Page 15 of The Rebel and the Rogue

“I’m dangerous.”

He laughedand crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re delusional if you think Astra would just let you go to our legion without protection.”

I smiled, rolled my eyes. He made me crazy. I wanted to punch him and kiss him at the same time. “Me, delusional? Yeah, and you’re an asshole for not telling me who you were earlier.”

“As I recall, you were not interested in talking.”

Astra snapped her fingers, focusing our attention on her. “Both of you are behaving like children.”

Zenos glared at me as if I’d insulted him by the mere act of breathing. As if I’d started this whole mess. He looked to Astra as if he’d forgotten she was there. His entire being seemed to be focused on me. Just me. The sensation was hypnotic, especially since all we did was bicker and argue. Or fuck.

I imagined what it might be like if he’d claimed me for real—for more than just a one-night stand or a quickie in an empty gaming room—his cock stretching me open, his fangs buried in my shoulder as he took me, claimed me, consumed me. And that mating fist thing…

I shivered. No. I couldn’t go there, not with him standing so close to me that I could smell his skin. My pussy was still sore from our previous encounter. I hadn’t used a ReGen wand to heal my tender, well-used flesh because, the truth was, I liked the soreness. It reminded me that I was alive. Human. That I could still feel something other than grief and loss. That I had contact with others, that I could engage. Belong. Be.

Perhaps that was why I was so pissed at him. He made me feel, and I hadn’t done that in months.

I took a deep breath, let it out. “Fine,” I snapped, sounding like a pouting teenager. “How much longer will we be on this ship?” I spun on my heel and directed my question to Astra, ignoring the hulking male who pushed every one of my buttons. My anger button and my clit—my favorite button of all for him to push. God, I was turning into a lunatic.

Zenos bristled behind me—I couldn’t see him, but I could sense his displeasure at my blatant disregard—and I could hear him moving, which made Astra’s gaze dart to him before returning to me. I ignored the sulking male because if she didn’t want me to argue, I couldn’t look at him. He riled me up, and the only way to get that aggression out was not happening on the shuttle and certainly wasn’t happening while he was a bossy, know-it-all alpha male.

Astra smirked at me as if the question were amusing. It wasn’t. “About an hour.”

Sixty more minutes. Three thousand six hundred more seconds of Zenos breathing down my neck. Of making me want to give him a tongue lashing… or do something else to him with my tongue.

Aagh! Stupid hormones!

An hour was too damned long. I wasn’t going to make it. “It’s too crowded in here with his overinflated ego. I need some space.”

Astra chuckled and the sound roamed over my skin like tiny needles grazing but not quite breaking through. With a sigh I turned and practically stalked out of the tiny gathering area that seemed to be their all-in-one dining room, talking room, sitting around doing nothing but waiting room. The ship wasn’t small, but it wasn’t a battleship either. I guessed it could hold fifteen or twenty fighters, of Atlan—or Rogue 5—size, but it seemed like there wasn’t enough space. Not for me and Zenos.

The other hybrid, Nevuh—or Nev as they called him—piloted the ship. Why there weren’t two of them up there in the cockpit like Coalition regulations, I didn’t know, but the running of this team was Astra’s business, not mine. All I had to do was get to Rogue 5 and find the drug-running scum responsible for the Quell that had brought down my friends.

I roamed the twelve feet of corridor, realized there was nothing on this ship but the all-in-one room, some very cramped barracks with beds stacked on top of each other like playing cards in a deck, the cargo area—which was about as welcoming as a dark, endless cave with a thousand spiders—and the cockpit. Nev hadn’t struck me as obnoxious when we boarded, at least he didn’t scowl at me every second like Zenos did, so I went there.

Astra appeared unconcerned with my whereabouts since there wasn’t anywhere to go. Like an airplane on Earth, it wasn’t like I was about to get off. They’d already stripped me of all my weapons, and I had to guess she wasn’t worried about me taking down four hybrid Forsians with my bare hands. Which I had to admit, might be possible with my enhancements, but I doubted I’d survive. But she didn’t know about me, about what I’d had to do to survive. Or what I’d chosen to do to live, and to hunt. She assumed I was normal. And if I were a standard issue human, the thought of me taking on all four of them would have been a joke.

I could fight when I had to, and I wasn’t small, by Earth standards anyway, but I was still female and every one of these guys had about a foot of height and at least a hundred pounds on me. In their minds, if they took away my ship and my blasters, I was like every other human out in space, the underdog when it came to these huge aliens. Which meant humanity survived by ingenuity and our wits, and that was just fine with me. Except I had more. So much more they knew nothing about.

I was nearly to the cockpit, the closed door a few steps away, when a very large hand grabbed me by the elbow and spun me around.

“What kind of game are you playing, female?”

Even if the sound of that voice didn’t make every feminine inch of me scream in recognition, I would have recognized his touch. Gentle. Even angry, his fingers moved over my arm in a caress. It was weird and creepy and kind of endearing all at once. Jeez, this guy tied me up in knots. Which was exactly why I hadn’t wanted him to bite me back on the Transport Station Zenith. I was vulnerable to him, but I refused to let him know that.

“What do you mean?” I snapped, trying to shrug his palm off my shoulder. “I’m not playing any games.” At least not with him. I was avoiding even a hint of any kind of game with him. And that was the truth.

I allowed him to turn me to face him, and when he took a step closer, I instinctively backed away until my shoulders met the cold, solid wall. I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. I licked my lips, swallowed a groan as I realized he could lift me up, wrap my legs around his hips and plunge deep. Hard. Right here, against the wall, like an animal. Just like back on Zenith.

“Do not look at me with lust in your eyes, female. I am responsible for your safety on Rogue 5. You are my problem now, and I will not have you taunting the others with your soft skin. You will never again ask for a hybrid’s bite. Our venom might kill you. I will not allow it. If you ask and one of these idiots attempts to bite you, I will end him.” His hands tightened on my shoulders. “Do I make myself clear?”

Well, well, well. He was serious. His gaze was almost as lethal as his bite. To others. I was impervious to both. I almost smiled at the sound of jealousy in his voice. Almost, because I wasn’t stupid enough to go that far.

“You’ve told me all this before. You’re like a broken record.”

He frowned. “I do not know what that is. Regardless, it seems I need to repeat it again and again as you are not understanding.”

“Yeah, a broken record.”

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