White Heat (The Heat Chronicles Book 3)

  White Heat

  Leigh Wyndfield

  Contents

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  About the Author

  To Chris - this one is all for you, babe.

  Chapter 1

  “Let me guess. It’s going to snow. Now that’s something new and different.”

  Raine placed her feet into the indents she’d cut in the ice wall. Pulling herself up, she straddled the top and stared off to the east. The wall didn’t provide protection, since the gate had long ago blown off in a storm, but it offered a great view of the surrounding plain.

  “It’s going to be a big one,” she said, studying the building black clouds in the distance. “White Out, for sure.”

  She’d long ago gotten over the fact that she now talked to herself on a regular basis after being alone for two planet rotations.

  Briefly, she debated if she was finally losing her mind. She didn’t think so, but perhaps she’d be the last to know if she was.

  “I need to get off this planet before I do lose it.” If she hadn’t already.

  There was a reason she couldn’t leave. “Oh yeah, a crazed psychopath will kill me in a very unpleasant way if he catches me.” She rolled her eyes.

  The threat lessened the longer she stayed on this ice block. Death didn’t look so bad after all, when the years stretched on before her with only the occasional big storm to keep her interested.

  “Of course, I am rich.” She grimaced. Being rich meant exactly zilch when she couldn’t spend any of it. Millions of balseems scattered in hidey-holes all over the galaxies and here she was on Sector 9, one of thirteen unlucky planets in the Danthium quadrant of Galaxy Grid 219. In other words, the middle of nowhere.

  The wind picked up, whipping back her hood. She let it go, scanning the horizon without the interfering fabric. Winter here lasted three quarters of a rotation, so she might as well enjoy her bare skin touching the outside air one last time before it got so cold, it would freeze her flesh off if she ventured out.

  If there was one place in the whole of Creation where Malachi Delmundo might not find her, it was right here.

  And she knew he was trying, knew he would never give up until he held her beating heart in his hands after cutting it out with a blunt knife.

  “Revenge,” she whispered.

  Three years ago, Malachi had killed her team, all six of them, and she still wasn’t sure why. They’d been offered a contract to kill him, but they’d turned it down. As a rule, they didn’t take contracts from cybergangs, since the money wasn’t worth the risk. So why had Malachi sent his assassins after them? Now she wished they’d taken the job on and blown the bastard away.

  Only she had been left alive by sundown that day, a fluke that still left her with an angry ache of guilt every time she thought about her lost friends. Malachi’s men had thought she was dead, too. They were wrong.

  Her vengeance had been sweet. She’d hit him where it hurt him most—his wealth. She’d taken a little under half of it and led him on a long, merry chase across the galaxies. He’d burned through more of his remaining balseems trying to run her down.

  But she couldn’t keep that up forever, so she’d come here.

  She watched the clouds swirl in the distance. “Yep, it’s going to be one hell of a storm. Early, too.”

  Just what she needed. Extra time locked in her icehouse.

  Grasping the top of the wall, she swung herself over, somersaulting and landing on her feet. But instead of taking her customary bow to her non-existent audience, she scrambled back up the wall again.

  Out of the corner of her eye on her way down, she’d caught sight of a storm building to the west as well. Her heart pounded in her chest at the thought of two blizzards clashing right above her house.

  Sitting on the wall, Raine scanned the black clouds.

  “Gods,” she whispered.

  Then she blinked and looked again.

  “Not clouds. Smoke.”

  The only thing on this chunk of ice besides a trading station was the notorious prison, Inter-world Council Penitentiary number 569-00987, known to the people on Sector 9 as “Hell Frozen Over,” or “HeFO” for short.

  If it had been any other building on Sector 9, it wouldn’t have burned because they were all made up of ice and rock. But HeFo was made of wood. After the first few prison breaks where the inmates managed to melt themselves out, the IWC had rebuilt the majority of the prison with imported lumber.

  “And it’s been drying out for weeks now, since we haven’t had any snow.” She whistled.

  But one look at the coming storm made Raine jump down again, this time landing on her feet, then diving to execute a perfect roll.

  No matter what she did, she had to keep in shape. Malachi would find her eventually. It was only a matter of time…

  Walker staggered, forcing himself to move towards the relative safety of the rocks, across the slick, bare stretch of ground he’d traveled for hours. It never seemed as if he got closer.

  The wind had picked up to a howl, and ice chips whipped through the air, ripping at the small patch of exposed skin on his face. Tears streamed, trying to clear the ice, which felt like grains of sand in his eyes.

  His burned hands were more painful than anything he’d ever experienced. Every beat of his heart produced pain in his fingers as they throbbed with his pulse. He didn’t have even a small amount of energy left to heal them.

  He made his feet shuffle forward, just a few more steps. Come on, don’t give up, he chided himself.

  Merrium had laughed out loud when they sentenced him here. She knew he couldn’t use his hidden power if he was unable to build the large amount of heat required. Being on a cold planet had cut off a piece of him as efficiently as if they’d chopped off one of his legs. Every second in HeFO had seemed like an eternity.

  Or maybe she’d laughed because he was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. He couldn’t provide himself with an alibi, and Merrium had known it. He’d spent the evening healing other Mixed Breeds, people like himself who looked human enough but carried alien blood in their veins. It was an automatic death sentence if the Inter-world Council found out that he or others like him had dared to bring their alien-infected blood onto IWC planets. Breeds couldn’t chance going for traditional medical help, so they came to him. He’d chosen HeFO over death for himself and his patients.

  Walker glanced up to find the rocks had finally gotten closer. Just a little further and he’d be there.

  Raine rolled onto her back and panted at the ceiling. She could now do a hundred push-ups without pausing. Her body was in the best shape it had ever been in her life.

  “Maybe it’s time to go back onto the offensive.”

  The wind outside moaned and howled. Everything inside her screamed for her to leave Sector 9. She hated it here.

  A loud bang shuddered down the ice tunnel. She sat up with a start.

  “If the front entrance has collapsed again…” She didn’t finish. Because if it collapsed, she’d dig herself out. What other choice did she have?

  Hurrying from her main room, she ran along the entrance hallway, finally dropping to her knees to crawl to the portal at the end. The hall was set up to provide only the smallest exit possible, to keep in most of the heat.

  She opened the portal slowly, shouldering the weight of the snow on the other side. She
had a backup gate at the top of the hallway if she couldn’t reseal this one.

  Instead of the snow she expected, the portal crashed wide and a body fell on top of hers.

  Malachi’s assassins had finally found her!

  She fought like a wild thing, punching, kicking, bucking her body below his.

  The man fought harder, pinning her with his much heavier weight, his arms holding hers to her side.

  Wind gusted ice and snow into her house and life-giving heat escaped. She had to do something to get the door shut.

  She bought her knee up to catch him in the balls.

  He moved at the last instant, deflecting most of the hit. In the unguarded moment, she managed to roll him onto his back. He tried to flip her under him again by throwing all his weight and momentum to his side. Scrambling out of his reach, she launched herself at his body. He fell onto the icy hallway, smacking his forehead hard. She wrenched his arm in a tight twist behind him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. She needed to close the door. It would take a week to build up the heat in the house if she didn’t act fast. “But better to be cold than dead.”

  “What?” he asked and she knew she’d spoken out loud.

  “Who are you?” She jerked up on his arm to add emphasis.

  He groaned. “My hand.”

  She leaned in to growl in his ear, sliding her knife out of her belt to press it against his throat with her free hand. “Who. Are. You.”

  “Walker,” he gasped, his body shaking from the cold. “My hand.”

  His eyes shut and his body went slack. He’d passed out.

  At first, Raine thought he was trying to trick her. But as his body slumped, her knife nicked his neck, and blood ran onto her floor. “Nope, guess he’s not faking.”

  Standing, she dragged his heavy body backwards as fast as she could. Which wasn’t as fast as she needed. He was huge and weighed as much as a freighter in his unconscious state.

  She shut the portal after one last look outside. It was a White Out and a bad one. It would be days before the snows stopped. Then the whole planet would be covered in deep mounds of powder.

  Crawling into the taller part of the tunnel, she stood and tried to catch her breath. Who in the hell was this man? He moaned and it spurred her into action. She needed to tie him up before he awoke.

  It took awhile, but she dragged him into the room by the shoulders of his jacket, then rolled him over. His clothing was minimal, only several thin layers of fabric, indicating he was one of the most ill-prepared assassins she’d ever encountered. Then she saw the IWC Penitentiary stamp on the jumper beneath his jacket.

  “He’s a prisoner,” she breathed.

  “What to do, what to do,” she whispered, pondering. She couldn’t bring herself to throw him outside.

  A towel covered his face, with only a small slit in the material for him to see through. When she unwound it, the exposed flesh had the crackled appearance of snow frosting, an unpleasant and dangerous condition that could lead to death. It ran all over his skin, even where the cloth had covered it.

  Something she was sure had died long ago uncurled inside her. She had to help him, for no other reason than he so desperately needed it.

  She placed her hands over his cheeks. His breath hitched in pain. Even her cold fingers must feel too hot to him. His condition was more serious than she’d thought. She pulled off his boots to check for more snow frosting. No sign of that, but she wrapped his feet in Thermo-blankets just in case.

  The inner lining stuck to his hands as she wrestled with his gloves. Had he gotten them wet? The first one came off and she gasped.

  “Gods and Goddesses!”

  His hand was black, covered in blisters and cuts.

  She dragged off the other glove, then ran for her first aid kit.

  “The fire. He’s burned his hands.”

  She threw the case down and rummaged for burn cream. She knew she had it in here somewhere.

  The tube wasn’t as large as she wished. She spread the oily paste all over his hands. Then she slapped a bandage across the small cut on his neck. No one would say she had a great bedside manner. She had been part of an elite fighting squad before Malachi killed them all, not a healer.

  “You’re probably that serial murderer they caught on LackSui last year. After I go to sleep, you’ll kill me and eat my eyeballs for breakfast.” Even as she said it, she dismissed the idea, although she’d keep a close eye on him just in case.

  From her bathroom, her only extravagance in this ice hell, she grabbed two towels and wrapped his hands in them. Then she dragged him to her bed, falling on her butt once in the process. She needed to warm him fast.

  The heating system in an icehouse was such that the hot air didn’t have one specific point of entry, which would cause melting. Rather, warm air circulated throughout the rooms from a series of ducts. Which meant the house was freezing since they’d had the portal open.

  No way could she get him up onto her bed. Spreading a thermal tarp to prevent melting, she pulled her mattress to the floor and rolled the man onto it. He moaned when his weight came down on his hands.

  “Oops, sorry,” she said.

  Then she piled every blanket over him that she had in the house and finished by stuffing his head into one of her bigger hats. She sat for a while, warming his cheeks with her bare hands.

  For the first time, she looked at him. Before she’d jammed on the hat, she had seen that his hair had been shaved almost to his scalp in typical prison fashion. A dark blond, although it was hard to tell with it that short.

  “His face isn’t exactly handsome, is it?”

  His mouth turned down as if he understood her words. She had to remember not to talk out loud. She didn’t even realize she was doing it half the time.

  Still, he was good-looking, in a rugged way. He had nice, strong features, and full, sensuous lips. A shadow of beard covered his face, making him seem mysterious.

  She grinned at her musings and resisted the urge to peel one eye open to see what color they were.

  Lowering her head, she placed her lips to his cheek to check the temperature. Cool but not ice cold. He was warming up fast. Faster than he should have. She realized the snow frosting had disappeared. She was sure she hadn’t been mistaken, but there wasn’t any sign of it now. Strange.

  Suddenly, his head rolled and his lips caught hers, his arm curving around her neck to hold her down, his hand kept carefully aloft.

  For a moment, she was shocked into stillness.

  Her body, which hadn’t felt the touch of another human for three years, exploded with fire. His lips feathered on her mouth, before his tongue slowly stroked across her lips. His arm tightened around her neck, as if he was afraid she would pull away.

  But Raine didn’t want to move. She had thought she’d been okay here. Annoyed maybe, but fine without companionship. With this stranger’s kiss, she realized she wasn’t fine. Her stomach tightened with a need so great, she didn’t try to fight it.

  Instead, she opened her mouth and let his tongue slip inside. Suckling lightly, his taste exploded into her mouth. Different from anything else she’d ever savored, like warm bread straight from the oven, something that brought to mind fields of grain blowing in a summer breeze.

  The kiss wasn’t demanding. Soft and gentle, it felt pleasant and right, as if she’d been sitting here on Sector 9 for two years just waiting for his lips to touch hers. And maybe she had, she thought, reveling in the burn of desire between her legs, making her body yearn for release.

  Pulling slowly away, unsure if he’d let her go, she was careful not to jar his hands. Warm green eyes stared up from only a hand-length away. They were the color of green moss or Orchid leaves in the heart of a lush, tropical jungle.

  For a brief moment, her mind showed her a picture of what they must look like heavy lidded with passion, intense before the moment of climax. Her stomach flip-flopped with desire.

  Walker stare
d up at the woman and, with a certainty that shocked him, he understood exactly what she was.

  Mate.

  The word breathed through his mind, through all his reawakening senses, shaking him to the core. That he could have found the one person meant for him in all of Creation, here in this icy hell, boggled his mind. All this time, he’d thought his mixed blood had meant he wouldn’t have the bonding of his father’s people, that the generations of inter-mating with humans had taken this destiny from him.

  But for the first time in many lunar cycles, his power stirred, even though his body temperature wasn’t high enough to support it. The touch of her hands had set him on fire and increased his heat level in the way his father had told him it would if he was ever lucky enough to find his mate. His blood pounded though his veins, his senses on overload with the smell of her body, the taste of her lips, and her dancing gray eyes.

  He wanted to tear off her clothes, rip away his own, and press his naked body tight against hers. The warmth would be amazing. He could heal his hands and bring her to orgasm with his touch. The way she poured heat into him during their kiss, he knew he could do it.

  He forced his body to remain still. His hat had fallen off and her fingers filtered through what was left of his hair. The scalp was a great conductor of heat, and hers flowed into him, building his reserves even more. The sensation filled him with a burning need only she could fulfill.

  Right now, he was almost helpless, his body exhausted by the fire and the long walk in the storm. If she kept going and kissed him a few more times, he’d have enough energy stored to heal his hands.

  “Kiss me again,” he said, his voice rusty from lack of use.

  He could tell she was reluctant, her hands stilling.

  “Please.” He’d spent his whole life never begging for anything, but at this moment, he’d do whatever it took for more of her touch.