He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t surprised to discover she shared a link with his sister too. “What do you suggest? You come up with something we can do from here and I’ll do it.” All the icy rage Alex felt at his helplessness filled his words.
He watched her recoil at his tone before she regrouped. “Can’t the ship go any faster?”
“No. If it could, I would have given the order days ago. We’re at maximum sustainable speed and have been from launch.”
Terror shot through him and it took all of Alex’s training not to react. Stacey gasped. He knew in his soul they felt what Ravyn felt and right now she was scared out of her mind. His hands tightened into fists, the only outward sign of the impotent fury raging through him. He’d kill to keep his sister safe and here he sat, days away from J Nine, unable to do anything but wait.
Part of the frustration involved not knowing what frightened her. Ravyn didn’t jump at shadows, but he knew spiders made her scream. It could be that simple or as terrible as running for her life. But even as worried as he was, he also felt relief. This was the first sign he’d had that she was still alive.
The intensity decreased and Alex took a deep breath. Uneasiness remained, wariness, but the terror had abated.
“What do you think is happening?” Stacey asked.
He almost snapped at her. Did she think he had a crystal ball he could gaze into and come up with the answer? Alex reined in his temper. This was the friendliest Stacey had been with him since the showdown in his cabin and he didn’t want her to put her back up again. Just because he was scared and wanted to lash out, didn’t mean he had to do it.
“I don’t know,” he said, fighting to keep his voice neutral.
They stood there without saying anything as the apprehension ebbed until it became little more than a suggestion, something he could easily have written off if he didn’t have a history of sensing when Ravyn was in trouble. He monitored the feeling, keeping close tabs on it. When it changed to a nervousness, his brow furrowed with confusion. What was going on?
Stacey sucked in her breath at the next emotional surge. Her eyes met his and she looked as baffled as he felt. “It feels like joy.” Her voice held a trace of question.
“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “To me too.”
Then, without warning, the link was severed. Alex wanted to punch something. Illogical though it may have been, he wanted to maintain the tie, hold on to it so he could reassure himself when he needed to. The swiftness with which he’d lost contact alarmed him. Time stood still for one endless moment as he tried to assimilate the experience.
“I guess I’ll go back to lunch,” Stacey said, breaking the spell.
“Wait.” He wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
She paused, clearly eager to leave. “Yes?” she asked, with the cold formality Alex had grown accustomed to.
He had no real reason for stopping her other than an uncomfortable need to win back her regard. He searched for something to say and grasped at the first thought that came. “Has that ever occurred before between you and Ravyn?”
“No. Why do you suppose it happened now?”
Alex relaxed a bit. He’d engaged Stacey’s interest. She still spoke to him with a politeness that rankled, but at least she wasn’t running off. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything this strong from her before.”
“Something could have changed Ravyn, allowing her to broadcast to us.”
“Or maybe she’s never been this scared before.”
Stacey shrugged one shoulder. “Another possibility,” she said coolly and turned to leave once more.
Alex knew he should let her go. It was no secret she didn’t want to spend more time with him than she had to. He should be grateful she was professional enough to continue the training. It would have been easier on her if he’d arranged for one of the other men to take over the sessions, but he didn’t like the idea of anyone else touching her. So he tortured them both. It felt wrong for them to be at odds. An ache had developed within his chest an ache he couldn’t rid himself of and it had everything to do with the distance between them. His weakness bothered him, but Alex hadn’t found a way to overcome it.
“Maybe we’re the ones who changed and let Ravyn connect to us,” he said, his words sounding nonchalant despite his turmoil.
He heard her take a deep breath before she turned around and walked to him. “What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?” He tucked both hands into his back pockets to keep himself from reaching for her and hanging on until she would take him anyway she could get him. Once hadn’t been enough. Or maybe it had been too much.
“We could speculate all day about why we suddenly have such an intense connection to Ravyn without reaching any conclusions. That’s not your style. So why are you keeping me here?”
“I want us to be friends,” Alex said.
Stacey laughed. It sounded bitter, not amused. “Too late,” she told him. “Do you really think I’m so pathetically eager for your attention that I’ll forget your behavior and be friends?”
He cleared his throat and said, “That isn’t how I would put it. For the good of the mission, we need to get along.”
“Good of the mission. Ha! You just want more sex.”
She jabbed her finger into his chest and he captured her hand, pressing it flat against his body. “You have to admit,” he said, voice deepening, “it was damn good between us.”
It had been damn good, but Alex realized he should have kept his mouth shut. Stacey’s toe found his shin with enough force to make him wince. He’d probably end up with a bruise.
“Just because I came, doesn’t mean it was that good. My high school boyfriend lasted longer than you did.” After shooting him one last derisive sneer, Stacey stalked out.
It was perverse, but Alex found himself grinning. He’d made some progress. Miss Manners had been replaced by a fiery-eyed hellion. Oh, yeah, things were definitely looking up.
*** *** ***
Damon concentrated on the target in front of him, trying to tune out everything else. He’d discovered manipulating Jarved Nine’s energy, using it as a weapon, required total focus. The slightest waver in his attention and the energy would seep harmlessly back into the planet.
He imagined a line from his body to the target and sent the energy hurtling down it. Bull’s-eye! Ravyn cheered and he allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction, even though he knew better. If it turned out they had to defend themselves this way, he and Ravyn would be in a world of trouble.
Ravyn sobered and looked at him. She tilted her head as she studied him, a dark curtain of hair falling over her shoulder. His thoughts derailed as he remembered the feel of her hair sliding over his body, of it fanned out on the pillow as he lost himself in her. Damon watched her eyes darken.
It didn’t surprise him that Ravyn picked up on his less than enthusiastic response to their energy practice or his mental detour into what they’d done this morning in bed. He’d nearly gotten used to their heightened connection in the two days since she’d let him inside her walls. It may not have been telepathic, but the empathic bond between them was so strong there were times it did feel like mind reading. It still scared Ravyn when it occurred, but she didn’t try to close him out any longer.
“Why the mild response?” she asked. “You hit the target dead on.”
Damon crossed his arms over his chest. She knew so much about military practices he sometimes forgot she didn’t know everything. “From the time you drew the energy until I shot at the target took too long. More than three minutes.”
“We’re still learning. Your first couple of days using a gun at the firing range, you couldn’t have been very fast. The speed came with time. Two days ago I couldn’t even pass the energy without losing my hold on it and you couldn’t hang on to it long enough to use it. We’ve made excellent progress.”
Damon shrugged. “You’ve got a point,” he conceded.
Ravyn crossed her arms over her own chest, mimicking his stance. “Why the rush? Why are you feeling uneasy?”
“I don’t know.”
She narrowed her eyes.
His lips twitched as he suppressed a smile. He couldn’t get away with anything. “Time is running out. It’s like we’re on a collision course with destiny or something.” Damon shrugged again, uncomfortable with what he said. Gut instinct was one thing, but this strong sense of presentiment was something else altogether. He didn’t like it.
Ravyn wrapped her arms around his waist and he returned the embrace, hanging on to her more tightly than necessary. He reached for her with the essence of who he was. She met him halfway and their spirits intermingled effortlessly. Serenity filled him. Three weeks ago he hadn’t known she existed and now he couldn’t imagine a day without her. Losing Ravyn would destroy him and the killer remained near, remained a threat.
Her fingers splayed in his hair, gently rubbing his scalp. Damon knew she’d picked up on his disquiet and tried to soothe him, but he couldn’t relax until he had Ravyn safe. He pressed his mouth against her throat and took solace from the pulse he could feel beneath his lips. Proof that she lived, that it wasn’t too late. Not yet.
“It won’t be like last time,” she murmured against his ear.
He didn’t know if she referred to the last time someone faced the murderer or the last time he had been responsible for another life, but it didn’t matter. This connection allowed him to feel how deeply she believed in him. It was humbling.
Suddenly, without warning, Ravyn’s knees sagged and she gasped as she gripped him firmly. It took him a split second longer to feel the strong emotions that buffeted her. Anger. Unreasoning, barely controlled fury. He didn’t have time to identify the rest of the jumble slashing at her.
“Damon!”
“I got you. Help me get the wall up,” he told her. Caught in the backlash, Ravyn couldn’t do it. She threw her head back and he could feel the echo of her pain. He had always done the support work for the wall, but this time he had to take the lead. Once he had it visualized, the maelstrom she was trapped in eased until she could focus with him.
He sank to the ground and cuddled her on his lap. Damon wiped the perspiration from her forehead and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. Another mistake. He’d made another mistake in trying to protect someone. They didn’t bother guarding themselves in the center of the city, believing the killer’s reach didn’t extend so far. From now on they would keep the barricade up all the time, no matter how tiring it became.
Ravyn’s breathing remained ragged and he stroked her back, quietly waiting for her to relax before he asked some questions. He used the connection between them to send her tranquility and to try to heal any lingering discomfort. It seemed to take a long time before the tension eased out of her muscles and she sank against his chest, letting him take her full weight.
“Are you okay?” Damon asked, his voice nearly soundless.
“Yeah,” Ravyn said, drawing in a shaky breath.
“What happened?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I know we’ve felt the killer every morning when we head to the edge of the city to deploy the beacon. His anger batters against us, but this was different. This rage penetrated everything.”
“From now on we’re keeping our defenses in place.”
Ravyn pushed herself up so she could look him in the eye. “Damon, I had the wall up. It’s always there. The fury pierced it, disintegrated it.”
He frowned. “I didn’t feel any wall.”
She shifted, cupped his face with her hands and smiled at him. “That’s because I keep you inside with me and you don’t think about it except when we leave the center of the Old City.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Damon said slowly. “If he could bore in this deeply, why wait until now? Why not do it as soon as he realized we were in here? Or the first day we deployed the beacon and escaped him?”
“Nothing about this killer makes sense,” Ravyn said, skating her hands down his cheeks and over his shoulders. “Why did he wait eight months before attacking? Why did he wait so long when the settlers of the Old City began building?”
Damon kneaded the tautness in her neck. “It’s a big planet and there’s no indication he has any kind of transportation. If he moves around, doesn’t stay in this area, it might have taken him eight months to discover the arrival of the CAT team.”
Ravyn considered what he said and then nodded, her expression thoughtful as she stood. She held out a hand to help him to his feet and he took it, curbing the desire to pull her into his arms. This incident left him even more positive that despite all his plans, fate had something else in mind. Something was rushing toward them head on.
“Then we’ll practice, honey,” Ravyn said, enfolding him in her love. “We’ll keep practicing until we’re as fast as you think we need to be.”
Damon smiled grimly. Maybe there was a drawback to this closeness after all. If he couldn’t keep anything a secret, how could he slip away to hunt the killer without her?
*** *** ***
The mood of the Jarved Nine rescue team had descended somewhere south of grim. Stacey pushed her damp hair off her forehead and tried to keep her mind on her job. Not an easy endeavor since she didn’t have much to do. She’d put aside her animosity toward Alex. Not that she’d forgiven him or forgotten what he’d done, but neither of them could afford to be distracted as they dealt with this unknown threat.
Her excitement at landing on an alien planet had been short-lived. J Nine looked so ordinary. No purple moss or lime green sky or anything else that screamed, “I’m off world.” Never mind that she’d studied the images sent back or that she’d known the Western Alliance favored the most Earth-like planets for possible colonization, it had still been disappointing.
Sweat rolled between her breasts and dampened her hair, but inside she felt icy. She hadn’t seen the bodies, didn’t want to see them. These weren’t strangers who’d died, and right now she was functioning by pretending it hadn’t happened. She’d known something had to be seriously wrong on the planet. Her heart, however, had continued to hold out hope. Maybe that’s why she’d been stunned by what they’d discovered inside the CAT facility.