Taken By Terror by Lolita Lopez
Chapter Twenty
“Are you sure you don’t want me to knock you out?” Terror warily eyed Maisie as she prepared herself for the tabletop surgery he was about to perform. After some much-needed rest, a hot breakfast and another round of slow, teasing lovemaking, it was time to remove that chip.
“I’m fine,” she assured him and climbed onto the table.
I’m not.
Never had he hesitated to pick up a scalpel or sutures to help a fellow soldier, but this was Maisie. The thought of slicing her scalp and digging around for the chip Devious had hidden there turned his stomach. What if he misjudged the depth of the incision? What if the chip moved and he had to search for it? What if he nicked something that wouldn’t stop bleeding? What if the antibiotic preparations he had taken from the safe house weren’t strong enough to kill an infection? So many things could wrong when things finally seemed to being going right.
Accepting that this had to be done, he steeled himself for the procedure he was about to perform and the pain he was going to cause her. Maisie remained calm and relaxed as she got situated on the table, placing her head on the folded towels and situating her bare legs in a way that was comfortable. Having spent most of their morning with his face buried between those enticing legs, he now knew there was a tiny birthmark on her inner left thigh in the shape of a bat. He found it amusing and hoped to discover more interesting, intimate details like that.
Maise touched his hand and smiled up at him. “It’s okay, Terror. I trust you.”
“Trusting me in bed and trusting me with a scalpel are two different things,” he insisted rather grumpily.
“Are they?”
He frowned at her pointed question. Leaning down, he kissed her tenderly. “I’m going to shave the area, clean it and then numb it. I’ll start the removal after that.”
“Okay.” She inhaled a deep breath and closed her eyes. He was glad to have her gaze off of him as he worked to locate the chip and then shave a small rectangle. He cleaned his hands again and set up a sterile field using the supplies Pam had given him.
He gloved up, finished cleaning Maisie’s prepared scalp and let the solution dry. He uncapped a syringe loaded with numbing medication and placed a warning hand on her shoulder to let her know there was going to be some pain. She reached up and squeezed his hand, and he was struck yet again by how damn tough his mate was.
There was no denying that anymore. They were mates. If she wanted a wedding like Hallie, he would make sure it happened. If she wanted a collar, he would get her one. If she wanted none of those things, he was perfectly fine with it. He would follow her lead on their relationship and let her set the boundaries and rules.
Terror guided the needle into her scalp in different areas to make sure the numbing solution was spread around to give her plenty of pain coverage. He capped and set aside the empty syringe and prepared his other tools while the medication took effect. Scalpel. Forceps. Sutures. Gauze. Irrigation syringe. Wound glue. A basin for the chip.
He touched Maisie’s shoulder again, making sure she was ready, and pinched the skin he had just numbed with the blunt forceps. She didn’t react so he felt reasonably sure the area had no feeling. He made the incision with a steady hand, catching the flow of bright red blood with a handful of gauze. When the area was open enough for him to work, he switched to the forceps. He used his gloved fingers on the outside of her scalp to find the chip again and held pressure on the area. He slipped the forceps into the incision, located the chip and removed it with surprisingly little trouble.
The chip hit the bottom of the plastic basin with a thwack. He would clean it later. Right now, he was focused on Maisie. He irrigated the wound and tried to make his sutures tidy and neat. Eventually, her hair would grow back and cover the scar, but he didn’t want to mark her any more than necessary. She had suffered enough injuries and scars. He hated being the cause of yet another.
When he clipped the last suture, he applied the antibiotic gel and let it penetrate and dry while he prepared the tube of wound glue. He was very familiar with the product and expertly applied it to seal the wound. Satisfied with his work, he stepped around the table and crouched down until he was eye-to-eye with Maisie. He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “All done.”
He helped her sit up and kissed her forehead. She melted into his embrace, and he rubbed her back in a silent apology for causing her discomfort. Fucking Devious, he thought angrily. What was he thinking putting a chip in her damn head?
Maisie disappeared into the bathroom, and once he was certain she wasn’t going to faint, he cleared up the supplies and began to rinse the chip. The glasses he had taken from the safe house weren’t just equipped with translation abilities. They also had built-in zooming functions that allowed him to see the ultra-thin protective covering on the chip.
Maisie emerged from the bathroom and joined him at the table. She sat next to him and reached for the finely tipped forceps from the medical kit, handing them over so he could use them to peel off the clear film. Once he had removed the film, he swore. Blood and other fluids had seeped under the seal onto the chip.
“Wait.” She gestured at him before leaving the table to rummage through the backpack carrying their things. She returned to the small dining table with the only box of rations he had kept and grabbed a handful of gauze squares. She rinsed the chip thoroughly with the distilled water from the surgery kit. Then, she wrapped the chip in the gauze and tore into the ration box, removing the meal tray and stuffing the gauze inside the bag. After activating the heating pad by snapping it in half to mix the chemicals inside the package, she sealed the ration bag with the chip inside. It would get hot enough to dry out the chip but not hot enough to damage the components.
“What do you think is on it?” she asked as he cleared away the mess on the table.
He was able to interpret almost half of her question without relying on the glasses. He looked forward to the day he wouldn’t need them at all.
“Probably something that will get us killed,” he answered honestly. “There’s a reason Devious gave this to you and not his handler.”
“Back at the safe house, I saw Devious on a screen. They had him listed as KIA. Do they have access to the same forensics that Keen showed me?”
Terror shook his head. “Probably not. I’ve worked with Keen in the past, and he’s incredibly cagey about sharing intel. He likely had those processed by someone he trusts and kept them off the main forensics database.”
“So, Pam and her colleague don’t know any more than we do about Devious?”
“They know what we know which is that if he didn’t die in that mine, he may be dead now,” Terror reasoned. “He was absolutely wounded when he escaped.”
“Right—but how did he escape? How did he get that second body there? We both saw him that night. That was Devious bleeding and unconscious. Wasn’t it?”
“I believe it was.” He shared some of her confusion. “I don’t know how he escaped, but he must have had help.”
She suddenly looked conflicted. He narrowed his eyes and asked, “Is there something else you need to tell me?”
“Kris,” she said reluctantly.
He frowned. “Who is Kris?”
“My stepbrother.”
“Oh.”
“He wasn’t in the mine when your guys attacked and rescued you. He’s been on a mission for almost a year. He’s the only one who was ever nice to me. He looked out for me and taught me how to defend myself and survive. He never believed in the Splinter cause, and I always thought he was planning to leave.”
“You think he was working with Devious?”
“Back at the safe house, when I was snooping,” she admitted sheepishly, “I saw photos of them together. I couldn’t make out the planet or city where they were meeting, but it looked clandestine.” She hesitated. “Did Pam mention anything?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t have time for a rundown of her station’s intel. She told me about Flint and the last flight off the planet. I wanted to get you out of there as quickly as possible.”
“What’s her deal?” Maisie asked bluntly. “Were you two together for a long time?”
“No.” He made sure she could see the truth in his face. “We were undercover for seven or eight months.”
“Undercover like...?”
He knew what she was asking and nodded. “Yes, we were undercover as a couple. We had sex. Frequently.”
She tried to hide her hurt, but he could read it easily. After a moment, she said, “I know you had a whole life before me. I’m trying not be jealous. I really am.”
“You don’t have to be jealous of anyone in my past,” he assured her. “You’re the only woman I have ever wanted like this.” He wasn’t ready to confess how much he cared for her yet. As brave as he was, even he had moments of fear and cowardice. “You’re it for me, Maisie.”
She seemed placated. “You’re it for me, too.”
“Good.” He bent down to kiss her and finished tidying up the space. When he was done, she had a pensive look on her face. “What?”
“Since when are women allowed to work in intelligence?”
“Pam was a poppy. The rules are different for those women.”
Maisie rolled her eyes. “That is so gross the way they’re exploited.”
He didn’t disagree with her. “It’s the law.”
“Your laws are dumb.”
“I know,” he said, thinking how laws written centuries ago prevented someone as smart and feisty as Maisie from being allowed to live a full life in his society.
“Someone should change them.”
“Someone should,” he agreed, but he wasn’t sure who that someone might be. He felt her stare and glanced up to see her looking at him expectantly. “Don’t look at me! I’m not a politician.”
“You probably have enough points to sit on the council,” she reasoned.
“I do.”
“So?”
“So, we are on the run. My chances of getting on the council are less than zero.”
She made a grumpy face. “My point still stands. The laws are dumb.”
“They are.” He leaned over and captured her mouth in a playful kiss. She pretended not to be receptive at first, but then she huffed a little and reached for him. He smiled triumphantly against her mouth. There was no shyness in her, not when it came to showing affection. Her enthusiasm and excitement filled him with the deepest sense of contentment. He had always been wary and hesitant when it came to women, never allowing himself to become vulnerable or to let them get too close. Maisie didn’t give him a choice. From their first kiss, she was all-in, ride-or-die.
He easily lifted her from the chair and hauled her onto his lap. She giggled as he settled her into place and wound her arms around his bare shoulders. They hadn’t opted for much clothing upon getting out of bed. He had on pants. She had on his extra shirt. There didn’t seem to be much reason to wear anything else.
His hands drifted under the shirt to cup her plump bottom. Earlier, he had taken care of the bruising his various spankings had left, carefully rubbing a healing cream on her buttocks. She had such soft skin and bruised easily. She swore it wasn’t painful, but he had decided to use a lighter hand with her. She enjoyed impact play, and he wanted to give her what she liked without leaving her black and blue.
He shivered when she began a trail of ticklish kisses along his jaw and down the side of his neck. He had always been the one who doled out sensual experiences, but Maisie didn’t seem to care much about the accepted rules of submission. Her hand slid down his chest and belly to the waist of his pants. She brushed her lips across his jugular and scraped her teeth along the pulse beating wildly there while gripping his growing erection through his pants.
He sucked in a sharp breath, and she grinned, leaning back just enough to look him right in the eye. The mischievous gleam in her eye amused and unsettled him. She had something naughty in mind, and as much as he wanted to indulge her, he couldn’t ignore his responsibility to her well-being. He shook his head and gently touched the area where he had operated a short while ago. “Let’s wait.”
She pouted dramatically and rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
He pinched her thigh. “Behave or else I’ll have to punish you.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she signed back.
“Brat.” He kissed her lovingly and held her close, enjoying the feel of her on his lap and in his arms. He let his mind wander briefly to the question of where they would go after the pleasure ship reached its destination. The answer to that question depended on what the chip revealed. If it was information they could use to bargain for her freedom, he would have to try to make contact with Vicious and work out a deal for her safety.
He eyed the ration box and noticed the reactive strip on the outside had gone white, indicating the heat cycle was complete. Not ready to let go of Maisie just yet, he ignored it. A little extra time to cook out the moisture wouldn’t hurt.
“Terror?”
“Yes?”
“Should we be using contraception?”
The question was one they should have discussed before falling into bed. Wanting to set her at ease, he explained, “We already are.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I have implants.”
“Implants?” She eyed his lap. “Where?”
“In my testicles,” he stated matter-of-factly. “They’re standard issue for all special ops. We get them right out of the Academy.”
She made a horrified face. “Does that hurt?”
“At the time, yes,” he admitted. “Like hell, actually.”
“And now? I mean, when you orgasm? Is it painful?”
“No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t hurt at all. Sometimes, there’s a bit of pressure, but nothing painful.”
She considered his reply and then asked, “Is it permanent?”
He shook head. “They can be dislodged with trauma or removed when a man leaves spec ops or Grabs a mate.”
Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting a discussion that was about to wander into territory he wasn’t sure they were ready for just yet. Babies were a future decision. Far in the future. When they weren’t on the run.
He shifted her off his lap and onto her feet. “Order room service. I’ll check the chip.”
Maisie hesitated. “What’s our money situation? Like am I ordering a sandwich for us to share?”
“We’re okay,” he assured her. “I have money squirreled away in all sorts of places.”
Her eyebrows raised at that. “Did a lot of off the books work?”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “Missions get boring. I had free time. I chose to use that time doing odd jobs and invested it.”
“Under the table?”
“Very.”
“Well, Mr. Moneybags, I’m getting steak,” she decided. “Real meat, from a cow, raised on a planet with actual grass. None of that weird lab meat. And fruit,” she added, with a flourish of hand signals. “Fresh fruit from an actual tree.”
He smiled as she sauntered off to the cruise ship’s touchscreen communication unit mounted flush on the wall. While she tapped away at the room service menu, he retrieved the nearly bricked tablet he had taken from the shredder bin at the safe house. The tablet wasn’t able to connect to any network which made it perfect for reading a chip that might hold a malicious program. Even though he trusted the work Pam had done on it, he checked the tablet again himself to make sure the connectivity was completely destroyed and unusable.
Maisie joined him back at the table and opened the now cooled ration box. She carefully removed the tray holding the gauze-wrapped chip and extended it toward him. He peeled away the gauze to retrieve the clean, dry chip and examined it. From what he could see, it looked fine. Glancing up at Maisie, he said, “Fingers crossed.”
She lifted her hand and crossed two fingers with a playful smile before moving a chair closer to him. The chip slipped right into the correct slot, and he accessed it easily on the tablet. It took a few seconds to open up the information stored on the chip, and Terror grimaced at the possibility the chip was corrupted. After a few tense moments, folders began to populate the screen.
“Holy shit.” He scrolled down the screen in disbelief. “I expected one or two folders of information, but there are dozens.”
“What are the labels? Is it code?”
Terror glanced at the numbers and letters on each folder. “They’re the identifiers for ships in the fleet and bases on different planets we control.”
She made an irritated face. “If he jabbed that chip in my head and all it contains is personnel lists and other nonsense, I’m going to kick him in the ass when we find him.”
“If we find him,” Terror muttered, not at all sure that Devious wanted to be found, if he was even alive.
“Open one of the folders. Let’s see what they say.”
He frowned at her. “You’re terribly bossy today.”
Her mouth slanted with an impish smile. “Maybe I need my attitude adjusted, sir.”
“There’s no maybe to it,” he grumbled, already thinking of all the ways to adjust her attitude. He searched for the Valiant’s folder but hesitated before tapping the screen to open it. As well as he knew Devious, there was no way the man went to all this trouble to sneak out information that wasn’t highly dangerous. Whatever he was about to read was going to change his life and Maisie’s irrevocably.
When he finally did open the folder, he discovered a file listing the names of mid and upper-level officers. They were men he worked with regularly, often relying on them for help on his missions. They were men he trusted.
Dread pooled in his belly as he read the notes Devious had written under each name. The accusations Devious made in his notes were the most serious anyone could make. According to Devious, these men were more than Splinter sympathizers. They were spies hellbent on bringing down the Alliance from the inside.
His stomach dropped in a nauseating swoop as his gaze lingered on one name in particular. Terror shot to his feet and let the tablet fall as his entire body went cold. He ate the floor with long strides and stopped at the circular window looking out toward the vast darkness of space.
Was it possible? Could he have been so blind? Been so easily deceived?
Pierce.
One of his best Shadow Force operatives. One of a handful of men he trusted.
Pierce.
A Splinter? A double agent?
Terror didn’t want to believe it. It sickened him to think that his friend was a liar. It couldn’t possibly be true.
Could it?
Maisie approached him from his left side. She touched his arm to get his attention and gestured to the tablet she carried. The color had drained out of her face, and she seemed as shocked as he felt. “This is worse than a few spies in key positions, Terror.”
Grimly, Terror nodded. “The Splinters have infiltrated every single ship and base in the alliance. They’re working in logistics, weapons, cyber security, medical, research and development...” His voice trailed off as the full weight of the discovery settled upon him. “There may be ships or bases where they outnumber us.”
Maisie gulped, and her fingers shook slightly as she signed, “If that’s true, the war is lost. What if they’re waiting to strike from within? One coordinated attack, and they’ll end you.”
Terror gritted his teeth. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Terror.” She gripped his wrist so tightly he actually winced. “You cannot be serious. You are one man. You cannot take this on by yourself.”
“I’m not taking it on by myself.” He shifted his hand until he captured hers and interlaced their fingers. “I’m not one man by himself. I’m one man with his mate, his partner, at his side.”
Her expression softened. “Terror, I’m not strong enough to help you take on the entire Splinter force.”
“Yes, you are.” He kissed her tenderly. “You can do anything, Maisie. I believe that with every fiber of my being.” Realizing how much he was asking of her, he said, “But the choice is yours. If it’s too much to ask, I’ll take you somewhere safe and you can—”
Maisie touched his mouth and shook her head. “I’m not leaving you again.”
“It will be dangerous, Maisie.”
“What’s new?” She shrugged. “Danger seems to be what we do best, Terror.”
He turned his face and kissed her palm. Knowing it was now or never, he confessed, “I love you.”
But he didn’t just say it. He signed it. That book Cotton had given him had come in handy, and he had used it to learn the three words he wanted to say most.
She seemed staggered by his admission. After the shock passed, she smiled up at him and signed the same. “I love you, too.”
“I’m not just saying it because I want you to help me finish this.” He gestured to the tablet. “I’m saying it because I mean it.”
“I know.” She rose on tiptoes and reached for his shoulder, tugging him down to meet her. He leaned down willingly, taking her mouth in a demanding kiss. She let him have it, but pushed him away to end it before he was ready. She poked him in the chest to make her point before she said, “If we’re going to war against the Splinters, you’re taking me to the Eros Deck first.”
The Eros Deck was the ship’s erotic playground, and he couldn’t think of a better way to spend their time than visiting it together every single night until they reached their destination. Cupping the back of her head, he nuzzled their noses together and kissed her tenderly. “Deal.”
