She shook her head at his flagrant lack of morals. He was barbaric.
Then his words sank in. Done with you.
“You mean done with me after you take me home.”
“You can go wherever you want. But I’m not taking you anywhere.”
Panic set her heart pounding as she imagined herself floating alone through space. “You promised,” she breathed.
“I promised to take you away from that ship. Not to take you to Argentus. You know what they’d do with me if they caught me? I’m not getting tortured for you.”
He said you as if she were vile. Beneath contempt.
A sob of panic rose in her throat, and she swallowed it, tracing her fingers over her pearls. “You’d still be there with your hands tied behind your back if it weren’t for me.”
He turned away, the sinuous shapes of the tattoo twisting on his neck moved as he shifted in the seat, elbowed it irritably.
“Have you no concept of honor on Vesta, then?”
“Honor’s for fools and losers. I’m neither.”
She straightened her shoulders and tried to match his insouciant tone. “What do you intend to do with me?”
His amusement faded. A muscle ticked in his hard, unshaven jaw.
She pressed her advantage. “You can’t just leave me on a planet somewhere and forget about me.”
He fiddled with the gauges on the console, mouth hard.
She stiffened. “You wouldn’t.”
A grin flashed across his face.
“I would have no way to get home. Even you couldn’t be so cruel.”
His dour glare implied that perhaps, in fact, he really could be just that cruel. His biceps flexed and rippled through his thin shirt as he shifted to run his hands through his hair. “Inns yiurian a ghiann.”
The part of his words she caught made her eyes burn. You’d deserve it and worse. Her Vestigi had been more than adequate for school, but the last word was not one with which she was familiar. The tone, however, left no doubt it was a curse.
“The enemy tongue,” she said, “was part of my comprehensive education. Curse words, however, were omitted. My tutors failed to predict that I would come across a man of your vast vocabulary.”
He laughed, dimples dancing on his face, and said another stream of Vestigi.
“Do try to use words someone who wasn’t raised in a gutter would understand.”
Another stream of amused unintelligible Vestigi.
It didn’t matter.
He could curse all he wanted.
He could hate her as much as he liked, as long as he didn’t abandon her. She needed him only until he could help her get in contact with Agammo. Then sweet, gentle Agammo would come for her. They would Bond as they’d always intended. And all of this would be nothing more than ugliness left in the past. Forgotten. They’d be free together, and they’d build a family.
“Please, if you’ll just help me get somewhere safe and help me contact home—I’m sure my future-mate would see you well rewarded.”
“Your future-mate is bleeding out as we speak,” he growled.
Deep breaths. “Spiro will be fine.” He has to be. “His brother is a good healer. I meant my real future-mate. Agammo.”
“How many future-mates do you have?” He scraped a hand along the hard edges of his bristly jaw.
She stiffened.
“Never mind. I don’t care. Just keep your mouth shut.”
Preparing to keep her voice calm so even a brute could understand, she inhaled sharply. “I’m sure there’s some neutral place where you c—”
He didn’t even look at her, but his jaw ticked again. “What part of ‘mouth shut’ confused you? If I have to be stuck with you until I can figure out how to get rid of you, at least I don’t have to listen to your traitorous tongue.”
She shrank away from the vehemence behind his words and plucked at the fabric of her ivory lace dress, straightening her skirts so they fell evenly to the floor, over her crossed ankles.
She patted her hair to check that her coiled bun hadn’t been destroyed during their escape. All the instructors at the Institute had said that her hair was one of her best features. Golden and sleek.
There was no call for bad manners. Fight rudeness with smiles, that’s what the Merentide Ladies’ Institute of the Galactic Future had taught. Leaning forward in her seat, she waved a hand through the air to capture his attention.
He frowned at her, eyes wary.
She inclined her head. Manners were a form of armor. She gathered them closely. If she couldn’t speak, it didn’t mean she couldn’t communicate. She pointed to her tightly shut mouth, indicating that she wouldn’t speak again.
Clearly, compromise was the only way to handle this heathen.
His frown deepening, he studied her from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes.
She turned away and dissolved into silence, just as he’d demanded.
She didn’t bother looking at him again. Instead, she did what she always did when she was upset, and pulled out the holo-cam her father had given her for her last birthday. She passed the time, filming an impressive view of a foggy, glittering pink cloud of an elliptical galaxy winking on the right side of the porthole. It helped, focusing on the familiar feel of the hand-sized holo-cam in her hands. Seeing the images take form, pushing aside the guilt and the fear, and instead imagining a documentary of her travel she could make.
It was the only available escape, so she clung to it.
Miraculously, aside from a few dubious glares, he didn’t object.
SHE WAS AS GOOD as her word, or rather, her not-word. She didn’t open her mouth once. At least not to do anything other than eat her rations. Not for the two days they sat side by side in the cramped bridge of the tiny escape vessel, as he grunted and cursed and growled like an angry beast about what he called the shitty seat. Not when she discovered there was no water for washing, only a sanitizing spray for her
