Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (16 page)

The one with the prosthetic hand.

Warres’s gaze went to the tattooed stars and his eyes bugged. “It… it
can’t be.”

“I never thanked you,” Darina whispered, “you fucking rich bastard.”

****

That ring of tattooed stars rocketed Mikale to the past. To a young,
beautiful woman with a hideous excuse for a prosthetic hand. He’d been in the
city helping Emerge Tech restore technology where he could after the Anarch attack.
After a particularly long shift, a bunch of ET employees stopped in some hovel
for a drink. Personally, he’d been willing to wait to kick back until they all
were safely behind Emerge Tech’s walls, but his friends assured him the drinks
were better on the outside. He hadn’t cared all that much about drinking.
Besides, Foster was waiting for him. They’d both agreed to put in a few extra
hours working on adding nerve endings to the prosthetics they’d developed.

It had been dark inside the establishment, but the place was full. As he
sat with his comrades and swigged some concoction, a young beauty nursing a
tall glass of beer caught his eye. She stared, her striking hazel gaze combing
up and down the length of him. She had straight, jet-black hair that framed a
simply exquisite face. He couldn’t have ignored her if he’d tried. She was
magnetic.

“I’m Mikale,” he said when he’d worked his way over to sit next to her.

“Dee,” she said. “I could use another drink, Mikale.”

He quickly bought her another one, and they did that getting-to-know-you
flirting thing for a few hours. When he’d looked up, his colleagues were gone,
but she wasn’t. She hadn’t budged.

Fingering his shirt, Dee said, “I’ll bet a guy like you could show a girl
a great time.”

That was all the invitation he’d needed. He’d bundled her into his
Podster, secretly jetted her to Emerge Tech, and they’d taken full advantage of
each other’s bodies. Mikale had never enjoyed such physical pleasures. Dee was…
gifted. She was willing to cater to his every desire—even the ones where things
got a little rough. He’d loved the way she let him dominate.

They’d had encounters several times a week for a few months—a few
glorious months. She’d been his little secret. Foster never approved of the
women he kept as company, and Mikale had stopped introducing them to him. He
spent money on Dee. Loads of it, but she always reciprocated with physical escapades
he’d only dreamed possible.

One night, while she was stroking his arousal, she cursed her prosthetic
hand, wishing she could more skillfully caress him. It didn’t take long for him
to make the decision to get her a new hand. A fully functional hand that could properly
jack him off.

In celebration, the next time they’d been together, Dee had used that
hand to make him come hard and repeatedly. He had doubts he was going to
survive that night. Giving her that hand had been worth every penny.

The next day, she’d asked to get a tattoo to hide the slight seam the
prosthetic caused on her arm. Emerge Tech didn’t have any tattoo studios inside
its walls, so he’d escorted her outside to the city where tattooing was really
the only art form that had survived the Unplug. He’d stayed by her side as the
stars were added to her flawless skin, getting aroused watching the ink mark
her. In the last two stars on the inside of her wrist, she had the letters M
and W added, one above the other so they connected and only the two of them
would know what it meant.

It’d been a sweet gesture, and he’d known Dee was falling for him. Falling
hard. But he wasn’t a one woman kind of man. Never had been. He had many
interests. No single woman—not even Dee—had all the skills he needed to be
truly satisfied.

A set of gorgeous twins with the longest legs in creation walked into the
tattoo studio. He’d also been screwing them at the time. They instantly
plastered themselves to him, and he showered them with the same dominant
handling he showed all his women.

Dee gaped at him, silent accusations screaming from her eyes. Hell, he’d
never claimed to be exclusive to her. He’d considered it. She was amazing after
all, but she wouldn’t be enough. He knew it. Why had she assumed she was the
only woman in his life?

She’d let the tattoo artist apply ointment to the ring of stars and
bandage her arm.

Then she’d taken off.

She knew the city streets well, and he’d searched for her, but it was as
if she’d never existed. He’d put her out of his mind and buried himself in
plenty of hot, wet pussy to make her a distant memory.

Until right now.

Staring down at Darina and taking in those stars again, he let out a
roar. “You’re Dee.”

“In the flesh,” she whispered, “except for this.” She waved her
prosthetic hand. “But you already know that.”

“Where have you been?” Her hair was a different color and curly, her face
more mature and far from pleased to be in his presence, but now that he looked
at her, live and in person, how could he have not known she was Dee?

“I’ve been right under your nose apparently.”

He reached out to take her hand and pull her to her feet. “Well, plan on
staying there.”

****

Foster couldn’t hear what Darina and Mikale were saying, but from the
looks of it, she’d shocked him good with some news. Mikale looked downright
confused, and Foster took that opportunity.

“Yolase, tell them to close in and take control of Warres,” he said.

She closed her eyes and the team slinked closer. Before anyone could get
their hands on Mikale, though, a pulsejet roared overhead. Two retractable arms
lowered. One grabbed Mikale around the waist and the other gently scooped up
Darina. The pulsejet flew toward the main house and deposited Darina on the
deck.

“What do you want me to do with this piece of shit?” came Ghared’s voice.

Foster squinted up to the cockpit where the man stared down at him.
“Leave him with us.”

Hydec and Rasha stepped forward, ready to get their hands on Mikale who
squirmed like caught bait in the fingers of the retractable arm.

“The sky is full of my associates,” Mikale yelled.

“For the moment.” Ghared turned to the pulsejet’s control panel and a few
seconds later, Podsters were falling to the ground, shaking the earth. “Never
underestimate the power of a tech geek. Child’s play for me to hack into the
navigation systems of your fleet, Warres. Child’s play.”

Looking to Foster, he said, “Save Darina. You don’t want to know what
I’ll do to you if you don’t.” With that, he turned the pulsejet around to face
Warres’s associates now pouring out of their downed crafts and fighting with
GECs on the ground.

While chaos ripped up the woods, Foster gathered Darina into his arms.
Her body was burning up and her eyes were hazy. He had to work fast.

“Rasha, Hydec, bring Mikale inside. We’ll question him after I’ve tended
to Darina.”

Nodding, the two GECs took control of Mikale and dragged him inside.

“Foster…” Darina’s voice was hoarse as her eyes fluttered.

“I have you.” He squeezed her to his chest as he bolted for his lab.
“Yolase, assist me?”

“You got it.” She followed him inside.

“Zeke…” Darina gripped a handful of his shirt.

“He’s going to be fine. You’ll see him soon.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” Her eyes rolled up then shut, her body nearly
motionless in his grip.

Foster kicked open the door of his lab and set Darina down on his
worktable. She immediately curled her legs into a fetal position, her hands
over her stomach as if she were holding herself together.

“The virus is already attacking her organs,” Foster said. “Take some
blood, Yolase. That way I have a sample of the virus.”

Yolase set to work and Foster was thankful for her calm presence. He was
anything but calm. He was pretty sure he’d found the cure, but if he hadn’t—if
the cure didn’t work—he was about to lose the best thing that had ever happened
to him. Not only had Darina put her ass on the line to keep him safe, she’d
also shown him what was possible between a man and a woman. She’d gotten him to
dream about a future where he wasn’t alone. Where neither of them were.

He wanted that future. Desperately. For the both of them. And Zeke. He
wanted them all to be that family he craved so much.

Foster set his emotions aside and thought like a scientist. He pulled out
his tablet and with his notes, mixed what he sincerely hoped was the cure.

Darina let out a howl from the table and her body convulsed. Yolase did
her best to hold her down, but Darina was stronger.

“Hurry, Foster. She’s in serious pain here.” Yolase climbed on the table
and struggled to restrain Darina. “You’re going to be okay, Officer Lazitter.
You’re going to be okay.”

When Foster came over to the two women, Yolase’s eyes were closed, and
Darina’s body had relaxed some.

“Nice work, Yolase.”

“What good is telepathy if you can’t use it to take away someone’s pain?”

She eased off Darina and Foster drew the cure up into a syringe. Finding
a prominent vein in her right arm, he pushed the needle in and released the
cure. He set the empty syringe down and moved Darina’s sweat-soaked hair off
her forehead.

“Come on… come on…”

Her breathing grew shallow, her chest barely rising and falling. Her eyes
remained closed, and Foster reached back for a heart monitor. Hooking her up,
he and Yolase both gasped when Darina’s heartbeat hardly registered on the
small screen.

She was nearly flat-lined.

“No.
Hell
, no.” Foster opened a package of electripads and yanked off
Darina’s tank top. Adhering the pads to her chest on either side of her heart,
he activated them.

Darina’s body arched up from the table as the current flowed through her,
but her heart rate didn’t improve.

He was losing her.

Losing her to Mikale Warres and his virus.

With a frustrated growl, he set the electripads off two more times. When
a high-pitched whine sounded from the heart monitor, Foster climbed onto the
table and straddled Darina’s limp body. Gathering her torso, he crushed her to
his own chest and buried his face in her hair.

“You can’t die. You cannot. Zeke needs you. Ghared needs you,” he said,
his voice strained. “I fucking need you.”

Her body was so hot in his grip, almost too hot to touch, but he didn’t
release her. Couldn’t release her. Not now. Not ever.

“Come on,” he said again. “Don’t leave us.” He bent down so his lips were
right at her ear. “Don’t leave me.”

He sat up and let her body rest back on the table. Her face was pale, her
chest hardly moving at all. The heat was quickly leaving her.

“Doesn’t the virus take longer to attack the body than this? I mean, she
was only injected minutes ago.” Yolase’s voice startled him. He’d forgotten she
was there.

“Maybe he put a different strain in her.” He looked up at Yolase.
“Where’s the blood you took from her?”

She pointed to a vial on the worktable.

Foster climbed off Darina and took the vial. Mumbling to himself, he put
a sample of her blood on a slide and examined it under the microscope. “Dammit.
It is different.”

He tore open his lab door and shouted, “Bring him in here!”

Moments later, Rasha and Hydec appeared with Mikale between them. Foster
immediately grabbed Mikale by the neck and slammed him into the wall. Rasha and
Hydec took a step back. They’d never seen him behave like this. But then again,
he’d never had someone he was truly terrified to lose.

“What did you put in her?” he demanded.

A cocky smile slithered over Mikale’s lips. “Something a little special.”

“Tell me what’s in it now.” Foster banged Mikale’s head against the wall
and tightened his grip on his neck.

Mikale made a choking sound as his face turned red. “Can’t… breathe…”

Yolase put a hand on Foster’s shoulder. “You can’t get the information
you need, Foster, if you kill him.”

Right. Of course. But the temptation to rip this guy apart was hard to
ignore. Foster had spent most of his life wanting to help people, but right now
all he could think about was squeezing Mikale’s neck until it broke.

Somehow he loosened his grip. “If Darina dies…”

“What do you care if a whore like her dies?” Mikale asked, rubbing his
neck.

Foster hadn’t consciously decided to launch his fist into Mikale’s face,
but after he’d done it, he was glad he had. Seeing blood pour from the other
man’s nose and upper lip was surprisingly satisfying.

“You’ve had enough experiences with whores, Mikale, to know Darina is far
from one.” Foster had known that when Mikale wasn’t working with him on
something for Emerge Tech or one of their own projects, he was with a woman
he’d hired. He didn’t approve of it, but he’d turned to hologram programs to
get off himself, so was he much different?

He shook his head. He
was
much different. He hadn’t played with
the emotions of real women. Holograms didn’t get attached. That was why Foster
had always felt so empty after being with one.

Being with Darina hadn’t left him feeling empty. Totally the opposite in
fact. He’d never been so filled as when he’d made love with her.

She absolutely couldn’t leave him now.

“Tell me what you put in her, Mikale. Tell me and maybe I won’t let my
friends here shoot you full of holes. They’d love to, you know.”

“Was saying that just the other day,” Hydec said as Rasha nodded.

“The whore means something to you.” Mikale looked over Foster’s shoulder
to where Darina still lay motionless.

“Stop calling her a whore.”

“But she is one, Foster. She was my whore. She fucked me so good, and I
bought her that hand.”

Foster stumbled back. Mikale and Darina had been together?

Rich bastard
…

The words echoed in Foster’s head. Mikale was the rich bastard. That news
socked him in the face worse than a punch. Why hadn’t Darina told him it was
Mikale?