Mikos stood next to me, his face a blank mask. How long had it been since he’d seen his home? Was he excited? Apprehensive? I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.
Something had changed over the last few days. In the deepest, darkest parts of my heart, hope spun her web like a black widow spider, just waiting to devour me. Hope that he would fall in love with me. Hope he would want me to stay with him forever. Hope he’d claim me for real, and I would actually be forced to make the difficult choice between going back to my ReCon team, my old life, and choosing to stay with a criminal I’d been foolish enough to fall for. The sick and twisted irony was, I didn’t want to choose. For once in my life, I wanted someone bigger and tougher than me to take away the stress and just fucking take care of me.
Maybe that was stupid. Maybe these feelings were caused by Mikos’s essence floating around in my blood, infecting my cells—and apparently my brain—with idiotic thoughts that went against everything I’d ever believed. Maybe the poison he spoke of did more than just kill the women the Forsian hybrids injected with their essence. Maybe it drove the women crazy first. Because I was losing my shit.
I wanted to be with him. Always. Next to him. I wanted to be touching him, hear his voice, know he was near. I couldn’t sleep if he wasn’t curled around me, holding me close. We’d rarely come out of our makeshift bedroom, and when we did, I obsessed about getting him alone. Naked. Inside me. It’s like I was an addict, and he was my drug of choice.
Other than the dining area the guys had retrofit into the Hive ship, complete with tables, chairs and S-Gen machines that would make anything I could dream up to eat, I hadn’t seen much of our escorts’ ship before now.
Didn’t need to. I wasn’t curious. I’d been on them before. But when the sexiest alien alive turned your fuck-room into a cozybedroom space with an S-Gen created mattress, pillows, warm blankets, and laid claim to one of the few bathing rooms on the ship for his woman’s personal use? I didn’t need to be anywhere but in that room with him. Not when the sex was so good it ruined me forever for any other partner, human or alien. I only wantedhim.
I cringed as another strange, stabbing pain shot through my gut before slowly fading. They’d been getting worse over the last few hours, odd, random moments when I felt like I was being stabbed with an ice pick. Mostly in my head or stomach, but that last one had been in my heart. Maybe his essence was killing me already. Or maybe my heart grieved what both heart and head knew I was going to lose as soon as I got the stupid antidote.Him. I was going to lose him.
I definitely needed the treatment. I’d begged him to bite me, more than once. I’d begged, pleaded and demanded he use the incredible mating fist at the base of his cock.
He’d given in. Of course he had. What red-blooded man could resist when a woman was begging him to do exactly what he already wanted to do? No guilt. No shame. No need to apologize. I wanted everything he had to give me. We were only going to be together for a few days, so I wanted it all.
I’d spent years of my life in the military, fighting for what I’d believed, at the time, was right. When that naïve illusion burst, I’d changed direction by joining federal law enforcement, fighting drug lords and arms dealers. Doing the right thing.
That led to learning too much about corrupt politicians, police, federal agents and the death by torture of the only man I’d dared to love since my father died. The cartel dragged Robbie’s dead body out like a prize and dumped him at my feet, face unrecognizable, still wearing the gold cross pendant I’d given him on his birthday. His faith hadn’t saved him. His God hadn’t saved him.
I hadn’t been able to save him either.
The tracker I wore that day led the rest of my team straight to me. I made sure everyone who’d laid a hand on Robbie was either dead or rotting in prison, and then I’d done the only thing that made sense.
I ran. From grief. From bad memories. From my past. From every mistake and every decision. From my childhood, my absent, then dead father. From the mother who buried her grief in work. From a stepfather who, at best, tolerated me so he could be with my mother. From myself, my guilt. My failures. I ran as far away as I could go, across the universe.
Now here I was, in love with a criminal, dreading the moment the strange pains stopped, dreading the antidote because it would mean I had to leave him.
I couldn’t stay with him on Rogue 5. That was so not an option. He told me himself, he was a killer. There was, apparently, a bounty on his head large enough that Prince Ruk claimed he could buy his own space station with the reward.
I had no idea how much that was, but it had to be huge.
What kind of crime had Mikos committed? What was so horrible that bringing him in was worth so much?
Curiosity churned in my gut, made everything I ate taste like ashes in my mouth, but I couldn’t ask. Would not ask.
I didn’t want to know. If I knew the details, I’d have to judge him, decide if what he did was bad enough that I couldn’t allow him to touch me, that I couldn’t allow my heart to feel the way it felt.
Ignorance was bliss and he was a dream, a pleasant interlude in a life of struggle and suffering. I’d rather just take the antidote, have another round of hot, goodbye sex, and never know.
He didn’t want a mate. Wasn’t going to keep me. He’d said so himself. So why torment myself with things that didn’t matter in the end, things I couldn’t control?
As if he somehow knew the direction of my dark thoughts, a warm hand settled against the small of my back. I leaned into him. No use pretending we weren’t banging like horny rabbits. Everyone on the ship was well aware of our current relationship. We’d spent every minute together. Every single one. Mikos even accompanied me into the shower.
I’d considered protesting but decided against it when he used those big hands to wash and massage every inch of my body, then lifted me off the floor and fucked me against the wall. Which, of course, led to more washing. More massaging. More everything.
I knew his touch. Knew the way he smelled, the cadence of his footsteps on the ship’s hard floors. “Welcome to Rogue 5, Breanna.”
“Thanks.” I pointed to a section of the screen where what should have been the darkness of space shimmered and seemed to be moving. “Is that why we had to go around?” We were supposed to arrive at Rogue 5 yesterday, not that I was going to complain about an extra, all night sex-a-thon.
“Yes.” He leaned down and rested his head on top of mine. I was tall. No one I’d ever dated had been able to do that, make me feel small and feminine. Protected. No one had ever made me feel safer. Which seemed weird, as he was a criminal. A bad guy. “The asteroid belt is made of highly magnetic rock. They interfere with communication and transport capabilities when Hyperion is this close.”
“It’s amazing.” It was true. I’d seen a few planets since coming to outer space. Not a lot, since we were usually boarding enemy ships and not landing on other planets. Earth was beautiful. I still hadn’t seen another planet I thought wasprettier than my own blue and white marble, but Hyperion was close.
Prince Ruk, who’d been speaking to someone on the ship’s comm system, walked over to stand next to us. “Yes, Hyperion is a very beautiful cage.”
Surprised at his words, I turned my head to study the severe expression on his face. He wasn’t joking. “Why do you think it’s a cage?”
