Page 11 of Enthraller

“Good. When you came straight toward me off the street into the alley, I was worried . . .” She gnawed her lip again, and he had to force his gaze away.

“I did feel a tug in the direction of the alley. Did this mysterious ‘they’ have anything to do with it?”

She closed her eyes, and he had the sense she was communing with something.

If she hadn’t, as she called it, dissipated, and if he hadn’t been affected by whatever it was he’d been affected by, he’d have said she was putting it on.

“They say you might still be extra sensitive to my pheromones.” She blushed. “I’m so sorry about this. I had noidea what they were doing, and I’ve been very clear with them that it must never happen again.”

Ed swallowed the last of the hirtsu, setting the bottle down with a sigh of contentment. “Let’s clear this up. Who are they?”

She hesitated and then extended her hand, palm up. Five silver balls rose out of her skin, and then sank back down again, disappearing completely.

“They tell me it was usual for one ball to be assigned per person, but I was all they had, and they were used to being together by the time I reached them, so they all settled inside me.”

He tried not to show how freaked out he was. “So you have five times the normal amount?”

“Twenty,” she said. “Two teams worth.” She slid a little lower in her seat. “That’s why they can fly out and form a shield to stop the laz fire. I was shot at once, just a glancing hit, and they did not like that, any more than I did. Since then, the silver balls inside me have worked out if they form a barrier outside my body as a shield, it isn’t as bad as being hit through my body.”

She had said she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him how she could dissipate, but she had already shared enough that he could guess.

“And the silver balls are?” he asked.

“Nanotech,” she answered. Then shrugged. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Who came up with something like this?” He could scarcely believe it.

“The Ancestors.” She sighed. “I picked them up on Ytla. At the site of an old wreck.”

And now someone was trying to get rid of her.

Ed had not wanted to get involved when Guttra came knocking because he had a few issues with Special Forces and how they’d dealt with him in the past.

This was a whole new level.

Seemed like someone in the organization was trying to wipe her out.

5

Wren had nothing left.

She pointed her guest to the spare room and stumbled to her own, stepping into the small bathroom to have a quick shower before she fell asleep.

The sun was sinking, and she knew she’d regret the nap later, but dissipating wiped her out, and she needed recovery time.

Ed hadn’t looked tired, and she guessed he wouldn’t sleep, would maybe leave for a while, but she had to trust that he wouldn’t betray her.

He was as much in the frame as she was. He’d been set up as surely as she had been, and he’d told her he suspected it was to make the Guan scanner useless. Only he and another Halatian could work it, and his colleague was off-planet.

She vaguely heard the kitchen door open and close, and the nanotech stirred, uneasy, but she refused to hear them. She turned over, and sunk into sleep.

She was making dinner in the kitchen, after having a good two hours of rest, when Ed returned.

He stepped into the kitchen, blinking at the sight of her preparing food, and then slumped down at the kitchen table. “Need me to do anything?”

“You can do the dishes afterward.”

He nodded, gave a grunt of thanks as she passed the cooler unit and pulled out a bottle of hirtsu for him.

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