Authors: Lauren Dane
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotic fiction, #General, #Adult, #Erotica, #Mercenary troops
Mesmerized (17 page)
He urged her to stay, and she shook her head. He made the same hand gesture again, and she sent him one of her own back, indicating her refusal to keep her ass in place. With a growl, he pointed off in the distance and used a finger to indicate the guard towers.
She shrugged and pulled her weapon out.
Damn it.
He had no choice other than to let her accompany him or knock her out and leave her there. He knew the latter would be better, but again, she got under his skin, and he couldn’t do it.
They crawled, pausing and moving again every few minutes. From the top of the rise, he noted the lack of guards on patrol around the pit and shook his head. Lazy security. He’d keep cautious, because one never knew what could be thrown at an intruder. What he needed was video and measurements. He used the cameras and the special geographic plotting device to note the space. The moon was up, casting plenty of light on the pit.
Rolling close to her, he removed his mask and spoke quietly in her ear. “I need to go down there to get samples and to see what sort of surplus they have. I need to do that alone. Don’t argue with me, or I’ll knock you out and leave you up here behind those rocks. I won’t take you. You can get my back from up here. Use your head. Only shoot if it’s dire. I can talk my way out of most trouble.”
She growled quietly but nodded. Relief flooded as he made his way silently down the hillside.
Piper was in awe of how he worked. He made no sound at all as he moved. Not a single speck of dust rose as he made his way down to the pit. How that was possible when the daily facts of life in Asphodel meant dust and sand blowing around all the time, she didn’t know. But he did it. He would pause and look, waiting. And then begin to move again.
Her heart stuttered a few times as someone would move in the area below. She prayed fervently that he not be discovered. And then they’d move on, and Andrei would continue to crouch and get closer.
She thought the trip down was bad, but she was not prepared for the long, pulse-pounding minutes he was down there, among the stacks of containers and the crew still working the mine. He had a way of easing through, avoiding any contact. He didn’t stalk or walk; he flowed.
Through the field glasses she watched as he took video and grabbed samples, putting them in the bag at his waist.
And then there was movement as four guards began to sweep the area. Did they know Andrei was there? She switched from the field glasses to the scope on her weapon. She’d kill every last one of them if she had to, to protect Andrei. Did he do this alone all the time? How could they send him out without backup? It seemed criminal of these people in the Federation.
Her heart beat wildly as they continued to search and Andrei simply eased past, around them, as they looked. From her perch, it was nearly magical as he did it. As if he had some sort of second-sight to know which way they’d turn.
And finally, he began to skirt the edges of the pit area and make his way back to her. But it seemed so very exposed. She took very shallow breaths as she watched his progress. He seemed in no hurry, which enabled her to relax a little, but it was still nerveracking the way any of them might have seen him and killed him on sight.
When he finally rolled over the lip of the rise, she grabbed him, holding on tight. He hesitated a moment, and then returned the embrace.
“We have to run hard to get back. They know something is up. I used a jammer so their surveillance video won’t have worked the whole time I was down there. But now they’ll be on higher alert. I want out of here before they figure out I was there.”
He handed her a piece of the protein cake they’d snacked on before and some water before they got down the rise and hit the sand below at a full run.
Even at a full run, she knew they wouldn’t make it to the zipper. The wind had risen. A storm was on the way and headed toward them.
She took his arm and jerked her head toward the abode they’d seen earlier. In the desert, the rules were different. A traveler wouldn’t be denied shelter in the storm. It was life-or-death out there.
She didn’t need for his face to be uncovered to know he frowned, but he had to have scented the storm, too, and they headed toward shelter. She’d covered the zipper well, tying it down, and she hoped it would be enough. But she’d deal with that later. For now it was about getting the hell out of the open for safety from the weather and from detection.
At the front doors, Andrei stepped in front of her. He pounded, pulling his goggles up and the mask off so the inhabitants would see they posed no threat. But no one came, even after he pounded a second and third time.
Without waiting any longer, he fiddled with the seals and locks until the doors opened, and he went first, looking right to left. She closed and resealed the door, waiting in the dim for him to deal with whatever he needed to.
“Hello? Is anyone here? We were caught out in the storm.” Andrei walked around the small one-room space, noting the lack of human activity for some time. He pulled some jammers from his pockets, though he doubted he’d need them. Out there the storms were heavily laced with ambient electricity, knocking out listening posts and other tech.
“I think they’ve abandoned the place.”
“Don’t move. I want to be sure there are no traps before we get too comfortable.” He checked cabinets and drawers. Most were empty, though there was enough food to get them through if they got stranded longer than a few hours and some water in the tanks that appeared to be potable. “All right. Looks like we’re in for the duration. No one is going to be coming back any time soon, and those Imperialist soldiers would have turned back long before now. Make yourself comfortable.”
He tossed himself into a seat at the table and tried to get a message out to Daniel, but the storm was disrupting the signal too much. “Comm traffic is down.”
The storm outside took shape and began to slap at the exterior of the abode, and the walls trembled. He’d checked the seals and the anchors to hold the place together when they’d first entered, so he was fairly sure they’d be in one piece when the storm let up. Still, he hated having her out here in this, exposed, should the Imperialists find them.
“You’re bouncing your knee. Haven’t seen that in a very long time.” She shook out the bedding, using her pack as a pillow. “Are we going to be all right? Should I be worried?”
“I’d never let anything happen to you. I’d die before I allowed that.”
She sighed with a small laugh. “You try so hard to remain aloof, but then you say that, there’s no way to not be affected. When you show me so much care, you move me, Andrei. No matter how hard you try, the connection between us is there.”
“Don’t. I’m not that man, Piper. Don’t romanticize what I am.” He broke out a map and pored over it.
She rolled her eyes. “I know exactly what man you are. I don’t have to know exactly what your job description is to understand what you are. I know you so much better than you assume.”
“I’m a killer. Gods know, you’ve seen it enough since I arrived. You’ll do well not to forget that.”
Interesting. She cringed when she heard the emotion in his voice and wondered how it was he could blame himself or see what he did as anything but heroic.
“Do you think I could see what is happening out there and judge your response negatively? When you kill someone who is trying to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of people,
you’re
not the bad guy. The person trying to kill all those people is the villain. Seems to me someone has to slap them down, or they’d keep coming. And then what? Who will protect them if you don’t? Hmm? I heard, oh, I think a few turns before you showed up, that some Imperialists were trading humans again. Slavery. We eradicated that after Varhana, and they’re bringing it back. That is dastardly. Your response is not.”
you’re
not the bad guy. The person trying to kill all those people is the villain. Seems to me someone has to slap them down, or they’d keep coming. And then what? Who will protect them if you don’t? Hmm? I heard, oh, I think a few turns before you showed up, that some Imperialists were trading humans again. Slavery. We eradicated that after Varhana, and they’re bringing it back. That is dastardly. Your response is not.”
He turned to her, all his focus on her face. “What?”
“You’re painting yourself as a horrible person when it’s not you.”
He made a cutting motion with his hand, impatience on his features. “Not that. Slavery?”
“One of the merc pilots from the Frontier said he’d heard rumors the Imperium had a slave auction. He’d been asked to run human cargo, he imagined, for that purpose. He told them to fuck off.”
“Did you report it to anyone?”
“Who am I going to tell, Andrei? Who would believe the likes of him or me? I don’t know anyone high up.” She cocked her head. “Well, didn’t know I did. And now I do. I’m sorry I hadn’t mentioned it before. I only remembered part of that now.”
He sighed heavily, and she ached to fix it. Ached to share his burden. “I’m not going to tell anyone if you want to talk about this stuff. Sometimes you need to unload when it gets too heavy.”
He closed his eyes, just briefly. “When we get back, I have to leave.”
She sprang from the bed. “Why?”
“They’ve got a full-blown operation here. I set some explosive packs, but there were crews working inside, Federation citizens, and I won’t risk them if I can help it. So I have to figure out a way to get them to evacuate, and then I’ll blow it. I need to get the samples and the data chip I found in the conveyance earlier to my people in Mirage. I can’t trust anyone else to get it there.”
“Will you be back?”
“Of course. If only to say good-bye.”
“Bullshit. I’m coming along.” She put her hands on her hips and glared his way. “Don’t waste your time arguing. I am coming, and you can’t stop me. It’ll be easier if you just agree up front and we can avoid the trouble.”
“Trouble is right. From your toes to the top of your head, you’re made entirely of trouble. It isn’t safe for you. I’m trying to protect you, and it makes it a lot harder when you insist on throwing your pretty little ass into the thick of it over and over.” He scrubbed his hands over his face.
She stalked over and knelt before him, removing his hands, holding them in her own. “You think my ass is pretty?”
He snorted. “Leave it to you to grab on to that one.”
“We have something. You can pretend you don’t think so, but it’s insulting for you to do so. A mockery of what we share.”
“Perhaps if this was a different time and place . . .”
“Oh fuck you, Andrei Solace. It isn’t another time and place. It’s right now, and you are here with me. You have been inside my body. You’ve saved my life multiple times. You’ve taught my people how to fix things and how to defend themselves. Do you think you can come here, give and give and no one will notice?”
“Gods damn it!” He pushed to stand and pace. “What have you seen that makes you moon over me so? Was it the way I sent pulse rockets into a conveyance, killing everyone inside? Or how about the way I snapped a few necks the other day? All those head shots maybe? Oh, I know, it must have been the stench of burning flesh.”
She watched him as he moved, listened and heard the anguish and guilt in his voice, and it broke her heart. “Why do you think I’d see those things and judge you as anything but someone defending innocent people? I live on that line between law and not, in the place where I make comfortable excuses for my behavior. I run cargo. Illegal cargo. Sometimes into the Imperium. I understand the place where nothing is clear, nothing is black and white. I live in the gray, Andrei. I understand you because you do, too. I love you because you exist in the gray and are still a hero.” She stood and pushed past his outstretched palms. This had gone on long enough.
“I’ve put you in danger just by being here.”
“Of course. Because I wasn’t in danger at all out here near the Edge with Imperialist soldiers bent on destroying Portals and killing everyone in sight. So what other horrible things have you done? You weren’t nice to the elderly a few times? Did you break the velocity limits when you came out here? Oh, I know, you sent three containers of books to the children in my compound because you had an evil ulterior motive of some sort.”
“I’m not the boy you loved.”
“Of course you aren’t. Not entirely. Who is the same person they were at nineteen?” She snuggled into his body, and he remained stiff, but she continued to hold on. “You’ve changed, but not in the way you seem to think. You’ve changed for the better. The Andrei of your youth reacted. You spent every waking moment surviving, and it pissed you off. How many fights have you been in over your life? I bet the huge majority of them were before you turned twenty-five. So, no, you’re not the boy I loved. You’re the man I love, who used to be the boy I loved. He’s still in there. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of him. A flash of anger. And you’ve managed not to break anything. You haven’t hit any walls. You haven’t been hauled off to lockup the entire time.”
“I get in bigger fights than barroom dustups pretty much every day. It’s sort of my job. Anyway, you can’t love me.”
“Men are so silly sometimes.” She kissed his neck, and his spine lost its rigidity as his hands moved to her waist. She didn’t hide her smile as she kissed just below his chin and then to the other side of his neck, under his ear where she knew he liked it most. “I can do lots of things. Loving you is merely one of them, though one of the most important.”
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