Thief: Fringe, Book 1

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

  Duster’s right eye twitched to a narrow slit. “You talk like her.”

  “What do you mean I talk like her?” Confusion replaced the amusement on her face.

  “Kraft’s dead. We have her ship.”

  “Whisper? My ship is here?” Kraft cast her intense gaze around the tarmac.

  Jace heard the longing in her voice.

  Duster checked her forward momentum by lifting his rifle.

  Kraft held her place. “So that’s what this is all about. Michael thinks I’m an imposter?”

  “That’s about the speed of it.”

  “You really think I’m not me?” Kraft advanced again.

  Jace wanted to yank her back, but didn’t dare.

  “You know I’m me, Duster.” She winked. “You know I’m not into faking it.”

  Jace lifted a brow at her comment. Just what kind of relationship did she have with Duster, not to mention the mythical Michael?

  “We’ll see.” Duster snapped his fingers.

  Kraft dropped to her knees.

  Jace knelt beside her and she slumped into him. She yanked a dart from her neck and tossed it aside. Her eyelids fluttered. “I’m so sorry, Captain. This is all my fault.”

  Before he could respond, Duster jabbed his rifle into his chest and bellowed, “Back off.”

  Jace didn’t have much of a choice but to comply. He stood and backed away from Kraft. Clad in racy undergarments, profoundly beautiful in her vulnerable state, she lay panting slowly on the cargo bay ramp.

  Duster snapped his fingers. A guard bigger than Heller stepped forward and flipped Kraft over his shoulder.

  Jace was ordered to remove his weapons and his boots. He was relieved that he didn’t have to strip down to his skivvies like Kraft, but he panicked when they bound his hands and ankles, then blindfolded and gagged him. He didn’t know what to expect, but so far, things weren’t going well.

  Shackled hand and foot, Kraft stumbled her way to Michael’s office. The cool, moist air inside his base command caused goose bumps to rise on her mostly naked body. She couldn’t believe Michael had her strip practically naked to ensure she had no weapons. Or maybe Michael thought a semi-dressed state would unbalance her. She’d face him or anyone else buck naked without a bit of modesty. In fact, her nudity would give her a distinctly distracting advantage over a male opponent.

  Behind her, she heard a troop, but Duster refused to let her look back. “Captain Lawless?”

  She heard him gurgle behind a gag.

  “Shut up.” Duster yanked Kraft to a standstill, waiting for the other group to catch up.

  “Tell you what, Captain Lawless, Michael has a gigantic ego, bigger than this whole planet. Duster here? Well, he’s got abandonment issues.”

  “Kraft, you best shut it.” Duster nodded to the tranquilizer rifle in another guard’s hands.

  “So you admit I’m Kraft.” Pleased as punch with herself for trapping him so easily, she smiled at Duster and winked.

  Duster frowned. “You work it out with him.” Using his shoulder, he pushed open a set of gigantic swinging doors.

  Michael “Overlord” Parker stood in the center of the room. Red Dardinian silk shimmered down his muscled chest to his black leather clad hips. Michael was gorgeous and he knew it. At seven feet tall, he towered over everyone in the room.

  “Kraft?” Michael’s voice rumbled like gravel in a swiftly running creek.

  “Expecting the CEO of the IWOG?” Kraft noticed how the lights hit Michael just so. “Very theatrical, Michael. You haven’t lost your flair for the dramatic, have you?”

  He tossed back his head and laughed, exposing his perfect white teeth. The strategically placed lights highlighted his golden-brown hair and eyes. Causally, he plunked himself down on the edge of his desk and drew up his leg. Big, bold and blasé, Michael Parker moved like he owned everything in the Void, but found it all exceedingly boring.

  “You look like her, you talk like her, but I have no proof you actually are the elusive Captain Kraft.”

  “Why would I lie?” She shrugged and noticed his gaze lingered on her chest. Michael always did have a fascination for her breasts. She used his interest to her advantage by lifting them a bit higher. The delicate scrap of black lace barely covered her nipples, which were hard from the cold and not Michael’s lustful gaze. At one time, that smoldering look of his could have melted her into a mass of gooey lust, but not anymore. Her infatuation for him and been fully spent a long time ago.

  “Just a hologram of me is worth a fortune. My hide alive considerably more.” While he spoke, Michael ran his gaze all over her. He did it as if hoping the pointed look would intimidate her. When he realized she moved and preened under his inspection, a tiny frown darted across his lips and he stopped.

  “Lord on high, Michael.” She chuckled. “You really think I’m going to crash your planet by pretending to be nothing but a cook-whore on a ship called Mutiny?”

  “Under the command of a Captain Lawless.” Michael tucked his chin to the fully bound aforementioned man. “Sounds like nothing short of total crap.”

  “I’m thinking you’re the one full of it.” Kraft refused to let her gaze linger on Jace. The last thing she needed to do was pique Michael’s ire.

  “Indeed?”

  “You haven’t changed.” Sadly, time had not blessed Michael with a sense of humor. He never did like the idea of anyone laughing at him.

  “You have.” Michael looked her up and down. “A long time ago we once saw eye to eye.”

  “And what changed it?” she asked archly, knowing he would never admit to his dark and dirty past. Of course, she wouldn’t want to fess-up to hers, either.

  “You tell me,” Michael returned easily.

  Kraft lowered her voice. “You stopped seeing faces and saw only script.”

  Michael walked forward, cupped her face and placed his lips a breath from hers. “I took you against an alley wall like a cat in heat.”

  Kraft yanked her head back. “I kicked you from my ship three months later.” She tried to keep her attention on the situation at hand, but a fleeting thought of what Jace might think made its way into her mind. Would Jace think her some kind of slut who bed-hopped her way around the Void? Probably. But she couldn’t do anything about his opinion at the moment.

  Michael flashed her his trademark half grin. “Why?”

  “You know why.” She held his gaze.

  “If you are Kraft, you can offer—”

  “Don’t get into a posturing contest with me, Michael. If it’s a pissing match you’re looking for, you might want to think twice about taking me on. If you want me to tell everyone in this room what an unbelievable bastard you were, I’d be thrilled.”

  She surged against her restraints. Five gigantic guards grasped her arms at the wrist, her legs at the ankle, and the odd man out lifted his fist to the start of her ponytail at her scalp. His guards held her in check so soundly she couldn’t move an inch. Obviously, Michael wasn’t taking any chances with his personal safety.

  Kraft lifted her head despite the fierce hold on her hair. “I’m Kraft and you know it. Hell, Michael, you just got up in my face so you could sniff me and confirm my identity.”

  That comment caused him to narrow his gaze. Michael’s ability to read scents wasn’t common knowledge. He called himself an emotichemical perceptionist, and his reader ability allowed him to smell subtle changes in humans, chemical changes in their pheromones.

  “You let Captain Lawless and his crew go. You do it now.”

  Michael’s eyes and nose flared with anger at her demanding tone. “You’re not in charge this time. You’re not even a captain this time.” Michael settled back to his desk. “He’s captain.” Michael nodded to Jace. “You’re nothing but his cook-whore.”

  Jace struggled against his gag to say something. She wanted to beg him not to, but ordering him around wouldn’t look good right now. Michael flicked his chin and a guard removed Jace’s
gag. A small relief filled her when they didn’t remove his blindfold.

  “She may be my cook, but I wouldn’t make any woman my whore.”

  Pleased as she was that Jace would defend her against such impossible odds, she knew Michael could destroy him with a flick of his fingers.

  “A man of honor.” Michael ordered his men to fully unbind Jace. “I will offer you a deal.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Kraft tried to lunged forward, but restraints and five guards held her in check. Michael would offer Jace a terrible choice with no right answer. And now that Captain Lawless had seen Michael’s face, he would never let him go. Very few people in the Void actually knew what Michael “Overlord” Parker looked like.

  “Put her in lockdown.” With a snap of his fingers, Michael had Kraft escorted, struggling and screaming, from his office.

  Jace moved to defend Kraft, but a guard shoved a gun into his chest. Up his hands went. He wanted to be heroic, not foolish. After they hauled her away, Jace got his first good look at the mythical Michael “Overlord” Parker.

  Michael stood seven feet tall and a good three and a half feet wide. He probably tipped the scales at a solid three hundred pounds. Dressed in red and black with military short hair, he was also a man who took great pride in his appearance.

  No wonder Kraft had slept with him, Jace thought. What woman wouldn’t be attracted to a man who looked like that? But then again, Michael was a total bully. How could an honorable man have a woman strip down in front of all those male guards?

  “Here’s the deal, Captain Lawless.” Michael nodded. “You take your ship, your crew, yourself and a Mil in script for whatever goods you have.”

  “In exchange for what?” Jace didn’t think he would like the answer.

  “Kraft.”

  “You expect me to sell her to you?” Disgust twisted Jace’s face.

  “If that’s the way you want to look at it, yes.” Michael crossed his arms over his chest. “You will sell her to me for your ship, your crew and a Mil in script.”

  “We’ve come here to sell you IWOG goods. You buy them or not. If you want to deal, that’s the only thing I’m putting on the table. Kraft isn’t for sale.” Jace stood his ground.

  A slight smile twisted Michael’s lips. “By her own admission she’s your cook-whore.”

  “Not anymore.” Jace didn’t like the emphasis Michael kept putting on the word whore.

  “You’ve promoted her?” Michael smirked and straightened the papers on his desk. “To what? Full-time whore?”

  Jace gritted his teeth. “Stop calling her that. Kraft is a warrior-cook, Fairing’s cook.”

  “Kraft is a beautiful woman,” Michael pointed out.

  “She is.” Jace shot a quick glance to the door she’d been dragged out of.

  “You haven’t taken her to your bed?” Michael relaxed to his desk.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Michael snapped his fingers and a guard pressed his gun to Jace’s temple. “I’m making it my business.”

  Gritting his teeth hard, Jace managed to say, “No. I haven’t taken her to my bed.”

  “Is she unwilling?”

  “Ask her.” Jace wouldn’t mind finding out the answer to that question himself.

  “You could force her.”

  Jace laughed even as the gun pressed to his head. “No, I couldn’t, and neither could you.”

  “I didn’t have to force her.” Michael smirked. “She came very willingly.”

  “Once upon a time, perhaps.” Jace shrugged. “She doesn’t seem all that willing now.” He nodded to the doorway where Michael’s guard had taken Kraft. “In fact, she seems downright repulsed by the very idea.”

  Michael frowned. “What did you pay for her?”

  “None of your—” The gun pressed a warning to his head and he reluctantly answered, “Fifteen hundred in script.”

  “That’s all?” Michael was appalled at the low figure. “I will give you ten thousand times what you paid for her.”

  “No.”

  Michael frowned when Jace didn’t hesitate. “That’s 15Mil, Captain Lawless, in script. How can you refuse?”

  “I can count, and I just did. The answer is no. Kraft isn’t for sale.”

  Michael catapulted off his desk. “I could kill you right now with a snap of my fingers. I could torture and then kill your crew. I’m offering you an honorable escape.” Michael was bigger and clearly in charge, yet Jace heard a desperate edge to his voice. “Take my deal.”

  “Me and my crew for a woman. A woman who obviously doesn’t want you. You offer not a deal but a despicable choice.” Jace stood his ground. Perhaps all his dealings with Trickster paid off in some strange way.

  “Kraft would sell you in a heartbeat.”

  “Bring her back in here and ask her.” Jace knew Kraft would take the same stand as he.

  “Take the money and run or I’ll kill you.”

  “Kraft will rip off your head for your trouble.”

  “You think she holds to you?” Michael asked.

  Jace nodded. “Her honor compels her to.”

  “Your owner is an interesting man.” Michael’s voice sounded amazingly crisp over the prison com.

  His guards had left her bound and tossed her into lockdown. “Jealous much, Michael? Still haven’t gotten over our breakup? Tell you what, five years is a long time to hang on to a three-month fling.”

  “We had more than a fling.” Michael leaned against the plexiglass of her prison cell.

  “Hardly. Why don’t you tell me what this is really about? I saw you a year ago and you weren’t remotely interested in me. Why the sudden change?” Kraft couldn’t read him very well, not from inside the glass walls, but she could sense his agitation and frustration.

  “I thought you were dead.” His gaze bored right into hers, and that’s when she saw his pain.

  “Punishing me for being alive?” She kept her tone flippant.

  “I want you to stay with me.” For all his posturing, Michael was vulnerable, and what he said shocked her. They were over a long time ago.

  “Is that why you bought my ship? You figured I’d eventually come looking for it and we could have some kind of magical happy ever after?” Kraft settled herself, chains and all, on the narrow prison bunk. Comfy. Far softer than her bed on Mutiny.

  “I can offer you a lot more than he can.” Michael’s sleek eyebrows snapped together.

  “You mean all this could be mine?” She lifted her bound hands to the prison room.

  Michael actually looked chagrined. “Pot to piss in. Ever heard of it? He’s captain of a rust bucket.”

  “It isn’t about money, Michael, it’s about honor and respect and—” Kraft shook her head, frustrated she could not describe what bound her to Jace Lawless. “It’s everything I stand for.”

  “You don’t love him.” Michael lowered his gaze to the textured durosteel floor.

  Kraft lifted a brow. “All I know is I owe him. I don’t know how to convey to you—”

  “That I can’t compete.”

  She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes: Michael Parker, one of the most respected and feared men in the Void, was sulking like a child.

  “This isn’t a competition. You think if not for Jace I would rush into your arms, but I wouldn’t. We burned up all the white fire-bright passion between us. Jace or no, I wouldn’t jump into your bed again.” She took a long breath. “I’m also starting to suspect you only want me because you think he does.”

  Michael straightened, regaining his air of authority. “And what of Jace Lawless, Captain of Mutiny, the rust bucket you’re calling home now? As, of all things, a cook-whore?” Michael seemed to be furious that she’d allowed herself to be put in such a position.

  “I don’t owe you an explanation for anything.” Despite her scantily-clad state, Kraft lifted her head with the dignity of a queen.

  “He claims you
cook yet refuses you whore.”

  “Your point is what, Michael?”

  Michael lifted his gaze to the guard station. “What do you think your honorable captain would do if I offered him 15Mil for a cook-whore he paid fifteen hundred for?”

  Kraft wondered how Michael knew how much Jace paid for her. “You already tried it, didn’t you?” A dull fury burned in Michael’s eyes, confirming what she already knew. “He turned you down, didn’t he?” A warm shiver ran through her. “I know it’s difficult for you to swallow, Michael, but not everyone in the Void is as hung up on money as you are.”

  Michael strapped plastimetal bracelets to Kraft and Jace then set them loose in his techno-house. Combination locator, locker and luller, the bracelets tracked their movements, denied access to most of the rooms, and also would inject them with powerful drugs if they tried to fight their way out.

  Even so, six fully armed guards, changed every hour, stood vigilant by every door. Male, female, tall or squat, every guard had the same focus. If Kraft came near the door, they tensed. The closer she got, the more they gripped up on their weapons. If Jace came near, they tracked him with gleaming eyes as if they were begging him to try something so they could blow him away.

  Jace wisely didn’t try anything. At the moment, he sat in a dining room that was bigger than his ship, but only three people sat at the lavishly appointed table.

  Kraft picked at her dinner like a finicky child. Michael had given her back her clothes, but he kept looking at her like he wanted to order her to take them right back off. Behind her, ever vigilant, stood five men as big as Heller. One false move and the guards would grab her arm, her leg, or her twined hair.

  Michael wasn’t at all concerned with keeping such tabs on him. As Jace sat at the table, picking at his dinner, the only person who stood behind him was a painfully young serving girl named Clara. Michael’s dismissal of Jace as any kind of threat made him feel far more emasculated than Kraft’s big score on the transport job.