by Smith, S. E.
“Crap.” He slid the panel back. One kitten was awake and mewing for its next meal.
There was no point putting the kittens somewhere he wasn't sure they'd be able to breathe. He couldn't risk everything, including Aliette’s ship, just to end up with dead kittens.
He gritted his teeth and tried to think of something, anything to do.
Aliette buzzed past him, but he bit his tongue on a question when he saw the look in her eyes. He bit his lip on an apology too. He'd brought this to her, risked her ship and probably her life.
He gritted his teeth and refocused. Regret got him nothing now. There was no going back, no fixing the trouble they found themselves in. Right now he had to think. And he had to be smart.
* * *
Aliette didn’t have time to do much but sprint into the hold to greet their unwelcome guests. All she could hope to do was obfuscate and stall. Give Zandro enough time to hide.
With the roar of grinding metal, their unwelcome visitors breached her ship's hull. They must have had a flex tube attached because the hole in her ship didn't cause a pressure breach. Good. Maybe there would be something left of her and her ship after this was all through.
Foolish to hope for that, but Aliette was an optimist.
A strike team of three toughs hurried through the breach. They wore body armor and blasters. A well-funded outfit then.
Although they didn't look particularly competent to Aliette. For one thing they didn't leave anyone behind on their own ship to keep the exit clear. And they held their blasters sloppily. Loose grips. No trigger discipline.
She stopped herself before she could let her distaste show. Amateurs could kill her just as easily as seasoned pros if they got lucky. Hell, with three to one odds they didn't even need much luck.
Aliette assumed an air of righteous fury. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing on my ship?”
“You've got something that doesn't belong to you,” the leader said. She was an older woman, heavyset with a weathered face and dark hair slicked back close to her skull. She moved like a thug not a soldier. This one was used to handing out beatings, not running black ops.
Aliette tossed her arms out wide. “What? My hold is empty. I'm on my way back from doing a passenger run to Anteros XII.”
The leader scoffed and crossed the deck in three long strides. She pulled her beefy arm back and cuffed Aliette hard across the cheek. “Where are they?”
The crack against Aliette’s face left her dazed, and she tasted blood. “I don't know what you mean.”
The woman snorted and hit her again.
OK. Enough. Aliette blocked her attacker’s arm and fired back with a punch of her own to the woman's neck.
Her adversary staggered, blaster clattering to the deck, and held her hands to her throat as she rasped.
Yeah. That one wasn't used to folks who could hit back.
“Grab her,” the woman rasped out.
Aliette moved to run, but the two henchmen caught her by the arms and hauled her back. “You have no right to be on my ship. What are you even doing here?” She tried to sound truly baffled, tried to keep any hint of fear out of her voice. If only she could play the part of bemused captain well enough maybe they'd leave after a cursory search. “I don't have any cargo right now. Illicit or otherwise.”
The lead tough had caught her breath and shaken herself back together. She approached Aliette with narrowed eyes and shoved her to her knees. “We'll find them, bitch, and then you'll be sorry you lied to me. Hold her.”
Aliette tensed as one of the men pinned her arms behind her back and kept her kneeling on the grated floor of the hold. Her knees were going to be black and blue gridlines by morning.
If I live to see morning. She grimaced, her skin crawling with fear and impatience. Just stay hidden, Zandro. Just stay hidden.
Even as she had the thought, Zandro popped up out of the smuggling drop in the floor, a kitten in each hand.
“What the—” The henchman barely got the words out before Zandro shoved the kittens in his face. They lashed out as all scared cats are wont to do, scratching and biting. One got a good hold on the bad guy's nose, and the man fell away, yowling and bleeding. He hit the floor hard next moment, though, his eyes rolling back as his body convulsed.
Overdose. Aliette watched that drama for only a moment, though. Then she jerked her head back and connected hard with the crotch of the man restraining her. He folded up, holding his junk and keening. She scrambled to her feet and kicked him in the face. He rolled away, dazed and groaning as she found her feet.
The leader was the only one left. She raised her blaster, aiming for Zandro's head, but Aliette slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. She punched the other woman about the face hard as she could. Aliette lurched forward to shove the blaster away from the woman's pawing hands.
They fumbled and hit at each other, tangled in a heap of lashing limbs. The woman's elbow connected, and Aliette's breath puffed out of her, leaving her stomach aching. A well-placed punch to the nose left Aliette seeing black at the edges of her vision. Aliette was better trained, but the other woman was heavier than her and brutal.
She rolled before Aliette could get her bearings and pinned her to the deck, one meaty arm across Aliette's throat. Aliette clawed at her hands and thrashed, but with panic rising, she realized she couldn't budge the other woman.
“Hey!” Zandro’s voice.
Aliette’s attacker glanced up.
Zandro stood over them with the blaster tight to his shoulder and aimed at the woman’s head. “Get your ass off this ship. Now.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “You're the kitten guy, right?” she scoffed. “I don't believe you'll use that.”
Zandro smiled thinly. “I got top marks at the Star Guard Academy for sharp shooting, lady. Kitten care is only one of my skills. Let her up.”
The woman glared, but she sat back on her heels.
Aliette sucked in a deep breath and coughed. She was still pinned, but at least she could breathe.
“Maybe we can reach some kind of—aurgh.” Unbeknownst to the woman, the two kittens had been wobbling toward her this whole time and, when she wasn't paying attention, they had launched themselves at her unprotected arms, latching on hard with teeth and claws.
She flailed and slapped, trying to get them off. Aliette braved her wildly waving arms and yanked first one kitten free then the other. The woman was already swaying, the pheromones hitting her like a hammer.
Aliette cradled the kittens close to her own chest, kissing their heads as she scooted away.
“No, this isn't...” The woman never got to finish her thought as her eyes rolled back. She fell forward against the deck with a bang. Neither Zandro nor Aliette moved to catch her.
Aliette eased gently to her feet, hugging the kittens. They were still wound up, trembling against her, but they snuggled closer against her clothes, trying to burrow under. “Sssh, sssh. You're ok. You're my little heroes.”
Zandro stood over the only one of the henchmen who'd managed not to get scratched. He pointed the blaster at the man's chest, and the man held his hands up. “Do you surrender, or should we sic the kittens on you too?”
The man snorted, his eyes sliding worriedly toward Aliette and the kittens then to his two colleagues as they groaned and thrashed on the floor. “I give up. Keep those furbags away from me.”
“Damn right.” Zandro nodded.
* * *
They secured the henchmen with ropes and heavy duty zip ties from her toolbox, and Zandro stood watch over them with the blaster while Aliette called for reinforcements. The sheriff station on Anteros XII was closer, but she called a friend at another nearby colony world instead. They were about halfway between one and the other anyway. And she didn't trust the Anteros XII sheriff department as far as she could throw them in heavy grav.
While Zandro saw to the kittens, Aliette scuttled across to the drug dealer's transport and disengage
d the flex tube from her ship. She'd already sealed Zandro and the kittens off in the galley and the drug dealers off in the spare bunkroom, so she puttered around outside her ship welding on a patch over the hole they'd blown through her cargo hold. It kept her hands and mind busy so she didn't have to think about how close she'd come to losing her ship, losing everything today.
As she floated past the galley porthole, Zandro waved at her, and she bit her lip and looked away. Everything. She truly could've lost everything.
She finished her repairs just as her friend the cop arrived in a colony cruiser ship with a whole cadre of reinforcements. They took charge of the three drug dealers—two of which were still having bad trips—and their ship. And, a little while after that, a star-tug came along to get The Dulcinea towed to the nearest planet and off the star lanes. Aliette was finally forced to strip out of her spacesuit and go back inside. She could've hidden in the cockpit and made chitchat with the tow pilot over the com, but that didn't seem fair to Zandro.
Anyway, she'd faced down murderous drug dealers today and a pair of worked up bajo kittens. She'd finally found enough bravery within herself to handle The Talk with Zandro.
“Hi.” He smiled as she approached. It was feeding time, of course, and she automatically plucked the second kitten out of the box and started the process of rigging up the tiny nipple on the syringe and measuring out formula. The kittens were already visibly growing, their coats glossy. The girls ate heartily that night, and Aliette smiled at her little champions.
“So, are you going to do a vid on using bajo cats as backup in a fight?” Aliette stroked her hand over the silky fur of Baby Blue.
Zandro laughed and shook his head. “Ah. No. This whole misadventure has actually been horrible for my vid channel. Hardly any useable footage at all.”
“Are they ok, by the way?” She craned to get a glance at Violet in his lap, and the little purple looked all right, happily slurping her formula, dwarfed by Zandro’s giant hand.
Zandro nodded. “Seem to be. Hungry. A little rattled right after, but I just gave them lots of snuggles and formula, and they settled down soon enough. My hands started to tingle, though, so they must have really been pumping out their pheromones.”
Aliette frowned. “I thought you were immune.”
“I am essentially, which means the dose must have been really high.”
“Oh.” She stared down at the little kitten under her hand. “How did you build your tolerance up, by the way? So you don't have to use the dampening patches?”
He sighed. “Slowly. Carefully. Spending more and more time handling the kittens bare-handed until it didn't affect me anymore.”
“Could you...could you help me do that?”
He recoiled like she'd slapped him, and then he leaned toward her, an eager light in his eyes. “Aliette?”
She took a deep breath and looked back to the kitten, stroking her hand over its fur, focusing on the softness under her fingers. “I know you don't let your foster kittens go until they're at least eight weeks old, but when these two are ready to be adopted I want my name at the top of the list.”
“You'll have to fight me for them.” His words were light, but his voice was rough, full of emotion.
“Or...we could keep them together.” She forced herself to look at him and, when their eyes caught, it felt like every nerve in her body was vibrating—with elation, with anticipation, with fear.
“Yes.” He put his dropper down and reached across to catch her fingers, cupping her hand and the kitten she held both. “Aliette, I don't have to keep doing rescue work. I can teach. I've had lots of offers to teach seminars, to give workshops on fostering. I'm tired of living my life crisis to crisis. I want to build something now. With you.”
She turned her fingers under his to clasp his palm. “Yes. But you don't have to give up the rescues if you don't want to. I have a ship, after all. I can ferry you all around the galaxy to rescue kittens if need be. We could be a floating barge of bajo cats.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Yes.”
It felt like champagne bubbles were popping in her blood, light, happy. Bright and sweet. “Yes to what?”
“Any of it. All of it. Just as long as I've got you.”
She held aloft her kitten, who had a milk mustache and gave an indignant mew. “And the cats.”
Zandro tucked his own kitten into the crook of his arm and leaned over the table to caress Aliette's cheek. “Of course.”
She plucked the kitten out of his arms and deposited the sleepy fur babies in their box. The two kittens snuggled down against their plush toy and promptly fell asleep. “I love you, Zandro. Just by the way. Always have.”
He kissed her, his lips smoothing softly over hers, and her heart squeezed tight with happiness. When he pulled back, he leaned his forehead against hers, his breath puffing against her cheek. “And I love you, Aliette. I’m glad I called you for a ride.”
“I’m glad I answered the phone. Come on. It’ll be hours yet before we reach the nearest planet. Let’s go to bed before we have to feed the kittens again.”
Zandro grinned. “I like the sound of that.”
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Pauline Baird Jones and Veronica Scott for giving me this opportunity, as well as Narelle Todd for all her hard work and fantastic organization skills. Thanks also to the other authors; it is an honor to share this table of contents with you. Lastly, thanks to my beta reader Karen Anderson for her feedback on this story.
Also by E. D. Walker
The Fairy Tales of Lyond Series
Enchanting the King
The Beauty’s Beast
The Changeling Child
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About E. D. Walker
E.D. Walker, a native of Los Angeles, is the author of The Fairy Tales of Lyond Series that begins with Enchanting the King. By day, E.D. helps corral engineers for NASA (without doing any of the tech stuff herself, of course). By night, she loves to write her clever heroes and heroines bantering their way to true love. E.D. is a total geek, a movie buff, and a mediocre swing dancer. E.D. and her family live in sunny Southern California with one of the neediest housecats on the planet. Find out more on her website.
Out of the Shadows
Loss casts a shadow you can’t outrun...
Commander Rafe Penzak was tired of jockeying a desk, and with only months left before his forced retirement from the Rangers he decided to bend a few rules for one last mission – follow up on intelligence that vicious criminals had found the ranch that supplied the rangers’ umbra wolves. He was prepared to confront the reminder of his wolf’s death, but he couldn’t have prepared for the spitfire that ran the ranch.
Veterinarian Nafisi Sultana had run her wolf breeding program her way since the death of her husband, and the last thing she wanted was another ranger taking up space, correcting her methods, or being underfoot. She didn’t expect the pain and sorrow that haunted the greying commander, anymore than she could resist her instinct to heal another’s hurt.
They’ve both spent years dwelling in their own past, but with storms, raiders, and a renegade wolf pup driving them together they may just have to set it aside to find something they each want more – a future.
1
Nafisi Sultana scooped the tiny wolf off the floor and carried him in her arms to the old wooden rocking chair that stood in the corner by the fireplace. When she'd inherited the chair from her grandmother, there’d been an expectation that she and Gener would be nursing their children in it, and that she’d one day pass it down to grandchildren of her own. Five years without Gener and memories still dug their talons between her ribs like ravenous vultures.
There’d be no grandkids to take up the tradition, but at least part of her grandmother’s hopes had come to pass. She took the bottle from the warmer on the table next to the fireplace and splashed a small amount on the back of her hand. Satisfied that it wasn�
��t too hot, she tucked the nipple into the wolf’s mouth so it could feed.
The puppy was still tiny, only three weeks old and barely bigger than her forearm. His teeth hadn't come in yet, but he took to the bottle all the same. Nafisi smiled down at the bundle in her arms. "You keep eating like that, and you won't be the runt for very long."
Gener had always told her that the runts got pushed out of the den for a reason, and not to bother trying to save them. He’d humored her when he’d been alive. Now? There’d been too much damn death already. She wouldn't contribute to more of it.
Besides, if you gave a runt a little love, they could go on to do great things. She was proof of that.
The wolf finished eating and made a tiny barking squeal as he squirmed in her arms. As always, her heart near-to-melted at the sound. Pups couldn’t control their empathic abilities. Being among them always left her bombarded with the chaos of emotions that were a puppy’s early weeks, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if it did require her to engage in some of the more unsavory aspects of wolf motherhood.
She carried the pup to the rocky soil outside the door and wiped at his backside with a damp washcloth. It wasn’t a perfect replica of a mother wolf’s tongue, but it was close enough that it stimulated the puppy to relieve himself. Once he’d finished, she cleaned up the mess and turned to carry the pup back into the house.
She had turned to head back inside when habit made her look toward the main pens. Lights glittered where none belonged. The sky over Hephaestus Secundus should have been dark. Like all the other worlds in the three systems, it was a moon in orbit around a larger gas giant, but Secundus was unique in that it orbited one of the other moons—an astronomical rarity. The tiny rock was locked in Lagrangian equilibrium, trapped between the gravity of Heph Prime and Accipiter. As a result, the world sat in a permanent shadow from one or both bodies. The sky came in two colors—black and blacker. That’s how Gener had described the weather to her when they’d moved here all those years ago.