a kiss before lying

Three cubes beside the edge of the table at the tiny outdoor café, shocking white and crisp in the cold winter sunshine. But Sydney wasn't looking at the sugar. She was staring past Vaughn at the man they'd apparently come to Korea to meet.

Sark was slouched in a seat, hunched in a khaki brown coat, one hand wrapped around a mug of steaming tea. The sun spun pale gold off his still shorn short hair.

Vaughn followed her gaze and swallowed hard. "I don't believe it," he said. "It's got to be a trap."

Sydney licked dry lips and murmured, "Maybe. Maybe not."

"You don't believe – "

"He's got no real reason to be loyal to the Covenant," she said and got out of the jeep. Like some radar had alerted him, Sark's head lifted and he looked right at her. His heavy-lidded blue eyes flicked to take in Vaughn flanking Sydney, then returned to her and stayed on her until she reached the table.

"You got my message," he said flatly.

Vaughn set one hand on the table and leaned over it, trying to intimidate Sark. "I don't know what you're up to – "

"You're right," Sark said.

Sydney's lips twitched into a near smile. Sark did disdainful so well.


Ten minutes later, it all fell apart, as Sydney's suspicion their mission had been compromised and sabotaged was confirmed. Vaughn was forced to shoot the Covenant killer coming after Sark and them, and Korean security forces captured them.

"There are quieter ways than a gun," Sark muttered bitterly, as they were dragged away and put in manacles, and thrown in a cell.

The officer in charge came in once, to scream at them and demand to know what they were doing in his country.

When he turned on Sydney, she told him in perfect Korean, "I only speak English," and heard Sark begin laughing. Then the bastard knocked her half-unconscious and turned his attention to the blond operative. Eventually, he tired and left them alone.

She knew he would be back, once he'd received orders from the capitol.


Sark was pushed back into one corner of the cell, shoulder blades against chilly stone, separate from Sydney and Vaughn, but only a couple of feet away. A trickle of blood from his split lip ran over his chin, caught in ghostly pale stubble. The bruise along his cheekbone where one of the Koreans had clubbed him with the butt of a rifle ached steadily. He drew his knees up, as much to ease the strain of the chains running from his hands to his ankles, as to hoard some warmth.

He watched with clinical curiosity as Michael Vaughn whispered desperately to Sydney. She'd taunted the outpost's commander when he'd tried to question them and taken the brunt of the man's anger until Sark began laughing. Then he'd turned his attention on Sark and left Sydney crumpled on the gritty stone floor. Vaughn had gotten off easiest, because the Koreans could see the non comprehension in his eyes when they threatened to cut his balls off and shove them up deep inside him.

Sark had translated afterward, just for the pleasure of watching the All-American boyscout flinch and go green.

Vaughn was telling Sydney she was the only woman for him. The one he loved. Sark snorted quietly. What stomach turning crap. He couldn't help listening to them, it wasn't like he could step out of the room and give them some privacy. He thought of turning his face away, but fuck that. They knew he was there. He wasn't going to pretend he wasn't.

He watched as Vaughn cradled Sydney against his shoulder. Listened to Sydney bite back a half-sob and put her fingers over Vaughn's lips. "Don't," she said, "Just don't."

"Syd – "

Her voice was steadier, stronger. "No, we can't. Just don't say anything."

Vaughn pleated his brow. Sark bit back a growl. He couldn't see Sydney's expression.

"Just once, Syd," Vaughn pleaded. "One kiss. If we're going to die – "

Sark let his head thump back against the wall. People called him a manipulative bastard. He slitted his eyes.

Sydney crouched on her knees and pressed a kiss to Vaughn's lips, then drew back.

"What about me, Sydney?" Sark heard himself ask. Vaughn glared. Sydney twisted around to look at him. Sark waved his fingers at them and grinned meanly. "If you're handing out kisses because we're all going to die . . . I'm not the one who fucked up and landed us in here."

"Shut up, Sark. What do you know about it?" Vaughn snarled.

"I know you're married," Sark said sunnily. "Forgot, did you?"

They both flinched. Sydney's mouth fell slightly open. He saw Vaughn's fists clench. The man reached for Sydney a second later, but she was hitching away from him.

"Syd – "

She sent a heated glare at Vaughn. "He's right," she hissed and began crawling over to Sark. "You're married." Her mouth twisted down. "I forgot. But then, I forgot two years. What's your excuse, Michael?"

Sark laughed.

She reached Sark's side.

"So you're going to kiss him?"

Sydney paused, thinking about it. "Yeah," she said finally. "Yeah, I am."

Sark stared at her in shock. Sydney knelt, her knee brushing his hip, and brought up her hands, the chain down to her ankles running up between her legs. She curled long fingers against Sark's jaw. A loose strand of hair was plastered across her face, glued down with sweat and blood from the contusion on her forehead. This close he could breath in her scent, perfume and dirt, damp wool sweater and blood tang. He bit down on the corner of his lower lip, imagining he could taste that scent, what it would be like on her pale, plush lips. Her hazel eyes were dilated and dark, rims swollen from crying tears of pain. Her nose was red and Sark could count the freckles that her make-up usually hid.

Her fingers were startlingly strong, tipping his head. Sark leaned forward to meet her. Brief touch of dry, almost cold flesh as their lips met. Then Sydney's teeth locked on his lower lip, a sharp stab of erotic pain. The split in his lip broke open again and his mouth flooded with the sour-salt taste of his own blood. Sydney's tongue chased it past his teeth, licking it away, then retreating, laving at the split, sucking at it like a fucking vampire. He'd never imagined Sydney would kiss like that.

Her eyes were half-closed and red stained her lips when she withdrew. Sark pulled in a harsh breath through his nose.

Vaughn was cursing them both.

Sark's chains clanked as he tried to lift his hands and push his fingers into her hair. He hissed in frustration. Metal cut into his wrists, harsh burrs of cheap welds rasping his skin raw.

Sydney's hands dropped away and Sark licked his lips, trying to capture that last, lingering taste of her there, sure she would back off now. It was all about showing Vaughn he didn't own her, after all. She didn't want Sark. If she did want him, she still wouldn't go any farther in this foul cell with her ex-lover watching and two guards only a few feet down the hall. Damn all the little gods for that anyway.

Sydney's gaze was locked on Sark. Her tongue flicked out, licking the last of his blood from her lips. Her eyes still looked narrowed against a new flood of tears, but a horrible smile stretched across her face. Sark had thought Irina and Katya and Lenya had taught him every frightening permutation of a smile, but he saw he was wrong. Sydney's smile sent sick electric shivers through his bones that made his cock twitch and ache.

"Sydney," Vaughn said a low voice. Sydney flinched but didn't turn.

Sark pushed his shoulders back against the wall, telling himself he wasn't backing away from her, that she didn't remind him of Irina right then. Sydney's smile got wider. "You know what they did to me, the Covenant?" she whispered, so low Vaughn probably couldn't understand. "You know what they took?"

She inched closer, leaning in to touch her lips against his ear. Her breath was hot and burned into him until he shuddered and nodded. He turned his head almost blindly, found her mouth again and pushed his tongue inside. She tasted of smoke and copper and cloves, desperation and disillusionment and darkness. She tasted tainted and addictive and he drank until he couldn't remember any other taste.

Her mouth never left his as she twisted and threw one long leg between his, her hands dropping down and pressing against his belly. Sark arched against her and the chains caught and tangled, screaming against each other and biting into the inside of his thigh. He didn't care. He pressed against her and Sydney laughed into his mouth.

"Do you know how much I hate them?" she breathed into him, poison leaching into his lungs with each word. Blood was trickling from his wrists, hot wet lines down his arms, smearing across his palms, as he worked his hands between them and cupped her. "Can you hate them that much, Sark?" She ground herself down against his fingers, furnace hot through the moistening fabric of her pants. He pressed his fingers up as hard as he could, making her gasp and squirm and smiled against her lips viciously.

"I hate everything," he told her.

"Just what I wanted to hear." Sydney's hands yanked at his belt buckle, twisting the chains trapped between her thigh and his. The pain blended with his arousal and ratcheted it higher. He bent his knee tighter and planted one boot flat, leveraging enough slack to rise as Sydney yanked ruthlessly at his corduroys and boxers.

"Fuck," he gasped as the boxers dragged against his erection. Sydney's eyes weren't any one color, he thought. They were tarnished bronze, verdigris, amber, sienna shot with citrine. Metal and stone. Flat and lifeless. He lowered his eyes and ran his tongue up the glass sharp line of her jaw. Her hair caught on his face, a piece of it was in his mouth, a ghost of her shampoo – apple – in his nose.

Only a few feet away, Vaughn was chanting under his breath. "Bitch, bitch, bitch. Bastard. God damn bastard." Sark ignored him because he wasn't moving toward them. Part of him couldn't believe they were doing this, in this place, the rest of him was laughing inside, loving the sheer fucked up darkness of it.

Cold grit bit into his bare ass. Sark jerked and pushed himself into the tight, remorseless grip of Sydney's fingers, gasping, closing his teeth hard on the tender flesh behind Sydney's jaw as she squeezed and stroked expertly. Sydney threw her head back. The strand of hair caught in Sark's mouth slithered between his teeth.

A keening sound burst from her as he drew his hands away and scrabbled at the fasteners of her pants. Her nails teased against his swollen flesh, threatening with exquisite sensitivity.

The zip came down suddenly and he had his palms spread on her flat, tense abdomen, the heels of his hands just brushing the edge of white bikini panties. Sark's nostrils flared. His pulse was pounding too loud to hear Vaughn now. He slid his hands down steadily, drawing her pants open farther, and Sydney helped, writhing, twisting from side to side to help him bring them past her hips. When the pants were around her knees, Sydney let go of his cock and knelt up while Sark bent forward and licked her through the nearly transparent panties.

Sydney shuddered like she'd been electrocuted. He worked his tongue against the silky fabric, already wet and smoky with her fluids, molding it to her, teasing, sucking, while Sydney tensed and rocked her hips into his face. She struggled and caught at her panties with chained hands, tearing them aside when she couldn't get them down. Sark stroked and stabbed his tongue into her lips, inhaled her musk, tongue-fucked her while rocking his own hips steadily. His fingers twisted into her, in and out, slick and deep. He hummed, scraped his teeth over her clitoris, then sucked. He didn't stop until he felt her entire body spasm over and over, felt an incredible flush of heat rush through her skin.

His cock was leaking, the pulse of his arousal throbbing along the vein, flushed dark and slick. Every cell in his body screamed for satisfaction. The flavor of Sydney's climax on his lips was maddening. Their chains were pressed into the crease between his thigh and groin, his pubic hair catching between the links, sending sparks of pain along his inflamed nerves, the metal warmed to fever heat by his and Sydney's bodies. Sydney caught his jaw in her hands and pushed his face away from her.

The back of his head rapped heedless against the wall as she crawled back and bent with an acrobat's grace to take him in her mouth. Sark drew blood from his lip again, biting it, smothering the shout that rose through him at the wet, fervent heat that drew him in. Her tongue swirled around his cock, traced patterns along his circumcision scar, and then she took him deeper and swallowed. A choked yell burst out of him and blood ran over his chin. Her hair fell forward, teased silken against the inside of his thighs, against his balls. The sensation ran through him like quicksilver. Sark arched his hips, Sydney moved her head with him, and he began to thrust in and out of her lavish mouth.

Sark managed to pry his eyes open and looked down at the incredible sight of Sydney Bristow's head in his lap, giving him the single best blow-job of his life. He was glad that she wasn't in any sort of disguise. This was better. This was almost more than he could endure. His breath razored through his lungs. He thought there was some reason he shouldn't let go, but nothing mattered at that instant but the fire burning through his nerves, threatening to burst free and tear him apart.

He thrashed his head to the side, spitting blood away from Sydney, and locked eyes with Michael Vaughn. The CIA agent was curled into an almost fetal ball, green eyes riveted to Sydney and Sark, hands shoved between his legs and rocking. Vaughn's moans rasped through the air, broken and uneven and obviously aroused by Sark and Sydney. Sark managed a bloody smile, until Sydney swallowed him to the base and hummed, sending him over the edge, and he came with a white-hot intensity that seared his mind blank for long moments afterward.

Somewhere, distantly, Sark heard someone else groan despairingly and then cry out with pleasure. Vaughn's voice. He shivered in the aftermath of too much sensation.

When he could form coherent sentences again, Sark worked his hands loose from where they were trapped beneath Sydney, who was resting her head against his bared belly, and stroked her hair once. He swallowed a couple of times and said hoarsely, "I have a handkerchief in the pocket of my coat."

Sydney stirred and silently felt around Sark's pockets until she found the square of fabric, then used it to wipe him up as well as she could.

"Thanks," he muttered, tucking himself back in his boxers and awkwardly wriggling his pants back up, then fastening them. He left the belt free. He had plans for it soon. Sydney was straightening her own clothes. Sark wordlessly helped as well as he could. Vaughn had rolled over so his back was to them.

Sydney glanced over at the other man and then shrugged, dismissing him the way Irina would have.

"We need to get a guard in here," she said.

Sark tugged his belt free and handed it to her. "Hold the buckle for a second," he said. He grasped the silver tip of the end of the belt, pressed and twisted, then pulled, drawing out a braided monofilament garrote. He grinned at her. "Here." He handed it to her. "I'll call him in, you take him out. He won't be expecting the threat to come from you."

Sydney's smile was predatory.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you, Sark."

Sark positioned himself just a little to the side, in front of the barred cell door. Sydney leaned against the wall in the closest thing to a blind spot it offered, slipped the garrote into a wide noose, ready to loop it over the guard's head. Still ignoring Vaughn, Sark started shouting for the guard in Korean, swearing he was ready to talk, just get him away from these two.

The guard yelled at him to shut up, but Sark kept shouting, complaining and demanding, throwing references in to the CIA, the Russians, Chinese, and even the Covenant. Something must have caught the scar-faced bastard's attention, because he was soon coming down the hall. Sark rose, swaying to his feet, and when the guard was at the door, said, "Get me out of here and I'll tell you everything."

"On your knees," the guard demanded.

Sark shrugged and obeyed. The AK-47 pointed at him made it an easy choice. His intention of seeing the bastard dead in another minute made it even easier. The guard fumbled a key from him pocket, opened the cell door and stepped in. His dark eyes were locked onto Sark and flicked to Vaughn's still form, but the man paid almost no attention to Sydney. She was just a woman. Idiot, Sark thought happily. He didn't mind that the man still had his hand on his gun.

Sydney snapped the garrote over the guard's head and pulled it closed around his neck in one swift, controlled movement, barely hampered by her manacles. She jerked the noose tight, choking the guard mercilessly. Sark lunged forward and caught the AK as the guard released it to claw at the wire choking him. As soon as he had it, he slammed the butt into the guard's solar plexus, doubling the man over and tightening the wire as the air was driven out of his hapless lungs. He choked a last time, Sydney jerked the garotte, and then the guard folded at the knees, limp, unconscious or dead.

Sydney slipped Sark's garrote free and pocketed it. Sark was already searching the body for keys to the manacles or anything else useful. Handgun holstered at the man's belt came first. Sark had it out and tossed it casually to Sydney. "Here." She caught it was both hands.

"Vaughn," she called out low. "Get up, we're getting out of here."

Sark found the keys, pulled them out, and smiled. He recognized the key to the manacles on the heavy ring. He immediately unfastened his hands and then his ankles.

Vaughn was at his side, wordlessly appropriating the keys from Sark and starting to work on his own manacles. Sark scooped up the AK-47 and got to his feet. "Hurry it up," Sydney called.

Vaughn finished, then went and removed Sydney's chains too. Sark's memory soaked in the image of Michael Vaughn crouching, back bent, before Sydney's feet, hand on his ankle and flashed to Mexico and the day he was traded to the Covenant.

The last manacle fell away.

He met Sydney's eyes.

"There's a mole," Sark said as they went through the doors. "The Covenant knew you were meeting with a defector, but not who," he went on in a low voice as he and Sydney prowled down the corridors.

"I know," Sydney said. "You should have defected to the DSR, Sark."

"Ah, yes," he murmured. A guard came around the corner. Sydney slammed the butt of her pistol into the back of the guard's neck before he could draw breath to yell. He went down. Sark deliberately, quietly, crushed the fallen man's larynx with a boot heel. "The people you were doubling for the last two years."

Sydney glared at him.

"You knew about what happened to her?" Vaughn demanded roughly at Sark's shoulder, after kneeling and grabbing the guard's armament.

Sark shrugged. "Only recently, when I delivered the Rambaldi casket to Patagonia."

"You don't know who the mole is?" Vaughn asked.

Sark slanted him a glance and said quietly, "I don't know." He looked back to Sydney, caught in a stripe of shadow and light, smudged, bloody, and pale. Surely, she could figure it out. She closed her eyes tight, then opened them, meeting Sark's gaze unflinching. A tiny headshake told him she knew but wasn't going to speak. "But I'm not risking my life returning to the US with you."

"I knew it was all a trick," Vaughn said bitterly.

"You can't go back to the Covenant," Sydney objected.

"They have no idea who the defector was," Sark said. "Since their killer is dead, there's no one to tell them, unless you or Vaughn open your mouths." He looked doubtfully at the American man.

"Done," Sydney said promptly. Sark raised an eyebrow. Her eyes were hard and dark and predatory as her mother's ever were. "You stay on the inside, we work together, we destroy them," she went on in a low tone. "I want the Covenant destroyed, down to the last lackey, even the memory of their name razed from the earth." She turned and began walking away. "I don't care how I do it."

Sark ran his tongue over his bloody lip. It sounded good to him.

Vaughn's face was carefully blank.

Sark smiled at him again. "Unto utter desolation...," he murmured and followed Sydney.