Shade knew he was practically in the cross fire, but he had to tell Tess. She had to know…
Safe.
He staggered, the strong sedative hitting him fast. Gunfire roared on his left.
“Tess!” he croaked, reaching for her. His hand wavered in front of his face.
From just a few feet away inside her ship, Tess stared at him, her fiery eyes gone cold, her beautiful face turned to rock.
“In or out?” Jax yelled, his eyes sweeping back and forth between Shade and Tess.
If Tess hesitated at all, Shade didn’t see it. “Leave him with his friends,” she answered, stepping back.
Shade felt himself crumbling, falling apart. It wasn’t only the drug. He’d lost. He’d lost everything. Again.
A ball of fur streaked past Tess’s legs and jumped off the ship, landing like a gray torpedo on the platform and racing away from the noise.
Panic replaced the hatred on her face. “No! Bonk!” she yelled, lunging after her cat.
“Stop!” Jax’s bellow probably wouldn’t have stopped her, but his hand grabbing the back of her jacket did. He jerked Tess back.
“Bonk!” Her frantic shouts rattled like a nightmare in Shade’s spinning head.
With the last of his strength, his knees giving out, Shade lurched toward the exterior lock—because he was the asshole who’d programmed his own handprint into Tess’s new door. But before he could lock her in himself, Jax slammed his palm down on the interior control, still gripping a struggling, screaming Tess in his other hand. The door whooshed shut, ending Fiona’s hail of bullets toward the other hunters and cutting Shade off from the woman he’d fallen for so hard that he’d ruined his life.
He wanted to howl in misery, but his mouth wouldn’t open for anything other than breaths. He fell onto the platform, darkness crawling over him, empty and void like space.
He heard the ship take off, felt the slap of hot air and the vibration of the engine as Tess flew out of his life.
Two shadows loomed over him. Raquel gave him a good kick, and he heard his own groan as if from a mile away from this place.
He wasn’t military—exactly—but he was close enough. There were a hundred ways to spin what he’d done as treason. It wouldn’t be hard, because it was.
“The next time you fuck up a hunt like that just because you want the bigger prize all to yourself, we’ll report you for obstruction,” Solan announced.
Shade huffed, a weak sound that reflected the current state of his body. Leave it to the Heartless Duo to think he’d been holding out for the bonuses and not even realize he’d been protecting Tess. That was a relief, he supposed.
He should have known they’d come. No story, not even one about his precious docks, could have thrown them off for long or kept them from wondering why Shade Ganavan was ignoring the biggest hunt of their lives.
They’d probably been on Albion 5 just long enough to track him to this platform, wait for the cover of dark, and then try to ambush Tess when she came back. Only she hadn’t come back. She’d stayed away all night and then shown up at daybreak. With him.
“There was plenty for everyone on that one, even without the live capture or the stolen goods,” Raquel said in a fury. “Now, no one has anything. Bastard.” She plugged him with another dart.
Chapter 21
Fiona raced off as I stumbled back from Jax, shaking. My heart felt ripped out, shattered, crushed. Bonk was gone; I’d lost him. And Shade…
Horror overwhelmed me, tearing through my chest and shredding what was left of it. The ghost of Shade’s touch haunted me. I could still feel him pushing into me, holding me close.
Touches. Kisses. Words that had wrapped around me like promises. Lies.
I curled in on myself. Everything burned. My breath came out in harsh pants, shuddering from my lungs and then sawing back in. My head swam. I couldn’t… This couldn’t…
I blinked hard, trying to clear my thoughts. Trying not to feel Shade anymore. His hands, his mouth, his warmth.
“You’re hurt!” Jax said.
Confused, I uncrossed my arms and tried to straighten. The pain and weight of my awful mistake were so heavy that it was hard to move. Time seemed to advance in slow, straining increments, and it was all I could do just to get from one devastated heartbeat to the next.
So much had happened in so little time, and it all clanged inside me, jarring and discordant. Shade