Raven's Crew

By Ashlynn Monroe

Telepathy sucks when your lover's nemesis is digging in your brain and picking apart your memories.

Raylin Fabian endured a lot growing up in a war-torn universe, but nothing has prepared her for the special kind of hell the Battalion's Commander, Bartholomew Tristam, has in store for her. The commander has a score to settle with her captain and lover, Sterling Tristam -- Bartholomew's brother -- and she's just a pawn for the sadistic man's revenge.

When Xever, a powerful alien lord who rules outside of the Battalion authority, offers to help her escape, she's willing to do anything, including a telepathic three-way, to save her captain. Xever promises Raylin freedom in return for the use of their bodies. He's inhabited their consciousness, but he's also linked the three of them using his own powerful psychic energies.

Somewhere in space Bartholomew Tristam, the Battalion's supreme commander, deserves every bit of their wrath, and the time for vengeance is coming...

Publisher's Note: Raven's Crew (Box Set) contains the previously published novellas Seducing the Captain, Sexy Escapes, and Sinfully Yours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Feb 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780746002407

Ashlynn Monroe

Ashlynn Monroe is a busy wife and mom. She’s been writing since she was a teenager for her own pleasure but in her thirties, she decided it was time to share her stories. She enjoys writing about anything and everything paranormal. When she is not lovingly raising her young family, she is dreaming up her next tale of romance. She’d love to hear from you at [e-mail]. Visit her website at http://ashlynnmonroe.com/ or for her YA books go to http://[e-mail]/.

Book preview

Raven’s Crew

Ashlynn Monroe

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2017 Ashlynn Monroe

Second Edition

BIN: 07460-02406

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Publisher:

Changeling Press LLC

315 N. Centre St.

Martinsburg, WV 25404

www.ChangelingPress.com

Editor: Margaret Riley

Cover Artist: Reneé George

Adult Sexual Content

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Table of Contents

Raven’s Crew

Seducing the Captain

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Sexy Escapes

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Sinfully Yours

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Epilogue

Ashlynn Monroe

Raven’s Crew

Ashlynn Monroe

Raylin Fabian endured a lot growing up in a war-torn universe, but nothing has prepared her for the special kind of hell the Battalion’s Commander, Bartholomew Tristam, has in store for her. The commander has a score to settle with her captain and lover, Sterling Tristam -- Bartholomew’s brother -- and she’s just a pawn for the sadistic man’s revenge.

When Xever, a powerful alien lord who rules outside of the Battalion authority, offers to help her escape, she’s willing to do anything, including a telepathic three-way, to save her captain. Xever promises Raylin freedom in return for the use of their bodies. He’s inhabited their consciousness, but he’s also linked the three of them using his own powerful psychic energies.

Somewhere in space Bartholomew Tristam, the Battalion’s supreme commander, deserves every bit of their wrath, and the time for vengeance is coming…

Seducing the Captain

Ashlynn Monroe

Raylin Fabian has loved Captain Sterling Tristam for ten long, lonely years. Unfortunately, he still sees her as the child he rescued so long ago, when her war-torn home world’s barbarity caught up with her once elite family of telepaths.

When Raylin’s injured, her captain makes a decision she can’t accept. She finds herself left behind on a world Tristam thinks is safe. However, there’s no place unreachable enough in the galaxy to escape the captain’s nemesis.

Caught in the crossfire between Tristam and an angry battalion commander’s ire, Raylin has but one avenue of escape -- seducing her captain. Can she convince the man she loves it’s all right to love her back?

Chapter One

Laser blasts hit the steel doors ahead of her. The reverberation made her head feel as if it might explode. Skidding to a halt, Raylin Fabian watched the metal bubble and melt where the coin-sized blasts hit. Each of the numerous deadly projectiles missed her by just inches. Thank God that traitorous bastard is such a bad shot!

She couldn’t hear her captain beside her anymore. Together they’d turned down the corridor a moment ago. Raylin paused just long enough to look for Captain Sterling Tristam, the man she’d flown with for the last decade, the only person she truly trusted. Tristam wasn’t behind her. Panic rose like bile in her throat, making it hard to breathe. Her heart pounded painfully. Raylin bit her lip, resisting the urge to scream his name. Cap wouldn’t just leave her. He was -- he was the only noble man she’d ever met in Free Space.

She turned and climbed back down the spindly metal ladder, leaving the crew quarters. The only sound was her feet against the floor as she raced down the long unlit corridor, turning again, almost making it to her destination. The sound of running brought her up short and she paused to look for some place to hide on the enemy craft. Turning again, off course and further from escape, she rushed down another hallway.

Seeing the cargo crates, Raylin rushed towards them and managed to wedge her small body in the shadows between them, obscuring her slight form in the dark place between two large containers standing nestled next to the wall. She held her breath.

Three men in Galaxy Battalion uniforms ran past her.

Damn it, Cap! I told you this was a trap.

Fuck. A produce transport out of Battalion-controlled space was too good to be true. The second freedom war had been raging a full two years, and this time it was all or nothing. The rebels would die before they agreed to peace after what the Battalion army had done to them last time. They should have known. Food that good never made it to the refugee camps, even if the majority of those refugees were helpless children.

Sterling, why do you have to be the one to answer every time someone needs a hero? She should be glad he was, or she’d have been screwed, but right now, the endearing trait was pissing her off.

The long narrow corridor was quiet now. Two turns and she’d be back at the airlock. She’d press a button and Esta would send the shuttle for her. She’d have to endure running ten feet across the flimsy emergency connector, nothing but two inches of plastic between her delicate flesh and the vacuum of space, but she’d do it to get the hell off this ship.

But she couldn’t leave without her Cap. She’d never leave him behind.

Tenuously, she worked herself out of the claustrophobia-inducing hiding nook and scanned the path in both directions. Her way was clear. Now to pick a direction, Raylin closed her eyes a moment and focused. Cap. Where are you?

Nothing. She had no sense of where he was -- no connection to him. Not a good sign. She should be able to feel him. He needed her, she was sure of that fact. The urgency she felt told her the powers she’d long suppressed were roaring to life.

Survival. The Galinian telepathy she’d pushed away for a decade hadn’t left her as she’d hoped. She could feel the crew’s panic on Raven. Cap wasn’t back. He hadn’t left her behind. Equal measures of relief and terror surged through Raylin. Cap! Her mind sent the call without her conscious thought.

Leave me. Get away…

She gasped. His returned thoughts were so weak. Sterling Tristam was a lot of things -- privateer, rebel, freedom fighter -- but never weak. Help me find you. What happened back there?

No… run!

Damn it, Cap, I’m not leaving without you. You wouldn’t leave me. I can’t live -- live with myself if you die here. Cap, tell me or I’m just going to go looking.

Fuckin’ telepathy! I’m not getting off this ship alive, Raylin. Bartholomew paid Crandel to set us up. I’m so sorry, Star Shine. Get off this bird!

Oh, it was bad. He hadn’t called her Star Shine in years. Sorrow filled her. No! I’m on the cargo deck and I’m climbing to the crew quarters again now.

Go back. Press your emergency beacon. Esta will get you home.

There is no home for me without you, Cap.

She’s going to be yours, the Raven. Esta knows, she’s your ship now. You deserve her more than anybody I know, even Esta. I’m sorry, Ray.

Don’t you fucking die on me, Cap. We’re a team. I’m at the kitchenette. Should I go right or left?

Stubborn little girl, don’t you do this to me. I won’t let you die for me.

We all die someday. You’re dying for your war. I might as well die for you.

I’m in the corridor ahead of you. Take a right, then a left. Keep your head down, kid. They’re coming back. I killed the one who shot me, but more are coming. I tried to get them off your tail, Star Shine. I wanted you to escape. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you about Crandel. We should’ve left him on that rotting rock Alpha-Nine.

She followed his directions carefully, but still didn’t see him.

I’m here, Captain Tristam whispered loudly.

Raylin turned and saw him then, pressed up against the water recycling pipes. He was holding his stomach, blood seeping between his fingers. Oh, Cap, she cried.

Press your beacon, send the distress signal. What’s going on over there? I know you can feel it.

We’d better be quiet. Here, sorry, it’s bad isn’t it? Crandel radioed over and told Esta we were staying for a drink. She knew right away that wasn’t right. The idiot has no idea how much you mean to that woman. She put her arm around her captain and pressed the button. Esta already knew they were in danger. Raylin had felt the woman’s fear earlier.

Cap was heavy. Slowly they made their way down the corridor. They’d be easy to track -- the blood drops were a dead giveaway.

Yeah, it’s bad. Esta is amazing.

You set the pace, whatever you can handle, but we need to hurry.

Bossy woman. She could feel his humor. Thanks for coming for me, but damn it, I’ll kill you if you die. I have a responsibility to you, kid.

She hated it when he called her kid. She’d just turned twenty-six. Then the sound of laser blasts distracted her. Ahead she saw Owen and Zolly. They’d come. Relief filled her. Neither of them was great with a firearm, but they’d die for Cap. He just inspired that in people.

Raylin cried out as pain radiated through her side. Her body crumpled and Cap toppled with her. Glancing down, she saw the massive wound. A rather disturbingly large chunk of her body appeared vaporized. She whimpered, unable to help herself. She’d be good to her word. It was time to die for Cap.

Looking back she saw him struggling to hold his body together. Clearly the blast he’d suffered had sliced him up badly. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the cold tickle as tears trailed down her face.

With his free hand, he reached out to her and she took her beloved captain’s hand. Above them laser fire blasted, but now it didn’t matter. The damage was done. I’m sorry, Star Shine, Captain Tristam whispered.

I love you, Sterling, always have, always will. I wish… I wish you’d seen me as a woman.

Damn it, you’re going to tell me this now? I’ve worked so hard to ignore how much of a woman you are. You -- you’re special, Star Shine, far too good for the likes of me. You deserve someone who’ll be able to give you a soft life with sweet words.

I never wanted that. I only wanted you. His face was becoming blurry. Everything was growing dark. She closed her eyes.

Star Shine! He squeezed her hand but she couldn’t respond. Raylin!

Darkness won.

* * *

Ten Years Earlier

Galina Free Space

Just Outside Planetary Atmosphere

She’d never been on a real space shuttle before. Raylin felt terrified. She didn’t want to leave Galina. She just wanted to go home, even if that wouldn’t ever be an option again. She was so hungry, so weak.

The dirty man flying the shuttle glanced back and smiled at her. His rotted teeth made his smile look frightening, sending a shiver through her.

Her hands remained tied, but they hadn’t gagged her. She’d seen them gag other girls at the market, so she’d been smart and kept still. She’d known screaming wouldn’t change her parents’ minds. War had taken their choices. The only option the Fabian clan of Galina had left was to sell their older children, hoping to keep the little ones alive.

She was just glad her family hadn’t fallen into cannibalism as so many others had recently. The planet had fought for freedom, and lost. Now things were even worse than they’d been before the war. She’d never experienced peace, and she definitely couldn’t remember having gone to bed with a full stomach. Sixteen years of hunger… The war had broken out when she was only days old.

By the way, I’m Virge, but you can call me Lord or Master, whatever you’d prefer.

She didn’t reply to her captor and he didn’t ask for her name. She’d never give it to him. It was the only thing that was still hers. Her parents had sold every other part of her.

Virge grabbed a lock of her hair. The contrast between his filth and her freshly washed hair made her stomach turn. He’d purchased her purity for so little. How could you do this to me, Mother? Why didn’t you find another way, Father?

Her terrified thoughts were her own. She was away from the buzz of voices in her head she was so accustomed to on her home world. The loneliness of her mind was suffocating, void now of telepathic messages from those she loved.

For Galina, the war would never truly end. She could see it in the eyes of their oppressors as they watched children dying without compassion. She knew the bastard who’d purchased her for almost nothing had no good intentions, but anything had to be better than starving to death.

Just as she thought that, he reached over and she managed to pull back enough in the passenger seat so that only her knee was in his grasp.

Worse -- she realized there were worse things. The look in his eyes told her he wanted to do things to her, things she wasn’t ready to endure. Shaking, she bit her lip and managed to keep her tears at bay. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t let the asshole see her cry.

You’re a pretty thing for a half-starved Galinian. You one of them mind readers?

"I don’t have to be a mind reader to know I want to go home. I’ll fight you