The Scarlet Empress (6 page)

She coughed out a laugh, and he joined her, grinning. “Hey, Ty, give me time to get used to ‘brood’ first, before you start throwing out words like ‘squealing’ and ‘enormous.’ ”

His smile gentled. “We’ll have a life together. I swear it. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it happen.”

“It all sounds so optimistic. Maybe too optimistic.”

“It’s more than a pipe dream, Bree. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be here with you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even want to consider the baggage we’ll bring to this, or how your family will see me.”

“I don’t know if I have a family anymore.”

Awkward silence filled the sudden void.

Bree tried to lighten the mood. “ ‘No fear’ used to be my motto. I can do this. I can. I can marry you, baggage and all.”

“
We
can do this,” he corrected. “We’re in this together. All the way to the finish line.”

His expression was incredibly tender for such a
hardlooking man. “This is meant to be, Bree.
We
are meant to be. I’ve known it my whole life. Now you have to believe it, too.”

“Then help me.” She felt her eyes stinging all over again. “I want to believe. . . .”

He splayed his hand behind her head, lifting her to his mouth before he forced her back down to the pillow with a crushing kiss. Their embrace blazed with hunger, with possession, and the fear neither of them wanted to bring up—that they’d better make every moment count, because neither of them knew how many were left. And when Ty buried himself inside her, she rode the tidal wave that was her response to him, losing herself in the intense, almost rough lovemaking, until nothing mattered but Ty and the sensations he roused in her that never failed to make the world fall away.

Afterward, when they lay dressed in dry, clean clothes in bed—Ty in boxers and her in panties and a T-shirt, ready for a quick escape should it be necessary—Ty held her for a while, kissing her tenderly before he inevitably, dutifully packed several pillows behind his back and settled in for the night in a semisitting position. “You’re not going to sleep?” she asked.

“I will. After a bit.” He leaned his rifle against the wall by the bed. “You go ahead.”

She snuggled against him as much as his sentry posture would allow. His stance tonight made him even more remote than his usual habit of rolling onto his side, his face to the door, his body serving as a shield. It would be nice, she mused drowsily, to be able to sleep facing him, or spooned against his stomach, instead of curled up
against his broad back. But there were a lot of things that would be nice to have, like anonymity and world peace and rescuing Cam, things she’d best not ponder if she wanted to get any sleep.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Ty murmured.

She smiled in the dark. “How’d you know?”

“I know.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Sleep, Bree.”

“Yes, sir.”

His teeth shone white in the darkness. Bree had just closed her eyes when she felt Ty jerk away. For a second she wondered if he’d fallen asleep and was dreaming. Then she saw shadows moving just outside the windows.

Bree’s heart lurched as her senses tried to process what was happening. Intruders?
Not again.

Not here.

Four huge figures crashed through the front door. Ty fired, but his bullets did nothing to stop them. Wreckers!

They wore no insignia, no visible rank. Wreckers were cybernetically enhanced mercenaries. That much she knew, thanks to Ty. They were known to soldiers of all sides as hard-core badasses, having earned their nickname when one particularly brazen example bragged on the Interweb about how badly he could “wreck” human bodies.

Other men appeared behind the wall of wreckers. These arrivals were ragtag—normal, not supersized. And standing dead center in the middle of them was Ahmed’s right-hand man.

The pirate lord himself was nowhere to be seen, but Cino shouted instructions, his voice all but drowned in
the chaos as he orchestrated the surprise attack, strutting as if he were some sort of god.

Hatred like she’d never known welled up inside Bree, black and thick, and tinged with utter terror.
You bastard.
Cino had betrayed them—and had brought wreckers along for insurance! Barring a miracle, it meant she was as good as dead.

A hand landed on the back of Bree’s head. “Go!” Ty commanded.

“Wait, I need my—” She was going to say rifle, but it was out of reach, hanging from the hook by the bed.

“No,” Ty barked, and shoved her. Her nose bounced off the mattress, making her eyes water. A smudge of blood proved just how forcefully in his fear Ty had shoved her to safety.

After using all his ammo, he tossed his empty rifle to his left hand, reaiming with a loaded pistol with the right while Bree scrambled to find a weapon, any weapon.

Ty’s pistol shots rang out. A couple of sharp, abbreviated screams told her he’d scored hits on pirates. There wasn’t much he could do about the wreckers. More shots blasted all around. Chunks of plaster exploded and shards of wood whistled past. Another grunt of pain signaled a hit.

On her belly in the midst of it all, and against every
sane cell in her body, Bree combat-crawled off the bed. It was exactly what they’d planned, if this were to happen: Ty would cover her escape.
You’re too important to lose, Bree.
No matter how many times they’d argued over it, Ty’s reasons won out. But hell if it didn’t go against everything in her training to leave him. She knew he could take care of himself; he was an ex-SEAL, smart and physically powerful, but she hated it, both from the heart as a woman who feared for her guy, and as a warrior who didn’t believe in turning tail and running.

Your plan had better work, Ty, because every time we talked this through, I was supposed to have had a freaking weapon in my hand!
Instead she was under attack and unarmed. And there were wreckers in the game. Of all the potential consequences she’d expected to befall her, this one was the worst.

Bree slithered over the floor. Her weapons belt lay where she’d thrown it in her little striptease. Her hand closed over it. A huge shadow appeared over her, and a wrecker’s black boot kicked the belt from her fingers.

Then the monster tossed her out of its way like so much trash as it made its way toward Ty and the center of the fight.

Shock delayed the onset of pain for a couple of blessed seconds, but when it hit, she almost passed out. The heavy, armored boot had snapped her wrist bones like toothpicks. The fracture launched sensory explosions up her arm. Agony dizzied her for a moment; then the exquisite burn brought extreme mental clarity. The wreckers’ cybernetic body armor, matte black plates covering their bodies and half their faces, was surgically attached. What kind of person chose to permanently damage their bodies
this way? No one with any humanity left; she was certain of that.

They don’t care if they hurt you or not.
It was bad news. Real bad. Soldiers, at least, had a code of honor. Brigands—and mercenaries—were in it for the profit.

The question was: Who was doing the paying?

Thunder raged outside. Wind blew in the rain. It splashed through the window and pelted everything. The floor was slippery, and her knees slid sideways. She swung her head around, searching for another weapon, and found her dagger almost by accident. She dove for it. Razor blades of pain sliced up her arm from her wrist. She couldn’t feel the hand. It had gone numb. The wrist was already horribly swollen, the skin darkening from the pooling blood underneath. She grimaced, her stomach rolling.
Don’t look at it.
There was a reason she’d never considered med school.

She gripped the dagger left-handed and started climbing through the open window. She’d make a run for it, get Ahmed—if he was still alive—and his loyalists to help. Reinforcements were essential.

The fight raged on behind her. “Save yourself, Bree.”

She swallowed hard.
Sorry, Ty, but I just can’t do that.
It went against everything she was.

She turned around in time to see him, clearly out of ammo, leaping off the bed to take on his attackers. Viciously he whipped the butt of his weapon upward. Struck under the chin, a pirate flew backward. The next in line got the rifle butt in the gut and doubled over. Spinning about, Ty took out the man lunging at his back. He was putting up a good fight, but with four wreckers waiting for a piece of him, how much longer could he
last? From behind a pirate lunged at Ty, an iron bar in his raised hand. Bree didn’t think. She reacted. She hurled her dagger, and it sank deep between the pirate’s ribs.

The man screamed and went down, pulling out the knife as he fell. Blood spurted onto the wet teak floor. Boots smeared the gore around like some kind of macabre watercolor painting. A wrecker grabbed Bree by the hair, yanking her backward, then propelling her forward to the floor. Her kneecaps skidded over the grass mats, abrading her skin. She tried to cushion her fall with her injured arm before remembering to tuck it close to her chest.

“Bree!” Ty’s expression was raw. Two attackers jumped him before he could get to her. He took out the first with a roundhouse kick. Then the huge shadow of a wrecker loomed over him. The hulk punched Ty in the jaw and sent him flying backward. He landed hard, skidding across the floor. And he didn’t get back up.

“No!” Bree fought to reach him, but the wrecker holding her like a pull toy dragged her backward.

Ty stared at her, his eyes dazed, half-open slits. Blood dribbled from his slack mouth. Then his eyes began to slowly close. The promises they’d made tonight, all the good things they’d hoped for in their future, winked out in his eyes one by one like fading stars. Then his body shuddered and went limp.

“Ty,” she whispered on a choked sob. It felt as if her heart had been ripped in half. “Help him!” she screamed. “God, someone help him, please.”

The pirates turned to her then, their expressions terrifying. A wrecker stood behind her, fist wrapped in her hair. Forced to bow in her T-shirt and panties, she quivered with grief and shock and rage. Pain from her injured
wrist slammed her in relentless waves of agony. Would they rape her before beating her to death? Or would it happen the easy way: a bullet in the back of the head?

Yet none moved toward her. Several pirates lifted Ty’s limp body and carried him from the room. The cottage smelled of sweat and alcohol. Men milled around her, acting in their wandering inefficiency more like the brigands they were than an organized military force. But it didn’t matter who’d paid them for this; she blamed the UCE. Every event in the long chain that led them to this point had originated there. She and Ty never would have been on this raft if not for Central’s imminent rebellion. She’d hoped to figure out from the Voice of Freedom if she could help the cause the way he thought she could. Now, in one horrific instant, everything changed. Ty was hurt, maybe dead. The revolution had just become personal.

She was part of it now, part of the rebellion, ready to fight for as long as it took, even if she never heard another word from the Voice or anyone else. If Ty had sacrificed his life for freedom, by God, she’d spend every last minute of hers making sure it wasn’t in vain.

A pair of black-clad legs stepped in front of her. “Look at me!”

The wrecker with his fist wrapped in her hair jerked her head back, exposing Bree’s face to Cino’s harsh glare. “You bastard,” she choked out.

Cino backhanded her. Fire exploded in her head, for a moment rivaling the agony in her wrist and hand.

With blood dripping from her nose, she regarded him almost serenely. She felt different inside. Not dead. Different. When Ty went down, it had changed something
deep inside her. She’d become confident. Strong. She’d become Banzai Maguire.

Cino broke eye contact first, as if she frightened him. “Get her to Elliot—now,” he ordered his men.

She searched her brain for the name and came up empty. “Who’s Elliot?”

Cino stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she’d dared ask him another question. “You might say he’s somewhat familiar to most here in these seas.”

The men guffawed.

“The only thing that matters to you is that Elliot plans to trade you to the UCE.”

The UCE.
Good.
That was where she needed to be. The heart of the revolution. They were handing her over—alive. On the downside, it meant that somewhere, someone had their hopes set on handing her a fate
worse
than death.

Cino smirked at her. “One pilot down. One to go.” Then he walked out into the night.

The chill inside her turned to ice.
One to go?
Now that they were finished hunting her, they were going after Cam.

Demon hands plucked at Lt. Cam Tucker’s body. Merciless, relentless, they jabbed and pulled her muscles and bones until she reverberated with agony.

“Cameron . . .”

The demons paused in their work. Someone had called her name. Who?

“Mama?” The voice was broken, whispery, like a very old woman’s. Cam didn’t recognize it as belonging to her mother, but she knew better.

“Cameron.”

“Here,” she whispered.
Yes, I’m here. I’m alive
.

Only she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. The demons were back at work, this time attacking her skin, their nails scraping and slicing while they played tug-of-war with her hamstrings. Cam pressed her lips together to keep from howling.

Someone stroked her hand. There was compassion in that touch, understanding of the pain ripping through
her. “I’m sorry I’m not your mama.” The high, sweet voice faded in and out. “But I will take care of you. I promise.”

“Who . . . ?” Cam couldn’t remember who the person was, couldn’t even finish the sentence.

The hand squeezed gently. “They call me Zhurihe. . . .”

Zhurihe.
Sure-ruh-hey. She remembered now. It was the voice Cam had heard since the darkness had lifted—and even before she was fully aware, floating . . . floating in nothingness until gut-wrenching pain had thrown her ashore.
If that was what it felt like to be born, I’m glad I don’t remember the first time.