by Mina Carter
He walked toward her and her attention was hijacked by the way he moved—with the lethal grace of a born predator. Her body softened, remembering his, as heat rolled through her veins. Automatically she reached up to try and smooth her hair down. Her heart sank as the bird’s nest she encountered. She must look an utter sight. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, looking put together wasn’t important… but it was the only thing she could affect. Everything else had gone to shit.
“You’re going to help me put this right,” he told her and it was an order, not a request.
She nodded as he came to a stop just in front of her, the heat of his body beating against hers. He still wore the Earth-style pants, now torn and ragged, but his shirt had been left behind in the shuttle.
“I’m sorry.” She almost reached for him but stopped as his icy gaze dropped to her hand. “I didn’t know they were Lathar. He said he was Major Stephens… H-he spoke English.”
Rynn shrugged, his expression dismissive. “Translation implant. Most of us have them. I doubt Major Stephens ever existed. Or, if he did, D’Corr killed him.”
Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. The fact she might have been responsible for someone else’s death made her feel sick, her soul weary. Blinking back the tears that wanted to spill onto her cheeks, she focused on the man in front of her.
“You know him?”
The Latharian’s expression didn’t change, and she had an inkling of what their enemies must feel like when facing them. “I don’t know any humans.”
She was human. He knew her. In fact, he knew her very well. But she didn’t argue, swallowing the small hurt to shake her head.
“I meant D’Corr, not Major Stephens. You two seem to have history…”
She trailed off, her words dropping into stony silence. Perhaps trying to get him talking wasn’t the best idea. He was mad enough already. She didn’t need to remind him of other people who had pissed him off.
He sighed, running a big hand through his hair. Her heart gave a pang at the memory of doing that herself, and what the silken strands felt like running through her fingers.
“I infiltrated the D’Corr years ago. There was a rumor that they had females still and were hoarding them.”
“Females? I thought they all died in the plague?” she asked, eager for any tidbit about his past. Anything that would give her an insight into how his mind worked. She told herself it was intel to help her escape but really, she knew she was in trouble. She just wanted to find out about him. Pathetic when he would never trust her again, but she couldn’t help herself.
“They did, but it took a few years,” he explained. “When the plague was at its height, there was a panic. Some clans acted less than honorably, culling affected females as soon as they displayed symptoms in the vain hope the infection wouldn’t spread… we didn’t know at that point the problem was genetic.”
She nodded, but kept quiet, hoping he’d continue. She didn’t know much about Latharian history, just what she’d heard on the news… and a whole load of other bullshit the press had pretty much made up.
“Some clans rounded up all the healthy females they could find, ripping them from their families and colonies and secluding them. The D’Corr were the worst of them. They refused to use the gestational carriers or the oonat and bred the last of their females to death birthing Araal’s generation. They were forced to breed child after child until their bodies gave out.”
Jac winced. “We were told your species revered females?”
“We do. The D’Corr—” He spat on the floor. “Are not Lathar. They are dishonored. We do not recognize them as part of us. But there was a rumor they had a hidden colony of females that were immune to the plague, and I was sent in undercover.”
“Did you find them?” she asked, breathlessly. If this had been a movie, she’d have been on the edge of her seat.
He shook his head, his hair dancing over broad shoulders. “No. I was discovered… sold out before I could gain any actionable intelligence, and it all went to draanth. I killed D’Corr’s father and, I thought, Araal, leaving their colony in flames. But someone must have found him. I didn’t recognize him because of the reconstructive surgery. Can’t have been a Lathar healer. None of them would have touched him, so they must have allies in other races,” he added with a frown.
“So, that was why you were on Earth?” Jac asked. “You were infiltrating us?”
She’d wondered what had brought him to Stanton when all the news reports said the government had allied to talk to the aliens, refusing to allow them to set foot on any Terran-held planet until a treaty had been signed. They’d all felt so smug and protected by that, but she realized now that had been a false sense of security. They could obviously arrive any time they wanted, undetected, and there was nothing humanity could do about it.
“No.” He shook his head, leaning one shoulder against the wall next to them. “My cover would have been a lot better if I was planning to spend any time on Earth. The mission was strictly a snatch and grab.”
“You were after Lizzie. Not me.” The words were out before Jac could stop them, and hearing the lost note in her voice, she’d have given anything to take them back.
“Why would I have been after you?” He frowned, folding his arms over his broad chest. “I had no idea who you were.”
She was unimportant. Not part of his mission. And, from the looks of his expression, he regretted bringing her along. Her mood took a nosedive but he didn’t seem to notice, carrying on speaking.
“My mission was to recover Lady Jessica’s sister and take her back to the Healer’s Hall for the lord healer to study.”
Anger surged as she gasped. “Fuck you. You’re not taking her back to use as a lab rat. She’s a person! This lord healer can take a damn hike!”
He sighed, holding his hand up to shut her up. “There you go again, jumping to conclusions. Lord Healer Laarn is Lady Jessica’s mate. And there is no way he’ll allow any harm to come to his mate’s litaan… her twin, I believe the phrase is?”
“Yeah,” Jac huffed, color on her cheeks again at being chastised. “They’re twins. But what about this emperor. He could make the doctors treat her as a test subject… couldn’t he?” She’d heard a lot about the Latharian emperor, and none of it inspired confidence.
At that Rynn chuckled, amusement wreathing his features. “Laarn is the emperor’s sister son… what’s the word humans use? His nephew. He’s one of the few males Daaynal will not cross. Not under any circumstances. More than that. Lizzie Kallson might well be the only chance my species has of survival.” All amusement fled from his features. “If she dies, you might just have killed the Lathar as a race. And… if the genetic plague transfers to humans, then your own as well.”
Chapter Eleven
The look in Jac’s eyes speared Rynn to the core. She was hurting, not from any physical wound, but inside. In her heart. He could practically see her bleeding but he couldn’t bring himself to comfort her.
She’d betrayed him. Waited until his back was turned to stab him in it. Even though she’d accepted him last night—shared her body with him and it had been the closest to heaven he’d ever experienced—he still felt the sting of betrayal in the bruising across the back of his head and shoulders. The tingles still zipped through his nervous system from the charge-prod. Used on ground assaults to drop things as big as the Krin, she’d been lucky not to fry herself with it, never mind him. He’d spent hours locked into his own body. Seething but unable to move.
Despite all that, everything within him wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her it was all going to be okay. She wanted that, wanted something… some sort of unbending from him. He could see that from how eager she was to do as he said. How her body and expression softened when he approached. The soft, pleading gaze in her eyes as she looked at him.
But, the sensible part of his brain was quick to point out, that could just as easily be to do with the fact she wanted ou
t of a D’Corr cell. And, as soon as she was free, she’d probably take the first opportunity to stab him in the back. Again.
Fighting with himself, he yanked her to the front of the cell and quickly explained what he wanted her to do.
“Got it?” he asked brusquely, not giving her time to think. It was dangerous, and sneaky… he’d learned not to use the word dishonorable even in his own head over the years he’d been named a shadow. A shadow’s work was not like a warrior’s… different rules applied if you wanted to stay alive.
She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Got it.”
Then she started to scream.
“HELP! HELP ME! HE’S DYING! OH MY GOD!”
The high-pitched screams filled the cell and corridor, booming and echoing off the metal walls. As soon as they heard heavy footsteps running toward them, Rynn let his eyes roll back in his head and fell against the metal bars at the front of the cell.
Jac continued to scream, pulling at him and trying to cradle him in her arms—the picture-perfect image of a woman terrified to lose her male. He even felt the hot splash of tears on his chest as D’Corr’s warriors arrived to open the front of the cell.
“Please… you have to help him,” she cried out as she was torn from him.
Hard hands landed on him, but Rynn was ready. Letting them haul him to his feet, he lurched suddenly to the side, using the movement to slam a fist up and into the first warrior’s ribs. Caught off guard, the blow landed squarely, driving all the air out of his lungs. Rynn was on him immediately. He wrapped a hard arm around the male’s throat, turning and twisting as he surged upward so his opponent was back to back with him, his neck stretched out.
Realizing what was coming, he clawed at Rynn’s arm, but the big assassin was too fast for him. He jerked up and back, the crunch of breaking bone filling the air. The body dropped to the floor, forgotten, as Rynn rounded on the other warrior.
He snarled, fury at his friend’s death filling his eyes, and launched himself forward. Rynn got his arm up to block, two heavy blows landing across his bicep and shoulder as he ducked. They were good punches, ones that would have rattled him had they landed. But they hadn’t, and the male had made a fatal mistake.
He’d let Rynn get too close.
Sliding under the male’s guard, Rynn reached out, easing the dagger from the warrior’s belt before he could process the movement. The blade was barely free of the sheath before he surged forward, his body slamming into his opponent’s. As they both crashed into the bars, the blade in Rynn’s hand slid between the D’Corr warrior’s ribs. His eyes widened, the air whistling not from his lips, but from the wound in his chest. He sagged as Rynn stepped back and the blade slid free with a pop. Hands flailing uselessly at his chest, the warrior slid down the bars to a seated position. His jaw moved, a click-click-click the only sound in the cell as the light faded from his eyes.
“Is he—” Jac crept forward from the back of the cell. “Is he…”
“Dead?” Rynn nodded, even though the warrior’s eyes still tracked them, horror in the dark depths. “He is. Or he will be in seconds. The brain takes a few seconds to catch up with the fact it’s dead. He can’t shout for help or anything, so we don’t need to worry about it.”
At her look of horror, he realized she’d finally seen the monster behind his mask, and whatever illusions she might have had about him had been ripped away. Talking about a man as though he were dead when he was struggling to breathe his last was heartless, but he was an assassin.
He didn’t have a heart.
“Come on. We have to get out of here.”
Tucking the dagger into the side of his boot, Rynn paused just long enough to relieve one of the dead males of a pulse pistol before grabbing Jac’s hand and leading her from the cell. Keeping her safely behind him, he led the way down the corridor, eyes and ears alert for any movement ahead of them.
He wasn’t bothered about meeting any D’Corr warriors. He could handle them. What bothered him was running into any combat bots. Those, he couldn’t handle alone. One… maybe, but any more than that and they were screwed.
“Keris,” he hissed, letting go of Jac’s hand long enough to tap the comms implant behind his ear. Subdermal, it was the latest model and virtually undetectable when it was inactive—something that had saved his ass a couple of times in the past. “Get your lazy digital ass back online!”
Concern mounted as they padded down the corridor. They hadn’t come across any more D’Corr warriors, but his heart rate picked up every time they passed a bot alcove. If the alarms went off now, they’d be caught right in the middle of the damn things.
Finally, his comm crackled, Keris’ voice filling his ear. Irate. “I leave you alone for one minute and you manage to get me boarded!”
“Well,” Rynn chuckled to conceal the relief that flooded him. Three warriors turned the corner ahead abruptly, eyes widening in surprise as they spotted him and Jac in the corridor. Before their weapons could clear leather, he’d fired, taking all three down with precision shots. “To be fair, it was a little more than a minute.”
He ran forward, pistol still trained on the fallen warriors as they approached. One could be faking it, and he wasn’t taking chances, not with Jac by his side. He shielded her with his own body, shoving the pistol into the back of his waistband and reaching for one of the bigger weapons dropped by the dead men.
A scrape of metal behind him caught his attention and he swung, almost ready to fire, to find Jac picking a gun up. The KM-7 was lighter, but still a formidable weapon and he frowned.
“Might want to put that down. They’re dangerou—”
She lifted an eyebrow at him and hefted it in her hands. “Looks like a rifle. My daddy taught me to shoot way back when. Safety catch? This is the trigger?”
Rynn nodded, holding his breath until she moved her finger. “No safeties. Pulling the trigger past the second pressure activates it.”
She nodded, holding the thing lightly in her hands, but he could see the fine tremble in her limbs and the panic in the backs of her eyes and relented. If having a gun made her feel safer, he’d let her keep it. At least now he was fairly sure she wouldn’t shoot him in the back.
He hoped.
“Keris, what’s your status?” he asked, motioning to Jac to follow him as they moved. “Can you get into their systems? This place is riddled with bot alcoves and if they go active…”
“Nice to know you have such confidence in me,” the AI replied waspishly. “I’m back and fully operational. I guess you know who ugly with the scar is?”
“Araal D’Corr back from the dead,” he replied. “Gotta do better than that.”
He was light on his feet as they approached the next intersection, motioning to Jac to stay behind him. The dank, dark corridors of the lower levels had given way to clean metal and brighter lights as they made their way up toward the shuttle bays. Rather than stairwells, the ship was built like many Latharian ships were, with spiraling ramps to allow the bots to move about. Even though the newer designs could navigate vertical surfaces and lift shafts easily, the traditional design had stuck.
“I’m in their systems now.” The tone in Keris’ voice indicated she was having fun, whatever counted for fun to an AI. “They weren’t aware the ship was AI enhanced so they didn’t put up any firewalls. Combat bots are all offline.”
“Excellent. And our cargo?” Rynn asked, motioning to Jac to follow him. Together they scuttled across a ramp to hide in its shadow as a troop of D’Corr warriors marched down it and into the corridor they’d just come through. He could have taken them on, but there were at least eight and it would get messy fast. No, here discretion was the better part of valor. They needed to get to Keris and off this ship, fast. He could always get Keris to leave a tracker in their systems so Daaynal could send ships for them afterward.
“Locked down nice and tight. Looks like they tried to remove the stasis pod but couldn’t get past my encryption. Draanthic.
Now quit talking,” she ordered sharply. “And get your ass aboard so we can get out of here. It’s gonna take me weeks to get the stink of D’Corr ou—”
The comms cut off with a burst of static so Keris didn’t hear Rynn’s low chuckle. For saying she was an AI, Keris got more and more Latharian every day. She definitely had her own personality. A new generation AI, she’d been created from code written by the emperor’s sister, Miisan K’Saan. And K’Saan coded AIs were well known to be the absolute best in the universe—hell, in creation itself. There were rumors that at least one had shown actual sentience. That they were becoming their own, new and unique species.
He wouldn’t have been surprised. Keris was as much a partner to him as another warrior would have been. It was just a pity she couldn’t be given a body. No AI was allowed to download into an avatar or a combat bot. Ever. Apparently they’d tried that early on and one had gone insane, killing nearly a hundred warriors before it had been put down. Now there were lockouts and different systems to prevent it happening.
“Here we are,” he murmured to Jac as they turned the corner into the shuttle bay. He breathed a sigh of relief at the welcomed sight of Keris’ familiar hull, starting toward her, only to stop when an armored figure stepped out around the shuttle in front.
Araal grinned cruelly, the movement twisting the scar on his cheek even further.
“Hello, Xaandrynn. I was wondering when you’d finally make it up here.”
Draanth. Rynn motioned to Jac to get to cover, approval filling him when she didn’t argue and just stepped to the side out of Araal’s line of sight. The flicker of his eyes told Rynn she hadn’t been fast enough. Araal had seen her.
“And you brought your little human pet. How nice,” the male drawled, pulling blades from the sheaths across his back as he stepped forward. “I’ll enjoy seeing just what Terrans look like on the inside… after I’m done with you, of course. Or…” he paused for a second to consider. “No, I think I’ll keep you alive long enough to let you watch me kill her.”
