went about it in a pretty Shade-y way,” said a deep voice he hated to recognize.
Shade froze. No. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.
His whole body seemed to involuntarily curl around Tess.
Solan chuckled as Tess jumped back from Shade’s arms, breaking his grip. Confusion flashed across her face, and then her eyes widened when she saw the gun trained on her chest.
Turning to face the other hunter, Shade grabbed on to Tess’s wrist from behind and kept himself in front of her. He’d been an idiot to leave this morning without arming himself, but he hadn’t wanted Tess to question him. Unless you were military, private security, or a hard-core rebel, you didn’t walk around with a gun.
Solan kept his firearm raised. Over the centuries, humanity had tried all sorts of laser-based weapons, only to decide that plain old guns were still the best way to kill people. Accurate. Long-distance. Deadly. They were hard to deflect. Bullets just went through shit.
Shade’s gut clenched. A bullet would go through Tess.
“What is he talking about?” Tess asked with quiet urgency. She tugged on her wrist.
Shade didn’t answer. His eyes darted around the platform. Where there was Solan, there was Raquel.
“So helpful of you to do all the work.” Raquel stepped out from the shadows behind the ship. As usual, she wore a tight black catsuit with a low-slung utility belt. Shade hated that belt. It was basically an exercise in how many illegal weapons a person could fit into a small space. “Just like last time, when I burned off your hair.”
“It wasn’t that long to begin with,” Shade ground out.
Raquel strode over to Solan’s side, making one more armed body between Tess and him and the elevator tube. Solan stood a head taller than his wife and was as black as she was white. They prided themselves on being able to hunt day and night—one of them always blended in. Solan knew his way around guns and sometimes shot with both hands. Raquel chose tranquilizers over bullets, but she could move like the wind and kick like a turbo blast.
Tess started tensing more and more behind him. Shade could hear her breathing turning shallow and fast. His guilt conjured up the cold rolling off her in waves.
Facing the bounty hunters, Shade felt his lips pull back in a snarl. The last time they’d fought, Solan had stolen his prize while Raquel had gone at him with her steel-tipped boots. Shade could handle a gun, but he was more hands-on, and you couldn’t exactly shoot your colleagues, no matter how underhanded they were. Despite two cracked ribs from one of the more vicious kicks Raquel had gotten in, he would have beaten her and maybe gotten his target back if she hadn’t pulled that mini firebomb out of her belt and thrown it at his head.
“Quite the prize,” Solan said, trying to get a better look at Tess. He cocked his gun, and Shade felt fear blow through his chest.
She could die.
And she’d hate him if she lived.
“He said alive,” Shade growled, trying to stay in front of Tess.
“He said there’d be a bonus for a live capture.” Solan started slowly walking forward. “The way I see it, there’s already more than enough. No reason to risk the hunt.”
“Shade?” Tess whispered his name. The hurt and betrayal in her voice clawed him open and bit with sharp teeth.
He wasn’t the only one to hear it. Raquel laughed. “Aww. Poor little girl didn’t know she was in bed with the big bad wolf.”
Tess jerked hard on his grip.
Not taking his eyes off the hunters, Shade started squeezing out one of the oldest codes known to man against Tess’s wrist, hoping there was a tiny percent chance she knew Morse. Safe he pulsed out, even though she wasn’t. He meant with him. She was safe with him.
Tess wrenched her arm from his hand.
“Stay behind me,” Shade snapped, twisting to reach for her again.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped back.
Her horrified expression was enough to keep him from putting his hands on her again. He turned back around, his teeth grinding. He wouldn’t touch her, but he wouldn’t let Solan get a line on her, either. The other man would have a lot of explaining to do with the higher-ups if he blew holes in a fellow select hunter, and the mountain of shit a move like that could pile up on him would keep Solan from taking the shot.