CORA
Sunlight—Starlight.Whatever.—streamed in through the cruiser’s narrow windows, throwing the cabin into a tangle of sunbeams and shadows. Starbeams? Whatever the light was called, it was too bright and stabby. Yawning, I snuggled deeper into the blankets that smelled so good, like salt breezes and sunshine. Maybe that scent could have lulled me back into sleep if there hadn’t been so much muttering. The buzz and hum of hushed voices poked and prodded at my mind, invading my peaceful oblivion. Who was talking? Could they shut up, please?
Rolling over, the covers wrapping me up like a burrito, I peered through the open kitchen door. Mom and Dad stood against the sunlight, arguing.Ugh. What weretheydoing here? In the back of my mind, I was sure there was somewhere else they should have been. On the compound. On the compound, but that was somewhere else, too. Somewhere very far away. And yet here they were, muttering and hissing about something.
“We can’t take her home,” Mom said. “Ricky wouldn’t like it.”
“He’ll pay for her,” Dad reasoned.
“Why would he give a penny for her?” Mom sneered. “She isn’t worth it.”
“They want wives.”
“We should just kill her.” That was Mom. My own mother.We should just kill her.
Yiri will come for me. My husband, my mate. He’ll kill her first.I saw it like a vision in my mind. Yiri would appear behind Mom just like he stepped up so silently behind that mercenary. He’d twist her head in his hands, that sick, wet snap would sound, and she would slump, eyes empty and unseeing as she fell. Bile rose in my throat as imaginary Yiri faced my father.
“What do I care?” Dad said, his eyes already as empty as Mom’s. “I have no daughter. She’s dead to me.”
Yiri’s hand reached for the concealed phase blade at his thigh, but it was my hand that drew the bright blade, and I was the one standing in front of Dad with Mom lying lifeless at my feet.
“You can’t do it,” Dad taunted, his face void of any emotion, just like that day at the compound. “You’re too soft for his world. He saved your life, and you can’t even look at him. He won’t miss you. He doesn’t even care that you’re gone. You’re already dead, so why don’t you just d?—”
His words cut off in a garbled cry of surprise as the phase blade slid through him like his flesh was water.
“Good girl.” It was Yiri’s deep voice that vibrated through me, but he was no longer there. I stood alone in the cruiser’s kitchen with my parents’ bodies at my feet.I should feel bad about that, right?But, no. I didn’t feel bad at all. After I left them a safety net, this was how they still saw me? At best, a resource, and at worst,worthless. I shouldn’t be surprised. It shouldn’t make me angry andmurderous, butdamn.
And Iwasn’ttoo soft for Yiri or his world. I had a little shock, but now I was fine.Just fine, dammit!
Down on the floor, Mom said to Dad, “I still think we should kill her.”
Dad regarded the sickening angle of her neck dispassionately. “She’s dead to me, anyway,” he said.
I yelled and tried to kick him, but my whole body was burrito wrapped in blankets, my voice muffled by the soft material as I thrashed until I was falling, the floor rising to meet me in the middle with a hardthwack.
My eyes snapped open on impact, reality slamming into me harder than the floor. My parents weren’t here, and I certainly didn’t murder them in cold blood. Yiri wasn’t here either. But Xokat was. He was the one arguing to sell me off as a bride on Ibaruta. Another man, young like Xokat, but lankier in build and meaner in the face, was for killing me. Something about his worn clothing and nearly shaved head gave me an uneasy feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against bald guys or short hair, but it wasn’t a style I’d seen much of in Covara.
“She’s coming around,” the other man said, his eyes cutting to me. “We should just kill her now.”
“We’re not killing her,” the Xokat growled. “She’s innocent. Ahlon should suffer, not her.”
“We’re the ones who’ll suffer if he finds his mate married to someone else on that backwater moon.”
“He won’t find her,” Xokat said. “And he won’t find us. He doesn’t deal in wives. It’s his biggest blind spot.”
“He knows people.”
“Not therightpeople,” Xokat argued.
A tense moment passed with the two males eyeing each other, secret knowledge I could only guess at passing between them.
“You can either get up there and fly us to Ibaruta and get a cut of the profits, or I’ll hand you over to Ahlon myself,” the second man said.
“Fine,” Xokat muttered, moving toward me.
The other man stopped him. “What are you doing?”
“Putting her under again,” Xokat said. “She’s waking up.”
