CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dona watched Ivar’s eyes roll back in his head. He crumpled like a marionette from a Punch and Judy show she’d once seen.
All around them, the rest of the priests were doing the same. Keeling over, one by one.
Dead, Dona’s implant told her. They’re all dead.
The virus must have spread from the Victor to his priests, she realized. Which meant . . . that would only have worked if he’d been linked to all of them, but he was just paranoid enough to do it. Alerio!
Heart shoving its way into her throat, she ran to the parapet and looked over it.
Six stories below, the Warlord lay sprawled on his back in the midst of a circle of blowing black sand. What’s wrong with him?
He’s unconscious, her implant told her. His body overheated from a combination of the heat and riaat, and he lost consciousness.
“Dona!”
Riane and Nick and their pilot hurried down the grav-sled’s ramp. She ran toward them—and kept going right on by. “Come on! We’ve got to get Alerio on that sled so we can Jump him back to the infirmary before he dies from heatstroke!”
Aboard the sled, Jessica hovered anxiously beside a regeneration tube.
“Galar?” Dona demanded, dropping into the sled’s pilot seat.
“Badly hurt, but he’ll survive,” Riane said.
Jessica managed a tremulous smile. “Once we get him back to Dr. Chogan.”
“So let’s get the chief and Jump,” Frieka growled, entering behind Nick, Riane, and the sled pilot. “I want to check on Pendragon.”
Riane grinned at Dona and Nick. “True love is a wonderful thing.”
Frieka glared at his partner. “Oh, you’re as bad as your mother, implying some disgusting relationship between me and that cat of hers.”
Two more Enforcers boarded just before Dona got the sled in the air.
Five minutes later, they Jumped for the Outpost, Alerio safely inside a second regen tube.
Alerio woke when Chogan popped the tube lid. She gave him a smile as he levered himself out. “Good to have you back, Chief.”
“And it’s even better to be back.” Studying her, Alerio frowned in concern. The doctor was visibly exhausted, which didn’t bode well. “Did we get everyone else back?”
“Yeah.” She put a hand between her shoulder blades and stretched wearily. “Some with nasty sword wounds. Jonelle Cartye died, but I was able to resuscitate her. She’ll be in regen at least two more days, healing all the damage.” The doctor grimaced. “Then I’ll have twenty-six autopsies to do.”
Correctly interpreting his widening eyes, she added hastily, “All Xerans. Plus Ivar, of course. Evidently the virus you planted spread to everyone the Victor was linked to. Which was all of them. According to my preliminary med-scans, everyone you hadn’t already killed died within seconds from biocrystal-death-induced aneurisms.”
“Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of assholes. What about the Victor?”
She gave him a tired smile. “Several evidence bots managed to vacuum up what was left of his dead crystal.”
“But he is dead?” Alerio thought he remembered as much, but things were a bit fuzzy. And what he did remember . . .
“Very dead. There’s no way even the Xerans will be able to bring him back.”
He searched her face. “But are you certain?”
Chogan shrugged. “I scanned what was left of the biocrystal . . . sand. There were just enough fragments of petrified memory to prove it was him, but that’s about it. There definitely isn’t enough to re-create him, even if such a thing were possible. He’s dead and gone.”
Alerio closed his eyes in relief. That was why he’d been so determined to crush every last biocrystal chunk into powder, even when it became evident the wind was carrying the dust away.
“Of course,” the doctor said, giving him a significant look, “you’d have had no way of knowing the wind would carry off the dust, you being unconscious by then.”
He opened his mouth, about to correct her assumption.
“And even if you hadn’t been unconscious,” she continued firmly, “nobody would consider you responsible for deliberately losing all that crystal in nineteenth-century Arizona, since you were half-dead from riaat-induced heatstroke.” Her narrow glare warned him not to disagree. “As my medical report concludes beyond any doubt whatsoever.”
In other words, Chogan covered my ass. Otherwise Headquarters would have all the excuse they need to court-martial me.
Actually, she has a point, his implant said. You did have heatstroke. Even Colonel Ceres could hardly call your thought processes optimal.
Oh. He blinked.
“It’s a good thing Dona got you into regeneration so fast, or you might not have made it home,” Chogan continued. “There are limits to what even regen can do, once brain damage gets severe enough.”
Muscles relaxed that he hadn’t been conscious of tensing. “So Dona’s okay?”
“Just fine.” The doctor’s tired eyes crinkled in a smile. “Oh, she had a few cuts and a whole lot of bruises, what with one thing and another. But I took care of most of that, and her comp healed the rest. In fact, she should be walking through the infirmary doors right about . . .”
“Alerio!” Dona’s voice rang with delight.
He turned to watch her hurry in, her eyes bright with joy. “Goddess, I’m glad to see you. Are you all right?”
“Better than all right.” She gave him a sunny grin. “Ivar’s dead, and so are his priests. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the Xerans kidnapping any more tourists.”
Turning away, the doctor strolled toward the ward exit. “If you two will excuse me, I’ve got work to do . . . somewhere else.”
They barely noticed, too busy staring at one another hungrily. The moment the corridor door closed behind Chogan, they were in each other’s arms, mouths meeting in a ravenous kiss.
Alerio’s mouth tasted like distilled sex. Hot, thick with some exotic Vardonese spice. Gods knew where it had come from; the man had just gotten out of regen. Yet there it was, that blend of sweetness and sharp bite she’d always associated with him. He drank from her mouth just as thirstily, his tongue stroking and swirling around hers, his teeth catching her lower lip in a slow, seductive tug.
All the while, he held her plastered against the length of his body as if trying to absorb her through the skin. He felt so damned big—so tall and broad and hard. The rolling contours of his muscularity shifted under those gleaming navy scales, unbearably tempting.
And too damned far away.
She hooked an arm around his neck and lifted herself until she could wrap both legs around his waist.
That’s better.
The core of her sex ground against the rigid length of his delicious erection—through two layers of armor scales, gods curse it. She growled in frustration against his mouth.
Still too far.
Alerio laughed, puffing warm breath and spice into her mouth. “Dry humping in combat armor is an exercise in frustration, love.”
She drew back just far enough to speak. “So let’s take it off. I’ll bet we could figure out how to put up a privacy bubble around one of these ward beds . . .”