Ruthless

by Kate Rudolph

  It couldn’t be avoided, not when a perfect opportunity presented itself. Before she’d left earth, Sierra informed them, her father, General Remington Alvarez, had invited her to attend a soirée in honor of the ambassador. At the time she hadn’t known who he was, but as soon as Raze had told her about the information recovered from the Lyrden on Fenryr 1, she had explained the connection. And now she, Raze, and Toran were entering the grand hallway outside the ballroom where the fete was being held.

  For obvious reasons, Kayde had stayed home, and Dryce couldn’t get an invitation. He’d wanted to use the time to take advantage of Yormas’s absence and find any necessary information that lived in the man’s office. But Toran told him no. If he and his men were being investigated, if someone thought they were a threat, they couldn’t afford to get into trouble. Besides, the chances of something incriminating being left in a semi-public office were slim to none, and it wasn’t worth the risk.

  The ballroom showed all the opulence of old Earth. Bright yellow lights hung from the ceiling, sparkling off crystal chandeliers and casting the room in a hazy, dreamlike glow. Sleek androids with convincing human frames walked among the attendees offering drinks and canapés to any who wanted them. The androids were skinned in gold and silver and the light from the chandeliers winked off crystals that were embedded on their faces. But compared to the guests, the androids were dowdy.

  It was an explosion of color from all quarters, and Toran felt underdressed in his black wraparound suit and blue pants. The dress of a woman who stood near him shimmered from color to color, red to orange to yellow to green to blue, before swirling around and reforming in new patterns. The fabric was a strange camouflage in a way; he could not describe her if someone threatened to shoot him with las fire. And it wasn’t just the dresses and suits that caught the eye, many attendees wore tall hats in stark black or white, the decoration dependent on the cut of the fabric.

  But that was the humans. The aliens were a more sedate bunch, wearing simple suits like he and Raze, or dresses featuring no more than three colors, and none of those fancy color-shifting patterns.

  Sierra and Raze had broken off from him to go and greet Sierra’s father, but it wasn’t difficult to keep them in his sights. All he had to do was follow the gaze of the crowd. Though there were plenty of aliens in attendance, few had come with human escorts. He didn’t see censure in those who looked at Sierra and Raze, but there was enough curiosity to make him uncomfortable. Sierra might have felt the same. Her face was a pleasant mask of indifference except for when she smiled up at her mate, but Toran had gotten to know her enough to know that she was ready to punch someone or run away if anyone said anything bad about her mate. Not that she would, she was too good of a spy for that. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t want to.

  Awareness tickled the back of his neck and Toran knew exactly who he would find the moment he turned around. Iris stood in the doorway, her hair haloed by the yellow light that glinted off her strikingly simple blue dress. Time stopped and their eyes met, gazes locking and rooting each of them in place. The rest of the crowd must’ve disappeared because Toran sure as all the Hells couldn’t tell where they were. It was only Iris. The days apart had been torture and he needed to touch her as soon as he could.

  But something flashed in her eyes, and even though he was too far away to physically see it, he knew it was panic. She wrenched her head to the side, like she was breaking a physical connection between them, and turned away from him. Toran took a step towards her, but the crowd came back in full force and before he could dodge around anyone, she was gone.

  He didn’t growl, but it was a close thing. His claws itched under his skin, and when he caught a hint of a blue dress next to a tall human man he wanted to reach out and deal violence, to drag his mate by his side and show her who he could be to her. But tonight he was here to be civilized and to do the duty he owed to his people as one of the last surviving members of the Detyen race.

  Still, he might have given that all up if the man of the hour hadn’t spotted him at just that moment. Yormas of Wreet was a short man, his head stopping lower than Toran’s shoulder. But he held himself like he was ten meters tall, and had all the confidence of a man secure in his position. His skin was a neon yellow that could have competed to be eye-catching with some of the outfits, and he had the teeth of a predator, sharp and ready to tear into flesh. When he smiled, Toran was certain it was a threat, but he doubted that many of the humans realized it. Was this the man who’d ordered the destruction of Detya? He didn’t look like he was more than a hundred years old, but he was an alien, neither Detyen nor human, and Toran had no idea how long Wreetans lived or what their elderly looked like.

  “I’ve heard this party should be held in your honor and not mine,” Yormas said with that predatory smile. His voice was smooth, like he was used to soothing the egos of the less secure. But even speaking to him made Toran’s stomach clench, and he was regretting the one canapé that he’d eaten.

  “Is that so?” He had to say something to keep this conversation going; any opportunity to talk to the man would give them more information about his potential culpability.

  “You’re the big hero.” He didn’t say it like he was trying to stroke Toran’s ego, but something in his tone put Toran on edge.

  “Where did you hear that?” The Detyens may have been involved in the recovery of those women from Fenryr 1, but the SDA was trying to keep that quiet.

  Yormas laughed like they were old friends. “A man has his sources. I don’t believe we’ve officially met. I am Yormas.”

  “Toran.” He needed to say more than that, needed to keep talking. But holding a civil conversation with the man who might have been responsible for the genocide of his people was more difficult than he expected. Though, thinking about it, Toran wasn’t sure why he thought this would’ve been easy. “This is quite the party they have, are things like this back on Wreet?” There, that was a completely civil question.

  Yormas smiled and shook his head slightly. “Not quite, but we do know how to celebrate. Though I haven’t been home in decades, maybe longer.”

  “No?” Toran filed away that bit of information. Yormas was older than he looked, but they’d already suspected that.

  “The universe is a vast place, and it has so many secrets to surrender. One planet could never satisfy me.” He smiled again, and this time Toran was certain of the threat. But before they could finish their conversation another guest stepped in to greet the ambassador, and their moment was over. Had that been a confession of some type? Or a threat? If Toran wanted to read into it, he could think that Yormas had confirmed that he’d destroyed Detya and that he had designs on Earth. But Toran forced himself not to jump to that conclusion. The man seemed a bit slimy, and he liked to talk, liked to be cryptic. But one cryptic conversation wasn’t enough to convict him for such a heinous crime.

  He’d think on it more when he discussed the party with Sierra and Raze, and they all shared their conclusions. But now he had discharged his duty for the night, and he had a woman to find. A flash of blue in the corner of his eye caught his attention, but when he looked over it wasn’t Iris, but another woman in a blue dress. He wasn’t discouraged, because he could feel in his chest that she was still there. And he wasn’t about to let her go without a confrontation. Not tonight.

  Chapter Five

  WHEN TORAN WAS ADDED to the guest list at the last moment, Iris knew that she had to attend this party. It was a chance to see the Detyens interact with other people while they didn’t realize they were being studied. And since only Toran and Raze were invited, she’d called in a favor to make sure that Kayde and Dryce were being monitored while the party was going on. Not that she expected them to do anything interesting, but parties like this had been used as cover for nefarious actions before, and she wasn’t going to be negligent just because something was unlikely.

  Every single one of her plans went up in smoke the moment she
stepped through the door to the ballroom. She was drawn to Toran like a magnet and their eyes met and locked three seconds after she entered. She panicked, and then she panicked even more because she was panicking. Iris wasn’t like this, not usually. She kept a tight control on her emotions and her reactions and did her job as assigned. Except for when it came to this one Detyen. When she saw him, her Earth tilted on its axis and everything tried to realign until it was just her and him and the rightness of their connection. But that was just the lust talking, they didn’t have a connection. They didn’t know each other. And she had to wrench herself away, practically throw herself out of his path to stop from doing something stupid like approaching him and asking him to dance, or kissing him. If she got within two meters of him she was going to kiss him, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone, not in the long run.

  It was easier to observe him when he wasn’t looking at her, and she got a little thrill from watching him. Could he feel her eyes on him? Or was he completely oblivious? He was speaking to the guest of honor, Yormas of Wreet, and seemed to be giving the conversation his full attention. His gaze was intense, but not that red intensity he’d given her the first time they’d met. But now she was imagining what it would be like to be the sole focus of his entire being and her heart rate kicked up at the thought. If he focused on her like that, he could destroy her, so she had to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Had he simply come to the party because he wanted to meet the ambassador? She didn’t know much about Wreet or the man who represented it, but it was possible that Toran’s people did. This meeting could be completely friendly, though the look on Toran’s face suggested otherwise. She got the feeling that he did not like speaking to Yormas, and that he wished he was anywhere else. Maybe even with her.

  No, she wasn’t letting herself have thoughts like that.

  With Toran firmly rooted in place speaking to the ambassador, Iris used the opportunity to go find Raze and Sierra and see what was going on with them. She was fairly certain that those two didn’t know she was here, and since she’d never spoken to them they wouldn’t recognize her. But when they came into sight, Iris almost tripped over the hem of her skirt. It had nothing to do with the alien or the woman beside him, and everything to do with the older human man they were speaking with. General Remington Alvarez, the Savior of Mumbai, and her childhood hero.

  She’d known that she might meet him on this assignment. After all, he was Sierra’s father. But knowing that in her mind, and knowing it in her gut were completely different things. Iris didn’t know if she wanted to approach them and shake the man’s hand, or if she wanted to find a place to hide and privately freak out about coming into contact with a man she’d looked up to since she was five years old. He’d defended Mumbai from an alien attack that no one saw coming, and turned what would’ve been a massacre into a minor battle. She’d followed his career in the SDA and had almost followed in his footsteps before realizing that military life wasn’t for her. But fighting wasn’t the reason that she looked up to Alvarez, no, it was defending Earth, and she was still doing that, just in a different way.

  In other circumstances she might have approached him and told him what an inspiration he was. But she couldn’t exactly do that while she was busy investigating his daughter’s lover and associates.

  The skin on the back of her neck prickled, and Sierra glanced back to where Toran had been speaking with Yormas to find that he’d disappeared. Her stomach dropped and she knew that he was coming for her. Why was he so obsessed? He could have anyone he wanted with that golden skin and those muscles that she wanted to run her tongue over. Sure she knew she looked all right, but she was no prize. Did alien sex pheromones go both ways? Since the SIA hadn’t gotten back to her with information about Detyens, she still didn’t have confirmation about the pheromone thing, but her certainty in their existence had not wavered.

  She ducked out of the main ballroom and insisted to her protesting mind that she wasn’t hiding, she was just finding a quiet place to take some notes. A small room with a window that looked over the back garden and was warmed by an old fireplace was perfect. The lights were set to low, but when she entered, she triggered the motion sensor and they brightened to a level that let her see clearly. She didn’t know what function this room served; it wasn’t big enough to hold more than ten people, but maybe it could work as a private dining room or something like that. It didn’t matter; for the moment it was hers and it gave her a bit of privacy.

  She hadn’t tried to lock the door. She wasn’t even sure if it did lock. But she regretted not finding out when it opened, and that sexy alien she was trying to avoid stepped inside and closed the door behind him as if he had every right, as if they’d planned an assignation. She stared at him, her throat frozen. She couldn’t speak, and her brain seem to be stuttering since it was commanding her to close the distance between them and finally find out just what he tasted like. Luckily, the rest of her body seem to be just as frozen as her throat and she was rooted in place like an ancient tree.

  Toran stared at her for several seconds, his eyes flicking from her head to toes as he took in the way her dress fit around her curves. She’d bought the dress for an event a few years ago, and though it was pretty, it didn’t stand out among the colors and sparkles of the high society crowd. But the way Toran was looking at her made her feel like a work of art. He cleared his throat and offered her a grin that made her stomach flip. “I expected you to have more questions.”

  “You did?” It came out high-pitched, but she didn’t squeak, so she was calling that victory. She needed to get herself under control; she couldn’t act like a schoolgirl with a crush around the central object of her investigation.

  “I wanted to see you again.”

  And then he had to go and say something like that. Didn’t Detyens know that they were supposed to play it cool? You weren’t supposed to just go around and admit what you were feeling like that. Discomfort nipped at her toes and unease at her heels. Dan had been open about his emotions, or what he’d said were his emotions, at the beginning. He’d said he wasn’t holding anything back, and that he could never wait to see her again. That he’d never felt like that before. And look at where that had got her. “You want me to investigate you more closely?” She needed there to be a wall between them, an emotional barrier if she couldn’t have a physical one.

  But Toran smiled and her unease and discomfort dissolved like it had never been there in the first place. How was he doing that? She was suspicious by nature, it was her job. So why did Toran make her want to trust?

  “I think you’ve misunderstood the nature of our relationship, Mr. NaLosen.” She tried to put a reprimand in her voice, but it came out a little husky.

  He stepped closer, until he could practically wrap his arms around her waist, but he didn’t try. Why wasn’t he trying? Iris wanted to lean in and close that distance, her body yearned for it, but she kept herself rooted in place. “I don’t think I have,” he said, and again his eyes flared red.

  Had she thought her heart was beating fast before? It had nothing on what it was doing now, as she stood there with the utter certainty that he was about to kiss her. She could feel the heat of his body in the small space between them and she wanted to reach out, wrap her fingers around the collar of his top, and yank him close to get the damn thing over with. She was lying to herself if she believed that she was going to get out of this party without acquainting her lips with Toran’s.

  So why was he standing still? Everything in her yearned to lean forward and taste him, and his eyes had shifted to red, which she suspected meant that he was feeling the same thing. One of them had to move either forward or back or they would be stuck here like two statues until someone found them and broke the spell. But Iris didn’t move. She was caught between longing and the unwillingness to surrender to the connection between them, a connection she couldn’t understand but didn’t know how to reject.

  “What are
you doing?” she asked, even though he hadn’t moved a centimeter.

  “Do you think I’m doing something?” he challenged, his lips pulling into that heart flipping grin.

  Why couldn’t he just be a normal human? Or an alien who wasn’t suspected of crimes against the planet? Why couldn’t she just be a tiny bit less responsible? But he wasn’t, and he was, and she was, which meant they couldn’t do anything.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. She was unwilling to break their connection with an unfounded accusation, and for some reason she didn’t want to see the hurt that that would bring to his eyes. “This isn’t...”

  “It is.” And with those two words, he answered a question she hadn’t realized that her heart had been asking. Is this real? Yes.

  He took her hand in his and she was ready to be tugged forward, but he didn’t put any pressure on it, instead raising it to his lips and brushing a featherlight kiss to her palm. Lightning zinged across her nerves and she almost jumped, but before she could react, he was already pulling away and dropping her hand.

  “Until next time, denya.” He was out of the room before she could ask him what that word meant.

  SIERRA, KAYDE, TORAN, and Quinn were gathered in his quarters and studying more of the intel that had been gathered on Yormas. Quinn was a new addition to their team, and she had no experience with soldiering or spy work. But as one of the women rescued from Fenryr 1, she was going out of her mind with the need to get justice for what had been done to her.

  Justice was a long time coming. The pirates who had captured her were hundreds of light years away, and none of them knew how the battle at Detyen HQ had turned out. The Oscavian warlord who’d tried to purchase her could still be alive, but none of them even knew his name. So, she told them, if she couldn’t get justice for herself, she was happy to get vengeance for the Detyens who had saved her. Raze and Dryce had been sent out to keep eyes on the ambassador while posing as tourists and exploring the old city.