Origin (21 page)

“Hey now, don’t be putting down our ride, sweetheart.” Anders’s chuckle went from soft to outright laughter. “It was pretty good though, eh?”

“I was with you the whole time and Namito and Juniper were in that bar.”

“But Lia, Bucho and Speero stayed behind.” Clay sat up, letting the blanket pool in his lap.

“Nice tats,” Lux said.

I scowled at her, surprising myself and Clay, who smiled and tugged me close to his side. He looked back up at Lux. “Kithronite isn’t the only thing Lia and Bucho managed to snag. We think we might have some of the material that was used in the explosions.”

“Really. That’s fantastic news.” Lux frowned, tapped her finger on the arm of her chair. “We’ve got a pretty decent lab set up here and Vala is on her way home. She and Kol together can probably look at that and tell us how it worked, maybe even figure out where it came from. Did she tell you that she’s now found seven other instances of explosions using the same small containers? Turns out this thing was bigger than we thought.”

Clay’s hand had tightened on my waist when she’d mentioned Vala. “If Vala is going home, that means she talked Jacks into going back.”

Lux nodded, some of her color coming back into her cheeks. “Jacks, Bastian and Vala should be here not too long after you. We just have to figure out where we can hide your ship so we can get the kithronite onto my ship and bring Crichton here.”

“You know you’ll get into trouble when they learn you flew him there.”

She shrugged. “I’m always in trouble with The Company. Don’t really give a shit.” Her face paled again. “Damn, not holding it back this time. I’ll have to get back to you with a place.” She clicked off.

I stared at the blank vidscreen. “So I’ll be home soon.”

“You will. Excited?” Clay hugged me.

“Yes.”

“Don’t sound like it.”

Anders made a strange smacking noise and we both turned to find that the big man had scooted down the bed and fallen asleep. I smiled, loving how relaxed and happy he looked. I lifted the covers. He had his arm wrapped around Clay’s thigh. My smile faded as I thought about how little time I had left with them.

Clay yawned. “Think Sullivan has the right idea. I could nap. You?”

I nodded and followed him down. Once we settled with my front all along Clay’s right side, Anders rolled closer and dropped his arm over Clay, his fingers on my leg. He seemed ready to hang on like that through sleep.

I didn’t mind. “How long will you and Anders be able to stay on Kithra?”

“Few days, maybe a week or so. The new warrant will put too much attention there, and once the governments learn Crichton is there, they’ll have enforcer ships along the outskirts of the debris fields to catch us, set them up on the supply station to inspect Lux’s ship every time she lands there.”

“A week, huh? That’s not a long time.”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not.”

I loved how he’d picked up Anders’s nickname for me, how it felt to be in this bed with them.

What I didn’t love was him not asking me to stay with them. I didn’t love that at all.

I lay there a long time, looking at the stars above Clay’s bed as the men slept. Neither of them let go of me and I wondered if this was going to be at all hard for them.

Chapter Fourteen

“Yo, Captain Asshole!” A strange woman’s voice woke me from sleep. I blinked up at the vidscreen, surprised to see a Gwinarian woman with shoulder-length dark red hair smirking at me. “Hey, you, come closer so I don’t have to yell and wake them. Wow.”

I sat up and looked down to find Anders sprawled flat on his stomach with his arms and legs out, and Clay draped over half of him. Both men were stark naked. I could only stare.

“They looked fucked to within an inch of their lives. Good work.” She winked at me. “Seriously, come closer to the camera. Are you Siri? Vala told me all about you. You’re a gorgeous thing, aren’t you?”

“Who’s gorgeous?” A long and lean body showed up on screen before the man leaned down. Long ropes of black hair framed a dark-skinned face. Milky eyes blinked a couple of times before strange-shaped black pupils and purple irises blinked at me. He had a black symbol tattooed around one eye and it didn’t detract from his gruff looks at all. “Oh, hello, Freckles.”

“Think Erik would like her?” the Gwinarian woman asked.

“Most definitely.” He made a wagging motion with his finger. “Freckles, could you move a little to your right because I’m kind of enjoying the whole picture here. But lose the rest of that blanket first.”

I squeaked in surprise when a hand yanked me back between two hard male bodies before covers went over us all. “Perverts,” Clay muttered at the screen, then frowned. “Jarana, I should have known. How the hell did you bypass my security and get the screen open on your end?”

She snorted and tucked her straight hair behind her ear. “Like you don’t know. By the way, I tweaked your software a bit. You might have to name it Fourth Degree instead of Third now.” She smirked again. “I made it better.”

“She’s fucking with our software, Captain,” Anders murmured as he pulled the covers over his head and mine. “Mmmm,” he moaned into my neck as his hands started stroking everywhere. “Warm, sleepy woman.”

I didn’t mind the hands, but I wanted to know what this Gwinarian wanted, so I pulled the covers down enough to peek over them. Anders didn’t stop running his palms over my body.

“Jarana.” Clay scrubbed his hands over his face. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re breaking into my private channel?”

“I tried hailing you on the bridge several times but that hulking brute of a man named after an Earth bush said you were busy having an orgy and eating up all the good food.”

Anders chuckled under the covers before sucking one of my nipples into his mouth.

I lifted the covers. “Stop,” I hissed.

“Anyway,” Jarana said on a long sigh. “I can smuggle the three of you and Crichton onto Kithra. You’ll have to get your crew to drop you off on the planet Calina and ride in with the crates to the supply station. I told my people to poke holes in them so you can breathe.” She laughed and I frowned at the faintly evil tone.

Lifting the covers again, I whispered, “Did you and Claybourne do something to this Gwinarian?”

“Yeah, tranqued her, kidnapped her friends then made her lose time with her new baby while tracking us down. She hates us.”

“Oh.” I dropped the covers.

“She says oh,” came his muffled response. “Tells me to stop then breathes the sexiest word in the galaxies.”

Clay was grinning down at us. I rolled my eyes, but then her words sank into my sex-exhausted brain and every muscle in my body froze. I knew my terror leaked into my eyes because Clay suddenly frowned and pulled me closer to him.

“Hey,” Anders yelled from under the blanket. “Give her back.”

I ignored the words, could only stare at Clay as my world narrowed again—like it had on Burga One when I’d seen Lashin.

Ride into Kithra in a crate
.

No.

I shook my head.

“What is it, Siri?”

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Can’t get into a box. Can never ever get into another box.”

His eyes narrowed. “Another box?”

“Please, Claybourne.” I grabbed his arms, digging my fingernails into his skin. “Don’t put me into a box.”

“Hey now, shh.” He wrapped his arms around me.

Anders sat up and he reached out to tilt my chin. “Nobody is putting you into a box.”

“If you three could listen for a moment,” Jarana tried to break in.

I barely heard her because I had gone back to my childhood. To dark, small spaces and breathing holes. I began to rock in Clay’s lap, uncaring that the woman on the screen saw me.

“Shit,” she said. “Tell the woman she doesn’t have to ride in the crates. There isn’t a warrant out for her. As far as anyone will know, she’ll just be another Gwinarian going home for Kithra’s rebuild.”

“Did you hear her?” Clay asked. “Fuck, please listen.”

It took all my willpower to slow the tide of terror, to push it back, but humiliation came in its wake. I pushed away from Clay and scrambled off the bed, accidentally kicking him in my hurry.

“Oomph,” he gasped, but reached for me anyway.

I jumped out of the way of his hands and searched the floor for my clothes.

“Well,” Jarana barked the word hard. “I can see you have enough to deal with. Looks like you should be able to arrive on Calina by tonight. It’ll be a two-day trip in the crates, but they’re big.” She leaned toward the screen. “Before I go, let me see Crichton.”

Heedless of his nudity, Clay got out of the bed and walked to the screen. He kept glancing at me as he pulled out a keyboard and patched in the camera they had on Crichton. The captain had given the man a pallet, antibiotics, and set him up on a feeding tube system, but he still looked awful. Dirty hair fanned around a thin face covered mostly in more dirty blond hair. His beard reached his chest and I shuddered, remembering how emaciated he’d looked when we’d put him in clothes that didn’t smell like the waste receptacle.

I stopped my frantic clothes search when I caught Jarana’s expression. She stared at the sleeping man for a long time, her lips thin, her eyes flashing the kind of pain I knew well and my heart started to ache for her. She’d seemed hard, cold, but I could see now that she had suffered. I could also see that she was glad Crichton suffered as well.

“Make sure there are plenty of holes in his crate,” she finally said when Clay switched the feed back to him. “I don’t want him to die before I can question him,” she continued.

Jarana clicked off and Clay sat on the end of the bed and stared at me silently.

I stared back, not saying a word, while inside I raged and screamed because I had so many emotions tearing into me, I needed to be alone. “I’m sorry.” My voice broke as I shoved one of their shirts over my head. “I have to…I need to…” I stopped, took a deep breath. “I have to be alone for a little while.”

“Okay,” was all he said.

I didn’t even look at Anders as I scurried from the room.

Jarana’s simple plan backfired. Really backfired.

Footage of me blowing half of Lashin’s head off leaked everywhere. Images of my wild, terrified eyes, pale face and freckles blazed out through the intergalactic media like wildfire. We arrived on Calina to find not only a warrant out for my arrest, but a crate laid open just for me. It had a hidden, lower level just like the others. They were obviously smuggler’s crates, which made me wonder even more about the scary Jarana. The upper halves could be filled with things like fruit and vegetables. The lower section had cleverly hidden breathing tubes as well as tubes for other things like food and stuff I didn’t want to think about.

Guess she’d been joking about them poking holes in the crates.

I stared at the box like it was my coffin.

Anders’s nostrils flared as he kicked one of the boxes. “We’re not fucking putting her into one of these.”

Clay grabbed his arm, curled his lip. “Stop yelling. I’m not disagreeing with you. We’ll find another way in.”

“There is no other way in.” The man who’d walked us to the crates reminded me of the nice handler who’d been killed. He had the same gruff exterior but his brown eyes were kind. “There are now enforcers parked on the supply station and they’re carrying around the vids of the three of you. You’re like modern-day gangster lovers and the media is going crazy over the story. The Gwinarian”—he nodded toward me—“is becoming some kind of hero and it’s pissing off the authorities because they want answers.”

“Are there any enforcers on Kithra yet?” Clay asked.

“There will be soon. Jarana is trying to work out a deal.”

Anders frowned. “What kind of deal?”

The man shrugged. “I have no idea. Just know not to underestimate that Gwinarian. She’s got years of contacts and some in places even I won’t go.”

I could only stare at the crates as it occurred to me that I hadn’t had a nightmare in weeks about the box years and not a nightmare of any kind since I’d been sharing a bed with Anders and Clay. Looking at the fuming blond man and the concerned captain, I realized something. I’d grown stronger in the last weeks, stronger than even I’d hoped.

“Could you give us a few minutes?” I asked the man.

He nodded and strode out of the warehouse.

“I can do this,” I said to Anders and Clay. Anders started shaking his head and I held up my hand. “No, I really think I can. At first, I was thinking you’d have to drug me.”

“We’re not drugging you for two days.”

I grinned at him. “Juniper told me you drugged Vala and Bastian longer than that.”

“That’s different,” he muttered frowning. “And Juniper? Really?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “He also told me how he got that name.”

Anders stopped pacing, his mouth falling open.

“My crew likes you.” Clay walked closer, wrapped his fingers around my arms. “I’m not going to drug you and risk you waking up confused in that box. I don’t even have to know what happened—‘another box’ was all I needed to hear to understand that this is one of your worst fears. I’m right about that, aren’t I?”