Freeker (7 page)

“Detach, detach,” a stranger yelled from a few feet away.

Trying to focus on the blur of movement around her, she grasped her hidden knife and squinted. A man pointed a sidearm at Warrant’s head. She sucked in a breath and paused. Warrant moved in a blur. His hand swiped through the air. The weapon clattered to the deck.

Staring at her with wide, glinting eyes, a frail man sat to the side. Beyond him, the pilot busily worked at the controls. The ship shuddered beneath her and she lurched. One arm against the nearest side, she made her way toward the pilot. The craft was small, all one compartment. Seating folded down from the opposite wall.

The pilot finally answered the order to detach, which must have been given by the frail man harnessed into the only jumper seat sill occupied. “Have detached and the docking boot has been removed as ordered.”

“No witnesses, no witnesses,” the man muttered and nodded. He kept nodding in a frantic movement while watching Warrant and the other guard struggle.

The man was familiar. She stumbled and blinked. Staring, she took in his features but couldn’t quite process them.

In the dim recesses of her mind, she understood the passage of time and that movement had slowed in her perception. How else could she see Warrant’s next move? He dropped to a knee and reached for the guard’s leg.

She didn’t wait to see the doomed man hit the decking. There was one man who could take her back to the station. One man who’d facilitate a future of being strapped to a bed with needles sucking out her memories. A flash of memory, of her husband—yes, that’s right, she’d been married to a low life scum, Letzi—forcing her to have an affair, then blackmailing the victim. Maybe she’d enjoyed it a little. Enticing a man and making him succumb and enjoying him like she’d never enjoyed Letzi, the selfish bastard. The game had made the touching bearable. And in the end, when the man had killed himself, Letzi had told her to find another patsy or he’d turn her in. He was feeding her to the dogs for his own crimes. All of it, in a flash and the feeling of vindication when she’d slit Letzi’s throat, came to her as she leapt toward the pilot and brought the edge of the knife to his vulnerable neck.

She closed her eyes. The rushing of blood in her ears nearly deafened her but she held onto the buzz. It couldn’t get away from her. Not now. “Stop this shuttle. I will not go back.”

Her garbled words were unrecognizable but he understood. The pilot raised his hands and asked calmly, “Where do you want me to go?”

“Kill him.” The low, eager entreaty whispered in her ear. Breath heated her neck and she shivered. “I’ve felt the pleasure it gives you to end a life. You want to do it. Then give it to me. Give it to me.”

Her hand flexed on the knife. That rich iron scent invaded her senses. Behind her lids, in the dark, the memory, the sweet, sweet memory rushed in on her. She’d enjoyed making the mark bend to her will. She’d hated Letzi for taking her mark from her. She’d enjoyed killing Letzi. She shouldn’t have. It wasn’t right, to savor the slow, bloody death of her husband but the high, the freedom thrilling her veins, it’d intoxicated her.

The man whispering in her ear, he’d felt it. He’d fed on her like a parasite. Like Letzi had. Like her victim had. She couldn’t remember his name, the man she’d seduced. Her nipples hardened and her pussy clenched. He’d been open to her. To anything. To watching. She’d parceled out the touching, torturing him with promises, then made him watch her do things. Sexual things. Then he’d been gone and she’d enjoyed killing Letzi. He hadn’t been her first.

“Kill him,” hissed in her ear.

The voice rubbed raw against the building buzz and her eyelids fluttered. She glanced down at her aching, tense arms. In a striking blow, she placed herself amid a strange tableau. The pilot sat still, his hands still raised, with her knife at his throat. She’d pressed to his back and breathed in the scent of his fear. A man was at her back, whispering and cajoling.

It was the frail man.

He licked her ear.

She screeched and let go of the pilot. Rounding on the frail man, she knocked him off her. He hit the decking hard.

Warrant pounced. His face was in a beastly snarl. The frail man lay helpless beneath a growling Warrant. The guard slumped against the side of the ship. She had no idea if he lived or not. The ship lurched and she staggered. She turned back to the pilot. He’d entered a course and they’d picked up speed. He was hurriedly yelling into the comm seeking help and digging below his seat.

No doubt he had a weapon under there. For the second time within moments, she leapt at the pilot. This time, her hand went out and sliced over this throat. He slumped in his seat. Blood spilled down the front of his uniform.

She went to her knees and sucked in breath. The buzz had long gone. The tang of iron in the air did nothing to feed her appetite. It made her gag. Swallowing the reaction, she steadied herself and sought Warrant.

He yanked his prisoner from the floor and shoved him into an empty seat.

“Stop the ship,” he ordered her.

She hesitated. She didn’t take orders. Only Letzi had found ways to finagle her desires to force her hand. The memories were filling the void in her head and she’d pieced together fragments of who she was.

But Warrant was different. His orders came from an instinct to protect. His motivation was simple. Untainted. She had no desire to resist his commands. She strode to the front and leaned over the pilot’s dead body. He was still warm.

The console was easy to read. To the left, the course was displayed. It only took a few taps for her to direct the shuttle to stop. She didn’t know what course to set but at least they weren’t heading to the station. She turned back to Warrant. “We will have to determine a course.”

“We need to determine what this is, first.” Warrant thumped the frail man on top of his head.

Their prisoner groaned and held a hand to his temple. “Jebe Laurent. I’m Jebe. Don’t you remember me?”

Jebe laughed hysterically. Must be funny, that she had lost her memories.

“He’s a freeker,” she sneered.

“Stop laughing,” Warrant said through his teeth.

“I eat her memories.” Jebe spoke as if he hadn’t heard Warrant. “She is delicious.”

Warrant drew back and punched the man in the side of the head. The addict crumpled to the decking but his laughing turned into a keening cough. He sputtered, “I’m your future husband.”

“You’ve confused yourself,” she snapped.

“No.” Jebe laughed again.

“What the hell is so funny?” Warrant leaned over Jebe until his nose nearly touched the other man’s and snarled at him like a wild animal. It was a deep, harsh sound that made the hair on her arms stand on end.

“This.” Jebe smiled. A click and high pitched whine punctuated his short reply.

Warrant’s head snapped back and she froze. Scanning down Jebe’s body, she didn’t see it but Warrant was in the way. When the big Scoriah edged to his feet, Jebe’s right hand came up as he climbed from the floor slowly. He had a high-powered hand laser in a steady grip. The man had been faking at least some of that frailty.

“You’re a liar.” She stood straight and hitched her chin. This man couldn’t kill them both with that weapon. If he used it on Warrant, she’d be on him, slicing his throat before he could blink. That scenario would save her skin, but she liked Warrant’s skin the way it was. Unless she ripped him with her own nails, she didn’t want to see his blood.

That was an entirely new feeling for her.

Jebe kept his focus on Warrant. She glanced at Warrant. He wasn’t watching Jebe or the weapon trained on him. No. He stared at her. His body slouched back against the wall, he asked Jebe in an unconcerned tone, “You’re to be her husband?”

The Scoriah played at something. She frowned and turned back to Jebe. “Then my family must owe you. What was my price?”

Jebe shrugged but kept his full attention on Warrant. Chara took a small, imperceptible step toward him as he spoke. “I developed the freeker program. Your brother, Manta, was quite the fan. When you killed your father, Manta decided, fair trade. I get you and his backing. He got sole domain over illegal sales of freeker.”

She blinked.

Her body was cold. All over. Except her face. It burned. Her mouth was dry and tasted of burnt sugar. She turned her head and spit. Warrant made a rumbling sound and she rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension. She wiggled her jaw to ease her grinding teeth. “I dimly recall that I killed my father. Dublie. Our family name. I wish I could forget that part.”

“You were cast from the family and sent to me.”

“I may not remember some things.” She sidled toward him a little more. Fixated on Warrant, he still hadn’t blinked. “But I remember agreeing to go into the program to avoid the Pit.”

“It was arranged. The judge was bribed to give you the option and your counselor was bribed into encouraging you to take it.”

She hissed.

More than a head taller than his foe, Warrant shifted on his feet and Jebe narrowed his eyes. “Don’t move. I could put a hole in your forehead. Or, we could discuss how we end this little argument. Get the ship moving again.”

“No,” she answered before Warrant could. Even if Jebe’s aim on Warrant hadn’t wavered, she distracted him.

The air in the shuttle grew hot and stale. The tang of stress and fatigue made her throat go dry. This would end in a death. It had too. One of them would waver and another would pounce. It’d be easy to fall on Jebe and take them both out. Chara didn’t have anyone left, it seemed, and Warrant had a shipload of brothers depending on him. She didn’t want to die and she didn’t want Warrant to lose blood, but Jebe had an incredibly lethal weapon that sliced through bodies like a blowtorch cutting a block of ice.

Sweat trickled down her hairline but she didn’t swipe at it.

“No one is coming for you. The only reason you even got this far is a business rival wanted to start trouble for me. His father paid to have him broken out of the program after I stashed him there. Pain in the ass, but I had to choose who to go after first. Lucky you, my future wife.”

Warrant made a ticking, hissing sound. She didn’t glance at him but kept Jebe in her narrow focus.

“You’re why I can’t stand men,” she sneered.

Finally, Jebe’s attention slipped to her. He was pale. His face gaunt. He wore loose clothes like he’d climbed out of bed to come after her and he probably had. His hair was cut close to his head and she couldn’t tell what color it was. If she’d been sold to him, it was for her use for the freeker drug, but if he’d decided to bring her out and try to be her husband? She shuddered.

“What you want doesn’t matter.” He licked his lips and his gaze darkened.

“Filth. All of you. All the men—and women—who do business with my family. All of you deserve what comes to you.”

“What comes to me, my treat, is the high from your kills.”

Movement from the side of the craft flickered but she didn’t react. Schooling her features, she poked at Jebe. “Can’t get a thrill from your own life?”

“Bitch,” Jebe snarled and his body tightened, tensing to lunge at her.

Then, before she could call him what he was—a disgusting leech—he jerked his arm and the laser brightened. A streak of death zapped to her left, toward Warrant. She screamed and dove for Jebe.

It seemed to take her forever to tackle him. So long, what she knew of herself flickered through her in entirety. She was a killer, no regrets, but if she didn’t protect Warrant, if she didn’t have more time to figure him out, she’d regret it.

She landed on Jebe’s chest, her knife in her fist, and punched forward.

The knife sank deep.

Chapter Five

“Worm,” Warrant roared and yanked Jebe from under Chara.

Gripping him by the front of his shirt, Warrant threw him. The filth of a man slammed into the line of seating against the bulkhead. His laser weapon skittered across the floor. Jebe slid to the floor and his head thumped on the deck.

Warrant drew his knife and leapt over Jebe’s body. The man gasped and the air whined in a sharp whistle. Blood coated the front of his shirt.

Chara dropped to her knees, hands and knife bloody, and flicked her hand. Blood sprayed across Warrant’s chest. His heart sped and his skin shivered at the warm drops but he held himself back. With a shuddering breath, he sat back on his haunches and watched. This was her fight. Her kill.

She wiped her knife on the gasping Jebe and let the tip of it trace the middle of his torso. Jebe whimpered and shook. Unrecognizable gibberish fell from his mouth in a whisper before he fell silent.

A sound of pleasure sighed from Chara.

Warrant’s dick went hard. Breathing through his mouth didn’t help calm him because the taste of blood filled the cabin. Shaking, he held tight to his instincts and controlled the impulse to use his own knife. Instead, he sheathed it. He grumbled, “Let’s take care of this trash and get back to my ship.”

A gurgling sound came from Jebe and his face scrunched. The man didn’t seem to notice them anymore, caught in his own pain. Had he caused Chara this kind of pain? Had it hurt her to have her mind infiltrated?

“He has a taste for it,” she whispered.

“Taste for what?” Warrant lowered his own voice.

“What I can give him.” She crouched over Jebe and ran her knife up and down his chest. Blood smeared where Chara ran the knife. Her victim had gone quiet, his breathing shallow, but he wasn’t quite at death. The scent was there, lingering, but he’d gone to ground, trying to hide from it.

Warrant edged closer to Chara and sat next to her. His arm slid around her waist. She tensed for a split second and glanced at him over her shoulder.

Her expression told it all. She craved. The blood and the adrenaline fed her and she wanted more. This man had taken some of that and used it like a drug but he couldn’t feel and be like Chara, a live wire full of life and a lethal beauty that tugged at Warrant like an eckshoo bug to the harvest bonfires of Ferrashi. Those same fires celebrated the cycle of life. Of birth and death. Of fertility. Of sex.