Pleasure Raiders [Anthology]

220 Pages·2016·1.42 MB·English

by  Kingston Katherine

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Pleasure Raiders

ISBN # 1-4199-0374-8
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Checkmate Copyright© 2005 Katherine Kingston
Concubine’s Revenge Copyright© 2005 Arianna Hart
Crash Course Copyright© 2005 Dawn Madigan
Edited by: Briana St. James and Heather Osborn.
Cover art by: Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: November 2005

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written
permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-
3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales
is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Warning:

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Pleasure Raiders has
been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-
rotic), and X (X-treme).

S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall
word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find
objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated
titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as
“fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles,
stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.
PLEASURE RAIDERS

CHECKMATE

by Katherine Kingston

CONCUBINE’S REVENGE

by Arianna Hart

CRASH COURSE

by Dawn Madigan
CHECKMATE
Katherine Kingston
Checkmate
Chapter One

“Captain, we have a problem!”
Devonne sighed. Without taking her eyes or attention from the viewscreen port, she
asked the Personal Care Droid, “What now?”
“A seam has come loose in your only remaining dress uniform.” The PCD made an
annoying huffy sound before adding, “And the refresher just tore a button off it.”
Devonne made a mental note to get the programming adjusted to remove that
huffing noise from the droid’s speech system. “Fix it.”
“Captain, I beg your attention. Those seams have been—”
“Captain?” Another voice cut through the droid’s complaint. The combination of
surprise, alarm and doubt in the single word warned Devonne that fate was about to
throw a monkey wrench into their carefully worked out plans.
Ignoring the PCD, which continued to babble on about clothes, she turned to face
her first mate. Reed stared at a screen in front of him. “What have you got?” she asked.
He frowned and tugged on his earlobe. “If I didn’t… I swear it looks like someone
had the same idea as us and got to the Denogrenian ship first.”
“What?” She spoke so loudly it startled the two other crew members in the room
into looking up from their panels.
Reed pointed to the screen that showed two blinking blips. Devonne studied the
data readouts. “Magnify.”
Reed pulled the direct link from his face and disconnected it from the panel.
Devonne repeated her order to magnify the display.
Sure enough, another smaller blip clearly approached the large blip that
represented their target. A wavery yellow line shot out between them.
“Damnation!” Devonne clenched her fists and clamped her lips shut. She wanted to
scream her frustration as she watched the evidence of a tractor beam hauling her prize
toward a rival. When she reclaimed some measure of control, she said, “Identify
secondary target.” She already knew but needed to hear it confirmed anyway.
“Identifying,” the computer’s soothing male voice responded. “Target identified as
KCS Fool’s Quest, registered out of Kalima, Prox G-04, number 668940435453545435. No
official standing listed.”
“What the hell is he doing here? Damn. Shit! No official standing, indeed.”
“Captain?” SueBelle, the newest member of the crew, looked up at her, eyebrows
raised.
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Katherine Kingston
“Reginald Jameson Jernigan. Commonly known as Raje. Or Prince Reginald. The
son of a bitch.”
“You know him?”
“For my sins.”
“How?” Navigation Officer SueBelle asked.
Reed spoke at the same time. “What’s he doing?”
“Beating us to the prize.” Devonne’s fists clenched again. “But why? I thought he
was out of the game. Unless he had another fight with his uncle. But even then…”
She needed this cargo. Her exiled clan, now more than five hundred strong, was
hidden in an obscure corner of an even more obscure planet and rapidly outgrowing
their hiding place. They needed a bargaining chip to finally gain a place where they
could settle permanently. Interstellar piracy had a limited life span and she had neared
the end of it. This was her grand finale, her swan song, the move that would end her life
of crime and let her retire in peace. She wasn’t about to give it up to an arrogant jerk
who viewed life as a game and stolen cargoes as his ticket to personal wealth and
power.
“I’m not going to let this go. CC, can you calculate the combined mass of both those
ships?”
“Can do, Captain,” the ship said.
Reed threw her an incredulous look. “You can’t be thinking of trying to snag both
of them?”
“Why can’t I?”
“You’re going to play chicken with him?”
“Why not?”
The computer came back and gave an answer. The number wasn’t as low as she’d
hoped, but it might still be possible.
“That’s why,” Reed said. “I know all the reasons you don’t want to lose this one,
but still… Why not wait until he releases…never mind. He can still run faster, can’t
he?”
“CC, how much acceleration can we generate if we divert every bit of power to the
engines?”
“Including life support systems, Captain?”
“Everything but critical systems.”
The rest of her crew, SueBelle, Reed and Nathan, looked at her as though they
feared she’d lost a critical neural system or two herself.
The computer’s answer came a few seconds later and gave her pause. It might be
enough. If… “How long can we maintain that level and still have enough fuel to get
back to Esketan Station?”
“With present fuel levels, a maximum of thirty-six hours.”
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Checkmate
“Captain, you can’t mean to try to hold them both!” Reed challenged.
She gave him her sharpest, sternest look. “I don’t mean to try. I’m going to do it.
Reed, take us in just the way we’d planned. Nathan, prepare to activate tractor beam as
soon as we decloak. SueBelle, fine-tune position coordinates to give us maximum
grapple on both ships.”
They trusted her enough to follow her commands. She’d taken a few strange
gambles before and they’d paid off. She hoped she could do it again one last time.
* * * * *
They’d just decloaked and were preparing to activate the tractor beam when the
computer announced, “Incoming message. Marked ‘Urgent’.”
“Source?” SueBelle asked, without looking at the display or lifting her hands from
the controls.
“KCS Fool’s Quest.”
They all looked up at that.
“Open channel,” Devonne said.
“Video link requested,” the computer announced.
“Open video link.”
A man’s face appeared on the screen at the side of the cockpit. Without greeting or
any other polite pleasantries, he said, “Devonne, what the hell do you think you’re
doing?”
She stared at the figure on-screen, looking for changes wrought by the six months
since she’d last seen him. She didn’t find any. His hair was still as black, his face just as
strongly chiseled, his mouth hard and sensual, cheekbones high and sharp. His eyes
were still that strange light yellow-green color. She expected anger, but instead his
expression looked more amused.
“Greetings to you, too, Raje,” she said. “Or should I say, ‘Your Highness’? It’s been
a while since we last met.”
“Nearly six months,” he snapped back. “And you don’t appear to have developed
any more sense in the interim.”
“You always did say the nicest things to me.”
“Can it, Dev. What’s going on here?”
“You can’t guess? You used to be smarter than that, Raje. And, by the way, why are
you here? I thought you’d gone respectable, Your Highness.”
He ignored the last part of her question. “Okay, it’s not the ‘what’ it’s the ‘why’?”
“Which part of ‘Royal Denogrenian Treasure’ don’t you understand?”
He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. “The part where you think
you can take it away by holding both the Denogrenian ship and mine in trac.”
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Katherine Kingston
“Thirty hours. I can hold it for thirty hours. About how long it will take a fleet of
Denogrenian warships to get here.”
He looked startled. “Then we both go down.”
“Right. Want to talk about it? The thing is, I have nothing left to lose, and you do.”
“Ridiculous. If you don’t care about your own life and freedom, what about your
crew?”
He had her there and they both knew it.
Amazingly it was SueBelle who spoke up first. “We’re with Captain Devonne all
the way.” Reed and Nathan nodded agreement.
“Devonne, this is ridiculous,” he said. “Will you meet me to talk about it?”
“Just talk?”
His black eyebrows rose. “I’m open to all sorts of…communication. But whatever
you want.”
She ignored the suggestion in the words. At least she tried to ignore it. But his deep,
sexy voice slipped past all her defenses and worked its way into her blood, warming it,
making her too aware of him. Worse yet, he was doing it deliberately, putting in that
low gravelly rumble, because he knew what it did to her. Her body remembered what
the rest of her wanted to forget. The familiar low pressure began to gather. Damn it.
“I want the Denogrenian ship.” It came out a bit sharper than she intended,
betraying the emotions roiling through her.
“Hmmm… That is a bit of a problem. I want it, too. And I got to it first.”
“But I’m getting to it last. And while you may have it, you’re stuck here until I
decide to let go.”
“But you are as well,” he pointed out. “Stalemate, Devonne. Let’s talk about it.”
“Permission to board extended, Your Highness,” she said. “But come alone.”
“Of course. I figured you’d want me all to yourself.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she growled, annoyed because her heart was thumping too
hard and her hands were shaking.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He signed off.
“Wowza.” SueBelle’s stare mixed admiration with envy. “If you don’t want to keep
him, can I have him? All that sexy good-looking man and he’s a prince to boot?”
“You don’t want him. He’s an arrogant jerk.”
SueBelle shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”
The PCD droid came over and said, “Captain, you must dress appropriately to
welcome the Gambrian First Heir and commander of Fool’s Quest. Please come and
change. I’ll have the seam repaired quickly.”
Devonne sighed. The droid was right. “Go fix the seam. I’ll be there in a moment.”
8
Checkmate
She waited a moment to be sure no hitches would arise, but it appeared the trac
hold was stable. She slowly made her way back to her cabin, unable to contain the
memories Raje brought.
* * * * *
Two Years Previous

The marooned, sentient flotsam of a dozen or more worlds crowded into the cozy
bar. Its location next to the most discreet and therefore expensive unofficial repair
dump for space-going vessels ensured it had steady business. As usual, the smell in the
bar nearly knocked her down when she entered. After several years of sporadic
patronage she shouldn’t be startled by it. But the aromas of bodies from various planets,
beverages from even more different corners of the universe, and several kinds of smoke
drifting on the air combined into a reek so strong it had nearly physical force. By the
time she’d settled down with her first drink she wouldn’t notice it anymore, and she’d
forget all about it before the night ended, until the next time she came and it caught her
again.
Devonne made her way through a cloud of smoke so dense it obscured the far end
of the room. It stung her eyes and nose and left a bad taste in the back of her throat.
When she reached the bar, she had to squint to see at all. She found a pair of open stools
and climbed aboard the one next to a Vingistian of indeterminate gender. They had no
interest in contact with humans except to trade for tobacco and alcohol.
Unfortunately a man, human from the appearance of his hands, walked up within
moments and took the other open stool.
Not too surprisingly, the panel directly in front of her didn’t work. She looked for
the barkeep.
“Gin,” she told the critter, when he extended a tentacle to ask. She would actually
have preferred beer but even if you asked for a name brand, the result was often
problematic.
“Taking the safe route?” the man on the next stool asked.
Devonne shrugged, hoping that would discourage him. For good measure she
added, “I generally do.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” The wry humor and sexy undertone in the words made
her turn for a better look at him.
Through the dim light, further obscured by the smoke and tearing it caused, she
saw a shadowy human form. The masculine face appeared to be comprised of lean,
beautifully molded lines and sharp features. The eyes were light, but she couldn’t tell
their color.
“Why?” she asked, curiosity trumping caution.
“You’re in here, aren’t you?”
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Katherine Kingston
“I said generally.”
“This is one of your occasional exceptions?”
It was anything but chilly in the bar so that couldn’t account for the shaking of her
hand as she picked up the mug the barkeep slid toward her. The man’s voice was deep
and a bit rough. Nothing about the words had any sexual edge, nor did his tone,
exactly. But the combination washed over her like a touch running from her throat to
her groin.
She hadn’t had a man in way too long.
Was this one a possibility? She glanced at him again and took in the lines of his face.
Lean, sharp, very attractive. Did she want him to be a candidate, though? She preferred
a series of old acquaintances where she knew what she’d be getting, but she hadn’t run
into any of them in months.
“My adventurous side is on the loose tonight.”
Oh, dear skies, had she really said that? The words had slipped out while she was
still considering a response. She couldn’t have made the invitation much more blatant.
He didn’t react in any way she could read. His expression didn’t change and all he
said was, “Except when it comes to the drinks.”
“Adventurous isn’t the same as stupid. I put the line right between ‘tastes bad’ and
‘makes me ill’.”
He laughed lightly and the sound rolled over her bare skin like a warm, tingly
shower. It felt as though every nerve ending in her body stopped for a moment to pay
attention, then buzzed in reaction.
“What do you do with ‘tastes good and makes me ill’?” he asked.
“The most dangerous trap of all. I avoid it whenever I can recognize it.”
“What about ‘tastes bad and doesn’t make me ill’?”
“What’s the point?” she said.
“True. But that limits you to ‘tastes good and doesn’t make me ill’?”
“There’s something wrong with that?”
“How do you know in advance? Or do you just keep to what you do know?”
“I told you I generally played it safe.”
“But not tonight.” He tapped the panel in front of him. “I’m taking the liberty of
ordering another gin for you.”
“What are you drinking?” she asked.
“Synthlan beer. I’m in a reckless groove tonight.”
“Uh-oh. Maybe I’d better get out of your way.”
“Why?” He took the beer and gin from the split tentacle that stretched toward him
holding the glasses, and passed the gin on to her. “Which part did I fail? Tastes bad or
makes you ill?”
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