by Layla Nash
She gave up. She hadn’t felt like that in…years. Maybe a decade or more. Her head tilted back and she clung to his shoulders, giving Faros access to her throat and the soft skin where her shirt gapped and revealed her shoulder. Violet sighed and closed her eyes. He wanted her. He really wanted her, based on what she felt when Faros hiked her up and pressed her against the wall so their hips met. If there hadn’t been clothing between them…
Violet groaned and worked her fingers into his hair. She could almost forget that he was a pirate and an alien. She hadn’t dared any dalliances with male crewmembers in the Fleet, since it was difficult enough to maintain respect as a lawyer as it was. Being known as someone with any sort of baser urges just meant becoming the punchline of every lawyer joke the crew knew. And she hadn’t been tempted by any of the Galaxos Xaravians, for whatever reason. A surge of pure need raced through her and tore away what little self-control she had left.
She kissed him back. She kissed him. Her arm went around his neck to keep his mouth close, needing the connection to his body. The pirate growled and ground his hips against her, nipping at the skin of her neck when he finally tore his mouth from hers. Violet yanked on his hair, not ready to be done with the wet heat of his mouth, and scowled at him in pure fury.
His eyes flashed silver. Faros gripped her hips until her back arched and she wanted to scratch his eyes out if he didn’t do something. His scales shaded a kaleidoscope of blue and green and purple, some variation of lust and irritation. Some sense started to work its way through the haze of desire, and Violet tried to unwrap her legs from where they’d wound around his waist.
Faros grabbed her thigh to keep her leg against him. “No you don’t, girl. Stay right here, right where you belong.”
Girl. Violet used her grip on his hair to haul his head back, and managed to pull free of his grip. She ignored the smirk when her legs wobbled. “Don’t be so…crude.”
“Crude? I’m crude?” Faros snorted and ran his hands through his hair, setting himself to rights, although his uniform did not hide the degree of his arousal. Violet’s cheeks heated as she kept her attention very carefully on his face. “Admit you want me, Earther, and this little trip will be a great deal more enjoyable for both of us.”
“Momentary insanity,” she said dismissively. At least her voice remained steady.
“That’s twice now you’ve been unable to resist me,” he said, and eased a step closer. He caught her wrist in his massive hand, drawing her hand up so he could kiss the tips of her fingers. The silver shine of his eyes mesmerized her, distracted her from his slow approach and the warm friction of his other palm against her side—sliding inside her uniform, searching for the smooth bare skin underneath…
Violet sucked in a breath and smacked him as hard as she could, scrambling to get away from his hands. It must have been some sort of trick, some predatory hypnosis of the Xaravians, that he could distract her with his touch alone. “Do not touch me again.”
Faros held his hands up, teeth flashing white and pointy as he grinned. “Not until you ask me, Earther. Now, I’ve got business to attend to, so unless you’re going to show me what you’ve got under that uniform…” He waggled his eyebrows and Violet’s whole body flushed with humiliation and rage. When she fumed and didn’t dignify his implication with a response, Faros laughed and went on. “We go to the bridge.”
“We?” Violet set her heels as Faros caught her elbow and started to drag her down the corridor. “I’m not going to—”
“Either you’re by my side at all times, or you’re in the brig with three guards at all times. And since I can’t spare the men and I don’t trust you to stay where I put you, you’re going to be my sidekick.” Faros sounded remarkably cheerful at the prospect.
Violet’s stomach sank. Spending so much time around him was just asking for trouble. She pulled free of his grip and strode along at his side, unwilling to let him manhandle her for fear he’d use that hypnosis on her again. It was the only explanation for how he affected her so quickly and easily.
She tried to distract herself from his easy confidence by thinking of the contracts he wanted her to review. Maybe he’d let her go sooner if she solved the issue with the loan and the contract the Tyboli issued. Violet took a deep, steadying breath. He was no worse than some of the captains in the Fleet, taking liberties and thinking she wouldn’t stand up for herself. And maybe—maybe Faros wasn’t as bad as she’d feared.
She must have lost her mind. Violet gritted her teeth. He was as bad as she thought. Worse, probably. A pirate, a brigand, a criminal, a would-be murderer. And they’d taken over an innocent civilian ship for some reason, though she hadn’t seen any booty moved to the Sraibur. There was no telling what they’d done on the transporter.
She exhaled. It was better if she didn’t know what happened on the other ship. For legal purposes, it was definitely better that she didn’t know. But Violet took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine. The bridge.”
“Wonderful.” The pirate rolled his eyes and headed down the corridor, expecting her to follow, and Violet straightened her shoulders before she did.
Things could always get worse, she knew that well enough. Cooperating with pirates didn’t make her a pirate. She just had to remember that. It wasn’t a great legal defense, claiming she hadn’t had a choice or was following orders, but it would at least get her through the days before she managed to get free. She could sort all of it out later when she had time to think and prepare her own defense. Violet kept her chin high. She was her mother’s daughter and had survived far worse than a couple of barbarian pirates.
Chapter 14
Faros
Faros didn’t know what he expected the lawyer to do when they reached the bridge, but sitting quietly and daydreaming was not on the list of most likely activities. It made him slightly wary to see her sort of behaving herself. He expected more tricks or at least yelling, maybe a temper tantrum. Something.
Instead, she took a seat near the navigator’s console and folded her hands in her lap, the very picture of patience and composure.
He didn’t like it one bit.
Wyzak didn’t either. The second-in-command frowned at the Earther before turning his attention to Faros. “You sure you want to do this in front of non-crew?”
Faros shrugged, leaning back in his captain’s chair. “It’s either do it with her here or let her run about damaging the ship. Let’s deal with this first. I’d rather not have to repair more of the ship.”
Violet snorted and made a “puh-huh” sound, but when Faros looked over at her, she studied the ceiling as if neither he nor the rest of the crew even existed.
Wyzak’s eyes narrowed, then he made his own disgruntled noise before flipping the massive viewing screen to a blueprint of the transporter. The view rotated as the second-in-command started to recap how the crew took over the ship, the timelines, and where they’d made mistakes. It was their first seizure and boarding in months, and Faros hadn’t been entirely pleased with the results.
It wasn’t just about the cargo they hadn’t taken, but about the way his men moved and communicated. If they’d faced a more seasoned crew on the transporter, the Sraibur would have taken casualties, maybe lost someone. It was unacceptable.
“We headed to the bridge first,” Wyzak said. “Assuming the security office was there, however with this old of a ship, we misjudged. The security office was here, along with the armory.”
Faros frowned and sat forward in his chair, peering at the rotating projection of the transporter. “Then how did their security not get to the armory in time? They must have had warning of our approach and breaching the landing bay.”
“They did,” Wyzak said slowly. “Someone activated alarms and an emergency beacon within moments of the Sraibur’s hailing call.”
“And they didn’t fight.” Faros scratched his jaw, swiveling his chair to face Wyzak. “No one resisted. What species were they? Are they nonviolent by nature?
” He didn’t like mysteries, and a ship that just rolled over and let itself be boarded by pirates was a mystery. Even if it didn’t have anything worth stealing on it.
“It was probably in the contract,” Violet said with a sigh.
Wyzak’s frown deepened. “What?”
“The security contract for the transporter,” she said. The lawyer sat up and fixed Faros and Wyzak with a bored, professorial look. “They come in tiers. It’s more expensive to have a contract with one of the private security companies that requires their personnel to risk their lives by actively resisting threats. Clearly these settlers did not have enough money to pay for anything but the budget contract, or the owner of the transport ship has a standing general security agreement with the security company.”
Then she went back to her study of the ceiling.
Faros laced his hands behind his head, studying her. Interesting. “Is there a way to tell what sort of contract the passengers have?”
“Seeing whether they shoot at you when you illegally board their ship?”
Wyzak snorted. He adjusted the floating diagram of the transporter and tried to get back to the after-action review of the boarding. “Regardless of what contract the settlers might have or not have, we secured the armory within ten standard minutes of boarding. A team was on the bridge in seven standard minutes, and a third team was in the engineering room in twelve.”
Faros nodded, tracing the route he’d taken to the bridge to demand the captain’s surrender. “The armory team.”
The second-in-command went through the actions of the team that took the armory, including how they secured the arms and transitioned to searching for the cargo hold and possible cargo to loot. Wyzak went through an excruciating amount of detail for each team, until Faros fully understood how the crew behaved and what they’d missed.
Faros grunted, finally satisfied, and turned his attention back to what the lawyer said. He glanced at her. “How are those security contracts phrased? How many tiers? How can I tell what kind of contract a ship has?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Surely you’re not asking me to help you target defenseless ships?”
“No, you’re helping me avoid the ones where people are likely to get hurt. If there are ships that will give up without a fight, then those are the ones where no one fights and nothing is damaged. Wouldn’t it be better not to engage in any fighting?” And he fixed her with a challenging look.
Violet’s head tilted as she considered it. Faros could practically see the wheels turning in her mind, weighing the pros and cons. Finally, she took a deep breath. “The foundation of that argument is that you’re going to commit a crime either way. It’s just a matter of degrees of criminality—whether you’re going to undertake armed piracy in the first degree or piracy with implied threat of violence. It doesn’t matter whether the crew resists or not. You’re still criminals.”
And she exhaled, like the weight of the argument had been weighing her down.
“But for my own moral well-being,” he said, trying not to grin at the opportunity to goad her a bit. “Is it better, from a defense standpoint, to approach ships where I know no one will get hurt, or to attempt to take a ship with armed defenders who could get hurt?”
“I’m not a philosopher,” she said. “I’m concerned with the law. And both actions are illegal.”
“Yes, but is one more illegal than the other?”
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “Illegal is illegal. There are not degrees of illegality.”
“Didn’t you just say that there’s first degree piracy and some other forms of piracy?” Faros pressed his fingers together under his chin.
A frown stacked wrinkles across her forehead as she studied him. Some suspicion of a greater plot crossed her expression, as if he were trying to trick her into absolving him of previous crimes, but Faros had nothing in mind except to keep her talking. He liked the sound of her voice, even when she was being a smartass or caustically telling him something she considered obvious.
He held his hands up as if to defend himself. “For my own edification, of course. I’ve been told that Fleet lawyers are the greatest minds the Alliance has, capable of arguing any position in order to win their case. Since we’ve nothing to do but sleep or watch the stars, I thought perhaps you’d like to challenge that wonderful mind of yours.”
Violet’s beautiful dark eyes narrowed and it looked like she gnawed on the inside of her cheek. Debating, no doubt, whether to participate in whatever foolishness he was up to. Finally, she folded her arms over her chest. “Fine. Ignoring the premeditated nature of both crimes…” And she shot him a dark look that nearly stopped his hearts in his chest. Faros swallowed a grin and braced himself for all kinds of trouble.
She went on, slowly swiveling her chair from side to side as she thought. “If I were to defend you, then of course I would take into account that you chose a target that was less likely to result in anyone getting hurt. You sought to minimize potential damage to your crew as well as the other ship.”
A slight gleam entered her eyes as she warmed to the topic and sat up, still swiveling. Faros could have watched her for hours. Even Wyzak watched her, though the second-in-command remained wary.
Violet tapped her nails against her teeth, deep in thought. “It would depend on why you chose piracy over more legitimate means of getting money, or why you targeted that particular ship.”
She went on, talking more to herself than to them, and Faros sat back to enjoy. He tried not to laugh as the lawyer tilted her head and eyed him. “And, of course, if you had two targets and deliberately selected the one that meant a lower probability that someone would get hurt…”
Faros shrugged, needling her. “If there were a way to tell which one had a lower probability, I certainly would take that into consideration.”
“There’s always a way to tell,” she said under her breath, then went back to arguing with herself.
But Faros heard what he wanted to hear—that she knew how to differentiate between ships that had good security and those that would roll over the moment a pirate hailed them. He shared a look with Wyzak, who’d heard the same, and starting making up a mental list of questions to get at that contract knowledge. Surely the Fleet needed to know which commercial ships they could rely on for augmentation in the event of a battle. It made perfect sense.
He kept the game going, giving her more and more preposterous scenarios, and she even loosened up enough to laugh at him a time or two. Wyzak grudgingly participated, though Faros saw a gleam in the second-in-command’s eyes as well as he dreamed up impossible situations and expected the lawyer to come up with a defense or the easiest way to prosecute. When he got up to retreat for a meal break, the Earther even looked a little disappointed. Faros didn’t want to lose the progress he’d made and instead gestured for her to get up and walk with him. It was just the slightest bit gratifying when Violet bounced to her feet and kept arguing with him all the way to the mess.
Chapter 15
Violet
Violet didn’t even mind that the Xaravians ordered their smelly, spicy food or that the peppery burn of the paste made her eyes water from a distance. She hadn’t had so much fun arguing ridiculous defenses and legal precedent since the first year of law school, before she learned how awful criminals were and how little she wanted anything to do with criminal defense. But the challenge in Faros’s eyes as he proposed scenario after scenario wouldn’t let her back down, and hanging around him without being engaged was too boring to consider.
Wyzak weighed in with his slow, drawled opinion, a nice counterpoint to the wild and unpredictable Faros, and sometimes proved to be an ally when Violet had to shred apart the captain’s argument for why he was totally innocent in all things. Trying to prove he was innocent was almost as difficult as trying to convince the pirate he was actually guilty.
Faros just grinned and lifted his hands, the very picture of innocence, and denied everything. H
e blamed everyone else in the universe for the things he’d done, but his little boy defense and insistence on his own innocence was somehow charming instead of maddening. It was all part of a game and he knew he was being ridiculous, at least as far as Violet could tell. She didn’t know why he suddenly felt like being playful, although perhaps it had something to do with her little incident of running away and hiding in a wall.
She’d wanted to just die when he tracked her down so easily. The worst part was knowing she’d done something so boneheaded. Of course she should have run into the arm that connected the Sraibur to the civilian ship. But Faros’s proximity and anger had totally thrown her off her game, and she wasn’t the best at thinking on her feet when confronted with physical violence. Which was why she was a lawyer! She’d never wanted to be a security officer or diplomat like the others. She wanted to stay in a law library back on Earth or some other Allied planet and prosecuting the worst offenders in the universe, not traipsing around ungoverned space where pirates threatened people with rifles.
Violet rolled her eyes as Faros tried to justify an earlier effort to take over another rebel ship in order to seize the captain, who Faros allegedly suspected of working for the Alliance. “But what evidence did you have? Just because you didn’t like him—and he apparently slept with your girlfriend—doesn’t mean that—”
“She was the traitor’s girlfriend first,” Wyzak said, smirking as he studied his plate instead of his captain.
Violet slapped her hands on the table. “Are you kidding? Seriously? And you kicked the man while he was down, after stealing his girlfriend, by accusing him of treason? Seizing his ship and selling it to other pirates?”