ing from the pad now, feel the vibrations of it beneath my boots.
“Bella, get out of there,” I called.
She turned her head to look at me. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused.
I stepped toward her. She was only twenty feet away. I could just pick her up and hold her. But that twenty feet…
One of Thalia’s thugs shot in Bella’s direction, which caused Liam’s guard to shoot him. It happened so fast, the traitor was dead on the ground before I could blink.
Bella stilled.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Thalia, enough. You’re surrounded. One of your men is dead.”
“You won’t kill me. I’m your sister.” She whirled and faced me. In this moment, I didn’t recognize her. Didn’t recognize the little girl she’d been, the warrior she’d become. Her face was transformed by lines of anger and hatred, obsession and desperation.
“You’re a traitor,” Dravon replied. “You killed an innocent guard. Stole weapons and medical supplies for the VSS. You’re sending Bella to Hobart 6, for what? A trade?”
“I’m not like you, Dravon. Not like Evon. She’s going to Hobart 6. The deal’s done.” Thalia turned slowly and looked at Bella with pain in her eyes. “I’m your sister. You won’t kill me. What would Father say?”
Her fingers flew then and I heard the familiar pre-transport buzzing. “No!” I shouted.
Everything happened at once. Liam leaped at Thalia to grab the tablet. I ran for the remaining thug with the blaster, stripped it from him. Rager went after Bella, but Dravon knocked him out of the way. Rager slammed into the ground as Dravon leapt to the pad. He lifted Bella and threw her out of the center of the transport area. The transport sizzle came and then he was gone.
“Dravon!” Thalia shouted.
Bella lay unmoving outside the transport area. Rager stumbled to his feet, ran to her. Liam’s guard put the other traitor in restraints, Liam holding Thalia, taking her weapon from her, dropping it into the snow, then kicking it away.
Dravon was gone. He’d been transported instead of Bella. He’d protected her, saved her from whatever was waiting for her on Hobart 6. It wasn’t good, but Dravon could handle it.
Thalia watched as Rager tended to Bella, scooped her up into his arms, tucked his coat about her.
“Rager!” Thalia shouted, her voice laced with desperation.
Rager met my gaze. I saw the harshness in it, all the while he was gentle with our mate. “She needs a ReGen pod.”
His words were like ice in my veins. The ReGen wands could handle most injuries. But the full-body pods were for serious injury, could bring someone back from the brink of death. We only had a handful of the pods on Viken, and one of them was at IQC. Trembling with rage, not cold, I looked at the men who had climbed down from the top of the other rover. They were armed and deadly, which fit my current mood perfectly as I looked at my sister for the final time. “Get that traitor out of my sight. I never want to see her again.”
Liam’s guards dragged both Thalia and her man to one rover as Rager stalked to the other, climbing inside with Bella in his arms.
Chapter Fourteen
Bella
The first thing I heard was my own breath echoing around me like I was wearing scuba gear, or had my head in a box.
Curious, I opened my eyes.
Not a box, a tube. I would have panicked, but the top was clear and I wasn’t claustrophobic. Besides, the blue light all around me made everything tingle…in a good way. A warm, I’m-not-in-pain-anymore way.
I faded in and out, dozing like a sleepy kitten, so comfortable. I tried not to think about what waited for me on the outside. Rager. Evon and his family. Liam and his stoic pain.
All I’d wanted was to be loved, to have a family, someone who cared for me. But nothing had worked out and I’d hurt the men I loved more than I’d helped them.
Love. Yes. Dying in that cold, all I’d been able to think about was being with my men, surrounded by them, held by them, pleasured as they held me between them and took everything I had to give.
Faces appeared and disappeared and I blinked at them, confused. I felt like I was sleepy drunk, unable and unwilling to focus. Evon. His father. I heard some harshly whispered words and fought to pay attention, but the light was too warm and I was too tired to resist as it dragged me back under. Liam and Rager were here. All three of my mates’ drifting by in a steady stream of worried, haggard faces.
Soon, I tried to say. Soon, I wouldn’t be so sleepy. But no words came. Maybe I was dead. But they were here. I felt safe, and warm and surrounded by my mates. If this was heaven, it wasn’t so bad…