A Wicked Game

Xion woke to the distant hum of an unfamiliar engine reverberating through the walls.

Checking around his body, he sighed in relief.

The neuro-toxin had worn off. He had no idea, however, if hours or minutes had passed since he'd been knocked out.

He hedged his bets on the latter, given how efficient his metanoids were at leeching poisons from him.

Moving with caution in the confined space, his hands fumbled in the darkness, searching for any semblance of a way out.

The air was stale and heavy with the scent of metal and fuel. The interior was cold and unyielding under his touch, a stark reminder of his imprisonment.

No one was around.

Including Katya.

His freakin' sexy and fokkin' confounding lover who'd let his kidnapping take place.

The thought of it ate at his soul.

He was overcome with rage, wanting to wring her neck, stick his face into hers and give her a good ol' ripping.

But his anger would do fokk-all now, so he forced himself to calm down in a wave of grim grittiness.

He had to focus on escaping first. Revenge was for later.

Mirage, you there?

The soft ping in his neural node set him at ease.

Where the fokk am I, and how do I exit this shithole?

You're on board Fortuna's Grace. The ship we followed to Enia, which, as I've learned, is owned by House D'Hanna of LeCythi, Iccythria.

Do you have schematics, and can you guide me the hell out of here?

I can. I'll direct you myself, starting with a hatch to your left.

With his strength back and guided by Mirage's directions, Xion discovered a maintenance trapdoor hidden behind a panel in the corner of the hold.

He pried it open, adrenaline coursing through his veins, fueling his efforts.

The portal gave way, and a sliver of dim light spilled into the darkness.

Xion squeezed through the narrow opening and found himself in a labyrinthine network of corridors.

I need to find Katya and her brothers and secure some freakin' answers. I'm assuming they're on the bridge.

You could escape from an airlock, and I'll pick you up. You'll be drinking hot kahawa and lounging under the stars in minutes.

Xion huffed. It's the piss-poor coward's way. And where would that leave us? I'd still have no idea what they're planning and who's behind it. I'm no quitter, Mirage, you know that.

The hum of the ship's engines reverberated through the metal walls. His neural node parsed a map over his vision, which guided his stealth movements.

Mirage fed him real-time data, alerting him to approaching threats, plotting his route, and sidestepping cameras and security checkpoints.

With each passing moment, they progressed deeper through the ship's dark corridors, their steps silent as they navigated the labyrinthine passages.

As they drew near a set of heavy blast doors, Mirage paused, scanning the security protocols that guarded their path.

With rapid calculations, the AI set Xion's metanoids to work, bypassing the intricate lock system.

Get ready, Mirage said as the AI executed the override sequence, and the massive hatch slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

As they neared what seemed like the control room, Mirage projected a holographic map of the ship onto Xion's neural node interface.

He rounded a corner to find a cluster of armed sentinels loitering at the entry to the bridge.

Their eyes widened at the sight of the Rider strolling toward them.

‘Oy,' shouted one. ‘Who the -,'

Xion darted forward, taking down him with a swift punch to the jaw before he finished his sentence.

The guard crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain as Xion disarmed him.

The other guards had no time to recover from their initial shock.

Before they'd a chance to raise weapons and open fire, Xion vaulted at such high speed that he was a blur rippling towards them.

Adrenaline surged through Xion's veins as he dodged and weaved with expert precision. Striking hard, fast and with superior efficacy.

One by one, the guards fell as Xion took them out, energised by a meta-infused rush that pulsated through him, heightening his senses and sharpening his focus.

With all sentries downed, he dragged the crumpled defenders into an airlock where he left them.

He stealthed himself and, moving with energy, he ghosted into the vessel's bridge via the sliding door Mirage hacked open.

Into a high-tech central command centre that someone had paid a pretty penny for its bells and whistles.

Yet, it might have been a better design.

He curled his lip at its split-level floor, a sprawling affair that would be challenging for a ship's commander to oversee operations.

Its vast size impeded easy movement to stations, and its seating had poor restraints in case of loss of gravity or sudden impact.

Even the consoles were flimsy, and he'd no doubt they'd explode at the merest whim, flinging shrapnel everywhere and location on a comparatively exposed part of the upper hull.

Still, the lighting was dim, which made his infiltration a walk in the park.

He swivelled his head, searching for Katya.

He tagged her in the corner of the highest level to his right. She was not bound but banished to her seat, simmering with anger as she stared at the three men sprawled at the bridge.

His heart lurched at the sight of her because, fokk, she still had it in her to jack him up with need. Despite the fact, he wanted to rip her head off.

Katya was fokkin livid.

She stared at her brothers, wanting to rip their heads off.

First, for what they'd done to her mother and her adopted kids. Second, they'd blatantly ignored her request NOT to capture Xion, for she'd devised an alternative plan to gain what they needed without involving the Rider.

They'd tramped roughshod over her wishes, and now she had a Sable target on her back, and her loved ones were still in mortal danger.

So lost was she in wishing death on her siblings that she missed the blur of energy that ghosted behind her.

In a flash, a hand pulled her hair to one side of her neck, tagged around her mouth and up onto a firm, hard, muscled chest.

Another thick arm encircled her waist, lifting her into the air and dragging her into the shadows.

At first, her body locked.

She gasped against the palm covering her oral cavity and struggled, but as she caught wind of his scent and perceived his presence, she sagged.

She twisted her head and focused on Xion's glowing mocha-jade gaze.

His heated glare searched the room, and she followed its trajectory as he glowered at her three brothers.

They were well in the shadow and out of sight. Or so she hoped.

She took a shaky breath, waiting for Xion's next move.

Xion conducted a neural sweep for cameras and sent a cloud of metanoids on a search mission.

Others he deployed into an invisible stealth shield around him and the woman with whom he'd shared the most intimate moments of his life not less than 24 hours earlier.

He'd woken up in her bed, so emotional, vulnerable, needing more.

Giving and wanting more.

Until she'd gone on to betray him.

It cut deep, and his heart throbbed with the pain of it.

He let her calm down before rasping with menace into her ear. ‘Will you keep your voice in a whisper for me, beautiful?'

She didn't hesitate to nod, and with a suck of his teeth, he released his hand but kept her back to his chest, speaking into her temple. ‘Stay still, and we'll remain unseen. I've got us shielded for now.'

‘How?' she asked.

‘Explanations from myself and a truckload more from you will come later, trust me,' he murmured. ‘For now, let's try to make it out of this clusterfokk.'

She gave him a nervous glance at him and, leaning in, whispered. ‘I never wanted this.'

Pain twisted in his gut.

‘Yet you let it happen, woman,' he muttered, eyes cold, unimpressed by her confession. ‘You pulled a wicked game on me, woman, which I'm fokkin' sour about. I really should have known better than messing with you.'

After a beat, she sighed. ‘I'm so sorry, Xion. I was under duress. If I didn't do it -'

Her words hung in the air. The anguish in her face pointed to the truth.

‘Your children? They have them?' he growled.

She nodded.

His wall of ice melted a touch at the brokenness in her eyes.

On the outside, however, he nurtured a scowl and tore his eyes from her.

His gaze flitted to her brothers, dark-skinned, lean as whippets now that they'd shed their burly hotel security uniforms.

Knowing young children's lives were in the balance and seeing the agony it was causing the woman by his side gave him a wild hankering to tear them apart.

Given the chance, he'd show them who they thought he was and more.

They'd only overwhelmed his ass at the hotel because they'd used a high-powered laser stun charge, disrupting the signals between his metanoids.

Now he was forewarned and was on alert if they tried to pull similar shit.

With narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw, he studied them.

Each brother had a distinct look with varying degrees of faked toughness. Their skin was embedded with jewels, and their long dark hair was woven with similar gems. They carried comical weapons of choice and strutted about showing them off.

They were clear try-hards, and in hand-to-hand combat, Xion knew he'd overcome them and easily knock them out.

Yet he needed them talking. Keen to understand why they'd captured him and where they were taking him.

He had to out-think them, and for that, he required more data.

He turned to Katya, and she faced him, biting her lip and waiting for his following words.

‘Names?' he ground out at one point, jerking his chin at her siblings.

Katya slow-blinked, then whispered. ‘The older one who favours the black gems is Korin.'

Xion flicked his eyes over the D'Hanna firstborn. He was tall and muscular, with a scar running down his cheek. In Ccyth fashion, he sported ebony gems, tattoos, and piercings embedded into his skin and strung up in his hair.

He exuded arrogance out of every pore, and his fingers were hardened and calloused due to years spent in the rough as a miner, from the looks of things.

Perhaps sometime in his recent past, he'd joined his fellow Iccythrians in excavating the intricate network of lodes that snaked the length and breadth of their mineral-rich world.

Xion noted that he held a stiletto with diamonds for a handle, flicking the blade in and out at a whim.

‘He's a smooth-talking con artist with a love for knives,' Katya added.

‘Can he wield them?'

She smirked. ‘I've seen kids with plex hatchets do better. The second with emerald studs is Kiros.'

The man in question was shorter but had a foreboding expression.

He wore his bejewelled hair slicked back and sported a sharp suit.

Yet he blew often on his soft hands as if they were cold and clammy, which might have been a sign of his nerves.

‘He's a cunning hacker. His mind is like a maze, but he's more proficient at code than strategy. Youngest is K'Zito, the baby of the bunch.'

The D'Hanna last born had a sly look about him with a menacing glint in his eyes.

Gem-encrusted tattoos covered his arms, and he fidgeted, playing with the laser gun and mini grenades hanging off his belt.

‘He's a self-styled ruthless enforcer; he can fight, but I've also seen him run many times from a fray.'

‘Good to know, Xion rasped.

‘Each one is a master of their dark craft, but sweet Eden, they can be incompetent and hardly carry out any illegal scheme with precision and finesse. Before I escaped them, it was I who led our escapades. Now, they rely on my father to guide them. This time though -' she paused.

‘What?' he urged.

‘There's a lot more at stake, and while I don't know their end game, the gloves are off. They've mentioned the name of the King of Iccythria himself.'

The Rider cocked a brow. ‘Is that why the Serpent's Iris was heisted to be used against him somehow? If so, we must warn him.'

Katya shook her head. ‘My father and brothers never shared more than their desperate need for the gem. They threatened to kill me and everyone I hold dear if I didn't give them what they wanted. My hands were tied. But naam, the King has been mentioned a few times.'

Xion's eyes blazed. ‘I understand that they haven't divulged much with you, but tell me everything you know so far,' he growled, ‘Even though I'm already working out a plan of action.'

‘One thing though,' he added. ‘If this all gets tits up, feel free to come up with a rescue plan of your own.'

She cocked her head at him and gave him a wry smile. ‘I'll give it a red hot go, Rider.'

Their gazes locked, heated, and then at Xion's chin jerk, Katya delved into her scanty knowledge while Xion made mental notes, cobbling together a hasty strategy.