Read Online Dominant Predator by S.A. McAuley - Free Book Online Page B

for. Looked forward to. I was at my best in a fight, whether undercover or with a team. Assassinations were also Armise’s speciality, and I had no doubt that Armise would be eager to undertake the search for Committee members as well. I waited to see if he was going to add anything else, but when he didn’t lift his eyes from his screen, I stood to leave.
    “And Merq?” he called out, stopping me. “As usual, try not to die.”
    I ran my fingers through my hair and gave the President’s guidance the one second of consideration it deserved. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”
    He shook his head, smiling, able to read right through my sarcasm. “You do that.”
    The President leant down over his screen and didn’t make any further comment.
    I shut the heavy wooden door behind me and headed back towards my quarters.
    The layout of the bunker was already feeling familiar. I took the branch-off towards my room without encountering anyone else in the hallway as I walked. I slipped into the darkened room and back into bed, stripping only my shirt off before climbing under the sheet.
    Armise stirred next to me, turned over to face me. “What dastardly deed have you been asked to commit to now?”
    “Us, not just me. We go tomorrow to scout the location where my parents are being held.”
    “When do we move on them?” he asked in a mirror of my question to the President. He was just as mission-oriented as I was.
    “When the President vacates to the DCR.”
    “Anything else interesting come up?”
    “Yeah,” I sighed, remembering the President’s comment that I needed to talk to Dr Casas about Armise being genetmod. But I couldn’t find the will to have this conversation now.
    Armise stared me down. “You going to tell me? Or—”
    “No way in hell,” I interrupted him. “Not now.”
    Armise turned back over without a verbal reply, inching his body closer to mine. I threw an arm over his waist and burrowed my nose into the back of his neck. The chill coming off his skin began to wipe all thought away. Just how much knowledge Armise had of his own genetic modifications was a conversation I’d been holding off on for so long that there was no way one more night could make a difference.
    The room was silent except for our breathing, the fighting up top still at a lull. Armise was in the bed next to me. I had six hours until my next mission commenced. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d known the length of time I was going to have off before I was called for duty again. I had six free hours. It had been years, if not decades, since I’d had this level of freedom.
    I slipped my foot between Armise’s calves and drew him closer.
    I didn’t know what I was doing or why. But it felt right. Human.
    For once, I let the rest go.

Chapter Five
     
     
     
    An alarm blared—screeched in my ears and ricocheted through my head—and I was awake, shooting up in the bed, grasping for awareness, trying to remember where I was. It didn’t take me long—I was trained for quick response. I flung the sheets off and stalked to the closet, throwing the doors open and sorting through the hangers to find my uniform.
    “We’re not being attacked, what the fuck is the alarm for?” Armise’s voice came from the bed.
    I looked back at him. He hadn’t moved from the relaxed position on his side of the mattress. Exactly where he’d been when I’d curled into him and fallen into a dreamless sleep.
    The closet was filled with copies of the same all-black outfits with the sunburst symbol of the Revolution on the shoulder. I ran my fingertips over the emblem, and snagged one of the sets off the hanger. I crossed the room and swiped my hand across and up, raising a BC5 screen on the desk. It was well after dawn and past the time the President had stated Armise and I would be called up to begin the scouting trip.
    “How do you know we’re not being attacked?” I asked incredulously as I flipped through status reports.
    He