“If I do as he demands,” she said, “no one will be hurt.”
“Unless he lies, and decides to keep you.”
“Listen,” Kord whispered. “Little Mother…”
Ronan’s hand disappeared into the pocket of his shipsuit and emerged holding a pistol. “I found this in the Pontos, and thus I am no longer unarmed. You will… pretend to obey him. When you go with him, I will come after and take him.”
Cynara eyed the gun. ‘This is mutiny.”
“My regret,” Ronan said. “Let us go.” Tucking the pistol under one arm, he opened the litter and helped Kord sit up.
Cynara had no choice but to assist him. The litter was only a hindrance now, no matter how things went.
Between them they supported Kord over the small hill, where Cynara could make out Gunter’s bulk twenty meters off to the side, in the direction of the cave. He could not yet see them.
Ronan took Kord’s weight against his side. “Can you wait alone?” he asked the Siroccan, easing him to the ground.
“Yes.” The two men exchanged glances that excluded Cynara utterly. “Good water.”
“Good ice would be more appropriate,” Ronan countered.
A joke from Ronan at a time like this? “Ronan—”
“You go now, Cynara,” he said. “Deceive Gunter until I come. I will come.”
She had never heard a more convincing statement in her life. He would come, and he’d find a way to beat Gunter even if he had to put his life on the line to do it. For her sake. For the sake of her “honor.” And that had been lost long ago.
She pushed snarled hair out of her face and glared for all she was worth. “If you die on me, Ronan—” Her throat closed up, and she forgot all the eloquent and vulgar Dharman threats she had been about to hurl at him.
“If you die,” she said hoarsely, “you’ll never get more of this.” She removed her helmet, seized his shoulders in her gloved hands, and kissed him hard, heating his icy lips with the warmth of her breath.
A beat of shock, and then Ronan grasped her upper arms and returned the kiss with interest—no expert wooing, nor the urgent passion of a boy who regarded sex as a kind of miracle.
This was deeply, overwhelmingly personal.
She broke free and pushed him away. “Go!”
He went without a backward glance, vanishing into the blowing snow. With hands that shook more now than they had under the threat of Gunter’s rifle, Cynara put on her helmet and tapped Kord’s shoulder. She had a feeling he’d have a few things to say to her when they returned to the Pegasus.
Leaving her pack with Kord, she set off toward Gunter’s cave. He intercepted her at a hundred paces and signaled her to walk ahead. Even through the suit’s filters she could smell him—rancid sweat, filthy furs, and the undefinable odor of masculine lust. She had a single, chilling moment of doubt that Ronan could do what he promised.
Within a few meters of the cave her footsteps slowed of their own accord. She stumbled and stopped, expecting to feel Gunter’s rifle in her back. But it was not fear that had made her falter. Something stirred in her mind, a sensation she hardly recognized.
She spun on her heel just in time to see Gunter lift his rifle and fire at the figure hurtling toward him.
Ronan touched the ground so lightly that he hardly left a print, dodging the beam by a hair. He sprang again and knocked Gunter’s weapon aside with a swipe of his hand. The rifle plunged into a snowbank. Gunter dived for it.
As silent as he was quick, Ronan leaped in front of Gunter and slammed his knee into the hermit’s face. Blood spattered the snow. Gunter yelled and rolled onto his back, clutching his broken nose.
Ronan crouched over him, fingers arched and head low. Cynara pushed her way to his side. One look at his face told her that he was ready to kill without hesitation. All Gunter had to do was move.
Gunter did, clawing at Cynara’s leg. Ronan fell on him. His arm drew back, fist clenched.