Her Cold-Blooded Mercenary

  Contents

  Copyright

  Other Books by Lea Linnett

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Copyright © 2019 Lea Linnett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.

  Cover design by Melody Simmons.

  Other Books by Lea Linnett

  The Levekk Invaders Series

  Her Cold-Blooded Protector

  Her Cold-Blooded Master

  Her Cold-Blooded Mercenary

  Her Cold-Blooded Mercenary

  —

  Lea Linnett

  1

  Taz made a face as she bit into the hunk of beef jerky, resisting the urge to spit it out and kick it across the alley. She should be used to them. Everyone ate rations when they were on a mission. The problem was that rations had become increasingly common in Taz’s diet as their stocks ran low, and she hadn’t been sent on a mission in months.

  The latter was definitely her fault, but she refused to take responsibility for the former, no matter how many of her fellow Lodestars glared at her on a daily basis. Sure, food had been scarce since she and her sister failed their job in the New Chicago Senekkar four months ago, but it wasn’t Taz’s fault that their people had split down the middle. It wasn’t Cara’s fault that half their group had decided to go on a suicide mission that would decimate their numbers and poison the Lodestar name amongst their key contacts in New Chicago.

  Taz had plenty of things to feel guilty about, but their current vulnerability wasn’t one of them.

  She glared at the waste compactor that sat across from her, kicking a loose stone at it and enjoying the clang it made against the metal. She considered chucking the beef jerky after it, but couldn’t justify the waste. Instead, she pocketed it with a grimace, tucking it away for when she was brave enough, or hungry enough, to attempt eating it again.

  That left her with nothing to occupy her thoughts, and she groaned in frustration. She’d had far too much time to herself since the Senekkar—too much time to sit and stew over what had happened. The boredom ate at her, chewing little holes that the guilt and doubt could creep in through.

  She needed a distraction.

  Overhead, a hover transport whizzed by, dipping annoyingly close to the roof of the warehouse, and she glared at it as it raced away to the north. Supplies weren’t the only area they were vulnerable in.

  She watched the transport until it passed through the towering blue curtain of the climate-control domes that covered the Senekkar, chewing the inside of her lip. The Senekkar, where only levekk and the richest sub-species who emulated them were allowed to reside. On one hand, it felt like a constant presence in Taz’s life, a thorn in her side reminding her of all her mistakes. On the other, it couldn’t feel more far away, cloistered behind the blue domes that made this planet livable for the cold-blooded levekk who’d invaded it.

  She hated the levekk. They were the reason she was looked at with suspicion by her own people. They were the ones who’d enslaved her planet over two hundred years earlier and irrevocably changed it. They renamed it CL-32—the thirty-second colony—and built levekk cities right over the top of the human cities that came before. They introduced other races, aliens from other planets they’d conquered, and then installed a society that put the levekk at the top and humans at the bottom. Her people had been forced to scrabble in the dirt for the scraps this alien society left behind ever since, and on their own goddamn planet.

  It was their fault that the Lodestars—the last sub-species resistance against the levekk on CL-32—were distrusted by the very people they wanted to help. Not hers. Not Cara’s.

  She balled her hands into fists, taking comfort in the familiar anger that coursed through her at the thought of the levekk. Apart from her sister, Cara, it was just about the only thing she had left to cling to against the guilt and the boredom. It was the only thing keeping her from crawling into her bed and letting the world march on without her.

  But she was shocked out of it by the loud creak of metal as the door beside her swung open, revealing the narrow, pale green face of their medic, Ari. She peeked around the doorway, her huge, cicarian eyes widening. “Hello, Taz.”

  “Ari, hey.” Taz paused, her heart still bouncing rapidly in her chest. But the medic was as good a distraction as any, so she blew out a calming breath, fishing around in her pocket for the discarded beef jerky. “What’s up? You want some—”

  “Mila wants to see you,” the cicarian interrupted, her face and one thin, segmented hand still the only parts of her visible. She glanced up at the sky while she spoke, like a rabbit watching out for hawks.

  Taz’s face fell. “What, so she can yell at me more?”

  “No,” said Ari, her saucer-like eyes closing as she shook her head. “Apparently, she has a job for you.”

  She almost asked her to repeat herself. Mila hadn’t had a job for her—any job for her—in months. Their leader knew that inaction was a greater punishment for Taz than anything else—even toilet-scrubbing—and had placed her on probation ever since the incident in the Senekkar. That’s why she was out here, bored, aggravated and feeling destructive. “You’re joking.”

  Ari frowned. “Why would I joke?” Her hand tapped the metal door once before withdrawing. “Hurry, please. Deeno is being briefed now and I want to ask him about his mission before he runs off.”

  She followed Ari into the warehouse, ignoring the cicarian’s stiff tone. She knew there was no malice in it; Ari had been just as dismissive with their previous medic, whom she’d apprenticed under, before he was lost with the others in the Senekkar. They passed through a dark corridor, stepping around plastic barrels of water and shelves full of junk with a practiced ease. “So, Deeno has a job?”

  Ari sighed. “Yes. With Cara.”

  “But we’re all on probation.”

  “That’s why I want to ask him about it,” Ari replied, and Taz could hear the eyeroll in her voice that would never be allowed to reach her face.

  Taz fell silent as they reached the warehouse’s center. It was a large room with a tall ceiling, lit by wide skylights at this time of day, and it was no doubt once filled with machinery before the Lodestars got their hands on it. There was no other trace of that history left now, though. Canvas-lined barricades had been set up throughout the space, creating makeshift rooms and pathways that were well-worn by their occupants. Some housed beds and tents, shared by small groups and families. Some were set up for the bartering of goods while others held semi-permanent operations, like the mess tent and weapons storage, or the seamstress in the far corner. Everything was temporary, able to be packed up at a moment’s notice if the levekk enforcers discovered them, but it also needed to feel like home. Usually, they would have as many as tw
o hundred people passing through here on any given day, and at its peak the warehouse felt more like a miniature city than a hideout.

  Today, however, the crowds were thin. There were still representatives of every sub-species—from pindar, to cicarians, to humans, and more—but they’d lost a lot of people in the Senekkar, both old hands and potential recruits. Many more had left in the aftermath, when tensions were high and the Lodestars were being publicly named as a target of the New Chicago Council, and when Inner District locals that had supported them for years were rescinding their offers of food, bedding, and other essentials out of fear of being implicated. The warehouse still buzzed with activity, but it was muted, the energy lower than Taz had ever seen it. She didn’t like it.

  But it did mean that when there was a disturbance, it was easy to pinpoint, and Taz’s ears pricked when an angry shout cut the air, pulling them up short.

  She glanced at Ari. “What was that?”

  Two more voices joined the first, and the cicarian looked spooked, shrinking back and shaking her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think we should get involved…”

  Taz had no such reservations, already slipping her knife from her boot as she raced towards the sound. Mila had confiscated most of her weapons after the Senekkar, but there was no way she could pry this knife from her. Taz had had it either strapped to her hip or tucked in her boot since she was an orphan sorting through garbage under the New Chicago Space Harbor. She’d never let it out of her sight.

  The shouting rose in volume as she neared, and it consisted of a mix of voices: the yelp of a human woman, the fractious buzz of a xylidian, the bellowing of a pindar. But beneath it all was a deeper voice, one that she didn’t recognize.

  She almost dropped her knife when she rounded the corner and saw who it belonged to.

  Bone-white claws digging into the concrete, skin-tight black clothing over glistening scales. He—definitely he—was standing a head above the sub-species that surrounded him, and the bone-like plating that covered his head reflected the light from the skylights above, turning it a bleached white. His scales were a deeper orange than others of his kind that she’d seen, glowing like hot coals in a fire. He was more lithe as well, his posture almost graceful, but that didn’t mean he lacked the muscular physique of his species. He looked like he could snap everyone in the room in two, except for the handful of rotund pindar, with ease.

  And he was a levekk.

  There was a levekk inside the Lodestars’ base.

  He was standing just outside the eaves of one of the tent-like rooms, where a human woman—Carol, their forgery expert—was cowering behind her desk, looking at the gathering Lodestars and their drawn weapons with concern.

  “How dare you come in here and throw your weight around?!” shouted someone from the crowd.

  “You think you can touch her?” hissed another.

  “We should gut you for even setting foot in here!”

  The levekk raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I didn’t touch her. I was just admiring,” he said, his deep voice edged with amusement, of all things. “We don’t get a lot of humans where I’m from.”

  “This isn’t a fucking zoo!” someone snapped. “We’re not animals for you to gawk at!”

  “You’re the animal.”

  “Filthy lizard!”

  The levekk’s lips quirked, openly entertained by their reactions, and it made Taz’s gut twist with anger. Was he laughing at them? At their very real fears? Why was he even here, in one of the last sanctuaries they had?

  She stepped forward, clenching the handle of her knife in her fist.

  He noticed her then, his head snapping towards her. His eyes, previously shadowed by the thick plate that covered his forehead and nose, now caught the sunlight, and Taz saw with great clarity the cat-like slits of his pupils flicking over her. She stared him down, refusing to be cowed by the predatory look he sported, but then her heart leaped into her throat.

  The levekk’s eyes were changing, the pupils fattening into round disks, and for a moment, it felt like they were sucking her in, like black holes intent on consuming her. Her world narrowed down, and she might have thought she’d been bewitched if she didn’t recognize the pounding in her ears as the rush of adrenaline. But where it usually pushed her forward, propelling her towards her enemy, now it rooted her to the spot. She couldn’t move, and her knife felt heavy and unwieldy in her tight grip. Gritting her teeth, she screamed at her muscles to start working again—against the fear, or the disgust, or whatever it was that held her still—but he might as well have walked up to her and put her in a headlock himself.

  She spied a pink tongue as it darted out to wet the levekk’s lips and the flash of white teeth. His gaze roved over her, and she knew that look, had seen it turned on both herself and Cara. It was a look she’d hoped she’d never have to see it from a levekk ever again, a look with promise: promises of pleasure, of worship, of giving her everything she could want and taking everything she could give. But it didn’t mean partnership—it never could, from a levekk. It meant ownership.

  Taz refused to let it sink its claws into her. She screwed her eyes shut, and the spell finally broke. “What do you think you’re doing here?” she asked, the crowd of sub-species parting around her as she strode towards him. “You don’t belong here.”

  He was taller than her, easily brushing six and a half feet. It would be a challenge getting the upper hand on him when he was so much taller and broader than herself, but she was determined to do it if she had to. She’d trained for it, and she knew how to fight. She tightened her grip on her knife.

  “I think you might be mistaken. I do belong here,” the levekk drawled. “I was invited here, actually.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re lucky threats are all you’ve gotten so far. I’d have seen to you at the door. Now leave,” she added, hissing the words through her teeth.

  But the levekk’s eyes lit up, and she noticed now that they were green—the dark green of a river. “Please,” he purred, and to Taz’s shock the sound vibrated right through her, making heat pool in her belly. “By all means. See to me.”

  He raised his left hand in front of him in invitation, and she noticed for the first time that his bone-white claws were missing from that hand. What’s more, it looked purposeful, the points sanded down to delicate ovals much like the tips of her own fingers. That was strange, she thought. A levekk’s claws were a symbol of pride. No one just removed them. Not willingly, at least.

  She’d seen how a levekk reacted to having their claws removed unwillingly, and the image made her sick, curdling the anger and the… whatever it was she’d felt at the sound of his voice into something ugly. She bared her teeth at him, her face heating with embarrassment—at his words or her reaction to them, she wasn’t sure.

  “Leave us alone!” she roared, snapping forward with her fist already raised.

  The levekk’s eyes widened, and he jerked out of her way, staggering back with a disbelieving look on his face. Good, she thought, letting her momentum draw her in closer. Maybe he was starting to realize that she wasn’t weak just because she was human.

  She swiped at him as she’d been taught, keeping her limbs close to her body, but he blocked every blow. A large palm caught her fist, immobilizing it, so she swung around with her knife. He caught that, too. He grabbed her wrist, twisting until she dropped her knife, and she heard it fall to the concrete with a clatter. She struggled against his grip, fearful that the fight was over already, but then his hold on her loosened.

  Her wrist burned as she retreated, and she scowled at the grin already worming back onto his face. He’d let go of her on purpose. Why?

  But she wasn’t about to complain. She lunged, aiming high with a fist, and as she drew his attention up she slammed the heel of her boot into his bent knee. He sagged sideways with the force, caught off guard, and she knew this was her only chance.

  She leaped on top of him and hooked her legs around his
broad shoulders, gripping his head for balance as he rose up off the ground. Hours of practicing this move with Rekel told her what she needed to do: if she’d had her knife, she would press it to the levekk’s throat, but since she didn’t, she should aim a blow to the soft, unprotected internal ears on either side of his head instead. But fighting a levekk was different from sparring with a pindar, and she froze when she felt the strange plates beneath her fingers.

  She’d always assumed they would feel hard, armor-like, and they were. But they were also moving.

  She gasped, recoiling, but even that took a second too long. A clawed hand snagged the back of her shirt and pulled her off-balance. She sailed through the air for a moment that felt like years, the warehouse and its occupants morphing into some upside-down fever dream, and then she knew nothing but the slam of concrete against her back. The impact shuddered through her, but to her surprise, it didn’t hurt as much as she’d thought it would, almost as if the levekk had bent down, shortening her fall.

  Panic gripped her as she realized too late that she’d lost sight of him. She braced herself for the pain of a clawed foot descending on her chest, or a strong arm cutting off her airway, but neither came. Instead, she heard a laugh, and she peered up to find him circling her, a wide smile on his face.

  “You almost got me there,” he said lightly, extending a hand down towards her.

  Taz’s nostrils flared. He was treating this like sparring, like some friendly game. He wasn’t taking her seriously at all.

  She snarled something wordless, batting his arm out of the way and rocketing to her feet. She lunged for him again, anger rather than logic determining her actions as she clawed at his face, but he caught her wrists with ease. He twisted one behind her back, turning her until her back was flush with his chest. She struggled, and he pinned her other arm to her body. She tried to kick out at him, but he’d threaded his legs between hers, keeping her unbalanced.

  Taz froze when a set of cool fingers touched the fragile skin of her neck, solid like stone against her thundering pulse. She could feel his breath on her skin, her own breath hitching when a single claw traced over her throat. It wasn’t sharp, not like a knife, but there was no doubt that if he wanted to, he could pierce her skin.