Whispers in the Dawn (3 page)

“Who are you?” she demanded.

His throat had swollen where her liberator had lifted him.

“He can’t hear you. He’s out cold,” her saviour grumbled.

So that was why the criminal hadn’t reacted to her reprimand. Flustered by what had taken place, she raked her eyes up her rescuer’s muscled chest, up biceps that deserved to be videographed with no material covering the deep, tanned skin, and up to a ruggedly handsome face. She blinked at the sudden hurt in his whisky-coloured eyes. It was as if he had consciously shut down his emotions and left nothing but a pair of delicious eyes staring from inside an empty cornhusk. How could anyone close down the very qualities that made him human, just like that?

“Are you injured?” His voice was like a welcoming trickle of water to a woman who was cold and wanted a hot bath to warm her.

Reality stormed back like a blast of icy wind. Fear for her safety replaced her fascination with a man who must be like Roland—callous and unfeeling. Perhaps this man, who appeared to be one hundred per cent human, desired nothing less than what the man lying at her feet had wanted. Or Roland was observing her from somewhere and enjoying this practical joke at her expense. The insensitive brute. That raised the question that if he was watching, then why hadn’t he come to her rescue? Gut instinct usually served her well. Heeding Violette’s warning, which repeated like a badly formed curse in her head, she growled, “I know what you want. Don’t come near me or I’ll kick your insides out.”

His luxurious, thick eyebrows shot up. “You do? What might that be?” he asked in mock bewilderment.

“You know perfectly well.” The words she wanted to say, the evil ones, wouldn’t come. Why fuel the fire?

“You sure know how to bruise a man’s ego. I’m trying to be kind to you, and how do you return it? By threatening to kick me to hell and beyond.”

She maintained her tough stance, hoping he would simply go away. “You’ve done your good deed for the day. Why not leave it at that?” Uncertainty clawed at her mind. Could she distinguish the good from the bad, or were they both the same on Romaydia?

Her heart stopped for a millisecond as the man scowled with penetrating golden-brown eyes, which were emotionless one moment and world-weary and devastatingly lonely the next. Once again, he shut down. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Haven’t you had enough of that for today?”

“Um, yes,” she replied, on the edge of a gulp of air. Maybe she had been a bit too hasty to tell him the dire consequences of getting any closer. Maybe he wasn’t like Roland or the man on the dirty floor, after all.

“In case you don’t understand, I’m friend, not foe.” His voice was seductively deep, the kind a woman could fall in love with and easily hear as they made love over and over.

“I understand English perfectly well.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I didn’t say you didn’t.”

“But you implied I don’t.”

His slow smile infuriated her. She raised her hand to slap his cheek but he seized her hand midway.

“You’re spoiled.”

“I am not!” she replied in a scathingly condescending voice, further angered by the fact that he’d restrained her. “You have no idea who I am!”

“Some lost princess from a world I’ve never heard of?” he quizzed.

“Yes,” she ground out.

“I see. And which planet would that be?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

He nodded as if he understood. “Where are your guards?”

“I gave them the slip.”

“Why?”

“I want adventure,” she shot back.

He released her hand, which she slid inside her pants pocket, surprised at the heat he’d generated.

“You’ll get more than you bargained for on Romaydia. Run along now. Hurry to find your guards. If you don’t, the princess from an unnamed planet will be ravished and perhaps murdered.”

Odessa parted her lips as she searched for just the right retort.

Her rescuer went on. “If you weren’t spoiled, Miss Know-It-All, you would have the good grace to thank me for my enquiry as to your health, instead of thinking up ways to damage my person.”

Odessa really wanted to stomp on his foot now. His grin not only aggravated her but made her think of making love to him. His mesmerising, sexy mouth and glittering eyes made her breath catch. She swallowed her annoyance and managed, none too steadily, “How do I know you’re a friend?” Odessa ran her tongue over her lower lip and tried to take in a calming breath. He appeared earnest enough, but could she trust him?

He spread his hands out in front of him. “Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, won’t you?”

“Words are cheap. I can take care of myself without your help.” Hadn’t her brothers tried to teach her self-defence? Maybe the only thing they hadn’t taught her was how to test a man on the honesty scale, a killer-gorgeous man who radiated animal magnetism. He would impair any woman’s good judgment. “Oh, my gosh,” she exclaimed, her eyes widening.

He grinned. “Having a tough time with that?”

“I, uh, oh!” She sucked in a terrified breath. “Maybe you’re one of those be men who hypnotise women and spirit them away to their lairs with the snap of a magical finger?” Roland had told her that story, but she hadn’t believed it. At the time.

Dakoda Harley, better known to his friends as Dak, found the petite woman charming, a feisty handful, and ridiculously innocent. Or was she an adept actress? Her bark was clearly worse than her bite. Her outburst had surprised him. For some reason, she was acting as if she couldn’t add two single-digit numbers together, in imitation of so many of the other women on Romaydia. Was she undercover and bungling the job? Or was she hunting for a man who would take her off this hellhole? She wasn’t so unlike other women he’d had the misfortune of encountering on other assignments. “I’ve not heard that story before. Is that one they tell on your planet to misbehaving children, princess?” he asked, suspecting she would tell him another lie.

“I, uh, was thinking you might be magic.”

He couldn’t resist breaking into loud laughter. “That’s a new one. No one’s ever called me a spirit with magic before.” The laughter died. If he’d had magic powers, he wouldn’t have let his wife die. From force of habit he surveyed the area, the grim station’s interior that had worn on his nerves hardly a month into the assignment, and the extra security that was visible to his eyes but not to the average person. Nothing struck him as out of place.

She shrugged.

He saw the indecision. She was ready to flee, he guessed. “Yes. Like this.” He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers to demonstrate his point.

Her eyes widened into large gems before she grimaced. “Nothing happened.”

“Did you expect it to?”

She pulled herself together. The top of her head hardly reached the bottom of his chin. “I was expecting something, damn it.”

The conversation was getting stranger by the moment. Maybe she wasn’t that bright after all. What kind of woman expected magic at the snap of a finger on an ugly space station? “You still didn’t tell me which planet you’re a princess on.”

She grimaced. “Earth.” She met his gaze squarely, apparently unafraid of his reaction.

“The last I heard, there are no real magicians or sorcerers who practise magic there. Has that changed since you were last there?” Harley fished for information, unable to believe he was indulging her in this conversation. Magic and sorcerers had never been part of his harsh reality, not as a child, nor as a man.

“Only in children’s fairytales.”

“Then why did you expect magic when I did this?” he asked, snapping his fingers again.

This times her eyes stayed focused on his face. “I’m not sure. As a matter of fact, I’m not certain about anything right now.” She gave a little sigh, either the femme fatale or the perfect actress.

He shook his head, marvelling at how this woman had sucked him into her world of crazy magicians and acts performed only by characters in medieval fantasies. Why would anyone want to attack her? Wasn’t it too soon for the Murrach‘s men to know that Roland Baylon had departed with great haste? Or was Murrach Pardua, the self-styled Lord of Romaydia, cognisant of what went on everywhere on his turf? The realisation made Harley uneasy. He was double-dealing and he very likely would not return home from this mission, except in a black plastic bag.

Against his better judgment, he offered an explanation for the attack, one she hadn’t asked for. “When you bumped into him earlier, he thought you were, let’s say, propositioning him. So he wanted to make good on your offer when you weren’t looking, just in case he was making a mistake and you weren’t.” He wasn’t certain that was the truth. He had arrived only moments earlier to see her being manhandled, and had no idea whether she’d deserved the attention or not. His gentlemanly instincts had kicked in.

Her sapphire eyes flashed fire and ice all at once. Her lips, pretty coral temptations begging for a kiss, opened and shut before she croaked, “Were you following me?”

He shook his head once, wishing he could squeeze her throat and churn the information he needed out of her. But he couldn’t afford the unwanted attention that action would get him, in case the station’s disorganised law happened to arrive. He could hardly use his strong-arm tactics here. He had to lure her, like a bee to a flower.

“Then how do you know what he wanted?”

“A wild guess,” he lied. “I happened to be going in the same direction as you were, so I was slightly behind you.” By chance, he had been walking through a pack of humans and aliens in the public area when he had come upon Odessa. He hadn’t known who she was, but had returned to his quarters to direct a visual search of the Romaydian archives. She was Odessa Grante, a woman who had come with Roland Baylon on his ship, the
Drifter
. That one fact alone was enough for his buried anger to flare up. If she was here, and Baylon wasn’t, she was probably dealing drugs or up to some illegal activity in Baylon’s stead.

He watched her mull over his statement. Her breasts, high and firm, lifted and fell with every breath she took. Grudgingly, he admitted she reminded him of his late wife, Abby, with her hair the colour of yellow autumn leaves in the sun. She was tough, yet every inch a female, but what was the truth beyond the façade?

“And you want me to believe that?” she asked, planting her fists on her hips in a rather melodramatic manner.

The uneasiness notched upwards. Apparently she was used to getting her own way and if she didn’t, she was capable of throwing a tantrum. Or was this her actress persona again?

“You have no reason to disbelieve me.” Any man who tried to browbeat her, whether in bed or out, was in for a surprise. Where was he going with this train of thought? He could ill afford thinking of her in that way. Women in bed and assignments from Murrach Pardua didn’t mix. He couldn’t afford to let his attention slip for even half a second. The only other assignment during which he had allowed himself to be persuaded into a sexual entanglement was when he had been married to Abby. Sexual liaisons on the job slowed down critical response times, especially when they had to be made within seconds.

“I honestly don’t know who to believe,” she muttered.

For a solitary moment, Dak allowed himself to feel pity for her. Mentally, he cursed himself. Hadn’t he discovered that feelings led to heartache, as falling in love with Abby and losing her had? “Give me the benefit of the doubt,” he said in a low growl. “No one else will help you on this station.”

His quiet words must have struck hard. She recoiled in fear and stepped back, possibly readying herself to fend him off. The irresistible urge to kiss her sensuous lips overwhelmed him. Forcibly, he drove his thoughts away from the beckoning temptation. She was Baylon’s woman. He had no doubt of that. He had to find out where the drug dealer had gone. Only she had that information. Besides, the bastard owed him.

He raked a hand through his hair. Revenge. That was all he could think of with his wife dead. Nothing else mattered but bringing Baylon to justice—not the type of lax justice the Galaxy Administration meted out. No, the kind only Dakoda Harley would hand out. Revenge had eaten away at his insides until there was nothing but raw hatred left. Along with crazy loneliness for the wife who had tragically died on assignment after being betrayed by someone she had trusted. 

He watched the fantastic blue baubles that were the woman’s eyes narrow. Her shoulders tensed. She blinked several times. A split second later, he came to the conclusion there was something he probably wouldn’t like directly behind him.

Chapter Three

If he stepped aside and whoever had it in for him had a weapon, Odessa would be in the direct line of fire, and there would go his last chance to get the information he so desperately wanted, intelligence he had waited much too long for. The next few seconds would be crucial. With timing to the nanosecond, he launched himself towards Odessa, tackling her to the floor and out of the immediate danger of being shot full of bullet holes. She landed heavily on the man he had disabled earlier. Harley heard the air from her lungs whoosh out at the impact. He waited for the sound of bullets to scream by.

Nothing except the repetitive, mindless chatter the space station was constantly filled with. A quick glance over his shoulder demonstrated that nothing seemed out of place. The hitman wasn’t making his presence obvious. But then, why should he? On Romaydia, dirty secrets threaded with lies, deceit and death abounded.

Odessa screamed, the noise scarcely registered above the decibel level surrounding them. She scrabbled her nails towards his cheeks as she attempted to break free of him. Her eyes were filled with terror, but he had no time for hysterics. He seized her wrists and, using his body as a shield, pushed her forward, heading towards the nearest concourse, where they might be able to take cover. She smelt wonderfully of gardenias and freshly washed skin.

One muffled curse after another assailed his hearing. He smiled inwardly. The station didn’t afford many places in which to hide an assassin. Secretive locations would disrupt Murrach Pardua‘s plans to take over the galaxy.