Mesmerized (33 page)

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Authors: Lauren Dane

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotic fiction, #General, #Adult, #Erotica, #Mercenary troops

BOOK: Mesmerized
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He stood there holding a woman close to screaming, if the look on her face was any indication of her emotional state. Bedraggled. Wild-eyed and white with fear.
Piper’s heart ached for the woman and whatever she’d endured to give her that look.
“We can chat later. Let’s get out of . . .”
Andrei’s voice cut off, replaced by a sound she’d not heard for many years. It was the same sound he made when he came home to find his mother dead in their home and his brother gone, taken by the authorities.
She looked around, expecting to see him hurt more, or to see Fen or one of the others injured. Instead, she saw Kenner.
Slumped in the cockpit, a bloom of red where his beautiful face once sat.
“Get down!” Andrei shoved her to the pavement at her feet, and she lay there. Screams tore from her mouth, and she couldn’t seem to remember how to stop.
Vincenz crawled to her, the woman in his arms now quiet as she watched Piper with wide, curious eyes.
“Shhh, honey, please.” He tried to put the woman down, but she made a sound, clutching him tighter, so Vincenz dragged Piper toward the doorway and some sort of cover.
He wanted to help more, but the women nearly drowned him with their fear and grief.
The woman he held, well, she was his to take care of now. Once he’d opened that door and made the choice to save her, he’d made the commitment to see this through and get her out of there safely.
And none of that would help Piper. He held her with one arm, keeping her from rushing back to where Fen and Andrei were in the firefight.
The stench of weapon fire, of pulse cartridges discharging, and the noise of it—the humming of the helo, the humming of the weapons recharging, the ping of cartridges hitting the ground—was all a sick nightmare of an opera, and Vincenz had no choice but to keep where he was, holding the women in place as destruction rained down all around them.
“Die, you fucker!” Fen screamed as the last Imperialist soldier fell.
Bits of pavement broke as the bullets hit it. A few tore into her skin, and she didn’t even feel it. Felt nothing but the yawning horror of her brother’s dead body.
“Let’s go.” Andrei came back with Fen. “Detonator will be hitting any minute now, and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of killing any more of us.”
Vincenz moved past with the woman still in his arms, her face buried in his neck, trembling.
Andrei moved to Piper and hauled her up, hustling her toward the helo. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She came back to herself a moment, and the screaming came again. He bent and tossed her over a shoulder and then into the helo.
Thank the Gods Fen had moved Kenner’s body, covering him up. Andrei got into the cockpit and fired up the thrusters. Vincenz was in the back with the strange woman from the labs, and Piper, who’d stopped screaming, sat there blank-faced and pale.
Fen hit the nav seat and they lifted off as Andrei ignored the throb in his leg as he used it to control the helo and get it back toward the Portal.
They were nearly back when Fen turned to Andrei. “No. Head three clicks southeast.” He loaded the coordinates into the nav comp.
Then the reality of it hit as he listened to comm traffic. Imperialist soldiers had surrounded the Portal.
“We’re flying straight to the private portal. Get me clearance and a transport. We have priority one cargo.” It would be gods damned close when they arrived. He only hoped there was a transport there and ready to go. Fen was on the comm with them, so Andrei turned his attention back to the other important task he had to take care of.
“Parron Governance Portal.
Get. Out. Now.
We have reason to believe the Imperialist soldiers have a device that will collapse the portal. Send everyone you can into the available transports and get off Parron before it’s too late.”
“Portal ahead,” Fen said.
“Wish I was a better pilot,” Andrei muttered and banked enough to get the helo aligned and landed with far less grace and accuracy than Piper or Kenner had shown.
“We’re green.” Fen grabbed all the packs, and Andrei scooped Piper up and ran toward the transport. The pilot held the doors open, and Vincenz cleared them with the woman, Andrei next with Piper and then Fen with Kenner over his shoulder.
He nodded his thanks at the other man and got out of the way, going in the direction they were pointed.
The doors slammed. The engines hummed. The clamps groaned as they were blown off in an emergency maneuver instead of manual uncoupling. And they were moving.
Chapter 20
 
“
C
itizens of the Federation Universes, Family members, Ministers, I speak to you tonight of terrible things.”
Andrei stood, watching the screen in the media room. Watching Roman Lyons address not only the Full Council but every citizen as well.
“The Portal in Parron was collapsed earlier today by Imperialist forces who used our own portal against us. More died in the last stand at the Portal before we were able to use a device we’ve been developing for such a contingency.
“The Portal is open again, but it will take a considerable amount of time to get back to full power.”
The floor of the chamber went wild with noise until Roman cut off the microphones and hit the klaxon to get order again.
“We have arrested Bas Thrater, the Stationmaster at the Waystation Portal. We also located and took Ang Thrater, his nephew, as he attempted to use a private portal to get out of Federation territory. Through the information we’ve extracted from them and from corroborating evidence from an accomplice, we have uncovered a vast network of bribes given for access through the Waystation and into our ’Verses. As well as for information they lifted from different transports moving through from one side to the other.”
More chaos, and Roman let it go for a while longer.
Andrei’s hands clenched into fists as he thought about what those three greedy bastards had done.
“Quiet.” Roman held his hands out in entreaty. “We will move swiftly and with confidence in our goals. I have ordered strikes on Imperialist military targets. As of now,
we
control the Waystation. We have closed off all access from the Imperium into the Federation. But we can—we will—use it to enter their territory. I will not stop until Ciro Fardelle is on his knees.”
“House Lyons, why risk more lives?” someone called out from the floor.
The chorus added, “Close all the Portals past Sanctu. Why not collapse them ourselves if we have that technology? That way none can enter.”
“Yes! Give up the Edge. They’re nothing to us in the larger scheme of things. This solves the problem forever, and we can get on with our lives. This sort of thing slows commerce.”
“I will not give the Edge up. This matter has been resolved. Every single ’Verse within this Federation is part of the whole. I will not show my belly and abandon the Edge for expediency’s sake. I will not hand them over to their fate, abandoned at the end of the world without any traffic, left to die without help.”
“But you’ll send our young men and women out there to die? For what?”
Andrei’s gaze narrowed. How could that even be a serious question?
“Those young men and women come from every ’Verse. Just as a soldier from Asphodel—
three
soldiers from Asphodel, as it happens—were the ones who saved us all by getting the materials we needed to create our own device.
“I don’t send them lightly. But with a heavy heart. A heart sure that every life in my ’Verses deserves protection. We are family, we are the Federation Universes and we will
not
act like the Imperium to get out of our duty. I am House Lyons. I do not run, I do not hide and I do not give in to the petty demands of cowards to save my own ass.”
He paused, Andrei noted, totally understanding the impact of that quiet moment as Roman scanned the room and into each of the vid cameras.
“We are at war. And just as we did at Varhana, we will win the day. I will not stop until Ciro Fardelle and his empire are nothing but rubble. Citizens, I will call upon you to do your part when you can. Military units are being mobilized. Remember that all military personnel are not to have their homes or jobs confiscated while they are away on active assignment. Any rumors of profiteering on supplies that may be harder to get will be punished severely. This is the time for us to stick together, not fray at the edges and toss our compatriots to the gathering storm. We are the Federation Universes, and we will win the day.”
He bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
Daniel blew out a long breath. “Well, that’s it then.” He turned to face Andrei. “How’s Piper?”
“Still out. I left her sleeping right before this came on. The medtech said she’d be coming out of this soon. I don’t want to go anywhere until I know she’s safe.”
“You love her.”
Andrei nodded. “Yes.”
“You need to get papers. Marry her. She needs that security in times like these especially.” He paused. “And so do you.”
“I don’t know. Not about marrying her. I want that. But it can wait.”
“Why? Why should it? Things are uncertain. Give her some certainty, and damn it, Andrei, let yourself be happy with her. Claim your future. Do you remember when we were finally on our way back here with Carina? You gave me a talking to about being stupid for resisting claiming her as my own.”
Andrei sighed. He remembered, and he got the point. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. The window may still be open in the municipal office next door.”
“I’ll make a call to be sure of it. Go, soldier, double time.”
 
 
V
incenz stood outside her room, watching her sleep.
Her name was Hannah Black, and she’d been a scientist. They didn’t know a lot more just yet. What he could tell from the testing journal was that they’d taken her from wherever she’d worked and begun experimenting on her.
Extreme isolation.
No one spoke to her.
No one touched her.
All food was given through a slot in her door. When they needed a blood draw or any other physical test, they gassed the room and did it while she was out.
Sometimes they hadn’t fed her for a few days just to see her response.
This angered him more than he could say. And yet, she’d survived. Survived the kind of torture that broke men in his line of work.
Julian had come back from Ceres, the grief back in his features. He stood with Vincenz, an arm around his waist, his head on his shoulder as they both watched her rest. He’d spent several long meetings with Ellis debriefing over what he’d learned while Vincenz had used the workstation just outside Hannah’s door for the last hours.
“Makes me want to hunt Fardelle down and shoot him in the face.” The anger was there in Julian, deep, and sometimes Vincenz wondered if he’d ever fully exorcise it all.
Hannah had affected them both on a deep level. Vincenz didn’t understand why, not for either of them beside the normal human concern for another who’d suffered.
But she did, and his heart ached for the way she’d clung to him. When he’d put her down and tried to move away, she followed. When they had to deal with meetings and were away from her for very long, he’d found her curled into a ball in the corner, her blankets around her body, eyes closed. At his soft use of her name, her eyes startled open, and she’d moved to him, nearly tripping over the bedding.
“Touch,” Julian had said. “She needs it. Needs stimulus. Can you imagine what it must have been like for her?”
So Vincenz had laid on the bed, putting a blanket low to assure her it wasn’t sexual. She burrowed into his body, and Julian had gotten on the other side as her blood pressure lowered and the doctor made noises and took notes, saying exactly what Julian had said.
She had been deprived of touch for so long, she craved it, would be a little crazy about it for a while. Maybe always. They didn’t know at that stage.
She’d fallen into a deep, medicated sleep, and Vincenz and Julian had gotten up but had been unwilling to go too far. Vincenz had to keep looking in to reassure himself. Her, too, he supposed. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Hannah would be important.
“I missed you,” Julian murmured, bringing his thoughts back to the man standing with him. Vincenz turned to face him.
“Me, too. I know it was hard. Back on Ceres.”
Julian shook his head. “It’s over. We got a great deal of information, and I’m here with you now.”
A soft kiss. The brush of lips and the scratch of beards. Kissing a man was not the same as kissing a woman. Julian’s mouth was bigger, surer than Vincenz’s female lovers had been. There was a gnash of teeth, the feral grunts and the slide of tongue against tongue. The body under his hands was hard and utterly male.

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