Again, the tapping came, and I tried to swallow my fear, tried not to look—couldn’t resist the draw of curiosity, and gave up the fight. Derevo was there, just as I’d known he would be, his tongue working the glass as though it could reach through and taste flesh. Panic caused my heart rate to spike, and alarms to ring out on the other side of the tank. The door to the cockpit opened, and Sasha opened the cockpit door long enough to shout, as she disentangled herself from her boyfriend’s grasp.
“Damnitall, Rev! I was trying to say goodbye!”
The crazy hunter guy stopped licking the side of the tank, and looked over at her.
“Sayin’ it and doin’ it are two different things, sweet cheeks,” and he accompanied the words with crudely suggestive gestures, strutting around the front of the tank, and rocking his hips.
It was a sight I could have done without.
He rolled his eyes at me, and licked his lips.
“Be glad the Wolves want you as you are minus the dents,” he murmured, and caressed the tank with his palms, “or you and me would be havin’ us a little private time.”
I recoiled, and he laughed, then lost all appearance of humor.
“Time we were leaving, or we won’t have the lag time we need.”
Lag time?
Wait. That made a strange kind of sense… and then it didn’t. It was like having two realities inside my head…and one of them I couldn’t remember.
I had a brief glimpse of Sasha and her guy twining around each other, before breaking apart, and Derevo rolling his eyes in disgust and vanishing back into what served as crew quarters. Sasha’s guy drifted back past me, and out into the hangar, blowing her a kiss as he went. It was kinda sweet, and not something I would have associated with the bounty hunter.
He tossed me a glance as he went past, smirking.
“You’d be surprised,” he told me, and left.
I didn’t notice Sasha coming to lean against the cockpit door, until the hatch had closed behind her beau, and then she strolled over and came to stand outside the plastiglass of the tank. It was a bit like being a crab or lobster in a restaurant, except I had no hope of not being selected, given I was the only one in the tank.
Sasha smiled.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. Customer’s already paid for home delivery.”
Not what I needed to hear. I wondered if Mack could afford a counter-hire, or if this pair could even be bought. Sasha shook her head.
“Not a hope in any of the seven suns. We live by our contracts. The wolves offer the best for your hide intact and relatively unharmed—and you need to sleep.” She glanced towards the crew quarters. “I’ll make sure the Reaver doesn’t pay you a visit while you’re out.”
Out? She seemed pretty sure of herself.
And with good reason, I discovered, as she pulled a remote from her pocket, and aimed it at the tank.
“I’ll wake you when we dock,” she said.
I glared at her, but it didn’t do me an iota of good. The shit they added to the tank was invisible and worked in seconds—well, of course it did, given I was immersed in it. It’s not like I had even the ghost of a chance of escaping it.
Coming out of it took a lot longer, and I woke up to discover I was no longer in the tank, but stretched out on a narrow examination table beside it. I was clean, dry, and dressed in a simple, one-piece ship suit that felt like it had something stuffed into the lining.
Wait. It had a lining? Why would Sasha and Derevo give me something with a lining? More importantly, why would they give me something with stuff actually hidden in the lining? What sort of lining was it anyway? What in all stars was going on?
“Up!” Derevo’s voice snapped across my mind like a rifle shot, and I was off the table and standing before I’d really had time to think about it.
He snickered like he thought it was somewhere near funny, and I realized he was standing a lot closer than I’d like.
“Turn around,” he said, as he folded the table back into the wall.
I stared at him, caught the look on his face, and turned. As much as I expected it, I still flinched when he snapped a set of cuffs over my wrists.
“It’s the minimum the wolves expect,” he said, although why he was bothering to explain it to me, I didn’t know.
I didn’t particularly care, either, given that he and Sasha were taking me in so they could collect the bounty from the Star Shadows—their illegal bounty, I might add.
“Like we care, sweetheart,” Sasha said, coming out of the cockpit with Cascade.
She had him on a leash, but I don’t think she really needed to have bothered. Stupid mutt was looking far too pleased to be walking beside her. I remembered how the wolves had treated him, and figured that at least he wouldn’t have anything to worry about. It wasn’t like they were going to eat him, or anything.
Hell, no. He’d probably spend the rest of his life being spoilt rotten, or guarding some high-class wolf lair. And he’d probably live a lot longer than Mack, Tens, Rohan, or I had any right to hope for.
“You might be surprised,” Derevo said, turning me back around and keeping a hand on my arm.
He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering provocatively in all the wrong places.
“Piece like you,” he continued, starting towards the door. “They might keep you around for a lot longer than you ever wanted to survive.”
Well, that wasn’t promising. I wondered what it would take to kick free of the wolves, the hunters, and the station—and if Cascade would drop his newly formed attachment to Sasha and help me.
Sasha shouldered past Derevo and me.
“Bit pathetic when your best hope is a dog, isn’t it, sweetie?” she asked, and my heart
