Dathan nodded, but worry hit him in the gut. His brother was getting too tangled with the treasure hunter. He saw anotherglint in the sand and picked up a bracelet. “They’ve headed into quadrant four.” The only area they hadn’t searched yet.
“The church ruins?” Nik murmured.
The ruined spire stood out tall above the remains of the colony. A broken tribute to the past. “Why the church?”
Nik shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Zayn stepped forward. “Let’s just find Eos, and show Darc we’re through being her stooges.”
They moved forward together. As they neared the church district, Dathan held a hand up and lowered his voice. “Silence from here. Let’s not advertise we’re coming.” He didn’t want to spook Darc and endanger Eos.
Moving silently, they entered the ruins of the church precinct. As Dathan stepped on a thicker patch of sand, he heard something give a faint beep beneath his feet.
“Fuck, watch out?—”
Something slammed into him, tangling around his arms and legs, burning his skin. He hit the ground, and saw his brothers go down as well.
A damn plasma net. The net was made of pure energy and glowed bright green. It was hot as hell, and even harder to escape.
She’d set up at least three, knowing he wouldn’t come alone. Now all three of them were caught like trapped animals.
“Suggestions?” Nik bit out. He lay still, one palm keeping the energy rope from his face. Zayn, being Zayn, continued to struggle.
“Z, you’ll just make it hotter,” Dathan told him.
With a creative curse, Zayn stopped. “How the hell do we get out?”
“You need the right code to turn the damn things off,” Nik said.
Code. Selesos’ crazy story came back to Dathan. “Hang on.” He twisted, searching for the silver box housing the activation mechanism. He spotted it out of the corner of his eye, over his shoulder. He reached an arm up and back, pushing until his shoulder screamed in pain. His fingers brushed the small touchscreen panel.
“Shit, it’s getting hotter,” Zayn yelped.
Dathan felt it. The heat building until pain sizzled along any uncovered skin. The bitch had set the nets to fry Dathan and his brothers to a crisp. He touched the panel, trying to punch in the code by touch alone. His finger slipped off.
He pushed his worry for Eos from his head, pushed out the pain and scent of burning flesh. Pushed his brothers’ pain away. His focus shrank. He had all the time in the world.
He listened to the tiny beeps from the panel, and then the net retracted back into the panel. Just a small silver box in the sand.
He was free.
Leaping to his feet, he sprinted to Zayn and tapped in the code. Then he freed Niklas.
His brothers sat in the sand, breathing deeply.
“How’d you do it?” Z asked.
“When I bought explosives from Selesos, he tried to sell me some nets. He also told me a crazy story about the inventor programming in a master code to piss off the company that fired him.” Dathan picked up the three net boxes. “Needless to say, I didn’t believe Sel for a second. Looks like he was right. Now, let’s go find my woman and the bitch who almost fried me to death for the second time this week.”
Niklas raised his eyebrows. “Your woman?”
Dathan lifted one shoulder. God, it sounded right. “Yeah. For now.”
“You planning to keep her around?”
He felt skittish just thinking about it. He wasn’t a catch for a woman like Eos. They clashed as much as they aligned. He loved being with her, loved hearing the excitement in her voice when she saw something that amazed her, loved watching her eyes turn that molten gold as he pleasured her.
But he couldn’t forget that during her brief time with him, she’d been kidnapped three times. There was every chance she wouldn’t survive him.
