Havoc (8 page)

"A quick scan. No big event. If you've traveled deep space, and you must have to get here, then you've been through it already, right?” He kept his tone casual, although her sudden silence sent up a flag of alarm.

"Of course,” she said after a heartbeat, a gap of time his mind filled in with a stew of unsavory scenarios.

"Sayal,” he said, tightening his fingers around her shoulder, “where exactly are you from?"

Sayal had been dreading the question and hoped he'd never ask. In the lonesome hours she'd spent in the last freighter's cargo hold, the fourth craft aboard which she'd stowed away since she'd escaped Sorush's private deep-space liner, she'd prepared a stock answer for whoever pried. Now, though, she wasn't so sure Kels would be fooled.

He turned his body so they faced each other. “It's all right. I figured a girl like you had a hard luck story of some sort, otherwise there'd be no reason for you to be stuck on a shit pot like Aleut."

The heat of his big body wrapped around her, and his hand lay on her hip possessively. Yet she doubted he would hesitate to push her away, even report her, possibly even kill her, should he know the truth. Sayal licked her lips and said, “The man I told you coerced me into performing for him?"

He nodded.

"I escaped him about four Earth months ago.” It was a strange quirk of humanity that they still gauged the passage of time by the movement of their native sun. “I escaped onto a supply ship leaving his liner, and I've been sneaking from place to place ever since, trying to get as far from him as possible."

He stroked over her waist and hip, his expression pensive. “Is he hunting you now?"

"No. His...activities, the business in which he was engaged, were highly illegal by both human and alien standards. I'm sure he's hoping I've died, or that I'll simply go away and never bother him again, which is what I do wish.” She swallowed the lie. “I want only to live the best life possible as a free woman."

Kels rolled onto his back and folded his arm beneath his head. “Slaver, was he?"

"Not exactly."

"Whoremaster?"

She flinched at the blunt term. “Not exactly that either. A man with peculiar ambitions.” She imagined her mother, her poor little sister who had never had a chance, and felt genuine tears blurring her vision. “Please... It's very painful for me to talk about."

Part of her hated to work on Kels's sympathetic nature, for she could see the idea of her suffering repulsed him, yet another bitter part of her was glad Fate had guided her to a man who could be manipulated by emotion. If it meant using him to fulfill her goal, she would bind him to her, through sex, through sympathy.

He thumbed away a damp trail from her cheek and leaned to kiss the tip of her nose. “Don't cry, princess. When you're ready, you can tell me the rest. For now, you're in good hands."

She let him pull her close and cushioned her cheek against his chest. Hearing his steady heartbeat in her ear, she thought of his agile fingers on her body, in her body. Very good hands, indeed. And how lovely it felt to be held by him. She hadn't been cuddled since she was a child, when her mother would take her to watch out the huge windows of the Prime's ship at glorious novas and striped gas giants and glittering space battles on the fringes of the Conflicts.

With her cheek over his heart, she couldn't see his face. “Why do you help me?"

He smoothed his hand over her back, and she thought she could fall asleep like this, like a baby, sleepy and soft and content. “Let's face the truth, here, luv. You've got something I need, and I've got something you need. That's how business is done this side of the SenVerse, and the other side too, I'd imagine."

"And when it's over, and I've established myself in the high games, then...you'll walk away?"

"More than likely. I can't see myself fucking forever—least not that way, competitively. I'm not a man for commitment if that's what you were hoping for.” His hand stilled. “That's not what you were hoping for, was it?"

"No. Of course not. It's business for me as well."

His chest fell with an exhale, of relief, she thought. “Tell me, why the high games? You could cut decent pay from the games on the Rim, or do something else, a pretty, clever girl like you."

She lifted her head to look at him. “You think I'm clever?"

"Well, you thought pretty quick on your feet back at Ulvik's. How is your tat, by the by?"

"I hardly feel it. Is it strange that I don't?"

"Let me take a look.” He rose on his knees, then guided her onto her belly and lifted her blouse. She felt his fingers brushing over it. “Can't even tell he did the job.” The amazement in his voice made her worry.

"Perhaps it didn't work."

"Oh, it'll work, all right. He's a scrag bastard, but Ulvik knows what he's doing. Some of Keeva's took a few hours to show. Might be it'll take longer than standard biolumes.” He spread his fingers across her butt. “You never did answer me, princess. Why the high games? Why's that so vital?"

Sayal answered, carefully impassive. “Why bother scraping at the Rim when I could be swimming in iron in the Zone? Men desire me; sometimes women too. You desire me.” She rolled over and shifted her hips toward him, subtly, but she saw his pupils spread. “I wouldn't be such a clever girl if I didn't utilize the assets given me...”
By an alien geneticist
, she thought but didn't say.

His darkening gaze swept over her, and her nipples tightened, aching for his tongue and teeth once more. With the edge of her hand, she brushed open her blouse so her breasts were bared to his sight and circled her fingers around the areolae. She arched her back and stared into the depths of his eyes, more than satisfied with the feral lust building within them.

"I see what you're driving at,” he said, his voice gruff. He raised a brow and dragged his gaze up to her face. “You are prime material."

His use of the word
prime
struck her like a blow, but just as quickly she realized what he meant, and that was almost worse. She was material—raw material, flesh to be marketed and displayed. Well, wasn't that what she wanted? Why did his personal approval suddenly matter so?

Determined to hide her absurd hurt, Sayal sat up, turning her face away. “Perhaps in the time we have before the jarouk game we should visit the gamesmaster and get ourselves cleared. Then we can start rehearsing as soon as possible."

He didn't touch her as he stood from the bed. “I need a cleansing, and I need to change or process my clothes."

"There's a processor in the corner.” She waved him toward a thin door. Having escaped in one set of clothes and acquired only two others since, she'd used it often. “I'll use the cleanser first. You can go in after me.” She suddenly needed to wash his touch from her, wash away the false feelings of security and comfort lying in his arms had evoked. Her mind tossed with new, uncertain emotion.

As she bent to take off her boots, Kels stood and began stripping. She watched covertly from beneath the curtain of her hair as he peeled out of his shirt, revealing a muscular back and biceps, then tugged off his boots and his pants. Kels had not the physical perfection of her Prime creator. Yet something about Kels's hairy legs and big feet and the silver scars that lined his flesh enamored him to her.

He turned and caught her watching. “Still dressed? Need help?” he teased.

She shook her head, smiling. “No, I can manage. Why don't you use the cleanser first, since you undress so much faster than I do?"

"Lots more practice, I'd bet.” He winked and strode past her toward the cleansing chamber. As he passed, she appreciated his abs and tight ass. The mist hissed on, and the lightly perfumed odor of the soap rolled out to her like luring fingers.

She considered joining him, perhaps taking his cock in her mouth and wrestling back some control. He was far too dominant, mastering her body until she was mindless for more. Sadly, this small cube came with an even-smaller cleanser, and it would simply be impractical. Perhaps on the
Nova
there would be better accommodations.

Yes, the
Nova
... That reminded her; she needed the patch for the game tonight. She rose from the bed and crossed to the dining area, then waved her hand over a flat panel in the wall. The panel slid open, revealing standard first-aid equipment. She selected a gauze patch and scissors and cut a piece down to a smaller size, something that would look convincing. For creativity's sake, she trimmed it into a diamond shape. Now, what to use for the “antivenin"? Sayal settled on a paste used for burn treatments and wiped it over the patch. She shut the drawer, and it whispered back into invisibility in the wall. She wrapped the sticky gauze in a plastiseal baggie and tucked it in her pocket.

The patch was nothing. Her bond with Kels was everything. The truth was she knew little to nothing about jarouk, except that it involved the players risking a sting from a poisonous insect in order to win. It sounded rather stupid to her, but it was apparently a popular game in back alleys and unsavory establishments across the SenVerse. Sayal heard the cleanser shut off and Kels humming as the drying lights snapped on.

She pressed her hands against her face, allowed one sinking moment of doubt, then pushed it aside. He must not see her uncertainty, her fear, or else the slim thread of trust between them would snap. That she could not allow.

If she couldn't protect him through their bond, everything was forfeit.

Elion leaned against the side of a storage unit and watched Kels and the girl coming toward him down the corridor. Surrounded by short, stocky Quitzae, they stood out like tall trees among shrubs. They weren't quite at the stage of holding hands, but their fingers brushed as they walked, and now Kels leaned toward Sayal and said something that made her laugh.

Well, if they hadn't fucked, they'd come damned close. He knew the symptoms.

He'd been with Kels long enough to see him sweep more than a few women out of their gravity boots. It was more than his rough good looks and charm; it was his basic kindness. Plenty of fellas bore black eyes or worse from his fists, but women sensed almost immediately that they were safe with him, and in this crazy SenVerse, that was a rare thing.

Elion understood the basis for Kels's attitude, though he doubted many others did. Kels had watched his family die toward the end of the Great Conflicts, the decades-long human-alien wars brought to Earth by the Primes. Kels said he never wanted to return to Earth, but still, it was clear those experiences had opened his heart, not closed it as they had so many others. Elion supposed it was just one more reason why he loved his boss. There were a lot of bitter, angry, greedy humans in the SenVerse, but Kels Havoc was not one of them—well, greedy, maybe, but not the rest. And Elion would kill anyone who tried to destroy his decent soul.

Which made him narrow his eyes at Sayal Iluma. Something about her didn't jibe. She was too pretty, too perfect, too everything. Crack, he preferred fucking men, and even he got a hard-on around her. She was just the type of woman to twine Kels around her little finger and ruin everything. Not that they had that much, at the moment, other than a history together, a friendship that had survived disaster, financial ruin, near death in the cold reaches of space more times than he could count.

Elion lit a cig and dragged on it to settle his nerves. Kels and Sayal had stopped at a food vendor, and he was buying her something to eat. Elion shook his head. If there were booths with flowers and candy, Kels'd be buying those too, the big idiot.

Tired of waiting in the shadows, he wound his way through the stream of Quitzae to the captain's side. “Thanks, I would like something to eat,” he said.

Kels grinned. “There you are. I was wondering where you'd got to."

"I was watching you two strolling down the boulevard. Couple of lovebirds. What would Keeva think if she saw you now?"

The only sign of Kels's displeasure was a slight tightening around his mouth. “She'd think I was making smart business,” he said, then dipped his head closer to Elion. “Did you?"

"Did I what?” Elion asked, pushing the cig to the corner of his mouth and pointing to a picture of a wrap similar to Sayal's. The Quitza vendor's whiskers twitched as he put it together with busy pink paws.

"Make business. Any customers?"

"Yeah.” He took the wrap and tossed his cig. “I've got a hundred crates of hool and two hundred of cigs that need transport."

"Hool and cigs?” Kels wrinkled his nose. “Saints, is that the best we can do?"

"On Aleut Station it is. Look, at least it's something. It's M'Tal, and he's willing to pay seventy percent up front."

He could see Kels calculating in his mind. “Least that'll buy our fuel to the Zone. All right. Now all's we need is the ship."

"I have the patch,” Sayal said, proving she had been listening in.

"Hush.” Kels handed the Quitza four bits of iron and led them aside. “Not so loud with the patch, princess. Lots of busy ears around here, and plenty of them lead back to Ulvik."

"I'm sorry.” Sayal had the decency to look chagrined.

Elion said, “Let's see it."

"Well, I...I do have it with me, but..."

Elion held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. Looking around first, she withdrew a small plastiseal pouch from her pants pocket. Now it occurred to him that she'd changed, and up close, he realized Kels's clothes had been processed. Yeah, they'd fucked. Masking his dismay, he turned the patch over in the weak overhead lights. It didn't seem like much, like a bit of poorly cut gauze smeared with some sort of paste.

"Are you sure about this?” He handed the patch to Kels, who gave it back to Sayal without examining it.

"Of course,” she said, slipping it away again.

"How's the tat?” he asked her.

"Fine, thanks. I hardly feel it now, just a little tenderness around my spine."

Kels was already half done with his wrap, and Elion took a bite out of his. For all they looked like big rodents, Quitzae were decent little chefs. He'd tried more than once to talk Kels into hiring a Quitza cook for the
Nova
, but the captain wouldn't hear of it. “
One more mouth to pay
,” he'd said.