Sky Hunter

by Fae Sutherland

  “Yes, including yourself.”

  Jeret clenched his jaw, trying to resist snapping at him. It wasn’t going to do any good.

  “I notice you’ve stopped sounding like an uneducated plebe.”

  Jeret blinked. He hadn’t even done it consciously. It was as if Dagan reminded him so much of home that all those old habits, including oh-so-proper grammar, slipped back into place. He shrugged. “When in Rome, I guess.”

  Dagan frowned. “What?”

  “Sorry. I had a friend who loved Old Earth. He had all these stupid sayings.” Christ, Jeret missed Cookie right then. He’d know what to do or, if not, he’d let Jeret sprawl on his bunk and stare up at the Old Earth posters on the ceiling and forget about what was worrying him.

  “Had?”

  Jeret cast Dagan a wary look, then sighed. “He fell in love. Jerk. Went and settled down and is, like, raising sheep now or something.”

  Dagan laughed, sitting back down on his bunk. “Cattle, actually. You mean Killian, right?”

  “How do you know about him?”

  Dagan shrugged, gesturing to the desk in the corner and its chair. Jeret sat. “I didn’t get to meet him, but it was Neith who led me right to you.”

  Jeret laughed. “Christ. That boy has caused more trouble for this ship and its crew. Hell, he was the reason Rain ended up on board, then he got tangled up in the slaver fiasco and now he’s sent you here to drag me back to Hadrian to get slaughtered by some power-hungry traitor. Remind me to thank Cookie for marrying the troublemaker and getting him off Annie.”

  It wasn’t Neith’s fault, really. The kid—and Jeret called him that even though Neith was at least four years older than he was—meant well. Probably he’d been bragging about Jeret and Annie and how they’d saved him. He was always crowing about that, even though it made Jeret squirm because he wasn’t a freaking hero. Luckily, Neith saved his real hero worship for Cookie.

  “Stay away from my friends. Hell, stay away from me, Dagan.”

  Dagan gave him a weary sort of smile. “You know I can’t do that.”

  Jeret did know. Unfortunately. “So what do we do, then?”

  “We? I’m bringing you home, Jeret. There is no we.”

  God, he was so stubborn. At least he’d finally begun calling Jeret by his name. That was something. “Fine. If you’re counting on Torin and Rain selling me out, you’re counting wrong. So you’ll go back to my father empty-handed, the traitors will get what they want and I’ll go back to living the life I choose, not the one chosen for me. The only one who won’t be getting what they want in that equation, Dagan, is you.” Unless... Jeret scrubbed a hand over his face. “Unless we find a way to work together.”

  Dagan let out a sharp laugh. “Work together? You’ve gone from wanting me trussed up in my cargo bay to wanting to work with me?”

  “I don’t want to work with you, but Christ, I know what a stubborn son of a bitch you are when you get it into your freaking head that your all-important honor and duty are on the line. I’d have to kill you to stop you now.”

  “And you don’t want to? Your pilot friend might be averse to killing, Jeret, but I get the feeling you’re not quite as softhearted anymore. If you ever were.”

  “Well, I’m not now, that’s for sure. But Christ, Dagan, I don’t want to kill you. And if you stop acting like Mr. Alpha Jackass, I won’t have to. We could both get what we want.”

  “How?”

  “Look, you want me back on Hadrian. You said yourself that you never promised I’d stay, just that you’d bring me. So, fine. I’ll go. But only if you’ll help me find out who’s behind the smuggling, because I guarantee that person is also planning a power grab when my father di—” Jeret cut off after a second and then picked up again. “So if you agree to help me, I’ll agree to help you. And if you think about it, it helps you in two ways.”

  Dagan didn’t look convinced. “How’s that?”

  Jeret gave him a superior look. “You’re so high on it being your ‘duty’ to protect me, it wouldn’t sit right with your honor if you dragged me back to Hadrian only to have me offed by the traitor for being an impediment to his plan, would it?”

  He could tell by the look on Dagan’s face that he had him pegged. Dagan looked pissed.

  “Somehow I think you could handle yourself.”

  Jeret grinned. “I probably could, but you can’t take that chance. So welcome to the team, Dagan. Are you as poor a team player as you used to be?”

  “No more so than you. I have no idea how you’ve lasted this long playing at being some roughneck mechanic.”

  Jeret’s grin faded. “It’s not playing, Dagan. This is who I am.”

  Dagan didn’t say anything for a minute, then nodded. “Maybe it is. So what’s the plan, then?”

  Jeret almost stopped him from changing the subject, something about the way Dagan had looked at him there—curious and a little confused—but it was gone a split second later and Jeret pushed his own curiosity aside. This wasn’t a reunion. This was business, when it came down to it.

  “Like it or not, the captain has taken on this delivery and we can’t just leave it here or not deliver it. Shengo is more trouble than most in the In-Between.”

  “I know. But letting you walk into that viper’s den isn’t exactly going to sit right with my duty either.”

  Jeret shook his head. “I bet not. So we won’t be going.”

  Dagan sat forward a little. “Sorry?”

  “You and I won’t be going on the delivery stretch of this job. We’ll be going to Hadrian.”

  “Excuse me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you just insist going there was a fucking death sentence?”

  Jeret just grinned. He loved figuring out the right plan, loved it even more when the badasses he was surrounded by didn’t have plans nearly as good. “I’ll explain, but there’s no point in doing it twice. Come on, I’m sure Rain and Torin are in the cockpit.” They almost always were these days. Jeret just hoped he and Dagan didn’t get an eyeful of captain ass in the process.

  He half expected Dagan to argue with him, but instead the other man seemed to accept that he had a plan and he was willing to go along, at least for the moment. Surprising. Dagan always gave off such an in-charge vibe.

  Maybe there was more to Dagan than met the eye. That was a dangerous thought. Jeret could handle a shallow, one-dimensional bounty hunter with one goal in mind. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to think about how to handle the man who not only brought back every youthful fantasy Jeret had ever had in vivid detail, but also wasn’t a complete and total jackass.

  * * *

  “So let me get this straight. You’re agreeing to go back to Hadrian with him?” The captain’s tone was as incredulous as Dagan had been. But the more Dagan thought about Jadi’s plan, the more it made sense.

  If there really was someone angling to take the throne in the midst of the chaos after the king’s death, then Jadi was right. He’d be another casualty in a traitor’s path to planetary control.

  “It makes sense,” Dagan interjected. “You and Rain bring Shengo his merch while Jadi and I do our thing to find out who’s behind the scenes orchestrating all of this. It’s got to be connected—the gradium, the royal guards, the king’s illness—I didn’t want to believe it, but there’s no other explanation. Someone’s maneuvering to claim the throne and if that happens there’s no limit to the power they’ll have, controlling the gradium trade, with the C.O.P. in their pocket because of it.”

  Torin’s expression was thoughtful. He glanced at Jadi. “You trust him?”

  Dagan frowned. “It’s my duty to protect him.”

  “And your job to bring him back to daddy. Which duty are you going to fulfill, Dagan?” Rain asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “It’s a v
alid question, Jeret. He could just take you right to your father and wash his hands of the whole situation.” Torin gave Dagan a long look, then flicked his gaze to Jadi. “I don’t think he will, though. He seems to take this protection thing more seriously than he does his job. But if you have any reservations, say the word. I’ll shoot him out the air lock in a heartbeat.”

  Jadi chuckled. “Like you’ve threatened me a hundred times?”

  “What?” These people threatened Jadi? Dagan’s protectiveness rose, snarling inside him.

  It was cut short when Jadi sighed. “Joke, Dagan, put the claws away. And yeah, Captain, I trust him. At least in this.”

  For some reason, that made Dagan stand a little straighter, despite the caveat Jadi put on it. Maybe because it’d been so long since anyone had seen him as anything but an unscrupulous bounty hunter or maybe because Jadi was a part of his past, a part he’d spent the last six years unable to forget.

  Torin didn’t say anything for a minute, then nodded. “We’ll finish up planning and restocking today, get some sleep and in the morning, Dagan, you and Jeret will head for Hadrian while Rain and I finish the delivery to Shengo. Jeret, do you think you can tweak one of your digger programs to get into Shengo’s system and maybe find out who he’s working with?”

  “Digger program?” Dagan found it all but impossible to keep up with the latest and greatest in terms of tech.

  “Yeah, diggers. Dig up information? They’re like a virus except they don’t damage anything, just filter through to find a specific bit of data and then get out. Hacker recon, basically.”

  Clever. But then, Jadi always had been.

  “So can you? And show me how to deliver it without getting, well, dead?” Torin smirked. “I’d prefer the not-dead version.”

  “Yeah, I should be able to. I’ll have to find out what kind of system Shengo’s running—chances are it’s airtight and state-of-the-art. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Dagan glanced around at them. “So we’re a go, then?”

  Torin nodded, as did Jadi. “We’re a go,” Rain agreed.

  “I’ll get to work on the digger.”

  “I’ll go with you.” He wasn’t entirely sure Jadi might still decide to run.

  “I don’t need a damn keeper. I already agreed to go with you, you don’t have to hover.”

  “Knowing you? Hovering is the only way to keep you out of trouble. And whether you need a keeper or not, you have one. Me.”

  Rain snickered. “We’ll just leave you two alone. Have fun, kiddo.”

  Jadi glared after the two as they disappeared toward the cargo bay, probably to take stock of what supplies might be needed. Then Jadi turned the glare on Dagan.

  “Save the dirty looks, Highness. I’m your fucking shadow from here on out.”

  If looks could kill, Dagan would be halfway to the other side of the moon thanks to the look the prince threw him before storming in the direction of the engine room. Dagan didn’t even blink, following him a second later. He wasn’t going to lose him again. Jadi was his ticket back to the life he’d lost and nothing, not even a political coup, was going to get in the way of that.

  Chapter Four

  “Motherfucking son of a whore!”

  Dagan straightened from where he’d been crouching and admiring the work Jeret had done on the engine. “Classy, Jadi.” He immediately winced at his mistake. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the name Jadi had chosen for himself.

  As expected, the use of his birth name had the prince glaring at him from where he hunched over a series of console screens that, to Dagan, appeared to be filled with gibberish and looked as though they’d been pieced together with spit and wishes.

  He held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Habit. It’s been twenty-four hours. Give me a break.”

  Jadi heaved a sigh and pushed away from the console. “Whatever. It’s not freaking working anyway. To the surprise of no one ever, Shengo has the most advanced grid security the In-Between has to offer. Shit.”

  Dagan couldn’t help a little smile. It was rare to see the young man anything but completely confident, even cocky. With good reason, of course. Dagan had never seen anyone so in tune with machines and tech. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

  Jadi gave him a surprised look. “Don’t start being nice now, it’ll ruin my impression of you.”

  Dagan chose to ignore the implication that he’d never been nice to Jadi. They both knew that wasn’t true. They’d been friends once. “You could sidestep an entire planetary security grid. You can do this.” He stretched his legs out. “I have to admit, as angry as I was, I was pretty fucking impressed too. You just poof! disappeared and it was like there’d never even been a Jadikira at all. No trace of you. Did you intentionally wipe your record from the system or was that a glitch?” He suspected it’d been anything but.

  Jadi shrugged one shoulder, lips twitching. “Might have been on purpose. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t help in the long run, but in the short-term it must have made it hard to search for me in the early stages without a proper record or even any official identity images to work with. What’d you do, scan the portrait my father had hung in the hall?” Jadi snickered a little at the idea.

  “Actually, it didn’t hinder us at all. You wiped all mention of you and accompanying images from the planetwide system and internal grid, but you didn’t think of everything, smart-ass.”

  Jadi tilted his head, dark eyes intrigued. “What did I forget?”

  “Personal collections. Mine, to be exact.”

  Jadi blinked. “You kept pictures of me?” Then smirked. “Like ’em young, do you?”

  Dagan scowled at him. “It wasn’t like that and you know it. Are you telling me you didn’t have pictures of me? We were friends.”

  Jadi rolled his eyes. “Sure, I had pictures of you, but I also had a huge cr—” He cut off abruptly, cheeks going ruddy before he ducked his head and spun around to go back to tapping furiously at his keyboard.

  Dagan slowly straightened in his chair. “You what? You had a what, Jadi?” But he didn’t need the young man to answer. He knew what Jadi had been about to say.

  For years, Dagan had been completely clueless about Jadi’s feelings. Their relationship, such as it was, hadn’t been like that. It’d been complicated. Hell, it still was. Jadi had been too young then and now he seemed so much older than his years. Jaded, angry. Most of that anger directed right at Dagan himself.

  “I’m smarter now, trust me. You don’t have to worry about some little boy’s hero worship bothering you now, that’s for sure.”

  Dagan didn’t buy that. Did he? “Really? So I’m suddenly not even remotely your type, huh?” Had so much changed in the last five years? Once upon a time, he’d been Jadi’s type—he’d kind of defined Jadi’s type when Jadi had just been coming into his own sexuality.

  Jadi’s chin lifted. “Not even a little. I like men with soul—in touch with their emotions, not all corked up like a hundred-year-old bottle of Noridian whiskey, sour and gross.”

  Men with soul? What did that even mean? Fucking poets or something? Jadi went around fucking those assholes who stood on ratty bar stages and sang about a lover’s touch? Well, shit, that just pissed him off. He hated those types. Hated them even more now that he knew one of them, or more, had gotten to touch Jadikira.

  “You saying I’m sour and gross, Jadikira?”

  Jadi shrugged. “What if I am?”

  Little bitch. He unfolded himself from the chair he’d been sprawled in, amused at how Jadi’s eyes darted to him, wary and suspicious. Dagan closed the distance between them in two long strides, and though he could tell Jadi was on edge, he had to give the boy credit—he didn’t back away or even appear overtly flustered. If Dagan didn’t know him so well, he wouldn’t be a
ware of Jadi’s nerves either. But oh, those nerves were all lit up, sizzling with tension and Dagan couldn’t help the urge to play with the sparks a little.

  “So tell me about your crush.”

  * * *

  Jeret’s heart stopped. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “No need for that when the Crown Prince himself wants a piece of me.”

  Freaking Christ, how was Dagan still so good at reading him after all these years? “Not if you were the last bounty hunter in all of the In-Between. And even then I’d have to think long and hard about it.” Jeret tapped furiously on the keyboard. “Pig.”

  Maybe he thought Jeret was still the same moonstruck kid with more hormones than sense, but he was dead wrong. Made Jeret want to teach him a damn lesson. The thought no sooner crossed his mind than he decided he was going to do exactly that.

  “So you’re going to ignore me?” Dagan leaned against the wall next to the console and lifted his foot to nudge Jeret’s chair. “Seems a little childish. Weren’t you just yelling at the others for treating you like a kid?”

  Jeret cast him a sidelong look, annoyance bubbling inside him. “You can poke all you want, it’s not going to work.”

  “What is it you think I’m after, Highness?”

  “A reaction.”

  Dagan grinned. “If I wanted that I could have one.”

  “Yeah?” The challenge was blatant in his voice and if Jeret knew anything about Dagan, it was that he couldn’t resist a challenge any more than a drunk could resist an open bottle. Come on, badass, let’s see what you’ve got.

  “Yeah.”

  Gotcha.

  Before Jeret could blink, Dagan grabbed his chair by the arms and yanked it close, leaning forward over it to claim Jeret’s mouth in a heated kiss. Christ, he was quick. Someone so big shouldn’t be so fast. His hands came up to Dagan’s chest, fisting in his jacket but he didn’t push him away. No, let him go all Neanderthal, that was just fine. If Dagan thought that kind of thing was what worked to get Jeret into bed, the man needed more practice thinking.