Born of Shadows (The League Gen 1 #3)(21)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Until she felt something strange pressing against her hip. Was that…?

Oh my gods…

Horrified by the intimacy of what it was, she jumped away from him with a mortified squeak. He woke up ready to fight. Out of nowhere a knife appeared in his hand as he looked about for an enemy.

His gaze focused on her before he gave her a fierce scowl.

A shiver went down her spine at his new, sinister appearance. True to his words, his hair fell just past his shoulders. Jet black, it made his Andarion eyes all the eerier. He looked nothing like the rogue she’d come to know…

Until he grinned.

Yeah, she’d know that cocky twist of the lips anywhere. “You are a total freak of nature. You know that?”

His laugh was as dark as his aura. “Yes, but you’re going to be grateful I look like this when we runnto the natives.”

She wasn’t so sure about that.

Yawning, he stretched, then scratched at the whiskers on his chin in that familiar gesture she was coming to know a little too well.

She jerked her chin toward his hand. “You always come awake with a knife?”

“No. Usually it’s my blaster and normally I’m shooting. Be glad I’m still tired.”

She scoffed at his bravado. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Believe it or not, it’s the truth.” He slid the knife back into a sheath that was hidden in his sleeve.

If he had any memory of cuddling her while they slept, he showed no sign of it as he stretched his body and went through a series of graceful movements that showed her just how flexible he was for a man.

Once he was done, he pulled his backpack up. “You hungry?”

“Not for another round of ick. Sorry.”

“I understand.” He took a small band from the pack and pulled his hair back from his face to secure it into a becoming ponytail. “Now that I look semi passable, let’s get off this rock and find something decent to eat.”

Her stomach grumbled a reminder that she hadn’t really eaten the day before. “Don’t they have edible food here?”

“Probably, but the first rule of survival. Don’t stop to eat or get laid. I’ve known more people to get killed because they let their stomach or hormones dictate evac. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a cautionary tale for anybody.”

He had a point.

Caillen handed her the cloak. “Remember to stay covered no matter what.”

Desideria pulled her hair back and coiled it into a bun before she raised the cowl. “How’s this?”

“Perfect.” He slung his pack over his shoulder, then led her down to the ground level.

They crept out of the shed and back toward the woods where they had cover from any stray glance. Moving quickly and gracefully, Caillen skimmed the yards, heading toward a more densely populated area.

Desideria was surprised at the difference between this town and her native Qilla. The houses here were narrow and long, their roof lines cut at sharp angles. Qillaqs used mostly untinted glass and windows with a lot of circular designs. The Andarion homes had small windows that were kept covered up.

“Do they have an aversion to daylight?” she asked, wondering about the custom.

“Their eyes are more sensitive to it than ours.”

Even their transports were radically different. Her people traveled in grou but the Andarion vehicles seemed designed for speed and few occupants. Yet what struck her most was the lack of toys and children on the street.

“Where are all the kids?”

Caillen stepped over a fallen limb. “Probably in training.”

“You mean school?”

“No, training. School is attended at night and usually online. They spend the daylight hours in physical and martial training. I cannot emphasize the point that they make your people look like wimps enough. While you’re a warrior culture, you’re female dominated. Andarions are male dominated and vicious to an unfathomable level.”

“They subjugate their women?”

“No. The only thing more dangerous than an Andarion male is an Andarion female. Their women, as a rule, aren’t very feminine in anything they do. There are exceptions to this, but very rare ones. All of them are tough sons of bitches.”

She didn’t know what he meant until they left their cover and started walking down the street, toward an intersection.

Caillen cleared his throat before he spoke. “Don’t meet anyone’s gaze. Keep your head down at all times.”

He, however, didn’t follow that advice. In fact, he stared down every person they passed as if daring them to speak. It was like every passerby was sizing him up for an opponent and he was begging them to try something.

At the biggest intersection they found, Caillen paused next to a red-marked pole and hailed an autotran for them. He allowed her to enter the small egg-shaped vehicle first, then he got in and closed the door. She started to lower her cowl, but the fierce look he gave her made her pause. He cut a sharp glare to the corner. She followed his line of sight to see a camera there.

So she pretended she was only adjusting it while he swiped his card and entered their destination on the electronic keypad. When he didn’t explain the language or his actions, she took that to mean that they also had a mic in the car that was monitoring them.

True to her suspicion, a deep voice spoke to them in what must be the Andarion language. Caillen responded, his tone calm and even. They talked back and forth for several seconds until Caillen, his tone never showing any stress, jerked his blaster out and shot the camera in the car and the one on the street.

He moved so fast and unexpectedly that she gaped. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve been made.”

14

Caillen growled in the back of his throat. “I seriously underestimated their tech. Bastards have a face and retinal scanner that notified them that I wasn’t who I claimed.”

Terror filled her. “What do we do?”

He answered by kicking the electronics panel in front of them so hard that it broke open and exposed the wires. Desideria was dying to know what he was doing, but didn’t want to distract him while they were in a crisis situation. The most important thing was for them to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Caillen cursed in a language she couldn’t identify as if everything was hopeless.

She started to open the door to run for it, but he caught her arm and held her inside.

“On foot, we’re dead. If you want to escape, stay with me.”

But did she trust him enough for that? He hated her mother and he didn’t seem to think all that much of her.

What if he was lying?

For all she knew, he might be. All of this fiasco and drama could be caused by his fear of them killing him. Maybe the Andarions wouldn’t do anything more than set her free and let her go home. They might honor her diplomatic immunity.

But what if he wasn’t lying? What if they did imprison her like her mother had done her father? Then she’d be trapped here forever. Or eaten alive.

That would be bad and her mother would be dead.

At the end of the day, she didn’t know Caillen at all. Didn’t know his moral code or really much of anything about him other than he’d been raised as a commoner who had some impressive thief-like skills…

And he was a wanted felon to the Andarion government.

None of that gave her a reason to trust him even the slightest bit.

But if she had to choose between devils, she’d rather choose the one known than the one not. She was too ignorant of other races and cultures to even begin to argue against Caillen about the Andarions and their customs. They could have fat flying spiders who lived on cake trained to capture her for all she knew.

Hoping she wasn’t being stupid or fooled, she grabbed his blaster and readied herself for the fight.

Sirens blared and drew nearer as he rifled through the wires and tore out connections only to make new ones. He glanced at the blaster in her hand. “FYI, don’t shoot the Andarions with that. It’ll only piss them off.”

Great. What were they supposed to do if they couldn’t fire on them? “Then what…”

The transport shot forward at three times its normal cruising speed. The unexpected lurch sent her flying back into the seat and caused her to drop her weapon as Caillen took control of their vehicle and sent it careening through traffic at a pace that was horrifying and disorienting.

That being said, he was good at controlling it as he narrowly missed hitting bystanders, obstacles and other vehicles. He might lack all manners and social graces, but when it came to communicating with electronics, she doubted if ayone could be better.

Two Enforcer transports stopped in front of them, cutting off their escape route.

Without slowing down the least bit, Caillen skidded their transport sideways and somehow managed to wedge it through the Enforcers who opened fire on them. He righted their transport and kept moving forward. The back window shattered under the heavy shots, spraying glass fragments all over them.

He started to push her toward the floor out of harm’s way, but she stopped him.

“I know how to fight.”

She saw the respect in his dark eyes before he nodded. He went back to driving while she shot out the remaining pieces of the back window, then laid down cover fire for them. The transport skidded as he narrowly avoided slamming into a large fuel hauler, then straightened and lurched forward again.

“Air support’s coming in,” he warned as he did something with the wires that made the transport speed up even more. Now they were flying.

Desideria crawled out of the back window before she fired up at the hovercraft that was tailing them. Her shots glanced off the craft and did nothing more than burn their paint. It didn’t even cause them to swerve to miss her blasts. Cursing her weapon, she slid back into the transport. “You got anything with more kick?”

He pulled a smaller blaster out of his boot and handed it to her.

Was he serious? It looked like a child’s weapon.

He grinned at her. “It has a plasma recoil. Be careful.”

Yeah, it’d hurt her to fire it, but with the right hit, it should bring the craft down. She leaned out the side window only to have Caillen jerk her back in before she could shoot. She started to yell at him for his actions, until she realized that he’d kept her from being flattened by a cargo transport that roared past them.

Had he delayed even a nanosecond, she’d have been cut in half. The thought made her stomach shrink.

“Thanks.”

He inclined his head as the air support opened fire on them again. She ducked down as blasts narrowly missed her and cut through their transport. Now her anger was forefront and the taste of bloodlust was heavy in her mouth. Determined to pay them back for the assault, she leaned out the window and braced herself. Then she opened fire. The shots sizzled up, shattering the hovercraft’s glass and taking out their upper rotor blade. But instead of falling back, they fell toward them, heading at them so fast all she could see was her death.

“Heads up!” she shouted as she returned to the transport’s seat and ducked for cover.

But it was too late. The hovercraft hit the ground right beside them, slinging sideways and catching the transport with its tail section. It sent them careening down the street before they rolled over and over again. Her stomach pitched as dizziness consumed her. Pain slammed into every part of her while she tumbled around the transport, banging into Caillen and everything else in the vehicle.

I’m going to die. She knew it. There was no way they could survive a wreck so vicious. She waited for the darkness to take her, but to her amazement she remained conscious.

When they finally stopped rolling and skidded to an abrupt halt, she was completely disoriented. Her stomach was contracting with such ferocity that she waited for the indignity of spilling its contents. Somehow she managed to keep it in as Caillen tried to open the door that had been crushed by their wreck. The transport was so damaged that there was no escape that she could see. It had them cocooned in a twisted metal pod.

“Get down.”

She didn’t question his order. The moment she ducked, Caillen pulled out a tachyon charge. He set it on the door, then covered her body with his as it blasted a hole in the side of the transport.

He got out first, then pulled her with him.

As she ran away from the transport, she noticed that she was covered in blood. It was on her clothes, her skin and in her hair. Her heart stopped as panic consumed her. Where was she injured? Every part of her body ached so there was no telling.

It took her a full minute to realize she wasn’t the one hurt.

Caillen was.

Still he didn’t slow down. He led her into an abandoned warehouse and slammed the door shut behind them and locked it, then fried the lock so that no one could enter easily. His hands shaking, he shrugged the pack off and gave it to her. “Keep running. Darling knows where we are. He’ll send help as soon as he can. Just stay hidden until they find you.”

She frowned at his calm tone and the fatal determination she’d heard in his voice. “What about you?”

He grimaced. “I’m not going to make it.” He opened his jacket to show her that the hovercraft’s shots hadn’t missed him. His entire left side was riddled with blast wounds.

For the first time, she saw fear in his eyes that overrode his pain. His cheeks were smeared with dirt and blood that was streaked by sweat. There was a tic in his jaw and blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

He pulled out his reserve blaster and held it tight in a bloodied grip. “I’ll cover you while you run.”

She watched the blood flowing from his hand to make small splatters against the dirty concrete floor. “Caillen—”

“Don’t argue. You’re wasting valuable time you need to get clear of this place.”

Even though she hated it, she nodded. He was right, she had to get out of here. Her mother’s life depended on it. Kissing him on his bruised cheek, she turned and ran to find a back way out.