“What is this?” she asked.
“I have no idea, but it tastes okay,” Custer cheerfully informed her.
“Is it poisoned?”
“Why would I poison it?”
Delphine sighed. “You have something of a reputation.”
“Oooh,” Custer said, looking thrilled as he dropped down to sit beside her, laying the bottles on the ground in between them. “Tell me more.”
“That you’re widely considered to be a homicidal maniac?” she asked, dipping a spoon into the mug, which appeared to contain rice in some sort of sauce.
“Oh, that’s all,” he said. “I was hoping someone came up with something new.”
“Why?” Delphine popped the spoon into her mouth. Custer had been right. The food was both unidentifiable and okay tasting.
“We’re at the end of an empire, I fear,” Custer said, sighing dramatically. “Imagination has died out. Instead, we recycled old grudges and old insults from our forefathers. It all gets boring very fast. We are witnessing the inevitable decline.”
“That so?” Delphine asked.
“It is. We can travel at the speed of light, but we can’t be interesting. Ah, civilization, you meant well, I suppose.”
“You know,” Delphine said thoughtfully, chewing. “I’ve met a lot of guys like you to cover up the fact that they’re secretly a mess.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed and scooped up more rice-and-mystery-sauce. “You’re not one of them.”
Custer laughed. “Thank you.”
She studied him. He was unlike anyone she had ever met, and she had yet to decide if that was a good or bad thing. She was sure he wasn’t actually a psychopath, just a dramatic asshole, but he had a sort of charisma around him that stopped her from looking away. It was the kind that didn’t mesh well with others, but was intoxicating when it did. Whether they loved or hated him, Delphine doubted many people forgot meeting Custer. It was a shame he’d gotten on the bad side of Mason. Removing someone like him from the galaxy seemed like it’d make the whole thing darker.
“So, how long do we have until Mason sends someone else to kill us?” Custer asked as though he knew what she was thinking.
Delphine refused to allow herself to react to the name. Instead, she went through all the people who had the power to find that out in the short amount of time she’d been on the ship and dearly hoped that none of them were correct.
“I’m not sure,” she said instead. “It’ll depend on how long it takes them to find you again. The only reason they could in the first place was because they were already familiar with the U4 route.”
“That’s good, then,” Custer said, tapping his finger on his chin. “We’re good at not being found. It’ll give us time to figure something else out, at least.”
“They won’t engage you anywhere with a significant amount of water,” she told him. “They know what the ship can do.”
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. The last time we had to use that particular function was interesting, but not something I want to repeat right now.”
Delphine cocked her head. “Was that when you killed Strathmore?”
“I didn’t kill him personally. But yes,” Custer said, setting his mug down. “How did you know about that, exactly?”
His eyes were suddenly very, very cold. His apparent protective streak really shouldn’t have been attractive but, to Delphine’s chagrin, it was.
“It was easy enough. Anyanka Heathcoat was announced as Strathmore’s fiancée. A week later, she disappears. A day later, Strathmore’s dead and she’s reappeared on the Breakwater,” Delphine spooned the last of her food into her mouth, forcing herself to seem uncaring even as the intensity of Custer’s gaze sent tingles down her spine.
“And how many others know this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “I don’t do the research.”
“And why should I believe you?”
Delphine shrugged. “No point in lying. You won’t be able to get away from whoever they send next.”
“We’ll see,” Custer said distantly, his smile gone. “I’m going to go check in with the captain.”
With that, he stood and grabbed the mugs and spoons and walked into the main body of the ship.
Delphine sat alone with the two bottles of water for the moment, then sighed and stretched out. She lay staring at the ceiling until she felt less full, then stripped off her over shirt and started a set of pushups. She alternated between working out and resting, not seeing a point in interacting with the crew. She splashed some of the water on herself to keep herself as clean as she could and saved the other to drink. Eventually, she went back to sleep, the bitter taste of failing to accomplish anything coating her mouth.
The next few days passed similarly. At some point, someone would bring her food. When not eating, she would meditate, sleep, or work out.
Out of everyone who brought her food, the only one who stayed to talk was Custer, who seemed to have brushed off the conversation about Strathmore. He sat with her, telling her bad jokes and detailing ludicrous jobs they’d had, not seeming to mind when she didn’t provide information about her own life. He filled in the silences and after a few days, Delphine was horrified to realize that she’d grown ridiculously fond of him.
He was prattling on about something to do with engine failures when she realized she was smiling a little helplessly, no trace of irritation in her mind. It was more than not minding if he was there. She actively didn’t want him to go.
Her blood froze. She had been so sure she had recovered from Ramirez’s faulty methods of raising her cluster, but here she was. Swallowing down bile, she tried to force the feeling away through sheer willpower. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice cutting through her reverie. His eyes were uncharacteristically earnest and despite her impending panic it made something warm in her stomach bloom.
“Absolutely fine,” she said. “Go on.”
He gave her a suspicious look but continued his story. He stayed for what Delphine estimated to be another hour and the whole time she sat beside him, smiling and nodding at the right places and settling into the realization she was attached.
She was as glad as she was disappointed when he left. The time alone was helpful for getting her mind back in order but cut too short when Heathcoat and Kane walked in. Delphine raised an eyebrow. She’d seen neither hide nor hair of them since the first day.
“Hello,” Heathcoat said. “I’m Annie, this is Zosha. Custer says you know what all of our real names are. I advise you not use them. Come with us.”
“Why?” Delphine asked, standing up. She was a few inches taller than Kane—Zosha—and Heathcoat—Annie.
“You need a shower. Custer’s managed to convince the rest of the crew that you should eat dinner with us. Apparently, the problem is that we haven’t gotten to know you and not that you nearly killed Zosha.”
“I’m willing to forgive and forget as long as you don’t try it again,” Zosha said, dark eyes wide. The bruise had faded to a sickly yellow color.
“And I’m willing to see how this plays out. Now, are you going to try and kill us the second we turn our backs?” Annie asked.
“No. It would, I think, go poorly. Anyways, Mason will send a team as soon as they find you, so I would be wasting my effort for nothing,” she told them honestly.
“Well, that wasn’t as reassuring as I’d hoped,” Annie said. “Alright, come on.”
Delphine followed the other two women down a corridor and into one of the rooms. It was a bedroom, clean except for the desk.
“Bathroom’s through there,” Annie said, gesturing. “I’ll have another change of clothes laid out for you when you’re done.”
Delphine considered, for a moment, attacking. She dismissed the idea almost immediately. Neither of them struck her as stupid enough to let her in the room with them if they didn’t think t
hey could stop her from attacking, and Delphine had no desire to find out what the collar felt like when it was activated. A quiet, traitorous part of her mind added that if she hurt either of them, Custer would be upset.
She stepped into the bathroom, stripped, and showered with a learned efficiency. The sonics felt good as they wiped away the remaining sweat and grit of the previous days. She scraped her nails through her close-cropped hair and behind her ears, rolling her shoulders to feel the muscles relax. Satisfied, she stepped out and wrapped a towel around her torso before exiting the bathroom.
Sure enough, Annie had laid a new outfit on the bed. Delphine dropped the towel and pulled it on, the others politely looking away. The clothing was a bit tight—she was slightly taller than Annie and had more muscle—but she was hardly in a position to complain.
“Alright, let’s go,” Zosha said. “I think we’re having miso tonight and if we don’t get there on time Dom will steal it all.”
As they walked into the hallway, Annie turned to Delphine. “Alright. Leo, you can call Leo, Ingram, Captain Ingram, or Captain. He really doesn’t care. Other than that, the others are Hyde, Dominic, and Rick. That is what they like to be called. Please remember that. It’ll make dinner less awkward.”
“Well, I’m glad my intent to murder your entire crew isn’t the most awkward thing about dinner,” Delphine said.
“Also, please don’t try to kill anyone,” Zosha added helpfully. “But if you do, go for Hyde. He’s being an asshole and making me do all the boring codes.”
“Life’s hard,” Annie said.
“I still don’t know why this is happening in the first place,” Delphine told them.
Annie sighed. “Custer vouched for you, and that’s not nothing. The boys have all had to get used to being able to rely on each other’s judgment to survive. They probably won’t be nice about it, but they trust him enough that they’re willing to give this a chance.”
“I see,” Delphine said, trying to figure out how that web of trust must work.
“You get used to it,” Zosha told her as they entered the kitchen. The shifters were already seated, Dominic already working his way through a bowl of soup as promised. They looked up when Delphine, Annie, and Zosha entered, faces ranging from distaste to indifference with Custer’s huge smile being the outlier.
“Alright, no one start shit,” Annie said, taking her seat next to the captain. “Someone serve.”
Rick leaned in and began pouring the soup into bowls, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Zosha’s cheek as he handed one to her. Custer snagged two and gave one to Delphine, who had dropped into the seat beside him.
“So, Delphine,” Hyde said conversationally, “how goes it on the ‘psychopathic assassin’ front?”
“Hyde, what did I just say?” Annie asked sweetly.
“What? We’re all going to pretend she didn’t try to kill us now?”
“No,” Annie replied through gritted teeth, “we are attempting to work with her to avoid the second wave. Now, be. Civil.”
“And as the only person here who she actually got close to killing, I say we focus on what Annie just said,” Zosha added. “You guys have all tried to kill each other at some point, and you’re all fine now.”
“We’re being open and accepting,” Custer said, his smile only mildly threatening.
Hyde snorted and said nothing else. No one else seemed inclined to start a conversational thread, and the quiet loomed for a moment.
“So, Delphine,” Zosha said awkwardly, filling the silence, “where are you from?”
“Mason,” Delphine answered, poking at her soup with the spoon. It seemed safe.
“No, I mean, where did you live before you started working for Mason?” Zosha clarified.
“I was raised in one of the Mason buildings,” she said. “What did you say this was again?”
“Seaweed, tofu, and soy paste. So your parents worked for them?” Zosha scrunched her nose.
Delphine frowned, trying to calculate the nutritional gain from the soup. “If by parents, you mean the people who donated their genetic material to my existence, then yes.”
Annie snorted. “Not close, I take it.”
“I never met our ‘father,’ and our ‘mother’ was removed when it was decided she had an inappropriate emotional connection to us.” Delphine took a bite of the soup. It was salty, but decent for space food.
“Wait, I’m sorry,” Hyde said, leaning in. “‘Emotional connection?’ Also, if you weren’t raised by your parents, how did you grow up at a Mason center and not, like, an orphanage?”
“Mason sank too much time and money into my cluster’s creation, even after some executives raised concerns about how our ‘mother’ raised us. She got upset when we felt pain,” Delphine explained. “And the prospect of us dying alarmed her. Our training suffered, and when our results were significantly lower than other clusters an investigation was launched and we were reassigned to a trainer who was capable of completing the required curriculum.” Delphine forced her mind to shut out the memory of trainer Ramirez’s warm brown eyes, the ghostly pressure of arms around her and a voice telling her someone loved her, the way she’d screamed when the guards dragged her out of the dormitory. She’d called them her children. How foolish.
“Okay, so when you say ‘creation…’” Zosha trailed off. Everyone at the table was staring at Delphine, food forgotten.
“Mason decided it wanted to branch out from making prosthetics to making entire beings. You must have noticed my irregular biology,” Delphine said. “Do you have the nutritional information for this by any chance?”
“What you’re saying sounds a lot like creating artificial life,” Annie said slowly, “which is very, very illegal.”
Delphine shrugged. “You came to blows with them over U4 trade. They obviously aren’t very concerned with legality. They needed loyal, skilled, combat-trained guards to protect their interests. The most efficient way to get them was to make them. I don’t consider my life to be artificial, if that makes a difference to you.”
“What are you, exactly?” Dominic asked, eyes narrow.
“Human, mostly. My cluster was from the round of experimentation with wolf splices. I’m told there were high hopes for us. We were promising until trainer Ramirez failed to follow protocol.”
“So they made you, and they trained you to kill people, and they just send you out whenever they want?” Zosha asked, eyes wide. “That’s horrible!”
“Not particularly,” Delphine said. “It just…is.”
“What happened to the rest of you cluster?” Zosha demanded, her eyes shining.
“I am the last one,” Delphine told her, a familiar cold sweeping through her. “The others were flawed.”
“And you aren’t flawed,” Hyde said softly.
“Of course not,” Delphine bit out. “I overcame my upbringing. My record is impeccable.”
There was a moment of horrified silence. Delphine sat perfectly still, every nerve on edge. Custer’s smile was still on his face, but barely, and his eyes were distant.
“Leo,” Annie said in a low, controlled voice, “I think this needs to become a discussion.”
“What do you mean, a discussion?” Zosha burst out. “We can’t let them get her back!”
Joel (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 5) Page 18
