Branded By Kesh (4 page)

Penta turned up not long after I arrived in the kitchen and we set to work cooking breakfast. The crew came through in clusters and small groups until the whole dining room was packed and the hum of conversation filled the big space.

Kesh collected a meal without a word to me, but his eyes burned into mine, scorching me with their heat. He sat with the man with silver eyes, who gave me a polite hello as he moved past the serving bench and collected his meal.

The crew ate, stacked their dishes neatly and left, the same small groups leaving together as had arrived together, until Kesh and the man with silver eyes were the only ones left sitting at one end of a long table. Many of the crew said polite thank you’s as they stacked their dishes at the far end of the counter. A few even came back for seconds.

I felt greatly relieved that the crew seemed to appreciate my cooking. Penta had told me not to worry, but I couldn’t help but worry that they wouldn’t like what I cooked. There were bound to be meals that some of the crew didn’t have a taste for, but the two that I had made so far had gone down without any complaints, and when people came back for seconds it was usually a good indication that they liked it.

Penta and I started to clean up the dirty dishes left by the crew. I snuck glances at Kesh and the silver-eyed man as we loaded the washer. I turned to Penta and said, “If you have other things you need to be doing, you can go.”

“You don’t need me?” he replied.

“No, I can finish this.” I had plenty of time before I needed to start the next meal, and it would give me more time to watch Kesh before I went in search of the storage room in the cargo bay.

“I’ll be back in time to help you with the next meal.”

Inclining my head, I watched him walk away, then resumed stacking the washer with the dirty breakfast dishes and watching Kesh.

After I’d finished with the dishes, I was in the store cupboard looking over the shelves at things Penta had shown me the day before. There were tubs of flour, containers of herbs and powdered spices, dried fruits and vegetables, grains and nuts and seeds—all the things that a well-stocked kitchen should have. I was lining up matches to recipes I had in my head, thinking about ingredients that I could substitute and switch out to make the next few meals when I suddenly felt a presence behind me. I whipped around to find Kesh standing in the doorway.

“You gave me a fright,” I told him, my heart pounding in my ears.

“That was not my intention, little flower.”

I looked up at him, his dark eyes scorching me, heating me up from the inside, turning me molten with desire.

“Then what was your intention?” I asked him.

He stepped forward and slid one hand into the back of my hair, pulling me up towards him.

“
This,
Magnolia,” he said quietly just before he pressed his lips to mine and kissed me.

I felt a soft brush of lips before he dove in to claim my mouth, teasing my lips with his tongue until I opened to let him in. Fire gathered between my legs, my nipples beading against the soft fabric of my top as he stroked his tongue against mine, a soft slide and tease of heat, the taste of him masculine and spicy on my tongue. My hands came up to grasp at the hard muscle of his shoulders, my nails digging into him, holding him to me. His arms closed around me, pulling me up against his hard chest, pressing my aching breasts against the heat of him.

Everything I’d been worried about, everything I’d been thinking about melted away as he kissed me. He built the inferno inside me to the point that I would have done anything he wanted if he just took me to bed and quenched the fire that was raging inside me. Every little slide of his tongue, every stroke had me grasping him to me tightly.

Kesh took control of the kiss from the first stroke of his tongue into my mouth, demanding, possessing, inflaming. I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel and kiss him back. His taste enraptured me, held me in thrall, and I knew I’d do whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t stop.

He started to pull away and a little sound of rejection welled up in my throat. I didn’t want him to stop kissing me. I didn’t want the interlude to stop.

“That, little flower, was what I wanted to do.”

His words were growled low, the desire in his voice sending shivers along my spine.

He turned and walked away, leaving me burning with desire, aching with need.

My family came in late for breakfast. I knew they would all come together. This was a strange ship with a strange crew, and my family felt safest when we were all together. Jaxxon refused to talk to me but just looked at me with anger in his eyes, his mouth set in hard line.

After they’d eaten, I went back to the cargo bay with them in search of the storage area Penta had spoken of. It wasn’t hard to find. There were only a few doors in the cargo bay, with the main ones being access to the rest of the ship. The door to the bathroom, which contained a cleanser and a toilet, a sink and a strange metal tub that had no way to fill it with anything, was across from the area we were using to sleep, behind stacks of boxes and crates.

The storage for the kitchen was right next to the bathroom, the door a little way along the wall hidden behind some of the crates and boxes the crew had stacked when we first came aboard the ship.

I made quick use of the bathroom to use the cleanser. I’d still been wearing my clothes from the day before and felt grotty.

Some of the crew had started to gather in the cargo bay when I came out of the bathroom. They were standing towards the huge cargo bay doors that led out into space, talking quietly amongst themselves.

The night before, I’d been surprised when they had started to turn up to eat and they were all armed. Even aboard their own ship, they still carried weapons with them and kept them on their persons while they ate and went about their tasks.

I thought we might have found ourselves on a mercenary ship. It would explain why there were so many different species on board and why they were armed to the teeth. It wasn’t just that they carried one weapon—they were covered in them, swords and knives strapped to their waists, what I thought were laser weapons strapped to their thighs, and some even had smaller weapons strapped to their arms.

Even Kesh had weapons strapped to his body. The only person who didn’t seem to be carrying any kind of weapon was the silver-eyed man, who I was starting to think was the captain.

More crew arrived as I put my clothes away in my bag. They gathered with the others near the cargo bay doors.

“What are they doing?” Jaxxon asked from beside me.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“I thought you might have heard something over breakfast.”

I was surprised he was even talking to me. “I didn’t hear anything.”

More crew arrived until there were twenty or so men gathered in the cargo bay.

My papa walked over to me, followed by my younger sister, Starlight.

“Magnolia, do you know what’s happening?”

“No, Papa. I don’t.”

We all watched the crew, who appeared to be waiting for something. The doors from the corridor slid open and a few more men walked in.

A sudden jolt almost sent me sprawling to the floor. My sister grabbed for my father to steady herself and I heard a cry from one of our crew.

“What was that?” my sister asked fear in her voice.

“I don’t know,” our father replied. I could hear worry in his voice. It was something I’d become accustomed to hearing over the last four days as our fusion core had ruptured and then gone critical.

The deep clang of metal hitting metal came from the other side of the huge cargo bay doors. A deep grinding noise came from the ship that went on for a long while. It was followed by a hollow sound that vibrated through the cargo bay and made my ears ring.

The men standing at the cargo bay doors all drew their weapons and separated into two groups, one on either side of the cargo bay doors.

“Papa, what’s happening?” my sister asked.

I looked at my sister, her face clouded with fear, the emotion stark on her little upturned face. At only six, she had been the hardest hit by the rupture of our fusion core. My parents hadn’t hidden from her what was happening, and at the time, I’d wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for her not to know. But it hadn’t been my decision, and my sister was intelligent enough to understand that something was wrong and had started to ask questions.

“I think they’re going to board another ship,” my father said.

“Why would they be doing that?” Jaxxon asked.

The cargo bay doors slid open with a grinding noise that set my teeth on edge. A wide tunnel and another set of doors with writing on them were at the end. They had definitely docked with another ship. I couldn’t read the writing on the doors, but you usually only had writing on the outside of the cargo bay doors.

The crew moved down the tunnel towards the second ship, their weapons held in front of them ready to fire. The cargo bay doors of the second ship started to open. The same deep, grinding noise travelled down the tunnel to fill the space we were in.

Shouts could be heard down the tunnel, and the sound of weapons being fired followed. Screams and yells of pain sent a cold creep down my back. What had we gotten ourselves into? What were they doing on that other ship?

“Papa, I’m scared.” My sister clung tightly to my father. He wrapped an arm around her holding her close.

“It’ll be all right, Starlight. I’m sure everything will become clear shortly.”

I glanced at my father to see him looking back at me. He had a look on his face I couldn’t identify, but if I’d had to guess, I’d say it was disbelief. He’d come to some conclusion. He’d made an assumption about what was happening, and he’d obviously figured out what was going on.

I turned back to look down that tunnel to see some of the crew coming back. As I watched, they collected the trolleys and equipment they’d used the day before to move all the boxes and crates around and started to push them down the tunnel towards the second ship.

Something about what they were doing started to penetrate the shock I’d been in since the jolt had almost sent me crashing to the hard metal floor. The crew started to transfer the cargo of the ship we were docked to over to the ship we were on. Boxes and crates of all sizes were lined up in the middle of the cargo bay one after another.

“Pirates,” I whispered more to myself than anyone else.

“Yes, Magnolia, I believe we have been rescued by pirates,” my father said quietly beside me.

Chapter Five

Emotion rode me hard as I looked through the storage in the cargo bay, and I still felt wound up as I made my way back to the kitchen, my arms loaded down with supplies. There were carefully stored vegetables and meats that had survived the months the crew had been without a cook, but they were going to need to resupply soon or they’d be back to eating synthesiser food.

I felt deeply disappointed that Kesh and the crew had turned out to be pirates. I was also angry, at Kesh for not telling me, at the Universe for sending pirates to rescue us, and at myself for feeling so much for a man who turned out to be the exact opposite of what I’d always thought I wanted.

I reminded myself that we were only on their ship for a short while. That helped to cool some of my anger. I could continue to cook for them as my way of giving back for their having coming to our rescue, but once we reached the station we were headed to, the debt would be paid and we could go our separate ways.

The cargo bay had been teeming with Kesh’s crew. My family had been huddled to one side as the crew finished transferring the substantial cargo from the ship docked alongside to theirs. I hadn’t seen Kesh or the silver-eyed man—they hadn’t come down to the cargo bay while this had all been going on.

It was probably a good thing that Kesh hadn’t come down, because I felt like demanding to know why he hadn’t told me, why he’d kept it hidden that they were pirates. I wanted to demand to know
why
they were pirates. What right did they think they had to just steal the cargo from other ships?

My disappointment and anger at Kesh grew as I put the supplies away and started to get ready for the next meal. Another jolt of the ship sent me careening into the bench in the middle of the kitchen, to bang against it painfully, pushing my anger higher. I hadn’t had time to process what Kesh had made me feel with his kiss that morning before my family had turned up, and as I cut vegetables up for the next meal, I wondered why he affected me so strongly.

He was just a man.

He was just like any other man I’d met, yet, he turned me inside out with a soft brush of his lips against mine.

I was in the store cupboard smelling the packets of herbs when I felt a presence behind me. I knew it was Kesh. I was attuned to his presence, and my whole body jumped to attention whenever he was near.

Tingles raced down my back and my heart started to race at his nearness. I did my best to ignore him and continued on with what I was doing. When I’d selected the herbs I wanted I went to walk out, only to have my way barred.

“Can you move out of the way, please?” I asked refusing to look at him.

“You’re angry,” he said quietly.

“No, Kesh. I’m disappointed,” I replied, looking up into his black eyes. The markings on his face bore a beautiful, intricate swirl that only seemed to highlight the planes of his face. That only seemed to accentuate the smooth expanse of his forehead, the sharp cut of his cheekbones and the strength of his jaw.

“That’s not all you feel, Magnolia, disappointment wouldn’t have you ignoring me the way you have for the last few minutes.”

My anger flared. “Don’t tell me what I feel, Kesh.”

“Then be honest, Magnolia.”

“Fine. Yes, I’m angry with you. You should have told me you were pirates.”

“And what would you have done? Would it change anything? You can’t deny that there’s something between us, and the fact that we’re pirates doesn’t change that.”