by Cara Bristol
Charlie let him in.
“Charlie did?” Dale shouted. How was that possible?
We have him in custody in the brig. But Alonio left Deceptio with Illumina. If we hadn’t let him go, he would have slit her throat.
“Charlie?” The emperor frowned.
“I’m sorry.” Dale closed and opened his fists. “I have to leave.” He got halfway to the door, when the emperor spoke again.
“Is this how Terrans negotiate—”
He looked at the emperor but didn’t see him, focusing on piecing some sense into messages streaming into his head. He didn’t give a shit-fuck about ships right now. How the hell could this have happened? He hadn’t informed Charlie of the threat against Illumina and the requirement for heightened security, but his assistant shouldn’t have been manning Flight Control at all.
“There’s been an emergency,” he explained. “An abduction. I’m afraid I can’t continue the negotiation. I have to go.”
Sonny was attacked. If he wasn’t a cyborg, he’d be dead, but he’ll pull through.
Get Carter on a comm line. The Cy-Ops director was supposed to coordinate the security, and instead he’d had his thumb up his ass. Where had Carter been when all this was going down?
He never should have left. Motherfucker! He’d never forgive himself. He should have postponed the delivery, sent someone else. Anything. Charlie was the last person…
“Of course you must go,” the emperor said readily. “I assume speed is of the essence. The ZX7M is probably faster than your transport. Why don’t you take her, and deliver her when you can, and we’ll talk then,” he suggested.
“Thank you.” Dale leaped at the offer. If he pushed Baby to the max, he could get back to Deceptio in half the time it had taken to get here. His heart pistoned in his chest, human emotion overriding attempts by his nanocytes to lower his anxiety.
Um…Carter’s not here. He’s been evaced to Cybermed. I don’t think he’s going to survive. He lost an arm and a leg, his femoral artery was severed, and he damn near bled out. I shot him full of nanocytes, but without a core microprocessor to direct them, I doubt it had any effect. Brock Mann has stepped in as interim director and mobilized Cy-Ops.
“Your excellency, thank you.” Dale saluted and ran.
The emperor must have contacted his people at the launch site because he found Baby prepped and ready when he arrived at the pad. Dale boarded and sent a message to his Deceptio pilot to follow on the other craft.
Once out of Xenia’s atmosphere, he switched to manual so he could override the cruising presets and push all the power to the ship’s engines. Stars blurred as the craft shot through space like a missile. He kept a steely grip on the nav stick and allowed his microprocessor to take over operating the craft. His human brain was too fucked up to concentrate.
This was all his fault. He’d promised to protect her, and he’d failed. His arrogance had delivered her back into Alonio’s clutches. Illumina had warned her ex would find her. She had tried to leave Deceptio, but he hadn’t let her. He’d forced her to stay by threatening to lock her up. And then he’d sailed off to Xenia.
What the hell was I thinking? Illumina, I’m sorry, baby.
The one mission that couldn’t be allowed to fail had—
No. They’d get Alonio, and if he had harmed one hair on her head, Dale would kill him. He’d keep him alive long enough for the Faria to learn firsthand what it was like to be wingless then he’d rip off his other limbs.
Truth? He would kill him anyway for what he’d put her through in the past.
She’d warned her ex was unstoppable. What if she had been right? What if no one could protect her? Two cyberoperatives, two of the most powerful, well-trained fighting machines, had been unable to prevent the abduction.
He had to stop the seesawing doubts that could undermine the rescue. In Cy-Ops you completed the mission by focusing on the objective. His mission was simple: save Illumina, kill Alonio. In that order.
Deceptio appeared on the screen, and he keyed in the landing coordinates and turned control over to Baby’s computer. Gnashing his teeth, he hailed Flight Control to gain access to the descender. He couldn’t get in—but Alonio had. What a pathetic joke his security was.
He’d been undermined from within, once again betrayed by an insider. How could he have been so blindsided? Why had Charlie done it? To his knowledge, his assistant had no beef. Could it have been for money? Had he have traded Illumina’s life for a few credits?
Before the dock finished attaching to the craft, he popped Baby’s hatch and launched himself out. March bounded up the steps. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Palm up, Dale stopped him. “Focus on the rescue. Talk to me. Tell me what you know.” None of this was March’s fault or Carter’s or Sonny’s. It was his. He’d put Illumina in a situation where she was forced to depend on him for protection, and then he’d let her down.
“He had her before Sonny and I could get here. He landed late at night. Charlie had lured her to the dock by telling her you were arriving. It appears she met up with Carter along the way. I think he tried to protect her—the attack was vicious—but somehow he managed to transmit a partial message to Sonny and me. I don’t know what the hell that bastard is, but he can transform his right arm into a saber and a dagger.”
March handed Dale a bundle of gray, brittle straw wrapped in a cloth.
“What’s this?”
“Illumina’s hair. Alonio cut it off.” March hesitated. “It, um, seemed to cause her considerable pain.”
Not pain. Agony. Dale pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d sworn to protect her... He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Faria hair is innervated. Cutting it off would have been like cutting off her fingers.”
“Shit.”
“Let’s get her back before he does anything else.” Dale clutched the lifeless bundle of straw. Her hair. Her fucking hair. They descended the steps two at a time. “Tell me the rest. Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“He threatened to slit her throat,” March said. “Sonny tried to get a jump on him, but Alonio sensed it and stabbed him, literally in a flash. It’s like he can shift matter into energy and back to matter in the blink of an eye.”
“How is Sonny?”
“Recovering. His liver and a lung were nicked. Nanocytes sealed the wounds. He’ll pull through.”
“What do you know about Charlie?”
“Huge gambling debts. He owed a lot of credits to some bad people, and the time had come to pay up. Alonio swooped in and saved his ass. The dipshit thought he was some sort of guardian angel. He knew it was suspicious to request entry to Moonbeam, but since Alonio is an AOP ambassador who’d saved his skin…” March shrugged. “He’s scared shitless, now.”
“He should be scared shitless. I might kill the little fucker.” Right after he crossed Alonio off the list of living beings.
“Brock Mann and Kai Andros are en route. Every available Cy-Ops team member past and present is searching. The AOP has notified its member planets that Alonio has kidnapped Illumina and is to be considered armed and dangerous. Faria has been cooperating also.”
Yeah. Now they were. But they had abetted this monster, turning a blind eye to his atrocities. Alonio may have wiped their computer records, but he hadn’t erased their memories. Farian authorities had done nothing to protect Illumina.
Not that he’d done any better. He’d tried, but he’d failed, leaving her when she needed him most. Self-loathing bubbled up to burn his throat. He needed to punch something.
Alonio could take her anywhere and then—
I love you, Dale.
Tricks. His mind added voice and emotion to her imagined words. Feelings were easy to guess. No superpower required. No magic involved. But the sensation of sentience, of presence… The only thing he could compare it to was when she’d integrated into his software during orgasm—
Holy shit.
What if—
He stopped de
ad, his boot landing hard on the shop floor. “Illumina!”
“Are you okay…” March stared as if he’d lost it.
Help me, Dale.
Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Jesus. It was her.
He concentrated hard. She could communicate with him, but could he reach her? Illumina? Speak to me, babe. Where are you?
Chapter Fourteen
Cold in the unheated cargo bay seeped into Illumina’s aching bones as she crouched in the Invisi-cage, unable to stand or stretch without sustaining a severe electrical shock. Back muscles cramped.
The roar of the engines drowned the ringing in her ears.
Alive. But for how long?
Alonio strode in. He’d swapped his bloody clothing for a fresh white tunic and trousers. His hair, braided with a silver thong, fell to midback. Even when committing murder he appeared impeccably groomed. He looked every centimeter the esteemed, urbane diplomat everyone believed him to be. Not at all like a homicidal sociopath until you peered into his silver eyes and noted the absence of mercy.
How had he deceived so many people for so long?
His lips curled into a smirk. “How are the new accommodations working out?”
The Farian language had no word to express her hatred, but the Terrans did. “Fuck you.”
Once the craft had launched and cleared Deceptio’s atmosphere, Alonio had beaten her nearly unconscious and imprisoned her in the cargo bay, readied with the Invisi-cage. She couldn’t access the computer to shut down the electrical field without going through current, which delivered an agonizing shock.
“I’ll give you credit,” he said. “You were a little more difficult to find this time. You severed most of the psychic conjugal bonds. All but one, in fact. But one was all I needed to locate you. After that, it was easy.”
One single filament. How close she’d come to freedom. As soon as she could concentrate, she would break that remaining bond. Not that it would matter at this point.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?” he inquired casually as if he were surprising her with a pleasure flight.
Like she and Dale had done on Baby. Eons ago. Another life. Her heart contracted, and she pressed her tongue to the roof her mouth to stave off tears. She would never see her cyborg again. His friend Carter was dead. Sonny, too, probably. Despair threatened to sap the will to live, but some small spark inside refused to die.
The only good fortune was that Dale had been away when Alonio had arrived, otherwise he would have ended up like the other two men. Dale would have fought to the death to save her. His face formed in her mind. She could picture his laughing eyes, his crooked smile, his hair shorn against his scalp. Dale was tough, strong, powerful.
But not invincible. He couldn’t fight a Faria with the transformative gene. The rare genetic anomaly bestowed recipients with great power, but warped their minds. Of the few who had the gene, most were sociopaths. Alonio’s nature hadn’t manifested itself until after they’d married. And only to her. He’d hidden his condition well. To everyone else, he could appear so normal.
“Aren’t you curious?” Her former lifemate cocked his head.
Loathing welled. She hated to play his game, to reward him with the satisfaction of a reply, but ignoring him could provoke another attack. “All right, where are you taking me?” She raised her voice to be heard over the thrum of the engine.
“To Katnia!” He chortled.
She tucked her hands into her armpits to hide the trembling. “You surprise me. I would have thought you’d prefer to kill me yourself.”
A race of cold-blooded bi-pedal predators, the Ka-Tȇ hunted sentients for sport. They’d driven into extinction every non-Ka-Tȇ animal species on their planet and had to resort to importing prey. The vids she’d seen of them reminded her of the large wild felines on Terra, but hairless and ugly, and far more dangerous. They remained on their own planet, so, unlike Lamis-Odg, they didn’t threaten the galaxy as a whole, but the AOP had flagged Katnia as hostile and placed it on its travel warning list. Visit at your own risk.
“Had I thought of it sooner, I wouldn’t have removed your wings. The Ka-Tȇ are partial to beings that fly.”
She hated him from the bottom of her heart. “Be careful, Alonio. The Ka-Tȇ are indiscriminate predators.” If she had one wish left, it would be that they tore him apart, too.
Light flashed as his forearm shifted into a saber and then back to flesh and bone. “I’m not worried,” his voice boomed, and she realized the engines had gone silent. The floor no longer vibrated.
Her heart hammered, and she ducked her head. Alonio hadn’t noticed yet. Keep him talking, distracted. “You won’t get away with this. They’ll come after you,” she said, playing for time.
When he’d knocked her into the nav dash, she’d integrated into the network and installed the code sequence that had caused Baby to stall. But halting the ship only delayed arrival. Eventually, Alonio would notice they were drifting and would investigate. If Moonbeam’s computer experts couldn’t find and fix the glitch, she doubted Alonio could either, but he might be able to restart the ship, get it to move in fits and starts. They would hobble to Katnia, but they would get there.
“Who? Your friends on Deceptio?” He snorted. “Your dead friends on Deceptio?”
Dale wasn’t dead. Neither was March. “And the AOP,” she said. Until recently, he’d been able to cover up his crimes, but now he’d involved others. The fact that eye witnesses to his atrocities existed and there were records on Deceptio he couldn’t erase would change things. But not soon enough. No one knew where they were or where they were headed.
Getting through to him offered the only chance for survival. Hope hung by a thread, a filament thinner than a single hair. Had insanity erased all that he’d been? Or did an intelligent, reasoning mind still exist?
“The AOP is all roar, no bite. Not like the Ka-Tȇ.” A smile lit his face, and he glowed. She still recognized his beauty, but it chilled her that a man so evil, so devoid of morality, could appear so handsome. There should be some outward appearance of his vileness. But it explained why few suspected him, and the ones who did soon succumbed to his persuasion and manipulation. His was the face of refinement unless you peered beneath the surface.
“You loved me once,” she said. Had he? She doubted it now.
“I still do, Illumina.”
His declaration sickened her, but she forced herself to continue. “Remember our marriage ceremony? We were so happy.” He’d been self-assured, doting, and tender as he repeated his vows, and she’d considered herself the luckiest woman alive that he’d been chosen as her mate.
“I remember it fondly. Our wedding was the event of year on Faria. Rulers and VIPs from across the galaxy attended—” He drew his brows together. “Do you hear that?”
If the engines had been running, she couldn’t have heard them through the blood rushing in her ears. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s right. There’s no engine noise.” He rushed from the cargo bay.
It wouldn’t be long now. Alonio would figure out she was responsible and kill her in a fit of rage, or he would get the ship moving on course for Katnia. She closed her eyes and conjured up Dale, seeing his grin and dancing eyes, hearing the gravelly timbre of his voice, feeling his body against hers, the hardness of muscle, the roughness of hair, the gentleness of his touch.
She cleared her mind of all but memories of him, of the intimacy of their lovemaking and the awareness of his consciousness when she’d integrated into his microprocessor during climax. Her breathing and heart rate slowed.
In her imagination, his presence seemed as real as if he stood in the cargo bay. In her mind, she felt his worry. Love. Rage. Her stomach clenched as his did. Her hands tightened into fists like his. He was determined, ready to march into battle.
How she wished they’d had more time to speak before he’d left. That they’d had that conversation they’d planned for later. Later would never com
e. For words left unsaid, she wept. I love you, Dale. Tears trickled out of her closed eyelids and slid down her battered cheeks. Help me, Dale.
Illumina? Speak to me, babe. Where are you?
She jerked. No. His words weren’t real. They couldn’t be. He was too far away. There was no physical contact to facilitate a mental connection. But if she couldn’t be with him, she could pretend she was. He’s taking me to Katnia.
Fuu— The broken curse sounded just like him. Where are you now?
I don’t know. He locked in me in an electronic cage in the cargo bay.
Are you hurt?
Illumina squeezed her eyelids tighter, afraid to open them in case the delusion evaporated. He cut my hair. Her head and battered face throbbed.
I know, sweetheart. March found your hair on the shop floor.
On the shop floor? Her eyes flew open. This couldn’t be hope, imagination. Was she truly communicating with him? Is it really you?
It’s me babe.
She’d snapped. She’d gone as crazy as her ex. Tell me something I don’t know. Say something I wouldn’t think of on my own.
Um…uh…Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, but little lambs eat ivy.
What? What was he saying? It didn’t make sense.
It’s an old Terran children’s nursery rhyme. When spoken, it sounds like gibberish even though it has meaning.
Dale! She burst into tears.
Don’t cry, sweetheart. I’m coming to get you.
He’ll kill you like he did Carter and Sonny.
No, he won’t. I’ll be fine. Sonny will be fine.
No mention of Carter. She sucked back the tears. She had to stay strong until he could find her. You know now what he can do. He can harness energy and transform it into matter. His arm can turn into a saber, a knife, or, I suspect, anything he wants.
I can handle him. If Charlie hadn’t let him in, he never would have gotten to you. I’ll find you—
The door slid open. Alonio clenched his fists. “What did you do to the ship?”
Chapter Fifteen
