Wild in the Highlands Read online

  She knew they had people too, trained and battle-tested, but it didn’t seem like enough in that moment. Many had been injured when the ships collided. Despite all Godfrey’s special sensors, they’d been taken unaware.

  Jessa cursed under her breath and dodged around a stumbling officer. His head was bleeding. She couldn’t worry about that now. This was her plan, and if it went wrong…

  Well, she didn’t want to think about what would happen if it went wrong.

  Mack reached the cargo area and slid to a halt, automatically widening his stance to brace himself. The pirates were crawling over the first wave of officers like tube-rats on a beef carcass.

  Her stomach rolled. She braced herself against Mack’s shoulder, taking comfort from the solid warmth of him.

  “Get down,” he said as he pulled his weapon from his hip.

  Jessa dropped, taking the same position she had in the bay on Lyra, using her low angle to take advantage of the disorganized pirates. Others were fighting too, mostly with weapons, but some hand-to-hand.

  She caught a glimpse of TSE-938, her pretty face grim as she twisted a man’s neck until his spine snapped.

  Jessa lost her in the crowd again. Everything was noise and blood and chaos. She kept firing, bracing her shoulder against Mack’s hip, keeping most of her body behind the bulk of his.

  Her cy’s aim was deadly, dropping foes one after another faster than her eye could follow. But more and more seemed to spill from through the doors.

  It seemed like hours, but was probably minutes, that she crouched there, shooting anyone in the pale strips of cloth the pirates wore. Her ears rang with the sound of shouts and shots. Her shoulders ached from holding her weapon up, but she didn’t waver.

  Above her head, Mack’s voice was a deep rumble. “Cover me.”

  “I’ve got you.”

  A magazine dropped in front of her, smoking slightly from the speed with which he’d been firing. She heard the tear of him pulling a new magazine free but he didn’t immediately slam it home. Without looking, she didn’t know why, but she kept her eyes on the thinning crowd in front of her, taking out a scrawny man who clung to the back of an officer’s uniform and stabbed at him with a piece of broken pipe.

  One of the pirates noticed Mack’s dilemma — whatever it was — and raised his weapon, aiming straight for her cy’s chest.

  Jessa put her bead right between his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The dry click of an empty magazine pierced her like a shot of its own. Time seemed to slow as a feral grin spread across the pirate’s mouth, revealing sharp, white teeth.

  She didn’t think, she just acted.

  Pushing as hard as she could with her thighs, Jessa launched herself upwards and forwards, springing sideways across Mack’s broad body. She heard his startled, “Jessa, what —” before pain slammed into her chest and she crumpled to the floor.

  Jessa had a moment to contemplate just how much trouble she might get in for disobeying Directive #97 before the blackness swallowed her.

  ***

  There was a fire burning under her ribs. A warm little blaze. It sort of hurt, but also… tickled a little.

  Jessa took a deep breath, and the fire flared. She groaned. The sound raked at her dry throat. Her body felt heavy, too heavy. She could barely move her fingers. When she tried to open her eyes, her lids only flickered.

  Bright panic swelled in her skull, thumping like a hammer. Then a deep, soothing voice washed over her.

  “Shhh. It’s all right, Jessa. Relax.”

  She did, sinking back against what she now realized were very soft sheets. Where was she?

  “You’re in the infirmary,” the rumbling bass told her.

  A smile curved Jessa’s lips. She felt it. Mack. Her cy. He was the only one who knew how to answer questions she hadn’t yet asked.

  Memories of the attack on the Ticonderoga flooded back. She groaned again. That explained the itchy, tickly pain in her chest then. She’d gotten shot, damn it. At least she’d managed to protect Mack, though.

  That thought gave her the strength to pry her eyelids open.

  Bright light blinded her, making her wince and intensifying the pounding in her head — which wasn’t panic but just a garden variety headache. She blinked rapidly as her eyes watered.

  Slowly, her vision cleared. The first thing she saw was Mack’s intimidatingly perfect scowl. She laughed, the huff of breath making her ribs ache.

  “Hey, gorgeous.”

  “You violated Directive #97,” he said, lips twisting.

  Jessa nodded. “I know.”

  Mack’s hand covered hers, careful of the IV poking out of the back of it. “You could have died, Jessa.”

  She laced her fingers through his. “I’m gathering that, from your thunderous scowl.”

  It took some effort but she managed to lift her other hand and smooth it over his wrinkled forehead. Unsurprisingly, the creases immediately returned. She guessed he was probably going to be pretty ticked at her for awhile, but that was all right. She didn’t mind.

  “I would have been fine.” He thumped his own chest with his other hand, as if to prove how impenetrable it was.

  “Maybe,” she replied. “I didn’t want to take the chance. Now, tell me what happened after I passed out.”

  “There was no chance,” he grumbled, but the corner of that sinful mouth twitched. “We got them all, including the ringleader behind all the inner station raids.”

  Jessa sighed and shifted her shoulders against the pillows behind her. The quality of care in this infirmary was top notch.

  “My plan worked, then.”

  Mack nodded, his broad thumb rubbing over her knuckles. “Your plan worked. We lost some officers, unfortunately.” The scowl returned. “And you lost a lobe of your left lung.”

  She flinched and rubbed her palm against her side.

  “Is that what it was? Ouch.”

  “You will promise me you are never going to do anything like that again.”

  Jessa met Mack’s intense silver gaze and smiled. “I will not.”

  Mack tilted his head, lips pursed. “You mean you will not promise me, not that you will not do any such thing again.”

  With another semi-painful laugh, Jessa lifted his hand and pressed it to her mouth. She spoke against his skin.

  “You know me so well.”

  Her cy leaned over her, his mouth warm and sweet on hers as he kissed her. The pain melted away, filling her with tingling pleasure as his tongue slid against hers. She fisted her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and attempted to tug him up onto the bed with her, but the stubborn man remained as he was.

  Growling into his mouth, Jessa nibbled his lower lip instead, enjoying the pleasant heat of arousal washing through her.

  The sharp bark of laughter that interrupted a moment later was like a bucket of water over her head. She jerked away from Mack, who sank back into his chair, and scowled at the newcomer.

  “Godfrey, what are you doing here?”

  It was Jessa’s turn to scowl as the wiry mech tech waggled his eyebrows. He rubbed his hands together.

  “You mean Mack hasn’t told you yet?”

  Jessa’s gaze flicked between the two men.

  “Told me what?”

  “She’s only just woken up,” Mack said, taking her hand again.

  Godfrey waved this explanation away. “She’s up enough for you to tickle her tonsils.”

  She was surprised to feel the heat of blush in her cheeks and turned her face away from the annoying tinkerer. Which is when she became aware that there was a window across from her, through which was streaming bright, yellow sunlight.

  Sunlight.

  “Are… are we back on Earth?”

  Mack squeezed her hand. Godfrey lifted one long finger.

  “Point the first, you are back on Earth.” He lifted a second finger. “Point the second, you were fired for violating Directive #97 and
nearly getting killed.”

  “What? Fired?!”

  That seemed a bit extreme to her, but Godfrey just shook his head and lifted a third finger.

  “Point the —”

  “Knock it off, God.” Mack’s voice was a deep, warning rumble. God huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Fine, fine. Anyway. The long and short of it is, I negotiated a bit of a deal with good ol’ Cantra Corp for a new state-of-the-art lab here on Earth, to be headed by yours truly, and requested as my personal security two slightly defective units.”

  He waggled his brows again.

  “I am not defective. Nor am I a cy.”

  The tech waved his hand as if this was of no consequence, and laughed. “Your boyfriend is. And he’s quite an interesting one, at that. But then, you know that, don’t you?”

  Jessa refused to blush again. She lifted her chin and squeezed Mack’s hand.

  “He’s much more than just an interesting unit to me,” she said, her voice acerbic.

  Godfrey snorted and rolled his eyes. “Of course, of course. I’ll leave you two lovebirds to celebrate. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  Then he was, thankfully, gone as abruptly as he’d arrived.

  Jessa turned her attention to the cy — the man — at her side. She could feel the smile stretching her lips.

  “So…”

  Mack’s tongue swept along his full lower lip, drawing her gaze. She watched his mouth move as he spoke.

  “There is something I need to tell you.”

  Jessa forced her gaze back to his, drinking in the sight of those pale gray irises. His dark brows drew down in a vee above the straight line of his nose. She reached up and stroked her pointer finger between them.

  “What’s that, baby?”

  “I am in love with you.”

  She ran her fingers up into his hair, feeling the heavy silk of it drift against her palm, tickling. The fire under her ribs was metaphorical now, and didn’t hurt at all.

  “I know.”

  Mack’s eyes widened. “You… Jessa…”

  Jessa tugged at his hair. “Now, come over here and let me give you another one of those demonstrations.”

  “You are injured.”

  She pulled harder until he shifted forward, sliding a knee onto the bed beside her. Jessa wrapped her other arm around his neck and brought his mouth down to hers.

  “Not that injured,” she murmured against his warm satin lips.

  His hands caressed her hair, brushing it back from her forehead.

  “I do not wish to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.” She traced his lips with her tongue, tasting coffee and sugar and Mack. He groaned, stroking her shoulders and down her back.

  “Jessa,” he warned. She kissed him, deep and slow and hot and passionate. When she pulled back, they were both panting.

  “I love you, too. Now, come here.”

  He did. And Jessa was once again thankful that her cy didn’t mind taking orders from a woman.

  THE END