She stared at Brom. “Jump drives are regulated for a reason. If it’s not calibrated to the micro, a ship will shatter in transit, or land in the middle of a moon. Do they even have the capability of creating them?” Not to mention the danger to the surrounding ships.
“I wouldn’t have you look this up if they weren’t already doing it.”
Raesa focused on her work. It took only a moment for the dark details to emerge. “Son of a bitch, you were right, Brom. Foreman Yates and the Deadgate miners have been sitting in the Andovian regime’s back pocket for months.”
“Experience talking sweetheart. I can smell Na’varr’s cousin’s stench from a sector away. You’ll learn, hellcat. Their corruption leaks into everything.”
She looked up at him and stuck out her tongue. “You can stop talking down to me any second now.”
Brom moved so that his gaze was even with hers. Despite the tinting on his suit’s visor, she could make out the annoyed expression on his face.
“I’m not talking down to you. It’s just nice to hear you tell me I’m right.”
Men, cats, hybrids, captains. She was about done with the lot of them. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Say it again and I’ll make you purr my name, sweetheart.”
“Children.” Na’varr snapped from behind her.
She spun around and saw a very pale captain braced against the doorway to the bridge. “Na’varr,” her voice was breathless.
“Well, that’s my cue.” Brom’s chuckle came through the speakers.
“Brom…” she ground his name through her teeth.
“Take care of this for me, won’t you, kitten? I’ve got repairs to handle.”
A thin smile touched Na’varr’s lips. “He knows better than to be in my sight right now. Can you two stop bickering long enough to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
She clutched the datapad to her chest. “We’re almost finished with diagnostics. I’ve repaired most of the onboard issues, but we’ll need to land somewhere soon. Brom is performing maintenance on the hull of the ship. The blasters took out a few minor systems, but we should be good to go soon.”
He closed the distance between them in careful steps that showed him favoring his side. She moved forward, as if to help him, and he held up his hand. “Get me my star maps, Raesa. I need a moment before I lose my temper over you both ignoring the issue at hand.”
Namely, his forced sleep in the MEDbay.
She brought him the star map case and set it next to the navigator console. He unrolled each map with precise movements.
“Show me where we are.”
She pulled up the information on her datapad. “Here.”
He glanced at the screen and mumbled something incoherent.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Brom, what’s our status?”
“Captain, we’ve got minor damage in the landing platform. I didn’t get the gear stowed away before the first shot hit our belly.”
Na’varr ran a hand over his stubble. A full day’s growth.
It was just long enough to tickle, but rough enough to elicit some pretty incredible reactions from her body.
She wanted to reach for him, but guilt ate at her for the hot sex she’d had with Brom while he slept.
Na’varr’s gaze sharpened for just a moment. “We’re close to Renegade Falls. Can we make the jump?”
Brom’s heavy sigh echoed in the room. “We’ll need a coil soon, but yeah, once I finish this patch, she’ll be jump-worthy.”
“Good. Make it happen.”
“Roger that.”
Na’varr pierced her with a glare. Her heart froze in her chest. Surely he didn’t think she had anything to with putting him under?
“Brom.” Na’varr’s tone barely concealed his displeasure.
“Sir?”
“I will take your insubordination out of your hide one way or the other.”
“As expected, Captain.”
Brom’s mic disconnected and Na’varr pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me why.” His voice trembled with anger.
Raesa’s heart slammed in her chest. By now he was usually yelling. The quiet anger was somehow really scary. Sweat trickled between her breasts. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “He said even with broken ribs, you’d take the walk about because of the dangers to us. Rest was needed for the tube to accelerate your healing, right?”
His dry chuckle surprised her. So did the tension draining from his body. “He said that, huh?”
Confusion froze Raesa in her tracks.
He held out his hand and she stared at it for a long beat.
“I won’t hurt you, little thief. My job is to protect you.”
She shook her head and placed her fist between her breasts, wanting him to understand her heart. “No sir.” His eyebrows raised at her formal tone. “I was brought up to protect you. Brom and I are here to watch your back. If you keep throwing yourself in harm’s way, we’ll go down with you.”
“You too?” He let his hand fall away and cursed in several languages.
The more creative ones raised her eyebrows. One or two were ones she didn’t know, but wanted to learn as soon as possible. You could tell a lot about a culture based on the way they insulted one another. So what did it say about the pirate captain?
A snort slipped free. Mortified she tried to stifle it, but the past several hours of insanity and sleep deprivation hit her full force.
Na’varr’s lips twitched. “Plot a course. I’ll call out the numbers.”
Raesa nodded and brought up the program. She ran most of the ship from her personal system. For a vessel this large, it had become a necessity with a three-man crew. Na’varr called out the coordinates and she planned their trajectory.
When it was like this, they were a well-oiled machine. Why couldn’t it always be this way?
“I’m finished out here.” Brom’s voice jerked her attention back to the present. “Boarding now. I’ll be in the workout room.”
She glanced at Na’varr and noticed the captain’s jaw clench. His eyes hardened and if she wasn’t mistaken, the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.
What would it take to fix their situation? Maybe they needed a break from each other. She hated that thought. Being away from either man for too long was like losing part of her heart.
“We’ll plan for the next jump in ten minutes. Raesa, please join me in the captain’s chair.”
Every time she shifted her legs, her pussy pulsed with the after affects of Brom’s wicked lust fest, but she didn’t know how to tell him that.
“Relax, beautiful. I’m in no shape to take on more than a quiet moment with the woman I love. Let me take this time with just you and me.”
A tinge of sadness touched his voice and Raesa wondered if he didn’t want to share. The thought of not having Brom touch her sat heavily in her stomach. Both men had curled up in her heart and more than satisfied her body on a regular basis.
Na’varr sat and tugged her into his lap. The giant captain’s chair easily accommodated his bulk and her body.
He tucked her head beneath his chin and cuddled her close. She was careful not to lean against his side because of his injuries.
“I was with Brom while you were sleeping,” she blurted.
He ran his hand down her hair in a soothing caress. “Do you love him, Raesa?”
“Of course. I love you both.”
“Love doesn’t mean we have to be with each other every hour of the day. Brom and I will occasionally go off and do our thing. You two will also need time alone.”
His words lessened the pain in her heart.
Na’varr kissed her forehead. “Right now I’m being selfish with you.”
She didn’t call it selfish. Their relationship was still so new to her.
“I saw your face when you didn’t know what was going on,” he said quietly.
With her ear against his chest, she coul
d hear and feel the rumble of his words. She sank into that comfort. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Brom was right.” He adjusted her position in his lap so that she could see the view.
Each star was a beacon for some adventurer, a way to guide another home.
Endless space spread out in front of them, a vast universe of life and death, struggle and survival. So achingly beautiful to see the wash of reds from the Firesky nebula and the soft greens of the great shipping channel. Her first memory involved watching the stars with her dad. “You know, when I was a child, my father told me the gods painted the night skies with stardust and the dreams of men. I remember him looking so sad. Do you know why?”
Na’varr hugged her against him and chuckled. “My father told me that too. I forgot all about it. You know, he built the Andovian Republic based on the idea that we are only limited by the depths of our imagination. Our duty was to travel the stars and learn from other cultures to enrich the lives of the people back home. He wanted peace.”
She wanted to ask him more, but decided to leave it at that. They had time to delve into his past and figure out how to stop his family from hunting them down and killing them.
Right now, she’d take this moment of tranquility in the hectic pace of their lives.
“You know, Brom has been right about a lot of things lately.”
She looked up and humor danced in his eyes. “Don’t tell him I said that.” He kissed her, a slow lingering touch of lips. He tucked her back against him and stared back at the view. “Thank you for reminding me about my father’s words.”
Raesa didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nodded.
“When we return to the Crimson Star, we won’t be able to lounge on the bridge like this.” Na’varr’s quiet statement echoed a strange loneliness she never expected from the normally high-spirited captain.
“No, but you, Brom, and I will be able to sleep in the same bed, at the same time.” Their shifts had taken a toll on their love-making. Running a transport ship with three people was hard work. Constant close proximity, never-ending stress, no back up plan. And they wondered why everything was falling apart.
“I do miss our bed, but I don’t remember a lot of sleeping.” It sounded like Na’varr was smiling, but she couldn’t be sure. He stroked her hair again and she curled comfortably against his hard body.
“Brom seems touchy over me asking him about his age. Is it a hybrid thing or did I mess up some protocol I don’t understand?”
Na’varr’s caresses stopped for a moment and he sighed. “He grew up in a world much more brutal than ours in many ways.”
Since both of them had been born and raised in the midst of violence, his statement said a lot. She knew he was a former sex slave.
Raesa captured his words in her heart and waited for him to explain.
“Slaves don’t have a birth date. They have a bought date.”
It took a moment to process. Horror and understanding dawned. Guilt rushed in. “Shit. He was born a slave.” She’d screwed up in the worst way. No wonder he was so uncomfortable talking about it, when he’d insisted she saw him as a man and not an animal. She closed her eyes and cursed herself as an insensitive idiot.
“His earliest memory was of slavery. He lives in the now. I don’t know if that’s a hybrid trait, or if that’s how Brom learned to cope, but we have to give him time.”
Raesa nodded and ran the pad of her thumb across her lip. She needed to make this right. But how?
***
Brom moved without thought, going through the kata in brutal efficiency, searching for the tranquility it usually gave him. Tonight was different.
The fight today had been reckless. Walking into Yates’s den had been stupid. Na’varr was getting desperate and racing headlong into the fray like an idiot. Of course he was no better since he kept jumping at shadows and seeing danger around every corner.
Sweat slid down his neck and he moved into a series of jumps and flips. Muscles bunched and stretched, limbering up the way he needed them to.
He searched for inner peace, but all he saw was a big ass cyborg bearing down Na’varr and the dark bruises on Raesa’s body from her escape. There was no way to bypass the danger, but there had to be a way to limit their risk.
“Do you need a sparring partner or would you rather fight those demons alone?” Raesa’s voice snapped him back to himself.
His little hellcat stood inside the doorway in a full body suit. His vision zeroed in on her hip, wondering if she hurt from their earlier escapades. The bruise she sported had to be hurting by now, and he doubted she’d made another trip to the tube for a pain reliever.
“I’m not good company right now.”
She watched him with her bright blue eyes, her gaze never missing a thing. “I’ll leave if you want.”
A part of him wondered if she meant forever. “Don’t let me keep you.”
She moved to the mat and Brom tensed.
“You’re injured, Raesa. We’re not doing this now.”
“We either fight or you talk to me. Which will it be?”
He clenched his jaw. She was damned stubborn. “Fine. We talk. Did Na’varr send you to make nice with me?”
“No.” She eased her gorgeous ass down on a bench. “I came to apologize.”
Brom crossed his arms. “For what?”
“For teasing you about your age.” Raesa glanced away from him. “Na’varr explained why you might not know.”
The hybrid prowled closer, furious yet strangely relieved that he hadn’t had to be the one to tell her. “Is it so strange to imagine me used as an animal? It’s what I am. What they made me.”
She whipped her head around. “No you’re not. You’re more human than most men I’ve met in my life.” She raised her chin and he was shocked to find tears in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you with my words. Your birthday holds special meaning to me. You and Na’varr have no dates for me to celebrate. I feel like I’m missing out on this chance to share these moments with you. When you love someone, you want to share everything with them, right?”
Some things he would never share with her, if he could help it. They were tangled nightmares he kept deep inside. “Birthdays are for children.” And I never was one. He’d keep that locked in his heart. “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks and he hated himself more at that moment than ever before. But the poison wouldn’t stop. She didn’t want something like him. The way she looked away confirmed it.
He lowered his voice. “Ashamed of me now, hellcat?”
Her gaze snapped back to his and she gaped at him. “I’m furious for you, Brom. I love you. What happened to you is still a part of who you are. That doesn’t change the way I feel.”
He fought with the hope blooming in his chest. “Bold words, sweet thing. But the monsters in my closet eat little girls for breakfast.”
She met his pissed off stare with one of her own. “Think what you want. I would kill every single person who ever harmed you, if I could. I want to take on that pain and ease your heart, but I can’t do that. You can’t take the murder of my father away from me or give Na’varr back his life. Logic has nothing to do with wanting to protect those you love.”
Their breaths came hot and heavy, but her words swept away his anger and left him exhausted.
“I’ve lost track of my purpose here. Please accept my apology for pushing my way into a part of your life you’re not ready to share with me yet.” Her voice tightened with emotion. “Pick a day. Any great day you want to remember, and we’ll call it your birthday. Okay? I won’t mention it again.” She wiped away her tears. His little hellcat had come out spitting mad and ready to fight. That side he knew how to handle, this side completely undid him.
He closed the distance between them and she stood her ground. His fierce woman. So strong and innocent about the world. He put his forehead to hers and cupped her cheeks. “Look at
me.”
She did so with a nervous anticipation that amused him.
“I will try to do this thing you ask of me.”
She nodded.
Na’varr’s voice came through the intercom, “Attention. We will be hitting our next jump in less than two minutes. So stop your sexin’ and find yourselves a seat. Next stop, Renegade Falls.”
Raesa’s laugh lightened a bit more of the dark around his heart. He wanted to keep this moment and remember it.
Chapter Six
“We landed in the middle of the cherry blossom festival. I thought some time off the ship would do us all some good.” Na’varr had been in a ridiculously good mood.
It was starting to worry Brom. He expected the captain to punch him or at least punish him. Instead, he was damned amused with himself.
The captain choosing to relax instead of work? At a port they’ve never been to and one that vaguely tugged at Brom’s memory. The hybrid waited for the hammer to fall.
Raesa walked into the room wrapped only in a towel. Water trailed down her throat and he wanted nothing more than to lick the drops from her skin. She ripped a brush through her tangled hair. He grabbed her wrist and stared down at his little hellcat. Did she do anything gently?
“Come. Sit with me and let me untangle this mess you’ve made of your hair.”
Her lashes lowered. “I’m not a child.”
The echo of his own words came back to haunt him. “There is nothing about you that reminds me of a child.” Except her innocence. Despite all that they’d been through, her heart was still soft. The memory of her sweet caresses came to mind. The tears she shed over his past. Teasing kisses over morning coffee. Her laughter. She was a mystery he could spend the rest of his life unraveling. Every moan and whisper belonged to his soul.
He sat in the captain’s chair and tugged her down to the floor between his legs. Brom spread her hair out over his leg and began detangling the mass. The stroke of the brush through her hair was far more soothing than he imagined. She sighed and rested her cheek against his thigh.
“You brutalize your beautiful hair,” he chided, softly.
She murmured something intelligible that made him smile—something he was doing a lot more of these days.
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