“Good thing I’m decent at protecting myself, eh?” Alisa clasped his hand, though the ramp of the Nomad had come into view, so their romantic evening walk could not last long. “I’ve had a lot of practice. On account of my mouth.”
“I believe you.”
“I feel like I should swat you for that, but since you told me you wouldn’t feel it through your armor, I suppose there wouldn’t be a point.”
“Only if it made you feel good,” he said.
“It might.”
Someone came out onto the ramp, so Alisa let Leonidas go. It wasn’t as if the others didn’t know they had started spending more time together, but she had this sense that she should maintain some professional distance when others were around. Especially Alejandro, since he glared whenever he saw Leonidas standing close to her. A former Alliance pilot. She might as well have a communicable disease.
That looked like Abelardus on the ramp. Yes, he turned toward them, and the light from within the cargo hold silhouetted his head and braids. He glared at her whenever she stood close to Leonidas too. Not that she cared what he thought.
I went out to rent hover bikes for our journey, Abelardus spoke into her thoughts, gazing at her across the distance. I was watched as I did so. Perhaps because of my robe. Perhaps because I’m associated with your ship.
Having him speak into her head always made Alisa uneasy, and it felt like more of an intrusion when she was walking side by side with Leonidas, having a private moment with him. Since Abelardus was jumping straight to business, she kept herself from making a snide comment.
We were watched too, she replied in her mind. The mafia boss finds Leonidas fascinating.
Fascinating or irksome?
It’s a woman.
That doesn’t answer my question. Abelardus smirked—she knew it even though she couldn’t see his face in the shadows. Does she know about his problem?
Doubtful, and maybe you should stay out of his head, so you don’t give him any more problems.
He can’t satisfy you, you know. Nor will he be any help with training your daughter.
Alisa sighed.
“Is he talking to you?” Leonidas murmured as they turned onto the dock with the Nomad parked at the end.
“How can you tell?”
“Your expression got aggravated, and I don’t think I stepped on your foot or did anything to cause it.”
“You are definitely not the source of my aggravation.”
“Let me know if you want me to punch him for you,” Leonidas said. “It won’t bruise my knuckles to do so.” He glanced down at her hand.
“Thank you for the offer. I’ll let you know if that becomes desirable.”
She patted him on the back before separating to walk up the ramp. Six motorized bikes with thrusters and skids rested inside the hold.
“Do you think we should go out to look for your kin tonight, Abelardus?” Alisa asked when they entered the ship. “We might be less likely to be watched at night.”
“Don’t be so certain.” Abelardus looked past her shoulder and toward the base of the ramp.
A spy box that had not been there ten seconds ago now hovered a few meters from the ship, not attempting to hide itself. Alisa made a disgusted noise and hit the button to close the hatch.
“I’ll have one of the cameras watch it and set up an alert in case it goes away,” she said.
“Perhaps first thing at dawn would be the best time to go,” Abelardus said. “I saw that there would be some races at that track later in the morning. The monster hunting may be on hiatus for that.” He grimaced. Maybe he had also caught some footage of those people being eaten.
“Let’s hope. I want to find Jelena and get out of here. This is a loathsome place for a little girl.” Alisa hoped the Starseers did not let their charges see the local news. She could not imagine an eight-year-old child watching what she had seen today.
“I’m sure my people are taking good care of her.”
“I wish I was that confident of that.” Not for the first time, Alisa considered how this Durant—a proven kidnapper and a brother to Abelardus, who had questionable morals at best—seemed an unlikely prospect to care for a child.
“If my brother wants what I’m guessing he wants, he’ll treat her well,” Abelardus said.
“And what is it that you think he wants?”
“Someone who will grow up to birth strong Starseer babies.”
“Ugh.” Alisa couldn’t help but curl a lip. She wanted Jelena to play and laugh and be a kid, and it horrified her to think of someone wanting her as broodstock. Who would they have in mind as the father? She shuddered.
It pleased her to notice that Leonidas was also curling a lip. She didn’t know whether that was because the idea also horrified him or if it was because he wanted to punch Abelardus for being alive in general, but she approved of his response.
“You should be honored,” Abelardus said, frowning at both her and Leonidas.
“Yeah, I’ll work on that. Leonidas, let’s come up with a plan for our new problem, shall we?”
“If you wish.”
He didn’t look that cheerful at the idea. That was all right. Alisa was tired, and her brain hurt. She mostly wanted an excuse to get away from Abelardus, but she wouldn’t mind some company tonight. She dreaded the nightmares she might have after Abelardus put ideas of Starseers using her daughter to breed into her head.
“Do you want help?” Abelardus asked.
“Not right now. I’ll accept all the help you can give in the morning. Thank you for getting the bikes.” She smiled, though she had to force herself to make the effort. She hadn’t forgotten about that kiss he had foisted on her, or the fact that he had fiddled with her mind to momentarily make her think she wanted it. What if some lecherous male Starseer did the same thing to Jelena when she was older?
“You’re welcome.” Abelardus bowed and trotted up the stairs.
Alisa waited for him to disappear, then clasped Leonidas’s hand and led the way past the chicken coop, up the stairs, and into the mess hall. She paused there, spotting a plate of muffins on the table. Beck must have made it back. Before she left in the morning, she would have to find out if he’d gotten that meeting—or, better yet, firmed up the job.
Her stomach growled, and she took a closer look at the muffins. They had grill marks on them, but otherwise looked appealing. She gave them a sniff. Blueberry. She did not know where Beck had found the fruit on this forsaken moon, but they smelled wonderful.
“If Beck ever leaves us, I’m going to be extremely sad,” Alisa said, plucking up several muffins and plopping them onto a new plate.
“He’s a good cook,” Leonidas agreed, not making a similar comment about his security-guard skills.
She found some jakloff butter in the fridge, smeared the muffins, and retook Leonidas’s hand.
“Where are we going to discuss our problems?” he asked as she led him off again.
“One of our cabins, and despite what I said—” Alisa glanced up the corridor to make sure Abelardus was not loitering within earshot, “—I’d like to forget about my problems for a few hours. Will you watch a cheerful, non-violent vid with me?”
It was a simple enough question to ask, and not a huge imposition, but she paused in the intersection to watch for his reaction. They hadn’t had many date nights, and she wasn’t sure if he would grasp that she wanted that, wanted to lie with her head against his chest while trying not to worry for two hours.
“Non-violent?” he asked.
“Yes, something with a nice happy ending. Something with laughing and kissing perhaps.”
His expression grew dubious.
“I would tell you that you’re supposed to agree to watching a girly vid because you’ll end up getting sex afterward, but I guess I have to find something else to entice you with.” She held up the plate. “Muffin?”
Mica’s head poked out of her cabin, and Alisa blushed. She hadn’t real
ized anyone’s hatch was open. Since it had taken Leonidas weeks to explain his problem to her, she doubted he wanted others to know about it. Fortunately, Mica withdrew without comment and closed her hatch.
“You don’t have to entice me,” Leonidas said quietly. “But if you wanted to, I enjoyed that massage last week. I didn’t think I would, especially when you pulled out the rocks.”
“Those were spa stones, not rocks.” Alisa smiled and waved him toward his cabin. “If you take off some of that armor, I’ll go change into pajamas and bring my stones to visit.”
“Excellent.” He plucked the muffin plate from her hand and disappeared into his cabin.
She snorted. She would have to change quickly if she wanted any of those muffins. Thanks to that cyborg metabolism, he had the appetite of a growing teenage boy.
In her cabin, she slipped into soft pajamas, briefly lamenting that she did not have any sexy nightwear, but then reminding herself that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Leonidas was not going to ogle her. That made her sad, but it also took away some of the awkward nervousness she would have felt if she were climbing into bed for vid night with a man she’d never slept with before.
She grabbed her netdisc and opened her movie selection as she padded back into the corridor. She paused in front of Leonidas’s hatch, flicking through the titles for something he might like. But seeing all the vids in her collection stirred memories. And emotions.
That one she had watched with Jonah. And that one. That one too. And that cartoon had been Jelena’s favorite the last time Alisa had been home. Alisa also had a few classics that she had enjoyed with her mother. Rising Stars. That had been Mom’s favorite. Age of Rebellion had been a historical documentary that Jonah had watched multiple times, citing the lessons to be learned from the past. He’d eschewed action and adventure flicks in favor of documentaries and literary dramas. Fortunately, he had usually agreed to three of her types of movies to one of his when they had been watching things together on the couch at night. Or in bed after Jelena went to sleep.
Alisa closed her eyes and rested her hand on the hatch. Damn it, why did all of her vids remind her of people who were dead or missing? Why was everyone in her life dead or missing? It wasn’t fair.
She sniffed and wiped an eye. Maybe she wasn’t ready for this, movie night with someone else. She missed the comfort of having her family around her, of feeling like she belonged and knew her place in the universe. And she missed them.
The hatch opened and she dropped her hand. Sniffling outside of the cabin of someone with enhanced hearing wasn’t a good idea.
“I’m not sure what to think about finding a woman crying in front of my door,” Leonidas said, looking her up and down. At first, he seemed puzzled, but then a storm cloud rolled onto his face, and he scowled, looking up and down the corridor. “Abelardus wasn’t pestering you, was he?”
“No.” Alisa hurried to lift a hand before he could rush out, in the mood to pummel Abelardus. “Nothing like that. I was just—” She lifted her netdisc, the holodisplay of movie titles tilting as she waved it in the air, as if it alone should explain her weepy moment. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
Leonidas squinted at her, then stepped aside, extending a hand into his cabin in invitation. “Perhaps it’s good that you usually say exactly what’s on your mind. You don’t excel at lying.”
“Uh huh. Here’s a tip. Don’t criticize a weepy woman on your doorstep.”
He lowered his hand. “It wasn’t meant as a criticism. It was meant as… inappropriate humor.”
“Oh.” Alisa took a breath, feeling overly emotional. Why was she picking a fight with him? That wasn’t what she had come here for. “I’m sorry. I was looking at all of my favorite movies and realizing that the last times I watched most of them was with…” She stopped, not wanting to speak of Jonah to him. What would she think if she was with a man and he kept talking about his dead wife to her? “People who aren’t around anymore,” she finished, the euphemism not making the words any easier to say. Tears crept into her eyes again. Maybe she ought to go back to her cabin. She wasn’t going to be good company.
“Come here,” Leonidas murmured, shifting his hands toward her instead of toward the cabin.
It was an order, if a gentle one, but for once she did not mind. She stepped in and wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against the front of his shoulder. He had removed his armor and wore a simple, fitted T-shirt and loose gym pants.
“I know all about people who aren’t around anymore,” he said, returning the hug, one hand cupping the back of her head.
Yes, he would. Even if he had never been married, he had lost his mother, and he had lost men, close friends. Frequently, she was certain. And there was so much else that had been taken from him, so much that was good in life that he couldn’t enjoy.
Her tears leaked onto his T-shirt, and she let them. It felt good to have someone to lean on, someone who understood. No, not just someone. Him.
He stroked her hair while the tears trickled down her cheeks, and it made her realize how tired she was of being alone, of having only herself to depend on, especially since her life had gotten so crazy, so dangerous, in these last few months. She was always pushing aside her memories and introspection, focusing on the present. She hadn’t realized how much suppressed emotion lurked there beneath the surface, ready to spill over.
A hatch creaked open out in the corridor. Alisa stepped back, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. As much as she appreciated his warmth, she didn’t want her crew or passengers seeing her breaking down on the way to sani their teeth.
Leonidas must have guessed, because he stepped into the cabin and closed the hatch behind her.
“Muffin?” he asked, pointing to the plate on his fold-down desk.
Alisa nodded, managing a smile at the proliferation of crumbs and the two lonely muffins remaining in the center. Had he truly wolfed down the rest of them while she had been changing into her pajamas? “Weren’t there six or seven before?”
“I had to test them, make sure they hadn’t been poisoned. They could have been left by a mafia operative.”
“A mafia operative obsessed with grilling? How do you make muffins on a grill, anyway?” Alisa grabbed the plate and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, tugging at one of her socks to hide a fledgling hole in the heel. That damned Solstice woman was right. She was scruffier than a dock rat these days.
“It’s a mystery.” Leonidas covered a yawn and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Tired? We can skip the movie if you like.”
Especially since she hadn’t found a title that wouldn’t bring back memories that would depress her. They would have to hunt through the catalog together one night, preferably when they weren’t somewhere that charged for sys-net access, and pick some new ones that neither of them had seen.
“Not that tired,” he said, looking away.
Sensing it was a lie, Alisa was tempted to ask him how he had been sleeping lately. Her gaze drifted to one of the dents in the wall next to his bunk. Were there more there since the last time she had visited? She couldn’t tell.
“Have you talked to Alejandro about a pharmacological solution to help you sleep better?” she asked. “Or maybe Yumi would have some insight into such things.”
He hesitated, looking stolidly at the deck. Was this something he would refuse to talk about? Even with her?
She laid a hand on his thigh, hoping he would understand that she only wanted to help. That made her remember how he’d taken her hand and rested it there while laying an ice pack across her bruised knuckles. And how she’d cast the ice pack aside to kiss him. That had been before she’d known that kissing didn’t mean anything to him. Not now. Maybe one day. It had meant a lot to her, and she wished—
“I’ve tried drugs in the past,” he said. “A lot of us did.”
“Us? Your fellow cyborgs?”
He nodded. “Nightmares are common.”
“Because of the grisly nature of the job or because of the surgery?” She remembered him saying they had tinkered with his brain chemistry when they’d been making sure he wouldn’t feel any urges to have sex. What asses.
“Some of both, I think. Drugs tend to wear off too soon to be useful, since we metabolize things so quickly.” He glanced at the crumbs on the muffin plate. “And there are always side effects. You don’t want a crabby cyborg roaming around your ship.”
“How would that be different from now?”
His eyes narrowed, and she grinned and hugged him.
“I’m serious,” Leonidas said. “When I first joined the unit, and we all slept in the same barracks or ship bays, you’d get people having fights that brought down buildings. Cyborgs can usually survive each other’s ire, but with regular people…”
“I can imagine,” she said, sobering and lowering her arms. She’d seen him use his bare hands to take out soldiers in armor that should have made them invulnerable to unarmed combat techniques. She hoped she never made him angry enough to lose his temper with her. During those first weeks that he had been aboard her ship, she had pushed him a few times, unwisely so, and that made her glad that he could control his temper. It would be scary to be around him if some drug was affecting his ability to do so.
“Here are my thoughts on the mafia woman,” he said, resting his hand on her knee.
Alisa looked at that hand, aware of the warmth of it through the thin layer of her pajama bottoms. “That she’s slutty and completely not your type?”
He snorted. “That I’ll continue to pretend that I’m going to go work for her, and once you’ve searched the Starseer outpost and are ready to leave, I’ll head over to join her. You can take the ship and fly out of the dome. Once you’re safely free of its influence, I’ll get a bike and head out into the swamp. You can fly down and pick me up, and we’ll head off to our next destination.”
“That sounds reasonable, but I believe I said it would be nice to forget about worries for a couple of hours. I thought we could save planning for the morning.” Alisa laid her hand on his, her thoughts illogically straying to more interesting places that he could place it. Not that the thigh wasn’t nice…