Chapter 4
Draanth. No time.
Ducking his shoulder, he hooked an arm around her legs and scooped her up, ignoring the little squeak she made. A roar followed about half a second later, and he ignored that too, pivoting on a heel and bolting for the inner hatch.
“Put me down! You giant, lumbering—put me down!”
Professional athlete to fugitive cargo hauler. What a career.
She had a hell of a set of lungs on her. And a kick, she definitely had a hell of a kick on her. He winced as one of her boots connected with his thigh, hard.
“Stop kicking,” he grunted, taking the stairs to the side of the ramp two at a time. The metal grating rang under his feet.
“This is kidnapping!” Another kick, but this time, he locked her legs down against his torso with a hard arm. All that got him was a knee to the rib cage. “I will space you! I swear to God, I will—”
The ramp groaned beneath them. He felt the vibration through his soles a second before he heard the hydraulics engage. The heavy metal tongue was retracting, lifting to seal the ship.
She’d triggered it.
She must have punched the launch sequence on her comp before he grabbed her. Screaming murder and kicking seven hells out of him, she’d already made the call.
Smart female. Too smart for her own good.
“Hold on,” he growled as he ducked through the inner airlock ring, practically diving them both through it into the corridor. And not a moment too soon, because the ramp slammed shut behind them, almost taking his heels off.
The klaxon died mid-blare. Just—gone. The garrison shouts with it. His own breathing was suddenly the loudest thing in the corridor, ragged and far too loud.
Then the deck tilted sharply to the left.
Gravity shifted, like a heavy hand pressing down on his shoulders as the thrusters fired. The floor vibrated, a low thrum that made his teeth ache, and his stomach lurched.
She stopped fighting and cursing, hanging over his shoulder, a dead weight as the lift-off pinned them. The ship’s corridor was about as charming as the inside of a shipping crate. Somewhere, a light flickered like it was having a crisis. A tin can in a vacuum.
For long moments, the ship rattled and roared around them. But then, finally, the heavy weight pressing down on every cell in his body lifted off.
They must be in orbit now.
He took back his sigh of relief and swung her down, his arm screaming. Blood had soaked right through the bandage, leaving a wet smear across the back of her thighs. He set her on her feet, putting her back against the corridor wall and stepping away to give her some room.
“We’re clear,” he said. The satisfaction was a warm buzz in his chest, overriding the pain in his arm. “Good call on the launch.”
She didn’t answer. She leaned against the bulkhead, her chest heaving, and her hair a red disaster that half-covered her face. Her hands shook… a fine tremor, fingers loose. He’d seen it before. The moment the adrenaline ran out, and the body stopped writing credit-slips the nerves couldn’t cash.
She’s done.
He almost felt sorry for her.
Leaning back against the opposite wall, he crossed his arms carefully to hide the blood seeping through the rag. It was starting to feel cold and sticky now. “Relax, kelarris. You did good. We’re in the air.”
Then the lights changed.
It wasn’t dramatic. Just a subtle shift in the spectrum, and the harsh white of the utility strips bled into a predatory red.
Click.
A hum started up. It was low and subsonic, and he felt it in his back teeth before he heard it properly.
He froze.
Draanth.
He knew that sound. He’d heard it in garrison lockdowns and in high-security vaults. That was the sound of a local weapons system cycling from standby to active.
He looked at the little human as she pushed a tangle of red hair out of her face, and ice rolled down his spine.
Talk about draanthing it up, sunshine.
Stillness was not the stillness of someone who was defeated or who’d run out of fight. It was the stillness of a predator, the stillness that meant the fight had moved to somewhere he couldn’t see.
Oh.
“I suggest you stay perfectly still,” she said, her voice level and quiet. “Or Fred will blow your head off.”
Raaze stayed perfectly still. Because, despite all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t an actual idiot. And because he really didn’t want a hole in his forehead today.
He scanned the corridor from his peripheral vision. It was empty. There were no guards and no automated turrets dropped from the corners of the ceiling. There was just the red light, the hum, and the woman looking at him with eyes so emotionless, he couldn’t read her.
Fred.
That was a male name. It was a human male name. He wasn’t really sure of human naming conventions, but it sounded short and familiar. Like a pet name or nickname, something.
She’d kept her eyes on him as she said it, hadn’t bothered to look at the ceiling or down the corridor.
Instead, she’d looked at him, steady as a locked targeting system.
Which meant that someone on this ship with weapons access had her back.
Not just someone, a male on this ship with weapons access had her back, and that male was someone she trusted enough to hand that kind of power to.
Probably some invisible lapdog with a finger on the trigger.
His jaw locked, aching from the tension.
He didn’t know why. She wasn’t important. She was just a mark… transport, little more than a means to an end. So it didn’t matter who she had backing her up as long as those weapons stayed pointed the draanth away from him.
Yeah, the voice in his head said, You keep telling yourself that, handsome.
His jaw was still locked.
“Fred.” His voice was flat. “Let me guess. The strong and silent type.”
“He has his moments.” She didn’t look away. Her expression was as hard as a liiraas snake. “Put your hands where I can see them. Slowly.”
He did as he was told, lifting his hands slowly, the movement pulling at his wounded arm.
The hum in the walls pitched up a fraction. Yeah, that was a targeting lock. Someone had a bead on him. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.
“You’re not armed,” he said. It was a statement, rather than a question.
Ignore from the moment that he approached her that she wasn’t armed, that all she had was a wrench and a diagnostic tool.
The day he didn’t know what weaponry a person was carrying was the day they could put him on his funeral pyre.
“I don’t need to be.” She tilted her head slightly and her eyes unfocused for half a second. She wasn’t looking at him or the corridor. She was looking somewhere else. Then she blinked, and she was back, looking at him like nothing had happened.
She hadn’t been looking at him. She had been listening to someone else.
“Fred handles security,” she said. “And right now, Fred thinks you’re a threat to the ship. He’s very protective.”
Protective.
He ground his back teeth.
She had a mate. A partner. Someone who’d launched the ship while Raaze was busy hauling her up the ramp like an idiot. Here he was thinking he’d been running the play, but she’d been running rings around him the whole time, and he hadn’t even clocked it.
Great. Outmaneuvered by a male with a stupid-ass name like Fred. How the mighty have fallen.
“Tell Fred to stand down,” he growled. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“No. I expedited our departure.”
“You threw me over your shoulder like a sack of grain.”
“You were stalling.”
“I was bloody well thinking!” Her voice cracked, and just for a second, the anger bled through the calm.
She took a breath, clamped it down, and gestured vaguely at the air around them.
“And now we’re here. In space. Because of parts that I’m pretty sure are stolen and a fugitive on board.
Which makes me an accessory to a sodding jailbreak! ”
“You were already an accessory.”
“I was a bystander with a wrench! Now I’m a getaway driver.” She glared up at him. “If we go back, they’ll arrest both of us. They impound the ship. My father finds out I lost a freighter to the authorities, and I spend the next ten years filing data entry in a fuc-fudging basement.”
She paused. The red light washed over her pale skin, making her eyes flash dangerously.
“We’re not going back,” she said.
He lowered his hands an inch. The hum didn’t change, but Fred didn’t blow his head off. They were making progress.
“Agreed. Going back isn’t an option.”
“Good.” She crossed her arms and glared at him some more. “Okay, so here’s how this is going to work. We’re in transit, and I’m not turning around, but I’m not running the taxi service for alien kidnappers either. Do I make myself clear?”
He bit back his grin. She was negotiating.
She stood there in oversized coveralls, red hair a mess around her shoulders, and she had the balls to face down a Latharian warrior and lay down terms.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“My next stop is Vess'tra Station. It’s a three-day run from here.” She watched him, as if tracking his reaction. “I’ll drop you there. You get off my ship. You disappear. I never see you again.”
Vess'tra.
He knew the place. It was a civilian trade hub.
But the wrong draanthing direction. Completely useless to him.
He opened his mouth to argue, but the hum in the wall spiked into a sharp, warning vibration that rattled his back teeth.
Fred. The draanthic was still there.
Raaze closed his mouth.
He looked at the red lights, then at her.
He was outmaneuvered. He was so far past outmaneuvered it wasn’t even draanthing funny anymore. He knew the feeling. Didn’t like it, but he knew the feeling. It was that moment in a match where the play had gone to shit, and you were just managing the damage. And he hated it every single time.
“Vess'tra.” He nodded. “Three days.”
“You don’t touch the cargo,” she added. “You don’t touch the flight controls. And if you touch me again, Fred vents the atmosphere wherever you are.”
“Understood.”
“Say it.”