Sureblood

  “You miss your boy,” Dake guessed, gentler. “If you need to go be with him, I understand.”

  She bent down to caress his cheek with a tender, appreciative hand. “I’ll see him at first light. If he doesn’t invade here first. He listens, but not always.”

  He pulled her onto his lap. “I noticed him right from the beginning. As soon as they shoved me into the gauntlet.”

  “What? He was there? I told him not to go. He disobeyed me.”

  “A boy with spirit, he is. A mind of his own. Just like his mother.” He laughed. “Nothing less than you deserve, Blue girl. If it helps his case any, he stayed undercover and out of sight of the raiders.”

  “He saw you beaten.” She touched his swollen cheek. It had been cleaned, but it might scar, joining all his others.

  “Aw, they weren’t too hard on me. He followed me the entire way, he and his pup, on an adventure, just the way I once was with my dogs. My favorite was Merkury. Ah, ol’ Merk. I rescued him from a scientific breeding facility doing intelligence augmentation experiments.”

  Her brows lifted in surprise. “I knew he was smart, but not how smart.”

  “I don’t now how advanced he was, really. I simply allowed him to be a dog. A real canine raider, he was. Brave, loyal and all heart.” His mouth contracted with sadness he managed to fight off. “What did Jaym name the pup?”

  “He hasn’t yet. He says he’s still thinking. That’s the part he gets from me. The rest, well, he’s his father through and through.”

  His mouth turned down at that. “How old is the boy? He must be five years old.”

  “Almost.”

  “I’ve got no right to complain, but, Val, you didn’t wait very long taking up with someone else after me. Aye, I know the reason—me disappearing and all—but it seems awfully quick.”

  She propped her hands on her hips and grinned at him. “You’re jealous.”

  “Of course, I am!” Dake appeared more genuinely hurt than angry at the thought of her seeking solace from another man, even under the circumstances.

  “His father’s an incredible man,” she said quieter. “As a raider, there are none braver. As a lover, he’s got no equal.”

  Dake spilled her onto her feet and lunged up from the chair. “Why didn’t you marry him if he’s so great?” He reached for his glass of wine and downed it. “Well, why didn’t you?”

  “He wasn’t available for marrying.” Her voice thickened with emotion. “Neither was I. I never admitted it, and even denied it, but I was always waiting for him to come back to me.”

  Dake focused on her with Jaym’s same probing, perceptive gaze. They even shared the same furrow of concentration between their brows.

  “And you did come back.” She whispered, “That man was you.”

  He froze, searching her face. “Jaym. He’s mine…”

  Eyes brimming, she nodded. “Aye, Dake. Your son.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I HAVE A SON.

  A son! He’d never envisioned this. Dake’s heart slammed hard as he stared back at the mother of his child. His hand shook as he drove it through his too-short hair. “I have a son,” he whispered. His voice was as raw as his shock. “We have a son.” He blinked, trying to take it all in. Then he laughed out loud.

  They drank wine as Val told him the story of the weeks and months after his capture. Everything she could recall, right up through the birth.

  Listening, hatred gripped him again. Nezerihm took that experience from him. Stole that moment of joy forever. It was incomprehensible the true measure of his evil.

  “By blood, Jaym’s next in line for succession to be clan leader,” Val said as the conversation turned more serious. At the table, by candlelight, the sounds of a party raging outside, they weighed the risks of their son’s mixed heritage. “It was expected that whatever man I married would claim Jaym as his, too. He’d have the future clan leader, under his influence. To someone like Ayl that power is irresistible.”

  “You were going to marry him.”

  “For Jaym, I would have, aye. Better to be held in the enemy’s embrace than be his target, I thought. When I agreed to hold the trial, it wasn’t so much to determine your innocence or guilt but to assure my child’s future.”

  Suddenly everything Dake had dreamed of took on more meaning. He could see why his father had been so willing to risk his life and reputation meeting with a rival captain in a bid for unity. He did it for Dake, just as Dake would do the same for Jaym. “I want him to grow up free, Val, knowing both of us and in a life he can be proud of. Jaym will be the symbol of unity between our clans, the future leader of both the Surebloods and the Blues.”

  “Careful,” she warned. “You’re why I kept his paternity secret all these years. Ayl and the others already suspect I had feelings for you. Now I’ve gone and declared you innocent. By morning they’ll know I’ve taken you into my bed. It raises the stakes. If it looks like surrender to any of the dissenters, I’m done. I’ll lose my leadership position, my place in the clan and maybe even risk losing Jaym, if the clan decides to keep him and raise him as one of their own instead of exiling him with me.”

  “Never,” Dake growled. “They’ll have to take both of us out.”

  Outside the window, a pair of drunk raiders passed by and vanished in the twilight. A giggling girl ran hand in hand with her beau toward the square where the party was still going on. A popping noise erupted, sounding like gunfire, and sparks lit up the sky.

  Val walked to the window and closed the curtains. Jaym was safe with Sashya, she told herself, tucked into bed by now, fast asleep and dreaming of fishing and battles. And Ayl? Was he drunk on moonshine and hunkered down with his posse, plotting? Questioning her decision, Jaym’s paternity and cooking up a way to remove Dake from her life?

  She heard Dake’s chair scrape backward. His big hands landed on her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze as he kissed her neck.

  She leaned back into his warm body. “It won’t be easy being with me, Dake. I’m leader of my clan, not some timid girl content to stay by the hearth fires. I’m never going to be that kind of girl, the kind you’re supposed to marry.”

  “You’re exactly the girl I want to marry.” He turned her, lifting her hands and setting them atop his broad shoulders. “Brave, beautiful, smarter than me. Makes me so crazy I want to howl at the moons. Makes me want to go out and slay all the evil in the galaxy just to keep her safe.” His voice deepened with feeling. “Makes me want to be with you day…and night. Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”

  He took her chin between callused fingers. The look of tenderness and determination in his handsome face as he searched hers turned her to mush. “I promise you’ll like it,” he crooned in his rumbling voice.

  And she did.

  “BRING ME A GIRL,” Nezerihm said. “I don’t care which one.”

  An aide bowed deeply and scurried off to do his bidding. Nezerihm didn’t really care which whore they chose. He’d been so overwrought since learning Dake Sureblood was alive that he needed some adrenaline to break the mood. The last girl he’d entertained was recovering in the company hospital. Her own fault. She shouldn’t have jumped from the balcony. He was only having a little fun, and the game wouldn’t have hurt much. She was better than most, so very frightened. He’d loved it. But the residual benefit wore off quickly. He needed another fix.

  The door to his bedroom chimed. That was fast. Rubbing his hands in anticipation, his robe swirling around his bare, muscular legs, he strode inside from the balcony. “Enter, please.”

  “For you, my lord.” Another aide hesitantly offered his ringing PCD on a platter and stepped backward. Nezerihm enjoyed the fear in the aide’s eyes. He must ask for this one to serve him again. Few showed sufficient respect these days. Not so in his father’s day when a Nezerihm was a true lord among men. He vowed to return to that. He was working on it.

  Until that bastard Dake Sureblood came back from the
dead.

  “Who wants to speak to me?” he snapped.

  “My lord, it’s your contact on Artoom.”

  His brow lifted in pleasant surprise. Ayl of the Blues. Nezerihm couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. The second-rate pirate actually believed he was going to be rewarded for his service. Had Nezerihm ever rewarded the boy? Not once that he could recall…unless one counted the praise he heaped upon him. Ayl thrived on it. Praise was easy, and it came cheap. As did men like Ayl. No harm in letting him continue to believe he’d be leader of the clan because before that ever happened the Blues would be gone. It just proved how brainless and gullible the entire race of them were. They’d be better off in zoos.

  Which was, he thought, exactly what the Triad intended to do with them. Relocation. Nezerihm could hardly wait.

  “Val Blue better not be up to more of her land-raiding antics,” he muttered and hooked the PCD over his ear. “Greetings.”

  “I thought he was dead,” Ayl blurted out, sounding distressed. “You said he wouldn’t give us any more trouble.”

  Dake Sureblood. Nezerihm’s stomach fluttered. He knew it without another word being said. The man escaped Triad custody and ran straight to Val Blue, drawn inexorably to the wench like a stray dog to a bitch in heat. He should have guessed it, knowing those Surebloods. Animals. “He escaped. He was in Triad custody.”

  “Well, he’s not now. He showed up today in a Triad shuttle.”

  A fugitive with stolen property. Nezerihm’s first instinct was to tell the Unity where they could retrieve both. Then he realized the benefits of keeping this secret between he and Ayl. They could accomplish a little vigilante justice that way.

  “We put him on trial. I thought we’d convict him. All charges were dropped.”

  “Dropped!”

  The aide flinched at his yell, treating Nezerihm to a lovely jolt of pleasure. He eyed the man with sudden interest. Aides were as dispensable as whores.

  “Aye. He’s got all of them under his spell. Val and the rest of the sympathizers are convinced you’re the guilty one. She’s with him now. She’s going to marry him instead of me.”

  Nezerihm could visualize Ayl’s lower jaw jutting out. “You have every reason to be upset. She’s sharing his bunk instead of yours.”

  “It’s not right.”

  “No, it isn’t. She’s with him when it’s you who’s the clan’s top raider.”

  “Maybe not top, but close. They don’t see it that way. Not even my father does. They’re blind to everything but the Sureblood’s charm and his speeches chock-full of nonsense.”

  “That’s why you have to act—because they can’t. He’s a dangerous fugitive, the most wanted man in the Borderlands. We’ll return him to the Triad, and be rewarded beyond our dreams. Lauded as heroes, Ayl. Everything you want will finally be yours, including your sweetheart Val. Every last upholder of law and order in this galaxy wants that man put away for good. Every decent person, Ayl. You must deliver Dake Sureblood to me. Alive.”

  “I have a better idea. You know Val Blue’s boy? Well, it wasn’t until I saw them side to side that I realized he looks mightily like his father. Aye, he’s Dake Sureblood’s get.”

  A Sureblood-Blue heir. Speechless, Nezerihm peered out the windows open to his vast lands. The lights of his refineries twinkled like stars. More lights glowed in the sky crowded with ships coming and going, loaded with ore. He’d been so worried about losing it all. Now suddenly his destiny was lit up like a glorious sunrise when all had been looking so dim. He’d take control of the boy and in doing so neutralize his greatest threat.

  It was all so perfect.

  “I want that boy, Ayl. Bring him to me—and let no one know.”

  The weakling pirate started to protest, sputtering.

  “Not to harm him, but to find another loving family to raise him. A family…far away. Then after you get rid of Dake Sureblood, Val will have nothing but you. No disgusting half-Sureblood bastards running underfoot.”

  “True,” he mumbled. Paused. “You promise you won’t hurt the boy?”

  “Of course not.” Nezerihm imagined the boy looking up at him with abject terror. Emotion overcame him and he let it be heard. “Fate has given you a singular opportunity to save us all. I’m depending on you, Ayl Blue.”

  With that he ended the call, exhaled and motioned to the quaking aide. “Come with me outside. It’s a lovely night to take in some fresh air.” He tossed the PCD aside and threw open the doors to the terrace.

  “Y-yes, my lord.” Swallowing audibly, the aide followed.

  JUST BEFORE DAWN BROKE, Val rolled over in bed to watch Dake sleep. She didn’t envy his being able to rest, but reveled in his obvious contentment. She traced the line of his mouth, so much like Jaym’s, and felt a swelling of deep attachment for the man she’d never known before. What would Jaym be like when he grew up? Brave like this raider? As patient and caring and steadfast, too? With the power to charm a woman right off her feet, like Dake did with her?

  With a start, she realized Dake’s eyes were open, crinkled with laughter as he studied her. “That’s cheating,” she complained. “You didn’t tell me you were watching.”

  “Neither did you.” He drew his arms over his head and stretched, a bit stiffly as he groaned, playing like he had aches and pains. “You’ve ridden me hard, girl. No mercy.”

  “Nothing a nice long, hot bath couldn’t remedy.” She winked at him, and he laughed. “I missed that laugh,” she said.

  “I missed laughing.”

  It made her sick what had happened to him. What Nezerihm had caused. She pushed upright and swept her hair over one shoulder. Outside it was already first light. She squinted in the direction of Hervor’s house.

  “As soon as he wakes we’ll see him, Val. In the meantime…” He grabbed her and pulled her down to the bed and into his arms. Then paused, seeing her exhaustion. “Didn’t you sleep well?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t, most nights. An hour or two here and there, sometimes more.”

  “Since when? Since I left?”

  “Aye,” she whispered. “A long time. I’ve tried drinking myself unconscious, even nearly got myself addicted to squatter’s for a time. The meds I get from the doc leave me too groggy, so I take them only when I absolutely have to. Most of the remedies blunt my edge.”

  “So does fatigue, Val.” He rolled her onto her back and gazed down at her. “It’s your worry for Jaym that’s keeping you up nights now. You’re not struggling with your own fear, but your fear for him.”

  “Aye,” she whispered. He bore his scars on his skin; she revealed hers through her bouts of insomnia.

  “You don’t have to carry that fear alone anymore, I swear it, Blue girl. It’s going to take guts to get through all this, which I know you’ve got. And it’s going to take trust—in me. You’re not alone anymore. You got me. I won’t leave this time.” He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed. “Am I clear enough? I won’t ever leave.”

  “You’ll want to go to Parramanta. To see your clan.”

  “We’ll go together. Grizz can take care of things here. Jaym will come with us, and meet the rest of his family.”

  Real excitement sparked inside her. Then the front door slammed and a little boy’s indignant voice cried out. “Mama!”

  Val jammed her feet under the sheets and yanked them up to her neck. “Cover up,” she ordered Dake, pulling the quilt up his legs.

  Incensed footsteps marched down the hall. “Mama, are you here? Grandmama said you were.”

  “Aye, in bed, Jaym,” Val called.

  “She said you were busy and not to come, but I just had to.” The bedroom door was flung open with a bang and Jaym swaggered into the bedroom with so much more presence than his tiny size would explain. Chest heaving, still in his pajamas, a stick “dozer” in his little hand, he looked from Val to Dake, his mouth opening in a circle of surprise. “Hoy!” he cried. “The Sureblood!” His delighted face swung
to Val. “Are you friends now?”

  Val laughed. “Aye. We are.” She beckoned to him and he crawled up into bed and lay down on top of the quilt, looking as if he intended to snooze away the last hour before dawn between their sheet-swathed bodies.

  She turned to Dake, whose expression of joy intensified her feelings for him and almost made her weep. “Do you want to break the news, or should I?” she whispered.

  Dake gestured to them both, indicating that they’d share that duty. “But not yet.” For all his insistence that there wasn’t ever enough time, he seemed content to spend a little of it lost in the innocence of watching his boy drift off to sleep.

  THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED were the happiest of Val’s life, marked by revelations, purpose and action: her love for Dake blossoming, their living as a family with Jaym and Sashya and planning for the clan’s future. Jaym shadowed his “Papa” every waking moment. When he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open at the end of each long day, he’d fall asleep in Dake’s lap at the meeting table where the senior members of the clan plotted and argued deep into the night, as he made good on his pledge to heal broken treaties and old wounds.

  Then they took the campaign off-world. One by one the Calders, Feckwiths, Lightlees and Freebirds threw their support to Dake. And when at last he returned to his beloved Parramanta for a reunion with his family and clan, a sight both wondrous and wrenching to witness, the Surebloods sealed the final breach between the clans. For the first time in a generation the pirate clans were one people. And for the first time ever they’d agreed to official talks with outsiders.

  On the Unity.

  The Marauder sat outfitted and ready to depart in the morning for a historic trip to the Unity at Captain Johnson’s request. Val made one last circuit of her ship, checking and rechecking the hull, thrusters and cannons, as if they hadn’t already tweaked the craft to top form. As always, they’d taken every precaution to evade Nezerihm’s detection that they knew how. Grizz would stay behind and keep alert for any trouble.