Free Chain Reaction by Zoe Archer Page A

up to thread her fingers through his hair, pull him closer, but as soon as she did, he’d ended the kiss.
    He had stared at her, his eyes unreadable behind his mask. She hadn’t been able to even see their color. She had opened her mouth to speak. And then, the crowd around them had shifted. He’d vanished into it, as abruptly as waking from a dream. She had searched for him the rest of the night, but wherever her stranger had gone, he’d hidden himself well in the throng of masked celebrants.
    For a few days afterward, she’d been haunted by that kiss. Thinking of what might have been. Walking down the corridors of the base, she’d stared into the faces of dozens of men, stared at their mouths, but none of them seemed right or familiar. She’d stopped looking, and chalked the whole experience as part of the Night of Masks’ mystique. Maybe in another solar year, her stranger might try again. And if he did, she’d pull his mask off.
    Now she had her answer.
    “It was you,” she said to Nils.
    His voice was tight, his expression opaque, though color blazed in his cheeks. “Yes.”
    A million questions flooded her mind, but she could not ask any of them. She still resonated with the kiss they’d just shared. It startled her to realize how much the kiss had rattled her, far more so than the combat.
    They’d reached Gabela’s ship, and hopefully the smuggler had good intel about the safer routes in this quadrant.
    “May the ten demon lords bless you,” Gabela said over the com as Nils returned to his seat.
    “How about some reciprocity,” she answered. “Mara said you know this quadrant.”
    “Better than I know my bastard children. I can tell you the best places to fly to avoid PRAXIS.”
    Nils said, “I can strengthen the Phantom’s sensors to alert us if PRAXIS is anywhere within a parsec. It will make us run a little slower, but we’ll be safer.”
    She gave him a clipped nod. If anyone could make the necessary modifications, it would be Nils.
    “Transmit the coordinates,” she said to Gabela. “The best routes, the most dangerous ones. Everything you know.”
    Immediately, coordinates scrolled through the Phantom’s display screen. Nils began entering them into the navigational systems, and she saw that he cross-checked them against the data records for known hotspots. Thorough, that Lieutenant Calder.
    “Got it,” she said.
    “May the gods speed your ship,” Gabela answered.
    “Better find a port,” Nils advised. “I bought you some time with the repairs, but I wouldn’t take the scenic route.”
    The smuggler ship raced off as fast as its antiquated engines could carry it. She didn’t wait to see the last of its hull lights before bringing the Phantom around. They still had a traitor to find and fight.

Chapter Six
    Nils continued to study the tracking device. They were getting closer to Marek, the signal growing in strength, but they were not close enough. It could be a matter of solar hours or days until he and Celene reached wherever the traitor had situated himself, and Nils burned with impatience to arrive at their destination. He wanted justice. He did not want to explain to Celene why he had kissed her at the last Night of Masks, nor why he’d waited so long to kiss her again.
    His face burned at the memory—not just what had happened at the Night of Masks, but his kissing her after the fight with PRAXIS. Even more damning, his body tightened with arousal. Could he explain his actions to her when he himself couldn’t puzzle them out?
    Fortunately, in the hours after parting ways with Gabela, she hadn’t spoken of either kiss. In fact, she hadn’t spoken at all. He studied her surreptitiously. She stared straight ahead, her gaze focused on the spread of stars and nebulae that filled the sky. Even though he told himself not to look, his attention drifted down to her mouth.
    Heat washed through him, a strange and primal need. To mark her, claim her. Take her mouth once more.