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“That’s not true. They never tracked me.”
“Of course they did!” Raine practically explodes at me. “The chips are tracking devices, idiot! You should have told me. You should have told all of us. Instead of that bullshit story about being a pirate raised by pirates.”
I guess I did tell a lie here and there. It didn’t seem to matter at the time. All that mattered was having a good time and doing pirate things. Making money to send home. Building a crew. Making a life. I didn’t want to think about the fact that some fucking institution had shoved a thing into my skull that changed everything forever.
I say none of this. I just look at her and give a tiny shrug.
At this point, Thorn decides he has heard enough.
“Take the other human, Avel,” Thorn says, standing aside to let Avel into the room. “Take her. Secure her. Deal with her.”
“With pleasure,” Avel rumbles.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Raine’s question is a warning as she raises her side arm.
“That’s a gun, my guys,” I say. They don’t seem to be realizing how dangerous she potentially is. A moment later, she takes care of that problem by discharging it directly at Avel. By some absolute miracle, she misses and the projectile ricochets off the wall, zipping between Sona and Thorn before burying itself in the floor.
Avel grabs her before she can take another shot, wresting the gun from her hand with a very hard slap to her hand that I can see shocks her into a temporary kind of submission.
“That is unacceptable behavior,” he says, speaking mildly given she just tried to kill him. Or did she? I’ve never known Raine to miss a shot, certainly not at close range like this. Is she losing her nerve? Freak accident? Misfire? I might not ever know, because she is now being carried out of the room, kicking, screaming, and cursing all the way.
When we are alone, and Sona is dismissed, Thorn turns his attention back to me.
“What Raine was saying. Was that true?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “I didn’t really get a scholarship to the academy. I was sold to it. That’s what they do to poor kids who want to get out of their starving colonies and make a better life for themselves and their families. They say they’ll teach you to work in security or entertainment. Either way, you end up a drone or a whore. Sometimes both.”
His face falls into an expression of pity I neither want nor need. Then he starts apologizing for the past, which is the most painful thing he’s ever done.
“I am so sorry that happened to you, Suli. It makes sense now why you are the way that you are, why you trust nobody, and why you feel little loyalty to anybody besides your crew. You were betrayed deeply. That is the kind of pain that makes a wound that bleeds for a lifetime.”
His words are surprisingly poetic, though I don’t know if I should actually be surprised. Thorn is smart, and though his world is primitive, he understands simple things on a level the more advanced people I’ve encountered never did. He understands things like trust, loyalty, love, connection. Yes, he has also essentially enslaved me, but he’s left the parts of me that matter intact. The people I was sold to all those years ago never intended to leave anything untouched. They were going to erase me, piece by piece, and they were going to play with the shell of me until it cracked and broke and could be discarded.
“You’re my captor,” I say, though it’s not really what I mean. Sometimes there’s such a big disconnect between what I am thinking in my head and what comes out of my mouth. I wish he could see my thoughts. I wish he could know all the tender things and the little nuances I never seem to have the ability to communicate.
“I am,” he says. “But not like that. I intend to keep you whole.”
It’s like he has read my mind. But that might simply be the way it feels to be understood. From the moment I first met this creature, I felt that he saw me in ways nobody else ever had. That feeling has only grown stronger with every passing day, and certainly with every carnal and disciplinary encounter.
He has me in ways the people who thought they owned me could never have me. His control makes me feel completely different. Instead of exploited, I am cherished. Instead of used, I am protected.
“I know,” I say, once again completely failing to communicate all the depth of my feeling. I hope he can feel what he needs to feel, because I don’t know if I will ever be able to say what I need to say. When we are connected, our bodies joined, there is a wholeness to us that I’ve never felt before. You could call it a mate bond. You could call it love. Whatever it is, I want it forever.
Seeing Raine has made one thing very clear to me: I no longer have any interest in escape. Thorn is more than my saurian master. He is my family. He is my home.
“You’re safe with me, Suli,” he says, telling me what I already know. “And so is Raine. Avel will take good care of her.”
“She won’t submit easily. She’s never had a chip. Never been sold. She’s always been free. She was orphaned before she was twelve. And she never answered to anyone. Not even me. The only reason I was captain was the fact I owned the ship, and I’d do things that she couldn’t, because I couldn’t feel the fear that stopped her. She’s worse than I am, because she’s learned to operate through her fear. She’s learned to listen to it, to work with it. She’s fucking dangerous, Thorn.”
“Don’t worry about Avel. He can take care of himself.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you if it turns out she’s already killed him.”
“I think for the moment, you should worry less about Raine and Avel, and a great deal more about you and me. There is a reckoning to be had, isn’t there?”
“What? Why? I didn’t call the ship here. They came of their own accord. All I did was not escape. I was practically perfect today, and I think you know it.”
“Except when you helped the other two escape me.”
