by Cathryn Cade
“I hear you.”
“I won’t be here for much longer. I’m getting off at the first stop we come to. Until then, guess you’ve got your Indi powers, and I got nothin’ but my skills. But here’s fair warning—you pull that shit on me again, I’ll use your weapon on you. I swear I will.”
All right, he was done with this. She wouldn’t even let him apologize.
“I didn’t do it to fuck you,” he snarled. “I needed intel. You’re new. Something of an enigma. I have people around me, I need to know I can trust them.”
The laser shook in her grasp, and something like fear flickered through her gaze. “Find out anything interesting?”
“Yeah. That you’re a great fuck when you let yourself go. Hottest fuck I’ve had for a long time. And here’s another thing to think about. Kill me, and my crew will dump you on your desert alone, looking for your next gig with that chip going off. You think I’m bad? Someone like the bitch we’re after gets hold of you, you’d end servicing males that make me look like an angel.”
“Already been there, mate,” she whispered, old pain and rage peering out of her amber eyes like something so horrific she kept it caged deep.
No. He reached for her, the protector in him snarling to life. Whatever agony of memory it was that writhed within her, he’d slay it for her. That’s what he did.
“Babe,” he breathed. “Come here.”
But she moved too quickly, sliding out of reach. Standing, she backed away to the foot of his bed. He moved to keep her in sight, on both elbows, his legs splayed beneath the covers.
“I don’t need your pity,” she snarled, her lush lips curled with contempt. “Anyway, as far as your crew making me pay, I didn’t say I’d use a weapon to take you down, Darkrunner. No, you’d look like you just ... fell. Yeah, maybe off that gangplank of yours. Don’t forget this is a killer body in more ways than one.”
She cocked her head, examining him like a new and somewhat disgusting species of creature. “Darkrunner. They call you that because you scuttle around inside minds, where you don’t belong?”
That struck home, shame stamping heat across his cheekbones. “Babe, listen—”
Her arm straightened, her eyes narrowed dangerously. “No. No more of your sweet words. Stay out of my head.”
She fired, a slash of red streaking out toward his balls. The charge hit the covers between his legs, and heat scorched his balls. His body tensed hard as a cerametal rod, waiting for the pain, but it never came. Instead, smoke bloomed between his thighs, the stench of burning fabric rising with it. Air hissed from the mattress beneath him.
His laser landed on the bed beside his hand. She glared down at him for a moment. Then she turned her back on him and stalked out of his stateroom just as the sprinklers spurted on, water spitting down on him in a final derisive splutter.
He squinted through the rain at the closed hatch. Why was he certain that though she’d damaged his bed and his ego, he’d broken something far more valuable?
* * *
Scala sat at the table in the galley, staring blindly into her mug of coffee. Steam rose in lazy spirals, soft against her chin. The brew itself was black as Darkrunner’s hair, black as those beautiful tattoos all over his body. Black as his fucking heart.
The hatch opened and she tensed. His three crewmembers sat at the table, Darry and Trix playing a desultory match of holodice, Dalg feeding his face as usual, all three of them diplomatically ignoring her.
Tal was the only one missing, so this was him. But damned if she’d look at him. She was afraid if she did she would kill him—or try anyway. Betrayal writhed in her gut like a viper, along with fear. What if she’d let something slip last night? Something he hadn’t had time to think about, but when he did, he’d realize the significance and know she was a spy.
She tensed even further when she felt him close behind her. She waited, her hands shaking on her mug, for an accusation.
Instead, his arm appeared over her shoulder, his hand opened, and something dropped into her lap. She reached down to catch it reflexively, then stared at it, not understanding. Her breath caught.
It was a laser weapon. Small, and sheathed in amber cerametal, chased with pure gold. Topaz winked from a design picked out on the side. He’d given her a gift.
She scowled up at him anger lasering away her fear. “What’s this? Payment for sex?”
He cast her one darkling look over his shoulder and then slammed out of the cabin, taking half the oxygen with him. Scala glared after him. Bastard, thinking he could buy her forgiveness. And she wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t tried to touch her, not in the slightest.
The others sat in silence for a moment, their game suspended. Scala stared stubbornly into her coffee, the laser clutched in her lap. She stroked the cerametal with her thumb. It was still warm from his grasp.
Trix sighed loudly, and slapped her hands on the table. “Okay, enough. That, girlfriend, is the equivalent of a boy giving you his favorite toy, the one he carries around in his pocket always, and sets on his bedside hovertray so he can admire it before he sleeps. Given to him by a very wealthy dude, for helping rid New Seattle of a very bad dude.”
Scala stared dumbly, the other woman’s words echoing in her head.
Trix rolled her eyes. “Great God beyond, I wish you two would just admit you’re a matched set and get over it.”
Darry made an odd noise, and Scala’s gaze whipped to him to find a wide grin on his face. He covered it with one hand, his eyes dancing.
Dalg held up his huge hands, shaking his head. “Peace, woman. I’m just a bystander here.”
“You agree with me,” Trix snapped at him and Darry. “And you know it.”
“I do,” Darry said, giving Scala a straight look. “I get you think Tal stepped over the line, but we’re not exactly on a sanctioned mission here. He needs to know who he can trust.”
“Yeah, so do I.”
Trix glared at her. “You can trust Tal Darkrunner to the end of this galaxy and beyond.”
“Right. I can trust him to behave like an out-of-control alpha, and pull every dirty trick he can, including—”
“No.” The rest of Scala’s words were lost as Trix leaned forward over the narrow table, her pixie face ablaze with intensity. “You listen to me. You wanna know about Tal Darkrunner? I’ll tell you. He was abandoned on the docks in New Seattle when he was a tot. Never knew who his parents were. He survived, somehow. I don’t know what he had to do, but I got a pretty good idea, because I had to do some of it myself, and so did Darry here. Whoring, stealing, running errands for any slimeball who had a little credit or something to eat, a warm place to sleep.”
Darry looked miserable, but he said nothing, just began to flip his gold coin over one hand as he stared at nothing.
Trix raged on. “Tal came out of hell, and he came out strong, and determined take care of himself so no one could ever have power over him again. Yeah, he has a kind of force the rest of us don’t have, but it’s not just his mojo, it’s him. Tal doesn’t just take care of himself, he takes care of everyone around him. He has more beings gathered around him than you’d believe. And every one of them knows they’re alive and well because of him. Because the slimers and the other gangs are more afraid of him than they are vicious, or greedy. So they stay out of his way, and they leave us all alone. If they don’t, they pay.”
Darry was flipping his coin so swiftly it was a dancing blur, but he jerked his chin in agreement. “She’s right, Scala. If you stay, you can trust him all the way.”
Stay … with him? Scala shot out of her seat, shaking her head. “You’re all crazy, if you think—No. Just no.”
She had to get out of here. She wasn’t sure where to—Tal Darkrunner, to tell him what she thought of him handing her his priceless treasure, or to hide in her cubby. Because the truth was, she had no idea what she thought. Her mind was whirling like the inside of a black hole full of space debris.
�
��Fine, go,” Trix huffed. “Stupid Serp.”
“Let her go, babe,” Darry soothed. “Tal will settle it.”
“No, he won’t.” Scala headed for the passageway. “I will.”
She couldn’t carry the burden of knowing how hard Tal had fought to survive, how tight the bonds of trust between Tal and his crew, and go on lying to him, lying to all of them.
She shoved the laser in the back of her belt and went to find him.
He sat in the cabin, both feet on the floor, hands on the arms of his seat. His chin was down, and he was watching the entrance as if waiting for her to appear. His face was an expressionless mask, only his eyes alive.
Scala swallowed, her breakfast roiling in her gut. He was waiting for her to accept or reject his offer to stay with him. But when she was through telling him the truth, or at least as much of it as she dared, that offer would evaporate like a vapor trail.
Because if she had difficulty forgiving Tal for seducing her, how much less chance did she have that he’d ever forgive her for spying on him?
Chapter Twelve
Something was wrong with her. Tal sat very still and watched Scala cross the cabin to him, her steps slow as if she were walking to her own execution. It wasn’t just that she was going to reject his offer. No, this was more than that. And it was bad.
“I have something to tell you,” she said. Under her golden tan, she looked ill. The alpha in him snarled to be loosed, to go and take her in his arms and make it right, whatever pained her.
But hard won caution held him back. Something she’d said last night whispered just out of reach, something other than ‘take me’ and ‘harder’
“So tell me,” he said.
Fire was kindling in his gut, the flames feeding on the certainty that something was very wrong, and it emanated from the beautiful woman standing before him, guilt in every line of her face and stance. What had she said to him last night? He’d been so fucking turned on, he could barely question her. But he had, he remembered that much.
As the Z went into a banking turn, Scala gave him a guarded look. And he remembered. His hands closed on the arms of his chair, digging into the skrog leather covered frame of the seat until they were numb.
“I have something to tell you, about why I’m here,” she said, her voice quavering. “It’s not … for the reason you believe.”
“You think I don’t know that? I do.”
She didn’t need to know he’d finally had this revelation two secs ago. “Now tell me the rest.”
She froze, her eyes riveted on him. Good. Finally she understood how close he was to wrapping both hands around her throat. He shot out of his chair, consumed with fury so great he could hardly contain it.
“Tell me all of it!” he demanded. “Last night I asked if you’d talked to your ‘cousin’ about why we’re here, and you said ‘She already knew’. How? How did she know? And maybe more important—why would she know that?”
Darry and Trix appeared in the passageway behind her. Tal ignored them, pacing toward Scala. Nothing mattered in the face of his realization that she was some kind of plant, a lovely, sensual spy set on him to do … what? And for whom?
He took another step and Scala flinched.
“Afraid?” he asked. “Good. Better listen to that fear, because I will know everything, Snake Eyes. Before I toss your lying, deceitful Serpentian ass out in this desert. We’ll see how you fare with all your precious vipers and adders and the rest of your kind.”
She glared, her jaw setting pugnaciously. “You don’t have to threaten me, I’ll tell you. And you won’t have to put me off—I’ll go myself. Rather hang out with vipers than a manipulative Indigon mongrel any day.”
Darry groaned. “Careful,” he murmured.
Scala ignored him, her voice slashing through the cabin like a blade.
“I’m here to surveill you, ganger. To spy on you—make sure you stay out of New Seattle.”
Tal stared at her. “What the fuck?” he demanded. “Who—? A rival gang? Did that bitch Mordacity hire you?”
She gave him a blank look. “Who?”
“No,” he growled. “No, don’t tell me this is about Logan Stark. That security expert of his, Berenson—he was there to get me out of the way.”
She raised her winged brows. “Wow, got it one. Good job.”
Disbelief warred with a strange pain in his chest—betrayal. He should remember how it felt, but he’d forgotten in the thrill of having her. “This is all a fucking setup, with you spying on me for Stark? Is he that worried that I’ll steal his woman?”
She stared at him as if seeing him clearly for the first time. And not liking what she saw.
An unaccustomed heat burned in his cheeks. He would not feel guilt over asking her to stay with him even as he pursued Kiri. That was none of her business, or Kiri’s either.
“No,” she said. “That is, I don’t know or care about Logan Stark. I’m doing a favor for Kiri. She’s my friend. And she’d just as soon one of her … lovers didn’t murder the other.”
He scowled, hating the way she now stared at a point over his shoulder, instead of looking him in the eye. “Stark really is missing … in my city.”
“That’s the word.”
“So sending Tal off to hunt this slaver was just a distraction?” Darry asked.
Scala shrugged, as if she didn’t know or care about that. “Not like the galaxy won’t be better off without her.”
“I just want to know one thing,” Trix demanded, shouldering past her. “Are you the reason I spent an entire night puking my guts out?”
“Yes,” Scala admitted. “I’m sorry about that part, Trix. I … needed a way onto the Zharrdul.”
“So it wasn’t just a coincidence that you were on Quol-Ray?” Darry asked. “Thought that was too good to be true.”
“Thanks for sharing now,” Tal snarled at him.
Darry shrugged. “Nah, I meant because she’s so hot.”
“Sorry,” Scala said to him too.
Tal’s gaze narrowed on her. She was holding herself as tightly as a strung wire.
“I just … I owed a favor to a friend for helping me, so when she told me what she needed, I didn’t ask questions,” she said to that point over his shoulder.
“That’s all you’re sorry about?” Tal asked.
“Yeah.” She gave him a searing look. “And that I got caught before you paid me. I could sure use the credits.”
Part of him wanted to grab her, haul her to his bed and spank her ass until she begged him for mercy. Then fuck her until neither of them could move. The other part still wanted to wrap his hands around her slender throat—all of it.
She was working against him, and for Stark, or at least to keep the fucking magnate safe. That placed her squarely in opposition to him, Tal. He could never trust her. And she clearly had never trusted him, not with any real part of herself.
He turned his back on her. “Get to your bunk. I’ll deal with you later. Darry, Trix, stay.”
* * *
Scala took one step toward the passageway and all seven hells broke loose.
A thunderous boom sounded outside the ship, followed by a vibration so violent she was thrown into the wall. She hit her shoulder, hard. It hurt. Trix and Darry fell to the floor.
“We’re under attack!” Dalg thundered over the com. “I’m taking us up—hang on!”
Scala had no choice but to clutch the nearest handhold and fight for balance as the craft leapt under them and then shot forward. She peered through the porthole. Black smoke billowed in the sunshine, then disappeared as the Z catapulted up into the sky.
That kind of smoke meant only one thing out here—they were indeed under attack. But who, and why?
“How the hells did she find us?” Darry demanded.
“You think this is the slaver?” The g-forces flattened Scala against the bulkhead as the craft accelerated.
“Who else would it be?” he said. “Tal s
ure as hells doesn’t have any enemies on Serpentia.”
“But how did they find us?” Trix asked, clutching Darry while he held onto one leg of a seat. “No one knows we’re after them.”
She twisted her head to stare accusingly at Scala through her braids.
Scala’s breakfast threatened once again to rise up her throat. Because there were beings who knew they were here, and why. Had Stark’s people merely used her to destroy Tal once and for all?
And was Kiri a dupe as well, or was she in on it? Had the one person Scala trusted without question used her like so many others in her past?
* * *
Tal didn’t waste time wondering why they were under attack, he simply fought back with the single-minded ferocity that had made him infamous. At least on Earth II.
Here, they might have sussed out his identity, but they didn’t know him, so while he wasn’t getting any respect, it also gave him the advantage that whoever this was didn’t know how ruthless he was, that he never gave up until he was the last man standing.
The other ship showed up clearly on the Z’s surveillance.
“Unmarked Y-class fighter,” Dalg said, working the controls to narrow in on the other craft. “Surplus from the Solar Wars from the looks. And definitely still weaponized.”
“Smaller than the Z,” Tal said, bringing her around in a turn so sharp the Z vibrated wildly, but then shot after the other craft. “Probably think that makes us easier to hit. Let’s show them different.”
“You want a kill shot?”
“Not yet,” Tal decided. He hit the Z’s superdrive and brought her in low and fast. “Wing ’em. I want them down and vulnerable. Then we’ll parlay.”
“You got it.”
As Tal pulled off on the accel, they hovered for a sec. “They’re bringing the rear guns around.”
“They won’t get a shot.” Dalg sent a laser charge at the other ship’s right wing. It hit, and the other ship wobbled wildly in flight before listing to one side and dropping rapidly toward the desert floor, just outside the Lure Valley, a plume of heat and debris streaming behind.
