J.B. pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles up on the bridge of his nose, a nervous gesture in times of stress. It was the only sign the ice-cold Armorer ever showed.
“Chill a whole ville? Wipe them out with whatever we can find in the armory here? Without knowing, that’s a hell of a task.”
“We’ve been in worse than this,” Ryan said simply. “I’ll go to Alien as soon as we’ve told Jak and Dean. Fireblast, where the rad-blasted hell are they? Always when you need him, Dean is off somewhere getting himself in shit!”
“Like his father?” Krysty murmured.
Ryan looked at her. “Guess so… Okay, I’ll go and see the baron now. If Dean and Jak should bother to let us know what the fuck they’re doing, then tell them—”
But the one-eyed warrior didn’t get a chance to voice his thoughts, as Jak burst into the unit.
“Ryan, trouble,” he said shortly, gulping breath from his journey. As soon as he was sure he was out of Harvey’s view, he’d run back to the unit.
Jak explained what had happened in his search, ending with “So need get Dean out.”
“Sec chief behind Jenna, that’s gonna mean a whole lot of trouble,” J.B. muttered. “Especially if Alien’s in on it all.”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think so. Don’t ask me why, but I just trust him, and it feels right. What do you think?” he directed at Krysty.
“I’m kind of with you on that, lover,” she agreed cautiously, “but Jenna’s got me worried. It depends what kind of a hold she has on the baron.”
“True. I guess we’ll just have to play this one by ear,” Ryan mused.
ALIEN WAS in his unit, although being the baron of Raw, the term unit was perhaps inappropriate. It lay at the rear of the main hall, with the entrance behind the long table and the old drapes. Raw being the kind of ville it was, he had no sec guard, and when Ryan cautiously pulled back the drapes he found the baron sprawled across his large bed, covered in the finest linen and velvet that could be found in Raw. The covers were thrown back, revealing the baron’s torso, running to middle-aged flab, but still heavily muscled and crossed with scars that attested to his courage in leading his people. His long beard rested on his chest, his long white hair untied and covering his face. He was snoring and wheezing softly. In stark contrast to the white of Alien, Jenna was a dark pool on his skin, her jet-black and flowing hair spreading in tendrils across him, her darker skin smooth and young against him. Ryan found his eyes drawn to her small breasts, her dark nipples erect where they brushed against her husband.
She was awake, her glittering raven eyes catching Ryan’s azure blue orb, twinkling at him with a superior smile that made him suddenly look away.
In her triumph, she sent out a psychic wave that made Krysty feel nauseous and ill at ease.
“Well, excuse us…” Mildred spoke to allay the rising gorge within her. She didn’t have Krysty’s seeing power, but as when she had first seen Jenna, she felt the same wave, albeit in a milder form.
Jenna rose from the bed, making no attempt to cover herself and knowing that her petite and shapely frame was drawing the eyes of the three men present, feeling their gaze run down from her sharp face, to her erect nipples and down to the black nest of her pubis. Knowing that they would want her instinctively, and drawing on that for her own strength.
“Do you make a habit of insulting your hosts?” she asked with an artificial sweetness to her tone.
“There’s no insult intended,” Ryan said slowly, picking his words and trying to focus. He knew she was deliberately toying with him—with them all— and attempted to overcome that feeling. “We just need to speak to Alien. Urgently.”
“But as you can see, he’s asleep,” Jenna returned.
Alien grunted, showing no signs of being awakened by the disturbance.
“Then mebbe you should wake him,” Ryan said carefully, pitching it somewhere between a request and an order.