“What? And that didn’t occur to you before you arranged this stunt?”
“No, I didn’t think it would be an issue—the colonel is a good friend, but it appears they’ve arrested him and put their own person in charge.”
“They’ve arrested the colonel?” Skylar said. “The Corps won’t be happy about that.” Skylar was herself an officer in the intelligence section of the Corps, or she had been until she’d gone AWOL.
“Maybe not, but in my absence, and the absence of the colonel, they’ll take their orders from the Council. There’s more.”
“Really?” Tannis asked. “Why aren’t I surprised?”
“They’ve reported me as kidnapped. By you. They’re offering a huge reward for my return.” He had a thought. “You didn’t actually send a ransom demand, did you?”
“No, but I’m thinking about it. Jesus, we’ll have every bounty hunter in the known universe on our tail.” She paced the room. “Great, just great. Janey, can you start a scan for anything that might be heading in our direction?”
“I’m already on it.”
She turned back to him, studying him as though he was something rather unpleasant. “Anything else?”
“Yes, I’ll need some clothes and some food and—”
She waved a hand. “Anything else important.” But she gave him no chance to answer. “No—good. Right. If this meeting is over, I have things to do.”
She was leaving, and he didn’t want her to go. Not without him. He stood up, stepped toward her, and lowered his voice. “About the kiss…”
“Forget it. I have.” With a final shrug, she whirled around and strode from the room.
Callum watched her go. She had a great ass. And he was pretty certain she hadn’t forgotten the kiss—he had no intention of doing so.
As she disappeared from sight, he glanced across to find Rico watching him. His hand went to his nose without conscious thought. One of the advantages to the Meridian treatment was they healed incredibly fast, but right now it felt sore and swollen. He winced, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
The vampire’s gaze was speculative. He strolled over, and Callum made himself stand his ground. Just for good measure, he spread his wings until the tips touched the walls on either side of him. The idea occurred to him, that perhaps he wouldn’t survive his sojourn aboard El Cazador, that he’d been a fool to trust these people. He’d started to believe himself indestructible, and that wasn’t the truth. He could be destroyed. And that the only person to ever kill one of their kind was a member of this crew—if not actually on board right now—didn’t bode well.
But Rico merely smiled, though the expression didn’t reach his dark eyes. Callum tried a quick mind probe. The vampire’s eyes narrowed, and Callum hit a wall. Another one he couldn’t read—it was bloody inconvenient.
Rico reached out a finger and poked him in the chest. “Keep out of everybody’s minds, and keep your dick in your pants, and we’ll all be fine.”
Callum was hungry, his nose hurt, his chest hurt, his only clean shirt was covered in blood. In fact, he was pissed off, and these bloody peasants seemed not to appreciate just how important he actually was. He twitched his wings and opened his mouth to tell Rico to mind his own sodding business—he’d do what he liked with his goddamn dick—when the whole ship lurched to the side and he was thrown to the floor. Something hit him in the chest and everything went black.
When the lights flickered on, he found he was lying on the floor with the vampire on top of him. Thankfully, not for long—his ribs were killing him. Rico rolled to his feet and strode across to where the redhead was sitting. How had she managed to stay in her seat looking totally unruffled?
“I thought you were checking if anyone was after us?” Rico said.
“I was. Whoever it is, they didn’t show up on the monitors.”
“Well, are they showing up now?”
Janey flicked a few switches. “Nope.”
Callum knew instantly who was out there. “It’s the Corps.”
“So why can’t we see them?”
“New stealth technology.” He strode across and leaned over her shoulder. “Here let me try something.” He pressed a few buttons, changed the frequency, and the monitor filled with a huge ship. He recognized her immediately—his ship, The Endeavor. They must have pulled her from her trials, the fucking idiots.
She was flanked by three smaller ships that hugged close to take advantage of the stealth technology of the newer, more advanced star cruiser.
Skylar came to stand beside him and peered at the monitor. “That’s the new Corps flagship. I’d heard she’d been commissioned—wow.”
“She’s a beauty,” Rico said, a faint tinge of jealousy in his voice.