by Mirren Hogan
“Fine,” he said with a huff. “I like you. You make me laugh. You boil my blood with your crazy ideas, an’ you inspire me with your kindness.”
“I didn’t mean lie to me.” She was doing her best to keep the laughter from her voice, but some of her mirth slipped through, and she could feel it set him off.
“God, you’re insufferable. Do you feel the same or not, woman?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“And what could sway your decision?” he asked, discarding the ship part he’d been mending on a nearby bench before stepping a bit closer to her.
She didn’t know if it was his inability to truly see how close he was or if he’d meant to suffocate her with his nearness, but she could feel his breath on her face, and his brown eyes, though unseeing, met hers for a moment. It made her knees feel weak.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. All the teasing and controlling authority she’d had before dissipated, and she found her voice a bit breathy as she answered his question. “I find it’s all in the way a person kisses that…”
Before she could finish, he’d closed the distance between them and met her lips eagerly. It took her a moment to respond, and then she was running her fingers through his dark locks, gripping and pawing at him as if he was the only thing keeping her tethered to the world.
Finally, when they could no longer suppress their need for oxygen, they broke apart, though his forehead still rested against hers.
“You’ll… do,” she managed to get out between long ragged breaths.
The smirk she’d begun to cherish was back on his face. “Happy to oblige, Captain.”
“Captain, I need you down in the engine room, please,” came Cole’s voice through the com.
Sanchez gave Victoria a wink from across the bridge, and she had to stifle a laugh before replying. “I’ll be right down, Mr. Declan.”
She gave a nod to her pilot, Guerra, and calmly walked to the bridge exit. Once the door had closed behind her, she found herself nearly sprinting to get to the engine room. The door was open, but she couldn’t see Cole anywhere inside. She stepped across the barrier and felt an arm wrap around her waist, pulling her to the side. Her lips met his, and she was in heaven again.
“Did you coerce me down here just as an excuse to see me?”
“Poor choice of words, but…yes,” he replied, reaching for her waist and pulling her into a deep kiss.
“And what if it was Guerra who wandered in here instead of me?”
He smiled, humoring her. “I’d be washin’ my mouth out, and I guess I’d have some explainin’ to do! But to be fair, you walk much lighter than him.”
“Good to know.”
“Do you think anyone suspects anythin’?” he asked, suddenly a little more serious.
“Sanchez has been giving me the thumbs up for about a week, so I think it’s safe to say that some people know.”
“And you’re okay with that? People knowin’ about us?” he clarified, tangling a strand of her hair around his finger.
“Yeah, I think I am.”
“It won’t hurt your image? Sleepin’ with the help?” he teased.
“Oh, come on, half the crew hates me, and the other half could care less who captains this ship or what she does as long as they’re getting paid.”
She was sure there might be one or two people who genuinely cared for her on her ship, but she’d heard too many hushed words when no one thought she was listening to think herself very highly among them.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Vic,” he said, brushing his palm over her cheek. “They respect you. We just need to work on your people skills.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. The crew loved him. They’d taken to him almost immediately. He had a way with people, which she was sure she could never emulate. Hell, he had a way with her. She’d never felt so free in a relationship, nor so secure. It was a bizarre feeling. He challenged her, every day. Sometimes that was a good thing, and sometimes it got on her last nerve, but she couldn’t help feeling how right it felt to be in his arms, or on the receiving side of his praise. She wanted to share everything with him. Every triumph, every failure, every insecurity, and for the first time in her life, she felt she could. It wouldn’t frighten him or drive him away.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Guess who we just got a big contract with.”
He placed a chaste kiss to the top of her head. “Someone rich from the tone of your voice!”
“Phillip Argent! He’s got some business on Convalapatori he wants us to handle,” she informed him.
His face changed. The smile faded, and his brow creased. “Have you ever been to Convalapatori? It’s full of crooks and criminals! Whatever business he has there, it can’t be good.”
“He’s the prime minister of the entire Hex Voltari system. I hardly think he’s going to be making shady business deals and then entrust his cargo to a local merchant ship. He’s smarter than that,” she said, trying to quell his fears.
“Just because he’s a politician, doesn’t mean he can be trusted, in fact, it makes it more likely that he’s up to something.”
This could be big money for her crew, life-changing money. They could buy a bigger ship, possibly even a fleet of ships if the contract were long-term. They could expand the business, and maybe even carve out some time for themselves.
“You don’t even know the details yet. I promise, I’ll look into its validity, but you have to trust me,” she pleaded.
“I do trust you,” he assured her, taking her face in his hands. “It’s them I have doubts about.”
She should have trusted his judgment. She should have checked her sources more thoroughly, but she’d argued and made excuses, and now here she was, her crew in danger, her ship vandalized, and her future, all their futures, uncertain.
“Captain, what should we do?” Guerra asked, desperation coating his words.
“Turn the engine off. We’re going to try to reverse the thrusters manually.”
“Can we do that without a mechanic,” Sanchez asked.
Victoria met the woman’s eyes across the bridge. They weren’t accusing as she thought they might be, but instead, filled with fear and a bit of pity.
“I don’t know, but we have to try. Guerra, see what you can do. I’ll take the helm until you return.”
Her pilot raced out of the bridge and down to the engine bay, and she prayed he could get there in time to fix it.
“Vic… Captain?” The com suddenly buzzed.
Victoria nearly fell over the console trying to get a grip on the com set.
“Cole? Cole is that you?” she called back.
“Of course it’s me. I’ve been monitorin’ the damn coms for hours. You need to listen to me, Vic, there’s a fleet on the way, but they won’t get there in time.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?” she asked incredulously.
“No, but I may be able to help. What solutions have you come up with?”
“Guerra just went down to reverse the thrusters if he can,” she reported.
“Good, tha’ should work. Do you remember the day we met, Vic?”
A smile spread across her face, remembering him in his greasy dungarees, full of sass and confidence.
“Yeah, of course I do.”
“Specifically, do yah remember the ion rods and where to find them?” he asked.
So many things had happened between now and then. It was hard to be sure if her memory was accurate or not. “I think so.”
“You can’t think it Vic, you better know. You need to reverse the third and fourth rod to stabilize the thruster. Too much pressure an’ it doesn’t matter what’s in front of you, that engine’s goin’ ta blow.”
“I understand,” she said, biting her lip before her next confession. “Cole, I’m sorry.”
She tried to keep the hopelessness from her voice, but it faltered anyway.
“You can apologize later…in person. Now hurr
y up and reverse that damn ship.”
“Sanchez…”
The woman crossed the bridge and sat at the console. “I’ve got it, Captain. Go, save us all.”
Victoria was running so fast her feet were starting to trip up, but how many minutes had she wasted already? She only had five, to begin with, and five minutes could change a life, or end it.
“Guerra! Don’t reverse yet. Cole said we need to find the ion rods and reverse the third and fourth one first.”
She strode over to the panel, the one she’d seen him fiddle with the first day they met, back when she was still a skeptic. Still sure a man who couldn’t see would be of no help to them, and now here he was saving the day. She pulled the panel off and stuck her head as far inside as she could manage, counting the rods. One, two, three. She pulled the third rod out and turned it, then the fourth. She nodded to Guerra, and he flipped the thruster back on.
There was a jerk as the ship halted and began changing course. She could hear unsecured cargo falling off shelves, and a few tools from the boxes spilled out, but they were safe. They were going home.
“You did it, Captain,” Guerra said, patting her on the shoulder.
But that wasn’t the truth. When everything had been chaos and panic, she’d given up. In her mind, they were already dead—but her crew—her crew never gave up.
“No, Rick, we all did. Nice job.”
The bay doors opened, and before she could make a step toward them, she was in Cole’s arms. His face was etched with worry and relief. His hands took inventory of every inch of her body, finally coming to her face. His fingers grazed the flesh of her cheek, over her eyelids, across her lips, until he was sure she was whole and unharmed.
He breathed a sigh of relief, long and ragged. “God, please don’t ever do that to me again, Vic.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you. His men were terrible.”
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, his tone turning harsh and determined.
“No, but the things they threatened to do. I should have never taken the job, and I should never have lied to you about where we were going.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t. Every time you say you’re visiting your mother now, I’ll worry you’re off gettin’ yourself killed,” he admitted.
“Then I guess you’ll have to come with me to meet her next time, make sure I’m keeping my word.”
“That’s not how it works, Vic. You don’t get rewarded for scarin’ the life out of me.”
“I know, but I really would like you to meet her. I think she’ll like you. Especially after she hears how you saved my life,” she teased.
“You would have figured something out. You always do. You’re a fighter, and the world isn’t done with you yet.”
He was being sincere. He really thought she was that strong, that invincible, and him thinking it almost made her believe it herself.
“The world can wait, right now, I just want to be with you,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around his waist and snuggling into his chest.
“Vic, I think I love you. I think I’ve loved you for a long time now.”
“I love you too, Cole.”
A sudden wolf-whistle startled them out of their reverie.
“Woohoo! I had it! I bet Declan would say it first! Pay up, Guerra!” It was Sanchez sitting up in the cargo hold with her feet dangling off the rails. Guerra sat beside her, his face twisted.
“He said think, that does not count, Sanchez!”
“Listen, guys, could you settle this little wager for us?” Sanchez called, cupping her hands around her mouth.
Cole tugged Victoria’s hand, and they were running, down, down, into the storage hold, giggling at the ridiculousness of it all. The seal to each room was pressurized, and the oxygen would only last so long inside each hold, but it was enough time to hide from Sanchez and Guerra. Enough time to get lost in a kiss. They couldn’t stay down there forever, but four or five minutes couldn’t hurt.
Five minutes and counting. Five minutes could change your life… or save it.
If you liked this story from C.L. Cannon, you can read more from her in Rogue Skies. Preorder for 99c.
Copyright © 2019 by Mirren Hogan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Angel’s Blood
Mirren Hogan
Blood spatter covered the walls. So did chunks of brain, spread like projectile vomit.
"I think he's dead,” Lola West remarked.
Maggie Tyler gave her a dry look. "Your powers of observation are as keen as ever."
Lola grinned. "Thanks."
Maggie rolled her eyes, but she was trying not to smile. "What we need to know is how." All business-like, she turned back to the crime scene as Lola opened her bag.
"Gunshot?" She guessed.
Maggie turned back slowly. "How many times have I told you, we never guess." She gave Lola the eye while putting on her rubber gloves.
"Once or twice." Lola pulled out a vial of blue power and sprinkled it onto a shard of skull. Where it touched the bone, it started to glow, first blue, then gradually changing to a neon green. "Huh, what do you know."
"What?" Maggie looked over at the bone and squinted. "Oh. Definitely a gunshot then."
"Yeah, point blank range by the look of it. There’s so much residue the magic turned green.”
“Someone really wanted this guy dead.”
"So it seems." Lola scowled. No one but Maggie and a few others knew what it was that she did. Most people thought she was a regular CSI. Only those she trusted knew she got her clues– using magic.
Maggie took a scraping of bone and placed it inside a vial before handing it to Lola and collecting another. “See what you can make of that.” If she resented Lola’s magic and the fact that she had to do her investigations the old fashioned way–with science–she didn’t show it. While Lola’s work hurried the process along by quite a bit, they still needed to go ‘by the book’ or any changes laid against a felon wouldn’t hold up in court.
Lola grabbed a small bottle of a clear liquid from her bag, added it to the piece of bone and swirled. She peered into the vial as the contents turned pink, then slowly turned into what looked like molten silver. “Well, that’s odd.”
Maggie glanced over. “What? Oh. Why is it doing that?”
“That’s what happens when two types of blood mix,” Lola explained.
“You don’t mean O and A, do you?”
“No, I mean human and not human. Normally you’d see this if someone had their face ripped off by a werewolf. Don’t worry,” Lola added, seeing Maggie shudder, “they’re all microchipped and carefully monitored these days.” Mostly. Personally she thought they should be spayed and neutered, but she’d stay out of their kennel if they stayed out of hers.
“Anyway, that wasn’t the case here. And a vampire wouldn’t bother to hide their tracks like this. They just kill and move on.” She caught Maggie’s silent request for assurance that they wouldn’t meet one of those, but she couldn’t give it except to say, “This wasn’t their work.”
“What else is out there that might do this?” Maggie knew almost as much about the creatures that inhabited the city as Lola did, but only second hand. The perpetrators of most crimes were the average degenerate human. “Zombies?”
“There's no such thing as zombies,” Lola replied. “Aw, crap.”
“What?”
Lola raised the vial to show the contents had turned a shade of antique gold. “Angels.”
Maggie looked more confused than ever.
“Oh they look like they’re sweet and wholesome, but they never do anything without a reason. And their blood drives normal people insane.”
“So an ange
l did this?”
“Or the killer is under the influence of one. That could mean this killing is random, or the guy pissed off an angel. Either way it’s going to difficult to find the perpetrator.”
“Luckily that’s the cop’s problem.”
“Shit.” Lola almost dropped the vial. The entire thing had turned black, glass and all. She placed it carefully onto the concrete floor where it burst into flames and melted. “Well, that answers that question.”
She glanced up at Maggie who regarded her with a quirked eyebrow. “Pissed off angel.” She reached into her bag for a translucent silver powder kept in a ziplock bag. Pulling out a pinch of it and throwing it at the wall, amongst the worst of the blood and brains, she muttered, “Revelare.”
Where the power hit, the wall light up like a fluorescent light bulb. Lola squinted, then pointed.
“There’s the point of impact of a projectile, but you won’t find a bullet.” The center of the splatter was a hole the size of her little finger tip. It lit up red like a laser point, then, like the vial, turned black and began to burn.
“This guy was killed with a bullet made from angel’s blood, probably frozen.”
“Not frozen now,” Maggie pointed out. “That explains the presence of, um, supernatural blood.”
“Right. We’ll have to label this as ‘bullet presumed removed from the scene’.”
”So, how difficult is it to upset an angel?” Maggie asked, removing her gloves and starting to take notes.
“Depends on the angel, but this one was trying to send a message. There will be more targets out there.”
“You’re not going to leave this to the police, are you?” Maggie groaned.
Lola shrugged. “Not while there’s an angry angel on the loose. Remember Atlantis?”
“The city that sank to the bottom of the sea? But it never really existed,” Maggie added with a snort.
“Oh it existed,” Lola replied. “If we don’t find the angel, things could escalate.”