Page 17 of Trove’s Purpose

Chee hummed thoughtfully. “I didn’t really think of that. Yeah. Maybe the cup is only valuable to him. And this private collector. Not really my business. Like I said, rich people.”

There was certainly truth to that. Being able to afford to indulge your eccentricities to their extreme often made people strange to outsiders. He’d met plenty of people like that working as a delivery person. What the wealthy were willing to pay for sometimes…

“Hey, uh,” Chee started, shifting her weight awkwardly. “Can we, erm… can we talk? Like, privately, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Trove agreed immediately, wanting nothing more than that. He looked up, frowning at the others who were all busy at work. But he knew better than to think that meant they weren’t hearing everything they were saying. “Once we escape orbit, it will be safe to move around the ship. We can talk then.”

Chee nodded along, gritting her teeth like she was steeling herself for something. Honestly, he felt the same way. His stomach was flopping uselessly as he imagined what she wanted to say to him. All the things she could say.

Maybe she did recognize him as his mate and was wondering why he hadn’t made a move to claim her yet.

Maybe she recognized him and wanted to tell him off against doing that.

Maybe she was just tired of him staring, which was absolutely fair. Though he couldn’t seem to stop himself from doing so.

The domini’s upper eye often lingered on the thing a person was most interested in. It was harder to force it away from something than his other two eyes. A well trained domini could, of course, but most people just let their upper eye watch what it willed – including other people.

Trove fully expected that. It was the fact that all three of his eyes couldn’t move away from her that really surprised him. He didn’t want to look at anything else. And while he wouldn’t say it was a comfortable feeling, it was like breathing. He had to do it.

But talking to her, he realized, was actually quite simple. The words had flowed easily between them. And just seemed to whet his appetite for more.

He now knew she wasn’t academically minded, and she had struggled in school. She had some experience with people of means, as she spoke of them like she was used to dealing with them. But she was clearly not one of them. They were such tiny pieces of her, but he cherished them. He thought about them. About what they might mean, how they defined her, how they made her who she is. And he was eager to know more. He had so many follow up questions, but he kept them to himself for now.

He wanted to know why she wanted to talk to him first. Maybe if she told him off, if she demanded that he leave her alone, he’d be able to do that. He could respect her telling him no. He would never be able to forget her. He’d never not want to know more about her, be near her, want to breathe her in and claim her as his own.

But if she wanted nothing to do with him, he wasn’t such a vile male that he would continue to force himself on her.

Maybe. He was pretty sure. Regardless of what else he had done in his life, he could at least brag that every female that ever came apart in his hands had done so not only willingly but eagerly. Often begging him for more.

Ah, she would be so wonderful begging him for more. Those wide hips of hers were a glorious handful he bet would be quite nice to grab and hold, keeping her still as he lashed at her soft flesh with his tongue. Thick thighs that would crush his head as she pulled at his hair. Causing him pain. Coming apart because of him.

No. He couldn’t do that to her. She wasn’t one of the nameless, faceless, featureless females that he used to distract himself and divert his thoughts. All the more reason to hope she wanted him to just leave her alone.

“Reaching the upper atmosphere,” Sway alerted them, making Trove look forward.

He stood beside his mate, both of them silent, watching as the gray-ish blue sky faded into the black of the void. And as they pulled away from the planet’s embrace, his belly slowly dropped. Weightlessness eased him off of his feet. It happened faster than Trove really expected. The Vainglory had never flown before, so they could really only estimate how fast it could go, how powerful its engines could be.

He should have had more faith in his brothers. In Vytln and Haven’s skill. In Sway’s ability to pilot. They were all incredible people. There was no doubt that the Vainglory, the zenith of all their abilities, would prove their skill.

Beside him, Chee had her feet off the ground. Not quite pulling them up all the way, but she settled into zero gravity easily. Almost happily. A relief coming on her face as she enjoyed the sensation, and he found himself wondering what she was escaping by doing so.

Chapter 6

Chee

The Vainglory really did earn its name. Chee knew that they had pieced this ship together from existing ships, so it’s not like they had to manufacture all the tiny pieces that made it. But it was still incredible and impressive that they’d managed to create a fully functioning spaceship.

Now that it was flying in space, they could stop putting all power into the engines and let the gravity generators instead pull them back down. As Sway and Vytln and Alred were running diagnostics and confirmed that, at the very least, the main hull was holding steady, Tanin sent the twin avanava males to fetch the other women – that she knew had all been put somewhere else for safety. A place she was not welcome to join.

Vytln left shortly after, saying something about checking the engine. Rok, no longer needing to remain here for his own safety, also went off to check on things, under Tanin’s command.

That left Chee and Trove to exit the bridge together. Tanin had not given him an assignment, and she was pretty sure that was because he had given him unspoken permission to have the private conversation she wanted.

They had to get this out of the way sooner or later. She had to stop just dancing around it and rip the bandage off.

The private room Trove led her to ended up being an empty hall off of the bridge. It was ringed with windows, making Chee think it was put here purely for decoration. The windows offered a view. And, sure, right now, that view was the empty blackness of space, but the dimness here, the open view, would allow those inside to see glorious sights when available.

Trove led her here, but she was the one who stepped forward, coming about halfway down before stopping and leaning into the window. She touched it gently, with the back of one knuckle, not wanting to smear oils over this brand new work. She fully expected it to be cold. Space was freezing right? But it wasn’t. Instead, it was the same temperature as the ambient air, and she was pretty sure it was because this wasn’t regular glass. Space glass. The same glass from her tiny ship. It was definitely nothing like the glass one would find in a car, even if, on first glance, it certainly appeared to be.