MetalMark

By Ella Drake

Prince to a dying planet, Lye the Keeper has made a deal with the devil. For the price of his blood, the Drianti Syndicate offer a seat on their council...and put the end to their decade-long occupation of his planet within his grasp. Working with the Syndicate feels like betraying everything he's worked for these last ten years, but it pales in comparison to the pain of his monthly mating imperative.

The red-haired temptress who lands in his path holds the key to Lye's freedom--and an end to his pain--but the price is too high. Touching her would defile the royal line that ends with him. The lure to possess her, however, proves irresistible.

Privateer Jazzelina Eval will do anything to bring down the Syndicate, anything from robbing spaceships to kidnapping a prince. Anything but settle down and give up the revenge game. Or bed a mark who's made a deal with her enemy. But once she has Lye in her hands, she can't let him go...even if the price of keeping him is war.

WARNING: Explicit content, exploding space ships, and creepy biomechanical bugs

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ella Drake
• Release date: Dec 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386394303

Ella Drake

As a child Ella read books under the covers with a flashlight. There she found a special love of elves, dragons, and knights. Now that she's found her own knight in shining armor and happily ever after, she loves to write tales of fantasy, hot enough to scorch the sheets. No flashlight needed.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Time to get this over with.

Ignoring the sick feeling in his gut, he activated the signalcast device that was—after a decade—still unfamiliar to him. His fingers drummed against the console, but he didn’t have to wait long.

Prince Lye, the disembodied voice answered immediately. Someone always did, though he knew they didn’t sit by their communications console anxiously awaiting his decision. Do we have an agreement?

My blood samples in exchange for a seat in the Syndicate. Their words didn’t carry emotion over the signalcast. Emulating that tone, he’d perfected the flattened response that still carried command. I’ll go to the hospital lab, but only after assurances.

We’ve left you to your own autonomy. But now, without that sample, we cannot continue to negotiate the freedom of your people.

A year ago, when they’d first approached him to join, he’d resisted. After so many years of near-solitude and simmering resentment, a missive had been delivered to his doorstep. Just the appearance of the parchment, innocently tucked into the heavy front door, had made him suspicious.

The request was simple. Voluntarily provide a sample of his blood and he’d be given an honored position in the Syndicate. He’d be a ruler of his own planet. Then he’d gotten a communication over the console. Bile had risen in his throat and he’d found he couldn’t cooperate. It would taint him through and through, from the tips of his hair to his feet. Long months of constant contact had followed.

He’d finally conceded that he’d have to talk to the group who’d ruined his people, his family, himself. He should have hated them, but he had no energy for it while he spent so much time trying not to hate himself for listening to their proposals, plans, the false diplomacy.

Relations evolved, but the Syndicate had never indicated why they paid attention to his small planet again. Until then, they’d simply ignored the royal house of Brutus.

I wish to join your Syndicate. The words nearly dried the spit in his mouth, but he said them convincingly, with regal flair. The Syndicate wouldn’t give his people freedom, but he’d take the risk he could do something for them. As it’d stood for the first nine years, he’d held no sway. It took me some time to come to this decision. One shouldn’t take things too quickly.

Ten years is not quickly.

The Syndicate had never spoken more truth. As each second compounded, ten years crawled to a near stop, as if he’d lived a century.

Especially when that certain time came—as it did now—when every second dragged into a lifetime of torture. The amber on his chest heated. His throat tightened. A sizzle of need flashed through him. He gripped the stone and forced the hated agreement from his lips. We have a deal. You have my word.

With a desperate slap, he killed the connection and rose. Gripping the amulet, he left his office.

There was no other way. No path other than defeat.

The amulet blazed hot and he ground his teeth against the pain to come. In the growing haze, he headed for his exercise room, where he could ignore the effects of the amulet for a few blessed hours. Inside the cool room he shut the door behind him and ignored his exercise partner.

Hetta, the guard he’d requested from the Syndicate’s local overseer, sparred with him every day. This seasoned warrior never commented on what overcame Lye once a month.

Embraced by the predawn darkness, Lye let his robes fall to the floor to leave him wearing only a small wrap at his groin. Feet balanced on the exercise mat, he luxuriated in long, silent stretches to loosen his body. Hetta did the same. They never talked before sparring.

By the time the sun rose, sweat dripped in runnels down his back. He shifted to the balls of his feet and faced his enemy. In brutal, sustained strikes, he attacked Hetta, who fought back with precision.

The seven-foot-tall giant with dusky skin and dark features ducked every blow. After a decade of sparring, they’d become equal. At first Lye had landed on his ass so frequently he’d been continually bruised for two years. Now, they both wore bruises.

Time passed in silence broken by the sounds of exertion.

Only the panting of his breath rewarded him. For an hour they struck at one another, kicked, threw one another in deft lunges. Sweat coated him and his arms grew tired. Each grab slipped, but he reveled in the weariness of a good fight.

With a surge of second wind, he sliced through the air with a chop to Hetta’s neck, a kick to the taller man’s abdomen, and a roll to the side to avoid the large fist coming at his solar plexus in counter-attack.

As Lye rolled, Hetta chuckled. Good, Prince. You’re learning.

Hetta came to a crouch. Even wearing his uniform, he never conceded to the heat.

I will have learned when I take you down, my friend. Lye waved to indicate the end of the session. That’s enough, Hetta. Thank you.

Hetta inclined his head and grabbed a towel from the floor. Lye appreciated the time Hetta spent teaching him and even the time they spent after, during cool down, in small discussions. Many times, they talked of Hetta’s wife, a guard Lye saw on occasion but had never spoken with. This small slice of the Syndicate’s humanity gave Lye a scrap of hope.

Is your wife well?

Yes, thank you, your highness. The child is due in a month. The happiness in the big man’s face coated Lye with a bittersweet ache. We leave to go back to Driant soon.

And good riddance.

Hetta chuckled. I’ll find you a new sparring partner. Trust me.

I do. Lye didn’t say goodbye as Hetta left at the chime of the clock in the great hall. Lye stayed put, letting the warmth of his muscles relax him while it could, before the monthly pain grew in earnest.

A growling flutter flashed outside the window. One of the insidious insects the Syndicate had released here pinged on the clear pane.

Water from the fountain he’d installed in the third year of his planet’s occupation cooled the glass in his hand as he stood immobile. The large and bare room expanded around him. The only furniture was the mat and the bare curtain rods above the six large windows lining the outside wall. Outside, a swarm of pestilence dimmed the sky in a cloud—the source of the loud droning he’d nearly learned to block from hearing.

No matter how much he trained, he couldn’t battle those creatures darkening the sky for long minutes before they flew past. When not attached to a human, they fed on nectar, water, and other things found in nature. Almost as if they weren’t harmful. He shook his head. It was too late to try to understand.

Much too late.

With no need to clean the sweat from his body since he’d feel soiled after today’s plans, he donned his robe and headed, barefoot, out to face the day. The wooden floor chilled his feet but the sun shone through the windows and promised warmth. The exercise room, above the whiskey cellars, stayed cooler than the rest of the villa. Ignoring the growing clatter from the kitchen, where the one citizen he still employed made the sounds of meal preparation, he went to his office and shut the door, a useless gesture. The cook would leave within minutes and the villa would be as deserted as ever.

* * * *

Jazz gripped her sabre and scanned the crowd in the most popular pub on Hera Station. Nobody paid attention to her. Their interest lay in their own lives and their next pint of ale. Yet the prickling over her skin couldn’t be explained by any imminent danger.

Everything about this was wrong. Even knowing she should investigate this bit of intrigue for the Coalition didn’t quell the misgivings. It had to be a trap.

She spun mid-stride to head toward the exit.

Ms. Eval, please join me. The invitation filtered above the noise, but she almost pretended not to hear.

Sighing, she squared her shoulders and rounded the table to the seat at the wall. With a shrug, Jazz turned a chair backward, straddled it, and sat with arms crossed on the top slat. Brow cocked, she leaned toward the blackrunner, who wore a cloaking mask. A good one, too, since it never flickered but emitted a constant stream to the imaging matrix in front of his face.

The bland visual didn’t replicate emotion or features, but looked rather like one of her old dolls. She blinked. She hadn’t thought of her dolls since she was a kid. Didn’t want to think of being a kid ever again. Answering this job request had turned her into a Miss Whiney-Pants.

You are a highly recommended runner.

Her cover still held. To hell with whiney-pants.

Never had any complaints. So far, nothing out of the ordinary, but she clenched her folded arms to keep from reaching for her weapon. Well, one or two of them.

I have a proposition for you. Nothing too difficult. No danger involved.

If it needed to be said, then it couldn’t be true. She sat straight and her arms slid to her sides. She twitched, ready to draw in a blink.

The proposition? While she talked, she scanned the crowd. Still the same, no one paid particular attention to them.

Easy. I need a man transported. Nothing to it.

* * * *

Nothing to it, Jazz grumbled.

Soon as she got back onboard, she’d beeline to the sanie to get the cruddy feeling off her. And she needed her mech boots. Nothing said don’t mess with me more than those. This acting like a law-abiding citizen was for the landlubbers.

Hera Station, like all others—a mess of metal corridors and grease-stained spacers clogging her path—made her uneasy. Staying in one place too long, also for the landlubbers.

The dock crawled with mechanics, freight carriers, and uniformed crewmen. This particular station catered to the wealthy, here to spend their money on pleasures of the flesh. Her ship stood out from the rest, with her crew in their scruffy clothes, the ship streaked with laser-fire scorch marks, and the cursing ship-cleaners who chipped at the bottom hull.

You take better care of your ship, you. One of the little guys in yellow gave an ornery frown. In a jumper that’d been crisp and clean only hours ago when they’d docked, the wizened man glowered at her beneath a mop of silver.

It’s only space burnakles. Jazz ruffled the dockworker’s hair, easy to do when he only came up to her chest. He stared at her cleavage, revealed slightly by her brown cloak, and turned red over every bit of visible flesh.

Well, you. The hull, he sputtered.

Striding forward, Rolf interrupted with a deep laugh. He’s trying to tell you these critters will eat through the hull if you don’t get them scraped.

We’ve never had a problem. Why do people insist these bugs can actually chew through a hull? It’s an old wives’ tale. They just corrode the paint.

She sighed. The little guys in yellow waved and gestured, brandishing their tools to pry off the critters. All that work and all they’d do was scratch the surface to remove harmless arthropods. She shrugged. The burnakles would scorch the paint anyway, when they burned to crisp during atmo-entry.

Rolf, get geared up. We’re outta here.

Rolf, dark blond hair mussed, finished zipping his flight suit. Already?

You and Tami can light up your sheets with your undying love once we undock. Can’t you keep it zipped long enough to get us underway?

Her pilot yawned his response and sauntered through the milling crew and up the gangplank.

Jazz shook her head. Rolf was good to look at, a hell of a pilot, but he needed coaxing and urging to exert himself—at least, when he had a steady lay to keep him up...in every sense of the word. She had no idea how Tami dealt with him. Still, she supposed that was part of his charm. He was a steady lay. He didn’t troll the bars looking for hookups but kept to whoever was warming his bunk until the shine wore off and they moved on. She shrugged. That wasn’t what she looked for in a hookup. At all.

After a tour around the ship, shooing away the muttering cleaners scraping the hull, she finally stood at the bottom of the gangplank. She took a deep breath and hesitated.

This had to be some trap. But she was sure her cover held. Logically, it couldn’t be. To top it off, the Syndicate had to be behind it. Walking away wasn’t an option. Everything she was, everything she did, was for moments like this, when she could ferret out the Syndicate and make them pay. She’d follow through.

All she had to do was find one man.

Easy.

Chapter 2

This planet has a parasite problem. Jazz slammed the periscope back into its home cylinder in the ceiling of the bridge.

Didn’t think you had trouble with suckers, Jazz. We just had this discussion, and you’ve shucked more than your fair share of burnakles from the hull. Well, your fair share until we decided not to bother anymore. Rolf ran a hand through his hair and sat forward to read their position on the nav screen. What planet are we hitting next?

Don’t let your job interrupt your sleep or anything. Didn’t you hear a thing at the last crew meeting? Don’t want to miss the details of the latest Drianti shipment or money-grubbing scheme.

We have crew meetings? Rolf yawned, leaned back in the specially molded chair, and closed his eyes. It’s always the same, Capt’n. We see a Drianti. We board a Drianti. We rob ’em blind and go on our way.

Jazz gave an exasperated huff, blowing her hair out of her face, and adjusted the shock sabre at her side. Rolf may have spoken the truth, but that truth still meant everything to her. Everything.

We’ve got a job to do. And we have to set down on that little yellow planet you could see on your screen if you opened your eyes to do your job. Alone with her pilot on the bridge, Jazz calculated the time to entry point. She’d order the crew to stations in thirty.

Tami had me up late last night, Rolf grumbled, but he straightened, scratched his incoming scruffy goatee, and glared at the screen. Yep. It’s yellow.

That’s the planet Brutus.

Brutus? Rolf’s blue eyes rounded.

I see that got your attention.

What’s worth stealing from here? The Syndicate has this planet locked up tighter than a spacetick. Citizens are mind-controlled. Bribes won’t work. No help, no recreational visits for the randy below-deck sailors.

Jazz resisted the urge to slap the top of Rolf’s head with her shock sabre. We’ve faced worse before.

Like I said, what’s worth the trouble? The fake landing papers alone had to be worth my entire yearly take. And fighting off those MetalMark bugs... Rolf visibly shuddered. And what about the Syndicate, they supposedly let those things out of the box down there.

The Coalition sent a demand that the Syndicate no longer interfere with Brutus. Sent a Liaison to watch over it. Jazz put her hands on her hips and stared at the planet below them. Something is going on and we’re in position to find out what.

Rolf snorted.

That the Syndicate would comply was as realistic as Jazz giving up her revenge. Rolf leaned back farther in his pilot’s seat. I’ll stay aboard for this one, whatever it is.

We’ve been asked to retrieve the last uncorrupted indigenous Brutusian.

Rolf’s eyes would bug out of his head if they widened any farther. Don’t you draw the line at anything, Captain?

Well, turns out I do. Jazz’s disgust at herself soured her stomach. I apparently draw the line at kidnapping the long lost Prince of Brutus.

* * * *

The Lady, a reliable privateer ship that struck fear in the hearts of Drianti commerce vessels, settled into orbit of Brutus. Her signature blared the ident Nova Surfer, but a visual would give her away as the greatest corsair in the galaxy.

They stayed in orbit. All the while, Jazz worried over what she knew about MetalMarks, which was little. A living technology first used on Hera Station, they kept pleasure slaves pliable. Rumor had it they’d been set loose on a planet, not for pleasure, but for control. That planet looked to be Brutus. Stories ran rampant, but a reliable source had never corroborated them. Now she’d see for herself.

Two days above the small yellow planet stretched the crew’s nerves. Every second risked discovery. Jazz sat at the signalcast console drumming her fingers and, for one last time, tried to convince Landing Control to give clearance. The frustrating bureaucracy was headed by the Coalition-appointed Liaison of Brutus. They shouldn’t have stonewalled over her Coalition-vetted cover. You have my credentials. Why not open the security net and allow us to dock?

We need your authorization, answered the security officer from his station on the ground.

Without a good riddance, Jazz flipped off the signalcast and paced to the bridge. Her diplomat/supply officer/fence, Karen Tagamont, a.k.a. Shifty, read through the mission data collected since accepting the commission for this job, the one she shouldn’t have taken.

The mystery of the Brutus Prince had never mattered to her, but now that she’d been given a shot at him, she had to go down to the yellow planet. It reminded her too much of what had happened on the now-dead planet Nadir. Several years ago, the Syndicate had coerced the minimal-tech society into buying the Syndicate’s advanced weaponry. Nadir’s citizens had destroyed themselves, and the Syndicate took the planet as if it were un-populated. They now mined the rich source of Meltizine found there. That'd been the incident to tip the Coalition into finally admitting they faced war with the Drianti Syndicate.

Still, her revenge took precedence over any information-gathering for the Coalition. This prince shouldn’t have mattered more than foiling the Syndicate’s plans, whatever they were, and yet she found she wanted to figure out how to help him. Help his planet. Help a victim of the Syndicate. Her conscience had picked a strange time to rise from the dead.

The decision to come to Brutus put them in immediate danger. If the Syndicate blackrunner who’d hired her had known she captained The Lady, she’d have gotten a blast to the head. No questions.

The Drianti Syndicate was the scourge of the universe. Peddlers in black tech, illegal DNA mods, inhumane implantation operations, and flesh trade—if it reeked of depravity and greed, the Syndicate was behind it. Several of the stronger planets had come together and formed the Coalition of Colonies and from there made steps to deal with the Syndicate. So far, the Coalition hadn’t made an aggressive move. Jazz sent all she could their way, stealing money and evidence to give to