Guardian

by Knight, Angela

  Nick took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The center of his chest ached with a dull pain. All these years, his mother had lied to him. She’d known exactly what the Xerans were—hell, she was one—and yet she’d never told him. And he’d asked.

  Why? Why hadn’t she told him? It was like being abandoned all over again.

  He slammed the drawer closed. She didn’t abandon you, you dumb shit. She was murdered.

  He opened another drawer, burrowed.

  And Riane had known it. And she’d just slid the knife right between his ribs.

  It was ridiculous to feel so betrayed. He knew that. She’d suspected him of being some kind of Xeran plant. She had no way of knowing he’d been waiting for her for sixteen years.

  Which, now that he thought about it, made him sound like some kind of stalker. Better not share that little data point with her. She’d probably go all paranoid on him again.

  Lifting a stack of underwear, Nick finally spotted the pants and pulled them out. He stood to find her standing in the doorway in his T-shirt, looking leggy and entirely too delicious. He stalked toward her and handed her the pants. “Here.” Suddenly he had no desire to watch her slide into them. “Excuse me.”

  She stepped back, frowning up at his face. “Something wrong?”

  “Not a damn thing.” He escaped into the bathroom without looking back.

  Aliens, Ivar thought, his big hands tightening on the van’s steering wheel. Bastards have teamed me up with aliens. I hate aliens.

  The van rocked on its wheels. Probably the Tevan moving around in the back. The reptilian warrior was more than two meters tall, with orange scales, spined red armor, and a temper as ugly as his four-eyed face.

  Ivar didn’t actually mind the Tevan that much. It was the freaking Her-Gla that gave him the chills. She was coiled in the passenger seat next to him, watching him with the unblinking attention of a snake. Her claws clicked restlessly as her long, pointed tongue flicked in and out of her triangular muzzle, tasting the air. To Ivar’s eyes, she looked like a genengineer’s nightmare, not even vaguely human. Her skin was a gleaming blue-black, and she had a trio of snaking arms tipped with multiple tentacles rather than hands. Three claws tipped the end of each tentacle. Her three legs were powerfully muscled, giving her the ability to leap long distances.

  But it was her eyes that really disturbed him. There were six of them, faceted like an insect’s, three arrayed on each side of her long head. Her mouthful of triangular razored teeth reminded him unpleasantly of a shark.

  Ivar himself had been upgraded again, a process that had been no more pleasant the second time around. His body had jolted painfully every few minutes all day afterward, as if in the grip of a series of vicious electric shocks. He’d been told his strength and speed had more than doubled, but he couldn’t help but wonder about side effects from all that Xeran tech.

  His lips peeled off his teeth. Fuck it. As long as it let him get revenge on the gods-cursed Enforcers, he didn’t care.

  Starting with that bitch Riane Arvid.

  He straightened in interest, watching intently as the primitive and the Warfem came out of the apartment building. They got in a long, low black car and pulled out into traffic. Ivar waited a few minutes, sensors locked on the BMW’s distinctive pattern of emissions, before he, too, pulled out and followed.

  The Outpost

  Punching the Senior Investigator in the mouth would be a very bad idea. Dona Astryr pasted an expression of polite attention on her face and straightened the fingers that wanted to curl into fists. I’m not going to hit him. I’m not going to hit him.

  “You’re telling me you had no idea your lover was a spy?” Corydon lifted his upper lip in contemptuous disbelief. “You worked with Senior Enforcer Ivar Terje for more than a year—even slept with him—yet your sensors never once told you he was lying to you?”

  How many times had she already explained this? Ten? Fifteen? She’d lost count. Fighting to control her irritation, Dona looked out the wall-length window at the rolling, tree-covered flanks of the Blue Ridge Mountains as they dozed in the sunlight, painted with indigo shadows. It was a beautiful view, one that normally never failed to soothe.

  Today it barely kept her from breaking Corydon’s exquisite nose. I know how this works, dammit, Dona thought. I’ve interrogated more than my share of subjects. Pissing them off is all part of the game. An angry criminal makes mistakes.

  But she was no criminal. She was a Temporal Enforcer. She’d spent eight years chasing killers and thieves through time, and she didn’t deserve Corydon’s suspicion.

  Taking a deep breath, Dona returned her attention to the Senior Investigator, who sat behind Chief Dyami’s massive black desk as if he owned it. Her commanding officer had loaned the human his office for these relentless interviews of the Outpost staff.

  “Ivar apparently used his internal computer to hide his reactions whenever he lied,” she explained, wrestling her temper into submission. “There were no physiological changes for my sensors to detect.”

  “You told Chief Dyami your lover’s computer was active even in casual conversation. You never even entertained the thought that he might be a traitor?”

  “Do you ever wonder if your friends are traitors?”

  “Actually, yes, I do.” Corydon’s tone was icy. “I’m always alert for signs of treason.”

  I’m not surprised.

  “Your commanding officer told me he considers you an intelligent and capable agent.” His chin set at a contemptuous angle. “Your record doesn’t seem to indicate any real incompetence. You’ve been an agent of Temporal Enforcement for eight years now. Decent case solved rate. Adequate string of commendations—even a Silver Dragon for bravery under fire.” He sniffed. “But then, you are a cyborg. I’d imagine it’s easier being courageous when you’re so hard to kill.”

  Her mouth tightened. “I was awarded that for chasing a berserk Tevan cyborg through twentieth-century Chicago after he murdered my previous partner. I managed to keep him from killing any temporal natives, but I damned near died doing it. The medtechs had to resuscitate me twice after they got us back.”

  “A Tevan?” Corydon’s aristocratic nostrils flared. “Tevans have no business time traveling to Earth. They can’t pass for human.”

  “Since they’re two and a half meters tall, scaled, and orange, no. And this one was completely insane. That’s why we were chasing him.”

  “An impressive arrest, I suppose.” He glanced down at his comp slate. “Of course, it would have been more impressive if you were human.”

  I’m not going to hit him.

  • 12 •

  The bra was a confection of lace and netting that didn’t look as if it could support a baby hamster, much less Riane’s round, lovely breasts.

  Unfortunately, Nick’s mind persisted in picturing her wearing the thing, those rosy nipples peeking through the sheer black fabric . . .

  He swallowed hastily and hung the bra back on the rack. Its hanger rattled loudly against its fellows, and he cast a furtive glance around for other customers. Like the ones who might think he was some kind of pervert.

  What the hell had possessed him to take her to Victoria’s Secret?

  Though, it had seemed the logical thing to do at the time. Apparently twenty-third-century people didn’t wear twenty-first-century-style undergarments. And Riane needed them, a fact that became obvious when he watched her walk around in his clothes. Her pretty breasts swayed under the black tee in a way that had riveted his hapless attention. Her nipples jutted under the soft fabric like pencil erasers. Or pieces of candy.

  Pink, delicious pieces of candy, all rosy and . . .

  Bra, he’d thought desperately, as various anatomy south of his belt buckle woke up and took notice of his fantasy life. The woman needs a bra.

  “Now I know why my mother hated these things.”

  He wheeled in relief as Riane emerged from some mysterious back room of the store. Her
expression was disgruntled in the extreme.

  “Just look at this thing!” She whipped the hem of the T-shirt up, displaying her bra-clad breasts. Lace veiled the pretty cream mounds, just barely, the rosy shadows of her nipples peeking through.

  He lunged forward, grabbed the hem, and jerked it back down. “Don’t do that!”

  She frowned at him. “What?

  “You don’t show your breasts in public!” Nick hissed, glancing around to make sure no one was running for mall security.

  The frown deepened. “But there are pictures of breasts on the wall.” She gestured at one of the huge posters.

  “They don’t show nipples. Have you paid for that yet?”

  “Yes, of course.” Elaborate patience rang in her voice, as if she was speaking to someone of very limited intelligence. Which wasn’t far off, considering that his entire blood supply was headed south for the winter. She displayed the shocking pink bag that held the rest of her purchases. “Just as you instructed, I told them the airline lost my luggage. The clerk let me wear a bra and panties out of the store.” She frowned, her mind apparently returning to the Great Tit Debate. “We passed a picture of a bare-chested man in the corridor. His nipples were showing.”

  “It’s different when it’s a woman.” He caught her elbow and steered her hastily out of the store.

  “Why? A nipple is a nipple.”

  “Children.” Nick could hear the growing desperation in his own voice. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “We don’t like children to see women’s nipples. Or . . . ah . . . the genital . . . parts of either sex.”

  “That’s stupid.” She eyed him in disapproval. “If you teach children that the human body should be hidden like something dirty, you risk instilling a sense of shame that can lead to sexual pathology later in life. It’s no wonder you have so many sexual predators in this century.”

  “Would you please stop talking about time travel?” Judging from the heat in his cheekbones, he was blushing like a thirteen-year-old caught with a skin mag. By a nun. “Look, let’s just concentrate on finding you some clothes, okay?”

  She leaned closer suddenly, and her eyes crinkled with amusement. “You’re blushing!”

  “Cut it out.”

  “It’s cute.”

  “Please. Shut. Up.”

  Riane discovered leather.

  She spotted the leather pants in the display window of a store whose usual clientele ran to people with exotic body piercings. Before Nick could protest, she sauntered inside to investigate.

  “It’s not armor,” she announced, running one hand down the butter-soft hide, “but it would be better than those jeans you’re so fond of.”

  “Better for what?”

  “Battle.”

  Nick blinked, mouthing, “Battle?”

  He watched, bemused, as she worked her way through the rack without checking sizes before whipping out a pair. “These.”

  They did look long enough to accommodate her impressive leg length. “You sure they’ll fit?”

  She shrugged. “Comp says they will.”

  And her computer would know. “Get three pairs.”

  They took the pants to the cashier and bought them on the spot, Nick wincing just a little at the price. Riane, who evidently had no idea of the relative cost of things, didn’t even blink.

  She went off to the dressing room with one pair and donned it. Apparently she was tired of hitching up his too big sweatpants. When she emerged a moment later, Nick barely kept himself from swallowing his tongue.

  The pants were long enough, but they fit her muscular legs like a layer of black vinyl spray paint. She bounced a little on her toes, frowning, then suddenly pivoted on one foot and snapped the other leg up in a kick that stopped just shy of Nick’s jaw.

  “Umm,” he said, one hand wrapped around her ankle. He’d blocked the kick before he realized it wasn’t actually going to land.

  “They’re a little stiff,” she told him. “I’m going to have to break them in.”

  “You do that.” He released her ankle as she smoothly pivoted away. “Just don’t break me while you’re at it.”

  As Riane moved off to investigate a rack of leather jackets, Nick met the startled gaze of the store clerk. “She does Women’s Ultimate Fighting.” He’d learned how to lie like a psychopath before he could shave.

  “They’ve got that?” The clerk’s eyes, ringed like a raccoon’s with eyeliner, widened in interest. Both her tongue and her nose were pierced.

  “It’s new.”

  “I like these,” Riane announced, returning with a leather jacket, three tops in various colors, and a length of thick chain that appeared to be some kind of belt.

  “What’s with the chain?” he asked, interested.

  “Weapon.” Having dumped her selections on the counter, she started examining a pair of gloves. Metal studs ran the length of each leather finger. They looked like something Billy Idol would have worn in a video twenty years ago, but Nick imagined that a punch with them would hurt. A lot.

  “Want ’em?”

  “Yes, please.” She watched as he added them to her purchases. When the pierced clerk gave him the total, Riane frowned.

  As they walked out of the store, she caught his forearm. “That was a lot of money, wasn’t it?”

  Nick shrugged. “If it keeps you from losing skin the next time Ivar comes after us, it’s worth it.”

  “I’m not sure how I’m going to repay you.” Riane paused as if thinking it through. “Though I suppose I can come back after I get my suit repaired.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told her gruffly. “Money isn’t an issue with me. I’ve got more than I can spend as it is.”

  She looked relieved. “That’s good. But I’ll still come back.”

  Damn, he thought, I hope so.

  Next she found a pair of black Timberlands to replace her blue uniform boots. She bounced around on her toes for a while before she pronounced herself satisfied. “I’ll be able to kick with these.”

  Nick contemplated the boots’ heavy soles. “And your target won’t be likely to get up afterward.”

  Hungry after their shopping safari, they stopped at a pizza kiosk in the food court. Nick was looking forward to introducing her to a new food, but it turned out pizza had been a favorite specialty of her mother’s. The taste, she told him, chewing happily, reminded her of her childhood. “Frieka hates pizza, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Too much dough, not enough meat.”

  After dinner, they hit a movie. Since it was Wednesday night and the film in question had been out several weeks, they had the theater to themselves. That turned out to be a good thing, because Riane critiqued the cop hero’s intelligence and technique, as well as the general believability of the action.

  Nick found himself agreeing with her, and soon both of them were tossing popcorn at the screen every time the cop did something particularly stupid.

  They threw a lot of popcorn.

  A growl rumbled from the back of the van, a wordless sound of savage impatience and frustrated bloodlust.

  “Keep your armor on, Tiny,” Ivar growled back. “They’ll come out of there eventually. And when they do, you’ll get to play.”

  “Che-cler effa.” The Her-Gla clicked her claws twice.

  “Erita kator che!” The van rocked violently as the Tevan lunged forward in offended rage.

  “Back off!” Ivar roared, jerking around in the driver’s seat. “Don’t make me come back there, Tiny. You won’t like it.”

  “Ai cleta, Ivar.”

  Ivar knew enough about Tevans to interpret that hissing tone as the equivalent of sneering laughter. “You want to get paid, asshole? Keep it up.”

  Kavar’s Bleeding Balls, he hoped their targets came out of that theater soon, or his so-called “allies” were going to turn their collective psychopathy on each other—and him.

  • 13 •

  Dona Astryr stalked into the
Enforcers’ training gym. She needed to hit something. Hard.

  Even as the doors closed behind her, she almost turned and ran out again.

  Chief Enforcer Alerio Dyami stood in a corner of the gym holding a gravbar, pumping out repetitions with a Warlord’s effortless strength. He wore only a pair of black snugs that left most of his big body deliciously bare. His black hair fell in a thick mane to his broad, sweating shoulders, one lock braided with a string of gemstones that were actually combat decorations on his home planet. An intricate tattoo in vivid shades of gold and green covered the right side of his face, stretching from above one arching brow halfway down his elegant cheek.

  Each part of the swirling pattern meant something; she’d looked it up once. The gold and green color of the tat represented House Dyami, the company which had genetically engineered and trained him. The triangular design running down his cheek meant he was a Viking Class Warlord, the most physically powerful subclass of his warrior people.

  And the empty circle that lay directly underneath that meant he was unmated. Which intrigued Dona entirely too damned much, considering that male Vardonese warriors were renowned for their sex drive and erotic skill.

  He’s your commanding officer, you moron, she told herself impatiently. Eyes off.

  Dona jerked her head away and stuffed her fascination for her chief back into its mental box. She’d been infatuated with Dyami since joining the American Outpost two years ago. Which was why she’d gotten involved with that treasonous asshole Ivar Terje. When the big redhead had been assigned as her partner last year, she’d thought he was the perfect antidote to Dyami. He was even taller and more massively built than the Chief, with a handsome angular face, cool gray eyes, and a talent for making her feel she was the center of the universe. Instead, Ivar had turned out to be a murderous spy for the Xeran Empire.

  Oh, yeah. She definitely needed to hit something.

  Sweet Mother Goddess, Dona had just walked in. With an effort, Alerio managed to keep his eyes from drifting in the cyborg’s direction as she strode across the gym on those long legs of hers.