Unchained (37 page)

Plass aimed and picked the corvit off Grey’s
back. It shrieked as it flew across the room. Fiske shot the other
corvit just as it leapt. It joined its lifeless mate on the floor.
The only sound that remained was Grey’s labored breathing. He
slumped to the floor on all fours, his teeth bared in pain.

Plass ran to him. Blood was running down his
arms, pooling around his hands. His back and neck were shredded,
but it didn’t appear that any major arteries were severed. He would
live if he got medical care soon.

“
Cidra,” Grey grimaced. He
tried to stand, slipping in his own blood. Plass helped him to his
feet. Grey pointed to the second door. “He took her in
there.”

Fiske rushed to the door but it didn’t open
when he breached the activation field. “It’s secured,” he told
Plass helplessly. “I don’t know the access code.”

“
I do,” Plass
said.

Rage and fear guided her as Cidra shook off
the restraints. Tausek gave her no leverage to reach his body and
he was much bigger and stronger than she anticipated. He had one
heavily muscled arm around her neck and one wrapped around her left
arm and waist. She fought the instinct to grab the arm that was
choking her and instead reached with her free hand for Tausek’s
eyes. His head jerked back. He roared as she clawed at his face.
She was rewarded with a tightening of his death grip on her throat,
cutting off her air supply.

She reached down and behind her, intent on
inflicting serious groin damage before she passed out. With her
first dig, he jerked his body away from her and flung her across
room. The side of her head hit the wall with a violent thud. Her
vision clouded with silvery stars.

Cidra dropped to the floor, rolled onto her
back, and groaned. She shook her head to clear the dark edges that
threatened to close in on her. With tremendous effort, she focused
on Tausek standing two meters from her, his features contorted. She
could see the damage she’d inflicted on his face. The scratches
were bright red against his white skin. He wiped a hand across his
face and glanced at his bloody fingers. Then he gave her a cold,
cold look.

“
I shall enjoy killing you
with my bare hands.”

As he started toward her, a
ragged voice cut through the air. “Get away from her.
Now
.”

Cidra’s eyes
widened.
Grey
.
Alive
. She
grinned victoriously into Tausek’s face as it twisted from savagery
into rage.

“
Now or die,” Grey said
from behind them.

Tausek slowly backed away from Cidra and
turned to the three men at his chamber door. His lips curled as he
looked at Plass and Fiske. Then he eyed Grey’s bloody clothes.

“
You’re going to have to
find yourself some new pets,” Grey said. Then he spied Cidra
struggling to stand. His gray eyes burned into Tausek. “First, you
will pay for that.”

“
I don’t think so,” Tausek
smirked. Suddenly the chamber went black.

Plass shot once where Tausek had been
standing, but the light from the laser blast showed no target.

When Fiske finally located the lights, they
looked around in disbelief. Tausek was gone.

Plass turned to Fiske. “He must have gotten
by us. Notify Berman that Tausek has escaped. He’s probably heading
for a transport on the lower level.”

Fiske gaped at him and countered, “How would
he get out of the tower?”

“
Try the lift. See if it’s
functional again.” Then Plass asked Grey. “Is she
alright?”

Cidra was already in his arms when he
answered, “Yes. She needs a medic.”

Plass nodded. “So do you. Find one. We’re
going after Tausek.”

As their footsteps retreated out of the
chambers, Grey held her. Then his mouth captured hers in a
desperate kiss, slanting over her lips again and again in an effort
to convince his mind that she was safe. He couldn’t hold her close
enough, couldn’t kiss her deep enough.

Cidra slid her arms around his waist. He
flinched. Quickly, she stepped back and looked at her hands covered
in blood. Frantically, she began checking the wounds on his back,
neck, and arms.

“
I’ll live.” He smiled
grimly. “Once Tausek is caught, we’ll both live.”

She stopped. “I don’t think they’ll catch
him.” Then she said quietly, “I could swear I smelled fresh air
when he escaped.”

Grey squinted at her. “Fresh air? This tower
is sealed up tight. The closest outside exit is twenty levels
down.”

Cidra looked into his eyes. “Maybe he didn’t
go down. Maybe he went up.”

Her insight jolted him. He quickly scanned
the room. Other than the one door, there was no visible exit. That
left only one option.

“
An escape passage,” he
muttered, disgusted at himself for not seeing it sooner.

“
If you could smell it, the
doorway had to be close to you.” Grey walked to the wall behind her
and began pressing along it.

Cidra grimaced at the trail of blood he left
across the room and smeared along the wall. To her surprise, an
entire section of wall slid silently out of the way, revealing a
passageway.

Grey disappeared into it and Cidra followed
him when she realized that he was going to investigate. “You need a
medic, Grey. We should go back. Let Plass take over.”

He was already heading up. They had reached
the roof before Grey cast her a tight smile over his shoulder.
“Tausek’s long gone by now. We’ll leave it up to Plass to track him
down. At least we know how he escaped.”

He stepped onto the roof and stopped dead.
“Cidra. Take a look at this. It’s a landing bay.” He started
walking around, reciting the inventory. “Small transport jets.
Weapons. Ammunition. Survival gear. Food stores. All the
necessities of life. Unbelievable.”

“
Grey,” Cidra said, looking
up at the high domed roof curiously. “How would he get a transport
out of here?”

“
There must be a
retractable opening,” he answered absently, his full attention on
the warehouse of weapons and supplies before him. “You know, a man
could hide up here for months and no one would know it.”

Cidra scanned the roof for an opening and
frowned. “I don’t see one. I think he would have to break through
that barrier to take off. Don’t you—”

Suddenly a laser blast shot by her head and
caught Grey low in the shoulder. He dropped to the floor with a
deep groan and went perfectly still.

Cidra spun around behind her to find Tausek
standing there, the laser pistol now pointed at her. He stood
between them and the only exit. She took a quick glance at Grey
behind her. He hadn’t moved.

She slowly lifted her eyes to Tausek, a
deadly calm stealing over her. Reality became an illusion,
insignificant and expendable. “You killed him.”

A low growl rumbled through
Tausek. “And you are next. You have ruined everything. My plan, my
place, my
right
.”

“
You had no right,” she
screamed at him, her rage making her invincible. “The judgment to
live or die is
not
yours to command. It never was.”

Tausek’s face twisted, his voice escalating
with every sentence. “I built Dakru. I made it what it is today. I
can do the same throughout the galaxy. I am Tausek!”

Cidra stilled. The galaxy. He wanted the
whole galaxy. She already knew he’d do anything to get it. And she
knew something else. He was completely insane. Uncontrollable,
unpredictable, and deadly. Past reason, past logic. No matter the
cost, she couldn’t allow him to escape.

She had one last weapon against him—her body
and her life. There was five meters separating them. A few steps.
She could make it. “I will never let you out of here alive.”

A hideous kind of laugh rumbled through
Tausek. “You can’t destroy me with your inferior Kin-sha skill.” He
lifted the laser pistol and pointed it at her head. “Good-bye,
Cidra Faulkner.”

Cidra ran straight at him and leapt forward,
hoping to inflict some damage before she died. She heard the blast,
saw the flash of light. Ignoring the shot, she slammed into his
mid-section, hurled him backwards and landed on top of him.

A second later, she was
staring into his open mouth, his unseeing eyes. The smell of burnt
flesh choked her. Tausek was dead.
What
happened
?

She raised her eyes slowly to the feet
planted several meters away at the entrance to the roof. She knew
those feet.

Cidra looked up to find Barrios smiling at
her, his laser pistol firmly in hand. “That was for you, love.”

EPILOGUE

Cidra sat alone in the moonlight on a planet
she both loved and hated. The grass in Syrus’ clearing felt cool
and thick beneath her. Avion’s giant moon hung possessively in the
night sky, casting its brilliance across the Lake of Ares. A hush
of light wind whispered through the trees in a sweet, voiceless
song.

The breeze caressed Cidra’s
face like a loving hand. She gave a contented sigh.
She was free
. The very
thought brought bittersweet tears to her eyes. She would enjoy the
future that her family had been denied.

Avion’s elaborate burial ceremony would have
to be enough to heal her wounds. There were no apologies, no thank
yous from the Central Consortium. Her father’s honor had been
restored and her family celebrated. It wouldn’t bring them back,
but it was more than she could have hoped for. She wiped away the
tears and accepted what was.

Cidra turned her head and glanced over at
the spot where Syrus was buried. Sometime in the past few days she
realized that he knew exactly what he was doing when he set this
mission in motion. He even picked the right man for the job and for
her.

Cidra froze. She spoke aloud, “Trying to
sneak up on me?”

She heard the low, rumbling laugh moments
before Grey dropped to the grass behind her and pulled her back
between his legs and against his chest. “That sixth sense of yours
is going to be a problem.”

Cidra laughed. “Not for me. Something tells
me I’m going to need all the advance warning I can get.”

Grey slid his hands around her waist and
listened to her laugh. It was a sound he wanted to hear every day
for the rest of his life.

He looked over her shoulder
at the lake. “Decker contacted me again today. I think he’s anxious
to get back to work. He mentioned the Lost Mask four times.” He
paused. “I was thinking of letting him take
Calíbre
and get it
himself.”

Cidra stiffened in his arms. “Why would you
do that?”

Grey shrugged. “Thought we could use some
time alone here at Syrus’ cottage.”

“
Is that what you really
want?”

Grey kissed the top of her head. “I could
handle it for a while.”

Cidra leaned back into his chest, sliding
her hands over his. “That would be nice. It’ll give you a chance to
teach me everything you know about treasure hunting.”

“
That’s a deal, partner.”
Grey grinned. He’d teach her more than just treasure hunting,
starting right now.

Cidra let her head roll back, careful to
avoid his healing shoulder. “Have you heard anything from
Dakru?”

He swept her hair to one side and
contemplated the slender, exposed neck beneath. “I talked to Rourke
over subspace a few minutes ago. Plass was sworn in as ruler
yesterday. He’s already appointed Fiske as his Commander.”

Grey shook his head. “They have a lot of
work ahead of them. The environment on the planet is a mess. He’s
initiating some steps to create more humane working conditions in
the mines. It’s going to take some time to undo the damage Tausek
did to Dakru and the d’Hont.”

“
Not to mention the
Kin-sha,” Cidra said. “Ten years of hatred and persecution won’t
disappear overnight.”

Grey nibbled along her neck and shoulder
while his hands started a slow exploration of the fasteners of her
shirt.

“
So what is Rourke up to
now?” Cidra asked distractedly as the first fastener
released.

Grey chuckled softly. “Last I knew, he was
making the saloon rounds, dazzling the ladies with some strange
story about Decker and a Servo-unit.”

Cidra melted against him as he slid his
hands inside her shirt, cupping each breast. His breath came in
fast and hard.

“
Grey.” It was a sigh and a
question in one.

“
No one knows we’re down
here,” he murmured in her ear. He tugged her arms out of the
sleeves and peered over her shoulder at the sight of moonlit
breasts.

“
Barrios does,” she
whispered.

Grey’s hands caressed the curves of her
body. “He can get his own woman.”

Cidra laughed. “He already has. He can’t
wait to get back to Vaasa. I want to thank you for offering your
house as his new Kin-sha facility.”

“
Our house,” Grey
corrected. “I can’t blame him for not wanting the Kin-sha on Avion.
Besides, Rosa loves the idea of playing hostess to a bunch of young
students. The biggest battle will be over who’s going to do the
cooking.”

His fingers slipped inside the front of her
pants.

“
Oh no, you don’t.” Cidra
twisted around and pushed him gently but firmly onto his back in
the grass. He looked up at her in surprise. Her expression was
mischievous as she straddled him and began unfastening his
shirt.

Cidra pulled his shirt back, exposing his
broad chest.