Chapter 12
Courier Support
Jazil
She walks beside me through the concourse, and every male who looks at her makes my claws itch.
Not extend. Not yet. Itch. The sheaths tighten and the tips press against the inner housing and the instinct sends a signal that says assess, evaluate, determine threat level and the signal has been firing on a continuous loop since the corridor outside Flossie’s office where the silver-eyed tracker looked at her like she was worth studying.
Tael Vosk. Draelith. Tracker. Looked at her for five seconds.
Said her name. Said rare skill. Said it in a voice that was professional and respectful and not remotely interested in her the way I am interested in her, and it does not matter.
The instinct does not care about context or nuance.
The instinct clocked a predator-class male within conversation distance of my mate and issued a standing order, and the standing order is watch him, and the standing order is not going away.
She is walking beside me, and she is wearing my shirt, and the bite mark is visible at the neckline, and she does not know that every Skiveth on this concourse can read what that mark means.
She does not know that the mark is broadcasting claimed in a language she didn’t read because she skimmed past the section on bonding and went straight to the chase.
Except she is not claimed. That is the problem.
The mark is a bruise, not a bond. The mark will fade.
The bond would not. And the difference between the two is a section of a manual she hasn’t read and a choice she hasn’t made, and I will not — will not — take the choice from her by letting instinct run the show.
The urge to claim is getting stronger. Every minute.
Every step through this concourse with her beside me in my shirt, the warm-sweet scent of her trailing behind us, the memory of her body under mine and the sounds she made and the way she said I’ve got you when I came apart.
The instinct is saying finish it, complete the bond, she’s yours, she was always yours.
And the instinct includes consent. The instinct requires consent.
But the instinct is also very deafening, and the loudness is making it hard to think about anything except the fact that she is right here and she is warm, and she smells like me and I want to press her against the nearest bulkhead and —
Walk. Walk to Morrison’s office. Be a professional. Be a professional whose mate is walking beside him in his shirt. Be a professional.
“You’re doing the thing,” she says.
“What thing?”
“The jaw thing. And the ridge thing. Your ridges have been dark since the corridor.”
“Have they.”
“They have. Is it —” She glances around the concourse. At the people. At the males. At me. “Is it because of the tracker? Tael?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Partly because of the tracker.”
“He wasn’t interested in me like that.”
“I know.”
“So why —”
“Because my biology doesn’t care whether he was interested in you like that. My biology clocked a predator-class male within conversation distance of you, and the report says monitor, and it is going to say monitor every time a male who looks like that says your name.”
She is quiet for three steps. Then: “Every time?”
“Every time.”
“For how long?”
“Lorri.” I look at her. “Permanently.”
Something crosses her face. Not alarm or displeasure. The beginning of understanding — the first edge of what permanently means when a Skiveth male says it, and what it will cost, and what it will give.
“The manual,” she says.
“The manual.”
“I really need to read that manual.”
“You really do.”
* * *
Morrison’s office is on the admin level. Third door. The coffee mug on the threshold that has been there for eleven years. Nobody has moved it. The mug has seniority over most of the staff.
She stops at the door. Looks at me. The pink eyes from Flossie’s office have cleared but the vulnerability is still there underneath, and her hands are working — clenching, releasing, clenching again, the rhythm of someone talking herself through a door she hasn’t walked through yet.
I have watched her do this twice now. At the foot of the ramp.
At the comm console. The hands argue and the hands lose, and she walks through anyway.
“I’ll wait out here,” I say.
She nods. Walks in. I turn towards the corridor.
“Ereux,” Morrison, from inside. Not a request. “Get in here. This concerns you too.”
I get in there. Morrison does not issue invitations twice. I stand by the door. Lorri sits in the chair across the desk. Morrison looks at both of us with the expression of a woman who has already decided everything and is now going to tell us what she decided.
Morrison is behind the desk. Steel-gray hair.
Reading glasses low on her nose. The operational coffee mug in her hand.
She takes one look at Lorri — the borrowed shirt, the bandages, the pink eyes, the post-Vrennak look of someone who is no longer the person they were yesterday — and one look at me, the bandaged forearms, the ridges at a shade she has never seen on me in a decade of dock reports, the posture of a male who is standing by the door of his superior’s office and will not sit down because sitting down would mean being further from the female in the chair.
“Vance. Sit. You’re already sitting. Good.
” She sets the mug down. “I’ve read the incident report.
I’ve read it twice because the first time I thought there was an error.
There was no error. You held a Vrennak’s gaze with a vocal trick on your first day.
You pulled two containment seal releases under fire.
You did not run when you were told not to run.
And you set off my quarantine protocol by touching a panel, which I have been telling Bay Authority to fix for six months and which they have not fixed because Bay Authority operates on a timeline I find personally offensive and which I intend to correct. ”
A sound from Lorri. Small. The sound of a female who has just been told that the quarantine was not entirely her fault.
Her mouth opens — the beginning of sorry, I can see the shape of it, the reflex that has been firing every time something goes wrong since she walked into my hold — and then she closes it.
Swallows the word. Her hands flatten on her thighs. She does not apologize.
Morrison notices. Morrison notices everything. The coffee mug pauses a fraction of a second, which is Morrison’s version of a standing ovation.
“Flossie tells me you are brave and not built for SNAG. Flossie is correct; she’s almost always correct about people, which is annoying, and almost always wrong about timelines, which is why I handle the schedules.” A beat. “I want you at OOPS. You start next cycle.”
“I —”
“I am not finished.” Morrison’s coffee mug hits the desk.
The sound is a full stop. “I am offering you two options, and I want you to consider both before you answer. Option one: station-side operations. Logistics. Cargo coordination. You learn the systems, the protocols, the communication grid. Solid work. Safe work. You will be excellent at it.”
She pauses. Picks up the mug. Sips. Sets it down.
“Option two: courier support. On-ship operations. Manifest coordination, cargo management, communications. Paired placement with an existing OOPS courier on a long-haul route.” She does not look at me.
She does not need to look at me. The room is doing the looking for her.
“The courier in question is standing by my door. He can hear every word I am saying because Skiveth auditory range is between forty and sixty thousand hertz, and I have never once in a decade been able to have a private conversation in his presence.”
I fold my arms. My ridges are doing something theatrical about this, and I concentrate on making them stop. They do not stop.
“Station-side or courier support. Both positions are yours. I am not going to tell you which one to choose because I am not in the business of making personal decisions for my staff. I will tell you this: if you choose courier support, I will require a formal co-assignment agreement from both parties. This is a professional placement, not a —” She selects a word with the precision of a woman who has been selecting words for thirty years.
“— a domestic arrangement. You will have separate duties. Separate evaluations. If it doesn’t work operationally, we reassign. Clear?”
“Clear,” Lorri says. Her voice has become steady. The kind of steady it went before the Vrennak.
“Good. Take time to think about it. Discuss it with Ereux. I don’t need an answer until —”
“Courier support.”
Morrison’s chair creaks.
“I said take time.”
“I’ve taken it.”
“Vance, I said —”
“Director Morrison.” Lorri’s voice. Firm.
Clear. Brave-steady, not scared-steady. “I spent my whole life taking time. I spent my whole life being careful and being small and making sure I didn’t choose the wrong thing.
Yesterday I chose to walk into a cargo bay, and a Vrennak tried to kill me, and I’m still here.
I am done taking time. Courier support. On-ship. With him.”
Silence. Long silence. The kind Morrison uses when she is deciding whether to be impressed or annoyed and is landing on both.
“Ereux.”
“Mother.”
“You heard all of that.”
“I heard all of that.”
“And?”
“Courier support. With her. I agree to the co-assignment. Separate duties. Separate evaluations. If it doesn’t work operationally, we reassign.” I hold her eyes. “It’s going to work.”
Morrison looks at me for three seconds. Then at Lorri. Then back at me. Something shifts behind her professional face — the same thing that moved during the call, a woman who has been watching a male she considers family pretend to be fine for a decade and has just watched him stop.