Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion, #1)(22)

Loch shut the door and dragged what looked like a broken dresser in front of it. My heart rate spiked and adrenaline cleared away some of the cobwebs in my mind. I’d followed him like a puppy into a room with a bed and only one exit—an exit he’d just blocked.

“Strip,” he said. He started pulling off his own clothes.

Oh, hell no. I backed away. He was strong and fast and not half-frozen. Even if I could grip a knife, it wouldn’t do much good. That didn’t mean I was going down without a fight.

Loch glanced at me then froze. He straightened. His eyes dropped half-closed and his mouth curled into a melting grin. My heartbeat kicked up and not from fear. The man could stop traffic with a look like that.

“Ada,” he drawled, “if I wanted to fuck you, I wouldn’t have to lock you in to do it.” He stalked across the distance that separated us while I stood frozen. “I prefer my women warm and willing. And since you are neither, you’re just going to have to imagine how good it could be.” He cupped my jaw with a warm hand and glided his thumb over my lips. “Now strip before you die of hypothermia. And leave your underclothes on.”

By the time I’d shed clothes down to a short-sleeved shirt, bra, and boxer briefs, Loch was down to his own boxer briefs and had laid out several emergency blankets on the bed. He raised an eyebrow at my clothing but didn’t say anything.

“In you go,” he said, holding up the edge of a blanket. I slid across the crinkly foil blanket to the edge of the bed facing the wall. “Lights on or off?” he asked.

“On,” I said. Definitely on. I needed to be able to see him.

“Okay,” he said. He slid into bed behind me and the mattress dipped under his weight. I tensed and held myself still on the very edge of the bed. A warm arm around my waist dragged me back against scalding skin. He cursed the air blue. “You should’ve told me you were this cold.”

Modesty forgotten, I pulled his arm farther around me and wiggled to get as close to him as possible. With the emergency blankets covering me from neck to feet and a large, warm body at my back, I finally felt like maybe I would survive the day.

I don’t know how long I’d drifted in and out of sleep before the shivering started, but once it began, sleep was a distant memory. I shivered so hard my teeth chattered. Loch turned me over so I faced him and tucked me into his chest with my head on his arm. He wrapped both arms around my back and threw a leg over my lower body.

Hours or perhaps days later my shivers slowed down and I dropped into an exhausted sleep.



When I awoke, I was alone in the bed, and I was warm. In addition to the emergency blankets, I was covered by two long cloaks. I rolled away from the wall and every muscle protested. Apparently shivering was a full-body workout.

Marcus sat propped against the wall by the door, studying a small com tablet. “Do you want the bad news or the worse news?” he asked without looking up.

“What happened to the good news?”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” He continued without waiting for a response, “There are exactly zero commercial flights out of this shithole. Three days from now a merc ship is leaving for the nearest station, but for reasons that should be obvious, that’s not our best option.”

“Is that the bad or the worse? Wait, did you do a sweep of this stuff to make sure it’s clean?”

“That’s the bad news. And yes, I checked for bugs, all of it is clean. The worse news is that Rockhurst’s team landed two hours ago. So far they don’t seem to have alerted the locals to who they’re searching for, but it may only be a matter of time.”

“They landed the Santa Celestia here and no one blinked an eye?” Yamado may have left the planet to the mercs and smugglers, but that didn’t mean they’d overlook a rival House landing a battle cruiser on their planet, worthless or not.

“No, they left the Santa Celestia in space. It’s too large to land here. They’re in a smaller unflagged merc ship, probably one they kept in the Santa Celestia’s hangar for covert planet landings.”

Mercenaries weren’t required to flag their ships to one of the High Houses unless they wanted to announce that they were under that House’s protection, so an unflagged ship wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. It was the perfect cover to land on an enemy planet, and one that House von Hasenberg had been known to use as well.

Could I buy a ship before Rockhurst’s men found me? Possibly, but it wouldn’t be easy. “I don’t suppose you bought an extra com while you were out?” I asked. I was sorely tempted to yell at him for leaving me alone while I was sleeping, but it wasn’t his job to be my babysitter. I should’ve woken the moment he moved. The fact that I hadn’t meant I’d been in much worse shape than I’d realized.

He gestured to the floor near the top of the bed. I slid over until I could see where he was pointing. My pack sat with yesterday’s clothes folded on top. On top of that was a small com tablet like the one Loch was using. It was a cheap, mass-produced model. I had a moment of silence for the top-of-the-line unit I’d left on the station where I was captured.

Thin, handheld devices made of glass and metal, coms were the glue that held the universe together. I’d felt naked for the last couple days without mine. This one was produced by a Yamado subsidiary, so it was in no way secure. I reset it, touched my right thumb and pinky finger together, then held the com up to the tiny chip embedded in my right arm.