No Such Thing (41 page)

"Torment of the sweetest kind," she responded in a softer voice. "I’d love to. And I think I can help you out with your
problem."

He frowned. "What problem?" Out of nowhere, her talent licked him, a slick, hot flame that set him ablaze and made his whole body jerk.

"Find your bed, darling, because I’m going to touch you until you can’t stand up."

"Wait," he groaned, trying to catch his breath. "Just…let me settle things. With the station. Then I’ll find…someplace
to…"

She laughed low in her throat, a sound that stroked across his senses and called up images of her writhing under him. "Make sure it’s
soundproof," she teased with a sexy little purr in her voice.

Declan gritted his teeth and lunged for the nearest com unit, contacting main ops. It was still early to change shifts, but after the day they’d had,
he figured his crew needed the break. He told Pete to call in the night skeleton crew and relayed that their only job was to keep an eye out for unwelcome
guests. The wormhole wasn’t operational, the GenTec were still under Ryelle’s control, the Fleet wasn’t due in yet, and they’d
captured Ventura, so it should be a quiet night. Declan didn’t want to be caught unprepared, though.

Pete told him that everyone had returned to their residences or stayed in the safe areas, since Declan hadn’t cleared the public areas. Declan left
it at that, to be on the safe side. The people who’d been injured in the bombings were stable and recovering, except for the single casualty, an
elderly gentleman who’d been part of the maintenance crew. Security was doing a more formal interview and interrogation on Ventura in isolation.
Everything else was fairly calm.

"Let’s keep it that way, Pete," Declan commanded.

"Sure thing, boss," his employee responded with a roll of his eyes. "I’ll just twitch my magic wand and make it all go away. Want I
should find you someplace to drop? You look like hell."

"Take a look in the mirror ‘fore you talk, sarkhead. I’ll find somewhere. Don’t think that blast took out all the guest
quarters."

"Where’s Mem Soliere?"

Declan narrowed his eyes on Pete but manfully refrained from snarling at him to mind his own business. "She’s keeping an eye on the
telenetics."

Something in his tone or expression must have been less than cordial, because Pete’s eyes widened and slid away from Declan’s while he grinned
uneasily. "Good. Guess we should, ah…try to rest, then."

"Don’t suppose many of us will sleep tonight, but give it a try anyway, Pete."

"Do my best, MC. Night."

Declan ended the connection and headed down the corridor, plotting a route that would take him around the blast site that had destroyed Ryelle’s
quarters and damaged his. They were going to have a hell of a lot of cleanup and repair to do. His station couldn’t have gotten much more banged up
if they’d been through a war zone. Stepping into the corridor that ended in a huge, ragged pit, Declan conceded that they had. Moving cautiously to
the side of the hole and staring at the twisted metal and debris that used to be Ryelle’s quarters, he felt his hands fist at his sides while a
shudder wracked his frame.

"Bastard came so close," he hissed through his teeth, his insides knotting at the narrowness of Ryelle’s escape. If she had died…he
shuddered again, taking rapid, shallow breaths.

"But he failed," Ryelle whispered in his ear. "Can you see your rooms? Did you lose very much, Declan?"

He glanced over to see the gaping tear in the entrance to his quarters, took note of his destroyed kitchen and living room absently. He wasn’t going
to be able to reach his possessions without going over the wreckage, but it didn’t seem to matter. "I didn’t lose you. The rest is just
stuff."

"Oh, Declan," she sighed. "Maybe you should just try to sleep. We’ve had a rotten day."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Now who’s the coward? Unless you’re too tired to—" The lick came again, harder and sweetly punishing.
He sucked in air, aching and weak-kneed in its wake.

"Still standing?" she asked with a wicked chuckle.

"Give me two minutes," he rasped and stumbled toward one of the remaining guest quarters.

Chapter 22

The next couple of days were difficult for Ryelle. She got very little sleep while trying to remain telenetically vigilant and chaffed at the restraints in
her physical relationship with Declan, though they managed stolen moments here and there. The GenTec drifting outside the station had a pins-and-needles
effect on everyone’s nerves, and the forced inactivity increased the tense atmosphere. Declan tried to keep the residents busy with cleaning and
repairing the damage to the station, but not everyone could participate.

On the plus side, the children were learning to trust her more and more, relaxing by slow degrees and coming closer to accepting her as a friend and
teacher instead of their enemy. And Ryelle was getting along much better with Declan’s mother. Regina seemed fascinated with the children, spending a
lot of time in their makeshift quarters, time which helped the women become more comfortable with one another.

The two of them were trying to teach the children a card game and arguing amiably about the rules when Declan caught Ryelle’s attention with his sexy
voice in her ear. "Honey, the cavalry has arrived."

"Fleet’s here?" she asked, carefully laying down her cards and meeting Regina’s piercing gaze.

"Yup. With an old friend aboard."

"Oh, don’t tell me—"

"The admiral threatened dire things if you didn’t meet him at docking," he drawled with undisguised amusement.

"Only because he knows I was going to anyway. Now he can boast I came scampering because he threatened to paddle my a—behind," she
amended quickly with a glance at the attentive children.

There was a short silence. Then Declan said with much less humor, "That wasn’t one of the threats. He’d better keep his hands off your
behind."

She snorted, rising to her feet. "At ease, soldier. How long ‘til they dock?"

"The big beast is still slowing down, but I see two transports coming in hot. They’ll be parked at the third platform in five."

"Meet you there?"

"Wouldn’t miss it," he growled darkly.

She snickered and looked at Declan’s mother. "Regina, could you stay with the children, keep them company?"

"Sure. Then I can show them how this game’s really played." The woman sent a sly wink and smirk at the children, receiving a furtive grin
from Jake in return.

"Won’t that be educational," Ryelle said dryly. "Behave yourselves. I’ll be back in a little while." But as she started
toward the door, Daniel’s voice called her back.

"Ryelle? Will the Fleet…attack?"

"They have no reason to, Daniel. I have the GenTec ships under control." She saw by the wrinkle in his smooth, dark forehead that her answer
hadn’t helped. "Even if they did, I would stop them."

His expression eased into something close to a smile and he nodded before turning his attention to Regina and her cards. Ryelle turned away with a grin,
pleased by his trust.

True to his word, Declan met her at the top of the short flight of stairs to docking, right where she’d first laid eyes on him. His smile lit her up
from the inside until she felt like she must be glowing.

"Finally, I have you to myself," he leered, tugging her into his arms and burying his face in her throat.

She laughed, shivering at the feel of his teeth sinking gently into her flesh, followed by the hot flick of his tongue. "I wish, but any second
now—"

"Girl, you’ve got some explaining to do," a stern voice interrupted.

She saw Samuel Task at the bottom of the stairs and grinned, wiggling out of Declan’s hold. "Sam! Why the hell didn’t you tell me
you’d be coming?" She bounded down the stairs and into his arms, squeezing him in a tight hug.

He returned the pressure with gentle strength. "I like surprising you. You do it to me so often, seems only fair. And who do we have here?" His
voice slowed and deepened on the last sentence, curiosity barely concealing menace.

Ryelle leaned back and glared at him. "Oh, stop it. You remember Declan."

"I remember the boy lit out from Mirabella like his ass was on fire and broke your heart." The menace was no longer concealed, Sam’s lean
face growing red with fury. His hair had receded to the point of merely ringing his bald pate in a short, sandy fringe, but the shine on his bald head
didn’t detract from the force of the man.

Ryelle glanced up the stairs to see Declan staring back coolly, though the hand he had clasped around the stair rail had white knuckles.

"Memory’s a funny thing," Declan said in a voice as hard as the admiral’s. "I remember it the other way around."

"There were extenuating circumstances," Ryelle said hastily, not liking the increasing male aggression she could feel in the air. When Sam
snorted and curled his lip in contempt, she punched him lightly on the chest to get his attention. "Eban Hoti interfered. He sent Declan a false
message and kept us from contacting each other."

Sam blinked down at her in surprise. "Hoti?"

"Uh-huh. He and I are going to have a talk when I get back." The flare of bitter fury she felt over those lost fifteen years colored her voice
and seeped into her expression. She didn’t try to hide it from Sam.

He frowned. "When you’re finished with him, give him to me."

"If there’s anything left, I’d be delighted. So if you two are done snarling at each other, can we go somewhere and talk?"

Sam transferred his frown to Declan. "Are we done?" he barked.

Ryelle saw Declan suppress a grin. "Yes, sir."

"Right, then. Let’s talk about what the hell kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time, girl."

Ryelle sighed and rolled her eyes, giving Declan a long-suffering look as she climbed the stairs toward him. "The man acts as though I get into
trouble every other day. It’s just simply not true."

"Every third day?" Declan asked with a curl of his lips and a sparkle in his indigo-shot eyes, as he held out a hand to her.

"Once a week, tops," she said in a beleaguered tone, twinning her fingers through his and catching Sam’s arm when he joined them.
"Come on. Let’s do that debriefing thing you’re always barking about over lunch."

"She has never taken the military seriously," Sam confided in Declan over her head.

"She plays with sun fire and breaks planets. Did you really expect her to?" Declan answered with dry humor.

"Humph. She’s having a bad influence on you, boy."

"Yes, sir," Declan responded with an unrepentant grin.

Over lunch in Declan’s office, Ryelle debriefed the admiral with all the swift efficiency he had taught her, starting with the supply line attacks
and ending with the capture of Ventura. His only reaction was to eat slowly and watch her with almost unblinking intensity. When she finished, he looked
from one to the other and snorted. "Busy couple of days."

"Eventful," Ryelle agreed.

Declan grimaced and pushed his plate away.

"I need to see those kids," Sam said, wiping his mouth on a napkin and pushing his chair back.

"Why, yes, I am finished eating. Thanks for asking," Ryelle commented with a dry look and put down her fork. But the admiral had that focus on
his face, the sharp and ready air that said he had zero sense of humor or decorum at the moment. With a resigned sigh, Ryelle rose to her feet. "Try
to remember that they’re very young and you’re everything they’ve been taught to fear."

The admiral met her gaze with a chill forming in his light eyes. "You expect me to treat them like innocents? They came here to destroy you."

"Actually, they came here to learn from me and destroy everybody else." When his gaze didn’t relent, she gave him a sour grimace.
"They were being used. I know the feeling, Sam. All too well. I’m just asking you to try not to scare them."

He didn’t say yes or no, only tipped his head and headed out the office door. Ryelle and Declan followed on his heels.

"What’s your plan for these telenetics?" Sam asked, as if he couldn’t guess.

"I thought we could torture them unmercifully until they divulge all they know about GenTec warfare. Then maybe dice them up to see how they were put
together."

Sam greeted this with bland silence, his back straight and unyielding ahead of her.

"Don’t try to tell me Fleet hasn’t thought of it."

"Somebody always thinks the bad stuff. Doesn’t mean I do."

"Good. My plan is to take them back to the Institute and install them as new students. I’ve asked the GenTec to consider a truce with the
children as their ambassadors."

Sam stopped dead and turned to her slowly, eyes bright and intense. He stared down at her for a long time and Ryelle looked back with her own bland
silence, waiting. "You have always been ambitious," he finally said with slow emphasis.

"Mm-hmm. It’s one of the traits you like best about me. Do I have your backing, Admiral Task?"

He tilted his head, studying her like a hawk would its prey. "Backing who? The Advocate for Telenetic Rights? Or Ryelle, the girl who would be mother
to all little lost souls?"

She snorted, though she couldn’t keep her face from tingling with a blush. "Both."

"Well, I backed you this far," he said in a resigned tone. "Can’t stop now or people will think I’m dotty."

Ryelle gave him her most brilliant smile and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "That’s my Sam."

Declan cleared his throat rather pointedly and Ryelle glanced over to see a scowl on his face. With a snicker, she stepped to his side and slipped an arm
through his. "He gets kisses because he kept me sane for the last fifteen years," she murmured as she tugged them into motion again.

"Which is why I haven’t broken his face yet," he responded in a low growl.

Ryelle gave a snort of humor but didn’t bother to comment. They reached the converted storage area in short order and Ryelle gave the admiral a last,
warning stare before they walked in. Sam stopped short, staring at the scene. Ryelle and Declan continued on into the room, having seen such displays many
times over the last few days.