She huffed. “I don’t mind you listing out your flaws. Go on.”
“I knew you were on board the councilor’s ship, and I did not seek you out because I am a coward. In truth, I tracked your location for a long while.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“I conducted surveillance on your bakery for days, whenever my missions took me to Earth.”
“That doesn’t sound creepy or like a stalker at all.”
The sarcasm gave him hope.
“I refrained from entering the premises, as I did not know what to say. Again, my actions do not support my words. I failed as a mate.”
“I’m not sure your apology makes any of this okay.” She sat upright, her thighs straddling his lap. She had his attention.
He brushed back her soft hair, enjoying the way it spilled through his fingers like spun moonlight.
“Calm down, apple dumpling,” she said. “This is the part where I say I planned to seduce you to get you to find Gemma.”
“I do not want our relationship to be based on transactions.” The notion soured his stomach. “I would move the stars for my mate because it pleases me to bring you joy. I need no other motivation.”
A shy smile tugged at her strange, naked mouth. That smile was so utterly human, he’d move the stars. Slay monsters. Hunt missing siblings. Anything for that smile.
“Okay, maybe I phrased it poorly, but I was trying to apologize about not being, you know, upfront with you.”
“You are upfront with me now,” he said, confident that they understood one another.
“One thing. That story you told at dinner, about the warlord. Did that really happen?”
“Yes. After I sent you away.” He could not imagine how fraught the situation would have been if Emmarae had remained. She would have been the target for Kaos’ cruelty.
“To spare me from that,” she said.
“Always. With everything I have. My body. My honor.”
“Even when it makes me hate you?” Her voice sounded hoarse, full of emotion.
“Needs must.” He paused, unsure if he should share his next thought, and decided that withholding information from his mate was exactly what caused this problem. “Directly injuring a female would have turned the clan against the warlord—at least I want to believe that to be true—but accidents happen. Protective shielding fails. Radiation leaks in older dome sections. A fatal incident would not have been difficult to arrange.”
She paled. The pigment spots scattered across her nose stood in stark relief. “You think he’d have me killed?”
“It was the next step of escalation.” Kaos intended to slay Havik and his mate. Only luck and guile spared them.
Perhaps Ren could have protected his mate from the warlord. A male was meant to protect his mate and family. A male—
No.
There was no point in rehashing the unknown. He did what he did. He chose to do the hurtful thing for the correct reason.
He turned his attention back to the problem at hand. A missing female. He had relevant experience. “We will find your sister. Sentient being trafficking is a growing problem on Earth.”
“You think that happened to Gemma? Fuck.” Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “I mean, I guess I knew. She sent those messages.”
“Forward the messages to my comm.” He tapped at his wrist comm, initiating a connection, and watched the short video messages. “It is possible to find the location where this was uploaded. That will help us determine if she remains on Earth.”
“You can do that?”
Ren left the comfort of the sofa to fetch his tablet. The files on Pashaal hovered over the screen.
“Um, about that,” Emry started, very much sounding like an apology.
He dismissed her apology with a wave. “You were correct to be upset. You did not know my heart, and that is my fault. You are scared, and you believe you are alone.” Simple. “You do not know me enough to trust me, and that is also my fault. I have not allowed trust to grow between us.”
She snorted, a half-swallowed sound like a laugh. Then her eyes went wide. “I’m not laughing. Sorry. Okay, a little, but not at you.”
“You may laugh. I strive to be humorous.” Though he had not intentionally been humorous at that moment.
“You know, the audacity to claim you have not allowed trust to flourish when I’m the one who shoved you in an escape pod. Stop stealing my villainy.”
“You are not a villain.”
“My ego.” She placed a dramatic hand over her chest. “I was a badass with the plasma flare.”
“You were adorable.” He recalled how her hands had shaken when she pointed the plasma flare at him even as her voice remained steady.
“I was a badass! Admit I was a badass, Ivon Ren.” She playfully hit his arm, all maudlin sentiments now vanished.
Her hand moved again for another swat. He caught her wrist with ease, holding her in place. Their eyes met. Her pulse fluttered under his thumb. The moment stretched out between them.
She looked away. A gentle finger under the chin turned her gaze back to his.
“I intend to fix this,” he said.
Her eyes went wide. Brown with flecks of tawny gold in this light. Lovely. “Okay,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 13
Emry
So much for cuddling in the afterglow.
Still, actually talking like adults and resolving problems? Win. And tracking her sister? This was better than cuddling.
Emry followed Ren to a command terminal just outside the helm. He plugged the tablet in and Gemma’s last message played on a large screen.
“What about your mission? I mean, why were you investigating Pashaal? Can you just drop that?”
Ren shrugged.
Actually shrugged.
“Locating your Gemma is more important.”
Oh.
Oh.
She pressed a hand to her chest. What was that? Her knees felt weak and her head dizzy. This was a swoon. An honest-to-goodness swoon.
Strong arms held her upright. “Are you well?”
“Never better.”
“Incorrect. Your coloring is odd. Are you cold? You are cold. Havik insists that his mate is too warm, but the temperature is barely tolerable.”
“I’m not cold.”
He narrowed his eyes, disbelieving her.
“Honest. I was just, you know, moved that you said Gemma is important.” And now emotions bubbled up in her, threatening to be tears. “Sorry. It just hit me harder than I expected. Everyone’s told me no or that she wasn’t important enough to risk an investigation—”
“Pashaal told you this?”
“How did you… Never mind. Yes. I guess she knows she’s under scrutiny.” She rested a hand on his arm. Her smile felt easy and natural, not at all concerned about how the scarring pulled at her lips. Ren must have liked the look of it because he grinned back, tusks and all.
Ugh. This was getting too sappy.
Emry pulled herself away and adjusted the blanket wrapped around her waist. Right. Pants would help.
“Thank you. This means a lot,” she said.
“It is as inconsequential as a grain of sand.”
“And you won’t get into trouble for abandoning your mission?”
“There are ten other Council members to scrutinize, and the warlord understands it will take time.” Ren turned his attention back to the screen.
“So what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“It most certainly would. However, pursuing sentient being traffickers is an ongoing problem. It would be unacceptable to not ignore this lead. There are many, and they move together as a swarm. When you tighten the net,” he said, holding up a hand and slowly making a fist. “They scatter. They have eluded me so far, but they will make a mistake. And then I bring down justice on their heads.”
Damn if he didn’t look hot promising vengea
nce. Emry wasn’t exactly comfortable with what they said about her, but she wasn’t going to question it. Her hot alien husband was full of righteous fury.
“The first message was sent from Earth.” He named a city she recognized.
“That’s a major spaceport, but it’s nowhere near where we lived.”
“And the second transmitted from Trexor.” He frowned.
“Is that bad?”
“It is interesting,” he said, explaining nothing.
All right, then.
“In two days, we will meet with the rest of the team. Zalis is more skilled at analysis. I will let him untangle this problem. We will decide how to proceed.”
“The rest of the team?”
“Yes. Havik, Zalis, Lorran—though he is forever busy—and Thalia. She is also Terran.”
“Why aren’t they here?”
“Ah.” He set down the tablet. “Normally, they would be. Havik is a skilled pilot. I can set the autopilot and little more. Zalis is skilled at accessing restricted computer systems. Lorran is very good at wheedling information out of reluctant sources. However, they are all obviously Mahdfel. The missions with Pashaal required a lighter touch.”
Emry snorted. A lighter touch is not what happened.
Her stomach rumbled.
“Well, shit. That’s embarrassing.” She covered her abdomen as if that could silence her stomach. “Hungry? It’s been a weird, long day, and I need to eat.”
“You should not neglect your nutritional needs, even when you are commandeering ships like a badass,” he said.
The widest grin broke across her face and she pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! I knew it! Come on, cherry pie. Let’s see if we can make those instant noodles palatable.”
Ren
Later, as he slurped down noodles and the aromatic broth, his mate watched him with an amused expression. Perhaps he consumed the noodles with more enthusiasm than he anticipated. Despite observing Emry prepare the meal, he did not understand why her noodles tasted so much better than the ones he made.
“If I had known I could seduce you with food, this would have gone a lot smoother,” she said with a smirk. It was difficult to tell, as the scar pulled at the corner of her lips, but her voice conveyed amusement.
“This meets my nutritional needs,” he said.
“Uh-huh, and you’re hunched over the bowl because it meets your nutritional needs.”
Ren placed a protective arm around the bowl and pulled it closer, eliciting more laughter. He liked this, her easy laughter. So much better than her angry words, tears, threats, and desperate bargains.
“Explain how you improved the taste,” he said.
“Oh, you poor thing. Is this the first time you’ve encountered flavor?”
“This is not the flavor on the package.” The instant noodles were sea creature-flavored, whatever that meant. Ren liked the illustration of the sea creatures and found the taste not disagreeable.
Emry leaned over the table, her pale hair falling over her shoulders like moonlight. “Admit that I’m a badass, and I’ll tell you the secret. I’ll make you more.”
Ren looked at his bowl, now alarmingly empty. “This is extortion.”
“Badass extortion.” She slurped loudly from a spoonful of her own bowl. “Come on, chefs have a reputation. We’re temperamental, shouty, and play with knives. We’re badass. Don’t make me lose my street cred.”
“The noodles were particularly badass, and I would enjoy having more.”
With eyes narrowed, Emry grabbed the bowl, even as his tail waved with amusement. “I’m onto you, Ivon Ren, thinking you found a loophole, but I’ll allow it. Just this once.”
* * *
Later still, Ren shifted his possessions in the wardrobe and dresser to make room for his mate. They had days yet before meeting the rest of the team—days he wanted to spend exploring each other—but he would not pressure her into moving into his cabin. He wanted the space to be inviting.
The cabin could also use a deep cleaning. Endless repairs and tasks distracted him from the tufts of Mittens’ fur that gathered in the corners. The bed linens required changing to fresh sheets. His possessions had migrated from their proper place and cluttered nearly every surface.
This was not the comfortable nest he wanted to share with his mate. He had work to do.
He gathered Mittens’ toys and placed them in a basket: bells, balls, faux rodents and birds that chirped when squeezed. Stimulating a feline’s predatory senses was important for continued health and well-being, he had read. He shoved his dirty garments into a cleansing unit and added Emmarae’s clothing to make a full load. As he shook out her garments, a necklace clattered to the floor.
He held the bauble aloft. The black stone absorbed the light. He recalled how it looked against his mate’s pale neck: dark and oppressive.
A useless ornament.
He threw the necklace to the floor and smashed it under his boot.
The stone shattered.
Blowing away the pulverized dust, he examined the ruined necklace.
There.
From the guts of the worthless stone, he withdrew a chip.
Chapter 14
Emry
She noticed the pattern. How could she not? It wasn’t something she set out to accomplish purposely, but they avoided all talk of the future.
It loomed between them, the future. Immediate issues—what film to watch, what to eat, Gemma’s rescue mission—were fair game. Anything beyond Gemma’s safe return was a no man’s land of forbidden conversation.
And that was fine? Probably. Look, Gemma was her priority. Sure, snuggling on the couch and watching movies was great, but they weren’t dating.
Oh no… were they dating?
The urge to ask Ren what he expected from their relationship and where he thought it would go overwhelmed her, so she made cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.
“This one is good,” Ren said, shoving an entire peanut butter cookie in his mouth.
“You said that about the last one.” Oatmeal cookies, to be precise, with a light glaze frosting.
“It was also good. I look forward to your next concoction.”
“It’s a recipe, not a concoction.” Emry worked the knife through the nuts, chopping them finer and finer. The cookie-avoidance strategy wouldn’t work forever. There was only so much butter and sugar on board.
Soup, she decided. They had too many vegetables and not enough storage to keep them fresh. She’d work her way through the ship’s entire pantry to avoid talking about what happens next.
Fur and a tail twined between her feet. Emry tried to step back but stepped on a paw. Mittens hissed and sank her claws into Emry’s thigh.
“Fuck! Cat!” Emry jumped back, stumbling away from the counter. The knife clattered to the floor, narrowly missing her foot.
“You are injured.”
“No, I got out of the way of the knife.”
“Your leg.” Ren grabbed a clean dishcloth from the counter.
Blood ran down her bare legs from three long gashes. She picked up the hem of her dress to avoid getting blood on the fabric. She sliced her fingers and picked up plenty of burns in the kitchen, but this was her first injury from an animal attack. “Where’s the first aid kit?”
“Sit,” Ren ordered, his voice steady and calm. He left briefly, returning with a white plastic kit. When she sat, he dabbed the cloth to her leg.
“This happen often?”
“Often enough that Murder Mittens should know to avoid being underfoot.”
“Well, cats gonna cat. They do what they want.” Woe unto the clumsy chump who got in their way. Miss Murder Mittens was trying to be nice, probably, until Emry stepped on her. “I’m not upset with the cat,” Emry added.
“I am glad.” With the worst of the blood cleaned up, he opened a disinfectant square from the first aid kit. The cleaning solution stung slightly as he swabbed the gashes, but his touch was gentle. Gentler th
an his large hands had a right to be. Ren wasn’t the biggest alien she’d ever seen, but he was big by human standards and solid muscle.
“It looks bad.” Deep. Murder Mittens sank her, well, murderous mitts into the fleshy part of Emry’s leg just above the knee.
“This will require knitting gel. Do not worry. It will not leave a scar.”
Emry huffed. “Because I’m so worried about scars.”
He peered up at her through the lock of white hair. “That is sarcasm.”
“More self-deprecating, I think. I used to be very worried about my scars.”
“If you were concerned, why did you not have the scarring reduced?” he asked as he worked. With practice skill, he closed the gashes with peel-and-stick sutures before covering the wound with a thick gel.
“Well, insurance would only cover lifesaving treatment, not cosmetic. They didn’t care if the scars were ugly. They would pay for the bare minimum. The scar tissue doesn’t impair my vision or my speech. It’s only vanity in the end.” She had been lucky. A few more inches and she could have lost her eye.
Ren remained silent as he applied a bandage and sealed the edges.
“And it’s useful knowing who’s going to be a shallow jerk about it,” she explained. “People can be such creeps if you’re different. They love to mock you. Well, just the dickweasels.”
“Those sound most infuriating.”
“Annoying, really, but they don’t like it when you fight back. They piss themselves and run away.” Bullies never liked it when someone fought back.
As the years wore on with her scar, she almost forgot it was there until she caught someone staring.
Or whispering.
Or snickering.
Maybe it still bothered her a little.
“You know, it used to upset me. A lot. The person in the mirror wasn’t me. Especially when we first met. It was still raw, I guess. When I looked at Gemma… she’s my twin, you know. We’re identical but our hair is different, different clothes, all that. You can tell us apart, but her face always seemed like a reflection of my own.”
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