Lucie passed an assessing glance between the two of them. “We can do the tour later. I’ll be up in the common room if you need me.”
“Thanks.” She sent Lucie a quick, grateful smile when the other woman brushed past Zander and continued upward into the ship.
Mae crossed her arms as she returned her attention to Zander, though most of her annoyance at him had drained away. There was no point hanging onto a grudge about something so trivial when they didn’t have anyone beside each other to rely on until they reached Rian. Still, she didn’t want to let him know he was off the hook so easily.
“What’s wrong? Thought I’d changed my mind and gone back to the Isis Delta shuttle without you? Or did you think these marauders had done something nefarious to me while you weren’t looking?”
“None of the above.” His expression intensified, his toffee-brown gaze sending a shaft of heat right through her middle. She went to step back, but he closed in on her, catching her up against him before she could draw another breath.
His mouth closed over hers with unerring intent; there was absolutely no hesitation in the way he kissed her.
They’d both agreed that this couldn’t keep happening. Yet, as he so blatantly kissed her, a challenge in every movement of his lips against hers, it annihilated every good intention she’d clung to. How could she give this up? The thought of never being with him again made reckless desperation burst free from deep within her soul.
Problem was, once he learned she’d kept Rian’s suspicions of the Reidar killing him and taking over as captain admiral, he’d hate her for every lie and half-truth she’d spun, no matter her intentions to the greater good. Her evasiveness had nearly gotten him killed several times over and inadvertently brought about the destruction of the hotel and everyone inside it. She couldn’t have known the Reidar had already made their move to replace him, but would he see it the same way? They’d only just managed to stay a step ahead, and now she’d brought him onto the ship of his enemy, leaving them as quasi-hostages until they could contact Rian.
Worse, how would he react if he found out she’d still had her doubts about him when they’d been together in that cave?
Pushing all thoughts out of her mind, of what was right and wrong, she simply let herself feel, and oh god, it just made everything easier. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed herself closer to him, arching flush against the solid muscles of his body. His hands dropped to her hips and then lower to close over her butt, pulling her hard against the obvious evidence of his desire.
One of his hands came up to cup her cheek, and he pulled back, his breathing uneven…but no more so than her own unsteady exhale.
“They didn’t happen to show you where we’re bunking down, did they?” he murmured, the warmth of his words trickling over her lips.
She couldn’t stop the grin tugging at her mouth.
“No, but we don’t need a bunk.” She tilted her head so that her lips brushed his ear. “I’d settle for any solid surface you can shove me up against.”
Zander swore, his hand tightening almost convulsively on her hip. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Fair’s fair,” she muttered in return.
He shook his head and placed a short, hot kiss on her neck, just below her ear, and let her go. “I didn’t kiss you because I expected this to end in crazy, hot sex.”
Without Zander holding her up, her legs were definitely on the unsteady side, so she leaned against the passage bulkhead. “Oh, yeah? Then why did you kiss me?”
He shoved a hand through his hair, expression a little confused and most definitely adorable.
Adorable? What the hell was wrong with her brain? There were a lot of ways to describe Captain Admiral Zander Graydon, but adorable probably wasn’t one of them.
“Because I couldn’t not kiss you anymore. Also to say sorry for the way I acted when Forster grabbed you. I should have left you to deal with it. Usually I would. But, I don’t know…ever since we bumped into each other in the Tocarra spaceport, things have gotten crazier and crazier. The only constant in this mess is you. I didn’t expect what happened between us, but despite everything between us and everything spinning out of control, it’s the one thing that’s not complicated.”
Her heart constricted not only at Zander’s words, but also at his fervent tone. Yet, his declaration only made sadness drag more heavily through her, weighing down her limbs with the inevitable. Because it was complicated. Maybe not the physical attraction, but add in her undefined future, the secrets, other people’s agendas, and a bunch of shape-shifting aliens, and it became a hot mess.
She said, “It doesn’t change anything, though. There are things you don’t know, things that will change everything. Things I can’t tell you, no matter how much I want to.”
“That’s a convenient excuse, Mae. No matter whose secrets they are, you know you can trust me.” Zander shoved a hand through his short hair, and he glanced away with a haggard expression. “We should be focusing on getting out of this mess alive. But every thought leads back to you, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about that.”
Was she using her promise to Rian as an excuse to put off her inevitable confession? Mae glanced at her feet, rubbing her sternum at the ache in her chest. His words weren’t making this any easier. What he’d said was also true for her—all of her thoughts inexorably led to Zander. Knowing he was as confused by his feelings kept a spark of hope alive that if they did manage to get out of this screwed-up situation, they could find a way to sort things out.
Except she couldn’t be so stupid. False hope only led to disappointment, and she’d learned a long time ago that the best way to get along in this universe was to be a realist. Deceptions and half-truths were no solid foundation for any kind of relationship. For the millionth time, the searing urge to tell him rushed through her.
While she now knew Zander wasn’t Reidar, he would still be pissed at her if she told him the full story. Aside from that, Rian was about the last person in the universe she wanted to end up on the wrong side of. Hopefully, if Rian was the one who explained everything, maybe Zander would understand why she’d lied to him. And if he didn’t—
The lump in her throat swelled bigger, almost cutting off her breath. If he didn’t understand, that would make staying away from him a whole lot easier.
Besides, even if he understood why she’d lied to him from the day they’d met, where could things possibly lead? She couldn’t go back to the IPC or UAFA, while as a career military man, undoubtedly Zander couldn’t see himself anywhere else. After burning her UAFA clearance on Tocarra, she would have to disappear. Once Zander got his position back in the IPC, they’d never be able to see each other again. It was as simple as that.
A large, warm hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to find him studying her, a despondent shadow in his gaze.
“I probably shouldn’t have kissed you again. But selfishly, I wanted one more in case—”
“Don’t say it! We survived this long. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Once we get to Rian, we’ll be safer.” Mae clenched her fists, latching onto the rising annoyance of Zander giving her the just-in-case speech. If that was his attitude, she might as well go shove him out an airlock. He wouldn’t survive unless he believed he could.
“We’re going to get out of this, Zander, and we’re going to make that scum alien currently living up your life on the Swift Brion pay in blood. That’s assuming the bastard can bleed.”
He sent her a grin that didn’t quite make his eyes as he let his hand slide down her upper arm. He stepped back and put an impersonal amount of distance between the two of them. “Wow, that was very Rian-esque. Bloodthirsty and terrifying.”
She shot him an unimpressed glare. “Ha-ha. But Rian has been right about everything so far. If the Reidar really are trying to invade, then we’re in serious trouble.”
Zander’s expression lost all humor. “Wait a second�
��invade? What the hell are you talking about?”
A cold ripple of apprehension spread through her. “I thought you knew all about this stuff.”
“I know shape-shifting aliens exist, and Rian spends all of his spare time hunting them. He never said anything about them invading.”
“Oh, crap.” She blew out a sharp breath and closed her eyes for a long moment. Now she’d done it. All her noble thoughts about this being Rian’s secret to tell, and she’d gone and blown it with her big mouth.
He gripped both her upper arms. “Mae, you have to tell me everything. And when I see Rian, he better have a frecking good explanation for why he didn’t fill me in himself.”
She crossed her arms and nodded, pacing a few steps while she got her thoughts in order. If she told Zander the bare minimum and left out why she’d taken a position on his ship, maybe Rian wouldn’t blast her head off, literally or figuratively, when they eventually caught up to him.
“Didn’t you wonder why the Reidar chose you to replace?”
Zander shrugged one shoulder and then leaned against the bulkhead opposite her.
“Not really. Figured I’ve got a pretty cushy life. Flying around in a big-ass spaceship, ordering people around, and generally being awesome. Who wouldn’t want all that?”
She sent him an exasperated look. “Modest, much?”
He grinned at her. “I’m just telling it like it is.”
“All right, then, you’ve got it good. But you’ve also got power. You command a flagship, which includes a fleet and a large contingent of IPC soldiers. You’re placed high up in the IPC chain of command with potential to go much higher. You’ve got military and political influence all over the galaxy. You can make things happen. See where I’m going with this?”
He nodded slowly. “So the Reidar wanted to put one of their own in a position of power.”
“Now imagine if the Reidar replaced all of the captain admirals who were in charge of the IPC’s flagships. Imagine what would happen if other high-ranking military personnel, IPC political figures, multiversal CEOs, and the agents in charge of the Universal Armed Forces Agency were all replaced by Reidar.”
Zander straightened, his expression becoming grim. “Then, by the time they came at us with a fleet or army, we wouldn’t have any way to defend ourselves. The invasion would already be complete, all without the messiness of an outright war. But that’s crazy. Wouldn’t someone notice if all these people were being replaced? Does Rian actually have any proof? Or has his paranoia hit new levels of insane?”
“Rian told me the Reidar have highly trained assassins who kill the intended targets in stealth, and then the Reidar slip into that person’s life almost seamlessly. Anyone who notices any irregularities is either cut out socially or killed if they get too nosy.
“A few months ago, the last assignment I took for UAFA was apprehending a crew wanted for intergalactic terrorism. It turned out to be Rian and his people onboard the Imojenna. The lead agent on that case was Reidar. After we’d dealt with him, Rian told me he’d stolen a list of names from the Reidar, and he believed it was a compilation of people the Reidar were either planning on replacing or had already replaced. He wasn’t sure which. There were thousands of names on the list, Zander, ranging from IPC military to UAFA agents, world leaders, and CEOs of some of the galaxy’s biggest corporations. They hadn’t left any option out.”
Zander dragged a hand across his face, expression tense. “Okay, that’s bad. Really, really bad. And kudos to Rian for giving me a goddamn heads-up, so I might have known I had a bunch of psychopathic aliens gunning for me.”
Mae glanced away, clamping her jaw against saying anything else.
Now, he stood across from her looking equal parts shocked and pissed off. “We have to do something about this. Does Rian have a plan? Maybe they haven’t started yet, and we can bring in some of the IPC top brass—”
Mae stepped forward and closed her hand over Zander’s forearm. “You’ve got to stop thinking like military. It’s too late to trust anyone. If we go up the chain with this and there’s even one Reidar in place, it’s all over before we’ve even started. We’ll be too dead to help anyone. As for a plan, I’m not sure what Rian has in mind, which is part of the reason we need to track him down.”
Zander sighed and closed his eyes. “This is nuts. I only just found out about all of this alien stuff a few months ago, and now I’ve got to wrap my head around a possible invasion. If it’s true and Rian wants to stop it—save the universe or whatever—then we’re going to need some kind of help. Rian might be a badass, but he and his old junker of a ship can’t take on an entire species intent on invading.”
“I agree, but how are we supposed to work out who we can trust? It’s impossible to tell a Reidar from a person. The only time I’ve seen one in its true form was when it was dead.”
“Same here.” Zander shook his head. “There’s no use racking our minds over it. Rian knows more about this stuff than anyone else in the galaxy. The only thing we can do is make sure we survive until we’ve met up with him, and he answers all our questions.”
Mae nodded, but didn’t reply as steps sounded from the passage above them. A pair of scuffed boots appeared on the stairs, followed by legs encased in dark pants and a belt weighed down with an impressive variety of weapons. Forster paused on the fourth step and ducked his head to look at them.
“Food is up, if you’re hungry. I’m sure it’s not the fare you’re used to eating on that shiny IPC flagship of yours, but us naughty fugitives have got to make do with what we can scrape together on the outer planets.”
Mae glanced at Zander, who held out an arm. “After you, Lieutenant Marshal.”
She grinned at his formality, because after everything they’d shared, it seemed ridiculous. “Thank you, Captain Admiral.”
Forster scoffed as she stepped up onto the stairs. “Don’t think your oh-captain-my-captain is fooling me. And I thought you said you were traveling under false names.”
“Since you know who we really are, it seems kind of pointless to call each other Alexander and Maya,” Zander said.
“And it’s also pointless to keep up any pretense of rank or make like you don’t want to screw each other sideways, if you haven’t already,” Forster threw over his shoulder as they reached the upper level.
Mae glanced back at Zander, a slight heat brushing over her cheeks. Zander was aiming a death glare toward Forster, who either didn’t care or hadn’t noticed. Was their attraction for each other that obvious? Or had Forster just guessed from the way Zander had gone all misogynistic caveman on her earlier? Whatever the case, they needed to get a lid on it before they got back to the Imojenna, and it became the sour cherry on top of a sundae of problems.
Yeah, and if you keep telling yourself that, maybe after the millionth time, you’ll actually listen.
With a low sigh, she followed Forster into a small galley, where other crew members were either sitting or standing around with plates of food. Forster did a quick rundown of names—Lucie, who’d introduced herself, and then another two guys whose names she immediately forgot. Apparently there was also a Chase, but he was down in his workroom doing something or other.
Mae wondered how Lucie handled being the only woman onboard but let the thought slip away as she sat down on one of the two empty stools and accepted a plate of food from Forster.
So far, so good. This crazy idea to sneak off with one of the universe’s most wanted marauders wasn’t turning out so bad after all. She caught the glare Zander still had fixed on Forster and only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Hopefully, they could convince Forster to let them contact Rian soon, and in the meantime, she’d have to play the diplomat and run interference so Zander didn’t try to kill the man responsible for their only means of transport.
…
Zander mumbled a thanks as Forster handed him a plate of flat bread and rice mixed with vegetables and some form of unidentifiab
le meat. Could have been minced rat for all he knew. But everyone else seemed to be enjoying the fare, and it’d been hours—nearly half a rotation—since he and Mae had eaten at the hotel. He lifted the fork and shoveled a mouthful in, surprised at the simple yet delicious flavor that hit his tongue.
He turned toward the empty stool next to Mae, but before he could even take a step, Forster had slid into the spot with a smooth movement and an asswipe grin aimed in his direction. Forster was no doubt trying to get a rise out of him, so he wasn’t going to play along.
“So, how did Captain Admiral tight-ass Graydon and his admiral’s assistant end up on the run from their own military?” Forster asked between forkfuls of food.
Mae leveled a cool look on him. “What did one of the universe’s most wanted man steal from the Isis Delta shuttle, and where is he taking it?”
Forster pointed the fork at her. “Touché. I could tell you, but I would need information in return. Nothing comes for free in this galaxy.”
Mae glanced at him, and Zander shook his head slightly. Yeah, they needed Forster’s cooperation if they wanted to get in contact with Rian, but Zander trusted Forster about as far as he could throw the guy.
At some point, Zander needed a quiet moment with Mae to work out what information, if any, to give Forster. Of course, a smart man probably would have done that earlier when they’d been alone, instead of kissing her. He studied her intelligent gaze as she sized up Forster—she could run circles around the guy if she put her mind to it. He doubted there were very few red-blooded men in the universe who could spend more than two minutes around the woman without losing their head.
“You want to exchange information, then tell me your secrets first,” Mae said as she returned her attention to her plate, making a show of being blasé.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it? You’ll show me yours if I show you mine first. Sweetheart, I’ll show you anything you want.”
Zander clenched his fist around the handle of his fork, only just resisting the urge to shove the utensil into Forster’s eye. Mae moved her plate to balance in one hand and suddenly reached up to grab a handful of Forster’s pretty-boy hair. She wrenched his head back with a sharp movement.
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