War of the Shadows

“What is your mission here in Chairo?”

“Do you always wear all black?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“Well, Blackbird, I gave you everything you need for now. So if you want to keep chatting, you’ll have to give me something in return.”

She drummed her fingers on the table—once. “I prefer a standardized wardrobe. It makes my day-to-day life simpler.”

“Because of your arm?”

“Because I consider fashion a waste of time.”

Now who’s lying?

“What is your mission here in Chairo?” she asked again.

“I want protection.”

“Why did you betray the Shadows?”

“I literally just went over that. What happened to your arm?”

“You told me what you did. Not why.”

Zach grinned. Clever. “The answer will cost you, Blackbird.”

She had a knack for keeping her inner thoughts to herself, but he still picked up on her rising frustration. Raven Dello Russo was accustomed to poking at others, but not having them poke back at her. “Three years ago, the Shadows took down the global nav network. An oncoming transport accelerated out of control and collided with mine. I got pinned, and my arm was crushed beyond salvaging.”

“Were you knocked unconscious in the collision?”

“The answer will cost you, Shadow.”

“I feel no allegiance to the Shadows. Not even the manufactured kind. Guess it doesn’t work on me.”

It was true, as far as Zach knew. The Shadows might have made him, but for whatever reason, they didn’t own him the way they did so many others.

“No,” she said. “I was not.” It took him a second to realize she was answering his question.

“How long were you stuck there?” If the entire nav grid had collapsed, every vehicle on Valhale 602 would have either stalled or crashed. Civilians no longer had to complete training courses on operating vehicles. The vast majority of them wouldn’t know how to handle one without automatic navigation.

That included first responders.

“What was your last assignment for the Shadows?” she shot back.

Zach decided to be generous. “Can’t recall. I just know there was a sharp pivot that changed the mission objective to target acquisition and damage control.”

“Three hours and forty-seven minutes,” she said.

And it was a damn good thing Zach was sitting down to hear it.

Four hours, pinned inside a transport with her arm crushed beyond repair. Fully conscious.

“Were you alone?”

“Where did you escape from? Which outpost?”

“Were—you—alone?”

“Telepaths are never alone,” she said. But her eyes darted downward for a blink.

Lie.

Zach flexed his fingers underneath the table.

Raven cocked her head. “I sense you’ve become agitated.”

Agitated? Yeah, you could say so.

“The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner we can both go our separate ways.”

Funny, how that didn’t help the agitation at all. “Planet 7439 in the Halo system. It’s terraformed, but not accessible to civilians. Only way in or out is with Shadow shuttles. I ditched the one I stole as soon as I touched down on Jericho, and stowed away on a mass transit shuttle to Mars 2, then to Earth, and then here.”

Each of those planets had a strong Special Unit presence. He could have walked out of the shuttleport on any of them and made contact with the local cell within hours.

He’d come here for a reason. Even if he didn’t remember what it was.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, and, despite calling him agitated, Zach sensed she was eager to get away from him, too. “Is there anything else I should know?”

He needed a hook. If he let Raven run away in her current state, she would never come back. And he needed her to come back. “Yes,” he said, fixing a grin on his face, and giving his imagination free rein to set the scene. “Before you and I are through, you’re going to beg me to fuck you.”

He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist looking, so he pictured himself throwing her on the too-soft cot they gave him. He imagined tearing her out of her black suit and pinning her good arm over her head while he fingered her pussy and tongued her nipples.

He could get her dripping wet for him, writhing and begging for him to let her come, cursing him for keeping her on the edge until her entire body shook for release. The quiet ones always turned unabashedly feral in bed. His cold and distant Blackbird would burn, he was sure of it. She would claw and bite him bloody and—

There she was. The brush of invisible down over his skin made him rock-hard as he imagined her coming on his hand, screaming in his ear, bucking them both up off the cot. So much passion, so tightly contained behind her professional mask of disinterest.

Oh, he’d very much enjoy breaking it down.

Bit. By. Bit.

The object of his sordid fantasies leaned forward, a sultry smile teasing at her lips. “Not unless you somehow get really good, really fast,” she purred.

And his mind took a sharp turn south, with her thighs around his ears, and her delicate hand fisted in his hair, holding him in place as she rocked her pussy against his mouth. His body jerked in the hard chair as every single one of his senses engaged full force, from the feel of her skin against his face to the sound of her cries.

The air became too humid to breathe—he was more than happy to drown.

The lights flickered out—he didn’t need to see anything but her.

He lost all sense of time and space, his head spinning and his body twitching with insatiable need. He wanted to bury his dick inside her. The silken sheets he thrust against were nowhere near enough to sate him—and sweet heaven, but she was just as demanding.

Zach groaned, palming himself under the table, aching as if she’d edged him for hours. Still fully immersed in the vision, salivating for a real taste of her, he blindly leaned in to meet her over the table, desperate to know if she was as delicious as he imagined—

The vision disappeared.

He blinked in the sudden brightness of his cell to find Raven standing from her seat, all business and no give. “Oops, would you look at that? We’re out of time.”

And she walked straight out the door without a backward glance.

Grab your copy of War of the Shadows at your favorite online bookstore to see what happen next!