Tess started tensing more and more behind him. Shade could hear her breathing turning shallow and fast. His guilt conjured up the cold rolling off her in waves.
Facing the bounty hunters, Shade felt his lips pull back in a snarl. The last time they’d fought, Solan had stolen his prize while Raquel had gone at him with her steel-tipped boots. Shade could handle a gun, but he was more hands-on, and you couldn’t exactly shoot your colleagues, no matter how underhanded they were. Despite two cracked ribs from one of the more vicious kicks Raquel had gotten in, he would have beaten her and maybe gotten his target back if she hadn’t pulled that mini firebomb out of her belt and thrown it at his head.
“Quite the prize,” Solan said, trying to get a better look at Tess. He cocked his gun, and Shade felt fear blow through his chest.
She could die.
And she’d hate him if she lived.
“He saidalive,” Shade growled, trying to stay in front of Tess.
“He said there’d be abonusfor a live capture.” Solan started slowly walking forward. “The way I see it, there’s already more than enough. No reason to risk the hunt.”
“Shade?” Tess whispered his name. The hurt and betrayal in her voice clawed him open and bit with sharp teeth.
He wasn’t the only one to hear it. Raquel laughed. “Aww. Poor little girl didn’t know she was in bed with the big bad wolf.”
Tess jerked hard on his grip.
Not taking his eyes off the hunters, Shade started squeezing out one of the oldest codes known to man against Tess’s wrist, hoping there was a tiny percent chance she knew Morse.Safehe pulsed out, even though she wasn’t. He meant with him. She was safe withhim.
Tess wrenched her arm from his hand.
“Stay behind me,” Shade snapped, twisting to reach for her again.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped back.
Her horrified expression was enough to keep him from putting his hands on her again. He turned back around, his teeth grinding. He wouldn’t touch her, but he wouldn’t let Solan get a line on her, either. The other man would have a lot of explaining to do with the higher-ups if he blew holes in a fellow select hunter, and the mountain of shit a move like that could pile up on him would keep Solan from taking the shot.
Shade tried to inch them toward theEndeavor’s open door without touching Tess. They weren’t that far from it, but Solan was a good shot. With the climb up…
Why the hell didn’t she ever put down the stairs?
Tess came out every morning, gave him coffee, and talked about stuff most people didn’t dare open their mouths about, making him crave their next conversation until he could barely sleep, but she didn’t use the stairs. Unless Shiori came out, everyone pretended the damn ship didn’t even have them.
His palms started to sweat.
“Time to move out of the way, Ganavan,” Solan said with a flick of his gun. It was a Redline, Legal Weapon 10. Shade had two, and he knew the recoil was so strong that it was hard to get multiple shots off fast.
“No.” Shade shook his head. For Solan and Raquel, this was just another job, part of a long string of them. Not for him. “Not this one. Move on,” he said.
But even as he said it, he knew this wasn’t just another job for any of them. Thanks to Bridgebane’s ridiculous bounty, Tess was the monetary mothership, and there was no way these two were backing down.
“You’re outnumbered,” Solan informed him, as if Shade couldn’t fucking count. “Either we brawl again like last time—and we all know how that turned out for you—or we go in on this one together, like we talked about.”
“You talked. I shut you down.” But he obviously hadn’t thrown them off the scent like he’d hoped. Or he had, but only for a few days.
Raquel narrowed her eyes, and Shade could read her like a book. She was thinking about which one of her hidden gadgets she could throw at him without getting herself into too much trouble. There wasn’t always an easy distinction between incapacitating and lethal. So far, though, Raquel had figured it out.
Shade cracked his knuckles and loosened up. He hated hitting a woman, but he could make an exception for Raquel. She seemed more like a machine to him than anything else.
“I got here first,” he reminded them, because that wassupposedto mean something in this profession. It was his final effort to avoid a fight.
“Don’t be a bastard,” Raquel spat. “You’ll still be the top hunter, and two hundred million is more than enough to share around.”
Behind him, Tess gasped. The sound sliced right through him. He could imagine what was going on in her head right now, and it made his insides curl up in disgust.
“You’re…Dark Watch?” Tess sounded as though she’d never heard something so horrendous in her life.
