Lie to Me (48 page)

“We should have this removed.” He traced the outline of the sigil with his tongue, while he thought about stripping her, bending her over the counter, and making her watch as he fucked her hard from behind.

Kella leaned her head to the side to give him all the canvas he wanted, and threaded their fingers together over the flat of her belly. “Why?”

He met her gaze in the mirror. “Neither of us requested it, and I’d rather have your heart. I know you’re my woman, that’s all the acknowledgement I require.”

“Stone, you in there?” James called from the bathroom door.

“Be out in a second.” Stone cupped her chin and slanted her head back so he could dip his head and catch her lips with his.

“The ancients wore rings as an outward symbol of their commitment.” She caught the back of his head with her hand and kept him close. “I wear the tattoo.”

He growled and kissed her, keeping his eyes open so he could watch her as he raided her mouth again. Stone couldn’t get enough of her. But that she wore his brand willingly...he couldn’t begin to understand why that affected him so profoundly.

“Stone.” A sharp rap on the door, followed by James saying, “We need Kella out here too. It’s an X-Ds matter.”

“Duty calls, Regent. You don’t get to fuck me right this moment.”

Surprised she’d guessed his dirty mind, he grinned. But she went the extra mile. He watched her reflection as she shoved her hand inside her pants.

“Too bad too, because I was ready for you.” She turned to face him as she slid her wet fingers across his lips.

“You’re a naughty tease.” He licked his lips and groaned at her exquisite flavor hitting his palate, and his cock jerked in his pants. “That makes me hungry for Kella-pussy.”

Her eyes widened, detailing her surprise, and then she laughed. She looped her fingers through his hair. “Later, pretty boy, you can dine until you’re sated.”

She gave him a platonic kiss before walking to the door. Stone was caught by the sway of her hips and stared at her sweet ass until she opened the door and exited.

“What’s up?” She asked after they joined Reaper and James in the living area.

James held up his cell. “There’s a Xeno being auctioned off in five hours in Quad6.”

“That’s not enough time to plot out a rescue mission.” Kella tied her hair into a loose knot, her tension palpable. “Why didn’t it come across the wire sooner?”

“Because of the X-Ds,” James said. “That’s what the message said. Didn’t want you to have time to strategize. Oh and in case you’re planning to hit them during her transfer to her permanent home, Quad6 is providing a troop of three dozen men as protection.”

“Shit.” Reaper paced a small path.

“We can’t just lose her, Reaper.” One thing he’d learned about his Kella over the last several weeks, she would never give up on a mission until all options were lost.

Her friend shook his head. “I’m thinking.”

“James and I’ll teleport in, and I’ll buy her.” Seemed simple enough to Stone. “They can’t stop me from setting her free after I own her.”

“Giving them money is adding insult to injury.” Her disgust over the idea was evident in the harsh lines of her mouth. “Salt to the wound.”

The fire in her eyes was sexy as hell. That emotion could be put to great use with his cock buried inside her cunt.

Stone shook the wayward thought aside. He had to focus. Now wasn’t the time to fantasize about his wet and willing wife. “If an innocent girl is saved, the money’s worth spending, and it’s a win-win in my book.”

Kella nodded, but he could tell she disliked the play. It was really their only choice.

“We need to leave immediately, Stone.” James pocketed his phone and gave Reaper a hard glare. His bodyguard still couldn’t bring himself to trust Reaper after his confession about Jones wanting Kella. If James’s glare hadn’t been warning enough, his tone emerged harsh and a bit like he accused the other man of bad intentions, “Keep our girl safe, Reaper.”

––––––––

“M
ack!”

Kella paused and waited for Tony to catch up to her. He was just a kid—okay so she was only four years older than him, but sometimes she felt like a good decade his senior. Last month he’d celebrated his eighteenth birthday, and his mom had passed away a year ago. All he had left were two little brothers, ages ten and thirteen. He’d been forced to grow up fast like most dregs. She and Reaper had put him up in the badlands, but he still went into the Quadrant to work the mines.

“How’s your foot?” She watched him limp toward her. Jones’s men had put a hurting on him a week ago, fracturing his ankle in two places because the kid hadn’t paid the unheard of employment tax. Luckily she’d had a boot in storage that she’d found on a dig, so he’d been able to get around wearing it.

“Getting better.” He glanced over his shoulder, looking about.

“Want to walk with me to Creed’s place?”

“Sure.” They fell into stride side by side. “Got a what-if question.”

He loved his ‘what-if questions’. Often they centered on mysteries of the universe or the ancients. She glanced at him and gave him the same response she always did. “I might have a ‘what-if answer’ for you.”

Tony swallowed hard enough his Adam’s apple bobbed. “If Regent Jones got your husband, and threatened to hurt him if you didn’t do something he wanted, would you believe he’d hurt him as he promised?”

That sounded way too specific for a ‘what-if’ scenario. “Are you in trouble, Tony?”

“Yeah.” He placed his hand on her arm, stopping her. “I don’t want to do this, but I can’t let Robert suffer.”

Kella realized they’d stopped at the most secluded section of the tunnel. “Tell me what’s going on, and I’ll help.”

“Sorry, Mack.” The aerosol hitting her face stunned her, but only for a moment. Dizziness disrupted her footing and she stumbled, hitting the wall. This was the worst situation to find herself in with Stone out of pocket, and no one the wiser who duped her since she was scheduled to meet Reaper and Creed in about five minutes. At least they would realize she was missing sooner rather than later.

Kella turned and lurched back toward the tunnel’s opening. Bouncing from wall to wall, she’d almost reached the passageway’s mouth when she felt Tony’s arm wrap around her waist. He pulled her up against him. “I’m so sorry, Mack, but Jones wants you or he’s going to start sending Robert home in pieces. He’s only ten. I can’t let that happen to him.”

“Reaper will kill you.” Reaper would tear the kid apart and make him wish he’d never been born.

Stone will blame himself
. Could he even endure her loss again? Because she had no doubt she wouldn’t survive whatever Jones plotted.

“I’m willing to pay the price.”

She elbowed him in the gut, gaining her freedom for a few seconds. Long enough to stagger forward and breach the opening. If only she could get a surer footing, but she felt so weak, and her limbs tingled like they were going numb.

Tony blocked her path. The regret on his face was evident, and she understood the kid’s position. Guessed if she felt like her back was to the wall, she’d make the same choice to save her loved one.

“We can find an alternate path.” Blackness narrowed her vision, her tongue felt too big, and her words sounded slurred.

“Not enough time.” He glanced over his shoulder and lifted the can to hover directly over her face.

Kella opened her mouth to scream, but the spray hit her first. She choked on the mist, but went to her knees catching her fall with hands she couldn’t feel. She looked up. “Don’t—”

––––––––

“M
ack’s missing.” Reaper’s abrupt sentence shot fear straight through Stone. Didn’t help that he could hear the other man’s worry through the receiver.

“What do you mean she’s missing?” Stone glanced at James, ignoring his newly acquired Xeno.

“She was supposed to meet me and Creed to discuss our options against Jones. She never showed. No one has seen her. I can’t find her. She wasn’t answering her cell, so Dutch GPS’d it and we located it in a tunnel. She wouldn’t just disappear like this.”

Stone needed no convincing. His gut churned. She was in danger. He could
feel
it. “We’ll be there in a few moments. Meet us in Kella’s chambers.”

He had no need to explain to James what was happening. The second he disconnected the call, his bodyguard spoke into his cell, “Initiate teleport.”

A brief buzzing and they arrived a few seconds later in Kella’s bedroom. The Xeno crumpled onto the floor, gagging. Ignoring her, Stone grabbed his computer, and yanked open Kella’s bedroom door as Reaper, Creed, and Dutch entered the living area. He set his laptop on the counter, grazed the button behind his ear, and logged into his website.

“You’re awfully calm.” Dutch eyed him with distrust.

I don’t feel calm.
Inside he was screaming at the injustice of losing her again, while praying they located her in time.

He pointed at the screen. “I GPS’d Kella during our first meeting when I thought she was just Mack.”

Dutch’s eyes widened. “I could kiss you for that ingenuity.”

Reaper neared and peered over Dutch’s shoulder to get a better view. “Regent or no Regent, any other time, I’d beat the shit out of you for tagging her, but I’m glad you did.”

“That’s her location.” Stone pointed at the red dot. “Show me a ground-terrain visual and find out who the fuck I gotta kill to save her.”

They watched in silence as Dutch worked her magic. In a few minutes Kella’s location was pinpointed to a facility beneath the west-wing of Jones’s Regency. The webmistress hacked into the Regency video feed and discovered a dozen guards outside the room where Kella was imprisoned, all the men heavily armed.

“I know the location.” Reaper grimaced. “It’s where he takes all his victims. It’s severely guarded with one entry, laser defenses, and cyanide mists at the door if anyone attempts to breach it without Jones’s permission.”

“That eliminates a frontal assault.” James rubbed his nape, a classic sign his assassination training was in full force.

“It’s impenetrable.” Reaper began to pace a short path in front of the sofa, panic edging into his eyes.

“
Nothing
is impenetrable for an assassin. I just need a moment to think of something where Jones won’t kill her faster.” Stone’s heart raced at James’s declaration.

Reaper nodded his agreement, his grim expression frightening Stone further.

James checked his gun clip and jabbed it back into the gun’s base. “The way I figure it, the only way in is through teleport.”

They’d attempted to teleport Jones a week ago and couldn’t get a lock on his DNA. Frustrated because they couldn’t utilize one of their first strategies and relocate the sadistic leader to them, they’d gone back to the drawing board and contemplated other ways to get to the other Regent.

“You ever teleport?” James stared at Reaper, and Kella’s friend shook his head. “Reaper’s out because he doesn’t know how a teleport will affect him. You’re too emotional, Stone, and will get yourself killed...get Kella dead too. I’m the best shot.”

James left out that his body was classified as a lethal weapon.

“Teleports don’t bother me,” Creed said. “Stone, Reaper, and the other X-Ds need to create a diversion
after
we get inside that room. Can’t have Jones calling for help and getting it.”

James nodded. “They teleport to a secure location ten minutes before us. Can you find a safe site through one of the surveillance cameras you hacked, Dutch?”

“Already killed all the surveillance and have it on a loop. The guards’ll never see them coming from the front.” A few keystrokes. “Lasers are down. I’m working on the cyanide.”

“Impressive.” James pulled a case from beneath the sofa. “Send them in ten minutes before us. That should give them enough time to recuperate after the transport...and if that’s not enough time for the men going with you, Stone, Reaper, then you’re on your own. You’ll have to figure it out.” James flipped open the case, and Creed whistled low at the display of weaponry. “You need firearms, Creed?”

“We have the drone.” Stone’s brain was finally catching up to the mission. “Dutch, can you operate it?”

“Fuck, yeah.” She rubbed her hands together. “What type of drone am I working with? Twenty-first century or twenty-second century?”

“Late twenty-second, right before the collapse of the ancients.” Stone took a grenade out of James’s case.

“Sweet. Creed, I’m hacking into your satellite too.” Dutch took Stone’s laptop to the breakfast bar. Creed acknowledged her with a grunt. “What type of damage can I do in your Regency database, Regent Emmerson?”

“Don’t care as long as Kella comes home safe.” And Stone meant that.
Kella is
all
that matters.
“Bring my wife back safe, James.”

James caught him on the shoulder. “I’d die to protect her.”

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S
omething stiff scratched at Kella’s neck. Had to be Retro seeking warmth. Nothing else made sense. She lifted a hand to push the kippy off her throat and encountered a strip, at least two inches thick, encircling her neck, and too tight to work a finger beneath.

Eyes snapping open, she blinked at the glaring light. Squinting, she shadowed her eyes with a hand used as a visor against her brows. Along with the movement, a new scrape surfaced. She lowered her arm to peep at the manacle. A two-inch band of electronic-steel cuffed her wrist.

Kella sat up, the concrete floor unyielding beneath her. The fetters on both wrists and ankles sent an icy chill through her. She feared the one around her throat was the same electronic-steel. The ancients used E-steel bands to torture terrorist suspects. They could do any number of things from electrocution to strangulation. She’d heard rumors that seizures and strokes could be enacted with the device. That was just the beginning of its capabilities.

“Finally, you’re awake. I feared Tony had given you too much mist and you’d die.” Jones sat in a chair across from her. The stainless steel walls and concrete floor spooked her. What really fucked with her mind though was the drain in the center of the room. She knew exactly what that was used for...clean up.