Creations 1: The Perfect Creation (6 page)

“But you’re not with him now. Your friend looks busy.” The peacemaker took another step closer and put a hand on her arm.

Alarms fired in Erin’s body, and at a loss to control her anxiety, she felt herself naturally accommodate to incapacitate the threat. Ollen inhaled and froze, his entire body shifting to align itself with hers.

“Let’s go fuck. Now.” The brutality barely dormant within him came out in force as he jerked her closer, his strength bruising.

Cheltam,
finally
, glanced over his shoulder at her and frowned. But then the other two guards said something to engage him and nodded at the door. He clenched his jaw and caught her eye. “I’ll be back, love. Sit tight and try not to break anything.”
Or anyone
, his glance at Ollen seemed to say. Cheltam shot her another look and turned away.

Nice to know he thought she could handle herself. But as Erin watched him leave, she worried about how best to deal with the situation when the peacemaker tried to steal a kiss.

Dodging his lips, she moved back a pace and smiled, taking him off balance. “Now that he’s gone, let’s find a quiet corner and entertain ourselves. What do you say?” Ollen grinned and dragged her with him towards the merchant. “Take a break, Herm.

We need to do some official peacemaker business, you get my meaning?” Herm glared but said nothing. Instead, he turned on his heel and slammed out of the shop.

“Strip and bend over the counter,” Ollen ordered and unbuckled his belt. His fingers shook as he inhaled again, and she noted the dilation of his pupils as she filled the small space around them with her perfume. “
Fuck me
. You smell damned good. Now hurry the hell up. I’m not going to last long.”

You got that right
. He tore at his trousers, and Erin laid him out flat in no time. She didn’t even try to be gentle, gratified by the sound of his thick skull bouncing off the unforgiving stone floor.

Shaking her head at the inherent weakness in all males—most males, she reminded herself, recalling Cheltam’s surprising control—she dragged the peacemaker behind one of the counters and tied him up with some nearby rope. After gagging him, she moved to the exit, seeing nothing through the windows of the shop. Had Cheltam escaped, somehow? Or worse, joined with the rogue peacemakers to turn her in? Though he had a reputation as loyal once he’d contracted his services, Cheltam might decide to make an exception in Erin’s case. Blue Rim and their lucrative reward for her capture made it impossible for her to trust anyone.

Stealing herself for the worst, Erin pushed out the door and walked cautiously around the trading tower. As she moved away from the entrance, she noticed Cheltam dragging one unconscious male into the invading woodline. Stunned with relief, she could only watch him work.

Seeing her, the tension in his frame eased. “I take it you put that other asshole out of commission.” She nodded, and he motioned to another body on the ground. “Grab that one.” Erin automatically grabbed the male and hid him next to the other guard. Cheltam used a bit of rope to quickly secure both men before holding up a nasty looking cloth.

Aiming a menacing grin at the peacemakers, he then turned to Erin. “Don’t ask where I found this, because you don’t want to know.” He ripped it in half and stuffed the rags into their mouths. When finished, he stood and stared at Erin, his good mood souring rapidly.

“Go wait for me inside the store. And for Flor’s sake, tone down that scent unless you want to spread those legs for a hard fuck regardless of who’s watching.” He had the gall to push her back towards the entrance of the tower and away from him, but when she saw the ‘who’

he mentioned she understood. Several tree lengths away near their rover the merchant, Herm, paced back and forth, oblivious to everything but his own disgruntled rambling.

“Fine.” She wished Cheltam’s demanding tone weren’t so arousing. Unfortunately, being with Cheltam in the rover had only increased her sexual awareness of the exasperating male. “But what do we do about Herm? He’ll have questions.”

“I’ll take care of him. Go inside and grab the stuff on the counter that I was collecting.

Put this in its place,” he said gruffly and handed her a currency voucher. “Then meet me on the far side by the path near that big black stone.” She’d seen it when they arrived. “Don’t take long.” She still didn’t trust him. But at this point, he surely wasn’t in league with these peacemakers. “And don’t make me regret trusting you this much,” she warned in a low voice.

To her annoyance, he rolled his eyes. “I’m shaking in my boots. Just get away from me before I show you what it really means to bend over a counter.” She blinked. “You heard that?”

“I heard everything that
drun
said. He’s lucky I was busy with these two or I’d have ripped off his head and shoved it up his ass.”

Not knowing what to say and a bit puzzled over Cheltam’s anger, which couldn’t possibly exist on her behalf, she started to walk away. “Must have ears like a
threll
,” she muttered, not surprised when he answered her.

“Yeah, I do. So hurry that sweet little ass. We need to move.” More than interested in what exactly Cheltam was capable of, Erin nevertheless shelved her curiosity and entered the market. She grabbed the items he’d mentioned, dumping her bag of supplies and what he’d bartered for into a larger pack, and left for the black rock by a cleared space in the tree line, the beginning of an apparent path through the Eron Forest.

Ducking into the shaded cover of several leafy ferns, she waited for Cheltam to arrive.

Three times now he’d surprised her. Cheltam had met her blow for blow in his house. He’d resisted her first attempt to seduce him, and he’d stolen that laser disc out of her hands with a speed exceeding that of mere Mardu. So what exactly was he? She’d been taught that each planet’s natives had distinct characteristics, and that mating between planetary races normally resulted in one genetic strain dominating the other. In unique instances, progeny of mixed breeding resulted in a child with both donors’ characteristics. But according to Blue Rim’s classified files—which she’d risked a week in the desensitisation chamber to read—

those instances were exceedingly rare.

So far as her Creator Canunn knew, never had people existed like Erin, Anin and Ryen—beings capable of carrying the dominant markers for
several
planetary races. Erin wasn’t quite sure, but she thought she might possess a hint of Mardu coding as well as the Ragga, Nebite and Zephyr streams running through her blood. Erin had an agility beyond that of most of the System’s inhabitants. Still, she hadn’t the speed that Cheltam seemed to possess, if his theft of that laser disc was any indication. She could only be glad she’d had surprise on her side when she’d downed him in his house.

Cheltam looked like a native of this planet, with a few noticeable exceptions. He had Mardu colouring, a swarthy tan set against that soft, dark brown hair. But those eyes. The light gold colour and exotic slant definitely reminded her of the felines she’d studied back on Eyra. Predators with the instincts to not simply kill, but to survive. Cheltam seemed much the same. Deadly, potent and nearly mesmerising with that sexual, raw stare that seemed to look right through her. She huffed. And he complained about
her
scent. At least that she could mask. His stare, on the other hand, was something difficult to avoid, and it continued to make her want to melt despite her attempts at controlling her libido.

That latent sexuality burning in her ‘partner’ had an odd effect on her ability to concentrate. And that wouldn’t do. Not only did Erin have to protect herself, but the lives of Anin, Ryen, and those helpless prisoners depended on her. Granted, most of the prison contingent were criminals, but no one deserved the treatment Blue Rim doled on their test subjects. At the memories, Erin tightened her grip on the strap of the pack. She’d do everything in her power to destroy the labs. No matter what she had to sacrifice.

Images of a cold, flat laboratory table, thick straps cutting into her wrists and ankles, prodding fingers, metallic tools and tubes invading her body all stabbed at her with surgical sharpness. Yes, she and her family had escaped Blue Rim, but for how long? And what were the prisoners undergoing as she waited here for Cheltam, a criminal with no thought of anything but lining his pockets and striking out at System law Erin tightened her jaw and amended her decision. She’d do everything in her power to destroy Blue Rim. No matter what,
or who
, she had to sacrifice.

Rafe glared at Herm, who took the hint and rushed back into his trading tower.

Gripping his communicator tightly, Rafe spoke to his brother, not at all happy about Gar’s answers. “What do you mean Sernal is unavailable?” Gar growled back, “What the hell do you think I mean? I can’t contact him. He’s out of touch. No one has seen him since you last talked to him, if you want to know the truth.”

“Great.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. “First you get cold-cocked by a female, then our great and fearless leader disappears. Two messes I have to clean up.”

“Fuck you.” Gar sounded less than pleased, and Rafe allowed himself a chuckle. “Think it’s funny? She’s dangerous, brother mine, and you’re stuck with her. She has information on Blue Rim that they’re desperate to get back. They offered a hundred thousand beks for her safe return to the planet. Hell, it’s obvious she’s one of their experiments.”

“I know.”

“She told you?”

“She told me she and the other prisoner ships getting lost in ‘deep space’ are ending up on Eyra as part of Blue Rim’s illegal test subjects. Apparently, the lab is responsible for the half dozen ships gone missing, which is probably what Sernal expected, and why he assigned you to investigate Blue Rim.

“They use the prisoners as lab rats. For a small fee, those prisoners just ‘disappear’. The prisons don’t worry about overcrowding, and Blue Rim doesn’t have to answer to System law about illegal scientific experimentation.”

Gar remained silent.

“What?” Rafe kept an eye on his surroundings, fully expecting another group of peacemakers to show when the three idiots he’d encountered didn’t report in. He felt both furious and embarrassed to see lawmen he should have been proud to call his peers acting like corrupt barbarians.

“I’m not buying it, Rafe. She’s one of Blue Rim’s experiments? She took out Drekk in two seconds, not to mention she knocked me flat on my ass. And what about you? You’re saying a female ‘experiment’ took out two Xema warriors in their prime?” Gar had a point.

But still…

“If not an experiment, then what?”

“I’ve been hearing rumours about a resurgence in the System’s push to regulate Eyran practices much more closely.” Gar paused, and Rafe had a bad feeling sinking into his bones.

“I think she might be a Creation.”

Rafe let the cursed word sink in. A Creation, an entity not born, but developed and formed by mortal men and women, not the planetary gods and goddesses as nature intended. An abomination by law and morality, and clearly justified as lethal anomalies during the Eyran War of 2845.

A long time ago, the scientists on Eyra had free reign to do whatever they wanted in the name of science. In doing so, they’d inadvertently manufactured a race of crazy, deviant psychotics with incredible strength and cunning, who had banded together and killed thousands before the peacemakers had stopped them.

As a result, the Vrail Council outlawed Creation as a rule, allowing the occasional android or clone only for specific scientific purposes and only under Council’s unanimously voted decision.

Hell, Rafe could name all the clones on Mardu, as well as the androids on Nebe6. There were maybe twenty of them in all, and the peacemakers watched them with careful eyes at all times.

“She’s not a Creation.” He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it, even as something inside him whispered to listen to what his brother told him. “She could have killed me twice now, yet she didn’t. She wants my help.”

“To kill everyone at Blue Rim,” Gar added caustically.

“Hell, yeah. But can you blame her? If what she says is true, then the labs are doing things to people they shouldn’t be. And brother, you saw her eyes. How much do you think it hurt to turn them purple? Her pupils are
yellow
.” Gold actually, a colour that flared with heat whenever she stared at him.

“… Rafe? Are you hearing me?”

Dammit.
“Say that again. I think we’re losing the connection.” Rafe could only be glad this comm unit didn’t have a vidphone. He’d catch hell if Gar caught him flushing with embarrassment.
Letting my dick do my thinking when I should be planning a way out of this mess.

“I said you need to play this out. I’ll take care of the peacemakers you knocked out down there. But with the amount of currency Blue Rim is offering as a reward, we can’t trust a lot of our guys with this mission. Sad but true. And Sernal can kiss my ass if he doesn’t like me mistrusting his people.

“You take care of her. Get her to confide in you what’s really going on at Blue Rim.

Details. And Drekk’s coming with you. I don’t trust her, Rafe. And you aren’t thinking straight because you’re letting your—”

“I’ll contact you in two days. Out.” Rafe disconnected and pocketed the communicator.

Gar wouldn’t like it, but Rafe didn’t need Drekk covering his ass.
Rafe
would take care of Erin, and he sure as hell didn’t want Drekk around when he did so.

Recalling the feel of Erin’s mouth over him as if she’d just taken him to
wainu
, Rafe swore at his overactive glands and took a moment to regain control before he headed towards Herm. How a woman could be so soft and willing one minute and so damned dangerous the next baffled him. Yet she’d taken both him and Gar down, and had handled him in the rover easily, when Rafe clearly outweighed her twice over.

But leaving her with Ollen… It had taken considerable control to let Erin take care of him, that disgusting excuse for a lawman. But take care of him she had. Rafe had tuned in to their conversation with his keen hearing, pleased she hadn’t let the jerk lay one more finger on her than necessary. Rafe, however, still didn’t like the fact that she’d had to defend herself, and had taken his frustration out on Ollen’s companions.