Chapter 16
ALETTA
She dragged on the first clothes she could find, which happened to be a pair of Gark’s training shorts and a sweater that she had to roll the sleeves up four times so they wouldn’t hang over her fingers.
He thought she was his wife. Some kind of fated mate. Aletta shook her head. No way. She was perfectly fine the way she was. She had Dylan, and that was enough for her.
Everyone else always left her, anyway. What’s to say he wouldn’t, too?
Aletta felt Gark’s eyes on her back as she stepped into the hallway, and she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. She’d had fun, but that was all there was to it. It was a pity, really. She’d had a really great time, until he’d ruined it with all those declarations.
She turned her thoughts toward Dylan. She’d be seeing her soon, and that was what she needed to focus on. She pressed her lips together, barely restraining a frustrated growl. If only the pleasant ache between her legs didn’t remind her of every caress, every touch, every soft word.
Was he really like every other guy?
Vox looked up as they entered the bridge. Gark took a moment to gesture her into a spare seat before sliding into the captain’s chair.
“Report,” he barked, all signs of the vulnerability she’d seen in his cabin now gone.
Aletta’s chest squeezed, and she rubbed her sternum.
“Are you ok?”
Aletta started, then relaxed as Lara slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Aletta slid over, the seat big enough for the two of them to just fit. The presence of the other woman helped settle her tumbling thoughts.
Vox and Gark’s conversation faded into the background. What had she done? She should have been focused on finding Dylan, not boinking some hot guy.
A hot guy who thought she was his wifey.
Would that be so bad?
She cringed, flushing. Yes. No. Ugh.
Oh god.
Her chest hurt, eyes prickling. She blinked rapidly.
Was she ok?
“I honestly don’t know,” Aletta said, and Lara tugged her close.
“Tell me about it.”
What a mess. She looked across the room. It was dark, which she had learned was to accommodate Jarden’s sensitivity to light, and the screens glowed with a soft backlight.
And there were screens everywhere. What she’d thought of as the front of the ship had a giant reinforced glass window that could turn into a viewscreen.
When she’d asked on her first time up here, Vox had told her that most ships had them, though some of the larger battleships didn’t even have glass, just screens.
It seemed kind of weird to fly a craft that was bigger than ten city blocks put together without being able to see where you were going with your own eyes, but she’d just shrugged and accepted it.
Each seat was permanently affixed in front of a console of sorts.
Jarden was in front of a large screen that flicked between different three-dimensional maps with a twist of his wrist. Aletta shook her head and quickly looked away, her head spinning.
No wonder he liked the low light. It was enough to make her dizzy as it was.
“Put the call on the main screen.”
Aletta’s attention jerked back to Gark at the sound of his voice. She was so attuned to him that it was a little embarrassing. From where she was sitting, she could see his profile. The strong nose and jaw, lips pulled down in a slight frown.
A Taurean appeared on the large viewscreen. His close-cropped hair showed silver, but Aletta wasn’t sure if it was due to age or just the way it was. His expression was serious, and her heart raced.
Please let Dylan be ok. Please.
She crossed her fingers in her lap.
“Oren. You have news?” Gark addressed the man on the screen.
“The criminals you captured finally talked.” His lips pressed into a thin line. “The women are being taken to an auction house in the Garvelli system.”
Auction?
Gark’s frown deepened. “Garvelli? Are you sure?”
Oren nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”
That was enough being in the background for Aletta. She was out of her chair and standing behind Gark’s in a flash. “What aren’t you saying?”
Gark looked up at her, his expression unreadable. “Garvelli is an outer system with one habitable planet. There are some bases on nearby moons, like this auction house.”
She moved her hand in a rolling motion. “Go on.”
“Garvelli V is a penal colony.”
Aletta frowned. “I don’t understand. These women aren’t criminals.”
Gark ran a hand over his face. “It’s a privately owned penal colony. The worst of the worst get sent there, and they don’t leave.”
She looked from Gark to Vox, who avoided her gaze, and back to the viewscreen.
“I still don’t get it.”
Gark sighed. “It sounds like women are being sent there against their will.”
Lara spoke up. “As slaves.”
Gark nodded. “There’s a chance she’s already been sold and is on the planet.”
Aletta paled, swaying as she gripped the back of the chair in white fingers. “Then we go get her.” She looked around the bridge at the faces of the crew. “We have to get Dylan!”
“Nobody leaves Garvelli V, Aletta. There’s a strong magnetic field around the planet that prevents ships from leaving. That’s why it was chosen as a penal colony in the first place. Resources are sent down in one-way disposable pods.”
Aletta felt her legs go weak, slumping against Gark’s chair. “Let me guess, it’s an all- male penal colony.”
Gark nodded. “Yes.”
“And human women are being sent there to do what, exactly?”
Please don’t be what I suspect it is.
This time, Lara spoke up. “Domestic cleaner is what they write on the paperwork.”
Aletta turned around to meet the sympathetic gaze of the other woman. “But that’s not what they really do.”
Lara shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’ve heard a few things. Are you sure you want to know?”
Aletta nodded. “Tell me.”
Lara looked down, as if she couldn’t meet Aletta’s eyes. “They’re sent to be bait in a maze, or as prizes to men who compete to the death in blood sport, like gladiators.” She paused. “Or they’re sent to the brothels. And that’s if they survive the drop.”
Aletta wanted to vomit. “Survive the drop?”
Vox spoke up. “It’s dangerous. Many drop ships are barely more than tin cans. They’re not meant to send people in them, just supplies, but it’s the only way down that isn’t a prison transport.”
Gark’s hand landed on her good one, gripping her fingers. He looked to Oren. “Where is the ship you traced?”
She squeezed Gark’s hand, needing the connection to something solid and safe. Aletta’s heart thudded, and a warmth spread over her skin, her breathing settling.
“They had a mechanical failure which appears to have taken out their FTL drive, so they’re moving slowly.” Oren looked at a tablet. “But there is another ship on a course to intercept them.”
Aletta stared intently at Gark. “Tell me we can make it in time.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “Jarden?”
The navigator was looking at a map that showed three neon dots. One, in the center, was stationary. The other two were approaching from opposite directions.
“It will be tight, but we can make it.”
The Taurean on the screen spoke again. “May the Lady bless your mission.”
“And yours.” The reply came from everyone on the bridge—except for Aletta and Lara—fists held over their hearts.
The next few days passed in a blur of preparation for battle.
Aletta quickly became bored with the routine of sleep, eat, then keep busy while the crew prepared for their mission.
With every minute that brought them closer to the possibility of rescuing Dylan, she felt a rising tension inside her.
She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the worst-case scenarios.
What if Dylan was injured?
What if she wasn’t even on the ship?
Lara was what kept her sane during those long hours of preparation. She’d been helping Klath in the med bay, so Aletta joined her, tidying cupboards and doing a stocktake. She’d appreciated having something productive to do and not being alone with her thoughts.
Aletta’s wrist had healed, and Klath had decided to remove her cast. Aletta was sitting on the examination bed while he ran his scanner over her wrist.
The comm in the med bay sounded. “Go ahead,” she called, having long since gotten used to answering the ship-wide comm for Klath while he was occupied. The man could zone out like nobody she’d ever known and completely miss an entire day of meals, let alone a buzzing comm.
Klath looked up from her wrist with a smile of thanks, then went back to examining it.
“Aletta?” Gark’s voice was deep and growly, and she shivered. The way he said her name did shivery things to her lady parts.
“Yes.” She bit her lip. She’d managed to avoid spending any time alone with him since the day they’d had sex, and he’d declared himself her mate.
She’d moved all her stuff into Lara’s room, the two women sharing A’Kar’s abandoned cabin. Gark had been weird ever since. It wasn’t as if she’d been unclear. Just because he thought they were married didn’t mean she did.
Whatever happened to having a choice? A guy just smells you and boom, you’re stuck together for life?
“You are the only—"
“I’ll get Klath for you.” She cut him off before he could make another declaration of soul-bonded mateship.
Like he had in the mess the previous morning. Despite Lara being present.
She looked to Klath, who picked up the comm. Aletta tried not to notice how deep Gark’s voice was, and how much she liked listening to him talk.
When Klath had disconnected the comm, he returned to her wrist.
“You know he’s part Gnaggarian?” Klath was moving her fingers back and forth. “Push against my hand.”
She pushed her fingers into his hand, resisting upward. “No, I didn’t know that. And now that I do, I don’t know what that means.”
“You’re all healed. That worked much better than I thought it would.” Klath began tidying up.
“Tell me about Gnaggarians.” She found herself asking, before she’d considered the words.
He stopped. “Oh, yes. The captain.” He sat on a stool, rubbing his chin and looking up toward the ceiling in thought. “His father was Gnaggarian, and his mother is Taurean.”
“Yes, he said that.”
Klath looked at her. “He told you? Interesting. His mother raised him on one of the outer colony planets. It’s really a miracle that he had such success in the military, considering his genetics.”
“His genetics.” That sounded all kinds of wrong.
Klath looked up. “Oh, no. Not like that.”
Aletta frowned. What did genetics have to do with it? “His genetics have nothing to do with his ability.” Ability was learned, built, and grown. It wasn’t something you were born with. That made no sense to link it to genetics.
Klath smiled. “Yes. You and I know that.” He looked back down at her wrist as he inspected it. “The Gnaggarians have an essential biological drive to find a mate. The species is scent-driven, so when they scent their mate, the bond begins to form.”
Aletta’s eyebrows rose. She wondered what all that sniffing had been about. She flushed, remembering Gark’s hands on her, his thick length—
Down girl. Not the time or the place.
Klath was still talking, and she dragged her attention back to him. “But he has fought against the idea that Gnaggarians are inferior his whole life. And mixed-race children? Some would see him, and those like him, dead simply because they exist.”
Aletta gaped. “That’s horrific.”
Klath shrugged. “Yes, but what can you do, hmm?” He stood, offering Aletta a hand. She took it and stood. Klath wasn’t anywhere as tall as Gark or Vox, or as stocky as Jarden, but he was still Taurean, and so he towered over Aletta.
Something that had been niggling at the back of Aletta’s mind rushed forward. She stilled. “He was kicked out of the military. And he wants to go back.”
But Klath had wandered to the other side of the med bay and didn’t reply.
Gark wanted to rejoin the military. And now he was going to miss the hearing—she remembered the conversation Gark and Vox had had on the bridge all those days ago—to help her.
Deep in thought, Aletta left the med bay and headed to her new cabin to pack her things. She didn’t know what was going to happen in the next day, let alone in a year.
They were so different.
Gark had his life all mapped out. She didn’t know what would happen tomorrow.
If only her heart didn’t feel like it was cracking in two at the thought of never seeing him again.