by Layla Nash
“I hear it,” Frrar said grudgingly. “But that changes nothing. She is mine. You will not pursue her, or I will take her off this ship and you will not see her again.”
“I do not like threats on my own ship,” Faros said. His eyes glinted with fury as his scales slowly transitioned to deep red. “Mind yourself.”
Frrar waited. He meant every word he’d said. He would kidnap Maisy if he had to in order to get her away from Faros if his brother refused to swear he would keep his distance. Frrar didn’t know exactly what he felt for the Earther, whether it was just an odd fascination or something more, but he couldn’t find out if his brother kept sniffing after her and trying to charm her right into his bed. The sandsnake would mislead her and lie to her and then she would end up tied to him without knowing the truth. Frrar couldn’t let that happen.
Faros growled and abruptly held his arm out. “Fine. You have my word I won’t pursue the girl until after we’ve finished this mission.”
“Good,” Frrar said, and clasped his brother’s forearm as Faros did the same, and they shook twice to seal the oath. Then Frrar pulled back and jerked his chin at the hall behind Faros. “Let’s go. We leave her alone.”
Despite his expectation that Faros would loiter near sick bay with an excuse about checking on his son, Frrar followed the captain away from sick bay and along to the bridge. He didn’t breathe easily until he knew exactly where his brother was at all times. It was the only way he could keep Maisy safe.
Chapter 15
Maisy
Maisy stayed in sick bay for quite a while after the Xaravians left, shaking her head over their puzzling behavior. They’d argued in the corridor for a while; she’d heard their raised voices even over Faryl’s giggling. By the time the little boy curled up to take a nap, exhausted by their games, she almost needed a rest herself. Xaravians kids were a little crazy, and even though Faryl was ill, he still bounced off the walls and ceiling and everything else for hours at a time.
She conducted another scan on some samples taken from his scales, puzzling over whether the illness was truly in his blood. Perhaps it was endemic to his system, or affected his immune response. She’d studied something similar while in school, based off a population from a planet within the same quadrant as Xarav, so it was possible the disease existed elsewhere.
When she joined the Sraibur, she never expected to spend most of her time treating a juvenile instead of pirate battle wounds. But that was perfectly acceptable. Cautious Maisy didn’t mind not having traumatic injuries to deal with. She had just long enough to think that her big adventure wouldn’t be much of one at all when the entire ship jolted to the side, throwing her to the ground, and a series of alarms blared through the corridors.
She stared around and barely regained her feet as the ship shuddered. Faryl woke up and looked around, then sighed and rolled over. Maisy stared at him; did things like that happen often enough on the Sraibur that even a child didn’t mind the alarms?
Maisy staggered as she headed for the corridor to find out what the hell was going on. That was one of the first things she’d learned on the Galaxos—when trouble arrived on a spaceship, it was always big trouble. And with the ear-piercing alarms and constantly pitching and rolling of the ship, she couldn’t remember which way the evacuation pods were.
Even though part of her wanted to return to the sick bay and try to leech some confidence from the child who’d gone back to sleep, she turned herself to the bridge. Maybe someone needed medical help. At the very least, she could figure out what the heck was going on.
She expected chaos on the bridge, but instead everyone remained calm and professional. In fact, it was more like they hadn’t even noticed the three ships trying to destroy them. Her heart raced as she stared at the massive viewing screen that showed a battle raging around the Sraibur. At least they weren’t Alliance ships that she could tell.
Frrar lurched toward her as another explosion impacted the Sraibur’s shields. “What are you doing here? Go back to sick bay where it’s safer.”
“Nowhere is safer,” she said under her breath. Maisy braced against one of the navigation terminals and steeled herself to sound braver. “What’s happening?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at his brother. Faros stood at the captain’s chair and calmly gave directions to his crew. It sounded like just another day in the life of an interstellar pirate crew. Frrar exhaled in irritation and folded his arms over his chest. “A target of opportunity.”
“Wait—we’re attacking them?”
“Defending ourselves, Earther,” Faros said, raising his voice just slightly as he glanced over, half his mouth turned up. “They belong to the same group that attacked us and injured our crewmates. We’re extracting a small price to account for the inconvenience they caused us.”
Maisy frowned as she studied him. Something didn’t feel right... But it wasn’t really her place to comment on the legality or appropriateness of a pirate crew’s business. “Sure. But there’s three of them and they seem to be... bigger than your ship. Should I be concerned?”
“Not at all.” Faros’s smile turned to a grin, and he went back to directing his crew in attacking the three ships. “Just stand back and watch, and appreciate what the finest Xarav design can achieve against these slow, ancient piles of rust.”
Frrar muttered under his breath and nudged Maisy to sit at the navigation station as the ship whipped around to avoid another attack. “Sit. You don’t want to fall. He’s boasting, of course. They’re transporters, and not old ones.”
“Transporters don’t have weapons like that,” she said slowly. Her heart jumped to her throat. “Are you sure they’re transporters? What if they’re— Could they be Alliance ships disguised as transporters?”
“Unlikely,” Frrar said. He leaned on the navigation station as he studied the viewing screen and shook his head. “They’re probably transporting something quite valuable between secured sectors. So they’ll have to be heavily armed to deter... pirates.” And he jerked his chin in Faros’s direction.
The captain pretended not to notice, though Maisy thought his shoulders tensed and his spikes rattled. Maisy held on to the navigator station as some kind of weapon exploded right in front of the viewer and hid the three ships from view. She sucked in a breath. What if the Sraibur were disabled and they were left adrift? Or—worse—the other ships boarded and took everyone prisoner and then turned them over to the Alliance? They’d get quite a bounty on her, and probably one on Frrar as well—although she didn’t know if Faros or anyone else knew that. Which was probably for the best, all things considered. She didn’t think Faros would turn them in, but there was no telling what a pirate crew would decide.
The ship shuddered and more alarms blared, the urgency and volume increasing. Faros scowled and braced himself on the back of the captain’s chair. “To starboard. Cut hard on my mark.”
Maisy dreaded the tension, holding her breath as one of the ships turned to attack the Sraibur and headed right at them. She gripped the navigation station until her knuckles ached. She’d never expected to have a front-row seat to a starship battle, since she was usually in the sick bay dealing with other injuries.
Frrar squeezed her shoulder, though he remained impassive as the other ships barreled at them.
Faros barked, “Now.”
The Sraibur lunged to the side and down, fast and sharp enough that Maisy felt herself leave her seat, and it was only Frrar’s hand on her shoulder that kept her from tumbling all the way to the ceiling. She sucked in a breath as the Sraibur darted and dodged and somehow popped up behind the three ships as they tried to maneuver.
“Fire,” Faros said, still calm and ice cold about it.
Maisy clapped her hands over her mouth as the Sraibur fired all their weapons at the three ships. One disappeared in a cloud of sparks, and her heart hurt to think of all the people onboard who wouldn’t be returning home. The second ship lost power and started to drift, unable to keep pursui
ng the Sraibur, and the third turned to limp away.
“There she is,” the captain said. “Pursue and prepare to board.”
Boarding? Were they going to steal from the transporters? That went beyond extracting a little revenge for an earlier attack. She cleared her throat. “What are you doing? Why are you boarding them?”
“You should return to sick bay,” Faros said. He didn’t look at her. “It’s safer for you there. Keep an eye on Faryl.”
Maisy knew when she was being dismissed. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the impassive captain. “You shouldn’t—”
“This is my business,” he said. His tone came out sharper than he’d ever spoken to her. “You are a member of the crew on my ship. Return to sick bay immediately or I will have you confined to your quarters.”
She jerked back in surprise, indignant. The old Maisy would have slunk off and done as she was told, but the braver Maisy stood her ground. Well, she sat her ground, refusing to leave the navigation station. “If you just wanted to punish them for attacking you, then you’ve done that. It’s bad enough you’ve killed all the people on that one, but the other ones—”
Faros growled slightly and one of his crew nodded, apparently receiving an order, and started toward Maisy. She prepared herself to be dragged off the bridge and thrown in the brig, but Frrar put himself between the pirate and her. “I’ll handle it. Go back to your station.”
The Sraibur jolted and then what looked like long hooks deployed to capture the listing ship. Faros turned his attention to the viewing screen as if he’d dismissed them both from his mind, although the spikes on his shoulders rattled and told a different story. Maisy wanted to argue, to make him see that boarding the ship was wrong and would just dig a deeper hole for himself and his crew to extricate themselves from.
But Frrar took her arm with a gentle grip and tugged her to the exit. Maisy set her heels, craning her neck to see the viewing screen, and sucked in a breath as the other ship filled the entire screen as the Sraibur reeled it in. “But they’re going to—”
“Hush,” he said. The Xaravian lifted her up and carried her out of the bridge, and practically all the way back to sick bay.
Maisy scowled at him and tried to free herself. “You can’t condone what he’s doing. That’s…that’s…”
“Piracy?” The corner of his mouth twitched as he watched her. “I told you he’s not a nice guy, Maisy. He’s a pirate and his crew goes around hurting people, stealing from them, taking what they want and leaving wreckage behind. He might do it mostly on behalf of the rebels, but he does it entirely for himself, too. If there’s not profit or prestige involved, Faros isn’t interested.”
She shook her head and stared down the hall at the bridge. She ignored the various crewmembers jogging past, calling to each other about storming the other ship and finding new weapons, and pulling on their armor and battle-gear. “But he’s not like that. The way he treats his son, the way he’s talked... I don’t believe it.”
“He’s a pirate,” Frrar repeated quietly. His silver eyes searched her face, and he touched her cheek in a gentle, glancing caress. “He lies. He may love his son but that doesn’t mean he likes anyone else or cares whether they get hurt.”
Maisy’s stomach swerved and dropped as she looked up at the tall Xaravian in front of her. She forgot to breathe when she saw the look on his face, the hunger in his eyes, the blue swirls in his scales. He almost looked like he wanted to kiss her. She blinked and then his head tilted, descended, and the rest of the universe disappeared.
Chapter 16
Frrar
Frrar couldn’t help himself when the Earther looked up at him with those wide eyes and consternation on her soft, fragile face. He loved that she was sweet enough to think that his brother wasn’t a complete bastard, and that the pirate crew would care whether they hurt anyone else, even if it was frustrating that Faros had apparently made an impression on the doc.
Maisy’s eyes flashed with indignance and her cheeks flushed that enchanting red that could have meant anything, and he wanted to groan with lust. Maybe the Earthers turned that color in the middle of mating. He could imagine every inch of her turning color; he could take pride in doing that to her. She was still looking at him as he tried to explain that Faros didn’t care about hurting others and Frrar reached up to touch her cheek. So smooth, so soft. So very fragile.
Even with the alarms going off around them and the crew running to the loading bay and attack pods to board the other ship, the only thing that mattered was Maisy. She paused to breathe and her eyes widened, her pupils dilating, and a low growl vibrated through him. He needed to taste her. Needed to feel the warm heat of her mouth.
He caught her face and slid his fingers into her soft, shiny hair, tilting her head so he could brush his lips to her. She made a curious little surprised sound that ignited need all the way through him, sending him rocketing into infatuation and the need to protect her. Frrar cradled her head and leaned into her, and Maisy gave way, bracing her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers brushed his spikes and he groaned again, deepening the kiss as her lips parted to allow him in. He pressed her to the wall and hoisted her up so he didn’t have to bend down.
Her arm wrapped around his neck as she clung to him, and Frrar gripped her ass to support her. He broke the kiss to leave a trail of nibbles and bites down her throat.
Maisy cleared her throat a few times but her voice still went high when she spoke. “This isn’t…the best place to…make out like—”
She whispered a soft moan as he sucked on her earlobe and Frrar growled in anticipation. He needed to find out what other noises she could make.
The whole ship jolted and nearly knocked them off their feet. Frrar braced to keep Maisy upright. When his hand squeezed her waist, she turned brilliant red, almost purple, and held onto the wall. “I should…check on Faryl.”
His eyebrows rose as he studied her. “You don’t want to find a better place to make out like…something?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Um, that’s not a good idea.”
“It’s a fine idea,” he said. He wasn’t going to force her, but he didn’t want her to think he regretted anything. He damn well didn’t. “But maybe it can wait until we’re not on a pirate ship, hmm?”
She gulped audibly and bobbed her head, then staggered to the sick bay doors and slid through before he could say anything else. Frrar started to grin as he watched her go, not only admiring her fine Earther ass but reveling in the memory of her, soft and sweet against him. It certainly gave him something to look forward to.
He didn’t linger in the corridor long but instead followed the last crewmembers to the loading bay. They extended a docking arm to the other ship. Frrar peered out one of the viewing screens and saw that the attack pods had already landed on the transporter to subdue the crew. A different tone blared through the alarm system, and the loadmaster called out instructions on getting to the ship. The crew loaded and checked their weapons, then streamed through the docking arm and into the crippled transporter.
Frrar hung back, arms over his chest, as he evaluated their operations. One of the internal screens in the loading bay had been rigged to track the Sraibur personnel through sensors on their uniforms, so Frrar could watch as the pirates dispersed throughout the transporter. As they moved quickly and efficiently into the much larger ship, Frrar’s scales rustled. They knew where they were going, almost as if they’d practiced. Which meant the Sraibur had been waiting for the transporters, or had robbed from similar ships in the past.
He clenched his jaw in irritation as his brother’s lies built up around them. No doubt the Sraibur had not actually been attacked, but had suffered damage during an attack on another ship. There was no telling how many enemies stalked Faros and his crew through the universe, beyond even the Alliance, which made every moment Maisy spent on the Sraibur too dangerous by far. He couldn’t risk her safety, even if the Earther appeared impervious to sound logic, and he
would have to convince her to return to the Galaxos at the first opportunity.
The loadmaster glanced back at him, then jerked his chin at the docking arm. “You going onboard?”
“No,” Frrar said. He knew the warrior from working in the engineering section. Frrar pulled on his gloves and strode to where the loadmaster waited. “I’ll monitor the arm if you want to board. Must be tough to watch the pillaging from afar.”
The loadmaster snorted, shaking his head. “This isn’t pillaging. This is a mission long in the making, warrior, and one that will either save or destroy us.”
Frrar didn’t like the sound of that. “My offer stands, if you want to board the ship.”
The Xaravian, his hair long and threaded with bones and charms, hesitated. Clearly he had his orders, but Frrar knew any good Xarav would never miss the opportunity for a fight. And from the images reaching them through the video attachments on the crew’s armor, there was still a good amount of fighting to be had. The loadmaster, a distant cousin named Nokx, finally stepped back from the docking arm controls. “Give me your word, warrior, that you won’t strand us. On your mother’s honor.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” Frrar said. But he shook the warrior’s arm anyway. “But I want to be the one who kills my brother, and I certainly can’t do that when he’s arrested by the Alliance or stranded on a crippled transporter. The ship will be here when you complete your mission.”
Nokx’s serious demeanor faded and he grinned, clapped Frrar on the shoulder, and raced across the arm into the transporter.
Frrar took a deep breath and kept one eye on the docking arm to make sure it didn’t detach as the two ships drifted. He flipped through the information screens near the loadmaster’s station, searching for the schematics and manifest for the transporter. If it was a mission long in the making, then there had to be records, research... something.