by Kris Delake
Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Cover and internal design © 2013 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration by Aleta Rafton
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Excerpt from Assassins in Love
About the Author
Back Cover
For Dean
for getting us through a dark year
Chapter 1
For reasons she never understood, Skylight Jones loved the Starcatcher Restaurant. The restaurant had the best bacon double cheeseburgers that Skye had ever tasted. The fact that the restaurant was on Krell, possibly the grimiest space station she’d ever been to, and the fact that the cleanliness in the Starcatcher matched the station’s really didn’t bother her. If anyone had asked her (and no one ever had), she would have said that the dirt encrusted on the hamburger made it all taste better.
She had arrived on Krell about three hours ago. She’d taken a transport because she didn’t want anyone to notice her, and one of the best ways to get noticed in a place like Krell was to bring your own spaceship. Particularly the kind of spaceship that she could afford on her Assassins Guild expense account.
The Guild thought her a valuable asset, so she had one of the largest expense accounts they’d ever devised. A normal person could live off Skye’s monthly expense allotment for two years.
And the other nice thing about the Guild was that they paid the expense account money in advance. Because Skye’s missions were always secret, even from other Guild members, she couldn’t very well charge everything to some Guild account.
She kept one month’s expenses at the touch of her finger and banked the rest. The Guild usually wanted an accounting of what she spent, and damn, if that accounting didn’t show that she spent every last bit of that money. Yes, she lied.
It was the least she could do, since she was still working off what she called her indentured servitude. If the Guild wouldn’t let her go until she had finished seven-plus years of practically free work for them to pay off all her childhood debts, then she would keep the extra from the expense accounts and never tell a soul.
Besides, she didn’t need a lot, even when she was on a job. She liked grungy, cheap places like this. They felt luxurious to her. The Guild was so clean and bright and regimented.
The Starcatcher had probably been here since Krell was built. It had started as a little hole in the wall, literally, and had become a medium-size hole in the wall, with an “open-air” section to the restaurant.
Skye hated the “open-air” part.
First, there was no real air, because they were on a space station. So the air wasn’t fresh or windblown or anything. It was recycled, like everything else on the place. And second, it wasn’t open, because no part of Krell (outside of the docking ring) had a view of space.
So what “open-air” actually meant was that the patrons got to eat in the wide concourse that everyone walked through on the way to somewhere else.
Not Skye’s idea of relaxation.
So instead, she sat at a table in the very center of the restaurant, her back to the grimy faux-wood wall. She had a clear view of the door and of the kitchen. The other thing she liked about the Starcatcher was that it had actual human chefs. They fried the burgers (or whatever the hell this stuff was) themselves. No machine flipped the patties, no grill shut off when the meat was cooked. Just juicy frying fat, that actually sizzled so loud that she could hear it in the front part of the restaurant, over the conversation.
If there was conversation.
Because at the moment, there was only the waitstaff and her. The waiter kept glancing at her like she was a bit of garbage that needed cleaning. (Not that anyone here ever really thought of cleaning anything.)
They wanted to force her out, and she wasn’t going.
She had arrived half an hour before closing, and apparently it was a slow day, because the open-air part of this silly place had already shut down, chairs up and locked to their tables, the gate sealed shut.
The fact that there was an actual waitstaff meant that the place needed to lock its doors as well. Usually the Starcatcher got by with talking serving trays or little mobile robots. Those things couldn’t work the last half hour due to Krell regulations. Apparently thieves came through a while back and stole all the robotic servers just before shutdown, and no one noticed for the eight hours the restaurants were closed. Whoever that was had made a hell of a haul.
Skye didn’t mind. She liked annoying people, especially in service of a great burger. Hers was nearly done. When it finished sizzling, she would eat it slowly, savoring it, since she hadn’t had a good meal for the last five days. She didn’t care how hard the waitstaff tried to get her out of this place.
She glared at the water glass in front of her, so smudged that she actually had to peer over the lip of the glass to see if the liquid was the water she had ordered or not. If the burger didn’t get here soon, she might break down and drink that stuff.
Then the door opened, and a man leaned in. Skye couldn’t quite see him; he was so hunched over that his face was obscured.
“Can I get some service out here?” His voice was marvelously deep and musical. It sent little shivers through her.
“We’re closed,” the dried-up tired-looking woman on the waitstaff said without looking at the door.
“She’s lying,” Skye said. “They got another ten minutes before they’re allowed to turn away customers.”
The woman glared at Skye, and Skye smiled sweetly. Usually she tipped well whenever she encountered human waitstaff. But this woman was pushing her luck.
“Great!” the man said without moving. “So, can I get some service out here?”
“Nope,” the dried-up waitress said. “That part of the restaurant is closed.”
The man said, “You gotta be kidding me.”
“Not kidding,” the waitress said.
“I’ll pay extra for service out here.”
“Nope,” the woman said.
Skye frowned. What was the big deal about coming into the restaurant? Yeah, it smelled a bit gamy, but so did most places on Krell. In fact, with a frying burger on the griddle, the Starcatcher was probably the best-smelling place on Krell at the moment.
“How about something to go?” the man said in that delicious voice. “I could wait out here—”
“No.” The waitress crossed her arms. “In here or nothing.”
The man remained in that hunched position for a moment. He actually seemed to be having trouble making a decision.
Skye was curious now.
“You can sit with me,” she said. “I wiped this table off my own self.”
Another glare from the waitress. Skye couldn’t tell if it was because the waitress didn’t want the man in the restaurant or if it was because of the dig about the filthy table. Or both.
“Well, I can’t refuse that offer.” The man’s voice had amusement in it. He came in the door and still didn’t stand up straight. Skye finally understood what was going on.
He was huge.
She had never seen a man that large before—at least, not out in space. Space stations, spaceships, space resorts, anything space-related was built for the compact body. Like hers. She barely topped five feet on a good day, and she was average height for a woman who spent most of her time in cramped ships or cramped bunks in tiny space resort hotels.
She was thin too, which took some work, considering what she liked to eat and the fact she didn’t like using enhancements to keep the weight off. She actually exercised. She wasn’t good with weapons—at least not conventional ones (which was one of the many reasons she wasn’t an actual assassin)—but she was strong enough to fight anyone off in hand-to-hand combat.
Provided that she caught him by surprise, of course.
Like this guy had caught her.
He couldn’t stand upright. He had to bend at the waist just to get inside the door, and even then, the top of his head scraped the door frame. He had black hair that seemed a touch long, but she couldn’t really tell because she couldn’t see his face yet.
At least he was thin. She couldn’t imagine how a tall fat guy would survive on a space station like Krell. The doorways were as narrow as they were short.
The man somehow managed to wend his way around the tables and found a path to her little bit of wall. As he did so, he said to the waitress, “Bacon double cheeseburger, extra cheese, extra bacon, extra crispy. And a Krell special soda. Keep that funky water away from me.”
“Yes, sir,” the waitress said sarcastically. “Should I salute too?”
“C’mon, Delores,” he said, surprising Skye by knowing the waitress’s name. “It’s already been a tough week.”
He pulled a chair to the side of Skye’s table and sat down so hard that the chair actually groaned. He straightened his back. It cracked as he did so. Then he brought his head up.
Skye’s breath caught. She hadn’t expected him to be so handsome or so young. He had moved like an old man—probably because he had to hunch to get into the place—so she had just assumed that he was old.
She had assumed wrong.
He was probably in his early thirties. He had high cheekbones that accented the hollows in his cheeks. His nose was angular and pointed at that marvelous mouth of his, not too big and not too small. It was curved up in a smile now, a smile that made his unbelievably blue eyes twinkle.
“Thanks for sharing your table,” he said. “This place is so crowded, I can see why Delores didn’t want to serve me in the open air.”
Skye laughed. “Well, you know. It’s me and the piles of dust.”
“I don’t think there’s dust here,” the man said. “Dirt, maybe, but not dust.”
Skye tilted her head just a little to concede the point.
“Yet,” she said, “it must not bother you. You come here often enough to know the name of the waitstaff.”
“Just Delores,” the man said. “She’s been here longer than the dirt.”
“I heard that,” the woman—Delores—said from the back.
“I was hoping so, darling,” he said. “You know how I hate stepping inside this place.”
“It’s not my fault you’re too big to fly in space.”
“Honey,” he said, that smile growing, “I don’t fly. That’s what ships are for.”
Skye was smiling too. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this amused.
“You are the tallest man I’ve ever seen off-planet,” she said, agreeing with the grumpy Delores. It had to be hard for him, traveling in places built for people like Skye.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” the man said. “Most people let height regulations discourage them. Me, I just pretend to be shorter.”
“Does it work?” she asked.
“You just saw how well,” he said. Then he extended his hand. “Jack Hunter.”
She hadn’t expected introductions. She stared at his hand stupidly for a moment, thinking that a) his hand was big (nice) and b) his hand was big. Then she took it in her own, noting calluses which meant he did some kind of physical labor.
“Skye,” she said, conscious that she wasn’t giving him her last name. She never gave out her last name, since she wasn’t really sure what it was. Her parents had used Jones the last time she had seen them, but before that, they’d been using Anderson, and before that, Ngyen. The Guild had stuck her with Jones, but she had identification in anything except Jones.
“Skye,” he repeated. “As in ‘skies of blue’?”
As in the color of your eyes, she thought, but didn’t say. She was not about to tell him her name was Skylight. People always wanted to know where that name came from.
“As in skies of gray, maybe,” she said. “I tend to reject anything that’s black and white.”
“Or colorful,” he said.
“Or colorful,” she agreed. But he seemed colorful, and she wasn’t rejecting him. In fact, he still held her hand. Or, if she really wanted to be accurate, his hand enveloped hers.
She rarely felt small, but next to this guy, she felt truly tiny. And her hand was lost in his.
In a good way.
She rubbed her thumb against his palm, and his cheeks actually flushed with surprise. His hand twitched just a little, and she wondered if he had nearly pulled away from her.
But his gaze never left hers. If anything, his eyes seemed to become a deeper blue.
“You seem colorful to me,” he said.
“Only every other Thursday,” she said.
He smiled. It softened his features and made him seem even more approachable. How long had it been since she’d seen such a handsome man?
All right, that probably wasn’t the question to ask, since she’d seen a lot of handsome men. But none of them had attracted her. This guy, he made her relax, maybe a bit too much. Spies should never relax.
“It’s my lucky day then,” he said so softly that she almost didn’t hear him.
Banter rose in her mind: Mine too. Or maybe we could both get lucky. But she didn’t say either of those things because she suddenly felt awkward. That “lucky day” comment seemed sincere, and she distrusted sincere.
Delor
es showed up with a steaming burger, something that resembled fried potatoes, and a tray of condiments. She slammed it all on the table, narrowly missing Skye and Jack’s still-entwined hands.
He let go of Skye’s hand and she glanced at him, startled. She hadn’t even thought of letting go.
Oh, yeah. Sincere was very dangerous.
His cheeks still had spots of color as he reached for the hamburger. Delores slapped his wrist.
“The sandwich, you overgrown monstrosity of a man, is for the young lady.”
No one ever called Skye a lady, and very few people called her young. Both terms applied to weaker, more polite people than she had ever been.
“Yeah,” Skye said, sliding the plate toward herself. “You wouldn’t like it. I prefer my bacon wiggly.”
And the banter again: Unlike my men. I prefer them hard.
But she censored that as well.
He glanced at her, a small movement, almost unnoticeable. Jack Hunter, huh? She had never heard of him, and she wondered why not. A man like him would be hard to miss no matter where he went. Since he was comfortable in the Starcatcher, he came to Krell a lot.
She should have heard of him—not necessarily by this name, but just because he was so big. People talked about anything unusual, and his size made him very unusual.
“Well, then,” he said, his hand retreating to his side of the table. “I guess I’ll have to wait for mine.”
Skye could hear the burger sizzling, so it wouldn’t take very long.
“What about my special soda?” he asked Delores. “I’m thirsty as hell.”
“I shut down the fountain,” she said. “Drink her water.”
“No one should drink that water,” Jack said. “I swear it’s another life-form.”
“Naw,” Delores said. “But I wouldn’t bet against other life-forms living in it.”
She wiped her hands on an apron as filthy as the table, then stalked to the back.
“I want the soda!” Jack yelled after her.
“I want some handsome prince to rescue me from all this,” Delores shouted back. “I doubt either one of us will get our wish.”
“You can have my water,” Skye said to him. “I don’t mind.”
He was still looking toward Delores. Then he turned his attention to Skye and she felt the power of that face again. He wasn’t the most handsome man she had ever seen, but something about him took her breath away.