“Zeth, it’s late, and our guest is probably tired. Take her back to the bunkroom so she can get some sleep.”
“Aye, sir!”
The young mercenary practically sprang out of the seat, scooping Rona up in his arms in the process. She had to pull the hem of her shirt down to keep from flashing everyone else in the cockpit. Zeth had the door open, and he was already halfway into the corridor when Aeron spoke again.
“Zeth?”
“Sir?”
“No fooling around. I want you to get her tucked in, then come right back here to the cockpit. We’ve got some things to talk about.”
“Aye, sir.”
Rona didn’t speak a word as the mercenary carried her down the corridor and into a small, dark room equipped with three bunks embedded in the wall. Zeth placed her gently onto the lowest of the three beds. The mattress was thin and firm, but it felt good beneath Rona’s weary muscles. She was even more tired than she had realized. With the mercenary watching her, she carefully slipped beneath the covers.
“This one’s my bed,” Zeth told her. “Is it comfortable for you?”
If she hadn’t been so exhausted, Rona might have responded with a hostile remark. Instead, she simply nodded. In some ways, Zeth scared her even more than the other two. It was the face that did it. That pretty, angel’s face that belied his dark profession.
Plus the fact that he was going to take her virginity.
“Zeth?” Rona said.
“Yes?”
“I, um… I’m sorry I stabbed you earlier.” It was not a sentence she had ever expected to hear herself say.
“No you’re not,” Zeth replied.
Rona’s heart stopped. She lay perfectly still, watching the young mercenary, and waiting to see what he would say next. When he tilted his head slightly, she could see the augmetic implantsglowing inside his eyes. He suddenly looked more like a demon than an angel.
“You’re not sorry you stabbed me,” he said, his voice utterly devoid of malice. “You did it on purpose, and with good reason. The only reason you’re apologizing now is because you’re afraid I’m going to hurt you.”
He brushed her cheek.
“I would never hurt you,” he said, and smiled. “You’re going to be the mother of my child.”
Then he leaned in close and kissed her on the mouth. Rona wasn’t expecting it, and she tensed at first, but his lips were so soft and warm, and his tongue was so insistent. She opened for him, just as she had done for Aeron back there in the holding cell. Her nipples ached beneath her shirt. Her sex throbbed. She almost expected Zeth to climb into the bunk with her. She almost wanted him to.
Instead, he left her lying there on the bed, panting. He slipped out into the corridor as quiet as a ghost, and closed the door behind him, drowning the room in darkness.
Rona’s heart had started beating again, and it was making up for lost time. She lay there for a long while afterward, trying desperately to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. At last, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she reached beneath the covers, pulled her shirt up, and slipped a hand between her legs.
She bit the pillow to muffle her cries. It tasted of Zeth.
CHAPTER 11
“What the hell are we doinghere?”
The “here” to which Rona was referring was Jeriko, the city where the Riadne Mining Company shipped its raw silk to be refined. It had been a long, long time since she’d last seen the place, but from the foot ofthe Talionis’s boarding ramp, things still looked much the same as she remembered them. Ugly rockrete buildings gnawed by acid rain. Dirty streets where merchants with varying degrees of legitimacy mingled. Air thick with the scent of roasting bugmeat and narcosmoke. And in the background, looming above it all, stood the dark stacks of the refineries steadily pumping out a dense, green vapor that hung above the city like a poison cloud. God’s Fart, the locals called it. At least they had when Rona still lived here, years ago.
“I already told you,” Aeron said. “Business. Now come on.”
He tugged her leash.
Rona was dressed in yesterday’s clothes. At some point in the night, the Mercs had washed them for her. Everything except her panties, which were still in Murdok’s possession. As they made their way into town, the scarred Merc took the dirty undergarment out of his vest pocket and held it up to his nose like a perfumed handkerchief. Rona grimaced in disgust. He smirked at her and took another big sniff.
Tug, tug…
