Mindee Arnett - Avalon

“It looks like you slept in your clothes.”

He glanced down. “Uh . . . that’s because I did.” It had been so late by the time he got back from the Donerail, he hadn’t bothered with undressing. He shrugged. “It happens.”

“Oh-kay,” Sierra said, her voice skeptical. “So, we’ll be leaving soon?”

“Yep, Flynn should be just about done with the diagnostics.”

“Right. Then I suppose it’s time for me to get the data cell off the Donerail.”

It took Jeth a moment to realize what she’d said. When he did, relief flooded him, making him giddy. She’d been telling the truth after all. At least about the data cell. That was good enough for him. He didn’t have to confront her about anything. He briefly wondered why she was revealing it now when he’d expected her to wait until the very last moment, but then he remembered what Vince had told him: She’s starting to trust you .

He grinned, fighting back the sudden urge to kiss her. “Great,” he said. “Want me to come with you?”

She nodded.

His grin widened. “Just give me a sec to fetch my coat.”

“Meet me at the shuttle.”

Several minutes later, he and Sierra entered Sparky . This was the first time he’d been completely alone with her since they’d kissed. He tried his best not to think about that, but failed miserably. He was too happy, too relieved, to ignore his attraction to her. He was hyperaware of her every move, the way she crossed and uncrossed her legs or folded her hands in her lap or rested them on the sides of her chair.

He could tell she was tense, too, and he could only guess it was for the same reason. He wanted to kick himself for avoiding her these last few days. What harm would a little kissing do? The thought should have scared him, and yet it didn’t. Instead, it only bolstered his confidence. Everything was going to work out all right for once. He was certain of it.

“So,” he said as he set down Sparky inside the Donerail ’s shuttle bay, “I’ve been thinking about what happened the other day.”

Sierra stiffened in her chair, not looking at him. “What do you mean?”

“About you kissing me.” He couldn’t keep the grin from his voice as he said it. There was no denying she had kissed him . He found the knowledge good for his ego.

“What about it?”

Jeth frowned, disconcerted by the rigidity of her tone. “So, why did you?”

Sierra stood up and opened the shuttle door. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Jeth stared after her, his certainty deflating, but only for a moment. He’d been stupid to remind her she had done the kissing. Celeste always claimed most girls would rather be pursued than do the pursuing. Okay, he thought. I’m game for that .

Sierra led him to the passenger deck and stopped before one of the closed cabin doors. Jeth remembered searching it the night before and thinking that a girl had been living in there. He supposed it must’ve been her room.

She stepped in and Jeth followed. Then, before she had a chance to do anything else, he reached out and took hold of her hand, turning her toward him.

Some emotion he couldn’t quite name crossed Sierra’s face, but she didn’t retreat. That was all the encouragement he needed.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and said, “Does it seem like a good idea now?” Then he bent down and kissed her. She braced against him for a second, but then opened her mouth, stepping closer as her body became languid. This kiss lasted longer than the other. There was no noise except for the sound of their breathing. No one to interrupt them. Jeth wrapped his arms around her, pressing her body to his.

Finally, Sierra pulled away. He let her go, his breath coming hard and his mind fuzzy from the overload of physical sensation. All the times he’d kissed Celeste, never once had he felt like this. You shouldn’t be doing this, the voice of reason whispered in his mind.

Jeth knew he should listen, but he just couldn’t seem to do it with Sierra so near.

“We should be going,” she said.

Jeth nodded, ignoring the hurt that she could dismiss him so easily when he couldn’t do the same to her.

Sierra turned toward the wall. “The data cell is just in here.”

“Okay.” He watched as she pushed against the flat surface. A moment later, a hidden panel slid open. No wonder he hadn’t found the thing. More relief flooded him, and he fought back the urge to spin her around and start kissing her again.

“You know, I—” He froze as an odd, familiar noise echoed in the room. Wha-wang . It was the sound of a stunner charging.

Sierra turned toward him, pointing the barrel at his chest. The gun took less than five seconds to go from cold to full charge.

Jeth froze, as startled by the fierce look in her eyes as by the weapon.

“I’m never going back to Renford,” Sierra said, fury in her voice.

The sound of Renford’s name seemed to reverberate inside Jeth’s skull like a bullet. How did she know about Renford? Jeth hadn’t mentioned him once until last night with Milton. But then he remembered the noise outside sick bay. Maybe it hadn’t been the cat.

Jeth opened his mouth to respond, but it was too late.

Sierra pulled the trigger.

The electric bolt shot out from the gun and hit him point-blank in the chest. Pain radiated outward, covering his entire body with searing, crackling heat.

Then Jeth felt nothing at all as the world blinked out of existence.

THE FIRST PRO JOB THE MALLEUS SHADES HAD EVER worked ended in disaster.

There’d only been four of them on the crew then—Jeth, Celeste, Flynn, and Shady. Lizzie was still a few years away from catching Hammer’s notice, and they hadn’t yet found a suitable teenage candidate for tech ops. Instead, a man named Trent Danforth had been running tech for them. Well, Danforth ran everything, actually. Hammer didn’t think Jeth was ready to lead yet, insisting the four of them were too young and inexperienced to be flying around the galaxy on their own.

Jeth hadn’t liked Danforth much—an instinct that proved true a year or so later when Jeth discovered Danforth making side deals behind Hammer’s back that cut into Jeth’s profits. But right from the beginning, the best Jeth could say about the man was that he wasn’t one of the Malleus Brethren or Guard. No, he was more a garden-variety criminal: amoral, crass, and with hygiene bad enough it even bothered a bunch of teenage boys. Jeth had a hard time listening to instructions from a man who smelled like three-week-old garbage. He just couldn’t respect someone like that, no matter if Hammer had put him in charge.

It was perhaps this very lack of respect that had caused the disaster when they went in to steal a painting from a private collector on Gallant Prime, the nearest planet to Peltraz spaceport. Danforth had wanted Jeth to wait before entering the vault where the painting was stored when it wasn’t on display, but Jeth was certain it was okay to go in. He’d done all the checks, ran all the scans. Shady was with him, his impatience to get on with the job feeding into Jeth’s.

And so the two of them went in. Screw Danforth and his paranoia about secondary alarm systems. Jeth knew what he was doing. He was a natural at this. Besides, he thought, taking in the sight of the painting they’d come to steal, who would bother adding extra protection for that ugly thing? The woman in the painting looked more like a man, despite her long black hair and plump chest. Her smile seemed more like a smirk pointed right at him.