Hotter on the Edge

by Erin Kellison

  Her high dissipated entirely, and the day's cold went straight to her bones. She was shot down near the Eye, where Simon lived. It followed that he had to have seen her go down and was now covering up for the culprit—or that he was involved in some way.

  Hurt, that.

  But it was an easy, balanced equation in her mind. He'd been there at the beginning. And here he was now. Convenient. She didn't like that word, either.

  But why would he do such a thing?

  She had no answer for that.

  The only thing she understood was that she was good and caught, after all. A couple of hours at most to the Way Station, and then she would've been free. She'd been so close. She'd almost escaped, but as usual, there was no escaping him.

  "Hands behind your back, please," he said.

  Of course, he would know the moment it all clicked together in her mind. He'd always known her so well. At least he wasn't trying to prolong the charade.

  Mica did as he asked, for now, and cursed herself. Her galloping pulse urged her to knee him hard in the groin—where he deserved it—and make a run for it. But Simon was in much better shape at the moment than she was.

  She'd sworn never, ever to come back to Sol. She'd threatened herself with dire punishments if she did. Something about being dead and in ashes first. But then Pilar had gotten engaged, and had whined and cajoled, and then her mother had demanded, and her father had done that I'm-disappointed-in-you thing until she'd finally agreed. Just for the wedding. Suicide by immolation could be postponed for the next visit.

  Simon bound her hands. And this time, it wasn't a prelude to a spectacular night.

  She flushed with the memory and swore again, this time for payback. He had no idea how she'd spent the last five years and just what she could do when pressed. She'd slept in shit because of him.

  "Okay," he said, a strong hand at her cocked elbow. "Let's get you to the Way and into that shower. Sweetheart, you stink."

  Chapter Three

  The two hours of dogged silence was Simon's first clue that he was not dealing with the same Mica who'd left him five years ago. That Mica had spit anger and had told him in no uncertain terms what she thought of him. This Mica watched him out of calm, slit eyes.

  Growth had climbed up the door to the Way, roots fingering the crack at the jam. A little more time, and this jungle would've found a way to reach inside and bring the whole thing down. Sol didn't like anything alien in its midst. Sol conquered, no, Sol took back what was hers to begin with. Simon knew that fact with excruciating intimacy.

  Everything he'd worked for…

  He glanced at Mica and felt the loss fresh again.

  The inside of the single-story structure seemed cold and musty, but intact: a prefab basic unit for a bioform team. She had hired him to put it together, and then worked right alongside to learn how. She'd had impossible, beautiful dreams, and damn if she hadn't gone after them.

  Inside, the space was modular, as the needs of its occupants required. Right now, the interior remained divided into four primary areas: a workzone outfitted with specialized equipment for what Mica called her self-imposed internship (she'd never trusted that she'd been granted her position on merit, versus the privileges of her family name); sleeping quarters, which could've been divided into six partitioned bunks, but had been kept as one large sleeping space for them to share (they'd worked in there, mostly); foodstuffs—a galley prep and eating space; and a washroom, with a large shower, perfect for two beneath the streaming heat.

  He might have captured Mica in the jungle, but he was the one who was going to be tortured. Just crossing the threshold to the Way had sent his blood pounding south with the irrational hope of sexual release.

  But what could he do—no, really—when the one person he loved had dreams that would take her to another world, and he was born with lead weights chaining him to the ground? What could he do but watch her fly and be happy that she could? It was the only way to bear it.

  "You can unbind my hands now," Mica's gray eyes were steely. "I give you my word I won't run."

  Running wasn't what he was worried about. There was nowhere to run. She wanted freedom, something different from running. Mica would fight, kick, and claw to be free. Just like him—hence the flyer and the pile of glittering mineral that awaited him. But "free" in this case meant incapacitating him in some way and taking control of the situation.

  "I know you too well, Mica." And then to needle her, he added, "There's no reason to be shy about the shower. I've seen you naked before. I won't touch." No matter how badly he wanted to.

  She didn't rise to the bait.

  "My word as a Sol," she said, as haughty as any corp-born princess. "Unbind me. I'm not going anywhere until I find out what you're up to. You couldn't get rid of me now if you tried."

  There was a threat in there. And the way she bandied about her corp name, Sol, when five years ago she'd wanted to stand on her own, as Mica, made a chill crawl over his skin. Her word as a Sol was as good as law on this planet. That she'd invoked such power had ramifications he couldn't immediately parse. She was dealing in tender far beyond his station, yet another wedge between them.

  "No comm either." In case she decided to stay by his side…but in the company of the Peace.

  She made a tight smile, showing the dimple in her chin.

  "No comm," she agreed.

  "Okay, princess." he said. He took his knife from his pocket and severed her bonds. "Shall I prepare a soft pillow for your delicate buttocks?" He hadn't meant the jibe to sound so harsh.

  Her humorless narrow gaze sliced his way.

  He shut up, shocked again at the realization that he didn't know who he was dealing with. Not anymore. Once, she'd been an extension of himself. Seemed like yesterday. Seemed like a hundred years ago.

  She started forward, exhaustion heavy on her shoulders, and stopped near the incinerator between the washroom and the kitchen. She slapped the ignition, and a dull roar filled the Way. A hand to the wall supported her slow descent to sit on the floor—she uffed when she finally touched down. Then she drew her knees up and worked her fingers at a knot in her footwear. Her breath was quick with anger. But there was a tension in her forehead that he associated more with sadness and disappointment, a precursor to tears—though she rarely let those fall. Five years ago, her family had made her tense up like this. Now, he did.

  When the knot didn't come immediately undone, he remembered he had a knife in his hand. And it gave him a reason to approach.

  "May I?" He glanced at her face for her permission. Her response was a dark, steady glare.

  He applied himself to the task. She'd braided narrow strips of bark to make a thick string. The spongy moss had padded and protected her feet, while keeping them warm. Clever. Resourceful. Strong. He knew she ached all over, but she was the only one in the universe who could last a day out there and emerge mostly unscathed. He'd been wearing a second skin, with a body tent for sleeping, and rations to keep him fed and hydrated, and had dozens of razor bug welts to show for it.

  He collected the trash of her shoes and threw it in the incinerator. When he turned back to offer her his hand, she was already standing, her back to him.

  She peeled off the shirt he'd given her and dumped it down the chute. Then her own, soiled and misshapen beyond salvaging, which left her nude from the waist up. He startled to see the warped flesh of a large, mottled scar at her waist, and the precision lines of what had to be surgical incisions. The injury appeared to have been extensive.

  He had to quell the urge to skim his fingertips over the marks. She'd been gravely wounded during the time they'd been apart. A quiet rage made everything within him go still.

  "So how was Encantada?" His voice was tight; the scars were strangling the air out of him. "Was it exhilarating to put all your hard work to use?"

  She turned slightly, revealing the curve of a full, bare breast. But it was her irascible expression that dragged his attentio
n upward. So angry. Well, he was too. What had happened to them?

  "You must be in some serious trouble to shoot someone out of the air." She turned back and threw her shirt into the chemical fire. Her filth was mostly confined to her arms and neck. The cloth had kept the worst off her skin. He loved the gentle curve of her spine. His fingers wanted to stroke there, too.

  "You were supposed to have your fail-safes on," he answered. The fail-safes would've had no problem landing the dragon that close to the ground. And the Tear was the perfect area to land. Boom cannons were fatal in space. "Fail-safes keep people safe. That's what they're there for." Just look at that scar. "You're reckless."

  She looked up, as if thinking very hard. "You shot me out of the sky, and I'm reckless. Okay."

  "I didn't know it was you." He'd have shot himself before firing on her.

  "Not good enough," she answered. She peeled off her crusted sleep pants, so that she was naked before him. Her beautiful, full breasts jiggled slightly as she turned. The plane of her belly, softly delineated by muscle. Long, strong legs. A soft weave of dark hair at the juncture of her legs.

  He was painfully hard. He couldn't help it. Even streaked in filth, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He craved her like some kind of long-denied sustenance. Every muscle in his body was strung tight to snatch her to him and consume her.

  But she just sighed heavily and walked past him to disappear into the washroom. A blast of water sent a mist wafting toward him. The spray seemed to collect him in its embrace and draw him into the doorway, where he watched with raw hunger as the water sluiced down her body. Her head was thrown back, face taking the initial blast, dark brown hair turning wet black. Her back was slightly arched, hips flexing. Her nipples jutted upward.

  She looked over, slow and lazy. "Do you mind?"

  Which startled him out of his trance. He just about had to rip himself out of time and space to move away from her. The three steps beyond her sight left him ragged with need, and growling to satisfy it. And he knew, deep down, she'd done this to him in a way the old Mica never would have. On purpose.

  ***

  Mica found an old, soft jumpsuit among the things she'd stored at the Way. The cloth felt wonderful on her clean skin, but smelled like a lifetime ago. Her wet hair hung loose down her back, drying. She felt human again, but like two people—her old self, crazy in love and full of ambition, and her self today, cynical, but finally independent.

  She strode over to the comm and gazed down at it thoughtfully, but she wouldn't break her word, especially the first time that she'd used her family name to give it weight. She felt it now, lead-heavy, on her tongue.

  Did she regret the cost of her independence? He was right there, taking his own shower.

  She'd left Simon on the top of the world. Everyone knew him. He had an energy that attracted people—attracted her, which is how they'd come up with the stake system. He was the youngest mine foreman in Sol history, but that hadn't satisfied him. He was busy, hungry for more, and carried everyone along with him. Before she'd left for Encantada, he'd earned a permit to a stake of his own. He'd even been publically recognized by her father and embraced by the Sol family.

  And now, what? He'd given up mining for a life of crime?

  She leaned on the Way's system display. A single tap just there would signal distress. A tap and slide, and she could comm her parents or sister. She wasn't exactly press ready for what was sure to be a quick pick-up, but she was clean.

  Her neck grew warm with the weight of Simon's stare at her back. She gave him an arch look over her shoulder. He stood naked, scrubbing his hair with a small towel. He had livid razor bug bites down one arm—he should try dung next time. And he was as hard and high as she'd ever seen him. The sight made her hot and tingly in spite of herself.

  She regarded the system console again. He knew she wouldn't call for help; she'd given her word as a Sol. But, just in case he had other ideas…With a few finger strokes on the console, she redivided the sleeping area into two rooms. Hit "execute" Turned to watch.

  The gears in the wall posts screeched—Simon jerked at the sound, all his admirable muscles going tense—and with a pump and swing, the bedroom reorganized itself into two sleeping chambers, open at both ends.

  "So you needed a flyer," Mica said, thinking aloud, since she was sure he wasn't going to volunteer information. The flyer was the starting point. Trace events from there, and she might just figure this out.

  He scowled and stalked into one of the newly fashioned quarters. "Was Encantada everything you'd hoped? Did all your preparation pay off?" He slammed a drawer. Stalked gloriously naked into the other room. Found what he needed there. "Were your skills respectable?"

  Mica leaned back on the console, considering. And he'd needed a boom to get the flyer. A boom would require planning, contacts, and pax—premeditation. Premeditation required time. This had been a while in the making. How long had he been scratching out an existence from his dig in the Eye?

  Simon emerged with pants on. Thank gods. She still had to work to keep her gaze away from the bulge.

  "Turned out my father bought me the position after all." She shrugged. "And he bought another for a guard to protect an heir of Sol and increased all our rations. Tripled our funding."

  Simon pulled a shirt over his head. "I'm guessing all these measures endeared you to the team." His flat delivery told her that he knew her team's reaction had to have been just the opposite.

  Yeah, well…bioform was highly competitive. Most researchers studied the samples taken on alien worlds, and their reports were collated into a massive database to be pored over by lesser researchers and then students. The actual team that collected the samples comprised the best minds in the field. That two slots went to a Sol princess and her bodyguard was bound to rankle, even if she had not known how to erect a way station. Well, so had each of them.

  "I work best under stress," she said. The first three quarters had been miserable until her bodyguard, poor man, was eaten by a feral Encantan creature, a beast the team subsequently named after her: Encant carniverso micasol. So she'd been immortalized for the ages, and would be henceforth a horrifying footnote in every paper that mentioned a micasol beast, the original bioform team to Encantada, or the funding for the survey. But what princess couldn't use a little humility now and again?

  "I don't think your father made those arrangements so you could shine under duress."

  "He bought my dream." Her father did stuff like that all the time: First, refusals and arguments and reminders of Sol responsibilities. Then, a little too much support. "Anyway, I earned my team's respect." Which was the point. She'd done it. And the things she'd seen…. It made her ache now not to be able to share them with him. "What happened to your dream? What would possess you to do business with the scavengers?"

  It was a guess—for where else could a miner get a boom on Sol?

  Simon dropped his hand towel on the floor. Approached. Got close enough that she could feel his body heat. He smelled shower sweet. One deep breath, and their bodies would touch.

  "You want to know where I got the boom?" Seemed like he was offering a trade. And considering the way he looked at her, she could guess what for.

  She almost laughed in his face. Stepping up like that. He would get nowhere with her—not this stranger who risked her life with a deadly weapon. There was a reason that use of a boom was a death sentence. She hoped the situation in his pants hurt.

  "I want to know why," she said. What brought you to this?

  His gaze was locked on hers. "I'm only offering where."

  Simon Deal-maker. The heat radiating from him lit a spark that sizzled down low, but she wouldn't act on it.

  "You shot me out of the sky," she reminded him. "Tell me what happened to you."

  The intensity in his eyes deepened to an emotion she'd never seen there before—terror, regret, loss?—so that she was tempted to give him what he asked for, in spite of eve
rything. If a kiss would bring back the mischievous smile that had once tied her in knots, she was all his.

  His head bowed next to hers, scratchy cheek brushing her smooth one, breath in her hair. Her throat closed with raw longing. This was worse than a kiss. This was him and her in their place, her favorite fantasy, her shattered dream.

  "You want to know what happened?" he murmured in her ear.

  "Please," she said.

  "I learned to hate Sol." He turned and left her cold.

  ***

  Simon roused from his all-night vigil when the dragon flyer's shadow darkened the Way's only window. Mica had slept, lightly snoring as usual. He'd spent the minutes cold and uneasy about what the day would bring. This sleep deprivation felt strange, different from any other sleepless night and a little like acute dehydration—he was parched inside.

  "It's that time." He stood in the opening to Mica's quarters.

  Her lids fluttered. She blinked for a beat. Sat up with a pillow crease down one cheek.

  Gorgeous. But as attainable as a dream.

  He held out a length of rope to bind her wrists again. At least there would be some satisfaction, however bitter, in trading one more time with her father.

  "I gave you my word," she said. "You don't need to bind me."

  "Princess, if you aren't restrained, my men will start to think," he said. "And since they don't have very powerful brains, what easy conclusion do you think they will come to? And do you believe they will wait to consider other options before acting?"

  They'd think the princess promised him pax, and lots of it, for her safe, untouched return. They'd think that they'd been cut out of both the payout and the fun. Then they'd cut him out—literally—and do as they pleased with her.

  Her eyes flashed with scathing repulsion. But she held out her hands, cheeks flushed with color. "Fine. You're an idiot, but fine."

  He'd just drawn the knot tight around her wrists when the door to the Way burst open. Jace strode inside, waving his slicer gun in the air. Alcohol steamed from his pores. "Found you!"