Betrayed & Seduced

  Betrayed & Seduced

  by Shelley Munro

  House of the Cat, book 6

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  A Crash Landing

  The Undercover Warrant-taker

  Time To Get The Gattoc In Order

  Betrayal

  Nanu Captures His Mate

  Sweet Seduction

  Consternation In The Gattoc

  The Brother’s Arrival Causes Suspicion

  Chobe Makes Plan A

  A Matter Of Trust

  Plan B Swings In To Action

  Betrayal Yet Again

  The Truth Will Out

  Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy

  Pies And Happiness

  Excerpt – Snared by Saber

  Excerpt – Interplanetary Love

  About Shelley

  Other Books By Shelley

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  A pilot on the run. A warrant-taker determined to make a capture. The mating-dance that threatens to destroy them both…

  Warrant-taker Jazen Lav accepts one last assignment before she retires to follow her dreams. She’s hot on the trail of a runaway cyborg, but the path leads to the crew of the Indefatigable and they’re a tight-lipped bunch. Frustration steers her to an undercover gig as a nurse, which places her in the sights of the flirtatious Indy pilot.

  Nanu left his home planet at a young age, missing the last crucial elements of his training before he hit adulthood. The inner beast he thought dead leaps to life on meeting Jazen, taking him by surprise and tossing him into confusion. His inner beast insists Jazen is his mate, but she’s trouble for him, trouble for his friends, trouble for his future.

  Abduction and betrayal—not the best way to start a courtship, and that’s where the turmoil begins since danger stalks into the city with Nanu and Jazen directly in its sights…

  A Crash Landing

  Nanu scowled at the controls of the tender, the needle of the navigation unit flicking from side to side, testy as a grumpy shifter’s tail. The tender vibrated with unusual vigor as they flew high above a jagged mountain range.

  “Something wrong?” Ransom Drake asked.

  Nanu forced a smile despite his gut doing one of those Highland flings Camryn had described—a strange Earth dance.

  “Nanu?” Ransom, the chieftain of the dragon shifters who lived on the planet of Narenda, prompted him for details Nanu didn’t want to deliver.

  Instead, he scanned the pulsing, protesting instruments, willing them to revert to usual behavior. It wouldn’t do for something to go amiss during this flight since the dragons were their biggest customer.

  Please, please even out.

  Minutes ago, everything had appeared normal. Phrull, if he crashed with an important customer on board, he’d never hear the end of it from his friends who flew with him on the Indefatigable.

  “Are we almost at the mine you spotted?” Ransom scanned the peaks far below them, unease tightening his broad shoulders, a pained frown etched into the face Nanu’s friend Kaya mooned over every time they visited Narenda.

  “Yes, another five minutes flying and we should spot the mine. The scar in the mountain isn’t clear until you’re flying overhead.” Nanu studied the navigation unit with increasing unease. The directional needle continued to waver, and instinct told him the reading was no longer true. They were losing altitude even though the instruments showed otherwise.

  “Why are we flying lower?” Ransom demanded. “We agreed to fly above the mountains, not skim them. The resonance from the Narendanite is pulling at my dragon. Are you trying to weaken me?”

  “No,” Nanu snapped. “The instrument readings are correct but something is shonky. Phrull it. We are losing altitude. I’ll fly back to base and correct the problem with the navigational system.”

  Without warning, Ransom white-knuckled the copilot’s chair. His face paled, and he started to hum, a discordant tune that prickled the hair at the back of Nanu’s neck.

  Alarmed, Nanu gripped the controls and switched to manual. The tender bucked and plunged, throwing Nanu and Ransom against their harnesses. The beads on the end of Nanu’s dreads clacked together in a jangle that fit with Ransom’s crazy humming. Nanu flipped through the manual in his mind, pulse jittering as he struggled to correct the flight path and regain altitude.

  “Come on. Come on!”

  Nothing happened. If anything, the gravitational pressure sucked them closer to the mountain peaks.

  Nanu checked Ransom. The big dragon shifter twitched in his seat, his eyes rolling. Phrull, this was not good. His weird humming increased to a high pitch that made Nanu’s ears ache.

  Nanu jabbed the comm. “Alert. Alert. Kaya! You there?”

  Despite Nanu using every bit of his strength, the controls didn't respond. Something or someone was drawing them closer to the land. Nanu gritted his teeth, biceps bulging as he fought the controls. The minerals in the rocks sparkled and drew his eye, reminding him of stars. He’d always enjoyed his flights over the Narenda mountains, never had a problem. Until today.

  Kaya’s voice crackled through the comm, but her words made no sense.

  “We’re crashing,” he shouted.

  The sharp spine of the mountain peaks grew closer. Nanu scrutinized the ground. Ahead. Yes. It was the weird area the mystery persons had mined without permission, the area Ransom had been so eager to view he’d risked facing the perilous resonance the mountain emitted. They’d assumed flying over at a great height would keep Ransom safe.

  They’d been wrong.

  The comm crackled and died. They were level with the higher peaks now. Crap, could he keep the tender steady long enough to reach the huge, flat area of the mine? He, Kaya and Ry, their captain, had landed there the day before, so he knew the area was large enough for the tender.

  His teeth clenched so tight his jaw hurt. His left hand raced over the controls as he attempted to guide the tender with brute force. It wouldn’t stop them from crashing but he might control the impact.

  Ransom groaned and twitched. Too busy to worry about the dragon shifter now, he fought gravity. The tip of their tender wing clipped the mountain, flipping their vehicle into a wild spin. For a sec, Nanu gained control but a gust of wind sent them bouncing into another sheer peak. Metal struck rock in a pitchy shriek. They plummeted below the walls of the mining zone. No safe landing this time.

  Nanu did everything in his power to avoid crashing, tried every trick he’d learned during his years as a pilot. Nothing worked.

  They struck the ground hard. The impact flung Nanu against his harness hard enough to smack the air from his lungs. The tender scraped across the smooth stone and smashed into a wall of rock, coming to an abrupt halt at an uneven tilt, the engine roaring like a dragon in a temper. With a trembling, sweaty hand, Nanu switched off the power. Silence fell.

  He groaned and dragged in a breath. It hurt, a pained throb reverberating through his skull. Lifeforce trickled down the side of his head, and his dreads obscured his vision. He unfastened his harness and wriggled free. A peek through the viewport showed him they’d been lucky, the wall of rock stopping them from plummeting down the side of the mountain. Instead, they’d landed in a natural bowl. It could’ve been worse. Assured that their tender wouldn’t be going anywhere without help, he checked on Ransom.

  The dragon shifter was breathing. A good sign. Nanu shook Ransom’s shoulder, but the shifter didn’t budge and remained unconscious. At least that weird humming had ceased. That had been plain creepy.

  Nanu tried the comm.

  Nothing but static.

  Sighing, he hoped Kaya had been paying attention and contacted Ry before Ry left with their other
male friends on their boys-only excursion. They’d talked about this trip for cycles since they intended to hunt in feline form and live rough. A rest from women and babies, they’d told Nanu.

  Nanu crawled through the crumpled remains of the tender and attempted to force the door. It creaked a protest and gave with a suddenness that took him by surprise.

  Nanu toppled out, falling awkwardly. His leg bent the wrong way as he struck a rock. The bone cracked, the instant pain shifting his vision to white then black at the edges. The hard embrace of the ground forced the air from his laboring lungs, and it was the last thing he remembered.

  Lights out. Nobody home.

  Blacklight screened the mountain peaks and the vista below when Nanu regained consciousness. He dragged himself to a sitting position, and the pain in his leg almost made him black out again.

  He couldn’t see Ransom from where he lay, but he presumed the dragon chieftain was still unconscious inside the tender. This close contact with the minerals in the rocks and the resonation might kill the dragon before help came. Damn, how had this easy jaunt gone so wrong? He and Kaya had serviced the vehicle before they’d left Viros. No one else had touched it, and the improvements they’d made had gone seamlessly.

  Gryffnn, Ransom’s brother, had been expecting them back. He’d consult with Ry and also Niran, the leader of the Incorporeal race who lived in a symbiotic relationship with the dragon shifters. If Kaya hadn’t understood his call, the alarm would’ve gone up when they hadn’t returned. He’d wait and pray he hadn’t killed the dragon chief.

  “Nanu. Nanu!” The chill on his arm alerted him to a presence rather than the insistent voice at his ear. His eyes popped open to discover one of the Incorporeal race leaning over him.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured. “It’s dangerous.” Pirates and slave traders had laid traps in the mountains to catch unwary Incorporeals. Their rare abilities to fashion energy into tangible things was a valuable commodity for the unscrupulous.

  “It was worth the risk,” the man said. “I volunteered. Where’s Ransom?”

  “He’s in the tender and was unconscious the last time I saw him.”

  “I’ll check on him after I help with your leg. I can’t fix it, but I can reduce the pain.”

  The man placed his hands on Nanu’s leg, above where the bone jutted outward. The Incorporeal’s touch started as a faint chill, but the coldness grew icy and uncomfortable, darting downward to Nanu’s toes. A shiver raced through his veins. His frantic pulse eased as the cold from the Incorporeal’s hands deadened the throb of his injury.

  “Better?”

  “Thanks,” Nanu whispered, able to relax his muscles now that the worst of the pain had retreated.

  “I’ll check on Ransom, then flash back. I’ll leave a directional beacon with you. Don’t switch it on until whitelight. Ry suggested this precaution because no one is conversant of the blacklight creatures living in the mountains.”

  “Tell Ry there was a weird gravitational pull. It wasn’t there when we landed. He must take care when flying over the mine.”

  “I will tell him,” the man promised. He flashed his hand, and a flask appeared. A loaf of bread and cheese settled beside it. “I will find Ransom now.”

  “Come back to tell me you’re leaving. Want to make sure you get away safely,” Nanu ordered.

  The man smiled faintly and squeezed his shoulder. “I will do that, my friend.”

  The Incorporeal blinked from sight while Nanu noted their surroundings, casting out his senses for anything out of the ordinary. The blacklight was absolute, a trap for the unwary who didn’t realize they stood on a mountaintop. Not a single moon or a distant planet glowed in the skies. Not a wind blew. It was almost as if the mountains held their breath, waiting to counter the next move against them.

  “Ransom is breathing, but he’s resonating. I’ve done what I can, but he’s fallen into a coma.”

  “Resonating?”

  “The noise he’s emitting,” the man explained, his white face and hair glowing in the blacklight. “The precious stones have poisoned him.”

  Crap! He’d killed the dragon chieftain. “W-will he recover?”

  “It’s difficult to say,” the Incorporeal said. “We’ll move him as soon as possible.”

  “Can you transport him back now?”

  “He’s too big for me to move. I don’t have enough power left to take either of you because I had difficulty locating you. We had no idea what we were facing or if the pirates had set Incorporeal traps in this region. Niran and Gryffnn asked for volunteers. I offered because I have no family ties. Help will come at first whitelight. I can describe the location, but it will be helpful if you start the locator beacon then.”

  “Thank you. Tell them…tell them I tried my best. I-I…”

  The man squeezed Nanu’s shoulder. “I have heard tales of your flying skill, my friend. No one blames you.”

  “Nanu,” Nanu said.

  “I am Seedric,” the Incorporeal offered. “First whitelight.”

  Seedric faded away before his eyes, and Nanu issued a sigh at his ease of departure. At least he didn’t have Seedric’s welfare on his conscience too.

  Nanu dozed, unable to find a comfortable spot. Nagging worry kept him from relaxing. What if Ransom didn’t regain consciousness? What would happen? The dragons were a secretive race, and he knew little of them, apart from the fact they were skilled in jewelry production and rich. Would they blame him?

  Phrull, of course they would. He blamed himself.

  As the whitelight pushed away the dark, Nanu set off the tracker beacon and crawled to the tender to check on Ransom, determination pushing him to reject the pain stabbing his limb. As he neared the door, the weird humming became audible. Rhythmic and more musical now, it sent shivers running through his veins.

  Nanu had no chance of lifting himself through the entrance to see Ransom, but he figured if the dragon was humming, he remained alive.

  Not long afterward, the purr of a tender had Nanu’s gaze scanning the skies. When it flew into sight, the tension seeped from him with a whoosh of relief.

  He waved as the tender flew over them and circled to hover above him. The side door slid open, and he spotted Ry.

  As the tender continued to hover, Ry, Jarlath, Shiloh and Ellard appeared in open doorway. Phrull, they’d canceled their hunting trip to help him. A harsh gasp of relief rushed past his dry lips. They’d come. The four feline shifters rappelled to the ground while Mogens, their medic and seer, frowned down at them. Ribbons of black flashed through his gray face, morphing his features and arms to a deep charcoal. A stretcher came down next, guided downward by Mogens.

  Nanu closed his eyes. Mogens sensed things, long before they did, reading the truth in the clouds. A black Mogens meant trouble or worry. While if he appeared pale and white things were fine in Mogens’s world.

  Ry reached him first, his tanned features and green eyes full of concern as he crouched beside him. “I hear your leg is broken.”

  The feline shifter was his boss and his friend. His savior, although Ry didn’t realize this truth. Nanu and his late brother Yep had repaid Ry’s faith in them with their flying and mechanical skills, and after Yep’s death, Ry and the rest of the Indy crew had become his family.

  “Get Ransom first. I’m worried about him. He’s still humming, and he didn’t answer me when I called out to him. He kept doing that freaky humming crap.”

  Ellard and Shiloh, brothers from the planet Viros, ignored his plea to help the dragon shifter first. Ellard scooped him up with easy strength, his homely face bearing the same worry as Ry’s. The chill of Ellard’s replacement arm beneath Nanu’s butt pierced his trews before the stretcher took his weight. Ellard had lost his arm during the war with the House of Cawdor, and these days relied on the Incorporeal couple who lived at the palace to provide his ghostly limb.

  Searing agony forced a groan past Nanu’s clenched lips, despite Ellard’
s gentleness and Shiloh’s help. Crawling to Ransom had done him no favors, yet he’d had to check on the dragon.

  “Sorry.” Shiloh, mate to the king and queen of Viros, grimaced. “Mogens will give you something for the pain once you’re on the tender.”

  “What about Ransom?”

  “Stow your whining,” Ellard snapped, and then Nanu knew the men were worried. Since Ellard had mated with Gweneth, his temper remained sweeter. This burst of impatience had become rare.

  Ellard took one end of the stretcher and Shiloh the other, taking care not to jar his leg. It still hurt like a bitch, every minuscule shift jolting him as they carried him across the rough terrain of rocks. The whitelight caught the sparkle of precious gems, studded within the rocks, some of them valued by the dragons for their jewelry designs.

  Nanu ignored the beauty to focus on the wreck of the tender and the gouge they’d left on the surface before they’d skidded to a stop near a wall of glittery rock.

  Jarlath, brother to the king of Viros, followed Ry to the downed tender. They disappeared inside the crumpled vehicle. He saw nothing more since Mogens operated the lift for the stretcher, and Nanu rose upward.

  Mogens guided the stretcher inside the tender, ribbons of white swirling across his black features. He’d obviously worried but appeared calmer with Nanu aboard.

  Not him. Nanu’s gut churned and danced. He’d relax once Ransom made it to the ship and they transported him to his clan. He had to regain consciousness.

  “You said Ransom is humming?”

  “Gryffnn.” Nanu moved his head too fast, jerking his leg. He groaned and cried out as Mogens probed his injury. When the agony allowed him to breathe again, he rotated his head in a controlled manner to glimpse Gryffnn. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Ransom is my brother,” Gryffnn said. “He’d do the same for me.”

  “He’s not in great shape. I’m so sorry. Kaya and I had the tender in tiptop shape. It shouldn’t have malfunctioned.”