Corsairs: Adiron: Corsair Brothers Book 1
Page 29
I snort at that. Impatience bubbles through me as I glance toward the bridge. My weapon's still at the ready, but I doubt Shaalyn's going to come out. She's probably destroying as much equipment as she can now that the Jabberwock has hacked into her systems and taken over. I stare out into space at the Jabberwock and see a couple of figures heading down through the ship-to-ship connection. I want it to be my sister…but at the same time, it's far too dangerous for her to be the first one to board an enemy vessel. If it is her, I'm going to give her a stern talking-to…right after I hug the living kef out of her.
Impatiently, Bethiah and I wait for the doors to open. There's a hiss and the faint metallic smell of space. Then, two big males charge in, blasters held high. Before I can even blink, the smaller soldier—Alyvos—has one pointed at my forehead. Tarekh pins down Bethiah with his.
I put my hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "Okay, maybe I'm not as glad to see you two as I thought, if that's the welcome we're going to get," I joke.
Alyvos lowers his gun a fraction and stares at me in surprise. "Adiron? What the kef are you doing here?"
"Surprise," I say, grinning.
70
ADIRON
"This is my ship," Shaalyn snarls as Tarekh drags her into the hold and places her in the middle cell. He throws the last surviving greenhorn in with her, a male that looks more confused than indignant.
"Don't care if it's your ship," Tarekh says easily. "Not sure what part of 'We're robbing you' that you don't understand." He slams the door shut and leans against it, grinning up at me. "You sure you don't want her dead?"
In the cell, Shaalyn makes an indignant noise.
"I want to ask my female if she'd rather do the honors," I tell him. Upstairs, I can hear booted feet as the rest of the Jabberwock's crew takes over the hijacked ship. Bethiah's up there with them, but I came with Tarekh, because I had to make sure that Shaalyn was locked up behind bars and safely put away. When she is, then I can relax.
"Your female?" Tarekh echoes, a surprised look on his face. He puts his blaster away and crosses his arms over his chest. "You and Bethiah…?"
I make a choked sound. "No. Not Bethiah. Mine is Jade. She—"
There's a happy little cry and before I can fully turn around, Zoey's flying down the ladder. She flings herself at me, all arms and legs, and I snatch her out of midair in the biggest hug possible.
"What the fuuuuck, Adi?" she cries, even as she squeezes my neck. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, runt," I say happily, hugging my sister tight. "Glad to see they're taking care of you."
"I can't believe you're here," she sobs. I pat Zoey awkwardly, giving Tarekh a look. Zoey doesn't cry much. She's a tough little nugget, just like we raised her. I'm not sure if she wants Tarekh to see her weeping, so I carry her a short distance away, reluctant to let her go. Holding her in my arms like this reminds me of when she was just the littlest scrap, all attitude and spindly legs as she tried to learn how to be a proper corsair. It makes me long for those old times, just for a moment, when life was easier, and the four of us gave the universe hell while in the Little Sister.
Now the ship's missing and my brothers are, too. But I have Jade…and I have my sister, Zoey. It's something, at least.
She composes herself, sniffling, and wipes her face on my tunic. Then, she smacks my shoulder. "Put me down. I'm not a baby."
"Are you sure? You're just the littlest runt," I say, using my baby voice. "Who's a widdle bitty human? You are! Yes you are!"
Zoey scowls. In the next moment, she licks her finger and shoves it in my ear.
"Argh!" I set her down, rubbing my ear and laughing. "I guess I deserve that."
"You absolutely do," Zoey says smugly, and then flings herself into my arms again for another hug. "Are Mathiras and Kaspar here?"
My spirits plummet. "You haven't seen them?"
"They're not with you?" She gives me a worried look. "We found the Little Sister a while back, empty and in Slatran space, of all places. No sign of any of you."
"We had to split up back on the Buoyant Star," I explain. "It's a long story and one I should tell you later. How did you know I was here if you didn't run into Kaspar or Mathiras?"
"We didn't," Zoey exclaims. She pokes my chest and glances over at Tarekh, who's still leaning against the prison cell and probably will be until we decide what to do with the two in there. "We were out searching for you guys, and then we intercepted a distress signal from Shaalyn. Said she had a mutiny, and I figured it'd be a good time to score some easy credits and teach that bitch a lesson." Her lip curls. "Please, please tell me you didn't get back together with her."
I'm stung. "You really think I'm that dense?"
Zoey purses her lips.
Tarekh coughs.
"Sometimes, you, ah, don't make good choices," Zoey tells me. "That's all I'm saying."
"I love Jade," I say, still mildly offended at the thought of preferring Shaalyn to the most perfect creature in the universe. "She's kind, and strong, and loving, and always wants to do the right thing, even if it's inconvenient for her. She thinks of others first. She's keffing gorgeous, and she has this wonderful laugh and this amazing hair and the softest keffing skin and the most beautiful eyes. She's smart, too. So smart. And…" I shake my head. "I can't believe you thought for a moment that I'd prefer Shaalyn to her."
Zoey just gives me an utterly blank look. "Who the kef is Jade?"
I scratch at my chin. "I didn't mention Jade yet? She's my mate."
"Your mate?" my sister yelps, her eyes wide. "When the fuck did this happen?" She puts her wrist close to her face and activates a personal comm. "Sentorr, my idiot brother's gone and mated someone without telling me!"
"Does he have to check in with you first, love?" Sentorr's starchy voice is calm and easy and ever-so-slightly amused, as if he finds everything his mate does just cute as could be.
"Of course not! But I'd like to be told…and you're not helping!"
"Love you," is all he says.
"Love you, too," my sister barks at her wrist and then kills the connection. She turns her focus back to glaring at me. "You could have said something to me!"
"I'm saying something now? This is kinda the first chance I had."
My sister just scowls at me. She continues to scowl at me as if I'm somehow to blame as I steer her through the ship. All around us, it's chaos. It's a familiar chaos, though. It's the chaos that comes with the takeover of a craft. Alyvos moves through the ship, dragging bodies toward the airlock so they can be disposed of. Cat, Tarekh's tiny human female, is busy disabling panels so no one can do additional overrides or try to take the ship back over. As we walk past her, she jerks out a handful of wires and gives us a toothy grin. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear what sounds like Kivian arguing with Bethiah on the bridge while Kivian's mate Fran tosses valuables into a lockbox as she raids the storerooms. They're efficient, these pirates.
As my sister complains about how I've gone and got myself mated behind her back, I make it to med-bay. Jade's stasis pod is still untouched, thank kef, and I move toward it and put a hand on the surface protectively. "This is my mate," I tell my sister. "Isn't she beautiful?"
Zoey's expression softens and she peers at the female inside. "A human?"
"Well…yeah." I frown at her. "You thought she was mesakkah?"
Zoey flings her hands up. "We're surrounded by mesakkah constantly! Why wouldn't I think that?"
Excellent point. I activate the controls on the stasis pod, and the top peels back, letting out a puff of frigid air. Jade's bare skin looks slightly frosty, and I shrug off my tunic, because she's going to be cold. "I dunno. She's just so perfect that it never occurred to me that you thought she'd be anything else. She's just…Jade." I hover protectively over the pod, watching my mate's face carefully. I want to be the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes. "I wouldn't want her to be anything other than what she is. I hope you like her."
"So amazing," I agree. I scan Jade's face. Is that a flutter of her lashes?
As I watch, Jade sucks in a deep breath, the same gasping, terrified sound everyone makes when they're coming out of stasis. It's like being interrupted out of a long, intense nightmare when you come out of stasis, and I'm sure she'll be disoriented. Her eyes open a crack, and she looks up at me with confused eyes, her pupils enormous.
My beautiful mate lifts one small fist…and promptly socks me in the nose.
71
JADE
The last thing I remember is Shaalyn's face smirking down at me as the cold rips through my veins. Then, nothing but ice and darkness.
When my lungs fill with burning air again and I wake up, I'm terrified and confused. My eyes are unfocused, and my entire body hurts. It feels as if I've been flash-frozen and then left out to thaw, and it's painful. A blue face looms in close again, and instinct kicks in.
I punch.
My hand explodes in pain and I bite back a whimper, even as the blue face falls back. Then, there's a low, familiar groan. It's the sound I've heard dozens of times before, usually in bed, though.
"Adiron?" I whisper, desperately squinting at my surroundings. "Where are you?"
"How is it all those tiny wiggly fingers can pack such a hit?" my big alien asks, his voice jovial despite the fact that it sounds like he's pinching his nose. His tone is muffled, but a moment later when the big, blurry blue face leans in again, I can just make out his familiar grin.
Oh. Oh. "Adi. I'm sorry." I reach up and touch his face, and he covers my hand with his. He's so damn warm and my fingers feel like ice. "I thought—"
"I know. It's okay. You're safe now. Can you sit up?"
When I nod, he puts a hand to the base of my neck and helps me sit. It takes a moment, but I realize I'm still in med-bay, still naked with dozens of tubes attached to my skin, and still in the hated, hated stasis pod. A whimper escapes me as bad memories flood back. "I want to get out of this thing."
"I've got you," Adiron says gently. He helps me yank the tubes off, each one leaving behind a little prick of pain as it exits my skin. Then, his big warm hands are on my back and he lifts me out of the stasis pod and into his arms. In the next moment, I'm curled against warm, familiar chest and he drapes fabric around me. "Did they hurt you?" Adiron asks, the protectiveness back in his voice.
I swallow hard. I want to whine that they did, that after I punched Shaalyn she had her goons hold me down and shove me into the stasis pod, kicking and screaming. That it was awful and traumatizing, because I could feel my body dying as the chemicals spread through my veins to put me to sleep. That she just smirked down at me as if it gave her great pleasure to fuck me over. But I'm alive, and I've woken up in Adiron's arms, so I can live with this. I can be fragile later, in private. "I'll be all right. Where's that bitch?" I peer around the room. "We're still on her ship. Where is she? I'm going to kill her."
"She's imprisoned," Adiron tells me, adjusting the blanket around me as a cocoon. "We've taken over the ship."
I shake my head, tucking myself against his chest. "I…I don't understand. How?"
"Let's just say that the stars aligned in our favor." He presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. "If you're done punching things, I'd like to introduce you to my sister."
"Your…sister? Zoey?" My brain must be fried from stasis because none of what he says makes sense. "She was on the ship somewhere?"
"Er…no. We've been rescued."
"We have?" I rub my eyes, but my fingers are so cold and my eyes so blurry that I feel like a popsicle. A popsicle with a brain still frozen.
"Maybe we should get her something to eat," says another voice. It's human, and female, though she speaks with the same sharp accent in English that Adiron does. His sister. I peer around, but my eyes feel like bricks of ice and I can't see farther than a few feet.
"Food's a good idea," Adiron says, pressing another kiss to my forehead. He cradles me against his chest and shifts his weight, getting to his feet. "Stasis on an empty belly can be hard. She'll perk up once she has something in her."
The woman who must be Zoey groans. "Must. Resist. So. Many. Filthy. Puns."
Adiron just chuckles.
I press my face closer to his neck, breathing in his scent as the world bobs around me. My stomach isn't doing so hot, but then again, what part of me is right now? Some water and something cracker-like will settle my gut and perk me up.
Zoey speaks again. "You know what she needs? A big bowl of piping hot noodles."
Noodles. Just the word brings to mind a bowl of the hated things, and their scent, and my stomach rebels. My mouth fills with saliva and a cold sweat breaks out over my skin.
"Uhhh," Adiron says as the knot in my throat grows enormous.
I tap on his chest, bile rising. My guy must know what's up, because he sets me down a split second before I puke everywhere.
"We're gonna have to find something other than noodles," Adiron says, good-humored. "Jade, love, let me know when it's all out. I've got you." He holds my hair back and pets my shoulder as I get sick everywhere.
It's ridiculous, to be so sick over nothing at all. I tell myself it's the stasis and an empty stomach. I tell myself it's nerves and the gently swaying movement of the ship. I'm lying to myself, of course. I know exactly what it is. It's a baby. Our baby. And I don't know how Adiron is going to feel about that.
He's a pirate. I'm not exactly sure “dad” is high on his list of career choices. Even if it is…how can I mention it? His brothers are still missing. He needs to go after them. I'm just not sure what that means for me.
It also means that I can't go back to the Star, either. Lost in space is no place for a baby.
Maybe it's the stomach ache talking, or the stasis drugs, but I've traded one crisis for another. Sure, Adiron loves me when we're by ourselves and snuggled in bed. But how does a baby fit into his life?
Or is he going to ask me to get rid of it?
72
JADE
To my everlasting relief, this ship has foods other than noodles. I nibble on a protein bar and drink a cup of hot tea, curled up in Adiron's lap as he strokes my hair and the cleaning bots whirr in action behind us.
The crew of the Jabberwock—whom it seems showed up and hijacked the pirates, of all things—are busy in action, stripping the ship, overriding systems, and arguing with someone named Bethiah, who wants the ship and doesn't like that they're taking everything.
"Bethiah's a friend," Adiron murmurs into my ear when I ask. "An absolute lunatic, but a friend."
I'm still having a hard time digesting everything that went on while I was in stasis. Though I wasn't “under” for longer than a few hours, a lot has happened. After the pirates took Adiron captive, he schemed with Bethiah to turn on the crew, but it seems that Shaalyn was onto them, double-crossed her men and killed them before she could be taken, hid on the bridge, and then the Jabberwock showed up.
It's a hell of a lot of coincidence, but Adiron and the others seem to take it in stride. Of course the Jabberwock was nearby—Zoey has been looking for Adiron and his brothers. Of course Bethiah was on the ship and offered to help Adiron. It seems that space pirates are a lawless, hijacking lot who are unsurprised by constant double-crossing.
And I'm pregnant with a space pirate's baby. So, you know, no pressure or anything.
I keep the news about the baby silent, though. There's so much other information flying around that stepping forward and blurting that I'm carrying Adiron's baby seems like bad timing.
Adiron and I sit together on the bridge. He's found a seat big enough for the two of us to sit, me with my legs over his lap and a little tray in mine, so I can have my tea and crackers. I'm still wearing nothing but his shirt, but no one seems to notice my nudity…or the fact that I'm human. They're too busy. I listen in as
Zoey talks up a storm to Adiron. She's not what I expected his sister to look like when he said she was human. I don't know why, but for some reason I pictured Zoey with impish features and red hair. Kinda like Pippi Longstocking or some shit, the ultimate sisterly vibe. Zoey is nothing like that, of course. She's a little short, even for a human, and top-heavy. She's white, with flat brown hair and an average face, but when she smiles, it's that naughty smirk similar to Adiron's and it's obvious that they've grown up together.
She also cusses a blue streak, which I would expect any pirate to do, really.
Adiron won't leave my side, so Zoey leans against a nav panel that an overdressed someone named Kivian is working on. She tells Adiron that they found the brothers' ship at someplace called V'tarr Station, and it had been found abandoned. Adiron, in turn, tells Zoey all about meeting up with Lord Straik and teaming up together to hunt down the Buoyant Star. "Really, no one should have picked up the Little Sister, considering we left her floating in the middle of nowhere with no distress signal. We figured we'd just swing by and hop in once we were done."
Zoey just rolls her eyes. "You fucking idiots lost your keffing brains when I left, didn't you?" She crosses her arms over her chest. "Lucky for you guys, the Little Sister's safe. Jerrok and Sophie took her back to his station, and he's going to give her a quick tune-up while we were out hunting for you."
"And no sign of Mathiras or Kaspar?" Adiron asks again. He's already asked more than once, but I know how it feels to not want to accept what you're hearing.
"Not a goddamn peep," Zoey says, frowning. "I'm sure they're out here somewhere. We just have to find them. Think like them. If you were Kaspar, what would you do?"
"Run head-first into danger?" Adiron smirks, even as he rubs one of my feet absently.
"Exacta-mundo." Zoey says. "Plus, if Shaalyn really did rendezvous with his escape pod like she said, we'll have coordinates in the ship's logs. We'll find them and go from there. It's as good a place to start as any."