Breaking Out: Part II Read online

  The last of her tension unravelled and she sighed. “What do you think he can do? The reason they have him caged?”

  Giles shook his head. “I don't know. I think he forced an electrical surge. Maybe he can manipulate electricity.”

  “He felt it. You could see the pain on his face. I wondered what they'd done to him. Thought it was torture. And it was, in a way. My guess is they forced him to do whatever he can do over and over, knowing it would break him.” She shuddered, remembering how Barker had looked when she'd grabbed Simons' pain and transferred it to him. The panic. And the agony.

  He'd deserved every second of that agony.

  “So you'll stay?” Giles asked.

  “How could I pass up a chance to be a fly in Greenway's ointment?”

  He shook his head. “You don't have to get involved in the rescues if you don't want to. They'll be dangerous. There are no conditions to your staying here.”

  She glared at him. “Oh, I'm in on the rescues. You think I'll be okay with sitting here looking at the view while the three of you are off saving people just like me?”

  He sent her a sideways look. “Now I've fucked it up?”

  “Damn right you have.”

  He chuckled, and then leaned over a little to bump his shoulder against hers.

  Damn, he was cute.

  “I'm glad you're staying.” He sounded serious now, and she looked up at him.

  “Why?”

  He didn't say anything for a long time. When he did, he held her gaze. “You drown out the noise.”

  Cute, and he was breaking her heart.

  She sighed. “So, I'm the equivalent of a muffler for you?”

  He didn't smile as she'd intended, he raised a hand and laid it against her cheek.

  “No. You're like a thick cashmere blanket.”

  She looked away, and his palm lingered against her skin before he finally let his hand drop. She stared out at the forest, and then let herself lean against him. Just a little.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I think Giles persuaded Nina to stay.” Nate stood in the entrance to the kitchen, looking out at the deck.

  Kelli looked out herself, saw Giles and Nina leaning against the railing side by side. She smiled. “I guess he has.” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “How's Simons? Did you need to heal him?”

  “He's asleep.” Nate hesitated. “Whatever he did at that fence drained him. I couldn't find anything wrong, just depleted reserves. He felt pain, there's no question of that, but there isn't anything to actually fix.”

  “He saved us. I'd say he saved me, but you and Giles wouldn't have left me, so he saved us all.” She stopped a little distance from him, wary.

  He pushed himself off the doorjamb, and hulked in the doorway, all broad shoulders and muscular arms.

  “Damn right we wouldn't have left you.” He watched her, eyes burning, and she eventually had to look away.

  “What were you thinking?” His voice was soft, and somehow it was a lot worse than the shouting she'd expected.

  “I was thinking the same thing you were. Get everyone to safety. You don't have the monopoly on being the one to sacrifice yourself for the team.” She realized she was standing feet slightly apart, hands clenched. She sighed, and dropped her shoulders. Shook her head.

  “I don't want to fight with you, Nate. I was the only one who could get everyone over the fence. I hoped I would have enough to get myself over, too, but I wasn't prepared to make myself safe and leave someone on the other side. It's not in me, and if you expect something else from me . . .” She took a deep, choppy breath, lifted her head, and glared at him. “Then that's just tough.”

  He stared at her, then gave a laugh, dry and resigned. “I just don't want you hurt. Seeing you on the other side of that wire. Knowing I couldn't get to you . . .” He bounced his shoulder against the door frame, jittery with pent-up energy. “It put me over the edge. I was seriously considering climbing the fence, healing myself as I was shocked, grabbing you, and climbing back over.”

  She stared at him. Knew for sure he was telling the truth. “And you're mad at me?”

  He frowned. Looked like he really didn't understand. So she used little words.

  “You're mad. At me. For getting people over and leaving myself on the wrong side. But you've just admitted you were considering exposing yourself to a lethal shock by climbing an electric fence, and then carrying me back over the same way. How is that better than my choice?”

  “It's better, because it would have meant you would have been safe.”

  “And I was thinking about making you safe.” She tilted her head. “Are we really going to argue about this? About who wants the other safe more?”

  “It's not just the fence.” He leaned on the doorjamb again. “It's about the explosion. About how I nearly killed you. Killed you, Kel. All because you didn't keep to the plan.”

  “You didn't keep to it either!” She was so sick of this. “Start factoring it in. You disappear under suspicious circumstances? I'll come for you. Every time.”

  He froze. “Will you?”

  “Yes. I damn well will.”

  He lifted a hand as if to grab at his hair and tug, realized what he was doing and dropped his arm in disgust. Finally sighed and took a step toward her, held out his arms.

  She uncurled her fists and stepped into them.

  “I'll come for you, too. Always.” His voice was an octave lower than usual.

  “I know you will.” She let her cheek rest over his heart, heard the steady rhythm of it. He was steady. And strong, and honorable, and . . . hers.

  “The thought of what could have happened, how you could have been killed by something I'd set . . .” His arms tightened around her. “I couldn't have lived with it. I don't know where I'd have gone from there if you'd been caught up in it.”

  She soothed him, stroking his hair, running her hands down his back. “I wasn't caught. And next time, we'll factor this kind of thing in. Learn from this, and move forward.”

  “Sure.” His laugh was self-deprecating.

  “Do you think Greenway's got a psychic working for him?” She said it to distract him, but also because ever since she'd thought it, it had been gnawing at her.

  “A psychic?” He still held her close, so she could feel him tense under her hands. “I'd say impossible, but nothing's impossible. Look at us.”

  “Yes. That's what I thought.” She burrowed in closer. “Maybe he didn't know exactly what we were planning, maybe there were a few locations where they decided to shake things up, but it can't be a coincidence that they tried to get to Nina tonight of all nights.”

  “No. I kept telling myself it was just bad luck, but it can't be.”

  She gave a murmur of agreement. The warmth of him was seeping through the chill she'd felt since she'd been stuck on the wrong side of the fence and thought she'd be taken back to Greenway. It made her languid. Soft and pliable.

  He fisted a hand in her hair, tugged her head back gently. “You're very cuddly.”

  “Hmm.” She smiled up at him, then kissed the edge of his jaw.

  He bent his head, nipped lightly at her mouth.

  “Maybe we should take this to my room. Rather than give Giles and Nina a show,” she murmured.

  He stilled. “Your room?”

  It sounded like someone was strangling him.

  “Or yours. I don't mind.”

  “Yours is good.” He didn't seem able to let her go, so he sort of shuffled her down the passage in the right direction.

  She chuckled, nuzzled his throat.

  “You sure about this, Kel?” He was at her door, arms braced on either side of her face, leaning in.

  She rubbed her cheek on a hard, well-muscled upper arm. “I'm sure.”

  She could have died in the warehouse in Nate's explosion.

  She would never bring it up again with him, remind him of it, but it was true. If she had chosen to hide anywhere but the beam
s on the roof, she'd be dead. She could have just as easily died in front of that fence.

  She trusted him. Loved him.

  It was time.

  She reached behind her, turned the door handle and they fell into the room, Nate grabbing for her to stop her fall. She floated upright, keeping in the circle of his arms.

  He kicked back his foot to close the door behind them.

  “I once told you I'd been lucky from the moment I fell into your cell.” He reached behind him to turn the lock, eyes still on her. “I want to tell you now, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  The day he'd rolled into her cell at Greenway's facility, punching and fighting the guards trying to drag him off to who-knew-where, had been the best thing that had ever happened to her, too.

  She lifted her hands to cup his cheeks, met his serious gaze with one of her own. “Every moment I had in there was one of fear. You crashed in like a wrecking ball, and you gave me hope. I was frightened of the guards, knew they would make my life a living hell if I helped you and then we lost, but you weren't giving up, you fought like you had a chance of winning, even though there were four of them and only one of you. Except there wasn't one. There were two of us. I made my choice and it was the best decision of my life.” She slid her hands higher, gently threaded them through his short, soft hair. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me, too. I love you, Nate.”

  His hands, which had found their way to her waist, stilled. She could see the shock, and the hope, in his eyes.

  “You mean that?”

  “I mean it.”

  He walked her slowly back to her bed, stopped when her legs hit the edge. “I'm not letting you go, Kel. This is it for me.”

  “Pretty sure this is it for me, too.”

  He raised a brow. “Only pretty sure?”

  She sent him a slow, lazy smile. “How about you persuade me?”

  And then laughed as she bounced back onto the bed.

  Sneak Peak: Dark Horse

  If you enjoyed Breaking Out, you’ll enjoy Dark Horse:

  Some secrets carry the weight of the world.

  Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally--a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.

  Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead, all except for one strange, new alien being.

  She calls herself Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about her story is adding up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the four planets, are in jeopardy. The Class 5's owners, the Tecran, look set to start a war to get it back and Dav suspects Rose isn't the only alien being who survived what happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is playing its own games.

  In this race for the truth, he's going to have to go against his leaders and trust the dark horse.

  Read on for an excerpt . . .

  Chapter 1

  Rose slipped her ticket out of hell over her head and tucked it beneath her shirt, where it lay against her skin, throbbing like a heartbeat.

  The sensation was so unnerving, she curled her fingers around it and lifted it back out, eyeing the clear crystal oblong uncertainly.

  “Iʼll try to keep all the passageways clear for you and Iʼve disabled the lenses, but just in case someone disobeys orders, it would be better if they didnʼt see me.” Sazo spoke too loudly through the tiny earpiece she wore, and she winced.

  She reluctantly tucked the crystal, that was somehow also Sazo, back under her shirt, tugging the cord it hung from so it was below her neckline. After three months of being the only thing sheʼd had to wear, washed over and over again, the shirt was threadbare, and barely concealed Sazo anyway, but it was better than nothing.

  She took the two steps to the door of the tiny control room tucked away to one side on the Tecran ship and it slid silently open. Sheʼd only been inside for ten minutes at most to steal Sazo, or break him out, depending on your view of things, and the corridor was as empty now as it had been when Sazo led her here.

  She looked back, but the door had closed, completely concealing the control room, so it looked like an uninterrupted passageway again.

  “Youʼre still in control, even though Iʼve unplugged you?” She spoke very quietly, because even though Sazo had opened doors, and diverted traffic all the way from her prison cell to this room earlier, there was no point taking foolish chances like talking too loudly when it was unnecessary.

  “I would not have initiated this plan if I wasnʼt absolutely certain that it would work.” Sazo sounded a little . . . stressed.

  “You okay?”

  “There has been a delay loading the animals at the launch bay and the Grih have come through their light jump three minutes sooner than I calculated.” He went quiet for a moment. “Iʼm sorry, Rose.”

  “What? What is it?” Freezing hands of panic gripped her heart and she stumbled to a halt. If he was going to tell her they had to abort, that she had to go back to the cell . . .

  “The lion has been killed.”

  She leant against the wall, her legs weak. “That is not good.” She rubbed her face. “Why?”

  “Iʼll tell you as you walk. We canʼt delay, with the Grih already here. They might fire on this ship at any time when they realize itʼs disabled.”

  She started walking again, and just like earlier, the passages Sazo sent her down were eerily empty. “I thought the Grih were peaceful.”

  “They donʼt take force as a first option, but my changing this shipʼs trajectory in the last light jump and setting us in the middle of Grih territory was effectively a declaration of war. They might initially hesitate to fire, given the power of this ship compared to theirs, but when they realize every single system except for lights, air, and the launch bay mechanisms have been disabled, they may strike.”

  “And the lion?” There was something bothering her about the way heʼd apologized.

  “It was delaying the loading——frightening the loading crew. Theyʼre already frightened because I diverted the ship to this location and they donʼt know whatʼs going on. I only agreed to let the animals come with us because you insisted. Animals are unpredictable. Itʼs hard to get the timing precise.”

  “You instructed one of the loaders to kill the lion.” She didnʼt ask, it was a statement of fact. She knew there had been something way off with that apology. She knew, deep down, there was something way off about Sazo, but he was literally her only escape route, and of all the beings she had encountered since her abduction, the only one who had worked to free her.

  “There is a chance the wildlife on the moon weʼre going to, Harmon, would not have been suitable to sustain him. He would eventually have died of starvation.”

  She didnʼt respond. She was too angry.

  What he said may be true, and if so, he could have told her that sooner, but it wouldnʼt have stopped her asking for all the animals to go with them on a second shuttle. They had had as miserable a time as she in this hellhole.

  And Sazo thought the Grih would come to pick her up on the moon they were escaping to. They would see the shuttles Sazo had arranged for them leaving the launch bay for Harmon, and after they had dealt with the crippled Tecran ship, they would surely be interested in who had escaped. And, she was sure, be interested in a lion.

  They could have made a plan for him.

  A door slid open and she walked into the launch bay. Ahead of her, two of the loading staff walked out the far door without turning around, one nursing a jagged wound on his arm.

  She pressed against the wall and made no move until the doors closed behind them and she was alone in the massive hangar. Beside her, she heard the hum and double
beep of the locks engaging. Sazo had sealed the doors. No one on the ship could stop her getting on the shuttle now.

  The lion lay, dead and crumpled, in the massive cage that had housed him since he was taken. It stood next to one of the two explorer shuttles she and Sazo were stealing and she walked up to it and grasped hold of the bars. Hot tears welled in her eyes as she looked down on him. He was a golden, vibrant anachronism in this cold, metallic place.

  A wild thing, broken.

  That could have been her. Nearly had been, more than once.

  The lion had been one of the things that had kept her going, kept her sane.

  “I am sorry, Rose. I really am. But the Grih have gone to full alert, shields and guns. Please get in the shuttle, or this could be for nothing.”

  The shuttle that had been loaded with all the animals was closed and ready. Rose paused for a moment, looking at the massive gel wall that enclosed the launch bay but which allowed ships in and out. It was a pale blue, and seemed to shimmer.

  “Rose!”

  She shook herself, and walked up the ramp into the much smaller craft Sazo had arranged for her, and before she had even reached the cabin, he started closing the door and revving the engines.

  She lurched into one of only two chairs in the small cockpit and struggled with the safety harness. She should have been excited, or at least relieved to finally have escaped the Tecran, but as the engines began their muffled scream and the ship lifted into hover mode, she could only think of tawny fur and golden eyes.

  Closed forever.

  * * *

  The Tecran Class 5 battleship hung sullenly between the Barrist and one of the fertile moons of the gas giant Virmana. It hulked like a prickly black ball, and Dav Jallan shifted uncomfortably in the Barristʼs captainʼs chair.

  He could feel the tension humming off his ten-strong command staff, although they were trying to hang on to calm. Their emergence from a light jump deep inside their own territory to find themselves within sight of a Tecran ship was not unlike opening the door expecting to see a friend, and tripping over a weapon-wielding thug instead.