“What’s the occasion?” someone shouted.
“In honor of dangerous bloody bastards who have the interlopers running scared.”
Not surprisingly, a cheer rang out as Jael jumped down, both at his words and the booze being wheeled into the common room. Queenslanders grabbed bottle after bottle. Dred hoped that the sentries realized they weren’t allowed to get shit-faced and that patrols needed to continue as usual, but what the hell, she’d deal with the fallout later. Since she disciplined offenders consistently, chances were good that Queensland could survive one more revel.
Personally, she’d love to withdraw, but part of the job required being a badass alongside the men, so she joined a table and knocked back several glasses. My liver may never forgive me for doing this two nights in a row. Then Dred remembered that she had Jael’s enhanced healing ability. Does that go for self-inflicted damage to organs, too?
For his part, Jael was quiet though he put away his share of alcohol. She noticed that he shook off the effects much faster than other men. That might be why her hangover had dissipated in a few hours instead of leaving her with a full day of misery. There were so many unanswered questions regarding his nature, but he was touchy on the subject. With anyone else, you wouldn’t care. You’d demand answers. The softness that existed in relation to him felt like a wound, one she had no hope of healing.
“I’d give a lot to know what put that expression on your face,” Jael said softly.
She slid him a layered glance. “Make me an offer.”
“But you already have everything.”
The words hit her like an armored fist in the sternum. Dred was actually grateful when the men started chanting, “Dread Queen, Dread Queen!” and made it impossible for her to reply.
With a smothered sigh, she pushed to her feet and strode to the center of the hall. “Music!” she demanded.
The Queenslanders responded with makeshift instruments: pipes of synth tubing, drums from cloth stretched over a metal frame, and their stomping boots made up the rest of the rhythm. This had been Tam’s idea, a ritual that belonged only to the Queenslanders, unique to her territory. Give a stupid man the pretext of power, Tam had said, and he will never question whether it’s the real thing. So in such moments of revelry, the citizens had the right to demand a storydance, which might be a real thing somewhere but sounded like bullshit to Dred. Jael was watching, brow furrowed in puzzlement, when she began to move.
She kept time to the pace the men set, twirling in a pantomime of the night she killed Artan. The storydance unfolded in silent verses with each lash of her chains, each stomp of her feet, each clockwise turn. Though it was simple choreography, it was important to keep an eye on how the ritual impacted her audience. A few looked bored, as they’d seen it before, but others seemed enthralled with the sway of her hips. Most knew they’d never make it past the door of her quarters without dying, so this was the piece of the Dread Queen they claimed.
Einar used to roar out a song as I danced. Not a very good one, but meant to evoke the glorious nature of the deed; the big man had written it himself. In comparison, the storydance seemed oddly somber, performed without his accompaniment. As if the men sensed that same lack, someone in the back started singing:
The queen in waiting, she bided her time,
Watching, plotting, and waiting to strike.
While the brute, he ranted and roared,
Never seeing the danger in her.
There were several verses, though nobody but Einar had memorized them. So the men got lost around the third stanza and started making up their own. She didn’t let the terrible poetry distract her from finishing the performance, so she spun into the last moments of the dance with increased intensity, stomping and whirling, chains flying over her head until she thought she might strangle herself. By the time she finished, her arms and shoulders were aching, and the common room rang with the chants of “Dread Queen.”
“Explain to me what that was about,” Jael said, as she sat down. Quietly, she filled in him in, and when she finished, he was frowning. “You’re not a performing pet, Dred.”
She shrugged. “Take it up with Tam. They don’t ask often enough for me to care, usually just at celebrations like this.”
“If you don’t mind, it’s not my business.”
As time wore on, the men got drunker, but the patrolmen abstained. The louder it got in the hall, however, the more she wanted to escape. Jael laced his fingers with hers and pulled her away from the table, where two men were arm wrestling. She let him because she’d given the public enough for one night. Time for peace and quiet.
“Do you mind if we check on the sentries?”
“That’s probably a good idea. Tam said this is safe enough, but if I was Vost, I’d think this was the perfect time to attack.”
“Presuming he knows.”
Jael nodded. “I’ve been busting his drone cams as fast as I spot them, and he can’t have an unlimited supply.”
As they headed for the north border, Dred spotted Tam, along with Martine and Calypso. They each carried an armload of miscellaneous articles, and Calypso had a crate. “Mission accomplished.”
“What did you get?” she asked.
“Ammo and replacement parts mostly. They didn’t leave much for us in the command post.” Tam didn’t seem surprised. “I wouldn’t either.”
“He probably moved their more valuable gear,” Jael said.
Dred offered a half smile at that. “If he’s started hiding his goods, creating caches, then he’s going native.”
“We barely made it out,” Calypso put in. “The assholes came back singing. Seems like it went well in Munya.”
“Is there a party on?” Martine cocked her head, listening to the racket coming from the common room.
Dred stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture. “Have at it. They’re gambling, too, so you should be able to hustle a bunch of suckers.”
“Come with me. You’re a genius at spotting tells.”
Jael didn’t move, but Dred knew he was expecting her to accept the invitation. She found that she wanted to surprise him—in a good way. It had been so long since she gave a damn about anyone else’s feelings. This was both liberating . . . and terrifying.
“I’ve got other plans,” she said quietly.
“Oh?” Martine grinned. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Fortunately, that gives me a lot of leeway.”
Martine grinned. “Seems like we’ve bonded, queenie. I approve.”
Dred put a hand on Jael’s arm. “Let’s finish our rounds, then retire.”
“Sounds good, love.” He wore a light expression, but she saw that he expected her to bitch about the endearment, used in front of people.
Instead, she waved at the others and went to make sure the sentries were sober.
32
Coming in Hot
At the east checkpoint, the sentries reeked of rotgut and could barely stand upright. Jael bit out a curse. “I doubt there’s a sober man left in the place to relieve them.”
“Not who isn’t already assigned elsewhere.” Dred scraped an angry hand through her tangled hair. The trinkets clacked with the movement.
“Then we’ll have to finish their watch.”
She sighed. “It’s not how I wanted to spend our night, but it’s necessary.”
“I don’t mind.” He could’ve said that was because he had her with him, but it seemed like too close to a confession. Though he’d promised to help her escape, they’d never talked about a future. In here, such a thing didn’t exist.
“I appreciate it.” She turned to the drunken guards. “Get to bed. Now. If I find out you went to the common room to keep drinking, you’ll get worse than a flogging tomorrow.”
Jael could see that the men believed her, and they stum
bled off, leaving their post. Dred took up the weapons they’d left behind and handed one to Jael. He’d never stood watch like this, and he guessed it had been a long time for her, too.
“Did Artan ever station you here?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He preferred to keep me close.”
So do I.
It was a long night, listening to distant shouts from sotted Queenslanders. And when relief turned up, they were visibly worse for the wear and stunk of liquor.
“Are you two sober enough to stand watch?” Dred demanded. She put them through a series of a tests and eventually gave grudging permission for them to take over. “If there’s an incursion on your watch because one of you passed out, you better hope the enemy kills you before I do. I guarantee it’ll be faster.”
“We’ll keep each other awake,” the soldier promised.
“You almost made him piss himself,” Jael said, once they moved off.
“That’s my job.”
Together, they walked in silence to her quarters. Things had died down at last in the common room, the din replaced by periodic snoring. “I can only imagine how long it’ll take to set the place to rights.”
“Cook will see to it. He’ll kick the ones awake who passed out in the hall and make them clean.”
“That’ll teach them not to drink themselves stupid.”
“It hasn’t so far.”
After Jael stepped inside her quarters, she sealed the door behind them. “Not in the mood for company?”
“Just yours. Let me shower; and then . . .”
“And then?”
“We get some shut-eye.”
“Really?” He tried a mocking smile. “Don’t I deserve a reward for keeping you company tonight?”
“Maybe you just needed to ask.”
She slipped into the bath, then he heard the water running. If there was more space, he’d join her, but the san-shower was designed so tight that one person of average size could barely fit. It wouldn’t be seductive to get wedged in there. So he waited for her, sprawled on a chair while his eyes burned with weariness. He didn’t sleep much at the best of times and he was still mulling what had happened with Vix and Zediah. Keeping such a huge issue from Dred didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t let Zed spill his secret, either.
When she stepped out a few minutes later, she was clad only in a threadbare towel. Jael didn’t stir, letting her come to him. And once she dried off, she did.
“Did you want a turn?”
“I probably should.”
But Jael made his ablutions quick, an effort of necessity rather than luxury. She was already in bed waiting for him when he stepped out, and the lights were down, wreathing the room in darkness. External noises made him think downtime was almost over, but Queensland could get by for a few hours without them.
“I’m tired,” she said softly.
“Then we can sleep.” He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, though.
“I find that a workout before bed helps me to relax.”
Jael grinned. “Don’t invent reasons for sex, love. Just tell me that you want it.”
She propped up on an elbow and reached for him. “Not it. You.”
It took him two seconds to reach the bed, but she flipped him as soon as he touched her. “You smell good. Clean.”
“I do what I can.”
Heat simmered in Jael’s head, making it difficult to lie still. Dred was all shadow and hollows, but the play of muscle beneath her skin hinted at strength—and that he liked, very much. She was fire and vengeance. Blood. Sex. The two swelled around her until the two urges melded; she was carnal death, kneeling over him. He ached. She smelled luscious as she leaned down. Her mouth brushed the side of his throat.
He turned his head with a little growl, allowing her better access. Then she gripped with her teeth. The mock-threat should’ve been laughable; there was no way she could hurt him. But pleasure rolled through him regardless, particularly when her tongue traced where she’d bitten. More softness and heat. Desire careened in his veins, spiraling along nerve endings that could scarce contain its breadth.
He shifted, already wishing he could push her down and seize control. Never had he permitted a female to take charge of him like this. Yet there was a delicious, addictive quality to her softness—the way her hair fell across his throat as she ran her lips around to the other side. He breathed her in, delighting in her closeness. Dred bit her lip with her curious, blunt teeth, and phantom pleasure stole through him; he registered the bite as if to his own body.
“Ahh.” He arched. It was all he could do not to overpower her right then. Yet this was not a game of dominance, but something else, frightening and new. Jael trembled with the need to reach for her; closing his eyes helped a little.
“So you like that. Good to know.”
“Please tell me you’re not stopping.”
“I’m not.” She lowered her head.
Hell. If another woman in here got near him down there with her teeth, he’d scramble away, especially after Martine’s story. Her silken hair brushed him, and his whole body jerked. A snarl escaped him. Pleasure approached pain—and not because it actually hurt, but it was too much, too good, and he didn’t understand what he’d done to earn this extra gratification. Before, his encounters always ran on expected lines.
Not with her, never with her.
The first brush of her lips made him roar and draw his knees up. It was . . . indescribable. Her tongue followed. She teased up and down, using both in a sweet, maddening pattern. He pushed up, twisting and growling. This teasing would kill him.
She lifted her head, and he saw her lips were swollen, so red and shiny that he wanted to bite them. Jael pushed up to meet her, nipping with feral need. She welcomed it, opening her mouth to let him use his teeth on her tender flesh. Oh. Ohhh. She had her hand on him again, squeezing, stroking.
“I yield.” Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but in his head, he was babbling other words, promises, offers of devotion.
Somehow, he strangled them.
In answer, she swung a smooth leg across his body and came up on her knees. Her muscles flexed, tightening her stomach as she curled her hand around him again. Even that proved almost more than he could take.
“Hold my hips,” she whispered.
Jael did, his hands digging in, and she dropped, letting her weight do the rest. His breath went in a strangled gasp.
Her body clung—all heat and demand. He pushed up to meet her on each downward stroke. The sensation maddened him, but the position let him watch her build.
Her groans grew guttural. Dred breathed faster, exhaling in lovely gulps through her open mouth. And then she drew his fingers down. Despite his own madness and need, he took careful note as her whole body tensed; she sobbed out his name, her skin shiny with sweat. In response, he pulled her down hard.
“Is it too much?” Jael didn’t know whether he could stop, even if it was.
As he gazed up at her, the awareness exploded through him, wonder and amazement mingling with the furious delight. This is Dred, the woman who saved me. He was shaking when she lay down on him, tucking her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder.
“Can you sleep now?”
“Mmm,” she murmured.
When her breathing evened out, he had his answer. The specter of Vix and Zediah surged to the forefront of his brain. I don’t need this shit. Between Silence’s disappearing act and the mercs who would invade as soon as they put down Mungo’s cannibal dogs, he shouldn’t have to worry about internal threats, too. But in a place like Perdition, it came with the territory. While Queensland was better than the alternatives, it still wasn’t populated with honorable, trustworthy men.
Much like you.
Despite the worry, he slept for a few
hours. Jael never rested for more than four. Dred was still passed out when he rolled out of bed and got dressed. He was silent as he went, but before he got out the door, the alarm sounded. Klaxons had Dred out of the bunk and on her feet, scrambling for her clothes before he unlocked the door.
“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded.
“No idea. I’ll go find out. Catch up when you can.”
Jael went at a run, blowing past other men scrambling toward the north barricade. Tam and Martine met him, sprinting hard, but he shot by to where the sentries lay in a bloody heap. From the look of the hallway, it had been ravaged with heavy rounds, not laser fire, and the junk that formed the barricade was practically shredded. He moved closer to the rubble to see what the hell was lurking outside.
A weapon unloaded just beyond his line of sight, and he grabbed hold of the sentries, towing them back toward cover. They might be dead, but he couldn’t be sure. A ballistic round slammed through a metal plate and nailed him in the leg. Pain rocketed outward, followed by a trickle of hot blood. Gritting his teeth, Jael pulled harder.
His iron grip prompted a groan from one of the guards, and he opened his eyes. “Get back. Mercs, all the mercs. And they brought a Peacemaker.”
33
Red as Blood
When Dred hit the scene, she registered infinite carnage.
A score of Queenslanders were already dead or dying. Since Ike’s passing, she had charge of the Peacemaker unit, and she deployed it, but there was no safe haven for this battle, no place to shelter. The mercs came in hot behind their mech, mopping up with laser fire the men trying to crawl away in trails of their own blood.
It might be too late to defend her territory, but she could use one bot to take out the other. She keyed the commands on the remote and listened to the heavy tromp of her unit responding. Between the cries of pain and the rapid exchange of weapons fire, she had no idea where any of her closest comrades might be. Jael had dashed out of her quarters to investigate the alarm, and she hadn’t seen him since.
“Scatter!” she shouted. “Find a place to hide. It’s a big station. If they can’t find you, they can’t kill you. I’ll announce on the comm when it’s safe to return.”