by Dena Christy
There was a small lock box in her top drawer, and she pulled it out, setting her thumb on the sensor and the lid popped open. She pulled out the identification that matched the red wig. She hadn't used this identity for several years, not since Remy had retired, so it should be good enough to get her away from here.
She took a quick glance around her bedroom to make sure there was nothing she was forgetting. The stunner lay on the dresser where she'd set it, and she scooped it up and put it in her bag.
She strode out of the bedroom and focused on getting to the door. She tried not to look around the apartment she'd spent so many years aspiring to before it had finally been hers. Her eyes never left the door as she walked closer to it. It was just an apartment, and if she had to leave it behind to survive then so be it.
Once out of the apartment, she went down the hall and toward the elevator as if she hadn't just left an unconscious alien in her bedroom. There was no telling how long he was going to be out, and she wanted to be far away from here, where he couldn't find her when he woke up.
No one saw her leave the building and she smiled as the sun hit her face. Not that she wanted to make a habit of this, but she was getting good at this escape artist thing. And her luck was still with her when she saw the taxi driver standing by his hover vehicle as he waited hopelessly for a fare. It was going to be his lucky day too.
She walked up to him, and she was sure he recognized her from seeing her in the neighborhood.
"I need a ride." She smiled at him and his face lit up.
"Sure thing." He came around the car quickly as if she was going to change her mind if he didn't open the door for her. She got in the back of the vehicle, set her bag beside her on the seat and slipped her arm thought the seatbelt loop. The belt came out and automatically fastened snuggly around her.
The driver got in and started the vehicle. It produced little noise as it lifted several inches off the ground.
"Where to?"
She thought for a moment. It would be better if she didn't go directly to Xander's club.
"I need you to take me to Trader's Alley."
The driver hesitated for a second. "Are you sure? It's not a very nice part of town."
"I'm sure. And there will be extra money in it for you if you get me there quickly."
"Will do."
Like all taxis, the vehicle was an older model that had to be navigated manually and the driver smoothly maneuvered the vehicle away from her apartment building. She took one last look back before turning around and firmly facing her uncertain future. She was going to have to come up with some sort of plan of where she was going to go, but first she needed to talk to Xander. She'd decide where she was going to hide once that was finished.
She paid little attention to the ride, and once the driver got to the alley he halted the vehicle. He pulled his payment terminal out of the console.
"There is no need for that. I have krills." She gave him twice the amount that was showing on the fare box. He looked at the bills in his hand and then up at her in surprise. "I'd prefer that if anyone asks, you don't tell them where you took me."
"Don't worry about that. I don't share information about my fares with anyone."
"Consider the money a tip then." She grabbed her bag, tapped the seatbelt housing and it smoothly unbuckled and retracted. She got out of the car, hitched her bag on her shoulder and straightened her spine.
Time to start her new life.
* * *
Rone opened his eyes and gazed up at the ceiling from his position flat out on the floor. He was in a bedroom and when the woman's scent came to him, the reason he was on the floor came back to him. The room swam in and out of focus, and he blinked rapidly until his senses came back to him sufficiently that he could sit up. When he did he cursed himself for being such a fool.
A warrior of his caliber should not have been in a position to be incapacitated by her. If she'd been a man, there is no way this would have happened to him. He would have subdued a male subject with minimal interaction and would have automatically assumed his prey would be hostile until proven otherwise. That was his mistake, treating her differently than he usually treated his targets.
He moved to stand on shaky legs, and staggered over to the wall to put his hands on it as he hung his head down. It was going to take some time for him to recover from the stunning she'd given him, and unfortunately he didn't have time to wait for the side affects to go away. The room was a lot dimmer than it had been when he first came in and the light level told him that it was almost dark. He'd been knocked out for several hours already and couldn't afford to waste any more time in finding her.
He straightened up and moved out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. His legs felt loose, like there were no bones inside them to hold him up. How high had that woman set that stunner gun for Thonax's sake? If he had been any smaller, his body less dense, she was certain to have killed him.
And it would have been his own fault.
He turned on the water, setting it to cold. He had underestimated her and he needed to have his wits about him if he was going to successfully capture her.
He splashed the water on his face, and the shock of it against his warm skin helped to bring his senses back a little. He shut off the water, and dried his face. He spied the blonde wig sitting on a metal pedestal, and snorted. How could she have thought that he would believe her protestations that she was not his target when the evidence was in her apartment, clear to anyone?
He reached out and stroked his fingers over the course hair of the wig. He was willing to wager that her natural hair, which fell to her chin in a night colored curtain, would be much softer than this.
Why was he thinking about how her hair would feel?
He gave a shake of his head, and it was a mistake because it sent dizziness through him. Nausea followed and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard to suppress it. A few short, sharp breaths as he gripped the edge of the vanity help and the feeling faded away. He cursed himself again for letting her get the upper hand on him.
He shouldn't have tried talking to her when she'd walked into her bedroom but he felt he had no choice. It hadn't felt right to do that with her. It went against his nature to use his physical strength against a woman, and she was so much smaller than him, with the top of her head coming up only to the top of his chest. Overpowering her ran the risk of hurting her, so he'd opted for talking instead.
He moved out of the bathroom and down the hall to the front of the apartment. He held his hand out and ran it along the wall in the event he needed to steady himself. Fortunately his equilibrium was returning rapidly and he should be able to go after her without much trouble.
He left the apartment and didn't bother going down the stairwell. He didn't trust his legs enough to navigate eight flights of stairs down to the ground floor and he didn't want to waste any more time than he already had. Moving as quickly as his legs allowed, he went to stand in front of the elevator and before he could press the button to call it, the door opened.
An older woman stepped out and looked startled to see him. He nodded to her and got inside. It didn't matter now if he was spotted near Cheria's apartment because he had a feeling that she would not be back here any time soon. Her best chance of evading him would be to go into hiding. Unfortunately for her, her scent was in his head, and he could smell that she'd been in the elevator.
He got down to the lobby and followed the scent out the front door. The scent wasn't as strong as it would have been if she'd been here only moments before, but he would have been able to detect it even if it was days old. Fortunately, she hadn't had that much of a head start on him.
The scent trail led him down the sidewalk and abruptly stopped. He turned his head and he saw the same taxi driver that had been here earlier leaning against his car.
"You ready for that ride yet?" The taxi driver grinned at him, and Rone moved toward him.
"Where did you take the woman?"
Rone growled. He didn't have time for this nonsense. It was unlikely that the driver had driven so many women in the time between when Cheria had left and now that he wouldn't remember her.
His hand shot out and he wrapped it around the driver's throat, squeezing just hard enough to show the man that he was serious. The driver clawed at his hand, trying to get him to loosen his grip. Rone leaned his face toward him and spoke to him in a quiet, deadly voice.
"I will only ask you one more time. Where did you take the woman? She would have come by here within the last few hours. Her hair is black and cut to line up with her chin."
Rone saw recognition spark in the man's eyes and he let go of his throat. The driver made a show of rubbing his neck and he coughed a little.
"I know the woman you're talking about and I can't tell you where she went. She paid me not to tell anyone." Roan's lip curled up in a snarl as he moved toward the driver again. The man held up his hands. "But I can take you and drop you off where I dropped her off."
Rone gave him a curt nod. He was sure the driver was looking to make more money by taking him rather than telling him where she went. But he didn't care. It would be faster to get to wherever she had gone by hover vehicle than on foot.
"You will take me, and be warned that if where you drive me is not where you drove her, I will know. I will not be as patient as I have been thus far."
The driver blanched, nodded his head and rushed around to the driver's side of his vehicle. Rone opened the door on his side and got in to the back. His suspicions that Cheria had gotten a ride from this man was confirmed as he caught her scent in the back of the car.
The vehicle lifted and moved silently down the street. Rone looked out the window and thought about what he was going to do once he caught up with her. One thing was certain, there would be no talking this time.
Talking with her in her bedroom had given her enough time to formulate a plan to escape him. He should have stopped her from moving toward her dresser the second time, just as he had the first time. But his suspicions of her had flown out of his head the moment her fingers had moved to undo the fastenings of her top.
To say she had shocked every thought out of his head but what she would look like without her clothing was an understatement. And he had foolishly thought that she had seducing him in mind. His honor would not have let her use her body to tempt him away from his mission any more than it would have let her bribe him with money. But the thought had been there, for the briefest of seconds, about what it would be like to enjoy the feel of her soft curves against him.
He had not had a woman that he had not had to pay for since he'd arrived on this planet, and those couplings had been without feeling and with only the purpose of sating the urges of his body. Would lying with her have been different?
He felt like a fool for thinking it. Of course she would not want him, even if they had met under other circumstances. He was too big, too fierce looking, too different from the men on this planet. And she was in all likelihood a murderer, so from now on he would keep his thoughts and actions strictly professional.
Once he was finished with this job, he would be able to return home. And he would find a mate amongst the Thonaxian females. At least a woman of his own species wouldn't be so caviler about removing her clothes in front of a stranger and using her body as a weapon to trick him.
"We're here." The driver pulled the cab over and Rone looked around. If the driver was to be believed, he'd dropped her off at the mouth of an alley.
Rone looked at him, but could detect no deception in the other man. Of course, it was in his best interests to be truthful, since the driver would know that someone the size of Rone could rip him apart easily and efficiently.
Rone reached into his pocket and took out double the amount of krills that the ride should cost him. He handed them to the surprised looking driver.
He got out of the vehicle, and moved around the sidewalk as the vehicle pulled away.
It was fully dark now, and he wanted to find her quickly. He had already taken longer to capture her than he should have. He wanted her in custody soon. Angis would be calling him for an update and he would rather not have to tell him that the woman had tricked him. It was humiliating that she had not only fooled him enough to point a weapon at him, but also that he'd been too slow to disarm her.
It took several moments to catch her scent, but once he did, he followed it down into the alley. His mouth tightened at the thought of someone as soft and vulnerable as her walking through a rough looking place such as this. Then he remembered that this so called soft and vulnerable female had cooly shot him with a stunner and had more than likely killed a man earlier. He needed to disregard her femininity and stop underestimating what she was capable of.
He followed her scent down the alley and out the other side. The rough looking individuals gave him a wide berth as he moved down the sidewalk. Only a fool would want to take on a Thonaxian in his prime, and apparently the only fool here was him.
Chapter 5
Cheria made her way through the alley and it was in stark contrast with the moneyed neighborhood she called home. And unlike when she walked around where she had her apartment, down here she didn't feel like a fraud.
She navigated her way through the streets until she came to Xander's nightclub. There was still a little daylight left as she approached the door. A quick glance around showed there was no one around and she opened the door and ducked inside.
The music was too loud, as usual, and it seemed wasted on the few patrons that were in the club. This place was usually dead in daylight, but came alive at night. She went over to the bar and the bartender looked up at her.
"Is he here?" She had to raise her voice over the music.
She didn't need to specify who "he" was, since her face was a well known one around here. He nodded and pointed to the ceiling. Good, Xander was upstairs.
She turned and walked to the back of the club. Up the stairs she went, down the hall and around the corner toward the door to Xander's office.
Broge, Xander's security guard, stood in front of the door with his arms crossed over his beefy chest. She'd always thought that he was the biggest man she'd ever seen, but that distinction now belonged to the alien laying unconscious in her apartment.
"I need to see him." She moved to go by him, but Broge blocked her way.
"Can't let you do that, Cher. He doesn't want to see anyone, left specific instructions."
"He'll see me."
A pained look crossed Broge's face. "He has a sex provider in there."
An embarrassed flush swept over his face, and she smiled at him. He might be big and brawny, but he was soft underneath. She didn't know why but he liked her and seemed to have a crush on her. He was one of the few people she would miss when she left this life behind.
"I'll try not to let it offend my delicate sensibilities." She put a hand on his huge arm and moved him out of the way. The only reason she was able to was because he didn't offer any resistance.
She went in the door and walked into the spacious loft that Xander used as his base of operations. And as Broge had indicated, he had a sex provider in here with him.
Xander had the woman bent over his desk and he was naked as he stood behind her, driving his cock in and out of her. The animal sounds of his grunting repulsed Cheria and she turned her face away while she waited for him to finish.
He gave a guttural sound, and her lip curled up. He made her skin crawl, and she wondered why she'd done business with him for as long as she had. Of course it didn't matter now, because once he helped her she would be cutting her losses and walking away from him.
She walked over to a chair by the huge
expanse of windows that looked out over the club. She heard the slap of a hand over flesh, and didn't need to look to know that he was crass enough to smack the behind of the poor woman who'd had to service his scrawny ass.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched the woman adjust her clothing and clutch at the money he handed her. Once she was gone, she turned to look at him just as he was pulling on a silk robe to cover his naked body.
"Did you like the show?" He grinned at her as he tightened the sash and reached in his desk for something. He pulled out a vial of Joy, his drug of choice, and she wondered how much of the commissions she'd earned for him had been shoveled up his nose.
"Before you get too deep into hedonism, we have a few things to discuss."
"Like what?" He pulled out a mirror and poured some of the powder in the vial onto it. "Have you finally decided that you're going to unclamp those legs of yours?"
"You're a disgusting pig, you know that? No wonder you need to pay women to let you fuck them." Thankfully this was the last time she was going to have to be in his presence and have to listen to the crude words that invariably came out of his mouth. A flush burned across his razor like cheekbones and he narrowed his eyes at her.
"And you're a cold, money hungry bitch. What do you want?"
"The client you sent me to meet is dead." There wasn't much she could do to soften that particular blow and a small amount of satisfaction went through her when she saw the blood drain out of his skin and make him look even more skeletal now that his face was bone white.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. I followed every procedure and protocol that has kept me safe for ten years. If anyone is to blame, it's you."
"How is this my fault?"
"You took a job from someone with no experience in this kind of thing. And considering how much I was paid to do it, I can only imagine how much you will be making from the buyer. Information that valuable, in the hands of someone without experience, was trouble waiting to happen."