by Marie Harte
You got that right. He tore at his trousers, and Erin laid him out flat in no time. She didn’t even try to be gentle, gratified by the sound of his thick skull bouncing off the unforgiving stone floor.
Shaking her head at the inherent weakness in all males—most males, she reminded herself, recalling Cheltam’s surprising control—she dragged the peacemaker behind one of the counters and tied him up with some nearby rope. After gagging him, she moved to the exit, seeing nothing through the windows of the shop.
Had Cheltam escaped, somehow? Or worse, joined with the rogue peacemakers to turn her in? Though he had a reputation as loyal once he’d contracted his services, Cheltam might decide to make an exception in Erin’s case. Blue Rim and their lucrative reward for her capture made it impossible for her to trust anyone.
Stealing herself for the worst, Erin pushed out the door and walked cautiously around the trading tower. As she moved away from the entrance, she noticed Cheltam dragging one unconscious male into the invading wood line. Relieved, she watched him work.
Seeing her, the tension in his frame eased. “I take it you put that other asshole out of commission.” She nodded, and he motioned to another body on the ground. “Grab that one.”
Erin automatically grabbed the male and hid him next to the other guard. Cheltam used a bit of rope to quickly secure both men before holding up a nasty looking cloth.
Aiming a menacing grin at the peacemakers, he said to her, “Don’t ask where I found this, because you don’t want to know.” He ripped it in half and stuffed the rags into their mouths. When finished, he stood and stared at Erin, his good mood souring rapidly. “Go wait for me inside the store. And for Flor’s sake, tone down that scent unless you want to spread those legs for a hard fuck regardless of who’s watching.”
He had the gall to push her back toward the entrance of the tower and away from him, but when she saw the “who” he mentioned she understood. Several tree lengths away near their rover, the merchant, Herm, paced back and forth, oblivious to everything but his own disgruntled rambling.
“Fine.” She wished Cheltam’s demanding tone weren’t so arousing. Unfortunately, being with Cheltam in the rover had only increased her sexual awareness of the exasperating male. “But what do we do about Herm? He’ll have questions.”
“I’ll take care of him. Go inside and grab the stuff on the counter that I was collecting. Put this in its place,” he said gruffly and handed her a currency voucher. “Then meet me on the far side by the path near that big black stone.”
She’d seen it when they arrived. “Don’t take long.” She still didn’t trust him. But at this point, he surely wasn’t in league with these peacemakers. “And don’t make me regret trusting you this much,” she warned in a low voice.
To her annoyance, he rolled his eyes. “I’m shaking in my boots. Just get away from me before I show you what it really means to bend over a counter.”
She blinked. “You heard that?”
“I heard everything that drun said. He’s lucky I was busy with these two or I’d have ripped off his head and shoved it up his ass.”
Not knowing what to say and a bit puzzled over Cheltam’s anger, which couldn’t possibly exist on her behalf, she started to walk away. “Must have ears like a threll,” she muttered, not surprised when he answered her.
“Yeah, I do. So hurry that sweet little ass. We need to move.”
More than interested in what exactly Cheltam was capable of, Erin nevertheless shelved her curiosity and entered the market. She grabbed the items he’d mentioned, dumping her bag of supplies and what he’d bartered for into a larger pack, and left for the black rock by a cleared space in the tree line, the beginning of an apparent path through the Eron Forest.
Ducking into the shaded cover of several leafy ferns, she waited for Cheltam to arrive. Three times now he’d surprised her. Cheltam had met her blow for blow in his house. He’d resisted her first attempt to seduce him, and he’d stolen that laser disc out of her hands with a speed exceeding that of mere Mardu. So what exactly was he?
She’d been taught that each planet’s natives had distinct characteristics, and that mating between planetary races normally resulted in one genetic strain dominating the other. In unique instances, progeny of mixed breeding resulted in a child with both donors’ characteristics. But according to Blue Rim’s classified files—which she’d risked a week in the desensitization chamber to read—those instances were exceedingly rare.
So far as her Creator Canunn knew, never had people existed like Erin, Anin, and Ryen—beings capable of carrying the dominant markers for several planetary races. Erin wasn’t quite sure, but she thought she might possess a hint of Mardu coding as well as the Ragga, Nebite, and Zephyr streams running through her blood. Erin had an agility beyond that of most of the System’s inhabitants. Still, she hadn’t the speed that Cheltam seemed to possess, if his theft of that laser disc was any indication. She could only be glad she’d had surprise on her side when she’d downed him in his house.
Cheltam looked like a native of this planet, with a few noticeable exceptions. He had Mardu coloring, a swarthy tan set against that soft, dark-brown hair. But those eyes. The light gold color and exotic slant definitely reminded her of the felines she’d studied back on Eyra. Predators with the instincts to not simply kill, but to survive. Cheltam seemed much the same. Deadly, potent and nearly mesmerizing with that raw, sexual stare that seemed to look right through her.
She huffed. And he complained about her scent. At least that she could mask. His stare, on the other hand, was something difficult to avoid, and it continued to make her want to melt despite her attempts at controlling her libido.
That latent sexuality burning in her supposed partner had an odd effect on her ability to concentrate. And that wouldn’t do. Not only did Erin have to protect herself, but the lives of Anin, Ryen, and those helpless prisoners depended on her. Granted, most of the prison contingent were criminals, but no one deserved the treatment Blue Rim doled on their test subjects.
At the memories, Erin tightened her grip on the strap of the pack. She’d do everything in her power to destroy the labs. No matter what she had to sacrifice.
Images of a cold, flat laboratory table, thick straps cutting into her wrists and ankles, prodding fingers, metallic tools, and tubes invading her body all stabbed at her with surgical sharpness. Yes, she and her family had escaped Blue Rim, but for how long? And what were the prisoners undergoing as she waited here for Cheltam, a criminal with no thought of anything but lining his pockets and striking out at System law?
Erin tightened her jaw and amended her decision. She’d do everything in her power to destroy Blue Rim. No matter what, or who, she had to sacrifice.
7
Rafe glared at Herm, who took the hint and rushed back into his trading tower. Gripping his communicator tightly, Rafe spoke to his brother, not at all happy about Gar’s answers. “What do you mean Sernal is unavailable?”
Gar growled back, “What the hell do you think I mean? I can’t contact him. He’s out of touch. No one has seen him since you last talked to him, if you want to know the truth.”
“Great.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. “First you get cold-cocked by a female, then our great and fearless leader disappears. Two messes I have to clean up.”
“Fuck you.” Gar sounded less than pleased, and Rafe allowed himself a chuckle. “Think it’s funny? She’s dangerous, brother mine, and you’re stuck with her. She has information on Blue Rim that they’re desperate to get back. They offered a hundred thousand beks for her safe return to the planet. Hell, it’s obvious she’s one of their experiments.”
“I know.”
“She told you?”
“She told me she and the other prisoner ships getting lost in deep space are actually ending up on Eyra as part of Blue Rim’s illegal test subjects. Apparently, the lab is responsible for the half dozen ships gone missing, which is probably what Sernal expected
and why he assigned you to investigate Blue Rim.
“They use the prisoners as lab rats. For a small fee, those prisoners just disappear. The prisons don’t worry about overcrowding, and Blue Rim doesn’t have to answer to System law about illegal scientific experimentation.”
Gar remained silent.
“What?” Rafe kept an eye on his surroundings, fully expecting another group of peacemakers to show when the three idiots he’d encountered didn’t report in. He felt both furious and embarrassed to see lawmen he should have been proud to call his peers acting like corrupt barbarians.
“I’m not buying it, Rafe. She’s one of Blue Rim’s experiments? She took out Dreyk in two seconds, not to mention she knocked me flat on my ass. And what about you? You’re saying a female experiment took out two Xema warriors in their prime?”
Gar had a point. But still…
“If not an experiment, then what?”
“I’ve been hearing rumors about a resurgence in the System’s push to regulate Eyran practices much more closely.” Gar paused, and Rafe had a bad feeling sinking into his bones. “I think she might be a Creation.”
Rafe let the cursed word sink in. A Creation, an entity not born but developed and formed by mortal men and women, not the planetary gods and goddesses as nature intended. An abomination by law and morality, and clearly justified as lethal anomalies during the Eyran War of 2845.
A long time ago, the scientists on Eyra had free rein to do whatever they wanted in the name of science. In doing so, they’d inadvertently manufactured a race of crazy, deviant psychotics with incredible strength and cunning, who had banded together and killed thousands before the peacemakers had stopped them.
As a result, the Vrail Council outlawed Creation as a rule, allowing the occasional android or clone only for specific scientific purposes and only under Council’s unanimously voted decision.
Hell, Rafe could name all the clones on Mardu, as well as the androids on Nebe6. There were maybe twenty of them in all, and the peacemakers watched them with careful eyes at all times.
“She’s not a Creation.” He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it, even as something inside him whispered to listen to what his brother told him. “She could have killed me twice now, yet she didn’t. She wants my help.”
“To kill everyone at Blue Rim,” Gar added caustically.
“Hell, yeah. But can you blame her? If what she says is true, then the labs are doing things to people they shouldn’t be. And brother, you saw her eyes. How much do you think it hurt to turn them purple? Her pupils are yellow.” Gold actually, a color that flared with heat whenever she stared at him.
“… Rafe? Are you hearing me?”
Damn it. “Say that again. I think we’re losing the connection.” Rafe could only be glad this comm unit didn’t have a vidphone. He’d catch hell if Gar caught him flushing with embarrassment. Letting my dick do my thinking when I should be planning a way out of this mess.
“I said you need to play this out. I’ll take care of the peacemakers you knocked out down there. But with the amount of currency Blue Rim is offering as a reward, we can’t trust a lot of our guys with this mission. Sad but true. And Sernal can kiss my ass if he doesn’t like me mistrusting his people.
“You take care of her. Get her to share what’s really going on at Blue Rim. Details. And Dreyk’s coming with you. I don’t trust her, Rafe. And you aren’t thinking straight because you’re letting your—”
“I’ll contact you in two days. Out.” Rafe disconnected and pocketed the communicator. Gar wouldn’t like it, but Rafe didn’t need Dreyk covering his ass. Rafe would take care of Erin, and he sure as hell didn’t want Dreyk around when he did so.
Recalling the feel of Erin’s mouth over him as if she’d just taken him to wainu, Rafe swore at his overactive glands and took a moment to regain control before he headed toward Herm. How a woman could be so soft and willing one minute and so damn dangerous the next baffled him. Yet she’d taken both him and Gar down and had handled him in the rover easily, when Rafe clearly outweighed her twice over.
But leaving her with Ollen… It had taken considerable control to let Erin take care of him, that disgusting excuse for a lawman. But take care of him she had. Rafe had tuned in to their conversation with his keen hearing, pleased she hadn’t let the jerk lay one more finger on her than necessary. But Rafe still didn’t like the fact that she’d had to defend herself and had taken his frustration out on Ollen’s companions.
Personally, Rafe couldn’t wait to see what Sernal would do to the corrupt peacemakers, if Sernal was even around. Gar should have been able to get through to Sernal by now. Especially through their personal channels, a Mardu hotline all of the brothers shared on a special communicator never far from reach. Rafe could only hope Sernal fared well, and that perhaps his brother had to remain incommunicado for a mission’s sake.
Sighing, Rafe tucked away his unease and focused on Erin. For the right price, Herm would forget he’d ever seen them, especially once Cheltam promised to send better peacemaker protection his way.
Now to dump Herm and move before Gar sicced Dreyk on them. Because Gar wouldn’t be denied, and he wanted Dreyk to watch over his little brother.
Rafe fumed. He didn’t need the help, but overprotective Gar couldn’t hear “no” past his stubborn brain. He didn’t like Erin and would try to destroy her the first chance he had if she turned out to be a Creation. The old Gar would have given her a chance, but this tougher, harsher Gar would kill her without a qualm if she threatened his brother’s life. And Rafe refused to let that happen.
“That little whelp hung up on me.” Gar glared at his communicator, ignoring the chuckle from Dreyk.
“I told you as much. Hell, Gar. He’s you but with a sunnier attitude. Of course he won’t take your help, not when there’s a pretty female needing him. He’s too tender-hearted for the job. I told him so before.” Dreyk sighed and leaned back on a plush divan, clutching the back of his neck with a grimace. “Damn, that girl put me down hard. I think I like her.”
“Took you out like a boy fresh from the fields. Tears, for Flor’s sake. She suckered you with damn tears.” Gar glared at Dreyk, not seeing the humor in any of it. That female was no more an experiment than he was. He’d stake his life on it. She fought too well, and that form, those eyes… She wasn’t normal, and if Blue Rim wanted as much for her as they were asking, Erin would bring Rafe nothing but trouble and pain.
With Sernal also gone missing, Gar didn’t know what to do. Rafe, at least, he had a tentative handle on. But Sernal never took time away from his new job as both commander of Lady Justice, his ship, and of the new Peacemaker Central satellite station, Libetter. Worry filled him, an instinctive call to protect his own that he would heed this time. He refused to lose anyone else he cared about ever again.
“Gar, don’t worry.” Dreyk rose wearily to his feet. “I’ll take care of Rafe. You deal with Sernal. Because of the two of them, Sernal’s going to be more trouble than I can handle.”
Gar couldn’t help the small smile that escaped. “Admit it, he’s a pain the in the ass.”
“Of course he is. All you peacemakers are. But Rafe I can tolerate. More than you,” Dreyk muttered, offered Gar an obscene hand gesture, then simply vanished.
Gar stared, impressed that Dreyk had gotten his hands on a personal micro-teleporter. “Show off.”
Now to save big brother, most likely from himself.
Sucking in a breath, Gar did what he’d been dreading. He dialed another number, this time off his vidcom, and stared into Sernal’s likeness—Catam. “Well now, if it isn’t the baby of the family.” He tried for normalcy, hoping it bled through his pores like a fine sweat on a hot day.
“Gar?” The hopeful anticipation in his youngest brother’s hesitant smile cut Gar to the quick. “How are you? I’ve missed you—”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.” The thought of the last time he’d called, of the sound of chi
ldren giggling in the background, pierced the dull armor around his heart, and he ignored the ache in his chest, wishing more than anything he could undo the past. “Sernal’s missing. I don’t have time for chatter. Now shut up and listen.”
8
After three silent hours of nonstop walking through the forest, Erin wanted a break. Not that she needed it, but she sought a handle on the man at her back, at the male staring holes through her every time she glanced behind her and caught his piercing gaze.
More worrisome than Cheltam’s changing attitude was the fact that the more time she spent in his presence, the more she wanted to bow to his favor. She found herself desiring to ask him what he wanted, if the pace suited him, if the direction was to his liking.
Stop it, Erin. He’s not your Handler. You are no man’s servant, not ever again. Yet her constant reprimands made her that much more aware of his natural dominance, of the light breaths he took while they marched at a warrior’s pace, keeping even with her. So strong, so masterful. And so damn tight-lipped about what he thought.
“Okay, I’m taking a break.” Erin stopped at a nearby stream and sat down on waist-high rock, just daring him to argue.
“Fine.” He shrugged off the pack he’d insisted he carry. To her consternation, he didn’t look a bit winded.
She shivered, wanting another taste and touch of such firm muscle, to feel his warm heartbeat pulsing under her hand again.
“Thirsty?” He held up a cup taken from the pack and nodded at the water.
“No, you go ahead.”
He shrugged and crouched low, gathering the water for a long, slow drink.
Small beads dripped down his mouth to his throat, and Erin watched, riveted, as his throat moved in time with his swallows. His full lips hugged the metallic container holding the precious liquid, and his long-fingered hand cupped the small container, cradling it with a firm gentleness that would be devastating on her body.