Captivated (17 page)

She sniffed and Vincenz snorted a laugh in her ear. “He doesn’t even notice the attention.”

“I think he takes it as his due. He’s quite delicious to look upon.”
And who was she to feel jealous? He was Vincenz’s before she came into the picture.

“I suppose. It’s part of what makes him so alluring I think. He can render me totally witless sometimes.”

“Do you feel that way about me?” she murmured as he pulled her against his body.

“Like I want to lick you all over?”

“Yes, that works.” She smiled as Vincenz handed their documentation over to the ticket taker.

Julian took her hand, Vincenz keeping the other as they made their way into the big transport.

“This is a mass transit transport. I booked us into the VIP level. Should be less crowded.”

She nodded, knowing her eyes were as wide as a girl’s on her first time to the city. She wasn’t a universe traveler, though she’d been on a portal transport a handful of times in her life. Of course, some of those were to kidnap her. But Vincenz and Julian were here. And she was with them of her own accord. No one had drugged her or coerced her.

She made her own choices now. Which seemed to help with the fear.

They took a lift up to the special levels and when they exited she saw how much quieter and less crowded it was. She squeezed Julian’s hand in thanks.

Expertly, Vincenz led them to a seating area in a far off corner. The departure gongs sounded. A ten-minute warning. She wondered if she should have taken the offer of the medicine Hal had offered. A simple sedative. She would have been conscious the whole time. But the edge would have been dulled.

Thing was, she was done with that. She couldn’t live her whole
life with the edge dulled by medications. Couldn’t avoid the public. She chose the fear over the numbness.

“I brought along something you might like.” Vincenz rustled around in his coat pocket and procured a pretty pink box tied with a bow.

“Two in one day? It’s not necessary for you two to spoil me so.” She grabbed for the box even as she said it. Vincenz laughed.

“We like spoiling you. It’s better than any vid to see the way you react to presents.”

She hadn’t received a lot of presents. Not that she grew up with privation and want. She came from a solidly middle unranked class family. Though her mother was from the Imperium. The community they lived in never seemed bothered by that. Her parents had been practical sorts. She always had enough to wear, enough to eat, a roof over her head and whenever she needed the credits for an extra class or something related to her schooling, her parents gave it to her gladly.

But she hadn’t grown up with pink boxes filled with … “Oh! Chocolates. How did you know?” She remembered her manners in time and offered them each a piece before she looked down at the shiny dark brown shapes nestled in the tissue paper.

“Spoiling you is one of my greatest pleasures.” Vincenz leaned forward and brushed a kiss over her lips.

Chocolate wasn’t practical.

But, she thought as the sweetness of the caramel spread through her senses, it was beyond wonderful and she loved it.

“I never had chocolate until a few years ago.”

The tug in her belly and the flickering of the lights signaled the transport had unmoored from the clamps and was sliding into place to enter the portal.

“Really?” Julian seemed surprised.

“Sweets aren’t good for you. My mother was always worried
about my brain. She said sweets were a waste of calories and energy.” She shrugged. “When I went away to school I was a research assistant for one of my professors. She made it a point to educate me on the wonders of things like chocolate.” And high heels. Hannah smiled at the memory.

“Chocolate is totally impractical. Which is why it’s so wondrous.” Julian grinned.

She popped another into her mouth, agreeing.

“What were they like?” Vincenz asked.

“My parents?” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “As I said, my mother was a practical woman. A daughter of traders, she went out on trips with her father from quite a young age. I don’t think I can recall anything she wasn’t good at. A confident woman, but not …” She paused, thinking of the right words as they flittered around in her head. “She was not fancy. But she loved books. That’s how she met my father. He was a student and she had a patch of grass at the university where she sold her wares. He would come by every day to moon over them. And then he noticed her. She says it took two weeks for him to look away from the books and to her.”

Vincenz laughed.

“She was what he needed. Where she was practical and accomplished, he was … he lived in his head. Brilliant, my father. But it was hard for him sometimes to remember he had women to tend to. He often stumbled from his offices, surprised to see us, as if he’d just remembered he had a family. He was a good man. A good person. He made a difference.” She put the lid back on the little pink box and methodically wound the ribbon back around, tying a bow. Trying very hard not to let her bottom lip tremble.

Julian took her hand, kissing her fingers. Right at the same time the transport slid into the portal and began to move. A free fall of emotions skittered around in her belly.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill them.” She did. Shoving that away, she looked to Vincenz. “In fact I know how many people you contacted to find my belongings. Thank you for that. Thank you both. For everything.” Not all her things had been destroyed after all. Vincenz had recovered a large percentage of the things her parents had put into storage for her. She’d go through it all when … well, whenever she found the time she supposed. It seemed less important now that she was making a new life than it had been before.

It would be nice to have a day without this insanity messing up her every thought.

“The boxes should be at the house when we return. I was hoping they’d arrive before we left.”

It had been hard enough looking through her parents’ things. No, it was better to wait. Better not to have sifted through her old life right before she jumped into the wild beyond with these two men on some sort of secret mission.

That part was nearly as exciting as finding herself wedged between two of the most beautiful, sexy and thrilling men in all the ’Verses.

“What about your family?” she asked Julian.

“I don’t know much. I grew up in an orphanage.”

She cocked her head and looked at him. Sometimes he was so confident, ruthlessly so, in his abilities it was hard to imagine he had hurts of any sort. But it was clear by the brief appearance of the lines around his mouth that he had them.

“When did you … meet Wil?” Hanna wasn’t sure how much she could say so she tried to keep it simple.

“I was nineteen standard. I’d done two years already in lockup.” He looked at his hands and then back to her face. “He came in and interrogated me for over an hour. I don’t know if I hated him or admired
him. He really pissed me off that day. And then he left. He thanked me for my time and walked out. Two hours later he showed up again and sprung me.”

What must that have been like? A man like Wilhelm Ellis through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old petty criminal?

Whatever it was about Ellis, she’d never seen anyone inspire so much loyalty.

“Were you shocked by the massive size of him?” She had to bite her lip to continue asking questions. She wanted to know them, but also understood the public nature of their situation just then.

Julian’s gaze cleared and the smile came back into it. “I was just glad he wasn’t a jailer there to beat me up. I was a young prick so it wasn’t as if I was undeserving of such an event. But he came back and I went into the military.”

And he’d met Marame. She rarely spoke of the other woman to him. Not because she was jealous or worried over a dead woman. But because she hated to see the pain in his gaze.

But the shadow didn’t come so she left it alone. It seemed silly to feel accomplished just then, but she did. Because it felt normal. The sort of thing you do when you’re with people you care about. It had seemed like another life when she’d been that person before. And she supposed it had been another life in a number of ways.

“Was it hard? Adjusting to that new life?”

“Before the military I don’t think I’d ever been up so early in the morning. Every day. The only running I’d done regularly was from the polis so I was out of shape. Mentally and physically. There were some days when my legs felt like jelly and I wondered if they’d just fall off from all the running.”

She actually giggled and Julian’s smile widened. Probably to match the one Vincenz wore.

“Are you mocking me?” Julian teased.

She paused and then nodded her head, her hands over her mouth as she continued to laugh.

That moment seemed to have relaxed the three of them and Vincenz made sure she stayed distracted on the three-hour trip to Asphodel. So many people around made him heighten all his attention.

“When I … the last time I traveled things were different,” she murmured as they finally reached the ground once they’d disembarked.

“What do you mean, beautiful Hannah?” Vincenz tried not to flinch when he noted the station just ahead. They’d all be scanned and while he and Julian carried no weapons at the moment, they’d all have to submit to a scan and physical pat down. He could use his security clearance to get them all past the scans, but that defeated the purpose of stealth. No, their cover was that of two ex-soldiers and Vincenz’s fiancée, and they didn’t go around security checkpoints. They went through them like everyone else.

“There are many more soldiers on the streets. They watch differently. Everyone is very tense.”

“The war has changed things.” Julian paused and tipped her chin up. “Do you remember when we talked about the enhanced security stations?”

Her eyes widened and Vincenz wished there was a way around it. She nodded and looked around until she caught sight of the station just up the lane.

“It will be quick. All right? Vin and I will be with you at all times. I won’t ask if you can do this because I know you can. I promise to make you come extra hard when this is all over and we’re settled into the private transport.” Julian held her gaze as Vincenz caught the effort it took her to get herself together and nod.

“Can I help?” Vincenz brushed a kiss over her lips and watched her brighten a little.

“Pat me down or make me come?”

He laughed, hugging her. “Both. Later.”

He knew the effort it took her to appear natural at the checkpoint. But she did. He knew her heart was pounding. Knew she trembled. Luckily there was no physical pat down so at least she didn’t have to go through that part.

Vincenz put an arm around her and once they’d gotten away from the portal station he paused and pulled her into his embrace, but she pushed him back, shaking her head. “No. I can’t right now. Just leave me be for a bit.” Her voice wobbled just a little, and Vincenz had to stifle his need to comfort.

Instead, he nodded and took her hand, Julian the other, and they walked again until they caught sight of Liora Falk, another Phantom Corps operative, just up ahead.

Hannah took in the diminutive, pixie-faced operative and smiled hesitantly.

“You’re Hannah.” Liora pumped her hand up and down a few times. “I’m Liora. You two don’t forget to check in before you pass through. I trust you know how to get out of the city and to the portal?”

She handed a package to Julian.

“Got it. Are you off in another direction?” Julian asked as he tossed their things into the back of the transport Liora had procured for them.

“Yes.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Julian simply nodded. “Be safe, Liora.”

“And you. Hannah keep these two out of trouble.”

She melted into the crowd on the walk across the way and Julian ushered them into the transport before getting them away.

O
nce they’d gotten everything loaded into the small private transport, Julian left them both in their small berth and went out to help pilot. The private portal was now under the control of the Federated Military Corps and would take them past the Waystation and directly into Imperial territory without any detection.

It was a slow trip because of the back-channel portals they had to use, but it was worth it to be sure no one saw them. Though the Waystation was now under Federation control after having arrested the Stationmaster and his nephew for treason, Wilhem didn’t trust everyone there completely. So they’d sacrifice speed for stealth.

Hannah sighed heavily and burrowed under the blankets.

“Baby, tell me how I can make it better.” He knelt at the side of the bed, laying his head near hers. He stroked a hand up and down her body, over the blankets, using the kind of pressure she preferred.

“I’ll be all right,” she muttered from the center of her nest.

“We’re safe now. It’s just you, me, Julian and a few other military people.”

“I know.
I’ll. Be. All. Right
.”

He smiled though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Prickly.”

She hmpfed.

“Shall I help you past your bad mood, pet? Hm?” He nuzzled her, pulling the blankets back to reveal her face. “I think I have a few ideas on how to take your mind off things.”

She fought a smile and lost. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I am. But you’re prickly because it’s been a challenging day.”

“Not for you.” Her mouth set and he kissed it.

“I have my own challenges. Everyone has their own things to overcome. You think you’re so special you get to not have something you have to recover from?” It was a teasing challenge, but one he knew she needed. Feeling sorry for her wasn’t what she wanted, or what she needed.

Hannah narrowed her eyes at him. But he was implacable. The cad.

He pulled the blankets back and got in, resting his body atop hers, pulling her arms above her head and holding her wrists. She sucked in a breath, aroused to a full-body flush.

He was hard and heavy between her legs, the solid length of his cock against her pussy.