Chapter Eight
Jax
I was more than a little surprised that Thanh started with the truth instead of an elaborate lie, but that didn’t calm my nerves any. There was plenty in our actual history I didn’t particularly want my parents knowing about.
“We met at the Academy,” Thanh said. “He was in my ancient Earth lit class.”
“Oh, he must’ve been so good at that, Jax loved to read,” my mother said.
“Really?” Thanh asked, frowning as she glanced back at me. “He insisted that he needed tutoring.”
My father chuckled.
“Ah, the old ‘I need help with this’ tactic. Taught him that myself, works every time.”
“Yes, especially when you really did need help,” my mother said with a chuckle.
Father cleared his throat and his smile wobbled.
“Well…we both needed help.”
“It was just the archaic language of some of the books,” I said in a rush. “Anyway, darling, why don’t you continue?”
“My pleasure, snookums ,” she replied with a sugary sweet smile.
I cringed at the name, especially when my mother and father both started to laugh. I knew exactly what was coming.
“Your nickname is snookums?” Mother asked.
“Thanh, you’ve got a great sense of humor to call him that,” my father said.
“Why’s that?” she asked
I tried to cut in but Father was too fast.
“That was a cookie Jax loved as a kid,” he said. “Some of us learned the recipe and being the only child on board, everyone spoiled him. Poor kid ate so many snookums that he was sick!”
“He threw up all over the Justinian Federation King,” Mother chuckled. “Fastest end to an arranged marriage contract I’d ever seen.”
“You had an arranged marriage?” Thanh asked, mouth hanging open.
“Almost,” my father said, “but it ended the second Jax vomited.”
“Well, it didn’t really end there,” Mother began. “He decided to make some credits by selling the cookies when we were on different planets.”
“And he sold one to a diplomat who thought it was — ”
“And that’s the story of why I don’t like sweets anymore,” I said, loud enough to cut her off.
“Oh, is my snookums embarrassed?” Thanh asked smooshing my cheeks together with her fingers and making my lips purse.
I took her hands off me with a chuckle laced with a warning.
“Not at all, princess ,” I oozed affection.
Her eyes flashed but she held her smile.
“I think I’ll continue the story of how you wooed me.” Her voice was sickly sweet.
“You really don’t have to entertain my family.”
“It’s no trouble, I love reliving our romance.”
I really wish Narrou had escape pods right now.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to get everyone off this topic, “we met in that class. Why don’t you show Thanh the — ”
“That’s not the whole story,” Mother said, “it can’t be.”
“Oh, it’s not,” Thanh said as my mother continued the torturously slow walk down the corridor. “He asked for a tutor, and he thought he was getting me. But instead, he got my best friend.”
I swallowed and my hands started to sweat.
This was also absolutely true. I had wanted Thanh to be my tutor, but it was because I was supposed to watch her and make sure nothing went wrong with her experimental engine. When I got her friend instead I did what anyone would in my situation with a beautiful woman coming on to them: I banged her. I had thought I’d made it clear that it was just fucking, nothing more. But the friend hadn’t gotten the message.
And when she went crying to Thanh, she made sure everyone knew what kind of low life I was. It was right after Zephyr had let my real identity as a former Titusian pirate out, and so I wasn’t just some himbo who had broken this woman’s heart, I was a pirate scum bag who thought I could waltz into the vaunted halls of the Academy and become a Gex-Corps officer. Every single entitled asshole challenged me to fights, while half the female population, and a good number of the males, thought it would be fun to fuck the former pirate. If I wasn’t fighting some asshole in a bar, I was screwing my way through as many of the students as I felt like, trying to distract myself from how my life had gone sideways.
Thanh knew all the surface parts of the truth, she’d been part of the group that had looked their nose down at me as poor trash. I wasn’t even respected as a Zorestran because I didn’t come from there. I was a nobody; a hot lay but nothing more.
“And let me guess, he slept with her,” my mother snorted. “Jax had always had a very healthy libido, though I did try to instill some manners in him when it came to his partners.”
Ancestors, help me, I want to die now.
“He did sleep with her,” Thanh replied, an edge to her voice, “but I wasn’t paying much attention. I was very academically minded at that time. Your son, however, was relentless. I think I must’ve been the one he didn’t want to get away because next semester he was in my thermodynamics and engine design classes. He got assigned as my partner for our final project.”
“But that was years ago,” my father said. “Did he mess up that chance too?”
“In a way,” Thanh said, her words tenser than before.
I knew what she was thinking of; it haunted me because as much as I hated Thanh’s arrogance and the way she’d looked down at me at the academy, I never wanted her to get hurt. But the tension and forced trip down memory lane had loosened my inhibitions and I found my mouth running away with me.
“I wasn’t good enough for her then, isn’t that right, princess?” I said, before I could stop myself. “I was but a humble pirate that was beneath her notice.”
My parents looked playfully scandalized by this; the Titus Federation was one of the wealthiest, and they were anything but humble. But it wasn’t their faces I was focused on, it was Thanh’s; this skated awfully close to what could’ve set her off in the shuttle earlier.
A frown teased the corners of her mouth. I held my breath, bracing for whatever her reaction might be.
“He’s telling the truth,” she admitted. “I did look down on him. Jax took nothing seriously, he seemed to use people and discard them like toilet paper. And I didn’t have time for anyone like that. I had one shot to make something of my life, and I couldn’t afford even one mistake. So I couldn’t let myself get distracted by his pretty purple eyes, or his smile that charmed everyone.”
Did she just give me a compliment?
“Don’t forget about my witty conversation,” I said, a little breathless at the fact that there wasn’t a hint of deception in her voice.
This was how she really felt, and it was the first time she had ever revealed why she’d hated me so much back then. My brain clutched at the thin, precious words, wanting to turn them over and examine every syllable.
“Oh, how could I when you talk so much?” Thanh lobbed at me.
My father threw his head back and laughed while my mother was looking between the two of us as if she’d just figured something out. My heart thudded and I chuckled at Thanh.
“Why don’t you finish the story for my mother, we’re almost to our room.”
Thanh’s eye twitched at little at the mention of ‘our’ room, but her smile didn’t falter when she turned to my mother and started in again.
“Well, we didn’t see each other a long time after the Academy until Jax was assigned to the Intrepid, where I had been serving for a year before him. Then he resumed his single-minded pursuit, annoying me. I think he got himself assigned to my crew schedule just to be around me.”
My mouth went dry because I didn’t do any of that, at least not on purpose. But this pull toward her, the way I could never escape her orbit, I had always thought it was the universe fucking with me. But what if it was something more? A Zorestran mating instinct can lay dormant for years before finally going off. What if that was the gravity I felt around her, inescapable and so damn frustrating?
“Finally,” Thanh said, yanking me out of my thoughts, “I told him I’d go on one date with him and after that, he had to leave me alone.”
“And it looks like it was a very good date,” Mother said.
Thanh bit her plump bottom lip and my mating instincts came to life, stirring my cock in its sheath. We stopped, and she turned to face my mother, but I could see her profile. She was close now, close enough to reach out and touch and I wanted to so badly that my hands ached. I supposed that I could’ve, it would’ve been in keeping with our boundaries and our cover, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“It was a disaster,” she said, her voice becoming tender. “He brought me up on the roof of a small structure, and laid out a blanket for a picnic with all my favorite pastries. But just as we got settled, the sky opened up and there was a downpour. The blanket was soaked and in trying to get it off the roof, it ripped. And then all the sweets he brought were water logged by the time we made it inside.”
I drew in a sharp breath, recognizing the night she was talking about. It was at the Academy, not the Intrepid though. It had been the night before our final project was due for thermodynamics. I’d been trying to befriend and charm her all month so I could do my damn job keeping an eye on her, and I had finally been getting past her walls. I wanted to do something special our last night as lab partners, to cement a friendship, though there had been a small part of me that had hoped…
“I felt bad for him. All that effort to hunt down my favorite pastries only to have them all destroyed,” she continued, a gentle smile on her mouth as if she could see it all playing out in front of her. “So I raided the snack machine, and we sat on seats from an old shuttle I’d been retrofitting and ate the candy while a projector Jax found played back old footage of the stars overhead. It was…perfect.”
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for her, the memory of that night filled my senses. She let me weave my fingers between hers and looked up at me. Suddenly we were back there in that cramped garage that smelled of oil and old leather, the rain pattering on the roof while we played stupid games and made each other laugh. It was the only time at the Academy that I could remember being happy. And two days later, she was in that accident, and my mission and her body laid in tatters across a smoky field of debris.
“It was a good night,” I whispered.
Thanh nodded and for a moment she was as open to me as she had been that night. I saw the real her, the one that she’d hidden for most of the time I’d known her. Full of fear and hope and light that I wanted to warm myself near and let it make me a better person. But then, as if she realized what she was doing, that openness shuttered and her hand disentangled from mine. I felt the lack like a cold wind and couldn’t help leaning toward her even as she turned away from me.
“Would you mind,” Thanh said slowly, “if I laid down for a while? I’m suddenly very tired.”
“Of course,” my mother said, her tone maternal. “The room is just around this bend here. Narrou has kept it tidy and there are fresh linens for the two of you. Feel free to take a bath, the water is recycled through Narrou’s systems so there’s no shortage protocols.”
“Thank you, I will do that.”
We walked the short distance in silence until we arrived at the door to my old room. I smiled at Narrou and put my hand on the small panel next to the door. The wall folded in around my hand and I felt their warmth and joy at my return.
I love you too, Narrou.
The corridor lit up with a rolling glow as Narrou responded with a series of light, airy chords.
“I’m going to get Thanh settled and then I’d like to speak to you both,” I said to my parents.
“I suspected this wasn’t a purely social visit,” my mother said.
Guilt wrapped around my heart and squeezed. She must’ve seen it because she put her hand on my arm and shook her head.
“Don’t, son. We don’t care why you’re here, we’re just glad to see you. And we understand. Things were…difficult when you left. You needed time and space to carve out your own path.”
How did I tell them that I didn’t accomplish a single thing I set out to do? That this ‘carving my own path’ was a complete bust? They had expected things of me, even though they had disagreed with my leaving, and now my career was in the toilet, I had a fake mate, and I needed to ask them for a huge favor that would put a target on all their backs.
“We’ll meet you in our quarters,” Father said. “Thanh, you’re welcome of course, but we understand if you need a rest. We hope we’ll see you for dinner?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
The doors parted and when Thanh and I stepped inside, the natural lights illuminated a medium sized suite of rooms that looked almost exactly how I’d remembered them, minus all the messy clothes lying around.
The first room was a sitting space with two comfy couches, chairs, bookshelves crammed to the brim with paper copies, and then all four of my tablet readers stacked on top of one of the bookcases. The shelves held some of my prized possessions that I had left behind in an attempt to remake myself.
The first blaster I’d ever owned, the ring of the first person I’d ever killed as a full fledge Titusian pirate, a preserved Valtoshan flower from the first woman I’d bedded, and the only thing I had from my biological parents: a scrap of cloth that I’d been wrapped in as a baby.
There were other things of course; trinkets and bits from a life traveling the outer rim. Bottles of illegal alcohol, rare glass bulbs and a bottle of preserved Death Peppers as a badge of honor for surviving the one and only time I’d ever tasted one of the vegetables.
I walked past all of this slowly, my fingers caressing each and every item as memories flooded me.
“So, you’re adopted,” Thanh said, jolting me out of my memories. “Sorry that came out wrong. I just assumed you were raised by Zorestrans, though I’m not sure why. I like your parents, they’re…not what I expected.”
“What, you thought all pirates were rude, uncultured cretins who lived in filthy, mold infested ships and had naked slaves running around?”
She opened her mouth to retort something and then snapped it closed. I’d just recited something I’d over heard her say at the Academy, with all of her rich friends laughing about me, even though I’d fucked half of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, her voice hard. “I had no idea you’d heard that all those years ago.”
“Are you sorry you said it, or that I heard it?”
“Both. I was…well, a spoiled bitch before my accident, I don’t deny it.”
My eyes widened and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her at first.
“You know, that might be the first time you’ve ever apologized to me,” I finally murmured.
“Yeah, well don’t get used to it,” she said, her usual hardened tone falling flat.
“Noted,” I replied and turned back to my shelves.
My gaze snagged on the baby blanket, threadbare and non-descript. I must’ve examined it thousands of times in the hopes I’d see something that would give a clue as to what my family name was, but there was just…nothing.
Perhaps it was the walk down memory lane on the way to my rooms, or being back here with all the memories so thick they were stifling, but my tongue loosened and I found myself telling Thanh things I hadn’t spoken out loud in years.
“You know, Zorestrans mark their children with the sigil of their family line from the moment they’re born, so if anything happens, the child will know their Ancestors, and have Their protection,” I said, rubbing the fabric between my thumb and forefinger. “But I’ve looked all over my body from the time I discovered this and I’ve never found a single mark from my birth parents. They didn’t even bother giving me the one thing that made me Zorestran.”
“You are Zorestran,” she said, coming toward me and stopping close to look at the blanket. “I’ve seen your blue ass running out of my dorm room, remember?”
I chuckled with her at that, also remembering the look of lust on her face when I glanced back. I really did have a great ass.
“I’m not really though,” I said, unable to hide the bitterness in my voice. “I may have all the outer characteristics, but the thing that really makes you one, that will allow you to get education, a job, acceptance on the planet, is your family lineage. I have no idea what mine is.”
“Vabaris isn’t your family name?” Thanh asked.
I shook my head.
“I forged the papers that got me into the Academy. Vabaris is actually a pretty common name on Zores, I thought I wouldn’t get caught.”
“But you did. Was it Zephyr?”
I snorted and replaced the blanket.
“Yep. Apparently it wasn’t as good a forgery as I thought. She offered me a deal: I could stay at the Academy, get my officer’s degree, but I had to work for her for the rest of my career.”
It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Eventually Zephyr had become a friend, but I still hated the prison my time with the Gex-Corps had become. I would never be a ‘real’ officer, I’d always be just another outer rim loser who could only make it as a spy.
“You have a good family here,” she said, “better than mine that’s for damn sure.”
“I know, they’re amazing, better than I could’ve ever deserved.”
“Were they the ones that found you as a baby?”
“No, I don’t know who did that or where I was born. Mother found me in the slums of Vector Seven.”
She drew in a breath at that and I didn’t need to offer any more information for her to know exactly how I’d lived. Vector Seven was one of the worst border planets in the quadrant. It was technically outside of GUP territory, but also had a moon that was technically inside of GUP territory, so it got all of the perks of being a planet within the Union of Planets, but none of the oversight. Crime, poverty and every kind of oppression imaginable reigned on that shithole. And I’d been unfortunate enough to be dumped into one of the many orphanages that were little more than a funnel for the gangs that ran different parts of the cities.
“I had tried to pick her pocket and failed miserably,” I said with a soft smile. “Instead of killing me, which she had the right to do, she offered me a job on her ship where I’d never go hungry again. I didn’t even know who she was, what she did and I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to be hungry and cold anymore.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. I didn’t trust her at first. I think I spent the first year here constantly waiting for her strand me somewhere, but she never did. And at the end of that year, she and Narrou adopted me. And then two years later, Da joined our family.”
“So, Narrou is their mate? How does that work?” she asked, forehead wrinkling.
“The three of them are mated but it’s not exactly what you think. Narrou is asexual, they don’t engage in a physical relationship with Mother and Da. It’s more of an emotional intimacy, I think. My mother is bonded to Narrou sort of like Tohm-Tohm is to you. While the Seahdohn symbiote on Narrou’s back helps them be able to survive in space, Mother is the one that pilots Narrou, gives them direction, purpose. It’s a lifelong bond. When my Da married my mother, the three of them became what Narrou refers to as a trifect, three as one.”
“What about the symbiote, does it talk to Narrou or your mother like Tohm-Tohm does to me or…?”
“I asked about that once and Narrou told me that their consciousness became one instead of staying separate. I’m not sure why it’s different between them then it is with you and Tohm-Tohm. That’s as far as I got asking about their bonds, my parents’ sex life isn’t really on the list of things I want to know more about.”
Thanh gave me a nervous chuckle and held up her hands.
“That’s totally fair, sorry.”
“It’s okay, I expected you to be curious.”
“You just never talk about yourself.”
“Yeah well, I’m not really in the habit of divulging my life story to people that hate me.”
Her face, so open a moment before, closed up and her jaw hardened. Thanh tried to turn around and I snagged her arm. I hadn’t meant to pull her so close, but when I did, every reason to let her go, to step back, to keep my distance evaporated. Her eyes were shining like she was seconds from having tears in them, and her cheeks flushed as I leaned down.
“I’m sorry, that was rude,” I whispered, my thumb running in circles on her upper arm.
“It was, but not entirely undeserved.”
Her whispered breath fanned across my face, and I was struck dumb by how beautiful she was. The mating instincts I’d kept such control of were starting to bubble up and the aching need to know what it was like to have her body against mine was starting to destroy my self-control.
“W-was the story…good?” she breathed.
It took me a moment to know what story she meant.
“Yeah…it was…that night was the best night of my life.”
“It was…good, fun even.”
“Fun? You and me? Impossible!”
She let out a laugh that struck me square in the chest. It was nervous but genuine, a sound that stroked my mating instincts and caused a warmth to roll through my body. It must’ve turned my libido up to insane levels because logical thought was completely lost to the haze I was swimming in.
Both of my hands were on her now, at her waist and the warmth of her body rolled into mine, calling to me. I was resisting the urge to take her mouth and shove my tongue down her throat, to bury myself inside of every orifice so she could never get rid of me. The thought of branding myself to her skin, her pussy, her very soul and then, when she was addicted to me, to deny her everything as punishment for how she treated me was a fast building need. It stoked a fever in my blood, driving insanity like metal spikes into my brain.
I wanted to run out of the room.
I wanted to fuck her against the wall.
I wanted to tell her that she’d been a stone cold bitch to me our entire acquaintance.
And I wanted to make her love me until she couldn’t breathe without me, then take away her oxygen so she’d know how I’ve felt for months.
“Thanh…” I choked out her name, desperation filled that one word. “ Cheja …fuck, you’re the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met.”
Our noses were touching now, her little hands on my chest, clutching at the dark fabric of my shirt.
“And you’re an arrogant ass,” she bit out, but it lacked her usual venom. “You get away with everything, you make me want to scream.”
“And you make me want to do vile things. To debase myself at your fucking feet even though I’d…”
“Hate yourself in the morning.”
I growled and nearly thrust her into the wall but I remembered her back and the pain she told me about.
“I would,” I breathed, squeezing my eyes closed.
“Me too…which is one reason why I never let you.”
I was kneading her hips now. All I’d have to do was move just a little and my mouth would find hers and I could pour all my frustration, my anger, my longing into her. But she pulled back slightly, just like on the station, and the moment was gone.
“Because…you’d never be with a filthy pirate.”
“Yeah…no…I mean…we aren’t…” she swallowed, breaths shallow, “this isn’t real and…”
“We aren’t together…we should…”
“Stop.”
She shoved at me, hard as she could but not hard enough to dislodge me right away. I had never, ever forced myself onto a woman, and as much as I wanted to drag her down to the floor and make her cry my name as she came, I wouldn’t cross that line now.
With the greatest effort, I let her go and raised my hands, every tendon in my body tight as all my focus was spent on restraining myself.
“I’m sorry,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s…I…I am having a Zorestran…thing.”
“This whole situation,” her voice was a little shaky, “is probably fucking with our heads. We just need to remember that it isn’t real and we aren’t together.”
My brain locked onto the way she’d said ‘our’ instead of just mine and I wanted to run at her, see if I could coax her into letting me have just one taste of her pouty mouth. Thanh glanced down with a squeak of shock, her eyes became huge before she turned away. I knew what she was seeing because my dick was fully extruded and cramped in my leather pants. If I’d been wearing any other kind of fabric she’d also see the enormous wet spot from the precum.
But just as I was about to apologize more, I caught a whiff of something utterly intoxicating. I inhaled deeply and a growling whimper escaped my lips.
It was her pussy, wet and ready for me.
No, she doesn’t want me…it’s physiological, that’s it. She’s made it clear…I have to get a grip here.
“Alright, let’s reset, try to just keep our shit together,” I said, taking deep breaths.
“Good idea. Can you tell me where everything is in here?”
She didn’t need me to do that, but I would bet it was the only thing she could think to say in the midst of this awkward, charged situation.
“Sure,” I said, clearing my throat and attempting a normal tone, “behind you is the bedroom, and through there is the bathroom. Feel free to take a bath. Mother said she bought some clothes for you and they’re in my closet.”
“How did she know my sizes?”
“I may have sent her your personnel file? Just the general stuff, not the whole thing.”
Thanh nodded, the tip of her pink tongue wetting her lips and I wanted to die right then and there.
“I would’ve been fine in whatever, there was no need for her to make the extra effort,” she said, her tone breathy.
“It would be seen as an insult for the Seventh Daughter to be seen in ill-fitting clothes.”
“What does that mean, Seventh Daughter?”
“It’s a title, like princess. My mother’s dynasty is the sixth of the Titus Federation. Mine will be the seventh so I’m the Seventh Son, the heir. Since you’re my mate that makes you—”
“The Seventh Daughter, got it,” she let out a brittle chuckle. “I guess all those times you called me princess are coming true.”
“I know you don’t like the nickname, so I can —”
“You haven’t stopped calling me that the entire time we’ve known each other, why start now?”
Because I don’t want to fight anymore.
I almost said it, but she turned away and walked into the bathroom, closing the door between us.