Armageddon (15 page)

She frowned, thinking about it for several moments. “I suppose,” she added slowly, “it could be like a hereditary agenda, programs hidden beneath other programs until most of them don’t even know it’s there, but if that’s the case, there’d be no stopping it short of overthrowing the entire gov and starting from scratch because there wouldn’t be one target, or even a handful. It would be policy that would have to be attacked and changed, not people.”

Dax and the tino man exchanged a speaking glance. “So, that’s your theory?”

Dax asked.

Lena looked at him in surprise. “I don’t have a theory. I don’t have a clue. I thought all this was just rumors--the cloning. I didn’t even realize the rebels were as organized as this,” she said, gesturing toward the room at large. “The gov’s broke. How could they afford a project like this?”

Dax’s lips twisted in disgust. “The gov isn’t broke.
That’s
a rumor. They’re not too broke to live well while the common man suffers, not too broke to keep a standing army to keep everybody in line, just too damned broke to provide any of the services they’re paid for and too busy looking the other way while the wealthy in this country turn the citizens into slave labor for themselves
and
the gov. There’s no life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for any of
the people
anymore, just the pursuit of survival. And no justice when the home guard is judge, jury, and executioner.”

“The head of one of the mega corps, you think?” Lena asked tentatively.

Dax shrugged. “It’s beginning to look like the only way to stop this, the only way to be sure, is to take them all out and let God sort them.”

* * * *

Lena encountered a dilemma she’d never expected to have to deal with--how to behave as an innocent around people who obviously thought she wasn’t. It seemed to her that there was nothing she could do that would change the way they looked at her. If she was friendly, they were suspicious. If she avoided them, she was behaving suspiciously.

If she did neither, but merely lingered in the areas where they spent their time off duty, then she was probably just hanging around in hopes that she would overhear something.

No one said anything, but they didn’t have to. It was the way they looked at her, the way conversations died whenever she approached and then picked up again in an entirely different vein.

With no way of knowing how long she might have to remain with them, she made an effort to try to behave as if she was comfortable around the ship’s crew, as if she felt like one of them. It wouldn’t have been easy if she hadn’t felt that every move she made

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and every word out of her mouth was being monitored and judged. She was a historian.

She spent most of her time alone with books and artifacts. She had never learned how to be sociable, which hadn’t mattered before because her work didn’t require it and she was satisfied with being a loner.

Mel was the only member of the entire crew who seemed to actually try to make friends, but Lena wanted nothing to do with her after the things she’d told her that day in the med lab. Maybe Mel honestly had been trying to be helpful, but she’d only succeeded in making it impossible for Lena to set aside her paranoia.

To make matters worse, Dax was increasingly irritable, even though she tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, knowing it couldn’t be easy sharing space he was accustomed to having to himself. He spent more and more time on the bridge, and less in his cabin all the time.

She might have been relieved that he spent so little time around her since it was becoming harder and harder for her to ignore the fact that Dax was dangerous to her in more ways than she could count. Because there was no getting around the fact that she had passed well beyond merely being attracted to him. She’d begun to feel like a she-cat in heat any time he was in her vicinity, so jittery, so keenly sensitive and on edge that it grated on her nerves, tempting her almost beyond bearing even though she knew becoming intimate with him would be disastrous for her.

Beyond her tenuous position among the rebels, he was a dangerous man, period.

Tenderness of any kind seemed to be beyond his understanding, which was small wonder considering the life he had lived and continued to live. Unfortunately, it was that arid desert that she sensed inside of him that drew her just as surely as it unnerved her, touching off a growing need in her to try to give him what he had never had, or at least could barely remember.

She was inclined to think that desire was almost like having a death wish because not only was she not at all certain that he would welcome it, but she knew in her bones that she would not be able to hold anything back and she would suffer for it because he was what he was and it was too late to change that. He was a rebel and he would be until he died, or terminated his enemy. Nothing, and no one, was going to turn him from the path he’d chosen.

What made the entire situation untenable, though, was that she needed to feel like she had at least one ally and Dax was the only one onboard that she trusted enough even to feel a modicum of security.

When the tension between them began to seem more and more explosive instead of less so, she couldn’t help but wonder and worry that something she’d said had triggered alarms in his head that he might have been hasty in trusting her even enough to allow her to roam the ship at will and to give her the umbrella of his protection. And she was as torn by the fear that he’d decide to withdraw his protection as she was concerned that any overtures she might think to make toward him would either be flatly, and embarrassingly, rejected or looked upon with the same suspicion as every thing else she did, that he would think she was trying to seduce him for some evil agenda.

Trying to talk her way into acceptance hadn’t gotten her anywhere. She’d done her best to allay both Dax and Mel’s suspicions and couldn’t see that she’d made any appreciable headway even with the two people who seemed most inclined to believe her.

It seemed to her, in fact, that the harder she tried, the less they believed.

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With no idea of what else she could do, she finally decided that the only thing she
could
do was to try her best to be invisible. Once she was with Nigel, it wouldn’t matter what they thought. Nigel would know her. If Nigel was determined to see his part in this through, then she would try to help him and then they could find somewhere to go where they would be safe both from the rebels and whoever was behind the conspiracy to replace thinking human beings with workers that were more like drones.

It would’ve helped her feelings immensely if she’d just known how long she would have to deal with the situation, but she was afraid even to ask that much. When she’d finally nerved herself to ask Mel where they were going and been told ‘home base’, which she’d known already, she had been so focused on learning some time frame that she’d pressed her for just where home base was located. She didn’t need to be physic to see that the question had set off alarms. Mel had looked at her as if she’d just grown two heads and informed her that only a handful of people knew the exact location and she wasn’t one of them.

Retribution wasn’t long in coming. She’d barely scurried back to her cave when Dax had arrived. One look at his face was enough to assure her that Mel had lost no time trotting to him to tell him Lena was trying to wheedle top secret information out of her.

“You have some need to know the location of the base?” he growled after staring at her for several moments as if he was contemplating tearing her head off.

Unnerved as she was by the barely leashed violence she sensed in him, Lena’s anger surged to the forefront. “I don’t care where the damned base is!” she shouted at him. “I want my brother and I want to get out of here and away from you. All of you!”

His lips tightened. “If it bothers you that much to share the cabin with me, you can move to the barracks. I’m sure as hell not going to complain about it. I might get some damned sleep!”

The threat struck home, sending Lena’s anger into a tailspin. “It wouldn’t bother me if you didn’t go around like … an old bear all the time! And I do not keep you from sleeping!”

“Like hell you don’t!”

“Fine!” she snapped, realizing she’d painted herself into a corner and only had two options, neither of which was really palatable. She could find some place else to sleep, or she could try to calm the savage beast. She was just mad enough to be stupid, though, and too hard headed for her own good. “I’ll sleep somewhere else.”

“Good!” Dax snarled. Moving to the bed, he plopped down on the edge and began working his boots off.

After glancing at him doubtfully for several moments, Lena finally turned to leave. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a clue of where she was going. She sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere near the barracks.

She was already halfway down the corridor between Dax’s cabin and the access tube when she heard him behind her. One look at his face was enough to shoot a rush of adrenaline through her and set her feet in motion. He caught her while she was still trying to decide whether to race up, or down, the ladder. Hooking an arm around her waist, he yanked her off the ladder. Instead of setting her on her feet, though, he turned and strode back to his cabin.

She wouldn’t have minded being ‘made’ to do what she wanted to do anyway, except that he was in a mood she didn’t quite trust. “Put me down!” she demanded,

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trying to pry his arm lose.

She couldn’t, and he ignored her demand until they’d stepped into his cabin again.

When he finally released her, she whirled and headed for the door again.

He caught her again just as she reached for the release to open it, whirling her around and shoving her against the panel with a palm planted just beneath her breasts.

“Baby girl, you are trying my patience.”

“You don’t have any patience! At all!”

He ground his teeth. “I know you don’t have a clue of what’s going on here,” he growled. “But these people here know their lives are on the line. And it’s really stupid to make them nervous about your loyalties by asking questions like the one you asked while ago.”

“I’m not stupid!” she spat at him, struggling with the wobble in her chin. “I know they’re just as afraid of me as I am them. I’m just … tired of being scared all the time. I want Nigel. He’ll know me!”

Dax stared at her a long moment, his expression haunted. “
I
know you, baby girl.”

She sniffed, trying to blink back the tears that began pooling in her eyes. “Then why do you act like you hate me? Why don’t you trust me?”

He lifted his hand to her chin, stroking his thumb lightly over her lower lip. “I don’t trust anybody, baby girl. That’s why I’m still alive.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, twisting her face away from his hand. “I don’t see how you could possibly think I would be any sort of threat to you.”

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he said dryly. He caught her cheeks between both of his hands, pressing his forehead against hers. “I don’t hate you.

I’m trying to protect you.”

She looked at him in surprise. “From what?”

His lips tightened. “From me.”

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Lena gaped at him in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“No?” he growled, dropping his hands from her cheeks and lifting his head.

Lena couldn’t prevent the blush that heated her cheeks.

His gaze flickered over her face. Abruptly, he caught her arms and dragged her up against him. His mouth was hard, hot, almost savage as he caught her lips beneath his and breached the sensitive barrier where her lips met with the possessive thrust of his tongue. A tidal wave of need broke over her instantly, swamping her senses, sucking her down into a dizzying whirlpool of mindless need. She made a sound in her throat of want as his taste and scent enveloped her with a breathless rush of excitement, inebriated her until her mind was a swirling morass of confusion. Her strength abandoned her, sucked away by the hot friction of his tongue as he raked it along hers in restless possession, by the heat and hardness of his body as she leaned weakly against him for support.

He broke the kiss almost as abruptly, pressing his forehead against hers for a moment, his breathing ragged as he struggled for control.

With an effort, she lifted her lids to stare at him when he released her and stepped back, swaying weakly until she managed to lock her knees to keep from melting to the floor. There was wariness in his expression, and something else that took her many moments to understand. “You think I’m afraid of you,” she said in surprise and then frowned, trying to think what she’d done to give him that impression. Abruptly, she remembered that time when he’d been forced to enact a rape to keep her from actually being raped and she knew that had to be it. She hadn’t been terrified then, but not of him.

He slid a glance her. “Aren’t you?”

She was, but not afraid that he’d deliberately hurt her, she realized.

His lips curled wryly. “That’s what I thought.”

She frowned when he scrubbed his hands over his face tiredly, realizing that he’d managed to regain control when moments before he’d been within a hair’s breadth of completely losing it. She should leave well enough alone, she knew, but she found she couldn’t. She lifted a hand and placed it lightly on his chest. “I’m not.”

He fisted one hand around her wrist. “Leave it alone, baby girl.”

The warning growl of his voice almost tipped the scales in the other direction, but she was beyond caution. Lifting her free hand, she placed it on his chest, slipping it upward as she came up on her tiptoes and tipped her head back, offering her lips to him, offering her everything to him. He glared at her warningly. Refusing to back down, she brushed her lips lightly along his throat, just above his collarbone. “I’m not Morris’ baby girl anymore,” she murmured.

Settling one hand in the middle of her back, he cupped the other over the back of her head, digging his fingers into her hair and tugging her head back. “I did warn you,”

he muttered hoarsely, covering her mouth with a violent possessiveness that sent Lena’s heart skittering into over time. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, locking her knees as her world seemed to spin off kilter in a dizzying rush that was, impossible as it

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seemed, more debilitating than the one she’d experienced before. Her own sense of urgency, fed by the hunger of his possession, goaded her to kiss him in return, to move closer, to feel his body against hers. She traced her tongue along his, suckled it.

Uttering a groan from deep in his chest, he withdrew his mouth from hers abruptly and dragged open mouthed kisses over her throat to her ear. Her knees buckled as he teased the sensitive shell with his mouth and tongue. He caught her, his hand slipping from the middle of her back to cup one buttock and pull her snugly against his erection. Her flesh, all over her body, seemed to tighten, prickling with keen sensory perception so that the faintest of contact between them sent fresh waves of delight and awareness through her to gather at her core.

“You’re going to hate me for this,” he muttered against her throat.

“No.”

“I’m going to hate me for this,” he said harshly, brushing his face along her neck and throat and following with nibbling kisses.

The light brush of his engorged flesh against her mound only tormented her with unfulfilled promise. She lifted upward on her toes, slipping her arms around his neck to steady herself and arch against him. Uttering a pained grunt, he released his grip on her buttock and bent her back over one arm. Grasping the front of her uniform, he gave it a wrenching tug that separated the front from neck to groin with a sound ominously like ripping fabric.

It barely registered in her mind beyond the fact that she couldn’t touch his skin.

She made a grab for the front opening of his suit as he tugged the back of her uniform down, trapping her arms in the fabric when it reached her elbows. Frustration flickered through her briefly. It vanished the moment his mouth closed over one distended nipple.

The jolt of pleasure that went through her made her belly clench almost painfully with need and turned her knees to water.

He caught her as she began to wilt toward the floor, lifting her and striding toward the bunk. Even as she landed solidly in the middle and began trying to wiggle out of the snug fitting cloth, he came down over her, covering her mouth in another heated kiss that forced everything from her mind but savoring the heat and urgency of his kiss.

Somehow, she managed to wrest her arms free, curling them around him as he moved from her mouth to her breasts, scouring her with the heat that flashed through her with the teasing suction of his mouth.

She began to thrash feverishly beneath his assault, gasping for breath. “Dax!” she gasped a little desperately.

He lifted his mouth from her breast, shifted upward to suck a love bite on her throat and then to brush a light kiss across her lips. “Easy, baby.”

Squeezing her eyes closed, she dug her nails into his shoulders. “Please, Dax.

Please.”

He sat up, sat back on his heels. Grasping her suit, he peeled it from her hips, and then disentangled it from her legs, propping one foot on either side of his hips so that her thighs were splayed, the lips of her sex parting, exposing the more tender petals of flesh beneath.

She slit her eyes to look at him as she felt him shift, watching as he yanked the front of his suit open and peeled it off his arms and shoulders, pushing it down his hips until his cock sprang free. She swallowed as she studied him, feeling her body tighten all

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over in anticipation, reaching for him as he leaned down.

Instead of moving over her, he slipped his hands beneath her hips and lifted them, burying his face against her cleft. Her breath left her as if it had been punched from her lungs. Her body clenched as he dragged his tongue slowly along her cleft and teased her clit until she felt like a mindless, writhing bundle of raw, exposed nerve endings. She sucked in a desperate breath, shuddering, jerking against the intensity of the sensations that pounded through her as he alternately sucked and teased the acutely sensitive nub.

“Oh god!” she gasped out shakily, her voice skating the edge of a scream as she felt her body begin to quake, convulsing in hard shudders.

He moved over her, burrowing his face against her neck as he thrust his cock into her quaking passage. She gasped sharply, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she dug her heels into the mattress and lifted to meet him. Her body resisted, clinging, still convulsing with aftershocks of release around his hard flesh. She was nearly weeping by the time he’d claimed her fully, certain he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure from her body that she could bear.

Her body responded regardless to his thrusting caresses, gathering itself once more toward culmination. He sucked on her neck and shoulder as the moisture of her body eased his passage at last and he set a desperate rhythm to find his own release. Her body crested, reached the limits of endurance and ruptured with ecstasy. He shuddered as her passage began to quake around his flesh, uttered a hoarse growl and plunged raggedly as his big body began to shake with uncontrollable tremors, pumping his seed into her.

They wilted in the heated aftermath, melding together limply, gasping for breath.