Anna and the Three Generals (9 page)

Stars above, she was tired of being the one who knew the least about what was happening around her. She craved time in her lab, surrounded by her research, and the safe insulation from this crazy big world around her—quite the turnaround from her initial desire to escape the confinement of her staid life. Maybe she wasn’t such an explorer after all. At this moment, staid sounded wonderful.

Vadim disconnected the call and turned to Anna. “
Now
, you will sleep.”

And suddenly, she didn’t want to be bossed around anymore. She wanted answers. She wanted to be in charge of her own life again. She wanted to know where her best friend was. Stars, she prayed to the heavenly bodies above that Bella was safe.

“What about you and Kojo?” she asked. “When was the last time either of you slept? You may look and act like mighty, undefeatable warriors, but you’re still men. And men need sleep just as much as women. It’s a biological imperative. Without proper rest, the mind slows and judgments become impaired. Wouldn’t we all be safer if we took turns sleeping? Obviously, one of us should stay alert for possible att—”

“Enough!” Vadim barked. “Damn, woman. Do you ever close that mouth and follow orders?”

She stuck her hands on her hips and glared at the great mountain of him. She would not cower under his icy stare anymore. “If I have something to say, then I’ll say it.” She stepped toward him and jabbed him in a steely pec with her finger. “I have one of the most prized brains on the planet, and I will not be hushed like an ancient Earth woman in a conservative cult.”

Kojo stood from the pilot’s chair where he’d been quietly observing the scene. “He’s not trying to silence you,” he offered in a quiet, reasonable voice. “He and I just want the best for you. You are our mate, and we will care for you.”

Anna’s gaze fell on Kojo’s earnest face, and she dropped the hand she’d been using to point at Vadim. At the sound of Kojo’s words, something fuzzy swelled in her chest, but she fought the unfamiliar feeling. “I can take care of myself. I have for the majority of my life.”

“What about your parents?” Kojo asked.

“My parents? What do they have to do with this?”

“Didn’t they care for you?”

“Until I was eight and sent away to the academy, just the same as all the other children of the intelligentsia.”

Anna watched as Kojo’s face softened, the hard planes relaxing.

He reached for her arm and drew her to him. Wrapping his big beefy arms around her, he nuzzled into the top of her head. It didn’t fill her with the sexual sparklers of his other kinds of touches, but it was intimate all the same.

“Those big brained monkeys don’t know nearly as much as they think they do,” he muttered into her hair.

She giggled against his chest at the image of her biology professor dangling from a ceiling light.

Kojo lifted his face and looked at Vadim. “Permission to accompany our mate to bed, General?”

Anna peeked around Kojo’s huge biceps to catch Vadim’s answer.

“To bed to sleep, LG. She has not been properly mated to her third yet.”

“Aye, sir. To bed to sleep,” Kojo replied. Then he bent and scooped Anna in his arms before she realized what he intended.

“Wait!” she shrieked. “I can walk on my own two feet.”

“Yes, but you look ready to fall over from exhaustion, and this is part of how your mate will care for you.”

“You’re going to carry me everywhere?”

“No, dear Anna. Just to the captain’s berth.”

Her stomach flipped at the memory of their previous visit to the captain’s quarters, and some of her initial sleepiness vanished, replaced with that growing need in her loins. Technically, she and Kojo had already broken the mating rules by joining for the second time in the spray shower, but neither of them seemed anxious to admit it to Vadim.

She buried her nose in Kojo’s neck and inhaled his unique warm scent. Maybe she could persuade him to bend the rules a little further and help her alleviate the ache swelling between her legs. He could use his mouth on her like Vadim had done. That had felt so amazing.

Immediately, she felt contrite as she remembered that Marco was still out among the terrorists. He could be hurt…or worse, and he’d never had the opportunity to secure his position with her.

“Kojo?” she asked when he laid her on the mattress.

“Yes, Anna.” His large hand gently brushed a length of hair from her cheek.

“Have you heard anything from Marco? Is he really all right?”

Kojo nodded. “I received a message while you were in the mess hall. He’s done as much as he can in First Quadrant, and he’s on a path to join us before we reach Fourth Quadrant.”

Her breath left her on a long sigh. “Oh, thank the stars.” And suddenly, she felt every tick of missed sleep from the previous night. Her eyelids closed heavily as her head rested on the surprisingly plush pillow. “I think I’m ready to sleep now,” she managed to push out between her lethargic lips.

The mattress on the other side of the berth dipped, as Kojo joined her. Then he wrapped his heavy arm around her waist, pulling her body snug against his, as her head rested on his thick biceps.

A sense of belonging, of being cherished, blossomed in her chest in the vicinity of her heart. A small smile played across her lips as she drifted into unconsciousness.

Chapter Seven

Marco fidgeted with the climate controls on the runabout’s panel in front of him. Traveling to the other side of the planet in a vehicle this small was far from ideal, but he had wanted to cause the smallest ripple as possible when he left First Quadrant. Vadim’s missive had stressed the importance of keeping the terrorists off Anna’s tail, and Marco would die before he put his intended mate at risk.

He rubbed at the bandage over his left biceps. Laser burns itched like hellitude as they healed, but he’d been a lucky blaster. Another couple of centimeters to the right, and the shot would have gone through his heart. Then he’d never have gotten his chance to mate with Anna.

His mind wandered to their first and
only
meeting as the runabout’s autopilot followed the course he’d plotted.

Anna was obviously as smart as any General he’d ever met, but she was also endearingly innocent. Or she had been until Vadim had taken her in such a forceful way. Damn the blasted General. Why had he stepped in on Kojo and Marco’s action?

Marco’s cock hardened as he remembered the feel of her small hand touching him through his trousers. They’d been off to a good start, until Kojo had tried to rush things. Then Anna had balked, giving Vadim the opportunity to step in and become first mate.

Blast him.

By now, Marco was certainly delegated to third mate. Kojo had surely found the time to become second mate. Not that the designation necessarily meant anything, but as the youngest of the men and the last to receive his third star, he hated to be in third place as mate as well.

He checked the navigation panel for an update on his status—only two hundred more kilometers until his rendezvous with his intended’s mate’s transporter. They were meeting on the outskirts of Fourth Quadrant to take the runabout onboard the larger ship before entering the General’s home turf as a complete foursome, better for protecting Anna. He was sure that was Vadim’s only motive, but Marco was glad to be reunited with her sooner rather than later. He wanted to be at her side when they entered their new home together.

It was obvious as he’d organized his security force and took inventory of the damages in First Quadrant that he couldn’t bring Anna back there. Not for the foreseeable future. The scientific sectors were nearly leveled, but surprisingly few deaths or even injuries had been reported. He’d only gotten shot in the arm because he’d surprised one of the terrorists as the man had been running from the scene of a bombing. The terrorist had actually looked remorseful for shooting at Marco.

He didn’t think the terrorists could have caused any more damage with less loss of lives if they’d tried. It made him wonder if the rumors he’d heard were true. Were the terrorists really only targeting places and things and not people? He’d heard the propaganda that extolled the Open Air Society as a force of revolutionaries, rather than terrorists. They fashioned themselves after the ancient militia of the American Revolution. As an avid fan of history, Marco couldn’t help but note some similarities between the Society’s dissatisfaction with their lack of voice on the Council and the ancient Colonists’ protests against England’s taxation without representation. Could the Open Air Society really be fighting for a just cause?

Marco shook the thought from his head. Lack of sleep was causing his brain to take irrational leaps. He set the chronometer alarm for fifteen ticks. Nothing like a quick combat nap to reset his brainwaves.

Shutting his eyes, he pictured Anna spread before him on a silk covered mattress, naked and glowing with her need for him, which made it practically impossible for him to shut down his brain, but he managed at least five ticks of sleep before the chronometer’s alarm sounded.

* * * *

“He’s approaching,” Kojo announced with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm from his seat in the pilot’s chair.

Anna leaned over his broad shoulder, scanning the displays on the control panel in front of her, looking for the one that would show her Marco’s runabout. But she’d never taken flight courses; her studies had been intensely focused on the biological sciences. In fact, she’d never spent much time in flight. After this past day airborne, she was yearning to learn more about the science of flight and the mechanics of the machines that flew.

“Which screen are you looking at, Kojo?” she finally asked when the data before her didn’t arrange itself into translatable knowledge after she’d been studying it for several moments.

Kojo tapped a datapad to his right near the communications console’s empty seat, and Anna narrowed her eyes as she tried to sort out the numbers and letters flashing across the screen. After five ticks, she still had no clue about the key to unlocking the data.

“So, we must be close to Vadim’s Quadrant. Should we wake him?” she asked. When Kojo and Anna had returned to the bridge this afternoon, Vadim had agreed to grab a nap and leave the transporter in Kojo’s capable hands.

“No need. We’re still eight hundred kilometers from Fourth Quadrant.”

“Close enough that I should be on hand.” Vadim’s voice behind Anna made her jump.

She spun around to face him. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.” He strode the few paces to the communications console chair. As he sat, he tapped the comm channel screen. “Hawk One to Hawk Three, are you receiving?”

“Hawk Three receiving, sir,” Marco’s voice came through clearly over the speaker. “I have you in sight.”

“Proceed,” Vadim answered.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Anna stood back and observed as the two skilled men handled the controls with ease and got Marco’s runabout onboard safely. She was fascinated with their precision and confidence. It made her miss her lab terribly, even though she’d only been gone a day.

She was tired of being out of her element, of not knowing what was going on around her, of not being in control of her life. But if she had to hand control over to someone else, she was grateful it was these men before her. They instilled confidence with their proficiency. The Council had chosen her mates well. The men didn’t seem to break a sweat as they handled this crisis with the Open Air Society.

“Hello, Generals.” Marco’s accented voice boomed from the doorway of the bridge.

Anna turned to look at her third mate.

“Hello, Anna.” His tone softened for his greeting for her.

“Hi, Marco,” she answered, feeling extremely self-conscious suddenly. She’d grown so comfortable with Kojo and Vadim, but Marco was practically a stranger. They hadn’t had much time together before they’d been separated on First Quadrant. Her old insecurities about meeting new people surfaced, and she found it hard to maintain eye contact with him.

“Marco,” Vadim’s curt voice cut through her thoughts, “take Anna to the captain’s quarters. You need to complete the first step of the mating.”

Anna’s cheeks heated as she realized that Vadim was ordering her and Marco to go have intercourse. All her nervous awkwardness about sex returned.

Even though she’d enjoyed her experiences with Kojo and Vadim, she didn’t know how she was going to get through it with Marco. Vadim had taken her before she could get nervous. All she’d had to do was follow his commands. With Kojo, she’d felt like they’d had time to get to know each other a little, and she’d been attracted to him. Her time with Marco had been so brief in comparison.

“I see you took advantage of my absence to secure your position,” Marco addressed Kojo.

“I didn’t take advantage of anything. I only took what was offered,” Kojo responded.

The tension on the bridge made the hair on Anna’s nape ruffle, adding to her nervousness about mating with Marco. Vadim apparently wanted her to go into the captain’s quarters and join with Marco as if it were as routine as brushing her teeth. She glanced at the dark-haired, dark-eyed man. At least she felt the stirrings of attraction to him.