Born of Ice

She held her hands up in surrender. “I’m so not in the middle of this.” But inside, she enjoyed the bantering and play, and she envied them for having grown up like this. She was only now beginning to understand a world where fear wasn’t a part of every day. No one yelled at her. No one grabbed her.

And as she thought of the future, her stomach shrank. Once Devyn was gone, what would become of her? She didn’t know how to do anything except work on a ship.

Her mother and Tempest didn’t even know that much. They had no education or skills at all.

“Are you all right?”

Blinking, she met Devyn’s concerned gaze. “Fine.”

But she could tell he didn’t believe her. Not that he should, since she was lying, and that thought only made her feel that much worse.

Maybe you could trust him.

Yeah, right. Tell him that she’d been sent here by his enemies to arrest him? That wouldn’t go over well. She’d kill her if she was him. It would only make sense. While they may have had sex, there was nothing more between them. No loyalty. Not even friendship.

She was his enemy.

And people like Devyn killed their enemies . . .





CHAPTER 4


The next two days passed quickly as Alix tried to catch Vik unaware without alerting him as to what she was doing.

Damn him for being so attentive. Nothing she tried worked. It was like the mecha was everywhere.

And with every day that passed, she grew that much closer to Devyn and Sway. They taught her how to play VR games—something her father had never allowed them to do on board his freighter. While they took mercy on her in the combat and racing games, they were ruthless with each other.

She loved listening to them playfully insult and taunt one another. It made her miss her sister and wish that she didn’t have to hurt them.

But even better than the days were the nights she spent with Devyn. He showed her things about her body she’d never known. His mere touch could thrill her like nothing else, and his kisses . . .

She could spend eternity in his arms.

Now she sat on her bed, listening to the whir of the engines as Devyn brought the Talia into the docks of Nera VII. They’d invited her to dinner at one of the local pubs and she’d done her best to decline.

Apparently no wasn’t in Devyn’s vocabulary. So she planned to go and eat, then head straight back to carry out her mission.

While she waited for them to dock, she pulled the tie from her ponytail and let the long, thick, heavy hair hang down her back. She would have cut it long ago, but her father refused to spend money on something he deemed a ridiculous waste of credits. So she’d been relegated to what her mother could do with it, which was nothing more than trim it in a straight line.

But one day . . .

One day she was going to have the money to walk into a salon, her and Tempest and her mother, and splurge on haircuts and styles for all three of them.

At least that was the plan, but if her luck didn’t turn around soon, that seemed as likely as Devyn falling down on his knees and vowing his everlasting love to her.

With a deep sigh, she ran her hand over the rough material of her taupe pantsuit, wishing she had more suitable clothes. Just once, she’d like to look at least halfway attractive. But it was no use. Her father hadn’t believed in paying a slave for her work, and clothes had been bought on a strict need-only basis.

No one’s going to be looking at you, anyway, as ugly as you are, and I don’t want no bastard children on this ship. Men’s clothes’ll do for the likes of you. It’s all you’re worth, anyway. I got other things to spend my money on than your useless ass.

How she loved thinking of her father.

Honestly, she was lucky to have what few things she did. Had her father been any less puritanical, he’d have probably kept her naked.

A knock sounded on her door.

“Come in.”

The door slid up to show Devyn, who was dressed all in black. Dang, he looked good enough to lick on for a while. There was an aura of power and danger that clung to him and yet it was neutralized by that devilish grin he wore. “We’re heading out. You ready to go?”

She nodded. “How long will we be here?”

“Not too long. As soon as we eat and exchange partial cargoes, we’ll leave. You don’t have stay around for the latter part. As soon as you’re done with the food, you can head on back.”

Good. That should give her enough time to start the log scan—she’d accidentally located what she hoped was a back door into Devyn’s encrypted files a couple of hours ago. So long as Vik was occupied off the ship, she might stand a chance of breaching it.

But she found it odd that Devyn was so open about his cargo exchanges. Most runners preferred to do that in secret.

He was definitely not a typical runner.

“So where are we eating?”