Entropy

by Jess Anastasi

  “Done,” Qaelan said right over top of her. Probably because her father’s expression had been steadily getting tighter as she talked. Qaelan stepped forward and held out a hand toward her father to shake. “I’ll bring you fifty thousand hard creds within two weeks. And you have my sincere apologies over what happened with your daughter. I can promise you, it’ll never happen again.”

  Seeming somewhat satisfied, her father nodded. “See Kelvin for any provisions you might need.”

  Qaelan murmured a low thanks before striding over to Rian, walking right past her like she wasn’t even there. The two men shared a look she couldn’t interpret before leaving the room. She glanced at her father, inhaling, ready to argue against this, but from the set of his features, she could tell it was no use. He wouldn’t change his mind.

  This was insanity. Her father’s need to protect his reputation had just been taken to a whole new level. The chances of Qaelan actually succeeding were small. And now some of that was her responsibility, as well. If she didn’t bring her share of thirty thousand, then her father would likely punish him anyway, even if he did manage to bring back the fifty thousand of his share.

  She hurried out of the room, tracking Qaelan and Rian down the hallway. They were moving fast, talking low, and she only just caught up with them as they stepped outside.

  “Forster!”

  He didn’t respond, didn’t turn around, like he hadn’t even heard her.

  “Qaelan, wait.”

  Jogging over, she could see his shoulders bunch as Rian climbed onto a badass looking autobike. But instead of getting on behind his cousin, Qaelan turned to look at her, wariness written all over his face. “I don’t think there’s anything we need to say.”

  “How about the fact that this is all but impossible?”

  “Like you care.” Qaelan crossed his arms, blue eyes ice cold as they regarded her. “You obviously knew your father’s track record when it came to men in your life. Yet you kissed me in front of a bar full of people who would have gone to him with the story just to curry good will the second we walked out the door. They were right. You are the demon princess of hell, and your kiss is lethal.”

  “Now you’re just being dramatic,” she muttered, which didn’t win her any points, only made his manner frostier. “Look, I knew who you were, and yes, I took a selfish risk that you and your cousin’s standing with my father would save you. This isn’t even about me, it’s about my father’s reputation. If you could do something publicly to show him—”

  “So now I have to correct your mistake?” He tapped a finger against his jaw. “Oh wait, I’m already doing that. By going to steal dick-knows-what to earn a small fortune worth of untraceable creds in the shortest amount of time possible. They should make this into a reality TV show, I’m sure the viewing figures would be astronomical.”

  He started to step away from her, but she grabbed his upper arm. “Qaelan, just hear me out—”

  Turning back, he pointedly stared at where she held on to him.

  She snatched her hand back with a silent curse.

  “I think you’ve done enough, don’t you? Go find your share and leave me the hell alone.”

  She took a step back, the words landing like a blow because they were so close to what her father had said. “I was only trying to help.”

  “Yeah, but I notice there wasn’t an apology in there anywhere.” He kicked a leg over the autobike and Rian revved it loudly. “Goodbye, Camille.”

  Rian juiced the engine and the bike took off in a blowback of dust from the pebbled driveway.

  No, she hadn’t apologized, because truthfully, she wasn’t sorry about what had happened between Qaelan and her. It’d been memorable. Satisfying in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time, even though they hadn’t actually had sex. She still felt some kind of inexplicable connection with him. The only thing she had to be sorry about was her damned overprotective father.

  In the past, the handful of other boyfriends her father had dealt with, she’d never demanded to know what had happened to them. There were rumors, there were always rumors. But she’d never wanted them confirmed, and maybe she hadn’t cared deeply enough, resigned to their fate of disappearing from the Barbary Belt, never to be heard from again. She hoped her father had only banished them to the far reaches of the galaxy.

  Though she was under no illusions that her father was capable of killing people—it was a fact like the universe was black and stars twinkled in the sky—but for her own sanity, she had to believe he hadn’t killed those boys. Because she didn’t think she could live with the guilt that their lives had ended simply because she’d been foolish enough to become infatuated with them.

  Qaelan was different. Qaelan would be different. This time, she wasn’t going to sit back and let him disappear into the dark depths of the galaxy and leave her wondering.

  He wouldn’t listen to reason? Fine, she’d find another way to deal with this situation. One that didn’t feature her doing any less than her fair share.

  Chapter Six

  Goddamn Camille Blackstone.

  Now he understood the reason behind all those looks in the bar, what Wyl had been trying to warn him about. He was a frecking moron, because anyone with half a brain might have stopped to figure out what her deal was before going anywhere with her. But no, he’d been so caught up in the idea of getting her all to himself, he’d ignored all the warning signs.

  And for what? Yeah, they’d had a hot moment, and she’d been so damn sexy it had blown his mind. But it had ended too quickly with a bit of fun and games, resulting in him being punished for something he hadn’t even done.

  The worst thing? When he’d walked into Blackstone’s office and seen her standing there, his pulse had picked up, body flash heating, remembering the way she’d moaned when he’d stroked her. He’d wanted nothing more than to drag her off to an empty room and finish what they’d started.

  Utter insanity. Which luckily hadn’t lasted long with her ruthless father standing a few steps away. Because he might have lost his head for a minute there, but he didn’t have a death wish. And he’d been completely, ass-bare serious when he’d promised Blackstone he would never touch her again. In fact, he’d be happy never to see her again. Forgetting about this little episode and moving on with his life seemed like an excellent plan.

  As soon as he’d worked out how the hell he was going to come up with fifty thousand untraceable hard creds within two weeks, that was.

  On the bright side, at least it wasn’t eighty. Unfortunately, at this point—fifty or eighty—it probably didn’t make a dick of difference, because he had no clue how he was going to get any of it.

  “So, looks like your plans to leave in the morning to find the Imojenna have been nixed.”

  Rian and he had been silent since they’d left Blackstone’s manse, but as they neared the city and slowed down to navigate the heavier traffic, he had too many thoughts spinning around his mind to stay silent any longer.

  “Not necessarily,” Rian replied, not a single note of concern in his voice over this latest turn in events.

  They pulled up outside the villa and Qae frowned.

  “And what exactly does not necessarily mean in Rian-speak?”

  Rian slung his leg off the bike and then pushed his wind-ruffled hair back. “We’re still leaving first thing in the morning, and we’re not coming back until we find the Imojenna.”

  Typical. Once Rian made up his mind about something, he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way, not even threats made by sociopathic pirates who were almost as scary as him. Almost, but not quite. Doubtful there was anyone in the universe more quietly terrifying that Rian Sherron.

  “And Blackstone’s little ultimatum? The fact my balls are literally on the line here?”

  Rian sent him a flat look. “Maybe you should try keeping your balls to yourself for a change.”

  “And deprive people throughout the universe of all this.” He held his arms
out for emphasis. “It’d be a crime against humanity.”

  Unsurprisingly, Rian cut him a typical you’re-an-idiot look. “Get your ass back to your ship and make sure it’s ready for the morning. And seriously, maybe lay off the meaningless sex for a while.”

  Before he could reply, Rian turned and took himself into the villa.

  “Because I’m such a man-ho and everything.” He wasted a glare in Rian’s direction.

  Yeah, he liked nothing more than enjoying a little horizontal sports with a willing partner. But meaningless? That wasn’t him. He liked to make sure he had some kind of connection with whoever he ended up in bed with. He never had sex for the sake of having sex. Not that there hadn’t been offers for exactly that. There were always offers. He just liked to have some idea of who he got naked with.

  Camille last night had been the exception, and he sure as shite had learned his lesson. Maybe his cousin did have a point, however. Any random person he picked up could be a Reidar in disguise trying to get to Rian. Talk about shrivel factor. And this whole thing with Blackstone had definitely been the freck-that icing on the shite cake.

  He threw a leg over the bike, mood nose-diving faster than a ship with failing engines, and slung his autobike into a tight turn, tires spinning before gaining traction on the drive. When he got back to the Ebony Winter, he stomped up his stairs, went onto the bridge, queued up some angry music to pipe out of the speakers throughout the ship, and started preparing for launch the following morning. He checked the provisions first so he could send a list to Kelvin-the-bitch. If Blackstone was going to foot the bill, then he definitely wasn’t going to skimp out on the luxuries. Real coffee and real food. None of that protein powder that made repli-rations for this trip.

  After he sent the list to Kelvin, he got to doing a little cleaning, all domesticated like. He was halfway through checking one of the bunk rooms when he heard a familiar voice calling his name from the cargo hold.

  He stuck his head out the hatchway to call in return, “Up here.”

  A moment later, Jase Nevan appeared, casting a glance over the lowered bunks. After moving their base of operations to the Barbary Belt, all but one of his original crew had cut out on him. Well, one of them had got dead because they’d turned out to be Reidar. Which was probably why the others had hot-footed themselves elsewhere. Understandable. If Rian hadn’t been his damned cousin, he might have done the same thing.

  At some point, Jase had unofficially decided to permanently attach himself to the Ebony Winter and had come on every run in the past twelve months. Jase was a friend of Rian’s hacker, Tannin, and an ex-IPC officer who’d served on the prison planet, Erebus. He’d proven to be quite useful, and loyal almost to a fault. Of course, it also didn’t hurt that the guy was utterly adorable and seemed clueless about it. Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately—Qae had a personal rule about never sleeping with his crew, so he’d never done anything more than occasionally flirt.

  “I heard something interesting this morning in the bazaar.” Jase came over and leaned a shoulder against the nearby wall, crossing his arms.

  “Of course, you did,” he muttered. Only god knew what people were saying about Camille and him. No wonder Blackstone was pissed. He’d never had children, never aspired to reproduce, but he had to imagine if he had a daughter and he thought some guy had randomly used her for sex, he might have been in a killing mood, as well.

  “So is it true? Did you hook up with Rene Blackstone’s daughter?” Jase hiked up an eyebrow as if the question had actually been are you really that much of a moron?

  “This is the last time I’m going to talk about it.” He snap-folded the bunk he’d been checking. “One, I didn’t know she was Rene Blackstone’s daughter. Two, we didn’t have sex. And three, once I complete this job for Blackstone, it will never be mentioned again.”

  “What job?” Jase asked, following after him as he stepped through the hatchway.

  “Blackstone generously agreed not to kill me, as long as I go find him fifty thousand untraceable hard creds. Within two weeks.” His boots clattered on the stairs as he made his way up to the next level.

  “Qae, that’s—”

  “A one-way, all expenses paid trip to Erebus waiting to happen? And that’s if I’m lucky.” He headed over to the galley because somehow it was long past lunch and he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

  Jase’s expression was somber as he stopped on the opposite side of the galley bench. “How does Blackstone expect you to pull that off?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care, as long as he gets his creds. If that’s not enough, Rian’s finally cracked it over not having his ship, so he’d already decided we were leaving in the morning and not coming back until we’ve tracked down the Imojenna. This trip is basically going to be one big orgy of impossibility and insanity getting it on like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You’re telling me.” He tossed Jase a bottle of beer and then knocked the top off one for himself. It wasn’t food, but working on the ship the last few hours had made him thirsty.

  A chime sounded above the music blaring through his speakers. “That must be Kelvin-the-bitch with the provisions I ordered.”

  He set his beer on the counter and then jogged down the stairs to the cargo bay. A hover pallet was slowly climbing the ramp, stacked full of crates and boxes, someone following along behind, though he couldn’t see them clearly.

  “Is there something I need to sign?” The hover pallet shuddered to a halt and he went over to examine a crate of fruit.

  “I already took care of that.”

  Like lightning zapping his body at a gazillion volts, the sound of Camille’s voice shot through him. He side-stepped around the stacked pallet to eye her where she stood with her arms crossed and a stuffed-full rucksack at her feet.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Qae, is that—” Jase began to ask from behind him, apparently having followed him down from the bridge.

  “Camille Blackstone? Yes, it is. But she was just leaving.”

  Except she didn’t leave. She set her shoulders, tilting her chin to a stubborn angle. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He strode around the pallet until he was standing in front of her. The subtle scent of tropical flowers hit the back of his throat on his next inhale, rippling over his skin like he could feel it. Goddamn the woman. Hadn’t she messed with him enough?

  “What is this?” He pointed at the rucksack on his deck.

  “My bag. Packed with my belongings.” She smirked at him, like she thought she’d already won some battle he didn’t realize they’d started.

  “Why is it on my ship?” He had to ask the obvious question, even though he had a bad feeling he already knew the answer.

  “Instead of going to get our shares of the creds separately, we’re going to work together. I’m coming with you.”

  “Like hell in a hankie you are.” He reached down and snatched up her bag with one hand, and clamped her elbow with the other.

  “Hell in a hankie?” she repeated, looking up at him in confusion as he towed her back out of his ship.

  “Never mind that.” They reached the end of his ramp. “You’ll excuse me if I tell you to get the freck off my ship before your father can punish me yet again for all that crazy monkey sex we never had.”

  She yanked her arm out of his grip, grabbed her bag, and then tossed it up the ramp. It smacked into the pallet and then plonked to the floor.

  “You were right. This is my problem. It’s my fault you’re getting sent on an impossible raid. I’m coming whether you like it or not. I refuse to have your capture or death on my conscience.”

  Though he wanted to hate her, didn’t want anything to do with her and all that she had going on—because screw him sideways if she didn’t look smokin’ hot—his respect for her dragged up a notch at her determination to put things right.

  “Look, Camille—”

>   “Cami.” She grimaced. “Only my father calls me Camille.”

  “Cami,” he amended, ignoring the way it felt oh-yeah-good rolling off his tongue. “As much as I appreciate you wanting to fix this, I already narrowly avoided getting stabbed in the balls by your father once. What do you think is going to happen when he finds out you came along on this little trip he probably doesn’t expect me to return from?”

  Because he’d had time to think about things in the last few hours, and it seemed pretty likely Blackstone was probably banking on him either being reckless and desperate enough that he made a mistake and got caught by the authorities. Or he picked the wrong person to steal from and ended up dead. Either way, Blackstone had his problem taken care of without being directly responsible.

  Cami didn’t look the least bit deterred by what he thought was a tidy bit of logic. “Then he’ll have a vested interest to make sure you come back, won’t he?”

  Good god-loving christ. The woman was diabolical. Maybe even more so than her father.

  “You’re offering to be my shield?”

  She nodded, contemplation edging into her features. “If you want to look at it like that, then sure, I’ll be your shield.”

  Bloody hell. Was he really considering this? No. He couldn’t. Too much was at stake. If something happened to her, the Reidar wouldn’t be Rian’s and his biggest problem any longer. Blackstone had far reach throughout the galaxy, a way more effective network than the IPC or UAFA had. They would be dead…well maybe not Rian. But he definitely wouldn’t survive a sustained campaigned against his life by Blackstone. And Rian wouldn’t have the safety of the Belt to retreat to any longer when things were getting hot with the Reidar.

  “Fine, I can see your point.” A smile transformed her features as he conceded that much, making his next breath a little tight. Leaving him with the weird urge to do anything and everything day after day just to see that smile. He shook his head, both at her and himself. “But I still can’t let you come. There’s much more at stake here than just my life. Things I can’t explain to you. This isn’t just my risk to take.”