Freeker (11 page)

Chapter Seven

Warrant headed straight for the cabin Chaz had setup to play with the scrap equipment he kept tearing apart. In the past few months, Chaz had developed an expertise on tech and ship systems.

Warrant’s back prickled as he walked away from the locked hatch of his room.

It was better for everyone concerned that Chara stayed locked in there. Their sex had been unfettered. He hadn’t held back. The mere thought of it had him pausing his stride. He stood in the middle of the ship section, stared at the nest where he found his only peaceful sleep while next to his brothers—now empty as they all went about whatever they had to do—and closed his eyes. His brothers had no place in the thoughts now assailing him.

Snatches of skin, of pleasure, of the incredible feeling of peace unlike anything he’d felt before when he’d held Chara in the moments after.

He wasn’t a gentle man. These urges were unfamiliar. Shaking his head, he opened his eyes and let long forgotten hopes out of the locked compartment where he’d banished them inside his head. He’d never thought he’d find a mate, or that any of them would find a mate. Ursula was different. She was their sister but she was human. It seemed that since he was old enough to understand sex, he’d realized the Scoriah were a one-generation species and that they’d never have partners or children.

A little thrill bloomed inside his chest. Maybe he’d been wrong. At least on the partners side of things.

What else could explain his response besides some sort of mating process? He’d been able to get hard with her again after only a few minutes. He’d known when they were done that he could’ve gone for longer if they weren’t physically spent and if he hadn’t been sure she was completely satisfied. There’d been an unusual scent in the air that he’d never sensed before—

“Damn my hide, what is that smell?”

Warrant snapped his gaze into focus and glared at Chaz. His brother stood in the open door of his cabin, his nose in the air, sniffing and leaning toward Warrant.

Warrant cleared his throat and—with no reason not to share his theory with his brothers to get their thoughts and ideas on it—shrugged. “I think I’ve mated Chara.”

Chaz’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Then he snapped it closed, catching his lip with his fang. Obviously ignoring the small injury and spot of blood, he bounced a bit on his heels. “We can do that?”

“I need your help here, brother.”

“Damn. Anything. Anything.” Chaz waved him in and with hands on hips, stood there waiting. His open, eager expression relieved a small concern Warrant hadn’t realized he’d had. Just like when Ursula found her partner, his brothers would accept Warrant’s mating. He was more and more sure that’s what it was. Each second he was away from Chara seemed to count down in a small corner of his head. It was similar to the anxiousness they all had when not with each other.

They were a pack, the Scoriah, and forever would be. The question was if they mated—would their partners accept that? Chaz’s response signaled that they would.

Chara would. She had no choice, after all, but if she had the choice, would she leave?

He frowned and Chaz frowned back at him, misunderstanding the turn of Warrant’s thoughts.

“I need the dossier on Chara that you recovered from the shuttle. Anything on her past we can use. And we need to find out who released her and why.”

“That last part I can help you with already.” Chaz motioned him to a workstation and swiped his palm over it. Data flew across the screen. “That was the first thing I looked for to figure out who we killed and if we’d have a vendetta against us. Or the geonates after us.”

“Will we have the geonates after us?”

Chaz shook his head. “I don’t think so. The man on the shuttle…”

“Jebe,” Warrant supplied.

“Yes, Jebe. He was a researcher and supplier of illegal drugs who seemed to be in a downward spiral. His family had apparently given up the cause and had kicked him out—how can a family do that? Anyway, all indications are they’ll think it’s what happens when a rich boy goes slumming on bad space stations.”

“I’ll want to read all that.” Warrant motioned to the screen.

“I’m sure you will. But the main issue is, the man who released the rest of the prisoners, he retrieved one of the ones still in a coma and disappeared. I believe he was after a particular man and part of that recovery was shutting down the clinic. That’s probably why he dumped Chara at Johnson’s and left.”

Warrant snarled. She’d been left there with no resources. What might have happened to her if she hadn’t found Warrant?

Chaz chuckled and raised his hands. “Calm, brother. It’s worked for the best, it seems.”

“It does. This fits Jebe’s story that the man who freed Chara only wanted his son back.”

Tee sauntered into the room then stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. On Chaz, the expression had seemed natural. On Tee, it was comic. Warrant chuckled and grinned. Worry had lifted from his shoulders and a sneaking feeling of joy had started to overtake him.

“What’s going on?” Tee asked suspiciously.

“I found a way for Chara to pose no danger to the family.”

“How’s that?” Tee raised a brow but he didn’t look his usual snarling self. He appeared almost frightened.

“We can mate, Tee? Can you believe it?” Chaz grinned and slung an arm around Warrant’s shoulders in a side hug.

Tee’s gray face paled in a way Warrant had never seen. None of them had ever turned that color before. His brother croaked, “No.”

“Turns out, we can,” Chaz chirped. His brother with his carefree ways, his blond-tipped hair and his cheerful outlook didn’t see the danger in prodding a clearly wounded animal.

“Not possible.” Tee swayed on his feet and managed the impossible by going nearly white.

“Tee?” Chaz zipped to Tee’s side and gripped his arm.

Their brother shook his head and snatched his arm from Chaz’s hold. Whirling, he stomped from the room without another word. Something had rattled Tee but Warrant didn’t have time to figure it out. For now, he had his own agenda.

Chaz gave a worried frown toward Tee’s vanishing back then turned to Warrant. “Never seen anything like that.”

“Me, either.”

Tee wouldn’t want them chasing after him and trying to coddle. He’d tell them later or he wouldn’t. For now, best to leave him be.

“Help me with something, brother.” Warrant nodded toward Chaz’s electronics.

“Like I said, anything.”

It took them a while to find what Warrant hunted for. All he needed was a little time to get it ready for Chara.

Warrant contacted his sister. “Need you to take Chara to the mess hall. Tell her whatever to get her there.”

“Um.” Ursula frowned. It was a potent expression that made him glad she wasn’t in the room with him. He’d never been able to tell his little sister ‘no.’ If she couldn’t help him out, then he’d have to come up with another plan. “Okay. As long as Grendel can be with me. He’s being all overprotective and stuff and wanting to check out the convicted murderer to make sure she won’t hurt me.”

Ursula rolled her eyes but Warrant had complete sympathy for Grendel’s concerns.

“That’s fine. The two of you invite her. I only need fifteen minutes.”

“And do what?”

“How about go over the duty roster. See what she can help with.”

“Okay,” Ursula said dubiously. “Why would she be claiming ship’s duties? Aren’t we ditching her?”

“No,” Warrant snarled. “She’s here to stay.”

Ursula rolled her eyes. “Chill, bug-man. I can have her wash dishes. Whatever.”

She logged off before Warrant reminded her they had the auto-sanitizer. Still, he couldn’t keep in the usual rebuke, “Stop calling us bug-men.”

Chaz laughed. “She’s never gonna stop.”

Warrant paced Chaz’s technology room and groused. “Maybe you should clean up in here. We lose gravity and one of these components is gonna bash you in the head.”

“I’ve been thinking of moving it to one of the un-used bays in the outer cubes.”

“As if we have extra storage hanging about on a cargo ship full of goods,” Warrant replied sardonically. They did occasionally have empty bays, but sometimes they were so full they had to turn down cargo.

The comm pinged and Grendel snarled something about getting Chara a drink before it went quiet again. For a moment, Warrant stood there staring at the once-again silent comm unit and marveled at the subtlety that a man designed to be a child’s special closet monster could manage.

Chaz mirrored Warrant’s thoughts with a slight laugh. “I’m more and more convinced that Grendel is somehow one of us. He was supposed to be some cuddly toy or something but he’s crafty and nearly as lethal as us.”

Warrant shrugged. If the doctor who’d created them ever turned up again, their father Cenak would probably murder him before they got a chance to ask about Grendel and none of them would blame him. “Grendel would say he’s more lethal.”

They both chuckled at that. Warrant grabbed what he needed and headed back to his room. It didn’t take long for him to get everything ready, but she wasn’t back, yet. He nearly rearranged it all but then before he could fiddle with it longer, the door finally opened.

“Here she is, Warrant. Our new dishwasher,” sang Ursula before the hatch closed with a swish.

“Your sister is insistent that I pick a chore for this ramshackle ship of yours.” Chara pursed her lips and managed to look haughty and confused all with a twist of her lips and a hitch of her chin. Then she caught sight of the wall and her face blanked of expression. “What’s this?”

Her monotone question made Warrant take a step toward her but he didn’t touch her. “Your memories.”

She jerked so hard she nearly pitched forward but she kept herself upright. Then he couldn’t stand it anymore and he reached for her. Drawing her into his arms, he held her gently. She seemed fragile when she hadn’t before. Then her back straightened and she shrugged away from him before he was done holding her.

“I remember this one.” She pointed at an image of a man. Her arm slowly dropped and they both stared at the floor to ceiling screen he’d installed over the knife hole.

Warrant had taken the files of the men she’d been found guilty of murdering and displayed all of their pictures along with images of the scenes where they’d been found. There were pics of her family—including her brother, Manta—and a data scroll of her history collected for her trial. Since she still hadn’t spoken, he couldn’t help but point out what he’d learned. “Your family is heavily involved in crime on Geonate. They’re the most successful gambling syndicate and are brutal against their enemies and rivals. They take them down with no remorse. The government turns a blind eye. It’s common knowledge they have blackmail on key individuals in the military. Maybe even the Nex.”

“Yes. I remember,” she murmured. “That one. He was my first husband. Picked by my father. He was a key right hand man and I was his prize. When he tried to frame me for his own crimes, I could almost have just walked away, but when I’d called him on it, he hit me. I cut him and got rid of his body. It’d only have gotten worse with him. He was cruel and mean.”

“You were married off before the government had even decided your first husband wasn’t just missing but dead.”

“My father. He doesn’t accept failure. I hadn’t given back to the business enough to earn my own place.” Chara snorted and walked closer to the board of murder victims. “I didn’t want a part of it. None of the men he gave me to were strong enough to stand up to him. They were worthless and ready to betray me to get ahead. They all deserved to die. Even this one.”

She pointed to a man she’d been charged with having an affair with, a competitor, and killing him when he went back to his wife. “I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t his mistress. But filthy asshole cheated on his wife. She probably did it and blamed it on my family. I was going down already and if this got her out of it...”

She shrugged.

Turning on her heel, she gazed at him with an intense expression as if a light burned inside her. “This was what I needed. I remember much more. I remember the intense relief after killing them.”

“You needed to remember. To get yourself back.” He shrugged.

She stalked toward him. “You say that as if it’s no big deal. As my two husbands would have done that gesture for me, or even my father. In the world I’m from, they’d have used my lack of memory to win. At what? It doesn’t matter. Win some ground in a turf war. Win a politician blocking their gambling deals. Anything.”

“You’d have remembered eventually.” Warrant frowned at the board of memories on the wall. “But this, it wasn’t much.”

“I think most humans would be happy I couldn’t remember murdering others. They’d probably think that remembering those crimes was a bad idea and that wanting to was sick.”

“Remembering the justification for the kills is as important as the killing.” Warrant shifted on his feet. He’d never regretted any of the fighting and violence in his past. She shouldn’t either. Neither of them killed indiscriminately.

“I may not get all my memories back.” She said wistfully and walked into him, so close that she smashed her face against his chest.

She wrapped her arms around him in a gentle hug and his eyes widened. This was the first she’d approached him like this. His chest rumbled in a rhythmic purring he couldn’t control. “You will stay. Replace what’s up there with new memories. Or, I can find you somewhere to go. I know some people on Ferrashi.”

Despite an internal alarm going off inside his head, as if there was a buzzing insect smashing around in his skull, he offered her a way out. His brothers would support him—even if it’d pain him to let go of a woman who he could mate with. He didn’t really know what it meant that his hormones had reacted that way to her but he couldn’t keep her just because his body said so.

Leaning back in his arms, she smiled at him. “We are alike. You understand me.”

“Yes.” He ran a hand in her hair and dipped to her lips. With a gentle kiss, he murmured, “You’re ferocious. I like that.”