Beth's Stable

by Amanda Milo

  Shaking myself, I look around us, studying the options. He may want an old one, and I may have no grandstand plans of hacking one and piloting home (like I have any idea how to fly a ship, or how I would find Earth, or how safe I would be when I made it home if I made it home) I instinctively search for one that looks like it could make a really long flight, all the way to Earth, without blowing apart. Too much rust, that one’s got a broken wing (how are they flying that?!), no, that one’s too small, this one’s too—I point to one that has a few aliens jogging around it like they’re checking it for take-off. “How about that one?”

  I don’t even breathe when Ekan suddenly catches me up in his arms and—careful of my baby bump—hugs me tightly and says, “That’s a Rutlass Class 4—a good fifteen, twenty orbits old. What a good eye you have! We’re going to make beautiful sums together.”

  Before I have a chance to decide if this is really good or really bad for me, he’s set me back on my feet and he’s tugging me after him by my hand.

  His entire manner has changed to a focused one, and I’m struck with the unsettling impression that Ekan is basically a handsome alien squirrel. One that must have moments of pure brilliance if he’s managed to live this long—because I have a feeling he spends most of his time darting and dashing and playing in the middle of traffic.

  And guess what? Squirrels are scary bastards if they hold your life in their hands.

  Ekan stops suddenly, wrapping himself around me, squid-on-pilot whale style, before he pecks a kiss into my hair.

  For my part, I’m stunned still.

  Not letting me go, he whispers, “Show me your lock kit.”

  In the movie Miss Congeniality, an FBI agent goes undercover as a Miss America contestant and at some point when she’s wearing an outfit that hides absolutely nothing, she gets asked in a deeply sarcastic fashion why she doesn’t have an armored car. (The swimsuit she wore in that movie? That little number had more fabric to it than what I’m wearing right now.) Our situation reminds me of her scene. I give a Miss Congeniality-worthy answer: “That must be in my other almost-a-dress, sorry.”

  “What other dress?” Ekan’s still whispering. And he kisses my hair again, with more purpose this time.

  I squirm a little in his hold, but not because his kisses or his hug feels bad. “I don’t have a kit. I used a hair pin on those locks in the pen.”

  “Oooh,” he purrs. He drags his cheek over the top of my head. “How enterprising!” His tone has turned crisp with excited curiosity. “Well, then, reach into my lower left pocket.”

  Haltingly, I do as he asks—and when I encounter something that does not at all feel like a lock pick kit, he stiffens. And then he really stiffens. “Ekan?” I squeak.

  “That backfired,” he says hoarsely. “I thought it would be fun to razz you by having you grab me. Turns out, I misjudged the order of who would feel teased. If you’re so inclined, feel free to—”

  I draw my hand out of his pocket like someone tried to light my fingertips on fire.

  He sucks in air past his teeth and digs into a pocket along his thigh, pulling out a small flat pouch and pressing it into my palm. “Hide it.”

  “Where?” I whisper furiously. “Next time you want your helper to hide something, let her wear something that gives her a place to—”

  He squints and sucks air past his teeth. “Do you have a spare vent you could—”

  “Don’t even go there,” I warn him.

  His lids drop low. “Are you laying out boundaries for later, or are we still discussing the lockpick kit?”

  “I’m running away from you.”

  He sighs and his arms fall away from me. “All right. We’ll be forced to get one over on these pirates a different way. Follow my lead.”

  I glare up at him. “As opposed to what we’ve been doing all along?”

  He brushes his thumb over my lips, really testing my restraint at not biting him. “There’s that sarcasm.”

  “I’m glad you picked up on it.”

  He gets bedroomy eyes again, and seeing this makes my already too-interested female parts sit up.

  Pregnancy hormones are the worst. I’m attracted to every guy—evidently even the batshit crazy ones. Alien ones. To dispel the hotmist this deranged alien is perfuming my senses with, I squint up at him, showing him how suspicious I am of his motives. “You’re seriously going to sell me, aren’t you?”

  “Without question.”

  I try to squint more, but I didn’t have any extra squintage to go, so I just squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to do anything dangerous. Promise me this won’t be dangerous?”

  He makes us dance in place until I open my eyes again. And as soon as I do, I find that I don’t trust the gleam in his. “Beth, I promise I won’t let you get hurt. But do you really want to do this without danger?”

  Haltingly, I interject reason—or try. “I don’t want to do this at all actually—”

  But he keeps talking right over me, like I’m not disagreeing with him, like I’m laying down too many boundaries in the fieldsport we’re playing together. “Noooo, that’s no fun. Let’s play a game.”

  “I don’t think I’ll like your game.”

  He pretends to look offended. “You can’t possibly be wary yet. You’ve never played with me before.”

  I huff a laugh. “You’re so wrong. I’ve played every game before. I’m very wary, and it’s not gonna take me a turn playing with you for me to know that you’re trouble.”

  He grins down at me.

  I wish I wasn’t susceptible to trouble.

  His smile is stupid-attractive. As in I am attracted, therefore I must be stupid. My eyes automatically do the narrowing thing at him, not trusting him for anything, and his grin widens, and then his gaze travels down, down, down my body.

  The look on his face when his eyes—heated now—meet mine again, makes me happy-shiver. Which is bad. He looks like he’s thinking dirty thoughts, and let’s give me the benefit of the doubt that I might not like the sinful things he has in mind. With my main ‘vent.’ There's a chance. “Were you being literal when you called these guys pirates? Are there really spaceship pirates?”

  He smirks. “Sweethearts—" he pauses, and his brows lift. "Do you have extra hearts, or just a single?"

  "Extra what?!"

  He nods. "Just one, eh? Na'rith's too.” He cuts me a roguish grin. “Though we have enough love to fill many hearts. You’re going to be so... full of us.” His naughty smile dies. “Hm. No, no. Just me. I’m keeping you for myself.” He waves his hand in the air like he’s dispelling his extra (chaotic) thoughts before answering my original question, although his last couple of statements only gave me more. “As I was saying: you’re surrounded by pirates. You’re currently owned by the galaxy’s best pirate.”

  Ekan is a pirate. That explains so much. Every show and book and movie depicts them as being rakish, cutthroat, etc, etc. The entertainment industry didn’t land far off—if they landed off the mark at all.

  He winks at me. “Brace yourself: you’re about to be resold to more pirates!” In a confiding tone, he grows more serious as he shares, “Not anywhere near my caliber, you understand. They’re not Na’rith—and I’m a luck source.” He tugs me closer, my stomach bumping his hips. “We’re quite rare.” He catches his lip in his teeth, and if my womb wasn’t already occupied, I’d be pregnant right now from this move right here. “And in each ship, there can be only one.”

  HIGHLANDER QUOTE BY AN ALIEN. Swoooon...

  Down hormones! DOWN.

  I clear my throat. “God help us if there were more of you.”

  He beams at me, his eyes traveling down to my stomach between us, before making a lazy trip back up to my face. “Perhaps some day in the future, you would enjoy making more of me. What an exciting prospect, eh?”

  We’ve known each other like two seconds, and he just told me he’s a pirate. I understand that I should be run
ning.

  Although, by going along with whatever he’s got planned, I just might get my chance to run before he can implement any Ekan copy-making. It’s too bad I didn’t pick science classes instead of economics: working my way through the NASA program instead of busting my tail for a business degree would at least give me a clue on how to fly far, far away from this dangerously potent creature. “10-4, Rubber Duck. I read you loud and clear.”

  Smiling so big it’s basically proof he’s unbalanced, Ekan takes my hand and swings our arms playfully—all while seeming to ponder over what I just said, almost absently. “Rubber Duck,” he mouths, testing it out.

  “Convoy,” I tell him. “It’s a movie.”

  He eyes me from the side. “My fascination is roused. You’ll have to tell me what a movie is when you return yourself to me.”

  He seems very sure that I won’t escape him. How does he know I don’t have the skills to hijack a ship and pilot it? My voice comes out quieter than I intend, but there’s no hint of teasing left in it. “Whatever hijinx you’re planning, it’s not only my safety we have to worry about you know.” The truth of this makes my stomach clench.

  “Beth,” Ekan says with absolute seriousness, squeezing me in a hug, “No harm will come to the spawn. I vow it.”

  “She’s my baby,” I correct on the whoosh of air that leaves me. I’m so relieved, I don’t immediately push Ekan away when he starts petting my hair. Although frankly, it’s a little surprising he can manage to be comforting. I should probably absorb as much of this moment as I can—because I could be wrong—but I’m guessing his playthings typically require lots of comforting by the time he’s done with them.

  “I vow you won’t come to harm either, and your mane is unparalleled,” he declares in one breath, petting my hair extra admiringly. Against my will, my eyelids sink down. His hand is gentle, and warm, and heavy, and he feels good. Him stroking my hair feels really, really reassuring, somehow. “Would you,” he asks huskily, “Be particularly opposed to it being shorn?”

  I jerk away from him.

  “Just a little,” he clarifies. “Gryfala mane clippings go for a fortune. Yours would serve as an excellent imitation.”

  I show him my Batty Koda claw. “Stay away from my hair.”

  He glances at my finger with a little interest, but ultimately decides to ignore my warning. “You need to trim it from time to time anyway, don’t you? I wouldn’t sell all of your mane—I want to play with it too much.” His eyes go a little unfocused as he reaches out again.

  I back away from him as much as the length of our arms allows, which is a consideration when your captor has you shackled with his big hand over your wrist.

  He tilts his head, and his lips purse attractively. “None of the mane hairs I’ve ever seen for sale have been near to being anything as lovely as yours.”

  I gape at him. “Now you’re trying to butter me up?”

  His eyes do the attractive gleaming thing again. A glint, I believe it’s called. It’s dangerous. So’s his grin. “I like the sound of this. Where is it exactly that you’re feeling buttered?”

  CHAPTER 6—EKAN

  EKAN

  On our way to the ship Beth picked for our first mark, I get the shock of the rotation. “Look what the waste-scummer dragged in,” I say under my breath. Beth hears me, but thankfully, the being approaching us does not.

  He’s watching my Beth with far, far too close a sense of fascination to be paying any attention to me.

  This won’t do.

  I call to him. “A Dendro! I haven’t seen one of your kind in an age!” And Creator, it’s still too soon. We almost never deal with them, and it has nothing to do with business and everything to do with the way they treat their ‘breeders.’ They envenomate their females, and we’ve learned that once they’ve bitten a woman, it hurts her if you kill her captor.

  And this one wants to sink fang into my Beth?

  Never. Teveking. Happening.

  With scales covering them from their unsmiling snouts to their wide-set toes, they’re somewhat intimidating looking. That they’re constantly in their battle garb doesn’t help to set anyone at ease around them, and this one is no different, dressed for the gladiator ring he likely makes his living by. Clad only in a circlet of leather strips around his slim waist (a Pteruges, they’ll be quick to inform you by swordpoint if you call it by any other name), his scales black enough to look burned, he certainly cuts a fine figure. But this one’s dark eyes are so rapt on my new acquisition that it immediately sets my senses to feeling all the more threatened.

  “Ekan?” Beth breathes, her fingers coming up to catch inside my elbow. “You’re not going to sell me to him, are you? Get me out of here, please,” she hiss-pleads. “My skin wants to yelp and crawl right off my body.”

  The Dendro, able to hear Beth just fine, grins hugely—and I nearly stumble the krit back. They can smile! Who the hells knew?

  To Beth, I execute a Qolt-worthy move and manage to whisper without even moving my lips. “At all costs, get away from this one as soon as possible, agreed?”

  “I want to junk punch you so bad right now,” she doesn’t bother whispering at all.

  The Dendro grins even wider.

  “Junk punch?” I give up the pretense of whispering and ask her outright.

  “Let me demonstrate, please ask me to demonstrate,” she pretends to beg me.

  I stare down at her. “I really like the sound of your pleading. Maybe I should keep you a little longer.”

  The Dendro frowns.

  Beth glares up at me.

  I rub my hands together. “And all is right in the worlds.”

  “What do you want for her?”

  I drag my attention away from Beth, and eye the Dendro. “Everything you’ve got.” I bare my teeth, the closest thing I can manage to a pleasant smile for such a loathsome creature.

  We talk credits, going back and forth, but it isn’t even a satisfying transaction—the Dendro is too impatient to make the effort to haggle. I find I’m equal parts disappointed and relieved when we reach a price I’m willing to settle for. It’s insultingly low for such a fine specimen as my Beth, not to mention the bonus of the spawn she’s keeping safe in her belly, but I’m ready to move this along. I jam his credit stick in the device reader, rob him, and wave him ahead of me. “Excellent. Now show us your ship.”

  The Dendro tips his head slowly, and all the muscles in my back tighten.

  “No need,” the Dendro says. “Right here will do.”

  I blink at him, easily reaching out and catching Beth when she tries to bolt. “I want to see where you’ll be keeping her.”

  The Dendro reaches for and takes Beth by her other arm, and I want to cut off both of his. Paid for or not, how dare he touch her. “That’s not your concern, Na’rith. This belongs to me now, and I’ll have her here.”

  His audacity is stunning. And this is coming from me, who’s made a career out of being audacious! “‘This’ belongs to you? She’s a she, not a this, and here? On the ground? She, sir, is a princess you’re paying for.”

  Beth raises her eyebrow at me like I’m claiming too much.

  The scales around the Dendro’s mouth tighten. “And I’ll have her wherever I want her.”

  “A princess,” I repeat, thinking surely this thing has to see reason and change its answer.

  It doesn’t—somehow, he’s not affected at all. Instead, one of his scaled hands fists in the material of Beth’s top to hold her fast, and the other slaps back his leather Pteruges to free himself.

  (Normally, I can’t even think the word Pteruges with a straight face. Sure, it sounds very masculine, and technically, it looks it. But let’s be honest: call a skirt a skirt. Yet with Beth the target of his attention, I find I’m not laughing. Not even a little.) “Let her go.”

  The Dendro’s eyes slit, and all three of us have gone still. With a whip-fast move, he’s the first to break our standoff by shoving Beth to
the side, snatching his pistol, and aiming it at my chest.

  Beth covers her mouth with her hands.

  “Luck source,” I warn him as I rest my finger over the trigger of a neural-pulser, and use my free hand to pat my pockets, deciding which weapon to test out.

  He hisses a curse, and lowers his aim—not dropping his trajectory off me entirely, but he’s wavering.

  “WHAT the hell are you doing?” Beth shouts at me.

  I flick my gaze to her, and bid her a silent request for her patience. My other hand comes into contact with the butt of my recently acquired 8591 Mercenary firearm. Ah, perfect! I’ve wondered what sort of damage this one is capable of.

  The Dendro growls, making me take my eyes from Beth’s in order to send him a questioning look. He hesitates, growls, aims again.

  Beth covers her eyes.

  I shoot the Dendro with the 8591, and he drops dead, his look of frustrated disbelief frozen on his face. I’ve still got my finger over the trigger of the neural-pulser, so I let my finger off and watch as the blast hits him, making his body ripple and twitch.

  Interesting. I raise the pistol, sighting down the barrel and examining it more closely. I wonder who will offer me the best trade for it: Oquilion or Prow?

  Beth lurches away from the Dendro, moving right into safety: me. “You lucky bastard!” she shouts, her eyes fixed on the body.

  “That’s what they keep me for,” I confirm. I follow her gaze down, wondering what she’s staring at. From her expression, I suppose this all must have seemed like a near-death experience.

  What do I see? I see that we survived to deal another deal. I roll my shoulders back. “Ready for the next one, narra?”

  When she doesn’t answer me, I groan loudly. “I know, I know—this wasn’t very sporting, but don’t judge me based on this transaction. I find your opinion matters to me, Beth, and I don’t want you to think I’m entirely without honor. Today’s just scraping up to be a challenge.”

  “That sounds rough,” she says a little too hollowly for my peace of mind—but she also says it without any empathy whatsoever, which seems like a solid indication of her spark still being intact.