Paradoxes might be impossible, but that didn’t mean Enforcers were allowed to change things on a whim. If he belonged in the past, that’s where he’d eventually end up, no matter what either of them wanted.
All of which meant that no matter how delicious their relationship was, it couldn’t last.
• 18 •
The Her-Gla was on a tear. She had come to Ivar’s quarters, snapping her teeth, clicking her claws, and swearing viciously in Linga Galactic. Her tentacles lashed as she complained about the treatment they’d received at the hands of the Xerans. She was a mercenary, she said, and she refused to sit still for being held prisoner on this wretched planet. She would certainly have never acceded to having alien comp tech forcibly implanted in her system. It was an outrage. In all her years as a merc, she had never been treated with such cavalier disrespect.
Worst of all, the Xerans had not paid her yet, may the Great Black God curse their eggs to rot.
She wanted her galactors, she wanted the Xeran tech removed, and she wanted off this egg-rotting planet.
Ivar agreed with every word of her rant. Especially the part about wanting off Xer. Actually, at this point he’d be willing to forgo payment, if he could only get the fuck away from these lunatics.
Why, oh, why, had he agreed to work for the Xerans to begin with? True, he’d been royally bored. His career in Temporal Enforcement had begun to seem a little too easy. The thought of turning traitor had sounded exciting, the kind of pure adrenaline rush he craved. God knew, the money had been very tempting.
And for the first few years, it had been everything Ivar had dreamed of. His life had become one long, delicious grav-sled ride over an imploder minefield. He’d loved fooling his commanders and fellow Enforcers, thoroughly savored his corruption.
Until they’d ordered him to kill Jessica Kelly, and the little bitch had developed psychic powers no one could have predicted. His life had gone straight to shit from there.
“Ke-cha ki’tor, Ivaritu,” the Her-Gla said cajolingly. “Ei til revoth kelar Galactors.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Ivar warned her. “We don’t want to piss them off. Because believe me, pissing them off is a bad idea.”
She sneered that the hatching of his eggs was highly doubtful, a deadly insult among her kind.
He told her he preferred his eggs over easy, with a side order of roasted kela.
She called him a perverted sucker-of-eggs. Before the conversation could disintegrate any further—say, to drawn blades and teeth—Ivar agreed to back her up in her petition to their priestly liaison.
What the fuck. He’d always enjoyed living dangerously.
They found the priest in his new quarters—distinctly better decorated than their own barren monks’ cells.
Ivar’s first clue that things were about to get seriously fucked was the fact that Warrior Priest Gyor ge Tityus knelt naked on the black stone floor, wreathed in that smoke the bastards loved to inhale, the kind that intensified sensation and arousal. Personally, Ivar would have used it as a sex aid, but the Xerans were less enlightened.
Gyor had wrapped his erect penis in a cage of silver wire studded with barbs. He was apparently doing penance, which probably meant he was in a very bad mood. Ivar would have dragged the Her-Gla out on the spot, but cultural differences threw a sonic torch in the stew. She set her tentacles and refused to go, instead spewing a torrent of Her-Gla-style abuse on the priest.
Ivar would have abandoned the idiot to her fate, except the priest looked up at him. The man’s slit-pupiled eyes burned, and he discovered he couldn’t move.
Oblivious, the Her-Gla ranted on, insulting the priest roundly. She went on to demand her money and her release, and hissed that nobody had asked her permission to implant alien tech in her comp system.
Gyor ignored her, merely gazing coolly at him and lifting one brow.
Ivar found himself looking around the room. He spotted an antique steel sword next to a display of—were those skulls? Looked like it.
Compelled, though he had no idea why, he walked over and picked up the blade. In the back of his mind, some panicked part of him babbled, What the fuck am I doing?
That quickly became obvious. Ivar walked up behind the Her-Gla, still in mid-rant, lifted the sword in both hands, and brought it down with all his strength. The alien’s blood flew across the room in a rain of azure drops, and the creature fell into two halves. She’d never known what hit her.
She should have. Her sensors should have warned her. But they hadn’t. Obviously, they hadn’t because the Xerans hadn’t wanted them to warn her.
Ivar looked up at the priest, feeling stunned, disoriented. God knew he’d killed plenty of people, some of whom had deserved it far less than the Her-Gla. “I have no idea why I did that.”
“Because the Victor wanted you to.” Gyor gestured at the bisected body, his expression dismissive. “Clean that up.”
“Why?” Ivar asked numbly. “I mean, why did the Victor want her dead? She was damned good in a fight.”
“She was too alien,” the priest said indifferently. “He did not care to hear her thoughts.”
Ivar looked at the priest. A thought flashed through his own mind—I’m not a cleaning, ’bot! He firmly suppressed it. The Victor might be listening in. “Where are the cleaning supplies?”
Master Enforcer Galar Arvid sprawled in a chair in the Chief’s office, a lazy smile on his face, his eyes positively sated. Drumming his fingers restlessly on his desk, Alerio studied his friend and second-in-command with naked envy. “You look downright smug. I gather your leave on Vardon went well.”
“Jess told me about this twenty-first-century tradition called the ‘honeymoon.’ ” The big blond’s lids drooped to half-mast. “Three weeks of sex on the white sand beaches of Vardon.” He sighed happily.
Alerio’s mind flashed to Dona with a spurt of longing. He firmly dragged it away. “No wonder you look like a soji dragon gorged on a herd of beefer.”
His friend studied him with perceptive green eyes. “You, on the other hand, look like hell.”
The Chief shrugged. “I lost one Enforcer, and the agency’s chief investigator is convinced another is a traitor. And a third Enforcer definitely is a traitor. Since all of that happened on my watch . . . well, I don’t exactly have job security.”
Galar winced. “Alerio . . .”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “It was my responsibility, Galar, and I didn’t catch Terje until people damned near ended up dead. I’m not sure I deserve to keep my job.”
“That’s beefershit, and you know it. You’re a damned good investigator, not to mention the best commander I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving. That moron Corydon—”
The door chimed, and the Outpost computer intoned, “Chief Investigator Alex Corydon wishes to see you.”
“Speak of the devil.” Alerio sighed. “Probably wants to try to convince me to arrest Dona again—on the strength of no damned evidence whatsoever. I don’t know why he’s got such a bug up his ass about that woman.” He lifted his voice. “Let him in, computer.”
The door slid open and Corydon bulled through, a smile on his face that was nothing short of smug, his eyes dancing with triumph.
Alerio’s heart sank.
Riane opened her eyes to see a truly mediocre painting on the motel room wall. Nick cuddled around her from behind, brawny arms circling her waist. He felt good. His warm breath gusted against her nape, slow and deep. Still asleep.
He stirred, made a deep purring sound in his throat, and kissed her nape. She smiled sleepily.
“Want a shower?” he asked, stroking a hand up her torso and cupping her breast in his palm.
“Mmm. Yeah. Feeling a little . . . sticky.”
“Me, too. Sex is one thing, but stale combat sweat is something else.” He rolled off the other side of the bed and strode naked toward the bathroom off the bedroom. She admired the working muscle in his glutes a mom
ent before scrambling up to follow him.
The bathroom was a stark, white-tiled affair with primitive plumbing and thin towels. Riane watched as he turned the shower on, adjusted the water, and swept the plastic curtain aside. She stepped under the hot, pattering stream and sighed in pleasure.
Nick joined her a moment later, a small tube of shampoo in one big hand. He squeezed the thick green liquid into his palm, then started working it through her hair. It smelled of some Earth plant she didn’t know the name of. “You want to do something about that braid?” Nick asked. “You’ve got blood in it.”
Eyes shuttered in pleasure, Riane went to work on the braided lock, pulling out the combat decorations and putting them in the soap dish.
He glanced into the dish curiously. “Pretty beads.”
“They’re not beads. They’re military service medals from my home world. Not a very impressive collection, but then neither was my Vardonese career.” She grimaced and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I should probably stop wearing them, since I’m an Enforcer now. But most warrior Enforcers still bead their braids, so I do, too.”
He stroked a forefinger down her facial tattoo. “What about this?”
“Now, that I’ll keep. The color signifies House Arvid, which genengineered my father.” She tapped the intricate design over her eye. “This part is my father’s genetic creator, while this,” Riane touched the triangular shape over her cheekbone, “means he’s a Viking Class Warlord. The empty circle here means I’m unmarried. It will be filled in when I’m mated.”
“So all of this is about your father, not you?” He traced the intricate inked coils, fascinated.
“Yes, since I’m not really genengineered myself.” She shrugged. “Mom and Dad had it done when I was five years old, at the same time my nanobot enhancements were implanted. My parents wanted to acknowledge my heritage. Besides, they figured I’d want a military career, and my not having a tat would cause unpleasant talk.”
Nick studied her as he absently worked a small cake of soap in his hand to create a froth of bubbles. “Not having the tattoo would cause talk? Why?”
“People would say I was trying to pass myself off as a Femmat—one of the female aristocrats. And that would simply not be acceptable.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
He fell silent, concentrating very hard on slicking the soap over her skin. She sighed and relaxed into the pleasure he spun with those clever fingers. “Damn, I wish I could take you back to my time.”
Nick went still. “Why can’t you?”
“Because you belong here. The only way I could legally take you to the twenty-third was if I had evidence you’d disappeared without a trace from this century. Otherwise I’d end up facing charges, and they’d just return you.”
And damn, didn’t that just suck?
The silence grew a little thicker, broken only by the musical patter of the shower. After they got out, dried off, and walked back into the bedroom, Riane decided to play a hunch.
“Computer, generate trid of Charlotte Holt.”
It took the comp a little over fifteen seconds to render a three-dimensional image based on Riane’s memories of the Xeran woman. Nick started when the trid appeared—a petite woman with a lush build and a froth of red curls. Her eyes were the same deep leaf green as his.
Nick drew in a sharp breath, staring at it in stunned amazement. “Where did you get a picture of my mother?”
• 19 •
Frieka sat curled up next to Dona on the green velvet settee. Jessica Kelly Arvid stood at a towering wooden easel, carefully stroking oil paint over the canvas with a long, fine brush.
“So how was your . . . What was the word?” Dona asked.
Jess smiled slightly. “Honeymoon. And . . . incredible.”
Frieka sniffed and pretended to cough. “Why does the air suddenly smell like sex?”
Dona lightly popped him on top of the head. “Cut it out, wolfie.”
The exchange made him miss Riane all over again. He dropped his head to Dona’s knee with a sigh. She looked down at him and scratched him between the ears. “Riane’ll be home soon,” she whispered. “We’ll find her.”
Jess shot him a sympathetic glance around her easel.
“Could you find her?” Frieka asked the artist, lifting his head. “You’ve got those powers . . .”
She turned to her art table to swirl her brush in a jar of turpentine. The expression on her delicate face turned brooding. “Yeah, I do. And I could transport her back to this time—if I knew where she was. Trouble is, I have no idea. And I have looked.” She sighed. “But I’ll keep looking.”
He knew she meant every word of that. “Thank you, Jess.”
A chirp sounded, and the studio door slid open. Galar and Alerio walked in. Corydon followed, smirking, entirely too damned pleased with himself.
The Chief Enforcer’s handsome face could have been carved in ice. “Enforcer Dona Astryr, you are under arrest for acts of treason against the Galactic Union.”
Startled, Frieka stared up into Dona’s face. She looked as if Alerio had just buried his fist in her belly—pale, stunned, eyes wide and shocked.
Corydon tried to conceal an obvious grin of delight. Not very convincingly.
“Oh, come on!” Royally irritated, Frieka sprang down from the settee. “I can’t believe you’re listening to this dickhole, Chief. He’s a moron.”
Corydon lost the grin in a snarl. “Oh, really? Take a look at this, dog. Outpost computer, display security video from 10.2.34.9820, Armory.”
A three-dimensional recording of the armory appeared in the air over their heads. A figure who was unmistakably Dona Astryr strode into view, heading toward the bank of lockers where the Enforcers stored their T-suits.
Instead of keying open her own locker, the recorded Dona stopped in front of the unit shared by Riane and Frieka. Reaching into a uniform pocket, she withdrew a small device and pressed it against the door, which obediently opened. She removed Riane’s T-suit and keyed the unit closed again. Her movements brisk, unhurried, she stepped to her own locker, took out her suit, and started putting it on.
“That didn’t happen.” The real Dona’s voice sounded unnaturally high with panicked desperation. “Alerio, I didn’t do that! You know how easy it is to fake security recordings!”
“Oh, I know,” Dyami said with icy contempt. “Which is why I checked out the whole damned cam system, as well as the image itself. None of it shows any sign of tampering.”
As Frieka watched in frozen shock, the recorded Dona Jumped, disappearing in an explosion of light.
“She did not file a Jump plan with the Outpost computer, yet it alerted no one,” Corydon said. “She’d obviously hacked the comp.”
“We believe she must have taken Riane’s suit to Xer to have it reprogrammed.” Rage blazing in his eyes, Alerio turned on Dona, his lip curling with contempt. “Did you have a nice visit with your lover while you were there, Enforcer?”
“I didn’t! Alerio, you’ve got to believe me!” Dona unconsciously rested a hand on Frieka’s head.
Rage washed over the wolf in a red-hot flood. An image flashed through his mind: Riane at twelve, her eyes pleading in her white face, staring down at him over her Xeran kidnapper’s shoulder as he carried her away.
Frieka spun and threw himself at Dona’s throat.
She reacted with a cyborg’s speed, jamming her wrist between his teeth, blocking his lunge even as she went down beneath his weight. He tasted blood. “Frieka, it wasn’t me!”
He ignored her protest, ripping his head back to free his jaws for another lunge. More blood flew. Alerio’s massive arm snapped around his neck and jerked him up short. “Get off her, Frieka!”
“Let me go!” the wolf roared. “I’m gonna rip out her fuckin’—”
“You’re not judge and jury!” the Chief snapped in his ear. “Get it together, Frieka, or you’re going in the brig right next to her!”
&n
bsp; “Fuck you, Chief!” He tore free and made another lunge for the traitor. Galar grabbed him around the hips, and the two men lifted Frieka bodily into the air.
“Calm down, Frieka!” Suddenly Jess was in the way, shielding the female cyborg with her own body. “This isn’t helping Riane.” Her gaze bored into his with sudden fierce power. “And she wouldn’t want you to hurt her friend.”
The blind rage drained away. He stopped fighting the Warlords’ hold and let them drag him back. “Get him the fuck out of here,” the Chief ordered Galar. “Go!”
Galar fisted one hand in Frieka’s neck ruff and started pulling him toward the door. “Come on, you dumb furball. What the hell were you thinking?”
As the Warlord hauled him out, he heard Dona’s broken voice say, softly, hopelessly, “Frieka—it wasn’t me . . .”
Nick stared at the three-dimensional image in stunned shock. His mother stood there, a faint smile on her face. She looked years younger than his memory of her, and she wore her red hair in a loose, curling style. She was dressed in a tight black skirt and a snug shirt like some young woman with club-hopping on her mind.
He licked his lips. “Where did you get that image?”
Riane sighed as she moved to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Actually, I recorded it just a couple of weeks ago, my time.”
Nick flicked her a look before he went back to studying his mother’s image. Except that was impossible. “Then it isn’t her. She’s been dead for years. So who is it? A twin, a clone, what?”
“I doubt that. It probably is her. She could easily have gone back in time after I made this recording. What year were you born?”
“1979.”
She shrugged. “There you go.”
He turned to stare at her. “But I don’t understand how you’d just happen to have a recording of my mother. This is just too damned weird. Too many coincidences.”
Guardian Page 13
