Vendetta (Project Vetus Book 2)

by Emmy Chandler

  I take a deep breath, then I follow him out of the room, into the alleyway.

  At the end of the alley, Vaughn checks the time on the slim device strapped to his wrist, then he peers out over the second-floor railing at the bazar below, while I stay in the shadows. A minute later, he returns to my side. “Meshach’s men are stationed all over. They’re armed—as are most people on Miscellany—and they stand out, in those sand-colored robes. We should know the minute they spot your decoy. Which should be any second.”

  This time, I stand at the railing with him, trying not to tremble as I stare out across the hexagon. Vaughn’s right. Meshach’s men are everywhere. Most of them are too far away for me to identify them, but on the leg of the hexagon to our right, one floor up, I see Aaron, Meshach’s brother. To our left, on the second floor—the same one we’re on—stands Aaron’s son Judah, Silas’s older cousin, staring out at the bazar. Looking for me, even though he’s never actually seen me.

  My hand finds Vaughn’s, and I squeeze it. He returns the gesture, without looking away from the market below us. Then his hand goes stiff in mine. “There.” His arm twitches, as if he wants to point, but knows better. “Do you see her? She’s just passing that booth selling rat kabobs.”

  “That’s rat meat?” I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “But they smelled so good.”

  “They are good. Rat is a solid protein source. My squad lived on them for several days, once when we were pinned down and cut off from reinforcements. Do you see her?”

  I squint at the rat kabob booth, and my focus finds the decoy almost immediately—a translucent blur moving slowly through the crowd. I’m impressed that Vaughn spotted her so quickly, considering that he isn’t accustomed to that sight like I am. Like the men on Gebose are.

  Speaking of which…

  I look up at Aaron just as his frame tenses, his attention trained down at the bazar. Then he looks up, and his gaze passes right over us on its way to his son. He gives Judah a signal and points at my decoy, who’s now passing a stall selling spare tech parts. “They see her,” I whisper.

  Vaughn nods. “Let’s give them a chance to start moving.”

  A second later, almost as one, Meshach’s men bear down upon the bazar from all directions, moving quietly. If we weren’t already looking for it, we might not have noticed the clearly choreographed convergence until they gathered in small groups on the periphery of the bazar.

  “Now,” Vaughn whispers. “While they’re focused on her.” But instead of leading me toward the fueling dock where the Dinghy is still parked, he leads me in the opposite direction, along the metal second floor walkway, toward a broad passage beneath an arched opening, which clearly leads into another section of Miscellany.

  As I follow him, my hand still clamped in his grip, I keep glancing down at the bazar, as Meshach and his men close in on the poor woman wearing my nano-tech sheath. If she sees them coming, I can’t tell, but she must know something is about to happen. Why else would Vaughn have asked her to wear it so conspicuously.

  With Aaron in the lead, the first group of Meshach’s men reaches my decoy when we are feet from the arched passageway. My pulse races as Aaron grabs her, pinning her invisible body to his chest, his arms seemingly wrapped around nothing.

  The woman screams, and as she begins to kick and flail, I realize that her shoes are all wrong. They’re ragged leather boots, not the gray slippers a woman from Gebose wears. But Aaron hasn’t noticed that.

  “Meshach!” he shouts, his voice echoing across the open space.

  A crowd has begun to gather, and at first, they just look curious. The men on Miscellany seem universally disinclined to interfere in someone else’s business, unless there’s a profit to be had. But when the rest of Meshach’s men surround Aaron and my decoy, forming an armed perimeter, the crowd’s interest grows. They may not know what’s going on, but if so many armed men want whatever creature is squirming beneath a piece of tech that is itself an object of interest, that creature must be worth something.

  “Let’s go,” Vaughn says, tugging on my hand. But I hold my ground. I have to see that she isn’t hurt, in my place.

  “Meshach!” Aaron shouts again, as the gathering around him thickens. “We got her!”

  Meshach pushes his way through the crowd into the protective circle defined by his armed men. Aaron releases the screeching, kicking woman, and I watch, hypnotized, as Meshach pulls the sheath from her head. He blinks, stunned for a second to be staring at a woman with pale skin and blond hair. Then fury washes over his features. “It’s not her. It isn’t her!” he shouts, spinning to address his men. “Spread out! Find her!”

  As his men take off into the crowd, looking confused—they have no idea who to look for, now that it’s clear I’m not wearing the sheath—Meshach grabs the woman by the arm and begins interrogating her in a voice too low for me to hear.

  “She’ll be fine,” Vaughn says, but it’s clear he doesn’t care if she isn’t. He only cares about me. “Let’s go.”

  But I cling to the railing for one more second as Meshach turns away from the woman in disgust. He spins to stare across the bazar—he’s taller than most of its patrons—at the refueling station where the Dinghy is docked. My gaze follows his, and I gasp.

  Vaughn Coleman is standing on the lowered boarding ramp. Yet somehow, he’s also standing next to me, still trying to pull me away from the railing and into that arched passageway. Away from the bazar, where Meshach’s men are once again searching for me.

  “What in Heaven’s name…?” I whisper as, down on the ramp, Vaughn’s imposter—he’s a dead ringer, except for his clothing—gives Meshach a casual nod. Then he steps into the ship and punches the button on the wall to raise the ramp. As soon as the door is sealed, the Dinghy takes off through the shimmering barrier that shields Miscellany from the vacuum of space.

  Meshach curses, and his men continue to look for me.

  “What just happened?” I demand as I slowly back away from the railing.

  “Sotelo can’t walk through walls,” Vaughn tells me. “Just like I can’t assume someone else’s form, with a sample of their DNA.” Then he wraps one arm around my waist and physically hauls me backward, through the arched passageway and out of the bazar.

  10

  VAUGHN

  “DO YOU THINK SHE’S OKAY?” Grace asks as I practically drag her through the wide tunnel into the main docking bay. “That woman who isn’t me?”

  “She’s fine,” I tell her. And I don’t really give a shit whether or not that’s true. All I care about is getting her out of here before Meshach and his men find us. One on one, I could take them all. Hell, one on ten, I could probably take them all. But he has at least three dozen men on Miscellany, and they’re all armed.

  And if this comes to blows—if I have to openly fight him—we won’t get that ship.

  With any luck, Meshach and his men now believe that if Grace got here on our ship, she snuck off the Dinghy the same way she snuck on—without us knowing about it. That if she’s still on Miscellany, she’s here all on her own.

  “Where will they land?” Grace stares around at all the ships currently docked at numbered bays, stacked three high. Half a dozen bays are still open and available.

  “Wherever they can. Let’s stay out of sight until that happens.” I tug her into a shadowy alcove, and my cock begins to stiffen again with her body flush against mine. It’s been less than an hour since I was buried deep inside her, but I need her again. I pull the ridiculous helmet from her head and lean down to nuzzle her neck, just beneath her ear, trying to appease the beast with her scent, since nothing more is possible here and now. But that only makes it worse. My cock is thick and aching again, and I angle my pelvis away from her, hoping she won’t notice.

  Take her, the beast whispers in my ear. Fill her with your seed again. He seems convinced no one will see us here in the shadows, and that if we are seen, no one will care.

  He’s right abou
t that; we wouldn’t be the first lovers to indulge an urge in the shadows of this grimy refueling station. Though most of the men who came before me would be paying for the pleasure in credit vouchers or trade. Renting a warm sheath for their cocks by the minute.

  “Grace,” I whisper, and when she looks up at me, I lean down and claim her mouth, indulging in the taste of her. She groans as my tongue greets hers, and her body seems to melt against me. But she can’t possibly understand what I have in mind. She isn’t used to being seen in public, much less fucked in public. My mate deserves better. So I pull away from her and leave us both aching.

  Grace turns in my embrace, fitting her back against my chest as she stares out at the docking bay from the shadows. She seems comfortable here, pressed against me, as if she’s starting to acknowledge what the beast has been telling me for hours—that we belong together.

  Then, suddenly, her entire form goes stiff, and she begins to tremble in my arms.

  “What’s wrong?” I run my hands over her hips, because the beast insists that will soothe her. He also seems to think that if I lean down and lick her neck, her sweat will tell me the degree and possibly the source of her distress.

  Grace nods at one of the ships docked on the second level. “That’s Meshach’s personal transport. And that…” Her voice fades into nothing, and I follow her gaze to see a man guarding the entrance to Meshach’s ship, holding a laser rifle. A very young man, with a very big gun. “That’s Silas.”

  Kill him, the beast snarls.

  I let go of her, and I don’t realize I’m already headed toward the stairs for that very purpose—or that there’s a low-pitched, dangerous growl rumbling from my throat—until Grace grabs my arm with both hands, digging her heels into the metal grid beneath her feet in an attempt to stop me.

  “Vaughn!” she whispers, eyes wide with fear. “No! We need to hide and wait.”

  “That’s the man who groped you in a hallway?” I remember what she said about him. I just need confirmation that I have an excuse to slice his head from his shoulders and leave it displayed on the end of his rifle, for his father to find.

  “Only through my modesty sheath,” she insists softly. “He’s never actually touched me. My skin. Please!” she begs when I begin marching again, dragging her with me. “We can’t make a scene here!”

  “We won’t. But the beast says he has to die.”

  “He’s a seventeen-year-old boy!” she snaps, and it’s the edge of anger in her voice that finally brings me to a stop. “He is what Meshach’s made of him. And you can’t kill him, because you need his father’s ship. So let’s just find some place to hide, before he sees us.”

  “He won’t recognize you,” I remind her.

  “But he might recognize you. And he’s just a boy.”

  “On his birthday, he would have taken you against your will.” The snarl echoing in my chest feels like purpose. Like vengeance. I can practically feel that boy’s neck in my hands, the knobs of his spine nestled between my fingers. All it would take is one little squeeze…

  “But that won’t happen now. He will never touch me. So let’s just leave it alone, okay?”

  “Fine,” I relent at last. But not because of anything she’s said, and not because of an arbitrary number of solar cycles protecting that little rapist-in-training. I give in to her plea for mercy because the Dinghy has just landed in a docking bay on the third level. “There’s our ride. Let’s go.”

  We climb both sets of stairs as fast as we dare, without attracting unwanted attention, and the boarding ramp is already lowering by the time we hit the third level. We race on board, and as the ramp folds up, I see relief wash over Grace’s features.

  The beast feels…satisfied. We’ve protected our mate.

  Mine.

  But his satisfaction is short lived. I’ve just been denied the chance to kill a competing suitor—to prove my worth to my mate once again. And now the beast wants me to prove myself in another way. Inside her.

  I reach for Grace, my fingers itching to rip her new blouse open. To shred the pants shielding her sex from me. To lift her against the wall and lower her onto my cock while her eyes dilate from a pleasure only I can—

  “Welcome back.”

  I spin around, snarling, furious to realize that we’re not alone. That there is no appropriate place in this confined space for me to make Grace scream my name as she comes around my cock. I glare at the faces all around us, at the intrusion of unwanted company, and I turn to find that we’re being greeted by…me. Only it isn’t me.

  “Put the beast back in his cage,” not-me says calmly. “We’re all friends here.”

  “That shit’s weird,” I snap at Sotelo. “Knock it off.”

  He frowns at me for a second, then he notices Grace staring at him, stunned. “Sorry. I forgot.”

  “Holy mother of god…” Grace whispers, as Sotelo’s face rapidly emerges from my features. I don’t like how impressed she sounds. How she’s staring at him in awe. Her wonder and admiration should only be for me. I should have killed Silas in front of her and bathed in in the blood of our enemy. Then juices would be pouring from between her legs, welcoming—no, demanding—that I come and ease her ache. That I bring her pleasure like she has never known.

  My mate glances around at the rest of the crew. “Can the rest of you do that?”

  “No, that bit of weirdness is exclusively Sotelo,” Dreyer says as she stands from the seat at the far console, and her very voice grates on my nerves. The only voice I want to hear right now belongs to Grace. I want her to whisper in my ear as I slide into—

  Lilli snorts from her chair, behind Jamison in the pilot’s seat. “When I first met Carson, he’d taken the form of a friend of mine, so he could lure me from the safety of my community and have his way with me.”

  “That’s not exactly how it happened,” Sotelo insists. “And I wasn’t always the one at the controls, back then.” He turns to Jamison. “Burke, get us out of here.”

  “On it,” Jamison says.

  Grace gives Sotelo a puzzled look as I guide her to one of the empty chairs, my hand slowly stroking up and down her back, indulging my overwhelming need to touch her. “At the controls?”

  “He means his beast was being a bit…bossy, back then,” Lilli explains. “During the height of the mating fever.”

  “Mating fever?”

  “That’s nothing you’ll have to worry about,” Sotelo assures her, and I avoid his gaze as I sink into my chair at the second console, which is close enough to her chair that I can touch her, if I lean to the right. Or if she reaches for me. “Right, Coleman?”

  When I don’t answer, all eyes turn my way. “Would you just drive this damn thing?” I snap at Jamison, and he flips me off as he turns back to the controls.

  Maybe Grace could sit in my lap. The safety belt could probably hold us both. She’s safer in my arms than in that chair anyway.

  Sotelo’s gaze flicks from me to Grace, then back, and I can see understanding dawn on his face. He groans. “Coleman—”

  I growl at him as the beast’s hackles rise inside me. “You’re the last man I need to justify my actions to.”

  Dreyer lifts one brow at me, and Lilli gives Grace a knowing little smile.

  So they all know our business. So what. I want them to know that Grace has accepted me. That she is mine. I want them all to know, so they stay the fuck away from her.

  “Everyone strap in,” Jamison says, and Lilli tugs Sotelo down into his chair before he can give voice to the confrontation riding his features. The Dinghy rocks beneath us as it rises into the air, then it shoots forward, propelling us through the shimmering barrier and into space.

  I exhale as we race away from Miscellany and from Meshach. Grace is safe, and now I can show her—

  “Coleman.” Sotelo unbuckles and stands. “May I see you in the cargo hold, please?”

  “Don’t be mad at him.” Grace grasps for my hand, but instead of taking
it, I lean forward and unbuckle her safety strap, then I pull her into my lap. My hands run over her shoulders and down her arms, and that whirring sound echoes softly from my throat. She groans and presses herself back against my erection, and I can smell her arousal as it builds between her legs. Welcoming me. Calling out for me. “It’s my fault,” she continues, her voice unsteady with the onslaught of lust. “I begged him to take me.”

  “Fucking hell,” Sotelo breathes.

  “You’re the last man who should stand in judgement of me,” I growl, as the beast paces angrily inside me. “So back off, before I’m forced to—”

  “I can see that you’re no longer at your own controls,” he says calmly. “So I’m going to pretend you didn’t just threaten me, this once. Cargo hold,” he repeats. “Now.”

  I lift Grace off my lap, hoping I don’t have to hurt Sotelo. Hoping he isn’t stupid enough to try to come between us. “Everything’s fine,” I assure Grace when worry creases her smooth forehead. I lean down to whisper into her ear. “I’ll be right back, then we’re going to climb into one of those bunks, and I’m going to take your clothes off with my teeth and sink inside you over and over.”

  “Won’t they hear us?” she whispers back, her gaze roaming the main deck as a flush builds in her cheeks.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Grace presses her thighs together, trying to fend off an ache I should be easing for her right now. And as I follow Sotelo through the hatch, down into the cargo hold, making no effort to hide my massive erection, Lilli leans toward Grace with a smile. “Welcome to the family, hon.”

  11

  VAUGHN

  “DON’T START,” I snap as Sotelo slides the hatch closed.

  “She begged you?” Under normal circumstances, I would laugh off his skepticism, but today I find the insult intolerable. “You expect me to believe that sheltered little slip of a girl begged you to fuck her?”