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“Kalla,” he says grimly. My heart stutters.
“Bad news, I take it?”
He swallows, eyes avoiding my face.
“What the rut is it?” I demand.
“Lakkavi’s cycle report came in,” he finally says. “Kaye and Raffa are there with his family on Station City. He says Kaye is nervous to even leave the restaurant because a bounty hunter went to EC-12 and captured an image of her. They fled after killing the Zaledian contract worker, but she states he wasn’t working alone.”
“Go to the bridge and send me everything you have,” I snap. “I trust you’ve already looked into which hunter conglomerate it is?”
“I did, yes, but Kalla, let’s talk this through before you run off.”
“No thanks,” I say flatly.
“What’s your plan?” He throws his arms out in exasperation.
“You give me the company. I go to their headquarters and lop the heads off of anyone who’s seen that rutting picture, and then I erase it from existence, erase their entire comm system and databases. Maybe burn their building to ashes.”
Swing by her room in the dead of night,I add mentally.Kiss her precious head while she’s sleeping.
“Think, Kalla!” He slaps his own forehead. “Don’t you realize how much attention that will draw?”
“Yes, the message will be, ‘If you get in the Ashbringer’s business today, you will be dust tomorrow,’” I say. “They won’t have shared the image. Those greedy companies are all in competition. They’ll have clung to it like some secret.”
“They don’t even know she’s your mate yet,” Kira points out.
“Yet,” I emphasize. “Yet.”
“Do you want to advertise that you have one, and that this company had a lead on her?” he asks. “Besides, that human sheriff you told me to track has been making inquiries related to the very same company. He listed on the incident report that he himself subdued the bounty hunter in defense of a civilian colonist that requested anonymity. Then he turned around and started searching for info on the contract cases that company happens to be pursuing. What conclusions do you think he’ll draw if he finds that the company was razed to the ground? He could decide to stop protecting your mate, who apparently had the guts to kill that bounty hunter. He could reopen the case and call her in for questioning.”
I try to imagine Kaye making a kill shot. It’s hard to fathom. She must’ve been in a struggle for her life. All the more reason to destroy those slimy fools.
“I’m going to their headquarters regardless,” I declare. “I suppose it’s better to review their internal database and decide based on what they think they know.”
Kira’s not satisfied. He knows my track record on split decisions.
“Take Viro,” he insists. “Don’t go alone.”
We stare each other down.
“I only have one cloaking garment,” I argue. “Better to slip in undetected…”
“He can wait outside, then.”
Viro will temper me, and Kira knows it. Rutting little know-it-all. Well, he’s learned to read me over the passing we’ve spent working together. He probably notices how little violence I’ve gotten up to recently, knows I’m itching for a kill. He came up here to meet me because he knew a threat against my mate, no matter how small, would trigger me to recklessness.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But send him up here quickly, or I’ll launch without him.”
Kira breathes a sigh of relief. “I’ll send him. And the file on the company in question.”
His next move would be to hold that information over my head, I’ll wager. He rushes out, and I turn to fire up the ship again. It had hardly cooled off.
How can I behave myself and keep from acting like a bloodthirsty fool when someone’s searching for my mate? If I scent even a hint of threat to my Kaye, I’ll gut every single hunter that calls themself a member of that rutting agency. Viro will have to sedate me.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
KAYE
