Dark Solstice (27 page)

It was almost irritating that he felt reassured. He had no reason to trust Raathe’s judgment, but somehow he did, and that irked him, too. Allowing the subject to drop, he shouldered the pack he’d finished and carried it to the skimmer to secure it. Raathe followed him, flicking a hard look at him from time to time while he worked.

Kyle thought he knew what was coming, but Raathe surprised him.

“There’s one or two things that have been bothering me, Justice,” he murmured coldly.

Kyle tensed. Finished with his task, he straightened and met Justice’s piercing look with a hard one of his own. “Such as?”

“Such as, our escape was way too fucking easy.”

Chapter Twenty Three

Kyle stared at Raathe, ignoring the churning uneasiness in his belly. Finally, he forced a disbelieving laugh. “If you call that fucking easy, I’d hate like hell to see hard.”

Not so much as a flicker of amusement lightened Raathe’s hard expression. “You getting the last code and the schedule seemed just a little too convenient to set right with me, but the escape … now that was way off the charts. Grimes somehow managed to get the codes for both the arena access corridor and the blast doors. We had a power failure at just the right moment. There wasn’t a single guard stationed at the ship … and there were three ships that shouldn’t have been there waiting for us at all.”

Kyle held his gaze steadily. “You complaining because it went down more smoothly that we’d expected?”

Raathe shook his head slowly, his eyes narrowing. Under other circumstances he wouldn’t have confronted Justice with his suspicions. He would simply have bided his time and watched him, waiting for him to make the move he knew was coming. He didn’t like tipping his hand now, but he also didn’t want Rhea caught between them. Whatever Justice was up to he would at least be more cautious knowing he was on to him and maybe it would buy him the time to figure out what Justice’s angle was.

Obviously, Justice didn’t want him dead. He could’ve arranged it in the arena without even dirtying his hands by simply ignoring how bad off he was. He could’ve just walked off and left him if that was what he wanted. It seemed just as obvious that he wasn’t the warden’s snitch as he’d first supposed, otherwise he’d be dead meat now and none of them would be where they were. The problem was, he couldn’t think of anything Justice might be after that seemed to fit the situation.

He was pretty sure he was going to have to kill him, which was a damned shame since Rhea wasn’t going to like it at all considering how she felt the bastard—and, truth be told, he wasn’t particularly fucking happy about it, either. Justice had saved his ass—both in the arena and on the Martian surface. Obviously, Justice had reasons for it that had nothing to do with affection for him, he thought wryly, but that didn’t change the fact that he owed his life to the man and, just as importantly, Rhea’s. It went against the grain to consider killing the man that had saved his life and beyond that he’d actually begun to sort of like the bastard. Justice was the sort of man a man wanted as a partner—cool headed under pressure, smart enough to make the right decisions for himself without having to be led around, and damned good at both hand-to-hand combat and with every weapon he’d seen the man handle. “I’m saying I’m not swallowing it, Justice. I thought you were a snitch for the warden. I’m still not convinced you aren’t. What was the plan?”

“My plan was to escape before I died in that fucking hell hole,” Kyle ground out. “I don’t know a fucking thing about the ships. I was just as surprised as you were. If I had to guess, I’d say the warden had more up his sleeve than we knew anything about. As for the rest … you’d have to ask Grimes how he managed to get the blast doors open. All I did was get word to him that we’d have to make the break from the arena or not at all. I wasn’t even sure I’d managed that much until I saw him, but I’d managed to get one the guard’s weapons and figured we could try it if he failed.”

“Convenient,” Raathe said sardonically, “since Grimes is a little too fucking dead to explain anything.”

“What’s going on?”

Both men stiffened and turned to look at Rhea since they’d been too focused on their discussion to realize she’d joined them.

The hardness went out of Raathe’s eyes, Kyle noted absently, so fast it might not have even been there at all. “You ready, munch?”

Her face was pale with obvious fright as she divided a look between him and Raathe. He saw the questions in her eyes, but after studying the two of them anxiously for a moment, she merely nodded. Raathe caught her chin in his hand and studied her face for a long moment after he’d settled her on the back of the skimmer.

“You look like hell warmed over, munch.”

Rhea gave him a look. “Oh thanks!”

Raathe grinned at her. “You’re welcome,” he responded, uttering a chuckle as he climbed on in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Rhea demanded irritably when he tugged the overlong sleeves of her suit down over her hands and knotted the two together.

“Making sure you don’t fall asleep and hit the dirt, baby.”

“I’m awake.”

Raathe grunted. “This way you don’t have to be to stay on.”

Rhea sighed irritably but let it drop. It was too hard to try to talk once they got going anyway and besides, she
was
still sleepy. She dozed off within minutes after they’d headed out, waking again when the deceleration of the skimmer aroused her.

Opening her eyes with an effort, Rhea sucked in a breath of awe at the sight that met her gaze. Sitting up straighter, she looked around as Raathe cruised the skimmer in a slow, wide circle that allowed her to see the cavern around them in a three hundred sixty degree panorama. They’d found the source of the water. Nearly fifty feet above them, water gushed from the side of the cavern, cascading and tumbling over the uneven jut of rocks and forming a small waterfall that was nevertheless stunningly beautiful regardless of the fact that she’d been in showers that produced a heavier volume of water. Below the fall, water had collected in a small pool that was maybe three times the size of the pool they’d slept near the night before.

The vegetation was both more abundant and far larger than anything they’d seen before. There was even a smattering of plants here and there that had grown tall enough they looked like small trees—must have been from ten to fifteen feet tall.

“It’s … beautiful!” she breathed.

Raathe twisted his head to look down at her and then looked over at Kyle. “Let’s set them down and have a closer look.”

Kyle glanced back in the direction from which they’d come, studied the cavern behind them for a moment and finally nodded. They circled until they found an even patch of ground to set the skimmers down. Raathe dismounted more carefully than he had the night before, holding Rhea to steady her. It irritated her until she tried to get off and discovered her legs were asleep. She gripped his arm, trying to stamp the circulation back into her feet and legs.

“Problems?” Raathe asked, his voice carefully neutral.

Too careful, Rhea thought irritably. “It’s not funny, damn it!”

He gave her a look of innocence when she glared up at him. “I can rub it and make it better.”

Despite her irritation, the suggestion inspired a font of warmth inside her and images that stirred her blood. Abruptly, it seemed like it had been forever since she’d felt him inside of her. The rush of need and the emotions that followed it made her throat close. The urge to beg him to make love to her right then and there was almost overwhelming, fed not just by desire, but by the fear that she’d never again have the chance to feel him as a part of her.

She tamped the urge with an effort. It wasn’t the time or the place for such things, she knew.

But when would they have the time again, her inner voice whined? Never?

Gritting her teeth at the pins and needles that stabbed at her feet, legs, and buttocks as circulation returned, she released her grip on Raathe and stood on her own. “It’s alright now,” she lied in a strained voice.

Raathe made a sound of impatience. “Sit down,” he ordered her, grasping her waist and forcing her to obey without waiting to see if she would.

Grabbing her leg, he pulled a boot off and began kneading her foot, working his way upward to her thigh. Giving in, Rhea fell backwards against the moss, catching herself on her elbows, moaning with a mixture of pain and pleasure while he worked his magical hands over her feet and legs until they stopped prickling painfully.

“Better?” Raathe asked after a little while.

“Mmm. I think I’ll lie here a little while and consider it,” Rhea murmured when he released her and stood up.

“Watch for crawlies.”

That brought Rhea upright. “Ass! You just had to point that out, didn’t you?”

Suppressed laughter danced in his eyes. “I thought you might want to consider it.”

Torn between irritation and lingering weariness, Rhea discovered she was still entirely too charmed by his teasing to feel any real anger. Dismissing her annoyance, she struggled to her feet. Kyle, she saw when she looked around for him, had disappeared. It dampened her spirits instantly.

She tried to shrug it off as she had the resentment but with indifferent success. “Do you think we could stay here a while?” she asked tentatively as she followed Raathe in his exploration.

“It depends on how close they are. I don’t think it’ll be safe to linger any where too long.” He stopped, lifting his head to scan the far side of the valley. “It must be five miles wide here,” he added musingly, “maybe more. They could build a sizeable colony here without putting too much stress on the environment … if they were careful. One has to wonder if this is the only one or if there are other systems like this on Mars.”

Willing to be distracted, Rhea studied their surroundings, as well. “I doubt it. The chances of everything coming together like this and providing the foundation for the life forms we’re seeing here are probably astronomical. Although … there could be others that contain some life and probably are. I’m a geologist, not a biologist, but it seems to me the fecundity of phosphorescent growth here would indicate that life started in this cave system before the ice flow tore away enough of the cavern ceiling to allow light in and thus the growth of vegetation, and possibly lower order animals, that would need light to prosper. Not that I’ve seen anything but the vegetation. Have you?”

“I’ve caught a couple of glimpses of creepy crawlies.”

Rhea sent him a sharp glance. “Creepy crawlies, huh?” she asked, amused at his description.

“You laugh now,” he said wryly.

“You’re serious?” she asked a little worriedly.

“Gave me the creeps.”

She snorted disbelievingly. “The iceman?” she asked thoughtlessly and then could’ve kicked herself when he cut a sharp look at her.

Turning to face her, he studied her for a long moment and finally moved closer. Rhea stood her ground, although she found it hard to decide whether he was angry with her or not. “You think about that when I’m fucking you, munch?” he asked coldly.

A spark of fear flickered through her at the look in his eyes, but it disappeared almost as abruptly as she scanned his face. She met his gaze unflinchingly. “I haven’t thought about it even once when you were fucking me.”

Some of the tension seemed to ease from him. “No?” He lifted his hand and caressed her cheek. “It didn’t give you a little private thrill to imagine a killer’s hands caressing you?”

Dismay filled her. “You think I get some sort of twisted thrill out of it?”

He shrugged. “Why not? All the others did.”

Rhea swallowed with an effort. “Except Amy.”

His eyes shuddered. “I wasn’t a killer then—at least not the cold blooded killer you know.”

Tears abruptly filled her eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t know a cold blooded killer. I only know the man who was always a gentle, consider lover, who never hurt me, who always protected me.”

His lips twisted in self-derision. “Except the one time you really needed my protection. Then I failed you … just like I failed Amy … and our son. She was seven months pregnant when they tortured her to death … because of me.”

Rhea grasped his hand when he started to withdraw. “You didn’t fail me, John. You rescued me … knowing what you had to lose, you came to protect me. I would’ve died if you hadn’t.”

“You almost
did
die,” he ground out, “because I left you.”

“Because you thought I’d be alright, not because you ignored the possibility of a threat.”

He shook his head, his expression tight. “Don’t make excuses for me. I was too fucking focused on my own plans. It was completely irresponsible!”

Anger flickered to life inside her. “I’ll make any damned excuses for you that I want to, John Raathe! Don’t tell me what to think! I’m not helpless, whatever you think!
I
made the mistake! I panicked. If I’d kept my wits about me, he would never have succeeded in dragging me off to start with. All I could think about, though, was that I’d get you in trouble if I started screaming or fighting him there, maybe start a riot. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I don’t blame you and you’ve no right to take the blame completely on your shoulders!”

He looked taken aback at her vehemence. He pulled her flush against his chest, though, after a moment, enfolding her with one arm and stroking her back soothingly. She didn’t realize until then that she was crying. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. And I didn’t know where they took you or what might be happening. And it was all my fault! I’m so sorry, John! I was scared and I just acted an idiot! I thought they were going to kill you!” she babbled between sobs.

“It’s alright, baby. I’m a tough bastard.”

Hearing that, Rhea sobbed harder. She knew he was tough, but he was still hurt and she could hardly bear the thought that she’d brought it about.

Raathe cupped a hand along the back of her head and held her tightly, rocking her slightly while she cried until she wore herself out and was reduced to snuffling and sniffing.