Page 11 of Touch the Stars (Ghara Empire #1)

Kaitlyn.

A wareness stirred through her. Warmth surrounded her like a comforting blanket, protecting her.

Safe. Safe from everything, including Rocky the Emperor.

A shudder ran down her spine, and she opened her eyes.

No Rocky and no command center, thank God.

She was back in the same bed she’d been strapped to after her abduction.

Only this time, it wasn’t safety straps holding her in place.

She allowed her gaze to travel over the familiar scarred arms around her.

Baatar’s arms. He must have brought her back to her room, and stayed.

Who wouldn’t feel secure in his embrace?

With him around her, nothing could touch her again.

Ever. She sure shouldn’t feel that way, not after what she’d done to him. But…

She leaned into the wall of muscle against her back. “Why am I not locked up?”

“Have you not been through enough?” His breath stirred the hair on top of her head.

Yeah, she had. That still didn’t explain why he wasn’t at least yelling at her. “Why did he hurt me, Baatar? Aren’t I supposed to be his heir?”

“You knew him to be the grand emperor?”

“I heard part of your conversation after he stopped making that awful noise.” Relief had flooded her when the searing pain had stopped, then again at the soothing sound of Baatar’s voice. “Figured it out.”

She shifted around until she faced him. Every time she saw his eyes, they seemed bluer than she remembered. “The command center door was locked.”

“My identification code automatically overrides all commands I did not give. I have voice control even over the ship’s artificial intelligence.”

Well, hell. How was she going to get around that? “So, why’d your emperor try to kill me?”

“I do not know.” He sighed and rolled onto his back, taking away the warmth of one arm. Goosebumps crept over her skin where his heat had been. “His claim was that he believed you had murdered me, making you unfit to be empress.”

“All I told him was that you’d gone pee.”

He frowned at the ceiling. “That could not be mistaken for murder in any language that I know.”

“Me neither. Why didn’t the sound bother you?”

“It is called tyucilla, and Ragatians use it to kill an enemy at close range, like hand-to-hand combat. The grand emperor had already focused it on you by the time I entered the command center.”

“So, he couldn’t just spread the love a little more?”

“No. Projecting tyucilla onto a wide group causes it to rebound on them.”

“You mean they can kill themselves with it?”

“Yes. Tight, focused control of the tyucilla is much more efficient.”

“Oh.”

His frown deepened. “I did not know they could use it through a hologram transmission.”

“Obviously, they can.”

A silence fell between them. It seemed like Baatar had admired the emperor, but that the emperor’s actions confused him. Hell, they confused her, too, but none of it changed her mind about what she had to do.

She pushed herself up to sit and drew her knees to her chest. No matter what happened, she was going to find Kris. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked rapidly.

Baatar brushed his long fingers lightly down her left biceps. “Why you cry, Kaitlyn?”

He used English this time.

She swallowed and looked over her shoulder at him. “What do I have to do to get you to go after Kris?”

His gaze seemed to take in every inch of her face. “She means much to you, Kris does.”

“She means everything.” She sniffed and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose. “Our parents died when we were twelve years old. She’s all I have left.”

“Hm.” He sat up next to her. “My brother, Buuren, we also close, I thought. Buuren betrayed empire. Caught and taken to Ragat—this be the grand emperor’s origin planet—after sold he information to the Bajiki Syndicate. Executed there.”

A gasp escaped her as a sharp ache filled her heart. “I’m so sorry, Baatar.”

If Kris died…shit, she wouldn’t survive that loss. Wouldn’t want to survive it either.

“There be more,” he said. “My mission to bring you to Ghara…once complete, my family be granted pardon for his betrayal.”

“But, your family didn’t do anything wrong.” It was Buuren who’d messed up, and he’d already paid the ultimate price.

He met her gaze and clasped his hands together at chest level, fingers interlaced. “Family. We are same. What one does, we all do. This time we are dishonored, but alive.”

“Wait a minute. Do you mean you could’ve been executed for what your brother did?”

“This be why honor so important to us.”

She gave her head a slow shake. “Man, that’s fucked up.”

“It be honor, Kaitlyn. It be why I am here.”

“To save your family’s honor?”

“Yea.”

Yea? That was seriously biblical old-school, but it fit him in a weird way. “Well, just so we’re clear. I am not sacrificing my sister for anyone’s honor.”

“I know.”

Shit, why’d she open her big mouth? Now he was going to make things more difficult by locking her in her room.

He lowered his hands to his lap. “This be why cruiser still follow Bajiki freighter’s artificial propellant trail.”

She blinked at him. “Y-you mean we’re still going after her?”

“Yea, that I mean. Until time run out.” His small smile was full of boyish charm.

A bubble of joy rose in her heart, but she suppressed it. “What about your family, though?”

“If you not arrive to Ghara on schedule, my family executed for double treason.”

“ What? You’re fucking kidding me. That asshole would do that?”

He held up his forefinger and placed it against her cheek. “Things unchangeable must be worked around.”

“But…” It wasn’t right, yet it was still more than she’d expected from him. “Okay. How long do we have?”

“Three days.”

That didn’t add up. “Don’t we have to be on Ghara in six days?”

“That is the time it takes to travel there.” He gave her a sheepish look. “It took small time to find you. I be ahead of schedule, so we have time to be finding your Kris.”

A giggle escaped her. “I can’t even be mad at you for abducting me, because I’m so happy we’re going to find her. Will three days be enough, though?”

“Imperial cruisers be fastest in the empire. Much faster than Bajiki freighter.”

“So, there’s a chance we’ll catch up with them?”

“Yea.” He jutted his chin outward in what seemed to be the Undetan version of a nod. “A chance.”

Baatar.

His intent had not been to build up Kaitlyn’s hopes too much, but the anguish in her expression had echoed his own internal pain over the loss of his brother. Now to see the light his concession brought to her eyes, it was enough to flood his heart with pleasure.

Her actions against him had never been personal, simply her only perceived choice.

No one could fault her for doing what she felt she must do for the sake of honor and family.

Had he not done the same by accepting the grand emperor’s mission, then ripping the little human from the life she had known for the sake of the empire?

I am the worst sort of fiend.

Kaitlyn turned her head and brushed her feather-soft lips against his fingertip. He sucked in a shallow breath. Best not to read too much into her gesture. It was a simple kiss that in her world might mean nothing more than “thank you.”

She closed her mouth over the tip of the digit and slid down, taking the entirety of his finger into her hot, wet cavity. There was no mistaking that action. Heat rushed from his chest to his brain, then straight down to his groin like a bolt of lightning.

Her gaze met his, then she sucked, her cheeks hollowing as she pulled up. His cock swelled inside his pants, and a groan rumbled in his throat. She already knew that, as grand empress, she would be untouchable by any lover. It was his fate to spend the rest of his life watching her from afar.

Yet, could one taste hurt? He slid his finger free of her mouth to cradle her head between his palms. Her eyes—several shades darker than his own brown skin—glazed over with expectation and desire.

Small, delicate, and fragile. These were words the ignorant might use to describe Kaitlyn Bergh. He knew better. The fire in her soul made her as much a warrior as he.

One taste, only .

He lowered his head and molded his mouth to hers. Full and lush, her lips parted in invitation to explore, to take a deeper taste. His best intentions trickled away, and he delved his tongue into the sweetness of probing the velvety recesses of her lovely mouth.

The hum of her gentle sigh filled him, and she pressed her soft breasts against his chest. Just a bit more.

He skimmed one hand down her back, cupped her rounded bottom, then pulled her fully into his lap.

Turning her until she was cradled in his arms, he nipped and licked her lips, her cheeks, her nose, then back to her mouth.

“Baatar.” The sound of his name whispered through her lips was more beautiful than the crystal notes sung by the olor bird of his home-world.

Alas, it was an invitation neither of them could afford to accept.

He sucked on her bottom lip until it slipped away with a pop. “I am sorry this can go no further, Kaitlyn.”

Very, very sorry.

Her frown was part confusion, part hurt. “Because of the whole ‘no royal sex’ clause?”

“Partly.” He held her close and moved to the edge of the bed “But mostly because, your sister is out there, and we have little time to locate her.”

He pushed to stand, lowered her feet to the floor, then took her hand in his. “Come. We will monitor the search from the command center.”