by Zoe York
And yet... the way Wolf had walked into that auction room as if he owned it and everyone there, the way he had looked at the women, touched them, ordered his puppet to hold them so he could get a better feel... The implication that he did much worse to the women he bought. It all made Marat grind his teeth with loathing and with a desire—a need—to do something. If this Ying really could assassinate the man, and if Marat could help her get into the position to do so, would that be so horrible? It wasn’t as if the police on the station or the GalCon law enforcers would come after him for helping to kill a pirate. There were bounties on the heads of most people like that. Bringing in a dead pirate’s head and dumping it in a police office was generally met with money and hearty pats on the back.
Except Ying Wei might have a bounty on her head too. If she could so easily speak of assassinating another pirate, didn’t that imply that she had assassinated other people? As much as he was reluctant to think of a beautiful woman as a stone-hearted killer, the label of pirate seemed to fit her far more than that of damsel-in-distress.
Marat rubbed his face, reminding himself that he was supposed to be watching for trouble, not second-guessing himself.
“If you change your mind, it won’t bother me,” Ying said.
She had been walking behind his shoulder like a silent ghost and hadn’t spoken since Striker left, so he almost jumped in surprise at the sound of her voice.
“No,” Marat said, as if he was confident of his decision, as if he wasn’t wrestling with this very thing. “I was impulsive and did you a disservice. I want to make things right.”
“By helping me kill someone?” Her eyebrow quirked upward, and she smiled slightly. It was a wry smile, but Marat caught himself watching it, intrigued by it. Striker was right; this was all kinds of stupidity, but Marat couldn’t help but wonder what she might be like under the gruffness and, as Wolf had called it, attitude. Might the leopardess mellow? She was already less abrasive than she had been in the corridor when he had first set her down.
“By helping you kill someone like that Captain Wolf, yes.”
“Did you even know who he was before today?” Ying asked, that eyebrow still elevated.
“I... vaguely.”
“So not really, huh? You’re a real genius, you know that?”
So much for mellowing the leopardess.
Marat spread his hand, not sure why she would object to his help if he was offering it. Well, that wasn’t true. She seemed like a proud woman, someone who was used to handling her own problems. Hell, she might even like a challenge.
But even if she had experience assassinating people, she was utterly naked underneath that robe. How could she have known she would get an opportunity to kill Wolf before he inflicted his bedroom fantasies on her? She couldn’t have known that, he realized. She must be willing to endure what could only be pain and humiliation in order for an opportunity to deal with the man. He wasn’t sure whether to respect that or be horrified on her behalf.
“Ten minutes of watching him in that auction room was enough to make me hate him,” Marat said, scanning the concourse again. They were almost to a lift that would take them up to the lodgings level.
Ying took an extra step to catch up, so she could walk at his side. Marat wasn’t sure that was a good idea—he had only seen one other person in a gray robe like that, and a beefy man wearing a pleased grin had been dragging her toward the docks. She had not been going willingly. But Ying seemed to want to scrutinize him. He tried not to feel self-conscious under her stare. He kept scanning the people around them, watching for trouble. When he spotted a pair of policemen on the far side of the concourse, he gripped Ying’s arm lightly, wanting them to think she was with him. Or—he grimaced in distaste at the idea—belonged to him, as was doubtlessly the norm around here.
“I believe you,” Ying said, and it took him a moment to remember what she was responding to. She looked at his hand, then across the concourse at the police, and didn’t try to pull her arm away.
He was glad—and a little impressed—that she had noticed them too. Maybe she hadn’t been scrutinizing him quite as hard as he had thought. Or she had well-trained peripheral vision.
“I doubt that makes me special,” Marat said. “I’m guessing a lot of people want to kill Wolf within minutes of meeting him.”
“That’s a truth. Not many people dare to act on that want though.”
They reached the lift, and Marat tapped the button with a touch of relief. They were close now. Once she was safely in a room, she needn’t venture out until the morning. Before returning to the ship, he would ask her what she needed to succeed at her plan—maybe she wanted to show up with some concealed weapons and he could do some shopping for her.
“To your right, twenty meters,” Ying murmured so softly he almost missed it.
He kept his face forward, toward the lift doors, but looked right out of the corner of his eye. A nondescript man leaned casually against the wall in the shadows of a potted palm tree.
“Someone’s spy?” Marat murmured back.
“That’s my guess. He didn’t seem to take any special notice of us, so I doubt he’s Wolf’s, but...”
“He might be bought later for all that he’s seen today?” The spy might even be an android, silently recording everything that passed in the concourse in front of him. The shadows made it hard to tell if he was human or not.
“Possibly.”
The lift arrived, and Marat shifted his hand to the small of Ying’s back and led her inside. Once the doors closed, he had to remind himself to lower that hand. Strange how it wanted to linger. She wasn’t a woman who had agreed to go on a date with him, and she doubtlessly wouldn’t appreciate any touching on his part. Indeed, she stepped inside and put her back to the wall with a couple of feet between them. Her face wasn’t as standoffish as it had been on the auction block, but she certainly wasn’t giving him come-hither looks.
When they exited on the lodgings level, Marat was relieved not to see anyone lurking behind potted plants. After the main concourse, the foyer seemed tranquil, with only a couple of people walking out of rooms down the long hallways. He checked the glowing vacancy map on the wall and reached for the first available room.
Ying caught his wrist before he could touch his finger to it to pay. Her grip was light and warm. Pleasant. He raised his eyebrows.
“Not that one,” she said and tapped the top of the map with her other hand. “That one. By the emergency ladder.”
“Of course. I should have thought of that.”
She would want access to an escape route if any trouble came barging out of the lift. He wondered if, when he returned to the ship, he should borrow one of the portable security systems the company kept. He could easily set up a camera to monitor the lift.
Marat raised his arm to press his finger to select the room she had indicated. Her hand fell away from his wrist, and a silly thought jumped into his head, that he wished it hadn’t.
A beam swept out, reading their bodies so the room door would open to them. Marat glanced at her, wondering what she thought of the fact that he would have access to the door; he would have had to punch in some override codes to keep the beam from including him, since he had paid for the room, but he could have done so. It hadn’t occurred to him until too late.
But Ying didn’t say anything. She led the way into the appropriate corridor, only pausing to let him catch up when someone stepped out of a room. She glanced back at him, her mouth twisting wryly. Yeah, she knew what that robe meant and that she shouldn’t be seen wandering off of her own accord.
Marat hurried to catch up and chose the small of her back for his hand, rather than her arm. He wasn’t sure if it was any less possessive than a grip on the arm, but he admitted he liked touching her there.
He shook his head, reminding himself that this wasn’t intended to lead anywhere. If he let himself expect rewards for helping, he wasn’t any better than Striker. Besides, if she
was on some revenge mission, she had more important things on her mind than sex.
The man they passed didn’t so much as bat an eye in their direction, and Marat let his hand fall away as soon as they were past him. It was a long walk to the room she had selected, but they made it without trouble. Before going in, Ying jogged a few more meters and opened the hatch to the exit ladder. There wasn’t an emergency-use-only sign on it, and an alarm didn’t sound, at least not one audible or visible from here.
Ying nodded with approval, let the door fall back shut, and returned to her new room.
Marat didn’t cross the threshold. “Do you need anything?”
He was on the verge of bringing up the cameras, but Ying was already shaking her head. She frowned thoughtfully at him. Wondering if he would try to invite himself in?
“If you change your mind, you can call up Mandrake Company, and I’ll make sure whoever’s on the bridge knows to patch you through to me. Give me a fake name if you want.”
“You already have a fake name.”
It took a moment for that to sink in, but of course she wouldn’t have used her real name for the slave docket, not when she expected Wolf as a buyer, and he had known her father.
“Well, then. Don’t get too extravagant with the room service bill, eh?” He smiled and gave her an old Fleet salute that neither matched his civilian clothing nor his job with a mercenary outfit, then started back toward the lift.
“Wait,” Ying said before he had taken more than a step. “If one of Wolf’s men talks to that spy... well, our story’s not going to be very believable if you didn’t actually spend the night with me.”
Marat turned slowly back to her. Yes, the spy could be a problem. As could the fact that she didn’t have any weapons and was still wearing those stupid cuffs. How could she defend herself if she had to? He should have offered to leave his pistol with her.
“Mind you, I’m not offering to sleep with your hairy ass,” she added, her eyes narrowing, “but if you paid for the room, you ought to be able to use it.”
“I... understand,” Marat said and stepped across the threshold. The door whispered shut behind him. “Though I must inform you, since you won’t be seeing for yourself tonight, that my ass is not hairy.”
“No? You have it shaved? Or stripped?”
“No.” He gaped at the idea that a man might do either. “It’s just... I mean, I’m not hairy. Not overly so, anyway.” He flushed, wondering why he had responded to her comment.
“If you say so. White men always seem furry to me.”
And thus ended any fantasy he might have had of her dreaming of seeing him naked.
Ying hunted around the room, poking into drawers and closets, probably looking for a way to remove the cuffs. “I’m surprised there’s a kitchenette and some appliances. That’s more than I expected from a place like this.” She waved toward the oft-stained and threadbare carpet. A cheap, old-fashioned bed with no frills took up most of the room, rather than the energy-powered airbeds that nicer hotels had, complete with features such as adjustable heat, faux mattress firmness, and zero-g options. The corner of the blanket had been chewed on by something. Inviting. “Pots, measuring cups, and even a pressure cooker, huh.”
Marat scratched his jaw. “Given what else I’ve learned about you in the last hour, I assumed the fact that cooking was mentioned on your docket wasn’t right, but maybe it is.”
“I actually do like to cook. I made a lot of the meals for my father’s crew. And for enemies too.” She smiled wolfishly. “Hope it won’t distress you to know that’s how I deliver my poisons.”
Poisons? So that was how she assassinated people. “As long as it won’t distress you when I suggest we order delivery.”
Ying snorted. “There aren’t any ingredients here, anyway.”
Was it his imagination, or did she seem disappointed by that?
“I could get some,” Marat said before he could think wiser of it. Belated thinking was his theme for the day, after all. “I’d already been contemplating going up to the ship to get you a security camera to plant in front of that lift.”
“Had you?” she said, that wryness on her face again. Did she not believe him? Why not? It wasn’t as if he were promising gold and gems.
“Here.” Marat dug his tablet out of his pocket. “Make me a list. I don’t imagine the station has anything fancy, but there must be a hydroponics garden somewhere and something that passes for a grocery store.”
Ying stared at him for a long moment, not taking the tablet. Somewhere in that long moment, a possible reason for her wry doubt occurred to him. She didn’t think he would come back. If Striker had told the captain about Marat’s plans, and a squad of infantry men was waiting to beat sense into him, he supposed it was possible he wouldn’t be able to come back, but he wouldn’t have made up this whole ruse and gotten her a room if abandoning her was his intention. It surprised him that she would care, regardless, since she had so grudgingly accepted his help to start with.
Finally, she accepted the tablet and recited a list. Maybe he had been reading things into her hesitation that weren’t there.
“Spaghetti?” he guessed when she finished the list with pasta.
“Yes. Does that work?”
“Sure. I guess I was expecting something more...” Marat waved vaguely at her before he wondered if he shouldn’t have. Was that insulting? To imply he expected a Chinese woman to cook Chinese food? And why was he all of the sudden finding himself acting awkwardly? It wasn’t as if there weren’t Chinese men on the crew. They all ate the same dubious ready-made egg and meatloaf logs that everyone else on the ship consumed.
“Chinese?” Ying suggested. “Something more complicated might be asking a lot of this station’s supplies. Besides, you furry white men always seem to like spaghetti.”
“Yes, right.” Marat gave her another salute—why did it feel awkward, as well?—and fled toward the door.
“Azarov,” Ying said, stopping him.
“Yes?”
“If the spies are watching you, or anyone’s following you... Look, don’t bring back any trouble, all right? I’d rather not see you again than have the police or Wolf’s androids banging at my door before I’ve figured out how to handle them.”
Marat, hand on the door, tried not to feel stung by her command. Here he had been thinking that she was worried he wouldn’t come back when the opposite must be true. “I understand,” he said curtly and stalked out.
He wondered if she would even be there when he got back.
— FOUR —
The laser scissors in the kitchen knife block weren’t the ideal tool for removing flex-cuffs, but an hour later, Ying was rubbing her wrists, relieved to be free. She had almost burned herself in the process, but having full use of both hands again had made the risk worth it. It had also given her something to do while time oozed past, and she pretended she was not annoyed that she had somehow ended up in a situation where she had to wait on a man.
Maybe Marat wouldn’t come back. Her brusque order as he had been leaving had certainly given him a reason not to return. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that, but this whole situation had her irritated beyond measure. She did not want to need his help, nor did she want anyone to feel obligated to risk himself out of some sense of guilt. Guilt, yes, that had been the expression on his face when she had explained what her plan had been and how he had wrecked it. She had caught him wearing a similar expression several other times after that. His plan was silly, and she doubted Wolf would buy it. The problem was that she didn’t have anything better.
Ying caught herself glancing at the door. She had done it numerous times. Did she want him to come back? She wasn’t sure why. She had been alone a lot since leaving the Death Knot, the ship that had been home for years and that had belonged to her father until his murder, so she ought to be used to her own company. But Marat’s company, however brief, had not been entirely unpleasant. It definitely wasn’t what sh
e was used to. He was awkward, at least when discussing sex slaves and spaghetti, and utterly lacked that rough around the edges—and sometimes rough all the way through—character of a mercenary. She wondered how he had come to be one. He seemed more a man who had grown up, as she had imagined earlier, in a nice family on a nice planet with a nice future. The kind of person who wouldn’t look twice at a pirate and was only vaguely aware that pirates existed. What was he doing out here on the rim?
“More importantly,” Ying said, putting away the scissors, “what’s the plan if he doesn’t come back?”
If he didn’t, she needed a new way to get onto Wolf’s ship and to get close to him. The police gambit might still be her best bet. Accidentally run into an officer in the morning and hope the person looked up her “owner” and delivered her to him. She scowled at thinking of herself as a slave, even if, given her personal financial situation, there was the possibility she could find herself stuck in some dreadful cycle like that. With her mother and sisters long gone, victims of the destruction of the planet Grenavine, she didn’t have any other family to whom she could return. Oh, she could take care of herself—at twenty-five, she damned well better be able to by now—but that safety net, that family support that had always been so important growing up... She was keenly aware of its absence now. Keenly aware that her father had been the only person she had left in the universe. The rest of the pirates on the ship, many of whom she had thought of as friends... Well, she had seen how loyal they were in the end.
Ying leaned forward, resting her forehead on the cool counter, not bothering to blink away the moisture gathering in her eyes. She had thought she had mourned enough, but any time she took her eyes off the target, her vision seemed to blur with unspent tears. What would she do when she actually completed her mission? When she rid the galaxy of Captain Teneris Wolf? His death might bring peace to her father’s spirit, but would it bring peace to her? Would the way ahead grow more clear? Lately, she hadn’t been able to see the future through the mist.