Rescued by Qaiyaan Page 3

  Thinking of her brother made her chest tight. If someone was after her, they could also be after Doug. He was Syndicorp’s star pupil, and much more valuable than she was. She prayed he was safe and waiting for her at the ‘corp lab, wherever that was.

  She stepped into the hall, listening for approaching crewmen. To her right, the passage ended at a closed airlock in the floor. A door across from her stood open, revealing a lavatory with a shower head in the ceiling. Left, the hallway extended maybe fifty or sixty feet toward a big bay. Closed doors to either side likely led to crew quarters. Her nanites thrummed in the soles of her feet, telling her that engineering was down the airlock to her right. At the far end of the dim hall, in the wall near the catwalk, she spotted what looked like a conduit panel. Jackpot!

  Her bare feet slid along the metal deck, her footing unsure in the low gravity. She reached the panel and pried the metal cover loose, her fingertips stinging from the effort. Inside, cables and wires entwined each other like a nest of snakes. Tracing her fingertips along several wires, she searched for a familiar interface, skin heating and temples throbbing with effort. Damn, why did a ship need to have so many separate systems?

  From behind the nearby closed door, a man’s voice cut through her concentration. “She said she paid Syndicorp for medical treatment, so she has to be on the galactic net somewhere.”

  “Well, she isn’t. Not under the name Lisa Moss, anyway.”

  Lisa paused her search. It hadn’t occurred to her that not having a presence on the galactic net might be just as incriminating as her real files. Syndicorp had removed every trace of her and Doug to prevent the black market cartel on Whylon Station from tracking them down and exacting revenge. Looking back, she should’ve suggested arranging an “accident” to make it appear she had Doug had died rather than disappeared.

  “Cryogenic containment isn’t cheap,” one of the voices continued. “She’s got money to afford that plus whatever she’s paying Syndicorp. She probably told us a fake name to protect herself.”

  “Think her family will ransom her?”

  “We don’t know if she’s Syndicorp yet. We don’t target non-‘corp citizens.”

  “I’m just saying, our hull’s got to be repaired—for real this time—and this latest heist isn’t enough to pay for it. Especially if the meds go sour before we get there.”

  Heist? Queasiness roiled at the bottom of her stomach. So these men were pirates. They must’ve attacked her ship. But if they knew about her nanites, they hadn’t revealed it.

  “Let me take the money to the kwirn tables and—”

  “Usviilnguq! Last time we had to haul ass out of Bollisare so fast, I didn’t get my kiss goodbye.”

  “The house was cheating! And your limp ucuk isn’t my problem, Tovik.”

  Suddenly the door in front of her flew open, and she was looking at the broad chest of another monster of a man. Five long braids hung from his chin like tentacles, gathered at the bottom with a metal band. Her gaze followed them upward to meet a scowling bronze face.

  She clutched at the sheet around her torso, stuttering out her backup excuse for wandering around. "Uh, where's the restroom?"

  His gaze flicked to the open conduit panel. “Not in there.”

  “Sorry about that. I lost my balance and the cover fell off when I leaned against it. So clumsy.” Batting her lashes, she giggled and tried to affect an innocent smile. “Don’t you guys believe in gravity?”

  He grasped her left biceps with a hand that felt as hard as metal. Even his knuckles gleamed like bronze ball-bearings. “I don’t like eavesdroppers.”

  A younger man appeared in the open door, his beard a bit scruffy around the edges. “She’s awake?”

  “I’m not eavesdropping,” she rasped out. Her racing heart was making her dizzy. “I didn’t even know you were there until you opened the door.”

  The hand around her arm tightened. “Liar. Your pulse is going supernova.”

  The younger man put his hands on his hips but didn't intervene. "Take it easy, Noatak. She's our guest."

  Lisa yanked her arm out of the bigger man’s grip. “I want to talk to Qaiyaan.”

  His upper lip curled into a sneer. “Oh, you’re going to talk, all right.” He targeted the younger man with a glower. “Tovik, check the panel. Make sure nothing’s compromised.”

  Once again he clasped her arm, nearly yanking her off her feet in the low gravity. He dragged her the rest of the way down the hall and onto a catwalk over a large, mostly empty cargo bay. Below, a shirtless Qaiyaan was performing a slow series of moves that looked almost like tai chi. Only his feet weren't on the floor; he stood on the wall as if gravity had lost all meaning. His gleaming copper muscles bunched and flexed in ways that made Lisa's insides quiver.

  “Captain!” the man beside her shouted.

  “What is it now, Noatak?” Qaiyaan jerked to a halt. He turned his head and his electric blue gaze met hers.

  As if gravity had suddenly returned, he belly-flopped against the decking.

  Chapter Four

  Swearing loudly, Qaiyaan scrambled upright, elbows throbbing from the impact. What was the woman doing out of bed? And in his cargo bay? The thin sheet hugging her curves exposed far too much skin for a ship full of nothing but men. And Noatak has his hands all over her. “Dammit, Noatak, what are you doing?”

  Noatak merely quirked an eyebrow. “You think I dragged her out of bed?”

  “I was looking for a bathroom.” Lisa struggled against Noatak’s grasp.

  The first mate rounded on her, and Qaiyaan was half-way to the ladder without thinking. Noatak wasn’t known for keeping his temper. But the big man only spoke with deadly calm. “She had the conduit panel open. And I’m pretty sure she overheard Tovik and me talking.”

  Qaiyaan’s primary heart sank. Shit. Knowing Tovik, they’d been talking about Lisa—whether ransoming her or ravaging her, neither would be good. He pulled himself onto the catwalk, his gaze hard on his first mate. “No matter what she may have overheard, she now thinks the worst of us with you dragging her through the corridors in a bed sheet. Why don’t you go check our heading? I’ll take her from here.”

  Noatak’s nostrils flared, one bronze cheek twitching. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yell if you need me.”

  “I think I can handle a girl in a bed sheet, thank you.” Qaiyaan shot Lisa a conciliatory smile. Perhaps he could play everything down. Get her back to bed…

  Her face remained hard.

  Qaiyaan took a deep breath and gestured down the corridor. “Why don’t we see about getting you some clothing?”

  Gripping the sheet over the enticing swell of her breasts, she turned and shuffled ahead of him. His gaze was drawn to the two pert mounds of her ass cheeks. Damn flimsy sheet. Why was he so turned on by her? He'd had female passengers aboard before and never felt a twinge of temptation. Denaida men could never consummate with non-Denaida. The prostitutes he and his men engaged were nothing more than accouterments to masturbation; three-dimensional pornography to be viewed, smelled, perhaps lightly touched or kissed, but never used for climax. The very act would put a non-Denaidan into a coma.

  Perhaps it’d been too long since he’d indulged in a release. Might she be willing to assist? His mouth nearly watered as he watched her move, imagining that sheet sliding from her curves in a sensual slither, his hands molding against the indentation of her waist. Those bare feet wrapped around his backside as he drove himself into her…

  Shaking his head, he attempted to banish his rather obvious arousal. She’d suffered enough already under Noatak’s brutish accusations. Not to mention she was terminally ill. How could he be so damned insensitive? He needed to keep his nether regions tamed. He walked slowly behind her, breathing deeply to re-center his thoughts. She trailed the lingering chemical scent of the cryo-pod, but underneath it, he detected a faint floral aroma that reminded him of Denaidan lilacs. Anaq. I definitely need some shore leave.
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  At the end of the hall, Mekoryuk came bursting out of the med bay, his face dark with worry. He spotted them, and his shoulders relaxed. “Oh, thank Ellam Cua she’s all right. She shouldn’t be out of bed!”

  Qaiyaan shook his head at the medic and nudged Lisa toward his cabin. His palm itched against her bare skin. “She’s fine. I’ll have her back to you in a little bit.” He guided her into his quarters, suddenly wondering at the wisdom of being alone with her in his bedroom.

  Lisa entered the small space and moved immediately to the far end of the room, turning to glare at him with her arms crossed and her chin down. “You’re a pirate.”

  The accusation pierced him, though he wasn’t sure why. All he’d wanted to do was drop her at the Saluqan facility with her none the wiser about her rescuers. Be a knight in shining armor. Save a woman from her insidious disease as he’d been helpless to do with his own people. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He had no idea what she actually knew versus what she merely suspected. Moving to his closet, he rifled through his few items of spare clothing. “How’d you come to a conclusion like that?”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” she said. “You didn’t just happen upon my ship floating derelict in space.”

  He chose his softest black tunic and a belt. His trousers would be far too long in the legs, but perhaps the shirt could serve as a dress. Turning, he held the pirelux silk up by both shoulders, assessing the length. “You’re right. We intercepted a distress call.”

  Her full lips pursed in a scowl. “Right after you disabled my ship. Stop trying to double talk me. I’ve dealt with your kind before. I’ll tell you right now, there’s no one to pay a ransom for me, so you may as well drop me at the next space station.”

  There was a hardness lying just beneath her surface, a solidness he could sense in the beating of her heart, and he knew he was talking to a woman who’d been through some anaq. Something deeper was at stake here, something she wasn’t telling him. Taking two steps forward, he offered her the shirt. “Wouldn’t a pirate have jettisoned your cryo-pod the moment the Syndicorp trooper ship appeared, hoping they’d stop the chase to pick you up?”

  A black scowl settled over her features, and she snatched the shirt from his hands. “Why didn’t you?”

  “They’d just blown your passenger ship to smithereens.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and laid the belt on the desktop nearby. “I had a feeling they might do the same to you.”

  Her shiny dark hair had just poked through the neckline of the shirt. The scowl on her face slackened, and her creamy skin blanched bone-white. “Why would they do that?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me. Any reason Syndicorp might want you dead?” He sat on the edge of his bunk. While his eyes watched her body language, his ionic sense reached out to feel the nuances of her heartbeat, breathing, and skin temperature. He had nothing close to the empathic power of a female of his species, but he could still sense physical changes that might give a clue about another’s hidden thoughts.

  Lisa turned away from him, shoving her hands into the shirtsleeves. Her body was trembling, but her voice remained strong. “You’re lying. ”

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  “To get me to talk. To tell you my secrets, if I had any secrets.” Her heartbeat spiked, telling him she likely did have secrets. The shirt hem fell almost to her knees over the top of the wrapped sheet. Still facing away from him, she picked up the belt he’d laid on the desk next to her and allowed the sheet to fall in a puddle around her ankles while she cinched her waist. Those long, sculpted legs poking from beneath the shirt’s hem made him harden again.

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees to hide his bulging crotch. “So Syndicorp is after you.”

  "I never said that. You attacked my ship and took me captive. But I'm telling you, no one will claim me." She began to roll up the too-long shirt sleeves as if she wore a man's clothing all the time.

  Jealousy created a silent growl in the back of his throat as he thought of situations where she might wear another man’s shirt. He took a deep breath to shove the feeling down. “And I’m telling you, we didn’t attack your ship. We answered a distress call from the pirate who did. Then the Syndicorp troopers showed up and forced us to run. They destroyed everything we left behind.”

  Turning to him, she narrowed her eyes. “If you’re not pirates, and you merely stopped to aid a ship in distress, how did my cryo-pod end up on your ship?”

  “I never actually said we weren’t pirates,” he growled, tired of word games. He just wanted the truth out of her. He wanted her to understand that if Syndicorp was after her, he was on her side. Something she’d said in the med bay came back to him. “Why did you trust yourself to cryo if your chemistry interferes with electronics?”

  A flush rose to her cheeks. “It… I’m… that’s probably why it failed.”

  He rose and paced forward to stand over her. Even without his ionic sense, he knew she was lying. “What kind of cancer did you say you had?”

  She licked her lips, her gaze sliding away, body breaking into a sweat.

  "You don't have cancer." He didn't need her to corroborate his words. Beneath his palms, he felt the adrenaline flooding her system—the trembling muscles, the elevated heart rate, the shallow breathing. Even her nerve endings seemed to rise to the surface, to reach for him, telling him she was as aware of the closeness of their bodies as he was. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking. He'd allowed himself to be manipulated by this woman. He'd made choices that endangered his ship and his crew because of her. Well, not anymore.

  He clasped her shoulders and turned her to face him, her dark brown eyes wide and fearful. Good. Let her fear him. Whatever it took to get the truth out of her. "That passenger ship you were on had been gutted and filled with cargo. Even the med bay's equipment was removed. Seems to me whoever put you on board didn't care if you lived or died. Considering Syndicorp destroyed its own ship, I'm thinking they may have even wanted you dead. If you want my help, it’s time to tell me the truth.”

  Chapter Five

  Lisa’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. Her secret was out. But with what Qaiyaan’d just revealed, she wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. “S-Syndicorp did what?”

  “They destroyed the pirate ship that attacked you. Then they moved to your ship, firing more than once. There’s nothing left but space dust.” His blue eyes looked into hers with an intense protectiveness she’d only ever felt from her brother. She was reminded of the time she was fourteen and had tried to con a drunken thug in a Whylon back-alley. Only it turned out he wasn’t so drunk after all, and she’d found herself cornered and beaten until Doug arrived to chase the guy off. Her brother’d given her the same “what the hell did you think you were doing” look Qaiyaan was giving her now.

  Still, she didn’t want to believe Syndicorp might actually try to kill her. Her brother had promised she was safe as long as he was alive. “Maybe they hit my ship on accident while they were shooting at the pirate.”

  Qaiyaan shook his head.

  She knew he wasn't lying as if her nanites were reading him like lines of code. Her skin tightened into goosebumps. There was something very wrong with this story. And yet familiar. Cyber-sensitive participants who failed the program had their nanites neutralized, received a severance package, and were released. Yet they were mysteriously never heard from again. There'd been rumors the ‘corp was neutralizing more than simply the nanites; they were eradicating any possible leaks in the program. Although Lisa seemed to fail more exercises than she passed, Doug insisted Syndicorp would never eject her from the program. They needed her as a bargaining chip for his participation.

  But what if something happened to him? If the new tests they were giving him turned out to be fatal…

  She grew light-headed, stumbling toward the bed before she collapsed. No. They were twins. She’d know if he died, she was sure of it. She couldn’t imagine life w
ithout her brother at her side. But if Doug was dead, Syndicorp would see her as a liability. They’d ensure she was disintegrated to keep her nanites from falling into a competitor’s hands. He can’t be dead! She refused to believe such a thing.

  Qaiyaan thrust out an arm to support her, lowering her to sit beside him. She gratefully leaned into his strong support, her nanites buzzing. “I need to find my brother.”

  “What does your brother have to do with any of this?”

  She chewed her lip, contemplating how much to say. Qaiyaan was an admitted pirate, and if he knew about her nanites, what was to keep him from selling her out to the highest bidder? But she had to tell him something if she wanted his help, and the best grift was one with a whiff of truth. Tell him about Doug’s involvement. That should be enough. Aware of his amber-and-cedar scent filling her senses, she began. “He’s being held by Syndicorp as a test subject. It’s top secret. He’s top secret.”

  The arm behind her stiffened. “Test subject for what?”

  Play the scared maiden. Swallowing, she twisted to look him fully in the eyes and let her voice tremble. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

  "I'm no friend to Syndicorp." The menace in his voice would have been frightening if he'd directed it at her. "You have to offer me more if you want my help."

  She took a deep breath. The idea of this burly copper alien acting as her protector was rather comforting. And if Doug was in trouble, she didn’t have time to draw out the game. This close, she again noticed the satiny, burnished copper sheen of Qaiyaan’s skin. He looked somewhat like one of the high-end cyborgs corporate bigwigs used as bodyguards. But his skin felt all-too alive where it touched hers, both a distraction and a draw. Just offer another bite of truth, not the whole thing. “Cyber-sensitivity. It’s kind of like a psychic ability to hack into computers.”