She’d already shown him the proper way to punch. Now, they were working on AJ’s stance and refining his technique in an old cargo hold that had been converted into a weight and weapons training room.
Finn knew Conrad and Shane’s physiques couldn’t have been maintained by genetics alone, and she was pleased to find the room fully equipped, with targets, mats covering the floors, weight machines bolted to the steel deck in the corner, weight suits for strength and endurance training, and an impressive selection of weapons—from throwing knives to pulse guns.
Enyo watched them quietly from a corner as AJ rose to his feet and gritted his teeth in frustration. Finn could tell the Sirian was visibly uncomfortable with everything that had been revealed the night before, but it seemed as though she was still determined to continue her duties as bodyguard.
“I can’t focus if you keep talking at me,” AJ snapped petulantly, as he blew a fall of black hair out of his face. Sweat glistened on his alabaster skin and his dark eyes narrowed angrily, making his beautiful features harsh in the artificial lights.
Finn grinned at him, tightening the ponytail of auburn waves at the nape of her neck and giving him time to find his stance once again.
“Do you expect your opponent to politely face you in silence and let you gather your concentration?”
Enyo snorted from her corner of the room, and AJ’s black eyes hardened with angry resolve. He bent his knees to balance on the balls of his feet like she’d shown him and brought his hands up in front of his face. She could see the wheels spinning in his head and easily slapped away the telegraphed punches he launched in her direction.
Breathing heavily, he went wide with a jab and Finn blocked it, closing the space between them. Grabbing his shoulders, she kicked his legs out from underneath him at the knee and took him to the ground, shifting her hips to straddle his torso.
She aimed a hard punch at his face, stopping just before she made contact.
“What did you do wrong?” she asked him.
AJ’s face flushed a deep shade of red as his chest heaved.
“I thought it was your job to tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
Finn hopped to her feet and stared down at the boy.
“I could, but then you’d never learn.” She watched him stand, eyeing her warily as he did. “You’re letting your anger get the best of you. Aggression is good in moderation, but if you let yourself get bogged down by it, your fighting will always be erratic when it needs to be calculated.”
He seemed to hang on her every word, his mind going to work as he turned over what she’d said. “Go get some water and take a breather,” she ordered. “I want you back in fifteen minutes and the next time you flail a telegraphed punch at me, I’ll knock you on your ass for real.”
AJ rolled his eyes and offered her a shy grin. Seeing it on his usually angst-ridden features nearly stole the air from her lungs.
“You’re on.” He chuckled as he made his way over to the water.
Finn caught herself before she shook her head in stupefaction. She’d never heard the kid laugh before. She caught Enyo’s eyes across the room and found the Sirian’s were warm with admiration.
Who could have predicted Finn would have such an affinity for training the youth? The question turned her thoughts to Grim and her time under his tutelage. She supposed with how adamant he’d been in her training, it made sense she would be the same way with AJ.
Finn let memories of the past wash over as her pupil took his break.
Grim carefully sets down a stack of old tomes on the desk in front of Finn. She inhales the scent of aged leather and paper.
“Go on, Dhala. Touch them,” he instructs.
Finn obeys, focusing her mind and running her fingers over the cracked covers and ancient lettering. With a delicate touch, she opens a page and just as it is when she touches maps, Finn’s mind is filled with images and sensations. They have been doing this more and more, incorporating the odd activity into their daily routine.
Finn’s affinity for touching objects and gleaning information from them has only been getting stronger the more they practice. As her palms drift over the title page, an image of a man with dark hair and eyes fills her mind. He is wearing a strange uniform of white pants and what looks like a short, white belted robe. She can feel his calm, calculated aggression as he squares off with his opponent. They each bow before circling one another.
Finn pulls her hand away as she reads the title page, struggling slightly to pronounce the odd word.
“Kyokushin? What’s that?” Her confused eyes flick over to Grim to find him watching her carefully from his seat in the corner.
“It is an old Earthen fighting style. Each of these books details a different one I have learned and adopted over the years. You will read them, and once you are finished, we will begin your training.”
A small smile breaks out across her face at the prospect.
“You’re going to teach me to fight? But why old Earthen styles? I thought you said Khaleerians were berserker fighters.”
“It is true that my people find strength in their rage. Consequently, they lack patience and foresight. I have learned how important both are in defeating the enemy. Aggression is good in moderation, but too much of it makes your fighting inconsistent.” Finn nods her head, her smile growing. His gaze falls to it and then hardens as it meets hers once more. “Start reading, Dhala.”
Finn was so lost to her memories, fifteen minutes passed in a matter of seconds. She came back into awareness as AJ’s fist flew toward her nose.
The boy stopped just before contact, mimicking Finn’s earlier actions. He let his hand fall, a grin eating up his beautiful face.
“What the hell was that?” she growled. “We hadn’t even started.”
AJ squared up, his eyes dancing with humor.
“Did you expect your opponent to announce himself so you can gather your concentration?”
Finn almost smiled . . . almost. He was learning and he was doing so with a willingness and appetite she never expected to see in him.
Instead, she grabbed AJ by the wrist, put her leg behind his, and used the momentum of their bodies to take him to the ground. By the time she met his eyes again, his smile had become unrepentant.
“I wouldn’t be so cocky,” she told him. “Your form is crap.”
AJ remained unfazed and Finn rolled her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at her lips. She stood and reached out a hand to help him up but was stopped short by the pounding of footsteps and an angry yell.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
Finn turned to find Shane’s angry gaze aimed at AJ on the floor. When it shifted in her direction, his green eyes practically burned with the force of his ire.
“AJ, Shane and I are going to need a minute,” she told the boy. “Why don’t you and Enyo practice defensive techniques?”
AJ glanced at Shane cautiously before rising to his feet and following Enyo to the far side of the room. Finn motioned for Shane to join her outside the cargo hold. There, she found Conrad leaning casually against the wall, his blue eyes watchful.
Before she could get a word in, Shane had already moved to her side. He ran a frustrated hand through his blond hair and launched in.
“What were you thinking, Finn? Did you even stop to consider running this by me?”
“AJ wants to learn how to fight,” she said, pointing out the obvious.
“What AJ wants and what AJ needs are two very different things. He doesn’t need more violence in his life. His abilities make him dangerous enough as it is and after everything he’s been through . . . That kind of trauma would make anyone aggressive. Why stoke that fire?”
“What, you’re afraid he’ll become even more homicidal than usual?”
Shane didn’t appreciate Finn’s flippant comment if his dark glare and the tightening of his hard jaw were any indication. She crossed her arms at her chest.
“That’s
exactly why he needs to know he can rely on more than just his abilities, Shane. You’re writing the kid off before you’ve even given him a chance.” Shane looked like he was about to argue so she cut him off before he could get started again. “Have you thought about how helpless he must feel?” she asked him. “He spent the first part of his life as a prisoner, only to gain his freedom and grow up never learning how to defend himself. He’s aggressive because you aren’t allowing him to have any control when it’s pretty obvious he could benefit from more of it.”
“She’s right, Shane.” Conrad’s quiet but gruff agreement washed over the two of them. Shane ignored it.
“I know what’s best for him,” Shane bit out. “Someone like you couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to try and give him a normal life after what he’s been through.”
Finn stiffened and her eyes narrowed.
“Watch it, Shane,” Conrad said, taking a step forward to stand by her side.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked the captain quietly, ignoring the way her heart sped up and her stomach clenched.
Shane blinked, most of his anger deflating from his body as he seemed to realize what he’d just said.
“I’m sorry, Finn, I didn’t—”
Sometime during their argument, AJ had joined them in the hallway. He stood behind the captain with his hands balled into fists and his dark eyes blazing.
“You can’t tell me what to do, Shane. It’s my decision.”
Shane held out a conciliatory hand and approached him.
“AJ—”
“No!” AJ cut him off with a shout. “Everyone on this ship is afraid of me except for Finn. She makes me feel normal. She’s the only one who doesn’t look at me like I’m some broken thing.”
Shane’s eyes softened with pain as he reached out to his half brother. “AJ, that’s not true.”
“It is true,” the boy yelled, “even on a ship full of blended, I’m still a freak!”
Finn’s heart stuttered.
“You’re not a freak, AJ,” Conrad told him gently. “Shane just wants you to have a normal life.”
The boy turned on Conrad. Glancing between him and Shane, he expelled an angry bark of laughter.
“What’s normal about a ship full of blended fugitives?”
Both of his brothers seemed to be at a loss to answer his question and Finn pitied them a little, especially Shane. He was trying to raise a traumatized teenager the best way he knew how and was only just now realizing he’d fallen short of the job. For a man like Shane, who’d grown up the way he did (with the father he did), it had to hurt.
“Kid,” Finn called out. AJ’s enraged stare found her, his chest rising and falling with frustrated breaths. “Go clean up. Shane and I will work things out and I expect you back here tomorrow morning. Your form is still crap.”
The tension leaked out of AJ’s body, replaced by relief at her command and his lips quirked in a half smile.
“Still almost got you though, didn’t I?”
Finn tried and failed to glare at the boy.
“Almost is the key word there, kid.”
AJ’s smile widened and he shook his head, making his way down the hallway to the elevator without a single parting word for Shane or Conrad.
Shane watched him go like he’d never seen the boy before. The bemused expression remained stuck on his face as he turned to Finn.
“He smiled,” Shane told her. “I’ve never seen him smile.”
“Does that mean you’re going to back off?” Finn asked him.
He took in her defensive posture and tense jaw and his face fell.
“Finn, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I just . . . Things have been so hard for him. I guess I’m a little overprotective.”
Finn’s mouth fell open.
“A little?”
Shane finally smiled, causing his eyes to crinkle a fraction at the edges.
“Thank you for helping him.”
He looked like he might want to say more, but seemed to think better of it. Finally, he gave Finn and Conrad a parting nod before following AJ’s steps down the hallway.
Finn looked up at the man standing next to her and threw her arms up.
“Don’t tell me I’m being stubborn or I’ll be forced to slap your pretty face.”
Conrad stepped into her space, his warm breath fanning her cheek as he grinned down at her.
“You think I’m pretty?”
Finn rolled her eyes. It was all the response she could muster as she struggled to keep her racing pulse in check as he moved closer.
Slowly, Conrad brought a hand up. It was only then that Finn noticed the black tactical gloves he wore. Seeming to read the question in her expression, he smiled and cupped her cheek with a large, gloved palm.
“You like them? I picked them up at a trading post on Gliese a couple of weeks ago.”
At the contact, Finn’s breath became uneven and she leaned into the touch without even realizing it. He’d bought them after she’d left Independence. Had he always known she would come back, or had he planned on coming after her?
Finn brought one of her own gloved hands up and rested it against his where it still cupped her cheek. His gaze warmed as his eyes began to glow brightly.
“I figured it would be a good first step, at least until you start your training with Iliana,” he whispered.
“How did you know I decided to train with Iliana?” Finn asked, frowning.
Conrad’s smile widened as he brought his free hand up, holding her face in his gentle grasp.
“I didn’t, but I hoped. I’m glad to see it paid off.”
Finn let her eyes flutter closed, losing herself in the feel of his hands holding her. The quiet moment lasted precious seconds before the door to the training room opened behind them.
Enyo exited, dragging a weight suit behind her. Completely ignoring their intimate embrace, she unceremoniously hefted the suit over her shoulder with a surprising show of strength—even for the Sirian.
“I’m taking this,” she told Conrad as she passed.
Conrad dropped his hands as his bewildered eyes followed Enyo and her pilfered equipment down the hallway. Finn bit her lip in a bid to control the laughter bubbling up and shaking her chest.
They were really going to have to start remembering that on this ship, they were never alone. Sensing her mirth, Conrad’s eyes returned to Finn and narrowed, but there was no real anger behind them. At the sight, she stopped fighting the giggles and erupted with laughter.
FOURTEEN
A few days after her confrontation with Shane, Finn found herself pacing anxiously in front of the door to Iliana’s pod. With each step, her sore muscles screamed in protest.
Training with AJ was going well and as soon as Lex and Jax caught wind of their sessions, they’d begged to join in until Finn finally grew tired of listening to their whines. Even Axel had asked to participate.
Though he was painfully shy, the half-Sirian was also incredibly strong—if not a little clumsy—leaving Finn in charge of training all four inexperienced hybrids. At least she had Enyo’s help—and Conrad when he could get away from his other duties on the ship. Though the two seemed to have set aside their differences, the tension between them was still merely tolerable.
In fact, life in general had been going alarmingly well as Finn and her crew settled into a routine of sorts. The day after their arrival on the ship, Finn had given Nova an ultimatum: stay on Independence as a contributing member of its crew or take the gold she’d earned and a pod to her destination of choice, parting ways for the foreseeable future. If she chose to stay, she would be doing so of her own volition and would no longer be paid by Finn.
The doxie had genuinely surprised her by choosing to stay on the ship. She’d already made fast friends with Jax and Lex, and Finn often found the three of them laughing and cavorting at the ship’s helm.
The only dark spot in the l
ast week had come during one of Finn’s training sessions with her students.
Jax and AJ were sparring on the mats while Lex and Axel trained with Enyo on the weight machines. As usual, Jax had been goofing off, earning laughs with his off-color jokes when he should’ve been paying attention to his opponent.
Rather than reprimand him, Finn waited, watching to see what AJ would do. Just as she’d taught him, the boy took advantage of the pilot’s inattention and sent a quick, controlled jab straight to the center of Jax’s solar plexus. The pilot lost his breath and doubled over with an “oomph” of pain before falling to the ground.
Finn’s chest had warmed with pride at AJ’s triumphant smile and she’d just been preparing to lecture Jax on the importance of focus, when she was interrupted by the deafening sound of weights crashing to the floor so hard it vibrated.
They’d all turned to see Axel in the corner, his chest throbbing with angry breaths and low snarls of aggression. Finn watched in dumbfounded silence as his skin began to darken to an inhuman shade of red and his muscles began to swell, bulging and tearing against the constraints of his clothing.
If Finn hadn’t been watching with her own eyes, she might not have believed it.
In a matter of seconds, Axel had transformed from a timid, heavily muscled hybrid to what looked to be a full-blooded Sirian whose sheer size and muscle mass rivaled that of Grim’s.
His rage-filled eyes honed in on AJ as he stomped around the weight machine and made his way over to the boy. Enyo and Finn locked eyes, knowing they’d need to take the Sirian down before he truly hurt someone.
Fortunately for them all, Jax had chosen that moment to find his feet, striding over to Axel with slow, steady steps and a grin eating up his face.
“Is all that for me, big guy?”
At the question and the sight of Jax’s devil-may-care smile and glittering amber eyes, something seemed to shake loose in Axel’s brain, his skin returning to its normal tan hue and his body deflating until he’d returned to his normal size.
He’d seemed genuinely embarrassed by his reaction, but it was blatantly obvious to Finn that his abilities were volatile and unpredictable. She’d made the decision on the spot to train Axel separately from the group. He and AJ could learn a few things from each other, including how to get a handle on their trigger-happy emotions.
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