by Loren Rhoads
* * *
When Sloane woke, Raena was gone. Maybe he’d imagined her presence. Maybe he’d dreamed they’d found her in a tomb. Sloane touched his lips with his right index finger, remembering her kiss.
“Gavin?” Raena called.
“Where are you?”
“Out here.”
He heard something in her voice, some unfamiliar tone that hurried him over to the window. When he swept back the billowing curtains, rain blew into the room. The raindrops stung, cold and sharp against his bare skin.
Facing the storm, Raena stood barefoot on the balustrade, naked, arms flung wide, head thrown back. She looked as though she might lean forward and take flight on the storm wind. Water ran down her narrow brown back, broken into rivulets by her scars.
Sloane shouted over the storm, “What are you doing out here?”
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. He wanted to yank her back from the precipice, but he lifted his hand and froze, unable to reach for her and unable to step away. Startling her might be deadly. The rounded balustrade looked slick.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, more calmly than he felt.
“The rain. The feeling of the rain on your skin. Isn’t it incredible?” She turned to face him.
The light trickling over his shoulder highlighted her against the black night sky. Her raw-boned body looked terrible and inhuman. Her collarbone looked like he could snap it between his fingers. Shadows outlined her ribs.
Sloane pulled his gaze up to her face. Her eyes swam with sadness as deep and dark as her captivity. Sloane stepped forward into an ankle-deep puddle and raised his arms toward her.
Rather than take his hands, she leaned onto his shoulders. Her small breasts hung in front of his eyes as she jumped down. Sloane caught her weight before her feet touched the puddle. He held her hard in his arms.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, hugging him with her thighs. She rested her wet head against his neck.
Sloane carried her back into the bedroom and set her onto the bed. She submitted docilely enough. He pulled the comforter from the mattress and bundled it around her.
When he returned from closing the window, he repeated, “What were you doing out there?”
“I heard the rain and got up to watch it. I’d forgotten how beautiful rain is. Raindrops were falling into the puddle hard enough to toss up a spout of water.” She held up her fingers, measuring. “Each drop cast a circle around itself, all the circles expanding and flowing into each other . . . I had to feel it on my skin. I can’t believe I’d forgotten about rain.”
Sloane joined her under the comforter, snuggling close against her back. He rubbed his shaven chin against her shoulder and kissed the bare nape of her neck. “You might’ve caught your death,” he chided.
“A little rain never hurt anyone.”
“I’m more worried about the chill.”
“Was it cold?” She scooted around and crawled into his lap like a child. “I don’t really notice cold any more.” Hanging her arms around his neck, she buried her face against his chest.
Though her nearness aroused him, Sloane simply held her, stroking her back, tracing her scars. Gradually he realized that the wetness of her face pressed against his chest had grown hot. Raena’s weeping had been so silent he felt heartless not to have noticed it sooner.
Sloane tilted her chin up. He licked her eyelids, feeling the fringe of her eyelashes even as he tasted the startling tang of her tears.
She moved so he could feel the heat growing in her groin. That realization set up a feedback loop. He ran his fingers up under her hair, holding her head in place as his kisses grew more passionate. Raena met his mouth, impaled it with her small pointed tongue.
She leaned backward to the mattress, drawing Sloane down atop her. She hooked her ankles together at the small of his back. During the transition, she pressed against him, wet and hotter than her tears. Sloane required no further encouragement.
She made no sound as he entered her, but her whole body clenched around him, so that he couldn’t breathe. Then her hips thrust up against his and Sloane gasped. All he could do was try to keep his balance while she writhed beneath him.
Throughout it all, she remained completely silent, too deeply focused to make a sound. Sloane found that unnerving.
Raena caught his earlobe between her teeth. Sloane wanted to turn his head and watch her face, but feared she’d bite his earlobe off if he moved. The mere thought sent him over the edge.
* * *
Halfway through the night, Raena suddenly pushed off Sloane’s arm and struggled to her feet. Scarcely awake, Sloane heard her trip, hit the wall hard, blunder onward. It sounded as if she barely reached the toilet in time.
“You all right?” he called hopefully after her.
“No.”
The unfamiliar tone in her voice—panic? Raena?—galvanized him. Sloane snapped on the bedroom light and came after her.
“Go back to bed,” Raena commanded, not looking over her shoulder at him. “It’s just dinner fighting back.”
Sloane didn’t point out how little dinner she’d actually choked down. He opened the apartment’s cabinets, searching through the designer-chosen things until he found the liquor. He poured himself a stiff whiskey and downed half of it without pausing for air.
Everything Sloane had on this world was in another name, even the bank accounts. He was as anonymous here as possible, masquerading as a legitimate dealer in Templar artifacts. He’d envisioned settling down with Raena, showing her the nightlife, such as it was, and getting to know her.
Now he wondered if she’d survive the night. The sickness barely let her rest.
The toilet flushed once more and he watched her curl up on the bathroom floor. He knew she didn’t want a witness or a nursemaid or any fucking company. All the same, he stripped the silk-covered duvet from the bed and bundled it into his arms. He carried it to the bathroom and flung it out over her where she curled on the cold tile.
Her bony hands clutched the blanket under her chin and she smiled. Through a throat scorched by stomach acid, she whispered, “Thank you.”
When he came back into the bedroom, he lurched toward the comp terminal. Once he had the concierge on the line, he asked if the building had a doctor on staff.
From the bathroom, Raena shouted, “No doctors!”
Sloane muted the connection and said in a normal tone, “You need to get checked out, Raena. We ate the same meal. This isn’t food poisoning. Something is seriously wrong . . .”
She came to stand, shaking, in the doorway. “No doctors, Gavin. I don’t have any ID. If I show up as an unknown—on a civilized planet like this—they’ll scan me. Sooner or later, some computer will ID me. He’ll find me, Gavin.”
Sloane didn’t have to ask who. “We’ll be gone by then,” he promised.
“Right now Thallian doesn’t know I’m out,” she argued. “That’s only a matter of time.”
“Is that what you’re worried about? Look!” He broke the link to the concierge, input a string, and waited.
The screen filled with a familiar labyrinth of black stone and wind-blown sand. “Someone had rigged up a surveillance system around the Templar tombs. I rewired it, so I could keep an eye on things after we left.”
He shuffled through the cameras.
“There,” Raena said. “Stop.”
Sloane’s fingers stuttered to a halt. A view of the bunker complex flickered onscreen. An antique black diplomatic transport parked far enough away to be out of the blast radius if the grave robbers had left things booby-trapped. Sloane kicked himself for not thinking to order that.
“Who is that?” Sloane wondered, before he thought the better of the question.
Raena gave the predictable response: “No doctors, Sloane. I mean it. We’d better start packing.”
“I’ve got to go out, do some business, once it’s light,” he
protested. “I need to get us some traveling cash.”
“Fine.” She went back to the bed and hunkered down on it. “Give me a gun before you leave.”
“Fair enough.”
* * *
Sloane had lived his life bluffing from one action to the next. He’d never given much thought to where he was going or how he’d get there, just kept moving. Kept running, actually, from the memory of Raena and how she’d been stolen from him the first time, how she’d bolted from him the last. Until Ariel started him on the Dart, that is, and he found himself able to pursue long-term plans.
He finished his drink and poured another. Twenty years ago, when he’d first located Raena in that bar on Nizarrh, she was a slip of a girl in a swirling black cape. He hadn’t been much older than her himself. He’d thought she was shit-faced drunk, since her head kept drooping over her glass, but after he got her onto his ship, he realized that it had literally been days since she’d slept. He’d hovered over her sleeping form, fascinated by how delicate she looked, how scarred. She looked like she’d walked through Hell in nothing but the clothes on her back.
She’d been on his ship—which one had it been back then? they never lasted long—less than a standard day before the scanners melted down. He’d practically sailed through another ship before Raena persuaded him to drop back to real space. And the Arbiter was right there, waiting to pick her up.
Over many sleepless nights since then, Sloane had puzzled over that. Had Thallian known she would fall into his hands? Had it just been bad luck? Had Raena guessed he was there and simply quit running? If there’d been a trace on her, why had Sloan been able to get her off Nizarrh at all? Had there been any way he could have outrun Thallian or out-maneuvered him or hidden her better?
If the story had ended there, maybe Sloane could have chalked it up to rotten luck and moved on. But once he’d tracked her to Thallian’s custody and learned what that meant, he bought a forged med ID, got himself into her cell, and saw what Thallian had done to her . . .
The memory made him shiver even now. She’d been strapped into a metal chair, electrodes inserted all over her skin. At random intervals, she got a shock so fierce the restraints left bruises.
If anything, Raena looked more alive under torture than she’d been, fleeing on Sloane’s ship. Some nights, the vision of her arching up under the current, galvanized by Thallian’s device, woke Sloane. Made it impossible to find sleep again. The memory of her in the torture machine guaranteed that Sloane would do everything in his power to find her again.
He swore to himself that he didn’t want to hurt her like that. But she’d looked so beautiful then, like an engine stripped down to racing trim, like a brand-new gun shiny from the manufacturer. His hands ached to caress her. He wanted to taste her bruises and feel her tears on his fingertips. The craving shamed him and drove him for decades. He hoped to make it up to her for even thinking those thoughts.
Sloane perched on the bedside, watching Raena sleep. He’d killed enough creatures to know what death looked like. Raena barely looked alive. In the valleys between each breath, he strained his ears, waiting for the pause that must most certainly come.
Sloane remembered how she was before when he’d rescued her the second time. They almost made it out of Thallian’s clutches and off his ship. Then Raena ran out of the lift right into a squadron of soldiers. She’d obviously hoped someone would shoot her down and put her out of her misery. Instead, they’d taken her prisoner and marched her back to their master.
Had Sloane freed her this third and final time only to have her die in his arms? He wondered if all the years held at bay by the stone tomb ate at her now. Would she turn to dust if he waited beside her long enough? Would that take days, a week? He couldn’t run away from her or the sickness or the memories. He couldn’t just sit and watch her die. He had to call someone. If she wouldn’t let him take her to the doctor, he’d need to bring a doctor to her.
He dragged the portable comp over and began searching the human interweb. This would be easier if he hadn’t burned his bridges with Kavanaugh.
* * *
Revan ordered the guards to collect all the abandoned equipment. He wondered if any of it would prove useful. Most of the large pieces seemed to have had their serial numbers erased with acid. All in all, what was left of the encampment looked like junk, worthless and untraceable. Still, it was his job to find out who had been on the planet and what they’d taken off-world.
It would have helped, of course, if Jonan had been more forthcoming. Then Revan could have narrowed the scope of his search. Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. Revan had served his younger brother long enough that he knew the consequences of asking too many questions. Jonan was clearly spooked. That was enough to stir Revan to action.
As he watched a technician dismantle what was left of a vandalized scanner, an enormous explosion went off nearby. The blast wave, rumbling like an avalanche toward them, knocked Revan into the mountain and pushed the technician from his perch on the extensor ladder. The man hit the ground hard.
Revan spun to see a cloud of debris, driven by the relentless wind, headed his way. He had no time to duck before it engulfed him.
He pushed off the wall and fought his way through the vortex of grit. The radio at his hip squealed and shouted unintelligibly. He would have recognized the cadence of Jain’s voice, but he didn’t hear it.
Whoever had abandoned the grave robbers’ camp had set a booby trap. They’d known they would be tracked.
Thanks to the planet’s unceasing gale, the debris cloud cleared enough that Revan could see again. He found Jain slumped against a loader, coughing hard as if he’d inhaled a stone.
Revan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, meaning to extend a measure of comfort. Instead, the boy swallowed his weakness and snapped to attention. His chest betrayed him, heaving with restrained coughing.
Behind the boy, beyond the loader, it seemed as if the entire face of the mountain had come down. A boulder larger than their transport had rolled to a stop a meter away. A guard’s arm protruded from beneath it. Jain’s other guards had vanished.
“It was a trap,” the boy said needlessly, his voice too loud.
“Did it damage your hearing?” Revan shouted over the wind.
Jain, looking at the devastation for the first time, didn’t respond.
The explosion must have deafened him. Revan shook his head, dreading to report the news to Jonan. Still, the trap solved one problem. Now they knew where to focus their search for traces of the grave robbers.
* * *
Jonan settled into his office before he opened the comm. Revan stood in front of an avalanche of broken black stone.
“We don’t know who the grave robbers were yet,” the elder brother said without preamble. “They opened a number of tombs before they found the one they wanted. They left a fair amount of broken equipment spread around their encampment. We’re trying to trace it now. Your scanners were reconfigured. I’m tracking the feed. I’ll find out who’s viewing it and where.”
“Report to me before you proceed there,” Jonan answered.
Before Jonan could cut the connection, Revan said, “There’s more. This disaster behind me is the Templar Master’s tomb. Jain’s team set off a booby-trap.”
Revan paused, as if unsure how to deliver the rest of his report.
Grimly, Jonan asked, “How many casualties?”
“Jain lost his hearing in the explosion. One of his guards is dead. Two more are missing.”
“Presumed dead?”
“I’ll make certain,” Revan assured.
The brothers had no other words of comfort for each other.
Jonan closed the comm and sat back, more alive than he’d felt in years. Raena had survived. She was free in the galaxy. Soon they would be reunited.
Was she on her own or had she co-opted the grave robbers into aiding her? He wondered if his men would find a pile of bodies somewhere. What
would it mean if they didn’t?
That she’d hurt Jain was disappointing. Thallian had hoped that she would learn affection for the boys. Start to think of them as family. If things had gone differently in the past, they might have been her sons.
He shook the thought away. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she had not forgotten him. She’d known he would come for her and she’d set a trap. Jonan was touched. He’d have to think of a suitable welcome for her in return.
CHAPTER 5
In the morning, Raena looked even worse. She managed to pull herself out of bed and into the bath he’d run for her, but Sloane noticed she walked like her bones ground together. He rummaged in the cabinets for some painkillers, but the only candidate for the job was whiskey. Not what she needed on an empty stomach.
“Stop fussing,” she groused. “You make me nervous.”
Sloane laughed, as she’d intended him to. He came to sit on the polished stone ledge around the ludicrously large tub.
“I feel awful,” Raena confided, lifting one bony hand above the sea of bubbles.
“What can I do?” Sloane asked.
Raena shook her head.
Half to himself, he muttered, “I shouldn’t have fired Kavanaugh. He spent enough time on that med ship that he could cobble together medicine out of space junk and leftover food.”
“You wanted me all to yourself,” Raena reminded. “That was sweet.”
Sloane shook his head, doubting she really felt his possessiveness of her was sweet.
“Maybe you could have me skinned,” she offered. “Make a robot of me. She could be the companion you want.”
He sputtered, “I can’t believe you’d even joke about that.”
She bared her teeth. “All I wanted was death, Gavin. The Emperor refused to have me executed. Once I was in that grave, I spent years waiting to be rescued. I would even have been glad to see Thallian. And for twenty years, Thallian knew I was in that tomb and he never came. But as soon as his scanners went off-line, he sent a transport to find out why. If he finds out I survived the tomb, he’ll want me back. You saw what happened the last time he got his hands on me.”
