Shades of Allegiance

by Sandy Williams

  He pressed his lips to the curve of her jaw. “Can we drop the charade?”

  She knew the charade he was talking about, almost told him yes when his mouth trailed kisses down her neck.

  Somehow she held on to her cracking willpower. “I can’t let you be a target.”

  “Has it crossed your mind that I might not need you to keep me safe?” He nipped at her ear.

  “Nope.” The denial was pitched too high.

  “I’m watching my back at the same time I’m watching yours.”

  Another kiss, one that made her breathless.

  “My back or my backside?”

  He grunted, pulled her into his lap, and lowered his hands to her waist to hold her tight against him. “I almost broke his hand.”

  “Emmit’s?” She laughed. “He’s a Seeker, Rip. He received my signal to back off.”

  He leaned back and looked at her—really looked at her—and humor mixed with the heat in his eyes.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I never thought I’d miss hearing you call me Rip.”

  This wasn’t their usual power balance—she did the tempting while he clung to his self-control—and she couldn’t find her equilibrium in time. She crumbled. She wrapped her hands behind his neck and didn’t hold back her hunger.

  He kissed her with the same force as she kissed him. Her hands went to the hard muscles of his shoulders, his chest. He grabbed her hips and dragged her closer, letting her feel how much he wanted her. How ready he was to take her right then, right there.

  Fuck. She ached for him.

  He didn’t let her catch her breath. He kissed her and touched her. He made her gasp his name, and she let out a very unusual-for-her mew.

  He twisted his fingers into her hair, pulled until her head tilted, giving him better access to her throat. His tongue teased and tickled while his other hand abandoned her ass for her breast.

  She said his name again, a plea for more.

  He bit her neck just hard enough to make an erotic shock zip through her. He splayed a hand across her back, keeping her close while he reacquainted himself with her body.

  Damn, he reacquainted himself.

  But when his hand slid down her right side, she sucked in a breath and tried not to stiffen. It didn’t hurt—not much anyway—but she was worried he’d feel the dampness there, worried he’d realize her shirt wasn’t just wet from the ocean.

  His hand continued down to her hip, then closer to her center.

  She rocked into him and dug her fingers into the corded muscles of his back. She found a rip in his shirt near his shoulder. There were scratches on his skin.

  They were a mess. His earlier mention of showering together began to sound like a great idea and…

  Shit. The shower. It had cut off.

  Rykus looked toward the bathroom when she did. The door was still shut, but they were out of time.

  She tried to slide from his lap.

  He held her in place. “Sleep with me.”

  “You’re sharing a room with Chace.”

  “I’ll kick him out.” His hands locked on her hips, ground her against him.

  “Rip,” she breathed. It hurt how much she wanted him inside her. “Rhys. Please.”

  The sound he made was somewhere between a grunt and a groan. He released her, and she crawled off his lap right before Mira opened the door.

  Mira froze, her hand in the middle of finger-combing her wet hair.

  Ash had never felt self-conscious being caught with a man before, but she felt heat rise to her face. Maybe it was because this man meant something to her. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to people seeing her vulnerable.

  Hell. She couldn’t be vulnerable.

  “Took you long enough,” Ash said.

  “I had twenty layers of sweat and dust to scrape off.” Mira’s voice sounded strange, harsher than usual.

  “You should get cleaned up,” Rykus said, then he stood a little stiffly.

  Ash sat a little stiffly. If Mira hadn’t been one hundred percent certain there was something between them on the boat, she was now.

  Rykus cleared his throat. “Ash’s side wound has opened up. She needs laser treatment, antibiotics, and a full body-stat profile.”

  Oh, the deceptive SOB. His request to sleep together had been a literal one. He wouldn’t have pinned her to the mattress or thrust into her hard enough to make the bed scrape across the floor. He’d been fully aware of her injuries.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Mira said. “You should go back to your room.”

  His gaze hitched on Mira, undoubtedly catching the dismissal in her tone, before he looked at Ash again.

  Ash glared, more than a little unhappy he hadn’t been as caught up in her as she had been with him.

  A corner of his mouth tilted into a grin, and she decided she’d forgive him.

  Rykus had no intention of returning to his room. Ash’s room had two bunk beds. He would take one of them.

  Before he did, he tracked down clean clothes and he showered, washing away dirt and seawater and wishing he had Ash there with him. He would gently run a cloth over her skin, cleaning away the blood and grime and making sure her side wound was the only serious injury she was trying to hide. He would take care of her, then tuck her into bed.

  He dried off and dressed, then hurried back to Ash’s room. He was almost to her door when Mira came out. She had a med-kit slung over one shoulder and a bag of bloodstained cloths in her hands.

  “How is she?” Rykus asked.

  Mira’s lips pressed together. He knew that look. He’d received it more than once from his former fiancée. Mira was pissed about something.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  She walked to the trash chute in the wall to his left, opened the hinged drawer, then shoved in the bag of cloths.

  She slammed the chute shut.

  “I always thought,” she said without turning, “that if I ever met “Rest in Peace” Rykus, the hero of Gaeles Minor, I’d walk up to him, shake his hand, and thank him for saving my family and home world. Now that I’m standing in front of him, all I want to do is slam my fist into your face.”

  Nausea sloshed in his stomach the second she said his name. It built with each word, careening around to the point where he thought he might actually get sick. Mira had figured it out. Not only did she know who he was, she knew what Ash was. It didn’t take much effort to jump to the conclusion that he was her fail-safe.

  “Ash and I have addressed the issue,” he said.

  “Oh really?” She turned a blistering glare on him.

  “I don’t command her.”

  “You just fuck her.”

  His stomach steadied out. He flattened his expression too. “We have a relationship.”

  “You’re a hypocrite.” Mira took an aggressive step toward him. “You went before the senate and ripped them apart for approving a program that takes away a soldier’s free will. You pointed out the flaws in the system, the violation of rights, the very real possibility that the anomalies could be abused. And here you are, doing the abusing.”

  That stung. It made it hard to keep his voice neutral. “I’ve talked to Ash about everything you just said. I tried to get her to walk away. I gave her space and time and—”

  “You outrank her,” Mira said, cutting in. “Just your presence alters her behavior.”

  “If you think Ash is that malleable, you don’t know her.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and the press of her lips said she might agree with that statement, but she went on. “I’ve researched anomalies and the Caruth program. The Coalition acknowledges the potential for abuse. Loyalty-trained anomalies and their fail-safes aren’t supposed to work together. You aren’t supposed to be in the same star system.”

  He couldn’t refute that, and he couldn’t tell her why this was an exception, not without leaking classified information.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

>   “I bet.”

  He looked down at Mira and forced himself to soften his voice. “If I didn’t think Ash was strong enough to walk away, I’d do the walking. I love her. The last thing I want is to make her less than who she is.”

  Mira didn’t respond, didn’t move. He wasn’t even sure she blinked for half a minute.

  “She’s strong enough, Mira. She goes out of her way to do the opposite of what I want.”

  A few more seconds passed, then the block of ice shattered, and she snorted. “That sounds like Ash.”

  He let himself smile then, a small curve of the mouth.

  Mira adjusted the strap to the med-kit higher on her shoulder. “You’re really gone for her, aren’t you?”

  “Completely,” he admitted.

  She still didn’t look like she liked the thought of them together, but her sigh said she accepted it for now.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  A new disapproval pulled at her expression. “According to her, she’s fine. According to my observations and the body-stat analysis, she should be put in an induced coma. She’s dehydrated, obviously, and her side wound is a mess. She has a couple of cracked ribs. I’ve given her something for the infection and glued the wound shut, then I used half a jar of med-gel patching up the rest of her. She took a beating. Anyone else would be curled into a ball in a corner. With her, I’m just hoping she stays in bed a few hours. Days would be optimal, but she’s Ash, so…” She shrugged.

  “And her blood profile?” he asked.

  “Her body is under stress. Her cortisol and the other expected chems are elevated, but her b-stim level seems abnormal. I don’t have access to all the anomaly research, but I believe it should be higher.”

  “May I see it?” he asked.

  She took off her comm-cuff and brought up the graph.

  It was low. Not as bad as when the Coalition had withheld her booster on the Obsidian, but enough for any doctor to glance at the results and order the chem immediately.

  He handed the cuff back. “She’s overdue for an injection.”

  “I figured,” Mira said. “I asked when she last had one. She didn’t answer.”

  “She’s spacing out the dosage.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because she’s Ash,” he said. The Coalition had used her addiction against her before. Understandably, she now hated the dependency.

  “She needs to take it,” Mira said. “I think her stress levels would come down and she’d recover more quickly. She wouldn’t listen to me though. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  “Opposite of what I want, remember.”

  Her mouth twisted, and she shook her head. “She’s infuriating sometimes.”

  He smiled. “Welcome to my world.”

  She sniffed, then looked at the door. “She’s not made for following orders. She’s better at designing schemes and getting people to do what she wants.”

  “She does okay in the Corps,” he said. “All the anomalies have their quirks.”

  Mira hmmed, then looked at him. Some thought or assessment passed through her eyes. Rykus didn’t get a chance to guess at what it was. It disappeared when she yawned, covering her mouth with her fist.

  “I’m going to return the med-kit,” she said. “Then I’m sleeping for the next week.”

  “I’m taking Ash’s top bunk.”

  Mira paused in the middle of turning. She surveyed him again, came to a conclusion, then gave him a curt nod before she continued down the hall.

  Quietly Rykus entered Ash’s room.

  It was dark. He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust before he crossed to Ash. She didn’t move when he approached. He rested his forearms on the top bunk, stretched his shoulders and back, then he listened to Ash breathe. The occasional, heavy whisper of air from her lungs indicated she was sleeping. Good. She needed it more than all of them. She needed weeks of rest without being thrown around or shot at or hurt. She needed a mental reprieve too. She still mourned her teammates, and her mind was constantly creating a web of connections between one telepathic data point and another. She pulled at the threads, deleting and reattaching them, trying to place Valt and Tahn and her other brief encounters with telepaths into an elaborate conspiracy designed to damage the Coalition.

  He wanted to climb into bed with her and pull her into his arms. It took effort not to touch her, not to brush his knuckles along her jaw or slide his fingers over the small braid in her hair. He settled for a whispered, “I love you,” then he climbed into the top bunk and burrowed under the covers.

  14

  Rykus slept through the rest of that day and almost made it to dawn of the next. When he grew restless, he climbed down from his bunk. Ash and Mira both lay in their beds. Chace too. He had come in with the aid worker last night. When he’d spotted Rykus, he’d muttered a string of curses, then climbed into the bed above Mira’s.

  Rykus silently slipped from the room.

  Though it was predawn, Requiem House stirred. Devout Seekers tended to be early risers. They completed their morning rituals, then prepared for a day of prayer and helping others.

  He grunted greetings to the too-cheerful men and women he passed and found his way to the dining room. A scattering of Seekers sat at three long tables. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but he needed food. Ash did too, and he didn’t expect her to sleep much longer.

  He headed to a door on the opposite end of the room, expecting to find the kitchen. Instead, he entered a smaller dining area holding a table surrounded by eight chairs. Emmit was the only person there. He stood at a counter making hand-pressed coffee.

  “Good morning,” Emmit said. “Coffee?”

  Rykus tried to forget that this was the man who’d kissed Ash and palmed her ass. Emmit had coffee, and Rykus had a lifetime practicing self-control. He could be polite. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Have a seat.” Emmit motioned to the table. “The kitchen will be switching over to mass producing for the homeless outside, but I can have Logan make you a tray.”

  “If he could make one for Ash as well, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure.” He finished pressing the coffee, poured it into two cups, then brought one to Rykus.

  “So, you and Ash…” Emmit faded off, waiting for Rykus to finish the sentence.

  Rykus accepted the mug and met the Seeker’s eyes with an expression that clearly communicated Yes. Me and Ash. But all he said out loud was, “I watch her back,” then he took a sip of his coffee.

  Damn, that was good stuff. Much better than the machine-made crap served on Coalition bases and vessels. Made it a little hard to remain pissed at the Seeker.

  “I thought Scius had killed her,” Emmit said quietly.

  “People keep mentioning his name.” Rykus pulled out a chair and sat. “What do you know about him?”

  Emmit tapped something into his comm-cuff. Most Devout Seekers didn’t wear the tech. It didn’t surprise Rykus that this one did. Emmit didn’t seem quite as devout as his father.

  He sat opposite Rykus. “Breakfast will be here in a few minutes.”

  “Scius,” Rykus said, his tone making it clear he wouldn’t drop the subject.

  Emmit lifted a shoulder. “He’s the boss of Brightwater, the biggest precinct on the planet. He controls access to the spaceport and the North Causeway, and he’s able to silence communication and data transfers pretty much whenever he wants. People know not to piss him off.”

  “But Ash did,” Rykus said.

  Emmit nodded. “I don’t know what exactly she did to trigger him, but he went after her and every dreg she associated with. He slaughtered most of them. Some made deals to survive. Everyone was on edge, and for five years, not a soul mentioned her name. She was dead. People said they saw her body.”

  “He won’t stop until he kills her then.”

  “Theoretically, she’s safe here, but theoretically, Scius wouldn’t shoot up a spaceport to get to her. That was him, wasn’t it?
On the platform three days ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s becoming more brazen.”

  “The government won’t do anything about him?” Rykus asked. If he understood correctly, Glory was ruled by an oligarchy, a small, select group of citizens who created and enforced the world’s laws.

  Emmit shook his head. “A few years ago, they might have spoken out, but now every one of them is indebted to Scius. If they don’t look the other way, they won’t keep their cushy government positions. They might not even survive to the end of their terms.”

  “He owns the commanders of the Coalition’s outposts too?” he asked.

  “They’re more loyal to Scius than the oligarchy.” He looked past Rykus.

  “Still wanting to beg for rescue?” Chace asked, entering the small dining room with Mira at his side.

  “Don’t start,” Mira said.

  Chace ignored her. “I already told you they’re corrupt. Ash told you they’re corrupt.” His stance was aggressive. So was the small step he took toward Rykus. “You going to keep asking around until you find someone who says they aren’t?”

  Rykus didn’t stand, but he pushed his chair back from the table. If Chace took that as an invitation to brawl… Well, he wouldn’t be wrong.

  He kept his hand wrapped around his coffee mug and returned Chace’s icy glare. “I’m going to ask questions until I get Ash off this planet. If you have intel to help with that, share it. Otherwise, keep your input to yourself.”

  Emmit cleared his throat. “Fighting is one way to get your sanctuary revoked. Why don’t you grab some coffee, Chace?”

  “Not thirsty.”

  Rykus took a long sip from his mug.

  Mira put her hand on Chace’s arm. “Come on. This isn’t solving anything.” She tugged him toward the coffeepot.

  “I think we can solve a lot of things,” Chace said.

  The man wanted to goad him into making the first move. What did he think that would accomplish? Other than Rykus tearing him apart?