The Rebel and the Rogue

by Grace Goodwin

  And the game, giants and pirates? I wasn’t either of those things. I wasn’t a princess. I wasn’t a hybrid. Hell, if I were perfectly honest, I wasn’t exactly human anymore either. I had the scars to prove it. I was a bounty hunter, and it was time to stop living in a dreamland of happily ever after and babies and get back to work.

  8

  Zenos, Cerberus Legion, Rogue 5

  * * *

  Ivy moved like a ghost through the streets, the dark black of our uniforms making it easy for the two of us to blend into shadows as we moved through enemy territory. She’d put her hair into a tight braid, and I missed the soft fall of gold down her back. I’d removed my armband—Ivy had yet to find hers—and reset our armor when we left the relative safety of the Astra-controlled region of the city. Nothing marked us now. We were truly rogue. And the outward display lines of Ivy’s scars were gone as well. I missed them, wanted to strip her of her uniform and trace the lines with my tongue. To revel in her life experiences, her bravery. Her strength. To hear the full story of how she’d achieved them. Hold her if that was hard to do. Outward scars were one thing, internal ones, the demons we fought in our heads, was another.

  “Keep up or I’m leaving you behind.”

  Her hissed warning made me grin, made my balls ache to master her again. Fierce, my female. But I’d seen the horror fill her eyes when little Scylla asked about the scars, knew there was a story. Devastation so deep the memories took her someplace hidden in her head at a simple mention. I’d very much needed to know what had made her shudder with fear and pain, needed to know everything about the female I became more obsessed with each passing moment. Needed to know who to kill for hurting her.

  Scars were a sign of all we survived, but it was possible that was all Ivy had done. Survived. Pushing herself forward through time, but was she really living?

  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get the image of little Nero curled up in her lap out of my mind. Couldn’t stop imagining that it was my son or daughter she held instead. Our child. I’d never had such thoughts before, never gave myself a moment to even consider it, the idea too dangerous to my psyche. It held too much hope. Too much want for something I couldn’t have.

  Ivy had looked shocked when Nero placed himself in her care, as if kids were a novelty for her. She’d said she’d been a fighter for four years. That was a long time in battle and most likely without the simple comforts of a home, of family. I wondered who or what she’d left behind on Earth. Obviously she didn’t long to return, for she’d laughed at Astra when she’d mentioned it. But four years without kin. Without connection to familial roots… She shrugged it off. Gods, she shrugged off everything, every emotion, and I had to wonder if it was because it hurt too much. If she felt too much.

  I saw past that, to the tender side of her, one she probably didn’t reveal often, even to herself or anyone else, and never to me. I’d seen her glare, snarl and stand toe-to-toe with both Barek and Astra. I’d seen her gasping with pleasure. I’d seen lust and hunger and rage—but never that.

  Gentleness. Caring.

  Love, perhaps? Or at least the stirrings of emotions I had begun to fear she might not ever reveal. I’d taken her body. Fucked her. Filled her. Made her scream with pleasure. It was an escape for her. A way to retreat from the horrors that drove her. A short connection with another, a few moments of bliss found only in orgasm. Yet she had never looked at me with such softness, and I was shocked to discover I longed for her to bestow that gift upon me. Seeing her come on my cock, on my mouth was one thing. I wanted all of her, not just the prickly, argumentative facade she had firmly in place.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ivy stood with her hands on her hips. She’d stopped moving and stood in the shadow of an awning, glaring at me as my mind had wandered. “Well? Are you trying to get us both killed?”

  Yeah, this was the side of Ivy she showed me, gave me. Nothing more. I had to wonder if it was just me she refused to offer all of herself or if it was everyone. If she were hiding. Protecting herself from more than just the Gerian Eozara’s of the universe.

  Footsteps.

  Grabbing her around the waist, I put my hand over her mouth and pressed her back against a door within a small, recessed archway. Shielded her with my body. Her eyelids narrowed, but she must have heard the group of young Cerberus males stomping past the end of the alley like a herd of wild beasts. They were arguing, drunk. Dangerous. They assumed they had nothing to fear. I had no doubt they were all armed and spoiling for either a good fuck or a bloody fight. Probably both. It was what they did while spending free time. Relaxation and carefree amusement meant carousing, throwing a few punches, drinking too much alcohol, a hard fuck.

  Ivy nipped my palm with her teeth, just hard enough to get my attention, and I slowly lowered my hand. I narrowed my eyes. “Quiet. We don’t want to draw their attention.”

  “No kidding, there are eight of them,” she whisper-yelled.

  I didn’t know how she knew that specifically, as we’d been inside the archway, hidden from view, when they passed. Her chest heaved, her thighs pressed to mine, the moldable armor covering us both not nearly thick enough to prevent me from feeling every curve of her soft flesh against me as she scolded me some more. It was as if we were back in that empty room on Transport Station Zenith. Others could come upon us, the danger of being discovered the same. Now we had our clothes on, although my cock punched against my pants to get out, to get to Ivy. To get in her. Even now, when danger threatened just around the corner, I still longed to fuck her.

  “I heard them half a block back,” she snapped. “What were you doing back there? Taking a mental break? Get your head on straight or you’re going to get us both killed.”

  She was right, but fuck me, I couldn’t stop being distracted. She felt good, she smelled good. I knew she tasted good. Her sass made me hard, made me want to change her tone from argumentative to agreeable. I needed her hot, wet pussy wrapped around my cock, needed to hear her scream my name, needed to see her eyes glaze with pleasure. I needed her to lose control. Surrender. To me. Only to me.

  My fangs erupted from my mouth, and I groaned, pushing forward, rubbing my hard cock against her so she’d know exactly how she affected me. “Ivy Birkeland from Earth, you tempt me. Drag me to the center of Cerberus Legion and are contrary no matter the situation. I’m going to make you scream my name when this is over,” I promised. “I’m going to fuck you until you beg for mercy, beg me to stop, and then I’m going to suck your sensitive clit into my mouth and make you come again.”

  I watched as her eyes flared, but it was quickly banked. Oh yes, she wanted it just as rough and wild as I.

  “No biting?” she asked.

  Why the fuck did she keep bringing that up? Again and again. She got my cock; she got my fingers and mouth and all the orgasms she wanted. Why did she continue to push?

  By the fucking gods, did she want to die? “You know I cannot.”

  Yeah, every bit of emotion shuttered, and I felt her body slump against mine as if her motivation and desire had fled from one breath to the next. “Right.”

  She stared up at me, her bright blue eyes like deep pools of water whose depths I could not breach. And they’d gone cold as ice. “Well, if you want to fuck me later, we should probably keep moving now. Get this done. Astra’s informant said we would find the crew I’m looking for about two blocks from here in a dive bar.”

  I frowned.

  “What is a dive bar?” The establishment most Cerberus were known to frequent, and hopefully Gerian Eozara as well, served drugs and alcohol in equal measure, but no diving was involved.

  She pushed me off her, waved her hand nonchalantly. “Never mind. Let’s just go.” Ivy slid out from between me and the wall, gliding smoothly from my arms and moving back into the dark alley. The small corridors on the moon base had been here from the early days. We were in the oldest sections of Rogue 5, once the heart of the moon settlement, but now they were a
seedy underbelly, used for moving supplies and equipment, the ugly things people did not want to see.

  Ugly things like me. Dangerous to not just the darkest elements of Rogue 5, but to the most innocent. My fangs were just as deadly as the ion blaster at my hip.

  Hands clenched into fists, I pulled back from the archway and followed. Ivy moved quickly now, gaining ground on me at a pace that seemed impossible for a human. How did she move so fucking fast? Everian blood? Was she a Hunter? Impossible.

  “Ivy, stop,” I barked at her, but she kept moving, flowing like black water between pools of shadow. Her focus was unwavering, her intent plain. I had no idea humans were so agile. No wonder the Coalition Fleet was so pleased with the new planet and placed fighters from Earth on their ReCon teams. I had never fought with the Coalition, but all soldiers were the same once they arrived at the Transport Station Zenith. A few drinks at the bar and they liked to talk. I’d heard plenty of stories from and about humans as the visitors to Zenith relived their glories and defeats. Bragging. Hiding their pain behind laughter and their drug of choice, whether that was sex, alcohol or other, more potent and mind-numbing options… like Quell. They never spoke much of Earth, though, as if they were too homesick to bring it up or they didn’t care.

  I knew why Ivy hated that particular drug with such a violent obsession, knew that her unit had been high on Quell—and some kind of hallucinogen—when the Hive attacked. So I wondered what drug Ivy preferred, how she dealt with her pain. The moment the question formed in my mind, I knew the answer. Sex. She used sex to soothe the ache, to forget. A mindless fuck in a storage closet with a stranger from Rogue 5.

  I’d been her drug. I still was her way to forget, to let go for even a short time. I performed a service for her.

  But was fucking enough? It didn’t seem like it, as if every time she returned to herself after an orgasm, she also returned to her memories, to everything that haunted and drove her to this place. They were so powerful for her she’d been willing to bargain with the leader of a Rogue 5 legion, to sneak into the center of the deadliest one without breaking a sweat.

  I wondered if she had nightmares. Did she dream? Did humans dream? We’d slept beside each other the night before, but she’d been still. Or I’d been so soundly asleep I hadn’t awoken to them. These questions made me realize I knew next to nothing about my little human. I wanted it all with her. Not just children like Scylla or Nero, but answers. Feelings. I wanted emotion. Connection in more than just sex.

  Moving with speed I normally saved for battle, I caught up to my female. “Do humans dream?” I asked.

  She glared up at me over her shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

  “Do humans have visions while they sleep?” I asked, pressing the issue.

  “You’re asking me that here? Now?”

  I didn’t say anything, only waited.

  She sighed. Confusion was clear in her wrinkled brow, but I saw a spark of curiosity as well. She glanced about, then answered. “Yes, humans dream.”

  “Do you?”

  One blink and the ice was back. “Yes. I do.”

  She turned away from me, this discussion over, and darted into another deep shadow, stopping to survey the area in front of us. Our destination was ahead, across the small street. True to its reputation, a large group of Cerberus scum gathered outside.

  The front of the building had been torn down and replaced with reflective screens that showed popular vid feeds Rogue 5 had stolen and rerouted to our moon. One large display showed lush, green fields of grasses, trees and flowers, the word Atlan displayed along the edges. I wasn’t sure if it was there to make those in this legion want to go to that planet or to hate them more for such a beautiful home world.

  Another was a live feed of the founders’ camp on planet Hyperion below us, where a few of our hybrids still traveled to maintain trade and relations with the brutish half of our ancestry. A well-known Prillon female sang a haunting melody on another screen as a brutal execution was broadcast live from Xerima on the next. It was hard to watch, and I quickly looked elsewhere. Fucking barbarians.

  There were ten screens in all, a mix of beauty and brutality I had become accustomed to. It was Rogue 5, this dichotomy. It was life, although here in the thick of the Cerberus Legion, it was especially brutal. It made the sweet faces of Scylla and Nero all the more innocent. A reminder of why we were here now.

  “What do you think?” Ivy asked, not the least bit interested in the displays. She glanced up at me over her shoulder but didn’t linger long, her attention drawn back to the crowd.

  I scanned our surroundings again. “At least ten inside, six outside. And that’s only what we can see.”

  “That’s what I counted as well.” She reached down to her side and patted her weapons. Astra had relented and given her back her blasters since they were her weapon of choice. The Coalition standard, what she was comfortable and skilled at using. Ivy had managed to pick up another knife or two somewhere along the way. She was resourceful, I had to give her that.

  “Sixteen is too many. And we don’t know if Gerian Eozara is in there.” I glanced around as if one of them would have a sign that offered up his name as our target. Out of all of Ivy’s intel, she didn’t know the appearance of Gerian Eozara.

  “We should backtrack and find an escalation point for the rooftop.” I pointed to the top of a building that would give us an excellent view of the area. A way to scan and assess the situation before moving in. “Watch and wait until we know he is there.”

  “Sixteen.” She sighed and turned, pressing her back to the cold, dark side of the building. She didn’t sound fearful, she sounded oddly relieved. “Is Astra going to be mad if we kill some of them?”

  Was she serious? Surely not. “I’m here to keep you alive, Ivy. We are not going in there.” I wasn’t afraid but smart. “I can kill them all, but I can’t fight sixteen and protect you at the same time.”

  She raised her brows and gave a quick, annoyed shake of her head. “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “The answer is no. Astra won’t be mad. Cerberus is our enemy, and we are not wearing legion colors; therefore we are rogue and killing some of them is not a problem.”

  “What if we were wearing the green armband?” she wondered, glancing at my upper arm.

  I grinned. “Then this would be seen as an attack between legions. It would start a war.”

  The difference was slim but on Rogue 5, enough. Armband, no armband. War versus plain killing.

  “They’ll know we came from Astra. Only Astra has all you big hybrid Forsian guys, right?”

  How the hell did she know that? It wasn’t as if I could blend in with this crowd. I didn’t even look like a hybrid Atlan, I was so big. “That is correct. And yes, they will know.” I looked down at where my armband usually rested. “As I said, if we are not wearing Astra’s colors, we are acting on our own.”

  “I don’t mind going rogue. I have for months now.” She arched a pale brow. “It’s ridiculous you guys can go around killing each other as long as you aren’t actually wearing your legion’s armband.”

  I nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “That’s stupid. It’s still you.” She looked me over, head to toe. “Everyone still knows it’s you. That you’re a hybrid Forsian. That you’re from Astra Legion.”

  “And anyone getting a glimpse of you will know you are not from here, that you are human. It doesn’t matter though. This isn’t the Coalition. We’re not even on a Coalition planet. We’re a fucking moon base. We aren’t subordinates waiting for orders. If our leaders had to be involved every time there was a disagreement, we would not get much trading done.”

  “You would all be in the brig.” She frowned. “You said trading? Is that what you criminals call it these days?”

  “Call what?”

  “Oh, you know.” She waved her hand in the air. “Human trafficking, selling drugs, selling weapons, selling slaves.” S
he crouched down. Moved closer to the corner. “Evil. You’re all evil.”

  Uncaring of the risk, I crouched next to her and turned her to face me. “You speak of Cerberus and Siren Legions only. I am not evil, Ivy, and it is insulting after what we have been to each other to say that.”

  I gave her a pointed look, and she did, for a moment, look contrite. I continued on. “Astra does not deal in slaves. We sell weapons and armor, food, medical supplies. We steal from whomever we have to in order to make sure the people on the outer fringes survive. As I said, we are not part of the Coalition of Planets. We do not have ReGen wands in every room or ion blasters to fight off a Hive attack, not that they’d come here. We are, fortunately, irrelevant to them. So far. The people out here are forgotten and small. Our ruthless reputation helps keep us from their thoughts. We aren’t chosen or included. We like it that way. We do whatever we need to do to survive.”

  She remained silent. I paused to regain control of my rage and asked the question I most needed an answer to. “Is that what you believe? That I am evil?”

  There. For a moment, a fraction of a second the gentleness returned to her gaze, and she lifted her palm to cup my cheek. “No, Zenos. I know you are not evil. I’d say you’re Robin Hood.”

  “Who?”

  She shook her head. “No one.”

  I let it go, even though I had to wonder if this Robin Hood had been a previous male in her life. One who had also pleasured her into forgetting. One she’d fucked and left behind. Was he a fighter? A fellow rebel like her roaming the universe, bounty by bounty?

  I gritted my teeth, then finally said, “Good.” If I said anything more, I would make a fucking idiot of myself, worse than I already had over this female.

  “Good,” she repeated, lowering her hand, and my cheek went cold without her touch. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

  9