Page 28 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

Pioden’s vitals were still strong an hour later, thanks to the pulse puck Novak and Bjorek had hardwired into his holotab. They’d taken an eye in a clear specimen cube, his dominant hand’s index finger and thumb, and then left him to the sand. His veins would collapse with livor mortis before the end of the day, though it was unpredictable how long they had. An hour? Five at most. Then Guei would know her brainwashed pet was walking Tailu.

Bjorek touched down in the central courtyard of their guest riad. The potted plants barely ruffled as the sleek machine hovered with its cockpit open. Just enough space for two grown men.

“I heard that this is the type of needle Commander Atarian used when he abducted Olivia,”

Bjorek mused, hopping out first. Novak slinked out of the backseat looking like an escaped convict that had survived a stone washer. Technically, it wasn’t far from the truth.

“Do you think she knows that?”

The agent stretched his spine, throwing off his prison clothes. He crouched naked in the courtyard next to a delicate fulgurite fountain set in the wall, using his tattered tunic to wash blood from his back. When he was done, he wrapped Charlie’s medallion around his wrist and hooked it into his hardened plumes.

“If she did, there would be retaliation. I’d bet half my cache we’d find him stuffed in the back with his spires poking the seat cushions.”

Bjorek hissed with amusement, but Novak’s eyes dilated, slashed pupils widening.

Charlie’s chemia draped their shared courtyard, but she hadn’t been there since the party. He climbed gracefully up onto the archways of the courtyard, looking over the city like a dragon surveying a kingdom. The wind buffeted his ears and lifted his plumes, ruffling the orange downy underneath. A bit of her chemia bled into his colear? and her magenta mist rose about the ancient stones and plaster.

It wasn’t hard to find her, though. She was at the tea house two blocks away, vibrant dark pink wisps of scent rising out of the stone lattice windows. Sath was with her, his bronze powders mingling with her chemia in the air.

Novak’s claws dug into the soft sandstone, but he held back his growl. Sath’s wide eyes and firm grip on Charlie’s shoulders flashed through his mind. The mob that overwhelmed his tail and rendered him ineffective. It could happen again if he ventured into the city.

“We should wait,”

he rumbled, mesmerized by the call to Charlie. The calculating patience of a hunter settled over him, overwhelming his urgency and hunger. He licked his fangs back, swallowing venom, intent on catching his quarry no matter how long it took to do it safely.

“Did you—”

The young advenan stopped short. Novak blinked down at him from his perch like a raven, his tail wrapped around the pillar to keep his balance.

“You know.”

“Yes,”

he said simply, then gave Bjorek a jackal’s smile in the bright pink morning light.

“There’s nothing sweeter than the Hunt. Charlie is mine, now and forever.”

Bjorek’s colear? swelled, his plumes rising like hackles. He expelled his breath in sharp exhales, panting to keep his composure as his tail paced the courtyard, smacking this way and that, leaving scars in the pottery.

It took him a long time to settle while Novak leaned into the wind, watching with all his senses. He came down only long enough to put on clothes and choose his gear. Charlie moved throughout the day with Sath by her side. He didn’t need to follow them to know they visited a garden near the Canal, or stopped by HIXBS’s campus. If he did follow them, the hjarna wouldn’t survive.

Darkness was descending when Bjorek joined Novak among the arches. His green plume mail blended in with the marbled sandstone well enough. Both of them stilled like gargoyles on their perches, eyes unblinking and fixed on the riad gate.

Sath’s hesitant concern filtered up through the courtyard first.

“Are you sure, yes, that you’re alright? Yesterday…”

“Pure shite, the whole thing,”

Charlie huffed. She came into view and Novak leaned a little closer, locking up his plume mail so he couldn’t breath. Couldn’t move.

“Right, hm.”

Sath’s eyes were dim, far away and deep in thought.

“Are you sure, yes, that you are comfortable returning here, Charlie?”

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 archway tighter 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 his colear? to the seam. He drew Charlie into his lungs and clenched his jaw. Something was off about her chemia. 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.”

“Her chemia is 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’s chemia again, 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.