<\/p>\n
The guard walked by her cell three minutes past the hour. Hanna listened for the footsteps and counted it off.
\nThirty seconds from her door to the bend in the hall. Forty steps at a sedate pace. This one walked a little faster. Thirty-six steps until his echo disappeared.
\nHanna had six minutes.
\nShe sat up.<\/p>\n
Her wrists were bruised from the restraints they\u2019d decided to use in the last interrogation. It didn\u2019t matter that she\u2019d promised to cooperate, that going back home meant certain death, to these Synnrs she was worse than a traitor.
\nShe was a spy.
\nOr she used to be.
\nAnd that gave her a specific set of skills.
\nShe had a piece of wire she\u2019d managed to secret away. Whether it was the gods smiling up at her or something else, Hanna didn\u2019t know. But the lock on her door was simple. No need to hack electronics. A pick would do the trick.
\nThe interrogation room was in the same direction the guard had walked, and so were the kitchens. Her second night in custody she\u2019d been taken there and given a meal of Synnr delicacies she\u2019d have paid a fortune for back on Kilrym.
\nShe\u2019d thought it was a preview of things to come. Fine food, nice treatment. All so long as she upheld her end of the deal and gave the Synnrs all the information she had.
\nUnfortunately, they didn\u2019t believe her when she told them she didn\u2019t know much.
\nShe\u2019d been living on military rations for weeks. Sure, they kept her fed, but the packs of dehydrated food were worse than flavorless. They were little piles of mush that somehow tasted like sweaty socks and dust.
\nShe was pretty sure they were expired, too.
\nFive minutes.
\nShe was guessing at this point. In the last three weeks her life had narrowed down to two hallways and a clock set by the guard rotation.
\nAnd Jori.
\nBut she wasn\u2019t thinking about him right now.
\nShe was almost certain she knew where she was. Right in the heart of Osais, the Synnr capitol of their home moon Aorsa. The Synnrs had rebelled and taken control of the moon centuries ago and sparked the fighting that had plagued almost every generation since. Their military had a training and administration building not far from the palace, the home of the false queen.
\nHanna had to be there. It was where she\u2019d been taken the day she\u2019d surrendered herself to Synnr custody, and unless they\u2019d been very clever, she hadn\u2019t been moved.
\nBut she had to sleep sometime. And if the Synnrs had drugged her to move her, she could be anywhere.
\nNo. She saw the same interrogators every couple of days. She saw Jori nearly every day. The Synnrs wouldn\u2019t inconvenience themselves. She was in the city.
\nFour minutes.
\nThere should be another guard. This place wasn\u2019t a high security prison, but she was still a high value detainee. You didn\u2019t put only one guard on duty, not unless you were trying to save money and willing to risk your entire operation.
\nSo, yes, a guard at the next door.
\nHanna\u2019s fingers curled into fists. She could take out one guard. Maybe two. Her spark was electric in her veins. She hadn\u2019t accessed her power in days except to let her wings out every so often. It made some of her interrogators uncomfortable. Synnrs were more circumspect with their wings, keeping them contained unless they were using them.
\nHanna\u2019s wings were gorgeous, swirling greens and golds with a hint of black the priest at her old temple said was a gift from Braznon himself.
\nBut she couldn\u2019t put them on display if she was escaping from a military facility.
\nLuckily she didn\u2019t need them to use her spark.
\nShe could handle one guard. But two? Hanna wasn\u2019t a soldier, she was a spy. Well, more of a contractor with spy adjacent abilities. If she was doing her job right, she never had to fight anyone.
\nThree minutes. She was running out of time and still in the corridor.
\nTaking the guards clothes was her best option. She could blend in with the other Synnr soldiers, slip out and be on her way.
\nAnd where would she go?
\nHanna stopped her internal clock and slumped back against her bed. The springs creaked and the whole thing felt like it might collapse if she sat down too quickly or turned over in her sleep with too much force.
\nShe couldn\u2019t escape.
\nOr, rather, she could escape, but that would screw her over even more.
\nThat final question haunted her. Where would she go? Where could she go? She\u2019d burned every bridge with one flash of her spark on her last mission. She couldn\u2019t bring herself to regret it. If she hadn\u2019t\u2026
\nWar brought out the worst in people, but she hadn\u2019t thought the Apsyn high command would sink so low.
\nWhat did that make her? She\u2019d betrayed her Apsyn supervisors, ensured they wouldn\u2019t receive a piece of tech that could have lead to a turning point in this useless war, and handed herself over to Synnr mercy. Was she still Apsyn? Was she a Synnr now? Was there some category in between for Zulir who weren\u2019t sure what side of the divide they fell on?
\nIt wasn\u2019t just that Hanna had no place to go. She was a resourceful person and in the biggest city on this moon. If she needed, she could forge a new path for herself. She could leave her old name, her old identity behind and become a whole new woman.
\nBut the escape would have to be flawless. If she got caught breaking out, that would evaporate whatever goodwill she\u2019d earned from the Synnrs and she\u2019d likely be thrown in a true prison.
\nAnd she\u2019d prove Jori right.
\nHanna curled up even tighter on the bed and ignored the creak of the springs. She shouldn\u2019t be giving Jorissan Harek a single thought. He was just another spy-breaker, a Synnr who looked at her so intensely his spark lit up his eyes.
\nAnd hers reacted.
\nNo one else had that effect on her. No one else would sit across from her in the interrogation room and stare at her silently for an hour before walking away without saying a word. If she really had information on Apsyn secrets, he would have gotten them from her.
\nShe didn\u2019t know how to convince him that he already had everything she knew.
\nReally, focusing on him was foolish. He was a Synnr, just like all the others. It didn\u2019t matter that looking at him, taking in all that intensity sent a thrill down her spine and awakened an awareness in other parts of her body that really shouldn\u2019t have been paying attention.
\nShe really was a terrible spy. If she\u2019d been any good at it, Hanna would have taken these feelings and used them against him. In that other life she could have turned on the charm and seduced him.
\nThat startled a laugh out of her.
\nShe\u2019d never seen the man smile. He was all seriousness and intensity when he sat down in that chair. And he was determined to pry her apart, one piece at a time. He wasn\u2019t thinking about seduction. And neither should she.
\nHanna wasn\u2019t hiding anything from these Synnrs, but it didn\u2019t mean she could let her guard down. And she couldn\u2019t let Jorissan Harek get under her skin.
\nShe wouldn\u2019t let him be her weakness.
\n***
\nLips trailed down Jori\u2019s chest, slim fingers sliding along his side until he shivered. He arched into the touch, savoring the contact and letting it light him up. Flecks of his partner\u2019s spark danced over his skin, threatening to consume him.
\nIt was dangerous play. Misjudge the power and he could end up fried.
\nBut he liked to live dangerously.
\nHe groaned as fingers wrapped around his cock, stroking firmly just the way he liked. And when her lips joined her fingers, he was lost. Jori surrendered himself to sensation, weaving his fingers through her soft hair and taking all that she would give him.
\nHe wanted it all.
\nAnd if he wasn\u2019t completely overcome with the pleasure of it, he would have pulled her up, captured her lips with his own, and driven himself deep inside of her until the were so totally bound there was no disentangling them.
\nIt was pleasure and torture combined. And there was more of their spark, even stronger now. It hovered over his skin and arced around him, more dangerous than before. But it felt too good to worry, this wasn’t a battle, and if their play was too intense, it would only add to the pleasure.
\nShe pulled off his cock and he tried to chase her, desperate and uncaring how it made him look. This was pleasure for both of them, and she deserved to know how she made him feel.
\nAnticipation made his spark even stronger. Strands of her dark hair rose up of their own accord, the electricity setting it off.
\nHe was on the edge now and it wouldn’t take more than a breath to go tumbling over.
\n“Jori,” she breathed out his name on a sigh and looked up to meet his eyes.
\nHanna.
\nJori’s spark flashed with one more violent bright light as he was pulled out of the dream. The nightmare.
\nThe fantasy.
\nHis cock was hard and aching, and it wouldn’t take more than a few tugs to send him flying. Instead he curled his fingers against the edge of his bed and tried to will it away.
\nHe wasn’t some green recruit who lost it over a pretty face and wicked smile. Hanna Karsyn was an Apsyn spy, a woman in custody of the Synnr military, who’d nearly killed one of his comrades along with an innocent young woman who’d gotten mixed up in her plotting.
\nShe wasn’t someone he could afford to fantasize about.
\nThere were millions of women in Osais.
\nWhy was his cock so focused on this one?
\nHis cock jerked and he groaned, a mix of pleasure and frustration.
\nBefore Hanna Karsyn had crossed his path a month earlier, things had been simple. He found a woman, he smiled, he flirted. They went out a time or two and had their fun, and then they both walked away satisfied.
\nHe could always find someone else.
\nHe hadn’t bothered to look since the first day he saw Hanna.
\nEvery time they met, it was a new challenge. He’d seen her spark dancing in her eyes and knew his own spark had done the same. One day this insane obsession had driven him so hard that he’d pulled her into an interrogation room and simply looked at her for the better part of an hour.
\nHe’d told himself then he was trying to unnerve her.
\nJori didn’t like to lie. But he was getting very good at lying to himself.
\nIf he had her alone… if the place wasn’t wired for observation… if he asked and she said yes.
\nJori wrapped his fingers around his cock and pumped, gritting his teeth against the pleasure as if this was some kind of punishment, some kind of ritual he was inflicting on himself to prove… something.
\nHe groaned as he came, the image of Hanna fresh in his mind.
\nOf course she was in his mind. She was his days and his nights. Now she even ruled his dreams.
\nIf he wasn’t careful, she would have him wrapped around her fingers.
\nAnd she wasn’t even trying.
\nIn his apartment, the sanctuary away from the blood and death and order of the military, Jori could admit the truth, if only to himself.
\nHanna Karsyn wasn’t trying to play him. This undeniable attraction, this force that had wrapped itself around his cock and burrowed deep into his nervous system was something much simpler. And more sinister.
\nHe was attracted. And because he couldn’t have her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
\nJori didn’t normally have to face rejection.
\nIf he smiled at a woman, if he flirted, she usually flirted back. He found women everywhere. Bars, the shop where he dropped off his laundry, the library.
\nBut never at work.
\nThe Synnr military was Jori’s life. If it wasn’t for his rank, he’d still be some kid bouncing around from orphanage to orphanage hoping one day for a family to pick him.
\nAs if there weren’t thousands of other war orphans they could choose.
\nHe had to end this, somehow. Dedication to the work was one thing, but obsession had no place. If he didn’t walk away now, everything would be ruined. And it would be all his fault.
\nJori couldn’t let that happen.
\nSun peeked out around his bedroom’s blackout curtains, but his bedside clock informed him it was far too early in the morning to be awake. Summer on Aorsa meant daylight at all hours.
\nIf he tried, he could grab another few hours of sleep. But his hand was sticky and the memory of his dream haunted him stronger than any ghost.
\nJori stood and headed for his shower. He could get in a workout before he went to work.
\nAnd then it was time to request another assignment.<\/p>\n
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The guard walked by her cell three minutes past the hour. Hanna listened for the footsteps and counted it off. Thirty seconds from her door to the bend in the hall. Forty steps at a sedate pace. This one walked a little faster. Thirty-six steps until his echo disappeared. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page_fullwidth.php","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":0,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"class_list":["post-3806","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/katerudolph.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}