by Cara Bristol
“You killed her?” I mourned the Tessa I never met, a woman whose life had been snuffed out because of me.
The assassin aimed the LP at my forehead.
My bladder released. If I hadn’t stopped in the woods, I would have peed myself. Begging was humiliating enough. “Don’t, please…”
I’d never see Torg again. My sexy, strong alien mate. Who was at this moment fighting to keep me in camp. Oh why hadn’t I waited until morning like he asked? Maybe Tessa-not-Tessa wouldn’t have revealed herself if Torg had been with me. Oh, Torg, I’m so sorry. We’d never get to make little Terran-Dakonian babies.
Neither would Andrea. After the assassin eliminated me, she’d kill her. “I’m sorry, Andrea.”
Oomph!
Andrea’s foot connected with the pistol, and it arced through the air. The assassin bared her teeth and struck at Andrea’s throat. She deflected the blow with her forearm and delivered an undercut to the assailant’s jaw, snapping her head.
The assassin stumbled but recovered her footing, and lunged. Trading kicks and blows, they flew at each other. Where had Andrea learned to fight like that? She was lethal.
I had to do something! I had to help! But I was no fighter. One hit or kick would put me down for the count. The weapon! I swept my gaze over the lodge. In the corner!
The LP felt solid, heavy, and awkward in my hand, and I feared I’d discharge it just by holding it. Andrea could do everything, but I couldn’t tell which end of the laser weapon was up. Well, I did know that, but it was all I could figure out.
Andrea hooked her arm around the hit woman’s neck and squeezed. Tessa turned red and tried to dislodge Andrea’s arm, but, in seconds, she passed out. Andrea dropped the limp body and flexed her skinned, bruised knuckles. I gaped, still in shock at the way she had defended herself—still stunned that Tessa was a Carmichael hit woman.
“Good gods,” I choked out. “You saved my life. Our lives. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“In the military. Special Forces. The hacking came later.” She eyed the weapon in my hand. “You’re holding that all wrong. Do you mind if I take it?” She jutted her jaw at the body. “She’ll come to in few minutes, and I’d rather not fight her again.” Andrea shook her bruised hand.
Quickly, I passed her the laser pistol. Gripping it like a pro, Andrea leveled a gaze on me. “I took a risk when I kicked the LP. It could have discharged and killed you. But she intended to kill us both, anyway, so I figured we had nothing to lose.”
“Hey, I’m good with it,” I said.
The assassin gave a little moan.
“I’ll get something to tie her up,” I offered.
“Good idea. Try the trading post. Get Groman, too. It won’t hurt to have a little extra muscle. He should be in the apothecary, refilling supplies he used on Torg. What are we going to tell Loka?”
“He’ll be devastated.” Like Torg and Groman would have been if the Tessa imposter had succeeded in murdering me and Andrea. I wished Torg were here. I needed him. I eyed the hit woman. “What are we going to do with her?”
Andrea lifted a shoulder. “We’ll have to keep her locked up somehow until the ship arrives. After you bring some restraints, I’ll notify your Maridelle we have the hit woman in custody.” She raised the gun at little. “At least we have a weapon.”
“She probably has a stash.”
“You’re right. We’ll have them search her camp.”
“Let me get the ties and Groman. You’ve got it under control here.” My legs still felt rubbery, but I hurried from the lodge.
The air was frigid as always, but hyped up on adrenalin, I hardly noticed as I ran for the apothecary. Better to get Groman first. Although Andrea was armed and capable, I didn’t like leaving her alone with a professional assassin.
I burst into the apothecary. “Groman!” Not there. No telling where he would have gone next. The trading post? I needed to go there anyway.
I raced along the line of huts. All the traps had been found, but the fluffy ground cover made me nervous. Who knew what was hidden under all the snow? What if Loka and his tribe mates had missed a trap? They found them all. Andrea has Tessa. You’re being paranoid. However, considering what I’d been through, I had a right to be.
Outside the trading post, I stomped the snow off my boots. Head down, I noticed the man from the corner of my eye.
He emerged from around the side of the hut.
I looked up.
First to register: his synthetic mottled white-off-white subzero bodysuit, perfect camouflage in the snow. Second: his Terran features. Third, his laser pistol.
Fourth: what Andrea had mentioned, and we’d both forgotten in the scuffle with the fake Tessa: “The passenger manifest listed fifty women and ten crewmembers for a total of sixty persons. However, the ship’s housekeeping robo maintained sixty-one cabins.”
The crew had been accounted for, and Tessa had been one of the fifty women, so that left one extra cabin for one extra passenger.
Tessa had a partner. How flattering the Carmichaels considered me significant enough to double-team me. Of course, the line between flattery and terror was thin. Very thin.
The assassin’s red nose ran from the cold, and his lips were chapped, but his eyes were deadly.
Andrea had saved my ass the last time; this time, I was a goner.
I inched backward as if I could sneak some distance between us and then make a run for it. Where the hell was Groman? The messenger who’d come to camp? Loka? He’d accompanied the fake Tessa, hadn’t he? I didn’t dare take my eyes off the hit man and his weapon to check.
A predator toying with his prey, he let me creep several steps before closing the distance. For the second time that day, my bladder released involuntarily, and this time urine did trickle out. Backing up some more, I tripped over something half buried in the snow.
Loka’s body. Blood seeped from a hole between his eyes, open to the sky.
I screamed.
The assassin aimed at my head.
Whoosh!
The LP discharged into the ground as an arrow pierced his throat.
Chapter Twenty
Torg
My mate screamed. As the man fell, his weapon emitted a noise and a flash of light. I raced to Starr who lay next to Loka’s body. Had she been injured? I’d waited for the best opening, but when the man raised his weapon, it was then or never. I’d released the arrow and severed his windpipe.
I pulled Starr into my arms and ran my hands inside her kel, over her body. No injuries. My hands shook with relief.
Gurgles erupted from the dying man’s throat. His blood darkened the snow.
“Oh gods, Torg,” she sobbed. “I c-c-an’t believe you’re here.”
“Of course, I’m here. I came for you. It’s okay. You’re safe.” I stroked her soft yellow hair, surveyed Loka’s body and the Terran. Who was he?
I’d found the note after the muta. I couldn’t believe she’d left camp after promising not to, after the meeting place had been rigged. Anger at her impetuousness evaporated the instant I’d emerged from the trees to see the man in strange clothes threatening her. I didn’t recognize his weapon, but knew it was one, and he intended harm. My shoulder had taken quite a beating in the muta, but pain ceased to matter as I loaded an arrow into a bow.
Starr pushed at my chest and scrubbed her face with her tiny hands. “We have to help Andrea. She’s in the meeting place with Tes—the other assassin.”
Another assassin? I leaped to my feet. “You stay here—”
The gurgles had ceased, and the man’s sightless eyes stared at the gray sky. He had lived for only a couple of minutes after I shot him, but I took comfort that he had suffered and known he was going to die. Nobody threatened my mate.
Starr grabbed my sleeve. “Andrea’s okay. She’s in control; she’s guarding Tessa. She needs restraints.”
“Wait a minute—Loka’s mate? I don’t understand.”
&nb
sp; “Tessa didn’t come to be his mate. Not for real. She and that man”—she pointed to the dead Terran—“were sent by the Carmichaels to kill me. They set the traps for me.” She choked a little. “One of them killed Loka.”
“He was a good man.” His assistance last night when I’d been shot had saved lives. He’d found the other traps before we’d walked into them. Many would mourn him, myself included.
Starr retrieved the weapon from the snow.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen, neither wood nor stone, but a dull-gray material with buttons on the sides and a grip that fit in one’s palm attached to a slender barrel. “What is that?”
“It’s called a laser pistol. It shoots a concentrated beam of light.”
“And that’s dangerous?” How could light be harmful?
“Lethal.” Grimacing, she patted the man’s sides and pulled out some small gray rectangles from his pockets.
“What are those?”
“Energy cartridges for the weapon.” She stood and jutted her chin at the trading post. “Let’s go inside.”
In the trading post, we cut strips from a kel hide. As we left the hut, Groman emerged from the trees, and I waved him over. “Come with us,” I called.
He spotted the bodies and swore. “Is that Loka? And a Terran?” He knelt in the snow beside the bodies.
“They’re dead,” I said.
But he checked anyway. “They are. What happened?”
“We’ll explain on the way to the lodge. Come, your mate is waiting.”
In a few short sentences, Starr filled him in. “Andrea told me you’d be in the apothecary. I went to look for you there.”
“I wanted to check the area among the trees. Look for more clues. But the snow covered everything.”
Tessa sat on the lodge floor, guarded by Andrea who aimed a weapon like the one Starr had confiscated from the dead Terran. If I hadn’t met Loka’s mate before, I wouldn’t have recognized her. Her countenance had become hard and cold. If her gaze had been a weapon, we would all be dead.
Andrea glanced at Starr. “What took you so long?”
Starr gestured with her weapon. “Tessa had a friend. Remember that extra cabin? I ran into the stowaway outside.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. “What happened?”
“Torg killed him.”
Tessa remained silent.
“Either he or she”—Starr pointed at Tessa—“killed Loka. I tripped over his body.”
Andrea raked a hard gaze over her captive. “Did you kill him?”
She took so long to answer, for a moment, I didn’t think she was going to reply. “No,” she said finally. “Dimitri must have caught him coming out of one of the huts.”
Andrea pointed the strange weapon at Tessa. A bead of red light appeared between her eyebrows. “These men are going to tie you up. If I see so much as a muscle twitch, I’ll shoot.”
Groman and I secured her wrists and ankles with the kel strips.
“Tying her is a short-term solution,” Starr said. “It will take a couple of weeks for the ship to get here.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t suppose Dakon has a jail?”
“Not one she can’t walk out of. But we’ll devise something. We need to inform Enoki.”
I remained with the females while Groman went to get the council chief. Andrea and Starr got on the computer and sent a message to her defender on Terra.
Enoki arrived with three men. The council chief looked as grim as I’d ever seen him. “I will make sure she does not escape,” he vowed.
“You should have a good weapon.” Andrea showed him how to operate the laser pistol. Simple, really. I insisted on keeping the other one. My mate had been the one targeted, and the superiority of the laser pistol over the bow and arrow was clear—although the latter had felled the assassin.
Starr twisted her hands. “I feel responsible for Loka’s death. If I hadn’t been here, Tessa and Dimitri wouldn’t have come, and he would still be alive.”
“You didn’t kill Loka. Dimitri did,” Andrea said.
“That’s true,” I agreed. “If the tribe dares to say one word against you, they’ll deal with me.” I’d fight as many battles or mutas as I had to.
“You are still chief, then?”
“Yes. Our camp healer is busy tending to my challenger’s injuries.” I omitted the healer had wanted to tend to me, too, but I’d hurried after my wayward mate. Thank the fates, I had. And now, with Bork in his place, others might be discouraged from challenging my leadership—today, anyway.
“At least I don’t have that on my conscience.” Starr touched a bruise on my cheek. Bork had gotten in a couple of good punches, but I’d defeated him. “You had to fight because of me.”
“I protect my mate. It is nothing any other man wouldn’t have done.”
Groman and Enoki nodded.
“He speaks the truth,” Enoki said. “Under the circumstances, though, we will need to reevaluate the exchange program.”
“About that.” Andrea planted her hands on her hips. “Starr and I have a plan. Dakon could benefit a whole lot more from the arrangement than it is right now.”
“Earth women would love Dakonian men, but Terra One World is coercing the ones who have little choice,” Starr said. “The Earth government might seek to get rid of more people like Tessa.”
“Starr and I would like to renegotiate the treaty. We can get you supplies, equipment, and mates.”
“We will talk later.” Enoki nodded. “For now, I must ward this Terran female and notify Loka’s tribe of his death.”
After they left, Starr hugged me, slipping her hands inside my kel to squeeze my waist. I winced as a sharp pain shot through me. She withdrew. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Let me see.”
“No, it’s all right.”
But she grabbed the front of my kel and undid the toggles. “You’re bleeding again!”
I suspected I had a broken rib, too, but I wasn’t about to tell her.
To my humiliation, she insisted Groman patch me up again. “This is getting to be a habit,” he said.
“Not one I like,” I muttered.
* * * *
“Now, let us talk,” I said when we’d arrived at the cave and removed our kels.
To my mate’s credit, she didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I’m sorry.” She hung her head. “I shouldn’t have run off like that.”
“No. You tricked Darq into helping you.” Fortunately, she hadn’t been very good at it. Upon returning from the muta, I found the message in Darq’s hand on my bed of kels: it’s very cold outside. An odd note for him to write since everyone already knew that, and I’d passed him in the main chamber and he’d made no mention of it then. I showed him the note, and he’d told me of Starr’s request.
My mate hung her head. “That was wrong of me, too.”
“I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you, Starrconner. I saw that man holding the weapon, and I about died. If I’d arrived at the meeting place a minute later…”
On my way out of the cave to retrieve my wayward mate, I’d grabbed an artillery set to fulfill my promise to Loka. If I hadn’t thought to grab it…
“I won’t do it again. But I had such a strong feeling I had to see Andrea right away.”
I stalked toward her and cupped her face. “If you have strong feelings, you need to tell me.”
“I love you. That’s my strong feeling.”
Warmth suffused my chest and lower. “I love you, too.” I enfolded her in my arms and kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, and finally, her mouth. Her lips parted, and I drank in her sweetness, savoring her exotic taste. Our bond could never be broken. I felt her in every cell of my being: my head, my heart, my groin. My cock thickened.
Seeing her alive wasn’t enough. I needed tactile reassurance.
I severed contact long enough to strip out of my clothes.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I am disrobing.” I flashed her my most innocent smile before I hugged her tight. I cupped her rounded buttocks and pulled her against my rising need.
Her breath caught in her throat, but she did not react as I’d hoped. She resisted with a frown. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?” I bent my head to nibble the slope of her neck. She shivered. Victory.
“You’re injured.”
I sucked on her earlobe. “It’s just a scratch.”
“Torg, please,” she protested, but arched her neck.
“Please, more? Okay.” I kissed a slow trail to the other side and cupped her breasts, strumming her hardening nipples with my thumbs.
She lifted her shoulder, twisting away from my mouth. “I’m serious. I saw your wound when Groman patched you up again. The bruises to your ribs. Now, be good.”
Her concern for my welfare spread warmth through my chest. Her heart was in the right place, even if her hands were nowhere close to where I wanted them. I whispered in her ear, “I promise, I’ll be very good.” I walked her backward to a table. Before she could utter a word, I grabbed her tunic and stripped it off her then tugged on her leggings.
She locked her knees to keep me from pulling them all the way off. I dropped to my knees to kiss her mons, her soft, rounded tummy. “You’re impossible!” Her eyes sparked with mock anger, and desire. “If you hurt yourself, it will be all on you,” she huffed.
If I hurt myself, it would be worth it. “I’ll take full responsibility.” I tugged her leggings to her ankles, and she kicked them aside. I hid a smile of triumph by teasing her pleasure nub with the curled tip of my tongue. She stumbled and clutched at my shoulders, an opportunity I pressed to full advantage by licking her sex more avidly.
Her knees buckled with the first orgasm, but I held her up and continued enjoying my mate. As she neared the crest of the next peak, I bent her over the table and slid into her. Her channel was pure bliss around my cock. So slick. So warm. So tight.
Starr mewled, and I cupped her mons with one hand and stroked her pearl as I pumped inside her. Her womanhood quivered around my cock and then convulsed as rapture claimed her for a second time. It nearly undid me, but I held off until the tremors subsided, and then I grabbed her hips and took my pleasure with strong, powerful strokes. Lights exploded in my eyes when I climaxed, every nerve firing at once. I bellowed, crying out her name, my Starr, my only, my forever.
