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His thumb traced the scar on my forearm again, soft and sure, and I didn’t pull away.

Complicated. Fine. But nothing permanent. I didn’t do that.

I still didn’t move. Just kept looking at this sated alien and feeling... content? Was this different? Did I want it to be?

My comm buzzed in my overall pocket. I reached for it without untangling from him. It was a notification from the Hollow Chorus.

“Hey, look at this.”

Rennick kissed my shoulder as he read the notification, and his lips stopped moving. “The neural matrix is running a new sequence.”

I nodded. “All the alcoves in that room are cycling. The energy draw has tripled in the last ten minutes!”

The ship wasn’t waiting for us to come and fix her. She was doing something on her own. Was she now working with Rennick, or working up to an explosion?

Chapter 12

Rennick

Cass was dressed before my pulse had settled, and my cock was still hard and ready to fuck her again.

But she had no hesitation. No backward glance at the mess we’d made of her sheets.

I watched her, my heart a steady thrum of certainty, laced with a hint of WTF is this? I knew then that I was fucked in more ways than one.

Years of clean, uncomplicated encounters that ended when we both got what we wanted. Until Cass strode into my life and turned it upside down.

She didn’t know the impact she’d had on my mate bond. And she didn’t need to. She’d needed me to give her release when my fucked-up ship messed with her, and I was willing. And she’d wanted to fuck me on her own terms in her bed, and that worked too. This arrangement suited her.

Fucking Cass had opened a bond she’d never asked for. That was my problem, not hers, and I had no intention of making it hers. I’d deal with the fallout. And we weren’t fully bonded. Not yet. I could fix this.

“Are you coming?” She stood by the door, comm in hand, one eyebrow up. Her hair was wrecked, and she hadn’t bothered to fix it. She looked like a fucking goddess.

I pulled my pants on and grabbed my shirt off the floor.

She bounced on her toes. “Hurry! Your ship’s having a party without us, and I don’t want to miss out.” Her enthusiasm for helping my ship made her even more perfect.

I pulled my comm out and opened a new message.

Cass glanced at my fingers as they moved. “You calling someone?”

“I want to know why our name was linked to the Hollow Chorus. Someone must have known about this before I bought her. And I know just who to ask.” I typed it short and sent it to my uncle before I could talk myself out of it.

Found our name in the Chorus’s crew records. Explain.

He’d know what it meant, since he controlled the family. Whether he answered was another matter. The family approach to inconvenient truths was to lock the door and pretend the room behind it was empty. But I was finished respecting that damn seal, and I needed answers. My ship needed healing.

I followed Cass into the night. Her shoulder bumped mine where the walkway narrowed past the dock pods for smaller ships, and she didn’t correct the distance. The contact was casual for her, but my body catalogued it like a starving thing handed something warm to eat.

Stop. She doesn’t owe you more than she offered. She needed to fuck you because of the ship. This is nothing. Don’t make this into a big fucking deal.

I walked faster. Cass kept up.

The Hollow Chorus sat in her dock, running lights steady, and every viewport glowed warm gold from the inside, brighter than I’d ever seen.

“Oh, wow. Look at that. She looks so happy!” Cass stopped at the gangway, head tipped, already reading the hull. “That’s new. For you, too?”

“It is. She’s been miserable since I signed the deed. I’m sure she prefers you and the rest of your crew.”