Riesa tilted her head, “About the ship?”

  He shook his head, “No, about staying with… about being a part of my team on that ship.”

  She kissed him softly, as her body absolutely melted against him, conforming to him as only a limber Cheelah could, in surrender. Or perhaps wanton and warm surrender would be more accurate. Which answered the question to his way of thinking.

  She said softly, “I’ll be on your ship, on your team, and in your bed for as long as you want me there, sir.”

  Fucking hell, he was as hard as rock at that sensuous as hell kiss, and the warmly devoted words and tone of voice.

  He didn’t deserve that dedication, but he was damn well not going to turn it down.

  He rolled on top of her, and he slid into her sodden heat with a gentle thrust. She took him in one stroke, since it was the third round, and she was more than wet enough and ready enough for his thickness, yet still deliciously snug around him.

  He felt a little overwhelmed in that moment, at the look in her eyes, and the answering emotions in his chest. A part of it was her words and obvious surrender, putting her life and her career so trustfully into his hands. Her admiration and desire for him, all of that was a big part of why he felt overwhelmed.

  But a part of it was simply knowing that he’d get to keep both her and Leanne long term. He didn’t love them, couldn’t love them yet, and sometimes he doubted he’d ever be capable of that emotion. No matter what tempting hopes and dreams Aria had been whispering into his ears the last week, if he could forgive himself and heal, move on.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t care for them, or that he didn’t want them to stay. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel a connection, or a growing friendship.

  He was more than a little lost in her bright golden eyes, as he started to work her body gently and teasingly with his cock.

  What followed then was gentle, soft, and slow. It wasn’t making love, not exactly, since he didn’t feel that, but it would sure as hell do for now until the real thing came along. The pleasure of her body was exquisite, and the look of surrender in her eyes engendered a strong feeling of protectiveness, possessiveness, and a need to be worthy of it, to protect it and her. There was more than enough affection, and each and every tiny movement was an eternity of pleasure in its own.

  It was one of the most intimately intense moments in his life, up until that point.

  He knew she was enjoying it just as much, as he’d never heard her purr so loudly or consistently between orgasms. He lived in that moment, the moment of their joined bodies and the pleasures they shared, until she was shaking violently on the very edge of overstimulation, and he’d long lost count of how many times she’d splintered apart around him.

  Only then, did he take his satisfaction in her body, and the orgasmic pleasure was masterful.

  Chapter Thirteen

  His heart pounded as he held Aria. They were both covered by a bright sheen of sweat, and they were both trying to recover their breath. They’d been wild every morning, but that morning, that last morning, they’re lovemaking had been more than just a little manic with a desperate edge to it. Knowing it was the last time they’d ever be together, and he hated it, but hell if the sex hadn’t been the best between them yet.

  It was the morning of the day of the banquet, and hell if he didn’t want to let her go. She felt so good against him, and she’d been one of the best things to ever happen to him. He had a long way to go, but she’d put him on the road to recovery with compassion and empathy in her heart.

  “I’m worried.”

  She asked, “That you’ll never get to take me with your thumb up my ass again?”

  He chuckled, “That too, but no. We expected there to be an assassination attempt, to start a war instead of a peace and trade treaty. I’ve been vigilant to the point of paranoia the last couple of days, but I’m starting to think they decided I was too tough to chew.”

  She made a humming sound, “What are you thinking.”

  He replied, “I’m a knight of the kingdom, killing me might just have my king retaliating, and is the ideal way to start the war they want. The expansion. But perhaps they’ve decided to settle for less, and merely to undermine you. Another option I hadn’t considered at first, that would mean not facing me and risking being discovered breaking the law. Being discovered disobeying your orders as prelate.”

  Doing that was rebellion in the Grand Communion since Aria had ultimate authority, and since Aria’s words were technically the goddesses, it was also heresy. Anyone found to be deliberately working against her would be killed, if there was enough proof.

  “The diplomatic courier coming in today with the signed treaties is a good alternate target. If that ship was destroyed with a minor functionary aboard, it might not start a war, but it would end the treaty. And without the treaty your opposition can undermine you, since you won’t be spreading the church into Moiroi, and living up to your campaign promises.”

  She kissed him, “Thank you, but I thought of that three days ago. I have two fleets waiting at the FTL line, to escort the courier in. If my enemies manage to send another ship, or even two willing to commit insurrection, they’ll lose the confrontation badly.”

  “You’re so sexy, baby.”

  She moaned lightly, with a teasing lilt, “Say it again, I want to hear it one more time. Then we need to get started on our days, unfortunately.”

  “Baby?”

  She giggled, “Yes.”

  “You’re so sexy, and a dirty girl, aren’t you, baby.”

  She giggled, “Yes. Yes, I am,” then bit her lip, and a sheen of tears entered her eyes, “I will miss you, and I’ll never forget you. If I can manage an excuse to ask for your presence, count on it. You’ve been an ally, an amazing lover, and you reminded me where my passions lie.”

  He smiled, “I look forward to it.”

  They kissed one last time, then got into the shower. There was no fun in the shower per say, but the way they washed each other and gazed at each other was incredibly intimate and wistful.

  His thoughts were far away as Leanne once more, for the last time, escorted him from his ‘breakfast’ with the prelate and back to their quarters. He would miss her, and truly believed she’d miss him as well. They’d had different reasons to support each other, but those reasons had caused their means to align. They’d been allies and lovers for ten days, and she was an extremely impressive lady.

  They’d made hopeful promises to get together again someday, but in his heart he knew he’d probably never see her again. Not as a man and woman anyway, and after the formal banquet that night he’d likely never see her again in any way.

  Which was honestly a little depressing, and new. Because he’d never felt so… wistful, about leaving one of his lovers before. He’d been content with the connection he made, he imagined, and hadn’t felt worthy of more. The rage in his chest had made it easy to walk away too, probably. But in Aria’s case it had been so different, and what they shared so much deeper.

  So his thoughts were a little morose, and more than a little distracted, when the assassination attempt they’d been expecting finally arrived. In hindsight it made perfect sense, since his breakfasts with Aria had been the only consistent daily thing in the last ten days. The rest of the days had been rather random in nature, doing different things and mixing them up. So of course the enemy had planned an ambush around the one thing they were sure would happen. Any assassin paying attention knew the best time and place to hit someone was in their daily routine that never varied.

  Regardless, they were halfway down one of the long hallways in the guest wing, in hindsight they should’ve varied their paths, but they didn’t. Another foolish mistake.

  Two doors to suites opened up, one fifty feet ahead and the other fifty behind. The rifles were already angled outside the doors with just the edge of the assassin’s heads in view as they pulled the trigger.

  Rapid laser pulses shot at them both from the military grade assault weapon before he fully comprehended the danger. He took two pulses in the arm, two across his torso, and two in the back before he got his shields up. It was a miracle they’d missed head and heart. The rapid laser pulses started to hit the shield making it coruscate brightly, even as his magic started to heal his wounds.

  Wounds he wouldn’t have received, if he hadn’t had his head up his ass.

  What panicked him was Leanne’s cry of pain and collapse to the floor. He moved over quickly, and saw she’d taken three shots in the back. The guy in front must’ve had much better aim, and it explained why the guy in the rear had only hit him twice. The asshole had strafed the automatic laser pulse weapon across Leanne first.

  It didn’t take him long to see she’d taken a laser pulse in the spine, which had been severed. That was repairable with magic, but she was also in shock from it and her body was shutting down, despite not being hit in the heart or head either.

  His magic moved to stabilize her and counter the pain, even as the protective rage exploded out of him at her being harmed. His magic’s response was perhaps a bit too excessive. Two powerful pulses of air left his shields, which were so thick they distorted what was seen through them. They flew down the hallway, turned the walls that the assassins were standing behind into splinters, and then continued on to cut them in half by ripping apart their torso and sending a cloud of blood spray into the hallways and likely all over the rooms.

  Then the second half of the spell went off, fire, as both halves of their bodies spontaneously combusted, almost simultaneously to the snapping crack of sound that filled the hallway as he teleported directly to one of the temple healing rooms. He was decent at healing, like the other disciplines he didn’t specialize in, and could heal most physical traumas on the battlefield, but repairing the spinal nerve clusters and connections was not one of them. Fortunately, the healer rooms had been included in his tour that day, and he remembered them well enough to teleport there.

  He glared at the inoffensive man in the room, “Heal her, now.”

  The wizard healer looked nervous as he got up, and after a quick examination with a magical device, the nervous man ran over to the storage cabinet and pulled out three other devices. Presumably to heal her spine, and the other wounds.

  The healer said, “You did the right thing, but you need to remove the stabilizing field so that it doesn’t interfere with my spells,” then swallowed nervously.

  He grunted, “Save her,” he ordered, and dropped the magic.

  The healer was competent, if a little nervous, as the devices started to heal her, while stabilizing her at the same time. That last must’ve been why his spell would’ve interfered with the devices.

  “Your wounds?”

  He shrugged, “I’ll be fine in ten minutes.”

  The healer swallowed nervously, and that made him take a deep breath and swallow down his rage. Apparently, his treatment did risk lapses in control, he just hadn’t imagined those lapses would be on behalf of another. Someone very dear to him already.

  He considered teleporting back, to see if there’d been any other assassins, but then dismissed it. He wasn’t palace security, and he had no authority here.

  He was also beyond pissed at himself, his lapse of judgment at feeling sorry for himself had almost gotten Leanne killed. Stupid. Shredding their torsos and setting them on fire had also been stupid. There was no way to question a dead man, much less one that couldn’t be identified.

  Of course, if the plan to identify the real guilty parties at the banquet worked, his overzealous way of taking out a couple of hired assassins wouldn’t matter.

  “Does that hurt?”

  He shook his head, “I turned off the pain receptors, or I’d have probably fallen unconscious from the pain.”

  The fact Leanne was healing before his eyes, and appeared to be out of danger, also allowed him to relax, and he started to feel like his normal self.

  “You do good work, thank you. You might want to contact palace security, let them know we’re here and there was an assassination attempt in the corridors.”

  The man looked even more startled by his sudden calm and relaxed confidence, but then seemed to relax himself as he nodded.

  “Just as soon as I’m done with the patient.”

  “They were wearing security uniforms!” Calvin said accusingly.

  The head security guy didn’t intimidate him in the least, and his casual nod of agreement had the man on edge.

  “Of course they did, they had military ordinance, which is only legal in the temple for security. How else would they get it in here, except to impersonate one of your own?”

  He frowned in artful concern, “Unless of course, you’re telling me your men tried to assassinate a sister and an ambassador of another government.”

  Calvin grumbled, and ignored that absurd accusation, but it did stop him from continuing his ridiculous harangue.

  “I’ve got nothing to work with except ash, two broken rifles, and shredded pieces of uniforms.”

  He replied, “It was a good spell. I couldn’t actually see them, just their arms and half their heads. For all I knew they were in shielded armor, so because they weren’t the spell was a bit… overkill.”

  Something he’d thought of in hindsight, which was true enough, but he was hardly going to admit he’d lost control and struck out with his magic unthinkingly in rage. It was also a fire under his ass, and he swore to redouble his efforts to work through his rage and pain at the past, and in his resentment of not being healed before now.

  Daisy had made him bury it, and he didn’t think he could fully bury it again. He had no choice but to work through it, and he hoped that happened before he did something truly bad. The world wasn’t going to mourn the loss of two murderous assassins, and he’d only been defending himself and Leanne.

  “Look, I get you want to find out who hired them, I do too. But in the heat of battle and with both of us wounded, Leanne mortally, I had no choice but to act decisively and quickly in order to seek out healing. Are we done here? I have things to do before the banquet tonight.”

  He didn’t mention anything about those plans to find the culprits there, because he wasn’t sure if Calvin was in the know on Aria’s plans or not.

  He also got the idea Calvin would be glad to see the back of him, when he left tonight or tomorrow morning first thing. He wasn’t sure which yet.

  Calvin waved, “Go. You know you scared the hell out of the healer.”

  He shrugged, “Teleporting in angry and bloody would probably scare most healers, I’d imagine. I was a bit preemptory with him in my concern for Leanne, but I didn’t threaten him or anything.”

  Calvin grunted, then left the room.

  He got up and headed outside, to find Leanne there waiting for him with a warm smile and admiration on her face.

  He felt a surge of self-disgust rose up in him, he wasn’t worthy of that smile, or that respect. He was the reason she’d almost died, and he swore he wouldn’t let his vigilance falter again.

  He returned her smile though, couldn’t help it. She was still stunning to him, a true and rare beauty on a level he’d only encountered previously in one other woman, Daniella. His emotions were also all over the place, and he needed to get grip.

  “Shower and a change of clothes?”

  He chuckled, “Yes.” There were still burnt holes in his uniform, and her robes.

  She teased, “Riesa’s going to be disappointed she missed the fun.”

  He looked at her curiously, “My body servant?”

  Leanne snorted a laugh, and smirked at him, “I’ve known from day one she’s your guardian, and you shouldn’t want me to be yours if I hadn’t picked up on it.”

  He frowned.

  Leanne giggled, “Seriously, she didn’t make any mistakes, and neither did you. But she is a wizard, and she was totally calm and focused during that assassination attack. Then there’s the idea your king wouldn’t have sent you here without backup.”

  He sighed, “I suppose that’s true.”

  She asked, “What part?”

  He said, “That you wouldn’t have made a good agent, partner, and servant, after swearing yourself to me, if you couldn’t divine the truth.”

  She winked.

  He teased, “But I’d have kept you anyway, you make great arm candy, and…” he didn’t get out the rest, as she snorted and looked at him disbelief.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, a shallow one, but one that I’m happy to hear.”

  He took her hand, “So are you sure, it looks like a done deal.”

  She smiled almost shyly, “I can’t wait to get on my knees for you, sir. And swear myself to you, your honor, your house, and to serve you in all ways. Obediently, and very likely breathlessly. I’m very observant sir, so stop beating yourself up. You saved my life, and the bad guys are dead, good enough. It wouldn’t be the first time I was wounded in the line of duty, and it won’t be the last. I’m no fainting violet, but I love that you’re already so protective of me, sir.”

  He nodded, “That first over the top part, was about softening the blow of the second part.”

  She giggled, and winked rather cutely, “More oversharing, than over the top, sir,” she said with true sincerity.

  Fuck, so much for not getting distracted, he got a little lost in her eyes for a moment, before his attention snapped back to their surroundings.

  “You’re an amazing woman, Leanne. You really meant that?”

  She nodded, “You’re worthy of my service, and so much more. Add to that I’m also serving my goddess and the prelate by doing so, and I’m understandably… excited. Thrilled even, and I already know you’ll take care of me and won’t abuse me. I’m… hoping for even more, sir. Although I know it’s far too early to say so.”

  He wasn’t worthy, not really, but there were a million reasons, both personal and professional to go forward, and just that one to back out. So of course he’d accept her oaths, and maybe he could earn it one day and finally let go of his past.