Break Out

chapter Eight

Rico settled back in his seat, raised his arms above his head, and stretched. They’d been poring over intel on Trakis One for the last few hours. So far they’d found nothing of any use.

He looked up to find Skylar’s gaze on him, and he stretched again, liking the way she ate him up with her eyes. She’d been on board five days, and somehow she’d managed to avoid being alone with him in all that time, though she was happy enough to spend the evenings with him and the rest of the crew. He’d even managed to make her laugh a few times.

He kept the atmosphere during those games with the crew light, but beneath the banter, he was surprised to realize he was telling her about himself, revealing things he hadn’t thought about in years—if ever. He wanted her to know who he was. What he was. And he wanted to get to know her, too. She was relaxing, but she was still something of an enigma. And if he tried to get her alone, she’d vanish, or someone else would miraculously appear and demand her attention.

It was actually quite impressive.

She wanted him. He was sure of it. But she had amazing willpower. He would have pushed it, but he was interested to see how it would play out, and he would get her in the end. A deal was a deal.

“If you could stop thinking about sex, you might manage to work out a way for us to get into this stupid prison,” Tannis said from beside him.

He grinned and topped off her glass then held the silver flask up to Skylar. She shook her head, but changed her mind and nodded. Interesting, another thing she’d avoided since their encounter. Maybe she was willing to loosen up a little.

She sipped the drink, barely even grimaced. “It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Tannis replied. “It’s just difficult. There’s a way. We just haven’t found it yet.”

Skylar rose to her feet and paced, running her hand through her short hair. Finally, she thumped into her chair, filled her glass, and sat back. Tannis reached across to pour herself more but found the flask empty. She stood up. “Got anymore of this stuff?”

“In my cabin. Do you want me to go?”

“No, you look far too comfortable. I won’t be long.” Her gaze darted between the two of them. “Be good.”

Rico turned to Skylar as the door slid shut behind Tannis. “Alone at last.” Skylar didn’t respond. Instead, she gazed into space. After a minute, she looked at him, studying him closely.

“So what exactly are you?” she asked.

The question took him by surprise. Not many people wanted to know the details. Either that, or they never quite got up the nerve to ask. But the one thing Skylar did not lack was nerve.

“That’s a broad question.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ll tell you what—I’ll answer a question of yours, and afterwards, you answer one of mine.”

She shrugged. “Why not? Me first. So—what are you?”

“You know what I am.”

“You’re a—” she paused, obviously still having problems with the word, “—vampire.” She thought for a moment. “Were you ever human?”

He nodded. “My turn. How old are you?”

She hesitated, which was interesting. “Thirty-two. How old are you?”

He had to calculate his answer; it had been many years since he’d given it any thought. “One-thousand, five-hundred and ninety-six.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow, that’s old.”

“I was born in 1452 back on Earth. There, that was a bonus answer. My question now. Why are you avoiding me?”

Her brows drew together at the question. “I don’t like losing control.”

Rico was sure her answer was part of the truth, but not all of it. He shrugged; he would uncover her secrets in the end. “Your turn.”

“How often do you need to drink? I mean are you hungry right now?”

“No, I’m not hungry. I can go a long time between feeding. That doesn’t mean to say I wouldn’t drink if it was offered.”

She bit her lip. “And do you kill your victims?”

He smiled, his lips drawing back to give her a flash of fangs. “Sometimes.”

. . .

The answer took Skylar by surprise. She’d been expecting him to evade the question.

“Well, that’s honest,” she murmured. She couldn’t get over how old he was—far older than any of the Collective.

He rose gracefully to his feet, then crossed the room toward her, and every one of her senses went on high alert.

By careful planning, and a lot of help from Al and the rest of the crew, she’d managed to avoid being alone with him over the past few days. Perhaps she should make an excuse and get out of here now. But a reckless excitement was stirring inside her. She’d lived under such strict rules and constant supervision for so long, and the last few days had been a revelation. Sometimes she felt as though she was a stranger, waking up from a deep sleep. She hadn’t realized how repressed she had been. She’d thought she was doing what she wanted, and now doubts niggled at her subconscious.

Plus, and she was finally going to be honest with herself, she couldn’t stop thinking about sex. For years, she hadn’t given it more than a passing thought, but now it plagued her. Tannis had hinted that vampires had some sort of powers that made people want them—maybe that’s all this was. Purely a predator-prey thing.

That didn’t stop her nipples from tightening as he stepped around her chair and came to a halt behind her. She stared straight ahead, her body rigid with anticipation as his hands slid over her shoulders. His fingers dug deep into the knotted muscle.

“You’re tense,” he murmured, lowering his head so his cool breath brushed the back of her neck. Shivers of pleasure rippled down her spine, settling in the base of her belly, and she had to shake herself mentally in order to concentrate.

“Er, you’ve just told me you kill your prey—sorry—sometimes kill your prey, and now you’re sniffing at me like I smell good enough to eat.”

“You do smell good enough to eat.” He breathed in deeply. “And while I do sometimes kill my prey, I very rarely kill my lovers.” He kissed her ear, his moist tongue dipping inside, and she closed her eyes to savor the sensation. “So why don’t we f*ck now,” he whispered, “and you can stop worrying about it.”

Oh, God.

He kissed her neck, and it felt so damned good, tracing little patterns with his tongue across her sensitive flesh, his strong hands kneading her shoulders. Her head fell to the side to give him better access, and his hands slid down from her shoulders to cup her breasts. Her eyes shot open, and she stared at his hands, the skin pale against the black of her jumpsuit. His fingers brushed over her nipples, massaging her breasts until she was squirming in her seat, pressing her thighs together to intensify the craving burning through her.

“What do you say, Skylar?”

She couldn’t say anything, even when his hand glided to the fastener at her neck and slid it down. She needed to feel him touch her skin. His hand squeezed her bare breast as his mouth left her neck. She let out a little groan of dismay, but he kissed along her jaw line, small teasing kisses. At last, his mouth was on hers, and his tongue pushed inside as he took one swollen nipple between his finger and thumb and pinched it sharply. Pleasure and pain shot through her. Her hips rose from the seat, her head arching back as he swallowed her groan.

“Did you like that?” He soothed the sensitized nipple with his palm, before pinching again, harder this time. Wet heat flooded her core as a deep, scorching need flared to life inside her.

His hand slid over her stomach, his fingers flirting with her navel, then lower, and everything inside her clenched up tight.

“Great,” Tannis said from the doorway. “Nice to see you’re being ‘good’.”

Rico’s hand went still against her. Skylar closed her eyes, fighting the urge to scream her frustration. When she opened them, Tannis was still there, staring at the two of them with irritation flaring in her yellow eyes.

Skylar reached up, pried Rico’s hand from her body, and jerked up the fastener. She didn’t move as Tannis crossed the room, sat back down, and filled up all three glasses from the flask in her hand. When Skylar was sure her own hand would be steady, she picked up her glass and swallowed the burning liquid in one gulp. The warmth spread through her, seeping into the cold corners, and she held out her glass for more.

“Right,” she said, as Tannis poured the whiskey, “let’s go through the intel one more time.”

Tannis raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

Skylar avoided looking at Rico as he sat down next to Tannis. Instead, she opened her palm screen and scanned through the information, forcing her mind to function and hunt for flaws in the security. She was impressed by the amount of information they had managed to dredge up on a classified institution. There were obviously a whole load of leaks out there somewhere.

After a few minutes, she frowned. “It says here there are no guards.”

“They don’t need guards,” Rico said.

“Actually,” Tannis said, “they have guards on the outer perimeter, but not in the high-security section where your brother is being kept.”

Skylar frowned. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“Yes it does. The high-security section doesn’t need guards because the prisoners are all kept in cryo. Not much chance for a breakout when you’re unconscious.”

“What about breaking in?”

“Not much chance of that, either. The main problem is the planet itself. It’s part of the Trakis system and close to the mines, but it’s also almost impossible to approach.” Tannis switched on the main screen, and a group of planets appeared, revolving in a complicated pattern of orbits around a number of suns. Skylar recognized them as the Trakis system—pretty much the center of the universe since Meridian had been discovered on Trakis Seven. Tannis narrowed the field until the image zoomed in on a single planet, circling a black star—Trakis One.

“There, you see—” Tannis stood up and pointed. “Trakis One is actually on an elliptical orbit around a black hole. Under normal circumstances a ship can’t get close.” She paced the room for a moment before coming to a halt in front of the screen. “Try and land at the wrong time and chances are you’ll be sucked into that thing, never to be seen again. They don’t even keep a ship on the planet. No point—even if there was some sort of disaster, they couldn’t evacuate because of the black hole.”

“So how do deliveries get made?” Rico asked.

“Very infrequently.”

Skylar studied the planet, watching the orbit closely. “My guess is that they coincide deliveries with shipping inmates in and out, when the single moon is aligned with the black hole. You could probably slip past without being sucked in.”

“Probably?” Rico asked, and he didn’t sound convinced.

“Well they must do it somehow,” Tannis said. “And if they can, we can. After all, we have the best goddamn pilot in the universe.” She grinned at Rico. “Or so he keeps telling us. Time we saw some proof.”

“Do we know when the next alignment is due to happen?” Skylar asked.

“Well, if your brother is scheduled to be shipped out in five days’ time then that would seem to be a good bet—they can’t ship him out if the ship can’t get to him.”

“So we go in ourselves, get Jonny, and we’re out of there before they even arrive.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” Tannis sat back down and took a sip of her drink.

Beside her, Rico shifted restlessly. “Are you going to tell us why?”

“I am. The radiation levels on Trakis One are off the scale. The Cazador would fry on entry into their atmosphere. They use special ships that are shielded. There’s also a matter of getting into the prison once we’re down. My guess is it will be top-of-the-range DNA recognition.”

“There’s a lot of guessing going on here,” Rico said. “So we’ll need the real guards.”

“Yup. Or at least bits of them.”

Skylar shrugged. “We hijack the transport ship, then.”

“Looks like the only way.”

Skylar thought about it for a minute. They might have to take out the crew. She didn’t like the idea of any unnecessary deaths, but it was a risk she would have to take. This job was the highest priority—her boss had told her in no uncertain terms that failure was not an option. Anyway, with luck, the crew of the transport ship would see sense and surrender. Or they could stun them and lock them up. “Okay, sounds like a plan. When do we do it?”

“I’d say we wait until the ship is as close to Trakis One as we can make it,” Rico said. “The security is going to be high, and the less time we have on board, the less chance we have of breaking one of the protocols. Any clue where the ship comes from?”

Tannis studied her palm screen for a moment. “Trakis Five.”

“That’s a two-day trip.”

“And a two-day trip from here. Fits in well. We can intercept them.” Tannis stared at the screen, a frown marring her face. “Almost too well.” She shrugged. “I’m going to see if I can’t scrounge up some more intel on the transport ship. Find out crew numbers and so on and get Janey working on breaking the codes. I reckon we’re going to need some pretty hefty bribes. I’ll leave you two to—”she paused and shrugged again. “—whatever.”

Skylar jumped to her feet. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Tannis replied with an emphatic shake of her head. “I’m going to be contacting some people I’d rather you didn’t know about. Stay here and keep Rico out of trouble. Besides,”—she winked at her—“he looks hungry.”

Skylar wanted to argue, but there wasn’t a lot she could say. Rico was still seated when she turned around, his arms clasped behind his head, a hungry, almost sleepy look in his half-closed eyes.

“Now, where were we?” he murmured.

“I think I’ll go and do some research of my own,” she said.

He rubbed his chest absently, a small smile curving his lips. “Come here.”

Skylar had to force herself not to move, but her legs ached with the need to go to him. Was this another of those weird, vampire seduction skills?

When she didn’t move, he raised an eyebrow in query. He placed his feet on the floor, pushed himself up, and took a step toward her. She had the distinct impression she was being stalked.

Picking up her hand, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed her fingertips.

Her legs trembled. She opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn’t sure what yet. Someone tapped on the door, and they both turned to look. Al’s slight figure sidled into the room. He blinked.

“Skylar—?”

“Yes?”

“You said you wanted to see the engine rooms.”

She smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”

Rico was staring at Al, his lips pursed, but he didn’t speak.

“Well,” she said. “Seems I have to go. I’ll see you around.”

She thought he was going to argue, but he still said nothing as she pulled her hand free, turned, and followed Al out of the room. She let out her breath as the door slid shut behind them. Whether from relief or disappointment, Skylar honestly wasn’t sure.

She reached out and tousled Al’s hair. “Good move, kid.”

He grinned, for a moment his expression unguarded, and she looked at him sharply. There was something not quite right about Al, something different, but the details eluded her. She shook her head. Whatever it was, it could wait.

Al caught her staring and ducked his head. “Do you really want to see the engine rooms?”

“Nah, I’m going to slip off to my shuttle, catch up on a few things.”

“Okay.” Al nodded solemnly. “And don’t worry—I told you—I won’t let the vampire eat you.”

“Thanks, kid.”

She made her way through the ship, back to the docking bay. She entered her shuttle, locked the doors behind her, and sank into the only chair with a groan of relief.

She needed some time alone. Her head was a mess, and she needed to sort it out. She scowled. Who was she kidding? Her head was the least of her concerns. It was the rest of her body she had to worry about.

Oh, God, she’d wanted him back there. She rubbed her palm over her nipple, still sensitive from his touch, and a shiver ran through her. She squirmed in her seat as she remembered the feel of his big hands caressing her. The taste of him when he kissed her.

It had taken all of her willpower and ingenuity, not to mention a few bribes, to keep out of Rico’s clutches for this long. Could she survive another five days?

And if she didn’t, would he really be able to tell so much from her blood?

She banged her head against the back of her seat and ground her teeth. She couldn’t believe she was even thinking like this. She’d never had a problem keeping her mind on a job before, though this was the first time she’d ever been alone and cut off from the rest of her people. On the whole, she liked it. She hadn’t realized how much the intrigue and politics had riddled every facet of their existence. She supposed it was inevitable given their natures, but it was wearing. There were no politics on El Cazador.

Just a very sexy, very hungry vampire. Whom she wanted. More than she had ever wanted anything.

But it was more than that—she liked him. Since that first evening, he’d joined them every night after supper and she’d found, once she could relax in his presence, he was amazingly good company. In his deep, rich voice, he would tell them tales of Earth in times before space travel and of how men had finally conquered the skies. He’d taught them poker and was teaching them several other card games, though he hadn’t mentioned strip poker again. It was fun, and fun was something that had been missing from her life for as long as she could remember.

She picked up a photograph from the console in front of her. The man in the picture was as different from Rico as it was possible to get.

Though they did have one thing in common, Daniel was also dead, if not in quite the same way as Rico.

Daniel had been dead for many years now. But that had been his decision. A wave of old bitterness washed over her at the memory. He’d been given the chance to stay with her forever, and he’d rejected that chance. He had made his choice, as she had made hers. She didn’t regret it.

Just sometimes, she wished...

She sighed and pushed the memories away. Reaching across, she switched on one of the holographic screens, brought up a game of solitaire, and started playing.

Maybe she’d just stay shut in here for the next five days.