“None of your business.” Trin rubbed the back of her hand over her numb and tingling lips. She didn’t like showing weakness in front of a strange male. Especially one she suspected of drugging her.
“Sorry to hear that.” He raised the frosty cup to her once more. “Maybe you’d like another drink?
Trin eyed the cup and her stomach did a slow flip.
Oh my god…drugging me! He gassed Thrace and me last night and now, why do my lips feel so numb? Almost like…
“Ah—the look of realization.” Lord X smiled broadly though the expression still didn’t reach his eyes. There was something horribly familiar about that grin, Trin thought sickly—for a moment she almost seemed to see metal teeth gleaming in the weak sunlight. Then the illusion passed and it was only Lord X standing there, handsome and inscrutable with cold black eyes, perfect white teeth, and a cruel little smile playing around his mouth.
“You…what have you done to me?” she asked thickly. She was beginning to feel dizzy and hot, as though the dress she was wearing was made from unbearably thick fur instead of thin lace and silk.
“Nothing irreversible, I assure you.” Lord X smiled and tightened his grip on her arm. He began to drag her around the side of the huge house. “I’ll leave that for someone else.”
“For who? Where are you taking me? Let me go!” She wanted to fight him but she was so weak suddenly, so dizzy and sick and so horribly hot. She felt like she might pass out from the terrible heat at any moment but somehow she didn’t.
“Why, I’m going to take you back to the landing field and put you on a shuttle. You’re going straight back to your ship, The Alacrity.” He grinned at her. “Home is the best place to be when you feel sick, don’t you agree?”
“Thrace…” Trin could barely get the name out through her numb lips but she tried anyway. “What about…Thrace?”
“Oh, don’t worry my lovely—I’m sure the big Havoc will be along very shortly. He cares about you too deeply to do anything else but follow you…to his doom.”
He gave a low, awful laugh and then the world spun around Trin and everything went black.
* * * * *
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Thrace demanded of the slave in purple and orange livery who was minding the control area of the landing field. “Where the fuck did she go?”
“Well…back to her ship.” The slave shrugged uneasily. “She didn’t seem like she was feeling well—couldn’t even walk on her own. Lord X had to carry her.”
“Lord X?” Thrace’s entire body was flooded with angry adrenaline. “You let that son-of-a-bitch take her off in a ship somewhere? What the fuck is wrong with you?” He grabbed the slave by his natty orange and purple lapels. “You’d better pray to all the Gods that ever were that you got a flight plan filed for him so I can follow them. Or so help me I’ll rip you limb from limb and it will not be a fast operation!”
“Calm down!” The slave was pale and shaking. “Please! He didn’t take her anywhere—he didn’t even leave with her! He just put her into one of Lady Tam-tam’s spare shuttles and sent her back up to her own ship—I swear!”
Thrace felt a short lived burst of relief.
“Didn’t go with her, you say? Why not? What’s his game?”
“He didn’t say anything about any game,” the slave protested, his voice still shaking. “Only that the lady didn’t feel well so he was sending her back to her ship.”
“Fine.” Thrace hefted the small case he’d packed with the few essentials he thought it necessary to bring. “Then bring my shuttle around now. I’m going after her and if I don’t find her safe aboard The Alacrity, I’m coming back down here and you’ll have hell to pay!”
Nodding and bowing, the slave attendant ran as fast as he could to get the small life pod shuttle they had come in. Thrace waited impatiently, wondering what the hell he would find when he got back to The Alacrity and praying that Trin was all right. He didn’t believe that Lord X was the type to simply help a female in need out of the goodness of his own heart. No—there was something more going on here, something bad.
Thrace just hoped he wasn’t too late to stop it.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Well, well, well…so nice to see you again, my dear Havoc.”
The face that popped up when his viewscreen finally established contact with The Alacrity was horribly familiar.
“You,” Thrace breathed, staring at the gleaming metal teeth and the one, mad eye dancing in its hollow socket.
“It’s Two, actually not ‘you’ but I know what you mean.” Two giggled. “Of course, you only knew me as B’Rugh’s second in command. But I am so much more—to you as well as others that you love and will someday come to care for. You might say that our destinies are entwined. Isn’t that a romantic idea?”
“Stop fucking around and tell me what you’re doing aboard The Alacrity. And where’s Trin? I swear by all the Gods if you’ve hurt her—”
“Oh no, my dear Havoc—she has not been wounded…yet. I am saving that honor for you.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Thrace demanded. But Two only shook his head.
“You’ll find out soon enough. Your pod should dock with The Alacrity very shortly. But remember one thing, my dear Havoc…” He held up one long, skeletal finger. “I am in charge here now. If you try to come in, blasters blazing, you’ll only get your darling Trin and all the rest of her crew killed. Well…” He made a face. “The ones that are still alive, anyway.”
“You fucker, what have you done? You—” Thrace burst out but the viewscreen went black and no amount of calling would raise an answer from The Alacrity. He could do nothing but wait.
It only took another half hour for the pod to dock but Thrace swore it was the longest half hour of his life. The moment he felt the solid bump of metal kissing metal, he sprang to the door, ready to confront Two and save the female he loved.
But it was Sidna, not Two who met him at the door of the shuttle. The medic looked haggard, lines of fear and sorrow drawn on her face and shadows under her gray eyes.
“Havoc,” she greeted him flatly.
“Sidna.” He nodded at her briefly. “Where’s Trin? Is she all right?”
“No, but there’s nothing you can do to help her. That male, Two—I think he’s the one that Trin met in The Demon’s Eye…”
“Yes, that’s where we met him,” Thrace said impatiently. “How in the Seven Hells did he get aboard?”
“My fault.” She passed a trembling hand over her eyes. “There was a distress call and he put up a false image. Trin left me in charge while the two of you were on Yonnie Six and I let him in. He’s already killed Terra and Jola is wounded… Oh Goddess of Judgment, what have I done?” Her eyes filled with tears but Thrace had no time for comfort or consolation.
“Listen to me.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook once, briefly. “What’s done is done. However he got aboard, he’s here now. What I need to know is, where is Trin? Has he hurt her?”
Sidna sniffed and swiped at her eyes.
“Two has her on the bridge. I don’t think he’s harmed her physically but there’s definitely something wrong with her. She keeps complaining of being hot…says she can’t breathe and she’s so thirsty but Two won’t let any of us give her a drink.”
“The bastard.” Thrace started off down the metal hallway in long strides but Sidna hurried after him.
“Be careful! He said if you try to take her away or shoot him, he’ll kill her!”
“I’ll be careful,” Thrace snarled. “And that son-of-a-bitch had better be careful too. If he’s harmed Trin in any way I’ll fucking kill him!”