Page 89 of Shielded Heart

His central eye dipped to the holocom atop the desk—Straek’s holocom. The screens in front of Arc, which displayed readouts from the programs he was running to overcome the holocom’s security, were unchanging save for the slow cycling of tiny numerals.

Most holocoms were exceptionally secure devices, but Arcanthus’s workarounds had been passed down from Zakarae, who herself had learned from some of the most skilled hackers on Caldorius. She’d taught him all he knew about hacking, and had thus laid the foundations for the life he’d led for the last decade.

Unfortunately, hacking was often a long, boring process, even after so many years to perfect his art. Were Zakarae alive, she undoubtedly could’ve accomplished this task in half the time.

He let his gaze wander around the workshop, paying little attention to what he saw; his mind seized the opportunity to turn toward Samantha.

He’d woken beside her a few hours ago, content and at ease. Though his problems hadn’t been solved while he slept, they’d seemed less formidable after some rest, and his frustrations had diminished. Much of that was disrupted when he reminded himself that he had work to do—and that he would need to isolate himself from Samantha in order to finish it.

Despite all that, the most pressing matter upon his awakening had been Samantha; she’d turned to face away from him during the night, and her rounded ass had been pressed against his slit. His cock had already extruded, its tendrils slowly caressing her skin. He’d been unable to resist his urges—he’d teased her awake with his hands, tail, and lips, and she’d been hot and ready when he slipped into her from behind.

He waited until after they’d cleaned up and shared a meal to tell her that he’d need to spend much of the day in his workshop.

Samantha had taken it well. She’d even been understanding when he told her that, though she was free to explore the compound, he’d instructed his security team to prevent her from leaving. Keeping her locked in here made his stomach sink, but she’d only kissed him, said it made sense, and laughed about not having anywhere else she needed to be.

Her easy acceptance of the situation only heightened his determination to find a solution. He refused to spend the rest of their years cowering behind these walls, refused to let the Syndicate dictate the way he and his mate lived, refused to hold her here like a prisoner. Even if she decided never to go outside, heneededto ensure it washerchoice to make—not anyone else’s.

A soft chiming sound called his attention to one of the screens.

“About time,” he muttered, expanding the screen and drawing it closer. The security bypass had done its job; now it was up to Arcanthus to extract the information within.

Using a secondary screen, he confirmed his usual protections were in place before he proceeded—the last thing he needed was the holocom somehow pinging its location despite his safeguards. Once he was satisfied, he brought up the holocom’s internal menus on his main holo display.

There was little overtly incriminating data on the device—not that Arcanthus had expected there to be. The Inner Reach Syndicate had flourished because it was adept at minimizing evidence and bribing the right officials. Even low-level skrudges like Straek needed to be smart enough to cover their tracks. Anyone who leaked information in such organizations—whether the leak was voluntary or accidental—was dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.

After a little digging—and cracking two more passcodes—Arcanthus gained access to Straek’s stored images. To anyone who didn’t know any better, it would’ve simply been a collection of pictures with exotic aliens as their subjects. But Arcanthusdidknow better.

Every individual who was the focus of those images was a potential target for Syndicate kidnappers and traffickers.

Arcanthus’s rage reignited when he reached the series of images containing Samantha and himself. Based on the progression, Samantha had indeed been the groalthuun’s focus—it wasn’t until the latter images that Arcanthus’s face was visible.

“Didn’t even cover up yourqal, you damned fool,” he said as he perused the stills.

Despite their source, he found himself going back through the images; Samantha looked so happy in many of them, so carefree. It was how he wanted to see her for the rest of his days. She deserved all the happiness the universe could offer.

And, because the universe didn’t seem particularly intent upongivingher happiness, Arcanthus would gladly seize it to pass along to her.

He forced himself to back out of the images after a few minutes and continued searching the device. Its geo-positioning software had been disabled, meaning it was unable to report its physical location, and its records on that regard were clean; it would’ve been too much to hope that Straek had accumulated a cache of location data that would point to the places he’d frequented.

The groalthuun’s contacts were cryptic, listed in what Arc could only assume were nicknames—none of them followed any naming conventions or patterns with which he was familiar—that had no discernable means of organization. Just to be certain, he checked several against the Consortium database; the searches yielded no results; not an easy feat in a city of billions.

The Eternal Guard’s database might’ve produced different results—the peacekeepers kept detailed records on anyone they detained, including known aliases—but it would take hours more of searching, and he wasn’t done exploring the holocom’s contents just yet.

Arcanthus paused when his eyes picked out something different on the list, backtracking a few entries to find it. While everything else was in the Universal Alphabet, one entry was listed in different characters, their shape and flow unfamiliar to him.

He copied them and ran a search on the plexus. The result came up instantly, and Arc stared at it for several seconds; his brain refused to believe what his eyes were showing him.

The characters had formed the wordBossin the native language of the groalthuun people.

He opened the entry, which contained, unsurprisingly, scant information—just the name and a commlink ID. Arcanthus knew the comm ID was a routing shield; it would contact theBoss, but it would do so through a seemingly endless chain of interconnecting IDs that would be obscured through dozens of different systems, making it almost impossible to trace.

There was nothing to gain by attempting to contact Straek’s mysterious boss.

Was there?

Arcanthus stared at the commlink ID, running his gaze slowly over each character.

Even if there were nothing to gain—and he wasn’tentirelyconvinced that was the case—there was also nothing to lose. Arcanthus could match the Syndicate’s ability to make his communications untraceable; they stood no more chance of locating him through the commlink than he did of locating them. And, even if he knew he wouldn’t get an answer, he wanted to ask thisBosswhy.

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