by Ava Argent
I release her face and sit back with a shrug. “I have already communicated. I find you a very fine female and wish to have you for my own. I am a good, strong male with means and method to protect you. It is a good arrangement.”
She slaps my thighs. Why, I do not know. “There has to be more to it than that, M'anu!”
My eyes narrow. Irritation is finally edging its way into my calm. Have I not made things perfectly clear? “There is nothing else,” I stress.
She stands, hands balled into fists and propped on her hips. “So that's it. You listed all of my qualifications and weaknesses, decided you could live with them, and now propose to spend the rest of your life with me. Is that the gist of this conversation?”
At last. “Yes.”
“And now I just sit back, because the future is taken care of.”
She made the leap considerably faster than I expected. Relief floods me. “Now you understand.”
The Agmoiria snorts. “Oh, I understand. I just sure as hell don't agree.”
I still. Look at her as my mood begins to darken. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I don't agree. Not that you asked.” She jerks a thumb at her own chest. “My future belongs to me, not you. I get to decide. And I decide no.”
That is not acceptable. My jaw tightens.
“You know, if Ferissians had half the clue that they claim they do, Feruz wouldn't be trailing after Betty the way he is and we could still be in bed having fun. It takes more than a mental checklist and hot sex to make two people mates, at least in my book.”
I rise from my seat abruptly. She startles but does not back away.
xxxxx
“You agreed.” He barely moves his mouth to talk, the words hissing over his teeth. His eyes are burning into me.
He sounds almost accusing, and I don't like it one bit. “How can you agree to something you haven't been asked? Huh? Tell me that. You took my assent to have sex with you and blew it way out of proportion!”
He roars, making me jump. “Do not assign your fear to me!”
Holy cow. He's yelling at me.
Wait. He's yelling at me? The hell? “Watch your tone, buddy,” I snap back. “You either discuss this in a reasonable volume or I'm walking away until you calm down.”
His eyes widen just a bit, and I get the feeling shit is about to hit the turbo engine. “Are you threatening me?” he asks in a dangerously soft voice.
Dammit. It's the alpha male mentality again. I can't talk to this guy like a human. I rein in my annoyance and strive for a measured voice as I say, “I am telling you that I won't be hollered at. We have a problem. We should be able to talk about it, not scream it.” I tilt my head. “Are we in agreement?” I almost strangle on the words.
His chin raises as he considers me with icy eyes. After a long minute there's a tiny relax in the way he holds his shoulders. “Agreed,” he says at last.
“Alright.” I lick my lips. “And I'll try to present my grievances better.” I came out swinging; that's no way to handle this any more so than shouting is.
His eyebrow twitches at the word 'grievances'. It must grate on him that they even exist.
“I've been careful my entire life.” God, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Finding the right words that would fix this, because I want it to be fixed, just won't appear. No amazing movie-type speech. So I have to ramble. “I have a plan for a plan for a plan. More than twenty-five years of keeping secrets and having outs scattered everywhere. There is no plan for what you want. No hidey holes. No switch to flip when things are not going right.”
He stares at me, stone-faced. I can't read a single thing that's going on in his head. That's the first time that's happened since we met. I feel cold and stupid and alone. I scratch my eyebrow to hide how uncomfortable and ill at ease I am. “You just want me to close my eyes and jump in,” I say quietly. “What's worse is that you didn't even ask. You decided, just like Feruz decided with Betty. No negotiating, no compromising, only what you want.” When I finish talking, I wait for him to respond. He doesn't.
“Why don't you tell me what you think of what I said?” I prompt.
His lip curls. “You are afraid and you are running. I find that disappointing.”
Boy, that's like a shot in the gut. He just...wow, he got me where it hurts and he wasn't even trying. If he'd flat out called me a coward, I would have taken that better. Maybe even found a defense for it. The problem is that I can't defend against emotions, only actions.
I turn my head, swallowing to hide the lump in my throat. “I'm not going to deny that I'm afraid, but I'm not running away. I'm here, talking to you, trying to find a compromise.” I suck in a breath, gathering my courage. “M'anu, I like you.”
He stills.
That's not what I was hoping for. God, I'm nervous. “I like you a lot,” I forge on. I've told him that already, but it bears repeating. “I...may even feel a lot more for you. I want to see where this goes between us. I just want to be able to do it at a slower pace. I want to be with you, but not as your mate yet.” If ever. You never know how these things will pan out.
He doesn't soften. Not one iota. I think the air around him gets colder, which I wasn't aware was possible. “See where it goes?” he repeats, enunciating each word carefully.
I nod mutely.
His eyes turn flat. “Let us not lie to each other, Agmoiria. What you want is the option to retreat whenever you desire. I expected more from the daughter of Moiria Jenner.”
What the— “Who do you think taught us to act this way?” I burst out, offended to my core. “Do you think pirates just go charging in willy nilly and survive? Hell no! Zarek's dumb ass was an exception. Real pirates look for the right angles and they always have a backup plan in case things go south. And the fact that you aren't giving me credit for not running and trying to meet you in the middle is total bullshit.”
I just can't even believe he's shooting me down like this. Worse, he's trying to make it out as if I am some kind of chicken-hearted weenie!
Which is not exactly untrue, but cut a girl a little slack here. It's a lot to take in, and what's wrong with caution, huh? Nothing, that's what. Nobody ever said, “You know, if he hadn't been so cautious, he would never have died doing that motorcross expo.”
He wants to be mates? He could have waited more than three days or whatever it's been (I actually don't even know how long I've known this guy!) to make that decision. He could have included me in on the thought process while he was at it. He could have, you know, courted me or something. Dating is not too much to ask.
I am not being unreasonable. M'anu is. He totally, absolutely, positively is being an obstinate Ferissian.
We stand there, glaring at each other, when a buzzer sounds on the display behind M'anu. I've heard that sound before.
My glare intensifies. “You didn't send the message to your brother.”
M'anu actually flushes. “I had other things on my mind.”
Like fabulous sex on a table. To be fair, I was so preoccupied with that as well that I forgot to update M'anu's system. That thought does not comfort me. “Great.” I turn on my heel. “I'll get the guns.”
He follows without another word, but his black mood hangs over us like a cloud during hurricane season. My own anger is sizzling under the surface. I'm frustrated. Talking like grownups failed miserably. A) I didn't approach it the right way from the get-go and B) when I corrected, he wasn't in the least bit receptive. It was either all or nothing. That harkens back to his black/white personality, but shouldn't he exhibit a little more caution than that when he's talking about, I don't know, the rest of our lives?
What really pisses me off, I think as I take the gun he gives me and slam the safety button out of its socket, is that he hurt my feelings. It's not like I want to ditch any possibility of a relationship. I just want to take it one step at a time. Surely a guy who brushes that aside isn't right for me.
Maybe this is what Betty felt when Feruz popped the non-question. Maybe that's why she ducked and ran—she knew talking wasn't going to solve anything. Then again, you never know with Betty. Maybe she just fucked him and took off before they could have the argument.
Betty.
I still. It can't be.
It totally can.
“Well, well,” she says from the doorway. “This is not exactly how I envisioned this going, but a little variety is never unwelcome.”
In an instant M'anu is spinning, his blaster raising to shoot the intruder—my fucking sister—and I have no time to think. I just whale him on the back of the head as hard as I can, no holds barred, because he's stronger than a freakin' ox and it won't hurt him.
Much.
He drops.
“Oh my god!” Dammit! The one time this works, it has to be now, when I don't want it to? I stare down at his prone body, unable to believe I knocked him out. But there he is, out cold. I must have landed it just right.
“Huh. Lucky shot,” Betty observes. “That's not your best move. Good job though.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I half-yell at her. “Do you know how pissed he's going to be when he wakes up?”
“We better get moving then, because a ticked Ferissian is deadly.” She steps into the room and pulls a syringe out of the back of her pants. “Here, this should buy us a few more minutes.”
She wants me to drug him? The hell?
Betty makes a sound of impatience. “Babycakes. Focus. Take the needle. Stick him. We don't have a lot of time here.”
Focus.
Because that's what Jenners do. I look down at M'anu, all laid out and unconscious. My lover. But Betty doesn't know that. She doesn't know that we were fighting, or that the last thing I want to do is hurt the guy. Then I think about what we were fighting about and his snotty comment about expecting better from the daughter of Moiria Jenner. My anger surges, overcoming my concern. You know what? Maybe it was time to teach him exactly what Agmoirias do. He wanted it bad enough.
I hold out my hand. “Give it to me.”
You would not believe how hard it is to transport a Ferissian's worth of dead weight down a hall, flight of stairs, and over any number of feet without chopping him up into pieces first. Or dropping him, which we do. A few times. He's freakin' heavy. Betty and I are strong, but we're not Hercules or any of the Amazons. She's got his feet and I have his head. At least we don't crack his skull open. When we finally get to the brig, tucked away in the airlock behind all the other cages, Betty and I are sweating and panting like wheezy Pugs.
We roll M'anu into the confinement room like a floppy fish because we have no more strength to carry him. Once that's done, I hit the button that brings the transparent field down. I check the system to make sure he doesn't have voice command. Turns out that he does—from the outside. Guess it never occurred to him that he'd be stuck on the other side of the barrier. Thank god for small favors.
The brig is tucked away, out of sight of the normal hangar. Almost like a closet that someone forgot to mention. Nobody would know it was there if they weren't looking for it. Good thing I double checked all this stuff when I took over the brig a hundred years ago.
I sag against the wall, feeling like I've aged months.
Betty pushes her bleach blonde locks out of her face. She's wearing her standard green tank top, camo jacket, and utilitarian black cargo pants, tucked into some mean-looking combat boots. I feel like a glittery sorority girl compared to her, what with the ballerinas and skinny jeans. Totally unprepared. She's got curves on top of that, meaning my sister looks like the Betty Paige version of Tank Girl.
Bitch. “God, I missed you.”
She turns her appreciative eye from M'anu's ass to me, raising her brow. “You look like hell, babycakes.”
I try, I really do, but it's useless. Everything hits me at once. My composure crumples. I press the heels of my palms to my eye sockets, trying to hide the evidence as I tremble. Betty does the most sisterly thing she's ever done and enfolds me into a hug. Emotion does not make her comfortable, so this is a big deal. I'm so grateful she's there for me I hiccup and bury my face in her shoulder. “I tried to talk to him, but he wasn't interested in hearing it,” I confess miserably.
She pats me on the small of my back. “You tried to talk him out of kidnapping you? Jules, you're a talker, but even you can't argue with a Ferissian if he's hellbent on something.”
“That's not what I mean.” I pull back. “We're kind of...you know...”
Her brows shoot to her hairline. She looks from him to me. “No.”
I'm not loving this. “Yeah.”
“And you put him in the brig.”
“We're in a fight right now.”
“Huh.” She clearly doesn't know how to interpret this, but no judgments from Betty. She just says, “Let's go find a bathroom. My hair is pissing me off.”
I scoff, then laugh. Typical. My sister is a nut. But I follow her anyway, because I need a nutty sisterly ear right now.
But not before I swipe my hand over the control system, pressing a few keys that will make M'anu's stay as comfortable as possible. He's already stirring. I'm not sorry I put him in there. He was being a big, sharp-toothed jerk. I don't want him to suffer needlessly either.
We leave the brig and exit the mini corridor, turning and climbing the stairs. We step over the portal and get to the main living area. Before long we're at the communal bathroom, across the hall from the armory, and Betty is fussing with her hair while I'm spilling my guts. “I can't believe he didn't have the decency to see it from my side,” I growl. “The brig is too good for him!”
I'm hitting the anger stage again.
Betty nods. “Unfair.” She pulls out a mini comb from her back pocket. She's got more tools hidden on her bod than I do, but she's a lazy wretch with sewing. Hence the cargo pants. “He's lucky you didn't shoot him.”
Actually, he was lucky Betty didn't shoot him. I think she knew what the real deal was. Either that, or I was faster than she could was at pulling the trigger. “Exactly!” I wipe my nose on the back of my hand. “I even set the food processor to high quality steaks for him!”
“If that's not a gesture of love, I don't know what is.”
I use my shirt to clean my cheeks, still sniffing back stupid tears that threaten every once in a while. If she asks, though, I'm going to claim it's sweat. “Well, I don't know about love,” I quickly refute, “but it's definitely a gesture of goodwill, right?”
“So you didn't want to fuck him. Big deal. Girls can say no.”
I fidget. “Well, that's not what happened.”
She peers at me via reflection. “You did fuck him?”
I don't know why I'm blushing. Seriously, I don't. It's nothing to be ashamed about. “A couple of times.”
Betty's brows climb. And climb. And climb. She slowly turns to face me, bracing her arm on the jamb. “Let me get this straight. You did the nasty with the Ferissian, more than once, and he's still all done up over you.”
God, I'm not going to get out of this, am I? “He decided to take me to mate.”
Betty's mouth drops open. “And you said no?”
“No.” Shit. “Kind of. Maybe.” I bury my head in my hands. “I just didn't want to go all in not even three days after I met the guy!”
Betty starts to laugh. Deep belly laughing. “You are in such big trouble, babycakes. You're in so far there's nothing I can do for you.”
“That is not helping, dammit! I tried to be reasonable and tell him my concerns, and he basically called me a coward.”
She frowns. “The hell?”
“That's what I said!” Not really, but I thought it and that's close enough.
She shakes her head and goes back to the mirror. “Maybe it's for the best. You aren't exactly into commitment.”
I get closer, taking over her spot at the door. “What does that mean?” Especially coming from her?
“You know exactly what I mean. You've got an escape complex a kilometer wide.”
“There's nothing wrong with having back up plans.”
“Too bad that doesn't fit in with Ferissian mating culture, huh? He can't be all that great anyway. Even with those sexy pink bangs and rock-hard jaw and an ass that a woman could squeeze until she—”
“Betty!” I bark. “No mind fucking the merchandise!”
“Yeah, yeah. So, great or not?”
“He's...” Is there a word accurate enough? Ah hell, go for broke. “Fantastic,” I admit, “and so freakin' intense he scares the bejesus out of me.”
“So what's the fuss?”
“All or nothing? Any of that ring a bell for you?”
“So you're running away.” Betty grins knowingly.
I wave my hands. “Whoa whoa whoa. Who said anything about running away? I said it was a bit overwhelming. If I think about it long enough, I'm sure there's a compromise.” This is way too close to the conversation I just had with M'anu.
“You're running.”
“I beg to differ—I'm not a big fat chicken like some people.”
She whips around. “I'm not fat!”
I run my hand down my face. That's not what I meant, but fuck it. “You're curvy, you're round, you've got an ass, a belly, and boobs.” The lucky psycho. “Live it, love it, own it. Now shut up so I can angst.”
Betty grunts, reading my envy of her chest loud and clear. “Look babycakes,” she says as she starts pulling her hair into a ponytail. “Ferissians just don't have the concept of choices like we do. It's fuck or mate— which implies fucking, but on a level of commitment that we cannot imagine.” She picks up the hair tie. “No dating. No open relationships. No take backs. You are either in or you aren't.”
I lean against the bathroom's door jamb. Man, hearing M'anu's culture spelled out in black and white like that is hard on the nerves. She just totally deflated me. “Doesn't that sound crazy to you? What about divorce?”
She lets go of the hair tie with a soft rubbery thwack and inspects herself in the mirror. “Judging him by human standards isn't going to get you anywhere, Jules.”