The Rebel and the Rogue Read online

  Zenos

  * * *

  Her expression changed to fierce determination in the blink of an eye.

  “What? No!” I barked a protest, but Ivy was on the move, swinging her hips like a siren as she sauntered across the street to the waiting crowd of enemies.

  Fuck me. I dashed after her… toward sixteen fucking Cerberus males. If we survived this, she was going to get one hell of a spanking.

  “Hi, boys.”

  Her smile was bright. The ignorant fools actually smiled back at her, pleased to see someone so attractive and appealing walking up to them—until I stepped into the light. Then their interest faded and several reached for their weapons. Ivy stopped just a few steps in front of the two largest males and spread her legs, her stance wide and bracing. She tilted her head in my direction and held up her hand toward me, palm out, in a silent order to stop moving. Shocked at the odd request, I did so.

  “Don’t worry about him, he’s not so bad once you get to know him.” I wasn’t sure if she was taunting me or the Cerberus males.

  Not so bad? What was this insane female doing? Was she trying to enrage seventeen males… me plus all of them? Apparently the Cerberus males had no idea how to deal with her either. What female sauntered up like this and had the audacity to confront them? With a smile and a swagger? She exuded sex, and they all were no doubt thinking dirty, filthy thoughts about what they wanted to do with her. To her.

  No fucking way.

  The two nearest her, both Prillon hybrids, paused their movements but kept their hands on their weapons. “What do you want, female?”

  She shrugged. Holy fuck, she actually shrugged.

  “Nothing, really. I’m just looking for an old friend of mine. Heard he likes to hang around here.”

  “Old friend, huh? You’re not from Cerberus. You’re not even from Rogue 5.” A third hybrid—this one looked part Viken—stepped up to form a semicircle around Ivy, eyed every inch of her. I moved closer, but Ivy flashed her palm at me again.

  Oh no, she didn’t. She was worse than Astra, giving commands without saying a word. What fucking game was she playing here?

  “Yes, an old friend,” she repeated. She stood calm and quiet as the three males took their time answering her because they were looking her over. They would die.

  “You are tall for a female,” one stated. “Yet you do not look Atlan. What planet are you from?”

  They knew she was an outsider. That probably made them lust for her more, to give a female from another planet a good Cerberus fucking.

  “A little one,” she replied vaguely. “Blue and white. A fair amount of green. But we don’t like assholes much, so I don’t recommend a visit.”

  Oh fuck. Not only did she walk right up to them, she poked at them with verbal jabs. She was doing it on purpose. This wasn’t some naive female here, and that made me more pissed, more afraid.

  The hybrid Prillon on her right growled at her insult, but the larger of the two held out his arm, holding his friend back. “I prefer to fuck females, not kill them, so state your business and get out of here or I’ll quiet you and sample your pussy. When I’m done with you, I’ll lock you in a cage on my ship and sell you to the highest bidder.”

  That would have scared anyone away. Not Ivy. Fuck.

  That was going to happen over my dead body. This was just as I’d expected. She knew the Cerberus Legion was filled with a bunch of ruthless, lawless assholes. They didn’t see her as as anything more than an object to use, to sell. And yet she was standing before them, taunting them.

  Ivy’s back stiffened at his remark, but not enough for the other males to notice. Only me. I knew her body. Knew the way she moved. Knew she was angry, but she had a plan, a reason for doing this. I just wished she’d clued me into it before now.

  “I’m looking for someone, name of Gerian Eozara. Is he around?”

  The hybrid Prillon who’d growled at her seconds ago now chuckled. “You have a death wish, female? Leave.” He pointed toward the direction we’d come.

  Ivy pulled a blade free from a hidden place on her body, and my blood ran cold. He’d given her a chance to walk away, and she hadn’t taken it. Did she really want to be raped and sold as a slave? If she had a death wish, there were simpler and less painful ways to die.

  Fuck.

  “I really, really need to talk to him,” she said, pushing on with her agenda.

  “Leave,” the Viken hybrid repeated, this time looking up at me, assessing the situation. Giving me one last chance to drag the little rebel off before he carried through with his threats. “Leave here, both of you, before you spill blood.”

  Ivy continued to eye him, and I could hold still no longer. I moved forward, flanked her so no one could attack her from that direction. Starting a fight now was too dangerous. Sixteen to two. I had not been lying when I said I could kill them all, but I could not fight and watch over Ivy at the same time. If someone put a scratch on her, my focus would be gone. I’d be overtaken. We both would. We had to leave.

  “Listen, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I’m not leaving this moon base without Gerian Eozara,” she said. “Hand him over and I’ll give you half the bounty on his head.”

  The two Prillon hybrids looked amused. “You’re a bounty hunter? A small female from a small blue and white planet? How much is he worth these days? It must be quite a bit for you to dare come here like this.”

  Ivy shared a number that was staggering. The three males blinked. Slowly. But the hybrid Viken spoke for all of them, and I knew his words were true.

  “We are Cerberus.”

  And that was that. Gerian Eozara was from the Cerberus Legion. He was one of them. The bounty could be worth ten times that amount, and no one from Cerberus Legion would even think of betraying one of their own. We were not like the other worlds. We were Rogue 5. Legions. We lived and died by the code of loyalty, and no one, not even the vile Cerberus or Siren Legion members broke that one, universal law. To break the code, to betray one’s legion was certain death. It simply was not done. Ever.

  They would not give up Gerian Eozara. We would get nothing further out of these males. We should leave now. Regroup… after I spanked Ivy’s ass and set her straight once we were safely back in my quarters. Hell, setting her straight would mean tying her to my bed so she wouldn’t pull a stunt like this again.

  “And his little side business?” she prodded. “Dealing in Quell? You all know anything about that?”

  The taller of the two Prillon hybrids answered this time. “It’s the family business.” He obviously felt no shame in what was peddled. Addiction and death.

  Ivy paused and nodded, seemed to understand that these males were not going to lead her to her quarry, or at least I assumed she did until she grinned. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  I had seen her naked, coming all over my cock. I had seen her argue with Astra and hold a small boy in her lap. But I had never seen her fight and I didn’t want to.

  Fuck, those were fighting words. I recognized them and her tall stance. The tension in her muscles, the gleam in her eye.

  “Ivy, no,” I warned.

  Other members of Cerberus Legion poured out of the building in a flood to see what was occurring. Their numbers doubled, then tripled. They circled around us.

  And Ivy, my beautiful Ivy didn’t cower, didn’t even blink. She fucking smiled. “Now this is more like it.”

  She wasn’t panicking, but I was. I’d lost count of the number of Cerberus who now surrounded us.

  “Ivy, we are leaving. Now.” I put every ounce of dominance in my voice. It was a command, nothing less. My fangs were fully extended, and every instinct I had raged at me to get both of us the fuck out of here. There were too many of them now. I couldn’t protect her against this many, not alone. We were going to leave or die. I was in charge here, assigned to protect her. She’d given me her word to obey if her life was in danger.

  And… she wasn’
t listening. She wasn’t obeying.

  She was smiling.

  What. The. Fuck?

  We were riding the edge between life and death. We were deep in Cerberus Legion. We had no legion armband on. No one from Astra knew where we were. No one was coming to help us. Not here. We were in danger, and I expected to be obeyed.

  Blade swirling in her palm, she glanced over her shoulder at me and grinned, completely ignoring the two Prillon hybrids looming over her like she was carrion.

  “Not yet, baby,” she said to me as if placating a small child. She looked amused, almost eager to fight. She appeared relaxed, but I sensed the anticipation, the tension in her body ready to be unleashed. “This will just take a few minutes.”

  A few minutes? We’d be dead in a few minutes.

  My breath caught in my throat, half panic, half paralyzed by the gleam of eagerness in her gaze—and more. She’d called me baby. What did that—

  I blinked and she’d moved, her blade slicing through the two Prillon hybrids like they were made of air. I knew differently, knew what it took to slice through the protective band of armor at the base of their throats, their large bodies. Skin, tendon, bone.

  Ivy shouldn’t have been able to…

  The hybrid Viken fell next, his neck twisted at an odd angle as Ivy leaped over his head—way over his head—and landed in the center of a group of Cerberus Enforcers at least ten paces closer to the building. Holy fuck, she had to be an Everian Hunter to move like that.

  The others, at first stunned at what she’d done, now swarmed her like insects. The attack, her explosion of movement had lasted just a second or two.

  My mind tried to process, to understand what I was seeing. What Ivy was doing. All by herself.

  It was impossible. This was not happening. My eyes weren’t working properly.

  She disappeared from view, buried beneath the pile of attackers, and the possessive rage within me exploded. I’d vowed to keep her safe, and I was failing. Finally I moved. I attacked, flinging bodies, uncaring of the path of destruction I left in my wake. If they blocked my path to Ivy, they died. I had to reach her. To save her.

  “No!”

  My bellow of rage seemed to snap a few of the peripheral bystanders to their senses. A few turned and ran because this wasn’t just a female who’d ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. This wasn’t fun and games for them anymore. If they hadn’t fled, they’d have taken their last breaths. The ones who bolted were the smart ones. They didn’t have a death wish. Not for themselves.

  The others I tore to pieces with my bare hands. Two. Five. Ten. Ion blaster fire bounced off my new armor exactly as the smuggler had promised Astra it would when we’d bought it. I felt the cut of several blades, but they were nothing. Last-ditch efforts to protect themselves. Annoyances that preceded the attackers’ deaths.

  I plowed through the Cerberus fighters, but when I reached the place Ivy had disappeared, I found nothing but a pile of dead and dying, none of them Ivy. My female was nowhere to be seen.

  “Ivy!”

  My bellow echoed up and down the street, and I realized how quiet things had become. Dead bodies were strewn about my feet, the others having either run away to wait for reinforcements or taken refuge inside. They’d all given up. Fled.

  But where the fuck was my female?

  My head whipped around at the sound of ion blasts from inside the canteen. Shouting. Screams.

  Oh, shit. She went inside?

  Enraged—at Ivy and everyone who was shooting at her—I stalked to the door to open it, my blood-slicked hand wrapped around the handle. Glass shattered and I jumped back. A body flew through the air to hit the street with a loud groan.

  Not Ivy, but a hulking hybrid Atlan in fucking beast mode. He had to be close to my height, my size. He’d been so enraged his beast had taken over, yet he’d been tossed out a window as if he were a piece of food scrap given to a pet.

  Turning, I watched in awe as Ivy leaped through the open section of window—she’d completely destroyed the scene displaying a peaceful Atlan landscape—to crouch on the ground next to a pile of bodies. Scanned the group for threats. No, she wasn’t part Everian. She was something else entirely, something I’d never seen before.

  A female I recognized as one of Cerberus’s top Enforcers lay at the edge. Jillela. The female was a skilled and ruthless fighter. Cruel and brutal, yet she, too, lay broken among her legion members. Alive but unable to fight.

  “Cerberus will hunt you down,” Jillela warned, her voice tinged with pain, her breathing ragged. “You will die for this.”

  Her threat made my blood boil, and I ached to rip her body in half for daring to threaten Ivy.

  Ivy stood, walked over to her. Loomed. “You tell Cerberus that I’m coming back, and I’ll keep coming back, keep killing you drug-running fucks until he gives me what I want.” Blood covered Ivy’s hands, her blade and uniform, but she wasn’t even breathing hard. Didn’t even have sweat on her brow after killing or injuring at least thirty Cerberus. What. The. Fuck?

  “And what is that, you Hived-Up piece of shit?” Jillela glared, wincing as she tried to move. Ivy put a booted foot on the female’s shoulder and pushed her back down.

  I froze as if stunned by a blaster. What had Jillela said? Hived-Up?

  No.

  Please, by the gods, no. Was that what her scar had been from? Was that the reason she’d been so confused by little Scylla’s attentions? She’d intentionally had Hive integrations imbedded in her body?

  “Gerian Eozara. I get Gerian, I’m gone. Out of your hair.” Ivy set her foot down on the ground, and the fact that the hardest female in Cerberus didn’t dare move shocked me almost as much as her words had.

  Hived-Up? My Ivy? That was impossible. No one but the foulest of the foul willingly went to the black markets run by the outlying worlds and bought Hive tech. Paid to have their body mutilated. Contaminated. Paid hack scientists to implant experimental and unpredictable enhancements into their bodies to make them stronger, better, faster. Ruthless and lethal and able to… to kill a large swath of Cerberus Legion without even breaking a sweat. It was considered offensive, vile, even on Rogue 5, and compared to the Coalition Fleet, our standards were exceptionally low.

  Yet Ivy had done the impossible. I’d seen it firsthand, was witnessing the aftermath right now. I had all the proof I needed to believe it, even if I didn’t want to.

  “I don’t know that name.” Jillela lied to the bounty hunter staring down at her, and I held my breath, waiting to see if Ivy would allow her to live for the insult.

  Ivy dropped on top of the woman faster than I could blink, her blade pressed to the female’s throat. “Well then, I guess I should just kill you and find a better messenger.”

  I’d never seen Jillela afraid before. Never. Not even with the largest of foes. She was a formidable and ruthless opponent, but with Ivy she was petrified. “No. No need. I… I will deliver your message.”

  Jillela’s fearful eyes roamed the destruction, the dead. I saw the wheels turning in her mind, the counting as she assessed the threat, the truth of Ivy’s words. The extent of what one female could do in her quest to find Gerian Eozara.

  Cerberus was not a small force, there were several hundred members they could send after Ivy. But the human female had just killed at least a dozen of the worst of Cerberus and injured a dozen or so more, without elevating her heart rate. I’d killed as well, but we were not banded with legion colors. This wasn’t a legion versus legion fight. It was personal, the work of a female who was out for vengeance, and those in the Cerberus Legion who got in her way were either injured and broken, like Jillela, or dead.

  This destruction was on them. That was our code. Even so, I had no doubt Cerberus would triple his guard and every single one of them on patrol would be out for blood. For Ivy. For the Hived-Up human ex-Coalition fighter.

  We wouldn’t get this deep into Cerberus territory again. At least not without killi
ng a few of them along the way. But looking at Ivy, I didn’t think that would stop her.

  She hadn’t gotten her bounty, but she’d certainly gotten the message out that she was after him… and would get him. At any price.

  “Thank you,” Ivy said to Jillela as if they were having dinner together like close friends. “You have until this time tomorrow, or I’ll be back.”

  Yeah, not friends.

  “And how am I supposed to find you?” Jillela wondered. “You aren’t one of us. You are not Rogue 5.”

  If anyone like Ivy had grown up on Rogue 5, she’d be infamous regardless of legion. Everyone would know of her abilities, just like Jillela knew she was not from here.

  “No, I’m not. I’m a bounty hunter.” Ivy rose and turned, pointed a bloody finger at me. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

  The female lifted her head from the ground and looked at me. Our gazes locked. “Zenos.”

  “Jillela.” I returned her greeting as a golden angel with ice-cold blue eyes stood above her like death incarnate.

  “Find Zenos, you find me.” Ivy clapped her hands together. “Excellent. That’s now settled. We’ll be on our way.”

  Ivy sauntered toward me, her hips swinging, every curve and muscle under her control, leaving Jillela behind.

  Now that the panic for her safety had bled away like the lifeblood of the Cerberus on the ground before us, I could see Ivy for what she really was. She was contained violence. Lovely death. Primal. Vicious. Protective. She was here to avenge her Coalition unit, her friends who had died. They weren’t her family, but they meant something to her, as the other members of Astra Legion did to me. Not related by blood but by circumstance, by war. She’d gone into Cerberus territory armed with only a blade, blasters and the skill of her body to avenge her friends. To seek the one responsible.

  I’d known all that, she’d told me. Us. Astra. Barek, the others. But I hadn’t understood the extent of it, how much it drove her. How far she’d go to achieve her goal.

  Had she gotten herself Hived-Up for this purpose? To help her in avenging them? Fuck, if that was true, she’d gone to unbelievable lengths to do so. She hadn’t gotten the integrations for selfish reasons. The opposite. She’d endured pain, even the sneer and hatred of others, for her unit. Entering Cerberus Legion was nothing. This fight? It had been nothing to her.