Submitting to the Shadow (Kindred Tales)

Those eyes had snapped in anger when he’d demanded that she not get pregnant—not even date or try to find a mate—while she worked for him. But Roark had known the moment he laid eyes on her that he couldn’t stand the thought of her with another male.

Not even if he could never have her himself.

Her defiant words echoed in his mind, “…I’m going to want to get married and have a lot of kids. I’ve always wanted that.”

That was something Roark could never give her—never give any female.

Not that it mattered, he told himself firmly. His work—that was the important thing—that was all that mattered. He was so close to a breakthrough and now, with Samantha Grey to help, surely his research would finally bear fruit.

And in the meantime, he would have to ignore the immediate, intense attraction he’d felt the moment he first laid eyes on her. She wasn’t for him, Roark told himself.

But then, for the next solar year, she wasn’t for anyone else, either.

Taking comfort in that thought, he forced the memory of the tingling warmth her touch had caused him out of his mind and focused on his monitor.

Work first, everything else last. That was his motto and he intended to live by it, no matter how distractingly lovely his new assistant was.

Three

“So, how did it go?” Meg asked anxiously as Sammi walked into the lovely suite her best friend shared with her Beast Kindred husband. “Did you get the job?”

“I got it.” Sammi tried to smile but she was still feeling strange after her encounter with Roark. She’d gotten distracted, thinking about him, and had taken a wrong turn on her way back to Meg and Berik’s suite. As a result, she’d ended up on the wrong end of the ship and had to come all the way back again—no small journey since the Mother Ship was huge.

“You got it?” Meg grabbed her by the arms and danced around excitedly. “You got it, Sammie—you got it! Hey…” She paused her happy dance and frowned. “Why aren’t you more excited? This means you can stay up here on the Mother Ship with me! Meggie and Sammie together again, right?”

“And it also means they’ll assign me a suite of my own so I can stop crashing in your spare room,” Sammi pointed out, trying to smile.

“Sammi, honey, you know we don’t mind! Berik and I love having you here!” Meg protested.

“And I love being here,” Sammi said, though in truth, it was a little awkward staying with her friend at times. Mainly because Meg and Berik hadn’t been married that long and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They were always kissing and canoodling and forgetting Sammie was in the same room when things got really hot and heavy.

Also, though the walls were well insulated, Meg was a screamer during sex—something Sammi remembered well from their undergrad days when they had shared an apartment. She did her best to ignore the sounds coming from her best friend’s bedroom, but she’d begun to wish she had invested in a pair of noise-cancelling earphones before coming up to the Mother Ship.

So, though she loved Meg to death and would always be grateful to her friend for offering her shelter when things got scary, she wasn’t sorry to be moving to her own place.

“Maybe you can get a suite in our same corridor,” Meg suggested brightly. “And Berik can go back down to Earth for your stuff—he won’t mind.”

“If he really doesn’t mind, that would be wonderful. I’ll have my Aunt Vicky pack it all up,” Sammi said. “I just…don’t feel safe down there right now.”

“Of course you don’t!” Meg said indignantly. “Down there all by yourself with some crazy stalker chasing you! I can’t believe the police weren’t more help!”

Sammi shrugged uneasily.

“They said he covered his tracks too well and without an identity, how could the court issue any kind of restraining order?”

“Still, somebody should have helped you,” Meg grumbled.

“They did. You did,” Sammi reminded her. “You brought me up here and let me stay with you and even got me a job.”

“No, you got the job. Which reminds me all over again—why aren’t you happier? I thought this was supposed to be a feather in your cap, working with the super-respected researcher and scientist, Commander Roark.”

“It will be. And I am happy—don’t get me wrong. It’s just…” Sammi bit her lip, not wanting to complain.

But Meg wasn’t having it.

“Just what? Come on, Sammi—spill. You know you always do.”

“Well, it’s just that Commander Roark is kind of…kind of strange,” Sammi admitted. “I mean, I shouldn’t say anything about him at all—he did give me the job,” she rushed on. “But he’s just…”

“He’s just weird, right?” Meg said so nonchalantly that Sammi stared at her.

“Well, yes. But how do you know about him?”