Page 33 of The Rebel and the Rogue

I’d assumed things would happen fast, but this was surely a record. Cerberus wanted this over.

Barek walked to Astra’s side and nodded at Rhord to stand guard at the door. Ivy took two steps into the room, glanced at her quarry and froze.

She’d spent months for this moment, to get the one responsible for her unit’s deaths. Now he was here, on his knees, restrained. Cerberus may have delivered him, but she’d done it.

But it wasn’t over. Not yet.

Cerberus looked Ivy over, shock clearly evident in his wide eyes as he took in the small female who had single-handedly killed so many of his best fighters. No doubt the stories he’d heard had been epic. “So you are the bounty hunter I’ve been hearing so much about.”

“I am.” Ivy answered him but looked at Jillela. The female wasn’t still marked by her time with Ivy and her trip through the glass window, but I saw fear there. Trepidation. She looked like she’d been kicked by more than just Ivy’s boot. She was no longer the fearless fighter I knew. “Jillela.”

“Ivy.”

That was quite civilized, but I didn’t expect Ivy to leap across the table and beat Jillela up. There weren’t rules, but there were rules. Ivy seemed to know how to behave in a setting like this. In this moment when everything she’d been working toward was kneeling before her. She was too smart to blow it now.

Cerberus cleared his throat. “I don’t normally respond to demands like yours, bounty hunter, but to be honest I was fascinated and had to meet you.” “Should I be flattered?” Ivy asked, clearly not.

“Yes.”

That was a surprise. I doubted Cerberus ever dealt out praise, even to his own.

Cerberus rose and I stepped between him and my female. He was not a Forsian hybrid, but he was large. Fast. More Hyperion than male, or so I’d heard. He was a brutal and efficient killer, and I did not want him anywhere near Ivy. Fuck that, I didn’t want them in the same room. Yet here we were.

Ivy ignored his comment and moved around me so she could see Cerberus once more. I wanted to growl at her but held my tongue. Barely, and only because I knew now how ruthless she was. If anyone could match him in a fight, it was her. That didn’t mean I wanted it to occur.

“Did you bring me a gift?” she asked, staring down at the prisoner.

“I did.” Cerberus flicked his gaze at Gerian Eozara as if he were a pest.

At last Astra joined the conversation. “What do you want in return for this gift, Cerberus?”

Cerberus looked at my leader. “From you? Nothing. From her?” He moved closer to Ivy and I growled this time, but Cerberus raised his hands, palms out, and stopped moving. “Easy, Zenos. I came to offer Ivy a deal, nothing more.”

Cerberus didn’t deal with anyone.

“Then state your business and get out of my territory.” That was Astra, and she was losing patience with Cerberus and his games.

“I want the name of your maker, Ivy. That is all. I want to know who worked on your body. Who made you?”

He spoke as if Ivy weren’t real, as if she were a cyborg, a fully integrated Hive machine. She was human. She was flesh and bone. She had emotion. Feelings. Regrets. Hive tech, definitely, but that didn’t define her.

Cerberus didn’t see her that way. He saw power. Strength beyond normal abilities. A weapon.

Ivy crossed her arms over her chest, a calculating look in her eyes. “To be clear, if I tell you where I got my integrations and who did them, you’ll hand over Gerian and walk away?”

He nodded in agreement, which was stunning in itself. “Yes.” There was an almost fanatical fervor in his eyes. He wanted to be what she was. Stronger. Faster. Hive. Integrated.

Contaminated. And he’d just hand over one of his own in trade. A life for a name.

Fuck, Ivy wasn’t contaminated. She was perfect.

“The Coalition will hunt you if they discover the truth,” she warned.

“Clearly they have yet to learn the truth about you.” Cerberus shrugged. “Besides, they hunt me already. I am not afraid of the Coalition.”

That was true. No legion leader was afraid of the Coalition. None of us on Rogue 5 were. Ivy turned to Astra. “Is there any reason you would not wish me to reveal this information to him?”

Astra’s eyes widened in surprise, but it was clear she was pleased that Ivy had asked. Had deferred to her in this. In her own way Ivy was already protecting us. Serving Astra. Her secret was a bargaining piece, and she was giving it to Astra to use, not to hoard for herself.

---