Enemy Games (14 page)

“I don’t bite,” he grumbled, taking the medication and swallowing it dry. “Unless you beg.”

That surprised a smile from her.

The lines of tension and discomfort in his forehead eased.

Had winning a smile from her done that? The medicine certainly hadn’t had time to work yet. Pleasure glided through her at the possibility.

“Why give my stores to Vala?” he asked, nothing more than curiosity in his tone.

“Her son, Bellin. At least she claimed he was her son,” she hedged.

“He is.”

Jayleia eyed him, suspicion rolling through her at his calm assurance. “They were bait to catch me?”

His admiring smile made her grit her teeth. “If you keep seeing through them, I’ll run through my repertoire of dirty tricks in no time.”

“Your dirty trick nearly killed that boy,” she bit out. “He’s allergic to ooze venom.”

“Most of us are,” he said. “This is my territory you’re playing in, Jayleia. The rules are complex and as alien to you as if they were written in Chekydran. Don’t judge Bellin, or me, by what you think you know. This is Silver City.”

And his species base wasn’t the same as hers. That implied different moral constructs, cultural mores that wouldn’t make sense to her primate-derived brain.

She cursed. She’d been making the mistake every rookie science student made, trying to fit the evidence to her preconceived hypothesis rather than following the data to its inevitable conclusion.

“Most people would have left him and escaped,” Damen said, studying her.

That he believed her capable of leaving the child to die cut to her core. Jay stalked past him, then stopped short.

“Your advice goes both ways,” she said, facing him.

He turned to study her, a shrewd light in his eyes.

“I am the product of a complex culture bound by rules alien to you.”

“I can’t judge your willingness to forgo escape in favor of saving Bellin’s life by the standards of my kind?” he finished for her.

“No.”

He frowned and his gray eyes darkened.

Transfixed by the gathering emotion in his expression, her heart skipped a beat when he cupped her face in his hand. “Can we forget rules and judging long enough for me to say thank you for saving my son?”

Shock stole the breath from her lungs.
His son?
And Vala was his mother. No wonder she’d seen jealousy in the woman’s eyes.

He smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Leaning close, he brushed his lips against hers.

Sparks flashed across every nerve ending.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

D
AMEN was right on one vital point: Jayleia didn’t understand Silver City or its people. Certainly, she didn’t comprehend the man so successfully dissecting her defenses.

“M-my pleasure,” she stammered, and then flushed. His kiss
was
her pleasure. Bellin and his mother notwithstanding.

He’d said he wanted her.

Did that mean he no longer wanted his son’s mother?

Confusion chilled her. She pulled out of Damen’s grasp.

He let her go, his keen gaze undoubtedly catching every thought, fear, and doubt plodding across her face.

Feeling raw and exposed, she retreated to the cabin. She cycled through the shower, letting the warm ultrasonic cleansers wash away feelings of defeat. While she wasn’t beaten yet, she also wasn’t up to regrouping. She hadn’t identified a fallback position other than capitulating to imprisonment and someone else’s plan for finding her father.

As the drying system activated, she combed and braided her hair for the first time since leaving Chemmoxin. She put back on her dark brown trousers and her tough, comfortable expedition shoes. The shirt, colorless and sleeveless for wear in the heat of the swamp, wasn’t warm enough on station.

Jay raided Damen’s closet. If he protested, she’d quote alien rules to him again. At least he wouldn’t likely kiss her for stealing his clothes. At the back, behind the uniforms, she found a soft, dark green button-down. It was too big, but she loved the feel of the fabric against her skin. His scent in the fabric didn’t hurt, either. She put on her sleeveless lab shirt, tucked it in, donned Damen’s shirt on top, and then slung her gear belt around her waist.

When she stepped out of the cabin, Damen had the engine covers pulled back. He’d descended into the space between the deck plates and the hull.

She’d thought the engines had been shut down. She’d been wrong.

Bright, yellow light illuminated Damen’s face as he worked on something out of her line of sight. He glanced up as she approached the edge of the open deck plates.

He sucked in an audible breath, hunger in the set of his lips, and his gaze smoldering as he eased away from the silent engine. He raked her with a look that sent reaction, hot and damp, fluttering down her belly.

She cleared her throat and ignored her body.

Focusing on the splotches of dried, flaking blood on the undersides of the deck plates, she said, “Careful, the . . .”

“I appreciate your concern for my welfare,” he murmured, his eyes half lidded.

As Jay once again fumbled for something to say, she glimpsed a hint of predator surfacing in the way Damen’s muscles tensed when he leaned her way. He reminded her of the adult version of a hizzett, minus the tail and whiskers, considering whether or not to pounce on a toy.

“My lucky shirt,” he said, eyeing her up and down. “I never dreamed I’d be lucky enough to see you in it.”

Blood rushed hot to her face.

He smiled and turned back to the light pulsing on the interstellar engine.

She took a deep breath.

“You were right,” Jayleia said.

His eyebrows climbed.

“We’re allies and we’re friends,” she said, doing her damnedest not to stumble over the last word. She did not want to discuss friendship when she spent most of her time in his company feeling like he was hunting her. “I don’t mean to insult you or your culture, Damen, it sounds very seductive, entrusting my emotional safety to someone, but that’s never gone well for me. I can’t . . .”

“Honesty, then,” he said.

She contemplated that. “Can you promise it in return?”

He looked startled.

“Manipulating me doesn’t result in honesty,” she said.

“Unless you’re enjoying it,” he countered, “then I get the real you.”

She stared at him. Patently not true. Was it? He couldn’t have found a way in. If he had, she’d lost. She’d be at his mercy. Entirely. Could she handle that?

Her heart whispered
yes
. He wanted her. She wanted him.

Her rational mind rolled uneasily. What if he was just doing a job? Using her to get to her father. She knew what that was like being used. Could she take that chance?

If she were the only one taking the risk, maybe. But she wasn’t. She’d be gambling her father’s life as well.

“No.”

He flashed that devastating grin her way. “Jayleia. Scientist. Swovjiti trainee. Your father’s fledgling spy. How do I work my way past the many facets to get to your heart?”

Her head spun. How many more faces could she carve out of her body and soul? Was there enough of her left over for him? Or for herself?

Something snapped inside, it felt like the ties binding her so carefully compartmentalized life.

“Your question presupposes I have a heart,” she replied, unable to press the rough edges out of the admission.

Shaking her head, Jayleia waved off the alarm in his expression. “There’s a time and place for the kind of psychology you’re suggesting. This isn’t it.”

“You asked for honesty,” she said. “I can offer this: I guarantee mercenaries are on station already. I’ll lay credits on agents being here as well. The mercs we know and understand. They’re out to collect paychecks. The agents will be harder. Some will be my father’s people, legitimately trying to contact him and get back in play.”

“The rest will belong to the traitors who sent your father into hiding in the first place,” he finished, his expression tight. “We’ll have no way to tell them apart.”

“That sums it up,” she said. “We’re in a race for my father’s life.”

“I don’t think so,” he countered.

Surprise rocked her.

“Based on what Admiral Seaghdh and Captain Idylle have said about your father and how he operates,” he said, “he’s secure. He’d have made sure he could rise to fight another day.”

She shuffled Damen’s appraisal into her still-developing hypotheses and nodded. “Yes. That makes sense. But Dad’s no longer at IntCom’s helm, which leaves the traitors free to do . . . what?”

“I don’t know. That’s where you and I come in,” Damen said, looking pleased by her quick acceptance of his version of the situation.

“Then why are we still standing on this Gods-forsaken station?” she demanded.

“I’ve tracked indications of UMOPG involvement in the traitors’ network to this station. More important, I found a file on your father in the Silver City data store,” he said. “I couldn’t get in before counter intrusion fired.”

She nodded. “What?”

Movement at the edge of her vision yanked her attention to the engine well.

“Get out of there!” she yelped.

Damen dropped his tools, vaulted out of the engine compartment, and followed her horrified gaze.

Two bloodworms, pale, hungry, and looking for a meal, crawled across the hull straight for where she crouched on the deck plating.

“What the Three Hells?” he rasped.

“Damn it,” Jay muttered, racing for the medical bay. She grabbed a sample container and a lid before returning to the edge of the open compartment.

“Are you bitten?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Strip,” she countered. “Bloodworms excrete a numbing agent. You wouldn’t necessarily feel them.”

He unsealed and kicked off his boots.

“You could hit the shower,” she said.

“And miss an opportunity to see you blush?” he retorted. He stood and dropped his trousers. “Everything?”

“Shouldn’t be necessary,” she replied, ignoring the burn of her cheeks as she searched for marks on his legs. “They’d bite . . .”

Long, lean muscle, pale skin, and gold-red hairs invited her touch. She curled her fingers into her palms, pressing the nails into the flesh to distract her wayward imagination. Forget bloodworms biting him. She wanted to.

“Turn,” she instructed, cringing at the catch in her voice.

Jayleia didn’t need to look at his face to know he wore a self-satisfied smile. He exuded male conceit and she was merely examining his ankles. And calves. With an occasional glance at strong, cut thighs. She was too much of a professional to satisfy puerile curiosity about the rest of his body.

She scooted closer, her eye caught by matching scars around his ankles.

“My hand on your ankle,” she said and traced the even band of old scar tissue.

He jumped as if burned.

“Sorry,” Jayleia gasped. “Does that hurt? I . . .”

“No bites?” he demanded, his tone clipped, rough. He stepped into his trousers, jerked them up as if suddenly embarrassed by his partial nudity.

“No,” she said, uncertain. She thought she’d understood enough about Damen’s people to know that they had no nudity taboo. She frowned. What had happened?

“Where did the bloodworms come from? You put them in stasis,” he said, the agitation diminishing in his voice as he turned to face her.

“I put the ones from my arm in stasis,” she corrected, crouching at the edge of the engine well to get a bead on the free-roaming creatures. “I suspect these had been caught in the rescue harness when you hauled me up. I’d assumed they were dead. Twelve Gods, the cleaning crew could have been bitten and they would never have known.”

Damen pointed. “There they are. How do we handle the cleaning crew?”

“I have to assume the disease is on station,” Jay said, following his direction. She spotted the pair of wriggling, obviously sniffing worms and hopped into the compartment. “If I can get a secure message to the
Sen Ekir
, Raj can send the treatment protocols to the station clinic. Got you, you little—whoa!”

As she bent to scoop the creatures into the container, one of them managed to latch on to the outside of the container and head for her hand. Jayleia let go. The container and bloodworm tumbled to the hull.

Damen dropped into the well, grabbed her around the waist, and tossed her up onto the deck.

She squeaked in surprise and then in pain when her backside landed so hard on the plating that her teeth clacked together.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. “Damen! Get out of . . . wait. Look.”

He paused in boosting himself out of the engine well. His gaze followed her nod.