Page 52 of Havik: Warlord Brides
The ball rolled away, and Stabs scurried after, chasing the sound. A dock worker shouted in alarm and pressed himself against the side of a ship as Stabs dashed past. Havik assured the male he was safe if he remained still.
“You bought the kumakrea toy?”
Ren seemed unconcerned that he insulted the dignity of a fierce and wild predator with a few credits’ worth of plastic and metal and completely ignored Havik. “If you do not wish to wait, then do not attack males holding expensive, custom made converters,” he said. He lifted a piece of silver metal that appeared very much to be two cups welded together.
“That was custom made?” Havik did not understand mechanics.
“Yes. The inner chamber degrades over time.” Ren tapped the center where the cups joined. “I could waste days searching junkyards for the part, but it would be worn and fail, just as our current one does. Fortunately, this appears to have survived your temper tantrum.”
Havik had the overwhelming urge to punch Ren again. “How long until we’re ready to fly?”
“Three hours.”
“Make it one.” He needed to follow Thalia. The tracker worked at a considerable distance but the itching inside his head would cease if he were moving toward her, not sitting still while Ren played with his parts.
Thalia would have snorted at that, making such a ludicrous sound with her tiny Terran nose and sinus cavity.
“Impossible. The material needs to be tempered or it will crack, and that will cause a cascade—” Ren babbled, listing a series of mechanical failures that would prove fatal.
Havik ceased to listen. “Do it.”
He scooped up Stabs, clutching and hissing at the ball, and marched up the ramp.
Chapter 13
Thalia
The crew was less than warm with their greetings.
“Captain brought in another stray. This one won’t last a week,” a human man with a rough salt and pepper beard said. He looked like he fought hard in the battle of life but still lost.
“Please, question me some more,” Sue said, silencing the man with a look. “Dray, give her Paadric’s old cabin.”
Dray, the other Sangrin male who had been at the bar, asked, “Do you have luggage or something?”
“What you see is what you get. I didn’t have time to pack a bag before I was asked to leave the ship,” Thalia said, trying to keep her voice light. She wanted the smuggler crew to underestimate her because you never question the motive of those you think of as harmless. If anyone questioned her, she’d have to spin a lie, and making up lies on the spot was harder than people thought.
She forced a sunny smile on her face, channeling every harmless and hapless thought possible.
He recoiled, a disgusted look on his face. “You’re in luck. Paadric also didn’t have time to pack a bag and he was on the scrawny side. If you don’t mind blood, what’s in his cabin is yours.”
“Delightful.” A dead man’s closet. Yo ho ho.
He marched her down a narrow corridor, shoulder to shoulder, and watched her carefully from the corner of his eyes like she was a prisoner and he expected hijinks. “How’d you know how to do that for Naston?”
Great. Questions.
Thalia shrugged. “I was apprenticed to a doctor. I picked up some things.”
“You’re a medic?”
“Fuck no. I was like the orderly. I followed a drunk doctor around and kept the exam room smelling like disinfectant rather than booze.” A lie, but remarkably close to the truth.
Dray stopped in front of a cabin door. He covered a keypad with his hand but made no move to unlock it. “What kind of ship has its own doctor? You military?”
“Does anything about me look like I’ve been in the fucking military?” Thalia held up a lock of her vivid green hair. God, she was sick of that color. She should go for something boring, like purple.
“Your mouth sounds like it.”
