Corvak nodded to her. “You are Astrid’s sister.”
“Tara!” A female with brown skin and dark curls stepped forward, flipping shiny pointed sticks in her hands and hooking them onto her belt. “Danica will be sorry she stayed on the ship and missed you.”
“Hey, Tori.” Tara pulled the female into a one-armed hug. “I’m not surprised to see you in the middle of another battle.”
Tori shrugged one shoulder. “You know me. I never met a fight I didn’t like.”
More figures emerged from around us, many of them well-muscled males with gold skin, long, dark hair and pointed ears. They wore only leather pants, and had dark tattoos emblazoned on their skin, not to mention ridges running down their bare backs. These must be the bounty hunters who’d fought with Corvak and Raas Vassim on my home world. I’d heard of their appearance, but never seen them. And, of course, my attempt to join their ship had taken an unexpected turn.
“Your ship is on the planet, K’alvek?” Kaalek asked, when a gold-skinned alien with slash marks across his chest muscles stepped forward.
The alien clasped his hand in greeting. “It is hidden well, since we left our pregnant crew mates on it.”
Kaalek grinned. “Soon your ship will be filled with the wails of babies.”
Tori grunted. “Don’t remind me. Pregnant females are bad enough.” She jerked her thumb at a young, gold-skinned alien with loose, dark hair. “Not to mention cocky Dothveks.”
He smiled at her, his lip curling up as he growled.
“We tracked the Vandar ship that crashed into the water, and the imperial ship that followed it,” K’alvek said.
“I was on that ship,” I said, both my trembling voice and my jittery scratching at my neck betraying my nerves, but I didn’t care. I had no time to exchange pleasantries with the bounty hunters. Now when Vassim was still missing. “So was Raas Vassim. He was taken by the Zagrath but escaped, and we’re looking for him.”
“Juliette?”
The sound of his gravelly voice made me almost sink to the ground. He pushed through the Dothveks and swept me into his arms, crushing my body to his.
“You’re okay,” I murmured, burying my head in his neck as he lifted me off the ground. “I thought…” The words died on my lips, my throat too thick with emotion for me to continue.
“I am okay now that I’m holding you,” he whispered back, then pulled away and frowned at me. “But you should not have come looking for me. I distracted the Zagrath so you could get away. Not so you could run into danger.”
“I guess you’ve been a bad influence on me, because no way was I going to let you get taken by the empire without a fight.”
He pushed my hood back and brushed a curl off my face. “You will make a good Vandar mate, after all.”
My face flushed with pleasure at the compliment as he kissed me, my lips melting into his even though I was very aware that we had an audience. When he finally tore his lips from mine and returned me to the ground, I lifted my gaze shyly—right into the face of my sister.
“Sienna?”
She stared at me as if she was looking at a specter. “He said you were here, but I didn’t believe him. It was too crazy. You’d never leave home.”
“Well, I did,” I said, more forcefully than usual. “I ran away to find you. I needed to make amends and my plan was to stow away on the bounty hunter ship and beg you to let me stay.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You actually stowed away on a spaceship?”
“The wrong one. That’s how I ended up on Raas Vassim’s warbird.”
Sienna shot him a dark look.
“It wasn’t his fault,” I said quickly. “And he didn’t kidnap me.”
She still didn’t look convinced, but she looked back at me.
“I’m sorry, Sienna. For everything. I was stupid and selfish and scared of you leaving me. I never should have betrayed you to Donal, or meddled in your life.”
She didn’t respond, but instead pulled me into a hug, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. “You’re my sister, Juliette. Of course I forgive you.”
Relief washed over me as I hugged her back, and I barely noticed the tears as they spilled down my cheeks.
Sienna pulled back and held me by the shoulders. “You’re more than welcome to join me on the bounty hunter ship.” She glanced back at her new crew mates. “Right, guys?”
“We definitely need more females to offset the Dothvek and Vandar tough-guy energy,” Tori said.
Corvak glanced at Raas Vassim but nodded. “My mate’s sister is always welcome. You’re family.”
It was odd to hear tough, gruff Corvak refer to me as family, but it also made my heart swell. It had been a long time since I’d thought of family as anything but a burden or a source of pain.
“Thanks, but I’m actually going to stay with Vassim.” I glanced at him, tugging at the neckline of my jumpsuit, the fabric itchy against my hot skin. “If that’s okay with him?”
“I do not think you need to ask,” Corvak said. “His marks say it all.”
I followed Corvak’s gaze to the Raas’ chest and the dark swirls that were expanding across his shoulders and up his neck as if an invisible hand was inking them as we watched. I lifted a hand to my own chest, and I didn’t need to see my skin to know what was happening. My flesh burned, and my mouth went dry.
Raas Vassim touched a hand to his chest then reached over and tugged down my cowl neckline, his eyes widening as he gaped at the exposed flesh of my neck and chest. Then he growled and pulled me to him hard, grabbing my ass and lifting me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist, not caring that everyone was watching as I kissed him.
The world around
