Deep Indigo (12 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said into the hush as the water stopped. “I know it was wrong of me to…to call you to me, when you carry such responsibility here on your ship.”

Nelah quailed before the look in his eyes, stepping back against the cerametal of the shower-dry stall. He grasped her shoulders, holding her before him.

“You must never do such a thing again,” he grated. “Another man, with less control than I, might have raped you. Do you understand?”

She shook her head, denial in every fiber of her being. “I wouldn’t call another man that way.” Her cheeks burned as she realized she’d nearly admitted her love for him. Again.

She was saved by the sudden rush of warm air that began to blow. Turning her back to him, Nelah busied herself combing her fingers through her hair. She could feel him behind her as clearly as if he still held her.

“You may think so now,” he said quietly over the whoosh of air. “But one day that will change.”

Chapter Thirteen

Navos reached around Nelah, opening the shower-dry hatch and she stepped out, moving aside. He walked out into the other room, the lights brightening at his passage. She followed him, watching as he walked over to pick up his clothing from the floor. Nelah’s eyes widened at the splendid view of his lean ass. She watched, fascinated as he turned back toward her. His penis was still a formidable sight, even lying relaxed against his scrotum. And she wished she’d had time to explore the tiny indentation of his navel and the ridged plain of his abdomen.

Belatedly she realized he was standing still, holding his clothing in one hand and letting her look her fill of him. She lifted her chin, refusing to acknowledge the hot blush that flooded her face as she held out her hand for her clothing. She realized with a rush of heat that now, whenever she looked at him, the acts in which they had just engaged would always be there, between them like a secret current.

“I should…go to my own stateroom,” she said.

He picked up her gown, but instead of handing it to her, he stepped forward.

“Oh, no. You and I aren’t finished talking.”

“Aren’t we?” she said with a flash of spirit, grasping at the trailing silk of the gown. “Perhaps I haven’t time to chat.”

He used her grip on the silk to tug her toward him. “You have time. And so do I.” He looked down into her eyes, his face implacable. “Nelah, you have stronger powers than I at first realized. Too strong to use without care.”

She flushed, her cheeks burning. “I told you I received top marks in my class.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said. “But without proper control, you’re as dangerous as a loose laser-cannon.”

Stung by this accusation, she fired back. “You speak as if I go about using my power on every man I meet. But I haven’t, only with you. And I’ve done nothing you haven’t! You called me to the arboretum—”

He placed one finger firmly across her lips. “Nelah. Allow me to finish. I’ve altered my decision. I will train you.”

Her heart skipped a beat and then began to race. She searched his gaze, hardly able to believe what she heard. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes. I mean it.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you…” Throwing her arms around his neck, she pressed exuberant kisses over his chin, his throat. Then, leaning against him, she closed her eyes and smiled against his skin. “May we begin now?”

But instead of holding her, Navos put his hands on her shoulders and set her away from him. A chill ran through her, for he looked every inch the commander, not a man with whom to trifle.

“Nelah, listen to me. I’ll work you with more rigor than you have ever worked before. Don’t expect any quarter because of our sexual relations, because I promise you, you won’t receive it.”

Stung by his assumption she wanted or needed such treatment, Nelah tugged her gown from his hands, covering her nakedness. Pride lifted her chin again and stiffened her spine.

“Don’t worry, Commander,” she said. “You…obviously know I—I have feelings for you, but as you say, I’m inexperienced. I’m sure with your help, I can learn to feel no emotion toward you. Then all will be as you wish.”

His eyes narrowed like blue lasers. Good—let him be angry. Let him be cruel to her, if that was what it took for her foolish heart to harden. It must, or she very much feared he would crush it. Not because he meant to. No, he was too honorable for that. But because the mighty commander seemed to have no room in his makeup for love.

Navos found himself squeezing his fists as Nelah turned her back on him with a jerk and began to tug at her gown. Augh! He wanted to grab her and shake her until she rattled. How dare she rail at him for insisting, just as he should, that their passion could not be allowed to influence any work they did? Trust a woman not to see the two must never become entangled.

He forced himself to relax. Damned if he would be tied into knots by a slip of a girl who was only trying out her fledgling powers. She believed herself in love with him, but that would pass. He knew it was normal for infatuation to follow losing one’s virginity.

A surge of amusement tempered his anger, twitching up the corners of his lips. His temptress was having difficulty with her gown. The delicate fabric had evidently become tangled. She jerked at it with increasing agitation.

He pulled on his pants and fastened them and then enjoyed the show. She had pretty legs and an extremely fine bottom, round like two halves of a perfect pear. The rest of her was slender and delicate, especially the nape of her neck, so tender, just feathered by dark silky tendrils of hair. Her curls were nearly dancing now with her swift, agitated movements.

“Having trouble?” he asked.

She turned on him with flashing eyes. “You know perfectly well I am. And don’t you dare laugh at me.”

Turning her back on him again, she bent to her task with even more force, muttering furiously as she shook the tangled fabric. He allowed himself one last moment of enjoyment and then stepped over to pull the gown from her hands. Following the deepest drape, he quickly found the hidden fastening and twitched it open. He held it out to her with ironic courtesy.

“Your gown.”

She lifted her head as regally as a queen. “Thank you.”

He bowed, then watched with regret as her nudity disappeared in ice blue silk. She grabbed her little bag, stomped into her slippers and headed for his door.

“Nelah,” he said, as she reached for the button to slide open the hatch. “Be in my office at 0700 hours.”

“Yes, sir!”

He sighed.

As the hatch slid shut behind her, he stood for a moment, sensing her passage along the corridor toward the passenger quarters. The little minx—she wouldn’t get the better of him again. He meant to demonstrate very thoroughly the responsibilities that came with wielding psychic power.

She’d used her powers recklessly tonight and caused him to behave completely out of character, with lewd behavior and language in public. Chagrin burned his cheeks at the memory. Seven hells, he’d begun to undress in the passageway, before not only his crew, but passengers!

He knew with humiliating certainty this wouldn’t go unremarked upon by the crew. Great God beyond, what was it he’d said to Izard? Never mind, he was sure the Serpentian would take keen pleasure in reminding him. The long-time guard had a mischievous streak. He’d once gone so far as to send Captain Steve Craig a lovely guard cadet as a gift! Surprisingly, that had ended well—the spirited, lovely young woman was now Mrs. Craig.

However, his own liaison with Nelah Cobalt certainly wouldn’t end that way. She was not for him. Too young, too emotional. She needed his firm hand on her training and then he would send her on her way to another post somewhere.

Navos ignored the hollow feeling that followed this image. He’d been—no—he was content with his life. He’d advanced to his present station through hard work and the application of his formidable intellect, which he knew to be superior to most of his galactic fellows. He took no special pride in this. It was fact. The ancient adage “he to whom much had been given, of him much would be expected” was quite true.

He’d had sexual liaisons, certainly. However, since the disaster of Beryl Mazarin his affairs had been the satisfying of a purely physical urge, no more. Her effect on his personal relations was lasting. He engaged in sexual acts only with women who wished as little as he to become emotionally involved.

Curious, though, never had he felt the overwhelming need to meld himself with a female as he had tonight. He’d wanted to engulf Nelah, to overpower her so she belonged to him, body and mind, so she needed him as much or more than he needed her.

By the Great Being, he sounded like an emotional female, he thought with the horror of an intellectual who finds himself confronted with human weakness. He sounded like…his mother.

All his life, he’d striven to be like his father. Nalon Navos had been a professor at the university, the epitome of Indigon intellect and calm. One of his students, a young Earth II emigrant, had become infatuated with him. A passionate, intelligent girl, she pursued the quiet intellectual relentlessly until he married her.

They had been happy for a time. Daron had memories of a lovely woman, incandescent with joy and laughter, who had enchanted both her husband and son. But she’d had a darker side, as well. Her moods swung wildly. Her husband, unable to deal with her jealousy, temper tantrums and moods of black despair, spent more and more time away from her. Much of Navos’s childhood had been in the quiet dignified environs of the university.

His mother had deteriorated further. One night, apparently maddened by her husband’s pity, she lost all control and shoved him against the balcony railing of their home. As Daron watched in horror, they fell to the lawn far below. He could still see their crumpled bodies lying on the grass.

For years Daron believed his mother had murdered his father. Finally when he was a young man, he read the death certificate. His mother had been suffering from manic depressive illness, his father from a weak heart. He’d had a heart attack, or neither of them would have fallen.

Logically, Navos knew his parents’ deaths had been accidental. But what their son remembered, what he had trouble even now shaking off, was the notion that excess emotion had killed both his mother and father.

Nelah Cobalt was a young, emotional creature. Perhaps it would be prudent to look into her history. He sat before the computer in one corner and called up the holo-vid display.

“Research Nelah Cobalt,” he said quietly. “Family background.”

Within seconds he was watching a series of holo-vids accompanied by an emotionless narration. There were her parents holding a tiny girl with huge eyes and an enchanting smile. There she was as a sylph-like adolescent, dancing a gymnastic routine. There she beamed, incandescent with pride and joy as she received her diploma from a row of professors at the university.

“Nelah Cobalt. Age 22. Graduate of Indigon University. Born, Indigon City. Parents, Maura Cobalt and John Smith.”

“Background on John Smith,” Navos interrupted, caught by the name.

Within seconds, his fears were confirmed. Nelah’s father was human. Born on Earth II, he’d emigrated to Indigo as a young man and started a lawn- and garden-care business. He met Maura Cobalt when he came to take care of the grounds of her parents’ home in the mountains outside the city. Nelah was born soon after their marriage.

Her father had become a successful inventor, but then died in a work accident when one of his lawn-care robots malfunctioned. His widow later remarried—to Professor Loftan Cyan. A few years afterward, she herself died of a virus brought from off-planet.

Noting that Nelah had soon left her family home and applied for custody of the remaining family assets, Navos nodded to himself. She might be an impulsive young woman, but she was not a fool. She’d obviously seen Cyan for what he was—a scheming weasel-cat.

Cyan had won the family home and a substantial amount of money, but Nelah was still a wealthy young woman.

A half-human woman, with all the warmth and impulsivity of a human. Did she also carry the darker characteristics? He remembered her anger, how her blue eyes had flashed at him and how she’d turned the tables on him, calling him to her even as he had called her. A half-human woman with the skills of an Indigon empath/intuit.

Despite the warmth of the room, he felt chilled to the bone.

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning, Navos was relieved to note it was a quiet, formal Nelah who presented herself at his office. She wore a neat suit similar to his own, dark blue with a high collar. She had used none of the cosmetics that had adorned her face the night before. Not that she was any less lovely without them. He eyed her across his desk. Her expression was shuttered, as if she were masked. Good. That was good. They could not work together if her eyes were soft and glowing with the expression she wore when he—

He slammed a door on the sensual memories that suddenly threatened to swamp him. Great God beyond, what was the matter with him? As if he didn’t know what, or rather who. She was seated primly across the desk from him. This wouldn’t do. He must remind himself, and her, that he was in charge and she was a volatile creature who must be taught to control her powers.

“We will begin your training with a simple exercise,” he said. “I’m reviewing the passenger rosters not only for aberrant thought patterns—those of blatant malice toward the
Orion
, but to determine if any of them may have a certain type of device implanted.”

He set a tiny cerametal capsule on the desk. She leaned forward to peer at it carefully. Looking inquiringly at him for permission, she waited until he nodded before picking it up.

“What is it for?” she asked.

“It was removed from the Indigon boy who died.”

“Euww!” She dropped it with a clatter. “And you believe it had something to do with his crazed behavior?”

Navos explained their theory on the implant. Nelah eyed it as if it was a dangerous insect.

“You think there may be others with these implants?”