Page 63 of Defiance
Novak bared his teeth but made no sound, staring down at the tops of their heads. They stopped in front of Charlie’s suite like every other night they’d been here and she beamed at Sath, brushing her hand against his forearm.
“I’m grand, Sath. Really. I didn’t know how dangerous Novak could be. Scared the piss right out of me.” Charlie took Sath’s face in her hands and pressed a kiss to both his cheeks. Rage coursed through Novak’s blood. He ripped the archwaytighter with his tail, pushing back against the murderous itch in his claws.
“If you’re sure.” Sath smiled softly at Charlie, brushing his gold-ringed knuckles against her elbows in acknowledgment.
“Good night.”
Charlie left Sath in the hallway, staring at her door. He lingered, rubbing his palms against his cheeks. He lifted his palm to ask for access to her suite…
Then dropped his hand.
Sath left, his warm cinnamon skin dull in the pale evening glow.
Novak crept up to the door and pressed hiscolearato the seam. He drew Charlie into his lungs and clenched his jaw. Something was off about herchemia.It was all her, but the portions of each ingredient felt wrong. Dasin listened in through the door, not knowing there was a privacy puck installed.
A thin arm slung over both advenans’ shoulders and a familiar sultry voice broke the silence. “Show Baby Bjorek here some human tits yet?”
Both men jumped back as Xata laughed. Her BDRE suit wound down from its covert setting, revealing her in mercurial strips of light as she pushed back her visor and grinned at them.
“Fucking hell,” Novak groaned.
“What? That’s what the lumps are called, right?”
Bjorek’s ears turned back and he hissed at her to be quiet. Xata rolled her eyes.
“Cool it, pup. Privacy veil. Right, Nov? Works both ways.” She slapped the agent-in-training on the chest and waved her holotab. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of Charlie for hours, but no dice. Her holotab didn’t buzz just now either, so it’s definitely not her.”
“They would have transferred her holotab data,” Bjorek protested.
Novak snapped his tail. “Secure blue comms don’t transfer. You have to reconnect.”
Xata closed one of her mahogany eyes and shot Novak in the forehead with her finger.
“Bingo. I’d bet loverboy here can’t reach her either.”
“Herchemiais off, too.” Novak took another deep drag. “Humans keep scents in their silk. She’s missing anything that’s not naturally part of her signature. It’s subtle.”
“But not untraceable?”
Bjorek and Xata looked at him expectantly. He drew up a bit of Charlie’schemiaagain, comparing it to the woman in her suite. That sounded like her but didn’t speak the same convictions.
Their scents were jumbled together, difficult to parse, but he would never lose her.
“I can find her,” he said with confidence.
“Go Hunt what’s yours, Nov. I’ll babysit Miss Dolly. Keep her occupied with this.” She held up Charlie’s proposal for a shilpakaari weaning program with a grin. “She won’t remember, but she’ll pretend she does.”
Novak gave Xata a nod, then climbed up the side of the courtyard and disappeared into the wind.
28
I woke up with an electrical whine in my ears, the sort you hear in a quiet office or server room. Every once in a while, a cavernousthunkwould permeate my consciousness. Heavy machinery or sea monsters. I wasn’t sure which, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that I wasn’t at sea, even if the air was cold enough to make my teeth chatter.
I expected to feel wretched, and I did. Gritty, painful dehydration made me feel like I was swallowing sandpaper. My head pounded more insistently than the last time, and my stomach… It roiled and I dry-heaved, leaving a string of thick drool between my mouth and the cold stones beneath my cheek. I curled in on myself, hugging my naked knees in the dark. Rocking helped to alleviate the nausea, so that’s what I did, trying to forget that time existed.
It was still better than waking up on that table.
My holotab buzzed. I pried my eyes open and tried to focus on the blue glow beneath my skin. The narrow notification bar that hovered over my thumb illuminated a new alert.
