Page 41 of Caught By Menace

“I’m sure you’re not that bad.” Hallie showed her to the small table in the spacious kitchen. She brushed crumbs off the simple runner and caught them in her hand. “Sorry. Vicious seems to think kitchen elves clean up after him.” Naya smiled and slid into a chair. “He’s, um, really intimidating.”

Hallie laughed. “He’s not as scary as he looks.” She dumped the crumbs in the silver trash receptacle. “Well, okay, he can be that scary but never with me or any other woman for that matter. He only shows thegrrrside when it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Is it necessary often?”

“Only when he’s defending me or his men.”

Naya rubbed her finger across the bright-white flowers embroidered on the runner. “You’re happy here?”

“Very,” Hallie confirmed and took down the tea supplies from a cabinet. “You’re from Connor’s Run, right?”

“I am.”

“Well, I came from Harper’s Well. My life with Vicious is heaven compared to the hell I endured there.”

Naya didn’t doubt that. “He makes you happy?”

“Yes.” Hallie cast a quick smile her way before fidgeting with some strange machine built into the wall. “We love each other very much.”

“Was it hard in the beginning?” Naya watched as the contraption whirred to life and spit steaming-hot water into mugs. “That’s amazing!”

“You probably have one in your quarters. Most of the units in the officer housing section have the same built-ins.” Hallie carried the tray with mugs and sweeteners to the table. “Sugar. Milk. Honey. Help yourself.”

Naya sweetened her cup of tea with a drizzle of honey and gave it a stir. Hallie opened a sleek black door and retrieved a covered dish. “I did a breakfast casserole this morning. Would you like some?”

“I would. We didn’t have time for breakfast before the alarms started.”

“There will be another drill in a week or two, but it will be in the evening, which is just as annoying.” Hallie dished out a portion and put the plate into another weird device. She tapped a keypad and it started to hum. “This machine heats food quickly. They sell frozen boxed dinners in the commissary that can be quickly prepared with this. I don’t like them very much, but Vicious swears they’re delicious.”

Naya made a mental note to ask Menace about them. To a girl who couldn’t cook, the prospect of putting a frozen box of food in that super oven sounded like a lifesaver.

The machine dinged and Hallie removed the hot dish. She brought it to the table with utensils and a napkin. After grabbing a couple of cookies from a jar on the counter, Hallie came to the table. Naya poked her fork into the fluffy egg-and-bacon casserole. She spied bits of potato and specks of cheese. One bite proved that it was as delicious as it smelled. So Hallie couldsew, paint, keep house and cook. Naya wanted to hate her but couldn’t. That smile and gentle air about her were too disarming.

“To answer your question, it wasn’t easy in the beginning. Vicious is basically the ideal Harcos male. What I mean by that is that he is maddeningly arrogant.”

Hallie said it with a grin but Naya guessed she hadn’t always found her husband’s arrogance so amusing. “Menace has an arrogant streak in him as well. He seems to think that if he just says something will be one way, it will be.”

Hallie rolled her eyes and laughed. “The whole I’m-going-to-make-you-happy thing, right?”

“Yes! What makes them think they can just catch us in a race, drag us back to their weird-ass ships and make us into happy little wives?”

“Tradition,” Hallie answered simply. “They’ve been taking wives from their treatycontrolled territories via the Grabs for hundreds of years.”

“It’s a bad tradition. Can you imagine how many unhappy couples there are?”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Hallie replied. “At least not in this sector. Our wives’ group has access to the census data from the ships taking part in the Grab program on our planet. The divorce rate is less than ten percent.”

Naya swallowed her mouthful of food. “Divorce?”

Hallie smiled knowingly. “They keep that part of the contracts quiet. I never saw it in mine, but it’s there.”

Even though Naya was starting to care for Menace, she wanted all the information she could get—just in case. “How does it work?”

Hallie didn’t hesitate to give her the answers. Naya respected her all the more for it. “Well, first, you need to know that the first thirty days of a Grabbed bond are on shaky ground legally. For instance, if you leave your quarters without an escort, you’reconsidered lost property. Whoever finds you first gets to keep you.”

“What?” Outraged, Naya dropped her fork “That’s ridiculous. What am I? A wallet?”

“It’s an awful rule. A few months ago, something like that happened on theArctis.”

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