“So, you never purred before me?”
“I purred,” he says, a little cagily.
“When did you purr?” I trace my fingers over his chest as the purr rumbles to a stop…then starts up again.
“Mostly after a good session testing weapons in the neutral zone,” Dante says quietly.
“If it made you happy, it made you happy.” I can’t help but smile at his admission.
“You make me happy, my Rosalie. You have done things which I thought were impossible. My crew is better, I am better. Everything is better since I bit you.”
“Even if you risked Dalox banishing you all?”
“I’d risk it all again, for you,” Dante says, covering me with a wing and making us a little cocoon of warmth beneath the stars. “The nova day I bit you was the first nova day of the rest of my life.”
According to Dante,who is presently shoveling rations into his mouth like someone is going to burst in and steal them, this trip is around twenty-four hours long.
Which means, as we spent the night in and out of each other, we can’t be far from our destination.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him, causing a clawed hand to pause part way between his platter and his mouth.
Dante nods, and the food gets to where it needs to be.
I shake out my hair, damp from the short shower I’ve taken, and sit at the table opposite Dante. The table is a feat of engineering which comes out of the wall like it’s being formed from molten plastic. There is already a platter of food waiting for me which has only been slightly nibbled around the edges, and I make sure to grab my favorite items and move them to one side before the eating machine gets to them.
“Mating is good,” Dante says. “But it makes me want to eat everything.”
“I am well aware.” I bite into my breakfast in order to keep the smile off my face.
Not that it stops Dante. He grins at me.
“You have the best taste.” He folds another piece of rare meat into his mouth and smacks his lips. “I would choose you over any food.”
Unbelievably, given how my lady bits are very much letting me know what I’ve done recently, they pulse at his wicked smile and words. Dante’s nostrils flare.
It looks like we might need more food very soon as we’re clearly about to go into round…whatever…I’ve already lost count, but then Dante’s comm chimes.
My Sarkarnii warlord snarls at it but then passes a clawed hand over the surface and snarls again.
“Boss, we’ve got company.” The voice of his pilot comes over the comm.
“We have?” Dante says with a grin. “Pirates by any chance?”
“Pirates.”
“I’ll be right there,” he says into the comm.
“Pirates?” I wrap my arms around myself.
“I was hoping we’d meet some on this trip,” Dante says with not a little glee infusing through him. “I had the new plasma weapons installed just in case.”
“Youwantedto meet pirates?”
“Whereas Driok might pretend to take care of the security of Vorostor, I take our fight out into the galaxy,” Dante says with an even wider grin. “Why have the pirates come to us, when we can go to them?”
“So, all the weapons testing, the explosives and so on, in the neutral sector…that’s not for your own amusement?” I gape at my warlord with new eyes. “It’s because you are chasing pirates?”
“We might be feral, and we might have a mutation which can only make us worse, but why not use it?” Dante says with far more enjoyment than I would have expected. “Usually they run when they see my ships, but this is a new one, so we get to play with them a bit.”
