The Huntress (13 page)

He watched the lights flicker in her eyes and felt his stomach slowly tighten.

She cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was husky. “She’ll miss you.” Her eyes came back to him, studying his face again with an intensity that gripped him like a vice. “Do you really think you’re better off alone?”

He should have been able to answer that with an unqualified yes, without hesitation. Without doubt. But caught in the endless green depths of her eyes, he could say nothing. Those eyes searched his for a long moment before they drifted down to focus on his mouth. He stopped breathing. Leaning closer, she lifted a hand and drew one finger across his bottom lip, trailing fire on his skin. An answering fire flared in his groin.

“Goodbye, Stone.”

He reached for her with a numb hand, but she’d already turned and walked away.

Stone stared at the space where she’d been for a long moment, taking deep, careful breaths. Breathing didn’t work, so he grabbed his drink and downed it in one swallow then waved impatiently for the bartender to give him another. He drained that one, too, a burn spreading through his stomach like acid. Mind whirling and body throbbing, he stared at the bottom of his empty glass and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

*******

Regan looked around, disoriented. The tracer on her nose made shadows of people and Stone’s trace was badly broken in this place. She wasn’t experienced enough to understand what she was seeing and track him in a crowd, so she took it off. Blinded by the bright lights, she blinked owlishly. She would just have to find him and Mea the old-fashioned way and do a search of the bar. Just as soon as her eyes adjusted.

She was about to move forward when someone grabbed her shoulder in a crushing grip. She looked up with a yip of surprised pain.

The man holding her was huge and wore a shirt that read
End Game
on the front. He sneered down at her menacingly. “We don’t let street rats in here, kid.”

“You have about two seconds to let that child go.” Mea eased out of the crowd, eyes narrow and dangerous.

He took his hand away but didn’t budge otherwise. “She yours?”

“Yes.”

Regan felt a burst of happiness at that even through the bruising of her shoulder.

“We don’t let her age in here.”

“We’re leaving.” Mea turned Regan around and propelled her out of the door into the blinding sunlight.

Regan resisted the forward motion as best she could. “But Mea—”

“Don’t push your luck, little girl.”

“Is he in there? I have to see him!”

Mea pulled her into the narrow space between two buildings, holding her by the shoulders firmly, expression grim. “Young lady, I told you to stay put. Do you have any idea how much danger you put yourself in?”

“I couldn’t just sit there. I need to see him and you said you weren’t bringing him back.”

“Do you know what that man could’ve done to you?”

Regan grimaced and rotated her shoulder gingerly. “Yeah, smoosh me into a new shape.”

Mea sighed and let her go, running an exasperated hand through her dark hair. “All right, let me see.” She gently pulled Regan’s shirt over the point of her shoulder. Red marks in the shape of fingers marred her pale skin. With a frown, Mea soothed the marks.

Regan watched her wistfully. “Please, Mea. Is he in there?”

“He’s sitting at the bar.” She straightened, cupping Regan’s chin in one hand. “I know you love him. I know you want be with him, but if we push him now, he’ll disappear. We have to let him choose.”

“Shouldn’t we fight for what we want?”

Mea smiled in a way that made Regan want to smile back. “Ordinarily, yes. But he doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m plotting to use him in some way, and I think the only reason he’s still on this planet is you. He won’t believe he’s free unless we leave him alone.”

“Use him? For what?”

The woman sighed and rubbed a weary hand over her eyes. Regan moved closer, disturbed by the defeat in that gesture.

“Hell if I know. Like I said, he’s not ready.”

“I’m sorry I followed you.”

Regan slipped her arms around Mea’s waist and hugged her. The woman held her, rocking gently, and Regan fought the urge to cry again. This was what she wanted and needed, these safe arms, this warm comfort and affection. Was it so much to ask?

They stood together for a moment of quiet communion until Mea stiffened. Regan lifted her head to see her gazing into the street. A group stood there, four men surrounding a shorter, cloaked figure. The figure in the middle turned to one side, and Regan could see the pale face of a young woman. She looked scared.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mea muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“They’re slavers.”

With a jerk of surprise, Regan looked again. The men all wore hard brown leather jerkins like it was some kind of uniform, and when she looked closer, Regan could have sworn that she saw a chain between the woman’s bare feet. Slavery was against the law, but distant colonies still practiced it. Often they made raids on other colonies to take the inhabitants as slaves. Regan had never seen them before, but she guessed Mea had.

The woman in the center of the group seemed to be pleading, though they couldn’t hear her. The men’s voices were louder. They appeared not to notice Mea and Regan in the shadows between the buildings.

“Shut your mouth, bitch. I didn’t say you could talk.”

“Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, Deck. This here’s hunter territory.”

“Are you spacin’?” The man sneered.

Regan had never heard his accent before.

“Hunters don’t come down to these parts. They’re too good for this kinda place. ‘Sides, we need the credit.”

They turned away and the rest of the conversation was muted. Regan looked up at Mea’s grim features and could almost feel the anger vibrating off her.

“Not on my damn planet,” she muttered between clenched teeth then looked down at Regan. “If I go take care of this, will you stay put this time?”

“What do you mean, take care of it? There are four of them!”

“That’s not the problem—you are. I can’t go out there if I think you’ll just put yourself in danger again.”

“But Mea—”

“Did you see the terror on that woman’s face? I can’t turn my back on her. It’s my job to protect people like her, but I have to protect you, too.”

Regan shifted uneasily. She wanted to help the slave, but there were so many men. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t if I don’t have to worry about you. Will I have to worry?”

A sudden idea popped into her head, and Regan tucked her chin to her chest so Mea wouldn’t read it on her face. “No. I’ll stay here.”

“Good girl.” She ran a gentle hand down Regan’s cheek before she turned away.

The group had moved out of their line of sight.

“Be careful!” Regan whispered frantically after her, and Mea threw a wink over her shoulder. Inching closer to the opening, Regan watched the hunter saunter toward the group.

“You’ve got some mighty big balls, boys. Or maybe you’re just plain stupid.”

They turned to look at her and Regan slid out of cover, shifting toward the entrance to the bar. The leader was scowling, but the others eyed Mea appreciatively. None of them looked worried.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I overheard you say hunters never come to these parts. Guess what?”

Their faces hardened and none of them ran away. Regan ducked into the bar before the fight began. Dashing madly through the crowd, she made an erratic path toward the bar, ignoring the occasional holler from irritated adults.

And there he was, sitting at the bar like Mea had said, a wide space around him. Using the bar as a break, she crashed up next to Stone. He glanced down, not looking the least bit surprised to see her. Breathless, she grabbed his arm and tugged. “She’s in trouble!”

Then she had to scramble out of the way when he jerked to his feet and spun to make a beeline for the exit.

Chapter 12

Stone had almost been expecting the kid, so when she burst out of the crowd, he didn’t react until she spoke. Up and moving before he even realized it, he scowled at his own immediate response to the thought of Mea in danger. After fighting so hard to stay put, it aggravated the hell out of him to know he was going after her anyway.

As they neared the door, a large bouncer caught sight of Regan scrambling behind him. “Hey! I thought I told you—”

“Just leaving!” she chirped and shoved at Stone to move him out the door faster.

Once outside, he could see the ‘trouble’ Regan had mentioned, a minor skirmish with the hunter at the center. Mea had already put two of them out of commission and was working on the other two. Stone stopped, disgusted. Regan pushed past him, trying to move toward Mea, but he caught her by the collar and tugged her back. “I thought you said she was in trouble.”

Regan seemed to finally see the scene in front of her and slumped in his grasp.

“Forgot about the moonbase, huh?”

She grimaced and pulled on an earlobe.

“Holy shit!” The bouncer had followed them out and was staring at the scene with a slack jaw.

Mea finished off one more and was working on the last.

Stone shoved Regan to one side out of the entranceway and leaned against the wall to watch, muttering to himself in irritation. He couldn’t just leave the kid and go back inside, not with the bouncer there. So he’d have to wait until the damned woman was done and could take Regan back to the ship. What the hell was she thinking, getting into a fight with the kid under foot?

He could see a cloaked figure huddled over one of the fallen forms. The woman was wailing. Just as Mea put the last one on the ground, the woman jumped up and jabbed at the hunter with an object. Already twisted from her previous move, Mea had to arch herself off balance to avoid the blow, grabbing the other woman’s wrist. They went down together, but only Mea regained her feet.

Stone stiffened when he saw the way she held herself. The woman huddled at her feet must have gotten in a lucky wound.

Lovely face in uncompromising lines, Mea looked over at their little group. “You, bouncer. Go contact Hunter HQ and tell them to get a transport down here.” She glanced down at the moaning bundle at her feet. “And tell them to bring a psych representative.”

The bouncer ducked back inside, and Mea turned her head to look at Regan without expression. She said nothing for a long moment, just stood in the middle of a pile of bodies, pressing her left elbow furtively against her side. He couldn’t see any blood yet.

“Stone, I have a request. If they see her when they show up, they’ll take her to Child Security. Would you take her home?”

He nodded.

“Thank you.”

“How bad is it?” he heard himself say then bit back a curse. He’d been trying not to ask. The woman was a hunter—no matter how good she was, injuries were bound to happen in that line of work. He had no business even thinking about it, let alone asking.

Mea’s eyes flickered to Regan before she looked down at the woman stirring on the ground, shifting subtly so that her wounded side was out of their line of sight. “Bad enough,” she muttered in disgust.

Stone figured that was probably true if she was trying to hide it from Regan. The kid was too busy looking pathetic to notice. Taking Regan by the back of the neck, he pulled her away before she did catch on. Without a backward glance, he marched her toward the port. Not too long after they left Mea, they heard the hum of a transport.

Regan looked up into the late afternoon sky. “Did she look really mad?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“She didn’t look happy.” Her eyes fell and Stone shook his head in exasperation. “Told her you’d stay put, didn’t you?” No wonder the hunter had gone ahead with the fight—she must have actually trusted the kid not to get into trouble.

“Yeah,” she whispered, “but I thought she’d get hurt.”

He kept his mouth shut on that one.

Warren was pacing outside the ship when they arrived, two technicians trailing after him. He cursed and yelled at the techies, but they didn’t seem to notice. “Get off me! You’ve picked through my memory core, what more do you want?” He caught sight of Stone and Regan and stopped abruptly. “Oh, thank god! Where the hell have you been, Regan? And why isn’t Mea wearing her transceiver?” He waved an annoyed hand as one technician took advantage of his stillness to run a scanner over him.

Stone planned to ignore him, but Regan broke away to approach the android. She took his arm and led him toward the ramp. When the technicians tried to follow, she raised an imperious little hand at them. “You two, go home.”

Wonder where she got that attitude,
Stone thought, hiding a grin. The two techs looked at each other then moved forward again. Stone shifted enough to catch their eye. “You heard her,” he muttered in a low, threatening tone, and they spun on their heels, scurrying away.

“Sorry, Warren. I forgot I was supposed to babysit you.” Regan patted the android on the arm, and Stone followed them up the ramp, amused.

“Are you all right? Where’s Mea?”

“She had to take care of some slavers.”

“Slavers? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“That’s what she said when she saw them.”

“I’ll bet she did. They’ve got to be out of their minds to drop into the heart of hunter territory.”

They moved down the corridor to the mess hall. Something smelled great, and Stone realized that he hadn’t had anything to eat all day, just two drinks that did nothing but give him a pain in his head and a bad taste in his mouth.

“She told them they either had big balls or they were just plain stupid.”

Warren threw back his head and laughed without restraint at the kid’s words. Stone had to shift him bodily out of the way to get to the warmer and pull out what smelled so damned good. Looking at it didn’t help to identify the contents of the crockery, but with a shrug he turned and set it on the table. If it smelled that good, it probably tasted okay, too.

He’d had worse.

Regan pulled plates and utensils out of a receptacle while he gathered cups and what he thought might be iced tea. They sat down and dug in, Regan eating almost as intently as Stone.