In the Devil's Nebula (Phoenix Adventures #2) (4 page)

He flopped on his gel bed, trying to enjoy
the undulations beneath him. The runner still needed work and
wasn’t ready for much action yet. He snatched his entertainment
visor from beside the bedside table and slipped it on. Maybe a
little simulation would take his mind off things.

Instantly he was in the cockpit of an Old
Earth fighter jet. He’d always been obsessed by them when he was
young. He saw them as an early precursor to the Talons he’d flown
with the Strike Wing. Sleek, sexy, and powerful.

The engines fired and then the plane was
racing down the deck of a ship. He pulled at the controls and then
he was airborne. The plane soared out high over a vast expanse of
azure water. All Zayn could see was ocean all the way to the
horizon. They said what was left of Earth today still had
oceans—but they were black with sludge and full of mutated sea
creatures from the nuclear fallout of the war.

The plane roared through the sky and he
turned it into intricate maneuvers. Speed. It fueled his blood,
made him forget. He pushed the plane, feeling the G-force pushing
him back in his seat. Modern starships could adjust for
acceleration forces, so flying wasn’t quite as physical as it had
once been. But reflexes were still important and his were honed
superfine.

But none of that had helped him when he
needed it most.

The simulation, linked to his thoughts,
morphed. He was back in his TH47 Talon. Ahead, he saw a neon-red
haze fill the sky. The ocean beneath him turned into the
impenetrable dark of space, dotted with bright, white stars.

The Devil’s Nebula enclosed him, trapped
him.

Ahead he saw Lucifa, the hunk of rock the
criminals, slavers, thieves and killers called home.

His hands trembled on the controls. He
wanted to open fire, to raze it to nothing with his laser weapons.
Jesus
. He fought for air. He didn’t use guns anymore, of any
kind. Guns killed in an instant and sometimes they killed the wrong
people.

Lucifa came closer, filling the viewscreen
of his ship. He heard sobbing, a woman’s sobbing. Zayn felt his
heart pounding, his chest tightening. Now he was running, rushing
through a maze of rooms.

Then he heard the gunshot.

And the silence after it.

Then alarms blaring.

Fuck
. Zayn tore the visor off. The
low light in his room speared into his eyes. He leaped off the bed,
trying to shake off the past. It was done. Gone. He had to learn to
live with it.

It was then he realized the screech of the
alarm hadn’t stopped. He glanced over at the control panel on the
wall.

It was the proximity alarm for their
base.

Someone had infiltrated the Phoenix
headquarters.

Ria cursed. She’d tripped an alarm.

By the dagger, she was out of practice. If
she’d done this in her training, her instructor’s punishment would
have been swift and cruel.

She fought the overwhelming urge to move.
Instead she stayed still, buried in the shadows of the large
hangar. She was crouched beside a…she peered at the lump of twisted
metal. She wasn’t entirely sure.

The sound of running footsteps and a jumble
of voices reached her. She saw the Phoenix brothers and two women
rush into the main area.

None of men were wearing shirts. Ria
swallowed.
Wow
. Her gaze roamed over Zayn’s chest. Lean and
smooth, no hair. His navy cargo pants rode low on his hips and made
her want to see more.

“Eos and I will check the hangar and living
quarters.” Dathan was directing the group. “Nik, you and BEll check
all the scanners and cameras. See if you can track down
our…visitor. Z and Mal, you guys check outside, landing pads and
everything within the huma-dome.”

Everyone nodded and split off. Ria watched
with interest as Zayn moved outside with a tiny woman who looked
like a cross between a slender dancer and a mechanic. Her baggy
coveralls almost swamped her frame.

Keeping an eye on Dathan, Ria used her
skills to sneak outside. She’d been trained by the galaxy’s experts
at sneaking. The Assassin’s Guild prized the ability to kill your
target in an up close and personal fashion. Assassins liked to
taunt their victims, leaving knives on their target’s pillows or at
their dinner tables, before taking their lives.

Ria hated it.

The purple shimmer of the huma-dome extended
over the Phoenix base and the landing pads, keeping a breathable
atmosphere inside but allowing ships to move in and out unimpeded.
Without enviro suits, she knew Zayn and his companion couldn’t move
outside the dome.

Using the shadows, Ria moved along the
outside of the building. She saw Zayn and the woman ahead, heads
close together, talking. Who the hell was she? Ria felt a splash of
something hot and ugly in her belly. Did Zayn have a
girlfriend?

Ria shook her head. He wasn’t hers. She
didn’t even know him except from a few vague dreams and her
research.
Stupid.

She trailed along behind them, watching them
check possible hiding places, rolling her eyes at some of the spots
they were searching. Like she’d squish herself into a trash crate.
No self-respecting assassin would dream of using such an ignoble
hiding spot.

She saw Zayn pause. His body grew still but
his muscles tensed. She narrowed her eyes. What was he doing?

Suddenly he spun and sprinted toward
her.

Ria jolted but didn’t move. There was no way
he could see her. Her all-in-one light armor was the darkest
charcoal color and even her head was covered with a helmet.
Don’t move
. Her muscles screamed in protest.
Don’t
move.

Sure enough, he paused. Just meters away
from her.

“Z, what is it?” the woman asked.

“Something. I sensed…something.”

“I’m going to head over to the scrap
storage.” The woman was close enough now that Ria saw a fine-boned
face and large purple eyes. “You take the junk staging area.”

The woman with the beautiful eyes walked
away, but Zayn stayed where he was, his gaze probing the shadows.
Seconds later he turned and headed toward the staging area.

Ria finally let her muscles relax. She
waited until he was far enough away and then moved toward the next
patch of darkness, stepping into an area of light on her way.

Zayn whipped around again. This time he
couldn’t miss her and she saw his eyes widen.

She expected him to yell for the others, but
instead he ran toward her.

Ria turned and sprinted.

She dodged around lumps of metal and scrap
parts of all sizes. She leaped up onto a pile of jumbled steel and
jumped off it. She had to reach the huma-dome. Outside of it, there
was little atmosphere, and Zayn couldn’t follow her. Her suit would
provide a minimal amount of air and let her reach her tiny scout
ship.

She shouldn’t have come here. She should
have stuck to her plan, contacted them with more information and
lured them in for the hunt.

But she’d wanted to see him.

Ria dodged around a battered engine taller
than she was and slammed into something hard and warm.

On instinct, she struck out, catching Zayn
in his belly. The air rushed out of him with an
oof
but the
guy had muscles of steel and she felt the pain vibrate through her
entire right side.

Ducking under his arm, she ran again.

She got three steps before a hard body hit
her in the back and tackled her to the ground.

Ahead, she saw the huma-dome, inches away.
Damn it!

“Got you.” He shifted and yanked her to her
knees. His arms wrapped around her from behind, solid and
intractable.

She tested her strength against him, but he
didn’t yield. She was fit and strong, but even she knew her limits.
The only way to get away from him was to hurt him…and she didn’t
want to do that.

The others came running.

“What have you got there, Z?” Dathan asked
in a lazy tone.

“Well, at first I thought it was Darc. She
likes this type of body armor.” Zayn’s warm breath puffed against
the back of her neck, the only place that wasn’t covered by the
suit.

“That’s not Darc,” Nik said.

Ria had heard of Nera Darc. The stories had
to be exaggerated, but even so, they were shocking enough that Ria
never want to meet the notorious treasure hunter.

“Nope, not Darc.” Zayn agreed. “This one has
many more curves packed into her skintight suit than Darc.”

Ria was trying to work out her next move.
Then she felt his fingers on her helmet. He found the release and
yanked it off. Her blonde hair fell around her shoulders.

The others stared at her, with a blend of
curiosity and anger.

Zayn whipped her around.

He blanched, every drop of color leaving his
face. His hands fell away and he reared back. “No. It’s not
possible.”

The way he was looking at her…Ria felt her
heart start to pound. A dark beat that echoed in her ears.

“What’s wrong, Z?” Dathan stepped forward,
his brow scrunched. “Who is she?”

Ria opened her mouth to introduce herself,
but Zayn spoke first.

“Her name—” he shook his head, his face
still white “—her name is Commander Viktoria Anders.”

Ria blinked. That wasn’t her name.

“Your old commander in the Strike Wing,” Nik
said.

“Yes.” Zayn’s blue gaze burned into her.
“And two years ago, I killed her.”

***

There was a storm inside him.

Zayn could barely breathe and his insides
felt like they were swirling around a black hole. He couldn’t pull
his gaze off the woman in front him.

A ghost. His ghost.

He heard the others talking, demanding
answers. The woman—goddamn it, it was Viktoria—was just staring at
him with Vik’s familiar grass-green eyes. “Vik, how the hell are
you alive?”

“My name is not Viktoria.” She straightened
her shoulders. “I’m Ria Dante.”

“No, Viktoria Anders. My commanding officer,
my friend.” And something else, something that had shimmered with a
promise they had never acted on. Something he’d regretted every day
for two years.

“I’ve never been a commander of anything.”
As the woman shook her head, her golden hair whipped around her
face. Hair the color of Vik’s but much longer. Vik had kept hers
short, said it was best when you had to pull a flight helmet on
every day.

“Stop lying to me.” The words burst out of
him. He’d been through hell thinking she was dead. Now the
possibility that she’d been living all this time was tearing his
insides to pieces.

“Let’s talk this through, Z.” Dathan stepped
between them.

Zayn’s hands balled into fists. “The Wing
was in the Devil’s Nebula. We’d been lured there by a distress call
from a merchant ship. It was a ruse. Some nebula scum had decided
they wanted the technology from our Talons.” He shuddered. “We were
ambushed. They took us prisoner.”

Dathan cursed and Nik spoke up, shock in his
voice. “Why the hell didn’t you ever tell us?”

He’d never wanted to talk about it. “I woke
up, beaten and bloody, in a cell in the Assassin’s Guild. Two of my
fellow pilots were dead beside me. They’d died in the ambush. Vik
and another pilot, Theo, were missing.” Zayn rubbed a hand over his
face, his stomach feeling so tight he thought he might be sick.

Unable to stop himself, he looked at the
woman again. She was riveted by his story, watching him intently.
But she was twisting her hands together.

“I found them.” Zayn’s voice cracked. “They
were being tortured for information. They needed security codes to
access the main computers of the ships. Theo was dead. They’d—”
God, they practically turned the man’s body inside out as they’d
tortured him. “Vik…”

“Was she dead?” Eos asked quietly.

Zayn shook his head, the memories taking
over. “They’d tortured her, raped her repeatedly. There was so much
blood. They’d chained her down with laser ropes.” One of the
best—and most horrifying—methods of confinement, laser ropes were
extremely painful and virtually impossible to get off without the
correct biometrics.

Eos gasped.

Ria was still staring and he thought he saw
something move through those familiar eyes.

“The Assassin’s Guild kill, they don’t rape
and torture,” she said.

“I still have scars from their handiwork.”
And nightmares. “They were coming back. I tried everything I could
to get her free.” Memories simmered under the surface. It was like
being there again, the desperation, the terrible knowledge that he
couldn’t free her. “She asked me to kill her.”

Zayn, please. Please kill me. I can’t take
anymore.

He closed his eyes. “I shot her. Between the
eyes. She died in an instant.”

He’d somehow managed to escape, operating on
autopilot and uncaring if he survived. He’d found their hijacked
Talons, destroyed them, and hitched a ride off Lucifa on a
transport ship.

Then he’d come home.

“This Viktoria—” the woman’s voice was
hesitant “—was she Pictori?”

“No. She was Deltan. Born and raised on the
Delta V.”

Ria lifted her chin and pushed her hair
back. “I’m a race called the Pictori.” She showed off the tiny
ridges running from her temple down to her neck.

He stared. No, impossible. It was Vik’s
face, her hair, her eyes, her body.

“I’ve never heard of the Pictori,” Nik said.
“Where are you from?”

She swallowed, glancing around at all of
them before her gaze settled once more on Zayn. “The Devil’s
Nebula. I’m part of the Assassin’s Guild.”

“
That
is Vik. I know it.” Zayn kept
his voice low as he huddled with his brothers. But he couldn’t take
his eyes off her.

“Okay, okay.” Dath dragged a hand through
his hair. “Take it easy. They might look the same but everyone
knows there are billions of people in the galaxy, there’re bound to
be a few who look alike.”