“There’s no other way they’d have known where we were,” Isaak clarified.
Lifting my hand, I tapped my fingers against my temple. “They gave me an NPU back at the Brides Testing center. You have one,” I said to Ivy. “Could that track me with that?”
She shook her head. “Prillon Prime could do it, track your location I mean, but the tech is tightly controlled. If Cerberus had it, we all would have heard about it by now. At least within Astra legion. He would be wreaking havoc all over the place.”
“She has typical Trion adornments, but I’ve inspected those thoroughly.” Isaak’s words had my cheeks heating. I smacked him on the shoulder. Hard. He looked to me, eyes wide and rubbed his arm as Ivy and Zenos grinned. “What?”
“Are all space men this obtuse?” I asked, looking to Ivy. She might be from Earth, but she’d been in space for a lot longer than I.
Ivy made a sound between a huff and a snort. “Yes. And possessive.”
Isaak held up a hand in surrender. “All I’m saying is, I’ve checked every inch of you. All that’s on you are the Trion adornments and your Earth belly button bar and necklace.”
I frowned, tugged the loose choker Bertok had put up on me from beneath my top. “This? It’s not mine.”
Zenos sat forward so fast I didn’t get a chance to blink before he stared at it. “That’s not from Earth,” he repeated. “That’s from Rogue 5.”
I tried to look down at the necklace, but it only made my eyes hurt. “Rogue 5?”
“Fark,” Isaak hissed. “I thought it was something from Earth, something personal. We need to get that off her. Now.”
Zenos stood, came around the table and batted my hand away. “Allow me, please.”
“I have never seen a necklace like that,” Ivy said. She stood behind her mate, watching.
Zenos’ fingers brushed against my neck and collarbones. “It’s locked.”
“May I try?” Isaak asked.
Zenos looked at Isaak over my shoulder then let go of the necklace and moved away.
“Gara, turn toward me.”
I spun around in the chair eager to have it off. Knowing it wasn’t supposed to be there, that it was not a typical Trion adornment, made me feel as if a snake were wrapped around my neck. He pulled some weird tool from his belt, held it up. “This won’t hurt. Much.”
My eyes widened. “Much?”
He grinned then winked. I exhaled.
“Those are hard to come by,” Ivy said, her voice sounding impressed. “Looks like you hit the jackpot in Hive tech.”
As Isaak worked on removing the necklace, I stayed still, noticed the color of his eyes, the sharpness of his jaw. Those full lips. “Hard to come by? For you, maybe.” Those full lips moved, and I watched as the corner tipped up.
“That’s right, Space Pirate,” Ivy countered. “You can get anything.”
With an audible click, the necklace loosened. Isaak looked up and winked at me, slid the metal from my skin and handed it to Zenos, who’d settled back across the table.
Zenos looked at it closely, Ivy’s head moving beside his to stare as well. “This is Tryphite. It’s only found in one mine on Rogue 5’s home planet, Hyperion. You can tell by the silver sheen but the tinge of green. It’s heavy, yet pliable. It can’t be forged with any other metal, no matter the melting point. It’s like the stuff has a mind of its own.” He spoke like a scientist who knew his stuff.
“Why did Bertok have it?” I wondered.
Zenos flicked his gaze to me. “I do not know, but it proves the connection between Bertok and Rogue 5.”
Ivy reached for the medallion and ran her fingernail along the edges. “It looks like a locket. There must be something inside.”
Zenos grunted. “Only one way to find out.” He walked to the bar top until he came to the very end. There, sitting alone and looking angry, was a single male wearing a wine-red arm band.
“Oh, shit.” Ivy shot to her feet.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
When I made a move to step around the table, Isaak’s arm wrapped around my waist from behind and held me back. I hadn’t even noticed that he stood. “Leave him, gara. It’s too dangerous.”
I wanted to argue, I really did, but he was warm and strong, and Ivy had stopped moving too, her hands on her hips like an annoyed wife.
Zenos walked to the male who looked up from his drink. Zenos said something I could not hear, lifted his fist and swung. Hard.
The Cerberus male, who had lines on his face and a thin, sunken face, flew back into the wall and slumped there unconscious.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked.
Ivy turned to me, shrugged and turned back to watch Zenos bend down, wipe something from the male’s mouth and return to the table.
“Give me the medallion.”
Ivy handed it over without question.
Zenos lifted his thumb, and I saw a drop of blood on the tip. He rubbed the liquid on the surface of the medallion and set it back down on the table. “Cerberus codes all of his tech to artificial DNA that every member of his legion is required to carry.”
“What?”
Ivy scowled as she watched the medallion. “It’s crazy out here, Zara. And even worse on Rogue 5. Don’t ask.”
I didn’t want to, and even if I did, I doubted I would understand her answer. I had to work two jobs just to eat. I barely finished high school. DNA sounded like science to me, and that was so not my territory.
A pale light appeared along the edges of the medallion, and as one, we all four sank back down into our chairs to watch as the medallion opened up, the top sliding back and away into the sides like a collapsing accordion with metallic ridges.
Inside was a small clear crystal.
“What is that?” I asked.
Ivy reached for it, and Zenos waited, her much smaller fingers lifting the pea size crystal from a lined bed of some kind. “Data.”
Isaak
