Chapter 6
Priya, Sim Bay, Night Before the Mission
We ran the final practice sim the night before the mission, and I flew it perfectly. Vesh disagreed.
“Missile lock,” he warned.
“I see it.” Duh. My sensors and screens had red streaks all over the place.
“Then evade.”
“Not yet.”
“Priya.”
There were seven Scythe fighters on the tactical display.
One in front of us, hidden behind the chunk of simulated moon rock drifting off my right wing.
Six pursuing us from behind,. The asshole in front had fired at us.
He—I assumed it was a he, but what did I know?
Could be a purple slug wearing a helmet--he had the missile lock.
The six behind us were waiting for me to react to the attack.
I held the Wraith on course. The warning tone climbed higher.
“You have twelve seconds,” Vesh said.
“Plenty of time.”
“That is an insane statement.”
“Five seconds is plenty of time. Ten is practically a vacation.”
“Priya—”
I rolled. The missile shot beneath us, missed the Wraith by less than a meter, and hit the lead Scythe behind us dead center.
The simulation flashed white as it exploded.
I pulled hard to port, used the explosion to blind the next two ships, and drove straight through the wreckage.
Flew right past them going in the opposite direction.
Vesh swore in Velerion. The implant gave me a highly specific translation involving my ancestry, several farm animals, and an anatomical impossibility.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” I laughed.
“Fly the ship.”
“I’m flying. You’re the one yelling.”
“I am not yelling. Break right.”
I broke left. Laser fire cut through the space we’d occupied half a second earlier.
“Why are we alive?” Vesh seemed shocked.
“Because they heard you.” I glanced at his sensor display. He had opened our comm channel for less than a second, let the simulated enemy capture his order, then killed the transmission. "Not that I mind, but that's cheating.” Totally unfair. And my man was a genius.
“There are no rules in combat.”
“But there are rules in a qualification sim.” I didn't want Captain Wroxxon coming up with some lame excuse to ground me. I was going on my first real mission with Vesh and that asshole wasn't going to stop me.
“Not anymore.”
I grinned and found the next flight corridor. The last of the Scythe fighters died in under four minutes. When the display went black, the cockpit filled with the sound of my breathing. Mine was fast from adrenaline because, holy shit, that was fun.
Vesh's slow, silent breath must be because he was irritatingly fit and apparently carved from alien stone. Not fair. But I did hate to exercise, like, a lot. Especially if it involved sweating.
Based on the fact that I felt like my heart was about to beat its way out of my chest, I might have to bite the bullet and find a treadmill or something. Because I was not giving up flying.
The sim's analysis report appeared across the main console.
MISSION COMPLETE. NO DAMAGE. ALL TARGETS DESTROYED. PILOT VIOLATIONS: 11.
I pointed at the first three lines. “Perfect.”
Vesh pointed at the last one. “Eleven violations.”
“Not violations. Suggestions.”
“One was an explicit warning that your maneuver would kill us.”
“But it didn’t.”
“In the simulation.”
“Which is the thing we’re discussing.”
The bay lights came on. The cockpit opened with a hydraulic hiss, letting cold air wash over us. It smelled like scorched coolant, metal, and the electrical tang of equipment pushed too hard. I pulled off my headset and turned toward him. “Admit it.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”
“You want praise? For nearly getting yourself killed?”
No. I wanted him to throw me over his shoulder and carry me straight to bed for being reckless.
I wanted that almost as much as I wanted him to rip the flight suit off my body, shove me against a wall, and bury his hard length so deep inside me I'd never get him out.
I wanted him to curse me for being wild, beautiful, and perfect. That's what I wanted.
“I want an honest, professional evaluation.” I was such a liar. Although, I did want to know his professional opinion as well. Just not as much as I wanted those other, more personal, things.
“You were reckless.”
Not really. It was a sim. I was testing out their version, comparing it to my gaming set-up back home. Luckily for me, they were nearly identical. So, of course I had to test a few things.
I had to trust that the sim was going to be exactly like the Wraith would be. I had almost no real flying time in the actual ship and I had to know what she could do.
That was so three minutes ago. Now? There was nothing professional about the thoughts filling my mind.
Or the wet heat between my legs. Or the air burning through my lungs hot enough to incinerate every logical thought in my head with the need to push his buttons until he lost that cool, calm, controlled, I-don't-care-about-anyone bullshit persona.
“I am never reckless.” But I wanted to be, so damn bad. I wanted to crawl over the console and ride his lap like a rodeo cowgirl fighting a wild bull. I wanted him hot and hard inside me. Filling me up. Making me whimper and beg until I fell apart in his arms. Then I wanted to do it again.
Vesh, it seemed, was completely unaware of the chaos going on inside me.
“You created three openings I did not detect until you were already moving toward them. You used an enemy missile to destroy its own formation. You anticipated my false command without being told I was transmitting it.” He removed his headset and placed it very carefully on the console.
“You flew that sequence better than I could have, Priya.”
My entire body lit up. “Say it again.” Was that really my voice? Even I heard the sex kitten invitation in those three words.
He went still. “Priya.” There it was. My name in that warning tone. Low. Rough. More effective than it had any right to be. He was not immune to me. Thank god. I was about to lose my mind here. Unfair if he got to keep his.
“Just the last part. Just my name.”
He wasn’t looking at me. That was how I knew he was in trouble.
Vesh always watched. Me, the doors, the sensors, the exits.
Now he stared at the dead console with both hands flat on his thighs.
Very controlled hands. Very large hands.
I remembered one of them around my wrist. The other against my waist as he caught me in the tower.
I wondered what they would feel like without a uniform between us.
The pair mark heated. Vesh’s head snapped toward me. Oh. He could feel that.
“What did you just think?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“That’s my line.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. The pupils widened until only a narrow ring of green remained. I unfastened my harness.
“Do not,” he said.
“Do not what?”
“Move closer.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You have demanded a great deal of praise this evening.”
“This isn’t about praise. I need something else.”
“No.” His voice went lower. “You do not.”
I shifted across the narrow space between our seats until my knee brushed his. The contact sent heat through the mark and straight down between my legs. My pussy was wet and ready for him. My nipples hardened into tight peaks. Vesh gripped the edge of his seat.
“Don’t decide for both of us,” I said.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
"We’re parked.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know. You're trying to shut me out. You're trying not to care because you're afraid of getting hurt."
He looked angry. Not with me. With himself. With the bond. With six years of wanting nothing and the fact that the obvious bulge I could see in his pants meant his body refused to cooperate.
“I watched every one of your training missions,” he said.
“I learned the sound you make when you see a corridor before the sensors do. I knew when you were frightened because you became sarcastic. I knew when you were pleased because you spoke to the ship. I wanted you before I came to Earth. Before I knew the scent of your skin. And now—”
My breath caught. "Now what?"
“I found you,” he continued, “and you are more difficult, more reckless, and more beautiful than the recordings.
You touch me as if there is no danger. You look at me and I see a trust in your eyes I have not earned.
That I do not deserve. I can't do this, Priya.
I don't have a heart left to give you. It would just be sex.
Nothing more. No true bond. I'm too broken for that.”
Well fuck me. He seriously believed every word he was saying.
God damn it. I'd practically thrown myself at him and he rejected me.
Fine. I had a small sliver of pride left.
I was not going to beg. I didn't deserve to beg.
I deserved a bondmate who actually wanted to be with me.
“Then let me go. If you don't want a partner, don't want a bondmate, then let me go.”
I wanted him. I was half in love with him before I knew he was real.
But now, in the flesh? I couldn't live with him and never touch him.
Never be touched or held or kissed. I'd rather be dead than suffer that kind of hell.
If he truly didn't want me, then I needed to cut my losses and move on.
"I'm not some toy for you to play with. I'm a woman and I deserve better than this.
If you don't want me, let me go. I can fly with someone else. Live with someone else."
I'd read the Elite Starfighter regulations last night when I couldn't sleep with him on the other side of my bedroom door. "I can request a new partner, Vesh. Or, hell, I can fly one of the standard Scout ships alone. We don't have to do this. I don't have to do this."
The silence coming off him was deafening. I'd miss him for a while, but I'd get over him. Right? Eventually? Like when I was dead, maybe?