The Huntress (19 page)

Regan pulled a wrist tracer out of her pocket. Mea glanced at it and sure enough, there was Stone’s white silhouette pacing back and forth in an agitated sort of way. Mea’s lips turned up in a small smile.

“Well, well. So he is. Don’t get too excited, love. Someone might wonder what’s up there, and then he’ll be in trouble again.”

Regan sobered immediately but didn’t put the tracer away.

“You keep a watch on him. That’s all we can do right now.”

“Okay.”

“Did you eat?”

“A little.”

“Let’s get some more into you before Bella throws a fit.”

She moved back toward the buffet table and Mike joined her, face questioning. “Crisis averted,” she responded and began fixing a plate.

“Where’d she get a tracer?”

“The ship.” She could see him frowning at the girl and nudged him with an elbow. “What the hell are these?” she distracted, pointing to some oddly colored lumps.

“Shakra rolls. Don’t give me that face. They’re good for you.” He chuckled when she snorted and skipped over them. “You never did like shakra.”

“That and Brussels sprouts.”

She shuddered and hoped his attention wouldn’t return to Regan. She would tell him about Stone if she had to, but she’d rather not. He wouldn’t be pleased. She’d just about concluded that the distraction had been successful when Regan approached her with a confused expression.

“Ah, Mea…?” She held out the tracer. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Mea glanced down then dropped her plate on the table with a crash. Stone was in trouble. “Oh, shit.” She launched into a sprint across the courtyard, kicking off her shoes as she went.

“Make a hole!” she shouted as she ran, and the trained hunters parted immediately. She had to swing around a terrified cadet, but it didn’t slow her. It would take too long to go around the building to the stairs, so Mea calculated how best to scale the balcony as she approached. Leaping onto a table without pause, she used her momentum to push against a pillar with one foot and get enough lift to grab the railing. The force of her assent and the weight of her body swung her up and through the vines, into the relative darkness beyond.

She’d pulled muscles in her newly healed side, but she didn’t notice that pain until later. What held her attention were three dark shadows bent over a prone form. She snarled in fury, “Stand down!” barely recognizing her own voice.

Two of the shadows jerked back, and she recognized them as a couple of Job’s friends. Job still crouched over Stone, staring at her. The broken light touched his face with odd shadows and twisted it into ugly lines. Blood stained his face, and she hoped Stone had gotten in a few good hits before they took him down.

Moving toward them with a dangerous, liquid glide like a cat about to pounce, Mea focused her attention on her ex-husband. “You’d better pray he’s not dead, Job, or I’ll be killing me another rogue.”

He backed off slowly, face wary. “He’s an intruder.”

“You know he’s my partner. You met him.”

She heard one of the other hunters swear, but she ignored them, moving to straddle Stone protectively. Crouching with her eyes still trained on Job, she felt at his neck for a pulse. It was strong but rapid, and he shifted under her. Glancing down, she met his dark, turbulent gaze.

“Nice party,” he wheezed, and with a cough that trickled blood over his lip he lost consciousness.

Mea activated her transceiver. “Warren, immediate evac!” she barked.

The android sputter in her ear. “Wh-what?”

“Man down.”

“On my way.”

Thankfully he didn’t ask her why she wasn’t calling for a hunter transport and taking the downed man to a hospital. With one hand monitoring Stone’s pulse, she stared up at Job, feeling true menace darken her blood.

He seemed to see the murder in her and stepped even farther back, expression petulant. “I didn’t see who he was. Besides, he’s not your partner. He’s not even a hunter.”

“You didn’t attack him because he’s an intruder.”

“He attacked us first.”

“I wonder why, with three hunters coming at him.”

The sound of rapid footsteps interrupted, and Mea could see a group coming with a light. Mike and Regan led the crowd. When Regan saw Stone’s prone form, she cried out and surged forward, landing on her knees next to his head. The light revealed a lot more than a child should see, and Mea lifted her chin, forcing Regan to look up at her.

“He’s alive. He’ll be fine.” She lifted her eyes to Mike as she continued to sooth the girl. “Warren’s on his way. We’ll take him to Ema, and she’ll fix him right up.”

He wasn’t a stupid man. If Stone went to a regular hospital, they wouldn’t be able to keep this incident quiet, and the Coalition was bound to find out about it. For Mea’s part, she didn’t give a damn if the Coalition blew a gasket over what had happened or if Job and company got what they deserved. However, there would be an investigation, and Stone’s new identity would come under scrutiny again. They’d been lucky once. She didn’t want to take that chance again.

Mike nodded his agreement and turned to the people crowding in around them. “Back off, everyone! Show’s over. Get back downstairs.”

Mea ignored his efforts to disperse the crowd, concentrating on calming Regan. The girl was crying silently, moving her hands over Stone’s bloody head. “He’ll be okay, hon. He’s a survivor, remember?”

“He’s bl-bleeding! Is he breathing?”

“Here, give me your hand.” She pressed the girl’s fingers to his pulse. “That’s his heart beating. It’s strong and regular. He’s going to be fine.”

Mea wondered who she was trying to convince more, the girl or herself.

Mike turned back to them and pointed to Job and his friends. “You three, in my office now! Bella, make sure they get there.”

The older woman’s eyes were hard as she gestured curtly for them to follow. When they passed, one of them bent towards Mea. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was your partner.”

Mea refused to acknowledge him, slowly running her hands over Stone’s body to assess the extent of his injuries. The head wound, though messy, was not what she was worried about. She could hear him breathing, and it didn’t sound good. There was a dent in his ribcage. She suspected that one or more ribs were broken. It was possible that he had a punctured lung. He had a broken arm close to the elbow, a dislocated shoulder, and broken knuckles, but what really worried her were the wounds she couldn’t see or feel.

“Warren, where the hell’s my evac?”

“Thirty seconds.”

She heard hum of the transport. “South building, balcony.”

“I’ve got your signal.”

The transport hummed in over the wall and hovered next to the railing. The door slid open, and Warren parted the vine to see them. He didn’t look surprised to see Stone injured. “What do you need?”

“Stretcher, foam—do you have an IV set up?”

“And oxygen,” he said as he ducked back into the transport, appearing a moment later with foam and a floating stretcher. Swinging nimbly over the railing, he crouched with them over Stone. “Just couldn’t wait to get himself into trouble again, could he?”

“He thrives on it, damn him,” Mea muttered between clenched teeth as she applied the foam like a cradle under his torso. “Sugar, I’m going to need you to shove the stretcher under him when we lift him up.”

Wiping tears off her face and straightening resolutely, Regan nodded and climbed to her feet. They lifted him with care, and Regan slipped the stretcher under him.

Mike returned as Warren maneuvered the stretcher across the railing. “What do you want me to do with them?”

Mea spared Mike a quick glance while helping Regan over the railing. He
looked grim. Once the girl was in the transport and out of hearing range, she turned back. “At this point I don’t give a damn. But if he dies—” She pressed her lips together. There were people close by and for Uncle Mike’s sake she didn’t want them to hear what violence she planned on committing.

“Understood, Hunter. Just be sure he lives.”

With a sharp nod, she vaulted the railing, hitting the door panel to close it and moving toward the stretcher. Warren was securing it to the transport hull. Squeezing in next to him, she said, “I’ve got this. Get us out of here.”

Turning away, he slipped into the pilot’s seat while she finished securing the stretcher and set about putting an IV into Stone’s arm. Regan was standing at his head, watching him intently.

“You won’t sit down and strap in, will you,” Mea murmured.

The girl shook her head without looking up.

“Then I’ll have to put you to work.”

Mea gave her gauze to put pressure on the split at his temple and to clean off as much blood as she could. Regan took her duty very seriously and was so intent on it that she kept knocking his oxygen tube away from his nose. Mea would put it back every time without comment, monitoring his IV and pulse carefully. It might have been her imagination, but his pulse seemed to be weaker.

“ETA, Warren?”

“Almost there. I’ve got it wide open.”

She could feel the deep thrumming of the engine in her heels. “Good.”

A few moments later when she felt them landing, Mea loosed the stretcher and got ready to move. Regan opened the door panel without being told, and they hurried Stone from the docking bay down the corridor to the infirmary.

As usual, Ema had something to say about it. “Not again! What is with you people—” She stopped short, scanning as they lifted him onto her table. Her tone flattened ominously. “Why is he not in a hospital? He’s got a punctured lung, a kidney that’s going to need full regeneration—”

“Stop with the gory details!” Mea flashed a quick, concerned look to Regan. The girl was crying silently again. “Just tell me if you can fix him.”

“Well, yes, but it’s going to take a lot longer—”

“Then shut up and get busy.”

“Fine, but when he wakes up and starts bitching, I will not take the blame. What the hell has this man been up to? On top of everything else, he’s got a sunburn.”

“He doesn’t get out much,” Mea muttered, running a soothing hand over Regan’s head.

“So what happened?” Warren asked quietly.

“Job.”

“Really? What got him so riled up?”

“I humiliated him in front of everyone.”

“Asked you to marry him again, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm. He never did like competition.” Shaking his head, Warren left the infirmary.

Mea pulled Regan into her arms. They held each other and watched as Ema began the long process of putting Stone back together.

Chapter 16

Stone woke up slowly.
Strange.
Survival demanded that when he slept, he slept light and when he woke up, he did it fast. He felt heavy with sleep, groggy. When he opened his eyes and saw the dim golden glow above his head, he realized that Ema must’ve drugged him. He just couldn’t remember why. Disoriented, he turned his head and tried to see beyond Ema’s glow. The light wasn’t bright enough to hurt his eyes, but it did make focusing difficult.

In the darkness beyond Ema’s table, he saw that the other two tables had been activated. A small, blanketed lump huddled on one and Mea sat at the other one, head cradled on her arms and eyes closed. Seeing her and the short black dress she still wore brought it back.

He stiffened at the memory of the three hunters, their attack and their leader, her ex-husband, whispering to him as he lay beaten and bloody,
“She’s mine.”

He should have used his knife. Promises were promises, though, and he’d given Mea his word to be good. Not that that should count when faced with three trained, lethal weapons. He’d given it his best shot but every blow had felt like a sledgehammer. That damned metal on their bones had put a hell of a jolt behind each hit. He might have stood a chance if it had just been one—which was why the fucker brought friends.

His mouth twisted when he thought of Job Hammond but not because of the unfairness of what he’d done. Stone’s whole life had been unfair, and it was so ingrained that he didn’t question it. It was the words
be my wife
that made him want to get up off the table and take the man on again. He hadn’t been pleased when Mea and that bastard walked over his way or when the jackass started spewing all that sappy shit, but when he’d said those three words, suddenly Stone had found himself at the railing, gripping it white-knuckled. He’d barely been able to keep from leaping down and ripping the man’s spine out. That savage possessiveness scared the hell out of him, suggesting it might already be too late—he was going to be her stooge no matter what.

The last bit of grogginess left him with that thought, and he tried to roll off the table. He couldn’t move anything but his head.

“Be still,” Ema whispered in his ear, but he ignored her, struggling against the force that held him down. “I said, be still! It’s a force field.”

“Let me up,” he growled and saw Mea stir out of the corner of his eye.

“Shhh. You’ll wake Regan,” the hunter murmured and rubbed her eyes, shoulders slumping wearily.

“Call off your AI, Hunter.”

Sending him an exasperated look, she stood, running a hand through her dark hair. Glancing toward the still sleeping girl at the other table, she approached him. She moved stiffly as if she still felt the wound on her side. Leaning on the table at the level of his chest, she looked down at him, a hand on her hip. “You have internal injuries that are difficult to heal. Ema can’t do it all at once or your body would have a meltdown. You’re being restrained to keep you from hurting yourself. I’m sorry if you feel like I’m keeping you prisoner, but I know you. If I let you up, you’re going to head straight for the door, probably killing yourself in the process.”

He tensed experimentally. “There’s no pain.”

“The miracle of drugs.”

He lifted his head and looked down at himself. He was naked except for a sheet over his lower half. Other than that, he could see nothing wrong. “I’ll be fine. Let me up.”

Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed deeply. “Don’t you want to know about Regan?”