However, when she turned back, she found Malik standing close, towering over her.
Wordlessly, he hooked his fingers under her chin, gently raising her face so she met his eye. Her bodyguard’s expression was shuttered, yet his gaze seemed to see right into her soul. “I repeat … you’re not to blame,” he murmured. “The fault is mine. I should have checked out what we were drinking before we touched them.” His features tightened then. “And I shouldn’t have behaved as I did once we left the pleasure house … especially now there’s a bounty out on you.”
Heat washed across Jenna at the memory of their savage kiss in that passageway. If those thugs hadn’t interrupted them, they’d have had sex there, heedless that they were in a public place.
Jenna bit down on her lower lip—a mistake, for the act made his gaze drop to her mouth. Suddenly, the air between them was charged, dangerous.
Her breathing grew shallow, in anticipation, but Malik let go of her chin and stepped back. Looking away, he drained his glass of water.
Jenna dragged in a deep breath, relief warring with disappointment. Clamping down on her reaction, she moved toward the bed and retrieved her bag, stuffing her tablet inside. “There isn’t any point in regretting what happened,” she said then, more to herself than to him. “What’s done is done.”
“I don’t.” She turned to find Malik watching her. “I just wish neither of us had been drugged last night.” His gaze glinted. “You deserve better than that, Jenna.”
Closing the door behind her, Jenna followed Malik out into the narrow tunnel. She carried her bag slung across her back, while he’d shouldered his heavy backpack. They exited the passage, and were about to head back into the central hub beyond, when Malik halted, causing Jenna to run into him.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he raised a hand in warning.
Peering over his shoulder into the cavern they were about to enter, Jenna’s gaze alighted on a knot of black and grey uniformed officers with laser-rifles slung over their shoulders.
Her pulse accelerated.The Morith Guard.
The officers had just stopped a human couple and were questioning them. “The shooting took place around ten hours ago, near one of the pleasure houses in the nor-west tunnels,” one of the officers intoned, his voice carrying across the cavern. “The owner of the pleasure house reported it. There were four fatalities … and a couple was seen fleeing the scene. We believe they were Ambassador Jenna Mir-Brennan and her bodyguard, Malik Mir-Draven.” The officer held up a tablet. “Have you seen either of these people?”
“No,” the woman replied, her tone cowed.
“Neither have I,” her companion muttered.
Jenna hurriedly backed up, and Malik followed her.
He turned, meeting her gaze briefly before he gestured for them to retrace their steps down the narrow tunnel. Fortunately, it wasn’t a dead end. “Come on,” he grunted. “We’ll have to find another way out of here.”
Malik and Jenna managed to avoid the patrols that roamed the network of damp tunnels of Morhaven in search of those responsible for the murder of four of its citizens.
As they slipped through the shadows, Malik silently cursed.
Someone at the pleasure house had told the Morith Guard that Jenna was here; it wouldn’t be long before every mercenary on this rock would be hunting her.
Forty thousand credits wasn’t a small sum.
Malik scanned his surroundings constantly while he navigated the tunnels, senses sharp.
Jenna wasn’t safe on this moon any longer—he had to get her out.
By the time they emerged into the murky light beyond the underground city, he was sweating, and he welcomed the slap of icy air on his face. It was still dark outdoors, for Morith’s night would last a while yet, and the air was so cold it hurt to breathe in too deeply.
By the time they reached the spaceport, Malik noted that Jenna was starting to shiver, despite that she’d wrapped her cloak tightly around her. It wasn’t any wonder the inhabitants of this cold moon had built their settlements underground.
They entered the terminal—a low-slung utilitarian building built out of grey mud-brick—and headed left. Despite that it was still night, the port was busy. Cloaked figures towing cases hurried past heading toward the gates.
Jenna and Malik weren’t leaving from here, but from one of the small, privately owned bays on the outskirts of the port. Unlike the covered terminal, the bays were outdoors and little more than craters carved out of the rocky soil.
Landing Bay 44 lay in shadow as they approached. Slowing his stride, Malik glanced down at the glowing dial upon his wrist-com. “We’re a few minutes early,” he murmured, his breath steaming in the frigid air. “But I expected him to be here already.”
“It’s definitely Bay 44,” Jenna assured him. “I wrote it down on my tablet after he left.”
Malik studied the freighter parked in front of him.
The ship was a sleek gun-metal-grey vessel shaped like an arrowhead. Malik had seen this style of freighter before; it was an older-class Mir-Ferrin vessel, with physical shields rather than the transparent deflectors the new ships used.
