Lunar Heat: 1 (The Heat Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Susan Kearney

  The Novels of Susan Kearney from Bell Bridge Books

  Lunar Heat

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

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  13

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  Coming next from Bell Bridge Books in 2013: Susan Kearney’s Solar Heat. The Heat Series — Book 2

  The Rystani Warrior Series by Susan Kearney

  Author Susan Kearney

  Praise for Susan Kearney

  “Kearney is a master storyteller.”

  —Virginia Henley, New York Times bestselling author

  “Susan Kearney is a gifted storyteller with carefully woven plots and refreshing characterization. Her style is crisp, and keeps her readers hungrily turning the pages.”

  —Tampa Tribune

  “From the first page, Kearney captures the reader.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  The Novels of Susan Kearney from Bell Bridge Books

  Kiss Me Deadly

  Dancing with Fire

  The Challenge (Rystani Warrior 1)

  The Dare (Rystani Warrior 2)

  The Ultimatum (Rystani Warrior 3)

  The Quest (Rystani Warrior 4)

  Lunar Heat (The Heat Series 1)

  Solar Heat (The Heat Series 2)

  Lunar Heat

  The Heat Series – Book 1

  by

  Susan Kearney

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-392-4

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-371-9

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2013 by Hair Express, Inc.

  Solar Heat (excerpt) © 2008 by Hair Express, Inc.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  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 permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Previously published as Island Heat by Tor Books, Tom Doherty Associates, LLC February 2007

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Tara Adkins

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Couple © Tara Adkins

  Tropical background (manipulated) © Fernando Rodrigues | Dreamstime.com

  Moon & star (manipulated) © Dan Collier | Dreamstime.com

  :Mhlp:01:

  Dedication

  This one is for George O. Brick M.D.—best doctor ever!!

  Prologue

  The streaming stars behind Cade’s viewscreen appeared to slow, then stabilize.

  Gut clenching with excitement, Cade popped into the normal space of Earth’s solar system, the transition smooth and easy. The old mining asteroid in synchronous orbit over Earth’s equator sat right off the bow, her newly terra-formed blue seas beckoning.

  “Starting landing procedures,” his artificial intelligence system, AIS, confirmed his final approach toward the asteroid.

  He’d made it. Finally, Cade could begin his mission.

  “Warning! Warning!” the AIS’s siren blared. “We’re under attack.”

  “Engage shields.” Cade pivoted in the command chair, his thoughts bleak. Had stealth mode failed? “Identify the aggressor.”

  “Ship-based attack. Gathering data.”

  The technology in this solar system shouldn’t have spotted him. Unless stealth mode really had failed. “Assess faster. And get me to that asteroid in one piece.”

  “Implementing elusive maneuvers.”

  Cade’s ship banked hard to starboard.

  “Attacking ship is Raman,” the AIS said.

  Damn it. No one from his planet should be here. Cade’s “secret” mission had somehow been compromised.

  His communicator went online. A three-dimensional image of his dominating, predatory older brother, Jamar, filled Cade’s bridge. Every First had a temper, and Jamar’s was clearly about to go supernova.

  Jamar could do more than hurt Cade. Jamar could crush the mission.

  May the Stars have mercy on me. Because Jamar wouldn’t. The man had no mercy. No heart. Just formidable power, and Cade would bear the brunt of it.

  Cade’s mind raced to find a way to salvage something from the disaster. He had to survive. He could not fail. Too many people back home were counting on him.

  “Don’t move,” Jamar ordered, voice harder than anything ever mined from an asteroid.

  Cade went completely still at that order, felt it slam into him like a fist and send him back to his childhood. You, slime worm, are beneath me. Pick up that pot of boiling water. Spill it over your face so the world will see how ugly you are.

  Cade had used every ounce of his five-year-old’s will, but his brother’s power was too strong. The pot handle scorched his palm. But he couldn’t let go. He could only obey. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Terrified, he tipped the boiling water over his head.

  His flesh burned. And burned. He didn’t make a sound. Jamar had forced his mouth closed, his tongue still, his throat frozen. Cade’s agony poured into a silent scream that only he could hear.

  Thanks to medical technology, the facial burns had long since healed. No evidence of the agony he’d endured remained on his face. But the scars had burned into the core of his soul.

  Fear.

  Frustration.

  Fury.

  Cade felt the same searing rage now that he’d felt then. Fury that almost gagged him. That left him raw and powerless in the face of a truth he couldn’t escape. He was second born. Inferior.

  But not helpless. Not yet. Jamar wasn’t yet close enough to exert his full powers.

  Cade made the most of every second of free will, and he banked hard to port. At the extra distance he put between their ships, he regained use of his voice. But he had mere seconds before Jamar’s faster ship would put
him back in dangerous range. He toggled the privacy mode so his brother couldn’t hear his commands or the AIS’s replies. “Locate the transmission’s source.”

  “Jamar’s ship is on an intercept course between us and the asteroid.”

  Damn him to the seven hells of Haden. Jamar wasn’t only ruthless, he was very, very smart. Obviously, he’d known where Cade was headed. And Jamar held every superior tactical advantage.

  His AIS gave Cade more bad news. “He’s trying for a weapons’ lock.”

  “You salt-sucking slime worm.” Jamar’s holo image arched a condescending brow. “You should never have been have been allowed to leave the crèche.”

  Tension ripped Cade’s concentration, and he had to wrestle control of his mind back from the instinctive, conditioned tendrils of obedience curling through him. He had to fight the urge to give up, to agree with a First.

  Focus! He couldn’t out-fly the other ship’s superior engines. Couldn’t avoid the missile.

  He wanted to fight back so badly he could taste it. But he didn’t have the weapons to shoot Jamar down. Nor would he retreat.

  Cade’s hands flew over the controls.

  “His guidance system is locking onto our vector,” his AIS informed him.

  Cade lifted the privacy mode. “Missed me, did you?” he almost snarled his anger. He would not fail. He could not fail. Too many people had sacrificed too much to get him this far.

  “You can’t outsmart a First.”

  “Untrue. I stole this ship from a First,” Cade taunted his brother, needing more time to save his precious payload.

  “You may have more lives than a dock rat, but your time is up.” Cade heard his brother savoring the sweet taste of victory. “The penalty for rebellion is death.”

  “I should be so lucky. At least in death I could escape you, brother dear.” Almost there. Cade scanned the distance to the asteroid, then toggled back to privacy mode to give a last order to the AIS. “Buy me a few more seconds.”

  “That may not be possible. Jamar has entered a firing code into his system,” his AIS warned.

  Jamar shouted, as if pronouncing sentence, “You have lied and betrayed all of Rama—”

  “Not true,” Cade retorted.

  “And now you will die knowing that your people will suffer for your actions.”

  “Laser firing,” his AIS intoned.

  His brother’s boast still ringing in his ears, Cade ejected.

  1

  Shara Weston had abandoned her holovid career almost five years ago, and hadn’t sniffed, injected, or drunk herself into oblivion in almost a decade. She was at a loss to explain the unexplainable—a man plummeting toward the sea of her private asteroid.

  The sonic boom that had drawn her attention from the perfectly duplicated Polynesian coral reef to the manufactured sky had been real. Lifting her head from the azure water, she’d anxiously thrust back her face mask and searched for the spacecraft responsible for disturbing her late afternoon swim in her favorite island cove.

  But she couldn’t see a spaceship—just a body falling through clouds too wispy to hide a metal hull. Shara held her breath, watching him fall, waiting for his parachute to deploy.

  When the horrifying notion finally sank into her stunned brain that no canopy was about to open, Shara’s adrenaline revved. Replacing her mask over her eyes, her rebreather into her mouth, she swam for her boat.

  As her arms churned the water, her thoughts swirled. It didn’t matter if he was a downed military pilot, a stuntman, or a paparazzo come to spy on her in a plan gone terribly wrong—whatever his circumstances, she was the only person around who could help him. Her home on Haven, on an asteroid that orbited Earth over the South Pacific, was wonderfully private—yet sometimes privacy could be damn inconvenient, especially if someone required medical care.

  He crashed into her sea about twenty feet from her and struck the surface with enough impact for the backwash to tug her under. Fighting the waves, spinning ninety degrees to the left, she searched the clear water.

  Please, please let him be alive.

  She’d heard of freak accidents where foolish tourists survived space walks gone wrong and falls onto asteroids with less gravity than hers. But on Haven, gravity and weather were matched to Earth’s.

  And he’d landed hard.

  Shara gulped a large breath of air through her rebreather then used her flippers to dive. Below a tiger shark darted after a grouper and disappeared into the depths.

  Bubbles caught her attention. Air bubbles surrounded a body clad in a golden flight suit.

  He was about four meters below the surface, and with the sea calm and the sun bright, she had no difficulty snagging him. Grabbing his gloved hand, she tugged hard, kicking them both upward.

  She burst back to the surface and prayed he’d be able to suck oxygen into his lungs. She turned him onto his back, slung an arm around his neck and shoulder, and staying on her side, towed him toward the stern of her boat.

  Somehow, she tossed her flippers onto the swim platform and climbed aboard with one hand while preventing him from floating away with her other. With both her feet planted on the deck, she hauled him up, first his powerful chest, then his muscular legs. After removing her mask and spitting out the rebreather, she rolled him onto his back.

  Shara had been around the Earth’s top holovid stars. She’d been jaded about gorgeous for a long time, but this man was beyond gorgeous. Perhaps the most handsome guy she’d ever seen.

  No blood seeped from his straight nose, full mouth, or ears. A pulse beat in the strong cords of his neck, but the color was draining from his face. He wasn’t breathing.

  Damn it. Surely he hadn’t been in the water long enough to drown?

  Oh, no. No way was he going to die in her puddle of the solar system.

  Tilting back his head, she pinched closed his nostrils, placed her lips over his mouth, and blew a strong breath into his lungs. “Come on. Come on. Come on.”

  She exhaled more air into his mouth.

  “Breathe. Damn you. Breathe.”

  Pale as a jellyfish, he didn’t so much as flicker one stunning black eyelash. Shara kept filling his lungs with air. “Take a breath. Come on, man. Stop being so difficult. One breath.”

  He coughed, spit out water. He grunted, a purr so low and so deep that she almost responded to his pain on an elemental level. With a groan, he opened his eyes, mesmerizing eyes—emerald stars on a background of vibrant black. Wow, oh wow. He was big and handsome and impossibly alive.

  As his bronzed skin tones replaced his former pallor with inhuman speed, she felt as if her heart was going to beat right out of her chest.

  “Easy,” she soothed, wanting to ease the wariness in his gaze. “You’re going to be okay.”

  He clasped one hand over his obviously injured shoulder, his stare watchful, waiting. Patient eyes. Dangerous eyes took in the pulse racing at her neck, the expansion of her chest as she gulped in air. The reminder that she wore only a minuscule bikini forced more wariness to trickle through her psyche.

  Was it simply coincidence that out of the myriad of asteroids orbiting Earth, he’d crashed into hers? She had to consider if he’d deliberately sought her out. While the world hadn’t forgotten Shara Weston the holovid star, one compromising holopic of her could still sell for a large cache of credits.

  Did that matter right now? He was too weak to do much about anything at the moment.

  “Hey. Don’t sit up yet.” Shara placed a hand on his good shoulder, pleased at the warmth that indicated he’d thrown off the chill of the deep. She ignored the heat that blazed up her arm. Ignored the way the predatory gleam in his eyes made her stomach flutter and made her uncomfortable.

  “I’m fine.” Voice tough, commanding, but threaded with pain, he shoved his good hand onto the deck and raised himself to a sitting position. Instead of looking at her, he shaded his eyes from the sun and searched the empty sky.

  Interesting. Shara�
�s looks had rocketed her career to a pinnacle of success that had made her an inter-solar sensation. She wasn’t used to men ignoring her. These days she wasn’t used to men. Period.

  Was that why she couldn’t seem to stop staring at his massive chest? He really had a super-fit body, sculpted abs, and bronze skin the color of warm honey.

  Sweat beaded on his strong brow. “Have you seen anything . . . odd?”

  “Other than you falling onto my asteroid?” she cracked, and when he simply continued to scan the sky and cradle his arm, she figured that maybe he was in more pain than he wanted her to see. “After your swan dive into my ocean, you may have dislocated that shoulder.”

  He finally lowered his head to scan the water. “Ocean?”

  “Okay, so I have pretensions of grandeur. It’s my asteroid, and I prefer to think of it as an ocean. Just like I call the artificial atmosphere a sky.” She was babbling. Nervous. Stop it. She steadied her nerves with a deep breath. “I’d really like to know what you’re doing here.”

  Finally glancing sideways at her, he spoke carefully. Too carefully. Like he’d learned elocution from a textbook. “You have medical training?”

  Don’t trust him. Although she’d detected an almost military briskness beneath the softly spoken words, she reminded herself he hadn’t made even a token attempt to answer her question.

  One look at the formidable determination in his eyes, and she knew it would be a wasted effort to confront him head on. “You’re holding that arm just like my stunt double did after Sweetie Pie bucked her off.”

  “Sweetie Pie?”

  “Finest horse that ever made a holovid.” She bit her bottom lip. “Maybe you should—”

  “I’m fine.” His eyes gleamed stardust. His confident tone suggested he was accustomed to giving orders.

  Yeah, he was fine all right. So fine that as he clutched his forearm to take the weight off his shoulder, his fingers trembled. Yet, with his piercing gaze once more focused on the sky, he exuded stubborn determination, even as he licked his top lip and a tiny smile of satisfaction curled his mouth.