Lost Star by Hawke, Morgan (digital book reader .TXT) 📕

I am that you chose to remain among the living.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I could feel, in here”—

he pressed a palm over his chest—“that you still existed.” He turned to face Ravnos.

“But it is not the same as having you before my eyes.”

For one entire breath, Ravnos stared at the man who haunted his dreams, the one man who could destroy him, who would destroy him and everything he’d worked so hard to gain…and seriously considered letting him do just that. He forced his gaze away. I can’t give in like this. I won’t!

But he wanted to so badly, his entire body ached with the urge.

Ravnos dropped his gaze to the floor before him. “I found a reason to keep breathing.” Moribund’s destruction…

Seht’s voice dropped to a soft whisper. “Syrhus told me that too much time had passed, that if you still lived, you would be entirely feral.”

Feral? Ravnos snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.” Especially when you consider my kill record of Moribund ships.

At his back, Seht’s hands tightened into fists. “He told me that if I found you, you would not come back to me willingly.”

Pain stabbed straight through Ravnos’s heart. He clenched his teeth, determined to ignore the savage ache from the gaping wound in his heart where his need for Seht continued to bleed. “Syrhus is right.” He looked Seht square in the eye and tightened his jaw. “I’m not a scrawny kid in need of rescue anymore.”

Seht snorted and shook his head. “No, scrawny is not how I would describe you at the moment.”

Ravnos smiled. “That’s nice to know.” The tiniest hint of crushingly expensive cologne and designer hydraulic fluid drifted to Ravnos’s nose. He stiffened, every hair on his body lifting in alarm. He took a deeper breath through his nose. The scent was unmistakable. Admiral Moraine—Moribund—was somewhere in the corridor ahead of them.

Seht turned sharply to look at Ravnos. “What is it?”

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Ravnos dropped his voice to a subvocal whisper. “Someone that does not need to see us together.” He grabbed Seht by the arm and dragged him to the right and the closest door. Reaching into the broad cuff of his coat sleeve, he pulled out a slender card and unwound the tiny wiretap. With the speed of long experience, he plugged the tap into the jack in the base of his skull, shoved the card into the door’s reader, and slammed his personal lock-break code into the card.

Seht blinked, then smiled, showing a hint of his long fangs. “An electronic lockpick. Clever.”

Ravnos flashed him a grin. “Merely practical.”

The door clicked softly and slid to the right into the wall. Before them was a darkened room filled with long rows of electronic file stations. A broad smoked-glass desk occupied the back of the room under a tall window shielded from the sun by dark, reflective blinds.

Ravnos’s brows lifted. Apparently, they were in some sort of records room. He pressed Seht before him and into the room, then turned and hit the door panel just inside to close the door and lock it.

Seht strolled farther into the room and looked about. “Who is it we are avoiding?”

Ravnos extracted the jack and rolled it up with card. “Admiral Moraine of the Imperial fleet.”

Seht turned to lean back against the desk and frowned at him. “So?”

Ravnos’s jaw tightened, and he spoke in a subvocal whisper. “Also known as Moribund.”

Seht’s eyes widened. “Blood and Night…”

The sound of multiple heavy footsteps carried through the door.

Ravnos stiffened. What? Did he bring a small army or something? Stepping as lightly as possible, he backed away from the door, moving deeper into the shadowed room.

The backs of his knees came in contact with the smoked-glass desk.

Seht’s hand closed on his shoulder.

Ravnos turned and eyed the prince. He didn’t know what kind of detection equipment Moraine had with him, but the most basic of marine-class cyborg sensors could read how many people occupied a room that wasn’t shielded against them. There was no way in hell that even the lowest-ranking cyborg out there wouldn’t detect them; anything less would be than highly suspicious.

The corners of Seht’s mouth lifted into a thoroughly lascivious smile. He took a step forward from the desk and pressed the ornate clasp of his fur-collared cloak. It opened under his fingers, letting the shimmering, dark material fall to his ankles. He reached for the gleaming sword-belt around his hips and unbuckled it. The belt and sword joined the cloak on the floor. He grabbed the wrist clasps of his gauntlets, unfastened them, then yanked the gloves off, letting them fall to the pool of fabric at his feet.

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Ravnos stared, wide-eyed. For all intents and purposes, it looked as though Seht was getting undressed.

Seht winked and spoke on the subvocal level. “Clearly we are being spied upon.

Shall we give them something worth observing?” He unfastened the shoulder clasps of his shimmering black body armor, letting the upper arm rerebraces and the attached lower arm vambraces fall away. He lifted his fingers to his neck and released the fastenings down the side of his chest armor one by one. The armor opened, revealing a skintight, semitransparent shirt of iridescent black that did nothing to hide the rippling muscles beneath it. He peeled his chest armor away and dropped it. The musky perfume of raw lust rolled from his body.

The sight and scent went straight to Ravnos’s already straining groin. He tugged his sword-belt open, practically throwing it from him, yanked off his belt sash, and jerked at his coat buttons, ripping a few off in his haste. His armored coat dropped to the floor with a heavy thump. He yanked at the bow on his cravat, practically shredding the material from his throat. His didn’t bother to unbutton his waistcoat; he ripped it apart, the silver buttons flying everywhere.

Seht grinned openly, baring his long fangs,