by L. V. Lane
He did have a point.
Turning, he stalked back down the corridor.
I frowned. It was quiet, and the gunfire had ceased. “Playtime?”
“You really are baked,” he called over his shoulder. “Lucian has Tsing. If you hadn’t taken your helmet off, you would know it was over.”
I stuffed my helmet back on and jogged to catch up. “—a smug fucker,” Lucian said. “Get your ass over here, Black, before I shoot the prick in the foot.”
I followed Ethan out onto a spacious balcony where a twelve-seater granite-topped table housed a dinner setting for one. Dozens of potted shrubs, ornate statues—and even a fucking massive pool—were all enclosed within an ornate stone balustrade.
Dressed in a smart, royal-blue suit, with his blond hair disheveled and dark eyes flashing fury, stood Tsing braced between the hulking Deltas.
It was hard to quantify the experience of seeing his face, but I was sure I intended to break him in two. I would have, had Lucian not blocked my way.
No one tried to stop Ethan. His pace didn’t slow, and as he reached Tsing, he slapped him. A full impact, face slap that sent the smaller man tumbling.
Lucian winced. “Bitch slap for the win,” he muttered.
Tsing got to his knees just as Ethan reached him. Gripping an ankle, he dragged Tsing, screaming and kicking, over to the balcony and threw him over.
I swear I stopped breathing for a split-second until Tsing’s scream indicated his proximity, and I noticed Ethan’s fist still wrapped around his ankle.
“Where is she?” Ethan roared.
“She’s not here you madman!”
“You had a fucking meeting with her,” Ethan demanded.
“Canceled!”
“I was supposed to be point on this,” I said to Lucian. I had never seen Ethan like this. He could rip a man apart and still look fucking calm.
Lucian shrugged.
“She’s been here, and I fucking know it,” Ethan growled.
Tsing started screeching incoherent gibberish.
Ethan stilled. I thought for sure he was going to let the bastard drop, but he whipped Tsing back over the wall and tossed him to the floor.
“I know where she is,” Ethan said, voice hollow. My eyes played ball between Ethan and Tsing as I tried to work out how the fuck he could possibly know. Tsing rolled onto his back and pushed up to a sitting position, legs splayed, breathing hard, suit all torn up and bloody.
“She probably fled,” Tsing spat out. “Couldn’t stand the thought of a life with two brutes.”
“Where is she?” I asked softly.
Ethan stared hard at Tsing. “Salvation,” he said. “On Lyus.”
A flicker passed over Tsing’s face. I didn’t understand emotions, but I could recognize them.
“Son of a bitch,” Lucian murmured under his breath. Ethan didn’t react for several seconds. Then he turned his back on Tsing and motioned the two Deltas to collect him like they were his to command.
“Don’t mind me,” Lucian growled.
“Get the details, Ryker. Lucian, get your tech-guru on the exit flights and find out when she left.” He stalked past us toward the doorway leading into the apartment.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I need to call in some favors,” Ethan said. “A lot of fucking favors.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LEAVING THE TEAM on the balcony, I returned inside Tsing’s apartment. I just needed a minute to calm the fuck down before I did something stupid…like throw Tsing over the balcony.
I had taken two fucking days to get an answer I already knew. He was selling drugs that could turn non-dynamics into Omegas—Lilly’s research—to Salvation. They would want her, maybe they also knew about her blood, or maybe it was her research skills. Either way, Salvation would want her taken to their base, which was on Lyus.
Tall sepia-tinted floor to ceiling windows let the early evening light spill into the huge day room, where dark-brown furnishing met mahogany floors. Subtle spot-lights cast yellow beams onto buff walls covered in bold art. It had a new-world meets old-world quality to it—pretentious, like Tsing.
A cool breeze stirred the air and did nothing to temper my mood.
Self-reproach was not a new experience for me. I had spent years wondering what I might have done differently to have saved my younger brother’s life. So many fucking what-ifs it was a wonder I hadn’t cracked.
And now I had failed Lilly.
I sank into a dark headspace. Lilly had known I was out to destroy Tsing, probably guessed it was behind some of my extracurricular activities. But I had never told her the details of his suspected ties to Salvation. I should have trusted her with the information—I hadn’t. A part of my psyche, buried deep in animal instinct, rebelled against the idea that I would need to. I was the Alpha, and she should fucking obey me. And she would—I would make damn sure of it.
But her transgression did not warrant the consequence of Tsing throwing her to the monsters occupying Lyus.
“A ship took her to Lyus yesterday,” Ryker said, his voice stirring me from my brooding contemplation.
My head snapped around. His face was the empty one, not his game face, just empty, and I knew he was about to say more. Lyus had been a cesspit when I lived there; recent reports suggested it was much worse now.
“Salvation runs some sort of sick games there.” The blood drained from my face. “A contest,” he elaborated then swallowed. “Pit fighting sort of contest.”
“Can we intercept them?” I should know the answer, but it was like every cell in my brain had fried at the ‘pit’ reference. I knew all about the Pit.
He shook his head. “Lucian doesn’t think so. He knows the people who run it…”
He trailed off, but I didn’t need more. I’d been absent all of three fucking minutes. “I know the people who run the Pit, but they weren’t offering Omegas as a prize last I heard. If she’s up as a prize, I guarantee it’s rigged.”
“He doesn’t think he can stop it,” Ryker said.
Of course Lucian couldn’t fucking stop it, even I didn’t have the level of sway needed to stop it.
“You know what this means?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
Nodding, I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “It means I’m calling in a different favor.”
We left for Lyus, taking Tsing with us.
I needed an interstellar ship, and I’d called in another favor to get one. The vessel belonged to the military, had recently had the engines upgraded, and was undergoing an internal refurbishment in Chimera’s orbital spaceport. Due to a critical shipment delay, the shipyard had set it aside and moved onto other work pending arrival of the missing components.
To say the ship was a mess was an understatement of massive proportions. It had been stripped bare, wall and floor panels were missing or hanging off to expose pipework and cabling. Lighting was sporadic, comforts few, and it was noisy as fuck.
But I took it because it was now three full days since Lilly had been taken, and all I cared about was reaching Lyus on time.
I wanted to carve Tsing up myself, but Ryker was better at interrogation. I needed to know what was happening to Lilly and every nuance of what we could expect when we arrived.
Details that Tsing was going to give up.
The ship’s bridge was tiny. It had one battered pilot chair that bore multiple stab wounds and even a couple of gouges—I was guessing the refurbishment team had been bored one day. Half the console was disabled, only critical systems remained operational, and the main display viewer was warped due to a long, diagonal crack.
But it was enough for what I needed, and with the course and clearance set, I was about to head over to see what Ryker was up to with Tsing when I received an urgent communication from Lucian. Remaining on Chimera, Lucian had loaned me a dozen of his personal security team as support for the trip to Lyus, including Jordan and Kade.
“I’ve got a file
for you,” Lucian said. He was in his office at Peppermint Moon, wearing a smart, dark suit…the viewer crack gave him a partially severed head. “It’s from my guy. Fucker has marked it private—from me—from everyone but you. I threatened to gut him if he didn’t tell me. He threatened to transfer all my money to a gecko sanctuary. A fucking gecko sanctuary! And I know he wasn’t bluffing. I’m sending it through now. Don’t ask me for any more fucking favors!”
The screen blanked out and was replaced with a file—the title was: Lilly.
I was alone, and I hit the lock on the door to ensure I wasn’t interrupted.
Then I began to read.
Her research, her blood, her secrets, all of them were out. I’d thought she was a sneaky little brat, now I knew it was true. She could have gone to fucking prison for the things she had done to keep her secret. It wasn’t her secret anymore—it was my secret, too. And Ryker’s because the psycho would definitely want fucking in.
The shared dreams were only the beginning, and her notes suggested a psychic connection far beyond that of ordinary bonding. Her blood was changing us, not a temporary change, but a permanent change to our bodies and our minds.
The physical changes were easy to accept; to have increased strength, stamina, and rapid healing locked in were a gift.
But the changes to the synaptic connections? She had only theorized on what that might mean beyond this deeper psychic connection.
Then there was that sentence with a question mark beside it that gave me shivers—Blood and power.
Whatever the fuck that meant would have to wait.
At the end of a file was a blinking message, which I presumed came from Lucian’s man. It read: You owe me, Black.
My lips tugged up in an involuntary smile. “That I do,” I said.
Time to locate Ryker. I’d been told he had commandeered a room and was about to begin questioning Tsing. Whatever Ryker’s failings, he had skills when it came to interrogation. Not that Tsing had a hope in hell of holding out against an amateur. Still, Ryker had a level of clinical creativity that would get the job done quickly.
When I entered the room Ryker had selected, the two Deltas were busy strapping Tsing onto a bare metallic medical cot. He was sitting at a slight incline, with enough sturdy straps to keep him in place. The room, like the rest of the ship, was bare and utilitarian. A temporary light had been hooked up directly via a cable in an open wall panel. It cast harsh lighting over Tsing while leaving the rest of the room in shadows. There was a sink on one wall, and a long, portable table on the other side where Ryker had laid out three containers.
Ryker had told me about Tsing’s experiments with Lilly during transit from Tolis to Chimera, so I surmised he was ‘setting the scene’.
“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the arm-length box-like device with a flat interactive surface on one side, a laser plate on the other, and three clear tubes emerging from the front.
“Mobile operator,” Ryker said, all business as he set up his stuff. “You can program it to perform surgery. I’ve had this one reconfigured.” He grinned.
The two Deltas took up casual positions out of Ryker’s way. The room was compact, and there was little space, but both were riveted by the proceedings and appeared to be settling in for the show.
Tsing’s ashen face was bruised. I’d slapped the bastard myself more than once, but it looked like he’d received a few more.
“It works best when used with this!” Ryker whipped another contraption from his ‘toy box’; a metallic, hollowed, half-sphere with a couple of protruding bolts on either side. It looked a bit like a helmet. “I discovered this a couple of years ago. Locks the eye direction. Genius!”
I raised a brow. How the fuck did Ryker find this stuff?
Tsing was doing an admirable job of trying to ignore the proceedings—but he surprised me by fainting dead away.
Ryker chuckled.
“He’s had a neural implant that shuts his mind down,” Jordan said, nudging his head at Tsing. “They usually have a mental trigger, some sort of image they visualize. Makes interrogation a bastard.”
“I need fucking answers,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Ryker said, rummaging in his box of tricks.
He pulled out a drill—a real fucking drill, like he was about to engage in a spot of DIY.
I cut a glance at the two Deltas, but they appeared as baffled by this development as me.
“I discovered this by accident,” Ryker said. “I got bored while I was questioning an Uncorrupted General who kept pulling the blacking-out trick. I figured I had nothing to lose and would have a poke around in his brain.”
I grimaced. Who the fuck said things like that?!
“I’m trusting you with my trade secrets,” he said seriously, brandishing the drill and pinning all three of us with a look. He gave the drill a quick test, and the fine bit spun around with an electronic whirr.
Without further preamble, he strapped Tsing’s head into position, fitted the metal cap, and proceeded to drill a hole in the center of his forehead.
I wasn’t a squeamish man, but Ryker took macabre to a whole other level. He looked…happy. I’d thought he was fucked-up before he whipped out his power tool and started drilling into a brain.
Tsing regained consciousness with a blood-curdling scream.
“Nice work,” Kade said. The dark-haired Delta nodded as though impressed.
I admit I was impressed, too.
A thin trickle of blood rolled down Tsing’s face as Ryker removed the drill and gave Tsing an affectionate tap on the cheek. “Wanna try that again so I can check we’re good before I put my drill away?”
Tsing’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and I thought he might blackout for real.
Ryker gave his cheek a firmer slap. “Ah-ah. None of that or I’ll need to give you a shot of my special wake-up serum. Plays havoc with the blood flow, and there’s a small risk you might bleed out during the procedure, so I don’t like to use it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to die today, Tsing, so we’ll keep that in reserve, yeah?”
He started to turn the bolts on the side of the helmet thing. Tsing screamed again, and rivulets of blood spilled down the sides of his face.
The doctor’s eyes were screwed shut, but Ryker twisted something on the side of the helmet, making Tsing suddenly contort against the straps.
His eyelids popped open, and his screams had turned toward stuttered, furious breaths.
“Do you want to talk now?” Ryker asked. “Because if you don’t I’m going to start, and once I get into my flow…let’s just say, I don’t like to leave a job half-finished if you know what I mean.”
Tsing talked. He talked a lot, and with every word that spilled from his lips, I sank deeper into hell.
He had been selling her blood to the Uncorrupted via Salvation for months.
She was on a ship bound for Lyus, and they were going to be taking much more.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“CAN YOU PLEASE put me down…Ohh!”
An inelegant snort escaped me as Hudson tossed me onto the bed. I scrambled to sit up, brushing the hair from my face.
Hudson’s regular home base was an old industrial conversion, and all the living space was in a single, high-ceilinged room. Black, metal, gray, and those retro-light fittings that dangled from the ceiling. It wasn’t something I would have picked, but it was perfect for Hudson, and I liked it a lot.
I’d tried to soften it up a bit. It was fun to place a few soft things here or there. He growled when he had found a decadent lilac throw, and I knew what he was thinking—nesting and heat.
About knotting me.
He’d fucked me in, on and over everything and everywhere he could, but he’d been particularly enthusiastic the day he found that lilac throw. He’d laid it out on the wide couch and then set about getting it all dirty as he fucked me on it.
The fire in his indigo-blue eyes sa
id he was about to fuck me again.
“Strip that fucking dress off now!” Hudson commanded from the bottom of the bed where he stood, nostrils flared in anger, hands braced on hips. “You know better than to leave home like that. I warned you, kitten. Now it’s time for your punishment.”
Punishment, just the word could send a shiver down my spine. I’d only been out for fifteen minutes, and the Healer dress wasn’t that bad.
Time together hadn’t gentled him toward me; he was still big, growly, and downright scary when he glared at me like he was now.
“Punishment?” When I’d put the dress on, I’d imagined a little spanking when he got me back home. Now, I was feeling far less sure about the desired outcome. He’d gotten that warning glint in his eyes that told me I’d bitten off more than I could chew. With hindsight, Hudson wasn’t the kind of Alpha you teased.
He didn’t answer, but instead caught hold of his T-shirt and ripped it over his head before tossing it to the floor.
My breath caught in my throat. That body, huge, Alpha, and rippling with ropy muscle was enough to bring me to my knees.
“I’m not going to bother counting. I think we both know I’m going to keep going until you beg me to fuck your tight ass.”
I think I might have come a little. My legs squeezed together and slick gathered in anticipation of whatever Hudson would do. This definitely wasn’t the outcome I’d hoped for, but the heat in his gaze was enough to make me a breathless mess.
“I—” How the fuck was I supposed to get out of this. “James, please.” My mind scrambled for a distraction. “You had a call from Ethan!” I still wanted to gut Ethan Black with a blunt spoon after he pretended to be an Uncorrupted soldier back on Tolis…and he didn’t tell me Hudson was safe! But he had left three messages for Hudson earlier. I was willing to grasp at any opportunity to divert Hudson’s wrath. “He said it was urgent…something about Lyus. He said he needed a favor!”
My breath caught in my throat as I realized my distraction might have worked.
