“That’s where they should be now.”
Derek arched a brow. “If we move them, we’ll risk discovery, you know that. If I simply wanted to keep them safe, I wouldn’t have you sent you in undercover.”
“Then Briana’s safety isn’t your primary objective?” he asked grimly.
“Briana, is it? Yes, Rep. Michaels’ safety is of paramount importance.”
“But her family’s isn’t.”
“No,” Derek agreed. “Her family’s isn’t.”
Alex didn’t know why he was surprised. He knew the ins and outs of his job. That didn’t mean he had to like them. In this case, he definitely didn’t, but he owed Derek Atkinson his life, so he kept his thoughts to himself. He’d puzzle out a way to keep Bree’s family safe when he had some time to think.
“Find out what she knows, Night. And check in with me daily. Things may be happening here that you don’t know about.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m relieved she’s safe with you.”
“She almost wasn’t.” Alex drummed his fingers on the console. “Someone attempted to assassinate her at the meeting point. A blaster shot missed her by a hair.” His stomach clenched at the memory. He’d nearly lost her.
The momentary silence that greeted his disclosure was deafening. “That location was a carefully guarded secret,” Derek said tightly.
“She brought in Chiles and Sandoval as bargaining chips to negotiate my fee. I’m sure they bragged. Just being asked by her was a huge coup.”
“Damn. She’s got balls.”
“Yeah and a new PA droid, which explains why we weren’t aware of the appointments with the other two smugglers.”
“I’ll look into it. We’ll need to tap into the new droid and see what events we might have missed since she replaced the old one. I’ll send you the schematics once I have them.” Derek glanced away from the screen. “It must have been a very recent purchase. I have no mention of it here, which worries me. If my sources are faulty, there might be a lot more we don’t know, which leaves us vulnerable. Any idea who the assassin was? Did you see them?”
Alex shook his head. “Not a clue. But I’ve got a feeling it was either a droid or a Shinite-trained professional.”
Derek whistled.
The Shinites were an ancient race known for their deadly fighting abilities. They became so focused on their missions they mentally disconnected, making it impossible for a vamp to detect them.
“You didn’t sense anything at all?”
“Nothing.”
“Damn. Shinites cost a fortune, so do droid assassins. If you’re right, this isn’t one person we’re talking about, but a group. I’ll assign more agents to back you up in Tolan. In the meantime, watch your back, Night. And keep me posted.”
“Yes, sir. Will do. Night out.”
The screen went black as Alex signed off. For a moment, he looked over his semicircular console at the view of space outside the bridge window.
What the hell was he going to do? He had no fucking clue.
Standing with a weary sigh, he moved back down the hall and entered Bree’s room. He stood over her sleeping form, taking in her damp curls and barely parted lips. Deep inside him a wealth of compassion swelled, threatening to overflow. She looked so soft and innocent in slumber, nothing like the vixen who’d very nearly brought him to his knees in the shower, although he liked that side of her too. A lot.
He’d been forced to put her to sleep, something all vamps had the mental ability to do, when she’d tried to coax him into bed with her. He’d been so close to losing what little control he had and fucking them both out of their misery. A tantalizing prospect, but he had to earn her trust first. Once he got her into his bed, he intended her to stay there for the duration of their journey and he didn’t want her feeling remorse about anything that happened between them.
Derek wanted him to earn her trust for the mission’s sake. Alex wanted to earn her trust for himself. He hoped like hell she realized what it had cost him to deny them both tonight. His hunger for her was a driving force, making his jaw ache and his entire body tense. Lust, he knew well. This kind of need was completely unfamiliar, goaded as it was by respect for her strength and tenderness for her vulnerabilities.
Blood and sex. That was all he could have of her.
He prayed that would be enough to sate him.
* * * * *
Wielding her flashlight carefully, Briana made her way through the pitch-black cargo bay until she found James. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of him frozen in his kneeling position between two crates, his eyes open and sightless. The poor thing looked so sad and kind of creepy. She searched along his nape until she found the tiny reset button. James blinked and then scowled before rising.
“I do not like Captain Night, Mistress,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry, James. The captain turned out to have a bit of a possessive streak.”
“He has no reason to feel any ownership of you.” He paused a moment with his head cocked to the side. “All systems are working correctly and the link between us was not broken, but if something had happened to you, I would have been unable to respond.”
“Nothing happened,” she soothed, running a hand along his arm. “Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the willies.” With its three-story-tall ceiling and massive cranes, the vast space made her shiver.
James followed. “Quite a bit happened. You and the captain are now involved.”
Blushing, Bree shut the cargo door behind them. “I wouldn’t say that. We—”
“Became intimate,” he said flatly. “I knew you had considered that scenario a possibility, but I had hoped your better sense would assert itself.”
“Excuse me?”
Droids were programmed to never aggressively contradict their owners. Because of her passionate nature, she’d had James’ programming altered a little to facilitate discussion, knowing that listening to a purely logical viewpoint would help her considerably. However, discussing her sex life was not one of the things she’d wanted to debate. And discussing the intimacy she’d shared with Alex seemed…wrong. It was too private to share.
“I apologize,” he said quickly, reading her irritation. “How you handle your personal affairs is for you to decide. It is simply beyond my reasoning to understand why you would invest so much of your life and risk your very existence for a cause, then jeopardize it so easily by aligning yourself with a known criminal.”
“I’m not aligning myself with him!” she argued and then her face heated again. They’d aligned all right. Perfectly. She shivered in remembrance. She’d known Alex would be an expert lover, but to make her come repeatedly without using his cock? Hell, she’d had the best orgasms of her life last night. What would it be like when he actually did fuck her?
“I am equipped with all the tools needed to please you
just as well as Night can,” James said, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back. But unlike when Alexei touched her, Briana felt no thrill of awareness or spark of heat. Some owners had been known to fall in love with their droid companions, but Bree had never been able to look past the fact that James’ emotions were not real and with a simple code change or two, he could care for another owner just as well as he cared for her.
“I know your thoughts, Mistress, and because of that I can touch you in just the way you desire at just the moment you desire it. No one else can do that for you.”
“Thank you for the offer, James, but you know how I feel about that.”
“Sex with a living being who doesn’t love you is better than sex with a droid whose sole purpose for existence is to serve you?”
Disgruntled by his strange mood, she asked, “What is up with you today?”
James shrugged. “You seem determined to ignore your own doubts. I am simply repeating your thoughts aloud.”
“I’m not thinking that at all,” she denied. She remembered clearly the sight of Alex’s fangs descending when he’d seen her naked and the way he’d fought back the primal instinct by retracting them again. Bree knew enough about vamps to know that must have been painful and yet he’d done it. For her.
He’d also performed some mind trick to put her to sleep. They’d be exchanging some words about trying that again, but she knew it was another sacrifice he’d made for her, a way to give her the self-control she hadn’t been capable of last night. Alex didn’t love her, but he did respect her, which was more than a droid was capable of.
“Alexei Night is a criminal, Mistress. I hope you keep that in mind. He is very wealthy and a very talented pilot. There is no reason for him to live his existence outside the law, but that is what he chooses to do.”
Bree bit her lower lip. She’d already planned to ask Alex about his choice in occupation. There were alternatives she could offer him, if he was interested. She hoped he was. The council could use his skill and he would be a valuable asset to them.
Pausing in the corridor by her room, Briana heard Alexei singing from his seat on the bridge. They’d entered the Ligerian Ice Field early that morning. Traversing through the monstrous, free-floating glaciers was beyond treacherous. A great many pilots had met their end here and yet Alex’s skill was such that she’d scarcely felt a bump since they entered. The fact that he was singing told her how relaxed he was under pressure. She paused a moment on the threshold of her cabin, listening to the beautiful sound of a foreign tune sung in his baritone. He was a man of many layers and she knew she’d barely scratched the surface. She was eager to scratch some more.