by Dena Christy
He put the earpiece in his ear and tapped it.
"What the hell is going on?" Angis' angry voice came over the line and Rone's brows drew together.
"Good evening, Angis. I am unable to answer your question until you tell me what it is you are talking about."
"The woman. What the hell is going on with the woman. You should have had her in custody by now. You're supposed to be the best hunter I have, how can you not have been able to do something as simple as detain one woman."
It was obvious that Angis had seen the same news report Rone and Cheria had, and had come to the conclusion that Rone had failed in his mission to capture her.
"I assure you that I have her in custody. I am looking at her right now." Angis didn't need to know what a struggle it had been to get to this point. All he needed to be aware of was that he'd succeeded.
"Oh. Why is her face being plastered all over the news then?"
"I am sure I do not know. It hardly matters since she will not be going anywhere. I will come by the office early in the morning and get her paperwork. It will be about an hour before you usually open the office. I want to leave for Tusko M'Kedi early. Will this be a problem?"
"No, I'm usually there around that time anyway. I'll see you in the morning."
Rone tapped his earpiece, disconnecting the call before he pulled it out of his ear. Now that she was in his custody for the night, he needed to find somewhere to put her. There was only one bedroom, since he didn't entertain guests.
He went back to where she was staring despondently out the window.
"Come. I am sure you are as tired as I am. There is only one bed here. You may have it and I will sleep on the floor."
She looked surprised for a second.
"You don't have to give up your bed. I can sleep out here on the sofa."
That was not going to happen. He didn't want her too far away from him until he'd safely turned her over to the bounty holder. The bracelet would only work if he triggered it, and while he was certain she didn't know that, he would rather not risk her escaping again.
He reached down and pulled her to her feet.
"You will find the bed much more comfortable."
She offered little resistance as he picked up her duffle bag and took her into the bedroom.
"There is a washroom through there if you want to get ready for sleep."
She nodded and turned, going into the bathroom with her duffle bag. While she was in there, Rone prepared himself for sleep. He didn't exactly relish the notion of sleeping on the floor, but he had little choice. He needed to be close enough that he would be alerted if she snapped out of her current docile mood and decided to run from him.
As uncomfortable as the floor would be, he would get more sleep on it than he would if he had to go out and chase her over half the city in the middle of the night.
He went to the closet and gathered some extra blankets and pulled an extra pillow off the bed and put together a makeshift bed on the floor by the bedroom door. He quickly stripped out of his clothes and pulled on a pair of comfortable pants. Normally he slept in the nude, but obviously could not with her in the room with him.
The bathroom door opened and she came out wearing a nightgown that left a good portion of her body exposed. He turned away from her and went over to where he had made his bed on the floor and got down on it. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her climb into his bed, and her garment pulled up a little, exposing the curve of her buttock.
She had a curvy body for such a tiny woman, and his own body tightened for a second. He could not think of her as anything other than his prisoner. She'd already proved herself to be cunning, and capable of killing someone much larger than she was. If he let his guard down around her, if he let her use her feminine wiles to seduce him, she could try to kill him too.
Fortunately, she was under the covers and out of his sight.
"Lights out." The room went dark and he pulled his blanket over himself. The floor was just as uncomfortable as he thought it would be. When he'd been younger, before he'd come here, he'd gone out into the forests on his home planet to hunt and he'd slept on the ground with no difficulty.
Of course he was older, and it had been years since he had to sleep rough and he liked his bed very much. Unfortunately he was going to have to get used to the floor, at least for tonight.
He sighed and rolled over, pounding on his pillow in an attempt to get comfortable. That made it worse, since the floor was unyielding and his body weight against his side made his arm go numb.
He flipped back over onto his back, and stared at the ceiling.
"I'm never going to get any sleep if I have to listen to you toss and turn over there. Just get in the bed. You can sleep on top of the covers if you are worried for your virtue." Cheria's exasperated voice cut through the silence in the room. Rone looked over toward the bed. It was a tempting offer and he had to admit his sleep would be much better in the bed than on the floor. And he would be close enough to her to know if she was going to try to sneak away in the night.
"If you are certain?"
“I’m sure. I’m sure you can appreciate today hasn't exactly been the most restful for me. I'd like to get some sleep and I can't do that if I have to listen to you."
Rone got up off the floor, gathered his bedding and came over to the bed. The bed was big enough that there would be plenty of space for them to sleep and not notice the other person. He put his pillow on the bed and climbed on it so he lay on top of the blankets. He pulled his extra blanket up over himself and closed his eyes.
The bed was much more comfortable, and he was asleep in a matter of moments.
* * *
"It is time to get up, woman."
Cheria groaned as she heard the rumble of a male voice near her. Her eyes drifted open, and as she took in her surroundings she realized that yesterday hadn't been a horrible nightmare, it had been real.
"I don't know why you insist on calling me woman. I have a name you know." She closed her eyes again and wished she could fall back to sleep. There seemed to be little else she could do to escape the situation she was in.
"Cheria, it is time to get up. I need to go to my boss' office before we depart for Tusko M'Kedi."
She opened her eyes again. He wasn't going to let her go back to sleep.
"Do I at least have enough time to get ready or are you going to drag me out of here right this second?"
"You will have enough time to ready yourself if you get out of bed now."
She sat up and the covers pooled around her middle. The strap of her nightgown slipped down off her shoulder and the triangular part of the bodice fell as well. It slipped down enough that her breast was close to being exposed in its entirety.
She pulled the strap back up automatically as she looked at him. His eyes had darkened and a flush stained his cheekbones as he hastily looked away.
"I will give you privacy now that you are awake. Do not take long getting ready." And with that he turned and went out of the bedroom like it was on fire.
Interesting. It seemed that the bounty hunter was not as immune to her as he had claimed when she had first met him in her apartment.
Cheria got up off the bed and gathered some clothing, her makeup kit and her red wig from her duffle bag and went into the bathroom.
Perhaps with a little effort on her part, she might be able to get the bounty hunter to let his guard down.
She stripped out of her clothes and got in to the shower. The idea had merit. There was something between them, some spark of attraction. She had done her best to ignore it while she'd been determined to escape him. What would happen if she embraced it instead?
His behavior when she'd first tricked him into letting his guard down enough to stun him and the way he'd looked just now, told her that he felt that attraction too.
With a little patience and time she could nurture those feelings enough to get him to let his guard down.
She shut
off the shower and quickly got out. She was going to need time to do her makeup so her shower had to be briefer than she would have liked. She didn't want to risk antagonizing her captor now that she'd decided to embark on her sweetness campaign.
It wasn't safe for her in Tari A'Veloo. That much was obvious. In addition to the killer hunting her, the authorities here were on the look out for her as well. The city had gotten much too hot for her to be able to even consider hiding out here, even if that had been an option.
She carefully applied her make up as her plan formed in her head. Rone was taking her to Tusko M'Kedi. Remy was there and she needed to get to him if she was going to get help with the information on her chip. What safer way to travel than with an armed Thonaxian warrior?
The trip there should give her an opportunity to work on lowering his guard. And by the time they got there, with any luck, she should be able to escape him with little difficulty and make her way to Remy.
She was pulling on her wig when a knock came on the bathroom door.
"It is time to leave." Rone's voice was a deep rumble on the other side of the door. It wasn't going to be a hardship for her to go to work on him. She had to admit that his deep voice did something for her and there was also his big, warrior's body. She wouldn't have to pretend to be attracted to him, which would lend enough authenticity to her plan that it shouldn't raise his suspicions.
"I just need one more minute."
Cheria smiled at herself in the mirror as she adjusted her wig. She looked different enough to at least not draw immediate suspicions if she was seen on her way to see Rone's boss.
She opened the door and walked out of the bathroom. She gave Rone her most dazzling smile as his shocked eyes swept over her.
"I'm ready to go whenever you are." One thing was certain, there was no way he was going to be able to collect the bounty. No way at all.
Chapter 10
"I'm guessing by your reaction that I don't look the same as I did when I went in there?" She gave a tinkling laugh as she came into the bedroom and all he could do was stare at her.
The only thing the same about her was her eyes. They were the same deep blue, but her short dark hair was now covered with a shoulder length red wig, and she'd put on some sort of makeup or something that had altered the shape of her face. She'd also added ten years to her skin.
"How have you done this?"
"Mostly just a wig and some strategically applied makeup and prosthetics. It's a good thing I packed them, although I had thought I would be needing them to evade you. I didn't imagine that an entire city would be on the lookout for me."
"And the disguise would not have worked on me anyway."
She smiled at him. "Yeah, I know. The whole smell thing."
He picked up his bag and left the bedroom with her behind him.
"There will be no time to cook anything before we go." He went into the kitchen and got a few meal replacement bars out of the cupboard. He hated them, preferring to eat real food, but they needed to get to the office and out of the city as quickly as possible. Although she was disguised, it was going to take three days to travel to Tusko M'Kedi, so the sooner they got their trip started the better.
He handed her one of the bars and she tucked it in her pocket. There was only one thing left to do before they left his home and he went to the closet in the hall and with quick efficiency he put on his leather weapon sheath and removed his blade from its box.
Her eyes went to it and she frowned. "I hope you don't have cause to use it."
"As do I, but I would feel naked if I left my home without it." This blade had been with him since he'd finished his training and chosen to walk a warrior's path. It would remain with him for his entire life, however long it was, and would go with him to his final resting place when he joined his ancestors in the warrior's hall of his god, Thonax.
He unlocked his door and together they walked out of his apartment. The building was silent around them as he went to the stairwell and they went down a flight of stairs until they got underground. Underneath the building was a mostly empty lot, with a few older vehicles parked inside. He came to the newest one, which Angis had provided him with when he'd been hired, but he used it very little. Any hunting he did he preferred to do on foot.
"We're driving to Tusko M'Kedi?" Cheria seemed surprised when he opened the storage compartment of the vehicle and put his bag inside before turning to take hers and put it in as well. He saw a smile spread across her face out of the corner of his eye.
"Yes. How did you think we were going to get there? Public transport is too risky, even with your stellar disguise."
"But driving will take longer than it will on the Maglev."
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing for a moment. "Are you in that much of a hurry to be turned over to the bounty holder?"
Her eyes shifted away and she schooled her features in a neutral position. "Of course not. I'm just surprised that youwould want to take a vehicle when it will take longer."
He said nothing as he went to the right side of the vehicle and opened the door for her. She got in and he went around to the other side. Once he got in, he pressed the thumb scanner that had been programed to recognize his thumbprint.
The seatbelts came out of their compartments on both sides of the car and he slid his arm through the loop so the belt could fasten automatically across his body while Cheria did the same.
"Good morning, Rone. What is your destination?" This was another reason he rarely used the vehicle. It greeted him like it was more than a machine, which he found oddly disconcerting. They had nothing like this on his home planet. It was not that technology was not available to them, but most of his people chose to live a simpler life like that of their ancestors.
"To the office."
The vehicle's lights came on, it lifted up off its charging housing and moved forward. It navigated its way out of the parking lot and turned in the direction of Angis' office.
"If I had known that we would be traveling around the city like this, I would not have bothered with the disguise."
"We will still have to leave the vehicle and go inside Angis' office. There should be no one there at this time of the morning, but it would be better if no one recognizes you from your picture on the news last night."
The car ride passed in silence and as Rone relaxed back into the seat it gave him time to think. Why was she so eager to get to Tusko M'Kedi? She had seemed resigned to her fate rather quickly, especially considering that she'd stunned him to stay out of his grasp when they'd first met. And with the additional effort she'd made yesterday to elude him. It made her compliance now a little suspicious.
Had that been the real reason she'd suggested they share his bed last night? Was she trying to get him to let his guard down enough so that she could make some sort of escape? He didn't know how far she thought she was going to get, even if she managed to get the cuff off her wrist. Her scent was still in his head, surely he'd proven to her that running from him was futile?
"Approaching destination."
Rone opened his eyes as the car approached the underground entrance to the parking garage of Angis' office. It was empty, save for the flashy red vehicle that Angis owned.
Good, he was here. At least it would not take long for them to be on their way once he got the paperwork he needed to process Cheria's bounty once they got to Tusko M'Kedi.
"Do you want me to wait in the car?"
There was no reason for her to, and he wanted her close to his side in the event that she got the idea in her head to escape. He reached out and lifted her left arm, and the sleeve of her jacket fell back so that the silver cuff was visible.
"Angis' office is on the third floor, and the distance is too great for you to stay in the car without being in pain." He was not about to tell her that the cuff would do nothing unless he triggered it. The less she knew about how it worked, the less trouble she would give him as long as it was on her wrist.
T
he car stopped and their seatbelts unlatched. He opened his door and got out, and she was out on her side before he had a chance to go and open the door for her. She stayed close to his side as they went toward the door that led to the stairwell.
"Do you like taking the stairs when there is a perfectly good elevator?"
"The stairs provide better exercise. Let's go." He put his hand on the small of her back and they went up the stairs side by side. He went at a slower pace than he usually did to compensate for her going up beside him. Once they got to the third floor she didn't look that pleased with him for making her go up the stairs. "We'll take the elevator back down."
He walked toward the door to Angis' office and his steps slowed as the hair raised on the back of his neck. The door was slightly ajar.
"What's wrong?" She spoke beside him, and he glanced at her. He halted her and stared at the door. Even when he was in his office, Angis never left the door open.
He reached up behind him and drew his blade as he stared at the door.
"Rone, you're scaring me." It was the first time she'd said his name and he looked at her again to see that her face had gone pale.
"It may be nothing, but I want you to stay behind me." He reached into the waistband of his pants and pulled out the stunnerhe'd taken from her. It was a risk, giving it to her, but she needed to have some sort of protection if something happened to him when they went through the door. "I want your word that if I give this to you that you won't use it against me."
He looked deeply into her eyes for a moment.
"I give you my word." He could see no deception in her and he put the weapon in the trembling hand she held out to him. She stepped behind him, and thankfully she was small enough that his much bigger body blocked hers as he pushed the door open with his blade, his senses on high alert.
They walked into the small office, and he was glad she was behind him so that she could not see what he was seeing. Angis' office looked like someone had torn it apart, but that was not what held Rone's attention.