Authors: Cynthia Sax
His female bowed her head. “I made an error.”
“You made more than one.” Kralj’s criticism of Imee angered Mayhem. “If he wasn’t your male, you’d be dead.”
“He’s not my male,” she protested. “He’s my target.”
He
was
her male. The question was how Kralj had known that.
“I know everything.” The male’s arrogance escalated Mayhem’s irritation. “Imee, leave us. I’ll speak with your
target
in private.”
Her face darkened. His female didn’t like being issued orders.
And Mayhem didn’t like that another male believed he had the right to command her. She was his and his alone.
“Do you question me, Retriever?” Kralj boomed. The floor shook.
It would have scared a lesser being.
Imee didn’t back down. His female was fearless.
“Leave, my female.” Mayhem wanted her nowhere near the volatile being. “I will find you.” He’d relocate her to a less hostile planet.
“I’m not your female.” She cast a dark glance at him.
He grinned at her.
A rumble rolled through the space, rattling the weapons on the walls.
She looked at Kralj and hastily exited, shutting the door behind her.
An unnerving silence fell inside the chamber, unnatural and tense.
“Rebellion is contagious.” Kralj folded his black-gloved hands before him. “I won’t tolerate it within the Refuge. Our residents are…sensitive.”
“Sensitive?” Mayhem repeated.
“Extremely violent,” the male explained. “We are all on Carinae E for a reason. The main one being that no other planet wants us.” He leaned forward.
It took all of Mayhem’s training not to reveal his shock. Deep, unsightly scars marred the right side of Kralj’s face. What could have done such damage?
“Erinomean Green Fire.” The male read his mind.
“And you survived?” Mayhem didn’t think that was possible.
“Like your friend.” Kralj glanced at Menace. “I’m not easy to kill.”
Mayhem had said those words to Imee back at the ship.
“Your ship is within range.” The male’s dark eyes gleamed. “The Refuge is under my protection and I take that responsibility seriously. No one enters.” He looked at Menace again. “Or leaves without my permission.”
Mayhem didn’t follow any being’s rules. His fingers tightened on his guns. He was free.
“Relax, warrior.” Kralj appeared amused. “I don’t want to take away your freedom and, if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” That was said as a statement of fact, as though there was no doubt he could. “Sit.”
Mayhem wanted to refuse but that would appear irrational. He lowered to a chair, not releasing his guns, ready to spring to his feet at the slightest provocation. “You’ve restrained my friend.”
“He disrespected me.”
“Unintentionally.” Menace finally spoke. “It won’t happen again.”
“You’re right. It won’t.” Kralj spoke with absolute authority. “After our meeting, you’ll return to your ship. I prefer to have only one of your kind within my walls.”
“One of our kind.” Mayhem focused on that revelation. “You know who we are?”
“If I knew who you were, you’d have to kill me.” Kralj smiled slowly, that expression more frightening than comforting. “No one can suspect you have free will. That would put all of your kind in danger.”
Was he threatening them?
“Every being within the Refuge has secrets and I keep them all. It’s my curse.” The male extracted a small gun from a holster and spun it in his hands.
Mayhem did the same with
both
of his guns. Faster.
Kralj’s eyes gleamed with humor. “You won’t find your friend and his female here. If they have landed on Carinae E, however, I could tell you exactly where and when. That could take time.”
Mayhem met Menace’s gaze. It could be a trap or it could be a genuine offer of help.
“How much time?” his friend asked.
“A planet rotation or two. No longer than that.” Kralj’s gun blurred. “It would take you more planet rotations to scan the surface for lifeforms. There are caves and tunnels that would hamper your search.”
That was why they’d decided to explore the settlement first. “Why would you help us?” Mayhem didn’t trust the male.
“I don’t trust you either.” Kralj dipped his head. “The sooner you find your friend and his female, the sooner you leave Carinae E. These are dangerous times.” He met Mayhem’s gaze. “And you’re being hunted. We’d rather not attract the attention of the Humanoid Alliance.”
“You’re allowing her to hunt us.” Mayhem had heard his discussion with Imee.
“
You’re
allowing her to hunt you,” Kralj countered. “She doesn’t know who you are. Imee is special to me. Hurt her and I will be the next being to hunt you.”
“She’s mine.” Mayhem wasn’t intimidated. “I would never hurt her.”
“Not intentionally. You might hurt her out of ignorance.”
The male was referring to emotional damage. His concern for her feelings indicated a deep level of caring. Mayhem had a rival for his female’s affections, a dangerous, powerful rival. “You love her.”
Kralj tilted his head to the left and then to the right, as though he was pondering that statement. “I doubt I’m still capable of that emotion. I respect her. She has more honor and strength than you and I combined.”
Was Kralj questioning his honor? Mayhem opened his mouth to defend himself.
“Ignorance will get you killed, my young friend.” Kralj bared his teeth, revealing fangs.
Young friend? How old was the male?
“Too old.” Kralj’s answer told him nothing. “Let’s switch the topic to a much more pleasant one. Tell me about the battles you’ve fought.”
That wouldn’t be a casual discussion. The male wanted to learn strengths and weaknesses, his, his brethren’s, the Humanoid Alliance’s.
Mayhem was tempted to think of Imee, to block his mind that way, but he didn’t want his opponent to have those thoughts either.
“I already have them.” Kralj’s tone was dry.
Fraggin’ hole.
“Indeed.” The male sounded as unhappy as Mayhem felt.
Chapter Four
Imee sat at the long serving center and scowled into her container of fermented beverage. Mayhem was
her
target. She should be in Kralj’s inner chamber with him, to ensure he didn’t open his big mouth and get himself killed.
She wasn’t there because Kralj didn’t like her and he certainly didn’t trust her.
He used her, allowing her to retrieve the rebels he didn’t want residing within the Refuge, sucking all of the information she gathered about the Humanoid Alliance from her brain when she returned.
But he didn’t care for her. How could he? He knew every dark deed she’d ever undertaken. Imee grimaced. That list was long. She’d done some terrible things, trying to keep her family safe.
She’d do those terrible things again if she had to.
“Greetings, beautiful.” A huge bearded male claimed the chair beside hers. He smelled of old sweat and engine oil, was dressed in leathers and dust.
Imee didn’t like beards. At all.
She turned her head and gave him her best are-you-serious look.
His gaze dropped to her cheek, to the inked sequence numbers identifying her as a Retriever and his eyes widened. “My mistake.” He hastened out of the seat, beating a quick retreat across the chamber.
The space was crowded yet no one else sat in the vacated chair. The patrons gave her a wide berth, keeping one eye on her movements and one hand on their weapons.
Beings either hated her or feared her, solely for what she was—a threat to their freedom and to their lives. If Kralj hadn’t forbidden others from killing within the Refuge, she suspected she would have died solar cycles ago.
Imee extracted a small translucent repository from her breast covering, held it up to the light. A thin golden ring encircled a tiny severed finger, a reminder from the Humanoid Alliance of what happened if she missed quota.
Her young sister, an innocent, all that was pure and right and good in the universe, had paid the price for Imee’s first, last, and only missed quota. The monsters hadn’t given her sister a pain inhibitor before they cut her finger off. They had wanted her to feel everything, to know that Imee had failed her.
Imee never missed quota again.
“What’s that, my female—a souvenir from one of your targets?”
She palmed the translucent repository and glared at Mayhem. “How did you survive your meeting with Kralj? He values respect and you don’t have any.”
The male laughed as he slid into the vacant chair. “Your Kralj likes me. He sent Menace back to our ship and gave me the task of searching his precious settlement.”
Imee tucked the translucent repository back in her breast covering. Was Menace her new target? It shouldn’t matter. A target was a target. Yet the change bothered her.
“You’re to accompany me, keep me out of trouble.” Gold specks danced in his brown eyes.
She wasn’t his personal escort. “Kralj knows when beings lie.”
Mayhem straightened. “I never lie.”
Imee didn’t try to hide her disbelief.
“I can’t lie.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, the action rubbing his arm against hers, setting off tremors within her. “He said some of the residents are…sensitive.”
The residents of the Refuge were violent and none of them would mess with her. The residents would tolerate her target’s inappropriate comments, allowing him to look wherever he wanted.
Kralj was using her again. “Then we search.” She stood, so fuckin’ weary of everything.
Mayhem rose to his feet also, looming large over her, a hulking wall of male and muscle. “We search.” He curled his fingers around hers.
Imee tugged on her hand. He didn’t release her. “Mayhem--”
“Saying my name won’t free you this time, my female.” He pulled her toward the exit. “I’ve been apart from you for too long.”
“It was mere moments.”
“It was too long.”
Imee had felt the same way, not that she’d admit that to him.
He propelled her out through the door, into the sunlight.
She blinked at the increased brightness, temporarily blinded. Mayhem appeared to be unaffected. He strode forward, not slowing his fast pace.
Imee followed, unwilling to admit she couldn’t see, that she was weaker than he was. She was forced to trust him.
Which shouldn’t have been as easy as it was. She didn’t trust any being. Imee touched the scar on her cheek. She’d learned that early in her infamous career.
During that second solar cycle as a Retriever, she’d been desperate for credits, knowing what the Humanoid Alliance would do if she missed quota.
She’d apprehended a female target. The female had asked to put her nursing baby down. Imee, thinking of her own mother, her own baby brother, had agreed.
There had been a dagger hidden in the child’s covering.
The target attacked her. Imee reacted without thinking, pressing the trigger. The projectile killed both the baby and the mother.
If her family hadn’t been depending on her, relying on her to keep them safe, alive, she would have ended her own lifespan. She deserved to die.
But she couldn’t be selfish.
Mayhem hooked his left arm around her waist, taking advantage of her disorientation. He was warm, solid. It was tempting to allow the contact, non-lethal touching rare in her world.
She couldn’t. He was her target. She couldn’t ever forget that.
“Let me go.” Imee wiggled, elbowing his body armor-clad stomach.
“Never.” His breath wafted against her ear, caressing her neck. “You’re mine.”
“And you’re mine but not in the way you believe.” She turned her face away from his, unable to look at him while she shared that truth. “Once this search is done, Kralj will give me permission to capture you.” She suspected Kralj chose her to accompany Mayhem for that reason. “I’ll bring you back to the Humanoid Alliance and they’ll execute your rebellious ass.”
“Do you warn all of your targets, my female?” His voice lilted with laughter.
She had never warned any of her targets. She had never kissed any of them, called them by their names, wanted them with a pussy-clenching desire.
Imee pressed her lips together.
“You don’t.” His mirth rolled over her once more. The male was never serious. “I’m more than a credit to you.”
“You aren’t. You can’t be,” she whispered.
“Why?” The blasted male heard her.
“Concentrate on the search.” The more she shared, the more attached to him she would become, the more it would hurt when she delivered him to the Humanoid Alliance. “We won’t find your friend and his female walking along the pathway.”
Males, females, even children stood in the shadows, watching them. Refuge residents knew she didn’t take casual strolls. They suspected she was hunting and that made every being, including herself, nervous.
Threatened beings were dangerous beings.
“We don’t need to do anything more,” Mayhem murmured into her ear. “I would be able to sense Death’s presence.”
He could sense another being’s presence. Kralj had similar powers. Imee looked at the handsome male by her side, curious about him. “Your friend’s name is Death?”
“Before he met his female, that was all he knew.”
“And mayhem was all you knew?”
“That was aspirational.” His grin returned. “I don’t like rules.”
“That’s all I know.” The admission escaped her lips before she could censor it.
Mayhem squeezed her hip. “We’re free now. We don’t have to follow any rules.”
He was free. For now. She would never be free. She’d always be under the Humanoid Alliance’s control. “We’re within the Refuge. We have to follow Kralj’s rules.”
“Maiming is acceptable but no killing.” Mayhem’s lips twisted as he recited one of those rules. “That’s too bad. I enjoy killing.”
“You say that because you kill warriors, beings trained in battle.” Bitterness edged her voice. “You don’t kill the innocent, females, children, the elderly.”
“As you do.” His gaze locked with hers.
Was he judging her?
“Fuck you.” She lifted her chin.