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“Fine,” I grumble. “Give me a kiss—both of you—and then get out of here.”
Bethiah obliges quickly and Jamef hesitates before pressing a light kiss on my lips. It’s like he knows I’m really annoyed but he’s not going to change his mind. I watch them as they move around the ship, filling their weapon belts with blasters and knives, and then, tails twining briefly again, they head out of the ship and down the ramp, onto the Haal Ui docks. I move to the monitor on the bridge to watch them go, and notice that they share a laugh and amused glances before disappearing out of sight.
They look cute together. Like a team. It irks me. Not that they’re together or that I’ve been left behind.
It irks me that I’m completely and utterly useless. I’m not part of that team. I’m a third wheel in all senses. Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? Being treated like dead weight in our relationship? If so, I hate it.
But how do I fix that? How do I change who and what I am? A human is a liability. An illegally cloned one, doubly so.
Am I supposed to just hide for the rest of my life?
Seventy-Four
JAMEF
“She’s mad.”
“I know. She doesn’t like that I changed my mind.” Bethiah shrugs. “She’ll get over it.”
I’m still surprised Bethiah agreed with me. That she capitulated on her stance and decided that I was right. It’s a good feeling, even if I don’t entirely trust it. She could have an ulterior motive, some sort of plan she worked out with Dora to keep me in the dark and snow me when I let my guard down. Maybe they’re planning even now to oust me from our triad…
That part wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t bring anything to the table. I have no good family name. I’m not handsome or clever. All I’ve got is some bionic lungs, but that doesn’t mean it’s enough to keep two gorgeous females with me.
For now though, I think they like me? I think. With Bethiah, it’s sometimes hard to tell, but Dora is easier to read. Although now that Dora’s going to be mad at us… “Perhaps we should bring her back something from the station to assuage any hurt feelings she might have.”
Bethiah gives me an irritated look. “She’s not a child. She needs to keffing understand when it’s dangerous and when it’s not. We can’t coddle her.”
“There’s a difference between coddling and acknowledging the other person’s feelings.”
She shakes her head. “We told her this was the situation. She said she was fine with it. Now she needs to show us she’s fine with it. Come on. I don’t want to spend all day in this station. It stinks.”
Haal Ui definitely has its own…aroma. In that, she’s right. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to let Dora know that even though she was left behind, we still thought about her. I eye the vendor booths clustered along the walls, hoping something will catch my eye.
Out of habit, we head toward the food stalls. The guild is accredited through Homeworld, and bounty hunting is considered a valid (if dangerous) employment. Sometimes things get unsettled, though. A politician gets something up his ass, or an escaped convict decides he wants revenge. Every guild has an underground method to casually let its hunters know if it’s safe to be on the space station or if they need to clear out immediately.
We head to the fried leaf vendor at the far end of the long row of booths, the greasy smells adding to the general stink of the station’s recycled air. It’s crowded down here, but Bethiah manages to elbow her way in with the best of them. I don’t need to—one look at me and my red eye and people skitter out of my way like roaches.
Bethiah holds up two fingers to the vendor. “You got extra salty?”
“Always,” he says, and dumps a basket of thick, glossy leaves into a bowl of spices, tossing them in the coating before moving them to the fryer.
“Yum,” she says, twining her tail with mine as she leans over the counter to watch the food being prepared. It’s that little touch that does me in every time. That caress that tells me that Bethiah might just care for me after all. It arouses me when she rubs her tail against mine, but more than that, it makes me feel wanted.
Best keffing feeling in the universe.
“How’s business?” Bethiah asks casually, the code phrase for the guild check in.
“Business as usual,” the leaf vendor says cheerfully. He gives the frying leaves a shake, then dumps them into two disposable plas containers and holds them out to us. “Enjoy.”
“You know we will.” Bethiah nods at me. “Pay the male, bucket of bolts.”
