The Price of Paradise

  THE PRICE

  OF

  PARADISE

  BOOK THREE OF THE DIVINE SPACE PIRATES

  ♦♦♦♦

  C. S. Johnson

  Copyright © 2017 by C. S. Johnson.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9996728-7-7

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9996728-8-4

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Price of Paradise (The Divine Space Pirates, #3)

  ♦1♦

  ♦2♦

  ♦3♦

  ♦4♦

  ♦5♦

  ♦6♦

  ♦7♦

  ♦8♦

  ♦9♦

  ♦10♦

  ♦11♦

  ♦12♦

  ♦13♦

  ♦14♦

  ♦15♦

  ♦16♦

  ♦17♦

  ♦18♦

  ♦19♦

  ♦20♦

  ♦20♦

  ♦21♦

  ♦22♦

  ♦23♦

  ♦24♦

  ♦25♦

  ♦26♦

  ♦27♦

  ♦28♦

  ♦Epilogue♦

  Jennifer C. Sell | Jennifer Clark Sell is a professional book editor and proofreader. She works from her home in Southern California. With her years of professional and personal experience, she offers several quality packages for authors. Find her at https://www.facebook.com/JenniferSellEditingService.

  An artistic force to be reckoned with, Reiseei is an illustrator with an impressive body of work specializing in different manga and anime styles.

  THE DIVINE SPACE PIRATES TRILOGY

  Chapter 1from

  *1*

  Thank you for reading! Please leave a review for this book and check out www.csjohnson.me for other books and updates!

  Also By C. S. Johnson

  For Sam. Of all things I have learned, the things you have taught me remain among my favorites. I am so grateful for you.

  This is also for Tyler, a good student and friend, and fellow coffee shop patron. That is no small added blessing to my life.

  And finally, some of this is for Ryan. I know you’ll likely never read it, but that’s okay—I know you’ve lived it. I used a lot of what you taught me about marriage, with all its pains and pleasures in this one. Your love is literally inspiring!

  ♦1♦

  A muted amount of simulated sunlight sprinkled down from the ceiling lights softly as the beginning of the night’s end arrived. The room was peaceful and quiet, warm and comforting­. All of it was calling her back to coveted sleep, almost tempting her to fall away from the real world for a few more moments­.

  Almost, Aerie thought groggily, turning over in her half-slumber. She reached out and felt the coldness of the empty sheets beside her. Instantly, the silence of the room, the one she now shared with Exton, suddenly seemed heavy with his brooding.

  Her eyes blinked open, and she looked over to find Exton in the dim light. He was on the other side of the room, sitting at his desk. There was a book open in front of him, but he was clearly preoccupied with his own enigmatic thoughts rather than lost in the world of his novel.

  Aerie felt a sense of helplessness settle over her. With the war going on around the world, there was always plenty to mull over, and there was very little she felt she could do to make it better for either of them.

  It didn’t help that in the last weeks since they had returned to the Perdition, Aerie knew both she and Exton had trouble sleeping for more than a few hours at a time.

  The sense of helplessness increased.

  Her husband was still much of a stranger to her, even if she did claim his heart and his body as her own. And now his name, too, she reminded herself, allowing that sense of complete belonging to wash over her once more. The warmth of that confidence allowed her a moment of reprieve from the chilly reality before her.

  Aerie continued to watch Exton silently as he leaned over the book on his desktop. He was partially turned away from her, his face hidden, even as it allowed her a clear view of his broad shoulders and muscled back. If his mood was less forlorn, Aerie might have allowed herself the time to remember the strength of his back under her hands, the tautness of his body as it moved along hers, and the desperate eagerness of their passion as it overcame and consumed them.

  As if he sensed her gaze, he sat up straighter. “Are you awake, Aerie?” Exton asked, his voice heavy, weighted with concern.

  While she heard no irritation in his tone, she fleetingly wondered if he missed the isolation of his room before they’d been married. Aerie was glad he still had access to the Captain’s Lounge, where he could think in peace, alone with the comfort of being above the world’s problems, protected from the world of problems he faced as captain of the Perdition.

  “I am,” she admitted. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, pulling the sheet up against her skin more tightly as the coldness crept closer.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Well enough,” she said, giving him a small smile as he finally turned around to see her.

  He returned the smile, and Aerie was pleased to see his eyes light up in hope. “Good. I’m glad to see your nightmares have gone away some.”

  Aerie winced. She didn’t like to be reminded of her time being tortured by the URS, but there were some moments in her sleep where she slipped back into that world unwillingly. More than once since they were married, Exton had woken her up to get her to stop shaking, only to have to lull her back to sleep.

  “What about your nightmares?” Aerie asked.

  “My nightmares begin when I wake up and I have to leave you,” Exton told her as he came and sat down beside her. He reached over and ran his hand through her golden red hair affectionately.

  Aerie arched against his hand, contented by his touch.

  “I’m going to have an especially hard time today, since your mother’s coming.”

  “Oh, really?” Aerie’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised.”

  “She wants something. Promise me you’ll be careful if you see her. She’s good at getting what she wants.”

  “I guess I do have issues where my family is concerned,” Aerie said lightly.

  “Then you know I have good cause for being worried.”

  Aerie rolled her eyes. She thought about arguing back, but she knew it wasn’t just her mother that made him uneasy.

  Ever since Exton had gone and talked with her father, General St. Cloud, about the death of his father, Exton had struggled with sleep as much as she did. Now that they were married­—and in more than one way, stuck together—Aerie didn’t want to fight with him, especially over family matters. It’s ... complicated, she decided silently to herself.

  She looked up as Exton wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

  “I wish we had more time,” he said with a sigh.

  “Me, too,” Aerie murmured, relaxing against him.

  “I guess honeymoons don’t last long when there’s a war going on,” Exton said.

  Aerie laughed. “They don’t even have honeymoons in the URS, if it makes you feel better.”

  “I’d forgotten about that. I suppose as much as we try to preserve the things we’d like to keep, change is inevitable.” He sighed. “Even Emery and Tyler didn’t have much of a honeymoon. We attacked the Memory Tree only a few days after their wedding. It seems like we haven’t had a lot of downtime since then.”

  “I hope you’re not blaming me,” Aer
ie said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t blame you ... entirely.”

  She sneered at him, while he gave her a charming grin in return. As much as she knew he was teasing her, she knew he had a point. The reality they faced, and what was at stake, was a risk that seemed too large to even properly contemplate, and she was caught in the middle of it. “I suppose our problems are small compared to the rest of the world’s,” Aerie mused aloud.

  “Loving you is not a problem,” Exton assured her with a quick kiss.

  “You have a lot more problems because you do love me,” Aerie pointed out somberly, thinking of all she had put him through in the last several weeks.

  She tried not to grimace at the thought of her rescue from the URS, and the fact that the rest of her difficult, semi-dysfunctional family was under Petra’s protection.

  And then there’s Brock, too, Aerie recalled, thinking of how withdrawn and upset he had been prior to her departure. She could only hope he was starting to see he could fit in, easily, especially with Petra’s fighter pilot squad. Her older twin brothers, Caledon and Dorian, had jumped at the chance to fly when Director Ward, Exton’s aunt, offered them positions.

  Of course, the offer was only extended once Merra approved, and even then the boys had several stern warnings from both their mother and father. Even after years of separation, it seemed Victor and Merra St. Cloud were in perfect sync when it came to ordering their children around and warning them to behave.

  Well, not all the children, Aerie thought dejectedly. Her older sister, Serena, was the only one of all four—no, now it’s five­—of the St. Cloud siblings that stumped her parents. Serena had shrugged off both the General’s comments and her mother’s appeals, taking on a role in the medical division at Petra’s medical ward.

  Aerie knew her sister was proficient as a combat med, but with her attitude and general personality, Serena was bound to cause problems no matter where she was. Aerie just hoped she wouldn’t be the one who had to answer for Serena’s disparities.

  “Loving you is something that might bring me trouble,” Exton said, interrupting Aerie as she silently listed her family’s sins. “But it is also one of the only reasons I work to find solutions.”

  “So the world is better off because you love me?” Aerie asked.

  “My world certainly is.” His icy blue eyes softened as they looked into hers. In their half-lit room, as they faced each other, Aerie felt as though they were surrounded by a cloud of invisible fire and softness, almost as if their love was made manifest between them. The extra-sensory sensation spirited around them, and she felt it bond them together all over again.

  Aerie’s heart swelled. The uncertainty she’d felt earlier faded as a rush of hope and determination rekindled inside of her.

  Exton glanced toward the door. “I know the war makes the world’s future seem even more uncertain than it already is, Aerie. That’s what makes what we do all the more precious.”

  At the sudden look of frustration on his face, Aerie hesitated. She felt him distancing himself from her, and in her disappointment, her curiosity pushed back. “Are you still upset about what my father told you?”

  “No,” he snapped, his response stinging as it cut through the air. He withdrew even further from her, as if he’d been scorched, and the warmth between them flickered away with it.

  “I know you’re lying when you say it like that.” Aerie shifted, reaching for her uniform as she stepped out of bed. Disappointment metamorphosed into defiance, and she struggled to keep her temper in check.

  “I don’t like to be reminded of his lies about my father.”

  “You have a rough history with the General,” Aerie said quietly, “but he’s never lied to you.”

  “He has lied to me, plenty of times.”

  “About what?” Aerie glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t remember any time when he did.”

  “When you first came onboard and he found out you were here, he said that he would trade you for himself, and that he would do anything to keep you safe.”

  “Well, that is a tall order, according to Serena and my brothers,” Aerie said. “That doesn’t mean he was lying.”

  “He signed the warrant for your arrest less than a month later.”

  “He had to, or Osgood would’ve suspected him of being a traitor. He didn’t have to tell you that Brock had already managed to get me away from New Hope’s Reeducation Center.”

  “Are you actually defending him?” Exton stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. “After all the pain he’s caused you?”

  “It’s complicated,” Aerie insisted. “I know you didn’t like it, but he has no reason to lie to us now that’s he’s one of us.”

  “That didn’t stop your mother from lying to us about getting information from him.”

  “My mother’s a different person than my father,” Aerie argued.

  “Where do you think she learned it from?” Exton retorted.

  Aerie pursed her lips, already regretting that she’d brought it up in the first place.

  They’d arrived on the Perdition with General St. Cloud two weeks before. Once the General was cleared for admittance, he was placed in a special room and not allowed to leave. Aerie was saddened that Exton had indeed taken the General’s request to be his prisoner at his word; she was hoping he’d at least allow him to be a guest onboard the Perdition as she had been.

  It’s complicated.

  She frowned. That was beginning to be a reoccurring theme, she noticed.

  To make things worse, ever since the General had met with him to discuss the death of Exton’s father, Aerie had sensed a change in Exton, one that was far from healing, forgiveness, or reconciliation.

  If anything, Aerie thought, Exton’s pain, the pain she’d seen inside of him when he first came to visit her as himself, rather than the notorious Captain Chainsword­, the pain she wanted nothing more than to soothe over and respond to, had exponentially increased; it had been drilled even further into the recesses of his heart.

  Aerie watched him now as he shuffled around the room, with seemingly no specific goal in mind.

  “I’m going to get ready,” she said, refraining from engaging in their fight—discussion—further, heading into the bathroom instead. She quietly shut the door behind her as she tried to hold back the growing anger and frustration inside of her.

  Aerie was not entirely sure of exactly what her father had told Exton, and she had no way of imagining how terrible it was, especially as she saw how it made Exton as upset as he was.

  Since the meeting, Aerie waited and welcomed his body with her own, telling him in her own way she would be ready for him when he was ready to share. There had been plenty to do, settling into her new job in the Biovid and helping around the starship.

  Maybe that was the most irritating part, Aerie thought. She knew from her own experiences on the Perdition before that there was a time for everything. Exton had mourned his father’s death for over ten years. He wasn’t likely going to have peace at any new information overnight. But Aerie had been hoping Exton would’ve confided in her more by now, especially since she had tried so hard to be a good wife and worker.

  Maybe he doubted her loyalty? After all, Aerie knew he hated it when she defended her father.

  But it wasn’t like she agreed with all of his decisions, either. Aerie wasn’t happy that Exton had agreed to make her father the first prisoner of war.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t like she was happy with her father, either.

  Her head fell into her hands as a bitter resentment washed through her. This is such a mess. I never should’ve agreed to this. We got married too quickly.

  The sudden thought of losing all the good things she’d experienced—all the joy they’d shared, all the comfort he’d given her while she fought off her nightmares, all the laughter and kisses and closeness—left her short of breath.

  “Calm down,” she whispered to herself. Taking a deep breath,
and then six more, Aerie forced herself to relax.

  There was no point in getting hysterical. They had time. She didn’t know how much or how little, but they had time. Aerie knew she loved Exton, and because of that she would give him time, as long as she could.

  As she finished dressing, Aerie was relieved to hear Exton moving on the other side of the door. When she came out of the bathroom, he was nearly ready for the day.

  He glanced over at her as she stood in the doorway. His eyes met hers, and he stopped buttoning up his uniform jacket. Unspoken and unformed words passed between them, and there was a distinct change in the room’s atmosphere.

  Aerie watched as he walked over to her. He reached out and cupped her cheek, and she leaned into it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She put her hand over his. “I know.”

  Exton drew her closer and kissed her temple, before allowing her to rest her head on his chest.

  Aerie wrapped her arms around him tightly, holding him for a long moment. There was nothing like holding him, she thought. “I forgive you, of course,” she murmured a moment later. “But I suppose you already know that.”

  “If there’s one person between us who can be counted on to forgive egregious behavior, it’s you,” he murmured, playfully nuzzling her shoulder.

  “You forgave me, too, you know,” Aerie reminded him. “I did lie to you about who I was when I first came here. Don’t be so hard on yourself. And have a little faith in me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She steadied herself against him carefully. “I want you to tell me what my father said to you.”

  For a long moment, he was quiet, and Aerie wondered if he was going to respond at all.

  But then he nodded. “Okay. But not right now, with your mom coming today. We can talk about it later, after she’s gone.”

  While it was irritating for Aerie to know she would have to wait, she was glad. It is enough. For now.

  “Okay.” She stood up on her tiptoes to press her lips against his softly. He kissed her back, the gentle spark igniting into a full flame.

  Exton reached down, running his hands down the curves of her body. Before Aerie knew it, her mind was clouded with desire; she barely noticed when he picked her up.