Dark Runner: LodeStar 3.5 (7 page)

“This is Darry,” he said, indicating the blond man. “He’s my second. This is Dalg. If I decided to take you, you can stay at least till we reach Serpentia. Trix should be back on her feet by then, and we’ll see.”

“Great.” She was nearly in. “Ah, what will I be doing exactly?”

Darry gave her a wolfish grin, sauntering closer to her, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. He wore tight leather pants and skin shirt as well, the hue of bitter chocolate, under a green vest. He was attractive in a cocky, boyish way, but not as hot as his silent, brooding boss.
 

“What Trix does, of course. She takes care of
all
our needs. She’s especially good with her mouth.” Darry’s thick, gold-tipped lashes drooped as he looked at her mouth. “I could put those lips of yours to good use.”

“You can try, earther. Like I said, I whore for no one.”

“Oh, I will,” he promised.
 

Scala bit back a laugh. Hard to be angry with any guy with that much mischief in his beautiful eyes.

The Mau laughed soundlessly. “This I’d pay to watch,” he rumbled. “Ship’s guard, you said? Bet you know some fighting moves. Watch out, she’ll rip you a new one, Darry.”

She wasn’t here to make enemies. She gave Darry a look under her lashes. “I just like to make my own choices, that’s all.”

He winked. “I’m even better at persuasion.”

“Right,” she said, grinning back at him. “So really, what is the post?”

“This isn’t a pleasure cruise,” Darkrunner said. “I’m … searching for someone.”

A thrill of excitement ran over her skin. He was letting her in on his goal, so he must mean to hire her. “Is this someone going to be happy to see you?”
 

He shook his head slowly.

She shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”

He showed no reaction to this, just as he hadn’t to her flirting with his lieutenant. “I could use a fighter along, in case of trouble. That is, if you’ve still got the skills. Been a while since you were legit.”

She gave him look for look. “If you’d seen the rough crews I’ve been working alongside, you’d get that my skills are better than they’ve ever been. Have to be, or I’d have been raped a hundred times.” That was the honest truth.

He didn’t look impressed. “We’ll see. Come outside.” He jerked his head toward the open hatch. “You can demonstrate.”

“Fine.” This part would be easy as taking stink from a Bartian.

Darry and the hulking Dalg watched silently as she preceded Darkrunner out onto the gangplank.

She was a few steps down the treads when her right leg was jerked out from under her by a booted foot. She catapulted off the side of the gangplank, headed for the hard, dirty floor of the docking bay below.
 

Instinctively she tucked, used her momentum to roll in midair and landed on her feet, already whirling in a defensive crouch to face her assailant.

Darkrunner sauntered down the gangplank and faced her, a smirk turning up one corner of his chiseled mouth, his crystalline gaze alight with taunting challenge. The bastard. Scala let the scalding tide of fury burn away the sense of betrayal at his dirty move. They weren’t children, and he wasn’t a schoolyard bully, he was the man she was going to stalk while he stalked other prey.

She faced him, gliding to her left as he moved out to her right. “You get your kicks knocking women around?” she goaded.

He betrayed no irritation or guilt at her contempt, which she didn’t bother to hide. Instead he smiled slowly, white teeth glinting as they circled each other several paces apart, two opponents searching for an opportunity to strike.
 

“Are you a woman first, or a warrior? I need to know.”

Fine, she wasn’t here to make friends. However, it was going to be all she could do not to kill this smirking asshole.

“”I’ll show you tough,” she promised. “But you pull a blade on me, I’ll feed you your balls—tied up in a bow with those braids of yours.”

“You want to work for me,” he answered, “You’d better be ready for anything that’s dished out—from me, my crew, or the people we’re after. If you’re more interested in me seeing a woman when I look at you, I’ll fuck you if that’s what you want. But then I’ll leave you here. I can get cunt whenever I want it, I don’t need it taking up space on my ship.”

She went in low and fast, before his words had died away. It was an amateur move, and one that he countered easily, his longer male arms already closing around her ... except that she was no longer there. Flipping away to balance on one hand, she took him off his feet with a lightning scissor of her slim, strong legs around his.

As he fell, he rolled, got hold of her jacket and pulled her with him. She used their momentum to keep going, flipping back over his head and sliding out of her jacket to land in a crouch behind him.
 

He knifed up, and she waited the split second it took for him to get half-way to his feet before taking him down again, hard. This time her legs wrapped around his neck. Pinning him to the ground, she allowed herself a fierce smile of victory. The whole fight had taken only seconds.

“Dirty enough for you, earther?” she asked breathlessly.

“Not bad.” He relaxed and tipped his head back to look up into her face. This close, his pale eyes were shot with streaks of silver, and his mouth quirked in a private smile, just for her. Beguiling, as was the slither of his glossy braids across her thigh, and the heat of him through her thin pants.
 

“Except for this.” Something hard poked her in the ass, pressing her snug pants into the crevice of her ass, and pulling them tight into the vee of her hips as well. His laser weapon. Heat flowered there, sending shivers of weak, liquid wanting through her.
 

She rolled her eyes at him. “You’d never have gotten a shot off, Darkrunner.”

“Oh? Why not?” He turned his cheek into her inner thigh, and his nostrils flared, taking in her scent. His smile grew, as if he knew she was aroused. Fine, didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it—not with him anyway.

She tightened her thighs around his neck, squeezing hard enough that his face suffused with color and his smile became a grimace of discomfort.
 

“Hard to do anything with a broken neck,” she murmured in her most sultry voice. “And with these thighs, I can snap your neck like a crispie.”

“Good point,” he grunted. “Now let go before—I’m tempted—to give you a new orifice.”

She let him go, opening her legs and flipping backward again. Standing up, she retreated to a safe distance to pick up her jacket and slip it on. He rose and watched her, cocking his head to either side to stretch his neck. She smiled, knowing exactly why his neck was stiff.

“That was
hot
,” Darry called from the gangplank. “Can I be next? And can you get naked first?”

“In your dreams,” Scala called back. After tangling with Darkrunner, Darry was about as threatening to her peace of mind as a mawwr. Darkrunner was the wild catamount roaming the edges of the firelight, searching for an instant of weakness before springing, teeth and claws bared.

He straightened his duster, looking unperturbed as if they’d just had a conversation with words instead of their bodies. “If I’d pulled a blade, I could’ve sliced you open when you came at me.”

Scala held out her arms in invitation. “Try me. You’d had one out, I’d have gone for it first. Hard to slice anyone with a broken hand or wrist. And yes, I can spot a palm blade.”

He lifted his hand, a slim blade appearing from his cuff. “Really?”

She shrugged. “A guy like you has weapons hidden everywhere, including one up your ass for all I know.”

“No,” he broke in. “I store my ... weapons a bit farther forward in my pants.”

Darry laughed.
 

Scala ignored the innuendo. “But right now, you need a warrior more than you need to make a point, so why try to maim me?”
 

And she’d made
her
point, so it had all worked out. Unless he was a poor loser, in which case she’d blown this whole op nebula wide.

Darkrunner nodded once. “Welcome to the
Zharrdul,
for now. On two conditions—I don’t care who you fuck, but cause trouble and I’ll dump you, no matter where we are at the time. And you lie to me, or try to cheat me, I’ll dump you with
nothing
—no weapons, no credit and no clothing.”

A chill of fear sliced through her satisfaction. She’d made it onto his ship, yes, but she’d have to walk the fine line between truth and evasion with exquisite balance—because he wasn’t a man to make empty threats.
 

“Got it. You won’t regret hiring me.”

He stared at her for another sec. “See to it that I don’t.”

She watched him saunter back onto his ship, done with her. She let out a slow breath of relief. The less attention Darkrunner paid her, the better.
 

Chapter Five

Turned out everyone aboard the
Zharrdul
had private sleep cubbies. So although Scala’s was only big enough to turn around and lie down, she wasn’t about to complain. Her bunk had a pressure controlled aircushion so she could make it soft as a cloud or hard as the floor, though why anyone would want to do the latter she didn’t know. Maybe to work out.
 

There were cupboards for her duffle and more, except she didn’t have much after two years of bouncing around the galaxy. The immaculate lav had a second hatch, evidence it was shared by whoever bunked on the other side. She didn’t care, as long as it locked while she was using it.

She took a showerdry, luxuriating in the gleaming cerametal fitments, the hot, hot water and the aromatic gelsoap in the dispenser. It felt expensive, not the cheap stuff she was used to. It smelled like the ship’s owner.

She ignored the shiver of pleasure this gave her. At least on this trip, she was traveling in luxury. But as the hot water poured over her, it couldn’t reach the chill at her core.
 

As she’d faced the clandestine jury who could give her freedom, Joran Stark had been honest about the risks.
 

“I wouldn’t want to be lied to,” he’d told her. “So I won’t lie to you. This is probably the most dangerous thing you’ll ever try to do. Darkrunner is a live charge—and no one can predict how or when he’ll blow. I suggest you don’t
ever
let him learn why you’re on his ship. But there’s another reason we chose you. You, ah, you resemble Kiri.”

Okay, she’d wanted honesty, she’d gotten it—with laser-like force.
 

So when Darkrunner looked at her, the admiration in his gaze wasn’t really for her, it was because she resembled someone else. He was out here for another woman: Kiri, the woman he’d loved and lost.

Or as Joran Stark had put it, ‘he’s a very dangerous man who likes fiery brunettes with hot bodies, lush lips and big golden eyes.’
 

Nice, but still, it only meant he might want to fuck her, but not the way he wanted Kiri. And it didn’t mean he wouldn’t follow through on his threat to dump her if she screwed up. She might be in the lap of luxury here, but she was still surrounded by vipers.

She hit the controls to clean after her and left the lav.

In her cubby, she pulled on a gold knit top that an ex-lover had given her, saying it was the color of her eyes, and a pair of black tights. She finger-combed her short hair into its usual head-hugging waves and padded along the passageway to the galley.

Trix slept across the passageway, but her hatch was closed, so Scala didn’t bother her. Instead she counted paces along the corridor to the other hatch on her side, and swore under her breath. The other sleep cubby there was twice the size of the others. Quarking great, that meant she was sharing a lav with Darkrunner himself.
 

She sure as hells didn’t want to stumble in on him. A sudden vision of the ganger’s hard, lean body naked and wet assailed her. Damn, she really wanted to know how far those tattoos went, possibly more than she wanted a drink of cool water. She was thirsty in more ways than one.

But if she was smart, that was one river from which she wouldn’t be drinking.

The galley was as immaculate and gleaming as the rest of the ship, from the cerametal fitments to the real wood veneer on the recessed storage cabinets and refrigeration unit. There was just room for six at the narrow table, if they snuggled.

She rubbed her knit-covered arms with her hands. Quark, it was chilly in here. She’d have to find the air controls or layer up.

“Access holomenu for contents of storage units, cooking capabilities and recycle directions,” said a sultry voice.
 

“Bottled water,” Scala said, looking around with admiration. With a craft like this, one could travel the galaxy and want for nothing. It was as far from the succession of old scows on which she’d spent the last two years as a diamond was from a chunk of space rock.

A recess in one of the cabinets lit up, and a bottle of water slid into view.
 

Scala grabbed the water and twisted the recyclable wax top open, tipping her head back to take a long drink. She sighed with pleasure. Mmm, nice and clean and chilled, with no odd taste as if it had been recycled through old metal.