Page 43 of Fought and Found

Her mouth curves. Not a smile. The architecture of one, built on adrenaline and interrupted want and the specific fury of a woman who has been one inch from a kiss twice now and the galaxy keeps interrupting.

“Betsy.” She reaches for the holster without looking. “Morning, Bets. Company.”

She reaches for Betsy. She is not looking at me.

The hold is two meters aft. I brace against the bulkhead with one forearm and get my hand around the ridges and the sound that comes out of me is one I have not made outside of combat — low, involuntary, and not the purr. Nine hours. Nine hours of her thumb dragging the length of my tail’s underside, her arousal thick in the recycled air, her mouth one inch from mine and every ridge, said with the easy certainty of a woman reporting established fact. The ridges are so engorged the grip is almost pain and the knot is so full it presses back against my palm and what my body supplies — without consultation, the imagery precise and thorough and entirely her — is: the wet gleam of her tongue behind parted lips. Her hand threading into the fuzz at my nape. Her nose against mine and her breath warm across my lips. The specific weight of her in the bunk, her hips rolling back against me in her sleep, knowing and not-knowing and choosing.

The knot will not release. The biology for that requires her specifically, and she is in the cockpit and I have fifteen seconds. I work the ridges with the focused efficiency of a male with one operational priority and finish with her name caught between my back teeth, silent —a sound I do not permit out loud. The shaking in my hands lasts four seconds. I retract it the way I retract everything.

The container the kill order concerns is two meters behind me. I have not looked at it once.

I return to the cockpit.

She talks to her weapon. I am in love with a woman who talks to her weapon.

The thought arrives. I do not examine it. There is a Tier 1 pursuit craft closing and the corridor is narrowing and the woman I —

The thought does not complete.

I stand. Claws extend — retract. Extend again, deliberately this time. The cockpit is small and combat-ready and her scent is in my lungs and the gap between our mouths is a debt the galaxy owes me.

“Let them come,” I say.

She grins. The full one. The one that crinkles her eyes.

“That’s my line, lovey.”

12

The Fight

Flossie

Sixtysecondsagohishand was on my face and his purr was in my bones and his mouth was one inch from mine.

Now he is something else.

The transition is not gradual. It doesn’t pass through stages—soft to tense to combat-ready. It is a switch. One second: the male in the co-pilot’s chair with retracted claws and a purr that shook the console and gold eyes that were looking at my mouth like it was the only navigational coordinate that mattered. Next second: weapon.

He is on his feet and his claws are out—all ten, fully extended, black and curved and catching the emergency light—and his tail has unwound from my hand and is rigid behind him in a posture I recognize from the merc fight. Combat stance. The tail as counterbalance, asthird limb, as the thing that put the last armed merc into a wall in the corridor of my ship before I’d reacquired my aim.

He fills the cockpit. Not just physically—although physically is significant, seven feet of Xarthian between me and the airlock, the shoulders blocking the emergency strips so the light comes around him in a corona. He fills it with intent. The air changes temperature. His thermal output spikes—I can feel it from the chair, the 103 degrees climbing, the markings along his neck and shoulders flushing dark as combat chemistry floods his system.

“Stay behind me.”

“Absolutely not.” I draw Betsy. Two-handed grip, feet planted. “I stay beside you or I stay in front of you. Pick one.”

He turns his head. Not his body—his body stays oriented toward the airlock, every line braced. But his head turns and those gold eyes find me and the look is—complicated. The weapon and the male , both present, fighting for the same face. The weapon wants me behind cover. The male knows better.

“Beside.” A concession that costs him something. I can see it in the flex of his jaw. “The corridor outside the airlock is four meters wide. Mineral walls on both sides. The Tier 1 will breach at speed—they are trained for close-quarters and the pursuit craft will have docking capability. I will engage at the entry point. You cover the secondary approach from the cargo junction.”

“Sprout, what are we looking at?”

“Single agent. Yulx biosignature—elevated thermal, combat-rated. Docking sequence initiated on the starboard airlock. Forty seconds.” The orb is blazing white. Battle Sprout. No sass, no commentary, the AI stripped to its tactical core. “The pursuit craft is runningautomated systems. Disabling the vessel will require access to the starboard engineering panel after the agent is neutralized.”

“After,” I say. “Optimistic.”

“I have learned optimism from extended exposure to you. It is a character flaw I am working to correct.”