by Dena Christy
"Who are Xander and Broge? What is their relationship to you?" Landis frowned at his computer for a second before turning his attention to Cheria.
"Xander was my handler and Broge was his bodyguard and my friend." There was a slight hitch in Cheria's voice and Rone turned his hand over to clasp hers. He gave it a squeeze and she returned it.
"So Xander would have been the point of contact between the client and you? He would have to be eliminated because whoever is responsible would not want any loose ends. So they would have been killed, and as for my father, I'm sure if you turned up dead and deprived him of a one million krill bounty, he would have gone ballistic and raised enough objections to cause attention that our friend and his associate would not want." Landis scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "What a mess. We have to get the information off your chip. Although I don't know if even that will be enough to keep you safe."
A wave of cold went over Rone. He and Cheria had been operating under the premise that once the information was off her chip, she would be safe. Landis' words raised the possibility that this would not be the case. Did it mean that she would be hunted for the rest of her life?
Not if he could help it.
"We need to find out who is after her and deal with him. Once he has been taken care of, we can trace him back to his master and eliminate him too if necessary." Rone was aware that it would not be as easy as that, since the killer's master had gone to great lengths to conceal himself, but he and Cheria had no other alternative. Not if she was going to be able to live the rest of her life without a threat hanging over her head.
Landis' computer emitted a soft, triple beeping sound and he quickly turned in his chair and started rapidly typing into the computer.
"I think we may have found something. I set up a search to run through the government's database on all corporations that have any sort of relationship or link to the food corporation and with an additional parameter of solider in the search. I have a hunch about our friend and wanted to test it to see if I'm right. And it appears I am."
"What was your theory?" Rone leaned in to look at the screen, and Landis hit a few keys so that the information he'd found appeared on the large view screen at the front of the room.
"I think that what is hunting you is not a sentient being, in that it is not technically alive. And according to this, there is a corporation loosely linked to the food corporation that was given a government contract a few years ago to develop a super-soldier." Landis hit a few more key stroked and another document popped up. It appeared to be some sort of proposal for a prototype. "Looks like they have proposed building an android, with a metal skeletal structure, AI for brains and a synthetic covering that mimics organic tissue. But the contract was cancelled with the change in government before the prototype could be built."
Rone developed a sick feeling in his stomach as a thought occurred to him. It would explain so much about the creature who hunted them. "What if the prototype was built anyway? And what if that is what is after us?"
Landis looked thoughtful for a moment. "It would be a good test run for any prototype to see if he can kill on command and fool anyone into thinking that it is a living, breathing organic being."
"Well it's already killed four people, so I'd say the test was successful." Cheria clutched at Rone's hand. "And it would explain why it didn't sound quite right when it spoke and why its eyes seemed so dead."
"But it was enough to fool us into thinking that it was a man who was hunting us and not a machine." Which begged the question of how to kill it? If it had been a man, Rone had no doubt that he could kill it. But how did someone go about killing a machine. Machines didn't get tired, didn't make mistakes based on emotional responses. How was he going to defeat an opponent like that.
"We are so fucked." Despair filled Cheria's voice as she let go of Rone's hand and stood up. "I can't deal with this right now."
And she turned and rapidly fled the room as if there was a fire chasing her out. Rone stood and looked at Landis.
"Find a way to get that information off her chip. We need to know everything we can about who controls the android. That will be the key to taking it down."
"Sort of like cut off the head and the body will flounder type of idea?"
"Yes." Rone turned and walked toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Landis called after him.
"He is going to comfort his woman." Cale spoke and looked at Rone with a raised eyebrow. There was a look on his face, as if he dared Rone to disagree with him. Rone had no intention of doing so.
"Yes, my woman needs me and that is where I'll be."
And with those parting words he left the room to go in search of Cheria.
* * *
A machine. She was being hunted by a machine. The thought pounded in Cheria's head as she went to the room she and Rone had been assigned. No matter how fast she walked, she could not out run it, and once she got to their room, the dread the thought caused held her in its grip and would not let her go.
She closed the bedroom door and leaned against it, as if that would shut out the thoughts. It didn't.
She paced back and forth in front of the bed as she rang her hands. Panic was rising inside of her and she didn't know how she was going to stop it. She remembered the eyes of the android as it had looked in the mirror that blocked it from her view. Those eyes were dead, they held no emotion. There was no bargaining with it, no compromising with it, no bribing it. It had been ordered to hunt her down and kill her and that was what it would do. It would be the only thing it would do.
She gave a startled gasp as the bedroom door opened and Rone stood there.
"I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you." His deep, accented voice soothed her nerves and helped slow the pounding of her heart a little.
"What are we going to do? How do we defeat a machine?" She willed him to say that everything would be alright, that she had nothing to worry about. If he said it, she would believe him because there wasn't a single deceptive bone in his body.
"I do not know." His face was grave, and she wished for a second that she hadn't asked. His honor would not permit him to lie to her, even if it meant frightening her. She trembled and he held his hand out to her. She took it and he pulled her to him. "But we will find a way."
"How can you be so sure? It's a machine." She listened to the beat of his heart as she rested her head against his chest and put her arms around his waist.
"Exactly, and that is the key to defeating it. It can only do what it is programed to do. If it has artificial intelligence, it had to be programed. It can only use logic."
His voice was a deep rumble under her ear and she tried to find comfort in what he was saying but she couldn't.
"Which means that it can't be swayed. We can't ask it to stop, we can't bribe it. It won't listen to reason and it won't stop until it completes its mission."
"That is all true, but it also give us an advantage over it." His hand ran in soothing circles over her back and she melted into him a little.
"What advantage?" She could use all the hope she could get right now, and if he saw the fact that they were fragile, living creatures up against a machine as an advantage, she wanted to know what it was because from her perspective she couldn't see anything except her impending death.
"How did you get away from him? Did you fight him?"
Cheria pulled away and took a step back. If she'd done that she wouldn't be standing here trying to deal with her current dilemma. She'd be dead on the floor of the hotel room.
"Of course I didn't. I wouldn't be standing here in front of you if I had." She turned and sat down on the end of the bed. He came over and sat beside her, close to her but not touching her. She missed the comfort of his touch so she reached her hand out to take his. A small warning flashed in the back of her head, telling her that it wasn't good depending on him. She shoved that thought aside.
Now was not the time to operate the way she had for most of
her life. She had to take a chance, and trust someone. And Rone was the person she'd chosen to place her trust in.
"How did you get away from him?"
"I hid in the closet, behind a two way mirror. I thought for sure when he looked in the mirror that he would figure out that I was there, but he didn't. He turned and left the hotel." And knowing now what he was, she realized just how lucky of an escape she had.
"Do you not see? He is not infallible. He does not have the same senses as you and I have. If I had been hunting you, I would have found you. The mirror would not fooled me because I would have known that you were in there because of your scent. So this machine, would not have been given any thing that resembles a sense of smell."
Cheria thought about what he said. The machine had not been able to find her because it only had a limited range of senses. When he looked in the mirror all he'd seen was a mirror. The logic he'd been programmed with would not have taken into account that someone might be hiding behind it and so he left the room.
"And the reason I was able to walk by him on the street is because he did not know what I look like."
Rone smiled at her and raised her hand to his lips. A shiver went up her arm as the skin of his lips brushed against the skin of her hand. And she remembered what it happened between them in bed that morning.
"Why are you doing this?" That was what held her back from him. She couldn't understand why he had pledged to protect her, why he had stuck with her when it became obvious that he would not be paid. In the world that she operated in, everything came at a price and she wondered what his price was.
"Why am I kissing your hand? Because I like touching you." He looked into her eyes and gave her a soft smile.
"That's not what I meant. Why are you doing this? Why are you here? Why are you helping? You know I have nothing to give you." She swallowed hard. "Why would you risk your life without getting something in return?"
"Must everything be a transaction?"
"In my world? Yes it does."
"Well, in the world I come from, not everything can be reduced to an exchange. Not everything has a monetary value attached to it. On my planet, a warrior is not measured by what he has but by what he does. And my honor will not let me abandon you. I have pledged to protect you and I will not stop until you are safe."
She had known that he would not stop in his protection of her, and when he made his pledge to her earlier she assumed it held some sort of significance for him. But she could not understand why her? What made her so special that he would be willing to sacrifice his life for her.
"Why would you do that for me? What is so special about me?"
He reached up to touch her cheek, brushing a stray hair that have fallen across her face behind her ear.
"Surely you can sense it? What is between us?" He looked down and licked his lips, as if searching for a way to express himself. "From the moment I locked on to your scent from your pillow I have been drawn to you. Hunting you felt wrong, and not just because you are female. I do not know if I can explain it properly in your language, but when I decided to protect you instead of hunt you, it was like something settled inside. A feeling of the rightness of it."
Was it possible that he was feeling the same thing she was? For her part, there had been an attraction simmering under the surface with her from the moment she gotten over the shock of seeing him in her bedroom. The fact that he was hunting her didn't seem to matter to her at the time, but self-preservation had made her flee from him.
"Are you saying that you are attracted to me?" He hesitated for a second, as if he was risking rejection by being truthful with her. She could understand why he would feel that way, it was a risk opening up to someone. So she decided to make it easy for him. "I'm sure you know by now that I am attracted to you."
"That is not why I hesitated. I know that the attraction between us is mutual, what happened between us this morning is proof of that. It feels deeper than mere attraction. I find myself wanting to comfort you. Wanting to protect you. I want to see you laugh, to see you smile."
Cheria's heart beat heavily in her chest. She felt like they were getting into something so much deeper than the mere slaking of desire. Did she want to get in to that with him?
"What are we going to do about it?" As she looked into his beautiful silver eyes, the feeling that she needed to explore the possibility of something deeper with him went through her. She'd spent most of her life alone, and while now was not an even remotely ideal time for her to be thinking about any of this, sometimes life handed out opportunities that needed to be grasped.
"That depends on what you want. If you want to know me, if you want to opened yourself up to being closer with me, you have only to tell me. Know that is what I want. Know too that if it is not what you want, it will not change my pledge to protect you. I have given you my word that I will do so and once given, my promise can not be broken."
So it was up to her. And if she came to regret this decision, she could not put the blame on him for pressuring her into it. But as she searched her heart, she didn't feel like it was something that she was going to regret. There was so much uncertainty in her life at the moment, she didn't know if she was going to survive the next few weeks, let alone what was going to be in store for her for the rest of her life.
Here was an opportunity to have something good, something that wouldn't cost her dearly. All she had to do was reach out and grab it. Did she have the courage to do that?
"Cheria?" His voice was soft and deep, and something shifted inside her. She'd spent most of her life calculating every move she made, using her head to dictate what she did. And look where it had gotten her. Being hunted by a machine with a trail of bodies following her.
Maybe now was not the time to follow where her head led, but to listen to her heart. And her heart was telling her to grasp what he was offering her and to hold on tight to it.
"Where do you suggest we start?" She looked into his eyes, and shifted closer to him. He smiled down at her, and reached up to cup her face.
"We start with this." He leaned down and fused his mouth with hers.
Chapter 16
Cheria put her hands on Rone's hard, muscular chest and slid her hands up the fabric of his shirt until her hands were up over his shoulders and around his neck. His mouth was soft and tentative on hers, as if he expected her to pull away, to change her mind at any moment.
He'd always struck her as being so confident, so sure of himself, but she wondered what it was like for him to move around on a planet where he was so different from anyone else. There had been a vulnerability in his eyes when he'd told her what he wanted. Perhaps he'd known rejection in the past and was afraid it would happen again.
She pressed herself closer to him and used her lips to communicate with him that she would not be changing her mind. That she wanted him and that it was his differences that made him so appealing to her. She didn't think that any of the men she'd ever encountered on this planet would do what he had done and was still doing for her. Perhaps she'd not met the right sort of men before him, but it was clear to her that Rone operated under a different set of rules than most of the people she'd encountered.
He deepened his kiss, and slid his tongue inside her mouth. She gave a small sigh as she melted into him. Holding on to him, feeling his body close to her should make her fear his size. He was so much bigger and stronger than her. But she could feel that he was tempering that strength so that there was no risk to her. All she could feel as he held on to her was his protection of her. Here was someone who would never hurt her, who would do whatever he could to protect her.
And soon, sitting here, kissing him while they sat at the edge of the bed fully clothed was not enough for her. She wanted more. She wanted to feel her skin against his. She wanted to absorb the warmth of his body, to feel the power in his body when he put himself inside her.
She pulled away and stood up so that she was standing in front of him.
&
nbsp; "I want you." She licked her lips as she slowly reached up to undo the first button on her shirt. He looked at her hands as if they were the most fascinating sight he'd ever seen, and the silver of his eyes darkened to pewter, before turning so dark with his desire that they were almost black.
The first button came undone and she slowly moved her hands down to the next one. She was at the height of her feminine power as she slowly teased him by exposing inch by inch of her skin. He made a soft growling noise but he made no move to take over for her. He was willing to let her set the pace, and it made her glad that she'd made the decision to give herself to him.
Out came another button and her bandeau covered breasts were exposed, and he moved, standing up and towering over her. Despite the intimidating sight he made, she held no fear of him. This was Rone, and he had proven that he would never hurt her.
"You move too slow, woman." His voice was a deep growl that sent a shiver of desire down her spine. The last button was undone and she let the top fall to the floor as she looked at him.
He pulled his shirt off over his head and toss it aside. Her hands paused on the fastener of her pants as she took in the sight of his smooth skin stretched over his big, hard muscles. She could not keep herself from reaching out to put her hand on his skin and running it over him. He was so warm, his flesh so firm, that her excitement rose inside her.
