Armored Hearts (7 page)

“You don’t fool me, Nick. You always know exactly what you want, and you get it. And then you don’t let go.”

Zara found her tongue at last. “Ma’am, we just met last night.” She grimaced. “Under circumstances that were far from ideal.”

“He rescued you somehow, didn’t he?”

“Ma.”

“That’s what I thought.” She nodded, satisfied. “She’ll do, Nick. You always were a smart lad.”

“That’s not what you said when I was seventeen.”

“You were
seventeen
. Too much testosterone, not enough brain development.” Seeing Zara’s confusion, Adela explained, “On the night he’s talking about, we fought over his wrecking his brand new sports zipper. Damn near killed himself plowing into a traffic buoy.”

“There was barely a scratch on me.”

“Because you were incredibly fuckin’ lucky. There wasn’t enough left of that flyer to flatten into a sheet of aluminum foil. I almost passed out when I saw the remains.” To Zara she added, “I said something unwise about his need to be more responsible and told him he was grounded. The next thing I knew, he’d ditched his bodyguards and
poofed
. I was still losing my mind when he finally called three days later and told me he’d become a vampire --
and
joined Valentine’s Vamps.”

Zara studied him, bemused. “Why in the hell did you do that?”

He shrugged. “I figured otherwise I’d grow up to be another pampered asshole corporate prince. I knew a lot of guys like that and I didn’t want to be any of them.”

His mother grimaced. “Yes, but you didn’t have to become a merc, damn it.”

“You told me enlisting in Randal’s Raiders was the making of you.”

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “But that was me. You were my baby boy, and I didn’t want anybody shooting at you.”

“Getting shot at did me good. Knocked all the asshole out.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Zara murmured.

Adela laughed. “Oh, I do like her. She’ll keep you humble.”

“Would you stop?”

“But I’m having such fun…” To Zara she added, “He must have done something right -- he grew up to be a hell of a man.”

Rand grinned, obviously pleased at the compliment. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“I could use you in the company, you know.” Adela grimaced. “I just had to sack my Chief Operations Officer for being a pampered asshole corporate prince.”

Rand flicked a look at Zara. “I’ll think about it.”

“Really?” Adela looked startled. “The last time we talked about this, you refused to even consider quitting.”

“Getting shot at is losing its appeal.”

“It has appeal?”

He laughed. “I love you, Mom. Tell those bodyguards they better not let you get hurt, or corporate prince or not, they’ll find out just how big an asshole I can be.”

“I’ll be sure to pass the message along.” Her gaze grew serious. Weighted. “Take care of yourself, son.”

“You do the same.” His expression went equally grim. “I hear Godsson’s a tough negotiator.”

Her jaw flexed. “So am I. I love you, Nick.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Adela’s image disappeared.

Rand stared at the empty air left behind by his mother’s vanished image. Anxiety lashed him like a dominant’s neurostim whip until he wanted to steal one of the camp’s pulse fighters, fly to Godsson’s base, and blow hell out of anyone who threatened Adela Rand.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Oh, he could steal one of the flyers without much trouble, but he’d have to endanger Zara to do it. Without armor she’d be vulnerable as hell, and the Godssonists wouldn’t hesitate to blow her pretty blonde head off.

Too, once he was in the air, his vampire advantages disappeared. He was a good pilot, but only that. The mercenary pulse pilots defending Godsson’s headquarters were the best money could buy. They were literally jacked into their machines, and their reaction time was even faster than his. To make matters worse, Godsson had been able to hire a lot of them because all the other mercs were as desperate for work as Rand had been when he’d taken this Godawful job.

Luckily, Mom had a small army of skilled and nasty bodyguards to keep her safe.

Zara was another story. She was now in far more danger than his mother, and her only protection was Rand. So he needed to get his head out of his ass and take care of her, because the shit was about to hit the turbos.

It was time to put his contingency plan into operation.

Rand, Zara thought, looked incredibly pissed off. Worried as hell, too. It was obvious he loved his mother a great deal, and was convinced she was in some kind of danger.

Well, Adela did plan to meet the invasion leader, who was the target of more than one Falaran assassination plot. What kind of business deal was worth that sort of risk?

Still, why was he so convinced she was in imminent danger, as if someone was actively gunning for her?

Maybe he was just intensely protective. Zara felt that way about her parents too, which is one reason she’d gone to war to begin with. The Godssonists were a threat to the whole planet, including her family. She’d felt driven to do something about it, even if that meant becoming a Vampire Support Specialist in order to maximize her effectiveness in combat.

At least she hadn’t blindsided her mother with that decision the way Rand evidently had. Then again, she hadn’t been a teenager, either. Not that her parents had been any happier about the idea than Adela, but Zara had been twenty-one. At the end of the ferocious argument that had followed, both her parents had basically flung up their hands in disgust.

“Go. Do what you want to do,”
her mother said.
“You will anyway
.”

“Just be careful,”
her father added.
“We do love you, even if you drive us crazy
.”

They’d understood the sense of duty that drove her. They should. They’d instilled it. They…

Rand rose from his seat in a muscular rush of vampire speed that sent Zara jolting back to the present. She looked up at him in alarm.

“Get your boots on,” he said over his shoulder, moving to kneel beside his foot locker. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

“Why? Where are we going?” Did he intend to race off after his mother? Surely not. An officer couldn’t just up and leave his post. Not without getting court martialed, anyway.

He gave her a hard smile. “We’re going on a picnic.”

Zara blinked. The expression on his face was entirely too grim to go with those words. Whatever he intended, it was a hell of a lot more than a picnic.

She hesitated a moment, watching him flip up the lid of the locker and pull out a small pack. “Exactly what do you have in mind?”

He looked up to give her a wicked smile. It didn’t even look forced. “Eating. You do that on a picnic.”

“I have heard something about that, yes,” Zara said dryly, watching him take items out of the locker and start tucking them into the pack.

“Good to know you’re not completely uncivilized out here on the ass of nowhere. Boots, lieutenant.”

Frowning, Zara stepped into the boots and bent to close the seals. Rand, meanwhile, pulled his beamer rifle out of the locker. “You carry that on the base?”

“I do when I’m escorting a prisoner.”

“Take many prisoners on picnics?”

“I do when I plan to eat them.” He put down the weapon and pulled a pair of neurocuffs out of the locker. “Stand up and assume the position.”

Zara felt a hot spark of desire at the rough command. Swallowing, she turned to cross her wrists at the small of her back. “Which position is that?”

“Bent over and sucking my dick.” He stepped up behind her and clipped the restraints on.

As the neurocuffs closed around her wrists, her arms instantly went numb and limp. Kinky or not, she hated walking with her arms cuffed behind her. “You do know the colonel’s not going to like this.”

“Actually, I just commed him to ask him to sign off on this little outing, and he has no problem with it.”

She blinked, taking that in. “He doesn’t?”

“No.” Rand bent to collect his rifle and pack. “I told him I was taking you out to question you about the location of the enemy bases. Somewhere without inconvenient witnesses.”

“And he bought that?” Zara hadn’t known Rand for very long, but even she could tell that sounded out of character for him. Especially given his views on war crimes.

“Yeah. Fortunately the colonel expects everyone else to be as vicious as he is. Plus, he’s not the brightest laser probe in the kit.”

“So how’d he get to be a colonel?”

Rand shrugged. “Probably did the right favor. The
Glorious Army of the Enlightened
is built largely on cronyism. Most of the guys who hold high rank helped Godsson set up his giant Ponzi scheme when he hit Heaven thirty years ago.” Heaven, naturally, was the name of the Godssonists’ planet, located the next star system over.

“You do realize whatever you have in mind is not going to be that easy?”

“Don’t worry, darling.” He dipped his head to speak in her ear as he took her elbow and guided her out of the tent. “I’ve made plans.”

* * *

They approached the guard standing watch over the camp’s landing zone, with its pulse fighters, transports and two seat zippers. The private saluted Rand, the gesture crisp.

Rand returned it. “Leaving camp with the colonel’s permission.”

The private’s eyes went distant. Evidently he was using his helmet com to talk to the base computer. It must have confirmed Rand’s statement, because the man came to attention and snapped another brisk salute. “Have a good… lunch, Sir.” His gaze flicked to Zara, making it clear just what he thought Rand would be eating.

“I intend to,” Rand said, though Zara saw a muscle flex in his jaw, as if he didn’t like the look on the private’s face. Taking Zara’s elbow again, he urged her toward one of the two seater zippers.

Since her wrists were bound, Rand belted her in, then slid behind the zipper’s flight stick. They lifted off a moment later, repeller fields boosting the streamlined little craft skyward.

It was a crisp fall day, the sun bright, the sky vividly pink. Falara’s towering fern-trees had lost their bright gold shades as the planet’s version of chlorophyll drained, leaving behind their natural purples and blues. The contrast between the leafy, rolling landscape and the brilliant sky was breathtaking as Rand banked the zipper over the camp.

Then he eased the flight stick forward, and the zipper shot off into the rose sky, the sun burning golden just over the horizon.

Rand went silent as he flew, his expression gone so grim again, Zara wondered if she really was about to be tortured. Maybe he thought he needed the information she had to bargain with to ensure his mother’s safety.

She didn’t want to believe it, especially after the way he’d held her so tenderly the night before. He didn’t seem like another G.A.E. thug, but he
was
a mercenary. He wasn’t fighting for his planet or his religion. He was getting paid.

Then again so was she. Probably not as much as an interstellar merc, but still.

Had she been suckered? Was this whole thing some kind of sick game he was playing?

She was feeling distinctly paranoid by the time they approached a low mountain range Zara recognized as the Granites. Rand took the zipper down, balancing the craft on its repeller fields. He piloted it right up to the cliff until the stone was so close, Zara started getting nervous. A hard gust of wind could smash the craft against the unforgiving granite.

Abruptly the black stone in front of the zipper’s nose wavered and vanished, revealing the opening of an enormous cave. The zipper slid into the opening, its landing lights flashing on to illuminate the cave.

“This is Theta Base,” Zara said, surprised. The Falaran army had moved into the network of natural caves, using it as a base for months. Then the G.A.E. had attacked, wiping out the base and killing all three thousand Falaran soldiers.

“Yeah,” Rand said absently, as he brought the little craft in for a landing.

“Andre Miron, my vampire partner, and I visited this base once. It was a pretty good facility, The Falaran army spent a lot of time and money extending the existing cave structure.”

“Yeah.” Rand grimaced. “We had a hell of a time digging them out. Lost a lot of men doing it, too. Which is why we ended up not using the base, because the Godssonists are superstitious as hell.”

Zara stared at him as he unbelted and freed her from her own safety straps. “What, they think the place is bad luck?”

“They think it’s haunted.”

She blinked at him as she rose to her feet. “You’re kidding me. Haunted? But there’s no such…”

“Baby, I’m telling you, those people are gullible.”

“I noticed,” she said dryly.

“Which is why we’re reasonably safe, at least for the time being. None of the Godssonists are likely to show up here without good reason.” He gave her a wolfish smile. “So we don’t have to worry about being interrupted while we… play.”

“Ah.” She eyed that smile, not sure she liked the looks of it.

Rand laughed. “Your eyes are the size of ration disks. What’s the matter, darling, don’t you trust me?”

“No.”

“Smart girl.” Taking her by the elbow, he guided her out of the hatch and down the short flight of steps to the stone floor.

Zara looked around warily. The cave was the base’s secondary landing zone, so it wasn’t quite as big as the main cavern. It could accommodate a couple of smaller transports and a zipper or two. The stone walls and floor were artificially smooth, thanks to the Falaran Army’s laser borers.

The cavern entrance had disappeared behind the camouflage field again. Looking closer, Zara noticed several round temporary projectors attached to the stone walls.

Rand put on his helmet and flicked on its light, then slung the rifle and pack over his shoulder before taking her elbow. “That way.”

Zara let him urge her through a smaller opening in the smooth granite walls into the complex of tunnels and caves beyond. Without his helmet light, she wouldn’t have been able to see at all in the cool darkness.