Page 4 of Only Cold Depths
I glanced behind me, but the alley was a dead end, and the twenty-foot wall was as smooth and slick as glass. Even with Kyrion’s strength, I couldn’t climb it.
I was trapped.
CHAPTER TWO
VESPER
Iheldmyposition.My fingers curled around the shopping bag straps still on my shoulder, and a sharp corner poked into my upper arm. I glanced down. The ice-blue box with the butterfly brooch was jutting up out of the bag.
I glared at the offending box. Why had I ever thought that anything to do with House Zimmer could be a good-luck charm? It was more like a blasted curse, and it had already sunk its claws into me.
Vesper?Kyrion’s voice sliced through my mind, his tone rough with worry.Where are you? What’s happening?
The bounty hunter and her friends caught up with me. We’re in an alley about a mile from the spaceport.
On my way, he growled.
More of Kyrion’s icy fury crashed over me, and I had to grit my teeth to keep them from chattering again.
“Are you sure this is her, Rina?” one of the men asked. “She doesn’t look nearly as pretty and polished as she did on the gossipcast footage of the Regal ball.”
“Oh, it’s definitely her,” Rina, the pink-haired woman, replied in a tart tone. “I didn’t notice you at first, but one of my special friends spotted you right away.”
Special friends? Who was she talking about?
Rina clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. “Given the enormous bounty, I thought you’d have amuchbetter disguise than bleached hair, colored contacts, and a fake nose.”
I shrugged off her taunt. “Everyone’s a critic. How did you and your friends spot me?”
I needed to keep her talking to give Kyrion time to get here, but I was also genuinely curious. As a lab rat, someone who toiled away in the Quill Corp research-and-development lab, I specialized in designing appliances, weapons, and spaceships. Basically, I figured out how things worked and especially how to make them better, faster, and more efficient and powerful.
And this was far more important than tweaking the temperature settings on a new brewmaker or upping the voltage on a blaster. I wanted to know what had drawn the bounty hunter’s attention so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Icouldn’tmake the same mistake again, not if Kyrion and I were going to stay free.
Rina shrugged back at me. “I spend my days finding people who don’t want to be found. Desperation comes with a variety of signs—lowered heads, hunched shoulders, furtive movements, always looking around and jumping at every loud noise. You had all the classic tells, along with that ridiculously large shopping bag. People only slink around and carry bags like that when they need to stock up on supplies and return to their hiding spots as fast as possible.”
She gestured at my discarded cloak lying on the ground. “Plus, you tried to hide your body with that cloak because you either didn’t want someone to recognize your outfit or you didn’t have anything else to wear.”
She was right. All the garments on theDream Worldmatched my current Arrow uniform, and I had wanted to hide my clothes since the dark blue color might make someone think of House Caldaren.
“Either way, no normal vacationer would be dressed like that. Even the most expensive tempered silk is no match for this sweltering humidity.”
Once again, she was right. Tempered silk might adjust to the wearer’s body temperature, along with the surrounding environment, but I was still sweating, thanks to the sun beating down on my head. I was starting to despise Tropics planets almost as much as Magma ones.
I stabbed my left index finger at her hair, which was brighter than any tropical hibiscus. “You’re one to talk. Neon-pink hair doesn’t exactly make you incognito.”
Rina ran a hand over her locks, but the spikes sprang right back into place. “I don’t care about being incognito. Iwantmy targets to know I’m coming.” A cruel grin spread across her face. “I love the thrill of the chase.”
She tilted her head to the side, studying me even more closely. “Even with all your tells, I still wasn’t sure it was you, Lady Vesper. At least, not until you bolted like a snow rabbit being chased by a Frozon wolf.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “That’s when I called in my men, and now here we are, about to score the biggest bounty ever offered in the Archipelago Galaxy.”
The air beside her shimmered, and the image of another Rina appeared. The second Rina rubbed her hands together in glee, then plunged them into a bag brimming with old-fashioned gold coins. Rina lifted her hands, letting the coins trickle through her fingers and drop back down into the bag. Maybe it was a quirk of my seer magic, but I could hear everyclink-clink-clinkof the coins clattering together.
I blinked. The second Rina vanished, along with the bag of coins, like a hologram that had abruptly cut off, leaving only the real woman in front of me. I grimaced. My seer magic was useful in a variety of ways, but I could have done without the visions it often showed me of other people’s goals.
“What is the going rate for my capture these days?” I asked, once again genuinely curious.
“For you? Ten million credits,” Rina replied, her dark eyes gleaming with greed. “Twenty million for Kyrion Caldaren. Thirty million for the two of you together.”
Annoyance shot through me that Kyrion’s bounty was so much higher, although I should have expected it. Kyrion Caldaren was a powerful psion, someone with mental abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, and telempathy. He was also one of the most notorious assassins in the galaxy, an expert warrior who’d been the head of the Arrows for years. Of course Callus Holloway would offer more for Kyrion’s capture, but the glaring disparity still irked my pride.
