Genetically engineered for a single function, to breed, Camille has followed the rules and accepted the Goddess’s will as explained by the elders all her life.
After artificial insemination fails, she gathers her courage, traveling to distant New Eden to try in-person breeding. When her matches fail to appear, the meek little breeder rebels, determined to leave the Goddess-forsaken world behind her as fast as the next ship home can make the jump to subspace.
Aegis exists only to fulfill his vow to avenge the death of his parents by a Baldorean blood mage. Not even the forbidden desire for Jaxon interferes with his quest. But contact with a breeder threatens everything he holds sacred.
For four years, Jaxon dreamed of tri-bond with Aegis. Isolated by hostilities in the endless war with Baldor, he’s trapped in the close quarters of their fighter with Aegis and Cami, his most secret dream come true. But instead of bliss, he finds himself plunged into a battle with prejudice, doubts, and jealousy.
Cami travels halfway across the universe, survives brutal rejection, humiliation and a firefight. Stranded with two fierce warriors, not even a broken heart will make her quit until she has the sperm she needs.
Visit Evanne at
http://evannelorraine.com/
Purchase Camill'es Capture here:
http://www.loose-id.com/Camilles-Capture.aspx
Excerpt:
Jaxon snapped on the control harness, dropped the forward shields, and pulled the trigger before the system even registered his control. “Come on. Come on, baby. We ain’t got all day,” he muttered under his breath, coaxing the fighter’s system to respond.
A weapon indicator blinked green. He had a lock. The forward blaster spit death at the Baldorean ship angling for a kill shot. In the instant after firing, he thumbed the forward shields up. Just in time to repel the blast the enemy fighter discharged.
He silently whooped as his shot rammed through in the tiny fraction of time before the other pilot raised his defenses. The enemy craft was annihilated.
“Nice one,” Aegis, his copilot, called from the tail chair.
Two more enemy ships dove into range. Jaxon engaged top thrusters to drop below the incoming fighters. Aiming straight up, he fired belly shots. The first enemy fighter flamed out, but the second ship angled to ninety degrees, evading his blast. The enemy fired two quick shots. Then he dropped out of range.
“Damn! I missed. Got him?” Jaxon yanked his
duranium-powered blaster back to level, already sighting in on the next enemy craft.
“The enemy flies within my reach,” Aegis snarled. His copilot’s harsh words were punctuated by muffled plops as the tail blaster fired.
From the edge of his vision, Jaxon saw the Baldorean craft’s hull ripple before the ship exploded in a flare of light. Three more fighters, one of theirs and two of the enemy’s, met the same fate before the Baldoreans retreated. The squad leader issued the order for them to fall back, which meant they were out of the fighting for the next hour.
Jaxon took his time unsnapping his harness and levering out of the weapon chair. The loss of one of their fighters soured the sweet taste of victory. When he stepped into the main cabin, the ship was on autopilot and Aegis was in the sanitizer. Good. Jaxon didn’t need to spend more time eyeballing his best bud’s tight ass and mooning about a hopeless fantasy of sharing a mate with the warrior.
The stubborn dream had sprung to life the first time he’d heard of a tri-bond, and it refused to die. After that he’d sought out all the information he could find on the sole instance of an officially sanctioned mating between two men and one woman. Each new account had given him more hope. Surely something that had happened once could happen again. If the gods favored him with a miracle, then the impossible—his forbidden craving for Aegis—would become possible. Or it would as long as he ignored the small problem of the big guy’s alien status. But his Hakanese ancestry hadn’t kept him out of the Space Corps, so maybe it wouldn’t be an issue.
Since the tri-bond was his personal fantasy, he got to make the rules, and Aegis’s Hakanese citizenship definitely wasn’t a problem for him.
After the last dogfight, he ought to be thanking the gods they’d been spared, but what he wanted was another dogfight. Fighting the stinking Baldoreans was the only time he felt like a real warrior. The only time he felt alive. The downside came when the fighting ended. Still high on the adrenaline rush, he was hornier than a spiny Anluvian in heat.
The sanitizer opened. Jaxon got busy, pretending to check his comlink for messages.
“I asked whatever gods may be to grant safe passage to Buck and Hex,” Aegis said as he finished zipping up his jumpsuit.
Jaxon kept his peepers glued to the comlink, though he couldn’t remember a single message he’d scanned. “Their fighter added to the cosmic dust?”
“Correct. This was their first rotation.”
“Damn, we only met them at last week’s briefing. They were babes, barely out of the academy.” He turned away, suddenly too aware of Aegis and too aware of how thin the line between life and death was.
“Such is too often the way.” Aegis adjusted the energy distribution between the fore and aft shields. “Your accuracy was outstanding. How many of the enemy’s Eagles did you down, three or four?”
“Yeah, something like that. You laid down some serious firepower yourself, bud. Doesn’t help the poor space jocks that lost it, though.”
Aegis didn’t reply. He raked strong fingers through his still-damp curls. The gesture was his typical mark of frustration. Suddenly Jaxon wished his hands were combing the warrior’s hair, cradling his head, forcing the big guy to accept some comfort. His fingers twitched, imagining the texture of Aegis’s curls—wet silk coating the strong bones of the man’s head.
The tops of Jaxon’s ears burned, and he jerked back from the surge of forbidden desire. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and still sounded too damn raw. “Yeah, still sucks. If you’re done with your primpin’—”
The other warrior didn’t rise to the bait. He just stood there, a picture of rugged male beauty and stoicism as he crossed his arms in front of an impressive chest and stared into the middle distance. Not for the first time, Jaxon wished he could read the big guy’s thoughts the way he could anyone else’s—a secret he’d never told anyone.
Differences weren’t prized in the corps. Perfect compliance with an impossible ideal was the standard goal for each pilot. This was why his ability to read another’s thoughts with the slightest physical contact wasn’t something he was in a big hurry to share. Besides, keeping it secret made the occasional poker night a sure thing.
It figured his special talent made absolutely no difference when it came to Aegis. His best bud was the one person he couldn’t read. Sometimes he thought that was a good thing. Most of the time, the blank wall of Aegis’s mind drove him crazy. Maybe the thought-shield thing was standard equipment for Hakanese. Aegis was the only native of that distant planet Jaxon had ever known. “I’m going to hit the san-can. Give me a shout if anything comes up, ’kay?”
“Certainly.”
Minutes later, Jaxon stared at the big jerk scowling back at him from the san unit’s mirror and mimicked himself.
Give me a shout if anything comes up, ’kay? Like what? His dick?
What in the seven hells was wrong with him? They’d been together for two service periods, almost four years. They’d logged countless hours fighting, flying, qualifying, testing, and occasionally knocking back a few Cafrimal brews.
The one thing they’d never done was fuck.
There was a damn good reason for that. A couple of great reasons, actually. Number one, Jaxon didn’t swing that way. In the couple of hundred holo-sex sessions he’d experienced, he’d always picked a lady of the light; he’d never felt the urge to try a lad of light. This made his craving for Aegis harder to understand and harder to forgive.
Number two, he was pretty sure Aegis didn’t swing that direction either. In fact, the big warrior was such a hard-ass that Jaxon wasn’t sure he indulged in anything as human as sex. Number three, and the real clincher, was same-sex humping meant instant ejection from the Space Corps and pretty much the end of everything he’d ever wanted in this life, including hangin’ out with Aegis.
Whatever his sick obsession with his best friend was about, Jaxon didn’t care. The dream of a tri-bond was just that—a pure fantasy. He wanted it gone. But that was easier wished than done, especially since he spent most of his time living with the big guy in the fighter’s cramped quarters. The craft was built for speed and killing, not room or comfort.
He stripped off his one-piece, tossed it in the cleaner, and then banged his elbow getting into the torture chamber that passed for a fighter’s shower. Sensors took care of the rest, spraying him with lukewarm water, a thin layer of sanitizing gel, followed by the final rinse, and then a slow blast of hot air. While he calmed down under the influence of the impersonal squirts and blasts, his jumpsuit underwent a similar procedure.
A clean body and clean clothes actually improved his mood. He inspected his mug without any smart-ass commentary and decided shaving was a waste of time. Tugging his mouth into a lopsided grin, he left the sanitizer.
Aegis raised an eyebrow. “You had best sit, Jaxon.”
“Why, what’s up?” Damn, he had to quit saying this kind of stuff.
“Sit first.”
Jaxon parked his ass on the edge of the console. “I’m braced. Lay it on me.” He
really needed to quit saying this kind of stuff.
“We have been matched.”
Jaxon stared at him, wondering what the punch line was. Wait a nanosec. Aegis didn’t make jokes. “
We’ve been matched?”
“We, as in you and I, have been matched by GAIS with an Earthling breeder.”
’Kay, but not to each other. Of course not. Keep breathing, idiot. “What’s the catch?” Skepticism was automatic, but he couldn’t keep new hope from flooding into his head.
A fucking tri-bond.
He shrugged. “I do not understand the communication. Since I am not eligible, the message must be an error.”
“Exactly where’d you get this hot scoop?” Jaxon narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion, trying to contain his wild rise of excitement.
“Standard galactic is not my first language, but I am competent to translate it and seven other languages, including Baldorean.”
“Sorry, bud.”
“You meant no offense.” The warrior accepted his apology with a brief nod. “The message arrived in a properly encoded hologram from headquarters. The delivery was in the same form as any other official communication. You are welcome to check the incoming queue.”
“Both of us matched to the same breeder? Beyond weird.”
Right into dream-come-true territory. “You ever heard of anything like that happening?”
“There have been no GAIS double matches to the best of my knowledge, though a tri-bond is on record.”
A thing that happened once can happen again. Jaxon’s heart beat faster just thinking about the possibility. “Yeah, I know.” He’d damn near memorized the special sanction text. “It took what? An act from the council of elders to get that tri-bond recognized. Now all of sudden, you and I get matched to the same woman? Please.” Jaxon added a manly snort, keeping his crazy hopes for an officially sanctioned three-way mating right where they belonged—in his fucked-up head.
Aegis winced. “I agree. The notification has to be in error. Aliens, whether naturalized or not, have never been included in the genetic database.”
“Damn, you know that’s not what I was talkin’ about.”
“I know,” Aegis said flatly. “She is beautiful.”
An awkward change of subject, but Jaxon jumped on it with an eager grin. “Fire up the damn display. I gotta see this woman.”
With a few commands, Aegis played the message.
The big guy hadn’t exaggerated. On a scale of one to ten, a ten being the best holo-ho Jaxon had ever dreamed up, she was a fifteen. The earthling was some kind of serious beautiful. Almost white blonde hair, hazel eyes, and creamy skin decorated a body built for breeding.
Even better, she was the official filling for an Aegis-and-him sandwich. His cock jerked hopefully against his one-piece. He ignored his hard-on and stared at the lifelike image as the woman rotated a full three sixty. She didn’t have a bad side.
The cool, faintly mechanical voice of the medi-scan computer provided catchy play-by-plays. “
Hold your breath please.” Followed by, “
Please breathe normally.” Topped off with, “
Please hold still.”
“
When can I get dressed?” The little beauty’s tone was definitely frosty. Even pissed off, her voice was sheer erotic magic. And her mouth was made for sin.
Jaxon grinned. “Never, sweetheart, never.”
“She was speaking to the medi-scan unit,” Aegis said dryly.
“I know.” Jaxon didn’t take his eyes off her naked perfection, and he didn’t even try to wipe the ass-eating grin off his mug.
Bright green letters flashed every ten seconds, announcing Jaxon Farquhar, Aegis Trykol, and Camille d’Rondeur—
match approved.
If he’d been alone, he would have replayed the message until he wore out the holo-unit or until more Baldoreans showed up, whichever came first. Since Aegis had on his stone face, Jaxon killed the display. “Even her name is beautiful—Camille. Did we get lucky or what?”
“The message is in error. I am not eligible.”
“You were naturalized, what, five years ago?”
“Seven,” Aegis corrected him flatly.
“There you go. GAIS expanded its parameters to include naturalized citizens. You just didn’t get the memo.” Jaxon kept babbling like a nervous cadet. “Hey, if they opened it up to male dominant sperm producers, they’ve got no standards. Why not Hakanese?”
The big guy didn’t laugh at his lame attempt at lightening the sitch. Instead he pushed up his sleeve and flexed an awe-inspiring bicep. “My tattoo still reads F-class, and there’s been no message informing me of change in status. Under the circumstances, it is illogical to assume the match communication is anything other than a system error.”
“I don’t care about logic. Until someone tells me different, I’m the luckiest space jock flying,” Jaxon grumbled.
His bud almost smiled. “For your sake, I hope the message is semiaccurate.”
Jaxon nodded, keeping his grin wide. “I’m going see if I can do something to boost the forward shields.”
“Nothing lost in the attempt,” Aegis said without any real conviction.
As soon as Jaxon cleared the cabin, he let go of the grin. Semiaccurate wouldn’t cut it for him. He wanted the breeder, but this was a new want. A hunger that did nothing to lessen his feelings for Aegis. Getting it on with both of them at the same time was his ultimate fantasy.
A fantasy he damn well planned to make come true.
