The Huntress (7 page)

When she finally finished and removed the VR gear, the return to reality disoriented her and she breathed deeply to settle her stomach. Regan had fallen asleep with her head pillowed on folded arms next to Warren. Terrik (Stone, damn it!) had activated a table on the other side of the room and stretched out on it, ankles crossed and arms folded under his head. He still had his goggles on so she couldn’t see his eyes, but Mea knew instinctively that he was not asleep. Pulling her eyes away from his muscular form, she put the gear away and unhooked the android.

Regan woke with a start. “Did you do it?” she muttered sleepily.

“Um-hmm. He’ll be awake in a couple minutes.” Mea rose and stretched like a cat, grimacing at the stiff pain in her shoulder. She then picked up Ema’s crystal and reactivated the AI unit.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Ema said in a subdued tone.

“Maybe next time you’ll listen when I tell you to shut up.” Mea slid onto Ema’s table and lay back with a sigh, removing the coag pack from her arm. One of the devices above her levered down and angled close to her shoulder. Golden beams of light flickered and danced across her wound, and Mea sighed again when the pain began to lessen.

Regan appeared beside her and activated a seat, resting her arms on the table and chin on hands. She watched with avid curiosity as the accelerated healing closed the wound. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

The swiftly moving lights seemed to have a soporific effect on the child, her eyelids growing heavy and sliding closed, though she fought it with endearing stubbornness. Mea smiled, wondering at the ache in her chest. She began to sing the girl a lullaby, but stopped abruptly when she realized which lullaby, stomach twisting.

“I haven’t heard you sing that since we found you with your parents.” Warren was sitting up, looking at her in wonder.

Mea shifted uncomfortably and changed the subject. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty. How do you feel?”

He grimaced and rubbed behind his ear where the connector had been. “Weird. What happened?”

“You had a glitch.”

“What kind of a glitch?”

“Do you really want to know?” She felt a stab of guilt when he winced and looked away.
Someday,
she thought to him,
someday I will tell you everything, when nobody remembers or cares what we did here.

“Anything you couldn’t fix?” he asked softly, his dear face set in lines of worry.

“Well, let’s see. Do you have the urge to run down the hall naked singing Round the Milky Way?”

Regan giggled behind her hand again and a reluctant grin pulled at Warren’s lips.

“No.”

“Thank god. Could’ve been ugly.”

“Seriously, am I going to have any problems?”

“Do you know who we are?” Mea watched him carefully.

“Mea, Regan, Stone,” he said, looking at each in turn.

Mea couldn’t see if the ex-convict reacted to this at all. His stoicism was starting to get on her nerves. “There won’t be any problems, Warren. Seriously.”

“Except for the usual, of course.” Ema’s voice was droll. “Mea, stop talking and hold still. I have to do your face.”

Mea closed her eyes as golden beams danced around her mouth. This healing didn't take very long. When she opened her eyes, Regan was leaning over, so close that Mea could see golden tips at the ends of her lashes.

“That is so cool.”

Mea smiled up at her. “Never saw an EMU before?”

“Not up close. And doing that.”

Chuckling, Mea sat up, working her shoulder gingerly. “Thanks Ema, feels good. You do great work.”

“Try to remember that next time you feel like pulling me.”

Shaking her head, she rose from the table. The infirmary was empty but for the two of them. “Where’d the boys go?”’

Her only response from Regan was the usual shrug.

“Well, let’s get you to bed. You hungry?”

“Naw. I ate too many cookies.”

“Bite your tongue! You can never have too many cookies. Are you a kid or what?”

The girl grinned at her teasing and took the lead when they left the infirmary.

“Did you get a chance to explore the ship?”

“Only a little.”

“Maybe we can do that tomorrow after we take care of Bragan.”

“What are you gonna do to him?” The expression Regan shot over her shoulder was much too serious for such a young person.

Mea could’ve kicked herself for bringing it up again—she preferred to see this child laugh. “We’ll improvise.” She keyed open the door to Regan’s sleeping quarters and propelled the girl through. “To bed with you.”

Mea watched in amusement as the child kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the bed, snuggling under the blanket like a kitten finding a warm spot.

“Goodnight, Regan.”

“Wait, Mea…?”

“Yes?”

Regan sat up on one elbow, plucking self-consciously at the covers. “Could you… Could you sing that song again?”

Mea felt a band constricting her chest. “You mean the lullaby?”

“Yeah. Please?” Regan peeked up through her lashes.

Buffeted by that pleading look, Mea knew she wasn’t going to be able to say no. Stepping into the room and letting the door close behind her, she moved through the dim room and hoped the darkness would cover the emotions she couldn’t suppress. Finding the bed, she sank down next to Regan. “My mother used to sing that to me when I was a little girl.” She heard the roughness in her voice and cleared her throat as small fingers wrapped around hers. “She had a beautiful voice.”

“Katie used to sing sometimes, but she didn’t always remember the words.”

Mea heard the same roughness in the girl’s tone and was astounded to find that she wanted to sing the lullaby again. So she did.

“Little Angel fold your wings
Come to me as last light sings
Against my heart rest your head
And let my arms be your bed.

“Sweetest Angel don't you fear
I will let no harm draw near
So when shadows fall to night
Close your eyes and dream of light.

“Little Angel sleeping true
In love's hold I promise you
We will never be apart
My little angel, my heart.”

Chapter 6

Mea stood swaying next to her bed, warm from a shower and tempted as hell to just drop down onto the soft cushion. Responsibility nagged at her though.

“It’ll only take a minute,” she muttered, grabbing a wrap to cover her nakedness. Stepping out of her room, she skidded to a stop before she ran into Warren.

He frowned down at her. “I thought you were in bed.”

“Need to check the cargo.”

“You look exhausted. Check ‘em tomorrow.”

“Bragan’s tomorrow.”

He tugged on a lock of her dark hair with affectionate censure. “You should take better care of yourself.”

Patting him on the chest, she squeezed by him then stopped when a memory surfaced. “Hey, where’d you two go earlier?”

“Stone wanted to get familiar with the ship’s systems. I showed him how to retrieve info, namely his own files. He seemed to know how to pilot already.”

So he still hadn’t believed she’d actually changed his identity. Shaking her head in exasperation, she turned to go.

“I’m not sure you want this guy for a partner. His record isn’t exactly clean, you know.”

“I know.”

She continued down the hall and entered the cargo bay, momentarily alarmed to find that the overhead lights were off, until she saw Stone’s shadowy form. Her eyes adjusted quickly—each cryotube was softly lit, providing adequate light to navigate the room.

“Just checking the meat popsicles,” she said into the stiff silence. “Nightly routine.”

He said nothing, of course, and she began making a slow circuit around the bay, inspecting each cryotube with a critical eye. There were eight in all, but only five were filled, two of which she had acquired on the moon outpost.

Near the end of her inspection, Stone finally chose to acknowledge her. “How come I’m not in one of these things?”

She shrugged with a smirk. “Be my guest. Not the coziest beds, though—”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “It doesn’t make sense, woman. Why would you do that for me? You’re a goddamned hunter, and I’m a convict.” At least he now believed that she’d done the switch. A small step in the right direction.

“Still looking for my ulterior motive?” she asked with an arched brow, but he didn’t reply, arms folded across his chest. Beyond irritated at his stoicism, she changed tactics. “Fine. You want another motive?” Gliding forward, she watched him through narrowed eyes. “Try this one.”

Mea placed a hand on his folded arms and felt muscles bunch under warm skin. Heat spilled through her as she leaned up to bring their lips into the barest, tingling contact, eyes locked on his dark ones in steady challenge. When he didn’t move, she nudged closer, molding their lips in a sensual glide that sparked a raging hunger for more. God, he felt good—she loved the sensation of smooth, firm flesh and stubbled chin, the warm, male scent of him.

He didn’t exactly participate, arm muscles rigid under her touch and mouth moving only infinitesimally against hers. But he didn’t pull back, head slowly angling down, increasing the contact and giving her better access. It was all she could do not to pull him down to the floor with her. With a little moan, she slid away from his tantalizing mouth and left the bay on quick feet.

Pausing in the corridor, Mea rested her hot face against the metal wall and tried to slow her racing heart. She had not expected to feel so intense over one simple kiss. It was a little unnerving to know that he could push her to the edge of control without even trying. A fire burned wild and deep underneath her skin, but as much as she wanted to go back in there and finish what she started, she knew he wasn’t ready. He didn’t trust her. He would probably see it as some kind of ploy. A way to force him and trap him. Now was not the time for such intimacy.

With a low sound of protest, she forced her feet down the hall and into her quarters, flopping on the bed like a puppet with its strings cut. Sleep was hard to come by.

*******

Stone ground his teeth together, desperate not to follow her. Or maybe he was just desperate. She’d been temptation itself from the second she’d stepped through that door. He’d smelled her skin, damp from a shower, and had tortured himself with images of what was under that shapeless wrap. Remembering that she was dangerous to him took a huge effort—which she’d brushed out of his mind with shattering ease, all with a light touch and a quick taste of her mouth.

She’s playing a game with you
he tried to tell his painfully aroused self. Just another kind of mind game—but she’d smelled like a dream and tasted like hot honey…

He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes hard enough to cause silent sunbursts to float across his vision, trying to breathe through the pounding heat in his veins. With an inarticulate snarl, he stalked out of the cargo bay and down the hall, entering his quarters and pacing the room like a wild cat in a cage, restless and desperate for freedom.

His life hadn’t made sense since they’d gotten him out of cryo on that ship. Prison had been simple. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest by pure animal instinct. But his whole world had shifted radically when he’d met Kate and the kid. Kate had hated and feared him, always jumping when he moved and watching him with a frantic kind of wariness. Yet she’d picked up a weapon and followed him when he went after the crazy. And she’d thrown herself in front of him when they were cornered, taking his hit.

Then there was the kid, who’d never feared him and from the beginning trusted him with her life. She’d followed him everywhere, watching him with those big eyes wide with hero worship and slipping steadily under his skin.

He didn’t believe in selfless acts. He could convince himself that Kate had taken his hit to protect her sister by protecting the man most likely to kill the crazy. He could believe that the kid latched onto him as her best chance of survival. What he could not wrap his mind around was that the woman down the hall had put her life and career in jeopardy to save him, just because she’d wanted a partner and a lover.

It didn’t make any goddamned sense.

It didn’t occur to him that she might have feelings for him, an escaped convict and a man who’d been lifeless until his world had collided with three others.

When he finally did sleep, it was on the floor across the doorway.

Chapter 7

The proximity alarm made for a horrible wake up call. Mea rolled out of bed as the ship rocked, blinking hard to clear her bleary vision. Yanking on a bodysuit, she took a second to slap a stim patch on her arm, hoping the artificial energy boost would take the place of her lost hours of sleep.

Plunging out into the hallway, she nearly bowled Regan over.

“What’s happening?” the girl cried, thin face pale and eyes wide.

Mea wished she could sooth her but there was no time. “Bragan,” was all she said over her shoulder before darting up the hall to the control room. Stone and Warren were already there.

“He’s taking shots at us!” Warren blurted, his expression shocked and indignant.

Mea ruffled his hair with a smirk. “Well, evade him then.”

She activated the screen and smiled cheerily when Bragan’s snarling face appeared. “Morning! You seem a little cranky. Wrong side of the bed?”

“Stupid bitch! You fucked with the wrong hunter! Stand to—I’m boarding.”

“Without permission?” She widened her eyes in feigned shock. “Bragan, you know the rules against that.”

He didn’t take it well. “Give me my fucking target!” he roared into the screen, face brick red and spittle flying.

She shut off the screen without a word.

Warren stared at her with wide eyes. “He’s lost it.”

“Yeah, he really has.” Another shot rocked the ship. “Evade for a little while longer then let him get a hit on us.”

“What?” Warren was busy maneuvering the ship, but his tone implied that she’d lost it, too.

“Close to the power cells but not a direct hit. Then cut power and drift. I want him to think he got us.”