“Not happening,” she said.
“She’s a perfectly operational vessel,” Ren said.
“Oh, wow, that evokes no confidence in me at all. Perfectly operational. What about safe? I’d like to use a perfectly safe spaceship today.” She kept her tone light, jovial even, but inside, the warlord’s words kept repeating. Her pod had been recovered from the debris. She had drifted in the darkness of space with only a backup battery system to keep her alive. If any seal had been faulty, if the chamber had been damaged in the explosion…
A shudder rippled through her.
“Appearances are deceiving. This ship has traveled many lightyears with no distress,” Ren said. He gave a light squeeze to her shoulder, turning away when Havik barked something from deeper within the ship.
The overhead light flickered.
“I can fix that,” he promised, ambling away.
Three women died in damaged stasis chambers, which were little more than glorified coffins. Six women survived. All had been abducted. None knew what their abductors had planned. Luck had been on Thalia’s side—for once—when she clawed her way out of her frozen grave, a ravenous zombie demanding revenge.
She’d make them pay.
Her goody-two-shoes aliens were too law-abiding to understand their opponents. They approached every problem with a hammer—maybe a club was a better visual—even if the situation required nuance and subtlety. Nope. Mahdfel just kept swinging their club around, not making progress into anything but property damage.
Thalia understood who they hunted just fine. After all, bugs and worms clung to the underbelly of rocks on any planet. She’d find the aliens responsible for the auction, for smuggling not just her, but the other survivors, then she’d go back to Earth and see that justice finally found Nicky.
Havik
“Your cabin,” Havik said, sliding the door open with ease. He had spent hours lubricating the track for effortless opening and closing.
“Wow. It’s big.” Thalia stood in the center of the room and nodded.
Pride swelled in Havik. He had spent the last two years preparing the room for his mate. Ex-mate. Everything in the cabin had been designed with Vanessa in mind and needed to be perfect. Fresh paint, soundproofing, and gentle lighting gave the cabin a quiet, inviting feel. The original furnishing had been replaced with carefully chosen pieces. He had wanted to fill the space with objects that Vanessa would appreciate, but beyond the plant on the built-in shelf, he had no idea what that might be. Adding to his shame, he did not know the colors she favored, so he painted the cabin a bland peach.
“I combined two cabins.” He had intended to share this cabin with Vanessa. It needed to be large enough for two adults. The bed reflected that.
The plant and the bed were the only two things he could add with certainty. He did not know enough about his mate—former mate! —to perform a task as basic as furnish a cabin. He really had been a selfish mate to Vanessa.
“Bit sparse. Nice though.” Thalia’s voice dragged him away from his dishonor. Her bag thumped down on the bed. She opened drawers and pressed on panels, revealing storage spaces.
“What type of plant is that?” Thalia stretched out a hand as she approached the plant.
“A water leech.”
Her hand snapped back.
“It is native to my planet and adapted to absorb moisture out of the air. Observe.” Havik picked up the small bottle next to the planet and sprayed a gentle mist. Brown tendrils unfurled, revealing delicate filament, each strand as fine a hair. The tendrils moved toward the water, the filaments shivering and the color deepening to a pleasant green.
“Wow. That’s amazing,” Thalia said.
“In small doses. Observe.” He took her hand, watching her face carefully for refusal, and sprayed her palm. He moved it toward the plant and the tendrils latched onto her hand.
“It tickles.” She pulled away, meeting a moment of resistance before the water leech relinquished its grip.
“They are useful and dangerous,” he said. “The roots store water but taste bitter. If you are thirsty enough, the bitterness is nothing. They burrow in the sand. A slow target can easily be overwhelmed by a cluster. Do not camp overnight near a water leech.”
Her eyes went wide. “Am I going to wake up with that thing hugging my face?”
Havik tapped the clear nylon strap that held the potted plant firmly in place. Those measures were to keep the plant stationary, since life on a small vessel could be turbulent, not to stop any moisture stealing from slow-moving vegetation.
Thalia eyed the water leech dubiously. Vanessa would have been thrilled with the specimen.
“As long as it stays on its side of the room, I guess it’s fine. No cleansing room? Shower?”
“Down the hall. It is shared.”
“Oh. Lap of luxury.” She fell back into an overstuffed chair.
“There is only Ren and me onboard. It is not an issue.” The original, cramped facilities that came with the ship had been a problem. Havik had barely been able to squeeze into a cleansing unit, let alone stand up straight. “The facilities were updated, and they are spacious.”
“Commodious, even.” Her lips pulled back to bare her teeth in a Terran smile. Those always appeared so strange to him. “No? Commode? Not even a chuckle? Must be the translator. I refuse to believe you lack a sense of humor, Danger B. The universe didn’t make all that perfection and forget to add a sense of humor.”
His tail twitched again, the barb scraping against his leg. He needed to undo the bindings, purely to alleviate the ache. Not to impress this female. She might flirt shamelessly with him, but he was not interested in a sandy-colored liar and thief.
“Entry into the atmosphere can be turbulent. Use these handles.” He pointed to the nylon straps attached to the wall near the bed and the chair she occupied.
“Sure. That’s what those are for.” She twisted her hand in the strap and gave a tug, then winked. Had her eyes always been the refreshing blue of an oasis? That strap might as well have been attached directly to his cock from the way his body responded.
Fuck.
The cabin was too small. He needed out. The scent of night blossoms carried on the wind from a lush oasis clouded his mind. He couldn’t breathe.
“I have to pilot the ship. Now,” he announced, walking away with dignity and repose because he refused to flee the presence of the annoying attractive female.
The faster they completed this mission, the better.
In the pilot’s seat, Havik fell into the easy rhythm of waking the ship. Despite his initial doubts, Ren’s heap of scrap metal turned into a decent vessel. As if designed just for him, everything he needed to fly smoothly lay in easy reach on the console. For that alone, he would ignore the low ceiling and creaking chair.
He signaled station control to depart. While waiting for clearance, he wondered how Thalia viewed the vessel. Did she see beyond the ragged appearance to find the unpolished gem? Admittedly, he had difficulty at first, unwilling to believe a vessel retrieved from the junkpile could be functional, let alone superior to previous ships he had piloted.
Ren grabbed Havik’s elbow, spinning the chair around. “What is going on with you?” he hissed.
“Nothing. Unhand me.” Havik yanked his arm free.
“You’ve been obsessed with finding your Vanessa for two years. We receive word that she is attached to this warlord’s clan, you cannot find a reason to join his clan fast enough, yet you failed to attend the meeting with the warlord with no warning and no excuse. What was I meant to tell the warlord? Several hours later, you show up with a new female. Explain.” Ren kept his voice low, to prevent being overheard.
“She is no one.” An alert from the console snagged his attention. Station Control indicated that they were free to disembark. “Sit. Unless you enjoy falling to the floor.”
“Do not ignore the question. What happened with Vanessa?” Ren neglected to fasten his safety harness,
a subtle gesture that spoke to Havik. Whatever hard feelings remained between the friends; Ren had confidence in Havik’s piloting skills.
The navigational computer handled departing the station. Havik set a course to land on the planet’s surface and, once again, the computer took control. He kept a watchful eye over the monitors, ready to manually land the ship if need be.
“Vanessa has a new mate,” he said. “It is for the best.”
“What? For two years, it has been nothing but my mate from you.” He pitched his voice low in a mocking tone.
“And every time, you correct me that she is my former mate,” Havik snapped. He loved Ren dearly as a friend, but the male’s constant correction and picking away at Havik had worn down his patience. “I walked past Vanessa in the station and did not recognize her.”
“How is that possible?”
Havik kept his eyes forward, on the console and not on the pitying gaze of his friend. “Because I am the selfish male you have always claimed. I never knew Vanessa. Never cared to. If she were meant for me, truly my mate, I would have known her in an instant, despite changes to her appearance.”
“You did care for her.”
“I cared for the prestige of having a mate.” Havik paused, gathering his thoughts. Ren had a quick wit, could bounce from one topic to the next and run loquacious circles around Havik. Normally this amused him, but it made it difficult when he needed to speak carefully, and Ren wanted to discuss a dozen topics at one.
“I am concerned—”
“Enough,” he growled, warning that his patience was at an end.
Ren tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, then finally pushed himself away. “Do not let the female distract you from our mission.”
“I will not.”
The lights from the console cast a golden glow to Ren’s normal blushing red complexion. His body tensed and his mouth opened as if he had something to say, but then he slammed his mouth shut. “See that it does not,” he said, leaving the helm.
Havik would not be distracted. They needed to complete the mission and win a place in a new clan. Though he was happy on their little ship, he knew Ren needed more. The isolation wore on him, and even if he did not admit it, he craved a mate. Their ship was no place for a mate and family.
There. It was decided. He would not fail. He’d bloody the water to lure out the scum who dared to abduct females from a Mahdfel-protected planet.
Oh. Chummy.
A slow grin spread across his face. He got it now.
Chapter 9
Thalia
The cabin was lovely, if impersonal. The space had been intended for someone other than Thalia. She noticed the way Havik tensed up the moment she touched the bed. No one got that tense when company set their bag down on the guest bed. So, perhaps someone intimately connected but why Thalia was there, and they weren’t was not her business.
The only item of any real interest in the cabin was the moisture-sucking plant. The notion of taking that plant that could suffocate you in your sleep and squeeze you dry like a sponge and putting it in a planter to use as decoration was about the most Mahdfel thing she’d ever heard of.
Aliens were so weird.
She held onto the strap next to the comfy chair as the ship departed the station and waited until the computer gave the all-clear. When it became obvious the ship wasn’t going to fall apart and no one would visit her cabin, she unpacked her toiletries.
The temperature was on the warm side but not suffocating. She’d be wearing short sleeves and no layers.
A brief expedition down the corridor led her to the cleansing room. The shower stall was massive, large enough for three people, and spotless. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. With two bachelors on the ship, something horrific that had never been cleaned. Nope. Wear on the fixtures spoke to the ship’s age—ancient—but the scent of disinfectant hung in the air. Her alien shipmates took care of their ship.
In the shower stall, Thalia leaned in close to examine the control panel. There was no helpful symbol of squiggly lines for water.
“You have been in the shower stall for one minute without activating a cleaning cycle,” a mechanical voice said. “Do you require assistance?”
“Yes, computer. How do I activate a cycle?”
A button lit up on the panel. “Press to activate. Additional selections will customize your cleaning experience.”
“Just a basic shower.”
A basic shower was twenty seconds of a cold mist, followed by the computer ordering her to lather up with soap, followed by another mist and a command to wash her hair. The shower dumped what felt like a bucket of cold water on her, rinsing off the shampoo. At the end, another fine mist surrounded her, this one floral and thick, leaving a layer on her skin and hair like lotion. The entire process took less than five minutes and left her feeling a bit manhandled.
At the sink, she brushed her teeth. The weird lotion made her face feel oily and gross, so she washed it off and applied her own face cream.
Under the harsh lighting, she peered closely at her reflection. She was technically twenty-six years old. So weird. She went into the stasis chamber at twenty-three, and her body was still mostly twenty-three. Her hair had grown out, but the dye job hadn’t faded. She was ghostly pale too. The doctors on the other ship had checked her vitamin levels, so she knew it wasn’t a vitamin D deficiency. She just missed the sun. Three years was a hell of a long time to be stuck inside a box.
On the bright side, she had three new seasons of Galactic Queen to binge. Plus, three years’ worth of new-to-her books from her favorite authors.
Back in the corridor, a monster scurried up to her and reared up on its two hind legs. The front four legs waved in the air. A bright cherry red, it watched her with intelligent eyes. Mandibles opened and closed. The segmented tail curled and flexed.
The monster moved forward.
Thalia screamed, rushing back into the cleansing room, and locking the door.
Holy fuck. What was that thing?
Within moments, someone knocked on the door. “Female, it is safe to come out,” Havik said.
“No way. You want to feed me to that…that thing.” Her teasing went too far, and he released the monster to feast on her bones.
“It is a kumakre, a juvenile one. It is too small to consume you.”
She opened the door. Havik held the creature in his folded arms, belly up, and his free hand rubbed the pale pink abdomen. The tail vibrated, creating a rattling sound, and the six legs slowly waved in the air.
“That’s a child?”
“I have raised it from an egg.”
“You’re telling me that’s harmless?” She eyed the stinger at the end of the tail. No longer panicking, she appreciated how the creature looked like a scorpion but not. The proportions were wrong, like the legs were too long and the head too wide, not that she was an arachnid expert. Besides, scorpions had eight legs, and the thing Havik cuddled had six. Six long, thin legs with splayed paws at the end.
“Oh no. It is a wild creature. I retrieved its egg from a poacher and kept it warm until it hatched. It believes I am its mother and will not harm me. When it is large enough, I will release it back to its natural habitat.”
She was wrong about the decorative murder plant being the most Mahdfel thing ever. Cuddling wild baby scorpion monsters won.
“You have a wild animal as a pet,” she said.
“The kumakre is not a pet. They are endangered. It would have perished in the egg without my intervention.” The not-a-pet happily rattled in Havik’s arms while its paws batted at the tip of his braid.
It was cute, in a horrifying way.
Thalia felt certain there had to be a wildlife rescue organization that could have hatched Havik’s egg, but she kept that thought to herself. “Does it have a name?”
“No. It is a wild creature.”
Right. The kama-whatever’s spirit was indomitable and above such petty things
as names.
“Wait,” she said. “What do you mean it’s too small to consume me?” Havik’s little pet would totally eat her if it could.
With a twinkle in his eye, he strolled away, not answering her question at all. The jerk.
By the time she crawled into the massive bed, exhaustion made her limbs heavy. She tossed and turned to get comfortable at the end of such a long day, but sleep remained elusive.
Too much had happened.
The day started with her desperate not to be sent back to Earth, and now she had a job of sorts, to hunt down the human traffickers. She was glad to be part of the mission, even if her role was bait. On top of all that, she was on a rickety old ship with two strangers. Anything could happen. What if they weren’t the good guys the warlord thought they were? Hell, how could she trust the warlord? The alien’s crew had rescued her from being a permanent icicle but…
No buts. The Mahdfel’s reputation preceded them. When they gave their word, they meant it. Shit got done. Even if they were a little too rule-abiding for Thalia’s tastes.
She was safe with Havik and Ren. Everything else in her life was a huge freaking question mark, but that she knew with certainty.
Scratching sounded at the door. Probably that kama-thing come to nibble on her while she slept.
“Go away.” She rolled over, determined to ignore it.
More scratching followed by a whine.
“Fine.” She stomped across the room and huffed as the door opened.
The animal looked up at her and rattled its tail, then scurried across the floor, directly into the bed. Standing on her pillow, it turned around in a circle before settling down in a tight curl.
“Not a pet, my ass,” she said. Sitting at the edge of the bed, she arranged the cover to make a little nest for the cutie. “If you stay, no eating me. Not cool.”
The cold woke her. That, and Lieutenant Stabs’ claws digging into her stomach as he—she? Thalia had no idea—clung to her for warmth.
Groggy and shivering, Thalia found the blanket floating above her and herself floating a good foot above the bed. Startled, she tried to sit up but spun in place, slowly turning like a roast on a spit. She closed her eyes, fighting dizziness. The blanket tangled around her legs. There had to be something she could do.
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