Armored Hearts (3 page)

“Thank you, Lieutenant Tahir.” He pulled away slightly. Turning her head, Zara watched as he lifted his wrist and raked his fangs over the skin until blood dripped. Then, to her blank astonishment, he put the sliced wrist in front of her mouth. “Drink, Zara.”

She half turned in his arms, staring up at him with wide eyes. He was actually going to give her his blood?

“I know you need it,” he said softly. “I can feel the heat of fever rolling off your skin. You’re bloodsick. That’s why you didn’t kick the collective asses of those fucking rapists.”

“Not rapists,” she said hoarsely. “They didn’t rape me.”

“Because I stopped them.”

She licked her lips, smelling the intoxicating scent of his blood. “Yes. You did.”

“Drink, Lieutenant.” His tone made it a dominant’s order.

She bent her head to his bleeding wrist. Sealed her lips over it. The taste flooded her mouth, rich and coppery, but with a hot pepper edge that was more than human. She swallowed, once, twice. Started to lift her head.

“More,” he said softly. “You’re sick enough to need it.”

And so she swallowed again and yet again. Swallowed at his murmured urging until heat rushed through her with a dizzying intoxication. When she finished, she felt stronger, as if his blood was already bringing her immune system under control, restoring her body to her previous power, speed and agility.

Her previous life.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

The vampire met her gaze frankly. “We need each other.”

“Yes,” she said steadily, “We do. But you could have taken me by force.”

His gaze cooled. “No, actually, I couldn’t. And I won’t.”

That sounded like a vow. Zara wondered if he’d keep it.

* * *

With her blood rushing through him, Rand felt normal for the first time in days. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to savor the sensual pleasure of being at full strength -- or enjoy the bloodsub as he so badly wanted to do. “I’m taking you back to our base, so you need to pack,” he told her, “and you need to do it fast. We don’t have much time before we’re scheduled to blow this camp.”

The Lieutenant swore softly, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she led the way out of the shelter, Rand at her heels, trying not to watch her distracting ass roll under the uni with every long stride.

They moved through the camp, Zara obviously taking the shortest route she could, as if she was worried the G.A.E. was about to start dropping bombs on her head. Meanwhile the men bustled around them, searching the base for abandoned equipment and weapons. Many of those they passed carried armloads of gear as they headed back to the transports.

Zara ducked into one of the shelters at last, Rand at her heels. It was a hell of a lot neater than the tents he’d searched earlier, with none of that sense of desperate soldiers trying to grab what they could.

“Who were you trying to buy time for?”

“No one.” She bent to open the storage locker at the foot of her bunk.

Rand brought up his pulse rifle. “Step away from there, please.” It would be too damned easy for her to grab a pistol from the locker.

She glanced up and froze, eyes widening as she saw the weapon. Lifting her hands slowly, the lieutenant took a long step back. “You said to pack. That’s what I was doing.”

He gave her a deliberately easy smile. “Just making sure we don’t have any misunderstandings.”
Like you shooting me in the head
. “Unlock it, please.”

Her gaze didn’t leave his face, but the locker clicked open, as if obeying an order from her computer implant. “Your men took my rifle when they stripped me.”

Rand reached down and flipped open the locker. He didn’t see any obvious weapons, just neat stacks of uniforms, underwear, a spare pair of boots, and packages of emergency rations. He removed each pile and put everything on the bunk, his computer implant scanning for explosives and hidden weapons.

It would be a shame to end up dead because he underestimated her. And that would be so easy to do, particularly given those deliciously distracting tits, her big, earnest green eyes and the taste of that sweet blood.

Yeah, distracting.

But neither Rand nor his computer found a damn thing. Satisfied, he stepped back, and pointed the barrel of his rifle in a deliberately aggressive gesture designed to remind her that screwing with a vampire wasn’t a good idea. “Go ahead.”

Expressionless, Zara picked up her pack and started slipping the neatly folded clothes into it, working quickly, but without any sense of panic.

“So,” he asked again, hoping for a more honest answer, “who were you trying to buy time for?”

The lieutenant slanted him a look. Her long, graceful hands didn’t pause in their work. “As I said, nobody. I just figured I wouldn’t be able to keep up, and I didn’t want to delay the retreat. I was pretty bloodsick.”

“You didn’t have transportation?” A camp like this should have had a dozen troop transports.

“We’d lost some of our vehicles during the Battle of Sar. We couldn’t fly everyone out at once.” She shrugged. “As sick as I was, I didn’t think I had that much more time anyway. If I was going to die, I wanted it to do some good.”

Rand eyed her lovely profile under its tumble of shinning blond hair. “Either way, you did make a pretty good distraction. You had to know the bastards would line up for a shot at you.” Silkily he added, “Have you always wanted to be a martyr?”

She shot him a look that glittered with dislike. “I didn’t plan to be taken alive.”

“Obviously, you miscalculated.”

Zara shrugged, her mouth tight.

He spotted a cube-shaped image projector sitting atop a rickety bedside table. The device was evidently voice activated, because it was cycling, projecting three-dimensional images of Zara’s family and friends into the air. There were several of a teenaged Zara with an older couple standing in front of a waterfall, probably during some long ago vacation. She had her father’s stubborn jaw and her mother’s expressive eyes.

Zara went right on packing, pointedly ignoring him and his rifle. The projector started on more recent images: Zara with a handsome blonde man, both in the light skintight Falaran armor of the type worn by vampire teams. In one shot, the blond stared at her, smiling, his expression besotted. She looked back at him, wearing the kind of warm smile you gave a good friend.

“That your vampire partner?”

She glanced up, saw what he was looking at. Grief drew hard on her features before her expression froze and she returned her attention to her packing. “Yes. He was killed saving my life. Deliberately stepped between me and a pulse blast that would have blown off the back of my skull.”

And she feels damned guilty about it. Guilty enough to martyr herself by distracting a G.A.E. team bent on rape
. The thought sent a wave of protective rage through him all over again. “You were lovers?”

Zara shrugged, not looking at him. “He was my partner. My vampire.” Grief darted through the green depths of those lovely eyes. “My friend.”

Given the man’s besotted smile, Rand would bet his captain’s bars the vamp had wanted to be more than her “friend.” Which probably also factored into the suicidal guilt.

Still, there must have been a sexual dimension to the relationship. They’d been a vampire team, after all. Sex came with the territory.

Yet the couple evidently hadn’t had the kind of intense chemistry that led to passion. Rand was willing to bet he knew what was missing.

She slung the pack onto her shoulder and turned to look at him. Which was his cue to test his theory.

Rand reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a set of neurocuffs. “Hands on top of your head, please.”

And there was the proof he was looking for -- that startled blink, the flood of sensual awareness in her eyes. She swallowed and obeyed, a betraying tremor in her hands before she rested them on her head.

Rand stepped around behind her and clipped one bracelet on her right wrist, then pulled her arm down. She lowered the other arm for him without being told so he could cuff that one too.

He smiled darkly.
Oh, you are a submissive, aren’t you? And I’ll bet your vampire wasn’t a dominant
. Which wasn’t surprising. The Falaran Coalition’s vampire program hadn’t featured the elements of submission and dominance typical in galactic circles.

But Rand definitely
was
a dominant. And he was beginning to suspect he’d finally found the bloodsub of his cold and lonely dreams.

* * *

Zara froze as the vampire cuffed her. Both arms went numb as the field the restraints generated blocked signals from her nerves, paralyzing them at the shoulder. Unlike old-fashioned handcuffs, there was no chain connecting the slender metal bracelets. None was needed. Once you were cuffed, you couldn’t do a damned thing, though your captors could arrange your arms like a doll’s. Even a mechsuited trooper couldn’t break such cuffs, assuming you could get a pair on him to begin with.

She was helpless.

Rand began patting her down, his big hands sliding over her body, looking for weapons. He didn’t grope, yet there was something acutely arousing about the brush of his palms over the curve of her breasts, down her torso, then passing between her legs before sliding along the length of each thigh and calf. He took his time about it, his hands thorough, searching her for any sign of blades, beamers, or projectile weapons. If she’d had any, he’d have found them.

But she had nothing. Nothing except an acute awareness of the enemy captain behind her, wide as a wall, all muscular male power and ruthless vampire hunger.

The key word there is enemy
, Zara told herself.
Doesn’t matter how sexy he is, he’s G.A.E. Working for a fucking con man who invaded the planet trying to force us all to worship him
. She shouldn’t find anything at all sexy about Captain Nick Rand. Even if he was the embodiment of every forbidden fantasy she’d ever had.

“Let’s go, lieutenant,” the vampire said. He gestured toward the tent opening with the muzzle of his rifle. She could feel his gaze on her nape, burning male need focused like a laser sight. Squaring her shoulders, she drew herself to her full height and stalked out of the shelter and into the blazing afternoon sunlight.

* * *

The troop’s transports set down in the camp’s central landing pad one by one, sleek aerodynamic bullets masked by camo fields, floating downward on their repellers like fall leaves drifting to earth. The vampire directed Zara to the line of soldiers waiting to board one of them. A big hand cupped her elbow, ready to lend support or restraint as needed.

Or it may have been more gesture of possession, warning off the G.A.E. grunts who eyed her with a molten blend of lust and contempt. “Bloodwhore,” somebody muttered behind her.

“Vamp sure made her yell, didn’t he?” another answered.

Humiliation detonated in her skull, heating her cheeks like a torch. Zara knew she must be blushing redder than the trim on the vampire’s armor.

Rand turned his head to look back at them. “You got something to say?” His tone could have frozen liquid nitrogen solid.

There was no answer.

“I didn’t think so.” He faced front again, standing behind her like a blast wall.

The men were justifiably cowed. No matter how strong a mech might be, vampires were faster. By the time a mech reached for a vamp, he’d have driven a combat blade into the base of the mech’s skull.

No wonder Rand had his own troops thoroughly intimidated, for which Zara was damned grateful as they seated themselves among men who now busily ignored her.

Bloodwhore
. The word dug its claws into her shrinking soul despite her best efforts to fight it off. She must have squalled like a cat in heat when Rand sank his fangs into her.

An enemy vamp, for God’s sake. Was she utterly without pride?

Zara grimaced, imagining Andre’s hurt at her lust for the enemy. He’d haunt her for the rest of her life.
Not that he’s not haunting me now
…

She’d never felt the desire for her partner that she felt for this enemy vamp. She’d wanted to, God knew, but her partner just hadn’t… affected her that way.

Thing was, she’d fantasized about vampdoms and bloodsubs since she’d gotten her hands on a forbidden sex vid at the age of sixteen. The vampire hero had been so very male, so dominant and irresistible. Zara had masturbated to the scene of the heroine surrendering her throat to him so many times, she’d had every word of dialogue memorized. Every gesture and growl and helpless sigh.

So when the G.A.E. invaded and a desperate Falaran Coalition had launched the Vampire Defense Program, Zara volunteered to become a Vampire Support Specialist. The vampire virus had transformed her body, making her bones denser, her muscles more powerful, her cells more responsive to healing.

“Reality never lives up to dreams, Zara,” her mother had warned, but she hadn’t listened.

Her mom had been right. Reality had turned out to be a lot less erotic than her kinky little fantasies. Andre Miron had been a decent, big-hearted guy with a wide grin and unflinching courage that led him to leap to the defense of anyone who needed it. And yet he’d never lit up her body the way this enemy vampire had.

God, she’d wanted to give him the love he deserved, but she’d never been able to do it. Never.

And then it had been too late.

Some nights she dreamed of the instant the pulse shot burned a molten, blazing hole in Andre’s face as he shoved her out of the way. Those were the nights she woke with tears on her face and a molten, blazing hole in her heart.

Why hadn’t she been able to love him?

That a G.A.E. vampire made her cream when Andre hadn’t felt like emotional treason. She couldn’t let it happen again. She
wouldn’t
let it happen again.

No matter what Rand might do to her.

Rand knew some people who needed killing. The fact that they were supposedly on his side meant exactly nothing.