Redek Read online

  She thought maybe he was worried that she'd become too attached. Redek was gorgeous, after all, and she barely got to see any men. Maybe he was scared she'd fall head over heels and end up getting hurt.

  She thought of the day they'd spent together, the way Redek had opened up a little, had joked and done that half-smile that was the equivalent of crying with laughter compared to his normal expression, and decided that maybe Damien was right.

  She might fall hopelessly in love with Redek no matter how hard she tried to stop herself.

  And she wasn't really trying.

  She cooked for him that night, but they barely spoke around the dinner table. She was tempted to turn the cameras off and give him some reprieve, but it was all too raw. She didn't want to do something stupid like cry in front of him. She went to her bedroom after dinner and sat on her laptop, typing to her friends and crying instead. She never told her online friends anything too personal—she was always scared they'd somehow find out her identity, when it was supposed to be a universal secret. She'd researched herself before, and nothing came up beyond the articles reporting her parents’ death. Damien had managed to swing it that it was reported she'd died, too.

  It didn't stop the death threats, though. The rest of the universe might think she was dead, but not the people who mattered.

  She could make up stories similar to her real life for her online friends, though. She’d told them about her overprotective dad and how she found out he'd installed spyware on her computer and had been reading her messages. It was close enough to the truth that she could share her outrage without revealing anything.

  Today she told them about how she met a new friend at college that she had a bit of a crush on, but Damien had found out and threatened him to stay away from her.

  She fell asleep in a mess of tears and confusion, sleeping on her side with her ear to the pillow and wondering what Redek was doing beneath her.

  His room was silent, and she fell asleep imagining him staring at the ceiling and thinking about her.

  As always, she woke up feeling brighter in the morning, motivated to make today better. This was how her life was, but she could always make the most of that reality. Damien had made so many sacrifices to keep her safe, the least she could do was be happy with the life he'd given her.

  "Morning!" she chirped to Redek, who was sitting on the couch with his feet up, tablet in hand. It looked like he was reading. "Anything good?"

  "An old military novel from an ancient war on my home planet. A bit dry, to be honest. It's a classic, I felt like I should give it a try."

  Maddie made a face. "I love reading, but only things that I can get lost in. If I have to spend ten minutes trying to figure out what a sentence means, it's not very immersive. Did you want breakfast?"

  She pressed a button on the computer she had set up downstairs, bringing it to life and checking the news. Damien had recently closed on a massive deal, and an article about it was at the top of the financial column. Maybe it would mean she'd see him today to celebrate.

  "Breakfast sounds good. I can cook, if you want. It's been a while, but in theory my mom did teach me how."

  Her immediate reaction was to tell him that of course not, she didn't mind cooking, but she was curious to see what he'd make. "Okay. If you want." She remained seated at her desk. She'd positioned it so that the camera in the corner of the room couldn't see what was happening on her screen. "What's she like? Your mom?"

  "I... I don't know. I mean, she was my mom. She was kind and generous and I loved her. I don't really know what else to say."

  She felt like she'd put her foot in it. "Was?"

  "She and my dad died a couple of years ago. They got caught in a landslide when they were on vacation, hiking. If they had to go out, I'm glad it was doing something they liked. The coroners told me it was instant, which made it easier."

  "I guess we have something in common, then," she said, looking away. She wouldn't have wished to have that in common with anyone.

  She wondered if her mom had been kind and generous and loved her, too. Damien had always said they were good people, but he'd resisted telling her stories about them. He always said it was too painful. She'd tried to find information online, but they weren't rich and famous like he was. There was nothing except a meager couple of articles on their death.

  She had no idea what they were like.

  The only dad she'd ever known was Damien.

  At the thought of him she tuned into the security cameras he had spread throughout the mansion, wondering what he was up to. He would definitely be awake by now, he was a workaholic. There was no camera in his office, but she might spot him elsewhere. If not, she could peer into the kitchens and follow the staff around, see what they were doing with their days.

  She cycled through the cameras, and then gasped.

  There was a body.

  "Redek," she said, squinting and zooming in the camera. One of the housemaids was lying on the ground, blood oozing from a wound on her head. She could see her chest rising and falling—she was still alive—but that meant someone had breached the manor house. "Redek," she urged again, raising her voice so he could hear her over the spitting of whatever he was cooking on the stove. "You need to see this."

  He hurried over at her tone, standing behind her chair and looking over her shoulder. "Shit," he said. "Can you get any more cameras up?"

  He disappeared into his room and her heart rate spiked as she was left alone. When he came back he was armed to the teeth. Two belts of knives over his shoulders, and two guns at his hips.

  She cycled through more cameras, looking for more signs of life. She found two masked people wearing all black almost galloping down the bottom floor hallway by the kitchens on all-fours.

  "Do you think they're looking for me?" she asked, looking up at Redek with wide eyes.

  He didn't look affected. His face was set in a hard mask, body tense and ready for action. "I don't know. They might be here for Damien, or to rob him. He's a rich man, and you aren’t common knowledge."

  She nodded, continuing to cycle through the cameras trying to follow the intruders as they searched through corridors, clearly looking for something. She tried to click the button so she could see multiple cameras on the screen at once, but her hand was shaking so much she couldn't make the pointer click in the right place.

  Redek covered her hand with his and did it for her.

  She hadn't seen Damien yet. He must have been in his office.

  "Should we go and do something?" she asked. There was security up at the house, but if the intruders had gotten this far, that security must have been taken out somehow. "Should we help?"

  "Absolutely not. We stay here. We might be able to stay out of it altogether. Sound an alarm, if you can. Call for help. But we stay here."

  She nodded, blinking back tears as she ran commands on their security system to send for police and the security company Damien got his house guards from.

  Redek rested a hand on her shoulder, and while it made her jump at first, after that she relaxed into the warm touch, her shaking coming back under control.

  "You're safe with me," he promised her. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

  She'd just relaxed when she followed the intruders to a door that led to the garden.

  Her back straightened and she looked to Redek, who stiffened, too. "I want you to go to your bathroom and lock the door behind you." He handed her a gun. "Do you know how to fire it?"

  She took the weapon. It was self-explanatory, and she'd watched a documentary on how laser pistols worked before. "I don't know how to hit someone with it."

  "It won't come down to that. Go to your bathroom. Barricade your bedroom door, and then lock and barricade the bathroom door. It won't get that far, I promise, but I want you to be as safe as possible."

  "I can't," she said, shaking her head and leaning further into his hand, which still rested on her shoulder. "Can I stay here with yo
u?"

  "I don't want you anywhere near the fight, if one happens."

  Her heart was pounding and a cold sweat was on the back of her neck as she imagined them galloping toward her home. "I can't."

  He swiveled her chair around and crouched so he was at eye level. His hands were on her thighs, keeping her facing him, and he softened his face. "Maddie, I need you to do this for me. I want to keep you safe, and that's where you'll be safest. I'll be here, and no one is going to get to you. I won't let it happen."

  "I'm scared." Even the fact that he was touching her, the fact he was being genuine, it barely registered to her now.

  "Please do this for me."

  She nodded. She noticed his phone on his waistband when he stood up. "Will you call me? If you're staying down here, will you call me so I know you're okay?"

  He hesitated, but nodded. "Okay. Go now, though. Hurry."

  She stood up, worried her legs wouldn't hold her, and then grasped his forearm before she could talk herself out of it. Her hand barely went around his wrist. "Stay safe," she ordered.

  "I will."

  She finally ran up the stairs, doing as he’d instructed and pushing her dresser in front of her bedroom door. She grabbed her laptop from her desk with one hand, and dragged her desk chair into the bathroom with the other. She barred the door with it, locking it too, and then slid down against the cold tiled floor, clutching the cold metal of the gun in her hand.

  If they got past Redek, they would kill her.

  A few pieces of furniture and a couple of wooden doors weren't going to stop that.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Redek's number. He picked up on the first ring.

  "Are you in the bathroom?"

  "Yes. I barricaded the doors."

  "Good."

  "How do you think they got in?" she asked. She opened the lid of her laptop and tuned into the camera in the living room, chewing her lip as she watched Redek peer out of the window, phone on loudspeaker on the table. "No one ever gets into Damien's compound. He has so much security."

  "I don't know," he admitted. "You can look back at the footage when this is over and see."

  He was so certain she'd still be alive, but it did nothing to calm her down. She'd been attacked before, but she'd been so young it was a distant memory. She couldn't remember the specifics anymore.

  Redek pushed his hair from his face and took a glance at the camera in the corner of the room. She didn't know if he realized she was watching, or if it was the paranoid instinct of someone being watched. His face was set in determination, and a shiver ran down her spine.

  She wouldn't want to be coming up against him in a fight.

  "You've been in lots of fights?" she asked, voice small.

  "I've been a bodyguard for fifteen years. I'll be fine," he said, and she barely saw the quirk in his lips.

  That must have meant he was in his thirties, unless his planet was primitive about child labor and they started training and guarding when they should have been in school. It meant he was at least ten years older than her; she'd turned twenty-three weeks ago.

  She suddenly, inexplicably, wished he'd been there for her birthday. She'd not done anything special; she'd spent her day like any other and then had dinner with Damien. He hadn't bought her anything, per se, but he'd told her she could have whatever she wanted from him.

  She'd known better than to ask if she could leave the planet for a day, and had asked instead for a piece of artwork she'd been admiring for the past few days online. It had been extortionately expensive and completely on a whim, but he'd agreed immediately and the huge canvas painting had arrived on her doorstep three days later. It now hung on her wall, and she was already sick of it. It was too big, it overpowered all her other pieces of art, and the colors clashed with her teal walls. She didn't even like the actual picture anymore—a landscape that, when she'd spent hours staring at, she decided looked just like the view from her window.

  Somehow, she decided that if Redek had been there it would have been better. He was up on an untenable pedestal for her right now. Exciting and new and gorgeous.

  She wondered if in a few days she'd end up hating him like the painting.

  She jumped when he pulled back quickly from the window, pulling a gun from his holster with one hand and a knife from his belt with another. He went to the table and said, "I have to go now. You'll be safe. Don't come out of the bathroom, no matter what."

  "No!" She didn't even know what she was protesting, but he'd already hung up, anyway.

  She watched with bated breath as the door to her house was kicked in, and one of the intruders, now standing on two legs and with guns in each hand, stood before Redek.

  She almost dropped her own gun when she looked back to Redek, though. She could barely believe it was the same person. His skin was a deep red, and cracked to reveal wine-colored veins pulsing just beneath his skin. He bared his teeth at the intruder, revealing large fangs protruding from his mouth.

  Then he charged. He threw the gun away in favor of a fist that went flying toward the intruder's face. The masked man balked, firing two shots that Redek seemed to effortlessly dodge, his fist connecting with the man's face. He backed the intruder into a wall, hand around his throat.

  Maddie expected him to demand answers from the man, to ask him who he was and what he wanted, but Redek never spoke a word. He ripped the guns from the man's hands to stop him from fighting back as he drained the life from the intruder with the hand around his throat.

  Maddie watched in abject horror, feeling sick to her stomach.

  Redek never even flinched. He looked almost like he was enjoying it as the man clawed at his hand.

  Maddie jumped at the sound of her bedroom window smashing. She pushed her laptop off her lap and clutched the gun, scooting back into the corner, as far away from the bathroom door as she could get, and aimed the gun at the doorway.

  She stood up, though her bathroom was too small to really maneuver out of the way and try to dodge gunshots like Redek had downstairs.

  She jumped violently and shrieked when gunshots were fired and the lock on the bathroom became a singed hole in the wood. The intruder easily pulled the door back and kicked the chair out of the way.

  For a heartbeat, she stared at him and he stared back. His eyes looked black behind the mask, and the rest of his body was completely covered.

  She wished she'd known something about the person who was about to end her life.

  She fired her gun until the charges were gone, but the intruder immediately dodged back around the wall, avoiding all her shots.

  Now unarmed and completely vulnerable, she could do nothing but tremble and wait.

  When the intruder appeared again in the doorway, he had knives, not his gun, and she swallowed, holding her gun out as though it was charged. "Stay back," she warned. "I'll shoot."

  He said nothing, but narrowed his eyes and leaned back as though ready to charge toward her.

  Something barreling into his side stopped him from getting anywhere near her.

  She choked on a sob, going to the doorway, unable to help herself. She had to make sure Redek was okay. She had to see it.

  Redek held his arm up against slashing attacks by the intruder, and that wine-red blood spilled from his veins onto the attacker's clothes.

  Maddie gasped, fighting the urge to run forward even though Redek didn't look like he'd felt anything.

  He had knives of his own, and he sunk both of them into the attacker's neck without hesitation. She thought blood would spurt from the wounds, but they were oddly clean.

  Redek stood back and the man's body crumpled to the floor, knives still in place.

  Maddie was shaking like a leaf in the door to the bathroom, and when Redek turned his gaze on her, she struggled for a moment not to recoil.

  These weren't Redek's eyes. They weren't the sea blue orbs she'd stared into earlier when he'd promised her nothing was going to happen, they
were amber slits, like cat's eyes.

  He blinked and they returned to normal. His skin was fading from bright red to his normal tan, and the cracks closed. When he spoke, the fangs were gone.

  He took a deep breath to recover, then strode forward. Pushing the gun she hadn't even realized she was aiming in his direction out of the way, he bent down a little so he was at her eye level. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, unable to speak, and hot tears tracked down her cheeks. She felt pathetic.

  "Come on, sit down. I can go and get you a hot drink, but I need to check the cameras and make sure there's no one else."

  She shook her head, screwed her eyes shut, and then said, voice steadier than she'd expected, "You hurt your arm."

  He raised it and looked at the deep wounds there. "It's not so bad," he promised. "I can barely feel it."

  "You're bleeding."

  "It can wait."

  "No." She pushed him out of the way, throwing the gun onto the bed and never wanting to hold another in her life, and pulled a first aid kit from beneath her bed. "Here. I can wrap it for you."

  He was about to sit on the edge of the bed, but she went back into the bathroom. There were no cameras in there. She perched on the sink counter and started the warm water running, pulling bandages, wipes and padding from her box.

  "I can do it," he protested, trying to take the things from her hands.

  "Let me," she pleaded, meeting his gaze. "At least let me do this. I want to help you."

  "Okay."

  She let Redek use her laptop to check the cameras as she wiped his wound with warm water. "You were watching the living room," he said, almost accusatory.

  "Of course I was." She took a wipe from its packet and swiped it over his wound without warning. He hissed, but didn't jerk or pull away. "What happened down there with you? You looked different."

  "It's called a rage. It's like being in an altered state. I’m stronger and I don't feel it as much when I'm hurt. It's like a really intense adrenaline rush."