Ushara wrinkled her nose. "Why don't you hit the showers before you leave?"

"What?" Bastien asked in an offended tone. "You saying I stink?"

Trajen snorted. "Well, you did just spend two hours beating the utter h.e.l.l out of my field admiral. You both smell like something rotted and dead. How Ushara can stand being this close to either of you while pregnant, I have no idea."

Bastien laughed. "Fine. I can take a hint." He headed for the locker room.

As soon as he was gone, Ushara dug out her link.

Jullien scowled at her. "What are you doing?"

"Hailing someone. Obviously."

Jullien met Trajen's gaze. A cold feeling went through his gut at her unexpected vague answer. He was usually the evasive a.s.s, not her. "Who?"

She ignored his question. "Hey, this is Admiral Samari. I know you requested rea.s.signment yesterday and that we were meeting about it tomorrow. Believe it or not, something interesting came up tonight. It's an outside mission. For Kirovar, but it's something I think you might be interested in." She paused to listen. "Yeah. You want to meet us in the North Bay in a few minutes?" A smile curved her lips. "Great. I'll see you then."

Trajen growled low in his throat. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Yes."

Completely confounded as his powers failed him, Jullien turned toward Trajen. "Could someone clue me in?"

Ushara tucked her link away. "Jay has grounded herself for a few months. She wants to spend more time with her kids, and let her husband do the runs. So some of her crew has requested temporary rea.s.signments."

"Okay..."

"I'm thinking one of them would make a perfect point for Bastien."

While Jullien appreciated the thought, he knew that wouldn't play well with his cousin. Bas was even more paranoid than he was. And with good reason. Once you'd been through the kind of betrayal they'd suffered, it tended to stay with you.

"Shara ... Bas isn't going to put someone at his back he doesn't know."

"Yeah, but she has Gyron Force training. He has to respect that."

It wouldn't matter. In fact, that could be worse. If they knew each other, it could even anger Bas.

Jullien pulled his shirt on and groaned out loud. "Trajen, tell her what a bad idea this is. For all we know, they could be enemies."

"I don't think so," Ushara insisted. "She left Kirovar and joined The Tavali because of the overthrow."

"What was her rank?"

"Major."

Trajen crossed his arms over his chest. "Let them meet. See if they get along."

He made it sound easy, but Jullien knew better. He also knew better than to argue with the two of them. They invariably won. Trajen because he wouldn't give in. Ushara because she fought dirty.

Jullien tossed the towel in a bin. "Fine. I don't want him to do this alone anyway."

Bastien came out of the shower with a weird feeling in his gut. Something wasn't right. He didn't know what, but something in the air had changed.

By the time they were in the North Bay, his skin was crawling as if it were alive.

Was some hidden instinct trying to tell him to forego this trip?

Jullien tried again to get him to stay, at least for the night. "You sure you want to do this? You know you're welcome to stay as long as you want."

Bastien clapped him on the back. "And you make it tempting. But I have to do this. I owe it to my family."

"I understand. If you need anything else..."

Bastien cast a playful grin at Ushara. "Really appreciate it, but I won't take you from your family. They need you more than I do." He held his hand out to Jullien. "You take care, drey."

"And you."

He inclined his head to Ushara, then shook Trajen's hand.

Ember couldn't breathe as she entered the North Bay. At first, she thought she was hallucinating. But there was no mistaking the man who'd haunted her, night and day, since the first moment she'd first met his reckless hide. That tall, lean, and ripped body that made her mouth water and body hum ...

Only one bada.s.s warrior stood like that. c.o.c.ksure and approachable. Serious and fun-loving. A total contradiction that had to be experienced to be understood.

Tears welled in her eyes as she heard his deep, rumbling cadence of a refined Kirovarian accent. No longer the highly polished aristocrat she'd fallen in love with, this Bastien held an even more dangerous edge to him. One that said he wouldn't hesitate to take a life. And it wasn't just the long brown hair with creamy blond highlights he had pulled back from his sculpted face. Or that shadowed jawline that sported a few days' growth of whiskers-something the polished Bastien of old would never have tolerated.

No, this stranger was more barbarian than visir.

More villain than hero. d.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l....

Suddenly, a voice cut through the bay that left Bastien stunned completely numb.

"Bastien Cabarro ... you lousy, worthless piece of human s.h.i.t!"

No ...

The color fled from his cheeks as he stepped away from Trajen and turned to see the absolute last person he'd ever dreamed of seeing again.

Dressed in the Hadean Corps officer uniform that was preferred by the police division of the Tavali Nation, it was Ember....

And she was as devastating to him today as she'd been the moment he'd first seen her trying to get to her trapped sister. Only thing missing was the smudge of dirt across her cheek and the panic in her fiery green eyes.

He couldn't breathe as every hormone in his body went into overdrive and left him hard and aching, and completely unable to think straight. She still had that familiar military swagger that was ingrained in any Gyron Force officer. And she stalked toward Bastien like she fully intended to gut him.

With a rusted-out nail file.

Bastien didn't move or speak. He just stood there, gaping at the slender, auburn-haired Tavali who meant everything to him.

She stopped in front of him, hands on hips. "Have you nothing to say to me?"

Yeah, but he didn't know where to begin, so he spoke the first idiotic sentence that came to his blood-drained mind. "I thought you were dead?"

Sneering at his answer, she grabbed his jacket and jerked him forward. Instead of racking him, as Bastien fully expected, she gave him a kiss that blistered his lips and left him harder than he'd ever been in his life. Growling, he fisted his hands in her uniform and pulled her closer to him, reveling in her lush curves that fit against his body to absolute perfection. It was as if the G.o.ds had created her specifically for him alone. Nothing in the universe could please him more, except finding a private corner so that he could sate the need he had to taste every inch of her.

Wide-eyed, Ushara glanced at Trajen, then Jullien. "I think they know each other."

With a stifled smile, Jullien ran his thumb over his bottom lip. "Uh, yeah, I'm going to bet on that, too. Either that, or the greetings on Kirovar have vastly improved since the last time I visited."

His entire body electrified, Bastien finally came up for air. Not that he wanted to. Indeed, his only thought now was stripping her uniform off and showing her exactly how much he'd missed her.

Or better yet, ripping it off with his teeth.

Cupping her face in his hands, he stared down at her, grateful to every G.o.d on Kirovar that she was alive and well. He brushed his thumb across her swollen lips and smiled, intending to tell her that he loved her.

Until she kneed him in the groin. Hard. "That's for marrying my sister, you f.e.c.kless b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Hissing in pain, Bastien limped away from her, clutching at his abused groin. He glared at her and cursed. Oh yeah, that sucked every bit of tender feeling out of him.

In that moment, he wanted to kill her!

"You broke up with me! Remember?"

Unrepentant, she curled her lip. "I said I wanted some time to think about where we were heading. That wasn't an invitation for you to go bang my sister five minutes later."

Was she f.u.c.king kidding? That was not how it happened. "I didn't just go 'bang' your sister. And it d.a.m.n sure was more than five minutes later." Straightening, he tried to level his breathing. "She asked me out. Then I asked you and you said you didn't care what, and I directly quote, or who I did."

"I. Lied," she snapped between gritted teeth. "Holy Jake! You were my wingman. You were supposed to be able to read my expressions and know me better than that!"

Bastien held his hands up. "Not Trisani, Ember. Don't read minds. You told me you wanted us to be friends, and your sister said you only went out with me because you didn't want to turn me down and hurt my feelings, since we were partners. How was I to know?"

Raking him with a glare, she made a sound of supreme disgust. "Gah! You were always so dense!" She turned toward Ushara. "Is he my a.s.signment?"

"Uh-" She glanced about nervously. "-yes? But I'm going to a.s.sume you want to pa.s.s on it."

Ember narrowed her gaze on Bastien. "You going after your uncle?"

"Of course."

"Then I'm in."

Bastien snorted at the very thought, which terrified him. "Uh, yeah, no. I don't think so. Especially not after this." He gestured toward his abused groin. "I don't need the cold-c.o.c.king. Trust me. Life's done it enough."

"Don't even, Cabarro. You won't last ten seconds without us in this fight. You want vengeance. So do we."

"Us?"

"Riot Squad. We all got left for dead."

Ushara glanced between them. "Riot Squad?"

"Special tactical unit of Gyron Force," Bastien explained. "Commanded by her mother." He returned his attention to Ember. "Did all of you make it out?"

She shook her head. "You're not the only one who lost that day Barnabas took the throne."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, we all got wounds to lick. So am I in? Or you running suicide?"

Refusing to let her go again while she was this close to him-even if it meant having to be racked every time she thought of Alura, Bastien picked up the bag she'd dropped by his feet and slung it over his back. "Don't drag your a.s.s, Wildstar. I won't tolerate slack."

"I don't want to hear it, GG. I outrank you."

"GG?" Jullien asked Ember.

"Ghost Gadget. So named for the way he always found the right tool whenever we needed to blow something up in battle. Or could repair anything mechanical or electrical that broke down."

Ushara pa.s.sed an amused smile to Jullien. "Like you."

Jullien didn't comment. "And Wildstar?"

"Based off my last name. Wyldestarrin."

"Yeah. Not even," Bastien scoffed. "So dubbed for her temperament and the fact that during training, she set fire to a fellow cla.s.smate's airbee when she caught him cheating on her." A pattern that had been hers until they broke up. Somehow he'd been spared that part of her fury. The only thing of his she'd ever set fire to had been his hormones.

Ember narrowed her gaze on him. "Something you should have kept in mind. Huh?"

"I didn't cheat on you. You broke up with me. How many times do I have to repeat that?"

"a.s.shole!" Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes. "I take it yours is the Sentella fighter?"

"Yes. Are we going to fight the whole way?"

"Probably."

"Oh dear G.o.ds..." Bastien whimpered all the way to the ship.

Without a backward glance, she climbed onboard, giving him a prime view of her a.s.s that was just cruel.

By the time Bastien had joined her in the c.o.c.kpit, he was in all kinds of pain. Something not helped by the fact that it was so tight a fit, she was basically in his lap. He stowed her gear and made ready to launch.

"What? You couldn't afford a bigger ship?"

He ignored her obvious dig. "Wasn't expecting company."

Then the scent of her body hit him. Closing his eyes, he could barely focus on anything else as he imagined what he really wanted to do right then.