The baby kicked and I sighed before I rubbed her, thinking I could feel the outline of her foot along my skin. I’d been fed and I lay in a soft bed. I guess the combination did eventually lull me to sleep. My dreams were weird, and I couldn’t make sense of them. The guys all featured in various ways. The experience was akin to watching a screen move too fast. I couldn’t catch the image before it disappeared.
Except for one.
I lay in the bed. Everything in the room looked the same, although it was mess. My clothes were thrown everywhere and the disorder didn’t bother me at all. Next to me, Cooper Jackson lay naked, one leg strewn over mine. The dark hair on his legs tickled my skin. He snored, which I knew meant he was utterly exhausted. He should be. We’d been fighting the Nobles for weeks and he’d almost been caught twice.
If we lost Cooper’s cover, we were dead. I knew it. He knew it. Our family knew it. Moreover, my mother knew it. That last thought kept me from sleeping.
I rolled toward him and he grunted, moving a bit before falling into a deep enough sleep he snored again. I grinned at his unshaven face. When I’d met him on Corso III, he’d been clean-cut, put together, and thinking about throwing himself off the top of Mount Win. I’d talked him out of it, and now he belonged to me. They were all mine. My men. The best of the best, and I was totally devoted to each and every one of them as long as they stayed that way to me.
Tired or not, I wanted attention. Christopher James would need my help later maneuvering through The Bridge’s upheaval, and I wasn’t going to be able do it if I didn’t get some sleep. The only way rest coming was if Cooper took care of me now.
He had to wake.
I reached between us and stroked his length. He didn’t react all at once. Dead asleep, at first his cock lengthened within my grip. I stroked again and again until I had his attention. He was hard and throbbing.
“Not that I’m complaining.” His gaze seared hot and his voice was low from sleep. “But I told you I needed rest. You said you did, too.”
“We both can sleep, prince grumpy.” I rolled on top of him, straddling his legs, pushing him close to my pussy. “After you get me off. Maybe twice. Don’t be a crank. You know you love me.”
He ran his hand over my thigh. “I do, Melissa-mine. I always will. Even if you could drive a sane man crazy.”
Leaning over, I kissed his chin. “Good thing you’ve never been close to sane then, Cooper. Fuck me into next year.”
I woke in a sweat, jolting upward, the baby going crazy inside me like she wanted to do a dance. I shook, aching, and I needed…something. My head hurt, and I wanted to bang it against the wall.
I shoved the covers away; I must have gotten under them when I’d been asleep. They were too heavy on me despite the cool breeze from the air conditioning. My body ached and I groaned.
What had I been dreaming about?
Sitting didn’t ease any of my discomfort. With no other choice, and no idea how to get rid of the rising heat in my body, I made my way to the shower and turned the cold water on full blast. I didn’t even stop to take off my clothes when I got under the spray. I wasn’t stupid, I knew I should undress. I didn’t even have any clothes to change into, but the sheer need inside of me cried for a relief I had no idea how to get.
Cold water was all I could think about.
I heard the knocking on the door over the spray of the shower, and I hoped whoever was out there would go away. They had something to do, didn’t they? Shouldn’t that have meant they would leave me alone?
The door to my room opened, and I pressed my head against the tile. My captors were clearly not big on privacy.
“Mel?” Dane called.
Surely he must hear the shower running. Wouldn’t normal people turn around and go away? I wasn’t surprised when I heard his voice closer to the door.
“Hey. You almost done? I have to be available to triage the group before they get on the ship and I can’t leave you on board alone.”
I didn’t understand half of what he said except not being able to leave me alone. Still fully dressed I stepped out, dripping and finally cooled, into the bathroom. I pulled open the door so Dane could see me in my full, insane, glory.
His eyes widened. “Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“Ah…no.” He grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around me. “What’s going on? Why were you in the shower fully-clothed?”
“I woke and something was wrong.” Even though I hated being on the ship, and could not for the life of me understand why they wouldn’t let me go, Dane was a doctor and maybe he could help. “I felt so hot. My head ached like it did right before I had the episode on the shuttle, and all I could think about involved getting cooled off. My joints hurt. I needed some kind of…release. Am I dying? Have I hurt the baby?”
“Okay.” Dane nodded, his cheeks redder than they had been when I started speaking. “First things first, take off your clothes and then get in this towel. You have clothes in the closet, right?”
“They won’t fit.” I pressed on my stomach. “Kind of huge. Bigger than your wife, and yes, I’ve figured out you all shared her. C.J. said they’ll be too small for me. So I’m stuck with the guard suit I’ve soaked, I’m afraid.”
He sucked in his breath. “Well…okay, then. Um, here.” Dane pulled off his shirt and handed it to me. “I’ll go get another one and then come and talk to you about what I think might have happened. You should have a pair of shorts which should stretch large enough in the middle drawer.” He pointed to it and I walked over to put them on. “Then we’ll go wait outside.”
The cold air in the room had started to make me shiver, even with his towel around my drenched clothes. I’d gone from too hot to too cold. Both sucked. When he turned to leave, I ripped my sopping wet clothes from my body. They pooled in a lump of wetness on the floor. I dried off with the towel and then pulled Dane’s shirt over my head.
I tried not to think about his perfectly sculpted abs. His shirt hung low on me, touching the top of my knees, even with my huge belly poking forward. Unlike C.J. and Nolan, Dane didn’t dress to show off how strong he was. I’d not imagined he had such a defined physique. What did he do to stay that way? Did the ship have a gym?
I groaned. The need returned and I wasn’t even dry yet. I bent over to pick up my mess as a large boom sounded somewhere outside. I nearly stumbled as the ship jolted. I grabbed my laundry and dumped it in the side of the sink before rushing out the door. I was half-dressed in a shirt, pregnant, and barefoot. None of that mattered as much as seeing what had exploded.
Were we at risk? Or could it be someone had come who could rescue me from my kidnappers?
I ran the distance toward the outer door, which was open, at the other end of the hall by the bionics bay. We must have landed when I’d been asleep. Dane stood outside, the wind whipping at his blond hair. He’d changed into a different shirt, this one green and only half-tucked into the waistband of his pants.
“What’s happening?” I shouted at him before I stopped next to him. “What blew?”
He pointed forward. “We’re in a fire fight.”
My line of vision followed where he indicated. Smoke rose above two buildings. I forced myself to stop moving and to catch my breath. Hall was the first planet I could remember seeing, except for my brief glimpses of Master’s. I tried to take it all in. We were in some kind of city. Buildings of various sizes stretched into the skyline. Factories spit smoke upward as far as I could see.
“You blew something up?”
Dane shook his head. “Geoff woke up and is out there with them, so I suppose it’s possible, although highly improbable. Generally speaking, Geoff’s bombs are more precise. I can’t see him leveling a street in such a sloppy manner.”
“So the people did this? To themselves?”
The doctor turned his head to look at me for the first time since I’d rushed outside. “I try to leave them alone when they’re out
there and not bombard them when they are fighting. The way I see it, two things are possible. One, as you said, the populace chose to blow their street to stop us from getting to their prisoners, or two, the Nobles are here and they made it all go sky high.”
I gulped. We’d come for a rescue mission and maybe landed in a war. I wanted to be rescued, but this was clearly not the time or place. I couldn’t throw myself in the middle of that mess and risk my daughter.
A nagging worry pressed on my mind. Were the guys okay? I shouldn’t care. They were my enemy, and yet…with the exception of Nolan, they’d all been kind. I wanted away from them, but I didn’t wish them dead, regardless of what I’d said to CJ.
I’d only just met them. So, really, why did I care? My head panged, and I rubbed where it hurt. Something triggered a memory.
“If they all died, could you fly Nolan’s ship? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them dead. But I don’t want an angry mob overrunning us if they are.”
Dane snorted, a strange smile taking over his face. One half of his mouth raised in a grin while the other didn’t before he threw his head back and laughed. “I can. Don’t worry. We won’t be stranded on this planet if everyone else dies, but it’s not Nolan’s ship. He’ll be the first to tell you. And they’re not dead. I have their vitals on my wrist, in my chip. If they were dead, it would buzz me. I’ve had that happen. I’ll never forget the feeling.”
His wife. He must have felt her…leave forever. What a terrible thought. Goosebumps broke out all over my body. I reached out to grab his arm. They were humans, these men who refused me my freedom. They’d all been hurt tremendously.
Three figures appeared in the clearing, running toward the ship. A man, a woman, and a little boy. It took me another second to realize the woman held something, no someone, in her arms. There were four of them. This was obviously not the guys returning from their job.
“Help us,” the woman shouted in between coughing fits. “Please help us.”
The child in her arms bled, badly. As they got closer I could see the wound in his chest, a large red wound, pushing blood through the outside of his shirt.
Dane rocked on his feet. “The ship has a force field. Only someone wearing one of our chips can get through.”
I grabbed his arm. “What?”
“They can’t get in to us.”
Loud machine gun fire echoed from the town. The fight drew closer and a second explosion, this one farther away, blew the top of a building into the air. The force, even from a distance, pushed me back two steps. The family running toward us all fell forward onto their faces. The woman struggled to her knees, still holding her little boy.
Dane pulled me against him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I pointed at the family calling to us. “They’re not.”
“Go inside, and you won’t have to see them.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Sometimes they get desperate, and then they throw themselves against the ship. Suicide by force field. If you hit it hard enough…”
“Wait. What? That little boy is injured.” Maybe deathly so. “You can help them.”
“I…” His voice cracked and he shook his head. “I’d like to help. You can’t imagine how much, but I’ve had to learn over the years to keep my focus on the mission. If I stop to help them then I’ll be overrun. The guys might need me. Or one of the Nomads they’re rescuing. No, I’m sorry. We’re not here for them.”
“Dane.” I couldn’t believe him. “We’re not talking about hordes of people. You told me yourself, the guys are fine. You can see their vitals. That’s a little boy. He’s dying because you guys brought us here. Our presence is why he is hurt. Aren’t they who you are supposed to save? The population?”
“The job of the Nomads is to disrupt the workings of the Nobles. If the populace wants to rise, they’re going to have to do so. We give them every opportunity.” He looked away from me, turning his back as he walked partway into the ship. “It’s awful. I’m not saying it isn’t. I can’t sleep at night for the screams of people like the ones out there. But I can’t let them on this ship. I have to follow the rules. When we let down our guard, our people die. I’m not supposed to let you out of my sight or I’d have made it so you couldn’t see this. After the stunt you pulled trying to run away before, Nolan wants you watched. But, I think you should go back in. You’re protected by the force field like I am. But, I can’t keep your mind free of seeing this out here. Go back in.”
His shoulders stiffened, but his hands quivered at his side. Dane hated this, but not as much as I did. “You’re a coward.”
He whirled around at my words. “Whatever I am is what you made me. Life isn’t pretty. We all have a role. I never promised to be anyone’s hero, and you made it abundantly clear that wasn’t what you wanted me to do. I clean your messes.” Dane paled after he spoke the words. “Mel, I…”
I didn’t have to be a genius to know this went against the so-called protocol. Fine. Whatever. There was a little boy outside our force field, and he needed help. Someday my daughter might need the same. Fuck his rules. I needed to protect her and that meant somehow making this a world she could live in, where someone would help her if we needed it. I couldn’t stand here and do nothing. Even if he could.
I rushed forward. If I could make it through, grab the boy, I’d find out how much Dane wanted me. He had a machine—the one that fixed me. I’d bet my life it could save the kid. I was either an important hostage or I wasn’t. He could let me back on the ship or we would take our chances out on Hall together.
Chapter 7
Sugar Planets
“MEL,” Dane called from behind me, and I turned. The mother’s wails destroyed my soul. She had become everything wrong in the universe to me. There were other noises—gunfire, shouts, the father’s cries, the other little boy screaming for assistance—I hardly heard them. The woman holding her dying son connected to my soul and wouldn’t let go.
“Here’s the deal. I don’t want to—but, I cannot live in a world where we leave that child to die. So you’re going to open the force field and let them in, or I am going to throw myself against it. I don’t want to hurt my baby and I have no desire to die. But I won’t be able to make it, to live another day, if we don’t put that little boy in your machine and fix him. What if my daughter needs help some day and there’s some cosmic justice or something and she doesn’t get it because we’re not helping now? Maybe that sounds crazy. Maybe I’m nuts. I don’t care. I’m basically powerless. I get it. Try me on this.”
I wasn’t even bluffing. I had played my only card.
“Fuck.” Dane charged forward, tapping on his wrist as he did. I heard a whoosh sound. “You stay here. Right where you are. We’ll bring the child on. His parents and the other kid stay outside. I won’t have them destroying the ship because we decided we were a hospital.”
Dane passed me as he gave his orders. I let out the breath I’d held. He was going to help them. He reached the family quickly, pulling the mother to her feet and taking the young child into his arms. I couldn’t hear what he said to them, his voice low, but the mother shook her head violently and tried to tug her bleeding son into her arms. Dane resisted, motioning toward the ship with his shoulder. The father roared at him.
Before I could even think about it, I ran to them, grabbing onto Dane’s arm and pulling him toward the ship even as I turned to face the scared family.
“Go,” I called to him. “Get him inside.”
“No.” The mother gripped my shoulders. “I have to go with him.”
I could understand her absolute need to not let her dying son out of her sight. “Listen to me. Dane can’t let you on that ship. We don’t know you. This is the world we live in.” I wasn’t even sure where my words came from. What did I really understand about the politics of the universe? My whole memorable existence had taken place in a center designed to make me a good wife to a person who never sees this kind of pain. “We let you on that ship a
nd what if you do something to harm us? He’s a doctor, a good one. Not only does he have a machine to stabilize your son, but he can fix him so he doesn’t suffer from this horrible day anymore.” I really hoped Dane could. “Let him go. Do you see those buildings over there? Wait there. We’ll bring him to you.”
“No.” The father grabbed at my shoulders. “My wife stays with him.”
“Hey.” Dane didn’t so much yell as he roared. “You fucking let her go.”
The gentle doctor had cursed twice. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“Okay. Okay.” I placed what I hoped was a calming hand on the father’s arm. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll all go to those buildings. Dane keeps your boy. You keep me. Then we trade. Sound okay?”
Dane shook his head. “I’m not agreeing to this, Mel.”
“Get the kid onto the ship, Dane, before he bleeds to death or a bunch of crazies get closer with their machine guns. Please. These people don’t want to hurt me. They just don’t want to lose their son. We can all be okay here. I promise.” I stepped out of the man’s arms. “Come on. Quicker he goes in, quicker he comes out.”
Dane’s eye twitched. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”
“I’m not giving you a choice. This isn’t a consent thing, it just is what it is.” I patted the man on his arm. “Let’s go get your family safe and let Dane do what he does.”
The baby kicked me hard, right in my left rib, and I grunted at the pain before I turned and led the family to the office building where I wanted them to wait. If the gunfire made it to Artemis, I didn’t want them in the fray. The door to the one-story office space was unlocked, with office supplies, chairs, desks, and lamps strewn everywhere. I wondered if, when the fighting started, everyone inside had run for their lives.
“This is insane,” the father screamed to the ceiling.
I needed something better to call these people than mother, father, son, and injured boy. “I’m Melissa.” Maybe if I gave them my name, they’d give me theirs.