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Once they had reached the shuttle, Bard had attempted to put her down. But she had shaken her head and held onto him fiercely, whispering in that soft, melodic language of hers that he couldn’t understand.
“Come on now, baby girl,” he’d coaxed gently, trying to pry her fingers from around his neck. “We need to take off now and I have to fly the ship!”
But she’d held on tight, looking up at him with those wide, dark eyes, filled with fear.
“Not leave me! Not leave Makenna!” she’d begged in a soft, shaking voice.
Looking into her eyes, Bard had felt something melting inside him. She looked so broken—so lost. There was a dark bruise on one high cheekbone and her soft, small body was trembling with fear. She was like a wounded animal that had found a refuge and refused to leave it.
That’s me, he’d realized. I’m her refuge.
After that, he hadn’t had the heart to put her down. Instead, he had let Rarev take the pilot’s chair while he sat in the passenger seat with the girl cradled in his lap.
“It’s all right, baby girl,” he’d murmured, stroking her back. “All right—I won’t put you down. I won’t leave you.”
This seemed to calm the girl and she huddled in his arms like a shy, wild creature, her face still buried in his chest, as they flew up and into the red fold in space the Mother Ship had opened for them to take them home.
Bard wished he could make sure it was safe to take her through the fold. He knew that it wasn’t safe for pregnant women to fold space, but he didn’t know her language so he couldn’t ask if she was pregnant. He didn’t think she was, though. From the exchange between that fucking Trollox, Biter, and the Flesh Peddler who had been selling her, Bard would guess that the girl was a virgin. She had probably been ripped from her home planet and trafficked to Passion Prime specifically to be sold to the Trollox.
He had planned to try and ask her the name of her home world—maybe even give her some translation bacteria so they could understand each other better. But it seemed they were out of time for such things at the moment.
“How close behind us is he?” he growled, looking at the Trollox ship in the viewscreen. “And how long until he reaches us? And how the fuck did he track us?” he added, as an afterthought.
Rarev shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under his metallic gold uniform shirt.
“He must have been after us almost the minute we left Passion Prime. As for how fast he’ll get to us, it depends on if you have a hyper-drive on this ship. Do you?”
“Don’t think so,” Bard growled. “Didn’t think we’d need a ship with any special modifications on it just to go get some fucking Yillium! Just call the Mother Ship and have them send out reinforcements.”
But it seemed that someone at the Mother Ship had already seen their problem. As the pearly white side of the vast ship orbiting Earth’s moon came into view, about a dozen silver ships came rising out of the Docking Bay, like angry hornets coming out of a hive to confront an intruder.
The Trollox ship lost speed at once, drifting uncertainly in space, as the kindred ships arrived to hover around their own shuttle.
“Open a channel,” Bard directed. “Tell that fucker he’d better get out of here if he knows what’s good for him!”
Rarev did as he asked. Opening a channel to the Trollox ship, he spoke in that low, purring tone of his.
“Trollox vessel, I advise you to go back to where you came from if you don’t wish to be blasted out of the sky.”
Biter’s ugly face suddenly filled the viewscreen.
“You took what’s mine, Kindred!” he roared, drool flying from his tusks in his fury. “You took what’s mine but I’ll get her back! The girl belongs to Biter!”
At the sound of the Trollox’s voice filling the shuttle’s cabin, the girl in Bard’s arms began shivering uncontrollably.
“Not give to bad one!” she begged, looking up at Bard with tears in her eyes. “Not give Makenna! Not! Not!”
“No, baby girl, no, of course not!” he soothed her, holding her close. “Turn that damn thing off, Rarev. I’m sorry I asked you to contact him,” he growled to the Monstrum Kindred.
Rarev shrugged and pressed a button on the console, cutting off the Trollox in mid-rant.
But it was already too late. The little female—whose name must be Makenna, Bard thought—was shaking and crying in his arms. Huge, frightened sobs wracked her small, curvy body. He could feel her tears soaking through his crimson uniform shirt and wetting his chest.
“No, no, baby. It’s all right! It’s all right,” he crooned, worried at her sudden distress. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you!”
