Graham turned around and looked up toward Fie, who was lazily sitting on the most comfortable chair in the ship next to Mary, in front of the monitors. Mary wasn’t looking any less pouty than Eleanor had looked. “I cannot stress enough, Fie—do not under any circumstances let those girls out of your sight. I don’t care if you have to tie both of them to a chair.”
“I think I can handle a couple of brats,” Fie mumbled, and then looked toward Mary, who was glaring at him. “No offense.”
Mary rolled her eyes and curled herself into a tight, angry little ball. “Chauvinists,” she grunted.
“Do you want to give me a kiss before I go?” Peyton asked Mary, leaning over her and puckering his lips.
“I can tell you exactly what to kiss,” Mary said as she ground her teeth.
“The tension in this place is getting a little stifling,” Thorton complained as he headed down toward the ramp. Eleanor shot out of the hallway and was quick on Thorton’s heels. After Peyton stood up and frowned at Mary for a while, he kissed her forehead, professed his love, and then followed the rest of them out toward the ramp as well.
Thorton had moved the hovercycle there, and it appeared like Eleanor was teaching him how to drive it, despite the fact that Graham was very aware that she had never driven one herself. “Be really careful on it. And the accelerator is gonna be a little sticky, so don’t punch it too hard because it may not release quickly after that. I hadn’t gotten to even look at it,” Eleanor was fretting as Thorton mounted it with ease and wrapped his hands over the handlebars.
“Look, kitten, I’ve spent half my life on one of these,” he greatly exaggerated with heavy bravado. He’d probably spent a total of twelve hours on a hovercycle, but he hadn’t been horrible in the past at driving one and it was certainly more experience than the rest of them had. When he saw Peyton step onto the ramp, he gestured behind him and said, “Hey, Beast, get on behind me.”
Graham glanced at Peyton and saw a flurry of expressions passing over his face very quickly—surprise, hesitancy, and then eventually excitement. He just passed it all off with a shrug and an, “Okay.”
Eleanor didn’t hide her look of jealousy, which was directed at Peyton. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Mary would kill me if you broke your stupid, ugly face,” she said to him with a scrunch of her nose.
Graham lowered the ramp, and he could hear the revving of the hoverbike as Thorton started it up. Peyton yelled, “Goddamn it!” as the cold breezed in. Graham himself felt the cold for a second, and dreaded that it would be several minutes before his body responded and began to warm up. Peyton, as a human, was just going to have to trust the several layers he was wearing.
“Be careful,” Eleanor called above the noise.
“I’m always careful,” Thorton snorted, and then drove backward several feet, stopping just inches before he hit the back of the room as everyone watched with wide-eyed horror. Peyton gave a short scream before he recovered himself. Thorton sent a sheepish look at everyone before looking over at Eleanor. “Just seeing if I got your attention,” he told her with a wink.
“You got my fucking attention!” Peyton snapped at him, giving himself a shake.
“I’m a little rusty, it’s been a few years, but I got this now. Hold on,” Thorton assured and then, with a roar, sped down the ramp and onto the hazy, smoky street below.
Eleanor was watching the outside very closely before Graham stepped up behind her. “Remember to be good for Fie,” he told her, a little more firmly than he hoped was needed. “I mean it—no hijinks.”
She spun around and looked up at him. “What makes you think I’m even the type of person who’d play hijinks? How do you even know the word hijinks?” she griped, standing with her hands firmly planted on her hips.
One day he was going to have to more fully describe just how many human men he and his squad had been chained together with on Planet 533. Graham could recall every millisecond, but then it seemed like Eleanor, and maybe humans, couldn’t. They didn’t seem to have a very good memory—it was more broad and abstract than refined and easy to recall. But today was not the day for that. He simply said, “Just be on your best behavior, alright?” He put his hands on her shoulders and then bent to kiss her cheek.
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, waving her hand at him dismissively. Then she turned and clutched her upper arms with her hands. “Man, you weren’t kidding about it being freezing outside!”
Despite the fact that he still felt a little annoyed about her putting him in a bad mood back in their bedroom, now he couldn’t help but smirk slightly and say, “See? I’m not just a tyrant. I’m a mate who cares about his woman not becoming an icicle.”
“Right. Just a non-icicle who doesn’t work—” she quipped and he immediately put his arms in the air.
“We’re not discussing it right now!” he declared firmly.
“But—” she continued, looking like she was going to follow him.
He turned just to step toward her with his finger pointing at the floor. “Stay. I don’t want you to put a single toe outside, do you understand me, little girl?” he said as firmly as he could. He regretted that it came out as a shout, but the wind howling at the bottom of the ramp filled his ears, and the thought of anyone seeing that there was a pretty female onboard of this ship just ripe for the kidnapping tightened his chest with a sudden panic.
She opened her mouth, looking like she was going to argue.
“Do you understand me?” he demanded.
Her posture changed from feisty and pugnacious to pouty and churlish. “Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes at him before turning back toward the interior of the ship without any further words of goodbye.
Graham looked at her and then left. Braum and Jio were waiting outside of the control box where he punched in his code, muttering about his wife’s poor understanding about everything under the sun.
“You know, my mate’s a little on the stubborn and feisty side, too,” Braum began. “Do you want a piece of advice? Don’t—”
He turned and his expression seemed to cut Braum off of his self-destructive conversation before he was even able to say, “No.”
“Just being conversational,” Braum grunted.
“How about we keep that at a minimum today, and keep on our mission?” Graham replied in a clipped tone.
Navigating the cold, smoky, and crowded streets was just as treacherous as he expected, and he noticed before too long that he had outpaced Jio and Braum, who were about ten feet behind and walking shoulder-to-shoulder. He could hear that they were conversing, and then he heard his name mentioned. He slowed his pace just a tad, even though he remembered his mother once telling him that the greatest displeasures come from eavesdropping on conversations about oneself. But he couldn’t help wondering what they could be saying that they wouldn’t say to his face.
He could hear Jio rumble behind him, “Is he always in a bad mood, or is it just this mission?”
Graham listened in as Braum replied, “Oh, he’s always been like this. I’ve seen him happier on this mission than any of the rest combined.”
Graham frowned. That seemed unexpected.
“Then why do you keep volunteering to be on his detail?” Jio hissed in a whisper.
“Because you get to kill more Frians with him than under nearly any other command,” he replied. “With the added bonus that he normally keeps everyone under him alive. But he’s been a little less… desolate on this mission. He normally looks like a man who accidentally swallowed a razor blade. Figures. He lost four sisters in the plague. That explains the admiral, too. The half-breed back there’s the most company he’s probably had since. She’s a brat like there never was, but I also feel a bit bad for her. He doesn’t know how to be happy, and no one can abide their mate being too much happier than themselves.”
Graham grimaced, swearing that his mother had been right. Hearing that had brought him no pleasure. Now he was back to worrying about hi
s relationship with Eleanor. Could there be truth in that? Was he making her unhappy?
Well, obviously. And she was doing the same to him, probably because she had also lost her entire family. What a pair they made. They were both fighting for happiness that neither of them could attain.
Graham grumbled to himself as he found the tip of irony. After dreading it for days, he suddenly wanted his father’s advice.
* * *
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Ellie asked, leaning over Fie’s large body as it lay motionless over the large sofa and peeling open his heavy eyelid. A severely dilated eye rolled around, seemingly trying to escape from the light.
“No,” Mary said with a singular laugh. She had her fingers pressed against Fie’s neck and was looking at the clock. “He’s out cold.” She stood up and then stretched out her back. “Hopefully I didn’t overdose him. He’s already bound to wake up with the hangover to end all hangovers. I gave him enough sedatives to knock out a horse.”
“I appreciate you drugging him for me,” Ellie said conversationally, as if Mary had just helped her carry in the groceries.
And Mary gave a careless wave of her dainty hand. “It wasn’t hard. It’s not like he suspected me or that drink I gave him. The hard part was figuring out what on this ship could safely incapacitate a Swarii. Especially one that large.” She jerked her thumb at him, and for a moment, she and Ellie watched quietly as he started to snore and groan at the same time.
“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take the blame for all this,” she said, twiddling her fingers at Fie and then walking toward her bedroom.
Mary followed close behind her. “Damn right you will. You’re probably going to get in trouble already.”
Ellie walked into the bedroom and peeked under the bed, pulling out her work tablet. “Well, the idea is that I won’t get in trouble, either. By the time they get back, Fie will be moving at least and the new antenna installation will go off without a hitch and work. Graham and everyone will be so freaking excited, they’ll forget the means I used to do it.” She looked up and saw Mary smirking knowingly at her. “What?”
“Since when did you become an optimist?” Mary asked with a laugh.
“Hey, when it comes to work, it’s not optimism. I just got mad skills,” Ellie replied with a cocky swagger of her head. “And besides, I’ll give that Swarii enzyme this—it makes me a little smarter.” she stated, waving her hand as Mary’s eyes widened with surprise. “I mean not smarter. But I seem to remember stuff a lot better, you know? And then when I think of stuff, my focus is like ultra-clear. It’s almost worth getting it.” She then narrowed her eyes. “Almost.”
“Well, let’s hope whatever you’re doing is also worth Graham murdering you over,” Mary replied with a smirk, crossing her arms loosely over her stomach.
“Oh, yeah. Totally worth that. But he won’t. Let’s just say that if this works, then it’s definitely something on his Christmas list.” She pressed her tablet between her thighs as she grabbed a coat off its hook and slung it around her shoulders, then grabbed her tablet and put it under her arm.
“And if it doesn’t work?” Mary asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh, then yeah. He might kill me a little, but not too badly since we’re selling this ship anyway. Worst thing that happens is I break something and they have to shave some money off the purchase price for whatever loser buys this rusty piece of shit,” she replied, jerking her thumb toward the ship.
She knew she had this in the bag, though. Although she had only diagramed a few changes and everything she’d thought of was theoretical more than anything else, especially with alien technology, she’d never felt so confident to get something to work. The idea had just hit her while she was thinking of something she could make or fix that would make Graham practically swoon and beg her earnestly to start working again as soon as possible. And apologize and grovel about how unworthy he was of her.
Right about the time when Thorton was complaining to Peyton about how the war would have been much further along if their intelligence was better, but there weren’t very many Frian plans that had been foiled because they kept their communications lines so secret, it had hit her—help them win the war. Get the Swarii access to Frian communications!
All she had to do was figure out how. Which was a complete bitch of a thing to figure out, but the more she focused on the issue and the more she poked around on the old Frian ship’s communication system, the more confident she had become. Finally, the scheme was born and her plans were drawn.
“You think you’re a real badass, don’t you?” Mary asked, snapping Ellie out of a daydream where she was universally recognized and became queen of Swaraan.
Ellie gave a laugh. “You know it.” She started to walk toward the ramp to the outdoors. “Alright, Mar—all you have to do is relax and wait. I looked through one of the ship’s control manuals and found the code to get back in. I’ll use that once I’m done.”
“You’re not gonna dick around out there, are you?” Mary asked hesitantly, raising a blonde eyebrow.
“Hell, no. It’s fucking cold out there. I’m thinking that it’s below twenty degrees, so I’m gonna be hustling.”
“Well, try not to electrocute yourself, okay? The ship’s probably packing an unbelievable amount of voltage,” Mary grumbled. “Be safe, not stupid.”
Ellie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Seriously. I don’t want to go out there and peel your fried-up carcass off the wing. My plan is to pretend I didn’t even know you were out there.” As they opened the ramp, she peered out curiously into the dim light.
“Don’t worry,” Ellie replied with a shrug. “You won’t be the one peeling off my fried carcass.” She gave a laugh, but when she turned toward Mary, she saw her frowning. “Just close it after me,” she ordered as she instantly sobered. “And really—don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
* * *
Five hours later, she was not fine.
In fact, she couldn’t remember a time when she had been so very not fine, and she’d been through some incredibly not-fine moments. “Goddamn it,” she muttered to herself. She eyed the ship as she shuddered, curled into the jacket as much as possible to keep warm as the temperature was rapidly dropping. “It’s because I called you a piece of shit, isn’t it? Well, you are!”
She knew she should have felt lucky that she wasn’t dead already, but the heavy amount of shivering that was jerking her body around made her incapable of such thoughts. Still, if she had fallen just an inch further to the right when she’d slipped on the black ice patch on the top of the ship, she wouldn’t have fallen onto the wing. She would have cracked against the pavement below after a hundred-and-fifty-foot drop.
Unfortunately, there was no way to get down from the wing. The only thing to do now was to die of cold as she waited for her husband or one of his men to return home, or for Mary to make an appearance. “Wh-why hasn’t sh-sh-she checked on me?” she shivered, her teeth chattering.
She couldn’t believe how much she was missing Graham right now because, even though she’d be caught in the act of doing a good, long list of stuff he’d not minced words about telling her not to do, she wasn’t overly worried about what horrible punishment he’d cook up over the stunt. After all she’d been through, she just couldn’t believe that freezing to death on a wing of a rusty, old, stolen Frian spaceship while in the middle of a dirty, poorly placed space station was the way she was going to end her short little life.
When she did hear the distant sound of a hovercycle, she didn’t believe it. She had heard several things like it, and it turned out that she was always just imagining it. She didn’t even look up until she saw something large moving into her peripheral vision.
She jerked her head up and found that it was very much not Thorton and Peyton returned home to rescue her. It was someone in a hovercar that she’d never seen before. She was sure that it was going to drive righ
t by, but got on her hands and knees anyway, hoping to wave it down.
The vehicle was satisfyingly Jetsons-like. It was small, but domed on top. The first thing she would have thought, if it wasn’t more car-shaped, would have been ‘Oh. This is a flying saucer,’ except that it was hovering only a few feet from the ground. To her surprise, she didn’t have to wave it down. It came closer and closer to the ship until it finally settled to a stop.
The driver of the car then got out and, after hopping down to the ground like a cat, adjusted his jacket on his shoulders. She peered down and found herself so busy in studying her appearance she’d nearly forgotten that she couldn’t feel her nose, fingers, or toes anymore at this point. The man didn’t look old, but his hair was still graying at the edges. She’d put his age at about fifty or so. At first, she thought it was Graham after all, since the build and shape of him was so similar, but then she blinked and remembered to launch into action.
“Hello! Hello?” Ellie shouted down. “Sir! Sir? Hello?” Her heart fluttered with excitement as the man had obviously heard her despite the howling wind between them. He spun around and looked around him wildly until his eyes finally settled on Ellie.
His eyebrow immediately wrinkled. She imagined that he didn’t expect to see a little human girl sitting on the wing like a bird on a line. He shouted something up to her, but it was in Swarii and she shook her head, unable to comprehend anything that he was saying.
She bounced anxiously, wishing that she had learned to use shal’ta, then wondering if shal’ta would even work over the distance between them. She tried to shal’ta, in fact, but gave up within moments in favor of flapping her arms around and shouting down, “Help! Help! Help me!”
The man was at least smart enough to get the point. He walked to the intercom on the side of the ship’s lock, and she watched as there was no response. This, she told herself, was probably because Mary had no idea how to use the intercom, even if the intercom was working, and Fie was probably still ‘out.’ Even if Mary did know how to use the intercom, she probably wasn’t going to answer a strange man who was speaking an unfamiliar language.
His Untamed Mate (Swarii Mates Book 1) Page 23
