Purity Read online

  “I’ll get one.” Loki turned to go.

  “Do that,” Boone said. “And tell Mom to sim her something hot to drink. Some coffee or hot tea or something. She looks like she needs it.”

  “She needs more than that.” Loki threw the girl an unfriendly glance as the silver door whooshed shut behind him.

  It was obvious the Erian already hated her and Boone couldn’t say that he blamed the man. Loki’s touch partner, Chall, had been one of the first to die when the Paladins had come in with guns blazing. Loki and Chall hadn’t been life bonded and had fought like cats and dogs most of the time but there had been genuine affection between them. And without the other man Loki was crippled. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. Wouldn’t put it past Loki to try and get some kind of revenge. Nothing fatal—he knew what Boone needed the Paladin for. But still, Erians could be tricky.

  The girl stirred weakly against Boone’s chest and he looked down at her. “You okay, darlin’?”

  “My squad…where are they? Are you holding them in other rooms?”

  “Your crew is dead.” Boone said, more harshly than he’d intended. “Don’t worry though, they took a few of us with them. That should make you feel better.”

  Her strange eyes flashed. “No, what would make me feel better is to purge the whole lot of you.”

  “That’s what you were coming to do, wasn’t it?” He shook his head. “You know, when we bought this Erian ship at the scrappers to use for bait, I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t really believe you’d attack us just because we were different.”

  “Erians are depraved.” Her voice was cold and impersonal, as though she was reciting dogma she’d been taught from an early age. “They deserve to be purged. Other races can be subjugated but the Erian ways—”

  “What do you know about our ways, Purist?” Loki had returned. In one hand he held a white thermal blanket and in the other, a mug full of steaming liquid.

  The girl glanced at him dispassionately. “I know that you touch each other all the time—your whole planet is contaminated. And you…” She swallowed hard as though fighting down revulsion. “You reproduce sexually. Disgusting.”

  Boone stared down at her in disbelief. “You think they should be wiped out because they have sex? How the hell do your people reproduce? The whole damn planet can’t be abstinent or you’d have died out cycles ago.”

  Loki answered for her. “Purists are genetically engineered and grown in artificial wombs. These huge fucking grow-tanks that hold something like a hundred and fifty babies at once.”

  “The upper limit of fetus distribution is fifty-five and that is only for workers,” the girl said, frowning at him. “There are never more than thirty for my own kind—Paladins. How do you know so much about my world anyway?”

  “Because I escaped from one of your genetics labs after being captured in the Pan wars. So I know exactly what you’re capable of.” Loki threw down the thermal blanket and slapped the mug on the table with a thunk. Steaming brown liquid sloshed over the side and onto the floor. “There.” He glared first at the girl, then at Boone. “Get Mom to help you with her. I’ve had enough. Murdering Purist bitch.”

  Boone blamed himself for what happened next. The Paladin had been quiet and limp against his chest for so long that Boone had loosened his grip. She seemed so fragile without the suit—like a bird that might break its own wings trying to get free of him if he wasn’t careful. But now she demonstrated that all the rumors he’d heard about the Paladins’ training were true.

  Suddenly she launched herself from his arms and lunged for Loki. In one smooth move she plucked the ceremonial gogi dagger from the sheath he kept at the back of his belt and aimed it for her own heart. She thumbed it on and a faint popping and crackling broke the sudden silence of the room as a blue energy field enveloped the dagger’s copper blade. The blade was razor sharp, Boone knew, but it didn’t really have to be. The energy field would melt through flesh as though it was snow. The Paladin was going to kill herself and if she died, his last hope would die with her.

  “No!” he shouted and dived for her. He was certain she was going to do it—the blade’s deadly blue field was poised right above her heart.

  But for just an instant, she hesitated.

  It was enough. Boone slammed into her and wrapped one arm around her waist, securing her free hand to her side. At the same time he grabbed the hand holding the knife and squeezed.

  “Drop it,” he said quietly in her ear. “Just drop it now. Why the hell are you trying to kill yourself anyway?”

  Loki answered for her again. “Because you touched her.”

  “What? But you told me to touch her. And it helped.”

  “Physically maybe. Mentally and emotionally you’ve just given her a hell of a shock. You may as well have raped her.” Loki gave the girl a nasty smile. “She’s contaminated now—she’s been touched by one of the Impure. Of course she wants to die.”

  “Damn it, Loki!” Boone growled, really pissed now. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

  The Erian shrugged, a liquid, graceful gesture. “What difference would it have made? You had to touch her to save her and now you’re going to have to keep touching her if you want to keep her alive. It’s going to be a living hell for you, isn’t it, sweetheart?” He leered at the girl and plucked the gogi dagger from her numb fingers. “I’ll see you two later. Have fun getting to know each other.”

  Chapter Three

  “What’s your name, anyway?” Boone asked her.

  They were sitting in the mess hall side by side on a bench drawn up to the large communal table. The thermal blanket was draped around the girl’s shoulders and her hands were bound in front of her with soft but completely unbreakable plasti-seal restraints. Boone had seen to that himself—he wasn’t about to have a repeat performance of what had almost happened in the medlab.

  Mom, the ship’s navigator and all-around mother figure to everyone on board, was humming to herself as she bustled around the far side of the room. Her dark brown hair with a wide streak of silver running down one side and her huge silver-brown eyes denoted her as a resident of Pan. The fourth planet from the Promethean sun had been occupied and its population either purged or subjugated during the Pan Wars by Purists twenty cycles ago. Boone knew, though she didn’t talk about it much, that Mom had lost most of her family in the wars when she was younger. Yet she was at peace, even with a Paladin sitting in the same room with her. She had given the girl one long appraising glance when he first brought her in and then went back to her kitchen duties.

  “Your name?” Boone prompted the shivering Paladin again. He wondered if Loki was right and he was going to have to touch her on a regular basis in order to keep her healthy. He really hoped not—she might be a murdering bitch but he wasn’t a sadist. He didn’t want to do anything to her that she didn’t want done. But how screwed up must her people be if they equated a simple touch to rape? Pretty damn screwed up, he thought, watching her. She shrank away from him as though he had the damn Frellian plague if he moved so much as an inch in her direction.

  “Why do you want to know my name?” She stared straight ahead, clearly reviewing her options. Probably plotting to get away from him and go for another weapon. Boone made a mental note—he wasn’t going to let down his guard around her again.

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We’re going to be together awhile. We might as well get to know each other.”

  She gave him a look that was colder than space. “I don’t want to know you and I’m certain you don’t want to know me. What I would like to know is why you lured me and my squad here in the first place.”

  “If you weren’t so damn bloodthirsty it wouldn’t have worked,” Boone countered. “Loki was right—you damn Purists can’t resist the urge to kill anyone who isn’t your own kind. Why is that?” He frowned at her, genuinely curious. The odd religious sect which had grown to encompass the entire planet of