Hunters

by Michelle Marquis; Lindsey Bayer

  Prime shuddered.

  And now she was free and would soon be after him again. That was something he had to deal with now.

  A knock scattered his thoughts and he fought the urge to slip into the closet behind him to hide. He pressed his mouth up to the translator. “Come in.”

  Three assassins entered the room, one woman and two men. They were all human, which surprised him. They all had the haggard, bony look of intoxicant abusers, which didn’t. Each was armed with a high-voltage blaster. Excellent.

  “Someone said you were looking for help with a problem,” the woman said. Her voice had the harsh rasp of a heavy smoker.

  “Yes. I have an enemy on board whom I would like destroyed. Your target will be a woman. Will that be a problem?”

  The woman stared at him with frosty, dead eyes. “Not to us.”

  “A source tells me she has a male companion,” Prime continued. “A fellow bounty hunter named Barracuda Tanner.”

  “You want him dead too?” one of the male assassins asked.

  “He’s of no consequence. If he runs, let him go.”

  A muscle by the woman’s right eye twitched, followed by another twitch next to her mouth. She looked like she needed a fix and soon. “What’s the target’s name?”

  “Harmony. Harmony Knox.”

  “You got an image?” the woman asked.

  Prime gestured to the bedside table with a long spindly leg. “It’s on the table. The printout is crude but all I could obtain on short notice.” The woman went over and picked up a computer-generated ID photo of Harmony that Prime had paid a hacker to obtain from the Galaxy Recovery databases.

  “What about our pay?” asked the man who’d spoken before.

  “I’ll give it to you in full when you return with proof Harmony is dead.” The assassins exchanged dubious looks. They apparently didn’t like that idea.

  The woman took a threatening step forward. “We don’t work like that.”

  Prime twitched in fear but held his ground. “Well, I’m afraid that’s how it’s going to be. You certainly don’t expect me to give a bunch of criminals untraceable credits up front, do you?”

  “Maybe we’ll refuse the job.”

  Prime knew they’d do it. They obviously needed drugs badly. “Then I’ll just find someone else.” They’d do anything to get their hands on those credits. Of that he was sure. Too bad all they’d get when they returned was death. Prime couldn’t wait to eat them, especially the woman. She was tall and lean with almost no discernable body fat, which made stripping bones that much easier. Although not particularly choosy about his meals, he preferred women. Their meat really had a much sweeter taste.

  The man took a few angry steps forward and pointed at Prime. “You’d better not think of fucking us, cockroach.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Bring me back proof you’ve killed the hunter Knox and I’ll give you your pay. It’s as simple as that.”

  The assassins hesitated a moment and Prime was beginning to wonder if he was going to have to kill them and find others to do the job. Then they seemed to reach a decision. As if on cue, they all turned their backs on him and slipped out of the stateroom door to solve his Knox problem once and for all.

  As they rushed down the gaudy halls to get back to the ship, Tanner could feel Harmony watching him out of the corner of her eye. Her curiosity was like a magnifying glass on his skin, all intrusive detail and building heat. It felt like she was dissecting him and he hated it. He wasn’t quite sure why he was so furious but knew it had something to do with the cavalier way she was willing to push him into the arms of a prostitute.

  “So why didn’t you fuck her? We did pay for it, after all.”

  He kept his gaze straight ahead. “She wasn’t my type.”

  “Do you have a type?”

  “Everybody has a type, Harmony.”

  “I thought your type was just plain female.”

  Tanner stopped, angry at himself for…well, being angry. “Were you really interested in watching me fuck that chick?”

  Harmony stared up at him. Mischief sparkled in her eyes. “Yeah, I think it would have been interesting.”

  “Interesting? Like watching-animals-mate-in-the-wild interesting? Is that what you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not really sure why you’re so upset. You wanted to watch me and the general go at it. I thought it might be fun to watch you. Certainly you’ve slept with prostitutes before, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what the hell is your problem?”

  “Let’s just say it’s never been a big turn-on for me. I prefer a little less business in my sex.”

  Harmony blinked at him, obviously confused. He didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure what he was so pissed about either. She folded her arms. “I’m starting to think you’re more disturbed than I originally thought.”

  “Really?”

  Harmony nodded.

  Tanner leaned down close to her face. It was time to clarify matters. “When I fuck you, do you like it?”

  A delicate pink blush ran up her throat, darkened her freckles and colored her cheeks. “Sure I like it. I wouldn’t keep sleeping with you if I didn’t.”

  “Do you like it because it’s just good sex, or because it’s me giving it to you?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  Tanner was about to pelt her with a million hard-to-answer questions about her true feelings when suddenly he felt eyes watching them. An arctic chill rolled over his shoulders. He glanced over Harmony’s head and saw them. Two men and one woman all dressed in hooded cloaks with blasters peeking under the hem of their long clothes, their powerful assassin weapons strapped to their legs like gunfighters. They marched down the hall shoulder to shoulder, their hands twitching to get at their weapons. Something primal in him just knew they were after Harmony.

  Tanner grabbed Harmony by the arm and dragged her through the glass doors of a large gaming room. Keeping a tight grip on her, he broke into a jog, weaving his way through the crowd as their pursuers continued their relentless advance. He was counting on them not opening fire in a crowded gaming room.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Harmony said, clawing at his grip. Then she followed his gaze to the people behind them. Once she spotted their pursuers, she pulled her weapon with her free hand. “Do you know them?”

  “No,” he tossed back, taking a winding staircase two steps at a time.

  Harmony swore and wrenched her arm out of his grip. She stopped in the middle of the stairs. “Then why the hell are we running from them? They’re not after you.”

  Tanner glared past her and spotted a flash of white light. “Get down!”

  Harmony ducked and an energy pulse exploded directly over her head. The shot barely missed her.

  He grabbed her and pulled her up the stairs. “No, they’re not after me. They’re after you.”

  “Me? How do you know they’re after me?”

  He pushed her forward. “Just a hunch. Keep moving.”

  Harmony broke into a run but stopped when she hit a corridor that dead-ended in several locked doors. She turned around as he came up behind her. “There’s no place to go!”

  Tanner doubled back and surprised the assassins just as they came around the corner. With a roundhouse kick and a series of well placed punches, he managed to disarm them within seconds. They circled around him, probably hoping all three of them could take him down. The woman kept glancing at the ground, hoping for a chance to snatch one of their fallen blasters.

  Then they rushed him.

  They all charged but Tanner’s fighting instincts took over and he threw them off like pieces of lint. Somewhere in the chaos he could hear Harmony yelling for him to move out of the way so she could get a clear shot. Evidently deciding that even the three of them together were no match for him, the assassins took off, running back the way they’d come.


  He turned to see if Harmony was all right and met her bright copper eyes. She stood with a frown and the blaster tucked under an arm.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She holstered her blaster. “Yes. I’m fine. Of course I wasn’t the one involved in a fight using my bare hands. So a better question is, are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted at her, relieved. “Let’s get back to the ship.”

  “What about our refund?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You were almost killed!”

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Tanner. Besides, you paid for something you didn’t get, therefore, we should get a refund. Maybe Edna won’t be as pissed at you if we get her money back.”

  Tanner took a deep breath to remain calm. He was going to have to talk to her logically. “Listen, baby. We didn’t really come here to have sex with that woman now, did we? We came here to get information. And since we got the information we needed, then there’s no reason to get the refund.”

  Harmony raised a sculpted eyebrow then nodded. “I guess when you put it that way, it makes sense.”

  “Great. Let’s get the hell out of here before your friends come back with better weaponry.”

  As quickly as they could without attracting too much attention, they made their way back to where the Aries was docked. Once on board they prepped the ship for takeoff and waited for their clearance to leave. Tanner couldn’t wait to get out of here and put as much distance between them and this barge as possible.

  Harmony was staring at the tracking stage, her plump lips twisted in an angry scowl. Her fingers glided over the floating icons, tapping open search files and compiling information. “So that’s where they came from. That filthy piece of sludge! Can you believe it? Prime put a contract out on me! As if that’s going to stop me from catching his worthless ass.”

  Tanner settled into his chair and forced himself to relax. “Apparently he likes his freedom and sees you as a threat.”

  “What a piece of shit he is,” she mumbled.

  “Aries?” the Docking Officer’s voice said over the comm. “You’re free to launch. We are delighted to have served you. Please stop by the Alas Babylon again soon.”

  Tanner eased the ship out of the slip and pulled the throttle all the way back. The Aries shuddered for a moment as the engines powered up and then they were off, rocketing at full speed out into the endless darkness of space.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harmony sat at the interactive data station on the Aries gathering what little information she could on Prime’s recent movements, but oddly enough all she could think of was Tanner and the assassins. By rescuing her—if you could call it that, because she certainly hadn’t needed rescuing—he’d broken a cardinal rule of all bounty hunters: see to thine own ass first. What the hell was going through his mind, getting into a physical altercation with three armed assassins? She had an ion double-pulse blaster, a devastating weapon by anyone’s standards, and she was a dead shot. Had Tanner not been in the way, she could have taken them all out before he threw the first punch. But, for reasons she still couldn’t understand, Tanner had fought them with his bare hands. Who fought armed men with their bare hands? What was the point of that?

  Perhaps the man was just crazy.

  For hours she’d wanted to scold him for inserting himself into her fight but every time she thought of bringing it up, she decided not to. But now, as Tanner emerged from the coffin-sized shower with ribbons of steam coming off his tanned, tattooed flesh, she just had to say something. “I appreciate what you did back there on the barge but I don’t need you to protect me. I could have handled it.”

  Tanner towel-dried his hair and stalked over to her, completely naked. Handsome didn’t even touch how stunningly attractive he was. From his smooth, deadly grace to his square muscled jaw, to the way those smoldering gray eyes could strip you down in seconds, he was all hardcore male and every inch of her body wanted him. She was suddenly aware her heart had sped up.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She forced herself to maintain eye contact but could see his long, thick cock stiffening and growing with arousal. “Anyway, please don’t do that again.”

  Her gaze fell on his hands, and for the first time she really looked at them. They were large and powerful with a solid network of bulging muscles and tendons. She approached him and took one of them into her own to examine it. The knuckles were callused and covered in scar tissue, and she could tell by the way the fingers lay when outstretched that a few of them had been broken at one time. Turning his hand over, she ran her index finger up a thick jagged scar along his Thenar crease. It almost appeared that his thumb had been partially torn off and then crudely reattached.

  Her gaze ran up his heavy arms to the many tattoos covering his flesh. What she had thought were demon and monster tattoos were really aliens of every type and species. One of them even showed a dead hydrocore. She walked around him, exploring him with her eyes and hands. Each illustration depicted a cage fight, which she assumed was to the death. Twenty-three crude vertical hash marks ran across his shoulders, each group of five marked with a horizontal line.

  Harmony touched them as a current of sorrow moved through her. “What are these?”

  “Kills.”

  Her eyes burned as tears formed just behind them. The thought that Tanner had been fought and used like a beast was very disturbing.

  “Where did these fights take place?”

  “The Atlas.”

  “But they only fight slaves on the Atlas.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When were you a slave?”

  “I was abducted by Kirillian slavers while working as a marshal on Ackron-Nine. I was a terrible slave but they still wanted to profit from me, so they cooked up a deal. If I fought on the Atlas for two years and survived, they’d let me go.”

  The burning behind her eyes faded. “At least they kept their word.”

  “I made them a butt load of money.”

  Harmony rubbed her chin. “And one of your kills was a hydrocore?”

  Tanner nodded.

  “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

  He shrugged. “Why would it be important?”

  She chewed her lower lip. “I guess to you, it wouldn’t.”

  He took her hand from his chest and placed it under his balls. Harmony looked up into those wolf-like eyes and saw laughter there. She gently rubbed his testicles and his erection twitched at her, hungry to be buried in her hot, wet center. She wished she didn’t find him so attractive. “I still have a lot of research to do…”

  Tanner placed his hands on the sides of her face. Leaning down, he planted a feral kiss on her lips that was all animal heat and white, naked lust. The kiss devoured her, seduced her and seemed to tear the very breath from her lungs. She melted into him, her lips pushing into his with a passion that surprised her.

  “Do you feel bad about what happened to me?” He nuzzled her ear. His arms wrapped around her, tightening their grip like a viper with its prey.

  “Of course I do. Yes.” Her voice barely sounded like her own.

  Tanner’s breath caressed her cheeks like a summer breeze. “Then show me, Harmony.” His big killing hands grabbed her shirt and peeled it off her torso like it was so much tissue paper wrapped around her for fun. “Fuck me like I mean everything to you. Open up your heart and let me in.”

  His mouth took her right breast, mauling and kissing it until Harmony had to lean her head back and gasp from the pleasure. Tanner’s desperate need was drowning her, like the fierce crushing waves of the sea covering her head every time she came up for air. Everything was spiraling out of control.

  Her heart slammed out a frantic rhythm against her ribs as a blade of fear tore into her chest. Tanner had found a secret inside her, a secret even she couldn’t bring into the light, and now he wanted to tear it out. She had to stop this for a minute. It was too raw, too confusing. Sh
e just needed a few seconds to collect her emotions.

  She pushed on his biceps to wrestle free. “Wait.”

  Tanner didn’t loosen his grip. He was lost in his passion, taking her other breast into his mouth and sucking the nipple hard.

  Her fear turned to rage and pumped adrenaline into her blood. “I said wait!” With all her strength she shoved Tanner off her and stumbled a few steps back.

  She expected him to be angry, but he wasn’t. He just shook his head and ran his fingers though his wet hair. “You can’t do it, can you?” His tone carried a note of pity.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I suspected you couldn’t but now I know for sure.”

  “What the heck are you talking about Tanner?”

  “You’re all Kirillian. You can’t let that emotional wall down for one minute and just let yourself feel. Why is that, Harmony? What happened to you?”

  Her guts were churning and she was starting to think she was going to be ill. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened to me.” She turned away. “Just drop it. I’m going back to work.” She walked stiffly back to the data station.

  He opened a closet and picked out some clean clothes. “You know what they say about all work and no play.”

  Harmony sat down and ignored him. Glancing at the digital map on the control panel, she estimated they would reach Cyprus Four in the next few hours. She couldn’t wait to catch this skip and be done with this insane partnership. Then maybe she could get some peace from Mister Barracuda Tanner and finally catch up to her real target.

  Prime.

  Tanner pulled on his pants and stared down at the scars on his hands. Many were pronounced, marring the flesh over his knuckles with thick white lines. Each one was a secret and detailed lesson in pain. Each one a silent witness to his Kirillian captivity. But as ugly as they were, they were nothing compared to what damage had been done to him on the inside.

  If anyone could look into his soul, they would see a precise line dividing his personality into two distinct times. One side would be what he was like before his captivity and the other what he became after. The difference was shocking, even to him.