Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (24 page)

“Ankari,” he whispered in a warning, touching
her head, letting her know to pull away.

She only lifted her hands, grabbing his hips,
pressing into him, enjoying the taste of him, wanting to feel his
pleasure coursing through her. He came with a roar that brought
that image of the panther rushing into her mind again. Later, she
might be ashamed, knowing she had found the thought of him prowling
through the jungle and dealing death arousing, but for now, she
merely curled her hand around the back of his leg and rested her
head against his thigh. Spent.

Viktor bent down and gathered her in his
arms. He stepped out of his trousers and walked to the bed. She
might have been amused that she was still wearing the shapeless
robes, but supposed she hadn’t needed to undress further, not for
this. She wanted more of him, but another time would be fine, when
they had both slept. She draped her arms around his shoulders and
looked into his eyes, hoping for the promise that there would be
another time.

His eyes reflected the flame of the lantern,
the warmth in their depths making her belly shiver. He sank onto
the bed, pulling her into his lap, and kissed her temple gently.
Tenderly. He nuzzled her ear and her neck. His warm breath
whispered across skin moist from his kisses. Her body responded to
him, her nipples tightening, and heat stirring in her depths
again.

“Aren’t you tired?” Ankari murmured, knowing
he didn’t need her now, not yet.

He smiled against her neck, kissing his way
down to her collarbone. “Just showing my appreciation.” He
hesitated, lifting his gaze to hers, a question there. “Unless
you’re
too tired for appreciation.”

“No.” Thoughts of sleep had already wandered
out of her head, and she couldn’t help but speculate wildly on just
how
he might show that appreciation. “I think I’d wake from
the dead for this.”

“Good. But I intend to keep you alive.” His
voice was husky, almost a growl, and it made her shiver, knowing
the panther wanted to be her protector.

Their lips met for the first time that night.
If he minded the taste of himself on her, he didn’t show it. His
hand found the gap in her robe, warm, calloused skin coming to rest
on her bare thigh. He had scarcely touched her, but she scooted
closer, kissing him hard, demanding more. His hand slid upward, his
thumb finding sensitive flesh still damp from earlier. Her breath
hitched as he grazed her, and he smiled against her lips.

“No underwear beneath that robe, eh?”

“It was wet.” She thought about making a
dirty joke, but her eyes were too busy rolling back in her head as
he stroked her with his thumb.

He leaned her back onto the bed, his lips
never far from hers. “Because of the rain or me?” he teased, his
eyes crinkling with humor, humor that she doubted many people got
to see from him. She treasured it, cheesy line and all.

“Yes,” she whispered, and pushed open her
robe, wanting him to be able to touch all of her, to—

A beep came from the pile of clothing on the
floor.

“No,” she protested, not wanting any
disturbances, not until morning. Not ever.

He gave her a long kiss, and she
thought—hoped—he might ignore it, but at the second beep, he sighed
and climbed out of bed. She watched him go, so disappointed that it
was all she could do not to replace his missing hands with her own,
especially as she admired his powerful form, the shadow and light
of the lantern playing over the rises and dips of his
musculature.

“What?” Viktor asked, his eyes on her body,
as well, the swell of the breasts she had bared.

She hoped someone was just checking in, maybe
wondering why he wasn’t in his room, that it was nothing major,
that he could return to bed and touch her with more than his
eyes.

“We’ve got company, Cap’n,” came the
tracker’s voice over the comm.

In an instant, his eyes hardened, and he was
the captain again, grim and forbidding. Ankari found the expression
far less intimidating than she would have an hour ago, but she
lamented its return, knowing it meant he would leave before he
spoke the words.

“Be right there.” Viktor grabbed his shirt
and trousers, dressing in a flash. “Lock your door,” he said,
kissing her before he jogged for the hallway, leaving the lantern
on her desk. He paused with his hand on the knob, giving her a long
backward look, and promised, “Later.”

“I’ll be here,” Ankari whispered.

Viktor stopped in his quarters to grab his
mesh vest, his optical sensor, and his weapons, then ran to the end
of the hall, meeting Tick in the open room. He would have much
preferred staying with Ankari for the night—or the week—especially
after her... exquisite attention, but ignoring a threat could mean
death for all of them.

“Your sensors picked up something outside,
Cap’n.” Tick might have knocked on his door first and might have
wondered why Viktor hadn’t been in his room, but he didn’t say
anything about it. He only held out the tablet, which Viktor had
handed to him when he took over guard duty.

“A person?” Viktor asked.

“Nothing showed up on the camera. It could be
a glitch—the storm’s been wreaking havoc on our comm equipment,
after all—but I thought you’d want to be alerted.” For once, Tick
wasn’t chomping on his gum. He eyed Viktor warily, like he knew he
had interrupted something and wondered if he should have kept his
mouth shut until he had more evidence. No, there were too few of
them down here to take chances.

“Yes. I’ll check the sensor.” Viktor tapped
the tablet. The one with the alert was out front, on the wall
overlooking the stairs. “Wake up Hazel. Have her watch the women,
then come find me.”

Tick resumed chewing his gum and nodded with
relief. “Yes, sir.”

Viktor jogged for the front door, watching
the shadows as he passed meditation and meeting rooms. Most of the
candles around the shrine had gone out, though the one he had lit
still burned. He cycled through the cameras and sensors before
going outside, wanting to know if any images had been captured. The
alarm by the gate beeped intermittently and irregularly, reporting
an audio anomaly. According to the cameras, nothing had come up the
steps, but he’d had limited equipment with him and the units were
sparsely set. It was possible that someone had walked along the
wall, approaching the camera from behind, though the person would
have had to know it was there, and he had camouflaged all the units
well. Was it possible his earlier search had missed someone hiding
in the temple? Someone who might have watched him from the pagoda
tower?

Rifle at the ready, Viktor stepped outside
into the courtyard. A fine mist hung in the warm air, but the
majority of the rain had stopped. The sky was lightening a hair,
the first promise of dawn somewhere behind the mountains. He
lowered his sensor over his left eye, surveying the courtyard with
the enhanced vision. It parsed the shadows and gave him readouts on
the temperature, humidity, altitude, and other conditions. When a
shutter flapped open in the wind, it gave him a noise and motion
detection alert, though his own human senses had already registered
that particular movement.

Convinced nothing lurked in the courtyard,
Viktor padded across the wet flagstones. Hazel had shut and locked
the outer door, and it remained in that state. Instead of opening
it, he jumped, caught the lip of the stone wall, and pulled himself
up. Settling in a crouch, he observed the jungle and the landing
strip far below, as well as the road winding up the mountainside.
He didn’t see a soul, nor was anyone on the steep stairs carved
into the cliff. He twitched his eye to activate the binocular
function of the optical sensor and took a slow survey of the
horizon. If Jarlboro’s ship was still out there, it wasn’t within
ten miles.

A soft thump came from below, something heavy
bumping against the wall. He scooted to the edge and peered down.
He had seen death thousands of times and been ambushed so often, it
took a lot to give him a start of fear, but his heart rate
did
jump up a few notches at the appearance of a body when
he hadn’t expected one, one that wore a Mandrake Company patch on
its shoulder. He couldn’t see the soldier’s face from the top-down
view, but recognized the hair and the missing finger on the left
hand. Rawlings. He hung from a hook on the wall, one meant for
plant baskets, not corpses. When the wind blew, the body wobbled,
bumping the stone occasionally. That was what the sensor was
complaining about. But how had Rawlings gotten there without
something showing up on the camera?

Viktor had anticipated the possibility of a
shuttle coming down from above, and he had set a camera to monitor
the possible approach routes from the sky. Was it possible some
small craft had slipped through? Or...

He twisted to look at the cliff rising behind
the temple. Inhospitable, craggy, and vertical, its thousand feet
of height didn’t recommend it as a possible route into the
compound. Still,
he
could have made the descent with minimal
gear, and he couldn’t rule out the possibility that others might
have come down that way, if they had been properly motivated. He
couldn’t imagine them doing it while carrying a body, which
suggested that Rawlings might have been alive at the time and
climbed down with them. Coerced to do so? Or willingly assisting
them to reach their goal? It hardly mattered now. Viktor couldn’t
kill him again for betraying the company.

A hint of movement on the cliff toward the
back of the temple drew his attention. Using the eyepiece, he
enhanced his vision. A thin rope came into view.

Cursing, Viktor leaped into the courtyard. He
would warn Hazel before going hunting. Or maybe he would just set
traps and lie in wait around Ankari and her friends. He had just
told Ankari he wanted to protect her. As much as he wanted to
annihilate these people for threatening his company and trying to
steal his prisoners, it didn’t make sense for him to run off on his
own, especially when the shuttle should be coming back for them
soon.

As soon as he opened the door, a feeling of
concern—of dread—washed over him. It was quiet inside. Too
quiet.

How long had he been out in the courtyard?
Less than five minutes the clock on the Eytect told him, but Tick
should have woken Hazel and joined him in that time. Maybe
Rawlings’s body had been placed as a distraction, meant to give the
intruders the time they needed to get in without dealing with
Viktor.

He kept his snarl silent as he raced toward
the sleeping quarters, cold fury burning in his veins. He sprinted
around a corner only to halt abruptly, freezing like a statue when
he spotted a limp body on the stone floor. Tick. A second figure
was slumped unconscious against the wall a couple of steps farther
on, someone in a thin, black form-fitting suit with a hood pulled
over his head. It was different from the black clothing Jarlboro’s
men had been wearing. For one, it didn’t register at all on the
display of his eyepiece. It was as if the person wasn’t there at
all, and nothing more than a deep shadow hugged the wall.

Beyond the two men, several of the hallway
doors stood open, including the ones leading to Hazel’s and
Viktor’s rooms, as well as the one to Ankari’s room. With thoughts
of her filling his mind, he almost rushed straight in that
direction, but he crouched to touch Tick’s throat. Viktor had lost
numerous men over the years, but when he lost those from his home
world, those who had been with him since the inception of Mandrake
Company, it hit him hardest.

Tick didn’t stir at his touch, but a soft
pulse beat beneath his skin. Only unconscious. Viktor would return
to tend to him, but for now, he raced down the hall, pausing only
to look in Hazel’s room. The covers were rumpled, but the bed was
empty.

He ran for Ankari’s room next and only
instinct kept him from charging inside, some warning niggling at
the back of his mind. The lantern he had left on the desk was out.
The window hadn’t been open before; it was now. Water dribbled from
the wooden frame, and the wind whistled inside, smelling of
moisture, the jungle, and... blood. There was a pool of it on the
floor underneath the window. A feeling of numbness came over him,
and he stepped toward it without thinking.

The warning tickling his mind rose in
intensity. He jumped to the side, putting his back to the wall. At
the same time, a black boot swung down, knocking his rifle from his
hand.

Viktor leaped back to face the opponent
falling from the ceiling. He punched, but the figure twisted in the
air, evading the attack. Viktor yanked his dagger and a throwing
knife free, as angry at himself as he was at his assailant. By now,
he should have anticipated a threat from above; he shouldn’t have
been staring at blood and worrying about Ankari.

In the darkness, Viktor didn’t see the laser
pistol being aimed at him, but he knew it was there from the way
the fighter crouched, his free hand guarding the weapon. Viktor
hurled his throwing knife and threw himself sideways. The whine of
a laser sounded, followed by shards of stone being blasted free
from the wall, but the pained grunt of his opponent filled the air,
too, and he knew his blade had done at least some damage.

It wasn’t enough to slow his attacker. The
lean man, hooded and clad in black like the figure in the hallway,
leaped across the room. A blade flashed, cutting toward Viktor’s
face. Already on his feet, Viktor threw a hard block, knocking his
assailant’s arm up so he could rush into the opening with his own
dagger. The point would have stabbed through flesh, but some thin
armor lay beneath that sensor-thwarting clothing, and it deflected
his blade.

A knee came up, ramming Viktor in the chest.
He roared, scarcely feeling the pain, and tackled the other man.
They went down in a flurry of blows, thrashing on the floor, each
trying to find an advantage. Nails clawed at Viktor’s eyes even as
he tried to pin his attacker. He squinted his lids shut, denying
those probing fingers access to sensitive organs. He found the
leverage he needed to roll the man onto his stomach. Viktor leaned
into his back. An elbow struck his chest, but it didn’t have much
power behind it, not when the man’s face was smashed into the
floor.