Silent Lucidity

by Tiffany Roberts

  Faint but exhilarating tingles danced over his skin in response to her touch. He nodded.

  “It hurts, but it also feels good, right?”

  “Yes. But it’s nothing compared to this.”

  “To what?”

  He placed his hand lightly over her bruises. “This.”

  “They don’t really hurt, Tenthil. And if they did, it’d only remind me of you and how much pleasure you gave me. Think of it like…another mark you put on me. Another claim.” She covered his hand with one of hers and guided it up to the bite wounds between her neck and shoulder. They were already scabbed over, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple hours since their joining.

  Tenthil frowned. Each time he’d bitten her, it had been the result of overwhelming instinct—he’d never once made the conscious decision to do so. Something within him said it was what he should do, said it was the way to solidify his claim, to mark her as his, to make her feel good.

  He finally eased himself down onto the mattress, drawing her against him. She slipped one of her legs between his and draped an arm across his chest.

  “I’m fine, Tenthil.” Abella kissed his cheek, right over his scar.

  Once she’d pulled back, he brushed his lips against hers. He wanted to experience moments like this for the rest of his life—and he wanted that life to be a long one. Perhaps he didn’t deserve happiness, didn’t deserve her, but he intended to seize both, nonetheless.

  That meant overcoming a few not-insignificant obstacles first.

  “Need to find a way to get the credits,” he said.

  It killed him a little inside when her smile faded.

  “How many credits do we have?” she asked.

  “Little over fifteen hundred.”

  She cringed. “So we’re not even close.”

  Tenthil shook his head. “But we’re not beaten yet. Just need to find a big payoff. Can probably find a contract. Might take a few days, but—”

  “No. I don’t want you to do that.”

  “Longer we take, closer they get, Abella.” He settled a hand on her cheek and caressed her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. “We need to work as quick as possible.”

  A little crease formed between her brows as she stared into his eyes. “All the killing you’ve done since you took me from Cullion’s was to keep me safe, Tenthil… It was necessary, and I know a lot of them weren’t good people. But if you take a random contract to kill a random person who has nothing to do with any of this… I don’t know, maybe it’s naïve of me to think so by this point, but it would be wrong. You escaped the Order. You’re making your own choices now. You don’t have to be like them anymore.”

  He recognized the truth at the core of her words, but his instincts still ran strong—protect her at all costs. No life mattered more than hers, not even his own. If he had to kill a random stranger, an innocent, he would, just to ensure Abella’s safety. Right now, leaving the planet was the only way to keep her safe. That meant earning the credits they needed as fast as possible by whatever means necessary.

  “It is all I know,” he said.

  “I know,” Abella sighed. She tightened her arm around him and lowered her gaze. The crease between her brows lingered.

  She was quiet for a time, and Tenthil was content to simply lay with her, to feel her warmth, her skin against him.

  Abella suddenly tensed and raised her head. “What if… I think I know where we can get the credits.”

  Tenthil furrowed his brow; something in her tone suggested he wouldn’t like what she was about to suggest. “Where?”

  “Cullion’s.”

  “Wouldn’t his assets have been claimed by now?”

  “I don’t know much about the way finances and inheritances work here, but I heard enough from him to understand that they’re complicated. It’ll probably take months for anyone to legally get their hands on his money, probably longer because he had no next of kin. But we’re not going after that stuff. He had credits stashed in a few places around his house. Places no one else knew about.”

  Tenthil’s mind raced through possibilities; Cullion had been wealthy and well-connected—both through legitimate and illegal avenues—and had flaunted his fortune everywhere he went. News of his death would have spread rapidly. That meant scavengers, opportunists eager to pounce on the chance of pilfering a vacant manor.

  “With your bioelectric-thingy we could sneak in undetected. I think there’s a secret way in we can use, and I can show you where he stashed the credits he got through shady deals,” Abella said. “I was usually beneath his notice, a pet more than a person, so he didn’t care if I was around while he conducted business so long as I kept my mouth shut. Bastard thought I was too simple-minded to understand anything that was going on apart from when he told me to dance.”

  “There are likely guards posted,” Tenthil said. “His connections would want his assets protected until they can divide them appropriately. I’d be taking you directly into danger.”

  “Tenthil, we’ve been in danger since the moment you took me. Sometimes you have to face the danger head-on if you want to eventually get past it, and I refuse to sit around while you put yourself at risk. Anyway, Cullion always went on about how the bodyguards he employed were the best in the business, and how many of them did you take down by yourself?”

  He tilted his head. “Thought you didn’t want any more death.”

  “I don’t. We’re not going there to kill anyone, and we’ll do our best not to…but I’m not going to stop you from defending our lives.”

  Tenthil stared into her eyes, searching them—though he wasn’t sure for what. Perhaps a sign that she was joking? “Isn’t it the last place you want to go?”

  “It’s just a place. The person who hurt me is gone…because of you.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. “This is the only way I can think of for us to get those credits. Unless you have a better idea?”

  He ran his tongue over his lips, picking up a hint of her taste upon them, and drew in a deep breath. Her scent—tinged with the perfume of her arousal—flooded his awareness. His cock stirred, and sweet venom trickled from his fangs.

  Abella’s plan was better than anything he might’ve come up with, and he had to accept the fact that anything they did would endanger them both—even if it was merely because he’d be forced to leave her alone while he worked. But having a plan didn’t mean they had to rush off to it. There was some time…and they were still in bed, naked.

  “Only one other idea,” he said.

  Abella raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”

  Tenthil propped himself up on an arm, placing his other hand on her shoulder. He pushed her onto her back and shifted himself over her, letting their bodies touch, skin to skin, heat to heat. Lowering his head, he kissed her lips, then her chin, her neck, her collar bone, working slowly down her body.

  “Oh…” Abella breathed.

  He kissed her flat stomach and the bruises on her hips. She shivered and caught her lower lip between her teeth when his chin brushed over her pelvis. Without breaking eye contact with her, Tenthil spread her thighs, dropped his mouth to her sex, and slid his tongue between her folds to tease her clit.

  Abella gasped, and her head fell back. She moved her hands to his head, twining her fingers in his hair, and pressed his face down, wordlessly asking for more.

  Tenthil obliged.

  “Oh, I really love this plan,” she rasped.

  Fourteen

  Tenthil eased the hovercar’s throttle as they entered the airspace over the Gilded Sector’s residential area and glanced out the window. “There.”

  Abella leaned closer to look at the manor through the driver’s side window, placing her hand on his thigh to brace herself. Her hair fell over his sleeve. He longed to feel the delicate strands brush against his bare skin.

  Priorities, he reminded himself. We have a job.

  “I didn’t think seeing that place again would bother me, but
…” She frowned. “The sight of it makes everything I experienced there come rushing back to me. Silly as it is, it feels like if we go inside, he’s going to be there, waiting for me.”

  Tenthil dropped his hand to cover hers, giving it a squeeze. “He’s dead. Forever.”

  Abella looked at him and smiled.

  He guided the hovercar through a wide, looping turn, angling the window toward the manor. The exterior lights were on, and there was a vehicle parked out front—a bulky, armored transport, the sort favored by many private security firms. The logo painted on its front marked it as property of Tegris Security, one of Starforge’s competitors.

  Keeping the hovercar nearly half a kilometer away from the manor, Tenthil brought it around to the building’s rear side. The hole he’d blasted in Abella’s former quarters had been covered by a flat white material that stood out starkly against the surrounding adornments, an obvious weak point on the structure.

  The lack of visible guards outside roused Tenthil’s suspicions. Tegris wanted their presence known—hence the clearly-marked transport out front—and would have warm bodies on site if they’d been hired to protect the manor. Where were they?

  Narrowing his eyes, Tenthil scanned the manor and its grounds.

  “Looks about the same as always,” Abella said softly. “Though this is my first time seeing it from inside a car.”

  Tenthil gritted his teeth. “Wish he were alive so I could kill him again.”

  Abella brushed her fingers along the side of his jaw. “Like you said, he’s gone. And I don’t think I ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  He turned his head to face her, met her gaze, and smiled. “You are with me. That is all I need.”

  She returned the smile and slipped her fingers into his hair, leaning forward to press her lips against his. Tenthil fought back his urge for more as he kissed her back.

  We are here for a purpose.

  Abella pulled back and chuckled. “After.”

  He groaned and shifted on his seat, hoping to relieve the sudden, throbbing ache in his groin. “Yes. After.”

  As Tenthil returned his attention to the manor, a brief, metallic flash caught his eye. Brows falling low, he leaned closer to the window and squinted. Even with his sharp vision, it took him a few seconds to spot the object that had produced the flash—a small surveillance drone hovering over Cullion’s property. A quick scan off the nearby airspace revealed two more.

  Were they supplemental to the existent surveillance equipment, or had the system not been repaired since Tenthil blasted the control room to pieces?

  He piloted the hovercar to street level and landed it in an alleyway a few hundred meters from the manor. After cutting the engine, he gently tapped the disc-shaped signal jammer he’d attached to the control panel. “This has about an hour and a half left. Need to get in and out, quickly and quietly.”

  “Okay.” Abella peered past him. “If we don’t run into too much trouble, it shouldn’t take long. I know exactly where his hiding places are.”

  “Keep in contact with me at all times. Don’t know what surveillance is inside.” He swallowed and drew in a heavy breath; he didn’t like that his next words would echo what he’d heard time and again from the Master. “We can leave no evidence. No witnesses.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  Tenthil grasped her chin between his forefinger and thumb, forced her to meet his gaze, and kissed her. It was the only way he knew to tell her he was there, to assure her they would be all right, to swear he would keep her safe. He withdrew only when some of her tension eased, and somehow—despite allowing his tongue to emerge and lick her taste from his lips—kept himself from tearing her clothes off and taking her right there.

  They exited the vehicle and walked, Abella tucked against his side, through dimly lit alleyways toward Cullion’s manor. The area was quiet, a result of the affluence of its residents and their love for expensive, private security. Tenthil saw no other living beings. There was only trash, all of it stacked in the shadows to await collection like it was an embarrassing secret.

  Tenthil slowed their pace when they entered the alley behind the manor. He glanced upward as they neared the outer wall, spotting one of the drones; the hovering machine was difficult to discern against the dark, distant ceiling even from this close. Abella’s stride faltered. This was a vulnerability he’d rarely glimpsed from her. He knew she’d suffered here, suffered at Cullion’s hands, but she hadn’t often shown just how much it affected her.

  “You are okay,” he whispered, running his palm up and down her arm. “I’m here.”

  She nodded and pressed closer to him. “Should be somewhere along here. A hatch, or something. I saw the ladder from below one of the times I tried to escape, but they caught me before I made it any farther.”

  He nodded. Though it was his instinct to keep his attention directed up, toward what his subconscious deemed the most immediate threat, he turned his gaze to the ground—here, it was a combination of concrete and thick metal sheets, blended together, somehow, into a relatively even surface. It was less of a patchwork than in some other sectors, but still exemplified the random way the Infinite City had been constructed—outside the sanctums, there’d been no unifying plan for most of Arthos.

  That blending of materials served to make the hidden opening more discreet; when he first saw the faint, parallel seams, he nearly dismissed it as a quirk of the construction, but a slight tilting of his head revealed the perpendicular lines that met the others to form a rectangular outline. He crouched over it. Abella’s thigh pressed against his as she sank down along with him.

  Tenthil ran his palm over the hatch slowly, seeking a control mechanism or a compartment to open. The metal surface was gritty with accumulated dirt and grime.

  “Is that it?” Abella asked in a low voice.

  Replying with only an indifferent grunt, Tenthil continued his search until his hand brushed over a rougher spot on the metal rectangle—the texture created not by the dirt, but the metal itself. He wiped away some of the grime and ran a finger over the spot, leaning closer to study it.

  A light flicked on at the touch of his finger. He pulled his hand back and instinctively twisted to block Abella’s body with his own as the light quickly coalesced into a small, holographic control panel—a keypad.

  “Think it is,” he muttered as he reached into his pouch to retrieve his masterkey. After setting the tool in place on the hatch and activating it, he turned his head—checking in both directions along the alley—and glanced up. Fortunately, the nearby wall sheltered them from the nearest drone. Even if it couldn’t capture Tenthil and Abella on its sensors, it would have likely detected the motion of the hatch opening were it in a direct line of sight.

  The masterkey flashed green. The hatch beneath Tenthil rumbled and released a soft hiss. He snatched up the masterkey and moved backward onto the street, pulling Abella with him, as the hatch sank a few centimeters and slid sideways into the ground.

  A second later, soft, yellowish light illuminated the dark opening, revealing a ladder leading down.

  Tenthil leaned forward, bracing himself with one hand on the edge of the opening. The ladder descended to a metal-grating catwalk which ran along the side of what appeared to be an access tunnel. Apart from the gentle sound of flowing air, the tunnel was silent.

  “Climb on my back,” he said.

  Abella looked at him questioningly for a few moments, her brows drawn together as she bit the inside of her bottom lip. Without full breaking physical contact, she stepped behind him, slipped her arms around his neck, and pressed her body against his back. Tenthil reached behind him and hooked his fingers around the backs of her knees, lifting her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his middle at his guidance and locked them together at the ankle.

  Her weight was slight, but he could not ignore her body.

  Not now, you fool.

  He moved forward and lo
wered his foot through the opening to settle his boot on the top rung. Releasing his hold on Abella’s legs, he grasped the sides of the open hatch and continued down until he could take hold of the rungs, descending as quickly and smoothly as he could. Her arms and legs tightened around him despite his care. Part of him felt an indescribable satisfaction at the way she clung to him; it felt good to be needed by someone, to be depended upon, to be trusted.

  It felt even better to have someone he needed, someone he depended upon, someone he trusted.

  When his boots touched down on the catwalk, he moved his hands to Abella’s legs and patted them gently. She unlocked and lowered her legs, kissed him just beneath his ear, and released her arms from around his neck to slide down his back. Her boots hit the grating with a pair of soft clanks. She quickly tucked herself against his side.

  The hatch overhead slid closed when Tenthil pressed the button on the nearby wall. He slipped an arm around Abella’s shoulders, turned, and surveyed their new surroundings.

  The access tunnel was large—fifteen meters high by fifteen wide, at least, with a hexagonal shape—and had likely been constructed for maintenance use. A meter-wide catwalk ran down either side, and inset lights above and below provided the weak illumination. The floor of the tunnel had a narrow metal grating running down its center, likely to collect the rivulets of unknown liquid trickling down the walls in a few places.

  Had he not known better, Tenthil might have thought they’d descended into the Bowels.

  There were two doors on the nearby wall, separated from each other by only a few meters. Both had the look of heavy-duty blast doors, though the second was large enough to fit most medium-sized hovercars through. Tenthil had no doubt it hid some sort of vehicle.

  If Abella had made it here during an escape attempt, she’d been painfully close to freedom—not that the tracker Cullion had implanted in her would’ve allowed her to stay free for long.

  Face grim, Abella pointed to the smaller door. “That’s where I came out right before they caught me.”