Dark Runner: LodeStar 3.5 (10 page)

Trix and Darry were waiting for them astride one of two gleaming hovercycles. Scala waited stoically as Darkrunner mounted the other. It just figured she had to ride with him.

He powered the cycle up, and then raised an ebony brow at her. She stepped lightly astride behind him, then gave a hiss as the seat compressed, pushing her against his back.
 

“There’s not enough room,” she complained, flattening her hands on his back and shoving. He didn’t budge.

“It’s cozy,” he said. “You can put your arms round me if you like.”

“How about around your neck? I could shove on your larynx a while.”

“Another time, Snake Eyes. Hang on,” he said, and the cycle lifted off, turned sharply and zipped through the huge spaceport. Scala grabbed the edge of the seat behind her. She’d be seven times damned before she’d cling to him the way Trix was to Darry, arms wrapped around his waist, chin on his shoulder.
 

Still, Scala was unable to suppress a thrill of excitement as the craft zipped out of the bay and into the heat of a Solarian summer evening. It had been so long since she’d been on her home planets.

The sky shone with muted golden light, shading to deep red on the western horizon. The mountains ranged jagged against the sky to the east, and the desert stretched out in waves of golden sand to the north, providing a frame for Serpentia, which loomed like a great golden disc on the horizon. A sandstorm raged on Serpentia, an ominous brown blotting out all in its path. Her native home was beautiful in an austere way, but harsh and deadly for the unwary.
 

Now that she was away from the
Z’
s air-conditioning, she was glad to be wearing the brief tank, so she could feel the heat of the air on her skin. Darkrunner had to be baking in his leather duster—at least she hoped he was. At least he didn’t stink of sweat like many humans on Serpentia. The heat only intensified his spicy, male scent.
 

They cruised along the wide, dusty street through the space port, past hangers, warehouses and craft repair shops interspersed with bars, restaurants and shops selling everything from clothing to souvenirs.
 

She smiled to herself at the familiar toys in one window. Maybe she’d buy a lifelike viperbot and slip it into his bunk. Be fun to watch him laser the hells out of his own bed.

* * *

Tal landed in a paid lot on the roof of the huge bar called The Black Hole. The holomarquee featured extremely well-endowed strippers tossing their brief garments into the depths of a black hole swirling behind them. Music and the muffled beat of drums reverberated through the hot air, mingling with the hushed rumble of a transport overhead and the higher whine of a cruiser taking off.

As the hovercycle settled onto the landing pad, he looked over his shoulder at his passenger. He’d enjoyed having her plastered against his back. Slim and strong though she was, the Serp was soft in the right places. Her breasts were small, but they were high and round, with long stiff nipples that made his mouth water. He could feel the heat of her lower body through his duster. Sitting in the vee of her thighs was giving him a hard-on.

Thus far, she was the highlight of this journey. She had a temper as hot as the heat baking through his leathers. Much as Tal wanted to fuck her, it was just as much fun to piss her off and watch those slanted, thickly lashed eyes of hers go molten gold with fury. If he decided to seduce her, he might have to actually apologize for some of his taunting, verbal and physical. It was either that or restrain those lethal arms and legs of hers, because while she’d love to wrap them around his neck, he’d prefer them around him a bit lower down.

Anyway, she was only a passing fancy. He was here for another woman. One who might resemble this one physically, but in other ways she was different as night from day. Kiri was a lady, with fire and spirit, but with a gentle sweetness which fascinated him. Now that Logan Stark was gone—straight to the seventh hell, Tal hoped—she needed a man to look out for her.
 

In return she’d make a home for him, a place of refuge from the harshness of his world. Warm and inviting, like her tiny apartment and even her little coffee shop at the space port had been. She was one of those females who had the mysterious ability to class up any space she inhabited.

He couldn’t wait to see what Kiri could do with his money and her class. Probably turn the Flash into a classy club like his competition, Le Tigre. She could have free rein ... although not in his office. And not aboard the
Z.
He liked bling, and a man had a right to keep some spaces his own.

Once he proved to her he’d only been keeping her safe when he kidnapped her, Kiri would give him another chance to prove he was the man for her. Of course that would mean no more entertaining himself with women like the one on his hovercycle. That would be disappointing, but no doubt worth it.

“Hop off, Snake Eyes,” he ordered.

When his passenger didn’t move, he looked over his shoulder. She was staring at the dusty surface below the cycle as if it was a deadly pit. Her throat worked as she swallowed. Then she rubbed her palms on her thighs. Hells, the fiery warrior was scared. She needed to be snapped out of it, fast.

“I dare you,” he taunted.
 

She glared at him, her sexy eyes going molten. “Fine,” she hissed. “When they arrest me, I’m telling them who
you
are. You won’t like Serpentian jail.”

He merely grinned at her, until she swung her leg up before her and over the cycle, thunking the back of his head in the process. Damn, there went his neck again.

“Sorry,” she said with sugary sweetness, and slid from the cycle.

He stepped off behind her, tilting his head to crack his neck joints back into place. “Funny, I don’t hear any alarms, do you?” he asked. “Guess you’re not as important as you thought.”

“Ha, ha.” She’d landed crouched, scanning the area, arms out as if ready for battle. Now she straightened and hustled away from him as if he’d burned her.

Darry and Trix landed beside them.
 

“The scrambler’s working.” Trix sounded disappointed.
 

Good thing she didn’t have control of it, or it probably wouldn’t be. Trix was attractive if you liked the gamine type, and she sucked cock like a courtesan, but the Serpentian was prettier and Trix knew it.
 

Hells, Scala Raj was more than pretty, she was a stunner with those heavy-lidded, tilted, bedroom eyes of her, and that sultry, pouty mouth. And her body was killer in more ways than one. The way her round ass rolled when she walked was probably illegal in some places.

“Yeah, Trix, why don’t you make an announcement about the scrambler to the whole port, in case they have surveillance up here?” Darry muttered, cutting a look around the parking area. He gave Scala a wink. “You’ll be fine.”

She smiled at him and Tal groaned inwardly. Darry was a fool for pussy. If Trix found him in the Serp’s bunk without her okay, there’d be hell to pay aboard the
Z
, and then Tal would have to follow through on his threat and dump his newest hire.

“As long as you behave yourself,” Tal added, curving his hand around Scala’s slender nape and giving a warning squeeze.

“With your standards, that leaves me plenty of ways to entertain myself,” she retorted. “Hells, I can murder a few citizens and steal a cruiser for laughs.”

“Only if I tell you to kill them,” he said amiably. “You’re my serpent—for now.”

They stepped into the elevator.
 

“It’s so hard to properly insult a man who feeds off the bottom of society,” she mused aloud. “If I accuse you of being honest, or kind, would that do it?”

Darry chuckled, though it ended in a grunt as Trix elbowed him.

“I hear a lot of ships’ crew hang out at the Black Hole,” Trix said. “Probably you’ll see some of your old mates from the
Orion
. Won’t that be fun?”

“Not as much fun as watching you fend off the Gorglons who hang out there,” Scala replied. “They love redheads.”

Darry rolled his eyes at Tal over Trix’s head. Tal sighed inwardly. This was why he only kept around one female at a time, he remembered now.

 
The Black Hole was big, deafeningly loud and dangerously rowdy. This was only to be expected here in Sunspot City, one of the toughest space-ports in the galaxy. Tonight the bar was full of raucous spaceport and dock workers, off-duty spaceship crew and space vagrants.
 

A band sent music crashing over the crowd, along with streamers of color and light. The strippers gyrated on tiny hoverstages over the crowd. Tal saw males and females from several planets in various stages of nudity. He eyed a lithe, lovely auburn-haired Serpentian with appreciation but winced at the nude Mau female on the next stage. He did not need to see that.

Dalg was easy to spot, standing at the nearby bar, a huge mug in his hand, transfixed by the charms of the Mau stripper. Great, they’d need to link him three times to get him back to the ship—or leave without him.
 

The doors were thrown open to catch any breezes that might stray in off the Solarian desert. Despite the huge fans turning overhead, the smell of alcohol, fried food and sweat pervaded the air. It was a hot night on Solaria, and this crowd had been drinking and probably drugging enough that both tempers and lusts were running even hotter.
 

Scala twitched like a drugger under his hand.

“Relax,” he said in her ear, so she could hear him over the bad tekrock the band was pounding out. “You’re fucking ready to leap out of your skin.”

“Right,” she replied, trying to twist out of his hold. “Like you care.”

For some reason, he wanted her right where she was. She was annoying and he didn’t trust her a centimeter, but she was his crew now, which made her
his
. And he looked out for his people.

He tightened his grip on her neck, scanning the room for the man they were to meet. “I don’t care, except you’re getting on
my
last nerve.”

She snorted. “You don’t have any.”

That was true. His nerves had been cauterized long ago, seared away by living so long with death looking over his shoulder it became meaningless.

“The local gestapo is not going to find you,” he said, leaning in to give what no doubt looked like a lover-like nip on her earlobe, except he let his teeth sink into the tender flesh hard enough to sting. She tasted fresh and smelled like pure sin. “That scrambler is strong enough to hide a skrog ... not that your ass is
that
big.”

She hissed with anger and elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“My ass is stellar. Not that you’ll ever know.” Fluttering her lashes at him, she leaned in and flicked her pink, forked tongue over the corner of his mouth.

It left a wet glow there, as if she’d branded him. The flicker of heat shot straight to his cock. He let go of her neck.

“Not like your tights hide anything, Snake Eyes. You put that forked tongue on me again, and I’ll drop you to your knees where you can do some good with it.”

He felt her smirk of satisfaction. “You liked it?”

“As someone said to me recently—you’ll never know.”

“You about done flirting? Because I think I see our man,” Darry said behind them. “By the back wall.”

Tal ignored the idiocy about flirting. He never flirted. He negotiated, he connived, he seduced. He didn’t need to flirt, for fuck’s sake. “I see him. Come on.”

He forged through the crowd toward the back of the huge bar, knowing they’d follow him. He did need to get his mind back on business. Sex was secondary, always.
 

Their contact was a burly man with a clean-shaven skull and a tattoo of a serpent up one arm, with a word on it in script Tal couldn’t read. The man nodded a greeting and took another drink of his ale, watching them over the top of the bottle. Veganut shells littered his small table around an empty bowl.

“‘Laala?’” Scala asked, looking at the snake tattoo. “That your lady?”

The man relaxed slightly. “She is. You Serpentian too?”

“I am. I’m...Soli.”

“Hey, Soli. I’m Tom.”

“Buy you another ale?” Tal asked, pulling out a stool across the table from the man. He kicked out the stool next to him and gave ‘Soli’ a look. She slid onto the stool.
 

Darry pulled out another for Trix, who shook her head. “I’ve gotta use the lav.” She headed off through the crowd.

“I’ll have another drink,” Tom agreed.

“I’m going to dance,” Scala announced, sliding off her stool. She winked at Tal. “Since you like to watch my ass so much.”

Darry stood to one side, his back to the wall, keeping watch. Or maybe just admiring Scala, who was already swaying to the music as she worked her way through the crowd to the edge of the dance floor. Luckily for Tal, she was also in his line of sight. He watched as she raised her slender arms and writhed with uninhibited grace. He and Darry weren’t the only ones watching her, either. Tal exchanged a look with his lieutenant at the lustful gazes turning her way. The woman had something, an untamed sensuality that was riveting even in this largely Serp crowd.