Pure Desire [Pure 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (50 page)

“What does tomorrow bring?”

He wanted to answer her honestly but hadn’t a clue. Besides, tomorrow wasn’t his immediate concern. Not when he noticed the shadows that lurked by the windows.

It could be Migen or Willis, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

Chapter Fifty

Dressed in his slacks and shirt, a side arm locked and ready, Noor gathered his hair and knotted it to keep it falling in his face before he went in search of Migen’s armory he knew was housed somewhere in the room. He knew Migen kept his weapons stocked as well as his liquor cabinet, and after searching, he found what he needed. After adding a high-impact assault stunner and a handheld to his arsenal, he felt prepared for defense.

Waiting by the door, he rested against the frame, listening—all his senses alert to the familiar and not so usual sounds. So far, whoever lurked outside the windows hadn’t made a move. He suspected it could just be a scout checking to validate if he and Allura were actually onboard Migen’s craft so that he could send back word. Then a full team of assailants could converge on them any minute. Either way, he wasn’t going to be caught sleeping when the bastards did whatever they wanted to try to do.

For a brief second, he considered waking Allura, and then decided to let her rest. She lay on the bed snoring, dead to the world, exhausted after their marathon of lusty lovemaking, which he admitted made him feel sluggish. A sound outside the room snapped him instantly awake. He heard the
phiff
sound a stunner with a silencer made. All his senses burst alive, adrenaline started pumping beneath his veins, and instantaneously, the exhaustion he felt earlier dissipated.

He set the stunner to full blast—kill module. He wasn’t playing games. Noor waited for the door to open.

“It’s me, Migen.” Migen had sense enough to say that before he stepped over the threshold.

Noor withdrew his weapon. He stepped into the hallway to speak to keep from waking Allura and Zephyr, who he had brought into their room earlier. “What happened?” he whispered.

Migen tossed dead weight at his feet. He kicked the body and rolled it over, saying, “I found this slug outside.” He kicked the man on his back. “He’s an assassin. I found the barcode imprint under his eyelid. You have really pissed somebody off, my friend, he is one of the best I know or knew.”

“Emperor Theopolis Agaci of Oridus,” he said.

“I heard of that lunatic. He’s bad news any way you look at him. But he’s also powerful as hell and has an army of men behind him that could converge on us and destroy us within a millisecond. Why would he use renegades? They are good but not trustworthy. This one bargained for his life.”

“I take it you didn’t like his offer.” Noor smirked.

“I don’t trust many people…my men and my mother, in that order. Otherwise, I don’t even turn my back on my current woman, who is damned luscious but conniving and lethal. She is too much of an opportunist for my peace of mind. And in my line of work, one can’t be too careful.” He shrugged indifferently. “I keep her around because she serves a purpose. What did you do to get on emperor’s bad side?”

Noor explained the turn of events that led up to the moment. Then he said, “I found out that Theopolis’s heritage is unacceptable by the laws of Oridus. He’s a cretin. You know Oridus is one of few planets who don’t allow a non-specie to reign or have any form of political position in their government. It’s a screwed idealism, but one taken very seriously. The guardians are responsible for vetting a potential emperor and solely accountable for whoever takes the throne. Theopolis fucked them royally. Because he made an ass of out the guardians by enacting the mega farce, if that gets out, they are as good as dead. Their actions deemed irresponsible, treason against the nation, a little fact I reminded them of when we had our chat.

Migen smiled broadly. “You blackmailed the guardians?”

“I like to think my persuasive finesse and charm made them see reason,” he said sarcastically. “Allura is the only known living legacy of Agaci who can continue the royal bloodline. They wanted to use her as bargaining power and feed her to the bastard to keep him placid and stop his manic, harebrained idea to obtain world power. Fortunately, I got to her first. Apparently, keeping their scrawny necks intact was more important than appeasing the ex-emperor. By the way, he no longer has an army, nation, or anything else under his thumb. Part of my, ah, shall we say agreement was for him to be stripped of all power, dethroned, sent packing or meet the guardians’ sense of justice and death. He’s using rogue assassins because he doesn’t have anyone else at his disposal. Perhaps that would piss anyone off.”

“You trust the guardians to keep their word and not come after you after Theopolis is dead? They know I don’t give a damn about their reputations…what would I have to gain by exposing them. It’s a lucrative agreement—they leave Allura the hell alone, and I kill Theopolis and keep their hands pristine. We all live happily ever after.”

“You believe this with you hanging the pendulum of exposure over their heads for the rest of their lives?” Migen said he didn’t trust anyone.

“That and an insurance policy, and if I so much as step off a curb and get hit by an aerotransporter, the files inside my head will be immediately downloaded and broadcast over the Oridus network on the evening news.”

Migen said, “Smart man. By the way, somebody hacked my communication system. The bastard must be damned good…they were able to bring down the entire mechanism and block any chance of getting a signal out. They hit the backup network too, but not before I managed to get out a distress call out to my men who hover and track me when I travel by sea. Their ETA is about twenty minutes out. Willis is checking things to see how many we are dealing with. He will join us shortly. In total, you have about six men at your disposal, including me.”

“I appreciate it. This is not your battle.”

“The bastards are molesting my vessel. I beg to differ.”

“Were you able to get the force shield activated?” He thought of Allura and Zephyr.

Migen shook his head no. “We’re sitting here like targets if they hit us airborne before my ships arrive.”

“Damn it.” Pops echoed from inside the room. “Shit!”

Noor bound through the door first. Allura struggled with Theopolis who had Zephyr in his hands. He watched, horrified, seeing his family fading like mist into fog.

Noor erupted in fury, aimed with precision, pumped a couple of shots, then cursed underneath his breath when the lasers bounced off Theopolis as easily as if hitting Teflon because of the shelled skin that covered his chest. He thought about Allura’s pistol and whirled around to search for the gun, but it was gone. For the first time he hoped like hell she had it on her.

“Blasted! The son of a bitch used the others as a diversion, and I fell for it.” Noor fumed, slamming his fist into the wall. If he broke a bone, he didn’t feel a damned thing except blinding anger.

“We’ll find her,” Migen said.

Noor started pacing the room, steaming and past the explosive level. “They could be anywhere.” A sudden thought hit him, and he spun around and faced Migen. “You said they interrupted the communication module…”

Migen headed for the door with Noor on his heels. He called over his shoulder, “I had the sense to keep each network separately for specifically this reason. Unless he managed to encrypt the signals, we might be able to get a lock on the import-export coordinates.”

Time was of the essence, so they started running to the command center.

Migen barked orders to one of his men, and within minutes, he had the longitude and latitude of the destinations for Emperor Agaci’s arrival-departure. He read the information, wrinkled his brow, and then looked at Noor quizzically. “It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never seen anything like it…it starts here.” He drew his finger across the screen, looked at Noor, and said, “Then the data just stops, as if the feed were interrupted somehow.”

Noor glanced over Migen’s shoulder to confirm his suspicions. There was only one way Migen couldn’t understand what he read. Either Emperor Agaci didn’t materialize anywhere or… “I know where he took them,” he said dryly.

The hugeness of the situation was so overwhelming he had to take slow breaths and calm his nerves so he could think. Most of his body anesthetized, he focused on the miniscule brain cells that functioned somehow. Relying on the small favors, at least he could think, grasping that reality he knew he had to use and take advantage of it. He ignored the roar of his heart that slammed inside his chest, louder than the thunder outside. Erratic pulses made his flesh feel electrical. Otherwise, he felt comatose.

Then, just as abruptly as going numb, life sprung back into his body and he started taking action. A second too early or late and he was damned, he considered.

Maybe I’m screwed either way,
he thought as he heard the wind whistle and the lightning flash viciously. With the storm raging outside, the conditions for time travel weren’t ideal. None of that mattered though, not when Allura and Zephyr were in trouble. He would go to the end of the galaxy or the place Allura called hell to retrieve them. As far as he was concerned, in the scheme of things, travelling to Legend was the lesser of the evils against a man like the emperor.

Chapter Fifty-one

Allura pretended to be unconscious so she could observe the emperor without him knowing and try to figure out a way out of this mess before he realized she was awake. The idiot had hit her hard. Her cheek still throbbed, and she tasted iron in her mouth from the blood were he split her lip. Instinctively, she considered her gun that was hidden in the wide pockets of the kimono that the vermin hadn’t found when he searched her. Every nuance in her body said shoot the bastard. Zephyr squirmed and whined beside her. She had to consider his safety. Her life was inconsequential to her son. Any hasty movement, if he was able to overpower her, would put Zephyr at risk.

She bided her time, desperately searching the small interior of the room where Theopolis had brought her. The house belonged to the McFarlands. It was nothing grandiose. The elderly couple lived modestly in a Victorian-style house with a wide-railed porch, considering the huge spread of land and cattle they owned before leaving Legend. She wondered how he knew about this place. This was something she considered and then tossed it in the back of her mind as insignificant. He hadn’t taken her home. Her parents were safe, and that’s what mattered most, if she had to reason through priorities. That, and how was she going to escape the lunatic unscathed.

Coolly, her eyes shuttered, she watched Theopolis stand at the window. If his back had been fully facing her, she would have put a bullet in him.

As if he read her thoughts, he turned around and settled frigid eyes on her. One time she caught a glimpse of a Txtrca, and the thing had been gruesome, snouted with protruding lips. But staring into the soulless eyes of the emperor, her preference would be to face two cretins right now.

“Ah, you are finally awake. For a moment, I feared my little slap had damaged you permanently.

She didn’t move.

Theopolis stalked over to her and gripped her cheeks between his fingers. She winced. He snickered. “There now, that is better. You do hear me.” Allura slapped his hand away. His eyes turned limpid before the paleness returned. He smiled and said solicitously, “Instead of your insolence, you should be thankful you and your brat are not dead.”

“Forgive me if I don’t bow down with gratitude.” Mockery dripped from her lips.

Smirking, he patted her cheek, hard enough to make her flinch, and then stood up. “You are one ungrateful bitch. But then, what females aren’t?” he said. He took his position back at the window, watching, and waiting. “Oh, don’t think my benevolence has anything to do with giving a damn about your lives. I just think it will be more exciting when that rabid husband of yours arrives and we play a little game.” He glanced over his shoulder, saying, “It’s called see which one Noor covets the most. His wife or son? It’s a decision I had to make, and you know what, there is nothing like tossing your son into the ravine and watching his tiny body break against the stones like plaster…all the blood…just wash away as if he never existed. Not that I chose my wife over my son, because world power was more enticing.”

“You’re a monster.”

Within a blink, Theopolis charged across the room and breathed down in Allura’s face. “Don’t test me, you infidel, sniveling, little bitch. You keep pushing me, and I swear things will go badly for you.”

She wanted to smirk, as if she wasn’t in a hell of a predicament now. He actually believed he was doing her a favor by prolonging the agony she felt at the hands of his manic mind. The thought made her stomach nauseated.

Zephyr wiggled, making little noises, and she knew he was hungry, but she didn’t touch him for fear if she showed him any consideration, Theopolis might take his vengeance out on him.

Zephyr began to whimper, his little hands fisted. He started to kick his legs and protest loudly. Maternal instincts drummed inside her. She hated to see him suffer. “He is hungry.”

“By all means, feed him. I want both of you healthy when Noor arrives.”

Allura cuddled Zephyr to her chest and slid the opening of the robe a sliver, just enough so her son could eat. She kept her attention on Theopolis, who eyed her like a starved cat would a mouse, his lips curled crudely, watching. She could only imagine what lucid thoughts raced inside his mind. The swell in his pants was obvious, and she wanted to turn away but that would be like showing her back to a predator.