Shade shook his head. “Nothing important.” Now, if he could just convince his hammering heart of that.
A few minutes later, the casino resort came into view. Tess pressed up so close to the window that it started fogging up, and she had to use her sweater to wipe it off.
“The shore is amazing,” she breathed out. “Such pretty lights.”
“What? The torches?” Shade asked. They lined the long stretch of beach.
She nodded. “It looks so…ancient and exotic.”
That was what he’d always thought. Every time he saw them, he half expected prehistoric tribespeople to materialize with their body paint and drums and start dancing beneath the moons.
“It’s pest control,” he told her. “There’s a scent that keeps insects away from the beach.”
“It’s beautiful,” Tess murmured, sounding like she was caught in a dream and just waking up.
Fuck mermaids.Tess had a siren’s voice that sent his blood rushing south. Shade shifted in his seat. “Let’s go down for a closer look.”
She turned his way again. “Not to the casino, though, right? Just to the beach?”
Shade nodded. Every wily rat in Sector 2 frequented the Star Palace Casino, and there was no way he was bringing Tess into it. He’d gone in exactly once and lost everything. He hated that place.
Next to it, though, was the only safe stretch of beach on this side of Albion 5. Most of the coast was rocky and lined with sheer, often-crumbling cliffs. And here, the waters were all netted off. Nothing that might eat you could get through.
Shade requested a docking space, paid electronically, and then brought the cruiser down to his assigned platform in the beehive-like structure adjacent to the resort. Landing here put them closer to the casino than he liked, but there was no other choice. This was all Star Palace land for as far as the eye could see, and the owner didn’t tolerate anyone on his property for free. The minimum to set foot on the private beach was forking over the docking fee.
With a smirk in Tess’s direction, Shade very pointedly unlocked the doors. Tess smirked back and hopped out, but he didn’t miss the humor in her eyes. It made him feel both warm and cold.
The com buzzed a second time, drawing his attention away from Tess. Solan and Raquel.Again. Couldn’t they leave him alone? Figure things out on their own for once?
Or not, he revised, glancing at his companion. He knew what, or ratherwho, the hunters were after.
Tess grabbed her sweater. “They’re not giving up. I’ll let you take that while I wait by the railing.” She nodded toward the edge of the platform before shutting her door again.
Tess was clearly a woman who valued privacy and didn’t begrudge him his. Could she be any more perfect?
WANTEDflashed through his mind. Yeah, he supposed she could.
Then again, she probably wouldn’t have been half as interesting if she’d been your typical law-abiding citizen.
They were docked one-hundred-and-seventy-two levels up and over a cliff, but she still went straight to the edge and leaned against the barrier, looking out. An ocean breeze tossed her loose hair around, and Shade thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life as Tess framed by a dusky, dark-blue sky and the first stars of the night.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Scowling, he crushed his finger down on the com like he wanted to pulverize it. “What?” he barked.
“Why the hell aren’t you out on this hunt, man?” Solan asked in response.
“How the fuck do you know where I am?” Shade asked.
“Raquel might have added a little something to your cruiser the last time we met up.”
Shit.That called for an immediate sweep for tracking bugs. “Met up? You mean when you followed me and stole my target and my reward.”
Solan scoffed. “Lighten up, Shade. You get all the good ones.”
Shade clenched his fists, wanting to punch something. These two had sunk to a new level. “That’s because I work. Not because I swoop in at the end with illegal weapons and screw colleagues out of what’s theirs.”
The call went to video, and because they were on his contact list, it happened without him having to accept. He glared into Raquel’s resort-tanned face. Solan hovered behind her, the black man a little far back to clearly see in the grainy video feed.
