Page 44 of The Captain's Bounty
He threw one of his shirts at her, knowing he needed to get to the bridge. If not for Lissa, he’d have been there already. And he couldn’t leave her like this, so she’d better come with him. Cursing himself, he reached to undo her wrist cuffs, but lost his grip when the ship bucked sharply sideways.
Lissa yelped as they were both thrown back over the bed top into the wall he’d been uncomfortably cozy with all night long.
“Oh god, my arm! My arm!”
He scrambled to grab her wrists, hitting the lock to release her just as the ship yawned sharply the other way.
Bruwes grabbed her, wrapping his body around her, throwing out one arm and leg to protect her from his crushing weight right before they slammed into the door.
“What’s happening?”she cried, clinging to him like a mimic-monkey.
“Hopefully, we’re navigating our way through the junk belt and things are just… a little choppy.”
She looked up at him, her eyes huge and round with fear. “If not?”
He shrugged with grim humor, setting her aside just long enough to get his pants on. “Well, it’s space, so most of the other options end with us floating in the void, and I don’t think it’s dignified to do that with my dick out. You want to get dressed or ask some more questions?”
She lunged for the shirt as the ship lurched again, flinging them into the opposite wall. He tried to spare her the brunt of the impact, but she gave a pain-cry in spite of his efforts. Before he could see where she’d been hurt, the ship righted itself and the air suddenly got heavy. Both she and Bruwes slid to the floor.
Bruwes sprang up and pulled her to her feet. “Stay behind me,” he ordered, sprinting out the door without looking to see how she obeyed, and almost immediately colliding with two other men running out of the Medibay.
“I’m going to kill your mate,” Bruwes snarked at Demin.
“I don’t know if she does it because she forgets to engage the damn gravity or to remind us she’s just that good,” the Vullum said, falling into step behind them. He gave Lissa an appreciative looking-over, then stuck out his hand.
She looked down at it.
“Vullum,” he introduced himself. “And you are...?”
“Not for you to touch,” Bruwes growled at him, clamping a hand on her shoulder and pulling her along with him to the bridge.
They all crashed into the wall when the ship rolled again, but they didn’t go flying up into the ceiling, so the gravity must be doing something for them. He allowed himself a moment of optimism—maybe they really were just navigating the junk belt—then smacked the panel lock and let them all onto the bridge. “Status report!” he barked.
“Situation normal and you know how that goes,” Cory replied tensely, all her attention on the controls before her. “It’s funny. Usually when someone’s riding my ass this rough, they’re pulling my hair.”
“There’s a time and a place, woman,” Demin called, sliding into the co-nav chair and buckling in for a hard ride.
Something hit the ship. The metallic clang as it bounced off the hull reverberated through the ship, humming up through hisbare feet to resonate in his bones. “What in the ashen hell is that?” he demanded, but he knew.
Cory shook her head in frustrated confusion. “They’re not firing, but they keep trying to harpoon us.”
“They aren’t firing because they wouldn’t dare kill our cargo,” Bruwes snapped.
A flinching movement beside him attracted his eye. Lissa, staring at him with wounded eyes.
Cargo, he’d called her.
He couldn’t think about that now. “Stay back,” he told her, jumping into the gunner’s chair and strapping in. “And stay calm. This will all be over soon.”
One way or another.
Lissa watchedBruwes settle behind his controls, his movements brisk and confident. He showed no fear, not the slightest hesitation or doubt. He was the captain of this ship.
And she was cargo.
Hearing herself referred to so callously by the man who’d just rocked her ovaries was sobering, and it helped put things back into perspective. She was not his lover and never had been. She meant exactly one thing to him and that was a jump coil. And to be fair, without one, they were easy pickings for the pirates whose scorched and battle-scarred ship filled the viewscreen. A Soldri ship, or it had been once, but it had been broken down and patched together with scrap from so many other vessels that little of its original shape remained.
Her nerves faltered. This will all be over soon, Bruwes had said, but that wasn’t much comfort. Death was as much a possibility as victory.
