And every one of them had been ranked above Vikrav R’Tev. Not just above, but if you looked at the pattern, they all had been obstacles in his path to the top.
Including him.
The R'Tev hadn’t just bought their son a career. They’d cleared the field… had the opposition dealt with. Systematically, they’d eliminated anyone who might stand between their precious heir and warball glory. And when the healer who’d signed off on the fake diagnoses had become a liability, they’d eliminated him too.
V’Teth hadn’t died of natural causes. Raaze would bet his left bollock on it.
The thought should have excited him. It was proof that he was right, that his diagnosis was trall. Instead, ice settled in his gut.
If the R'Tev had monitoring on those records, then they knew someone had accessed them. They’d know the files had been copied. They might even know who’d done it.
He and Cait had just gone from running from a security flag to being targets of a powerful family with a body count.
Draanth.
His breath caught as his chest tightened. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. His arm tightened around her reflexively, and he pulled her closer. She made a soft sound in her sleep but didn’t wake up.
He’d dragged her into this. She’d been a mark, a means of escape, a pilot with a ship and a desperate need for parts that he’d used. He’d manipulated her from the moment he’d spotted her on that landing pad, and he’d put her in the crosshairs of people who killed witnesses.
Kelarris.
He’d thrown the word out there without thinking, but it was what she was. His beloved. He traced idle patterns along her back with his fingertips, feeling the delicate knobs of her vertebrae under warm skin. She was so fragile compared to a Lathar… compared to him. So fierce anyway. Something twisted deep in his chest, a protective surge rolling through him that had nothing to do with his old warball instincts and everything to do with the female in his arms.
Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she stirred. Her eyes opened, and she looked at him. The smile that crossed her face was soft and unguarded. Sleepy and happy, like waking up in his arms was exactly where she wanted to be.
Draanthing hells. He didn’t deserve that look, not with this new threat looming like an incoming asteroid field.
He dipped his head and kissed her so he could stop thinking. It was slow at first, his lips brushing hers with a gentleness that surprised even him.
She made a small sound in the back of her throat, pressing closer, and the kiss deepened. Heat flickered low in his belly again, but he pulled back before either of them could get lost in it.
“Morning,” he murmured against her lips.
“Morning,” she murmured, her voice rough with sleep. “You’re still here.”
“Where else would I be?”
She stretched against him, all warm skin and lazy contentment like a deearin kit. “Thought maybe you’d sneak off to the cargo hold. Maintain your mysterious, brooding image.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You do brood.” She propped herself up on one elbow, her lips curved at the corners as she studied his face. “You’ve got that look right now. The one that says you’re thinking too hard about something.”
He should tell her. About Vikrav, about the pattern, about the target they’d just painted on their backs. She deserved to know what she was walking into.
But she was looking at him like he was something worth keeping, and he couldn’t make himself shatter that. Not yet. Not when he could give her a few more minutes of blissful ignorance before the universe came crashing back in.
He shifted carefully, easing her off his chest so he could sit up.
“Just thinking about how I’m going to explain to Fred that I defiled his captain,” he said instead as he pulled her back into his lap. He’d already reacted to her, his cock half hard and hardening more as she settled against him with a small rock. Gods, he’d never get enough of this female.
She laughed, bright and genuine, and the sound hit him somewhere behind his ribs. “Fred already knows. He monitors everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” Her grin turned wicked. “I turned off my implant, but the ship’s sensors are always running. He’s probably already compiled a performance review.”
“A performance—” he just stared at her. “Your ship’s AI watched us have sex, and you’re joking about it?”
