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“That’s my job, Atkinson. I have to know wha
t’s going on with everyone who enters this building.” Hoff walked toward his office. “Enjoy your vacation.”
Derek watched the captain walk away, frowning at the thought that entered his mind. Hoff was far too interested in Sable, always had been. She was constantly being detained, sometimes for hours. In the past, he’d always assumed that her unconventional methods of capture had attracted the unwanted attention. Now, he wondered if there was more to Sable’s case than she’d let on.
How many secrets did she have?
* * * * *
Derek settled into the captain’s chair of the Viper and established a secure comm link with his assistant. He was not in a good mood. In fact, he felt murderous. He’d figured out where Sable had run off to. She was with Marius Drake. And he’d been chasing the two of them for almost three weeks. To his fury, he always seemed to be a step behind them.
Marius was a wealthy man with a dozen different residences scattered all over the galaxy. Unfortunately for Derek, he seemed determined to take Sable to each and every one of them, causing Derek to slowly lose his mind. So far he’d been able to detect by scent that Sable was using her own room and Marius was staying the hell away from her, but how long would that last? Loving Sable like he did, Derek knew it must be torture for Marius to have her so close and not take her. But if the other man touched her… And if she let him…
Derek growled.
The screen before him lit up with the image of his assistant and he offered a curt greeting.
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“Good afternoon to you, too, sir,” Stein returned. “On the Viper again, I see, and from your tone, I take it you were unsuccessful at catching up with them.”
“Not for much longer,” Derek muttered. “Did you discover anything interesting since the last time I spoke with you?”
“Quite a bit, actually.” Stein fumbled around on his cluttered desk. “I managed to hack into President Drake’s file.”
Derek grunted. “About damn time.”
“My job is not as easy as it looks, sir,” Stein retorted. “However, despite the delay, I think you’ll be pleased. Once I gained access to the file, I located Ms. Taylor’s. He hadn’t erased it as I’d originally thought, merely swallowed it into his.”
“Son of bitch,” Derek growled.
“There were some very interesting things in there. First of all, it appears that Ms.
Taylor has been a project of the President’s almost since birth.”
“I knew that already. He’s been grooming her to be his mate. He just wasn’t counting on her having any backbone.”
“Well, were you aware that he’s been tracking her?” Stein asked. “He’s had a tracking device on every one of her ships since she broke off their personal relationship.”
Derek’s eyes widened. Marius had put the tracking device on her ship? “I think that tracking device almost got her killed.”
“So you said. I researched the schematics of the particular devices used on Ms.
Taylor’s ships. The President had them specially designed so that the authorities wouldn’t be able to pick up the signal. It could only be read by a special receiver, one that he alone possesses.”
“Damn, so the Federation didn’t find her that way.”
“It doesn’t appear likely,” Stein agreed. “As I searched deeper into the President’s account, I noticed we aren’t the only ones who’ve been delving into his information.”
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“Hoff.”
Stein’s mouth fell open. “How the hell do you do that?” he asked, startling Derek with the rare curse.
“Hoff asked me some odd questions the last time I saw him and he knew about the attack against Sable’s ship.”
“So you’ve discovered the culprit. Ms. Taylor was the key after all.”
“I suppose that’s true, but not in the way I had originally assumed. Can you prove Hoff had access to the tracking device information?”
“Without a doubt. I’ll send a security team to apprehend him immediately.” Stein smiled. “Now that the traitor’s been discovered, sir, will you be dropping your cover and returning to the Security Council?”
“Soon,” Derek said evasively. He damn well wasn’t returning anywhere without Sable. “Did you get a copy of the video from the concourse on Rashier 6?”
“Yes, sir. I downloaded it to your ship just a few moments ago.”
“Excellent. I’m on way to Sarjon to check on another Drake residence. Comm me if you have any trouble with Hoff.”
“Of course. Good luck, sir. I’m looking forward to meeting Ms. Taylor. She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
“She is,” Derek murmured. “Atkinson out.”
He took a deep breath before playing the video taken by docking security on Rashier 6. Even though he knew deep in his soul that Sable loved him, part of him still feared what he would witness on the video.
He froze as the screen flickered and Sable appeared, standing on the cargo ramp of her Starwing speaking with Marius Drake. Stein had done an excellent job of filtering out the background noise and Derek listened in rapt attention as Marius blackmailed Sable into breaking off their relationship.
“I love him,” Sable told Marius on the tape.
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And Derek’s heart swelled. He hadn’t misread her. He rewound the video and played her words again. And again.
The tiny seed of doubt that had tried to take root, insidious and punishing, urging him to think that maybe Sable’s note had been the truth, withered and died and would never return.
“I’m coming for you, baby,” he whispered to her beloved face, frozen on the screen.
“I’m coming.”
* * * * *
It was approaching midnight when the transport cab pulled away from the large house. Sable waited a few moments more before leaving her hiding place in the bushes, just to be certain they wouldn’t return for something they’d forgotten. She’d finally solved her investigation. Now she had only to capture the culprit. She’d wondered how this hunt would go down when Captain Hoff had come out of his house with his family in tow. But then he’d kissed them goodbye and sent them on ahead.
Now it was just the two of them.
She crossed the moonlit circular driveway and rounded the side of the house.
Knowing how trigger-happy some agents were, Sable had waited until just a few moments ago to comm in her call for backup. She couldn’t risk them arriving too soon and scaring her prey away. Not after the last two years of hard work.
Marius had done his worst to screw up her life, so it was ironic that he’d really helped her instead. Living with him had given her access to his computers and his passwords. With those advantages, she’d planted information under his access code.
She’d created two secret Council files—one with a reference to a fabricated new weapon and one with a nonexistent “cure” for vampirism. Knowing that both of those items would be invaluable to the Federation, she’d deliberately left a back door to those files open and waited for the traitor to make their move.
It had been a risky gamble, but one that paid off. The traitor hadn’t bothered to hide 102
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his personal information when he’d downloaded the files. It would have taken weeks to circumvent the Council anti-hacker programs with an anonymous identity, and since Sable had set the files for automatic deletion in a couple days, she’d forced his hand.
He’d used his own unique access code and revealed his identity in his greed.
And now his gig was up, as the archaic saying went.
Sneaking into the house through the kitchen door, Sable moved into the living room and crawled up the wall to the ceiling. She could hear Hoff packing quickly, shoving documents into a bag along with a few articles of clothing. Her fingers twitched restlessly around the hilt of her lasersword, preventing it from slipping out and crashing to the floo
r below. She walked toward the hallway with noiseless steps.
Waiting.
Hunting.
Hoff fell silent and her senses heightened. She crouched low, hugging the ceiling, as the hairs on her nape stood on end. And then she heard it, the sounds of transports moving into the drive.
Damn it, how did the Task Force get here so fast? With a smothered curse, she crawled from the ceiling to the floor without a sound. Preparing to pounce, she was startled by a steely arm wrapping around her throat.
“Vamp bitch,” Hoff hissed in her ear. “I’d hoped those Federation ships would kill you! They would have too, if you hadn’t had Atkinson on board to assist you.”
Sable stilled, but she wasn’t afraid. She could easily break the human male in half with her bare hands. “Not a wise move,” she said casually. She felt a sharp prodding against her back.
“Feel that?”
“Yeah, don’t rip my tank. It’s my favorite.”
“I’m going to rip your heart out,” he growled. “And then I’m going to stake it through. The Federation is working on a program to eradicate your kind. I can only 103
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hope the information I sold them will speed up its inception.”
Sable rolled her eyes, grabbed the arm that crushed her windpipe and broke it.
The wooden stake in Hoff’s other hand pressed against her skin and then sank in an inch. It burned like forged metal and she hissed, her fangs descending, her animal nature springing to the fore. She spun on him, furious and prepared to kill. Vamps didn’t get defensive. They killed. Fully a predator, she lunged for his throat and was tackled from the side, the force of the blow carrying her across the room. In pain from the stake wound, Sable fought viciously against the men who held her down.
“Taylor!”
As she registered the sound of her captain’s voice, she felt the red haze of fury drain from her. She stared up at the STF agents who struggled to restrain her.
“I’m fine,” she growled. “I said I’m fine!” she repeated when they refused to release her.
“See?” screamed Hoff. “You can’t trust them! You can’t control them! They’re infected, diseased, rabid animals that need to be put down. They’ll kill us all. We’re nothing but food to them.”
