I briefly debated the merits of leaving sooner versus having better protection. I opted for better protection. Only time would tell if it was a wise choice.
The necklace and bracelet felt heavy for their size. The bracelet was a wide silver cuff and the necklace had heavy silver links connected to a round silver medallion inlaid with turquoise. Both pieces were pretty but nothing indicated they were anything more than normal jewelry.
When I’d fled home, I’d only taken a small bag of possessions. These pieces of jewelry were two of the things in that bag. On the station I hadn’t had them on because I’d just popped over to the nearby shop to pick up an early dinner. Unfortunately, Captain Pearson had ruined that plan.
I performed the complicated left hand motion that activated my true identity chip. I held the necklace to the chip. Nothing happened, but that was expected. I turned the necklace over twice, then rotated the center of the medallion like I was opening a combination lock.
The center of the medallion sprang open, revealing a DNA tester. I clasped the necklace around my throat then pricked my thumb on the embedded needle. The medallion clicked closed and once again it appeared to be a normal necklace. Now it was authorized until I unclasped it.
I held the bracelet up to my real identity chip for a count of ten. It had less stringent security because it wouldn’t work without the necklace being authorized. I clasped the cuff around my right wrist and deactivated my real identity chip.
Now to face whatever awaited me outside. I’d delayed long enough to put on the jewelry not only because of the extra protection it would provide but also because I was hoping Loch would return if I gave him more time. He did not.
So now I was on my own. I’d try to meet him at our original house if I made it out. If he didn’t show, I’d have to find out if he got caught and by whom.
I needed to check the front. With the back door watched, it was unlikely they’d left the front open, but I didn’t have to dodge a fence in the front. I crept back through the hallway. I’d like to think that I would hear anyone who had breached the house, but highly trained men and women could be alarmingly quiet.
The front window showed a deserted street. And though I watched for five minutes, I couldn’t catch a hint of movement. Doubt crept in. Had I really seen someone on the roof in the back?
I took Loch’s cloak out of the bag and put it on over my own. It was less cumbersome to wear than to carry. I tied the bag of clothes I’d bought around my waist. Both hands needed to be free if I was going to have to fight.
I so did not want to fight.
I opened the front door and stepped out as if I was going for an afternoon stroll. Make something of that, you bastards.
Nothing moved and I finally realized what bothered me about this planet—there were no animals. No birds singing or dogs barking. It was eerily still except for the sound of the wind.
I turned left, back toward the main part of town. No one tried to stop me, but I had an itch between my shoulder blades like someone watched my progress. I took a meandering path but I couldn’t shake the tail. Whoever tracked me was good, because I couldn’t catch a hint of them, even when I doubled back on my path.
I would have to risk the central district to try to lose the tail in the meager crowd. I angled back toward the spaceport. Hopefully I could catch a glimpse of the Rockhurst ship while I was out.
As the number of people in the streets picked up, I dropped into my invisible persona, subtly altering my gait and posture. I also picked up the pace until I was just another harassed underling off to do an urgent task for a demanding boss.
I slipped down alleys and through a busy trading street. I looped back and changed course at random, until the watched feeling faded away. I kept at it for another twenty minutes, even pausing to stop in a tea shop and then exiting out the back.
When I was completely sure that I’d lost any tail, I started working my way back toward our original house. I was on the edge of the central district when Richard Rockhurst stepped out of a restaurant with a com to his ear.
Richard wore a traditional mercenary outfit, complete with cloak, but the hood was thrown back. He was tall and fit, with the blond hair and blue eyes I’d so envied as a young girl. I’d recognize him anywhere.
He was in the middle of the block I’d just entered. There was nowhere to go without drawing attention to myself and it took everything I had not to freeze and give myself away.
“And the man with Loch?” Richard asked with deceptive calm.
Someone on the other end must have responded, but I wasn’t close enough to catch it.
“So you’re telling me that you have neither Loch nor his contact on this godforsaken planet. You had one job and you failed.”
Another pause as the person on the other end tried to save their life. Now I was within a meter of Richard. I ducked my head, dropped my eyes, and thought invisible thoughts. I passed him close enough that our cloaks brushed.
“Find Ada,” he said. “That is priority one. Loch is our only lead right now, so that makes him priority two. We know he’s here in the city. Now it’s just a matter of finding where he’s stashed her.”
I didn’t breathe until I turned the next corner. I kept my pace even and continued on my way. Whoever had been following me thought I was Loch’s contact, unless Loch had another contact somewhere else. Either way, Loch had also avoided capture.
Ten minutes later I stopped in the darkness between two buildings and scanned myself for trackers. I came up clean. My tail had been following me the old-fashioned way, which begged the question: Why?
It was clear they’d arrived after us, but not by too much if Loch left the house while I was scanning for bugs. Maybe Loch had drawn off the main set of men, leaving behind a skeleton crew to watch what they thought was Loch’s contact’s house. If so, we’d gotten extremely lucky.
Luck was a fickle bitch, though, and I’d used up my monthly allotment in the last two days. I needed to be more careful.
Chapter 8
It took me over an hour to return to the house. I could’ve covered the distance in ten minutes if I took a direct path, but after the scare with Richard I wanted to be absolutely sure I didn’t have a tagalong.
Entering a potentially compromised building with only a knife was stupid. But I’d checked the perimeter twice and no one else lurked in the shadows. Stationing your entire team in the compromised house was equally stupid. We’d see whose stupid won.
The back door was unlocked. I slipped inside. “Loch?” I called. It gave me away, but it also meant I wasn’t sneaking up on the Devil of Fornax Zero in the dark. And if it wasn’t Loch waiting for me, I’d rather know that while I still had an easy exit at my back.
“In here.”
“We really should’ve had a secret ‘I promise there isn’t a roomful of mercs in here’ keyword,” I muttered to myself.
“I promise there isn’t a roomful of mercs in here,” Loch called back. I could hear the grin in his voice.
I locked the back door and approached the room we’d used before. The door was open and the light was on. Loch sat on a barstool that hadn’t been in the room before. He clutched a bloody rag to his upper left arm.
“Holy hell, are you okay?”
“Energy bolt grazed me,” he said. “Just deep enough that it didn’t cauterize. It looks worse than it is.”
“That’s good because it looks terrible,” I said. “Why didn’t you get the first aid kit?”
“Didn’t know we had one,” Loch said. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow. Can’t say the same for the bastard who shot me.”
“What happened?” I asked. I pulled out my com and checked him for trackers and bugs. He was clean, as was the room, and our packs from the ship. The two trackers I’d attached to his cloak didn’t set off the alarm since they were mine now. Assuming neither of us had been tracked the old-fashioned way, we wouldn’t have to leave tonight.
I rummaged around in my
pack from the ship until I dug out the first aid kit. Loch grimaced but didn’t object. He was right, the wound looked worse than it was. It was shallow, but as wide and long as my finger. I bet it stung like nobody’s business. I cleaned the wound and put a healing bandage on it.
“I went to look for heat only to realize the heater was missing. I’d been feeling twitchy, so I went outside to check the perimeter. Rockhurst’s men are sneaky fuckers, I’ll give them that. They moved in before I could warn you, so I did what I could to draw them away.” He shrugged his bad shoulder. “It worked a little too well.”
“If the crew is from the Santa Celestia—and I don’t know why they wouldn’t be—they are some of the most highly trained troops in House Rockhurst. I can’t believe they didn’t hit you worse than that if they had time to get a shot off.”
“He was preoccupied with the direction of my blade,” Loch said.
I’d seen Loch in action. I knew he had to have been military at one point because he was part of the team suppressing the Fornax Rebellion. But to know he’d gone toe-to-toe with one or more of Rockhurst’s elite soldiers and come out relatively unscathed . . . well, that was just plain scary.
“So who sold us out?” I asked. I shrugged off the extra cloak and untied the bag of clothes from around my waist. I should’ve grabbed some real food while I was out. Another energy bar held the appeal of eating dirt, but I needed the calories. And I needed to drink more water. I could feel the first signs of dehydration creeping in.
“The punk who tried to shake us down. I found his rat right before Rockhurst closed on us. Said he heard a new crew was looking for a big guy and thought he’d take care of the problem for his boss. He didn’t mention you to Rockhurst because he was afraid they wouldn’t come if there were two of us.”
“I got tagged on my way out. Managed to lose him in the central district. Did you know Richard is on-planet?”
Loch’s gaze sharpened and he sat straighter. “How do you know?”
That was a clever dodge of the question. “I nearly ran into him on the street. How did you know?”
“I doubled back on the soldiers. Heard them talking about how Richard was going to have their asses if they didn’t find me.”
Plausible, but not entirely true. I’d been reading people for a long time. Loch lied better than most, but I’d bet anything that he was lying now. So what did he gain by lying? Was he trying to work a double-cross with Richard?
“Did Rockhurst see you?” Loch asked. His own suspicion was obvious now. Clearly our road to trust was progressing not-at-all.
“I don’t think so. He didn’t stop me and no one followed me. But we’re going to need to move fast or they’ll catch us again. How many do you think are guarding the ship?”
“At least two. Even with the ship’s security they’ll leave a couple men behind. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a six-man team, to give them rotating shifts and backup.”
I sat on the bed and dug out an energy bar. This one was blueberry flavored. At least it was less objectionable than the mango one from this morning. I drank the last of the water from the ship. “Any idea if the tap water is drinkable?”
“Should be. These houses are still on the main water system. I’d let it run for a while first.”
That was a project for tomorrow, along with a laundry solution and a shower. Tonight I needed to contact one of my siblings and sweet-talk them into giving up prized family intel over only moderately secure channels.
We were all close, as if making up for our parents’ distance, but I was closest to my sisters. I could ask them for the moon and they’d do their damnedest to deliver. Just as I would do anything for them. So they were the most likely candidates for a huge, dangerous favor.
It would have to be Bianca. She had moved back to House von Hasenberg after her husband’s death, and she always seemed to have information that no one else could find. Plus, I was closest to her. Even among family we all played the game, though not as ruthlessly.
I activated my true identity chip and held the new com up to it.
“Verify,” a computer voice demanded.
“Ada von Hasenberg, smartest of all the von Hasenbergs.” Yeah, we got to pick our own verification phrases. I held the camera up to my eye for a retina scan. The com beeped.
“What are you doing?” Loch asked.
“I’m setting up this com to be able to send and receive on the secure House channels. Then I’m going to ask my sister for a huge favor and hope she comes through. Then I’m stealing a ship and leaving this freezing rock behind. What are you doing?”
“Trying not to bleed to death.” I glanced up sharply to find him staring at his com and not bleeding at all. He looked up and laughed. “I’m kidding. But if you don’t let me in on the plan, that might as well be what I’m doing.”
“I just told you the plan. When and if you need to know more, I’ll let you know. If you have a better plan, I’d love to hear it.” It was somewhat gratifying to see that Loch liked giving up control just about as much as I had when we were landing—that is, not at all.
I quickly typed a message to Bianca letting her know in as much detail as I dared what was happening and what I needed. I didn’t think she’d rat me out to Father, but if she thought my plan was too dangerous, she would send our brother Benedict in to save the day. And Benedict was exactly what this situation did not need.
I sent it priority, but even so, I didn’t expect a response until tomorrow morning at the earliest. I checked the rest of the family chatter. There were a few rumbles of trouble with Rockhurst over some planet in the distant Antlia sector.
Nothing overt in the family chatter indicated that Rockhurst was on the brink of war, but the very lack of such information and speculation was telling. Any posts about Rockhurst were carefully neutral. What was going on?
It would be so much easier if I could just call Richard up and ask. But he’d track the signal before the first word was spoken. If I could just get him alone for two minutes, I could ask him in person.
Hmm.
I set that thought aside to let it simmer in my subconscious. Getting him alone for a chat would be dangerous, but it might be necessary. If I could figure out his motivation, it would help me and House von Hasenberg.
My thoughts kept circling. I needed sleep. There wasn’t anything else I could do tonight, except give my body the rest it required. “Do you know if there are any other beds in the house?” I asked.
Loch looked up from his com with a lascivious grin. “Afraid not. But don’t worry, I don’t mind sharing.”
Sharing a bed with Marcus Loch when I wasn’t near death was a recipe for disaster. Hot, sweaty, naked disaster. Heat spread across my face and lower. Definitely lower.
Lord help me.
Loch’s grin was just knowing enough to make me want to punch him. It tempted me to play with a fire that I knew would burn. I removed my boots while I fought the desire.
I crossed the room and closed the door. I dragged the broken dresser in front of it. It was harder than Loch had made it look yesterday.
Loch snagged my wrist as I walked past him. With him sitting on the barstool, we were the same height. He usually moved so quickly and quietly that it was easy to overlook his size, but standing next to him, he was a solid wall of muscle.
“Will you give me a judgment-free minute?” I asked him softly.
His expression went guarded but finally he nodded. I stepped closer until I was standing between his legs. Desire lit his eyes. I felt it, too, but he was about to be disappointed. I needed this more right now.
Slowly I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head against his shoulder. He froze. After a few seconds, I whispered, “You’re supposed to hug me back.”
His arms came around me like I was made of spun glass. I gave him a little squeeze. “I’m not that fragile,” I said. “Give me a real hug.”
He crushed me to his chest. I sighed in contentment and fo
ught the ridiculous urge to cry. Mother and Father might be as distant and untouchable as the moon, but my sisters and I were always physically affectionate. With them, hugs were frequent and touch always conveyed love and comfort. It helped to balance out some of Father’s more merciless training programs.
As we got older, hugs were often replaced by cheek kisses and handshakes, but they were busted out in cases of extra stress or emotional turmoil. I’d say this week counted. Sometimes a simple sign of affection was more powerful than a whole host of words.
Even the illusion of affection from a man I barely trusted was enough to ease my heart.
I straightened and met Loch’s eyes. True to his word, I didn’t see any judgment in them. “Thank you,” I said.
Loch’s arms remained around me, though they’d loosened enough that I could step out of his embrace if I wanted to. “You’re welcome,” he said.
His head tilted and I knew he was going to kiss me. It was my turn to freeze, torn between staying and going. His thumb caressed my lower back. “Easy,” he murmured. “Just a kiss and nothing more.”
I stood my ground even as logic dictated that I was emotionally vulnerable and this was a terrible idea. Then his lips ghosted over mine and logic lost.
A second pass as light and teasing as the first and I’d had enough. I wrapped a hand around the back of his head and pulled his mouth to mine. He groaned and obliged as if it was the sign he’d been waiting for all along.
His lips were warm and firm. The hot slide of his tongue against mine caused my hand to clench against the back of his head. Lust slammed through me and I stepped closer, trying to meld my body into his.
We were both breathing hard when he gently pushed me back. “I promised you just a kiss,” he growled.
My hormones begged me to convince him that I wanted more than a kiss. So much more. But with distance came a minute spark of clarity and I was glad for his control.
“Go to bed,” he said. “I’m going to do a perimeter check.” He paused then muttered very quietly, “And stand in the icy cold wind until I’m not acting like a fucking idiot.”
Polaris Rising Page 9