Black Legacy: Black Opals, Book 1 Page 5

  She inhaled ruggedly and said in a low voice.

  “Now, we fight.”

  About the Author

  Lives with her family and dog somewhere in Canada. Her passion for music and the written word has been a life long addiction, and in addition to writing she ventures out occasionally to perform with her bandmates. She loves all things paranormal, 80s rock, spending time with family, and sports. Juliana is currently at work on the next book in The Black Opal series.

  You may visit her at www.julianastone.com or email her at juliana@julianastone.com.

  The last will and testament of a forgotten Earth…

  The Mythmakers

  © 2010 Robert Appleton

  An Impulse Power Story

  For Captain Steffi Savannah and her crew of deep space smugglers, life has become little more than a dogged exercise in mere survival. Their latest disastrous heist ended with another dead crew member—and no place left to hide. She’s even finding it hard to dredge up any excitement over the giant, crippled ship that appears on their radar, even though it’s the salvage opportunity of a lifetime.

  They find that it’s no ordinary alien vessel. It’s a ship of dreams, populated with the last remnants of Earth’s mythical creatures. Including the blond, built, mysterious Arne, one of a race blessed with extraordinary beauty—and few inhibitions. Though he won’t tell her exactly what he is, in his arms Steffi rediscovers something she thought she’d never feel again. Wonder, love…and hope.

  It isn’t long, though, before the Royal guard tracks them down, and Steffi and her crew are faced with a terrible decision. Cut and run. Or risk everything to tow the ship and her precious cargo to safety.

  Warning: This book contains moderate sexual activity, strong language and high-cholesterol breakfasts. Also features hot nudists, naive men and other equally rare fantasy creatures.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Mythmakers:

  Steffi lumbered on down the endless corridor, four pounding heartbeats to every thumping step. Moments ago, her spacesuit had felt no heavier than her dad’s winter cardigan; now it pulled on her thighs and anchored her lungs like an antique deep-sea diving suit. Clank, scrape, clank, scrape went her boots. The oily Rorschach walls scrambled and swirled while the light from her helmet lamp roved over them. The surface seemed alive, but it was an optical illusion. No sign of an opening. Neither a narrowing nor a widening of the corridor at any height. She wondered how far her curiosity would last.

  Fifteen minutes in and no structural change in the changeling surface. Her palms and neck and the small of her back clung to her thermal undersuit. Moisture streamed down the walls and trickled away through small grids at either side of the convex floor. She checked her readouts again. Gravity and oxygen were the same. The temperature, though, had almost doubled. Thirty-eight degrees Celsius.

  The ceiling of mist lowered to around fifty feet above her. Her helmet fogged. She made a higgledy clear streak with the knuckles of her glove.

  “Moder, jeg er træt, nu vil jeg sove, Lad mig ved dit Hjerte slumre ind; Græd dog ei det maa Du først mig love, Thi Din Taare brænder paa min Kind.”

  “McKendrick, keep it down,” she snapped. “Unless it’s important.”

  “Wasn’t me, Cap.”

  Steffi smacked her helmet. Had her comm receiver gone screwy? She realised the first voice hadn’t sounded like a woman’s anyway. “Rex, you there?”

  “Here, Cap. Everything okay?”

  “Was that you singing?”

  “Nope. Not me. You don’t wanna hear my singing.”

  She paused to untie the knot in her brain. She must have imagined the voice. Was her oxygen mix okay? Hmm, perfectly fine.

  The foreign man’s voice grew louder, like a radio in a slow-approaching sky-cab. Steffi heard every crooned word:

  “Her er koldt og ude Stormen truer, Men i Drømme, der er Alt saa smukt, Og de søde Englebørn jeg skuer Naar jeg har det trætte Øie lukt.

  “Moder, seer Du Englen ved min Side? Hører Du den deilige Musik? See, han har to Vinger smukke hvide, Dem han sikkert af vor Herre fik—”

  Clink. The toe of her left boot scuffed the floor. The song ceased. Her lamplight shone across an incongruous form resting against the right-hand wall ahead. It made her knuckles clench. She stopped and stared until her visor steamed again. What was it—that crouched figure—in front of her?

  She crept, shifting her weight from one boot to the other, careful not to clang them again and scare the creature away.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Water trickled under the floor into some kind of drainage system.

  “What are you?” came the reply. “Have you come to kill us?”

  Steffi had never heard the accent before. It sounded a little like German, though.

  “The light dazzles me. I cannot see your face,” the voice continued. “Are you a man or a woman?”

  “A woman.”

  She closed in and saw that he was a trim, pale but handsome man with shoulder-length blond hair. Naked as Adam, he glistened with sweat. No hair anywhere else on his body. His narrow blue eyes squinted further in the beam of her lamp.

  “What do you want here?” he asked, still crouching—solemnly, it seemed to Steffi.

  “We’re just investigating your crippled ship. We saw it spinning aimlessly, and we wanted to find out what had happened. No one builds ships like this. Who are you?”

  “First tell me your name.”

  “Steffi Savannah, captain of the Albatross. And you are?”

  “You have a beautiful voice, Steffi Savannah.” He rose and stood facing her, arms akimbo. “I am Arne.”

  Her turn to be dazzled. His extraordinarily athletic physique would have been enough to make her shiver with delight, but he was also well endowed. No cuts or abrasions anywhere on his skin that she could see—unheard of among deep-space crews, due to the multitasking nature of maintaining a ship—and he stood without slouch, without pose, and without inhibition. Steffi highlighted every part of his anatomy with her torchlight. He was one hell of a fine specimen. Maybe too perfect.

  “You are human, right?”

  Arne offered her his hand without hesitation. “Yes and no.”

  The gentle tugs of her conscience would at one time have been powerful yanks to rip the carpet out from under her, make her step back and exercise caution. But she was not that girl anymore. Diving into risk from a platform of indifference had kept her in the smuggling trade for a decade. It should not have, but it had. It was her peculiar knack. She accepted his hand and let him lead her twenty feet along the corridor. Neither of them spoke. Suddenly he faced the wall and, with the spidery grip of his free hand, pressed against the phosphorous. The wall spiralled open from the point of contact to reveal a navy blue passageway shimmering with turquoise light. She gasped and gripped him tighter. Where was he leading her? His living quarters? To see his captain? Hmm…what if he wasn’t as benign as he seemed?

  With her free hand, she flicked the toggle for Internal Comm Only on her cuff. At the very least, she had to keep her crew apprised of the situation.

  “Rex? You there?” She spoke into the side of her helmet away from Arne.

  “Go ahead, Cap.”

  “I’ve found a member of the crew. A foreigner. He seems friendly but I’ve never seen anything like this place, so tread softly. In fact, don’t come up here ’til I give the green light. We don’t want to alarm them. You copy that?”

  “Loud and clear. I’ll hang back ’til you holler, but, Cap…don’t wander too far.”

  “I’ll buzz you in fifteen,” Steffi explained. “If I don’t, make sure you’re armed before you come get me.”

  “Roger that.” Rex’s curt, emphatic voice lent steel to her resolve. He might not be keen on her plan, but Rex knew what an order meant, and there was no one she’d rather have backing her up if things got tight.

  She glanced down to flick the audio toggle to External and…wow.
<
br />   Steffi widened her eyes. Speaking of tight.

  Arne’s ass was a thing of beauty. A sporting ass. It seemed unusual for a man to have no leg hair, but then she remembered where she was. And he’d said he was only part human. What could that mean? What did it matter when he looked this good?

  “Where are we going?”

  “To where we live.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my kind.”

  She was about to ask him what exactly that might be when the smooth curved passageway opened up to a vast, breathtaking lake overgrown with evergreen trees and multicoloured, fruit-bearing plants. The banks had at one time been smooth and artificial—some sort of a giant reservoir or swimming pool—but vegetation had almost completely hidden them. A low vapour cloud hovered a hundred and fifty feet above the water. Lying around the water’s edge, on a blanket of spongy green grass, dozens of naked men and women seemed to be basking or sleeping. All of them were breathtaking to behold.

  “I think you should take your clothes off, Steffi,” Arne said matter-of-factly.

  “Why? How do I know the air isn’t poisonous to my kind?” That last part sounded dopey. Her kind?

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  “You said you’re not fully human.”

  “But all humans breathe the same air. I think you will be very uncomfortable here if you do not undress.”

  She might have taken that for a threat, but Arne had a way about him, a forthrightness that seemed almost child-like. At least, that was how she perceived him.

  “First, tell me what you’re doing here. What is this place? Who built your ship? What is its purpose?”

  A boyish smile dimpled his cheeks, bared his perfect teeth. “If I reveal all that you want to know, will you undress?”

  “Yes.” She smiled back with no intention of honouring that promise. There was something unreal about this whole setup, this quasi-human paradise, that screamed, “Get the fuck out, right now!”

  But first she had to know its secret.

  Working together is unavoidable. Falling in love…inevitable.

  Hearts and Minds

  © 2010 J.C. Hay

  An Impulse Power Story

  Syna Davout thought it was supposed to be a simple smash-and-grab job—smash onto a luxury yacht, grab the cash, and split the proceeds with the client. Unfortunately, the client failed to mention that she’s the diversion for an assassination attempt that destroys the yacht and leaves her with a passenger she never expected. A fugitive telepath caught in the middle of a revolution.

  Galen Fash thought his days were numbered. The fledgling revolution on his homeworld needs him to buy them time, with his life if necessary. The last thing he needs is to get involved with a pirate captain-for-hire whose larger-than-life emotions draw him like a moth to a flame.

  Inexorably, Syna is dragged into a war that isn’t hers, and they both discover—between knock-down-drag-outs—that their whole is far stronger than the sum of their parts. Dodging the enemies that want them both dead will be hard enough. First, they have to survive each other…

  Warning: this book contains Space Vikings, gossipy AIs, boxing-as-foreplay, rogue telepaths and a demanding pirate captain who likes to be in charge. The author will not be held responsible for a desire to punch your partner in the jaw, or a sudden awareness of latent psionic ability.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Hearts and Minds:

  She stopped at a ship’s closet long enough to grab a tool belt and two pairs of leather gloves. “No padding in these, but at least you won’t get burned if something’s too hot. Come on, I’ll need your help down in engineering.”

  Galen slipped the gloves on as the ship settled onto one of the rocks in the planetary ring. The whine of anchor drills resonated down the corridors and set his teeth on edge. The drills would make it hard to lift off quickly, but it also kept them securely fastened to the rock. An important modification in a zero-g environment and, he knew, completely off the book on a ship this size. Like the mass drivers, for that matter. He wondered how many other modifications he’d see when they reached the engineering department.

  Department turned out to be a dramatic overstatement. The entirety of engineering consisted of two long, narrow access corridors down either side of the main power plant. It was barely big enough for one person, let alone the two of them side by side. Heat from the power plant leaked through the walls and left him mopping at his forehead in a futile effort to keep pace with the sweat that soaked him.

  Beside him, Syna fared little better. Her ginger hair matted against her skin, and perspiration beaded on the side of her neck. Galen had a sudden urge to kiss her, to taste the salt on her skin, hear the tiny gasp of surprise that she thought he hadn’t heard when she’d kissed him in the gym. Had there been more room in the cramped corridor, he’d be tempted to try.

  Gods, what was this woman doing to him?

  “Are you going to help or just stare down my shirt?”

  Galen blinked, smiled. “Is there a way I can do both?”

  She shoved a curl of hair out of her face, pink leaching into her cheeks. “Just hold this.” She indicated the wires in her hands with a jut of her chin. He had to shift closer to reach and found himself too conscious of the way she pressed back against him as she worked. He willed his body not to respond and hoped it wasn’t too distracted to ignore him. She mumbled something as she flattened her back against him.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Close your eyes,” she whispered. His pulse lurched erratically until blue-white plasma illuminated the space, and he realized she’d issued it not as a come-on, but a warning. His eyes snapped shut and focused on the red-yellow afterimage of the welding lance drifting quietly behind his eyelids. “Two more, then I think we’ve bypassed it.”

  “That’ll bring the shields up to full?”

  “It’ll bring them back to where they were before we started this venture, which is something. Stay out of the aft-most cargo hold—I had to reroute power from its environmental controls.”

  “Is that safe?”

  The welder sparked again, the light savage even through his closed eyes. The smell of ozone and charged particles drifted through the air. Combined with her shampoo, it made her smell like a spice field after an electrical storm.

  “Yeah, just don’t go in there. Not much choice in the matter, the starboard field’s influx coupler got slagged. I don’t just carry those around with me.” The welder flared again. “That should finish that.”

  Galen opened his eyes cautiously. “You can’t ask Bree?”

  Syna shook her head. “No. There’s no pickups in here, and no speaker for her to respond through. I have to do it from the hall.”

  He grinned. “Ooooh, unchaperoned. I like it.”

  She laughed, her blush renewed. Warmth flooded out from her, her emotions a sea he wanted to swim in. She has no idea how sexy she is, he realized. On impulse, he leaned forward and kissed her.

  She froze for a heartbeat and a flicker of panic went through him, then her hand tangled in his hair and tugged him closer. Her body crushed against him and any control he’d aspired to evaporated. The heat of her body soaked through his skin, suffused him as he lost himself in her.

  She broke the kiss long enough to take a breath, then tugged his hair back to bite along his jawline. The combination of teeth and tongue overloaded Galen’s senses. His knees lost any sense of strength they had, and he reached out for support with one hand.

  There was a soft pop and a whiff of electrical smoke. She pulled up from the kiss and touched her nose-tip to his, a quiet smile playing across her mouth. “Please tell me you didn’t just rip out my lovely bypass.”

  He looked to his hand, tangled in the wiring, as if it were an alien on the end of his arm. “I…am going to go ahead and say yes.”

  She slid her hand between them. His nerve endings went crazy as he felt the back of her hand slide past his hips, and she grinned
at him, heavy-lidded eyes sparkling with mischief. Her hand retraced its route with agonizing slowness and when it came up, presented him with the hand welder. “Then you get to fix it.”

  He let out a ragged breath. “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Later. If you’re very good.” She backed farther down the corridor to give him access to the panel he’d wrecked.

  “You’re not going to stand over my shoulder, make sure I do it right?”

  Syna laughed. “Oh no. I’m not getting close to you again until I’m certain you’re out of reach of everything fragile.”

  With the fate of the galaxy at risk, love may not be enough…

  Starjacked

  © 2009 Karin Shah

  In the lawless fringes of deep space, pirate Tia Sen has a rep for being hard as plascrete, tough as Amalan leather, and as strong as she is beautiful. She also has a secret that courts death: For years she has been freeing enslaved children. Stepping in to rescue a valiant mechanic from a near-fatal beating risks more than her life. Thanks to her traitorous heart, her web of lies is in danger of unraveling.

  Undercover operative Rork Al’Ren is no stranger to lies. Emotionally scarred by the murders of his wife and unborn child, he wants nothing more than to eradicate every bit of pirate scum in the galaxy. Then his mission goes sour, and he finds himself Tia’s personal slave—and falling in love with the very pirate he’s sworn to destroy.

  Yet love is a luxury he can’t afford. Tia possesses a powerful new weapon that could overwhelm the Union of Planets and plunge the galaxy into war.

  If Rork can’t convince her to surrender it, he may have to break her trust—and her heart.

  Warning: This title contains sensual love scenes and kick-ass, nail-biting action. May cause reckless behavior, lapses into daydreams, belief in happily-ever-afters, and is certainly habit-forming.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Starjacked:

  The engine-room door slid open and Luble came inside, drawing their attention. He held a piece of paper in his hand. “The following slaves are to come to me.” He read slowly from the list and soon a group of slaves stood around him. Kaber exchanged a glance with Tia, and the blonde strode forward. “What’s going on here?”