Page 103 of Shielded in the Shadows

She spun the hologram with her finger and pointed to a little glowing dot on the coast of one of Iosa’s small continents. When the view zoomed in and details appeared, I noted the site appeared to be at least fifty or sixty kilometers from the nearest settlement and extremely isolated, as well as surrounded by marsh and swamp.

She’d shuttered her expression, but through our bond a torrent of pain, sadness, grief, and guilt crashed against me like waves breaking on a rocky beach. I sensed tentative hope too, but underlying everything was a deep, penetrating fear that gnawed at me like the teeth of a hungry gorga. I squeezed her gently and tried to offer her what warmth and comfort I could.

“It would be a good place to live if you didn’t want to be found,” I said.

“Yes.” The word was barely audible. “It would.”

I had a guess about why we were traveling to this unlikely location, but I stayed quiet and let her tell me in her own time. Of all her secrets, I suspected this one might be her most personal, most dangerous, and most painful.

“My sister Calla was a year younger than me,” she said, her voice strained with both remembered and current pain. “I was just four and she was three when Marcila sold us to Orqiel.”

So this was about Calla. Sometimes being right brought no pleasure. This was one of those times.

My coo rose in my chest. I let it out very softly, just enough to soothe her.

She’d never said so, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out why she didn’t want me to mute her emotions, even the worst ones. She’d had to hide her feelings deep inside for so long while a gladiator—and probably before too, when she’d lived with her monster of a mother. Now simply feeling and expressing those feelings were an integral part of her sense of her freedom and autonomy. And as her mate, it was my duty to ensure she never had to compromise either of those things again, especially due to my own actions.

“Between then and when I turned sixteen and fled Ganai, I only saw Calla twice backstage at the arena,” Keela continued. “I don’t know if she ever saw me. Of course, as Leomer mentioned, I couldn’t speak to her or try to get a message to her. I couldn’t let anyone figure out we were sisters.” Her mouth twisted. “Now I know how we escaped notice.”

She sipped her coffee and stared at Iosa’s slowly rotating image. “When I turned sixteen and left Ganai, I had to leave so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to contact her. I tried afterward, but either she never got my messages or she couldn’t find a way to respond. And then she left the planet too and I had no way to find her—especially no way that was safe.”

I laced our fingers together and tugged her closer until her back rested against my vibrating chest. She let out a breath and squeezed my hand.

“For years, I’ve been trying to track her down with requests for information I’ve posted at comm relays and various stations,” she said. “I used an alias, of course, and an untraceable comm code, claiming to be a friend from the arenas looking to reunite and offering a reward for information. I had some leads, but they were never legitimate. Every time I met up with someone and it turned out to be a false lead or a pack of lies or a dead end, it broke me a little more. I almost gave up and took all the postings down so many times, but I had to keep trying.”

Her hand tightened on mine until she was nearly crushing my fingers. The pain searing me through our bond hurt far more than her grip. “I couldn’t protect Calla from our moth—from Marcila,” she said hoarsely. She looked up at me, her lovely green eyes shimmering with unshed tears that ripped at my insides. “I couldn’t keep her from going hungry, though I tried. I couldn’t protect her from being sold, or from all the suffering I know she endured. So I had to keep looking, no matter what it cost me in credits or heartache.”

She took a long drink from her coffee and stared at the cup as if she wished it held something much stronger. “And then seventeen days ago I got a message from a Kurutan named N’vera who claimed they knew where I could find Calla. I was all but certain it would be another dead end, but we agreed to meet on Ghira Station.”

I listened grimly as Keela revealed how N’vera had—in my opinion—cruelly and carelessly informed her of Calla’s apparent death in combat and then extracted an extortionate amount of credits for the coordinates of Calla’s supposed location.

Keela clearly felt torn about N’vera, and not just because the Kurutan had died rather than give up Calla’s supposed whereabouts. The galaxy was a cold and unkind place, and N’vera had information Keela needed and was willing to pay for. The fact N’vera had decreased their asking price when Keela admitted she couldn’t pay the original amount didn’t do much to raise them in my estimation, but their refusal to betray the secret even under torture left me conflicted too.

“I don’t know if Calla is on Iosa,” Keela said, stroking my hand with her thumb as she watched the holographic moon slowly rotate. “I don’t know if what N’vera claimed about her having a mate is true, or if the intel is outdated and they were on Iosa a year ago but have since moved on. What I can say for sure is that Iosa isn’t very far off the route Calla would have traveled from the location where the Alliance Defense believes she was killed in combat to her base orbiting Solan.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “So now that we’re not being chased by every bounty hunter in four sectors and your old crew has flown off in the other direction, hopefully to meet their demise, we’re going to Iosa to find out the truth.”

Keela raised my hand to her lips and kissed my knuckles. “Thank you for letting me tell you this when I was ready.”

“Of course.” I used the opportunity to rub my nose along our entwined fingers. Our combined scents were the finest fragrance I’d ever known, other than Keela’s most personal ones, which still lingered on my skin from our idyllic day of lovemaking on the way from Saistea to Trakhan. “I understand why you didn’t feel comfortable sharing this information before now.”

“This isn’t just my secret,” she said, her shoulders hunching under the weight of it all. “If Calla is alive, the Alliance Defense would consider her a deserter. That’s a crime punishable by up to life in one of their worst prisons. I’d rather never see her again than put her in that kind of danger. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her location a secret.” Her gaze became fierce. “Tell me you understand.”

“I do understand.” I cupped her face and gazed into her eyes so she could see and feel how solemnly I made this oath. “I swear to you on my life I will do the same. If we find her—and I hope with all my hearts we do—you need never wonder if I will protect her as I protect you. Though if she has a mate half as devoted as I am to you, she is already well-guarded.”

“I don’t think I could live with myself if I brought danger to her door.” She rested her head on my chest. I began to coo quietly again and she melted against me. “We’re just two days’ journey to Iosa,” she murmured. “After waiting so long and suffering so much, how can two days seem like an eternity?”

“We will stay busy,” I decided. “We will spar, and I will cook our meals, and we will replace that small bunk in our quarters with the finest nest I can provide.” I slid my hand up her jumpsuit-clad thigh and brushed my fingertips over the place where I’d given her my mating bite. Her little shiver and moan made my cocks twitch and throb. “And I will make love to you in every room,” I murmured, my lips pressed to her hair, and she let out a breathy gasp. “Everywhere you go aboard this ship from this journey on, I want you to remember how we claimed each other there.”

Keela tilted her chin up to look at me, her eyes twinkling. Her mirth felt like bubbles in our bond. “Even the galley? That’s going to be quite a challenge. In fact…” She raised her eyebrows in an obvious provocation. “I’m almost positive it’s impossible.”

I took the datapad from her hand, tossed it onto the captain’s seat, and rose so quickly that she let out an undignified squawk.

And when I put her over my shoulder and headed for the cockpit door, her squawk turned into a yowl of outrage that directly contradicted the tidal wave of desire that surged into me through our bond. “Put me down this instant, First Mate To’vok!”

“My skills and my honor have been challenged, Captain,” I countered, stepping into the corridor to study the tiny galley like a military commander surveying a battlefield despite the highly distracting sight of her perfectly bitable ass mere inches from my eyes. “Therefore,” I intoned, “I have no choice but to confront this test of stamina and determination head-on, lest my commanding officer find me lacking and leave me at the next available station.”

With a truly adorable human growl, she shifted forward, slid her arm down my back inside my greatcoat, and grabbed the base of my tail right at its most sensitive spot.

I wasn’t proud of the guttural sound I made, the spurts of hot liquid that escaped my engorged cocks, or the way my knees tried to wobble, but I was pleased to note there was an obvious solution to the problem of how small and densely packed with equipment the galley was, with very little available countertop or wall space.