Microsoft Word - RecklessBounty (23 page)

“
You have to go
,” she urged. Her voice dropped to the barest of whispers.

He leaned against the mattress, and it took all of her willpower to keep herself from tearing his clothes off his body. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she shivered. The temperature in the room dropped dramatically when his warmth had abandoned her. She was
freezing!

She would have to find something to put on. She followed him to the door. Before he could activate the doors sensors, she reached out for him.

“
Be safe,
” she murmured, kissing him one last time.

“Me? I’m more worried about you. You’re the one that will be doing all of the work.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ve got a good crew, don’t you know. I’m also living a fairly charmed life. Don’t fret about me. You just count the hours until we’re back in each other’s arms.”

“What else is there to do?” A smile broke across his face. Her heart fluttered. She was happy to say that Tyler belonged to her.

Always.

She watched with a heavy heart as he slipped out into the dimmed hallway. She hoped that he would make it back to his room without ever having his absence discovered.

Samantha moved over to her luggage, and pulled out a pair of slinky pajamas. Once she had them on, she curled back underneath the covers sighed, and drifted off to sleep once again.

She felt herself drifting toward consciousness when she felt something hot and wet lick at her face. She brushed her hand up against it, wrinkling her nose at the smell of foul breath. Still believing that she was dreaming, she tried to push the offensive creature away from her. She hated it when her sister allowed her pet to come into the bedroom. “Stop it, Ned,” Samantha murmured, frowning. Ned was a little
too
giving with his slobbery kisses.

Her eyes flew open in horror as realization struck her.

Ned the foundling pup that Johanna had rescued when they were children had died on
Earth
FOUR years ago. She screamed. At that precise moment her eyes connected with two RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 95

black eyes. The shaggy dog tried licking her face again but jerked back when she jolted upright.

She stared around at her unfamiliar surroundings. Then when she saw the gaudily flashing lights above her, she finally understood what had happened to her.

Either she was still dreaming, or someone had purposefully put her down in one of the seediest areas of
New Monaco
, with devious thoughts in their mind. This part of the planet didn’t look like any fairy tale.

She looked down at herself and dismay rang through her. She quickly realized that not only was she by herself in unfamiliar surroundings, but she was also scantily clad. What made things even worse was that she had none of the weapons that she relied upon so heavily. She was royally screwed. No communicator, no shoes, and no one to trust.

The shaggy dog had an aura of familiarity to him. In her half-asleep state, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. But he was different. Special even. Weird. But then everything about her and around her always seemed to have an element of weird to it.

“
Just freaking terrific!!!
” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet. She sniffed at the air.

She’d landed in a heap of garbage. She picked a fishbone off of her stomach and threw it back onto the ground. Her stomach rolled. She didn’t want to think about the other stuff crawling around in the garbage heap.

The cold pavement was under her bare feet and she grimaced as she considered her unusual predicament. She’d
kill
the person that had put her down here. As soon as she was done with them they would be begging for mercy. This was some really sick and twisted joke. One name came to mind.
Devlin
. He had to be responsible for this.

Rage boiled through her as she imagined how her wrath would affect the person that had perpetrated such an unthinkable strike against her. If it had been Devlin, he’d just used up all of his get out of jail free cards.
Bastard
. How could he do something like this to her? He was taking spite to a whole new level!

“
UNBELIEVABLE!
” Samantha fumed. The cool pavement was quickly turning hot under her bare feet. As the two suns rose higher in the sky, the heat would only get worse. Of course, they were small suns…so she wouldn’t be cooked…but still…it would be HOT. It was
New
Monaco’s
springtime. But as the hours passed, the pavement would get quite steamy. If someone had decided to put her down here on purpose they could’ve at least had the decency to provide her with the proper footwear.

At her loud exclamation a few ruffians at the end of the alley stared at her hungrily. “Oh, just give me a frigging break! I so don’t need this.” They were looking at her and licking their lips. She knew what they had in mind. And there wasn’t a hope in hell of them ever getting it.

She had two options, she could run or she could stand her ground and make all of them rue the day that they were born. ‘Course she never ran away from any situation, and she was usually the one that did the chasing.

“Hey, Arnold, let’s say we have some fun with the young filly,” one grizzly looking man said, teetering from side to side. It was way too early in the morning for her to be dealing with this. Yep, she’d throttle Devlin when she could find him.

The dog beside her let out a ferocious growl and if she had been able she would’ve echoed that growl.

Instead she braced herself, and glanced up, wincing. She was nearly blinded by the early morning sunlight that streaked across the sky. There were three smelly bastards and one of them was slinking toward her. She was as sober as a baby, while they were as drunk as skunks. Come to think of it, they smelled like skunks as well, unless that was her wonderful scent she was RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 96

inhaling. Being dumped in a garbage heap wasn’t something she ever wanted to experience again.

One of them moved forward and she quickly grabbed his wrist in a joint lock when he tried moving to touch her.

“Haven’t you ever heard the old saying…you can look…but don’t touch? You stupid bastard!”

She wrenched it, and pulled it behind his back. She heard something in it give way and snap, and he howled with anger. His two other cohorts seemed ticked off by this and they pulled out their phase pistols.

“You just messed with the wrong people, bitch. You’re going to pay for that…in a big way.”

Samantha still held him at the ready as the mangy dog chomped down on one of the other man’s ankles. He screamed out in agony dropping his phase pistol. He moved in to attack the dog, which distracted him nicely.

“Nice doggie. I knew you and I would be great pals. Go and take another bite…he deserves everything you can give him.”

Samantha pulled the man that she was holding and used him as a human shield, just as the third man discharged his phase pistol. The first man, dropped like a sack of potatoes in front of her and in a flurry of movements that even surprised her, she had whipped out of the alley, dodging gunfire all the while. She heard the dog growling behind her. He let out three loud barks. She couldn’t be certain if he followed her…but she’d welcome him into the fold if he did.

Her breath came in short gasps. Her bare feet thudded against the hot pavement. She ran out into the middle of a busy street, teeming with people and nearly collided with a few of them.

Hover cars whined above her. She stared up and frantically attempted to decide her next course of action. Yesterday had been absolute hell and she decided fairly quickly that today didn’t look so shit hot either.

* * * *

Samantha dashed madly through the crowd of people. Gunfire rang out behind her.

Cripes, did the idiots ever give in?
Her thoughts were all over the place. She ducked as another shot rang out past her, hitting a store window. She bit her lip and glanced behind her. The dog had pursued her. He came up behind her and fell into step beside her.

Her bare feet were getting quite sore, and she really wanted to kick the jerks in their collective asses, though she knew when she’d been beat. She couldn’t go up against a phase pistol. They would eventually hit her, even if they were poor shots. They’d won the first round, but she’d be damned if they’d win the second round.

She wanted to twine her hands around the Red Falcon’s neck, and watch his sapphire eyes bulge right out of his head. She suspected he’d been responsible for this, even though she didn’t even want to contemplate it. Who else could have thought to do such a horrendous thing to her? Devlin was an obvious suspect, but she still didn’t know how he’d manage to gain access to
The Emerald Star’s
transporter system. But he was still on her list right under The Red Falcon.

Someone wanted her to
die
. So they’d put her down in the middle of hell central, in her pajamas, knowing that she was vulnerable and therefore didn’t stand a chance against anyone that might wish to attack her. But they didn’t know about her special talents and if she was pushed much further, she was going to unleash them and say to hell with the possible consequences. Using her abilities out in the open would put her at risk of being hunted by RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 97

psychic bounty hunters and she didn’t have the training that Charlotte did to avoid them. That’s why she had to keep her abilities a secret. Only her family could be trusted to not give her away to those that could exploit her.

But she wouldn’t give up. Even though she was in the middle of a horrible area of town, she would get through it. Then she’d find the nearest communicator and ask her sister to come and get her. Only, one problem remained. She had
no
money.

“What do you think, bud?” She glanced down at him, and patted his head. He tilted his head to the side. Then, his eyes gravitated to something ahead of he, but she couldn’t see what he had seen. The crowd was too thick. He barked, nudged her side, and in a flash, he was gone.

“Wait! Oh just great,” she grumbled. Her only companion had just left her in the lurch.

With her recklessness and ability to take on anything, she’d survive this hellish morning.

She was quickly living her worst nightmare and a burning stitch nagged at her side. She nearly slammed into a man that seemed to be a wrestler and muttered an apology. He merely grunted to her in reply.

Casinos and brothels lined the strip and her eyes filled to bursting with all of the wanted men and women that she recognized. She’d have a heyday searching down bounties if she didn’t have other things on her mind.

Now, she most certainly had to add Lord Devlin’s name to her list of being killed.

Perhaps, she’d even strangle the life out of him, before she treated the Red Falcon to the same thing. Of course, she knew that in a pinch, she wouldn’t kill Devlin…she couldn’t, but it was nice to fantasize about at the moment!

Lord Devlin was probably just gunning for Tyler’s ass because Tyler had made the mistake of marrying her. She’d played a hand in Lord Devlin losing someone he loved, and now he was bound and determined to take Tyler away from her. She snorted, considering the possibility that Lord Devlin hadn’t even loved his wife and had simply used Lady Devlin as a means to an end.

She’d always known Lord Devlin wanted her to pay for what she’d done to him in the past. She’d broken his heart and he still hurt. But she had never known that he would seek retribution by wanting to eliminate the man she loved. Lord Devlin let other bounties walk around his streets seemingly unbothered and yet he seemed hell bent on taking Tyler down.

Maybe he had been the one that had actually
set up
Tyler. He had the means and the motive. From what the Red Falcon had relayed to her, Lord Devlin and Lady Devlin hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms. Even though she knew Lord Devlin was ruthless she also knew he was a great many things--but a fool he was not. The man had a cunning intellect. All of the lights were on in his head…and someone was always home.

He had probably discovered his wife’s constant infidelities and had realized that perhaps her behavior would stain his untarnished image as a respectable crime lord and undisputed ruler of
New Monaco
.

Lord Devlin almost certainly reasoned that her death would ease his troubles a great deal, and implicating Tyler in her murder would work out perfectly. Essentially, he would’ve killed two birds with one stone.

But then her theory was blown all to hell when a phase pistol was tossed in her direction.

She quickly caught it, not knowing where it had come from. Narrowing her eyes, she let out a dangerous laugh. The three men that pursued her stopped dead in their tracks. They almost looked frightened.

“
Hello Boys!
” she smirked. “It’s payback time, I think!”

RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 98

They stared at her in stunned surprise, and then fired at her. She lunged behind a hover car, and then peeked her head up. She was a crack and quick shot and rarely missed even when she was drop dead tired. She hit two of them straightaway. Then she tried taking down the last one but couldn’t seem to get a good lock on him.

“Would you just stand in one spot,
asshole?
”

She felt as if she were playing dodge ball. She sighed, and waited for a few moments before she finally dropped the other one as well.

“Phew, just made it!” she breathed, looking down at the pistol that no longer had any charge left on it.

Well, perhaps she’d been a bit sloppy. But that could only be accounted to her lack of sleep. She turned around expecting to see her sister smiling back at her and her jaw dropped, when she realized who had assisted her out of her rather life threatening situation.