Ruthless Read online

  To call what had gone on between them intense was an understatement. Mind blowing, life-changing, incomprehensible. Those words might work, but her brain still hadn’t quite caught up to any of that, and she snuggled further into Toran’s muscular embrace and tried to put off her racing thoughts.

  But now that she was awake, those thoughts and doubts and memories of things that had gone wrong battered her mind. She was more well rested then she could ever remember, and it was probably foolish to think that Toran’s presence at her side was merely a coincidence. One side of her mind was screaming about all of the ways that this could go wrong, all of the ways that she could be hurt by opening her heart and her body to the alien beside her. But the other side, the one that had kissed Toran last night and taken pleasure from him, as well as gave it back, was busy pointing out that no one had ever made her feel this secure in such a short period of time.

  Toran didn’t lie to her, unlike Dan. No, she didn’t want to think her ex’s name. She didn’t want him to tarnish whatever was growing between her and the golden Detyen who wouldn’t let her go. Yes, there was information that Toran had kept from her, but he didn’t seem to be doing that anymore. Not now that they’d begun to talk. Maybe this was all premature, a honeymoon period while their hormones went crazy and their bodies cried out for one another. But Iris didn’t want to believe that, she wanted to open herself up and figure out exactly who she could be with Toran.

  But she wasn’t ready for that yet, wasn’t ready to admit that to him. They hadn’t talked about what the sex meant afterwards. Whether Toran realized that she was on the verge of freaking out if she thought too much about it, or whether he was just satisfied with getting off, he hadn’t said once the orgasms were over. But she remembered the conversation from the restaurant, and what Toran had implied that he wanted from her. Not just sex, but a partnership deep in their souls.

  Did what they’d done count? Where they bound together now? She didn’t feel much different, besides being sated down to her bones. Maybe Toran would know. He was the one who knew about the bond in the first place. But she wasn’t sure if she was brave enough to ask. If things were sealed between them, then it was done, no more decisions needed to be made on that front. If it wasn’t, then she would have to deal with that.

  She wanted to seal the bond, even if they didn’t last. She found that thinking of the galaxy where Toran would die on some arbitrary birthday made her heart ache. At the very least she could stop that from happening. She had that much power.

  As if sensing her roiling thoughts, Toran stirred. He placed a kiss on the back of her neck, but unwrapped his arms from around her and rolled over. He was silent for a long moment, and Iris wondered if he was waiting for her to speak. A few seconds later he answered that question for her. “Good morning,” he said. She could feel him lying on his back, but she would need to turn over to get a good look at him.

  She stayed lying where she was, one hand curled around the edge of her pillow. “Good morning. I’m going to take a shower.” She fled the bed, but couldn’t help looking back. Toran watched her as she walked, his gaze hungry and latched onto her. She was wearing all of her clothes; neither of them had stripped before going to sleep, but he knew what she looked like naked. At least what parts of her looked like naked. And from the way his gaze raked across her, he was imagining that right now.

  Heat roiled through her and she wanted to hold out a hand and invite him to join her in the shower. But she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her before she could gather the nerve. They had more they needed to talk about, and she wasn’t going to complicate that with even more sex before they were ready. Before she was ready.

  She washed herself quickly, and when she was done Toran took his own turn. While he was getting clean, she took the initiative to prepare them a small breakfast using their room’s food processor and when he stepped out of the bathroom, steam billowing around him, he grinned when he saw the simple fare set out on the table.

  Iris’s mind stuttered to a halt, and suddenly any hunger for the food on the table evaporated, replaced by hunger for Toran. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away, but that didn’t stop her from hearing the masculine chuckle he let out. It went straight to her gut and trickled further down. It took a good deal of discipline not to squeeze her thighs together to try and get a little relief.

  She rested her hands on the countertop and pressed down hard, taking several deep breaths before she forced herself to turn back around and face the man in the room with her. In the few seconds she’d taken for herself, he’d swapped his towel for a pair of pants. His chest was still bare, and her eyes roved over all that glorious golden skin. The dark markings that covered his arms, almost like tattoos, continued down one side of his torso, and she knew from experience that they continued even lower.

  “Do my clan markings please you?” he asked, casually stretching to one side and giving her an even better view.

  An inhuman sound escaped Iris’s throat and she clenched her mouth shut to keep from making any other embarrassing noises. She pushed his plate of food towards him and gave it a pointed look.

  “I like the way you look at me,” he said, ruthlessly refusing to change the topic.

  Something uncoiled inside of Iris. If he wasn’t going to let her escape, she had no reason to hide what she was thinking. “If you like how I look at you, why did you put the pants on?” Her cheeks were on fire, but he seemed to like it when she blushed. If he was going to be bold, she would dish it back.

  He grinned broadly and his face was transformed. Had she ever thought him an imposing, impossible warrior? Untouchable? No, he was none of those things, not to her.

  “I’d take them off, but we do have some work to do today.” He took a seat and dug into the food, making an appreciative sound as he ate. “What is this? It’s delicious.”

  Iris sat beside him and looked down at her own plate. “Just pancakes and sausage, nothing special.”

  He glanced at her for a long moment, something deeper than lust and mirth in his eyes. “You made me breakfast. That is special.”

  Her first instinct was to tell him not to read anything into it, that it didn’t mean anything. But they were beyond that now, and maybe it did. She still wasn’t sure, was still figuring things out. But instead of denying him, she ate her food and didn’t pull away when his thigh brushed against hers. In fact, she found herself leaning back into him, seeking his touch.

  They ate quickly, and by the time they put their plates in the wash, Iris was wishing that they really were on Gamma Station for a vacation, just to enjoy each other’s company. But they had more important things to do, and as soon as their breakfast was cleared, they got down to it.

  Toran was setting up a device that Iris couldn’t identify, but it quickly became obvious that it was used to analyze all the data and surveillance they’d picked up the day before. “We don’t have time to listen to everything, not between the two of us,” he said. “This device is programmed to listen for key phrases. It also has a predictive algorithm that can flag anything else that will be of interest.”

  The device didn’t look like much. If she had to guess, she would’ve said that it looked like a holo player, though not one she’d ever seen before. A small black cylinder sat on a tripod in the center of the table and a red light flashed on top of it. “Does that mean it’s on?”

  “It means that the algorithm has flagged something,” Toran responded. He pulled out his tablet and must have been controlling the device from that, because after a moment it started to play.

  She was right about the holo player. They didn’t just hear the sound, but saw what the tracker had seen. The angle was off, but Iris immediately recognized the scene playing out in front of them. Yormas sat next to the mysterious Oscavian that she’d watched him talk to the day before. It took a moment for her translator to catch up to what the men were speaking about. They spoke in Oscavian, not the far more popular
Interstellar Common or her own native language of English.

  “I’ll have more details for you at lunch tomorrow,” said the Oscavian. “It’s a setback, but initial data is promising.” They could have been talking about anything. The Oscavian’s face gave nothing away, and her view of Yormas was obstructed by something in the tracker’s path.

  “Data from a single source is hardly conclusive. The study we’ve done suggests that you’ll find the results we were looking for. But if you hadn’t managed to—”

  “Do you really want to talk about that here?” The Oscavian looked around and nodded at something. For a heart pounding second Iris thought he was looking in the direction of where she’d been standing, but a Gamma Station security guard walked past them and she realized that she hadn’t been noticed. Not yet.

  “You managed to recover one of them?” Yormas pressed.

  “My brother did,” the Oscavian confirmed. “And our luck...” His voice sank down to a volume the tracker couldn’t pick up as he leaned in close to Yormas.

  “No!” Yormas gasped, too overcome with surprise and disbelief to keep his voice down. But he regained enough control by the time he responded to be quiet once more.

  “I’ll have the data tomorrow. Late lunch in the observatory, I think you’ll be interested.”

  The projections stopped and Iris looked over to see that Toran’s fists were clenched and if his jaw was clamped any tighter shut he would’ve broken his teeth. “You think they’re talking about what happened to you guys? About the women who were recovered? And the one who wasn’t?” Though she hadn’t come with him to find answers about Laurel, it now looked like her mission from the SDA was coinciding with Toran’s. “What really happened to her?” He’d been cagey the first time she asked, but they were so far from that now, and whatever he told her, she would believe him.

  “We were off the planet before we realized she was gone,” Toran responded. He looked at her, and she saw agony in his eyes. “The slavers who’d kidnapped her had implanted a control chip in her head. At least Sierra thinks that’s what happened, we never got a chance to confirm it. But I agree with her. On our way off Fenryr 1, the SIA ship broke down. It was sabotaged by Laurel. Luckily we were close enough to the Detyen home base. We took the women there, and offered Sierra and her crew the supplies they needed to repair their ship. But at some point Laurel got her hands on a tablet and managed to send a signal to someone. We don’t know exactly who, but shortly after that an Oscavian warship attacked the planet. The same Oscavian warship that had planned to collect the women on Fenryr 1. In the course of our escape, a few of the survivors took it upon themselves to make sure that Laurel didn’t make it to the ship. They insisted that they didn’t harm her, that she was still alive when we left. But we have no way of confirming that.”

  Anger laced his every word, the frustrated kind where you knew that you’d never find an outlet for it. “And now you’re thinking that this Oscavian might have Laurel?” she asked. “That he might have been involved with what else is going on?”

  Toran nodded. “I need to be at that lunch, I need to see if I can get eyes on whatever data the Oscavian is talking about.”

  “No.” The denial was out before she could even think of a reason to keep them back. She didn’t want to send Toran into danger.

  “I have to go,” he insisted. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”

  “You think that’s what I care about?” The laugh that came out of her throat was anything but amused. “Yormas could recognize you, he can place you on Earth. And if he has something against the Detyens...” She didn’t know how to finish that, and she choked on the thought of Toran getting hurt. “It makes more sense for me to go,” she said, and as she suggested it the reason made itself clear in her mind. “He’s already seen me on the station. Even if he thinks something’s up, he can’t be sure. I’m just one human among many. Besides, this gives you time to raid his and the Oscavian’s quarters. You’ll do that better than me, I don’t have the skills.”

  Toran growled, and it really wasn’t the time to find that sexy, but she found just about everything that Toran did sexy. “Fine,” he bit out. “But if there’s any danger, you get out. Don’t put yourself at risk.” She could feel the tension strung through him, and knew that there was a part of him that wanted to tie her to the bed to keep her from leaving the room. The fact that he was agreeing to let her go showed her just how important this mission was to him. But she filed thoughts of rope in the back of her mind, to bring up again when things were less stressful.

  After going over a few more plans, Iris and Toran dressed for their missions and met at the door to their quarters. She swiped a quick kiss against his lips and her fingers clenched against his biceps. She forced herself to let go, and taking a step back was even harder. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Stay safe,” he replied. Iris took a deep breath before heading out. She couldn’t let Toran down, this was too important. And if fears tried to rear their head and she imagined all of the ways this could go wrong, she did her best to ignore that. It was going to be fine. Yormas had no idea who she was, and there was plenty of security on the station.

  But the further she got away from Toran, the more hollow those reassurances rang. She had to do this right, had to find the information they needed and get back to her mate. She only hoped that Yormas and his Oscavian companion didn’t catch on to them. If they were caught, they were a long way from home and no backup was coming.

  Chapter Eleven

  WHEN IRIS WALKED OUT the door Toran had to tamp down on every protective instinct that screamed at him to follow her, to protect her, to tie her up in their room and never let her leave. Yormas and the mysterious Oscavian were dangerous men, and if they found out that she was following them they could end her in an instant. Toran’s claws flashed out and he swiped at the air, barely missing the hard metal of the door in front of him.

  But Iris had a point; it was possible that Yormas could recognize him. And if Yormas had anything to do with the destruction of Detya then it was better to keep the Detyens out of his sight for now. His soul ached for vengeance, he needed to see justice done for his people and to protect his mate. But at the moment he could do neither. His mate was capable of protecting herself for now, and if that changed then he would do anything, would sacrifice anything, to keep her safe. Not yet though, not now. If he overstepped now she would pull away.

  He’d been blessed with a mate just as strong as he was, just as dedicated to doing the right thing. And though he might feel more comfortable with a woman content to stay back and let him fight alone, he would not trade Iris for anything. The thought of her fighting at his side sent joy singing through him. It terrified him, but if she was the one that fate had deemed belonged to him it had to be right.

  He hadn’t dared hope that their relationship would progress so far so soon, but after the night before and the way Iris had opened up to him he thought that by the time they were home, she would be his in every way. She would let him claim her completely, and they would be joined in the most ancient way of his people. He already belonged to her in everything but the claiming, and he would do anything to make her see that. And for now that included trusting her on a mission dangerous enough to set his teeth on edge.

  His claws slowly retracted back into his knuckles as he got himself under control. When Toran exited their room he spared a glance in the direction that he knew Iris had gone before turning the other way and resolutely marching down the hall. It hadn’t taken much to figure out where the Oscavian was staying. He was registered as Nyden Varrow. Toran didn’t know if it was his real name or a fake, but at least it gave him something to call the man other than ‘the Oscavian.’

  Varrow’s room was located in a less expensive part of the station, though expense was relative on Gamma. These rooms did not have real windows, but instead looked out onto the moon and into space via media stations embedded into the walls. It was enough to re
mind a visitor where they were, but when Toran broke into the room and got a look at it, he was happy that he and Iris had the real thing.

  If he wasn’t certain that this room had been reserved by Varrow, he would have thought that it was standing empty, waiting for a new guest to reserve it. The place was tiny, with just a bed, the media station, a small bathroom, and a place on the wall that looked to fold out into a table and desk chair. No one would want to stay in there for long, it was practically a prison cell. And Toran turned over every corner looking for any hint of what Varrow had to offer Yormas. But there was nothing, no papers, no tablets, and not even any clothes. Had the man already packed up to leave? Was he keeping his things somewhere else? Toran didn’t know, and he didn’t want to waste time standing around and trying to solve the mystery.

  As he let himself out of Varrow’s room, he wished that he could get in touch with Raze to see how the infiltration of Yormas’s quarters back on Earth had gone. Unfortunately, they’d made the decision that the information could not be shared over the comm lines between Earth and Gamma Station. It was possible to set up a secure line, but that involved coordination with the security forces on the base, and Toran did not want to bring that kind of attention to them. Instead, they’d established a code word, something innocuous that Raze could send to him if he and Sierra found anything that made the mission too dangerous or required Toran to get back to Earth faster.

  So far he’d heard nothing, which meant that he and Iris had to continue on as planned. He only hoped that Raze and Sierra had found something useful.

  Yormas’s room was in a different part of the station, one frequently used by political officials of his caliber. His room would be similar to Toran’s, but even bigger, with space built in to accommodate a meeting room. Toran knew this because he’d studied the schematics of the base before they left, not because he’d seen Yormas’s room. He tried to get near the ambassador’s quarters, but spotted a guard at the end of the hallway before he got close. He could make a distraction, but he wasn’t sure it would be good enough. And he didn’t know what other kind of security Yormas had put in place.