they lifted off. “To get the information needed, I simply need more tools than I brought with me.” He turned and winked at her over his shoulder. “I didn’t figure I would need my full kit during a vacation on Euphoria.”
“You have a kit?” she echoed with wide eyes.
“Of course, I have a kit,” he chuckled. “There are times when questions alone do not bring forth the truth, and although I rarely use the tools I have, they are there for situations exactly like this one. We shall try a chemical persuasion first and see how he reacts to that—”
“You’re dead,” growled Bosch, his interruption breaking the pretense he’d been trying to maintain of sleeping. “You both are dead.”
“Do I need to shoot you again?” Nova snapped as she leaned as far as her seatbelt would allow so she could glare at him. The action made her feel a little bit like a kid strapped into a car seat, but she didn’t let that stop her from giving him the skunk eye. “You fucked up, buddy, and it’s game over.”
“I underestimated you, Nova Rodriguez.”
She stiffened at his words, the menacing tone behind them sending a shiver of apprehension down her spine. She knew he was restrained and that he couldn’t physically harm her, but his words had shaken her.
“How did you know my last name?” The question came out roughly as her stomach turned. Axis hadn’t even known her first name, much less her last, and the council had sent him to search for her.
“I know the others too,” he bragged as he leaned forward as much as his restraints would allow. A darkness lingered in his eyes as he bared his teeth at her. “I know more about Cherish and Selena than you ever will. I know how soft they are. I know how they sound when they scream—”
“Just wait,” Axis growled, interrupting Bosch where he gloated. “Phaeton traitors are punished far worse by the council than any others. Your reckoning will come.”
“Not in time,” he hummed to a little tune. The sound of madness seeped through it as he smiled crazily at them both. “Even now you waste the precious little time the humans have left by thinking you can get me to break. You lack the skills to get the information you need from me and you know it. It’s the reason why the council sent you to Euphoria. They didn’t need a defective skrammon on Phaeton One. You’ve lost all value and are too stupid to realize it.”
“You’re such a fucking troll, dude.” Nova couldn’t stop herself from laughing at him as she shook her head. “You’re also a dumbass.”
Bosch sat back with a look of confusion on his face. “Are you defective as well, human? Why are you laughing?”
Nova shook her finger at him, letting her smile grow obnoxiously large, since she could tell it annoyed the fuck out of him. “I’m laughing because you just admitted to the council’s master interrogator that you have the information we need.”
The expressions that flashed over his face made her chuckle even more.
“Seriously, dude. I was about to ask him if I could shoot you again just to shut you up, but now, I think I’m going to let you keep talking. At this rate, you might tell us everything before we even get his tool bag.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Axis nudged Bosch down the ramp ahead of him. The skrammon had been dragging his feet since the moment he’d been unbuckled once the shuttle was secured in the docking bay aboard Phaeton One.
“Move,” Axis ordered. He was more than ready to get to the interrogation room he’d requested be readied upon their arrival.
“Yeah,” Nova chirped as she walked beside him with her blaster trained on Bosch where he marched ahead. “Move it.”
Axis couldn’t help but smile at his bloodthirsty little mate and her insistence that Bosch wasn’t going to get “the drop on them.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, tilting the blaster to the side so he could see the dial, “it’s still on stun. One wrong move and he gets another cock shot. I have absolutely zero problem taking away that asshole’s ability to procreate.”
“Have I told you how perfect you are, wife?” he asked just as they cleared the ramp. He still couldn’t believe how lucky he was.
“What is the meaning of this?!”
“What now?” Nova asked Axis as he grabbed Bosch’s elbow to halt their progress across the docking bay.
Axis had expected Kaine, Paine, and Rowe, but the other two