Zero's Heart (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne Book 1) Read online

  Suddenly he lifted a hand, his fist bunched. She froze in place, waiting for orders.

  “We’ve got company, ahead and to the right,” he murmured, his voice pitched low so it didn’t carry. “Can’t back up. Won’t make it before they’re on us.”

  Before he’d finished speaking, he turned and grabbed her around the waist. In a move worthy of a ballroom dancer, he whirled her through a door that appeared in the smooth metal of the wall.

  Her eyes widened as she got a glimpse of an automated maintenance closet in the split second before the door closed behind them, plunging them into darkness. How the hell had he even known this was here, never mind managed to get it open? They were only used by cleaning bots, no one else should have access.

  “Shit, scans said they were down this corridor…” a voice reached them through the thin metal of the door.

  “Fucking tin can. They should’ve shot her when those fucking units were decommissioned. Unstable motherfuckers.”

  She winced at the conversation as the men looking for them paused on the other side of the door. Armored units had not been popular. A lot of vets blamed them for being discharged and sent home. She’d never understood why they couldn’t see the mobile units hadn’t taken their jobs but had saved lives. A tank suit was more durable, faster, and just plain harder to kill than a regular soldier. But a lot hadn’t seen it that way and had celebrated when the truth came out that the mobile suits nearly always killed or crippled their operators in the end.

  “Must’ve doubled back. Let’s check the next intersection.”

  The sound of booted feet running echoed through the door and then silence only punctuated by the sound of their breathing. She looked up, Zero finally coming into view in the dimness of the closet. There was just enough light from the cleaning bots stacked in their charging pods around them for her to see him.

  Then she realized she was pressed up close and personal against a solidly muscled, very male body. Even the bits of him that weren’t metal might as well be; he was that solidly built.

  “Fuck, what do they feed you? Solid titanium?” she whispered, trying to put some distance between them. However, the smallness of the closet put an end to that. As soon as she moved back, the bots behind her cheeped softly in protest. Her eyes widened. Their proximity alarms would reveal their hiding place to anyone in the corridor beyond.

  His arm tightened around her waist, and she realized it was metal as well, not just the hand. But he didn’t hurt her, pulling her in just tightly enough so she nestled against his broad chest. Lifting his other hand, he brushed the hair back from her cheek.

  “Something like that… but I have a fondness for strawberries and cream,” he whispered back, his voice a rough rumble in the darkness that sent a shiver along her skin like an auditory caress. “And my mind tells me that’s exactly what you’ll taste like when I kiss you.”

  “Really? And who says you’re going to find out whether I do or not?”

  Her hands spread out over the top of his chest, fingertips flirting with the line of his collarbones under his shirt. One found the edge where flesh met metal, and she flinched a little, not expecting it. But a few seconds later she replaced her hands. She shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. Everything about him was fascinating. It shouldn’t be. Not when she had a bounty on her head and people out to kill her.

  His thumb brushed against her cheek. She felt his smile in the darkness. “You do. Can I kiss you, Eris?”

  She hadn’t expected him to ask permission. She’d thought he’d charge in, all alpha male dominance and take what he wanted, so to be asked instead put her on the back foot.

  “Yes. Yes, you can,” she found herself answering, holding her breath as he leaned down. His lips brushed hers in the softest kiss, all butterfly exploration, and her hands bunched on the fabric of his t-shirt.

  He tilted his head, brushing his tongue against her full lower lip. Heat spiraled through her as she opened automatically for him. A soft growl rumbled up from the center of his chest as he took her invitation, deepening the kiss in a tangle of tongues and a blaze of heat.

  She stopped thinking as he plundered her mouth with devastating finesse. All that mattered was him and how he made her feel… all that mattered was he kept kissing her like this. Whimpering, she pressed closer, and his hand slid down from the small of her back. He cradled her ass as she half climbed him like a tree, wrapping her leg around his hip and moaning as she rocked against him, the prominent bulge in his pants pressed right where she needed it.

  He broke away on a gasp, lips a hairsbreadth from hers. With a soft moan, he leaned his forehead against hers.

  “Much as I am desperate to continue, this is not the time or the place, beautiful. Let’s get out of here, get someplace safe, and then I plan to worship every inch of your body until you pass out with pleasure.”

  ❖

  She shivered and nestled against him. Zero didn’t think his heart had ever been so full or his cock so fucking hard.

  He held her tenderly against the larger bulk of his body, his hand smoothing over her lower back. She was tiny compared to him, full of curves. His onboard also registered the curviness of her form, giving him statistics on her likely fitness levels and stamina in the back of his mind. He ignored the stream of data with the ease of long practice and concentrated on holding her.

  Then he moved slightly, tucking his fingers under her chin to make her look up at him. He’d caught the wince at the comments from the men outside.

  “When we get to safety, you’re going to explain ‘tin can’ to me,” he rumbled softly.

  She shrugged, not bothering to hide the hurt in her eyes because she assumed he couldn’t see her clearly. His heart ached for the resignation that wrapped around that hurt and rage that surged through him, urging him to break free from the closet and storm after those men. Kill them for daring to hurt her.

  “It’s a derogatory nickname for my old unit,” she shrugged. “I was Armored Infantry… We weren’t popular. Other troops thought we stole their jobs.”

  “Uh-huh… assholes.” He made a note to check into the Armored Infantry when they were free and clear. It hadn’t been on her station record, just that she’d been medically discharged from her species’ military. He obviously needed to dig a little deeper.

  Warning, his onboard spoke in the back of his mind. Remaining in place increases the chance of discovery by 9.73% per minute, rising to 93.74% after fifteen minutes.

  “We need to get out of here. Ready to move?” he asked, dragging her out of possible bad memories of the past.

  She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “We need to get off the station. Is your ship still here?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. They traveled onward to Praxis-Four. We’re going to have to make our own way. As soon as we’re off station, I’ll signal them to double back and rendezvous with us.”

  Approval filled him as she nodded briskly at the new information. There were no hysterics or panic at the news the easy way off Tarantus—his ship—was a no-go. She simply moved on to the next problem.

  “Okay, we need to secure a ship. I’m assuming my credentials will be wiped and the facial recog systems on the station will pick me up as soon as we move.” She bit at her lower lip and his gaze riveted to it. The need to kiss her again filled him, but he fought it back. He needed to focus, or they were already dead.

  “I can handle the facial recog.” He was already in the systems. Altering the recognition pattern so her biometric data matched that of a woman in her mid-fifties who had died several years ago was the work of a moment. It was a quick and dirty hack that wouldn’t last long before it was discovered, but they didn’t need long. They only needed long enough to get off this damn rust-bucket of a station.

  “How?” She started to ask but then shook her head. “Not important. Let’s move. If we can get down to the lower docks, we have a chance. The security feeds are always glitchy down there. If we pic
k one of the smaller transports… we might be able to jack it before its owners get back… oh fuck,” she looked at him, stricken. “We’re about to become fucking pirates.”

  He shrugged, easing her away from him and moving to open the door. “Not my first rodeo, won’t be my last.”

  5

  Eris followed her knight in black combats out of the cleaning closet. As they emerged, one of the cleaning bots cheeped and left its charging pod to slide down the tracks to the floor.

  She put her foot in front of it to stop it as she unclipped her ID bracelet and dropped it in the waste receptacle on the top. Stepping back, she grinned at Zero as she let it continue on its way.

  “Let them chase their damn tails for a while.”

  He pulled her close, claiming her lips in a swift, hard kiss. “That’s my girl.”

  She flushed at the comment and being called his girl. Even though she was way too old to be considered a girl and she’d always argued against any of that kind of possessive nonsense from any guy before… with Zero it was different. At his words a warmth spread from the center of her chest, and she followed him as he set off down the hall.

  Within minutes, though, it became apparent they’d underestimated how easy it would be to get down to the docking arms and hijack a ship. Every route they tried was blocked by a group of armed men.

  “How many of these fuckers are there?” she hissed, peeking around the corner to check out the group they’d almost walked smack-bang into.

  Clad in black body armor like the rest, they carried the latest KT-X assault rifles but wore no unit or regiment badges. Despite that, they were clearly military. The way they moved said they couldn’t be anything other than special forces.

  Her eyes narrowed. She was a security chief on a backwater station in the ass-end of beyond. Who wanted her dead badly enough to send special forces after her? Someone had their wires crossed somewhere for sure.

  But, a clerical error of epic magnitude or not, she couldn’t exactly complain to management, not with a dead-or-alive bounty on her head. She flattened herself against the wall and looked at Zero, trying like hell not to panic.

  “We’ll double back,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  At least one of them did. She nodded, and they turned to head back down the corridor. The station was in complete lockdown with no one around as they made their way to the lower-level habitat sector. None of the lodgings on the station could be considered luxurious, but the lower levels tucked in behind the docking arms were the lowest of the low. Even the cockroaches preferred to live higher up.

  “What are we doing here?” she hissed as he paused by a door and hammered on it with a massive fist.

  “Fuck off, Zero!” a muffled voice came from inside.

  Zero winked at her and leaned in, one massive shoulder against the door. “Either open the door, Sparky, or I’ll tear it off its fucking hinges!” he yelled.

  The door cracked open widely enough for them to see one blue eye. Jayce Allen. She should have known. “Good luck. It’s a slider,” he hissed. “Now fuck off. You’re messing with my meditation.”

  The door started to slide shut, but Zero was quicker. Jamming his metal hand into the gap, the door mechanism squealed in protest as he forced it open.

  “Meditation?” she asked as Zero ushered her through the door, only letting go when they were both through. The door slid shut behind them and she turned to look at Allen’s quarters. Far from the squalid hovel she’d expected, it was neat. Like barracks neat. The blanket on the single bunk was tight enough to bounce a coin off… if you could find such an antique all the way out here.

  “I find a little one-on-one time with the captain works most issues out.” He gestured toward the bottle of whiskey on the desk. Captain Jones… the cheapest rot-gut whiskey there was on base. She knew it well.

  He folded his arms over his chest, looking at them both, and glared at Zero. “What do you want, big guy?”

  “Whatever weaponry you got, the keys to whatever ship you can steal and a winning lottery ticket.”

  Sparky’s eyebrow lifted. “What color would you like your dragon? Because if you think you’re getting off this rust bucket with SO13 here, you’d better think again.”

  “Shit…” Eris breathed. “I thought they were normal special forces.”

  SO13 weren’t just special forces; they were black ops… blacker than a black cat in a damn coal cellar. So black they were a myth because most people who saw them didn’t survive the encounter.

  “Nope,” Sparky’s lips compressed into a thin line. “So whatever it is, big guy. Not my problem.”

  Zero didn’t move, arms folded over his chest as he mirrored Allen’s stance. “Well, I’m making it your problem. Unless you want to be on the Warborne’s shit list.”

  Eris felt like she was watching tennis as she looked between the two men. Uppermost in her mind was the fact that Allen had recognized SO13. Then…

  “The Warborne?” she asked, confused.

  “My unit,” Zero answered without looking away from Allen. The two were locked into a staring contest so intent that if a fly flew between them it was sure to explode. “And you humans owe us. We helped you with Lady Cole. Remember?”

  “I knew it!” she hissed. He was military, just as she’d suspected. “What… wait? Us humans?”

  “Yeah,” Allen drawled. “Loverboy here didn’t tell you? He and his buddies are little green men. Not local. AKA not fucking human. And why do I gotta pay for that mess? Cole was nothing to do with me.”

  ❖

  Fuck. This hadn’t been how Zero had wanted Eris to finally figure out he wasn’t human. But, caught in a staring contest with Sparky, he couldn’t reassure her. He winced internally, waiting for her to blow up or issue the barrage of questions he knew was coming.

  What he did not expect was for her to round on Sparky. “The fact that you recognized they’re SO13 is interesting. Don’t’cha think, Allen? It is to me anyway… how would they react if someone were to tell them you were on base as well?”

  Oh fuck… she had him there. Zero suppressed his grin as Sparky’s expression went flat under his scowl and his eyes shuttered. It was only the tiniest tell, the minutest movement of muscle. For Zero, the human might as well have hung out a banner that Eris had surprised him.

  Sparky sighed, running a hand through his shock of dirty blond hair.

  “Well, okay… I guess I should welcome you to the dark side then.” Then he grinned salaciously and looked Eris up and down. “I’d offer you more than cookies, but lover boy here would turn me into human jam on a bulkhead, so the best I got is the cap’n there…” he jerked his thumb toward the bottle on the desk.

  “When we’re free and clear of this place, we’ll join you in finishing the bottle,” she replied, offering her hand.

  Sparky shook it firmly, winking at Zero. “Well, we will… Handsome here can’t get drunk.”

  “Oh?” She looked over her shoulder at Zero.

  He shrugged, folding his arms so he didn’t deck Sparky for daring to touch her. Jealousy was a bitch, surging out of nowhere and almost overwhelming all his systems.

  “My non-organic systems purge any poisons before they can become harmful.” Shit. He didn’t want to explain further than that, not without a lot of preparation and sounding her out. The last thing he wanted was for her to see him as a machine… or worse, a robot. He was a man with a man’s needs…

  “Fuck… that sucks.” Her expression was full of sympathy but leveled out as she looked back at Sparky.

  He was pleased to see she let go of the human’s hand at the earliest opportunity and stepped back closer to him. The move might have been purely instinctive to put some space between her and the human male, but Zero was more than happy to construe it as she wanted to be closer to him. That she trusted him.

  He wanted her to trust him. He wanted her to do far more than trust him… but trust was a start and could go so many exciting plac
es.

  “Okay… show us the goodies,” Eris ordered, all professional and business-like. Only she wasn’t. Her heart rate and respiration were elevated. Zero knew the signs. She was riding the edge of panic and was concealing it well. “So… what you got in the line of weaponry?”

  Sparky nodded and turned. Reaching under the bunk, he pulled free a trunk and opened it. It was filled with weapons—from assault rifles to lethal-looking trench-knives. Eris whistled softly.

  “Well, guess we know who’s been keeping the gun-runners on base busy. Don’t we?”

  Sparky chuckled, already beginning to arm up. The way he moved, strapping weaponry to his body in various holsters and sheaths… yeah, him having been military made complete sense.

  “Always better to have and not want than need and not have. That’s what my momma always said anyway.”

  “I’m not sure what’s scarier…” Zero quipped, selecting a pump-action shotgun and a couple of vicious blades to add to his handguns. “You having a mother, or that she might be like you.”

  Sparky grinned. “Nah, you got it backward, squire. Chip off the old block, me. Apart from the fact she’s scarier. I’m a teddy bear compared.”

  “Yeah, that’s what scares me.” Zero moved to the door, un-focusing his eyes for a moment so he could concentrate on the corridor outside. If the troops aboard were as good as Sparky claimed, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out they’d been duped and start clearing the station level by level. “So… ship?”

  Fully armed with body armor in place, Sparky slid a flexi from his pocket and flicked it on. “May I suggest the Aegis, currently on docking arm fifteen… she’s a heavy freighter who usually runs cargo to the Terra-Nova systems.”

  Eris looked up at him sharply. “Pirate territory?”

  He nodded. “Aye. Which means they’re gonna be packing decent shields and rail-guns despite the fact they’re listed as unarmed.”

  “Good point. Okay… fifteen isn’t far from here.” She reached over and flicked the screen to a view of the station. “If we head down through these sectors here and here… a service elevator here is always listed as out of service, but I have the override codes for it.”