“Anything but horse.”
I enter the codes for her favorite lunch and hand it to her. “Careful. It’s hot.”
Then I get her some water. She drinks and drinks. I immediately turn back to get her some more.
“Thank you. I was parched.”
“Yes, but it’s good you’re drinking.”
Then she exclaims, “What happened to your arms, Verus?”
“Mosquitos.”
“They did that? You must be especially sensitive to them.”
“Evidently so.”
“It looks like you have the chicken pox. Do you have those marks anywhere else? Take off your shirt.”
He does and his chest and abdomen are fine.
“I swear I’ve never seen mosquito bites that bad.”
“It must be the tropics or that I was outside a lot.”
“Or maybe you’re overly sensitive to them. But we need bug spray.”
“Bug spray?” I ask.
“Yeah, it keeps the bugs off you.”
I laugh, because that’s such an ancient form of repellent. “Oh, Verus set MSI’s on the perimeter of the property so they won’t let any mosquitoes, or other pests for that matter, get through.”
“I hope it works. I don’t want to itch with those things. Those are extreme,” I motion to Verus’ arms.
“They’ll work. Much better than your spray. Now please eat. It’s been a while since your last meal.”
She turns her attention back to her food and eats with a contented look. As I observe her, a warmth fans over me as that beating thing in my chest expands to the size of a giant mountain. She makes me feel again. She’s brought back depth to my life and as I scrutinize her, a fierce protectiveness comes over me, letting me know that there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I want her to be happy, satisfied, loved, cherished, all the things she never was before. As it smacks into me, I know I must tell her. She needs to know how I feel.
Her strawberry scent drifts over to me and I clench my chair to prevent me from crawling across the table and grabbing her. Watching her mouth is driving me insane, so I squeeze my lids shut, hoping to get the sight out of my mind. But when I do, images of her naked and me fucking her take its place. Sweat beads on my forehead and I wipe it away with the back of my hand.
“Sabin? You okay? You don’t look well,” Rafe notices.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Think I’ll go to my quarters for a spell.” I practically tear up the chair in my haste to get out of there. I can’t possibly keep this up. I have to quit running from my feelings and tell her what’s in my heart, but what if she wants no part of me? What will I do then? I’m not sure I could deal with the heartbreak of her not wanting me. And here I keep thinking she’s fragile. Maybe I’m the fragile one after all.
My face must be a thousand degrees and I’m surprised the water doesn’t sizzle when I splash it on me. The reflection in the mirror mocks me, telling me I don’t have the fucking balls to tell her. I’m not sure if I do. All my relationships have been disastrous, but this is one that would ruin me forever if she runs. The ache in my hands draws my attention and when I see my white knuckled grip on the edge of the sink, I release my hold on it.
Bloody hell, get a hold of yourself, Sabin.
The squeaking of the door tells me I’m not alone. I wish someone would tell me what to do.
“Sabin?” Her voice calls me from the other side of the bathroom door.
Stop being the chicken shit that you are and face her. I open the door and she stands there, worry lines creasing her forehead.
“Are you sick? Is your stomach bothering you?”
“What? No! I’m fine.”
“Oh. The way you ran off, I thought …”
“No. It’s not my stomach. At least not in the way you think. Serena, I … there’s something we need to discuss.”
“What is it?”
We can’t have this conversation standing outside the bathroom door. “Let’s sit.” I offer her my hand and she sits. I pull up a chair so I can face her. Her eager eyes are soft and waiting. My undoing is when she reaches out and pushes my hair off my forehead.
“Serena, I find that I am, uh …” and I stop. The words get trapped in my chest and I panic. Air empties out of my lungs and they feel like they’ve been punctured again.
“Yes? What is it? Is something wrong?”
Glancing at the wall, I call myself a hundred names, none of which are good. Why does this woman bring me to my knees and turn me into a spineless sack of balls?
Then her hand slips around my neck and her soft voice comes to me from a million miles away. “You can tell me anything, Sabin. You can trust me.”
I face her, head on, and spill it. “I’m in love with you. My heart is so twisted around you, I don’t know if I’m up or down. You have stripped me bare, taken me apart bit by bit, and I don’t think you have any idea what you’ve done. And as much as I’ve tried to avoid this, to avoid you, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t deny this because it’s tearing me apart.
You’re
tearing me apart. I’ve lied to myself, told myself it wasn’t so, that it was only lust, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve never felt this way before. I’m helpless, Serena.” My voice cracks at the end. And I won’t wait to hear her rejection, so I stand and walk to the door. But before I can get there, she stops me.
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re leaving.”
It’s not a question.
“I …”
“You’re not going to stay to hear what I have to say? You don’t want to know that I feel the exact same way?”
“Well, I …”
“And that I’m in love with you, too?”
“You love …” her words penetrate my brain and replay over and over.
“Yes. You heard me correctly. And there’s something else. You’re tearing me apart too, because you’re so damn mercurial. I can’t get a fix on your moods. One minute you’re sweet and then next, you’re Mr. McGrumps. I can never figure you out and for the life of me I want to smack you on some days when you’re like that, but god knows I love you, too, Sabin. Now will you at least turn around and come back here? I need to be held for a minute.”
“Can you repeat all of that, please?”
“Not until you come here.”
Turning, I stalk over to where she sits. She boldly faces me, the corners of her mouth curving up. The chair I sat in is in the way so I kick it away with my boot. I fall to my knees, part her thighs, and sandwich myself in between them. Placing my hands on her legs, I lean in and ask, “Now will you repeat that, please?”
“Gladly.” She inches right up to my face, her lips almost but not quite touching mine, and says, “I love you too, Sabin, even though I’d like to smack you some days. You are as mercurial as anything I’ve ever known, and being with you is like riding a damn roller coaster, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You got all of that?”
Trying my best not to laugh, I say, “Yeah, I got all of that. Are you ever going to kiss me?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What you plan on doing
after
that kiss,” she says.
“Greedy, are you?”
“Not exactly. It’s more like I’m a horn dog.”
Not able to keep the smirk off my face, I let it go and she offers me one to match it. “You are incorrigible, Ms. Callahan.”
“Me? You’re the one, Sabin.”
I can’t deny it, but right now I’m in the mood for something else and I plan to show her right now.
~~~~~
A week later, Edge tells me he got a hit on his MSI explorer.
“The Mastermind doesn’t exactly have Judgment Day.”
“Can you explain that?” I ask.
“It’s not in his possession, but he knows where it is and he has an army of Shaurok guarding it. With that, he believes it to be safe.”
“Where the fuck is it, Edge?” My teeth are clenched and I grit out each word.
Edge’s nonchalance over the thing is about to make me drive my fist into his face. “Not too far from here. It’s only in the next solar system.”
After I count to ten, I ask, “Edge, if you don’t tell me precisely where in the next three seconds …”
“It is in the Andromeda galaxy on an unnamed planet.”
By now I want to rip my hair out. “Can you be a bit more specific?”
“It is not far, Sabin.”
“Is it habitable?”
“For the Shaurok, anything is habitable. For us, no. We would have to be suited up. The air is not breathable and the temperature is too high. They are approximately …”
“Are you going to tell me how close they are to their sun?”
Edge’s eyes light up. “Yes.”
“I don’t care. All I need to know is how many men we need and what protection we need.”
“Full gear. And as many men as we can spare.”
“What are the odds, Edge?”
“Good. We can get this, Sabin. We go transparent and they won’t know what hit them.”
We’ll need all of The Seven. I can’t leave Serena here unguarded. Drey will have to come, which means he’ll have to bring several of the newbies with him. This does not have a good feel to me.
“Does Rafe know yet?”
“No one knows.”
“Call a meeting for fifteen minutes from now.”
I wait for the men in our makeshift conference room. My thoughts ricochet all over the place, but mostly they land on Serena’s safety.
The Seven join me, and I have Edge explain the situation. I assess them as Edge speaks. It’s apparent they aren’t happy with the news.
“Rafe, thoughts.”
“We have no choice, Sabin. Judgment Day is our first priority.”
“True, but do we take this risk?”
Verus is feverishly tapping and sliding his fingers on his ever-present devices. I sometimes wonder how he crams all of them in his pockets. “So, Verus, what’s the verdict?” I ask.
He holds up his finger and doesn’t answer. I thrum my fingers on the table, waiting impatiently. Why wasn’t I born with more patience?
“It’s not that big of a risk,” Edge insists. “They’ll never see us coming.”
“Edge is correct,” Verus finally adds. “By my calculations, it won’t take us much time to get there, and with transparency, we can get in and out in no time at all. Hopefully, we may even be able to do this without even engaging them. From the looks of things, their security isn’t even tight. I believe this is because they think we don’t know they have it.”
“It’s too easy. I think we are fooling ourselves,” Rafe says.
“I agree,” I add. “In all the dealings we’ve had with the Shaurok and the Mastermind, it’s never been easy. Why the hell would he start now?”
Helios asks, “May I say something?”
“By all means. When have you ever shied away from it?” I ask.
Helios chuckles gruffly. “The Shaurok are dimwits. Perhaps the Mastermind let them decide what to do here.”
“Never. We would be fools to believe that. This is Judgment Day we speak of.” I’m troubled that none of The Seven see what I see. “Listen, how long have we been fighting him? He is not stupid or naive.
We
would be naive to think that. I would love to believe that we could waltz right in and grab the thing, but I think we would be taking the greatest risk of our lives. I want more data and information before we make the call on this. Verus and Edge, get me everything you can on this place. I want any outlying security risks we face on entering the atmosphere there, any possible shield alerts, anything. I also want to know what kinds of weapons they may have targeted on us. We can’t go in there blind. I want everything you have by tomorrow.”
They all get up to leave and I ask Rafe to stay behind. When it’s only the two of us, I ask his opinion.
“We stand a good chance of getting it back.”
“What if it’s a trap?”
“Verus and Edge will find out if it is.”
“What if their security makes it look clear? I have a bad feeling about this, Rafe.”
“Our missions are based on fact, not feelings.”
“But intuition has saved our asses more times than I can count.” He doesn’t respond. “One other thing, Rafe. What about Serena? Who will stay behind with her?”
“We’ll have to pull Drey out and have him bring a couple of the newbies.”
“This has a really bad feel to it for me.”
“Before you go off on it, just wait until all the information comes in from Verus and Edge.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And go have a good fighting match with Helios. He’s dying to kick your ass.”
“As if. I need you to do something for me. I want to get something for Serena.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. I want to get her something to make her happy, but I don’t know where to start.”
Rafe thinks for a time and then mentions something that piques my interest. “Remember how enamored Juliette Hart was of that canine she had? What was it called? Ethel?”
“Yes. She took that dog everywhere. We even brought it to Nyan’trua.”