The Alien Huntress Series

by Gena Showalter

  Awareness kindled inside him.

  “We both knew this couldn’t last,” she said casually.

  So dismissive. Blood roared savagely in his ears. “I did not consider you a coward until just now.”

  A flicker of outrage darkened her eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. “Tell yourself that we’re over because I’m a coward if that makes you feel better. But the truth is, I’m not trying to make it work because I’m done with you. You served your purpose. I have no more need for you.”

  Though he didn’t believe her, her words still managed to cut deep. But he was used to difficult opponents and refused to back down. For some reason, this battle seemed more important than any he’d ever faced before. “You like me more than you should. You’re scared, probably even think you’re protecting me by walking away from me.”

  She laughed, and it was not a pretty sound.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed both Dallas and Devyn closing in on his sides. He held out his hands to ward them off. “No.”

  Mishka reached up and caressed a fingertip over his cheekbone, down his scar, and along the column of his neck. Where she touched, he tingled.

  “Good-bye, Jaxon,” she said sadly.

  He didn’t have time to reply. Something sharp dug into his vein.

  His eyes widened as realization set in. Furious and shocked, he slapped her hand away. “Mishka.”

  “You’ll thank me one day.”

  “Goddamn it! You drugged me again.” The words were slurred, far away.

  “You should have believed me when I told you I was bad for you.”

  A black web began to fall over his vision. Thickening, connecting. His muscles weakened and dizziness assaulted him in increasingly intense waves. He swayed. “Stay with me,” he managed. Even to his own ears, the plea was little more than a whisper. “Don’t go.”

  “Get him out of here,” Mishka said coldly, just before his world crumbled to nothingness.

  CHAPTER 15

  A week later

  Three more infected women had been found and were currently the residents of sector twelve at A.I.R. headquarters. Despite Jaxon’s warnings to Jack to wait, those women were being studied and tested in hopes of finding a cure or, at the very least, a vaccine.

  Jaxon cared, but not as much as he should have.

  Some government official named Senator Kevin Estap had sent the doctors and scientists, desiring to work with A.I.R., not against (or so he claimed). Jaxon suspected Estap was Mishka’s boss. How else would Kevie boy have known so much about the case? Yet everyone denied knowing Mishka.

  Jaxon cared, but again, not enough.

  Actually, the doctors acted ignorant about everything. The Schön, the virus, the effects of both. Jaxon was surprised they knew how to dress in the morning and feed themselves throughout the day. They said they were there to “gather samples” and had no concrete conclusions about anything.

  How was that for working together?

  So far, Jaxon had talked to two of the women. He’d learned nothing new.

  So far, he knew of two planets that had been destroyed by the Schön: Delenseana and Raka. Was Earth to be the third? What’s more, would testing those infected women begin a chain reaction of sickness and demise that couldn’t be stopped as he suspected?

  He was afraid of the answers, but he still couldn’t bring himself to care as he should.

  As an agent, a paid hunter, a night stalker, he’d seen terrible things. Children slaughtered, women beaten, men raped. Bodies drained of blood, organs stolen and sold on the black market, death in every incarnation.

  He’d eliminated those responsible to the best of his ability, sometimes forgoing food and sleep, always killing when needed. As Mishka had once said, weapons could be a man’s best friend, and his best friends helped keep the world safe. But how was he to fight an insidious monster that struck silently and without warning? How was he to fight a virus? Doctors and scientists could, perhaps, find a cure as they hoped.

  But how many would die in the process?

  Countless, most likely, but once again Jaxon just didn’t care enough.

  He sighed. Right now he sat at his desk, elbows propped up, head in his upraised hands. Upon his return to the real world he had been debriefed, examined, sent to a shrink, and reactivated for duty. Not that it had done him any good. Nolan had not contacted him, and his search for the Schön had failed.

  The worst, though, was that Mishka had not contacted him, either, and she’d removed the tracking device from her phone so he could no longer pinpoint her exact location. That was where most of his concern lay. Mishka’s absence.

  He’d searched for her, called every government contact he had. Nothing. He was tormented with questions. What was she doing? Who was she with? What were they doing together?

  Then he’d begun to think she was in danger of being ordered to fight the Schön as long as the virus-carrying bastards were out there, so he’d stopped looking, was now concentrating on the aliens. But not looking for her was killing him.

  Jaxon hungered for her, dreamed of her, had to have her again. Couldn’t think about his job the way he should and didn’t consider the victims—past, present, or future—the way a good agent needed to do. She was his biggest concern. He needed her back in his arms. He needed to be inside her again. He needed to know she was safe, not rotting somewhere in pain and punishment.

  He just flat needed.

  Mine. Every instinct in his body screamed it. True or not, he could not function much longer without her. She’d knocked him out, yes. She’d sent him away as though she didn’t want him, yes. Deep down, he knew she’d done it to protect herself and him. That, he understood. Might have even done it himself were the situations reversed. But that didn’t mean he was going to let her get away with it.

  “This what Jack pays you for? Meditating?”

  Jerked from his torturous musings, Jaxon glanced up. Mia Snow stood in his doorway, lovely as always. Her black-as-night hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her ballerina features glowed healthily. A tiny thing, she radiated an I-could-break-at-any-moment aura. Funny thing was, she could snap a man’s neck with a simple twist of her wrist.

  Kind of like Mishka.

  Frowning, he rubbed his chest to tamp down the sudden ache. Would he see her again? His jaw clenched. He’d see her again; he’d make damn sure of it, one part of him vowed.

  Forget her, the other part of him beseeched. Truly, he didn’t need her in his life. He had friends who didn’t delight in drugging him into a stupor. Friends who didn’t lie to him, who definitely wouldn’t shank him in the jugular if ordered. Of course, those friends hadn’t given him the greatest orgasm of his life. Those friends didn’t look at him as if he were part hero, part villain and their life hinged on his touch.

  Forget her? He wasn’t sure he could and didn’t like the idea of trying.

  “What?” Mia splayed her arms. “I’m that terrible a sight?”

  He was scowling, he realized, and forced his features to relax. “Sorry. It’s not you.”

  The glint in her fierce blue eyes sharpened like a sword for attack. “Thinking about her?”

  No need to ask who “her” was. “Yeah. So?”

  Mia crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m disappointed in you, Jaxon. You’re letting your dick lead you around.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” he asked, arching a brow.

  Slight catch of breath, as though surprised, then, “When you want to live to see another day, yeah, it’s a bad thing. She’ll kill you without blinking, without hesitating, and probably laugh while she’s doing it.”

  “She’s not that bad.”

  “Says the man who hasn’t seen everything she’s capable of.” Mia ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’ve seen her do things that would make your skin crawl.”

  “Drop it, okay?” He wouldn’t share Mishka’s secrets, wouldn’t tell anyone why she acted the way she did. They’d pity
her, and Jaxon thought he knew Mishka well enough to know that she’d prefer their fury over their sorrow. “You find out anything about your Arcadian-human halflings?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Mia was determined to track those like herself, part human, part alien, and help them if needed. She’d spent most her life feeling different, disconnected from everything and everyone, and scared of her differences. She hated the thought of others suffering as she had.

  She shrugged and allowed the subject change. “I’ve got a few leads.”

  “And your brother?” Dare, Mia’s much-loved and fully human half brother, had been thought dead for years, murdered by aliens. Come to find out he’d been saved from another species of aliens, taken and used by Mia’s Arcadian mother, who had hoped to one day trade him for Mia.

  “Same old, same old. He’s alive, he’s hiding from me, and hates me.” She shrugged again, expression curtained by hurt. A hurt she quickly hid. “I’ve tracked him twice and both times he ran from me without saying a word.” There was a heavy pause. “Le’Ace is bad for you, you know?”

  “I’m headed to sector twelve,” he said, ignoring that last bit. “Jack’s allowing me to interview the newest woman inside her cell, rather than from a partition. I have orders not to kill.” He was babbling, he knew, but it kept Mia quiet.

  “Way to ignore the question.”

  Quiet for a little while, at least. “Drop it.”

  “So it’s okay to pry information out of me but I can’t pry it out of you.”

  “That’s right.” He stacked the folders on his desk. Didn’t need to, but wanted his hands busy. “If there’s anything new to learn about the Schön, I’ll learn it.”

  Rather than leave, Mia strode deeper into the small office and dropped into the chair in front of his desk. Determination pulsed from her. “First, I’m going to tell you a little story.”

  Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “This can’t wait?”

  “No. Now shut it and listen.” Stretching out her legs, she slid down the chair, propped the back of her head on the back, and stared up at the ceiling. “Once upon a time—” she began.

  He groaned.

  She continued without reservation. “There were two teenage girls. Both had daddy issues. One spent a lot of time in a locked closet, alone and afraid, until finally running away from home at the age of sixteen. One was taken from home when she confessed to being raped by her own father.”

  Just then he realized she was telling a story about herself. He knew a little about Mia’s past, about the abuse and isolation she had endured at her father’s hands, and knew she’d run away to escape it.

  “These two girls never should have met, but they were both recruited to join a special boot camp. They became roommates, helped each other study and train. They soon learned they were to become A.I.R. agents.”

  She glanced at him, and he nodded to let her know he was listening.

  “For several months, the world was finally a happy place for both girls. They had purpose, friends, and safety. Or so they thought. One day, one of them was taken from the camp for actual field training. She showed the most promise.”

  Mia, he thought.

  “There, she met a very cute otherworlder boy. Like any girl would when charmed, she developed a crush on him and the two stayed in secret contact.”

  Dread tightened his stomach.

  “What she didn’t know was that the otherworlder was using her, pumping her for information about the camp and A.I.R. When the truth was learned, the girl’s instructor was sent to deliver punishment. Everyone thought the girl would be whipped or maybe even have her memory wiped and sent from the camp. But this instructor busted into her room, raised a pyre-gun, and fired.”

  Not Mia, then.

  Mia’s gaze fell back to Jaxon, hard, distant. “Elise died in my arms.”

  To hold a dying friend, to know there was nothing to be done, was torture. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mia, I am. But I don’t understand what this has to do with Mishka.”

  “Don’t you?” Mia’s voice rose an octave. “She killed Elise. She held that gun, her face devoid of emotion, and she squeezed the trigger while I begged her not to. Afterward, she walked away as if she’d merely come inside the room to invite us to dinner.”

  Again he frowned. “She would have been a child, like you.”

  “No. She was an adult.”

  “That’s impossible.” His brow furrowed in confusion, and Mishka’s flawless face flashed inside his mind. Unlined skin, youthful blush. “Mishka can’t be more than thirty. If that.”

  Mia popped her jaw. “She’s older than you think. A lot older.”

  “Impossible,” he said again. “If she were thirty when you were in school, she would be forty or fifty now.”

  “She was an instructor at the school several years before my arrival.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Had to be someone else who shot your friend, someone who looked just like her.”

  “She’s a machine. She ages differently. Look at Kyrin. He’s hundreds of years old and he looks like he’s in his prime.”

  “No,” was all Jaxon said. He didn’t know what else to say.

  Mia shrugged as if she didn’t care whether he believed her or not, but the action was stiff. “Just think about what I said.”

  He found that he could think of nothing else. If it had been Mishka, would he care?

  She wouldn’t have delivered that deathblow because she’d wanted to; she would have been ordered. That he knew without asking. Most likely she’d been torn up inside, had probably sobbed afterward, had probably seen that girl’s dying face in her mind a thousand times in her dreams.

  The vulnerable woman he’d held in his arms last week, moaning her surprised delight at every heated touch, had not found joy in death and destruction.

  “You better head to interrogation before Jack pops a vessel,” Mia said, changing the subject. “No one’s been able to get a word out of the girls but you. Oh, and guess what? I’m going to watch from the two-way.”

  “To make sure I tow the line?”

  “You know it.”

  “Just like old times,” he said. Only he’d had to watch her back then.

  Her lips curled into a slow smile. “Pretty much the same. If we lived in Bizarro World, that is, and sometimes I think we do. Ready?”

  He stood but didn’t move around the desk. There was a slight twinge in his ankle, but it was so minor he was able to ignore it. “You aren’t officially on duty for another month.”

  “So. I’ve taken an interest in your case. Consider me your new shadow.”

  Great.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Side by side they strode from the office and down the bustling hallways of A.I.R. Jaxon nodded to Dallas as he passed him. They hadn’t been on the best of terms since leaving the compound.

  Dallas refused to discuss what he and Devyn had done and said to Mishka after Jaxon had passed out. Jaxon would have asked Devyn, but the temperamental other-worlder had not made a reappearance.

  Jaxon suspected Dallas and the team he’d put together—Mia, Kyrin, Eden Black, Lucius Adaire, and Devyn—were planning something. About the Schön, about Mishka, about both, he didn’t know. None of them trusted him with mission details.

  And they were right not to. If they thought to hurt Mishka, well, he thought he might just fight against them.

  “You and Dallas should kiss and make up,” Mia suggested. “With tongue. I mean, really. It’s the least you can do.”

  “When he tells me what I want to know, I’ll plant a fat wet one right on his mouth.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Liar. Not nice to get my hopes up like that. You didn’t used to be this much of a bastard.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he muttered.

  As they pounded out of the main sector and into an elevator, he knew the security system was taking their measurements, body heat, and electrical chemistry, makin
g sure they belonged.

  A minute passed, the walls jostling slightly.

  Ding. The double doors opened, and they entered the foyer of the prisoners’ cells, a sort of holding room in case someone somehow escaped confinement. Two guards looked down from a raised glass partition as he and Mia endured retinal and hand scans. He’d submitted to so many over the years, they were second nature to him, as much a part of him as breathing.

  “Weapons on the table, Agent Tremain,” one of the guards said.

  Two at a time, he withdrew his blades, guns, and stars and laid them on a nearby tabletop. Though he thought he could have managed it, he didn’t try to sneak one in. Risking this interview—not gonna happen.

  Buzz. The door opened and they were soon moving along another hallway. He frowned. The air was quite a bit colder than usual. Cold enough to chill his face and arms and cramp his lungs.

  “Must be trying to slow the growth of the virus,” Mia said.

  With as little as was known about it, the cold might help it spread, but Jaxon didn’t speak his fear aloud. Wouldn’t do any good and might actually cause panic.

  A lab coat, gloves, and mask hung on the wall beside his target’s cell. He donned each item while Mia entered the room beside his. A room that provided her with a two-way mirror and sound track of everything that happened in the cell.

  Jaxon mentally flipped through everything he knew about the victim. Patty Elizabeth Howl. Twenty-three. Had a boyfriend of one year, was in school to become an alien radiologist. Generally happy since being placed on antidepressants five months ago. Source of depression unknown.

  She was pretty, short, and a little plump. Usually, she did not sleep around.

  From the corner of his eye, Jaxon saw a man exit one of the other rooms. Though he hadn’t met the man, Jaxon knew he was a doctor. This wing of the cellblock had been emptied except for the women and those in charge of their care. Also, the man was wearing the same coat, gloves, and mask as Jaxon. He held a tray of red-filled vials. Blood? Probably.