Dawn Autumn (17 page)

He grinned at her childlike enthusiasm. “In about five minutes.”

“Wow! Will you give me the tour later? There hasn’t been time. Hey, will there be gravity or not? I never liked the idea of floating around and eating dehydrated food.”

He laughed and gave her a one-arm squeeze. “No floating, but I make no guarantees about the food.” The ship was smaller than he remembered it. Steel grating clanked underfoot, steel walls lined the hallways. The bridge was a twenty-five by twenty foot area with several consoles and seats with cracked coverings. He helped Jay strap in, then took the seat next to her. He wanted to watch her face during take-off, see her first glimpse of space. He felt indulgent, like a cowboy giving his little girl her first pony ride. It was all old news to him, but through her eyes, he saw the wonder again.

Moment’s later, he saw her lips part as they emerged above the atmosphere. Never mind the view out the window. Stars shimmered in her eyes.

“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured in awe.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes on her.

“Hmph.” Red spun around and looked at them. “I want to know why I just spent my evening dodging drunks and running through garbage. Why are those bugs chasing you?”

Fred explained. “Tayl and I think Tark’s son was responsible for the attack tonight. Apparently his attempt to discredit me by opening a rogue portal failed, so he’s going for the throat now.”

Tayl shook his head. “I can’t credit a bug with the brains to come up with the first scheme. If someone was helping them, maybe, but that would mean you have more trouble than the obvious.”

“Bugs have money from drugs. They can afford a portal device,” Kok put in. “Someone could pay them to use it.”

“If bugs are so dumb, how do they have the brains to manufacture drugs?” Jay wanted to know. “I mean, you make them sound like rocks, but they’ve got money and influence.”

“It’s their bodies. The drug is a secretion they make to feed their queens. It has only been known as a hallucinogenic drug in our lifetimes. Some beings will pay anything for it,” Tayl explained.

“Big money,” Nightbird chimed in. “Big toys for ugly children. They don’t live long enough to grow wise.”

Jay looked thoughtful. “So they want Fred dead. Okay, who else does, too?”

They laughed. Even Fred grinned wryly.

“Earthling, take your pick. Your mate was an assassin for the better part of a decade. He’s got piles of money stashed away somewhere from that alone.”

Jay narrowed her eyes at him. “You said that was from your art.”

He shrugged. “I told you how much I made from my art. Remind me later and we’ll discuss our finances.”

“Then there’s his ex,” Red went on.

Jay stiffened. “Ex-what?”

Red pursed her lips and looked at Fred.

He sighed and glanced at the ceiling, then met Jay’s narrowed gaze. “I was married once. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal,” she repeated, dead pan.

“No big deal!” Nightbird exclaimed. “She is only the biggest witch in the universe. Her father is the space commissioner, the top-top-top boss of Kutlazx’s organization. He’s the one who busted him down to traffic cop. He didn’t like Kutlazx divorcing his daughter.”

“She cheated on me,” Fred said tightly. This is not how he wanted to have this conversation, with Jay shooting jagged glass looks at him. Preferably, never, but he would have gotten around to it eventually.

“Repeatedly,” Red said helpfully.

He ground his jaw. This was not helping. “This has nothing to do with anything. The commissioner wouldn’t sink to using bugs.”

“You think so? It would be the perfect cover. No one would suspect it of him,” Red insisted.

“What about Lezza?” Nightbird chimed in, oblivious to the rising tension. “Things were ugly with her, too, yes? Maybe ….”

“Jay wants a tour of the ship,” Fred cut him off. He reached over and unclipped her. Stay, Rebel,” he told the pendragon before it could follow. He didn’t need the creature flapping around anxiously, trying to attack him while he argued with his wife. He didn’t doubt they were going to argue. She had that look.

Jay waited until the bulkhead sealed behind them before saying with admirable calm, “Your ex?”

Fred paused by a porthole and looked out. It gave him something to focus on beside her tense face. “First, I have nothing left for my former wife but a bad taste in my mouth. She hates my guts just as much for divorcing her. She never thought I’d dare, not with the commissioner for her father. She thought she could cheat on me and get away with it. In my culture, we kill women who do that.”

Jay gasped.

He was pulled from his anger long enough to look at her. “It’s not the divorce we abhor, though we don’t like it. It’s the dishonor of vow-breaking.”

She nodded slowly. “But divorce is vow-breaking.”

“Sometimes,” he said slowly. “It is an ugly thing in our world, seldom done and heavily stigmatized. The adultery I wouldn’t tolerate, though.”

Her lips softened. “That goes both ways, you know.”

His mouth curved in a slight smile, but memories flattened it again. “Her world is intolerant, too. She was banned from it. She swore she’d kill me for that.”

She gave him a moment of silence before asking, “What was her name?”

It tasted foul in his mouth, so he spit it out. “Lyra.”

Jay crossed her arms and rubbed them. “How did you meet?”

He turned to her then. “I used to enjoy fast living and fast women. Looking back, I think it was more a way of running from myself than anything I found pleasure in.”

She wagged a finger at him. “You’ve been watching Oprah.”

He shrugged. “Whatever it was, I was unlucky enough to find a fast woman who wanted me for more than a night. I think she thought I’d look the other way, later. I was a fool to take someone like her to wife.”

Jay looked a little pale around the lips. “And Lezza?”

He looked away. “I tried picking that one with my head. Didn’t work, either.”

“You were married?”

“No.”

“What made it end badly?” she said cautiously.

Rage welled in him again, and the old grief. Not for Lezza, but for a life lost. “She aborted my child.”

Jay covered her mouth. One arm went around her stomach, as if she felt nauseous.

“I didn’t even know she was pregnant! When I found out, it was too late,” he said with savage grief. “I might have killed her if Tayl hadn’t been there and pulled me away. That night he must have poured an entire bottle of booze down my throat to knock me down.” His eyes were wide pools of silver. “She didn’t want my baby. The mixed blood ....” A muscle jumped in his jaw.

She went to him and held him in her arms. “Sweetheart.” She said nothing else, just held him tight and let him shiver.

They didn’t make love that night, just held each other in their tiny cabin until exhaustion claimed them.

* * * *

Jay woke before him. She lay there thinking for a few moments, then slid out of bed and got dressed.

Tayl was alone on the bridge. He looked up when she came in and offered her a slight smile. “Up so early?”

“I guess so. I have no idea what time it is back home, my body says it’s time to wake up.” She stared at him a moment, then said slowly, “You were there the night Lezza told Fred that she’d ... um.” She found she couldn’t say it.

“Yes.” His face was neutral.

“Why would she do something like that?”

He sighed. “Our race has strictures about mixing our blood with aliens, though some of us are not so choosy with our lovers. She would have felt the child to be an abomination.”

“So she didn’t love Fred.”

Tayl looked at her kindly. “Child, I don’t know. You will find there are many different cultures in this galaxy. For that matter, you would be wise to learn more of your husband’s. Whatever Lezza felt or did is in his past. You are his future.”

That made her smile. “We’ve kind of had a weird beginning. There’s a lot I don’t know about him.”

“Ask him,” he said, looking down at a screen. “No one knows him better.”

“Ask him what?” Fred asked from the doorway, his voice rough from sleep. He looked at her suspiciously.

Jay gave him a rueful smile. “I was pumping Tayl for information about you, but he wouldn’t give. The man’s a vault.”

Fred’s face relaxed and he sauntered to her. Sitting down, he pulled her into his lap and proceeded to nibble her neck. “Good of him.”

“Maybe you should return to your room,” Tayl said without looking up. “You won’t be fit for conversation until you’ve said good morning properly.”

Jay sucked in a breath, then huffed in mock outrage.

Fred grinned and bit her lower lip. “Good idea.” He surged out of the chair, Jay in his arms, and strode for the door.

He didn’t talk and he didn’t play. Fred devoured her with slow precision, took care of her even as he used her to sate his hunger. Chills chased down her spine as his lips eased down her body with icy fire, bowing her over his arm. It was another kind of surrender, depending on him to protect her even from the force of gravity.

He craved that surrender. She could tell by the way he growled with satisfaction when she shivered, they way his hands tensed on her curves with barely restrained lust. It was an energy that hummed just under his skin, an inferno that flicked in his eyes.

He caught a glimpse of the fear mixed with excitement in her face and his nostrils flared. With all the authority of a pasha taking his woman to bed, he lay her down and slid inside her. She gasped and arced, breaking eye contact. Even as she closed her eyes in helpless ecstasy, she knew he watched her, knew this fed him even as he pleasured her. Maybe he had to know she needed him, how much he could make her want him.