Page 48 of Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Just staying here, waiting, is going to kill me.” Samantha paced the length of the Gwendella’s rec-room. Knock’s eyes followed her as if she were the ball in a ping match. Everything had gone to plan, but that was no comfort when Mercury, Lo and Carn were out there risking their lives.

Knock tossed a ball in the air and caught it. “Nothing else we can do until they get back. Until the commotion starts.”

“If they’re caught, I’m not leaving.” She would find a way to get them out. She wouldn’t leave them. She couldn’t.

“Don’t borrow trouble. They have the shields and the overrides I rigged. They’ll be fine.”

Knock got to his feet and stepped into her path. Momentum had her crashing into him before her brain could give up its worrying enough to respond to the movement. “Damn, Knock.”

He set her away from him but kept a grip on her arms. “Sammie, we’ve been all through this. Covered every contingency. All we can do is wait. You wearing out the decking isn’t helping a damn thing.”

The Gwendella’s duty officer appeared in the hatchway. “Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Devlin, but there’s a woman demanding to see you.”

Everything that could go wrong crowded into her thoughts. Her pulse surged. “She asked for me by name?”

The man fidgeted with his jacket as he answered. “Samantha Devlin.”

“Damn. She alone out there?”

“Alone, yes. Out there, no. She begged me to bring her in,” he explained sheepishly. “She looked scared to death.”

Samantha and Knock exchanged a glance and Knock left. Samantha knew he’d make a sweep for surveillance and tracker tags and monitor the hangar for transmissions.

“Well, then. Bring her in. Maybe she’s in the mood for some ping.” Samantha propped a hip against the ping table and crossed one booted foot over the other.

The officer led the woman into the room.

She gave her name as Rachel. Samantha took note of the mink brown hair she wore loose around her shoulders.

She held her head in a way that made the hair fall artfully over one side of her face, but scars snuck out of hiding to trace across her nose and lips.

Someone had clawed the woman’s face. Some Dog.

She had a terrible feeling she knew exactly who.

Even with the scars, Rachel was attractive.

The slashes had been shallow, at least where Samantha could see them.

They hadn’t done any structural or nerve damage.

The woman wore an evening dress that bared a lot of cleavage.

It might have been a tactic to distract people from the scars.

The dress synched tight around a narrow waist and a slit in the skirt showed enough leg to have the Gwendella’s officer acting like a schoolboy.

Samantha didn’t offer to shake her hand. “I’ve never understood how women manage not to fall out of dresses like that.”

“Practice. And adhesive.” Rachel’s gaze swept the room before coming back to Samantha. “But I didn’t come here to talk fashion.”

Samantha said nothing, leaving the other woman to fill the silence.

Rachel adjusted a bag that hung from her shoulder. “I know you’re the one who freed Diablo, Mercury, and Carnage.”

Samantha shrugged, all cool on the outside. Inside her mind spun, searching for a plan. “That’s what the bulletins claim, but you shouldn’t believe everything you read. Can I ask how you found me?”

“I know they’re here. I saw Lo and I knew you had to be the one to bring them back. I checked all the ships that landed today. I did some cross checks and this seemed the most likely one.”

A fist twisted in Samantha’s chest. “You saw Lo?” She shoved her hands behind her to hide the fact she’d started to shake.

“Near the kennels. I don’t think anyone else saw him. They’re going after Hera aren’t they?”

“Hera?” Samantha fought to keep her expression blank.

“Carn’s mate.”

“He has a mate?”

Rachel shook her head. “We don’t have time for games. Owens expected they’d try to get Hera out. I don’t think he expected you to come so soon, but the point is—”

Samantha pushed away from the ping table and crossed her arms over her chest. “A point? That would be good.”

“He moved her. Hera isn’t at the kennel anymore.”

“And?” And Samantha knew there would be no way her men would come back empty-handed. Funny how they’d all become hers, even Carn. She hated her fear over how things might change when they brought Hera back. They had to come back.

“I can take you to her.”

“Me?” Samantha laughed, but she knew it sounded hollow. “And I’m supposed to blindly follow you? Owens must think I’m stupid.”

“I didn’t tell him when I saw Lo.” Rachel tapped the toe of her pointy shoe.

“If I had, they would have everything on lockdown. Owens would’ve already dragged you off this ship.

But he doesn’t know about the Dogs being here and he doesn’t know that your father was pals with the owner of this ship.

He hasn’t bothered to look that deeply into your background. ”

“But you know, because?”

“Sevti. I’m working with the resistance.

” Rachel fingered the strap of her bag again.

“I can help you. And unless you have some way to contact the Dogs without alerting Roma, you’re going to have to be the one to do this.

I tried to get the resistance to help, but Sevti was my only contact, and he broke transmission before I could explain.

Now he’s missing. They’re likely questioning him.

You might not be safe here long enough to wait for the Dogs to find her on their own. ”

Samantha pushed her fear for Sevti aside.

She would tell the captain, beyond that she could do nothing to help him.

Samantha uncrossed her arms and reached for a ball from the ping table.

She closed her hand around the cool green surface.

They were unlikely to reach Mercury—a downside of the scatter-shield.

She wasn’t yet ready to trust Rachel, but she might not have a choice. “Lo gave you those scars.”

Rachel pulled her hair forward in a gesture that looked subconscious.

Samantha twisted the ping ball in her hand. “You betrayed him.”

“I needed him to attack me, so I provoked him.” Rachel shifted in her fashionably hazardous heels.

“Why?” Samantha set the ball spinning on the table. She wanted to slug the women who’d used Lo so callously.

“Owens was beginning to suspect me. When Lo attacked me, it put all his suspicions to rest.”

Samantha huffed. “You’re insane.”

“I’m determined.” The fist she’d wrapped around the strap to her bag had gone white with tension.

“You haven’t seen the arena up close and bloody.

You haven’t seen the kennels.” Rachel swallowed hard.

“You don’t know what it’s like to watch someone you love be drugged out of his mind, so he’ll rip out the throat of a Dog he fought beside the night before or fuck any bitch that’s willing to pay. ”

Tears rolled down Rachel’s cheeks. Samantha’s gut twisted in agony. She was talking about Lo. He’d told her, but she hadn’t had to watch. She’d filed it safely in the past. What would she be willing to do to keep that from happening to Lo, or Carn, or Mercury?

“We have to get Hera out,” said Rachel. “I know where she is now, but they’re going to move her again. They won’t risk losing her.”

“You make it sound like she’s more important to them than recapturing the guys.”

“She is.” Rachel studied her as if she were a flash flood that might jump the banks in a change of course that could drown her at any moment. “Hera is pregnant. It’s the first natural pregnancy they’ve been able to produce.”

The world had spun away and, selfish as it was, all Samantha could think was that it might be Mercury’s child.

It was a miracle and all she could do was stand there with her heart in her throat.

A child. She wouldn’t risk the life of an innocent.

It didn’t matter if it was Carn’s child or Mercury’s, she couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me what I need to do.”

Rachel opened her bag and pulled out a roll of bright red cloth. “You can start by putting on this dress.”