Dark Solstice (25 page)

Was there any hope, at all, for a future with them?

Her head told her no, unequivocally, but her heart couldn’t accept it.

She realized she also couldn’t accept that she might have one or the other. Even if dreams did come true and by some miracle they lived, and lived free, there was still the antagonism between Kyle and John and there didn’t seem any way to resolve that that would give her a happy ending. “We all need each other to survive,” she said tentatively.

Kyle stiffened, pulling away to look down at her. Despite the flare of anger her words instantly evoked, it also flashed through his mind that Raathe had saved his life twice already, that he wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Raathe—nor would Raathe if he hadn’t watched his back in the arena, hadn’t gotten him on his feet when they’d crashed and gotten him moving again. And Rhea would either be dead now or alone and forced to fend for herself. That reflection made him feel vaguely ill. She was right. She needed them if she was going to survive until help came. “For now,” he agreed finally.

Rhea stared at him unhappily for a long moment and finally nodded, looking away. At least it was something. At least she didn’t have to face the moment she dreaded almost more than anything else when the two men she had come to love would tear her apart by making her chose between them. “If I don’t make it,” she muttered, more to herself than him, “then it won’t come to that.”

He caught her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t talk like that,” he growled.

Rhea met his gaze. “I’m the weakest link, Kyle. Do you think I don’t know my chances aren’t nearly as good as either yours or John’s? It’s more than the fact that you’re both stronger. You both know how to survive, how to fight. I’m … useless to both of you in this situation, worse than useless—virtually helpless. You’d both be better off without me and you know that as well as I do.”

He searched her gaze. “We’ll make it through this—all of us. All we have to do is hold on a while. Someone will come and the warden and his men will be too busy defending their own asses to be a problem for us anymore. Those bastards out there are a disgrace to the positions they hold. They’re as bad, or worse, than the prisoners in Phobos. Right now, they think if they can eliminate us that they’ll get off Scot free, the company will protect them and pull them out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves but, if Raathe did what he said he did, the company’s going to be too busy covering their own asses to worry about the warden and his thugs.”

Rhea felt a tentative ray of hope. “You think?”

“I know,” he murmured, dipping his head to match his lips to hers and kissing her deeply, his kiss filled with the rawness of need. She welcomed it, hoping it meant forgiveness for her, clinging to him and returning his kiss with the fervor of her passion and love for him in the hope that he would know that it was real.

The escalating sounds of the skimmers, which had faded into the distance, broke them apart just as Rhea was trying to decide if it would be safe to pursue the promise in his kiss. Dragging in a ragged breath, Kyle surged up to look. “They’re coming back this way,” he confirmed grimly.

The coldness of fear instantly doused the fire of passion Kyle had evoked within her. Shaky with both fear and the abrupt plummet of her emotions, Rhea eased up high enough to see. The glow of the headlights on the skimmers flashed in her eyes as she peered over the boulder and she quickly dropped down again, wondering fearfully if they’d seen her.

Feeling around a little frantically, she finally closed her fingers around the barrel of the laser pistol and lifted it, trying to figure out which end was which in the almost total darkness that had enveloped them since they’d been hiding. “What do we do?” she asked in a low, breathless voice.

“They haven’t spotted this cave … yet. We wait until they do.”

Not ‘if’ when, Rhea noted.

Kyle settled beside her and took the pistol from her. After examining it, he handed it back to her carefully, pushing the barrel away from him once she’d gripped it correctly. “You ever fire one of these?”

“No,” Rhea admitted unhappily.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist. You just point and pull the trigger—as if you’re pointing a finger at them. Aim for the body. That’ll be biggest target and most of the vitals—the most effective way of stopping them. We have the advantage. We’re in a superior position and we’re in the dark. We’ll be able to see them better than they can see us, but they’ll see the flash when you shoot so keep your head down.”

Rhea felt a spark of resentment. How was she supposed to hit anything and
also
keep her head down? She didn’t point out that the orders seemed to conflict, though, since it leapt into her mind instantly that they would be firing without being able to really identify the men. “John’s down there!” she gasped fearfully.

Kyle made an irritated sound. “And he expects us to fire on the men if they start this way. You and I are his cover. As long as we’re both firing, they’ll think they have all of us pinned up here. They won’t be expecting an attack from behind.”

It sounded good—except John didn’t have anything but a knife—a wicked looking thing, to be sure, but still just a knife, which meant he couldn’t kill any of the men without walking right up on them.

She’d been trying very hard not to think about how risky his plan was to him. She didn’t want to think about it now. Worriedly, she ignored the guards and scanned the terrain below them, searching for some sign of him among the shadows. She didn’t know whether to be more relieved or sorry when she saw no sign of him. If she couldn’t see him then surely the men couldn’t either but then, if she’d at least caught a glimpse of him, she would’ve known not to aim in that direction.

The men on the skimmers passed by them a second time, far more slowly than before. Rhea had just drawn a relieved breath when she saw the skimmers slow to a stop only a short distance beyond them, hover for a moment, and then turn back.

She swallowed with an effort, knowing they must have spotted their hiding place and be returning to check it out, hoping she was wrong. The skimmers hovered below them, all six men lifting their heads to study the cave where she and Kyle hid. Abruptly, Kyle planted his hand on the top of her head and shoved her down again as one of the men lifted his rifle and pointed it in their direction. Her breath left her in a grunt as he rolled over her almost simultaneously with the blast that hit the cave wall above their heads. Rhea stifled a scream as rocks and pebbles rained down around them, realizing belatedly what Kyle had instantly expected. Something heavy hit the hand he still covered her head with, hard enough to drive her chin painfully into the rock beneath her. She bit the side of her tongue and tasted blood. Kyle hissed in pain but kept his hand firmly planted on the top of her head until the rain of rocks finally petered out.

Another blast hit the rocks just to the left of them, bringing down another dangerous hail of rocks but, thankfully, it wasn’t above them as the first had been and most of the debris missed them. Kyle rolled off of her. “Get back.”

Rhea twisted to look at the yawning black hole behind them in dismay. She did NOT want to go inside. Aside from the possibility of living, crawling things, she didn’t want to take the chance of being sealed into the thing if they brought more rocks down.

Maybe just inside the opening?

Getting to her hands and knees, she peered down at the men instead of scrambling inside the cave. They’d parked the skimmers, she saw. She thought they might be discussing whether it was worth climbing up to examine the cave, but that was nothing but a guess. All of the men, she saw, were wearing PECs and communicating through their comm. units. If they hadn’t been, they were close enough she might have been able to hear them.

Glancing at Kyle, she discovered he was glaring at her for ignoring his order. She narrowed her eyes at him. He rolled his eyes. “Stubborn,” he muttered on a breath of sound.

Maybe, but she wasn’t stupid. She could barely see her hand in front of her face now. The cave was darker still, and they had no idea how deep it might be or if the hole dropped off into forever within feet of the opening. It didn’t look as if it did, not from the little she could see in the phosphorescent glow, but that didn’t mean it didn’t, to say nothing of the possibility of it becoming her tomb if they brought the rocks down. Then, too, even if she could shoot from there, she couldn’t see what she was shooting at. She wasn’t about to take the chance that she might accidentally hit Raathe.

Kyle surveyed the men advancing toward them and then twisted to look up at the rock wall above them. Apparently coming to a decision, he grabbed Rhea and dragged her back with him into the relative shelter of the cave entrance, pushing her flat up against one wall. “Stay there,” he growled. “You’ll make less of a target.”

Rhea nodded jerkily, but he’d already turned away. Taking up a similar position on the opposite side of the opening, he lifted his pistol, took aim, and fired off several shots in quick succession. Rhea jumped all over at the concussion of sound that bounced off the walls surrounding them. Jerking her own pistol up and aiming in the general vicinity of the men she’d seen moments before, she fired a single shot. A bolt of laser light streaked past her as she lifted up onto her toes to try to see what she’d shot, dragging a startled cry from her. A half dozen more blasts followed it in quick succession.

Kyle’s head whipped in her direction. “Are you hit?”

Rhea shook her head, unable to find her voice.

“Rhea?”

“I’m alright!”

He returned his attention to the attackers, firing several more rounds. Unnerved, Rhea nevertheless rose to her toes again before firing at the men she discovered had taken cover behind the skimmers. Two others lay sprawled face down across the stream below them, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking she’d hit either one. She didn’t hit the one she’d fired at either, but she hit the skimmer. The man leapt back. When he did, Kyle caught him full in the chest.

Three down. The other three had disappeared.

Kyle came to the same conclusion she did. The men had advanced beyond their range of sight, which meant they could be directly below them. She pushed away from the wall, intent on reaching the boulder they’d used for cover before. The moment she did, though, another laser blast shot past her, this one close enough the heat singed her cheek.

“God damn it!” Kyle roared. “Keep your fucking head down, Rhea!”

No problem. Her knees turned to water at the close call, dumping her on her ass. Kyle surged toward, searching her frantically for injury. “I’m not hurt,” she managed to say weakly.

“I feel like beating your ass!” he growled furiously.

Rhea swallowed a little sickly. “I love you, too.”

Stunned surprise wiped the fury from his face and left him looking almost comically slack jawed. “I’m still going to beat you ass,” he muttered, recovering and turning away as another hail of laser blasts reached their ears.

Rhea followed him much more slowly, still so weak with fright it took an effort even to crawl.

“Clear!”

A thrill of relief swept over Rhea at the sound of John’s voice below them. Scrambling up on shaky legs, she peered down at him. “John! You’re alright!” she said joyously, ignoring the bodies lying at his feet.

He stared up at her for a moment and finally shook his head, a slow grin curling his lips. Rhea grinned back at him like an idiot, too happy he was alright to allow room for any of the other emotions clamoring at the back of her mind. Her smile fell, though, as she straightened and turned to look Kyle.

There was accusation in his gaze, hurt, anger.

Rhea swallowed convulsively.

“That answers that question,” he muttered.

Anger surged through her. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve calling me stubborn, Kyle Justice!” she snapped angrily. “I meant what I said—to both of you!”

“You can’t be in love with both of us!” he said tightly.

“Why the hell not? Don’t tell me what I’m capable of, damn it!”

He looked taken aback for a moment before his anger surged back. “Gratitude isn’t love, Rhea, and it isn’t nearly enough—not for me and not for Raathe.”

Rhea felt her anger dissolve as she stared at him. “I made up my mind to kill Grimes and Cook because I believed they’d killed you and John. If it had been only for myself, I wouldn’t have had the resolve I needed to carry it through. Believe what you will, Kyle. I can’t change that any more than I can change the fact that I fell in love with both of you. If you’d been half the man you are—or he had been—I think I would’ve still fallen in love with you both. I’m as torn and miserable about it as you are, but I can’t change it.”

She looked away from him, unable to bear the pain she saw his eyes. “What if we had a child, Kyle? Would you share my love then? Or would my love still not be enough if it was shared with someone else?”

She heard him swallow and looked at him again.

“That’s different.”

“How? Tell me how it’s different.”

His expression hardened. “You know how.”

She gave him a look. “The sex. It isn’t my love you mind sharing, then. It’s my body. How am I to take that? How can I believe you love me if that’s the only thing that matters to you?”

He cursed under his breath. “I’m being shallow? It wouldn’t bother you if I had sex with another woman? If I told you there was another woman I loved as much as you and that I wanted you both, it wouldn’t bother you?”

Rhea absorbed that and the pain that went with it. “It would,” she said finally, “but people do it all the time—share—mostly women, granted, but there are plenty of polygamist arrangements, so I know it can work and I would try because I love you. We’re not dealing with what ifs here anyway. We don’t have a future. There won’t be any babies. There’s only here and now and the three of us. I want whatever happiness I can have while I have the chance of it. Don’t take that from me, Kyle. I need you.”

Chapter Twenty Two