Hoping that she wasn’t in trouble, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. She felt like she could feel her heart beat in her throat. Beginning to wring her hands in front of her, she nodded.
He looked down at her, now only inches away, asking, DID YOU DO THIS?
With much more hesitancy this time, she nodded, unable to keep herself from simultaneously reaching back with both hands to cover her bottom. She was fretful that his reaction was so severe; she couldn’t reason why it was, and whether or not Graham’s would be the same, and if she had done the project for naught and was now in a worse situation than before she’d begun.
He lunged toward her, and she squeaked with fear and surprise, squinting her eyes shut and trying to curl herself into a ball to avoid him easily taking her across his knee. She was very, very confused and astonished when, despite the fact that he had seemed so stern, he swooped down and picked her up into a crushing embrace and then swung her playfully around while kissing her cheeks, eyes, and forehead.
When he put her down again, she wobbled a bit on her feet only to be tapped on the nose firmly with his large index finger as soon as she regained her balance. YOU NEED TO LEARN HOW TO OBEY MY SON, LITTLE ONE! he scolded her, although now a large smile seemed to have taken up too much of his face’s real estate for his words to have any feeling. YOU COULD HAVE DIED OUT THERE! YOU HAVE TO FIND BETTER OUTLETS FOR YOUR CLEVERNESS THAN CHOOSING THE NAUGHTIEST CHOICE ON THE TABLE. IT’S GOING TO GET YOU KILLED ONE OF THESE DAYS. WHEN I FIRST MET YOU, I THOUGHT YOU MUST BE FERAL, AND FELT SORRY FOR GRAHAM. AND WHAT YOU DID TO FIE IS ABSOLUTELY DEPLORABLE. YOU’RE JUST LUCKY YOU’RE NOT MINE, THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO TELL YOU.
BUT I’M IMPRESSED, he admitted, squaring his shoulders with something that looked very much like pride. AND I DON’T GET IMPRESSED VERY OFTEN.
YOU DO HAVE A REPUTATION, she admitted, daring a small smile, OF BEING A MAN WHO ISN’T EASILY IMPRESSED, ADMIRAL—SIR.
He waved his hands dismissively. CALL ME JACK, SWEETHEART. WE’RE FAMILY NOW. He then rubbed his hand over her head so that her hair, which was still in disarray from the wind outside, got that much worse. IN FACT—GO AHEAD AND CALL ME DAD. Before that could settle in more than to make Ellie blink dumbly at him, he grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him. C’MON. LET’S GET YOU SOMETHING TO WARM YOU UP, THEN GO CHECK ON FIE TO MAKE SURE THE LITTLE HUMAN GIRL HASN’T ACCIDENTALLY KILLED HIM.
She grinned, finally having a feeling that everything was going to go well, after all.
Chapter Six
“You are as dumb as hell, bro,” Peyton heaved wearily as he braced Thorton against him, his arm slung around his shoulder as Thorton limped along rather pathetically next to him as he bled from the mouth and was not able to see well because one of his eyes was swollen shut. Jio was helping Thorton on his other side, barely containing a laughing grin.
“I said ‘no gaming halls,’” Graham was scolding from behind them, nowhere near laughing himself. He shook some frost out of his hair and continued, “No fighting. Do you remember any of that?”
“I don’t remember a lot of things,” Thorton admitted with a hiss as he pivoted around a corner on his bad leg.
“Probably because you’ve picked so many fights that you probably have brain damage by now!” Graham snapped. “God only knows why you didn’t call for backup earlier. You were lucky we happened to be nearby.”
Thorton grinned at him, despite the fact that his lip was puffy and split. “Lucky?” he asked. “Or strategic?”
“You’re lucky that you weren’t shot,” Graham grumbled. “Not to mention that you were completely unprofessional in front of someone that you were supposed to be making a good example to. If I was my father, you’d be getting lashes. You can’t keep doing this every time we land anywhere.”
“Hey, I sold the ship for pretty good money, boss,” Thorton whined defensively, shrugging his shoulders as much as he was able. “More than she’s worth! I was on personal time.”
“You can’t give yourself personal time. Only I can give you personal time, which you can kiss goodbye, because your leave is cancelled for the next—” About this time, the group turned the corner and, in the main living den, Graham saw Mary and Eleanor on either side of his father, cuddled up against him and snoozing, and Graham’s mouth hung open wordlessly.
Watching the girls cocooned next to him and his father in the middle, looking far more comfortable than Graham had seen him in more than a decade even with bulky headphones on and a work tablet in his hands, brought a clear recall of how his father used to cuddle up with Graham’s four sisters in the same way.
He recognized then that he was peering in on a side of his father that he’d completely forgotten even existed. The warm-and-fuzzy had been long wrung out of him after the losses he had suffered in the plague, but now he remembered that there had been a lot of moments like these in his life.
Graham eyed the men standing next to him and saw that they all looked extremely tense and were standing like small creatures that had accidentally stumbled into the lair of a predator.
“Who’s he?” Peyton whispered, also sensing the tenseness.
“Admiral Masterson,” Thorton whispered back. “Shh. He might not notice us if we step out quickly…” he instructed, and then the men, with serious expressions, all took a simultaneous step back.
The movement must have caught the edge of the admiral’s peripheral vision, because his head snapped up and his eyes left his tablet and settled directly on them. He didn’t stand up, however. He glanced at the girls on either side and seemed to decide that he wasn’t going to disturb them with any movement.
His glance settled on Thorton, who continued to try to hop out of the room without any further aid. “What the hell happened to you, Lieutenant?” he snapped.
Graham, as he’d done since he was a small boy, stepped protectively in front of Thorton as if to shield the mere sight of him, and saluted his father respectfully. “Admiral,” he acknowledged, straightening his posture and puffing out his chest. “We were not expecting you.”
“Obviously,” his father replied. “Though you probably should have, especially after you’d sent me that mission report. Afterward, I made sure that the fleet just happened to be in your path toward Swaraan so I could intercept you here. Based on your report, it sounds like you’re only standing here by sheer luck.”
Graham frowned and shook his head. “No, we’re very good at escape.”
“Which is totally useless if you’d gotten shot and killed by Jazeel when you were captured,” the admiral retorted knowingly.
Graham’s brow furrowed. “How’d you know about that? I didn’t put that in my report.”
“It was in one of theirs,” he replied, gesturing to the men standing behind him, who then, along with Graham, all looked accusingly at Jio.
Jio immediately bleated to Graham in defense, “You said to be thorough!”
“Too thorough,” coughed Thorton, followed by a disapproving shake of his head.
Graham closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked back up at his father. “That situation was defused,” he reminded firmly.
“Yes.” He seemed to quiet due to thought then. For a few moments, he had picked up Eleanor’s hand and, playing with her fingers, seemed to be counting them. “The ability to mate with humans is going to be huge news when we return to Swaraan. Simply put, your report is enough to bring out a fair bit of controversy.”
Graham swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”
Jack looked past Graham then and ordered brusquely, “You’re dismissed.”
Graham’s crew immediately dispersed into all directions. “Where’s Fie?” Thorton asked, looking around.
“In his bedroom,” replied the admiral, “probably still puking his guts out.” He didn’t look the slightest bit concerned by this. With an expression that nearly looked amused, he added with a nod toward Eleanor, “This one says she drugged him. But I really think it was this one.” He
nodded down at Mary. “Since she’s been acting far guiltier about Fie’s current health. She’s been at Fie’s side for the last seven hours, and is exhausted. I’m guessing they prearranged who would claim to be at fault.”
Peyton leaned in toward Thorton and asked quietly, “Can you translate?”
“No,” Thorton replied, looking over at Jack with suspicion. “I don’t know if he is the admiral. He’s… calm. He might be a robot spy.”
“Beast? Help Thorton to his room. I’ll send Mary after you when she wakes up,” Graham assured, gesturing his hand down the hallway. He knew Thorton was joking, but he too understood the confusion. Eleanor poisoned Fie? And his father wasn’t acting like this was a huge offense? It didn’t seem right.
As the men all slowly left the room, Graham looked back at his father and realized that his father was in a good mood. It took him until now to realize it, since he had so rarely seen it. Even before the plague, his father was a very strict and stern man who was not to be crossed.
“I do believe that mating with this particular creature was the best career move you’ll ever make,” his father said.
Graham was so stunned by his father’s words that he just stared at his mouth and blinked for at least a minute. He decided that he must have heard his father wrong, so he shook his head and said, “Excuse me?”
After inviting him to take a seat, Admiral Masterson explained the events of the day, from the mundane to the more extraordinary. Graham didn’t know how to treat any of the information because his stomach was rolling with stress and concern.
“You look less than happy about the new intelligence system your wife devised using only tools she’d probably rarely, if ever before, used, with nearly no materials at all. This might win us the war,” his father reminded, “or at least help us avoid the next devastating event. And the fact that you’re internally bound with her, and that she just can’t wander off back to Earth where we’d lose her forever, makes me optimistic, to say the least.” He raised an eyebrow at Graham and added sullenly, “Do you remember the last time I was optimistic? Because I honestly don’t.”
Graham sat back in his chair wearily. “It’s not that. It’s that I almost lost her today. Lost her. She doesn’t take orders, and on the extremely rare occasions that she does, she still needs to do things her own way. I really don’t know what to do—if I actually go ahead and let her work and pursue these talents, then I’ll probably lose her sooner than later. I don’t know if I could recover from that.”
“Son, you have to let her work,” his father said simply, as if it was an unstoppable event. “Besides, even if you don’t let her, she’ll do it anyway, and it’ll be more dangerous for her if she goes and does everything behind your back and far away from any safety measures that could be afforded. But I understand your concern. You wanted normalcy.”
“Yes,” Graham exhaled, leaning wearily back in his seat.
“And your mate is the furthest thing from normal that you could have ever anticipated,” his father finished. “I’m not going to give you a line like, ‘Well, your mother was difficult, but I took her in hand when it was necessary,’ although she was and I did. I understand that that’s not a comparable situation. She could at least understand my expectations of her. While your little mate doesn’t understand our culture, nor does it seem she’s very interested to learn. She too wanted normalcy, you see. And instead she got a life that was very foreign, with lots of boundaries she’s not used to having while still calling herself free. So you’ll have to find a middle ground with her.”
Graham raised a dark eyebrow in his father’s direction. “I’m quite sure that you never found a middle ground with Mother.”
Jack’s expression seemed startled by this. “I don’t know what you saw growing up. But apparently you didn’t see a whole lot. Did your mother and I butt heads a lot? Yes. Your mother was very spirited, but that was one of the things I enjoyed about her. She made things interesting and she took care of business. Not unlike your own mate. But just because you saw me lay down the law with her a few times does not mean that I molded her into something she was not. Nor did I try to, or at least I didn’t try for long. Me taming her wouldn’t have made either of us happy in the end. It would have just made things quieter. And I’ve had enough quiet years in my life now to assure you that there’s nothing worse than a quiet, easy life.”
Graham nodded, feeling his emotions inside of him stretch themselves over memories uncomfortably for a moment before he sat back, nodding. They were both quiet for a long while, and then his father went back to listening to conversations over his headphones. Eventually, Graham asked with a loud sigh, “But what if she doesn’t want to find a middle ground with me?”
Jack, not looking up from his tablet, replied simply, “Well, son, that’s what paddles are for.”
Graham gave a singular laugh, grinning with wry amusement. “That’s what I thought.” Picking dirt from underneath his fingernails, he grumbled, “I’m going to have to do something about her nearly dying today.”
“And for poisoning one of your men,” his father added, glancing up. “Let’s just say if she was mine, I’d split her ass the other way just for Fie alone. Risking her own life and health is one thing—not a thing that I would have my mate do without it being a life-and-death matter, either—but risking someone else’s? That needs to be nipped in the bud but good.”
Graham narrowed his eyes as he looked at the still, curled-up girl next to his father, and decided skeptically that she was a little too still. “You think she’s awake and just trying to wait until I leave?”
“Absolutely. Same with the blonde girl,” the general said, nodding his head in Mary’s direction. “I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to be in the doghouse with her husband. What has that human been eating? He could eat most other humans for breakfast,” he added, his eyes shifting in the direction that Peyton had headed.
Graham frowned, since he felt like his father had easily put his own manhood up against Peyton and found him wanting. That being said, he had long decided never to get caught in a situation where he had to do hand-to-hand combat with Peyton. “I don’t really know what the human will do. Those two have a strange relationship that I’m still grappling with. They have some sort of deep friendship that binds them together,” he began to explain, but when his father looked back at him with an eyebrow already raised with skepticism, Graham waved his hand dismissively in the air and concluded, “I wouldn’t worry about her in any case. The Beast—or, Peyton, rather—wouldn’t do her any harm on his life.”
His father gave a thoughtful grunt and then poked his finger into Mary’s side. Mary, who convincingly looked like she had indeed been sleeping, gave an annoyed squeak before pulling herself up into sitting while rubbing her eyes. “Hm?” she mumbled drowsily before she looked around her and quickly snapped into alertness. “You’re back!” she said, her eyes settling on Graham.
“I am,” Graham said with a nod, keeping his expression severe.
Her eyes rounded with confusion. “Where’s Peyton?” she asked innocently.
“In Thorton’s room. I need you to go there. Thorton was in a minor altercation, and as you know, Fie is unavailable to assist.”
Her face reddened into a deep crimson, yet her expression looked sickened. “Yeah,” she said, looking distracted. “Of course. I’ll go right now,” she said, her voice a quiet mumble. She practically tiptoed by Graham, as if she was actually walking upon thin ice.
“Look,” said Eleanor, who had popped into alertness as she rolled around so that her head was resting on the admiral’s lap but her eyes were drifting over to Graham. “I’m the one who drugged Fie, not—”
Graham put his hand up in a halting gesture, and she immediately silenced. With a shake of his head, he promised, “You’re lucky I don’t believe that. You’re already in enough trouble as it is.”
She sat up and braved to summon up enough audacity to look at Graham’s fa
ther accusingly. DIDN’T YOU TELL HIM ABOUT THE SYSTEM? she said in shal’ta with the smoothness Swarii had if they’d been able to shal’ta since they were toddlers.
Graham blinked with surprise. Although this didn’t make his father’s obvious adoration for her any less impressive, Graham couldn’t help but be impressed that she hadn’t instead talked herself out of his father’s good graces.
His father’s eyes rolled lazily toward Graham’s little mate, whose cheeks were going red. I DID, IN FACT. THE ENDS DON’T JUSTIFY THE MEANS IN SITUATIONS WHERE YOU THINK UP POISONING YOUR FRIENDS AND ALLIES TO BE ABLE TO GET A JOB DONE. YOU’RE A VERY CLEVER LITTLE FEMALE, THIS IS WITHOUT QUESTION, BUT YOU NEED THAT CLEVER LITTLE TAIL OF YOURS BLISTERED BUT GOOD.
Her lips were pursed tightly, and Graham watched her with guilty interest. He hadn’t noticed very well before when they’d had their spats, but Graham finally noticed that she looked adorable when she was upset. She looked kittenish. It was almost hard to be firm with her.
When she seemed to have discovered that his father would be absolutely no help to her, her shoulders slumped and she looked up at Graham. “You can’t punish me in the middle of the night,” she said, and seemed to make herself horizontally smaller by pressing her shoulders, elbows, and hands toward her center. “I’m tired.”
“Then get to bed,” Graham said, reaching his hand out to gesture her to grab it, which she did with a loud sigh. He guided her out of the room and looked back at his father. They exchanged nods and then Graham followed her closely on the way back to their room.
“As to the wing incident,” she began after a whole ninety seconds of silence, “I think I was punished enough. I mean, we can go back and forth about whether or not it was necessary, and I think it was, and then I froze my ass off all day.”
“Still doesn’t fix that if my father hadn’t come—” he crisply argued.
She waved her hand in the air dismissively as she tried to interrupt him. “Yeah, yeah. I know, but—”
His Untamed Mate (Swarii Mates Book 1) Page 25
