Punished, Tana Stone [top reads .txt] 📗

brains out to talk about the future, or if Corvak still intended to leave the planet. We hadn’t even talked about what we were doing or where it was going—not that I’d cared. I’d been too swept up in my infatuation to think about anything as practical as what would happen if and when Corvak decided to leave. Would I want to go with him? Despite my anger at my sister, could I really leave her? As much as the thought of staying on Kimithion III made me cringe, the idea of leaving my younger sister alone and at the mercy of my father’s drunken temper was almost unbearable.

“She’d have to come with me,” I muttered under my breath. Then I almost laughed out loud.

Even if Corvak wanted me to go with him when he returned to his Vandar horde, I doubted he wanted my kid sister tagging along. Especially since the only females ever allowed on the hordes had been mates to the warlords. And there was no way in hell Juliette would ever take a Vandar warlord as a mate.

I sank onto my bed, all the happiness of the night with my Vandar lover slipping away as I realized more and more that he was going to leave me, and I was going to have to watch him go.

Chapter Thirty

Ch 30

Corvak

I bent over the whetstone that I’d erected in the amphitheater, scraping the blade of my battle axe across the surface, sparks spitting. There was no point in using the open air stadium to train the planet’s males anymore—at least not for hand-to-hand combat—so I’d set it up to prepare the armaments. Aside from the whetstone I’d assembled, I’d rolled the ground-to-air missile launchers into the middle of the dusty ring. Now, I needed to determine if any of the rockets in the old armory still worked.

“What’s all this?” Sienna’s voice was almost reverent as she walked up behind me.

I straightened, rubbing the ache in my lower back with one hand, and turned as she approached. “How did you get in here? I blocked off the entrance.”

She lifted one eyebrow at me and smirked. “Did you really think that would keep me out?”

She had a point. She did sneak in everywhere. “You are not the one I was hoping to keep out, anyway.” I cut my eyes to the entrance tunnel, glad that it was barricaded from all but my wily female, then closed the distance between us and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Her smiled faltered for a moment. “Miss me already, tough guy?” She slapped at my chest and ducked under my arm, walking toward the launchers. “You haven’t told me yet what these are.”

“I planned to tell you last night, but you distracted me.” I came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into me.

A throaty laugh escaped from her throat. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who did most of the distracting.”

I bent my head low, breathing in the warm skin at her neck and detecting a faint trace of sugar. My cock twitched to life at the memory of Sienna lying in my bed completely naked and covered in sugary crumbs.

She wiggled in my grasp. “Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to torture it out of you?”

“Mmmmm. I’d like to see what kinds of torture you’d devise. I also wouldn’t mind tying you up in my oblek and making you scream.” When she gave my arm a smack, I sighed. “What I’d meant to tell you last night was that your planet has a secret store of weapons.”

“What?” She rotated to face me, still in my arms. “That can’t be possible. Kimithion III is completely peaceful. Maddeningly so.”

“That’s what the natives want you to believe. Kerl told me the planet’s whole sordid past, which included a lot of bloody warfare before humans arrived. That’s why weapons were banned, and no one on the planet can fight.”

She frowned at me.

“Aside from you,” I added quickly.

She turned back to face the launchers. “So the Kimitherians have been hiding a bunch of weapons all this time?”

“Until now, it wasn’t an issue. Your society was peaceful.”

“It would have been nice if they’d told you about all this before you fought off imperial soldiers by yourself and almost got killed. So now that the empire is probably going to come back with reinforcements, Kerl showed you the secret stash?”

“Yes. He believes the time has come to use force to defend Kimithion III, especially if no one answers our distress calls.”

“Distress calls?” She whirled around, her eyes wide. “Is your horde returning?”

“Not my horde. They are no doubt far away by now. But there are others who patrol this sector and despise the empire. Although it is rare for a Vandar horde to fight alongside others, we have occasionally joined with the Valox resistance, and even bounty hunters.”

She bit the corner of her lower lip. “Does that mean if those ships arrive, you’ll leave?”

I opened my mouth to tell her that wasn’t my plan, but then I stopped. That statement wouldn’t be honest. If a resistance ship came to our aid, I would be sorely tempted to leave Kimithion III and join them. It would bring me one step closer to reuniting with a Vandar horde, and that was my ultimate goal. “I don’t know.”

She nodded curtly, turning from me and striding over to one of the surface-to-air missile stands. She dragged one hand along the tarnished metal that was mottled with iridescent shades of blue and pink.

My gut clenched as I watched her, but I tried to shake it off. Sienna had always known of my plan. She’d been the only one to know. “My life has never been on this planet. You know that. I was always honest with you about wishing to leave. The reason I agreed to teach you was in exchange for helping me escape.”

She nodded but