“What do you need us to do?” the Major asked Bella.
“Corporal Fisher has been arrested by the Guard as he was helping me to escape the raid.”
“Shiitake, you were there!” the First Lieutenant exploded.
“Hush, Wex. We’ll deal with that later,” Major Dete commanded. “Bella, you need me to get Fisher out?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Crystal. “You work in the kitchen, right?”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded, glancing sideways at the bathing room as her stomach tossed around, and hoped she wasn’t going to have to bolt to the toilet.
“Brief me on the sitch, and I’ll figure out a plan, but we have to do it en route. The Council will be making an immediate unanimous judgment on everyone they arrested.”
“Oh, hellitude.” Crystal gagged and ran into the bathing room, using her elbow to tap the wall panel to activate the sliding door behind her.
“Is she always so weak-stomached?” She heard the First Lieutenant ask before the door shut.
Stars, what the hellitude was wrong with her? She didn’t have time to be sick. Fisher’s life was at stake, and even though they hadn’t been getting along that great lately, she certainly didn’t want him dead.
She retched again.
Oh, hidden stars of the universe, she had to pull herself together. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths and splashed cold water on her face. Quickly, she dried off and returned to the first room.
“I’m ready. Let’s go,” she said with more conviction and strength than she felt.
Bella looked at her with a strange expression on her face. “Are you with child?”
“W-what?” Crystal stuttered. “No! Certainly not!”
“Whether you are or not, we don’t have time for this discussion right now,” Major Dete said. “We have to head out.”
Crystal followed him out into the corridor and took several fast steps to keep up with his long-legged stride. As they went, she filled him in on the details of the raid.
“All right,” the Major said when she’d finished. “I should be able to portray this in Fisher’s favor. He stepped in to protect an innocent woman because the Council knows my mate would never participate in anything related to the Movement.” He sent Bella a narrowed-eyed glare over his shoulder.
She raised a hand before her. “Save the lecture for later, Dete. We don’t have time, remember?”
“Unbelievable…brash…ill-conceived,” Major Dete muttered to himself as he strode forward.
When they arrived at the courtroom door, the Major ordered Crystal and Bella to remain in the hallway. “There’s no reason to expose yourselves to the Council. The less they know of you, the better.” He seemed to direct his warning more to his mate than Crystal.
Bella apparently was in deeply with the Movement, and the Major knew. He either supported her actions, or he quietly disapproved without flatly forbidding her involvement. Either way, Crystal was surprised the Major let Bella risk herself that way, since it was obvious he had a close bond with her.
He slipped into the courtroom while Crystal and Bella waited impatiently in the hallway. Unfortunately, that gave Crystal time to think about Bella’s question.
Oh, stars forbid, was she with child?
Crystal placed a hand tentatively on her stomach. She counted back to her last flow cycle. It was possible, she supposed, but since neither she nor any of the women she knew had regular flow cycles, she never thought about the irregularity as a possible concern.
And if she was with child, who was the father? Henri, Stepho, or Fisher?
She was wrong earlier. Her nightmare hadn’t ended at the door to Bella’s pod; it was just beginning. She wasn’t mated to any of the three men, but she could be carrying the child of any one of them. What would the Council do to her when they found out? Would they let her keep the child or force her to give it to a childless woman and her three mates? Or would the Council immediately find Crystal three suitable mates to help her raise the child? And she was quite certain none of those three mates would be Henri, Stepho, or Fisher. She would lose them all.
Chapter Six
After what felt like a lifetime, the courtroom door slid open, and Major Dete walked out with his arm supporting a bloodied and bruised Fisher. “Let’s get out of here,” he said sharply.
“Follow me,” Crystal said and took off for Henri and Stepho’s pod without questioning the Major on how he’d managed the miracle of getting Fisher free. Her field training dictated finding safety first. Then, there would be time for a sitch update.
She quickly led the way to the biological sciences area of the sector. When they reached Henri and Stepho’s pod door, she hesitated for a moment, wishing she could talk to them before barging in with this huge request. She knocked, but neither man responded.
Checking the chronometer on her portable datapad, she saw it was late afternoon. They were still at work in the lab.
After a quick look over her shoulder at Fisher’s bloody face and slumped posture, she tapped in the access code to unlock the door. With a soft swish, it slid open, and Crystal stepped across the threshold.
“Put him in on the berth, Major,” she said a moment before she realized she’d just ordered around a Major.
His quirked brow showed he’d noticed the same thing, but he refrained from rebuking her. Instead, he helped Fisher to the mattress. “Bella and I need to go. We want this trail to grow cold. Keep your contact with us to a minimum.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir, for your help.”
“Take care of him, Corporal. Be smart about who you trust,” the Major warned.
“Yes, Sir.”
Bella gave Crystal a brief and unexpected hug. “I wish I could do more.”
“You’ve done more than I could have hoped for.” Crystal squeezed Bella in return, emotion thickening her words.
The Major left with Bella, leaving Crystal alone with Fisher in Henri and Stepho’s pod. She turned to him, surprised he hadn’t said anything yet, and found him staring at the mementos on the wall shelves across the room. He seemed particularly interested in the photo frame with the slide show of her with Henri and Stepho, pictures taken during their time together in Fourth Quadrant. Those days seemed so long ago.
She moved toward the bathing room to gather supplies to clean Fisher’s wounds. The sight of him battered touched her deeply, surprising her into realizing that he actually meant something more to her than merely a pain in her ass, chauvinistic, bad boy who rocked her sexual world. He was still all those things, but she also liked him.
Shiitake, she liked him.
He’d risked his life to save Bella without a second thought. His own sense of right and wrong had prevented him from standing back and allowing an injustice from happening without stepping in and getting involved.
After wetting a cloth under the sink, she grabbed the first aid kit. She was in an impossible situation. She couldn’t possibly keep all three men as intimate partners. Fisher couldn’t blend in to what she already had with Henri and Stepho. They would never get along. It would be a disaster.
Fisher’s rebellious attitude would alienate Henri, who would only feel contempt for Fisher’s outward show of bad manners. Henri would never see that Fisher used it to protect his pride. All through Military Academy, Fisher had always been pointed out as the bad example, and he did his best to maintain that reputation, at the cost of allowing anyone from getting close to him.
Not that any of this mattered. In the long term, it wouldn’t be up to her to pick the men she wanted. But for the short time left to her in First Quadrant, she wished she could find a way to have all three of these men in relationship with her.
She knelt on the floor at Fisher’s side and reached up with the cloth to wipe away the blood trailing down his cheek from a cut on his forehead. His eyes followed her moves. “This would be easier in the shower,” she suggested. “Do you think you could manage it?”
“Sorry, darling. Even if you get naked in there with me, I don’t think I’ll be able to get up for a while.” His head sank back against Henri’s pillow, and he closed his eyes. “They beat the crap out of me. I need some recovery time.”
“Then I’ll do the best I can right here.”
“Leave the mess and just bandage the ones that won’t stop bleeding.”
“I can’t stand to see you like this.” She renewed her attempts at cleaning his face.
His eyes opened, and he studied her. “It’s not just about the sex, is it?”
Her hand froze in midair. “What?” Had he been reading her thoughts about him?
“You and the science goobers. It’s not just sex. I can see it in those pictures.” He gestured to the photo frame on the shelf.
Oh, hellitude. He was killing her. It was true she had feelings for Henri and Stepho, but she’d just realized she had feelings for Fisher, too. And she didn’t want to hurt him by explaining what she felt for the other men, nor did she want to make a fool of herself and confess to her feelings for him.
“It’s not just about sex,” she confirmed, giving him the whole truth, though he didn’t catch on that it applied to him as well as Henri and Stepho.
Fisher turned his face away from her. “What time do you expect them?”
She checked the chronometer on the wall. “Not for a while. Why don’t you close your eyes and rest?”
“What will you do?”
“I’ve got to make a report to Major Jeffers and call in replacements for the kitchen.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want the masses to go hungry.” Fisher showed some signs of returning to himself with his sarcasm, and perversely, it made Crystal pleased.
“I should be back before Henri and Stepho get here.” She cringed inwardly at the mess Fisher could make in her relationship with the scientists if she didn’t get back before them.
For whatever reason, he didn’t like the other men. She wouldn’t flatter herself and think it was jealousy. Fisher didn’t do jealousy. He would never let himself feel deeply enough for a woman to spark that fire.
“I’m sure the boys and I will have plenty to talk about if you’re not.” Fisher seemed to relish the idea of torturing her with that prospect.
“I’ll be back before them,” she affirmed.
How the hellitude had he ended up in this place, in this sitch?
Fisher shifted uncomfortably on the doublewide berth he knew Crystal had shared with her two science goobers. If it didn’t hurt so much to move, he’d lie on the floor rather than have to smell Crystal’s scent mixed with the men’s smells in this damn bed. He intentionally moved his injured leg, using the pain to blot out the mental images of Crystal sandwiched between the other two men.
She better get her ass back to this pod before them. Fisher was only kidding about talking to the men about her. He actually didn’t want to hear anything about their time together. He didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to hear about it, he didn’t want to even think about it.
Though, seeing the shock on the men’s faces when they stepped into their pod and saw his bloody self on their bed was sure to be slightly amusing. But Crystal had to be here by then because Fisher couldn’t stomach the thought of relying on the goobers for even a glass of water. And didn’t just the thought of it make him thirsty? Blast it to hellitude.
He lay still for a few ticks longer of the chronometer until he couldn’t stand the inactivity anymore. Carefully and slowly, he swung his legs over the edge of the berth while cradling his right arm against his side. His ribs were definitely cracked, and if one of the bones in his wrist wasn’t broken, then it was certainly a miracle. The fucking Guards had gotten several good boot stomps on Fisher as he’d lain unprotected on the floor of the cafeteria after they’d shot and jumped him.
If Crystal had known of the extent of his injuries, she would never have left him. But she was right to take care of business with Major Jeffers out of shouting range of Fisher because with the mood he was in, there was no telling what would come out of his mouth when addressing his superior officer. The bastard was connected enough that he had to have known the Council was planning that raid on the protestors, yet he hadn’t warned Fisher and Crystal. Perhaps it was because the Major knew the violence would be the impetus the Movement needed to overthrow the Council.
Fisher had been wondering for several weeks which side the Major was truly working for. Fisher and Crystal had reported early on to the Major that the Pro-Freedom Movement was circumventing the Council’s media blackout of the non-violent protests by using comm apps on their datapads. Software engineers following Council orders had disabled some of the apps, but there seemed to be a significant delay between Fisher and Crystal reporting new apps and they being rendered inoperative. In the meantime, information about the protests was spreading around the planet at the speed of light.
Fisher leaned forward and braced himself for the coming pain of standing on his shot leg. Gritting his teeth, he decided to go with the all-or-nothing plan. With a low grunt, he shoved himself to his feet as his body screamed from several agonizing locations.
As he took a step toward the bathing room, the pod door slid open. Two stunned intelligentsia dweebs stared at him from the doorway, and their expressions were everything Fisher had hoped for.
He opened his mouth to deliver a wise-ass remark, but his vision suddenly darkened, and he had the sensation of falling forward on his blasted face.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Henri stepped over the threshold and looked down at the pile of bloody mess on his floor.
Stepho knelt at the soldier’s side and checked for a pulse. “It’s Fisher from the kitchen.”
“I know who he is. What I don’t know is what the fuck he’s doing in our pod,” Henri repeated. He didn’t like this soldier. He didn’t like the way Fisher talked to Crystal or the way he looked at her when he thought no one was watching.
“Help me get him on the berth.” Stepho stuck his arms under the soldier’s shoulders. “Get his feet.”
“Really?” Henri asked with disbelief. “Why would I do that?”
When Stepho looked up at Henri with a look of resolution, Henri sighed. “Fine.” There was no talking Stepho out of his ideas when he got that light in his eyes.
Together, they hauled the big soldier onto the mattress. From the look of the bloodied bedcovers, he’d been laying there for a while, which brought Henri back to his original question. What the fuck was this man doing here?
Anxiety for Crystal’s safety tightened his chest. Was she injured, too? And where the hellitude was she?
Henri grabbed a glass of water from the bathing room and tossed it over Fisher’s face. He was rewarded with a spluttering, gasping, and awakened soldier, but also a censoring glare from Stepho.
“Where’s Crystal?” Henri demanded from Fisher.
“She’s filing a report with our superior officer and settling matters in the kitchen,” Fisher responded without his usual snark, suggesting he was suffering from some serious hurt.
Henri worked hard to keep his volume under control. “Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“When will she be back?” Stepho asked.
“She planned to be here before the two of you finished work.”
Henri’s gut clenched. “I’m going to look for her.”
Stepho grabbed Henri’s arm before he got to the door. “Be careful.” The expression in his eyes spoke more than his words.
Henri palmed Stepho’s cheek. “Always.” Then he broke free and slipped out of the pod. He couldn’t even consider what he’d do if he found Crystal harmed…or worse.
The corridors were abuzz with people rushing around and stopping to talk in groups of two and three.
He intercepted a biologist from a nearby lab. “What’s going on?”
“The Pro-Freedom Movement has captured the Council in response to the Guard’s raid on the public de
monstration in the cafeteria,” the man explained in a rush of words.
“Captured?”
“Holding them in confinement to face murder charges. Several members of the Movement were killed today in response to the Council’s order to raid the protest.” The scientist glanced nervously over his shoulder as if he were expecting the Council’s Guards to come charging down the hallway behind him.
“How will they determine the verdict? The Council is the court.”
“I heard they’re pulling together a Military Tribunal.”
Henri cursed under his breath. The world was tipping upside down. “Thanks for the info, Doctor,” he said, letting the anxious man resume his course. Then Henri dashed toward the kitchen, where he hoped to find Crystal in one piece.
As he rounded the last corner, he nearly smacked into her. He brought her to his chest and squeezed hard. Lowering his face, he breathed in the flowery scent of her hair. “Thank the stars.”
Then he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back a step to look in her face. “Are you injured?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine. But I take it you’ve seen Fisher at your place.”
“What the hellitude is going on?” He barely refrained from giving her a shake, feeling more out of control than he’d ever been.
“Let’s get back to the pod. I’ll fill everyone in at the same time,” her gaze scanned the area, “and it will be safer than standing out here in the public corridor.”
At the reminder of the risk to her safety, he took her by the hand and hustled back down the hall from the direction he’d come.
Chapter Seven
“Thank the stars.” Stepho suffocated Crystal in a hug when she entered the pod.
She patted his back, hoping he’d let go before she lost consciousness. “I’m okay, Stepho,” she gasped.
Finally, he loosened his grasp, but he didn’t drop his arms. Instead, he stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, as if he were afraid of letting her go.
Crystals Three Chosen Mates Page 6
