She spotted Tannin before any of the others, recognizing his dark hair, broad shoulders, and the way he moved around a group of mech-techs conversing in the middle of the walkway. Her heart rate picked up at the sight of him striding toward her and the smile he tried to hide when his gaze landed on her. She stood as they got closer, relieved to see they’d come back from Huata in one piece.
“Did you get it?” She couldn’t decide whether she hoped they’d been successful or had failed. Both options came with implications she didn’t want to consider.
Rian brushed past her without answering, heading straight for the stairs.
Lianna and Tannin stopped in front of her, while Callan followed Rian.
“We’ve agreed to trade for one, yeah,” Lianna answered.
She crossed her arms and glared at where Rian had disappeared up the steps.
“And I suppose he’s spent all of the currency we haven’t made yet on this shipment of liquor?”
Lianna’s expression gave nothing away. The woman was nothing if not loyal to their captain. “In a manner of speaking.”
Tannin shook his head. “I don’t think you really want to know.”
Sighing, Zahli trudged back up the ramp. “Payton will be here soon. I’d better double check none of the product is damaged or anything.”
“And I’d better start re-routing some systems so Jensen can install the shield as soon as we get it. No doubt our captain will want to get off the ground as soon as it’s onboard.” Lianna headed toward the stairs, but turned to look back at her. “By the way, Rian made it official. Tannin is crew now.”
Zahli nodded, heart skipping up her chest to lodge in the bottom of her throat as Lianna sent her a small wave and disappeared. Ever since they’d discovered the extent of Tannin’s hacking abilities, part of her had expected the development, but the news still surprised her. If he felt even half of the myriad of emotions that flooded her every time she laid eyes on him, she didn’t know how either of them would adhere to Rian’s rules.
Tannin reached out and took the chilled bottle from her hand, his warm fingers a delicious contrast to the icy beverage.
“Thanks. Just what I need.” He titled his head back and took a long swallow, his gaze never leaving hers.
There was absolutely nothing erotic about sharing a bottle of aerated drink with someone. She’d done it plenty of times with Rian, a few with Kira and Lianna, and even once with Jensen. Erebus would have to freeze over before she’d lay her lips on anything Callan had touched. However, as she stood there and watched Tannin with his mouth on the rim of the bottle where her lips had been moments ago, she knew she’d never be able to innocently share a bottle ever again, because he made it erotic. The warm, wicked glint in his eyes suggested his thoughts may have taken the same path.
When he finished and handed it back to her, the bottle was half-empty. And just to prove two could play his game, she took another couple of mouthfuls herself.
They treaded on dangerous ground. She’d always lived life by the book, but Tannin made her want to break the rules. All of the rules. Smash them into little pieces and crawl over the debris, if only to have one of Tannin’s breath-stealing, heart-stopping kisses.
The cargo bay’s comms pinged, signaling a message coming through.
“Zi-zi, we just got a transmission from Payton. He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Rian’s voice echoed over the speakers.
Zi-zi? What had she done to deserve that? Okay, she’d been straying close to the line on the fraternization issue, but how could Rian have known that from wherever he was in the main part of the ship?
With another sigh, one solely reserved for frecking annoying brothers, she went to the stack of crates in the middle of the floor and bent to open the nearest one, giving the contents a quick check.
“What are you doing?” Tannin took the crate lid out of her hands while she leaned into the box.
“If I’m going to ask for more credits at the last minute, I don’t want the client to find a reason to try and talk the price down again.” She took the lid from him and re-secured it before moving onto the next container.
The sound of footsteps on the ramp caught her attention. She leaned sideways to glance around the stack of crates and her heart flat-out failed, because it wasn’t Payton.
Zahli grabbed the front of Tannin’s shirt and pushed him backward against the crates and into a small corner between two stacks.
His expression took on an edge of uncertainty. “What the hell—?”
She slapped her hand over his mouth and shook her head in a sharp movement.
Heart pounding and breath shortening to the point of making her dizzy, she peeked out around the edge of the containers. Lieutenant Marshal Raleigh paused at the top of the ramp way, looking around. Thank god he hadn’t seen them. But if he walked any farther into the cargo bay, the little alcove she’d shoved them into wouldn’t hide them any longer.
“Hello? Anyone aboard?” Raleigh called out, not moving from where he’d stopped. Thank lucky stars.
Tannin’s expression turned grim. He moved her hand from his lips, but held onto it, pressing it against his chest, over his heart. She felt the pound of Tannin’s life beneath her palm and became aware of how she was pressed up against him, her feet between his, thighs touching, and hips together.
So not the time.
Any second now, he could be caught by an IPC officer who’d take him back to Erebus in a flash. But all she could think about was kissing him, running her fingers over the contours of his chest and exploring every bit of him with her lips, physically reassuring him they’d find a way out of it together. The environs must have been playing up again, because she’d started getting hot.
“Can I help you?” Lianna’s voice echoed down from the stairs and a hard swell of relief poured through Zahli.
Lianna passed their hideout and glanced at them, but managed to make it seem like she’d looked right through them, as if they weren’t there. Good, Lianna, play dumb.
“I’m sorry to come unannounced, but I need to see Captain Sherron,” Raleigh said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. Zahli wanted to scoff. As if he hadn’t meant to surprise them. No doubt the lieutenant marshal had been hoping to catch them unaware and find Tannin. And he almost had. It’d been so close. Her grip tightened on him, and in silent answer he brought her closer, every muscle in his body rigid.
“The captain has business to attend to. He’s not seeing anyone at the moment.”
Lianna’s tone sounded calm and firm. Zahli could guess she had on her second-in-command face, the one that said just try it and I’ll kick your ass.
“This will only take a moment. I need to ask him a couple of questions.” It didn’t seem like Raleigh would be deterred easily.
“And you haven’t heard of subspace communication? Couldn’t send a message?” Lianna demanded.
“I’m doing this off record, as a favor to a fellow soldier. I can go through official channels and come back later, but either way, I will need to talk to him.”
Lianna sighed, then the small chime of a personal comm sounded. “Captain, Raleigh is here. He needs to talk to you.”
All Zahli heard of Rian’s answer was his rumbling voice. A few seconds later, his boots rang on the stairs as he stomped down. Unlike Lianna, he didn’t even glance in their direction when he passed, but Zahli didn’t doubt he’d seen them there. Just what she needed on top of this, another lecture from him later on.
“Why are you here, Raleigh?” Rian didn’t bother to hide his irritation.
Zahli all but heard Raleigh snap to attention. “Major Captain Sherron, I need to ask you some questions. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
She caught her breath, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. Was Raleigh just being polite, or was this his way of trying to get another look around their ship?
“Right here is fine. Whatever you’ve got to say, it can be said in front of my engineer.”
Rian’s tone was implacable, and just short of out-right hostile.
Raleigh cleared his throat and with slow movements, Zahli peeked around the edge of the containers. Rian had stopped a few steps from Raleigh, with his arms crossed and an extremely unimpressed expression on his face.
“We still haven’t found any clue as to the missing prisoner’s whereabouts.”
“So what, you want to search my ship again? You still think I had something to do with it?” Rian’s glare intensified and Raleigh ran a hand through his short hair, appearing agitated.
“Of course not, I just need to find out what you know. As I said to your engineer, this is off the record. As a favor to a fellow soldier.”
Zahli shook her head. It seemed laughable when IPC officers were so willing to do Rian favors because they all believed him to be some big hero. Rian told her once if he ever came across an IPC officer who’d caught on fire, he wouldn’t even piss on the guy to help put out the flames.
Raleigh took a step forward, but then seemed to think better of it and shifted back again as Rian’s palms came to rest on the butts of his holstered guns.
“From our last conversation, I got the feeling you knew more than you were willing to say. Soldier to soldier, you can tell me anything, and I’ll make sure you’re kept in the clear, Major Captain.”
For a long moment Rian simply stared at him with a flinty expression, until Raleigh shifted, swiping a hand across his damp hairline.
“Fine. Off the record? All I know is that I saw the man you showed us in the holograph image having an argument with another man while the colonel marshal gave us a tour. I think it was an officer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I first came aboard on Arleta?” Raleigh sounded exasperated, but tried to maintain a polite mien.
“You didn’t ask. Not directly. Besides, would you have believed me, especially considering I’m implicating a fellow officer?” Rian added an insolent shrug.
Raleigh looked insulted. “I would have taken your word for it, Major Captain Sherron.”
Rian sighed and his stance relaxed. Slightly. “I’m not a major captain anymore, Raleigh. I left the IPC years ago. And I don’t have any more information on your missing prisoner than I’ve already told you.”
“Thank you for your time, Captain. I appreciate the tip.” Raleigh inclined his head and backed a few steps down the ramp. “Good journey. I hope we cross paths again one day.”
Raleigh disappeared from sight a moment later. Tannin relaxed beneath Zahli; his head tilted back and eyes closed as he leaned against the crates.
“Tannin?” She touched his cheek, worried about what this latest near miss would do to his frame of mind.
He forced out a harsh breath as he opened his eyes, his gaze dark with shadows. He used his grip on her hips to gently push her back from him and then let her go.
“I’m okay.” The slight tenor of his voice told her the complete opposite.
She wanted to keep hold on him, getting the definite sense that he was putting as much emotional distance between them as physical. Yeah, this had been a close call, and starkly reminded them that Tannin was far from clear where the IPC authorities were concerned. But pushing her away wouldn’t make that any better. She started arranging words in her mind to tell him exactly that, but the familiar tread of her brother’s boot steps stopped her short.
“Mind explaining how Raleigh arrived on our rampway when your one and only duty was to monitor his ship?” Rian asked from behind her.
Tannin still stood close enough for her to feel him tense. “It was hard to monitor Raleigh’s ship when I’ve been out with you for the past few hours. He must have taken a transit gate to get here so fast. There probably wasn’t any way to see that coming. In fact, if I go up and check, the tag will probably tell me they’re still orbiting Arleta. Remember what I said about the subspace—”
Rian held up both hands. “I don’t want to hear about anything I can’t understand. If anyone else besides Payton comes onboard, shoot them.” He turned and clomped towards the stairs.
“Shoot them?” Lianna caught her eye with a smirk. She, more than anyone, had gotten used to Rian’s moods and asinine orders.
“If your pulse pistol is set to stun, that won’t get us arrested.” Rian flicked one hand in the air in a dismissed kind of gesture and started up the steps.
Lianna sighed. “I have to get back to setting up a program so this old garbage compactor of a ship recognizes the spanking new delta-shield when it arrives.”
“I heard that, Mackenzie!” Rian shouted down from the upper levels.
“Whoops.” Lianna smiled, a cheeky grin that said she’d intended for him to hear it. She left, heading for the bridge.
Zahli turned to Tannin, unsurprised to find him staring at her. Except something in his gaze was no longer so intimate. She backed up, realizing they stood so close she could feel the delicious heat of him.
“I have to finish checking the cargo,” she said, instead of asking him if he was okay again. Like when her brother shut down; she got the feeling Tannin wasn’t in a sharing mood.
“Yeah, I should probably go see if Rian needs me to do any other kind of hacking. Got to make myself useful.” He slipped out from between her and the crates with an entirely platonic smile.
Astonishment and disappointment washed through her. Where had the teasing, flirty, sexy Tannin gone? Had the near miss with Raleigh freaked him out, or was something else going on?
Zahli turned and numbly resumed checking the cargo, though didn’t pay anywhere near as much attention as she should have. She shouldn’t feel upset. Maybe Rian or someone else had filled Tannin in on ship rules, so he’d put some distance between them, doing what she hadn’t been willing to.
More like what I couldn’t do. Sighing, she moved onto the final crate. Despite the many reasons against it, she hadn’t been able to resist Tannin’s charms. Perhaps Tannin hadn’t felt things as deeply as she had after all. In that case, it’d be better if things ended now, rather than when she went and fell irrevocably in love with him. That would have shattered her heart into a million pieces.
So why did it feel like her heart was already well on the way to breaking?
He was not scared. He wasn’t a frecking coward. And she was one slip of a pampered, naive, sheltered woman. So why had Rian stopped, frozen to the spot, not able to take one more step into the galley when he’d seen Miriella making some sort of hot beverage over the cooktop?
The scent of moon jasmine came at him strong, reaching out with tortured and teasing ruminations of those few moments in her cabin where he’d burned with too many emotions.
Suppressing the memory into a deep recess of his mind, as he had with so many others, Rian forced his feet to move, taking him farther into the galley until he could breathe nothing but sultry, jasmine-scented air.
He cleared his throat, more to make sure he had full control of his vocal chords than to gain her attention. “We have a condiments dispenser that’ll make just about anything.”
“It would not have made this.” She didn’t look up from the small pot sitting on the heat. Instead, she bent closer to the gently steaming liquid for a moment. She took it from the cooktop and poured it into a mug.
“What is it?” The exotic moon jasmine scent wasn’t coming from her, but off the cup in her hand.
“Jasmynah tea. A specialized blend of oolong tea leaves, moon jasmine flowers, and spices. It is a traditional Arynian beverage. I drink it daily, but have not done so since I left Aryn some days ago now.”
The way she said since I left Aryn seemed laughable. So calm, so precise, as if she’d simply decided to take a trip, not alluding to the fact she’d been abducted against her will. Who knew what she’d endured at the hands of the original kidnappers and then Arnon Rance? The thought of anyone harming her, even just upsetting her to the point of tears, made his mind cloud over in a weird type of white-hot haze.
He shook his hea
d to dispel the blazing sensation. “How did you get it?”
“I asked Zahli to purchase it for me when she went to order supplies this afternoon. I have currency I can repay you with when I am returned to Aryn.” She lifted her mug with measured movements and glided past him to the table. She set the cup down just so and made a small bowing movement while briefly touching her heart and then forehead. That done, she seated herself.
He walked over to the table and braced his hands on the worn surface, leaning forward, looming over her. “What part of you’re not going back to Aryn don’t you understand?”
She cut him a sharp look over the rim of her mug. “I understand your reluctance to return me, as misguided as it might be, but my life is on Aryn. I am needed there. I must eventually return.”
“As soon as you set foot on that planet, there’s every chance the Reidar will have someone to take you out.”
Her rich hazel gaze remained steady on him as she took a sip of tea. Another weighty moment went by before she lowered the cup. “Remove my shackles and it will not be a problem.”
He straightened, not liking the idea of taking off those manacles and letting loose some unknown force. And he certainly didn’t like the idea of someone walking around his ship who could read his mind. Though on some level, he recognized his reservations were based in ignorance.
“And just what do you mean by it won’t be a problem?”
“That no one with wicked intent will get anywhere near me. If they do, they will soon regret it.”
Though her expression remained placid and serene, a lethal glint sparked in the depths of her eyes. The dangerous gleam was something he’d seen before. Something he saw many days when he looked at himself in the mirror. That this innocent woman could have any idea of such fatal inclinations, like those he tried to keep buried, shocked him like taking a pulse blast to the chest.
“Tell me what you’re capable of, why the Reidar want you, and I’ll consider removing your cuffs.”
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