Before anyone could answer, a blast rocked the ship.
Caillen went flying as Chayden straightened in his chair to engage the new ship that was firing on them. “How the hell do they keep finding us?”
Fain’s gaze went to Desideria. “Are you tagged?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you have a tracing chip in your body?” he asked again.
Caillen let out a foul curse. The fact she didn’t know what it was said it all.
She wasn’t the carrier. The Qills didn’t use that technology. His people on the other hand…
“Not her. Wanna bet I do?”
Fain’s eyes widened as he got it. “When you were arrested.”
Caillen nodded. “You know they tagged me.” It was standard operating procedure. “I didn’t even think about it.” Damn it, he should have. But then he’d never been arrested before and he’d had a lot of other things on his mind the last couple of weeks.
His father>
Chayden shook his head in denial. “Yeah, but my jammers should still keep it blocked so that they couldn’t find us.”
Caillen wasn’t so sure about that. “What are you running?”
“X-Qs. Why?”
They were the best, Caillen admitted. But they weren’t perfect. “If my chip’s on a TR frequency…”
Chayden growled. “That’s it. That’s how they keep locating us.”
It was how the assassin on the Andarion outpost had kept track of them too. Gah, how stupid for not seeing it sooner. That was how the assassin had been able to get a location for them in the field. But for the frequency his mirrors ran on, they’d have been dead.
And all because he was a moron.
“Is there a medical scanner on board?” Caillen asked.
Chayden indicated the wall with a jerk of his chin. “Med panel behind you. There’s a bag in it that should have one.”
Caillen moved to it while Chayden did his best to outmaneuver their newest addition and Hauk tried to blow their enemies out of space.
Desideria came forward to help Caillen locate the right bag and to find the scanner inside it so that they could escape this latest nuisance and hopefully prevent any more. How wonderful it would be to have five minutes of peace from the people trying to kill them.
Caillen paused as he caught the traumatized look in her gaze. How could any woman be so beautiful and vulnerable at the same time? It made him want to protect her. To take her away from all of this and just hold her and make love to her until she smiled again. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Getting you into this mess.”
She offered him a kind smile that made his cock come alive in spite of the danger they were in. “It was my aunt who did it. Not you. She’d have been after both of us anyway. Honestly, I’m glad I threw you into that pod and jumped on top of you.”
Smiling, Caillen leaned in and inhaled the sweet scent of her hair as an image of her naked beneath him tormented him with the most precious memory of his life. Even in the middle of all this chaos, and in spite of the fact that they could die any second, he found comfort in her presence.
She was his breath.
His world.
And he didn’t want to lose her. She’d come to mean so much to him in such a short period of time. He didn’t understand it, but there was no denying the fact that he couldn’t even think about her leaving without a vicious pain stabbing him in the cht.
You know she can’t stay with you.
Refusing to think about that, he handed her the scanner he’d finally found underneath and not inside the bag Chayden had mentioned. Figured Chayden would be wrong. “Find the chip, my lady.”
She took the scanner and hovered it over his body. Caillen waited for the signal to tell them where it was located, but he didn’t hear it.
After a few seconds of scanning all the way down his legs, Desideria straightened. “It’s not registering anything.”
Caillen frowned. “It has to.”
“See for yourself.” She handed him the scanner.
He looked through the readings, trying to find anything that she might have missed. But in the end, he had to admit the truth.
She was right.
There must be one inside her after all. He cleared the reading and then scanned her body.
She was also negative.
No way…
“This can’t be right.” He looked over at Chayden. “Your scanner’s broken.”
Chayden bristled. “My scanner’s not broken.”
“Obviously it is since neither of us is registering anything at all.”
Chayden gave him a droll stare. “Nothing’s wrong with the scanner. I had it calibrated a few days ago.”
“Wow, you really have no life, do you?”
Chayden made an obscene gesture over his shoulder at Caillen before he dipped the ship to avoid fire. “Did you check your ass?”
He rolled his eyes at the mere suggestion. “It wouldn’t be there.”