Chapter 10
The LMP held her life in their hands. One decision. That's all it would take to throw her back to Earth, back to poverty… back to nothing. It was a hard contrast from ten minutes ago when she'd been wrapped around Kirr in the command center, his mouth hot on hers.
Even now, her lips tingled from his kiss while her stomach churned with ice water, which was unsettling to say the least.
Kirr's palm pressed against the small of her back, steering her through the maze of station corridors. It was a good job he was here, because she wouldn’t have been able to find her way even with a map.
Not with her thoughts as scattered as they were.
She focused on the warmth of his hand like a lifeline.
His touch. His presence… they were the only things keeping her from flying apart.
They turned a corner, and the Mate Program’s administrative wing spread out ahead of them.
"Breathe." Kirr's voice was low enough that only she could hear.
She let out a shaky exhale. "I'm breathing."
"You're turning purple."
"That's my natural color when facing bureaucratic execution."
His fingers flexed against her spine, a silent acknowledgment. They stopped outside a set of heavy doors marked with the LMP insignia, and for one insane moment, she thought about running. Just bolting down the corridor and hiding in some maintenance shaft until everyone forgot she existed.
His hand tightened as if he'd read her thoughts, and he announced them to the woman at reception. Was it her imagination, or did she look at Harper with pity in her eyes as Kirr herded her past?
They walked down a featureless corridor and finally stood in front of a set of double doors. Her heart pounded in her ears so loudly she wouldn’t have heard the alarm if the station had been attacked.
This was it. They were going to send her home. Well, back to Earth. Away from Delilah… away from Kirr…
The doors slid open.
The panel meeting room was as intimidating as she'd thought it would be. A long, curved table dominated the far wall, elevated on a low dais so that whoever sat behind it looked down at those in front of them. She swallowed. Hard.
Six Lathar sat in there, their expressions ranging from neutral to openly skeptical. Dataflexes glowed in front of each of them.
And at the center sat Duke Kaarigan.
She'd seen him on screens before, during the program’s orientation holos. In person, the duke was taller than she'd thought, with silver hair and a face that looked like it had been carved from granite. He watched as she and Kirr walked in, his expression cool and assessing.
Shit. This was definitely a trial.
Kirr guided her to a pair of chairs positioned in front of a small table in front of the dais.
She sat, trying not to think about what she looked like.
Her clothes were rumpled from the mad dash to medical, then the crisis in engineering, and somewhere along the way, her hair had escaped its tie and wound itself into rat’s tails around her neck.
Everyone else in the room looked immaculate, and she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge backward.
Great. Just fucking great.
Kirr settled into the chair beside her, his massive frame making even the latharian-built furniture creak.
His thigh pressed against hers under the table's edge, warm and solid. She wasn't sure if that was deliberate or just because he was so big, but she didn’t care. She needed it. Needed any form of comfort she could get as she fought to sit up straight and not shrink against Kirr’s side and try to hide.
"Ms. Sawyer." Duke Kaarigan's voice carried across the room without effort. "Thank you for joining us so promptly."
Yeah, right. Like she'd had a choice.
"The panel has reviewed preliminary reports regarding the station crisis." He lifted a dataflex and scrolled through something. "Your actions during the recent event have been noted."
A male to his left leaned forward. He was younger than Kaarigan, with sharper features. "Noted favorably. She found what our engineers couldn't. The station is safe because of her."
Hope flickered in her chest. At least someone was on her side.
"A point well taken," another official said, this one older, with deep lines bracketing his mouth.
"However, the circumstances that brought Ms. Sawyer to this station remain problematic.
Contract breach. Failure to report for scheduled pickup.
The public incident involving the flyer vehicle.
" He looked at her with something close to distaste.
"One act of heroism does not erase a pattern of poor judgment. "
The hope died as quickly as it had sparked.
"Pattern of poor judgment?" The words escaped before she could stop them. "I was trying to—"
Kirr's hand closed over her knee under the table. A warning squeeze.
She bit down on the rest of the sentence and swallowed it.
"The flight risk designation remains a concern," the older official continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Her file notes that Ms. Sawyer has required from the moment of her arrival."
"Which I addressed," Kirr spoke up, calm and measured. His voice cut through the murmur of agreement from some of the other officials. "She has been under my direct supervision since I found her on the surface. There have been no incidents."
"Until today," Kaarigan observed. "When she accessed core station systems without authorization."
Kirr cut him a hard look. "Not without authorization.
She did that under my orders, during an emergency.
An emergency that you have already noted, and, as I might add, almost brought the station to its knees.
The lack of communications backups meant that I had to take command during the emergency rather than the station command staff. "
"Nonetheless." Kaarigan set down his dataflex and steepled his fingers. "Her access was logged. Her flight risk status remains active. These factors don't disappear because she happened to prove useful."
She wanted to scream. She'd saved the station, she'd kept them all alive, and they were debating whether her heroism outweighed her mistakes like it was some kind of accounting problem.
Kaarigan's gaze shifted, scanning the room. "Where is the other one? There were two females mentioned in the file."
The dismissive phrasing hit her like a slap.
"The other one?" She didn't bother keeping the edge out of her voice. "You mean my cousin? Her name is Delilah, and she's fighting for her life in your medical bay."
Some of the Lathar behind the table exchanged glances. Kirr's hand tightened on her knee again, but she didn't care.
"She's in a coma. She nearly died in the crash, but I'm sure that's in your files somewhere." She met Kaarigan's gaze. He obviously didn’t like women, so why the hell was he in charge of the mate program?
"So maybe you could refer to her as something other than 'the other one' while you're deciding whether to throw us both back to Earth to starve."
Silence filled the room so completely that it practically pulled up a chair at the table to watch proceedings.
Kaarigan's expression didn't change, but there was a flicker in his eyes. It was gone before she could work out what it was. Anger probably.
"The cousin's condition complicates our review," he said. "The candidates are linked. They broke contract together. Their cases cannot be separated."
"So what happens to her affects me," she said. "And what happens to me affects her."
"That is correct. We need to confer."
Fantastic. She couldn't even fail on her own terms. She had to drag Delilah down with her as well.
The panel members sat back as the Duke pressed something on the dataflex in front of him. A shimmer filled the air in front of the table. Privacy screen.
Kirr's thumb traced a small circle against her knee. Grounding her. The warmth in his golden eyes made her relax a little. Only a fraction.
“It will be fine,” he mouthed. “I promise.”
"The panel will deliberate," Kaarigan announced when he dropped the screen. "Our determination will be delivered within the standard review period. Until that time, Ms. Sawyer remains under War-Commander M'Aab's supervision."
"And her matching status?" one of the younger officials asked.
"Her details have not been entered into the matching program database." Kaarigan's tone was flat. "Given the potential for deportation, entering her into the matching process would be a waste of resources. If the panel decides in her favor, she will be processed then."
Not even in the system. She wasn’t even a candidate now. Just a problem to be solved… a file to be closed one way or another.
Kirr rose to his feet.
The movement drew every eye in the room. Seven feet of latharian War-Commander filled the space in a way that made the officials behind their elevated table seem suddenly less imposing.
"The panel's deliberation and the assigned period are noted." His voice carried the quiet authority she'd heard him use during the crisis. "However, I wish to make a formal declaration for the record."
Kaarigan's eyes narrowed. "War-Commander?"
"Harper Sawyer and Delilah Sawyer are under the protection of the M'Aab clan." The words fell like stones into still water. "I claim responsibility for both women as members of my house. Regardless of the Program's matching decisions, they are and will remain under my clan's care."
The room went silent.
She stared up at him, her heart thudding against her ribs. What was he doing?
One of the officials shifted in his seat. "A clan claim. Under imperial law..."
"Under imperial law, the M'Aab clan assumes responsibility for both females' welfare and conduct," Kirr finished. “My clan guarantees their behavior while on this station. Any action against them is an action against the M'Aab."
Kaarigan's jaw tightened. For a long moment, he and Kirr stared at each other across the room. Two powers sizing each other up. The tension crackled between them.