Read Armageddon Online

Authors: Kaitlyn O'Connor

Tags: #Romance, #Fiction, #Erotica, #Fantasy, #Cultural Heritage

Armageddon (8 page)

BOOK: Armageddon
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Chapter Six

“What’s the verdict?”

Mel shrugged tiredly. “Which one?”

“How is she?” Dax asked irritably.

“Like I said, beat all to hell. I’ve mended everything, though. She isn’t going to feel wonderful for a while, but there won’t be any lasting damage--not physically, anyway. Otherwise, it’s a little more tricky. That sort of experience isn’t something people put behind them easily, especially when they’ve managed to make it to adulthood without seeing too much of the ugly.”

Dax frowned. “Lena’s seen the ugly.”

Mel studied him for several moments but finally, instead of reminding him that he’d already made up his mind the real Lena, the one who’d had those experiences, was gone, she merely shrugged. “From what I heard, she wasn’t much more than a baby. I doubt she remembers too much about that. I meant since your father took her in.

Anyway, she’ll get over it. The drugs--it’s going to take a little while to get all that nasty out of her, but I’m going to keep her out for a while to give her plenty of time to heal up.

She’ll sleep most of the withdrawal off. She won’t be really lucid for at least thirty six hours.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Make it forty eight. We’re headed for Antaria to lose the trackers. Once we’ve pulled that off--if it goes smoothly--I can focus on questioning her.”

A twinge of guilt flickered through Mel, but she dismissed the temptation to confess that she hadn’t sent Lena to the brig. She was out and would be for a while.

Even if it turned out that Dax was right about her, it wasn’t like she was going to be in any condition to try anything. “Are you going to let me check you out?”

Dax arched a brow at her. “You are always so anxious to get my clothes off, doc.”

Mel chuckled. “You got me. I just can’t resist using that tight little ass of yours for a pin cushion.”

Dax’s smile flat lined. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Don’t be such a baby! Jeez! Your face looks like somebody was using it for a punching bag and you’re worried about a needle?”

Uttering a long suffering sigh, Dax caught the front of his uniform and gave it a tug, unsealing the opening from neck to groin. When he’d shrugged out of the top, he peeled the one piece suit down his legs and dropped it to the floor. Giving him an irritated glance as he climbed up onto the examination table, Mel snatched the uniform from the floor and dropped it onto the stool she’d vacated.

He was a gorgeous specimen of manhood, top to bottom, but he could be a real pain in the ass!

It dawned of her abruptly why she’d felt so badly for Lena. It wasn’t just that she could tell the poor girl had already been through hell. It was the fact that she’d managed

50

to get on Dax’s bad side and that was a really unpleasant place to be.

The scan revealed bruising--a lot of it--and several cracked bones in his right hand. When she’d mended the damaged bone with the laser, she shoved the scanner out of the way and told him to get dressed.

“No needles today?” he asked as he bent down to step into the uniform again.

Mel checked his ass out. “It’s oh so tempting, but I couldn’t find an excuse. You must be made out of titanium.”

His lips curled wryly as he sealed the front of his suit again. “I felt every one of those damned bruises.”

“Want something for pain?”

He shook his head. “All I need right now is a few hours sleep.”

Mel sent him a startled look, but he’d already stepped out of the med lab before she recovered enough from the jolt of that announcement to consider saying anything.

After a moment’s thought, she decided against trying to head him off.

Retreating to her quarters, Mel grabbed her toiletries and headed for the shower.

She’d just lifted her foot to step into the chem bath when she heard the captain’s voice over the com unit. “Mel!”

Jumping all over as if he’d sneaked up behind her, she whirled to stare at the com unit for a moment and finally leapt to answer it as he bellowed into the speaker again.

“Sir?”

“Where did I tell you to put the prisoner?”

Mel grimaced, glad the ship was too bare bones to have a vid com unit. “I wasn’t told to treat the prisoners, sir,” she hedged.

“Lena!”

“Uh … I thought we were rescuing her.
Is
she a prisoner?”

“Are you anxious to check out the brig, doc? Because I can arrange it.”

“No, sir. I’ll send someone down to remove the prisoner from your quarters right away, sir.”

There was a noticeable pause before he responded. “I’ll handle it.”

Mel slumped weakly when he said nothing else.

“You’d be wise to spend a little less time worrying about what Nigel might think and a little more worrying about me,” Dax retorted finally. “I don’t know if he will thank you for putting her in my bed, but I do.”

Mel’s eyes widened at that subtle threat, but although she was tempted to ignore the order to leave well enough alone she didn’t dare meddle any further in the captain’s business.

Dax leaned against the bulkhead beside the com unit for several moments and finally turned to study the woman sleeping in his bunk thoughtfully. He
was
dead tired, and he’d been looking forward to sleeping on something that wasn’t crawling with bacteria from dozens of other occupants.

He was in no mood to deal with this kind of problem at the moment. The last thing he needed was to climb into bed with a piece of ass he wanted but didn’t dare touch.

He found that the longer he stared at her, though, the more reluctant he was to summon the guards to remove her to a holding cell.

His irritation finally waned.

51

Crossing the cabin, he placed a knee on the bunk, scooped Lena up and deposited her against the edge of the bed nearest the bulkhead. As small as she was, and as wide as the bunk ordinarily seemed, it still looked too crowded for comfort--his comfort--but he shrugged the thought off after a moment, slipped beneath the cover and settled beside her, rolling away from her.

It took less than five minutes to answer the question of whether or not he was too exhausted to have to worry about arousal being a problem. Just knowing she was in the bed behind him was enough to make him acutely aware of her, but he began to think he could smell her delicate scent weaving through the faint odor of decon-cleanser on his own skin and hers. He began to think he could feel her warmth radiating into his back, hear the soft sigh of her slow, even breaths. All of it together brought up a mental picture he’d been trying real damned hard to get out of his head.

The mental image of that animalistic coupling between them in his cell shouldn’t have been something to arouse him. It should have made him sick to his stomach, but the unavoidable truth was that he was a sick son-of-a-bitch because it made him hard as rock every time he remembered it.

He had reacted instinctively to the threat to Lena when she’d been thrown into his cell to be raped to death. It hadn’t been planned. It hadn’t even been part of the plan, but his instincts were rarely wrong, and he hadn’t had time to question it anyway. The guard had ordered up a rape for his entertainment and he provided it.

Nothing else would have appeased the bastard. He knew that.

But he also knew that, even without penetration, even though he’d done everything he could to try to make it as easy on Lena as he could, drugs or no drugs, desperate situation or not, he’d probably scared the living hell out of Lena and thoroughly traumatized her.

The wonder of it was that she’d trusted him enough to help him out of the cell after that so that they could make the escape.

Except it wasn’t a wonder to him. The incident sure as hell wasn’t something he was proud of or wanted to talk about, which was why he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone and still had no intention of doing so. He was relieved he’d managed to give it enough realism by coming to convince the guard, but at the same time uneasy that he had managed it under those circumstances.

The main thing that bothered him about it now, though, the thing that had been plaguing him from the moment she managed to help him get out of that cell, was that Mel was right about how tenderly brought up and protected Lena had been. Between his father and her brother, she’d been shielded most of her life from the ugly things people did to each other.

Lena, the real Lena, he felt certain, would have been terrified of him after that.

She wouldn’t have trusted him enough to let him out of that cell. She sure as hell wouldn’t have followed him blindly when he’d told her they were climbing up to the roof.

The only reason he could think of any of the time that would account for it was that she wasn’t Lena at all.

He supposed he should have told Mel. She was a woman and a doctor. She would know better than anyone else he could think of what the likelihood was that Lena’s reaction had been normal--or at least normal under the circumstances.

52

To his way of thinking it was the most solid proof they had that they’d pulled Lena’s clone out of that fucking prison.

Maybe her brother would know--and maybe not.

From what he’d been able to tell, Lena had spotted his father’s counterfeit right off. He’d trailed her to warn her, uncertain of just how much Morris had told her about him and about the movement and how much danger she presented to the conspirators, because her own danger was directly proportionate to just how threatened they felt by her.

She didn’t have a poker face, that was for damned sure. Every time she’d glanced at Morris she’d given away every thought and emotion that was going through her.

He deeply regretted the fact that he hadn’t managed to pull her out before they got to her. But she’d managed to elude him at the station and he hadn’t expected them to move on her so quickly, hadn’t thought they would’ve had time to clone her.

They were getting better at their acceleration techniques. There was no doubt about that. It wasn’t taking them months anymore. Nigel had only pulled her DNA a matter of weeks before the switch.

Of course Nigel hadn’t known, then, that he was collecting for them. Right up until Nigel had turned his sister’s code over to the bastards, he’d suspected Nigel was working for them, and well aware of it.

There was no doubt in his mind that Nigel had been an unwilling participant.

He’d flown into such a rage when he discovered he’d turned Lena’s DNA over to them for replication that they’d had a hell of time holding him back long enough to convince him that he could do more to bring them down by playing stupid a while longer.

He would’ve given a lot to know just what had transpired when Lena got back to her apartment the day he’d gone to pick her up, but the security tapes had already been fixed by the time he’d managed to break into the system.

Frustration gripped him. They were going lose if they didn’t get better at this, because they were trailing dangerously behind.

Beginning to feel cramped from the tension in his body, and from lying on his side so long, Dax rolled onto his back to stare up at the overhead in the darkness.

He wasn’t certain whether the movement had aroused Lena from her deep sleep, or if she was merely seeking warmth, but she moved closer, throwing one arm and one leg over him.

The curling thatch of hair on her mound tickled his hip and the arousal that had only just begun to abate from before rolled over him like chain ball lightning until his cock was so engorged it was trying to erect a tent.

“Hell,” he muttered, grinding his teeth as her knee nudged his testicles and they drew up in a hard knot against his belly in reaction.

“Bad word,” she muttered, the words only slightly slurred by sleep.

Startled, Dax glanced at her sharply, wondering if she was feigning sleep after all.

Mel had said she’d given her something to knock her out, though.

Grasping her chin, he pushed her face up to study it suspiciously. It was dim in the room, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he saw nothing to indicate she was awake and only pretending to be asleep.

He decided to test her to find out. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to sleep in the same bed with her if there was even a chance she wasn’t asleep.

53

Lifting her palm from his chest, he moved her arm down and cupped her hand around his erection, watching her face. She didn’t so much as flinch. She did, however, curl her fingers around it tightly enough he thought for several moments he was going to pass out.

He’d expected, if she was awake, that she’d either try to slap the shit out of him, if it was Lena, or play coy and try to pretend she wasn’t aware of fondling him if she was the decoy.

Instead, she’d merely gripped it as if she thought she was supposed to hold on to it.

“Bad idea,” he muttered, trying gingerly to uncurl her fingers.

They tightened instead of relaxing, sending a sensation through his belly that was not unlike being punched in the gut and he let out a grunt of sharply expelled breath.

“Mine,” she murmured.

BOOK: Armageddon
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