Page 11 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
When a moving target zipped across the field, he aimed and fired, obliterating the form. Two more targets ran out. He removed those. Six was a little harder, especially because they included a non-combatant target that wove hectically between the others. Like a panicked hostage might.
Trixie watched without comment as he systematically destroyed them. Except for the innocent one, of course.
At last she stirred. “You’re trying to show me I shouldn’t be worried about Blackworm escaping and coming here and capturing us again.”
Actually, for some reason he’d been showing off for her. But he’d grab her excuse since that was true enough. “He has the whole universe to hide in. He’dbe insane to come back here.”
Trixie gazed at him, her green-brown eyes hazy. “Blackworm kidnapped and drugged women on the edge of a black hole for unknown reasons. Yeah, why would we think he’s insane?”
The sarcasm sharpening her tone didn’t bother him at all compared to the fog of fear in her gaze. “Whatever Blackworm wanted, it was out there with the infinity of the singularity, not hereon Azthronos’s worlds.”
“We’rehere,” she whispered. “What’s left of the Black Hole Brides.”
The bleakness of her words pierced him.
When theGrandiloquencehad been rerouted from its system tour to the rescue at the space station just beyond the duchy’s borders, he’d followed the orders—partly because they were orders, but also because he’d been intrigued by the idea of a disgraced Thorkonnoble seemingly mocking Azthronos. On the whole, Thorkons were an uptight, stuffy bunch, not much inclined to being disgraceful.
Himself excluded, of course. But he was only half Thorkon.
But his amusement at a misbehaving noble had palled after discovering the five abducted Earther females, plus one who had expired in a malfunctioning stasis pod, plus an unknown number of others, since Blackwormhad refused to say how many of the empty pods had at one time been filled.
And witnessing Trixie’s fright now only made him feel worse.
“Whatever Blackworm wanted with you, it’s over,” he assured her. “You’re off the space station and you never have to go back. That’s all behind you.”
But his words didn’t seem to reassure her any more than his shooting had.
If anything, her mud-puddle eyesseemed even more murky. “I should be looking ahead, sure,” she muttered. “Figure out what I want in this universe.”
“That’s what I did,” he said. Larf it, he sounded like a smug noble himself, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to reassure her. “Once I knew what I wanted from the universe, I went after it.”
She grimaced. “I don’t need a dreadnaught. This blaster is fine.” She sidelongeda glance at him. “Unless you want to give me yours.”
“Not a chance.” He set another pattern in the targeting system. “Take another shot. Moving this time. Practice is good, even if it’s obvious you know how to shoot. Where did you learn?”
“I grew up in a place called Nebraska.”
“What is it like?” he asked curiously. “Besides the weapons training.”
“Nothing like here.” She eyed him. “Besidesthe jerks.”
He grinned. “Oh, the mishkeet shoots at me again.”
“I know how to shoot,” she said softly. “What I need to know is how to kill.”
He’d had to do worse things in his life than kill, but still, her words erased his amusement. Because she shouldn’t have to do worse things after all she’d been through.
He handed her his blaster. “You don’t get to keep it,” he warned. “But take a shot.”
If she wouldn’t believe in his words or his firepower or the quantumly tiny chance that Blackworm wouldn’t be recaptured, maybe he could at least let her trust herself.
