Chapter 10

Lucius had never hadanyone spit venom at him, but he couldn’t think of any other word to describe it. Her voice had climbed and climbed until it rang around the control room loud enough to hurt his ears. The gagged and trussed console operator was certainly wincing.

Syra didn’t turn ugly when she was furious. Instead, her green eyes seemed to go so dark he half wondered if they’d be emerald lasers that would fry him to cinders if their visors were raised.

She spun away and focused on the console.

Her next curse was so vile that he wondered if he was going to live out the next thirty seconds.

“The duty roster shows three more than I can account for in the gym. Anything you want to tell me?” She glared at the wide-eyed console operator but made no move to ungag her.

At least it wasn’t him she was mad at…in this instant of time. He bet it wouldn’t last.

“Get your work done, Roodee.” Nope, it hadn’t lasted long. “Don’t release her and don’t let anyone back in except me.”

Before he could speak, she was out the door with no visible weapon. Though he’d wager that she was far from unarmed.

Not only wasn’t he supposed to release the console operator from her chair, he inspected the arm and leg binders and didn’t know if he could. If he did it wrong, he might cut her in two. Instead, he had to lean over her to reach the controls he needed and keep apologizing for each time he bumped against her.

Bumped against her.

He’d done far more than bump against Syra Clairborne. He’d discovered a fascinating, beautiful, intelligent woman who was the most unexpected person he’d ever met. A woman that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

He shifted over to the security station and set an autotracker on her signal. It was double-encrypted but it was there to see if you knew the frequency. He’d expected the corridor camera to appear blank, but there she was as plain as day. Her pass-through camouflage circuitry was shut down. Yet she moved so smoothly that she might as well have been invisible. She made no motion that drew the eye. Despite that, looking away seemed to be beyond his power.

A groan of frustration from the bound console operator finally drew his attention away.

In two hours and seventeen minutes, as they passed into Earth’s shadow, he had to be ready. That wasn’t a problem.

The problem was that nothing in his past or his planning had prepared him for Major Syra Clairborne.