Free Sons of Lyra: Stranded by Felicity Heaton

Sons of Lyra:
Stranded

    Captain Lyra
III is known for his vicious attitude and brilliance in battle.
Second youngest of the infamously passionate and handsome sons of
Lyra, he’s a born leader and doesn’t take no for an answer. Except
this time. Acer is facing a future that seems like a nightmare, a
future that has shaken him and made him realise that the one thing
he truly wanted in life may have just slipped through his grasp—his
engineer, Stella.

    Stella fell for
Acer the moment she was transferred to his ship by his brother,
Captain Lyra II. A year on his ship and never being noticed by him
unless she’s done something wrong, she’s come to accept that she
won’t be the one to tame this prince’s passionate heart, but it
doesn’t make her feelings disappear and doesn’t stop her dreaming
that she might capture him yet.

    Attacked en
route to Lyra Prime they find themselves stranded alone in the
middle of deep space and things reach boiling point when the
climate control breaks down. Trapped with only each other for
company, it’s not long before the truth comes out about their
feelings for each other and Acer’s reason for returning to Lyra
Prime.

    When Stella
discovers Acer is duty bound to marry a woman of Lyran aristocracy,
she offers him a night to remember her by, but will it be enough or
will it cause them more pain than pleasure? Returning to Lyra
Prime, will Stella’s heart falter or will she rise to the challenge
and fight for Acer? Will Acer be able to find the strength to
forsake his family in the name of true love?

    Sons of Lyra:
Stranded

    Felicity
Heaton

    Smashwords
Edition

    Copyright 2008
by Felicity Heaton

    All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without written permission from the author, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

    ****

    Sons of Lyra:
Stranded

    The engines droned into
silence. This time, the gravity drive went with them. Stella slowly
floated into mid-air in the access panel, still holding the wrench.
Her knees touched the entrance of the curved tunnel, stopping her
from going any higher. She wiped the sweat from her brow, desperate
for a drink and some sleep, and worried that they were going to be
stuck in deep space forever. It had been two days since the engines
had given up, leaving them adrift in the middle of nowhere. There
wasn’t even a shipping lane within fifty thousand leagues of them.
No one was answering the distress call.

    Stella pushed off from the
ceiling of the tube and drifted out into the dark, hot engine room.
Turning, she waited for her feet to touch the opposite wall and
then kicked forwards, propelling herself back towards the engine
bay.

    She pined for the
stretching blue skies and Gavaelian moons of Lyra Six, the
universe’s foremost pleasure planet. It had been a long overdue
break that she was now missing, knowing that her captain wouldn’t
give her the time off in lieu.

    Her fingers locked around
the grab bar near the Gravi-Drive. She whacked the drive with the
wrench. It whined into life. Her feet slammed to the
floor.

    Something in the distance
slammed too.

    She cringed.

    He had already been in a
foul enough mood after they’d been attacked by the Minervan
mercenary ship. It had been a miracle that they’d made it out alive
with such a skeleton crew to fly the ship—only her and the
captain.

    Captain Lyra
III.

    There was no denying any
part of his reputation—handsome, noble, a skilled captain, and a
vicious bastard.

    Not that the last part
stopped every woman of mating age in the universe from trying to
tame him and his passionate heart. None had been successful. Not
even her.

    She’d thought about it a
few times when she’d first come onboard his ship. She’d even gone
as far as unzipping her flight suit to expose a little