Enemy Games Read Online Free

“Shower . . .”
    The shipboard alarm blared.
    Jay started, her heart knocking hard against her ribs.
    “V’k?” Damen touched his ship’s badge and yelled above the noise.
    The action made her wonder why she hadn’t heard a word from her crewmates since Damen and V’kyrri had pulled her aboard. Too far away? Or was her com signal being jammed?
    The alarm shut off mid-whoop.
    “Short range!” V’kyrri answered. “Erillian Aggressor, no flag, no name. Coming in fast. Shielded. Weapons hot.”
    Her eyes widened. She knew that ship. Her father used that captain and crew for missions. What were they doing here?
    Damen’s attention jerked back to her, his gray gaze searching her face.
    She choked back a curse. Time to remember she was in enemy hands. She had to guard her reactions.
    Instinct whispered that Major Sindrivik would be difficult to mislead, but she had to try. She wasn’t willing to compromise TFC’s secrets. Not to a spy working for a rival government.
    “Why are they after you? Shower!” she commanded, shoving a tendril of fear into her tone as she nodded at the sanitizer. “You’re needed up front. I’ll wait.”
    He strode into the unit and cycled on the system.
    It gave her a moment to combine the bits of conversation she’d overheard with the ship’s accelerating climb through Chemmoxin’s atmosphere. She wasn’t in a shuttle. That was clear. It looked like a two-man recon ship, exactly what a couple of spies on a mission might use. What would bring them here at the precise moment she most needed divine intervention?
    The last time they’d enacted a similar scene with these players, Damen and V’kyrri had been helping their boss hijack the Sen Ekir , bringing the Chekydran after them all. If they’d done it again, she’d have reason to start biting and infecting Claugh officers.
    She heard the spray of water shut down. After 120 seconds of wishing this were the Sen Ekir where he’d have to strip and emerge without a stitch of clothing, she heard the drier cycle off. The door opened.
    Damen, fully dressed, left the tiny chamber by stalking straight up to her and glaring down at her, a knot in his jaw.
    She couldn’t back up or she’d collide with the bed. His bed. Muscles low in her abdomen clenched tight. Confusion rocked her. What had happened to make her react to the man?
    She sidled away, circling toward the shower.
    He leaned in, his gaze holding hers.
    Rational thought evaporated. She stumbled backward into the sanitizer.
    “What aren’t you telling me?” he murmured, his gaze fixed on her mouth.
    The air left her lungs and she struggled to recall that she had no business hoping Damen would make good his implied threat to kiss her. Pressing her lips tight, still trapped by his gaze, she nudged the button to activate the system.
    The door shut in his face.
    She slumped, able to breathe and think again.
    What wasn’t she telling him, indeed. What wasn’t he telling her?
    The spray of water and disinfectants assaulted her. She set speculation aside. Slowly, by forcing her reluctant arm to work, she stripped out of the sodden lab clothes she’d worn into the field, aborted the dry cycle, and went through the wash again, making certain every single red, swollen worm bite got hit with disinfecting spray. She lost count past thirty bites and wondered if she should be concerned about blood loss.
    The ship jolted and shimmied sideways.
    Cursing, Jayleia spilled to the floor.
    She struggled upright and yanked on her clothes as the water recycling system evaporated the excess moisture. The door clicked open.
    She made it to the cockpit as another jolt rocked the vessel.
    Damen sat strapped in at piloting in the U-shaped cockpit. V’kyrri, at navigation, sat beside him. The weapons panel was on V’kyrri’s right, and what looked like a communications panel on Damen’s left.
    “Are you all right?” Damen asked, tossing a glance at her.
    “I won’t know that until you return me