He sighed. She wasn’t going to like this at all. “You don’t.”
Jessica frowned at him. “What do you mean? You brought me here, you can take me back.”
“No, actually, I can’t. As far as everyone from your time is concerned, you’re a murder victim. History tells us you were never seen again. That means you don’t go back. Ever.”
“You don’t understand. Ruby’s got a record. A couple of minor drug possession charges, a DUI. And there was this bimbo she got in a fight with over a guy. The bimbo went to the hospital, and my sister was charged with aggravated assault and battery. Nothing serious, but it’d be just enough to make the cops wonder if she killed me. The family’s always the first ones they look at anyway.”
He nodded. “You’re right. She and her dealer were both suspects initially. Luckily for your sister, though, twenty people saw them together in a bar at the same time the cops believed the attack took place. They were cleared.”
Jessica sagged in relief. “Well, that’s something, anyway. But, Galar, I don’t want her thinking I’m dead. Our mother passed away a year ago, and it really hit Ruby hard. If she believes I was butchered by some killer . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know what she’ll do.”
Galar snorted. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know Ruby. She seems tough, but . . .”
“Jessica, thanks to you and your art, she became a very rich woman.”
Smoky blue eyes blinked in surprise. “Rich? Ruby? She lives in a broken-down mobile home.”
“Within six months of your death, she’ll sell one of your paintings for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And the prices will go up from there.”
Jessica gaped. “One of my paintings? You’re kidding.”
“You’re considered one of the greatest artists of the twenty-first century. Initially that’s why we thought you were targeted. If an art thief could get his hands on historically unknown Jessica Kelly originals, they’d be worth millions of galactors to unscrupulous collectors.”
“Millions? Man. Oh, man.” She fell back against the cushions. He watched as she started thinking it through. “You think collectors would be interested in new paintings? ”
His lips twitched. “I can pretty much guarantee it.”
“Hot damn, no more ramen noodles!” She grinned a moment, jubilant, before her smile drained away. “But can’t I drop by and see Ruby for just a minute? Just long enough to let her know I’m not dead?”
“No, because frankly, I doubt your sister could keep her mouth shut about it. And another thing—that Xeran is still after you. Do you really want to risk bringing him down on her?”
“But he doesn’t want me. He wants Charlotte.”
“Yeah, well, judging by the knife he stuck in your belly, now he wants you too.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “And I don’t want him to get you.”
“But why?” she demanded. “Why is he hunting us? What the hell is going on?”
“I have no idea, but I’m damned well going to find out.”
Before she could think of another question to ask, Galar stood. “You’re getting cold. Let’s go in.”
“In where?” Jess automatically started gathering her plate, cup, and silverware. After tucking them into the basket, she helped him put away the rest of the picnic supplies, then handed him the basket.
“Back into the Outpost.” Galar stood, basket swinging from one hand as he draped the blanket over a broad shoulder with the other. Correctly interpreting her lifting eyebrow, he added, “It’s our headquarters. Something like a combination police precinct, customs office, hospital, and mall.”
“Interesting combo.” Carrying the heated pillows, Jess followed him as he strode back up the hillside on those long legs. The view was incredible—and she wasn’t thinking about the landscape. The man had a great ass. Regretfully, she dragged her attention away from it. “Where exactly are we? When exactly are we?”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “You’d call it the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. As to when—it’s December 21, 1532 CE.”
“Fifteen . . . thirty-two?” Jess gaped. She wouldn’t even be born for almost five centuries. “Why in the hell did you build your headquarters here?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good central point, temporally speaking. And the area will be sparsely populated for another couple of centuries. What local residents there are believe this mountain is the domain of evil spirits, so they avoid it.”
“I don’t blame them,” Jess muttered.
They walked up the slope toward a sheer granite cliff, jutting here and there with a few scrubby bushes. She eyed it dubiously, hoping they wouldn’t have to scale the thing. Though in reasonably good shape, she didn’t think three times a week on a StairMaster qualified her for rock climbing.
Galar walked straight up to the cliff—and into it, slipping through the solid rock like a ghost.
Jess stopped in her tracks to gape. A hand reached out of the rough stone face, closed around her wrist, and drew her in after him.
She looked wildly around to find a pair of doors sliding closed behind them. “Three-dimensional camouflage field,” Galar explained, and started up the curving corridor, his booted feet quiet on the thick carpeting.
“Ah. Okay.” Jess followed him warily, staring around. The walls spilled a gentle illumination, and a soft, strange music played. Her mind began whispering alien words again, producing images of peculiar instruments, phrases she’d never heard before.
Licking her lips, she fought to control her racing thoughts, her heart thudding with anxiety. Calm down, Jess told herself fiercely. Nobody’s going to hurt you. You’ll get used to this.
“Are you all right?” Galar broke step to look at her, concern in those rich, bright eyes.
She rolled a shoulder with a jerk. “Just struggling with information overload. I’m dealing.”
He flashed her that admiring smile that made something warm in her chest. “Yeah, you are. Considering everything, you’re doing damned well.”
She dredged up a smile for him despite her twitching nerves. “Thanks.”
They rounded a curve and veered down another corridor. This one was crowded with blue-uniformed men and women, striding along with an air of purpose. Two of them were carrying on a lively argument in Galactic Standard about a grav-ball tournament. Jess’s mind produced images of teams of people darting back and forth in weightlessness, slamming at a glowing blue ball with padded gloves.
The association with zero G triggered another mental picture: people in tight space suits, working around some kind of ship. Then a different kind of ship flashed against the stars, its nacelles flaring bright blue.
Images began to pour into her mind faster and faster. Alien faces, mouths moving in an incomprehensible roar, strange landscapes, impossible creatures. Each sensation triggered others in a confusing cascade, blinding, deafening.
Jess staggered, shaking her head hard, fighting to regain control. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to close out the flood of alien sensation.
She heard Galar mutter a curse, then he caught her by the arm and pulled her after him. “In here. It’s quieter.”
A door hissed closed as powerful arms wrapped around her, drawing her tight against a big, warm body. “You’re having an information cascade. It’s a side effect of the EDI. Just hold on and breathe, like I showed you before. It’s all right.”
Jess grabbed him back and held on tight, using him as an anchor against the alien flood. Squeezing her eyes shut, she moaned in terror.
“Breathe with me,” he murmured in her ear. “In. Out.”
Jess obeyed, concentrating on the rise and fall of his chest, the beat of his heart, the warmth and strength of him. The frightening mental flood slowly retreated.
She pressed her face against the wool of his sweater, breathing in his scent. He felt wonderful, all hard muscle, long and lean and powe
rful. Her body stirred, a purely feminine reaction to his stark masculinity.
The rising tide of desire swamped the last of the alien images, which sank from her consciousness at last. After several long breaths, she dared open her eyes. The room around them was small, dim, blessedly quiet. And empty, aside from racks of thin metal bars attached to the walls. “Where are we?”
“Equipment closet outside the gym. I wanted to get you out of the flow of traffic until you stabilized.”
Jess sighed and burrowed closer to his warm strength. He made a slight noise, a soft male growl that brought her gaze to his face.
The heat in his gaze was as unmistakable as the ridge of lust she could feel growing behind his zipper.
The file had said physical contact was a quick way to ground someone against an EDI cascade—a flood of unwanted mental associations—so Galar had taken her in his arms. Then she’d wrapped herself around him like climbing ivy, with a sheer, stark desperation that had touched him.
Poor little primitive, trapped in a world she didn’t understand, stripped of every friend she’d ever had. Prey to a battleborg assassin.
But even as his pity rose, she’d turned it on its head. Desire had replaced her desperation, so fierce it triggered his own. With no effort at all, she’d set ablaze the hunger that had been simmering since the moment he’d first seen her at her easel.
She felt so damned good as she buried herself against him, slender, soft, deliciously female, fiercely sensual. Better yet, there was no artifice at all in those blue eyes as she looked up at him.
She simply wanted him.
Jessica Kelly was nothing like Tlain. For once, Galar’s heart and head and body were in perfect agreement. Besides, he was sick of living like a wary monk, imprisoned by his own vows, his own fears.
How long had it been since he’d had a woman?
Sixty-two days, six hours, three minutes, his computer whispered.
Damn, Galar thought. No wonder I’m losing it.
So he lowered his head and took her lips. Sweet. Goddess Mother, she tasted as sweet as she looked, pure as rainwater.
“Galar,” she moaned into his mouth, his name an intoxicating, breathy little whimper that made him harden even more.
He growled as a wild recklessness rolled over him, an impatience with his caution, with years of self-denial and discipline. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted a woman like this, with this aching, unheeding ferocity.
The kiss started out feral, a luscious erotic assault of teeth and tongue and lips. Jessica jolted against him with wide-eyed surprise. He instantly gentled, the press of his mouth softening into a caress. She caught her breath, then released it in a sigh and let her eyes slip closed.
This was nuts. He was a man from the future, a warrior from a world she couldn’t even imagine. And yet—and yet—he tasted so good. So rich. Hot and male and insanely tempting.
She was plastered against him from shoulders to feet now, until it seemed every molecule of her touched a molecule of him. Her senses were abruptly full to bursting with raw masculinity—that tall, brawny body, firm and strong and solid against her more delicate one. His scent, intoxicating and masculine. His taste, dark and rich and just a little alien.
Her nipples gathered in sizzling response, heat sliding into a honeyed ball low in her abdomen. She groaned softly, heard him rumble a dark, hungry response.
And then, reluctantly, Galar pulled away. “As much as I’d love to continue this, I don’t want our first time to be in a closet.” His smile was dazzling, intoxicating.
So much so, it didn’t even occur to her to protest his assumption. “No.” Reluctantly, she dropped her arms from around his waist. “I suppose not.”
Jess followed as he led the way out of the closet and down the corridor. “We can cut through the gym,” he told her, taking her elbow in one big, warm hand and guiding her through another door. “There’s a lift just through . . .”
“Die, you bastard!” a voice howled.
Jess yelped a startled little scream. Galar jerked away from her and whirled, putting himself between her and the room beyond. She braced a hand against his broad back as steel rang on steel, voices snarling threats and insults.
Sounded like a knife fight.
Warily, Jessica craned her neck to see around the width of Galar’s shoulders. They stood just inside a sprawling room, its ceiling soaring so high it put her in mind of a high school basketball court. Unlike the gym, though, the walls were gleaming white, except for one that appeared to be a solid sheet of glass. The Blue Ridge rolled beyond it, going dark with shades of indigo night.
Another howl of fury. A woman flew through the air in a superhuman bound, knives flashing in both hands. Lips peeled back from her teeth, she shot straight at a huge red-haired man who waited for her with a lunatic grin on his face and blades in either hand. He wore what looked like bright green bicycle pants and nothing else. Sweat streamed from the brawny bronzed torso that gleamed in the overhead light as if oiled.
The woman landed like an Olympic-caliber gymnast, solidly, without so much as a forward bobble. She instantly pounced into a lunge, her knife flashing toward her opponent’s throat as she yowled that blood-chilling challenge again. He backflipped, bounding off the floor as if it were a trampoline. Undeterred, the woman charged after him. He hit the ground and whirled to circle with her, their knives clashing in metallic, ringing scrapes as they snarled insults at each other.
Forgetting her fear, Jessica moved around Galar to get a better look. Their speed was inhuman, a blurring exchange of blows she could barely follow. The whole fight looked more like something out of some special effects-laden martial arts flick than anything she’d ever seen in real life. Every time they leaped into one of those stunning bounces or improbable spins, Jess wanted to search for wires.
Nobody can jump like that. Her jaw dropped shamelessly open at one fifteen-foot bound. It’s just not possible.
She was still gaping when the redhead leaped through the air toward the woman, his foot scything into a kick. His target ducked—and he kept going.
Straight at Jess.
Oh, shit . . . There was no time to duck, no time to . . .
Broad shoulders suddenly blocked her view. Jessica stumbled back as Galar snatched the redhead out of the air as easily as a man catching a football. He didn’t even rock back on his heels.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, staring at the two big men in blank astonishment. The redhead had to be six-foot-eight, as solidly muscled as an offensive lineman. Easily three hundred pounds of muscle. Yet Galar had caught him as if he weighed nothing at all.
Now he thrust the redhead back on his feet. “What the Seven Hells do you think you’re doing? You could have killed her, you idiot!”
“Sorry, Master Enforcer.” The redhead looked mortified as he backed away from Galar’s incandescent rage. “We just got a little carried away.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough,” Galar snarled, poking a forefinger into his target’s brawny chest. “Whether you’re in combat or only combat practice, you maintain awareness at all times of everything around you. That’s why you’ve got a battle comp. Use it!”
“It won’t happen again, Master Enforcer.” The man looked shamefaced. His female opponent hurried over, her expression just as apologetic.
Damn, Jessica realized belatedly. It was only some kind of practice session. She’d thought they were fighting to the death.
“I am sorry,” the redhead told her. “I didn’t notice you standing there.”
“You should have,” Galar said in that same icy tone. He turned his attention to the woman. “And so should you.”
“You’re right, of course,” the woman said, entwining her fingers with the redhead’s. Like the two men, she was tall, but more leanly elegant than massive. She was also breath-takingly beautiful, with a bone structure a fashion model would envy, set off by huge violet eyes. She wore her black hair braided and gathered into a tight co
il. A sleeveless one-piece tank suit emphasized the beauty of her body while again reminding Jessica of a gymnast. It was snug and cut high on the leg, the fabric thin and dark blue, with a red rectangle down the left side from breast to hip. She’d tucked those terrifying knives back into a pair of thigh sheaths.
“We are sorry,” the woman told Jess earnestly. “It’s a good thing that Master Enforcer Arvid has such quick reflexes. ”
“How did you do that?” Jess asked in wonder. “Can everybody in the twenty-third century leap tall buildings in a single bound?”
“Nope.” Smiling faintly, the woman gestured at her big redheaded companion. “We’re cyborgs.”
Jessica’s EDI spat out a definition that made her frown in puzzlement. “Humans with mechanical arms and legs?”
“Mechanical as in gears and pulleys?” The redhead snorted. “Hardly. The technology is a lot more advanced than that.”
“Good to know.” Jess turned toward Galar. “So you’re a cyborg too?”
He shook his head. “Genetically engineered. But I have sensors and a computer implant.”
“Ooookaay. Sensors. A computer implant.” She contemplated the steadily shrinking size of computers in her own time and decided she could believe it.
The woman stepped forward and offered her hand. “Enforcer Dona Astryr.” She nodded at the redhead. “Senior Enforcer Ivar Terje.”
“Jessica Kelly.” She clasped hands with the two agents. “People still shake hands?”
“No.” Dona smiled. “But you do.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
Galar took her elbow in one big hand. “Let’s go.” Bad temper still growled in his voice. “I need to meet with the Chief Enforcer and tell him about the Xeran and Holt.”
Ivar looked at him, interested. “What’s this about the Xeran?”
Galar gave him a glower. “You don’t need to know.”
Ivar blinked as Jessica lifted a brow at Galar’s brusque tone. Galar ignored her stare, tugging her away from the two agents.
“What brought that on?” she demanded.
“I didn’t save your ass so one of my own men could break every bone in your body out of carelessness,” he gritted.
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