Nina Snelling is a Terran Hunter on assignment. She has to retrieve a monk from a penal colony and return him to his brotherhood. Acquiring a position on the planet is the easy part, finding her target and getting off world is the tough portion. Especially when her life is complicated by her death and her recovery.

  Hart Len was ready and prepared to use his healing talent on the corpse, but when it sat up and started screaming, his day took a sudden turn for the strange. Seeing the woman alive and breathing, he has to fight the impulse to stop her shrieking in the most pleasurable way possible.

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  Impulse

  Copyright © 2010 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-55487-564-1

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books

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  Impulse

  A Terran Novella

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  The disgruntled would-be-lover threw her to the ground in the town square, summoning attention with a sharp whistle. He disappeared into the shadows while she got to her feet. The low cough behind her sent a chill down her spine.

  Nina swung around and faced what she feared. One of the guards of the Braykor penal colony was aiming a blaster at her abdomen. “No. Please. Don’t.” Her search for the missing Nyal representative was about to be cut very short.

  It was no use. With an evil gleam in his eyes, he pulled the trigger and the resulting pain and flare of light blinded her as she fell to the ground.

  It was really turning into a bitch of a day.

  * * * *

  Hart Len saw the blast, but was too late to stop the guard from shooting the woman before he pulled the trigger. As soon as the guard rejoined his squad to continue their explorations, Hart ran to the woman’s side. She was dead. Her skin was paling rapidly.

  Cursing, he scooped her up and carried her into his structure. He only had seconds and there was no guarantee that it would work. He laid her on his bunk and smoothed her hair from her face. She wasn’t Nyal, her skin was far too pale.

  Hart meditated for a moment and concentrated his life force into the centre of his body in preparation for giving it to the delicate creature on his bed. When he was ready, he leaned forward to place his lips on hers, the better to transfer the energy through the kiss of life.

  Just before he made contact, her chest heaved and she coughed, opening her eyes to see him inches from her. The scream she let out was enough to make his ears ring and the fist she slammed into his chest carried enough energy to stop his own heart if he hadn’t been using his own talent already.

  “What in the eleven hells was that?” He could only blink in astonishment as the woman sat up with her hands to the burn on her abdomen.

  “Who are you? What were you doing?”

  “Well, you were dead…”

  “I was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Then what were you…ew.” The expression on her face showed him her thought processes.

  He almost laughed and it surprised him. Nothing had amused him since he had been sent here to Braykor. “I was preparing to revive you. The blaster shorts out energy and if I get to a victim quickly enough, I can restart their body. If your soul had fled, I would simply have withdrawn the power.”

  “So you weren’t trying to have sex with my corpse?” Her hands were holding the fabric of her shift tightly against her. The exposed skin in the blaster strike zone made his mouth water.

  “Not with your corpse. No.” He couldn’t help it, he smiled as he eyed her from head to toe.

  * * * *

  Nina was astonished by the man in front of her. He knelt on the floor calmly and with the control of a ruler in a throne room. His eyes were deep amber, his body a lovely mocha and a bright shock of golden hair topped his head. The muscles he had were not due to a life of incarceration, this man had been a warrior before he came to Braykor. She knew her own vivid colouring would be gaining his attention. Her violet eyes never failed to elicit comments and her scarlet hair made an excellent frame for those assets.

  “Who are you?”

  “Hart Len. And you are?”

  He looked offended when she started laughing. “I am Nina Snelling. I have been sent to retrieve you.”

  His blonde eyebrows rose in surprise. “How are you planning to do that?”

  Nina dropped her face into her hands and scrubbed her face. “I have no idea.” Groaning, she rubbed the back of her neck.

  He sighed and stood, coming to a halt next to the bed. “Turn. I will help with the taut muscles.”

  “What?”

  “I will help you. Now turn.”

  Nina turned. She sat still, her other sense tuned to the energy building up behind her. When he touched her, she almost shrieked with surprise. Her body was overwhelmed with a hot rage of lust that froze her in place as his powered hands started to rub, squeeze and massage the muscles that had snapped tight when the blaster hit.

  Shocked by the lust, she did all she could to stay relaxed and calm as he worked his hands down her body.

  A rich chuckle from her masseuse made her suspicious.

  “Why are you laughing, Hart?”

  “You are keeping yourself from succumbing to my touch. It isn’t something most women here would bother with. How did you come to be at the colony?”

  “It is a rather long story.”

  “We can’t get off this rock, so you may as well let me in on your secrets.”

  The low tone he used made her want to strip naked and show him all her secrets. It was warm velvet with a trail of silken heat. All in a voice. Damn he was dangerous.

  “I am an Alliance Hunter, here as part of an exchange program. I was to retrieve you and bring you back to Stalen Kari. It is a monastery, I believe.”

  “It is.”

  “You are a monk?” Her breath was coming faster now, his hands were working the muscles of her lower back and her belly trembled at that closely applied heat.

  “Yes.”

  That one word acted like a blast of cold air up her skirt. “Thank you. That was very helpful.” She shifted away from those blessed hands and her body cried a little as he withdrew his touch. Technically, it was another kind of moisture, but it was best that she ignore that little bit of evidence.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. I am just as relaxed as I am going to get.” She could feel her body vibrating in the tension of the lie.

  She met his gaze and he was looking all adorable and confused. “Sorry, I just need to find a way to get us off this rock. I am still on the job.”

  “They have reported you dead by now.”

  That was a snag she hadn’t counted on. “You can’t be serious.”

  “The execution was recorded and sent to the authorities before you hit the ground. What did you do to Dislor anyway?”

  “I kept short circuiting his, uh…equipment. He summoned the guard and I was killed, I guess.”

  She couldn’t help it, her hand ran across the sensitive skin of the blast site and examined the coverage of her damaged shift. It was still respectable, but now showed more midriff than she liked.

  “He wouldn’t have liked that. I heard that he won you in a game of chance.”

  “He did. I was dropped here undercover and then I set about finding you. To think, I only had to die to find you.”

  He chuckled, his amber eyes flashing. “As simple as that.”

  “So, Hart Len, do you often pick up dead women in the town square?”

  She savoured the look of consternation on his face the instant before a strange voice called from the room beyond.

  Chapter Two

  “Hart, are you playing with dead meat in there?” The voice was ragged, coarse but not unfriendly.

  “Get behind me.” Hart took a position between her and the door, the creaking of the floorboards as the owner of the voice approached, giving her chills.

  “Why are you here, Cior?” Hart had his arms crossed and was glaring at the newcomer.

  “I just wanted to see your toy. Can I have her when you are done with her?” The pale green hulk of stone-like flesh moved into her field of view.

  “She is still alive, Cior. You can’t have her.”

  “Pretty eyes. Are you sure she’s alive? It would be lots of fun to play with something that pretty.” There was a little bit of drool around the fangs protruding from the lower jaw. Whatever he was, if Hart fucked her corpse, Cior looked to want to eat the leftovers.

  The pulse that ran through her body gathered in defence as he looked at her and licked his lips. “Is her blood the same colour as her hair? I heard that it was.”

  Hart reached behind him and pulled her firmly up against his back. The bare skin of her upper abdomen pressed against his warm flesh and she stifled the moan as his heat almost burned her.

  “You can’t have her, Cior. She will remain with me.”

  “What will you do with her, monk? It’s a perfectly good waste of all that pale flesh.”

  “I am sure I will think of something. Don’t forget, Dislor paid the guards to kill her. Neither of them will be particularly pleased to hear of her survival.”

  The mint green beast paled as Hart laid the situation out for him. “You have a point. I found you fucking a corpse and nothing more. Sorry to have disturbed.”

  The speed with which their audience had entered was nothing compared to his sudden exit.

  Hart waited until Cior was well gone before he turned to face her. “I think we may have a problem here.”

  “Aside from my being here? I think we may have more than one problem.” She stepped back and away from his tempting heat. She didn’t know why she was so attracted to him, it was difficult to control the impulse to jump him and tear away the loose trousers he was wearing.

  To assist in her control, she gripped her elbows and waited for him to outline the difficulties.

  “Come with me. I am fairly sure that Dislor didn’t feed you.”

  “No, but the tentacled thing before him gave me a ration bar.” She followed him into an adjoining room. “This is a fairly big place. Do all of the prisoners here get such a large house?”

  “No, there were originally four of us in this place, but after six months, it was all mine.”

  “Dead or expelled?”

  “Two of one and one of the other.”

  They were in what could only be a dining area. A small table with three chairs, a small fireplace and a cupboard were the only amenities in the room.

  Nina took a seat and watched Hart, with an unhealthy amount of fascination, moving around the room.

  He set out a cup, a bowl, a spoon and gave her some soup from the pot sitting next to the fire. He sat across from her and poured water into the cup, then leaned back.

  “Now. How do you plan on getting me out of here?”

  She sipped gratefully at the cup and fought her own rising lust. “Where is the nearest com station?”

  “Five kilometres to the west.”

  “Good. I think I may be able to get in contact with a ship to get us out of here.” She grabbed the spoon and took a slurp of the soup. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. There was a sort of a meat in it that defied her ability to describe it.

  “The soup is…quite nice.”

  His grin disarmed her. “It’s lizard. They are everywhere around here.”

  “Thank you for the food. I am hungrier than I realized.” She concentrated on scooping up more of the lizard soup and drinking the broth and water.

  She wondered what the hell was going on with her hormones.

  Finally, the damp heat between her thighs got enough of her attention that she had to ask. “Why is my body running riot around you? I can’t get myself to calm down and I have the uncontrollable urge to rub myself against you from top to bottom.”

  Honesty was always the best policy, but her bald statement caught him by surprise.

  “You are the first person on this world to notice it as unusual.”

  “Well, my hormones rarely perk up and take notice, so what are you?”

  “A Kalordan. I left my planet to pursue a life of austerity and healing in the brotherhood of Stalen Kari.”

  Kalorda. That was so familiar. She ran through the latest Terran Times notices in her head and finally looked up with a surprised smile on her face. “Tiger shifter.”

  “How did you know? We don’t exactly advertise our species particulars.” He was suddenly much more hesitant to be around her.

  “One of my species was recently mated to one of yours. They are both pilots.” She realized something and laughed. “They may be the ones I am trying to call, come to think of it.”

  He blinked in a sort of a stupor. “So you are aware of us? One of us has been accepted by your species?”

  “Of course.” She smiled and had some more water. “Terrans seem to be a generic breeding species. We bridge just about any race. No one can tell us why.”

  “Do you have a mate?”

  She squinted at him, looking at his speculative eyes. “No. I wouldn’t be on Hunter duty if I did.”

  The satisfied smirk that crossed his face was enough for her.

  “Back off, scooter. You are a monk. Don’t you have a vow of celibacy?”

  The snort that he let out was indelicate. “No. To ask one with my talents to be celibate would be sheer torture.”

  That made her heart start a pounding beat that she couldn’t stop. “Your talents?”

  “I am a healer by training.”

  “Oh. So, lots of contact with patients then.”

  “Yes. But I am not a creature beyond my passions. When I don’t wish to couple, I politely decline. That is how I ended up sentenced here, by the way.”

  “You declined?”

  “A wealthy woman who considered herself irresistible. When I did resist, she had me taken into custody and sentenced here. Her brother was the judge.” His skin darkened as he remembered.

  “Well, I am here to get you out. They will come looking for me.”

  “You are dead if you will recall. No one will be looking for you.”

  “You are wrong. The Alliance accounts for every dead Terran. They have to—it’s part of the contract with our planet.” She sounded more confident than she felt. There would eventually be an inquiry, but she would probably be permanently dead by then.

  “Well, since you are now fortified, we can be on our way to the communication station. If we leave soon, we should arrive by dark.” He stood and walked into another room, returning with a monk’s robes and hood.

  “Wear this. You are a little conspicuous with that scarlet hair of yours. We don’t want anyone else to see you before we leave.”

  She shrugged into the robes and was relieved to see that they just brushed her ankles. She wrapped her hair up loosely and tucked it into the hood. “Better?”

  “Not for me, but for those we will pass, it will be much better. They will assume you are another acolyte banished to Braykor for displeasing a noble on one of the planets.”

  “Great.” The robes smelled like Hart, but less intensely than his warm, smooth flesh did.

  “We are burning daylight, so please, let’s move as quickly as we can.” With that, he shepherded her out of the dwelling and out into the bright sunlight.

  Bemused, she followed the pace he was setting, almost jogging at times to keep up. Several other prisoners looked at them, but let them pass without more than a slight wave at Hart.

  Braykor was a strange place. It had the reputation for never losing a prisoner and the reason was simple. No ship was allowed to land on the surface. There were defensive guns at each and every possible landing site. Anything within fifty miles of the surface was blown to hell.

  They didn’t need to restrain the prisoners because there was nowhere to go.

  Guards were assigned to the planet due to behavioural problems within their files. The guard that shot her had his team with him. Fifteen other guards with guns placed in all directions.

  They took no chances with being overwhelmed. The clearest route to an uprising was to underestimate the danger of the people around them. They did sweeps on a random basis and today’s sweep had already occurred with her untimely death as the result.

  Braykor was not an attractive planet, but had the look of a desert with occasional precipitation. That would explain the lizards.

  Puffs of dust rose under her feet, the dry ground sliding under her sandals with every step. They passed row upon row of Quonset huts, each housing a group of prisoners or a small establishment. No personalizing was allowed, the entire place was grey and brown.

  You could have a life here. A clean, boring, bland life. Nothing else was allowed. No alcohol, no intoxicants and blood drinkers had their teeth filed dull every three weeks. Rations for every species was provided as they engaged in the cruellest punishment of all. On Braykor, they simply let you live to death.

 

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