Ivo, for instance, always forgot his light when he had to crawl through vents or ducts. Grunn sometimes didn’t turn on any lights at all when he was the first to arrive at the engine room. Thatcher, however, should have been at an equal disadvantage as I was, but it didn’t feel that way. His hand unerringly found my braid where it began at the base of my skull, his thumb feathering over the pulse in my neck.
“Thatch, please let me up now. I did as you wanted. I ate, I napped, now let me get back to my engine room.” Even a polite request netted me absolutely nothing. His breathing was even, steady, his pulse nonexistent because I could not feel his body heat through the armor he wore. He was unreadable, but at the same time, that hand in my hair screamed possession. A Ulinial placed cultural significance in their hair; we did not cut it, not for any reason. To touch it like that… it was invasive, it was rude. What he did was a claim only a lover, a true mate, was allowed to make. And despite what that kiss said, I hadn’t given him that right.
Maybe I wanted to, though, if only so I could be the one soft, personal thing in his harsh, gray world. I’d created bionics for his broken, injured body as he’d begun to recover. I knew better than most on this ship just how bad his injuries had been, how much he’d suffered. Damn it, why did I have such a soft spot for big, broken males? It wasn’t like I could repair them, put them back together, the way I could with an engine.
“There are rules,” he rasped at me, low and husky, like he hadn’t talked in hours and had forgotten how to speak.Perhaps he’d slept with me, but somehow I couldn’t help picturing him lying awake, watching over me the entire time. My entire body seized up mid-movement, my belly clenching, all in anticipation of what he might say next.
“You will work no longer than ten hours, eat regular meals, and sleep when I tell you that you need sleep. Do you understand?” It was not so much a question as a demand. I definitely had issues with authority, and every bone in my body wanted to scream out a denial. Who was he to make rules, to demand I obey him? He acted, again, like he had a claim, and he didn’t. He was just the stupid human who followed me around like an obsessed stalker.
What came out of my mouth, however, was: “Okay.” Damn it. Thatcher was not misunderstood; he really was an angry, vicious bastard. So why did that okay feel like I’d just put a leash on my own personal Ferai beast? I was playing with fire, dangerous, deadly fire. If I continued down this road, I was certain it was going to be my heart that got burned.
Chapter 7
Thatcher
Leaving Ysathea in the engine room was nearly impossible. Unfortunately, duty called, and it wasn’t the kind I could ignore. We’d arrived at Strewn, and a meeting with those escaped gladiators who wanted to collaborate on this bounty was scheduled. I was due on the bridge, and you simply did not ignore an order from Asmoded.
Not that it was clear to me why the captain insisted I be present. I could track, sure, but there were other males on the ship just as gifted—if not more so—at the task. It was Mitnick who’d track them through electronic means, and Tass who’d be our eyes on the ground should we have to track them physically. Notme. I had no special insights on gladiators either; that’s what thisVagabondlot was bringing to the table.
I should be with Ysa, in the engine room if she’d let me, watching carefully to make sure she didn’t exhaust herself to such extremes again. She’d barely seemed to notice when I left, because she’d been elbow-deep in reprimanding three Strewn engineers for messing up the chaos on her workbench. I’d managed to pull Ivo and Grunn aside before I left. Beating some sense into those two knuckleheads had to wait, but at least I could warn them. They never should have left her to work alone while they went to sleep. What Ysa did, they had to do, and more, and they should have seen how much she was hurting herself.
Ivo had the good grace to look shocked and ashamed, but Grunn had been ready to run me through with that sharp horn of his. Unfortunately for them, both were better engineers than they were warriors. I knew Ysa had seen me put the Rhico in a headlock. I knew she’d noticed that I’d knocked Ivo’s legs out from under him and put the four-armed male on the ground. Part of me hoped she was impressed, but a bigger part of me didn’t care. All I’d cared about right then was making sure they understood their purpose. They should have kept her safe, and they hadn’t.
They had to, especially with half a dozen strangers tromping through the engine room and a bunch of escaped gladiators visiting. As soon as I was done with Asmoded’s meeting, I intended to be back there—guarding her. From those males, and from the sentient hitchhiker the Sineater had accidentally let loose on theVarakartoom.
The bridge was fully staffed this morning, a show of force for the visiting gladiators. We were ready for anything, andjust because we had not managed to catch them last time didn’t mean we weren’t strong. Raukesh and A’varon pretended I didn’t exist, probably because they were mad they had not been able to sleep in their bunks. They also didn’t dare say anything about it, but it wasn’t like the cold shoulder mattered to me.
Tass was manning the comm station, which meant Mitnick was already in the briefing room. Nelly, the plant life-form the green-skinned male had adopted, rode on his shoulder. All pink flowers and big eyes, it should have looked out of place, but Tass pulled it off with his lean physique and the draping vines hanging like a cloak from his shoulders.
I strode into the ready room and parked my ass in my usual seat. Not everyone was there yet, but that was probably because they were meeting the delegation of gladiators by the airlock. My prosthetic left foot twitched against the floor, bouncing up and down as I waited. Nobody looked at me except Solear, who was glaring and mirroring my anxious foot-bouncing with some of his own. “Fuck off,” I told him, because I wanted to be anywhere but here.
Ysa needed me; there were all kinds of strangers in her domain, and I had to keep them away. I wasn’t even lying to myself about why, they weren’t a danger. Strewn hired only the best. They were just males too close tomywoman, and that I couldn’t tolerate. Males much smarter than me—threats, rivals. Males that perhaps understood softness and sweet words and courting gifts. All the crap I’d left in ashes back on Earth.
Solear would have leaped across the table to kill me, and I relished the possibility of a fight, except his brother stopped him in his tracks. That was a stopgap measure only, because afew more words and I’d have Aramon just as pissed and ready to fight. I opened my mouth to try, but that’s when Asmoded and the gladiator visitors arrived.
Before Solear found his mate, that wouldn’t have stopped him. These days, however, it made him stop in his tracks, breathe deeply, and allow his twin to yank him back down into his seat. Not calm, not quiet either, because he was growling in a low, feral rumble, but no longer a threat. Asmoded’s sharp, golden gaze flicked from the Asrai male to me, and Iknewhe had deduced what the tension in the room was all about. When he glanced at Mitnick, the winged male raised his hands and shrugged in a universal “it wasn’t me” kind of gesture.
“Right, well. Ziame, welcome aboard theVarkartoomonce again. Let me introduce you and your males.” Which he did as each gladiator entered the room and found a seat. The Sineater was the last one in, closing the door and taking up a position against it as if he wanted to prevent anyone from escaping—an intimidation tactic I very much appreciated.
“Ziame is the captain of theVagabondand the leader of its crew of males. Yes, the very ones we tried to collect a bounty on a couple of years ago.” Asmoded pointed at the massive green-scaled beast with horns like a bull. As far as aliens went, this one was about as unique as they could be, and possibly one of the deadliest creatures out there. I’d done my homework while I stood around watching over Ysa, pulling up information on each of these males, which mostly consisted of their skills and accolades as gladiators on the arena sands. Ziame, better known as the Beast, was undefeated and supposedly no better thana Ferai beast. I only had to take one look at the keen intelligence in his emerald eyes to know this was a lie.
He’d brought only three others with him, but I’d memorized stats on all the escaped gladiators that lived on Ziame’s ship. With us was Da’vi, also known as Doom, a Kertinal male—a gladiator the Beast had defeated in his last spectacular appearance on the sands, burning the male’s hands to a crisp. Shiny black metal prosthetics covered them now, evidence that this was not a rumor but fact. Then there were the other two: both of unknown, rare species that might not even be native to the Zeta Quadrant, like I wasn’t. Fierce, a blue-skinned alien with about as much social grace as Solear, and Eoin.
My eyes lingered on this last male. He was probably the youngest male in the room, but I had history with this guy anyway. He also didn’t seem to care one bit that he was out-experienced by everyone here, casually holding his own. This was the male who hired theVarakartoomto rescue humans from a mining planet controlled by a now-defeated crimelord called Batok. This male, he had rescued me from the torture and pain that should have killed me. Without him and his human mate, Tori, the mercenaries of theVarakartoomnever would have found me.
Oh, that was probably what Asmoded had alluded to before. He thought I might want to thank this guy for his part in my rescue. The jury was still out; I hadn’t yet decided if I should have been rescued in the first place. Perhaps all this guy had done was set loose a predator on the ship, one that stalked his mate as if it were all fair game. I felt so dark inside, so tainted, that I knew even if I hungered to survive, the world was probably better off without me.
These gladiators might have escaped and created a life for themselves with their mates on their ship, but they hadn’t let themselves grow soft. When Ziame began outlining the details of the mission in a deep, rumbling voice, it was with the kind of experience Asmoded brought to his mission briefs—like a captain prepping soldiers for war. It was clear that hunting bounties had been one of the many ways they’d sustained themselves and taken advantage of their fighting prowess.
Finally, when the targets were described, it clicked why I was here. “Did you say Shadow Unit? How do you know this word?” I demanded. Leaping up, I leaned my fists on the table and peered into the bullish, naturally armored face of the massive male. He swept his tail across the floor, spikes flaring in a dangerous display along his head, spine, and forearms. Then a curl of smoke rose from his nostrils, and something clicked inside his massive throat. From the corner of my eye, I saw Da’vi smirk as if this amused him, but Asmoded sharply ordered me to stand down.
I huffed, but I did as I was told, easing back from the table. “Tell me, now!” Okay, perhaps I didn’t stand down much at all. At least Asmoded didn’t adhere to strict military protocol; it just naturally slipped in because nearly everyone here had a military background of some kind, myself included.
“It was a term our human male, Oliver, knew. He said it was a myth, but also the only explanation for why the escaped human male could move as fast and be as strong as he was.” Those sharp green eyes flicked up and down my body with a question in them. He was not the only one staring at me; even my own crewmates appearedintrigued.
I had not told anyone what I was, what I’d been. Not even Asmoded, but it was clear that these details had been a little too close to home for him. He’d connected the dots. I bared my teeth at him, but I knew he’d thrown me in the deep end because I would have just denied it if he’d asked me in private. Sneaky, sneaky snake that he was, he’d set me up so I had no choice but to provide answers. I’d never been more tempted than I was right then to disappoint my superior officer, to sabotage a mission before it started. What the hell did I care if this human killed a couple of innocent Rummicaron anyway? And then Ysa’s face appeared in my mind’s eye, and I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t let her down.
Snarling, I threw myself back into my chair and pinned Asmoded with a glare. Hell, I even raised my hand and flipped him off for good measure. They might not know what that single finger meant around here, but rude hand gestures were pretty universal; they got the meaning. Perhaps this silver-skinned, elfin-looking Eoin even knew its precise meaning, because he snickered. Come to think of it, he looked damn similar to a Terafin, a species from the Alpha Quadrant, except those guys were supposed to be gold, not silver.
