by Layla Nash
Wyzak shoved to his feet and took the liquor with him. “I’m going to my quarters to try to get some rest.”
At least Faros was already distracted by his mate’s breasts and only waved Wyzak away, so the second-in-command had no trouble shouldering through the door and staggering into the corridor. He made his way through the ship, nodding to the rest of the crew as they paused to welcome him back and share a drink. Wyzak hesitated outside the makeshift brig and stared at the door, imagining he heard Gemma inside.
Before he could reconsider or change his mind, he tapped on the panel on the wall and waited for the door to slide open.
Chapter 15
Gemma
Gemma fought as hard as she could against the hard-eyed Xaravian who took her away from Wyzak, but the guy didn’t even blink. He might as well have been made from stone. She almost escaped twice, though, after managing to loosen his grip with her mech arm and worm free, although the appearance of a second security officer dashed her hopes of getting to one of the escape pods.
They shoved her into a set of quarters that might have served as a really nice brig and locked her in, but they hadn’t searched her or even made much effort to take possible weapons out of the room itself. Gemma had lost her stunner somewhere on the Memphis, some time after she saw Milo...
She flinched away from the memory of his body crumpled on the floor, and locked the grief away for later. She could mourn later, after she got her vengeance against those who killed him. Gemma paced the confines of the room and searched for more weapons. She had a knife in her pocket but wanted to save that for the last resort. There had to be something else. She needed to plan. At least the Sraibur was large enough to have escape pods. She just had to get free and get to a pod, then...
She tried to be methodical, even though it wasn’t her strength, as she searched the room from floor to ceiling. There had to be something. She couldn’t just hang out in a brig on a Xaravian pirate ship, not after she’d tried to pass one of them off to the Tyboli. The whole ship had a bounty on it, and if she were captured along with them, she’d be forfeit, too. The last thing she needed was to be taken as property by the Tyboli as they seized the Sraibur.
And Urkik had a last known location for the Sraibur, which would make it even easier for the Tyboli to locate the pirates again. The Bushar had a solid reason for wanting to track down the Sraibur, not least the bounty and certainly to get a little vengeance against her and Milo.
Gemma growled under her breath as her search turned up mostly empty. It was just a regular room with a water closet attached, which was a pleasant surprise. She scowled at the door and willed it to melt under her gaze. She needed to get to an escape pod or a radio or something. Not that she had anywhere to go or anyone to call. She was alone.
Some of the fight drained out of her at the thought. She really had nowhere to go. Nothing left at all. It didn’t matter if she found a radio—there literally was no one to call to help her. No one was coming to save her. And since the Xaravians had set the Memphis adrift, all of her worldly possessions were gone as well. Gemma sank down onto the bunk and put her face in her hands. She really was stuck. Isolated.
Alone.
The door slid open but she didn’t bother to look up. It wouldn’t matter, not really. Maybe they arrived to torture her for information or just straight up kill her. She couldn’t care too much. She didn’t have the energy.
“You look how I feel,” a gravelly voice said, and she tensed. Wyzak.
He moved into the room and sat heavily on the floor across from where she sat on the bunk. She could see his long legs as they stretched out in front of him, barely visible between her fingers. The door remained open—a sign of how little they feared her, or how confident he was that she couldn’t escape the ship.
His boot moved and nudged hers, and Gemma lifted her head to glare at him. “What?”
He held out an open bottle of liquor that made her eyes water even from across the room. “Drink. You need it.”
“Fuck off.” She glared at him, hating him even though her conscience still ached to think the Tyboli had almost taken him.
His dark eyebrow arched and a hint of a smile curved his full lips, almost like he mocked her. Or saw right through her. “Come on, tough guy. One drink. I didn’t even put anything in it.”
Gemma didn’t know what he wanted from her. Clearly he’d sought her out for a reason, but sitting on the floor and waving around a bottle of liquor wasn’t really a prelude to interrogation and torture. At least not in her experience. Although if they started interrogating her like the Xaravians were known to do, then she’d want the numbness of liquor. She took the bottle.
He watched her with a curious detachment, and she tried to compare it to the heated stare she remembered on the Memphis. Gemma didn’t care, since he was just a bounty, but something had changed. Tension crackled in the air. She closed her eyes and took a swig from the bottle, wanting to spit the liquor all over as it burned down her throat and into her nose.
Gemma squeezed her eyes shut tighter so the tears wouldn’t escape, and instead took another gulp. The pain would fade. It usually did. She just had to push through... A third gulp, and before she could go for a fourth, a warm rough hand slid around her wrist and tugged the bottle away. “That’s enough of that.”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and swallowed her bitterness along with the liquor. It definitely wasn’t as good as Rrasul gin. “You’re the one who told me to drink.”
“It takes the edge off,” he said. “But much more and you’ll be a puddle on the floor.”
“Makes your job easier.” She didn’t want to sound petty and spiteful, but the words escaped that way all the same. Like a petulant kid, pissed off about being put in time out.
“What job would that be?” Wyzak took his own drink and watched her, his eyes silver pools of patience.
She wondered what he was doing in the brig with her, the door open and liquor bottle in hand. Surely he should have been off celebrating somewhere with all of his barbarian friends? “Torture? Interrogation? Murder? The fuck do I know?”
He spluttered some of the noxious liquor down his front when she said “torture” and had barely recovered by the time she ended with “murder,” and it was quite a while before he responded. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Gemma wanted to curl up in the bunk with her back to him so she could sleep and maybe forget as much of the miserable day as she could. “Then what the fuck do you want from me, man?”
“I thought you could use... company.” He studied the bottle and frowned, as if surprised to see it. “It was a difficult day. You lost your ship and…your partner.”
Milo. Gemma pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, willing away the tears. The Xaravian in front of her had no right to be sympathetic or talk about Milo as if he cared whether he’d died. Chances were the barbarian had celebrated Milo’s death, if he hadn’t caused it himself. She had no idea who shot Milo, but it was either the Tyboli or the Xaravians. She clenched her jaw and glared at the barbarian in front of her. “Since both are your fault, why would you think your company would make me feel any better?”
He blinked, taken aback, and was silent for so long that she figured he was coming up with a hell of an excuse. Instead, he took a long drink and shrugged. “The alternative was no one. So it’s up to you.”
She didn’t know whether it was a comfort to have someone there in the room, not when her future was still so uncertain. “When does the interrogation start? Or are you just going to kill me?”
Another long series of blinks and no response had her wanting to tear her hair out. He must have had a hell of a lot to drink before he showed up at her door to be so damn out of it. Dizziness started to set in and she gripped the edge of the bunk in an effort to keep herself from swaying as she waited for the room to stop spinning. She definitely shouldn’t have taken the third swig. That had probably been too much. She tried to
find some sympathy for how long it took the Xaravian to respond but came up short.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said calmly, and sipped from the bottle once more. One shoulder lifted in a negligent shrug. “Maybe this is the interrogation. Convince me to let you live.”
“You haven’t asked me any questions, asshole.”
The corner of his mouth twitched and Wyzak lifted the bottle in salute. “Fine. Where do you come from, Gemma?”
“Earth, genius.”
“When did you leave?”
Her throat started to close against the familiar emotions. No one left a relatively safe planet for ungoverned space without a very good, usually painful, reason. “A long time ago. And I’m not telling you why.”
His head tilted and she wanted to take the words back. Wyzak had the look of a patient hunter, and even though he moved on to a different question, Gemma didn’t think he’d forgotten about what she said. “How did you start as a bounty hunter?”
She leaned forward to take the liquor bottle and missed on her first grab, and nearly pitched headfirst out of the bunk. The corner of Wyzak’s mouth turned up and he handed her the bottle without a word. Gemma hated the heat gathering in her cheeks. She wasn’t some blushing fool. She was tough—a bounty hunter who chased the worst of the worst through ungoverned space. At least, she had been a bounty hunter in ungoverned space. Without a ship and a partner, though... where did that leave her?
She contemplated the bottle for a long time before taking a deep breath and a deeper drink. “Long story. Not worth telling.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, and took the bottle back with a sharp look. “Since I’m asking the questions.”
Gemma directed her attention at the ceiling so she wouldn’t be distracted by the big Xaravian sprawled across from her. “Doesn’t matter, though, does it? Since I’m not a bounty hunter anymore.”
He made a noncommittal noise, still watching her evenly, and as the silence stretched, Gemma resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. He’d been talkative enough while in her brig, and yet he showed up in her cell and suddenly clammed up.
Wyzak’s head tilted and he set the bottle aside, contemplating her with his arms folded over his chest. “Then what are you going to do?”
“Die in your brig? Get sold off to whoever you decide has a claim on me?” Gemma flopped onto her back on the bunk so she didn’t have to see him—or the spinning room—anymore. “I don’t have that many options, chief.”
He snorted and movement in the corner of her eye made her tense. Wyzak appeared next to the bunk and loomed over her, his silver eyes flashing. “You have more options than you think, girl. Perhaps don’t be so dismissive.”
She tensed, fingers digging into the thin mattress at her back. The metal fingers of her left hand tore into the fabric and tangled with the material underneath. “What kind of options do I have, then?”
It felt too dangerous, that turn in the conversation. It felt like planning for the future when she didn’t have any idea where she stood in the present.
Wyzak’s attention drifted to the door for a long moment, then back to her with an intensity that made Gemma’s heart skip. “Have you considered becoming a pirate?”
She laughed, because there was nothing else to do with such a suggestion. She sat up, half-heartedly thinking of making a break for the open door, but froze when he moved and then her nose was just an inch from his. His mouth hovered so close, and his palm rested rough and heavy on her side. Holding her there. She couldn’t breathe. Gemma stared at him, feeling once more like a helpless rabbit as a hawk flew over searching for prey.
It had been ages since any male looked at her like that. Since anyone touched her like that. She’d almost forgotten, after the accident that took her arm, what it felt like to be pursued by a man with that kind of intensity in his attention.
He leaned forward and his lips brushed hers. His fingers flexed against her side. Gemma closed her eyes as her lips parted and his mouth sealed to hers. She could forget he held her prisoner and their roles had been reversed not too long ago. She could forget a lot of things about who she was and who he was and what there was between them, if it only meant she would feel.
His free hand slid to the back of her neck, drawing her closer, as he dragged her to the edge of the bunk with his hold on her hip. Wyzak’s mouth burned against hers. He tasted like the liquor and something spicy as he deepened the kiss, trying to consume her. She thought about resisting, about clawing at his eyes, because she knew she ought to have resisted, but it felt so good to be wanted. To be connected to someone vital and alive and powerful.
Gemma’s thoughts swirled in a lazy circle as Wyzak broke the kiss and his mouth left a heated trail down her neck to her shoulder instead. Her head fell back and the room tilted. Her fingers tangled in his long dark hair as Wyzak turned his attention to her other shoulder, behind her ear, along her jaw. He growled in his throat and then he nipped at her lower lip and Gemma was lost. She moved her legs so he could get closer against the cot, close enough that he would press against her and she could finally feel something. His rough palm slid under her shirt and shivers raced through her as his fingers found her breast.
Wyzak’s fingers tightened in her hair and tugged her head back, his eyes blazing silver as he watched her. He opened his mouth to say something, or maybe to kiss her again, but something moved in the hall behind him and Gemma’s attention shifted. Wyzak tensed, as if sensing a threat, and turned to growl at whoever interrupted.
Another tall Xaravian stood in the doorway, dark eyebrows raised, and folded his arms over his chest. Gemma looked at him blearily, waiting for the judgment, then froze as a slight figure appeared next to the Xaravian—a female Earther wearing a makeshift pirate uniform, who surveyed the scene in front of her and made a “huh” noise.
Gemma pushed Wyzak away, or tried to; he stayed where he was, growling at the intruders, and Gemma braced for some kind of fight. Maybe she didn’t need to make plans for the future, after all.
Chapter 16
Wyzak
Just when he’d finally gotten his hands on the bounty hunter, Nokx had to interrupt. Wyzak wanted to beat the former security officer around the entirety of the ship for distracting Gemma, though he had to rein in his temper when Violet appeared. He couldn’t lose his temper around Faros’s mate without risking serious bodily harm and being stranded on a hostile planet. Not that Wyzak wanted to risk hurting the other Earther. He just didn’t want to give up a moment of being pressed against his Earther, when Gemma was so warm and soft and giving. Fragile and delicate and so very breakable.
He growled in warning as Gemma started to squirm to get free, and she stilled along with the two intruders. He wasn’t like that; Gemma didn’t need to fear him. He bared his teeth at Nokx. “What do you want?”
The other Xaravian kept his gaze on the far wall so he wouldn’t inadvertently look at Gemma and piss Wyzak off more. “Boss wanted to make sure you made it back to quarters to rest. He was concerned about you after your... ordeal.”
And the bastard smirked, like maybe the stint on the bounty hunters’ ship hadn’t been nearly the trial and torment they’d all imagined.
Wyzak snarled and dragged Gemma closer, wrapping his arm around her back to keep her pressed against his side. He turned his attention to Violet. “And you?”
“I was just checking on the... guest,” she said, tone so mild that Wyzak knew the Earther meant something else by her words. He wished, not for the first time, that Earthers turned more colors than red. He couldn’t tell what the hell Violet was thinking and it made communication so much more difficult. The lawyer kept her attention on Gemma. “Since she’s had something of a long day too, I wanted to make sure she’s comfortable and has gotten something to eat. Why don’t you release her, return to your quarters for a rest, and I’ll take care of everything here?”
It didn’t sound like a question. The liquor made it more d
ifficult for him to interpret what she might have meant, but Wyzak didn’t care. He didn’t want to leave Gemma. “She can come with me to my quarters.”
Gemma squeaked and tried to duck under his arm. “No. No, I’m fine here. You don’t have to—”
Wyzak scowled and resisted the urge to clap a hand over her mouth to keep her from saying anything else, but he wasn’t the type to force a female into his company. As much as he wanted her, she’d gone tense and wooden in his arms. Something had changed, and it wasn’t just the appearance of two chaperones. He growled but released her, staggering to his feet so he could get more distance. Gemma looked pale and wide-eyed as she clung to the edge of the bunk, not looking at him. The light glinted off her metal arm; he wondered if maybe it pained her.
He loomed over her. “You will rest.”
Violet slid into the room and stood next to the bunk, arms folded over her chest as she gave Wyzak an even look. “I will make sure that she does.”
Wyzak clenched his hands into fists to keep his anger in check, and forced himself to retreat to where Nokx grinned and rocked on his heels. “I will return to verify she is well.”
“She will be fine,” Gemma muttered. She didn’t look at anyone, so she missed the slight smile that passed over Violet’s face and the full-on grin that Nokx sported.
She still didn’t look at him. Wyzak could taste her on his lips, sweet and strong like his favorite drink, and feel the give of her mouth against his. He didn’t want to walk away. He wanted to remain there, or drag her to his quarters, and keep her close so he was assured that she was safe and well-fed and warm. Protected.