“Trixie!”
“Shh.” A strong, gentle hand eased him back. “I’m right here. Let me turn up the light.”
No wonder he’d thought he wasfloating. He was in his big, soft, beautiful bed in his rooms at the ducal estate, and it had always seemed too big and soft to him. But with his beautiful mishkeet beside him, it suddenly seemed just right.
“How…?” His voice cracked.
She snuggled close, careful of the thick bandage on his side. “The duke arrived in the nick of time.”
Nor scowled. “He would.”
“I told them what happened. You’restill a hero.”
Was that better or worse than being a pirate or a nobleman? The memory of theGrandiloquenceplunging into the abyss would haunt him longer than any virtual ghost.
Trixie touched his cheek, turning him to face her. Her hazel gaze searched his. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Lost theGrandy,” he croaked.
She sat up and retrieved a squeeze packet of fluid that she held to his lips.The light flavor of pixberries revived his throat. When he struggled to sit—and frowned at her attempt to keep him down—she plumped more of the big, soft pillows behind him.
“Raz has already contacted transgalactic authorities and demanded restitution for them losing their prisoner in the first place,” she said as she settled back on the covers beside him. “They wanted to see proof of Blackworm’sdemise and the destruction of the ship, so he sicced the dowager on them. Now turns out, not only are they paying restitution, there was a reward.” She grinned at him, although her green-brown eyes were shadowed. “You’re a rich hero.”
He glanced away. He’d never cared about any of that. He’d just wanted… Ah, larf it, he’d spilled his guts to her about what he wanted, hadn’t he, when he’d beenspilling his actual guts?
“Raz knows, by the way.”
He twisted back to look at her, wincing at the pull in his wounded side. “Knows what…?” He stiffened. “No.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said hastily. “The dowager again.” When he groaned and thumped his head back, she rested her hand on his shoulder. “When they brought you onboard Raz’s ship, it was…bad. Doctor Boshil wasn’t sure… Anyway, the dowagertold Raz because she wanted to make sure he did everything in his power to save your life.”
Nor grunted. “More likely he would’ve finished the job his father started by exiling me.”
“No. He was…well, he was shocked. But he had his own troubles with his father. I think you have more in common than you might’ve guessed.”
He curled his lip in a half-hearted sneer. “The parts we have in commonare ones neither of us approve of.”
She patted his shoulder. “See? I bet he’d agree with you about that too.”
Ignoring his grumble, she rose to putter around his room, straightening the bedside stand with its meds and vials, fussing with the translucency of the window to let in a little more light, helping herself to one of the candies he always kept on the vanity. Her simple bronze day gownwas rumpled, the loose blond braid of her hair frayed, and he wondered how long she’d been by his side.
And why.
He had nothing anymore, nothing worth noting anyway. Some riches, some renown. Nothing like a dreadnaught and the freedom of the stars.
Watching her circle his room, he wasn’t even sure he wanted those things anymore.
I wanted to be taken in by someone.
That’s what he’d told her.And she’d let him in. His bruised and broken body stirred at the sweet memories.
But the first time had been only a night of forgetting, and the second time, a reckless coupling to reject the sorrow of searching for those stolen souls. Why would she want a third time?
Much less forever.
“Trixie.”
She spun around, the pleats of her skirt flaring a little to catch the filtered sunlight. “CanI get you something?”