In the Devil's Nebula (Phoenix Adventures #2) (2 page)

Suddenly, a large guard sprinted around the
corner ahead of him. He was a Taurean with a broad, stocky body
covered in gray skin and small tusks on either side of his mouth.
Taureans were known for being incredibly strong.

Zayn debated. The one weakness of Taureans
was they were slow. Zayn had speed. And plenty of it.

It didn’t matter, the guard made the
decision for Zayn. The Taurean lowered his head and charged.

Zayn’s body flooded with adrenaline. He
wanted to run, but he held his ground, waiting for the right
moment.

The guard thundered closer. Zayn pivoted and
ducked around the Taurean as he rushed past.

Then Zayn sprinted. The door was at the end
of the hall, calling like a homing beacon.

Laser fire sprayed the wall beside him,
sending Zayn diving to the floor.

“Don’t move.” The words were deep and slow,
like the guard wasn’t used to using them.

Zayn rolled. The guard probably didn’t have
a lingual implant but almost everyone knew a smattering of English,
the business language of the galaxy.

The guard had his gun trained on Zayn. Zayn
raised his hands.

Okay, shit. What now?
Usually it was
Dathan who did this end of the hunting work. The guy was slipperier
than a slink eel in a mud hole. But piloting through the vents
needed Zayn’s skillset, so the job was Zayn’s, not Dathan’s. And
Zayn had no idea how to get out of this.

All he had going for him was instinct. He
slammed out with his foot and hit the Taurean’s knee. The guy
groaned but didn’t move.

Another blast from the laser pistol and Zayn
felt the hot burn on his thigh.

Flame-burned son of a bitch!
Zayn
grabbed the knife he kept tucked into his belt. In a quick move, he
tossed it. It sliced into the guard’s shoulder. The guy let out a
roar and fell like a ship with no engines, clutching at the
bleeding wound. His weapon hit the floor with a thud.

Zayn grabbed it and jumped to his feet. It
had been two years since he’d handled a gun. It felt cold and hard
in his hands. Wrong.

His heart thundered. He stared at the laser
pistol and the past he was running from crashed in on him.

The guard groaned again and Zayn glanced up.
One pull of the trigger and this guard could tell no stories, send
no one after Zayn.

But an image of big, green eyes—eyes that
haunted his dreams—made his stomach tighten.

He leaped forward and slammed the butt of
the gun into the guard’s temple.

It hit the hard bone there and the guard
grinned. Zayn hit again, this time the man’s nose. Green blood
sprayed everywhere.

Zayn stared at the gun for a moment longer
before dropping it and sprinting down the hall. He burst into the
same bedroom he’d passed through before. The woman was gone. He
yanked open the vent and moments later was climbing into his
flight-pod.

The small engines hummed to life and he shot
down the vent. He leaned his body into the turns, pushing the pod
to get all the speed he could.

It felt like forever but it was only a few
minutes later when the pod shot out the external vent and into
space.

Made it. This far, anyway. The pod’s engines
were too small for the space station to detect, so he should be in
the clear. He took in a deep breath and set a course to intercept
the
Infinitas
.

He felt blood seeping from the wound on his
thigh and slapped a hand over it. More annoyed by it than worried.
They had a medscope on the ship that’d heal him up in seconds. It
was the mission that had his blood boiling. This entire hunt had
been a waste of time. He slammed his other hand against the side of
the pod, causing it to rock.

He wanted to know who the fuck this bird of
prey-taunting rival was and why the bastard had decided to mess
with the Phoenix brothers. Zayn had been itching for a new mission,
for something to keep him busy. And now he had it. Maybe it wasn’t
the same as tearing through space at interstellar speed, but Zayn
vowed he wasn’t going to stop until he found their tormentor.

***

“Who
is
this thief?” Niklas asked.

Zayn sat sprawled on a stool in the tiny
alcove on the ship that housed their medical equipment. The
Infinitas
was hauling ass away from Braxx’s space station
and back to their home base—the small moon of Khan. Dathan was
competent at the controls but Zayn felt a slight vibration in the
engine that told him she needed his care and attention. “I don’t
know but I sure as hell plan to find out.” He craned his neck.
“Dathan, for God’s sake, adjust the thrusters.”

“You get your ass up and here and fly this
bucket,” came the response.

“Can’t. Your wife wants to play patient and
nurse with me.” Zayn shot a grin at Eos who’d just plucked the
metallic cylinder of the medscope off the shelf. She returned his
grin, nudging the braid of her dark-brown hair back over her
shoulder. On her hands, her mehndi, the floral designs that looked
almost like tattoos, were visible. They were unique to her race,
the Vedic. “And she’s so pretty.”

Dathan’s response was short and pithy.

“Stop teasing him.” Eos crouched and studied
the bloody tear in his trousers. “Lucky that guard didn’t aim a
little higher.”

Zayn winced at the thought and out of the
corner of his eye saw Nik do the same. Eos clicked on the medscope
and waved its soft blue light over his thigh.

Footsteps thunked on the corridor’s metal
grating and Dathan appeared. As usual, he’d let his hair grow a
little too long and it was a shaggy mess around his tough face.
“Ship’s on autopilot. I’ve already started putting out some feelers
to our regular contacts. See if anyone knows anything about this
new player.” He frowned. “Why is my wife so close to your
crotch?”

“I think she’s decided she’s had enough of
burned-out, old treasure hunters, decided a younger, leaner space
jock is more fun. Has more stamina.”

Dathan growled.

Eos clicked off the scope. “Stop it, both of
you. All finished, Zayn.” She touched a finger to his face. “Glad
you’re okay.” Then she turned to Dathan. “Now come here, my
burned-out treasure hunter, and show me I picked the right
Phoenix.”

Dathan wasted no time. He swept her into his
arms and pressed a wild kiss to her lips. Eos gripped at his
shoulders, pressing her body into his.

Something in Zayn’s chest tightened. He was
damned happy for his brother. If anyone deserved some happiness, it
was Dathan. He’d copped the brunt of their father’s bitter
disgruntlement with the world before the old man had drunk himself
to death.

But as Zayn watched the couple—two people
who belonged, who were making a life together, fulfilling all their
passions—he felt something else he refused to name, to
acknowledge.

Zayn glanced over at Nik. His older brother
had a brooding look on his face, his gaze zeroed in on Dathan and
Eos as well. He was always more reserved, more academic than Dathan
and Zayn, but lately broody had been his main mode of
operation.

Zayn hopped off the stool. “If you two can
drag yourselves away from each other for a few seconds, how about
we discuss Mr. Bird of Prey. Guy’s becoming a right royal pain in
the ass.”

Dathan swung an arm around Eos’ shoulders.
“Damn straight. We need to work out who he is.”

“And how he knows about all our hunts,” Eos
added.

Zayn and the others stared at her. “Why the
hell didn’t we think of that? How does he know what we’re going
after?”

“I just want to know what the hell he
wants,” Nik added.

Zayn had a thought. “You don’t think its
Darc do you?”

Nik pondered for only a second. “No, she
doesn’t go for subtle. She’d be letting us know she’s stealing our
targets and rub our faces in it. Just like all the other times
she’s bested us.”

“Bitch,” Dathan added.

That she was, but since she’d helped save
Dathan a few months back, they hadn’t heard from her. Zayn glanced
at Nik’s closed face and felt a twinge of suspicion. Well, as far
as Zayn knew they hadn’t.

“I’ll keep pushing our sources.” Dathan held
Eos close to his side. “Someone must know who he is.”

“I’ll run some searches.” Nik crossed his
arms over his chest. “See where he’s selling his goods.”

Zayn nodded. “We’ll start—” A discreet beep
from the cockpit cut him off. “That’s an incoming message.”

He stalked to the command center, a large
screen that controlled all the ship’s systems. A message blinked on
the screen and he tapped it.

“Looks like someone’s already responded to
your call, Dath. Darwood.”

Dathan grimaced. “Slippery bugger. But his
intel’s always been solid, if a little old. Of course, he only
sells it for an exorbitant price.”

“He says he might know something.” Zayn
scanned the text. “But he’ll only meet in person.”

“Strange. Usually he’s happy to do business
over the comm.”

Zayn read the rest of it. “It gets worse. He
wants to meet on Syntha.”

Even Nik cursed. Syntha was a megacity
world. Every inch of it was covered in neon-colored humanity and
quite a few species that weren’t human. There was the Sub World
tunneled into the ground, the Tower World for those who lived in
the mega-skyscrapers and then the Sky World—communities built on
huge floating platforms tethered to the towers for the richest of
the rich. The entire planet was filled with bars, strip joints,
gambling dens and brothels. It was loud, chaotic and full of people
out to take your e-creds.

Zayn caught his brothers’ gazes. Then his
sister-in-law’s.

She gave him a short nod. “We have to find
out who this thief is and why he’s targeted us.”

Zayn turned to the control panel. “Setting
course for Syntha.”

The bar stank of high-octane kila and ale.
Ria sat in a shadowed corner, avoiding the garish glow of the neon
lights, and unlike the other inebriated patrons, sipped her coffee.
The drink had been popular on Earth and now was coming back into
fashion. Everyone else was gorging themselves on drinks in an
entire spectrum of colors, some with mysterious vapors rising from
the top.

She kept her eyes on the door, occasionally
glancing at the chunky timepiece on her wrist. He was late.

Then she saw them.

Three men, clearly brothers, standing
shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway. One was taller, a little
broader than the others. He had short, dark hair and a raw-boned
faced that screamed smart. He’d be Niklas, the former
astro-archeologist.

Next to him was a rangier man with shaggy
hair and eyes that scanned the entire room without appearing to do
so. He had an alertness to him, like he was ready to throw a fist
or slide in behind you and take your wallet before you knew it. The
legendary treasure hunter, Dathan Phoenix.

Her gaze landed on the final man and her
heart leaped into her throat. Zayn. His name echoed through her
head, just like the way the hazy images of his face haunted her
dreams. He was leaner than his brothers, his hands shoved in the
pockets of his navy trousers. His tawny hair was no longer as
regulation short as the Strike Wing required but wasn’t as long as
Dathan’s. Zayn rocked on his heels, almost like he couldn’t bear to
stand still. His trousers and loose white shirt somehow looked
wrong on him. He needed to be in something sharper, like a uniform
or a flight suit.

Ria had spent months studying him, all of
them. And she’d spent months luring Zayn out. She wanted—no,
needed—to know everything about this man.

She’d been born and raised in the Devil’s
Nebula. Her earliest memories were of training with the Assassin’s
Guild. She fingered a scar on her arm. It had been brutal, but they
were all she had in the way of family. The Guild didn’t believe in
children being raised by parents. In fact, no adults saw the Guild
children until they reached majority. They were reared in secret,
their training starting as soon as they could sit up.

But during the last few years, Ria had
started to have strange nightmares. They were muddled and hazy, but
she remembered one thing: Zayn Phoenix’s face.

And if that wasn’t enough, now she also had
bigger problems than nightmares. The Assassin’s Guild was out to
get her.

Dathan looked over his shoulder and talked
to someone else. It was then the woman moved up between them. This
had to be Dr. Eos Rai-Phoenix. She was lovely, with a curvy body,
flowing dark hair and floral designs on the back of her hands. Most
of the treasure hunting community had been shocked when the
galaxy’s most notorious ladies’ man had up and married after
discovering the biggest haul of treasure ever—the Treasures of the
New Louvre at Star’s End.

The only thing missing from the haul had
been the famed fragment of the
Mona Lisa
, spirited off Earth
by colonists during the Great Terran War.

Her gaze was drawn back to Zayn and she
watched the group move through the crowed bar. He moved with a
graceful, loose-limbed stride and she saw other female patrons
looking his way. She also noted the way the men surrounded Eos,
keeping her between them.

Ria saw them spot Darwood who sat several
tables away from her. She touched the communicator on her
timepiece. “Keep it cool, Darwood.”

The small time thief gave a jerky nod before
slurping at his drink. He was wearing a tiny comm device in his ear
that received and transmitted so she could hear the meet.

The Phoenix gang joined him around a tiny
table, sinking onto the circular couches. Darwood bobbled his drink
and spilled bright blue liquid down his shirt. Ria rolled her eyes
and touched her timepiece again. “Keep it together, Darwood. Calm
down.”

She saw him try to relax, sprawling back and
offering the Phoenix brothers a wide smile. Her jaw clenched. The
idiot looked about as sincere as one of the sharp-toothed Graga
monsters that lived in the Helix nebula. She
needed
this to
work. She
needed
the Phoenix brothers to help her and get
the Guild off her back.