Chapter Six
Meandering through the crowd, I sauntered over to the governor’s advisor. Giving me a double take, Marla feigned her surprise, then smiled. “Oh, hello.”
“Hi.” My eyes flicked to the provocative red gown she was wearing.
The drape of expensive silk barely contained her plump breasts, making my dress appear conservative in comparison.
Stifling a frown, I considered if the sparkling gems hanging like teardrops around her neck were artificially made or the rarities from the mines of Arithium Asteroid.
Either way, I wanted to slap her for her pretentiousness. “Do you come here often?”
Her smile grew with coyness. “Are you hitting on me?” She was either a na?ve drunk or pretending to be. “Oh my, is that…is that why you rejected the…are you gay? If you are, that’s absolutely fine—”
“Look lady, you can believe whatever you like, but right now, I need to escort you back to Delta Ring. Alpha Ring is not safe for you.”
“This bar seems nice enough.”
I stared at her, questioning her intellect. Was she messing with me? “This establishment is not one that caters to, or tolerates, government officials. And even if nobody here recognises you, your outfit screams money and stature.” Not to mention this establishment was run by Puran sympathisers.
For a moment she sobered up, sweeping her bright eyes over my face. “Then why are you here?”
Lowering my voice, I leaned closer. “Meeting a friend.” It was a plausible lie. I wasn’t wealthy, and out of uniform, I fitted in.
She smirked from behind her cocktail. “So, you do have a life, Ms Harthwaite. Zuli implied you are a work-a-holic.”
What the…? How the hell did she know that?
“So, who’s the lucky guy?” Marla eagerly scrutinised the bar’s guests. I prayed Torz was still concealed behind the alcove curtain.
“Nobody you’d know.”
“Oh.” She giggled, pinning me with a teasing stare. “What does Commander Benoit think of your new beau?” Her words made me flinch.
“Why would he care?” I mumbled, plucking the glass from her slender fingers. I’d had enough of this idle chit-chat. It was time to get her out of here.
Placing her half-empty drink on the bar, I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the exit. To my surprise, she didn’t protest half as much as I expected.
The combined click-clack of my stiletto heels and the tottering of hers pounded the grey metallic tiles, the sound bouncing from wall to wall, annoying my eardrums the further we travelled along the main corridors towards the central tower connecting all four rings of the Argentum.
When we arrived at the elevators, door three pinged open and two Beta Ring security guards stepped out.
I recognised both of them, but neither one acknowledged me as they passed.
With my hair hanging loosely around my shoulders, and wearing a sexy dress and heels, I was unrecognisable.
I was invisible.
Marla eyed the two young men, soaking up their muscular physiques. She hummed her approval as I dragged her into the metallic lift. I was starting to think she was drunk…and horny.
“Tell me, Lieutenant,” she slurred, propping herself up against the circular railing. “Why did you reject him?”
“Who?”
She laughed. “Commander Benoit, of course.”
Selecting Delta Ring, Level Five, and initiating the lift doors to close, I suppressed a groan. I was at the end of my tether with people asking me the same damn question.
“Or did he reject you?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“But it is.”
I snapped my unappreciative scowl her way, and with a condescending sweetness, she smiled.
“Zuli wants an insight into why the general desire to live on Quoram isn’t coercing Damson couples to accept their bond.” She straightened her pose against the wall, inspecting her manicured nails. “There must be a reason, right? Why so many refuse it. It’s everyone’s dream to live there.”
I stared back at the numbers scrolling on the door panel, the artificial gravity shifting its pull as we zoomed up the elevator shaft. “I’m sure everyone has their reasoning,” I mumbled, thinking of Torz and the look of horror he’d given me the night the magic tried to take hold.
“Well, if I find my Damson, I won’t be letting him go.” She tittered. “Especially if he looks like Commander Benoit.”
Inwardly, I snarled at her. Would she say that if her Damson was a criminal from Pura, or a pimp found in the slums on Onexx? Everyone had their reasons for rejection. Even if mine had become the biggest regret of my life.
The doors pinged open, and we stepped out onto the central tower of Delta Ring. The return of Marla’s tapping heels fuelled the fire trickling through my veins, and I sucked in a deep breath, attempting to hold my reserve, but her sweet voice came again.
“I’m starting to believe those who reject the Damson bond are mentally deluded or simply…selfish.”
Fire exploded within me, and I turned upon her, hissing my distaste. “Selfishness comes in many forms. It’s a part of survival, of being human! Why do you think your boss keeps getting attacked?”
Marla’s glazed eyes sparked with surprise, her face then frowning in pensive thought.
“Nobody at every point in their life makes viable decisions, especially decisions forced upon them through a magic we don’t understand. You cannot judge anyone for—” My words trailed off as a dark figure shifted in the reflection of the steel pillar behind Marla.
“But people do judge,” she cooed, oblivious. “We all do—”
The dark reflection moved closer…too close. Then, it lunged.
On instinct, I twisted, deflecting an object soaring towards us with my clutch bag. I pushed Marla out of the way behind the pillar as I grasped the hilt of my gun from the folds of my bag, leaving the stiff fabric to fall to the floor.
Another flash of steel flew my way, and I ducked, landing on my knees, marginally evading its mark. Thank the Gods for the slit in my dress.
Rotating on my knees, I aimed my gun at the figure dressed in black.
Obscured by a dark helmet, his physique—albeit short and lean—indicated he was a man.
He snatched another dagger from inside his open jacket and stalked forward, readying to flick the blade at me.
I pulled the trigger, the pulse shuddering up my arm into my pounding heart.
My target yelped as the bullet embedded into his palm, forcing him to drop his weapon.
Full of a calm rage, I stood, desperate to reveal the wannabe assassin, but he launched his body towards me again, pulling yet another dagger from his jacket.
My gun’s trigger snapped under my fingers, the bullet landing in his chest. Wide-eyed and stunned, he dropped to his knees in a clatter of fabric and steel and blood.
I had no time to breathe. Movement to my right had me flinching.
Marla’s scream of warning rang in my ears a fraction too late as a heavy force slammed into me.
Stunned and winded, I landed hard on my side.
The large, masked figure was on top of me within seconds.
He pressed down into his forearm now lodged against my neck, his immense weight crushing my throat as the point of a short, thin dagger came way too close to my face for comfort.
Panic bubbled up into my restricted windpipe, and with every ounce of strength I could muster in my left arm, I countered his adamance to joust the blade forward and into my eye. My gun hand was trapped under our combined weight, and it was already tingling with numbness.
Wheezing, still fighting the blade mere inches from my face, I raised my thighs, rounding my attacker’s hips. With an inward growl, I summoned strength to my core, and shifted him to my left, rolling him beneath me.
Through a frustrated groan, the man slashed the blade at my thigh, nicking the sparkling material of my dress. I wrestled his wrist with my left hand while my gun held in my right found the vulnerable spot between his neck and the base of his helmet.
But my trigger finger froze.
Sitting just below his ear was a charcoal-coloured tattoo—a bird with its wings splayed, carrying a lone star in its talons. So small, I could’ve easily missed it, but its significance made me falter. This was a Puran. Specifically, one of Chaz’s comrades. An ally.
But I didn’t have time to question or ponder.
A sharp, crippling pain roared through the front of my left shoulder, the Puran’s blade handle now jutting out of my flesh.
Gritting my teeth, I disregarded any hesitation I had and squeezed the trigger.
Its silent jolt announced the man’s death, followed by a rapidly expanding pool of crimson.
Stumbling with effort, I stood, my stilettos tumbling from my sweaty feet.
I gripped the blade protruding from the fleshy part below my collarbone, growling as I pulled it free.
As the knife clattered to the floor, my body was ready to admit defeat.
My breaths were ragged, dizziness fogged my vision, but as another shriek of warning rang in my ears, a new rush of hazy adrenaline ignited within my veins.
A strong arm encircled my neck before I could react.
It tugged me backwards with brutal force as gloved fingers snatched around my gun hand, slamming it against the steel pillar Marla hid behind.
Pain ricocheted up my arm and along my taut fingers.
With a muted sob, I felt the gun slip from my grasp.
I was tugged back tighter against a solid chest, and a gruff voice rumbled in my ear, “You made the wrong decision, darling.”
And didn’t I know it. I was fighting for my life against the people who were my allies, simply because Marla Hyde needed protecting. Governor Zuli had already warned Torz if anything happened to Marla, she would expose him.
Staggering, grasping onto consciousness, I battled against the agony in my bleeding shoulder, all the while anger and repugnance roared through my veins at the thought of Zuli and the predicament she’d forced upon me. Upon Torz.
The assassin tightened his excruciating grip around my neck, and my fingers fumbled against the fabric of my dress, desperately searching for the dagger hiding in my garter.
The metal handle hummed against my fingertips, and little by little, I pried it loose, all too aware I was being dragged around the pillar to where Marla was cowering.
The man’s gun was poised and ready as Marla’s petrified face came into view. Her eyes were wide, tears smearing mascara down her porcelain cheeks.
“Sorry, love,” the man growled, “but you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I lifted my leg, my fingers fully gripping the hilt of my dagger, and with a crazed, primal madness, I jabbed the blade hard into the man’s ribs, then slashed over my shoulder, striking any flesh it could find.
His hold instantly weakened, and I ripped myself free, twisting as he staggered backward.
His fingers frantically pressed into the blood bubbling from his jugular, the look in his eyes confirming his surprise.
Slumping to his knees, he murmured something incoherent before keeling over with a sickening thud.
As he fell silent in a puddle of his own blood, I cursed through my ragged, panting breaths.
In saving Marla Hyde, I’d just killed three Purans to honour Governor Zuli.