CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
XEL
I led the way into the barn, to the stall where Rose was still living with her calf.
We let them out into the paddock when we could, not wanting them to get too cramped in their pen, but today, there had been too many comings and goings, so we’d kept them where they’d be safe, without getting startled and trying to run off.
“Ooh, look at the little poppet,” Kathy crooned, the instant she set eyes on Rose’s calf. “Oh, that tail. And look at his knees! They look so ridiculous at that age!”
I firmly clamped my mouth shut to avoid laughing. I didn’t think Kathy would take it well, but I’d never seen her so thoroughly besotted before, and it confirmed the private impression I had of her as a softie at heart.
“We’re having a naming competition for him,” I told her. “There’s another week until it finishes, but Poppy is coming up as fairly popular. His mother is named Rose, so quite a few people want to stick with the flower theme.”
“He’s adorable,” Kathy said. “And you’re trying to distract me from telling me about this job. Why is it right up my alley?”
“We’re building a nursery for a group of children who are refugees.
They’re not Alliance children. And right now, there’s a whole pile of politics wrapped up in it, so I can’t give you all the details.
But we’re looking for nannies to help care for about forty children and raise them through to adulthood. ”
The belligerent expression vanished from Kathy’s face, and her tone lost its snarkiness. “A project to help children, that’s wrapped up in politics. Which means that someone, somewhere out there, would prefer that these children were dead.”
“Yes, they would,” I said honestly. The Vangravians, Vonnie had assured us repeatedly, wouldn’t hesitate to raze the colony to the ground, should they be given the opportunity.
A low hiss escaped Kathy’s lips. “Children should never be held responsible for the stupid decisions made by their parents. How old are these children?”
“Newborn. They’re going to need round the clock care for the first three months, and then all the usual feeding and changing that any child needs. We’re in the process of hiring a team, but when I heard about it, I thought of you.”
Kathy snorted at that. “You thought that cantankerous old Kathy would be the ideal candidate for taking care of a bunch of babies?” The belligerence was back, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
“Every time we got a new staff member at the hotel, you’d take them under your wing for weeks until they figured out their way around.
That time Zil’s father died, you sat in the kitchen with her for two hours while she cried.
You bought Maggie a box of chocolates after her boyfriend broke up with her.
You care about them,” I said firmly, looking her in the eye.
“And something in you lights up every time you get a chance to really show that. We’re going to have forty children here who desperately need someone to care about them.
So yes, I think you’d be ideal for the job. ”
A pensive look settled on Kathy’s face, and she stared down at Rose’s calf, her eyes shining a little brighter than usual. “And what about my documentation?” she asked eventually.
“I’ve been assured that if you came here as a child, then there shouldn’t be any problem getting you official approval to join the human branch of the Alliance.”
“Sounds like a mighty fine plan,” Kathy finally admitted. “How soon would it start? What species are the babies? Would we be working on a roster, or… Are there any other staff yet? Who’s organising all of this?”
This time, I did laugh, as this was the other reason I’d known that Kathy would be perfect for this project. She was a born organiser, and all we’d have to do was point her in the right direction for her to start drawing up rosters and making lists of supplies.
“Let me introduce you to Vonnie,” I said.
“She’s largely the spirit of the project.
A Denzogal called Torv is in charge of the logistical side of things, but you’ll get to meet him later.
If you’re sure you want to sign on, I can send him a message to say you’ll need help moving and finding suitable accommodation.
” We headed out the north end of the barn, in the direction of the construction work.
I knew Vonnie had planned to spend the afternoon up there, discussing plans for the nursery with the Sedgeged engineers who’d been hired.
I pointed Kathy in the right direction, then paused to close the door to the barn, double-checking to make sure it was latched properly.
Clyde and Huckleberry had both figured out how to open it, if it wasn’t completely closed. I jiggled the latch one last time-
“Get your hands off of… Aahhhhh! Help!”
I spun around, then froze at the sight in front of me. For a moment, I thought I might be hallucinating, as the situation made absolutely no sense. Dorral was standing with a gun to Kathy’s head, her arm twisted behind her back, and a venomous sneer on his face.
“You,” he snarled at me, when he saw he had my attention. “I fucking well knew it would be you. I tried to make it easy on you, but you just had to be so bloody stubborn. Ran off to live with that ugly whelp instead of sticking with your real master.”
I ignored his description of Cole as easily as I ignored his delusion that he was in any way entitled to own me. Right now, I had one goal; keep myself and Kathy alive. Everything else was just details.
“I was going to inherit the hotel. It was going to be mine! You and them” – he gave Kathy a shake – “and the whole goddamn place. But no, then some thrice removed fucking relative shows up and starts sicking his lawyers on us? Half the staff quit and then this bitch” – he gave Kathy’s arm an extra twist, which made her cry out in pain – “runs off with no explanation. And shows up here. So he’s not just taking my hotel and my slut, he’s poaching my staff as well. ”
I kept my eyes firmly on Dorral. I couldn’t tell whether he was angrier with me or my master, but so long as he kept talking, none of us – not even Kathy – were in any real danger.
Because out of the corner of my eye, I could see movement up on the treeline that led to the old barn.
And I also knew that Ranzor hearing was better than pretty much any other species in the galaxy.
So the instant Kathy had screamed, every Ranzor on the property would have heard.
Now all I had to do was buy Borl and his team enough time to do something about it.
“The hotel was never going to be yours,” I said calmly, aiming to keep Dorral talking. “Even if Cole didn’t exist, it would have been handed over to the government-”
“There are ways to work around that,” Dorral snarled. “I had that whole bunch of lawyers in my pocket. Credits buy a hell of a lot of loyalty, and with the right motivation, they would have handed it over to me!”
There were a couple of outbuildings that sat between the old and new barns, and right now, they were behind Dorral’s back.
Making an effort to not look directly over there, I was nonetheless aware of a figure darting along behind them.
But whoever it was was still a least a hundred metres away, and the closer he got, the less cover he would have.
“Wait… Dorral…” Kathy tried to stand up a little straighter, to take the pressure off her arm. “Are you saying… Did you kill Jacob Ronson?”
It certainly sounded that way, and we likely already had enough evidence from what he’d admitted so far to make a case against him. That was without even taking into consideration the attempted murder, given the gun to Kathy’s head.
But first, we both had to get out of this alive.
But before I could think of what to say next, a cheerful voice called out from around the side of the barn.
“Xel? Is that you? Can you come and look at- Oh!” Behind me, I heard Vonnie yelp and skid to a halt.
Stars above, had she been in the barn when Dorral had arrived?
Probably in the outside yards, though I couldn’t think why.
She’d said she was going to be working on the renovations.
Dorral looked her up and down, then ground out a disgusted, “What the fuck is that? Never seen one of those before. You need to lose a few pounds around your hips, sweetheart. No man’ll want you like that.”
The irony of the statement had me choking back a laugh.
Vangravian females were naturally wider at the hips than humans, due to the pouches where they kept their babies.
And it only reinforced how na?ve Dorral was, since no Vangravian woman in the entire galaxy would have the slightest interest in what any man thought of her.
Given what she’d been through to leave Vangal, I didn’t think Vonnie was about to run away screaming or faint at the sight of Dorral’s gun.
But at the same time, this now put a whole new danger on the situation.
Vonnie was not just the instigator of our project.
She was also a critical part of the entire mechanism, as she was the only possible source of female children, and also the only one with an in-depth knowledge of Vangravian culture.
But there was a silver lining to her presence, I realised, as I saw Borl hesitate in the long grass behind the closest shed.
Because right at that moment, I also remembered that Vonnie would be armed.
But making her shoot Dorral would be cruel, dumping even more trauma onto her than she’d already suffered in escaping her planet. Dorral was my problem, and he wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t invited Kathy. This wasn’t Vonnie’s fight.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t make use of her weapon. “Give me your gun,” I told her, not taking my eyes off Dorral.
“What? I don’t have…”