“Because I can. I can survive the connection—I have the cybernetics to do so. I can harness the power the Artificial provides, and I can beat them. I know I can.”
Kennedy flung her hands in the air. “Ugh! I give up. I obviously can’t stop you. If Caleb can’t stop you, I don’t see why I presumed I could—”
“What are you talking about?”
“You think he wants you to do this? Have you seen his face when he watches you talking about the project? Probably not, since he only does it when you’re looking elsewhere.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t voiced any doubts to me. I mean, so much has been going on we’ve hardly had time to discuss it in private, but…if he doesn’t believe I can pull this off, why hasn’t he said anything?”
“You can be shockingly dense sometimes. You’re aware of this, right? This is not breaking news, right?”
“What?”
“I suspect he hasn’t said anything because he does believe you can pull it off. It’s the consequences which are the real stickler.”
She shook her head in protest. “I’ll be fine. He knows I will be. I’d appreciate it if you’d know it, too.”
“Alex, all of us hope you can save the galaxy. Forgive those of us who love you if we’re afraid we’ll lose you in the process.”
“You won’t.” She cringed as a message flashed in her eVi and peeked behind her at the door to the workroom they had claimed. “My mom’s back from Washington. They approved moving forward with the project.”
“When?”
“Soon, I expect. I need to go talk to her about Mia and find out the details.”
Kennedy brooded for a weighty second before grabbing her in a bear hug. “Don’t die.” Then she stepped away and gestured down the hallway. “Go.”
Her mother grimaced and pinched the bridge of her nose. In fairness, Alex had ambushed her minutes after she had returned from Washington, for which she was unrepentant.
“Alex, I cannot allow some random person who not only isn’t an Alliance citizen but apparently is an ex-thief for the Triene cartel to take part in the most top-secret venture since the Manhattan Project. Furthermore, I cannot allow such a person to form an integral part of the core of humanity’s assault against the Metigens.”
How did she find out Mia’s background?
She frowned briefly at Caleb. She had brought him along as backup in making Mia’s case—and because after what Kennedy had said she was hyper-sensitive to his state of mind and desperately hoped to get him alone following this meeting.
Hell if I know. Richard?
“She’s not ‘some random person,’ okay? And whatever she may have once done to pay the bills, she’s now a respected, wealthy businesswoman on one of the galaxy’s wealthiest planets—a planet soon to come under attack, I’ll point out, so she has a vested interest in our success. Her cybernetics are state-of-the-art, and she owns an Artificial with which she’s already formed a bond.”
“An Artificial we know nothing about. Its programming could be corrupt, tainted or simply insufficient. Artificials aren’t automatically innocent and pure and free of sin, Alex. They are what we make them.”
Alex grunted in annoyance, evoking an exasperated sigh from Miriam.
“It was with the greatest reluctance and trepidation that Prime Minister Brennon and Chairman Vranas approved moving forward on the project with regards to you, Mr. Reynolds and a Federation fighter pilot. They will not agree to the inclusion of a stranger who is completely outside the military structure.”
Alex chewed on her bottom lip. “What if I insist we need another participant? If I say three won’t be enough? It’s probably even true.”
Her mother stared at her with a vexed irritation Alex had thought perhaps they’d moved past. “Alexis Mallory Solovy, why are you insisting on being so obstinate about this?”
Now she was getting the full name treatment. Joy. But why was she being obstinate? Because Caleb believed Mia could do it? Yes…but also no.
“Because I believe Mia is an honorable and ethical person. More than that, she’s a fighter. I don’t have a clue whether these other two people are up to the challenge, but she’s someone who I will feel better having at my side when lives are on the line.”
A pulse leapt into her vision.
I bet you all are discussing my qualifications—or lack thereof—for this crazy project. If it helps, I believe the governor of Romane will vouch for my fitness, mentally and…possibly morally. But definitely my mental fitness.
Nice.
“Get Romane’s governor on the comm. Ask her what kind of person Mia Requelme is.”
Her mother’s face morphed into incredulity. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Of course you are. Very well, I will do exactly that, though I make no promises it will alter my decision.” Her voice tempered. “Listen, Dr. Canivon’s setting up over at Medical. She’s almost ready for you.”
“Oh.” An invisible fist gripped her heart and squeezed, leaving her short of breath. “How long?”
“An hour, she thinks. Alex, are you sure you won’t let Mr. Reynolds go first? He’s quite eager and—”
“No. This is my plan, and it’s my responsibility to prove it can work.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Her smile was kind, conveying gratitude. “Thank you, but it does.”
Events had moved far swifter than she’d anticipated once the required officials approved the project. To her knowledge, no government program had ever in the history of governments moved to the execution stage so rapidly.
The bureaucrats hadn’t mucked up the works, however, because the bureaucrats had been completely excluded. The line of decisional authority ran in a direct line from the Prime Minister to her mother to Dr. Canivon to herself. And Abigail had worked to ensure everything was in place and ready to go for when Noetica was approved.
The reality of the looming point of no return and what it meant buried her in an avalanche of conflicting emotions. She looked around; Caleb had retreated to the wall behind them. The formerly desperate hope had just become a burning, would-not-be-denied necessity.
Will you spend that hour with me?
The intensity of his stare imparted the answer even without the words.
God, yes. Please.
She cleared her throat and turned in the general direction of where her mother stood. “If I have an hour, I’m going to go take a shower and change into more comfortable clothes….”
“I expect they’ll force hospital scrubs on you when you arrive.”
She shrugged in what she hoped was an innocent manner; she wasn’t certain she succeeded. “I know, but still…when they let me out of the scrubs I’ll want something comfortable handy. Besides, I feel grimy.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Caleb, do you…?”
“Yeah, I want to grab a few things from the room. I’ll tag along.”
Her mother’s gaze roved to Caleb and back to her. “Right. Now that I think about it, I’d want to…take a shower, too, if I were in your situation. I’ll see you at Medical, then?”
“Absolutely. In an hour.” It took all her self-control not to run for the door.
27
EARTH
EASC HEADQUARTERS
* * *
THE ON-SITE LODGING—ALEX WOULDN’T GO so far as to call it a ‘hotel,’ though the room itself was nice enough—lay a short walk from the building they’d been holed up in. It was cold today, and the sky was blanketed in the sort of velvet, puffy gray clouds that meant snow waited on the horizon. She hugged her arms against her chest and made a note to wear a coat to Medical.
They were, as always, flanked by multiple security officers. Their guards’ scrutiny was directed outward rather than on her and Caleb, however, which was fine with her.
Caleb gave a curt nod to a man sitting at one of the patio tables littering the courtyard as they passed. The stranger wasn’t wearing military garb, and his unkempt, chin-length
hair suggested he wasn’t military at all.
She looked over quizzically. “You know him?”
“He’s one of Richard’s agents assigned to protect us. I’ve made three of them so far, but their patterns indicate there is an additional one on duty.”
“And you were clueing him in to the fact you’d ‘made’ him?”
He chuckled quietly. “Oh, he realized I made him last night. I was merely acknowledging a colleague.”
She shook her head and intended to laugh, but it emerged closer to a grumble.
“Something wrong?”
They rounded a corner and the lodging came into sight. “I’m not a fan of all this attention. It’s getting claustrophobic, and I can’t rule out the possibility I’ll crack open like a piñata if I have to spend another minute in one of those windowless meeting rooms.”
“You understand in a few hours you’re likely to be the focus of a great deal more and closer attention.”
“I do. Military attention.” She groaned aloud, not caring if the guards heard her. “It’s going to be a nightmare…but it’s required for me to destroy these pretentious alien bastards, so I’ll cope. Probably.”
His hand alighted at the small of her back as they reached the entrance, sending her thoughts spinning in another direction entirely. “You will. But let’s worry about that later.”
She was in his arms before the door to their room had fully closed. Caleb’s pulse quickened in harmony with the act to send his mouth crashing into hers, made frenetic by desire. Three days as an invalid was too many for a lifetime, and he was done with it.
He needed her.
His hands rushed up her abdomen, driving her shirt persistently upward and off while holding her firmly against the wall. Her skin was hot to the touch, burning like he’d never felt it. It betrayed her arousal. She’d been so gentle, so selfless and caring toward him as he recovered, but now?
She needed him.
The ambient light provided enough luminosity for him to see her clearly yet cast the room around them in shadow. The effect was surreal, as if to place them outside of time and space. Right now he wished more than anything they were exactly that.
She yanked his shirt up and over his head in a single agitated motion. Her palm raced down bare skin until it skimmed the sole wafer-thin medwrap still melded to his side, the final tangible remnant of his brush with death.
She froze as if stunned to paralysis by the reminder, then abruptly her hands came to rest on his shoulders. “Are you sure you’re healed enough? I don’t want to—”
“I assure you.” His voice hummed along her exquisite jawline, raspy and low, drawing her back into the moment as one hand dropped to the clasp of her pants and the other splayed across the curve of her neck. “I am healed.” The clasp came free. “More than enough.” His fingers ran under the material and down her hip to cup her ass and pull her tight against him. Let her feel the proof for herself.
“Okay then.” It was a breathless hush grazing his mouth as a vanguard of her lips and her tongue, demanding and desperate. Her touch lost any vestige of tenderness it may have previously held, nails scraping through his hair to drag him closer while the other hand mimicked his earlier actions upon his pants.
The fire which flared within her was his drug. He let it consume him, giving himself up to the high her passion evoked.
A battle raged between their refusal to allow any space to come between them and their need to be free of the nuisance of clothing. After several aborted attempts she managed to shove his pants and briefs off together while he drove her backwards to the bed, sparing a haphazard motion to finish discarding her own in the split-second before his arms engulfed her anew.
Yet as the full length of her body pressing bare against him flooded his senses, panic suddenly pushed back against it. What if the coming hours changed everything, and she was lost to him? What if this was the last time he would hold her in such a manner? What if this was the last time he would hold her? At this pace it would end before it had begun, gone forevermore….
She gripped him close, and it took the entirety of his concentration to pull away the tiniest sliver. “Wait…slow down….”
Her expression darkened in concern, casting a stark contrast to the hunger blazing like novas in her irises. “Are you all right?”
His hand glided up her spine and along her shoulder to find her cheek. “Yes. Of course.” Fingertips traced the outline of her lips, already swollen and raw.
“I just want to….”
They passed too soon over such a graceful, slender neck.
“Freeze this pocket of time….”
On reaching alabaster shoulders framing a perfectly sculpted collarbone, the words caught on his breath.
“Freeze this feeling….”
A pause at the hollow of her throat, so delicate for someone so astoundingly fierce.
“And memorize everything about it….”
Her heartbeat raced beneath his palm and satin skin.
“About you….”
She inhaled deeply, her chest fluttering as it rose and fell under his caress. “You’re afraid something will go wrong with the procedure. Do you want to…talk about it?”
“No, I think it will work. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
I want to hold you here and never let you go. I want to….
Her nose wrinkled up in frustration, and it was all he could do to speak. “Except, I have to wonder.”
Here it was. The fear he’d dared not voice until now—when it was all but too late—because when stacked alongside the survival of humanity his fears mustn’t matter. “Will you be the same person when you wake up?”
She stared at him in silence for longer than should have been, silver irises glittering full of stars in the dim, ethereal light.
An eternity passed.
She nodded faintly. “I think so, yes.”
But he saw his own fear reflected in her eyes. The fact that she was going to do it anyway spoke volumes about the woman she had become, yet made this all so damn much harder.
His lips hinted at a smile. “Even so.”
He shifted his palm to rest at her sternum and ease her onto the bed. He followed her down and held himself partially above her on one elbow.
Slow.
His hand trembled from the effort of not racing and clawing and grasping as it returned to her cheek then retraced its steps, brushing feather-light across her jaw, then her neckline. It continued on, tracing the curves of her breasts. His eyes chased its path, drinking her in.
“Let me savor the way your skin feels beneath my fingertips.”
His head dipped to place a soft kiss on a nipple.
Remember.
“Beneath my lips.”
“No.”
His gaze jerked up, startled. “No?”
She was grinning, devilish and seductive and tremulous and almost sorrowful. A firm hand pressed to his chest and urged him onto his back.
Her words were a throaty purr at his ear. “I will be here when this is done, and the day after that, and the day after that. I promise you. Still, if you insist on collecting memories to savor…I want you to savor this. Remember this.”
Her mouth ghosted over his neck to kiss the base of his throat. A hand danced along his chest, to his hip and back again, as she planted a thousand kisses upon the breadth of his chest. His pounding heartbeat leapt to meet each one as his skin flushed with a newfound deluge of straight-up, unbridled lust.
Her kisses wound a circuitous path down his abdomen. Her lips were silk, her touch intoxicating, her fingertips electricity gliding across his thigh as she dipped lower.
The muscles in his abs jumped as teeth followed tongue, sending jolts of pleasure blasting through his head and under his skin. “Alex—”
Breath was required for further speech, and the capacity to breathe abandoned him as her tongue swept over him. Yes, he thought he could find a way to remember this, rem
ember how she….
How many minutes had passed? If they were outside of time and space it didn’t matter, did it? Head drowning from a torrent of ecstasy, he reached for her nonetheless. As mind-blowingly extraordinary as this was, he needed more.
He needed her.
His lips moved; he wasn’t sure any sound emerged. “Come here.”
A corner of her mouth curled upward as she complied by slithering up his chest and driving him to the cliff of madness. She hovered above him, hair falling in waves to envelop him in its cocoon.
“My love….”
Her voice was a whisper, but it crashed through him with the force of a hurricane. Then her lips met his, ardent yet somehow serene, hungry yet somehow gentle.
His arms wound around her as they rolled to face each other. Her leg wrapped over his hip and they became one without thought, without effort. He vowed never to forget that moment—a frozen instant of perfection—in case it never came again.
Her eyes didn’t close, nor did his. They remained locked on one another as their bodies fell into a languid but deep rhythm, one which seemed as though it might carry them through the darkness until the light returned.
He allowed it to do so, losing himself in the sea of sensations. Her hands sweeping along his back and clenching in his hair, every centimeter of her body drawn tightly against his own, sensual and supple and strong, the heat within her body and within her eyes that convinced him she was alive. They were alive.
Then the fervor of each and every sensation surged beyond his capacity to control, and he could only follow where she led.
My love.
Captain Roge Kessler’s eyes didn’t rove down the hallway as he strolled past it, but he did note its status in his peripheral vision. Two officers from Security Bureau stood watch outside the door to Solovy’s room; the other two were positioned at each end of the corridor. The closest guard knew him by sight but was trained well enough to not react to his presence. He continued traversing the intersecting hall as if headed to his own room.
Navick’s suggestion of eight-hour shifts had been intended in jest and taken as such. They had worked out staggered sixteen-hour shifts such that four agents were on duty at all times. His second stint had started a few minutes before his charges departed Logistics for their lodging. Flores had collared a would-be assassin an hour earlier in the garden behind Logistics, so if he needed a reminder to be on heightened alert—which he did not—it would have sufficed.
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 109