Before she could stop herself Trig laughed. "Sorry, I don't have any juicy gossip for you."
"I bet you do," Captain Tyber said his own amusement obvious in his voice, and she wondered if she were the only one who could also hear the sarcastic bite behind it. "I bet you know a lot of secrets you could impart."
"None that are mine to tell," she said pointedly.
"Besides," Mac growled low, pulling the pretty mechanic against his big body. "We have to have better sexy stories than the stick up their ass Alliance fleeter’s do."
Sera elbowed him back, with a warning look. "You start bragging about our sex life at the dinner table and I will hurt you."
"Promise?" the big marine practically purred and Trig finally saw the Bruha sexiness of him coming out. This time it was Sera's turn to growl. But she did it with red cheeks and if Trig was not mistaken, a whole lot of interest.
Doc cleared his throat and brought her attention to him. His cheeks, she noted with a smile where even redder than Sera's. “How about that tea after we finish here?"
Sera did not look at the Captain. Very pointedly. But she felt his eyes on her anyway. "I would like that,” and that was no lie. Whatever Lore might think about the Doctor's intentions, she knew he had no romantic interest, and after the strangely nice almost family atmosphere of the meal, she was suddenly loath to leave just yet. So after she offered to help clean up and was shooed away by Sera and Mac she joined the Doctor in the crew area just off the kitchen for Tea and gave him a somewhat abbreviated idea of what a Truthsayer does for the Alliance.
The Captain, who had followed them into the room and took a seat, she ignored as much as she was able.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"You want to tell me what that was back there?"
Trig whipped around at the voice. She had made it back to her cabin after an enjoyable talk with the Doctor in the hope of escaping, thinking she had avoided detection but Tyber and his damn voice had followed her anyway.
"How did you get in here?" She asked it, even as she realized how stupid she sounded. Lore had said he and the Captain could get into the room. She just hadn’t expected him to do it, not without knocking first. So she adjusted her question before he could do more than raise a brow at her. "Why did you bypass security instead of just asking for admittance?"
"I didn't want to give you a chance to put on your mask."
She could have feigned ignorance at exactly what he meant, but again, she didn’t bother. "You are one to talk about masks. Has anyone of your crew ever seen the real you behind it?"
"You have," he said quietly, his voice taking on a low growl.
"I am not," she bit out pointedly. "One of your crew. Besides, you were there, I was having tea. Doc wanted to know what a truthsayer does for the Alliance and I told him."
"But you did see didn't you? And we both know I am referring to when you read me at the table. Or did you think I didn't see what you did because I let it slide?" He stepped forward and the doors closed behind him. "What are you? And why are you really here?"
Trig sucked in a breath and took an automatic step back, even though the entire room was still between them. Had she given more than she thought away? "You know what I am. You came to find me remember?"
"We came to find a truthsayer that Cor Warrung wants. But he has played this game before and after what I felt from you today I'm thinking we did exactly what he wanted us to do."
She blinked at that. "You think I was planted by Warrung?"
"You would not be the first beautiful woman he used to get close to his brother."
Trig shook her head and shrugged. "You can always put me back where you found me or drop me off somewhere else if you really think that. I am hardly in a position to insist."
Tyber canted his head to the side and examined her from top to bottom. This time there was no table in his way, so he got the whole picture. "No protestations of innocence?"
Trig laughed, and it sounded grim even to her own ears. "How in the galaxy would I prove something like that?"
He walked across the room to her, his eyes that heated chocolate that she had seen only the few times he let his guard down. Should she be flattered? She was positive even his own crew rarely saw the real captain. She was so mesmerized by those eyes and the fluid powerful way his muscles moved beneath his ship standard that she missed her chance to keep her distance. Though in her defense, she had expected him to stop before he entered her personal space. Silly her.
When she did finally snap out of it and realize he was too close it was too late. She stepped back, and his hands went to her hips to pull her right back. She gasped before she could stop the sound. He smiled.
Between the heat of his hands, his sudden proximity, and that arrogant be-damned smile it was no wonder she was suddenly feeling oxygen deprived and overheated.
The man was tall, her head hitting somewhere in his chest area so that she had to crane her neck to look up at him from this close.
She swallowed and then cleared her throat attempting nonchalance. "Is there a reason you are touching me right now?"
He was looking down at her. Some of the heat carefully banked in those eyes of his, but this close to him, his heat touching her everywhere, and his hands burning through even the Faustian nanite armor at her hips, his voice made her think of soft sheets and hot nights, and whispers across heated skin. "I can think of a few."
Since he used that voice of his and his hands were on her it took her a bit to figure out he was answering her question. She hadn’t seen him move but somehow he was closer. Close enough that, while not exactly touching her, she felt his heat down her body, and the warmth of his breath across her lips.
She didn’t realize she leaned toward him until she saw the small upturn of those lush male lips and realized what she was doing. She yanked her head back and sucked in much needed oxygen. She tried again to step back out of reach of temptation. Sadly, it was not to be. His hands just tightened on her hips to hold her in place.
Trig wondered fleetingly if she was going to have Tyber Relian finger marks on her hips tomorrow, and then she had to berate herself because the idea was not a turn off, at all.
She was tempted to ask him what reasons he had to touch her, but she refrained. She didn’t need to hear anything incendiary right now and she had a feeling Tyber Relian speaking of the reasons why he was touching her would not help her to find her sanity enough to cool down.
"Unless you’re planning on locking me up for your paranoid delusions, you need to leave my room."
"Lock you up? And deprive Lore the pleasure of watching you sleep in his bed?" Tyber smiled again, even as his words penetrated the fog of desire he was trying to capture her in. "Wouldn't dream of it."
"Watching...?" Trig looked around trying to spot the cameras. Every cabin would have them, but it hadn’t occurred to her anyone would be using them in such a way. "You're watching me sleep?"
"Not me," he assured her with that cocky grin of his back in place. "Lore. In his defense, you do look lovely on your back in his bed." His eyes traveled down her and back up in his usual slow appreciative heated way. "I bet the view will be even better when you're naked."
Trig narrowed her eyes and leaned up enough that they were nose to nose. "A question you will never have the answer to."
"I thought truthsayer’s couldn't lie?"
Trig narrowed her eyes. "And I thought you believed I was a plant for Warrung."
His hot chocolate eyes went down her face, her body and then back up to capture her eyes again. "That has yet to be determined, and truthfully it doesn't seem to matter as much as it should."
His lips fell towards her and she had just enough piece of mind to yank her head back before their lips could touch. He smiled down at her. His eyes were liquid and she had the strange feeling that she had passed some test she probably would have been better off tanking.
"Well, I can't remember the last time a woman has made as much of an impre
ssion on me as you have." His eyes trailed her and back again before he smiled that sexy as hell smile again, the liquid heat in his eyes enough to scorch. At the same time she couldn’t remember ever wanting to slap someone silly quite so much. He was just so...arrogant.
"I want you to leave my room."
"No you don't," he said. That smirk of a smile pure scoundrel before his voice deepened into the realm of warm skin and soft sheets. He leaned down even more to take a deep breath at the base of her neck. "But if you need to waste time acting like you don't want me to slam you up against this bulkhead and fuck you until you scream my name, I'll let you have that play." He pulled back just enough that she could see the heat in his eyes that she felt from his voice. "For now."
Then the rat bastard walked out of her room. The sound of the door swishing closed between them was enough to release whatever spell he had created. Trig's legs gave out and she sank to the floor. Finally allowing herself to suck in the oxygen she had been pretending she could live without.
She would have really liked to say that she was reacting in fear but since every nerve in her body seemed to be overheating and all of her womanly areas were crying out for more, she was just going to have to accept that the man was black magic sex and stay away from him. At least as far as the confines of his ship would allow. How many days left of this journey?
CHAPTER NINE
Lore usually enjoyed his time on the bridge monitoring the ship systems and long-range scanners. The feeling of being alone in the black of space was soothing to him, more so than any time he had spent planet side. Since the Jezebel was a salvage vessel, the bulk of the time on long treks was spent in places far from the normal trade routes, and outside most established provinces. Which meant the jobs they were sent on were usually far and away from the pirates who regularly preyed on transport ships and cargo lines. And since the Alliance always took care of its own hauling and salvage, it was usually far from them as well. So long spaces of peace and then quick, intense work was usually their standard. It made for many nights of smooth sailing and not a lot of action. Lore had no issues with those quiet times.
The only danger they usually had to face was other scavengers or the occasional salvage that was productive enough to catch the interest of others. Which happened rarely as most employers contacted Tyber directly these days, rather than go through a salvage yard. And since they had formed an agreement with Lucan Warrung to sell through his contacts nobody wanted to take a chance on making enemies. Between Tyber’s reputation and Warrung’s, few had the balls these days to challenge them. Except for Cor Warrung and his ilk.
Which was the other side of that coin. There were places in the galaxies they could not go safely any longer, namely anywhere Cor Warrung ruled. But between having a safe home port at PortSea and the agreement of business between them and Lucan, they were slightly better off than they had been before they blasted onto Cor Warrung’s radar.
Today he could not find his usual serenity. Too many things were happening on the ship he would prefer to see in person, and not just through the security feeds.
Especially when Trig Kelia collapsed onto the ground of his cabin after having had her confrontation with the Captain. Especially when, even from this distance he could feel everything that Tyber was feeling, whether anyone else could see it or not, and knew his suspicions even as they occurred to him.
It would not be the first time Cor Warrung had used a beautiful woman for his games, that was true. Thinking of Danika led his thoughts unerringly to the new truthsayer they were escorting to safety. Danika had been a salvage. An untouched Bruha, a truthsayer and a reader all in one incredibly dangerous package. When they had chosen to help her it was with only a small idea of the true danger she represented. With her genetic mine field it had been logic that she end up in the one place Cor Warrung could not get to her. Eventually they had found out that she had been a plant. A Bruha mate Cor sent to his brother with the express purpose of giving the man a weakness Cor could then exploit. But no one had blamed Danika for her unknowing purpose. And in the end she had cost Cor Warrung far more than she had cost Lucan.
Trig Kelia was not a salvage find with no memory of her own. He could see why Tyber reacted as he did. There was no guarantee that she was not part of some game started by Warrung, and she did not have a lost memory to blame for her part in it.
He looked up when he felt more than heard Tyber walk onto the bridge. There was a seething fire in those dark eyes that usually the man kept banked. Feeling it through their link Lore was not as surprised as he should have been. Tyber, like himself did not usually show what he was thinking or feeling on the outside, but something about this truthsayer made both of them react in unexpected ways.
"That one is going to be trouble."
Lore raised a brow but kept a small uncharacteristic smile off his face. "Because you think she is an agent of Warrung sent to destroy us, or because you want her in your bed for more than just a few nights of your usual play?"
Tyber ground his teeth together so that his jaw looked to be made of granite. "Both. And I think we both know which of us is making this about more than just play."
Lore did not need to speak for Tyber to understand his answer to that. Because he dropped elegantly into the Captain’s chair and faced Lore who had swerved his chair around his usual spot at coms. Tyber snorted and finally spoke when the silence became too pointed. "Fine, I will allow that she is a beautiful woman, and that you are not the only one who has noticed. But I doubt most sincerely if this need I am feeling to claim and keep her is originating in my psi alone. As you of all people know there are few people for whom I give a single damn about."
"There is something different about her," Lore said his eyes going back to his monitor to see Trig was no longer on the floor but laying across the bed now, looking as worried as she had since her conversation with Tyber. "I think you scared her," he muttered not liking the feeling in his gut.
"Good," Tyber coldly stated, refusing to look at the monitor, but instead turning his eyes to the long-range sensors. "She needs to be scared. Either she is working with Cor Warrung and Danika will see right through her and Lucan will kill her, or she is running from Cor Warrung and her life expectancy has just halved considerably."
"So quick to throw her to the wolves?" Lore mused, not liking the idea at all. "You were not so on edge before."
"She is not a truthsayer," Tyber said and Lore turned in his seat to find Tyber once again turned and looking at the monitor on Lore's com. His voice was as grim as Lore had ever heard it.
Lore thought of what he had said, and what he had felt not that long ago coming from Tyber in the mess hall. Even from the bridge he had felt the flare of something. He did not doubt what Tyber said. There was not enough distance between their minds for such, but it did raise other questions, and explained some of Tyber’s reactions to the female.
"If she is not a Truthsayer," Lore asked with as little inflection as ever. Despite the tumult inside them both. "Then what is she?"
Tyber did not bother to answer, they both knew it was a rhetorical question between them. "Keep your distance until we get her to Danika and can find out what the hell she is. I'll let the rest of the crew know not to talk to her. Until we know how dangerous she is I want her kept at a distance."
It was an order, but even as Lore was nodding and turning back to his com search they both knew it was an order both of them would have an equally hard time following.
If Trig Kelia was a lure sent to snare them, she was a good one.
CHAPTER TEN
Telling herself she preferred her solitude and that she was better off on her own, and not getting involved with the people of the Jezebel was not the same thing as being basically shunned by them.
Walking out into the mess hall where previously there had been so much talking and life to find everyone stopped talking when she entered, hit her belly with a pang she had not been expecting.
Mac cursed, while Doc looked uncomfortable. Sera gave her a sad sort of smile and then looked down at her plate as if she could not bear to meet Trig's eyes. At the head of the table Tyber watched her coldly. And it became more than clear that he had laid down some kind of order for the rest of the ship to follow. She had to assume Lore was on watch again and had a brief thought to wonder when or if the man ate. There was a long space of quiet while Trig sat at the table and looked at the food in front of her, and she could not bring herself to reach forward and grab a plate, or any food. Not with the tense quiet. Not after she knew what a real meal usually sounded and felt like. The quiet, the feeling of not being welcome. That uncomfortable feeling that everyone around her was wishing her elsewhere should be something she was used to. But even her self-inflicted distance aboard the High Ambassadors frigate had never made her feel like this.
It was a reminder, she assured herself, that was all. She was alone, and it would be foolhardy to forget that.
Nobody here knew her, and she did not know them, no matter how friendly they had seemed the first day.
The quiet seemed to stretch on even as she knew no real time had passed. When she was sure she had all her emotions locked away again she raised her head and stared them down. Her shields erected and at full strength. Something she would have been smart to do as soon as she found herself on this ship, she realized. Then it would not be so painful to be ostracized now. She looked around the table. She met Sera's miserable eyes before the girl looked away again.
"I'll find you those clothes," she said and then looked at the Captain uncomfortably. Clearly upset but unwilling to go against whatever orders Tyber gave.
"No need," Trig assured her, her eyes going to meet the cold chocolate brown ones of the Captain. "No one here has anything I need." Nor did she need to meet Doc's angry eyes to know that they would not be having tea again.
Truthbreaker Page 5