by Bex McLynn
“Treating me like a damn thane, Maude. Don’t you worry about me.” Then his voice turned from chiding to gentle, but it rumbled her chest nonetheless, worsening her pining for him. “How you are feeling? How’s your baby?”
Oh, her heart. He’d asked after the baby.
She didn’t trust herself to speak. Unshed tears stung her eyes as she stalled on the damn unfairness of it all. She wanted him here. She wanted him with her.
She cleared her throat, but her voice came out rough. “She’s fine. I think… I think I felt her move.”
Therion’s mouth fell open as his brow shot up. “No shit. Really?”
She laughed. God bless him, Therion gaped like a frog, probably knowing his reaction would pull that response from her. He saved her from tears by making her chuckle. She loved him.
Oh. She really did love him.
“Really,” she said, hoping he heard what she’d realized. Hoping he could glean the love from her gaze.
He must have caught something because he jerked. His mouth snapped shut as he gave her a questioning look. Was he asking if she was certain or doubting what he perceived?
She softened her gaze more and conveyed her conviction through her solemn tone. “Really.”
Therion’s brow wrinkled as he flicked his eyes away from her. When he returned his gaze to her, she reared back in confusion. He looked too jovial. Too delighted. He wore his fool’s mask.
Her heart squeezed in alarm. Something was wrong.
“Listen, Maude,” he said, his mouth pulled in a tight smile. “The reason I—”
Prykimis interjected with a pinged that rang throughout the cabin.
Therion huffed, dipping his chin as his smile turned genuinely bemused. “Now, Kimis?”
The spirenought pinged again.
“Seph needs to sleep.” Maude shushed her as she glanced back at the hatch to the private berth.
Prykimis pinged again in a softer tone.
“All right, Kimis!” Therion chuckled softly. “All right! If I do this, you’ll let Seph sleep, aye? Ease up on the guns, aye?”
Maude gasped. “No, Therion.”
Prykimis’s guns were all that kept the TerTac cruiser at Sacana Turris. The thane, with a darkly resigned tone, had admitted that his influence alone wasn’t enough to detain the cruiser. Maude suspected that he tried everything because he wanted to alleviate Seph’s exhaustion. However, if Prykimis eased up and the thane on his own couldn’t detain the cruiser, then they could lose Therion.
“Maude,” Therion chided her.
“I mean, not ‘no.’” How could she lobby for a solution that kept running Seph ragged? “But there has to be—”
Prykimis cut her off with another ping.
“Aye, not to worry, Maude.” Therion unnerved her with another false smile. “Kimis and I will work it out. Right after, aye?”
Before Maude could protest, he started to sing. His voice, as beautiful as the first time she heard it, carried through the comms. He sang the song that he always hummed, and the lyrical Bulanii words captivated her.
As his last note echoed in the cabin, Maude came to her senses. Shook herself free of the trance that had her staring at Therion like a lovesick idiot.
Lovesick? Oh, she most definitely was, and she wouldn’t hide her admiration.
“Therion, that was—”
He ducked his head, peeking up at her with a sheepish smile. “Actually, it’s kind of fitting, me being a ne’er-do-well and all.”
The foreboding dread had returned. “What?”
His smile fell away. “I’m breaking my clutch oath, Maude. You can do better than a fucking drifter like me.”
His words stunned her. Surely, he wasn’t breaking up with her?
“Maude.” His voice had gone flat. “You can do far better.”
Better?
“No!” She shot back in a panic. “I can’t do better. You’re the best, Therion.”
“Maude.” He drew her name out as if it settled the issue.
Like hell it did.
“Therion.” She searched his face for answers. “What’s going on?”
She wasn’t smart, but she wasn’t an idiot either. She and Seph had talked through dozens of hypothetical scenarios. In all of them, Therion being in her clutch was an advantage. Based on the Teras’s own laws, it gave Therion a layer of protection and Maude a means of access. All they had to do was leverage those two things. Dissolving her clutch with Therion was not part of the plan.
He ran his eyes over her. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
The comm went dark. He’d cut the connection.
“Therion?” she called in disbelief. “Therion!” She gazed overhead. “Kimis, can you establish the connection again?”
The hatch leading to the Athel Hall swung open, startling her. The thane stepped through, his eyes scanning the room and landing on the closed hatch into the private berth, then settled on her. He filled the entire hatchway, a solid presence that radiated authority and competence.
If anyone could fix this mess, the thane could.
“Thane,” Maude said, her voice beseeching and small.
“Lady Maude.”
He gave her that unreadable stare, but she pushed aside the useless urge to try to placate him. “He broke up with me.”
The thane’s chin dipped. “Broke up?”
He repeated the words, that he mimicked quite well, in English.
Shit. She searched for the Terish phrasing. “He disavowed his clutch oath.”
“I am aware.”
“But I thought clutch was sacred.” She waited for the thane’s confirmation, but he said nothing. He continued his disconcerting stare. Maude’s body sagged as sadness overtook her. “I thought clutch was something that I could use to save him. That…”
But she couldn’t finish her thought. Was it possible that this wasn’t an elaborate ploy? That Therion broke their clutch for another reason?
Maude stared down at her hands that cradled her slight baby bump. Shifting her gaze, she stared at Kora who had curled about her, her metallic vines softly caressing the tops of her bare feet. She had been so certain that Therion wanted all three of them—her, her baby, and even Kora.
Kora thrummed through her technopathy, soothing her with compassion. If she had a more extensive vocabulary, Maude suspected she would be cooing, ‘There, there.’
“M’lady,” the thane said.
She bristled. “Just Maude, please. If you would.”
He said nothing further until she looked up at him. “He sang that song for a reason.”
Although she didn’t know the Bulanii words, Therion had translated the song for her. She’d teared up at the time, which had prompted Therion to call her ‘too nice’ as he’d kissed her brow. But she’d cried because he sang that song so much, she knew he carried it as his personal anthem.
Say farewell
To the ne’er-do-well
A drifter
No roots in the loam
Across field and dale
Over the sea he’ll sail
A drifter
Forever to roam
“He’s not a ne’er-do-well,” she shot back, surprised by the heat in her voice. “That’s bullshit. He only does great, wonderful, well-meaning things for people. As all the shittiness of being abducted crashed down on me, he’s been there, cushioning my fall. Helping me get back up. As for roots in the loam, he loves House Borac so much that he willingly became an Unsworn to protect his house’s interests. And he has no need to roam anymore, because I’m here. I want him. He’s my new home.”
The thane continued his hard stare. “Your home is Earth.”
Maude scoffed, crossing her arms as she glared at him. Of all people, she expected him to have deduced the truth ages ago. “You know there’s no going home for us. I’m not stupid.”
“I never said that you were.”
“Being nice doesn’t make me foolish.” How she wished her
voice had an edge to it, rather than pitched with her frustration. “Being decent isn’t a weakness. I fought for the privilege to carry this baby. I’ll fight for Therion too. He’s the father I want for my baby.”
She snapped her mouth shut. She rarely spoke her mind like this, always finding it better to let her behavior speak for her. Besides, she’d started to ramble. She hadn’t yet told Therion that she wanted more than Teras clutch. She wanted human marriage.
But it did irk her that during her rant, the thane remained stoic. She had no idea if she’d convinced him of her determination. How did her cousin deal with this man?
“Do you speak Bulanii?” the thane asked.
Maude repressed her eye roll. Of course, he’d go straight to her lack of knowledge, basically calling her a fool. “No, but Therion has been singing that song for days. He told me the meaning of the words.”
“Prykimis,” he addressed the ship but kept his steady gaze on her, “play a recording of Therion singing, from before his mission.”
Therion’s voice rang out again in the cabin and her chest clenched. She wanted him so badly.
As his last note reverberated through the cabin, the thane said, “Now replay what he just sang.”
Therion’s voice filled the room again. Hungry for any bit of him, Maude honed in on his voice. Then she caught it.
She must have looked confused or astonished, because the thane flicked his eyes toward the speakers and then back to her. “You hear that.”
She did. “The words are different.”
“Aye.”
Baffled, she shook her head. “What was he singing?”
“Mostly insults involving his four favorite code words.” Those must have been some insults, because a ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of the thane’s mouth. “More importantly, he’s given me this.”
He held his hand out and Kora rose from the floor, extending one of her spindles. The metal limb unfolded like a blooming flower petal, and a slim cartridge dropped into the thane’s palm.
Maude leaned in closer. “What is it?”
The thane smiled a feral, toothy grin that sent a shiver down Maude’s spine. “It’s an arsenal honed into a control collar.”
She looked at the small cartridge. “That’s a collar? It’s kinda small and rectangular-ish.”
When the thane didn’t reply, she glanced up at him. Was he squinting at her?
“I’d meant it figuratively,” he said.
“Oh.” Her cheeks flamed as she tried to shrug it off. “I knew that. Obviously, I knew that. Because using a collar on someone is actually really awful. I’m glad it’s not a collar, for some hypothetical person’s sake.”
She snapped her mouth shut. Damn. Mere minutes ago, she told him she wasn’t stupid.
The thane continued to stare at her. He assessed her like she was a smear on a microscope plate. Then he inhaled and her WristCune pinged. She glanced at her comm device to see that the thane had sent her a file.
“What is this?” Perplexed, she looked up at him. “I can’t read it.”
“It’s Bulanii,” the thane said.
“That really doesn’t help me.” She flicked her eyes up, colliding with his grim face. “Um, Thane, sir. Not very informative, is what I meant. Literally.”
Oh, she needed to shut up.
“It’s meant for him,” the thane said as he headed back to the Hall. “Literally.”
“Oh.” But she didn’t understand.
He paused at the hatch. “And Maude?”
“Um, aye, Thane?”
“Call me Zver.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Therion sat on the hard bunk in the brig, his back against the wall. His best guess? A half-day cycle had passed since Curumek let him comm Maude and implode all of TerTac’s plans. Now he simply waited for what came next.
And something was definitely coming.
Two guards, fitted in full armored kit, stood inside his cell with a hard-shell case set on the floor between them. He didn’t like the look of that case. It was far too small for his body, yet the right size for compliance motivators, like pliers, clamps, and needles.
The silence in the cell stretched like elastic ties. Therion basked in the discomforting mood. It was the perfect tension for fucking with people.
“This is not awkward at all.” Therion made a point to make eye contact with each guard’s helm as he smiled at them. “Reminds me of that time I told Fleet to go fuck itself.”
That earned him a muffled ‘fucking Banger’ from one of the armored grunts. Therion’s creds were on the overeager arse on the left. The one that kept shifting on his feet and rolling his shoulders.
Therion turned toward the fleetman. “You know Fleet actually asked me to show ‘em how? Can you believe that?” He stretched out his arms, nice and wide. “So, I started to arrange ‘em all in a circle. Just stacked ‘em up front to back.”
The other guard’s shoulders twitched—a stifled snicker, he’d bet.
Therion nodded to his newest audience participant. “Aye, so I got ‘em all lined up, pants around their damn ankles, and those fuckers still couldn’t get it right.”
He heard the click of a comm—enabling the speaker to broadcast outside his armor. “Why the hell not?”
Ah, Overeager was eager for everything, including punchlines.
Therion grabbed his crotch. “Couldn’t fucking reach. Stubby cocks. Every last one of ‘em.”
Silence. Tough crowd, then.
“Fucking Fleet.” Therion shrug and then pointed his thumb at his back. “Guess they want me back to teach ‘em all right this time. Are you two my first students?”
Overeager lurched forward, only to be pulled back by his partner.
Both guards stilled, canting their heads slightly. Ah. The tug of an incoming comm from their earpieces. Overeager jerked, shrugging off his partner’s grip. Then he kicked the case, sliding it toward Therion.
“Open it,” he grated through his armor. “Put it on.”
When Therion didn’t move, Overeager raised his bullpulse rifle. “I just gotta get you in the suit. No one said shit about you being in one piece.”
Therion raised his hands in surrender as he started to shimmy off the bunk. “Aye. I’m moving.”
He flipped open the case to reveal a spacewalk suit. Not armored, like what his guards wore, but a tight, insulating fit to protect him against the vacuum of space.
Therion glanced up as he pulled the suit out. “Are you gonna be gentlemen and turn your backs for me?” When the guards remained as they were, he sighed. “Aye, should have known. Well, get ready to see sights that can’t be unseen, and may your manhood not be scarred for eternity. My cock is fucking huge.”
He stripped knowing that the guards got an eyeful of his gaunt body covered in clade ink. He’d put on more muscle, but he was nowhere near the mass of an active duty fleetman who served on a strike team. He’d rattle inside his armor like a coin in a can, there not being enough of him to fill the kit.
Once he was suited, Overeager waved him forward. He heard the barrier of his cell crackle, the only indication that it had been deactivated. The guards led him down the narrow corridor. They only traveled a half dozen paces before pausing at an airlock.
This was not good.
Sure, they put him in a spacewalk suit, but these fuckers hadn’t given him a helmet.
Therion bounced his gaze between his guards. “I’m not quite dressed for the occasion, am I?”
Overeager unclipped a disc from his hip and tossed it to Therion. “Don’t put that on. Hold it.”
“Ah.” He studied the retractable helm in his hands. Pressing on the center of the disc would unfold the helm. It would protect him from space and give him an hour of air, but it wasn’t combat grade. It wasn’t armor. “A long walk out a short airlock, is it?”
“Never shut the fuck up, do you?” Overeager snarled.
“Not when there’s so much to talk about.” T
herion beamed. “Like, where am I going?” Then he gestured to the spacewalk suit that he had donned at blaster point. “Well, other than someplace without air?”
“He’ll shut up now.” Curumek strode down the corridor toward him, holding a hypo-syringe in his hand.
“Thank fuck,” Overeager mumbled, which earned him a censuring glare from Curumek.
Therion looked down at Curumek. “So, I’ll go to sleep here and wake up…?”
Curumek smirked, but Therion had already guessed his destination. TerTac had held him this close to the airlock for a reason. The spacewalk suit, with no auxiliary air supply, meant no hatch-to-hatch docking with another ship. Rather, they planned to spacewalk him, probably over to something small and short-range, to avoid detection by Prykimis.
Overeager produced magnetic shackles. Therion was about to be bound, sedated, and provided with limited air.
Ech. He’d been in worse spots.
Curumek stepped up to him, raising the syringe toward his neck. “You should have cooperated, Commander.”
No, he really shouldn’t have. Therion’s careful crafting of the Bane—making himself a blade that could never be turned on House Borac—left him unprepared in regards to Maude. He would forsake his oath to House Borac a thousand times over, would even toss himself into the abyss to save his enemies the bother. But when he joined Maude’s clutch, Therion had tethered his heart, soul, and honor to Maude. If he jumped, she would plummet along with him, and that was fucking unacceptable.
Maude’s freedom was worth the misery that Curumek’s jagged stare promised. Therion’s only regret was that he couldn’t quite figure out how to drag Curumek down with him.
Hell, in that moment, Therion found himself beseeching Unholde himself for a chance to drag Curumek to the Under Gates. Just one, tiny snap-Curumek’s-neck chance.
All the lights in the corridor cut off, plunging Therion and Curumek into darkness.
Thank Unholde for small favors.
Maude stared at the screen of the Cuneiform desk in the Athela office, confused and panicked by what the screen displayed. Between the constant reports scrolling on the display and the chatter through the comms barking out updates in military jargon, she floundered.