Thief: Fringe, Book 1

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

  Bailey constantly groomed his blond locks and riveted his pale blue eyes to her. Ripe with his boyish crush, he determinedly made room for her at the table, but she refused.

  “The cook does not eat at the table.”

  Crestfallen, Bailey sat beside Charissa with a pout on his rounded young face.

  “I’m not shunning your hospitality or your kindness, Bailey. I’m simply following a tradition long in standing. The cook serves herself last and eats in the kitchen. But if all are so inclined, I can converse from here.”

  “The cook speaks when spoken to.” Heller, sitting to the right of Jace, rammed a fork-full of food into his mouth as he glared at her over the swollen purple of his broken nose.

  “No, that’s children,” Garrett said from the long end of the table, directly across from Jace. “That would be you, Heller, not her.”

  “Huh?” Heller turned his attention to Garrett.

  “You’re acting like a child with a diaper full of piss and vinegar.” Garrett took another bite of his supper.

  Heller glared, flexed his hands into fists and plunked them on the table, rattling the plates against the metal surface.

  For all Kraft could see, Jace sat at the head of the table and continued to eat. What kind of a captain was he? She would have put a stop to this squabble as soon as she got wind of it.

  “Don’t get bristled with me, polecat.” Garrett set aside his fork and looked at Heller like a father disciplining his son. “Since you can’t seem to grasp, let me lay it out.” Garrett took the napkin from his lap, tossed it on the table then stood. “Kraft has gone above the bend to get along with you, but you just keep sticking burrs in her boots. Get over it.”

  “Got nothing to get over.” Heller settled in his chair, crossing his massive arms over his bulky chest.

  “Kraft bested us,” Garrett said. “Not just you or me or Jace. All of us. Get over it.”

  “Yeah, well, look who got bested now.” Heller shot her a malicious snarl.

  Not wishing to change the beat, Kraft continued to watch Garrett dance with Heller. Jace had to step in, not her. She couldn’t believe Jace sat at the table calmly eating his supper while two of his crew members geared up for a show down.

  “Bested? You think her bested?” Garrett laughed. “Who the hell do you think made the food you’re shoveling into your greedy, gaping maw?”

  “Jace’s cook-whore.” Heller tossed off the insult like a gauntlet, then stood. At seven feet and a good three-fifty, he almost filled the galley with his mass. Heller’s eyes, rimmed black like a raccoon from Jace’s punch, challenged her.

  Garrett tapped the table with one gnarled finger. “You stop glaring at her and look at me, Heller, since I’m the one talking to you.”

  Heller’s head swiveled like a haunch of pork on a meat-hook. He sized up Garrett with the cunning eye of a beta dog probing for weakness in an upper pack member.

  Even though Garrett was a tall, thin drink of water who was half Heller’s size and twice Heller’s age, Garrett stood and faced Heller unafraid. Garrett’s stance spoke volumes. Kraft knew without a doubt that if Heller physically challenged Garrett, Heller would get beat down. Not by force, but by skill. Garrett might come off as simple and ambling, but the man had dexterous speed where Heller had only bulk. Experience counted on the Fringe, and Garrett had a lot more than Heller.

  Jace barely looked up from his dinner at the drama unfolding before him. As pleased as Kraft was that Jace found her cooking so distracting, she wondered if Captain Lawless really was the alpha dog on the ship. Garrett certainly seemed to be taking that position at the moment.

  Payton waved her hand in front of her face. “Could we tone down the billowing clouds of testosterone? You two are spoiling an exceptional meal.”

  Kraft wanted to applaud Payton for bringing the moment from a swift tango to a waltz.

  “I agree.” Garrett plunked himself down and tossed his napkin in his lap. “You’ve done a fine job, Kraft.”

  Kraft nodded. “Thank you kindly.”

  Heller stood nonplused for a moment, looking around like a little kid trying to find his toys so he could take them and stomp home. No one challenged him, and he didn’t know what to do. In the end, he focused his burning eyes on her and mouthed the words, “Cook-whore”.

  Kraft held his gaze and took a bite of her dinner. She refused to take his bait, but she didn’t back down from his challenge either.

  “She bested us, Heller,” Jace said matter-of-factly. “She isn’t grinding it in your face. Sit down and let it go.”

  Heller sat, but he shot Kraft a foreboding glare.

  Kraft thought that Heller was like Smug, a terrible mean dog she knew once upon a time. Vicious and deadly, Smug had to be shown, clearly and sharply, who not to tangle with. Heller was by far stupider than Smug. Since Jace’s sharp rap across Heller’s snout hadn’t brought him into line, she would have to find another way. And she didn’t have to wait long for the training to begin.

  At lunch the next day, Bailey stood first in line, but Heller shoved him aside and thrust out his plate.

  Kraft waited for Bailey to recover, took his plate and said, “Fair is fair, Heller. Bailey was first.” She fixed Bailey’s plate and he sat at the table.

  She took Heller’s plate and heaped it high. She held it out to him. He took it, looked around and snarled, “How do I know you ain’t poisoned it?”

  “Cheery thought, but don’t you think—oh, wait.” Kraft deliberately turned her back on him. “You don’t.”

  “What?” Heller asked.

  “Think,” Bailey said, taking a bite. He grinned at Kraft like a well-trained puppy.

  “That’s it!” Heller slammed his plate down on the counter, splattering food everywhere. “We’re going.”

  Kraft sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Mano-a-mano?”

  “What?” Heller’s face wadded up like a piece of paper trash.

  “Hand-to-hand, no weapons,” Bailey translated, gripping his plate of food protectively.

  Heller tossed aside his blade. “That’s all I got on me.”

  Kraft shrugged. “I can’t toss aside my weapon so easily.”

  “Cheater.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “But I’ll tell you my weapon first.”

  “Go ahead.” Heller drew up until he loomed almost a foot over her.

  “I have two fingers. Well, one finger, one thumb.”

  “That all?”

  “All I need.”

  Heller spat, then motioned her forward with two flicking fingers. “Come at me, freak-show, and I’ll ram your two fingers up your fucking nose.”

  Kraft smiled. For the most part, Heller only swore when Jace wasn’t around. “You’ll be on your knees before you can even process my threat.”

  “Didn’t Captain Lawless tell everyone to—” Before Bailey could finish, Kraft grabbed Heller’s right hand with her thumb and forefinger, flipped his hand up and back, then forced him to his knees with steady pressure.

  Bailey dropped his fork in open-mouth shock.

  Heller’s eyes went wide. He twisted his hand this way and that, but only managed to make matters worse by giving her a better hold. He flailed his left arm, but his thick muscles prevented him from lifting his arm high enough to disengage her.

  “Let go, bitch!”

  She leaned close and whispered, “Stop challenging me, Heller. You stop right now, or I promise, I’ll wrench your hand so hard I’ll break it along with your arm, your shoulder, your back, and then I’ll get to work on your legs.”

  His face went white, except for the still purple mask across his eyes and nose. If she were inclined to fight dirty, all she had to do was poke his schnozz and he’d scream uncle.

  Jace entered the kitchen, considered their tableau for a moment, and calmly asked, “What’s going on?”

  “An understanding.” Kraft spared Jace half a glance.

  “You freak-show bitch!” Heller gu
rgled in pain as he knelt in front of her.

  “Not the understanding I’m looking for.” Kraft tweaked the pressure point harder.

  Heller yelped.

  Looking down at him, using the rolling power of her whispered voice, Kraft said, “You got no reason but hurt ego to be fighting with me. I got no compelling reason at all to fight with you.”

  “I’ll kill you when you sleep!”

  Jace only watched with a curious indifference, and she began to appreciate his quiet authority. He didn’t have to constantly step in and take charge. He let his crew work things out amongst themselves, stepping in only when he had to. Jace didn’t step between Garrett and Heller because Jace knew Garrett could hold his own against Heller. Apparently, he felt the same about her.

  “Heller.” Kraft tweaked his hand hard, causing him to almost go fetal on the floor. “Stop cutting in.”

  “You crazy bitch!” Heller tried again to worm his way out of her hold.

  Kraft could keep him pinned for the rest of her life. “Do we have an understanding?”

  “Jace is the captain, not you!”

  Kraft lifted her gaze to Jace. “I know. He’s my captain too. I’m dancing with him and you keep cutting in.” She turned her attention back to Heller. “Now, I’m all for a bit of healthy competition, but you got the wrong idea of it. I’m not your enemy. I’ve got no mind to hurt anyone, even you. Give over that we won’t fight each other anymore.”

  Releasing the pressure, she gave Heller a reprieve from pain but made it clear she could reimpose it with a pinch.

  “I think you better do what she says.” Jace squatted down to Heller’s level. “Seems to me my cook can more than handle herself.”

  My cook? Kraft couldn’t decide if the possessive nature of that comment pleased or enraged her, but she kept her focus on the matter at hand.

  It seemed to take forever, but eventually, Heller gave in with a snarled, “Okay!”

  Kraft released him and went back to the stove as if nothing had happened.

  “I just thought she might be trying to poison us, is all.” Heller grabbed his plate and moved to the table. He shook his hand and cupped it to his chest, rubbing his palm carefully.

  “I wouldn’t kill anyone with food.” The very idea went against everything she held to as a cook. “If I wanted to kill you, Heller, I’d want to get up close and personal. Poison is a coward’s way.” Kraft looked right at Jace. “I only kill when I have to and only with regret.”

  A small frown wrinkled the edges of his mouth, and she wondered what caused his displeasure. Was he angry at her for the way she’d chosen to deal with Heller? Surely, Jace understood that Heller wouldn’t respond to anything but a clear and decisive physical besting. Jace himself resorted to physical violence when he’d punched Heller in the face. Perhaps Jace worried that she might turn her trick on him at some point.

  Charissa sat at the table. “Did you cook on your ship?”

  “I did, I did.” Kraft served up plates to the rest of the crew as Heller mumbled to himself. “Everybody took a turn, even me. There was a lot of gluttony on the nights the duty fell to me, and a lot of fasting on the nights it fell to Danna. That woman could fight an army, but couldn’t serve fresh fruit without disaster.”

  Kraft shook her head and laughed as she handed a plate to Jace. For a brief moment, they both touched the plate, and she tried to read him through it, but found conflicting thoughts and feelings. Some of her own emotions charged back at her with a curious feedback she’d never encountered. Her inability to read him startled her, and she let go of the plate so abruptly it almost dropped.

  His lightning-fast reflexes saved his plate from crashing to the floor. After settling it within his grasp, he narrowed his eyes and his frown deepened.

  He didn’t go to sit at the table, but stood with her in the kitchen as she fixed her own plate. Jace seemed in no hurry to move away. She enjoyed looking at his front-side for a change, but felt confused by the look on his face—concerned, compassionate, yet oddly carnal and compelling. Unable to read him, Kraft turned away.

  “I remember this one time when we pilfered a ship full of apples that rapidly went bad. Within a week, we had to unload them, eat the damn things, or eject them into the Void.”

  Horror filled her when tears welled up in her eyes. Frozen with shock, she locked her gaze on Jace, and felt desperate to find a way to leave without drawing attention to herself.

  Jace seemed to understand that she was suddenly overwhelmed with memories of her dead crew. “Kraft, before you eat, I want you to check that freeze-dried food in the lower storage area.” He took the serving spoon from her, blocked her from the view of his crew at the table, leaned close and whispered, “Go.”

  After giving him a grateful nod, she left the kitchen and strode swiftly down the main hallway then the catwalks aft. She refused to let gathering tears blind her. She’d rather die than let anyone see her cry. Somehow, that Jace understood and spared her made her tears more thick and shameful when they erupted.

  She crossed the floor of the hold and ran into her room. She slapped at the wall com, shut the door and tumbled to her bed. Hard and racking, her body shook as Danna, Jinj, Shar, Tan, Bavin, Path and Road all ran through her mind.

  Danna, so fierce, a fighter through and through, yet so tender to Jinj, their doctor. Shar, able to fly Whisper like gossamer thread through a theoretical needle. Tan, small but deadly, able to make Whisper’s engine do the impossible. Path, a computer whiz, Road, her sister, just as brilliant. And Bavin, young and fiercely enamored of Danna. Bavin had been too new to learn much before her life ended. From all the women of Whisper could have taught her, Bavin showed the most promise as a cook.

  “I refused to stand down.”

  Burying her face in the pillow, Kraft tried to quell her hot tears of regret and shame. She blamed herself for all of their deaths, because she was the captain. If she’d been a better captain, all of them might still be alive.

  Kraft and her crew danced their way through the Void for five years. There had been times of men—crew members, companions, lovers—but they never lasted long. Very few men could handle the women of Whisper. In the end, what drove them away was Captain Kraft. A woman in charge chafed.

  Through it all, Kraft kept Whisper flying. She lived for her ship. The crew might flux, but the crew always held to the ship. Whisper defied the Void, over and over, until the odds got too long and the Void took a terrible vengeance.

  Out of eight women, only Kraft survived.

  She’d been drugged, bound, bought and sold, but still she drew breath, and she found herself beggar for that—Jace could toss her out an airlock at any moment if he were so inclined.

  And they both knew it.

  Even though she could best him in a fight, she wouldn’t, because she owed him her life.

  Her gaze riveted on her bare feet. Through the prism of her tears, her feet seemed terribly far away and far too small to hold the weight of her body, let alone her conscience. She wiggled her toes and, like a fun-house mirror, her tears made them look huge then small.

  “At least I’ve still got feet.”

  If she had feet, she could stand, and if she could stand, she could fight. Even though, sometimes, she didn’t really know what she was fighting for.

  Kraft shook her head and looked around the bedroom Jace allowed her to use. There were little Charissa touches everywhere—a fancy stitched pillow in a rainbow of colors, a vase of faded silk flowers on the battered table, a crazy quilt formed out of everything from supple leather to cotton grain sacks. All in all, a warm and inviting room.

  Mutiny rocketed her through the Void as Captain Lawless held her life in his hands. In the blink of an eye, she tumbled from captain to cook-whore. She found herself compelled to cook but rejected as whore by a man with as much honor as she.

  Kraft made her way up the catwalk then down the main hall to the kitchen to begin dinner. With the limited supply in the
pantry, she would have to exercise the very depth of her cooking skills. Flexing her mental fingers, she relished the challenge. Good food made life bearable. Good food on Mutiny was akin to making it rain in the desert.

  Jace strode down the hall from the bridge.

  She found herself at the opposite end of the long hall that ran from the bridge in the fore of Mutiny, to the catwalk around the cargo bay aft.

  When she looked up, she found her gaze riveted with his.

  Lord on high, that man had beautiful eyes.

  The moment spun out, and Kraft felt a giddy thrill run through her. Part sheer desire, part outright fear. She felt vulnerable around him. He held her life in his hands, and he had seen her cry. Not a soul in the Void had ever seen her cry.

  Tension filled her as she walked toward him.

  Jace went past her.

  He didn’t stop her and demand an explanation for what had happened at lunch. He didn’t give her so much as a curious look, or even one brimming with pity. He simply nodded and walked on down the hall, intent on his business.

  At the doorway to the kitchen, she turned and watched him walk away. For such a tall and heavy man, Jace walked with an unusual rolling grace. Her gaze dropped to his fanny, which was nicely outlined by his trousers and the low slung double-holster around his hips.

  Damn it all, but that man had a nice backside.

  Damn it all, but that man, coming or going, would make anything female sit up and take notice.

  Damn it all, but Jace Lawless was so much more than pretty.

  Getting emotionally entangled with him would be the stupidest thing she could do. Kraft vowed again to hold to her honor. By honor she would cook for him as a member of his crew, and if demanded it, she would be his whore, but she would keep her heart to herself.

  “We should arrive at Dahank in a few hours, Captain Lawless.” Bailey sat at the table for breakfast. He smoothed his wayward blond locks as he looked at her.

  “What city?” Kraft asked from her usual place in the kitchen. She studiously ignored Bailey. His crush grew like a weed. Maybe it would be better if Jace made her his whore. At least Bailey would get the hint and stop looking at her with winsome-puppy eyes.