Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  “Anyone they’ve shot up with the enhancer can get in here.” I swallowed that piece of bad news as I said it, and it tasted like a bitter pill going down my throat. Who knew how many people the Overseer’s scientists had already experimented on with some form of the enhancer, or even with the finished product? It could have been hundreds of willing goons, maybe even thousands. There were also captives, like Merrick.

  And I would still hand over my blood to Bridgebane in just a matter of days, allowing our enemies to arm even more people with the means to invade the Fold. I just hoped the rebel leaders never found out. They were as kind to traitors as the Overseer was.

  “At least they’d have to find the Fold first,” I said, more as self-reassurance than anything else. Spinning words to allay my guilt didn’t make them any less true. In terms of protection, the Fold’s cloaked appearance and shifting whereabouts were almost as effective defenses as massive pain and possible death.

  I glanced at Shade. He did not look good. Neither did Fiona, but neither was quite as bad as I would have thought. After the initial shock, they’d turned white-knuckled and started groaning through gritted teeth, their eyes squeezed shut against some kind of awful compression that remained a mystery to me. Jax, who’d done this dozens of times, was in worse shape, still contorting in terrible pain and uttering noises that I’d never tell him about.

  In the body, red blood cells lasted about four months, while white blood cells only lived for a few weeks. Were Shade and Fiona benefitting from my immunity, even to this sickness, but to a far lesser extent? The dose I’d dripped into their wounds had been much larger than the small injection both Jax and Fiona had gotten at the orphanage. And my blood was still fresh and alive inside them, not needing whatever was in the serum to make the benefits last.

  The gravitational warp spat us out on the other side of whatever the hell that really was—and into wherever the hell we really were now. The shouting and moaning abruptly stopped.

  “What…was that?” Shade asked, his breaths still heaving. He looked pretty freaked out. First-timer and all that.

  The Fold defied explanation, and a long time ago, I’d decided to just go with it. I gave him a reassuring smile. He’d have to get used to it—assuming he stayed.

  My stomach sank with a feeling I didn’t want to analyze. He and I probably needed to have a talk one of these days.

  Steering was more important right now, and the Fold was as packed as ever, with ships zooming all over the place. The main structures spread out in an ever-expanding, floating strip of metal and lights—a dozen immense spacedocks, all connected, all busy like a hive, and all powered by the big, bright stars of the Tarrah System. For the moment, at least.

  I flew us toward the towering constructions, avoiding the heaviest traffic by taking a lower approach. The buildings didn’t orbit anything. They just hung there, the Fold’s own gravity holding them in place and taking them wherever the concealed pocket went. The Fold didn’t have borders. It simply fit whatever was in it at the time, and I wondered what in the past it had sheltered, and what in the future, when we were all dead and dust, it would decide to protect.

  I almost felt sorry for all the millions of people who didn’t even know it existed. It was like a living thing, a hidden treasure, and part of me was absolutely certain it held the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe.

  But that was for someone else to discover.

  I gave our identity to the technicians on the first docking area with a vacancy indicator above its plasma-shielded platforms. The series of passwords I had was slightly out of date, and the guards got twitchy until Fiona figured out that the head technician was her friend Macey’s cousin, and she knew him. He sent us on to a better dock, closer to the center of the Fold’s structures.

  I zipped off before he could change his mind, since an inner dock would significantly cut down the walk when I had to approach the rebel leaders about the serum. I couldn’t wait to get rid of that stuff.

  At the same time, the thought of people using it also made me feel sick.

  Ignoring the churning that kept bubbling through my gut, I manually guided us through the shield pressurizing the platform we’d been assigned to and then slowly flew us toward the back wall where we could plug in. The docks here were too closed in for a natural recharge, so we had to rely on stocked energy from the solar panels on the Fold’s main constructions to boost our power levels back up.

  The moment the Endeavor was docked, I shut down the propulsion system and sagged in my chair. I hadn’t slept in more than fits and starts for days. I hadn’t showered since…

  I grimaced. A lot had happened since then.

  But we were safe. I could breathe again. I could mourn Miko, knowing her body had been incinerated and given to the Rafini Nebula by now. That was what Starway 8 did with its dead. It was our burial place, beautiful, ashes and colors swirling through the heart of space.

  Tears welled in my eyes, and I stood up, getting off the bridge as quickly as I could.

  When the door whooshed a second time right behind me, opening and then closing again, I knew Shade had chased after me. Merrick had no reason to follow, and these steps were lighter than Jax’s but heavier than Fiona’s.

  I kept walking, but Shade stopped me by quietly calling my name. There was almost a question in the way he said it, an uncertainty that made my heart ache.

  “I’m going to shower,” I said, halting but not turning around.

  After a moment, he said, “I could use a shower.”

  Warmth curled through me. My voice dropped to a rasp. “I’m sure you can use Jax’s once the water recycles.”

  Shade’s pause was longer this time. “I’d rather use yours.” His voice had turned husky as well.

  I stood there, vacillating. Hardly breathing. My heart beat hard, my body heated, and my mind screamed at me because I didn’t know what to do, and a captain always decided.

  Abruptly, I turned. The talk had come, even if I wasn’t ready for it.

  “What are you doing, Shade? What are you going to do?” I asked.

  He had his cruiser. He could leave. He could blab about the Fold, although I didn’t think he would, or I wouldn’t have brought him here in the first place. And he’d made it through the sticky part without dying, so I figured the Fold must have thought he was okay, too.

  Some people totally ruptured on the way in, suffering from sudden, violent aneurysms. They inevitably turned out to be people we wouldn’t have wanted in here anyway. The Fold destroyed her foes, or ours, I supposed, which made us fairly confident about those who got through. And while I couldn’t be certain, I didn’t think Shade had enough type A1 blood in his system to truly invalidate the Fold’s defenses.

  He still looked bad—as haggard, tired, and disheveled as the rest of us—but also determined. His eyes snagged mine and held. “I chose you, Tess. I want you. All you have to do is want me back.”

  Emotion knotted around my heart, squeezing. I wanted him back, but I was afraid.

  Shade’s gaze stayed steady on mine. He was asking me to accept the things he’d done before we met—and what he’d almost done after. To accept and forgive.

  Could I do that?

  “I think…” I swallowed, my heart hammering out of control. Shade had proven himself to be on my side in the end, and wasn’t that what mattered from now on? I believed in second chances. I’d needed some myself.

  “I think my shower is probably big enough for two,” I said.

  His eyes flared, the desire in them flushing me with heat. Hesitantly, I lifted my hand to Shade’s chest.

  His hand covered mine, pressing until I felt the thud of his heart against my palm. “I want to comfort you, Tess.”

  Warmth washed through me, along with the ever-present pain of loss. I wanted his comfort. I probably wanted it too much.
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br />   “Fair warning,” I said in a voice I hardly recognized. “The water might run out.”

  “Then you need bigger tanks.”

  “I do. I could never afford them.”

  Shade looked aghast. “Showers are sacred. I’ll fix that.”

  I felt myself smile. It kind of broke my face, but it also brought some relief, as though now that I’d done that—smiled after Miko’s murder and Shiori’s abduction—I could take the next step toward moving out of the heaviest part of grief.

  “With what?” I asked, wondering how he planned on paying for improvements. “Is there a big stash of universal currency in that little cruiser of yours?”

  “I have more than two hundred million units spread over eight different untraceable accounts, and all my pass codes memorized, despite them being annoyingly complex and long.”

  I blinked. “Why in the galaxy do you have that much currency?” I asked, tugging my hand out from under Shade’s.

  I didn’t need to ask how. The Dark Watch obviously paid its elite bounty hunters well. It was possible I had acquaintances in prison because of Shade, and the fact that I was ignoring that sat like a chunk of ice inside me that wouldn’t melt.

  He leaned against the wall, rubbing the back of his neck. He winced, as if the words were hard to get out, and it made me worry that things were even worse than I thought.

  “I’ve been trying to buy back an empire I lost after my parents died in a freak shuttle accident,” he finally said. “It turned out my father was really, really in debt to an asshole named Scarabin White. That’s the person you met on the dock of the casino—the one who gave me the silver money clip with the engraved bird’s head.”

  I remembered. I’d wanted to wash my hand after that man had touched it. It hadn’t been hard to see that he was rich, powerful, and used to getting his way.

  “White owns that whole place—the resort and casino—and my father…liked to gamble, it turned out. I had no idea until ten years ago, when his debt suddenly transferred to me. It was… It felt overwhelming. I’d just lost my family, and I wasn’t used to running things. I’d just finished my engineering studies and had come home a few days earlier. Instead of trying to work off the debt like I should have, I went for a quick fix. I went to that stupid casino and gambled him for everything. I bet it all—and lost.”

  “Oh, Shade…” I could imagine the devastation of that, how he must have felt, especially right after losing his parents. It must have been doubly awful, because he didn’t seem like the kind of man who made reckless, impulsive decisions.

  Although maybe he did. He’d thrown it all away to protect me, hadn’t he?

  “So, he got what you—what your father—owed him?”

  “Oh, he got ten times what I owed him,” Shade said bitterly. “But that was the only deal he would make, and I just wanted it over. I was young and an idiot and figured I couldn’t lose, since I’d never really lost at anything.”

  I was starting to piece together the picture. The golden boy. The privileged life. The shock of loss and a bad decision. Bad decisions made a person grow up fast—and maybe do things they would never have previously considered.

  Shade shook his head, obviously still disgusted with himself, even after all these years. “I got White to sign an agreement, though, before I threw the dice. I made him promise to sell for a certain price—a huge but mostly fair price for all that—no matter when, if I had the currency to pay him one day. After ten years of hunting down the Dark Watch’s most-wanted criminals and doing important retrievals, like finding abducted officials and officers—real under-the-radar stuff—I was more than halfway there. Your bounty would have finished it, and then some.”

  I swallowed. Well, that sucked.

  Standing there, Shade looked so dejected that I began to reevaluate our situation, thinking that maybe I needed to comfort him, too. I didn’t agree with the things he’d done, but I couldn’t fault his motives. In fact, I understood them more than I probably should have and was in no position to judge. What wouldn’t I do for Starway 8? I was about to give my blood to the enemy and allow them to re-create the serum just to keep two people safe. Was that a wise choice? Probably not. But I was making it anyway.

  Shade had been working toward something on Albion 5, and now there was a good chance he’d never set foot on his home planet again, let alone reclaim his family’s legacy. His was now a life on the run, probably forever—or for as long as it lasted. There was no way out of this.

  Unless we somehow overthrew the Galactic Overseer and defeated the Dark Watch, and what were the chances of that?

  Chapter 31

  Shade felt like an asshole, standing there in the hallway, confessing his sins. Tess even looked sorry for him, which made his gut twist. He didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  “It’s the docks, isn’t it?” she asked. “All the towers?”

  He nodded, not surprised she’d picked up on his knowing more than was typical about the history of the docks, their prices and quality… Yeah, he knew exactly what he’d lost.

  “Every single one on Albion 5—and on the rock under construction next to it.”

  She made a strangled sound. “Great Powers, that really is an empire. I can’t believe you gave that up.”

  Shade felt himself go rigid. “I didn’t give it up. I lost it. Like an imbecile.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not then. I mean now…not even a week ago.”

  That decision? It had been hard—until it had been as simple as taking his next breath.

  Reaching out, he swept Tess’s bangs back from her face and tucked them behind her ear. His fingers trailed down the side of her neck, and he felt her little shiver.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, starshine. I agonized over the choice for a week. But I kept working on your ship, and helping you sell books, and wanting you every second I saw you. I was hell-bent on getting you away safely; I wanted to hold on to you and keep you with me; and I wanted the damn bounty. It was like a three-way war inside me. But then you came to me that last night on Albion 5, and you turned into the easiest decision of my life.”

  Her lips parted on a surprised inhale. Her always-fabulous blush sent a hot bolt of lust through him.

  “Me?” she asked in a tempting whisper.

  “You.” His voice dropped, thickening.

  “Was my door really half price?” Tess’s eyes narrowed. The sultriness disappeared from her voice, replaced by suspicion.

  Wariness blew a hole in the warm haze wrapping around him. Shade cleared his throat. “Yeah, it was half price.”

  “Because you paid for the other half?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “Might’ve,” he eventually said.

  Would she hate that? She’d been determined to pay him what she owed and had even sold her precious books to Susan for it, probably for a mere fraction of their true worth. What he’d done to provide a solid door for the Endeavor hadn’t been charity in his mind. This was Tess. He did what he needed to.

  She fisted her hands in his shirt and abruptly pulled him close. The fire that had only been banked inside him roared to life as his hands clamped down on her waist, and she went up on her toes for a kiss. There was nothing hesitant about it. Her lips devoured his, pushing, moving, parting, and then her tongue swept into his mouth for a fuck-me lick that nearly made his knees give out.

  Shade released a guttural sound. He didn’t care if he came across as needy or weak. She made him both. He was about to spin her up against the wall and show her just what she did to him when Tess drew back, breathing hard. Shade could barely see. Want pounded through his blood.

  “Shower?” Her breathless question went straight to his groin.

  Right. She’d wanted a shower. He could do that. Get her all soaped up and slippery and…

  Tess grabbed his hand and pulled.
Shade followed. This was going to be fast.

  She led him to her room and shut the door, yanking off her boots as she locked it. Her now-wrinkled pink scrubs and skimpy underclothes hit the floor before he could even reach for her, and the sight of her naked body thumped through him like a beat of deep percussion, resonating in his chest. The heavy thud of his heart told him things he already knew. Tess. Mine. Us. Want.

  She moved toward him and grabbed his shirt, lifting it up and over his head. Shade’s abdomen tightened, and anticipation made his cock grow thick and hard. A wave of warmth surged through him when Tess’s fingers fell to his belt.

  He let her undress him, helping only to toe off his boots. Her blue eyes landed on his erection and then roamed greedily over the rest of him. The way she looked at him was so fucking generous and sexy. No holds barred. She’d take a mile and give two. They stood together in nothing but skin, and Shade was more than ready to leave the shower for later and drag her into bed.

  But Tess turned and moved toward her washroom, beckoning for him to follow. He stepped into the shower with her. It was tight for two. No matter; he’d make do. He couldn’t wait to be closer to her, so close they were joined from top to bottom, inside and out.

  “Here goes,” she said, drawing in a deep breath.

  It seemed like an odd thing to say and do, but Shade was beyond caring about anything other than getting inside her. He wanted her. And he wanted to show her, to prove to her… He wasn’t sure what. Whatever it was men proved.

  Tess turned on the water. A timer beeped on, and an ice-cold spray hit him square in the back.

  Shade jumped. “What the fuck?” he yelled.

  “Go!” she cried. “Four minutes and seven seconds before the tank runs out.”

  She pushed past him and slipped under the frigid stream, scrambling to get herself wet. She leaped back out again and went for the shampoo.

  Shade followed her lead, breathing in short, pained bursts laced with muttered curses.

  “Swearing your head off won’t make the water warm,” she said tartly.