As she swallowed against the tightening, rising churn in the back of her throat, she reached over and turned his head toward the morning rays of golden sun warming her back.
Jensen.
She had to close her eyes, had to let him go and press her hands into the damp, cool grass beneath her.
“Oh no.” Zahli’s voice struck the same chord of disbelief that was echoing through her body. “No, no, no. Jensen—”
Forcing her eyes open, she reached over and caught Zahli’s hand before she could touch him. “He’s gone.”
Zahli gulped in a ragged breath as Tannin pulled her up, easing her a few steps back from the horror of Jensen’s fate and wrapping his arms around her.
“What about the others?” Lianna asked from behind, voice uneven.
She pushed to her feet, turning to find the nav-engineer, along with Jase, standing a few steps away.
“I don’t know. If they were inside—” At her words, the rest of the crew looked over to the remains of the house, but she couldn’t bring herself to even glance in that direction. If everyone else had been inside, then whatever remained of them would be in worse condition than Jensen. As the ship’s doctor, it would be her responsibility to deal with that. But they wouldn’t be the faceless victims of an accident; they were her family.
All of the turmoil and shock of the last few days—Varean leaving, weary from days of traveling and arriving to find tragedy instead of asylum—slammed into her like heavy grav. She stumbled a few steps away, making it to a low stone wall. She braced a hand against the rough edge as she leaned over, gulping air and ordering the contents of her stomach to stay exactly where it was.
“Are you okay up there?” The unsteady voice coming from beyond the fence yanked her out of the tailspin as effectively as taking a hit of sedative. She looked down to see a man propped up against the wall. His shirt was torn, bloody, and gaping open in the middle, though whatever wound he’d sustained had somehow healed to an angry red scab. A woman lay across his lap, and he had his hands pressed against her bloody shoulder. It took a second for her mind to kick the shock and recognize Nyah.
“Guys, over here!” She rounded the wall and went down on her knees, pulling Nyah out of the stranger’s grasp and laying her flat so she could do a proper examination.
The girl was unconscious, but breathing steadily, her color good. The shoulder wound looked nasty, no doubt requiring surgery to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. But she was stable for the moment and not in any immediate danger.
“Who are you?” Lianna demanded, her gun out and pointed at the man as the others surrounded them.
“Commander Captain Colter Routh.”
“You’re Colt?” Zahli knelt down next to him.
He shot her a wan smile. “You must be Zahli. Heard so much about you from Rian, I feel like we should have met long before this. And under better circumstances.”
“What happened?” Again, Lianna with the demands. It seemed to be her default setting when things got messy—she turned into a demanding hard-ass entirely worthy of being Rian’s backup.
“I have no idea. I was asleep on a couch in the front room. Rian woke me up, said we had company. Before I knew it, that priestess says we’ve got to leave the house, and Rian just goes along, no questions asked, even though we were outnumbered and had no cover out here. We made a run on this wall. The last thing I remember is taking a nucleon blast to the chest.” He motioned to the starburst-patterned wound between his pecs. “Pretty sure this should have killed me.”
Reaching forward, she pushed his shirt out of the way, studying the margins of the injury and its placement. “You’re right. It should have killed you. Ella must have healed it.”
He nodded, though his expression had a dazed, confused edge to it, like he had the facts, but couldn’t quite assimilate the truth of the answer. “Yeah, I guess she did.”
“So where are they now?” Lianna swapped her gun for a razar.
“Whoever attacked us, they took both of them, Rian and the priestess. I heard them mention someone…Niels.”
Tannin cursed under his breath, while Zahli shot a worried look at Lianna.
“You know who that is?” Colt pushed straighter, grimacing at the movement.
“Yeah, we know who that is,” Lianna answered. “What about Callan?”
Colt’s attention shifted past them to the smoldering ruins. “He was still in the house with Jensen when they shot a compressed-ion missile into it.”
The words washed over her, but it was like her body had gone numb, not able to take another blow. Lianna’s expression tightened, but she didn’t say a word, simply brought the razar up and aimed it at Colt.
“Hey! Just wait a—” The pulse hit him, passing through his body with no apparent effects.
Colt blew out a ragged breath, dropping his chin to his chest for a long second. “Jezus, what is it with you people and those guns?”
“Rian didn’t tell you?” Zahli asked.
“I’m sure it was on his to-do list, but some guys with a hard-on to blow shite up got to us first.”
“And now is not the time to be having that conversation. We have to move.” Lianna shoved her razar away, scanning the clearing.
“Where are we going?” Zahli asked as she pushed to her feet.
“I don’t know. But we can’t stay here.”
“Nyah needs medical treatment,” Kira added. The bleeding had definitely slowed, but the wound still needed attention.
“You’ll have to make do with whatever’s on the skimmer. I don’t think we should risk going to a hospital,” Lianna answered.
It wasn’t ideal, but she was right. Going to a hospital presented too many risks, and besides, she didn’t trust anyone else to treat Nyah.
“Here, I’ll take her.” Tannin carefully lifted Nyah into his arms.
Zahli helped Colt up, and Jase came over to sling an arm over his shoulder, taking a majority of the commander captain’s weight as they headed away from the house. With two injured, and all of them no doubt processing the shock of losing both Jensen and Callan, they wouldn’t have put up much of a fight if the Reidar found them.
Lianna kept up a fast pace at the front as they navigated the woods back to where they’d left the hired aerocar. But just before they broke through the tree line to the road, Lianna stopped and held up a hand to silently halt their procession. She yanked out her razar, half turning to aim to the left of their group.
“I know you’re there. You might as well come out.”
A figure emerged from the thicket, hands out and steps slow. The face was familiar—achingly so—but with all the shock of the last few minutes clogging her brain, she couldn’t process the how or why.
“I thought we left you on Barasa.” Lianna leveled off her weapon, shifting to take up a more protective position as the two Mar’keish they’d met appeared as well.
Varean nodded, slowly lowering his hands. “You did. But when Ko’en and La’thar got intel about Niels launching this attack, I convinced them to hop a shuttle, and we took a transit gate to get here. I had to make sure—”
His gaze focused on Kira, and despite the numbness and exhaustion and sheer emotional fatigue, her stupid, stupid heart leaped against the inside of her chest.
“You had to make sure we were all dead?” Lianna shot back. “Sorry to disappoint.”
A flare of frustration tightened Varean’s features. “I had to make sure you were okay.”
“Sure, by creeping around the woods all stalker-like. How did you find us?”
“I didn’t.” He gestured to the two Mar’keish behind him. “They did. I needed to know Kira was safe.”
Lianna frowned. “This has become a real thing for you, hasn’t it?”
“There’s nothing you can do here, Varean. In fact, you’re probably the one who isn’t safe. You should go, before the Reidar find you.” Without waiting for him or anyone else to say anything, Kira brushed past Lian
na and headed for the aerocar. The others came after her…but so did Varean.
“Kira, wait.”
At the aerocar, she had to stop because Tannin had the keys to unlock the vehicle. Damn it.
“Just go away, Varean.” She closed her eyes, wishing she were anywhere else in the galaxy, that anything else was happening right now except this—two of their crew members dead, Rian and Ella in the hands of the enemy. Why did he have to come back? She’d already watched him walk away once; she didn’t know if she had the strength to do it again, not when everything was falling down around her.
“I can help you.” He’d stopped by her side, voice low, not quite imploring, but begging her to understand nonetheless. “I know you didn’t mean what you said, about the doctor-patient thing. Like always, you were trying to do the right thing, sending me off with the Mar’keish. I know you, Kira. Know that you care about what happens to me as much as I care about you.”
The others were loading Nyah and Colt into the aerocar, shooting wary glances at the two of them.
“But it doesn’t change anything, does it? None of it matters, because after this, you’re going to leave again. You were right, I’m a coward, because I don’t want to face that. I just want you to go.”
The door in front of her opened, and she stepped forward, but Varean grabbed her arm.
“I know this sucks, and it hurts, but you’re not the only one who feels that way. You might not want to admit it, but you need me right now. You helped me, now stop being so damned stubborn and let me help you.”
“Don’t you get it? You can’t help us. You’re half Mar’keish, half Reidar, how can you possibly do anything except make it more complicated and put us in more danger?” If the Reidar got him because he had some noble idea about saving her, she’d never be able to live with it. She pulled out of his hold. “I don’t have time for this. The Reidar have Rian and Ella.”
She had to suck in a breath, some of the gruesome details from the alien lab reports she’d read bursting into her mind in a flood of grisly narrative.
Everything around her shifted, leaving her swaying, until a firm arm caught her weight.
“Kira, are you okay?” Varean’s gaze traveled over her face, nothing but concern in his silver-blue eyes.
She pushed his hands away. “I’ll be fine once you leave.”
His expression shut down, like hyperdrive engines going cold. “Fine, maybe you want me gone. But I can help you find them. I can figure out where Rian is.”
That got Zahli’s attention at least. “How?”
“By accessing that shared Reidar consciousness Ko’en and La’thar mentioned.” His tone was unapologetic, as if daring anyone to call him on the irony of him wanting to use his apparent newfound Reidar abilities and the inherent Mar’keish powers he’d ignored all his life to help them rescue Rian and Ella. “I can do it, with their guidance.”
“So, what? A few days with them and you’ve fully embraced your Mar’keish dark side, know all of their mind tricks? And let’s not forget the part where you’re half Reidar.” Lianna scoffed from where she stood on the opposite side of the car. “You know we’ll never, ever trust you, right?”
Varean clenched his fists, shooting a brief, icy look at Lianna then returning his attention to Kira. “I don’t need you to trust me. I just need you to believe me.”
“Why the hell would you want to help Rian, of all people?” Lianna marched around the aerocar, gun out again. “You missing all that fun time you spent locked up in the brig and getting shot at?”
But Varean wasn’t looking at the nav-engineer, didn’t seemed the least bit fazed by her weapon. His attention was fixed on Kira, stirring emotion deep within her that she wanted to keep locked away if she was going to get through the day. “I’m not doing this for Rian. I’m doing it for Kira. She’s lost enough—you all have. So if I can make that even a little better by helping you get Sherron back, then it’s a lot less than I probably owe her for everything she did for me.”
“We should let him help us,” Zahli put in. “I don’t care why he’s doing it, as long as he does.”
Lianna shot Zahli an incredulous look. “We’ll find some other way.”
“How?” Zahli stalked forward, using one hand to push the razar down. “You tell me. How are we going to find them when we’ve got absolutely no clue where the Reidar might have taken them and an entire galaxy to search?”
Lianna swept an apprehensive look over Varean. “You know what he is: half Mar’keish, half Reidar. Either of those things by themselves is bad enough. But put them together? How the hell are we supposed to trust him?”
She was torn, herself, because as much as she wanted Varean to leave and get somewhere safe, far away from the Reidar, she would have made a bargain with Baden Niels himself if it meant getting Rian and Ella back in one piece. They’d already lost so much. Without Rian, there wouldn’t be a crew left whenever they got the Imojenna back.
“This is my brother we’re talking about,” Zahli continued. “I’m making the call. They come with us. We use him to find Rian and Ella.”
“Zahli—” Tannin set a hand on her shoulder, but she cast him a desperate glare.
“I don’t care. It’s a risk I’m willing to gamble on. I’ll do whatever it takes for Rian.”
Lianna muttered a curse, holstering her gun. “Fine. But if he screws us over, I get to kill him.”
“Great incentive,” Varean muttered darkly, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Lianna pointed a finger at him. “You don’t talk unless someone asks you a direct question. And even then, keep the commentary to yourself. Got it?”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” He added a sarcastic salute after his words, which only made Lianna frown at him.
“Let’s go before I decide to gag and cuff you.”
“We have our own transport parked nearby. We’ll follow you.” Varean cut Kira a brief, unreadable look as he passed then headed back over to where La’thar and Ko’en waited. Everyone else piled into their aerocar a moment later, leaving her to climb in last.
As the door closed and Lianna used manual drive to get them off the ground, she kept her gaze trained out the window as a second aerocar lifted a little way off and swung around to follow them. She wanted to wish that she’d never let herself fall for Varean in the first place, but even with her fractured emotions, she couldn’t deny what they’d had together had been remarkable.
She’d connected with him in a way she’d never done with another person before. How the hell was she supposed to give that up? But the question was useless. It was because she cared so much that she needed to know he was safe from the Reidar and those throughout the galaxy who’d fear him if they knew he was Mar’keish.
One thing was painfully clear—he’d never be safe with her, and it wasn’t like she could stage-exit on her life and go live with him wherever the Mar’keish now resided. They could heal themselves—what use would they have for a doctor? And if she wasn’t a doctor, if she didn’t live to her calling, then what kind of existence would she ever have?
“Can we get a secure channel from here, or will I have to wait until we get back to the skimmer?” Zahli asked Lianna, pulling her out of the spiraling thoughts.
“Your personal comm should still be connected to the skimmer’s systems; we’re not that far out from it. So, yeah, you can access a secure channel. Why?”
Zahli leaned sideways and pulled her commpad from her pocket. “I’m going to put a call through to Qae. The Ebony Winter will be faster and safer than traveling in the skimmer. And whatever goes down, we’re going to need the backup.”
“Good idea,” Lianna murmured.
Yeah, calling up Zahli’s infamous cousin, Captain Qaelan Forster—who was technically a pirate but hated being called one—was probably their best option. She only hoped, for all their sakes, that Varean could come through on his promise and use his abilities to find Rian.
But whatever plan h
e had in mind, she just wanted to be left out of it and get this over quickly so they could go their separate paths again. The only way to heal the wound in her heart was to move on, and she couldn’t do that until he was gone and firmly in her past.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Light fingers tugged at the blindfold across his face, pulling the material up and away. Ella motioned for him to stay quiet, the manacle on her wrist catching the light from the bulkhead above them.
Rian snatched a quick glance around, finding their surrounds reinforced and obviously kitted out for this exact type of jaunt—kidnapping and slave trading.
As soon as they’d reached the small Ambit class ship the Reidar were using as their transport, the bastards had blindfolded him then dumped Ella and him in the hold. It seemed they hadn’t bothered blindfolding or even restraining the priestess. Obviously they didn’t view her as much of a threat.
On one hand, he wanted to say that was ill-advised of them, because in her time on the Imojenna Ella had proven to have a pure metium-forged will. But with her powers outed, the frecking aliens were probably right on the money about her being more useless than a pulse pistol mounted on a battle cruiser.
“Are you all right?” He finished his inspection of the hold—barred and locked down with no obvious means of escape—and turned his attention to the priestess.
“I’m not the one who got stabbed and shot.” Her voice came out even, tone mostly calm. So what? Even after getting nabbed and knowing they were facing a probable hell of god-knew what kind of torture, she could keep up that still-as-frecking-water thing?
“I’ve had worse.” One good thing he could say about what the Reidar had done to him all those years ago, he’d been left with the weird ability to dull down physical pain. If he didn’t think about it, it didn’t really hurt, was more like a niggling strain in the background.
“I would heal you if it wasn’t for these.” She touched her fingers to the cuff on her left wrist.
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