The surface meaning of her words disturbed him. It was so foreign to what he’d been raised to believe. Not, he admitted with a flash of bitter self-contempt, that he’d done much in the way of living up to those beliefs himself. But something else about the words disturbed him even more. “Would what they would say be true?”
She looked startled.
He smiled wryly. “I know a little of reputations.” And, he added silently, I have a feeling yours is as ill-deserved as mine.
“Would what they would say be true?” he asked again.
Her answer, spoken almost embarrassedly, was what he’d half expected. “I . . . tried to adopt my mother’s view, but I . . . couldn’t. Major Claxton gave the appearance of fully enjoying the mating freedom sanctioned by the Coalition, but . . .”
“Appearances can be deceptive.” And who knew better than he? He lifted a brow at her. “You speak of Major Claxton as if she were someone else.”
“I . . . she is. It’s as if she is someone I knew, or was pretending to be. But then all the trappings, all the pretense was stripped away. I don’t know what’s left. I only know that I don’t ever want to be her again.”
“And there’s the difference,” Dax said, his voice low. “You said we were in the same straits, but . . . you never want to go back, and I . . .”
Califa lifted her head to look at him then. “And you would give anything—everything—to go back.”
He let out a long breath. “Yes. I think I would.”
“You’ve lost so much more than I,” she said.
Only, Dax thought, because I had so much more to lose. When she went on, she as much as confirmed his thought.
“The only true regret I have is Shaylah. I never . . . appreciated her until it was too late.”
“It is . . . hard to lose a friend,” Dax said. Califa met his gaze, then looked away, and he knew she knew he was thinking of Dare.
“But he knew how you felt, did he not? That you . . . cared for him?”
“He knew that I loved him as a brother,” Dax said.
Califa’s eyes closed for a moment, the semicircles of her lashes dark on her pale cheeks. She looked as if she were in pain, and shame laced her voice when at last she spoke.
“I never told Shaylah how I felt. We were friends, and yet . . .” She sighed. “You were right, when you said I was jealous. I am not proud of that. When I was hurt, and my active career ended, she kept on. She became a hero, won medals, and I . . . envied her.”
“Envy is not the same as jealousy. You can envy someone and still like them.”
“I did,” Califa said, almost fiercely. “I even . . . loved her, I think, as the closest thing to a sister I’d ever had. But my envy kept me from telling her, and now . . . I’ve lost the truest friend I ever had, because she saw the truth about the Coalition long before I did.”
“Why?”
Califa blinked. “What?”
“Why did she see it so much sooner?”
“I don’t know.” Califa’s brow furrowed as she considered the question. “Perhaps because her parents were . . . different as well.”
“You mean what you said about her parents being bonded.” Califa nodded. “I’ve wondered about that. You said she was Arellian, like you.”
“She is.”
He shook his head in surprise. “Only a few of the outworlders who request it are granted permission for a Triotian ceremony.”
“I know. Shaylah told me they had to apply, and remain on Trios for observation while the council decided.”
“Not many would think it worth all that.”
“Her parents did. They wished to be bonded before Shaylah’s birth. I think they are why she looked at things differently. She only joined the Coalition for the same reason you fought with your father. All she had ever wanted to do was fly.”
Then she would be a good match for Dare, Dax thought, feeling a stabbing pang of regret for Brielle. He had long ago accepted his sister’s probable death; Califa’s confirmation of the fact had merely put the seal on the knowledge. But it hurt to think of her gone forever, that little tease she had been as a child, always getting him into trouble by making faces at him until he laughed while his father lectured him, getting him into more trouble than whatever he’d done to deserve the lecture in the first place. God, she had loved Dare so much . . .
But if Dare had found a measure of happiness, with a woman such as Califa had spoken of, then Dax would be the last to begrudge him. Dare had more than paid the price for it. Perhaps he had already paid the ultimate price, and his Shaylah with him. He wondered if they had ever overcome the fact that she belonged to the force that had enslaved him.
“And why did you join the Coalition?” he asked, thinking perhaps there was a clue here, some answer that might help him understand her.
Califa studied him for a long moment, as if searching for any trap in the question, examining it to see what damage answering it could do. Not the response of a Coalition officer, or of a female in a trusted lover’s bed. But Califa was neither of those; she had wanted him, had allowed him to mate with her, but trust was not a word for what flowed between them. No, her response was that of the slave, who had learned in the hardest of ways the cost of the wrong answer.
“I needed . . . to belong somewhere,” she said at last.
The Coalition was all I had. It was all I ever had.
He could almost hear her saying the words that day, not as excuse—there was none, she’d admitted—but explanation. And after what she’d told him today, the words now made a poignant sense. He had been surrounded by relations and friends for most of his life. What made him qualified to judge why a lonely child, subjected to a haphazard kind of emotional abuse he could never have imagined, had grown up to find comfort in belonging somewhere, even the Coalition?
And was it not one of the basic tenets of Trios that anyone, if they had compelling enough reason in the eyes of the council for a crime, deserved a second chance?
It was a thought that hadn’t occurred to him before. There was no Council of Elders left. He doubted if any of them would have survived the Coalition’s bloody purge—
“Dax?”
The tentative call from outside in the passage came in a familiar voice. Dax felt Califa stiffen, saw a look of dismay cross her face, and suddenly became aware of what Rina would see if he didn’t answer and she opened the door. They were sprawled naked on his bunk, arms and legs entwined, their clothes scattered on the floor. That was not a part of Rina’s education he wanted to provide just yet—and certainly not so personally. The cruelty of what Califa’s mother had done struck home with even more force.
“Hold, Rina,” he called. “A moment.”
At the look of sudden relief Califa gave him, Dax suddenly realized all the ramifications of what had happened here. Beyond Rina’s reaction to discovering them together, there was the crew to think about. Were they to learn he had taken the Coalition slave to his bed, they might consider her fair game for them all, although he supposed they would not touch her for as long as they thought she was his.
And as long as they didn’t know who she really was.
He leaned forward to gently kiss her forehead. “You are free to speak or not, as you wish, about what has happened between us. I would not force you one way or the other.”
She looked startled, but so was he; such tenderness was hardly his rule after another of the matings that proved so frustrating for him.
He rolled out of the bunk and reached for his pants. He bent to pull them on, then paused when a movement caught the corner of his eye. Califa had also stood up, reaching for the flight suit. Their gazes locked, and for an instant they stood there, each one openly scanning the other’s nakedness, as they had not done in the heat of their joining.
“I was right,” Califa muttered.
“Right?”
“Triotians are too much for anyone’s equilibrium.”
She didn’t sound happy about it, which enabled Dax to grin instead of blush. “At the moment,” he said casually as he quickly dressed, including his shirt this time, “I’ve come to favor blue-eyed, black haired Arellians.”
When he was finished, he straightened and looked at Califa, who was fastening the front of the flight suit. She had to tug at it to get it to close over her breasts. And now that he knew exactly how those soft, full curves felt in his hands, Dax felt his body tighten.
Damning the stubbornness of a body that couldn’t seem to get the message that it was nigh on to crippling itself in this vicious cycle of unrelieved desire, he yanked his gaze upward to her face.
She finished and met his eyes. He lifted a brow. She took a quick breath, and nodded. Dax walked to the door and opened it himself. Rina peered into the room anxiously.
“Did you think she would kill me?” Dax teased the girl as she came in and the door closed behind her; may Rina never know how close that is to the truth, Dax swore silently.
“It was on my list of possibilities,” Rina admitted, staring at him. “Right after you killing her.”
Dax grinned, and indicated Califa with a sweeping gesture. “As you can see, we’re both alive.”
At his grin, Rina’s eyes widened. Her gaze shifted from Califa to Dax, and back again. Califa kept her eyes lowered. After a moment Rina turned back to Dax.
“Are you . . . all right?”
There was a galaxy of concern in her young voice, and Dax felt the tug of guilt. It was past time to stop indulging himself in his own sorrows. “I’m fine, little one. I just had . . . some things to think about.”
She looked slightly placated, but no less curious. “What things? They must have been pretty awful, for you to go demented like that.”
Dax’s keen ears picked up Califa’s quick intake of breath, and senses that still seemed highly attuned to her registered her sudden tension.
“I’ll tell you, when I’ve worked them out,” he promised Rina. Then added, “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
Rina looked up at him. “I didn’t know what to do.”
The quiet helplessness in her voice ripped at Dax. He hadn’t heard her sound like that since he’d found her huddled in that cave. He hugged her suddenly, fiercely.
“You didn’t have to do anything, little one. It’s not your job to be my keeper.”
“Someone needs to be.” She returned his embrace with the strength that sometimes surprised him. Then she released him and stepped back to look at him. “But I didn’t do a very good job. Nor did Roxton. You wouldn’t speak to either of us.”
He hadn’t been capable of speaking, Dax thought. He’d been mired in a swamp of shock, pain, and guilt so deep he’d barely been aware of anything but his own misery. Nothing had had the power to get through to him. Except the woman whose words had cast him into the morass in the first place.
Without realizing it he had looked at Califa. Rina followed his gaze. Califa stood quietly, eyes still lowered. It reminded him of the submissive slave, and he wanted to shake her.
“I should have believed you,” Rina said to Califa, startling her into looking up to meet the girl’s eyes, “when you said you could make him angry.”
“I seem to have the knack,” she said, her voice low.
“For that as well as other things,” Dax growled. Then, when he saw the hint of pink rise in her cheeks, he asked softly, “Is that why you came here? To make me angry?”
She met his gaze then, levelly, with the steadiness he’d come to admire. This was the Califa who pulled at him, who could tighten his body with a look, who had made him risk the torment he knew was inevitable just for the pleasure of holding her naked against him.
“I came to make you talk,” she said. “Before the words choked you.”
He didn’t miss the implication that she had come to him for nothing more than that; but then he’d hardly thought she’d come with the idea of seducing him. Contrary to whatever the reputation the esteemed Major Claxton might have had, his snowfox knew herself now, and she would not give herself so freely.
Yet she had. To him. And despite the agony his perverse body put him through, she had given him a greater pleasure than he’d ever known. For a fleeting moment he wondered whether, if his body had chosen this time to cooperate, he would have survived it.
“I suppose I should thank you,” Rina said to Califa, not sounding as if she liked the idea.
“I would rather you didn’t,” Califa returned quietly, “if you don’t truly want to.”
Dax guessed the reason for the girl’s hesitation. When he spoke, it was to Rina, but his gaze never left Califa.
“I’ve never told you what to think, Rina. I won’t now. But I will tell you this. I believe Califa has come to hate the Coalition as we have. I cannot tell you to forgive her for what she was. Only you can decide that, and I’m not sure I can do that myself, yet.”
Califa winced at the brutal honesty, but she didn’t look away. She held his gaze evenly, her shoulders squared with the courage that called to something deep inside him.
“But neither will I subject her to danger because of it. The fact that she was a Coalition officer will remain between us, Roxton, and Nelcar, those who already know it.”
Califa closed her eyes as she drew in a deep, relieved breath. When she opened them again, she gave him a look that made him want to send Rina away and climb right back in that bunk with her, never mind the frustration.
Abruptly, Dax shifted his gaze to Rina.
“Understand, little one?”
The girl nodded. Then, in an unconscious mimicking of Califa’s own steady, square-shouldered nerve, she lifted her head and met Califa’s eyes.
“I do truly want to thank you. For bringing him back. I was afraid for him.”
“I know,” Califa said softly. “So was I.”
Something flashed between the two females, a softening in Rina, a quiet understanding in Califa. Dax shifted his feet, uncomfortable with being the subject of conversation. And with being referred to as if he wasn’t even here. Something slaves were used to, he supposed; he didn’t much care for it. And this was but a tiny taste of that life. His admiration for Califa’s determination in surviving it grew another notch, along with the warm feeling that had begun to expand in him when she’d admitted she was worried about him.
“Rina! What in Hades is going on?”
Dax sighed as Roxton’s bellow nearly rattled the door. Then he realized he should be grateful Rina had come first; Roxton no doubt would have burst right in with no warning. He called to the first mate to come in, suppressing a wry smile as the door slid open to reveal Roxton still looking startled that he had answered.
“Well,” the man said as he came in, tugging at his beard, “it’s about time. Back with us, now, are you?”
He nodded. Then, contritely, responding to the relief on the older man’s face, he added, “Sorry, Rox.”
“Hmmph.” The crusty first mate waved off the apology. “Man needs to think, sometimes.” Then he glanced at Califa and grinned. “But if I’d known she’d shake you out of it so fast, I’d have sent her myself.”
Dax scowled at Roxton, but it was mainly to conceal the surge of new warmth that filled him at this further proof that Califa had come to him on her own.
“Welcome back, son,” Roxton said with a laugh.
“To where?” Dax realized he had no idea where they were. They hadn’t really had a plan for after the raid on Boreas.
“We’re in Sector Gamma Twelve at the moment,” Roxton told him. “It seemed like a good place to wait.”
For me to come out of my c
loud, Dax thought, although his old friend didn’t say it. But it was a good place, isolated, off both the shipping lanes and the usual path for Coalition patrols.
“What’s next?” Rina asked eagerly, forgetting the anxiety and distress of the past days with the resilience of the very young.
Dax shrugged. He looked at Roxton. “What do you think?”
“We could lie low, for a while, if you want. We’ve enough supplies to last a good long time. The crew wouldn’t mind a bit of rest and reveling.”
“Alpha Two it is, then.”
Roxton nodded. Rina groaned. “I suppose this means I get to hide out while everyone else is having fun at the colony.”
Roxton reached out and tousled the girl’s golden hair. “Sorry, little one. The crew can blend in with the rowdies on Alpha Two, but you stand out like a perla among snailstones.”
“Besides,” Dax put in, “nothing’s there but taprooms and Coalition crews on leave. Nothing for you except maybe a game of chaser, and I think you’ve had enough of that for now.”
Rina flushed. “One little mistake,” she muttered.
“Let me get this straight.” They looked at Califa, who was staring at them in disbelief. “You’re the most wanted skypirates in the system. They send warships after you. And you plan on parading under a squadron of Coalition noses?”
Dax grinned. “Why not? We always have.”
Her eyes widened even further, and she let out a short, incredulous breath.
“It’s safe enough,” Roxton explained. “We go into the colony in shifts, just three or four at a time. Never the same groups, and always in different guises. No one notices, not among the din and confusion of that place.”
“I know it’s the rowdiest of Coalition outposts,” Califa said, “but still—”
“In their arrogance,” Dax said smoothly, “the Coalition never thinks to look, as you said, beneath their noses. Especially in a place where the main concern of most visitors is drinking and”—he glanced at Rina—“other things.”
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