Ysa showing up at the briefing was a blessing and a curse. I had wanted a moment to get away from her and center myself. Secure the raging obsession back in its cage before it could slip from my control. Unfortunately, my pretty blue-skinned engineer never did what anyone expected of her. She was an agent of chaos and sunshine, of misplaced attempts to cheer up the crew, earnest care, and general mayhem.
I still recalled that time she’d tried to teach a handful of temporary hires some kind of ball game. It was, I suspected, meant to be entirely peaceful, considering it was a Ulinial game, but it had resulted in three broken bones and one misaligned nose. Mine, I remembered wryly, because I’d waded into the chaos to stop the fight and ended up finishing the brawl with my fists instead. Come to think of it, not a single one of those grunts signed up with us again after that mission was over.
“I’ve picked up a bounty for us to hunt,” Asmoded announced when Ysa seemed to have zipped her mouth. That was interesting, and I perked up. I wasn’t alone in that either;Aramon and Solear finally stopped staring at the star charts on the table to lean in and listen. So far, the meeting had been incredibly boring, a standard staff meeting to discuss the status of the ship. Usually, I wasn’t part of those, but Asmoded had wanted me there to discuss the incident with Ysa during that blackout.
It was unfortunate that even my nanobot-enhanced senses could not give me much detail. I’d heard, rather than seen, the attack on Ysa and caught the sludgy creature in my hand at the last moment. It would have slithered away without a trace if not for the rapid shaping of claws to rake up a sample and do some damage. My hand, still a little tender but no longer raw, flexed against my thigh beneath the table. I wondered if Ysa had realized that I’d gone all action hero on that goo. Had she seen the metal fused with my bones or not?
“What kind of bounty are we talking about?” Jaxin asked. His hands caressed the laser cannon he had cradled in his lap, and his shoulders were relaxed and low. His black armor hid the scars that marked his chest, but to my eyes, the bloody hole that had cracked open his sternum was still visible. I shoved the waking nightmare away, my eyes slipping from him back to Ysa. To her blatant sign of disrespect, which was tolerated anyhow. Her clunky boots leaned on the table, and despite their thick soles and shiny skull-and-bones emblem, they still made her look dainty.
I cocked my head so I could listen to what the others said, but my mind kept latching back onto Ysa. Her long braid hung over her shoulder, slid around the side of her breast, and then was curled twice around her slender waist. That’s how long her blue hair was, and I wantedto feel that rope in my fists, test its strength. Hell, I wanted her to wrap that thing around my throat and tie us together. Make me hers.
I shifted uneasily in my seat, but it was impossible to yank my eyes away from her. She was like the alien version of a spunky goth girl: blue skin, blue hair, and only dark, edgy clothes. Like she was trying to be both cute and warn people off at the same time. She was simply all her, boldly confident, entirely happy to express herself through her appearance. Unique.
“Gladiators,” Asmoded said. There was such a loud, universal groan around the table that I finally jerked my attention from Ysa to the rest of the room. Aramon was grinning like it was good news, but the rest were swearing and shaking their heads. I wasn’t quite sure what the history was here, though I knew there was one. It was thanks to gladiators, sort of, that I’d been rescued and ended up here with this crew.
“Seriously?” Mitnick said. “You do recall the massive trouble our last escaped gladiator hunt gave us? And we didn’t even get paid in the end.” He flicked his hand, and images jumped onto the holo display of a sleek Starclass Cruiser. It was silver and definitely not new, but clearly well maintained. On its side, the nameVagabondhad been painted in both the universal traders’ language and, much to my surprise, UAR English.
Aramon sounded gleeful when he began recounting how this ship had narrowly escaped theVarakartoomon numerous occasions: at Strewn, at the Yengar Space Station, and even in the Sune solar system. That last mention had Flack swear loudly, as if it had been a particularly painful incident forhim. Perhaps that was simply because our Sune Quartermaster disliked his homeworld with a vehemence he had never bothered to explain, not even when drunk on terrible Rummicaron Ale.
“This time will be different,” Asmoded said, silencing the room at once with a glare. “This is a pair of gladiators without a ship of their own. The bounty isn’t from their owner either, because they killed him when they escaped. This is a bounty from the Rummicaron government. The pair has gone on a murder rampage that’s left over a hundred dead thus far, that we know of.” He let those words sink in, perhaps because he thought he needed to assure his crew that we were doing the quadrant a service by eliminating these guys. I didn’t care one way or another, and judging from the expressions on the faces of the twins, they didn’t either.
A hunt would be good, though, something to distract from Ysa and the growing strength of my fascination with her. She shouldn’t be here, because I definitely needed to step away from her if I wanted to stay in control. Soon, I’d be so deep into this there would be no turning back. Keeping her safe from a distance wouldn’t be good enough.
“Fine, these bastards need hunting,” Mitnick said. “Why us? And what does it pay? This has nothing to do with Jalima, does it?” A fair question, because lately all our missions had appeared to center around thwarting Jalima one way or another. Except the last one, but thathaddestabilized the crimelords’ current balance, so, in a way, it still connected. We tended not to care what the other crimelords were up to; they could hire us the same as any government.
“It was Ziame’s idea,” Asmoded said. It was not a name I was familiar with, but I saw Ysa begin togrin while the others all groaned or cursed. Except the Sineater, of course; he just sat there smirking like he was enjoying the chaos. Perhaps he was just soaking up the dismay like a sponge and feeding his symbiont. My eyes measured the size of the opaque black Gracka hound at his side, but she didn’t appear to have grown suddenly.
“Enough of that. Just because we don’t always win doesn’t mean we hold grudges, does it?” Aramon snarled. He leaned across the table to glare at Flack, then wagged a warning finger at Mitnick and Jaxin. I muffled a laugh, tempted to say something rude just to rile the Asrai pilot, but managed to keep my mouth shut.
“Ziame, the captain of theVagabond, might have eluded us last time, but he is very concerned about these escaped males. He has proposed that we work together and split the bounty when we catch them.” Asmoded’s eyes went to me, though I did not know why. “We’re meeting up at Strewn. Dismissed.”
Chapter 4
Ysathea
Hunt more gladiators? That seemed like a terrible idea to me; last time, Aramon and Solear had nearly blown out our engines trying to keep up with theVagabond. The idea of actually working together with the one ship in the Zeta Quadrant that was capable of outflying us was very tantalizing, however. I wasn’t sure who their engineer was, but I definitely wanted to pick their brain.
I was lost in thought as I walked back from the ready room to my engine room. What kind of engine did that ship have that made it go so fast? I needed to get my hands on that. Then I cursed because theVarakartoomwas in no shape to be shown off to anyone, least of all an engineer of that skill. It was embarrassing. Against Strewn, I felt all kinds of rivalry, because they were good and they were damn cockyabout it. TheVagabond, though, that engineer had earned their reputation.
As I turned to step into the elevator that would take me down two decks, I realized I’d regained my shadow. He was back to stalking me now that his obligation to the captain was over. Thatcher caught the elevator door with his previously injured hand just before it could close. Our eyes met, his a deep, dark brown, surrounded by thick, long black lashes. He hadn’t marked his face with tattoos the way he’d marked his hands, but he still looked exotic. Since he’d come aboard, he’d let his hair grow, and it hung in long, silky waves of darkness around his shoulders. Clad in the custom-made armor I had created for theVakaratoom’screw, he looked menacing and huge. Dangerous. He made my belly twist with desire, and when his mouth tilted into a half-smile, I was certain it was because he knew.
I shuffled away from him, unable to even find a voice to tell him to leave me alone, to take the next lift down. My back collided with the wall, my hands finding the railing installed there. They trembled, palms clammy. His smile twitched as if he liked that I was uneasy and cornered, like I was prey. Did he always loom like that, take up so much space that this elevator seemed tiny? Itwastiny. Space on a spaceship was always optimized, and these units were fast rather than big; you never had to wait long.
Behind him, the door swished open, but he didn’t move to let me out. His arms were loose at his sides, his eyes locked on my face, and that mouth curled in a sinful half-smirk. He wouldn’t talk, I knew that, but I found myself suddenly prodding at him anyway. “Come on, Thatch, enough of this. You proved your point about the blackouts. I’ll take Ivo orGrunn with me when I go hunting for anomalies again. Now go away.”
I didn’t think he’d respond; he never did. When I made myself step toward him, I fully expected him to slide aside and let me through. He always had before. He might intimidate me on some level, but I knew he’d never harm me. Now, I wasn’t so sure. This time, he didn’t move. Not a muscle, and my step had only brought me perilously close to him. I stared, my breath locking in my chest, my body screaming at me to back up again. The door swished shut behind him, and now it was just me and him in far too small a space.
“Ivo and Grunn can’t protect you the way I do,” he said, no, snarled. I hadn’t caught on in time, but now I saw it, my words had pissed him off. For the first time, I’d managed to rile him. Thatcher was known for his terrible temper; he tended to snap and bite with words at anyone who came close. For the longest time, he’d been as much of a loose cannon as Solear was. He’d calmed a bit over time, but still, he was the one all the mated guys warned their mates to stay away from. I had never felt like that was fair, not until I saw the fury in his dark eyes.
I had to be suicidal to snap at him rather than back away like my instincts were telling me to. “I didn’t ask for your protection, Thatcher. You have no claim over me, so you don’t have the right.” It was definitely the wrong thing to say. He seemed to grow in size, not literally, simply because he leaned over me even further. His eyes flashed with that fury he kept banked inside his chest. It roared to the forefront now, rumbling from him in alow, rough growl.
“No claim?” he said, as if I’d just denied him the very air he breathed. My chest grew tight, and I really tried to ignore that it was because hope was spreading through my body. Hope? Hope this surly, stalker of a bastard actuallywantedto lay claim to me? I was theVarakartoom’shead engineer for a reason, and no male had ever tamed me or claimed me—least of all this grumpy, angry shadow.
“No claim,” I said stubbornly, and then he kissed me. Thatcher caught my head with one hand, his mouth descending, and he made damn sure I knew what he wanted of me. That kiss was all about staking a claim; it was a warning and a threat, or maybe it was a promise. He tasted like darkness and sin; his lips soft, but his caress firm. That hand on the back of my head was big enough that I felt like there was no place to retreat. This was a branding, and when he finally let me up for air, I knew I was never going to be the same.
“Thatch,” I sighed, staring into the fury still blazing in his eyes. He bared his teeth at me as if I’d offended him, but he didn’t let go of me, didn’t back away. He crowded me against the wall with his big body, filling my vision. I felt his heat surround me and the press of his thigh between my legs. A whimper slid from my throat, and my breasts ached, nipples perking.
I thought he’d kiss me again, just to remind me that the moment was real. Perhaps he’d press me into the wall at my back, then lift me so I could curl my legs around his hips. Instead, his body grew tense as a bowstring, and not in a good way. He seemed to vibrate, a deep rumble of discontent issuing from his throat. His hand slid down to the nape of my neck and curled around my braid. I felt a tug on my hair,and instincts long ingrained in me took over. Nobody touched my hair.
