Authors: Lauren Dane
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotic fiction, #General, #Adult, #Erotica, #Mercenary troops
Mesmerized (22 page)
He obeyed, turning to face her. “You’re facing the wrong way.”
She snorted and turned over, backing into the shelter of his body as he curled it around her. Sheltering her from harm, surrounding her with himself. Despite the sadness, the severity of the situation, they were together, and she couldn’t be anything but satisfied about that.
Andrei awoke after three hours’ sleep. He needed more, but there wasn’t time for it. But she didn’t need to be up, so he carefully eased from bed after pressing a kiss to her shoulder. She looked soft and feminine in sleep. Her face relaxed, one hand under her cheek. The ropes of her hair spread on the pillow and over her shoulders.
A shower first and then great amounts of kava. That’s what he needed to face the day, so he set about getting it.
Vincenz was already up and working when Andrei got downstairs. “Kava is hot. Grab a mug. Julian should be down in a bit. He was up even later than we were.”
Andrei realized he was hearing a lot more than just friendly concern in Vincenz’s words. “Is he all right? He’s seemed better when I’ve commed with you both. Calmer, not so prone to those long stares off into nothingness.”
“He’s recovering. Marame was his best friend. They were like siblings. He feels her loss deeply.”
And, Andrei knew, Vincenz understood what it was to lose people he loved dearly. To feel utterly alone. “What he feels is responsible. When it was not about Julian at all.”
“And now he’s feeling responsible for those ten thousand people. He was just on Parron two days ago.”
Andrei knew their friend, knew he’d be feeling that he missed a clue of some type.
“There’s more.” Andrei sat, watching Vincenz.
“Yes. But that’s between Julian and me.”
Ah.
Andrei shrugged. “If you expect judgment of a negative sort, you’ll get none. Not from me. Work wise or personal, if you need me for anything, you have but to ask.”
Vincenz nodded and moved on. “Today we should work out some logistics. I’ve been comming with the people in the labs on Ravena. They find more each hour, it seems. We learn more about the destabilizing device and then have more questions. But we’re narrowing it all down. If we can just isolate the key to reversing the destabilization process, then we could have them in place just in case.”
“The Imperialists on Asphodel need to be taken into custody and questioned. I can handle that part.” Andrei found his silence and surrounded himself with it, seeking the calm to make better decisions.
“Ellis sent a team to do that. He says he doesn’t want Piper or her family exposed. Sera, Ash and Brandt’s team will handle that.”
Andrei had to admit he was relieved to keep Piper and the others on the compound out of this mess. Well, her brothers anyway, since she’d launched herself right into the heart of the storm and made no moves to escape safely. Just to drive him mad in the interim.
“I feel sorry for them then. There won’t be much left after Sera gets done.” The three made up a special team, intelligence gathering usually, but Sera, Brandt’s wife and also Ash’s wife in all but title, was not a woman to be trifled with. She’d been part of the first teams to uncover the Imperialists’ first forays into Federation territory, and with her, this was nearly a holy mission.
“At least we can cross Parron off the list now. I know that sounds merciless.” Vincenz scrubbed his hands over his face. “They must have gone in to destroy all evidence of what they’d been using. They have to know we’re on to them.”
“We have to find the processing plant here.” Andrei drank the kava, reading the reports that had come in during the last few hours. More death. More destruction, and he had no idea why.
Piper came into the room, and Andrei found himself drawn to her, needing to touch her. She smiled at Vincenz, patting his arm on the way past, moving unhesitatingly toward Andrei and into his arms.
“You should have woken me up.”
He kissed the top of her head, not caring who saw. After the tragedy of the last day, the fact that the world was so fragile that any day could be his last had hit. She was important to him, and acting as if she wasn’t would have been an insult to them both.
“You needed the rest. There’s kava over there.”
She walked over and poured herself a mug. “It’s nearly empty. Shall I make more? Have you eaten at all today?” She shook her head as both men grunted at her while reading data screens and plotting maps. “I’ll see to it.”
The kitchen was so large she stood just admiring it when she first entered. Her kitchen at home was open to the rest of the house, so it was a kitchen, a dining area, a place for the kids to do their work, where they had meetings and relaxed at the end of the day.
She smiled at the memories. And she still loved the sleek, large cooking space with high windows that sent the light streaming down into the room. So much counter space and dozens of the latest cooking technology. A large oven, she discovered after peeking, just for making breads of all sorts. A grill, a cooktop, ovens, large refrigerated bins and hot drawers, too.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
Startled, Piper looked up from where she’d been pulling together the ingredients for a hearty morning meal.
Julian Marsters stood nearby, his hands in his pockets. Even exhausted and under a great deal of pressure, the man was still handsome. Close-cropped hair the color of the kava boiling on the cooktop. His eyes were a lighter shade, the brown in a glass of brandy with the light behind it.
She smiled. “It is. I hope you don’t mind that I poked around. I wanted to make something to eat for everyone. This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”
When he smiled, he was even more handsome. “Thank you. I can’t take credit for it, I’m sorry to say. This is Vincenz’s house. He lives here part of the standard year.”
The way he said Vincenz’s name was interesting. “How long have you two been together?”
Julian sighed as he moved to wash his hands and stand next to her at the counter as she sliced root vegetables to fry up with the aromatics she found on the windowsill above the double sink.
“It’s complicated. And new. And I don’t quite know what it is anyway. But he . . .”
He blushed.
“Is he why you look so sad? Or why you look happy right now?”
“I can see why you and Andrei connect so well. I lost someone recently. She was my best friend. A woman who we all worked with.”
“Marame?” At his nod she began to whip the eggs. “Andrei told me about her.”
“She and I always worked together. We were closer than friends.” At her questioning brow, he shook his head. “No. She was with Andrei a while, and after that she declared she’d never get involved with soldiers of any kind. Oh, my, I shouldn’t have said that about Andrei.”
Piper laughed. “You thought I’d be jealous or angry that he might have loved someone else before he and I came together again? Don’t be silly.”
“All right. I’m glad to hear it. But he didn’t love her. Not like he is with you. I’ve known him for a long time. He and I came into the corps within a year of each other. He’s never looked at anyone the way he does you. Before he went back to Asphodel, I figured he’d always be one of those men who lived and breathed the job and would be happy with the occasional woman when he thought of it. You’re different. He’s different with you. Marame wanted that and knew he’d not be that for her, so she moved on. They remained friends, but that was all.”
“Julian, thank you for telling me that.” She knew it, but it helped to hear it, too. To know others saw it. To know she was different.
He bowed slightly and began to pull out plates and tableware. “As for me and Vincenz? He knows what it is to be alone. He lets me be, and right now, that’s all I can handle.”
“That’s certainly fair enough.”
He paused and then smiled a little. “Yes, it is. I’m trying to just, you know, be.”
S
he couldn’t really help with whatever they were doing out there. They ate quickly, each man on his personal comm while the screens in the background streamed data. Daniel had checked in several times.
he couldn’t really help with whatever they were doing out there. They ate quickly, each man on his personal comm while the screens in the background streamed data. Daniel had checked in several times.
She volunteered to go over some aerial film the drones had taken over the last days. She could do that. And she could bake some bread and keep them eating. When all she really wanted to do was punch Ciro Fardelle in the face before she shot him and left him in a ditch to rot.
She wondered how it would feel for Vincenz. Knowing it was his father who’d done these terrible things. Andrei had told her he’d been arrested and transported to a death camp by his father. Some of the men assigned to move him were loyal to Vincenz and with the help of his grandmother, helped him escape. He’d worked for the military corps since then and was recently given operative status with Phantom Corps.
Phantom Corps. That had rocked her back on her heels. She’d known Andrei was some sort of specialist, but this was so far beyond that. This group of men and women who had been waging war with the Imperialists for standard years. A constant push and shove that had held the status quo until Fardelle had escalated to open and all-out war on the Federated Universes.
Now they walked on the very edge, past the place where they could prevent war. The costs had risen with real, deadly consequences. She knew Roman Lyons had launched a similar attack on Imperialist military targets.
So there would be no avoided warfare, but they still sought a way to stanch the bleeding and then push back so hard they’d never make the mistake of attacking the Federated Universes again.
The main comm system hailed an incoming transmission, and they all gathered around facing the screens, Daniel and Ellis on one and Roman Lyons on the other.
Piper’s stomach cramped as she saw the look on Roman’s face. The toll of the death of his people, she knew, weighed heavy. His wife was in the very last stages of pregnancy, and she couldn’t imagine how that would feel.
Lyons was in a lab of some sort. “There’s no way to reverse the destabilization process.” He said it hard and fast, and Piper watched Andrei stand straighter, taking on the heavier burden now on them. Love—so much love—filled her for this man of honor she’d been blessed with for most of her life. Even when he wasn’t physically present, he’d been with her.
“It’s worse.” Roman nodded toward the technician he stood next to.
“Without a duplicate machine, the portal not only collapses, but it would weaken the fabric of space/time all around the portal until nothing was left.”
Andrei started as if he’d been slapped. If this happened, the Known Universes would be completely in chaos. Trade would be interrupted, because once it wasn’t just that the portal would burn out, but the ’Verse itself would simply cease to exist. ’Verses on one side or the other of whatever ’Verse was destroyed would be cut off.
Universes on the other side of the one destroyed would be utterly cut off from the Center. The Federation Government could not defend anyone on the outer side of a portal collapse, leaving them vulnerable. Entire ’Verses could die out because they wouldn’t be able to get their needed supplies via portal. Depending on what ’Verse was destroyed, the parade of horrible possibilities was endless.
“Yes, I see you all understand why this news is so unwelcome. All portal stations are under martial law as of last evening. There will be no more express transports. All transports will stop and be scanned at every Federation Universe Portal.”
Which was helpful, except there were private portals all over the place.
Roman spoke again. “We need the rogue portals working.”
And Andrei knew. “We need to get the parts to make our own device. The exact duplicate of the one they have.”
Ellis nodded. “Look to your comms on this. We’ve updated with more intelligence. After we plugged in the data from the Liberiam samples, we achieved enough to crack the rest of the code. The data is unlocked. We know what we have and can get there, and we know what we need from there.”
Piper nodded her head, and he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and lock her in a closet until everything was safe, but she’d never allow it.
“We will not, I repeat, we will not be going into Imperialist territory for these materials unless we have no other choice. Let’s get them to smuggle them out for us.”
“We can’t go through Asphodel at this point now that we’ve removed the Imperialists who’d been there.” Julian continued to read the data as he spoke.
“No. But I have some sources here in Mirage.” Piper hesitated and then continued to speak. “I think I can get us an invite to meet with the Imperialists here. You know they’re around somewhere.”
“Good idea. Andrei, keep cover as one of her crew. Let’s get this process moving, people. Every moment that passes means he’s closer to finishing his device. Use the private portals to avoid the checkpoints.” Ellis sighed heavily. “It would behoove you all to be extraordinarily wary and observant at this point. By that I mean to say, kill these motherfuckers first before they kill us.”
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