by Elsa Jade
A few minutes later, she marched out of her suite, feeling maybe not like a bad boy but definitely badass, all in sleek black. Sure, she had to roll up the cuffs on the pants and the sleeves, but the responsive space-age fabric that had compressed to snug on Nor’s big body was just slightly loose on hers. No one would mistake her for an alien warrior, but she didn’t look like a lacey white bride either.
She arrived a little later than usual at the dining room so most of the staff and guests had already eaten, but she gave a firm, friendly nod to the few lingering over their cups of coffee and pixberry tea while she filled her plate with all the weirdest dishes from the sideboard. If she was going to be a hundred percent on board with this adventure that she hadn’t actually chosen, then breakfast was the most important meal of the day.
She took her tray and ambled over to one of the remaining small groups. From their simple, charcoal uniforms, she guessed they were junior crew on leave from the docked Grandiloquence. “Mind if I join you?”
They eyed her not-quite-fitting officer’s fatigues and then each other with a certain consternation before one nodded hesitantly and nudged back an empty chair.
“I’m Amanu, third-year ensign.” She grinned. “From Azthronos’s fourth planet, and inconveniently eighth in line for inheriting the family farm.” The others in the group grumbled sympathetically.
Trixie set her tray on the table and slid into the seat. “My name is Trixie,” she said with a little wave. “Earther, and somehow equally inconveniently a part-owner of a space station in the middle of nowhere space. Were you all on the Grandy when the station was found?”
They’d all been on the dreadnaught, and they were all eager to talk about it. After an awkward moment of dancing around the subject, when it was clear they weren’t sure how traumatized she was, they asked about Earth and told her about their own experiences on the flagship. Most of them, it turned out, were younger children of noble families, looking to make their way minus the advantages of their eldest siblings. Trixie was surprised to find how much she had in common with them. She asked about the schooling they’d needed to sign on as junior officers. She hadn’t gone to college, couldn’t have spent the time or money, but suddenly she saw the appeal of a group of like-minded individuals striving to better themselves. They were just finishing telling her about which of them had puked on their first experiences with zero gravity when their dat-pads chimed in unison. They all jumped to their feet, coming to stiff attention.
She blinked in surprise but then stiffened herself when Nor strode through the doorway.
His pale blue gaze landed on the group and then arrowed to her. He stalked toward them, his hands anchored at the small of his back.
She’d never seen him actually looking like a dreadnaught captain before. It was kind of intimidating. Kind of…sexy, actually. Darn him.
With what seemed to her like deliberate effort, he shifted his piercing eyes from her to the junior crew. “You’ve just received new orders,” he told them. “Meet at landing pad four at eight chronos.”
“Yes, sir,” said Amanu, who had quickly revealed herself as the unofficial leader of the little group. “Any special gear or munitions, sir?”
Nor’s gaze flicked to Trixie, so quick she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. “This is a non-specialty research run out to the space station, and all required gear will be provided. But if you have a preferred side-arm, bring it.” He gave them a lopsided grin that hinted at the ex-pirate Trixie had seen in him. “I don’t expect you’ll need it, but it’s what you’re not expecting that is precisely the reason for wanting it.”
The young crewmen chuckled, their eyes sparkling with what Trixie recognized as hero worship. She’d never met a man to inspire that in her, but she supposed she could see how Captain Rokal Nor irThorkonos would fascinate these entitled young people.
He stood so tall and imposing in his (presumably extra set of) ships fatigues, the stark black somehow warming his golden skin and the honey-brown of his hair. He’d bound the thick waves into that tight knot at his nape.
Which only made her fingers twitch with the urge to unravel him again.
Although him walking out on her without even a see-you-later should’ve left her wanting to strangle him with those long, lovely locks. The jerk.
She found her gaze tracing his broad, tensed shoulders as he turned to watch his young crew hasten to return their trays to the sideboard and head for their assignment. But he hadn’t walked away from her.
Pushing out of her chair—she didn’t like being so much shorter than him—she asked, “Why are you going to the station?”
If anything, his shoulders tensed a little more before he swiveled to face her, his expression bland. “A routine inspection,” he said. “Nothing to bother you with.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I do believe that’s the first time you’ve lied to me.”
He jerked his chin back as if she’d taken a swing at him. “It is nothing to worry you,” he said defensively. “Would I take this gaggle of younglings if it was critical?”
“Tell me why you’re going and then I’ll know.”
He shifted from one boot to the other, looking for a moment even more callow than the ensign and her friends. “What does it matter when it’s not going to change anything?”
The words needled her. Here she’d just been thinking about how she was going to change… A little defensively, she crossed her arms over her chest. And then recrossed them when the bulky rolled cuffs got in the way. “The space station is mine,” she told him, trying to channel the dowager’s imperious tone, before amending, “partly. So tell me why you’re going there.”
“Trixie,” he said, a warning clear in his voice.
“You might be captain of a dreadnaught,” she said. “But Raz said the space station will always belong to Rayna, me, and the others. So you can’t do anything without me.”
His jaw flexed, but she wasn’t going to be overawed by a handsome jaw, no matter how hard his teeth were gritted. “Rayna’s sister checked in, trying to reach the duke.” He glowered at her for her familiarity. “Vaughn and her mate need physical samples from the station, something they can’t do remotely. The duke would approve any assistance necessary, but if you want to issue other orders…” He glared at her.
She wasn’t sure if he was more mad about being ordered around by his half-brother or by her. “I’ll go with you.”
As soon as she said it, she wanted to rescind the words. Why would she go back to that terrible place? Bad enough to know that her off-Earth livelihood was dependent on successfully reconditioning the space station, but did she really want to be personally involved?
Nor sputtered. “No.”
If he’d been answering her unspoken question, he wasn’t wrong about her not wanting anything to do with her former prison. But somehow his rejection roused a determination in her that had never existed before.
“I’m going,” she repeated. “Raz”—she stressed the personal connection with Nor’s superior—“made the estate staff available to Lishelle and me before he left with Rayna, so I’ll just requisition another shuttle if you leave without me.”
That was an outrageous threat, she knew. She’d never be bold enough to actually demand an entire spaceship for her own use, even just a little shuttle—
“Fine,” Nor growled. He twisted on his heel.
“You can’t—” Wait. He’d said fine? She hustled after him as he strode out the door. “You’ll take me?”
He glared down at her when she reached his side. “I’m not letting you go without me.”
His annoyance was palpable. From another male, she might’ve cringed, knowing what anger could mean. But hearing that Nor didn’t want her to go alone dissipated her unease like a weak fog on a sunny day. “I just need to do one thing and then I’ll join you,” she said, probably with a touch too much enthusiasm. Not that she was excited about joining with him
specifically…
The corner of his mouth quirked just slightly. “Going to get your blaster?”
She put her hand over the thigh holster she’d found in his stolen pants. “Don’t need to go anywhere. Got it right here already.”
His gaze dropped to where her hand rested over her hip. Was that a glint of simmering awareness in his gaze? Maybe she had cocked her hip just a leeeeeetle bit farther out than necessary.
He averted his gaze. “Landing pad four,” he grumbled.
“At eight o’clock. I heard.” She raced a few steps ahead of him then spun to look back. She widened her stance, forcing him to halt or run her over. “I might not be pirate or a noblewoman or a…a vrykoly engineer on a dreadnaught. But I won’t be a victim, not anymore.”
From his greater height, he looked down at her, and for a moment, she thought he might step around her. But after another heartbeat of silence, he nodded. “I returned to Azthronos to make a point,” he said softly. “Not just to the duke—just as well, since he was dead anyway—but to myself. I won’t try to stop you or dissuade you or leave you behind if you need to see the station again.”
She hadn’t sobbed when she’d realized he’d left her alone after their night together, but her eyes misted now at his understanding. “I’ll be there at eight.”
He gave her a short bow and strode away.
She watched him go—he had a nice butt, after all—then ran for the guest suites.
Lishelle answered her door at the first ping and stood back to let Trixie in. “Missed you at breakfast.”
“Sorry. I…didn’t sleep well.” At all. Because she’d been having sex with an alien spaceship captain. Did that show on her face or in the way she walked? She edged by her friend carefully.
Lishelle blinked at her. “What’s with the ninja SWAT outfit?”
Trixie took a steadying breath. “I’m going to the space station.”
She wasn’t surprised when the other woman twisted away.
“Why on Earth would…” Lishelle scraped one hand over her box braids. “No, obviously that’s not what I mean. Why the fuck would you do that?” She glared at Trixie, her dark eyes accusing.
Even when Trixie quickly explained the reason for the trip, Lishelle shook her head hard. “Nuh-uh. Not getting me back up there.”
“You don’t have to go,” Trixie assured her. “But I wanted to tell you what’s going on since Rayna can’t be reached.”
“She wouldn’t go back there either.” Lishelle plumped out her lower lip disapprovingly. “What’s the point of having a duke and all his minions to do our bidding if we just go right back into danger ourselves?”
“It won’t be dangerous,” Trixie protested. “I’ll have the captain—and, er, crew—of a dreadnaught with me.”
But the reminder—even unstated—of what they’d gone through made her shiver. She laid her palm over the blaster grip. It was cold reassurance. And that was exactly what she was looking for.
She raised her chin. “I want to go back there,” she said defiantly. “I want to see it again, knowing what I do now.”
Lishelle glanced down. “Maybe blow a hole in it?”
Trixie released her hold on the weapon. “That would be dumb since I’d get sucked right out into space and then into the black hole.”
Lishelle huffed out a breath. “Seems at least that dumb just to set foot there.”
“Maybe. But I gotta do it.”
After a long moment, the taller woman unbent enough to hug her in a fierce embrace. “Do you want me to go too?”
Trixie clung to her before finally mumbling, “No. This seems like one of those things I have to do myself.”
Lishelle pulled back. “Yourself and a dreadnaught captain, hmm?”
This time, Trixie couldn’t stop the quick flush chasing across her cheeks. “I can’t fly a spaceship by myself…yet.”
“Mm-hmm.”
That response was definitely disbelieving, but Trixie didn’t have the gumption to protest. “I’ll be back soon.”
But as she trotted off to the landing pads, she couldn’t stop thinking about Lishelle’s fear.
Where had her own fear gone? Lost in one night of missed sleep? Because of a few orgasms? That seemed as unreasonable as her earlier panic at hearing Blackworm had escaped.
But somehow she knew, finding her future meant confronting the darkness where she’d awakened as a Black Hole Bride.
Chapter 10
Why had he agreed to let Trixie come?
Besides not having the authority to forbid her, of course. And not being entirely certain she wouldn’t do as she threatened and follow him separately.
And also, if he was being truthful at least with himself, he knew how she felt and he respected her wanting to confront those feelings.
As the small shuttle swept out of the system, they passed the Grandy at dock just beyond the Azthronos estate world’s smallest moon. Nor stared out the viewport at the illuminated dreadnaught, his chest tight with longing even though the mighty flagship was already his. Everything she represented had become his, for a small additional fee.
And was it enough?
He turned away from the view before the Grandy had slipped away behind them.
Reviewing the likely testing points identified on the neural gel’s map, he assigned each dot to a team of two crewmembers. The sketched search areas showed the outlines of stasis pods where the abducted women had been kept, corridors down which they’d been transported, areas around empty life pod hatches where they might’ve scrabbled for handholds, reaching for anything that might’ve saved them from being ejected toward the singularity…
Nor banished the disturbing images. He hadn’t known those women, hadn’t known about their plight at the time. Even if he’d been involved in his own share of thieving, smuggling, and sometimes killing over the lightyears, he’d never trafficked in sentient beings or targeted innocents. That was far too similar to his own fate after his sire’s rejection. And still, guilt gnawed at his guts.
Or maybe that was the pixberry tea he’d stolen from Trixie. He should’ve gotten something else to eat.
After he’d divided up the tasks, he had nothing else to occupy him. Not wanting to appear fidgety to his young crew, he looked for a place to sit.
Only one seat was empty. Of course.
He settled with a disgruntled thump next to Trixie.
Since she appeared occupied with her dat-pad—his old pad, strapped to the arm of his left-behind fatigues—he rummaged in his pocket for one of his favorite candies. Meanwhile, from the way her thigh angled surreptitiously away from his, he knew she was aware of him. Rudely, he shifted his leg closer.
She sidelonged a glance at him. “Quit manspreading.”
His translator hesitated. “Is that like perving?”
Her lips twitched. “Sort of.”
“I’m sorry I sneaked out like a larf-licking quark-lunker this morning,” he found himself saying. He never felt the need to chat with his previous lovers, definitely never felt the need to explain why he walked away from them. Why did he find it so easy to talk to her when she didn’t even have a universal translator?
She tilted her head, and he supposed she was puzzling out what he meant. “I’m sorry I pretended to be asleep while you were sneaking,” she said at last. She held out her hand, palm up expectantly.
After a second, he deposited the candy in her palm and chuckled as he leaned back in his seat. “I guess neither of us gets any reward for courage.”
She let the tight clamp of her knees relax while she unwrapped the candy, so the edge of her leg brushed his. “I guess we should be brave not for the rewards but because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Nobody expects a pirate to do the right thing,” he mused.
“Or the clueless closed-worlder,” she agreed, popping the candy between her lips. “But we are more than that now.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. In his cast-off clo
thing, she didn’t look necessarily bigger or bolder. If anything, the tight braid of her blond hair only made her fine features seem that much more delicate, her brown-green eyes wide and deep as secret pools on some unexplored border world.
No one had ever expected more from him, not even the dowager duchess when she sold him his commission on the Grandiloquence. People had only ever seen him as whatever value, plus or minus, he had for them: his mother saw him as a blackmail scheme, the old duke as a shame to be exiled out of his presence, his first owners as hull-scrubbing cannon fodder. Only Trixie had ever challenged him to be more than what he was.
He wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated it. But here he was, in a pointless rescue trip for missing souls whose very atoms no longer existed in this universe.
He startled when Trixie bumped her knee against his lightly.
“You don’t have to think of ways to blow me off or sneak away anymore,” she said. “I know last night was just a…” She hesitated, as if she didn’t have the words even in her own language. “A nice moment.”
He narrowed his eyes. “A nice moment.” Maybe that meant something different in Earther, but he didn’t think so and neither did his translator. “I thought it was an encounter unlike any other I’ve ever experienced.”
“Oh.” She glanced around them furtively, her cheeks flushing with riotous color. “Then why…why did you leave?”
“Other encounters unlike anything I’ve ever experienced…” He held up one hand, a finger raised. “That time a Dnorbian bolk jumped out of my soup into my mouth.” He raised another finger. “When a velocious-class scouter full of mercenaries beat me to a buried stash of aquari crystals.” Another finger. “And once—”
She groaned and thumped the back of her skull against her seat a couple times. “Stop. I get it. I’m terrible.” She rotated her head to glare at him. “Why are you even sitting next to me then?”
“Because you wouldn’t stay on Azthronos,” he replied honestly.
But not completely truthfully. He could’ve gone up to the cockpit and evicted one of the pilots to take control of the shuttle himself in order to avoid her. He could’ve at least kept circulating among the crew, keeping himself busy—and away from her—with officious command duties. But no, he’d taken the seat next to her like it was the captain’s chair on the Grandiloquence the first day after he’d paid his commission.