last geyser burst at their feet and he allowed the sorrow to play across his face. Zane’s eyes grew round with surprise when he turned to look up at him.

  “What happened, Judan, you look sad?”

  “I was remembering your Datuk. We used to come here a lot.” Until I became too busy. “I miss that time.”

  Judan watched Zane’s face carefully as he spoke, but it seemed the boy absorbed the information without a flicker of emotion.

  “Come. Do you want to try another exhibit before we go back to see what your Nenek has prepared for our meal?”

  Zane looked down at his feet and shook his head as he scuffed the toe of one shoe across the floor. Judan breathed a private sigh of relief. The boy did feel the loss of the man he’d called grandfather and that gave Judan hope.

  When Judan’s cousin and her husband had been killed they’d left ten-month-old Zane behind. Since, under the law, single people were disqualified from adopting, Judan’s parents were the only couple left in the family who could take the child in. They’d done their best, but already Judan’s father had been dying. What should have been a time to prepare for the end of the Rakanasmara between them was now turned to the task of raising a foster son. Despite his ambitions as a rising Ktua, Judan had also accepted a responsibility for the child.

  “Nenek asked you to take me out today, didn’t she?”

  “Don’t you and I always go out before I leave on a mission? Why should today be any different?” Mentally, Judan prepared himself for the battle he felt might be coming with the boy.

  “Nenek says I’m too much of a challenge,” Zane muttered.

  Judan stared down at the boy. Hard.

  “I heard her say so,” came the defiant little voice.

  “We are all having a hard time adjusting to your Datuk’s death, especially your Nenek. Right now life is too much of a challenge, which is why she needs you.”

  Zane sighed loudly. “I still would like to go with you.”

  “I know.” Judan wondered how he’d gotten off so lightly. “I appreciate you staying with your Nenek.”

  “Will you be visiting Lorre?” Zane asked eagerly.

  “Probably. What would you have me tell him this time?” Judan teased, pleased by the change in topic. Although ten years younger than Judan, Lorre was his favorite brother and also Zane’s favorite foster brother.

  “Tell him I want to be a great Outposter too.”

  Judan laughed. “Being an Outposter is a dangerous life and your Nenek has a tender heart. She’d worry with a third son in danger.”

  “You were an Outposter, Judan, before becoming a Ktua. Besides, I am not really Nenek’s son.”

  And that, Judan thought, was that. With nothing more to say, they walked along in silence for a short while.

  “What if she doesn’t want me?” Zane asked, sending Judan’s heart plummeting.

  “She?” He hoped the boy wasn’t thinking what he thought he was thinking. He was.

  “Your partner. Like Dare’s partner didn’t want me.”

  After his father’s death, Judan’s mother had considered sending Zane to her nephew Dare, who was now partnered and had a son of his own. But soon after Dare had secured a job on a satellite research station and the plan had fallen through. Believing himself unwanted by both Judan’s mother and Dare, Zane had obviously invented this newest torture for himself. He’d begun to obsess about Judan’s potential partn
er.

  “You know I wouldn’t choose anyone who didn’t also want you. We come as a package.” Judan’s words rang hollow in his ears, although he spoke from his heart. It was also the closest he’d ever come to directly acknowledging what they both wanted but could not have—to be a father and a son to each other.

  A small hand crept into his and he gave it a quick squeeze as he looked down. This time Zane’s face did not hide the fear beneath the bravado.

  It was a stupid thing to have said to the boy. The Rakanasmara came, or it did not come. The Rakanasmara did the choosing. It could not be influenced.

  But without Rakanasmara, he would not be able to have Zane as his son.

  Chapter One

  Technikon Laboratories Consortium (TLC),

  Three Months Later

  Five levels beneath the planet’s surface the train whined as it banked into the curve. The sudden movement jostled Dr. Myrina deCarte awake. She blinked against the bright lights that illuminated the car and kept the darkness of the subterranean tunnel at bay, then winced as the train screeched to a halt at the next station. Blast. She really could have used the thirteen more minutes of sleep before the train reached her stop. Sometimes life just sucked. She never slept well when she had to go off-world, even if it was only as far as one of the satellite meeting stations orbiting TLC.

  This time she’d spent two sleepless nights at a satellite station, meeting with the Hulite representatives and giving them the bad news. According to her tests three of the five mining bases they’d recently scouted were unsuitable. It seemed the planetoids’ atmospheres contained an unusual property that would leech high concentrations of electrolytes from the bodies of the Hulite miners. As a result, the workers were in danger of experiencing severe hypokalemic reactions due to rapid depletions of potassium from their systems. With the speed of the leeching, supplements weren’t going to help the problem. Hardly worth the cost of the mineral they wanted to extract from the otherwise barren hunks of rock.

  Stifling a yawn, Myrina scrubbed her hands through her short, light brown curls, massaging her scalp in the process. She needed sleep in the worst way. Deep REM, dream-inducing, blissfully uninterrupted sleep. And she planned to get it just as soon as she checked in with her assistant, Kikki San.

  The doors of the train slid open and Myrina stumbled to her feet and out onto the platform. The paintball designs on the transit station’s walls always reminded her of a basic biology class. Around her everyone walked purposefully toward one of the three exit tunnels. And she would too, as soon as she remembered which tunnel led to her lab.

  “Dr. Myrina deCarte?”

  Myrina stifled a groan at the sound of her name. No, no, no. This can’t be happening! Not now. Yet sure enough, when she turned around there stood an earnest, clean-cut messenger sporting a vid screen on his T-shirt. Damn.

  She wasn’t up to smiling at him, but nodded politely enough to indicate she would hear the message. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that she’d endured two sleepless nights and a four hour train ride from the southern docking port. On cue, the face of Fenton deMorriss, TLC’s Foreign Affairs Director, filled the vid screen. Double damn.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your plans, Myrina, but I need to see you immediately regarding the Dakokatan crisis. Please come directly to my office before heading to your quarters.”

  In her opinion, deMorriss was a pompous stuffed shirt, even if he issued orders with a polite please and thank you. His precise manner was the perfect foil between the brilliant but often taciturn scientists who worked for TLC and their frequently demanding foreign clients. Well, right now she was feeling pretty antisocial, so she didn’t give two hoots what kind of crisis the Dakokatans were in. She was not going to submit to deMorriss’ demands until she’d slept. At least that was what she told herself as she waved the messenger away and headed for the little-used elevator. Unfortunately her protests were all talk. Turning down a request from deMorriss was exceedingly unhealthy to a scientist’s future at TLC since he brought in the clients and the money.

  Ascending five floors, Myrina exited onto the ground floor of a garden rotunda. She squinted and automatically shielded her eyes against the brilliant sunlight streaming in from the glass dome four floors above. Silently, she cursed the fact that her sunglasses were back in her apartment. She stood for a moment assimilating the heavy, perfumed scents that penetrated her nostrils, an abrupt change from the slightly stale air that had circulated in the satellite station. Temptation beckoned, urging her to wander aimlessly along the narrow pathways and lose herself in the color and the noisy chatter of the birds that flitted high above her.

  Instead she turned right and walked to the bank of escalators that would take her two flights up to the Directorial offices. En route she dredged up the few facts she remembered about the newest members of the Confederacy. Dakokatans were green-skinned humanoids who lived on the periphery of the Confederacy’s boundaries, which probably explained why she’d never met one.

  Pausing to press the blue button that would open the doors to deMorriss’ office, Myrina walked in unannounced. “This better be goo—”

  She came to an abrupt halt when her scalp began to prickle as if she’d touched a live wire. Her hair tingled and for about two seconds she swore the current shot straight to her roots. Briefly she wondered if deMorriss had somehow statically charged his intricately woven Yettati carpet to jolt her awake. He knew darn well she’d be tired and therefore cranky after her meeting with the Hulites. But since he himself stood on the carpet looking unaffected, she supposed not.

  Almost afraid to check, she tentatively brushed her hand through her hair. Sure enough, something odd was going on. The usually curly locks seemed a little straighter and crackled under her touch.

  “Myrina, please, come in,” Fenton deMorriss said with a brisk wave of his hand.

  Speculation put deMorriss’ age anywhere between forty and fifty. Almost nothing was known about what the tall, barrel-chested man had done before joining TLC, except that he spent his vacations training with one of the Confederacy’s elite tactical squads. At the moment, his pale blue eyes, set off by the Tigalian blue silk of his tailored suit, gleamed rather sharply. Not a good sign.

  A second wave of electrical impulses washed over her skin, covering her in goose bumps. Despite the insulated material of her jumpsuit, she shivered as if she’d been hit by a blast of cold air.

  Damn, this is getting weird. What’s wrong with me?

  She plastered a smile on her face and fought the urge to rub her hands along her arms to ease the strange, tingly feeling in them. Now was not the time to display weakness. She forced herself to stand a little straighter.

  “I’d like to introduce Ambassador Judan Ringa,” deMorriss said. “The Dakokatan Warlord arrived yesterday.”

  Damn. She’d been so focused on maintaining her equilibrium she’d been completely oblivious to the Dakokatan’s presence in the room.

  “Ambassador,” Fenton continued. “May I present Doctor Myrina deCarte, TLC’s top genetic environmentalist who specializes in colonization dissonance.”

  Nope, definitely not a good sign. Fenton was resorting to his most nauseatingly congenial greeting. And as introductions went, this one stank. She was TLC’s only genetic environmentalist who specialized in colonization dissonance.

  Don’t go soft. Fenton isn’t being congenial.

  She’d learned long ago deMorriss was a consummate politician who never said anything without a purpose. Unfortunately he also enjoyed leaving people clueless until he chose to enlighten them.

  She turned to face the Warlord, only to choke on her next breath at the sight of her first Dakokatan. The man standing before her was well over six feet tall, with eyes that flashed like twin emeralds. A sharp contrast to the slightly washed-out tinge of green on his face, which was the only exposed skin she could see because his hands were hidden behind his back. Dressed all in black—boots, leggings, shirt and a huge cape
studded with black quills that clicked when he bowed slightly in her direction—he looked more than a little dangerous. The folds of his shirt emphasized his wide shoulders and his long, lean torso, two features she particularly liked in her men. His leggings hugged his muscular thighs like a second skin, accentuating the prominent bulge at his crotch. Definitely a dangerously attractive presence, one that screamed bed, naked, now.

  Whoa, now where did that idea come from? Probably from the same source as the pesky possessive pronoun “her”. He most definitely was not hers and she must be delirious from sleep deprivation to have entertained the thought. At least that was the plausible explanation she gave herself, though it didn’t quite explain the sudden ache in her breasts. Underneath the sturdy jumpsuit material her nipples beaded into hard, sensitive points. She hadn’t experienced this kind of instantaneous lust for a man in a long, long time—if ever.

  “Dr. deCarte,” the Warlord said. He straightened and his movement focused her attention on his head and the incongruous, straw-like thatch of hair. It looked like a bad wig.

  Fascinated, she skimmed over the man’s rough facial features, doing her best to ignore his forceful stare. The instant attraction was there all right, at least on her side. In her hallucinogenic state, she even imagined she caught a faint but tantalizing whiff of sandalwood surrounding him. The scent zinged a wave of heat straight to her womb. As for the Warlord, he looked as if he’d never seen a human woman before, which just wasn’t possible if he’d spent the past day at TLC. Never one to particularly care about how she looked, she was suddenly self-conscious over her rumpled appearance.

  “Warlord.” She returned the formal greeting and then ordered herself to walk to the nearest chair before she collapsed in a heap on the floor. A strange kinesthetic reaction mixed with exhaustion and lust wasn’t the most steadying combination in the universe, especially if she was supposed to be alert and intelligent about some as yet unspecified crisis.