03 Solar Flare - Spark Series (29 page)

“If you’re adopting my culture,” he said as
he reached beneath her to play, “You should know that we value
marks of valor.”

“Azor,” she gasped. She wasn’t interested in
his conversation, not if his fingers were doing that. “Not
now!”

He chuckled, shaking inside her most
deliciously. “I can’t help who I am. I like it. They turn me on.”
He moved inside to demonstrate how very hard he was. He groaned.
Muttering to himself, he said, “If I’d known how hot you’d make me,
I would’ve seduced you years ago.”

She panted. She couldn’t imagine going in
back in time, doing this with him. They’d had to take this road to
end up here…. A surge of pleasure interrupted her train of thought.
Quieting, her mind focused on the pulse of him moving in and out in
a slow glide. The present consumed her.

Suddenly the door chimed. They froze, panting
with delayed desire.

“Azor, it’s important,” Ryven’s voice came,
calm, yet urgent.

Azor snarled silently. “Five minutes,” he
finally called. He didn’t wait for an answer, just picked up his
rhythm and finished her off, biting her neck as he came in a
violent burst.

She lay there trembling, too weak to move as
he slid off the bed and drew on his pants.

“This better be good,” he muttered as he
yanked his shirt on. He gave her a fast kiss and tossed a blanket
over her as he went to the door. He stepped outside.

She closed her eyes and groaned. She didn’t
want to disturb the feeling of drugging bliss, but acknowledged the
necessity. Reluctantly, she slid from the bed and cleaned up.
Whatever the emergency was, it probably involved her, too. Trust
her to have some kind of disaster strike on her wedding night.

Azor came in as she was clumsily sliding into
her pants. He helped, though he looked a little distracted by all
her bare skin. “If I already didn’t have to kill him, I’d kill
him.”

“What?” she asked, distracted as she watched
him fasten her pants.

He groaned at the sight of her bare chest and
quickly drew a shirt over her head. “Our navigator has gone rogue.
The found a dead body in a storage locker. He’d been gutted.”

Her eyes widened. “Dead? I thought you had a
watch on the ship. You were thawing him to collect evidence,
right?”

“He came awake much faster than expected, and
in a nasty mood. The assassin’s good,” he said grimly. “Now we hunt
him.”

She drew a breath and retrieved her fighting
sticks. Her balance might be rather clumsy, but she could still do
some damage with a pair of clubs. “How do we know he’s an
assassin?”

“Circumstance,” he admitted. “We got word
some time ago of a threat against you. We’ve been keeping watch on
Kikin since we got here, since he is the only one who Vio would
have been able to bribe.”

She blinked. “Vio! Vio Srie? Why would he
want to harm me?”

“Xera can fill you in,” he assured her as
they hurried through the hall and into Xera’s suite. There were six
guards outside her door. Brandy spared them a passing glance as
they went inside. Her impression was of charcoal uniforms, red eyes
and lots of guns.

“Brandy!” Xera said as she came in the door.
“The kids are in the next room with their nanny and a guard. Come
with me. We should stay together.”

“What are we dealing with?” Brandy looked at
Azor, ignoring her sister for now. “No knows more about shifters
than you do.”

He shook his head. “He’s not my kind. I’m
laying odds it’s Hatir; there aren’t many other likely candidates.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a DNA analysis. They don’t work on
an assumed form.”

“And we’ll know he’s assumed the form of a
Scorpio…how?” she asked. “If DNA doesn’t work, do you have some
other form of identification?” She could easily imagine the havoc
an assumed face could cause.

There was a beat of silence. “Questions work.
There are things the Hatir couldn’t know,” Ryven said grimly.
“Meanwhile, none of these guards will leave their posts until we’ve
caught the creature. I can vouch for all of their identities.”

“Why now? If he really has been traveling
with us this whole time….” She glanced at Azor.

It was Ryven who answered. “There was no
reason for the assassin to wait until you reached here to kill you.
He had the opportunity before, and was far more likely to escape
retribution. The most likely explanation is that someone—this Vio
Srie—has a vendetta against your family. He hired assassins to kill
both you and your sister.” He glanced at Xera. His eyes were cold.
“He was told to kill Xera first, to make you watch and suffer.
Perhaps the children, if he could get to them.”

A chill made Brandy stiffen in her chair.
Protective fury for her family made her voice wintry, too. “Kill
him.” She raised her eyes to Ryven, then Azor. “You do what you
have to. Make him stop.” The last word was low, vibrating with
rage. No one threatened her family.

Ryven actually smiled at her. “My
pleasure.”

Azor kissed her quickly. “Trust your
instincts. You can apologize later for hitting someone.”

She grinned at him. “I’ll remind you that you
gave me permission.”

He smiled, then stood back and glanced at
Xera. “If you’re offended by nakedness, turn around. I need to
change.”

Xera frowned as he took off his shirt, and
then blinked in sudden comprehension. She looked to the side, away
from anything incriminating, but did not leave. “If you don’t mind,
I’d like to see you change forms. I’ve never had the
opportunity.”

He shrugged. “All in the family.” He glanced
at Ryven. “I’m going to track him by smell and mind trace. I’ll be
able to talk—barely. Listen close. It takes energy to shift.” As he
finished speaking, his form began to blur. The change took less
than a minute and didn’t seem to pain him, but there were sounds.
Bones popped, joints creaked. There was a soft shushing sound as
muscles contracted and adapted to his new bone structure. He hands
became huge clawed paws as he dropped down into the form of a
predator. Covered in short gray hair, his hind legs were improbably
short, the haunches powerful, built for leaping and springing. His
forequarters were muscled, outsized on his lean, bony body. His
ribs were defined, as if he were a half-starved, mad dog. The face
was lupine, with massive jaws and small ears. His eyes glinted
green.

“Impressive,” Ryven said. He carefully
admired the form. “Useful.”

Brandy, who had an idea just how talented he
was to be able to assume that form, smiled. Even knowing him, she
couldn’t prevent a tiny thrill of fear. He was terrifyingly ugly.
“As long as you change back by bedtime. I’d wake up at night and
think I was about to be eaten.”

Azor uttered a coughing growl that might have
been a laugh. “Go,” he said to Ryven, and headed toward the
door.

There was a minor commotion as they exited.
Ryven had to place his hand on Azor’s head to assure his men that
the beast was working with them. It was a testament to their
training that they were quickly calmed. The beast was not a
reassuring sight.

Xera sighed once they had gone. “You chose an
interesting man, sis.” She glanced at Brandy’s face and grimaced.
“Tell me that stuff washes off. You look like you’re covered in war
paint.” She headed for the room with her children.

“It wears off…eventually,” Brandy said,
unperturbed. “It gives the community time to greet me as Azor’s
bride.”

“Believe me, the community already knows,”
Xera muttered. “They’ve heard as far as Rsik and Polaris. I think
Ryven’s relieved that his brother got hitched before he could ever
meet you. A connection by his brother and his wife might have been
too much for him.”

“I doubt he needed to worry. Not all of us
are attracted to ice pops,” she said under her breath, and she
dropped the subject as the kids came into view. Embri was too young
to understand, but Ami didn’t need to know that Brandy begrudged
her father.

She switched languages and said, “Fill me in
on the details, would you? I still don’t understand why Vio would
want to assassinate me.” She listened as Xera obliged, astonished
to hear of Dr. Vhanee’s death. His illegal drug experiments floored
her. “He arranged to dose me? What….” When words failed, she shook
her head. “All these hallucinations I’ve been having are his
fault?”

Xera looked at her sharply. “What
hallucinations?”

Brandy abruptly shut her mouth. She colored,
embarrassed. “It’s nothing. They’re just distracting, that’s
all.”

Xera sat on the edge of the bed and stared at
her with determination. “Tell me. If that monster did something to
you, we need to see what we can do to reverse it. I can’t believe
you haven’t even told Azor! Didn’t he notice?”

Brandy shifted in her chair. “It’s not as if
he could see what goes on in my head. I didn’t want him to think I
was nuts.” When Xera just looked at her, she reluctantly added,
“They were mostly visions of your husband, anyway.” A strange look
crossed Xera’s face, and Brandy added sheepishly, “He was trying to
kill you.”

Xera frowned. “Is this why you dislike him so
much?”

“Well, no. I think I would have hated him
regardless.” She offered a weak smile at Xera’s disapproval. “You
can’t make me like him, you know.”

Xera huffed. “I’ll set him to it, then.
Stubborn brat.”

Brandy smiled and turned to Ami, who was
watching them solemnly. She didn’t like the worry she saw there, so
she moved from her chair to the bed and patted the place beside
her. “Come, Ami. Story time! Pick out a favorite and sit with me.
I’ll practice reading in your language. You can help me when I say
the words wrong.”

Ami looked relieved at the distraction and
quickly got a reader. So Brandy settled in to entertain the
children, all the while wondering what the men might be doing.

It didn’t take Azor long to adapt to his new
form. He’d often tracked as a jaqki, had more than once used the
form to track shape shifters. The creature’s unique senses were
superb at tracking his kind, and its quick intelligence had made it
a fearsome predator on his native planet. Now extinct in the wild,
a handful had been preserved by the Kiuyians to serve as models for
those few shape shifters with the talent to assume the form.

“Hatir,” he growled as he caught the scent,
looking at Ryven to see if he comprehended. At his nod, Azor
lowered his head. He wasn’t surprised to scent the Hatir so close
to their quarters. He would have scouted the area before he
struck.

The trouble with tracking a shifter was their
ability to travel unusual pathways. They could slither through
vents and ooze under doorways. Hatir also had the ability to shift
more often than a Kiuyian, and to maintain their chosen shape
indefinitely. Though Azure couldn’t follow him in his present form,
he could trace the unique signature of the Hatir’s mind. As
distinct as scent, he could follow it with his thoughts, detecting
the looping trails the Hatir made through the ship.

It took him a good twenty minutes, but soon
he could feel the Hatir’s signature growing stronger, white-hot in
his mind. It was a struggle to contain the instincts of the jaqki.
The predator in him felt hunger.

He looked up at Ryven and growled softly.

Ryven stared back at him, his eyes canny. “He
is close?”

Reminded of his goal, Azure returned to the
scent of his true prey.

Distracted by hunger, it was a while before
Azor realized where he was and where the Hatir’s scent was going.
The shape shifter had made a neat loop and was headed back toward
their quarters. His eyes widened as a thought occurred to him and
he glanced at Ryven. In spite of all their precautions, there was
one form the assassin could take. “Warn them,” he said hoarsely
through thickened vocal cords. “The assassin is you.”

Ryven’s eyes flared, and he was speaking on
the com net even as he broke into a sprint. The man was fast, but
not four legged. Azor didn’t dare leave his side for fear he’d be
shot at first sight. Together they were recognizable, apart….

But they were too late. He could hear the
chaos erupt as he closed in on the hall leading to their rooms. The
assassin had already gotten through.

Brandy looked up as Ryven came in. For a
moment she thought she was having a vision. It was those eyes—flat
cold, blood hungry. Only this time she understood what she was
seeing. Their guard did not know, and her hesitation cost him his
life. He died with a greeting on his lips and a knife through his
throat.

When the assassin turned to them, Brandy was
ready. She met the downward thrust of his bloody knife with her
crossed batons, saving Xera’s life. “Assassin!” she yelled,
spurring Xera to action. “The kids!”

Xera leapt in front of her kids and their
terrified nurse. She hoped Xera would have the sense to lead them
out the door if she could edge the assassin away from it. She could
hear pounding on the door, then ominous quiet. She hoped they were
going to blow it open. They didn’t have time for delays.

The assassin was fast. Her legs wobbled under
her, barely able to withstand the strain as she ducked and parried.
She had seconds, and there was nothing she could do. At best she
could buy them time to save the children. She couldn’t see what the
others were doing, completely focused on blocking one more cut, one
more slash of death.

And then it was over. His knife connected, a
sharp, piecing pain though her left breast. A little high for
instant death, but close enough. She was finished.

She collapsed, one baton caught under her
bleeding torso. She heard Xera’s cry of rage, saw her raise a
gun…

It got dark. She was aware of an odd warmth
where the pain had been, a surge of energy that flowed into the
fire that was her heart. Quick as thought, the healing surge sealed
the cuts, washed away the blood. Breath returned, and rational
thought. Her mind felt crisp and clear as she slowly got to her
feet. The energy spread, washed through her legs, steadied what was
unstable, mended what was torn.