3013: CLAIMED (22 page)

Officers
Meyer and Rhine stood up from where they had been sitting. “Sir, we can go now,” Officer Rhine offered. “I know where Nolan usually likes to gamble.”

“We’ll go with you,” Cade said. “I need to get out of this suite for a bit. Just knowing Tania is in the other room is…”

“Making me sick,” Andrew finished. He walked over kiss Serra’s cheek. “We’ll be back soon.”

The four men left the suite while the others continued watching the video of the takedown on Reema. Serra smiled gratefully at Officer Ryans as he handed her a steaming mug of coffee, giving Skylar the other mug he was holding. He walked around the room, distributing the other mugs, then went to stand next to Jax as they watched the screen.

“The Strike Force team is damn good,” Jax commented.

“Commander Malloy’s group is one of the best,” High Commander Newgate said with no small amount of pride.

“You work with them a lot, don’t you?” Archer asked.

“I do. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with them since my position requires me to do a lot of traveling.”

Skylar’s eyes were alight with interest and a hint of envy. “Do they have any female members on the Strike Force teams?”

Dom shot her a dark glare from across the room. “No.”

Roman Newgate started to respond, but the sound of Arik crashing to the floor had everyone moving. “What the hell happened?”

Archer blinked to clear his vision, only it didn’t help. He took a step forward then dropped the mug of coffee he was holding as he fell to the floor when he limbs went numb. Seeing Serra on the ground in front of him, he tried to crawl toward her. Fear swept through him as she turned her head to stare at him through glassy eyes. He was barely aware of the others falling. The only thing that mattered was getting to Serra.

He reached out his hand, fingertips brushing hers as he whispered her name, then lost his fight to stay conscious as the darkness claimed him.

****

Jax let out a groan as he prayed for the pounding in his head to dissipate.

It had been years since he had last been on a bender and woken up with such a headache. No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t been drinking. He had been watching a video when—his thoughts cleared even as his head continued to pound like it was going to explode.

Jerking up, Jax surveyed the room as he fought back the urge to puke his guts out. They were on New Vega in their suite, and everyone in the room was passed out where they had dropped to the ground. Pain tore through his heart when he saw that Serra and Skylar were both missing.

Serra!

His body felt heavy, but he pushed himself forward, crawling over to Dom where he lay a few feet away. Jax reached out, checking for his friends pulse, and let out a relieved sigh when he found it beating strong. Without hesitation, Jax lifted his hand and slapped Dom across the face, then lifted his arm barely in time to block the fist that flew at his face in retaliation.

“What the fuck?”

“We’ve been drugged.”

“Serra!”

He turned and met Archer’s desolate eyes, and Jax let the ice cold rage build inside of him. She was still alive. Whoever did this wouldn’t have taken her just to kill her. They would get her back. There was no option for failure.

“Son of a—Dom! Arik’s pulse is thready and he’s not waking up!” Roman Newgate was bent over Arik, trying to wake the D’Aire to no avail.

“Fuck…the D’Aire react differently than we do to certain drugs,” Dom said as he crawled over to his friend when his legs failed to allow him to stand. He lifted his wrist to call for a med tech, but turned his head at the urgency in Archer’s voice.

“Jax! I need you over here!”

Jax made it to his knees before he had to reach out and to hold onto the couch to steady himself when his legs remained numb. He let out a roar of rage as he saw Archer braced over Cal Ryans, holding his shirt to a chest wound that was bleeding out fast.

“I didn’t drink…the…coffee,” Ryans panted out. “They…took…the women…I couldn’t stop them.”

Jax stumbled over to them and surveyed the damage for himself. A hilt of a knife was sticking out of Ryans’ chest, and the younger man had lost a lot of blood while the rest of them had been passed out. “Hold on, kid. You hold the hell on!”

“Called…for help…sorry, sirs.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. Don’t you fucking die on me, Ryans. That’s a goddamn order!”

Even as he spoke, the door to the suite burst open as a dozen men rushed in, led by Serra’s fathers. “Christ, what the fuck happened here?”

Two med techs hurried over and went to work on Cal’s injury. “Missed the heart, but we need to stop the bleeding…”

Jax struggled to his feet, stepping back to give the men room to try and save the young officer. He looked down at the blood on his hands. His friend’s blood. The sounds in the room became muffled until the beat of his heart was the only thing he heard.

The heart that belonged to Serra.

Someone had taken his woman, and there would be a reckoning the likes no one had ever seen if she was hurt…or worse. He’d failed to protect Serra, but he would get her back.

At any cost.

“Where is my daughter, Jax?” Andrew shouted, but Jax just ignored him as he moved toward the door to the conference room. It took him two tries to unlock the door since his hands were covered with blood. When the door opened, he saw horror in Tania’s eyes as she got a good look at him. Jumping up from her chair, she backed away.

“Don’t touch me! Help!”

Jax didn’t stop advancing until he gripped her by the throat. Ruthlessly, he slammed her back against the wall, lifting her off her feet. “Where is she?”

Archer, Cade and Andrew rushed in. “Jax! What are you doing, man?”

“She knows something!” Jax roared back, not taking his gaze off the petrified woman in his grasp. His mind was a red haze of fury, and he wanted retribution so bad he could almost taste it.

“I don’t know anything!” Tania gasped.

“Liar!” Jax snarled, letting her see that he was no longer the calm man who had questioned her before.

“Jax, we can track Serra. We’ll get her back.”

“Then do it,” Jax snapped back at Archer. “But this bitch is going to tell me what she knows, if I have to take her apart, piece by piece. You wouldn’t just fire your assistant. She knows too many of your secrets for you to just let her go. And you’re going to tell me everything, because if Serra dies, so will you. Do you hear me? Your life depends on if I get her back. So, start talking.”

Eye wide with terror, Tania spilled out everything she knew.

***

Chapter Fourteen

Serra held back a groan of pain as she came to lying on the cold, hard floor.

She stayed very still as she did an internal survey, and realized that she was undamaged by whatever had happened. After years of getting those raging headaches every time she thought of Jax and Archer, the throbbing in her head barely fazed her. She started to shift her body, but the sound of a metallic thud had her freezing in place.

“You are awake, human?”

Turning her head, Serra opened her eyes to see a pair of cat-like, amber eyes staring back at her. Jumping to a wobbly crouch, Serra braced herself for an attack.

But none came.

A single Helios female stood staring back at her curiously, head cocking to the side with feline grace. The Helios were from the planet Helix, a jungle world that was almost primitive in nature. Known as shifters for their ability to change into large jungle cats, the Helios were some of the most dangerous beings in the known worlds.

“You have nothing to fear from me.”

Nodding, Serra studied the beautiful female as she rose to her feet, swaying for a moment before she got her bearings. The Helios had golden skin with long hair a few shades lighter. She was dressed in tight brown leather pants and a matching vest that showed off her generous curves and corded muscles. Combined with her slanted amber eyes and standing at a few inches over six feet tall, she was an impressive sight.

Serra noticed a camera on the ground by the female’s feet. Glancing back up, Serra could see the wires sticking out of the wall where the camera used to be attached in the corner of the cell. When she met the Helios’ gaze again, there was satisfaction gleaming in those cat eyes.

“I was angry when I woke, and I don’t like being monitored.”

“I don’t blame you.”

Serra took a quick survey and saw they were in some sort of holding cell with an electrical field holding them in. On the floor next to her was Skylar, who was still lying in an unconscious heap. “Do you know where we are? And how is it you have a language converter? I thought most Helios don’t like getting the implant.”

“We’re on some sort of vessel. We were taken from New Vega, but I just woke before you, so I don’t know much more. I am Reva, warrior of the Golaris tribe, and guard to Ambassador Golaris and her companions. Since we travel off planet, all guards are required to have the implant.”

Serra eyes widened. “Solange Golaris? She is Ambassador Golaris now? A few years ago, I met her and the companions she has life-locked with when I was on Helix, back she was leader of your tribe. My name is Serra Lysander…well, it’s Serra Spartan-Archer now.”

“Protector Serra, the ambassador spoke very highly of you when you came to upgrade the shield over our world. Ambassador Golaris is my mother. During your visit I was away on The Hunt, or I would have met you then.”

The Hunt was a rite of passage for all Helios when they turned twenty. They were left out in the jungle for a week and had to survive on their own in the harsh terrain. Because the Helios were a matriarchal society, both females and males were put through the same test…and many never made it back.

Only the strong survived.

If Reva had survived The Hunt, then she’d returned to her tribe as a proven warrior, and would have received a thin scar across her heart as a badge of honor.

“Our captors are humans,” Reva said. “I was doing a security sweep of the docking bays with another of my tribe before my mother arrived when I witnessed two humans being slain. I went to help, but my partner and I were stunned from behind. I woke up here shortly after with the two of you. From the vibrations, I could tell we’d already left New Vega.”

They both looked over as Skylar let out a groan, then she bolted into a sitting position with her fists clenched in front of her. Seeing Serra and Reva, Skylar lay back down and flung her arm over her eyes. “What the hell happened?”

Serra filled her in, and Skylar lowered her arm to glance at Reva as the Helios spoke. “I am glad neither of you are crying. Human females always seem to cry. It is annoying.”

“We aren’t the crying type,” Skylar said dryly as she sat up, bracing her elbows on her raised knees. Skylar hated feeling out of control. Someone would pay for drugging them, she thought darkly. She was damn glad that both she and Serra were wearing the comfortable pants and shirts they had been wearing when they were taken, telling her that they hadn’t been messed with while they’d be unconscious. Rolling to her feet, Skylar hissed at the ache in her hip that told her she’d been dropped on it when they had been tossed in the prison cell.

Someone would definitely pay for that as well…

The three women looked over as the outer doors in the cargo bay slid open, and Eloise Greer entered the room with two men. The men had on dirty clothes, with blasters strapped to their sides and what looked like homemade knives sticking out of their dirty boots. Both of the men sneered and Serra felt sickened by the lust in their gazes.

“Well, well. Looks like everyone is up from their nap.”

The usually conservative assistant looked completely different with her brown hair tumbling down around her shoulders. Dressed in a tight brown shirt that showed off her cleavage and tight beige pants, she grinned at them as she stood with her hands on her hips. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you bitches in there.”

“Eloise,” Serra said. “Why are you doing this?”

“What part?” Eloise asked with a wild laugh. “Do you mean the part where I had you kidnapped or the part where I stole from you? You thought you were so smart. God, you damn scrolls actually believed all this time you were better than me.”

“I never—”

“Shut up!” Eloise screamed. She took a moment to calm herself, then grinned again. “This really was way too easy. When you turned me down as your assistant, I was furious, until I realized that I could make more credits just stealing your work from you to sell on the black market. All I had to do was put up with your bitch of a mother. She really is a total psycho, you know.”

Serra held back her snort of derision at how ironic that statement was. “I’m aware of that. So, this is all about credits?”

Eloise laughed. “Of course it is. With the added bonus of proving I’m better than you. Some genius you are. And I did it all right under your nose. I never expected Tania would make it so easy for me to get your schematics, but the old bitch actually paid me to place a block on your data unit. From there, it was easy to take what I wanted. In a way you owed me, anyways.”

“How did you manage to drug us?” Skylar asked, moving to stand next to Serra and Reva.

“All I had to do was bribe one of the employees who worked in reservations to find out what suite you were in. I snuck in early and hid in one of the air vents, after I drugged the coffee. I know how much you like your coffee,” she said to Serra with a conspiratorial wink. “I could have killed you all, but you’re worth more to me alive. I did have to take out that young officer with my knife, but he shouldn’t have tried to stop me. Once everyone was out, all I had to do was open the door for my associates, and we carted you right out in cargo containers.”

“Easy peasy,” one of the men said lazily as he eyed Skylar.

“You plan to sell us,” Reva said flatly.

“Well, isn’t the little kitty smart. Yes, I’m going to sell you. There are many Tarin who will pay big credits for human women, and even more for a shifter. You I didn’t expect, but you saw my men kill Charles and Jacob, so we had to take you.”