“He cares about you,” Crash says, and I feel his amazement at how quickly I’ve been accepted into their small family unit. “We both do.”
“I care about you too,” I reply, then take a breath and make the conscious choice that will define our future. “Both of you. We’re a team now, aren’t we? All of us together.”
“Partners,” he confirms, and the word carries weight now—not just romantic partners, but true partners in every sense.
“Together,” I agree, and seal it with a kiss that tastes like promises kept.
When we break apart, Jitters is glowing a soft, sleepy pink in my arms, vibrating with a purr that shakes his entire gelatinous body. Crash wraps his arms around both of us—his mate and his rescued stray—and rests his chin on top of my head.
“We have three hours until Kallos Station,” he murmurs, the vibration traveling through his chest into my back. “Three hours to figure out how to explain this to Mother.”
I laugh, the sound bubbling up unexpected and free. “I’ll handle the paperwork. You handle the piloting.”
“Deal.”
I lean back against him, closing my eyes. My career is in shambles, an alien warlord is hunting us, and I have violated seventeen different safety protocols in the last twenty-four hours.
I have never been happier.
12
Bond Diagnostics
Crash
Twohourspasttheasteroid field, and I still can’t keep my hands off her.
Zola sits curled against my chest in the pilot’s chair, both of us finally dressed but reluctant to separate even the few feet to different seats. She’s studying something on her datapad—OOPS regulations regarding interspecies bonding declarations, from what I can see over her shoulder—while I methodically work my fingers through her hair.
Not just grooming. Scenting.
My enhanced senses catalog every subtle change as I rub my cheek against the crown of her head, letting the pheromone glands along my jaw transfer my claim-scent into her hair. The vanilla-sweet human scent that first drew me is still there, but now layered with my own chemical signature—golden scales and possession, copper and mine.
The claiming bites on her throat have sealed into perfect golden crescents that proclaim to anyone with eyes that she belongs to me. But scent carries further than sight, especially in the confined spaces of stations and ships. I need every male we encounter to know she’s thoroughly claimed before they even consider approaching her.
Our bond lets me feel her awareness of what I’m doing—not embarrassment, but amused acceptance tinged with arousal. She tips her head slightly, giving me better access to the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“Mother is going to flay us alive,” she says conversationally, scrolling through another regulation. “Section 47.3: ‘All bonding declarations must be filed within seventy-two hours of initial biochemical integration.’” She glances up at me. “We’re at what, four hours?”
“Approximately.” I pause my scenting to press a kiss to her temple. “Though technically the seventy-two hour clock doesn’tstart until we reach official jurisdiction. Space between stations is legally neutral.”
“Lawyer Crash. Who knew?” She’s teasing, but I sense her genuine concern about the bureaucratic nightmare we’re facing. “What about Section 51.8: ‘OOPS personnel involved in xenobiological bonding must submit to medical evaluation and psychological assessment before returning to active duty’?”
I wrap my arms around her more securely, tucking her against my chest. “Then we submit. Together.”
“That’s not what worries me.” She saves the document and pulls up something else—station schematics for Kallos. “What worries me is that Mother knows everything that happens in her network before it happens. She probably already knows we’re bonded. She’s just waiting to see how we handle it.”
The thought makes my throat tighten with apprehension. Mother isn’t just a dispatcher—she’s a legend, a force of nature who’s been running the OOPS communication nexus longer than most species have had spaceflight. Nothing escapes her notice. Nothing.
“She might surprise us,” I offer weakly.
Zola’s laugh vibrates against my chest. “Crash, she once threatened to space a pilot for filing their fuel logs late. We just violated about twenty different protocols and bonded while my scanner was screaming about biohazardous materials.” She looks up at me, eyes glinting with dark humor. “We’re so dead.”
The bond reveals her mixing genuine worry with gallows humor—a very human coping mechanism that I’m rapidly learning to appreciate. She’s not wrong about our situation. We’ve created a bureaucratic disaster that will take months to sort through.
But underneath her concern, I also feel her certainty: worth it.
“We need a strategy,” I agree, resuming my methodical scenting while she studies the schematics. “Something betterthan ‘we fell into biochemical bonding while escaping a Level 5 threat.’”
