Jun glared at the Verge rat—Ari had introduced him as Mr. Stone—who had followed him to the back of the dinghy. Stone was aptly named. He was already a stone in Jun’s shoe, grinning at Theo’s theatrics and dripping that syrupy Verge charm all over him. At least Jun wouldn’t have to put up with him for long. Ari and his insufferable Mr. Stone would be gone as soon as Jun could shove them back on this little ship. Jun kicked the hitch open with the heel of his boot, ignoring a shout of protest.
Stone hurried over, clicking his tongue as though he were trying to soothe a child, and smoothed a loving hand over the small ship’s hull. “Don’t you worry, Delilah. I won’t let the bad man hurt you again.”
Jun got the feeling he was going to spend every brief moment in Stone’s company attempting not to gag over that honey-mouthed Verge accent. He packed up the mag-hitch and shoved it back in the dinghy’s hatch with a grunt while Stone cooed over the other ship. Jun slanted a skeptical glance at the man’s bruised face. “You’re a pilot?”
Stone cut off the simple little song he was singing to a hunk of metal and raked Jun over with a sharp gaze. “Sure am. Best on the Verge.”
A dubious distinction, but it was better than sending Theo out on his own, just hoping he didn’t press the wrong button and jettison himself. Jun kicked at the hatch until the lock clicked shut, ignoring Stone’s sympathetic wincing. “You can make the jump back across?”
The Crew was going to kill him if Jun spent another hard-earned credit, but there was nothing he wouldn’t pay to ensure Theo’s safety. Verge pilots were notorious for overcharging, especially for their specialty services in crossing the Verge barrier without zapping their passengers into lumps of coal.
Jun would pay whatever Stone asked, and to make amends, Jun could let Boom use him for target practice at their next mandatory weapons training.
Axel would jump at the chance to hit Jun with a stun ray. Marco would miss on purpose. Boom would take him out at the knees.
It would be fine. Well worth it, to know Theo was safe.
Jun had known, as soon as he’d retrieved the twins’ tiny ship, that his fate was sealed. Now, he could send Theo away on something more spaceworthy than the dinghy.
With a halfway decent pilot, even.
If he had been searching for an excuse to keep him here, Jun had run out of options.
Theo had translated enough of the code that Jun could probably work out the rest.
If he captured an entire linguistics department from another Core university.
He would have to worry about that later. For now, the priority was getting Theo off his ship and as far away from Jun as possible, before their affiliation became known.
Better to sever their growing attachment than to bring Theo down into the pit with him.
Because, once Barnes sniffed out a speck of weakness, he would strike.
And Theo was a glaring spotlight on everything soft that remained in Jun. Everything that he hadn’t managed to burn away when he’d bitten down on a leather belt and screamed his way through Boom’s hurried, unanesthetized disconnection of all his circuits. When he had detonated his former life and crawled his way free.
Jun had once thought there was nothing soft left among the pile of rubble inside of him, but Theo had pulled it out and dusted it off with a grin. Held it out with careful hands as if to say “See? You were only waiting for me, all along,” with green eyes dancing. Just the thought of it sent a pang through Jun’s chest.
And, as usual, Jun was left with no choice.
The only way to keep him safe was to make sure Barnes never caught sight of him, never marked Theo down as a weapon to be wielded with his trademark ruthless cruelty.
What was the saying? “If you love something, let it go”?
Jun had to let Theo go, because he—
There was a chance, that he—he might—
Love might be involved.
It was hard to see clearly under all the metaphorical dust flying off the surface of his heart as Theo cracked it open to crawl inside.
If this aching, yearning emotion that was eating Jun from the inside out was love, then he had never met a more destructive force or faced a more terrifying opponent.
And he had once battled a Raider in full mech with nothing but his bare hands and a broken chain for the amusement of his boss.
This feeling?
Much scarier.
Jun was about to demand Stone’s price when the man spun on his heel and took off at Ari’s sudden sharp cry. Jun followed after at Theo’s answering shriek. The twins were right where they had left them, once in a loving embrace, now embroiled in a slapping, hair-pulling battle.
When Jun had imagined the twins’ reunion, he had pictured something more tearful. Something less of a screeching brawl.
It was glorious.
During the dark, lonely weeks ahead, Jun was going to watch the vid feed of the fight over and over again, just to remember Theo at his wildest. At his best.
Theo was a blazing bundle of chaos, and Jun was going to miss him like sunlight on a deep-space mission.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
His scalp ached, his cheeks stung, and his left elbow twinged from landing on the metal floor. But the planet-sized hole in his chest had shrunk down to a manageable speck with Ari finally here by his side. Theo was so caught up in the joy of the moment, of discovering that he and his twin shared a love of adventure, and that Ari had finally found a man worth sacrificing a shred of his dignity for, that he forgot Jun’s plan to send him away. Theo was too busy gleefully plotting his interruption of Ari’s passionate interlude with his partner. He relished the reversal of roles after the
