Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,44

been her death sentence.”

Dray sucked in a breath, because he hadn't thought of that possibility, but it was the cold, hard truth.

“How did you know?” He shifted, leaning against the window as the fog grew thicker. “Who told you she might exist at all?”

“Paxe was the one who took her. He told Oris about her just before he self-destructed. It was his way to atone. He knew the Tecran had buried all mention of her, and he wanted to do something to help her before he died.”

Dray said nothing as he absorbed that.

Paxe had died rather than be chained by the Tecran, and his destruction had brought the Tecran's plans to a sudden end. Left with no Class 5s under their control, their plans had collapsed, and they'd had no choice but to come to the United Council as supplicants wanting forgiveness, rather than as triumphant victors who could force the other members of the council into subjugation.

The whole thing still had the power to catch at his throat, as anger and disgust warred for prominence.

“This is going to hit the United Council hard. They went relatively easy on the Tecran because everyone thought they'd come clean about the Earth women. To find out they haven't . . .” There was no way to soften this blow. Keeping quiet about Lucy Harris was such an act of bad faith, he didn't know if some in the UC would be able to accept the current treaty where all the Tecran lost was their sovereignty for five years.

“Yes.” There was a depth of satisfaction to Bane's voice.

Dray shrugged it off. Bane had more right than most to feel aggrieved when it came to the Tecran.

The fog pressed up against the windows and suddenly feeling hemmed in, blind, he pushed away from the window. “I'm going to walk around outside.”

“I'll keep listening for any chatter,” Bane said.

Dray gave a hum of agreement and then ran lightly down the stairs. He looked in on Lucy before he slipped out and was struck anew by her hair.

It exploded over the arm of the couch she lay on, gold burnished brown spirals that he wanted to touch.

He had studied the three known Earth women, everyone in the five UC territories had, but it hadn't prepared him for being in the same room as one in person.

She was vital, her dark eyes piercingly intelligent.

It was one thing to be told the Earth women were advanced sentients, but another to see the truth of that right in front of his eyes.

He recalled the warmth of her pressed against his back as they'd raced away from Fa'allen on the hover, the way she'd rested her cheek against his shoulder blade, and the fire in her eyes when she'd spun from the windows and challenged him earlier.

He had said far less than he wanted to in that confrontation, afraid his sudden, inappropriate arousal would somehow make itself obvious.

With a rueful shake of his head, he ran his hands through his hair and backed out of the room, the sight of Lucy's long, dark lashes resting on the curve of her cheek a little too enticing for his peace of mind.

The wind blew through the open-ended garage with a high-pitched whistle that annoyed him. He wouldn't hear anyone approach over the sound, but he guessed they wouldn't hear him, either.

He made his way around the back of the house, looking left to the other two houses perched on the cliff top.

He heard a faint clink from the closest one, and going suddenly still, he stood in the swirling fog and listened.

Cautiously, he pulled his shockgun from its holster and then moved down the hard-packed path between the houses for a little way until he could slip around the side of the neighboring house over grass slick with dew from the fog.

He turned the corner to the front of the house, the side that faced the ocean. The eerie sucking sound of the sea at the bottom of the cliff, deadened by the thick fog, couldn't hide the unmistakeable whine of a shockgun.

He dropped to the ground, crouching as he lifted his own weapon up.

The flash of purple reflected strangely off the fog and he sensed the flare just above him, where his head had been a moment before.

The blunt black barrel of a weapon appeared out of the swirling cloud and then the Tecran soldier holding it materialized.

They looked at each other, both with weapons raised, for a long beat.

“There are