"I think I can manage to make my way on my own."
His gaze burned into hers, and for a moment she feared he might be able to see past her defenses and detect the way he unnerved her.
Or worse, see her deceit.
"C'mon. It's not often I get to play a gallant hero to a damsel I distressed. Don't interfere with my good deed for the decade. I assure you, they're few and far between."
Well, since he put it that way ...
The heat of his body warmed hers as he led her from the bridge and down the corridor. Goodness, but he smelled delectable. It was such a sharp, spicy scent ..
All man and all good.
She swallowed as she tried to think of something that could distract her from her thoughts. "That was some really good flying, Captain. How'd you know a hyperspace opening was there?"
That devilish grin returned. "I inherited my uncle's star charts that detail every opening in the trigalaxies. Most of them are unknown by anyone except my family. I've found them immensely helpful whenever The League thinks they've got my hyperdrive locked down." His eyes twinkled in the dim light. "They can block our ship, but they can't block the entire galaxy."
Alix frowned. "Your uncle?"
"Caillen Dagan."
Her stomach hit the floor. Caillen Dagan was the baddest of the bad. Even though he'd vanished when she'd been in diapers, smugglers and League officials still wet themselves whenever his name was mentioned. His reputation was the stuff of legends. "I heard he was dead."
He didn't respond to either confirm or deny it.
She narrowed her gaze on him. "Are you really a Dagan?"
Devyn nodded, his features serious. "Son of a Dagan Seax and the equally notorious C.I. Syn. Only fitting I ended up on the questionable side of the law."
Alix came to a complete stop. C.I. Syn was the most infamous filch and assassin who ever lived. Again, his name alone sent terror through the hearts of anyone who heard it.
And here she was, standing next to his son. How much of his father's brutality had Devyn inherited?
He gave her a gimlet stare. "You got a problem with my history?"
Nice attitude. Obviously he was defensive about his parents. Not that she blamed him. She'd be a little waxed, too, if she had a genetic link to people like that.
She shook her head in honesty. "No, but I'm curious about how your parents met."
The question seemed to amuse him. "My mom was hired to track my dad down and arrest him."
"I take it she let him go."
"No. She shot and stabbed him the first time they met and did, in fact, hand him over to the authorities... twice."
She was completely stunned by what he described. "And he let her live?"
He shrugged. "My dad's a forgiving man where my mom's concerned."
Obviously. Still, how could anyone be that tolerant? She couldn't imagine ever forgiving someone for shooting her.
"And I thought my parents had a screwed-up relationship."
Devyn cocked an eyebrow. "I know your father ran a freighter. What about your mom?"
She squelched her sudden burst of panic before she gave herself away. He must never know about her mother or her sister. She couldn't even think about that right now without her head becoming light and her sight dimming in mortal terror.
She had no doubt that this fierce man would absolutely kill her if he ever learned she was here to betray him and his crew.
"She..." Alix paused while trying to think up a believable lie. She shifted her gaze to the floor, hoping he couldn't detect her deceit. "She disappeared when I was just a kid. I don't really remember her."
Skittish about the turn in their conversation, she let go of him and sprinted the rest of the way to her room.
Devyn scowled at her hasty departure. "Alix?"
She didn't even pause.
How weird was that? But there had been no mistaking the frightened look he'd seen on her face when he asked about her mother. Tempted to go after her, he decided it would be best to give her time to get used to all of them slowly.
Trusting strangers wasn't easy for most people. In all honesty, he envied her that suspicious nature. Blind trust had gotten him screwed more times than he could count.
All right, Alix. Keep your secrets. So long as they don't threaten the crew, I'll let you live.
Alix sat on her bed, dreading what she was going to have to do-- scan the ship's logs looking for proof of Devyn's criminal activities, then transmit them to Merjack. But honestly, she was scared of being caught. What would they do to her?
Kill you.
Most likely. It'll probably be brutal, too. They might even feed you to the dog.
He doesn't have a dog.
Yeah, well, he might get one just to feed you to it.
She'd never been the kind of person to let something as ridiculous as rational logic interfere with her fear. And while she sat in indecision, her parched throat begged for something to drink.
Well, she didn't have much choice. She had to go find something to drink before the dehydration made her sick.
She got up and decided to try the bridge first. If her luck held, Sway or Vik would be there, and Devyn would have gone on to do something else.
Reaching the door, she pushed the touch-activated lock. The portal opened and she sighed in disgust. Since when had luck ever been on her side? Devyn stood to her right, leaning over a panel where he worked. He glanced up at her. "I'm glad you're here. I thought I was going to have to wake you."
Alix frowned at his tone, which landed somewhere between frustration and relief. "What's wrong?"
"I've got a fluctuation in the radiation shielding and I think gamma rays are leaking in. Vik can't pinpoint it."
Alix's eyes widened. She didn't like the sound of that at all. Stepping up to the panel, she ran over the gauges. They had pulled out of hyperspace and were traveling at fifty-percent light speed. She glanced over the diagnostic test Devyn was running and saw the leak.
"Out of curiosity, where did Vik go? I haven't seen him since we launched."
"He's plugged into the ship." Devyn looked up. "Vik, say hi to the lady."
"Must I when I'm trying to find a leak? Contrary to your beliefs, just because I'm a mecha, I'm not immune to it. It could melt my wiring as easily as it can mutate you."
Devyn rolled his eyes. "He's a surly bastard. You'll get used to him."
She wasn't too sure about that, and if he was part of the ship, that made her job a lot harder. Vik would know the instant she started pulling up data on Devyn. "So where's the shield's power source?"
"I'll show you." Devyn led her back to the corridor.
Halfway down the hall, he stopped and pushed the controls for a lift to the lower deck. "The air gets a bit thin. If you start getting sick, let me know."
"Believe me, if I start getting sick, you'll be the first to know since I'm sure it'll be all over you."
Without responding to her sarcasm, he stepped into the lift. Alix followed, but quickly wished she hadn't. The small compartment forced them together in an intimate proximity she found horribly unsettling. She bit her lip and tried not to brush up against his hard, muscular body. All too well, she remembered how it felt to be in his arms.
"When did you notice the leak?" she asked, trying to distract herself from those thoughts about him.
"A few minutes ago. I was about to buzz your room for you to come investigate this." He looked down at her and smiled. "So what brought you out?"
She licked her dry lips. "Dehydration."
A deep frown creased his brow. "Why didn't you say something before I brought you down here?"
The anger in his voice startled her. "Why are you growling at me?"
"I don't know. I'm frustrated, and you should have told me you were thirsty. That's not something to play around with out here." For such a reasonable response, the tone of his voice wavered on violence.
"Well, I'd rather die of thirst than radiation pois
oning. I daresay it's less painful."
Devyn relaxed a little. "I guess you're right."
Alix stared up at him. Never in her life had she been so attracted to a man. Maybe the knowledge that she couldn't have him caused the strong attraction. Or was it his feral reputation that enticed her so? She knew he was capable of killing anyone who got in his way.
Especially her.
Whatever the source of her attraction, all she wanted was to taste his lips and feel his arms around her once again.
With a soft whir, the door opened. Relieved, Alix walked out first. Stepping past her, Devyn led her to the engineering room and punched in a sequence of keys to open the door. "The code to enter the room is ClAria 1-8-4-9-3. Capital on the C and the middle A."
A wave of disappointment ran through her at the mention of a woman's name and the note of obvious affection in his voice when he spoke of her. Was that the woman Merjack had said she favored? "CIaria?"
"Sway's wife."
She'd known from the gold band on his arm that Sway was married, but it still caught her off guard. "Is she not part of the crew?" Since runners could spend months at a time on a mission, it wasn't unusual for a married man to have his wife on board.
"No. dana's a junior senator for the Hyshian government. Since she travels so much, and they don't have any children for him to watch, Sway stays with me."
Alix frowned at him. "That sounds odd."
He shrugged. "Only by most humans' standards. The Hyshians are obscenely matriarchal. The males can't do anything without female consent. The men even take their wife's name."
She found his good humor infectious as he looked at her with those dark eyes. Still, the thought of owning someone, even in marriage, was revolting to her. Having been a slave her entire life, she couldn't imagine voluntarily subjugating herself to someone else. "How does he stand it?"
"He loves her more than his life. But it can be hard for him to submit. Hyshian males are as aggressive as any other. I've been told that some wives drug their spouses to keep them in line. Some even surgically alter them."
"And their culture allows this?"
He held his hands up in surrender. "I hear you. Believe me, I'm grateful to the gods that I'm not one of them. But in defense of their culture, Sway's mother was never like that. Probably because her father was human. Jayne has always been respectful of her husband and sons, and dana's the same way... most of the time. It's why she allows Sway to travel with me even though she takes a lot of shit from her family and others for not riding herd on him. She's a good woman, so I stay out of it."
He entered the room and started checking over the system's gauges. "That being said, because of their laws, I'm Sway's legal chaperone--which is why he gives me such grief about my mom's calls. He considers it justice over the way I taunt him."
Alix wondered at his words. "So how did you end up as his chaperone?"
"Our parents are close friends and we grew up like brothers. When he married, dana wanted to keep him happy, so she asked me to take custody of him. It felt kind of weird to have custody of someone older than me, especially at first, but I didn't want him forced to live with dana's mother, who would have driven him mental with her bullshit rules for his behavior." He glanced up from the panel. "What about you? You have any siblings?"
A cold, twisting lump coiled in her stomach, and she feared for a moment she might be sick.
Don't think about it. Because when she did, she wanted to cry. Her sister was only fifteen, and she'd do anything to keep Tempest safe.
Not to mention her mother.
But she couldn't tell Devyn about them. If she did, he'd want to know where they were and why she'd left them.
Alix dropped her gaze and looked over the control panel for the shield's leak. "I told you I don't have any family ties."
"Sorry, I forgot."
She hadn't meant for her reply to be so curt. She tried to ignore her guilt--and his presence--as she concentrated on her task, but it wasn't easy.
It didn't take long to isolate the leak and correct it. "There." She stepped back to show him. "It's all fixed."
Devyn checked the gauges.
She studied his frown of consternation and smiled. "How is it a pilot of your abilities doesn't know anything about ship maintenance?"
He shrugged. "My dad tried his best to teach me engineering all through my childhood, but I'm missing that gene--too much like my mom. For some reason, I can't wrap my mind around mechanics. All I know is how to check things, fly them and shoot them when they really piss me off. What about you? Can you pilot?"
"I can do a launch sequence, but that's about all. I couldn't get near the directional controls unless my father passed out."
She bit her lip in shock at the slip she'd made, but she couldn't seem to help herself. There was something about Devyn that stripped away all the careful barriers she'd built for herself. In spite of the fact that he was lethal, he was way too easy to talk to.
A flicker of anger touched Devyn's eyes but quickly vanished, and it made her wonder why.
"Is that why you became an engineer?"
She brushed her hand across her cheek, skimming the tiny scar just below her right eye from when her father had slung her against a control panel a few years ago after she'd made a simple mistake. "No. My father didn't like paying the extra money to hire an engineer, so one day he handed me a wrench and a manual and told me to fix the side stabilizer or get off the ship."
Devyn stared at her in disbelief. The blase tone of her voice told him more about her than the words themselves. Her father had been a real bastard. Even so, she hadn't let him hold her back. A surge of admiration ran through him. "I bet you fixed it like new."
She gave an undignified snort. "No. It went out before we could even complete the launch. Ended up busting one of the cargo bays and losing half our shipment. Not one of my finer moments or memories, to be sure."
Devyn studied her halfhearted smile. "I'll keep that in mind if one of ours ever goes out."
She gave him a guarded look that made him regret his words. He'd meant them as humor, but obviously she didn't appreciate it. So he filed that away as a topic to never mention again, even in jest.
As she stayed beside him, he stared at her eyes. They were such an unusual shade, probing, intelligent, and pain-filled. For some reason, he wanted to soothe away the agony that blazed in defiance of him and the whole universe.
In spite of her rough, prickly defenses, she was an attractive woman with a quiet assuredness he found refreshing.
The women he'd known had all played major head games, but she didn't seem to. She was very straightforward and professional. He liked that.
Unlike Clotilde ...
It was all he could do not to wince. Even dead, she wasn't quite dead enough. Her viciousness lived on in his memory and made him want to dig her up just so he could kill her again.
And right now, he knew he should walk away from Alix. She was a member of his crew, and business and pleasure shouldn't mix. But he couldn't seem to stop himself from touching her soft cheek, or brushing her lips with his thumb.
This is sexual harassment. You're going to get sued.
Yet right now...
He really didn't care.
Alix opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Her cheek burned under the weight of his fingers. She wanted his kiss, and a small voice inside told her it was more than mere want. She needed it.
Her experience with men had been severely tainted by her "duties" with her father's crew. None of them had ever kissed her worth a damn. But she suspected Devyn Kell wouldn't be clumsy with his attempt. Nor would he try to give her a tonsillectomy.
She would lay money that his kiss would be the stuff of legends. His hand paused on her cheek. He closed his eyes and dipped his head toward hers.
"Dev? Where are you?"
Silently, Alix cursed Sway's Hyshian hide for the interruption. Just a few more seconds and he could've ca
lled without her wanting to strangle him.
Was one decent kiss in her life too much to ask?
Devyn blinked in confusion, as if he were waking from a dream, then dropped his hand from her face and took a step back.
Her skin still tingling, Alix wanted desperately to return to the mood, but it was too late.
Sway had destroyed it.
She sighed in disgust. Luck would never be her friend.
Devyn moved to the wall intercom. "What do you need?"
"I need you to get your ass up here and assure Claria that Alix is human and that you're not going to leave me alone with her. She's stroking over stupid jealousy. I swear I should have lied to her."
Devyn rolled his eyes in obvious frustration.
Alix laughed.
"I'm on my way."
She stepped away from him. "Ever wish subspace transmissions were impossible?"
"Only every time my mom or Claria calls."
Her smile widened.
They remained silent the whole way back to the main deck. Devyn stepped out of the lift first. "The galley is all the way down the corridor on the left. Search through the cooling unit until you find something you like."
Alix stared after him as he walked toward the bridge, amazed he'd remembered her thirst.
Her throat tightened as longing raced through her.
You're not here to hook up with him.
No, she was here for something sinister, and the guilt of it was unbearabIe.
Maybe you could trust him...
Yeah, right. People were crap and they betrayed. She knew that better than anyone. If she told him what was going on, he'd kill her and let her mother and sister burn.
She'd lived her entire life under dire, soul-wrenching threats, and that had been from the man who fathered her. The man who was supposed to love her.
Just imagine what a stranger would do to her.
With a determined stride, she crossed her arms over her chest and headed to the galley.
What she wouldn't give for the type of friendship Devyn and Sway shared. Someone she could talk things over with, release the darkest secret of her soul.
Don't. As long as you keep your mouth shut, no one will ever know what you are. You'll be free.
Free. It was the one thing she'd always wanted. And if it was the last thing she did, she would be emancipated.
Even if it meant Devyn's life.
"What are you doing?"
Alix jumped at her desk as Vik's booming voice startled her. It came through the speaker in the ceiling above her head. "Nothing." Gah, she hoped he didn't hear the panic and fear she felt in her voice.