Punished, Tana Stone [top reads .txt] 📗

hand over her mouth and spun her around so that she faced away from me. I lifted her up and held her flush to my chest as I rushed back up the path and burst into my quarters.

She thrashed against me, but I jerked her to me, whispering into her ear. “I’ll let you go if you promise to stop making so much noise. I don’t think either one of us wants to explain what we’re doing together in the middle of the night, and if you keep yelling, we’ll have to.”

Her body went limp against mine, and she nodded. I released her, dropping my hand from her mouth and uncoiling the arm I’d had around her waist.

Sienna spun around and slapped me, her eyes blazing. “That’s for lying to me. You weren’t running late, so tell me what happened.”

I stared at her as my cheek stung from the impact of her hand. Instead of angering me, her blow made it even harder to resist her. Watching her chest heaving and her face flushed from rage, I wanted nothing more than to crush my mouth to hers. Which was exactly why I hadn’t shown up to teach her, and what I couldn’t tell her.

Even though Vandar didn’t lie, I couldn’t admit to her or myself that I was so weak as to desire the female I’d promised to teach. A human female, I reminded myself. The very last thing I needed or wanted. After all the trouble human women had caused me, how was it possible that one occupied my thoughts like Sienna did?

I clenched my teeth as I stared down at her, the urge to fist my hands in her wild hair almost uncontrollable. I would have to lie, as distasteful as that was to me.

“I learned something from your planet’s ministers. Something that made me realize that I need to work harder to ready your people for impending war.”

Sienna’s mouth opened slightly. She hadn’t been expecting me to say that. “What do you mean war? Kimithion III has always been a peaceful planet. We’re too small and insignificant to pose any threat to the empire.”

I stepped away from her and leaned my back on the nearest wall. “Your planet’s effect on living creatures isn’t insignificant. Immortality would give the Zagrath something that would make their empire almost invincible.”

She sunk onto my stiff couch. “I don’t understand. Why are we in danger now? The planet has always been like this, and it’s always been a secret we kept easily.”

“It’s why your people don’t travel off-world, or encourage interaction with other species, isn’t it? And why your supply deliveries are so limited?”

The female nodded. “The Kimitherian in charge of accepting supply deliveries changes every few years, so no one making deliveries can notice that he doesn’t age.”

I nodded. It made sense. The Vandar awareness of Kimithion III had been limited before my horde reached out to them about accepting an exile.

“But the damage was already done,” I whispered to myself.

“What damage?” Sienna asked, popping back up to her feet. “What are you talking about?”

I straightened, shaking my head. “I probably shouldn’t tell you all the details, but the empire knows more about your planet than they should. They’re sending a ship here, and I suspect it’s a scouting mission so they can determine if the intel is accurate.”

“The Zagrath are coming here?” Her flushed cheeks paled.

I grunted. “Trust me, I’m not happy about it, either. It would be a coup for an imperial soldier to locate a lone Vandar and take him prisoner. As much as I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on Kimithion III, I want to spend it in a Zagrath brig even less.”

She sized me up, her gaze darting around. “We should hide you. I know some spots the empire would never find, places most Kimitherians don’t even know about.”

I straightened and put my hands on her shoulders. “I have no intention of hiding from the empire.”

“But if they find you and take you—“

I placed one finger over her rapidly moving lips. “I also have no intention of letting the empire gather information about your planet, or taking me with them.”

She swatted my hand away and glared at me. “How? How are you going to stop all these things from happening? You’re one Vandar and they’re,” she waved a hand in the air, “the empire that controls most of the galaxy.”

Her voice had grown louder as she’d gotten more worked up, and I was grateful that the living quarters were built into the rock and had thick, stone walls separating them. The only drawback were the triangular windows that had no panes. The thin fabric hanging over them prevented others from peering in, but did little to muffle sound.

This time I put a finger to my own lips and stepped so close that our bodies almost touched. “Do you wish to wake the entire village?”

Her fierce expression relaxed, although her cheeks were still an alluring shade of pink. “No, of course not. But you still haven’t explained how you plan to save us and yourself or what any of this has to do with you standing me up.”

“I did not stand you up on purpose,” I lied. “I was busy devising a battle plan and lost track of time.”

Now her eyes sparked with interest. “A battle plan? Like the ones you made for the Vandar as their battle chief?”

“You remember I was battle chief?”

The pink in her cheeks deepened, and she twitched one shoulder. “Of course I remembered. I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.”

My throat constricted as I gazed down at her. She might be a human female, but she was unlike any I’d encountered. As much as I knew an attachment to a female was a bad idea, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from falling for her.

“It is too dangerous for me to continue to meet you now that the empire is coming.” I rested a hand on her