by Anna Argent
The only way to be sure that no human would come through and kill themselves on one of the Raide’s traps was to burn the place to the ground, but he couldn’t stomach doing that with living creatures still inside.
He also couldn’t burn the place down until all the living, unconscious Dregorgs were out of sight. The fire would definitely summon the local authorities, and since the Dregorgs were too large to haul away on his motorcycle, he was left to stand guard over them until they woke up and could walk away under their own power.
While he waited, he used the dissipation rods to turn the dead into ash so no questions could be asked about strange bones left behind by the fire. As far as he knew, no humans were aware of their presence here on this planet, and he liked it that way.
It took two hours before the first lumbering creature finally groaned his way to consciousness. As soon as he opened his bright orange eyes and saw Talan, there was a spark of recognition.
“Friend of Oc,” said the Dregorg.
“Yeah. I guess you can call me that, though Radek is easier.”
“Radek,” he repeated as he looked around and realized he’d been moved. And that he could have just as easily been killed. “Mine thank you.”
“Sure. No problem. You need to get moving though. I’m burning the house down, and as soon as I light the fire, human authorities will flood the area.”
The Dregorg nodded and pushed his huge, stinky body to his feet. Only three of his kind had survived. He hefted one unconscious buddy over each thick shoulder and shambled off into the darkness.
Radek didn’t know where he was going, but he seemed to have a plan.
Every time Radek thought about what their species had been through—fighting the Raide, losing their world, and then being forced to fight to expand their enemy’s reach—it made him both sick and furious. The Dregorgs were basically gentle beings. Their strength and stamina made them decent soldiers, but they weren’t true fighters. Violence wasn’t in their nature the way it was in Radek’s. Instead, killing was something that had been forced on them. There was no question at all whether or not the Raide would make good on their promise to kill the families of those who refused to fight. They would, just as they would do the same to Radek’s people if they failed to drive the Raide away.
The war had been going on for too long. He could barely remember a time before the invasion. And as much as he hated the idea of war, he’d rather spend those years fighting than locked in a cell, serving the remainder of his father’s prison sentence.
Running wasn’t an option. The poison coursing through his system—the one he survived only because of the blockers he was forced to take regularly—ensured he could never escape prison on his own. The only chance he had at earning his freedom was to find every last one of the Taken from House Soric. So that’s what he’d do. Right after he burned this old house to the ground.
*****
Zoe had to leave the bathroom sometime. Unfortunately, the only dry thing she had to wear was a towel. Some significant time with a blow dryer would take care of her wet clothes, but for now, she was stuck half naked in a room with a man that made half of her furious, and the other half of her want to get rid of the threadbare towel and rub up against him.
Talan stood in front of the window, peering out through a narrow opening in the cracked plastic curtains. As soon as he heard her, he turned, closing the gap and holding the edges of the curtain closed in his big fist. His gaze traveled from the tips of her wrinkled toes all the way up to her soggy hair, slowing as he passed the cut on her neck.
She swore she could feel the heat of his stare glide over her skin. He left goose bumps in his wake, but they weren’t from cold. In fact, now that he was staring at her like he wanted to help her get rid of the towel, nothing about her was chilly. Her skin tingled from just the memory of his touch.
And he hadn’t even touched all her good parts yet. If he had, she wasn’t sure she’d still be standing. Her poor knees were all wobbly and soft, doing their best to get her horizontal. Preferably under Talan.
His chest expanded on a deep breath, as if he could smell her from across the room. She clenched her thighs together, hoping he didn’t have some kind of superpower that let him know just how much he affected her. How much he aroused her.
She didn’t know this man. Not really. She couldn’t trust him. And yet her body had gone completely haywire, responding to him as if she’d known him and wanted him for years.
This feeling—this quivering anticipation and desire for his touch—wasn’t like her at all. She preferred to be friends with a man for years before their relationship moved to a sexual one. Instant want was an alien concept, which made it rather fitting.
A cold drop of water fell from her bangs, landing on her cheek. She wiped it away, and the movement made one side of the towel inch down.
His eyes tracked the shifting towel, and he swallowed hard.
She needed something more substantial to wear. Maybe a sheet or blanket. Though she was fairly certain that not even a suit of armor would make her feel less vulnerable right now. Talan’s stare was too intense, too focused on her.
He picked up a bundle of clothing from atop the heater under the window and brought it to her. A duffel bag sat nearby with his wet jeans lying on top. “The clothes are mine so they won’t fit you, but they’re clean, warm and dry.”
He was close enough to touch now, and all she could think about was how thrilling it had been to feel his erection throb and twitch against her labia. If she could, she’d snap her fingers and be right back in that bathroom, pressed against the wall with her legs wrapped around his hips.
None of the bad stuff had been able to reach her then. Not her fear, not her grief for her father. Only heat and surprising, thrilling sensations had filtered through. It was going to be a long time before she forgot just how good that had been.
She took the heated pile of cotton clothing and hugged it against her chest to cover the way her nipples had hardened.
“Get dressed,” he said, his voice low and quiet with just enough roughness to remind her of how he’d sounded between kisses. “Then we’ll talk.”
Talk? That was the last thing she wanted to do. Not talking was so much more enjoyable.
Still, she slipped back into the bathroom and pulled on the flannel shirt, boxers and socks he’d given her. Nothing fit, but it covered all but her knees and was deliciously warm from the heater. She rolled up the sleeves to free her hands, braced herself for an interrogation and went back to talk to the man who had the power to make her forget her own name.
When she came out again, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the door, with an air of expectation hovering around his big body. His jaw was set with determination, and the scarred tattoos lining his scalp inched down over his forehead as he frowned at her.
She stared at the swirling marks, wishing she could kneel beside him and study them for a while. From a distance, the tattoo appeared to be a pattern of large, scrolling swirls. Up close, she could see there was more to the marks than that. They were made up of tiny, dense text she itched to read. The writing was similar to what her father had tried to teach her, but just different enough that she couldn’t read it easily.
Zoe took her soggy clothes and draped them near the heater to dry.
“We can’t stay long,” he began. “The Raide use Dregorg scouts to track scents, and it’s only a matter of time before they find yours and follow us here.”
“That’s comforting,” she quipped, sarcasm oozing from the words.
“It’s not meant to be comforting. I want to earn your trust, and the truth seems to be a good place to start.”
“I trust you. At least enough not to run away from you.” Unless he made a wrong move, then she’d be out of here before she had time to remember how cold it was outside.
“It’s not enough. I need to know about the treasure.”
“No,” she said, her voice hard. “Yo
u don’t.”
“That’s not your decision. Besides, you said you’d cooperate if we rescued the boy. Which we did.”
“I will cooperate, but I’m not breaking any promises to my father.”
Talan stared at her for a moment as if debating something. “Did he tell you that he stole something when he brought you here?”
Zoe nearly snorted. “That’s ridiculous. He never stole anything in his life.”
“It was a metallic sphere containing data. Have you seen it?”
That was what Krotian had been looking for when he’d mind-raped her. He’d shoved that image into her brain and demanded that she tell him where it was.
She didn’t know, and with the pain clawing through her head at the time, she hadn’t been able to think.
But now that she was safe, a vague memory tickled the back of her mind. She was little. Her father was crying. They were rushing, running away from something scary. Mother couldn’t come, which made Zoe cry too. He had dragged her to the place where he worked, but he wasn’t supposed to be there—not this late at night. Sirens were screaming in her ears, scaring her.
He’d taken something he wasn’t supposed to take. That’s what had made the alarms go off. She didn’t know what it was, but he had a ball in his hand. A hard, metallic sphere that sparkled with intricate carvings.
“There’s no way,” she told Talan, this time with less certainty behind her words. “My father wasn’t a thief.”
“Maybe he took it for a good reason. I don’t know, and I really don’t care. My mission is to find it and bring both you and it back through the window.”
He took her hand in his, and the heat of his skin wrapped around her chilly fingers, driving away some of the remembered terror of that night. She could still sense it there, lurking in the hidden shadows of her mind, but it couldn’t reach her. Not now. Not when she was a fully grown woman, sitting next to the most formidable man she’d ever known.
“What is the sphere?” she asked, needing to know.
“It a data storage device.”
“What kind of data?”
He shook his head and stroked the inside of her wrist with his thumb. Her pulse picked up in response, and she had to fight to maintain her focus on their conversation.
“I don’t know. That’s not the kind of thing they tell a warrior. I’m just supposed to find it and bring it back. Whatever it is, it’s important enough that I was ordered to protect it, no matter what. My commander doesn’t give orders like that—doesn’t ask me to risk my life—without a good reason.”
She couldn’t imagine a single thing so valuable that it would be worth the price of Talan’s life, but she kept her opinion to herself. The man already had an entire arsenal of weapons designed to distract and intrigue her. He didn’t need her to point out another one, especially not one that might help him get his way.
“If my father did steal it—which I seriously doubt—then he had a good reason. If that was the case, would he really have wanted me to solve the riddle and give it to you?”
“Why give you the riddle if not to have you solve it? He knew you better than anyone, I’d guess. Would he expect you to simply walk away and ignore it?”
She shook her head, casting a few drops of water from her hair onto the borrowed flannel shirt. “No, he knew I could never resist a puzzle.”
“Besides, if he hadn’t wanted you to find the sphere, then wouldn’t it have been easier for him to simply destroy it?”
Talan was right. Assuming this sphere was the treasure he’d told her about, he would have torn it apart or erased it or tossed it in the ocean if he didn’t want her to find it. He wouldn’t have tempted her with a riddle.
“I can tell by looking at you that you’re planning to find it, aren’t you?”
She didn’t like that she was so obvious, but she’d never had much of a poker face. “I’ll try. But if I do find it, I’m keeping it. I’m not going to simply hand it over to you.”
“You still don’t trust me, do you?”
Zoe ignored his question rather than insult him. “Just because my father wanted me to find the treasure doesn’t mean he wanted anyone else to have it. Besides, for all I know it’s nothing more than a family history or something, so that I’d know where I came from.”
“I have orders to hand it over, Zoe.” He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t have to. His message was loud and clear.
He wasn’t going to let her keep it. If she wanted to hold on to the item her father had risked his life and left his home planet to protect, then she was going to have to keep it out of Talan’s sight. When she found it—and she would—she was going to have to trick him, maybe replace it with a duplicate.
As a plan began to form in her head, she didn’t feel the normal thrill that came from finding the right answer. Instead, all she felt was a slight queasy sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Lying to Talan was bad enough. Doing so after knowing how his body felt against hers—how he tasted when he was aroused—seemed like an even worse betrayal. But it was one she would stomach, because she owed a hell of a lot more to her father than she did some random man with a kiss to die for. If she had to lie to Talan to protect what her father had meant for her to keep safe, then that’s what she would do, no matter how sick it made her feel.
*****
Krotian tested the blood he’d drawn from the woman and checked the results.
The response came back faster than he would have thought, but as soon as he read the information displayed, he knew why.
Zoe Last was the daughter of two skilled Imonite Builders, one of whom had been in the possession of Krotian’s people for long enough to learn her secrets. Or most of them. Zoe’s mother died during the interrogation, but not before they’d drawn information from her mind. She was helping to build a powerful new weapon. So was her husband, but both he and their daughter had simply disappeared, preventing them from being interrogated.
Apparently, they had fled to Earth with the plans for this weapon and remained hidden most of the girl’s life. The question was, how much did the daughter know?
Krotian knew from riffling through Zoe’s mind that her father was dead, but she was hiding something—something only she could find. Something important.
The treasure, she’d called it.
She didn’t know what it was or where it was, but if it had anything to do with the weapon her parents were constructing, it was Krotian’s duty to find it and bring it to his superiors.
First, he had to find the woman.
The Dregorgs he’d brought with him had surely been slain by the Loriahans who’d come for the human child or by the traps Krotian had left behind. He would need a fresh batch of war slaves shipped through the next window. Dregorgs’ sense of smell was keen. He had a sample of her blood and tissue. They would be able to track her. They’d hunt her down and Krotian would learn what she knew.
He checked the time until the next window nearby opened. There were still a few hours left to wait. And while he did, he was going to find and prepare an isolated location where he could bring her—one where no one would hear her scream as he scoured her mind without interruption.
Chapter Fourteen
Talan hadn’t been born smart enough to be a Builder, but he was no idiot. He could already see a scheme forming behind Zoe’s eyes. As smart as she was, she was inept at hiding her thoughts.
She was going to try to trick him, preventing him from getting his hands on her father’s precious treasure. He probably wouldn’t have done any differently if he’d been in her situation, but her scheming against him still stung.
He’d play along, pretending not to know any better. That would make her less cautious, giving him a chance at outmaneuvering her. And if it came down to it, he’d overpower her physically, but that would remain a last resort. This world had left her fragile, and he could hurt her too easily, and even the idea of doing so made him nauseated.
; Whatever the treasure was, it belonged to House Imon, and he was going to see to it that it ended up in hands he trusted.
He looked down at his own hand, gripped possessively around Zoe’s slender wrist. She alternated between skeptical and trusting, and the few times she’d told him what he wanted to know, he’d been touching her.
Maybe that’s what she needed from him to open up—some feeling of closeness or belonging. She knew who and what she was. Her father hadn’t hidden that from her. She’d grown up on an alien planet, unable to reach out to her own kind. And now her father was gone too, leaving her completely alone and isolated.
Talan knew how hard that could be. How lonely. The idea of her feeling like that grated against him, demanding he fix it.
She needed to believe that she could trust him. Maybe if she really trusted him, they wouldn’t have to play games or spend precious time working against one another. Maybe she would know that she could simply relinquish whatever they found and be certain that it would end up in the right hands.
Talan couldn’t let himself be put off by using physical closeness to forge a bond with her. This job was too important. He’d certainly had to do worse things to accomplish his missions.
He scooted closer to her, edging inside her personal space. He took his time, signaling his intent, moving slowly across the motel bed so he wouldn’t surprise her. He didn’t want her jumpy or skittish. He wanted her nice and relaxed.
Gently, he swept her damp hair away from the injury on her neck, using it as an excuse for his touch. The cut was still visible beneath the shiny coating of liquid skin, but it remained closed and protected from infection.
He slid his finger over the area, watching in awe as her skin puckered with tiny, pale bumps in response to his touch. She failed to completely stifle a shiver, and her hands clenched in her lap.
