Page 50 of Tempting Jupiter (Arena Dogs #2)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jupiter’s words were a small thing, but they melted Feeona’s heart.

Maybe when they went their own ways, he would remember her with affection.

She would remember him with a love so deep it would never let her go.

His watchful presence was a comfort as she worked with his pack to secure the ship.

Even if she suspected he wasn’t just there to keep her safe but to make sure she didn’t try to steal the ship out from under them.

She couldn’t blame him. If she thought she could control the enormous ship singlehandedly, she would have considered it.

“Seneca was right. Mercury is fast.” She’d been using Bug to work with him to locate the mercenaries and disarm the explosives. Unfortunately, Bug’s energy-pack was draining fast with such intense use.

Jupiter grunted in response.

The hacker, whose name was Knock, made a distracted sound of agreement. He wore a headset that covered one ear and positioned a microphone to the side of his mouth. Primitive, but functional. He’d been working with Creek and the freed prisoners to lock down the ship’s crew.

She’d been keeping an eye on Seneca, but he and the mountain sized Carn had the bridge under control.

Jupiter moved closer. “Is everything okay?”

He’d picked up her concern over the last bomb and the low power warning flickering in the corner of her vision. “As fast as Mercury is, we won’t be able to disable that last bomb if Bug can’t make the distance. I don’t think I can talk him through a manual disarm.”

“Can the ship survive if it explodes?”

“Shit,” said Knock. “Did you say bomb and explode?”

Jupiter growled. “Concentrate on your own tasks.”

Knock waved his hands in the air. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just give me a heads up if we’re all going to die.”

“The ship can survive, but it would be a rough ride. We might have damage in the landing bay.”

Jupiter made a concerned noise. “Mercury and Carn’s mates are still in the landing bay.”

“And the shuttle pilots.” Knock had clearly not stopped listening. “You need a hand?”

“Mercury.” Feeona spoke to him through the ship’s intercom to conserve Bug’s power. “I’m going to land Bug on your shoulder. We’re losing power too fast.”

She waited for him to nod. There was never a break in his stride.

“If Bug goes dark before you get there, you need to run directly back toward the bridge to get clear of the blast.”

Somehow, he managed to pick-up his pace.

It wasn’t going to be enough.

The flashing low power warning stopped.

She grabbed Jupiter’s arm. “I need to go there.”

Without question, he scooped her up and swung her onto his back.

“Knock, warn Mercury.” She tossed it over her shoulder as Jupiter launched into motion.

She directed him through the endless taupe corridors from memory, unable to keep her connection with the ship’s systems. His feet pounded the floor and his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

He was there and he was real… and he’d trusted her again.

She wasn’t worthy of his trust. She wanted to press her face to his back and soak in his warmth while she still had him in reach.

Instead, she kept her eyes open, concentrated on the reality of the moment, and gave him directions. “Next right.”

His ear twitched as her breath brushed it.

They had to make it in time. The goon with the explosives hadn’t planted them yet. Maybe the explosives weren’t armed. Her breathing accelerated, even as Jupiter’s held steady. How long would it take her to disable the bomb without Bug? “I’ll find a way,” she muttered.

Jupiter made a grunt of agreement. “You always do, my mate.”

His mate. The words started an ache in the pit of her belly.

She wasn’t meant to be his mate. She could never put him first as he deserved.

Seneca was the one to do that. But what if Sen had been right about mates being forever?

If she’d condemned him to needing her when his heart should belong to Seneca, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

The long hallways started to blend together. God, she was tired. “Next left. He should be right around the corner.”

“I smell him. And Mercury.” As he approached the corner, she could hear Mercury and the mercenary fighting. There were no words. Only the heavy thud of blows.

Jupiter swung her off his back and plopped her on the floor. “Stay here until it’s clear.”

Then he disappeared around the corner as a blaster pulse zipped past. She edged toward the corner, twisted, and peeked around.

Damn. The man had just thrown a second armed drone into the air. Her first instinct was to hack it, but without Bug she’d have to get closer.

If his explosives were armed, time was ticking.

She saw Mercury, his body a blur of motion, dodge another blast.

Jupiter ran toward the fight, kicked off a wall and flipped into the air.

He swung out and swatted down one of the drones.

Cervenka’s man reached out and grabbed Jupiter’s leg.

They ended up grappling on the floor together and a black bag came off the mercenary’s back and slid down the corridor.

It was the only storage the man had been carrying.

And the explosives had to be in there.

Feeona belly-crawled along the floor. The sound of the blast pulses was getting closer.

She snatched the bag and scooted back around the corner. She could feel Jupiter’s eyes on her, but he didn’t or couldn’t come to defend her. She was glad of that.

She pulled open the bag and her heart sank.

The bomb was armed and had more explosive power than any of the others.

Damn. She lifted it carefully out of the bag and examined the mechanism.

Damn. Damn. Damn. That was different, too.

She closed her eyes and, using just her neural implant, tried a near-field hack.

Oh, God. She couldn’t even connect.

She looked up and down the hall for something, anything she could use to keep the thing from killing them. A bomb-proof lock box would be handy.

She struggled to her feet. “Knock.” She knew he’d be monitoring. “Patch me through to Sen.”

A brief pause, then Sen’s voice. “Fee, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t disarm the bomb. The only thing I can think to do is to get it as far away from Jupiter and Mercury as I can.” She didn’t know what else to say. She’d just wanted… So many times they’d complained that she hid her plans from them.

She took one last look toward Jupiter. The last remaining drone had Jupiter and Mercury penned down.

It had to be running on AI without a kill switch command, because the mercenary was very dead.

They were using his body as a shield. They were going to be okay.

She had to believe that they would be fine, if she could just get them clear of the explosion.

She got to her feet and ran.

“Fee!” It was Seneca. “There’s an emergency airlock, not far. Will that work?”

“Yes!” She’d even headed the right direction on instinct or luck. Hope renewed her strength and added speed to her pace. Her lungs burned.

The hatch came into view and she pushed harder, faster. She slammed into the wall next to it, panting for air. She grabbed the manual emergency access ring, turned, and pushed.

Nothing happened. A wave of nausea hit her. That shouldn’t be possible. It was an emergency airlock. They were never shut down.

Eyes fixed on the red glowing light over the sealed interior doors, she initiated a hack. The interior hatch opened, giving her access to the airlock itself.

She could see the blackness of space through the small porthole in the exterior door. Sliding the bomb carefully into the lock, she looked for a way to reclose the door just short of a seal. She wanted enough air to be able to escape to push the bomb far out into the black.

The mental equivalent of tripping over a wire shook her. A rush of panic squeezed her heart. “Knock! Something just happened. I’m locked out of the airlock controls.” How could she not have seen something like that in any of her data on the security systems? “Knock!”

“Looking!”

He had to find it and shut it down. “It has to be some kind of master override implemented recently.”

“Shit.” Knock’s voice wavered. “I haven’t even dug into the part of the system that deals with airlocks.”

Over the rush of her pulse pounding in her ears, she heard Jupiter calling her. They’d dealt with the drone. That was good.

No! Not good. “Knock, keep Jupiter and Mercury away from here.”

“I can’t do two things at once.”

“Do it.” She shouted it to make it absolutely clear. A gut-wrenching snap and another then cursing signaled the Arena Dogs slamming into a security field.

“Fee.” Seneca was still looped in and he sounded blessedly calm. “You have to let Jupiter help you.”

Nothing could happen to Jupiter. She couldn’t live with that. “Knock?”

“Nothing yet.” Panic filled his voice.

How much time had there been left on the bomb? “Knock, lock off this corridor with the safety system.”

“But, I—”

“This! Do this.” If the bomb exploded it would minimize damage to the ship.

“Feeona!” Jupiter sounded furious.

“Fee!” Seneca’s voice boomed through the intercom. “Don’t you die on me. I’m coming to you, now.”

Jupiter and Seneca shouted again but this time they were threatening Knock if he didn’t let them through. No! Her mind screamed it. But she had to set it aside and trust Knock to keep them safe.

Fee stepped into the airlock, dropped to her knees, and pulled off an access panel to the plasti-sealant conduits. The essential material was right there, running through transparent tubing, in easy reaching distance. Poor design.

Pulling one of the alloy styling pins from her hair, she grabbed the nearest safety handle with her other hand. She worked her arm under and wrapped it around the bar.

“Knock,” she had to concentrate to keep her voice steady. “If Jupiter and Mercury aren’t behind a sealed door, tell them to hang on to something.”

They were strong. They would be okay.

She crouched down, took a deep breath, and smashed the pin through the conduit.

Jupiter slid into her, slamming her body against the bulkhead. “Fee?”

“No time. Hold on.”

The whoosh of air registered first. Then pain.

It was so big it filled her mind. It took her a second to remember why she was clinging to the side of an emergency hatch.

After the powerful jerk on her body, she was definitely feeling the emergency.

She felt it in her shoulder and where Jupiter’s arm wrapped around her waist like an alloy safety band.

He shouldn’t be there. I didn’t want you to die, big guy.

She wanted to tell him, but she had no air to speak.

The sound of it venting into the vacuum of space screamed in her ears.

It felt as if an enormous hand had reached in and was trying to rip her out of the ship.

Light began to bleed out of the corners of her vision. She let her chin fall to her chest and watched her feet swing above space. Her boots were gone—what an odd thing.

There was no way to close those external doors.

Jupiter’s heat was a beacon, the only warmth in the cold, cold airlock. He should let her go. With his strength he might be able to climb free.

Vibrations rippled through the ship. The bomb.

Jupiter pulled at her body, pressed her back against the bulkhead and covered her mouth with his. He breathed into her mouth and she sucked the small traces of oxygen into her lungs. She lost track of time. She had a sense of movement, of things happening around her, and then she slipped away.

***

Jupiter paced in the Abundance’s med-bay.

It was a large room with beds for several patients at once.

He thought he’d lost her—Fee. She lay in an aftercare bed, curled on her side, blue cushions under her head, supporting her back, and keeping her arm and shoulder comfortably aligned.

The bed was wider than a typical med-bed and he wanted to crawl into it with her.

He would have if Mercury’s small, lively mate wasn’t sitting on the side of the bed.

Her name was Samantha, and she’d been brought there to supervise Morgan’s medics, whose allegiance was uncertain.

When they’d found no damage except Fee’s dislocated shoulder and bruises, he’d taken over the task of moving her bones back into place.

It seemed right. After all, she’d taken care of his injuries back on the Salley Ho .

Six weeks. It had been six weeks since he’d woken up on the resistance ship.

Six weeks since he’d first seen her. When she’d slipped into unconsciousness in that airlock, he’d feared she was gone.

As his brothers worked to drag them past the interior hatch so Knock could shut it, he’d shared the oxygen his lungs were so efficient at using and conserving.

Then he’d had to stop and help get them clear.

Seneca appeared in front of him. He’d been leaning against the wall, watching him pace. A gentle anger had dominated his expression since they’d gotten Fee to the med-bay. “We are fortunate she is so strong.”

“Yes, but I would rather she did not risk her life so readily.”

A muscle in Sen’s jaw twitched. “If we’re to keep our mate safe, you’ll have to accept that she will always risk herself.” There was censure in his tone.

This was a side of him Jupiter had rarely seen. It confused him coming from the sensual, painted Sen. “Were you nude when she painted that dog on your chest?”

Sen didn’t blink. “Yes.”

Jupiter humphed for lack of a better response. He flicked his ears forward, studying Sen closely. “You said our mate.”

“I did.” Sen pressed his lips together in an unyielding line.

“Good.” His instincts and his body liked the certainty in his mate’s voice.

Sen’s eyes widened. “Samantha, can you watch over Feeona while she sleeps? Jupiter and I need to talk.”

The female brushed a lock of hair from Fee’s shoulder. “Of course. She’ll be safe with me.”

And Lo would be watching over Samantha. He currently stood watch in the hallway. He seemed glued to the woman’s side.

The moment Sen had his answer, he strode to the door. He looked over his shoulder, spearing Jupiter with his exotic eyes. “Follow me.”