“The Galactic Government would have upheld the mLa’an Regent’s right of redress,” Ahab said. “Since the mLa’an have always been of a scientifically curious nature, protection of their inventions was written into their Charter of Galactic Union.”
I gulped and made a mental note to study the various species’ charters for similarly perilous clauses. Humanity’s charter had been far simpler, but then, with our ancestors on the verge of utterly destroying Earth, they hadn’t had much room for negotiating their entrance into the Galaxy Proper.
“Fortunately,” Ahab continued. “The Sidhe Circle was able to convince the mLa’an Regent that the thief had operated independently. The mLa’an returned her to the Sidhe for execution.”
Ahab and Vulf gave me a moment to deal with the reality of capital punishment. Attitudes toward it varied across the galaxy. For myself, I preferred other methods of social control and punishment. The reality, though, was that in lawless, desperately poor, or emergency situations, sometimes a swift death was the only way to protect a settlement or starship’s people. In this instance, the Sidhe Circle’s decision was rational in that the woman had stolen in full knowledge of what she risked, whereas a war would have cost a multitude of innocent lives.
I sighed. “What happened with regard to the cold fusion globe? The Sidhe Circle must have learned of its existence, and the mLa’an Regent can’t have bound people to silence or you wouldn’t be telling me this story.”
“The globe failed its testing,” Ahab said. “The thief stole the prototype at too early a stage. It exploded under controlled conditions. The scientists cut their losses and went on to other projects.”
“Well, that’s absurdly convenient,” I said. “End of interest in the globe.”
The corners of Vulf’s mouth quirked. It wasn’t quite a smile, but there was amusement there.
“What was it meant to do?” I asked.
“Now, that is confidential information,” Ahab said. “And not relevant to the story of how Vulf came to be gifted the Orion.”
“Oh! Right. I’d forgotten.” I looked at Vulf. “You rescued a child?”
Rather than respond to my question, he stood and crossed to the food dispenser.
Ahab, however, was eager to tell the story. “Four years after Vulf had earned the bounty by retrieving the globe, and not discussing it with anyone, thereby proving that he could keep a secret, a Freel Venture kidnapped a mLa’an child. They raided a mLa’an starship as it was reloading. They circumvented the system to render everyone unconscious with a specially formulated gas. The raid had been carefully planned. That flaw in the security system has been fixed.” Anger sounded in Ahab’s voice. “The Freels could have stolen the cargo or taken an adult, but they knew that mLa’an value their children above all else.”
“Because they have so few.” I felt sorry for the mLa’an. Humanity has many problems, but at least we have the joy of children.
Vulf returned with two cups of herbal tea, the freshness of mint and sage mingling with the soothing scent of chamomile. He put one on the coffee table in front of me, then sat on the other end of the sofa. The cushions shifted and settled under his weight.
I stretched forward and took the cup. From my study of shifter habits, I knew the tea blend was a favorite one for nighttime and for comfort. It was also a gesture of hospitality, served to family and friends, rather than the coffee or black tea served at formal meals.
“The Freel Venture took the child back to their fortified residence on Hades.”
I was glad of the hot tea. It helped me to fight back a shudder. Hades was a notorious planet in the strange and lawless Dragon Sector.
“The Freels moved fast,” Ahab said. “They were two wormholes and nearly a day from any mLa’an starships before the mLa’an on the raided ship awoke and sent the alert. Another AI instantly searched the system. If there were no mLa’an near the Freel Venture’s headquarters, was there an ally?”
I inhaled sharply. “The AI found Vulf.”
“I was on Hades chasing a skip,” Vulf said.
“The Regent approved contacting Vulf directly via a secure beam. Not only was he known to the mLa’an as a human who acted honestly, but he is a shifter.”
“And shifters are notoriously protective of children.” I understood the mLa’an Regent’s thinking. “Vulf, what did you do?”
“I accepted the job.”
I uncurled my legs, stretched, and kicked his calf.
A low sound that might have been a laugh rumbled from him briefly. “I was near the Freel Venture’s headquarters. Some of them are pirates, like my family, and I’ve fought them, and fought beside them. I was taught how to find my way around a Freel starship. They’re designed in a labyrinth pattern. I made a working assumption that a venture’s headquarters would follow that pattern. People like the familiar. I got in, moved fast, and found the prison quarters. They’d locked the mLa’an child in a cell there.” Fury roughened his voice.
“But didn’t you encounter anyone?” I asked. The Freels were humanoid, but still, someone like Vulf should have stood out. After all, he didn’t have a Freel’s blue skin.
“A couple of guards that I dealt with on the way in. I reached the child easily enough, but there was an alarm on her cell door. I couldn’t disarm it, so I decided to risk it. I got the door open, the child out, and I ran. She was about the size of a basketball, all bonz and skinny appendages, her proboscis trembling. She had no reason to trust me, but she did. I carried her back through the labyrinth till we reached the turning to the laundry zone. I could hear the sounds of the alarm and of Freels mobilizing. We weren’t going to make it out of the building.”
He stopped to sip his tea.
I nudged his calf again. “Go on!”
A gleam of amusement showed briefly in his blue eyes as he glanced sideways at me. Then he leaned forward and put his tea down on the coffee table. When he straightened, he turned fractionally toward me.
I curled my legs up again, suddenly aware that I’d kicked my kidnapper. Although, was he really my kidnapper any longer? With access to my sha energy I could take over his starship—maybe. I looked at his muscular body, the strong bones of his face, and most of all, the indomitable expression in his eyes. Maybe not.
“The Freel troops were arriving fast, but all laundries have one thing in common…” He paused.
I stared back at him blankly. “Washing machines?”
“Beyond the obvious.”
“You could give me a clue.” I thought about nudging him with my foot again. A nudge, not a kick.
He glanced from my foot to my face, and grinned.
Had my foot twitched?
“Laundries have shelves and cupboards,” he said. “I told the mLa’an child to tuck up tight.” And mLa’an rolled into tough ball shapes when they did so. “Then I threw her to the empty space at the top of a tall cupboard and she rolled behind a stack of broken baskets. With her hidden I sprinted to lead the pursuit away. If I could have shaken them, I would have returned for her.”
I put my cup of tea down swiftly and grabbed his arm. “The Freels caught you?”
“They tortured him,” Ahab said.
Vulf looked down oddly at my tight grip on his arm. His gaze rose unhurriedly to meet mine. “They wanted to know where I’d hidden the child. Oddly enough their security system had glitched and wasn’t showing them.”
“You did something to it.”
He nodded. “On my way to find the child, I shoved a chip with a virus for scrambling the system into one of the control boards I passed. Luckily, it worked.”
“You don’t rely on luck.” I released his arm. But when I would have retreated back to my end of the sofa, he caught my hand. I stayed where I was. “Vulf, was the torture bad?”
“It didn’t last long,” he evaded my question.
His hand was big and gentle holding mine. There were scars across the knuckles and his nails were bluntly cut and broad.
<
br /> “It was bad,” I said quietly, and leaned against his shoulder. For all that a genetic test revealed that my father was a shifter, I lack the shifters’ imperative for touch-comfort. Yet, leaning against Vulf seemed a natural action, a way of giving comfort without expressing verbal sympathy. And, if I’m completely honest, I needed the reassurance of his strength.
He released my hand and put his arm around me, adjusting both of our positions so that I cuddled against him.
It should have felt absurdly uncomfortable. I never cuddled.
I’d been missing out.
His heat soaked into me, driving out the chill engendered by mention of torture.
“I led the Freel troops on a prolonged chase before they cornered me and I took out a number of them. That soaked up a fair amount of time. Torture took up the rest. Then the mLa’an arrived. The Freel commander had had me brought to his office for the interrogation, so I overheard bits and pieces of his communication with the mLa’an and his plan. He expected the mLa’an to negotiate for their child’s release, to pay a massive ransom in credit and technology.”
Ahab re-entered the storytelling. “The Freel commander misunderstood the nature of his enemy. The mLa’an don’t negotiate.”
Vulf nodded. “They fired a warning shot at the docks, exploding the Freels’ primary warship. In the shock of that moment, I killed the chief torturer, took his blaster, and shouted over the open communication system a message to the mLa’an captain leading the attack.”
Ahab sounded excited. “He said, ‘I’ll get the child out. Hit them with everything you have’. The Regent was listening in on the communication and overrode the captain’s doubts. He ordered a full-scale assault on the Freel stronghold.”
“But why would you tell the mLa’an to destroy it when you and the child were inside?”
Vulf grinned at me. “Where are laundries located?”
“On ships, they’re…but this was planetside. Laundries are in the basement! One of the safest places during a bombardment.”
He nodded. “They also have ventilation systems. I called the child. She rolled off the top of the cupboard. I caught her, then sent her rolling through a ventilation shaft to safety. I crawled out after her, picked her up, and we ran.”
“Straight into a mLa’an unit, complete with androids programmed to recognize the child and Vulf,” Ahab contributed.
“We were safely aboard the mLa’an starship in minutes, and thirty seconds after that—”
Ahab boomed an explosion over the Orion’s speakers.
I squeaked, and Vulf tightened his arm around me momentarily.
“The Freel stronghold was obliterated,” Ahab said, triumphantly. “The Regent declared Vulf a friend of the mLa’an with a mutual distress clause. In an emergency Vulf can call on the mLa’an for assistance, and they may call on him.”
I stared at Vulf. “Have you ever?”
“No. And before you ask, the mLa’an haven’t asked for my help, again, either. The Regent was overly generous and awarded me the Orion, having it refitted for my human needs.”
Ahab cleared his non-existent throat. “Ahem. I cannot let that statement stand, Captain. You saved a mLa’an child at the price of torture. A starship alone would not have covered that debt. Hence the awarding of your friend of the mLa’an status.”
“You were brave, Vulf. A hero. Did you stay in contact with the child?”
The resistance in him to being praised, the stiffness in his muscles, relaxed at mention of the child he’d rescued. “Saylon updates me on her schooling and adventures. I’m a kind of adopted human uncle.”
“That’s cool.”
He smiled at me faintly. “Yeah.” Then his eyes focused on my mouth. “Ahab, cease monitoring Jaya. Privacy enacted.”
“Do you mean he’s not watching us anymore?” I whispered.
“Us,” he repeated my choice of the plural pronoun when I should have said me. “Yeah, us.” His mouth touched mine.
I’ve been kissed before. I might be somewhat socially isolated, but I’m not that weird. Still, a kiss had never felt like this.
Vulf’s mouth barely brushed mine. It was the faintest drift of satin soft lips, but emotion roared up from deep inside me. The emotion wasn’t easily categorized either. It was seeking and knowing, possessive and desirous, uncertain and one hundred percent determined. I wanted Vulf. I deserved a proper kiss, not this tease.
He drew back to stare at me with icy blue wolf eyes that burned with his own indecipherable emotion.
All I knew was that he’d lit the fuse and he had to take the consequences.
I launched myself over him, knees denting the sofa cushions either side of his muscled thighs, and framed his face with my hands. Then I kissed him.
He tasted of mint and other herbs from the tea, and also, darkly and addictively, of himself. His hands spanned my waist before sliding up my back, and roughly into my hair. He angled my face, deepening our kiss, and holding me there as his tongue speared into my mouth.
That sort of intimate kiss had never appealed to me before—all that slobber and intrusion—but with Vulf, it made me hot. I squirmed, and his free hand locked at my hip, forcing me to be still. Only our mouths mated, hunger and need unleashed and seeking not satisfaction, but more.
Our tongues dueled before I sucked on his, and he groaned. His hips bucked beneath me, and it was my turn to groan.
He stretched his neck back, putting space between us. “You’re stealing my control.”
The rasp of his voice seemed to physically drag over my skin. It felt so good that I shivered and kissed his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed. I licked it.
“Jaya.”
My legs tightened at the sound of my name uttered as a hoarse plea.
He put both hands at my waist and pulled me back from him.
“Vulf?” I was confused and bereft, but looking into the stormy blue of his eyes, I couldn’t feel rejected. He wanted me. His body beneath me made that clear, too.
I gripped his biceps, and as I leaned forward to close the distance between us, he let me. My hands travelled up his arms, to his shoulders; up his neck, to his face; and I traced his mouth with a single finger.
His breath shuddered. “Jaya, there are things we have to discuss—that you need to know—before we give into the heat.”
I paused. His words filtered in slowly, befogged by the desire pulsing in me. I had never, ever been anywhere near this aroused. And we had all our clothes on!
…the heat.
I had heard the term before. My brain muzzily tried to search through my years of research into shifter culture and physiology. The heat…the mating heat…was—
I ripped myself out of Vulf’s hands and tumbled backwards to land awkwardly on the coffee table. “I’m only half-shifter,” I protested, staring at him and panting.
“You’ve heard of the heat?” His eyes searched mine.
I shook my head, feeling vulnerable and confused. “It only happens with shifters, full-shifters.”
“I know,” he said in a deep voice, one rough with feeling. “I was initially confused by my response to you, but when you said your father was a shifter—”
“Genetically.” I don’t know why I said that. Perhaps I didn’t want to claim a closer connection to a man who’d abandoned me even more than my mother had. At least she, according to Daisy, had loved me and tried for find a home for me when she was dying.
“Genetically,” Vulf accepted the point, whatever it was I was trying to say. “But evidently shifter plus shaman makes you shifter in instincts, and in how shifters respond to you.”
“No one has ever responded to me like you.”
A feral light lit his eyes. His mouth thinned into a stern line.
Oops. He’d just mentioned mating heat and I’d brought up other men.
He handled it well. He moved almost faster than I could see, getting up and slamming his fist into the wall of the cabin.
I winced
. “Sorry. I…I just…I don’t know what to think, let alone say.”
His chest heaved. “Not your fault. I’ve at least had time to recognize what’s between us.”
“What is between us?”
“A mating.”
Chapter 5
The floor of the guest cabin was sparklingly clean. I appreciated that as I did my forty seventh push-up. I’d handled Vulf’s announcement that he and I were in the middle of a mating with utter class and smooth assurance.
In other words, I’d stared at him for a full count of twelve seconds before shrieking and running into the guest cabin.
He hadn’t followed me.
I’d had ample time to consider my situation, my embarrassment, and the damn lust that wouldn’t go away. Exercise, physically punishing, grueling exercise, was the answer. I switched to sit-ups.
Finally, my muscles burned from over-exertion, I was exhausted, and I hit the shower before tumbling into bed and welcome sleep. The Orion reached the pirate flotilla before I woke; something that Ahab informed me of when I practically tiptoed out of the guest cabin at nearly lunchtime the next day. “Where is Vulf?”
“The Captain is on the bridge. I am locking the Orion to the Capricorn, but he wishes to be there to oversee the maneuver. Should I inform him that you are awake?”
“No!” I breathed deeply. “No, thank you. I think I’ll have breakfast.” I wandered over to the food dispenser and ordered coffee. “Is Kenner around?”
“Skulking in the cargo hold,” Ahab informed me cheerfully.
I’d managed three life-giving sips of coffee before the door from the bridge opened.
“Good morning,” Vulf said. His gaze scanned me from head to toe and back. His expression gave nothing away.
If I was looking for cues from him on how we should act, then apparently the solution to our mating problem was to ignore it. And no, he hadn’t called the mating heat a problem. I could work that out for myself just fine. It wasn’t normal to be crawling out of my skin with craving for a guy.
“Good morning, Vulf.”
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