At last – the story you’ve all been waiting for! Well, okay, the story that I’ve been waiting to get back to ever since I first wrote it as a 12k short in the spring of 2010. Here’s my first attempt at a blurb for you:

On a mining colony planet a long way from Earth, bandit Jedd Lightning dreams of making enough money to get off the planet for good. When a robbery at a high-class brothel goes wrong, he meets gorgeous rentboy Storm and is instantly smitten. But Storm has a few surprises up his sleeve, and when Jedd helps him escape, he realises he might have taken on more than he can handle…

JL Merrow and Lou Harper are once again my fabulous beta readers – any remaining mistakes are my own.

But now, on with the story:

“I wasn’t expecting a delivery today.” The man in chef’s whites narrowed his impressively bloodshot eyes and made to shut the kitchen door. “You’ll have to clear it with the manager.”

Jedd Lightning wedged his foot in the door, glad the chef was another human like him. A T’almaki would have crushed his foot regardless, probably without even realising what he was doing. He called up his least memorable facial expression: blank incomprehension mixed with a mild dose of simple-mindedness. He’d practiced it in front of the mirror for years now, and it always left him feeling somewhat bored with his reflection – definitely an unusual state of affairs.

“The boss told me to bring it ‘ere,” he said, falling back into the rough hills accent he’d learnt to disguise since moving to the city. “It’s to thank Madam Tavkel for ‘is last visit. ‘Parently the girl she set ‘im up with was a right goer.”

Red-eyes wrinkled up his nose in disgust. Jedd hoped that was a reaction to the funky smell coming from the bins outside the door, and no comment on his yokel act. He didn’t want to make a big impression, and had been bargaining on the typical bigotry towards hill folk meaning the guy wouldn’t spare him more than a cursory glance.

Shame, though, as old Red-eyes was really missing out. Jedd caught a glimpse of his reflection in the side of ladle hanging on the wall. Even distorted by the curved surface so his nose bulged like a sand dune, you could tell what a looker he was: six feet of solid muscle topped off by a face to cream yourself over and a shock of thick blond hair. Yep, he was a handsome bastard, even if he did say so himself. And he did. Regularly.

“Let’s see what we’ve got then,” Red-eyes sneered. “Well go on, man. Open it.”

Jedd fought back the urge to tell him exactly where to go. Subservience was a real pain in the arse. He had no idea how regular folks managed it on a daily basis.

As Jedd opened the lid he took a grim satisfaction in Red-eyes’ gasp of wonder. There were six rows of the tiny bottles of banned T’almaki liquor, each one worth more than the chef would be making in a month. Or at least they would be, if they contained what they said they did rather than water coloured with a dash of red ink.

“Who is your boss?” Red-eyes asked, hungry gaze glued to the bottles like an addict anticipating his next fix. “Must be someone with connections.”

Blast! Jedd didn’t want to be that specific. He only knew the identities of two regulars here, and since he was here to rob one of them, that left him with the grand choice of one. The dangerous one: Cheerful Charlie, who’d been adamant his part in this job was to be kept on the hush. It wouldn’t do to cross Charlie.

No, he’d just have to brazen it out. After all, he had the crate to back him up.

“You think I’m gonna share his name with the help?” Jedd sneered. “He’d cut my balls off with a rusty knife and feed them to me if I did. And then he’d do the same to you.” And that wasn’t an exaggeration, if rumour was to be believed.

Jedd watched with wry amusement as the chef crossed his legs tightly and paled, making his eyes appear even more crimson.

“Right, uh, you’d better bring those in then.”

As Jedd stepped inside his eyes began to water from the pungent steam. Smelt like simmering firebush—a delicacy to the native T’almaki but toxic to humans, so it was no wonder the chef’s eyes looked they way they did. Jedd had to blink like crazy to take in his surroundings. The left side of the room was mostly taken up with a cluttered work table and an enormous sink. There was a bank of gas stoves over to the right with a couple of enormous pots bubbling away—perfect.

Luckily Jedd’s informer had been right about the staffing levels, and there were no other pairs of eyes to witness what he was about to do.

“Come on man, over here,” Red-eyes snapped, opening the door of a walk-in pantry at the nearest end of that wall, just where the plans had said it would be.

The pantry was cool after the heat of the kitchen, which was a blessed relief. Jedd wriggled his shoulders to try and ease the constriction of the unfamiliar uniform hidden under his coat. The sooner he could get this itchy wage slave gear off him, the better. He looked around him. Slate shelves lined all three walls from ceiling to floor, and every one of them filled with the most delectable looking treats Jedd had ever seen. He couldn’t help salivating. Damn it, he’d been living on protein bars for months now.

“Hurry up, then. I haven’t got all day.” The chef pushed aside a tray of posh nosh as if it was nothing special, then turned towards the kitchen.

It was Jedd’s moment. He set down the box and reached into his pocket. The charge gun was heavy and snub nosed—an antique model, but perfect for the job. He waited until Red-eyes had cleared the pantry door before aiming and pulling the trigger.

“Son of a pox-ridden whore!” Red-eyes exclaimed, as the stove top exploded into flames. He rushed to the other side of the room to fuss and curse over the bubbling firebush cauldron.

Jedd took advantage of the distraction and shucked off his buckskin coat to reveal the red jacket and high-waisted trousers of a Tavkel’s attendant. He folded his coat as neatly as possible and managed to hide most of it under the monogrammed towel that had come supplied with the uniform. Draped over his arm, he figured he looked enough like the staff to pass, provided no one looked too closely.

“I’ll see myself out then,” Jedd called, firing off the charge gun again to superheat the other cauldron. It worked—Red-eyes was way too preoccupied with trying to contain the situation on his stove top to glance in his direction.

Jedd took the other set of double doors, pushing through them into a service corridor that looked as bland and clean as the kitchen he’d just left.

The staircase he needed was off to the right. Jedd pushed open the door and started climbing.

That was the easy part over and done with. Now things would start getting interesting. Bring on the senator and the whore.

***

Come back next Friday for another thrilling installment of Storm and Lightning. There’ll be naked rentboys and everything!