“My—” Shade cleared his throat and started over. “The person who built the docking empire on Albion 5 was a naturalist at heart, even though he ended up in urban construction and then got involved in the terraforming next door. He studied the old Earth species, those that survived the fallout and those that didn’t, and even wrote a few books about them in his spare time. He was fascinated by birds and small mammals—I guess because they’re tough little critters that can apparently make it through almost anything. He named the towers after them.” Shade chuckled. “Avoid the Rat Hatch. It’s as bad as it sounds.”
“Interesting.” Turning her head toward him, Tess asked, “How do you know all that?”
Shade tried to keep the glumness from his face and voice. “Read his books.”
Tess seemed to accept that. It was the truth, even if it wasn’t all of it.
“Thanks for the tip.” She smiled. “I’ll remember—Nuthatch.”
He smiled back. “Anytime, starshine.”
Both their smiles slipped from their faces.Anytimewas as up in the air for them as the stratosphere.
Shade’s lungs contracted almost painfully. Tess might fly off in an hour, and he’d never see her again.
* * *
That hour came fast, and as the elevator tube swept them up to the three-hundred-and-fourteenth level of the Squirrel Tree just after sunrise, Shade had no idea how he was going to let go of Tess, especially knowing the danger she was in.
She used a hand scan to open the new starboard door of theEndeavor. A beep sounded from somewhere deep inside the ship, signaling the door opening from the outside.
He didn’t know if anyone was awake inside, but he moved Tess a little farther out onto the platform before stopping again. Their goodbye seemed more private that way.
“Stay safe,” Shade said, his voice coming out gruff. It didn’t seem like enough, but he didn’t know what else he could add. Don’t kill yourself for orphans? If you see anyone who looks like a bounty hunter,run? Ditch the rebellion and hide out in my basement?
As much as he wanted her tangled up with him in his bed, only a jackass would suggest that.
Tess moved forward and threw her arms around his neck. “You, too, Shade.”
His arms were up and around her before his brain caught up. With Tess, he seemed to function on a primitive level with instinct driving him. Help. Protect. Fuck. Keep.
He squeezed her hard, trying to mentally erase that last part.
Their story probably ended with help, protect, fuck, and he wasn’t sure he’d done any of that except for the fuck part.
“As usual, you hit the target first, Ganavan. And it looks like you went about it in a prettyShade-y way,” said a deep voice he hated to recognize.
Shade froze.No. Not now. Not yet. Notever.
His whole body seemed to involuntarily curl around Tess.
Solan chuckled as Tess jumped back from Shade’s arms, breaking his grip. Confusion flashed across her face, and then her eyes widened when she saw the gun trained on her chest.
Turning to face the other hunter, Shade grabbed on to Tess’s wrist from behind and kept himself in front of her. He’d been an idiot to leave this morning without arming himself, but he hadn’t wanted Tess to question him. Unless you were military, private security, or a hard-core rebel, you didn’t walk around with a gun.
Solan kept his firearm raised. Over the centuries, humanity had tried all sorts of laser-based weapons, only to decide that plain old guns were still the best way to kill people. Accurate. Long-distance. Deadly. They were hard to deflect. Bullets just went through shit.
Shade’s gut clenched. A bullet would go through Tess.
“What is he talking about?” Tess asked with quiet urgency. She tugged on her wrist.
Shade didn’t answer. His eyes darted around the platform. Where there was Solan, there was Raquel.
“So helpful of you to do all the work.” Raquel stepped out from the shadows behind the ship. As usual, she wore a tight black catsuit with a low-slung utility belt. Shade hated that belt. It was basically an exercise in how many illegal weapons a person could fit into a small space. “Just like last time, when I burned off your hair.”
“It wasn’t that long to begin with,” Shade ground out.
Raquel strode over to Solan’s side, making one more armed body between Tess and him and the elevator tube. Solan stood a head taller than his wife and was as black as she was white. They prided themselves on being able to hunt day and night—one of them always blended in. Solan knew his way around guns and sometimes shot with both hands. Raquel chose tranquilizers over bullets, but she could move like the wind and kick like a turbo blast.
