by Natalie Grey
This was no fair fight, but she didn’t let herself think on that. She was not going to die here, she thought furiously. She was not going to die trapped and helpless while they watched. She was going to get out and she was going to run.
“Tera, I am not going to hurt you.” His voice was pleading. “Please believe me.”
“Why?” Tera spat back. Her fingers went for his face and she gasped when he yanked them away. She was pinned against the wall the next moment, him dragging her to her feet and higher up still. His arms held her in place with the cuffs, and that, more than any words he could have said, told her that he was speaking the truth. Bound as she was, he needed only one hand to hold her still at this range. He could crush the life from her with his other hand if he wanted.
He did not want to.
“Why?” she asked him again, trembling.
“To know what you were.” His eyes locked on hers.
“I would have told you.” Bitterness made the words come out almost slurred with rage. “If you had just asked.”
“Would you?” There was grief in his voice now. He was trying to hold himself back, but the words came out in a rush. “Would you have told me the truth? You’ve lied about so damned much, Tera. Why would you tell the truth about this?”
“I lied about one thing. One.” She looked up at him. “And that was because I didn’t know. He was my father, Talon, my father, and you wanted to kill him.”
“You assumed he was innocent!”
“You assumed the same, you told me as much!” She yanked at her arms and he only barely held them in place.
“You came here to kill my crew.” The words came out gritted. “You—”
She looked down now, feeling tears in her eyes. “Would you believe me if I told you that they won me over? That I spent whole nights in here wondering if I would have what it took? Would you even understand that—that I felt more kinship with them than with anyone else in my life?”
His face said that he wanted to believe her. He opened his mouth, but could not bring himself to speak his question aloud.
And me?
It killed him to have to ask it.
“I swear to you that was nothing I intended,” Tera whispered.
He wanted to leave. She saw it in his eyes. He wanted to leave her here and never see her again. He released her hands with an oath and spun away, hands over his face. It was not the gesture of a warrior. She had broken the caution that he held so dear and she saw that fact occur to him, suddenly helpless with a cyborg behind him.
“Talon. Please look at me.” She must not touch him until he turned.
He paused. And then he looked at her. He turned slowly, watching her hands, watching her face. But he did not back away when she took a step toward him. He stood as though locked in place while she reached for him, hands still cuffed, and curled her fingers in his shirt to pull him down.
They were on the floor a second later, him bearing her down with all his weight. His mouth was desperate, his hands grabbing her hips, traveling up her legs. Her fingers scrabbled at the fastening on his pants, shoving them away, and he tore at hers. And then her hands were up over her head, held there effortlessly while she arched at the feel of him inside her.
She pulled him close, hips rising to meet his as he drove into her. They did not kiss; they watched one another, breathing harsh, heartbeats racing in time as he held her down and she dragged him down with her. They looked at one another as though this might be the last time they saw each other, and she watched him hold himself back from kissing her, from speaking.
When it was over, she stared at the ceiling and tried to find something to say. Was there something to say? If there was etiquette for times like these, she did not know it, and her instincts did not seem inclined to provide anything.
“It wasn’t something you intended,” he said softly.
There was hurt in his voice.
“It wasn’t,” she told him again. “I shouldn’t have let it happen. I knew it would … complicate things.”
He gave a laugh that might have been a sob. She rolled her head to look at him, but his eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling. His face was completely blank. The sound was the only clue that he felt anything.
“I’ve never wanted anyone,” Tera said quietly, “before you.”
There it was, simple, the air cold on their skin and the pleasure—if that was what to call it—fading. And it was all wrong, not suited to this sort of moment, miles apart from what their bodies had told one another. He was shaking his head.
“I can’t….”
She reached out a hand to stop him. If she could not say it with words, she could at least hope he understood the look in her eyes. If you believe nothing else, believe that.
What he saw there, she did not know. But he pushed himself up and left, pausing at the door for a moment. He looked like he might speak, might turn. And then he was gone and the door was shut and Tera was alone. She dressed herself awkwardly, shivering. She could still smell him on her. She rocked back and forth, curled into a ball, trying to not to think. That was a mistake, as it happened, because as soon as she did think, she knew what was going to happen.
He was going to kill her.
He wouldn’t, part of her mind insisted. He wouldn’t kill you. But she was a child of Osiris. He could kill her, and that was enough. She wasn’t going to wait around to see if his conscience stopped him.
Tera did not stop to think. She had the door open within a few seconds, implants tearing the handcuffs to shreds, and she was running with everything she had for the shuttle bay. For escape.
31
There was a faint whistle in the air and Talon’s hand slammed into the bag a split-second later. A knee followed, a flurry of blows, and he danced back out of range as the bag swung. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and he could feel the tremble in his muscles, but he could not stop.
I’ve never wanted anyone before you.
The words resonated through him. How could a woman so kind, so warm, so passionate, not have loved before? It was impossible. But then, she was an assassin. She had spent her life in Aleksandr’s cold, empty homes and on his ships, his love the only warmth she knew and his targets as her prey. When would it have occurred to her to love someone? Who would she have loved?
And if it was true….
That made it worse, somehow. Talon launched forward with a kick, waiting as the bag jerked at the chain that held it and catching it on the backswing with a punch that carried all his weight.
If it had been simple seduction, Talon would have been a fool. He hated being made a fool of; in his line of business, that was often fatal. But on the other hand, the idea that Tera had come here to kill him, had slept with him even while she still considered him her enemy … it seemed worse.
He put his weight behind another punch. He was getting tired, his precision slipping. The punch landed a few degrees sideways, as did the flurry that followed it, and the bag scraped across unwrapped knuckles. He could feel the skin grow raw, but he could not slow himself. Exhaustion called to him like a balm. Nothing soothed like well-earned sleep. His knuckles began to bleed and he let his breathing slow. He was approaching burnout, and he craved it.
I’ve never wanted anyone before you.
At last he missed, the bag colliding with him as his fist went past it too slowly. Talon caught it and leaned his forehead against it, his chest rising and falling quickly, the pulse thudding at his neck. He could feel sweat in his hair and trickling down his back. He wiped a hand across his forehead. Calm returned, and with it, reason.
He would have done anything for his crew. If he had heard that it was Sphinx, or Loki, or Nyx who had enslaved Ymir, he would not have believed it for a moment. He would have lied, cheated, stolen, killed, betrayed—anything to redeem them. Anything to take down people who hunted them. Tera had told him outright that she didn’t hear the news until she was on Akintola. Would he even have respected her if she co
ndemned her father based on the news alone?
He needed to talk to her. Grimacing, he picked up the towel. It had been a coward’s response to leave her there, though he had not trusted himself to speak with the torrent of hurt and fear. If they could have controlled themselves—
Neither of them had wanted to. With a sigh, he gulped some water and wiped himself down. He would tell her that he was done waiting for people to stab him in the back, that he was ready to tell his crew to go to hell if they couldn’t trust her. He was padding back through the hallways when he heard the call for him to go to the brig, and he dropped the towel and water bottle and burst into a run. He did not need to be told that it was bad news; the restraint in Tersi’s voice said it all. He pounded around the corner, his head filled with images of Tera hurt, dying, somehow killed by Aleksandr.
And stopped. They were there, almost all of them, peering into the room. With the door open, and none of them in there, he knew what he would find. He still walked through them to peer around the brig.
Empty. The thoughts of the last few minutes came crashing down and he closed his eyes briefly, tried to focus.
“I assume from the fact that you’re all standing here…”
“She took the shuttle,” Sphinx said simply. “Turned off the alert system, and took the shuttle.”
He looked at the room, aware of the sweat on his body, the way he looked less than composed—because he was, he had been compromised. Even if they did not know the extent of it, there was no hiding the fact that he had been outmaneuvered, and that all of them had been on the ship for weeks with a woman who could easily have killed them in their sleep.
He tried to think what to do. What would he have said to this a few weeks ago?
“Since she’s gone, there are a few things you should know.” He was not going to keep them in the dark any longer. She was gone; he could try to behave as if she had never been. “As only a few of you know, until two days ago, she was not aware that the allegations against Soras were true. She came here with the intent of finding our allies and killing all of us, and she was working to gain our trust and try to find our informants … until hearing that he was in fact the Warlord of Ymir.”
“She didn’t know it was true?” Loki asked, frowning.
“Would you assume that was true about your father?”
The question was sharper than Talon had meant it to be. Loki subsided at once.
“So why is she gone, if she knows he’s really the Warlord?” Sphinx’s eyebrows were raised. “Is she going to kill him?”
“I would say so.” Talon nodded to Nyx. “Except for the fact that Nyx heard her say that she was intending to leave him alone. From here on out, we can assume that she’s no longer helping us.”
If she ever was. He pushed the thought away and tried to consider the options.
“Get a message to him.” He looked over at Tersi.
“Sir?”
“However you have to do it. Send it through the damned admiralty board if you have to. We’re finishing this. We’ve been sneaking around trying to find him. He’ll come to us—he’ll want to face us down.”
“Are you sure of that?” Nyx asked him quietly, and Talon smiled.
“He wants to see me die.” And the truth was that right now that seemed like an amusing weakness in his enemy.
Nyx pressed her lips together but said nothing, and Talon looked around at all of them. He could remember speaking to Tera about this, telling her the guilt he felt to have his crew follow him into this.
“This is the final run,” he told them bluntly. “There’s a good chance we aren’t coming back from this. We’re going out against orders. Even if you make it out, your pension might be stripped. You’ll lose your rank. I’m going in because I don’t trust them to take him out—because whatever the hell they decide back on Gemini, I want him to pay. But this isn’t your fight. You don’t need to die for this. If any of you want to leave, we will detour to take you back, and I swear to you I will not think less of you. Some of you….” He did not look over at Loki. “Some of you are too young to die.”
There was a long silence.
“Boss.” It was Tersi.
“Yes?”
“We’re coming with you.” The man met his eyes. Behind him, Esu nodded. Nyx was smiling, arms crossed, her eyes warm. She inclined her head. Loki, still pale from blood loss, looked resolute; he flushed ever so slightly when Talon looked at him. Sphinx nodded her golden head and one by one the rest held up hands, met his eyes.
We’re with you to the end.
They did not mention the gap in their ranks, Mars and Camorra, or the ones from other teams who had left to go with Soras—their bunkmates, friends, sparring partners, confidantes. The ones they fully expected to have to kill in the confrontation that was coming. They, like he, had found a duty beyond their orders.
He could not have asked for finer companions. He nodded, his throat tight.
“Well, then. We move soon. I’m sending a message to Kuznetsova, one to Mase, one to Mallory. If they can get there in time, they’ll help us. Get your gear ready, do any medical checks you need. Even you, Nyx.” Everyone laughed, and Nyx gave a smiling salute. “I expect it to be a battle to get to him. The planet will be well defended, I’m sure.”
“Actually, sir, we’ve finished the trace.” Tersi cleared his throat. “It’s a ship. The Blad.”
“Blad?” Talon frowned.
“An old Norse word. Blade.” Tersi hesitated. “As of a few days ago, they were close.”
“Then he’ll get the message soon.” Something kindled in Talon’s blood, and he began to smile. “This is it. We’re going to finish this.”
“Sir.” Sphinx’s voice stopped them all cold.
“Yes?” He did not want to know what she was going to ask.
“What do we do if we see her?”
They swung back to look at him, and he froze. There was only one answer to the question. Tera had said she could not kill Soras, she was dangerous as hell, and if she was on the Blad…. He just had to make himself say it.
“You know how dangerous she is,” he said, trying to work around it. And then, in defeat, in acceptance: “None of you can take her in a fair fight.”
They waited, and Talon gathered his courage.
“If you see her … kill her.”
32
Her hands were steady as she disabled the alarm systems. She put a bug in the short-range scanners—they didn’t need those, no one was going to jump in on top of them—and she guided the shuttle away from the Ariane smoothly, banking out of the shipping lane and into a clear channel before accelerating away. She did what she had to do, because she was a professional and she was not going to be swayed by nerves or fear. That was the way to an early grave. She made level headed decisions and she got away cleanly.
Then she went into the back of the shuttle, wrapped her arms around herself, and sobbed until her throat was raw. She curled into the back corner like a child and stuffed her hand into her mouth so that no one would hear her, even though she knew no one could hear her across the vast reaches that already separated her from the Ariane. She cried at how far she was from the ship already, and because she could not understand why she should care.
She had believed that something real lay in the moments of tenderness—the touch of Talon’s forehead against hers, the way his hand cupped the back of her head, the lingering draw of his fingertips across her skin. She cried for the urgency in his kiss and the uninhibited, naïve freedom in her own. She cried because she still hoped, even here, even running, that he would not have killed her.
She cried because she knew better than that. If she could not trust her own father, there was no one in this world she could trust. She cried because she knew the way the dice fell, and she knew the right move. She was too dangerous to have lied to him and survived it.
And then, because there was nothing else to do and the tears had carried away the slow build of he
r pain, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and went to the controls and tried to figure out what to do. It did not take long. The shuttle was a short-range vehicle, with enough for one jump and little else, and there was only one inhabitable place she could get to with the resources to go further.
She set a course for SSW Station B4 and sat back in the seat with her arms crossed. She did not hum or talk to herself during the long hours as the shuttle approached the tiny speck of the station. She tried to draw the tattered remnants of herself around this strange new creature of flesh and blood and loss, and she wondered what she might be now that she was not Aleksandr’s assassin.
The station was, if anything, quieter than the last time she had come here. Tera approached the scrap sellers on the main plaza. She did not have it in her to skulk around the edges, watching her back to see what came next. The shuttle was sold quickly, more so because she hardly cared how much she got for it. Then she looked around the plaza and tried to figure out who she might ask for passage—and where she would go.
“Hello.” The voice came from behind her, at a small café. When Tera turned, she saw a woman with nut-brown skin, black eyes smiling, and hair cropped nearly to her head. Her lips curved without a trace of deception. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Any offer like this was a trap, but Tera found that she almost did not care. The prospect of danger would make a nice distraction. It stirred some life into a heart that ached. She went to take the chair opposite the woman, and waited while a waiter brought coffee, dark and thick, and two cubes of sugar that must have cost more than the table and chairs. She raised her eyebrows at the woman.
“Coffee is already a luxury out here,” the woman said, as if it explained anything. She watched the hesitation before Tera stirred the sugar into her coffee, and settled back into her own chair. “I’m surprised you accepted my offer, however.”
