The Kronos male I was treating had just tried to hurt me, hurt a lot of people with that explosion, but I was in nursing mode now.
All life mattered. Even his. What he’d done didn’t matter in this instance.
I had no idea who held a strap from an ion rifle over my shoulder, but it wasn’t Styx. I didn’t care if magical fairies delivered it. I grabbed it, nudged the dying man’s hands out of the way, tucked it around his thigh and tugged. Made a tie, then tugged again.
“Grab this side,” I told Blade with a calm, commanding voice when he knelt beside me, holding out one end of the strap for him to take.
He gripped it and I pulled, cinching the band tighter and tighter until the bleeding slowed to a trickle and I could knot if off, making a tourniquet.
“This wound is too severe for a wand. He needs a ReGen Pod. Tell the doctor to repair that vein before he removes the tourniquet. If he doesn’t get medical attention now, he’s going to lose that leg.”
Two big guys picked him up, one beneath the arms, the other at his ankles and carried him from the room. As I moved to stand, Blade stopped me with a hand on my biceps.
“You recognized him. Why?”
Our hands were bloody, Blade’s face covered in soot. I could only imagine I looked just as bad. The injured were being carried away or treated where they were with ReGen wands. I saw the female leader, Astra, tending to someone with a small cut to the forehead. I could take a moment and clear my head, slow my breathing and listen. The smoke had cleared, but the scent of charred wood and a burning that reminded me oddly of fireworks from the Fourth of July still filled the air. I was sweating beneath the black uniform.
I saw the narrowing of Blade’s eyes. The heightened awareness as he waited for me to respond. Not only did he want an answer, but he was on alert for any new danger. Perhaps that was why I could subconsciously take a breath because I knew he would keep me safe. He’d done it with the softball shaped bomb, and I knew he could do it again.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath, let it out. All the good endorphins from the hallway orgasm were gone. Now I was coming down from an adrenaline high. “From the ambush on Latiri. I recognized him. He was one of them. One of the men from the shuttles.”
Blade frowned. “I didn’t know there were any Kronos in the battle.”
“Those with yellow arm bands? There weren’t,” I countered.
Blade stood abruptly, tugged me up with him. “Styx!” he shouted.
Within a second, Styx appeared, looked me over, ran his hands down my arms, then took my hands, flipped them over so the sticky, stained palms were up. “You are injured?”
“The blood’s not hers,” Blade clarified, as if he could read his leader’s thoughts.
When Styx loosened his hold, I wiped my hands on my pants, not realizing until he’d looked how stained they were.
“The Kronos with the leg wound,” Blade said. “He was at Latiri with Harper.”
Styx stiffened, eyed me. I could practically see his mind working.
“Come.”
Styx led the way out of the room, moving around people, all either well or on their way to it. I could see my services weren’t needed, and I doubted either Styx or Blade would allow me to remain here without them nearby to protect me after my news.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to keep pace with his quick gait.
“To the med unit to question the Kronos about Latiri,” Styx said.
“He’s the one who tossed the bomb,” I said, dropping a bomb of my own.
That got Styx to freeze, and I almost bumped into his back. He spun about, looked down at me, put his hands on my shoulders. “You saw him do it?”
Obviously, he hadn’t.
I nodded. “Yes, but I don’t understand. Those on Latiri who I saw, the group who came in the two shuttles, the one who came through the transport with me, all had red armbands.” I pointed down the hallway in the direction of the med unit. “He had a yellow one.”
“Kronos,” Blade clarified. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Red indicates Cerberus. You’re sure—”
“You killed the one who grabbed me just before transport. You saw his armband. It was red.” I wondered how he could question that when he’d snapped the guy’s neck. “Why are the Kronos and Cerberus legions after me? What have I done?”
I was just a MedRec team member from Earth. No one exciting. I did my job, got in and out. Nothing more. Why would they be after me?
Styx spun about and continued walking. He was halfway down the hallway before he spoke again. “You saw them at Latiri. You’re a witness,” he called from over his shoulder. I’d never seen him walk so fast before.
I ran to keep up, Blade on my heels. “To what?” I asked, my breath coming quickly.
“To the attack on Latiri. You saw their faces.” Even when he was getting my name tattooed on his skin I hadn’t seen the same intensity in his gaze as I did now.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, concerned. “The Kronos or Cerberus guy—or whatever legion he’s from—is in no shape to answer questions.”
The door to the med unit slid open. Within, it was busy, the most critical of patients from the explosion were being tended.
“Interrogate him,” Styx said, his voice deep. His eyes hard. He turned to enter, but I grabbed his arm. He looked over his shoulder at me.
“Now? You can’t. He’ll die.”
Styx didn’t respond, instead walked in and went down the line of ReGen Pods until he found the one he was looking for.
“Styx!” I cried. The male was awake, but barely. His eyes were open, but vacant; I doubted he even noticed we were there. The tourniquet was still applied as the pod was being readied. A doctor was waving a wand over the wound as someone else moved an injector toward his neck.
“Not yet,” Styx said, stalling the male’s action.
I grabbed Styx, but he was immovable. “I did my job and saved him.”
He looked down at me, his green eyes piercing. “And now it is my turn to do my job as leader of this legion and get answers. I need him conscious.”
“Wait until he is well,” I countered. The male had lost too much blood to be able to answer any kind of question, even his name.
“Why?” he asked, through clenched teeth. “I’ll only hurt him all over again.”
This was a different side of Styx I’d never seen before. I knew the moon base was ruthless, the people lawless. Without the presence of the Coalition, the legions ruled with a “take matters into your own hands” mentality.
Was he really planning to hurt, or worse kill, this injured man once he had the information he needed?
“Styx.” I said his name, but either he was ignoring me or didn’t care about my concerns. I spun on my heel, put my hand on Blade’s chest. “What’s going to happen?” I asked him.
Blade lifted a hand to stroke over my hair, but when he saw the blood—this man’s blood—he dropped it. “He would have killed you or taken you with your MedRec team from the Latiri battlefield. And now he’s tossed an ion cannon at you, at us. We must know the reason why.”
“Even if it kills him?” I asked.
Blade nodded. “His life was over the moment he tried to hurt you.”
I turned to Styx, prepared to argue, but the unforgiving slant of his jaw was chilling, and I knew there would be no debate, no mercy for the man I’d just tried so hard to save.
I walked to Styx and stood in front of him, blocking his way as the doctor and one of the others lifted the man into a ReGen Pod and removed the tourniquet from his leg. Styx stiffened, but I pressed my forehead to his chest and wrapped my arms around him. “He’s not going to give you answers if he’s dead.”
I felt more than saw Styx nod at the doctor to allow him to start the healing cycle in the pod. Perhaps I’d done the man an injustice, perhaps it would have been better to let him die. I could only imagine what Styx would do to him. He was so possessive of me, just as p
rotective as Blade, but he also had to see justice done. As leader, he couldn’t let one of his own down.
Even as I thought it, my mind rebelled. We needed answers. We had one of the attackers in our grasp, someone who would know where my team had been taken. Someone who knew the identity of the traitor on Zenith. Someone who could tell us everything.
Even if Blade and Styx had to torture him, beat him, ravage him for the information?
I thought of my team, of the dead on the battlefield, of the brave Atlan, Warlord Wulf, who’d nearly bled to death to save me, and my anger grew until I could live with the choice being made. It made me sick, but I couldn’t see any other solution.
Condemning that man to death, knowing what would happen once he woke, broke something inside me, something I’d never thought could be broken, but I knew Styx was right.
We needed him alive. We needed him to talk.
And after?
I wouldn’t think about after.
Maybe I was an animal after all.
Chapter Eleven
Styx
My enforcers circled the room like hungry raptors waiting for the communication link to be established. The Kronos soldier had been taken from the ReGen Pod, taken one look at my face, and begged for a quick end. He should.
My soft-hearted mate argued to spare his life, tried to convince me he deserved to live. But he’d killed countless members of her team on Latiri, taken more hostage, and tried to kill the one person in the galaxy whose life I placed above all others.
Hers.
Harper may have wanted me to spare him, but the Kronos was a dead man, and he knew it.
He’d told us everything, and, as promised, I’d allowed Cormac to take him away and end things quickly. Painlessly.
The bastard didn’t deserve such mercy, but it would make my mate happy, so I contented myself with knowing he was dead, that we had some answers.
Silver and Blade stood together, talking quietly where they leaned against the wall. The siblings were close, their connection apparent since the moment of their birth. They’d come into the world together, fought together. Perhaps one day they would die together. Twins were rare among our kind, and these two were a bit of a legend.
Khon twirled his dagger on the table, the rhythmic noise unnerving. But I ignored the impulse to snarl at him to stop. When Cormac walked in, Blade, Harper and I all looked up at once. He looked only at me, the slight nod of his head all the confirmation I needed that the traitor was dead.
Harper bit her lip and blinked, hard, but she didn’t protest. Not again. She’d fought hard for him, saving his life, until I reminded her that he’d been responsible for the deaths of countless members of her MedRec team, and probably many more. Even in the Coalition there were rules about traitors, about the guilty. What we did with him was nothing new for her. While she had a healing spirit and it went against her nature, she had to know—better than others—that he was guilty and faced the consequences of his callous actions.
She still didn’t like it, but she rose from her seat and crossed the room. To me. For comfort. Solace.
I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, inhaled her scent into my lungs. Now that the traitor was dead and I knew who was behind the recent string of attacks on the Coalition, something loosened in my chest. Not only for Harper, but for the entire population of Rogue 5.
We were not part of the Coalition, but we existed in their space. And the foolish act of taking live prisoners, of attacking their medical teams, was tantamount to suicide for all the legions, not just Styx. Without the truth, the Coalition could invade, destroy us.
The Prime on Prillon was not known for his mercy. Prime Nial and his second, a brutish warrior named Ander, ruled with iron control. They were fair, but they were hard, hard warriors. Not pampered royal asses like their predecessors. When I learned that their mate was also a female from Earth, I suspected she was often one of the only things that held them in check.
If I didn’t get the attacks on Coalition personnel under control, they would rain down fire on my moon, on my people. I was a pirate and a rebel. We had neither the ships nor the manpower to take on the Fleet.
“Styx.” The voice coming through the comm screen was harsh, direct. Doctor Mervan of the Intelligence Core didn’t mince words. A fact I appreciated because I wasn’t in the mood. My mate was safe, but my world was in peril.
“Mervan.”
Harper tried to pull free from my arms, but I held her to me. I did allow her to turn around and face the Coalition officer who would decide her fate. And his.
“Doctor Mervan?” Harper’s questioning voice brought a smile to the crafty bastard’s face. Apparently, he liked my mate. I bit back a growl of possessiveness. He was a light year away, but I didn’t trust him. Not with what was important to me. But it was time to make a deal, and I needed him for it.
“What’s the emergency, Styx? This better be good.” What he didn’t say was that by contacting him directly like this, Blade and I risked our association with the Coalition’s intelligence network might be revealed. We might be rogue, but some parts of the Coalition liked us for it. Used it to their advantage.
But my people lived in the darkness. I knew how to get around their surveillance systems, their trackers and lies. “I’ve got information on the MedRec team taken in the Latiri system. I know where they’re holding the prisoners, the weapons.” I grinned now, pausing to make sure the good doctor was listening, and by the way he sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward, he was. “And the mobile transport tags.”
His eyes narrowed, but he focused on Harper’s face. “Ms. Harper Barrett from Earth. You were listed among the missing on the Latiri report.”
She stiffened, but didn’t try to pull away from me again. “Warlord Wulf saved me. Then Styx and Blade brought me to Rogue 5.”
“I can see that.” His gaze tracked over my possessive hold, the way Harper relaxed into my arms. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know the way things were. “What do you want, Styx?”
“I want Harper’s record cleared. I want her out of the Fleet, free and clear. She’s mine.”
His gaze narrowed further until he looked cruel. Annoyed. But Harper held her ground, and my enforcers sat quietly, watching the exchange. “Is this what you want, Harper?”
She took a deep breath, and I saw her gaze lock with Blade’s, his victorious grin. “Yes. I want to stay here. On Rogue 5.”
The Prillon’s smile through the vid screen was not amused. He eyed her for a moment, then looked to me, all but dismissing Harper. “I will trade your mate’s freedom for information, Styx. I want everything.”
It was my turn to smile. Yes, he was predictable, just as I’d suspected. Harper was just a MedRec team member who was almost finished with her two-year volunteer service. One of many. Hundreds. Thousands. To him, the trade wasn’t even. He thought he was getting more. He was wrong.
I could tell him the truth, give him the information freely and in its entirety and get him to do the dirty work for me. All while I was fucking and claiming my mate, a resource he tossed aside.
“I had no doubt,” I replied. “But I have one condition.”
“And what might that be?”
“Styx legion will be on the mission. These are my enemies, Mervan. And they tried to kill my mate. I want blood.” I held his gaze, warrior to warrior so he’d understand the full extent of my rage. Harper was mine; Rogue 5 was mine. And these traitors had almost destroyed everything. I would give them to Mervan, but I’d see them finished.
“Done. I’ll send transport coordinates.” The screen went blank less than a second later, and Harper spun to face me.
“No,” she said, her voice full of fear. Her eyes held the same. “You can’t go. Let them take care of it.”
Cormac answered for me. “The traitors are ours, too, Harper. Their blood is ours.”
She glanced from warrior to warrior, lingering on Silver, one woman to another.
But my mate underestimated the bloodlust and demands of honor among my people. Silver was female, and perhaps on Earth they were considered the lesser gender, but on Rogue 5, her blood ran even hotter than the rest.
“I’m going to make them bleed, Harper,” Silver told her. “I’m going to kill them slowly. Their actions threatened my family. Could bring down the Coalition on us. Do you understand the extent of what they could do? Without them finished—and knowing it’s done—we will always be looking over our shoulders. Worried. With this deal, the Coalition sees us as being helpful, courteous even.”
That word, courteous, was almost distasteful to hear. That wasn’t us.
“As for the traitors, I will take pleasure in killing them.” She all but cracked her knuckles in eagerness to see this done.
Harper’s shoulders slumped, and I lifted my hands to massage the tense muscles. “They are evil, Harper. They broke our laws as well as those of your Coalition. They must be dealt with.”
“Fine.” She leaned her head back against my shoulder and sighed. “But I don’t want the gory details. I really don’t.”
Blade crossed the small room and stroked her cheek with gentle fingers. He was as ready as the rest of us to see this done. “Never, mate. We protect you in all things.”
Khon looked up from a tablet screen and put his blade away. “Mervan came through. Coordinates received, Styx.”
Mervan hadn’t wasted a second. He wanted to see this done as much as we did. No, he wanted the information. Immediately.
Cormac tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck with a loud snap. “Let’s go.”
Blade leaned down and kissed Harper, hard and fast. “I will see you soon, mate.”
The others bowed slightly to both of us as they followed him out of the room.
I turned Harper in my arms and took her mouth slowly, gently, determined to savor her.
Her hands fisted in my uniform, and she was trembling. “You better come back to me. You and Blade promised.”
I tucked her hair behind her ear. “And which promise are you referring to, mate?”
Her Rogue Mates Page 11
