Page 53 of The Captain's Bounty
They are here for us, it said.
That’s what she felt too, though for the life of her she didn’t know how they could know where she was.
Cameras on the docks,it said resigned.It’s no secret what ship took you or why, I doubt it’s a secret that this one has no… jump coil.
“They might be happy just taking our supplies,” Kelys said hopefully.
“Scavs don’t leave pesky survivors behind to complicate their salvage rights,” Vullum wryly countered.
“Nor will they leave us behind if there truly is a bounty on our heads as the Soldri said. If Me’Kava is the contractor of that bounty, I seriously doubt they’ll care if we’re brought in alive.”
“Life scans positive,” said a muffled voice from the other side of the tech bay doors.
Bruwes seized Lissa’s arm, ducking with her behind a massive parts junk pile. He powered up his gun as the torch went to work on the heavy door.
“It’s not even locked,” Vullum scoffed, taking refuge with the doc and his mate. “Lazy fucking scavs.”
“They want me,” Lissa told him.
“They want all of us.” Crouching, he aimed his gun at the door, waiting.
She grabbed Bruwes’s leg, needing his attention, needing him to take this seriously before they were all of them killed. “Trade me.”
If his attention was what she wanted, she had it now. He snapped around, the red filling up the whites of his eyes as deep offense consumed his darkening features.
“I willnever–”
She cut him off before she lost her courage. “You can come after me later, if you want.”
Grabbing the front of her shirt, he yanked her to him and kissed her fiercely. She could feel his tension, his temper, and his determination in the harsh, unyielding crush of his lips. Breaking the kiss just as furiously as it had begun, he glared into her eyes and said again, low and guttural, “No. You’re mine. You will go with no one else.”
You’re mine…
Her breath caught, almost choking her as she touched her tingling lips with her fingers. Did he only mean she was his captive, his to turn in for the bounty reward… or did he mean it in the most literal, tummy-churning, heart-stumbling way humanly possible? Did he mean he wanted her… as his and his alone?
Taking hold of her other hand still upon his thigh, he firmly readjusted her touch, placing her hand right over the bulge of his cock. “You will stay right here. Mine, until the funeral pyres take us both.”
Readying his plasma gun, he faced the door again, taking aim with the others and muttering under his breath, “Do not distract me again, or it’ll be my belt that waits for you when this is done.”
She wasn’t afraid of him or his belt. She wasn’t afraid to spend hours in the corner, or tied to his bed with her ass in the air as she waited for him to express his disapproval. All she could think about was… well, notthismoment, but the one doomed to come right after it. When the scavs finally cut through the bay door and everyone started firing.
She didn’t want to watch him die, knowing she was the cause of it. She couldn’t bear to be the one who brought Bruwes not just to his knees, but to his grave.
“Here they come,” Vullum called out as the door gave out a squeal of shifting weight right before it broke apart. The middle of it, reduced to nothing but a heavy metal slab, fell to the grated floor of the tech bay with a deafening bang and the, scavs came pouring in through the red-hot outline of the opening they had made, blasting away with their plasma guns even before they had targets.
Lissa hit the floor, covering her head with both arms, feeling the pulse and throb of plasma peppering the face of the heap of hull plates she and Bruwes hid behind.
That’s when she saw it, Aldar flying backwards with sizzles of jumping electricity chewing into his chest and shoulder. She saw Cory rise up, sending out a wave of covering fire as her mate, the doctor, darted out to drag their fallen crewman behind a barricade of scrap that was already heating up and melting together under the attack.
God, she had to stop this.
I can stop it. The haughty confidence of the entity’s inner voice faltered ever so slightly.But you are already injured and my power will undoubtedly do more damage.
I don’t care! We have to do something!
Then we will, it said, filling her heart with second-hand conviction.Be ready.
Ready to fight or ready to die? She was afraid to think about that too much, afraid to freeze and cost everyone their lives. She had to move now, before she lost her nerve.
