When I next blinked my eyes open, I was in the med bay, and everything felt so normal it took me a moment to adjust. Panic struck the moment after, because I could not sense Irena anywhere. I shoved myself upright, my chest constrained by tight bandaging, and discovered a splint around my leg that was going to make Aramon laugh when he saw it. I didn’t care.
“Irena! Irena, where are you?” I called out when I stumbled out of bed and landed heavily on my unsplinted leg. That one was terribly sore, too, and my leg buckled, forcing me to cling awkwardly to the cot just as I discovered I’d been bucknaked under the sheets.
Dravion rushed into the med bay from the glass-walled operating room to my left, while several women came rushing in through the med bay’s entrance. I did not care that they got an eyeful when I turned toward them, because I caught her scent then—a painful, bruised lungful of Irena’s scent. Clean, with a hint of flowers that wasn’t usually part of her scent, and the thick scent of something I’d learned was chocolate. Humans were very fond of chocolate. Except Thatcher. Thatcher didn’t care.
“Flack! Why are you up? You should be resting,” my mate said, freeing herself from the gaggle of women to rush to my side. I stared at her, drinking in the transformation she’d undergone while I’d been out. Her pretty brown hair, silky, soft, and tangle-free, hung to her shoulders. A black tunic hung down to her thighs, which were encased in a type of pants the Earth women had all requested I find them at one point or another: leggings. Her shoulders were both bare, but one was still covered with a small bandage.
More important: she looked utterly radiant. A wide smile on her face, her eyes sparkling, and the grid-like scar on her left cheek only a vague reminder of what she’d gone through. Even her skin appeared to hold a little more warmth, a hint of health that hadn’t been there before. “Ah, stars, you are so beautiful,” I said.
“And you’re naked,” she responded, pulling the sheet from the cot and holding it out in front of my hips. I shrugged because I truly did not care, but she gave the women behind her a glare as if to say, Don’t look, that’s my male. NowthatI liked. I liked it a lot. So I tucked the sheet around my hips and awkwardly kept myself propped up against the side of the cot, hoping they wouldn’t notice how painful it still was to stand. Dravion, of course, did notice, but he politely assisted me back onto the cot under the guise of needing to check my vital signs.
“I’m fine,” I said, and once the weight was off my legs, I truly did feel fine—especially when Irena tucked herself close against my side, settling in like she planned to stay. “Truly. I’m in good hands with Dravion. He’s the best.” I was surprised he was here alone with me. I would have expected at least one officer to be waiting around so they could debrief me. Then the thought occurred that I might have been out long enough that they’d gotten the story from Irena instead, and I didn’t like that one bit. What if they’d had the Sineater interrogate her? Her wide smile told me that was unlikely.
“He is; we all know that, and we told her, Flack,” Mandy assured me. As the captain’s mate, it was no surprise she had taken my Irena under her wing. They’d done a good job, too, because my shy little Tikai was clearly much quicker to trust them than she had been to trust me. “I got the story from her,” Mandy added, as if she knew exactly what I’d been worried about. “And sinceDravion gave her a clean bill of health, we figured she’d enjoy a shower and a change of clothes. Otherwise, your mate has not left your side.”
I twisted my head to catch Irena’s expression and discovered a lovely pink hue to her cheeks. She was smiling, a little embarrassed, but she had nothing to be embarrassed about. “I was afraid to go anywhere on the ship without you,” she admitted. That, I could see, but I’d make sure she’d be safe everywhere she went. I’d remind the Sineater, Solear, and Aramon that my Irena was untouchable. Eventheycame to me with requests, and nobody pissed off the one guy on the ship who could get you anything—especially when they had a mate they wanted to please.
I eyed Mandy, who opened her mouth, probably to assure me that she’d been completely safe, but then my eyes caught something behind her. Dravion was still fussing with the readings and checking the cast around my leg, but he’d come from the glass-walled operating area. There was a guard standing just beyond the glass who normally wasn’t there. “Hang on, you’ve got a wounded prisoner? Who is it?” If that was Xathena, I’d get up this instant to finish her off.
“The assassin,” Irena said while everyone else was still sharing uneasy glances. Harper and Mandy, Dravion with the guard, who, by the looks of it, was Raukesh. “She’s human, Flack! Jalima sent a human woman to kill everyone on theVidu. Apparently we blew up her ship too, and they found her badly wounded, drifting in space near our pod!” That was… unsettling to think about. No wonder they were trying to heal her but also keeping her under guard. A human was unlikely to have acted ofher own free will, and yet. She’d seemed an awfully capable shot when firing at my mate.
“No,” Dravion and Irena both said at once. “You are leaving her alone,” Irena added. “First, you get your leg healed, and then we’ll think about things like punishing her for shooting me. Okay?” I was pretty sure she was going to convince me not to make her pay for shooting my mate down the line. I kind of looked forward to having my Irena try.
“Heal first,” I agreed. “Can anyone tell me where my pants went?” Though I was perfectly serious, everyone laughed—my mate perhaps loudest. I let myself get distracted by the lovely sound.
Epilogue
Irena
The moment of finally moving out of the med bay and into Flack’s private quarters was tantalizingly close. I paced inside the white, pristine room as I waited for the doctor to finish his last tests before Flack got officially discharged. It was a little bizarre to have traded my fear of the med bay on theVidufor an extended stay in one aboard theVarakartoom. The truth was, the places couldn’t be more different.
Everything aboard Flack’s ship was pristine and in top working condition. This was courtesy of a whole legion of advanced cleaning bots, as well as their brilliant engineer, Ysa—an alien woman with azure skin and a braid so long that, when unspooled, it would drag along the floor. She was impressive, intimidating, and surprisingly sweet, and, much to my shock, the one out of all the kind women on this ship I’d had an instant click with.
So it was Ysa who sat on the bunk across from me, swinging her clunky black combat boots back and forth like a kid, her skull-and-crossbones earrings gleaming in her ears. “He’s fine. Flack’s a terrible patient, and not the fastest healer compared to some, but he’s also terribly strong.” Ysa’s pep talk made me smile because her eyes twinkled, and I knew she was remembering the exact same moment I was: Flack bucknaked next to the medical cot when he first woke, not a sight anyone was likely to forget.
When I’d first been sent down to Flack’s prison cell to bring him food, I’d been convinced he was a serial killer, a ruthlessmurderer. I’d been so worn down by the daily fear and hunger I’d been forced to endure that a better future had been hard to imagine. Even harder to imagine were people who were nice, or did good things out of the goodness of their hearts. While I suspected that most of the people—the mercenaries—would never be consideredgood, they were… kind. In their own weird ways.
Flack was a terrible patient because he was impatient, kept flirting with me while the doctor tried to do his job, and kept trying to slip out of the med bay or shift before he was ready. Apparently, all Sune were like that, unable to hold back a shift for long. It made them veryveryantsy. Because of this, I suspected Dravion kept him under his supervision longer. That didn’t keep the rest of the crew from visiting for rowdy Keflo games, bartering, and storytelling. The stories were often as fantastical and sometimes as gory as the things Dimon had told me of Flack’s reputation.
“Oh, lookielook, Ira,” Ysa said. She’d dubbed me that jokingly and told me the name similarities meant we were meant to be sisters. The woman pointed at the other medical room, where the human woman, the assassin, was still confined to a bed. If Flack was a terrible patient, she was downright a nightmare: furious, fighting, screaming, and desperate to escape when awake, and on the brink of death so often I thought Dravion would never be able to bring her back. He had, though, with a kind of dogged determination that had caught even his crewmates by surprise, as if he was unwilling to let her go.
The woman had woken again and begun screaming and fighting her restraints. Somehow, though human, she kept rousing too early from whatever drugs Dravion was forced to use to makeher sleep. The doctor rushed out of his office, where he’d been checking Flack, across the med bay, and dove onto his unwilling patient with none of his usual grace. He needed the help of both guards to subdue her, and I could hear him swear—something I’d been told he never did.
“Oh oh,” Flack drawled as he slipped out of the office. “Sounds like the assassin tore her stitches again.” He was, for the first time since he’d woken up, finally without the clunky cast around his leg. Which meant… “Yes, clean bill of health, sweetheart.” Healed from a broken leg, a dozen fractures in his ribs, and a serious concussion in a matter of days. I was impressed; Flack could hardly complain.
He swept me into his arms, and ignoring Ysa’s smirking presence, kissed the living daylights out of me. I let him, because he wasn’t the only one in a celebratory mood. All this time, I’d refused to leave his side. This was my chance to finally see the rest of the ship. The truth was, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit this, I was scared to see what Flack’s home was truly like. What if it wasn’t as good as I hoped? What if itwas? Life on theViduhadn’t exactly taught me to believe there was a safe place out here. It had only shown me danger, and how the life I’d known on Earth was so far out of reach it might as well not exist.
But theViduwas gone, and so was the assassin’s ship. It was time to put it in the past, to put aside the fear, and to trust in a future. Under the sound of Ysa loudly catcalling, Flack swept me into his arms and carried me from the med bay. I wasn’t quite prepared for what a mercenary vessel looked like on the inside, and rainbows on the walls, used as guides, certainly weren’t what I expected. There were cheerful calls and more whistlingfrom anyone we passed in the hallway, and then silence when we entered Flack’s den.
“You’re mine now, mate,” he warned me, his grin fox-like and sparkling with mischief. I smiled back, my hand touching my scarred cheek, not because it made me feel bad, but because it made me feel strong. This time, his kiss wasn’t just a little tease and show; it was a full-blown claim. I didn’t even get a chance to look at what his home was like.
“I have been dying to get you alone for days, you little tease,” he drawled against my neck. My back collided with a soft mattress, and I sank deep, pressed into the surface by the weight of his body as he pinned me. I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d been dying to get him alone myself; that would only encourage him. We rolled, and I relished the closeness, for once without possible interruptions or watching eyes.
Of course, he still ended up on top again, but now my head was nearly dangling over the edge of the bed. He kissed me, and his hand found the back of my head, gently cupping it to hold me up. It was a warm reminder that Flack, my Flack, always wanted to look out for me. I’d come to learn over the past few days that this trait was specific to me. He was neither nice, flirty, nor accommodating to anyone else. I was pretty sure he even liked most of the people on this ship; it was just his nature not to let anyone in. We were, in that sense, two peas in a pod.
“We are putting into the Yengar space station in three days,” he said, drawing me from my thoughts, and from the sensations of his mouth against mine again. He did not lift enough to prevent his lips from brushing my skin as he spoke, and it made goosebumps break out all over my body, my nipples perking totight peaks beneath my comfy, oversized T-shirt. “I want you to make me a list of all the things you miss, all the things you need, and all the things you’ve ever fancied having.”
He was dead serious. I pushed up on my elbows to stare at him. “I told you I don’t need much,” I said. That offer, what felt like ages ago, had felt much like a way to try to seduce me into helping him. It was different now, because now I already had the things I’d wanted most: freedom, safety, a man to love whom I knew would always protect me. I shrugged because I wanted to decline again; my luck was going to run out if I was greedy. I’d upset the balance or something. That was a silly superstition, but I couldn’t help fearing it.
