Page 61 of Tempting Jupiter
Seneca squatted down to the boy’s height so they could better look each other in the eye. “You don’t believe she’s truly an angel.”
Toby scowled. “Don’t matter. She saved us just like the stories said she would. Flew us right off the world. That’s good enough for me.”
But where was she taking them? That question had been circling in Seneca’s mind. She’d admitted knowing a slaver and had sold Jupiter to the bastard. She could easily be planning to sell the children as well.
Seneca kept those thoughts to himself. “You trust too easily. She could be a demon in disguise.”
“Naw.” The boy clutched at a leather loop hanging around his throat. “I’ve seen demons before. She ain’t one.” The boy hitched a thumb over his shoulder in her direction.
Seneca looked up to see her approaching. Angel or demon?
“Everything okay over here?” The makeup she wore was smudged, leaving hints of her true skin tone showing. Purple bruises he’d put there ringed the soft skin of her neck.
Seneca pushed up to his full height. “Fine. Toby and I have reached an understanding.”
Fee’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so?”
“Yup.” The boy crossed his arms over his chest. He looked Seneca up and down then gave Fee a friendlier nod. “Night, Angel.”
With that he strode off to his assigned spot on one of the benches in the ship’s common space.
“Come on.” Fee led Seneca toward the ship’s pilot station. “I arranged for us to check in on Jupiter.”
That surprised him. Not only that she would’ve made the arrangement, but that it was even possible. “You said before that it was difficult to communicate in skipspace.” Had she lied about that, too? Is that why she’d been able to setup her betrayal without their notice?
“Difficult, but not impossible.” She sighed as she settled into her seat. “I set us up for a skim, so I can drop us out. It’s inefficient resource-wise, but we have plenty of fuel. We might have to wait. We took longer than I expected and they might have gotten tired of waiting.” She swiveled one of the seats to face a view screen. “Sit here. I want to keep you out of the vid.”
Seneca sat and watched her. She repaired the ornate braid she’d formed her hair into that morning and touched up her makeup to cover her bruises with a small spray bottle. She was full of tricks. “Why bother with that?”
She didn’t meet his eyes when she answered. “I need them to believe in me.”
“You humans are vain and shallow creatures.” He’d seen it in the pleasure houses and in the arena.
“Perception is everything with a con. I need them to think I’m strong, in control, and cold enough to smuggle slaves.” She turned back to the control console. “No matter what, stay quiet and out of the vid. So far, Morgan doesn’t know there are two of you.” She pulled up data on one of the screens. “That won’t last forever, but I’d like to keep him in the dark on that as long as possible.”
Seneca studied the commands she entered manually into the navigation system. The transition from skipspace was smooth enough that the children probably wouldn’t notice the change. Very different from the damaged resistance ship.
“Alfred, adjust the lighting to keep everything but me in shadow, please.”
“I’ll take care of it, Captain.”
Seneca sat, stiffly. He didn’t want her to see how starved he was for the sight of Jupiter.
A small tone sounded and the vid display came on.
“Well, if it isn’t Feeona Traveler. About damn time.” A human male, midlife, muscular and impatient. “We’ve been waiting out here for hours.”
“I had a few things to do.” She spoke dismissively, but Seneca could see the stiffness of the muscles of her neck and shoulders.
“We’ve got effing things to do,” said the man. “Hang on and I’ll transfer the com to the hold.”
The screen flickered. Another man about the same size and age appeared then stepped aside to reveal Jupiter pacing in a cage behind him.
“There’s your boy. Unharmed, as promised.”
Seneca’s chest tightened. He wanted to throw his head back and howl. Rage still burned in his gut, but seeing Jupiter looking whole and healthy turned the heat down to a simmer.
Jupiter stopped his pacing and turned to face the vid camera—his face a blank mask. “You should not have done this.”
