Beauty and the Fleet (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 2)

by Robert McKay

  His mouth flapped open several times before he got out a single word. "Fine." He got up and left the kitchen without another word.

  Beatrix buried her nose in her book.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Beatrix resolutely ignored Pillow Dave that night when she went to bed and he tried to heckle her about not exploring the west wing. He eventually gave up and pretended to be just an ordinary pillow. He didn't even complain when she propped herself up on him so she could read the rest of her book.

  The next morning she climbed out of bed and dressed in the new package of clothing in her bathroom. She was starting to get quite a collection. The day's outfit consisted of yet another blue dress, this time in a more modern cut. It was much more form fitting than the other clothes had been. She found herself admiring her figure in the mirror, and smiling at what she saw. If she didn't think too much about where the dress came from, she could admit that she liked it. It had nothing on the way her flight suit made her feel though. She missed the feeling of power she got when she was in the cockpit of her Talon.

  Her morning trip to the library found an unexpected visitor. Josh was sitting in one of the leather chairs; the one Beatrix usually sat in, actually. She almost turned around and left, but she needed a new book if she was ever going to make it through the day. She'd finished the one she picked out yesterday. It was one of those books where the protagonist is an empty-headed waif, determined to find herself a prince. It was sweet at times, but there wasn't nearly enough adventure for her tastes.

  Maybe she could just find some books for her friends and slip out without him noticing her. She read through the titles and even pulled a couple off the shelves.

  "Those are all rather dry," called Josh, still looking down at the book in his hands. Colarians really did have disturbing hearing. "You'll find more exciting titles in this alcove. We like to keep our favorites close to our reading space."

  Beatrix stepped out of the shadows and walked purposely toward the shelves in the alcove that were farthest from the beast. She put the completed book back in its place and purposely mis-shelved the other books in her hands. She heard Josh's book snap closed and the leather in the chair creaked.

  "That book was lovely. We especially loved the princess. She knew what she wanted and she went after it," he said, commenting on the book she'd just finished.

  "Are you kidding me?" retorted Beatrix. She spun to face Josh and found him grinning. "She was a complete dolt. It's a wonder she found her way out of bed in the morning. She only got to be princess because she had big tits." Josh's laugh made her cut the tirade short. "What's so funny?"

  "We actually hated that book for the same reasons you did. We just leave it on that shelf because we really like the cover."

  Beatrix glared at him. It annoyed her that she had such a hard time figuring out when he was joking. His facial expressions were too subtle. "It was a beautiful cover," she admitted grudgingly. "That's why I picked it out. You'd be surprised by how often it actually does work to judge a book by its cover."

  "True enough. Though that tends to only work with much newer books. Older books have some really dreadful cover art. We'd be ashamed to have them on our shelves if the stories weren't so good." He stalked over to stand next to Beatrix. She held her ground, glaring at him, but he wasn't paying her any attention. His eyes were focused on the book in his hand. "Like this one," he said, handing it to her. "It's an amazing adventure. It's dark and gritty, but with a good sense of humor. And dragons."

  The cover showed a man holding a sword so large that he couldn't have possibly swung it. Behind him a woman was sprawled over a throne in apparent ecstasy. It looked like really bad erotic fantasy. She glared up at him. He was messing with her again. "Come on. I'm not falling for that."

  Josh's velvety laugh echoed through the library. It made her shiver, but it wasn't completely unpleasant. "We're serious. Read the first page. That's all it will take."

  She flipped open the book and read, expecting a bodice to rip in the first paragraph. What she found was a sword fight with dark and witty banter. She finished the page and immediately wanted to sit down and continue reading. She kept her face schooled to neutral. "That wasn't so bad."

  "If you read it, you'll have to tell me what you think about the—"

  "Spoilers!" shouted Beatrix, and clamped her hands over her ears. The book thumped her in the head and she groaned. "Ouch." Josh had stopped talking, so she lowered her hands.

  "Spoilers?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  "Don't mention anything in the book. You'll spoil the surprise of me reading it for the first time."

  "Aaah, we see. Clever phrase. We will avoid spoilers." He smiled to himself at the use of the new word. "Does that mean you're going to read the book?"

  Beatrix frowned and rubbed the sore spot on the side of her head. "Yes, mainly because I want to figure out how they thought this cover was appropriate."

  "We look forward to discussing it when you've finished," said Josh.

  Beatrix stalked off without another word. She didn't want to have another conversation with the beast. They'd become far too frequent. How had she just ended up taking a book recommendation from him? If she didn't read it, she could avoid the conversation, but that first page was really intriguing. She argued with herself all the way back to her room. By the time she got there, she decided that she would just return it and get a different book later. She cursed the beast for ruining her attempt to get some books for her friends.

  When she smelled food a half hour later, she looked down at the book in her lap like it had ambushed her. Somehow her resolve had slipped and she was thirty pages into the book. She wouldn't have stopped reading if her stomach hadn't growled so loudly at the delicious smells. Beatrix put the book down on her bedside table with the horrible cover facing down, and padded to the kitchen.

  Josh was standing at the stove, tossing something high into the air and catching it back in the pan. It smelled deliciously savory. Beatrix quickly hid her smile at the ostentatious oven mitts and sat down. The food turned out to be a scramble with some tofu-like substance. It was filled with vegetables and very meaty mushrooms. They both ate quietly, savoring the meal.

  Josh cleared the plates and sat back at the table. "Did you start the book?" he asked.

  "Not yet," she lied. Her cheeks immediately heated, so she stumbled on to cover it up. "That reminds me. Um. Would it be alright if I took some books down to my friends?"

  Josh frowned. She could tell it was going to be a no. She'd expected it. "We don't see why not." Her shock must have registered on her face because his frown immediately morphed into his signature lop-sided grin. "They will have to be inspected to make sure you haven't written any messages in them, of course."

  "Of course," she said. She still didn't believe that Woolly would allow it, but at least she would have some leverage when he denied her.

  Josh pushed away from the table. "Make sure to seek us out when you've read Song of Shadow."

  It took Beatrix a while to realize he meant the book he gave her. The art was so bad that she hadn't even consciously read the title. "Uh, sure," she said when it was clear he expected an answer. She had no intention of doing so.

  "Have a pleasant day," he said, and gave her a slight bow before stalking out of the kitchen.

  "Did he just bow?" She scoffed. "That's just plain ridiculous."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Beatrix finished reading Song of Shadow late that night and found herself pacing the floor, wondering where Josh spent his nights. None of the bedrooms she'd seen were occupied, but they all had the feel of guest rooms; far too sterile and small for them to be the master. None of the other soldiers slept in the house, so she assumed there was a barracks somewhere close by. He probably spent his nights there to be close to his soldiers. His warning to stay away from the west wing seemed far too vehement for it to be something as simple as his bedroom.

  She debated looking a
round the house to see if she'd missed a wing or room somewhere. When she reached for the doorknob, she realized all of her wondering was because she wanted to talk to him about the book. It had gripped her like no other book had since she was a child. It was far darker and more violent than anything her father would have allowed her to read, and he was incredibly loose with his restrictions. Despite its darkness, it still managed to make her laugh out loud on many occasions. It was a curious blend that cried out for an in-depth discussion. She had gotten so carried away with her thoughts that she hadn't considered that she was planning to talk to the beast about it.

  Beatrix stomped away from the door and flopped heavily on her bed. She scowled at the ceiling and fought the urge to hunt around the house for Josh's bedroom until her eyes drifted closed.

  Beatrix found herself in the grand ballroom of the dream she'd had in the hospital room. She danced with the beast as she had before, except this time she didn't watch it as a spectator. She actively participated in the dance, delighting in the strong but gentle touch of Josh's hands; one in hers and the other on her waist. They smiled and laughed their way through a whole night of dancing. When Josh spoke, it was in a husky whisper that made her stomach flutter. In the beginning there was a strange dual nature to her feelings. She could still feel her revulsion and confusion at her actions, but after a few dances it disappeared.

  Darkness fell, shifting the colors in the room from golden to a subtle blue emphasized by the sparkling lights that hung from the ceiling. It was like dancing under the night sky. She knew there were other people he should be dancing with; he was an important person, but she couldn't convince herself to let him go. His intense yellow gaze made her feel protected and loved. She longed to kiss him, even if it wouldn't be appropriate public behavior. The Leothen could be a bit prudish. She could wait for the ball to end. Then she would have him to herself and it would be better anyway. She didn't want to share him.

  Beatrix woke slowly as the light shone on her bed. There was an ache in her chest that it took several minutes to place. When the dream filtered back in pieces, she only sighed and closed her eyes. She told herself that she wasn't really awake, so that's why the revulsion hadn't returned. It wasn't until much later that she realized that neither of them had a symbiont in her dream.

  The dream lingered in the back of her thoughts until she dismissed it as a peculiar effect from falling asleep while thinking so intensely about Song of Shadow. She still wanted very much to talk about it, even as she dressed in her new outfit for the day. This time it was a pleated blue skirt and white t-shirt. They fit her perfectly, and the skirt flared beautifully when she spun. She'd loved to spin in her skirts when she was little. She thought about telling Josh that he could give her outfits in different colors, but they never discussed her clothes, so it seemed rude. Besides, having a variety of styles was more important anyway. The matching color scheme made them feel like a uniform, and that was a good reminder of her ultimate goal.

  Once she was presentable, Beatrix grabbed the book off her bedside table and laughed at the hideous cover. The longer she looked at it, the sillier it became. The woman writhing on the throne was actually the main character. The guy holding the obscene sword was the king and he was only a bit player. He was eaten by a dragon less than fifty pages into the book. The main character never even came near the throne, and she later slew that dragon. Why couldn't they have put her in the foreground of the cover fighting a dragon with the king in its claws? It probably would have wounded too many men's fragile masculinity.

  She wasn't paying attention to where she was walking and bumped into Josh's chest with surprising force. He steadied her arm and kept her from taking an embarrassing tumble. He smiled down at her and pointed at the book. "So you read it?" he asked, his yellow eyes practically glowing.

  Beatrix looked down at the arm that he still held and he pulled his hand away quickly, apologizing far too profusely. Beatrix ignored it because she wasn't sure how to feel about it. She looked up and found that his enthusiasm hadn't faded. The lie was ready on her lips and died before she could speak it. "Yes, it was every bit as amazing as you said it was. Maybe more."

  He let out a breath that she realized he had been holding. "Good, we weren't sure because it is quite vulgar in some places. It's not a book for everyone."

  "We need to talk more, because you obviously don't know me well enough if you think that would be a problem." Beatrix couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.

  He went on chattering about the book, and Beatrix only paid enough attention to nod in the right places, and prompt him to go on. They made their way over to his reading nook and sat in the chairs. The whole time Beatrix's mind churned. She had to figure out what was going on in her own head. How could she sit down with this monster and not lunge across the space between them and choke him to death? She summoned up the image of his attack on their home and then watched him speaking animatedly about the powerful female character in Song of Shadow and couldn't reconcile the two. She knew they were one and the same, but this wasn't the beast, this was Josh, and he'd become her friend. "Goddammit," she shouted, cutting Josh off in the middle of a sentence. She jumped to her feet and raced out of the library and into her bedroom, slamming the door. Even then, all she could think about was the stricken look on his face when she'd stormed off.

  She hadn't even had breakfast yet, and she already wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. There was no way she could talk to Josh any more; not about books, not about anything. He was clearly playing her, with some nefarious goal that she couldn't fathom. Maybe he was just trying to get her to willingly cooperate in destroying Nedra. He'd decided that forcing her wouldn't work, so he'd warp her mind slowly over time until she loved him and would do it to please him. She'd read that—that prisoners sometimes came to like their captors. It made sense, in a psychology book, but she never could have imagined it happening to her. Then again, she was a different person now. Who was she becoming? Someone who sympathized with the monster that held her prisoner? Well, if she was, it stopped now!

  That's totally it, said Pillow Dave from beneath her head. He's diabolically making you breakfast and giving you good books to read.

  Beatrix ignored him. She'd come to grips with the fact that he was a coping mechanism she'd come up with during her isolation in the hospital. He mostly just contradicted everything that she thought and it was starting to piss her off. She punched the pillow in its stupid wrinkled face. When it didn't react, she punched it again. It felt good. The punches kept flying, each one more forceful than the last until there was a cloud of feathers in the air. Beatrix screamed and laughed and then screamed some more. She poured all of her impotent rage into hitting Pillow Dave until he didn't resemble a pillow any more; he was just a sagging husk, half-filled with feathers. "Dave?" she asked tentatively.

  There was no response. She had killed Dave. She fought down the urge to sob. It was irrational. He wasn't a real person; he was just a way for her to push away the thoughts she wasn't comfortable with. Now she had to deal with them all herself. That thought was enough to make the tears fall. Once she was already crying she could admit the tears were, at least a little, for Pillow Dave.

  She lay on the bed in the mess of feathers and ignored her hunger pains until a deep, dreamless sleep claimed her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Beatrix fought hard to stay asleep for the rest of the day. Finally, once darkness had fallen, she gave in and crawled out of bed. Her body wouldn't be denied its needs any longer. She needed to go to the bathroom and eat. There was already a new bundle of clothes in the bathroom. She tried not to look at it while she relieved herself. She didn't want to think about Josh doing anything nice for her. She didn't want to think about him at all, but she knew she had to. She had to figure out a way to get her and her friends out of this place. Maybe since he was being so friendly, it was time to use that to her advantage. She'd lost her chance to explore t
he west wing. Maybe she could get some information out of him about when he would leave and she could get another chance. It was worth a shot. He'd warned her to be indirect, but that was probably just a silencing tactic. She was not someone who could be easily silenced.

  She washed her hands and left the package unopened. The kitchen was dark and empty when she arrived. There were some leftovers in the refrigerator, so she threw them in a pan on the stove. Her coordination still wasn't the best after all the extra sleep she'd gotten, so it wasn't a good idea to try and prepare her own meal. While she waited for the food to warm up, she thought over the last couple of days. She'd been hiding from her responsibilities because she didn't know what else to do. She'd grown so desperate for distraction that she'd resorted to chatting with the enemy. There was no more time for that. The next time she saw Josh she would force him outside of his comfort zone and see what happened.

  The rich aroma of the food brought her out of her sleepy daze and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She was being watched. The house was normally abandoned at this time of night. Standing in the doorway that led to the west wing was Woolly. She was struck again by how much his thick, tan fur made him look like he was wearing a ridiculous wool sweater underneath his Colarian grey clothes. The look on his face was hard to read. There was much more than his usual contempt. He looked deeply concerned. His mouth worked up and down as if he were going to say something, but he thought better of it and stomped off, his heavy boots vibrating the floor enough that she felt it in her bare feet.

  Beatrix shivered and pulled her pan of gravy off the stove and grabbed some bread out of the old fashioned breadbox on the counter. Seeing Woolly coming out of the west wing made it all the more interesting. Josh had said there was no hierarchy among the Anthrak, but Josh and Woolly were in charge as far as she could tell. Either Josh did stay in the west wing, or there was something really important inside. Possibly both.