Handsome Devil (15 page)

He wants to be mates? He could have waited more than three days or whatever it's been (I actually don't even know how long I've known this guy!) to make that decision. He could have included me in on the thought process while he was at it. He could have, you know, courted me or something. Dating is not too much to ask.

I am not being unreasonable. M'anu is. He totally, absolutely, positively is being an obstinate Ferissian.

We stand there, glaring at each other, when a buzzer sounds on the display behind M'anu. I've heard that sound before.

My glare intensifies. “You didn't send the message to your brother.”

M'anu actually flushes. “I had other things on my mind.”

Like fabulous sex on a table. To be fair, I was so preoccupied with that as well that I forgot to update M'anu's system. That thought does not comfort me. “Great.” I turn on my heel. “I'll get the guns.”

He follows without another word, but his black mood hangs over us like a cloud during hurricane season. My own anger is sizzling under the surface. I'm frustrated. Talking like grownups failed miserably. A) I didn't approach it the right way from the get-go and B) when I corrected, he wasn't in the least bit receptive. It was either all or nothing. That harkens back to his black/white personality, but shouldn't he exhibit a little more caution than that when he's talking about, I don't know,
the rest of our lives
?
 

What really pisses me off,
I think as I take the gun he gives me and slam the safety button out of its socket,
is that he hurt my feelings
. It's not like I want to ditch any possibility of a relationship. I just want to take it one step at a time. Surely a guy who brushes that aside isn't right for me.
 

Maybe this is what Betty felt when Feruz popped the non-question. Maybe that's why she ducked and ran—she knew talking wasn't going to solve anything. Then again, you never know with Betty. Maybe she just fucked him and took off before they could have the argument.

Betty
.
 

I still. It can't be.

It totally can.

“
Well, well,” she says from the doorway. “This is not exactly how I envisioned this going, but a little variety is never unwelcome.”

In an instant M'anu is spinning, his blaster raising to shoot the intruder—
my fucking sister
—and I have no time to think. I just whale him on the back of the head as hard as I can, no holds barred, because he's stronger than a freakin' ox and it won't hurt him.
 

Much.

He drops.

“
Oh my god!” Dammit! The
one time
this works, it has to be now, when I don't want it to? I stare down at his prone body, unable to believe I knocked him out. But there he is, out cold. I must have landed it just right.
 

“
Huh. Lucky shot,” Betty observes. “That's not your best move. Good job though.”

“
Are you fucking serious?” I half-yell at her. “Do you know how pissed he's going to be when he wakes up?”

“
We better get moving then, because a ticked Ferissian is deadly.” She steps into the room and pulls a syringe out of the back of her pants. “Here, this should buy us a few more minutes.”

She wants me to drug him? The hell?

Betty makes a sound of impatience. “Babycakes. Focus. Take the needle. Stick him. We don't have a lot of time here.”

Focus.

Because that's what Jenners do. I look down at M'anu, all laid out and unconscious. My lover. But Betty doesn't know that. She doesn't know that we were fighting, or that the last thing I want to do is hurt the guy. Then I think about what we were fighting about and his snotty comment about expecting better from the daughter of Moiria Jenner. My anger surges, overcoming my concern. You know what? Maybe it was time to teach him exactly what Agmoirias do. He wanted it bad enough.

I hold out my hand. “Give it to me.”

You would not believe how hard it is to transport a Ferissian's worth of dead weight down a hall, flight of stairs, and over any number of feet without chopping him up into pieces first. Or dropping him, which we do. A few times. He's freakin' heavy. Betty and I are strong, but we're not Hercules or any of the Amazons. She's got his feet and I have his head. At least we don't crack his skull open. When we finally get to the brig, tucked away in the airlock behind all the other cages, Betty and I are sweating and panting like wheezy Pugs.

We roll M'anu into the confinement room like a floppy fish because we have no more strength to carry him. Once that's done, I hit the button that brings the transparent field down. I check the system to make sure he doesn't have voice command. Turns out that he does—from the outside. Guess it never occurred to him that he'd be stuck on the other side of the barrier. Thank god for small favors.

The brig is tucked away, out of sight of the normal hangar. Almost like a closet that someone forgot to mention. Nobody would know it was there if they weren't looking for it. Good thing I double checked all this stuff when I took over the brig a hundred years ago.

I sag against the wall, feeling like I've aged months.

Betty pushes her bleach blonde locks out of her face. She's wearing her standard green tank top,  camo jacket, and utilitarian black cargo pants, tucked into some mean-looking combat boots. I feel like a glittery sorority girl compared to her, what with the ballerinas and skinny jeans. Totally unprepared. She's got curves on top of that, meaning my sister looks like the Betty Paige version of Tank Girl.

Bitch. “God, I missed you.”

She turns her appreciative eye from M'anu's ass to me, raising her brow. “You look like hell, babycakes.”

I try, I really do, but it's useless. Everything hits me at once. My composure crumples. I press the heels of my palms to my eye sockets, trying to hide the evidence as I tremble. Betty does the most sisterly thing she's ever done and enfolds me into a hug. Emotion does not make her comfortable, so this is a big deal. I'm so grateful she's there for me I hiccup and bury my face in her shoulder. “I tried to talk to him, but he wasn't interested in hearing it,” I confess miserably.

She pats me on the small of my back. “You tried to talk him out of kidnapping you? Jules, you're a talker, but even you can't argue with a Ferissian if he's hellbent on something.”

“
That's not what I mean.” I pull back. “We're kind of...you know...”

Her brows shoot to her hairline. She looks from him to me. “No.”

I'm not loving this. “Yeah.”

“
And you put him in the brig.”

“
We're in a fight right now.”

“
Huh.” She clearly doesn't know how to interpret this, but no judgments from Betty. She just says, “Let's go find a bathroom. My hair is pissing me off.”

I scoff, then laugh. Typical. My sister is a nut. But I follow her anyway, because I need a nutty sisterly ear right now.

But not before I swipe my hand over the control system, pressing a few keys that will make M'anu's stay as comfortable as possible. He's already stirring. I'm not sorry I put him in there. He was being a big, sharp-toothed jerk. I don't want him to suffer needlessly either.

We leave the brig and exit the mini corridor, turning and climbing the stairs. We step over the portal and get to the main living area. Before long we're at the communal bathroom, across the hall from the armory, and Betty is fussing with her hair while I'm spilling my guts. “I can't believe he didn't have the decency to see it from my side,” I growl. “The brig is too good for him!”

I'm hitting the anger stage again.

Betty nods. “Unfair.” She pulls out a mini comb from her back pocket. She's got more tools hidden on her bod than I do, but she's a lazy wretch with sewing. Hence the cargo pants. “He's lucky you didn't shoot him.”

Actually, he was lucky Betty didn't shoot him. I think she knew what the real deal was. Either that, or I was faster than she could was at pulling the trigger. “Exactly!” I wipe my nose on the back of my hand. “I even set the food processor to high quality steaks for him!”

“
If that's not a gesture of love, I don't know what is.”

I use my shirt to clean my cheeks, still sniffing back stupid tears that threaten every once in a while. If she asks, though, I'm going to claim it's sweat. “Well, I don't know about
love
,” I quickly refute, “but it's definitely a gesture of goodwill, right?”
 

“
So you didn't want to fuck him. Big deal. Girls can say no.”

I fidget. “Well, that's not what happened.”

She peers at me via reflection. “You did fuck him?”

I don't know why I'm blushing. Seriously, I don't. It's nothing to be ashamed about. “A couple of times.”

Betty's brows climb. And climb. And climb. She slowly turns to face me, bracing her arm on the jamb. “Let me get this straight. You did the nasty with the Ferissian, more than once, and he's still all done up over you.”

God, I'm not going to get out of this, am I? “He decided to take me to mate.”

Betty's mouth drops open. “And you said no?”

“
No.” Shit. “Kind of. Maybe.” I bury my head in my hands. “I just didn't want to go all in not even three days after I met the guy!”

Betty starts to laugh. Deep belly laughing. “You are in such big trouble, babycakes. You're in so far there's nothing I can do for you.”

“
That is not helping, dammit! I tried to be reasonable and tell him my concerns, and he basically called me a coward.”

She frowns. “The hell?”

“
That's what I said!” Not really, but I thought it and that's close enough.

She shakes her head and goes back to the mirror. “Maybe it's for the best. You aren't exactly into commitment.”

I get closer, taking over her spot at the door. “What does that mean?” Especially coming from her?

“
You know exactly what I mean. You've got an escape complex a kilometer wide.”

“
There's nothing wrong with having back up plans.”

“
Too bad that doesn't fit in with Ferissian mating culture, huh? He can't be all that great anyway. Even with those sexy pink bangs and rock-hard jaw and an ass that a woman could squeeze until she—”

“
Betty!” I bark. “No mind fucking the merchandise!”

“
Yeah, yeah. So, great or not?”

“
He's...” Is there a word accurate enough? Ah hell, go for broke. “Fantastic,” I admit, “and so freakin' intense he scares the bejesus out of me.”

“
So what's the fuss?”

“
All or nothing? Any of that ring a bell for you?”

“
So you're running away.” Betty grins knowingly.

I wave my hands. “Whoa whoa whoa. Who said anything about running away? I said it was a bit overwhelming. If I think about it long enough, I'm sure there's a compromise.” This is way too close to the conversation I just had with M'anu.

“
You're running.”

“
I beg to differ—I'm not a big fat chicken like some people.”

She whips around. “I'm not fat!”

I run my hand down my face. That's not what I meant, but fuck it. “You're curvy, you're round, you've got an ass, a belly, and boobs.” The lucky psycho. “Live it, love it, own it. Now shut up so I can angst.”

Betty grunts, reading my envy of her chest loud and clear. “Look babycakes,” she says as she starts pulling her hair into a ponytail. “Ferissians just don't have the concept of choices like we do. It's
fuck
or
mate—
which implies fucking, but on a level of commitment that we cannot imagine.” She picks up the hair tie. “No dating. No open relationships. No take backs. You are either in or you aren't.”
 

I lean against the bathroom's door jamb. Man, hearing M'anu's culture spelled out in black and white like that is hard on the nerves. She just totally deflated me. “Doesn't that sound crazy to you? What about divorce?”

She lets go of the hair tie with a soft rubbery thwack and inspects herself in the mirror. “Judging him by human standards isn't going to get you anywhere, Jules.”

I
hate it
when Betty is right. M'anu isn't human. He's his own species and has his own way of
doing things. Compromises can be made, but essentially it's take him or leave him. I look down, picking at my nails. When Betty starts to sound like the moral compass of this story, something is up. Am I really that wrong? A couple of minutes pass in silence. “Are they all happy? The Ferissians? Perfect harmony and all that?”
 

“
Fuck no, they fight all the time! That for them is happiness. Combat race,” she sums up with a shrug.

I throw my hands up in the air. “How is that supposed to reassure me? Spend my life fighting with a guy and praying that it was the right choice?”

She turns and plants her fists on her hips like she can't believe me. “Seriously, Jules, how is that any different from any other relationship in the universe?” She makes a face, nose wrinkling. “The guy will think you're the best thing that ever happened to him even when he snarls at you! If that's not awesome in a can I don't know what is!”

Friggin' sisters. They always hit you in the 'you ain't got a leg to stand on' button. “Oh yeah?” I shoot back. “If it's so fantabulous, what's the deal with his brother shelling out thirty million just to get a date with you?”

She scoffs. “I'm different. I've got issues.”

If that isn't the understatement of the universe... “Well, all of this is irrelevant anyway,” I say with a point of my finger. “Because he's in the brig, and we're the ones that tossed him in--”

There is a jolt before I hear metal bend, and nobody is more surprised than me when I go careening to the left. I slam into the shelf. Stars burst in my vision.