Dragonfly (24 page)

“This is your second chance,” he told her, his tone sharp. “You might not get another. Better make sure the rest of your life means something.”

And without waiting for me, he climbed up the ladder beside the slippery slide and popped the airlock open.

Silence. Only hissing air, the distant whirr of gravity engines, and Natasha’s sputtering curses.

I hauled myself up the ladder and grabbed his hand, and together we climbed out through horizontal glass doors onto the docking arm floor. The black rubber was littered with dirt and metal fragments. Icelights glared. Above us, thick windows warped the starfield, floodlights shining in.

I whipped out my pistol, covering left and right along the docking arm’s vast length. Dragonfly did the same. No one. We’d gotten here before the security team. Forty-three seconds from the garrison to Natasha’s quarters, I remembered, and we were further away than that.

But not too much further. Boots thudded on rubber, and at the far end a shout rang out.

We sprinted, hurdling tools, lengths of pipe, a laser cutter left unpacked. Past a small freighter, its radshields cut loose to expose the curling sensor array. Then a battered marine dropship half-coated in pink rust primer. My lungs burned cold in the thin air.
Ladrona
lay between us and them. We were running toward a firefight. Not one of our better plans.

Just as we reached the airlock, the first plasma shots whizzed over our heads, and a harsh voice yelled out, “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”

“You already did, idiot.” I fired a heavy barrage just above head height, making him duck for cover.

More armed marines spilled around the corner, their tight black armor gleaming, taking up defensive positions in doorways and behind bulkheads. Dragonfly punched in the airlock code, his fingers a blur, and I covered, picking my shots carefully. Behind us on the Thorn, Natasha still yelled and cursed faintly, her voice swallowed by metal.

The glass airlock snapped open. I backed up. The marine sergeant darted out and fired at me, missing by centimeters. I couldn’t help but gasp and sway to one side, and a bolt from some random gun glanced into my ribs. Acid fire splashed deep. I screamed and clutched at it, the burn spreading. Fuck me, it hurt.

Tears stung my eyes, and my pistol hand shook as I fired. I retreated into the pain, nothing but the corridor and the shimmering starfield filling my vision. In my mind, I was a soldier again, Corporal Thatcher, field stripes heavy on my shoulder, dragging my half-dead platoon to safety on my most basic instincts.
Shoot. Run. Don’t fall. Repeat
.

Warm hands on my shoulders, the spicy smell of his hair. A whisper in my ear, or a yell: “Lazuli. You’re hit.”

I snapped to, my own crusted flesh crunching under my palm. I didn’t want him to see. “I’m okay.” My voice echoed distantly in my head. A sick laugh crippled me. I’d survived Spider’s lunatic hospitality, escaped
LightBringer
unharmed, returned that silly girl to safety. And now I had to get shot by my own side, and rescued by a rebel.

Dragonfly dragged me back, and together we stumbled onto
Ladrona
in a trail of sweat and burned blood.

27

Dragonfly hauled me up the stairs to the saloon deck, his arm cool around my fiery ribs. Sickness gripped my guts:
Ladrona
’s security biochem kicking in. I barely noticed. Sweat dripped over my hair, my skin, my weeping burn, and it stung like a poisondart. I stumbled and the burned skin ripped, laying my muscle bare. Pain sheeted. I crunched my teeth on a yell. Don’t let him see. For god’s sake, don’t let him care.

He laid me on the soft black sunken lounge, where, what seemed like years before, he’d stolen his hyperchip from my shorts while I slept. Remnants of his gammaspace link still littered the floor, stripped wire and solder and slivers of glass.

I tried to stand, my legs weak. He pushed me back down. “Stay there,” he ordered, his voice stressed like I’d never heard it before.

I stayed, gritting my teeth on the pain. I didn’t look at my ribs. Didn’t want to see. God, I hated getting shot.

Dragonfly ran to his console, and in moments the luminous green biochem fizzled away, the clearview shutters snapped open and
Ladrona
lurched to port and dived away from Vyachesgrad, arc rockets howling as they accelerated. The stardrive kicked in, jerking us forward in a smear of stars, accelerating toward slip velocity. Almost before the slipspace coil warmed up, he hit the contact. The ship shuddered in protest, visible light tearing apart into prisms like falling jewels, but then the familiar redshift shimmer erupted and the clearview blanked out.

The sudden lack of motion rocked me forward, lighting fresh agony. Slipspace. We’d escaped.

Urgently, Dragonfly sketched route details into the navspace and tapped impatient nails on the glass, his mouth tight. “Today, you stupid … Fuck. My brain works faster than this thing.”

“Where are we going?” My dry voice cracked dully. I didn’t really care. I just wanted to think about something other than pain.

He skidded to his knees at my feet. “Never mind that. Let me see.”

I shuffled away. I didn’t want him to see. Didn’t want him touching me. My shell had remained intact, barely, while we’d fought and lied and run together on the battleship. Now, with the pain—with adrenaline and endorphins and god knows what else sprinting around in my blood—I didn’t know if I could keep him out.

I covered myself with one arm pressed to my screaming side. “I’m okay. Just give me the medkit—”

“Let me see.” He pulled my arm away, gentle but inescapable, and his soot-streaked face shone pale. “
Madre de dios
. You’re coming upstairs.” And he unstrapped my pistol and reached for my hand.

“No.”

I pulled away, pain and fear tumbling over in my mind like bolts in a falling glass jar. I knew it was irrational, but I couldn’t let him touch me. Couldn’t let him heal me. I had to heal myself.

But he just swept me up in his arms and carried me up the flimsy white steps, plastic creaking under our weight. He turned sideways, my feet brushing the white plastic walls, and laid me on his bed.

“Hold on. Just stay awake.”

Distantly I registered that the sheet was soft, cool on my fevered skin. But I wasn’t feeling much of anything except pain and thirst. I hoped he didn’t mind if I vomited on his pillow.

He ducked into the tiny bathroom and came out with a cup of water and a clear fragplastic case. Shipboard medkit, designed to withstand slipshock in an emergency. If he had pain meds, I’d be his friend forever.

He pressed the cup into my hands and I gulped, grateful, even though my guts ached and my murderous thirst devoured the cool water without trace.

He kneeled on the floor and opened the medkit. Gently, he pressed me onto my back and gingerly explored the edges of my wound with his fingertips. “It’s not deep. Just the skin. You’re lucky.”

Did his voice shake, or was that my imagination? I gave a weak laugh. “Doesn’t feel too lucky.”

“I’ll bet. Just keep still.”

A soft hiss, and I felt cool antibiotic spray, mixed with anesthetic, tingling and soothing at the same time. I sighed, relief shivering my aching muscles.

“Is it sad if I say that feels really good?”

“More?”

“Yes, please. Mmm.”

The aerosol drug seeped into my flesh, and the pain relaxed and faded, still uncomfortable but distant and bearable. I wanted to stretch out and sleep, but my mind clanged a warning. I’d used enough of that spray over my career to know it had a nerve relaxant in it. I should tell him to stop. But it felt so good.

I closed my eyes. Plastic wrap crackled, and dimly I felt him apply the cool nanoskin, a thin layer of moisture and synthetic skin cells that would mold to my wound and rebuild the layers. I probably wouldn’t even have a scar. Pity the new skin wouldn’t match the tan I’d got at Vostok. When this was over, I’d go back there and lie on the beach for a month. The nanobots itched as they crawled invisibly over the ruined skin in the curve of my waist. They tickled, and his fingers weren’t helping, prodding me gently, pressing the synthetic dermis over the wound. My skin tingled, lulled.

“Keep still.” He smoothed it over my lower ribs beneath my breast, lingering. “There.”

I sat up, flexing my side gingerly. The growing skin pulled under its square plastic coating, but held. Soon I’d be able to peel the plastic off.

I glanced up at him, wary. “Thanks.”

“
De nada
.” Tense. Hard. Almost too softly for me to hear.

His eyes mesmerized me, and I had to tear my gaze away.

His hands were burned, I noticed, a couple of fingertips scorched and a blister on one knuckle. It made me angry. Such beautiful hands, such a delicate touch. I’d seen him, stroking the Esperanza neurospace into submission, lulling the dumb creature with that hypnotic caress. Now I knew what that felt like. Suddenly, sitting so close to him didn’t seem okay at all.

He leaned in and brushed his lips across my bruised ribs. The faintest touch, and it spiraled shivers deep into my belly.

I swallowed, dry. “What was that for?”

“Same thing this is for,” he whispered, and kissed my mouth.

A single, hot, gut-melting kiss.

I gasped, and he pulled back, giving me time to get away. But I slid my arms around his neck and sought his mouth with mine. Hot, hungry, like we’d kissed on Esperanza, only this time it hurt, deep inside where my flesh yearned for his touch. My torn side throbbed, but I ignored it. He murmured and kissed me harder, and I couldn’t help but inhale, tasting him, opening my mouth to get more of him into me.

God, what was I doing? He was a rebel, a murderer who’d lied to me in so many ways. Guilt stung my throat, but it was too late. I’d wanted to touch him ever since I’d laid eyes on him, and I was too tired and too drugged up and too damn sick of denying what I wanted to push him away now.

He averted his face, breathing hard. “Um. Look, I’m—”

“Don’t talk. Just kiss me.” I sought his lips again, and this time I didn’t let him go.

We fell onto the bed, and I arched into him, folding my bare leg over his hip. I could feel how much he wanted me, how hard he was for me, and that hot pressure between my legs made me ache. He slid his fingers inside my shorts, caressing my ass, pulling me in tighter. He smelled of hot plasma and sweat, and his kiss tasted of warm metal and that piquant edge I remembered.

He nudged my chin up to kiss my throat, and hot desire shivered me electric. My fingers curled in his hair and pulled him on. I struggled to think clearly, to think of anything but the way his lips teased my skin, his tongue flicking my collarbone, that sly sting of his teeth that lit me up like arcfuel. I wanted him all over me, inside me, his taste filling my mouth, the heat of his naked skin covering me.

Dimly, my brain fumbled. Think, Carrie. Weigh up the facts. He’s a terrorist. You’re a terrorist hunter. He murdered your friends. Are you fucking insane?

But it didn’t feel insane, his hands and his mouth and his body hot on mine. More like sweet starfire in my blood.

He caressed the crease of my hip with his thumb, and his lips crushed mine again, breathless. “You’re so alone,” he whispered into kisses. “Let me be with you.”

My desire scorched deep. I wanted him to slide that thumb deeper, peel me naked, make me sigh and shiver. Even as enemies, we were so alike. We both walked alone, unquiet ghosts in our wake. Surely we could find some peace together.

But denial rippled me cold. I wasn’t Lazuli, this sassy rebel thief who burned for him. And this beautiful man who seduced me with his touch and his clever words and his gentle, maddening smile wasn’t Dragonfly. He couldn’t be. Touching him felt too right.

This was all a lie.

My mouth stung, sour like betrayal. “No. Stop it.” I pushed him off and staggered to my feet.

He raked knotted hair back in both hands, struggling to catch his breath. “Shit. Listen, I was out of line. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Just stay away from me.”

Thirst dizzied me, and I swayed on buckling knees. This was stupid. I should go to him. Be his lover, seduce my way into his trust. The mission demanded it.

But it wasn’t right. He’d killed my friends. He’d ruined my life. I didn’t want him like this. I couldn’t. Guilt and self-disgust watered my guts. To admit my stupid physical attraction was one thing. To act on it was entirely another.

He gazed up at me with those hot chocolate eyes, dark hair tousled, and he was so beautiful it hurt. “Okay. I won’t do it again. Unless you want me to.”

And the truth blinded me like rocketfire.

I wasn’t the only one on a mission. This was all just business to him. He needed to find out who I was and what I wanted from him, and I’d resisted curiosity, so he’d resorted to sex. Turned a dangerous situation to his advantage. He’d nothing to lose by trying, and if he got himself laid in the meantime, so much the better for him.

My thoughts reeled, poisoned. He’d challenged me at my own game, and I’d played into his hands like an amateur.

Embarrassment burned my skin like a plasma shot all over again. My voice cracked sharp. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t you ever touch me again.”

And I swallowed hot bile and fled.

28

I flung myself onto the sunken lounge. My blood burned. My nerves strung tight. Damn it. I could still feel him under my hands, his lips on mine, hot and relentless. His hands on my body, luring me, my defenses stripping away under the raw honesty of his desire.

The fuck it was honest. He’d tricked me.

I jumped up and paced, my boots too loud on the plastic deck. He’d hear me. I didn’t care. I ripped the plastic off my burn, yelping at the sting. The pink skin underneath was healing perfectly. He’d done a good job and it only maddened me more.

My fists clenched, and I grabbed his empty mocha flask and hurled it at the clearview. It bounced off, undented, and I relapsed onto the lounge and slammed my head into the cushion, fuming. The ceiling glared down at me. I glared back. I couldn’t hear anything from upstairs. Likely he’d shrugged it off and fallen asleep.