Deadly Pleasure: 2 (Mercy)

by Lexxie Couper

[remote host initializing hostile connection]

  Forty-Two froze, tense, his positronic matrix engaging with the remote host.

  [remote hostile connection established]

  [switching to command override mode]

  [commence download updated strategic mission program]

  He stood motionless, eyelids fluttering rapidly as string after string of code dumped into his core processor, overriding his sentient program.

  [updated strategic mission program download complete]

  [initialize GU UZ action priority-one]

  Forty-Two blinked twice, returning to active service. A sequence of alert messages suddenly flashed through his neural net, his E.S.O.U.L program instantly recognizing the source of the hostile override and trying to negate the command.

  No, this is not right. This is wrong. You cannot allow Interplanetary Alliance Council to—

  With a sharp, fast blow, he smashed the side of his hand into his neck, just below his right ear. A violent twitch jerked his head to the left as his E.S.O.U.L program shut down.

  He lowered his arm back to his side, free of emotions for the first time since his resurrection. It was an irrelevant waste of processing space anyway. A weakness he did not need or want anymore.

  He stood still, staring at the sex-den’s door, listening to Falynn’s cries of sexual passion on the other side as he processed his new orders from the GU.

  Lips stretching into a wide, empty smile, he turned and walked along the passageway, heading back to The Steam.

  It was time to find the M.E.Lii.

  Chapter Six

  Her skin felt soft. He trailed his fingertips over the smooth, gentle curve of her hip, tracing the languid path with his gaze. He’d dreamed about the velvet touch of Falynn’s skin for three years. Had lain awake every night in his bed, drawing forth the memory of her skin and its sublime perfection despite the tiny scars charting the journey of her training. He’d fantasized about pressing his lips to those scars, kissing away the pain of each until both he and Falynn became hot and wet with arousal.

  His dimensional twin was back in his own temporal thread, returning to his rightful existence in an instantaneous tearing of time after giving Falynn a not-so-gentle kiss. And telling her with a sly, almost evil grin, “I’ll give your other your best.”

  Just as arrogant and smug as he, Corvan of True Time, had been three years ago.

  Corvan looked down at the woman beside him, reliving that moment again. Not ready to answer the questions he saw in her eyes, he’d gently removed Falynn from her chains and carried her to the bed, lowering her to the mattress with infinite care. She’d parted her lips, but he’d silenced her with a long, slow kiss. A kiss that had turned into an exploration of each other’s bodies, just as long and slow.

  Now they lay stretched together on the bed, their stomachs and hips touching, their legs entwined, and it was all he could do not to roll her onto her back and make love to her again. But there were issues to be addressed first. Questions to be asked and answers to be given. Lifting his gaze to her face, he found her looking at him. Studying him with eyes that revealed nothing of her thoughts.

  “Why did you disappear?”

  Her question, while not unexpected, make Corvan’s chest tight. What should he tell her? What did she already know?

  “Why didn’t you contact me?”

  He smiled. Her second question was easier to answer. “To keep you alive.”

  Falynn frowned. “That makes no sense.”

  Brushing a loose strand of hair from her check, he gently touched her jaw before resting his hand on her shoulder, drawing small circles on her skin with the pad of his thumb. “It would if you understood the circumstances of Thanatos’ demise.”

  Her jaw clenched and he saw familiar stubborn anger in its angle. “So tell me.”

  “Are you going to attempt to complete your mission?”

  His question brought a faint pink heat to her cheeks and he chuckled silently. Proserpina was skilled at deception and subterfuge, but not with him. No matter how hard she’d tried during her training, she’d never been able to control the delicate blush a direct unwanted question from him always created.

  “No,” she answered, meeting his level gaze with her own. “I am not going to try to kill you.”

  “And the other part of your mission?”

  Her muscles stiffened for a moment before she shook her head. “No.” She paused for a second, studying him closely. “What is the weapon? Why does the GU want it back so badly?”

  Corvan’s chest tightened again. Three years spent in hiding, three years spent protecting one little girl who trusted him completely and utterly. Could he answer Falynn now? Could he tell his ex-student everything?

  He looked at her. Really looked at her. Not just the sensual creature he desired, but the woman she’d become since he’d left. He saw the young, determined, fierce woman he’d fallen in love with three years ago. Saw the empty, wounded woman he’d left in his absence. He’d spent three years protecting Emylie, and three years denying the one wish he’d held since Falynn Mavek entered his training dojo—to be with her. In every sense of the word. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

  Could he answer her?

  “I was taken from my mother as a baby,” he said, keeping his voice calm and composed. Falynn’s frown deepened but he continued. “I never knew her. Nor my father. I was sent to the Phase Pits, the ‘guidance’ camp on our fifth moon where all chr’nos are trained. It is brutal. Harsh. There’s a ninety-seven percent death rate. For the first four years, a chr’nos is cared for by a nameless squad of genderless Phase, and I use the term ‘cared for’ loosely. The infants are fed when they’re hungry and clothed when they’re cold. That is it.

  “On a chr’nos’ fifth birthday, they are stripped of their attire and told to survive. And their training begins. Temporal and dimensional warfare is an ugly thing. Unpredictable. When you’re fighting for your very existence against someone who can Call upon any number of their others to attack you at any time, you must be always alert. Sleep becomes a luxury, death your constant companion. It is that way until you’re released from the Pit. Those who survive the training become chr’nos.

  “There is little the Phase cannot do, but there is one constant even we can’t deny. All Phase, whether Upper Echelon or chr’nos, have one existence anchored in True Time. One existence that can Call, but cannot Traverse. There must be one constant True Time or the temporal and dimensional weave would unravel and chaos would follow. All Phase are limited to this anchor. Except me.”

  Falynn frowned. “Except you?”

  “When my people discovered I was able to Traverse, to jump to my other dimensional existences at will, the experiments began. I was seven. I spent my days in the Pits and my nights in the lab. My existence—on every temporal and dimensional plane—was pain. The Phase scientists and Upper Echelon wanted to know not only how I could do what I did, but how they could modify the genetic structure of others to do the same. It wasn’t enough to govern dimensional space and time, they wanted to dominate and control it as well.” Corvan swallowed the bitter, decades-old resentment rising in his throat. It served him no purpose. He’d left it behind the day he’d escaped Phase to join Unit Zero.

  True to the Proserpina he’d trained and longed for, Falynn remained silent for a long moment, digesting what she’d just heard. Considering it. Weighing it in her mind. “What does this have to do with the bio-weapon?” she finally asked, her poise almost hiding the tremor Corvan heard in her voice. “What does this have to do with the M.E.Lii?”

  “M.E.Lii is not a weapon, Proserpina,” he answered, holding her stare. “Emylie is a child. A six-year-old little girl.”

  Falynn moved away from him a little, confusion etching her face. “A what? The GU’s bio-weapon is a child?”

  Corvan shook his head. “She is not a weapon. She is a cure. Emylie carries a genome abnormality that can reset, for lack of a better
word, the DNA strand of any humanoid with a fatal disease.”

  Falynn’s eyes widened and she sucked in a swift breath. “By Kiirs.” She stared at him, struck silent. He could see the reality sinking in of what Emylie could bring to the known systems. A frown pulled at her forehead. “Emylie was your target three years ago? You were sent to kill her?”

  He nodded.

  “Why? The GU sent me to kill you, not Emylie. My mission was to bring her back. Return her to the GU immediately. Why would they want her dead three years ago but not now?”

  “I don’t know. Three years ago, the Galactic Union didn’t want to entertain even the idea of the bio-cure she holds escaping their control. If it became readily available it would severely reduce their profits from medical supplies and health taxes. It would bite into a massive chunk of revenue and reduce the effectiveness of bio-scare tactics used to control the GU populace. It was deemed better to kill her than take the risk.

  “The hit was ordered by the GU’s head scientist and sanctioned by Pretorik Ipari, the premier at the time. I found Emylie in a lab, strapped to a metal table, with tubes inserted into her armpit and elbow pumping fluid out of her body, and tubes inserted into her stomach and neck pumping fluid in.”

  Disgust shone in Falynn’s eyes. “Oh Kiirs.”

  “Why the scientist didn’t kill her himself, I don’t know.” Corvan clenched his jaw, the cold rage he always felt when thinking about the “man with the needle” licking through his veins. “A sense of guilt? A weak stomach for something so hideous? I plan to ask him one day. Before I snap his neck.”

  The frown returned to Falynn’s face and she shifted, sitting up slightly to look down at him. “You took her? You’ve kept her from the GU for three years? Why? When she can cure so many people?”

  “Because she’s a child, Falynn. She’s just six years old. The first three years of Emylie’s life were spent in a GU lab. She never saw the sun, she never got to play with other children, she’d never owned a doll. When she’s old enough to choose what happens to her body, then I will find a scientist who sees her for the cure she represents, not the credits. Until then, she deserves the right to be a child, a little girl growing up as normally as she can. Not exploited. Not hunted. Not living in fear.”

  Falynn studied him silently, her throat working as she swallowed, her brow creasing as she digested his words. She was surprised. He could tell. He hadn’t meant to be so vehement.

  “I still don’t understand why they would want her dead three years ago and not now,” she said again, voicing the mystery that also nagged Corvan. “What’s changed?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But I will kill anyone who tries to harm her again, even if I have to tear the very fabric of time and space to do so.”

  Falynn tilted her head, regarding him with unwavering, unreadable eyes. “Is that a heart I hear beating in your chest, Unit Zero Agent code name Thanatos?”

  “I’ve always had a heart, Proserpina,” he said matter-of-factly. “You stole it the day you walked into UZ and demanded to become an agent.”

  Falynn gasped, a soft sound he caught with his mouth. He kissed her. A slow, gentle kiss.

  Her tongue touched his bottom lip, just as gentle, before dipping into his mouth to trace the edge of his teeth. A low groan vibrated up through his chest and he parted his lips, the taste of Falynn flooding his senses. Fri’ac, she tasted so good.

  Sliding her hand over his rib cage and down his stomach, Falynn broke the kiss. Barely. “Is Emylie safe right at this moment?” The burning hunger in her eyes told Corvan exactly why she asked.

  “Did UZ send anyone else?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “They sent me. Their second-best agent. Why would they need to send another?”

  He nodded, chuckling silently at her self-mocking conceit. “Then she is safe.”

  A slow smile curled Falynn’s lips and she smoothed her hand lower down his abs, the tips of her fingers brushing the head of his growing erection. “Good.”

  Her hand slipped lower still, followed by her lips and her tongue, and for a long, exquisite moment, Emylie was the furthest thing from Corvan Jareth’s mind.

  * * * * *

  Forty-Two disengaged the locking mechanism on the door before him, slid it open and entered Unit Zero Agent Thanatos’ apartment. Stopping one step in, he closed the door and began to scan the quiet, dimly lit room for life signs.

  A small heat source radiated from the adjoining room to the left, motionless and quivering at once. What appeared to be of the same species of feline singing earlier in The Steam, its small body pressed low to the floor as if it waited to see what would happen next.

  Forty-Two dismissed it. The juvenile Felinia presented no threat or assistance in locating the M.E.Lii.

  [GU action priority-one target search continue]

  Stepping deeper into Thanatos’ home, Forty-Two scanned for other signs of life. Child-size signs. The kind of size perfect for cowering under a bed or hiding behind a large piece of furniture.

  The Doirnn bouncer Forty-Two had questioned in one of the spaceport’s more isolated passageways had professed—quite ardently in fact, despite watching his fingers being torn one by one from his hand—no knowledge of Thanatos’ true identity, nor if he possessed a bio-weapon. The man had blubbered and sobbed and whined about Thanatos—whom he’d called Corvan Jareth—being “just a bouncer, just a bouncer for Dyri’s sake, he’s just a bouncer who wants to be left alone to take care of Emylie!”

  Scanning the silent, deserted rooms, Forty-Two replayed the vid of the man’s wailing through his visual CPU, noting with detached interest how much blood spurted from the torn stumps on his hand. Takes care of Emylie, that’s it. Oh God. That’s it! For Dyri’s sake, he just wants to take care of Emylie. Please don’t hurt me anymore, please don’t tear my—

  M.E.Lii.

  The coincidence could not be ignored.

  [GU action priority-one target search continue]

  Crossing Thanatos’ apartment, he entered the adjoining bedroom, switching to detect mode. If someone had been in there in the last sixty minutes, their residue heat signature would still be visible. No matter how small they were.

  He scanned the small, simple room. His bio-sensors detected trace remains of both male and female, with a heavy concentration of male on the bed—this was obviously Thanatos’ sleeping quarters—but apart from that, nothing.

  [GU action priority-one target search continue]

  He turned, taking a step toward the door. And stopped.

  Two sets of approaching footfalls vibrated the floor outside the apartment. One heavy. One light. Child-size light.

  A hum announced the door sliding open and then a soft, high-pitched voice floated into the room in which Forty-Two stood. “Do I have to tell him?”

  “Corvan Jareth will want to know why you did not go to Jymia’s house as planned,” an even, modulated female voice replied. “And why you left school to play with the Felinia on Level 7. It is fortunate I found you.”

  “I didn’t leave school just to play with the Felinia. I was coming down to Level 18 to find you,” the child answered.

  “That is very sweet, and I appreciate your honesty,” the female responded, “but, Emylie—”

  Forty-Two snapped straight.

  [GU priority-one target located commence action]

  Activating the molecular disruptor built into his left forearm, he stepped out of Thanatos’ bedroom.

  And locked his stare on the bio-weapon. “M.E.Lii.”

  * * * * *

  Her mouth slid up and down his erection, her tongue lapping at the curve of his balls as she deep-throated him.

  Corvan groaned, the thick sound vibrating up his throat and past his lips. He fisted the sheet, focusing on the heat coiling low in the pit of his stomach. It spread out, a rolling wave of twisting tension starting at his cock and burning its slow, wonderful way through the rest of his body.
>
  With each wet caress of Falynn’s mouth, with each tiny nip of her teeth on the throbbing head of his cock, with each not-so-gentle squeeze of his sac with her fingers, his climax drew closer.

  Lifting one hand to the back of her head, he tangled his fingers in her hair, reveling in the feel of the silken strands. He clenched his hand into a fist, knowing Falynn enjoyed the erotic pain the action brought. She was such a creature of contrasts—the most proficient, talented natural killer he knew, yet a woman needing to be worshipped and cherished at the same time. A woman needing to know she had worth and place.

  And she did.

  For him, she always had.

  Her tongue lapped the base of his shaft, flicked at the swell of his balls before she slowly, slowly, slowly raised her head. His cock slipped from her mouth, the sex-den’s cool artificial air chilling its heated length.

  A shiver rippled through him, turning his already hard nipples to rock-hard tips of flesh.

  Falynn snaked up his body, pinching one with her finger and thumb, capturing the other with her teeth. She bit the small pebble, watching his face through the tumbled strands of her bangs, smiling when he sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh Fri’ac.”

  “Does that mean you want me to stop?”

  The sheer cheekiness in her husky voice made his already aching cock spasm with carnal hunger. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  With a quick blurring of her right arm, she grabbed the fist in her hair, drove her thumbnail into the pressure point between his thumb and index finger and rammed his hand flat to the mattress beside his head, raising herself up onto her knees to hover above his stiff shaft.

  “Hey!” He gave her an indignant glare. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She grinned at him from her lofty position. “You said, ‘don’t you fucking dare’. I dared.” Lowering herself slightly, she brushed the velvet softness of her pussy lips against his straining, bulbous cockhead. “Now what are you going to do?”

  He grinned back. “This.”