by Kate Rudolph
It was crawling with private security, most likely hired by the duke. They lounged around a small speeder, a dozen mercenaries armed and waiting for trouble.
“That’s not good,” Andie muttered beside him.
Xandr agreed. He called up Keana on the comm. “We’re heading to the secondary rendezvous.”
“Affirmative,” she confirmed.
It was several kilometers away and the least conspicuous way to cover the distance would have been to hire a vehicle, but Xandr didn’t trust anything that would take his credits. Mebion’s presence made him paranoid, more paranoid than usual, and he wouldn’t risk Andie falling into the duke’s clutches.
“We need to double back,” Xandr said. “It’s the fastest way to the secondary location.” Andie walked silently at his side, her expression obscured by shadow. Xandr wanted to reach out and grab her hand, to hold it gently and keep her close, but he’d already proved he was a brute tonight. “If I get caught, you need to run,” he told her, keeping his voice quiet enough so it didn’t carry. “Don’t wait for me. Keana knows what to do in this situation. You need to get to safety.”
Andie stopped moving. They were in the shadows of one of the alleys, out of sight from anyone, but still so easy to discover. A lucky glance from one of the mercenaries would reveal the two of them and it would all be over. But Andie stayed still.
“Are you doing the hero thing now? Or is this just ‘cause I’m part of your crew?” She spoke so quietly he almost couldn’t make out the words.
They needed to move. If Mebion thought something was going on he’d have every force on the planet out searching for Xandr, but from the stubborn set of Andie’s shoulders, Xandr could tell that nothing less than slinging her over his shoulder and making a run for it would get her moving. “You’re part of my crew,” he replied, “and I’m no hero.” Not after a decade as an outlaw, and certainly not before then, given the things he’d seen and done nothing to change. The things he’d been complicit in.
“Let them take me,” she muttered in an exaggerated low voice that he realized was meant to be an impression of him. “One of us needs to survive this. This has nothing to do with the sex. The sex means nothing.”
Now was so not the time to touch on that. But Xandr couldn’t just let that go without doing something. And even if they were in imminent danger, even if Mebion was steps behind them and ready to capture him and do his worst, Xandr wouldn’t let Andie go another minute with doubting him. He didn’t know exactly where they stood, and he knew it was beyond foolish to do more than they were already doing. But he couldn’t help himself, and he was long past the point of wanting to try.
He cupped her cheek and leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You mean something,” he said. “Perhaps more than you should.” It was painful to pull away, but he was still too aware that they could be spotted at any moment so he stepped back and gripped Andie’s hand. Her eyes were wide and lips parted. She stared at him like he held the world in the palm of his hand. But they didn’t have time for that. “Come on,” he prompted. “We need to move.”
YOU MEAN SOMETHING. More than you should.
Stupid. Reckless. Impulsive. God, Andie had it bad and every step she took at Xandr’s side just made it worse. With one kiss to her forehead everything felt changed, and yet they’d said nothing, done nothing to give her that hope. She wanted to tug him to a stop again and have this thing out. For the first time they were talking, or at least had the potential to talk, to say something about what had been going on between them.
And, of course, they couldn’t actually talk because they were on the run from some duke who hated Xandr’s guts for unspecified reasons. Andie felt like she’d been dumped in the deep end of this adventure with no guide to what was going on or who the players were. She wanted to know what the problem was between Xandr and the duke, but she was almost certain Xandr wouldn’t say if she asked. She’d bet all the credits to her name that Captain Alleyva knew, but she was even less likely to tell Andie than Xandr was.
The streets were nearly deserted, but Andie’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest from the anxiety of moving quietly to their secondary location. She tried to keep her senses alert for danger, but that just had her eyes darting around, looking at everything and seeing nothing. She was so unprepared for this job it wasn’t even funny. But self-doubt would only get them caught faster. Xandr knew how to scope out threats, so she’d have to trust him. She just needed to stay close enough to make sure she stayed out of danger.
The building they’d just fled came into sight too soon and Andie’s hands shook. They had to skirt around it, keeping to the shadows and out of view of any passing guards. There certainly seemed to be more than there had been when she and Xandr arrived and that must have had to do with the duke. Was he paranoid? Maybe it was normal for a duke to travel with a small army, but Andie just wanted to get back to the ship in safety. She didn’t care if threats to the duke of Mebion were real or imagined.
Voices stopped them in their tracks and Xandr tugged her into a small alcove beside a staircase leading into the building.
“Facial recognition gave an interesting match,” said a voice she didn’t recognize. “Two of the guests pinged as partials for Karday.”
“Two? Are you refining the search?” That was the duke, and now his voice was cold with a hint of excitement. “The last time you gave me results, half of our suspects were partial matches.”
“Yes, your grace,” the first man replied. “Humans have the best facial recognition software available, but it still needs work when it comes to detecting Oscavians. We’ll have a better scan within the hour and should have conclusive results shortly thereafter. Shall I have the men detain them?”
“Do it,” said Mebion. “This search is getting ridiculous.”
“Very well, your grace.” The man’s footsteps echoed as he walked away, but Mebion was left standing at the top of the stairs and didn’t seem interested in moving.
Andie and Xandr were obscured by the shadows of their little alcove, but if they moved or spoke the duke would be certain to see them. She wanted to look up at Xandr and see if he understood anything of what they’d just heard, if he knew something about whoever Karday was and that was why he had to stay out of sight of the duke. Hell, maybe Xandr was Karday—it wouldn’t exactly be strange for an outlaw to have changed his name.
What had he done? Stolen from the duke? Slept with the man’s girlfriend? Insulted him? They were questions Andie would probably never ask, but she kept the name Karday close. Maybe a little research of her own might give her answers.
Xandr shifted, suddenly pressing his body up tightly against hers, and she melted into him. He was too sexy for his own good, and too good in bed for hers. Now was definitely not the time to get horny. His lips ghosted over her ear, making her shiver, and it took her a second to catch up to what he was saying.
“Distract him. I’ll meet you at the other side of the next street.” His hand clamped on her shoulder and he squeezed in encouragement.
Andie didn’t want to go. It was one thing to flirt with the man when she didn’t know he was a duke. Now she was scared to give the game away. But Xandr didn’t give her time to doubt. That squeezing hand turned into a gentle push and she stumbled out of the shadow and into view of the duke. Luckily he was turned the other way, but there was no use in backing out now. She stepped forward on light feet and climbed up the stairs with a smile.
“Your grace!” It came out as more of a squawk than anything else, and Andie realized that if the duke turned to face her he’d have a direct line of sight to Xandr escaping. She rushed up and stepped around him until her back was towards the entrance and he had to look away from where she’d been hidden. “They said I could find you out here.”
“My lovely hidden human.” He smiled back as if they’d genuinely had a connection and a trickle of unease made Andie’s hair stand up on end. She didn’t want this man’s attention, d
idn’t want him to remember her. “You were looking for me?”
Shit. She only barely managed not to say that out loud. This distraction stuff was harder than she’d thought, if she’d had a moment to think about it at all. “There was an Oscavian woman looking for you, and I offered to relay the message. I’m afraid I didn’t catch her name.”
He glanced back down the stairs where she’d come from. “She wasn’t inside?”
Andie bit her lip and offered her most sheepish look. “I went outside for some air and the door locked behind me. I’ve been trying to get back in for about fifteen minutes.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you were sent to fetch me.”
“Before I got locked outside.” If she could have blushed on command she would have been doing it. “She made it sound urgent, something about one of the guests wanting to speak to you? I’m surprised no one else has found you.”
The duke didn’t quite look convinced, but he was focused on Andie too intently to see if Xandr was sneaking off, and though Andie wanted to make sure her partner had gotten away she couldn’t risk peering into the shadows and drawing attention. “Will you escort me to this woman?” he finally asked.
Without another choice, Andie agreed and took the duke’s arm, stepping beside him into the building. Her mind spun with ways to extricate herself from the situation without finding an Oscavian woman who didn’t exist when an Oscavian man in a dark uniform approached them. The duke stopped and Andie stopped with him.
“Sir,” was all the man said before giving Andie a pointed glance.
She could take the hint. She looked up at the duke. “Shall I go tell... her that you’re here?” Andie stumbled over coming up with a name, but no one seemed to notice.
“Yes, please,” Mebion responded, his attention already fully on his guard.
Andie ducked down one of the halls that would lead to the main gala and walked like she belonged, even knowing she stuck out as one of the few humans in the building. She found the same exit that she and Xandr had taken earlier and snuck out, hoping no one had caught her leaving.
At least the duke didn’t know her name. And given Xandr’s aversion to the man she was pretty certain their paths wouldn’t cross again. Besides, he was likely to forget all about her once more important things came up.
She hoped.
As promised, Xandr was waiting for her at the corner where he’d said he’d be. The walk through the rest of the city was harrowing, but the ship was at the secondary rendezvous. She and Xandr boarded in eerie silence, the rest of the crew sitting with a pall hanging over them.
It only took a few minutes to break atmo and once it was safe, Xandr got out of his seat and stood in the middle of the room. Captain Alleyva came out of the cockpit as if she’d been summoned and Xandr turned to her, arms crossed.
“I’m putting your captaincy to a vote, Keana. This never should have happened.”
CHAPTER TEN
KEANA LOOKED PREPARED to go for a weapon and Xandr was ready for it. He hadn’t fought to get his place back after his rescue because a part of him thought that it was time to give his closest and oldest friend a shot. But after two close calls, one where he’d come within touching distance of the man who could have ruined everything if he’d spotted Xandr, he was done with this. He couldn’t trust his safety to Keana, not when she didn’t take the threats to him as seriously as they needed to be taken. The Seventh was his ship, he’d hired the crew, and it was time for him to take it back or get out.
“This isn’t the procedure,” she ground out, arms crossed and glaring.
Around them the entire crew, except for Sayevi, who was piloting them away from the planet as fast as she could, looked between captain and first mate, no one daring to blink.
“Procedure flew out the airlock when the Duke of Mebion landed down there. When I started this crew, I made it clear we were staying out of the way of Oscavian nobility. We can fuck with them, we can steal from them, but we never get close enough for them to touch us. That’s to keep everyone on this ship safe. We’ve seen what an enraged duke can do, the damage that inflicts. I’m not willing to let any of my people suffer that. So put it to the vote, Keana.” He was breathing hard, his blood pumping with the need to act. Xandr had held himself back, had tried to give Keana a real chance, but her recklessness had put him and Andie in danger. The only reason he wasn’t sitting in a cell right then was because Andie was clever enough to know how to distract the man. It should have never happened.
“And if the vote doesn’t go your way?” Keana challenged, her eyes defiant.
“Then I sell my stake in the ship and go somewhere else.” If he’d given himself time to cool down he never would have made the threat, and Keana reared back as if he’d slapped her, for the first time in this exchange looking truly hurt. But with the threat laid down, he couldn’t back out now.
Mebion knew what Andie looked like, and even now he might be realizing her connection to Xandr. He had to protect her, even if it cost him Keana.
“I relinquish all rights to the position,” Keana scowled. She took a step forward and poked him hard enough to bruise. “I would never tear this crew apart. You only ever had to ask and I would have stepped aside.” She turned around with a brutal jerk and headed down the hall to her quarters, leaving Xandr standing among the rest of the crew.
His crew.
Victory had never felt so hollow.
Kiran was the first one to break the silence. “Um, captain? Shall I relay new orders to Sayevi?”
“Stay the course for now, we’ll evaluate our next move in the morning.” That was all the sign the crew needed to flee, and in less than a minute he was alone, alone except for Andie, who was frozen beside a table, her hand clenched on the tough material. “Do you have something to say?” he demanded, the question too harsh even to his calloused ears.
“I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say, now that you’re the captain.” She chose her words carefully, taking her time to speak, as if she was afraid to anger him.
A distant memory threatened to rear up, a ghost from a lifetime ago that had no place in the present. “I always want you to speak your mind, no matter my position. I value what you say.”
She tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling above them and muttering something he couldn’t quite make out. The closer he listened, the more it sounded like don’t do this now.
Finally she sighed and lowered her head with a little shake. “Your timing sucks, Xandr. In more ways than one.” She flattened her hands against her dress. “I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go. I need to...” she blew out a breath and shook her head before continuing, “go get changed so I can feel like myself again.”
Xandr didn’t want her to go, but she looked ready to jump out the airlock to escape and he wouldn’t keep her. No matter how poorly he’d executed his return to power, he wouldn’t abuse it. “If you want to tell me what you’re really thinking, you know where I’ll be.” And he left before he could try and convince her to follow him to his quarters. This night had been enough of a fuck up already, he wasn’t going to ruin whatever he had left with Andie just to soothe his wounded pride.
THE DRESS WAS PILED in a heap in the corner of her room and Andie had pulled on her pajamas, fully intending to crawl into bed and leave the last adventure behind. She’d seen a side of Xandr he’d only shown her once before, back on Ixilta when everything had been so different. In the weeks since then, she’d convinced herself that the dark and dangerous stranger she’d met—been taken prisoner by—was a result of the stress and trauma of the situation. But the way he’d spoken to Capt─to Alleyva wasn’t something she wanted to hear again.
And everyone in that room had been afraid of him. It had thrummed in the air around them, the crew holding completely still as if they were terrified of attracting his attention, terrified of what he might do. Would he be like that as the captain? Or had this been another reaction to stress? She didn’t want to
write it off, even if it was just the circumstances. If she understood the dynamic on the ship: Alleyva was the one who’d normally talk Xandr down, would normally tell him when he was out of line, but given that he’d just stripped her of her position and humiliated her in front of the crew, Andie doubted Alleyva was in much of a mood to speak to Xandr.
It wasn’t Andie’s problem. It wasn’t. She was the most junior member of the crew, and it wasn’t her place to step in just because she was sleeping with the captain. That was just sex, it had nothing to do with the functioning of the ship. And she didn’t even know if he wanted to keep up with that now that he had his old job back.
You mean something. More than you should.
She needed to let that go, let the emotions and the adrenaline fade until she wasn’t still practically quaking with everything the night had brought up. But Xandr had invited her to talk. And a part of Andie feared that if she didn’t take him up on it now, the opportunity wouldn’t come again. If she waited until morning, waited until he settled back into his role as captain, he would close off. Either they’d revert to their habit of fucking without conversation, or she’d lose even that and be nothing more than a member of his crew.
She wanted more, she’d wanted more from the very first, and if he wanted to talk now, she needed to take her shot. She wasn’t going to go sleep with him. This wasn’t about that aspect of their relationship. In fact, she mentally forbade herself from doing anything that could be construed as a come on.
Xandr wanted to talk, so they’d talk. That was it.