Masters of Eden Read online

  There were protocols for such landings, of course. Ghost and Mixer ran through them without any significant issues. Ultimately they were military men. Professionals. They might have been angry about it, but if anyone could survive, it was them.

  Watching them work was very satisfying and arousing. Two strong men dressed impeccably in their sleek black uniforms, moving in union as they initiated a landing sequence. Ghost held command as always. Eden marveled at the way he held Mixer in check. Even in a situation running high with tension and emotion, Ghost knew how to keep his head—and how to make others keep theirs. He stood with his feet planted squarely, tight uniform-clad glutes gleaming under the ship’s lights.

  They both had very nice butts, she thought to herself. Powerful buttocks that she loved to grasp as they thrust themselves inside her. She was getting very horny, a slippery sensation between her thighs growing as she was thoroughly and completely ignored by both her lovers.

  She slipped a hand down her pants and let her fingers slide between her lower lips. It was perhaps the wrong time to sneakily masturbate. It was an emergency, arguably the biggest emergency of her life. The culmination of a hundred little emergencies, none of which had gone her way. If they had, she would not be sitting on the bridge of a ship a million miles from anywhere, watching two men scramble to preserve their lives.

  There was guilt, of course there was. Ghost and Mixer deserved better than this. Then again, she did too. Perhaps they would not have sent her on to the colony after months of lovemaking. Perhaps they would have. There was no way to know. All she did know was that she had no intention of serving out a sentence as a cross between a broodmare and a concubine.

  “Belt up,” Mixer said, taking his seat. “This could be a bumpy ride.”

  He didn’t sound angry anymore, and instead Eden heard excitement in his voice. It was exciting. Very exciting. They were about to be the first people to set foot on a pristine world. The first to claim new territory, not for any union or federation, but for their own freedom.

  “Eden, get your hands out of your damn pants,” Mixer growled over his shoulder while Ghost took the controls for the descent. At first nothing felt out of the ordinary. Movement was hard to discern in space—a fact that had made the whole trick possible in the first place.

  “Make sure that harness is tight,” Mixer added. “This is going to be rocky. We’re going down blind.”

  The ship began to sink into new atmosphere. As they breached the protective gas layer, things got very bad, very quickly. The ship gave a violent shudder, then another, then another so quickly that the shudders ran together and became one long violent vibration.

  Eden felt as though her meat would be shaken from her bones, as if her brain would be turned to mushy jelly. It was hot too, impossibly so. Sweat ran down from her hairline and drenched her eyes, stinging them with salt, which made her blink and tear up in equal amounts so she viewed the world through a hot, melting haze.

  Just when it seemed unbearable, it got worse. The heat peaked at barely survivable temperatures and the shaking grew so great that she had to shut her eyes to keep from being disoriented past the point of nausea. Nausea had already been reached. Great sweeping waves of sickness were rushing through her body. She knew she’d probably thrown up already, but she couldn’t remember if she had. The world was evaporating and she with it.

  After several long minutes that felt like hours, the heat began to recede. The journey was not over, they were rocketing toward the ground. Ghost and Mixer were yelling at one another over the noise of the ship, but she couldn’t make out any distinct words. All was chaos.

  Every bone in her body was jolted and her organs flew toward her mouth as the ship touched down in a landing that was far from graceful. Everything jolted and the vibrations were so strong Eden thought the vessel would surely be torn apart.

  Then it stopped. Everything stopped. The noise. The movement. The world. Eden was left with a ringing in her ears and overwhelming nausea. Wrenching at her straps, she collapsed onto the floor, sobbing and gasping for air. She was beyond panic, in a state of high hysteria that left no room for self-control. All her bravery had turned to mist in the fiery atmospheric entry.

  “Breathe.” Strong but gentle hands pushed her hair back from her face. “We survived.”

  Eden opened her eyes and looked into Mixer’s face. It was lit with relief and exhilaration. What she had hated, he had loved. The fire had broken her, but it had only served to temper him and make him stronger.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” she said weakly.

  “Just breathe,” he said again, more kindly than she deserved.

  “Is she alright?” Ghost was moving around, checking systems.

  Mixer checked her pulse and used a penlight to check her eyes. “She’s fine,” he said. “She needs to rest.”

  “Sedate her,” Ghost ordered. “We’re not going to be able to babysit her until we check and secure the ship, set up locator beams. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

  Eden didn’t have enough fight in her to resist, or any will to do so for that matter. Mixer drew a shot of sedative, hooked her pants down, and jabbed the needle into the fleshy part of her bottom. She had never been so glad to pass out.

  *

  “We probably should have sedated her before entry,” Mixer mused after settling the insensate Eden in Ghost’s bed. “That was rough on her.”

  “Good,” Ghost said. “She suffered the consequences of her actions.”

  Mixer gave him a sidelong glance. “I thought you weren’t angry at her.”

  “Of course I’m angry at her. There wasn’t time to berate her, that’s all. We had bigger things to worry about, and we still do.”

  Mixer chuckled as he checked through wiring, ensuring it hadn’t been fried out by the extreme heat. “And when things settle down a little?”

  “Then our little prisoner is going to wish she’d gone to that colony,” Ghost said grimly. What Eden had done was inexcusable, and he thoroughly intended to take it out on her ass. Not before making it abundantly clear that she’d done serious damage to their relationship, however. The madam thought she could flutter her eyelashes and send them to hell. She was going to realize how very wrong she was.

  There were many miles of wiring aboard the ship, not to mention panels and other parts that had likely come loose in the entry. It had not been an ideal descent, not by any means. The ship wasn’t really built for interplanetary exploration. It was built for nice easy zero friction docking.

  “You know, it actually held together quite well,” Mixer said, sounding impressed. “I mean, all of it.”

  Ghost made no reply. Mixer’s celebration was premature at best. They could still be at risk from fire or explosion if there were unseen damage. He’d hold off on the cheers until he was absolutely certain the ship was safe.

  “Wow. You really are angry,” Mixer observed. “I haven’t seen you this quiet in a long time.”

  “We have an entire ship to check, and then an entire world to deal with,” Ghost said. “I’m busy.”

  “Busy?” There was silence interrupted only by the rattling of cables. “Oh, my god,” Mixer drawled. “It’s worse than I thought. You’re not just mad. She hurt your feelings, didn’t she?”

  Ghost let go of a bundle of wires and sighed. “She was sleeping with us all that time. Every single day she knew we were drifting into dangerous territory and she never let on.”

  “I guess that’s why they don’t recommend having sexual relationships with convicted prisoners.”

  Mixer was right, of course. Sexual relationships were disallowed for a reason. Ghost had fallen for Eden. He’d thought he loved her even. But it was clear now that her sexual availability was just a ruse to keep him from paying attention to the status of the ship. And it had worked.

  “I won’t make that mistake again,” he said grimly.

  Mixer paused. “So it’s over between you and Eden.”

>   “You’re welcome to her.”

  “I’ve always been welcome to her.”

  “True, but now you’ve got unfettered access. I won’t have her in my bed. Not after this.”

  Mixer snorted. “Don’t be rash. You’ll regret it.”

  “I’ll regret no longer having a relationship with a woman who betrayed me?”

  “She didn’t betray either of us. She came out of that pod fighting and she told you to your face she wasn’t going to go to the colony. She kept her word.”

  “Did going through that atmosphere warp your brain? You were furious with her before we got down here.”

  “I figured she’d killed us. She didn’t. I’m good.”

  “You’re good?” Ghost looked at Mixer incredulously. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Mixer said. “Heck, even the ship is in good shape. And there’s a breathable atmosphere out there. We’re going to survive. We might even be rescued.”

  He was beaming. He was… happy. It seemed that Eden had been right about Mixer. He was going to enjoy the challenge of living on this world, starting from nothing. He wasn’t going to miss the ship’s artificial environments one little bit.

  “I’m delegating care and custody of the prisoner to you,” Ghost said. “Keep her out of my way.”

  “I’ll keep her warm until you get over your snit,” Mixer agreed. “Now, shall we go outside?”

  Outside. It had been a very long time since either one of them had been outside. For the longest time, the only side had been inside.

  “Do we have a full analysis of the atmosphere?”

  “We can breathe it,” Mixer reassured him.

  “Holster up. We’ll need weapons.”

  “Lots of weapons,” Mixer agreed, grinning. Ghost had not seen him so eager or excited in a long time. The man was ecstatic at the possibility that they were about to face something hostile.

  But Ghost was not overly concerned by the prospect, nor was he excited by it. His mind was heavy as a result of Eden’s betrayal. Under other circumstances, being the first to set foot on an alien planet would have been cause for celebration. This was what he had signed up for, what they had both signed up for, to advance the human race, to find new worlds where the species might learn to thrive. Becoming a glorified jailer had never been on the agenda, but sometimes life took one in strange directions.

  “Ready?”

  Mixer nodded. Ghost activated the airlock. It slid open.

  Neither man spoke. There were no words to describe or even appreciate the splendor. A purple horizon faded up into a blue sky in which hung a great low sun. Mountains rose in the distance, so tall that clouds were settled around their bases. The crystal quality of the atmosphere allowed men to see to the tips of the mountains that surely scraped the stars.

  The ship had come to rest on a plain of sorts, covered in fine vegetation. It grew curling and dense about their boots, soft ferns and tendrils with flowers of gold and ocher.

  “Look,” Mixer said, hushed. He pointed toward the far end of the vegetation where it grew taller into blossoming bushes and tree-like structures. There, beneath the shade of the alien canopy, three creatures were grazing. They were short four-footed animals with large dark eyes set into equine heads, large bellies covered in what looked like a soft wool. “It’s a sheep, deer, horse,” Mixer said, almost giggling with glee.

  Ghost smiled, more at Mixer’s tone than his joke. The creatures didn’t seem to notice them, too busy sticking out long tongues that wrapped around ferny, frond-y grass and swiped it toward their waiting mouths.

  Above their heads hung bulbous purple fruits, growing on trees that had three trunks each and then a massive array of long, pointed, thick leaves, each one three or four feet long.

  “This area must get a lot of moisture,” Ghost murmured. “You’ve got your ungulates, fast-growing ground cover, and tropical plants.”

  “And a waterfall.” Mixer faced to the right and pointed at a nearby rock face where water was cascading out over an outcropping and falling in white foaming splashes into a deep pool from which steam was rising.

  “It looks hot,” Ghost said, walking toward it.

  Mixer crouched in front of the pond, hovered his hand over it for a second, then dipped his fingers into it. “It’s nice,” he said. “Hot, but not too hot.”

  “Get your hand out of there,” Ghost said. “You don’t know what’s in that water. You don’t know if there’s brain-eating bacteria, or a crocodile, or piranha fish… what are you doing?”

  Mixer was stripping off his uniform, baring his body to the sun. He ignored each and every one of Ghost’s orders for caution and jumped into the pool, completely bare ass naked.

  “It’s good! It’s really… Ow! Oh, my God! Arrgghhh!”

  Without a second thought, Ghost dived in fully dressed. He just barely reached his supposedly drowning comrade when Mixer stopped screaming and let out a hearty laugh.

  “Gotcha!”

  “Asshole,” Ghost growled, splashing back to dry land. His uniform was soaked, so he peeled it off, joining Mixer in his nudity.

  “Relax,” Mixer shouted. “Nothing’s going to go wro… oh nooooo!”

  He began flailing again, water churning to white froth as his arms beat against the surface. He was doing a much better acting job, but Ghost was not fooled.

  “Forget it,” Ghost shouted back. “I’m not falling for that again.”

  With one last shriek, Mixer disappeared beneath the water. Ghost did nothing for the first thirty seconds or so, but when his comrade failed to surface but great glugging bubbles of air did, he once again took the plunge. He was glad he did. The clear water immediately revealed the problem. Tendrils had wrapped themselves around Mixer’s legs and were pulling him down.

  Ghost didn’t have a knife, but he had his teeth. He wrenched at the tendrils and bit them. At first they seemed to be part of a plant, but as his teeth sank in he found a fleshy interior that flexed in protest under the cutting power of his canines. He gnawed through three of the thick winding limbs before they let go of Mixer, allowing him to break free, swim to the surface, and make for shore with flailing, splashing strokes.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked through gasps for air as he lay on the soft fern grass.

  “Something,” Ghost said, joining him. They were both out of breath. Real exercise was quite different from the simulated kind, and they had not had any real exercise in years. “We should get back to the ship. It’s not safe out here.”

  Mixer made no argument. As soon as they had their breath back, the men gathered their clothing and made haste back to the ship.

  “What were you two doing out there all naked and wet?”

  Eden’s question was purred from the captain’s chair where she had settled herself. What she was doing awake, let alone out of her confines was a matter for debate, but Ghost was not surprised to see her. Eden was never where she was supposed to be. She had no respect for anything besides her own wishes. He elected to ignore her questions and let Mixer deal with her.

  “Get to my quarters now,” Mixer growled. “You know better than to escape your restraints.”

  “If you didn’t want me to escape them, you should have done them properly.”

  “I’ll do you properly, minx, now get going.”

  Eden giggled. She was clearly recovered from her little breakdown. Funny what a good sedative could do. Ghost watched as she bounced up from the chair and flounced off toward Mixer’s quarters. He wanted nothing more than to whip her round, jiggling bottom for what she’d done, but he didn’t trust himself to impart discipline with the necessary restraint. He was still too angry to deal with her effectively. Mixer, on the other hand, seemed to have forgiven her entirely. His temperament was impetuous but resilient. They made a fine pair in many respects and Mixer could most certainly meet her needs. She would probably not suffer a bit from their estrangement. That, like so
many other burdens, would be his to bear alone.

  *

  “You’ve really done it this time.”

  Mixer swatted Eden as she scampered into his quarters. He was delightfully naked, his thick cock hanging heavy between his legs as he chased her across the room.

  “Really done what?” She giggled and took refuge under the covers of his bed, only to be dug out and swiftly slapped several more times on her bottom.

  “You’ve pushed Ghost beyond his tolerance,” Mixer informed her.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ll be dealing with you from here on out,” Mixer said, pinning her down lightly in such a way that her upper body was supported by pillows, her bottom exposed for his discipline. His warm hand on her cheeks distracted her from his words for a moment or two.

  “Wait… what?” She pushed up from the bed. “You mean Ghost…”

  “Ghost has delegated your care to my command.”

  “Why?”

  Mixer was not a good liar. Nor was he terribly diplomatic. “You pissed him off.”

  “But you’ve forgiven me?”

  “We’re alive,” Mixer shrugged. “That’s all I need. Ghost’s more complicated than I am. He needs more. He wants to know that the woman he’s sleeping with isn’t secretly plotting to ditch his ship on an undiscovered planet.”

  “But he’s fine sleeping with someone who he plans to dump on a penal colony,” Eden scowled. “What a hypocrite.”

  “The captain is allowed to be a hypocrite,” Mixer said. “Now turn your ass over. I need to spank it.”

  Eden was no longer in the mood to cooperate. The news of Ghost’s withdrawal both hurt and annoyed her. She resisted Mixer’s order, which of course did very little. He had no trouble flipping her over and resuming the punishment, such as it was.

  “Quit whacking me!” Eden complained into the sheets.

  “No.” Mixer was most firm on that front. “You deserve a good spanking. You deserve a whole lot of good spankings.”