by Kate Rudolph
Even worse, she couldn’t make herself run away. Not anymore. She wanted Ru too much.
Chapter Eight
As Ru worked on finalizing his plans to complete his mission, he couldn’t help but smile. All hope wasn’t lost. He almost whistled, but he knew that his denya might find that strange.
After their brief interlude in the holoroom the night before, Ru had been concerned that Lis would pull back. She’d seemed uncertain, lost. Though he supposed that anyone would feel out of sorts after watching the vid of the destruction of Detya. If she’d had to watch any vid, he was glad it was that one. The other dozen or so that had survived the carnage were blood-soaked and even more nightmare-inducing.
But she was neither running nor retreating today. In fact, she sat only a few feet from him, her entire form engrossed in a game he’d found that could run on one of the entertainment tablets he’d picked up in a pile of cheap toys on a trading station.
Every so often, he caught her looking up at him out of the corner of his eye. But he always waited until she turned away to look back at her. His eyes were so thirsty to drink her in that it almost pained him to concentrate on the schematic in front of him.
He heard her stand up and put the tablet aside. “What is this?” she asked as she moved toward him, waving her hand over the green paper in front of him.
Ru looked up and smiled. “It’s supposed to be the interior design for the base we both infiltrated two nights ago. I need to go back and retrieve the data I was supposed to acquire then.”
Lis furrowed her brows and studied the plan in front of her. Ru turned it sideways so that she could get a better look.
“There’s something off about this,” she said, running a finger over a white line indicating an inner wall. “It didn’t look the same.”
They hadn’t discussed what happened after their initial talk, but there was no awkwardness when Lis described the facility. And she leaned so close that he could feel the heat coming off her skin.
Ru leaned in. She was gesturing to the room opposite the computer station that he needed to break into. He hadn’t gotten a chance to get that deep into the facility.
“How so?” he asked.
Lis shrugged. “I think there was a door here. Really solid looking. The schematic says it’s a wall. No entrances.” She dragged her chair over to sit close to him, and pulled the plans back in front of them.
Ru breathed deep. She smelled of his soap and something light and airy. But he didn’t let her seductive scent distract him. If there was a door in that wall, he could cut his time in the building in half. “Was the lock electronic? Physical?”
Lis sucked in a breath and slowly released it while she thought. It took more strength than Ru knew he had to resist reaching turning his head and kissing her.
“I think it had both,” she said after a long moment.
He could deal with that. With the power disengaged, circumventing a magnetic electronic lock was child’s play. And any contractor worth his paycheck was capable of picking a standard door lock. He reached out and laid his hand over hers where it rested on the map. With only inches between them, he wasn’t strong enough to resist touching her.
“Thank you,” he said. “I should be able to return to you even sooner now.”
“Return?” She looked at him. “You’re leaving me behind?” Ice edged her words and Ru knew to tread carefully.
“If I don’t finish this job, I don’t get paid,” he explained. “And, even more importantly, if the people who hired me find out that I abandoned the job, I’ll never work again. For various reasons.” He doubted the job broker would kill him, but the outcome was never certain. Ru had only ever failed to complete one mission before, and that hadn’t been his fault.
“I could help,” Lis offered.
Ru wanted to say no. But he snatched back the denial before it could escape his lips. Lis was no retiring damsel. She’d been able to fight him off while starved and half mad with exhaustion. She clearly had lived a tough life; it was written in her scars and the tattoos he’d spied on her arms and back.
If his luck held, and he’d been a damn lucky bastard on this mission so far, then he wouldn’t need the assistance, and she wouldn’t be in any danger. If he got in trouble, she might be all that stood between survival and failure.
But if she got hurt or if the unthinkable happened…
Ru really wanted to leave her on the ship. But there was a gleam in her eye and he feared that if he said no, she’d follow right after him.
“Can you shoot?” he finally asked.
Lis laughed and waved her hand in a flourish, “Anything that fires a bullet or a laser and was made for five fingers.”
“There’s a spare blaster in the cargo hold. I’ll get you some proper clothes.” She couldn’t go into danger in the glorified pajamas that he’d lent her. He turned her hand over so that he could clasp it and met her eyes. “But please promise me that you’ll be careful.”
Lis studied him and then leaned forward and brushed a gentle kiss against his cheek. “I could say the same for you.” She got up and walked back to retrieve the blaster before he could respond.
Ru took a deep breath before standing. He prayed to every god he could think to name that he wouldn’t regret taking her along. But she could never be his mate if she wasn’t his partner as well.
He found an outfit she could wear hidden away in the back of the tiny closet in his room. It had belonged to his cousin and he hadn’t been able to part with it after her farewell ceremony two years before. But he thought that Karwan would have liked Lis.
He set the clothes outside of Lis’s room and went back to study the schematic. She joined him a few minutes later clad in black, with the small gray blaster slung by her side in a hip holster.
Ru’s mouth went dry.
The black fabric was built to stretch and allow its wearer to move as she pleased. But that stretch also hugged her curves, accentuating every beautiful inch of her. She placed a hand on her hip and flashed him a crooked smile. “Will I do?” Her fingers brushed against the barrel of the blaster, but Ru felt it all the way to his groin.
“Yes.” He let the word out on a ragged breath.
Her own breath caught and she ran her hand down her hip. For a moment, a shadow of something real and complicated flashed across her face before Lis smoothed out her expression and smiled again.
Ru wanted to howl in frustration. Then he wanted to push her back against the wall and show her all the pleasures that he’d learned just to satisfy her. He’d wipe all thoughts of lying or hiding her emotions from her mind until she was his and wanted everyone to know it.
He quashed those thoughts for the moment. If he spent his time thinking about what he was going to do to Lis the moment that she surrendered, he’d never be able to finish this mission. And if he didn’t finish this mission, he’d never be able to dedicate his life to her.
They headed back to the facility on foot. He’d landed only a few miles away, but under other circumstances, he would have preferred to take a speeder bike. Unfortunately, there was no room on his ship for a bike and stealing one from a resident Polan would bring unwanted attention.
Ru kept his senses tuned, listening for anything that sounded out of place. He caught Lis doing the same. The forest around them gave no hints that two aliens with ill intent crept through it. He heard nothing that suggested the Polans had increased their security or realized that he and Lis had already infiltrated the facility once before.
They climbed over fallen branches and walked single file when the path narrowed to only allow one of them through. After more than half a mile of near total silence, Lis held up a hand.
Ru stopped and listened. He took a deep breath, breathing in the different scents that swirled around them. He caught a hint of smoke and heard the faint rumbling of engines.
They were no longer alone.
Ru stepped up close to Lis, holding his lips only an inch above
her ear and draping a loose arm around her waist from behind. She softened under his touch, leaning back until his lips barely brushed against her ear. “Wait here while I scout ahead.”
He took off before she could try to argue, trusting her to stay out of sight. Slinking through the trees, he stayed low and hugged the trunks, hoping that he blended into the shadows. It wasn’t long past sundown and the last twinkles of light still shone over the edge of the horizon. If the nights weren’t so short on this planet, he would have waited until true dark to approach the building.
The light made him wary and he moved with more caution than he may have exercised at night. It took Ru several minutes to make it to the edge of the trees, and what he saw didn’t surprise him, based on what he’d heard.
One truck idled outside the loading zone of the squat building, an armed Polan guard leaning against the back door of the vehicle. There would be more guards, but if this was the only truck, there wouldn’t be many. Ru waited a few moments and saw that someone sat in the driver’s seat.
The truck was large and could carry at least a dozen soldiers and guards. No Polan contingent would go out with fewer than four. And four appeared to be the magic number. Two additional guards opened the docking station garage from the inside and waited for the truck to back in. Once it did, the two that had been by the truck got out and started to unload several boxes that had been piled into the back of the vehicle.
There could be more people in the building, but Ru doubted it. It wasn’t the right time of year. He headed back to where he’d left Lis, but when he got there, he found the spot empty. He walked around, looking for her hiding behind a tree or near a boulder. She was nowhere to be found.
That was until she dropped out of the sky right in front of him and landed in a near silent crouch. With a smooth, cat-like move, she stood and stalked next to them until they were separated by the barest breath of air. The scent of the trees had mixed with hers in an alluring perfume.
“Company?” she asked.
“Four guards and a truck,” he confirmed. He wanted to call off the mission. They were outnumbered at least two to one. And if he’d been with a different partner, one whose safety was secondary to the mission, he would have pushed on. They had the advantage of surprise, and the truck hadn’t been designed to tackle combatants fleeing into the woods.
But Lis was smiling, her fingers casually stroking the barrel of her blaster. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Chapter Nine
This was what she lived for. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and all of her senses were on high alert. She wasn’t cracking heads or chasing bail jumpers, but this was just as good. Maybe even better. The forests of Polai smelled so much better than the back alleys in the Wastes.
With the guards, their plans changed. Ru needed to get in that building and retrieve something. That made her his backup. That made it her job to make sure that he got in and got whatever he needed.
They took it slow through the last half mile of forest. By the time they made it to the building, only one of the guards was standing by the truck. Ru took his blaster out of its holster and pointed away from where he stood, telling her silently to circle around.
She moved carefully, making sure to stay out of sight. A minute later, a blaster shot whispered through the air as Ru took out the single guard. He didn’t kill him, though after she’d learned of this planet’s practice of slavery she couldn’t say that she would have cared if he did.
Gravel covered the ground outside the loading bay and it crunched under Lis’s feet. It sounded as loud as a gunshot to Lis’s sensitive ears. By the time she made it to Ru, he’d just finished dragging the unconscious Polan to a shadowy spot on the side of the building.
She followed him up to the door and waited, blaster drawn and eyes peeled, while Ru cracked the lock. It felt like it took forever, and Lis felt completely exposed even though it was almost completely dark and there were no lights around the building.
After a few more tense seconds, the lock gave and they were in.
If Ru hadn’t told her about the guards, she wouldn’t have realized they were there. None of the lights had been turned on inside the building and hollow silence rang out around them. But Lis kept her weapon out and they both hugged the wall and kept an eye out for security measures.
Once they were a few hallways away from the loading dock, Lis began to breathe easier. She hoped that the guards were retrieving items from storage and wouldn’t care about what went on in the center of the building.
When they passed through the cafeteria, Lis shivered and glanced sidelong at Ru. He was looking at her and their eyes locked. His nostrils flared and her mouth softened, pulling into a smile.
Oh, hell.
If they weren’t under threat of three strange guards, she might have jumped him right there and finished what they’d started two nights ago.
A grin pulled at Ru’s lips, but he tore his gaze away from her and spied the door she’d told him about. Just as she’d remembered there was both a physical and a digital lock. Ru pulled out a small device and knelt before the door to tackle them both.
Lis went back to the door to the mess hall and kept a lookout. Still, she neither heard nor saw the guards that were lurking around somewhere.
Ru made it through the door, but she waited outside. There was another entrance to the room he needed to access, but it was so well secured that he’d hear anyone coming long before he was in danger.
It was too dark to see well. She wondered if Ru or the Polans had any sort of enhanced night vision and hoped not. At least, she hoped the Polans didn’t. She wanted Ru to have any advantage that he needed.
Lis was so confused. If she hadn’t been holding a weapon and waiting for hostile aliens to wander her way, she’d be a fucking mess. She needed to get her emotions under control and her head on straight. She couldn’t depend on Ru just because he’d been nice to her. She needed to remember that he’d also shot her with a blaster and technically kidnapped her.
Though, she reflected, not many kidnappers armed their captives less than two days later.
He was taking too long. She could feel each second tick by, inviting company from the people who really wouldn’t want them to be there. The facility might have been big, but that didn’t mean they were impossible to find. All the Polans would need to do was turn on the security system and she and Ru would be screwed.
Lis heard something down the hall and froze, not even daring to breathe. She strained her ears, trying to figure out if something had merely fallen over or if it were one of the three remaining guards.
One second ticked by, and then another, and she heard nothing. A full minute passed before she was willing to believe that no one was coming down the hall in their direction.
Finally, finally, Ru finished whatever he was doing and silently closed the door to the secure room behind him, careful to lock it once more. He held up a device in his hand that looked a little like a computer drive and grinned before sticking it into a pocket in his pants.
Lis let out a breath, a tight line of tension releasing from her shoulders now that she saw him once more. In silence, they left the way they came, sticking close to the walls and moving slowly enough so that they didn’t make a sound.
And then it all went to hell.
Ru led them around the final corner to an exit on the other side of the building from the loading dock. As soon as they turned, they came face to face with the three Polan guards who’d been silent since they’d entered.
Even in her shock, Lis moved, raising her blaster and firing at the first Polan before she registered what she was seeing. He was a threat; he needed to be taken out. And down he went, leaving the two remaining Polans.
They were clad in dark grey and were a head shorter than Lis. One wore a black hat and the other a pair of red glasses. But their short, lithe bodies gave them speed, and before she or Ru could fire off another shot, the Polans had dodged, duck
ing behind a stack of crates pushed near one wall.
Ru pulled her back around the corner, dragging her whole body and practically carrying her. Laser blasts whirred past her ears, singeing her hair, but they got out of the line of fire, both uninjured.
“Nice shot,” Ru said, a hand running over her shoulder and down her arm.
Lis realized that he was patting her down for injuries. “I’m okay,” she reassured him. “Nice reflexes.”
The way he looked at her, like he couldn’t bear for the smallest hurt to befall her, did strange things to her heart. It clenched and then unfurled, a strange emotion blossoming within. Lis leaned in close and gave him a kiss. If she hadn’t been riding high on a wave of battle euphoria, she might have resisted. But Ru was right there and he looked so good and tasted so sweet that she didn’t even try to stop herself.
The blast from one of the Polan guns caught the edge of the wall, taking out a chunk of concrete near her head. Both she and Ru ducked down low and kept their weapons primed.
Blasters were a blessing and a curse. Unlike traditional guns, ammo was practically limitless. It would take hours for the power cell to deplete or overheat, and they didn’t take long at all to recharge. But that unlimited power had a limited punch. Blaster shots could injure someone and knock them out, but they were rarely deadly. Only a very lucky shot would kill a blaster victim.
Lis stuck her arm out around the corner and shot blindly to discourage the Polans from advancing on them.
“Can we get out another way?” she asked.
Ru fired off his own rounds. “We’ll be too exposed. And by the time we make it across the building, they’ll be able to power up the security system and call for backup.”
Damn it all.
There was nothing complicated about what they had to do. It was two on two with each side sitting under cover. Unless the Polans had some significant firepower that they were holding back, the bolder team would be the one to win out.
