Page 15 of Ruin (Villains for Hire)

R uin moved silently, gun in hand, using the deep shadows as cover. At his side, Hush’s movements were just as soundless as they worked their way through the maze of the dark, cavernous warehouse.

How in the hells had they found him?

He trusted that Hush had arrived without being seen, and his interface would’ve alerted him to the presence of a tracker, if anyone had gotten close enough to plant one. That meant either Lira or the bot had left a trail, or someone had seen them carrying him back last night.

Which also meant this den was blown. Soon as they took care of these mercs, they’d have to pack what they needed and leave.

The idea of never coming back to this hideout sent a pang through him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d held on to the thought that, even if Lira ended up leaving him behind, he could return here. Could revisit this place.

Angry at being robbed of that possibility, he clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, but kept his movements smooth and silent.

Cocking his head, he listened for the intruders.

The musty scent of decades-old machinery hung in the stale air. Towering shapes loomed around them—rusted conveyor belts, hulking furnaces, and tangles of pipes snaking across the floor and ceiling. The distant hum of the spaceport's bio-converters filled the silence, joined by the occasional drip of water somewhere in the cavernous expanse.

Being a Lurian, he had the ability to heighten his senses at will—a skill that'd saved his ass more times than he could count. Focusing on that innate talent, he braced for the inevitable sensory overload and amplified his sensitivity.

The world around him abruptly sharpened into crystalline focus.

The inky warehouse brightened into a thousand shades of grey. Every sound became clearer, every scent more potent. The faint rustle of fabric. The soft click of talons on the floor. The sharp tang of anticipation overlaid with the musky stench of sweat. He saw the subtlest movement in the darkness, felt the slightest shift in the shadows.

Sorting through the onslaught of information, he picked out eight distinct sources.

He signaled Hush to split right. With a barely perceptible nod, his friend melted into the gloom, circling around to flank their targets from the opposite side.

Not two steps later, Ruin caught a flicker of movement up ahead. The matte barrel of a rifle preceded an armored figure stepping out from behind a generator.

Taking aim, he shot the merc clean through the temple.

The body hadn’t even crumpled when something huge slammed into him from the side.

Exhaling quickly, he managed to keep the impact with the ground from paralyzing his diaphragm, but couldn’t evade the metal fist that nailed him square on the fucking cheekbone.

He twisted and managed to get one arm free, then promptly slammed his elbow into his attacker’s faceplate hard enough to shatter it.

Undeterred, the merc—who he could now see was a Voragon male—seized his throat in a crushing grip. Blue spots sparked at the edges of his vision as blood flow was cut off.

Teeth bared, he struck the outside of the Vor’s elbow, dislocating it with a wet pop. The clawed fingers around his throat went slack, letting him suck in a breath.

In the same moment, he slammed his fist into the merc’s broken helmet with enough force to split the skin over his knuckles. The blow would’ve shattered bones in most other species, helmet or no, but the Vor’s head barely moved.

Growling out a laugh, the male drove his shoulder into Ruin’s solar plexus, forcing all the air out of his lungs.

Mid-wheeze, Ruin twisted with the shift in the Vor’s weight and grabbed his combat knife. With a heave, he shoved it into the thin, unarmored junction between the male’s helmet and neck guard, and sliced clean through.

Arterial spray coated his face in a hot rush. Gurgling, the Vor threw himself to the side, writhing and clutching at his throat.

Ruin was already rolling, coming up to a crouch, pistol raised to take out the next attacker closing in.

A brilliant flare of plasma fire sizzled past his head, the shots so close he felt his skin blister. He dove for cover behind a rusted turbine as the barrage continued, metal screaming where the bolts struck.

Dipping low, he peeked out and caught a glimpse of a figure perched on one of the overhead catwalks, armed with a plasma cannon that was steadily chewing through the machinery Ruin was ducked behind.

Memorizing the angle, he ducked back behind cover, narrowly missing a shot to the fucking face. Hunkering farther down, he angled his gun around the corner and fired.

A faint grunt was followed by the distinct sound of a body hitting the ground.

After another quick look to make sure the path was clear, he continued deeper into the warehouse. Ahead and off to the right, he picked up the sounds of a fight and changed direction to head that way.

Stepping into a deep pool of inky darkness cast by a towering mass of machinery, his instincts immediately flared. Ruin slowed his advance, ears straining for any hint of movement. Just as he was about to duck under a low pipe, a soft rustle, like fabric sliding across metal, reached him.

He froze, sweeping the gloom until he spotted a faint shimmer in the blackness, like heat waves rising off a desert. Focusing all his senses on that spot, he detected the slightest displacement in the air currents, the barest whiff of an exotic, musky scent drifting on the stale breeze.

A Nyxian .

The horned, nebula-skinned species was renowned across the galaxy, both feared and revered for their deadly skills and formidable telepathic abilities.

Onyx Corp was real fucking serious about getting the info they thought Lira had if they were willing to shell out the cost of hiring a Nyxian. The price they demanded wasn’t just an outrageous sum of credits, but usually included letting them poke around in your head. They collected secrets and information the way Drifters collected shiny things.

Lurians were, unfortunately, particularly sensitive to Nyxian telepathy. Something about having nascent abilities themselves. If a friend of his, a Nyxian and fellow merc on the Vengeance, hadn’t helped him build up mental walls, Ruin was sure he wouldn’t have felt the presence ahead of him at all.

As it was, he barely had time to get a single shot off before a hail of energy bolts sent him diving behind cover.

“Fuckin’ hells!” he hissed, glaring at the bleeding gash on his bicep.

He knew damn well Lira was gonna make that worried, upset face that always hit him like a punch to the fucking gut when she saw it.

Pissed off now, he pulled an implosion grenade off his belt. Priming it for a ten-foot radius, he tossed it around the corner.

As the blast shook the ground, Ruin bared his teeth in a satisfied smile and loped off deeper into the gloom.

Lira crept down the dark passageway, heart hammering against her ribs. Fear had her stomach twisted into a hard, queasy knot, but it was outweighed by the driving need to find Ruin, to see with her own eyes that he was okay.

Just before leaving the room, the bot had darted to one of Ruin’s crates and returned with a little pistol. It honestly didn’t look like it was capable of much damage, but it was better than nothing, and it still made her feel safer. The weight of it was heavy, foreign, but she tried to hold it steady, to keep her hands from shaking.

Beside her, the bot fluttered its wings and emitted a low, distressed hum. Glancing over, she offered a weak smile, trying to soothe it and taking comfort from its presence at the same time.

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered.

It cut her a look with those big, black eyes and, in spite of having no facial expressions, perfectly communicated how unconvincing it found her statement.

Approaching a bend, it extended one long, spindly leg to block her while it peeked around the corner first. When it signaled it was clear, she edged around the corner, straining to hear the sounds of distant fighting. Her heart seized when a particularly loud blast echoed through the labyrinthine space, followed by an eerie quiet.

Please, please let Ruin be okay , she begged silently, picking up the pace.

As they hurried down the winding corridor, movement in her peripheral vision had her whipping around, bringing her pistol to bear on… nothing? Her brow furrowed.

The sounds of combat started up again, making her jump. Pulse fluttering like a trapped thing, she swallowed and forced her feet to carry her onward, toward the blasting of weapons and grunts of exertion.

Toward Ruin.

When they reached the end of the corridor, she and the bot flattened themselves against the wall and snuck a quick look into the open space beyond. Bursts of blaster fire illuminated the darkness in blinding flashes, giving her disjointed glimpses of the fighting.

Struggling to focus past the bright spots left behind from those flashes, she searched for Ruin’s familiar pale skin and dark tattoos.

She saw Hush first, caught in a brawl with two mercenaries. The Drifter was a blur of crimson skin and flashing blades, his prehensile tail snapping out to knock a pistol from one's hand while he slashed his knife across another's throat in a spray of scarlet.

Scanning farther right, she sucked in a breath. There.

Ruin was locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat with a mammoth Voragon. Despite the Vor’s superior size and strength, Ruin fought with ruthless efficiency, his blows precise and calculated to inflict the most damage.

The violence and intention in his movements, not to hurt, but to kill, was simultaneously arresting and a little shocking to witness.

When he’d rescued her, he cut through Vargot and his guards like a laser scalpel through flesh. It’d been so quick and effortless, she hadn’t truly appreciated just how deadly he really was.

Instead of inspiring fear, seeing exactly how lethal he was filled her with a potent sense of security.

This beautifully monstrous male was her haven, the one place in the universe where she felt safe.

Movement from the corner of her eye had her whipping her head around. An injured assassin stepped into view, gun raised.

Lira didn’t need to follow his line of sight. She knew immediately who he had in his crosshairs.

Without thought or hesitation, she brought up her own gun and activated the trigger.

The Vor’s body crumpled to the ground with a heavy thud, half his skull now missing. In almost the same moment, a single shot echoed through the warehouse.

He spun around, gun up and finger on the trigger, but it wasn’t a merc.

Standing in the mouth of the corridor, the bot by her side, stood Lira.

Perhaps even more shocking was seeing a little mag-coil pistol clutched in her hands, still aimed at the crumpled figure lying motionless not ten feet away from her. How in the thirteen hells had she found that gun amidst the plethora of others he had in that room? The guns were deceptively powerful, considering their size, and damned hard to get ahold of. He was absolutely positive that one had been at the bottom of a crate. The bot had to have found it for her.

He flicked a glance at the dead assassin, the Nyxian he thought he’d taken out with a grenade, then back to Lira. Fierce pride surged through him, followed immediately by a sickening dread.

She'd just killed to protect him. His sweet, delicate, little human had just taken a life. Because of him. For him.

His heart clenched painfully.

She blinked a couple times, then lowered her arm and turned, her gaze unerringly finding his.

He braced for shock, for horror, expecting those beautiful green eyes to be swimming with tears and full of blame for putting her in this position.

Instead, her lips split in a wide smile full of pride.

Lifting her free hand, she made a fist, with her little thumb pointed straight up at the ceiling. The gesture, while unfamiliar to him, was so fucking adorable he almost couldn’t stand it.

Godsdamn.

Realization slammed into him with such force it stole his breath. He was hopelessly, irredeemably, in love with her.

Love wasn't something he'd ever expected to feel, not in his line of work, not with the life he led. But there it was, unfurling in his chest like a supernova, filling every corner of his being with warmth.

An adoring, lopsided grin spread across his face.

Coming up to stand beside him, Hush quipped, “If you don’t ask her to be your life partner, I’m gonna.”

When Ruin cut him a warning look, the expression on the male’s face wasn’t flippant. It was admiring.

“I’m gonna miss you after I kill you,” he growled.

Hush chuckled and stepped forward over the Vor’s dead body. He glanced back over his shoulder with a taunting smile, seemingly unconcerned despite the deadly seriousness with which Ruin had delivered the threat.

“You oughta be thanking the luck moon I’m a good friend, or I’d just woo her without warnin’ you.”

Well, fuck. Now, he really was gonna have to go kill his best friend.