“I apologize, my love.” He stood and took her hand. It was a joy to have all his children and grandchildren with him.
He’d made a grave mistake with Kyler el Darkos and the king’s blades who had come before him. They gave so much of themselves and had nothing. That the man defended Gravas but felt apart from it had come as a shock.
He was toying with the idea of creating an elite squad to replace the position. That way, they could rotate in and out, allowing them to have lives beyond their work. It wasn’t often he regretted decisions, but not changing this one, accepting that it had always been that way for the course of history, had been a mistake.
One he’d rectified by giving Etta Mortis her life. Her role had been small, her remorse genuine. And as she’d pointed out, he’d gone to great lengths to protect his son, so why would she do less for her sisters?
“There’s still one more loose end.”
“Helldrick.” Steffa was well-versed on everything that was happening. Whatever he didn’t tell her, she learned from their children or her network of friends. Sometimes he believed she knew more than he did.
“Yes.” Holding her hand, he led her out of the room toward their private chambers where the family would have gathered.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll send someone after him. He was a part of the plot against Ivar. And while he’s out there, the children will never be safe.” The littlest one, Maggs, had piercing green eyes that saw more than a child her age should.
“You’ll handle it.” Her unwavering faith in him gave him strength.
“You can count on it.”
The End
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BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER
RESCUING RORY
Marks Mercenaries, 1
N.J. Walters
Copyright © 2019
Sample Chapter
“This is going to be a major clusterfuck. There’s no quiet way to do this.”
Even though his brother’s thoughts echoed his own, Kal Marks didn’t spare Garth so much as a glance. No, his gaze locked solidly on the woman currently dancing in one of the gilded cages that hung from the ceiling here in the largest club on the pleasure ship Exos. The flashing blue spotlight made her smooth white skin look the same color, giving her an exotic appearance.
Her long, blonde hair hung down her chest, covering her breasts, much to the dismay of the customers around her, and the skimpy thong barely covered her mound as she dipped and swayed to the pounding music. If anything, the tiny strip of cloth accentuated her nakedness, which was no doubt its purpose. She didn’t look at any of the patrons, keeping her eyes trained on the far wall.
“Are you listening to me?” Garth asked, practically yelling to be heard over the noise. Impatience tinged his voice.
Kal forced himself to turn away and focus on his brother. “I hear you, but we don’t have a choice.” They had to talk to the woman, the dancing vision.
“You sure the information is good?”
Now that was a question, wasn’t it? Digger wasn’t exactly known for his honesty, but he traded in information, and he knew the Marks brothers were always buying when it came to intel on the whereabouts of their missing sister. He also knew better than to lie to them.
“Digger is too scared of Flynn to risk feeding us bad info,” Kal pointed out. Flynn was the oldest of the four brothers, massively tall and mean as a snake. It was well known throughout the Alliance galaxies that the only people Flynn cared about were his brothers.
Cross one of the Marks brothers and you crossed them all.
“I still don’t like it,” Garth muttered.
“Noted.” Kal let his gaze drift over the room, observing the positions of all the guards. There were quite a few of them, as things could get rowdy on the Exos. In fact, Kal was counting on just that.
The music pumping through the sound system was low and rhythmic. That, combined with the mostly naked women dancing around them, was designed to get men in the mood so they’d pay the money to visit the back rooms where women waited to service them. This far out in space the floating pleasure ship contained the only women many of these men would see for months.
Kal looked at his brother and noted his scowl. Garth’s thoughts mirrored his own. What if their sister were aboard a ship like this? Most of the women weren’t here by choice. Usually the brothers would never set foot on a ship like the Exos, but when it came to intel about their sister, they’d go straight into the bowels of hell itself.
“She’s got the tattoo Digger told us about.” Garth studied the dancer now, his gaze tracing the long length of her legs. Kal was filled with the sudden urge to punch his brother in the face.
He rolled his shoulders and forced himself to lean back in his chair and act as if he were enjoying the show. And it wasn’t much of an act. The woman wasn’t really dancing, more sensually undulating to a rhythm far different from the music filling the room. He caught his breath when her hair slid to the side, exposing one perfectly shaped plump breast for a split second before her hair covered it again.
Kal’s dick sprang to life, and he shifted to get more comfortable. No doubt about it, she was beautiful. There was something almost … innocent about her. Yeah, that was it. Impossible considering where she was. No one aboard this floating pleasure barge was innocent. Even if they started out that way, it didn’t last for long.
He fought to bring his body under control, feeling like a jerk for getting aroused. He knew a good percentage of the women here had been bought from slavers. His fingers tightened into fists. There was nothing he hated more than slavers. Those low-life bastards all deserved to be shot out into deep space without a protective suit.
If he could, he’d rescue all the women here. That just wasn’t possible, but he could rescue one. He let his eyes drift over her right arm. The tattoo on the woman was an unusual one, a stylized pattern of flowers that covered her left shoulder and ran all the way down her arm to her hand. There was no missing it. At the very bottom, a thorny vine wrapped around her wrist. Exactly as Digger had described.
“So how are we doing this?” Garth asked.
Kal rubbed a hand across his scruffy chin. He hadn’t bothered shaving in a few days, and it added to his disreputable appearance. The jagged scar on his left cheek didn’t hurt either. Both he and his brother were wearing the drab shirt and pants that labeled them as laborers from the planet below. But beneath them, both of them wore battlesuits, body armor that was practically indestructible while being totally lightweight. That kind of protection didn’t come cheap, but all the brothers owned a suit.
“You create a diversion, and I’ll get the girl. As soon as I’ve got her, we make a run for the ship.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but Kal and his brother had worked with worse.
Garth stood and hitched up his pants. At six-one, he was the shortest of the brothers, but he was the widest, and not because there was an ounce of fat on him anywhere. No, Garth was built like a bull, thick and muscular, and always ready for a fight.
“One diversion coming up.” He swiped up his drink and weaved his way toward a table filled with miners. They were a rough and rowdy lot and were known not to tolerate outsiders.
Kal shook his head. His brother was crazy. But then again, the same could be said about all of them. Garth pretended to be drunk when Kal knew he hadn’t so much as taken a sip of his drink. Neither of them had. No telling what was in the rotgut they served aboard this ship.
Garth was almost on top of the men now. “Harcon, old buddy. Haven’t seen you for a while.” He held his
arms wide open as if he were going to hug one of them men.
“Piss off,” the man growled. “You got the wrong guy.”
Kal stood and slowly began to meander toward the cage containing the woman they needed to talk with. He didn’t hear the next thing the miner said to his brother, but he heard Garth’s reply.
“No need to be so unfriendly.” Garth waved his arms wide and spilled his drink over two of the other men seated at the table. “Whoops. Sorry about that.”
Kal bit his bottom lip to keep from smiling. Garth was enjoying himself just a little too much. Kal was right next to the cage when one of the miners slammed his fist into Garth’s jaw. Kal winced and not for his brother. It was well known that Garth’s jaw was as hard as granite. The blow didn’t even knock his brother back an inch. Instead Garth shook his head, roared his displeasure, and rammed his fist into the miner’s gut. The man dropped like a stone, and the fight was on.
The guards hurried toward the combatants before things got too out of hand. Kal turned his attention to the woman in the cage. Like the rest of the crowd, she was watching the fight.
He reached into his pocket, withdrew a thin metal box, and attached it to the lock. The device ran through the sequence of possible combinations faster than the speed of light. In ten seconds flat, he had the door to the gilded cage open.
The woman gasped and jerked away from him when his hand touched her calf. Her amazing blue eyes widened when she realized the door to her prison was open.
“If you want to get away from here, come with me.” Kal gave a quick look over his shoulder, wincing when Garth picked up a man and launched him at another table. The table didn’t survive. Kal wasn’t sure the man would either, not without extensive medical attention.
This was quickly getting ugly. “Make up your mind. We’ve got to go. Now.”
Not that he was going to give her any choice in the matter, but it would be easier if she came of her own free will.
****
Aurora Banks had seen just about everything in her twenty-two years of living, and most of it wasn’t pretty. But this was the last thing she’d expected to happen when she was shoved into the dancing cage a few hours ago.
The man standing before her with his hand out was tall and broad and downright intimidating. His eyes were a piercing green, and his silky black hair fell around his shoulders. A thick scar ran from just below his eye by his nose all the way out to his ear.
If she were totally honest, he was handsome in a rough-looking way. Not that it mattered. He was a way out of this nightmare. Rory only hoped she wasn’t jumping from one bad situation to an even worse one.
Trusting her instincts, she reached out and took his hand. It was warm and strong as it closed around hers and pulled her to the edge of the cage. He lifted her down from her gilded prison, wrapped one strong arm around her, and hustled her toward the wide red door that blocked their path to freedom.
“The guards.” She had to yell to be heard above the din of the yelling and fighting. They called themselves bouncers, but they were here to do more than keep the peace. Their main job was to make sure they didn’t lose any of the merchandise or the money. And all the women on board were considered prime merchandise.
“You let me worry about them.” Her liberator reached inside his shirt and drew out a compact-sized blaster.
Something crashed behind her, and she automatically began to look toward it. He caught her chin and turned her face away. “Look forward, not back.”
That was good advice. She ignored the noise and the fighting and hurried to keep up.
One man, a Crebian by the looks of his greenish-blue skin, tried to stop them. The man beside her didn’t even pause. He simply raised his hand and shot the blaster. The Crebian fell to the floor, and the men around him stepped back, giving them a wide berth.
Rory didn’t know how her rescuer had managed to get the weapon on board the Exos, as there were stringent controls in place to keep such a thing from happening. She should know as she’d spent the past month trying to find a weak spot in their security system so she could plan her escape.
They pushed their way through the door. The man beside her tightened his grip on her wrist. His urgency became hers. “Run,” he told her. Giving no thought to the mistake she could be making, Rory ran, her bare feet slapping against the metal floor as she was practically dragged behind him.
“We’re coming in hot.”
At first, she thought he was talking to her. It took her a moment to realize he was speaking into a communication device strapped to his wrist. And it wasn’t just any communication device. This one was top-of-the-line and went for at least one-thousand Alliance credits, maybe more.
Who was this guy? Laborers and miners didn’t waste their hard-earned money on fancy communication devices. They tended to splurge on booze and women when they had a few extra credits.
“Roger that,” a deep voice replied. “Hurry the fuck up.”
Rory shivered. Whoever the voice belonged to, he did not sound happy.
“Just fire up the engines and be ready for anything.” He picked up his pace. “Not much farther,” he told her. “We’re docked at J portal.”
Rory glanced at the sign on the wall. They’d just passed the H portal. She did her best to keep up with the pace he set, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t used to having to run for her life.
He stopped suddenly, slammed her body against the wall, and threw himself on top of her. She heard the sound of a blaster, and then his big body jerked against hers.
Rory screamed. Her rescuer had been shot. She wasn’t going back to the cage. She wasn’t. She scrambled for the blaster in his hand even as the pounding of boots got closer. But when she lunged for the weapon, it was already out of reach.
Her liberator whirled around and returned the guard’s fire, the blaster steady in his hand. She peeked around his shoulder in time to see the two burly guards drop to the deck. “Come on.” He tugged her behind him, practically dragging her. She tripped but managed to stay on her feet.
The J deck came into view. Instead of relaxing, she grew even tenser. She knew better than to think this was over. No woman had ever been taken off the Exos. The captain wouldn’t allow it to happen. His reputation was on the line. If one woman was taken, then many would see all of them as fair game. The Exos would be constantly under attack. Pleasure ships stayed in business by being utterly ruthless to any who broke their rules and by having impenetrable defenses.
The panel whooshed open, and he practically threw her through it. “Get on the ship. Now.”
A fairly large deep-space-class trader was docked on the other side of the portal. The door to the vessel slid open, and a man stood there in full body armor, holding a massive blaster cradled in his arms.
Rory moved closer to her rescuer and clutched the hem of his shirt. He didn’t pay her any attention as he was too busy peering around the panel. “Come on. Come on,” he muttered under his breath. It occurred to her that he must have had an accomplice, someone who had aided him in her escape.
The man with the massive weapon beckoned her forward, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Not without the man beside her. She may not know his name, but she trusted him more than the unknown man waving her toward the ship. He’d protected her from the guard’s blasters. She’d be dead if he hadn’t.
Boots pounded against the metal floor. “Move it,” yet another unknown man yelled as he ran toward them, head down and legs pumping.
The man beside her startled as if surprised to find her still beside him, grabbed her hand, and yanked her through the portal and on to the waiting ship. Honestly, she was getting a little tired of being dragged around as though she were space garbage and he a salvager.
They passed the sentry as they boarded. He didn’t even glance at them. All his attention was on the portal. The other man burst onto the deck, raced through the portal, and launched himself onto the ship. The door slid closed and locked behind
him. The man with the huge blaster hit the communication pad next to the door. “Go. Go. Go.”
The ship banked sharply and dropped as the captain released from the docking station and took off hard and fast. Rory flew toward the wall, but before her body could smash against it, strong arms snatched her out of midair, anchoring her. “I’ve got you.”
She shivered at the sound of his voice. He certainly did have her. His arms were like hot manacles wrapped around her midsection. He slid down the wall, braced himself against it, and dug his boots into the floor. The scratchy material of his shirt was rough against her arms and back, making her very aware of her lack of clothing.
With the intensity of their flight, and her need to escape, she’d forgotten she was wearing nothing but a scrap of what couldn’t really be called underwear.
The ship suddenly banked again, and she gripped his arm tight. The two other men grabbed the bulkhead above them and rode out the wild ride with seeming ease. She envied them their strength.
“They’ll send fighters after you,” she felt compelled to point out. The Exos had six fighters in her fleet along with several shuttles for ferrying customers from the surface of whatever planet they were currently orbiting.
The man who’d race on board behind them grinned at her. “They’ve got to catch us first, babe.”
Then the deep voice came over the intercom once again. “Hitting boosters in three, two, one.”
Rory knew what that meant and wrapped her arms around the man holding her. The ship shimmied and then was whipped forward at a massive rate of speed. This was obviously no ordinary trader ship. Boosters cost huge money and came with an element of danger as well. Flying at such incredible speeds meant it was tough to avoid another ship or a meteor if one crossed your path.
Kyler's Justice (Assassins of Gravas Book 3) Page 17