Page 8 of Only Cold Depths
Esmina’s lips curled back into a disgusted sneer. “That’s the trap of truebonds. The weakalwaysdrag down the strong.”
Those thorns burrowed even deeper into my chest, crystallizing into jagged shards of icy dread. Somehow she was peering into the darkest recesses of my mind and heart and dragging out my deepest secrets and most terrifying fears—that I was going to get myself killed and doom Kyrion along with me.
Esmina shrugged, as if my lack of power was of no real concern. “Still, you are supposed to be useful in other ways, small though they may be.”
I flinched, but I finally found my voice again. “Not that small. You can get a lot ofuseout of ten million credits.”
She laughed. “Whoever said I was here for the bounty?”
Another chill zipped down my spine, stronger than the others, and morphed into an ocean of ice that surged out into my arms and legs. Having a bounty on my head was bad enough, but far worse fates were lurking in the cold depths of the galaxy.
Harkin Ocnus had shown me that.
The sadistic scientist was the son of General Orion Ocnus, one of the leaders of the Techwave, a terrorist group that wanted to topple the Imperium and become the main ruling force in the galaxy. Several weeks ago, on his father’s orders, Harkin had kidnapped me and cuffed me to a table in his medical lab. The cruel bastard had cut me with a scalpel, then used skinbonds to heal my injuries. Harkin had tortured me over and over in hopes of forcing me to fix the Techwave’s new hand cannon, a deadly weapon capable of cutting through psionic and other defensive energy shields.
My seer magic surged up. This time, instead of a double image or a blinding silver light, the ends of Esmina’s scarlet cloak oozed down and started dripping, just as my blood had dripped off the table in Harkin’s lab.
I shuddered at the unwanted vision. “If you’re not here for the bounty, then what do you want with me? Are you working for the Techwave?”
“The Techwave?” A mocking laugh tumbled from Esmina’s lips. “Please. Don’t insult me. I have far bigger goals than ordering around a bunch of mechanized soldiers.”
“I wouldn’t mind crushing a few Black Scarabs,” Pollux chimed in. “They make such odd noises when you smash them.”
He kept swinging his hammer, and another shudder rippled through my body at his casual dismissal of the Techwave’s dangerous automated troops.
“Forget it,” Rina growled. “I stole Lady Vesper from you fair and square.We’recollecting the bounty, not you.”
Rina plucked her blaster out of its holster and aimed the weapon at Pollux. The three male bounty hunters did the same thing.
I eased to the side, getting out of the potential cross fire, and a small flare of light appeared. I tensed, thinking it was more of my seer magic, but the light was coming from the long dagger on Esmina’s belt. She wasn’t even touching the dagger, and the lunarium blade was still glimmering a faint gold in a reflection of her magic. I’d never seen a weapon light up like that without a psion’s touch, which was just another confirmation of how powerful she was.
Rina waggled her blaster at Pollux, although her gaze flicked over to Esmina. “Tell your lapdog to stand down, and we won’t kill you.”
Pollux snorted at her lie. “Really? You and what army? All I see are buckets of bolts and piles of metal.”
Rina puckered her lips and let out a high, sharp whistle. All around the junkyard, the buckets of bolts and piles of metal shifted to the sides, smoothly skating along hidden tracks embedded in the dirt. A series of secret doors opened, and more than a dozen bounty hunters poured out of the hiding spots. Clever.
The bounty hunters spread out and aimed their blasters at Pollux and Esmina.
Rina grinned. “What were you saying about an army?”
CHAPTER THREE
VESPER
Thissituationhadquicklygone from bad to worse to catastrophic, like a blitzer spinning out of control and about to crash into the ground.
Esmina sighed, as if the reinforcements bored her. Pollux grinned and kept swinging his hammer back and forth.
“You’re surrounded and outnumbered,” Rina crowed. “Now what you are doing to do, you arrogant bitch?”
Esmina blinked a few times, and the gold flecks in her eyes brightened again. Her lips puckered, and a sour look crinkled her face. “Nothing.”
Rina blinked in surprise, as did the other bounty hunters. Me too. Usually, these sorts of standoffs involved more threats and posturing until someone escalated things to their inevitable bloody conclusion.
“So . . . you’re . . . surrendering?” Rina asked in a bewildered voice.
Esmina scoffed. “Please. Ineversurrender, but this fight is already over.”
