Chapter 42
CORA
“Stupid speed limits,” I muttered as yet another vessel blasted past me.
I piloted the cruiser as fast as I could push myself.
Which… okay, it wasn’t very fast. But I didn’t feel comfortable handling it at higher speeds, and I couldn’t see the landmarks on the coast below if I was moving at the speed of sound, could I?
See, this is why you don’t get flying lessons from your sexy husband who can’t keep his hands to himself.
Distracted learning equals poor retention.
My mob wife moment was taking a commercial break.
No biggie. As soon as I landed this thing, it was back to being a stone-cold baddie.
Xokat was unconscious at the bottom of the steps, where I shoved him after slapping two of the nasty little knockout patches on his neck.
I found a strip of them sitting on the table in the breakfast nook, which irked me.
That was my spot for nibbling fruit and reading smutty ebooks on my frame.
I’d have to put up a sign. No kidnappers allowed.
My knee-jerk thought was to hope two patches weren’t too much.
Screw him, though, right? I should have stuck the whole strip on him.
He kidnapped me, wanted to sell me to those weird moon people, and left me alone and vulnerable with a guy who wanted to kill me.
And he drugged me with this low quality shit.
When he woke up, if he woke up, I hoped he had the worst hangover.
I tried to call Yiri or Nerus, but Xokat had done something to the cruiser’s controls.
I couldn’t make any outbound calls. On Earth, I couldn’t go more than a ten mile radius from my apartment without using GPS, and here I was flying a freaking spaceship with zero navigation assistance.
God help me. Finding the Lagoon seemed like my best bet.
I thought I could find it better than any of the other possible landing spots Yiri had shown me, and at least I’d be touching down on water, which seemed more forgiving than the lawn at the house.
Please don’t let me hit a ceket.
Jeeze. In less than a day, I’d gone from shocked and borderline traumatized by my husband killing a mercenary for my safety, to killing one man and drugging another, and my biggest worry was damaging my husband’s vintage spacecraft or hurting one of his man-eating alien sharks.
Maybe I would be a little more gracious, a little more curious why Xokat did this if not for the icky, lingering aftereffects of whatever drug he’d given me.
As it stood, the throbbing headache, the queasy stomach, and the dead creep in my bed all left me fully furious.
“Get bent, Xokat!” I yelled down the steps at his unmoving body.
I eyed one of Yiri’s sellah pens sitting on a ledge of the console, and chewed at my bottom lip.
Might help my headache, I reasoned. Might help my nerves, too.
Picking it up, I found it over halfway full of fresh sellah.
Shame to let it go to waste, honestly. Maybe it would even give me the courage to fly this thing a little faster.
That made sense, right? Smoke sellah, feel better, fly faster, see Yiri sooner. Win, win, win, win.
The sweet smoke went immediately to my head, numbing the dull ache there.
In its absence, an ache high in my ribs became a lot more noticeable.
Something became crystal clear to me as I piloted Yiri’s flying saucer, my little home on this strange planet, down the rosy Eissoi coast past the hubbub of luxury and wealth that was Covara.
I might not be too soft for Yiri’s world, but I didn’t want to face it without him, either.
I missed my husband, and I could really use a hug in his big, strong arms.
If I doubted my own familiarity with the aerial view of Yiri’s lagoon, the circle of swimming cekets was the giveaway that I’d found it.
From the air they didn’t look so scary, just a wide circle of happy pink fins cresting the water in welcome.
I picked out a few of the grandmother cekets among the smaller fins, a feeling somewhere between fondness and relief welling up in my chest. Once I got to the water, I’d be safe as kittens.
Even if Xokat sprang up and tried to hurt me, and the dead guy turned out to be miraculously still alive, they wouldn’t dare follow me into the water with my welcoming party.
And if I wasn’t still having a wild drug-induced dream and the guy really was dead, the cekets could help with that, too.
I slowed to a near stop, hovering slowly down over the water, peering nervously through the bubble to make sure I didn’t clip any grannies or grandchildren when I landed.
They seemed to know how much room to give, though.
Their swirling circle made a great guide for me to ease into. You know… really, really slowly.
With a splash and a moment of wobbling afterward, I set the cruiser down with a whoop of glee. I did it! I flew the cruiser without navs, without help, and landed it safely, all on my own. Yiri was going to be so proud of me.
I took the sellah pin with me, puffing a little bit more as I hopped the last two steps over the heap of Xokat in the way.
I wrinkled my nose at him, still pretty pissed over the whole let’s sell her thing.
Still a little unsteady from the patch—or maybe the sellah—I carefully made my way to the bedroom, holding onto furniture when I could.
My mob wife persona gave another shudder at the sight of the man still on top of our bed.
His eyes stared up at the ceiling, flat and lifeless.
His lips were parted from his final scream, a sound that echoed in my mind as I crept closer.
Did mob wives get scared? They had to, right?
Everyone is afraid when terrible things happen.
They probably got shit done anyway, though.
I could do that. I could do it scared. And grossed out, because blech.
The smell of burned flesh still hung in the air, and In’vion’s belly and chest had a sickening split of charred innards showing.
Jesus Christ. How had I blocked that out?
Okay, Cora. Mob wife the fuck up.
I grabbed him by the ankles and pulled with everything I had, planting my weight with my legs and heaving him off the bed. His head bounced on the floor with a gross, hollow sound.
Ick! Don’t think about it. I’m a badass mob wife.
It was slow going, but after several minutes, I made it to the kitchen, where I dropped him for a moment, catching my breath and having another nibble of zibe fruit because it was so juicy and refreshing.
You know how a bite of watermelon can feel like it’s rehydrating your very soul after a long summer day in the sun?
That’s how that bite of zibe fruit felt going down.
So I had a second chunk, followed by another hit of sellah, because no matter how hard I tried to keep my eyes averted from In’vion’s terrible barbecued innards, I kept seeing it anyway.
“That’s what you get when you mess with Yiri Ahlon’s Aneah, asshole,” I said to him. Sure, he couldn’t hear me, but I still felt better for saying it.
Mr. Darcy came to see about the sound of the space fridge opening and closing, so I gave him some of the eslu Yiri kept ready for him, and scratched behind his ears for a second before I got back to work.
With a tired sigh, I hit the button to open the hatch and bent to grab In’vion’s ankles again as the wall opened and the deck folded out behind me.
When I finally got him to the edge of the deck, I paused.
The cekets were right there, excitedly churning the water, but I wasn’t sure…
should I take off his clothes? Did they eat everything, or did I need to unwrap the bastard?
His shoes should go, I decided, but his shirt was torn to shit already, and I wasn’t touching this jerk’s pants.
“Okay, babies,” I cooed at the cekets, “Mama brought you a snack.”
Tipping him into the water was the easiest part.
The cekets took over from there. The water churned, tinged pink and then red in seconds as the circle converged on my offering.
Frothier than a good cappuccino, the water was thankfully no longer crystal clear as Yiri’s friends did their work.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the cruiser.
One down, one to go.
But movement in the doorway quickened my pulse. A second later, Xokat stumbled into view, leaning on the side of the hatch.
“You… Fucking… ga’ad,” he panted.
I bristled when the translation told me he’d basically just called me an ugly bitch.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t like taking your own medicine? Maybe you should spring for the good stuff next time.”
“Maybe I will,” he muttered, but the jerk’s knuckles whitened with the effort of keeping himself upright.
“I don’t see you getting the chance, if I’m being honest,” I said.
“Got any more patches on you?” he challenged, nodding toward the bloody water. “Is that how you got him, too?”
“Oh, no,” I said with more self-possession than I felt. “Him I stabbed.”
“With this?” he lifted the hilt of the phase blade and activated the laser.
I swallowed hard, my body going still. Xokat’s lips curled up in a cruel smile. “Out of options, huh?”
“Yiri will be here any minute,” I said, hoping to God or Ibar I was right. “You can barely stand. I can wait it out.”
“Maybe I’m bluffing,” he said.
I snorted. “I’ve seen that movie. You’re not bluffing.” The Dread Pirate Roberts he was not. “I can jump in the water before you get to me. Want to go for a swim?”
His eyes darted to the horror still frothing the water. As if they understood what was happening, a few of the elder cekets broke away from the frenzy and swam a lazy loop at the edge of the deck.
“They’ll swarm you,” Xokat said, but he didn’t sound sure.
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, you’re still a dead man when Yiri gets here.”
“Unless I leave you to the cekets and fly away,” he blustered. “There will be no trace of you, and I’ll be long gone.”
“Oh, yeah,” I snorted. “Make him chase you. I’m sure he’ll calm down by the time he catches up with you.”
Xokat blanched, his fingers flexing on the hilt of the phase blade. Rolling my eyes, I dug the sellah pen out of the bodice of my ruined dress and took a long drag. Badass. Fucking. Mob wife. I could do this. I just needed to keep this dickhead talking until Yiri came for me.
“I’m curious, Xokat,” I drawled, propping a fist on my hip and dangling the sella pen like a long cigarette in my other hand. Channel the vibe. Be one with the mob wife life. “Why’d you do it? Was it money? Jealousy?”
He bared his teeth. “Revenge,” he snarled.
“Classic,” I said, bobbing my head. “For what, though? Was it something I said?”
His jaw clenched, and his gaze flickered away for a moment. “It’s not about you,” he said.
“Oh, nice. ‘Cause I thought we were good.”
His shoulders inched up, closer to his ears. “We are good.”
“Were.” My casual tone faltered for a second. “We were good. But then you kidnapped me, wanted to sell me, handed me over to some guy to be murdered, and now?” I gestured with the sellah pen at him and the phase blade. “Whatever this is. So, no. Me and you are no longer good, Kat.”
He waved the blade in a small circle. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Right. But it’s not about you. You’re nice.” He glanced at the water, where things had calmed down considerably by now. Blinking, he added, “I think.”
“I’m nice until someone betrays me,” I said.
“So am I,” he said.
I snorted. “Please. What did Yiri do to you? He pays you well, doesn’t he? And he had you guarding me, so I have to assume he liked you.”
“He doesn’t even know what he did to me,” he said.
“To us.” He nodded toward the water with a stricken look.
“In’vion… he’s my half-brother. Was.” His eyes flashed at me with totally undeserved malice.
“And Yiri killed our dad. No warning or anything. He took Masoh out just so he could set another one of Zacal’s nephews up in his place. ”
I mean, that sounded bad, I guessed, but it still didn’t excuse the kidnapping. “I’m sorry that happened,” I said without much feeling.
“Are you?” he asked doubtfully.
“Not sorry enough to die for it.”
“I don’t get you,” he said, pushing off the wall, coming a few steps closer. “You seem like a good, sweet female, but you came all the way here for a guy like that? You know what he is, right? Did he lie to you to get you here or what?”
“He didn’t tell me everything, but I knew enough.”
“Forgot to mention the cekets, I guess,” Xokat said, taking another step closer.
I eyed him warily but held my ground. “He did mention them, actually. You know he’s taken me swimming with them? They were very gentle with us.”
“Fucking psychos,” Xokat muttered. He had inched too close for comfort, and I considered jumping into the water.
But truth be told, I wasn’t sure the cekets would remember me post feeding frenzy.
Could the grannies hold the kids off when they were all riled up?
I’d save that option as my last resort, and give them as much time as possible to calm down.
“You could just go,” I suggested. “I’m unarmed. I can’t stop you. But if you leave me alone, maybe I can convince him it’s not worth hunting you down.”
“So he kills my father, you kill my brother, and you think I’m going to shrug that off?” He gave a humorless laugh. “It’s too bad our mercenary didn’t get you. Things would have been a lot cleaner if he had.”
Cleaner. My death or sale to god only knows what kind of male on Ibaruta would have been cleaner. My husband should have just let the guy kidnap me off the warehouse dock to avoid all this unpleasantness, causing Xokat to have to get his hands dirty. How inconsiderate of us.
“Don’t jump,” Xokat said, and for one second, I thought maybe he was having a change of heart, until he said, “A phase blade to the throat is less painful than a ceket attack.”
I’d have to take his word for it, because I would not be doing either of those things. Xokat’s stability was questionable at best. When he lunged, I’d be ready.
But he didn’t lunge. Not at first. His gaze swung up to the sky behind me, and a second later, I heard it. A vessel.
Yiri’s here.
I didn’t need to look to know he’d come for me. A wicked sneer slanted across my lips.
“What’s your move, Cool Kat?”