When the Starrs Align (9 page)

Quickening her pace, she all but ran into the man she’d been looking for.

“Sorry.” She coughed and deliberately lowered the pitch of her voice, fixated on the distinctive scar marring his left cheek. “You Drekk?”

“Maybe.” The man wasn’t thick enough about the torso and arms to be Ragga, but he had height and strength of presence. Something told her he could hold his own in a fight, and as she instinctively sized up a potential enemy, her body automatically readied to protect itself. It was with some effort that she maintained calm and held back her pheromones in the face of this dangerous male. Drekk’s eyes were gunmetal grey and flat, the scar on his cheek pinching the corner of his mouth into an unhappy grimace. “Your contact?”

“Wheller.”

Drekk stared at her a moment. Then he nodded, and she released the breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. He motioned for her to follow him, and they left out of a side door she hadn’t seen when she’d previously scouted the bar. Drekk opened the door of a nondescript rover, and she hesitated before getting in. Her instincts were screaming at her not to enter the vehicle, where her defensive manoeuvres would be limited by the constrained space.

“You come with me, or you don’t see him.” He waited.

If she’d had anyone else she could turn to she would have. But she’d only been on the outside for four measly months, and two of them had been spent healing and evading the law. It had taken her a month to track down Cheltam, and as long to find a ship to stow away in to Mardu. She’d made it this far. A little courage would get her where she wanted to be soon enough.

Taking a leap of faith, she entered the vehicle. Drekk closed the door behind her and entered. He started the vehicle with the sound of his voice and set a course to their destination, then leaned back to let the conveyance lead the way.

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes, standard time.” Drekk turned to face her. “Not Eyran time, which I’ve been told is much more accurate than the common timestamp the rest of us use.”

Her pulse sped and her heart raced at his mention of her homeworld. Eyra, a place she never wanted to see again, unless she stood at the controls of a Melan Warship with enough firepower to burn Blue Rim to the ground.

Erin tried to shrug it off but kept her attention on his face and hands.

“I can’t make out much more than your hair colour. It’s what, red-black? But natural, I’ll bet, not dyed like the whores on Nebe6.” He narrowed his gaze. “And it’s funny, but your skin doesn’t seem to glitter the way it does in the description Blue Rim gave to the mercs.”

Shit.
How the hell he knew she didn’t have time to figure out. Because before she could move, he had a hold of her throat in one large, callused hand. “No sudden moves, pretty lady. I know all about what you’re capable of. If we’d wanted to send you back to Eyra, we could have shipped you off with those peacemakers in the bar.” Drekk closed his hand tighter, and Erin fought the urge to struggle. Instead, she adjusted her body to need less air and deliberately calmed.

“What do you want?” she rasped quietly.

Drekk studied her, his gaze impassive. “Not what
I
want. My boss wants to see you, and to see how high Blue Rim is willing to go. A hundred thousand beks is nothing to laugh at. And if you’re worth that much, he figures he can make you worth more.”

The bastard
. She wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. That even a low-down criminal mastermind would take Blue Rim’s side before hearing her out. Drekk gave a warning squeeze and let her go, nodding when she did nothing.

“Good. Remain steady and silent and this will be relatively painless.” He smiled then, and the darkness in his gaze stirred her to an uncomfortable anxiety. Again, forcing herself to relax, she breathed evenly, gradually allowing herself a full intake of air. Erin hadn’t escaped a lifetime of imprisonment to walk placidly into the arms of a lying, cheating scoundrel. All the while scheming, she kept her eyes downcast and away from Drekk. She also cued her body to occasionally shiver, and to curl in on itself, as if in fear.

Unfortunately, that fear wasn’t all feigned. The instinct to please Drekk, to do what he said, whispered at the back of her mind, and she fought the urge with satisfying success. Erin had been bred and trained to follow orders. First her Creator’s and then her Handler’s. Going against her need to please had been harder than anything she’d ever had to face in the labs, especially since she’d done it in secret, with no help from anyone but her brother Ryen. Hell, the scientists had no need to lock her in, not with that submissive imperative buried deep in her psyche. It had taken two years of constant trial and error before she’d been able to resist even the simplest of tasks, but nothing that would alert Blue Rim to her plans.

Most of those outside Blue Rim that she’d come in contact with had been easy to ignore and evade. Drekk, however, bothered her on a fundamental level, so she did her best to give him no reason to exert undue authority.

The rest of the ride passed in silence. When they finally came to a stop, she remained frozen, pleased when Drekk gave her no more than a glance before leaving the vehicle. He opened the door and pulled her out gently, to her surprise. They walked together towards an unremarkable house on the edge of what looked like a once-respectable neighbourhood. Now it was rundown and festered with trash and street vermin—both animal and human.

Drekk punched in a code, the sounds of which she committed to memory. They entered into a dingy receptacle, where a scanner made note of her weapons. Drekk raised a dark eyebrow and waited, a hand out.

Erin quickly handed over her pistol and the Easfran dagger she’d pocketed from the first Mardu thief dumb enough to misjudge her. Playing along with Drekk set him at ease even more. Though the large man didn’t unbend enough to slouch, she read the ease in his body and contained an inner sneer, her confidence returning in force. She couldn’t wait to lay into him. Him and that scum Cheltam.

Drekk dumped the weapons in a storage bin that pinged a moment after disposal. A large door slid open, and they walked through it. Once past the entrance, the hallways showcased an altogether different house than the one she thought she’d walked into. The air smelled clean. The floor boards underfoot sparkled, and the walls had not a smudge or nick to mar the refreshingly bright yellow colour.

“In here,” Drekk growled and nudged her towards a set of large
furen
wood doors. He pushed them open and followed her inside.

“There you are. I’ve been waiting.” The man who stood from behind an oversized, ornate desk was nothing like what she’d been expecting. Yes, he had measuring, unforgiving eyes and a full-lipped smirk. He wore danger like a second skin, the menace inherent in his character there to see. Yet the sheer beauty in this Mardu male took her by surprise. Cheltam had shoulder-length dark-brown hair pulled back in a neat tail. His face was narrow, masculine planes and lines that hinted at a rough life. His nose was strong, his chin square and hinting at stubbornness. The stark cheekbones and exotically slanted eyes made her think of a jungle cat’s—golden and mesmerising if one stared too long.

“Cheltam.” She waited, wanting to hear him acknowledge his name.

“In the flesh.” His gaze wandered over her. “All covered up I see. Smart.” He nodded. “You’re worth a pretty bek to the folks at Blue Rim. Not sure if it’s really because you’re stirring up trouble with science or not. Obviously interference in the scientific process is a criminal offence. But you must have seriously interfered with something big to be worth a hundred grand.”

“Wheller had said you were a man who could help.” She wanted to smack the satisfaction off his handsome face. Instead she trembled and shrunk smaller. “Why won’t you help
me
?” Calling on the helplessness she’d felt all too often during her short life, she willed tears to her eyes. By the blessed suns, she managed to squeeze one over her left lid.

Drekk homed in on the tear trailing down her cheek and frowned in what looked like concern. Cheltam, however, didn’t budge.

“Nice try, but—”

Drekk coughed at the same moment and offered her a cloth to wipe her eyes. Cheltam, dammit, was too far away to take down with Drekk. But she feared if she waited much longer, they’d bring in reinforcements. When Drekk shoved the cloth at her again, she slowly reached out a hand.

In seconds, she’d taken the cloth, and Drekk, to his knees. A wrist lock kept him down while she pinched the nerves on his neck, at a spot at the base of his skull, to knock him out. As he tumbled to the floor, she crouched before shooting into the air, meeting the blow Cheltam aimed her way. She saw his eyes widen as his fist met her open hand.

Good, she’d surprised him. But that wasn’t all she meant to do. Whipping her glasses off, she shocked him anew with her eyes and used that short moment of inattention to cuff his chin. The blow knocked him back enough that she could use what she knew of the Mardu to her advantage. Clamping one hand on his wrist and another to his thigh, she tugged on the inner bands of his feralis nerves and took him to blessed unconsciousness.

The damage she’d done to both men would keep them out of it for at least half an hour if not more, enough time for her to scout the place, find some restraints, and then convince Cheltam that he’d be helping her, one way or the other.

* * * *

Rafe of Mardu swore as he checked his timepiece again. Gar had a bad habit of ignoring him to suit his convenience. It wasn’t as if Rafe wanted to be here, checking on his older brother. But Sernal, damn his hide, had ordered him to.

“Either check on Gar and ascertain his readiness, or be prepared to take on the roll of Cheltam again,” Sernal, the oldest of the Mardu brothers, ordered. “Though I have to say, Gar makes a hell of a crook, almost better than you were.”

“As if,” Rafe muttered and kicked at a fallen shoe. By Flor’s dagger, his brother was a slob. Gar’s bedroom looked as if a solar storm had lit it. Clothing scattered everywhere. Shoes, socks, and… hell, was that a woman’s undergarment hanging from the overhead fan?

Rafe perked up, pleased at the thought that his brother might finally be putting the past behind him. Not that Rafe expected Gar to ever get over the loss of his wife and son. But hell, it had been nearly three years now. Three years of consuming grief, defeat and rage swimming in Gar’s gaze, one once so like his own. Whereas once he and Gar had been identical, the years of pain had ravaged Gar’s features, turning the once warm Mardu into a steely-eyed devil, one who liked nothing better than to annoy those he considered bothersome. Still, people who didn’t know them well took them as twins. As if Rafe’s head was anywhere near as hard as that of his stubborn idiot of a brother.

“Fuck this.” Rafe pushed past the sloppy bedroom he’d been relegated to and stomped down the hallway, which, thankfully, remained tidy. It hadn’t been easy to give up his plum undercover assignment as Cheltam—an independent crime lord—but Rafe had been getting restless. At the time, he’d thought more involvement with the peacemakers would cure him of his malaise. Unfortunately, Sernal was more annoying than boredom. Though his brother, now the head of Peacemaker Central—a term which annoyed Sernal to no end—had an efficiency rate bordering on incredible, he also had a major stick up his ass. Sernal always adhered to the rules and had an irritating tendency to see the world in black and white, or so it seemed to Rafe.

I ought to kick Gar out and resume my duties as Cheltam. Let Gar deal with Sernal on a daily basis.
Rafe snorted with amusement, imagining his older brothers facing off. Catam, their youngest sibling, had avoided joining the peacemakers by taking up with a bounty hunting crew. Smartest one in the litter. Not only did the little jerk not have to follow the rules, but he’d become a successful bounty hunter, husband and proud father to two mischievous little girls. And how Rafe’s mother loved the justice of that.

Rafe smirked, thinking about the last time he’d seen his nieces as he sought Gar. Those little beauties had nearly started an all-out war by stealing a royal kitten from Prince—

The sight that met his eyes stopped Rafe in his tracks. The study, where he’d thought to find his brother schmoozing with Drekk, looked empty, save for the two unmoving bodies slumped on the ground. Hurriedly checking both Gar and Drekk, he found, to his relief, both of them breathing but unconscious.

Knowing he needed to get a bead on the perpetrator before more damage was done—Flor forbid anyone discover Cheltam was actually a peacemaker—Rafe called on his Xema abilities and drew out his pistol. Quickly and quietly moving through the room and into the hallway again, he listened for any sign of an intruder. To his frustration, he caught nothing. So it was with great surprise when he turned into the kitchen to find the flat of a marbled pan aimed at his head.

Inherently fast reflexes saved him from being smashed in the face, and he ducked and rolled to safety, only to have a strong foot kick his gun from his hand.

“I’ll hand it to you, Cheltam. I underestimated you. I won’t do it again,” a husky, feminine voice warned.

Rafe managed a look at his attacker and made the mother of all mistakes. A glance at inhuman eyes had him pausing in wonder. Her face had been cast in Flor’s bountiful Beyond. She had the lips of a god’s pleasurer, the eyes of his goddess. The whites of her eyes were overshadowed by a bounty of colour. Bright purple surrounded blue irises around pupils of yellow flame. Her eyes, the slim sternness of her nose, the high, delineated cheekbones which carried both fragility and strength…the woman’s face mesmerised with unique, unreal beauty. And in that moment, his study gave his attacker the time she needed to bring him to his knees.