But it was probably better this way. She had a feeling things were going to get really ugly. Stranded in time, no backup, no one to know if she . . .
Shut up, Riane.
She sucked in a hard breath as the biochemicals of the berserker state flooded her bloodstream, stinging her veins like acid with a wave of white-hot strength and a sense of invulnerability. Which, unfortunately, was illusionary.
Still wearing that chilling smile, Ivar charged.
It was after midnight by the time Nick wearily walked out of a convenience store in a very bad part of town. The Stone had sent him there two hours before with a premonition of a woman in danger. Sure enough, he’d found the clerk about to be raped by an armed robber. Nick had beaten the man senseless while the girl called 911.
The two cops who’d showed up to take custody of his prisoner had questioned Nick and the clerk at length about what had happened, making both of them repeat the story several times. Probably checking to make sure their versions jibed.
Nick had not, of course, revealed that he’d intervened because the Stone warned him somebody was in trouble. He sure as hell hadn’t admitted he’d blown the door open with a burst of telekinetic force. Neither point would have helped his credibility.
He sighed and scanned the darkness warily. Any dealings with cops inevitably resulted in an attack by the aliens who hunted him. He suspected they monitored police frequencies somehow. They always turned up within an hour or so of any engagement.
As if on cue, a bright emerald light lit the darkness, heat stabbing the muscles of his biceps. The Stone . . .
Nick stiffened as a vision swamped his mind in a kaleidoscope of images. The woman with the tattoo who’d haunted his dreams, dressed in a dully gleaming skintight costume that made the most of her long, slim curves. She slapped down the visor of a blue helmet and leaped forward with a chilling combat howl.
A man charged her. He was a good foot taller than she was, and heavier by at least a hundred pounds of hulking muscle. He wore the scaled black and red armor of the aliens. Hands the size of her head reached for her.
The vision winked out, leaving only a cold sense of anxiety—and a faint tugging sensation. Nick whirled and broke into a run, following the psychic pull.
If he didn’t get to her fast, she was dead. He knew that with an ice-cold certainty that didn’t permit doubt. Lengthening his stride, Nick ran hard, arms pumping, boots thudding on the pavement. He could feel her even before he heard her: desperation, rage—and a furious, icy determination.
The little girl she’d been all those years ago had definitely grown up.
He rounded a building and saw them, fighting in the illumination cast by a single streetlight. He scanned the scene as he galloped closer. One of Milltown’s only parks, a tiny patch of trees and grass and a few pieces of playground equipment.
A chain-link fence surrounded it, a good nine feet high. Nick didn’t let that stop him, hitting the metal webbing halfway up, hooking his fingers into the links, and swarming upward before vaulting over the top. He hit the ground with a thud and a puff of dust, then charged toward the fighters.
He’d always known he’d see her again. He just hadn’t thought it would be like this.
I’m not going to be able to take him, Riane realized, not without Frieka. Maybe not at all. The son of a bitch is stronger than ever.
She’d pitted herself against Ivar before, during combat practice sessions back at the Outpost, and she had a good idea of his abilities. He was a cyborg, yes, but she was a Vardonese Warfem. Despite his greater size, she should be a match for him, at least with riaat increasing her speed, strength, and agility to superhuman levels.
She’d dodged his opening bull-like charge, only to have him tag her with a backhanded swipe of one armored paw. Despite her helmet, the impact sent fireworks exploding in her vision, and she’d gone flying like a rag doll.
Riane hit the ground in a loose-limbed roll she used to flip onto her feet. She faced him again, ignoring her ringing ears and the copper tang of blood in her mouth. “Opponent’s strength seems to have increased from prior encounters,” her comp warned.
No kidding. She tongued away blood from her lips.
Ivar’s teeth flashed white through the dark visor of his helmet. “Our Xeran friends gave me a bit of an upgrade.” He flexed massive arms. Light gleamed and rippled along the slick scales of his black armor. “Enhanced the tech in my muscles, reinforced my skeleton with nanobot engineering. All in all, I’m twenty-eight percent stronger than I was before, thirty percent faster—and more than capable of kicking your Warfem ass all the way back to the twenty-third century.”
She bared her teeth at him. “And one hundred percent more mouth than action.”
Ivar came at her in a blur of raw, terrifying speed, catching her across the waist and slamming her into the ground with a force that drove the air from her lungs. She felt every erg of the impact, too—her drained armor had lost too much power to protect her.
A fist shot toward her head. She threw up a forearm block and banged a punch of her own at his visor. He shook it off and hit her again, rattling her skull in her helmet. She swung at him, but his massive paw engulfed hers before the punch could land. His fingers crushed around hers like an industrial vise. He jerked off her, snatched her up by her trapped hand, and flipped her over his head. She tucked her chin to keep the back of her head from slamming into the ground, but even then, the impact made her consciousness gray. The rest of her body hit the ground so hard her teeth rattled. The breath left her chest in a whoosh.
A ghostly voice sneered, You’re not the warrior your father was. A memory, nothing more, but the words stung.
She tried to force herself to her feet, prove the Femmat bitch wrong. Her stunned, breathless body barely twitched. From the corner of one eye, she saw Ivar lift a booted foot, about to stomp down on her belly . . .
Then he was gone.
Riane blinked once at the empty sky above her. Get up, her mind screamed. Get your ass up!
. . . not the warrior your father was . . .
“Yes. I. Am!” Gritting her teeth, she rolled over onto her hands and knees, though the world spun in sickening circles around her.
A male voice bellowed in rage to the meaty sound of fists hitting flesh. She staggered to her feet and almost fell again as she turned, looking for the traitor, trying to determine what the hell had just happened.
Ivar was down on the ground, another man on top of him. For a moment, her heart leaped in hope—an Enforcer? Then she registered the man’s twenty-first-century blue jeans and black T-shirt.
His face savage with rage, he powered a fist into Ivar’s faceplate. A crackle sounded. His arm lifted and descended again, then twice more, so fast it appeared blurred even to her sensors. The tough resplas visor shattered in glittering arcs that were echoed an instant later by flying blood. She couldn’t tell if it was from Ivar’s face or the stranger’s fist.
He’s not human. No human could take Ivar down like that. “Computer, sensor scan.”
The answer came back barely a heartbeat later. “Sensors indicate subject is half-human, but his maternal DNA is Xeran.”
She cursed. What the Seven Hells was going on now?
• 4 •
The Victor watched the fight from the darkness with His finest cohort, shielding Himself and the six priests so heavily the Enforcer would be unable to sense them. Too heavily even for the Demon’s keen otherworld senses as the creature battled his spy.
“Shall we intervene, Light of the Infinite?” Warrior Priest Gyor ge Tityus asked in a hoarse whisper. He appeared perfectly calm, but the Victor could feel his vibrating eagerness to shed blood and prove himself. He was new to his post yet, having so recently advanced on Tarik ge Lothar’s death.
“Not yet,” the Victor said, eyes locked on the Demon with starved fascination. “I would observe.”
How ordinary the Demon looked. One would have thought him the twent
y-first-century primitive he believed himself to be. Yet seen in the Coswold-Barre spectrum, he blazed with energy. Exotic forces gathered around his fists and feet, giving each blow a superhuman force, protecting his bones, making him more than a match for Ivar, despite the cyborg’s armor and nanobot-enhanced strength. Each time Terje tried to hit the Demon, exotic alien forces cushioned the impact. It was no wonder none of the Victor’s teams had ever managed to capture the creature.
But what fascinated the Victor most was the Stone that clasped the Demon’s upper arm. Staring into that gem in the Coswold-Barre spectrum was like gazing into the heart of a star. He thought He could sense some alien universe shining through its glittering green aperture.
That was true godhood, not the sham He’d constructed for His people. With such power, He could bring all human space to its knees before Him.
As it should be.
But He must acquire the Stone first, and that was not so easy. One could not simply take it, not even after killing its possessor. They’d discovered that with the Heretic’s death. The priests had been unable to remove the armband, and then it had simply vanished from her body, off to find the Demon, whom it seemed to view as her heir.
No, the Demon must be persuaded to give it to Him.
Luckily, the Victor had a very good idea how to force him to do just that.
Now what? Riane watched Terje and the strange male circle, crouching, both men feral and intent. The stranger was a big man, though unlike Ivar, he was leanly powerful rather than hulking. Clasped around his upper arm he wore a glowing gem that sparked and snapped each time he and the traitor exchanged a blow. It cast a soft green illumination over the starkly handsome angles of his face. His narrowed eyes reflected the unearthly shine like a cat’s in glints of green. His shoulder-length hair was thick and dark and a little shaggy, in need of a trim, giving him a wild-man look that was enhanced by the snarl on his well-cut lips.
Why the hell would a half-breed Xeran intervene to help her?
As if echoing her thoughts, Ivar spat at the man in English, “This is no fight of yours. Why die for a woman you don’t even know?”
The man’s green eyes didn’t shift their patient, predatory gaze. “I know you’re trying to kill her. That’s enough for me.”
“Ahh—a hero.” Ivar surged forward, spinning into a sweeping kick aimed at the man’s legs. “I’ve always hated heroes.”
The stranger leaped back with that inhuman agility, easily avoiding the kick. But it was a feint; Ivar drew a knife from a sheath across the small of his back.
Fuck it, Riane thought. Whether he’s half-Xeran or not, I can’t just stand here and watch Ivar kill him. She charged as the cyborg continued his whirling attack, blade slicing across the stranger’s T-shirt-clad chest. Blood flew in an arcing splatter.
The stranger grunted softly, taking a staggering step backward and falling to one knee. Ivar reversed his spin, the knife now aimed at his back. Riane dove between them, sweeping her forearm up in a block.
She’d forgotten her powerless armor. The blade glanced off her arm and arced downward, slicing into her thigh. Blood flew, though thanks to riaat, she felt no pain.
The stranger surged upward from his knees, his body twisting as he slammed one fist into Ivar’s head. The other grabbed the traitor’s knife hand and twisted. Ivar howled in agony as the blade spun away. Riane drove her elbow into his face, and he fell, hitting the ground on his back.
“Opponent unconscious,” her comp whispered.
For a moment, she found herself staring up into the stranger’s green gaze from centimeters away. He was a good head taller than she was, his shoulders broad under his T-shirt. The black fabric clung to the muscled lines of his body, damp with sweat and blood, smeared with dirt. He smelled of battle. Her body leaped in purely female reaction to his.
Silently, she cursed riaat and the need it always left after a fight. He’s Xeran, remember? I can’t trust him. And where in the Seven Hells did he get those powers?
Her visor was smooth and dark, hiding her features. But it couldn’t keep Nick from sensing her reaction to him—the blend of sensual interest and acute wariness. He frowned, studying her.
Was this the girl he remembered from sixteen years ago? He wished she’d take off that damned helmet. In the vision, she’d seemed to have the same tattoo, but what if that kind of design was simply common wherever she came from?
The armor she wore was a dark blue piped with silver instead of the black and red his enemies wore, yet it was obviously the same kind of suit. She, too, must be an alien, but why had she come here? What did she want? What was her connection to his enemies?
A warning blade of pain stabbed his biceps from the Stone. He jerked his head around.
Six of the aliens appeared a bare dozen yards away, weapons flashing silver in their hands. Nick cursed and grabbed her wrist, reaching for the power deep in his mind and flinging it out around them. “Duck!”
She half turned, saw the aliens, and growled something in a language he didn’t understand. He jerked her after him as enemy weapons hissed, spitting a lethal rain of silver shards. “I’ve cloaked us,” Nick yelled, pushing her ahead of him to put himself between her and the weapons. “They can’t see or hear us, but somebody could still get off a lucky shot! Run!”
She needed no further urging, breaking into a hard, fast sprint, bounding ahead of him. Nick shot a glance over his shoulder to watch the aliens scatter, trying vainly to determine which way they’d gone. He smiled in grim satisfaction.
They raced through the night together, pounding down darkened streets, veering through alleys, even jumping a pair of chain-link fences without breaking stride. She kept up with him every step of the way, her lovely body moving with a lean grace and power that made his own purr in approval.
Was she the girl he remembered?
The Victor scanned the night as His priests quartered the area. He could sense their seething frustration, but all He felt was satisfaction.
Warrior Priest Gyor ge Tityus approached Him and dropped to one knee, bowing his head in obeisance. “They have disappeared, Most Victorious.”
“Good.” He gave His priest a slow smile. “All goes exactly as I intend.” He nodded to Terje, who had staggered to his feet, visibly dazed. “Gather that one, and prepare to Jump. Make sure the traitor goes into regeneration for his injuries when we arrive at the Cathedral Fortress. I suspect I will find a use for him again.”
Riane ran beside her unidentified savior, her body still hot and buzzing from riaat. It felt good to run, good to burn off all that screaming energy, though she knew the metabolic crash to come would be a bitch.
The Xeran was leading the way now. She found herself watching the easy roll of his broad shoulders as his muscled arms pumped, the flex of his butt under the fabric of his jeans, the stretch and surge of his long legs. Shaggy black hair whipped in the wind of their passage. Hunger stirred in her.
You’re not the warrior your father was.
Baran Arvid had spent years fighting the Xerans. They’d christened him the Death Lord because of his ability to slip through their defenses and kill any target he chose. He’d told her about some of the deceptions they’d tried on him. Never trust Xerans, he’d told her. They’re good at tricks, and they lie.
So what kind of tricks was this one playing? Her eyes narrowed as she studied him with rising suspicion. Why the hell would a Xeran intervene to help her?
What made even less sense was the fact that according to her sensors, not one single molecule of his body originated in the twenty-third century. With the exception of his DNA, he seemed to be a temporal native. It was as if a Xeran female had come back in time, given birth to him, and left him here. Which was illegal as hell; you weren’t supposed to pollute the human root stock with future-originating genetics, especially nothing as genetically engineered as the Xerans. True, the Xerans were a human offshoot race, which was how you could get half-breeds to begin with, b
ut still, there were significant differences.
This whole situation stank of setup to her. The Xerans trapped her in the past and sent Ivar Terje to kick her ass. Then some half-Xeran primitive who shouldn’t be here to begin with just happens to come along and save her? She didn’t think so.
It had to be some kind of trap.
Obviously, somebody wanted her to think this Xeran was on her side, but why? What kind of game was he playing?
Could be they’d figured out how to hide the molecular traces of the future. Charlotte Holt had, after all. She’d been pure Xeran, yet she’d scanned as a twenty-first-century primitive to Riane’s sensors.
Riane frowned. So why had they allowed her to detect the Xeran half of his genetics at all?
Should she play along, pretend she was fooled while trying to figure out his angle? Or was that simply a good way to get her throat cut?
Her gaze drifted down to his flering backside again.
Damn riaat. Those biochemicals might enhance her strength, but they also made her horny as hell afterward. She wished Frieka was here. Whenever she wasn’t entirely sure of her own judgment, the wolf always knew what to do.
And just now she definitely didn’t trust her own judgment.
• 5 •
“I think we lost them.” Nick let his pace slow at last. His chest ached furiously, and he could feel the hot trickle of blood from the knife wound where the alien had tagged him. He thought about healing it, but decided it wasn’t a good idea to spend the power just yet. Better to wait and get somewhere safe first.
The woman glanced at him, then slowed her plunging pace to a walk. For a moment they simply strode along side by side down the walkway, their boots ringing on the cement.
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