Freeker (9 page)

“This is why your family didn’t come to claim you once you were ordered released. You were thrown out.” He couldn’t imagine not having his brothers.

“Not so special a reason they were after me, is it? Nobody wanted me except Jebe. He’s dead.” She laughed in seemingly genuine amusement. “Now there’s nobody to want me.”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” Warrant’s reply came with a surprising gruffness.

“Oh, you want my pussy.” The delight in her voice sounded forced—as did the word she’d slapped his leg for using.

“And I’ll get it,” he growled but in the dimness of the cabin, in the space between them filled with a tension he could taste on his tongue, he sensed the need to say more. That he wanted more. But other than fucking and curling around her in the nest, he didn’t know what that could be.

“Leave me the shuttle. Go back to your ship. I’ll find my way.” She didn’t move from behind him but the earlier pleasure and even the later thread of derision had fled from her tone and she was cold.

Warrant rose from his seat slowly. His claws extended and his cheekbones warmed, swelling. The ridges would be standing out as he slowly turned and glared down at her. She was beautiful, defiant. Her glare was as lethal as any a Scoriah could manage. “I give the orders here. This ship can’t get away. We have to destroy it.”

“You give the orders?” She raised a brow and put her hands on her hips. Her hair caught at the corner of her mouth but she didn’t brush it aside. Her dark skin flushed. Even in the dim light he could see it. “I could kill you now. For being in my way. For defying me.”

He let his head fall back with a laugh. She didn’t go for his exposed throat as he might have done. When he quieted he found her pissed-off gorgeous face and smirked. “I can smell you. And me on you. I can smell the sex, the lust, the anger. The outrage. I can scent the lethalness of you. But what I do not smell on you is sickness. You do not kill indiscriminately.”

“I like to kill.” She licked her lips and her eyes lost focus for a moment.

“As do I,” he murmured. “But only my adversaries. I do not relish killing innocents.”

“You are my adversary.” She hitched her chin and tapped her long nails on her hips where her fingers had spread.

“Only when I’m tussling with you to get inside you.” He grinned and her flush deepened. She was aroused. His cock began to fill but he let himself enjoy the argument instead of bending her over the nearest seat and finally burying himself inside her.

The shuttle shook and the floor shifted beneath his feet. Warrant adjusted his stance to keep upright.

“What the hell?” Chara grabbed at the seat in front of her and found her balance.

“For once, I’m not so eager to reunite with my brothers,” Warrant grumbled.

The shuttle shook and the door popped with a hiss. The floor rolled with reverb and Chara stumbled. He grabbed for her and slammed her against his body as the hatch opened.

“Aw, man. It reeks of sex in there.” Chaz stood at the door and waved his hand in front of his face as if to fan the scent away.

“Let me go,” Chara ordered.

He did it. Not because she asked, but because they needed to take care of business before station security decided to investigate. Chara might be free of the freeker program but the station didn’t know it. Not yet. And if they sent others after them, they’d run the risk of killing one too many security guards to make a break for it. They weren’t out of trouble, yet.

“We need to download the data off of these comps,” he commanded and Chaz nodded. His brother scrambled away and Warrant knew it’d be taken care of.

“Grab that body. Dump it aboard,” Tee strode ordered the group of Scoriah who’d filed into the bay.

Warrant snarled and shoved Chara behind him. Echtei strode forward and ignoring Warrant, bent to grab a body from the top of the pile of dead guards from the shuttle. Warrant shook himself out of it and bent to hoist one himself. Chaz came aboard after him and hooked a portable comp to the shuttle.

Within minutes, they’d cleared the
Night
of evidence of the boarding. Grendel dragged a big piece of equipment aboard the shuttle and Ursula followed. She nodded at Warrant. “This is an untraceable static bomb. When we’re ready, we close the hatch and get the hell out of here. It’ll blow to bits with everything. We’ll comm to the station that the docking boot was damaged. They’ll think it’s an accident. They won’t know the shuttle had already retracted it without incident. It’s a solid story.”

“It’s all rigged?”

“And ready,” Ursula agreed.

Grendel and Ursula ducked out of the smaller ship.

Warrant gave one last look. The shuttle still had the scent of his and Chara’s sex play but now the blood and gore of the guards had nearly obliterated it. He reached for the hatch. “Let’s blow it up.”

It was a risk. They didn’t know if the station would believe them or send for geonate forces to investigate, but it was the only option they had.

That, or put Chara aboard and leave her behind.

Chapter Six

They’d brought her aboard the
Twelfth Night
instead of sending her off on the shuttle—as she’d both wanted and feared. Until the last moment, she wasn’t sure that Warrant wouldn’t send her back to the station in a body bag just to wrap it all up and leave nothing behind that could harm his people.

But he hadn’t. He’d grabbed her hand and detached the shuttle. That moment had gotten to her in ways she couldn’t understand. She’d never held a man’s hand before. It’d been nice. Claws and all.

Now, they were in that area they called the nest. Steps echoed down the corridor and Warrant let go of her hand long enough to yank her against his chest. Nick sprinted into the large living quarters from the other direction. “So far, no sign of any ships coming to investigate. The shuttle was completely blown apart and I’d expect them to start hailing us within the hour.”

“See that you give them the story the way we talked about. The shuttle had some malfunction with their boot after they detached.”

“And what about her?” Nick gave her a curious look but unlike Tee, he didn’t seem to still hold her in suspicion.

“Tell them I exploded with the ship.” She tried to push away from Warrant’s enticing chest. Her fingers curled against his warm skin. Did he ever wear a shirt?

“Best to keep as close to the truth as possible.” Warrant adjusted her in his arms and pulled her closer. So close, her mouth smashed against his delicious chest. She nipped at him and a rumble started in his chest.

“We can’t say she’s dead. If and when she ever turns up, if the geonates find out, they’ll want to know why we lied.” Nick’s even-toned, pensive response gave her a bit of comfort. They’d moved past their initial reaction of killing her since she’d seen what they carried in the smuggling hole.

She turned her head so that she wasn’t practically sucking on Warrant’s nipple and spoke to Nick though she couldn’t see him beyond the broad, amazing wall of gray muscle that was Warrant.

“Just tell them my family has reclaimed me and my sentence is over.”

“That is one possibility.” Nick agreed. “Where is your family? Might it be true?”

Warrant spoke, which she was grateful for since she ground her teeth so hard she couldn’t unclench her jaw. “Track what transmissions you can. It’s possible that there is someone left in the freeker program, but I doubt they’ll make a fuss since their leader is gone. They won’t risk the station finding out details—but we can. We can threaten to expose the bribes or whatever incriminating data we can find in their files—I’m sure there’s something there. Get what you can on their employees and send it to station security.”

“What if they want me back?” Chara interjected. She’d thought it over, but what if Jebe had a partner?

“Then we’ll have to send them your dead body.” Warrant didn’t sound the least bit unsure or hesitant. She believed him. Her hands flew to his shoulders and her nails pressed into his skin. Her mouth dropped open as she nearly went for his neck.

She paused. His slight chuckle proved he’d been teasing her in a dark way.

She had no real desire to hurt him and he hadn’t meant the threat. Otherwise, he’d have left her on that shuttle. She shuddered and for the first time in her life, she let herself take a little comfort from a man and leaned into Warrant’s strength.

No matter what she’d thought earlier, he was a man, not a creature.

As if to punctuate everything she’d just worked through in her head, he proved he wanted her by lifting her in his arms and striding back to his room. The hatch closed behind them.

“You can unlatch your claws from me now,” he grumbled.

“There’s a knife hole in your wall.” She didn’t bother acknowledging that she’d nearly ripped into him. Instead she forced her rigid hands open and got her thoughts in order.

Warrant grunted and then bent, carefully putting her feet onto the decking. As soon as she found balance, she slid backwards to put space between them. With his gaze on the wall, he shrugged. “When I lose my temper, I throw knives.”

“You didn’t throw one earlier, when you were trying to kill your brother.”

“I wasn’t really trying to kill him, but you have a point. I didn’t sink one into the wall then, did I?” Warrant glanced down at the knives he had sheathed at his waist. He frowned.

She glanced at her hands which were still stained by the blood of the men she’d killed on the shuttle. “Isn’t it something many find to be the ideal? To think before violence, to pause before taking a life?”

“My brothers and I, we aren’t exactly the ideal human,” he replied sardonically.

Her attention snapped to his face and she searched his bemused expression. “Perhaps I’m more like a Scoriah than a human.”

His eyes glittered and he stepped toward her. Close, but he didn’t reach for her or even lean toward her. “Perhaps you are.”

They didn’t move for long minutes and Warrant stared down at her. He was so tall, broad shouldered, and massive all over. They all were. She wasn’t like them in appearance. Not with their gray skin and purple eyes. The claws would be handy to have, definitely, and the fangs. As much alike as they were, they had subtle differences, too. Warrant needed to be a leader, to have things his way, she could see that, but unlike Tee who had some of those same qualities, he had some patience and less of an edge on his cruelty. It made him perfect for her in ways she’d never found in a geonate man because in those important ways, he was similar to her.

Thankfully, they weren’t exactly the same. He had that tenderness that he’d shown her and she didn’t know if she had any of that softer ability left in her. And their bodies were completely opposite. She was small. He wasn’t. And that difference appealed to all her senses. Her attraction to his strength and his physical form couldn’t be denied. He was delicious and she wanted to explore every aspect of their differences. She’d like to sink her teeth into his tight ass and see how he liked it, but in the sense of kill to protect, kill to survive, they were the same.

“But you aren’t Scoriah,” he finally said and a thread of connection between them seemed to twang and break apart.

“Perhaps we are too different. You’ve done so much for me, more than I’d ever have expected. But I’ll have to leave your ship at some point. When I do, you have to know I would never repay that by exposing your smuggling to the geonates. Perhaps it would be best for all concerned if I go back now. It would leave you open to less suspicion.” It hurt a little, to make that offer. They’d gone through so much in only a few hours but they both knew at this point, he wouldn’t kill her. Yet, she was a threat to them because too much was unknown. Her past could rear its ugly head and hurt the Scoriah.

“It would be easiest for the Scoriah if we moved on, left you behind.” he admitted. “I know that you wouldn’t let our secrets out and expose us to geonate retaliation. Or would you? Would you make a deal with them, tell them about us, in exchange for forgiving your crimes?”

“I don’t know.” She found herself scanning the room as if she could find the answers in this otherwise bare room. “So much I don’t remember. I don’t know if the geonate authorities would even care what happened to me.”

“We need to know. I need to know. Who is after you? Will you expose us even further?”

“I will not do anything to harm you.” She stood straight and hitched her chin. She had to tilt her head back to see his face. It was a harsh face, she imagined. Many would think so. It appealed to her unlike any man before.

He bared his fangs and it could only be by instinct. This was danger. He’d kill her to protect his family. It should have given her pause but it didn’t. It made her hot. Made her want that kind of viciousness on her behalf.

His nose flared and his chest rumbled. His voice was gravely. “I still haven’t gotten my dick wet.”

Her nipples went so hard the fabric of her dress suddenly became a friction too unbearable, too restraining. Still, neither of them moved. The room filled with the sound of their ragged breathing but they did nothing but stare at one another.

Purple. The color had never really meant anything to her before but the depths of his eyes invited her in for more. More danger, more lust, and perhaps a connection that she sensed—memories or not—she’d never find elsewhere. She needed to know if that was real or if she imagined it because she was at the end here. There was nowhere else to go. She remembered this feeling from just before she went under, when she’d finally surrendered to the forces more powerful than she was and accepted her sentence. It was that or go insane just before they put her in a coma. Even that, she had the power to keep from them. So she faced it. She boldly accepted that sometimes even the strong have to die. But she did not have to give herself away. She did not have to lose that core of her strength.

She was Chara. Her memories, her freedom, her future, they could be ripped from her, but that spark inside her, it was her own. Warrant wanted part of that flame. She could see that need in him. It was her power, her decision, if she shared it with him. She wanted to.