Assassin's Hunger (4 page)

He shucked off his sand-robe, careful to fold the inner pocket over his arm, trapping his second comm and his hazer out of sight. He’d intended to use his trip to the cantina as cover for sending an update to his underwriters, but the twins’ arrival had interrupted him. “I don’t have the authority to pay you—” When her mouth flattened in irritation, he raised one hand to forestall any complaint. Or hazer fire. “Benedetta Galil—the girls’ sister—will reward you handsomely, I swear.”

Shaxi shifted from one boot to the other, her armored jacket creaking with dust. The telltale mark of uncertainty seemed incongruous after he’d just watched her pick off her targets with unflinching precision. “Then I’ll speak with this sister. Now.”

When Shaxi had first drawn her hazer back in the cantina, Eril had wondered for a split second if she’d been sent to take the twins. His underwriters had warned him there were other players in the game, whose intentions were even more dire than his own. But there was no flicker of recognition or triumph in her face at hearing the name of her target, and her obvious discomfort at approaching her new benefactor convinced him she was not a sly assassin creeping in the dark. Like himself.

Oh, she was without doubt the sort who might shoot him, given the need, but he would know the kill was coming. If only for one last heartbeat.

Maybe half a heartbeat.

But since she was not another assassin and she was no longer a Hermitaj commando, perhaps she could be something else: a tool for him.

With the tilt of his head, he indicated the cargo bay hatch where the twins were enfolded in the embrace of another woman. “This way. I’ll tell Benedetta of the good turn you did us, and I know she’ll be properly appreciative.”

This time—maybe it was the promise of payment—the hard set of her jaw softened, and she gave him a small, polite dip of her white head. “Then introduce me.”

He held out one hand to usher her ahead of him. When she only looked at him askance, he lowered his hand, a flush creeping up the back of his neck. Why had he done that? She was not one of the pampered young debutantes he had squired around when he’d been a boy. It had been the word “introduce,” he guessed, as if this were just another day on just another planet.

Rather than a secret war being waged for the freedom of the sheerways. A war in which the unsuspecting twins were both the enemy and the victim. And the weapon.

Which made him both savior and killer.

If he had half a heartbeat before Shaxi ended him, he might have just enough time to thank her for setting him free.

Chapter 3

Shaxi did her best to ignore the looming man beside her as she walked toward the sleek sheership. But Eril Morav was harder to ignore than a plasma grenade with its countdown light flickering faster toward extinction.

When he’d taken off the sand-robe, he’d proved her right: he wasn’t wearing armor to bulk up. The broad expanse of his chest was encased in a close-fitting vest, the rich russet material highlighting the auburn strands in his dark hair. The vest left his arms bare, a concession to Khamaseen’s heat, and exposed a pitch-black swirl of markings over the muscled curve of his shoulder. The arcing lines of the tattoo were precise, almost delicate, seeming out of place on such a big man, and her fingers twitched with the inexplicable desire to trace the design over his bicep, to see how far it continued across his chest. She wondered what the emblem meant to him, because already she knew he was not a man who did anything without reason.

For all his controlled motion, there was a subliminal hum to him. Her nerves had prickled with static when he’d held out his hand toward her, as if he’d summoned some long-dormant and hungry ghost from her numbed body, and her awareness veered toward him like light through a dark prism.

The
wanting
again. It baffled her. Yes, he had everything she longed for that she’d lost: a position, a place to be, a purpose. But it was something more. There were hidden depths to him that intrigued her, a hint that he was
more
than just the sum of the parts—the very tempting parts—she was seeing. But she couldn’t afford to be intrigued. If she wanted to claim the scattered parts of herself, she needed to pocket what credits she could, escape his unnerving company, then hunker down until the electromagnetic storms wiped her clean, once and for all.

With that pledge to herself—the best she could do without actual mission coding from Hermitaj base—she locked her ocular implant ahead of her and focused on the source, hopefully, of her next meal.

The
Asphodel
was the finest cruiser she’d ever been near, its thrusters as powerfully built as anything on a Hermitaj drop ship but close set and lean for atmospheric flight as well as threading the sheerways. Illuminated against the gathering dust that obscured the double suns, the ship’s running lights glistened on its blue-silver skin. Flawless, except for the faint scores of old hazer or plasma flares.

Standing centered in the big open hatch of the cargo bay, Benedetta Galil appeared diminutive. Contrasting with the mechanical edges of the landing struts, the curves of her body were more decorative than functional, the lavish arcs shown to advantage in a fitted gown of some lush burgundy material. The hundreds of tiny braids in her thick, dark hair must have taken hours even with automated assistance, and there was a delicate pearl sheen to her skin that whispered of indolence and care, both her own and others’.

Shaxi might have been inclined to dismiss the woman as nothing more than another port-city doxy, but Benedetta waited with a hyperconscious stillness that took years of practice. And the way she stood with her hands lightly clasped in front of her and her generous curves balanced perfectly over the balls of her bare feet suggested that she would wait only so long as waiting was advantageous.

Her startlingly emerald eyes were half-lidded but Shaxi had already decided she would not mistake the expression for idleness, though she suspected that was the intent. There was a fierce awareness in that gemstone gaze that shuttled from Eril to Shaxi and then back again.

“Jorr told us what happened. You are all unhurt?”

“Thanks to Jorr.” Eril inclined his head another degree toward Shaxi. “And our new friend, Shaxi.”

Benedetta opened her hands in a flowing gesture, palms out. “My undying thanks for aiding our crew members, on’Taj…Shaxi.”

Shaxi restrained a jolt of surprise. Most people did not notice or understand the small differences to the insignia on her jacket that defined her former unit. Not that it mattered anymore.

She gathered herself, shedding the thoughts of what she’d lost. “I did what I felt was right,” she said. “That cantina has already been the location of two other fights since I arrived on-planet.”

“And yet you were still drinking there?” Eril crossed his arms over his chest. The drape of the discarded sand-robe made him look like one of the monkish men who had sometimes protested in previous Hermitaj war zones about the inhumanity of cyborg mercenaries. No one had ever protested in hot zones because the strike forces didn’t tend to distinguish between philosophical arguments and armed conflict.

Anyway, as disapproving as Morav looked,
he
’d been at the cantina too.

“The fermented beverage served there is less objectionable than other establishments,” she informed him before looking at Benedetta again. “Neither occasion resulted in any action by security enforcement or continued retribution by parties involved in the original infractions.”

“In other words, just a friendly little bar fight,” he said. As if that wasn’t what she’d just explained.

She continued, “Based on the indulgent local attitude toward non-lethal lawlessness, I don’t think you’ll be targeted for compensation for damages.”

“Not by them anyway.” The other woman let out a hard huff of breath. “I told the girls they could walk to the market and back.” She folded her hands again, though the stance this time was less ceremonial, her fingers awry and the knuckles white. “I didn’t think they’d hunt you down again on your shore leave, Eril. In a cantina of all places. I’ll talk to them. Again.”

He shrugged. “The
Asphodel
is a lovely ship, but even her hull must start to feel like a prison to young women ready to try their wings.”

“Wings alone won’t take you far in the sheerways.” Benedetta’s wide, mobile mouth turned down with a mixture of anger and sorrow. “I thought they understood the dangers well enough not to put themselves at risk.”

Shaxi cleared her throat. “You say ‘they’ as if they are one unit, but they are not. Based on my observations, Alolis might have followed your orders, but Torash needed stronger incentives. Although I suspect she too understands the danger. And seeks it out accordingly.”

Those emerald eyes opened wider. “You saw quite a lot in one bar fight.”

Eril took a step forward. “Which is why I wonder if the crew might be expanded by one out-of-work ex-Hermitaj commando.”

Shaxi stiffened in surprise. “I’m not looking for a job,” she said. “Just a few credits.”

Benedetta resettled her hands in a calmer pose. “I will, with gratitude, reimburse you for your services.”

Eril shifted the robe to one arm, which made him look less like a monk and more like a judge. “As good as he is with a blaster, Jorr is not the best babysitter for two young women testing their freedoms.”

“I’m definitely not looking for
that
job,” Shaxi said.

Benedetta wrinkled her nose in skepticism. “The crew we have is enough.”

“The crew you took on for this shipping run is mostly men,” Eril said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but that’s part of the problem. The twins are coming of age and looking for feminine guidance. Perhaps Shaxi—”

“Not enough credits in all the sheerways.” Shaxi swiveled on her boot heel and started to walk away.

“Wait,” Benedetta called. “I still owe you, and I pay my debts.” She gestured Shaxi closer, but she glowered at Eril. “Just as I have a responsibility to my sisters.
I
am their guide.”

He rolled his tattooed shoulder dismissively. “I had an older sister, and trust me, that’s not the supervision they want right now. Besides…” He flashed his sardonic smile like it was the winning chit in a game of chance. “You are the mistress of a dashing sheership captain. Is
that
the direction you want them to go?”

Benedetta stared at him a moment then gave a sharp laugh. “So clever you are, Mr. Morav.”

It was Shaxi’s turn to scowl at him. “So a coded celibate half-woman makes a better babysitter?”

Benedetta laughed again, with true amusement this time. “Eril, you better get out of here before we both shoot you. Let Corso know we’re all back aboard. He was ready to head out himself, and then we’d have all hells of a bar fight.”

Despite the clear dismissal, Eril hesitated for a split second. Shaxi might not have noticed except ever since her strange physical reaction in the cantina, she seemed to notice everything about him. Like the fact that when he finally turned to head up the gangplank into the
Asphodel
, the sand-robe held out of sight in front of him, he looked like neither monk nor judge. His dark fatigues seemed to swallow the ship’s running lights, leaving him little more than a shadow. A shadow with an icy gray gaze that speared into her when he glanced back over his shoulder, raising shivers from her deepest core despite the desert heat simmering off the sheership.

Undoubtedly her programmed abstinence was breaking down along with the rest of her encoding. That would explain why her gaze lingered on his back, outlining him from his wide shoulders with that intriguing tattoo to his lean hips and admiring the barely restrained power of his body. Riding the cargo drop alone through Khamaseen’s rough atmosphere had been both thrilling and terrifying without the enforced composure of her Hermitaj indoctrination. All the way down, her pulse had pounded. And she might have screamed once when the drone punched through the lowest cloud layer.

What would it be like to ride Eril all the way down?

The thought was like nothing she’d ever had before, surging up from some dark, raw place inside her. When he disappeared into the ship, a strange helix of reaction went through her: relief he was no longer interfering with her concentration entwined with an inexplicable regret. The force of the feeling shook her hard enough she thought the reverberations would get her boots moving in full retreat mode.

But she had no place else to go.

She forced herself to forget him and face Benedetta. A sheership captain’s mistress, Eril had said, and the woman had not corrected him or even bristled at the subservient title. But obviously it was a position of favor since she had no problem issuing orders and credits.

Benedetta studied her with equal intensity. “Jorr said you jumped into the fight without hesitation.”

It wasn’t a question, really, but Shaxi heard one implied. “With Hermitaj gone, I have no assigned missions. I make my own choices now.” That wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t think this poised, confident woman would understand how the remnants of those old orders might still remain, like the echo of a dead man’s shout. “I wouldn’t let the girls be taken against their will.”