Chapter 4
YIRI
“Is there something more important than this meeting on your frame?” Zacal asked, adjusting the darkness of his eye shields.
I didn’t look up. Masoh and his crew weren’t here yet, and all my guys were in place. “Yes.”
Zacal scoffed. “Masoh insulted you. You aren’t concerned?”
“It’ll be handled when he shows his ugly face,” I muttered, re-reading my conversation with Cora and checking again for any missed messages.
Nothing yet. I wanted to wait until she reached out to me.
Any other time, I wouldn’t be so over-eager to hear from a female who may not return my interest. But this was no time for pride.
“You’re not playing a game, are you?” Zacal asked, annoyed.
“No. I’m not Evik.”
“Then what could possibly be so interesting? You’re going to get us killed if you don’t pay attention.”
I grunted, gesturing vaguely around. “We have soldiers to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Let’s hope they aren’t as distracted as my nephew,” Zacal groused.
“I’m just doing what you ordered,” I said. I felt his frown, heavy on the side of my face. Looking over, I explained, “Finding a mate.”
“Ach.” He shook his head. “You should prepare yourself to mate with D'vinda. You’ll never find a female willing to take you before your time runs out.”
“If I mate with D'vinda, you should prepare yourself for war with the Cendaquans. I’ll tolerate a lot from a female, but I won’t let her put a knife in my back.”
“Dramatics,” Zacal said. “If I started a war every time Della tried to kill me, we’d all be dead by now.”
“Della’s heart isn’t in it,” I said dismissively. “For some reason, she loves you.”
“She’s a strange female, it’s true,” he said fondly. “You’ll grow to care for D'vinda, too.”
“I won’t be mated to her,” I answered. “Talk to Evik about how to care for hateful creatures.”
“He cares for you,” Zacal said dryly. “He already knows how it works.”
Chuckling, I caved and pulled up a new message to Cora, my dark-haired, ocean-eyed beauty.
Me: Good morning, Aneah. Are you well-rested?
To my surprise, she answered back only a moment later.
Cora: It’s afternoon, but yes. I slept late, and today is looking much better than yesterday.
Me: You said it was a long day. Was it not a good day?
Cora: It was bad. I lost my job.
Me: You work? Your family doesn’t provide for you?
Cora: Ha ha ha. No. They do not. But that’s the norm here. Women don’t work in Bion 8KV?
Me: Some do, but only if they want to.
Cora: Interesting. Do they work in the home?
Me: If they want to.
Cora: So, who raises the kids? Cooks and cleans? The MEN?
Me: Of course. Females have a lot of pressure on them to conceive, and smart males will take care of those things if they want to keep their mates happy.
Cora: I see.
Me: Losing your work upset you?
Cora: Yes. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills and buy groceries.
Translation: Groceries- food purchased in stores.
My mate was worried she wouldn’t have the credits she needed to eat? I growled through my teeth.
“Not having any luck, nephew?” Zacal asked, too pleased with himself.
“Don’t worry about my luck.”
Me: That’s taken care of now.
Cora: Um. Yes, it is. Thanks?
Me: You shouldn’t have to worry about having food to eat. Don’t thank me for that.
Cora: I feel like I should, though.
Me: No. You have your groceries now?
Cora: Yes. I went shopping this morning, and I’m stocked up on snacks and seltzer. I’ll think of you when I have dinner.
Me: Just me?
Cora: You and Qhev. Filling my fridge was a team effort.
I shifted on my feet as I got the translation for fridge.
I wanted her to eat well, but I didn’t want any other male filling anything for her.
I’d already decided she would be my mate.
It only took one look at her profile picture to make up my mind, but I’d barely slept last night, staring at it anyway.
Me: Qhev is daernir?
Cora: Yeah. He’s the one I sent the eyeliner tutorial to.
Me: What’s his name? Just Qhev?
Cora: I’m not going to tell you that.
Me: I’m just curious, Aneah.
Less than a day, and I was already lying to my future mate.
This is why I’ll never deserve a female.
I know how to treat them, I just don’t want to burden them with the reality of my life.
In this case, the reality was that I’d look this Qhev up and pay him a visit.
Whether he survived that visit would be up to him.
All he had to do was never contact Cora again, and I’d let him keep one of his kneecaps intact.
Cora: What if telling you violates BMM’s terms of service? Do you want me to get banned?
Me: No.
She made a good point. I’d have to find this guy some other way. It was better not to bother her with the details anyway.
Me: Did you put the makeup on your eyes today?
Cora: I did, actually. It seemed to bring me good luck yesterday, so I thought I’d try it again.
Me: Show me.
There was no response for a few minutes.
And I used the time to check in with our soldiers.
Everyone was in position, but I couldn’t let anything go wrong after running my mouth to the boss.
I checked the time, impatient to be done with this meeting.
Masoh was running late. Yet another insult to add to the tally.
“If he doesn’t show in the next five minutes, I’m going to go find him and kill him,” I said, checking my messages again.
“Generous of you to wait that long,” Zacal noted. Was he bemused or disapproving? I couldn’t tell. “What is that noise?” he asked when my nexus frame finally plinked with a new message from Cora.
“Nothing to worry about,” I said, opening her message.
A rec filled the frame with her beautiful face illuminated by golden light. Her eyes were accentuated with the same black points as her profile image, making them appear impossibly large and mysterious. Her lips, a softer shade of red today, looked invitingly plump and biteable.
“Yes, sir.” She winked through the rec as I drank in the sound of her voice, feminine, but with a sexy roughness to it, like she’d just woken up from a nap.
The recording ended and I played it again, my cock heavy and too alert for this meeting as I focused in on the corner of her mouth curling in a dangerous little smirk.
“Fuck,” I muttered, typing fast.
Me: What a perfect little wife you’re going to be for me. You look beautiful, Aneah. I have some work to do now, but I’ll talk to you tonight. Be good.
Cora: I’ll try. ;)
Another notification came through, and I turned off my frame, dropping it into my pocket.
“What are you so happy about?” Zacal asked, scowling at my grin.
“Masoh’s here,” I said. “I’m ready to make him bleed.”
Zacal likely thought I was lying, but it was at least half the truth. I’d flirted with a beautiful female I meant to have as my mate, and now, violence. It was a satisfying day, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Masoh approached, his crew fanning out behind him. Smooth and sure as the tides, my team locked in on them.
“Masoh,” I said, striding forward to meet him. “I was worried about you.”
The smuggler’s shifty eyes darted behind me and back, noting Zacal’s presence. “The buyer was late.”
“Was he?” He wasn’t. Te’ve sent me a rec of the entire handoff, right on time, including a visual of the cache of untraceable credit markers with the full five hundred mill verified and accounted for before Masoh arrived.
The smuggler didn’t know it yet, but he’d just handed his business over to one of Zacal’s many nephews.
His mate’s sister’s son, smart and, more importantly, loyal to the family.
“Late, sloppy, and rude,” Masoh complained. “Took forever to offload the tech and hand over the cache.”
“You checked it?” I asked, still grinning from Cora’s teasing rec and the prospect of chaos to come.
Masoh squinted at me, unnerved by my good mood. He should be. “Of course,” he said, motioning for one of his soldiers to bring it forward.
Nerus, my second, dropped down from his position on the upper deck and took the cache.
He didn’t take it inside the cabin like usual.
No, today, we’d be doing a full verification in broad daylight.
I had enough tech and crew running interference that it wouldn’t be a problem.
For us. Gone were the days of trust between Masoh and my family.
It was a shame he’d gotten greedy. He used to be a good business partner.
“That’s risky, don’t you think?” he forced a laugh as Nerus went to one knee and opened the cache, reading every marker through a nexus frame, one by one.
“It would be a risk not to check it,” I said, still grinning, “after your last delivery came up short.”
“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” Masoh blustered. “I’ve never been short before.”
“Funny,” I said. “I had our accountant look back, and it seems like it has happened before. For weeks, in fact.”
“Your accountant must be stealing from you,” Masoh said. “He’s trying to pin it on me, but he’s the one—”
“I doubt it,” I said, as Nerus grunted and tossed aside a marker that came back flagged. “We own the elder care complex where his parents live. The accountant knows his place. The problem is with our smuggler.”
Nerus discarded more markers, one after the other, the pile of useless credits growing rapidly. I shook my head as I moved closer to Masoh. One of his crew took a step forward, and before his foot met the deck, a phaser shot through his skull, leaving a smoking hole. The male collapsed in a heap.
Lifting my brows, I looked around at all of them. “You’re in Covara. Ahlon soldiers have had you in their sights since you arrived.” I put an arm around Masoh’s shoulders, pulling him into my embrace. “You made a mistake, friend. You took more than your share.”
“Yiri, I—”
“Shh, shh.” I hugged him closer, speaking in his ear. “You knew what would happen.”
“Let my crew go,” he said, purple eyes wide.
“They’re free to go,” I said graciously, “as soon as we’re done here.”
“Masoh!” A young male said, his jaw tight and his eyes hard.
“Stand down, In’vion!” Masoh barked.
I nodded. “You have some decency left,” I said. “Take comfort in that.”
Masoh drew in another breath, and I made it his last. With a swift strike, I plunged my blade deep into his chest. The phase field around the blade cauterized his flesh instantly, but it wasn’t enough to save his heart from obliteration. Pulling the blade free, I let Masoh fall to the deck.
Gesturing with the blade, I said to his crew, “Our business is done. Leave.”
The young one bent to reach for Masoh’s corpse, but I stopped him with my blade to his throat. “I’ll clean that up,” I said. “Just leave it.”
One of the other males grabbed his arm and dragged him away. When they were gone, a few of my soldiers ambled on deck while the others followed Masoh’s crew out of our city.
“Somebody get him wrapped up before he bleeds on the deck,” Zacal said dispassionately. “Yiri.”
“Hmm?”
“What is her name?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, boss.”