Garik had never contemplated having kids but if he did, there was no way he’d allow someone to hurt them the way Saedra had been hurt. Her gaze dropped and Garik braced for a lie. “My parents couldn’t help.”
Her shrug was hard to decipher.
“Are they dead?”
Tears glimmered in her eyes, then she blinked them away. “As good as.”
He decided to let it go for now. The expression on her face spoke to a sadness he assumed related to the loss of her parents.
They talked of other things and while Garik struggled with giving personal details about himself due to his role as assazi, Saedra managed to get him to talk about his parents.
“So they were good to you?” she asked when he finished explaining their deaths and how he ended up on the streets living with other kids who were orphans.
The few memories he had of his mother and father were positive ones. He’d had clean clothing and food enough to keep him full. Neither of them had talked much of his future beyond their small city and Garik had assumed he would one day work in the labor force as his father had. “They were good. Decent.”
She nodded, accepted the fact. “How did you end up with the Guild?”
Garik tensed. He didn’t talk about Nevo Xyman, the man who’d given him the card to contact the Guild. Nevo was no longer an assassin with the organization and now pursued mercenary and bounty contracts independently. Their paths didn’t cross often and when they did, Xyman never acted as if he remembered Garik as that lost youth. They acknowledged each others presence and went about their business.
Which was for the best because if Garik’s reputation sent targets running, Nevo Xyman’s had those on his radar screaming in terror and making extreme back door deals to escape his notice.
Saedra touched his arm lightly. “If its too much, you don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s complicated. Simple story is, I joined and went through the training process. Once done I started taking assignments and the rest is history.”
Along with a fortune earned from his assignments, Garik had amassed a ton of favors. One of which he planned to use to get them out of here and have a place for them for the night. “Come on. Let’s head out. Staying here doesn’t give me a sense of security.”
Staying anywhere he didn’t personally plan and arrange would never sit well with Garik.
Chapter 12
Saedra slung the straps of her pack over her shoulder and stood next to the door of the shed. She waited until Garik finished shutting everything off and wiping down anything they touched on their way out one last time. He went to the hover-cycle along the wall and pushed it through the door then threw his leg over the saddle once outside and turned toward her.
Her breath caught. The clothes she’d purchased were low quality, but the black fabric hugged his body like a lover. Long sleeves followed the lines of the muscles in his arm and the pants stretched taut over his thighs down to the foot he had planted on the ground. Scarred black boots completed the look.
With his disheveled hair and jagged features, she shouldn’t find him appealing. But he was. An assassin with a reputation of being ruthless and lacking in mercy yet he’d not treated her unkindly. He’d vowed to protect her, held her in his arms and gave her an unknown before gift of passion. And asked nothing in return.
“Saedra?”
His gaze roved over her from head to toe as she drew near. Saedra swallowed. The gray stare burned with a fierce light she couldn’t identify. His chin tipped up, sending strands of dark-colored hair to spill across his forehead.
“You need to hurry, sesi.”
Sweetheart. He’d told her the word was an endearment. No one called her by an endearment. Not even her mother.
This time, Saedra wasn’t as hesitant to get on the hover-cycle. She climbed on behind him and leaned forward, resting the side of her face against his back.
Her nerves might not be as bad as the first time, but her pulse did leap and dance in anticipation. When she tightened her arms about his waist, her thighs naturally aligned snugly against his. The position felt overtly intimate from the crush of her breasts on his back to her parted legs exposing her center. “Ready.”
Garik released the guiding bar to caress her upper thigh, then took her at her word and they shot down the lane they’d used to get to the hideaway. Wind whipped about Saedra’s face and she closed her eyes to protect them from any debris. At one point, she peeked to see how far they’d traversed. The ground was a black and gray streak flying by. She squeaked at one sharp turn and closed them back.
Garik seemed to take the curves at unsafe speeds. She could only hope he knew what he was doing. As a safety measure, she locked her fingers tighter about his torso. Garik reached down and squeezed her hand. Something in Saedra’s chest melted.
“We have company,” Garik yelled.
Saedra’s eyes popped open. Forcing down her fear at their speed, she looked over Garik’s shoulder and saw empty road for many kilometers ahead.
“Behind us!”
Saedra risked a glance back and her pulse jumped. Riders. At least three, on hover-cycles coming up the road behind them at incredible speeds. Their cycles to her eyes seemed as good as the one she’d purchased. Helmeted heads prevented her from seeing their faces but they wore black synth jackets with a bright blaze of red down the sleeves. Black and red were her father’s signature colors and his guards all wore it from their uniform to these specific jackets.
Fear exploded in her chest. Facing forward, Saedra had to yell as well to be heard. “What do we do?”
“Try to outrun them. If we can get to the main roads of the city, I can try and lose them in the cross streets. I should also be able to find a communication device to contact someone to help us stay off Maurin’s radar.”
Saedra had to press closer and strain to hear but she caught Garik’s words. She just hoped they could do it. Sparks pinged on the stretch of road ahead of them and Garik suddenly leaned lower and steered the cycle in an erratic pattern. A loud retort followed on the heels.
Her mind was slow to make the connection and then the answer was right there. The guards were shooting at them! Squeezing her arms harder around Garik, Saedra wanted to shut her eyes again except she had to know what was going on around them. The sound of the cycles got louder. She twisted to look over her shoulder. The riders were closer than before. Wind snapped strands of her hair loose and in her eyes. “They’re gaining on us.”
Four, not three guards, and the one on the far left had his weapon out and aimed at them. Saedra ducked, wishing she could burrow into Garik’s back. It was all she could do not to scream as she clutched tightly to his mid-section.
Laser blasts fired, creating sparks and black divots in the road. Garik zoomed around them. There was barely any pause as another round of lasers rang out. Saedra almost swore she felt the heat of it on her right shoulder.
“Hold on!” Garik instructed.
With a twist of his wrist, the hover-cycle gained more speed and gave off a low whine. Saedra bit down hard on her bottom lip to hold in her panicked scream. Wind whipped around them and her eyes blurred with tears. Soon the sound of weapons fire faded. She couldn’t hear the other cycles.
Saedra risked another glance behind and didn’t see anyone. Garik’s speed had pressure pushing on her shoulders and neck so she faced forward again and mashed her forehead onto his back. She wasn’t sure how long they rode. Only that they eventually slowed when they entered the city limits.