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She felt bad about using Konnor. Basically, he was a good man; with a promising

career in the Ministry of Acquisitions that she knew tonight would effectively be put to an

end. He was a patient man and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved her.

She hated to hurt him, possibly cost him more than his position at the Ministry; but most

importantly of all, she feared making him a sworn enemy of a man as powerful as

Kamerone Cree.

"I am not afraid of him," Konnor had told her when she voiced her worries to him.

Konnor knew nothing of the Resistance's plans for Cree. He had no idea he was a part,

an integral and absolutely vital part, of those plans. There was no way he could know he

was being used to turn the Iceman into a green-eyed monster. Bridget liked Rhye. He was

a sweet, endearing man whom she knew truly loved her. She hated to use him. His was a

gentle soul, so unlike the monster that had been created within Kamerone Cree.

"A monster," she whispered.

"Don't," Konnor advised. "I can protect you."

No, you can't. You can't even protect yourself, sweet man that you are.
She buried her face against his shoulder and began to cry.

"Sweeting, please don't cry," Konnor pleaded with her. "We will be together. I promise you that. You belong with me. He might have been able to buy you out from under me,

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but he can't buy what you'd already given to me." He kissed her forehead. "I love you, Bridie."

Although she didn't love Konnor Rhye, she did have some tender feelings toward him.

He had been the Keeper on board the ship that had brought Bridget to FSK-14. He had

shown immediate interest in her and had kept Captain Kullen from attacking her on more

than one occasion. She had been only too glad to use him early on in their relationship to

keep from being sent to the breeding pens. He had even been useful in getting her the

assignment to Be-Mod 9. But as the years had passed, and she had become part of the

Resistance, the role Konnor was to play in her life diminished in lieu of snaring a man of

Cree's power. Guilt at misusing Konnor Rhye had begun to set in Bridget's mind and she

had begun to feel sorry for him. Feeling his lips on her forehead once more, that guilt

became harder to bear.

"You're trembling," he told her, bringing her back from her guilt-ridden memories. He drew her naked body closer to his own. "Should I have the Vid-Com turn up the heat?"

Bridget burrowed her fingers possessively through the wiry curls that covered

Konnor's chest. It wouldn't be long now before Cree found her and she wanted to hold on

to this fiercely protective male as long as she could.

"Just hold me, Koni," she begged. "Please just hold me."

"Gladly, milady!" Rhye was a handsome man, Bridget thought as she inhaled his warm

scent. Although his dark hair was receding and thinning on top, it did not detract from his

overall sensuality. His brown eyes were soft and friendly, prone to sparkling with wry

humor; and the twin dimples that indented his cheeks gave him a playful, boyish look that

belied the steely strength Bridget had often glimpsed. In his middle thirties, he would

never stretch beyond the rank of Commander for he was a Keeper, but he had the

intelligence and savvy to go well above that meager rank. His frustration at not being able

to advance was one of the reasons the Resistance had okayed him for their purpose. The

man obviously had issues with the Empire's mandates. Bridget worried that her betrayal

of him would destroy the good man he was and make him hate her, as well as every other

female.

FOUR HARD-FACED men strode behind the Reaper as he came like an avalanche

down the corridors of Level Three. People moved out of their way; hurriedly entered their

quarters and locked the doors behind their passing. The grim look on the black-clad

warrior's face; the meaty fists doubled at his side; the determined, deadly, and brutal glint in his dark eyes were all evidence of the man's rage.

"Which room?" Cree's tight voice was a death knell as he walked, his boot heels

drumming sharply on the metal floor.

"307, Sir," answered Ensign Hascom, the Chief Security Guard. He glanced at number

301—his own quarters—as they passed and was glad it was not him the Iceman was after.

Only two people out and about in the Level Three corridor at that time of the evening

stopped to stare as the quintet of steely-eyed men halted before number 307. The Reaper

did not bother to order the men with him to attempt to seek legal entry of the quarters in

front of which they had stopped. Instead, he had stepped aside and ordered phasers to

blast through the titanium door.

Konnor Rhye instinctively threw himself over Bridget as the blast rumbled through the

living quarters beyond his bedsuite door. The smell of charred titanium and the

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purposeful thud of stamping feet advancing on the bedsuite were proof enough that

Bridie needed his protection. He would gladly give his life to save hers and never stop to

think twice about doing so. If there was any way he could keep the Reaper from hurting

her, he would try. He was reaching for his phaser, fully intending to cut the bastard down,

when hard, unrelenting hands took hold of his arms and dragged him—naked and

struggling—up out of the bed and off Bridget.

"You are under arrest, Commander Rhye," Ensign Hascom told him.

"For what?" Konnor flung his head around, found Bridget staring at him with terror.

"It's going to be all right, Bridie. I promise you. I won't let him—" Konnor yelped as his arms were savagely twisted behind his back.

"Don't hurt him!" Bridget cried out, coming to her knees on the bed. "Please, I beg you. Don't hurt him!"

The two Security Guards averted their eyes from the nude woman kneeling on the bed

as she grabbed frantically for the sheet that had been pulled from the bed by her lover's

removal. Wrestling the Keeper between them, they dragged him back, away from the bed,

and held him as the other two guards manacled his hands behind him.

"This isn't necessary," Konnor insisted. "I'll go willingly with you, Hascom."

"I would not be you at this moment for all the gold in Ionary, Rhye," Ensign Hascom snapped. "Have you lost your mind, man?"

A grimace of pain shot over Konnor's face as the manacles snapped into place too

tightly around his wrists. The S.G.s forced him to his knees in preparation for manacles to

be locked onto his ankles.

"He is not a criminal," Bridget yelled at them. "For God's sake, don't do that to him!"

It was her words that brought Cree into the bedsuite. He had hoped beyond all hope

that the scream he had heard when they had blasted into Rhye's quarters had not come

from his female's throat. When he had heard her cry out, begging the Security Guards not

to hurt the treacherous bastard, he had lost that hope. Hearing her defend her lover had

sent a red, hazy film of red fury seeping over his vision and when he had entered the

room to find her naked in the Keeper's bed, that fury had turned to murderous intent.

"Cree!" Bridget gasped, reaching out a hand to him. "Please don't let them hurt him! I beg you. He—"

"What do you want us to do with him, Captain?" Hascom asked, deliberately cutting

off the frightened woman's words. He liked Konnor Rhye and did not want to see the

man's blood shed there and then.

"Cree, please?" Bridget whimpered for the Reaper had advanced on Konnor.

The man they called the Iceman reached out and grabbed a handful of the Keeper's

hair. He brutally dragged Rhye's head back until the cords stood out in Konnor's neck.

"You will regret this night, Konnor Rhye," he seethed. "I swear to you, you will regret it for as long as I let you live!"

"I don't give a damn what you do to me," Rhye answered. "But don't you dare hurt her.

If you hurt my woman, Cree, so help me—" Konnor's head snapped back as the Reaper

backhanded him across the mouth. The return motion of the Reaper's hand sprayed blood

as it connected with Konnor's lips.

"Cree, please!" Bridget shouted. She scrambled off the bed, trailing the end of the sheet behind her. She put out a restraining hand and hooked it on the Reaper's biceps. "He's not to blame..."

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The Reaper rounded on her, his hand drawn back to hit her. His amber eyes flashed

with lethal intent as his lips skinned back from his gleaming teeth.

"No!" Konnor screamed, his own eyes flaring wide with fear for Bridget's safety.

Bridget flinched, turning her head. She put up her arm to ward off the blow.

In the moment before she had flinched away from him, Cree had seen the terror in her

eyes. He had seen her fear of him. It drove a shaft of bitter ice through his melting heart

and his hand came down, clamped painfully around her wrist, instead, then jerked her

toward him.

"You are my woman!" he hissed from between clenched teeth. "My woman! Do you

understand that?"

"Yes, Cree," she answered quickly. "Yes! Yes!"

"Not his!" the Reaper denied. "You will never be his again! Do you understand that?"

"Yes," she replied, nodding.

The Keeper's mouth was torn and bleeding and he had to spit blood before he could

speak. "Hurt her and I will kill you, your heartless bastard!" He thrashed savagely against his captors, but the guards held him securely, Hascom urgently whispering for him to

hold his tongue.

Cree ignored the threat. His hand tightened on Bridget's arm. "Come!" he ordered in a freezing tone and started to drag her from the room.

"What are you going to do to him, Cree?" she asked, stumbling along in his wake.

"Be quiet," he ordered.

"She will never be yours!" Konnor dared to throw at the Reaper. "As much as you want her, you will never have her! Her heart belongs to me!"

Cree stopped, turned, and fixed the Keeper with a look that should have dropped the

man dead where he knelt. "Be careful," he said in a deadly quiet voice, "that I do not remove your heart with my bare hands for her to keep as a reminder of this night's folly,

Rhye."

"Please don't let them hurt him, Cree," Bridget begged. "I'll do anything you want. I will—"

"Shut up!" the Reaper shouted at her. He didn't want to know what she was willing to do to save her lover's life.

Without another word, blocking out the Keeper's venomous curses being heaped down

upon his head, Cree turned, jerked Bridget behind him, his fingers clenched around her

wrist, and exited Rhye's quarters. He pulled her to the elevator, his hand so tight around

her wrist she tried with her free hand to pry it off while attempting to hold onto the sheet

in which she had wrapped herself. Stepping on the end of the sheet, she stumbled against

him and he had to jerk on her arm to keep her from falling.

"You are hurting me," she whimpered, feeling the bones in her wrist grating together.

"Good!" he ground out.

"Are you going to beat me?" Fear turned her face white as the sheet she struggled to keep it around her nakedness.

"I have every right to do whatever the hell I want with you, bitch!" he snarled.

There were two Keepers on the elevator when the doors opened. Cree's own S.G., Lt.

Alexi Noll was one of them. Seeing his commanding officer standing in the corridor, he

snapped to attention. "SIR!" he barked.

"Get the hell out of my way, Noll!"

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"Sir! Aye, Sir!" Noll shoved his companion off the elevator and stood watching with open-mouthed surprise as the Reaper got on the elevator, yanking the half-naked woman

in behind him.

"Who the hell was the female?" Noll's fellow Keeper asked in a shocked voice as the elevator doors shushed closed.

"Didn't you recognize her? That was Koni's woman." He winced. "Oh, Sweet Merciful Alel!" Noll breathed. "`Kam and Bridie sitting in a...'" He winced again. "This ain't good!"

Bridget was trembling violently as she stood next to Cree in the elevator. The back of

her hand was slick with his blood and she looked down nervously at the brutal cuts on his

knuckles. "You are bleeding," she said then bent over as his fingers tensed around her wrist.

"What the hell do you care?" he growled, not bothering to look at her.

"Captain, I—"

"Shut up," he ordered in a hiss of a whisper that brooked no argument. "I don't want to listen to any more of your lies."

"I haven't lied to you."

"Twenty-one hundred hours," he said, as though to himself. "Not twenty-two hundred.

Not twenty-three hundred. Twenty-one hundred means twenty-one hundred."

"I lost track of the time," she said foolishly and was rewarded by a narrowed,

dangerous gaze. The look on his face was purely satanic.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal several people waiting to get on.

One of them, insensitive to the charged atmosphere and not really having seen who was

already in the cage, made to enter.