Chapter 1
Irena
There was something going on, something big; the whole ship was in an uproar about it.
I’d squirreled away beneath the flooring of the galley, one of my usual hideouts, but I knew that wouldn’t last. The chef, if you could call him that, threw me the leftovers, if there were any.
He knew this was where I often hid. Sometimes he was nice, but far more often he didn’t care one bit about anything, especially when he was deep into a bottle of Peckana.
Shaking, my hand went to my face and touched the edge of the irregular skin there.
It felt like flimsy protection, that injury.
All that stood between me and a fate worse than death.
Six months ago, receiving that mark had been the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
These days, I could only feel grateful that Isen had carved me up that way.
I winced when something clattered loudly to the floor above my head.
Someone roared with laughter, the captain, mighty pleased with himself.
These pirates must have had a very successful raid to be in such good spirits.
Drinking, laughing, stomping around. It was the kind of atmosphere that made me fear for my life, or my body.
The kind of mood that made a drunk pirate forget how ugly and disgusting I was.
Then it happened. I heard a noise above my head that sounded an awful lot like the plodding footsteps of the captain, instead of the chef’s lopsided lumbering.
I pulled the scrap of bread I’d scavenged into the collar of my shirt, then dove for the nearest ventilation shaft to scuttle away.
Above my head, a floor panel was yanked open with a creak.
Fear made my heart pound in my throat, my hands clammy as they slid against rough metal and sharp, rusted edges.
A waft of foul-smelling Garga came my way, and then a hand closed around my ankle and yanked.
“No scuttling away, worm! I have a task for you!” The captain yanked me out from beneath the galley floor by my foot and tossed me onto the deck with a smack.
Pain reverberated through my body, but I did not yelp, did not scream.
That would only incite punishment, pain; I had learned not to.
Behind the captain, his second-in-command stood with her hands braced on her hips.
Once, when I first got here, I’d hoped that female face would mean sympathy, a chance at help.
I’d learned I was wrong about that, too.
The Xurtal woman was a warrior through and through, and she snarled at the sight of me.
Her hand dropped to the laser pistol on her hip as if she were ready to shoot me.
“Don’t look at her,” the captain warned, and his boot thumped roughly against my hip.
A heavy-set Rummicaron, he had no ability to feel much of anything but rage, disgust, and misguided fear, those often came through, especially when he was drunk.
He smelled very, very drunk to me right now.
I yanked my eyes to his face, to the maw of razor-sharp teeth in a shark-like head.
As soon as he knew he had my full attention, his mouth spread wider.
My skin crawled at the sight of all those yellowed teeth, and I instinctively flinched back.
It made him grin. “We have a prisoner,” he drawled, his hand slashing through the air.
Perhaps he thought he was pointing toward the brig, but if so, he was horribly wrong.
“And you’re now in charge of his piss bucket, vermin. ”
Lovely. Not that I objected; I’d much rather be cleaning prison cells than doing any other tasks they could come up with.
Out of sight, out of mind. My mind spun as another saying came to mind: the enemy of my enemy is my friend…
Maybe whoever they had in the brig could help me get home?
Well, not home—that was out of reach—but somewhere safe, at least. I tried very hard not to let that hope show on my face, biting down on my lip and nodding rapidly to show the captain I’d accept his filthy task without question.
Xathena laughed uproariously, pointing at my face as if I had something stuck to it.
“Ah, what a moron. Don’t forget to tell her how dangerous our guest is, Dimon.
” She seemed to have had enough of making fun of me after that, turning on her heel and stomping from the galley.
I could hear her voice calling for a volunteer to make her come, and after a short—though not stunned—silence, several volunteers answered.
I swallowed roughly, but I knew I could not leave this spot on the floor until the captain said I could go.
He stood with his hands on his hips, one thumb stroking the laser pistol in its holster.
Something dangerous flitted across his face, a fury that made me grow cold deep in my gut.
Whoever this prisoner was, he hated him with every fiber of his being.
“Not sure if I should waste the breath to warn you,” he muttered at last, that rage shifting to derision as he glared at my disheveled appearance.
Then he rolled his small, beady black eyes.
“Fine, because Xathena is fond of you.” He hunched down, squatting on his heels in front of me.
Fear kept the disbelief from my face. Xathena liked me?
There was nothing about the way the second-in-command acted that made me think there was any truth to that.
“You can’t let this guy fool you, vermin,” he said.
“He’s the worst kind of scum. He’d sell his own mother if he had one.
He’d break your skinny little neck without breaking a sweat.
This guy, he’s wanted on a dozen worlds: a murderer, a trickster, a betrayer.
But he has a silver tongue, and each word is a lie dripping with Ekra. ”
He was painting a lovely picture, and he wasn’t done—diving into bloody, gory detail about the many violent acts this guy was known for.
I’d never seen the captain in such a chatty mood.
As he made my stomach turn with each awful description and tale, he seemed to take great pleasure.
He had a captive audience to trash-talk this guy, too, and with each story getting grander and worse…
I was vaguely beginning to hope he was simply exaggerating.
My stomach rumbled emptily when he finally seemed to run out of steam.
Exhaustion clung to my limbs with the heaviness that came from being perpetually underfed.
Normally, around this time, I’d have found a small hidey-hole to curl up in and pretend the few scraps I’d scavenged were enough to sustain me.
The captain finally sent me on my way to do this supposedly terribly dangerous task sometime close to midnight.
A tray in my hand with food for the dangerous prisoner I wasn’t supposed to eat, and very strict orders to use the injector he’d given me on him every day.
Fail, and he’d break free of his chains and promptly crush my throat.
With lead in my shoes, I carried my burden out of the galley and through the ship toward the brig.
Since I’d been bought at auction on Yengar Space Station, I’d been ordered to clean every inch of this place.
It didn’t make the ship look any better; it was old, rusted, and repaired over and over, and often badly.
It had one advantage: I knew it like the back of my hand by now.
I used a shortcut between two bulkheads to cut my journey in half, and coincidentally, it also avoided having to pass the crew quarters.
Dread made my empty stomach clench tight, but the temptation to sneak food off the plate I was carrying was strong anyway.
Would this prisoner know, miss it, and complain if I dared to sneak that tempting-looking bit of sausage?
If this guy was truly as dangerous as Dimon seemed to think, I couldn’t risk it.
There was still a vague hope that I could convince this prisoner to help me, but that could be like making a deal with the devil.
Would I just be trading one danger for another?
Right now, my biggest problem was food. I knew I was slowly starving, but I wasn’t really hit or abused in any other way.
Today’s manhandling was the exception to the rule, really.
Dimon had made it sound like this guy would rape me, then kill me so he could use my bones as toothpicks.
The food remained untouched as I raised the hatch to enter the brig area a few minutes later.
I’d paused a few times while getting here to eat the stolen bread crust I’d tucked into the collar of my dress.
My heart pounded in my throat as I entered the dark space, and my breath stuck in my lungs.
I was not prepared for my first look at the prisoner. Not one bit.
Dimon’s description had made me brace myself for a monster, a beastly creature with claws and teeth and scars.
What sat in the back cell was nothing like that.
In fact, he was one of the most human-looking aliens I’d ever laid eyes on.
I didn’t know what he was, but apart from the colorful markings across his bare chest, he was just…
normal. Well, not normal exactly. I didn’t think anyone could ever use the word normal to describe him.
The cell was dark and only barely lit by faltering, murky overhead lights.
I’d been in here to clean, but since there’d never been a prisoner before, and nobody came in here otherwise, I’d only given it a cursory brush-up.
The captain hadn’t been in to check my work, and whatever energy I could spare, I did.
He’d been chained up against the wall, both thick wrists shackled above his head with crude metal chains.
His chest was bare, and the shock of seeing him half-nude—and seriously stacked with muscle—made me freeze in place.
So far, every alien I’d seen or met had been so different it hadn’t even made me consider whether they were attractive or not.
This guy, though? By human standards, he was stunning.
Ribbed abs and heavy pectorals, were both accentuated by savage white lines and slashes that glowed faintly in the gloom.
His face was also marked in the same way, accentuating his razor-sharp cheekbones and the defined line of his jaw.
Pale, icy eyes glowed in that face from beneath long, flowing hanks of silvery white hair.
Seated on a narrow, bare cot, only his legs and feet were clad.
Dark black pants, and boots that meant business—sturdy, strong, and encasing far-too-big feet.
His eyes had locked onto me the moment I opened the door, and low light or not, I had a feeling he’d seen every detail at just a glance.
I was acutely aware of how terrible I looked, a shadow of my former self.
Skinny, all bones and skin, and smudged with dirt no amount of awkward washing at a sink could get out.
My dark hair hung in clumps around my shoulders, finger-combing my only means of taming the dirty mess.
The scar topped it all. The scar that wasn’t a scar, at least, I wasn’t quite sure what it was, just that it made me ugly and untouchable. So toxic that the slave auction I’d been sold at had labeled me a bargain, and even then, struggled to get rid of me.
Done with a rusted but sharpened nail, Isen had pinned me to the slave pen’s floor and worked me over.
Then she’d spat on the wound and rubbed something deep into the bloody cuts, grime and germs and God knows what else.
The guard, a moment later, had taken one look at me and sworn so roughly that I thought I was doomed to die.
They’d given me no medical care, just left me in the cell to shiver through the infection, the pain, the slow healing process, until I’d recovered just enough to handle being on my feet.
Isen was at my side through it, taking care of me with gentle hands but no supplies.
Cooing at me that if I lived, I’d be grateful.
I wasn’t grateful right now. For the first time since this nightmare had started, I was struck with a little vanity.
“Well, hello there, beautiful,” he cooed at me just then.
His voice was sinfully deep and raspy, his blue eyes heating as he raked them over my body.
“Are you here for me?” That voice made goosebumps break out all over my skin, and I shivered.
Was this what the captain meant? That he was dangerous and silver-tongued?
It definitely felt like he was lethal to my sanity with a voice like that.
My eyes were drawn to him even when I tried not to look as I shuffled closer.
It wasn’t until I was almost to the bars of his cell that I noticed the bloody bandages covering his left side.
Someone had offered some basic first aid, but it didn’t look like they’d put much effort into it.
He was holding himself very still where he sat, only his head and mouth moving as he tried to lure me closer.
“Is that food for me? You’ll have to come here and feed me, sweetheart.
I’m a little tied up at the moment…” A husky chuckle at his own joke, a wince he quickly masked.
Fuck no, I wasn’t getting into that cell at all.
I tended to take whatever the captain said with a grain of salt, but this time I believed him.
This guy had to be a monster; maybe all those stories I’d been told were true after all.
Who flirted in a situation like this? Who flirted with someone who looked like me?