by Sadie Carter
“That is good. Because love and romance are things I also know nothing about. The one thing I am sure of is that you are mine, Willa.”
He was serious. She’d kind of convinced herself that he’d been out of his mind when he’d said those things. How could he know she was his with one touch?
Stupid.
Well, he was in for a shock if he thought she’d just accept this, fall at his feet and beg him to take her. He might be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen, but she didn’t want a man in her life. She had worked hard to earn her place on this crew and she wasn’t going to run off with the first cute man who looked twice at her.
“I can’t be your mate. We don’t know each other. We don’t even like each other.”
“I like you.” There was a hint of offense in his voice.
“How can you like someone you’ve just met? How can you want to tie your life to mine? I might be a horrible person.”
His gaze softened. That crazy side of his wasn’t even evident at the moment. He looked normal. Except for the fact that he was freakin’ huge and devastatingly gorgeous. “You are not a horrible person.”
“Yeah? Sure about that? Maybe I make little children cry and kick puppies.” She didn’t, of course. What kind of sicko kicked puppies? She’d seen images of puppies. They were gorgeous, fluffy, and so cute. If she were lucky enough to ever see one she certainly wouldn’t kick it.
“Puppy?”
“It’s a pet on Earth. Cute and cuddly. I wanted one when I was little, but they don’t have puppies on Joyadan and even if we did Rye wouldn’t let me keep one as a pet.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because we don’t keep pets on Joyadan. Animals all have a use. A pet isn’t useful, it just costs money to feed.”
“That seems harsh.”
She shrugged. “Rye wasn’t telling me anything that I wouldn’t have soon learned.”
“How old were you?”
“Five.”
She didn’t like the look in his eyes. She didn’t take sympathy from anyone.
There was a bang on the door. “Time’s up,” she said. “I can’t be your mate, Darac.”
She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t leaving because she found it hard to think clearly in his presence or because she was imagining leaning in to kiss him, touch him.
Nope, that’s not why she ran out of there as though the fires of hell were licking at her feet.
***
A sudden jolt brought Darac out of his meditation attempts. He opened his eyes, turning to gaze at his guard. While Deacon looked half-asleep, Darac noted the tension in his shoulders.
“We are moving.” He sat up, ignoring the way the Deacon stiffened and raised his blaster.
“Sit down,” Deacon ordered.
Darac stared at him for a long moment, fighting the urge to assert his dominance. Zerconian males were aggressive and needed physical release. Tension filled him, longing to find an outlet. The male would be an easy target.
No. No, he could not. Turning, he leaned his hands against the wall, he concentrated on his breathing. Long moments passed as the ship gathered up speed.
“Sneaking past the Coizils was a foolish risk. You could all be killed.”
Deacon snorted. “We’ve been in plenty of risky situations before. You do know what we are, don’t you?”
What they were?
“Willa said you are from Joyadan.”
“Not where we are from, what we are. We’re mercenaries. We take jobs for whoever pays us the highest price.”
Mercenaries? It was a dangerous career. High money but high risk as well. He had met only a few and none of them older than forty. There was a reason for that. Most mercenaries ended up dead.
“The Lilans paid us to deliver weapons to them. So we did.”
Darac concentrated on his breathing. Calm. He clung to his control. He had promised not to harm anyone as long as Willa was not at risk. He always kept his word. Although if he looked at it from another angle then she had been at risk this whole time.
A strange buzzing noise filled the air and he turned. “What is that? I heard it earlier.”
If Darac hadn’t been watching the other man so closely, he wouldn’t have seen the tension fill his shoulders.
The spaceship continued to move, gathering up speed. The buzzing started to quiet. There, that was better.
“Shit, what’s going on?” Deacon stood, looking worried. His communicator buzzed and he switched it on.
“Cap?”
“Everyone to the bridge. Now.” Rye’s tense voice filled the room. Deacon looked from him to the door.
“Fuck it,” he muttered.
“What is happening?” Darac asked as Deacon paced.
“I don’t know, but that buzzing is our ticket out of here safely. If it fades, we’re dead. I need to get to the bridge.”
“I am coming with you,” Darac stated.
Deacon opened his mouth. Darac stepped forward. “If we are all going to die, then what does it matter what I do?”
“Fine. Whatever. Come on.” Deacon raced out of the room. He followed on his footsteps.
“What is the buzzing?” he asked again.
“Our cloaking device. That buzz indicates that it’s working. Without it we’re screwed.”
***
Willa raced towards the bridge, heart pounding. Oh shit. Oh shit.
She entered, pausing in surprise as she spotted Darac standing off to one side. He turned then ran his gaze over her, studying her. That much intensity aimed at her was enough to steal her breath. Mesmerised, she simply stood there for a long moment.
“Willa,” Rye spoke sharply, jarring her out of her stupor.
“Yes?” She started then turned to her oldest brother. He gave her a quelling look and shame filled her. She’d just promised to put her crew first. Then her first test and she stood there, staring at Darac like a love struck idiot.
“The cloaking device is failing,” Zuma spoke up. “We’re totally fucking screwed.”
She raced over to a station and signed in. “Oh hell.” Not good. Really, not good. “Are we past the shield?”
“Yes,” Rye answered grimly.
There was no returning then.
“Can you fix it?” Steele asked.
“Do I look like Kyle? Of course I can’t fix it. I fix engines not stupid cloaking devices. This is Mitch’s area.”
Mitch. Who was still unconscious in Medical. She purposely didn’t look over at Darac.
“So it’s the Zerconian’s fault that we’re all going to die,” Steele said in a low, cool voice.
The urge to defend Darac was strong. Instead she hunched her shoulders and kept typing. “As far as I can tell, we have four minutes before the cloaking device completely fails.” She turned in her seat, spotting Steele facing off with Darac.
Steele stood about a foot away, glaring up into the taller man’s face. Darac gave nothing away, his face stoic.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Steele’s voice was icy cold.
“You never had a chance.”
“I had a head shot. I just didn’t take it. More fool me.”
Darac smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. His eyes flashed from brown to red. Crap.
“Yes, you are more of a fool.”
Steele let out a low rumble, tensing. Oh God, he was going to get himself killed. Steele was tough and strong. He was deadly.
But Darac was half a foot taller and probably close to a hundred pounds heavier. Plus, he was damn crazy when he lost it. Like he was about to.
“Stop it. Both of you. That’s an order.” Rye’s voice was stern but calm.
Amazingly, both men turned to him. Then Steele stepped back. The tension in the room dissipated and Willa managed to take a full breath.
“Three minutes left,” she called out anxiously. “Do we try for overdrive?”
“Can we get up enough speed?” Rye asked her.
“You need speed for overdrive?” Darac asked.
“This is an old ship,” she explained. “It needs to be up to a certain speed to shift into overdrive. We could try giving it a power boost. If I shut down everything that isn’t vital that will hopefully give us enough of a boost. But it’ll take me at least five minutes to do that.”
“In which time the Coizils will blast us to pieces,” Deacon stated.
“Unless we convince them otherwise,” Darac stated. They all turned to look at him. “Coizils care about two things. Power and prestige. To capture a Zerconian warrior would bring a lot of prestige.”
“You want us to tell them we have you on board?” she asked.
“Tell them that you captured me and are willing to trade. Your lives for mine.”
“No,” she stated without thinking. She could not hand him over to the Coizils. They would kill him. Everyone knew the Coizils and Zerconians were enemies. The others turned to look at her. Crap. “They’re not going to go for that. They’ll kill us all anyway.”
“Willa’s right,” Rye said. “But it might buy us enough time to get into overdrive. Willa, get down there and do what you have to. Let’s just pray they don’t shoot us immediately.”
“I need to get a message through to my people,” Darac said. “They will rescue us. All we need to do is stay alive until they get here.”
Willa raced down to the engine room. She worked as quick as could to shut down all vital areas of power.
Heap of junk. If they got through this, she was going to beg Rye to find them a newer ship. This one was a death trap. The buzzing faded and she stilled for a moment, listening to herself breathe.
This was it. Either they were about to be blown apart or Rye would do enough fast talking to grab them a few minutes. She pushed herself to move. She couldn’t afford to just stand around and wait. Suddenly the ship jolted, nearly sending her flying off her feet.
“What the hell?” She moved to the central communication system, turning it on so she could hear what was happening on the bridge.
Zuma’s voice came through loud and clear. The words spewing from his mouth were nothing she hadn’t heard before. She’d lived with only men for years, after all. But it was the panic she heard in his voice that made her stomach clench.
“What happened?” she asked, unable to help herself.
There was a moment of silence.
“Good news is we’re not dead,” Zuma stated dryly. “Bad news is we couldn’t get them to answer our coms. They have us in their tractor beam.”
The Coizil warship was huge, it could easily pull their ship on board.
“Might as well come on up here. There’s nothing you can do down there. There’s nothing any of us can do.”
***
Darac’s mind raced. Possibilities filled his head. He discarded some, stored some away for further contemplation. What could get them all out of his predicament alive?
Because he could not contemplate the thought of losing Willa now. He would gladly sacrifice his life for hers.
“There’s no way they’re going to exchange our lives for his,” Steele said, nodding over at Darac. “We’ve got no bargaining power. They’ll probably shoot us on sight.”
“But if they wanted to kill us they could have just blasted us into bits. Why pull our ship on board?” Willa asked.
This was killing him, not knowing if he could protect her.
“We must change the story,” he stated, speaking over everyone else’s nervous chatter.
“To what?” Steele asked, still staring at Darac like he would rather kill him than talk to him. Darac glared back. Now was not the time for an altercation.
“You still tell them that you captured me. But that you brought me to them.”
“Why would we do that?” Willa asked.
“Because you know how powerful they are and you wished to give them a gift. Coizils are arrogant. They like to be flattered. Pretend you admire them. Try to stay on side with them.”
“At your expense?” she asked, sounding outraged.
“It is better if you are not seen as allied to me.”
“I don’t like it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It sounds like you’re sacrificing yourself for us.”
He was. But he was dead anyway. The Coizils would kill him. It was just a matter of how quick and painful his death was.
“We do not have time to debate this,” he stated. “It is your best way of staying alive.”
Rye nodded. “Fine.”
He sighed, relief filling him. Right now all he wanted to do was keep Willa alive until his people could rescue her. “Most important is that they do not realize we were on Lilan. They will torture all of us until they discover how you did that.”
“So what are we going to tell them? That we appeared out of thin air?” Deacon asked him.
“We say our overdrive malfunctioned. Threw us off course and brought us here. We can alter our travel history.” They all turned as Mitch limped through the door, Nolan walking behind them.
“Won’t they be suspicious that their monitors didn’t pick us up?” Willa asked.
“Certainly. They will have their suspicions but monitoring systems fail,” Darac told her.
“Mitch, can you alter our travel history?” Rye asked him.
He snorted. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Darac frowned, confused.
“He means he can,” Willa explained. “He’s just a crass ass.”
“I’m the ass that’s gonna save your wobbly butt,” he replied.
She glared at him but didn’t reply as he limped over to a station and started typing.
The large warship loomed closer. It was the size of a small moon. Personally, he didn’t think the small planet had any chance of fighting them off. Not unless someone came to their rescue.
“Now we must find a way to convince them that Willa is a man,” Darac said.
“Umm? What?” Willa asked. He wanted her to look like a man?
“Shouldn’t be hard,” Mitch said.
She praised herself for her restraint in not smacking him across his head.
“Why would they need to think Willa was male?” Rye crossed his arms over his chest.
“That you do not wish to know.”
“Ahh, yeah, I do.”
He studied her for a moment then nodded. “Perhaps it is best you all know. Do you know that the Coizils and my people were once allies?”
“Yep.” Zuma spun in his chair, looking as carefree as ever. “But that was years ago. You’ve been enemies for a long time.”
“Yes. Because some Coizil warriors kidnapped three of our women and raped them. By the time we located the women, they had been brutalised. They were traumatised.” His hands were clenched, his jaw tight with tension.
“That’s terrible,” she said, unsure what else to say.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“I will not allow that to happen to Willa.” Darac stared at her, his gaze intense.
“None of us will,” Rye said firmly.
“Maybe it would be better if Willa hid?” Steele suggested.
“No way, I’m not hiding,” she said quickly.
“They will bring our ship on board. If I were in their place, I would force all of us off the ship so I could accurately assess the risk. I would also have my warriors examine the ship and run a heat sensor over it. It would be impossible to hide Willa if they did that. Then I would wonder why she had been hidden.”
“Good, because I’m not hiding like a coward anyway.” Whatever happened, she needed to be with her crew. And Darac.
“That’s worst case scenario,” Steele pointed out. “Maybe they’ll just want to talk to Rye.”
“But we can’t take the chance.” Rye nodded at her. “Willa, go see what you can do to disguise yourself. You’ll need to cut your hair.”
>
“My hair?” She reached up to touch her long hair. Funny, she’d never thought herself vain before, but her hair?
“Come on, I’ll help,” Zuma stood and threw his arm around her shoulders. “By the time I’m finished no one will ever know you’re not a member of the sausage club.”
“Did that really sound good in your head?” she asked.
He tapped his finger against his nose. “The trick is to not think before you speak.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious.”
***
Willa stared at herself in the mirror. Honestly, dressing like a man hadn’t been too much of a stretch. The clothes were actually her own, hand-me-downs from her brother Kyle, who was the closest to her in size.
They still hung off her, but that helped disguise her more feminine frame. She didn’t have much in the way of boobs, but she’d still wrapped them up to flatten them further.
Gone was her long, dark hair. Zuma, with more excitement than she felt was warranted, had cut hair her off until it was about an inch long.
It made her eyes larger, her cheekbones more prominent.
“Do I look like a man?” She wasn’t quite sure.
He studied her for a long moment. “To someone who hadn’t met you, yeah, you could pass as a guy.”
She didn’t know if she was pleased about that or not. She’d spent years wishing she’d been born a guy. It still felt like the others looked at her as though she were a liability. Someone they had to look after. So it surprised her that she actually cared about looking too masculine.
Willa shook it off. They had mere moments before that huge, black monstrosity sucked them in. She felt like a fly stuck in a spider’s web. Fear raced through her and she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
“Let’s go. We’re minutes away from being boarded.”
“This isn’t going to go well, is it?” She placed a hand over her queasy stomach. She had a really bad feeling about this.
“Nope. But it’s not like we had much choice. Our choices were to let them pull us into the bowels of hell or open fire and go out in a blaze of glory,” Zuma said as he walked beside her towards the cargo bay. She walked faster, feeling the need to be with Darac. As though he could protect her.
