Now I feel like even if I am floating around in the dark, I have a tether. An anchor. Something holding me steady. And safe.
I only hope that isn’t my hormones talking, in reaction to Vaughn’s…fluids. I hope I’m not letting lust blind me to the danger Meshach still represents.
“Hey.” Vaughn plants a kiss on the top of my head as his hands settle at my hips. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to wake up.”
“I’m a little worried about that possibility myself,” I admit. “Lilli said she was under a doctor’s care, when she fell into a coma, and we don’t have a doctor out here.”
“Sorry!” Lilli says as she sinks into Captain Sotelo’s lap. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
“She has a right to know everything we know about what’s happening.” Sotelo wraps his arms around her. “About the mating fever.”
“Speaking of what we do and don’t know,” Lilli says. “We were hypothesizing about the possibility that Grace might actually be a prisoner. Like I was.”
“Really?” Vaughn pulls far enough away from me that he can see my face. “Why would you think that?”
Lilli answers for me. “Because they sterilized me before they sent me to the red rock, so maybe that’s what happened to Grace?”
I shrug. “I don’t know the source of my infertility. Or any of the specifics. And Lilli pointed out that if Meshach bought me from a prison planet, he might not have wanted me—or anyone else—to know that. Which could be why I was implanted with false memories.”
“That part makes sense,” Vaughn says. Yet I can tell from his thoughtful expression that he has some doubts. “But I’m not sure why Universal Authority would do that. I can’t imagine it would be worth their time to sell individual women as sex slaves—or concubines—unless they were doing that on a large scale. And if they were, I think we would have heard something about it.” He turns to Lilli. “Prisoners in the general population heard about the gladiatorial fights, right? And the hunts? And prostitution in the resort?”
She nods. “But then, I was one of those women at the resort, so I’m not sure how much of that I would have been privy too, otherwise.”
“But you never heard anything about people being sold off-planet?”
“No.”
“You were a prostitute?” I can’t wrap my mind around that. Around the thought of anyone else touching Lilli, without facing Sotelo’s wrath.
“Of sorts. I mean, we women didn’t profit from it, so…”
“They used her as a sex slave, just like you would have been used,” Sotelo growls, his grip around Lilli visibly tightening. “Except instead of serving one man, she served a never-ending string of clients.”
“Calm down.” She places one hand on his arm, and it does seem to soothe him.
“I wanted to hunt them all down and execute them,” Sotelo admits. “But she thought that might be excessive.”
“And it would have distracted from our plan to make Universal Authority pay,” Lawrence points out. “And they’re the ones ultimately responsible for what happened to Lilli.”
“He’s right.” Lilli runs her hand up and down Sotelo’s arm, and I can see the tension melt from him. I wonder if my touch has the same effect on Vaughn. I wonder if I can calm his beast’s rage with simple human contact.
“Okay. So where do we stand on this black market dealer?” Sotelo asks.
Vaughn plants another kiss on the top of my head, then he reluctantly lets me go and crosses the main deck to sink into his seat at the right-hand console. On his left, Tirzah Dreyer is already hard at work.
“Okay.” Dreyer swivels in her chair to face the rest of us. “Our contact’s name is Willie Green, and—”
“Really?” Zamora snorts. “His name is Willie Green? That sounds like a euphemism for an alien’s dick.”
“And yet, it’s his name,” Dreyer says, reclaiming the floor. “At least, it’s what he goes by, professionally.”
“And have we actually contacted this Mr. Green?” Captain Sotelo asks.
“We have.” Vaughn taps his console, then drags his finger upward, and the contents of his screen appear on the display built into the wall over his console. “He’s expecting Captain Pryor and one associate, who’re officially coming to inspect and possibly make an offer on some or all of the refurbished com devices from the stolen shipment. Once we’re there, the plan is to get him alone and find out what we really need to know. Through any means necessary.”
“And who, exactly, is he expecting as Captain Pryor?”
“It could be any of us, right?” Jamison says.
“No, there’s a picture on the profile we set up,” Dreyer tells him. “And ‘Captain Pryor’ looks suspiciously like me.” She beams a smile across the main hold. “You testosterone-laden assholes owe me this one, after making me wear a fucking ‘modesty sheath’ on Gebose.” Dreyer turns to me. “I don’t know how you did that on a daily basis.”
I don’t know what to tell her. That’s just the way things were.
“Okay, so who should we send with her?” Sotelo asks. “Volunteers?”
“I’ll go.” Zamora swings around in the co-pilot’s chair. “I could use a little time away from this flying tin can.”
“We all could,” Lawrence points out. “I’d also like to go.”
Zamora gives him a shrug and a grin. “Speak up faster, next time.”
“How long until we get there?” Sotelo asks, stroking his hand up and down Lilli’s arm.
“A couple of hours,” Jamison says from the pilot’s chair. “The place is kind of hidden, which makes sense. He sent instructions for how and where to dock.”
“Okay, so Dreyer and Zamora will go in, but the rest of us will be ready, just in case. They’ll have security at a place like this, and Green probably won’t like answering questions, so if we have to do this the hard way, we’ll be ready.”
“Um…guys?” Dreyer spins around in her chair. “I’ve been digging around, doing another search for paperwork that mentions Meshach’s cargo so we’ll have something to show Green, to tell him what we’re after. And I just found a manifest that actually has something written in the description section of the form, for our mystery crate. Just one word. It’s a location. It says, ‘Theron.’”
Surprise sucks the air from my lungs and leaves me gasping. “It says Theron is a location?”
“That’s implied. Theron is listed as the shipping origin of the crate.”
Vaughn reaches over to swipe up on her console, moving the document in question onto the overhead display, so we can all see it. And there it is. Proof that my homeworld exists.
“It’s a real place?” I turn to Vaughn and find that he’s already watching me. “So maybe my memories aren’t implanted, after all?”
“Sounds like that’s possible. But I still haven’t found a single reference to the planet Theron online.”
“So…maybe it isn’t a planet?”
Vaughn’s eyes narrow on me, as he considers that possibility. “Other than the form that Dreyer just found, the only information we have to go on is your memory. And you remember Theron as a planet. Right?”
I nod slowly. “I mean, I don’t remember being specifically told that Theron is a planet, but were any of you ever told that your homeworld is a planet? That’s something you just grow up knowing. Right?”
“Yeah,” Zamora says, as heads all over the main deck nod.
“So, the only two sources of information we have about Theron are this reference to Meshach’s missing cargo and Grace,” Sotelo says. “That tells me that somehow, Grace and the cargo are connected.”
“Which means that if we find the crate, we might be able to figure out where I’m really from?” The possibility leaves me a little light-headed. “Who I really am?”
“Zamora.” Vaughn swivels toward him. “You’re staying on the ship. I’m going in with Dreyer. If this has anything to do with Grace, I’m damn well going to be there.”
15
VAUGHN
DREYER DISENGAGES her safety belt the moment the Dinghy touches down in the landing bay. She stands and slides a laser pistol into the holster slung low over her hips. “Ready?”
I give her a nod as I stand, but my focus is on Grace as I kneel next to the seat where she’s still buckled in. “I’ll be right back,” I promise. Then I lean in for a kiss that makes me second-guess volunteering for this mission. Or ever leaving her side again.
But I’m doing this for Grace. So I make myself stand and head for the ramp, but before I can punch the button to lower it, Zamora slides in front of me. “Coleman—”
“You’re not going.” I try to push him aside, but he stands firm.
“I know. I just… I know better than anyone how hard it can be to keep the beast on a leash.”
He’s right about that. Out of the six of us, Zamora is the only one to have heard from his beast—from that barbaric, alien inner voice—without being in the grip of mating fever. Knowing what I know now that I’ve heard from my own beast, I worry that if Zamora ever does find a mate, the rest of us are going to have a serious challenge on our hands.
His beast is…special.
I exhale, grasping for patience. “Just say whatever you’re trying to say.”
“Fine. I know you want to find out whatever you can about Grace. For Grace. But don’t let that get in the way of the mission. We need that cargo, in order to get the ship.”
“Grace is—”
“More important.” He nods. “I may not be in the grip of that fucking mating fever, but I’m starting to understand how it works. And I get it. But the ship is for Grace too. She’s one of us now. And if you fuck this up, you’ll be fucking it up for her as well.” He shrugs. “Unless you want your mate to keep sleeping on the floor of the cargo hold.”
I growl at him, because the beast doesn’t like Thiago and his willingness to get right in my face. But then I nod, because I know that despite the beast’s irritation with him, Thiago Zamora has had my back without fail for more than seven years. And he’s right; when the mating fever passes, I will remember that we’re friends, and I can only hope I haven’t let my beast ruin that for us. “Thanks. I’ll try to keep that in mind. Now move.”
Zamora grins, and rather than getting out of my way, he turns and punches the button for me.
“Be careful.” Grace calls from across the main deck, and I turn to see her standing with her arms crossed over her chest, practically hugging herself.
“I will. You’re the best reason in the universe for me to want to come back to this ship in one piece.”
“Here,” Lawrence holds out an earpiece out to Grace. “You’ll be able to hear everything that happens.”
“Thank you!” Her dark eyes light up, and I have to control the urge to growl at him for daring to make my mate happy, when that should be my privilege, exclusively. Because sometimes the beast is just an asshole.
“Thanks,” I tell Lawrence as Dreyer steps onto the ramp. Then I follow her into a large, open space that has more in common with a warehouse than a docking bay. In fact, there is no real bay. No landing pads. There are two other ships parked along with the Dinghy, in seemingly random places in the open space, and the only indication that this is, in fact, a docking bay is the nano-shield keeping this small space station’s environment sealed off from the vacuum of space.
“It’s through there.” Dreyer points past a haphazard stack of empty shipping crates at a door on the far wall, guarded by a man with a laser rifle. Overhead, two more armed men patrol the perimeter of the large room on an elevated walkway, their focus alternately glued to us and scanning the room for potential threats.
I follow Dreyer, content to play her second, because that will give me the opportunity to observe and infer, while she speaks.
Until I need to speak.
“Name?” the man at the door says.
“Pryor.” She has one hand on the butt of her pistol, not as a threat, but as a promise. A declaration that she can and will draw, if necessary.
The guard’s eyes narrow as he stares at nothing, clearly listening to a voice in his ear. Then he flips a small display down from the side of his helmet, in front of his eyes. Dreyer’s picture appears in front of him, in reverse from our perspective, and he focuses on it for a second before comparing it to her face. Then he flips the display back up and opens the door.
“End of the hall. You can’t miss it.”
We head past him into a broad, dimly lit passageway, and the door clicks closed behind us. I fall into position behind Dreyer and slightly to the right. As if I’m her protection.
As if she needs protection.
The hall ends in an open doorway into another, smaller warehouse, in which sturdy shelves form a maze of aisles. Crates of all sizes are stacked on the shelves, most made from a sturdy lightweight polymer in gunmetal gray. But aluminum crates are also well represented, and I even see a few made out of actual wood, which has remained popular with collectors, despite its weight and propensity to catch fire.
Movement catches my eye between the crates as a man approaches from the other side of the warehouse. “Captain Pryor!” he calls in a booming voice as he rounds the end of the nearest shelf with his hand out, ready to shake Dreyer’s.
She doesn’t even glance at it. “Mr. Green?”
“Willie Green, yes.” He appears to be alone in the warehouse, except for two armed men stationed on opposite sides of the door we just came through. “You’re interested in our com devices, right? Let me show you—”
“Actually, we’re hoping you might have something a little different, for us,” Dreyer says.
Tension tightens the line of Green’s jaw. “Different, how?” His eyes narrow, giving him a paranoid look. Which makes sense, considering that his entire operation is illegal.
Dreyer’s expression gives nothing away. “We heard you’d ‘intercepted’ something special from Theron.”
“Theron?” Green’s frown deepens. “I don’t know what that is.”
He could be telling the truth; we don’t really know what Theron is either. But he could also be lying, because our bait-and-switch approach has led him to think we’re undercover agents from the Bureau of Compliance.
I glance around the warehouse, trying to identify crates that could possibly be our target. Which is when I realize I have no idea how big Meshach’s crate is. Other than the shipping origin “Theron,” we have no description of the cargo.
“Okay, let’s try this another way.” Dreyer crosses her arms beneath her breasts, which puts her right hand near the pistol on her left hip. “We heard you had an unmarked crate.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“We can’t reveal our source any more than you can tell us where you got your merchandise,” she says with a pointed glance around at all of the stolen goods. “And we wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
Green’s gaze flicks from Dreyer to me, then back. His spine stiffens and his hand twitches at his hip, as if he’s getting ready to pull his pistol. “Who are you?”
“Customers.” I prop my hand on the butt of my own pistol, and his focus finds me again over her shoulder. “She’s Captain Pryor, and I’m her associate. We’re here to do business. So why don’t you show us the real goods?”
“Well, I assure you, Associate, that if I had some kind of special merchandise to show you, I would. Because I’m a big fan of profit. But I have no idea what unmarked crate you’re talking about. Or what Theron is.”
“You’ve sure you’ve never heard of Theron?” I press him, and Dreyer sends a censuring glance over her shoulder at me.
“No. Should I have?”
“We don’t have time for this,” I say. Dreyer glares at me in response, but if she had a better approach, she’d have already implemented it. “We know your newest merchandise comes from a shipping freighter you hit a month ago, and we know what was on it. We want the unmarked c
rate. Hand it over, and we’ll leave peacefully.”
Green takes a step back. “I don’t know what you’re—”
I lunge past Dreyer and grab him by the throat. While his mouth opens, trying to drag in air, the men stationed on either side of the door lurch into motion.
“Let him go,” the one on the right says, aiming a pistol in my peripheral vision.
Dreyer spins toward him so quickly that I can only see a blur of motion as she passes out of view. I hear a thunk of impact followed by a grunt of pain, and she steps back into view holding the guard’s laser rifle.
“What the fuck?” the other guard shouts, but his gun remains aimed at me. “Who the fuck are you?”
She arches both brows at him. “I think the more important question right now is how exactly do you plan to fire that snake?”
“Snake?” The guard’s focus drops to the rifle he’s still pointing at me, and his eyes widen. He actually shrieks as he throws it at the floor, then he backs away from it slowly, both hands held palms out. “How the hell—” He screams again and scuttles back even farther. As if his rifle were a king cobra, rising from the ground to strike at him.
“Go sit in the corner,” Dreyer says as she picks up his rifle, the previously confiscated gun hanging over her shoulder by its strap. “And I won’t let it hurt you.”
I let Willie Green go, and he gasps for air. “What the hell just happened?” he croaks, as his tall, thick security guard backs carefully into the nearest corner, then squats with his arms wrapped around his knees. Staring at the rifle Dreyer now holds. Which is when I realize that she’s the snake-charmer in the little delusion she’s just planted in his mind.
“Your backup is indisposed,” I growl at Green. “Unless you want to join them, you need to start saying things that are true.”
“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he croaks. And when he tries to press a button on his com device, likely to call for help, I rip it from his wrist with my spare hand. “Look, you’ve taken out my guards and you can clearly do the same to me any time you want. If I knew what you were talking about, I would tell you. But we didn’t hit a freighter last month.”
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