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  “Useless muscles,” she heard him grumbling as he tried to bend his body lower to shake the shirt off. His arms must have been too sore to even raise them above his head.

  She walked over to lend him a hand, and when she proceeded to remove his pants, he gave an audible gasp.

  “Don’t get too excited,” she commented dryly. “Nothing’s happening.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to do much anyway. My limbs are mush,” he replied, looking exhausted.

  Nirvana held his wrist and led him into the stream. Grunting, she shifted a few heavy rocks into place.

  “Lie down here.” She helped him lie down slowly, adjusted his arms and legs, and shifted a few more rocks to secure his position.

  “Wow!” he exclaimed, eyes closed in ecstasy as he felt the push of the water flowing onto his shoulders. “This feels amazing!”

  Nirvana waded downstream to a deeper pool in the pond. She sat down and scrubbed herself with a handful of the lichen that grew on the sides of the bank. After she felt sufficiently clean, she waded towards Zane, who seemed to have fallen asleep. His limbs were all soft and bobbing with the flow of the stream. She reclined beside him to enjoy the water massage herself.

  Chapter 17

  Zane didn’t know how long he’d slept, but he was reluctant to move when Nirvana tapped on his face. She tried sprinkling some water on his face to help wake him up, but he ignored her. This felt too good.

  Her hands slid down his arms and pulled him into a sitting position. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and stretched, feeling significantly less sore.

  “That was some massage. Thank you.”

  “Feeling all relaxed now?” she asked, lips trembling like she was trying to hold in her laughter.

  “Of course! I haven’t felt so relaxed…” He followed her gaze to his lower body and realized why she was so amused.

  His erection had created a huge tent in his soaked briefs.

  “You know,” he said, pulling off his briefs and startling her, “I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level.”

  “What relationship?!” she shrieked and bolted out of the water, laughing at the same time.

  Zane wanted to lunge after her, but his muscles warned him against it, so he pretended to prowl instead.

  Nirvana got out of the stream and gave him a come-hither look as she pulled a towel out of the duffel bag to dry herself. After she was done, she threw the towel at him as he was climbing out.

  He managed to catch it before it dropped. The sudden action caused him to wince as his muscles protested. “What? You’re not going to help me dry?” He pouted as he dried himself slowly. “My blisters are all broken.”

  She gave him a look and got dressed quickly. Then, she took his clothes and sauntered over to him. Squatting down, she looked at him suggestively and slid her bottom lip between her teeth as she helped him put on a new pair of boxers.

  Zane’s erection had turned into a raging hard-on by now. Nirvana purposely kept her face so close that all he had to do was to twitch his cock a little and he would touch her. He was really tempted but decided not to start anything he couldn’t follow through on. The last thing he wanted was to suffer a muscle cramp in the middle of it.

  Besides, it would be too presumptuous of him. He was old enough to know that just because a woman was flirting, it didn’t mean she wanted to have sex with you.

  Nirvana stood up and pulled a t-shirt over his head.

  “Thank you very much.” He touched his face gently. She was the only woman, other than his mother, to show care for him.

  The look in her eyes softened as she leaned into his hand and she gave him such tender smile that his breath caught in his throat. She was truly magnificent. The tiny beads of moisture on her face caught the sunlight that filtered through the canopy of leaves above them. They glittered, giving her a radiant glow. There was so much intelligence behind those sparkling, Caribbean green eyes and those eyes were looking at him, if he dared to believe, with affection.

  He knew it was creepy to keep staring at her like this, but he couldn’t let this moment go.

  “What’s going on in that clever head of yours?” she asked as she tightened the strings holding up the pants into a knot.

  “That if you were a guy, I’d totally thank you with a blow job.”

  Nirvana did that cute wrinkling of her nose again and shoved him away, laughing. She slung the bag over her shoulder and started walking.

  He reached out to take the bag from her but instead, she took his wrist pulled him close and tucked his arm under hers. Flipping his palm up, she examined all the broken blisters, which had turned into floppy pieces of pale-yellow skin.

  “Must have stung like mad in the water.”

  “It’s alright. I’ve had worse.”

  Her expression darkened. “Do your memories come back every time you exert yourself physically?”

  He nodded. “I can’t help it, but I try not to let it bother me,” he assured her. “Look! My cock is still semi-erect so it can’t be that bad.”

  Nirvana huffed in exasperation and shook her head, but the edges of her mouth were slightly tilted up. “Take another nap when we get home,” she suggested. “I’ll help you apply some of the gel Eryn brought over and you can take more anti-inflammatory pills. Shouldn’t push yourself too hard lest you fall sick.”

  The word ‘home’ struck a chord in Zane’s heart. He knew it was Nirvana’s home but somehow, within these couple of days, it felt like home to him too. He’d never really had his own place. Back at Chikara, he’d lived with his mother. When he defected, he lived on a foreign planet, in a protected location, still with his mother. He was surprised at how quickly he’d settled in with Nirvana even though it was not his home.

  “You should take a nap with me,” he cajoled. “You keep my nightmares away.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, probably thinking he was trying his luck but there was so much truth in what he’d said. Every time he woke up from a bad dream, all he had to do was to look at her and breathe in her scent to calm himself. It wouldn’t take long to get back to sleep after.

  “Have you tried spooning?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’ve tried it, and I don’t find it comfortable.”

  “I haven’t tried it before. Could we try it? Just for the nap.”

  Nirvana thought about it.

  “Come on,” he gave her a nudge, “please?”

  “Alright, but don’t get too comfortable. We need to head over to the mountains later. I need to send my crew a message.”

  “Just a short nap,” he promised.

  “Alright. Just a short one.”

  Chapter 18

  Zane stripped down to his boxers and flopped spread-eagle on the bed the moment he got back. Nirvana squeezed a generous amount of the gel Eryn brought over the day before and rubbed it all over him. He groaned in ecstasy and mumbled something inaudible, but his eyes remained closed.

  The only other person she had seen with many body scars was her crew member Alden. He’d fought for a living before joining her crew but even he didn’t have as many as Zane. Nirvana heaved and flipped Zane over so that she could apply the gel on his front.

  Judging from the light snoring, Zane should be sound asleep by now. Nirvana rubbed her finger gently in between his brows, hoping to relieve the tension between his brows. There was just so much going on in this man’s head. She believed that there was a lot more information he was withholding, and she was determined to pry it out of him.

  She lifted his hand and placed it on her lap gently. She carefully applied some healing gel on his broken blisters and wrapped it up. Then, she switched over to the other side and did the same. The blister wounds were worse on his left hand. He jerked a little when the healing gel touched the biggest open wound.

  “Sorry.” She cringed and looked over her shoulder to peek at him. His eyes remained closed, so she tried spreading a little more gel on his palm. Zane’s fin
ger twitched, and she froze. He sucked in a deep breath, turned towards her and curled his body around her. Slowly, his other hand snaked around her waist from behind and he pulled her in closer.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled.

  “This is going to sting, ok? Just bear with me.” She felt his arm tense up, so she sped up the treatment and bandaged the hand.

  The snoring resumed by the time she was done. She lifted his hand off her lap and was about to stand up when he wrapped both arms around her.

  “Spoon,” he mumbled.

  “Ok, let me go wash my hands first,” she lied. She had no intention of napping even though she agreed to it earlier. She needed to study the holograms and think through the mission some more, but without Zane this time.

  As much as he had endeared himself to her in only a couple of days, it was prudent for her to remain wary of him. Zane was a highly intelligent man hiding behind the image of a geek. She had seen men like him before. Those who blend into the background, just so that they could observe people in their most natural state, undetected. They made the best assassins.

  She thought about why she was drawn to him. Maybe it was because of the way his eyes sparkled with interest every time she shared her adventures with him. It made her feel important and cherished. It was probably what she was missing—someone to talk to. She talked to her crew plenty, but it always revolved around work. Ching never liked hearing about how she always put herself in danger, and she didn’t share much about her jobs due to client confidentiality.

  With Zane, it was different. It was like he was hanging onto every word she said. He asked relevant questions, and it made him look like he was genuinely interested.

  Dangerous man, she thought. He could slowly steal her heart without her realizing. Fortunately, she had more than a decade on him. That should help keep her grounded where her feelings were concerned.

  She assembled his tools like how he had the previous night and studied the layout of the stronghold in more detail. The more she studied the plans, the more suspicious she grew.

  “I thought you were coming to join me?”

  Nirvana jumped and almost knocked over the equipment. She would need to tie some bells around his ankles. How in the hell did he manage to creep up on her all the damn time?

  “I wasn’t as sleepy as I thought. Besides you were already asleep, so I didn’t want to wake you up just to spoon you,” she said, feeling a little guilty for lying.

  “What are you looking at?” Zane lowered himself slowly beside her, face wincing at the process.

  “You didn’t eat the muscle relaxants earlier. Do you want some?” she asked.

  He shook his head and gestured at the hologram, wanting her to carry on.

  “I didn’t get to examine the building plans closely last night. Now that I do, I realized it’s incredibly detailed. If I zoom in to the elevator shafts, I can see the details of the wiring and controls. How in the world did you manage to steal something like that? It’s not as if Hayashi would leave it lying around, easily available to anyone. You must have had really high-level clearance. Top, in fact.”

  He stilled. The grogginess from his eyes disappeared almost instantaneously.

  “Zane,” Nirvana said gently, reaching over to hold his hand, which was clenched on his thigh. “Please tell me who you really are. For us to work together, we need to trust each other.”

  He took in a deep breath and exhaled heavily. He closed his eyes for a moment before turning over to look at her.

  “My full name is Zanetos Hayashi,” he said, holding her gaze.

  “That Hayashi?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re his son?”

  “Youngest.”

  She sighed. It all made sense now. Of course Chorax’s son would have the highest level of security clearance.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” he said, looking at her warily.

  “I am, in a way. I had my suspicions all this while, but I was thinking more in the line of the son of one of his closest generals. But now that you mention it, I’m beginning to see the resemblance.” She leaned in closer to take a good look at his face. That might explain the déjà vu she felt last night. She had seen that same look of cold, hard ambition on Chorax Hayashi before.

  Her hand never left his. She stroked the top of it with her thumb and tried to pry his clenched fist open. “I spent a lot of time bandaging your hands just now. Please don’t ruin it.”

  From the way he looked at her, she knew he was bracing himself for some hysterics or drama from her.

  “Look, Zane, Zanetos, we need to try to be as honest as possible with each other if we’re going to work together,” she said, still stroking his hand.

  “Can you bring yourself to trust the son of Chorax Hayashi?”

  “We have to build that trust. You can start by telling me why you defected.”

  “My mother had an affair with one of his generals. I told her to break it off, but she refused. It was only a matter of time before my father found out, so I took them away.”

  “You could have taken her to one of the outlying planets like Gebo, somewhere with just settlements and no central government. Why did you go to Panderon?”

  “I could only steal one of the lower-end military space crafts. It’s for defending the space around Chikara and not built for inter-planetary travel. The furthest it could fly to was Panderon. Besides I knew Panderon very well because I oversaw a team of researchers my father hired last year to study the planet.

  “Three months ago, he started demanding resources from the other regions. He only does that when he’s trying to build something, and knowing my father, it can’t be anything good.

  “I lied to Dein that my father might be planning to build a deadly weapon to attack Panderon with. It was easy to convince him because I knew Panderon like the back of my hand. I gave him a couple of strategies on how we could attack two of his states, I could see him starting to get worried.

  “I had my backdoor software installed in the stronghold’s servers and security systems long before I defected. If Dein would provide my mother with a safe place to live, I would go back in to Chikara and find out exactly what my father was up to.”

  “Does Dein know who you really are?”

  “Of course. What could be more convincing than Hayashi’s son telling you that his father is planning to invade your planet?”

  “I have to agree.” Nirvana shook her head and patted Zane’s hand. “Well played. I’d piss in my pants if I were Dein, too.”

  “I didn’t want to keep my identify from you, but I know how you feel about my father.” His dark eyes bore into her and the furrow between his brows deepened. “I wish we had met under different circumstances.”

  “Then perhaps we can start over. It’s not too late. I would like to know you better, if you’d let me.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss. “I’ll try my best. I promise.”

  “You know,” she shook her head and wrinkled her nose, “Zane isn’t really too far off from Zanetos. If you really wanted to hide your identity from me, you should have tried harder with the name.”

  She succeeded in coaxing a smile out of him.

  “Well, it’s too late to change anything now.” She stood and tried to pull him up. “Since you’re up from your nap, let’s go to headquarters.”

  Zane groaned as he struggled to get on his feet. Just as Nirvana was tried to give him more support, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. It caught her unaware, but she relaxed her body into him and hugged him back.

  His nose was buried in the crook of her neck, and she could feel the unsteadiness in his breathing. The arms that were wrapped around her were trembling. She rested her head against his cheek and stroked his back to try to soothe him.

  “I didn’t lie about my feelings for you,” he croaked out after a while. “I meant every word I said.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that. H
er mind had been whirling since his confession and this just made it worse. But she could sort her thoughts out later. He was probably just as shaken as she was about it.

  “Zane, I’m not going to pin your father’s crimes on you.”

  He held her even tighter. It took him a while before he calmed down enough to let her go.

  She reached out to caress his face and scratched his bristles a little. “Come.” She held his hand and led him outside the yurt. “Let me show you how to ride a hoverbike.”

  Chapter 19

  They entered the mountain headquarters via a concealed tunnel entrance. Nirvana parked the hoverbike and entered the code at the vehicle lift. Then she stepped away to let the lift move Ching’s bike to its allocated parking lot.

  “The security for this entrance needs to be re-examined,” Zane commented.

  “Why?”

  “You just sailed through just like this. What’s the point of concealing the entrance when anyone can come in?”

  “There are guards. They saw me coming, and I am riding Ching’s bike. That’s why they opened the gate for me.”

  “Everyone here recognizes you?”

  “I am… was Ching’s woman. Ching is the chief here, so I’d say yes, a majority of the Atharians in the headquarters recognize me.”

  “Now that you’re not his woman anymore?”

  Nirvana shrugged. “I’ll wait for him to revoke my rights.”

  The headquarters of Athar were a city, built within the mountain ridges of Athar. It was a stark contrast from the simplicity of life outside the mountains. The architecture was similar to that of an advanced metropolis. Nirvana could see Zane’s eyes widen in wonder when they stepped out of the entrance gateway into the city itself. A security drone flew up to them and scanned their faces.

  “Welcome, Nirvana Faust. Please identify your guest.”

  “Zane. Requesting security clearance level eight.”

  “Please wait a moment while we contact Chief Sima.”