Page 31 of Her Lawless Prince

The possessiveness didn’t make sense, but neither did the intensity of her need. His dark eyes stared into hers, and she knew that they were meant to be.

His body rocked into hers, as hard and desperate as she felt. Her feet dangled behind him. He moaned softly against her neck.

Pleasure erupted, quaking through her like liquid heat. Her heart hammered so hard she felt it beating along the apex of her thighs and in her neck. Climax seized her, and for a moment, she couldn’t move.

Nyle held her close. Her hands dropped from the shelf onto his shoulders. His head remained buried against her neck.

“We should finish whatever it was we were doing,” Payton whispered, unable to remember exactly what that had been. The lasting sensations of pleasure hummed inside her, giving her energy.

“I don’t want to let you go,” he answered, finally lowering her to her feet. “I don’t want to leave this room.”

“If I had the power to make the world melt away, I would.” The metal grated floor against her bare feet hit like the cold sting of reality. “As much as we want to live in this moment, we must go forward.”

She didn’t need to remind him that there was too much at stake. He knew that as much as she did. She saw it in the way the invisible weight returned to his shoulders and the worry to his eyes.

“I want…” He struggled to finish his words.

Though she longed to hear what they would have been, she understood. “I know, Nyle. I want, too.”

11

“My parents fellin love because of this planet.” Payton stared at Torgan on the viewing screen. She’d seen pictures, but she never thought she’d travel here. Three rings spun at odd angles around a brown-gray planet. The view wasn’t anything spectacular, the planet itself not particularly beautiful. Compared to other places, its drab desert landscapes could only be described as a sea of unforgiveness.

She was aware of Yevgen and Nyle on either side of her. If the cyborg knew about her making love to Nyle, he didn’t say anything about it, and she didn’t volunteer anything beyond stating they’d managed to slide a tray of food into Rita and her son. The captain was awake and spouting threats.

Payton felt strange standing between a half mate and a lover. This was not a position she had ever imagined herself in. Good thing they were in space and not the Var palace, and she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone. What would she say? How would she introduce Nyle? Or Yevgen, for that matter? Telling the great Var commander that she married a cyborg wasn’t exactly a conversation she looked forward to having.

Then again, that was hardly her biggest problem at the moment.

“I have not heard the story of your parents and their love in relation to Torgan,” Yevgen said. “Please continue.”

Payton gave a small smile as she thought of it. As a child, she found the adventure of it thrilling—pirates, poisons, betrayals, and danger around every corner. Payton and her brothers should never have been born if the stories were completely true and not embellished for entertainment’s sake. The odds of surviving would not have been in her parents’ favor.

“My mother was the captain of the crew that my uncle Rick now commands. He’s not really an uncle, but he is like her brother so that’s how we have always thought of him.” She gave a small laugh. “My parents told us one version. Rick filled in a few details they probably wouldn’t want us knowing about. Anyway, one night flying in deep space, the crew was playing a card game and drank too much Torganian rum, not realizing it was psychotropic.”

“That was very foolish of them. The beverage is not recommended for humanoids,” Yevgen lectured. “You must promise me, wife, that you will not partake of it while we are on-world. It is said to dull their thought patterns, give visions, and to cause them to act carelessly.”

“I won’t,” Payton assured him.

Yevgen leaned back to say behind her toward Nyle. “You may partake. We don’t need your mind. Just your blood supply.”

“Yev, behave,” Payton warned.

“Was there any permanent damage to the crew?” Nyle asked to keep the story moving.

“No. But they did end up hallucinating and running around Var territory, where they kidnapped my father in shifted form. My father will say it was fated by the gods. My mother will say she bested him.”

Nyle leaned closer to her. She felt the heat from his body. “So they fell in love because of the Torganian rum?”

“It is pronouncedroome-ah.” As if mimicking Nyle’s movements, Yevgen also leaned closer. “Excellent story, my love.”

Payton side-eyed them both before continuing, “It’s not over. The crew was on a scavenger hunt hosted by Torgan’s marketplace. It’s a way for the market to get vendors with rare items to sell. They make a game of it. My mother and her crew needed a wild animal for their list and didn’t realize that they’d kidnapped the Var commander in tiger form. By the time they understood their mistake, they were in deep space on their way to Torgan, and my father was in a cage.”

Payton couldn’t help thinking she had been destined for a cage on Torgan, too, if Captain Rita had her way.

Like father, like daughter.

“We should get into an escape pod soon,” Yevgen said. “We do not want to miss our chance.”

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