Rogue Heart Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Rogue Heart

  ISBN 9781419917783

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Rogue Heart Copyright © 2008 Bernadette Gardner

  Edited by Briana St. James.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication August 2008

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Rogue Heart

  Bernadette Gardner

  Dedication

  For all the Divas, I never would have come this far without you!

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank Bree, my editor, for insisting that I keep her very busy.

  Chapter One

  “Again!” Guard Captain Bordeau slammed his fist into the center of the metal table, causing Onika Ramos to jump. She couldn’t go far to escape his wrath, though, nor could she do much to calm the wild staccato of her pulse. With her legs shackled to the chair on which she sat and her hands cuffed in a caricature of prayer, her range of movement was limited to flinching.

  “How many times do you need to hear it? I didn’t kill Lantrell. I just found his body.” For the first two hours of interrogation after her arrest, her voice had been clear and strong while she declared her innocence over and over again. Now, after recounting the day’s events for the third time and spending several hours before that staring at the four gray walls of the Serilon Security interrogation room, her voice had lost its luster, and her words had shed some of their earlier conviction. If this went on much longer, she feared she might start doubting her innocence as much as the guard captain did.

  Bordeau straightened his spine and sneered at her. “I’ll need to hear it until I believe it. You were found bending over the body with blood on your hands.” True, but there hadn’t been a speck of it on her clothing, which Serilon Security had confiscated almost immediately. The red prison tunic they’d given her served as a subtle reminder that scarlet had long been the color associated with guilt.

  Onika drew in a slow breath, tainted with the stale scent of Bordeau’s sweat and the commingled aromas of antiseptic and recycled air. “I put my hand on the kitchen counter when I walked into the house. It was dark and I didn’t see the blood until I touched it.”

  “Right.” The officer hadn’t believed her the first three times she explained it. What made him think she’d change her story? “How long have you known Zed Lantrell?”

  He’d asked that before too.

  “Ten years.”

  Flinty eyes assessed her in a way that made her skin crawl beneath the rough fabric of the tunic. Parts of her body still tingled uncomfortably from the cavity search she’d endured after her arrest, and the suspicion plagued her that Bordeau had probably watched the security tape of that heady encounter before he’d come in for their friendly little chat.

  “You don’t look old enough to have been more than a schoolgirl ten years ago.”

  Onika pursed her lips. She supposed the remark was meant as some backhanded form of flattery. Coupled with his obvious disdain for the people he arrested, it didn’t really work. “I was old enough.” Just barely. She’d been seventeen when she’d regained consciousness in Zed’s infirmary, eighteen when he’d taken her to his bed and barely nineteen when he’d finished with her, packaged her like a precious commodity and shipped her to Central Command. Thanks to him, she had decades yet before a wrinkle creased the delicate skin around her eyes or her lips. Her lustrous black hair would probably never turn gray either, thanks to Zed.

  “You don’t seem very broken up about the fact that someone ripped the man’s heart out of his chest, seeing as you and he were such old friends.” Bordeau cocked a bushy brow and flashed a row of crooked teeth in a pitiful attempt at a smile.

  “I said I had known him for ten years. I never said we were friends.” Zed Lantrell had been a number of things to Onika. A savior by certain definitions. A healer, a lover, but never a friend.

  She’d mourn his death in her own way, and it wouldn’t be with tears.

  “So if Lantrell wasn’t your friend, why were you going to see him?”

  They’d been over this before too, and this was where Onika’s dedication to the truth always wavered. She guessed this was why the captain didn’t believe anything else she said. When she answered this question, the lie probably showed in her eyes.

  “A mutual friend of ours told me he wanted to see me and I was curious to know why. That’s all.” All right, it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

  “And this mutual friend’s name, again?”

  “Lilliana Jarmok.” Despite her exhaustion, Onika mustered the strength of her convictions once more to add, “If you want to know who killed Zed, you should check with her.”

  * * * * *

  “My client’s been in the interrogation room how long?” Aidan Fynn struggled to keep his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. He’d discovered early in his career as a defense solicitor for Central Command that having a reputation for being cold-blooded and stoic in the face of adversity served him far better than bouts of temper. It wasn’t always easy to maintain control, especially on these outer colony worlds where local law enforcement harkened back to the early days of human government. Hang ‘em high, hang ‘em fast usually kept crime to a minimum and more often than not cut him out of a decent day’s pay.

  He should have been rolling heads, but instead he offered the dumbfounded prison administrator a tight, humorless smile.

  “Let me rephrase my question into a statement. The interrogation stops immediately. Copies of any digi-cam and holo-vid recordings of the session will be turned over to me. If there’s been a confession or admission of guilt of complicity to any wrongdoing, it will be held invalid until I can make a determination as to my client’s state of mind and her fitness to stand trial.”

  Aidan dropped his Central Command credentials on the admin’s battered desk. The man glanced at the official seals, and his already pale, cavern-dweller’s complexion blanched. The reaction pleased Aidan immensely.

  “Um…I’ll have the prisoner brought—”

  “No.” Aidan raised his voice just enough to increase the echo effect off the reinforced metal walls of the security station. “Take me to her. I want to see exactly what’s been done with her. Now.”

  “Yes, sir. Right this way.”

  The admin scurried from his desk and scrambled to open the thick metal door that separated the security station from Serilon’s underground prison. A long, bleak corridor stretched into shadowed oblivion, and the admin waited, shifting nervously from one booted foot to the other while Aidan collected his credentials and strolled calmly after him.

  “The case
is pretty cut and dried,” the man said. Aidan tried to recall the name on the badge he wore—Dettrick. Administrator Dettrick. He made a mental note to include that in his formal complaint. Someone needed to come in and air the stink out of what passed for a justice system on Serilon, and he planned to stir up the first foul breeze, just as soon as he freed his client from this uppermost layer of hell.

  “As far as I’m concerned, Administrator Dettrick, there is no case. You have a woman in custody who did nothing more than stumble upon a dead body.”

  “Right, sure. I understand, but this one…she had blood on her hands…”

  Dettrick stopped outside a scratched black door aptly labeled Interrogation Room. Aidan circled around him, captured him in the steely gaze he normally reserved for vermin and opposing counsel and cracked a half smile.

  “Administrator, haven’t you been in this line of work long enough to know, we all have blood on our hands?”

  * * * * *

  With a contemplative finger to his thin lips, Captain Bordeau paced before the table. Onika’s eyelids drooped and her stomach rumbled. At this point, she’d have preferred languishing in a cell to sitting here waiting to answer yet another impertinent question.

  When the door in the opposite wall burst open, the captain’s measured step faltered. What appeared to be annoyance at having his fun interrupted morphed into an expression somewhere between confusion and panic. Satisfied by watching Bordeau deflate, Onika would have smiled, except the ice blue eyes of the man who appeared in the open doorway froze any reaction on her part. His presence stilled the breath in her lungs for just as long as it took Bordeau to acknowledge his presence with a curt nod and slither out of the room.

  She held the newcomer’s gaze while the metal door slowly swung shut behind him.

  “You look dehydrated,” he said before he glided toward the table. He moved like a soldier, great strength contained by nothing more than mental discipline. Dark pants hugged his powerful legs and a light shirt bearing the insignia of Central Command on the breast pocket marked him as a corporate solicitor, as well as something as rare on Serilon as a chilly day. He was a surface dweller.

  One unruly lock of golden hair curled over his forehead, just bisecting a gracefully arched brow which rose in question, waiting for her response.

  “It’s nice to meet you too.” She found her voice hiding somewhere beneath her racing heartbeat. The words worked their way around the dry lump of apprehension that threatened to glue her larynx shut.

  He didn’t even flinch at the sarcasm. Instead he pulled a thin metal rod from the pocket of his shirt and pointed it at the cuffs. The locks popped open, and a second later he freed her legs from the shackles with the same wondrous device.

  “Onika Ramos.” His cultured voice caressed the syllables of her name. He even rolled the R in a way that suggested not only that he’d been schooled on one of the wealthier inner colonies, but also that he possessed impressive control over his tongue.

  “Yes…that’s me.”

  “I’ll be representing you. My name is Aidan Fynn and I’ve been assigned to your case by Central Command.”

  “My case?”

  He squinted, lowering those imposingly perfect brows over his razor-sharp gaze. “Tell me they neglected to formally charge you?”

  “With murder? Oh yes. They charged me.” Several times, in fact.

  “You seem surprised to have been assigned a solicitor.”

  She shrugged and rubbed her sore wrists. She’d have rubbed her ankles too, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off Fynn long enough to bend over. “I’m not used to being rescued.”

  A brief note of sympathy flickered through his eyes, fleeting and perhaps only an illusion. “You don’t strike me as the type of woman used to being forsaken.”

  Once again, she supposed, that was a compliment. “It’s not that. Usually it’s just up to me to save myself.”

  Again the raised brow. He didn’t buy that. “Well, this time you won’t have to. I never lose, Ms. Ramos, and I plan to have you acquitted of Zed Lantrell’s murder. The only thing I need to know is why you did it.”

  Chapter Two

  The first thing Aidan learned after being pulled from basic training and sent to study at Central Command’s legal academy was that both guilt and innocence were negotiable.

  He’d waltzed into the prison in Yebec Cavern Settlement believing he’d be negotiating Onika Ramos’ guilt. After all, Central Command had briefed him on her history. She was Cy-Ops—a body reclaimed and rebuilt by Zed Lantrell in the early days of the man’s ambitious and somewhat psychotic bio-gen experiments. She had every reason to hate the man who’d plucked her from the comforting bosom of death and thrust her back into the Viliri war as a spy and a glorified sex toy.

  Justifiable homicide would be easy to prove.

  Now as he studied her from across the dimly lit interrogation room, he berated himself for not anticipating two things. One, that she’d actually seem indignant at the insinuation of guilt, and two, that even wilted from a full day in the custody of morons, her beauty would stun him.

  Of course, she’d been made that way, designed by Lantrell to be irresistible to the opposite sex. He’d have to find a way to boost his immunity to her obvious charms if he was going to get this job done. He couldn’t afford to get sidetracked by those wide electric blue eyes, the silky curtain of hair, the perfectly seductive lips and skin like fresh cream.

  He stood a little straighter and captured her sullen gaze. “We don’t have to work on your defense right this minute. Follow me. We’re going home.”

  She tilted her head like a curious feline and smirked. “I don’t have a home, Mr. Fynn. Surely Central Command told you that. I go where I’m needed, stay until the job is done, and move on.”

  “Well, right now, your job is to do as I say, and that includes going to my home—or at least my temporary residence here on Serilon. You’ll remain in my protective custody until your trial is over.”

  The term “protective custody” seemed to startle her a bit. Here was a woman used to being owned rather than cared for. She rose shakily from the metal chair to which she’d been bound and paused to tug at the deliberately short hem of the tunic they’d given her. Aidan’s gaze followed her fingers as they brushed the tops of her thighs. Unbidden desire surged, and his cock gave an involuntary pulse.

  If she were to reach above her head, the woefully inadequate garment would rise enough to reveal all of her secrets. Lightning fast, his mind provided a visual. She’d be smooth, exquisitely curved and delicate, and her ass would fit perfectly against his cock…

  “I’m ready when you are.” She forced the words through a tight jaw and Aidan reined in his inappropriate thoughts. He didn’t fuck clients. At least not until he’d won their cases.

  Onika Ramos was off-limits for the time being.

  She sidled past him and he followed her out of the interrogation room, head up, eyes straight ahead, refusing to indulge in even the briefest glimpse of her sumptuous backside during the long walk up the corridor to the security station.

  It didn’t matter to Onika that even her Central Command-appointed solicitor thought she was guilty. As long as she didn’t have to spend the night in a cell, she’d go along with anything. Escaping from Aidan Fynn’s “protective custody” would be much easier than from formal incarceration anyway, not that she hadn’t broken herself out of jail a time or two.

  Judging by the difficult time he was having keeping his eyes off her assets, she decided a quick fuck would probably be all she’d need to have him eating out of her hand. She’d be free by morning and on her own, hopefully before she suffered any lasting effects from intimate physical contact with the man. Though she surmised she’d enjoy said contact immensely. A quick glance south of his belt buckle told her he had plenty of raw material to work with, and clearly her bio-enhanced pheromones were already having an effect on him.

  Once they’d passed through
the security station, Onika winked at Captain Bordeau as Fynn escorted her to the underground transport ramp. A sleek, white-hulled hover car waited for them. Fynn held the bubble-shaped door open while she climbed into the cool, comfortable interior.

  She waited until he joined her, taking the command seat to the left, before crossing her legs at the knee. He didn’t look, but his desire was evident in the straightness of his spine and the convulsive way he gripped the vehicle’s flight control stick.

  She rehearsed a few innuendos in her head, figuring she’d tease him on the way “home”, rev up his motor and make him pliable. You handle your stick well. Can I help you navigate?

  “There are spare sun shades in the storage compartment,” he said as he maneuvered the car away from the ramp. “You’ll need them.”

  Onika complied and lowered the thick lenses over her eyes moments before they emerged from Serilon’s sheltering cave system.

  Even protected by the glasses and the insulated bubble of the car, Onika felt the change in temperature immediately. Serilon lacked an ozone layer and the day side could reach blistering temperatures, which was why most of the population lived belowground.

  Those who could afford the luxury high-rises that mocked the relentless solar rays paid dearly for the privilege of basking in the brilliance of the planet’s night sky. Normally Onika might have opted to stay awhile with Aidan Fynn and enjoy what little amenities Serilon had to offer, but the game had changed now. Zed’s death had robbed her of her one chance for a normal existence. She could no longer play the part of pawn for Central Command. Her heart couldn’t take any more.

  She’d use Fynn and lose him and move on, no matter what the physical risk. Living as a fugitive for the rest of her life had to be better than losing her heart on every mission. It had to be better than betraying every man she’d ever loved.