Page 1

Chapter 1

“Keep low and stay still. Anyone would think you’ve got Etruvian ants in your pants.” Wren Tulloch slid a glare at Striker. He’d been restless since they started the mission, and it was driving her nuts. She’d shoot him with a tranq dart if he kept shifting about.

“Wren, this is dull. How can you get excited about hunting in the Zanubab dirt for some creature with warts?” Striker tapped the side of her protective helmet. “You’re picking warts over me?”

“Always.” She stared at the scanner she held. Where had it gone?

Striker’s hand slapped against his broad chest. “I’m wounded.”

“Get over it. We stay here until we capture the creature.” Striker’s wound would last five seconds until something shiny distracted him. How he got to be an elite Apexian warrior, she’d never know.

“It doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while we’re waiting for wart-face to show up.” Striker crossed his arms over his muscular chest and leaned back against the rock they were concealed behind.

“Quit talking. You’ll scare the sapo explosivo. They frighten easily. And I’m not here to have fun. We’re here to find and retrieve. Same as always.”

He gave one of his usual overly dramatic sighs, the kind that made her want to kick him. “How about a game of cards? I read about it. You have naked poker on Earth. That sounds fun.”

“Typical. The only reading you do, and it has to do with getting your clothes off.” Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at him. Striker may be gorgeous, ripped to the hilt, with eyelashes she’d kill for, but he was a problem. Wren insisted on calm and order when she worked. He was the opposite. A gorgeous, dazzling typhoon that blasted the breath out of you and then vanished.

“Is that a no to getting naked with me?” He flashed her a wide, bright smile.

Wren just about managed to stop her heart from leaping into her throat. There was no room for muscled, gorgeous alien chaos in her life. “It’s a no to any fooling around.”

“Is that while we’re at work, or do you ever take time off? I’ve not seen you relax much in the last six months.”

“You know my routine as well as I do. We’re partners, unfortunately,” she muttered. What she wouldn’t give for a nice quiet Apexian as her backup. Or even better, if she could fight her way out of any situation without needing a super strong, fast healing, lethal weapon by her side. But as annoying as Striker was, he came with skills that were handy when tracking creatures on hostile planets.

“You never offer to spend your downtime with me when we have days off. I could get to thinking you don’t like me.”

“I see enough of you at work.”

“There’s so much more you don’t know about me. I’d love to show you.”

“Yeah, me and every other available woman on the Apocalypse.”

“Only the single ones. A guy has his boundaries.”

“Let’s focus on the mission,” she said. “The quicker we find this creature, the quicker we get back to the ship and you can do whatever the hell it is you like to do for fun.” She tilted the scanner. “There’s movement. It’s getting nearer.”

“We’re ready. The traps are set. You know, we could have tried this capture remotely. Set the bait and waited back on the Apocalypse.”

“Sapo explosivos are tricky. We can’t afford to miss this one. It’ll be our third failure in a row.” Wren wasn’t letting the team down again. This was important.

“Your failures are my learning experiences.”

“Did you read that in a self-help book?”

“No, but any time I want to borrow one, I’ll swing by your room. Don’t you have them all loaded on your tablet?”

She shrugged. So what if she wanted to improve herself? “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There is if it gives you a stick up your butt.”

Her stomach muscles tightened. He was always going on at her to relax and take time out. It wasn’t her job to relax. It was her job to capture and retrieve the galaxy’s rarest and most endangered creatures. That meant you got called out at a moment’s notice. Downtime, getting drunk, and not being focused weren’t options. She’d learned that a long time ago. If you lost your focus, you’d get a bone-jarring, brain searing reminder.

Wren kept her gaze on the scanner as a small red dot flashed in and out of view. She shook it. “This thing needs an overhaul. It’s on the blink.”

“Blink?” Striker rubbed the spot where his universal translator sat behind his ear.