by Elsa Jade
She stilled, going so frozen that all his senses went on high alert as if at some threat. But when he looked up sharply, her eyes were fixed on him, the hazel hue as hard as stone. “That was wrong,” she said flatly. “You took that kiss when I didn’t want to give it.”
The accusation stung, and he stiffened at the unfamiliar pang of shame. “I take whatever I want. I’m a pirate.”
“Ex-pirate,” she reminded him. “You represent the Duke of Azthronos now.”
It was his turn to scowl as the charge slammed into him with the burning sensation of a blaster hit. And he’d thought she wasn’t a menace… He leaned toward her aggressively—with no smile, so not pervy, by her definition.
“You never take the privateer out of a starship captain,” he growled. “And I took the Grandiloquence because no other commissioned son of a Thorkon noble wanted the deadweight of a repossessed dreadnaught hanging around his neck. Arrogance and indulgence: that is what the Duke of Azthronos represents.”
She stared at him. “Captain—”
“Captain because I won it by right,” he said. “First my own ship in a firefight, then the Grandy in what amounted to a fire sale. You think the duke is so kind and generous, but Raz’s father promised this solar system everything and left ruin in his wake. At least I’m clear about what I take…and what you’ll get in return.”
She nibbled at her bottom lip pensively. “Rayna told us that the duchy had financial issues. That’s why Raz is helping us with the space station.”
Nor grunted, half irritation, half surprise that Raz had been truthful about the situation. The current duke hadn’t been quite so upfront when he’d first been courting Rayna as the de facto leader of the Black Hole Brides. Raz must have decided that transparency was the better option with his Earther girl.
Disgruntled, Nor shifted his backside on the hard sculpted fin and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t listen to everything Raz tells you,” he warned. “The Dukes of Azthronos put their own cares above all else.”
“Rather like pirates,” she murmured.
He glowered at her. “Nothing like,” he snapped. “We claim what is ours even if the blood is impure, even if the circumstances are inconvenient.”
“Who didn’t claim you?”
He sat back further, not quite recoiling, his arms closing tighter around himself. “What?”
“Someone rejected you, didn’t they? That’s why you push, even when you shouldn’t.” In the clear daylight, her mud-puddle eyes gleamed with more green, hinting at some deeper current running underneath her mishkeet exterior. “I haven’t had the universal translator implanted, so I haven’t done as much reading as Lishelle, but I know the irThorkonos in your name means you are half noble.”
He lifted his chin. “And not the good half.”
When she tilted her head, the blonde strands of her hair shifting over her shoulders, he thought uneasily that the gesture looked less like pensiveness and more like an assassin lining up a deadly shot.
“Who was it?” she mused. “Who gave you half your noble blood and none of the nobility?”
He launched to his feet, his boots slamming up a puff of grass turned to ash by the hovercar’s exhaust. “Get your blaster. We’re done here.”
He thought at first she would refuse, and his heartbeat thudded as hard as his boots, wondering how he would force her. If he even could after her withering comments had made him out to be a—what had she called him?—a perv and a brute.
But she rose, grabbed another pastry before he banged the bin closed, and then sauntered over to the range to collect and case her weapon. The day gown swayed gently around her hips, a mocking counterpoint to the chaos churning in his blood. All because of her sudden, unerring counterattack.
That crazed Blackworm had no idea what he’d be up against if he tried to return.
They were airborne, swooping back toward the estate, when she cleared her throat.
“The Duke of Azthronos,” she said.
Nor tightened his grip on the throttle. “What about him?”
“Not Raz. Raz’s father, the old duke. That’s who refused to claim you.” She twisted in her seat to face him.
He knew it was coming, saw the inbound strike, and still it hit hard enough that the hovercar bucked in the spasm of his clenching fist.
Trixie didn’t even flinch as the craft canted sideways, her sharp eyes pinning him in place, as if there was no hovercar or privateer cruiser or flagship dreadnaught fast enough to take him away from her. “You’re the bastard son of the Duke of Azthronos.”
***
She hadn’t meant that to sound quite so gloating. She’d just been trying to figure it out, another confusing mystery in her new universe of strangeness and bewilderment.
The way he stiffened, though, made her realize it wasn’t an idle curiosity to him.
So, Captain Rokal Nor irThorkonos wasn’t the shallow, swaggering, charming, rakish ex-pirate he pretended to be.
Or at least not just that.
He’d righted the hovercar before she had a chance to holler at him, and now his jaw was clenching so hard on whatever it was he wanted to holler at her that she rather feared his head would pop off.
“Whatever you think you’ve guessed—” he started.
“Don’t deny it,” she warned. “I’ve watched more soap operas than you, and this secret baby space opera is one of my favorite stories.”
She stared, fascinated, as the scrunching in his jaw moved down the cords of his neck into his trapezoids, the muscles standing out in sharp relief. He was going to need a serious massage later. She harrumphed to herself—probably the vrykoly engineer would be glad of the extra social instruction.
He cast a sidelong glance at her, his narrowed eyes icy. “I would ask you not to spread that around.”
“You would ask me? Or you are asking me?” Oh, she was bad, taking entirely too much gleeful delight in tormenting him.
“I am asking,” he said, surprisingly not chipping off any of his tight-clamped teeth.
“Like when I asked you to get out of my doorway?” she asked sweetly. He deserved worse, much worse, for questioning her, looming over her, kissing her.
Okay, the kissing part hadn’t been all bad, even if it had kept her awake, squirming in her beautiful Thorkon bed.
He peered at her, his jaw cranked to one side in irritation. “You are enjoying this.”
She curled her lips inward, partly to stop herself from laughing, partly to erase the memory of his mouth on hers. “A little,” she admitted. “You really were being pretty insufferable.”
He grunted, but after a minute, his jaw eased. “But I am pretty?”
She couldn’t help it—she laughed. “And charming. But you know that and use it like a weapon.”
“It’s at least as effective as my illegal blaster on most beings.” He shot her another glance, more assessing this time. “But not on you apparently.”
Her amusement faded. “Seems to me that charming and pretty get used to hide some nasty innards sometimes.” She let out a breath, and for some reason, the exhalation—not so different from the many millions that had come before it—broke a brittle, old barrier in her. “My mother married a man who everyone said was so wonderful. He owned an upscale furniture store that sponsored my church softball team.” She grimaced. “I hated softball, but Mom made me play because he liked it and I needed to make sure he liked us. And I did want him to like me. Turned out, he liked the other girls on the team too much.” She forced herself to explain. “On Earth, there are laws against intimate sexual interactions between adults and underage children. Not sure how it is out here.”
Nor rumbled deep in his throat, a threatening noise. “All sentient beings protect their young. Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Not…like that. When Mom divorced him, he told her I wasn’t pretty enough. The one time I was actually grateful to hear that.”
“I’m sorry,” he m
urmured.
She grimaced, wondering why she’d told him all that. She’d never confessed it to anyone—mostly because she’d stopped going to church after that. “It was a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry for what I did to you more recently.”
With a quick sideways glance, she assessed his expression. He was looking at her, and his face was serious. She’d always been bad at reading people—she’d wanted her new stepdad to like her, hadn’t she?—but she thought maybe Nor was being sincere.
She must’ve been silent a beat too long, because he continued, “I say that not for your forgiveness—I’ve done things that can’t ever be forgiven—but because I am sorry.”
“And you don’t want me to tell anyone that your dad was the Duke of Azthronos.”
“That is a separate matter.” He stared out at the estate on the horizon ahead of them. “I imagine the old duke was much like your mother’s husband: a man of means, used to getting what he wanted. My mother came to the estate on a work permit. And caught the duke’s eye. She does not tell the story quite this way, but I suspect that was her intent. When he was done with her, he rewarded her well. Then she waited until I was old enough to, ah, be some trouble, before approaching him again. That went less well for her. Not only did the duke refuse to see her, or me, he set security on her. Being not a Thorkon native, she was placed on the first outgoing ship and ejected from the system without recourse.”
Imagining a young Nor, mop-headed and defiant—before or after the scar beside his eyes?—Trixie ached to touch his hand, fisted on the throttle, but she’d just been telling him not to manhandle her. Instead, she said, “That’s terrible.”
He let out a snort. “Such terribleness isn’t limited to Azthronos, I know, but this was personal. Especially since my usefulness had proved not particularly useful and my mother left me on the ship when she disembarked.”
“Oh god, that’s beyond awful!” Unable to stop herself this time, Trixie wrapped her fingers around the crook of his elbow and squeezed. Unlike his hand, at least his arm was covered in the sleek fabric of his shirt so she didn’t touch his bare skin. Although she couldn’t help but be aware of the bunched muscle underneath, tensed hard despite his casual tone.
“I would’ve been more angry with her, but in some ways, I understood. She went on with her life, and the ship went on its way. When they docked at the next stop, they sold me off to an unaffiliated questionable commerce merchant cruiser—”
She laid one fingertip on the point of her chin. “Mm-hmm. A pirate ship?”
“A pirate ship,” he confirmed. “But they taught me a trade. Although we weren’t exactly trading…” He wriggled the fingers of one hand dismissively.
“And then you came back here.”
“I heard the duchy was in trouble.” His teeth flashed in a sardonic smile. “And by then, I’d mastered trouble.”
She could see that well enough. It wasn’t the sort of thing that usually impressed her, that bad boy swagger, but imagining what he’d gone through—rejected by his father, abandoned by his mother, sold by people who should’ve helped him—she understood why he’d lacquered on that hard, shiny veneer.
“Your father must’ve been impressed with how far you’d come,” she murmured.
“The old duke was dead,” Nor said flatly. “Bad timing, huh?”
She winced. “Yeah.” To never have the satisfaction of showing off his success must’ve been bitter.
“I bought my commission off the dowager duchess,” he continued. “She needed the money. I wanted the Grandy.” He shrugged. “That was a good trade.”
“Does she know who you are?” Trixie had met the dowager duchess officially once and seen her a few times after that from afar. The dignified old noblewoman didn’t seem the sort to sell off a family heirloom to a stranger, no matter how much money he had or how impoverished the duchy was.
Nor frowned. “I didn’t think so, not at first. How could she? The old duke wouldn’t have told her. But she has said some things since that make me wonder how far she checked into my heritage.”
Trixie nodded. “I think she’d blow the Grandiloquence out of the sky herself before giving it to someone unworthy.”
His lips quirked in a reluctant smile. “You might be right at that.” He guided the hovercar toward the landing pad on the edge of the estate grounds. “So can I trust you to keep my bloodline a secret?”
“It’s not my secret to tell.” She didn’t notice any particular relaxation of the tension in his body—and she realized he was watching that she was watching his body a little too closely—but she suspected he wasn’t the sort to give his trust easily. “Does your brother know?”
“My brother?” Nor’s brow burrowed.
“Raz,” she prodded. “Does he know?”
Nor scowled. “He’s Blood Champion of Zalar, Avatar of Azjor, God of Oaths, not my brother.”
“Half-brother then,” she said impatiently.
“He’s not that either,” Nor said with a grunt. “Brotherhood is more than blood.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Maybe if you explained to him—”
“Explained to him? I try to not even talk to him.” Nor landed the hovercar with more of a thump than she would’ve expected from a starship captain. His under-breath growl told her he assessed it the same way.
He swiveled in his seat to face her. “I’m asking you to not tell even the other Black Hole Brides,” he said stiffly. “Will you promise me?”
She tilted her head. It felt strange—a little intoxicating, a lot reckless—to have such power over a powerful man. “Stop calling us Black Hole Brides. We didn’t marry the damn thing. And yes, I promise.”
He let out a short, sharp breath and sat back. “Thank you.”
That sounded even more grudging to her than his attempt at trust. “But I do think you should tell him.”
Nor drummed his fingers on the throttle, as if he wanted to shove it into gear again and take off. “No thank you,” he grumbled. “He wouldn’t want anything to do with me, any more than his father did.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re judging fairly.”
“He’s a nobleman. All they do is judge.”
“From what Rayna has said, Raz was sent away from here too. I suspect he had his own problems with the old duke.” She gazed at Nor steadily. “You might have more in common than just half your blood.”
“Get your blaster,” he said. “And don’t shoot at me again.”
She didn’t think he meant shooting with the blaster this time.
Side by side, they walked from the landing pad to the estate. Being back under its protective energy dome let her relax a little. Although…when she’d been with Nor, some of that anxiety had been missing. She just hadn’t noticed because she’d been preoccupied with him.
They paused in the grand foyer, where large shrubbery pruned into strict geometric shapes framed the doorway, and she wondered at her sudden reluctance to leave him. She had her blaster, fully charged in its case, and he’d admitted she was good enough to carry it; she didn’t need anything else from him.
She wondered why he was pausing. Was he still seething that she’d figured out his secret?
He checked something on the small dat-pad strapped to his forearm and at first she thought he was talking to it when he cleared his throat and said, “If you get worried about Blackworm or…anything else, summon me.” He glanced up at her, his pale eyes barred by the shadows of his long lashes.
Summon him? What, like a pirate genie?
She shifted her weight from one slipper to the other. “Uh, how?”
“Your dat-pad. I’ll send a private link now.”
“I don’t have one.”
“A link address?”
“A dat-pad. Without a universal translator, they don’t work as well.”
He grumbled under his breath while he detached the device. “Get the translator. Unless you are goi
ng back to Earth.” He shot her another shadowed look.
She lifted her shoulders around her ears, half shrug, half hiding. “Lishelle and I are waiting to talk to Rayna when she gets back from the system tour with Raz.”
“You said Lishelle already has a translator implanted. Apparently she’s not going back.”
Trixie glanced away. “I guess not.” She startled when Nor took her hand.
He strapped the dat-pad around her wrist. “There. Now you can call me.”
“But you won’t have one.” She touched the display but mostly she was aware of the heat of his body clinging to the underside of the plasteel case and the band that pressed against her pulse point.
“I’ll get another. Speak into it so it recognizes your inputs.”
“Uh.” She lifted the pad. “Hello? Testing, testing.”
He smiled. “Good enough. My contacts are in there. If you need me, just say my name and I’ll come.”
A flush of warmth seemed to wash outward from the device through her body. He was just being nice, she knew, but…
Nice was underrated in the universe.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He nodded once. “I ordered some security updates before we left that I need to check on. You’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t sure if he was asking or telling, but she nodded too. Dat-pad, blaster, protective energy shield over the entire estate.
What could go wrong?
Chapter 6
Everything was going wrong.
Between confirming the security status for the estate, checking on the Grandy’s maintenance progress, and fielding not one but three blunt messages from the Duke of Azthronos about conditions at the ducal seat, Nor spent the whole day and into the night in one of the house’s lesser offices dealing with…business.
He wasn’t a businessman, not an estate lackey. He was a pirate captain.
Ex-pirate, came a whisper in his head.
Trixie’s whisper.
