The Huntress (23 page)

He risked a glance at Regan. Her little chin was in the air and her arms were crossed.

“You said we should fight for what we want, except we couldn’t with him because he’d run away. Well, he can’t run away now, so I’m going to fight.”

Stone sat there with cereal dripping off his spoon and stared at her. When he realized that Mea wasn’t saying anything, he turned his head and stared at her instead.

Her lips were pressed together, eyes twinkling with amusement as she studied Regan’s stance. Then she glanced at Stone and shrugged, widening her eyes innocently. “It seems there’s a loophole.” Then she sipped her coffee with calm finality.

He felt the ground begin to crumble under him again. “Wait just a damn minute—” But he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like he was panicking, and leaving the room would be admitting defeat. Gesturing lamely with his spoon, he finished with, “I wasn’t running away.”

“Of course not,” Mea said without looking at him.

Regan snorted. “Yeah, you were.”

He scowled at her, but she ignored him, finishing her breakfast. He shifted his scowl to Mea. “You’re her mother now. Can’t you do something about her?”

She made a rude noise. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention. She’s had us wrapped around her little finger since—” she checked the chronometer on her wrist. “—last week. She’s a little behind schedule as far as taking over the ship, but I’m sure she’ll get to it.” She winked at the girl snickering next to him, and then lifted her eyebrows at him. “Anything else?”

“I am leaving at Xerxes,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

She looked down into her drink. “I know.”

“No, you’re not. You’ll fall in love with us and stay.”

And what the hell was he supposed to say to
that?
Stone just stared at Regan. The kid smiled back serenely, as if what she’d said was hard fact instead of crazy fantasy. It was enough to make a guy want to slam his head into a wall. It didn’t help that the android was laughing behind his hand again.

“So, Regan,” Mea finally rescued him, “how is enrollment in school coming along? Has Warren gone over your lessons with you?”

Stone’s relief over the change of subject was short-lived when he saw the kid and android share a smirk.

“Actually, I already had my first lesson this morning. It was really interesting.”

“Oh?” Mea looked as wary as he felt. “What was it?”

“Sex education.”

“Oh, god.” Mea covered her eyes while Warren chuckled unmercifully.

“What’d you think? I was calling him dad just because?” The kid stood up and put her dishes in the sanitizer, before skipping for the door on light feet. “I’ll be in the gym!”

Mea dropped her hands and glared at Warren.

“What? She wanted to know.”

“She’s eleven, for god’s sake! What were you thinking?”

“Calm down, I didn’t give her the gory details, just the basics.” He paused a beat. “So what are the gory details?”

Stone surged to his feet, ready to shove the spoon somewhere painful, but the android wasn’t stupid. He jumped up and sidled quickly toward the door. “I think the ship needs some kind of course correction. I’ll be in the control room—” The door cut off the rest of his sentence.

Violence still humming along his muscles, Stone sat back down and stabbed at his now cold cereal, eating it stubbornly. The silence thickened, but he ignored Mea as best he could.

“Have you been to see Ema yet this morning?” she asked.

“No.” He paused to look up at her, remembering with a pang the bruises and teeth marks he’d put on her smooth skin. “Have you?”

Her smile was not something he could look at long without pulling her across the table onto his lap. Wild need pumped renewed fire through his veins, battering at his defenses with shocking strength.

“You weren’t that ungentle.”

Breathing carefully, he refused to watch her when she rose and put her cup in the sanitizer.

“Please see Ema after you eat. I want to make sure you’re fully healed—and I didn’t do you any lasting damage.”

After she left, Stone shoved the cereal away in disgust and put his head in his hands. He was in so much goddamned trouble. On one side he had Mea offering him heaven and on the other he had the kid demanding love. Three more days of this and he’d be a nutcase. Why the hell couldn’t he have been stronger and walked away when he had the chance?

Taking a deep breath, he stood with a survivor’s stubbornness.
Don’t think about it, keep moving, go forward.
It was all he’d known and all he had. After cleaning up, he made his way to the infirmary.

Ema was her usual pleasant self. “Well? What are you waiting for, an invitation? You know the drill, strip and get on the table.”

Silently, he did as commanded.

“Good lord, you two really went at it, didn’t you? So much for advanced human civilization. You get a hormone surge and it’s back to basics.”

“Shut up, Ema.”

“Humph. I see it hasn’t improved your attitude much,” she scoffed, but finished scanning and healing him in silence. “All right, you’re done. Officially you’re completely healed.” When he said nothing and rose from the table to dress, she grumbled, “You’re welcome, you ungrateful man.”

He ignored her and left the infirmary. Standing in the corridor, he thought about what he should do next. The safest course of action would be to lock himself in his room for the rest of the voyage, but not only did that seem cowardly, he’d probably go stir crazy in a couple of hours. He couldn’t stand the android’s company for more than a minute or two before fantasizing about ripping his limbs off, and he’d already explored the ship to his own satisfaction. With a resigned sigh, he headed for the training room. The kid was bound to drive him crazy, too, but at least it would pass the time.

He should’ve guessed that he’d find them both there. Mea was warming up on some of the equipment and Regan walked close to one wall, VR gear over her eyes and feet on thin air. After a second he realized that she was on a force field tread mill. Mea acknowledged him with a nod but didn’t stop what she was doing, and he refused to go anywhere near her. Watching her from a distance was bad enough.

He moved to stand next to the kid. “What’re you doing?”

Regan squeaked and lost her balance, wind-milling her arms as she went past him. He caught her and lifted her onto solid ground. She yanked off the gear and glared at him. “Geez, what’re you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, trying not to grin at her aggravation.

“I was practicing breathing and walking at the same time.” She jiggled the gear. “And learning how to fall.”

“Learning how to—”

“Fall. Yeah, I know. It sounds like the breathing thing. But Mom says if I don’t know how to do it right, I could get hurt just by falling.” She didn’t look convinced.

“She’s right. Even from a short height you could sprain or dislocate something. And in a fight, if you fall wrong, you might not get up again before the other guy does you.”

“Huh.” She looked dubiously from him to the gear. “Well, it’s still boring.”

“Target practice, then?”

“Okay!”

She quickly stored the gear in a receptacle while he went over to the wall of weapons and selected a throwing knife. Then they went together to the holographic system, and he called up the bulls-eye they’d been using.

“Okay, kid, let’s see what you’ve got today.”

She was just settling herself to throw when Mea’s voice cut sharply across the room. “What the hell are you doing?”

Stone turned to see her striding toward them, fire in her eyes.

“Uh-oh,” Regan muttered under her breath.

He had to agree. Mea looked ready to shred his skin. She stopped in front of him, and the fury in her eyes made his palms itch with the fierce need to touch her. Without looking at Regan, she snapped her fingers and held out one hand. Meekly, the kid placed the knife in it.

“Just what the hell is she doing with this?”

“She needs to learn how to defend herself if she’s gonna be with you.”

“And you think this is the way to do that?” She shook the knife under his nose, and then flicked it away without looking. It drove dead center into the bulls-eye. Regan’s jaw dropped, but Mea was still yelling at him. “Do you know how dangerous that would be for a child? She knows nothing else about defending herself, so if she starts waving a knife around, what do you think would happen to her? She’d get dead, that’s what! Why don’t you just put a sign around her neck that says,
tender morsel, please eat me?
She’ll be taught how to defend herself, but weapons are not the place to start. Are you listening to me?”

He’d been watching Regan and trying not to laugh. The kid was gesturing with wild excitement and miming Mea’s throw, mouthing exclamations at him.

With a suspicious look, Mea turned to glance down at her.

Regan froze. “Uh…good throw, Mom.”

Mea sighed, and Stone watched her anger slide away. “It’s all in the wrist. Got bored with the falling lessons?”

The kid ducked her head and Mea sighed again.

“I remember how dull that stuff can be. We’ll just have to figure out something to make it less blah.” She glanced at Stone out of the corner of her eye, and he tensed at the speculative glint in that tantalizing green flash. “For now, though, I think we can do something that will satisfy all of us. Regan, could you go get a tracer? One you can wear on your nose.”

While the girl scampered away, Mea turned toward him. He must have had suspicion on his face, because she held up a warding hand. “Relax. Nothing painful. It’s a good lesson and one she obviously needs. I saw her fall off the treadmill when you spoke to her. She had no idea you were there.”

That didn’t exactly explain anything, but he held his peace as the kid ran back with a tracer. Mea took it and made an adjustment before giving it back to Regan.

“All right, squirt, this is a lesson in awareness. It’s important to know who’s sneaking up on you. First Stone and I will demonstrate what I’m talking about, and then you get to practice.” She started toward the middle of the room, gesturing them to follow. “We’re lucky to have him here—he’s really good at this. When we first met, I couldn’t sense him at all. It’ll be good practice for me, too.”

Stone tensed uneasily, seeing where this was headed. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it.

“Regan, go over to the door and when I signal, kill the lights, then turn on the tracer. Remember to turn it on after you shut off the lights or you’ll be blinded. I’ve got it set on night vision.”

With a delighted grin, the girl skipped away from them to the door and followed Mea’s instructions. Stone slowly tugged off his goggles as darkness covered them. The lack of light was not a hindrance—he was far more comfortable in darkness, eyes adjusting swiftly to see the other two as shadowy figures. The room became a tapestry of shadows in various textures, its dimensions more felt than seen, and Stone realized that
this was what Mea wanted the kid to learn, to be as comfortable in the dark as light.

“I’ll stay stationary, and he’ll stalk me, circling and coming toward me at random points. I’ll try to sense him and point him out when he gets close enough to touch. Ready?”

He could have said no. Being in the dark with Mea was a bad idea. But he could see the worth of the lesson for the kid and hopefully with Regan there he would be able to keep his hands to himself. He growled his assent and moved away, making a wide circle around her.

She looked completely relaxed, head tilted to one side as though she was listening for him. Not just fearless but serene, as if she had no qualms about him stalking her in the dark. The woman wasn’t right in the head. Coming opposite from where he’d started, he closed on her in utter silence, but she turned her head toward him and reached out, fingers brushing his chest. Burned, he moved away again.

“You see, you have to learn not to rely so heavily on your other senses. They can be easily fooled. A hologram can look very real, but there’s no presence behind it.”

While she was speaking, he came at her from behind, but she looked over her shoulder and reached out to him. He hastily moved away before she could touch him.

“When you expand your awareness of your surroundings, you can become so attuned to who and what is in them that you can navigate silently through a dark room, know if someone is sneaking up on you, and even know who that someone is.”

Again, he attempted to move in on her. She waited until he was closer to put her hand out, running fire down his chest before he could turn to avoid the touch. Trying to control his breathing, he circled her widely.

“After a while, you’ll be surprised at how far your awareness can expand.”

At these words, she pointed directly at him and turned with him as he circled until he stopped with a curse. Damned woman had been playing a game with him all along. She’d known exactly where he’d been the whole time.

“Wow, I don’t think I can do that, Mom.”

“Maybe not at first, but you will. Come give it a try.”

Regan moved forward, but Stone stayed where he was, unwilling to put his self-control to the test. He could still feel Mea’s hand on him, calling up memories better left buried.

Regan handed the tracer over, and Mea fixed it to the bridge of her own nose. “Okay, to start with, we’ll do this backwards. Stone, if you’ll stand in front of her?”

He moved toward the kid when Mea headed to the door. He chucked Regan under the chin to let her know he was there and she gave him a shadowy grin.

“Now, Regan, tell me when he moves away.”

He gave the kid a minute to relax, grinning to note that she was practicing her breathing again. When he moved back, he saw a frown pinch her brows together, but she said nothing for several seconds. Then she reached out a tentative hand. “Oh! He’s gone. I guess I suck at this.”

“Don’t be so negative. For a first try, it wasn’t bad. Let’s do it again.”

Stone resumed his spot in front of her, speaking so she’d know he was there. “You knew. You just didn’t trust it.”