by Nina Croft
But she knew that if she ever left this universe, no way would she be returning. Besides, she needed to get to the planet.
She thought about revealing more to him. If her plan worked, there was no reason he couldn’t get his revenge. But something warned her against giving away her true plans. Devlin was a hard, ruthless man, but he was also loyal. And while she meant no harm to the crew of the Blood Hunter, she needed their cooperation, either willing or unwilling. And there was a chance Devlin would see her actions as betrayal.
“I want to. But I don’t think I can. I was brought up believing that I had a purpose. I must see it through.”
He studied her as though he could see into her soul. Except she didn’t believe she had a soul. “Then it seems we’re at an impasse. But you have a few hours yet to change your mind. Maybe I can convince you.” His gaze lowered, running over her body like molten lava.
Her heart rate picked up until she could feel the blood pumping in her veins, and the muscles clenching in her belly. Already her body wanted him again. Needed him again, with a craving she hadn’t felt in her life before.
Once more.
She reached for him but, this time, he took control. His hands gripped her waist and he dragged her down the bed until she lay sprawled beneath him, his big body balanced over her. His cheekbones were flushed and the scar stood out, pale against his skin. She drank in every line and curve of his face, knowing that this was likely the last time she would ever lie under him like this.
Already his body was hard against hers, but there was no urgency, just a sense of inevitability. This was meant to be. They were meant to be.
He lowered his head and took her mouth in a kiss unlike any other he had given her. Her mouth opened to accept him, and he kissed her as though he would never get enough. As though she was his whole world. She gave up thinking in that moment, shut off all the plans and the doubts, and sank into the sensual promise of his touch.
He thrust his tongue languidly into her mouth as one thigh pushed between hers. He was heavy, but she didn’t care, loving the feel of his long, hard body pressing her into the mattress. He filled her with one smooth thrust of his hips.
Then he was moving inside her, his thick shaft pulling out, the drag against her sensitive flesh exquisite, shooting darts of pleasure through her body, concentrating on that one place between her thighs where his big body rode her.
The slow rise of pleasure saturated her body, sensitized her skin, so when his mouth left hers to kiss down the length of her throat, to nip her shoulder, she arched against him. He kissed her breasts, sucked her nipple into the warm cavern of his mouth, and suckled in time with the languorous thrust of his hips.
She wished it would never end, that they could be like this forever, but already she could feel the tug of need. She could sense it in the tightening of his hands as they held her still. Her body’s insistence on release from the spiraling desire. For a moment she fought it, but the sensation was too strong, sweeping over her, sucking her under, and she let herself go.
He came up on his elbows and stared into her face as he filled her one last time, pushing her over the edge, his back arching as he pulsed his own release inside her.
I love you.
But she kept the words locked in her throat. And he remained silent. Neither of them willing to say it aloud.
It didn’t matter. Whatever he thought of love, she saw the emotion reflected in his eyes. One last try.
“Come with me,” she murmured.
“Stay with me,” he countered. “We could have a life together, and I never considered that possible.”
She cupped his cheek. “I’ll think about it. I promise.” As she spoke, she knew the words were a lie. She’d come too far from the girl she had been. Maybe at some point in the future he would forgive her. But she couldn’t see it. He’d hate her for what she was about to do.
Betray her own people and his.
For a brief second, she considered giving up on her plans. But it was only for a second. Self-sufficiency was too ingrained in her now.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead and pulled away from her. “I have to go. I need to complete the repairs on the Trakis One.”
She worried at her lip. “Go then.”
“You won’t leave without speaking with me again?”
“Of course I won’t,” she lied.
She lay on her side and watched as he pulled on his clothes, strapped on his weapons belt, tugged on his boots. Each second taking him further from her.
Once dressed, he came back, leaned over her, and kissed her hard and fast. “I’ll be a couple of hours. We’ll talk again when I get back.”
Her weak smile seemed to satisfy him, and she watched as he walked away, finally vanishing from her sight.
And for the first time in over five hundred years, Saffira curled herself up in a ball and cried.
Chapter Nineteen
Devlin couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was making a big mistake by walking away. Or maybe not so much walking away as leaving her to her own devices.
He had no choice—he had to go finish the work on the Trakis One, but maybe he should go back and insist she come with him. Or get Tannis to have someone watch her. Even lock her in the brig.
Perhaps that was the answer: lock her up until they were well away from that goddamn planet and back in their own universe.
But he knew he couldn’t do it and not only because she would probably never forgive him. He wanted her to come with him of her own free will. He needed her to choose him. He wanted to be the most important thing in her life.
Jesus. Before he’d been miserable. Now he was downright pathetic.
And something else occurred to him. Maybe she needed the same. He’d all but told her that his revenge was more important to him than she was.
Was it?
The question flashed in his mind. He couldn’t even believe he was thinking it, but there it was, flashing in his head in big neon letters.
He stopped in his tracks and pressed his fingers to his lids. But he couldn’t block the thoughts.
Could he give up his need for revenge? He could rely on Tannis to kill Hatcher. She wanted him dead almost as much as Devlin did. Tris had been her crewmember and she was loyal to her crew. Hatcher had also murdered Janey, the Blood Hunter’s brilliant and beautiful tech expert. No, Tannis wouldn’t allow Hatcher to live.
He didn’t need to kill Hatcher personally. The man had to die. While killing him wouldn’t bring back his family, or Tris, or Janey, Hatcher was evil and, left alive, he would bring the world to ruin.
But it would make no difference if it were Tannis or Devlin who killed him.
Something hard and tight inside him dissolved, leaving him feeling almost weightless.
He could stay here and help Saffira free her people. Maybe they’d even find that place and time of her vision and he would tell her he…
Was that what she still wanted?
It would be so much easier if she had told him how she felt. That second time they had made love, he was sure he’d reached her. That she would speak the words she’d said before. They’d hovered on his own lips. Words he’d never spoken, not to any woman.
Then that closed look had shuttered her face, and she’d withdrawn.
Maybe it was up to him to speak first. She’d obviously gone through a lot in the years on Earth, lost her youthful spontaneity, her trust in people. And who could blame her? He couldn’t even imagine what he’d be like in five hundred years if his life followed the same path it had so far.
He took a small shuttle over to the Trakis One and got to work fine-tuning the guidance systems that had obviously been knocked out on the journey through the black hole.
A ship this size wasn’t built for getting through holes. It didn’t have the maneuverability of the Blood Hunter. Devlin hoped the captain whom Callum was waking up was skilled, because he could only presume it was luck that had got the Trakis One thr
ough the black hole in one piece the first time and with relatively little damage.
He worked quickly and methodically but couldn’t get rid of the itch that told him to move faster, to get out of there and back to Saffira. Now he’d decided what to do, he wanted to tell her, watch her, see if it made a difference. He would as soon as he got back.
“Devlin?”
Callum stood in the doorway, a tall, fair-haired man beside him. “This is Captain Tyler,” Callum said. “The last captain of the Trakis One. Can you give him an update on the state of the ship?”
The man appeared a little shell-shocked, but who could blame him? Catching up on a thousand years in a few minutes was bound to have a disorienting effect.
“She’s almost good to go,” Devlin said. “Just finishing up.”
Tyler asked a few questions, which at least proved that he knew what he was talking about. Devlin did his best to curb his impatience and answer. He wanted out of here. Back to the Blood Hunter and Saffira. It was weird, but he had the strangest feeling. It had been building since he’d decided to stay with her. Some emotion bubbling up inside that he didn’t recognize or maybe was just unwilling to give a name to.
Happiness?
Nah. A miserable bastard like him wouldn’t know how to be happy.
“Are you okay?” Callum asked, dragging him from his thoughts.
“Yeah. Why?” Didn’t he look okay?
“You seem a little distracted, that’s all.”
“Maybe.”
Callum leaned one hip against the console and folded his arms across his chest. “You want to talk about it?”
Did he? Like a man-to-man talk? He’d never been one to talk about his feelings. Then again, he’d never actually been one to have feelings up until now, so what was there to talk about?
“Is it Saffira?” Callum prompted.
“She’s going back to help her people.”
“Admirable.”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going with her.”
A grin broke out on Callum’s face, then faded. “You’ll be stuck here. And those things on the planet will be after her.”
“That’s why I need to stay.”
“Tannis won’t change her mind. The risks are too great going down there. You can’t persuade Saffira to come with us?”
“I don’t think so. We said we’d talk when I got back.”
Callum glanced around the engine room. “Go, then. We can finish here.”
Devlin tried not to look skeptical. “You can?”
“All the captains were trained in basic maintenance. I’m guessing this is basic.”
“Yeah.”
“So, go.”
Devlin didn’t need to be told twice. He headed for the door.
“And Devlin…”
“Yeah.”
“Tell her we’d be happy for her to stay. We might not have been too happy about the whole mind-fucking thing, but we do understand why she did it. She’s welcome on the Blood Hunter.”
Christ, there was that emotion thing again, a sort of choked-up feeling. He’d never liked Callum—on principle. Now he had that first inkling that perhaps one day they could be friends. Except that wouldn’t happen if he remained here with Saffira.
He ran into Rico, Skylar, and Daisy on his way back to the shuttle. They were obviously heading back from the cryo room.
He studied Daisy. Her eyes glowed deep crimson. She looked sleepy and vaguely at peace for the first time since the attack. Obviously, dinner had agreed with her. He grinned. “You look…”
She licked her lips. “Full?”
“Yeah.” He had an image of her crouched over a cryo-unit. Would they wake with holes in their necks? Yuck. “And is it my imagination or are you slightly less green than you used to be?”
“My chlorophyll is dying,” she said. “It needs sunlight, and while I didn’t always have that in space, I had a sunbed. Now I can’t go near it.”
She sounded as though she wasn’t entirely happy—maybe she’d liked being green. He could understand that. He’d always been proud of the outward signs of his mixed heritage and had worn them like a badge of honor. But he supposed everything had a price. He doubted this one was too high.
“You miss being green?”
“Sort of, but I’m glad Rico did it. I’m not ready to die.”
Though she also hadn’t been ready to take the Meridian treatment either—otherwise she would have done so when they first arrived on the planet. Or maybe she just hadn’t realized their time would be quite so short.
“And you know, I quite like the whole drinking blood thing. It’s sort of sexy,” Daisy murmured.
Devlin shook his head. “That is sooo sick. Please tell me you haven’t been…you know, with unconscious people.”
Daisy giggled, sounding almost like her old self—maybe that’s all she needed—regular blood. He hoped she would get it. Maybe with Rico looking out for her she’d be okay.
It occurred to him that he might not see them again, but he couldn’t face a protracted good-bye. “See you around,” he said and headed for the shuttle.
Back on the Blood Hunter, he went straight to his cabin, hoping to find Saffira still there. But the room was empty. He’d come back a good hour earlier than he’d said, maybe she’d gone for a walk to feed her dog, or some girly bullshit.
He made his way to her cabin next. The door opened for him, but inside was clearly empty. No Saffira, no dog, no personal possessions—nothing.
His gut churned, always a sign that something wasn’t right with his world. A bad feeling gnawed at his insides. He pushed it down. She wouldn’t have left without seeing him. They’d said they would talk again…
He took the transporter bubble to the bridge.
“Have you seen Saffira?” he asked Tannis as she glanced up from whatever she was reading.
A look of—was it pity?—flashed across her face. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone the fuck where?” But he knew.
“She took one of the shuttles and left for the planet.” Tannis shrugged. “She told me to tell you good-bye, that it was cleaner this way.”
Cleaner!
He swung around and smashed his fist into the metal wall.
Tannis winced.
Devlin ran a hand through his hair, pressing his scalp, trying to make sense of this. He would have sworn she’d wait for him, that even if they were to part she would have at least said good-bye in person. She was supposed to be in goddamn love with him. They were fucking fated to be together. What did it matter if it was four days or five hundred years? That shouldn’t change. But of course it would change. Obviously, it had changed.
“Maybe she didn’t think she’d have the strength to go if she waited,” Tannis continued.
“Shut up,” he snarled. He paced the bridge, trying to get his head around it all. Why would she go? There were hours yet until the deadline. He stared at the screens and could make out the planet, distant and unreal.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Tannis said.
“You don’t understand. I came back to tell her I was going with her.”
“Stay in this shithole? Christ, you can’t be serious.”
“I love her.”
“Freaking holy moly, Devlin. I’m sorry.”
Yeah, sorry just about summed it up. He should know better. But obviously he didn’t. “I’m going after her.”
She pursed her lips. “We can’t take you down there. I won’t risk Callum and Skylar.”
“Or yourself.”
A brief smile flickered across her face. “Or myself.”
“Can I take one of the shuttles?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll kill Hatcher for me?”
“With pleasure.”
“Tell the bastard it’s for Tris.”
“And all the others.”
Tannis took the transporter bubble down to the docking bay with him, though they didn’t s
peak. He was too busy thinking hard. Why had she done it? Whatever she’d told Tannis, he didn’t believe she had done it to avoid saying good-bye in person. She wasn’t a coward. So why?
Why leave before he came back?
A part of him wanted to believe that she hadn’t thought she could withstand him if she stayed. That she would have caved and remained on the Blood Hunter and given up on her people.
But something niggled in the back of his mind. That feeling all along that she’d had an agenda. Something she was hiding from him.
He was back earlier than he had said—was that significant?
“What is it?” Tannis asked.
“I don’t know but…” He shook his head. “Something isn’t right about this.”
“You don’t trust her, do you? You think you love her, but you don’t trust her.”
“Not one little bit.”
“Shit.” Her brows drew together. “But what could she be up to?”
“Can you access her movements while she was on the ship?” he asked.
“Should be able to.” She lifted her hand and opened a palm screen, tapped a few keys. Her frown deepened. “The records have been wiped clean. How the fuck could she do that?”
“She’s been studying the plans for this ship for five hundred years,” Devlin said. “She had them with her on Earth. She probably knows the ship better than anyone.”
Why? What? How?
The questions ran through his mind.
Why did she leave? What did she want? How was she going to get it?
He stepped back into the bubble and hit the button for the engine room. As the doors opened, he stared around him. He’d spent hours in here, probably days. He knew the place intimately. He went through it methodically, searching for anything that wasn’t right, anything out of place.
“What are you looking for?” Tannis asked.
He didn’t glance up. “I have no fucking clue.”
He kept looking and found it after ten minutes.
Straightening, he gestured to Tannis to look. She peered under the console. “What is it?”
