Page 90 of Enthraller

“It’s perfect,” Wren said.

“So perfect.” Ed grinned at her. “Forget a warm bed, a hot shower, a nice meal and maybe some Wren-made cake. This beats everything.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Well, it does.” She leaned against him, and he shifted so he could get his arm around her shoulder.

The sound of shouting stopped their banter dead, and Ed slowly lowered them both down, so they were lying flush to the rocky floor, as invisible as they could be.

The trees that crowded around the base of the outcrop were thickly foliaged, and though the shouts had stopped, Wren could hear the sound of someone walking through dead leaves, and then coughing.

“Don’t get sick.” It was Navar, and Wren guessed he was talking to Fenton. He wouldn’t care if Renard or the two thugs got sick.

“I’ve got some meds. But I’m done for tonight,” Fenton answered. “There’s enough cover here, we could light a fire. The ground under that tree there is still completely dry, despite the weather.”

There was silence for a bit, and Wren thought she heard the sounds of branches being dragged.

“Linao isn’t going to be happy,” Navar said.

“Fuck her. And I think you’re wrong. She needs sleep, too. She can’t keep running that freighter up and down. They’ve obviously holed up somewhere, and there’s too much ground to cover to work out where in the pouring rain in the middle of the night.”

“Agreed.” A moment after he spoke, Navar’s comms unit chirped. “We’ve found a place out of the rain. We’ll be setting up camp.” He didn’t say anything else.

“Confirmed.” Linao’s answer was slow in coming, but Fenton had been right. She couldn’t keep going.

“Well, shit.” Ed breathed in her ear. “This is awkward.”

She swallowed a laugh. “But not so awkward we can’t sneak past them and steal Linao’s freighter,” she whispered back.

Ed went still behind her, as if she had absolutely shocked him. “I like the way you think,” he whispered at last. “But she’ll sleep in the freighter, is my guess.”

“We took her out in the freighter before. We can do it again.” She believed that absolutely. She also didn’t think they’d get off here free and clear any other way.

“Hey.” The voice that called out sounded like Kine. “You packing it in?”

“For tonight.” Navar answered.

“Thanks for letting us know.” Kine made no attempt to soften his footsteps as he walked into the little copse. “It’s pretty dry.” His surprise was clear.

“We just let Linao know we found a good spot,” Fenton said, almost as if he was trying to smooth things over. “Look for dry firewood.”

Kine grunted, but although she couldn’t see over the lip of the ledge, Wren could hear more branches being dragged.

Slowly, all the men found their way to the spot, and it didn’t take long for firelight to bloom below them.

The freighter had clearly turned back, and the roar of its engines was almost unpleasant as Linao found a spot very close by to land.

Wren guessed she’d stay put, but ten minutes after she’d landed, she made an appearance.

“I brought dinner.”

Well. It seemed the woman wasn’t totally heartless. Wren tried to picture her deciding to inconvenience herself to bring food from the freighter to the men, and cynically decided it was to keep up moral, rather than that she cared if they went hungry or not.

Her own stomach gave a faint grumble at the thought of food, and Ed rested a big, warm hand over her midriff.

“Same,” he whispered in her ear.

The sound of packages opening drifted up, and Wren realized Linao had taken it a step further and was going to eat with the men.

“This terrain is more forested than I realized,” Linao was saying. “It’s hard to see what’s going on below.”

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