Lira’s blue eyes were haunted, her fingers still as stone on the throttle. “He could, Andi.”
Andi’s heart turned to ice.
It wasn’t possible.
He was supposed to be dead, cast away into some deep, dark hell where he’d never be able to claw his way back out.
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. She leaped to her feet, tuning into the crew’s audio channels. “Escape pods. Now. Move.”
Andi grabbed her swords from the back of her captain’s chair, where she stowed them during flight, and strapped the harness around her back, clicking it into place.
Lira sat frozen in her chair.
“Lira! I said move!”
Lira’s voice was as dead as the Marauder. “We can’t leave, Andi. When the ship goes dark, the pods go dark, too.”
Footsteps rang out, boots clacking on metal. Breck and Gilly appeared in the doorway.
“What do we do?” Breck asked. “They’ll kill us all.”
“Not if we kill them first,” Andi hissed.
“We could hide,” Breck suggested.
“We don’t hide,” Lira said hotly.
Andi felt torn in two. This was her crew, broken and battered though it was, criminals from all sides of the galaxy waiting for her to save them. But with a dead ship, what could she do?
“I don’t want to be taken again,” Gilly whispered. Gone was the bloodthirsty little fairy. In its place was a frightened young girl. She burst into tears, fat droplets splashing on the dead metal at their feet. Breck dropped to her knees and pulled Gilly forward into a crushing hug.
She whispered soothing words, but Andi didn’t hear them. She wasn’t listening.
She turned and looked out the viewport at the waiting ships. So many of them—Solerans, by their sigil. And then, all around her, a rumble. It seemed to shake the very bones of the ship, rattling the walls. A deep, dark sound that made Lira drop her hands from the throttle and rush to Andi’s side.
“They’re pulling us in,” Lira whispered. “If you have a plan, Andi, you’d better tell us now.”
But there was no plan.
For the first time in her pirating life, someone had bested her.
It’s not him, Andi’s mind whispered. It can’t be him.
And yet the Marauder was a corpse. It was already growing cold on the bridge, Andi’s breath appearing before her in tiny white clouds.
Do something, her mind screamed. Get us out of this. You can’t be captured, Andi, you can never go back.
Fear spiked through her, in and around, threatening to freeze her, just like the ship.
But she was the Bloody Baroness. She was the captain of the Marauder, the greatest starship in Mirabel, and she had a crew waiting on her word.
So Andi settled her nerves, shoved them down deep. She turned, unsheathed her swords and held them at her sides.
“Stand up,” Andi said to Breck and Gilly.
They stood, Gilly wiping tears from her small face, Breck keeping a hand squeezed on the younger gunner’s shoulder.
“Weapons,” Andi said.
The girls lined up side by side, Andi with her swords, Gilly with her gun. Breck unveiled a black short-whip that crackled with light. Lira stood with her fists clenched, appearing weaponless to those who did not know the ways her body could move, lithe as a predator on the hunt. Her scales flashed as she glared at the bridge’s exit.
They waited, determination the only thing keeping them on their feet. On the deck below, the main door of the Marauder opened.
Andi heard the echo of heavy footsteps moving through the narrow halls, climbing up the stairwells. A faint male voice mingled with the footsteps, whispering a command as they drew closer.
Andi saw the first man’s head as he came around the corner. Others followed close behind, soldiers filling the hallway that led to the bridge, all clad in blue Arcardian bodysuits, the white three-triangle badge of the Mirabel Patrolmen on their chests. They held silver rifles against their stomachs and satisfied grins on their faces.
Andi was all too familiar with those rifles and the small electric orbs they released. One shot would paralyze its victim, rendering them helpless against capture by the Patrolmen.
“Hello, boys,” Andi said.
Arcardian or not, she’d see the badges of those who wouldn’t back down stained with blood. It was her crew or her past and—her soul be damned—she would always choose her crew.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the soldier in front said, his voice calm and cool, as if he were making pleasant conversation.
“Ah,” Andi laughed. “But see, you just interfered with my ship. I don’t take too kindly to that.”
Her attention was pulled away from the man in front of her by the sound of boots tapping against metal. The Patrolmen turned sharply to attention as their commander approached.
This was the man who’d bested her.
This was the man she’d have to kill today.
As he approached, Andi’s chest tightened at the sight of him, tall and muscular and perfectly honed for fighting.
It’s him, said a small, frightened voice in her mind.
Then, as if confirming her suspicions, he stepped out of the darkness, like a demon emerging from hell.
The purest shock spiked in Andi’s veins. Then it melted into fury.
“You,” she growled.
“Me,” Dex said with a shrug.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Andi whispered. “I left you...”
“Left me to die?” Dex lifted a brow.
She remembered every inch of the angular white constellation tattoos twisting their way across his brown skin, the feel of his strong hands on her body. The memory of him, the pain of her shattered heart. It all twisted into boiling rage as she stared at him, alive and free, on her ship.
Andi’s swords crackled, purple light arcing around the fierce blades. Beside her, the rest of the Marauders tensed and readied themselves for a fight.
“I’m going to kill you,” Andi whispered.
“You can try,” Dex said, shrugging, his once-captivating brown eyes sparkling with laughter. “But we both know how that will turn out.”
She screamed and charged straight at him, not giving a damn if there were twenty or even a hundred heavily armed Arcardian soldiers blocking her path.
She was going to drown Dex Arez in his own blood.
Chapter Six
* * *
DEX
IT WASN’T EXACTLY the reunion Dex had hoped for.
It’s not like he’d imagined Androma running into his arms and kissing him with the passion of lovers parted for years. Their last moments together hadn’t exactly gone well, what with the whole “Andi soaring away with Dex’s ship, leaving him bleeding and dying on a barren moon” thing.
Then again, he had sold her out to the Patrolmen for her crimes, knowing she’d be sentenced to death upon returning to her home planet.
Love was all well and good, but money was the true key to Dex’s heart.
Still, for what Androma did to him, he should hate her, should want her dead.
But seeing her before him, melting into rage and riot, the smooth metal implants on her cheekbones reflecting the electricity that swam around her swords...
Godstars, she was magnificent; a creature who had released her wrath on the world. It would be worth every drop of blood about to be shed to be the one who finally brought her to the general’s feet.
But as her blades crackled in the too-quiet room, and waves of electricity spiraled around them, Dex wondered if he’d made a mistake. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he’d heard the rumors. He hadn’t known if she truly could wield those weapons with a glory and grace that drew blood and split bones.
But now, as Andr
oma rasped, “I’m going to kill you,” and her words sent a slice of regret cutting through Dex’s heart, he knew.
Gone was the young woman he’d once known, that shivering thing he’d found bruised and broken in the markets of Uulveca.
In her place stood the warrior he’d trained and hardened and turned into something devilishly delicious.
Dex reached for his gun as the Bloody Baroness attacked.
* * *
The world slowed, but Andi moved like a flash of light.
She hurtled her way through the first wave of Patrolmen before they could blink, lashing out her swords, removing smoking limbs from bodies as they screamed and succumbed to the trademark agony of the Bloody Baroness.
Her white hair sprung loose from its braid, the dyed purple streaks almost a blur as she whirled and leaped. She knocked her varillium cuffs into faces, drawing bursts of blood, and kicked her legs out, toppling her opponents like stars falling from the sky.
The Patrolmen finally regained their wits and lifted their rifles to shoot.
An unfortunate weapon they’d chosen. For as soon as they loosed their bullets, the girls dove behind Breck’s towering form. The bullets pinged off her skin, flattening and falling to the floor.
Bless her New Vedan blood, her bulletproof skin.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, gentlemen,” Breck said, hands on her hips, the girls still protected behind her. “What? You’ve never shot at a New Vedan before?”
“Take them out!” Dex shouted. “Save Androma for me.”
His words sent a spike of rage straight through Andi’s heart.
He’d threatened her crew. For that, his life—and the lives of the Patrolmen—were now forfeit.
“Forward!” she shouted. Breck moved, and the girls followed behind as bullets continue to barrage her chest, useless.
A ball of white light shot past Andi’s shoulder. An enemy was blasted backward, already a corpse as he slammed into the door frame.
“Oh, that was a good shot,” Gilly said, giggling and brandishing her double-trigger gun. One trigger killed, one disabled. She blew smoke away from the barrel and grinned as she ducked back behind Breck.
“I want the floor stained with their blood!” Andi yelled to her crew above the chaos.
Gone were her emotions, gone was her heart.
The killing mask of the Baroness slid into place.
* * *
Patrolmen dropped around them as the girls attacked, lunging out from behind Breck’s body at random. Andi swung her swords, lashing out with a fury she kept locked inside for moments just like this. Years of dancing and training at the Academy had turned her body into a fluid, ferocious thing.
A Patrolman turned his rifle around and swung it at Breck’s head.
“Take him!” Andi roared.
Gilly unloaded her gun on the man.
Behind them, Lira flipped, twisted. She was a blur of glowing scaled skin and black bodysuit, fists cracking jaws, legs locking around throats. They moved forward, leaving moaning bodies in their wake, silenced soon after by Gilly’s gun and Breck’s whip as the fight carried on into the hall.
Still, the remaining Patrolmen fought on.
“Take them all down,” Andi commanded her girls as she sliced a Patrolman’s hand off at the wrist. Breck scooped up the gun still clutched in the hand before it could hit the floor and fired it. Silver blood exploded against the metal wall beyond. “But remember, Dex is mine.”
He was standing there, beyond the wave of his fighting men, staring at her as she came out from behind Breck’s protection.
A Patrolman shot.
Andi lifted her arms. The bullet slammed against her varillium cuffs before it could lodge itself into her throat.
“Take care of him,” she said as the bullet clattered to the floor. Breck was suddenly beside her, twisting the man’s neck with a glorious pop. Music to Andi’s ears.
Now there were only three men between Andi and her enemy.
They stood at the ready, guns out, a solid line in front of Dex.
She could see his shadowed outline leaning up against the metal wall of the hallway beyond, his stance so cool and casual it made her want to tear his eyes out.
“What’s wrong, Dex? You don’t want to come out and play with me?” Andi said, her voice a dangerous purr.
Dex chuckled, his mahogany hair falling across one brown eye as he stepped forth to meet her gaze. “You were always one for theatrics, Androma. My little bitter ballerina.”
“I am not—and never will be—yours.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“These three can live,” she said, nodding her head at the final Patrolmen. “It’s you I want a fight with, Dextro.”
She saw his brow furrow at the use of his full name. Definitely not a name one would associate with a Tenebran Guardian, let alone with the most notorious bounty hunter in Mirabel.
“Is that mercy I hear?” Dex smiled as he walked backward, stopping at the silver ladder that led to the deck below. His fingers curled over the railing, his boots poised over the hole in the floor. “Surely not from the Bloody Baroness.”
“Don’t pretend you know me,” Andi retorted. “Though they did invade my ship, and since they insist on protecting you...”
With a crackle of her swords, she lunged forward and cut off three heads in one scissoring slice. The bodies sagged, then landed in a heap at Andi’s feet. The familiar scent of singed flesh wafted up to her nose. And with it, a stab of regret that she buried deep.
Dex blinked once, his only reaction thus far, and Andi’s blood raged at his air of nonchalance. “They were a terrible crew,” he said.
Then he slipped down the ladder. Andi, after holstering one blade, charged after him, not even bothering to use the footholds as she slid down. She landed with a slight thud before turning toward the long corridor behind her.
“Andi, Andi,” Dex said. “So predictable.”
She froze.
Your running is over, a little devil in her mind hissed.
In front of her was another cluster of Arcardian guards, guns trained on her. At the head of them was Dex, a smug grin plastered across his face.
* * *
She’d walked right into his trap for the second time today.
Dex would have patted himself on the back, if not for the crowd of Patrolmen around him.
“Are you ready to talk, or do you want to kill a few more of my men?” he asked, knowing Andi had no choice but to obey. She was vastly outnumbered, no matter how skilled she was with those swords. Not unless she wanted to be shot by hundreds of paralyzing light bullets before she could take a single step.
The look she gave him would’ve made a lesser man cringe, but he stared straight into those light gray eyes, meeting her challenge head-on.
She said nothing. Instead, she holstered her remaining blade and crossed her arms over her black suit, the glowing cuffs on her forearms catching his eye. He’d paid for those varillium cuffs himself, a gift that had saved her life ten times over. They were unbreakable, just like her swords. But the cuffs weren’t just an accessory. They held together the burned flesh on her wrists from an accident long ago. She didn’t have the privilege of seeing a doctor at the time, so her skin had become damaged beyond repair.
Without Dex’s gift, she wouldn’t have the full function of her wrists and forearms—likely wouldn’t have the strength to lift those swords she was so fond of.
It gave him a sick kind of pleasure to know she still had the cuffs, a reminder of his kindness to her when she was at her weakest. A part of him she could never shed from herself.
Dex turned to the blue-uniformed guard standing closest to her.
“Take her weapons.” The burly, horned man looked like he would rather jump out the
airlock. “Now,” Dex said more sharply, and the guard rushed to action.
Andi spat in the man’s face as he pulled her swords out of their harness and the gun out of her thigh holster.
“You’re going to regret this,” Andi said, her voice low and menacing.
He glared at her with red-and-white striped eyes. “I’m not so sure that I will.”
She looked up behind her to where the rest of the Marauders were grouped at the top of the ladder.
“If they move, my guards will shoot.” Dex waved a hand, and half the men angled their light rifles upward toward Andi’s motionless crew.
The pilot from Adhira, the giantess beside her. And the red-headed child, glaring down at Dex with all the cold calculation of a seasoned killer.
He wouldn’t show mercy toward them if they continued to fight, and he knew Andi sensed that. She looked up at her crew and said, “Stand down. Do what he says.”
“We can take them, Andi, they’re not—” Lira started.
“That’s enough, Lira,” Andi growled. “It’s over.” He knew she hated to say those words.
Dex clapped his hands.
“Now that is the drama I’ve been waiting for.” Satisfied, he turned toward two guards with badges adorning their uniforms. It took a hell of a lot of work to attain Arcardian officer status, and yet here these two were, bowing their heads to Dex’s every command. “Officer Hurley, your squad will guard the crew. Officer Fraser, follow me and bring your men to guard Captain Racella.”
They made their way down the long metal corridor. The blue light from Andi’s cuffs bounced along the hallway. Four guards surrounded Andi like a box, while the other two were positioned on each end of the line.
Six men, plus Dex, would be enough. She wouldn’t fight while her crew was in danger. As they walked, Dex’s memories took over, his body moving on instinct through the familiar halls of the ship. They passed several doors before stopping at the glass door that led to the meeting room. Dex placed his hand on the scanner next to the door, but it remained as dead as the rest of the ship.
Andi grinned smugly. Dex smiled back, lifted his gun and shot the glass.
A growl rumbled up through her chest, but Dex simply shrugged and said, “I can replace it. The Marauder is mine again.” Then he stepped over the shattered glass and into the room. “Set up the Box.” He stepped aside as the guards brought in a thin silver box no longer than his forearm. The symbol of Arcardius, an exploding star, was engraved on the side. They set the Box on the table and lined up against the back wall of the room, hauling Andi with them.
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