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“They deserved to escape. They’re not like Raine and me. They wouldn’t do well in the care of your type. They deserve nice men.”
“Oh, I’m not a nice man?” Thorn raises a brow and pretends to be offended, while also being a massive saurian alien with scales and a tail.
“You’re not a man at all, and you know it. Mouse and Zara deserve to get their happily-ever-afters. A nice place somewhere far from all this craziness. A farm or something. Good husbands. A small gaggle of offspring. That’s what I want for them. I don’t want them in a cage on a saurian world being repeatedly punished for following their natural instincts to escape. You probably wouldn’t be able to keep either of them in, anyway. They’re much better at what they do than I am.”
“Is that right?” Thorn smiles. “You have a lot of admiration and care for your crew, don’t you.”
“Of course I do. They’re the closest thing I have left to family. Family that wouldn’t betray me. I guess, right up until they did. But I think I might stop blaming them for that. It’s starting to feel like they might not ever have had a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“When someone’s like me — reckless and thoughtless, and doesn’t take care of you in the way you need to be taken care of, then getting rid of them is the right thing to do. Getting rid of me was the right thing for them to do. Coming after me? That was the mistake.”
11HAPPILY EVER…
Thorn
This little pirate is taking responsibility for her actions in a way I am certain she never has before. I can see what inspired such loyalty in her crew. Whether she gives herself credit for it or not, Suli is a natural leader, and I don’t think it ever had anything to do with the augmentations inserted into her brain.
“Maybe the chip did not break,” I suggest. “Maybe you simply found yourself in a situation for the first time where you were being controlled by someone who had your best interests at heart. Someone who wasn’t trying to exploit you. Maybe your perception of not feeling fear was some kind of survival instinct. Perhaps you couldn’t afford to feel fear.”
“I don’t know. It’s still in there.”
“Sure. It’s in there. But was it ever activated? If it is like most technology, it may have needed some kind of initialization or similar to make it actually work.”
“Oh,” she says, as that idea gets into her head and rattles around in a faintly plausible way. “Maybe.”
“It is possible that all this time, you have never been anything or anyone other than yourself.
She stares at me. “That would explain quite a lot in some ways. But… then… why… how… have I been so fucking out of control?”
“You may merely be out of control, Suli,” I say, patiently and affectionately.
“Well, that’s not good. The chip really gave me some excellent plausible deniability.”
“I’m sure it did,” I laugh. “Regardless, you know I will hold you fully accountable now, no matter what. And I expect you to aid me, and Avel, in taming this other young human woman.”
That gets me a curt shake of her head. “That might be going a little far. She was my first mate. I’m not going to betray her. If anything, I’ll probably do my best to help her get back to the others and escape this planet forever.”
“At least you tell me where you stand,” I say. “I suppose loyalty is too much to ask at this point.”
“Hoes before dinobros,” she says.
I do not know what that expression means, but I have to assume it is disrespectful by the way she smirks in that cute way she does when she thinks she is getting away with something. So much of Suli’s inner workings are revealed by her very own face. She is betrayed constantly by the quirking of her lips and the gleaming of her eyes.
I raise a brow at her, and smile inwardly as she does just as I expected her to and starts squirming in front of me, making sounds that are precariously close to a very un-captainly giggle. I adore this woman. She has taken a place at the very core of me, and there is nothing I would not do for her.
Of course, what she most needs is for me to be precisely what and who I am, for me to look after her in every way, and to protect her from the wilder impulses that have always lived inside her.
“I will take that response as a yes, it is too much to ask at present.”
“Good idea,” she says.
“Fortunately for you, Raine will not be held anywhere you have any kind of influence. Avel is going to make sure she is forced to confront all the same things you were, and trained even more completely. He does not have my soft spot for chaotic disobedience. He will ensure that she does as she is told.”
“She’s going to kill him,” Suli repeats. “I really mean it. Raine does not fuck around, and she does not feel any kind of remorse when it comes time to pull the trigger. She is not secretly a soft little bunny under a hard exterior. She’s a monster. Inside and out.”
I smile down at her, enjoying this glimpse into the mind of my captive captain as she shows her concern for one of my men. This little human is an alpha in her own right. My cage and my punishments are not what will ultimately keep her here. What will keep her by my side is this transition into truly becoming an alpha’s mate in her heart, and thinking about the saurians who depend on me to lead them.
