Page 62 of Stars in Halo

She took a shaky breath, waiting for Xion’s next move.

Xion conducted a neural sweep for cameras and sent a cloud of metanoids on a search mission.

Others he deployed into an invisible stealth shield around him and the woman with whom he’d shared the most intimate moments of his life not less than 24 hours earlier.

He’d woken up in her bed, so emotional, vulnerable, needing more.

Giving and wanting more.

Until she’d gone on to betray him.

It cut deep, and his heart throbbed with the pain of it.

He let her calm down before rasping with menace into her ear. ‘Will you keep your voice in a whisper for me, beautiful?’

She didn’t hesitate to nod, and with a suck of his teeth, he released his hand but kept her back to his chest, speaking into her temple. ‘Stay still, and we’ll remain unseen. I’ve got us shielded for now.’

‘How?’ she asked.

‘Explanations from myself and a truckload more from you will come later, trust me,’ he murmured. ‘For now, let’s try to make it out of this clusterfokk.’

She gave him a nervous glance at him and, leaning in, whispered. ‘I never wanted this.’

Pain twisted in his gut.

‘Yet you let it happen, woman,’ he muttered, eyes cold, unimpressed by her confession. ‘You pulled a wicked game on me, woman, which I’m fokkin’ sour about. I really should have known better than messing with you.’

After a beat, she sighed. ‘I’m so sorry, Xion. I was under duress. If I didn’t do it -’

Her words hung in the air. The anguish in her face pointed to the truth.

‘Your children? They have them?’ he growled.

She nodded.

His wall of ice melted a touch at the brokenness in her eyes.

On the outside, however, he nurtured a scowl and tore his eyes from her.

His gaze flitted to her brothers, dark-skinned, lean as whippets now that they’d shed their burly hotel security uniforms.

Knowing young children’s lives were in the balance and seeing the agony it was causing the woman by his side gave him a wild hankering to tear them apart.

Given the chance, he’d show them who they thought he was and more.

They’d only overwhelmed his ass at the hotel because they’d used a high-powered laser stun charge, disrupting the signals between his metanoids.

Now he was forewarned and was on alert if they tried to pull similar shit.

With narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw, he studied them.

Each brother had a distinct look with varying degrees of faked toughness. Their skin was embedded with jewels, and their long dark hair was woven with similar gems. They carried comical weapons of choice and strutted about showing them off.

They were clear try-hards, and in hand-to-hand combat, Xion knew he’d overcome them and easily knock them out.

Yet he needed them talking. Keen to understand why they’d captured him and where they were taking him.

He had to out-think them, and for that, he required more data.

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