Incursion Read Online Free PDF Page A

two borders, both of which could turn into hot combat zones at a moment's notice. No wonder the Sector Commissar was paranoid.
    Kyle sat down heavily on his bed. The mattress adjusted under his weight and actually felt more comfortable than he'd expected. He pulled his pilot bag up and shoved it into the storage compartment, twisting his back more quickly than he should have. Shit. A sharp pain zinged up from the bottom of his spine, and he suppressed a groan. It fucking hurt. They'd told him to keep his spine aligned as best he could, but how the fuck did you do that while maneuvering in confined spaces? He froze, felt down into his body, tried to work out how bad it was. He turned back around slowly, exhaling as the vertebrae ground against one another. His spine felt brittle, like it could snap in the middle, like an old, hollow branch.
    "You all right?"
    "Shouldn't have done that." Kyle grimaced and lay back on the mattress. "Help me get my legs up?" He hated asking for help, but straightening his back and aligning the rest of his body was the best thing he could do right now. The alternative was to try to get up and hope that whatever had dislocated would snap back into place.
    Winter lifted his legs onto the bed and helped him straighten out. "Need something for the pain?"
    "It doesn't actually hurt that much." Also, there was no pill available for phantom pain. "I'll just rest a bit. Wake me up when we start." Not that he'd be able to sleep through a launch.
    He woke when the overhead light changed from yellowish to red. He must have been exhausted, because somewhere in the meantime, he'd missed the arrival of the other mercs. The remaining beds were occupied, and everybody was already strapped in. The mattress had hardened underneath him—a clear sign of launch preparations. He started to fasten his own straps.
    Winter stood in the aisle. "All ready, Captain."
    Grimm moved from the doorway into the middle of the room, where Kyle could see him clearly, his dark eyes shrouded in the low light. For a second, he didn't look human at all. "Very well. Get strapped in."
    Winter lay down on the bed, and Grimm helped her buckle all the straps. He tested the fastenings and adjusted a support block under her neck, then adjusted the fastening of the last strap, which ran across her belly. He turned to Kyle. "Time to wake up, Kyle. We're about to launch."
    "Nobody sleeps through an atmospheric launch."
    "I had a comrade on Morten who did." Grimm crouched and tested his straps. "You keeping the prostheses on?"
    "They'll be fine."
    Grimm surveyed the strapped-down landscape of his body, studying him slowly and with far too much interest. Kyle hated it, but that look held a possibility, almost an offer. He could imagine them together, him whole and well, Grimm under his control, pleasuring him.
    Fuck, where had that come from? He hadn't had such thoughts for weeks, not since the injury, the recovery. His libido had died a cringing death somewhere between the battle and the hospital. But at least his body didn't betray him. Nothing happened in his groin. Nothing at all. But it would have.
    Now, that's a new one. You go for the swaggering assholes, Kyle, because that's exactly what you were before they killed all those nerves.
    Grimm reached over and tested another fastening, brushing him with his knuckles. "You do look rather appetizing, all tied up at my mercy," he whispered.
    Shit if his dick didn't try to stir.
    And, had a fallen warrior just propositioned him? Formerly selfless protector of widows and orphans and cripples? The possibility shocked him. Warriors usually kept to each other—as if fucking a lesser member of society diluted their masculinity. Hard to imagine that Grimm's standards had slipped quite so far. Somehow, it had become extremely hard to resent him; the remaining anger was now more about the fact that he was not Grimm's equal, couldn't even move his legs without help.
    "So you fancy fucking a slab of