Yours to Command Read online

  Yours to Command

  Dirty Sexy Space Two

  Shona Husk

  Contents

  Dirty Sexy Space

  Back Cover Copy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Excerpt: Yours to Desire

  About the Author

  Other titles by Shona Husk

  Copyright © 2018, 2015 by Shona Husk

  Cover Art by Emmy Ellis http://www.studioenp.com/

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Dirty Sexy Space

  Free sampler of the Dirty Sexy Space series

  * * *

  Book 1 in the series: Yours to Uncover

  Back Cover Copy

  Corporal Sienna Jade wasn't given a choice about joining the mission to Unity. Seen as a troublemaker by the military after reporting an assault by a senior officer, the army wanted her gone. Sienna resents the army for assigning her to Earth Ship Siren, and suspects the fleet's Unity mission will fail. But others would do anything to escape Earth ...

  Alex Tariel knew his only chance to get a place on ES Siren was as a prisoner, so he stole water rations. As a former construction foreman, his skills make him a valuable prisoner on board, but still a prisoner unable to control his own life. Instead of keeping his head down, he gets involved in the boxing fights set up for gambling privilege tokens, the only currency aboard ship among the prisoners.

  Getting patched up by Corporal Jade might be the best thing that's happened to Alex on the trip so far, but becoming her ship husband puts him between her and the lieutenant who tried to kill her for kicks on Earth. While Sienna tries to keep control of her feelings for Alex, Alex would do anything to protect her, if only she'd let him.

  As ES Siren faces its first crisis, a little trust and love goes a long way.

  * * *

  The Dirty Sexy Space series:

  Your to Uncover

  Yours to Command

  Yours to Desire

  Mine to Hold

  Mine to Keep

  Mine to Serve

  Ours to Embrace

  Ours to Share

  Ours to Save

  Chapter One

  Alex Tariel had been waiting for one of the officers on board to notice him. But he’d hoped it would be for his construction skill, not his muscle. Aside from the compulsory education class about their new home world, the only ways to pass the time were sleeping, reading, or the prison gym. Well, the only safe options, anyway. He hadn’t schemed a way onto the ship just to get stabbed with a shiv for some imagined infraction.

  But Lieutenant Andrew Zane had spent the last ten minutes watching him like a hungry snake. There was a cold, calculating look in his eyes that Alex didn’t like. Few things made his skin crawl, but Zane was one of them. Alex carefully wiped down the machine he’d been running on, both to buy time and to avoid a complaint. Then he took a moment to let his breathing settle and take a drink of the slightly metallic water. Despite having been recycled repeatedly, it was still cleaner than anything he’d drunk on Earth.

  His heart pounded as though he was still running. It would be so easy to get out of shape on the ship, but that would be a mistake. Life on Solitaire—the only habitable planet to have been found so far—would be hard. He didn’t want to arrive in less than peak condition. As a prisoner he’d be part of the grunt labor force. Being fit would make survival a little easier. He hoped.

  Lieutenant Zane nodded to the corporal who was on supervision duty in the gym, and the man left the room. Alex’s heart kicked over again. He didn’t like this.

  “Come here, 1789, we need a chat.” Lieutenant Zane’s voice was perfectly flat.

  Alex gritted his teeth. He had a name. He wasn’t a fucking number. But arguing that point would only earn him a penalty, and nothing he’d heard about Lieutenant Zane was complimentary. “Sir.”

  “Hands out.”

  Alex put his hands out, wrists together. The two-inch-wide metal cuffs around his wrists gleamed in the artificial light. He was used to wearing them and had adjusted to the slight restriction of movement. The magna-cuffs were better than the old-style chain cuffs still used in Earth’s prisons. Most of the time he could almost forget they were there, as they were simply metal bands—right up until they were activated by an Army guard.

  He felt the tug as the cuffs magnetized and locked his wrists together. At least Zane hadn’t insisted on locking the cuffs to a wall, or worse, the floor. Zane stood silent for a moment, as if enjoying the power trip. Alex refused to flinch. He was a little taller than the lieutenant, and a little broader in the shoulders. If it came to it, even with his hands cuffed, he’d give Zane a good fight. Although under his uniform Zane was probably all sinew and muscle. Alex waited, keeping his breathing even. Men like Zane enjoyed seeing fear in people’s eyes.

  “Glad to see you making use of the gym. It’s important that men get to blow off some tension.”

  “I like to keep fit, Sir.” Get to the damn point.

  But Alex already knew where this was going. He’d heard about the Army-arranged fights. Prisoner against prisoner, with the winner receiving a privilege token. The spectators—made up of Army and Air Force ship crew, civvies and prisoners—gambled tokens on the outcome. He’d watched one and decided to stay away. It wasn’t his scene.

  Head down, work hard, do his time and start over on a pristine planet unspoiled by overpopulation, pollution, and greed.

  “Would you like to earn some tokens and get yourself some alcohol or sex?”

  Alex choked back a snort of derision. The ship’s brew was like drinking acid and he’d never paid for sex and wasn’t starting now. “I don’t drink, Sir.”

  “Do you fuck?”

  He didn’t want to answer that. It was none of this creep’s business. “Not when I have to pay, Sir.”

  He’d heard some female prisoners were earning tokens on their backs—which sucked—but perhaps they saw it as their way to survive the twelve-month trip. A few of the men also hired themselves out, getting well-paid for blowjobs and more. He didn’t blame any of them. Being reduced to a number was dehumanizing in a way he’d never experienced before, even living in the lower slums of New York.

  Zane took a step closer, his eyes cold and unreadable. “Well then, you’ll be able to keep your tokens under your pillow.”

  “Sir, I have no tokens.” Stealing tokens was worse than stealing money, or water, on Earth. Stealing water rations earned a prison sentence; stealing money earned a death sentence. On Siren, tokens were money, and stealing them would result in a stint in the Box.

  “Good. Then you’ll be wanting to earn some. You’re fighting in the Rounds, starting tomorrow.”

  Alex’s stomach hollowed as if Zane had punched him. No no no. He was not joining the Rounds. “I can’t fight.”

  He hadn’t been in a fight since he was a teen trying to get by, trying to get to school, out of the crumbling house his family shared with three others. But it hadn’t mattered—he’d never gotten out of the slums. He didn’t have the connections to get into the towers, where air was filtered and the rich never left the complex. Sure, he’d built them, but he couldn’t live in them. The medical he’d had before boarding Siren, had revealed he was in the first stages of chem-lung. If he had stayed on Earth, he’d have be
en dead within a decade.

  “I can’t fight, Sir.” Zane leaned a little closer and raised one eyebrow. A scar ran through the middle—Alex doubted Zane had received it in a fair fight. He didn’t look like a man who ever got his hands dirty. He had people for that.

  Alex repeated himself, carefully keeping his voice free of emotion. “I can’t fight, Sir.”

  Zane’s eyes widened and he leaned forward a fraction. “Really? Don’t forget where you are. I read the records of all the prisoners, 1789.” Zane pronounced the number as an insult. “I know about your juvenile record, and I know how you ended up here. You’re smarter than you let people think, so don’t play dumb with me.”

  “It’s been a long time, Sir. I’ve tried to be a better man.” He wondered what Lieutenant Zane’s story was. He’d bet a token he didn’t have that there was something fishy behind that cool persona.

  “Yet here you are, dressed in yellow. D1 common area, 1700 hours. If you don’t show, there will be a penalty.”

  Alex’s fingers twitched. He knew blackmail when it was slapped across his face. He also knew crossing Lieutenant Zane was a bad move. Even some of the enlisted under Zane’s command bitched when they thought no one was listening.

  Alex always listened, and always tried to stay well clear of trouble. But now trouble had sniffed him out. They needed fresh blood for the Rounds, and he was it. If he said no, Zane would see to it that he got fucked over. It would be Zane’s word against his, and as a prisoner, Alex would lose. For a moment, images of an arranged beating and rape flashed through his mind, making his blood run cold. It had happened to other prisoners already.

  However, fighting in the Rounds didn’t exactly conform to his plan to study hard and survive. People would notice him for all the wrong reasons.

  Zane smiled, his teeth a perfect white that only money could buy. “I don’t have all day.”

  Alex swallowed down the loathing at being forced to obey. “1700 hours, Sir. I’ll be there.”

  Zane turned on his heel and walked away, his shoes clanging on the metal floor. For a moment Alex thought he wasn’t going to release the magna-cuffs, but Zane pressed the button just as he reached the door. Alex let his hands fall to his sides and listened until he could no longer pick Zane’s footsteps from the others.

  Alex was yellow bacteria in the belly of a metal beast flying faster than he could imagine toward Solitaire. He was insignificant in the grand scheme of the new colony. The three ships traveling from Earth carried thousands of prisoners, all sent to build the new town and work the fields. Some would die before finishing their sentence and tasting freedom. He didn’t want to be one of them. His plan shifted from surviving the twelve-month trip and serving his time in the colony to become a free man in four years. Now, it was just about surviving the Rounds.

  At any given time, a third of the prisoners were locked down for eight hours to sleep. There were eight hours for classes, meals, and jobs—for those who were lucky enough to be doing laundry or cleaning—and the remaining eight hours for recreation. Cards, gym, study … and the Rounds.

  Alex kept his breathing steady. Fighting while amped up with nerves would mean screwing up. He pressed his lips together and kept walking, his steps ringing out. Voices and laughter filtered out of the metal modular cells. Just because they were hurtling through space to a planet covered in life no further advanced than alien giant squid didn’t mean they had to be miserable.

  Most days, three meals a day, a bed, and the cleanest air he’d ever breathed was reason enough to smile. He wasn’t the only one grateful to be off Earth. But today he hadn’t smiled at all. Not even when he’d been ordered to join the geotechnical classes, to get a better understanding of the rocks and substrates they’d be building on.

  He started down the stairs, quickening his pace, already wondering how long he’d be forced to fight. Just today? Ten days? As long as he was winning? And if he didn’t win? His steps slowed a fraction.

  Three men in yellow moved past him. No one bumped into him. In a place where space was a premium and tempers could fray fast, accidental contact was avoided at all costs.

  Could failure be his way out of the Rounds? It went against his nature to deliberately let something go, and while Zane had talked about sex and alcohol, the idea of spending a token—even if it had been earned in blood—on an extra piece of fresh fruit was much more tantalizing.

  That was what he missed most about home. The small community garden that he and six other neighbors had tended, to supplement what they could buy. Food was expensive. The idea that there had been an obesity problem at the turn of the twenty-first century was laughable. Now most were struggling to survive, and only the rich, in their protected towers, grew fat off everyone else. It would be different on Solitaire. But for how long? Already classes were forming: civvies, Army, prisoners.

  Alex walked into the prison rec area. Hoops were hung at each end, but the gathered crowd wasn’t there to watch mini-basketball. They were there for blood.

  The fights had originally been held in the soldiers’ rec area, but after a brawl had broken out, drawing attention to what was going on, they had been shifted down here. The move had delighted many prisoners because it meant they could all watch the entertainment. Today, he was the entertainment. Tension thrummed in Alex’s body.

  Supervising the fights and the prisoners were Army personnel. Guards with electro-whips on their hips, as well as staff from other divisions. Damn. That meant the Engineering Corps he’d been hoping to impress would hear about this.

  Given the number of people here, everyone must know about the Rounds. They were unofficial and not condoned, but not banned, either. Just another gray area—as long as no one got seriously hurt, it was ignored. The center area was clear apart from one junior officer in mottled fatigues. Alex scanned the uniforms again, but Zane was nowhere to be seen. For a moment Alex considered leaving, but then the man in the middle began calling out numbers. There was no backing out.

  His appearance at the Rounds soon became regular, and all too easy. Show up, wait to be called, wait for the bets to be placed, then remain standing for the five-minute round. No head hits, no broken limbs. They wanted a clean, bare-knuckled fight—injuries would end the fun.

  And while he wanted to deny it, he was actually enjoying himself. The adrenalin rush, at least—not the aches afterward. Most of the fighters were younger than Alex. He’d been a construction foreman on Earth; these guys would have been apprentices. The only thing they brought to the new colony was youth. It was a bitter thought. He curled his fingers into fists and moved into the center once again as his number was called out.

  There were a few cheers—he’d won more than he’d lost, and he put up a good fight. He took off his numbered shirt and tossed it to the side. His number was also stamped across his black singlet, in yellow digits four inches high. If the colony was a hive, the prisoners were the drones. His opponent stepped up. A young guy with skin a few shades darker than his. Alex had seen him fight—he pushed clean right to the very edge. Winning would be tough, but he wasn’t ready to kiss a hydroponic orange goodbye just yet. 2043 stripped off his shirt, ready to fight.

  “Place your bets,” the officer yelled above the noise.

  Murmurs and odds rippled around the rec room, but Alex wasn’t listening. He was trying to be ready. He still had bruises on his ribs and forearms from last time, and his knuckles were always grazed and rough, even though he usually had three days between Rounds.

  “Five minutes. Keep it clean.”

  The crowd faded to a blur of color; the sandy-brown camouflage of the Army uniforms mixing with the painfully bright yellow of the prisoners. There was no dancing around, feeling out his opponent—that got booed pretty fast. The crowd wanted action. A performance, where punches were thrown to connect, but not hard. Alex got a few good body blows in. Half the battle was fitness, the rest was the ability to shut out the pain of repeatedly getting hit. Getting hold of the
opponent and keeping him down was also acceptable. It was as though boxing had gotten together with wrestling and martial arts.

  Alex ducked low and turned away, aiming to land a solid punch under 2043’s arm, to either lock up the muscle or hit the pressure point in the armpit. But 2043 swung his elbow in defense and Alex was caught in the wrong place in the wrong split second. His cheek connected with the elbow. His head snapped back as white bloomed behind his eyes. Before he had a chance to recover, orders were being shouted. His magna-cuffs activated, snapping his hands together and throwing him off balance, then people were hauling him back.

  Someone grabbed his chin. “Look at me, 1789.”

  Alex did. The stars had gone and the pain was starting to radiate across his face. The guard examined the wound for a couple of seconds and then stood. “No tokens awarded. 1789, to the nearest medical station. 2043, in lockdown for forty-eight hours.”

  2043 swore, but there was no getting out of it. Any rule infraction was dealt with fast, accidental or not.

  The guard marched him up the stairs and to the right. His first trip to the medic. His cheek burned, but it wasn’t smarting nearly as much as his pride.

  As deployments went, Sienna had experienced worse. If she forgot for a few moments that they were all going to die in space, or on some distant rock they were supposed to call home, it was almost pleasant. Clean water and air, and the same shitty food as any Army camp. However, unlike all her previous deployments, most of her patients were prisoners. She’d pulled the short straw, and earned Lieutenant Andrew Zane’s ire, and now she was stuck on prison duty for the whole flight. Most of which involved first aid, rather than actual medicine. She’d done field surgery, for God’s sake—now she was doling out pain meds and suppositories.