Read Online Purity (Pure and Tainted) by Evangeline Anderson - Free Book Online Page B

Boone
dislodged the sleeping girl from his arm and sat up. K sighed and snuggled into
the warm spot he’d left in the covers, looking even more innocent and harmless.
    He wanted a quick shower but he hesitated to leave her. Suppose
she was faking? She was a soldier, shouldn’t she be
instantly alert to any change in her environment? Then again, maybe she was
getting the first good night’s sleep she’d had since she put on that damn suit.
Her body probably needed the rest after the constant barrage of drugs,
hormones, and emotion-dampers it had been pumping into her continuously for
years.
    Boone remembered the neat rows of white needle tracks that ran up
the inside of both her forearms. He’d seen them when he’d first cut the black
webbing off her and hadn’t understood their origin until he’d almost stabbed
himself with one of the suit’s hollow spikes. The thing had dripped its witch’s
brew of chemicals like venom, obviously still trying to inject even when its
victim was gone.
    A shiver of disgust went over him as he pictured the thick whitish
droplets oozing from the pitch black mesh. K seemed to think she had a
symbiotic relationship with the suit she craved so badly but to Boone the damn
thing was nothing but a parasite.
    He looked down at K again, her face smooth and peaceful in sleep.
She’d put the suit on when she was nine cycles old and though it was difficult
to place her age, Boone put her somewhere in her mid twenties now. How had she
lived so long in that thing? It was amazing she wasn’t in severe withdrawal
right now. The very fact that she wasn’t worried him. Made him wonder if a bad
reaction was coming somewhere down the line. He had a feeling that it was going
to take quite awhile for all the meds to be flushed out of her system and that
K would be dealing the side effects of her forced addiction for some time to come.
    Deciding to let her sleep, Boone headed toward the small fresher
at the far end of his quarters. Even if she woke up before he was done there
wasn’t much K could do. The door was voice-locked to him and he’d been careful
about removing anything that could be used as a weapon. The suit was hidden in
a stasis tube at the far end of the ship where she would never find it. He
would get her up when he was done and let her take a quick rinse herself. In
the meantime, he had to hurry before the rest of the crew got up and started
bitching about breakfast being late.
    * * * * *
    “Rise and shine, darlin’. It’s our turn for kitchen duty and
we’ve got a hungry crew to feed.”
    The strange words held no meaning for her but they penetrated K’s
consciousness anyway. Where am I? She
opened one eye groggily, peering at the unfamiliar surroundings. Why hadn’t her
skinsuit woken her? Usually the sharp pain of needles digging into her arms was
her wake-up call, followed by an instant jolt of adrenaline. It was strange to
be awake and yet not feel instantly alert, to be caught in the foggy half-dream
state she found herself in.
    “K? You up?” That voice again… Boone!
    Everything came back in a rush. K sat bolt upright, immediately on
the defensive but he was just standing there, towering over her in that annoying
way of his. Why does he have to be so
tall? she thought, scrambling to her feet. Back
home on Athena she was one of the tallest people she knew and her height gave
her a distinct advantage, especially when it came to commanding troops. But she
got no advantage with Boone—the top of her head barely came up to the giant’s
shoulder, making her feel short for the first time in her life.
    “What do you want?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips
and wishing for the hundredth time that she had her suit. Boone was dressed in
the same tight black flight pants she’d seen him in earlier and a dark blue
shirt with short sleeves that clung to the flat planes of his chest and left
his impressive arms bare. Not that K noticed things like that.
    “For you to