“Fred handles security,” she said. “And right now, Fred thinks you’re a threat to the ship. He’s very protective.”
Protective.
He ground his back teeth.
She had a mate. A partner. Someone who’d launched the ship while Raaze was busy hauling her up the ramp like an idiot. Here he was thinking he’d been running the play, but she’d been running rings around him the whole time, and he hadn’t even clocked it.
Great. Outmaneuvered by a male with a stupid-ass name like Fred. How the mighty have fallen.
“Tell Fred to stand down,” he growled. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“No. I expedited our departure.”
“You threw me over your shoulder like a sack of grain.”
“You were stalling.”
“I was bloody well thinking!” Her voice cracked, and just for a second, the anger bled through the calm. She took a breath, clamped it down, and gestured vaguely at the air around them. “And now we’re here. In space. Because of parts that I’m pretty sure are stolen and a fugitive on board. Which makes me an accessory to a sodding jailbreak!”
“You were already an accessory.”
“I was a bystander with a wrench! Now I’m a getaway driver.” She glared up at him. “If we go back, they’ll arrest both of us. They impound the ship. My father finds out I lost a freighter to the authorities, and I spend the next ten years filing data entry in a fuc-fudging basement.”
She paused. The red light washed over her pale skin, making her eyes flash dangerously.
“We’re not going back,” she said.
He lowered his hands an inch. The hum didn’t change, but Fred didn’t blow his head off. They were making progress.
“Agreed. Going back isn’t an option.”
“Good.” She crossed her arms and glared at him some more. “Okay, so here’s how this is going to work. We’re in transit, and I’m not turning around, but I’m not running the taxi service for alien kidnappers either. Do I make myself clear?”
He bit back his grin. She was negotiating.
She stood there in oversized coveralls, red hair a mess around her shoulders, and she had the balls to face down a Latharian warrior and lay down terms.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“My next stop is Vess'tra Station. It’s a three-day run from here.” She watched him, as if tracking his reaction. “I’ll drop you there. You get off my ship. You disappear. I never see you again.”
Vess'tra.
He knew the place. It was a civilian trade hub.
But the wrong draanthing direction. Completely useless to him.
He opened his mouth to argue, but the hum in the wall spiked into a sharp, warning vibration that rattled his back teeth.
Fred. The draanthic was still there.
Raaze closed his mouth.
He looked at the red lights, then at her.
He was outmaneuvered. He was so far past outmaneuvered it wasn’t even draanthing funny anymore. He knew the feeling. Didn’t like it, but he knew the feeling. It was that moment in a match where the play had gone to shit, and you were just managing the damage. And he hated it every single time.
