Read Online Armored Hearts by Angela Knight - Free Book Online

the way Rand evidently had. Then again, she hadn’t been a teenager, either. Not that her parents had been any happier about the idea than Adela, but Zara had been twenty-one. At the end of the ferocious argument that had followed, both her parents had basically flung up their hands in disgust.
    “Go. Do what you want to do,” her mother said. “You will anyway .”
    “Just be careful,” her father added. “We do love you, even if you drive us crazy .”
    They’d understood the sense of duty that drove her. They should. They’d instilled it. They…
    Rand rose from his seat in a muscular rush of vampire speed that sent Zara jolting back to the present. She looked up at him in alarm.
    “Get your boots on,” he said over his shoulder, moving to kneel beside his foot locker. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
    “Why? Where are we going?” Did he intend to race off after his mother? Surely not. An officer couldn’t just up and leave his post. Not without getting court martialed, anyway.
    He gave her a hard smile. “We’re going on a picnic.”
    Zara blinked. The expression on his face was entirely too grim to go with those words. Whatever he intended, it was a hell of a lot more than a picnic.
    She hesitated a moment, watching him flip up the lid of the locker and pull out a small pack. “Exactly what do you have in mind?”
    He looked up to give her a wicked smile. It didn’t even look forced. “Eating. You do that on a picnic.”
    “I have heard something about that, yes,” Zara said dryly, watching him take items out of the locker and start tucking them into the pack.
    “Good to know you’re not completely uncivilized out here on the ass of nowhere. Boots, lieutenant.”
    Frowning, Zara stepped into the boots and bent to close the seals. Rand, meanwhile, pulled his beamer rifle out of the locker. “You carry that on the base?”
    “I do when I’m escorting a prisoner.”
    “Take many prisoners on picnics?”
    “I do when I plan to eat them.” He put down the weapon and pulled a pair of neurocuffs out of the locker. “Stand up and assume the position.”
    Zara felt a hot spark of desire at the rough command. Swallowing, she turned to cross her wrists at the small of her back. “Which position is that?”
    “Bent over and sucking my dick.” He stepped up behind her and clipped the restraints on.
    As the neurocuffs closed around her wrists, her arms instantly went numb and limp. Kinky or not, she hated walking with her arms cuffed behind her. “You do know the colonel’s not going to like this.”
    “Actually, I just commed him to ask him to sign off on this little outing, and he has no problem with it.”
    She blinked, taking that in. “He doesn’t?”
    “No.” Rand bent to collect his rifle and pack. “I told him I was taking you out to question you about the location of the enemy bases. Somewhere without inconvenient witnesses.”
    “And he bought that?” Zara hadn’t known Rand for very long, but even she could tell that sounded out of character for him. Especially given his views on war crimes.
    “Yeah. Fortunately the colonel expects everyone else to be as vicious as he is. Plus, he’s not the brightest laser probe in the kit.”
    “So how’d he get to be a colonel?”
    Rand shrugged. “Probably did the right favor. The Glorious Army of the Enlightened is built largely on cronyism. Most of the guys who hold high rank helped Godsson set up his giant Ponzi scheme when he hit Heaven thirty years ago.” Heaven, naturally, was the name of the Godssonists’ planet, located the next star system over.
    “You do realize whatever you have in mind is not going to be that easy?”
    “Don’t worry, darling.” He dipped his head to speak in her ear as he took her elbow and guided her out of the tent. “I’ve made plans.”
    * * *
    They approached the guard standing watch over the camp’s landing zone, with its pulse fighters, transports and two seat zippers. The private