Page 4 of Enthraller

As he thought it, fighting erupted behind him, Hyt’s team coming to the party at last and presumably countering whoever was aiming at either himself or the woman.

Or both of them together, because someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get them into the same place at the same time.

Laz fire came their way again, and to avoid it, Ed pulled her down to a crouch with him. He lowered his lips to her ear. “Did you tick someone off? Because back in that warehouse are three SF units, ready to take you down.”

Her gaze drifted over his shoulder, her body tense against his.

She tried again to pull back, but he held on. He couldn’t let Hyt’s team get a good shot at her. If that’s what was going on here.

He did not like it that he didn’t know.

If they wanted him dead, they’d have to aim for his head or neck. But as they’d supplied him with the suit, they’d know that. And there weren’t that many Guan scanners left. A head shot would destroy a precious piece of tech.

Not from the warehouse, but somewhere to his right, Ed caught sight of someone in a dark uniform lifting a laz in their direction, and instinctively he twisted, putting his back to the shooter and moving to the side.

The blast came close to his ear and now he wondered if this was someone’s way of destroying the Guan scanner. That would be an interesting development.

There were certainly a number of enemies of the VSC who would benefit from leveling the playing field.

He was holding the woman like a lover now, draped over his upper thighs, her face tucked under his chin, and as she drew back a little he felt a shift in the air, and blinked as she pressed her palm over his breast bone, onto his skin where his tunic opened a little.

“I should have known they wouldn’t just let me walk away,” she murmured. She was still pressed tight against him, held close in his arms, and he noticed for the first time that her eyes were a mix of light green and blue. Like the sea.

He dragged his gaze away, hunting for a direction to run that looked safe, and then the shooter switched the laz from single shot to multiple, and a stream of purple light came at them.

They were dead.

Ed curled himself over her, covering the woman with as much of his body as he could, tensing in anticipation of the pain.Even with the suit, even if they didn’t manage a head shot, this was going to hurt.

The sound of the laz shots smacking against an impenetrable surface behind him went on for one second, two . . . He started to lift his head to look over his shoulder, but there was nothing to see.

Nothing but Hyt’s crew, finally coming out into the open.

The laz fire stopped abruptly.

“I’m very sorry about this,” the woman said, drawing his attention back to her. Before his eyes she started to fade away, and Ed grabbed desperately at her, his hands closing over wisps that faded like mist.

And then he was kneeling, alone on the platform, shouting, and some small part of him understood that if he’d known it, it would have been her name on his lips.

As it was, it was a desperate, animal howl of longing for something he wanted more than anything, but could not have.

“You calmer now?”Hyt’s face was unreadable and Ed forced himself not to struggle against the restraints. He lifted cool, hard eyes up to the captain.

With a sigh, Hyt leaned behind him and pressed the release on the clamps.

Still keeping himself under control, Ed rubbed at his wrists. The clamps hadn’t been over-tight, but he’d fought them with everything in him for a while there, and his skin was red and bruised. His shins must look the same.

“Obviously, our intel was flawed.” Hyt didn’t look at him, turning to pace the room.

Ed watched the back of Hyt’s head, and realized he’d give a body part for a heavy object to smash against the captain’s skull. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his eye catching on the woman’s shoulder bag, sitting on the table.

It had been emptied, rifled through, but it was just a normal bag, containing a generic comms device, a lip balm and a hair brush. “Who shot at us?” His voice was hoarse, gravelly from shouting, and he picked up the disposable cup of water on the table and drained it in a single swallow.

Hyt turned at that, and his face was as hard as Ed’s. “Not one of mine.”

Ed just stared at him, and Hyt slammed himself into the nearest chair. “I know. You think I don’t know? If itwasn’tone of mine, I’ve got the sloppiest team on Demeter—hell, maybe the whole of Aponi, and if itwas. . .”

If it was, someone on Hyt’s team had been bought. Which was very hard to do in the Verdant String, with its citizen’s dividend and the ceiling limits on profiteering.

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